I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m an

Extroverted Tree Hugging Builder

The best part is what else they told me:

0.76% of the 147942 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

According to NPR [ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102591978&ft=1&f=3 ]:

A soccer coach says he was joking. But when parents didn’t get it, Michael Kinahan resigned from a Massachusetts youth soccer league. He sent an e-mail saying “losing is for losers.” He said the team would be known as “Green Death,” and that parents should cheer instead of sitting there “sipping mocha-latte-half-caf-chinos.”

…Honestly, I’m not surprised. Today’s soccer-parents (and many adults their age—that being slightly younger than the baby boomers) are children themselves who stare blankly into space, then throw a fit when someone breaks their meaningless concentration. The fact that just an email can escalate to someone loosing one’s job is the least surprising aspect of this story. These unengaged parents can throw quite a fit; and they’ve been doing it all their lives… they are the ones who will sue you for anything, paint over the arts, and raise a nation of undereducated brats, i.e. these parents are the modern manifestation of evil in our society (in line with other evils of western culture in recent history a la the Nazis, the KKK, the Evangelicals-in fact some may even fall into these groups).

The best part though is that one person who I assume is the only enlightened parent supporting the soccer team and felt she needed to comment on NPR’s website [ same link as above ]:

Red Hake (Red99) wrote:
To be fair you have to read his e-mail, keep in mind that the letter is written to the parents not the kids. The letter does have a sort of disclamer note alerting the reader that he is long winded and that they might need a sense of humor to read on. He has also written an e-mail resigning from his volunteer coaching position, this and the original can be found at -barstool sports-.

He explains that he is poking fun at the very same mentality he is accused of having. The entire second half of his letter is written in jest, some of if a little bitting if you have thin skin but in jest never the less.

He has coached many of these girls before and year after year thay want to be on his team because thay have fun. 

It all comes to end (apparently) when Mr. and Mrs Thurston Howell III (yes – this is a Gilligans Island reference)get offended.

The blow up of this from e-mail to the parents to someone (not him) posting it on the internet to local and reagonal papers and news stations to NPR picking up this story is a testament to our overal compleat lack of a sense of humor, the revolting level of political correctness and the apparently shallow uninteresting lives we lead that allows us to get somting this far out of proportion.

Now, while this parent has some spelling and punctuation issues, the last paragraph is dead-on. Behold another example of failure on a human level.

As I was listening to NPR this morning, a story came up about algebra. Now, when I was in school, I remember many of my fellow students having difficulty with algebra, but I always found it incredibly easy. I always got tripped up on the simple math: adding together two two-digit numbers to this day still requires a calculator.

This story on NPR suddenly made it all make sense. The segment’s focus was why so many students struggle with algebra and the subject’s practical application in the real world.

The segment’s host asked the expert asked their on-air math-expert why, if the letters in algebraic equations represent actual numbers, is it such a stretch from basic arithmetic?

Their expert explained that it’s not the same thought process: which basic arithmetic, the student is dealing with valued quantities; e.g., in 2 + 3 = 5, the student is mentally combining a quantity of two with a quantity of three which results in the sum quantity of five; whereas in an algebraic example, 2 + x = 5, the student has to switch to a logical thought process to come up with the answer x = 3.

The expert went on to respond to the typical student nagging “when am I ever going to use this in the real world?” with a simple answer: spreadsheets. He said that spreadsheets are used for nearly everything these days, from finances, to sports scores, to even video games (he used some Warcraft example here that I still don’t get). The point is, though, that spreadsheets do the arithmetic for us, all we need to do is understand the logic to create what we need.

Now while I’m sure this is very useful to that 6th grade teacher listening on his way to work as a way to help his students connect with the material; or to that student finishing his algebra homework in his parents’ car as he’s driven to school as a new way to look at that equation that frustrated him all last night. For me, however, a different lightbulb came on: I had never consciously thought of numbers as having value.

To me, basic math had always been memorization, not quantitative equations. So when I got to algebra, there was no new thought process for me; the letters in the equations were just as valueless as the numbers had always been. I spent my whole schooling unaware that math was anything more than logical theory… which perfectly explains why I always found it both easy and incredibly dull: it was only meaningless puzzles.

While I’m no longer in school, nor officially associated with any school, government, or other institutional schedule, today was a snow day. What little weather precipitated yesterday in the Northern Shenandoah Valley managed to suddenly render a vacation day for nearly everyone in the region. I worked on Tuesday when the weather was ongoing, and while the roads were really quite fine, we had practically no customers. The one wine sale and three lunch tables hardly made it worth unlocking the doors and turning on the lights. I’m not surprised. This happens roughly twice every winter. No one prepares for winter weather since it is so infrequent (despite the cold temperatures) and the radio and online reports confirm everyone’s impulses to take the day off and stay at home. Assuming today’s sales would align with yesterday’s, our manager left me a message this morning telling me to take the day off and that only she and the chef would come in today.

Thank God. The unplanned day off is truly a divine gift; and, in typical fashion of such days, I proceeded to accomplish three or four things off the home to do list before deciding to plop myself in front of the television to watch my recent Netflix movie while surfing Facebook and picking out a cool recipe for tonight’s dinner. Not-so-suddenly (nor surprisingly) my newfound day for progress became my relabeled day for relaxation and moderate laziness. I still intended to accomplish a few things in the day, but their urgency fell from the ER to the free clinic in no time at all.

When eventually the movie was over and sitting was no longer comfortable, I decided to actually leave the house to unload the nine bags of wood pellets in my car I purchased the day before. This seemly dull exercise opened me up to an awesome experience—however brief.

It was late afternoon and the air had warmed enough that the snow and ice which had blanketed the area was now melting. As I looked west, the golden sunlight glared brightly over the blue mountains and with its rays blew a strong warm humid wind. Looking back east, a gust of wind hit a round dune of snow, thrusting a gathering of unmelted snowflakes into the air and into the tall brown grass. It was a surreal moment. Here in the end of January in the mountains, I felts as though I were teleported to a cool day at the beach. The shear natural power of that minute filled me with a certain energy whose level is like the excitement of discovering some hidden potential or the first few seconds of a new relationship. I was suddenly beaming.

My nature-given stamina yielded amazing results. In the next hour, while the sun set, I crossed off more items on my to do list than I had since I got up this morning. Last on my list for the evening was a quick trip to the grocery store before settling in to make my dinner, do a little reading, and write tomorrow’s lists.

By the time I excited the supermarket, the sun had completely set and it was dark. When the sun left, it took with it the warmth in the air; but the wind kept on, pushing harder, draining up the energy it earlier created. I walked across the pavement to my car and was startled by an aluminum can behind me, violently pushed against the bottom of the store wall. I turned around and saw this harsh wind was littering all around. Plastic bags, cigarette butts, and other trash skated across the parking lot like a clumsy overweight shoved onto a muddy dance-floor. I retreated to my car and headed home, hoping for a comfortable haven in my planned meal and fireplace.

Tonight, I went to see Blackbird at the Studio Theatre in DC.

So the basic story: We witness the encounter of Ray (now Peter), a man nearing 60 who has served some time but now has a mediocre management position at a very unkempt office, by Una, now around 30, a young woman we discover Ray abused when she was 12.

The show starts out intense and unfolds the layers of each character’s past, their relationship, and how it came to a crashing halt. Blackbird is raw, rough and real, from the content of the show, to the storytelling by the actors, to the corporate break-room set (complete with harsh florescent lighting).

While there were several moments where the audience is so drawn and responsive to the piece, the first I noticed seemed to set the tone for the production: I saw the show with my sister and didn’t tell her much about the show other than as the lights were dimming that it might be a bit bold. So when Una asks something along the lines of “How many other 12-year-olds have you had sex with?” (telling the audience for the first time their relationship and how young she was), I hear this low quiet “woah” from my sister.

I would recommend everyone to see it before it ends, but I realized as writing this post that we saw the closing performance. C’est la vie. Another great show at The Studio Theatre.

The party was a surprising success. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, the house, and the company. It was nice to mix a few circles, even if it was very slight. Some were not able to make it; hors d’oeuvres were not thought through; and chairs were a bit under-planned. But everything else seemed to go very well, with much help from my sister.

I will be hosting Christmas day for the Napier family and I now feel pretty confident that I can pull it off.

Tonight, I went to see Grey Gardens at the Studio Theatre in DC.

So the basic story: American royalty, the family of Jackie O, has fallen from wealth, propriety, and personally hygiene. Interesting musical– a little peculiar and funny.

I would describe this production as the most beautiful failure I’ve seen in a while.

The visual qualities of the show were wonderful. The set was relatively simple, but there was a fantastic use of projections. So often the projections were more texture and color than defining actual shapes. They added the perfect extra something to the stage picture.

There was a particularly nice visual moment late in the show: there’s a number where the main character is feeding the cats, and the company (characters from act one) are fulfilling the rolls of the cats and there is the ghostly sense as they are relics of a former life. Really quite nice to see.

That said, the production really was a failure. The whole point of creating theatre is to tell a story and this one didn’t get told to the fullest. First, there was a sound issue: the performers were just hard enough to hear that the audience can get the gist of the story and miss every nuance in the writing. Second, and more importantly, the character arc wasn’t high enough. Intellectually we get it; but we never feel any of it. We’re still left on the outside looking in.

I left the theater feeling like the show was like a nice thing to put on a shelf. The pretty piece of art that never touches you.

So my parents decided that I will be hosting Christmas this year.

Okay. I can deal with that. So I have to decorate a bit and make sure the house is clean and all that good kind of stuff.

This is the point where I should have stopped and said to myself “This is about as much as you can take on right now.” But no, I’m not that bright. Instead, I tell myself “Hey, you’ve been wanting to have a little dinner party to invite people to your new place, and you’ll have to clean and decorate for Christmas anyway, why not have a dinner party 10 days before the holiday.”

Not a bad idea, certainly one that is manageable if enough advanced planning goes into it.

However, I stupidly forget that I have no time for additional decorating, shopping, or planning a party. Secondly, I don’t have any chairs around the long room table (not so surprising since it’s actually a ping-pong table and isn’t mine). Finally, I fear I may have over-invited guests. I may have to add some tables to actually seat everyone.

Well, the dinner party is on and 5 days away, so hopefully it goes over well.

I’m a big fan of the television show “House”, and while I knew Hugh Laurie’s British, it never quite registered with me that the American accent he speaks on the show is in fact fake.

Tonight, Laurie was the guest on Conan. I particularly liked the knife story. Here’re the clips:

Part 1

Continue Reading »

As I lingered out of bed this morning, I heard the familiar meter of the voices of National Public Radio beating from the alarm clock in the corner. The woman begins listing the stations currently broadcasting her voice, and I am reminded how odd it is that, while I’m a good 45 minutes by car from West Virginia, it is West Virginia Public Radio that reaches me on the mountain. Occasionally, I can pick up WETA 90.9fm (Washington, DC Public Radio—a good 45 minute drive in the other direction) from my car in the driveway, but that’s really only on a good day. I am saddened a bit that of the public radio available to me in my new home, I have only West Virginia and Washington, DC; nothing more local.

Just when I cross through the doorway to leave my bedroom, our radio lady announces “…and at 11:42am today, the sun crosses the equator and autumn officially begins.”

My mood quickly shifts from being a bit disappointed with the world around me to excited for the changes to the world around me. Very soon I will begin seeing the trees start to don their harvest colors. I look forward to discovering which of the trees around me will color first, which will carry more bright yellow, and which will elegantly flash orange and red. I delight in the fact that our local supermarket may even carry some local produce in the next few weeks. I think about making soups and chilies. Fall is only a few hours away, according the the soft-voiced woman on the radio; and I’m excited. Continue Reading »