The unbearable lightness of being.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the madness at Virginia Tech. We can only look to the unknowable for solace and understanding. Unfortunately, it may not be enough to fully comprehend why what happened, happened at all. Of course, there will be the understandable cries to limit gun ownership, etc. While I personally think that America is gun-crazy and statistics show that gun ownership makes you more likely to be a target of gun violence, further limiting or banning ownership won't be the answer.

I'm sure there are those at Virginia Tech right now wondering what they could've done to reach out to Cho Seung-Hui. Perhaps, if the professors who had been "disturbed" by his writings had made more of an effort to get him help... What if those who knew him had tried to make him feel more included... This is just speculation, of course. What I take from this tragedy is that we humans still have a long way to go before we become better at understanding each other.

Down with Chuck E. Cheese!

Who doesn't love birthday parties? The singing, the cake, the fun; it's all wonderful. What isn't wonderful is having to spend such time in a place as awful as Chuck E. Cheese. I've always made sure to keep a safe distance from the place in the past, but having family means that someone at some point somewhere will think that going to Chuck E. Cheese is a good idea. Now, I can legitimately hate the place as an educated consumer.

At this point, you're probably thinking, "Oh, what a snob! He just thinks the place is beneath him and his family!". Not so, and there's no need to get personal here. I wouldn't begrudge anyone's desire to have a party in a place they deem appropriate for their children. Chuck E. Cheese is made for kids and there's no denying that they love the place. Of course, it's been proven over and over that kids have no idea what's good for them.

The occasion of our visit was my 3-y.o. great nephew's b'day. Yes, "great nephew"; more on that some other time. He's a great kid and we love and admire his parents. They're not the problem. The problem is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) is waaaayyyy too over-stimulating. There's the animatronic band playing along to videos playing on wall-mounted monitors. There's the light and sound of the video games, the noise of the kids running in and out of the play areas, the incessant messages from the overhead system (louder than anything else happening in the place) re-calling everyone back to their seats for a live show with Mr. CEC himself, for the cake-cutting, for the pizza. Of course, there really isn't any sort of order to the chaos. Imagine kids running to climb and slide, then running back to their tables for pizza, then running again to climb and slide. It's too much. Our lovely 2-y.o. did all these things happily until it was time to go home. She put up a bit of a fuss about going home, but that's not extraordinary. We thought all was well while we were driving home and she fell asleep. Suddenly, she awoke whining and holding her stomach. Exactly 8 seconds later, she vomited electric blue all over herself and her car seat! It made for an aromatic ride home.

She's fine now, but her dress was ruined, my back seat, and her car seat required serious attention. I had to completely disassemble the car seat, run the cover through the washer and clean the base. I'm not looking forward to finding out whether leaving the car windows down overnight did the trick. I may be scrubbing the back seat of the GTI for many days to come.

Everyone's a critic

I was listening to my iPod the other day when my 2 y.o. comes over and wants to listen in. I put one of the ear buds in her tiny ear and let her listen. As we were listening, she made comments about which songs/groups she liked or disliked. Here are the results:

She Liked
Gerry Mulligan
Lady Sovereign
Bettie Serveert

She Disliked
The Beastie Boys
Stereolab
DMX
Bob Dylan
Soundgarden

I'll let you draw your own conclusions about her choices.

They start younger and younger...

I was out with Hilary, Merriwether, Eric, Mia, and Finn Saturday morning at the Linkwood playground trying to enjoy the outdoors before the snow came. Mia and Merriwether always like to start their time at the playground by swinging in these big, barcalounger-like toddler swings. As I'm pushing Merriwether in the swing (she likes to get serious air), 3 y.o. Mia looks over at me and says, "Byron, will you get me high?". Before being rendered incomprehensible by laughter, all I could get out was, "Maybe when you're 16 and with your father's permission..." I don't think this would make Bill Cosby's show anytime soon.

Strange dream

I had a strange dream last week. Matt, our neighbor, was running a gas station. Matt does not normally run a gas station. He builds missiles or something like that. I was riding a bmx bike. Matt told me about this legendary bmx course was over this nearby bridge. I went to check it out. There was a ramp that went up about 20 ft; of course, I didn't go near it. Instead, i decided to walk with some people from Livanta (old job) to the Reisterstown Plaza. We walked by Rosecrest (my old street) and my friend Reggie's (heir to the Parks' Sausage empire) house. Reggie's house was abandoned - it had been converted to a protest house against the war in Iraq. It was spray-painted with slogans and had streamers and the like all over it. I split off from the Livanta people and decided to walk Juniper and Heidi up the alley. There was a house with a dog that kept jumping out after Juniper. I woke up after it happened a few times. Of course, all this happened in perfect color; I remember reading someplace that people only dream in black and white. Maybe I just remember color when there wasn't. Weird, huh?

No good deed goes unpunished

It was time to finally get the quick-cam pics from Sundance developed. I dropped off the 2 cameras at the Fed Hill CVS. 4 days later I get a call from them looking for a "Brian Naylor". That hasn't been my name since my 3rd run in the witness protection program; I hung up.

The next Sunday, I decide to go to the gym (so as not to continue approaching the size of the average American...) and pick up the pics. I stop by CVS first; I am given 1 envelope of pics when I gave them 2 camera. I remind "Brittany" of this, and she goes searching for the other envelope. She finds it - great. I head to the gym. Of course, the gym is closed because of a water main break on Cross St. Wonderful. I decide to check out my pics and then go home. I open the first (thicker) envelope and see some nice pics of Main St. Sundance and the Canyons Resort. I open the next envelope and find a single pic of 3 women at some formal event. I've never seen these women in my life. Great. I go back to CVS and tell the manager what's happened. He takes my info and promises to pass it on to the developer.

I get a call yesterday from said developer who wants to know what was in my pics so he can look for them. I told him street scenes, snowboarding, and art work. Simple enough, right? I'll be extremely pissed if those pics are lost - those were the better bunch...

Sundance 2007

Just got back (a few weeks ago, that is) from the Sundance Film Festival in beautiful Park City Utah. As usual, it was a blast. I didn't have a digicam, but I'm getting some digipics from the film camera I took with me. I'll post those up soon...

In the mean time, here's what I was thinking while I was waiting for my flight out of BWI:

Date: 17 Jan, 07
Time: 19:50

"Pretty hectic week getting ready for Sundance. Lots to do to get ready. Taking an evening flight is great! There are no lines anywhere! Even the TSA are chill. I just heard some bad words - "beverage-only flight"! I bought some almonds just before coming to the gate, so I think I'll be OK. The crepe I had for lunch is sitting well. Crepe + almonds = goodness. What would make this perfect is wine."