Here Comes the Sun

You know, I’m a native Oregonian, and I love the climate around Portland (and Canby, especially), but the older I get, the more I look forward to spring. There’s rain expected tomorrow, but I don’t care: right now the sun is shining. It’s warm outside. Our low temperatures are now about where our high temperatures were just a couple of weeks ago.

I feel like a veil has lifted, and that I’m seeing the world unclouded for the first time in months.

I came home yesterday afternoon, peeled off my sweater, and spent half an hour walking around the yard in short sleeves, puffing my pipe, pulling dandelions from the lawn, watching the cats play in the newly-tilled earth. The birds were squawking like crazy, for no apparent reason. Oliver, the neighbor cat, came over to give me advice on yard maintenance.

The other night, we grilled our first steaks of the year.

I want to get on a bike and pedal.

Bring on the sun!

(Come back in July and August to hear me bitch and moan about how hot it is…)

People Are People

I’m male. I’m white. I’m straight. I’m wealthy. Would you guess that I’m a member of the most-despised group in the United States? Apparently, it’s true. A study from the University of Minnesota has found that atheists are America’s most mistrusted minority.

From the press release:

American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about three percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

…

Edgell believes a fear of moral decline and resulting social disorder is behind the findings. “Americans believe they share more than rules and procedures with their fellow citizens—they share an understanding of right and wrong,” she said. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation—with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.

A long (and frequently pointless) discussion of the study can be found in this Metafilter thread.

My response? A deep, resigned sigh.

Why is it that people equate atheism with evil? Why do they believe atheists cannot possibly have morals, that they’re unable to differentiate between right and wrong, that they are purely selfish and unable to consider the greater good? Is this based purely on fear and speculation? I find it unlikely that it could possibly be based on actual observational evidence; every atheist I know (and have known) is deeply concerned with the greater good, and is always striving to perfect a personal moral code. What about the atheists you know? Are they evil? Or are they just like everybody else?

I don’t condemn others for adhering to religious faith. Though I’m disappointed with religion as a whole, most of the religious people I know are wonderful people, and I do not begrudge them their choice in beliefs. Why should they begrudge me mine?

I come from a strong religious background, and understand what it means to believe, what it means to have faith. I understand how a person can derive their values, their morality, their code from an outside authority. But you know what? My belief system now is remarkably similar to the belief system I had as a child and young adult. A god is not required to have a sense of right and wrong.

People are people, regardless of color, class, or creed. We spend far too much time worried about how other people think and feel and behave, and not enough time worried about how to improve ourselves.

Groggy Saturday Morning

There are few things better than waking to a bed full of cats.

Yesterday I told Kris, “It’s as if the sun is up there, just waiting to come out, and when it finally does the people of Portland aren’t going to know what to do: it’ll suddenly be ten degrees warmer, and we won’t be able to handle it.”

You can tell that spring is trying to come. Behind the clouds and the rain there’s a big orange ball of fire that, on occasion, peeks out to remind us of what’s in store.

Soon it will be tulip time.

Last fall, as my depression began to set in again, Tiff wondered aloud if I might not suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I pooh-poohed the idea then, but after having watched my mental state over the last few months, I’m beginning to suspect she’s onto something. Perhaps I didn’t used to be affected by the seasons, but am now. I’ll have to collect more date.

We took Nemo to the vet yesterday. He was not pleased. Kris suffered some painful scratches while we loaded him into the cat carrier. In the examination room, though, he was docile like I’ve never seen him before.

The good news is that his sore seems to be healing, and that the vet doesn’t think it’s anything to worry about. “It’s probably just an allergic reaction,” she told us.

Kris and I are preparing Marcela’s brisket a lá carbonnade for Paul and AmyJo tonight as part of our ongoing monthly food-exchange. It’s sort of like a book group, but with food. Each month the four of us get together, alternating homes, and eat a tasty meal. Kris and AmyJo run the show; Paul and I are just along for the conversation and the after-dinner Scotch. This is actually a prepare-in-advance dish that we cooked on Thursday night. If it’s a success, we plan to serve it on our Bend trip in April.

Other plans for the weekend: finally completing the Great Book Purge begun last fall, a Sunday morning trip to Ken’s Artisan Bakery, perhaps a viewing of V for Vendetta with Dave and Mitch, and some yard work, of course, if the weather allows.

At our writer’s guild meeting the other night, my comrades noted that I have a tendency to show something in text (which is good), followed by a summary telling what I’ve just shown (which is bad). In fact, I just had to edit this post because I had three such summaries at the end of sections. Hm.

Chore Cloud: One Difference Between Men and Women

Allow me to be sexist for a day.

Kris was working away Saturday, doing some chore or other, when she asked me, “What’s your schedule for today?”

“I don’t have one,” I said, and I could see that my answer made her tense.

“You are going to sweep the floors, though, right?” she asked, her voice filled with a blend of pleading and contempt.

I sighed, grabbed pen and paper, and drew a couple of diagrams that delineate the difference between how men and women view chores.

Women
Women have a list of chores. Each chore is a discreet item, with a scheduled time for beginning and a scheduled time for completion. If the list of chores is not completely finished by a given time, the woman is unfulfilled. She is tense.

Black ink by J.D., green ink by Kris

The woman derives great satisfaction from the methodic progression through the list. Dishes Washed? Check. Floors swept? Check Husband on task? Check.

Men
Men have a cloud of chores. In his mind, a guy is aware of the things that need to be finished (which, of course, include those items on his “honey-do” list, but also include other things like sorting comic books or watching the latest episode of Beauty and the Geek).

Black ink by J.D., green ink by Kris

The man doesn’t attempt to complete these items in any particular order. He might start emptying the trash, for example, and notice that there’s a stack of books that needs to be sorted. Sorting the stack of books might not have been in the cloud of chores before, but now it is, and in fact it seems more pressing, so he begins to sort the books. After he’s finished, he sits down to admire his handiwork. While he’s sitting there, he turns around in the chair to check his e-mail. His friend Dave has sent him a message asking him to burn a copy of the latest Battlestar Galactica episode, so he does. He takes this disc downstairs so that he won’t forget it on Monday, and while he’s in the mud room he notices that it’s sunny, so he might as well get the peas planted since that, too, is in the cloud of chores. He goes outside to do this, but his wife comes up and says, “Let’s go for a walk.” They do. On the walk, she mentions that she’d like to rearrange the living room furniture. Now, re-arranging the living room furniture was neither in his chore-cloud nor on her list of chores, but when they get home, they spend four hours pushing chairs, arranging plants, shifting bookshelves, etc. When they’ve finished, the man is pooped, but he’s happy. He’s done a lot today. True, he didn’t finish much in his cloud of chores, but he did get a lot of other stuff done, and those chores will still be there tomorrow. Or next weekend. He’s pleased. His wife, who views his cloud of chores as a list of chores, is not happy. The list is incomplete. In fact, it has barely been touched.

Conclusions
Obviously these are generalizations. Some women have a cloud of chores. Some men have a list of chores. Some members of each gender have some spooky hybrid. But, from my experience, the above descriptions are essentially correct. The challenge then, one of the primary objectives of marital relations, is to find a balance between the woman’s list of chores and the man’s cloud of chores.

Sometimes the answer to that challenge is Merry Maids.

Birthday Dilemma

You know, it’s easy to dig yourself into a hole if you keep making the same promise for six years.

To my mind, the most important holiday each year is a person’s birthday. The most important holiday for me is my birthday. The most important holiday for you is your birthday.

Six years ago — when I turned thirty-one — I threw myself a birthday party. “I’m going to throw a party for all my prime number birthdays,” I told everyone who would listen. “Next up: thirty-seven.” I invited a whole bunch of people over for a day of “guilty pleasures”, which mostly meant lots of brownies and cookies and frozen pizzas and pop. I set up a computer network in the family room and let people play Unreal Tournament, blasting each other to bits. It was fun.

(Two years ago, Kris and I held Chicken Noodle Fest near my birthday, though it wasn’t meant as a birthday party.)

Now time is short for me to decide what to for birthday celebration #37. I’ve had six years to plan, but wouldn’t you know it? I’m drawing a blank. I guess that’s not entirely true; I have plenty of ideas, but none of them really scream “pick me! pick me!” Among the options I’m considering

Guilty Pleasures II — Essentially a repeat of the shindig I held six years ago, but without the networked computer games. I’ve actually had a few people request this. They think it sounds fun.
Chicken Noodle Fest III — This is a distinct possibility: it’s family-oriented, so kids can be involved. It’s easy to prepare large vats of soup, and we have plenty of space for kids to play if it’s dry outside.
Game Night 2.01 — I intend to bring back regular game nights, and this would be a great time to do so.
Gourmet Potluck — I want to hold a gourmet potluck, but the drawback is I have a very specific guest list in mind for such an event: foodies only. This is too limiting.

Other possibilities include some sort of wine-tasting thing, or a poetry night, or a trip to a miniature golf course, or or or OR

I DON’T KNOW!

What I do know is that I want to do something for my 37th birthday, and I want that something to involve as many friends as possible. I’d like to include kids, but it’s not a requirement. (If I don’t include kids, that’s going to knock out a bunch of the parents, too.) I also know that I need to decide this weekend. Time is getting short.

My eBay Method

My first batch of eBay sales is finished; the buyers are receiving their items, and feedback is being exchanged. Of the 24 items I posted, 22 sold. Bids totaled $1145.92, from which I earned $915.65 profit. (My expenses were: $32.80 listing fees, $44.30 closing fees, $39.12 PayPal fees, and $114.05 shipping fees.)

In my auctions, I’m doing two things that conventional wisdom frowns upon — using ten-day listings and providing free shipping — yet I feel that both of these are helping me get better prices. I know that when I buy things off eBay, I always bid more for free shipping. It’s just nice not to have to hassle with a shipping price. And though many people say ten-day auctions don’t produce higher sales prices, I’m not convinced. Especially on my more desirable items, the bidding rose a fraction every day. Might all the bidding have been compressed into seven days if I’d elected to host shorter auctions? Perhaps. But I’m comfortable paying forty cents for three days extra.

In true J.D.-fashion, I kept a detailed spreadsheet on each listing (condensed version). Before posting each auction, I determined a minimum desired sale price and a maximum expected sales price. Two items (both old Apple II computer games) did not sell. Two others — my precious Little Nemo book from 1972, and a Superman book from 1978 — sold for less than what I’d hoped. Everything else met my minimum desired sales price, and nine of the items sold for more than I expected. Two of the items sold for way more than I’d expected.

Cosmic Encounter, a board game I bought in the early nineties, sold for $232.50 — I had only expected it to reach $150. The biggest surprise, though, was a set of Bible commentaries. I’d spied this set of books in the Sellwood Stars antique mall soon after we moved to the new house. They were listed for $8, and I wanted to buy them, but Kris pooh-poohed the notion. I went back the next day and bought them anyhow. I liked that they were the same size as my Modern Library books. During last fall’s great book purge (for which this eBay stuff is one of the last steps), I decided I didn’t have room for the Bible commentaries. On a whim, I checked eBay and was shocked to see that complete sets sold for $150. My set wasn’t complete, but I figured it would go for $125 or so. It sold for $222.50.

Other items that sold for more than I had expected include my Star Wars VHS tapes (widescreen, THX, super-deluxe edition, the last prints before Lucas started tinkering with the original films) which sold for $51, and a Tintin popup book which sold for $43.

I have a second batch of auctions up at the moment. Aside from a couple of items, they’re not doing as well as I’d hoped. I had to take one item down because it wasn’t what I thought it was. Two of the nine remaining items don’t have bids yet (though Sunday is still several days away, and these items do have people watching). Still, bidding has reached $110 for these items, which isn’t far from my $150 minimum desired total. (My maximum expected is $265.)

I am now giving serious consideration to auctioning some larger ticket items, things such as:

my film-based SLR camera — this would leave me committed to digital;
lenses better suited for film work than digital work (such as my 20mm wide-angle lens, which has an effective focal length of 30mm in digital);
my 700mhz iBook.

One problem I keep encountering is that I’m not expert enough about my various items to know how to describe them correctly. By this I mean, many of the items I have for sale are collectables, or items where the condition is important. I often don’t have a basis for using the right words (e.g. “mint”, “near-mint”, “very good”) to describe condition. Instead, I perform a sort of visual assessment and then try to convey this information via words. Turns out, I may be overstating the blemishes. One buyer wrote me in private e-mail: “The [books] arrived today, and my wife is very pleased, indeed. They are in much better condition than we even hoped…” I guess it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver than to do the opposite.

Finally, here is my eBay auction routine, which is based on much reading, and asking many questions in various forums:

I start my listings on Thursday afternoons and evenings. I run ten-day listings. My goal is for them to end on Sunday evening between seven and ten Eastern (four and seven Pacific). This gives me two weekends to attract bids.
If I need to, I pay the extra ten cents to prepare listings in advance and schedule them to start on Thursday evenings. This week, I don’t have any ready to go, so I’ll rush home after work and spend about three or four hours madly posting items in real-time.
I offer free shipping, insurance, and delivery confirmation. (I’m considering nixing the insurance.) Sure, I could charge for these, but all of this money is gravy anyway, and I haven’t yet been burned by the free shipping, so I’m willing to keep doing this. I think it builds goodwill.
I offer a money-back guarantee, but only if the item is not as described. (Not if a person changes his mind or made a mistake.)
I post low starting bids. The more popular I think an item will be, the lower the starting bid. In the case of the Cosmic Encounter game, for example, I knew there would be plenty of interest, so I started bidding at 99 cents. If there probably will only be a couple bids, I start bidding near my minimum desired sale point. For example, I wanted to sell eight books at a minimum of $20 each, so I started bidding for them at $9.99 a piece.
Which brings up something else: I research the hell out of each item I’m posting. I dig through eBay to find what similar items fetch. I also look to see how many bids they get. I check other places (Amazon, abebooks.com, other forums) to see what other places sell the item for.
I craft my title with great care. For example, I’m currently selling a book entitled The Hidden Game of Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer. I could put all that into my auction title, but it would be a waste. Instead my title is geared toward keywords that I think interested parties would use: HIDDEN GAME OF BASEBALL Thorn Palmer SABR Bill James. The last three terms have nothing directly to do with the book, but people interested in SABR or in the work of Bill James will be interested in this book. I want them to see it in their search results.
I try to have a good description, listing the strengths and flaws of my offerings minutely. I generally say things like “I think this book is in great shape, but be aware that the cover has a small tear and the previous owner’s name is on the flyleaf”, etc. I also try to place additional keywords in the description, but sprinkled into conversational sentences. For example, in my auction for some Tolkien animated films on VHS, I’m using the names of Peter Jackson, Liv Tyler, etc.
I refuse to accept bids from headaches: people with negative feedback, people who haven’t been paying, and people outside the U.S.
I take photos and post them in the description. I use the 35-cent gallery feature so that my photo appears when people browse listings. If condition is a concern, I use many photos to convey the state of the item.

These techniques seem to be working well so far. I’m excited to go rummage around to find more stuff to sell. I have a stack of Flash Gordon comic strip compilations, old Apple II computer games (I’ve decided to sell these as a lot instead of individually), science fiction novels, and camera equipment that I’m hoping to post soon. I’d really like to find a couple additional big-ticket items like the game and the Bible commentaries. Maybe I should root through my Star Trek collection. I probably have some good stuff there…

Four Things

Ah, it’s a good day for a meme. I don’t do these often, but sometimes they’re fun. And since Frykitty asked, how can I refuse?

Four jobs I’ve had
1. Cauliflower planter
2. Christmas-tree shearer
3. Door-to-door insurance salesman
4. Box salesman

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Alien
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
4. Star Wars (the ~~first~~ original one)

Four places I’ve lived
1. Canby, Oregon
2. Salem, Oregon
3. Oak Grove, Oregon
4. There is no fourth place (well, I lived in Portland til I was two, but I don’t remember it)

Four TV shows I love
1. The Wire
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. Sports Night
4. Freaks and Geeks

Four places I’ve vacationed
1. Minnesota
2. British Columbia
3. Alaska
4. Crater Lake

Four of my favorite dishes
1. Pepper-crusted filet mignon in port sauce
2. Mussman beef curry
3. Jenn’s barbeque beef brisket
4. Three-cheese Hamburger Helper

Four sites I visit daily
1. AskMetafilter
2. MacRumors
3. Comic book forums
4. ORblogs

Four places I would rather be right now
1. Home
2. Together with a group of friends
3. Reading comic books
4. Isn’t it strange that I don’t have answers like “Hawaii” or “Europe”?

Four bloggers I am tagging
1. Nicole
2. Lisa
3. Tammy
4. Joel and Aimee

And just because I’m difficult, I’ve made up another small list of four things. Who cares what television shows people like? I want to know what books they like! (Maybe Cat can add these to her list…)

Four jobs I’d like to have
1. Novelist
2. Magazine editor
3. Bookstore owner
4. Grade school teacher

Four places I’d like to live
1. New York City
2. British Columbia
3. London
4. Hubbard, Oregon

Four books I love
1. My Antonia
2. Cold Mountain
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
4. Bleak House

Four places I’d like to vacation
1. London
2. Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zanzibar
3. Thailand
4. Antarctica

Four more of my favorite dishes
1. Plain chocolate chip cookies
2. Hostess Sno-Balls
3. The lamb platter at Nicholas’ Lebanese
4. Kalamata olives with goat cheese

Scheduled for tomorrow: what the hell is wrong with the world today?

My eBay auctions are going well. I’ve posted twenty-four items now. Eighteen have bids for a total of $530.23. I’ve taken photos for a bunch of other stuff and will post it soon. I’ve got to be careful, though: this whole process is addictive (it’s like free money!) and I’m not exactly sure what sort of burden shipping is going to be. I don’t know how much time and effort it will involve, and I don’t know what it’s going to cost. (I’m offering free shipping on all my auctions.)

I set a personal best on the way to work this morning. It was a three skunk morning, by which I mean I passed three different dead skunks between Canby and the shop. All three skunks were within a mile of each other. My car reeked by the time I made it to work…

Mission Accomplished

I’m back!

And how did I do on my goal-oriented vacation? Well, I’d say it was the most productive and successful vacation I’ve ever had. I didn’t do a lot of relaxing or goofing around (though I did play some World of Warcraft, no surprise), but I return to work feeling refreshed, fulfilled, and invigorated. It’s true that I didn’t complete everything on my list, but I did finish a hell of a lot. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that I didn’t do any writing at all, neither for this weblog nor for the Woodstock Writers Guild. It was difficult to restrain myself, but I’m glad I did.

I’m back now, though, and I’ve got lots to say. Let’s break it up into chunks:

Academy Award Nominations
Of the five Best Picture nominees, Kris and I have already seen Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Crash. We need to see Good Night, and Good Luck and Munich. There were no real surprises in the nominations. What is surprising is that there’s some talk that Crash is the biggest competition for Brokeback Mountain (though most everyone thinks the latter is a shoe-in). It has to be said: Crash may be mainstream, it may be heavy-handed, it may be filled with stock characters in trite situations, but it’s a superb film. (In fact, we’ve got it coming from Netflix so that we can see it for a second time. Also of interest: on IMDB’s top-films list, Crash is the highest-rated of the five nominees.)

It occurred to me the other day that as I get older I have less interest in the Best Picture category and more interest in the Documentary Feature category. We’ve watched some fantastic documentaries over the past few years: The Fog of War, Fahrenheit 9/11, Spellbound, Capturing the Friedmans, etc. This year, two of my favorite films are documentaries: Mad Hot Ballroom and the stunning Murderball. (We just watched Murderball last weekend; it’s easily my favorite film of the year in any category.) I’m not sure how the pedestrian March of the Penguins got nominated over Mad Hot Ballroom (other than Penguins is the second-highest grossing documentary ever). We’ve got another nominee — Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room — on the way from Netflix, too.

Eastside Athletic Club
I signed up for a year at the gym.

Given my past record, this is a foolish choice. I’ve done this several times before, but only twice have I ever made real use of my membership. (The last time was in 1997-1998.)

What’s going to make this time different than all those other times? I can’t say that it will be different, of course, but I must say that things feel good: the gym is five minutes from our house; it’s directly off the highway on my drive home from work; the clientele is fitness-oriented instead of social-oriented; the facilities are fantastic, and include five (six?) racquetball courts, a full-length pool, an enormous cardio room, and all sorts of separate fitness rooms (women-only, free weights, spin room, yoga room, etc.).

During the past week I met my goal by attending the gym every single day. In fact, I exceeded my own expectations. I got on the rowing machine the very first day (I consider the rowing machine a pain-in-the-ass but a necessary workout for me), I learned how to use the elliptical machines (it took me about ten minutes to realize I wasn’t supposed to squat and go for an even motion), and I spent an hour yesterday afternoon alone on a racquetball court becoming reacquainted with the way the ball moves. (The only downside so far has been my meeting with the personal trainer. During our interview, he was completely disinterested and distracted, more focused on making googly eyes at the P.Y.T.s than on helping me.)

Objectives
As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t meet all of my goals, but I came close. Actually, I never expected to get everything done; my lists were just too ambitious. Still, most of the important stuff has been completed and I’m back on the Getting Things Done system so the other stuff should be finished before long. In fact, I intend to spend most of the weekend focusing on those uncompleted objectives.

eBay
At long last I’ve managed to post some eBay auctions. (Or will have when they start to “go live” at four o’clock this afternoon. Check here to see what I have to offer. It’s all geeky stuff.) It’s been five years since I sold anything on eBay, and the process seemed daunting. It was daunting, but I was impressed how easy things were after I scheduled the first auction. (And I love that you can schedule auctions in advance. It costs a dime per auction, but it’s worth it.) eBay remembers your settings for shipping, etc. so that you don’t have to re-enter the information over and over and over again. I’ve scheduled fourteen ten-day auctions, and I’ll be surprised if they don’t combine to fetch me $500. (Cosmic Encounter alone should sell for upward of $150.)

Anyhow: I had a fantastic vacation. I feel great. I look forward to resuming my daily entries about the minutiae of my daily life.

Goal-Oriented

I intend to take the next week off from weblogging.

In an effort to build some positive inertia, I’m taking vacation days from work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This will give me five(-and-a-half counting this afternoon) days to get done some pressing chores.

On the agenda:

~~dinner with Marcela, Pierre, and the Beautiful Children;~~ Done! Delicious!
~~Asian Dinner at Mac and Pam’s~~ Done! Fun!
~~diagnose network back-up issues at WACO;~~ Done!
complete the rough-draft of a story for the Woodstock Writer’s Guild;
complete the book purge begun two months ago, which includes:
- ~~posting the valuable books on eBay~~ Done! (And a system is in place to this repeatedly in the future.)
- taking the un-valuable books to Powell’s
- ~~mailing The Tick to John~~ Done! (Shocking!)
- ~~re-organizing the remaining books~~ As done as it’s going to get for a long time.
~~clean the~~ workshop; (two-thirds finished)
organize all my tools, both shop and garden;
respond to all unanswered e-mail (hi, Andrew, Bill, and Amy!);
exercise every day (~~Sat~~ 304 cal, ~~Sun~~ 417 cal, ~~Mon~~ 515 cal, ~~Tue~~ 327 cal and strength, ~~Wed~~ racquetball — Done! I exercised everyday!) — ~~I’ll sign up for a one-month membership at a gym and force myself to go every day, hoping to override my tendency to remain at rest~~ Done! (I even have an appointment on Monday with a “personal trainer” — good grief!);
~~make one nice dinner for Kris (and Tiff?);~~ I made Hamburger Helper two days in a row — does that count?
~~Prepare taxes for Sabino, including my labyrinthine Computer Resources mess~~ Done!
build a shelf for Kris;
~~get myself back on the Getting Things Done system;~~ The system is in place again and now I just have to follow it
and a whole lot of other little things.

This is an ambitious list, but I’ll do my best to tackle everything here. All of these are things that have been in stasis for weeks or months. It’s time for me to get off my ass!

This afternoon, however, I’m going to ~~head outside with the Gates girls and get that darned tree cleaned up.~~ Done! (Or at least as done as it’s getting ’til spring — look for photos soon.)

What do other people do when they’re unmotivated? When I’m motivated, I can plow through chores like nobody’s business. (I’m not quite the force of nature that Jeremy is, but I can certainly get things accomplished.) I’ll even go through prolonged periods where I’m happy to make sure things are done quickly and well. Most of my life, though, is a mass of procrastination. How does one avoid this? How do other people stay on-task?

Super Bowl Bound

I can hardly believe it: my dream Super Bowl match-up has come to pass. The Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers will meet in two weeks for the first Super Bowl game that has ever really meant anything to me.

I’ve always supported the Seattle Seahawks. When we were kids and did not have a television, Jeff and I would listen to Jim Zorn and Steve Largent and the lowly Seahawks every Sunday. We took great delight in the fact that the team would often run trick plays. Nothing pleased us more than a fake field goal.

We did have a television during the era of Dave Krieg and Kurt Warner, the golden age of Seahawk football. The team did well, often thrashing those hated Oakland Raiders. The Seahawks even made the playoffs from time-to-time.

In college I learned about fantasy football, and that completely changed the way I viewed the actual game. Still, I clung to my Seahawks through ups-and-downs. The fall after I graduated, the fall I was selling insurance door-to-door, the Seahawk radio play-by-plays were often my companions on Sunday afternoons as I drove to the far corners of Oregon.

Then, in the mid-nineties, my interest waned (though not my loyalty). I watched football less and less. I was more interested in fantasy football. Still, every year I’d follow the team in the paper. When Seattle played Pittsburgh, my cousin Nick and I would engage in friendly trash-talking. (Nick is a lifelong Steelers fan. About a decade ago he won a radio contest and got to fly to Pittsburgh to watch a game from the sidelines.) I always used to joke that Seattle and Pittsburgh ought to meet in the Super Bowl (which was impossible because (a) the teams were both in the AFC and (b) the teams sucked).

That joking dream, however, has become a reality. For once, a Super Bowl I really care about.

I’m sorry, Seattle, for having been lukewarm in my support during the past few years. I’m sorry I haven’t watched you on TV every week (or at least listened to your games). I’m sorry I don’t even know all your players anymore. I promise to be a more faithful fan.

Go Seahawks!