Woody Cavenaugh

Young Davey Crocket stood on the porch of his ma's house with a mission. His namesake the Real Davey Crocket is said to have killed a bear when he was only three. Here it was Young Davey was already six and he hadn't even SEEN a bear yet. In the woods next to his house he heard a familiar deep growl.
"Well, I reckon I ain't gonna ever see me no bear that wasn't in the zoo, so I guess I need to go get me something else big".
Movement in the woods drew his attention and he automatically swiveled his spring powered BB gun and began to track on the movement. Though he knew the standing position wasn't as accurate, he had to act fast, he inhaled and held it, he had never fired on a moving target before, but it was so big and moving so slow surely he could get the kill. The great lumbering beast purred as it broke the tree line, he had the shot and he fired!!! The rear passenger window of the Nissan Murano before him exploded in a shower of glass, over the sound of the glass he heard a voice. A woman's voice. An ANGRY woman's voice. Frozen with fear, the barrel of his gun only managed to dip a few inches as the ramifications of what he had done started to sink in. "Dang it! I only winged it, now its mad as hell!"

As he starred a man in goggles burst from cover behind the vehicle, removed a child seat from the door that had been shot out and presenting as small a target as possible returned to cover behind the vehicle. While this went on the passenger door opened and what appeared to be the Angel of Death stepped out and locked eyes with the Young Davey Crocket.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS A BABY IN THIS CAR. YOU SHOT AT A BABY" She took a powerful stride towards him and all he could manage was a hurried, "I didn't mean to" before retreating into the house.

The man in the goggles. stepped back around to the passenger side of the vehicle holding a smiling baby. He was trying to get her to let go of the double handful of glass she was gripping, expressionless he announced, "She looks OK." Call the police.

Many long minutes later the police had still not arrived and the door to Davey's house opened. He was unarmed and he was under the watchful gaze of his grandmother. By this time the Angel of Death was holding the smiling baby and her form had shifted slightly into something more human in appearance. Babies have that effect on mothers as it is well documented.

Young Davey Crocket and his grandmother took a position a safe distance from the Angel of Death placing a ditch between them and the abyss. The grandmother explained that he slipped the gun past her, and though he is allowed to have a gun, he knows he is not allowed to use it unsupervised. The Angel of Death struggled to keep her rage under control while she again interrogated the boy on why he did it. The man in the goggles was expressionless. He appeared just as likely to kill as go fishing. They avoided his gaze, instead concentrating on maintaining the safe distance with the ditch between them. In the distance they heard sirens, and the Angel of Death announced, "Oh yeah, I called the cops. They are coming." Through all this the baby was smiling and relaxed, her gaze flitted from tree branch to tree branch as the sunlight trickled through and birds and squirrels frolicked oblivious to the danger below, while tiny shards of glass sparkled over her entire body making her look like a jewel in human form. (or a cheesy vampire)

With the impending arrival of the police the boy and his grandmother beat a hasty retreat back into their house with the promise that they would call his mother and get her there.

The sirens faded into the distance and quiet returned once again to the battle field.

Eventually a pair of sheriff's office cars rounded the corner and made best speed towards the scene of the crime. Once out of the car, the first thing they did was apologize for their slow response, the ambush took place at the very end of their world, and every one knew it, so there were no hard feelings. Next they asked what happened. The Angel of Death looking more and more human every moment explained what had happened.

"Where is the gun?"
"Inside with them."
The two officers exchanged a look and a hand signal jogged to the tree line and unholstered their weapons. The man in goggles quietly quipped, "I sure hope they don't call SWAT for a six year old."
Moving from cover to cover the officers took tactical positions the sergeant, by the door and the deputy by an open window. They knocked, the grandmother answered, and in the blink of an eye, both officers were inside. The Angel of Death and the Man in the Goggles listened for the sound of high powered pistol fire. The baby wanted to play in the grass. The two officers, the grandmother, and Young Davey Crocket were back outside on the porch when three more officers pulled up. They introduced themselves, and the Man in Goggles was taken to a pickup truck to give his statement. Cool heads make for better detail. Next the Angel of Death now fully human and shaking gave her statement. The deputies strongly suggested that EMS take a look at the baby to make sure no glass was in her eyes. It was agreed that this was a wise course of action. Sometime in the next 30 - 45 minutes EMS arrived and said that though they did not have the tools to check for glass they highly recommended the baby go to Moses Cone Hospital to have her eyes look at. The Man in Goggles ran to the house to prepare a bag with diapers, an outfit and food for the baby, as her diaper bag and lunch box were buried under a pile of glass all under the watchful eye of the CSI team.

When the Man in Goggles arrived back at the scene the baby was already loaded into the ambulance. The very last impression the Man in Goggles had of the baby was of her smiling face looking back at him from where she was regally strapped into the gurney. She was going on an adventure!

Walking back to the nearest shade he overheard two officers talking over the confiscated weapon, "He had hid it, but when the sergeant asked for hit he brought it out." The other officer responded, "These little spring loaded jobs have some serious power! I never would have guessed that it could do that damage from that distance."

They police released the vehicle back to the Man in Goggles and began to pack up as the mother arrived. She was well dressed, very apologetic, and very cooperative. The police told her that they would probably have the boy before the judge because it was a felony, but because the boy was only six, he would probably just be given a stern tongue lashing by the judge and force to do some community service scraping gum off of benches. This relieved the mother as well as the Man in the Goggles. She worked her way over to the Man in the Goggles, and tried to offer her hand, but he could not accept it because of the glass and blood on his hand from trying to clean the diaper bag and the baby's lunch box. Instead she offered sincere apologies and a list of contact numbers. She would pay for all expenses. The Man in the Goggles knew that the visit to the ER, and the Ambulance ride would be expensive, so he asked if she had any preferred glass shops. She did not, and she returned to the Young Davey Crocket who at this time was sitting on the porch of his house wondering what jail was going to be like and if he could make it on the inside.

The Man in Goggles had only just left the house to vacuum the glass out of the car, the car seat cover and soft toys were in the dryer the baby had been at the hospital for at least an hour by this time and he knew his time was running out. The phone rang, sure enough, they had been released. The baby showed no symptoms of having glass in her eye, therefore they weren't willing to risk putting the dye in. Three dollars and a score of tiny cuts later the car was free of the large pieces of glass. The tiny shards seemed to resist the vacuum and the glass dust was everywhere, but time had run out. The Man in the Goggles returned home please to find that it had not been set on fire, replaced the car seat on the other side of the car and booked it to the hospital.

They had only been home five minutes when the media began calling...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:46 PM | Permalink

It has been a very busy year. All of the events that lead to the past three hundred and sixty-five days kicked off three hundred sixty-six and three hundred sixty-seven days ago.

367 Days ago, my father went to the doctor, they exchanged pleasantries, and I assume there was some other small talk, then to doctor told him he was dying.

366 Days ago, it just so happened that I was on a regular visit home. I was excited to tell my family that Sara and I were house sitting in Greensboro until our little house in the woods could be built. I brought pictures and everything. Dad mentioned going to the doctor and the fact that he had some related news to share with me. He shared it and I listened as stoic as a Cavenaugh. We Cavenaugh's pride ourselves on never showing our pain, its fine to laugh, but that's the start and finish of a very short list of emotions we are encouraged to show in public.

365 Days ago sitting in his recliner he made the transition from solid to aether. My job as a child is to lend support to my parents. As an only child this means that the job is a 24/7 enterprise. Having no downtime, I made the call to Sara who was in Texas for an IWFL Delegate conference. We learned that according to the flight insurance you probably bought with your last ticket "dying is a pre-existing condition". So's living corporate bastards. When the revolution comes I'll be the one who puts your back to the wall. But that is the subject of another sweet sweet blog entry to come.

The delegates of the iwfl came together and got Sara on a flight home in quick fashion. She arrived at a good time, I was still as stoic as would make my ancestors proud, but I'd need help to maintain it, and I'd come to a decision as well. I asked for a child, and she agreed to it.

January first started a reassignment for me at work, I would be administrating a Google Apps for Education suite. It was the coolest job ever. And that's coming from a guy who helped build a PMO from the ground up.

Thirty eight weeks after the death of my dad we were able to move into our new house.

Forty two weeks after the death of my dad Fiona was born.

A few weeks ago my 88 year old grandmother falls breaking her hip. My mother and her siblings pull together and have been giving their mother round the clock care ever since.

A week or two ago I learned that someone else would be taking over as the Google Apps for Education administrator. They swore that it had nothing to do with my performance. They said I was excellent at it. My new duties in my new group will be packaging Mac images to work with our shiny new Active Directory lifestyle. My clients who have been undeserved for years are about what one imagines when you say Mac Bigot. I was probably chosen for the job because I'm very comfortable as a Mac user and I'm just as mentally ill as my clients are, but I'm twice as violent. <-- This would be a joke. My clients aren't "really" that mentally ill.

Today I learn that my grandmother has picked up pneumonia which isn't doing her diminishing mental acuity any favors. On the Sunday morning phone call with mom, in between me telling her how well the baby travels, and her telling me how poorly grandmother is doing she asked me if I knew what today was.

"Yes mom, I know what today is."

That was all that was said on the matter. The rest of the conversation turned to her hoping she could visit while I was out on paternity leave. Neither of us had to say it, but we both knew that their was only one way that was going to happen.

One year.
One death.
One Life.
One house.
Three assignments.
Seven transitions.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:43 AM | Permalink

The circumstances that bring me to Round Rock Texas to begin my transition into paternity leave parenthood are complex, so I'll sum it up quickly. IWFL Football.

There, now that this is out of the way, we can talk about how I'm doing so far in the Dad roll and how Fiona's doing with me filling in as Not the Mommy. To sum up, "so far, so good".

I've heard a lot of advice about traveling with babies, around half of the advice is "don't do it". Well, we did it and it's been great. Babies haven't picked up all of our bad habits. Babies do what their biology tells them and little more. Everything rises and falls in a nice even natural cycle, feed, poop, sleep, repeat. Every two hours we have to stop to diaper, feed, burp, and play. It takes about a half hour and we're off again.

Without the baby we would have ignored our natural harmonious cycles. It would have gone something like this. "Yeah I gotta pee, but I really want to stop at the Flying J because in 2006 they had fried chicken gizzards and that was the last time I had gizzards and I really want to munch on a pound of gizzards while I'm driving, so I'm not stopping until I can stop at a Flying J." Most of that drive would have been really uncomfortable.

Traveling with a baby means that sure you might not get gizzards at this stop, but look around. They might have alligator jerky. I did see alligator jerky at a stop and I almost bought a half pound bag for Mark. It was a little pricey though.

Another thing that has helped this drive is technology. We now own a Magellan GPS (we call her Madge). This means never having to stop for directions if we take a wrong turn. Come to think of it, having a GPS means never having to accidentally take a wrong turn. Nice!

Other handy sanity and bladder saving technologies that have come out are the modern energy drink. In the old days we had two choices, Jolt Cola or coffee and we liked it that way (damned kids). Now thanks to modern marvels like Five Hour Energy Drink, we can get the boost we need to keep the wheels rolling, without having to drink so much. What used to be 20 ounces, has now been condensed down to two. In theory one could drive a long time without having to take a nature break at that rate. Of course, I'm driving with a baby so I have my five hour energy drink WITH my coffee, I know that in two hours she'll have to stop, and so will I.

Babies make road trips better!

However, traveling with a baby means that you'd better have room for the extra bags. When I travel I keep two bags, one for clothing and one for technology. Sara is the same. The baby requires the Dad Bag, the Pumping Bag, Baby's clothing bag, the Extra disposables bag, the stroller and the Pack and Play. There might be room for a second car seat, but there is not room for the extra baby baggage!

Holy crap! If I have a second child, I can justify an RV! SWEET!!!

Yeah, that was the second end of entry punch line there. Just when I think I'm going to end this thing, I realize that I haven't gotten back to the point yet.

While Sara is doing delegate duties for The Phoenix, I'm in the hotel room with Fiona, where for the first time in her very short life there are periods of time with no mommy in them. I judge my skills as a father by how traumatized she is by this fact. So far, we are going on three to four hour burst with no momma around. So far Fiona's been aware but nonplussed by this fact. See there, I'm a good dad- at least in these closed, controlled experiments. If Sara can return to work for nine hours and Fiona can stay at home happy and moderately well adjusted then and only then will I be successful in the role Dad Man.

Get her through college with a minimum of tattoo's and piercings into a descent paying job that brings her joy and then and only then will I TRULY be a successful Dad Man eligible for dying happily as an old man surrounded by a whole passel of grand-kids. What? I'm not allowed to plan ahead?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:43 PM | Permalink

We just bought a kicking video camera for recording Phoenix football games. We couldn't justify it before, but since we're having a baby, we can say "Its for the baby", but really we're using it to record football games.

My job on the team - I say I'm "On the team", I'm really just married to the General Manager. I'm a semi-pro groupie, but I like to kid myself and say I'm on the team as a "media specialist". What that means is I film the game and I write blogs about the games. I want to be supportive.

Now that I've got the really nice camera that shoots the game in standard play at 7 megabits per second at 1920X1080. Standard play is next to the lowest camera setting. I'm no fool, one of the eventual outputs of this footage is uploaded via the internet to the league's game server. They want it 640X480 high quality Windows Media Player format, and hopefully not much more than a gig or a gig and a half in size.

My standard recording format of a game brings the size of the file in somewhere between eight and ten gigs. If I were to go full HD on that bad boy, it would take an act of congress to dumb it down to something streamable.

The camera comes with software. It takes the film I took (which is broken up into chunks), puts it back together and spits it out as in mpeg2 format. Raw data is 8GB, mpeg is 8GB.
And oh baby, it is BEAUTIFUL. Unusable, but beautiful. I've got to dumb it down before it is usable.

I'll use Windows Movie Maker to make it exactly what the league wants.
Me- "Take this mpeg video and make it small."
WMM - "You mean this really large sound file here?"
Me- "No, this mpeg video. It is right here, it is gorgeous."
WMM- "uh-hu, I see, getting into that whole 4/20 thing aren't you. Come back when the buzz wears off."
Me- "I don't use drugs, I haven't even had a beer today. Take my video and do your freakin' job."
WMM- "Sure fine, give me your video."
Me- "Here you go."
WMM- "There's no video here, only audio"
Me- "Yes there is."
WMM- "No there isn't."
Me- "Yes there is"
WMM- "No there isn't."
Me- "Yes there is"
WMM- "No there isn't."
Me- "Fine. I'll hook the camera back up and I'll let you import the raw footage yourself"
WMM- "Fine, you do that."
Me- "OK, there it is, all hooked up, go ahead and import that."
WMM- "You have to hook up the camera first."
Me- "I've hooked up the camera."
WMM- "No you haven't"
Me- "Yes I have"
WMM- "No you haven't"
Me- "Yes I have"
WMM- "No you haven't"
Me- "Yes I have"
WMM- "No you haven't"
Me- "Fine. What's wrong."
WMM- "You need to take a USB cable and connect it between me and the camera."
Me- "OK, done."
WMM- "*sigh*, The USB cable has a flat end that looks like this, and a square end that looks like this. They will have a symbol that looks like this, match the shape and the symbol on the cable to the corresponding shape and symbol on the camera. Its like the blocks you used to play with in pre-school."
Me- "I didn't go to pre-school, anyway, I've done that. Its done. The camera is here and it says "HI". The camera and I are just waiting for you to suck down the data."
WMM- "No pre-school, that explains a bunch. Look, is there someone technical around I can talk to?"
Me- "I've been an IT professional since 1994, I am technical."
WMM- "Let me guess, you were a UNCG ISOM major?"
Me- "No! Never! I worked my way up from support all the way up to administrator."
WMM- "Yes... Perhaps there is a young child I can talk to?"

At this point in my mind's eye I see a thousand Celtic warriors in wode streaming over a low rise onto the Microsoft campus in Redmond Virginia. But in reality, I sit at the computer, my face flush, my pulse racing, my blood pressure in psi. In my mind, I've got an axe in my hand, I'm pretty much naked except for the blue and I'm hacking through a hastily erected barricade. Its on fire. In reality, I'm pretty much naked except for the flannel bathrobe, counting to ten under my breath while doing some deep breathing exercises. The same ones my wife is learning for labor. I'm shaking, I'm sweating, and I'm getting no sympathy from anyone or anything.

The dog says, "Pet me please."
The cat says, "Pet me NOW."
The wife says, "The cat boxes stink, you should do something about that."
Windows Media Maker says, "Is there someone smart I can talk to?"

I've got an awesome camera, and 10GB of the Erie game. I have no idea why the Erie game is two GB larger than the Louisville game. I'm going to try some other piece of software. Hey, this is cool. I can tell it I want the output 640X480. I can tell it I want high quality just like the league wants, I can tell it AVI because that's an approved file type. GO!

The next morning I awoke to a completed AVI, the quality was pretty crappy, but hey it is 640X480 and the league will like....wait a minute.... The original mpg is 10GB, and is high quality full size wide screen perfection. This avi is low quality, 640X480 and 16GB. I need a drink. I need a whole mess of drinks.

Me- "You, Handbrake...freeware. You want to make me a movie?"
HB- "Mai Oui!" (Handbrake is French)
Me- "I need this dumbed down to high quality 640X480, and I want it no more than 1.5GB"
HB-"It is...how you say...piece of cake" (Handbrake is French, I'm not. I'm paraphrasing here)

Its 7am on an otherwise beautiful Tuesday, I've been working on this since 2:30am on Sunday morning. Windows Media Maker insulted my intelligence, my sanity, and my junk. Roxio, can do a bunch of cool stuff, but not small file sizes. Handbrake made me an MP4, but when I went to view it (in anything) it was sound only.

I'm naming my first heart attack "Phoenix". I put the mp4 on a fob handed it to my wife and said to heck with the whole thing, I'm walking to work. I need to clear my head. So I rode to work with my wife instead. I don't even remember why right now. Once I got to my desk I get an IM from her:
Her- "That mpg is BRILLIANT!"
Me- "You can see it?"
Her- "Yes"
Me- "And it looks good?"
Her- "It looks great!"
Me- "640X480?"
Her- "Yes."
Me- "Any chance we can vacation in Virginia this summer? I'm thinking I want to try my hand at Celtic battle reenacting. We're going to need a whole mess of wode. You can film it with our very fine new camera."

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was a scant few months ago that I managed to buy a couple pairs of low rise jeans, they were perfect more or less. I could wear them where I've always keep my waist and my crotch falls at my crotch and not half-way down my thigh.

These details are important when you are a fencing coach with massive thighs and really surprisingly short legs. The only thing they weren't good for was walking or teaching fencing. For working in the office, sitting in a chair, driving down the street, or dining in a restaurant they were perfect. The thing with me and walking is that the longer I walk the more oxygen enriched blood goes into legs and the tighter these pants become in my legs until they look like a masochist idea of tights.

But that's OK. I've got my other pants. My other pants are plenty lose in the legs but unfortunately are cut for someone who wears their waist about six inches higher than I do. In fact, if you were to go look at a sizing chart they would suggest that where I keep my waist is about six inches lower than it is supposed to be. Sizing charts, HA! So funny.

I'd made my peace with it all and life was good, I chose pants based on the activity of the day and they seldom let me down. If for some reason they DID let me down, I've got my emergency pants in my office that I can fall back on. Check and mate.

Then my world went spiraling into the absurd. I'd always heard that when there is a baby on the way there would be some "Eating for two". I had always assumed they were referring to the mom. During the first trimester my lovely bride lost nine pounds. Well, she says she "lost", but I know exactly where they are. They aren't lost at all, I've got them right here...in my pants. Or more precisely, just over my pants.

Sara had real trouble with nausea during that first trimester and doing my brave duty as Father-to-be-Man I swooped in for the rescue.
"What's the matter honey, your dinner not setting well? Don't worry, I'll save the day!" Twelve weeks of eating my food and hers too and suddenly things are getting a little out of sorts. Undaunted our hero devises a new plan,
"What's the matter honey, your dinner not setting well? Don't worry, we'll get a box!"
By twenty weeks I discovered that the phrase "get a box" translates into "Husband will eat it later."

And here we are at week twenty three. My skinny jeans are in a box, and I've unpacked my fat jeans. Yesterday at the OB's office Sara had gained a pound in the past two weeks, Father-to-be-Man packed on five. Those maternity pants are starting to look like a good idea. I mean, I've always carried my weight in just one place which happens to be where a baby would incubate on a woman. Who would notice right? I'd lose the ability to tuck in my shirts, but lets face reality here, there's no room in my pants for shirt tails anyway. Summer's coming, I can pull off the relaxed out of the pants look.

Yesterday I put on my largest pants, those pants that were in a box slated to go to Goodwill. These pants are the last line of defense between my underwear and an unsuspecting world. It took ten minutes, and a hand cramp to get them buttoned. An hour and a half later I realized that I was so tired from trying to get them on that I had completely forgotten to zip them.

Swell.

An hour after that I had to go to the men's room. You know, number two. Now I'm trapped in a tiny stall trying to get my pants buttoned up. By the time I managed to achieve this high minded goal I had two hand cramps, I was soaked in sweat, my face was red and more than one men's room patron suggestion that maybe I should get a room. It was about an hour later that I realized that I was so out of sorts from the battle of the button I had forgotten to zip my pants.

Swell.

I blame genetics and the knowledge that food taste good. Genetics purpose built me so I could move heavy things. A car, uphill, onto a trailer. I'm your man. Short powerful legs give me leverage to get low on something and power it up. Up-sized rib cage has more surface area to attach chest muscles too. Extra long torso gives me plenty of room for abs. All of my body fat stored in my stomach area-- Well, I'm not sure what they were thinking when they did that one, unless they knew that I was going to spend a lot of time in my adult hood living in the country out working in the yard naked as the day I was born. Yeah, that's probably it. They knew that was going to happen so they put all my extra weight in the front to protect my junk from sunburn.

Of course, its impossible for me to really verify this. I haven't seen my junk since high school. So here I am with a 29 inseam, 42, 44, maybe a 46 waist wearing extra tall shirts to cover me over the up and down and 3X to cover me in the around. Maternity clothing might not be too bad an idea after all. Its time to do some research! We've been wearing cloths for thousands of years, surely in all of fashion history there was a period of clothing that would suit my rather utilitarian build. The toga comes quickly to mind, as does the kilt, but the answer may in fact come from my taste in Steampunk.

There was a period in fashion where men wore pants six inches above where I wear mine and rather than being held in place with a belt (which wont work because of that whole breathing thing) are held in place with suspenders. I'm wearing the vest and cap already, it may be time to suck it up and embrace the breeches and braces as well. It is time to tap my inner gentleman. Only I'll never word it like that again, my hand to god.

Seriously. I promise I'll never say that phrase again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:18 AM | Permalink

Cavenaugh Family Upgrade

In October 1999 I purchased a five acre wooded lot with a 1000 square foot trailer on it. It was important to me to have a home before I got married. Granted it was a trailer, but our master plan was to build a house on the lot. February 29th 2000 I was married. Next step for the wife and I, build a house. This step is now complete. Cavenaugh Keep is now upgraded to a solid 2.0 Time to begin a new project. By the way, version 2.5 is in the planning stages and will take shape as a low priority project over the coming years. I'm thinking "Great Hall" as my inspiration.

At a dinner party recently I used my special "dink powers" to predict the future of several friend's children. Or at least those which I had spent any kind of time with anyway. Annie will be the first Czarina of America, she rules as fairly as she can, but no one can keep everyone happy all the time. She deals with unrest firmly, decisively and with finality. Her brother Jake using some of the wealth of his sister, goes on a quest to right wrongs as a mysterious "Batman" like vigilante figure. Often his quest puts him at odds with his sister, who never learns he's the occasional costumed thorn in her regal side. Will, forever striving to develop his seemly limitless potential, uses wealth he amassed in robotics development to buy the Real Doll company lock stock and barrel. One year later he unveils the Fembot Mk-1 to a hungry market. With the unbelievable success of the Fembot Mk-1 in the market place he secretly continues development for other purposes. By the time he perfects his Mk-4 he realizes he is ready to finally get revenge on all those who tormented him in his youth using a perfect robotic assassin corp. Though he and Jake battle many times over their lifetime, neither ever learns the identity of the other. Oakel meanwhile dons the silk pajamas of power becoming the next Hugh Hefner. No Fembot ever crosses the Playboy Mansion's threshold...so far as he knows.

And with that I have spoken my last, my scepter of Dinkdom smashed asunder forever, for there is a new Cavenaugh under construction. Its completion date estimated to be August 4th when a Leo Earth Ox is slated to enter a short validation cycle and after testing by doctors will go strait into production.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 6:08 AM | Permalink

I can't tell you exactly how many people have come up to me and told me that those first holidays after a death in the family would be really hard. Dear friends, trusted coworkers, and practically strangers have all at one point come up to me to make this point. I hold no grudge, though I personally think it is a little cold to walk up to a friend, coworker, or stranger and say "Hi, you're life is going to suck this weekend. Have fun and see you Monday!"

They also have no idea of what they speak. I guess they are imagining the Normal Rockwell paining of the whole family sitting around the table smiling at the giant roasted turkey. Does anyone really have that kind of Holiday Season? Be honest.

My life before dad dying has had exactly three holiday season stages. They went like this:

Stage one: Between the ages of too young to remember and my teens we had a big breakfast where dad would cut a smoked ham and we were a family for just long enough to polish off our grits. Then dad would say "Have dinner ready by the middle of the day", and he would leave. Mom would be alone in the kitchen where the forces of good and evil battled over her mortal soul. I'm not kidding. I heard voices...terrible voices... I sat in front of the TV watching parades trying not to notice my mother speaking in tongues to the turkey and casting dark magic with the giblet gravy. Dinner would be ready promptly between one and three PM. Dad would stagger in at about five PM, pass out on the couch and wake up still drunk at about seven PM. We would all sit down and eat a cold thanksgiving dinner. In truth mom and I picked at it because we had been picking at it since it was done. Dad would proclaim that it was the "best ever", then pass out on the couch in front of the TV. we couldn't hear the TV for his snoring.

Stage two: I was older, and so was dad and his friends and their interest. Rather than gather in someone's tool shed or garden barn to drink they all had wood heaters now. So after the big breakfast with the smoked ham dad would pile me into the truck and we would go to some woods somewhere where there was some free wood to cut. Meanwhile mom was left in the kitchen to wage holy war against the forces of holiday tradition. All dad's friends would join us in the wood cutting. They would cut until about noon, I would load up everyone's trucks with the wood they cut. Then the drinking would begin. Just before dark someone realizes that their truck still hasn't been unloaded, so they all break up and drive drunk with a truck loaded heavily with firewood. Good times. Dad would always help me unload- or at the very least show me where he wanted it stacked. If he was sober enough to help me unload he'd go into his shed after unloading to make sure he was good and stinko before the big meal. It is now dark, mom would be a nervous wreck, the meal would be cold, dad would proclaim it was the "best ever" before passing out on the couch in front of the TV. Happy Thanksgiving.

Stage Three: I was in college, and would come home for the holiday. Dad stayed home, and often helped in the cooking of the feast. Mom would fight for God and heaven in the kitchen and dad would cook and drink in his garage kitchen. There is a whole other complete story I could tell about the stages of The Man Kitchen and I promise I will one day. Because dad was at home, we would actually eat the meal hot. Dad who is drunk would proclaim this the "best ever" and go pass out on his recliner. I would eventually get tired of Dad's snoring and mom's war stories. Then I would go hang out at the Pizza Hutt with my friends for hours leaving mom to pick the bones of another holiday tragedy.

Norman Rockwell was never invited.

Yes. This Thanksgiving was different. This year I brought my wife, we ate at my wife's least favorite restaurant (it was the only one open). Then we came home and all tried to get along while mom obsessed over getting the house ready for Christmas wringing her hands the whole way. I think she feared that if she stopped for just one second she would be forced to realize that dad wasn't there and melt down. My wife was melting down because my mother wouldn't just sit down and shut up for five minutes. I was melting down because that's what happens to solid rock when you surround it with that much molten mettle. Because I'm so stoney, hopefully neither of them noticed me melting while all of their melting down was happening.

At any rate I commemorated this holiday season much like my dad would have. I showed up hours late with a truck load of wood. But hey, at least I was sober.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:35 PM | Permalink

I was told that dad had made friends with a local preacher. Dad has only liked two preachers his whole life and the other one was dead. When it was suggested that this preacher officiate his funeral, I was honored. If she's good enough for dad, she must be a wonder. Later I was told that she would be dropping by, she wanted us to share with her some personal stories about my father. Folks lets face it, I tend to like to think of myself as unflappable, of late I am well and truly flapped. I knew there was no way I could start reminiscing about my father so soon without howling like a hungry hedgehog. So I do, what I've done since the shrink suggested it in my childhood. I sat down and started writing. What follows are the things I handed to the preacher hot off the printer in georga 12 font.

• Lived by the creed, "If man made it, man could fix it". He took great joy in it, and a special pride in repairing things that stumped others. His son noted it every time he had to call his dad on the telephone for advice.
• Had a special quest to serve and protect the widow, no sewing machine went unfixed, no one went without fresh vegetables. He took great pride in his payment for a job well done, which took the form of the occasional cake or jar of jelly.
• His primary hobbies were his garden and giving away most of what he grew. For a few years he sold collards from the back of his old Ford truck. The profits he made helped to pay for the following years garden.
• He always had a great faith in the wisdom and opinions of his wife, especially when those opinions mirrored his own.
• He retired from the textile business where he worked for over 30 years in the same building for over seven different companies. The job never changed, only the company name on the check stub.
• Upon retirement he slowed down considerably. Fishing requires patience.
• When he spoke of influences in his life he often quoted his late father-in-law who used to say, "What you get out of life is what you eat". Anyone who has ever tasted Delwood's BBQ knows he lived well.
• One day two young men in suits riding bicycles came to his door and asked to come inside. Before opening the door he said to them, "In my house you are free to talk about any subject except religion and politics. Now, I'm about to sit down to lunch and if you'd like, you can join me." They ate a loaf of bread and a whole pack of bologna while he watched. All three had a wonderful visit and the young men never once broke the house rule.
• People were important to Delwood, every day at the exact same time all work and all fishing stopped and his closest friends gathered at the barn for what they called "Tea Time". In many ways it was just like English High Tea, only they never had anything besides water from the hose to drink, and they never had cucumber sandwhiches. They were never ones for fancy finger foods.
• Delwood took a great love of his wife's flower beds, although he often lamented how little there was to eat in them. If you walk those flower beds today you'll see his subtle influences; grapes, blackberries, strawberries, mustard greens, tomatoes, and peppers stealthily planted among the pansies, irises, azaleas, and daffodils.

Later we went to the first viewing where the immediate family decides if everything is ok with the body. While standing there looking at his corpse another thing came to mind that though too late for the preacher, was very much worth noting.

In the 30 some years that dad worked in a sewing plant he wore the height of men's fashions as often the unused samples were given to him and the other mechanics. He took great pride in looking good and his reward was the compliments he got daily from the many hundred women who sewed in the plant with him. I mention this because as his body laid there in the casket it looked better than it had looked in over a year. It was a great weight taken off of my mother and myself seeing that. Live well, die young, leave a great looking corpse. Dad thinks of everything.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Water can be an ice cube, it can melt into liquid, and heat into steam. Steam can cool, liquid forms, once it cools enough, ice. It is the natural way of things. Three distinct states of being and it never stops being water.

You take a piece of paper and light it on fire, the combustion releases the energy stored in the paper. The law of conservation of energy states that energy is never lost, it just changes from one state to another.

A caterpillar goes into a cocoon comes out a butterfly. Nature is full of examples of how things may change but the essence of what is remains unchanged.

That's why I think that the sober scientific minds of atheist are so laughable. I am amused by those who look down their noses across the pages of science books to dismiss the beliefs of the religious. The science makes very clear that death is a transition between one state of being and another.

Don't get me wrong, I'm equally amused by the religious. Those who regularly look down their self righteous noses across the pages of their ancient tomes at the atheist who refuse to believe whatever arbitrary thing they believe. I find it odd that they are so filled with the spirit or what have you, but still fear death so much and go to such great lengths to prolong the suffering of those dying by keeping them alive.

I know that energy cannot be destroyed or created, I know that a thing can exist in many different states and still be a thing. I believe that death is a transition between one state of being another.

Thus, though I will miss interacting with my father, I know he still exist in another form. Today we make arrangements to bury the cocoon he spent the last 67 years in. It will wear his best suit, it will have his pipe and a new pouch of tobacco. My ancestors were Irish, and though this world isn't as hard for me as it was for them in the past, I share their faith that wherever he is, it is definitely better than where he was.

Delwood Ray Cavenaugh
1941 - 2008

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:24 AM | Permalink

I spent the better part of an afternoon working on a simple project using ingenuity and intellect. I needed to move the roof of the front porch on the old house. The plan was very strait forward. Dig out the area surrounding the legs so the concrete around them is clear to be raised. Connect the left and right legs together with a four by four secured by eight inch long lag bolts. Jack the legs up one at a time slowly back and forth bracing them with flat concrete blocks until they are out of the ground. Move the structure carefully out of the way. I worked slowly and carefully to make sure everything went just right. The four by four splintered, the lag bolts ripped out and plan "A" was a complete and total failure. I didn't even budge the thing. Time was wasted, effort was wasted, and I was feeling like a tool.

Then a moment of calm came over me and in this perfect zen instant the path was revealed to me. I was doing it wrong. Actually, I might have been doing it right, but not right for me.

I put away the shovel, post hole digger, drill, hand tools, and jack. I cleared away the blocks, the scraps of splintered wood, and any sharp pokey objects that do seem to like to tear my cloths. I went into the shed and brought out The Six Pounder. In a former life it was a splitting axe with a six pound head. That was before I broke the handle splitting wood. Some years ago I cut off the splintered end, wrapped the remaining eight inches of handle in leather and today it serves as an executive problem solver. The Six Pounder, solves problems my way, using my strengths to their best advantage.

My way is not very sportsmanlike.

After hours of wasted intellect and effort got me nothing, the porch was now laying defeated at my feet in a matter of minutes thanks to simply playing to my strengths. I think there was a life lesson in there somewhere for me. If you are a hammer, everything really does look like a nail. If you are an ax, every problem can be cut down to size, if you happen to be me, just let your force be your guide.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 6:30 PM | Permalink

I grew up on the coast in commuting distance from a military base. My neighborhood was made up of active duty military, retired military, and civilians in fairly equal numbers. Growing up that way I was exposed to ideas and customs I might not have experienced in other places. One of these customs was the hurricane party.

The idea was simple. A hurricane was coming, its been suggested that people gather up supplies in a safe fortified location and hole up until the storm passes. Many people think that it might be smarter to combine supplies, and man power in a single place to wait out the storm, since there was nothing else to do after the power goes out, you could while away the hours being social. Thus in my neighborhood during every hurricane there was at least one hurricane party.

My dad prefers to spend his hurricanes sitting on the porch watching the action. After it is over, he will drive around looking at the damage, offering help to friends where is needed. Mom on the other hand prefers to fill the bath tub with water, pile supplies and a portable radio in the bathroom and (back then) gather me up to sleep on the floor and wait until the whole thing blew over. Mind you, though our bathroom was the only interior room in our house, it has a large mirror on each door, one above the sink, and glass shower doors. I never would bring it up to her even as a little tyke because I saw just how important it was to her to at least feel like she was safe.

Of all the hurricanes I grew up during, only one ever caused us any real damage at all and that was after I had left the area to seek my fortune in the Piedmont. The only other "adventure" I ever had any witness to at home on the coast during severe weather was one morning after when dad discovered... the body.

Our windows were boarded up so there was no seeing outside unless you went outside, and dad being naturally adventurous and indestructible, was out the morning after at first light to survey the damage. He wandered the backyard, to see no damage, just a few limbs down. Going to the front yard, he saw down the street some trees leaning, many limbs down, a few misplaced trashcans, and what appeared to him to be a pile of cloths at the edge of our yard next to the street. He went to investigate.

Moments later he was back inside instructing mom to call the ambulance, there was a body in the yard! Mom kept me inside, dad kept his distance and shortly later EMS rolled up. It didn't take them long to figure out that the person, though soaked, was very much alive...drunk and passed out. They asked dad if he recognized the person who was at this moment still very incoherent. He thought he had seen the man before as a friend of the neighbors, so an EMS person went over there to see if they had "lost" anyone.

"Hey!" cried the EMS person, "Here's another one!" In the neighbor's yard, between two cars a soaked to the bone woman was passed out. They began to make sure she was OK as well.

Several minutes of knocking at the door brought the neighbor around. (By this time I had slipped outside and joined my father a respectable distance from the action.) Apparently during the night when the eye was passing over, a couple thought it was safe to go home. Neither them or anyone else at that hurricane party were sober enough to comprehend or voice any of a number of concerns. The couple apparently fell down and passed out while trying to simply FIND their car in the yard.

To this day we still laugh about that. Good times.

The moral of the tale is that though a hurricane party is in and of itself probably a good idea, you really need to stay sober to take full effect of the the benefit. Also, those of you who tend to stay home during and venture out after should take a camera of some kind. You never know when a photo opportunity might arise.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:21 AM | Permalink

When planning to have a 10 year old around I picked through my music collection to find stuff that would be enjoyable to Sara and I as well as enlighten and entertain The Niece. I should have thought my clever plan through. Don't get me wrong I was successful in "enlightening" and "entertaining" The Niece, the problem was it never occurred to me she'd actually pay close attention to the lyrics.

This one should have been obvious..even to me. I only heard a upbeat happy tune that gets stuck in your head and makes you want to dance.

Sara managed to hit skip in the first few bars...then she explained to me why. I admit it. I was an idiot on this one.

Similarly Sara hit quickly skipped past "The British Army" before it got to the chorus.

Now, The Wild Rover as you can see from the lyrics is a fine song for all ages. Leave it to the Booze Brothers however to embellish just enough to make ME skip past it. For instance, the original lyrics went something like this:

I took from my pocket ten sovereigns bright And the landlady's eyes opened wide with delight. She said "I have whiskey and wines of the best And the words that I spoke sure were only in jest."

The Booze Brothers version went something like this:

I took from me pocket ten sovereigns bright
And the landlady's legs opened wide with delight.
She said "I have women and liqueurs of the best"
And she took off her blouse and showed me her chest.

I was perhaps too caution with Carbon Leaf's "The Boxer", but I was a little gun shy after three FAILS in a row. The Young Dubliners tune "Brown Dog" was heard with fingers poised over the skip button while Sara and I hoped and prayed there was nothing in there to cause trouble.

"Cindy" by The Chieftains with Ricky Scaggs and Kentucky Thunder should be OK. "...she's so sweet the honeybees swarm around her mouth..." this is ok I guess "...I wish I was an apple hanging from the tree, and every day that Cindy'd pass she'd take a bite of me..." Hmmm....perhaps we can slide the metaphor past a ten year old.

"Whiskey You're the Devil" I thought this one was OK. I mean it is an anti-drinking song after all. Right?

"When I was a fair maid" could have been OK, but I was worried about what she might ask her parents later if she spent too much time thinking about the story of a girl who pretended to be a man so she could be a sailor and was outed when a girl at port (thinking she was a he) tried to start a relationship of the personal nature.

Sligo Rag worked pretty well, "The Whiskey Never Lies" CLEARLY an anti-drinking song. "No Great Shakes" an honest song about relationships gone wrong. "Suite for a Drunken Sailor" All I would have to do is explain about The Captain's Daughter should she ask. Interestingly the issue with Sligo Rag didn't come from the 10 year old. It came from Sara. I had never noticed it, but they do sure use a lot of chimes in their music.

No worries though. I had an ace in the hole. In fact I had FIVE aces in the whole, in the form of five Great Big Sea CDs. "Captain Kidd", "Jack Hinks", "Mari Mac" "I'm a Rover", I could go on for hours. At "The Night Pat Murphy Died", I had to explain to her why they were so happy. I didn't know she had a think about funerals. Then we hit "The Mermaid" and I had to explain (via a lie) to The Niece that the line "That's how I get MY tail" refers to the fact that the mermaid turned him into a merman and they lived happily ever after. I think she bought it hook, line, sinker, and copy of Angling Times.

Next time around I think I'll just stick to Marc Gunn.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 12:46 PM | Permalink

After lunch The Niece suggested smoothies. We figured that was a reasonable idea so we went. We were just pulling out of the parking lot when she announces that she dropped her cup and some spilled. She was pretty upset because she knew that it was in the new car. Sara and I were quick to pass back every napkin we had and to reassure her that it was OK. Accidents happen, and cars can be cleaned.

Then she told us about the hole in her cup. Thinking quickly I told her to put her finger over the hole. When we got back to work, I could give her a new cup from the package I had in my cube. Good plan right?

Have you ever felt like sometimes the world was conspiring against you? Religious or not, you suddenly get the sinking feeling that some force greater than yourself was making your life difficult for their own amusement? Yeah. That happened here.

Every turn Sara made seemed to take us further and further from the office. Every road she took was blocked, being constructed on, finding herself behind someone lost, etc. We caught every stop light. Pedestrians were at every crosswalk. In the back seat The Niece was getting more and more hysterical because the drink was cold and it was freezing her fingers.

The panic was spreading to Sara who was dealing with traffic and trying to calm the girl child. I was breathing slowly and deeply, willing myself into a state of perfect calm. I made not a sound. I was also working furiously on plan "B", which was to drink my smoothy as fast as humanly possible and give my cup to The Niece. Every 90 seconds we had to remind her that in civilized places like Greensboro, you can't just throw your cup out the window.

I finished my smoothy just as we were pulling into the parking lot of the office.

I gave her my cup, which she put around her damaged cup. Mission accomplished! Then I took her inside to wash up. She was covered in peach smoothy. The whole way she kept talking about how cold her fingers were. So cold she couldn't feel them. At least they didn't hurt. But they hurt. Well, at least she could still feel them.

Sara stayed behind to do some damage control on the vehicle.

Sitting in the lobby, mission accomplished- so I believed. The only sound in the whole place was the gentle hum of the air conditioner and the wailing of a sobbing 10 year old. I willed myself to spontaniously combust. I couldn't go in after her. I could only wait, and suspect what she did to cause so much pain. I was pretty sure she cranked up the hot water to wash up. Hot water on cold fingers is never a good plan. Never ever.

Finally she came out. Her dress looked like an army of 10 year old boys used her for target practice at a peach picking. Her eyes are red from crying and she is clearly embarassed.

Sara IM'd me later that The Niece was sullen but otherwise OK, at least until she climbed into the shower. Then she sobbed loudly again.

Dinner was hotdogs from a street vender in Center City Park and an hour of playing in the water around the fountains before we discovered that she didn't bring dry shorts to change into. The hotdogs were pretty good, so I suppose it could have been a lot worse.

All in all I think we gained some valuable lessons. Children make lousey leak stoppers. Street vendors make good hotdogs. You can pack almost enough cloths to change into after playing in the water. 10 year old girls are not shy about undressing in front of you. I need a pair of peril sensitive sunglasses to wear when The Niece is around.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:04 AM | Permalink

Over dinner The Niece is talking about something. Her speech is sort of stream of consciousness where you really have to pay attention to make all the jumps. At the time she was talking about some animal reality show where they rescue hurt pets (I think). She started going on about this dog with a hormone on its leg. Sara was confused as I was, but instead of just letting it go, she opted to try to get some clarification. Sara says, "Did you mean hematoma?" The Niece said yes. Now me, I figure if Sara had said "Helium" she would have said yes to that too, but OK we're moving on.

Sara wanting to be a good teacher, asked The Niece, if she knew what a hormone was. Pretty quickly it was clear that she didn't, and eventually asked, "OK, so what IS a hormone anyway?"
Sara explained that it was a chemical that the body makes to do stuff. I, hoping to be helpful, said, "It helps tell your body to grow". Sara adds, "and when you are older it will help with your woman parts." The Niece makes a face, "you mean like baby making parts?" Sara nods.

The Niece, who is TEN, says in a very determined way, "I'm having my tubes tied."

At this point, my sanity doffed its bowler hat and headed for the door. My jaw was resting on the table top and I had lost the ability to produce sound entirely.

Sara, who seemed to be rehearsing for a role as a Japanese Anime character said, "But you're 10!" The Niece responds casually around a mouthful of pizza, "Yeah, I mean when I'm like 20."

Sara looks at me and notes my apoplexy for the first time. She tries to calm me with a statement which she tried to make sound as sane and as casual as she could; "At 10 I said the same thing."

Unable to produce sound yet I texted her on my blackberry, "At 10 migratory wading birds as a delivery mechanism for human young was more than enough explanation for me." Now I remember why girls were icky in the first place.

The next morning while Sara was getting ready for work, I had to wake The Niece and send her to take a shower. I used a long stick to poke her with from across the room. Cooties are suddenly a real and present danger again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I dodged an emotional scar. The Niece was playing Wii, I was puttering around trying to do a little bit a cleaning around the living room. I had something in my hand that I needed to take to the computer room. I took one step and suddenly my danger sense started quivering faster than a girl in her first prom dress. What do I do?

Stop.
Look.
Listen.

The Niece is no longer in the living room.
The bathroom light is on.
I hear the sound of running water.
It is NOT the sink.
The bathroom door is open.

Code blue emergency! This is not a drill!
Code blue emergency! This is not a drill!

In a code blue emergency you sit your fat ass down on the closest thing to you and you don't move until The Niece returns to the living room, and the game. You pray to all that is holy that they come out wearing everything they were wearing when they went in.

She came out. She was fully clothed, and remembered to flush. As an extra precaution I did not enter the computer room for the rest of the evening. It was a close call, and I don't need the extra therapy.

I do need a drink though.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:46 AM | Permalink

In the past two days I have eaten more pizza than I would eat in a normal month. I have determined that children only eat pizza.

Me: "What would you like to eat?"
Niece: "I don't know, what do you have."
Me: "Well, we have hot dogs, and sausage dogs, and peaches, and pizza"
Niece: "Pizza."
Me: "and steak, and shrimp, and beef tenderloin medallions that I can braise in a light port wine sauce and serve over polinta with a side of sauted summer vegetables.
Niece: "Pizza."
Me: "Its pretty cheap pizza."
Niece: "Pizza."
Me: "It has vegetables."
Niece: "I can pick it off"
Me: "Anchovies"
Niece: "Gross! I can definitely pick it off."

So we had pizza...again...It was peperoni.

Before this week is over, I'm serving chicken curry. If necessary I'll pour the curry sauce down her gullet. It will be fun!

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:59 AM | Permalink

In the back of my mind I always suspected it was true, but I really didn't know for sure until I found myself staring down the barrel of a visiting 10 year old girl on her first week away from home. I am not a level 10 parent. In fact I'm a level 0 parent. At this phase I should only be worrying about practicing to create them. Instead, I've gone from zero to OMFGWTF do I feed them??? (The answer to that one turns out to be "pizza" but that's an entry for another day.)

Today's entry is about me learning to understand the rules of the game.

Level One: The baby gets born, you are in complete control of an eating and pooping machine. Level one teaches you how to handle bio-hazards, and getting over any hangups you might have about being clean-ever again.

Level Two: You think you're so cool now that you've mastered the diaper? Now we're giving the child two speeds, sleeping and full throttle. We're also including the volume feature, it has two settings, sleeping, and screaming. At no extra cost we're throwing in a vocabulary word, "No".

Level Five: Now the child is away from your sphere of influence for eight hours a day and introduced to others their own age. They will teach each other everything you've been trying to protect your child from. If you've been a successful parent so far, this is where your child will pick up their first neurosis.

Levels Six through Ten: You know that little feature about your precious snowflake that you think is so adorable. It's now their number one neurosis. Children at these levels hate everything out of the ordinary, and will attack it voraciously.

Level Thirteen: Cost of ownership is upped by one third as they discover high end consumer electronics and boy bands. If you don't have a drawer filled with batteries already, you'd better clear some space.

Level Fifteen: Time to have "The Talk" as a preemptive measure. Include diagrams and lepers for bonus effects. Child earn bonus therapy time if you teach them to apply a condom to a garden vegetable. You earn bonus therapy time if they get it right on their first attempt.

Level Sixteen: Child's first car. You gain extra gray hair. If you have no hair on your head by this point, you'll suddenly sprout it in strange places. Their diary starts to read like a Jackie Collins novel; you gain one facial tick.

Level Seventeen: You get a taste of what's to come when you are forced to pay out for prom gear. You also gain a nervous habit when you realize that your child qualifies as the subject of an '80s hair band song.

Level Eighteen: Your child mentions for the first time the idea they've been kicking around with friends about NOT going to college and starting a band. You lose consciousness.

Things start to slow down once you get them through college, they land a job, move out of your basement, and they get married. You can relax now and exercise your one wish, that their children turn out just like they did. If you've been successful in child rearing you are comfortable in the knowledge that in your old age you aren't destined to eat dog food while trying to pay for your prescription medications.

You win if you manage to get buried in a real casket in a marked grave surrounded by family who are really sad to see you go. Congratulations! You have ascended.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:13 AM | Permalink

I've been moping around a lot lately. I've got a lot on my mind, none of it earth shattering, but all of it coming from every angle. There is no escape. I've been trying to find words to express myself, it ain't gone well. Then I heard a song that I had heard a many a time before, only this time it was the exact right song at the exact right time. It came for a reason. I wanted to post a youtube video, but there was none to be found. I wanted to link to the lyrics but those weren't to be had either. You listen to the obscure, you get the obscure.

At any rate, the band is Kennedy's Kitchen. The CD is A Pocketful of Lint. The song is The Little Things in Life: The Dead Cat Song. Click on that last link, and listen to a sample. It tells a tale of a simple event that snowballs out of control. Absurd? Oh yeah! Funny as all get out actually, but it has a moral.

Its the little things in life that will kill you.

I just noticed that the CD liner notes include the lyrics. I'd post them because they are as important as they are hysterical, however, I also like this band and want to stay out of trouble with them. You buy the CD and read the lyrics for yourself. You'll thank me.

At any rate, the song played for me and it had a message and I'm still figuring out exactly what it means. What? Did you think these things just fall out of the sky on a silver platter? I wish.

Honestly, it sure would be a lot easier if it were a Simon and Garfunkel song.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:37 PM | Permalink

Its been a while since I have updated the world on anything and I figured now may be a good time. There's no reason for that. I have no great announcements, no powerful observations, and no funny stories. It has simply been a while and I don't want to get rusty.

We traded the 1997 Saturn SL2 last week. For two hundred thousand miles it was a stalwart companion, great mileage, few breakdowns, utilitarian, and almost invisible in the crowd. The ten thousand miles after the two hundred thousand have been fraught with chaos and strife. We quickly realized that we were making a car payment every month on repairs and we were getting on a first name basis with the AAA guy. Time for an upgrade.

There was much research done. We love the Aptera but it isn't available on the east coast yet. We rented a Ford Edge and it was "teh sex" (whatever that is), the problem there was it was so new that there wasn't a good supply of used ones on the market yet. We rented a RAV-4 but found it wanting...mostly in the comfort area. We'd done eleven years of "economy" and we both felt we could do with a little compromise. I wanted an Avitar, but that didn't fly. It is stylish and great on gas, but there's that whole what to drive in poor weather question I didn't have an immediate answer for. Along similar lines there is the Can Am Spyder, the weather factor is completely overwhelmed by the cool factor. Plus hey, the price isn't bad either.

We did much research using a variety of tools before finally deciding that what we needed was a crossover vehicle with a couple of years and a couple of miles on it that was comfortable and not a gas hog. We will augment this with specialty vehicles as needed. We already have a truck (and something of an obligation to keep it because we have no other friends with a truck, and everyone needs a friend with a truck). We have life itself. What we needed was something that did everything else. We chose the Nissan Murano.

I was initially at a loss for a name, but we quickly discovered that the Murano was completely filled with these "troublesome little nooks" that I loved so much. So it was decided. I dubbed the "Firefly", and it was good.

I got a good price on the Saturn as well. Once I had it detailed I doubled its value and the $250.00 we got will probably go towards a warranty on the Murano or something. I don't believe in taking chances and I don't believe in coincidences.

Life is good.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:31 AM | Permalink

After last night sitting in a parking lot removing my left front tire, again, to put the belt back on, again, I decided that today would be the day I took the car in to be fixed. I never like taking the car in when I don't know exactly what's wrong, because I like to know the difficulty level and ball park cost before putting it in. However, I'm sick and darned tired of the belt popping off because one of the pulleys occasionally freezing up just long enough to put tension on the belt, tug the tensioner, and free up suddenly causing a a pop and off with the belt.

So today is the day! Transfer some of the tools etc over to the truck. Now we'll take the truck to the gas station to get the in bad need of being replaced tires filled with air. The truck doesn't start....damn. Acts like the battery, pop the hood, oh look, corrosion on the battery. Brush off the terminals and jump start. OK, we should be good now. Off to get air.

We leave the truck running, turn the car off, put air in the truck tires. Go to restart car. Guess what jumps off. My blood pressure can now be measured in PSI. Screw this noise, call AAA. We have an hour wait, so we turn the truck off. On a whim we check the truck again. Yup. Didn't start. So now we are at a convenience store with two non-working vehicles. I go inside and buy Murphy a 40.

I am pretty sure the battery is good but the terminals could use some cleaning. Cleaning the terminals I am shocked to find that the stock terminal clamps are pretty crappy and in this case completely worn out. On the negative post, it is even broken. I go back into the convenience store and buy a package of hose clamps. Once the post and wires were clean of corrosion, I used the hose clamps to tighten the wires on the battery terminals. Worked like a charm. Who's the man? McGuiver for teaching me to think outside of the box.

AAA shows up, and tows the car in a large spiral to the AAA service center. They can get to the Saturn today, cool. Now to go get the terminals fixed, and buy a set of tires, and check to see if the wheels are safe and sound. (They are rusted enough that I think the previous owner drove it on the beach.) The man at the AAA desk says, "Hey, you know we do that too."

So I'm sitting in the waiting room right now of the AAA service center in the most comfortable waiting room chairs ever created. I have wireless access, I'm walking distance from a Starbucks. This ain't a bad way to spend a really crappy morning.

Course.....I haven't paid the bill yet...

Mental note, the Fairlane now has a greatly boosted priority level. Sure it gets 16 stylish miles to the gallon, but two working vehicles are clearly not enough for the two of us when both end up in the shop at once. Hey, it will cost less than a replacement vehicle, and way more styling than an econo-box.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:06 AM | Permalink

Today was a day marked by one of man's lesser know noble pursuits "improvisation". The plan was to fix the water break and continue on with the list. Before breakfast this morning the plan went swimmingly. I put on a pot of beef ribs for my dinner. Then I put on a pair of work gloves and I commenced to shoveling. I now have a partial mote around the front of the house in front of yesterday's water break. The dirt I dug from the mote I added to the wall of yesterday's toils. I also have blisters on my right hand the likes of which I hadn't seen since puberty. You can take that however you like.

Breakfast, three hot biscuits covered in strawberries topped with whipped topping, was had. It was as yummy as it sounds. So here I was ten AM, my hands near bleeding. Shoveling is out of the question for the rest of the day. Fine, I can get out the mower and do some mulching. By the time I got to the mower shed, I realized that it was too wet still for mulching. Before I realized it, I was, shovel in hand planting a dozen black walnuts. Should society collapse, my children will have a source of black die, and some highly nutritious nut meat. If society doesn't collapse my children will have black hands from getting the nut meat out, and some of the tastiest baked goods to be had.

From there I fell in on digging up an old Primestar dish. the company might not have survived the 90's and I have no idea what their service was like, but I will say this for them. They put the dishes in for the long haul. I dug until I hit concrete, I dug around the concrete. I broke a two by four in three places trying to use it to break the thing lose. This would be a job for a 4X4 and a chain but it was wet out, and the tires on the truck are getting a little thin. I had no desire to do all that work getting the truck into place with the chain only to slide across the surface of the ground frictionlessly. So I dug some more and finally decided to quit. My right hand was hurting and I needed some water.

While drinking my water and nursing my weaknesses, I noticed that the bumble bees were hard at work trying to tear my porch down. So I waged war against the bees with a tub of grease. I think I packed enough grease in every hole. I'll know tomorrow.

Today would be a perfect day being all wet and all to move those cedars, however for the moment I should avoid any more shovel work. Maybe I'll take a nap. Yeah, you know that actually sounds like a swell idea. Be back later.

Later: After my nap, I sent the beef ribs through the BBQ sauce and across the flames. Then I played a little Unreal Tournament while I waited for the sauce to caramelize. Oh joy! Oh Rapture! I could not eat more than seven at a standing. That leaves one lonely rib taunting me. victory will be mine. I just need to rest up first. Once the beef broth cools I'll skim off the tallow and make my soup. This I will freeze. I am not feeling soup right now. Heck I can't even polish off the last rib right now.

I'm feeling the urge to mark something off my list. I suppose I should put my pants back on, waddle outdoors and give it another go. No shovel this time. I'm serious.

Annoyingly useless Primestar dish, you now face The Tick. I had been thwarted earlier, but I am not the kind of guy to stay thwarted long. Clever monkeys took a lesson from the Egyptians. Creating a false door, or in this case a false concrete slab. Mortal men would have gotten the first foot thick slab out of the way and finding it was for nothing would give up. I am not mortal men. I came at it from the west side, and it mocked me. No one mocks me from the west like that. I went to the north side and it mocked me no more. I took a victory lap around the back yard dragging my prize, eighteen inches of forbidden concrete wrapped around the base pole of an annoyingly useless Primestar dish. I thought briefly of taking the receiver module as a trophy, but I am not a man to take trophies. They just end up cluttering up the place and need constant dusting. But I was left with a hole. What to do...what to do. I could use this hole to place a time capsule so when future space men opened up the hole to see the surprise left from the past they would find me. It was a good plan. So I filled the hole with the shattered pieces of the dish itself and covered that with shattered concrete and less shattered dirt. I'll show those future spacemen who was boss.

Now I'm all tired and sweaty again. Good thing I've been wearing the same cloths since Friday. Can you imagine the laundry load this would have created otherwise? Think I'll break out an ice cold cider and savor my victory. But only one, The conquering heroine returns tonight and I have to pick her up in the boro at Midnight tonight.

Its 5pm and the thunderstorms from the west are right on schedule. I guess I'll upload now. If you are keeping score at home, I completed nine of seventeen tasks on my list. Also, if by chance on Sunday evening right around 6pm you think you may have heard, right at the edge of hearing, a wail of heartfelt angst and despair...that was me. It means the water break is still broken.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:11 PM | Permalink

I was dreaming that the corgi and the three cats were performing a cover of Motley Crew's "Cum on Feel the Noiz". It was really awful. They had no harmony whatsoever, and the dog didn't even know the lyrics. Finally I woke up. Unfortunately the cacophony didn't end there. The four animals were camped outside the bedroom door demanding that my lazy butt get up and put food in their waiting bellys. It was 10am and I was really worried about what moving was going to be like. I started slowly being careful not to make any sudden movements. No soreness. Cool. Who knew bananas and cider were such magical foods.

Satisfied I wouldn't find myself in excruciating pain, I shut the animals up with their breakfast. I then put on a pot of coffee and a pot of country style pork ribs. Breakfast for me doesn't begin until after the coffee is finished. Or at the very least I'm halfway through my last cup.

By the time I was ready to go out and begin working it was noon. Noon you say? I've wasted half the day away! Well, yes and no. I am in what I will optimistically call "amazingly poor physical condition". I know that it will take only a few hours of toil to completely destroy me. Would I rather lay panting in the shade of the front porch in broad daylight with hours of good daylight to go, or would I rather find myself laying panting in the shade of the front porch at dusk? I vote dusk. That way it at least feels like I've put in a full day of work.

Some see the glass half full, others half empty, I prefer to see free refills.

This is what I started with.

First thing I figured I ought to do is get the leaves out. Time to get the mower and the bagger. The mower had a dead battery so instead I got a battery charger and drop cord...then I got a rake. It turned up all the things I thought it would. Big black lizards with yellow racing stripes, little gray frogs, and tiny brown snakes. Those who know me know that snakes and I do not get along. As a child the sight alone of a snake would awaken my mutant powers of speed and teleportation. It also sent me into a blind panic. As I have grown I have slowly gone from always giving the snake right of way to what is now, the opinion that I'm here and you have to move on. I have shoulders. I win. If the snake disagrees, I'll still let him have his way of course. But I don't kill them. I'm soft hearted I guess. I'm sure if I was given a reason to kill a snake I would. Like if I were bitten. I would kill it before my heart exploded. The poison wouldn't stand a chance. My final thoughts would be of exploding and killing every snake in a quarter mile radius.

It was a good day. The lizards went away, the frogs went away, the snakes went away, and the leaves went away. Well, the leaves went away from the immediate area I was working in. Step two required a shovel. I still hadn't quite worked out which side of the water break the planters would go. I sort of wished my dad was there to lend me his advice. Probably his advice would be to get some dynamite and put in a real garden and not mess around with stupid flower boxes. Quickly I realize though, after digging up shovel full after shovel full of worms, if my dad had been there we would have filled a gallon pail with worms and made fast to the river where he would wage war against the river monsters great and small. On second thought, probably better he wasn't here.

I quickly realized that this project would require four more window planters, which will wait until pay day so I can figure out what to put in them. I opened up my giant bag of organic dirt to notice that it warned against using it in planters. Crap. I also noticed where it said not to touch the soil and to wear garden gloves. Crap. Literally. It is organic after all. Don't worry, I didn't get any on me!

I realized that I needed a break. I also needed a couple of things so I headed for the store to get the stuff I needed. On the way there I drank a bottle of water, on the way back I drank a bottle of hydrating sports drink. Once back I did the finishing touches on the last of the work I intended to do today. It was 4pm, 85 degrees in the shade, 83 degrees indoors. I sat down on the porch with a cider and I surveyed my hard work. I got out my list of seventeen items to accomplish this weekend and I marked off numbers six and seven. Mayhaps this is a multi-weekend task list.

Here's what I ended up with. Looks like crap don't it.

It really needs a truck full of pine bark mulch I can't afford. I will instead use the leaf mulch I will make with the lawn mower tomorrow. Yes, I know, bad idea, but cut me some slack I'm making lemon aid here.

The thunderstorm rolled in at 5pm. I sent a second cider down to see what happened to the first cider and I came inside to write this and get it published. Once done, I'll go back to the porch and watch the storm a while and cool off. My blisters have blisters. Worse yet, most of them are on my right hand. I do all my favorite things with my right hand. The computer mouse you pervs! I'm far too and hot tired to do anything else. I may have to call on a third cider to make sure the first and second are safe and well.

At any rate, during the hour and ten minutes it has taken me to upload these photos, I have had a first hand opportunity to see how my new water break faired. To sum up: I think I made it worse. So here's a plant stand with a gnome sleeping in it.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:51 PM | Permalink

With Sara off conquering Florida, I found I would have a few days to myself to do whatever. My first thought of course was to do nothing. My second thought was that I do that every day. Sara's gone for three days and I should do something I haven't done in a long time. Something that won't get me arrested, won't get me divorced, and maybe get me out of the house a little.

So today, being Friday, I played hooky from work. Yeah, it wasn't all that spontaneous. I announced my intention to play hooky on Tuesday during a staff meeting. That night I bought a family pack of country style pork ribs for my weekend. First thing this morning when I woke up, eight in the morning, I think. I made up a pot of coffee and I sat outside on the porch and I surveyed all that was before me and I let a plan form. Then I went shopping.

You can't make an omelet if you don't break a few eggs. If eggs were dollars I broke a whole bunch of them. However, being my father's son, I shopped twice, purchased once, and had a good lunch. I said I was going to do stuff that I couldn't otherwise do with Sara home. So, not only did I shop in stores without buying anything, I had a lunch buffet. Oh I am such the rebel.

My starting plan was to do some square foot gardening in boxes to the left and right of the front porch. The best boxes I could find for the job were nearly $40.00 each. So to stay in budget the best I could do was maybe buy two boxes so at least it would remain symmetrical. I suppose every month I could add two more, and then by winter I could have my whole garden finally in the ground. But there is also this pesky problem I'm having with drainage. OK, new task, I need to do something about my drainage problem. Water from the driveway shouldn't be able to wash down the driveway, up the ramp and deposit red clay on my doormat. It shouldn't but it does, and I need to fix that too.

New plan. Lets see if we can fix the drainage problem with a garden. Dad always said that if man made it, man could fix it. I'm not sure if man was totally responsible for my drainage problem, but they had enough of a hand in it that I felt like I had a fair shot at fixing it, or at the very least, not making it worse.

When I got home from a really relaxing day of shopping, eating, and planning, I still had two hours before I had to be at fencing. That gave me time to install a couple of shelves in the man cave, organize that, and what do you know, I still have time to do one other small task.

I chose the task "pave the end of the walk". The ramp to the house ends and the original builders put in some round flat concrete stones to bridge the gap between the end of the planking and the drive way proper. Due to the fact that the slats on the ramp ran diagonally I had a polygon shape to fill with something. I found some really cool oddly shaped concrete blocks roughly sixteen inches on its longest side. On the display they fit together like natural looking puzzle pieces. The display made them look really awesome, they were four dollars each. I only needed four so what the heck. I realized that this would mean there would be blank spots around. In the display they had neatly cut the pieces to fit in their display. I had nothing to cut concrete with besides an old splitting ax with a busted handle. Not a masonry saw, but way way cheaper than a masonry saw.

First I would need to dig out some of that dirt that has washed into the space so I can get a good flush fit. The entire place I live was carved by glacial movement. I know this because you can't put a shovel in the ground without hitting rocks. Sure, four paving stones, multiplied by all those lose rocks turned an easy job into a much more difficult one. Plus three of the four blocks had to be cut to fit. As you can imagine, with the tools I had that didn't go as well as one would hope. By the time I was finished I was borderline overheated, and exhausted. I sat under the porch nursing a bottle of water and surveying my accomplishment. I was tired. Real tired. Then Mario messages me.

He can't make fencing tonight, I will need to solo his class. Why oh why did I pick up that shovel? I left early for fencing. I had some small projects there to deal with too. On the way I picked up a big Gateraid, and a big bottle of water. I was going to need to hydrate if I planned to teach saber that night.

I had just put the finishing touches on my fencing cabinet work when my students arrived. The lesson was absolutely awesome and I managed to leave fencing more energized than I had arrived. Now to Bojangles, I wanted chicken, I really wanted the biscuits to go with strawberries for my breakfast Saturday morning. It was eight PM and I had managed to find the one Bojangles in all of creation who was out of chicken. How does one even do that? You're a frik'n chicken place for heaven's sake!

My back up plan was to go to food lion and pick up a box of chicken and two cans of refrigerated biscuits. As fate would have it, they had no chicken either, so I picked up three bananas for dinner, a six of hard cider for those hot evenings of surveying my hard work, and two cans of refrigerated biscuits. Apparently Sara prayed that I wouldn't do anything stupid this weekend while she was gone. I guess that chicken counts as stupid. Damn.

At home, I ate my bananas, drank a cider and played a game before hobbling sorely to bed. Saturday was going to be a hard day.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:33 PM | Permalink

It is Sunday. Sunday means that the coffee taste better and I call my parents. The coffee tastes better on Sundays because that is the one day a week I can actually sit down and enjoy it. Monday through Friday coffee is my drive to work ritual. Saturday is a day where anything can happen. Sunday is, 90% of the time, the day where I can get up put on a pot of coffee and sit down with my first mug, where at 8am on the dot I call home just like I've done every Sunday since 1992 when I left my homeland to seek my fortune in the Piedmont.

Once off the phone I start up my other Sunday morning ritual of Celtic or bluegrass listening. That ritual began some years back when there was a bluegrass radio show on one of the local stations. The show went off the air but by then the ritual was established and I'm not going to let a thing like Buddy Michaels' show going away to change a good thing into a bad thing. Sunday is the day of the fiddle, and some day, sooner rather than latter I'll be practicing on the fiddle during this time as well.

Alright, we've established my Sunday, lets crack open the old anxiety closet and see what's on tap for today. Sunday is the only day of the week where I can, without guilt, explore my various and sundry emotional boogums. I've got a job to do the other six days and need to be on the clock as best as I can possibly be. Lately I haven't been very successful at that. So, lets do something light today shall we?

My mother mentioned that an aunt and uncle of mine came for a visit the day before. I hate that I miss those visits, as he's the one uncle I can relax around. He's not judgmental. Opinionated yes, judgmental no. It is always a relaxing visit with him. Plus he loves to eat as much as I do. The difference is, he's incapable of gaining weight, where on the other hand I gain weight for him and others just by being in the vicinity.

While we were talking about what they ate and how good it was, mom mentioned that my cousin...my professional writer cousin, had stumbled upon the humble blog of yours truly. Her voice was strained, but it didn't really sink in until after I had uttered the words, "Oh good!" For those following at home, mom is a nine on the Eneigram chart. Called "The Peacemaker", nines work extremely hard to avoid all conflicts. They don't vocalize opinions, and if they do have an opinion they will only verbalize it if the feel the group already agrees.

She taught...OK...tried to teach me that one should keep their opinions to themselves. The lesson, (obviously) didn't stick with me. My opinion on the matter is that if you keep your mouth shut all the time you allow yourself to be a victim. History teaches that "going with the flow" is one of the greatest sins of man. On this, clearly, mom and I would disagree completely, if we could actually have this conversation. So mom isn't what we would call a regular reader. Occasionally she stumbles upon something, but she won't read much because she doesn't want to feel humiliated by what I say.

So after saying the words "Oh good!" I had to immediately add, "I hope it was nothing that would be too embarrassing for you." Her response was as tactful as she knew how to make it. "I think she found one of your opinions." Translated into English, that statement means, "I can't believe that you say those things in public, and worse yet, on the internet where everyone can see it. Now your successful cousin with the three children has told your aunt and uncle and sooner or later the whole family is going to know my secret shame". OK, in all fairness I may have embellished the part about the secret shame a little. If you are reading this, it is no secret, but don't tell mom.

How do I feel about that? That's what my shrink is going to ask me next week. I hate that question. I was never really good with non concrete questions. It puts me on the spot. I have to find words to articulate intuition and words are poor tools to describe the feeling I get from seeing how everything works together and feeling strongly about something that I can't prove. All I can do is make my prediction of the outcome, and let time prove or disprove it.

How do I feel about my mom being humiliated by my publishing my thoughts, feelings and opinions for the world to see? I feel hungry. I feel ambivalent. My eyes burn. I want to fight. I want to flee. How do I feel about my mom being humiliated by my publishing my thoughts, feelings, and opinions for the world to see?

Same as I feel about everything else.

I know why I do it, I know why it is the right thing to do, I know why it hurts her, I know that where it may close some doors, it also opens others. I know that when the dust settles, I will have gained more than I have lost. I know all this because that is what my gut tells me. Only I can't prove it, I can't articulate it, and it frustrates me that I can't communicate it.

And that is why I started doing it to begin with.

Every person who agrees with me, every person who calls me an idiot, every person who finds a warm spot in their heart for me, every person who wishes I'd just shut up and go to hell, formed that opinion based on information I was able to articulate to them.

And that is what the past nine hundred and fifteen blog entries have been about. In exchange for being the black sheep of my clan, I will one day learn to understand the question "How do you feel" while being able to articulate an answer. So say I left my homeland to seek my fortune, say I banished myself, say I left to avoid being banished. It is little more than a label on a door. There are always other doors.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:20 AM | Permalink

They say that trouble comes in threes. If that's true perhaps I should go ahead and crawl under my desk now and wait for the inevitable.

1. You may already know about the car.

2. Dad's cancer which they thought they might have knocked out apparently evolved instead. Now they don't know if they should do more chemo, remove everything in his throat entirely or offer it voting rights in time for the May primary. (My guess is it will vote Republican.)

Dudes, its only Thursday as I write this. That means I have one more day of work and Saturday to get through wondering what is going to happen now. I'll bet you are wondering what the date has to do with it. I don't know...its arbitrary. I have proclaimed that the third event has until the end of the week to occur or it loses its right to occur entirely.

What else am I supposed to do? I suppose I could ignore it and treat every day as a new and precious thing with no connection to the night on either side. Then when the shoe falls I could just put my fingers in my ears, call it a random chance and go on day by day taking all the other random chances square in the nose.

That sounds way too much like walking blindfolded through a field of rakes.

So stop me, stop me, from giving up
stop me, stop me
from taking the world, oh for what it is
a state of peaceful shit

-Stop Me by The Booze Brothers (One of my very favorite Celtic rock bands.)

"Mildly depressed" can easily manifest as "kind of pissy" in the six. So I can smile a little when the spell checker suggest that "pissy" might be "prissy" or "sissy" misspelled. Smug git spell checker is spoiling for a rumble. The only people that get to question my manhood to my face are me, and maybe my urologist.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:55 AM | Permalink

For the second time since being married to Sara we opted to have Arby's for dinner. For the second time since being married the car broke down in the parking lot of an Arby's For those of you who believe in coincidence you are probably thinking "Wow, what are the chances?" For those of us who don't believe in coincidence we are thinking, "Huh, I wonder why that happened." To make matters more interesting in both cases events occurred to cause the car's belt to come off. In the first case the tensioner broke and took the belt with it, thus making putting the belt back on impossible. This time the belt came off whole. The tensioner seemed fine, so perhaps one of the other pulleys are having intermittent issues.

When dealing with any problem dad always taught me to explore the simplest answers first. OK. So why would someone lay a curse on me that caused my car to break down every time I went to an Arby's. That's just crazy talk! I have eaten at Arby's alone before and had no car trouble at all.

So why would someone lay a curse on me that caused my car to break down every time I went to Arby's with family. That includes all of the constants. Saturn, Sara, Arby's, and Me. I can't imagine why someone would lay such a specific curse upon me. I have always been kind to the folks behind the counter. They have the power to spit in my food if I cross them. I also have no preference for the ethnic group that prepares my food (unlike some I've blogged about recently).

Other clues? On the other side of the parking lot someone else was having car trouble. I should have found out what they were having problems with. That could have been an important clue. Since someone else was having car trouble at the same time in the parking lot of an Arby's perhaps I am not the target of the curse. I wonder if the Arby's symbol, seen recently hovering over the heads of customers in their commercials is also some ancient and pissed off symbol? It seems likely that someone would have noticed that by now. Ancient tombs or ancient tablets inscribed with a roast beef chain's logo would have made the news somewhere. This is probably not it.

It could be an Arby's competitor. Some company who wants to make people feel negative about eating at Arby's. It would have been easier and more powerful to make the people who eat at Arby's sick. This means that the ones responsible are ethical. That rules out most of the fast food world. I'm left with Subway, Chiplote, and Chick-fil-A off the top of my mind.

Arby's and Chiplote are not competitive, they don't serve the same foods or target the same demographic. That leaves Subway and Chick-fil-A. Subway is owned by Doctor's inc. Doctors wouldn't want to hurt people. But they are also a group that doesn't do "belief" they do their provable facts with questionable chemicals that fix symptoms with side effects that are generally mild and probably not worse then the symptom they are trying to suppress.

Chick-fil-A is a Christian run organization. They wouldn't hurt people as a first choice. They choose belief over fact. Hoodoo is a Christian form of magic that could work exactly like I have experienced. The company and Arby's both target the same demographic. Arby's sells salads and chicken sandwiches. They also sell yummy roast beef sandwiches as their primary product. Chick-fil-A's motto is "Eat more Chicken" and is illustrated by terrorist bovines. I think we have a winner here.

The spell is clever. It doesn't cause EVERY car to break down that goes to Arby's. First the car must have the entire family in it. Then the spell targets the weakest part of the car, nudging it towards failure. If the part is already in bad enough shape the spell is enough to cause it to fail completely. If the weakest link is strong enough nothing happens. This means that for most people there wouldn't appear to be a curse at work. This is the work of a very clever root doctor.

I love roast beef sandwiches as much as the next guy, but I just can't afford the car repairs right now.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:44 AM | Permalink

I have had two non-western practitioner's in a row tell me that I need to slow down my through processes, take some time to switch off, or at the very least enter stand-by mode. Thus I am going to start going for a walk every day. I know they said "meditate", but I'm a long away from two semesters of "how to breathe". Both agreed that walking would work, and both agreed that a change of pace like fiddle lessons would probably help too.

Today was the first walk. No phone. No predetermined route. I went where my feet took me. One of the things I like to do when I drive (that's MY meditation time) is to put on some music. Lately my taste has been exclusively Celtic and Celtic rock, some of the bands I listen to call themselves Celtic Punk, but I would disagree. (A conversation for another entry).

My MP3 player has a random function. Most do, but mine is different. Most assume you mean "Play at random each song from the play list once. If set to repeat, at the end of the play list, start the list over". My MP3 player plays a little more randomly than that. It keeps no memory of what it just played. It can and has played the same song more than once. I like this feature. I have always looked for signs in portents in those things thought of as "random". I have little belief in this superstition known as "coincidence".

Today I heard; "Tennessee Stud", "Silk Road", "Long Journey Home", "The Whiskey Never Lies" (Twice in a row), "Dear", "Redemption Song", "Shindig", and "Follow the Lady".

By some coincidence three of the songs were covers with guest star performers from the same CD. The first three songs were about traveling. Then a song about the honesty that alcohol can cause twice in a row. This was followed by a lullaby about love and longing, a song about freedom, an instrumental named for a party, and a song about chasing your dreams.

Interesting...

When I returned, Kimi came by to ask a question and noted with some concern that I had dark circles under my eyes. It must have been all that sunlight, green grass, and fresh air- three things I am not all that accustomed to. Especially 41 minutes worth continuously while walking.

The western practitioner's, by the way, all seem to think if I take one of several pills and spend an hour in the gym every day I won't get any worse and may even see some improvement.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:39 PM | Permalink

131,268 People

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:26 AM | Permalink

I am putting it here to make it real. When dad got sick I was already under a lot of pressure and he was the final straw. However, with his miraculous recovery, and the falling into place of so many other things I can put my own health back up on the list of things to stay awake at night worrying about.

For that I need goals. Oh look! There's one now. The North Carolina State Games are in Greensboro this year, and Fencing is on the agenda. I can do that. Especially if my only goal is to show up and fence. Just to make sure there is no added pressure I will fence the fun one epee and not my serious one foil.

If I don't leave in an ambulance, I win! That means I've got from now until June 17th to get myself into some semblance of fitting into my gear form. Fighting form is just too much effort and it makes me tired thinking about it. If I can show up and fence and my gear fits, and I don't leave in an ambulance, life is good.

Crap, that means I have to move doesn't it?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dad called me last night. That in and of its self is something of a miracle, in that he can now speak well enough to be understood on the telephone. Typically we limit our phone calls to Sunday morning at 8am, but he called me last night excited.

When they left the oncologist office they stopped by wally world to pick up a few things. One of the things they picked up was a box of ice cream sandwiches. It was hardly fair since he hasn't had solid food since December. Best he's been able to do was a donut and only then on a Monday morning when he's been off of radiation for a couple of days. His food comes from a can and is dumped into a tube which is installed in his stomach. Those of you who do the Slimfast/metafast/ensure thing know that if you drink that nutritional crap long enough you start to smell like it and it never smells like a good thing.

On the way home he just had to try to eat an ice cream sandwich. It went down. So he had another, which also went down. He couldn't taste it, but what the heck he could eat!!! That night he had a dinner of hog fish, stewed potatoes, and washed it down with a coke. It was his first meal since December and he felt like celebrating, so he called me.

As you can imagine it has taken a certain weight off of me. I can only worry about a certain finite number of things at once. When dad hit the top of the list my own personal health fell off of the bottom. Honestly, I think I have been eating on his behalf. Now my own health is back on the chart and what the hell did I do to my self....

I look like I ate a cow, I feel like an abandoned car, and I sorely need a haircut. But, what the heck, dad's good so I'm good.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I finally figured out something that had been nagging mildly at me each and every time I went home to the coast. I had always just assumed that I preferred it there because it was home, and that was that. But it kept nagging at me anyway. The feeling was either I had the wrong answer or an incomplete answer.

I was sitting on the back deck gazing up at the night sky with a cup of coffee in my hand and my wife on my head set. The constellations were laid out before me clear from horizon to horizon. I did like it better on the coast. Yes, it was the salt air, yes it was the sandy gray soil, yes it was the fact that I was born and raised there, but it was much more. It occurred to me that the places I was most at home were those places with long horizons. The only place I felt near as relaxed, was out west on the great plains. My soul craves open sky. Though it had never occurred to me before, the 'boro is just a little claustrophobic. The views I like best are those with the most visibility and the most visible sky. I am happy to visit the mountains but I do not truly live until I see the great wide open on all sides. I know to that if I moved to the plains eventually I would feel the nagging again. The sky would be right, but the air and the soil would be wrong.

It was verified driving north along the coast from Newport to Elizabeth city along highway 17. I hadn't felt so natural and whole in a long time. The only thing missing was the Fairlane, and the unobstructed views afforded by the lack of a B piller.

It makes no difference though, the money is here, my friends are here, my life and my wife are all here. I'm not going anywhere, but at least I know what that odd pull is now. Now matter where you go, there you are. Best to make peace with it.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:57 PM | Permalink

I Am A: True Neutral Human Sorcerer (5th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-11

Constitution-14

Intelligence-11

Wisdom-14

Charisma-11


Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (23)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (23)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXX (4)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Chaos --- XXXX (4)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Evil ---- (0)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Elf ------ XXXX (4)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Halfling - XXXXXX (6)
Half-Elf - XXXXXX (6)
Half-Orc - XXXX (4)

Class:
Barbarian - (-6)
Bard ------ (0)
Cleric ---- (0)
Druid ----- (-8)
Fighter --- XXXX (4)
Monk ------ (-19)
Paladin --- (-17)
Ranger ---- (0)
Rogue ----- (-4)
Sorcerer -- XXXXXX (6)
Wizard ---- XX (2)

I think I found the ties most interesting.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the event this is my last entry, I just want to say, its been OK I guess.

It all began with a simple request, try to get rid of some clutter before I go to the coast to spend some time with my ailing father.

Carpentry, we meet again. To get rid of the clutter is a multi step process that begins with putting up a shelf such that I can move some stuff, so I can move some stuff, so I can move some stuff so I can get the clutter out of the living room. Currently I live in a pile. Everything I could possibly need is within my fingertips. The downside of this is of course, I can't move. I'm trapped by my own convenience. It is time to organize so things that I don't need this minute can be put out of the way.

I used some empty coffee cans from work to sort the nails, wood screws, sheet metal screws, bolts, nuts washers, and other various bits these I put into the shed, an organization project for another day. Then I went to the local home improvement shop to buy the shelf and hardware I need to put it up. I chose my shelf, and bought a kit which was expensive but, looked like it had everything I would need to do an excellent shelf hanging job to stand the test of time. It takes an hour round trip to drive there.

I got home and discovered that my kit didn't have screws. I walked to the shed to get screws, and walked back. I sure could use a level. I walked to the shed and walked back. Where is my measuring tape? I walked to the shed and I walked back. There I have what I need. Quickly the shelf was installed and I put a few things on it to begin the cleaning process. Not heavy things, not books or sewing machines, or tool boxes, but boxes of pens and pencils and little dividers with papers in it, manuscripts, and odd school bits that Sara and I have collected over the years. A box of sewing supplies. thread, needles, scissors, etc. A plastic box filled with crayons and colored pencils.

Then there was this strange noise, I had just enough time to look up before I found a plastic box of sewing supplies had hit me full in the face. I staggered to the side and stumbled into a plastic box of colored pencils. Plastic shards went everywhere. Good thing I still had on my shoes from all that walking back and forth from the shed.

The shelf was lolling to the side. Some of those parts the kit ought to have but didn't were absolutely necessary and the proof was smashed at my feet. The shock and impact of the sewing box hitting me in the face really pissed me off. I don't piss off easily but when I do, it requires some deep breathing. I stood there breathing for some time while one by one each box slid off the shelf into the floor. Each falling item added to the amount of time I needed to breathe.

Eventually I was to the point I felt safe to drive so I got back into the car and went back to the local home improvement store to buy more things to put the shelf up with. I got them and had the same clueless cashier who I had earlier in the morning. I guess she didn't recognize me because this time I wasn't smiling and friendly. I was frowning and I had no more small talk to offer.

Only one thing to do in a situation like this. Bojangles, Killian's, and a pizza for Sara so I could have enough Bojangles. This looks like at least an eight piece problem. I won't be able to have a Killian's until she comes back. I'm weird like that. I don't want to have a drink when I think I might be needed, so I never drink when she isn't around. When she comes around, oh yes, there will be drink.

I got home and tried to ignore the new mess and began again to hang a shelf. There was an odd tingling feeling in my lips that I tried to ignore. Likely I was biting them trying not to scream and couldn't be bothered to check. I measured 12 inches from the ceiling on one side and 12 inches from the ceiling on the other and With a level I went marking and drilling holes in the drywall from one side to the other. Each hole was level with the two holes previous. By the time I got to the other end, the 1/4 inch holes were now 10 inches from the ceiling and not 12.

The tingling which by this time had moved down my arms, was moving into my legs.

There is a term for situations when you discover that though the world is level, symmetry is not within your grasp. It is "Ha ha ha you stupid fat slobby idiot."

There is a strange roaring sound in my ears and I have this incredible desire to go have a lie down.

I am off to do that now, but first I'd better take a handful of aspirin. I heard somewhere that aspirin helps.

Did I mention that I seem to be cursed at carpentry?

yeah.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:27 PM | Permalink

Poem 61 by Steven Crane

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.

My Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator scores are as follow.
Type 1, The Reformer: 10
Type 2, The Helper: 15
Type 3, The Achiever: 15
Type 4, The Individualist: 18
Type 5, The Investigator: 19
Type 6, The Loyalist: 24
Type 7, The Enthusiast: 13
Type 8, The Challenger: 8
Type 9, The Peacemaker: 22

That makes me a six "The Loyalist" with a wing of five "The Investigator". Note also my next highest score of type nine "The Peacemaker" as well as my exceptionally low score on type 8 "The Challenger" (at least I won't explode on throttle up.)

My IVQ ( Instinctual Variant Questionnaire Results) are
Self Preservation 62 Social 46 Sexual 42

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:48 PM | Permalink

Tonight we went to Captain George's all you can eat seafood buffet. Though it was the first time I've ever been here, it was a rematch situation for yours truly. The last time I faced an all you can eat seafood buffet I was suffering from severe heat related illness and I don't even remember how I did. In fact all I have to really mark the occasion is a large pilsner glass. I am told it had beer in it. I am also told I drank it.

Now don't get me wrong, since celebrating a birthday on the first of the month I've felt a new maturity about me. I mean for instance I can't even remember the last time I threw a chicken bone over my shoulder. OK, it was last Thursday, but still...

I started strong, a fried chicken thigh in honor of 200 years of southern evolution. A piece of prime rib because beef is what's for dinner. I skipped on the BBQ pork ribs. What! This is Virginia, they may claim the whole of American History, but they can't have pork. I rounded the plate out with fried shrimp, fried scallops, fried clam strips, deviled crab, crab cake, and a stuffed mushroom.

Plate two was more choosy, shrimp, fish, scallop, clam, crab, and macaroni and cheese. The plan was to go to plate three all king crab all the time, but it never happened. It was an act of extreme willpower that got plate two safe and sound down my gullet.

Meanwhile, Sara took her dear sweet time on her second plate. She went with all of the activity foods on her second plate. She mocked me. She mocked me plain and simple and there wasn't a thing I could do about it- up to and including dessert. I was defeated. The goal wasn't to eat more than Sara. The goal was to simply eat the $30.00 that the meal cost per person. I couldn't have possibly eaten more than $25 to $28 worth tops.

All I can do now, is to wallow in the hot tub in my shame, drinking wine and planning for next year. Maybe I should train or something, I'm not as young as I used to be.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:41 PM | Permalink

We called security at 2:30 in the morning because we couldn't sleep for the noise. It had been constant since we arrive at 10pm. The security person got the noise down to a dull roar which allowed us to sleep until about 6:30am when it all began again. We tried to be good neighbors while still not killing each other or them. It worked until about 10:30am when we had simply had more than any person could possibly take. The chandelier was swinging, and my coffee on the deck had been ruined by bread crumbs and crackers the heathens were throwing to the ducks and geese from the floor above. Signs everywhere read "do not feed the birds".

I was beyond words, so Sara called and begged for relief. They sent security again who was stunned to find out just how many of them there were on the floor above. He wrote it up and told us the management would be VERY unhappy with the numbers in each space above. I gathered this went beyond management preference and deep into fire code violation.
By 2:30 we were on the third floor of an entirely different building. At this point we were loopy from lack of sleep and lack of food. We were too tired for restaurants so we went to the grocery store and bought cooked food to eat in our room. Since then the only other noises I have heard are those damned kids, and then only when I go outside. I can live very happily with that.

Let the vacation begin...again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:37 PM | Permalink

We were fortunate enough to be offered some time in a coastal Virginia condo as a second anniversary present. We've been married eight years now, and we needed a vacation. On the way we stopped by Henry and David to spend a gift card and pick up some treats for our stay. We brought all of our non-refrigerated goods from home so as to save money. We figure, if it is a historic tourist destination there might be a markup on the necessities of life.

The road was good to us and we traveled well across it. The car's odometer hit 200,000 miles, and yes, there was cake. We stopped at a Western Sizzling steak house. Sara's don't do Golden Coral or buffets in general, I would do them exclusively if I could. Woody's love wondrous variety.

I have a rule of restaurants that states that if you want decent simple food at a good price, just follow the old people and eat where they eat. We were among the youngest customers in the place and it was amazing. Sara ordered from the menu and I had the buffet.

After I got my plate I discovered I was trapped between a culinary Cilla and Charybdis. On my left stacked two and a half feet high in a warming pan was a ziggurat of fried chicken. On my right an equally sized and shaped pile of barbecued ribs. What to do... What to do? It is at times like this I think on the advice given by Mae West; "When choosing between two evils, choose the one you've never tried before." So I filled my plate with both and headed back to my table. The rest of the meal was something of a blur. I have heard on TV people describe what it is to be high on drugs. This was just like that, only legal, socially acceptable, and less expensive. Plus I could drive legally afterwards.

We arrived at our destination an hour and a half later, and I was still full. Good times.

Upon check in we were scheduled to a voluntary free breakfast where we would be offered a "no high pressure" presentation on why we should be an owner and not a guest at their fine chain of resort destinations. Not sure I'll make that, loath though I am to miss a free meal. Any possibility of giving into temptation is gone, and below you'll find out why.

Once we found our room/suite/apartment we wandered around noticing that this place has more square footage than our own humble hovel in the woods. However, we couldn't dwell on it, as we had to get to the grocery store for that all important half and half. I won't drink my coffee black if there is anyway around it, I don't care how good the coffee is. In this case it is a bag of Mahogany from Caribou Coffee. On the way there and back, we talked about what we saw we liked and wondered how we were going to recreate it on our salaries.

We were back in the apartment at about 10pm. (It is over 1100 sq ft, what would YOU call it) We got in, put the groceries away and became aware that there was a stampede going on on the floor above us. There were children. There were a LOT of children. They were running the sidewalk above us back and forth, they were in the room above us, jumping up and down. There was yelling and other happy "army of screaming kid" noises. By about midnight the screaming died down to a dull roar and the troops were brought into the room where they all fifty or so of them began jumping up and down. It sounded like a morter barrage and we tolerated up until we could no longer stand it. We had to sleep sometime and they were simply not going to allow this to happen. It was 1:30 in the morning. We called security and asked them to quiet the horde. I pondered offering to duct tape the offenders to the ceiling or something, but I dismissed the idea because I didn't have enough duct tape for all of them.

Security arrived in less than five minutes. We invited him inside and over the din we asked if he could maybe help us with our problem. He was up there for five minutes and when he returned, the noise was cut by half. He said there were way more people (children and adults) than we could imagine and he was going to write a report, that may lead to their being asked to go. So here it is 2:14am as I type these words and the barrage has become nothing more than sporadic bombardments. I could sleep through that I suppose.

I just have to click "publish" and try.

Oh yeah, the street name? "Rochambeau"

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:40 AM | Permalink

Sure, it was a storm that killed 48, and I don't want to make light of that fact, but the weather brought me a good feeling. The air was warm and full of energy. It reminded me that it is time to put garden peas in the ground and maybe plant a black walnut or six.

It was a day for rolling down the windows and letting the warm breeze clear the cobwebs of stagnation and despair. It stirred up the dust and the emotions of the people around me. Just like lose paper on a desk in a breeze, I was surrounded by people who blew in the wind as I did. It was like flying.

Yes, the clouds were dark and ominous. Yes, the news carried death and destruction, but in the space of my arms it was a tiny paradise and I was glad for the distraction. It allowed me to see things about my self I had never noticed before. It made me think of the future and how I intend to shape it. It blew out some bad and hopefully some good. It also blew in contact from friends too far and too long out of contact.

It was a good day.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:22 AM | Permalink

Chasing, running, attacking, defending, fighting, hiding, these are my dreams. Every night is a new adventure and if I'm lucky I awake long enough to recognize that it has happened. Otherwise I awake with that odd sense that I ought to be chasing, running, attacking, defending, fighting, or hiding.

I would describe myself in my waking life as content. I have everything I need, and some of what I want, and that isn't a bad way to be. In most bad situations I can find a way to become content with it. It usually involves distraction, a book, a seat that faces the room without being an active part of the action in it, chicken, Cheerwine, a good cup of coffee, conversation with someone I both like and trust. Content is an easy state to attain, and its always enough.

My dreams last night were different and I awoke in time to realize it. In my dream I had everything I needed to the point that I didn't have to consider it. I had everything I wanted to the point that I couldn't think of anything I might want that I didn't have. (At the very least, I didn't think of anything I wanted that I didn't have.) I don't know how I came to be in this position, in my dream everything simply worked out that way. It was a natural series of events that lead me to be where I was. There was a feeling that went with it. I think it may have been pure joy. It was kinda cool. I've spent the morning wondering if anyone out there feels pure joy in real life. I hope so. I would like to think that such a thing was possible if events lined up just right for someone.

Weird thing is I still feel the urge to chase, run, attack, defend, fight or hide, only now the goal is to acquire joy.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:39 AM | Permalink

I am an IT generalist. Geek of all trades. Ever since I was a young child it was impressed upon me the importance of being a generalist and never specializing. The argument is that though the specialist always makes more money, they become pigeon holed to the point that if their specialty dries up they are completely sunk, type casted into a job description they cannot escape from.

The world of Information Technology (or "working with computers" for all you non-geeks) as an ocean of work that is as vast as it is deep. I have sailed the surface of most of it. Arguably the only parts of the sea I haven't sailed fully are programing and networking, though I can snoop around code and I can set up a home network, I have never worked doing either.

I have taken classes in deeper topics but would never test because certifications lead to being defined by those very pieces of paper, and I don't want to be defined by a certificate in a filing cabinet.

I am proud of being nimble and capable of picking up new and different things quickly. My problem is that I am about to run into a whole mess of sargassum and my best chance is to either dive under it by specializing, or leaving the pond entirely and getting into a different industry entirely. Both have their merits, but I'm leaning towards specialization. The money is way better than starting something else, and if the work dries up, I can always find a new non-IT ocean to dive in somewhere else.

Its a paradigm shift for me, but one I'm not too scared of. Its not the deep water that scares me, its the fact that I will be farther from the sky.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:35 PM | Permalink

We've of late been kicking around the idea of moving into town and giving up the 5 acres on the river and the 40 hours a month commuting to and from it. We would be giving up the low tax rate of the non-Guilford counties, and would be picking up the additional high tax rate of Greensboro city.

As we weighed the pro's and con's the other night over coffee suddenly my darling Sara made a statement which really took the wind out of the sails of urban movement. She said: "I'm not entirely sure you're civilized enough to move into Greensboro."

Wow... Its a true and telling statement. There is a kind of freedom is hard to find, and far few will ever know its joy. Am I really ready to give up peeing outdoors in the buff?

This will take some pondering.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Can't talk, up to my elbows in binary alligators.
Its upgrade time and the upgrade is downgrading me at every turn.
Letters, numbers, what does it all mean? http 500 is good right?
Loves me some command prompt, would you mind speaking a little slower please?
Coffee? Where's the coffee? I drank all the coffee? How can this be?
I dream in batch files. Woe is me!
Follow these instructions just like we wrote them. You did? Great!
Follow these instructions just like we wrote them. Except for page four.
Whoops. Our bad. Our fault. Got time for a conference call?
We're in a different time zone. Looks like I'm working late.
Ring! Ring! Gotta go again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:28 PM | Permalink

My nights have a pattern that goes something like this. We go to bed, I fall asleep first. After this point any hopes or dreams of a night of uninterrupted sleep are over. Forget it. Not mine. On the other hand, should I ever be allowed to breed, I will have the feeding schedule nicely imprinted, and well practiced. The rest of the night goes as follows.

At some point in the night the dog will want to go out and will start making doggie noises. Eventually this wakes Sara enough that she groans, hits, or kicks me awake. I get up and let the dog out. I lay down on the couch to sleep. The dog barks at the door. I get up and open the door. The dog didn't want in though, the dog just wanted backup. The dog now having backup runs off into the darkness to face whatever it is he needed backup for. Unamused, I go back to sleep on the couch. The dog comes to the door and barks to be let back in. This time he comes in. Repeat entire process two to three times a night.

Last night however, something else happened. Something interesting, something science-y. I go to the couch and start to move the orange blanket out of the way so I can lay down. Unknown to me however our orange cat is sleeping there already. My hand brushes the cat. ZAPP! Lightning springs from my hands to the cat. The cat is not amused. I am amused. I saw sparks!

I begin to take a real interest in petting the cat. Sparks are leaping between my hand and the cats fur to the point that it is illuminating the cat in the darkness. Not just one spark but a symphony of sparks, a tiny thunderstorm in my hand. This is awesome! For the cat, not so much. Tired of being the source of my pleasure, he wanders off to find a place to sleep where he won't get electrocuted.

Fine. Be that way.

I go to sleep on the couch. Continue loop.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:31 AM | Permalink

I'm not one to make resolutions for the new years. I've probably done it but I knew the whole time I was only setting myself up for failure. I love resolutions, I love the way the squeal when I ignore them and do what ever I want. I'm not one to do something I don't want to do, therefore there isn't anything I would actually want to stop doing on purpose. I have done something on accident and chosen not to do it again. But I like fried chicken, therefore I'm going to keep on eating it, to hell with the consequences. If I suddenly decide that the pleasure isn't worth the pain, I'll stop doing it. All this said, today I'm talking about what I am going to do about fencing in 2008.

I hope that before July I manage to renew my membership in the USFA. I have no interest in competition, but I like the magazine. I am going to return to the salle two nights a week. If I have the opportunity to do three nights a week, I hope I don't. I'd like to do something else also. Fiddle lessons come to mind. I've always wanted to play an instrument.

I also hope to eat less real food, and more simulated food product. It doesn't require cooking, doesn't take much time to eat, and cleans up easily. Plus shopping becomes a breeze. No thinking about menus, variety, or expiration dates. There will always be chicken of course. I like chicken and I can get that on the drive home.

As for fencing...well, yeah. Two nights a week, and no competition, that about sums it up.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:26 PM | Permalink

Back to work with me! Time to take my place as a cog among the gears of outrageous technology. Time to catch up on world events, web comics, and the lives of those around me. The days of watching seasons of television one boxed set at a time are done (for now).

One beauty of this is we are completely unaffected by the writer's strike. Instead of having to be in front of the boob tube at a given moment and discover it is a new episode or a rerun we sit in front of the boob tube and grind through episode after episode in order without commercial interruption. Be sure to hit pause if we go to the john, and please bring me a drink from the fridge on the way back. Hey? Isn't that why the writer's struck (striked?) in the first place? Not my problem, hate it for them. Truth be told it is obvious to me that the writers need to get a cut of the DVD sales. Duh. They wrote it. If they aren't striking for money for DVD sales then I hope its a good reason and not simply greed. My guess is it isn't greed, because studio's, distribution houses and groups like the RIAA have cornered the market on greed and there simply isn't enough greed to go around.

But I have not only digressed, I've derailed, in my devious desire to demean, those demons that demand dividends that belong to the artist.

...meanwhile back at the wheel... I've had some incubation time to think on what I'm going to do now. I'm not talking about what I'm going to do when I grow up. I still want to be a fencing coach who writes novels by day and fights crime as a caped and cowled crusader by night. Short term, you know, just to pay the bills until my duckies are lined up I thought I might spend a little time becoming educated enough to do the job I'm in. I'm not talking about being a specialist, I see no need to place my humble self into a career extinction scenario. I don't ever want to stop being a Jack of All Trades, but I think I might be a little more relaxed in the short term if I dug just a little deeper into skills of the moment.

Who can say, I may even have need of the skill boost when I start being a super hero. Its not like I'm quitting my day job right a way you know, just do it part time at first and on the weekends and work up to a full time writing, teaching, caped crusader role. Exploding ax heads and powered battle armor isn't cheep.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 6:03 PM | Permalink

Dudes, I'm bushed. As the official designated driver at last night's hoo ha courtesy of Cam and Steve I had fun of a different sort. I might even be the only person to remember the details, so I am free to make stuff as I see fit. That's fun!

Also fun, (eventually) was karaoke games until the wee hours of the AM. I am not the star player, usually I fight for the position of not last. Playing karaoke games with the handicap of having to be sober bites. When you're drinking, you are more relaxed and you feel you are better than you actually are. That boost to your confidence actually makes you better than you actually would be sober.

I was bad, I was not an American Idol, I knew I was not an American Idol, and that made me worse. Because I was sober I knew it. The only plus side was that since everyone else was drunk they didn't really realize how bad I really was. Game after game I was dead last the the only one who cared was me. I suspect that has more to do with the fact that none of THEM held the position of sucks worst.

So, Sara and I get back to the leaking submarine we have to call home at 4:30am, and I started the black eyed peas in the crock pot. I love crock pots, I love the way I can sleep through the cooking part. Sara got me up at about 9:30 this morning, we have work tomorrow and we need to get back into a normal sleep rhythm.

Happy new year gang! Don't forget to eat your beans. Also remember this important entertainment tip from me. Being designated driver means that when someone's had too much to drink and gets free and easy with their clothing, you not only get to see it, you get to remember it too. :)

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:25 AM | Permalink

This is not going to be a recap of 2007. The beauty of blogs is the fact that I don't have to. I already wrote it the first time and there is no reason to air reruns. But let me sum up: 2007 has been a year of stormy seas and gale force winds. It has sucked on ice and I'm glad to see the end of it. Unfortunately, this episode "2007" didn't end neat and tidy with a happy ending. 2007 is a special event to be continued in 2008.

So today is the teaser trailer of the year to come. Who lives, who dies, what secrets may come, who knows? Tune in and find out next on the exciting next episode "2008".

feh. I think this show jumped the shark a long time ago, but I've got a lifetime ironclad contract. Maybe they will include a blooper reel in the box set or something.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:11 AM | Permalink

Installing the port and the feeding tube was supposed to be a one hour simple procedure. Why is nothing ever easy? The cancer has grown quite a bit since dad first mentioned having a sore throat. Their intention was the put the feeding tube down his throat, it wouldn't fit. Not even the small ones would go down. They were forced to give up and install it through his navel.

Now keeping in mind that four days ago when I saw dad last he drove two hours to the family reunion and walked in under his own power the same way he always had, it seems odd that they would put the feeding tube through his mouth. He wouldn't be able to talk with it in there and it sort of lends itself to stuck in bed all the time. They oped not to do surgery on the cancer because of the chances of damaging his lyrnax. Yet these other guys were going to stuck something down his throat making talking more or less impossible. Don't believe me, stick a tube down your throat. Now talk. You can't talk with your mouth full.

At any rate, the surgery went from one hour routine to three hours of improv, and there weren't many laughs.

Mom calls me to give me the news. It took several attempts. She was under enough stress that it was difficult for her to keep on her poker face and still operate modern cellphone technology.

She told me as much as she could before she couldn't hold back the emotion anymore and had to end the call. My orders, call as usual on Sunday, maybe dad will be able to speak to me, maybe he'll only be able to listen. Maybe he'll be up and around, maybe he'll be too sore to get around. Who knows?

And here I am feeling a little like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed bull. I'm going down for his birthday next week. I will go, I will see, I will make my own decisions.

Meanwhile, I will dream of better times surrounded by friends on the holidays.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today is a day of celebration. Today is the day of our office party and I am on the organizing committee. Me an another really awesome person are in charge of running the game room. Yes there will be Scrabble, but we're IT, there will also be two Wii's, Two XBoxes, and of course a Playstation, all projected up on the walls for the pastime and pleasure of our 140ish officemates.

It is a day of festive clothing, Santa hats, good cheer, good food, and good friends. It is a day of joy and happiness. Display contest starts at 11am, food is served at noon, activities begin at one, clean up and be out between 3 and 4. We have our plan, it will go flawlessly, that is who we are.

Meanwhile, back in October, we buried my Uncle who died of esophageal cancer. OK, not exactly accurate. He didn't die of the cancer, he died of complete 100% all systems down, crash and burn, organ failure. Even his skin failed. They had to wrap the body in plastic so he wouldn't leak out the bottom of the casket.

Esophageal cancer has a 25% survival rate over a five year period. The fact that my Uncle made it ten years just means that he's a Cavenaugh and you can't force a Cavenaugh to do anything they don't want to. He died well past the point most would have thrown in the towel and a lot longer than I would have chosen. If the rest of my days are going to be spent having nutrition pumped into my stomach through a tube in my side, screw it, if I can't eat fried chicken there's nothing left to live for. In the words of my Grandfather, "What you get out of life is what you eat." I might have that put on my tombstone. My last piece of advice for the living.

But I digress. On the day of my uncle's funeral dad casually mentions to me that he has had a sore throat for a couple of weeks, and now that his brother is buried he is going to make an appointment to have it looked at. That was October, and true to his word he had it looked at.

He has Esophageal cancer. Today at 10am they will admit him to the hospital. At 12:15pm they will begin surgery to install his port and feeding tube. They expect the surgery to last an hour. They are not doing surgery on the cancer because it is too close to his lyrnax. Chemo, radiation, and having food paste pumped into his stomach through a tube installed in his side is his future.

I can't remember if I mentioned it during my family reunion entry but sitting there next to him I felt like I was witness to his last meal.

At some point today during the festivities mom is going to call me to give me the thumbs up or thumbs down. Meanwhile I have to keep my Santa hat on and try to look jolly. My parents didn't put me through nine years of college as a theater major for nothing. If I pull this off I hope you will all remember me at Oscar time.

Assuming of course I don't end up with esophageal cancer myself, should this happen, I'd like a lifetime achievement award with one of those highlight reels, and some appropriate music. I think I'd like "Everything Sucks" by Reel Big Fish. It will be the last time you get to hear me complain.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:03 AM | Permalink

I felt like this year I could use a little bit of extra holiday cheer and as I didn't end up using all of my ornaments on the home tree, I had a starting place.

As I mentioned earlier, I had a number of Star Trek ornaments that I purchased one a year from 1992 through 1999. I didn't feel right putting it on the big tree at home, partially I think because I'm a little ashamed of my geeky past. This is double since I haven't yet managed to curb my geek tendencies. However, for the office its absolutely PERFECT! I'm in an IT shop behind an electronic secure door. Not only are we geeks, we have a way of keeping the normal people out using our superior technology.

It took about an hour to decorate and with the final touch, placing a pirate ship at the top of the tree, I stood back, admired my handy work and clicked the button on the bottom of the 1992 NCC-1701/7 shuttle Galileo ornament.

Shuttle craft to Enterprise, Shuttle craft to Enterprise, Spock here. Happy Holidays. Live long and prosper.

I win.

Yes there are pictures. While I am too ashamed of my hovel to post pictures of it (lights on that place are like earrings on a pig), I have no problems with posting pictures of my office. My cube rocks.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:32 AM | Permalink

The day began late on Sunday, I forgot the little detail about my alarm clock only being set to go off Monday through Friday. Fortunately, since I am visiting my family, I can cut back on the grooming and fashion. They are a simple people and the simpler the hair the less fearful they are of it. (at least for the guys).

The family reunion has always been the second Sunday in December for a reason. The harvest is in, we've recovered from the Thanksgiving feast, and we'll have time to recover before the Christmas feast. Wisdom of the ages.

I arrived at Grandmother's house exactly when I intended to hungry and past ready to eat. My uncle was well, my mom looked good, my dad didn't look bad and my Grandmother had no idea who I was. I suppose that little detail might bother some people, but I know who SHE is, and that is enough for me. My memories of her shape my life, her memories of me do not. I remembered to ask about gall bladder troubles in the family and the response was, "yes". It has effected more than one generation so I will have to check my calendar and schedule my gall bladder's removal once I reach my 50s.

Leaving there, I followed the parents to "The Pink Supper House". What? I did not give it this name! The community building serves suppers every Friday and Saturday night, it is pink, and most importantly it is the only place the Cavenaugh family reunion has ever been held.

Here I visited with relatives, and watched the older generation as they watched the younger generation play. The two things I like to see at my family reunions are the old and the young. The aged remind me that old age is still possible. The children remind me that we are in no danger of dying out as a people.

Finally! One O'clock and time to eat, the only formality is to allow my cousin to ask a blessing on our meal, and listen to a speaker let us know how much was brought in last year in donations and how much was paid out again to buy flowers for those who didn't make it since last year. We lost two, but we had one birth so we're doing ok I suppose.

I am not sure if it is the fact that I spend so much time worrying about what I eat, or the fact that dad is having trouble eating so I allow him to eat vicariously through me. Whichever it was, my first plate was a masterpiece in wild gluttony. I had beef, pork, chicken, turkey, four types of greens, mac and cheese and some vegi casserole. Good times. My second plate was maybe half the size. Only one piece of fried chicken on this plate, veggies, turnips, mac and cheese, lasagna, BBQ, hush puppies, and a single cookie for dessert. I did say I was trying to watch my figure. No need going overboard on the sweets. I spent the rest of the day walking slowly for fear of upsetting the delicate balance of food in my stomach.

When I thought lunch was settled enough to be in a car for three hours, I said my goodbyes, and by 4pm headed west.

The whole way home I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just witnessed my dad's last good meal. It was a sobering thought, that put me out of the mood for Christmas music entirely. Fortunately I had plenty of Celtic rock on hand to get me home.

I did not eat dinner because I was too miserable from my lunch.
I did not sleep well because I was too miserable from my lunch.
I did not eat breakfast because I was too miserable from my lunch.
Its getting close to lunch time now and I'm starting to be a little concerned. I might try to put something in my stomach to find out what happened to what I put there yesterday, but at this moment it might not be much more than a bite.

I wonder if they have a liquid plumber formula for the digestive system? I'm glad we only do this once a year.

Continue reading "Cavenaugh Family Reunion 2007" »

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I love it when a plan comes together.

This could not have happened without the aid of Mark and Ervina who kept Sara in GSO and away from the house until after dark when the sensors detected sundown and set the lights into action. I wasn't 100% sure I could do it alone.

All I have to do now is keep that holiday spirit alive through New Years.

As for "Operation Bringing Christmas Back"...Mission Accomplished

And for those still fighting the good fight out there in Christmas land. ..."Pagan"..."Edits"..."Trees"... and... "Ellipses" ...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On the way to work this morning I stopped by the end of the driveway to put a final touch on the display. I had two extra outdoor bows, and we have two post on either side of our drive way.

Now, the hardest part. Decorating is easy. Setting the timers to come on at dusk and turn off six hours later is easy. The hardest part is finding a way to stall Sara so that she won't arrive home from Asheville before dusk. I want her first view of the place to be magical. I want all of the lights on, and I want it to be beautiful and perfect. Is that too much to ask?

It just may be.

As I write this I am working on trying to convince Sara to come into GSO and meet me for an expensive dinner. You think I should be offering an expensive dinner, but that doesn't work with Sara. She knows what stuff costs and she knows that we have no savings. If I can just entice her into a couple of grilled chicken salads from Elizabeth's my plan will go off without a hitch, and hopefully I will have managed to bring a little holiday joy into her life.

I should also note here for future generations that I'm not publishing any of these three blog entries until the trap is sprung. No point in risking giving it away early.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:43 AM | Permalink

My plan the night before was to get up early, get ready early and on the way into work stop by wally world for the supplies to finish up the outside. Then on the way home from work I'd go by and pick up a tree. The reality was that I woke up when I was supposed to be leaving. I had to do the bare minimum necessary to be non-offensive while at work. So I can brush my teeth, put on cloths, and since I'm not showering anyway I won't have to fix my hair. Its still fixed from the day before. Eww! Gross! It was too.

I managed to arrive at work on time, but I had to skip wally world to do it. New plan. I'll try to slip out of the office early, drop by wally world, get a tree, get home, finish up the outside and prep the tree before it gets too dark, then spend the evening working on the inside.

The day at the office was pretty uneventful. I laid low so people wouldn't notice that I hadn't showered, and slipped out of the office just early enough to get what I needed to get without getting home later than usual.

Ah the best laid plans of mice and men... Wally world had a surprise for me. What I needed was by the home and garden entrance so I went in and checked out there. What I didn't plan on was that Home and Garden is an oubliette it is a place wally world management puts staff when they want to forget about them. The register girl needed manager assistance, and the managers needed to continue ignoring her. The door greeter was no help, they were swamped saying "Welcome to wally world" to the people coming in and "have a nice day" to the people who stomped out in a huff when they couldn't buy stuff quickly enough. Its the holidays and I have a mission, so I stood in line, smiled at everyone warmly and didn't let the delay add to the chilly mood the room was already in. Probably didn't help that the Lawn and Garden area is uninsulated and drafty. Finally after twenty five minutes a surly manager showed up. My guess is they were surly because they drew the short straw and had to go out there into the wilds of Lawn and Garden. Who cares, I smiled at them too, and soon the line was moving again.

Next plan, get a tree. Sara had been sniffing the trees at our local grocery store longingly since thanksgiving, and they were less expensive than the ones on the tree lots, so I swooped in like an eagle to get my tree and get going again. Is there some sort of Holiday Karma I don't know anything about? If so I must be running a little low. The register lady didn't know how to ring up a Christmas tree and I had to wait five minutes for her to brave the microphone and ask for assistance. In the face of this second road block I kept my calm, smiled warmly at all the people in the express line who were glaring at the butt head who was responsible for keeping them from their cigarette purchases. Not surprisingly they did not smile back at me.

Finally tree in hand, I trotted towards the car. I'll bet you've been sitting here patiently waiting for me to get to this part. Me 1997 Saturn SL2, and a seven foot Christmas tree. I leaned the tree against the side of the car and started to open the trunk when I noticed a father and a young girl watching me. He was grinning in much the way I imagine you are grinning right now about how I'm going to pull this off.

Before I went into the store I pushed the front passenger seat all the way up and I lowered the back seat on the passenger side. So at that moment, all I had to do was open the trunk and put the tree in as far as I could. There was some string around the tree I could use to tie the trunk down. Hopefully I could get at least half in right?

I picked up the tree and pushed it into the open trunk and just kept pushing easily until suddenly the tree was in...entirely...I quickly closed the trunk like I knew exactly what I was doing the whole time and I heard the little girl gasp. Christmas magic! I was grinning like a maniac because I didn't know it was going to be that easy, and they didn't know I didn't know that. I opened up the driver's door and turned to them, "Merry Christmas". Mission accomplished with extra points for style.

I have to admit at this point that I had no earthly idea how I was going to get it out again, but by that time I would be at home alone and no one would be there to see me struggle. Turned out it was easy to get out too. All I had to do was lower the back seat on the driver's side, empty the trunk on the driver's side, push the top of the tree all the way to the left, and pull the stump end out the passenger side door. I love it when a plan comes together!

But first things first, I have to finish the outside, timer, ladder, drop cord, and pretty soon the front of the place was about as festive as it could possibly be without one of those giant inflatable train sets. (I really wanted Snoopy ice skating with a Santa hat on, but I didn't see one and the stuff I did see was way out of my budget anyway.)

By about seven I was finished with the big outdoor lighting project and I could focus all of my energies on the tree. By eight I had all of the lights on and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was on TV in place of NCIS. By nine I was finished with all of the strings of beads and most of the ornaments.

Some people decorate their trees so fully that once they're finished you can barely see what the stuff is hanging on. It can look like they are afraid the neighbors might find out that the tree they are using came out of a box, so they cover every branch with everything they could cart out of the after Christmas sales the year before. I'm not knocking it. They look beautiful, but for my tree I feel like every ornament should have a story to tell. This may be because as a child the tree was decorated with things I had made in school, a package of shrinky dinks I burned along with myself trying to make, and the one a year keepsake ornaments mom bought each year. Sure it was filled out with five and dime ornaments, but those mom had purchased in the 60's so to me they were cherished antiques.

Every year since 1979 mom and I went out and bought one ornament with the year on it. Usually a hallmark ornament and after the first three years we got the idea of buying them as part of a series, so eventually we would have a matching set. By the time I got married there were two matching limited edition sets for the tree and all of them went with me, which was mom's plan the whole time. I also have a handful of ornaments given by friends who either made them, or gave something with a specific meaning behind it. The only ornaments that were bought from the store strait out are the set of ten or twelve sleigh bells which tell a story themselves. They tell me whenever one of the cats starts playing in the tree. I have one ornament that I will never hang again, a pretty little ceramic piece with a slot for a picture. The picture is of my ex girlfriend. I have also decided not to hand one of the sets purchased in my youth. Its not that I don't like them, I just feel like all of those Star Trek space ship ornaments deserve their own tree, maybe a the office.

It was a magical night where the whole family pitched in to help.

OK, Max pitched in. The others weren't as supportive, and to be truthful Max wasn't as helpful as he might have wanted to be.

I was just putting on the finishing touches when Reaper came on. Yep, I decorated the tree to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer followed by Reaper. Once the tree was done I could then focus on all the little extra bits which by themselves wouldn't amount to much, but added to the whole just might make that perfect finishing touch. I made wreathes. Sure I could have bought pre-decorated, and pre-lit wreathes but I couldn't justify paying twenty dollars each for them when a plain undecorated wreathe was three dollars. I am sure that I can be creative for way less than seventeen dollars each, and I was.

Now to bed, regular time, Phase Two complete.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:17 AM | Permalink

As children, the Magic of Christmas was easy. We were gullible, everyone was kind, there were lights, there were toys, best of all there were the boxes the toys came in. When we grew up, we were less gullible and we became responsible for creating the magic for others. We were responsible for hanging the lights, and recycling the boxes. Some people are lucky enough that they never lose the magic, some hang on to it by their nails for as long as they possibly can. Sadly for some it is taken from them early. I feel that it is everyone's duty each holiday season to help bring a little magic in the lives of others. It can be as easy as making an extra effort to smile when the line backs up at the store. Imagine how great it would be if you were standing in a backed up line in the store and no one was impatient or complaining. A Christmas miracle.

For my special mission aimed at my missus. It would take more than a smile. It will take lights, and ornaments, bows, garland, colored beads, and all the holiday specials from our childhood.

I started with a sale. Icicle lights were eight dollars for 13ft, I bought enough to cover the front of the house. I read the box and it said you could connect up to three strings of lights together. 39 feet long runs would be perfect. I picked up light that projects an image on the side of the house. A little pricey, but the effect was worth the dollars. Timers, cords, bows, wreathes (the undecorated ones are way WAY cheaper), I got only what I needed and I tried to save a dollar everywhere I could. Cleverness goes a long way.

The secret to this operation is that Sara is out of town Monday, and Tuesday, and will return Wednesday evening. That means I have two nights to bust my hump and make the place truly sparkle with winter wonder.

Monday night I got off of work and focused on the outdoors, specifically hanging the icicle lights. There had been a strong wind all day that fortunately layed before I got on the ladder. Sadly the wind blew the cloud cover and the temperature dropped. I didn't read the box close enough. The 13 feet of lights that could be connected in strings of three was ACTUALLY two six and a half feet strings. That mean that runs were only nineteen and a half feet long. Crap. Its dark, its cold, and I have to re-engineer the lighting on the fly. I will have to go back to the store tomorrow to buy a drop cord and another timer. The cold hands and numb fingers slowed me down, but I got a lucky break. Sara called me. I went inside to talk to her and convince her that I'm just watching Christmas specials on TV. My fingers were so cold I could barely hold the phone, so I put it on speaker and told her I was playing a game while I was talking. So long as I occasionally clicked the mouse button it probably sounded convincing.

After I got off the phone with her my fingers felt better, but it was late and getting later. I slogged on until the job was done and stood back to examine my handy work. It was good, or at least it would be once I got the drop cord and timer. I went to bed late, cold, but excited by the job well done. Phase one almost complete. I'll just get up early in the morning, and on the way into work I'll have time to drop by wally world to pick up the last couple of things I need to finish the outdoors.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:48 AM | Permalink

When I was a child the Christmas season in our house started exactly two weeks before the day and lasted until one day after. Part of this may have been the fact that me, being a child, was enough chaos without the tree and trimmings. Part also was the fact that I could be forced to help with the hanging and the putting away of the green. Once I went off to seek my fortune, mom's Christmas season stretched out from Thanksgiving weekend, and last through new years day. Part of that may be the fact that there is no child underfoot creating chaos. Another part may be that she needs help with the hanging and the taking down of the green.

One thing I have noticed however, is that as she gets older, her decorations get more elaborate. She's getting crafty making her own decorations, and seeking ideas (and supplies) year round to aid her in her yule time efforts. You'd be amazed at what she can do with a knotty pine stump.

This very special Jetson's Christmas artifact once assembled looks really nice and not 50's future art deco at all. Mom has a plan, dad uses the tools and as you can see, even Sara's involved. That pained look on her face has more to do with the hour than the activity. Dad likes his wind up chiming clocks. From five minutes til the hour, until five minutes after the house is a cacophony of dings, dongs, and chimes. But no coo-coo's. Dad does not like the coo coo clock. This picture was taken around 10am. I am not allowed to have more than one wind up chiming clock and even that gets me discouraging glances between the hours of seven and twelve.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:03 AM | Permalink

I've spent the day with my folks wife and dog in tow. Its been a fairly good day, cooking, eating, sleeping, cheesecake, four hours working on getting Christmas light strands to work bulb by bulb. My nails look like they've been chewed by squirrels. I only mention that nightmare because that is what I just said "to hell with" in order to come in here and blog.

Today's entry is about Beer Can Turkey.

You've probably seen articles, or grilled yourself a beer can chicken. It works like this, you take a hot grill, a whole chicken, and a drink can. You fill the drink can with a liquid seasoning. Some use BBQ sauce diluted with vinegar or water, some just use the beer that was in the can. We often use Italian dressing. You place the can of liquid up the bottom of the chicken, and set the chicken on the grill where it is sitting on its butt, (with can base) legs sprawled out in front of it. Keep your fire stoked to 350 degrees, and cook for 20 minutes per pound. The science is that the can heats up, steams the seasoning which chimneys out the top of the can and into the meat from the inside. Any extra skin around the neck you use to cover the hole at the top so the steam doesn't escape out of the top.

The only difference between a chicken and a turkey when it comes down to it is the size of the can, and the time involved. Our turkey took three hours with a tall boy can filled with Italian dressing. It has a nice light seasoning, smoky goodness, and extremely moist everywhere.

Plus you get time outdoors, keeping the heat of the oven out of the kitchen, enjoying the smell of the charcoal and grilling. Today, at the same time we also used the beer can method on a chicken which we took later to a sick friend. Below is the "before" picture of proud birds standing on the grill.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:22 PM | Permalink

For those of you who have been accustomed to the five day a week blog entry from me, you might have noticed that suddenly I'm lucky to do one a week. Lately its been hard to focus. In everyone's life a little rain must fall. Like the rain, bad stuff happens when it will and in the amount it decides at the time. When the sun shines, good days, when its cloudy, you keep an umbrella handy and tend to stay indoors with warm drinks. When it rains, you deal with the rain. That's why we have umbrellas, that's why we have rain coats and goulashes, dig a ditch, install gutters, put up a porch, and hope the levees hold.

It has flooded, and I like anyone have been washed away by it. But you find something to cling to. You climb to higher ground and you try to cope. One thing I did recently that really helped was to create a chart breaking the bad stuff into columns. Trouble at home goes here, trouble with family goes there, trouble at work over there. It has been instrumental in helping me find my way. Its a star to steer by, a peak to hike towards, a dam to divert run off. I put it up on a big white board. This way as things are taken care of (or stop being a problem) they can be erased, if some new disaster occurs it can be added.

I can't think of a single thing I have ever done more instrumental to helping me cope with it all, and with it I have learned one valuable thing.

I'm gonna need a bigger white board.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:40 AM | Permalink

People use the term "story of my life" as a way to sum up their current events into a single pithy sentence. Often used in comedy, you have a string of slapstick events and the punchline is "that's the story of my life". Cue the canned laughter.

If I were to use the term "story of my life" I would have to open with this made up event that could be used to illustrate the story of my life.

"Get in there and jobik the gikzelen."
"Ugh...what?"
"You heard me."
"I think I missed something, could you repeat it."
"Get in there and jobik the gikzelen."
"I don't think I know how to jobik, and if I did, I am not sure I even want to attempt to do it to a gikzelen whatever that may be."
"Just do it."
"Do what?"
"Jobik the gikzelen, stupid!"
At this point the speaker stomps angrily out of the room, and I say "That's the story of my life." Cue the laugh track.

The joke continues as a running gag when every five minutes that antagonist comes back into the room furious because the task isn't complete and is completely unwilling to offer clues, hints, tips, explanations or anything else necessary for our hopelessly clueless protagonist to do anything but count to ten while breathing into a paper bag from a safe position under the dining room table.

And there it is the story of my life. Coming to you live from under the dining room table.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:17 AM | Permalink

Last night the phone rings. Believe it or not this is a rare occurrence in my house. When the phone rings three things happen. First we are startled by the strange ringing noise. Then we look to one another to decide who is going to walk over to the phone. Third we look at the caller ID and decide whether or not to pick up.

Last night at 8:30pm I lost the coin toss, and I walked over to the phone. The ID said, "Unknown Number". An unknown number at 8:30pm on a Sunday night could only mean adventure. I picked it up immediately. After a series of Hello's and a couple of "Is this a recordings", someone finally came onto the phone. She spoke yankie, and she claimed to be an MCI employee calling on behalf of a police charity, and she called me on a Sunday night at 8:30pm.

She deserves what she gets. When she asked how I was I told her "I'm eating cake", this was almost true, I had been trying to eat a piece of cake for the past ten minutes but one thing after another kept me from it, and I was losing patience.

Her con went the usual way, police charitable organization, blah, blah, blah. Keeping criminals off the streets, blah, blah, blah. Arrest drug dealers selling drugs to children, blah, blah, blah. Then she gets around to the "bind", the part of the pitch where they actually ask you for money in a way where if you say anything but "Yes" you are forced to lie or answer in an awkward way. for instance, "You do want to keep drugs out of the hands of children by locking up the criminals that sell them don't you?"

The muse was upon me. My response, "I'm afraid that would be a conflict of interest ma'am." This throws her for a loop, but she takes the bait anyway, "And why would that be a conflict of interest?" :) She DID ask. My response, "Because I sell drugs. My primary market is middle school children and I just can't see giving money to an organization striving to not only put me out of a well paying job, but put me in jail as well."

There was an uncomfortable silence, followed by a nervous laugh, followed by a "Well, ok then, thank you for your time."

When we stopped laughing, Sara says to me, "If that was a legitimate charity we might be getting an official visit later."

Well, if they do come to take me away, I'd better make sure I have all the cake I can eat first. I eat my piece of cake, and in fact the rest of the cake entirely. 19 hours later my stomach still feels like I ate an entire yankie con artist. I'm going to have to avoid answering the phone for a couple of weeks, or at the very least until I feel like eating again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:58 PM | Permalink

I enjoy more than most things sitting quietly, watching and listening to what people do and say. I often find it highly entertaining, and sometimes educational. I also learn daily just how little I understand about how people think. Take these gems...

I was listening to two women in their fifties talking about a relation of theirs who had gotten married. One said to the other, "You know, being a lawyer he's always very cool, and even tempered, and he has this really nice dry whit too. I was watching his wedding video and I saw him crying. Can you believe it? It so did my heart good to see him do that."

*blink* It was everything I could do not to ask them, "Ma'am, what pleasure other than sadistic pleasure are you getting from that? Is mom spit distilled from the tears of men or something?" But I held my tongue, anyone who enjoys watching men cry, doesn't need to be crossed without a plan.

I went outside to find a less sadistic crowd to hang with, and I found some uncles and my father. They were discussing clothing. One of my uncles, and I do love him dearly, was explaining that a man has to be buried in a suit. It doesn't matter that he didn't wear one in life, it doesn't matter that they are uncomfortable, if you are dead you are just decoration at the wake, and should be made to look good for the visitors.

I told him that if I were to be buried, I would want to be dressed in a loud Hawaiian print shirt. My thinking was that death was a journey, and the wake was a going away party, and I wanted to be dressed comfortable for traveling. He looked at me like I had suddenly started speaking in !kung to him or something.

I discovered that for him funerals meant all men were in suits, all women were formal, and all children were adorably formal (sailor suits all around). I have decided that since I am to be a pallbearer that I should probably report first thing to him at the funeral so I can make sure my outfit is up to snuff. I didn't ask him, he may be thinking I should wear some sort of tuxedo or something.

Which leads me wonder, if the reason the picture of him that was put in the paper and displayed at the wake taken in 1967 was chosen perhaps because that was the last time he ever wore a tie. If so, I'd better get my picture taken tomorrow!

The funny thing is that I know for a fact that the guest of honor hated suits, and you would be hard pressed to see him in one. However, I realize that as a pallbearer that the suit is a dress uniform. Of the pallbearer suits, I have been told two things, first that it didn't matter what color it was so long as it was a suit, and that it could be any color suit I had so long as it was black. Good thing I have three black suits. One modern one which I will not be wearing because it isn't the way they were made 40 years ago, one well fitting one that I am not going to wear because it is cheep and one of good quality that is too big. I'm wearing the big one. If anyone dares to say anything to me about my over sized jacket, I am going to ask if I should put all my weight back on real fast so it will fit better, and if so would they pay for the Krispy Kreme's and Bojangles. If nothing else, hey free donuts.

Because of the state of my late uncle's body the suit he owned wouldn't fit without being split up the back, so my aunt went out and bought him a new suit. The service is closed casket, so sadly no one will ever know if it looked good on him or not. I mentioned to my mother that I thought it was odd that he would be dressed in a new suit for a closed casket service. She told me that it was vital that the corpse was dressed nicely whether anyone saw it or not. Perhaps we're trying to impress the folks that put them in the casket and do the hair and makeup.

Speaking of, at the funeral parlor (they called themselves a mortuary, but we all know it was just a funeral parlor), some employees were talking within ear shot of me and I heard the following.
"Is tinker bell finished yet?" He mimed someone ringing a small bell. The other man replied, "Just finishing up the hair now." It seems to me, that if your reputation as a service is partially based on how well you make the deceased look you'd be a little kinder to the folks who actually make that happen. Because if the corpse doesn't look good, the undertakers don't look good.

So I know now, that tomorrow I need to dress fancy to please the guest not the guest of honor. I should let my hair just go so I'm not spoken harshly of by the undertakers, and under no circumstances should I let those old bitties see me shed a tear. Ever.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I realized sitting in a chair watching the world unfold around me yesterday that I am in a play called, "Life" its one show only and its really very funny.

Let me tell you about a scene.

When I got the call to come home, I was dressed for work, business casual, same as I ever dress.

I load up, get home, come inside give my mother a hug and my dad a hearty handshake and mom says to me, "You're not going down there like that are you?"

I'm wearing a t-shirt, with a button down shirt over top of it, slacks and black leather shoes. I'm looking down at myself and I'm thinking that all of my outfits look like this, so if it isn't going to work, I'm screwed. So I finally ask her, "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" It wasn't asked defensively, it was asked in mild shock, I was truly curious.

"Your hair?"
"My hair?" I had styled my hair with product the way I do every morning. I looked in the mirror and it was truly perfect.
"Mother, what exactly is wrong with my hair."

"Its sticking up." And she reached up and tried to flatten it, the way mother's do by licking their hands and pressing down. You know exactly what I'm talking about. If you are a mom, you've done it too. Otherwise, you have certainly been a victim of mom spit, universal solvent and wrinkle remover.

So after some work in the bathroom, I was deemed passable and I haven't been able to put product in my hair since. Mom says I look fine, but I feel...unfinished.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Events in my life have made me take a long hard look at life and living. Modern technology makes it possible to make a person live well past the point they can go on living for themselves. There are those who say that a person must go on living until not even the miracles of modern technology can keep you alive. Oddly enough, many of those folks believe in an afterlife. I believe they take the stance that life is a gift and every second must be savored. I worry that they believe in an afterlife and they are afraid of what's next. I've never been to Hawaii, but I hear it is grand. I sometimes worry that they've never been to the afterlife, but they hear it sucks. A bleak way for a person to have to live, but I suppose it explains their fear of dying. I always heard that the afterlife was awesome. My biggest fear is they've heard something I haven't.

One issue is that once your insurance runs out I suppose you might have Medicaid or Medicare, but those run out too, after that you are eking out extra existance at the expense of your loved one's lives and livelihoods. Do you want to be the one remembered for living an extra month at the cost of your families house and home? I don't. I heard a joke once, "I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my uncle, not screaming like the passengers in his car."

I'm not judging other's choices. And it is YOUR choice, you can choose to eek out your last moments more machine than person, or you can choose to go the way nature intended. Just because one can do a thing doesn't necessarily make it right to do so. I don't believe anyone has the right to choose whether I live or die but me. I get truly sick of people day in an day out taking the one thing that is truly not theirs to give or take. But before you start misunderstanding me, I despise the pro-life crowd, as much as I despise a murderer in the street. None of them have the authority or the right to give or take a life. Not yours!

Understand this also, I believe that if you intend to take the life of me and mine, I've got the right to stop you up to and including ending you. It won't be my first option, but it will always be on the table. I don't feel that one should take their own life either, but it isn't necessarily mine to judge. I've never experienced anything so bad that the only way to escape it is to eat the barrel of a gun. I hope I never do. However, when the day comes that I'm not going to get better, I'd rather go easy and on my own power, than go hard via a machine. All bets are off however, if I can live a normal life on a machine. My brain, in a robot body? If that's an option, I'll entertain that too. I guess what I'm saying is, that when I can no longer live a productive life, I might be done with living it. But I get to decide what "productive" is, not you.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I was out in the country Sunday and found myself behind an ultra plush pickup. Black with extra chrome, a matching, black camper top trimmed in chrome and black tinted windows. Someone spared no expense to get 12 miles to the gallon on a truck that will never see a bag of fertilizer or a load of lumber. It was plush.

On the back of the bed cover, were two vinyl window decals. Both in matching silver. Both designed to give you an indication of the mind of the owner. One was a caricature of a 57 Chevy. The other three simple words that held so much meaning.
Bubba Ho-Tep

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:52 AM | Permalink

If you haven't read part one, please do so now or this entry won't mean much.

This is how I define worth. Worth is in the eyes of the beholder. My value is based on the total sum of values assigned to me. I am a beginning fencing coach and I earn value based on the fact that others see me as a descent beginning fencing coach. When I spent two years working as a temp for the state, many saw me as "unemployed" I lost worth due to that. Meanwhile in the temp job I was earning titles like "development whizkid", it was meant as derogatory, but gave me worth because they acknowledged worth. Later when I was told "poof" you are a systems administrator. My worth dropped like a stone because I had no system administration skills period, and I was suddenly in charge of an enterprise application. Over time using my whizkid super powers I am teaching myself sys admin skills and my worth is appreciated along the learning curve.

Every aspect of my life can add worth or take worth away and so my worth is not a static thing written into my DNA to be with me until death. You create the reason for your existance, thus you are in charge of your own worth.

In the Red Dwarf episode called "The Inquisitor" the crew has to justify their own existance proving they are having a worthwhile life or they were to be erased from time so some other sperm can join with the egg and give that person a go at it. For a comedy they really tapped into some deep issues. Like the fact that worth is completely subjective.

My total self worth is the sum total of all worth assigned to me by everyone I know. The more I value them the greater the value of their assessment of my worth. My parents and my wife have a great deal more effect on my worth than the stranger I held the door for at the store the other day.

It has been suggested that my entire worth system is flawed, however I fail to see a better way. It could have been like someone explaining Islam to an Evangelical, the difference being at least I am willing to consider the possibility. This is more like someone telling me that the wall I see as Green is actually yellow. It surely is from their perspective, I just have to find a place to observe it from where it appears yellow to me as well.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:36 AM | Permalink

"One man's trash is another man's treasure." Nothing proves that old adage like eBay. A place like that can be used to judge something worth. This week widget "X" is only selling for "Y" dollars. Last month it sold for "Y" + 10%. People are making pretty decent money understanding and reacting to the market's ups and downs.

People have a worth. An employee who has great worth and 20 years experience could lose all value overnight if their specialty is abandoned for the new hotness. Suddenly that person is fired and replaced by two people who have knowledge of the new hotness and have little or no experience because the new hotness is that new. Sometimes the person with 20 years experience can recoup some level of worth by being flexible enough to be retrained on the new hotness. Meanwhile a baby has infinite worth because it has infinite potential for worth. Not only are mom and dad assigning worth to the pooping machine for being a miracle of life and a genetic successor, the baby could be literally anything. Babies are the human equivalent of the stem cell.

But what does the baby think its worth? What does the employee with 20 years experience at something that has no value see of their own value? Does their value change with the market? A rotting log in the woods is home and food for insects, spores, mold and fungus who all value it as a habitat, but how does the log measure its own worth?

Donald Trump has worth, Forbes measures it every year (Congratulations). Presumably the homeless guy on the corner has worth. How do you measure the homeless guy's worth? How does he measure it? Does he value his worth to be the same as Trump's? Is it a mistake or not for him to think this?

How do I measure my own worth? Does "worth" exist in a vacuum? Sorry, I have already foreseen some of you working up smart ass remarks about Hubble and the International Space Station. It won't wash. You don't get off that easy.

How do you measure worth?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Some nights are better than others, some are restful, some are just plain bad, and just occasionally they are fundamentally weird. Last night the Weird-O-Meter was getting a reading. The corgi was restless. It may have been the fact that for the past three nights the weather was nice enough that we had opened up all the windows to let some fresh air in. However, he was good the previous two nights, even when we weren't.

At any rate, at 2am I had to get up to let him out, and about every thirty minutes I had to go back to try to get him back in. He would stand near the door and bark when I would go to the door to let him in, he'd charge out into the yard barking more, like my presence gave him courage to go forth. It was about 4:30 when he finally gave up the hunt and came back into the house.

5am he got quiet...real quiet... But something else wasn't being quiet. It woke me up with a start and I layed there listening to it for a while wishing Sara was awake to hear it too. Soon enough she awoke with a start and grabbed me. I responded in a whisper, "Yes, I hear it too." The dog normally busy, wouldn't even draw an audible breath.

What did we hear moving low in the sky from South to North? I have no earthly idea. It defies ready explanation, but since I don't have a recording to share with you, I'll have to do my best to use my words. Take an large owl, make him laugh uproariously at something, then add several somethings laughing shrilly at his joke. Their laughter moved together, like children on a playground chasing a ball. Except the "children' were up in the air, and demonic.

I don't know what we heard, but I hope to find out. Perhaps with a tape recorder. I'd say video camera, but I'm not 100% sure I am ready to see what made that infernal racket. At any rate, Its something I've never heard before.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Apparently while I was living this life, I had some other secret life going on in Ohio I have been keeping from myself. Turns out I'm also a short young woman with fibromyalgia.

I always knew I hated Ohio.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From Officespace

Thought I would show you around my new space. Sure it is a cube with a sliding shower door, but it is better than the space I had before. And as you can see I am fully moved in, the place is a wreck.

Only thing missing is that of the four banks of receptacles in the cube only one is working. This means that I have to choose what is running at any given time. This REALLY slows down productivity, when I am used to switching quickly between two machines to do stuff during my day. Hopefully this will be fixed soon, and I can really get back into production.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was a picnic, but it was all wrong, we needed to make changes. The insects, reptiles, and amphibians were pushed back a half mile from the picnic site. The flowers were blooming but jumbled with pinks, purples, yellows, whites, reds, and lavenders. I tried them all, but finally decided that white was best. Now more. Fill it up.

Then I made the hills all the same size and gently rolling, but it was too big, so I made the outside hills taller so we were alone in a small valley of small rolling hills. I noticed I was sweating, and made it morning, it was cooler, but the light wasn't right, so I put it back and made the temperature 72 degrees, and added a gentle breeze, enough to feel, and enough to move the flowers, but not enough to make the napkins blow away.

Who put this blanket here? The blanket doesn't work. We can't have a picnic that is uncomfortable, and if we sit on the ground our legs will go to sleep from our butts down. Plus there is the issue of where to put our plates to eat. Are we supposed to hold our plates and eat with one hand? This will not do.

I want outdoor patio furniture with an umbrella. Not wicker. Nobody sits in wicker. Its just furniture for show anyway. There, I like that, the blue of the glass works perfectly with the sky. Keep that.

The place setting should be green to match the grass and the place mats should have the color of our eyes, and the color of the flowers. Better add some yellow, this looks too stark. The utensils should be very simple, I don't want to take away from the flowers and the grass.

Now for the food. Wow, I've never seen this before. It tastes exactly like what we want to taste at that moment. No, we'll still need mustard. What if she wants to taste pork. It has to be perfect. And put vinegar on the table in case she wants to taste greens. On second thought, scratch that, she isn't going to want to taste greens. Make the tea unsweetened in a sweating clear glass pitcher that never empties. Of course ice, but in the glasses only, I want the sunlight to show clearly through the pitcher.

This place needs a smell, want it to smell like just after a rain. Good, now add a hint of honeysuckle and moon flower. This is good, but it is too quiet, I like the sound of the breeze in the grass but it needs something. Give me birdsong. No, too much. No not predatory birds, they sound lonely. Seagulls, try seagulls. I like that. Hmm...better make those flowers yellow.

Now it only needs one more thing to make it perfect; Sara, my wife.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:40 PM | Permalink

In the third grade I met a little girl who I fell for in that third grade sort of way. Shy smiles, little notes, "check yes in the box if you like me". I pursued her up through the seventh grade, where she decided she wanted to go to the same school as her boyfriend and transfered. That was a turning point. She had her first baby before she graduated, and married upon her graduation, two more children followed. It wasn't a good or healthy relationship, but it was the only one she knew, and though she admitted to being unhappy she stuck with it for the sake of her kids. It was during this time she found me through this blog and left a comment.

At the turning point, I went my own way and had my own adventures. I did some good things, I did some bad things, and this combination of learning experiences made me who I was every step of the way and who I am today. During college a very cute girl came up to me, and said "Hi". It was during the peak of a long dark period of time I refer to as "The Bitterness". I was immediately suspicious of this stranger coming up to me and being nice and snubbed her. At the time I felt that anyone who wanted to be nice to me wanted something. That was just who I was at the time. Years passed, I conquered my rage, and left "The Bitterness" behind me. Ok, that's not true. That implies I don't have it anymore. The time period I called "The bitterness" was a mine filled with rich deposits of iron ore. Bitterness is the refining fire through which hate becomes determination. All that raw material made up a beautiful, sharp and shining determination, which I keep with me always. At any rate, one night at a party thrown by one of the fencers in the club, that cute girl and I found ourselves being introduced again. As time had passed between us, we weren't who we were when we first met, and we found a common ground. That started a relationship, which became a marriage, which leads me to the next sordid part of the story.

My childhood sweetheart's comment on my blog. I had always referred to my blog as "internet breadcrumbs". I put it there so that friends, friends not yet met, and even enemies, could find me. I was thrilled to make the reconnection and many emails were passed between us. We learned we were married, she told me how bad her marriage was, I didn't brag about mine. I tried to boost her confidence, and encouraged her to do something about the relationship she was in. It was abusive, both mentally and physically, and no one deserves that. Then the emails stopped coming, and I went along with my life until one day I get an email that tells me that her husband had died in his sleep due to complications of his drinking problem.

Good relationship, or bad relationship, she was devastated because it was the only relationship she had ever known. In my capacity as a friend I tried to be there for her. I reminded her about all of the other men in the world and I boosted her confidence as she slowly got over her loss and tried to get back on her feet in the dating world. She had several relationships, most of them short and all of them awkward. She was getting back on her feet emotionally, and had pretty much no concept of "dating", She meeting up with guys who were in a different place emotionally and looking for a different thing. She wanted a replacement husband STAT. For the most part the guys she was finding only wanted a good time. It was a rocky period for her, and during it she emailed me more often seeking solace, and I was more than happy to keep reminding her that she was good enough, she was smart enough, she was attractive enough, and she would find a great guy so long as she kept looking. During this phase there was a lot of flirting between us. It seemed to do her spirits good, and I won't lie, its nice to hear compliments. I got my fair share in return. Egos were boosted in both directions. Through the time we corresponded we saw each other three times. The first time, was for lunch when she took one of her children to a specialist. The second time was at my parents house over the holidays. The third time was at a fencing tournament near her home town. I didn't want to be anywhere with her alone because it didn't feel right and it certainly wouldn't look right. I didn't want to be in a position where it would look like I was doing something naughty behind Sara's back. Sara was never with me during any of the three times the other woman and I saw one another. Sara was out of town during the lunch meeting. The other two times would have meant that Sara was at my parents house with me, and Sara has never felt comfortable around my parents.
Through it all, the other woman and I never forgot that I was married and many of our exchanges started with "If you weren't married" (Or "If I wasn't married" when I said it). Talk that required those sort of qualifiers got less frequent over time and honestly we got to know each other and realized that we were not the same pimply goofy kids we were back in the 3rd through the 7th grade. Our choices and our experiences changed us, and we were not the same people.

Eventually she found a good guy, and as her relationship with him grew, our correspondences got less and less frequent. I kind of thought of it as the training wheels coming off. We were still friendly. When there was a fencing tournament near where she was living I invited her to bring her kids so they could see fencing. It was something none of them had seen before, and it is a very large part of my life.

One day Sara was reading my emails and came across the exchanges between "the other woman" and I. Although the crescendo of the email flirting had passed a while back, because Sara was reading it all right now and at one time it all happened at once for her. Not a trickle, but a flood. She was beyond upset and I wasn't entirely sure why. Nothing had happened. Then she showed me a bunch of web articles like this one. Up to this point I had never even heard of an "emotional affair", but the more I read the more I realized that was exactly what had happened. In a word, I screwed up, and super sized it. Worst of all I didn't even know it until the bomb went off. It was a flood of my own, as I was having to come to grips with what happened, what I thought it meant, what it actually seemed to be indicating. It was a critical hit to what only moments before I thought was a very happy marriage.

I don't want my marriage to be broken, I love my wife and I don't want to be without her. So I am doing whatever I can to make it right. She asked me to send an email telling the other woman that we weren't to communicate anymore and I did, gladly. She asked me to tell all of our friends what I did, and here I am, spilling my guts like a shamed samurai warrior. Yes, I'm giving all sorts of good and juicy gossip to my enemies. Yes, there really are people out there who read this blog looking for ammunition to use against me. Here you go, free hit, do your worst. Why am I doing this? If you have to ask, you might be a bigger idiot than I have ever been. Sara is the best thing to ever happen to me after being born, and having a clean CT scan. I'm dedicated to doing whatever it takes not to lose her, and if it isn't enough, its because I am not good enough, I didn't try hard enough and I never truly deserved her to begin with. No one, is more important to me than Sara.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"Northeastern grad key to resurrection of women's professional football team. Team reborn as a player-owned club"

Sure, I could brag about the teams 5-1 season, and doing it all with a tiny roster, and no budget. I have done it, and I'll do it again, but not today. Today I'm going to brag about my super kick butt wife, who has been gracious enough to allow me to be her husband.

Why wouldn't I? Here's a hottie who came to UNCG with a degree already under her belt, gets an undergrad degree in theater education, in points while living in her car, and just kept on going. She's finished her masters degree in film by day while working nights. She is living proof that desire is enough, if you are willing to keep your eyes on the prize and never give up.

Currently a Project Manager in IT, it was a natural for someone who has always been accustomed to time lines, budgets, and coordinating others to see a job done well. Playing football is what brings her joy, it allows her take a break from all of that leadership and be a cog in a well oiled machine, a teammate in a team of friends and equals. Sure, she was made team delegate, a role she excels in because excelling is what she does. A small price to pay because in exchange for this, she gets to play, and playing the game brings her joy in a way words can't describe. You just have to see her face at the end of a game when she pulls her helmet off. Through the sweat, and the dirt, and the bruising, there is a glow, born of pure joy and love of the game and the team.

Yet with all of this success and joy in her life, she still takes the time to love my sorry butt, while I attempt to scrape out a meager paycheck. She's patient with my low paying job because she wants me to better myself as well by trying to balance a paying job with my own half baked dreams. It takes the patience of a saint, to stay married to a guy who answers the question, "What do you do?" with the answer, "I write, and I teach fencing." The asker always translates my answer into "Oh, you're a bum." Yeah, maybe I am a bum, but I'll bet my spouse is better than YOUR spouse. In your face haters.

My wife filmed a black poetry night last night, managed IT projects today, and tonight is working on the 48 Hour Film Project. (Nice segue huh?)
I might be a bum, but I'm one heck of a lucky one.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:14 AM | Permalink

Oddly, again while in the bathroom, I discovered hidden comedy.

Behold! The Terror....

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Coming from me live and without pain,
Woody

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Fear is a powerful thing.

Fear makes things happen and it keeps things from happening. The Tick said something about fear, let me see if I can find it.

Destiny dressed you this morning my friend, and now Fear is trying to pull off your pants. If you give up, if you give in, you're gonna end up naked with Fear just standing there laughing at your dangling unmentionables!

Fear of the unknown is the worst of all fears. The unknown lacks form or function. You can't fight the unknown. You can't even engage it. I've tried. That's why I insisted on having that CT scan this morning. I needed to know exactly what I was up against. Even if I can't defeat it, it is real, it has form, and I can go down fighting in a way that would make my ancestors proud.

So I went. They did it, and they wouldn't just tell me the results. I had to go home and wait for the doc to call me. I went home, and went to sleep, it was the only safe place I had. By 4pm they had not called me, so I called them.

Bad news or good news, the news didn't matter nearly as much as the knowledge to defeat the unknown. I was sitting, and I was ready, though I was also tired from just waking up and being on essentially 3X my usual dose of blood pressure meds.

Regardless of what they told me my next stop was my eastern practitioner. Any knowledge I have can aid in the fight against outrageous pain and pressure.

The results are in. After looking carefully at the CT it was determined that there was a problem.
I'm ugly and my mother dresses me funny. Beyond that, my brain is not in any immediate danger. I am glad of that too. I like my brain. Its where I keep my stuff.

Now if only I could shake this headache.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:50 AM | Permalink

While I feel better at this moment than I have felt in a week, it is only comparatively. The pressure still exist. Today I spent a minute or so seeking out what exactly it was that was hurting, and what systems live in that region.

The pressure is in the left pre-motor area. To quote a pretty good website on the subject.

The Left premotor area, in upper left front of the forehead, keeps track of sequential patterns -- words, symbols, ideas, that come one after another. This is highly important for humans with symbolic thinking.

The area primarily would have evolved for planning tool use -- how to use tools in a sequential way to accomplish symbolic goal.

Because the motor nerves cross, this left-brain premotor area controls the RIGHT HAND. Humans are "handed" because one side of the brain specialized to do sequential operations. Most humans have symbolic language in the left brain, so most humans are Right-Handed!

Key talents where this area is important include:

1. Tool use - doing a sequence of operations with the right hand.
2. "Logical" thinking - putting ideas together in sequence, so one follows another
3. Cause and effect reasoning - a basis for scientific thinking and "how-to" analysis
4. Grammar - Thinking, speaking and writing language in a sequential way to follow rules.
5. Rules for playing Games - what to do in what order, for a logical result. (However, many games like chess also have a strong right-brain component of patterns.
6. Following recipes and instructions
7. Awareness of time, and possibly the passage of time in comparison to other events. (For example, when people are using this part of the brain for intensive sequential analysis, such as how to do something on a computer, time awareness seems to fail, and they will say, "I lost track of time."

And to quote another one:

CEREBRAL CORTEX Frontal Lobe: Most anterior, right under the forehead.

Functions:

* How we know what we are doing within our environment (Consciousness). How we initiate activity in response to our environment. Judgments we make about what occurs in our daily activities. Controls our emotional response. Controls our expressive language. Assigns meaning to the words we choose. Involves word associations.
* Memory for habits and motor activities.

Observed Problems:

* Loss of simple movement of various body parts (Paralysis). Inability to plan a sequence of complex movements needed to complete multi-stepped tasks, such as making coffee (Sequencing). Loss of spontaneity in interacting with others. Loss of flexibility in thinking. Persistence of a single thought (Perseveration). Inability to focus on task (Attending). Mood changes (Emotionally Labile). Changes in social behavior. Changes in personality. Difficulty with problem solving.
* Inablility to express language (Broca's Aphasia).

So if you see anything weird from me in those regards, we can safely rule out blood pressure or liver yang.

On the other hand what if my baseline already indicated a certain "weakness" in these areas...

Let the games begin!

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:05 PM | Permalink

Welcome to day ten of the continuing saga of my headache.

I consulted the wisdom of western medicine. They said "Your blood pressure is too high. Double your normal dose. Your pain will go away when your blood pressure is under 120/80. At 120/80 I have to do 20 jumping jacks before I can make any major decisions. But my head still hurts. So I got some pills that will take the pain away, only they are habit forming so I won't take them near "as directed".

My head still hurts so I consulted the wisdom of eastern medicine. The headache was gone in about an hour of acupuncture and the brain baby spent the evening trying to regroup, and pull itself together. I also got some tea that taste like pure bitter garnished with a flower and a sprig of mint. Four doses, and I go back on Thursday. I was awake a whole hour before my headache was. It was nice. She said stress, sent my liver yang out of balance. Yeah. I got stress. Yeah, I got a liver. I guess I've got some yang too. I would think on this more but I'm tired from all the jumping jacks already.

Is it can be naping times now?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:47 PM | Permalink

Sara said that if I woke up and Arthur was still there, we would go to urgent care. He was, so we did. Tuffalupagus was bloody in bad places, so on the way we dropped her off at kitty urgent care. I half expected the car to explode or something on the way, or maybe that was just Arthur.

My blood pressure was 168/95 I am pretty sure that this can be translated into psi because the doc told me I had the blood pressure of a healthy radial. Now, did the pain make the blood pressure, or did the blood pressure make the pain?

Who knows?

I got something for the pain, and orders to not fence or think for a week. Now that the pills have kicked in I know why. I don't know where my blood psi is but my head is in the clouds and Arthur is astral projecting.

I need a nap. And maybe coffee. Or maybe a diet coke. I can't seem to tell and I am not sure what my caring level is.

See you in my dreams where I left you last night with me, who was me, only I wasn't. There was also a vampire cult filled with non-vampires and some some heroics I probably need to get back to. Good sleepy times.

PS Tuffalupagus is OK, just an urinary tract infection.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:30 PM | Permalink

I said I wasn't going to do it again, I tried to get out, but they just keep dragging me back in.

Last year we had the largest team, and turned out a piece of work so strong I scarcely believe even now it could have been done in only 48 hours, but it did, and I was there. It was a piece strong enough that this year, we are refered to as "that professional team". I don't know wether to be flattered or insluted. We had over 50 on the team and only three had ever seen a real movie set before. So at that rate we're what 7% professional? At only 7% professional, calling us professional sounds like a dismissel, worse it sounds like sour grapes. I don't know what the deal is, we didn't win best over all, we didn't even take home the most awards.

At any rate, we are not that team anymore. We are half the team we used to be infact. Even though I have been dragged back kicking and screaming, it was on my terms. I am not going to hold the microphone this year. Last year I did a really lously job, so lously infact that we haven't even found the microphone yet. When last I saw it, it was on its way to the post house where they were going to re-record all of the sound I had recorded. (If that isn't bad, what is?)

This year, I am going to help Mark and team write, act if Ike has a place for me, and I suppose help Cameron out with the Art department. I can move stuff. I know what stuff looks like. Maybe this year will be fun. Last year was rewarding, but not so fun for me. Although it is always a pleasure being killed by Ike and Cameron. Its almost tradition.

Don't think I was going to be completely uninvolved. Oh no, I got a major boost in hits when I reviewed the shorts shown these past three years. I was going to review my butt off. Oderint Dum Metuant

The 48 Hour Film Project is August 3rd through August 5th. PIck up and drop off are 5:30-7PM at Rum Runners on 212 South Elm St. The movies will premier August 11th at Carolina Theatre at 310 South Elm st.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My head hurts. It hurt Sunday, I don't remember much about Monday, but it hurt Tuesday in the morning, and it hurt Tuesday at bed time. It hurt Wednesday when I woke up, and it hurt when Sara sent me to bed rather than to work. She gave me something for it, it didn't cure it so much as put it in a little bubble out there just over my left temple, its out there...waiting...

The first, second, third, and fourth times a headache put me down like this, I attributed it to altitude sickness, and don't you worry, I WAS sick. Woody's don't do great heights well, especially when they are overweight. The last time I had a headache like this Maestro Beguinet was in town and I foolishly thought I could keep up with him. That was a bad weekend even after I got home in the dark and quiet of bed.

Now this. I haven't done anything, I am no more overweight than I ever was, and I have performed no miraculous feats of strength, or endurance. The only thing worse than a headache is one without reason.

I'm going back to bed. Arthur will keep me company.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:28 PM | Permalink

With the amazingly successful release of the spectacular new level of technology and geekdom known as the iphone, I am left basking in new found fortune. I thank you proud iphone owners each and every one. Were it not for you kicking out five and six hundred dollars for the coolest phone on the planet, the second coolest phone on the planet would never have dropped into the range of affordable to me. Plus, by the time that iphone generation two has dropped in price to the point I could afford it, it will be time to upgrade again anyway.

I have been assimilated. I am now of the Blackberry clan. I not only own a Curve, but I have in one purchase eliminated all of the gear I was having to carry around in a ThinkGeek Gadget Hip Holster. But don't worry, the Curve fits very snuggly in the pockets provided by my previous ThinkGeek purchase. I no longer have to carry a phone, camera, mp3 player, and reader. The Curve does it all, and more.

Finally, the interwebs are mine, if only as fast as the edge network allows, it still feels faster than dial up. And yeah, I can chat in the car while Sara drives. Cool...

So have a drink iphone owners and smile smuggly at yourselves in the pub mirror while you impress the people around you with your iphones. You've made me a very happy monkey too.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 12:41 PM | Permalink

I love paydays, its the only time the whole month I can pick up a couple of things that aren't absolutely necessary, but will add just that little something extra to my life. It is also the only time of the month I can make really important purchases that are absolutely and resoundingly necessary.

The weekend I will spend completing little tasks on the Fairlane, and go see a Cape Fear Thunder game. They are playing the D.C. Divas, and I want to see the team the Carolina Phoenix will be defeating next year for the Championship. Only two teams have even scored on them this year so they should offer a nice competition.

For those keeping score, I am replacing the fuel filter, and an air line to the rear shocks. I am also thinking this might be the month to get insurance and plates so I can go have all of the fluids purged and replaced. But first, I have to find out how much it is going to cost to repair the Saturn. There isn't much currently right with its cooling system, and summer is here, so its time to do something about it.

I hope the rest of you have a great weekend too. For those of you vacationing next week, save me a rib. The O'Brians on High Cone road has closed, and that means there are absolutely no beef ribs anywhere in the vicinity of going home that don't require my direct intervention to make cooked. Its been a summer equally stocked with highs and lows so far.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:19 PM | Permalink

Every day we are surrounded by a swirling mass of people, places, things, emotions, information, and chaos all on top of the usual weather, animal, vegetable, or mineral. It can be daunting at the best of times. All one can do is focus on what is in front of you and filter the rest out.

But filtering doesn't make the chaos go away, you're just holding an umbrella in a rain storm. Its all you can do to keep your head dry, as your shoes get soaked. It wicks up your pants legs, and the people around you have to dodge and weave trying not to have an eye gouged while all you can do is hope a wind doesn't come up and rip your fragile little shelter away.

Day in and day out of this can wear even a rock down, just ask Niagara Falls. We do what we can to make the most of what were dealing with. Some smoke, some drink, some do drugs, some do prescription drugs. I eat fried chicken, and sometimes I say mean things to those closest to me. I'm not trying to hurt them anymore than I'm trying to weigh 300 pounds. I'm just fighting the wind beneath my fragile little umbrella trying to keep my head dry.

Lots of people offer solutions. I do a Google maps search and I get 10,637 hits for churches near Greensboro, NC. That's a lot of churches offering a little corner of their umbrellas. That's a lot of gods, though I imagine 10,000 of them will tell you that there is only one and if you join up with them you'll get a corner of gods own umbrella, and no one will accidentally get their feet stepped on while you walk. The rest are going to get soaked, but that's their own faults picking the wrong umbrella.

I found listings for about 4,958 for bars near Greensboro, NC. They won't help you with your umbrella, but they can offer you a place where for a short time you with a lot of other people who've lost their umbrellas, can for a just a little while forget that your hair is in your gouged eyes and your cloths are soaked. They won't care that you look like a drowned rat, they're soaked too.

Google maps says there is 1,222 hits for psychologist near Greensboro, NC and about 860 hits for psychiatrist. They are offering to help you find your own umbrella again, get it turned right side out, and get it back up over your head again. All you have to do tell them exactly where you lost your umbrella, and how your going to fix it. You might also have to take a pill, so you won't mind being wet in the mean time.

The drug companies are out there trying to sell you things to make your umbrella seem bigger, stronger, or more durable, while thugs in the streets are doing the same things without FDA approval or marketing campaigns. The reality is that your umbrella is the same, you just don't care about being wet as much anymore.

I'm trying to use the umbrella I have, to see it for its strengths and its weaknesses. Sure its a little bent, and one of the fasteners that holds the fabric to the frame on one bit keeps coming off. But if I hold it just right, and I lean it just so, all by myself I can keep my face and hair dry, see a clear path on the sidewalk and make my way to my destination without getting any wetter, or putting anyone's eyes out I by walking too close to them. Sure my shoes are wet just like everyone else's, and yes the rain does wick up my pants legs too, but if I do what I believe to be the right thing and walk what I believe to be the best path, when I get to where I'm going, there will be dry socks, a pair of pants, and a steaming hot cup of coco waiting there for me.

Marshmallows too.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Of faerie wings and halter tops, of Kitsune and queens.

While we were at the Goddess Market last week, we said we would be doing the Solstice festival on the 21st. Events out of our control made solstice, fun, or security, things far from the forefront of our minds. Reminded at the last minute however, we strived to have fun in spite of things. It was a good decision.

I couldn't guess how many showed up, but it was a good crowd and nearly half dressed for flights of fancy. It really did my heart a world of good to see the young and old alike in their little wings, hats, horns, and face paint. It was good to know that no matter how young or old you were there was always a time and a place to let your freak flag fly.

We were there for the beginning, and we stayed for the end, and we had a good and relaxing time surrounded by friends. Here's a few pictures we took to mark the occasion. We didn't want to use flash because we didn't want to disturb those around us, so many of the later pictures didn't turn out. I guess I should have brought a tripod for those low light shots. Of course, even at 3pm that afternoon, I had no idea it was even Thursday, let alone solstice.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What they don't tell us is what a dirty desk is a sign of. I take my clutter seriously. Part of it is me being too lazy to clean. Part of it is being too paranoid to have an organizational structure that can be easily interpreted by my enemies. Most of it is just who I am.

I like to think of my self as eclectic, or at the very least such a jack of all trades that I have at my fingertips the answer to any situation that might suddenly come my way. There is a certain comfort level here too. Like wearing a shirt in public. Sure I suppose I could go without, but I'd feel better with it, and I know others around me would feel the same. This is the shield that protects me from my naked truth. This is my safe place away from home. Its where I keep my stuff.

Its also a great way to show off my cool new socks.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Winston-Salem is the home of the Twin City Ribfest. Ribs, music, what could be better?

I would have wanted to go anyway, but this year they have landed The Red Elvises This is an amazing band, or as they put it, "Your favorite band". I first became aware of them when I saw the movie Six String Samurai. This should be required watching for people interested in film at any level. The Red Elvises did the soundtrack.

However, at 4:16 today I received a work related email that rocked my world. I am not sure I could enjoy the show or the ribs anymore. Stupid work, ruining my weekend 44 minutes before it began.

For everyone who sees the show at 10 tonight, I wish you well, prepare to have a good time.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:02 PM | Permalink

The best time of year to BBQ pork in the whole is early spring or late fall. As it is June 9th, and 4:30am the cooks will have to contend with the forces of outrageous nature as well cooking with oak.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees then using some old newspaper, scrub the grate clean.

Place guest of honor skin side up in the center of the grill.

As you are cooking with wood, care must be taken that you keep a steady supply of coals and watch the cooking temperature carefully.

As we have been using oak to make coals, I am finding that while this is the method that produces the best results, it can be time consuming, as you are constantly making coals and firing the cooker. I've got my shovel and I'm not afraid to use it.

Bon Appétit!

We begin with the chopping. About half of any crowd prefers it chopped, and the other half will prefer to pick it off of the carcass themselves. I myself prefer to pick my own bones.

And to your left, the vegetables. Bacon with snap beans and new potatoes, bacon baked beans, fresh garden peas with pastry (dumplings if you prefer to use this term) seasoned with bacon grease, coleslaw, and hush puppies.

The crowd swarms as the lids are removed, it is a jungle out there. Even the women and children eat with wild abandon. This was as close as I could safely get to these feeding little girls, they made no bones about it, I am either a part of the solution, or I'm a part of a complete breakfast. (Yes, they're family.) This is their mother, and my cousin. She's not smiling, she's snarling. No really...

I myself took time to eat just a smidgen of our wondrous bounty. OK, I had a deviled egg, four hush puppies, and three pounds of tenderloin. What? You DARE mock my baco-vegetarian lifestyle?

After everyone ate, here's what it looks like.

As for me, I'm done. Nap time.

The End

Continue reading "Cavenaugh Style Pork BBQ" »

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I proved I'm no Jack Bower this weekend on my road trip to Detroit. When I announced I was no longer safe to drive, I had been awake for 22 hours, and had spent 11 of those behind the wheel. This is probably a lot for most people and it was certainly a lot for me, but I knew my limits, I knew to stop when I reached them, and I knew I wasn't going to be penalized for not going all the way. (I actually gave up the wheel, 1.5 hours from our hotel in Detroit.)

I am not the sort of driver who sits behind the wheel of a giant tool which takes me from point "A" to point "B". When I drive I don't get behind the wheel so much as wear the vehicle like a shirt. I stretch out and ooze deep down into the electrical and braking systems, right down to my four rubber soled shoes. Armor, raincoat, and spacesuit, with wings on my feet.

Many drivers use the energy they have to go as far as they can, and what they have is what they bring with them. I augment my own energy with that of the vehicle, it can't replace my own, but it can help make mine last longer. This ability doesn't come without a price. In the end I always seem to end up writing an IOU for energy and it always takes days to pay back.

Thus, the night went smoothly, from our pull out of Greensboro at 8pm, until the following morning, where I was hoping for a boost from the sun, instead I got danger, and I mean that spooky kind. The information from the vehicle never stops, but when the micro sleeps come all of my personal senses go away. Because I'm still getting so much information from the vehicle it takes longer for me to realize that for just a moment I was completely blind to what was right in front of me on the road.

I've got 13 in the vehicle, I'm doing 75 miles per hour, I'm effectively blind for a few seconds at the time. That's a long way to go without knowing what's coming. When I realized it I knew it was time to act. The lead vehicle was a spot on the horizon, not because I was slowing down, cruise control kept me up to my speed, but the driver of the lead car is comfortable speeding at a higher rate of speed than I am, therefore they are always ahead and gaining.

I need to catch them. I need to catch them right now, and I need adrenalin to stay up long enough to handle the boost of speed, and keep me safe long enough to intercept them. Done. I won't tell you how much faster I went, but lets just say that the vehicle we were in did have a built in top end. However, mission accomplished, I caught the lead vehicle, lead them to a rest stop and turned over the wheel to someone who had been sleeping on the way.

Best of all none of the passengers even knew how dicey things were at the end of my shift. My secret, I know my limits, and I act quickly when I've reached them, even if I lose personal man points for not finishing the job. They don't know that either.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:02 PM | Permalink

What type of Fae are you?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You may remember back when a certain valve cover bolt broke on me. If you are a close reader you may also remember that I made a minor update that the bolt could be had but would take time. To briefly catch up, I drove back to the 'boro with the missing bolt, ordered one from the local Saturn dealership and it arrived yesterday so I went and got it. I got the call that it was there just about quitting time, so I skipped out a beat or two early and tried to beat the rush. I managed not only to beat the rush but after paying my $7.00 for my bolt, was able to skip right out and nab a tank of $2.89 gas.

Sara was in class, I was on my own, and I was feeling good. What to do about dinner? What to do? It occurred to me that what I really wanted was fried chicken, fried okra, and fried japalano cheese bombers. I wasn't sure why I craved comfort food and didn't give it much thought. I was having a great day and I saw no reason not to go with the flow.

Got my chicken, got my okra, got my bombers, love me some Churches. I had a great drive home. Once I put the food inside I went outside to install that bolt. There is no need to go around with a screw missing. It didn't take but a minute, and as an afterthought I realized I should now snug the bolt to the left and the right of the new one. There is no need to go around with a screw or two loose. First bolt snugged, check. Second bolt, *snap*. [EXPLETIVE DELETED] It was a Kahn moment. Worse yet, it was a nooooo moment.

I read an article the other day which stated that there was a growing pool of evidence that most to all people have the capacity to see a little into the future. And there is quantum science that backs up the theory that particles can move forward and backward in time.

I don't think I need fancy science to tell me what is so plainly obvious. I had comfort food on hand BECAUSE deep down inside, I already knew I would need it.

At any rate, I needed it, it was there, I ate of it, I felt better. That's all that matters. I mean other than the fact that I have to go out and order ANOTHER $7.00 bolt, figure out how I am going to get the broken old bolt out of the aluminum block and replace it without breaking anything else. I think I feel like chicken for lunch.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:17 AM | Permalink

Events of the past week have helped to bring certain (unwitting) tactical and strategic decisions of mine into sharp focus. When it was time to go off to college and seek my fortune I was drawn by a touch of wanderlust. No true desire to leave my home far behind, but a desire to see what else was out there. I have those urges to this day.

In the end I settled here, married a fine woman, bought property with plans to put roots on it. I didn't think about anything but the moment I was in, and that was the folly of youth coupled with a jingle of new job money in my pocket. I know lots of people who have done this same thing and like me, saw (or still see) nothing wrong with it.

What I have now, years later, discovered is the big picture. It is the place of the children to take care of the parents as they get older and less able to do on their own. Brothers and sisters can split the load in ways that work best for them. Perhaps one child far away in a good job can send money, but a closer child does the grunt work, or what have you.

I am an only child. If it gets done, I do it. My parents nearest family are two hours from them and just as old as they are. Their brilliant only child is four hours away from them. I have on my shoulders all of the risk of their impending age. The rewards of being an only child I reaped long ago, with nice Christmases, no fighting for parental attention, nice first car, help with college, down payment on the land, etc. It is nearing time to pay the piper as it were, and I am poorly positioned to do good.

I, of course, can't exactly pack up me and mine and move back to the land of my birth. The only jobs there are those you bring with you. Everything else is bottom dollar work for the man.
It is true, I have skills, but no seed money and no desire to even begin to think about bringing up that kind of marriage ending conversation with my one and only. No sir, no thank you. Besides, there is bound to be another way.

The good news is, it is not exactly crunch time. I have time yet to plan. Mistakes were made, but mistakes are nothing more than opportunities to grow. I think I feel a growth spurt coming on. Wish me luck.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Today started like yesterday, awakened before the sun, given a good country breakfast with plenty of fresh strawberries and quick as a wink we're back on the road to Wilmington again.

Again I took my place in the waiting room far from the phone, under the watchful gaze of a reproduction, water color that was more old and faded than the people around me. In times like this, reading Neil Gaiman's Stardust (thanks Kimi) and listening to Celtic and Celtic Rock on ye ole MP3 player, that I see things in perhaps a different way. At least I think and hope it was a different way.

A woman in her 40's came down, with a big smile on her face, and a low cut blouse. I don't know which of those three odd things actually caught my attention first, but she managed to keep my attention the rest of the time I was alone there. Not alone in the only her and I in the waiting room sort of way, alone in the way of not being surrounded by every aunt and uncle on my father's side not currently a patient.

Her smile was out of place in the ICU waiting room, her low cut blouse was out of place in a hospital...or a school (unless she were a 17 year old student I suppose). Her age was odd, in that before she arrived I was the infant surrounded by the ancients. She was the only other person in the room under fifty. She grabbed a chair and dragged it over to within three feet of the TV, where she quickly changed channels, and I went back to my book.

It was the movement at the edge of my vision over the pages of Stardust that put her back into my mind. She was sitting about three feet from a fairly sizable TV and her arms were in the air, while she waved them like she just didn't care. I naturally thought she was following along with an exercise show until I looked at what was actually on the TV. On the TV a whole bunch of people were standing around a table covered with stacks of paper. Their hands weren't in the air at all, but laying on the stacks of paper and they were swaying while a man, their apparent leader was speaking. At first I thought the stacks were money, but I noticed that the color was wrong. All this got my curiosity up, and I paused the song I was listening to. The song I was listening to was a happy little jig about honoring the memories of the dead. What? I'm of Irish descent. The man on the TV was leading a prayer, and apparently the at home audience was invited to participate.

Mystery solved I went back to my music, and back to my book, but I kept glancing up wondering if something else would happen. Eventually something did happen. A second woman in her 50's came in and asked to join the woman who, at this point was smiling, but keeping her hands to her self. They were strangers but they had the same smile on their faces and the new woman brought over a chair and took the other corner three feet from the TV. Neither would sit directly in front of the TV, perhaps they thought others were watching the show too.

Occasionally I would catch a man in his 50's sitting near by feigning sleep, open one eye at them and chuckle quietly to himself. That made three of them smiling, two politely ignoring, one truly asleep, and myself quietly taking it all in and trying to remain inconspicuous. OK, as inconspicuous as possible with a lemon yellow T-Shirt green button up over shirt and spiked hair will allow. I was VERY quiet.

Later I met a woman who came with one of my aunts who I pretended to know for the rest of the day. On the ride home I learned she was my aunt's daughter-in-law. She had married one of my cousins. Cousin-in-law? I don't know? She apparently knew me by reputation alone, and I had only managed to learn her name the whole day. She said an awful lot over all, just not useful clues about herself. The reason I had never met her is that up until this week I had never been near Duplin County during the week, and she always works weekends in a hospital.

I wonder if that makes one of us long lost? At any rate, I now know with some certainty that even though I am the furthest flung of my clan from our American source land, I am not the black sheep.

Oh yeah, the bolt broken off in the block of the Saturn! I was supposed to get one of those today. Saturn could have had me one by Tuesday. The junk yard didn't have any Saturn engines at all. WWMD? I'll tell you Monday when I've had a chance to figure it out for myself.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:03 PM | Permalink

One of the drawbacks of being an only child is that when family issues and emergencies occur, there is no one to share the load with. If something happens and my parents need me, I will be there, end of story. On the upside, there will be absolutely no squabbling over inheritance when that sad day finally occurs.

Thus, I find myself on the coast doing my proud duty with a funeral on one side of the family and an ailing uncle in intensive care on the other. Today while mom attended death duty, I stayed by dad's side to be with him and help him do whatever it is he wants or needs done. Today for instance was a dentist day and tomorrow will be a two hour drive to take him to see his brother in the hospital.

Because of the dentist today, it could not be a travel day so we did some of the things he likes to do as a retired person, and I got to see for myself what I have to look forward to in my future days. As you can see below, he goes fishing daily. While he and his friend worked their lines, I looked up and out with the camera so I could show you home on the Newport River.

Later in the day, I borrowed a tool from a friend of his I needed to fix an oil leak on my car. The instructions said to tighten the bolts to 40 pounds. Without a tork wrench I snugged all the bolts to a uniform 20 pounds. Thus the leak. With borrowed tool in hand I fell in on evenly tightening the bolts one after the other 3/4 of a turn at a time. I was almost finished with my first pass around when *snap*...

When I finished cussing, we went to Sears to buy a tool which we would need to remove the broken steal bolt from the cast aluminum block. The block was actually cast in a Styrofoam mold so the aluminum bares the familiar Styrofoam look. See below.

So since we would have to drive two hours to a Saturn dealership anyway to buy the very special bolt, we can't make the repair until we return from Wilmington tomorrow which we were going to do anyway to visit dad's ailing brother.

Then we picked a peck of yard fresh and ripe strawberries. No picture available, just imagine back pain. Strawberries smell like back pain.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 6:29 PM | Permalink

On Sunday morning in Shreveport I called my parents like I do every Sunday. It is tradition, or ritual, or whatever. They were of course very happy to hear about the trip and the game and how Sara was feeling after the game, but they had some news of their own to share. It seems that my uncle, my father's oldest brother, had been admitted to the hospital while the game was going on.
He had never really recovered from his esophageal cancer treatment. How could he, most of his esophagus had been removed and what was left no longer worked correctly to push food into the stomach. On a good day he can weigh almost a hundred pounds. These are not good days.
I asked my parents to keep me posted. If he turned for the worst I would need to go down there in support of my family. It is the way of my people. At this moment I am in late preparations to head that way. The eldest son of Leathe Cavenaugh is still with us. What we didn't count on was the passing of my mother's aunt. This happened late yesterday. I got one night in my own bed and a quandary. Clearly I have duties to attend to, I have enough vacation days saved up to get me through the crisis, but how am I going to be in so many places at once. This is one of the few times I think how handy it would be to have a brother or sister. One could go one way with mother, and the other could go the other with father. Complete parental coverage. But that is not to be. I must instead find the path that does the most good and not fret over the things I have no control over. Just call me the Zen Arrow.
In other words I've packed an extra large bag to cover every clothing occasion, and I'll be back when I get back. I'd better pack a book too.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:08 AM | Permalink

I awoke at 8am this morning a light rain falling on the roof of the house. I could hear birds chirping, and a certain corgie with a full bladder.

Something was different. I got up and my feet barely touched the floor. Normally the floor goans under my weight. I padded lightly out the front door and the corgie and I relieved our bladders. Ah...country life.

Lets see, no work today, no work Monday. No fencing tonight, no fencing tomorrow, no fencing Monday. No past deadlines, no weight of enormous responsibilities at work, no weight of enormous responsibilities at fencing, no since of failure at a job that is suddenly a stranger to me, no country-western music, no rap, no opera. No one really has any idea how much weight they are carrying until that moment they wake to discover it is gone.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen Woody?
I'll tell you later.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My fingers set the cruise with barely a notice. The small muscles of my fingers performed their task cued by the hum of the engine and the feeling of the tires on the highway. The air through the window just the right temperature, its scent of green wood, moist soil, and a promise of salty seas in the distance, a time for magic, and so I let it be so and I ran.

My four feet rode over the warm asphalt, my heart a mere shadow of what it once was, my eyes rose above the roofline below me plastic and aluminium, poor substitutes for cold iron and steel but I could remember, and as the road fell away below me my eyes kept level to the next hill and as the road rose to meet me I was not afraid for we were one even in my weakened state.

Over the sound of my heart and the voice of the wind, a song from my past of love and longing took me to a time and a place of my youth. A time when we felt our looks and our actions defined us, but truth told it was only a thin paper shell that held the raw and burning emotion that was what we truly were. The emotion of what was joined with the emotions of what are and the wind carried them away to a place where memories live. A place of monuments, mementos, and things left burried.

Through all that was right, all that was true and real and here and magic, it was but a shadow of what was, what should be, and what will be soon, and like all journeys, this one too ended. It was almost like old times. Almost like old times, not mocking, but a gentle but firm reminder of what was lost and what will be once again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:24 PM | Permalink

Some of you may have noticed that I seem to be having a rather craptastic week. That would be true. I would give you the play by play from my horoscope who this week seems to mock me with its "I told you so attitude". However I can't because it only keeps a day of history. Its attitude seems to be "Put your behind in your past." I do not need attitude from a horoscope.

So suffice it to say that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were pretty much like Yesterday. Blah blah emotion. Blah blah feelings. Blah blah why don't you shut the blah up already!!!

It's time to move into unfamiliar waters of emotional intensity, even if you are frightened by what you don't understand. Just because you don't think you are capable of enjoying this irrational journey, don't shut out the possibility of having an incredible experience. Get out of the noise inside your head and sink into the feelings of your heart. As long as you are willing to communicate, the complexity will simplify in the days ahead.

What I know is I had to take a couple of mile walk at a brisk pace on Wednesday and ended the day with a 15 piece box of fried chicken, 15 jalapeño poppers, a pound of fried okra, and a xenecal. I know I did I fencing demo where at least my body was on task and professional. My mind and my emotions were running north and south I only hope I didn't make an ass of myself in front of my friends...again. I got home and my body, being the one on task hurt all over. It was a good pain. It was the kind that focuses you on what's important. I slept well and dreamed of a place that doesn't exist anymore. I am willing to forgive my whimsy for that on account of this is a new day.

Today's Friday, my legs feel like I went for a walk in a swamp with a house on my shoulders. Come to think of it, my shoulder's have felt like that all week. Pain is weakness leaving the body and a bitter man is a strong man. I carefully groomed my look today to say to everyone watching, I fear NOTHING, not even your pitiful ridicule.

My horoscope says today:

One of the problems you may be facing is how to maintain your freedom of movement while simultaneously stabilizing your security. You may not want to give up either your independence or your emotional attachments. Just remember that others cannot solve your irresolvable conflicts. No drastic action is required by you or anyone else now as long as you stay in touch with your feelings.

Even your most positive thoughts are anchored in reality now as you can see the importance of working within the structures. Trust these cautious feelings, for this may not be the best time to upset the apple cart. Find a way to express your rebellious streak without actually rebelling. Remember, towing the party line today won't necessarily prevent you from turning everything inside-out on another day.

And I say it can go to hell, I'm making a new day for myself and that goes for tomorrow too.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:56 AM | Permalink

Which do you choose?

You need something:

1. You have a lesser version of it that could be upgraded to give you everything you want. It will take time and money though because you have to order and install the upgrades.

2. You can just go out and get a new one that does it all, it might cost a little more in the end but you have it right away instead of having to wait.

Which do you choose?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At my [CENSORED] I [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED]. I [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] [CENSORED] at the [CENSORED] but the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] thing [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]!!!

[CENSORED] I could than [CENSORED] [CENSORED] there would[CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED][EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED], only how could [CENSORED] the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] if [CENSORED]? Is there some sort of [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] in the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED]?!?

Yet somehow, [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]. Huh. [CENSORED] [CENSORED] for [CENSORED] if [CENSORED] except when [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]. [CENSORED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] with a [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]. The [CENSORED] is [CENSORED]. As for [CENSORED] [CENSORED]? [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]! Sure... [CENSORED] [CENSORED] the [CENSORED] in the [CENSORED]. But [CENSORED]
[CENSORED] the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED]. I mean [CENSORED] the [CENSORED] with a [CENSORED]. How does [CENSORED] the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED]? Does [CENSORED] [CENSORED] the [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]??? Do I [CENSORED] [CENSORED] on a [CENSORED] [CENSORED] thing like [CENSORED]? I'm [CENSORED] for [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] !!! What do you [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] in the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] for the entire [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED]?
So I'm going to get a bucket of chicken and a bottle of anything. See if I don't!

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:54 PM | Permalink

If you can't walk, you crawl. If you've crawled your last your friends will be there to carry you the rest of the way home.

I have very good friends.

Divisional Qualifiers for Div II/III nationals was this weekend and every one of our fencers fenced above and beyond the call. We even had two injured fencers out there excelling in spite of their pain. Every single fencer we fielded fenced above my every expectation, except maybe one and he's excused on the grounds that he is perfect. Long story.

One of my fencers even gave me a t-shirt. I can't wear it, but it wasn't ever her intention to give me something to wear. Her goal was to give me something that I had to work towards wearing. Well played nurse!

After I left, Sara bought a lawn mower. It was supposed to be delivered today at 4pm. Instead I had to drive home from work at 9am to receive it. So if I don't have to drive Sara home from work today, I will have driven 88 miles. If I do, 132 miles. But at least we have a lawn mower. It has a beer holder. I can't wait to mow the grass. Forget the grass, I can't wait to drink the beer. And when you can't walk you crawl, and when your done crawling, you mow the lawn.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:37 AM | Permalink

If you read the last entry, I was just saying how completely burned out I was and how much I was dreading going to divisionals until the late hours of the night to cast my vote and turn in my proxies.

Well, I got there. Nothing left to do but pick up the scoring box and reels out of the trunk and go inside. Maybe I'll call home and see how Sara's doing first.

Sara was dizzy but fine. I hang up and the phone immediately rings. Its Cameron. Damn. They must be inside wondering why I didn't come strait over after class. Class ended at 4 and it was 5, but I had to go to the office and get the proxies. Here's how the conversation went.

Cameron: Where are you?
Woody: I'm in the parking lot.
Cameron: It's over.
Woody: You are finished fencing?
Cameron: No, its all over. The meeting and everything.
Woody: PAUSE...... [EXPLECTIVE DELETED]
Cameron: What?

Well, lets just say that the next few sentences were made up entirely of four letter words.

Done? Oh yeah, totally [EXPLECTIVE DELETED] done. Poof. I'm going home. I'm going to bed. Don't expect to see me before next weekend.

I get out of the car and carry the box and reels inside. I honestly felt lower than a dinner sized snake. No question. And suddenly there I was surrounded by friends again. Ash, extenguish, fly again.
My day ended in good company at a Mongolian Barbecue place. Its been a good day.

Now to rest, foil is Monday ya know.

*sniff* *sniff* Does anyone else smell smoke?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:20 PM | Permalink

I started this week tired emotionally. There was a lot of fencing in it, and a lot of failures at work in it. I had wanted to fence foil and epee in divisionals today however, I knew foil was going to be impossible because I had a class to teach. No problem, I dropped out of foil.

By Thursday I was so burned out that I dropped out of Sunday's epee competition. I could use a day off. By Friday I didn't even want to go to divisionals on Saturday after teaching class. Then I got volunteered to do some good will community fencing demonstration.

By Friday night at fencing, hiding behind a balance beam, I made the decision to stop fencing on Fridays. Most Fridays there is enough coverage they could do without me. You can teach a class with as few as one coaches, it is very difficult but I do it every week so I know it is possible.

When I woke up on Saturday morning I had to take Sara into Greensboro and back home again. She couldn't drive due to her ear infection, but she had to be at practice long enough to fulfill some of her obligations. I can respect that. Woody knows obligations. While sitting in the car waiting for her I spent some quality time thinking about dropping out of Monday's foil class. It is pretty smooth, and I would always be available to cover for Mario should he be out sick.

Then we did our community thing. I'm tired, but I have two classes to teach, then I have to go to Divisionals, as our clubs representative. I was dreading it. The first class wasn't so bad. They are a bunch of young children 9-12 and all you had to do is keep repeating the same thing over and over again while they did just exactly the opposite. Good times. At the end of class the parents all came up to me and complimented me on my amazing patience. They half joked about me double dosing on Xanex before class so I could do it. I told them that I was drug free, I just spend my time in class daydreaming about killing them all on the end of a sharp sword. It was a lie, but it was funnier than the truth. Truth be told was entirely too beat down to even care anymore. Go ahead set the room on fire, who cares.

Then the second class started. There are ,as you must know, moments where something happens and no matter what your spiritual slant you comment to yourself, "Wow, there must be a god." I am pretty sure god loves me, and made that class far better, more fun, and more relaxing than any class could possible be without either divine help or chemical adjustment. Heaven or Rum, the end result was the same. They brought me back from the brink and I am very thankful. More than any of them will ever realize. I think there may have even been a tear.

Yeah, I still sort of dread divisionals, however I think that class gave me the strength to make it through the election tonight.

It was important enough that I came here and blogged about it rather than go strait there. OK, it might also be stalling, but I think it is true from the heart gratitude and I'm sticking to that story.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:22 PM | Permalink

I am not afraid of being laughed at. My name is Woody and I hit 200 pounds in the fifth grade. Ridicule is like huffing up a set of stairs for me. I survive it every day. Thus I am willing to share with the five or six people who actually read me this funny story.

It starts with underwear.

About once a year I have to go out and replace that underwear which has given its all in the previous year in the name of containment, and come out the worse for it. I typically wear boxer briefs. Boxers bind, there is too much cloth in the legs and I can't walk in them. Briefs are just that, besides fear of fallout, there are issues of chafing which happens when you have thighs of my size. Boxer briefs are snug enough not to bind and low enough to protect.

Typically I choose black. They don't show stains like white, and they look enough like bike shorts I can strip down in a parking lot and put on other pants without people realizing I'm in my undies in public. Its a handy thing. This year I fell in love with a pair of green and gray striped that just said "Pirate Underpants" to me. Plus they'll be totally obnoxious under my white knickers.

I was looking for more of the same when something glinted in the light at the edge of my vision. I turned to face a rack of shiny spandex underwear of a type I had never seen before. They were in terrific colors and I knew I had to get me some of that action! They were called trunks. I had never heard of this style but they were certainly stylish and did what I needed them to do. Protect me from fallout, and chafing, without binding or making me look like a dork. Mission accomplished.

Last night in Foil I was wearing a pair of green ones. It was great. Like wearing nothing at all. I fenced all evening thinking how good my choice was. Trust the superhero's, they know their underwear.

In the locker room, I stripped down to my undies and my t-shirt still thinking how awesome it was to find these most excellent underwear. Although...come to think of it, they seem to be a might drafty. I glanced down and there was my junk looking back up at me, like "dude, turn the heat on". Wait a minute?! I was sure I put on trunks this morning. I pulled my t-shirt up some more.

Oh...so that's why the superhero's always wear their tights under their trunks.

Still, they beat the immortal stuffing out of boxer's or briefs. And they are way dead sexier than boxer briefs. Life is about compromise. I'm thinking about going back for some more.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My dear old grandfather Matthews used to tell me, "What you get out of life is what you eat." He started complaining in his late 60's that food just didn't taste good anymore, he died at 74. I suspect by this time he had even forgotten what food tasted like.

As a baby my parents adopted a simple philosophy given to them by the family doctor. How much do you feed a baby? You feed them until they stop eating. The same advice held while I was a toddler and child too. I had to clean my plate, and once clean I could choose to refill it again with as much of whatever I wanted, I just had to eat it all.

As a child my grandfather often remarked that any boy who liked fried chicken that much was destined to be a preacher. In his day, when the preacher came to dinner, you served fried chicken and the preacher got to have all the best pieces and as much as he wanted. As a child I started with the legs, then the thighs, than the breasts, and finally the wings. I couldn't have the neck or back. That was my father's domain (the youngest son of six), and he would fight tooth and nail for his pieces.

These days I've got an eight piece addiction that just won't quit. I can go weeks without it, but then one day I get the shakes and nothing will cure it except good old southern fried chicken. These days I start with the thighs, then the breasts, than the wings. I try to leave the legs for Sara, but if she isn't around, they too fall to my insatiable hunger.

Cookies? Who needs them. Cake? Not interested? Donuts? I stopped eating Krispy Kremes cold turkey and haven't looked back. Sausage? Seldom. Spare Ribs? Sparingly. Fried Chicken? Eight piece box, no biscuits, no sides, and a large diet coke please.

Henri, who is the face you see when you look into the abyss, says she's going to throw Fried Chicken strait in. "OK." I told her. "I can practice my high dive going after it." How many pieces of chicken will I catch doing an infinite number of half gainers while falling through the abyss? I'm ready to find out. Though I suppose I ought to tie a napkin around my neck first. Actually make it a cape. I'm a messy eater.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There is a new guy working in my office, and today I happened to mention that I was from the coast. To this he asked, "Where?" I replied, "Newport."

His eyes got wide and, I realized that perhaps he thought I was referring to some other larger Newport, so I asked him, "Which Newport do you think I'm talking about?"

He responded "Newport NC...My wife was from there?"

Wow. Newport is a small town with only about three thousand living in it. In reality Newport is little more than a town you pass through to get to the beach. Home of the Newport Pig Cooking Contest, and on the flight approach of Cherry Point Naval Air Station.
As such I know, knew really (it has been fifteen years since I called Newport my place of residence) everyone in the town at least name or face. So I asked him, "Whose your wife?"

His response; "Her last name was Hemingway."

Well there is only one family by that name in Newport and their youngest son was my best mate growing up riding motorcycles in the woods of the surrounding Crystal Coast countryside.

Yep. This guy had married one of my old friend's older sisters.

Found out he got married again. That makes me happy, he is a good guy and his last wife did him poorly. That is not to say that he was innocent. He is the one who picked his other best friend's little sister as a wife. Still, I can't be happier for him. I suppose I ought to look him up or something.

Small worlds indeed.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

After fencing on Sunday, and again I wasn't going for the gold or anything, I went out to have some fun, get some exercise and hang out with friends. I was completely successful on all counts. However, Monday all day I felt like I had fenced and then walked home from Raleigh. I was exhausted, my muscles were exhausted and recovery wasn't on anyone's radar.

By the end of the day I was more than a little worried about being able to do anything at all in my foil class. Mario was back but he had been out a week sick and I didn't know what condition I would find him in. It seems to me in situations there is only ever one thing that will do. Protein!!! And as much as I can hold.

So just before leaving for foil, I ate an order of chicken wings, and an order of General Tso's chicken (no rice please, I'm trying to quit). I scarfed the food down before I was really aware I was eating, it was disappointing to see it gone. The effect however was almost as good as the effect spinach has on Popeye. I got to class, dealt with the biological issues associated with suddenly having battered deep fried chicken in a fat and sodium laden sauce, and commenced to fence some pretty decent foil. It was a good night.

Now today, I feel like the Monday after should have felt. The lesson I have learned is this. The meal I eat after a fencing tournament should be meat. Not a sprinkle of meat on a salad. Salad? I must have lost my freakin' mind. Clearly I had forgotten the Omnivore's Creed, and it won't happen again. Balance in all things, measured by weight, not by volume.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:55 AM | Permalink

Man I'm tired.

I have no idea why, sure I competed yesterday, but I didn't fence all that hard. I went to a tournament that was rated "A2". Of the 29 people fencing all were rated but 10. I was of that 10. Therefore, I had no expectations to kick butt and take names, so I could relax, focus on the fun part of fencing, get a little exercise, and hang out with my friends.

I ended up winning a bout that I had no reason winning. Of course I lost a bout or two I didn't have much business losing, but those aren't mysteries. The guy I won against is a rated fencer, who I have inexplicably beaten before. I don't know if he always seriously understates the fat man, or if I do something that completely unravels him. Either way, I always feel dumbfounded beating him.

Today I feel like I walked to Raleigh, fenced the day, and ran back home chased the whole way by demons. My dreams were messed up too. I dreamed that someone mistook me for an actor that even as I type this I have no idea what he even looks like. She had a newspaper and his face was on the cover, and it did look like me. I decided to play along with her, be real nice, and leave a good impression. I have no idea if the actor is a nice guy or not, but it was important to me that the woman believed she met a nice guy. I don't even remember the other dream, but I do remember it didn't have cars or women in it, so at least I know it couldn't have been a nightmare.

Fencing hangovers we call it. And its been months since I have even had a beer. I must be wearing out or something.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 11:15 AM | Permalink

It was brought to my attention that yesterday's entry told a grand story, but didn't necessarily tell the whole story. I couldn't agree more. In saying what I wanted to say I glossed over some very important bits that today I intend to share with you.

We have all heard the old saying that the guys with the great cars get the girls. You yourself probably saw some guy in high school with a hot car and his passenger seat was never without a girl to go with it. Although there looks like a correlation, it isn't as real as you think. Cars will NOT get you girls. To put it simply, a car is a modifier to your charisma score. A great car could add +3, but if you were only an 8 to begin with, your car isn't going to help you all that much.

This said, in the course of my life the ladies in it were of two basic types. The first type were jealous of the car because it got more attention from other guys than they did. I'm not kidding as funny as it sounds. Everywhere this girl and I went, strangers (mostly guys) would stop me and tell me how beautiful my car was. Typically, they never even noticed the girls in the passenger seat. One girl was so put off by this that I put a little plate on the front bumper proclaiming young love for her, this way she would literally come before the car. You are probably now getting this image in your mind of me being the sort of guy who every weekend was under the hood, or applying exotic waxes to the paint. This could not be farther from the truth. Then as now I HATE getting my hands greasy. I did the minimum necessary to allow me to go pick up the girls and take them out on dates. I guess this is why you can't use a model for a wingman.

The second type of lady in my life knew Beautie for exactly what she was and treated her like family. Of this type there were only two. First was the Danish foreign exchange student in high school who not only named the car "Beautie" but actually liked the car more than me (its true to this day). The second is Sara my wife.

Sara is the logical one. Sara makes the tough decisions because I can't. She is absolutely trustworthy and hasn't (to date) made a bad decision. Her decision to park Beautie came from the fact that we were newly married, low on cash, up to our ears in debt, and between us had three cars. At the time, the transmission on Beautie was starting to slip and that is never a cheep fix. Especially as I have no special skills were mechanics are concerned, and as previously mentioned, too wussy to stand the sight of grease under my nails. Sara made sure when she told me that it was best to park the car, that this was only temporary and she herself would make sure that Beautie would be street worthy as soon as it was financially possible.

While I am pretty sure that now is not the time, Sara is allowing me to move ahead anyway, so long as I hold off on the supercharger a while and have no delusions of dumping the Saturn and driving Beautie full time anytime in the next year.

For that, I thank you Sara. You are the voice of reason, and the one who will be responsible for making my grand dreams come true. Dreaming is easy, turning a dream into reality takes skill, and between us, only Sara has that wonderful talent.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 12:00 PM | Permalink

There is something about proximity. We joke about people resembling their dogs all the time. We don't joke so much about married couples beginning to resemble as they age, but we have all seen it happen.

There is just some sort of bond created that is stronger than justice and thicker than blood that joins you to someone in an unexplainable way. It also works with somethings. In 1965 my father bought a brand new Ford Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe. It was the first new car he had ever bought, and my mother cried for a week wondering how they were going to pay for it. Just about the time she got pregnant with what would become me, she totaled the car in a light rain on fresh pavement. The water brought the oil out of the pavement, and she lost traction. When the world stopped spinning she was sitting in the back seat across from the driver's seat, with nerve damage. To this day she can't really feel what's going on in her abdomen. The car was too beautiful a thing to let die so young so the better half of Dad's Fairlane, was welded to the better half of another Fairlane who had suffered similarly. When I was born, I was brought home from the hospital in that car. Dad had bought himself an F100 pickup and the Fairlane became Mom's car. Most of my "first" were in that car. First trip to the doctor, first trip to the emergency room, first trip to the dentist. First trip through a drive through, first trip to a drive in. Christmas eve laying in the back seat on the way home from Grandmother's house looking out through the back glass at the stars above wondering if I would see Rudolph. My first day of school in Kindergarten I went in that car, and my last day of High School, I went in that car. In 1985 my parents bought a car for my mother to replace the Fairlane, which they had deemed too old and too unreliable for mom's daily commute to work. The Fairlane sat in the driveway. They weren't going to sell it. They saw it as the perfect first car for their only son. It was big, heavy, and expendable. The popular wisdom was that teenagers were going to wreck their first car so why buy something new when that would be good enough.

The never counted on two facts. First, while they considered me an only child, I always felt like I had an older sister who just happened to have four wheels and a taste for leaded gas. After all, the car had been in the family longer than I had. In the time before I turned 16 I planned, schemed and saved my pennies. Second she had always been my dream car. By the time I was 17 the car had new paint, new wheels, and a professional tint job. It didn't need much else. Body wise she was nearly flawless, the interior was careworn, but certainly not warn out. It was in the Fairlane that I got my first kiss. It was in the Fairlane that I ever got my first up close and personal look at the real difference between boys and girls. It was the Fairlane who took me to and from work every day and took me cruising the beach every night after work. A Danish foreign exchange student I went to high school named her "Beautie", and it stuck.

Meanwhile in 1997, the car that was suppose to replace Beautie for my mother died suddenly and had to be replaced. In 1992 my father bought me a car to take me away to college in. It was used, but it was newer and better on gas. Beautie sat in the yard at home until I came for her and brought her to college with me. A few years later, she needed $3500 in repairs to the front suspension. Her replacement needed $3500 in repairs to the engine. I drove the replacement car to the junk yard, sold it as scrap and never looked back. Beautie became my one and only once again.

February 29th 2000 I brought another woman into my life on a full time basis. Soon after she grounded Beautie - temporarily. I trusted my wife 100% with the money and she said it would be for the best to take the insurance off of the car that got the worst gas mileage. Besides, she never felt comfortable riding in Beautie, and she feared driving her. It takes more than five senses to drive Beautie. Just to start with if you think of her as a mere "car", a tool to take you from point A to point B you are doomed to failure. Driving with Beautie is a partnership and a compromise. You'll always get to where you are going, but you have to be willing to release some control to get there. You also have to have a sense of humor, but that is a story that Rob Parrish can tell much better than I as I was the butt of one of Beautie's jokes, and he had a front row seat to the jape of the century.

My parents gave me the car they bought in 1997 that was the car that replaced Beautie in 1985. It was practical and pleasant enough as far as conveyances go. My wife approved and Beautie sat in the yard. Over time the air seeped out of her tires. Her paint lost some of its luster. The mice made themselves a home. While this was going on, I put on 110 pounds, I got too tired to mow the grass. My knees ached too much to fence and I taught classes from a chair. I was immobile and falling apart.

But then something happened. I am not sure what or how, but Beautie came to me in my dreams filling me with comfort and hope. I noticed that the chrome started to sparkle and the mice moved out. Grass did not grow up around her and I found myself getting my own health together. The more healthy I became the more "healthy" she looked. Or perhaps it is the other way around. I brought up the subject of putting insurance on her again and my wife was very agreeable. It was like Beautie was a battery that held an energy that sustains both of us and it was suddenly charging. Either I am charging her, or she me, I will never know, but the effect is the same. We are becoming reborn.

Yup. Real beauty, ain't she? Yes sir. Tell you what. You take this ship - treat her proper - she'll be with you for the rest of your life.

-Firefly

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My leisure time this weekend was spent watching episode after episode of Red Dwarf. Say what you will by product placement, it works. How do I know?

Sara and I just went to India Palace on Tate Street for dinner. Why were we craving Indian food so badly that we couldn't wait until half priced lunch buffet tomorrow? Red Dwarf. Specifically David Lister's constant craving for all foods of India. Next time I'm getting the chicken vindaloo double extra spicy. And maybe a lager to go with it. Start off with some pompodoms, and round it all out with kheer. Yeah man, that would totally make my day.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 6:19 PM | Permalink

I created my second Myspace page today. More "internet bread crumbs". If you live in both worlds as well, friend me. I'm real social.

My first attempt at myspace last year ended in tragedy as I boned the spelling on my email address. The credentials went into the either, and I bombed the password as well. It looks great, it looks real and it points here, but if you find me there, I am unable to answer. We'll refer to that page as "Evil Anti-Social Woody's Myspace Page". Anti-social bastard...

Just don't expect much by the way of new and cool super secret "Myspace Content". My space is there, my content is here. Too bad it can't rss my blog feed. That would be awesome.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:09 PM | Permalink

I was in the grocery store last night and like most times you go into the store you see a cross section of humanity, the haves, the have nots, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Last night I saw something I thankfully don't see all that often.

Before I reveal what I saw, I feel it necessary for you to understand me. Without that context, my reactions are at best meaningless, at worst just plane crazy. Though I am actual size when you see me, yes morbidly obese, but actual size. You see my dimensions as they truly exist, but in my own mind, I seem much bigger to me. In my mind, I am the bull in the china shop. If you have ever managed to even catch me in one of those little gift shops with all the fragile glass figurines, you would have noticed that my hands were in my pockets, my elbows pulled tightly to my side. I move in slow motion and I want nothing more than to be outside in the wide and safe outdoors. I avoid fragile things, (I decorate my house in wood and steel), I avoid babies, and children under fencing age except under special circumstances. For instance, Jake Quigley, gets the occasional fencing lesson from me. I won't throw him over my shoulder but I will teach him the skills he is going to need as he gets older, as I have a duty to do so.

In the store was a young woman who might have been beautiful once inflated. She was an "instant hotty" just add water (or in this case 30 pounds of fat might do). I wasn't judging, I wasn't assuming she had an eating disorder. There are people out there who can eat most mortals under the table and never gain a pound. She may have been one of these, she may have even had a medical condition that kept her from carrying bodyweight. But I also never went down the same isle as her. I'm actual sized but I seem much bigger to me, and I'm pushing a shopping cart. So I went out of my way not to get within harms distance of her.

This all worked out fine until it was time to check out. Most registers were open, and instinctively I headed for the shortest line. As it would happen once I got there, she was in front of me. At the moment I realized I had chosen a bad line, she looked up and registered my presence. If I moved now, she might take it as an insult, and that isn't my intention either. So I put my cart between her and myself and I didn't attempt to put any of my food on the belt until all of her food was scanned and she moved to the check writing area.

It was here I realized I had an opportunity to truly know her. No matter who you are, or how you try to hide who you are with cloths, makeup, and fancy ring tones on fancy cellphones, the checkout of a grocery store reveals your true naked self. Now I would know. Is it medical? Is it high metabolism? Is it an eating disorder?

She had "lite" wine coolers, fat free ice cream, uber healthy snack cookies, a diet coke, a fashion magazine, and baby food. I am not a doctor, but I paid attention in my health classes. A woman with so little body fat wouldn't even be able to menstruate, let alone carry a child to term. Plus I saw the nutrition label on one of the jars. Baby food is fortified with vitamins and minerals, is low fat, and pretty low calorie.

She had fat free junk food, baby food, and a fashion magazine. I rest my case, she had an eating disorder. Heck, the fashion magazine alone was enough to get a circumstantial conviction on, the other stuff was the smoking gun. Case closed.

I have always tried to lay bare my soul, not pull any punches, and guarantee that I would never hold public office. So in keeping with these facts I am willing to share with you the contents of my own shopping cart. A jar of horse radish, a bottle of ketchup, a box of dryer sheets, 2 bags of coffee, a roasted chicken, a half gallon of skimmed milk, a quart of low fat low calorie ice cream, and an apple pie.

Now you know me.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:18 AM | Permalink

I have had friends comment that I am a difficult person to track down. Well, they would probably say that were they able to track me down. I've been busy lately, and it looks like I am going to be busy for the forseeable future too.

I am looking at my schedule and I am involved with something fencing related every weekend, from February 17th all the way out to June 3rd. Of course I'm still doing the IT work at sweat shop pay, as well as three nights a week teaching fencing.

It is during realizations like this I remember the words of the late great Warren Zevon; "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

As I see it as long as I'm busy doing stuff I love I'm immortal, just highly unavailable.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:23 AM | Permalink

Yesterday I fenced in a tournament at Brevard college. I was able to go because Cameron was willing to give me a ride, and she had to be there as the division's tournament observer. My intent was the same as it ever was. Go, meet new people, fence a little, and try not to embarrass myself or my clubmates. It sounds really simple when you write it out like that, but in practice I find it all really complicated to accomplish.

Brevard is a college club, and not a team, so it all reminded me of the early days back in UNCG's fencing club. They were all winging it as best as they could and counting on the kindness of strangers to make it all come together. We brought a box and a set of reels which was a kindness and I got to fence for free in return. That was good. In the bad list, they had lined up a dedicated referee who never showed up. Dedicated referees are really necessary for foil, where the referee has to be concise, knowledgable, focused, and able to withstand the constant questioning and antics of the fencers who will use every trick they can think of to bully you into calling something their way. Most of the rated referees in the state were all at JO's and unavailable.

Foil took a long time. I started helping ref, but I was pretty quickly 0wnz3d by fencers who figured out how to push my buttons. I found myself feeling more like a rodeo clown than an official of any kind. I gave up and sat down, fortunately Cameron stepped up. She didn't want to do it, but she was amazing. Hand signels, calmness, and that eye thing that makes the bad boys sit down and shut up. I'm talking about the total referee package. She finished the pool I started, and went on to referee all the way up to the semi-finals.

Epee, which I was going to fence for free was supposed to start at one PM. Because of a lack of foil referees we didn't get epee on the road until 3pm. About half of the fencers were complaining about it starting late and the other half were thrilled that they had gotten 15 people to show up with enough ratings to make it a D1 tournament. I didn't care either way. I have no ratings aspirations, and I knew that I was there for the duration with Cameron anyway.

My first bout I lost 5-0. I'm not complaining. I always tank my first bout. There is a well known and well documented way to not tank your first bout. It is called "warming up", and usually involves some mild exercise, and something that looks a little like fencing. I made my decision early in my come back career no never to "warm up", because that takes valuable energy and creates heat. I never have enough energy to get me through the day and I always generate way too much heat. The fencer in question was quick and offered no target. To defeat him you have to take the target from him. So in the end I won two, lost two and came out at a negative two. Remember my personal target goal is zero. I believe that the newbie's place is a low negative number and the highly competitive skilled fencers should be a high positive number. That saves the middle for the guys like myself who just want to fence because fencing is fun.

With my 2-2 win loss ratio and my indicator of -2 I came out 8th out of 15 going into direct elimination. So that was just about where I wanted to be. My first DE bout is against the 9th place guy. This is good as I know that my first DE is against a person who is as skilled as I am. If I lose here, it will be a good close bout against an equal, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. As it worked out, the winner of that bout had to fence his next bout against the guy who came in 1st.

Unfortunately that winner was me.

I had been watching the guy fence through the day with a sense of wonder. I wondered why he spent the money on the most expensive FIE rated clear mask he could find. I wondered why he fenced like Daffy Duck. Or, if you would rather give him credit, I wondered why he fenced "Monkey Style". I wondered why he did those silly low bows, faked civility, and kissed women's hands and stuff. I wondered why he was D rated, and I wondered most of all how could he have possibly come out of pools in first place. There were one or two fencers in the room who were better than he was, and they were placed out of pools in second and fourth.

Still those were the cards I was delt, and I knew I could fence my own game and score some touches on him, maybe even enough to make it a sporting bout for him. The first touch was his. Huh? I must have gotten locked out. The second touch was his. Huh? I could have sworn I hit him first. The third touch was his. Huh? Well, he is a D fencer, maybe he's better than I realized. I decided right about here that I wasn't going to blog about this tournament...ever. After two minutes the score was 9-0 and my "Statistical Annomily" light was flashing in the back of my mind. I asked to have my weapon tested. It did not work. One point was annulled. The score is 8-0 now. I wondered just how many touches I lost due to a dead weapon. I scored my first touch of the day and we went into our first one minute break.

Fencing is geometry. It doesn't matter at any given moment where your opponent's tip is. Their shoulder is always in the same place, the length of their shoulder to their elbow is always the same, the length of their elbow to their wrist is always the same, and the epee blade is always the same length. Therefore there are certain divine truths that cannot be undone. The shortest distance between two points is a strait line, and if the other fencer extends his weapon to hit you his closest target (the wrist) will always be the same distance from the end of his weapon. To win, all you have to do is make sure that the tip of your weapon is there waiting for his wrist to arrive at that finite point in space.

At the break, Cameron gave me the great advice I have come to count on from her, best of all it was exactly what I was thinking myself. In the next period he scored four more touches on me. I on the other hand, had scored eight touches on him. All was now right with the world. I knew I had been hitting him before, my kung fu WAS strong. Win or lose, the math comes out right, and for me that is the most important thing.

So in the end I lost a bout I could have done much better in had I questioned my equipment and not myself in the beginning. I guess that is a personal fault of mine. I tend to love and trust my hardware more than I trust my wetware. To be fair though, the problem with my weapon was something I have never before seen in my entire life. Wires break, wires get pulled out of the socket, tip screws fall out, tips fall out of barrels, they do not as a rule fall appart in the barrel.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning we are getting ready for work and suddenly Sara says to me dead seriously;

"Turn around a second."

"What is it? Did I sit in something?"

"I'm not sure."

"Great, I must have sat in something. Is it cat barf? Its cat barf isn't it? Always with the barfing these cats."

"No. It isn't barf. You've got a butt."

"A butt!?! This is bad. Should I see a doctor? Do we have time for accupuncture? What am I going to tell my friends and coworkers? Can I tell them I sat in cat barf?"

"No, it isn't bad. Its the jeans you are wearing, they make it look like you have a butt."

"Should I change? I should go change."

"No don't change, it looks pretty good on you."

"Really? Can we go jean shopping later?"

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today the little software product me and my partner, (also known affectionately as my "work wife") have been implementing goes live. Pray for us.

To help put it all into perspective, the product cost more than my partner and I make combined in five years.

No pressure. Why should it be? Any way you slice it, they got a bargain.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:57 AM | Permalink

Valentines day is a bunch of different things to a bunch of different people. For most of my life it was a day of bitter reflection because I wasn't in a relationship. For some of my life it was a day of bitter reflection because I was in a relationship with various someones who made me miserable/afraid for my life. These past few years however have been good. Sure, my wife could and would kill me, but not without a damned good reason, and don't think I don't appreciate that.

I think about the usual valentine traditions and smile because they are really odd when you get down to it. Take for instance:

Hi, honey. Happy Valentine's day, I brought you the sexual organs of some plants which will wither and decay over the course of a week, more if you put them in water with some asprine in it.

Or:

No honey, you don't look fat in those pants. Happy Valentine's day, I got you a two pound box of chocolate.

I mean, I suppose I could do the nice meal thing, but where can we have a romantic dinner with no alcohol, or desert, and a meal that consists of six onces of lean red meat with a cup of steamed vegstables on the side? Hold the bread please, she's in training.

I could do something I am likely to do only once a year like clean the house, Saturday I was told I couldn't go to the YWCA to repair the ever growing mound of broken fencing equipment, because we never spend any time together. So she told me to clean the house instead and then she left for football practice. There are some ironies there, but the house looks great!

What I really want to do is send her to one of those places where she is stripped naked and total strangers rub her body from head to toe with essential oils while burning scented candles and playing Yani CDs. They would follow this with a nice facial and pedicure. However, as long as I am working so many jobs that don't have money in them, this is simply not possible. It does make for a really nice mental image though.

So while most guys in my position are giving flowers, candy, and fancy meals, I gave my wife a card with a little poem inside with a small gift. The card reads:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You have perfect teeth
So wear this when you go to practice.

Nothing says love in my household, like a brand new fancy mouthpiece.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The car ride home late last night.

Sara: We've been in a relationship of some kind for almost ten years now. You are my longest relationship.

Woody: Yep, the end of the month marks our one and three quarter anniversary, we will have been married seven years.

Sara: I don't know wether to say congratulations or pity you.

Woody: I was just thinking that exact same thing. I did note with some irony that just a couple of weeks away from seven years married and I had to sleep on the couch last night.

Sara: Congratulatiy! Congratulatity? I'm thinking a mix of congratulations and pitty.

Woody: Congratulatity sounds like some kind of pocket dog rich girls carry in handbags.

Sara: How about "Pitulations"? (note: Pronounced pid-u-lations)

Woody: I like it. I get this mental image of a pitulation ceremony where the married couple beat each other with birds, like maybe ducks or pidgeons or something.

Sara: Are the ducks dead or alive?

Woody: First one, than the other?