Barnson.org

I’m ready to give this one more try with Mozblog…

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

Now some padding because it has to be long enough for the preview mode to kick in.

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

I’m a little frustrated, but slowly figuring out how I need to format things.  The most annoying thing is that Drupal seems to strip out all my HTML formatting codes, including <title>.  <title> is kind of important, that way I don’t have random titles from the first part of my post.  It also yanks <!–break–> tags, which differentiate teaser from body.

Let’s see how it does this time!

This is my story about my experience with the MRI. I have more resources available at the bottom of this page

The bus was hot.  Despite the air conditioning’s valiant effort to stave off the sweltering surges of hot wind and dry desert dust, heat leaked through the cracks in the windowsills like miniature furnace blowers, reducing the comfort of the cooled air to barely-tolerable.

As was my usual routine when riding the Utah Transit Authority bus, I was leaning my head on my trusty Bone Pillow.  The Bone Pillow is so-named because it’s shaped roughly like a femur.  Narrow in the center, it is broad at both ends, and three-sided so that it is easier to wedge into tough cracks.  Mine is blue, with a slight paisley pattern long since faded into obscurity by the leaning of head, sweat, and skin oils soaking into it so deeply that no amount of laundering extracts the shade.  Yet it’s my pillow to use on the bus, and I like it.

At this point, though, it was growing uncomfortable as it soaked up perspiration from my soggy forehead, so I gave up the fight for sleep and resolved myself to either staring out the window or reading more from my newly-purchased manual, “Intrusion Detection Using Snort”.  I tucked the bone pillow into my backpack and pulled out the volume, flipping about halfway through the technical manual to where I had left off reading.

There it was again!

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened only my right eye.  Yes, it was definitely there again.  Like the vertical bands of a television test pattern, I saw bands of blurriness and clarity fighting for supremacy, the fuzzy bands giving way to clarity, slowly, between each eyeblink.  Whenever I blinked, the page became fuzzy again for a few moments.  “This is so strange,” I thought.

It had been strange that morning when I’d experienced the same thing.  So strange, in fact, that I was finally moved to call my doctor and schedule an appointment.  I’d left the bank where I work early, catching bus number 53 at 1:18 PM from the 53 South State Street bus stop in Salt Lake City, Utah.  My doctor’s appointment was scheduled for 2:45 PM, and I guessed I’d probably be seeing “Dr. Darren” Smith, Dr. Holt’s Physician Assistant.  Apparently, being a P.A. requires you to be just as much a doctor as a regular physician, but the position is junior in some fashion.  I really don’t care; Dr. Darren knows my family really well, is familiar with our individual histories, and has a remarkably friendly, disarming bedside manner.  I heartily recommend him as your family physician if you live in Tooele.

I gave up attempting to read the page before me.  Although I could close my right eye and read, it was such an uncomfortable arrangement that it threatened to create a new headache all its own.  I shoved the weighty volume back into the backpack and zipped the bag shut.

Gazing out the window, it felt very strange to be passing the usual stop where I normally disembark, to travel several blocks further to see the doctor.  I never seem to notice how much a creature of habit I am until that routine is disrupted and I’m forced to examine what I’m doing.  It’s almost scary to realize that, even when I’m in the midst of creative efforts like systems administration or programming, that ultimately I live a significant percentage of my life on autopilot, without true conscious thought on what I’m are doing.

Here was my stop, in front of the Hollywood Video at Utah Avenue.  I headed uphill, southbound, for half a block to reach the crosswalk, then back one block north on my bike, downhill, to the doctor’s office.  I my cell phone out of my pocket and glanced at its dim, color display, which defaults to a display of the time when there is no activity.  2:32.  I’m 13 minutes early.  Wow, that’s different for once.

The blast of air conditioners greeted me as I proceeded through the swinging glass doors to the reception desk.  “My wife has left a package for me,” I informed the receptionist, who pulled out a fat white envelope which contained details on Lyme disease testing facilities.  This is what Christy, my darling and devoted sweetheart, thought might be wrong, that I was bitten by a tick as a child, and had latent Lyme Disease.  I considered it unlikely, but given the strange things that had been happening lately, I didn’t want to discount any particular avenue of research.  Really, my main reason for suspecting it was not Lyme Disease was principally due to the hype around it.  I have three neighbors who have been treated for it, and that I should be a fourth seemed phenomenally unlikely.  No sooner had I tucked the envelope into my pack, than a well-padded, husky-voiced nurse opened the door to the back area.  “Matthew?” she inquired, as I smiled, grabbed my pack, and headed through the door.

Weighing time.  Ack, well, here was a moment of truth.  For the last six months, I’ve fallen off my diet and exercise routine, and have packed back on 12 pounds, according to my home scale.  Despite my removal of keys, Palm Pilot, shoes, wallet, cellular phone, and various other items in my pockets, the doctor’s scale appeared to be conspiring with my home scale and confirmed.  “Two-hundred thirty-eight pounds,” I read aloud and sighed.  That’s still obese even at my six foot one height, which these days seems to be drifting far closer to six foot zero.

Finding the room.  I threw my assorted geek gadgets and shoes in my backpack and followed the assistant to a private room, where I underwent the usual routine of questions.

“Why are we seeing you today, Matthew?” the nurse inquired diligently, her blue eyes focussed on mine.

I avoided her glance.  “Well, really, it’s a combination of small things that, by themselves, don’t worry me much, but that together are really disconcerting,” I began.  “In the last three weeks, I’ve had difficulties four times with getting up out of bed in the morning.”  Seeing the nurse’s hint of a knowing smile, and realizing that she probably has difficulty waking up each day to, I hastened to add, “I will try to walk and simply collapse.  My right leg won’t support my weight.  The first time it only lasted a few seconds, but it’s happened four times, and this morning it was far worse.  I couldn’t get up for over a minute.”

“So you’re suffering weakness in the legs, then?” she asked.

“Not exactly.  I mean, my right leg feels perfectly strong, but it’s as if it just won’t respond, do you know what I mean?  Anyway, I didn’t think this was such a big deal, but the other night I was playing the piano as I often do, and my right hand was unable to finger as accurately or speedily as I am accustomed to.  It feels kind of weak, too, like I can’t strike the keys well.”

“Anything else?” she replied.

“Well, just this scaly patch of skin on my back that I’ve had since I was about 13 or 14.  It started out about the size of a quarter, but according to my wife it’s much larger now, and she wants me to have it looked at,” I responded.

“May I see it?” the nurse requested.

“Sure!” I responded, probably too enthusiastically, as this little thing was the least of my worries.  It’s not really a mole, just a slightly darker patch of skin that has a slightly scaly, bumpy feel to it.  It covers almost all of my right shoulderblade now.

The nurse quickly examined it, commented on the fact that it seemed to be hairier than the rest of my back, and went to get Dr. Darren.  I redressed and sat down with a Time magazine review of X-Men 2.  I still haven’t seen that movie, though I’ve meant to.  I’ll probably have to just buy it when it comes out on DVD.

The moment Darren walked into the room, I could tell he was on edge.  His eyes were wide and looked slightly startled.  “Matt, nice to see you again!” he began, “How are you doing?”

I smiled to myself, thinking “If I were just fine, why would I be in a doctor’s office?”  Instead, I offered up, “Well, I’m doing all right, but I have a few concerns I’m sure the nurse told you about.”

“Yes,” he quickly responded.  “I understand you’re feeling weakness in your right leg and hand?”

I described the feeling of kneeling on my left knee, unable to come to a standing position without collapsing, and my concerns that I was not fingering the piano keyboard as accurately or strongly.  “Have you experienced any blurriness of vision?” Darren asked.

This jolted me, as I realized I had not told the nurse about that particular symptom.  “As a matter of fact, yes I have.”  I described the test-pattern effect I was experiencing.

We briefly discussed the patch on my back as well, and he mentioned he’d prescribe a cream that might take care of it.  Obviously, however, his mind was not on that.  “Matthew, I’ll be right back,” he told me as he stepped quickly from the room.

He rejoined me within two minutes.  “I’ve scheduled an MRI for you down at the Tooele hospital,” he stated.  “It’s at 3:30.  Have you ever had an MRI before?”

I think I must have looked pretty nervous.  “No, but I’m a bit familiar with what they do.  I’ve read about it.”

“Would you like a Valium?” Dr. Darren asked.

I declined.  “No, really, I think I can just close my eyes and go to my happy place,” I said with a grin.

He wasn’t fooled.  “Matt, are you claustrophobic?”

“Slightly, yes.  I mean, probably no more so than other people, but I don’t like the thought of being enclosed in tight spaces.”

“You should really take a Valium.  I’ll give it to you here, and if you don’t dilly-dally at Albertson’s next door or something, you should be fine riding your bike down to the hospital.  You’ll probably need a ride home, though.”

So shortly thereafter, a skinny nurse with an earnest, timid expression as if she were constantly expecting reprimand, faltered in and offered me a Valium with a cup of water.  I’ve never had one of these before, since I steadfastly avoid medication whenever possible.  However, I accepted this little pink pill with a “V” hole in the center, chugged down the water, thanked the nurse, checked out of the office and paid my copay, then went on my way.  The cool thing is, the hospital is all downhill.  I made the two-mile trip in about eight minutes on my bicycle.

The next was just the usual routine of hospital outpatient check-in.  I filled out a bunch of forms saying that if they accidentally kill me, that’s too bad and I can’t sue them, the privacy acknowledgement, some other form with a whole bunch of questions about possible ways I might possibly have chunks of metal embedded in my skin, brain, or other sensitive areas, and got my little yellow armband to affix on my right wrist detailing my important info.  The check-in lady looked concerned with my state of mind, asking me repeatedly if I was all right. I guess it was the Valium kicking in, so I informed her that my doctor had given me a Valium to keep me calm through the procedure, and she looked mollified.

I was escorted to the MRI area, where I met the doctor who supervised the procedure, and the nice Hispanic technician who would be taking care of me.  “What was the Valium for?” was the only question the doctor asked, and I replied as best I could, though I was feeling quite groggy by this time.  The MRI tech and I walked outdoors to a large, humming 18-wheeler trailer and went up some steps, where I removed any potentially magnetic items from my body and finally got my first up-close-and-personal perspective on an MRI machine.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging.  This bulky beast looks like a little, tiny horizontal cave surrounded by several thick feet of white, polished plastic in all directions.  Imagine a doughnut on its side, but eight feet thick in every direction.  Imposing.  And, apparently, noisy.  The tech handed me a bright pink earplug; I rolled one and put it into my right ear, while he inserted the other into my left.  I laid down on the little bed with my head facing the inside of the doughnut, and the tech propped my legs up on a small triangle-like foam pad.  The tech pulled down a kind of face-guard with a tiny mirror built into it, and showed me that the mirror reflected my feet and the room beyond, to help combat claustrophobia.  For some reason, this face guard reminded me forcibly of the muzzle and faceguard worn by Hannibal Lechter in “The Silence Of The Lambs”.  The tech handed me a black plastic bulb I could squeeze to be removed immediately from the MRI machin, instructed me not to move my head during the procedure, and reminded me that this would be rather noisy, then closed the door behind him.

The table moved.  I closed my eyes.  I didn’t think I would be this nervous.  I mean, it was just a big plastic tube they were shoving my body into.  I felt my arms gently pushed into my sides by the concave walls, and realized with some small panic that I couldn’t raise my hands more than a few inches to scratch my nose if I needed to.  I breathed deeply in and out, opening my eyes, and saw two parallel, identical light-strips a few inches in front of each eye.  I couldn’t sit up, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t really move if I needed to.  My breathing sped up.

I was glad for the Valium.  I’m pretty certain I would have been terrified if not for the artificial calm induced by the drug.

I won’t go into the noises, except to say that at two points, the MRI machine vibrates for about three minutes straight at 100 beats per minute on a “D” note.  I began humming and whistling along to pass the time.  After the first few minutes in the tube, I went from claustrophobia to sheer boredom.  It takes about a half hour for a full MRI scan, and I’m a person who thrives on entertainment.  I found myself wishing they had a television screen built into the ceiling of that little tube.  And the bumping, grinding, swooshing-round-the-head noises from an MRI machine could make you easily imagine you were a soldier in Starship Troopers (the book, not the awful movie), riding a drop-pod through atmospheric re-entry.  I was grateful for that little mirror, periodically looking into it to realize that it was only the upper half of my body inside the machine, and that I was not trapped in some noisy cocoon.

Then, an agonizingly slow twenty minutes or so later, the noises stopped.  The table rolled out slowly from inside the tube, and the technician efficiently pulled back the Hannibal Lechter face-cage, removed my earplugs, and bid me on my way.

I paused at the 19 inch computer monitor in the room outside the MRI machine room.  “Is that my brain?” I asked stupidly, examining the image in front of me.

“Yep,” he responded.

There it was.  I realized I was looking at the inside of my head, and saw the countours of my sinusses with two bright white balls where my eyes were.  The right hemisphere was easily twice the size of the left, looking very unbalanced in there.  I guess when people talk about being “right-brained” or “left-brained”, I now definitely know which camp I’m in.  We’re talking grapefruit versus lime here.  But hey, it’s been serving an excellent purpose all these years, allowing me to write songs, hold a job, and stay out of prison.  Ultimately, it was doing its job, even if it did look strange on the monitor.

And three inches above my left eyeball in the picture, I saw a pea-sized gray fuzzy blob.  It didn’t look like brain or anything else inside that head.

I don’t know what that means.  Maybe it’s a shadow on the monitor.  Maybe it’s a tumor.  Maybe it’s just my skull.  But it definitely looked out of place.

More news Monday, when I hear back from the doc.  Leaving me to be slightly freaked for the rest of the weekend.

UPDATE: It’s a cyst.  See later blog entries for details.

I was enjoying a little pillow talk with Christy tonight, and a thought struck me.

“You know what’s cool? I mean, we’re married. We’ve been married for coming up on nine years. I’m your permanent boyfriend. It’s like you’re driving along this lonely highway, and then suddenly you realize you’re not alone, because you see this sign on the side of the road that says ‘No Dumping’, and you’re like ‘Hey, that’s what marriage is, no dumping!'”

Thanks for letting me share.

Over the last few months, I’ve begun developing headaches centered about three inches above my left eye. Very painful, not much fun at all.

Finally, Christy sent me to the store tonight to get some migraine medicine. Excedrin Migraine. It’s a cocktail of Aspirin, Acetomenophen, and… Caffeine.

So it’s 11 PM, and I am given a choice between a headache keeping me up for the night, or the caffeine keeping me up for the night. Not a good choice when both of them involve not getting enough sleep! I now finally sympathize with friends of mine who have bad headaches. These hurt so bad I feel like digging my eyeballs out with a steak knife. I took the Excedrin.

“Potterheads!” I thought to myself as I skulked into Wal-Mart at 12:30 AM to obtain some emergency supplies my wife wanted.

I noticed a pair of wives from my neighborhood. “Potterheads!” I shouted, and they laughed. We chatted for a few minutes about their addiction, and I explained that *I* was here for vital emergency supplies.

I quickly found what I was looking for. Late-night is when they restock the shelves, I rationalized, and that must be why my supplies were trundling down the aisle on a pallet. I grabbed two units, smiled politely to the woman dragging the very heavy pallet, and expressed my wishes that I’d made her life easier by lightening the load on the way to the shelves…

I stealthily crept up to the Wal-Mart checkout counter. A tall, broad woman with a flat nose, thick glasses, and a knowing grin staffed the cash register, rang me up, and commented on the thronging hordes throughout the store.

“Busy Night,” she remarked, “with the release of that book.”

I noticed the filling line of Potterheads in line behind me, each carrying a thick, heavy, blue addiction cradled lovingly in their arms. In my best Gollum voice, I loudly uttered “Potterheads! Potterheads everywhere! What kind of people are you, staying up in the middle of the night to feed your addiction? We all know what you are, yes, my Precious, you’re all FREAKS! What kind of loony would be in Wal-Mart at 12:30 AM just to buy a BOOK?”

I then grabbed my two precious copies of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, tucked them under my arm to the gales of laughter from the large line behind me, smiled, and headed out to my car.

Life is good. Harry Potter book V is finally out. I finally rolled into bed at 3:30 AM, 220 pages later. Not to be too much fo a spoiler, but Harry is attacked in the first ten pages of the book. You see several of your favorite heroes return from previous volumes, and Harry is put on trial in the chair with the chains on it…

We must go back to the Precious, yes, we’ll see you later!

Update: I finished reading the book at around 6:30 PM today. Yeah, that’s nearly 900 pages in about 12 hours. I had a blinding headache all day today (maybe something to do with going to bed at 2:30 AM, but I don’t normally get headaches). The book really helped me keep the headache off my mind, so to speak. Spoiler and review coming soon!

I just got an email from Sam Graber, who was my best friend in high school. We haven’t talked in like 4 years or something like that. Anyway, he mentioned that he wanted to see my photo gallery again.

Temporarily, you can get to the gallery using this link. The pictures are all still there, but I’m trying to convert them over to the new system which works a whole heck of a lot better with my weblogging software. Happy viewing!

How often do you think about the potential corollary to a statement you are making? A corollary is something that follows without requiring proof from a statement already proven, a deduction or inference, or a natural consequence or result. Does it even matter?

“I know I’m raising my kids right because they pray to Jesus every night.”

Is the corollary to that, “I know you aren’t raising your kids right because they don’t?”

As mad as it may make some die-hard anti-religionists out there, I’m going to say “No. The two have nothing to do with each other in the mind of reasonable people.”

I found myself thinking about corollaries today because I went to church. This is a somewhat rare occurence lately, and entirely by choice. Most of my friends and family (although not all unless they stumble across my blog) are aware that I’m actively non-theistic. I hesitate to use the word “atheist” because people assume that implies anti-religion, which I am not. I simply think that religion is irrelevant to my daily life, and has been for a very long time. Last August began letting my wife and close friends in on that fact.

Anyway, my daughter asked me to come because the “Primary” (an LDS church word for “babysitting and religious indoctrination for children 12 and under”) was going to be singing a couple of Father’s Day songs and she wanted to sing to me. I enjoyed the singing, and the winking glances sent my way by my daughter and son. I smiled and enjoyed their show of affection immensely.

The only unfortunate part is that I had to sit through some rather insufferable speeches. That’s part of the reason I stopped going, was simply that sitting through classes where they expect you to agree and not make waves when you disagree with the speaker’s opinion just doesn’t work for me. I’ve had people tell me that’s not true, and that the religion doesn’t discourage differing opinions when those opinions disagree with the official dogma. Try telling that to the Bishop who called me into his office to inform me that Church meetings were to be “faith-promoting”, and that my questions were not. Anyway, there were a couple statements that came from speakers that caught my attention:

“I’m so glad my child came to my husband and asked him to give her a Father’s Blessing. This shows that he’s a good father, and that I’m raising my children the right way.”

Is the corollary to that statement, “If my child doesn’t come to my husband and ask him for a Father’s Blessing, then he’s not a good father and I’m not raising my children the right way.”?

Initially, I thought so, and the only thing that kept me from being upset by the statement was once again reminding myself that, from the Latter-Day Saint perspective, even if I raise my children well, teach them to be moral and good people, spend time playing with them, help around the house, keep myself away from drugs, pornography, and other bad habits, and in every way try to set a good example for them, that’s not enough. Without “Temple” services, taking “sacrament”, participating in other “ordinances”, and avowing myself in front of two witnesses every two years to be free from sin (or at least as far as 14 questions can determine), I cannot ever measure up to the standard of a good father in the eyes of most Latter-Day Saints.

Once I remembered that, and that my perspective and the speaker’s perspective were completely different, I stopped being angry and began thinking about corollaries. If one assumes as fact that a God requires worship and supplication from His worshippers in order for them to be good fathers, then it follows that one who does not do that is a bad father. This is not an insult to the “bad father”, but a logical conclusion following from a completely different set of basic assumptions. Barring a dramatic opinion change on the part of the theist or non-theist, this gulf is quite difficult to cross.

Quite some time ago, I worked for a small company called “Talk2”. They were founded on the somewhat laughable proposition that internet-based speech-recognition technology would revolutionize the telephone industry, and they could make a fortune by so doing. They were partly right, but it’s turned out that voice services are just a small part of the standard suite of services with any cell phone these days. They’ve reinvented themselves as “Spontaneous Technologies”, and are focussing on VPN stuff now with maybe a dozen employees.

Anyway, a co-worker named Joel Hull, during one of our several religious discussions at work, made the statement one day that has stuck with me.

“Just because I think I’m right, doesn’t mean I think that you’re wrong.”

If we all approached life with this perspective, I think there would be fewer hard feelings and a lot more understanding in this world. I’m going to keep trying to remember this as I continue to explore Life Without Personal Religion.

I realize this is probably rather too intimate for a public forum, but a few months ago my wife and I had a discussion. She’s very actively Mormon. I’d been working very, very hard toward trying to be a better father and improving myself (exercise videos and all that), and I felt I’d made tremendous gains. In a late-night discussion, I asked her “Do you think I’m a better husband and father than I was back when I acted religiously?”

Her answer cut me to the core. “No,” she said. No explanation. I fumed, rolled over, and tried to go to sleep as that “No” echoed through my brain for hours.

The next day, she amended her statement of the night before. “In every way not involving religion, you are a better husband and father now than you were a year ago.” It felt lame, and too little too late, yet I’ve found that I can’t stop thinking about the statement for the last three months. It sent me into a bit of a downward, depressed spiral, thinking that my wife thought I was a worse husband and father, even when I practically bleeding out of the ears in my efforts to be one.

Now, I get it though. If your base assumption is that it’s impossible to be a good father without religion, then you’ll assume I’m a bad father for disavowing religion. My assumption is different — but it doesn’t make anybody else wrong. Now time to go be a good Dad.

I’ve been participating in a Slashdot Discussion today which contrasts well-known civil liberties advocate and scholar Lawrence Lessig against an RIAA representative discussing copyright. As a proponent of balanced copyright (what we have today is considerably unbalanced, in my humble opinion), this article fascinated me to get a glimpse of Lessig’s opinions and those of the recording industry. One of my favorite Lessig quotes is “Record companies value their artists in the same sense that cattle ranchers value their cattle.” Or something like that 🙂 Anyway, read more for snippets of discussion I found interesting and thought-provoking…

(Node is unfinished, sorry for publishing early.)

I came across a fantastic article about correct preparation and seasoning a Wok for use today. I’d never really understood the idea behind “seasoning” a pan before. The concept seemed repugnant to me — I mean, you’re making it ugly and black and look like it’s covered and cruddy. That’s just gross. But now that I understand how and why to do it, I’m eager to throw away some of the Teflon crap at our house and season myself some cast iron…

Check out the Wok Seasoning article here

I’m updating to the latest version of Drupal. Thus you may note the lack of any theme and strangeness from time to time. I apologize to my half-dozen readers for the inconvenience 🙂

Please note that the Gallery is down for the time being. I’m working on a new photo gallery to replace it. It still has a couple of issues (notably, problems submitting items at any resolution lower than 1280×1024). Once I’m done, though, it should be a lot more integrated and nicer than the old gallery.

UPDATE: Got the upgrade in. Cool, you should see more updates now that the Blogger API is working right. I’m excited to load up the pages on my laptop and have an opinion written by the time I get to work in the morning…