who knows

Trying to quit smoking and that's pretty forefront on my pounding skull. I did drink a whole bunch of coffee today and that seems to help, just can't sleep. Damn tobacco. If it was cheap and not so stinky, it would be freakin awesome.
Photos are from the aquarium in Chattanooga. We went on a trip and it was sweet. Drank beer and saw th sights and met friends of my wife and drank more beer. Sure I'll have more to add down the morning road.

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dragons kick dino-ass

So it was my birthday the other day. Didn't know what to do so we took our first family trip to the zoo. I was a bit tipsy before we walked out the door and made a sizable gin-concoction to go. Note, I live across the street from the Memphis Zoo so we didn't drive nowhere. It was thick hot out and we were out to enjoy it. Baby Dan had to eat when we first got there so we stopped in the Burger Pavilion and got a bottle warm while watching the monkeys through the window. The second picture is one I took and wrenched a little. The original is pretty odd. More burger places should have monkeys. We finished up and made our rounds. The cats were cool as always. Tigers are just too bad ass. The boy loved the place, even if he had no idea what was going on. He's a huge fan of being outside. I like that. Then we wandered with moderate direction toward the Polar Bears. The snakes were slithering and Jasmine got a kick out of the Komodo Dragon. That's a big lizard. We had fun watching the ducks outside of the Panda exhibit. I can watch ducks all day. I remember a pond full of them at the National Zoo and that was the most memorable part of it. They keep bouncing about in their elegant manner.
We passed by the Savannah animals on the way. The tall giraffe doors are the funniest part. I wonder what it's like to see those creatures in their element, it has to be something pretty incredible. Hell, I still can't get over a ten point mule deer walking gliding by when I was pheasant hunting years ago.
By the time we got to the Northwest Passage, we were heat drunk, gin tipsy, and the bears were just hanging out on their cooled rocks. We took a seat for a bit and cooled ourselves in the timber house. The Memphis Zoo has some very well built exhibits and just a nice place to get lost at. It is also a people watching extravaganza. It was time to make the longish walk home. It started raining as we walked in our door. We then slept clear through the storm that knocked out a third of the city's power. It was the way to roll on a birthday.
The animals lead me to my next point. I've been teaching a summer school class (of one) in biology. It was once my favorite subject and I forgot how much I did know about ecosystems and the like. The class was going pretty well and then I decided to skip the huge section on cell bio because we don't have time and the student not the most inclined to study. The next section of the book is on evolutionary biology and natural selection. About two minutes in telling him how the planet wasn't always the way it is, he reminded me that God made the Earth in seven days. I responded that some feel that the Bible is metaphorical and the growing body of what we have seen supports the theory that the planet is more than 6000 years old and that we wouldn't be denying his religion. "Okay, so long as we don't go into that crap that man came from monkeys."
It was to be a long two hours but the kid is pretty cool and listened enough to come up with the idea that "The Bible only says that God made Adam and unless we're all in inbred, maybe the rest of the people came about how you say." It was even better to hear in his red-as-hell dialect.
I found no solace in talking with a coworker who told me that she was a Christian and found it difficult to teach the same section in her classes. I decided to read some creationist science to know more about it. Apparently, men lived with dinosaurs prior to the flood and we even have stories of them. You see, they were called dragons. That's fucking awesome. Nothing is cooler than dragons and I'll trade in some logic to have them be extra real and I can go look at their bones at the dino museum. Also, light is slowing down. That is why scientists who use it as a constant have been wrong by a billion-fold in their estimates of the universe's age. In addition, the Earth is the center of the universe. Go check it out. Creationism.org or something like that. It had me reading all manner of strange scientific books. I'm pretty screwed up about light slowing down. If it went super-duper fast before and light is some measure of time, would Methuselah's 900 years seem way longer? I ain't saying evolution is the exact truth, but...damn, is that the best you can come up with in response. The problem is that not recognizing natural selection, which we can see every day, avoids a huge part of biology. At least you got dragons, though.
This final picture is one I took on a school trip to the zoo. Also, Jasmine took the ones of the boy and the monkeys.

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weirdness is my game

Been having some fun with the boy. The other big news is that I got a job teaching Calculus at Central High. I figured I would be at one of the rough as funk schools in town but I lucked into the place I most wanted. Who would have figured that a writing degree would land me a job as a math teacher. It doesn't surprise me all that much.
Finding out that a couple of my friends are going through divorces. I hate it for them. One of the greatest things about being married is having that one person with you when the chips are down. Relationships are a hard thing, though. They are so easy to damage and so hard fix. I really don't know much about them but I'm pretty sure you gotta fight for each other and not each other. Sounds like a kid is yelping and I told him that I would read to him. He has no clue what I'm saying but he deserves a good yarn or two.

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that's some milk falling out of his mouth

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it's all about the love.

Grace in Unity, that's the name of the candlestick holder. My friend Dave ordered for his wife and had me give it to her on his wedding day. The other picture is from the Tampa airport. I hate flying. I used to not mind it. Hell, I once liked it. I just don't get how they can treat us, the paying customer, like shit. I know it's because they figure they have no competition but I know my truck can get me there in almost the same time as your screwed up planes and my knees won't be in my asshole. I moved from the love and that is a bad thing since the point was the power of faith in another. As they day, find yourself a woman and you'll find love someday.

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Trying the tech thing. needless to say, good people make the bs tolerable.

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he's cute.

That's my boy. He's not crying in this picture. He likes to cry. I don't much about kids so I can't brag about fantastic he is. He eats, poops, sleeps, and hollars. Actually, he's starting to smile and playing a smidgin. It's weird trying to figure out what a baby sees and knows. I'm pretty sure it sucks with all the lights and noises and everything must hurt.
I got back to the odd adventure tale. I think I needed a bit of headspace and months of math problems has done that. Beyond that, not much to report from the land of me. Have fun and smile well.

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hey tralala

This is not the best picture I could take of one of the cooler things I have made. It's a candlestick holder for friend. It's the first piece I have made with a meaning. Be curious to know what you think it is. I'll let those who are interested know when I get another picture up since it the piece is a surprise.

Been busy with the work and the baby and not really worrying about the vagueries of the rest of the world. That's how they get you. The other way is by the man being hell bent on screwing those trying to make it while giving the world to the lazy. We decided to try and apply for food stamps because food is good and we are barely making it. Turns out, they would give us free everything if I up and quit and sat on the porch drinking beer all day. The social benefits should go to those trying. It's a positive reinforcement. Too little of that in this land. Same with teaching kids. No, no, no. Don't touch that. Be quiet. Stop. Support and promotion of good habits and choices goes a lot further than penalizing the bad. What do I know. You can carry a gun into a Tennessee bar but not a cigarette. The logic defies me. Silliness, I tell you. Probably some other interesting observations but they fail me at this moment.
Kids are neat. Different than grownups and less bastardly.

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what you know about all that.

I've been waisting too much time and been too busy to care. I decided that I'm tired of being broke and a quick view of hospital bills made me hate something that I can do nothing about. I thought maybe I could start another pointless revolution. Then I figured I just need to find ways to make some more cheese. This led me to remembering that the broken system does provide the individual motivation. If it was free and easy, great works would not be finished and the improvement through hard work would be a distant dream of all the fat and lazy cats licking the sunshine of a perfect society. There's more to say on that but I've got to get back to the this job of mine.
These are some wacky pictures. I like them. Who knows if you do. Ha.

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it's 4:00 a.m. and there are construction workers in the new building across the way

It's some time in the middle of the night and I think I'm too tired to fall back asleep. Poor kid is feeling like crap and they got him on enough medicine to make me want to rip my stomach out through my throat. He's doing better and I have learned a thing or two. Not even the smart men in white coats know whats up with babies. They just start testing until they find out what's wrong. Makes sense considering the array of symptoms consist of sick feeling and crying. I need to get some new and interesting reading material up here.
Politics are boring as ever and I doubt anyone that reads this would care to hear what I think about playoff hockey. This was just something to spit out so that I might fall asleep and I think it's gonna work...unless someone starts feeling extra shitty.
On another note, how can one have semi-solid crap from a liquid diet?

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it's raining and i don't like hospital guest bed things

Turns out, the crying all night was him trying to tell me that he was sick. I have learned that I dislike the hospital waiting room way less than the young people's e.r. waiting cell. It is even less fun with all the swine flu papers on the wall and everybody wearing masks and the news people being all scary.
I will say that my boy is pretty damn tough. I watched him get a spinal tap with nary a whimper. I probably would still be swearing and moaning if someone stuck a needle in my back. He's regained his color and his fever has subsided so the antibiotics seem to be working which hopefully means he doesn't have anything severe.
The most touching part of the whole adventure to date happened when I came home to get toothpaste and the like. My dog was whimpering and confused, she knew her baby person brother was sick and he wasn't home. That's my dog in the picture. She's the sweetest most useless animal. She rolls in stinky shit and sleeps on the bed when no one is home. Well, I've got to continue helping a young man write a paper about The Great Gatsby.

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yabbadoo

Rum-tum tiddle-iddle. I read some Winnie-the-Pooh last night and it is better than I remember. I need to get more than the one or two stories that I have. The writing has an elegance that is rare in children's literature, without being inaccessible. This is a day or so later and I'm a little sleepy but thankful for wonderful people and kind deeds.
Look at this a wacky picture I made after I let two of my students play with a silly program called Evolvotron. Let two sugared-up kids loose on a computer and who knows what will come from the other side. I think they sent my poor machine through a billion iterations but we got some neat stuff out of it.
I've been putting baby pictures in the "pictures of stuff" section. Feel free to comment or if you want them here, let me know. He is a cute thing, despite the nasal crying in the bit of night recently reserved for sleeping and stupidity. Drunkenness is overrated. Geometry knowledge represents.

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babies, bits of a past adventure, and procrastination.

One picture is something I edited from a day hike I took on crazy hot time a couple of years ago. I went to Village Creek State Park which is on Crowley's Ridge. It's a different world on this long, low ridge that runs from Missouri to south of here. I am unsure of the geology of it but I believe it is the vestige of an incredibly old mountain. I remember it being insanely hot and walking down a sunken confederate road and these crazy trees with roots half naked.

Now, the next picture is about the widest I have seen Daniel James open his eyes. He is a cute thing and I was not one for cute.

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