I had previously written about what I think pro-life really is (more than just a stance on abortion), so I didn’t feel the need to write about the murder of Dr. Tiller. In reading this post, I was just ambling along not too interested in getting into the discussion with all that prior writing of mine being on record until I came to this link, which talks about the recently murdered doctor/abortion provider from Wichita, Dr. Tiller, and how he offered the fine service of memorializing newly aborted babies prior to dumping them in the incinerator.

That is sick.

I can’t see how anyone can look at those photos and realize the entire situation and not think something about it is sick.

What is the point of memorializing this if it isn’t a baby?

Do we memorialize cancer cell masses after surgery prior to tossing them? I’ve yet to see someone lay a rose by that slop and light a votive for carcinoma. I had surgery two years ago in which stuff was removed and I can guarantee, there was no memorializing of that. So if this is just a clump of tissue or cells or whatever we call it now, what’s the deal?

You don’t kill people, whether it be babies or abortion doctors. Online I see people memorializing this Dr. Tiller, that he was a good man, active in his church, had children and grandchildren…fine. I hope he gets a better end than these partial-birth brain-sucked babies he killed and then memorialized, because they got tossed in the fire.

Pretty harsh, I know. But that’s evil and sick and if you think otherwise after looking at the photos on the page…wow.

In a great upset, the last round of the illustrious game left me in defeat. It now stands at

• Julie: four wins
• Mark: two wins

I really hate losing.

“You have all the resources! Stop building roads! You’re stealing my road strategy! Now you’re stealing my development card strategy! My gosh, you’re killing me! How many points do you have?! I’m dying here! Stop putting the robber on that square! Oh man, now you have maritime trading at your disposal!” and so on, I went, all but pounding the table or eating the cards in my hand out of nervousness. And he just sat across the table chuckling and grinning evilly and mocking my pain as he wracked up victory points and piles of resources and built roads upon roads.

“I don’t know which I enjoy more,” Mark said at game’s end, “playing the game or watching you get so worked up about it.”

Some people are just about pushing other people’s buttons.

I don’t know if I can take the continued stress that that game brings. Upon learning he had studied/developed strategy for the next game, I panicked and wasted an hour or more of my life on line boning up on strategy for my own use.

At this point, any time I get to goading him about any little thing in life, all he has to say is “I won the last game of Catan” and I am put into an angry stupor, unable to continue any further conversation. I respond back with text messages in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and many exclamation points, steam rolling out my ears.

I’ve even created a cartoon of the phenomenon, which involves (true story) me winning three in a row and Mark telling me why they weren’t true wins just to watch me get all frustrated and annoyed. And then, after another of my illustrious victories, having him “win” at stacking the game pieces without falling and trying to steal my glory. Sounds childish? Oh, it is. Here’s the cartoon.

I’m incredibly competitive when it comes to playing games. My family won’t play Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary with me any more (my two favorite games), one because I’m a freak on detail and the other because I’m a…screamer. I break pencil leads in massive rages.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! CAN’T YOU SEE THAT’S THE VENUS DE MILO?! SHE HAS NO ARMS! I EVEN ADDED CHIAROSCURO TO THE DRAWING!!” I holler in a tense round of Pictionary, jabbing my pencil against the paper pad.

In other related links, check out this cool Settlers of Catan cake. Very cool.

Not much to watch, but fun to listen to.

Here’s a map of JFK.

Mainly, I have to wear something with a hood. I have head lice phobias to an intense degree while at movie theaters and though I am aware of at least three logic flaws with using a hooded clothing item for that purpose, it does give me peace of mind.

This evening, I went to the movies with my sister and her family, who are here in Bismarck visiting me. After several excruciating previews geared mainly towards kids, the movie began. As the start of the 20th Century Fox music commenced, I leaned in toward my sister Jacqui (much like the scene from Dumb and Dumber and the Most Annoying Sound In The World), hood pulled snugly around my head, and began to hum along to the theme right in her ear.

“Dun..dun dun…dun dun dun dun dun dun dun…dun dun dun duuuun…”

When it was all done, I asked if that was creepy.

“Was that creepy?”

“A little bit,” she said.

Previously, any time she said anything I would loudly shush her.

“Julie, I — “

“SHHHH! Movie here!”

Basically, I’m the most annoying person in the world.

I also cannot sit with my back to the door at any restaurant, but that’s another post.

Because I worked for the United States Postal Service off and on in the past, I am allowed to gripe about them. I am.

I had two small items to mail to a friend. Upon arriving at the post office, I tried to decide how to send them. The priority box that they would fit in was at a $7.40 rate, which was just 60 cents more than my friend had paid me for the two items.

That seemed asinine.

I decided to buy a small box that wasn’t Priority Mail, fully aware that the Priority Mail boxes are free. I knew that the first class rate, even with the cost of the small box, would be less than the $7.40. This seemed to be the most logical plan of mailing the items at the lowest cost.

Or so I thought.

The Post Office has a sign where people queue for their turn, a sign that says we are not to approach the counter without having our packages addressed and fully closed. I had my box addressed and closed, and so I went to the counter with no misgivings. I stated that I wanted it to be mailed First Class.

The clerk weighed the small box. “This is too heavy to go First Class,” he said. “Your options are to either go with Express Mail for around $17, or Priority Mail for $7.40.”

What?

“It’s too heavy?” I asked. “It’s a little box.” I’ve seen much larger boxes go First Class, or at least with other options.

“Yes. It’s too heavy. And here’s what’s worse. If you’d just used a Priority Box, you’d have saved yourself a few dollars from buying this box and only paid the postage. Now you have to pay for the box, since you wrote the address on it, and the Priority postage.”

“Seriously.”

“Yes. Next time you should come up and ask and we could tell you this,” he said.

“It’s too heavy. Really.”

“Yes, to go First Class. Would you like Express Mail?”

“No, I would not like Express Mail.”

“OK. We’ll put it as Priority Mail.”

“Fine.”

“Can I interest you in any other services or products today? Insurance? Stamps?”

“No, you really can’t.”

I ended up spending almost $10 to mail something that cost $8.

I did get a stupid lecture for free, however, a lecture on things I already knew except the bizarre “this tiny box is too heavy” part of it.

What kind of rip-off is the USPS perpetuating on us now? Is everything going to be forced, eventually, to go Priority, which means nothing will be priority? How could that small box be too heavy for First Class mail?

What, are they using kittens to deliver the mail now?

I apologize for the silence on this blog. As you may have guessed by following my Tweets and now looking at this confusing page where you are used to seeing something else, I’m in the process of moving things. You will likely find my site down or partial or inaccessible in the next days while I migrate to a new host and make some foundational changes. I will be importing many of my blog posts, though not all. The look will change, and will keep changing until I get it where I want. Those of you who subscribe to this blog(s) with a feedreader, etc. will have to change your feed details. I will be working with my FeedBurner account to make that painless for those who are subscribed that way.

Mainly, I wanted something more manageable. This version of my site is about the third or fourth in ten years, and this set of blogs have been here since 2005. I made so many different blogs (one for art, flying, etc.) because Blogger didn’t have the label/category ability for a few years and it was the only way I could figure out to best organize all the content.

The new site will be streamlined, one blog, less hassle for me and you, and more stable. It will be Wordpress, not blogger. It will be more Web 2.0.

And I won’t have to deal with a dragging host with spotty support and a confusing control panel.

Migrating to a new host is always a pain, with backup and uploads and such, as well as nameservers and email accounts…but this will be a good thing. Starting new, from ground up. Those of you who have hosted images on my server may have broken image links, and will have to let me know. I will upload as needed. Of course, having a blog here as long as I have means I will leave a lot lot lot of dead links around the internet, for the posts will be gone or at least moved.

Well, it was time to start new.

The idea was that I would at long last take dad’s plane (fondly known as “Chip” since, as my dad joked, you needed to be careful walking around it lest you get a chip of paint in your eye) up in the air and get in at least three take-offs and landings. In order to take up passengers, I needed to have done that in a single-engine-land airplane within the previous 90 days, and, sadly, I hadn’t.

One reason for my failure to do this (besides lackluster devotion to aviation, I admit) was that nearly every time we attempted to go up, Chip had a maintenance issue that kept us grounded.

Things were looking well; I pre-flighted it and everything looked OK. The tanks were topped off with fuel, and soon we had clearance from ground to start the taxi.

Sure.

It was a windy day, to be sure, but I was really bothered by the fact that I had the left rudder mashed to the floor and still finding the airplane veering hard right. I imagine Mark thought his former student was really out of practice and perhaps a questioning my lack of ability to even taxi on the yellow line, but I could not, for the life of me, get it to go straight without incredible effort. I was practically lying down in the seat to work the left rudder down. Finally, I caved; I could not figure it out and was thinking this was no way to start a flight.

“Is there something wrong here?” I asked. “I have the left rudder to the floor and it keeps going right.”

He thought maybe it was the wind, and he took the controls. It wasn’t long, though, before he was finding the same difficulty. I was looking out my window down at the left tire, and I saw him do the same.

“Oh, we have to go back,” he said. “We won’t be flying today.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, highly annoyed since, yet again, the airplane refused to let me get off of the ground.

“The right brake is stuck. It’s glowing bright red and shooting off sparks.”

I contacted ground and told them I had to return to the ramp, which we did. We were lucky, I was informed, that the tire didn’t burst into flame and let us have a little barbecue out there on the taxiway.

In the end, we used a different plane so that I could get my landings in and so that we could take photos of an event that had been requested.

I dreaded calling dad; yet again, Chip was going to be heading into maintenance. I described the day to dad, and after expressing his frustration as only he could, went on with instructions.

“Tell them in maintenance to just take off the wings and work on the engine so it cooled better so that at least you could drive it down the road.”

That seems a little severe.

I do hope it gets fixed by this Friday and that all of the things going bad will have worked themselves out by then as well. I have a little trip scheduled in which I will be tasting the roller coasters at Valley Fair, and Chip is going to be our transportation there.

Theoretically.

I read a blog post from a family member tonight which spoke of the times in life where it feels as if we are in the desert. I recognize the sentiment.

The desert is a tough place. It’s dry and parched and we are in want of something to drink. We feel like we’re dying, about to dry out and blow away. We’re so thirsty. We’ve been going too long, and it’s too much to keep going, our thirst overwhelming. It’s a place where we see our dreams and wants and plans wither up for lack of water, and the pain is very great because it seems we’ve been abandoned and there are no landmarks as far as the eye can see.

We feel alone. And we’re still thirsty.

As I was out for a run tonight, the idea of being in the desert of life kept tumbling through my head. Thoughts of how God leads us beside still waters came to mind. Or, how Jesus told the woman at the well that he didn’t bring regular water, but living water.

It then occurred to me that sometimes we’re not really in the desert (and God is there in those times — just ask the ravens), but sometimes we’re thirsty and parched because we are not seeing the water he’s offering. Maybe we wanted something different to drink, some other kind of cup to drink from. Maybe we wanted our water a different temperature, or more often.

“I’m thirsty!” we cry out.

“Drink from this cup,” he replies, the fact that he is there to reply meaning we are not alone. But we won’t drink the water he’s offering us. Perhaps it is too bitter and we can’t bear to drink it.

How often is the desert not a desert, but a time of dryness due to our own refusal to drink the water he’s offering?

I would say I’ve felt as if I were in the desert for years, culminating to the driest recent past year imaginable, but I finally realized there was something to drink nearby. I just had expected something different, wanted something different, asked for something different… I’m still sipping the water, tiny bit at a time, wanting what I wanted but holding the cup given me instead; it is starting to taste good. Bittersweet, but something to drink nonetheless.

Drop by drop, the desert I thought I was in is banished, and I see where I was all along. Things come back to life in small ways, usually, and not in a deluge.

While I understand people seem to like summer, I can’t say I agree.

1. Kids are out of school. I want them back in school and not out and about, annoying me.
2. Bugs.
3. People are infatuated with noisy get-togethers at all hours of the day and night in their yards when I am trying to nap/sleep.
4. Sun, sunburn, sunblock.
5. Hot.
6. Some summer clothing styles should not be made in a size larger than 6. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I am reminded of this. The words “sausage casing” come to mind.

I suffer on.

In theory, tomorrow I will be flying with Mark to the Twin Cities in my dad’s airplane (fondly named Chip). At least, I think Chip is still an airplane; it’s hard to say. She hasn’t wanted to leave the ground for quite sometime, evidently fond of the maintenance staff and her hangar queen status.

Because I have foolishly allowed myself to get my hopes up for the possible fun to be had at his parent’s house and at Valley Fair (roller coasters!) on Saturday, I decided I did not want to risk another attempt at flying tomorrow for the grand weekend if Chip mistakenly thought we were only out for another stroll down taxiway Charlie.

So I write the inanimate (and that word has never been more accurately used in describing something as it is with Chip) object a few letters. You can choose which one you like.

Dear Chip,

You’d better not s**t on the taxiway again or I will take a sledgehammer to your prop.

Sincerely,
Julie

Or…

Dear Chip,

Your natural habitat is the sky. Your natural habit seems to be refusing to go there. Why? Please reconsider your bad attitude and get your ass off the ground or I will take a sledgehammer to your prop.

Sincerely,
Julie

Or…

Dear Chip,

We want to go flying on Friday. We plan to be there in the morning, departing by 10 a.m. We plan on making our destination, and coming on back the same method whence we left, on Sunday.

I don’t know what your plans are, but if they aren’t the same I’m going to take a sledgehammer to your prop.

Sincerely,
Julie

Or…

Dear Chip,

Fly or die. (Die is defined as me taking a sledgehammer to your prop.)

Sincerely,
Julie

Those are just a few of my sentiments.