The Mister

Missing My Missus

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:18:00 +0000

It's been a little while since I've posted. I wonder if anyone is still following me? I just was having a couple of thoughts and it's going to be a day or two before I get near anyone I can talk to.

My Missus is the type that doesn't want to go anywhere. She likes it at home. Not that she doesn't get tired of being cooped up with the short people but her idea of getting out is going to the library or finding some knitters to hang with for an afternoon, not world travel.

So when she spoke up one day and said that she wanted to go on a church mission trip to Lebanon to help Syrian refugees I figured God was in it and I had better go along with it. It was so far outside of her normal range of things that she would ever want to do that it had to be. Two other things contributed to making it OK. She had been sad for the Syrians for months every time she saw anything about them in the news, and I felt no panic. So there you go.

I'm a worrier though. So I kind of had to blank it out in the weeks leading up to the trip. That was a little hard on her because of course she wanted to talk about it. So as fund raising and planning was going on I was pretty distant about it. I owe her an apology for that. Even at the moment of departure I was pretty collected. I hope she doesn't think I'm mad at her for wanting to go.

Because for me this is kind of a taste of my worst nightmare. What if I lost my wife? How am I going to shove the kids in public school and still work all my odd hours and be able to get along? Well, of course our family, friends and neighbors would be there to help and they are for sure these next two weeks. But if I let that thought creep in at all it's going to suck.

Not that I'm that worried about her safety. It's not like she's going somewhere where she'll have to dodge mortar fire and crowds of angry young men. The area they're in is largely Christian and the only people who really hate the Syrian refugees are their government and those guys have their hands full at the moment. So that's not it.

So the frame of mind I'm trying to get myself in is to take notice of every time I find a hole in my life where my wife should be. In our home, in our kitchen, with our kids, in the quiet late at night when it would normally be just us two. All those times have been put on notice. They're not allowed to make me sad. They're only allowed to make me get ready to appreciate my girl when she gets back. Those times are going to remind me to make life good for her when she's in my house again.

The last thing she did before she took off was to take her wedding ring off for safe keeping. I put it on a chain around my neck and that's where it's going to stay until I get the gem that came with it back.

Have fun babe. Love on people. Come home safe.

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This Is What Heaven Is

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 02:53:00 +0000

Before you read this, start the song playing. You'll be done reading by the time it gets to the good part and you can scroll back up.

This song has brought a (literal) tear to my eye for twenty-five years now. I don't even know all the words, the music strikes me that deeply. It's the sound of hope on a dark ride. At some point I realized that it was because it was drawing an image of heaven for me. It came to me in parts.

When I was on tour I saw a place out in Phoenix where the suburbs were expanding so fast that the city was getting a jump on the developers and had built a whole network of roads with nothing on them. They were just numbered, no names.

When I was growing up I asked my Dad what Heaven was like. He said he didn't know, only that God was pretty powerful, and He loved us a lot, and was building a place that would be perfect for us.

My Dad was a builder. I also can't think of any person on Earth, not my Mom, or my wife, or my kids that loves me as much as my Dad. He hasn't said it to me five times since I was a little kid, but he showed me every single day from that to this. I figure he understands about building something for someone you love.

I don't ever think about suicide. Sometimes though, the world makes me squeeze my eyes shut and wish I was done. That I could go home. To that place. By the time the second verse starts I don't feel that way anymore.

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:42:00 +0000

I've been wanting to write lately but after posting every day on one or more blogs it seems like I ran out of stuff to say about child rearing and life-in-general about a year ago. There's a need for me to write stuff pertaining to the art and science of sound and light, but turning out a well thought out document is no easy task and too daunting to even start on most nights.

So I started another blog for the purpose of ironing out some ideas. I don't know if any of my former readers will be interested in any of the nerdy stuff, but there's likely to be some interesting back stage type posts as well. Here's the link if you care to check it out.

Smart To Noise Ratio

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Testing

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:12:00 +0000

Testing
Jon
BNB
 iTyped with my iThumbs

Found Objects

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:29:00 +0000

When I was about seven or eight I found a bank of clay near the stream that runs out behind the elementary school. I got the idea to make a clay tablet like I was always hearing about in Sunday school. I went back to the house and found a small scrap of plywood in the garage and some chunks of two by four and got to knocking it together.

In all the years that have passed this memory sometimes surfaces when I walk near that stream. Usually I just remember that none of my friends were at all interested in the idea and I never got around to making that tablet.I never think much about the box though.

Today I found it on my living room floor with stuff piled in it to go out to the trash. Somehow this thing survived through the intervening decades and made its way up the street from my parents' house to where I live now. I just spent a couple minutes reliving the experience while looking at it.

At first I just dumped the contents in the trash and took it out to the wood pile by the fire pit. I hadn't recognized it. But as I chucked it on the pile I started to notice certain things about it. The plywood was of a certain age, something subtle about it that made it look different from what you see today. The mill stamps on the two by fours seemed different two, not as crisp as what they're using now.

Then my carpenter's brain started to decode the building process. First I spotted a corner with only one nail in it, not the hallmark of experienced carpenters like my father and I. Next I spotted a couple finish nails, half driven and bent over by the hand of an eight year old swinging a sixteen ounce Stanley that was too much for him. Then I saw where a couple had been pulled and re-started. That was the point at which Dad found me and lent a hand. I expect he grabbed the old Rockwell circular saw from his van and did a little trimming. Then he was obviously the one who sank about two dozen evenly spaced eight penny sinkers to hold the bottom on.

My next thought was, "Well, I can't burn that with all those nails in it, the kids will step on them". Which makes me proud as a recovering pack rat. So with just a hint of sentimentality I stuck it in the garage, somewhat lovingly as I looked over the nails my father helped me sink twenty seven years ago. I'll likely toss it in a dumpster next time we clean out the garage. But not before giving it one more good look to cement those memories firmly in place.

My Wife Is Trying To Kill You

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:50:00 +0000

My Missus knew what she was getting into when she married a sound guy. The first thing I did after we got back from our honeymoon was go out on tour for three months. More than once we've had to make plans to fit delivering a baby into my production schedule. She's even got a clever scheme to pacify the Short People when they get upset that I'll be gone to yet another gig... "We like to eat kids. Say bye bye to Daddy". But she has her ways of exacting her revenge. One way really, and it's this:

Opening night of a theatrical run she feeds me beans.

It started a few years ago when we were particularly poor and eating rather a lot of beans to keep the grocery bills down. I went off to mix a musical one night after downing a hearty dish of red beans and rice and, well... to put it politely the last ten rows of house right seats didn't have such a good time of it that night. I remarked on it to her at which point we both had a good laugh.

The thing is, she keeps doing it! And I never catch on till it's too late. I've never been able to get the drop on her. The last theatrical run I mixed it hit me as I was pushing my chair back. Ugh. Maybe someday I'll catch on before I sit down to eat and say that I'm running late and I'll just grab a burger on the way to the venue. Somehow I doubt it though.

She informs me that it is always going to happen and it is always going to be funny. True and truer. So now you know. If you're buying advance tickets for opening night of a musical in Genesee county it would serve you well to find out where the sound guy is mixing from and stay at least ten rows away.

You'll Just Have To Wait

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:20:00 +0000

I keep getting responsibility heaped on me at work. Possibly quite a bit more than I ever bargained for. I've been trying to up my game recently to figure out how I can do my best to keep everybody happy, including me.

One of the biggest problems is that I'm involved with so many different projects that it's almost impossible to sit and work on something for ten minutes without having to answer a phone call, a call on the radio, or turn to deal with someone poking their head in. Likewise walking down the hall, it's tough to make it twenty feet without getting stopped. Sometimes a group forms around me.

One thing that really helped was some advice from my boss to ignore my phone and radio during meetings. Easily done, just silence that little bugger and unless the same person calls three times in two minutes don't answer it. Something that made me kind of a power user was setting up Google Voice on my work phone. (I'm receiving no compensation for saying this). People call the same number, but if it goes to voicemail a transcript is taken and forwarded to my e-mail and I also get it as a text (most of the time).

Another thing is just to tell people no. I can't really put my boss off, he's going to give me assignments no matter what and he realizes that I/we have to prioritize because there's just so much going on. Making other people realize this isn't too tough though. When the fire alarm guys showed up on Friday and need assistance, I asked them to grab a seat while I finished the drawing I was working on. They were glad to wait and everything got taken care of in a timely fashion. The world didn't end or anything!

So that's it. Just one more tiny step in the constant battle to have it all make sense.

Makin' It Up As I Go

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:07:00 +0000

I had a gig last night which was a jolly good time but It meant that I didn't hit the sheets until after four this morning. My lovin' Missus let me sleep and took the Short People to church despite having a migraine. I awoke just after lunch to find the baby sleeping, the big kids visiting Grama and Mama all whacked out on head meds knitting on the couch.

Wha followed was a pleasant afternoon drinking coffee and watching the baby be cute. As dinner time rolled around the children started trickling back in and my wife was still crocked so I decided to take on dinner. She had jambalaya in mind so I did a quick search on the iPod and got to work. And now begins my tentative first efforts as a food blogger.

Having not quite everything on the list I decided to muster up my courage and just fake it. I'm a recipe follower but when it's just a big pot full o' stuff I'm not so scared. We had venison sausage and ham left over so that would do for sausage and well, ham.

I got started with the drip of olive oil we had left and made up the rest with the drippings from the venison. In went the dehydrated onions because we had no real ones, celery and green pepper. We only had one can of tomato paste so I caramelized that with the veggies to make up for some o the missing goodness Faced with adding two cups of stock I faked it with water and bullion and added the meat. Canned tomatoes from the cellar took the place of real ones and the juice made up for some of the stock we didn't have.

In went four cups of brown rice because that's all we had and in lieu of Cajun seasoning I used black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme and oregano. A little more water and salt to taste and let 'er simmer.

It took forever for the brown rice to cook but once finally dished up it met with good reviews. It was a tad too spicy for some so the plan is to add kidney beans for the second go-round tomorrow.

Till next time may your soup pot be filled with savory goodness.

iTyped with my iThumbs

Wii Expect To Have A Good Year

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:52:00 +0000

Tonight at The Missus' family Christmas party my children received the unexpected gift of a Wii. It was actually in the form of a couple checks from an auntie and Far-Away Grama. So as the Short People were putting away the toys they had gotten out at the party we told them to hurry up and do a good job so we could tell them the very very good news. They did and I had my iPod out to video the reaction, but it wasn't exactly what I expected.

Only one of them actually jumped up and down. The baby shouted yeah because he's in the monkey-see monkey-do phase. Another one burst into tears when we told him that it wasn't an actual Wii and that I would have to go buy one after work tomorrow. And last but not least, the ever practical older sister sat there looking puzzled and finally let loose with, "But there's not enough room for a Wii where we have the TV. I stopped recording at that point and we got down to the explaning.

I had hoped to wait a little while longer before introducing console gaming to the household but The Missus seemed pretty interested in it. Maybe it will finally give her some leverage with those guys about school work and house keeping duties. It'll also be a decent way to get some activity in while we're in the midst of cabin fever season too. So wish us luck, we're about to venture off into the land of Wii. (Which apparently is so two years ago according to my friends who console game, but what the heck, you can't be an early adopter on everything.)

Thanks For Not Caring

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 21:51:00 +0000

I just wanted to dash off a quick thank you note to... um. Well here's the thing. I find that I'm glad the shine has worn off sending mass holiday txt messages to everyone in your contact list. The last few Christmases and New Years have been a non-stop barrage of generic holiday wishes. And while it's nice to think that people are thinking of you, when you get interrupted watching the kids opening presents fifty-five times because somebody thumbed "Merry X-Mas" and hit SEND ALL it seems like it's something we could really do without.

So to everybody who didn't bother to send me one thanks. And also to the few people who did send me messages (that were obviously one-offs, mentioning my family by name) thanks for tastefully spreading some holiday cheer.

Christmas, and New Things

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 23:18:00 +0000

This Christmas marked a lot of firsts. First time in two years I haven't had to get up at 3:00 am and go plow snow at the hospital. First time we've slept in (the kids let us go until 8:00!). First time having a potted tree. He's in the house now because we can't plant him till we get a thaw, but he's going back on the porch shortly so he stays dormant. And I say he because he is Steve the Tree, it's what we name our tree every year and the kids get very attached. It's not so much an environmental consciousness that leads us to a renewable Christmas tree as the fact that the Short People can't stand to see their pal Steve burn every spring. And last but not least the first Christmas that we spent less than $300 on the whole holiday.

Let that soak in...

That's right. No excess. No obnoxious decorations. Sure, it means that The Missus has been knitting, sewing and otherwise crafting gifts since March, but she has a knitting addiction anyway and it helps justify the cost of the yarn this way. A nice side benefit is that my kids spent three quarters of the year thinking about what they could give to people for Christmas instead of what they want to get. They're more keyed up about the next Netflix movie showing up than Old Saint Nick. They went to bed (a little on the early side even) just like every other night of the year.

And because Christmas was such a low key event I actually felt rested this morning and got to work to give my Missus a little additional present for Boxing Day. As soon as I got back from church I brought the lappy in the kitchen to stream Public Radio for Handel's Messiah in its entirety, poured a coffee (and then a Guinness) and scrubbed that room from top to bottom. She woke up from her nap and I came up the back steps just in time to catch the "Wow!" moment.

So that was Christmas for us. A lot more like a Holy Day than a holiday a-la Stuff-Mart this year. It wasn't that hard either. We just decided not to buy in (literally) to all the crap this year. Hope you and yours had a wonderful weekend. See you soon.

We're Halfway There!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:01:00 +0000

Ahh, Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the year has come and gone and all us ~~SAD-ies~~ ~~SAD-ites~~ those of us who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder can heave a tiny sigh of relief knowing that the days are getting incrementally, infinitesimally longer.

I'm not sure how much of that I actually believe. My Dad has had SAD for years and had a special light that he used to sit under. Except that one year he just decided not to get it and didn't. We use special light bulbs at the hospital where I work to improve mood but I'm not sure that beyond relieving eye strain that they do much.

All I know is it's frickin dark! I get up and drive to work in pitch black, and I punch out in the middle of the afternoon and drive home into the setting sun. It's just good to know that living like a coal miner is only a temporary condition and it won't be long now until we're out of the woods.

Dining Room Table

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 05:03:00 +0000

I was remembering family dinners from long ago while I munched with my family today. Both my parents and grandparents had relatively small dining rooms that we all crammed into when more of the family was in town. What was usually a catch-all for our daily junk and paperwork transformed into the groaning board with happy relatives crammed in, elbow to elbow, seat backs nearly touching the walls.

Once you got assigned your seat you were pretty much in for the duration. Only those close to the exits had any options for movement. So you just stayed there, sandwiched in between uncles and cousins while grandma and one or two others kept the table stocked.

When I was small it was like visiting a mountain range after seeing it in a textbook. Faces usually only seen plastered across the door of the fridge suddenly loomed large, familiar yet slightly strange. Uncle Dave in a different shirt, Aunt Sally's hair a little longer, the cousins all a little taller. Somehow the lighting seemed warmer at those times, the furniture nicer. I remember how it would take my little kid perspective and skew it all around into something magical and memorable.

To My Missus

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:21:00 +0000

It's hard to say how glad I am that you're at home waiting for me. I couldn't do this if it weren't for you. It's for you I work these hours, that I put myself through the ringer. When you light a candle for me to see when I drag myself up the walk I feel like a sailor coming home to port. I forget that my knees feel like rusty hinges and my shoulders feel like they're hanging on by strings. It's like the people who tear me apart every day did that to someone else.

When I push through the door and you turn and smile at me the weary man drops away and the excited little kid inside of me feels his heart leap. Even if you're exhausted too and your hair is flat your smile has enough light in it to erase all the darkness in my life. You are radiant when you smile. Your eyes are my undoing, and the mending of my hurts.

Almost every day I thank God that we are not like other couples. That our love reaches far beyond the excitement of meeting and dating. That if the thrill is sometimes gone it's been replaced by something so much better. That it extends to dirty dishes and doctor visits, cookies dropped off at work and laughter when our eyes meet over the kids' heads.

I've never had much and I don't expect I ever will. The longer I live the less it seems to matter. When I prayed for a wife I got one that made me richer than most men can dream of. A slice of your bread in my hand. A scolding when I need it. A song from your lips. Laughter in your eyes. These are all my riches and I know it, every day I know it like I know my name.

I'm glad you're mine.

Old Nails

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:28:00 +0000

I took a week off from work to put a little addition on my house this week. My Dad took the week too and a couple old friends have stopped by to help. It's been the most fun I've had in ages. I used to build houses with my Dad, for seventeen years before he retired. It's been five since we've swung a hammer together and it's like all we did was take the weekend off. All the jokes and sayings are even still the same.

But that's not why I wanted to write tonight. The thing that got me sitting at the keyboard is the three old nails sitting on my work bench in the shop. I'll get to them in a minute.

As we tore into the project we've been going over it with a carpenter's eye. It's an automatic thing, you go over the work, get into the guys heads that did it. We pulled off some of the vinyl siding that went on in the early Nineties when I was in junior high. Worked around the replacement windows that went in after the fire in '77 when I was but a wee lad of one. Next came the clapboard siding underneath that we placed earlier than the kitchen addition that went on in the early Fifties but not original to the house. We're away from the section that went on in the Teens or Twenties but we think that's the vintage.

The real treat to a couple of carpenters was seeing the bones of the oldest part of the house. The sheathing predates even the tongue and groove that they used before plywood came along. The original house was post and beam construction and the rough hewn sheathing was sixteen inches wide! (shiver)

I was at the top of a ladder at one point, pulling off a piece of trim right at the peak and as I pulled out the nails I noticed that they were cut nails, square. They were likely made in a stamping machine and not by a blacksmith, they're too skinny. I pulled three of them and stuck them in my pocket. And that's what I've been thinking of all day.

There's a map of my town that dates to the 1860's and my house is on it. That makes the old section at least 150 years old and likely a decade or so more than that. These three nails were driven into that rake board two lifetimes ago. The Civil War hadn't been fought yet. The tree that lumber was milled from was a sapling when the ink was still wet on the Constitution and buccaneers still sailed the seas.

All this and more speaks to me from a humble piece of trim that has perched on the peak of my house, out of sight and out of mind. Cool.

I Feel Like A Genius

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:56:00 +0000

I read about this open source wireless router software, DD-WRT, and decided to give it a try. I bought a $12 router on eBay, flashed it and started messing around. There's something quirky about the way I have out home network that's stopping me from using it to repeat signal to the back yard. Last night at a gig though I had a few minutes and finally it it going.

I stuck it in a window and got it connected to the neighbor's open network and suddenly, voilà! I had my own secure network right there in the bar. I got my laptop and iPod connected and was running iTunes remotely during set breaks. I even got the wireless mouse app to work so I could run the recording software and browse the web without reaching in front of the lighting guy

Anyway, it felt hella good to be tinkering again.

The Green

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:58:00 +0000

Well, I just gave the lawn mower a tune up, which in my case means a quick coat of WD-40 and a gentle torque of the cutting adjustment screws. That's right, even without a picture you guessed that I'm mowing with an old fashioned reel mower.

This, however, is not your grandad's push mower. While that old hunk you may have pushed around as a kid was made of cast iron and maple, the new breed is exceedingly light and when sharp does one heck of a job on your lawn. I find that I can mow my whole lawn faster than with a self propelled gas model because I'm not limited to one speed, and it also seems easier to push and has the added benefit of being nearly silent. (With a not-so-quiet roll of the eyeballs toward all my neighbors that seem to want to rev their tiny engines during naptime on the weekends.)

My current method takes four days to cut the grass, but less than an hour each day. I divided the lawn into four sections. Each one takes about half an hour to mow and another half hour to rake. The clippings go in the chicken pens or on the garden. And while it may seem dreadfully archaic to rake one's lawn in the age of mulching mowers, don't forget that for my efforts I also remove nearly all sharp objects like nut shells and such from the path of tiny feet.

The real benefit though is that I'm getting a full body cardio workout four days a week. And it spreads out an odious chore so that I don't wind up huffing and puffing after a long slog behind the Toro feeling like I just wasted two and a half hours of my life. AND... in addition to whipping myself back into shape, I'm saving about $25 per mow (that would be $20 to hire a neighborhood kid and $5 in fuel) by doing it myself the old fashioned way. That's about $400 over the course of the summer.

For people with small yards it's almost a no-brainer to get one of these things. Picture ditching that roaring monster and all the gas, oil, smog and repair bills that go along with it. Greens tenders will tell you that a reel mower is better for your lawn too, it actually cuts the blades as opposed to just basically bashing the tops off. Anyway, that's enough plugging for the Crunchy Granola life style. Just felt like puttin that out there.

I have received no compensation from the reel mower industry for my writing.

I would also like to point out that unlike internal combustion powered mowers, my manual model starts on the first pull (er... push) every time.

Save Water - Save Money

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:34:00 +0000

I was reading on some trendy gadget/DIY website the other day and came across a little known (in the US) technology called Dual Flush that can save a lot of water in the bathroom. Widely used in areas where water is limited, environmentally conscious (or stingy) folks are starting to pick up on it. The article said that retrofit kits cost less than $40 so it wasn't long before I was at the hardware store looking to pick one up.

The first one I purchased was for our old fashioned toilet that still uses about 4.5 gallons per flush. With enthusiastic potty trainers and drastically rising water prices I was glad to see that one get a tune up. Our other toilet was already a 1.6 GPF model, but same scenario, happy to save a few bucks/gallons a day. Here's the breakdown.

Upstairs on the old water hog I bought a One2Flush kit for $34. It promises to save 20 to 30 gallons per day for an average family which it estimates to be about $15 a month with water at $2.50 a gallon. Installation took about half an hour, mostly because it involved removing the tank. Depending on the age of one's commode this can be annoying but I had mine off with minimum difficulty despite thirty years of faithful service. The new flush valve threads in and the tank goes back on. Once filled and checked for leaks you snap in the new flush handle and make a few adjustments. There are separate floats for liquid and solid flushes, I adjusted mine so it uses just enough to clear the bowl for liquids and set the other float for max. The new lever is plastic and not super easy to read so I used the label maker to make it easier on the kids and house guests to figure out. The lever works easily and the short people declared it a major hit.

After that great success I purchased a HydroRight kit for our 1.6 GPF toilet downstairs. It was $25 on sale and promises to save $100 a year (that's $8.33 a month to compare to the other) Thinking I'd get a jump on things I spent a sweaty twenty minutes detaching the tank only to open the instructions and find out that it's not necessary with this model. After bolting the tank back on and restarting the clock I found the installation to take the promised ten minutes. (and no tools needed if you follow the instructions!) Similar to the other unit there were two floats to adjust for min and max flushes and after half a dozen tries I had it set. The flush mechanism is a push button rig which is a little more difficult for tiny fingers (although my three-year-old managed all right after a couple tries) but more easily readable. The smaller button on top has one drop, the larger button on the bottom has two. Unless I hear that visitors are confused I'll skip the extra labeling on this one.

So now all that remains is to wait out the remaining two months on the billing cycle and see how things add up. I know I hear fill valves running a lot less which is a good indicator. Another small fix I'm going to try is to throttle down the bathroom sinks. Both our bathrooms have short throw fixtures which make it easy to run them wide open. With little ones washing and brushing that can add up to a lot of water going down the drain. The simple fix is to open each tap in turn, wide open, and reach under the sink and slowly turn the shutoff valve until a satisfactory flow is reached.

Well, I know I'm not exactly Consumer Reports but I hope the information is helpful and that you won't be afraid to take the flush, er... plunge and start to save some water (and a little green) with some simple DIY around the house.

So Long Old Puss

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:01:00 +0000

Our old cat Jake has gone on to the great hunting ground in the sky. Once fat and sassy, well not sassy, he was so laid back he wouldn't even meow properly he just sort of grunted, he got sick and thin and today was the day to take him to the vet. The Missus wrote about it as well.

The poor doc got sad right away and kept talking about putting $1000 into the animal and still not having much hope. Without doing a lot of testing we'll never know but it was likely feline lukemia and pretty advanced. So he got a little injection, closed his eyes and went to his rest a few beats of his little heart later.

It was a perfect day. Just balmy, with the sweet smell of growing things in the gentle breeze as we laid him to rest under an apple tree where he liked to hang out. J-Man helped wrap him in a towel so he'd be cozy and then helped me with his little shovel.

There were tears of course, and a lot to be said about missing and wanting and fairness. Miss O, who is easily hurt had a pretty good outlook. We've been reading All Creatures Great And Small so she seems to understand about what happens when there's nothing you can do for an animal.

So here's one last goodbye for my old Jake Bear. I don't know if animals go to Heaven but if they do I'll rest easy knowing that there won't be any mice or rabbits getting the tomatoes up there. And some saint will find a nice companion in my fat cat who would never sit on your lap but snuggle up to your knee instead and just purr away. Go easy old son.

We've Been Reduced To Eating Cat Food

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:55:00 +0000

It's not as bad as it sounds. We have a sick kitty and after a dose of antibiotics the vet suggested we boil some hamburger and rice to feed him to help bulk up again. I was in charge of the operation and made a large portion so I wouldn't have to make more later. At the time I thought with a smirk that it would be funny to feed some to the baby or if the whole family wound up eating it.

The very next night we were strapped for dinner ideas so out the stuff came and we had at it. Here's the recipe:

- Saute one chopped onion in olive oil
- Add a quart of canned tomatoes, juice and all
- Add appropriate amount of burger/brown rice (cat food)
- Cook a while, season to taste and enjoy.

I used some sea salt, white pepper and a pinch of oregano. As cat food goes I'd have to say I highly prefer my version to some of the dry cat food I ate on various dares in college. The kids ate it with a minimum of complaining and that's an item in its favor as well.

Just Call Me "Crash"

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 01:28:00 +0000

So there I was. Driving home from a gig about an hour away and starving because I'd been up since 4:00 am with nothing of any substance to eat yet. I spied a McDonalds on the other side of a four lane street and found a spot to turn in just past it. I got through the traffic without getting clipped and looked to my left to see if I needed to get back out in to traffic or if I could just thread my way down through the parking lot.

Then this happened:

I heard Cruuuuuuuuuuuuunch! and thought, "Crap, I hit a shopping cart" but then realized I wasn't moving and turned to find a telephone pole had worked its way right up close to my dash board. I limped the truck back off it and into a parking spot and got out to check things out. I took a couple pictures and sent one off to Effbook because hey, own it, I say.

Here's the layout of this particular patch of parking lot:
The pole must have been in the A-post blind spot as I turned left into the lot because I blithely aimed my truck where one would usually pilot a vehicle in a parking lot. Between the rows of stripes. I was looking off to my left where I was heading. Except in this particular parking lot there happens to be a large pole right in the middle of the lane. One with a good deal of electricity supported on its upper reaches and not a bollard anywhere around it nor a drop of marker paint. You can tell it gets clipped all the time, my ding wasn't the only one.

Fortunately I was going less than ten miles an hour so the air bags didn't go off. The seat belt didn't even lock up. Unfortunately I had a trailer packed solid with sound gear behind me that approximately doubles the mass of the vehicle. Sans trailer I would have likely just needed a new bumper. With the extra momentum, I'm screwed. It may be a total loss.

So that happened.

Minus Two

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:25:00 +0000

I was commenting to The Missus the other day about overhearing some people complaining about their children. Somebody was whining about having to go and do several stressful things with, brace yourselves, both children! Not that I'm wanting to toot our own horns for surviving four children. Lots of people do lots more and live to tell the tale.

But it got me to thinking that if I had to go to say... three retail locations, the library and drop something off at a friend's house with two children I'd feel like I was on vacation! The Missus said she'd feel up for almost anything at that point. "Hey, let's go bra shopping!" she said. I think it's not necessarily the total number of children you have to tote around though. I think the critical number is negative two.

Example: Bill and Mary have seven ~~brats~~ darling children and manage to ~~ditch~~ have two of them spend the afternoon with friends while they take the rest shopping for school clothes. The entire time this happy, hypothetical couple feels as though a tremendous weight has been lifted off their shoulders and that anything is possible. I'd be willing to bet that even the Duggers* would experience some detectable change if they off-loaded a pair of offspring on the grandparents for an afternoon. It might take precisely calibrated scientific equipment, but I'll bet my lab coat it would be there.

*The Duggers are a family from Utah who have 27 x 10 ³ children.

This has been my 200th post at The Mister. Thanks for stopping by.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:14:00 +0000

A few nights ago I finished up reading a book to Miss O and started in on All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot. It was just another dusty old tome left over from The Missus' childhood. Some similar books that we have cracked together have been greats like "All The Mowgli Stories" by Rudyard Kipling (Where the Jungle Book came from), others have been duds due to her age and interest, "Treasure Island" was a strike out.

At any rate, tales of a Yorkshire vet in the 1940s have a certain resonance for me. Growing up I worked a couple summers on one of the few remaining homestead farms in the area. The last of a dying breed of farmers who supported their families with forty Holsteins and a few hilly acres. There's something truly timeless about working a farm like that, nestled in the hills. If there's not a jet going over and you happen to be looking where there aren't any power lines it's quite easy to forget when you are.

Sure, some days you're in the cab of a giant diesel tractor, with a kick baler and wagon in tow. Some days, however, you're leading the girls back into a barn that was built before the advent of electricity. Some days you find yourself mending fences with a sledge hammer that may have been used to build that barn. Everything is settled in. It's easy to forget the world at large and be covered over by the smell of sweat, old wood and sweet Timothy hay.

I've also seen the new face of farming. I've not only seen but had a hand in building some of the new factory farms. While the work on a small farm is repetitious and never ending, there's a certain futility that comes from screwing down two acres of aluminum roofing so 800 head of cattle can stay out of the elements. Sure there are lots of advances in technology and method that let fewer people milk more cows and keep the animals happy and healthy, but there's something distasteful about the whole thing.

Only the strong survive, and if we're all to have milk on our tables it takes these huge farms. It's just kind of sad that it's become like any other industry. Computers read ear tags and feed out based on production. Automated barns and milkers mean thousands of cows can live day to day and hardly ever see a human being. Gone are the days when a man and his family knew every animal by name.

I'm glad I got a chance to see a society where the people who put food on our tables lived all around us. Not retired executives who run hobby farms. Leather faced men who lived in their fields and stumped in and out of town with shit up to their belt buckles. Men who ran tight little operations, tidy family farms with nothing but their wits and an old International. Dusty old guys in green Deere and DeKalb hats that consulted with the younger guys about the weather and crops and animals.

I may be idealizing it just a bit but I think you see what I'm getting at. All that is being replaced in the modern world. Internet research and GPS guided tractors, genetic alterations and growth hormones, mega-barns and turn-table milkers, it's just another business. It seems as though all the soul has gone out of it.

Fortunately I can still see a glimmer of hope. The more people become disgusted at what they're eating the more they'll be looking for organic stuff. And at the moment that only comes from small farms. It's just a glimmer mind you, but somewhere out there in the future it could all come full circle again.

Here's hopin'.

The Takeoff Roll

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:42:00 +0000

So I'm up solo this morning getting mah boys ready for Sunday school cause The Missus was up all night with the babe. We had a pleasant piece of toast together, combed some unruly mops and then just in time we grabbed coats and shoes to head out the door.

Coats and...

Yeah, there in lies the rub.

My Missus has done a spectacular job making sure the Short People have the appropriate footwear for any occasion. They've each got:

Flip flops
Crocs (mmmmyeah)
Water shoes
Sneakers
Sturdy shoes
Work boots
Puddle boots
Snow boots

as well as some of them having ballet slippers, fuzzy slippers, Buzz Lightyear boots and a few other assorted items.

I've even gone so far as to build each of them a locker by the door, one pair of which has a large bin underneath for shoes. It's four feet wide, two feet deep and a foot high. Shoes generally spill out of it and sometimes completely impede the five foot archway that leads into the living room.

This morning, like many others I found myself scaling Mount Footware in a desperate search for a second shoe of pretty much any kind to put on little H-Bomb. He's the worst of em. Last year he lost so many shoes that The Missus bought him a one dollar pair of flip flops and that was all he was allowed to have. (He still has them, one of them at least as of this morning.)

Well dog my cats if I could find even a close match for that guy. There he stands, pants on, hair combed, jacket zipped, rejoicing at each new find only to have to wait a little longer to see if I can find the other one. He finally went out the door in one olive green imitation croc of his own and one blue one belonging to his older brother. His was a right and the other was a left and they were, of course, on the wrong foot.

Somewhere along the line he has come to a deep and profound understanding of left vs. right that is at odds with what we've taught the rest of the children and will not deviate from it for love or money. He is firmly convinced that his left foot is his right and vice versa, the kicker is that he also knows which shoe is the left and right (a correct understanding). So every time he grabs a pair, he carefully reverses them to make sure they're on the "correct" foot.

So finally, with two minutes to spare, I zipped the wee bairn into his fuzzy traveling togs and out the door we went with my blood pressure sky high and my pulse zinging in my ears. I don't know why this is such a big deal for me today but for some reason it is. At some point today there is going to be a grand reckoning of the footware. I'm going to cull the herd as it were and bring them safely home to roost in the comfy confines of the shoe bin.

So help me.

Say It Again

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Dayton) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:12:00 +0000

This. Does. Not. Suck.

Every once in a while I take a look around and think about all the possibilities of life. It's not good to spend a whole lot of time thinking about the might-have-beens and the could-have-dones but it's worth the occasional mull. Job choices, career moves, all of that stuff.

Thing is though, for most of my life it has been my top priority to get married and raise a family in my home town. It took a long time for that to float to the forefront of consciousness, but it finally got there and I've pretty much got it covered now. (See wife and four kids growing up in the house my grandparents used to own which is just up the street from where I grew up. I win.)

I deleted this paragraph four times trying to get it right, so here it is, short form:

I slave away to earn every dime we spend, The Missus slaves away to make every morsel we eat and my kids think things like home schooling and raising chickens on a town lot are normal. I can wear a kilt to work and get away with it. Rock stars and high rollers ain't got nothin' on me.

I. Win.

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