Barnson.org

September: Gramma Cantley died. October: Dennis Ker, my stepfather of 18 years, died. November: Grandmother Masil Murphy died.

Who’s next? December and January are free.

This is the worst Autumn EVER.

Several years ago, my wife was watching over my shoulder as I played Everquest. She remarked that I did an awful lot of running in that game.

“Imagine if you had to run in real life like you run in the game?”

We bandied back and forth, and decided that if there was a way to force a gamer to exercise in order to get higher performance from their in-game avatars, we’d have a much healthier computer-gaming set. The future we talked about seven years ago is finally here:

http://www.gamercize.net/pcsport.htm

Yes, I want one. I don’t know if I want it for this Christmas, but I’d love one under my desk. I just had my blood pressure taken yesterday, and it’s 120/90… which means the diastolic is about 10 points higher than it should be. Exercise and losing weight are two of the proven methods, outside of drugs, which can drop your diastolic reading several points. Sign me up!

Warning: Rant follows.

The little scrub brush is provided next to the toilet for a reason. If you take a splatter-filled power-dump in my toilet, for the love of all that’s holy, please take a moment to scrape your leftover high-velocity corn scraps into the water.

You see, corn makes a natural sort of glue, and if your partially-digested diarrheal remains stay on the porcelain for more than a few minutes, I must scrub vigorously to remove them. I have better things to do than energetically scratch the overindulgent streaks from your gas-assisted rectal explosives from my bathroom.

Perhaps a small sign like “Please use the scrub brush before you leave” might do the trick. What I really want to say is “Nobody wants to see what’s left of your butt-warhead, Nimrod, so please clean up your skid marks.”

But that wouldn’t be a polite reminder, would it?

For you married couples out there, I ran across a great blog entry that talks about being willing.

Warning: This is a post about sex. So if you’re at work or something, maybe you want to wait until you’re home. And if you’re a teenager, maybe you file this info away in your brain as something to work on when you’re older…

But it’s an idea that I’ve personally held for a long time that I’m glad to see expressed so clearly…

You don’t need to be frenetic or necessarily spontaneously aroused to want to be with your partner. You just need to be willing to get into the mood. Even if you’re not there now, if you’re willing to get started, you can create a nice experience that both of you enjoy.

I’m beginning to experience that now in my mid-thirties. I don’t have the instant readiness I had at eighteen. It takes a bit more work. But there’s no reason for me to reject the advances of my partner, even if I’m “not in the mood”… because with just a few minutes and a willingness, I could be.

WARNING: Spoilers contained in discussion below…

So I don’t know if any have you been reading some of the spoilers on the net about the forthcoming movie, but it seems its going to involve time travel of some sort, what do you trekkies think about that?

So 3 or 4 months ago, when we didn’t have the cash, a Nintendo Wii was easy to find. But now with people starting to shop for the holidays, they are out of stock EVERYWHERE.

Here’s what’s bizarre. Right now, on gamestop.com, I can buy Guitar Hero III for the Wii for $89.99 including the controller, with $10 shipping and an additional $5 handling charge due to size. On eBay, they are going for around $125 plus $20 or more shipping & handling! I can order a Wii bundle with the console itself costing the retail price of $250, yet on eBay naked Wii consoles are selling for $350+.

WTF? How does this price gouging work when it’s available all over the place? And how do I capitalize on this sort of demand without being stuck with hardware myself?

So it is Monday.

The last week seemed to become one big blur. Wednesday last week my wife took our 5 year old into the doctors office because she had a cold that had been hanging on for about a week and the little boy across the street had just been diagnosed with Strep. So we thought it a good idea to have Katelynn checked out since they go to the same school and the school has a reputation for illnesses like this to get around.

Michelle and Katelynn went to the Dr.’s office on Wednesday morning and during the triage they heard a “crackling” sound in her lungs that they didn’t like. They hooked her up to a “pulse ox” machine to check her blood oxygen levels and when they were reading 84% they decided that she needed to go to the hospital for a more thorough evaluation (x-rays).

After the tests (and a few hours) at the pediatric emergency room, Katelynn was diagnosed with Pneumonia. The couple days that followed were pretty traumatic for her since she has always been a pretty healthy kid. She was given an IV and admitted to the pediatric unit. We were there for a total of 3 days. It was a tough stay for the whole family.

The rooms in the pediatric unit were nice. They had a bed for both the patient and the family member who was staying the night. The rooms were set up for one family, so we didn’t have to share (which I thought was a big bonus). I had the toughest time with the feeling of helplessness.

I have an issue with being a control freak. I have gotten a lot better, but the hospital stay really put me to the test. I hate feeling helpless and especially when it comes to the kids. It didn’t really hit me till day 2 when it was just Katelynn and I in the room watching the Disney channel and she reached over and grabbed my hand and told me that it would be okay. Hmph – I hate feeling helpless.

We were able to bring her home Saturday late-afternoon. A nice Birthday gift for her since Saturday was her 6th birthday.

She is not completely out of the woods yet. She has to take it easy and recuperate. She has her share of medicines that she has to take for the next week or so, but in the end I am happy that we are on the trail to recovery.

Today is the holiday observation of Veteran’s Day. For those who have served, thank you. For those who have served and fallen, I am grateful and saddened that you are no longer with us. For those — like me — who have not served at all, let us remember the vets who defend our liberty.

The list of fallen soldiers at http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com/oif/alphabetical.php is sobering and worthwhile to browse for a bit.

I ran across an interesting site today advocating banning male circumcision prior to the age of consent:

http://www.mgmbill.org/faq.htm

What’s interesting to me is that it’s already illegal to do this to girls in the US under the age of 18. What would be the political, social, and psychological ramifications of illegalizing infant male circumcision?

I just saw the video of this amazing truck race. I want one, plzthxu: