Another Day: Daily Jetsam

His own idea.

Taylor's.

Yeah, really.

Yup, from scratch.

Nope, all by himself.

If your first apple pie is perfect, will you dare--or bother--to bake a second?

We'll see. Hope so.
7:45 a.m. CST (GMT -6)

Quick reports:

Taylor collected all A's on his report card.

Except for a lone B+, so did Owen, a remarkable turnaround from last year. (He had an A+ in gym, but we knew already that he could play.)

Josh traveled to D.C. to join in the anti-war march.

The Angels won the Series.

The BeeGees aren't touring.

Life is good.
11:45 a.m. CST (GMT -6)

Friday, October 25, 2002 Link

Wellstone.

Damn.
2:45 p.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Thursday, October 24, 2002 Link

The flu shot I had at work yesterday was the most remarkable (and intimate) event to occur in my life so far this week. Hence, nothing here.

I remain, as ever, hopeful.
11:45 a.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Monday, October 21, 2002 Link

You watch sports for moments.

He's reached base five times in the game, hitting two two-run homers. His latest homer in the bottom of the eighth has probably assured the Angels of a win to even the World Series at 1-1, but now Tim Salmon is on the bench in the top of the ninth because he's got a bad knee and the Angels' coach wants some faster legs in right field for the Giants' last at-bat.

Watching from the railing in the Angels' dugout when the Giants' Barry Bonds lofts a solo two-out homer deep into the right-field stands, Salmon says with a child's unself-conscious admiration and wonder and hyperbole:

"That's the furthest ball I've seen hit."

That was a moment.
7:45 a.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Sunday, October 20, 2002 Link

Halloween must be near: The household Christo has purchased 500 square feet of 3.5-mil black plastic sheeting and several colorful plastic tarps from which she will fashion a witch's visage to adorn the front of our house from roof peak to front porch.

I use the term "our house" loosely.
9:30 a.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Wednesday, October 16, 2002 Link

Years ago, when Owen sang in the elementary school chorus, he could hit the high notes and hold them with a clarity of tone that would have shamed Mrs. Gibb’s boys. He was selected (with about a dozen other kids from the local school district) to participate in the regional honor chorus for northeast Kansas. A regular little Vienna Boys’ chorister he was. (Yesterday we learned that Taylor had been similarly selected.)

Although his voice has fallen to the tenor or baritone range, Owen still sings wonderfully, so I was a little disappointed several weeks ago when he was reluctant to try out for one of the better roles in the high school musical (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). Figuring, I suppose, that he had two more years of high-school musicals ahead of him, he decided that instead of trying out for a role and actually risking something, he would get the lay of the proscenium from behind the protective anonymity of the herd--the chorus, that is. Nonetheless, his vocal talent, his exuberance (yeah, that’s what we’ll call it), and his record of perfect attendance at rehearsals have garnered him three bit parts in addition to his choral duties. His favorite is as a sex slave.

That’s my boy!
1:00 p.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 Link

According to a story in our local paper last night, a local couple of sound mind, generous spirit, and healthy purse has saved the Runyon birthplace (the house I mentioned in the previous entry) from being bulldozed and replaced by a duplex. (I've clipped the story for my use here.)
2:45 p.m. CDT (GMT -5)

* * * * *

I started my online journal (in part) because I admired the descriptions of his days that he offered up daily in a public journal. They were witty and fine, and the idea of making them available for anyone to read intrigued me. His was the first such journal I had come across. But I think that today I read his pages for the last time, or at least for a very long while.

I've tired of those portions of his pages (and such portions appear more and more frequently) that rant against those opposed to the coming war--and I have little doubt that that war is coming. Nor do I have any doubt that "rant" is the correct term to use to describe much of the recent political writing that appears on his site: His arguments rely on sophomoric ad hominem, prejudicial language, and appeals to ridicule, and he apparently hasn't met anyone who opposes preemptive action against Iraq whose views are not (in his words) "ideologically simplistic."

A quotation from Alexander Pope posted today at Open Brackets might have been written to describe his recent ranting: "It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out."

I won't name him here. He's well known. You probably read him. His daily hit count is probably greater than my monthly count. He won't miss my daily click.

But I am so, so disappointed.
5:45 p.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Saturday, October 5, 2002 Link

So I'm surfing along for information on cycling in Kansas, and Google leads me to these pages written by some kid at KU. He's offering info for trail bikers, not touring cyclists, and because at my advanced age I'm not hopping no rocks or jumping no stumps, I'm not really interested, but heck, there's a page there about a place I'm familiar with, so why not take a look, I sez to myself. And reading the report on the Blue River trail through to the end, I find that the contributor of the info (at least the quoted portions) is none other than one of my kidlings.

The notes are leftovers from April 1999 when Josh was a junior in high school.

Small world.
07:30 a.m. CDT (GMT -5)

Well, guys and dolls, you might have guessed from the title to this joint and the procrastination that it implies that I would be a day late, but here nonetheless is a photo of the Runyan birthplace at 400 Osage in Manhattan. The house has been sold since the photo was taken (September 1). (Did anyone notice that I resisted saying that it probably went for a song?)

It's a jumble out there
(and links expire)

:: Oct 31

Pre-postmodern Bob here, pointing to sappy stuff he likes (I mean REALLY likes): Joe Posnanski, "Ohio teen an inspiration" (KC Star, Oct 31)

:: Oct 29

Beautiful Soup (via Reconstructed Mind)

Searching for information about the Strawberry Hill neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, I found the pages of Randy Niere, a KC-area cyclist and cycling advocate.

:: Oct 23

"Amen," I say from the choir: "Hello, good morning, is it war yet?" (Jon Carroll, Oct 18).

:: Oct 22

World Wide Words

Internet Scout Project, a U of Wisc project "offering a selection of new and newly discovered online resources of interest to researchers, educators, and anyone else with an interest in high-quality online material."

:: Oct 18

I'm not sure what I found here, but the site (from San Jose, CA, I think) is attractive, clever and entertaining: Priss.org.

:: Oct 17

Another book for the someday-maybe reading list: The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida. First noted in an Oct 16 Benita Williams KC Star article ("Neighborhood searches for best way to combine its character with development") about development and preservation in the Westport Plaza neighborhood of KC, the area north of the Country Club Plaza.

:: Oct 16

"Cougar killed in Northland didn't show signs of captivity," by Bill Graham, KC Star, Oct 16. This is a follow-up to the story linked in this column on Oct 14.

* * * * *

Rotten Tomatoes, another movie data base.

:: Oct 15

"God would not want people to break immigration laws."

That remark is attributed to Connie Morris, the Republican candidate from a district in western Kansas for the Kansas Board of Education, in an Oct 15 KC Star story by Diane Carroll, "Education candidate's stance on undocumented immigrants stirs debate."

:: Oct 14

Whoa: "Mountain lion killed by motorist in the Northland [Kansas City-North]" (Bill Graham, KC Star, Oct 14)

* * * * *

I drop by Dave Winer's Scripting News often enough, but I haven't troubled to add it to the left column yet, maybe because I can't decide just how to place it. I'm thinking bloggyblog. [Evidently I can't be troubled to insert the URL either. Fixed it 10/15.]

* * * * *

Measures: The BlogStreet Top 100 and the Blogdex.

:: Oct 13

"[I]t was a perfect Fall Saturday Afternoon in a Midwest College Town. Sometimes i can really be a sap." What she said.

:: Oct 11

I suppose that if I don't think this is crazy, then I must be addicted: Ice Bike, Home of the Winter Cyclist.

:: Oct 10

John Prine turned 56 today? Someone was supposed to wake me before that happened. In just a few months I'll be a speed limit. Damn.

:: Oct 8

For the someday-maybe reading list:

In Ruins, by Christopher Woodward (reviewed in the NY Times by Richard Eder on Oct 2)

And while I'm thinking about it: Saving Your Brain, by Dr. Jeff Victoroff (reviewed in the NY Times by John Langone on Oct 8)

:: Oct 6

When Safa (Owen's buddy, our fourth son) asked if I'd ever heard of a man who had been stranded by international bureacracies in an airport for over a decade, I recalled that I'd read about this recently at Open Brackets (Sep 25). A search for additional information led me to this page about "Sir Alfred" (Merhan Karimi Nasseri) at Useless Information, a site by Steve Silverman (a NY school teacher and author of Einstein's Refrigerator) that rewards an extended visit with good humor. His short essay "The Coldest Profession" on penguin prostitution is a good starting point. (Silverman maintains a mirror site here.)

* * * * *

Light Reading: "On the Trail of the Mockingbird," [Harper Lee] by Marja Mills, in the Chicago Tribune via the Oct 6 KC Star.

* * * * *

"Don't Subsidize Religion" -- a KC Star editorial from Oct 5.

"The National Center for Faith Based Initiative, headquartered in Florida, will receive $700,000. This group says part of its job is to help create wealth and 'empower our people to steward that wealth for the purposes of the kingdom.'" [emphasis added]

This money comes from $25 million in the Department of Health & Human Services' Compassion Capital Fund. I am curious to know just how much of this fund will go to non-Christian organizations, and I hope that the Unitarians and Quakers will decline to accept or apply for any such funds.

:: Oct 4

Pretty pitchurs by Andrew Hersey (gleaned from Reconstructed Mind)

:: Oct 3

WarLog: World War III, the blog of Jeff Jarvis

:: Oct 1

BookCrossing.com: paying it forward with books. (A related article appeared in KC InfoZine on July 11.)

Vmyths.com: computer virus myths, hoaxes, urban legends, and hysteria