tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89462299998508677812011-08-03T10:03:00.791-07:00<a href="http://davidschons.com">davidschons.com</a><br> <a href="http://twitter.com/davidschons">twitter</a><br> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/somekindapossible/">flickr</a><br>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comBlogger1461100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-26171856500405881532010-02-04T06:23:00.000-08:002010-02-04T06:24:17.357-08:00Went last night to see the Dark Star Orchestra at the Varsity Theater, <br>but the line stretched around the block, and I wasn&#39;t up to that.<p>Time to start thinking RAGBRAI.<p>Am I on the bus or off the bus?<br>How about under the bus or on top of the bus? Bus I am on is middle <br>class mid life family job bus. Kind of looking to what is next bus, or <br>accepting that this is it bus.<p>Does it have to be a bus?<p>The really juicy stuff of course can&#39;t be discussed here. The really, <br>really juicy stuff? I know not. What bus that?<p>Yesterday, I ordered Medifast, a month supply. It is time.<p>Today, rented for a year a small locker at the Y. 22 40 08<p>Approaching a birthday and felt it honest to bump up the age parameter <br>on the elliptical and gasp the maximum heat rate went down one.<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2617185650040588153?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-62538291092022201822010-02-03T06:09:00.000-08:002010-02-03T06:10:03.384-08:00Au d&#233;but de la journ&#233;e, je si&#232;ge de Nina. J&#39;involontairement &#233;coute <br>&#224; quelqu&#39;un, un homme d&#39;&#226;ge moyen, assis &#224; la table dans le dos de <br>coin par la cuisine, parler affaires, tous les Kansas City et Missouri <br>et &quot;Prot&#233;ines national&quot;. Vous n&#39;&#234;tes pas certain pourquoi il est plus <br>odieuses qu&#39;autre chose. J&#39;ai d&#233;plac&#233;.<p>-- This message was composed with PhatWare WritePad.<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6253829109202220182?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-89629839013642544682010-02-01T05:56:00.000-08:002010-02-01T06:03:57.636-08:00This is an experiment--posting to the blog from writing with the <br>iPhone Notes app. Stil typing with one finger or at best two thumbs. <br>But the input and editing is a bit better. And using this method is <br>now possible because I fixed the outgoing mail SMTP problem. Dah. So, <br>when I am finished, I will email this to an address that will publish <br>to my blog. Such is the theory.<p>And this next section is from the Shape Writer app. Not so nice to <br>edit in, or different, at least. Mostly a pain because there is no way <br>to copy to the clipboard. Here goes--<p>Yesterday, I went to the Friends meeting. It was a short meeting as it <br>turns out because it was a fifth Sunday and it was Family meeting and <br>therefore only thirty minutes.<p>At the end of the meeting, after adjacent people shook hands, it would <br>have been time to work the room, except I don&#39;t do that. Everyone that <br>I thought it might be good to talk to was already engaged. So, as <br>usual, I left. Things go quite differently, more socially, when <br>Dorothea is there. Her presence is rare. That day in fact she and <br>Madeline were church hopping over at the Minneapolis Unitarians.<p>On January 22, I disabled my Facebook account. I would have deleted if <br>I could have. The same day I deleted my Twitter account. Not sure what <br>the technical ramifications are of that. We&#39;ll see. But I do think <br>that more bloging is probably a good thing. But I gave re-enabled.<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8962983901364254468?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-82926226209944527062010-01-19T05:27:00.001-08:002010-01-19T05:27:36.776-08:00Last night lying awake at just about midnight, I just had to have a<br>smoke, and though I no longer smoke, I gave in, succumbed, collapsed,<br>gave in to the urge, to the calling brain signal.<p>And so the inhaled enveloping smog is analogy, code, for something<br>else, real. A new phase of life is upon me, of deadbolts and caller<br>ID, buddies, reaching out, tension, and even more exposed and rawer<br>nerves.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8292622620994452706?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-43466159812131410032009-12-13T17:52:00.001-08:002009-12-13T17:52:44.077-08:00 <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Snowstorm of irony. Instant winter. Snowmaggedon. Just a few days before, I&#39;d been riding my bike to work. B with a big snow expected, the people that do these sorts of things at my work had, for first time, marked off with orange traffic cones the long walkway bisecting the parking lot. Ah ha! No one will mistakenly block the walkway by parking their snow-blinded car in its midst. Monday, cones--no snow. Tuesday, cones--no snow. Wednesday, snow--no cones. Parking lot plowed, walkway hidden; cone-less tundra of white obscures all. (There&#39;s no obscuring the approach this August of my twelfth anniversary at the bank.) </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Thursday, Madeline (Class of &#39;11) would be needing a ride home from school. So I drove to work. Well, tried. Morning, out to the car, turned key, stepped on gas, didn&#39;t go anywhere, couldn&#39;t even get out of parking spot on street in front of house. (This August marked the house&#39;s one-hundredth anniversary.) Spin spin, wiggly wiggly, slide slide. Got the shovel from the front porch, dug out. Wasn&#39;t really even that much snow. Escaped, barely. Put the shovel in the back seat. (Grain shovel, bought while living on the farm; used to shovel grain with it.) Almost didn&#39;t make it through Fairview windrow at end of block. But did. Barely. Narrowly avoided collision. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Thought was to stop at Nina&#39;s on the way to work. Snelling to I-94. Lexington exit. Concordia, across Dale. Right at four-way stop with Marshall, where the Boy Scouts of America have theirs offices--up the hill. Oops. The suspicion Dorothea (one semester away from graduate degree) and I&#39;d had last spring about the Hyundai&#39;s tires not being &quot;aggressive&quot; enough for snow--confirmed. I eventually slide sideways and backwards down the hill and followed a hill-less route to work, sans Nina&#39;s. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Then, at work, texting with Madeline found out that of course she wouldn&#39;t be staying after school. After school activities cancelled--all of them, actually. She&#39;d be taking the school bus home. (In fact, Liam-- eighth grade-- and Lou, our German student-- didn&#39;t have school. Canceled.) I was so pissed that, later, home from work when I told Dorothea that we needed new tires, stat. I said then she could move the cars the next morning for the snow emergency. Later she came back, saying she didn&#39;t care. Do whatever I wanted about tires. (Stella, cockapoo five people years old in January, noticeably stunned.) Called Tires Plus, drove over there, thinking $300, armed with Dorothea provided coupons; $500. Gleefully drove through all the spots that had given me troubles earlier. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Told Madeline how ironic it seemed to me, the whole bit about driving so I could pick her up. She apologized, said she was sorry. But that wasn&#39;t it. Just life. Silver lining--got the tires thing taken care. Just in time, too, as it has gotten really cold. Reminiscent of weather last January for the funeral of Dorothea&#39;s mom, Bernice...........</span></p> <br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4346615981213141003?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-81623852736032784602009-12-12T06:37:00.000-08:002009-12-12T08:41:02.706-08:00This week, we had "the storm," the snow of irony. Instant winter. Up until only a few days before, I'd been comfortably riding my bike to work. But before I could complete my winter transit transition to bus riding, a bit of car hell loomed.<div> </div><div><p>With a big snow expected, the people that do these sorts of things at my work had, for the first time, marked off with orange traffic cones the long walkway bisecting the parking lot. Ah ha! No one will mistakenly block the walkway by parking their snow-blinded car in its midst. Monday, cones--no snow. Tuesday, cones--no snow. Wednesday, snow--no cones. Parking lot plowed, walkway hidden; cone-less tundra of white obscures all. </div><div> </div><div><p>Then, whereas I would have contentedly ridden the bus to work, switching to my winter transit mode, Madeline needed a ride home from school Wednesday. So I drove to work. Well, tried. <div> </div><div>Wednesday morning, didn't go anywhere, couldn't even get out of the parking spot on the street in front of the house. Spin spin, wiggly wiggly, slide slide. Got the shovel from the front porch, dug out. There really wasn't that much snow. Escaped, barely. Put the shovel in the back seat. (Grain shovel, bought while living on the farm; used to shovel grain with it.) Almost didn't make it through the Fairview windrow at the end of the block. But then did. Barely. Narrowly avoided collision. <div> </div><div><p>Thought was to stop at Nina's on the way to work. Snelling to I-94. Lexington exit. Concordia, across Dale. Right at the four-way stop with Marshall, where the Boy Scouts of America have theirs offices--up the hill. Oops. The suspicion that Dorothea and I'd had last spring about the Hyundai's tires not being "aggressive" enough for snow--confirmed. I eventually slide sideways and backwards down the hill and followed a hill-less route to work, sans Nina's.</div><div> </div><div><p>Then, at work, texting with Madeline, found out that of course she wouldn't be staying after school. After school activities cancelled--all of them, actually. She'd be taking the school bus home.</div><div> </div><div><p>I was so pissed that, later, home from work when I told Dorothea that we needed new tires, stat, and got her expected non-commital response ("We'll be seeing Joe this weekend"--he's the brother-in-law car guy), I said then she could move the cars the next morning for the snow emergency. Later she came back, saying she didn't care. Do whatever I wanted about tires. </div><div> </div><div>Called Tires Plus, drove over there, thinking $300, armed with Dorothea provided coupons; $500. Walked home, hung out. Then walked back when they called. Gleefully drove through all the spots that had given me troubles earlier. I bought the set of tires with the most aggressive tread.</div><div> </div><div>Told Madeline how ironic it seemed to me, the whole bit about driving so I could pick her up. She apologized, said she was sorry. But that wasn't it. Just life. Silver lining--got the tires thing taken care. Now will have good tires for drive to Hansmeyer family Christmas gathering at Bug Bee Resort near Paynesville.</div><div> </div><div>And, after dropping a wad of cash on a car, I can go back to comfortably taking the bus.</div><div> </div><div>Then, it got really cold..............</div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8162385273603278460?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-75289893865374264652009-12-08T05:56:00.001-08:002009-12-08T05:56:05.517-08:00Pheromone packed. Drove today. Needed to do some errands that are<br>bus-prohibitive--notably, stopping at Kowalski&#39;s for food for work.<br>Probably not a great day to pick to drive, what with an impending<br>snowmaggedon. But such are the wheeling gears of fate. My drive home<br>is inconsequential in any event. People are commenting about getting<br>their snowblowers going. I got some shovels out of the shed and put<br>them in the front porch.<p>The pheromone bit was inspired by the <a href="http://cracked.com">http://cracked.com</a> piece I am<br>reading about apparently cute cats behaviors are driven by evil<br>intent. In some ways I miss having a domestic feline, and<br>others--allergies, the unpleasant caustic smells--I don&#39;t.<p>Also finding myself interested <a href="http://carnalnation.com">http://carnalnation.com</a> and<br>contemplating family-friendliness.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7528989386537426465?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-12475959822993205312009-11-28T08:49:00.001-08:002009-11-28T08:49:48.675-08:00Why do I come to Nina&#39;s? For random, brief conversatios with June<br>about handwriting and change making.<p>At Nina&#39;s. Bought the NY Times. Nostalgia, I guess. Also had a good<br>little conversation at the counter with proprietess June about making<br>change and handwriting. She mentioned that she had been a sixth-grade<br>teacher. Ah-ha. Firm believer in teaching children how to make change<br>and have good penmanship. (Penship? Penpersonship? Writing utensil<br>wielding skills? Seems likely to be a pre-postfeminist thing.)<p>I reached my National Novel Writing Month goal of writing 50,000 words<br>last night, after copy/pasting from the one-a-day for each of the<br>preceding days of November Google Docs that were my repository into<br>one iMac Word doc, and then into the designated textbox at<br><a href="http://nanowrimo.org">http://nanowrimo.org</a> . In reality, I submitted 50,000 words, their<br>word-counting algorithm confirmed it. Blogging, twittering, emailing,<br>facebooking, texting, instant messaging--it is all there.<p>Now I have built me a habit. Question: what am I going to do with it?<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1247595982299320531?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-29604735681813651302009-11-27T06:18:00.001-08:002009-11-27T06:18:49.299-08:00<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333" face="&#39;Lucida Grande&#39;, sans-serif" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; ">After the storm, so to speak. It is still all calm, still early morning, still dark outside, house still asleep, and I have decided not to go out for coffee. Instead, I am at the iMac, with home-made french pressed coffee. Just realized though that being home shoots a hole in my card for my 100 year-old aunt issue, cause I would have picked up a card at Nina&#39;s. Will have to keep an eye on that today. Maybe if Dorothea and I take the dog for a walk, I can stop somewhere and pick up a card.<br> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">Queued up is a visit to my mom in Saint Cloud. Thoughts are to begin planning to move her to the Twin Cities. But for now, it is an hour and a half drive.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; ">The toast, yesterday, given by Dorothea, was to survival. Given the general Hansmeyer family history, it was apt for any of them. But we&#39;d just been having a discussion that delved into some of the more personal specifics, which is probably what prompted toast. Maybe the toast was an attempt to change the subject. But there also was at the table the adopted, now single mother, who&#39;d spent a good share of her life in group homes; two Vietnam vets, one of whom had been in the squadron portrayed in the movie &quot;Platoon&quot;; and just in general, we&#39;ve all overcome some pretty horrendous stuff. And here we are.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2">A couple of Bernice stories come to mind that I feel I can share. Bernice&#39;s troubles, her mental illnes, no secret there. </font></font></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2"><br></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2">The first story is about the effort to plant trees on the farm. The second story is about an empty bottle of homemade rhubarb wine, graveside.</font></font></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2"><br></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2">&quot;Whatever else, she wasn&#39;t dumb,&quot; commented one of the brother-in-laws. To which was added the story of how, several years ago, the idea was to contract with one of the paper mills. They&#39;d come in and plant fast-growing popular trees, and then, some years later, harvest them for pulp. For whatever reason, Bernice didn&#39;t like this idea. Apparently, she very uncharacteristically worked the phones, calling the mill, the land broker, whomever, telling them how she thought that was a bad idea. The deal never went through.</font></font></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2"><br></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="2">January, 2008, -20 degress, graveside, at the burial service for Bernice. One of the sisters had a bottle of homemade rhubarb wine, significant of something, and was filling up and passing around little plastic cups of it. We toasted, we were ready to all bolt for our cars. What I didn&#39;t know was want happened to the empty bottle. Someone turned to the funeral director as everyone left. What to do with the empty bottle? The funeral director took it, opened the lid of the casket, set the bottle inside, closed the casket. Quite appropriate. </font></font></div> <div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#4B4B4B" face="helvetica, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div></div></span></span></font><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2960473568181365130?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-31279001380065746362009-11-26T18:58:00.000-08:002009-11-26T19:13:06.913-08:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:13px;"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">First, the abortive attempt to participate in the Thanksgiving Meals on Wheels program at Cretin. They were booked up with volunteers by the time that Liam and I got there. Liam and I were there relatively early at his encouraging. But not early enough. It could be that our fashionably-late appearances of years past might have served us well, in that we were late enough that there were always loose ends, miscalculations, from earlier, that became our route. </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "> </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Then, Dorothea, with Madeline and Lou in tow, both reluctant early risers, picked us up at the Bean Factory Coffee Shop, and we drove to the Mall of America. There is always a general charity walk there on Thanksgiving morning. We walked for not quite two hours, and ending up giving some cash to a guy selling t shirts for the event.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "> </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Home, for a brief respite, and Dorothea and I took the dog for a walk. Then off to sister-in-law Mary's house for the repast. This was the housewarming for Mary's most recent house. Lots of Hansmeyers in attendance. Notable was Quinetta, adopted at the age of four or so by Gene, one of Dorothea's older brothers, and his spouse Lila. Now she's in her late twenties, and has a five year-old son and a finance. That was when I first met her, when I was initially dating Dorothea, more than twenty years ago, and hadn't seen her for ten years or so. She definitely has had a tough life, but seemed to be doing quite well, which was very good to see, indeed.</span></div><div> </div></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3127900138006574636?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-39247209308425888332009-11-25T06:04:00.000-08:002009-11-25T16:03:37.043-08:00"Where ya been?" "I've been more swamped than Louisiana." (This exchange was a male customer at Nina's (the swamped one) standing in line and the counter staff--greeting a loved but long absent regular). And my thought was--he's gay. What is it about me and my antenna and my interpretations of some guys and that guess they are gay? (Why do I even care?) Yesterday, two guys came over to my cube, one the edirectory guy, the other the Active Directory guy. They both hit just the right tones about things, and off we go. They'll send me a "silly little form," and so begins the process. Like they would fit right in on that show, "Myth Busters(?)." --gotta google that--yup, on The Discovery Channel. Of course I am crap at interpreting people, so I don't know what's up with this. Maybe there is a certain style that some men have which connects with me, and my brain just chooses to interpret that way. The manufacture of meaning. It is the Java meaning factory.<p>Was going to reach for the molskine, what the heck, but then realized that unless the words that I write are bits and bytes, the words don't count. At least not now, during National Novel Writing Month. I am almost at 50,000 words for <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">http://nanowrimo.org</a> , to website for National Novel Writing Month. This post will be thrown on the heap. (Usually these blog posts are about 300-400 words.)</p><p>Finally have the electric guitar, computer, headphone (crucial) thing worked out. Prince, look out man. You've been warned!</p><p>That which makes me tinkly, I have realize, is often the most mundane things. Talking to people sometimes will do it. Men, women. Face-to-face, engaged. Is anyone reading this? Ahem.</p><p>Postscript: I wrote this in the morning, at Nina's. My custom is to email it off the old Tmobile Wing right away, and the entry immediately appears in the blog. Usually sometime later in the day, after I get home from work, I go to Facebook and update so that the entry appears there. But I have now done even more editing on the damn thing. Misspellings, gaps. Sheesh. It is endless. -- David <a href="http://www.schons.net/">www.schons.net</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3924720930842588833?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-14801211759926260772009-11-21T09:57:00.001-08:002009-11-21T09:57:27.858-08:00At Liam&#39;s guitar lsesson. Sitting on the old futon in the next room in<br>the attic of the teacher&#39;s house. No gutar lsesson-time walk with<br>Stella to see her cousins, the Como Park wolves. She&#39;s has diaherra<br>that last couple of days. The fear is we don&#39;t know if she&#39;s totally<br>recovered. I have missed out on most of the fun on that one.<p>Today I thought hanging out and listening to what&#39;s happening with the<br>lesson was a good idea. Liam just sight read a version of &quot;These Are a<br>Few of My Favorite Things,&quot; playing along with the Band in a Box.<p>Also today, this morning, Dorothea and I went to Liam&#39;s school<br>conferences. Must say I am always pleasantly surprised. So far my<br>fears of him doing as badly as I did have never come true.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1480121175992626077?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-20938702069916242672009-11-20T18:47:00.001-08:002009-11-20T18:47:10.979-08:00Just was looking at an electronic todo list that I have. It is a list<br>of Dorothea date ideas. None have been checked off yet. Phipps Silent<br>Movie House in Hudson; museums, Happy Gnome, happy hours, out with<br>other coupled, make music, camping, Dubliner, Turf Club, long drive,<br>bike ride, walk, Town Talk Diner, Strip Club, concert, movie. I guess<br>we&#39;ve done a few of those recently.<p>Today was a day of double-booking myself. Or thinking about it.<br>Wednesday night at about 10:00 PM, I realized that I had scheduled<br>myself to work on the evening that we&#39;d also made the date with the<br>McCartney&#39;s. I texted Martha right then, and she responded. Seemed<br>okay withit. Try again. Our schedules just don&#39;t mesh.<p>Also on Wednesday I made a lunch date with co-workers, and this was a<br>big deal because we don&#39;t go out to eat much. My calendar was clear, I<br>had rescheduled one meeting. Just before leaving, I realized that I<br>did have another meeting at that time. I just had never put it on my<br>calendar. I took iPhone with me and tried to call in, but it was<br>futile. (As well as silly.) Double-parked again. Maybe a good idea for<br>a country-western song lyric?<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2093870206991624267?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-24201505138024289432009-11-19T12:53:00.001-08:002009-11-19T12:53:37.792-08:00I miss my old bad habits. Especially the most recently given up ones.<br>Do you ever feel that way? There is always a feeling of loneliness, of<br>a lost friend. Oh well. The old sayings-cliches &quot;you can&#39;t win for<br>losing&quot; and &quot;nickel and dimed to death&quot; come to mind. Not sure what<br>those things mean, but so be it. What of the need to say good bye?<p>Cryptic, hmmm? That is all I have got. I continue with the eternal<br>struggle of what to and what not to share.<p>Today I am dressed in biking clothes but drove. The weather looked<br>like rain later, so I donned for biking. But before I got a chance to<br>depart, it began to drizzle. Shoulds woulds coulda taken the bus, but<br>got delayed with conversation with Dorothea, and so was feeling time<br>crunch, sending me to the car. But I am driving and wearing spandex.<br>Odd.<p>At Nina&#39;s, sitting at the top of the stairs. Never really lingered up<br>here. Different view. The Statue of Liberty is across the room. As I<br>looked up and over, thinking that hey, I am at eye level, I realized<br>that she is wearing sunglasses. How long? Never noticed that from down<br>below.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2420150513802428943?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-91648460824270237632009-11-18T05:28:00.001-08:002009-11-18T05:28:03.237-08:00Barista banter overheard: &quot;I have two brothers, and their goal every<br>morning before school was to make me cry.&quot; (Offered with no further<br>comment.)<p>I am seeing my coffeeshop to gym ratio beginning to slip.<p>Last night, I left work a bit early for the diversion of biking home<br>while there was still light outside. I came up Fairview, and stopped<br>at Whole Foods (spending there a ridiculous amout on vitamins). After<br>leaving the store, as I crossed Summit, I could see up ahead some sort<br>of mess, which turned out to be a two-car accident. One car was all<br>the way up on the hill in the front yard of the apartment building in<br>the northeast corner of the intersection. Behind, at a similar angle,<br>half on the boulevard, half in the street, was a minivan, looking as<br>though it was following the other car. Both were headed for the<br>livingroom of Apartment 2. Also of note was the nearby Veit truck in<br>the middle of Faiview, stationed in the shared turning lane, as they<br>often are when working on the sewers. But in this case, it was very<br>close to being, maybe actually was in, the intersection.<p>I detoured over to Wheeler to get home. Walked with Madeline from the<br>house back over to the scene, expecting to see police car, ambulance,<br>tow truck. Instead, none of those, still just the two cars, and two<br>women, the drivers, in or by their vehicles, on their cellphones.<br>Quite separate. Thirty minutes, still no police. The Veit truck from<br>earlier--gone. I looked up the St. Paul Police non-emergency number,<br>called, and got the Ramsey County dipatcher, who said the police were<br>on their way. Ten minutes more passed, still no emergency response. I<br>re-dialed. The dispatcher answered and said she was going to put me on<br>hold! I kept talking. Couldn&#39;t believe that. Put me on hold. Just<br>then, the police car finally pulled up. I stuck around long enough to<br>make sure the sewer truck got into the report.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-9164846082427023763?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-81261049868623037312009-11-16T19:11:00.001-08:002009-11-16T19:11:09.787-08:00Twenty-sx degrees and it feels a lot colder than the recent time when<br>it was twenty-nine. Everything that might get frosty is. I feel the<br>cold in my head and my fingers. I have a band around my ears, but the<br>top of my head is exposed. (I lost the nice REI skull cap.) And my<br>fingers. I have been wearing a pair of Thinsulate driving gloves,<br>which until today had bee perfect.<p>But being outside at this time of day still feels great. The streets<br>are quiet, there are few cars. Like going back in history. How far<br>back would one have to go for there to be so little traffic? Probaby<br>forty or fifty years.<p>The bike ride from my house to the Selby-Western area is almost<br>entirely along Laurel Avenue, except for a jog to Summit and back<br>getting over Ayd Mill Road, and the turn north on Western. Laurel,<br>which reachs from the Mississippi on the west, near Shadow Falls, to<br>near the Cathedral of Saint Paul on the east, ends at Nina Street.<br>Nina was a woman who ran a brothel nearby.<p>The ride is like an archeological, geologic historic journey. I was<br>struck today by an old house, eighty years old at least, surrounded<br>left, right, and back, equally aged biuldings. Not just a hold out,<br>that house, but a long time hold out. The ride is like a passage<br>through a protracted, real-life Monopoly game. Slow motion Sim City.<br>Small houses give way to duplexes, then apartments. A few blocks oxer,<br>mansions. Nearby, the lesser homes of managers and professionals. All<br>atop 500 million years of bedrock, and punctuated with evidence of<br>thousands of years of human habitation.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8126104986862303731?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-57477588073126557932009-11-13T16:36:00.001-08:002009-11-13T16:36:43.550-08:00On my bike, rode to Nina&#39;s. Don&#39;t have a good reason for either riding<br>my bike this morning or for having come all the way over here, except<br>habit. I got started late, so I am skipping the YWCA. Could have<br>driven directly to work, but am not in that bg of a hurry to get<br>there.<p>Starting late has also meant that I have gotten caught up in queues--<br>traffic at intersections causing me to wait where I&#39;d usual not have<br>to; at the grocery store, where usually I feel like the only customer,<br>lines at the checkouts were two and three deep and there was a rare<br>call for another cashier; line was four, five deep at the coffee shop<br>counter, people coming in the door pretty regularily.<p>The definition of probability that I like: if it can happen, eventually it will.<p>Definitely cloudy this morning. Something has arrived. Warmer out this<br>morning then previous mornings by far--Yahoo says 50 degrees. I am<br>definitely over dressed. Just took off my outer felt layer, right<br>here, in front of (or behind) all. A bit expo.<p>Madeline and Enzo went to the Sadie Hawkins dance last night. Pretty<br>amazing, I said-- going to a dance, going to that dance, driving,<br>driving on the interstate to get there, the there being downtown St.<br>Paul, parking in a parking ramp, the whole thing at night, was<br>something I couldn&#39;t have pulled off at her age, probably coud never<br>have imagined it.<p>I was awake when they came in a little after midnight, and was<br>introduced to yet another new world, that of the after dance whatever<br>downstairs in my livingroom, my daughter. Now I am the parent upstairs<br>in bed.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5747758807312655793?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-72520440150165467372009-11-11T06:09:00.001-08:002009-11-11T06:09:40.455-08:00A listing of the contents of a vending at the YWCA that is across the<br>room from the elliptical trainers. It is the view from the elliptical<br>trainers.<p>Sour Punch<br>Cheez-it<br>Sun Chips<br>Potato Skins<br>Lays<br>Doritos<br>Animal Crackers<br>Cheetos<br>Goldfish<br>Snyders Pretzels<br>Snickers<br>M&amp;Ms<br>Twix<br>Reeses<br>Hershey<br>KitKat<br>Milky Way<br>Snackwells<br>Nutroll<br>3 Musketeers<br>Skittles<br>Butterfinger<br>Mounds<br>Nature Valley<br>Trail Mix<br>Chips Ahoy<br>Rice Krispie Treats<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7252044015016546737?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-12400348197974783062009-11-09T05:40:00.001-08:002009-11-09T05:40:34.318-08:00Up early this morning--4:00 AM-ish--to check on our servers--my<br>department&#39;s servers. Everything seems to have survived updates this<br>weekend by two other departments. The administrators of of the<br>database servers updated the clustering software, and the<br>administrators of the scheduling software updated that to a new<br>version.<p>Dorothea and I went to see District 9 this weekend. Dorothea&#39;s<br>distaste for the movie&#39;s violence has been seconded by a Facebook<br>friend. It will be interesting to chat with my co-worker who was so<br>enthusiastic about the movie that he and his whole family--kiddies and<br>all--saw it three times. Certainly the set designers and props people<br>got the techno junk right. We are all complicite. Be alert.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1240034819797478306?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-23265204021869528522009-11-06T05:48:00.001-08:002009-11-06T05:48:49.965-08:00Life seems to be a matter of distractions from confronting the gaping<br>existential maw of . . .well, don&#39;t know. Won&#39;t know until. . .when?<br>Till then, green grass and high tides, la Vida tranquil. What will be<br>the next distraction? Will it be benign or malignant, pregnant or<br>barren?<p>My current groove is biking to the YWCA in the morning, sitting at<br>Nina&#39;s for awhile, ( that&#39;s where I am now), writing a bit--thumb<br>typing on the old Tmobile Wing PDA that no longer functions as a phone<br>but has WiFi, a mechanical keyboard, and Microsoft Word Mobile, and<br>even editing. (Kazaaw bada bing--using spellchecker!)<p>While I was on the elliptical trainer at the YWCA, listening to a<br>podcast from KEXP, to a pretty much rap style song, there was a lick,<br>probably a sample, of a little piano run, Stevie Wonder-esque. And I<br>thought &quot;wouldn&#39;t it be great if I could notate that little lick?&quot; so<br>I could remember it? Ah! The App Store! Sure enough, there&#39;s a bunch<br>of stuff there. And so -- I downloaded so far: Grand Piano Lite and<br>NLogFree. The next question is whether I want to delve in, aware of<br>the risks of obsession and compulsion.<p>Saved by the bell. I need to trundle off to work.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2326520402186952852?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-58706097256379240242009-11-05T05:47:00.001-08:002009-11-05T05:47:05.318-08:00Online life. Pondering the the stuff I put online, and the virtually<br>eternal life of what I put online, my virtual self. Sort of like<br>outsourcing my life.<p>Deciding what is appropriate for where. What to tweet, facebook, blog,<br>flickr, and to whom. Of course, in the cases where we think we can<br>control who sees what, friends on facebook, blocked on twitter, public<br>or private on flickr, we are deluding ourselves. All the calculations<br>are for naught. Some innocuous update may come back to bite you. I say<br>picking a healthcare plan, or financial iad package for your kid, or<br>deciding between a cash balance or traditional pension, or becoming a<br>rocket scientist, is easier.<p>But the human urge to connect persists. People can have very real<br>personas online. Viverant personalities. In a sense, there is nothing<br>&quot;virtual&quot; about virtaul. It is still our life, still time spent; the<br>coal burning to provide electricity for the datacenters that are the<br>&quot;cloud,&quot; very much real. As is the techno junk containered to Africa<br>by the shipful. Oh well.<p>Long queues at Nina&#39;s counter today. I tried to sit it out, but<br>eventually joined in. I used the gift certificate for the first time.<br>Sure enough, the barista at the cash register dutifully wrote &quot;$2.31&quot;<br>on the back.<p>At first, by the way that she was holding the pen, I thought she was<br>left-handed, but realized that it was her right hand and elbow that<br>she was sticking out. I commented, and she responded, tiredly; heard<br>it before. Something about her mother being left-handed. I shared that<br>I tied my shoes weird because I had been taught by a lefty. She seemed<br>to find that mildly amusing.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5870609725637924024?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-75578025832588787192009-11-04T06:03:00.000-08:002009-11-04T06:04:01.419-08:00The coffee counter queue stays full. I sat down first and wrote a bit.<br>Coffee and a smoke, things that I was just reminded are not taken for<br>granted by all. I sat in the sauna this morning. Stll warm from that.<br>Two other guys my age in there too, both contractor types, talking not<br>only roofing, but a particular roof of a prominent building at the<br>corner of Selby and Snelling. I steamed them out. Such is shared<br>existence. Guess we&#39;d all be lonely otherwise, right?<p>Bought a Nina&#39;s gift certificate for myself, on which they will keep a<br>tally of my tab. This in an effort to reduce the number of times I use<br>my credit card. Credit card fees are a bad deal for small mechants.<br>Prepaying seems to be trend for me.<p>IRV voting was approved in Saint Paul by a relatively small margin on<br>a light voter turnout.<p>I sit at a table, vigilant, awaiting the refill of the half and half<br>carafe. Ah. brb.<p>Life--swirling flecks of dust and viruses. Dorothea texts me just<br>now--this is very real time--with &quot;what are we doing david?&quot; Dread.<br>That could be a light-hearted question. Could be something else. The<br>something else is what came to mind instantly. Old habits die hard. If<br>at all, really. Perhaps they just keep morphing and transforming.<p>Dorothea walks to St. Thomas and gets on the bus. I leave the coffee<br>shop to drive to work.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7557802583258878719?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-86079724835787050062009-11-03T16:17:00.001-08:002009-11-03T16:17:47.030-08:00Or about 100 words an hour. If I was a fast enough typist, wouldn&#39;t<br>take that long at all. Had a nice time with madeline driving over and<br>back from piano lesson. Actually I just went for a ride. It was the<br>clearest of bright moonlit nights. The moon seemed to be<br>extraordinarily bright. I wonder if my iPhone moon app has anything to<br>say about that. So here I am sitting in my desk chair in my cube with<br>my back turned to the world and thumb typing like mad, as mad as it<br>gets for me whoo hoo. So if I get one more line in here I think can<br>call it a 100 words.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8607972483578705006?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-16018808000879323482009-11-03T05:57:00.001-08:002009-11-03T05:57:05.459-08:00Election Day. For us here in Saint Paul, Far Siberia, an incumbent<br>mayor, establishment Democrat, versus a Republican-backed upstart,<br>Eva. And IRV: Instant Runoff Voting. A weird issue, but a way, it<br>seems, break the two party oligarchy.<p>Below freezing this morning: barely--29 degrees. On bike again. At<br>Nina&#39;s, skipping YWCA. Was disoriented by the morning light. I had<br>bought and got myself configured yesterday with high-powered bike<br>lights, and was simply anticipating darkness. Dawn instead. The real<br>test will be on the ride home tonight.<p>Distracted reading <a href="http://cracked.com">cracked.com</a> while eating my muffin, about the ten<br>worst places in the world to live. But now the muffin is consumed and<br>the coffee on the verge of being too chilled.<p>Quaker Men&#39;s group tonight. I am locked and loaded. Back to the<br>meetinghouse and the Grotto, which will undoubtedly look, after tens<br>of thousands of dollars sunk into remodeling the building, like the<br>dumpy basement room it has always been.<p>Oh yuck, the tone of this narrative is taking a nasty doenward turn.<br>Probably best if I just wrap up and head to work.<p>But wait--if you will. I must say that this is Day 3 of my<br>participation in nanowrimo--National Novel Writing Month. Goal is to<br>write 50,000 words during the month. 1,667 a day. So far I am on<br>track. The organization asks &quot;is it a novel?&quot; and answers &quot;if you say<br>it is.&quot; So, I am essentially writing whatever. But hey. . . . . .<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1601880800087932348?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-72362695762357289182009-11-02T20:43:00.001-08:002009-11-02T20:43:44.796-08:00Sitting in the cafeteria after consuming a fajita. This even though I<br>have brought a frozen dinner for lunch. I am weak. I just had the<br>thought in my head that a fajita was the thing to have. Bright blue<br>sky visible to the northwest out the window. The weather forcast seems<br>favorable for a week of biking to work. That would delay the<br>transition to the bus, maybe until next week. Listen to someone talk<br>about some project management thing. Funny to hear snippets of<br>techno-talk. On the one hand, sounds very familiar. On the other, I<br>really have no idea what they are talking about. Well, back to the<br>cube.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7236269576235728918?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-18817871994336861692009-11-02T20:36:00.001-08:002009-11-02T20:36:50.543-08:00Folding and slouching into a Nina&#39;s booth, 21As whirl behind me on <br>Selby, stones in David&#39;s sling. Day One of the rest of whatever comes <br>next. Whatever comes next. I expect it will have a somewhat familiar <br>quality. A soft, amoeba 3-d appearance. Death bed scenes.<p>Biking, 43 degrees, clear, light wind. YWCA, short meditation, <br>stretching, elliptical. Nina&#39; s, carrot muffin, coffee. Still riding <br>on the bubble of the fall time change. I am a bit overdressed for <br>sitting inside. Sign across the room in front of me, advert for the <br>Wednesday Socrates Club, &quot;why is the meaning of life so important to <br>our species?&quot; Makes me think &quot;The Secret of the Life of Brian.&quot; Dated <br>10/28/09. Thing, think, thought of the past.<p>A short while back, in a nearby town, a son, off his meds, shot and <br>killed his father. The father was my neighbor&#39;s brother. Also in the <br>news: a county sheriff reservist, was hit by a car and killed while <br>directing traffic. Age 57, Big Mike they called him, son of some folks <br>who&#39;d lived 50 years in the house across the street from us, until <br>recently moving out to an apartment. Those folks, husband and wife, <br>are big people, so as they are noticeable, periodically driving by in <br>their minivan to look at their old house,<p>Late on Halloween night, looking out our bedroom window across the <br>street, towards Big Mike&#39;s childhood home, we saw a nonhuman Mohican <br>standing in the street for a disconcertingly long time, talking into <br>the open driver&#39;s side windows of parked cars and cars that came by <br>and stopped mid- street.<p>Just about to move on from coffee shop, and in comes Tony. Chatted <br>briefly, and went on with our days.<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1881787199433686169?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-86434689807010791082009-11-01T06:24:00.001-08:002009-11-01T06:24:50.748-08:00Listening to Audio Dharma podcast, Equanimity and Investigation. The <br>teacher raises a good point in a comparison of thoughts and thinking. <br>He uses the story of seeing a pickup truck with a blue tarp over the <br>back, of instantly getting the thought that there&#39;s a dead body in <br>back of that truck, under the tarp. He had no control over his brain <br>generating that thought. The brain just creates thoughts, that is what <br>it does. It is the thinking you do about the thoughts that gets you in <br>trouble. Also, the thoughts that come up, we invest them with meaning <br>and value--good and bad-- which feeds the thought process. Not that <br>thoughts and thinking are bad; sometimes we need to think, certainly; <br>but most thoughts-- perhaps we&#39;d be better off ignoring,<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8643468980701079108?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-34840417696199240272009-10-31T06:58:00.001-07:002009-10-31T06:58:34.943-07:00At Nina&#39;s. After leaving home. Leaving. That is what I do. Especially<br>in the morning. I get up and I leave. Except lately I have been<br>getting, doing other stuff, and then leaving.<p>Just got done futzing with a Facebook app, Simplaris Blogcast, which<br>says that it will post my blog updates to Facebook. We&#39;ll see about<br>that.<p>At Nina&#39;s, was hailed by Megan, my neighbor. Don&#39;t see each other much<br>in real life anymore, just via Facebook updates.<p>Liam babysat last night for her son Cadin. Liam escorted him across<br>the street to a neighborhood Halloween party, and two hours later,<br>went back to pick him up. But there was a problem because they<br>couldn&#39;t open the door to Cadin&#39;s house. So they came over and got me.<br>The door was a challenge to open.<p>So, the mom, Megan, was sitting at a table at Nina&#39;s with another<br>woman, Ann. They were doing a hockey mom waiting thing. Ann&#39;s and<br>Megan&#39;s sons went to school with my son, Liam, till Liam left the<br>French Immersion school after fifth grade. It has been years since I<br>set up a playdate with Liam and Ann&#39;s son.<p>So next is go home, schlep Liam to his guitar lesson, and then later,<br>out to Eagan for a Halloween sleep over.<p>Pissed off Dorothea because I was asleep when it was time to pick up<br>Lou, our German foreign exchange student, from her school dance last<br>night.<br>So I will be doing the running around today.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3484041769619924027?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-78654781720784796782009-10-31T06:56:00.001-07:002009-10-31T06:56:46.725-07:00At Nina&#39;s. After leaving home. Leaving. That is what I do. Especially<br>in the morning. I get up and I leave. Except lately I have been<br>getting, doing other stuff, and then leaving.<p>Just got done futzing with a Facebook app, Simplaris Blogcast, which<br>says that it will post my blog updates to Facebook. We&#39;ll see about<br>that.<p>At Nina&#39;s, was hailed by Megan, my neighbor. Don&#39;t see each other much<br>in real life anymore, just via Facebook updates.<p>Liam babysat last night for her son Cadin. Liam escorted him across<br>the street to a neighborhood Halloween party, and two hours later,<br>went back to pick him up. But there was a problem because they<br>couldn&#39;t open the door to Cadin&#39;s house. So they came over and got me.<br>The door was a challenge to open.<p>So, the mom, Megan, was sitting at a table at Nina&#39;s with another<br>woman, Ann. They were doing a hockey mom waiting thing. Ann&#39;s and<br>Megan&#39;s sons went to school with my son, Liam, till Liam left the<br>French Immersion school after fifth grade. It has been years since I<br>set up a playdate with Liam and Ann&#39;s son.<p>So next is go home, schlep Liam to his guitar lesson, and then later,<br>out to Eagan for a Halloween sleep over.<p>Pissed off Dorothea because I was asleep when it was time to pick up<br>Lou, our German foreign exchange student, from her school dance last<br>night.<br>So I will be doing the running around today.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7865478172078479678?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-75409721155712773632009-10-30T17:25:00.001-07:002009-10-30T17:25:31.437-07:00Dressed for biking this morning, but it is drizzling, so I am on the<br>bus. 84H, so I will get off at Highland Village. Originally thought I<br>would bike to the YWCA and Nina&#39;s.<p>It has been drizzling or lightly rainy here for days, which has gotta<br>be good for the planet, but does get just sort of downright miserable.<p>On the way home on the bus, this woman gets on, wearing one of those<br>clear-plastic kerchiefs on her head, and on in a loud voice--&quot;why do<br>we have to have this kind of weather? I hate it. I hate it. Why can&#39;t<br>we have Miami weather?&quot; kind of cute this first time or two, but just<br>too loud and lost its charm after a while. The driver seemed pretty<br>accustomed. &quot;It&#39;s God,&quot; he said. &quot;Say your prayers. People can&#39;t do<br>nothin about the weather.&quot;<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7540972115571277363?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-63763877038010218962009-10-29T18:30:00.001-07:002009-10-29T18:30:08.276-07:00Having a little discussion with Lou about not pronouncing her &quot;R&quot;s as<br>&quot;W&quot;s. She is sitting at the diningroom table, at her laptop withits<br>Deutsch keyboard, writing a story, in German for some online contest.<p>Dorothea and I walked in the rain to yoga at Ramsey Junior High.<br>Kitty, the instructor, told the story of how cat of fifteen years was<br>retiring to Florida. An aunt there will take the cat. The cat had to<br>go because Kitty&#39;s grandson, who lives with her, is allergic.<p>The cat&#39;s flight was scheduled to arrived Florida while we were in<br>class. Right in the middle of a sun salutation, Kitty asked if she<br>could use someone&#39;s phone. Fall asleep in Minnesota, wake up in<br>Florida, permanently. Doesn&#39;t sound so bad.<p>Frustrated with writing on the iPhone. I charged up the &#39;ol T-mobile<br>Wing, with its ample, mechanical keyboard. It is no longer a<br>functioning phone, but otherwise is working, and does have wireless.<br>And, to be honest, I like using the little pen-pointer thingy.<p>Also, it is a real computer. Several programs running at the same<br>time. Java and Adobe Flash. Mmmmm.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6376387703801021896?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-20184849821667893902009-10-11T08:26:00.001-07:002009-10-11T08:26:58.713-07:00Still looking for a good way to get text into the iPhone as quickly as <br>typing. While this handwriting software is amazing, it is still<br>slower and somewhat error-prone.<p>31 degrees F this morning. Walking the dog was also an exercise in <br>empty beer bottle and can pick up. College students.<p>We are still without heat at our house. Well, we have heat, but it is <br>coming out of plugged-in electrical space heaters. On Friday, I <br>thought we finally had the heat problem licked when the furnace guy <br>showed up, with the part, and actually installed the part, on the <br>furnace. But alas, the next problem appeared, a leak in a pipe. I <br>have calls out to two plumbers. A little hardship is not necessarily a <br>bad thing, but even a little hardship opens the door to thoughts of <br>total collapse. A spiritual, psychological, physical exercise.<p>Today is the Twins game Liam and I put so much effort into for <br>getting tickets. Go Twins. Please.<p><p>-- This message was composed with PhatWare WritePad.<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2018484982166789390?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-43195603288981791782009-09-09T05:50:00.000-07:002009-09-09T05:51:06.832-07:00Hello world. How are you doing? I am trying to write using the iPhone <br>WritePad. It is slow going. Might be faster to type. How to make a <br>period would be good to know.<br>:<br>Oh well. The keyboard might be best for periods.<br>.<br>I got up this morning about 3:30 which for me was a good night&#39;s <br>sleep. Messed around until I got myself together. Andro Gel, <br>Phentramine, vitamins. Got dressed in bike clothes. Biked to the YWCA. <br>This was the first tine in a long time. Ironically both studios had <br>classes so I just stretched and Came over to Nina&#39;s. Here I have been <br>distracted wilt this WritePad app.<p>Time for me to move on.<p>-- This message was composed with PhatWare WritePad.<p><br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><br><a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidschons">www.twitter.com/davidschons</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/davidschons">www.facebook.com/davidschons</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4319560328898179178?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-73659717961154563922009-09-03T06:02:00.001-07:002009-09-03T06:02:48.072-07:00At Nina&#39;s. Thinking I&#39;d jot a note and have some coffee. The line at <br>the counter is long though. And I realized that because i am on my <br>bike, I&#39;d have to finish it but don&#39;t feel i have the time. I grabbed <br>a Naked Juice and sat down. Illicit.<p>Love illicit.<p>I&#39;ll pay for it now.<p>This time of year is generally the anniversary of Tomas&#39;s death, it <br>was late Friday early Saturday of Labor Day weekend.<p>Beauty, Holly, Dorothea, and I are going to do the Common Ground full <br>moon walk.<p><br>Sent from my iPhone<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7365971796115456392?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-73037920649253798472009-07-29T21:12:00.001-07:002009-07-29T21:12:08.981-07:00<div><br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>Begin forwarded message:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><b>From:</b> David Schons &lt;<a href="mailto:david.schons@gmail.com">david.schons@gmail.com</a>&gt;<br><b>Date:</b> July 29, 2009 11:10:35 PM CDT<br><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:david.schons@gmail.com"><a href="mailto:david.schons@gmail.com">david.schons@gmail.com</a></a><br><b>Subject:</b> <b>Monday, at Madeline's urging, we went to the AT&amp;T store. Our</b><br><br></div></blockquote><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>Monday, at Madeline's urging, we went to the AT&amp;T store. Our two- year contract with T-mobile has been up since April. She wanted Verizon because they had a phone she liked. I wanted an iPhone, a Pre, or at least an Android, none of which were top be had at Verizon.</span><br><span></span><br><span>T-mobile doesn't work with my employer's paging. (I have realized, however, that i probably don't want top get work pages on my personal cellphone, anyway?)</span><br><span></span><br><span>The Palm Pre odds with Sprint, and I've heard bad things about their service.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Oh, T-mobile has the Android. See the paging note above.</span><br><span></span><br><span>That left the AT&amp;T/Apple cabal. I am at their mercy.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Madeline ended up loving her phone, a Nokia of some sort or other. Liam loves Dorothea's.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Me, I was thinking of the whole enchilatta, the 32 GB S, but they didn't have black in stock. So, I did not get to eat the whole marshmallow. Not yet.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Now, I have to figure out what to do with the itouch I bought a few months ago?</span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span>Sent from my iPhone</span><br></div></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7303792064925379847?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-25566119436373706752009-07-26T08:51:00.001-07:002009-07-26T08:51:12.475-07:00I am at Nina&#39;s. Bright-sunny, beautifully cool morning. I have done my<br>YWCA thing--stretched, meditated, lifted, ellipticalled.<p>Tomorrow, my fate is back to work. My week long vacatio ends. Much<br>will have changed in my work world. A consultant started last<br>Monday--a contractor via our vendor, basically. This week, another<br>vendor will be in for a three-day proof-of-concept. (Their tool finds<br>memory leaks--it has probably been memory leaks that have been at the<br>root of our misery for these last several months.)<p>I return to being oncall. I am the lead to get another new product<br>working for our code deployments and version control. (At least I<br>think I am the lead.) And, it is my turn for the pesky quarterly<br>disaster recovery exercise.<p>But for now, it is ogling whatever it is that I can find to ogle<br>coming in the door. Oogle, maybe?<p>D. And M. are coming to the Y. I am contemplating a bike ride. Not<br>terribly imaginative. I am sort of reluctant. I started snorting<br>Nasonex about a week ago for hay fever allergies. Now thinking I<br>should suppliment with Claritin. It would be classic to go for a ride<br>and to thereby get totally allergy wiped out.<p>The RAGBRAI 2009 is now history, but spiritually lives on. I am<br>currently dressed in some of the hundreds of dollars of biking clothes<br>I bought for the event.<p>Last nihgt at about 2:00 AM, the Molasses Asses bus form Shenandoah,<br>IA pulled up to and stopped at the house next door. And, I saw and<br>took a picture of that bus ths morning. It was parked around the<br>corner. Tried posting it to Twitpic, though didn&#39;t seem to work.<p>Pictures of the bike ride in general are to be found at the website of<br>The Destination Moines Register. I posted photos SomeKindaPossible on<br>Flickr.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2556611943637370675?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-8834393595998591022009-06-27T14:25:00.001-07:002009-06-27T14:25:17.114-07:00Just when I&#39;d usually get up, a thunder storm came through, and I<br>lingered in bed. Thinking that blue sky and sun would appear in the<br>storm&#39;s wake, I got up and put on my bike garb. The rain, however,<br>continued to tinkle, so I drove to the Y dressed for biking.<p>Now, sitting at Nina&#39;s, looking out thw window at blue sky and sunshine.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-883439359599859102?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-63867686799851676492009-06-16T17:18:00.001-07:002009-06-16T17:18:44.292-07:00Quaker Men&#39;s Group night? Not sure, since I don&#39;t see an email <br>reminder. Oh well. Very pleasant sitting on the front porch, listening <br>to the sound of the rainfall.<p>M. and Stella are here too. M. is reading a book, &quot;Swapping Lives,&quot; -- <br>&quot;An older lady book, but I like it,&quot; she says.<p>D. and Liam are at his soccer game. Very wet indeed. Apparently, no <br>lightening was close enough for to get the game canceled. Hopefully, <br>getting wet playing soccer was as pleasant for him (and D.) as getting <br>wet biking home was for me.<p>I am using the app Writingpad, and that is going okay, only mildly <br>frustrating. True test will be if I can copy/ paste to the blog. Here <br>goes.<p><br>Sent from my iPod<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6386768679985167649?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-5849037027931299242009-06-15T16:43:00.000-07:002009-06-15T16:57:38.195-07:00I have been biking as much as possible lately. This means that I am getting deeper into concerns about biking paraphernalia, specifically: paraphernalia as relates to clothing. As such, I have noted that other bikers are wearing more fluorescent green this year. Vests, pants, even gloves. In fact, I was quite taken with the idea of glowing green gloves, and made a mental note to look for some. My gloves, black gloves, were getting ratty, and I decided to buy a new pair, black, when I saw gloves at Express Bikes while waiting for a repair. Not only did I space out the dream of fluorescent green gloves-- I proceeded to lose the new pair. Or so I thought, until I understood that what I had was one of the new and one of the old gloves. I didn't get the green. And, not only did I lose a pair, I actually lost one of each. How'd I do that?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-584903702793129924?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-6219456852634497622009-06-08T07:56:00.001-07:002009-06-08T07:56:12.798-07:00Watched the end of the movie Wall Street last night. People were<br>smoking at their desks, not fastened seatbelts in cars, looking at<br>small green monochrome screens that were not in cubicles, talking on<br>cellphones as big as WW II walkie talkies.<p>Those phones were huge in status as well as size. Not shown in the<br>movie, but as I remember it, those original cellphones required that<br>you lugged around a suitcase full of electronics.<p>Twenty years later, we&#39;re a bunch of non-smoking seatbelters with<br>&quot;Beam me up Scottie&quot;-size communicators.<p>Such is the pace of positive change. Such is what I hang my hopes on.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-621945685263449762?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-68956347631656737262009-06-07T19:43:00.000-07:002009-06-07T19:54:47.573-07:00Just got off the phone with Tmobile support. They will be sending me my fourth Wing replacement in two years. The math is looking pretty ugly on this. ("The Wing" is a Windows Mobile PDA, made by HTC.) Is it time to go to an iPhone? Less than two weeks ago, I bought an iTouch from BestBuy, figuring the Wing would survive longer. Wrong. Especially a bummer since I was counting on using the Wing to submit updates to the blog. Second cold and rainy day in a row, and there's more on the way. But I don't think anyone here is too upset, since we really have been dry--global-warming-is-looming dry. Hard on the local outdoor festival, Grand Old Days, but that's the way it goes. As usual, I vaguely remember having some brilliant ideas earlier for this update, but, of course, have forgot them. So, if anyone is reading this, welcome to me dragging you through my writer's block. I am sure that I will think of brilliant and exciting things in the future, and capture them here.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6895634763165673726?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-50724039278682931122009-06-06T07:24:00.001-07:002009-06-06T07:24:16.854-07:00By cracky, if I can&#39;t keep a promise to myself to start blogging again. . .<p>Twitter is like one of those old intense merry-go-rounds, the small<br>ones, for two or three people standing up. True lesson in physics.<p>I am on way to pick up car from shop. Liam&#39;s guitar recital is later<br>this morning. (Er, &quot;pizza party.&quot;)<p>This type of writing, the greater than 140 characters at a time kind,<br>is more like sitting alone on one of those big merry-go-rounds, gently<br>pushing along with one foot.<p>So, the weather: we gotta a drought here. Lawns brown, lake levels<br>down, streams piddling. Rain in forecast next couple of days. Raining<br>now.<p>After I finish my coffee here at Caribou, the rest of my walk--I&#39;ll get wet.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5072403927868293112?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-1740436265954989092009-06-03T10:23:00.000-07:002009-06-03T10:24:45.006-07:00Test to see if I set up Twitterfeed correctly<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-174043626595498909?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-45537936075864835912009-06-03T08:38:00.001-07:002009-06-03T08:38:13.940-07:00At the YWCA. Finished meditating. That sounds pretty pathetic. Maybe<br>for fifteen minutes I went. Is one ever done meditating?<p>Quite tired. Was up til 12:30 AM. Watched Tom Hanks on Conan, Steve<br>Martin and Paul Simon on Fallon. I got to that point because I wasn&#39;t<br>quite ready to go to bed earlier. I was kind of drifting<br>aimlessly--Twitter, frig, newspaper-- when the phone rang about 10:30.<br>I dread late night phone calls. But it was Madeline, wanting to get<br>picked up after playing in the band at Saint Paul Central&#39;s<br>graduation.<p>It was one year ago, during the 2008 graduation, that Barack Obama<br>gave his victory speech next door at the Xcel Center.<p>I was thinking about all this while sitting on a balance ball in the<br>YWCA&#39;s Selby studio, looking out the window across Western Avenue, at<br>the rear of the College of Visual Arts and Costello&#39;s Bar, I saw a man<br>painting strips on the parking lot. Not only did the yellow paint glow<br>in the morning sunlight, but so did the yellow machine the he was<br>usung to paint the lines. Great photo. Harold and crayonesque. Curious<br>George.<p>Taking my cellphone, I headed over there. Out the opposite side of the<br>building, round to Selby, across Western, through the parking lot.<br>There the guy was, standing over by his truck,, smoking a cigarette,<br>his yellow machine no where in sight. He was done.<p>I accidently took a picture of his boots.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4553793607586483591?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-91246568769239797352009-04-20T18:27:00.000-07:002009-04-20T18:31:34.577-07:00<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="http://twittercounter.com/remote/?username_owner=davidschons&users_id=2799139&width=200&nr_show=6&hr_color=cccccc&a_color=709cb2"></script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-9124656876923979735?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-89586763926184077332009-04-04T09:57:00.001-07:002009-04-04T09:57:10.635-07:004/2/09<p>7:35 pM<p>Retreated to my room. A pair of Willie Nelson look-a-likes struck up a<br>conversation. Good for them. But I am not into it. Passing through<br>Yorba Linda. Now it is dark. The first one, straw cowboy hat and<br>enormous silver belt buckle (more than half as wide as his waist) put<br>a CD from a CD wallet into a CD player, took off his hat, put on<br>headphones, put his hat back, threw away his empty Bud, and burped as<br>he walked past me on his way back to sit down. Likes riding the train,<br>apparently. He and the other Willie think Amtrak employees are mean.<br>No. 1, by way of explaining what he was listening too (country),<br>overed the he didn&#39;t download music, didn&#39;t even have computer,<br>quipped that he five thousand friends on Facebook. Oh well. Good for<br>him.<p>7:22 PM<p>In the lounge car to be frank pretty grossed by burping drunk men in<br>front of me and behind.<p>And now that I am set to write something, can&#39;t think of anything.<br>7:30 PM. Something will come to me. The burping again. I am out of<br>here.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8958676392618407733?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-69278691918806100152009-04-03T07:48:00.001-07:002009-04-03T07:48:56.423-07:00Dinner last night was two intially very ugly women across from me and<br>the guy with the Casey Jones hat next to me. (Hat doffed for dinner.)<br>He didn&#39;t say much. Turned out the women were mother and daughter.<br>Mother&#39;s 94 and name Dionica. I hope got that spelling right. Going<br>back to Albuquerque<br>for a last visit from Riverside, California where the daughter lives<br>and the mother is in a nursing home.<p>We all had shown up at the dining car for our 8:15 seating<br>reservation, but they weren&#39;t ready, and the stewart tried to send the<br>women back. They came when they did because the train was stopped so<br>Dionica&#39;d have a chance.<p>The daughter was way beyond haggered, was missing front teeth. But<br>Dionica with her still red hair, looked quite content.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6927869191880610015?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-14606773550561394732009-02-27T07:26:00.000-08:002009-03-01T07:29:29.086-08:00<div style="text-align: left; padding: 3px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/somekindapossible/3297554024/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3547/3297554024_06a131ef1d.jpg" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" alt="" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/somekindapossible/3297554024/">tomas_bernice_leo</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/somekindapossible/">David2004</a>.</span></div><p>I thought I had lost Dorothea's inheritance. She had deposited check. I went to ING Direct to move. Happened to see a $19 charge in the checking account for a returned check. Wasn't adding up for sure. But, I was looking, and the money was nowhere to be found. Turns out she put it in savings, and we've got ING Direct set up to take from checking when we request a transfer. Oops.<br /><br />But that gave new meaning to this picture, as in who's in the picture and their expressions. Thomas, Bernice, Leo. They're who the money came from, and they're all dead, and it is like they are wordlessly saying, "Dude,...."</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1460677355056139473?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-55593356410181865182009-02-25T20:46:00.001-08:002009-02-25T20:46:37.617-08:00Doinking around, a la OCD. I have discovered a todo Google gadget that<br>I rather like, that I can see at work. So, I sez to myself, if I were<br>to see it on the PDA as well, I&#39;d have complete coverage. But nooo,<br>not that simple. Doesn&#39;t show in mobile iGoogle. Than, ah ha, the<br>gadget is embeddable. I created a subdomain and page on<br>schons.net--but the gadget isn&#39;t visible. On Madeline&#39;s iTouch?<br>Visible. Found and installed Iris browser. (Wasn&#39;t that easy.) instant<br>presto! I can now use the organizetodo gadget on my pda.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5559335641018186518?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-48380749777770935772009-02-23T10:37:00.001-08:002009-02-23T10:37:51.234-08:00Crisp, subzero blue-sky February morning. Waiting for bus.<p>At 5th and Cedar looking north, bus roofs at the bottom of the hill in<br>the near distance, towards Metro State, in the far distance, on crest<br>of the Mississippi River valley, realizing that none of the modern<br>buildings or facades in the vista were present in the streetcar days,<br>I turn around to see the 1890&#39;s Landmark Center and the 1919 Hamm<br>Buikding.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4838074977777093577?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-75427785580439337232009-02-17T07:12:00.000-08:002009-03-01T17:17:13.647-08:00So, it comes to this--so many candles, it sets off the smoke alarm. (Ah, well, it should have, but didn't.)<p/> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SaqmfMHA1sI/AAAAAAAAABc/PMUo6HsVSZg/s1600-h/IMG_2102.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SaqmfMHA1sI/AAAAAAAAABc/PMUo6HsVSZg/s320/IMG_2102.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308238165566346946" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7542778558043933723?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-22206463260843964842009-02-10T16:28:00.001-08:002009-02-10T16:28:23.202-08:00Back at it. Started a twitter account, yet that is insubstantial. So<br>is this, too, probably.<p>On the phone today with my mother&#39;s nursing home nurse, and with my<br>sister, the power of attorney gal. Arrangements had been made, and my<br>mom had agreed, to have someone come in once a week, change her<br>sheets, change the hearing aid batteries. When they came today,<br>though, she didn&#39;t let the person do either. Time for a drug holiday.<p>Was confronted this morning with water on the floor in the basement.<br>One-hundred year-old house that we&#39;ve been in for ten years, and this<br>is a first, though the portion of the basement wall with the seepage<br>was noted as a trouble spot when we bought house. The parts of the<br>yard that aren&#39;t bare are now pooled water on top of ice. Took a<br>&quot;house sick&quot; day and worked from home.<p>Speaking of work, management is working on a plan to cut costs 5%.<br>Either a 5% pay cut (most likely) or two weeks of unpaid vacation<br>(that sounds better)--and then they lay people off.<p>So all of the above sort of woes, plus approaching 50th--and the<br>children were wondering why I was so crabby.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2220646326084396484?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-42221302029635913022008-09-26T08:21:00.001-07:002008-09-26T08:21:24.827-07:009/26/08<p>At Nina&#39;s. First time in a long time. I totally skipped August . The<br>coffee shop is hopping laptops on tables are like--I don&#39;t know what.<br>People texting away on their cellphones. Two older guys trying to help<br>each other figure ring volume and how to assign different alerts to<br>emails.<p>This cellphone is a replacement I got a few weeks ago for the T-mobile<br>Wing whose speaker had died. I just now got my connectivity again so<br>that I can post from here to Blogspot.<p>I have been making a sporadic effort to post some pictures on Some<br>Kinda Possible. Need to do a card for Dorothea. The birthday note that<br>I sent her while she was at camp with Liam never got to her.<p>My manager gave me and two of my colleagues the day off. We all have<br>been working early and late, weekends. Thursday was a successful<br>conversion to an upgrades database. Usually a weekend sort of thing,<br>it was forced through late at night because our DBA was to be on<br>vacation.<p>The other thing that I am interested in is getting copies of building<br>permits for our house.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4222130202963591302?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-13053535378913291532008-07-24T05:32:00.001-07:002008-07-24T05:32:24.575-07:007/24/08<p>Brewberry&#39;s. I haven&#39;t sat to write in a coffee shop for awhile--quite<br>awhile. For one thing, I have mostly been off coffee since April; just<br>starting again now with the occasional decaf.<p>One thing that occurred to me as I was biking was that if I want write<br>regularly, I may need go back to the coffee shop scene. I could drink<br>tea. But idea of going somewhere else besides home to do something<br>works. The question is how to work it in.<p>This morning is a bit like a mini-vacation. I got up at the usual time<br>and did the usual things, including biking to work, though with a<br>slight variation. Biked along the river road to Hidden Falls-Crosby<br>Farms-I 35E and then along Shepard Road to work.<p>I was in early, before six. I was there to get the phone number of<br>notary who was to come to our house for a closing on a refinance. Last<br>evening, Dorothea and I were going over the faxed summary documents<br>that I had gotten earlier in the day. I was expressing my misgivings.<br>She had lots of questions. Plus, the magnitude of her and Madeline<br>leaving today for the last two days of the Rag Brie was just catching<br>up with her. Her suggestion: postpone. So that is what I did from the<br>phone in my cube--leave a message on Notary Joe&#39;s cellphone. It was<br>about 6:30 AM.<p>I am interested in the notion of getting energized to write because of<br>the men&#39;s group I am in. Time will tell.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1305353537891329153?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-54026942628305780402008-07-05T08:53:00.001-07:002008-07-05T08:53:44.317-07:007/5/08<p>Sitting on a bench at Mounds Park, littered with garbage on the Fifth<br>of July, listening to a podcast of Seymour Hersch on Fresh Air,<br>railing rightly so against Dick Cheney&#39;s expansion of the war into<br>Iraq, I find myself, paradoxically, an advocate of a stronger<br>executive. I don&#39;t think we&#39;ll see our way out of our current problems<br>without it.<p>Last night we went to the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum.<br>Sadly disappointing. Afterwards, a beer at Great Waters held us over<br>to watching the fireworks from the sidewalk by the downtown power<br>plant. That was spectacular. (The Taste of Minnesota has new owners<br>who&#39;re trying to make an impression.) noticeably multi-ethnic crowd.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5402694262830578040?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-32737068592513437102008-06-26T19:52:00.000-07:002008-12-11T01:20:56.683-08:00<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZTqyCgWwI/AAAAAAAAAAk/bV9rhjs7kZE/s1600-h/IMAGE_237e.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216949212807191298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZTqyCgWwI/AAAAAAAAAAk/bV9rhjs7kZE/s320/IMAGE_237e.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZTrOMx6JI/AAAAAAAAAAs/fAT7_X0eMKQ/s1600-h/IMAGE_245e.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216949220366477458" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZTrOMx6JI/AAAAAAAAAAs/fAT7_X0eMKQ/s320/IMAGE_245e.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZScXlPpuI/AAAAAAAAAAc/Tndj6_WZwtg/s1600-h/IMAGE_245e.jpg"></a> <div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZR6wb7YVI/AAAAAAAAAAU/OG-9Gvb8BHM/s1600-h/IMAGE_245e.jpg"></a> <div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DYCZExPJ-uo/SGZRuSa2W7I/AAAAAAAAAAM/0c0OG7Caucs/s1600-h/IMAGE_237e.jpg"></a> <div>What a splendiferous day. You couldn't ask for a better summer day. Liam just got on first. Last time up, he drew a walk. Pretty good, considering that he was afraid of the Spider's 70 mile an hour pitcher. Now he just scored a run.</div> <div> I left for a bike ride about 3:00. Dorothea was to leave at 4:00 with her book club for a four-day trip to Ely. Liam was over at a friend's. Madeline was at the public pool. </div> <div> I stopped to watch the 35W bridge construction. The fellow who is doing the oil painting was there. The construction crew was just preparing for the crane to lift one of the large sections. I got pictures of both. </div> <div> The painting is realist. Bur even though the scene that he was creating was faithful and accurate and beautiful, it totally left out the crane and the concrete section.</div> <div> Now, Liam's team has taken the field but he's on the bench, so I don't feel guilty writing. Sure haven't written much lately.</div> <div></div> <div>After the 35W bridge, I headed for the Cedar Lake trail and Lak Calhoun. I wasn't paying correct attention to the time when I got a call from Liam. 5:20. I needed to get home, which I did at 6:10. Late. He was very gracious.</div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3273706859251343710?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-64388904863754415482008-05-26T04:46:00.000-07:002009-02-21T05:48:34.686-08:00<div>Last night, I horrified myself. Returned from a bike ride of the bridges with Madeline and Dorothea. (Our house to Ford Parkway Bridge to Minnehaha Falls to Lake Street Bridge.) And, back in the basement, was fiddling with the dual display that I had gotten working between the laptop and the new flat screen. I did something whereby I lost the ability to control the screens. Ah, horror. </div> <div> </div> <div>This morning, I disconnected the laptop from everything and rebooted. When I plugged the flat screen back in, voila!, it worked. And better than before, in that I got the behavior that I was really looking for--just the laptop display on the 20 inch monitor. So, I can plug the keyboard, mouse, and monitor into the laptop, close the lid, and forget about it.</div> <div> </div> <div>I know this stuff is boring. But at least it is getting me back into the blog mode.</div> <div> </div> <div>There are pictures (of trip to D.C., of Liam's birthday, Mother's Day, the Mayday parade, etc. at <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/somekindapossible/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/somekindapossible/</a>.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6438890486375441548?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-35438993611744521482008-05-25T05:48:00.000-07:002008-05-25T06:39:34.350-07:00I am at a PC. A PC in the basement, no less. So, the blogging is not so mobile today. There are lots of things that I haven't gotten to. The most immediate, though, is that I bought a flatscreen for the 3rd computer. I have the laptop connected. Tired of sitting at the dining room table with the laptop. Now, though, I am in the TV room with the children. Different experience. Also, I am pretty sure that I want to go ahead and move to Blogger. When my domain name was up earlier this year, I was emotionally ready to give it up, but was not technically ready to do so. The next time it comes around, either I will be ready to give it up, or, schons.net will not be my blog address, but it will be my web address. I just dragged a bunch of pictures to Flickr. The pictures extend from the Mayday parade to the D.C. trip.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3543899361174452148?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-43617747992039456892008-05-07T16:28:00.001-07:002008-05-07T16:28:36.123-07:005/7/08<p>Sitting on the couch of the front porch. Gorgeous nice day. The birch<br>tree is beginning to bud. Last Sunday we finally put the patio<br>furniture out on the back deck. Haven&#39;t had to mow yet, but will soon.<p>Fairview Avenue is turning into my favorite, translucent green tunnel.<br>Dorothea has ridden her bike to work twice already. I have done the<br>bridges once. Yesterday, however, Dorothea had ridden her bicycle to<br>work, and it was raining in the afternoon. I thought it likely that I<br>would have to go and pick her up. But she ended up riding home anyway.<p>I think I will doze until it is time to take Liam to his second weekly<br>baseball practice.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4361774799203945689?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-8591640758244387142008-04-29T05:41:00.001-07:002008-04-29T05:41:10.569-07:007:33 AM, sitting at Nina&#39;s, waiting for my tea to steep, killing time<br>so that I don&#39;t eat my bar until 8:00. This marks a week without<br>coffee. Day 7 of Medifast. To food and eating what I imagine methadone<br>is to heroin and addiction. The sun is out--a rare occurrence of late.<br>I don&#39;t have much more focus. Tea done.<p>Just sunk in--this place is deserted.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-859164075824438714?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-65467888621901305252008-04-26T07:00:00.001-07:002008-04-26T07:00:14.716-07:0011:34 PM last night, phone rings. Nurse from Country Manor, Diane,<br>says that my mom fell in her bathroom and pulled the cord, that my<br>mom&#39;s blood pressure was 240 over something, and she wanted to send my<br>mom to the emergency room. Okay. Diane was using a cellphone, and sh<br>said that my mother probably wouldn&#39;t be able to hear me. She<br>couldn&#39;t. Kept saying &quot;I can&#39;t hear you.&quot; Writing down the number for<br>the St. Cloud Hospital ER.<p>I got called because my sister barb didn&#39;t answer her phone. I<br>called--busy. Eventually we had several conversations, both called the<br>ER. Consultations with Dorothea. Many. Lying awake. Contemplating<br>driving to St. Cloud. But that was before I knew about the<br>weather--late-season blizzard to the north and west.<p>Waited an hour to give the ambulance to get there. Mom alert and<br>oriented. Several hours of tests. Then waited for Barb to call with an<br>update. About four, she did, saying the mom was sent home on a &quot;care<br>cab,&quot; with meds for dizziness and a bruised knee.<p>Now what? (From the Honda in Y parking lot.)<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6546788862190130525?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-66427186644742447612008-04-24T16:18:00.000-07:002008-04-24T16:19:00.125-07:00On with a sweater and out to the porch to listen to the rain. Home<br>from work. Awaiting Dorothea who&#39;s picking up from Kim&#39;s Chow Mien.<br>This is a first.<p>There was a big storm a few days ago. It was Monday, because I drove<br>Madeline to her violin lesson. Piano lesson--excuse me. She hasn&#39;t<br>played violin for five years.<p>There was a honkin&#39; cold front came through. Temp dropped from 80&#176; F<br>to 50&#176; F. Moderately heavy rain by the time we got to Lake Calhoun.<br>Just enough rain and night so that I did not like driving. It was as<br>low moving system, such that when we got back over here, it wasn&#39;t<br>raining, hardly at all. After bedtime, though, cut loose--thunder,<br>lightening, hail. But it wasn&#39;t threatening like a summer. Maybe<br>because it was cold, or that the lightening and thunder were far away.<br>But no; I think the lightening was pretty close.<p>We&#39;re supposed to get an inch of snow tomorrow.<p>Day Two of Medifast. I have done my five meals today, and will make a<br>hamburger patty and salad for dinner. So far, the night before I have<br>made a shake with Liam&#39;s Bullet blender, picked out four other<br>packets--soups, oatmeal, pudding--and pack all in a lunchbox. Shakes<br>and pudding seem like they&#39;d be best at home. Want to take bars for<br>quick breakfast.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6642718664474244761?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-9880465989123052642008-04-20T10:55:00.001-07:002008-04-20T10:55:12.612-07:00I am in the tub. I brought Wing in with me, leaving it on the<br>footstool next to the tub. The PDA was still on vibrate where I had<br>set it last night during the Passover Seder at Amy&#39;s house.<p>I was interrupted from reading The Everything Guide to Buddhism by the<br>Wing buzzing. Text from Madeline asking if I want to take her driving<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-988046598912305264?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-12972958296519481672008-04-19T07:07:00.001-07:002008-04-19T07:07:37.937-07:00Salvation in a box. Seventeen pounds of Medifast is on its from<br>Louisville via UPS.<p>Yesterday day morning, I noted the last little piles of snow were gone<br>from the north-facing shadows of front yards across the street.<p>Plans are now made for Washington, D. C. trip. Alan called. Airline<br>tickets bought. Hotel reserved. Who is to watch the children? remains.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1297295829651948167?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-58680005661231921692008-04-16T07:26:00.001-07:002008-04-16T07:26:59.294-07:00Monday I left work early to pick up Madeline at 3:00 from staying<br>after school for help with math. First day of spring. When we got<br>home, we took Stella for a walk. We were jacketless. Stopped at the<br>music store and bought her a new mouthpiece for her clarinet. Then<br>over to Garden of Eva to give them ten dollars to put Liam&#39;s name up<br>on their sign for his birthday.<p>Tuesday was enormously windy. I walked to Buffet King, perhaps to<br>splurge before visiting the endocrinologist for the first time this<br>morning. The wind blows so hard that the car is buffeted as I sit in<br>it in the parking lot before going in.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5868000566123192169?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-17095751504719322152008-04-13T07:43:00.001-07:002008-04-13T07:43:13.366-07:00At the Coffee News Caf&#233;. Had to get out of the house; dirty dishes on<br>the kitchen counter (and unloaded clean dishes in the dishwasher)<br>almost drove me out of the house yesterday morning, and did today.<br>Yesterday Liam complied with my request for help. I didn&#39;t want to go<br>through that again. Reminds me of college roommate days, sadly. I was<br>an offender then.<p>Last night was a house concert at Al&#39;s house. Nikki and the Roommates.<br>Two women and a guy. Electric bass/backing vocals, guitar/lead vocals,<br>guitar/dobro/backing vocals. The lead singer has a great blues voice,<br>actually plays the guitar--not just strumming--and is interesting to<br>look at. Dorothea and I stayed for the second set; usually, we leave<br>after the first.<p>Last week, I went in for my yearly mole check and to urgent care for<br>ringing in my ears. Crickets in the distance are getting closer.<br>Saturday morning Urgent Care doc saw some irritation in one and some<br>fluid buildup in the other ear--nothing conclusive. Recommended<br>Sudafed for four days, then ENT. Dispelled my notion of wax buildup.<p>Also made an appointment for the endocrinologist. (Am I getting old?.)<br>This for a clinic and a doc recommended by Sean. Dorothea as well<br>knows the doc. But he&#39;s not taking new patients. Sean emailed in my<br>behalf, and the guy responds about his father, colon cancer, etc.<br>Yikes.<p>Dorothea went to our neighbor Peggy&#39;s funeral Thursday. D. Noted that<br>most of the comment on Peggy&#39;s life at the small gathering concerned<br>the last twenty years of her life, from sixty-two to eighty-two. By<br>that calculus, I haven&#39;t done anything because I am not sixty-two yet.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1709575150471932215?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-78018892671660739872008-04-04T09:33:00.001-07:002008-04-04T09:33:46.063-07:00Sitting in the shade of the Nels J with the morning sun at about two<br>&#39;o&#39;clock over the breakwater light houses. Just finished watching the<br>Edgar B. Speer enter the port--to pick up coal. Coal, coal, coal. &quot;low<br>sulfur western coal,&quot; but nonetheless. Got my fix of standing under<br>the aerial lift bridge and having the descending deck stop inches from<br>my upturned face. New is the understanding of the gussets of the sort<br>that failed on the I-35 bridge. At first the ice was flowing toward<br>the lake in the channel; the approach of the thousand foot laker<br>reversed the flow. A crewman on the bridge exchanged &quot;I love yous&quot;<br>with a woman on the side. My fingers are now too cold to continue.<p><br>While we were having breakfast, some young women labeled waste<br>containers as &quot;Commingled Recycling&quot; and &quot;Food Waste.&quot; now, late<br>morning as I sit in the breakfast room, reading, drinking tea, looking<br>at the lake, the women cleaning--sweeping, mopping--asking: &quot;Is this<br>garbage?&quot;<p>I just got the call--the tribe is back, and it is time to move on.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7801889267166073987?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-49406785558306255952008-04-03T12:05:00.001-07:002008-04-03T12:05:56.040-07:00Amazing Grace in the basement in Duluth, lingering over the ice cubes<br>from my Italian soda--ice made from Lake Superior water, I am sure.<br>The spacey, beautiful young woman who made my sandwich and suggested<br>the Cullen Skink soup. This after the woman in line ahead of me<br>recommended recommended the tomato bisque soup, saying that she liked<br>it so much that she calls to make sure they have some left before she<br>comes over. The spacey sandwichmaker in the tie-die then erased from<br>the board the &quot;trout&quot; bisque. &quot;Out?&quot; I asked. &quot;No,&quot; she responded,<br>&quot;it&#39;s the same as the Cullen skink. People didn&#39;t know what Cullen<br>Skink was until we put these fliers explaining that it is trout<br>bisque, so we don&#39;t have to call it trout bisque anymore.&quot; liam had a<br>turkey sandwich.<p>Sometime I will tell you about the St. Paul School District<br>lunchladies in the heated pool on the hotel roof last night.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4940678555830625595?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-63451417462233245652008-03-29T05:14:00.001-07:002008-03-29T05:14:21.566-07:00Just 7:00 AM, just finished listening to a bit on public radio about<br>&quot;global baseball&quot; and as I turned south on Western, there&#39;s the moon,<br>in just about the same spot that it was yesterday--though I am an hour<br>later, it being Saturday. Madeline just texted me &quot;never mind dad&quot;--I<br>was supposed to be available to pick her up from a sleep over.<p>Listening to the discussion of baseball--we were just contemplating a<br>drive to Chicago, maybe going to a Cubs game. But the reality that we<br>don&#39;t currently have a trustworthy vehicle for the trip is sending us<br>to our default vacation--an abbreviated stay at The Inn on Lake<br>Superior in Duluth.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6345141746223324565?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-64446727047531824642008-03-26T12:30:00.001-07:002008-03-26T12:30:24.187-07:00Sitting on a bench in the waiting area of the Drivers License bureau,<br>about 2 30, waiting while Madeline takes her written test. On<br>University Avenue in the Midway district of St. Paul, this place has<br>a diverse clientele.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6444672704753182464?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-43528394223717047972008-03-20T04:24:00.001-07:002008-03-20T04:24:09.229-07:00This morning, I walked out the door this morning to the sight of a<br>nearly full, just above the horizon, right at the end of the street,<br>copper-colored, setting moon. I have pulled over and parked in a<br>parking, facing west, and am watching the moon descend into the trees.<p>Yesterday I sent this email to Dorothea:<p>Vernal Equinox--Thursday, 12:48 AM<br> Full Moon--Friday, 1:40 PM<p> Couldn&#39;t be too much earlier than that--the full moon is less than<br> twelve hours after the equinox.<p> Happy Anniversary.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4352839422371704797?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-18125062384334452092008-03-19T04:11:00.001-07:002008-03-19T04:11:04.126-07:00Happened to land on KQRS. Used to be truly FM, with body counts; now,<br>shock-jock classic rock. Every once in a while, I&#39;ll listen, just to<br>get a sense of the other side. They&#39;re out there.<p>Not yet 6:00 AM, driving to Y. I heard the entire long version of Lite<br>My Fire. Can&#39;t help but think of Jose Felliciano, Ed Sullivan. Still<br>enjoy. Was in the mood. The long organ stretch satisfying, especially<br>that it sounds like he did it with one hand. They did something right.<p>Now sitting in the Y parking lot. The garbage truck driver gets in<br>through the gate by hitting the button with the edge of his door.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1812506238433445209?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-49604849875985221812008-03-18T04:49:00.001-07:002008-03-18T04:49:34.773-07:00Thought storms crash against my body as solar flares against the<br>atmosphere, and I have about as much control--none--over one as the<br>other.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4960484987598522181?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-38248838884325442512008-03-14T05:05:00.001-07:002008-03-14T05:05:29.522-07:00The view was darkness and blanket of twinkling lights from the top of<br>the Dale Street-Concordia Avenue hill this morning.<p>Yesterday as I was driving to work, coming down the hill from West<br>Seventh near the intersection of Lexington and Montreal to Shepard<br>Road, I passed a car that had apparently quite recently slammed into a<br>light or power pole. The temperature was above freezing, but there was<br>glare ice in the early morning shade. A retirement-age man was sitting<br>behind the wheel. He looked like he was waiting.<p>I was sure what to do. As I got to the bottom of the hill and turned<br>onto Shepard, they was another car crash. The police were there. As I<br>passed, it occurred to me that they may not now of the old man crash<br>around the corner.<p>At next corner, I pulled over and called 911.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3824883888432544251?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-20291138913799762112008-03-09T09:15:00.001-07:002008-03-09T09:15:51.777-07:00And of course I need to analyze more closely the Christmas presents<br>the Ed MacMurray&#39;s sons are opening up--Christmas, 1960. That was my<br>second Christmas; I was almost two. I would&#39;ve known what was going<br>on.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2029113891379976211?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-14438706364940359912008-03-09T08:25:00.001-07:002008-03-09T08:25:52.682-07:00Ed McMurray gives the cabby $1.00 for a cab fare, and the cabby is<br>appreciative. The Shelley Winters switchboard operator character tells<br>someone that they owe her forty-five cents like it matters. The cabs<br>on the New York City streets are all Chryslers, Plymouths, and Dodges<br>like the 1958 Chrysler Royale that I was born into, only with bigger<br>fins.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1443870636494035991?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-70076196789451214982008-03-07T06:04:00.001-08:002008-03-07T06:04:23.982-08:00220. Been a long time. Anything to do.with my getting to the Y every<br>day this week? Hmmm. Light out this morning waiting for green at Dale<br>and Concordia, on a bit of a hill-- can see back through rearview to<br>the Midway and ahead to the river bluffs to the east. Actually when it<br>is dark, like it was yesterday, you can see the blanket of city<br>lights. In daylight, not so far.<p>The choker cubicle neighbor also told me that he&#39;s got his ticket to Brazil.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7007619678945121498?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-315155233296928042008-03-06T14:08:00.001-08:002008-03-06T14:08:33.699-08:00My cubicle neighbor Craig did a very convincing version of almost<br>choking to death today. &quot;Are you all right? Can you talk?&quot; &quot;. . .&quot; How<br>do you spell Hiemlick?<p>Some time afterward, I said something to the effect that you never<br>really do know what is going to happen in a Zen sort of way, to which<br>he replied &quot;funny you should mention that. I have been interested in<br>Buddhism lately.&quot; and he pulled a book out of his drawer--by the Dali<br>Lama.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-31515523329692804?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-72621872766970083422008-03-05T05:12:00.001-08:002008-03-05T05:12:54.259-08:00Blood. Vomit. Bile. Toe cheese. On The Morning Show this morning, they<br>played a song because it had the word &quot;mucus&quot; in the lyric. We are on<br>the same wavelength.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-7262187276697008342?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-35570606304444207582008-03-05T04:19:00.001-08:002008-03-05T04:19:44.318-08:003/5/08<p>Snot. Boogers. Ear wax. Puss. Mucus. Saliva. Poop. Grease. Plaque.<br>Bacteria. Eye gunk. Urine. Did I miss anything?<p>Last Monday was the first time that I entered the age &quot;49&quot; in the<br>elliptical trainer, and was greeted with a reduction of one off the<br>maximum heart rate. Not only am I now 49, I am also 137.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-3557060630444420758?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-41488512613715964232008-03-04T05:24:00.000-08:002008-03-04T05:25:04.102-08:002/20/08<p>I am sitting on the landing, looking out the window at the eclipsing<br>moon just above the roofline of my neighbor&#39;s house. Pretty neato.<br>Eclipses are slow, though. The surface is about half covered in shadow<br>now.<p><p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4148851261371596423?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-47857842492032671732008-02-19T18:33:00.001-08:002008-02-19T18:33:30.264-08:002/19/08<p>Madeline finished driver&#39;s ed today. When I went to pick her up at<br>5:30 at the high school, there were all these disaffected looking<br>teens milling about, waiting to be picked up, holding green<br>half-sheets of paper, their tickets to freedom, the certificates<br>signifying that they could take the written exam.<p>Before you know it, you&#39;re dead.<p>Liam took out my trombone, brought it up from the basement, and opened<br>up the case in the middle of the kitchen floor. One of those arresting<br>3-D moments.<p>2/17/08<p>NYTimes picture of Egyptian newlyweds dancing on a bridge over the<br>Nile River. I like that phrase.<p>Yet another bit of time melancholia: Jacob Wetterling would be 30. His<br>disappearance has a direct impact on me today in my concerns about my<br>children.<p>Splendid Table as I stopped the car by the front door of my work this<br>Sunday morning. A &quot;pancake&quot; in Ames, Iowa makes me want to drive there<br>on 35.<p>As I walked in the door, one guard was pacing in the lobby, the other<br>sitting behind the desk, chin in hand, looked asleep, and Lynn Rosetta<br>Casper&#39;s voice filled the air.<p>She had just gotten done talking to someone about Pyrexes cheese--raw<br>sheep&#39;s milk, timeless ritual of herding sheep to and from the<br>mountains. Perhaps the pacing guard is waiting for those times to<br>return.<p>Six-word memoirs--Not Quite What I was Planning--Smith magazine.<p>Martha&#39;s on Friday to visit with Daba, an Amity from 2001-2002, who<br>lived half the year at Martha&#39;s house. Talking about what she knew and<br>what has happened since made for a melancholy sense of the passage of<br>time. A lot has happened.<p>Steve, the owner of the cafeteria at the Riverbank building where I<br>work, raised his prices this past week. That&#39;s probably the third time<br>in ten years.<p>A squib, a squab a day. That is what I am looking for.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4785784249203267173?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-1429524394934247532008-02-16T10:59:00.001-08:002008-02-16T10:59:53.424-08:002/16/08<p>At Subway on West Seventh behind the Alexandria girl&#39;s JV volleyball<br>team--some of them, anyway and their moms.<p>2/13/08<p>Things never are what they once were, I thought as I looked at Liam at<br>the breakfast table, reading the comics while eating cereal.<p>Guys, laptops, cellphoned, and coffeeshops. What is in the air?<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-142952439493424753?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-50777260190889849552008-02-12T03:57:00.001-08:002008-02-12T03:57:23.180-08:00Had a great deal of difficulty remembering what day it was. Couldn&#39;t<br>decide between Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday--go directly to work;<br>Wednesday, school bus. The decider was only one carton of milk in the<br>frig. The milkman comes on Tuesday.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5077726019088984955?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-2345676347923283942008-01-14T05:36:00.001-08:002008-01-14T05:36:06.077-08:00Gratuitous TV everywhere. I am sitting in the breakfast room of The<br>Inn on Lake Superior, looking out the window at the emerging horizon<br>line. Wonderful, beautiful, spectacular. Marred, however, by the TV<br>on in the background. TVs are now flat-screen.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-234567634792328394?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-86964781653616116312008-01-05T13:59:00.001-08:002008-01-05T13:59:13.464-08:00On the bus, on the way to the Y. Grackles cackle and flock to the top<br>branches of a remaining elm, individuals and unit. A truck passes<br>below them, and they alight as a flock. High over head, toward me<br>diagonally across the street they come before veering back across the<br>intersection, over the corner apartment building, to the next nearest<br>big elm, in the apartment building&#39;s backyard. The cackle begins<br>again, birds perched in top-most, and continues as stragglers arrive.<br>Next, on some unobserved signal, birds flock to the power line,<br>telephone wires stretched along the alley. Cacophony redux.<p>Finally, back towards the original boulevard elm. But no--the leaders<br>fly over and past, some other objective luring. As the leading edge of<br>the group passes the tree, members of the back land in the upper<br>branches, and begin to chatter en masse. Those who had been the<br>leaders now are the stragglers called home.<p>Bus arrives.<p>At the YWCA, the spruces are silent. When I arrive earlier in the<br>morning, those trees are alive with the festive cackling of a flock of<br>birds. Perhaps also grackles, though I imagine chickadees. And now<br>wonder if I will ever see a flock burst out of the spruces.<p>Now much later in the day, I am at the Walker with Dorothea. It is a<br>free first Saturday. Dorothea wanted to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit.<br>There is a forty- five minute wait in line. I left. We&#39;ll meet up<br>again when she is through.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8696478165361611631?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-53197130739224456512008-01-04T05:00:00.001-08:002008-01-04T05:00:26.770-08:00I just missed the bus (again). My timing from .the house is off; takes<br>me just a minute or so more than I think it will.<p>Sitting in Starbuck&#39;s. I hate ordering at Starbuck&#39;s. There is<br>low-in-the-sky, small, far away looking moon, with a prominent planet<br>nearby. Wonder if I will remember to look on my weather calendar?<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5319713073922445651?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-1780396228235878712008-01-03T04:49:00.001-08:002008-01-03T04:49:08.830-08:00<p >Last night, I watched <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_Girl_(TV_series)" target="_blank" >Gossip Girl</a>&nbsp;with Madeline and Liam. Obvious adults (supposedly teenagers) cavorting in a pool, scantily clad, drinking, taking other drugs, being sexually intimate. A guy hits his head and falls into the pool. 911. Now they are all in trouble because the pool is the school pool. But I must say that I was impressed with the choices and turns. People end up doing "the right things." If they had be true to reality, those kids would not have called 911.</p><p >&nbsp;</p><p >A few days ago, I sent an email to <a href="http://www.livingdot.com/" target="_blank" >livingdot.com</a>, my internet provider. I was wondering about upgrading to <a href="http://www.movabletype.com/" target="_blank" >MT 4.1</a>. I know it is a total makeover from MT 3.2, and am not sure that I want to go through with it. They do have <a href="http://wordpress.org/" target="_blank" >WordPress</a>&nbsp;now. So I think that they are going to install both and I can experiment.</p><p >&nbsp;</p><p >Dorothea is at a funeral. A nun friend of her died just before New Year's, suddenly, of a heart attack, while baking bread. The woman was 68. Sounds like the nun, Aggie, was a mentor to Dorothea when Dorothea was in her early twenties; Aggie introduced Dorothea to migrants.</p><p >&nbsp;</p><p ></p><p >Spell checking didn't work.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-178039622823587871?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-50732345724200063192007-12-29T08:12:00.001-08:002007-12-29T08:12:51.122-08:00Benihana was the Japanese steakhouse that we went to on Christmas Eve.<br>We sat with another family--they from Mounds View. All the serving<br>staff were Hispanic.<p>Was late to the Y. Definitely gets crowded on Saturday mornings.<br>Clusterphobic. Nina&#39;s--all the tables are full--10:00. I got a great<br>belly laugh. I walked to the back of the coffeeshop, noting that there<br>were no empty spots. Back in the corner, another old gray-bread like<br>myself looked like he was getting up from a table and moving to a<br>couch. If he was moving to a couch, I&#39;d take the table. If he was<br>staying at the table, I&#39;d take the couch. Table, couch, table, couch.<br>Which would you prefer? Which would you prefer? &quot;I&#39;d like the table,&quot;<br>I said. But before I could step around him, a man and a woman stepped<br>up and took the table. Just like losing a parking spot in a busy<br>parking lot. Interesting to me that this whole pre-table thing went<br>on, that they were oblivious. Right spot, right time. Of course now<br>they have the right to bequeath it to their descendants. That&#39;s kind<br>of it. Worth a good laugh. Metaphorical of greater existence. Of<br>course, for me everything is metaphorical.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-5073234572420006319?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-67930523631049817332007-12-29T05:58:00.000-08:002007-12-29T05:59:02.369-08:00Back on the bus again. It is snowing again. A couple of people are<br>sleeping, there is a guy behind me talking to himself. Or is he?<br>Sounds like Mohammed Ali. The pretty, fashionably dressed young black<br>woman who got off, probably a worker at the department store.<p>On Christmas Eve, on the way back from the Japanese steakhouse in the<br>western suburbs, we stopped at my sister-in-law&#39;s house. She gave me<br>fat measuring scale she&#39;d gotten.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6793052363104981733?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-87747766577381390492007-12-28T03:50:00.001-08:002007-12-28T03:50:22.425-08:00If my eye appointment for Monday stands, this is my last bus ride of the year.<p>Last night, I went to the Science Museum with<br>Dorothea, her sister, and her sister&#39;s daughter, and we all went first<br>to the Omnimax film about ancient Greece, and then to The Great Waters<br>brew pub. All was to my liking, especially that we did it early.<p>We have a basement utlity sink with a dripping faucet that Dorothea<br>brought up last night in the sense that we should fix it. This<br>morning, I found the knobs to the shutoff valves frozen.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8774776657738139049?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-62577918081293765782007-12-26T17:31:00.001-08:002007-12-26T17:31:48.606-08:00Buses and snowbanks. When the 21 stopped at Nina&#39;s, I got out the<br>backdoor. That was a silly thing to do. I got out the door and then in<br>two feet between the back of the side of the bus and the snowbank. All<br>I could do was wait for the bus to pull away.<p>Yesterday Dorothea and the children went to Theresa&#39;s farm for<br>Christmas dinner. Snow, dark, traffic, sledding, snowmobiling, and<br>four-wheeling. Both Madeline and Liam had a great time. Dorothea was<br>beat. The day to myself was my Christmas gift.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6257791808129376578?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-20126288306513697922007-12-26T04:52:00.001-08:002007-12-26T04:52:58.895-08:00Egad. It is still snowing. More accurately I can say that it is<br>snowing now, and that I surmise (infer?) that the snow has been<br>falling continuously since yesterday morning. Almost twenty-four<br>hours. Wonderful. The temperature is neither too warm or too cold. (I<br>just fired up the Wing&#39;s IE to check the weather--no connection.)<p>First time in awhile that I have been on bus, and therefore to write<br>as well. I trudged through the snow to the bus stop--Russia, Moscow,<br>winter, snow. Just missed. Walked to the main intersection bus stop<br>shelter and just barely caught the next bus. First was late, second<br>early.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-2012628830651369792?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-43113799644292121632007-12-23T14:34:00.001-08:002007-12-23T14:34:46.215-08:00Attuned to drinking cheaply and watching TV, my neighbor misses the<br>snowfall, the blizzard winds, snow swirling off rooftops like surf<br>pounding rocks.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-4311379964429212163?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-62009550378118532872007-12-22T19:38:00.001-08:002007-12-22T19:38:09.871-08:00<P ><BR >I have discovered zoho.com and just have to write something. I see that I can publish to blogger (though not movabletype.) The first thing that I always look for is the ability to insert the date and time. I don't see that here, though there are lots of word processing features and goodies.</P> <P >&nbsp;</P> <P >I am going totally online. I discovered mint.com and have myself set up. Scary, the interconnectedness of financial information. But it seems like such an easy site to use.</P> <P >&nbsp;</P> <P >And zoho even lets me create applications with database back ends, which seems great for prototyping. Ah, digital bliss.</P><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-6200955037811853287?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-85706774372198547292007-12-22T08:34:00.001-08:002007-12-22T08:34:31.955-08:00On the caf&#233; table, a cellphone has replaced the cigarette pack at the<br>elbow of the woman who hails &quot;Richard!&quot; across the room, and Richard<br>arrives: &quot;I was wondering what caused the chill to the heart of my<br>soul.&quot; Momentary light banter.<p><p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8570677437219854729?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-15829707561286075812007-12-02T08:24:00.001-08:002007-12-02T08:24:06.513-08:00Snow. Snowed for twelve hours yesterday. Not enough for a snow but<br>enough to call 266-PLOW.<p>As I sat in the draining bathtub at the age of six, in 1965, I was<br>almost as &quot;closer&quot; then in &quot;time&quot; to my mother as a six-year old in<br>1920, than I am now, at age 48, in 2007, to 1965. I love contemplating<br>this sort of thought, over-intellectual and vacuous as it is. Same<br>sort of thing as a &quot;birth year&quot;--59 for me.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-1582970756128607581?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-88047111269326916872007-11-29T05:46:00.001-08:002007-11-29T05:46:55.714-08:00And windy again. Cold enough for sure. Downtown St. Paul is easy on<br>one&#39;s eyes, at least at this time of the morning, and from the angle<br>just across the street from the Xcel.<p>Company email yesterday said that J. Russell Jones died. No wallflower, Russell.<p>Dorothea is down. Liver, thyroid, knee, hand, incontinence, due for<br>colonoscopy tomorrow.<p>My coworker Ryan, who got kidnapped corporately from one building to<br>another, and away from riding the bus, gave me his Metropass. Should<br>be good til the end of the year. Will save me forty dollars perhaps.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8804711126932691687?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-84370053932205061762007-11-27T07:08:00.001-08:002007-11-27T07:08:17.570-08:00Officially cold. I walked from home to my dental appoint. Time to get<br>out a heavier jacket. I continue pondering about Hour Car. Both<br>Dorothea exclaim &quot;That&#39;s a third car.&quot; Indeed that is exactly it.<br>Madeline was to take ski poles with her to school for practice.<p><br>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-8437005393220506176?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946229999850867781.post-6748736906179419012007-11-26T14:38:00.001-08:002007-11-26T14:38:34.958-08:00Coming home Saturday from visiting my mom, the van made funny sounds<br>again. Scary sounds. Scary enough that it was back in the shop Sunday.<br>That&#39;s it. The van is dead to me. I missed the bus this morning--84D,<br>I was heading straight to work, skipping the Y, though that little<br>chain of events made me think I should just go out and walk thirty<br>minutes. It also reminded me of Hour Car.<p>-- <br>David<br><a href="http://www.schons.net">www.schons.net</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8946229999850867781-674873690617941901?l=somekindapossible.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06629985804000685024noreply@blogger.com