December 2004

Thursday, December 23, 2004
All this PC posturing is killing me. I can't stand all the stories about courthouses removing nativity scenes and schools having to drop "Merry Christmas" and adopt a very PC "Holiday Season". All sides of this PC war are losing. Everyone is getting a black eye.

The non-Christians attack the displays on government property, The Christians respond with, "Jesus is the reason for the season", the Atheists respond with, "No he's not, the Earth's 23º27' tilt is the reason for the season" and it just gets into a big ugly fight.

Being a non-Christian, it doesn't bother me to see a nativity scene or a "Merry Christmas" sign at the courthouse. In fact, I kind of miss those things. I've got more important things to worry about rather than which deity my state legislature bows to. I think PC has gone too far when people are getting into trouble for putting up a mini Christmas tree on their desk. This is the time of year that people should be getting onto trouble for photo-copying their boobs, drinking too much egg-nog at the company Christmas party and telling-off their boss!

I used to specialize my greetings with friends. I'd tell my Christian friends "Merry Christmas", my Jewish friends, "Happy Hanukkah" and my Pagan friends, "Blessed Yule". But no longer! I might be sued or worse, labeled as a resistance fighter in the PC war. So, close to giving up, saying screw the whole thing and adopting the general greeting, "Bah, humbug", I've made one last attempt to conform in the new spirit of things;

"Merry Christma-Hanu-Kwanz-Rama-Yule-or not"

12-21-4
I went out to the beach this morning to watch the sunrise. I got there just before the sun broke on the horizon. The sky was lined in dark orange, pinks and purples. There were a few people out there and it was sooo cold. The winter solstice arrived at 7:42a and the sun was already well into the sky by then. It was beautiful.
I've been working hard at my job and even harder around the house. It seems that everything is a preparation for something else nowadays. I've lost track of why I get up every morning and go to work. I'm working too hard to enjoy the things I'm working for. I decided I needed a break just for a moment so I went out to see the sun.

I saw it and remembered that this was the same sun that came and went last year, the year I was born, the year my father was born and every year before and since. This was the same sun that rose over the construction site that became the great pyramids in Egypt, the same sun the ancients used to map out Stonehenge. Life is nothing if not consistent and I'm far too small to think that my daily routine will make or break anything in the big picture. I remembered that I had these same thoughts in the same place years ago and that I just needed to slow down to hear the calming voice of reason in my own head.
It was kind of weird but I almost felt like I was going to cry. I've been running full speed thinking that I was wasting my life because I haven't accomplished anything significant yet and now I realize that I AM wasting my life BY running at full speed. I need to live at my own pace and remember that my accomplishments are in the smiles of my wife and daughter. I had forgotten that for a little while and we all need reminding from time to time. This will make the top 3 sunrises I remember.

I haven't gone out to the beach for a sunrise in quite a long time. I used to do it when I was upset or feeling depressed. I'd sit in one of the lifeguard chairs and watch the sun come up and it would always cheer me up. Those stupid little pills have stolen away that simple little pleasure, I don't feel (dangerously) depressed anymore.
I stayed until 8:00 and went into work. When I got back into the truck I pushed play on my iPod. I've got 6527 songs on it and I keep it on 'random play'. The next song was Louis Armstrong, "What A Wonderful World". I laughed out loud. For the last couple of weeks music has been popping up coincidental with the goings-on around me. Maybe it's a sappy song but it's how I was feeling at the time and I rarely take the time to recognize it.

If you were wondering about the other 2 sunrises in my top 3:

Number 2 was drumming up the sun at festival (Spring 1999?). We began drumming around the fire around 8:00p and there were 30 or so drummers and the same number of dancers. It was a cool night and turned COLD but we kept drumming. As the night turned into morning hours, the number of drummers/dancers dwindled. By 3:00a there were about 10 of us and only a handful of dancers. At dawn we were 3; 2 drummers and 1 dancer. I wanted to stop as soon as I saw the light but the other drummer (Man, do I wish I could remember WHO that was!!!) encouraged me to stick it out. We had to keep drumming until we saw the sun in the sky. My hands were raw, my bones were shattered and my knees were locked but I kept drumming. I knew the pain was there but I couldn't feel it. That was one gorgeous sunrise!

Number 1 was May 23, 1992. The day I got married. Fred was staying with me at my apartment so we could get up and do everything we had to do that day. I couldn't sleep (imagine that) and ended going out for a drive. Normally Fred would go with me but I went out after he fell asleep and I just wanted to be alone for a while. I ended up at the beach in one of those chairs and just sat there thinking and writing. Feeling all the anticipation, fear and doubt that is normal on such a day. As the sun came up I realized that when the sun went back down that night, I would be married and would have grow up a little. I was afraid we weren't thinking this through. Why would she marry me!? I'm a goofy kid. I haven't proved myself on ANY level yet. Did she know what she was getting into? Scary thoughts for anyone but when that sun hit my face I knew it was going to be alright. There's a fresh start every 24 hours and if we don't get it right the first time, we can start over the next day. I forget that most of the time now but at the time it made me realize that if she was willing to tough it out with me then I couldn't do anything so bad that the sun wouldn't come up the next day. I had seen the sun come up before but that was my first sunrise and I'll remember it until I die.

12-20-4
Plumbing sucks ..... again!
I thought I had this problem solved. I did a lot of work on the main bathroom last week. My goal was to complete the work without calling for help again. I failed. This time my nemesis was the toilet. I fixed the sink and the cabinets but it started to look bad when I pulled up the toilet and found that the "closet flange" was rusted out and broken. After re-seating the toilet I filled it with water and of course I had water all over the floor.
I had to call in the expert. I'll never know how Thom can keep bailing me out without getting tired of it. We replaced the flange (I didn't even know that was possible) and everything worked fine from then on. I've got one more bathroom to do and I think I can handle that one. Before I attempt it though, I'll make sure Thom is home in case I run into more trouble. At least warn him so he can hide from me.

Monday 12-13-4
Dick called from Pennsylvania. Said he found a better way to change the oil. He always hated crawling around on his back under the truck, just find a way to put it at eye level!

2 foxes ran out in front of him and out of instinct or reaction, he swerved. He's alright, just a little banged up. I guess everyone's having a bad week.

Sunday 12-12-4
I'm sorry I broke your dock Robin!

We were invited to a friends house for a Christmas water parade. The Palm Valley Light & Boat Parade. They dress their boats up in lights and music and parade down the Intracoastal Waterway every year. Robin's house has a dock right on the Waterway so she hosts a party, this was our first time out. When we got there we walked out to the dock and checked it out. Teresa said she was nervous. She said the dock didn't 'feel right'. Thom and I teased her and bounced up and down (bending our knees, not jumping) telling her that we could fit 120 people on this thing!

Everyone was staying in the house because it was going to be in the 30's last night and it was already really cold. The party-food and Sangria-punch may have also been a factor, man were they good! When the boats started coming down the river, everyone went out to the dock. It was really a sight, some of these people really go all-out on these designs. It was more impressive than the Disney World water parade.
(Yes, they DO have a water light parade, you can watch it from the Fort Wilderness campground and a few other resort hotels.)
Becca and Julia got bored and went back up to the yard to play on the swings. The last thing I remember was seeing a boat with an incredible "Shark Tales" display. It was very impressive. I was sitting on the rail on the far side of the dock. Teresa was sitting in my lap and I saw Becca running up to us pointing at the "Shark Tales" boat.

Suddenly I'm cold, wet, having trouble breathing and I can't see. I'm completely under water! How did this happen? Most everyone else remembers dropping or hearing a 'CRACK'. I don't. I went from dry to trying to find which way was up. I didn't know how deep the water was or how much water was between me and the surface. I didn't have any air in my lungs and I couldn't tell which way was up or down. It didn't help that people were kicking me and standing on my back. Right about then I started to understand what had happened. I immediately started to think about Teresa and Becca going through the same trouble. I hit my head on some wood, felt it and figured it was the dock. Hoping the dock was below me I shot up to the surface.
I've always wondered how the hell people can drown in 5' of water. Well now I know. If I had made one wrong move and couldn't get up at that very moment, I'm sure I would have sucked in some water and it would have been up to someone else to save me.

On the surface, everyone is screaming and crying in the dark. It looked like a smaller version of the final scene in "Titanic". Half of the dock collapsed spilling about 30 people into the water on top of us. "How many people are still under water?" I thought. I found Teresa and she already had Becca. I pulled them to a post and by then we figured out we could touch the bottom. It was up to Teresa's chin but she wasn't going to drown. Becca was scared but did NOT panic. I fully expected my little drama queen to go nuts! Teresa was a little scared (as were we all) but it was a tough scared and she did a spectacular job of holding Becca and herself together. She's one strong woman when she needs to be, just like her Mom. Once I knew they were OK, I looked over and found Kate and helped her to Thom. No one could find Julia. After some hollering, someone said that they had her. Thom, Jason and I were grabbing everyone smaller than us and pushing them up the dock. I started to yell out for everyone to be quiet. We needed to make sure everyone was accounted for. After some considerable yelling, everyone started to calm down and we had everyone accounted for. About that time the boats saw what was going on and stopped, turning their lights on toward us. I saw Becca was up on land and Teresa was having trouble getting up the dock. I started to go over to help her but realized that she was OK, Becca was safe, and she had people there to help her. I was needed out here in the water. After getting everyone out, we checked under the dock one last time and waded over to the rocks. Some woman was offering me her hand. She was dry but probably weighed 110 lbs. soaking wet and she wanted to pull me out of the water. I'm close to 280 lbs. and I AM soaking wet wearing heavy clothes and a trench-coat. I would have pulled her right into the water... She just wanted to help so badly. Only after we were out did I think of the alligators that they frequently spot from the dock.

With everyone out of the water we made another headcount and headed to the impromptu bon fire to get dry. It felt kind of nice when some one came up to me and said, "Thank the Gods we had people like you out there taking charge or things could have gotten worse." And it was true. Jason, Thom and I all went into warrior mode automatically and just did what had to be done. It's really kind of nice to know when my mettle is tested, I won't fail. After everyone had gathered their wits, we stripped out of any clothes we could and got into the van to head home. Kate said Robin is really upset but I hope she doesn't feel too badly about this, no one (except Teresa and her premonitions) knew this was going to happen and everything turned out alright. No one was screwing around, no one caused this, It just happened. The only losses were someone's purse, a pair of shoes, a few pair of eyeglasses, my flask of ginger brandy, 6 or 7 leather jackets and a few dozen cell phones, pagers and watches. Considering that no one was hurt too badly, I think we did alright. I had a nail jab into my knee, a few hours later I noticed my left side was all banged up and Teresa's shins are all scraped up but we came out of it knowing that we can handle a crisis without panicking and one HELL of a story to tell...

10-10-4
Plumbing sucks!
I've been reluctant to do any plumbing work around the house because every time I've tried it before I only made things worse. As things kept going wrong I just patched them up as best as I could without doing a whole re-work. I can do amazing things with electricity, woodworking etc. but plumbing has me running scared.
Through the years my pipes have given me troubles and I've been able to fix some of them. I (and a number of friends) replaced the whole front yard sewer line from the street to the house. I cut and replaced a large section of the sewer line in the back yard too. That's as far as I can go.

The drain under my den sink leaked. I just stopped using the sink.
The drain under the kitchen sink leaked. I gooped it up with plumbers dope.
The dishwasher leaked. I put it out into the trash and used the space under the counter for storage.
The toilet in the den started spraying water from the supply side. I removed the toilet, put it in the tub, capped the pipe and used the bathroom for storage.
Fred's parents gave us a dishwasher almost a year ago. I've been scared to hook it up.

The real problem here is not my inadequacies about plumbing but my fear of it. A fear so strong that it kept me from even attempting to fix these problems, until now.
Last weekend I went forth to Lowe's determined to fix the kitchen sink (the faucet supply lines have begun to leak). I knew that if I could overcome my fear of plumbing, I could fix the kitchen and then the den. I decided to do it right. I bought a new faucet, pipe and valves to replace the hot/cold supplies, plywood to replace the cabinet floor, dishwasher supply and drain stuff, and all the parts for the sink drains from the sink to the wall. I gathered up the parts and returned home, fearless and confident.

4 hours later I'm on the phone promising Thom that if he comes over and helps me I'll buy them dinner.
I had gotten pretty far but when the connectors didn't fit and the old ones broke off and I wasn't sure which connector would fit... I panicked. Thom said I was almost done, I just needed to make one last connection. I guess I haven't conquered my fear quite yet.
At least I got another funny story out of it. Thom was under the sink making the last connection from the dishwasher to the hot supply and I hear, 'CRACK'....pause...."Oh man"...pause..."what time is it?" It was 8:51. Lowe's closes at 9:00. I've never actually been in a rocket sled but I imagine Thom's van came close. He slides up to the door, I jump out while still moving and sprint to the front door. I almost collide with the automatic door when I noticed the sign that says they're open until 10:00. We took 20 minutes to drive back just to make up for the bad traffic karma.
All is well; The sink is wet, the drain is dry and the dishwasher is working. I just don't know if I should tackle the den or not. I still haven't gotten this plumbing thing down yet.

Onward, into the New Year!!! Back to Updates