Blog Archives - The Land of the Weird

The Land of the Weird

St. Patrick's Day 2017

3/17/2017

Despite our special dispensation from the diocese to eat corn beef today, we stuck with our standard fish sticks, shrimp, and salad for dinner. In fact, Alex commented that none of us were wearing green today. Trevor and I had plum forgotten (although that does explain why my eyes lingered on my green shirts this morning when I was picking out clothes), and the younger boys had been at a sleepover last night (which they loved).

Much of my day has been spent exploring Hyrule in the latest Zelda game. Without Connor here this morning continually asking if he can play, with Alex sleeping, with Janelle at work, and with Trevor waiting until at least one of us finishes the game, I had a largely uninterrupted gaming session for most of the day. The game is amazing; it is certainly worth the experience (once you get used to the controls).

There were only two minor interruptions today. The first was when the boys got home. In the excitement, both of our energetic dogs made a break for it, escaping to the great outdoors. They absolutely ignored any calls, whistles, or bribes. We ended up leaving them outside for about an hour before Connor was able to trick them into coming in by playing "tag" with them. They are fine responding to the "come" command while inside, but they are terribly unobedient when outside off a leash.

The second was that we had our first renter of the month arrive today. We had the cabin ready well in advance, but they did have a bit of a problem with the hot water heater. I hope that it was the case of it just being a small heater and not a more expensive problem. At some point, I would like to put an "on demand" water heater in there.

It's been a good day. I tried to not let the stress of knowing that break is about to end ruin my indolence, and I think I succeeded. Real life will catch up with me soon enough.

Moose

3/16/2017

The neighbor dog is barking again. For the past few days, he (or she) has been barking for hours every night. The reason? We've had several moose camped out in our neighborhood. Yesterday, a young one walked into our yard while one of our puppies was out (she sat quietly at the door until I let her in). The young moose browsed its way through the bushes in our back yard. I almost had a picture of its legs through the small kitchen window (our kitchen is mostly below ground), but the moose moved at the wrong time.

Today, one of the moose was in our driveway as Alex came home from work in the morning. Later, Janelle saw the mother walking beside the road near our driveway. I'm fully sure why, but our yard seems to be one of the favorite eateries for local moose. They are impressive creatures; I'm just hoping they aren't too cranky from our snowier than normal winter.

Permanent Fund Dividend

3/15/2017

Janelle and I spent hours today signing up us and the boys for the permanent fund dividend. The PFD is a system that provides each resident of Alaska with a designated portion of the oil revenues compounded through the years. It is also a political lightning rod as there is a major gap in Alaska's budget due to lower than expected revenue (low oil prices and politics being major contributors).

We hadn't gone through this process since we were in college, and I remember it being a bit frustrating then. A good portion of our time was spent trying to figure out the licence plate number (not the VIN) of one of the cars that the girls had used in Michigan for a portion of last year. Thankfully, Janelle was finally able to find it in some old paperwork she had saved.

The PFD will hopefully provide a happy bump to our finances as we approach the holiday season (the disbursement isn't until October). The majority of the boys' dividends will go towards college savings, but we also plan on letting them use some of it too. No doubt, we will be having deeper conversations about it as we get closer to October.

Stealing Creation [controversial]

3/14/2017

We watched, and enjoyed, the movie Moana tonight. While some of the story was the standard kid's movie fare of self-identity in a world that tries to fight who you are, I know I will be humming the songs and chuckling about some of the antics for a while to come. Yet, it also made me contemplate a few sobering thoughts as well.

In Moana, Maui steals the power of creation from a god, bringing destruction to the world. I could not help but wonder: how many scientists are trying to unravel the power of creation in our own world? How many lives (usually the unborn) are sacrificed in the pursuit of this knowledge? How many times have we unlocked secrets of our universe only to find destruction in the wake of discovery?

Despite how destructive we know this path to be, as humans, we are driven by our Original Sin; constantly questing for answers in the universe in an attempt to be more like God. I am not saying that we should not explore our universe. Rather, I believe that we should take better care about the ethical considerations behind such research. Right now, most research is driven by greed. The conspiracy theorist within me wonders if darker powers are feeding this greed in their own hunger for the secrets of creation.

What happens when we find the switch for creation and cannot control it? Moana [spoiler alert] is able to reverse the destruction that Maui's theft of creation unleashed. Will we be so fortunate?

Day Off

3/13/2017

Today was Janelle and my first day off together for the past few weeks. Janelle has been working the past few weekends, making days like today rather rare for us. Of course, we spent the first two thirds of the day cleaning. Furniture was moved to get to crannies and corners that have been overlooked in our more cursory cleaning sessions of the house. The Christmas lights that have been adorning our windows since Thanksgiving are no long up (let alone on), making everything look substantially less festive (not to mention darker). I think I swept up enough fur to make another dog.

We then spent time with two other couples on a triple date that involved good conversation, a nice dinner, some games, a lot of laughter, and (most importantly) no children. We got home late to discover that the younger boys had only recently gone to bed. Hopefully, that means they will let us sleep in a bit tomorrow.

The Second Sunday of Lent

3/12/2017

God makes loving covenants with us. All three readings today show the promises that He makes (and keeps). The hardest part is in realizing that His promises might not be the promises that we think that they are. Too often we deliberately misinterpret His will for us to better serve our own ends.

Someone posted today about parents who prayed for their child who had suffered from a terrible mental condition. They commented that God answered their prayers not in healing the child of the affliction, but in healing the parents' hearts so that they could joyfully accept the child as he was. I worry that I do not have that kind of strength. Thankfully, I have a God that I can lean on.

TBA

3/11/2017

On rare occasions, the post that I compose for a given day is not appropriate for the open Internet due to issues of timing or privacy (or both). However, as I do plan to update these posts to this blog at some point in the future, I include these "TBA" placeholder posts until I can do so.

Appreciative

3/10/2017

I need to be more appreciative for my life and the people who are in it. I take so many blessings in my life for granted. So often we only appreciate what we had when it is gone, and I don't want to keep getting caught in that trap. It's so easy to focus on the aspects of my life that I feel have gone wrong or need improvement that I frequently forget all of the elements that have gone right. As I'm starting to feel the pull of negativity in my life (March often leads people in that direction), I figure that this would be a good time to focus on the positive.

I know that number one on my list should be God, and I in no way want to diminish His importance in all of the good that has come into my life. Still, I think that I tend to take my wonderful wife, Janelle, for granted more than anything else in my life. We have had our ups and downs, but we have become an awesome team. Although we do not always see eye-to-eye, I can think of no one with whom I would rather spend my life. We complement each other (although perhaps not complimenting each other enough) and share the right mix of interests to make it so we enjoy our time together (and can survive our time apart).

I also often forget to be appreciative of my children. It's so easy to find things in our offspring that we would like to improve or change, but the truth is that I have amazing kids. While I will not win any father of the year awards, my children have made me a better person. So much of who I am has been formed by having these wonderful children in my life. One of my biggest concerns in moving up to Alaska is that doing so would distance us from our children as they become adults. Still, I am confident that they will be able to find their own ways in life, and that they hopefully won't forget us.

Speaking of parents, my parents have been a tremendous part of my life. Even when I make decisions with which they do not agree, they have helped me and supported me. As I have gotten older, I have recognized more and more how I am a reflection of both of my parents in who I have become as a parent and a person.

For that matter, my siblings, my in-laws, my extended family, my friends, my coworkers, and my students have all greatly shaped who I have become. They have all been amazing reservoirs of strength, motivation, and joy in my life. Sure, they have been occasional sources of frustration, but all-in-all, the good has greatly outweighed the bad.

Basically: Thank you. I hope that I have improved your life at least as much as you have improved mine.

"Spring" Break

3/9/2017

While I still have to go to school tomorrow for inservice and end of term work, today was the last day for our students before their "spring" break. As we still have feet of snow in our yard and sub zero temperatures, it is quite difficult to think of this break in terms of spring. This disbelief is reinforced by the fact that spring does not officially start for another couple of weeks and that a large group of students are on the way (under the supervision of some brave teachers) to Alyeska for some snowboarding and downhill skiing tomorrow.

As for me, with Janelle receiving an unexpected amount of hours at work, a couple of new classes demanding reading and writing from me, and a new Zelda game begging to be played, I will be enjoying the time at home. Hopefully, Janelle and I will be able to go on at least one date, and we will have the opportunity visit with friends as well. Otherwise, the only outside contact that I am certain of are some renters coming in towards the end of the break.

I do need some time to recover from this past week of essay grading and assignments turned in at the last minute (well past the original due dates). Perhaps that's why it's called spring break: it's there to put the spring back in our step.

Family Game

3/8/2017

If I had been initially surprised by the amount of enthusiasm that my family had for the new Legend of Zelda game before it came out, I have discovered that was nothing compared to how addicted everyone is to it now. While Trevor is currently biding his time by looking up secrets on the Internet before he plays, Connor, Alex, Janelle, and myself have been excited enough about the game that the Wii U's gamepad has been getting overloaded. It certainly has given all of us something to talk about.

While the main quest line is roughly the same for everyone, our experiences with the game have varied quite a bit. Connor likes to watch me play so he can find the treasure chests that I tend to ferret out, while he has fought against giant monsters that I haven't even seen. Currently, Alex has progressed the farthest in both main quest and storyline as she often plays while everyone else is sleeping or at work and school. I'm hoping to get the bulk of my playing done during the upcoming spring break, but we will have to see what my coursework has to say about that.

Not only has the game led to interesting conversations between family members, I actually think that it has helped me sleep better. Thinking about the game as I lie in bed puts me into a near meditative state that helps me drift to sleep with generally pleasant thoughts (despite the lonely nature of the game). In short, I highly recommend it; just make certain you work out an agreement between the people who want to play.

Fooled Again

3/7/2017

Once again, I fell for an elaborate fake news story on the Internet. This time it was a trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi which comes out this December. The trailer was well made and certainly churned my excitement for the upcoming movie, but I have since learned that it was a fan-made trailer that has been fooling a large number of people. Once my error was pointed out to me, I could recognize the various clips from previous movies, and even some video games, that comprised the video.

Still, even though I know it was a fake, I still found myself enjoying the trailer on a second viewing. Not only did it make me want to watch the upcoming film, but I now want to see The Force Awakens again. I suppose that, in that respect, it did everything that an official trailer (which isn't supposed to appear until at least the end of this month) should do.

Lenten Lapsing

3/6/2017

After only one week, my plan to write fiction for at least fifteen minutes a day for Lent has already seen three lapses ... in five days. By writing today, I will only be batting .500. This does not bode well for the remainder of these forty days. My biggest issue has been the feeling of creative drain. Between writing my daily posts (which started during lent several years ago) and writing for my classes, I have really been coming up dry even when trying to write for such a short period of time. Worse, I've been dreading the writing. Perhaps my problem is that I'm not writing something that I feel passionate about--I like the stories I've worked on, but I'm having trouble moving them forward.

At this point, I do not know if I should change up my Lenten pledge or keep trying to plug away. I knew that even such a short amount of "extra" writing would be a bit of a strain, but I did not expect this level of mental resistance so soon. That said, just writing this out has renewed my determination--if only temporarily. If this were easy, it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice.

First Sunday in Lent

3/5/2017

Today's readings are related in their themes of temptation and redemption. While it was a single act of defiance that brought humankind into sin and death, so too did a single act of obedience redeem humankind from both. All who were doomed by the choices of Eve and Adam were then saved through the choices of Mary and Jesus. There is a beautiful symmetry to God's chosen method of saving us from ourselves.

Our pastor took us by surprise today, reading the account of the devil trying to tempt Jesus from the Gospel of Luke rather than the Gospel of Matthew. The order of the final two temptations are altered in Luke's version, but what caught my ear was that the devil said, when tempting Jesus with authority over all the kingdoms of the world "... it [authority over the world] has been given to me ... ." It is this line that leads people to believe that God gave Satan power and dominion over the Earth. However, the passive tense of Satan's statement does not say who gave him such power. The answer is: we did (and do). Satan has no power over us that we do not allow. Disturbingly many people cede this power over to Satan willingly.

Much of the evil in our world comes from people who turn their back on the teachings of Jesus for their own selfish desires. The mistakes of Eve and Adam are repeated time and again by people who turn their backs on God and who try to hide from God. It is through my succumbing to temptation that most of my troubles arise. Thankfully, God is ever patient with me, but I know that He would prefer that I get my act together.

Breath of the Wild

3/4/2017

The latest Legend of Zelda game came out yesterday. Never before have I seen such excitement build up around a game from all of the members of my family before. Even Janelle expressed her interest in playing the game. Unfortunately, we hit a few snags in trying to get it.

The first is that although it was originally developed for the Wii U, a system that we currently own, the game became the flagship of Nintendo's new "Switch" game system. Thankfully, reviews indicated that two games had identical game play and only moderate differences in video and sound (really? sound?). However, that meant that Nintendo was trying hard to sell the Switch version of the game and played back on the Wii U version (even removing some helpful features--like anything to do with a second screen--from the Wii U version that could not be duplicated on the Switch).

Thus, when I went to the store after school on Friday, I found that the Wii U version of the game was sold out (the store only received a handful of copies to begin with) while the Switch version still had over thirty copies on the shelves (although they didn't have that many Switch systems; who's going to buy a game that they don't have a system to play it on?). Walmart didn't get any Wii U versions shipped to them in the first place. Even Amazon did not have the Wii U version for sale; the vendors that did have them were not available through Prime.

I decided to buy the electronic copy directly from Nintendo. The only issue there is that the Wii U has a very small hard drive and I would have needed to delete most of the other game files to make room for a game the size of this one. Luckily, I still had a working external drive that has been gathering dust for a while now. Thus, after hours of downloading, updating, and installing, I was finally able to play the game sometime after midnight.

I haven't played that much as I volunteered to work at a ski meet, had schoolwork, and choir practice today, but so far, the game has been worth the hassle.