Ultranormal

  • It’s In Every One of Us to Be Wise

    It’s in every one of us
    To be wise
    Find your heart
    Open up both your eyes
    We can all know everything
    Without ever knowing why
    It’s in every one of us
    By and by
    It’s in every one of us
    To be wise
    Find your heart
    Open up both your eyes
    We can all know everything
    Without ever knowing why
    It’s in every one of us
    By and by
    By and by

    from It’s In Every One of Us by David Pomeranz

    I should be going to sleep now, but I started watching Big Bird singing It’s Not Easy Being Green at Jim Henson’s funeral, which led me to the Muppet’s Tribute to Jim Henson, and then to Frank Oz’s lovely eulogy. In the second video, I heard a song I don’t remember, the one above, and it got me thinking (and yes, crying a little) about my heroes, and why they hold that position.

    I love Jim Henson. He’s one of my heroes – a man of amazing creativity, warmth and love, who created so many great characters. More than that, though, he opened up imaginations by sharing his, and everything he created has at its core a gentleness, decency and humanity. You can tell right away that there’s a piece of him in everything he did. He died long after I’d outgrown Sesame Street (I was fifteen), but I still got choked up whenever anyone played Rainbow Connection (still do).

    My second hero is Mr. Rogers. I used to watch both shows as a kid, but didn’t really understand who Mr. Rogers was as a “real” person until much much later. Mr. Rogers was seemingly without guile, someone totally in touch with their emotions and with the emotions of those around him – and like Jim Henson, the adjective that jumps to mind when I get past the things they created – the artifacts of their professional lives, is “gentle”. I love that Mr. Rogers dedicated his life to speaking softly to children without speaking down to them, to teaching them about the world without fear or cynicism. I told this to a friend today and she looked at me like I was crazy, but I think Mr. Rogers may be the most Christ-like person to live on the earth since, well, Jesus.

    And last, but certainly not least, my dad. I certainly don’t tell him this enough, but he is my hero. He is the most patient person I’ve ever met, and set a great example of what a husband and father should be – one that I don’t measure up to, but aspire to. He is kind, and gentle. I think the only times I heard him raise his voice were either on the golf course or home repair “mishaps” with heavy tools, and they were never directed at us (the only reasons my brother and I ever went golfing with dad were: to hear him swear, and to drive the cart).

    It all comes back to being gentle, something I’m not very good at, but want to be. All three of my heroes are good men: creative, smart, compassionate and charitable gentle men , who leave those around them better for having known them. They are who I aspire to be.

    Thank you, dad, for being there when I need you. And thank you, Mr. Rogers and Jim Henson, for being examples of where imagination and decency can take you in a sometimes dark and always imperfect world.

    And to get back to the song, it is in all of us to be wise. It’s in all of us to be better than we are, to aspire to being more like our heroes and to choose leaders more like we aspire to be instead of those that feed on our fears. I saw a sticker today Love More. Fear Less (you can get your own), which is what started this whole train of thought.

    We, I, have been afraid too long – driven by fear to compromise our dreams, our futures and to choose leaders who feed those fears. It’s time to be led by love, to stop being afraid and embrace the future as a challenge to be better, to live our ideals instead of preaching them to others and doing the opposite behind closed doors when we think no one is looking. I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of hearing politicians claim that the people who disagree with them aren’t “real” Americans. I’m tired of the pandering and the lies. Anger is fear turned outwards, a blind response to things we feel powerless to control, and anger is not love. I’m no hippie. I know I’ll still be angry when I wake up in the morning and catch a glimpse of the news, but I’m going to try to be wise. I’m going to try to love more and fear less, and I will keep my heroes that embody those qualities.

    I don’t know that this makes any sense at all. It’s late, and I should have been asleep two hours ago, but I couldn’t go to bed with all this trapped in my head.

    “It’s in every one of us to be wise. Find your heart, open up both your eyes.”

  • Update Schmupdate

    We took the boys to the beach over the weekend. It’s so nice to be able to go whenever we want. We go so frequently that we don’t even take the camera every trip. We can just go and enjoy it without having to be so intent on documenting every. single. moment. to make sure we never forget the fun we had!

  • Kevin’s OMFG Kabobs

    There was a crazy sale on whole pork tenderloins at the grocery store, so Jen stocked up. We’ve cooked two so far, and I think we have at least four more in the freezer. Tonight’s pork-speriment was to make kabobs out of them… and they were so good, I have to share. Since Brian likes squirting the lemon juice bottle, there had to be citrus involved, and I like things a little spicy, so there was a bit of Cajun seasoning. Here’s what I did.\
    h4. Ingredients

    * 1 sweet onion (I should have used 2 – I ran out about half-way through assembling everything)

    * 2 green bell peppers

    * 1 bag tiny “dutch butter” potatoes

    * 1 pork tenderloin

    * 5 lemons

    * 5 limes

    * 1 small package of baby portobello mushrooms

    * 1 small package of white mushrooms

    * 1 pork tenderloin cut up into a billion approximately half-inch cubes (no smaller than that, some of them were much larger – it’s a lot of work, so do what you can – larger than a sugar cube, smaller than a Rubik’s cube).

    * salt, pepper, and cajun spices

    * 1 quarter cup of olive oil

    * 1 quarter cup lemon juice

    * 1 quarter cup lime juice

    * 1 big ass ziploc bag\
    h4. Directions

    1. Quarter the lemon and lime and put it into the ziploc bag
    2. Combine the lemon and lime juice, salt, pepper, cajun spices, pork cubes and olive oil in the ziploc bag with the lemon and lime wedges and mush them around until they’re all well mixed and looking evenly covered. Seal the bag well and put it in the fridge for a couple hours (I left mine in for 2 hour – just enough time to watch Mythbusters with Brian and then chop up the veggies). I know it sounds like a lot of citrus, but a whole pork tenderloin is a lot of meat.
    3. Chop up the onions and green peppers into kabob-appropriate sizes (if the green peppers and onions pieces are too small they’ll split when you try to put them on the skewers).
    4. Clean both packages of mushrooms and cut off the end of the stems (leave the bit in the middle – I cut the protruding stem bit to make more room on the skewer).
    5. Before you’re ready to start assembling everything, boil the little potatoes for fifteen minutes.
    6. Now, assemble your skewers. I usually start with some order to things, but get bored or run out of an ingredient halfway through and start assembling franken-skewers. I ended up with one at the end that was just pork and lemon and lime slices (but, damn was it good), and a couple that were just pork and potatoes.
    7. Grill ’em. Mine took about 20 minutes total.
    8. Eat ’em.\
      I’d never used potatoes on kabobs before, but they were great. They got a little charred on the outside, but were perfectly done on the inside. The best part was that they really picked up the flavor of whatever was next to them on the skewer. The second best part was not having to make rice or anything else because you had almost all the food groups (except bacon and peanut butter) on a single kabob. The only problem with all the veggies is that sometimes you didn’t get quite enough meat on a kabob… but that was a good excuse to eat more, and I guess we ate more veggies that way.\
      I think we ended up with a good 20 kabobs, including the weird ones at the end. We have plenty of leftovers for tomorrow night… but you can’t have them. They’re too good. That’s why I’m giving you the recipe so you can go make your own.

  • Best Decisions I

  • I remembered!

    So the other reason I am a dork is because I accidentally ruined our iron. I usually keep a cup of water nearby to refill it as I am ironing but sometime last week I grabbed a cup that held the remnants of melted diet-coke-covered-ice. It looked just like water! I didn’t realize the problem right away and almost ruined some clothes. And then after trying to clean the mysterious goop off of the iron, I finally realized the goop was coming from inside the iron. When I tried to burn it out, Kevin accused me of trying to burn the house down. Finally we just decided that buying a new iron was the best solution. :P\
    This is related to Kevin and/or his work because I discovered the mysterious goop while ironing clothes before meeting a bunch of his coworkers for dinner.\
    The End.

  • How I Use Evernote

    I mentioned on twitter the other day that I love Evernote and use it to keep my daily to-do list and keep track of what I work on. A couple people said I should write a blog post about it. Since I’m just waiting for my Tylenol PM to kick in, I figured… why not.

    If you’ve never heard of it, Evernote is a note-taking app that is accessible from anywhere. They have desktop applications for OS X, Windows and the iPhone and a really nice web interface too. I clip things I’m reading to it all the time to either save for later or because I know I’m going to want to send it to people and might not be able to find it again. I put quotes in it I want to save, put URLs to things, and even jot notes down on the iPhone if I come up with an idea while I’m out. It’s fine for that, but I didn’t become a heavy user of it until I started keeping track of my to-do list. I’d tried implementing GTD (Getting Things Done) several times before, but it never stuck, until now.

    Evernote has the idea of notebooks and notes. I have notebooks called Stuff – for everything not work-related that’s not a to-do list, Journal – for all my daily to-do lists, and Work – for work stuff I want to remember.

    Here’s how I use it for keeping track of my daily to-do list:

    • I have the desktop application open all the time. It’s never closed unless I’m rebooting, so my to-do list is only ever a couple keystrokes away.
    • Either at night before I leave work, or first thing in the morning, I create a new note in my Journal notebook with the date as the title.
    • Then, I just start creating a list of to-do items I want to get done that day. They’re usually always work-related, but sometimes they’re not (lthis week, one was: “Call doctor about the whole not-being-able-to-breathe thing” – and I did… check!).
    • Then, as I go through the day, I’ll either just check them off if they’re simple, or add details about exactly what I did and approximately how long it took. The details are the important thing, since I can now remember the steps I went through to do something and have much better recall when I need them again.

    This sounds really anal, I know, but it’s really helped me concentrate on my productivity, and how much time I spend doing things other than the stuff I really need to get done that day. I also remember more of what I do during the day just by writing it down.\
    The to-do items in Evernote are still a little buggy. For example, until recently, you could only add them in the desktop application and you couldn’t mark them complete in the web if iPhone apps. I just checked and you can’t mark them done in the web interface… oh well, nothing’s perfect (and it’s still in beta).

    There are some great web apps out there that are all about to-do lists, and I’ve tried most of them (I got the farthest with Remember The Milk). I think Evernote is sticking because I use it for more than just the to-do list, and I can get to it wherever I am.

  • Mom’s Morning Out

    A PS to my prior entry- Auntie M’s comment about her never opening the door reminded me how profusely grateful the women were that I did open the door at least. They kept thanking me over and over again. It was sort of weird.\
    Today was Brian’s first day at his new preschool. I had so many options of how to spend my time: nap (which was high on the list since I only got 4 hours of sleep last night), clean the house, go to the beach, or exercise. I decided to do it all! (Well, except for cleaning the house, ha. But I did two loads of laundry before school.) First, I took a brisk walk around the neighborhood. There are 4 houses for sale in the immediately area. Hmm. Then I ran into the house, switched from sneakers to flip flops, put on sunscreen and headed to the beach where I snoozed for an hour and a half until it was time to pick up Brian. YAY for the beach. I switched back to my sneakers and purposefully arrived at Brian’s school early to check out the track. I even jogged. True story. There is a beautiful path that the winds through the woods, passing a couple of ponds. It was really nice. I don’t have anything to show for my time. No dinner made, no toys not on the floor. But it was a really nice morning, nonetheless.\
    Brian did really well at the school. He played with the other kids and followed directions and just generally acclimated well. This week the class is focusing on the letter F, so they got to try French Toast today. Tomorrow, firefighters and a fire truck are coming to visit. We picked a great week to start, right? The class also has music, Spanish, and ceramics. How cute is that?

  • I am a dork #57, 234, and 1657

    In no particular order-

    • A couple of women came to the door last week. When I opened the door, they introduced themselves and said, “We know you weren’t expecting us…” I thought, “Oh, my Visiting Teachers [members of the LDS Church assigned to check up on me, share Spiritual messages, and get important information out- in the case of a storm, etc] stopped by unannounced! I should totally invite them in!” And then they said, “We want to share a Bible message since everyone is so worried right now.” I thought, “Ooooooh, not my Visiting Teachers, just some generic Christians.” I politely told them I wasn’t interested. After they left I started questioning whether they really were my Visiting Teachers. Maybe they were worried since we had all been so sick? They didn’t say anything particularly LDS-y, but really, it’s not like we wear signs around our neck either. I finally called someone just in case word through the grapevine got around that I was shooing away Visiting Teachers.
    • Last week I actually left the house in the following: two-toned purple striped shirt sans bra, baggy capris (too big due to the weight loss caused by the two-week stomach flu last month), black and white checked sneakers without the laces [because 1) that is what makes them cool and 2) no, really, because Brian stole the laces], and a red purse slung across my body because it holds my iPod the most comfortably. Thankfully I didn’t have to get out of the car, heh.
    • There is a third thing, and probably a fourth, fifth, all the way to 196th, etc, but I can’t remember it. I think it involves Kevin and/or his job. Apparently it was so traumatic I blocked it out. Meh.\
      So, yes, I am a dork.\
      I have been trying to be less WOE WOE WOE. Is it working?

  • The Power of the Commons

    Creative Commons Moon
    \
    [Creative Commons Moon](http://flickr.com/photos/denverjeffrey/301014978/) by Jeffrey Beall

    In the past two days, people have e-mailed me to ask if they could use photos of mine for:

    • A short-run calendar (Downtown Boston At Night)
    • An illusion as part of a mentalists’ stage show. (not sure why he wants to use this one, but he does)\
      In the past, people have asked to use my photos in:
    • a history textbook (it might have been a different one)
    • several websites
    • a cookbook (he wanted to use a couple of my beach pictures)
    • presentations
    • several news stories on Now Public\
      In every response I send, this is pretty much what I say:\
      bq. Of course you can use my photos in insert use here. All my photos are licensed under Creative Commons, so as long as you provide attribution and your work is also licensed under Creative Commons, then you’re free to use any of my photos however you want.\
      I’m surprised how many people that surprises, but I probably shouldn’t be. Creative Commons is a great tool for creative people to share their works while maintaining some control over how they’re used. I love that Flickr allows people to choose from several different licenses and displays it alongside every photo. They were a big influence on our choice to make all the stories on ficlets Creative Commons licensed as well.\
      Now, when people don’t want to release their work under the same license as my photos, we can talk. And, in the case of the calendar, I sold my first photo! They’re actually paying me to use that picture, which I think is crazy (awesome, that is). I’m not a professional by any stretch, and that picture was taken with my crappy old Kodak point and shoot. Honestly, I think they should use one of my aerial Boston shots, but whatever.\
      So, thank you, Creative Commons for giving me an easy way to license my content that encourages sharing, and thank you Flickr for giving me an easy way to share my photos. You’re awesome!

  • Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

    OMG, you guys. YOU GUYS. I found a preschool for Brian! WOOT. Can I get a woot from the crowd? He starts tomorrow, yay. I can stop feeling like I ruined my son’s future.