July 2006 Archives

Jamie's mom came into town and Jamie and the kids left home on Saturday. I'm lonely, bored, and a little bit jealous that they get to have a vacation without me. I miss my family.

On the upside, I can work like crazy and not feel guilty about ignoring my family.

On another upside, I can enjoy a couple of Phillies games this week courtesy of people who appreciate whatever role I have played in giving my company's money to them. I have tickets to see the Phillies play the Cardinals on both Tuesday and Wednesday evening.

Tonight I mowed my lawn at 19:00. It was still 95 deg. Fahrenheit. 95. Plus the heat index. Ouch.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are, of course, full. Thursday I am thinking I may try embarrassing myself to no end and possibly injuring myself beyond repair by participating in an Ultimate pickup game. If I make it over there it will be my first game this calendar year. Ouch ouch ouch.

Friday and Saturday I'm thinking about disc golf. It's been a while. Yeah, disc golf.

And the house is clean, too. The laundry is all clean and in the process of being put away. The kitchen is ultra clean. And the lawn is mowed.

But the house is quiet. Too quiet. I miss my wife and kids. They'll be back Saturday afternoon. I can hardly wait.

In Judith Warner's op-ed piece in today's New York Times (subscription required), she argues that the Child Custody Protection Act passed by the Senate this week will have unintended consequences up to and including horrible deaths of young teenage girls. Further, cold heartless "extreme right-wing ideologues" like myself are ". . .willing to sacrifice girls’ lives on the road to their greater goal of making Roe v. Wade a dead letter; empowering girls to take control of their bodies and their lives — through, for example, reality-based sex education and access to contraception — has never been high on [our] list of priorities."

Here is the bill as summarized by Warner:

"The new bill, the Child Custody Protection Act, like its even more draconian House counterpart, would make it illegal for any adult other than a parent to take a minor across state lines to get an abortion. If the bill makes it into law, an incest victim, a rape victim or any other vulnerable pregnant teen who lives in a state that requires parental notification for abortion will no longer be able to seek the help of, say, a grandma, if she’s too frightened or ashamed to tell her parents that she is pregnant."

The crux of Warner's argument is that victims of incest -- or even more, any girl whose parents are abusive (and Warner seems to imply that any parent who would not allow his or her daughter to have an abortion is abusive) -- need to have the option to get abortions without their parents' consent.

Ever since the Roe v. Wade decision came down from on high and normalized a demented, reprehensible practice, its defenders have appealed to the worst cases to justify it. If a person is intent on killing an unborn baby because the baby is the product of some form of abuse (rape, incest, etc.) -- so the argument goes -- it is best to do it in such a way that it minimizes the physical and psychological damage to the baby-killer(s).

In Warner's piece, she appeals to those of us who are "loving parents" not to hand over the daughters of abusive parents to said parents' control. She argues that the Senate bill subjects such girls to the predations of their family members:

"No one knows how many of these girls are incest victims, fleeing fathers or stepfathers or brothers or uncles who abuse them in families where there’s no one stepping forward to protect them."

I agree, we don't know. Further, we don't know how many baby's lives would be saved if underage girls who are pregnant because they've made a choice to be sexually active would inform their parents about both their choice to be sexually active and the consequence of that choice. We also don't know the full extent of the psychological and phsical damage caused by "safe," legal abortions. But we do know that the less restrictions there are on abortions, the more women choose to kill their babies. We do know that the vast majority of minors who are sexually active are in such a state of their own volition -- not as victims of rape or incest. And living in the St. Louis metro area, I know that when Planned Parenthood sends its vans from abortion-friendly Illinois over to abortion-disliking Missouri to pick up teenage girls and bring them back over here to kill their babies, PP is not doing it because they are concerned for the welfare or family-situation of the pregnant minors. They are doing it because PP's main source of funding is the massive amount of money they make by killing babies.

Warner concludes:

"For our society to deny these girls access to freedom from forced pregnancy, I believe, is to abuse them further. I don’t want to be a party to that abuse, and neither, I imagine, would most loving parents — if only they’d think to extend their kind caretaking beyond the borders of their own backyards."

I'm not moved. Helping a girl kill her baby doesn't solve anything. Enshrining baby-killing as an inalienable right for everyone who is sexually active doesn't make incest and rape go away. Committing violence against unborn babies doesn't undo the violence committed against the baby's mother by a rapist, be he the mother's father or some other relative or a complete stranger. And protecting parents' right to know about choices their children are making is not draconian.

Perfection begins where it hurts
I'm healing in slashes and burns
And that's how you live with a curse

--Stavesacre, "How to Live with a Curse"

We got our power back this afternoon, about an hour ago. It's been interesting, living without electricity since Wednesday night. Mostly we're thankful that we had running water the whole time, and that it cooled off on Friday. Wednesday night and Thursday -- the hottest days of the year so far with heat indices in the 110's -- were rough. But for the first time in a few months, I'm looking forward to our power bill. It should be at least 10% lower than a normal July. :)

I've lived in the Midwest pretty much my entire 29+ years of life, and have never seen a tornado in real life.

After last night, I still haven't seen a tornado, but for the first time in my life I heard one come through.

I was working late last night and decided to call it a day a little before 19:00. Just before I left, Jamie called and informed me that she and the kids were taking shelter in the bathroom (the only room in the house without an outer wall) and that the power was out. The tornado sirens were going off around our home, though there wasn't any warning being given yet further south where I work. So I got in the car and was hoping to beat the storm home. Yeah right, dummy.

I drove up the street from my plant to the highway and I thought I saw the rain coming. Up in front of me was a big hazy area that looked like sheets of rain headed toward me. Except it wasn't heading toward me, and it wasn't rain. I drove into a large cloud of dust all the while poised to turn on my windshield wipers. Instead, I got into a whiteout.

An intelligent person would have turned back at that point and weathered out the storm in his comfy steel and concrete workplace. But in my defense, my main concern was to get home to take care of my family. So I kept driving.

Today's iteration:

"Would you please hold my hot little hand?"

Per C3 regulations, context will not be provided. That is all. Have a nice day.

Five years ago today, I held my first child for the first time. I remember how red he was. I remember how beautiful he was. I remember how cone-shaped his head was. I remember that he had to stay under the heat lamp for what seemed like a long time before we could hold him for any amount of time. I remember his watery little blue eyes, and how helpless he was, and how he cried at the newness of everything.

Now he's finished with five years of life. Five years of learning to love him, learning to train and teach him, learning to live outside myself in ways that I did not expect. I am so thankful for the boy my baby has grown to be, and excited to see the man he will become. I love you, Son!

On the occasion of my high school graduation, my maternal grandfather made a present to me of this:

It is a replica of a clock that was in the kitchen of the home in which he grew up. He did the woodwork himself, had a local artist do the glass, and bought and installed the clockwork from a clockmaker. He has made one of these clocks for each of his grandchildren who has graduated from high school -- so far, six of us (out of his sixteen grandchildren). He still has a lot of work to do! Although I suspect that he has been working ahead. One of the luxuries of retirement, I suppose. :)

It is a beautiful clock and an instant heirloom[0], as the title claims. Here is a shot of the engraving:

The reason I'm blogging about it is that the clock is now more than 10 years old, as you'll note from the engraving.

Thanks, Grandpa! More than the clock, I appreciate the love that it represents. I love you, too!

[0]I changed the title from "instant antique" because I liked Baldauff's wording better.

I think I'm under a lot of stress right now. That's good, because it motivates me to get things done. And I think I handle stress pretty well. I have a number of outlets for my stress, but my two favorites have to do with family.

The first one hits me as soon as I walk through the door when I get home: an almost 17mo son who runs at me with a cacophony of grunting and squealing that ends only when I pick him up and hug him. I have a big cheesy grin on my face right now as I think about it. The other kids are excited when I get home, too, but the older they get the less expressive they get about it. I guess I'll just have to keep getting new ones. :)

The second comes later, after the kids are in bed. Jamie and I use that time to chat and catch up with each other, and it helps a lot to have my best friend to discuss the day and plan the future. I love you, Beloved!

So I think that this startup will go well. Thanks be to God for my daily stress relievers.

Wow, I never thought I'd be one of *those* bloggers. You know, the kind that let their blogs get way out of date. But here it is, another week gone by and no post.

We did have a nice time on our anniversary. That was back on July 1st.

Last week was rather busy. My work schedule is now something like 6A to 5P, but I've been going in earlier and staying later than that to try and keep up. This week we start working weekends, pretty much until the end of the startup.

We got a new water heater. The old one worked but had developed a lot of leaks which I was unable to fix. It is so nice to have a dry garage floor. My friend Mike came over (and brought his whole family, too, so we all had a lot of fun -- and a pizza party, to boot) to help me take the old one out and put the new one in. When I say he helped, I mean that he did most of the work with my assistance. Thanks, Mike! He even carted off the old water heater for me!

Bother, I have several other posts I want to make -- with pictures -- but they'll have to wait yet again. Duty calls!