The Red Brick Times

I have been, again this year, seeing more of my temporary nature. I have been holding Dick in my thoughts, and remembering Dan, and Jim Mosher, and all the other friends and family we see only inwardly these days. It just came home to me today, that all the levels of our lives exist simultaneously, like the colors of leaves, and are revealed separately and seasonaly. My thought came as I recalled what my father said the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that it would have been the day for a funeral, if things had been a little different. Two days before Thanksgiving, my sister's husband was working on a building site on Stang Road, and fell from the roof. He spent until that Sunday in Metro Health in Cleveland where they rebuilt his wrist, immobilized his shoulder, wrapped 6 broken ribs, reinflated the lung and decided that the knee would heal on its own. It was after we brought him home that my father made the comment. He is walking about the neighborhood a little more each day, gaining strength and healing. Then, last night, we heard that one of his coworkers had also fallen, at the same site, same two-story house, from the same roof, and shattered one of his legs. Being a technical sort, my left brain works out the probabilities and physics and coefficients of friction of new plywood on an 8-pitch roof with dampness, but my right brain draws vortices of energies and the karma of different places in time and space. And I think about "The Bridge of San Louis Rey" and the ligaments that bind us all together. If we never had Pilgrims, there would still be a thanksgiving. Thank you, all, for being out there in the darkness to reflect my light back to me. I will try to return yours to you as well.
Posted 11:34 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

Update on Dick:
Dick was transferred to the Cleveland Clinic last night at 7:30.  My Mother spent 2 1/2 hours with him from 5:00 on. They talked a bit, but he does not remember Chris and Andy's visit at noon yesterday. She told him about the baby (my neice Kathleen had a baby girl Wednesday) and about an hour later asked if he remembers her telling him that and he said yes. He sleeps a lot and looks around when he is awake.  Said he did not recognize the hospital and Mom told him that was because he had not been there before.  Dr. Ram (one of his many doctors) stopped in and shook his hand and assured my Mom that he would be all right.  A relative term!! He is in Building H-62 Bed #7  The telephone number at CC is 216-444-6270.
Posted 11:15 AM by John Eichenlaub 0 comments

Update on Dick:
Still no clear diagnosis but he is improving anyway. Has stopped thrashing, is speaking some, and is reactive to sounds around him. It is apparent that the MS is masking whatever happened. They are trying to get him transferred to Cleveland Clinic but the CC has no open beds so he is still at EMH.

Tough as this has been he is trying to emerge. Many thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
Posted 12:29 PM by John Eichenlaub 0 comments

As many, if not all of you know, my brother Dick has been struggling with Muscular Sclerosis for several years now. I spent several hours with him Saturday night. We installed an output card in his computer to allow him to see his monitor on his TV. With that, a wireless mouse and a wireless keyboard he'd have greater access to his computer and hence the outside world via the Internet.

Then, two days ago (Monday) he was admitted to EMH through Emergency, disoriented and fading in & out of consciousness. After two days of testing there is still no diagnosis. He remains delirious and highly agitated. They have sedated him but that does little. He cries out incoherently and thrashes in his delirium struggling with private demons. It tears at the core. The doctors at EMH have no clue what is going on or what to do. The short version is Dick is very sick and has been given Last Rites just in case. The current plan is to transfer him to Cleveland Clinic sometime today (Wednesday) in the hope their facilities are great enough to find a way to help him.

With the approach of the anniversary of my father's death (12/9) this ordeal is especially hard on my Mom. It is also terrifying for Eleanor and Rachel. For those you so inclined, my mother asks for your prayers. If nothing else, then keep a good thought for him.

I will try to keep you advised.

Posted 11:15 AM by John Eichenlaub 0 comments

Ye gods. I saw houses decorated for Christmas on my way to work today. One house on Gulf Rd. near Ohio St. has had 'em up for close to two weeks now. The people living there really get a kick out of decorations. They do all the holidays plus a big Cleveland Indians thing in the summer.

Christmas is the only time that I actually buy anything on the internet. I get gardening/flower growing oriented calendars for my Mom and Aunt Marge from Amazon. They ask for them each year and Amazon gift wraps for an extra buck or so (a big plus in my book). Ya gotta order early though, even earlier than usual this year with the mail situation and all. So in that spirit here's a couple of gift ideas for the on-line buyer: For the geek on your list try this. It's the coolest little thing I've seen in a while. For the especially twisted among us here are some, ah..., "unique" Dick and Jane refrigerator magnets. I like the "evil is an artform" and "look where I'm pierced" ones (hint hint).
Posted 1:35 PM by whatley 0 comments

The Second Coming by the very irReverend Brendan Powell Smith. It ran in Boston, and you know what that means! I think Zowism has found a splinter sect. It certainly is splintered enough.
Posted 10:05 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

Government fails to get Louisiana natives to kill and eat a large rat species, resorts to bounty. More info on the critter here.
Posted 1:12 PM by whatley 0 comments

Here you go. Choose your own direction in life. Each screen presents you with several choices that determine the next phase of your existence. I wound up as a government hit-man in a strange land with an illegitimate son under drug-induced circumstances. Play Brad: The Game and see what happens.

Go find information about the author, the Rev. Brendan Powell Smith, and other misfeasances of the spirit by this darkly enlightened homunculus.
Posted 1:23 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

And in the winter, all the little animals are searching for sustenance.
Posted 12:17 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

Well, only 30 more shlepping dawns until C-Day. A little Dr. Fun by David Farley should help to ease the burden.
Posted 11:49 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

Ohboy! We have more than a month of overeating before the New Year brings Old Regrets and visions of sugarplums whenever a mirror gets in our way. As a start, here are some basic stomach-stuffers (if you work at it hard enough, it will eventually get to your stockings) at Gourmand Bleu: A Tasteful Celebration of Kickass Chow. And may the scales fall from your eyes as you graze through the season. I have hidden mine for the duration.


Posted 10:41 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

The New York Times had an interesting article yesterday called "Cell Yell: Why Do Phone Calls Turn Into Broadcasts?". They mention the site CellManners.com which contains, among other things, a page of Cell Slang.
Posted 10:44 AM by whatley 0 comments

News Flash! Thanksgiving dinner goes terribly wrong! Thousands in Frazee, Minnesota go hungry! Well, it happened a few years ago, but 'tis the season to celebrate such arcane goings on. Now maybe if we had a Turkey skeleton puppet...
Posted 9:07 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

Wanna pull the strings on a skeleton puppet? It seems too simple at first but if you play around with it a bit you'll find there's lots you can make it do. Kind of mesmerizing in a way.
Posted 9:22 AM by whatley 0 comments

The National Turkey Foundation tells you everything you never wanted to know about our National Bird, including the following, most appropriate, ceremony (The picture accompanying the text did not transfer when I copied):

"Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation (NTF) has presented the President of the United States with a live turkey and two dressed turkeys in celebration of Thanksgiving. The annual presentation of the National Thanksgiving Turkey to the President has become a traditional holiday ritual in the nation's capital, signaling the unofficial beginning of the holiday season and providing the President an opportunity to reflect publicly on the meaning of the Thanksgiving season. After the ceremony, the live bird retires to a historical farm to live out the rest of its years."

Feast, drink and be merely, for tommorrow we must diet. What are the best-dressed birds wearing this season? I wonder if, like Clinton, the other live birds are also put out to stud?
Posted 9:49 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

There's been a lot of talk about the Red Cross diverting 9/11 donations to other uses. That's apparently been going on for a long time as noted in this rather scathing MSNBC article. Some quotes:

"Criticism of Red Cross disaster relief efforts date to at least October 1989, when a devastating earthquake toppled sections of San Francisco. Within an hour, Mayor Art Agnos (D) was visited by a Red Cross representative. But he “wasn’t talking about disaster relief,” Agnos recalled recently. “He asked me to cut a commercial to raise money.” Agnos said he declined."

“donors are viewed as just another source of capital,” said Harvard University professor Peter Dobkin Hall, an expert on charities."

I stopped giving to the United Way after they were exposed a few years ago for their almost unbelievably extravagant spending on personal perks. Jeez, who can you trust anymore?
Posted 9:42 AM by whatley 0 comments

What the heck happened to November? Perhaps it's because Thanksgiving falls as early as possible. I have to go buy cranberries. Here's a recipe for the BEST cranberry relish. It's a Jello mold, yes it is! I have had lots of people tell me they don't care for cranberries, but really like this!
Betty Gillmore's Cranberry Salad

1 bag of raw cranberries (used to come in 16 oz bags but the 12 oz is just fine)
2 small packages cherry jello in 1 1/2 cups hot water
1 large orange
1 large tart apple
2 stalks celery
1 small can crushed pineapple and juice (8 oz?)
between one and 2 cups of sugar, depending on your taste for sweets ( I use 1 cup, my mom used 2)
Nuts (yes the recipe says "nuts" ) (I use one cup coarsely chopped Walnuts)
Dissolve jello and sugar in water
Using your grandmother's old grinder, grind up the cranberries and the orange, including the rind. (in a pinch you can use a food processor- just don't pulverize them!)
Cut up the apple (including the peel) and the celery in small pieces.
Mix everything all together and pour in molds.
This freezes really well.

Posted 8:44 AM by Sally D. 0 comments

I was browsing the messages (as I often do, though I rarely have much to say -- ain't that weird?). Anyway Whatley asked about our most current adoption. Well ... Kevin John Eichenlaub moved in with us on July 21st. He is 4, born June 10, '97. He is a 'domestic adoption' meaning he was born in Cleveland. He spent his first four years, from one month to July in the same foster home.

We, as a family, continue to try to find our way. It is one thing to bring a baby into a family and quite another to bring a substantially formed personality into the mix. He has to adapt to our way of life and our way of life is fundamentally changed by him.

I have heard tell that a second child is not twice the work ... more like the work SQUARED.

Bottom line ... he is with us, of us and growing deeper in our affections as each day passes. We are now 5 [John, Robin, Nathan (away at college), Meredith & Kevin].
Posted 1:48 PM by John Eichenlaub 0 comments

Is anyone interested in watching the Leonid meteor shower Sunday morning? This years display won't be matched until 2099 so they say. We'll need to catch the weather reports Saturday evening to see if the conditions will make getting up that early worthwile. Comment here by 4:00pm or call me at home tomorrow if you're up for it.
Posted 8:43 AM by whatley 0 comments

Uh oh. Another birthday.

At the time this report was printed, you've been in this world for approximately:
1528070400 seconds; in other words
25467840 Minutes; or
424464 Hours; or approximately
17686 days; which can also be expressed as
2526 weeks; or sounds nicer as
577 months; or roughly
49 years

In the Headlines:
Dmitri Shostakovitch completes his 5th string quartet

Historical Prices:
The average cost of an American home was: $16800
On average, a car cost: $1850
The price of a gallon of milk was: $0.96
And a gallon of gas: $0.20
The average American annual salary: $3515

I hope I never get so old I get religious.
~ Ingmar Bergman ~

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.
~ Pearl S. Buck ~

I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table.
~ Rodney Dangerfield ~

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
~ John Greier ~

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
~ I. F. Stone ~

"Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself."
~ Tom Wilson ~

"The older one grows, the more one likes indecency."
~ Virginia Woolf ~

Posted 10:12 AM by whatley 0 comments

Coming this week to a sky near you: the Leonid Meteor Shower. This year's supposed to be a humdinger!
Posted 10:09 AM by whatley 0 comments

Well, I did it. I'm now the proud owner of a 2002 Explorer Sport, and lemee tell ya, it is bee-yoo-tee-ful. 4 wheel drive an' that ain't no jive. I've never owned a car this laid back and comfortable (or - gulp! - expensive) before. Cars have gotta be the absolute worst possible thing to spend big bucks on and in this class can easily go for over $30,000 (and many over $40,000). Mine was less than that but still more than I've ever spent before. What is this, male menopause? I though I was supposed to have an uncontrollable urge to buy a sailboat then. It's all very confusing. Oh well. Who wants a ride?
Posted 11:54 AM by whatley 0 comments

Here's OddTodd's story about what it's like to be jobless in the post dot-com world. (note: ya gotta have sound for this one)
Posted 12:27 PM by whatley 0 comments

Egads! The day after I post about looking for a new car my present one gets hit. I was rear-ended on the way to work this morning right smack in the middle of the eastbound innerbelt bridge. For those of you unfamiliar with Cleveland that's the worst possible place and worse possible time of day for an accident to happen. A slowdown there quickly affects every major eastbound artery leading to downtown. I mean it can back up traffic for 5+ miles on 4 major routes. Luckily we were both able to keep driving and get off the innerbelt on the next ramp (200 yards or so away) so that didn't happen. The lane I was in (one of four) had just slowed down to 8-10 mph when I saw it coming in my rear-view and man, it looked bad. I braced myself for a big hit but she stood on her brakes and veered to the right so it wasn't a violent impact at all. My trusty ol' Ranger got its right rear fender bent in a bit but if you didn't know where to look you could hardly tell. The entire left front of her 2001 Chevy Cavalier (small car) was fucked up. It was leaking brake and radiator fluid, headlight shoved a quarter of the way up the hood, just ugly. After the police report and all I drove merrily (more or less) on my way but she had to be towed. Man-o-man, I am definitely not getting a small car.
Posted 9:26 AM by whatley 0 comments

I see that the Elyria High School issue did not pass muster with the voters. Personally, I did not vote for it. "Traitor! Deserter! Despoiler of America's Youth!" I hear everyone crying. Simply put, it wasn't on the ballot in Vermilion. So now what happens? Is this one of those issues that the administration keeps hammering at the voters about, bringing it back over and over again without making any substantive changes to increase its palatability? So eventually, worn and exhausted by the endless diatribe, it squeaks by with the narrowest of margins, allowing a triumphant cry of "The public has spoken"? There was one proposal that never really made it off the runway. Think about the next 50 years of Elyria growth and expansion. The only real way for the city to expand is South along Route 57 and adjacent roads. The population center of Elyria will shift in that direction, so a location out that way makes much more sense. In the current case, the School Board is trying like crazy to minimize expenses by avoiding new land purchases. When the existing High School was built a century ago, it was on the Southern edge of the populous area, with large open spaces around it and very little development away from town. Another thought - look at the action that the Elyria Methodist Village has been taking for the last 30 years. They have purchased all of the property on the Southern edge of Earl Court (including the house where I once lived during the mid-70's), torn them all down, and expanded. The High School could work on purchasing all the land between 5th and 6th streets and build there, then remove the existing structures and use that land for a campus development. Lorain County Community College has followed a master plan for 40 years and has had good results. Nothing springs full-blown into being overnight. But nothing is what has been planned and done for the last quarter century that the age and inadequacies of the current structures were known. We are still in the mode of school funding that led the surveyors of the early 19th century to set aside a section in each township for the care and feeding of a school. It is boundary and territory based, and not need or goal based. So the State Supreme Court ruled the school funding to be unconstitutional, but is now backing off a little, saying that if more money were spent by the State, that it should be all right. Sheesh.
Posted 9:06 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

I'm going to Florida tommorrow, just to see what can be seen, and to visit some friends. Anybody need anything from Pasco County? Sand? Junk cars? Real estate ads? Retirement community literature? I was hoping for a little excitement, but the hurricane has moved on and missed Florida entirely. I am taking the Honda Helix in the van to go exploring. There are still a few back roads where traffic doesn't try to compress itself into a new state of existence. If we are going to make progress on researching the Big Bang, it will have to be in Florida. The energy and sheer visceral effrontery mixed with blind ambulation among the range of driving styles will eventually randomly oscillate together in a way that will render all known forms of matter obsolete. Come to think of it, that is probably how our current universe sprang into being - there was the mother of all traffic accidents and it reached critical mass.
See you all in a week. Got to be back for turkey since its our national bird. That's what Ben Franklin did when he was president, so in admiration we put him on the currency that is the single most important medium of echange for evildoers everywhere. And wear your helmets while driving, at home, to work.
Posted 12:24 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

My trusty ol' pickup is finally starting to have too many problems. That, combined with the 0.0% financing available now, has motivated me to spend the last few weeks looking for a new car. Because of recent events it sometimes feels more like "agonizing over" than "looking for". Even though there's always an element of fun and excitement in shopping for a car it's never been something I've looked forward to, what with trying to keep all the information straight between different models, haggling prices with sleezy salesmen etc. I've narrowed my choices down to two models (Ford Explorer Sport or Ford Excursion, both SUV's, kind of) but I'm having an especially hard time pulling the trigger. Could the economy crash so hard that I'd run risk of being laid off? Could gas prices skyrocket and make me regretful of my choice? A low cost fuel efficient (small) car might seem like a brilliant decision in the hindsight of a few months time but let's face it, I'm not exactly a small person and I wouldn't have a chance of being comfortable in something like that. Commuting to work means that I spend a minimum of 80 minutes a day driving, often a bit more, so comfort is an issue. Ack. Decisions, decisions. Andy, who I've been talking to about this, said something to the effect of "you make your decision then don't look back". Truer words have never been spoke but boy, is that not my nature. I tend to beat myself up something awful from a bad decision, even one that's only bad in hindsight. Oh well, it's way too late to stop now. I've got that new car itch bigtime.
Posted 12:30 PM by whatley 0 comments

It has been vewy, vewy quiet here lately. So I thought it would be good to find out Where have all the Wabbits gone? (long time passing). Plus a look in to New Hampshire Public Radio, because it is there, and it isn't Maine or Vermont. Note: this is an audio clip that uses Real Audio or Windows Media Player to tell you the story. If you don't have sound, explore the NHPR links for good program suggestions the next time NPR begging comes around on the dial.
Posted 11:22 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

This Isn't the Speech I Expected to Give Today - Keynote Address By Bill Moyers, Environmental Grantmakers Association, Brainerd, MN - October 16, 2001.

Yes, it's another reflection about 9/11. No, it doesn't cover all aspects. It's an American talking about America. I just finished reading it, three times, and at the moment I feel it should be published on the front page of every newspaper in the country. I want people to carry it from house to house and read it aloud in each others living rooms.
Posted 8:35 AM by whatley 0 comments