goodbye kitty

After much soul searching Golden determined that she could not keep her cat with the baby coming. This is because Autum has a habit of biting and because Autum can be jealous for Golden's time and attention. Golden called up the Pet Connection, where she had originally got the cat, and asked if they would take her back. Apparently our contract from when we originally got Autum specified that we were supposed to bring her back to the Pet Connection instead of selling or giving her away.

When we arrived a lady handed us some paperwork regarding Autum's history, personality, etc. She wasn't really the soft personality that you would expect to work at an animal shelter and she did a good job of making us feel guilty for dumping the cat on them. After filling out the paperwork and waiting a while a different, more personable lady came out and looked through the paperwork. She gave an understanding nod when Golden explained that she didn't want to have a cat that bites in the house with her new baby.

The experience was draining for Golden, though, and a couple of tears were shed when after we left the place. As much as I didn't really get along with that psycho cat, even I will miss her. I know Golden will miss her all the more.

Who knows, maybe someday a few years from now we'll be back at the Pet Connection to pick up a new and more permanent pet. It will just be us humans for now, though.

tater salad

When I was a kid I decided that I liked potato salad. This was because all the times I had potato salad I liked it. Of course, every time I had it my mom had made it. When I started trying restaurant and grocery store potato salad I realized that there was quite a difference between homemade and store bought.

In the past few years I came to the conclusion that I should know how to make a few things that might be taken to parties, so I asked my mom about how she made her potato salad. She gave me an outline of how she made it and I combined what she gave me with another recipe I found and edited the whole thing to my taste.

I have learned two things about making potato salad through this process. First, no matter what a recipe says, vinegar almost always damages the flavor of the potato salad. Second, it is hard to put too much salt into the salad.

I personally like the potato salad a lot, but that is because it has been created specifically to my tastes. I have had a few compliments, though on some occasions I think the compliments were people just being nice because some of the versions of the salad as I refined the recipe have been a bit off. Golden gave the potato salad her ultimate compliment by telling me, "It didn't make me gag." Apparently she doesn't like potato salad.

I was asked for the recipe yesterday, though, so I decided to include it as a post. Understand that what follows relies a lot on guestimating how much of each ingredient to put into the concoction.

The ingredients that you will need:

• Eight medium-sized potatoes
• A quarter cup of vegetable oil (or canola, or olive...)
• A quarter cup of lemon juice
• Some salt
• Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip (Approximately two cups)
• Some mustard
• Four eggs
• Two stalks of celery
• Two chopped dill pickles or four teaspoons of dill relish

Start by boiling the potatoes until they can be easily punctured by a fork. Depending on the amount of water and the size of the potatoes, this can take from fifteen minutes to forty minutes. It is better to overcook than to undercook.

While the potatoes are boiling I chop the celery and store it for future use. If you are using pickles rather than relish, chop this right now as well.

Once the potatoes are done boiling and I have drained the water, I peel and chop the potatoes. The resulting size of the chopped potato pieces is at the discretion of the cook.

Mix the chopped potatoes with the oil, lemon juice, and some salt (between five and ten seconds of continuous shaking from a salt shaker). This adds a little flavor to the potatoes, but also reduces how much mayonnaise the potatoes will absorb.

Hard boil the eggs. I bring the water to a boil, then simmer for twenty minutes. If you are using separate pots to boil the potatoes and the eggs you can do these steps at the same time.

Once the eggs are boiled, remove the shells and dice.

Now add everything that has not been added yet. Give two good squirts from the mustard bottle (this replaces the need for vinegar, but does not taste as severe). Add the egg, celery, and relish (or chopped pickle) as well. Finally add a couple of very large glops of mayonnaise or Miracle Whip (maybe one and a half cups) and mix everything up.

Test the taste, but try testing a piece of potato rather than a piece of celery or relish. The potato is going to be more indicative of the taste of the salad.

It is very likely that the results will taste like a bland, acidic, and/or tangy version of potato salad. If the potato salad tastes bland, generously add more salt. If the potato salad tastes acidic or tangy, generously add more mayo or Miracle Whip. Eventually the masterpiece is complete. Refrigerate and serve cold.

That is all there is to it. Enjoy.

nothing

I literally cannot think of anything worthwhile to post right now. Nothing. Nada.

I nearly typed on Triumph of the Will, which is a propaganda film created by the Nazi party in the 1930s that I watched this weekend. It was insightful as to how people would have accepted what Hitler had to say, but probably only Dash and/or Dar would have any interest.

I nearly typed something about my allergies acting up today, but I did that post a month ago.

I nearly skipped this post and waited until tomorrow morning to type something. Then I realized it is tomorrow morning.

The next post will have actual content. I promise. Unless I can't think of anything before then.

that's my boy

Since we found out about our new arrival the impending birth has seemed like an eternity away. This didn't bother me. I need time to adjust. I was coasting for a while (and commented recently to Golden that it feels like she has always been pregnant). Then we visited the doctor this week and were informed that she may want to induce the baby early since he is growing rapidly and Golden is petite. This was a wake up call to me. Within a few weeks, not months, we will have a new little one.

This does not really scare me too much right now because I have had some preparation time. I am a little concerned because I have never been great with kids, but I always assumed that my interactions with my own kids would be different.

There are a few things that I am getting excited about. What probably tops the list is that I want to get to know my son's personality. My understanding is that it may take a while to get to that point. I am also looking forward to sports and games in the more distant future. I am not looking forward to diapers and discipline. Priority one, though, is just getting through the delivery.

the opposite sex

Two types of story that make me a little uncomfortable are male and female fantasy. I am not talking about the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre (which I will probably also pick on someday). By my definition a male fantasy story is where the female characters act in exactly the way most men would want and expect, and a female fantasy story is where the male characters act exactly as most women would want and expect.

In a typical male fantasy women are very straightforward and are typically borderline nymphomaniacs. In a typical female fantasy men are much more emotional and romantic than anything else. I honestly don't know many stories that might be considered pure male or female fantasies, but elements frequently show up in individual characters.

One of the things that drives me is the desire to understand what really motivates people. A lot of what I am looking for in a fictional female character is a genuine depiction of what motivates the character. Since I don't have experience in being a woman, I would like characters not to give me an inaccurate impression of what actually motivates women. If a male or female character acts simply as the opposite sex would wish or assume they should, I believe that character does a disservice.

Here is the complication, though. How is an author to truly know what drives and motivates the opposite sex? Without firsthand knowledge of what it is to be either male or female, how can a writer craft a character he or she cannot fully understand?

I decided to take a positive approach to this. If you are male, what do you think is the best representation of a male character by a female author or screenwriter that you can recall? Likewise, if you are female, what is the best representation of a female character by a male author or screenwriter that you can recall?

I realized while writing this that I have not read a large number of female authors. I personally can't think of a well developed and accurately depicted male character from a female author, but I am sure I have read one at some point. I need to pay more attention for this in the future.

public prayer

Ever since I started ushering a trend has developed. The responsibilities are not that big of a deal, but without fail I am asked to pray over the offering every week.

Something that must be understood about me, and one of my best kept secrets, is that I don't pray well in public. I can usually stumble through a prayer, but it is often not pretty. Maybe it isn't even a secret.

My philosophy is generally that I don't need to mince words with God because He knows what I have to say, so why spend much time saying it. I always feel that when I have finished the prayer I must have missed some huge point that any normal person would have remembered if they prayed.

In spite of my paranoia, it's not like it matters. No one listens to the offertory prayer anyway.

the mad literalist

In a FoxTrot comic strip a while back Jason Fox referred to himself as the mad literalist. Since I am often very literal in my humor, I have gotten in the habit of calling myself a mad literalist. In the past I had noticed that people who laugh at literalisms tend to be logical thinkers. Because of this I have been pretty comfortable with this part of my personality.

This weekend Golden and I watched The Ringer with Johnny Knoxville. It is not the most brainy movie out there, but it was entertaining. The idea is that the main character is put in a position where he has no choice but to act like he is a highly functioning, developmentally disabled person to win the pentathalon in the Special Olympics. When I first heard about the movie I thought it would be in poor taste. It may have been, but it was created with the assistance and under the endorsement of the Special Olympics, so it was actually a rather positive movie.

In one scene, though, the main character is made the fool when he asks if he can have the ketchup. "Yes, you can," replies one of the special olympians and everyone at the table laughs as the ketchup is not passed. This got me to thinking. That is a line I have used. I guess literalistic humor is also appreciated by special olympians. It must be a right brain, left brain thing.

survivor ethos

Like many of the shows I watch, I saw the final episode of Survivor this past week. That episode last Sunday ended in much the same way it always does. The last four people maneuvered to get to the final two, and the last two put up predictable arguments regarding why they should win a million dollars. The arguments usually follow one or two patterns.

1. I was ethical, so I should win the money.
2. I was sneaky but smart, so I should win the money.

Given that the insight into the human condition is a large part of why I watch the show, I want to provide some explanation as to what insights the final episode provide me to people in general. These are generalizations and are not all complete truths.

First, everyone either thinks they are ethical or they are extremely blatant in their dishonesty. There is no such thing as a contestant who voluntarily acknowledges that his or her ethics were compromised until they are called on it. I say this because people who brag about their sneakiness didn't have the ethics to compromise. To me this is a constant reminder that people are by nature selfish beings.

Second, people are hypocrites. I am always surprised at how many people are flat out offended that someone lied to them, when they themselves lied to others.

Third, people don't understand how others perceive them. Every time I hear one of the final two talk about their ethics, I start counting down to the moment when one of the jury members gives them a long and painful speech about how they don't even know how to spell ethicks. Even if I were ethical, I wouldn't mention it unless I knew that I knew that I knew that everyone on the jury agreed with that sentiment.

Any time I am tempted to think people are naturally good at heart I just think about Survivor. Most people will trade in their ethics for a million dollars. I often fear I'd be one of them. It may seem like a good tradeoff at first, but the soul is worth so much more than that.

office space

A couple of months ago the finance company that rented about half the floor where I work moved out. A from a few weeks later until now construction has been going on in that area pretty much nonstop to turn it into a large conference room. Here are a few of the observations that I have made about the construction.

• Interior construction can be very loud. If I was a construction worker on a construction site that would be one thing, but when I am trying to talk with a customer on the phone and it sounds like someone is going to come through the wall with a sawzall, something seems wrong.
• One of the sales guys whose office is along a wall we share with the construction site was startled to find someone's arm reaching through the ceiling area into his office.
• I love the smell of new carpet. I an indifferent about the smell of paint. The smell of drywall makes me sneeze.
• I have opened the door into our shared hallway and run into scaffolding, a ladder, and one of the guys doing the construction on three separate occasions. I now walk a longer way around to get to the bathroom so I don't have more incidents.
• While I prefer not to work construction, the guys doing the work in that office generally have better hours than I do. They usually haven't arrived on the site when I get in the office in the morning and they have usually already left by the time I head out.
• The office space is supposedly going to be used by a large domestic automaker that has announced that it is shrinking its expenses. I guess the company still needs conference rooms, though.

see through my eyes

I have wanted to do a post on my color blindness for a while, but I have long felt that I couldn't add more to what I have already told people about my condition. I have already told people that I can't tell some shades of red and brown apart, and that purple, blue, and pink can run together, and that some tints of yellow, orange, and green look the same to me. What more can I say?

What frustrates me, though, is that I can explain this all day long, but unless you see it for yourself you can't really understand what I am talking about. I can say that some specific object could be brown or red, but I don't think what I say really sinks in. I see it every day and even I don't fully understand it because I have never seen things the way that I am told is normal.

At the start of this past weekend I decided that I would investigate my color blindness a little more and try to get greater detail on the type I have. I also wanted to look for a good illustration of what I see. I think I found it.

My first significant revelation was that I have protanopic color blindness. I figured this out based on this chart. The protanope image looks almost the same as the original image to me. The deuteranope image is similar but more different than the protanope, and the tritanope simply looks like a bland image that hardly resembles the original at all. This means my weakness is in distinguishing the reds (and to a lesser amount, greens) in a color.

My second revelation was that there are simulators online to illustrate what I see. One good example is found on this page. So that you can get a real world example of what I see, though, I processed the following image through this filter to show you what I see. The original image is on the left and what I see is on the right. With this you should understand my color blindness in some ways better than I do, since I don't really know what the original is supposed to look like.

So, here is the question that I have waited my entire life to ask someone else. What color does the bird look like to you? How about the leaves? The ground? What about the...

myths busted

For some reason I like stories and articles that focus on disproving commonly held beliefs. I don't know if it is arrogance in that I get to think that I know something that most people don't or just a great love for the truth. It is probably a little bit of both, but I would like to think it is because I love the truth.

I already mentioned that I like reading Snopes regularly to keep up on what urban legends and email lore has some truth to it. I also enjoy watching MythBusters on occasion to get an understanding of the types of stories that people are propagating. Once in a while those two surprise me and illustrate that something I didn't think was possible actually is as well.

As an extension of that, I have been keeping up with a series that John Stossel has been doing on ABCNews.com to promote his new book Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity. The "myth" that is on the site today is that giving aid money to people in need in most African nations will do any good. Stossel believes that almost all the money ends up lining corrupt leaders' pockets. That's a little more political than I am completely comfortable with, but it is an angle that I haven't heard too many people advocate since it discourages charity giving.

This excerpt from the book focuses on the inability of media to discern scientific truth, ans so falls right in line with my enjoyment for MythBusters. I'll probably put this book on my birthday list. It should help me enjoy my arrogance.

29.67% of everywhere

I was listening to the song "I've Been Everywhere" the other day and I determined I would try to figure out what percentage of "everywhere" I've been. Twenty-seven out of ninety-one is 29.67%. Of course, it appears that "everywhere" is generally in North America. Have the rest of you been to much of everywhere?

Reno - Nope Chicago - Yep Fargo - Nope Minnesota - Yep Buffalo - Yep Toronto - Nope Winslow - Yep Sarasota - Nope Wichita - Yep Tulsa - Yep Ottawa - Nope Oklahoma - Yep Tampa - Nope Panama - Nope Mattua - Nope LaPaloma - Nope Bangor - Nope Baltimore - Yep Salvador - Nope Amarillo - Yep Tocapillo - Nope Barranquilla - Nope Amperdillo - Nope	Boston - Nope Charleston - Nope Dayton - Nope Louisiana - Nope Washington - Yep Houston - Nope Kingston - Nope Texarkana - Nope Monterey - Nope Fairaday - Nope Santa Fe - Yep Tollaperson - Nope Glen Rock - Nope Black Rock - Nope Little Rock - Nope Oskaloussa - Nope Tennessee - Yep Tinnesay - Nope Chickapee - Nope Spirit Lake - Nope Grand Lake - Nope Devil's Lake - Nope Crater Lake - Nope
Louisville - Yep Nashville - Nope Knoxville - Nope Omerback - Nope Shereville - Nope Jacksonville - Nope Waterville - Yep Costa Rock - Yep Richfield - Yep Springfield - Yep Bakersfield - Nope Shreveport - Nope Hakensack - Nope Cadallic - Nope Fond du Lac - Yep Davenport - Nope Idaho - Yep Jellico - Nope Argentina - Nope Diamondtina - Nope Pasadena - Nope Catalina - Nope	Pittsburgh - Yep Parkersburg - Nope Gravelburg - Nope Colorado - Yep Ellisburg - Nope Rexburg - Nope Vicksburg - Nope Eldorado - Nope Larimore - Nope Adimore - Nope Habastock - Nope Chadanocka - Nope Shasta - Nope Nebraska - Yep Alaska - Nope Opalacka - Nope Baraboo - Nope Waterloo - Nope Kalamazoo - Yep Kansas City - Yep Souix City - Yep Cedar City - Yep Dodge City - Yep

outside the lines

Compared to most people I don't mind taking tests. Depending on who wrote the test, I am actually a decent test taker. I especially like multiple choice and true/false because it is often more an issue of thinking like the author of the test more than memorizing the facts the test is supposed to measure. One thing I don't like about multiple choice tests, though, is that they are often implemented with scantrons.

I am something of a perfectionist in certain aspects of my life. I think it has to do with my OCD, but I am not sure about that. One of the ways this perfectionism shows itself is in the fact that I have a hard time not taking the time to make sure that the circles or rectangles that I am supposed to fill in are perfect. I can't have a small smudge that goes outside the lines or a white space within the area that should be darkened. It just drives me nuts.

When I give in to my perfectionist tendencies, though, I fill out the scantron way too slowly and tend to be among the last to hand my sheet in. In elementary school I occasionally did not complete sections of the standardized tests because I took too long to fill in the circles. Lately I have been trying hard not to be a perfectionist so I can be more efficient with the scantron forms. It's hard, because I like to live life within the lines. It is fun to hand in my test first, though.

impending doom

I am nervous.

During one of our childbirth classes the teacher pointed out that new mothers should not do anything that might be strenuous for several weeks after childbirth such as cook, clean, climb stairs, etc. This obviously creates a sensitive situation for me.

I have been living in a kind of dream world. Golden takes care of my meals and clothes and the vast majority of household cleaning. While we sometimes disagree on some of the specifics of how things should be organized or cleaned, there is little doubt that Golden does most of the work.

Come the middle of July this means that I will be cooking, cleaning, buying groceries, doing laundry, and a lot of other things that I'm not really comfortable with. How am I supposed to react to this? Golden thinks that my concerns are an indication that I need some practice before the big event, but I am not sure this is an acceptable solution. I think Papa John's and a maid service are much more palatable solutions. At least then I can fool myself into thinking that things are the way they have always been.

trough luck

In visiting the Boulevard Drive-In on Friday I was reminded of one of my pet peeves. I cannot stand using trough urinals. Boulevard has two that are next to each other, so it is kind of like one long trough urinal. In talking with Golden I got the impression that she did not know much about the joys of trough urinals. For those like Golden who have limited experiences with these urinals, I found the following picture on Flickr.I personally don't know what the real value of a trough urinal is. Is it really worth saving the extra one or two hundred dollars that installing individual urinals will cost? They tend to show up in more rustic locations like campgrounds and high school football fields, but I have run into several in my lifetime.

There are probably guys who don't care one way or the other about standing shoulder to shoulder with other guys while they pee, but I am not one of them. From the expressions on the other guys' faces who have to go through this, I don't think most of them care for it all that much. Most suffer through because they have no other choice.

My limited experience with women's bathrooms and changing rooms is that much more thought goes into privacy there than in men's rooms. When I was a kid I used to visit a small park on Lake Oahe in South Dakota. The park was small enough that it did not have any bathrooms, but it did contain changing facilities for those who wanted to swim at the lake. The area designated for men was simply a large room with a long bench circumnavigating it with no real means of privacy. I disliked this, but figured there was no other way. Then one day I went with some friends to the park when we had it to ourselves and checked in on the women's changing area while I was there. I was shocked to find that rather than both sexes getting the same treatment, individual stalls had been erected so that the women could change in privacy.

I have one thing to say to people who are considering bathroom design in construction projects. Just say no to troughs.

still here

Friday will mark my three year anniversary at work. This is significant for more than one reason. First, I have never worked with any company full time for this long. I have typically faced layoffs before getting this far. Second, there is a lot of turnover in the department where I work. There are multiple reasons for this that are well beyond the scope of this post, but suffice to say my being at the same place for three years is a pretty big deal.

I generally don't care to mark the anniversary of starting to work somewhere for any reason other as a factual note that I have been around for x number of months or years. For my three year anniversary there are two extra reasons I am noting it: I got a three year gift and I get an extra week of vacation.

For my gift I picked out a pocket watch that is meant to hang on a belt loop. I am not really a watch person, but I have been carrying it around anyway. It also has a small blade, bottle opener, and compass that doesn't work. I picked this specific gift because it was among the more expensive gifts on the list and Golden pointed out that it would make a good father to son gift someday.

More valuable than the three year gift, though, is an extra week of vacation that I will be getting. I have a general philosophy about vacation time that I should always keep a specific cushion in case of emergency or in case I get laid off. In part because of this philosophy and in part because I am a tightwad I have not taken much vacation time in the three years I have been at work. I got two weeks a year of vacation for the past three years and I now have just over two weeks stored up. I only took a week every year at Christmas time and I have taken a few random days for graduation events and homework.

Now that I will be getting an extra week and I have a two week cushion I am going to be a little more willing to use my vacation time. Much of it is probably going to be taken when family comes out to see the baby, but I am not too concerned because I am getting my vacation days quicker now. I am psyched because I haven't felt that I had the freedom to take off a day for myself and I may now be able to do that.

As I initially stated, this third year is uncharted territory for me. It's the year for me to boldly go where Dust has never gone before. We'll work on there being a fourth year.

survey says

Golden and I like taking surveys and giving our opinions about things. I'm not sure what the entire motivation is, but I think for me it comes from the idea that my answers may have a measurable affect on a company's marketing analysis. I almost always take the time to answer a genuine survey. One exception to this, though, was when I was mailed a survey about the regularity of my bowel movements for a biology study at school. I kind of felt bad about not sending it in, but I felt a little uncomfortable filling it out.

Golden regularly fills out surveys online and every once in a while gets a gift certificate in the mail for all her work. A couple of days ago she told me that we would probably get a tape in the mail for a video then I would need to fill out an online survey (because the survey was for a twenty-six year old male). Last night around 6:30 UPS delivered the tape.

The video was for a show called "Primary." The premise was that there were two hostage negotiators who were in a relationship and this caused tension during their hostage negotiations. It was enjoyable enough that I would watch it, but not that I would go out of my way to watch it. After the tape, I had to fill out a thirty-question multiple choice survey about my opinions of the show, and it was all done. It was fun enough, but next time I hope they send a sitcom.

sports fan

This is about sports, and yet it has more to do with my personality.

When I was younger I was a huge fan of the Detroit Tigers and Lions because I lived in Michigan when I first became interested in sports. I didn't care for basketball or hockey, so I never grew too attached to the Pistons or the Red Wings. It's really a shame because then I might know what it is like to root for a winning team.

Throughout the past fifteen years both the Lions and Tigers have regularly put together teams that contended for the worst rather than the best records in the league. At first I would get frustrated, but eventually I learned that keeping up with my teams wasn't the most important thing in life. I even got a sort of pleasure out of pulling for such lousy teams at some point because it proved I wasn't a front runner.

I could pick another team to root for, and I did kind of do that when Arizona went to the World Series a couple of years ago, but picking another team because mine isn't doing so well feels disloyal and cheap.

I have learned throughout this time that, while the teams I like can go through short stretches where they win games, they will inevitably fall apart in spectacular fashion well before the playoffs. This means that I am never too tied to the TV during the baseball or football postseason.

Now I am getting guardedly optimistic about the Tigers after they annihilated the Twins this weekend. Maybe this means I can become a sports fan once again, or it could mean that I will have my heart ripped out one more time. At least I'm not a Royals fan.