Published writer, compulsive reader, Old School Whovian, Match Game enthusiast, NKOTB fan, data hoarder, and - surprisingly, given that list - married with four kids. Welcome to my take on life, fatherhood, entertainment, and whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
Sorry I haven't posted lately.
I haven't grown sick of blogging, nor am I suffering from burnout, psoriasis, or anything stronger than a cold.
I've just been very busy in a mad effort to get the house ready for the baby - hopefully in time to allow a week of relative relaxation before the birth.
I'll try to get the site back on a normal schedule by Monday.
1. I was just checking my BlogExplosion stats and noticed that one person has actually dropped me from their Blogmark page. Ouch. I didn't think the book list was that boring.
2. BTW, the books in blue (in the post below) I whole-heartedly recommend. I tried to edit the post to tell you that (and correct some typos) but it keeps freezing on me.
3. To answer an email question, The DaVinci Code isn't on the list because I read it in '03 (the 30th of 79 books that year). Let us be clear on my opinion - the book sucks on a hundred different levels. It's success can only be explained away by reminding ourselves that at one point our society also raved about Vanilla Ice, Teletubbies, and above ground nuclear testing.
My wife and I are hard at work prepping the nursery for the arrival of Parker in early March?. To my shame, I haven't had time to scrabble together a post. In fact, I took an extra day off work - something I do maybe twice a year - just to finish the painting.
So, here's something I wrote about a month ago but considered too boring to post. Ain't that a great recommendation?
A long time ago I read Louis Lamour's posthumous autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. At the end of the book Lamour included a list of every book he read over the course of some of his 'yondering' days.
Although the lists were panned in reviews of the book, I resolved then and there to start taking stock of what books came across my plate. Beginning in 1994 and continuing to this day, I've done just that, jotting down the name and author of every book I've read.
Yeah, I know. It sounds lame to me too.
But I keep doing it. My shortest list was the year I met my wife, when I was too busy to care about heading off to the bookstore. My longest was sometime in the last three years, when I cleared eighty-some odd books.
I keep aiming for the century mark and falling short.
To rationalize my failure a bit, the list is very particular. Not only do I have to complete a book, I have to have read any and all forwards, footnotes, appendixes, and dedication pages. Maybe five books a year fail to make the list for failing to meet one or all of these criteria.
Lamer still, I know.
Anyhow, before I ramble myself into a straight-jacket, here's the list for 2004; and I warn ya, it's a weak one. I was mired in a few monster works of non-fiction for most of the summer that knocked me off pace. In addition I generally don't read other people's work when I'm stressing my own writing.
Floating Dragon by Peter Straub
Koko by Peter Straub
Mystery by Peter Straub
The Throat by Peter Straub
Julia by Peter Straub
Shadowland by Peter Straub
Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga by Stephen Davis
The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, The B.B, and Ritchie Valens by Larry Lehmer
Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson
Bad Business by Robert B Parker
Shall We Tell the President? By Jeffrey Archer
A Marginal Jew Vol. 1 by Joseph P. Maier
If you Copuld See Me Now by Peter Straub
The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub
The Birth of the Messiah: A commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke by Raymond E Brown
Double Play by Robert B Parker
The Enemy by Lee Child
Tripwire by Lee Child
The Possession of Joel Delaney by Ramona Stewart
Hark by Ed McBain
LazyBones by Mark Billingham
Plan of Attack by Dale Brown
Absent Friends by SJ Rozan
Sharpe's Escape by Bernard Cornwell
The Bone Parade by Mark Nykanen
The Madman's tale John Katzenbach
Sudden Prey by John Sandford
Hawke's Harbor by SE Hinton
An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor ? ?
Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham
Cold Blood by Theresa Monsour
The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern
The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Stephen Pressfied
The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner
Melancholy Baby by Robert B. Parker
You'll notice I tend to binge on a single authour and then move on.
My favorites? Well, I'll tell you the worst of the bunch - Plan of Attack by Dale Brown and the oldie by Jeffrey Archer. My favorites are harder to sort out, but I must say that I was really drawn to the non-fiction biblical studies this year.
I swear, I get dorkier by the minute.
Lisa is slightly disturbed by the personal nature of the two posts on mice.
Let me set the record straight: if we had a problem with rodents or pests, I would have gone insane years ago.
In nearly ten years of living together this is only the second mouse I've seen in our home (the first was one my cat killed and brought home as a 'trophy'), and we've never had a problem with other pests. The mice mentioned in the rest of the piece were at work or at other locales.
Also, I feel it neccessary to point out that while rodents are my achille's heel, it does not in any way reduce the fact that I am, to be fair, the studliest man in America.
Dan
Not much of a surprise here, but I'm going with the Patriots.
Above and beyond the fact they play like a brutal, uncompromising machine, have the edge in experience, and shut down Indy in the playoffs (in what was probably the best game of the year), they just flat out have more attractive uniforms than the Eagles.
Pats 27 Eagles 17
Although the score was tighter than I expected, the Pats walked away with yet another title. Two observations:
Where was this vaunted coaching of Andy Reid? The Eagles time management was awful, as was their play calling in the closing minutes. Yikes.
When you look at McNabb's stats, you don't get this impression - but the man choked. Not only did he give up the ball at the worst possible times, he looked sick to his stomach when Philadelphia got the ball back with a chance to win it all.
JMHO
For those of you paying attention, yes, the chronology in this post and the one before it seems a little out of whack.
In truth the previous post was written in November, but not posted becasue I feared it would jinx me. When it didn't matter anymore (see this post) I decided to give it a whirl.
Curse the fates.
A mouse made the migration.
About a week ago I was helping the wife make dinner when I saw what, to my eyes, looked like chocolate sprinkles in the cupboard.
You will note that chocolate sprinkles, while never advertised as such by the manufacturer, bear a striking resemblance to mouse droppings.
My wife put me at ease, pointing out we did have sundae toppings on that very shelf and the kids probably spilled some.
Fine.
Now explain why a few days later a box of crackers was chewed to bits.
Here's where my wife lost me. Normally, to salvage my fragile sanity I can deny reality at will. Not so my wife, who is overly realistic to a fault.
So forgive me for doing a cartoon double-take at her response:
"Maybe the kids did it," she said.
Hey, my kids are beasts when it comes to snack food, and the youngest does have quite a set of choppers, but I doubt they would choose to chew through a box instead of just . . . opening it.
And how did she explain the equally violated box behind it?
"I think I remember yelling at Olivia for doing that," she said.
Yeah, uh-huh. Hey, who knows? If she believed that, maybe she does mean it when she tells me size doesn't matter.
Within a few minutes, the frightening truth came to light: by way of a crack between the cupboard and the wall, a mouse had been feasting on our rations.
[as this isn't Fear Factor I'll leave out what we found in the box of rice; nor will I mention that we'd made chinese food the night before]
I've already explained my fear of mice, so we'll gloss over the aftermath: the panic attack, the persistent and morbid belief that every gust of wind was a mouse crawling on my skin, and the fact that my wife had to all but slap me and tell me to be a man before I'd handle a bag of garbage that included the cracker boxes.
My only hope was that we'd catch the bugger soon. After my wife set the traps (what, you expected me to do it?) I spent an uneasy night tossing and turning.
Overnight the traps had been licked clean without catching a thing.
To say this heightened my anxiety is an understatement. That evening, I came up with a new plan - newly baited traps, each surrounded by a wall of glue traps.
If he figured a way around that, forgetaboutit - no way I was staying in the same house as something that'd escaped from Nimh. .
We got him.
He died heroically, as mice go - he'd gotten tangled in the glue traps, each paw stuck to a different trap, but pushed onward towards his destiny (in this case, the spring trap)
He stayed where he was for a few hours after I found him, until my wife woke up and arranged his funeral.
As for me, I am still recovering.
Despite the fact that I have cleaned the house top to bottom and found no trace of another beast, and that the traps we set out as a precaution remain untouched, I'm leery. Even with fresh groceries I still won't eat anything from the cupboard, and the kitchen gives me the creeps.
The upside to this? Our family has enjoyed more dinners out in the last week than in the whole of 2004.
Of course, by doing this we can no longer afford a mousetrap if we do get another visitor . . .
I came across this on a websearch for 'shorthand' and thought it funny enough to share - although it may come across as an inside joke for history buffs.
By Rob Eccles
- - - -
w/o:roht
Without reward or hope thereof
ryahud;)
Remaining your affectionate husband until death
iop/loc
(With/by) Impulse of patriotism and love of country
iawap:)
I am well at present
s't
Shan't
iaotl:)
I am among the living
y:(
The Yanks
i-r
I reckon
frot:)
(In) fond remembrance of thee
s!
Shelling
iaptiy:(
I am pained to inform you
iwot
In want of tobacco
=|:(#
Old Abe
s-r
Snug as a bug in a rug
lisnbatwtya
Lest I should not be able to write to you again
bfo
(The) bitter fruit of orphanage
Gc&t
(In honor of/for love of) God, country, and thee
lt
Lieutenant; lead thither (situational)
bt2m
Been through the mill
sa2ht
Scarce as a hen's teeth
$;)
Greenbacks
~
Body lice
B!
Bully (to you)!
t't
T'weren't
i3ntisfotbfmc:(
If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country
Today, take a moment to listen to a Buddy Holly song and realize why it's called the day the music died.
My next door neighbors have mice.
This wouldn't be a problem if we lived in a nice new sub-division with half an acre of land between their house and ours. But this is the south side of Milwaukee. Our house isn't just a stone's throw away, it's a stones throw for a one armed child with tennis elbow.
It may also pose a slight problem because of my deep and unyielding fear of any rodent that doesn't have a theme park named after him.
For those of you who know me, this is old news. You may skip down the page without fear of retaliation. For those of you new to my world:
I am a 6'3", 300-pound man.
I have been charged by pit bulls while working for a land surveyor.
I have escaped harm at the hands of a group of drunk thugs by pure bravado.
I have, as a hotel manager, kicked out many people with bad mojo in their heart and good firearms at their side.
I have also pushed my wife off a chair and jumped atop it at the sight of a mouse.
I once, at the age of twenty-nine, considered calling my Dad to pick up a dead mouse I found on my property.
I had an on-duty police officer intervene the sole time I tried to kill a mouse, and had him reprimand me for asking him - seriously - to shoot it.
In short, I have a slight fear of mice.
So you can imagine my distress when my neighbor casually dropped her news in my lap. It's just one or two, she said. One or two? That, to me, is the difference between a panic attack and
hospitalization.I thought back to when I moved in. I asked the departing resident - smoothly, I thought - if there had ever been any, you know, mice or anything?
"Oh, we had a mousy here or there, but nothing for years now, "she said. A 'mousy'.
It took my wife a week to get me to stop sleeping in the car.
Logically, I know there is no guarantee that these monsters will visit my home. I can rationalize that my neighbor is a filthy, uncombed woman (which sadly, is untrue). I can conclude that my foundation is miraculously more secure than that of her house. I can hope that she terminates these creatures quickly and completely.
Yet these are just convenient lies. I have no doubt that my neighbor is a clean, meticulous housekeeper. I am sure her basement foundation is as tightly sealed as Don Corleone’s alibi. I know she will fail to punish these rodents as they deserve. Already I can see, in my mind's eye, the mice marching calmly from her house to mine.
So my mind fills with battle plans. Do I purchase traps now, with the idea of ending the threat before I even see it? Do I explore the idea of an exterminator? Or do I do what, frankly, seems like the only intelligent thing to do:
Pull up stakes and move immediately.
Yes, there's the possibility that some minor harm would result. Certainly the kids would miss their friends, our modest investment would be for naught, my wife would be incensed; insignificant riff raff, all. For me, it's worth it.
Or, I could bite the bullet and act like a man. I could put the worries out of mind, and when and if they materialize I could face my phobia and overcome it once and for all.
Uh, yeah.
See you in Toledo.
You know that euphoria you feel after a big shinding like a wedding or - in this case - an inauguration? The feeling that you could go on forever and that things like sleep are for mere mortals, not a guy like you?
Yeah, neither do I.
After it was over the only thing I felt was exhausted and hungry. Since we had more than an hour before the parade began we decided to pass the time sampling the local cuisine.
The problem with this plan was that the entire city of Washington appeared closed for the day. After a fruitless half-mile search we stumbled onto a metro station, and the rest of my party decided to call it a day and return to the hotel for a nap.
I went with them, but changed my mind and hopped a return train back to D.C. Tired or not, I couldn't call it quits just yet.
I found a deli that was open (ironically, right next to the metro station), grabbed a burger, checked in with my wife, and set off to find the parade.
I couldn't find anything on the parade route itself - frankly I didn't even bother trying - but I found the staging area. Since the parade was delayed by hours, I managed a pretty good look at it without the hassle of a crowd or a long wait in the cold.
I also had my second encounter with protestors.
The first was at the inaugural itself, when four or five protesters interrupted the event and were hauled off by police. They were led off, peace signs flashing, mere feet from where I was standing. The crowd saluted them with chants of "four more years" and a scattering of choice words.
At the parade the group I saw was a bit less committed. Decked in handmade pink t-shirts covered in anti-Bush slogans, the group of young girls - not a one eighteen - was busy buying Bush t-shirts from a street vendor.
Think they were buying the shirts to deface them? I did at first, but nope.
"My Dad will love this one, " I overheard one say.
My third and final encounter with one came as I shared a cab to the airport on the way home. The woman was 'in mourning' and 'disgusted' that I was a Republican, but apparently not so much that she wouldn't spend ten minutes chatting with me at the terminal.
Later I saw footage of the parade protests, and a demonstration that became violent. But I'll give credit where it's due: for the most part everyone co-existed with politeness and ease. Frankly, if I think the only reason the violence was news at all was because there was a camera there to create the story.
[My personal take on the protests: While I recognize their right to do what they do, I find it incredibly disrespectful and think it reeks of bitterness at their defeat.. I wouldn't do it, and if I did, I wouldn't chose as my venue a national celebration that attempts to put aside political differences for a day. There are folks I don't like in the world, but I wouldn't chose their wedding or graduation to make my opinion heard.
And for the record, a word to the protestors themselves: I'm sure most of you are Everyday Joe's, so if you want to get past the 'fringe' label quit using masses of lonely, greasy haired people with canvas sneakers. And while you're at it, ditch the forty-year old guys at the airport whose only carry-on luggage were their skateboards]
Even before it officially began, I'd moved on from the parade. As I had in Boston, I spent the afternoon randomly walking around the city, wandering from the tourist-y areas of D.C. to the residential. In the course of the day I followed part of a historical walking path, stopped at a police station to use the restroom, picked up a protest flyer as a souvenir, visited a nearly-vacant shopping mall, and generally just tried to get a taste of the city itself.
[random observation: no one in Washington - from the hotel clerks to drivers to restaurant owners to a woman I asked for directions - was born in America. Everyone not directly involved in the government seemed to be an immigrant; I can't remember hearing so many different accents in one place outside of my trip to Disney World]
By evening I was back in Maryland, and at 3:30 a.m. I was on my way to the airport for an early flight.
My trip was over, and it was time to get back to Milwaukee.
Without the help of several people my trip wouldn't have been possible. From borrowing me a tux to loaning me a garment bag or getting me a deal on plane tickets, they went beyond the call of duty. Thanks to all of you!
Mary Dantzler, Jeff Varisco, Tre Wagner, Kathy and Ed Slapczynski, Dennis and Louise Kohn, Jeanne Scorsone, Lisa Slapczynski, Wil Domena
