QuestionAbel Parenting

The Following is not for the faint of heart.  Those of you with weak dispositions should probably look away.  Several days ago, my parents and wife and child were antiquing.  It’s about the same thing as archaeology, and if Hollywood has taught me anything about archaeology, its that danger lurks around every corner.

This makes the following less of a surprise and more of a fitting find.

If you’re brave, click the thumbnail for a larger view.

That little demon will run the brave around $65.00.  I can only assume the street value to be so high because the owners know only serious patrons would have the requisite grimoires and necrinomicons necessary to contain his soul-eating powers.  Seriously, what were they thinking when they carved this from one of Satan’s horns?

It was the find of the day.  I can only imagine some unsuspecting person buying that and setting it by the fireplace only to wake up to find the cat missing and the bloodstained collar at Santa’s feet.  All the stockings on Christmas morn containing actual feet instead of oranges and candy.  And then waking up in an untouched bed surrounded by the charred remains of a once beautiful house, the remains of the family nowhere to be found as they’ve been transported full-bodily to Hell.

If I had a nickel.

They could at least blindfold this thing.  A grandmother might see it and keel over after making eye contact.  Antiquing is not for the faint of heart.

Is there a band called “Mexican Standoff?” If not, how has that happened?

Hello.  I think today may be a writing day.  Although there are rumors in my brain of chili.  I can’t be sure.  It’s a windy day today.  I am lax to venture outdoors.  Now, if I were wise, I would post date some posts so they weren’t published until later.

I am probably not that wise.  I’m not too concerned with building a flowing readership here anymore.  Sons do that to you.  Although, I am quite concerned with starting school again and getting a sweet teaching job.  Seriously, I’m an awesome teacher.

I was watching some nonsense this morning on Sci-Fi called “The Triangle.”  I’m not going to discuss it, although I will say that Sam’s Mom has hilarious insights on movies of this nature and could probably make a killing writing such trash.

There is a scene wherein the ship they are on (it takes place in a triangle, I think you can figure out the rest) is being set to blow up using boat fuel as the fuel.  And I thought about fuel and our nation’s dependency on it and how awful it really all is.

So, I was thinking about things we all know to be fairly true.  The holistic changes needed here in the ol’ USA.  I mean, this global warming business and fuel crunch really need to be dealth with holistically at many levels.  It’s all interconnected quite complexly.  (FYI I am thinking faster than typing so things may get muddled).  It reminds me of “Freakonomics,” and amazing book you all should read.

I was thinking about car fuel and how ludicrous the whole thing is.  Holistically speaking, we should not be looking for alternative automobile fuels.  We should be looking for ways to make our population far more self-mobile without cars.  You know, public transportation.  We all know this.  But really, what are we doing about it?  Especially now that gas prices are back down?

(Sidenote, Wired has an excellent op-ed on that subject I totally agree with).

Well, by artificially raising prices you force people to look for alternative methods.  The solution here is a little bit of backbone on the part of Government.  “Look, here’s the deal American People.  Gas prices are high.  They’re going to stay that way.  You can choose to bitch or you can choose to find alternative transport.”  Now, I think if we seperate personal transport costs from public transport costs, things would really brighten.

Imagine if I have to pay four dollars a gallon for gas.  Always.  It’s maintained somehow with magic.  Imagine the extra money paid for tax on this is used to keep the cost as low as possible for public transport.  Suddenly, it’s easier to create public transport systems and maintain them to a high quality.

Imagine then, if schools were given some sort of subsidy for teaching students about the public transportation system and how to effectively use it safely.  What then?  I think this may seem ludicrous to those who use the train all the time, but those of us in Urban Sprawl, USA get very confused by the stopping and the going and the connections.

Here’s the other education angle:  Make getting a driver’s license harder.  By shifting to a public transport education (which some of you are saying is stupid right now) you take away the funding for driver’s education.  Seriously.  Part of the reason so many of us own cars is because it’s so easy for us to be allowed to drive one.  Of course, they are much easier to operate on giant lanes and long stretches of American towns.

This is all just off the top of my head.

Anyway, by having individual consumers pay a little more at the pump, you also make it worth businesses while to find alternative freight transport.  Get rid of these carbon offset things, since they are absolutely worthless, and give business tax credit based on their actual carbon footprint.  A mega super business like Wal-Mart could possibly be enticed to build a better transport system than giant Diesel trucks.

I’ve never understood the lack of a decent rail system in this country.

Now, I am just flying by the seat of my pants here, so I’m really not looking at potential flaws.  The main flaw in all the plans I’ve heard from anywhere is this:  Patience.  People just aren’t willing to wait the many years it will take for these holistic changes to increase quality of life.  That’s a big deal.  It seems certain to me that a full scale enactment of the plethora of holistic changes would result in a bit of a dip at first followed by a slow climb.

That’s if the politicians could ever agree on such a thing.

But I remain hopeful that we can change.  People just need to realize it isn’t easy to do so.  There’s no silver bullet as the media says.  We do what we can in the Abel household.  We recycle a lot of items.  Which drives me crazy because there is so much extra packaging that is wholly unneeded.

Anyway,  I think most of my friends would agree.  I just wish there were a way to convince everyone else.

We are home!  Baby Zachary likes to eat, just to get that out there.  Little guy loves to eat.  Being a dad, so far, is pretty much what I expected.  The baby cries, we feed him, we change him, he sleeps for a while.  He doesn’t sleep as long as we would like all the time, but hey, what can you do?

Anyway, it is hard to not just sit and look at him for hours.  Who needs TV?  We don’t.  Of course, Grandma Streeter (Sam’s Mom) is helping us out.  My Dad claims Ma is chopping at the bit to hold Zachary, but I know my dad and secretly he’s worse than Mom with the waiting.  They’ll be here this coming weekend.

I wish everyone lived nearby so Zachary could meet all our friends and family.  Sadly, his world tour will have to wait a while.  Travelling long distances with a newborn is just a bad plan, you know?  We have a few very good friends down here, thank goodness.  So it could be much worse.

Sam and I have gotten what we wanted for Christmas.  So that’s a good deal right there.

Baby Zachary has arrived.  It all started yesterday around 5am.  Sam started having some serious contrtractions.  But they were only about fifteen minutes apart.  When I woke up at 7 we went for a walk.  They kept going.  Around five, they got really hard and got closer together,  so it was off to the hospital!  We were both sure they would go away and the nurses would send us home.  But Sam was dilated to around 7cm so they kept us.  In fact, she progressed so quickly there was no time for the epidural.

Ouch.

Our doctor is out of town right now, so we had a substitute.  He was a Japanese fellow who was very nice and seemed genuinely excited for us.  He broke Sam’s water for her – it probably would have on its’ own shortly.  And around 1130pm, Sam started the serious pushing.  After two cycles, you could see the head.  I was crying with Sam as she pushed a couple more times and Zachary came out looking perfect.  I cut the cord and he was off for footprinting and a bath.  Sam had a little fixing up to go through, which she seemed to enjoy less than childbirth.

I sat and held Zachary for a little bit and sang him some Beatles songs.  He seemed to like them.

Right now, we are still at the hospital.  We will probably be there until Monday morning.  Sam is positive for Group B Strep, so we have to make sure he stays healthy and good.  The nurses seem to think he’s very healthy, so we aren’t very worried.  He has ten fingers, ten toes, and all that.

So, now I am a Dad.  It is very cool.  Seeing him born was amazing.  Now, I don’t have to worry about the pregnancy or birth.  Just the baby.  Holy Cow.

And I’m playing Episode 2 right now.  This game is just excellent – not that that’s news.  Any hardcore gamer is probably saying “duh” right now.  But if you’ve not picked up the Orange Box yet, you should.  At least, if you enjoy games.

I’m at the end of Episode 2 right now and it is incredibly hard.  One must shoot explosive balls of death at giant spindly legged tanks equipped with high powered machine guns and destructo-beams, while at the same time being attacked by spider merchants of human-sized death.  And drive a Dodge Charger.

The Dark Knight is on DVD!  Alas, my purchase is delayed somewhat by my poorhood, but I will be purchasing that particular flick.  I am fairly excited.

There’s a few people I know who don’t like TDK, which is fine with me.  Dad thought it was too long, which is understandable.  It is pretty long, but I really felt it was as long as it needed to be.  There wasn’t much I thought could be cut.  What drives me crazy is the folks who feel the need to pick it apart.  I get it – you didn’t like it.  It’s like they feel left out by the rest of us loving it and so they have to call it stupid instead of just chillin’ out.

It’s those people who come up with plot holes and complaints and such.  I read a recent article talking about the Joker’s murder in the jail plot.  Basically, it said that for what happened in the movie to happen, everything had to happen exactly as it happened.  Obviously.  It doesn’t take into account the concept of Plan Bs and the Joker’s general insanity.

ANYway, the author seems to think the Joker had to be in the jail in order for that guy with the cell phone in his gut to blow up.  You know.  Because there’s no phones outside of the police department in Gotham City.

I also don’t understand people wondering how the Joker got the boats and hospital rigged with explosives.  They seem to think this one skinny dude did it all himself, neglecting one important fact about all good villains.  Henchman.  The dude had henchmen galore.  He had the mob backing him up.

Henchmen.

But that’s as maybe.  I loved the flick and can’t wait to see it again.  I can’t believe I didn’t see it more than once in the theater.

Sam and I watched half of Star Trek 6 today.  Half because the disc kept skipping and freezing.  The ending was pretty screwed.

Here’s a good video link.

Bill O’Reilly was on Morning Edition this morning.  He’s written a memoir.  There are probably several people who want to read this, not me.  However, it was a very good interview and interesting that he went on NPR.  It seems the type of radio station he would lambaste on his television program.

What he said, not meaning it the way I think it, was that kids today are coddled.  I’m fairly certain he meant they aren’t beaten enough, but I still thought it was a good point.  The coddling, not the beatings.  Beatings generally backfire heavily.

The way kids really are coddled today is the lack of adventure they are allowed in the great outdoors.  Far too many kids are forced to spend their alfresco time in the confines of a tiny yard or in the CGI outdoor world of video games.  I suppose that’s not really coddling.  But it along those lines.  Kids aren’t allowed to break as many arms or learn life lessons the old fashioned way.

So, Bill, you’ve got a point.

Kalin has recently posted about her lack of tunage for her trip to Italy.  Who knows what sort of crazy trends they have going on in Europe?  Maybe they all still listen to Joshie or something.  They could be into auto-techno by now, I don’t know.  But we are all speeding away on our computers compiling playlists for her.  It’s easy!

Kind of.

I have talked on this subject before, the demise of the mixtape.  Mixtapes are ancient technology by now.  They were amazing feats of audiology, bringing love or destruction with them.  The challenge was great when making a mixtape, there was a lot more to worry about.  Generally, one made them on an audio stack with a mix of LPs, cassettes, and CDs – if you were lucky.  You had to judge the audio level on many of these and actually listen to the music as it recorded onto the cassette.  A cassette with Two sides.  It can be frustrating enough to clip the CD to match up close to 70 minutes.  If either side of the cassette was off, you could force your listener to a Hell of blank tape for what may have well been eons.

It was from the depths of the eighties mixtapes became vogue.  Their reign lasted well into the late nineties and are still revered in some cultures.  During this period I made several mixtapes.  They were amazingly fun to make and I felt a great sense of accomplishment when they were finished.

I utilized Microsoft Publisher after the end of each compilation to create a tape case label.  Each tape bore the label “Matt’s Tape.”  Followed by some little name I made up.  What I remember – in order – are “Matt’s Tape,”  “Matt’s Tape II,”  “Matt’s Tape:  With a Vengeance,”  “Matt’s Tape:  Revisited,” and “Matt’s Tape:  Protest Contest.”  Each label contained it’s own individually selected clip art.  I’m fairly certain each of these contained several REM and Bob Dylan songs and would no doubt embarress me in public should I be forced to listen to them.  In private though, I would probably rock out.

Those days are gone now and I’m onto the CDs.  Of course, we don’t even need hard copies at all.  Thanks to the power of our electronic world, all anyone really needs to do is post a playlist and allow others to listen to it.  It kind of recreates the “album.”

It’s like everyone can create their own personal “Moulin Rouge” complete with playlist and libretto.  Why aren’t more people doing this?  What a way to write a tale.

“And then Bill looks with lust as Jesse and Veronica walk away.  He looks at the floor and his voice rises in mournful tones, a cover of ‘Jesse’s Girl’ in a minor key.”

Far Out.

Right now, I’m building a playlist to remind Kalin of Summer Camp, which is easy.  The hard part is that I’m sure several people are doing the same, so there will be same song problems with people’s CDs.  BUT we all know that, so we will be trying to throw curveballs at her.  Which will backfire incredibly, I’m sure.

Man, I would love to see the blogosphere erupt into playlist musicals.  What a fun thing that would be to read.  Maybe it’s already been done and I’m on the back row of another trend.  But I stumble a lot, so I don’t know if that would have happened.

In other musical thoughts, has anyone heard the new Fountains of Wayne album?  Is it any good?  I loved Welcome Insterstate Managers.  FOW is a band that knows how to make an album.  Anyone who knows me knows I like albums as opposed to singles surrounded by filler.

That’s another beauty of playlists.  People can take all those one-hits and compile sweet albums with similar themes based upon them.  It’s challenging though, because you don’t want some $5 greatest love songs disc you would find by the binful at the gas station.

That’s all I’ve got.  I need to make a CD.

Late at night, I sometimes stock the Pet Department in Wal-Mart.  And I often stock the pads people use for doggie training.  As in, they train them to go on newspaper.
Why are people training dogs to pee inside?  This is unfathomable to me.