Where Have I Been?

This has been a slow month for new posts at "Thoughts From Mike's Shed."  After taking vacation the first week of July, I worked so hard the next two weeks that I needed to take another vacation this past week.  We're back home now and that will be the last break for quite some time.  So, prepare yourself.

I've been consumed this week with the (in)activity in Washington.  But, since that was the topic of my last post, I'm not going to dwell on that.  Instead, I'm just going to hit you with a couple random things from the past week.

• We got back Thursday night just in time to check out a new episode of "Selling New York."  This episode featured CORE and Warburg and left my Kleier's on the sideline.  Imagine a line.  At one end of the line is everything good: strawberry rhubarb pie, hugs from your kids, vacations in Italy, tailgating at Beaver Stadium, and Michele Kleier.  At the other end is everything you dread: bananas, traffic jams, the doctor's office, crab grass in your lawn, and Warburg's Richard Steinberg.  Unfortunately, Thursday's episode had Richard front and center.  He was his typical overdramatic, self-aggrandizing self.  And, yes -- he completely sucked me in to his drama and I watched the whole episode.
• I settled in last evening for a long night's sleep.  I didn't set the alarm even though I knew it would be 80 degrees by 7AM and I wanted to be out running by then.  Everything was going well until the smoke alarm went off at 4:11AM.  It beeped 4 or 5 times and then stopped.  Kim and I searched the house for trouble, found none, and went back to bed.  I laid there for 15 minutes and nothing happened.  My arms, which were tucked under the pillow (as they always have been since I stopped sucking my thumb -- don't ask when that was), soon fell asleep.  So, I rolled over onto my back and tried to fall asleep that way even though that almost never works.  After another futile 30 minutes, I gave in to temptation and decided to spoon with Kim.  As always, that did the trick.  I started to doze off just in time to hear several more sharp beeps at 5:36AM.  Once more it was out of bed, walk through the house, find nothing, and go back to bed.  And, once more, it was lay there and have no success falling back to sleep.  Finally, at 6:20AM I gave up and got out of bed.  Why is God punishing me?  Is it because I say mean things about Richard Steinberg?
• For the first time, someone specifically asked me to mention them in my blog.  My immediate family members aren't big fans of being the subject of my posts but they make it in here quite a bit anyway. If I can avoid it, I've tried not to mention other people that I know because I feel like I should be asking their permission and I don't really want to do that.  But, since she asked so nicely, here's a shout out to Colleen Hawkins.  Colleen was an instrumental member of our four-level, ten-person human pyramid earlier this week.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't her who crash landed on my heel when the pyramid collapsed.

That's it for now -- back to watching CNN.

Getting The Deal Done

The NFL lockout appears to be almost over.  That's good news.  While I've become a bigger fan of college football than the NFL in recent years, I can't imagine a September Sunday without NFL games on TV.  It's nice to see parties on opposite side of an argument actually get something done. 

Unfortunately, the news out of Washington on the political front isn't as good.  The process continues to be held hostage by the fringe members of both parties.  You've got the kooks on the right who view any attempt at closing a tax loophole as a tax increase.  And, you've got the kooks on the left who think that any modification to Social Security benefits is a cut to an entitlement.  Everyone in the middle is stuck trying to placate these jokers.  All of us are forced to watch.  Of course, we're the ones who sent these people to Washington in the first place.

I have one wish for this debt ceiling discussion.  It would be so awesome if every single elected member of Congress lost their seat in the next election.  I'm so tired of the inability of elected officials to really get anything done.  Send them all home, already!  Don't even let them make it through the primaries.

Don't kid yourself that your representative is "different."  Ask yourself -- when was the last time your representative changed his or her mind on an issue?  Remember, it's not a sign of weakness to change your mind!  Don't vote for people who can't show you that they can be persuaded by someone else's argument.  Life is all about having experiences, learning from those experiences, and becoming better because of those experiences.  Sometimes, becoming better means changing your mind and accepting someone else's point-of-view.  Try it -- you might actually enjoy it.

Sundown, You Better Take Care

I've been fighting a losing battle all week.  The kids have been very good over the years about not leaving their stuff (other than their school backpacks during the school year) laying around the house.  But something unusual has been going on this week.  It's actually getting pretty ridiculous.

The first pair of dirty socks sat at the bottom of the back stairs for two straight days on Monday and Tuesday.  I knew they were Jay's.  I don't know how many times he went up and down those stairs over those two days but the socks never moved.  Finally, when I went up to bed on Tuesday night, I decided to bring the socks upstairs with me.  I carried them up to his room, pulled his bedspread back, and placed them on top of his pillow.  I thought that might help him get the message.  When I talked to him the next afternoon, though, he didn't seem fazed at all by finding the socks on his pillow.

Sure enough, on Wednesday there was another pair of dirty black socks at the bottom of the stairs.  Certain that they were Jay's, I told him to bring his dirty socks upstairs.  "They're not mine," he said.  He went on to tell me that they belonged to his friend.  I was stumped.  Jay's friend hadn't even been to our house -- Jay had gone over to his house to hang out.  How his friend's dirty socks made it to the bottom of our stairs is beyond me.  When I came home from work yesterday, the socks were still there.  We'd now gone almost 96 straight hours with a pair of dirty socks at the bottom of the stairs.  I told Jay to put this second pair of socks in the laundry room and he reluctantly stopped texting, got up from the couch, and did that.

Everything finally seemed to be in order.  I happily watched back-to-back episodes of "Selling New York" and then decided to go up to bed.  I walked over to the back stairs and what did I see?  A third pair of dirty black socks was now laying there. This time, they look like Hannah's.  I stubbornly refused to walk past them.  Instead, I turned around and headed to the front hall and took the front stairs up to bed.  As I was climbing the front stairs, I wondered if those dirty socks would still be there when I came down in the morning.  Since I'm posting this at 6:15AM before starting the day, what do you think?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2: My Thoughts

Yesterday, we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.  So, wondering what I thought?  Here goes.

Most importantly, for the first time ever, I made it through an entire Harry Potter movie!  Seriously, I have never seen one of these movies from start to finish despite having started to watch them at least 15 times.  In that time, I've fallen asleep in the theater, on the floor, in a chair, in a sleeping bag during a basement campout, even on a couch in Mexico (where I'm told -- by the friends with whom we were vacationing -- that I farted during the whole second half of the movie).

I don't know what it is but the Harry Potter movies just have never held my attention.  This time, it may have helped that we went to a Sunday morning showing.  The last time I went to the movies on a Sunday morning was several years back while Kim was on a girls' weekend outing with the Gladwyne girls.  Instead of going to church, I took Hannah, Nick, and Jay to see The Pacifier with Vin Deisel.  This was back before our church got a good minister so can you really blame me?  In case you're wondering, The Pacifier is actually great.  If you don't believe me, check out Netflix where you'll see that -- like every other good movie -- The Pacifier isn't available for streaming!  Stupid Netflix.

Back to Harry Potter.  I stopped reading the books about 75 pages into the second one but I got the Cliff's Notes version of what I'd missed from the kids on the 20-minute ride to the mall yesterday.  So, I was pretty up to speed by the time the movie started.  I knew about horcruxes, the deathly hallows, that Dumbledore was dead, Ron and Hermione hadn't kissed yet, and all sorts of other important stuff.  I was ready.

I have to tell you -- I really liked the movie.  The acting was good, the cinematography was even better, and the story really moved along at a fast pace.  Of course, Hannah just laughed at me when the first thing I said to her after the movie was "So, why did Voldemort want to kill Harry?"

Making a Good Impression

Our neighbors, Trip and Karen, had house guests for the past 2 weeks.  Karen's sister and her kids were visiting from Florida.  They went home yesterday.  I didn't get a chance to meet Karen's sister until just before she left.

Before getting into how that took place, I have to tell you that I'm allergic to bees.  Two years ago, I was outside pruning forsythia bushes and pulling up the runners that forsythia's send out each year.  As I pulled up one runner, I obviously disturbed some ground bees and they quickly went on the attack.  I ended up with 4 stings, all on my head.  I ran into the house to get away from them.  Within a matter of minutes, I started breaking out in hives and having shortness of breath.  That soon became tightening in my chest.  Kim called Steve, our friend who's an ER doctor.  Steve came over, made certain I wasn't going to die (hooray!), had me take some Benadryl, and told me to get an appointment with an allergist.  A week or so later, I had my skin prick test and found out I was allergic to bees, wasps, hornets, etc.  I got my epipen prescription and that was that.

So, back to yesterday and how I met Karen's sister.  I was outside doing some yard work.  Earlier in the morning, I'd already escaped death once.  We had a 35-40 foot tall tulip poplar tree snap in half in a storm earlier this month.  The upper and lower halves were still connected by a good bit of bark so I had to get out my extension ladder, climb up, and saw the two pieces apart.  I was worried that the bottom half would snap back and hit my ladder as it fell so I tied a rope around the dangling top half of the tree and had Kim and Jay out pulling on the rope as I cut the bark.  Thankfully, Kim told me to only make a half cut and then join them back down on the ground so the three of us could try to pull the bottom half loose.  Sure enough, as we pulled the bottom half loose, it snapped back, caught the ladder, and sent it crashing to the ground.

After that little debacle, I was feeling pretty good to be alive.  I headed out front to de-limb a few more trees and prune some viburnum.  The de-limbing went fine.  Pruning was going OK, too -- right up until I reached into one of the bushes to make a cut and felt a sting on my right forearm.  "$%@!," I exclaimed, as I started running.  I could feel bees flying around my head.  "@$!%," I yelled as I tried to get away from them.  I was sprinting up the driveway, cursing and swatting at my head when I saw Karen's sister loading up her car for her return trip.  There she stood, staring at me in amazement as I ran by.  "Did you get stung?" she asked.  "Yes, and I'm allergic" was all I shouted back as I continued on my mad dash towards the house.

That's how I met Karen's sister.  I heard later in the day that she had gone right back inside and announced "Your neighbor just got stung by a bee and, boy, he was cursing up a storm."  I'm glad I made such a good impression.

Netflix < Michele Bachmann

I was all set to post today about Michele Bachmann.  She frightens me more and more each day.  Then I got home and saw my e-mail from Netflix.  Sorry, Michele.  You'll have to wait a while.

I've always been a big fan of Netflix and have had the service for years.  Netflix took a great idea, executed on it extremely well, and became a tremendous success in the process.  I've been so happy with them that I even bought a subscription for my parents as a Christmas present last year. 

Late last year, we switched from our 3 DVD's at a time plan to Netflix's unlimited streaming plus 1 DVD at a time plan.  Streaming seemed like it would be much more convenient and, admittedly, it also made sense financially since the new plan was $9 / month cheaper.  But, I've got to tell you -- the selection of movies available for streaming on Netflix stinks.  Just last week, we sat down to try to find a movie to watch.  We literally searched the library for 25 minutes.  We couldn't find anything worth watching.  I finally gave up and went to bed.

Now, I get home and see that Netflix has decided that it's raising the monthly access fee for our plan from $9.99 / month to $15.99 / month.  Why?  Well, in the words of Steve Swasey, their brilliant VP of Corporate Communications, "$6 more is a remarkable value."  Is he kidding me?  Paying 60% more each month for the exact same service is better "value?"

Swasey then went on to say that Netflix's streaming service provides more movies than you can watch in a lifetime.  That may be true but how many of those titles are actually any good?  As a proxy for determining the quality of the movie titles that Netflix makes available for streaming, I just went to the Netflix site and checked out their "Top 100" list.  This is Netflix's list of the 100 most popular movies on the site, as measured by request volume.  You know how many are available for instant viewing?  A grand total of 8.  What does that tell you?  It tells me that the overwhelming majority of movies that Netflix makes available for streaming on its site are bottom of the barrel, low-quality, and mind-numbing pieces of garbage.  They're the films that no one wants to watch.

Looks like I'll saying good-bye to the streaming experiment.  I may even say good-bye to Netflix.

What You Missed Last Week

While on vacation in bustling Rock Hall last week, I only had sporadic access to the Internet.  So, I wasn't able to comment on everything that took place in the world around me.  Here are my thoughts on a couple of things that happened while I was away.

• Betty Ford died.  Someone famous always seems to die while we're at Fox Point over the summer -- two years ago, it was Michael Jackson.  In fact, one of our dinner conversations early on in the week was about who was most likely to die while we were away.  We went around the table and gave our "nominations."  One of the names that came up was Barbara Bush.  Turns out we had the wrong former first lady.
• The greatest soccer game ever took place.  No, I'm not talking about USA - Brazil in the women's World Cup.  I'm talking about Mexico - Germany in the semi-final of the U-17 Men's World Cup.  Why was I watching this game?  Well, it was 8PM, I was tired, and there was nothing else on TV that captured my fancy.  Good decision by me.  With less than 10 minutes to go in the game, Mexico was trailing 2-1.  They earned a corner.  My new hero, Julio Gomez, managed to get himself in the way of the fullback who had the back post.  He did this by launching himself in the air and initiating a full speed head-to-head collision.  With the fullback now out of the way, the ball found its way into the back corner.  Julio, unfortunately, was down for a good 5 minutes.  Enormous amounts of blood covered all the towels that the trainers brought with them onto the field to care for him.  Finally, the trainers wrapped yards of gauze and tape around poor Julio's head to stop the bleeding and carted him off the field.  Mexico now found itself down a man with hardly any time left.  Germany launched its counter-attack.  Suddenly, my man Julio was at the scorer's table jumping up and down, ready to re-enter the game.  The center referee ran over, inspected him from head to toe to determine if any blood was visible.  Finding none, the referee let Julio back into the game.  In the 90th minute, Mexico earned another corner.  Watch what happens next: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIRYIT4lwuU.  Julio is the man.  I can't wait til Swansea City signs him.
• Kevin Richardson re-joined Backstreet Boys.  Go ahead, laugh all you want about me knowing that this took place.  But, check out the reaction from the crowd at the 2-minute mark in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKGF6qYD9jw&feature=related.  How crazy are those screams?  Some of those women don't sound happy.  Instead, it sounds like they're dying a horrible death.

I can't wait to see what happens this week.

Boom Town

I am officially announcing that the economic recovery is in full swing.  How do I know?  Because I'm in Rock Hall, MD.  Let me explain.

• On Monday night (July 4th), we decided to go out to dinner.  We arrived at the first restaurant at 7:30PM.  "Sorry. Our kitchen is closing and we can't help you," we were told.  That seemed odd -- a busy holiday night and they were closing early?  Oh, well.  We headed off to Waterman's Crab House.  Surely, they'd be open for business.  But, it was the same old story.  They were closing early -- they wanted to enjoy the holiday, too.  We were down to our last shot -- Harbor Shack.  We got there just before 8PM.  After a heavy sigh, the hostess said "Come on in.  I was just about to shut down the kitchen but we'll take you as our last table."  Success at last. 
• Tuesday night we had dinner at home.  Afterwards, we decided to head in to Durding's for ice cream.  We pulled up to the curb at 7:30PM.  What greeted us?  A big "Sorry -- We're Closed" sign.  7:30PM on a Tuesday night during a summer holiday week and Durding's is closed for business.  Times must be good.
• Now, it's Wednesday morning.  There's a t-shirt store on Main Street in Rock Hall and Kim has been looking for a Rock Hall t-shirt.  So, we headed into town at 10AM.  But, what do you know.  They're closed!  Better yet, they don't even have their store hours posted.  How the hell am I supposed to know when to come back to spend my money?  I guess that's not their concern.  Once again, we'd struck out in our attempt to spend money in Rock Hall.

It's good to know that things are so good in Rock Hall that no one needs our money.  Perhaps Rock Hall's civic leaders can share some of their secrets with the rest of the country so that everyone can start living the good life again.

"Previously On Lost"

OK, I realize that the rest of the world went throught this debate about 14 months ago and I'm late for the party.  But, I'm going to post about the series finale of "Lost."  That's because I finally watched the last episode tonight.  If you've already been through this, then go ahead and skip this post.  If you're behind the times like me, are still working your way through the series, and don't want any spoilers, then you should skip this, too.  Anyone who's left can keep on reading.

Since finishing the final episode, I've been scouring the internet, reading the takes of all the "experts," hoping that they could explain what really happened.  You see, the ending left me confused.  I wasn't sure what really happened.  And, after investing so much time watching the show, I wanted closure.  So, I went looking for answers.

What I've found online is a bit of a mixed bag.  After reading a variety of interpretations, the version I'm going with is that the experiences on the island were real, the alternate world that played out in season six was not real (it was some sort of purgatory), and that, while Jack, Sun, Juliet, and some of their fellow travelers really did die on the island, others made it back to real world.  There's a bit of a problem with this theory in that those who think the experiences on the island were real don't seem to have good explanations for some of the crazy stuff that happened there.  Oh, well.  I'll go with this theory.

Regarding the finale, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I liked it.  It just seemed "right" to me.  Sometimes I do stop and think about what happens when you die.  I'll admit it - thinking about it always frustrates me.  I like certainty.  Death, of course, is certain so I can grasp that.  What comes afterwards, though, is anything but certain.

For the sake of argument, let's assume there's a heaven.  What is it and what will it be like?  In the finale of "Lost," I thought that the explanation that Jack's dad gave to him at the church was great.  If I remember it correctly, Jack asked his dad why all those who were at the church were there.  His dad's response was that they were the people who had been part of Jack's life during his greatest time of need.  I like that.  If there is a heaven and you're lucky enough to make it there, who better to have with you, right?

Alright, enough deep thinking.  It's 9:55PM.  I need Nick to finish up his shift at Ledo's so I can pick him up and we can drive over to Fox Point together.  Wish me luck.  I'm usually in bed by now.