It’s no secret to anyone who’s asked me lately, “how are you doing”, that I am suffering from severe back pain. Here’s how this pain has translated into my dream world:

I’m Wolverine, the mutant with super healing ability and a metal alloy skeleton. I’m in a bar shooting pool and three guys with their own mutant powers confront me and start a fight. Being outnumbered three to one the fight is short: one of the bad guys has the ability to control electricity and electrocutes me into unconsciousness onto the bar floor.

While I am out, the bad mutants put me into this ornate, Gothic magician’s box that is used to cut people in half with knives (there is a stage in the bar and a magician has a nightly show). I come into consciousness locked in the box, screaming in pain as they use a big knife to cut me in half from head to groin. They open the box and I fall out in two pieces.

While I lay there in two halves my healing powers go to work: each half of me slides towards the other and soon I am whole again. But something has changed. In addition to my Wolverine powers, I now have the same powers as the bad guy mutants.

Now here things go unexpected, and I think this is an important part of the dream: once healed, I do not kick the bad mutants’ asses. Instead we go out of the bar and run around together playing with our powers.

I need to digest this one some more - having super powers is complicated.

Warning: this series will end in bloodshed and psychotherapy, read with caution.

I have three cats, which is one cat too many (I will get to this point in part 2). Oweena, the old fluffy cat, is my wife’s. I’ve known my wife for nearly ten years and during that span of time I have frequently asked her about Oweena’s age. Each time the answer is the same, “Oweena is ten years old.” Oweena, my guess, is a hell of a lot older than ten. About four years ago, soon after we moved into our house on the Island, we adopted two 8 week old kittens that were brothers. PAWS had named them Amos and Andy; I re-named them Zero and Toro. Who wants a pre-named kitten? That’s half the reason to get a kitten, so you can name it.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I arrived at my new house in Fairfield. I brought the cats in after a long ass trip across the country in a car and opened their cages pet carriers. Oweena sauntered out and started looking for a bowl of food. Zero and Toro ran out so fast they seemed to teleport instantly down into the basement and I did not see them again until a couple days later when I went down into the basement armed with my Ryobi cordless flashlight. After about forty minutes of searching, which included coming back upstairs and looking through every cabinet and closet in every room several times. I finally spotted the two brothers out of blind luck. I happened to shine the light in the upper back corner of the basement and caught their four golden eyes peering out of a deep pocket in the floor joists. I reached them using a chair and herded them upstairs to make sure they got some food and water and then closed the door to the basement. You might judge me on this decision later.

While Zero and Toro were hiding in the basement, my wife and I were ripping up carpet throughout the house during the day, and staying at her mother’s house during the evening. When I got the cats upstairs, most of the carpet had been ripped up and was sitting in a big pile in the living room. The next day I came back to the house to check on the cats. Oweena was standing at her bowl in the kitchen. Zero and Toro were no where to be found. And so after checking that there was no way they could have gotten back into the basement, I again searched each cabinet and closet multiple times in search of them. It was about the fifth time that I walked past the living room and realized that the big pile of ripped up skanky carpeting would make an ideal hiding place for my two freaked out cats. After a quick search I found a roll of carpeting that had two golden eyes staring at me from somewhere in the middle.

The next two hours involves a scenario that I am sure at least one of my neighbors witnessed and is probably still trying to figure out what exactly in the name of god I was trying to accomplish. In order to get the cats out of the carpet and ensure that they stay out of the carpet I decided to take all 1300 square feet of nasty ass carpeting and dusty padding and put it outside on the back porch. This took some time and sweet but I was successful in getting the cats out of the carpet and the carpet out of the house. After I accomplished this task I noticed the screen door to the back porch was ajar. This immediately led to another lengthy search of all the cabinets and closets in the house. Zero was missing.

I did some swearing to myself; outloud in an empty, carpetless home, which echos profanity nicely. And I even considered for a moment that I didn’t really need three cats. The real issue of course is that my three year old daughter can count to ten and a life of constant shuffling of two cats around the house to convince her all three cats were safe and sound was impractical.

So I had Zero missing, obviously outside, burrowed into the carpet pile on the back deck. I could see no other option than going through the pile of carpet (again) and piling it up in a new location in order to find the cat and put him back inside. And that is what I did. Except after I had moved all the carpet from the deck, to a location on the back lawn about five feet from the deck, I still had not uncovered Zero. As I stood there, hands on hips, sweating profusely, considering my error, I also begain wondering how many neighbors were watching me, trying to guess just what the fuck their new neighbor was up too. After a brief pause I went back into the house and started checking all the cabinets and closets in every room. I think this was also the first time I checked the oven.

Zero of course was not in any cabinets or closets or even the oven. I went back outside and realized my error: when I moved the carpets from the living room to the back deck I had to reroll them in order to make them fit out onto the back deck. During the second move I did not have any space issues and so did not completely unfold or unroll all the carpets. Zero must be in one of the sections I did not completely undo. On my third moving-of-the-carpet-refuse, I was very careful to completely flaten out each section before dragging it in some random direction out onto the lawn away from the second pile (neatness being the first casualty of fatigue). I caught a break and dislodged Zero about half way through the second pile (this must be my Irish luck kicking in).

New problem. With all access in or out of the house shut off, Zero has nowhere to go and since he’s been building up a pretty big freak out from being dragged around in a pile of carpet for two hours, he’s now got legs. Like a dog chasing it’s tail without much thought on the goal: I ended up chasing Zero around my ranch style home like I was at a track meet. I think we made it around the house about fifteen times which I am going to call a mile. It was during this chase that I discovered our chain link fence does not have a gate on the West side of the house. Every time I made my way over this section of the fence I really appreciated all the times I watched Cops - there’s a right way and a wrong way to traverse a chain link fence and you can learn that from watching only a few episodes of Cops. I broke off the chase at some point when I did not actually seem to be chasing anything anymore. I walked around the house a couple times inspecting bushes, the under carriage of my car, trees, the roof and began scanning the yards of my neighbors.

I soon found Zero cowered and panting heavily under the small, rickety wooden porch at the front of my house. Out of arms reach, I spent the next fifteen minutes on my stomach trying to dislodge him using the following items: a piece of cardboard, a tape measure, harsh language and finally a broom handle. While using the broom handle I discovered that the small rickety porch was in fact not fastened to the home and easily moved out of the way. Zero was on the run again, this time a little slower.

Too exhasuted to chase him around the house anymore, I ended up using my brain to come up with a solution. I opened the back garage door and positioned myself out in the yard. On his next loop around the house he went in through the door without hesitation. Within minutes, using my new door opening technique, I had the cats back down in the basement, out of harms way. Or so I thought . . .

Next week: my trip to the animal hospital and an introduction to my neighbor, the transcendental vet.

Iowa Govenor Tom Vilsack and former Senator to North Carolina John Edwards have announced their campaigns for the 2008 Presidential election. Both of them are doing something I haven’t seen from other (potential) Presidential contenders like McCain, Hillary, Obama and Kucinich: Vilsack and Edwards are active on Flickr.

Tom Vilsack

John Edwards

A quick glance at both of their Flickr galleries will reveal that Edwards has a better photographer and a better camera.

While I thought it was cool to find both of these candidates using Flickr, I thought it was especially interesting that Tom Vilsack is using Flickr as his photo gallery - like myself and millions of other bloggers. See what I mean by going to his homepage an clicking on “Photo Gallery”. Whereas Edwards calls out his link to Flickr separately (scroll down to the bottom of his homepage). I’m not sure if this is a style thing or a funds thing.

It’s funny, when I first saw that Vilsack had a Flickr account I thought “oh I wonder what types of photos he takes”. I did not expect to find a Flickr account being used to host photos that other people have taken of you - of course I was not thinking like a politician. Flickr is used for self promotion by a growing number of professionals (see musicians), but they usually post interesting photos taken by themselves. So on one hand I’m excited to see Presidential candidates photo blogging, on the other hand I’d rather see the world through their eyes. To me that’s what Flickr is all about, sharing your visual point of view with others.

Update:

I spent some time on Edwards blog and that is integrated with his Flickr account nicely. His whole blog is done very well (by PlusThree).  It conveys a clear message and just looks like the guy gets it - makes me wonder (again) how on earth Kerry ever got the nomination in 2004.

Shel Silverstein has written some great children’s books. My wife Dawn bought a hardcover reprint of The Giving Tree for our daughter which she opened Christmas morning and immediately asked to have it read to her. As Dawn read The Giving Tree to our daughter I was shocked at the author’s photo on the back of the book. Not only is it a very large author portrait for a book, but it is a very scary one.

Why is the sky blue? Where is the mommy cow? Does Thomas use these train tracks? Why is the squirrel dead? On a good day I feel like I’ve correctly answered half of them.

Yesterday Penelope asked me a question without using any words - just a simple, perplexed look:

CNN, once a ground breaking news organization, has degenerated dramatically in the past several years. They join the company of America’s other big news institutions that have only a vague connection to journalism/reporting/informing/critical analysis.

The top story on CNN tonight is something so laughably uninteresting and obvious that I stared blankly at the screen for several seconds, considering what CNN has become. The top story on CNN’s home page, “Procrastinators hit the malls”, claims that last minute shoppers were “greeted” with discounts.

Get out! On Christmas Eve??

They need to get Anderson Cooper out to the malls of America to investigate this story further.

Before we moved out of our house on the Island I donated my old stereo to goodwill. It was a Denon receiver with Infinity speakers that I had purchased when I was eighteen. The speaker cones had disintegrated badly and the receiver was big and heavy and not that useful for piping audio to multiple locations. For about three years I have been shopping for the answer to my audio needs. I wanted something that supported multiple rooms and managed Internet radio and streamed play lists via Ethernet. The Ethernet component was crucial as I wanted uncompressed streaming.

Nothing fit this bill until Sonos announced support for Rhapsody, the brilliant streaming music service offered by Real. With a two room bundle selling for over 1k, and the unfamiliarity of this style of audio system, buying a Sonos bundle took a leap of faith. From the minute I picked up the shipping box from my front porch I was impressed: the units are heavy, housed in a die cast aluminum and just big enough to suggest their full capability without taking up too much space on the shelf. Set up was a breeze and within minutes I was laying back on my bed surfing the entire Rhapsody music catalog using the Sonos wireless controller.

There are few moments in my life when the experience of a new technology not only feels right from day one, but also signals a welcome beginning to a new way of doing things. Like the first time I placed a compact disc into the tray, watched it slide into a the player and then select a track several deep into the play list from across the room: this was a revolution in playing music to anyone with a turntable or cassette deck.

Lounging in bed with my wife last night, handing the Sonos controller back and forth with excited hands and smiling every time we found and played some obscure song, was the beginning of a new way of listening to music. It felt great to fill our half furnished, half remodeled home with something as powerfully comforting as familar songs. We haven’t even set up the second zone yet and already plan on one for our daughter’s room and the basement.

My love for Al Gore and the supreme dissapointment that he did not beat “W” in a landside has been rekindled after watching An Inconvenient Truth.  I find it telling to see what Politicians do outside their elected positions, when votes no longer matters.

Old house = walk in closets. New house = reach in closets. Going from 2000 square feet to 1300 appeals to my family for a variety of reasons except for the closet space issue. The solution was to add storage capacity to our reach in closets using a closet system. There are many available and the range in pricing is thousands of dollars. I decided to go with EasyClosets.com - there design tool was easy to use and the price seemed good but not too good (I have learned the hard way never to take the lowest bid).

I ordered two closet systems - one for each bedroom. They arrived within the week and required two trips by the UPS driver. By the way, the UPS driver let me know how cruel it was of me to order large quantities of anything that wasn’t presents for needy children during the weeks before Christmas. My bad.

On one hand I was alarmed at the amount of cardboard and packing materials I was faced with recycling and throwing out, on the other hand I was happy with how well everything was packed. Not a single chip or scratch on any of the hundreds of pieces. Twenty-three boxes total.

The first sign that EasyClosets.com was not named by their customers was the list of tools recommended for installation:

Yes, that is a hack saw. There are four other saws also shown. WTF? Five saws? What type of person owns all of those saws, yet is not capable of building a set of shelves and owns the pickup truck to get the materials themselves?

I spent twelve hours installing the closet in our bedroom. That’s two days of work (weekend - pffft). I still have another closet to install. Last night I was breaking a sweat sawing brushed nickel poles to the correct length for our four hanging rods. And if you’ve ever tried to hack your way through thick metal tubing then you will realize, as I did, that EasyClosets.com forgot something on their list of tools: a vice!

Anyway. They look nice at least. The drawers are full extension and the entire system is sturdy and takes weight without any give.

I don’t watch Saturday Night Live on TV; only the funny stuff posted to YouTube. Link courtesy of Ariel.