For God’s Sake, Don’t Google That

My three-day bout with some sort of nasty bacillus-er-other has come to a close. Thank y’all for the many get-well wishes. What ever this thing or things was, presented a new symptom every day. I won’t go into the gory details, but to say, “For God’s sake, don’t Google your medical symptoms.” I did and it really messes with your head.

The body’s natural defenses have to get rid of all those nasty bugs so it’s natural that things smell differently at some point. I plugged in “odor” into Google and its handy “I’m guessing what you’re thinking based on things other people searched” feature filled out all sorts of weird guess. Just a side note, people who use Google, and that means everyone, are curiously dreadful people, including me.

After visiting a couple of the the top hits, I determined that I have one of the following:

• Celiac Disease though I’ve never had it before and it’s a genetic disorder.
• Advanced, Stage 3 liver cancer though you’d think I’d have noticed some other symptoms before now.
• Any one of several heavy metal poisonings from eating large amounts of certain fish which I don’t eat.
• Am possibly pregnant. Call the National Enquirer.

For now, I’m going with “it’s just my body getting rid of all the nastiness.” But all this got me thinking. It sure would be helpful if there were people out there who could make heads or tails out of all this mess. Sure, it might take a little more college to learn this stuff, possibly four years or more. In the end, these people would be able to help us figure out what’s ailing us and maybe even help us get well. They could even dress up in funny costumes like white coats and whatnot. Yeah, probably a pipe dream. Besides, when you’re sick, you don’t feel like getting out to see people anyway.

So kids, learn from my mistakes and stay off the Google for medical advice. If you believe everything you read on the internet, you’ll be doing surgery on yourself with a power drill and Swiss Army knife in your garage out of the fear that some ganglionic mass has taken over your pituitary gland. All because WebMD said you may have Nakajo syndrome. Well House, if you do have Nakajo syndrome, your parents were siblings and no amount of warnings will dissuade you from your self-surgery.

As for the rest of you, be well.

Oh, and if your armpits smell like tacos, the cure for that is “take a shower.” That’s a freebie from me to you.

When Sparkly Vampires Kick Your Ass

Last night, my wife breezed through the living room asking for something. I wasn’t really clear what it was. She has a tendency to start our conversations before she enters the room and finish them from the kitchen, usually all while I’m either writing, proofing (ha), or intensely playing poker. Normally, I hear, “Blah…Blah…So don’t forget to buy that.” Huh? What am I supposed to buy?

It turned out to be the September edition of National Geographic. Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Where did that come from? But being the good and faithful husband I am, I stopped by Books-a-Million while out-and-about today and grabbed the September Nat. Geo. for her.

The woman ahead of me at the cash register was buying something from the tree-killing Twilight series, but the best part of her transaction was the gushing coming from behind the counter. This kid was way, way, way too into Twilight. Then he got all forlorn and misty when he said, “I probably won’t get to see the new movie since I’m going off to basic in October.”

As some of you know, I grew up Army. I have the greatest respect for our men and women in uniform. I wanted to give this kid some encouragement. I wanted to tell him I was proud of his sacrifice. I wanted to give him some sage wisdom to carry with him, maybe even onto some foreign shore some day. Something that might save his life. I wanted to, but this is what came out of my mouth:

“Kid, I want to give you some advice for boot camp. Keep that thing about liking the sparkly vampires under your hat. Trust me on this one. You’ll have a much better relationship with your drill sergeant if you just don’t bring it up. Just keep that to yourself, unless you want a nickname you’ll never shake.” He agreed that was probably the best course of action.

I hope that young lad starts the new phase of his life a bit wiser for meeting me. I hope one day he thinks back on a random meeting with a stranger in a book shop and thinks, “That guy really changed my life. In fact, he saved my life.”

I hope my words prevent him from letting it slip over evening chow in the mess one night, just how great he thinks Twilight is. I’ve got to tell you, once everyone in basic training knows you like sparkly vampires, you’re going to get the sparkly-vampire crap knocked out of you for the next six weeks.

And you’ll never shake the nickname, “Sparkles” or “Twilight Toes”. That crap will haunt you forever. No one ever wants to be in the thick of a fire-fight and hear, “Get Sparkles on the radio! We need fast movers!” or “Lay down some Willy Peter, Twilight Toes! We need smoke!”

So I think I did him some good. I may have save a whole platoon of men. You never know just what effect a butterfly’s wings will have.

Oh, and Nat. Geo.? Totally worth a peek this month.

Dream a Little Dream of Me

My wife is a believer in dreams. I don’t mean she has lofty aspirations or inspirational goals. I’m talking about the fuzzy images her brain generates while she is asleep. Many the morning I’ve awakened to cold, peering eyes watching me from her side of the bed. Those are the mornings when I know, some how, some way, I’ve been up to no good in her dreams … and I’m about to hear about it.

A common scenario involves her dreaming that we are both back in high school, wherein my dreamy doppelganger is ignoring her and is putting the teenage moves on some other girl. On those mornings, my coffee is less tasty while I hear about what a cad I am … er … was in high school. Not the high school of 30 years ago, but the high school of 30 minutes ago when she was dreaming. It’s all very confusing for me.

I only know one thing. At some point during my shower that morning, the water will suddenly burst forth in a jet of steam when my wife exacts her revenge by flushing the toilet for no other reason than to scald me … er … my dream self … er … but my flesh self still has first-degree burns. It’s all very confusing for me.

My sly male brain concocted a plan. I would tell her I had a dream. Her strong belief in the validity of dreams would compel her to follow up on my dream. It was a perfect plan, until I put it into action.

I set it up one morning with, “G’morning, Dear Heart. I love you. Wow! I had a dream last night.” Step one. Interest piqued.

“What did you dream?” Her reply fell right into my trap.

“It was a wild sex dream.” Bait dangled. Of course, she must know if she was part of my dream.

“Was I in it?” Bait taken. Now to snuggle up close and seal the deal.

“Of course sweetheart. Who else would be in my sex dreams but you?” Get ready to call work and tell them I’ll be late…

“That counts then. We’re good for another week.” Damn you, twisting female logic! At least I could take my shower as cold as necessary after my failed plan.

Today’s lesson: reach for your dreams with an open hand in case you have to pimp slap a brother on the way.

Celebrity Deaths Who Cares?

This week three celebrities died, Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. They died in that order like Death was doing some celebrity countdown. Each one was a bigger celebrity than the previous. When the week culminated in Jackson’s death, hysteria filled the air and digital waves. Twitter and Facebook spiked with everything from the major networks stories down to the smallest “I remember my first kiss was to a Michael Jackson song” tribute on MySpace.

Do I mourn these people. Sure I do, in a John Donne For Whom the Bell Tolls sort of way, sure. But I didn’t know these people and neither did the 99.9% of the people who pretended their deaths were the end of an era. No matter what fond memories you have of The Tonight Show, Charlie’s Angels, or the Bad album, you didn’t know any of these people. All the internet equivalent of throwing yourself on their caskets does only one thing. It makes me sad…for you.

Over 140,000 other people died today. Their lives were just as important as Michael Jackson’s. They just aren’t in your iPod. Do you mourn their deaths? This year over 300,000 women died in child birth leaving 300,000 motherless children. Many of those same children died of malnutrition or curable diseases before their fifth birthday. In fact, 5.3 million children under five died this year alone. Did you mourn them? Did you even donate to a charity that was trying to prevent their deaths? 22 million abortions were performed this year. Less than 3% were done because the mother was at risk. That’s more than one abortion every 3 seconds. Did you try to help those girls in distress? Did you offer them an alternative? Did you just picket a clinic and make them feel worse about their predicament? More than half a million lonely people committed suicide this year. Did you do anything to reach out to any of them and try to prevent their deaths?

I’d venture to say, someone in your neighborhood had a family member pass away this year. Did you take them food or even send a condolence card? I was expressing these feelings to my sister-in-law this morning. A member of her church died this week. She didn’t know them very well, but she vowed to at least attend and help out with food or the nursery so others could mourn properly. That is how you deal with death. That is real. That is tangible. That is mourning.

Sappy, crappy, faux feelings for someone you never even met because you feel they touched your life doesn’t impress me. It makes me kind of sad. There are people on your street who could change your life in infinitely more meaningful ways than a few entertainers, if you would just let them. When was the last time your even spoke to your neighbor? Do you even know their names? If you got their mail, would you know where to return it without looking at the address?

Do us both a favor. Don’t post another stupid ode to Michael Jackson on your blog unless you meet a neighbor you haven’t met. No more fake feelings on Facebook about Farah until you visit a nursing home or hospice this week. Stop acting like you know these people when you don’t even know the names of the people you work with every day. Make death personal and deal with the people involved face to face. Then you’ll have something of substance to talk or write about.

You can check these and more statistics at the World-o-Meter.

Water. Cool Clear Water.

Summer is officially here. The temperature is pushing triple digits (Fahrenheit) and the talking heads on the news casts are doing their summer heat precautions shtick again. If my digital weather station is to be believed, the humidity inside my house is 71%.

But that’s OK. After living 28 in Alabama, you learn a few things about how to beat the heat. My grandparents live 80 years in L.A. (Lower Alabama) without air conditioning. They pickup and passed on a few tricks for survival, too.

Rule #1: Water. Drink it. Drink it all day. If you want to change it up, drink decaffeinated iced tea. Because…
Rule #2: Lay off the caffeine and alcohol. They are diuretic and sap the body of water.
Rule #3: Take breaks. Take it easy and rest in the shade often.

This third rule is why Yankees characterized Southerners as slow. We’re not slow. We just don’t move too quickly because of the heat. We’re smart that way. Life goes on. Chores still need doin’. We just know how to work with the heat and not against it.

Just to prove how important water is, here are some before and after pictures of my Angel Trumpets. In the before shot, you can see how the leaves are curling and drooping. The after pictures were taken only five minutes after a good soaking with water, just plain old water.

Plant one. Before.	Plant one. After.
Plant two. Before.	Plant two. After.

My advice for beating the summer heat is simple. Be a plant. Don’t move around to much. Let the breeze move you when possible. Drink plenty of water all day long. However you choose to beat the heat, stay hydrated.

Closing in on the Odd Little Happy

Weather is one of those things that we are hard-wired for. It’s our base brain which responds to weather. Sure, you can intellectualize it. You can quantify it with temperature and pressure. But weather is as primeval as fear, food, and sex. You’re not buying this, are you?

Think about it. What do we talk about? Our fears, good food, great sex, and the weather. “Nice day?” is one of the most common introductory phrases spoken. Like a fire, we stare at the sunrise. Who hasn’t laid on a hillside and made shapes in their mind from passing clouds? If we’re lucky, sometimes we have the perfect dinner, stare at the sunset, and follow it with great sex. See, your primeval brain can have a great night out.

We’re wired to pay attention to the weather like our lives depend on it and they do. Just like our ancestors, we need to know when to take shelter from a storm and when the season is right to plant our crops. Even our moods are affected by how much sunlight we see. People at extreme latitudes suffer more depression in the shortened days of winter. We should feel sorry for them, but during those long night, they’re having great sex so screw them, literally.

So where’s the odd little happy in all this talk about the weather? Today was gray and overcast. There was brilliant, ozone-creating lightening and rolls of echoing thunder this morning. It rained most of the day. True to the old saying, “Don’t like the weather? Wait a minute,” by 5 o’clock, the sky was clear and blue. The birds were back singing after hunkering down all day. The dogs weren’t afraid to go outside again and stopped peeing on the rugs. Things changed that quickly.

Some complain about the rain, but I don’t. I didn’t have to mow the lawn today or water it either. Free, nitrogen-rich water literally fell from the sky. Some complain about the sun, but I don’t. I just put on my sunglasses, pour a tall iced tea, sit on my deck, and took fabulous in the good light. Whichever the weather, you just have to learn to take the good with the good.

While your chasing the odd little happy, beware of reindeer-munching, semi-depressed Eskimos looking for a one-night stand and keep your eye on the sky. The odd little happy may be just behind the next cloud.

When Do I Get My Red Rubber Ball?

Yesterday, I stopped by the Dollar General on the way home from work. Why? Cheap coloring books my wife could use as quilting patterns. Smart, no? But that’s not the point of this thought. It was the five-year-old girl with her mother, checking out ahead of me, that really got me thinking.

The child was proudly holding a 10-inch red ball. I think it had some cartoon character on it, maybe Dora the Explorer. She was so elated that mommy was buying her that ball. She repeatedly expressed her appreciation. For a moment, she had me convinced that $2.50 could buy happiness. I wanted to go back and buy a ball.

I wanted to go further back and be that innocent, to be in a place where something as simple as a red ball could make me that happy. It was a moment of clarity and confusion. It was a moment where my heart knew exactly how that little girl felt. In that same moment, my head couldn’t understand why I wasn’t as jubilant as that child. After all, I’m in the prime of my life. I’m earning more money than I ever have. My kids are grown and sort of out of the house. I have a wife whom I love and loves me more than grits. I have two little Chihuahuas who think me walking through the door is grander than the sunrise. The bank is letting me live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood. The bank even lets me park a new car in the driveway. My yard is full of colorful flowers that I can point to and say, “I did that.” Thanks to years of hard work and steady insurance payments, I even have a new roof over my head. But somewhere along the way, I lost the ability to enjoy a simple red rubber ball.

Sure that little girl may lose her ball tomorrow. She may forget about it in a week, but for a few hours yesterday, that 10-inch sphere made her the happiest girl on the planet. When do I get my red rubber ball? When do I get that second chance at innocence? Is there a switch in my brain I can throw to tell my heart it’s time to be happy again? I know money can’t buy happiness, but I’m seriously considering taking $2.50 to the Dollar General tomorrow just to buy a ball. I’ll bounce it off my head a few times and see if that switch flips.

Or maybe, I’ll just be grateful for what I have. That was a pretty good list I just wrote. For someone, any one of those things would be their red ball. I’m going to go pet my wife and kiss my dogs.

Recycling, Going Green, Being Poor

I was going to write more about the insanity at Associated Content tonight, but every time I think about it, my eyes cross, my blood pressure rises, and the dogs start to howl.  Instead, allow me to share a simple little project which exemplifies how thinking green gets under your wallet & sometimes trips you down memory lane.

If my grandparents were alive today, they would be the greenest people on the planet. They recycled everything. Granny canned and preserved all sorts of fruits and vegetables, all which they grew. Everything got repaired by Papa. Trash was a rare thing. It was a very simple life they lived. They were farmers. They were poor.

By today’s standards they were very, very green.  Recycling was not a choice. It was a necessity. My dad was the same way and slowly I’ve discovered everything old is new again. I’m not near the pack-rat my dad was, but I’ve started to look at everything with a “how can I recycle this” attitude. It’s not that I’m a dyed-in-the-all-natural-sheared-from-free-range-sheep-wool Green freak. It’s just that I’m cheap. Here’s the project that proves how cheap I am.

Just as most people keep a grocery list and jot down items as they run out or just have a moment, I keep a Lowe’s list. You read correctly. I jot down items I need at the hardware store as I come across a repair for which I don’t have the correct parts. On that list I’ve had “hooks for hat rack” for the last couple of weeks. The empty wall in the laundry room was a perfect place to put up some hooks to hang my hats. I have about a dozen hats and the cheapest six-hook bar I found at Lowe’s was about $14. I intended to buy a couple and utilize that empty laundry room wall until I found something squirreled away in the garage.

While looking through scrap wood for a step stool I wanted to build (yet another item I didn’t want to spend $60 on and for which I found the boards from an old entertainment center I had disassembled), I found a tool bar. It was something I bought three years ago thinking I would hang the tools in the shed. I hadn’t thought that out very well. My shed doesn’t really have a vertical wall high enough to mount a board like that. But the cheap, green CFL light switched on over my head. This board-and-peg bar would make a great hat rack!

I grabbed some paint, gave it a few strokes, found some screws, tapped in the pegs, and woke my wife up at 10:30 PM with the noise from my power driver.

Standard tool rack

Now a lovely hat rack

Since finding a new place to hang my hat, I’ve pried my wallet opened and sprung for a level. After using my new level to hang a couple of pictures, I decided to check my work. It turns out I have a pretty good eye. The hat rack was dead-on level.

A hat rack is a simple thing, but using what was supposed to be a tool rack as a hat rack and not cluttering a landfill with a idea gone wrong, is green. Before you toss it out, think about my hat rack. Think about my Papa. He’d be proud of such a simple thing. He was green before there was green, not because of his ideology, but because of his economy.

When green becomes economically feasible, that’s when it will really catch on. In the current economy simple things like converting a tool rack to a hat rack are becoming things of necessity. Forcing people to be green with guilt or taxes only pushes people so far. The average person will only find the green path if led by their wallets. Follow me! I’m so lazy and cheap, I’ll find the shortest, easiest path.

Not Liking What I’m Seeing At Associated Content

Associated Content (AC) has gone through some major changes and problems lately. I’m not getting a good vibe from it either. As ya’ll know, I’ve been publishing with AC for about three years. I’ve stuck with them through the bad and the good. I’ve always been honest when I express my feelings about Associated Content. I praise them for what they do right and call their mistakes what they are.

Lately, AC has created several glitches. Some they have corrected. Some have been corrected, but subsequently reappeared. Some they refuse to acknowledge. As always the communications, both internally and externally, appear lacking. The most serious problem right now,one AC refuses to admit is a problem, is the de-indexing of AC articles.

The problem started in late 2008. AC writers (note, I refuse to buy into AC’s new, dehumanizing terminology and call their members “sources”) began noticing that Google would index articles as it always did, but then de-index them. The articles would show up about a week later with a much lower placement. To add insult to injury, the newly index article would have its abstract jumble with HTML code. Many articles did not get indexed by Google at all. I noticed this when the weekly Google alerts I had set up, stopped coming. When they did trickle in, the links were only to blogs and other sites that mentioned my articles, never the AC article.

The forum was awash in complaints about the problem, but they Associated Content staff seldom reads their own forum. The one guy who did participate in the forum, the one guy who kept members informed of problems and the status of the solutions, was let go from AC today along with the AC staffer who ran AC’s blog.

I’m not a conspiracy nut. I like to think there are simple, logical reasons for happenings in this universe, but the time line of events all point to one conclusion…AC has lost its mojo. The two things AC had going were its built-in audience and a special relationship with Google. That relationship has been debated and speculated numerous times, but the debate is moot. The love affair between AC and Google is over.

Here’s a brief time line that led me to this conclusion.

• Late 2008, the de-indexing of AC articles starts.
• December 2008, some AC members think the problem is a change to the article’s link because AC adds a “?cat=#” to all articles.
• January-ish 2009, AC members start comparing notes and posting examples.
• February-ish 2009, AC ignores the forum chatter completely.
• Late February 2009 AC begins deleting articles due to “questionable content and poor grammar/spelling.” This unannounced rule change, though probably for the best, was an attempt to get back in the good graces of Google.
• March-ish 2009, AC says they’re looking into it.
• April-ish 2009, AC says there is no problem with articles being indexed. AC says it’s working like always and they don’t control what Google does anyway.
• May 2009, despite dozens of forum posts and hundreds of emails with examples of the problem, AC continues to say, “There is no problem.”
• May 2009, after getting a new CEO and $6M in investment funds, AC fires some of the people who have been the best communication link for their writing members.

Conclusions:

• AC lost it’s Google mojo.
• AC doesn’t want to admit they no longer have a special relationship with Google
• AC has new management and is trying to clear out the old guard
• Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

Given the facts, I don’t think any of this is a random collection of events. AC is changing. AC is hiding something. AC isn’t looking so well these days. Google has devalued the AC domain so severely, it now just ignores articles posted there. If the average surfer can’t located an AC article with a search, traffic will be reduced significantly. No traffic? No per-click payments. AC’s biggest draw disappears. It’s really no wonder AC doesn’t want to admit this is a problem.  If Google is going to ignore the AC domain, there is really no incentive to put up with the other glitches and formatting limitations.  I can have more formatting options and complete control over my writing here on my blog and still get ignored by Google.  If the pay is the same, why bother jumping through AC’s hoops?

That’s my take on the situation.  It’s not one I jumped to without some serious thought. It’s one that fits the facts.

P.S. Sam we’re going to miss you, but I think you may have gotten off the AC ship at just the right time. I’m sure there are many AC members who will be following you. AC is becoming more trouble than it’s worth.

Parts One and Two of Three of the Rain Barrel Project

While waiting for the roofers to repair my plumbing flanges, which will spawn my bathroom ceiling and wall repair, I got antsy and started my drainage fix. I call it the rain barrel project. Ultimately, I’ll have a Kentucky whiskey barrel turned rain barrel, but for now it’s part concrete, part flower bed.

The Problem
The problem was a pesky down spout. It empties at the front corner of my garage. More accurately, after fifteen years of rain, it drilled a hole clear to the base of the foundation. I needed to fill the hole and keep the water out. My solution is a little concrete, some flowers, and eventually the rain barrel. Not only do I solve the foundation problem, I get free water for the new flowers.

The problem patch. Note the down spout on the left.

Part One: Concrete
The area in question is a 4′ x 2.5′ patch of earth encased by the garage brick, driveway, and L-shaped front walk. Not much to work with and just enough to allow the water to cause a problem. I dug up the half closest to the house and repacked the dirt with an 8″ x 8″ tamper. The solid Alabama red clay is a very tough water barrier. Once firmly packed up to the bottom of the four-inch-thick walk, I poured in 160 pounds of Quikrete. Here are the results (Those aren’t worms, by the way. They’re immature pine cones):

After pouring concrete.

Part Two: The Flower Bed
I dug the remaining dirt down to fifteen inches being careful to leave that good solid clay on all sides. Then it was off to Lowe’s for some top soil, potting soil and a little color. Here’s a little tip. Holes are always bigger than they look, but math doesn’t lie. Measure the hole and calculate the volume so you don’t come home with too little soil. At 2.5 ft.², my hole needed just over 5 cubic feet of soil. Always buy a little extra to fill in as it settles.

I used a 3:2 ratio of top soil to potting soil. Since both are sold in 1 cubic foot bags, it was easy to decide how many bags to buy because I did the math before going to the store. I only wish I had remembered to take my wallet with me. I had to park the carts and zip home. For some reason, they won’t let you take it all home on a promise to return with the money.

With a few terracotta pots as place holders for the rain barrel, I’m 2/3 of the way to completion. I poked in some verbena, dahlia, columbine (red and purple), marigolds, petunias, and a few surprises for later. Here are the results so far. I didn’t get done in time to catch the sun for these pictures. Pardon my flash.

A long shot.

My place holder pots

Oh, pretty colors

I moved a couple of solar lights into the mix. They were previously in a spot that didn’t really get enough sun to power them. Next month, I’ll order the rain barrel and get some bed-edging to keep the soil from washing away. Yep, should have thought of that when I went back to get my wallet.