The Open Curtain

I've just finished reading The Open Curtain, by Brian Everson. I got this at the library, and the cover really caught my eye. The story is about a Mormon teenager, Rudd, who while going through his dead father's things finds a stack of letters that suggest he has a half-brother. He tracks down his half-brother, named Lael, and they form a sort of friendship. At the same time, Rudd starts a research project for school and finds a story about a murder committed in New York in 1903. The murderer is H. William Young, the grandson of Brigham Young. What piques Rudd's interest is a reference to "blood atonement". This supposedly is a part of Mormon teaching (that has been disavowed) which states that some sins are not cleansed by the shedding of Christ's blood, and in order to make it right the sinner's blood must be shed. Rudd is asked by his teacher to stop researching this, but can't get it out of his head. Things get stranger still when he starts "losing time", and when he starts finding blood on his clothes and hearing reports of people being murdered.

One day Rudd and Lael go up to the mountains. The point of view then switches to Lyndi, whose family was also in the mountains and were brutally murdered. Rudd is the sole survivor of this massacre, and he has no memory of what happened. Lyndi is strangely attracted to Rudd, perhaps because he was the last person to be with her family. She's terrified of being alone, and allows Rudd to move in with her. His behavior keeps getting stranger, but Lyndi chalks it up to his trauma. Finally, she convinces him to marry her, thinking that marriage will improve things.

Does marriage heal Rudd, or does he fall even further into psychosis? Who is Lael, and where did he disappear to after the murder of Lyndi's family?

There is a lot of Mormon imagery in this book-the bodies of Rudd and Lyndi's family are positioned in the same manner as the special marks on Mormon undergarments, and the marriage ceremony in the Mormon temple is unlike anything I have ever heard of before. Mormons are very secretive about their temple ceremonies, and in fact the author mentioned in his afterward that much of what he described in that ceremony is no longer practiced.

I must warn you that there are no easy answers in this book, so if you like cut and dried stories, you won't find one here. If you want your imagination stretched a bit, go check your local library for this one.

Lost No More

Well, I did it last night. I deleted my Lost season pass from Tivo, and I am no longer going to watch it. It's something that I've been thinking about for a while now, mostly because the interest isn't there any more. I've been getting the idea that the writers don't quite know where to go with the show, and they're making it up as they go along. That's not unusual, but when the audience is aware of it, it's not much fun. I also stopped caring about most of the characters a while ago. I can't stand Jack, the doctor, and he's been a primary focus of the show. Some of the other characters I like have either been killed off or relegated to a side story. To be perfectly honest, I've mainly been watching lately for this reason:

And sadly, even this reason isn't good enough lately. So the chains are broken, and Lost can get lost now.

Too Freakin' Hilarious!

All you 24 fans, check out Dave Barry's 24 Blog. Even if you're not a 24 fan (what!), check it out as it is Too Freakin' Hliarious!! Make sure to look at the links too!

Digging Out

Here are some more pictures from the Great Blizzard of 2007. These were taken this morning around 6:30 with the camera in my cell phone. The quality's not perfect but you get the idea.

This is the front of my house. Yes, all that snow must be moved to get into the driveway. There's about a foot and a half stretch in front of the garage door that does not have one single snowflake, thanks to the way the winds were swirling. Do you see the little blob under the address? That's my snowman who's holding up a sign that says "Let it snow!" Easy for him to say!
This is the view from that clear patch, looking down my street. The sky is pretty with the sun just starting to come up, isn't it? I ended up parking about a block away in that direction.

Speaking of parking, I should elaborate on yesterday's post. I dropped off a coworker who lives on the other side of Duncan, and I actually had to drop her off at the start of her street because I couldn't get in. So I went to my street, and when I turned in there was someone who was stuck and a couple of people who had pulled over and were trying to help. I ended up turning around and going to the other entrance. I was about halfway to my house when I got behind someone who was digging out his minivan, plus there was a Beetle parked a little ways up that was completely plowed in. Once again, I was stuck. Even if I could have gotten past them, there were snow drifts up the way that were too high to get through, and I would have been stuck. So I had no choice but to leave my car and walk the rest of the way.

Once I got home, I changed into some warmer clothes and grabbed my shovel, intending on digging my way through. My next door neighbor was out, and he said that he left his car on Duncan and advised me not to try to get through, that it was too dangerous. So I went back inside.

After worrying for an hour or so about the fact that my car was abandoned, I decided to go out and see if things had improved. Brian was out again (he has a dog), and his car was in his driveway. Someone in the neighborhood had come through with a plow and was attempting to clear the roads, and Brian offered to go with me to see if I could get through. It was really hard to tell with the drifting, since you'd get a patch where you could see the road and then the snow was six inches deep. We got to my car, and the minivan was gone, but I still wasn't able to get through. I was able to turn my car around and go back the way I had originally tried.

This time there were no cars blocking my path until I got about a block away. A Chrysler Sebring was stuck in a drift, and in fact the front passenger wheel was at least an inch off the ground. There were a couple of people trying to get them out, and Brian and I tried to help as well, but no deal. The truck that was plowing the neighborhood was also there facing the opposite direction, so even if the Sebring could have gotten out I still could not have gone past. Since the road was reasonably clear and there was a parking spot, I decided to stop there for the night.

This morning I saw that the city plows had come through and plowed our street. I took the shovel and went to fetch my car, which thankfully wasn't plowed in, although I had to clear a little snow away. The neighborhood plow was gone, but the Sebring was still there. I pulled the car in front of the house, cleared a small path so I could at least get to the door, and then got ready for work.

I left work early today to go home and shovel. My boss understood, she was working from home because she couldn't get out of her garage. I started to do a section just so I could get one of our cars in-Mike's coming home today (hopefully) and I didn't want him to have to worry about shoveling. We have a new neighbor across the way who I haven't even met yet, and he offered to help me shovel since he didn't have too much snow and was done quickly. It didn't take us long to get about half the driveway done, and if I'm feeling ambitious I'll try to do more in a little while (though something tells me that won't happen).

Now, what's going to happen when all this snow starts melting?

Let it Snow?

Isn't winter lovely? They actually closed the bank early today, but not early enough. I had to leave my car several blocks away-I'm not stuck, I just can't go any further, thanks to drifts such as this. The blizzard warning is supposed to last until midnight, so hopefully tomorrow I can start digging out.

World Champions

In Just Over An Hour....

the butt-kicking will commence!!!! Go Colts!!!!

Come on, who deserves a Super Bowl ring more than Peyton Manning? "Sexy Rexy"? Puh-lease!

Black And Blue

No, not me, it's the title of the last book I read. I decided that instead of just dumping the books I like in my "Recently Read and Recommended" section I would actually try to review them for you.

Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen, is the story of a woman, Fran Bendetto, who is beaten by her husband. The book starts out when she leaves her husband Bobby, a New York City police officer, and takes their son Robert with her. Fran has enlisted the help of a woman she met through her job as an emergency room nurse who works to get battered women away from their spouses. Fran doesn't know where she's going or how she's going to survive.

Fran ends up in Florida, where she becomes Beth Crenshaw. She and Robert start forging a new life and making new friends, and at the same time learn some things about themselves and each other. The story of Beth's abuse is told in memories, and we start learning the reasons that she never left before-she liked their house, she didn't want to ruin family vacations, and most telling of all, she loved her husband. Robert knows what his dad did to his mom, but is reluctant to face the truth. He struggles to work through his feelings, while Beth tries to help him through it.

In order to keep themselves safe, Beth and Robert need to keep their real reasons for living in Florida to themselves. Everything about them has changed, from Beth's hair color to Robert's date of birth. Throughout the book is Bobby's shadow. Beth is in constant fear that Bobby will find her, and knows that he will kill her if he does.

When I told a friend that I was reading this book he laughed and told me I could turn on Lifetime any night of the week and see this story. What sets this story apart from others is the attention to detail. Beth is honest with herself-she loved her husband, and she still has feelings for him. Sometimes she even questions whether it was really that bad. She doesn't blame herself for the abuse, but she can't help thinking that Bobby will find someone who "doesn't make him so mad". These kinds of flaws make her character very realistic. There's also a feeling of helplessness. Beth doesn't even learn her phone number until she has been in her apartment for a couple of weeks, and she can't make contact with her family to let them know she's okay.

This was a very good book, and it was easy to see why it was one of Oprah's Book Club selections. If you find it in a library or bookstore, go ahead and pick it up-it's worth the read.

The Most Over Utilized Word in Business

And I just utilized it in my title and again now. Yes, I'm talking about the word "utilize". I sat through a presentation this morning, and I wish I would have counted how many times it was utilized.

Definition time: u·til·ize (ytl-z)tr.v. u·til·ized, u·til·iz·ing, u·til·iz·es To put to use, especially to find a profitable or practical use for.

What happened to "use"? Is it considered a lesser word because it's only one syllable? Is this just another example of people trying to sound smarter than they really are, so they utilize a word that sounds fancy? I think it's like synergy, another word that keeps popping up. Do the executives and sales people who utilize synergy even know what it means?

And to be fair, it's not just business that utilizes "utilize". I recently watched an episode of Designed To Sell, and guess which word was utilized quite frequently? It wasn't synergy.....

I've utilized that word seven times in this post so far. Did my IQ increase with each usage? Or would that be utilization? That has a lot of syllables, so I must be really smart, right? To be fair, I know that there are situations where utilize would be more appropriate than use, and I have no complaints about those situations. What I have a problem with is that this word is just everywhere.

I have another presentation on Friday. I will count how many times I hear "utilize" and post the results.

Super Bowl Bound!!!!

Peyton's pointing the way to the Super Bowl. Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!!!!

Hundred Dollar Hamburgers

Yesterday Larry invited me and Mike for a flight in his plane. It's been a long time since I was in a small aircraft, and Mike had never been, so we were both very excited about the invitation. It was a little cold out, but the skies were fairly clear and the sun was shining. A perfect day for a flight!

Our destination was Lansing Airport, and a bar/restaurant called Shannon's Landing. This was a place that I never would have known about, but if I lived in the area I would be there all the time. The atmosphere was comfortable, the food was outstanding, and the view of airport and the small planes taking off and landing was a lot of fun.

And the flight was a blast! I absolutely love the sensation at take off. No matter if I'm in a commercial jet or a small plane, I can't help grinning like an idiot when we take off. In this case it was even better because I was in the copilot seat, and we also had headphones so we could not only talk to each other but hear the pilot chatter. At 5500 or 6500 feet in the air, you also get a much different view of things. I spent most of the flight simply staring out the window, with my tongue practically hanging out. Larry also showed us the various readouts on his instruments, and explained what everything meant. You sure don't get that on American Airlines!

On the way back we could see that the clouds were starting to creep in. At Lansing there had been a lot of traffic, and that was probably due to the weather that we received this morning (snow!!!). A lot of pilots were getting in a last minute flight before they were grounded for a few days. Coming back, we could see the clouds starting to come in, and by the time we got back to Champaign it was overcast.

From the wide open skies I went the opposite way to the crowded grocery store. I pretty much had to climb over big groups of people (don't have your family reunion in the main lane to the produce section!), and many of the shelves were empty, causing me to make a side trip to another store. What a let down after feeling so free!

Thanks Larry for an awesome time!

Words of Advice

I've been taking yoga classes for the last 2 years, and along the way I've learned some things. The problem is, I don't often remember to take my own advice.

The first thing to remember is to throw away the deodorant that has been sitting in your desk drawer for the last six years or so. When deodorant is sitting around for that long, it can't be good. Sure it smells all right, but it tends to crumble after being applied to your armpits. This means that you have deodorant dingleberries under your arms, and that's just not attractive when you're wearing a tank top. Not to mention that every time you raise your arms (which is frequently), some of these dingleberries fall off. I think I spent about half of my last class brushing deodorant crumbs away from my pants and my yoga mat. On the plus side, it did make the class go by really fast.

The next bit of advice comes with a warning-it may include Too Much Information. If you're not comfortable reading about my underwear just stop now.

Always always always wear comfortable undies when practicing yoga. I cannot stress this enough. No thongs, no cheeky panties that may crawl. Stick to the basic full coverage panty. In fact, this might be the only situation where granny panties are acceptable. Seriously, if you wear anything that tends to move and shift there is a good chance that the underwear will end up in a place it really isn't supposed to be. You may even be cut in half (hmmm....a plot idea for CSI?)

So, if you start practicing yoga, remember to breathe, calm your mind, and wear comfortable underwear. Now if I could just remember to take my own advice....

Everyone Else Is Doing It

So I'm going to too! Yes, I am now on the new version of Blogger. New Blogger means new template, so I'll probably be tinkering around a bit more. I really like the fact that it makes it easy to create lists, and I also like the fact that the time will show when I actually published the post, not when I started it. For some reason, that always bothered me.

Christmas is almost officially over in our household. Mike took down the outside lights yesterday, and I took down most of the inside decorations. My village is staying up since that's really a winter thing, and the tree is still up since I ran out of energy. Christmas always goes by too fast. We went to Milwaukee and as always had a wonderful time. I got to spend some extra time with my family, and we also met Laura's fiancee's (Dave's) parents. They are great people, and it was fun to spend an evening with them. They brought over a game called Mad Gab, which was a hoot. You have to sound out nonsense words and guess what phrase they are. For example, Finned Easel turned out to be Vin Diesel. This would be even more fun if there was alcohol involved. As it was, we did pretty good.

We don't have any plans for New Year's. We usually don't do anything anyways. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing something by not going to a big party or bar celebration, but I'm not too big on getting drunk just because I think I should. That's not to say no celebrating will be going on tonight-if the wind dies down, we'll throw a couple of steaks on the grill. We have a bottle of champagne that may or may not still be good. We also picked up a bottle of Absolut Ruby Red Vodka, which tastes wonderful with cranberry juice. Gotta love Friar Tuck and the Saturday afternoon tastings!

Whether you're staying in or going out, have a safe and Happy New Year!

Buy This CD Now!!

This has got to be the most awesome Christmas CD I've heard in a while. It's fun, upbeat, and it just plain rocks! I've listened to it twice in a row now, and I'm hooked. It doesn't matter what your musical taste is, you will like this! I'll even make it easy for you, click here.

Meet the Cats

As promised, here are the pictures of the girls. As I type this, they're both hanging out on the couch with me.
This is Hershey. She's very affectionate, and actually comes when you call her name. Mike wants to rename her Piggy because she's always at the food dish. She also gets really excited when you change the water dish, she'll jump and try to get at it while you're picking it up.

This is Bootsie. She was very nervous when she first arrived, and is still a little scared of loud noises. She's curled up next to me right now and her tail is on the keyboard, so I'll blame her for any spelling mistakes. She's also very affectionate, and is more of a lap cat than Hershey.

They're both really well adjusted after only a few days. Larry came over tonight, and while Bootise ran away, she came out after a few minutes to say hello, and they've both been out since. It's been interesting so far having two cats. Growing up, we always had cats but only one at a time. They both have distinct personalities, and they get along really well. Right now, you would think that they have always been here. There's always an element of uncertainty when you adopt a new animal, but I think we got lucky. Saturday is their first trip to the vet, so we'll see how that goes. I got a recommendation from a lady at work for a different clinic, so hopefully that will work out.

New Additions to the Family

We finally took the plunge and adopted not one but two cats today. We are now the proud owners of Bootsie, a 3 1/2 year old black and white domestic short hair, and Hershey, a 3 year old grey and white domestic short hair. We weren't originally looking for two (well, Mike wasn't), but these two were already a pair. They both came from the same owner, and the humane society is affiliated with a fund that pays the adoption fee for the second cat. So we thought about it and decided we would be able to handle two cats.

Today was their first day with us. We got to know their meows right away because Hershey cried the whole way home. Once in a while Bootsie would chime in with her thoughts on the matter. When we got home, Bootsie headed for the guest bathroom and stayed there while Hershey explored the rest of the house. Bootsie eventually made it to our bedroom, where she spent most of her time under the bed. When she did come out, she would kind of slink around the room like she was still nervous. It's only been in the last couple of hours that she's been out of the bedroom and hanging around with us. Hershey, on the other hand, is not as nervous. She is pretty vocal, and I swear she comes when you call her name. She was adopted from the humane society when she was a kitten, then brought back, so she's familiar with the drill. But she's not going back again :)

They are both sweet and affectionate cats, and it has been such fun watching them explore. I will definitely have some pictures up shortly.

My Drinking Personality

Yeah, this totally fits!

You Are a Strawberry Daiquiri

You're a fun, playful drinker who loves to party. You may get totally wasted, but you're always a happy drunk!

What Mixed Drink Are You?

Oh Deer Me

Well, this morning I decided to talk about how the world couldn't be all that bad since O.J.'s book and interview about how he would have killed his wife got yanked. Thankfully News Corp, which owns Fox Broadcasting and Harper Collins, realized just how tacky this whole thing was. Or how tacky all of the sponsors who probably would have yanked ad money thought it was. Either way, done deal except for bootleg copies on YouTube and eBay.

No, instead on my way to work this morning I tuned in to the Bob and Tom show, and caught them discussing a story about a man who was arrested for having sexual relations with a deer carcass. They were serious, here's the story. All thoughts of how the world maybe wasn't so bad after all flew out of my head. Not just a deer, but a carcass.....that had been laying in the ditch.........His lawyer was trying to argue that since the definition of an animal included the word "living" that the carcass was not an animal and therefore no crime had been committed. That may be the case, but that's just sick.

Ridin' The Rails

This weekend I went on an adventure. Mike had to be in Milwaukee on business on Thursday, and I was going to go with him so I could see my family. The problem was I couldn't get off work on Thursday, only on Friday. So Mike went up on Thursday and I went on Friday to meet him. Instead of driving, I took the train.

It's been many years since I was on Amtrak, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. When I got to the station in Champaign, I was surprised by how many people were already there, and by how many people showed up afterwards. Then I took a good look at the crowd and figured it out. Many of the riders were college students, presumably going home for the weekend. With the fare being relatively inexpensive, this would be a good option, especially if the students don't have a car on campus.

The train to Chicago started out in Carbondale, so there were already quite a few people on the train. I was lucky to get a window seat (I love looking out the window!), and my seat mate ended up being one of the many college students. She had a laptop with her and watched Memento during the ride. That's such a good movie, and it was really hard not to shoulder surf (although I couldn't hear anything). I had plenty to keep me busy anyway, I brought my iPod, a book, and a book of crossword puzzles. Amtrak's policy towards food is bring whatever you want, so I also brought some snacks and a soda. I would hate to get stranded on a train without chips!

The train started rolling, slowly, slowly, and then stopped. We were barely up to the north end of town. We then sat and waited, and waited some more. Finally after ten minutes they announced that we were pulled over to a siding to wait for a freight train. It ended up being a half hour wait until we could go, then we had to back up practically to the station to get on the main track. Once again, here we go!

We had to pull over again later on to let the southbound Amtrak pass. All told, we were delayed for an hour. Good thing I had a two hour layover in Chicago! They kept thanking us for our patience. As if we were going to get off the train? Definitely a good thing I brought snacks....

So we rolled into Union Station and my first priority was to find where I caught the train to Milwaukee. I won't elaborate on my second priority but it involved standing in a long line. After that, I stopped at one of the restaurants and grabbed a bite to eat. There was also a bar in the station, and just in case you didn't want to stop at the bar you could stop at the little beer wagon and buy a can of Miller Lite or something. Gotta love the train!

The trip to Milwaukee was much shorter (and also full), and we got into the station just about on time. I got off the train and walked out into a monsoon. The wind was blowing, it was sleeting, and there was thunder and lightning. Mike's parents were there to pick me up, and they pulled up just as I walked out of the station. Talk about great timing!

All in all, it took 6 1/2 hours (including layover) to get to Milwaukee from Champaign by train. Considering it takes about 4 hours by car, yes, it was a longer way, but it was also fairly convenient. I didn't have to worry about driving, and the fare wasn't much more than a tank of gas. It's nice to know that we have this option if we want it.

Winds of Change

Ahh.....the morning after an election. There's something new and fresh in the air, can you feel it? The sun is shining (or would be in Champaign if it wasn't foggy), birds are singing, people are smiling and happy. What can this possibly be? Does this signal a shift in the political climate? Are the politicians actually going to follow through on their promises and lower taxes, clean out corruption in the government, fix our schools, and give us health care?

What, are you kidding? No, I'm talking about our airwaves. They are now free and clear of muckracking, name calling, and unflattering pictures taken with someone's mouth open. Yes folks, the campaign ads are over. Some of us remember a time when campaign ads were a good thing. They were the equivalent of the whistle stop campaign-they allowed you to get a look at the candidate and hear what he or she thinks is the reason they are qualified to hold office. Now, it's turned into an ugly mess of he said she said, and you get no real sense of who the candidate is as a person and potential leader. Both sides are equally good at this, so you can't blame just one party.

I know I'm not the only one to complain about these ads. Surely there must be research somewhere that shows that the public does not respond well to this kind of advertising. Or maybe I'm wrong, and people don't let this influence their vote (or lack of).

All I know for sure is, my television is now free of name-calling politicians. I can go back to watching a barrage of male-enhancement commercials. Smilin' Bob, how I missed you.