Joys of holiday travel

This is one of the beautiful moments that made my trip to grand rapids magical. If you recognize the situation in this photo, then you're my kind of people. Ole. Oh and btw, there were no grand rapids to be found.

Tonight we're in grand forks waiting out the nasty weather on our way to Minot. Tomorrow we'll make the final leg. The tradition of white-knuckled holiday driving is part of midwestern "culture" right? In spite of long annoying drives I am loving the time with my boys.

i don't trust them

fabulous article in the onion this week led me to this gem

"The depths of depravity that these tiny psychopaths are capable of reaching are really quite chilling,"

Study: Children Exposed To Pornography May Expect Sex To Be Enjoyable

kids are dumb. and then you fall asleep with your hand inside her vagina.

can't help it

what makes us human? we share 98% of the same DNA as chimps, so what separates us from chimpanzees and the other primate species?

one study says it is our (possibly) innate desire to help others. the author suggests it is shared intentionality that creates our social norms and our need to enforce those norms. we evolved the ability and desire to take care of our group, which allowed us to survive and outlast all other hominids.

a fascinating article in the NYT describes several studies that point in the direction of this answer. however, daily observation of humans (and how stupidly mean they are to each other) makes this hard to believe. of course, we have to study children to uncover what is actually innate. adults are way too fucked up.

one of my favorite parts of the article described how the whites of our eyes were an important adaptation --

An interesting bodily reflection of humans’ shared intentionality is the sclera, or whites, of the eyes. All 200 or so species of primates have dark eyes and a barely visible sclera. All, that is, except humans, whose sclera is three times as large, a feature that makes it much easier to follow the direction of someone else’s gaze. Chimps will follow a person’s gaze, but by looking at his head, even if his eyes are closed. Babies follow a person’s eyes, even if the experimenter keeps his head still.

-- if you can easily tell what someone is looking at, you can glimpse their intentions. other especially nerdgleeful fun --

This could have happened at some point early in human evolution, when in order to survive, people were forced to cooperate in hunting game or gathering fruit. The path to obligatory cooperation — one that other primates did not take — led to social rules and their enforcement, to human altruism and to language.

---

We evolved to be nice to each other, in other words, because there was no alternative.

If people do bad things to others in their group, they can behave even worse to those outside it. Indeed the human capacity for cooperation “seems to have evolved mainly for interactions within the local group,” Dr. Tomasello writes.

Sociality, the binding together of members of a group, is the first requirement of defense, since without it people will not put the group’s interests ahead of their own or be willing to sacrifice their lives in battle. Lawrence H. Keeley, an anthropologist who has traced aggression among early peoples, writes in his book “War Before Civilization” that, “Warfare is ultimately not a denial of the human capacity for cooperation, but merely the most destructive expression of it.”

The roots of human cooperation may lie in human aggression. We are selfish by nature, yet also follow rules requiring us to be nice to others. “That’s why we have moral dilemmas,” Dr. Tomasello said, “because we are both selfish and altruistic at the same time.”

(the bear pic is from a completely unrelated book by mykle hansen)

lark toys

i have written about lark toys before twice, and here goes again. they have a newly launched AMAZING website that you must check out. learn about the history of the store here. you can now order from them online. chriskwanzikamadaan gifts, anyone?

a beautiful carousel, incredible toys, nerdy gadgets, llamas, mini-golf, some of the best children's books, party glasses, the greatest owners in the world, and more. oh, and the freaking fudge! it will melt your face off happy.

what are you waiting for? do those hot gay frogs look like they're waiting?!?!

doesn't suffer fools lightly

and now, for part two.

this was micah's favorite friend that day at the dog park. they demonstrated their frantic love by pushing up on each other and wrapping their front legs around the other. then a little sideways hop and round you go like retarded little bunnies.

this is joy

the wiener and the hound.

I was aroused... then furious

Sunshine oozes

In San Diego for the nasty feasting and the dog petting. Tonight we
hit In and out burger - if you've never been, you need to add it to
your "before I die" list. It's a big hot gut punch that you never knew
you wanted so badly. So dirty fat delish.

whatcha mcchicken go boom

there was a collective, slightly french, nerdy sigh of relief last week when the Large Hadron Collider when back online after 14 months of repairs. the LHC is the largest and most expensive machine ever built, 27 km around, and is poised to make some of the greatest discoveries of our time. if it works. it will shoot packets of atoms at each other at (close to) the speed of light and then watch the atoms go boom. measuring and analyzing this boom millions of times may reveal the Higgs boson particle, which is believed to (yawn) explain the presence of mass in atoms. i get that most people probably don't wonder about the fact that scientists don't understand why some particles have mass (like your ass) and some don't (like a photon of light), but i do.

in some far more real news, my routine of sunday laundry was lightened by the fact that i was doing laundry for my trip to california! going to sandy eggo to share thanksgiving with my sweeties.

see how it sparkles down there

a couple weeks ago, a visit from mika whirled me down south to Lark Toys. SO refreshing to spend time with peeps like meekz and the geebs. we had fabulous times under the sugar loaf.

probably my favorites were watching labyrinth as we all fell asleep then waking up to hours of putting together an enormous 12 million piece puzzle. i might be exaggerating the number of pieces.

"wow, these glasses are really scratched up. did you party in them?"

forget about the baby, baby... go back to your room, baby...

later, as you can see above we partied hard for halloween. that mullet is party up front AND 'round back! darn, she's pretty.

after a long period that felt like we were just skipping fall and diving right into winter here, last sunday we suddenly had gorgeous fall weather. we wandered along minnehaha creek and gawked at the willows. then i brought mika to the airport so she could return to cookies.

we are being spoiled with another warm weekend in minnesota. but the beauty stings your eyes the slightest bit because the photons know it's going to get ugly here really soon.

no more mrs nice bucket

did anyone else giggle at the irony in the fact that the VERY SAME day president obama was given the nobel peace prize, the US bombed the moon? the prize must only apply to earth...oh wait, we don't do that here either.

tens of people watched the spacecraft crash into the moon live online and were sorely disappointed that you couldn't see anything happen (there were predictions of a terrific plume of debris on impact). NASA's preemptive attack had an interesting reason - the search for frozen water under the moon surface. yet here comes that sick feeling i get when this country does something that i just know we are going to fuck up. when coca-cola opens a plant on the moon, you'll know what i mean. we will be told that the moon will welcome us as liberators, but we know better.

another notable thing in the news recently was the new information on ida, the fossil found in germany that was heavily and strategically marketed as the missing link in human evolution. i wrote about this before, trusting the history channel too much. turns out, ida doesn't have a place on our evolutionary tree; she wasn't a lemur-monkey. she was just another lame lemur.

worth seeing again

amazing photos of saturn taken by the cassini probe were released recently. this is a composite of 75 images of saturn at equinox. the pictures show the greatest detail ever seen of her rings. find more here.

opposable thumbs, but ain't got no brain

or, the evolution of stupid... a recent find in africa revealed a new, much older, chapter in human evolution. lucy, the oldest known pre-human until this find, lived 3.2 million years ago (mya). the new find, called ardi, lived 4.4 mya. this is another step in finding the common ancestor we share with modern apes.

the theory of evolution is not a theory in the everyday sense of the word, theory; that it is a guess that might be true. it has been shown to be fact -- species evolve over time. in the 150 years since Darwin published his book, mountains of evidence has accumulated that supports the theory of evolution through natural selection. NO evidence has been found to support creationism. surprising? of course not, creationism is a lie. intelligent design is just about the least intelligent thing religious people have invented. well, aside from religion itself.

all religions have creation myths. but not all religious people have to believe that crap. if you take the bible literally, if you really think a guy lived in the mouth of a whale for a week, you're an idiot. and you make jesus cry.

there have been numerous polls & surveys that have tried to identify the percentage of americans that believe in evolution (a very good summary and critique of many here). of course, the wording of the survey questions have a great influence on the results. the most recent one i've heard of was released june 2009 by the british council international (you can take the survey here). they surveyed 10,000 adults in 10 countries. here are some of the numbers:

• of those who know of Darwin's theory, people in India are most likely to agree with it (77%). of the 10 countries, the US ranked 9th; 41% disagree that there's enough evidence to prove it (Egypt was 10th at 25%).
• 30% in the US disagree with the evidence supporting the theory of evolution (as opposed to Darwin's natural selection theory, specifically)
• people polled in the US, South Africa, and India are the most likely to think god created everything and that all species have always existed in their current form (each at 43%).

these are the same morons who believe the planet is less than 10,000 years old. the same simpletons who think dinosaur fossils were planted by god to test our faith. really?!?! you think this god you invented really hid bones in the ground to fool humans into not believing? and you are just too smart for that?

just perhaps, people do not believe in jebus because religion is a silly waste of time. it is not necessary to maintain human good behavior, in fact it gives people more reasons to kill each other. comforted by delusion, religious people bumble through their devilish lives. if i hear another grieving mother on the news saying that her son getting shot was part of god's plan, i'm going to puke. there IS NO PLAN.

a terrifically stupid video here tells the story of how one retard found god. he and 2 other guys were waiting for a taxi when they were caught in the crossfire of a shooting. one man was shot in the head and died, but "primary dumb guy" was shot in the head a lived. this taught him that god has a plan for him. apparently a much nicer plan that the dead guy's plan... is that really the god you believe in?

i think the best evidence for evolution may be that we are slowly evolving away from religion. we won't see freedom from the mental illness that is christianity (and all others) in our lifetimes, but it is coming

sweet dreams are made of cheese

about a week ago, a close friend's dream and my job crossed cosmic paths. we both killed santa claus...

lala had a dream in which she and i were in college together hanging out (in an undoubtedly smoky room) when suddenly we ran to the window. tanuel had somehow gotten her hands on a missile and was preparing to launch. after a military file video of the launch, bloody reindeer began, wait for it... raining from the sky. followed soon by a mangled sleigh and the fat red one. all beyond CPR.

the next day, unaware of this prophecy, i was leading a discussion in a class using google earth. we were talking about the continents when an autistic student reminded me about the north pole. so i spun the globe to show it and talked about the icy cap of our planet. the same student then announced that this is where santa lives, "and he is real," he stressed, reassuring himself. other students in the class were starting to tell him that santa is not real, but he wasn't hearing it. i delicately told him that santa was not real, and moved on with his dreams all over my new shoes.

a few days later, lala told me about her dream, and i was struck by the beautiful circle drawn by our in-santa-cide (too on the nose?)

summer fun

a beautiful surprise greeted me when i got off the plane in ND; a call from one of the most fabulous women on the planet, rrrrachel, who was visiting from barcelona. after i got back home, we played in a sweaty park and frolicked with the fairies.

"my love" by the bird and the bee accompanies the video

can't forget my poncho goblin

the return to school remains overwhelming, even after 10 years of teaching. how i handle the stress has greatly evolved and improved yet there's no way to transition smoothly from summer vacation

mode (when my attention span need not exceed an episode of the tyra banks show), to having to pay attention to 4 hour workshops. i completely get why junior high students are not ready to sit still when school starts.

as usual, we started classes the day after labor day, to allow families to repeatedly attend the minnesota state fair. this year, they sold "fist of bacon" -- strips of bacon stacked 4.5 inches high, breaded, and deep fried. doesn't just reading that make your heart slow down? ew. not sure what sounds more horrific, the bacon or the fair.

i imagined that my labor day weekend would be extremely lazy and gleefully uneventful. but an unexpected and fantastic twist unfurled thursday night. a couple calls magically brought a plane ticket to good ol' ND to play with the fam at the cabin. didn't take many pictures, but had an amazing time. we had incredible weather -- 85 and sunny -- both days, so the pontoon rides and captain morgan flowed with ease...

so's your face

i'm thrilled to have a major part of my home improvements finally completed, the kitchen & entry way flooring, but several things still remain... regardless, here is the photo essay.

the original plan was to just have my new laminate flooring put on top of the ugly existing floor (right) BUT when the installer arrived, he discovered that my front door wouldn't work if the floor got any higher (unbeknownst to me, there were already 4 layers of flooring down). so i had him install the flooring in the kitchen only. then i had to pay for the entry way to be abated because there was undoubtedly asbestos under there. above is a shot from the beginning of the abatement, below is the tent he put up to safely remove it all.

after the flooring was removed in the entry way, this is what i lived with for a month - the beautiful floorboards. i had to wait for different laminate to arrive and had my trip out west, so the final install was delayed.

the entry way install was finally done last monday. yay!

and yay for my 50th entry on this blog...

magic mustache ride

my final week included buckets of margaritas, two seasons of Dexter (SO damn good), "top of the park" happy hour, and our landing party. dexter filled our evenings with silly drama and wine giggles. top of the park is this bizarre bar that is only a bar one night a week, every other day it is an unfrequented restaurant. but on friday nights, the gays come out strong. we watched the sunset from the rooftop near Balboa Park. my final night there, we had a small gathering of b's friends on this strange landing area which lies slightly hidden and below the parking lot of his building. it has a lovely view of a thorny valley.

as i wrote about before, we took several trips to the dog park and made it to the dog beach once. micah loved it, and hopefully will learn to live in peace with other dogs when he's on a walk.

part la

for this installment, i'll jump to my quick day trip up to LA to visit drea, one of my most favorite people in the world. i rode the train up saturday afternoon -- no doubt the best way to get to LA, no driving and it's beautiful...until you get near LA.

this photo was taken from the train, i couldn't believe how close we got to the ocean. we also passed several beaches which were fat with weekend families; most of them busy with sandy cracks and boogie boards, it was funny to see people (usually the dad of the family) standing there watching the train whiz by.

when drea picked me up, our first stop was for a lil treat -- aaaaaaa-freaking-mazing cupcakes. my red velvet cupcake was spectacular. behold...

my time in LA was beyond perfect. after our delicious sweet treat, we drove around the strip to see the walk of fame (from the car was enough) and the mobs of people. the street "performers" are so terrifically bad. seriously, the spiderman was a guy in his pajamas. yet people pay these idiots so they can have their picture taken with them. hilarious. then we drove thru beverly hills just to see. we got take out and went back to drea's where i met her roomate, saucy brown -- a new favorite that the universe apparently doesn't want me to play with very much.

then we went to a gathering of friends for a game night and played "celebrity" a very fun game with fabulous group of queers. afterwards we went to a dance club and shook booties like mad. then we passed out, waking up just in time for a coffee run on my way to the train station.

the trip in briefs, part one

my two weeks in san diego with my boys was amazing. we shared the perfect mix of adventure and lazy. i had debated what to do about renting a car, and decided to rent one for one week. but at the last minute, a friend of brandon's was "unable to drive his car" for about 6 weeks, so we paid him the amount i was going to spend on one week, and we got his car for two. it was our first experience driving a hybrid; made me feel like my parents learning a VCR... the Prius is a super space car. the electric motor is nearly silent, gets 50 mpg, and a fun nerdy part -- to unlock the doors, you just keep the key in your pocket and touch the door handle and boom, you're in.

the first week highlights included: going to a fabulous pretentious little gay bar where having a good sashay is a job requirement, yawning our way 2/3 of the way thru "Watchmen,"celebrating micah's 9th birthday, meeting several of b's new friends (9 of 10 were awesome to be around), went to Cabrillo National Monument, and saw "Julie & Julia" and then were forced to find as many old episodes of the French Chef as possible. if you haven't seen it, you must -- julia child is mesmerizing to watch.

note the delicate sailboats playing chicken with the nuclear submarine...

also have to mention something that happened before i went to california -- the incredible dinner i had with the shio parents. before going, i had a wet dream about mama making ratatouille but assumed frenchies have that all the time. but hold up! when i got there, i found an even more glorious meal before me -- ratatouille with sausage... needless to say, i hurt my belly that night.

my favorite sights

there are many things in san diego that really make me feel away from home. the palm trees, of course, but perhaps my favorite sight upon returning there was seeing so many hummingbirds in the mornings. i cannot take credit for this shot, those lil mothers are way too fast for my camera.

my second favorite sight has to be that of margaritas coming to our table after a long day of whatever. in old town, we wandered for a while before needing a couple margie's. these enormous glasses are as big as your face.

he smiles at the moon like he knows her

in a recent rant, i explained annoyance with professional swimmers new high-tech suits. seemingly as a rebuttal to my post, American swimmer Ricky Berens showed us the potential good in this evil. while stretching for his relay at the world championships, he split his suit down the back, revealing, well...

i think a fantastic article on the washington post website (found here) may have said it best --

The tear exposes a significant portion of Berens's backside anatomy. Suffice it to say that the rear end of a championship swimmer is a magnificent example of how glorious the human body can be. In an era when so many of this country's backsides have gone wide, flat and flabby from too much couch-sitting and cupcake-eating, the Berens buttocks were a visual rebuke of Americans' deep-fried bad habits.

perhaps the ban on these suits will actually spell the unitard's demise. there is hope.

a slide show of the race here

must get closer...

since i did such a poor job of blogging while in san diego, i will slowly start from the end and work my way to the beginning. my flight home was uneventful (most importantly, direct, and not thru LAX). one cool moment was flying over the grand canyon. i really need to get there some day.

i'm not sure why the captain refused to swoop the plane down a bit so we could get a closer look. ass.

i had two weeks with b & m; not long enough. as my departure drew closer, i so badly wished i had a staff of assistants who could just fetch my things in minnesota and move me out there. no staff yet... long distance love...sucks...

pleased is pooch

Several of our adventures this trip have been Micah-centered. his one minor (?) neurosis is that he usually flips his freaking mind at the sight of other dogs, whether he's safely indoors or out on a walk. But we tried taking him to a dog park for the first time and he loved it! This pic is from after we took him to the dog beach. If you can't tell, he loved that too. some might say he is just panting, but i know he is smiling.

hazy view & delicious yellows

Monday brought a rare cloudy day to San Diego. Of course it was the day we went to Cabrillo National Monument, a lighthouse sits atop Point Loma 450 feet above the shore and has gorgeous panoramic views of the city, mountains in he backgorund, and the ocean -- when the sky is clear. Despite less than perfect conditions, we had a beautiful time. Stared at the busy sailboats below, ignored screaming kids (wondered why *they* aren't banned from the park like dogs are), and saw the military flexing in the bay.

After Cabrillo, I used the 'around me' app on my delightful toy to find us nearby margaritas. It worked like a charm, finding Miguel's, a fabulous authentic spot that filled us with salty yellows. Freakin nummy.

when dominoes fall...

very, very early thursday i flew to san diego. this was the first time i actually had accrued enough miles to use for a flight, so i used some for the first part of this trip. which meant i had to fly thru LAX. i am not the first person to say this, and will no doubt not be the last, but - LAX is perhaps the most fucked place on earth. we all have had the annoying experience of it taking "forever" after landing to actually being able to deplane, but at this nightmare airport, it literally took over 45 minutes to finally get to the gate after we landed. if we had arrived on time, i only had 50 minutes to get to my next plane (in another terminal) -- the landing to gate delay seemed to guarantee i would miss my flight.

as i was leaving the plane, i realized i had lost my ring. this is the only piece of jewelry i ever wear or care about. i got it at a trippy hippie festival in barcelona on 2004 and so it has huge sentimental value -- it was my first trip abroad to see some of my favorite people in the world. the ring was gorgeous - a cutout vine curled around it, why didn't i ever take a picture of it? on the flight, i had taken it off to wash my hands, put it in my pocket, and it must have fallen out. so, there i stand, pissed about the ring, freaking about missing my flight, and annoying the flight crew because i wouldn't leave the plane. i didn't find it, which i think has to mean someone found it and kept it. grrrrrrr

i finally leave the plane fuming. my ticket said my next flight left from terminal 4, i had no idea which terminal we landed at (the flight attendant said, "i think it's A-1..?"). as i walked into the airport and could just feel the shitbags falling on me. with no idea where to go, and no clear signs about how to get to another terminal, i just turned in circles. finally i saw a sign at the very next gate that said "shuttle to american eagle" (which is what i needed). the guy working there asked where i was going, i said "terminal 4" which is what my ticket said. he basically shooed me away saying something about "go outside and go left" puzzled i wandered for a bit, but not trusting that idiot, i asked someone else. they told me that the guy was wrong and that was where i needed to be.

at this point, amazingly, it was actually still possible for me to make my flight. can you guess what happened when i got back to the dumbass who sent me away? the shuttle was just leaving as i got there, so i thanked him for making me miss my flight and he actually tried to tell me again to go outside. fortunately someone with a brain who worked there, overheard my frustration and asked me. turns out there is a terminal 4 you can walk to, but the "terminal 4" american eagle departs from is actually a separate building in the middle of nowhere that you HAVE to take a shuttle to. in the end i had to wait 20 minutes for the next shuttle bus (i had 15 minutes until my plane left).

i arrive at this mystical barn in the middle of the runway and ask when i can get on another flight. i was put on standby for the flight one hour later...not bad, until i see the list of 9 other people trying to get on this little plane that only holds about 35 people. somehow i was moved up on the standby list, and so was called to get on the plane. i literally was sitting in my cramped seat on the plane, when the ticket bitch came running and told me to get off the plane because there was a "problem with my ticket." so i followed her, watched her type retardedly and scowl at her monitor, assuming she was fixing my problem. she wasn't.

she sent the plane with my seat empty. needless to say the other people on standby were pissed that they didn't get my seat if i wasn't going to get it. within a few minutes, the "problem" that she couldn't explain had disappeared and i had a ticket for the 12:30 flight. after almost getting bumped from that plane because of it being overweight, i got sat and the door closed. i expected to see the ticket b come running after the plane. because enough shit hadn't gone wrong yet, we sat on the runway until 1:30 then finally took off. it took me 4 hours to complete a 23 minute flight.

never NEVER again.

the happy end to the story is that i made it here and have a direct flight home.

funny lip shape

on monday, i went to the music & movie in loring park. when i returned home, i noticed my front door was messed up. it seems clear that someone must have tried to break in while i was gone. there were no marks on the outside of the door, so the idiot must have tried to break the door open with his shoulder. all he succeeded in doing was cracking my door frame and making me paranoid...

then wednesday night i saw tori amos play at the state theater. i have seen her so many times, but this was the first time i had a front row seat. the fabulous part was that when she was playing the harpsichord or organ, her gaze was right at me. swear to god she gave me MILF eyes more than once. the annoying part of being up front was that i was surrounded by the true tori freaks (if there is a scale 1-10, i would be probably a 4, but the elevens all gather up front) they are a unique breed indeed.

my favorites that she played - silent all these years, carbon, doughnut song, & talula