more normal than not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAtKlixxnTg

I don’t watch sports at my house.

I might watch some Spongebob or Bob the Builder sometimes….but I don’t watch sports.

There’s too much else on that would be more fun for the rest of the family (and….OK….me, too) to be watching that I just don’t watch much “sports”.

Not even the great man, Tiger Woods…or a good Lance Armstrong comeback….can get me interested in watching sports.

Oscar Pistorius…..even Oscar with the bionic legs….I don’t think that I’d watch that.

I’d watch some of the ultramarathons. That would be good.

But I don’t watch sports.

But, this isn’t really about what I don’t watch.

Everybody is supposed to watch the Super Bowl.

I watched some of the Super Bowl.

I’m less of a Katy Perry fan than I was before I watched the Super Bowl….and I wasn’t even a little bit of a fan before I watched the Super Bowl.

That was boring.

(I think that Kid Rock put on a great show….the Red Hot Chili Peppers, too….but not Katy Perry….)

I don’t know….Kid Rock just felt more genuine, somehow.

More genuine.

He actually rocks…..pretty hard.

I’m not a big Kid Rock fan, either….but it was a better performance.

All this spectacle….yuck.

I watched the Super Bowl…..that final catch that was almost missed……and then the interception that wasn’t missed….and then….

THE FIGHT!!

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

(Have you ever been in the center of a bunch of kids…..everybody yelling that? Pushing you into the middle like some junior gladiator….fight, fight, fight!!!.  That stunk when that happened….)

You know….tempers ran high…..and these big dudes started pounding on each other near the end zone….and it was like the best hockey game I didn’t watch (either) this year.

It was the best.

It’s all so hyped….everything….the game, the show….the commercials….all so hyped.

Nate’s up….got to go.

But….what about that fight?!!

And wasn’t that halftime show kind of desperate and boring?

Just rock out on a small stage….rock hard and true…..and it would be more fun for me to watch.

WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THE OTHER STUFF?

Oh…..and maybe do more of the funky “bobble catches”. That was kind of different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMXPn2Kp0D8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“genesis” Jorma Kaukonen

It’s harder to pick out a name for a child than it is to pick out a name for a dog.

You don’t want to make a mistake with naming a child.

You don’t worry so much with a dog.

If you named your dog something like Mr. Mephistopheles….and later regretted it…you would know that it probably wouldn’t scar the dog for his comparatively short life that you’d saddled him with a strange identifier.

And….if it did scar him….who would know?

Except for the possible anti-social behavior that being name Mr. Mephistopheles might generate, a dog can’t let you know if he approves or disapproves of a wacky name.

A dog just rolls with it.

This isn’t about dogs, though.

When our third child was getting ready to be born…and we were scrambling for a good name….I said “how about Amos?”

“Amos”.

My wife, who I hadn’t really played much of his music for, but who must have internalized something….somehow….said, “Ahhhhh, I like that! How about ‘Amos Lee’?”

“Hah! Like the singer! How’d she know that? What a coincidence that she knew that! Amos Lee!! We’ve got it now!!” I thought to myself.

My daughter said, “The kids will turn it into ‘Anus’ ”

“Anus”

So….that shot that down.

The random chance of being called “Anus” by some creatively cruel miscreant (miscreant….that’s funny…to me) was enough to stop that ball from rolling.

“OK….How about ‘Jorma’?”

“Who’s that?”

I told her he was the great guitarist “Jorma Kaukonen”….one of the few I knew who had a fairly Scandinavian sounding name.

“Jorma” might have been in the running, too, but later Jenny’s mom said that it sounded like “Jurgen”….Jurgen Van Der Sloot…so that was shot down.

“So….how about Adolph?”

(I’m kidding….I never said that….that would be weird…)

So….the name we finally arrived at was different from all those other suggestions.

I can’t imagine our son being anything other than “Nate” now.

What’s a name anyway?

It’s just some handle that people can grab you with when it’s time to come in and eat.

It’s just something that makes it easier when someone says, “Here comes __________ (fill in the blank)”.

It would slow things down a lot if we didn’t have names.

Nate’s name could have been anything.

Heck…it could have been “Mr. Mephistopheles” if I didn’t have people around me to monitor my activities.

It’s a good thing that Jenny was there when he was born.

Mr. Mephistopheles would have been a bad name for a little boy.

“sweet pea” Amos Lee

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWTtZFzOYsc

Check this out.

I’ve never seen anything that more accurately portrays what I go through everyday.

I am an agent.

This guy carries “friendly letters and business letters”….that’s what it said in the movie.

That’s cool.

That’s what I do, too.

It’s all pretty amazing when you think about it….whether it’s 1946 or 2015, it’s a pretty amazing process that allows us to send a letter all the way across the country and believe that it’s going to be delivered correctly and in a timely manner.

No….I need to re-phrase that….not “believe”….KNOW that it’s going to get there.

Know.

Check out the segment in this movie about the “country mailman”.

That’s what I do….I’m a rural mailman.

I don’t have any thing that weighs packages, though.

That’s pretty cool if someone wants to mail a suitcase.

The rural mailman….doing it right….out in the country.

Mailmen are COOL.

I’m a mailman.

“ode to billie joe” Bobbie Gentry

I heard this song on the radio the other day and thought, “How do you write like that?”

4 minutes of life….singing about a situation….a family at the dinner table….four short minutes…simple language……but what a lot of drama to cram in to a simple setting.

Man…..what a great song.

I forget about some of these great songs….and then they come around again.

The good ones come back around again most of the time.

I used to love the movie that was based on this song.

I won’t claim to “love” it now….I’m a grownup and it might be kind of embarrassing to say that I love it now.

I can’t take being embarrassed again.

That might destroy me to be embarrassed again.

Kidding. I’m only kidding. I have a lot more resilience now….and I’m a creature of habit. I can take being embarrassed.

I STILL LOVE THIS MOVIE!

It’s the kind of movie that Jenny would get a chance to look over at me and say, “YOU’RE NOT CRYING?! ARE YOU CRYING? OH MY GOSH….PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU’RE NOT TEARING UP!! OH MY GOSH…..DON’T LET ME CATCH YOU CRYING…..THIS IS THE HOKIEST MOVIE EVER….DON’T YOU START CRYING….”

But….I’d probably tear up.

SPOILER ALERT…..

Billie Joe jumps off the bridge.

That was a pretty tragic moment in this young romance.

Who has a heart hard enough to keep them from crying a little when something unexpected like that happens?

Anyway…it’s a great teen romance….rural teen romance.

How many of those do they make these days where somebody doesn’t turn into a werewolf or a vampire?

Now it would be about Billie Joe getting torn limb from limb by some beast from the netherworld and then thrown off the bridge.

That wouldn’t make me cry.

That would be too violent.

Anyway….great song and a great….in its own way….movie.

I’ll confess to it being one that I watched for in the television forecast when I was younger….back before I rented my first VCR.

And….I guess that Billie Joe McCallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

That tore Glynnis O’Connor up, man.

Me….too.

I heard an interview with, I think, the host of a show called something like “Brain Games” the other day

I was driving… at work…so I wasn’t paying as close attention to the interview as I might have been….so I didn’t catch the host’s name.

Let’s look it up….it’s crummy to be lazy when Google is so easy.

Jason Silva! That wasn’t so hard.

In the interview, he talked a little about how much he liked Carl Sagan….and how he’d heard the phrase “wonder junkie” first mentioned in the book Contact.

Then he went on to talk a little about Jodie Foster and the movie she starred in that they made out of the book, and how Jodie Foster’s character in the movie, Ellie, is a true “wonder junkie”….obsessed with and amazed at the vastness of the Universe.

It made me want to watch that movie again.

What a great phrase….”wonder junkie”.

What a great phrase that is….something great to aspire to….to be a “wonder junkie”.

Nate’s up now….waiting for me to finish this blog so that he can watch videos about Transformer toys on YouTube.

I haven’t made my coffee yet.

There are a lot of things that happen everyday that I focus on that might eclipse my ability to notice the things that are “really amazing”.

It’s hard for me to study the stars when someone short is tugging at my hand.

It’s hard to notice things that should fill me with wonder when I am helping to take care of the things that a parent needs to take care of.

I am not communicating with the stars.

I don’t interact with things far and wild….with the mysteries of the universe.

I am not a scientist.

I deal in the mundane.

But…my world is full of wonder. My world is full of wonder that I miss every time I think that I need to chase something “out there” that might be grand and mysterious.

I have a little boy sitting on my lap while I try to type this.

I can hear Jenny sleeping in the next room with Sparrow.

My oldest son is asleep in his room.

My daughter is probably still asleep up at college.

That’s my wonder.

I am a junkie for that wonder.

I guess that I’m a “wonder junkie” after all.

What a mysterious world it is….details big and small….so full of wonder and amazement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2ZGND1I9Q