I love it when I do something right

Have you ever had one of those times that you did something on an impulse just because it seemed the right thing to do, and then found confirmation that it was, indeed, the right thing to do?

I recently went to a Christmas party for MCT folks (that's our theatre family), hosted by a semi-crazy MuMmers dude, Phil Tytanic - he's also a mainstay of The Venue and of ManLunch. I always enjoy a chance to hang with my MCT friends, partly because I love them and partly because they are so much sheer fun to be around.

So we had this gift exchange going on, where you draw a number and take turns grabbing gifts from under the tree, and you're allowed to "steal" someone else's gift if it works out. So Cody gets a guitar-playing Elmo (see photo at left). And I could see that Ayden noticed it, and really really wanted it. Ayden is Phil's little boy.

Now, I don't normally care one way or another about getting the gift. The fun is seeing somebody else enjoy the gift that I found for them. It really is more blessed to give than to receive. Getting stuff is really not that hard, and is its own reward, which is comparatively small. So I checked to see if Cody would be OK with it (his little baby twins have no use for it), and I stole his Elmo, so I could give it to Ayden when the time was right. I was lucky; nobody stole it from me. And I was pleased to see how happy it made him, though he was about to fall asleep. Not really a big deal, but I love to see little kids happy.

So a few days later, Phil made this video as his Christmas card. And I learned that Ayden played with his new Elmo the next day, for the longest time. So I did the right thing, and it turned out to be a wonderful thing.

Add that to the fact that no less than three of my girlfriends have had new babies, including a set of twins, and I got to hold them all in the last few days, and this is shaping up to be the best Christmas ever. I love babies...

You are looking at the bottom of a very long formation set above Longfellow's Bathtub in Carlsbad Cavern, toward the end of the Big Room tour, shortly after Rock of Ages. The Cave Research Foundation completed a project last year that has been underway for ten years, cleaning the mud and silt from the bottom of this pool. We took advantage of the unusually dry state of the cave (which has lasted well over a decade) to painstakingly transfer water to a dry pool, remove mud, and move it back by the end of each long holiday weekend we spent in the cave. The results have been spectacular; if you could see the before and after shots, you would agree.

Thanksgiving weekend we worked on the Red Pools area (which will now have to be renamed, or they will when we finish removing the red clay that has discolored them). But while we were working, we checked the Bathtub to see how it looks. It has begun refilling! The shiny look of the flowstone tells you that it is active and wet. The pool is being dripped in, and the water level is already several inches higher than it was. And that wall has been dry for about thirty years - I last saw that wall wet that long ago.

We got it done just in time. It is now too deep to transfer enough water to nearby pools.

This morning in the sky

OK, that was freaking awesome!
We went outside at six, and of course there was the crescent moon hanging low in the sky, with Venus shining brightly to its immediate left. Above them a little ways was Saturn, as expected, and Mars was much farther up than I expected - almost directly overhead. Directly opposite the moon (spin around with those binoculars), but much higher in the sky, we saw the fuzzy ball of light that was Comet Holmes, the comet that exploded October 23.

Then, at 6:20, we started watching for the space shuttle and the International Space Station, which would be rising just about... oh, darn, right behind that huge tree. Well, wait for it. At 6:23, they popped out from behind the tree, shining brighter than Venus, one following the other. The larger and brighter of the two lights was in front, probably the ISS. They were almost directly overhead Andrews to the northwest, but high enough in the sky to be spectacular, without having to strain our necks!

We didn't see anything from the Southern Taurid meteor shower, which peaked today, but we didn't really expect to. That one produces about five meteors an hour if you're lucky - though those do tend to be really special as meteors go - and I'm not quite that patient.

It almost makes the Ron Paul money bomb pale in significance, but I'll enjoy that, too!

If any of you got up to see any of these wonderful things, post a comment here, would you?

Sky stuff

Get up early for some neat stuff in the sky, tomorrow morning, November 5. In the east, you should see a crescent moon, with Venus to its left shining brightly. Above them will be Saturn, and above Saturn, Mars. In the western sky, look for a soft fuzzy ball of light about half the size of the moon in appearance. That's a comet that exploded October 23, and it's expanding as it moves away from us. All you need to make it complete is a spaceship or two to go by - and we have that, too. The International Space Station and a Space shuttle will be flying overhead and lit by the morning sun before it rises for us, rising from the southwest and flying toward the northeast. It should appear at 6:20 am and go out of sight at about 6:25

What is old, anyway?

OK, I'm officially old.

I watched Jay Leno just now, mostly because my hero Ron Paul was appearing. It was a good interview, and can't hurt him, but he was immediately followed by musical guests the Sex Pistols.

Now, the Sex Pistols are sort of nostalgic. They began their sporadic and notorious career in 1975, and I thought they had disappeared for good. But here they were on Leno, singing what sounded like "Anarchy in the UK," a song whose lyrics - were they lyrics? - were unintelligible to these old ears. They gestured in a friendly way to Dr. Paul and I heard the words "Hi, Mr. Paul" emerging from the cacophony of sound filling the studio audience. I think it was a show of support, but I'm not sure.

Now, I'm not in favor of anarchy by any means. I am for less government, and so I suppose given the huge beast that government has become these days, an anarchist would favor the candidate who wants to govern the least.

But who do the Sex Pistols influence today? Do the young folk look up to a three-decades old band whose trademark is revolt against the music popular in 1975? If so, why? Do the current 40-year-olds remember them fondly? And here I am, fondly remembering tearing off the plastic shrink wrap from my new copy of the White Album.

So here I am, supporting a 72 year old man for president because he stays loyal to a 220 year old document that everyone else ignores, and watching him share a stage with an aging, arthritic punk rock band who also seems to like him, and feeling glad that my 86 year old father who fought the Japanese in WWII never stays up late enough to have seen anything like the Sex Pistols singing about anarchy.

Well, shoot - I'm going to send another $17.76 to Ron Paul on November 5 just to add to the money bomb scheduled for that day. That ought to make me feel younger.

Our baby ocotillo has established its root system. I've never managed to grow one of these, my favorite desert plants, from a seed. But a friend gave me a cutting from hers, and I stuck it in the dirt and misted the stalk daily. It grew a leaf or two to prove it was still alive, and eventually the leaf turned yellow. So instead of misting it, I watered the dirt it was planted in, and just as they do in the desert, it leafed out within an hour or two, to take advantage of the "rain" it had just received.

Some day, if I take care of it, this little baby should grow to a magnificent tree. Yes, the ocotillo is not a cactus, it is a tree. You can tell when one is alive by looking for a green stripe running its length. The little curly "thorn" is actually a future leaf. The thorn on the end is where the plant will grow taller next time it rains.

My little yard and its friends

Oh, the joys of Midland.

One of the joys of living here in Midland is that I put a pond and stream in my backyard. Each day we have squirrels, pigeons, blue jays and other of God's creatures visiting us for a drink at harB's friendly oasis. There are other visitors - we have seen yellow tanagers, hummers, and once we had a hawk land for a drink briefly. He didn't leave a tip, but then hawks are known to be predators, and predators are by nature selfish.

Today we had about seven grackles. GA calls them Wal-Mart™ birds, because they like to hang around parking lots and feed on dropped food. You've seen these scavengers - they're not afraid of people or cars, and they stay just out of reach, hopping around looking for pizza crumbs. They're large and black, and they have an annoying "song," which I guess could be compared to heavy metal or something. Grackles are not my favored birds, because they poop on the bridge that spans the stream, and when they wash, they get oil in the water which clogs the filter. But birds are birds, and you can't be selective about who visits your water feature. That's nature. But at least they don't hang around long; they just come for a quick drink and a bath, and then go back to America's store.

Outside the fence is a large bed of harvester ants, sometimes known as Texas Red Ants. I leave them alone, because Midland is on the edge of fire ant territory, and the two species are battling for the turf. You can easily see a harvester ant bed, while a fire ant bed can sneak up on you when you're pulling weeds, and besides, fire ants hurt more and they're considerably more aggressive, so I favor the harvester ant any day. But the clincher is that the harvester ant is the only food source for the Texas horned lizard (or the "horny toad," to use the technical term) - when the harvester ants are driven out, the lizard disappears. They are already completely gone in the more rainy climates, such as Wichita county where I grew up. They used to be as common as tax increases in a non-election year.

I'm pretty much "green" and organic, but I make two exceptions: I will use fire ant bait, albeit sparingly, and I will use Roundup™ to control weeds. I'm told that Roundup goes inert when it hits the ground, and doesn't affect the soil, which is important to me. I feel bad about the fire ant bait, but you have to do what you have to do.

How to avoid a midlife crisis self-destruct

A MySpace friend once asked me how I avoided my midlife crisis. So I thought about that. I'm well past the age for it - if this is the middle of my life, I should live to be 110, and that ain't happenin' friends.

How did I avoid my midlife crisis?

I don't know. I kind of have this view of life that may be a little different. That could help. Then too, I had the advantage that when I should have been having it, my ex-wife apparently had hers instead, so the truly important things had their proper perspective for me.

See, I think what usually happens is that when you reach a certain age - not really old yet, but your prime is far enough behind that you understand mortality - you realize that youth isn't eternal after all, and gee, what if you're missing something. Other people have gorgeous babes and you don't - you're stuck with this woman who doesn't appreciate you or have sex with you often enough, and the next thing you know, if you're not careful, you're feeling sorry for yourself and objectivity goes out the window. You forget to consider that the proverbial grass on the other side may not be all it looks to be, and might be full of ticks and chiggers and sexy-but-evil bitches, and that you really have it pretty good with this person beside you who, incidentally, is tired too. Life isn't perfect for anybody, and you can forget that, and drop the treasure in your hand while you're reaching for that sparkling whatever-it-is just out of reach.

And that might have happened to me, too, if I had had a chance to choose it. I will never know. When reality is already kicking your little ass, it's hard to tell yourself it isn't waiting in the front yard for you to clean its teeth, and so you think about it with a little more objectivity, and you wait a bit before you go opening doors too quickly.

And so I feel happy about being 55, and I treasure my bride, and I enjoy being around the younger "kids" and try not to be frustrated by what they don't and can't possibly understand yet, and I am grateful that they allow me to hang around at all. I keep volunteering and staying busy, and visiting folks on MySpace, and taking fair advantage of my old age, just as the Red Hat ladies do. I cultivate that air of eccentricity so that people aren't shocked when I behave differently, and I have the freedom I never had when I was 30, because I wasn't in the theatre yet. I maintain a good sense of right and wrong, carefully arrived at, and I don't worry if somebody thinks I should do something as they do just because they say so. I choose my choices and live with the consequences, I drink because I enjoy it, I don't smoke because it's so destructive in the long term, I am careful not to hurt people (though I sometimes do inadvertently), and I'm not afraid to die. I love my friends to the risk of being hurt, and if I get hurt, that's life too. And every once in a while... not too often... I engage in run-on sentences. Deal with it.

So life is good, you see.

Male bonding and acceptance ritual

One of the reasons I like to wash dishes is that I can let my mind wander while I scrub and stack.
Today I was remembering a time that I shared in a male bonding ritual. It's not a sacred or secret ritual, or anything like that, but it is one where all the males that participate let each other know in a subtle way that they are accepted in the pack. I'm talking, of course, about the Dirty Joke telling session.
For you ladies, I'll explain how it works. There have to be at least four males, but optimally about six or seven. They sit around a table or circle of chairs, drinking beverages, and they take turns telling dirty jokes. But not just any dirty joke is acceptable. They must be jokes that everybody at the table is likely to have heard a number of times. The idea is that as each joke is told, all the other men nod and pretend that they've never heard the joke before. A chuckle is considered very good form after each joke, and that is actually the device that expresses acceptance to the teller of the joke. Now, it's important to be present when the ritual begins, because if you join once it's under way, you run the risk of telling a joke that someone has just told. If you do, nobody can reasonably pretend to not have heard the joke, so you see the problem. Of course, it's your own risk, so nobody is going to object to having you join, but every man knows he is taking a chance, especially if the ritual has been well under way for some time.
So one day I found myself at a party - it was at A.S.'s house - and I was sitting at a table with H., C., J., and a couple of others I can't recall at the moment. And it started.
Now, I don't remember who actually told the first joke, but as the second joke began, I realized that I was in the middle of this moment, and therefore I was accepted in the tribe. I took note of the joke currently being told so I wouldn't repeat it, and began rummaging through my mind's knapsack of dirty jokes. Hmmm, there was a nice bundle of farmer's daughter jokes, but I decided to set them aside for later, in case somebody began running a string of those. Once somebody tells a farmer's daughter joke, it's mandatory that each participant tell one in turn. And the new guy should never tell the first one.
And J. began telling a joke. Now, I was not surprised that she would be accepted as an honorary guy, because she's one of those exceptional women who are feminine enough to be fun to look at, but earthy enough to be included in guy things. But now I had to be careful. I had to make sure the jokes were old enough that everyone had heard them, but not so old that dust flew off them when told. Wait - she was telling the one about the space alien that lands at the gas station and threatens the gas pump! Excellent choice - only about twenty years old, and it has a classic phallus metaphor, which has a nice punch coming from the female of the group. J. is good, you have to admit that.
Now C. makes his move. He starts with good form, wearing a dirty joke grin and a subtle sneer, but something is wrong. Oh, no, it's a new joke! Nobody has heard this one, and it gets a good laugh all around. At least it's funny - maybe he can get by with it. Or, it's possible that everyone has heard it but me. I am from another county, after all. But no - C. explains that his sister told it to him. That's a serious faux pas, admitting not only that it was a new joke, but that it was told to him by a female. There is a moment of awkward silence, as we consider what to do about it. H. saves the day. He ignores the mistake and plows right into the next joke. Everyone relaxes. And H., to my delight, is telling a farmer's daughter joke! I have mine ready, and tell it next. And C. makes up for his earlier error by following suit with a very good joke about a farmer's daughter that lives just down the road. It's a fairly young joke, but it's been aged just enough to be appropriate.
Now it's time to take it to the next level. I tell a joke in first person - you know, as if it really had happened to me. H. is on the ball, and follows suit with one of his own, told in first person. J. does the same, and it's almost like passing the ritual pipe on the midwestern plains as the sun sets.
And A. comes out to join us.
We all sit up a little straighter. Will he sit quietly, or will he risk it by telling a joke? It can be done, and I have done it, but you really want to have a joke that isn't likely to have been told yet. Something obscure, and forgettable. But no matter what you do, it's risky. It takes serious guts.
He begins his joke. And we all gasp in surprise. He's telling the same joke C. told earlier! There is no way we can pretend not to have heard it! Well, there is nothing to do for it - we have no choice but to laugh at him in total unrelenting scorn, and we must do it before he reaches the punch line. Poor A. He withers in humiliation.
Fortunately, the party is at his house, so according to the rules, he gets another chance to tell a joke and save himself, even if he is wearing nipple rings. And so he does, and we all laugh, and welcome him to the table.
By now, the ritual is over and has served its purpose, and so we down the last of our drinks, and begin shuffling politely to the door. I feel accepted and part of the group, and I go home knowing I am blessed to be part of this small west Texas family of theatre boys who never grew up and never will.


(The preceding is a work of fiction, based loosely on an actual event.)

Garden variety

Here is a lovely squash that came from my very own garden.
I thought about selling it on eBay, but that seemed kind of commercial and capitalistic.

So we fried it and ate it.

Yes, it really came from my garden, and the image has not been altered in any significant way.

Random things about me

1) I played in a Christian rock band before there was a bin for it in the record store. I don't even remember the name of the band. But for a short while, we were very popular locally. This was... 1971?

2) I once made a mistake about which entrance I was using to get into a cave, and free-climbed the pit that was impossible to free-climb. It's a good thing I didn't know - I would have been trapped, because I couldn't figure out how to get to the correct entrance, since I had completely misread the map.

3) I once rode a bus in Mexico with other people carrying chickens and so forth. A drunk guy kept spilling his orange soda on me. I loved that weekend, because I loved adventure. Those were the days...

4) Back in college, I made an A in a computer science class that required me to write a program directly in machine language - no compilers allowed. A very short program, but a program nevertheless. It was the only A given out. I couldn't do it now, but it sure was fun.

5) The same year, I was accused of cheating in an RPG class in the business department, because I was one of only two students who correctly coded the sequence to avoid re-initializing the variable inside the loop - a mistake often made by non-programmers. The other student was a computer science major like me, and we were sitting on opposite sides of the classroom.

6) It really pisses me off to be falsely accused. Don't ever do that.

7) I had nothing to do with what happened to the RPG instructor.

8) I once ran an underground newspaper where I worked. It was fun and lighthearted, and I mercilessly slandered anybody on a supervisor level. People above the supervisor level loved it even more than the workers. By the time they found out it was me, the CEO was my biggest fan, and ordered copies sent to him when they appeared. I was never punished, even though I ran the copies off on their own copy machine.

Random information

Random information you may as well know:

1) Sunspot 960 was larger than the earth.


2) The "Max" setting on your car air conditioner does not make the AC work any faster. All it does is turn the fan up higher and recirculate the air in the car, rather than let in the hot, outside air. So don't use it until the interior of your car is cooler than the outside air.

3) Lincoln didn't free the slaves until the middle of the civil war, when it looked like the north might lose. And then he only freed the slaves in the rebel states.

4) If you adjust for inflation, we should abolish the penny and nickel, and have not just a dollar coin but a five dollar coin to approximate the coinage of the 1960's.

5) The songs you buy from iTunes have information about you imbedded in the files.

6) Video compression has improved so much since the DVD was introduced that you can now store nearly 7 hours of reasonably high definition video on one disk, if you know how and if your player has the right CoDec.

7) If you plant cilantro nearby, you won't have tomato worms. And when they bloom, they attract pretty white butterflies.

8) Midland tap water will turn crape myrtle leaves black. You have to water them carefully so you don't splash any above the ground. That's why they're not popular here.

9) Snakes have a subtle but distinct odor, and if you commit that odor to memory, you will know when one is nearby.

10) 45 rpm records were designed for use in juke boxes. Their gyrations (vibrations in the grooves) were wider and louder, and required a long, flexible stylus to be played accurately, but this meant that they didn't wear out as soon. This is why it took US single records longer to be issued in stereo - the vibrations were not side to side in stereo, but moved in a v-shape with a fixed width, and therefore had less potential for volume, and were less suitable for juke boxes.

blink blink

OK, I'm going to start a blog.
I already have one on MySpace... but sooner or later 60 minutes will reveal that Tom is a terrorist, a communist operative, or maybe even a 7-11 employee. If that happens, where will all my hopes and dreams go? That's right - that great big recycle bin in the sky.

Besides, harB has my password on MySpace and I simply cannot control my hippo.

October. It will get cool soon. That would be good. And then there are those cookies Hil mentioned...