An Actual Son-O-Hal Sighting

I have just two things to report on from the 'Life of Ragryph' files.

First, I made myself look like a complete idiot over the weekend by buying a new patio furniture set during a snow storm. Second, there has been an actual first hand sighting of Son-O-Hal.

As you know a freakish snowstorm hit this area over the weekend. We were punished with about 24 hours of continuous wet snow. After a few weeks of beautiful weather (sunshine, little rain, or even clouds, temps in the 70’s and 80’s) we get hit with this crap. The local weather men insisted on repeatedly reminding us that the average last snow fall each year is April 22nd; this storm hit on 4/23. Of course the underlying message in this statement was ‘come on folks it’s not my fault I only report the weather I don’t make it!’

I have needed a new patio set since I moved in my house two years ago. For the last month or so I have been planning and shopping to buy a set. Well everything came together this weekend, so in spite of the snow I went to make my purchase. One thing I didn’t think of was the packaging of such a product. I was buying 6 chairs and a table. I figured I’d be able to get all of it in my truck. This is after all why I bought the thing. Let me back up a bit.

I found what I wanted at Home Depot. My local store decided it would be a really good idea to cram about 12 different display models and all the under stock for these displays in a area about the size of my living room. So after finding what I was looking for, writing down the part numbers and locating the boxes on the shelf I went to retrieve a flat bed cart. I soon discovered that an empty cart could barely fit through the aisle. I struggled on my own (as there were apparently no employees working that morning) to get the box of chairs onto the cart. After taking a minute to catch my breath I fought to get the table box on as well. That’s when I finally looked around and realized I just trapped myself in a patio furniture prison. I had to stand on a chair in order to get back to the handle end of the flat bed. Finally an employee surfaced and he looked rather annoyed when I hollered at him from my prison cell to get a little help getting out. We had to move several display units out of the way for me to even move the cart.

Once my escape was secured I got out to my vehicle to realize it was now snowing harder than when I entered the store. With the tail gate open and the seats folded down I began the process of lifting the chair box into my vehicle. I was struggling to this by myself. Graciously some guy stopped to give me a hand. Once the box was in he chuckled and said ‘yeah, dude, that second box is not gonna fit in here.’ The chair box was almost the exact size of the inside of my VUE. So I sat in my vehicle with the table box leaning on the side of car, snow falling at a pretty steady pace, waiting for assistance to arrive. Right now the boxes are sitting in my garage untouched. After I recover from the indignity of that experience I will get the thing assembled.

Last night I had a personal sighting of Son-O-Hal. I am happy to report that he is still upright, among the living, and apparently still has all ten digits on his hands. Which leads me to question his lack of postings. As a side note he was having dinner with Wife-O-Hal, and Hal-Himself. I thought that Brother-O-Son-O-Hal would like to know that all appeared to be doing well.

The Drugs Are Kicking In

I’m sitting feeling like crap, watching Pistons game. I took some medication a little while ago. Hopefully it will help. It looks and feels much more like winter outside than spring. Supposedly we could get 3-6 inches over the weekend. I don’t believe it. Ok, truth is I don’t want to believe it. We’ve had such nice weather for the last few weeks.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you an update on my week. As you know this week I started a new job. I’m still working for the same company and I’m still in the finance organization. My new job will be doing journal entries, database maintenance, and various kinds of management reporting. Along with a variety of projects, in fact I got pulled into one of those already this week. I’m working with a group to write up a users guide for one of the main management reports that we get requests for.

I’m not able to really dive into my new job yet, because I’m still doing my old job. I was asked to do invoicing for the May cycle, which starts on Monday. In addition to doing that I am training a new employee on how to do the job. Things seem to be going well so far. Hopefully that will continue into next week.

Apparently the drugs I took are kicking in I keep zoning out and forgetting what I’ve written. So I’m going to wrap this up.

iPod One vs Ragryph's iPod

Sometimes I come across stories or news articles that should be prefaced ‘hey Rob this is something you should rant on for your blog’. Here is one time that I just can’t resist that urge. **NOTE** this rant contains some quotes taken from the cnn.com article. I don’t feel the need to footnote them, sorry.

Last night I saw a story on NBC Nightly News, and I read the same story on cnn.com today, about President Bush’s iPod. First of all this story belongs buried at the bottom of the ‘Who Cares!’ file. But, since they published it I guess I can rant on it.

Apparently he is coming under some level of scrutiny for his choice of songs. One person from Spin magazine (who automatically looses my respect because of his employer) says that having “My Sharona” on his iPod isn’t “consistent with Bush's image as protector of conservative values." Because it is a song about a man pursuing a much younger women and contains lyrics such as: ” Such a dirty mind. Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind”. Another ‘journalist’ from the London Times, Caitlin Moran noted: "No black artists, no gay artists, no world music, only one woman, no genre less than 25 years old, and no Beatles."

Being a rather big music fan, and an owner of an iPod with some 650 tracks on it, this got me wondering what these people might say about me based on my choices of music.

I meet the criteria of having black artists with; Marvin Gaye, Arrested Development, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Dr Dre, ray Charles. I think I meet the criteria of gay artists with; Depeche Mode, and Duran Duran. I have what could be loosely defined as world music in Ashley MacIssaac. I have several women artists, including; Julianna Hatfield, Bjork, and Twisted Sister, er ah Shakira. I have plenty of stuff that is newer than 25 years old, and sorry Derek, I have several tracks by the Beatles.

So what? What does all this mean? Can you really pshyco-analyze someone based on the music they listen too? I wonder what my music says about me?

Would you say that I am about to join the Green Party because I love Pearl Jam's music? Would you say that I endorse heroine use because I listen to artists like; Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and heaven forbid Nirvana? Does it mean that I’m a womanizer because I enjoy Ray Charles, and Motley Crue?

What does it say that I have Marilyn Manson, and the Sex Pistols songs that make frequent references to being the anti-christ along side songs written by Marin Luther an songs performed by Amy Grant Michael w. Smith and DC Talk?

Am I ready to denounce my citizenship and become Canadian because I listen to Our Lady Peace, the Gandharvas, and the Barenaked Ladies? Or am I going to become Irish because I like U2, the Cranberries, and the Corrs.

Am I going to start wearing makeup and burning my own personal hole in the ozone from hairspray because I like Poison and Def Leppard?
What does it say that I like Rage Against the machine, Rammstein, and Bob Marley?
Better yet what does it say that I like Bach, Pacobel, and Motzart. Or that one of my all time favorite songs is a half hour long performance written entirely in latin?

Maybe it says that I’m from Detroit that I listen to Kid Rock, Eminem, Bob Seger, and Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise.

What about my guilty pleasures, like; Avril Lavigne, Falco, LL Cool J, Save Ferris, and Hayden.

The beautiful thing about art, and especially music, is what I love and can’t possibly live without you might think is crap (right Derek). Or what you like I can’t for the life of me understand. I love music and can’t understand when someone can quickly and easily peg one song or one band as their favorite. In my opinion anyone who listens to just one genre of music and rejects any other genre of music just doesn’t know enough about music and the unbelievable beauty in even the crappiest song.

Fluff

With all the recent blogs on capital punishment, euthanasia, and such, I thought I’d post something with fluff. Here’s what I did this weekend.

Friday I went out with work people to have a going away gathering for three people on my team (including me). My last day isn’t until this coming Friday, but we scheduled it early because one of the other guys had his last day this past Friday.

Saturday I didn’t do a whole lot during the day. I played around with my new laptop and my new wi-fi zone. I discovered that I can sit on my benches at the back of my property and still get a decent signal to move around on the internet. That is far better than I expected it to work.
Saturday night I had some guys over for card night. As usual we played no-limit hold ‘em. I invited a new guy to play with us. He turned out be much better than he let on. I won the first hand pretty soundly. I didn’t win again for about 1 ½ hours, and not for another hour after that. I won exactly three hands and bought in three times (after the initial buy-in). It was ugly.

Sunday, I did the church thing of course. We found out that one of pastors (the one with the longest tenure) has turned in his resignation. I was pretty surprised. I couldn’t help but think that there may have been more behind it than what people are saying. I really hope there isn’t anything more, but I can’t help thinking that way.

After church I stopped at Home Depot to get lawn bags. Those things are expensive. But, I desperately needed to clean up my lawn. I decided to stop in at Linen’s and Thing's to pick up a couple of things I needed. I came a across a fire pit that they were selling. I’ve been toying with this idea ever since Chris put the bug in my ear. Anyway, this thing was exactly what I had in mind, and was a pretty good price. So I had to buy it. It went together pretty easily. It’s basically a cast iron bowl (about 30 inches diameter), on a small stand. The bowl is quite heavy, but it looks cool. That is going to be a nice place to hang-out on summer evenings.

That’s about it. That was my weekend. I did watch some of the Tigers games, and little bit of the Twins/White Sox game yesterday. Nothing to terribly exciting, but a good weekend in all.

Euthansia and Living Wills

I have very strong feelings about euthanasia. Euthanasia is completely wrong and indefensible in my mind; no matter who the person involved is; no matter what the stage of life; no matter what the medical condition of that person.

I have these strong views, in part, because if my first doctors had had their way I wouldn’t have made it through the first month of my life. My parents stood their ground against those doctors in making the decision to give me every possible medical treatment to save and improve the quality of my life in those first few days. Because of the severity of the birth defect I was born with the doctors told my parents; I would never walk, I would likely have brain damage, and that I would never be a productive member of society. Thanks to God, my parents, and one incredibly skilled surgeon none of those predictions came true.

I believe that God uses situations like mine and the Terry Schiavo case, and all trials no matter how great or small, for the good of those affected. It’s pretty clear that nearly all of the American population, and probably a lot of people around the world, have been exposed to the Schiavo case. My hope is that there will be good that comes out of this. The good that I hope comes to most people through this is that people will see the importance of the living will.
If she had had a living will the courts, and all involved would know who she wanted to be in charge of making the decisions at the end of her life. She would have also given that person, or persons, the guidelines by which to make those decisions. I have established my wishes through a living will as well as had discussions with those I designated to make those decisions. That way everyone, the doctors, my family, the courts etc will know who has that power. This I think is a major problem in this case. Both her husband and parents feel they have the right to make these decisions. I hope they are making their stands with pure intentions and love for their family member, and that there are no ulterior motives involved.

My hope is that everyone will contact a lawyer, or get the do-it-yourself kits to create a living will. Have conversations with the people involved and make sure your wishes are known. This whole case would have been resolved 15 years ago if she had had those documents in place. Now that she has passed the family fighting seems to be continuing. Yet again, things that could have been avoided if the proper documents, and conversations, had been handled.