Pure as the driven snow

There are some things in life that just make you feel warm and fuzzy. Some of them particularly so if you’re a geek. I would be considered by some to be a geek (just ask my daughter!) and so I have a warm and fuzzy to share…

My blogging software finally works properly on my desktop PC.

Sure, that may not seem like a big deal. But it’s never worked right on this machine, so whenever I would blog it was always from my laptop. I have a very nice laptop, but it just isn’t as convenient as sitting down at my desk where my machine is always on and inviting with the ice-blue LED glow of power lights. As an aside, why does everyone think such a piercing, blinding color is appropriate to use anyway? I’ve actually disabled some of them on my machine because they were so overpowering. Anyway…

So, what the problem was I’ll never be sure. But I was having trouble getting Word to run lately, and if that isn’t going to work for me then it’s just time to get down to business. So I did something else that gives me warm fuzzies, and that I haven’t done in a long, long time. I completely reformatted and installed my machine again. It had been through a few upgrades to the operating system and various software, and somewhere along the line a hairball got stuck in its processing craw.

So at this time of year, when we’re all remembering the small things that make us thankful, remember me. A humble computer dork getting warm fuzzies over taking hours of time to re-install a computer to fully working order. Because then when you’re wishing you somehow had more to look forward to with your life, you can think "Wow, at least I’m not that guy".

So, Billy Graham and Gordon B. Hinckley Decide to Throw a Christmas Party Together…

I’ve been busy this week. Really…freaking…busy. Yes, with work. And not in a bad way. I’ve been coding up a demo for an executive board presentation and loving every minute of doing it.

Right right…I’m an experience designer and not a developer officially. Doesn’t mean I don’t still have the strong skills, and frankly I think a really good UI experience designer should know how to do this stuff. How can you tell someone what you want built if you don’t have some notion of doing it yourself?

Anyway, by Friday I was ready for the weekend. I wanted to unwind, hit up a couple of activities I planned to attend, and write something here (which I need to make the time to do a little more frequently in a week). Friday night was just about having dinner with a small group of others that have had to deal with a spouse going gay on them. I don’t go much because, frankly, people that go are usually pretty new and therefore feeling pretty raw, or have been coming for a while because they’re “still angry, after all these years”.

Wait, that’s not quite how Paul Simon puts it, is it?

I’m not a person who holds on to anger much at all really, so hanging out regularly with angry people just doesn’t work for me. I do want to be supportive, but I have my limits.

Saturday’s activity seemed to hold more promise though. The Single Adults on the southern side of the city (the better of the programs in our quad-stake area) were having an open house social, follwed by a trip to the local ward to view some nativity stuff. “Excellent!” I thought. Get out of the home, meet some new people, do a little socializing, and engage in some of the festiveness of third-trimester Hallowchristmagiving.

Parts one through three of that plan went reasonably well. Again, nobody in my demographic was in attendance, unless I was looking for a hot time involving a trip to the local Ponderosa followed by an evening of stories about someone’s cats. All nice people, certainly. Just not dating material. But it was still good to get out.

So then part four, checking out the nativity displays. At least I thought the information said “displays” in the plural. I’m still confused. Because this is the part where things went sideways for me, and at least figuratively Billy Graham took over at the local ward. Because what we were going to see was a live nativity performance.

This wasn’t your typical, Mormon roadshow style performance either. Someone in that ward obviously has some sort of theatrical background if not a job in the theatre. This was a performance done in scenes, with staging, sets, and props both inside and outside the building. Thirty to forty people in the ward were involved in the performance. It was a big deal.

But it left me feeling really, really awkward. A kind of “What the hell was that doing in a Mormon building?” kind of awkward.

We were effectively being led on a tour of Bethlehem around the birth of Jesus. So starting in the “Israelite marketplace” in the cultural hall was all well and good. Watching Joseph and Mary and their donkey (yes, a real, live donkey) walking outside to the inn was okay too.

But then we got the the shepherds in something of a culvert on the one side of the church property. With a live fire roaring. And a flag pole with a star on top and a stuffed angel perched on the top of a ladder. Live with me for a moment the thoughts that went through my head when the narrator told us about the angel appearing to the shepherds in the field:

Wait a damn minute, that angel isn’t stuffed! It’s a live person! And he’s got a stage mic booming over a speker system outside when the gun light hits him! What the hell?!

I was pretty flabbergasted and embarassed. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. I don’t know. But there were Elders there and this was a missionary activity, with non-members in attendance. This was like bringing an investigator to church for the first time on a Fast Sunday when someone gets up and starts going on about how the Spirit revealed to them which of the stars in the sky is Kolob.

True story from my mission, by the way.

The next stop was the manger scene, back inside the church (thank goodness, because my bald head was absolutely freezing by this time). The scene is surrounded by people that are supposed to be angels, representing different periods of time. So of course there are vikings, Musketeers, and a nun. A nun, inside a Mormon church.

None of it prepared me for the last scene though. The final scene was staged in the chapel, which had been prepped to be the ancient, Jewish temple. Including pillars and a Mennorah on the pulpit. The men playing the parts of the temple elders were going through the rituals of kissing the robes, wearing praryer boxes, and enacting the blessing of children.

I was stunned.

I get that it was all meant to be a semi-accurate depiction of the events as they really took place. I know that there was nothing that wasn’t scriptural on display. So maybe I’m just a bit out of touch, and stuff like this has been done in other congregations, but I just didn’t know what to make of this. At all. I was so overwhelmed by how out of sorts this all was with my world view that I didn’t feel the Spirit in it. And when the performance was over and everyone was heading for refreshments, I headed for the door and left.

I didn’t start life as a Mormon. My mom joined the church when I was seven years old. Up until then, if and when we went to church, we were Presbyterian. My friends growing up were of other denominations, mostly evangelicals. And this was the sort of thing I was used to seeing in their congregations. It felt really weird to see that in one of our own buildings.

One of these days though, I’m just sure I’ll come away from a Single Adult activity thinking what a great time it was and how it met all my hopes. Of course, by then, I’ll probably be sixty and being happy with the activity will make sense.

*sigh*

First Life…Second Life…As Long As I Have One

Many, many days since last writing. Kanye went quiet after his mom’s unexpected death, so no new lyrics (though reportedly there will be a new batch for the impending second trimester celebration). Without that extra bump of energy, how can I be expected to keep up here when there’s been so much going on?

The biggest part of my free time has been taken up with Single Adults. Yes, I seem to have finally caught some kind of vision for the program. My vision is that what we have right now really does suck as bad as I’ve always said. But beyond that I also caught a vision for how it only sucks as long as I, and the other singles that could benefit from it, stay away.

Here’s a quick story. I am the SA rep in my ward pretty much for one reason: everybody else had already been asked and turned down the calling. Very "Night Court" really. So I’d be like Harry, except that I’m bald, which would be like Bull, but I’m not that tall and imposing. So at least I’m not Roz.

By the way, if you didn’t just get that whole reference then you’re probably too young for me. (Drattit)

So of course once you have a vision for something, you need to start acting on it. So I did. Lots of putting together mailers and e-mails. Lots of organizing contact information. And all culminating in helping put together a last-minute Thanksgiving dinner for any single adult in the area that wanted to come. We had about thirty people show up, so for something executed in five days we all felt pretty good about it.

The weekend continued to be good from there. Good college football (home team wins, beating the big-time rival), time with some friends, and some of my kids asking to go to church even while at their mom’s. Life has been good.

So why haven’t I been around here lately? I mean, besides being busy of course? Like all things, computer parts have a defect rate, and that rate caught up with me. Now, after paying for and installing a new motherboard things are better than ever.

So now both the first and second lives of Señor Monkey are right and good. Sweetness!

Happy Hallochristmagiving!

Egads, we’re already 11 days in and I have yet to wish everyone a Happy Hallochristmagiving. While we’ve been slowly migrating into this new holiday since the middle part of my happy childhood I guess it’s now official, and I’ve missed jumping on the bandwagon by a week-and-a-half. At least I think it’s official. It was either Fox News or CNN that I read it on, I’m sure of it.

I would have completely forgotten that it was the Hallochristmagiving season if it hadn’t been for a short stop by my local warehouse club format store. There were glass ornaments for trees, fakes trees blaring music, roasting racks, palettes of candies, and in the middle of it all a manger scene with baby Jesus wearing a goblin mask while holding a jack-o-lantern and a turkey baster. It was a fantastic site that caused an unfamiliar emotion to well up inside of me. But fortunately I made it to the bathroom in time.

A lot of other changes have begun to take shape now that Hallochristmagiving has become official. Most notably is the special spirit the season brings. It used to be that you had to wait until the day after Thanksgiving for things to really start ramping up. Then you would suddenly see decorations on the streets and in the stores, with a window of only 30 days or so to enjoy them. The excitement and wonder of it all was amazing. So why not extend that by starting things off earlier? A lot of people think that moving to Hallochristmagiving is just a shallow attempt by retailers to generate a longer sales season. But I don’t really think that’s it at all. Perhaps stores do realize a boost in sales, but I believe the genesis is the spirit of charity and giving, and the desire to have that joy last the entire fourth quarter of the fiscal year. It was evident that it was working for one of the employees at the store I visited when I heard them commenting on the fake Hallochristmagiving tree blaring out electronic Hallochristmagiving music. They were talking with a co-worker, and in an animated voice said “It’s only October and I can already hardly stand it!”

Obviously the anticipation is already building even at this early stage in the season.

The official Hallowchirstmagiving movie is making its second annual opening in 3D this weekend I think too. “Nightmare Before
Christmas” is a pretty cool movie, and it was very forward-thinking of Tim Burton to have made something that now so perfectly fits into our new, three-month long holiday season. I’ve seen the movie a few times on video in the past of course, but seeing it in 3D would be pretty slick. Even better if it were a triple feature with “30 Days of Night” and “Fred Clause”.

The other big change, of course, is the complete overhaul to the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. I’ve never actually been sure why it was twelve days to begin with, but there’s no doubt now about the origins of the “Ninety-two Days of Hallowchristmagiving”. I’m working now on committing each of the verses to memory, and though it may clock in at slightly longer than a performance of Wagner’s entire “Ring Cycle” it’s certainly worth it. Although I have to admit, I still haven’t quite figured out why all the instrumentation has been changed. Instead of the traditional tune, it’s now set to Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”.

So again, Happy Hallochristmagiving everyone. And I’ll look forward to next spring when I can wish you a lovely Valeasterick’s Day.

We Need a Representative from that Group

Egads…Start ramping up for a birthday party for your 14-year-old and suddenly you’re five days out from your last blog entry. That, and some evenings just saying "I really don’t feel like my brain is firing on enough cylinders to do this justice." Like I’ve been doing it justice anyway. I really want it to have "Walking Tall" justice though. You know, the kind that says "You’ll respect this topic because it deserves it and I say so."

Yeah, the kids are all gone at Brokeback’s place and I’ve been watching some cable television.

But before watching The Rock* dispense justice this evening, I was at a single adult committee meeting for all the congregations of my church in this area. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. Much. At all. Truthfully, I was completely dreading it. At thirty-eight I am by far the youngest person on the committee, and after my daughter’s party I was feeling even younger. I was just sitting by and letting her and her friends goof off and have fun when a boy she invited started asking a bit about my computer setup. I started giving him specs and talking all the tech talk. Then they all started digging in my MP3 collection with lots of "oohs" and "ahhs" over the music I have. I had suddenly achieved my life-long goal of being cool with all the middle school kids, albeit twenty-five years late. So the prospect of meeting with a group where the median age is somewhere in the mid-sixties was an incredibly un-appealing follow-up.

Making the prospect of the meeting even less attractive was the knowledge that we were to begin planning the January event. A night of singing and music. All performed by other people so that we, the singles, can sit and listen politely. Much like a service activity where a group of youth go sing to shut-ins at the home. Something that people not having personal ownership of either a walker or a shawl would be remotely interested in. In short, I was going to participate in a meeting where I would not only be peering in upon, but also personally helping to architect one of my own personal levels of hell.

I was not stoked.

The meeting began much as I had expected. Some pleasantries, followed but some meandering thoughts to open the discussion. Then a period wherein my thoughts mostly centered on how hard I would have to beat my head on the table in front of me before blood would start trickling out of my ears. That thought would then turn to an internal debate over whether it would be possible at all to inflict that level of damage to my head since this was one of those long tables with fold-out legs made mostly of platic with a thin metal frame. The kind they use for stunts in pro wrestling. They crash through them and blood never comes out of their ears, so I’d probably just make a lot of noise and never be able to beat myself into unconsciousness as an escape from the begginings of conversation over refreshments for an activity four months in the future.

At about that point in the meeting though, the second-youngest person on the committee (missing me by something around a decade) interjected something from a telephone conversation he and I had a couple weeks ago. "With some of the things we do I really think we’re missing the ‘middle’ group of singles. The ones thirty to forty-five." I was not about to miss this opportunity.

"You know, I have to say that while I do appreciate all the effort that goes into this activity, I’m not interested in it. At all. I won’t be coming, and neither will anyone else in my age range." Talk about a conversation turner. This is my third time being part of planning this particular event, and while I have put some voice to this concern before, I’ve never done it so directly. And to the group’s credit, discussion quickly turned to questions of why I wouldn’t be interested and what we could do differently.

Answer to first question: Because I can’t think of anything more boring or soul-sucking than feeling I have to import people to make me feel like I’m not a social outcast.

Answer to second question: Plan something that I can do sooner than four freaking months from now.

Now, while I may not have put my thoughts in exactly those terms, I believe the point did make it across. People in the thirty to forty-five demographic have different interests, and would like to be social with each other so as to, perhaps, meet someone new with whom to spend their lives. It’s a novel concept, but as a church we are terrible, bad, awful at supporting our singles in having a social life with other singles within the church. We’re so worried about making sure that they don’t sleep with each other outside of marriage that we give them nothing to come to so as to insure that they sleep with people outside the church instead. As surprising as it may sound, that approach is not being met with a terrible lot of success, with the end result being that many of our divorced or never-married singles leave and never return.

All of this dicussion seemed to be making sense to everyone, and some good ideas were starting to be generated. Then at one point, someone interjected, "We should get someone from that age group here as a representative."

sigh…While it may not be perfect, at least it’s progress

 

* You didn’t think I’d be talking about Joe Don Baker, did you? And…yep. Right there, you’re too young for me again, aren’t you?

Water Fight!

Is it just me, or does everyone experience the hiccup and loss of a few days when first starting out writing a blog? Nothing quite like the guilt of seeing that it’s been three days since the last post. Especially when I’ve been building a battery of topics to write about, so it’s not like I have writer’s block or anything. Just a busy schedule. But I digress…

So, a quick bit of disclosure. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A Mormon. You may have heard of us. Or you may at least have heard of Glenn Beck, who is also Mormon. Or Mitt Romney. Or yes, even Donnie and Marie. But this isn’t about any of them. This bit of personal information is just to provide some context around talking about the mid-week church youth activities my daughter attends. They have these every week, and typically are broken up by gender and age groups. But once a month, everyone gets together for a large group activity, but boys and girls.

Last night was one of those nights, and it brought back fond memories for me.

The youth were playing some water volleyball and having water relays. The water volleyball was a new concept for me, but looked pretty fun. Water baloons caught and tossed back over the net by teams of two using a bath towel between them. The relay involved sitting in a row and passing a giant, water-logged sponge front to back over each other’s heads and squeezing what was left out into buckets. Good stuff. And though fun, the activities weren’t what the kids were all about. They were, of course, about throwing buckets of water and strafing each other with super soakers. Boys versus girls for the most part, of course. And those are the memories I have.

When I was younger, and part of said youth program at church, water fights between the boys and girls were a summertime ritual. Most of them took place in my parents’ yard, and involved any manner of dousing conceivable. It wouldn’t be terribly unusual for the guys to be outside talking and suddenly see a volley of water balloons arcing over the top of the house. It was even less unusual for the girls to be outside talking and suddenly see a volley of water balloons arcing over the top of the house. All sides enjoyed it, and the combat would last for an hour or more. Balloons, then hoses, then five-gallon buckets, and eventually a few guys grabbing one of the girls in an attempt to hold her directly under the outside faucet.

For us guys, it was a combination of water combat and flirting. We had some attractive girls in our circle of friends. For the girls, it was also a combination of water combat and flirting. The guys weren’t completely unfortunate either. The girls had all apparently read Sun Tsu’s “Art of War” however, and knew that one of the keys to winning was to let your enemy think you are weak. The guys would always think they were getting the better of the girls in the water fight, but the girls were always winning the real war in terms of relationships.

I only realized the full extent of this while watching my daughter and her friends at their youth activity. One of the girls in particular was a perpetual target (though she dished some out too). And she loved it. She was losing the fight, but clearly winning the war. And once I realized that, my immediate next realization was of my daughter was doing the same thing. Which led to my final realization that, with the start to her dating only being two years away, it’s about time for me to choose between aluminum or wood and start practicing at the batting cages.

I believe Sun Tsu also has a thing or two to say about preparation, after all.

Summer drive-ins

This weekend was the last before school gets seriously underway. Officially, my kids started back to school last Wednesday. But those first three days are never anything serious, and Labor Day weekend is when people really consider summer vacation to be officially over. It’s the last hoorah, as it were. This year though, the kids are with their mom for Labor Day. So for us together, this past weekend was it for summer break.

Since my divorce a couple years ago, the kids and I have a standing Friday night tradition over the summers. Every Friday together we head to the drive-in movies, unless there isn’t anything family-appropriate to take them to. Most people when they hear that we’re heading to the drive-in either ask “Where is there a drive-in around here?” or “What the heck is a drive-in movie?” For the unintiated, a drive-in movie is exactly what it sounds like. You load up your car with you and the kids, drive up to the ticket window, pay only for those in the car older than 11, and watch movies on a big screen in the great outdoors. Drive-ins have no fancy sound system (you listen on your car radio or a boombox), no stadium seating, and the restrooms and concession areas look like they were last renovated somewhere around the time I was born.

In short, they’re fantastic.

Seriously, going to the drive-in is a much more family experience. Things feel more personal and connected somehow. You may read my blog, but are we really connected? Nah. I’m too chicken to put my personal info out there to be phished. So unless you start leaving me comments and I get to know you better, you’ll know lots about my life but never know me. At the drive-in you wind up having conversations with strangers that offer to share popcorn and blankets if it gets too chilly by the time the second show starts (yes, drive-ins give you two movies back-to-back). Your kids run out into the open area in front of the screen to play with other kids that they don’t know, and have a blast doing it. Up until last year, one of the drive-ins we frequent even had a swing set.

Yes, I said “one of the drive-ins”. There are three that we haunt depending on what’s playing where.

If you’ve read my sister’s blog at “Looking for George” you may be already familiar with the fact that we grew up in a town coloquially referred to as “Cooterville”. It can be a bit hick (like San Francisco can be a bit liberal), but that also means that time has stood still in some respects for our hometown. I’m a well-educated, technolgically progressive guy, but it’s nice to be able to step back in time. So having a hometown that lets me do that can be nice. Part of that is having two drive-in theatres within five minutes of my parents’ house, and another within thirty minutes. And the one within thirty minutes has two screens showing different movies. So technically we have a choice of four places to watch movies on Fridays. The state in which we live actually has the largest number of operating drive-in theatres left in the country. And I hope that never changes.

So this past weekend the movie selection was a little thin. One of the theates had already closed for the season. Two of the other three screens were showing the same movies or movies we had already seen a couple times (Harry Potter is one that just continues to make money it seems). And there was no way I was taking the kids to see “Superbad”. I won’t even take me to see it. So the question I posed to the kids was “Do we want to go see these two movies at the drive-in, or just stay home and do something else instead?” There was no question as far as the kids were concerned: the drive-in had to be done, especially since it was their last chance for the year.

I’m really glad the my kids and I have something special like that. Something that we know is “our thing” to do as a family. Now I just have to find something we can do during the school months as “our thing” while the drive-in is closed. Summer, you weren’t long enough this year.