As I may have mentioned, due to previous renovation mistakes by past owners of this house, my family room and dining area have no venting, so as you may imagine, at this time of the year these are the coldest areas in the house. I don't need to look out the family room window at my car to see frost and know this - I need only wander into the family room after I wake up and discover that, even with a housecoat, the place is pretty damn cold, being heated only by the PC tower as it hums quietly in sleep mode.

Oh, there is a solution to the problem, of course - we've gotten several estimates for it over the years, but there is one common thread among the estimates which make the necessary fix a little inconvenient. We would need to essentially sacrifice the front closet to get the necessary venting into the family room, and even then, the way they converted the garage, most places claim they can only put the vents on one wall - the wall which used to divide the house and garage.

So, for about $3000 on average, I can heat exactly half of the family room and about one third of the dining area, which is partially heated by a vent on the edge of the old kitchen area (you can tell because whoever owned this house before simply carpeted over the old tile). Needless to say, no matter how many times we seriously considered having the work done, we ultimately reject the idea in the end. We have a space heater that does a better job than that and it is fairly small and fortunately doesn't use much in the way of electricity.

Today is Veterans Day, or Armistice Day, or the anniversary of the end of the First World War, or however you want to term it. Today is the day set aside to honor those who fought for their nation and/or gave their lives for their nation.

Admittedly, I always had complex feelings about making this a holiday. First and foremost, I don't get it off, which always bummed me out a little bit, especially now being in a masters program and needing the time to work on classwork. Second, I don't get any mail, which has become a particularly lonely experience as I've switched more and more things to e-billing. There are days where it is actually nice to get a piece of junk mail which I can destroy and then toss the remnants into the recycling. Third, it has a strangely sour taste recently because we're honoring people fighting in conflicts which my government supports and I personally find objectionable. I don't wish harm to anyone, of course, but lately, it seems we send people to fight for a strange agenda rather than for any noble cause, or worse, we send people to fight and miss the point.

Anyhow, thank someone who fought for, or at least believed they were fighting for freedom and all those buzzwords. War is a complex issue in my mind - sometimes it is hard to know who really deserves praise and who does not.

The vote in the House Of Representatives was close - 220-215 - which means that there isn't much of a chance of the Health Care Reform Act passing through the Senate as is, or at least that's what it means historically. Actually, I think there will be many revisions and/or omissions in the Senate version, and I don't see a version coming out of the Senate before the holidays.

One of the sticking points is the use of federal dollars for abortions, and I suppose I don't understand why this is controversial. Really, it is a medical procedure, and it is done for medical reasons, and even in cases where it is the mere psychological relief of the mother who does not want to have a child at that moment in time, there is again no reason to punish people in this manner. Your insurance carrier - public or private - should not be making tacit moral judgments by what it covers or does not.

There is also the notion of the "public option", which some people seem to forget would be an option - the federal government is not trying to sabotage and then monopolize your care, especially if you've already got insurance. I am not sure how many times someone has to say that before the dittoheads understand that. Were this to pass, the chances of my fights with Blue Cross ending in favor of fights with the government are exceedingly remote.

Another concern is that about 30% of the bill is funded by cuts to Medicare, which would be transmorgrified by this bill into a federal plan which is available for all. I mean, I hate to sound cynical, but considering how much people complain about Medicare and Medicaid, would it really burn you to see them replaced by a different federal plan with potentially better coverage that you could still complain about? I mean, in this case, this crowd would see no change. LOL

Maybe more later. I need to get ready for work.

The trip to the Toledo Zoo yesterday was driven by a few things:

First, my daughter would probably list this as one of her favorite places to go if she could write down a list yet. Even a few months ago in the latter half of the summer, we took her and it was more about our own passing interest in zoology whereas for both kids it was an opportunity to roam relatively free on one of the common areas in front of the food stand. Suddenly, as Astrid arrived at age three, these academic interests - like animals - have come into being, so yesterday, she was darting from display to display shouting out what she saw. It was pretty cute really.

Second, it was pretty warm outside - a vast improvement from lows in the upper 20s which we had experienced just days before. By the time we arrived at the zoo parking lot, in fact, it was already about 60 degrees, so no jacket required really, although we dressed the kids warmly all the same. Not sure why parents overcompensate like that - my kids seem to have this innate sense which lets them know when they are overdressed, which explains why they much prefer hanging out in their underwear and would do so at public events if we would let them.

Third, wearing them out makes my evening smoother. The only reason I was worried about my evening, of course, is that Melissa worked last night, and on the days when the kids don't do much of note and then she works, those evenings tend to not be so memorable because Astrid and Mac are wound then. It worked - both of them were out by 9:30 PM.

see more Epic Fails

The Wolverines are 5-4, with one of those wins being against a conference opponent.

They need one more win to be eligible for a bowl, but of course, 6-6 records mean that you will be selected POTENTIALLY to fill empty slots once all other bowl slots are filled by teams with better records. It is not a guarantee that you'll see bowl action.

Therefore, to at least find yourself playing in one of the made-up bowls which flood the airwaves between Christmas and the end of the year, you'll likely need to position yourself with a 7-5 record, so basically, Michigan really should win 2 of the next 3 if they want postseason play to practice for.

Who are the next three? Purdue, Wisconsin and Ohio State, in that order. The first one is winnable, the second one could be a good each way bet if Michigan can figure out some sort of consistent defense. The last team, while it would be the best thing ever to upset them, well, it's not out of the question, but of the three, the possibility of a win is certainly the most remote as the Wolverines stand right now.

So, here's to hope that we can at least tackle Purdue, if you will, and maybe play a MAC team at Ford Field in the Little Caesar's Bowl or something like that. At the very least, the University of Michigan faithful - myself included - would only have a 30 minute drive.

Well, the most eventful part of last night was something I wasn't really looking forward to anyway, and this would be the New York Yankees winning the World Series *yawn*. After the final out was recorded and my theory that a team of disconnected, bloated egos, if paid well, could do just about anything in baseball was reaffirmed, I decided to go to bed. This was long after my children had decided to go to bed, of course, and really, they were quite pleasant when they were awake. That doesn't always happen.

It was an almost boring evening. There were little games and lots of snacking and, when interaction became boring as well, there was Spongebob, but that was about it other than Mac's continued penchant for climbing and his tendency to deny his own weariness. Now, it's funny because he eventually became so tired that he did something very rare for him - he managed to pass out without the help of a beverage.

I will admit that I was a little apprehensive about watching them after nine days of not having to do so by myself, because something in me seems to want to believe that there will be this one day where they decide that mommy is all they want or something silly like that. The kids seem to have this other mode, if you will, where they simply adjust to the "mommy work" situation, as I tell Astrid.

It was the case last week that my class had been cancelled for the same reason classes are being cancelled here and there for the entire autumn to date - outbreaks of various illnesses. I was not especially eager to go to last night's class in light of an e-mail promising that the class would be longer due to the missed time. As luck would have it, I wasn't there for a reason I would not have even considered.

At the very least, this happened before I managed to get to the freeway. On the onramp to I-275 at Eureka Road around 6:10 PM last night, I had what would be my second flat this year, and on the same tire I had replaced back in late June, no less, so this will factor into the discussion I have with the installer this morning. It was fixed fairly quickly - my car was mobile again by 6:45 PM, but like so many smaller cars, I don't have a real spare per se, but instead I have "Mr. Donut", who has perhaps been the most faithful servant of this automobile in its decade of life.

Apparently, my car did not wish to go to Ypsilanti. Fortunately, work is considerably closer - I can at least make it there on the donut, and then I can explain the situation and get it fixed hopefully at some point today, and if I complain enough, hopefully at a considerable discount. The hilarious thing is that the tire is not obviously busted, so it is either a defect or I hit something very small which did a good amount of interior damage. It is definitely flat now - that's the obvious thing.

Among other chores this weekend, I spent about two hours outside on Saturday cleaning out the shed. The problem with having no garage is that you very quickly run into space issues between all the outdoor furniture and lawn and garden equipment, and then couple this with the fact that, in five years, we've probably organized the shed only one other time, and you have, well, you'd have to see my curb to get the full picture of the amount of crap which fell into the category of "trash".

Lawn bags from two seasons ago with badly decomposed weeds in them, empty seed and bulb boxes, Meijer bags, old painting equipment, and so on. All manner of things which should have been in the trash years ago in some cases was suddenly in a pile in the backyard on Saturday. Before it dawned on me that Romulus was not fond of people burning things in their yards, it had crossed my mind to throw all the cardboard items into the firepit as kindling in the hope that I would work up the courage to ask for a burn permit. I chickened out on that one.

I am not sure if the guys from Waste Management will take all or even most of it. They'll definitely take the items which look like "normal trash items", like the house waste which normally goes in the cans and the recycling and the lawn bags. Everything else may very well be sitting on the curb when I get home from work, in which case I will have to find ways to disguise what I can. That's how I got rid of much of the waste the last time we did this - I packaged it with the house trash. LOL

When I was younger, the best Halloween celebrations occured when Halloween was on a Friday or Saturday night, and as everyone is aware, it happened to be on a Saturday this year - just 48 hours or so ago, as a matter of fact. Usually, in this neighborhood, that means a great turnout and some innovative costumes, except there was none of that this year. In fact, judging from the turnout, it might as well have been one of those piddly Halloween nights that occurs on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

We had perhaps 40 or 50, which for the density of this area and considering the statistics for the five Halloweens which we have experienced in this house, that is an alarmingly low turnout, but the more I talk to people, the fewer people that celebrate this day each successive year.

The situation that it creates, of course, is the one which creates this morning's dilemma - what to do with the candy that now sits virtually useless on the counter. Well, it's useless here because we rarely eat candy anyway, so by the time it goes bad, we would have hardly made a dent in the bowl. I am going to take most of it to work, and then leave a little for the house, and whatever isn't gone by Thanksgiving will probably be thrown away.

Maybe Halloween is tied to the economy, right? It will get better next year, yes? I know, I am kidding myself.

Poll #1479315 Post-Halloween Clean-Up
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

So, Halloween was pretty dead here for a Saturday. What shall I do with the extra candy?

see more Epic Fails

There is only one thing with which I shall concern myself after the clock strikes noon today, and that is getting a badly needed haircut. Yes, I took the afternoon off - I have cranked out rather a lot of work this week, so I feel that I need to do this so I can keep from getting burnout. I usuallyonly takr half-days here and there anyway, but believe me, I need the few hours.

As for this morning, I am not sure what I will do really - there are one or two other things I would love to get off my desk provided the appropriate documentation shows up in my mailbox or on my desk. This is the time of year where things start to thin out a little bit, so I am happy about that, but there is also a rush of people paying for work and therefore a lot of work flying out the door.

Tonight, about the only thing it seems we shall be able to do is watch it rain profusely in Metro Detroit. We were going to actually take the kids to Main Street in Ann Arbor in the afternoon to do their trick-or-treating, but today's weather is supposed to be TERRIBLE. At the very least, in preparation for the rain, I mulched down all the leaves which would otherwise smother my lawn, so hopefully it gets a good meal rather than the slow, creeping death I usually let it experience at this time of the year.

When it came to getting everyone to bed last night, between the day Melissa had and the tiring sort of day I had, it was rather a catastrophe. Some of the highlights included my daughter passing out at 6:30 PM (which means she is usually up multiple times at night), and my son deciding later on in the evening to dig into his dirty diaper, only to strike gold and then use it as an artistic medium ON HIMSELF AND THE MASTER BED. *calming down*

So, by 10:30 PM, everyone was passed out and cleaned up, save for myself, who was awake and homeless as everyone was passed out in the master bed. Undaunted, I put on the head-mounted LED flashlight and gathered my alarm clock from the bedroom. I then picked up a blanket and pillow and made myself a place to sleep in the living room, plugged in the clock, and passed out. Next thing I know, REO Speedwagon is greeting me on whatever random radio station my alarm is set to. It is 5:30 AM. It is Thursday.

There is a spooky Halloween-type fog outside right now - the streetlights actually make it more so as the fog has an orange hue to it and you can sort of watch it roll in from the wetland area behind the house. Very creepy. Maybe Kruger or Vorhies live and lurk out there, and perhaps they would like a spot of coffee before they wander off on a day of slashing. I will try to find out.

One of the problems I have in not living anywhere near the EMU College Of Business is that I need far more warning that things are going to happen than many others do. For example, if class is cancelled, I am not in the habit of obsessively checking my EMich account in the hours leading up to class, especially considering that I am at work until 4 PM and cannot do so anyway. Therefore, if I hear nothing early on the morning of class, I tend to assume that it is on.

So, imagine my irritation when I arrived at the College Of Business in beautiful downtown Ypsilanti only to discover that class had been cancelled and that I should check my e-mail for further details. WHAT? So, I walk down to the lab and do just that, and in an e-mail timestamped 5:29 PM, there it is - the professor is not feeling well and doesn't want to "spread the cheer". That's understandable, but why am I sitting there in Ypsilanti finding out about it now?

On the up side, it does give me potentially more time to work on this next paper and finally figure out what I want to do about the final project for this class, now that we're halfway through the semester. I even took Friday afternoon off to help myself out with that very thing, not to mention get a haircut and, if there is a break in the forecasted rain, take the kids to Main Street in Ann Arbor to do the trick-or-treat route. I know me, and I will try to score a fifth of Jameson from O'Neill's, I am sure.

I will say that I have a fairly bizarre combination of things which get me going in the morning. Thanks to WiiFit Plus, I now have eighteen yoga exercises to choose from (plus the odd yoga DVD that I can put in on occasion), and I also have my coffee. Now, I use the two of them in concert - every six or seven exercises, I will have some coffee, and usually, I am going through exercises at a fairly decent clip thanks to the seamless transitions possible on the Wii now. They seem even more seamless with a caffiene buzz.

I am beginning to discover, however, that the exercise is more effective now than the coffee, perhaps because my coffee-drinking days date back to almost middle school and now the average pot of coffee (excluding specialty coffees with lethal amounts of caffiene) is almost like water to me, particularly the blend used in my office, which I must consume rather a lot of in order to feel even slightly perky.

The problem is that yoga does not give my body a chance to wake up gradually - I will pretty much go from sleep to stretching every muscle in some fashion and the shock alone energizes me. Coffee allows me the opportunity to drift in and out of consciousness until I have had enough coffee that I can stay awake at 5:30 AM, as I am in no way a morning person.

Admittedly, I only watched parts of this game because it was just myself and the kids, and when that happens, much of the time is spent either feeding or entertaining them. I did, however, see enough to get the basic message - there is quite a distance to go before this program is totally on its feet.

Now, that game did nothing to quell the Rodriguez skeptics, most of whom are so-called "Michigan purists" who wanted someone in the "Schembechler tree" of coaches - or Les Miles - to get this job in the first place. It certainly was not the signature win that perhaps this coaching staff wanted - it just underscored the fact that this is a program in the midst of a philosophical shift.

It was sloppy play after that first drive, on which Michigan scored. The offense disintegrated quickly, and the defense once again showed that it had trouble with a passing-heavy offense because we're still iffy in the secondary. On the other hand, it will take a couple seasons for all of the players Rodriguez wants in his system to come here and to learn it, and we're watching a team that is 80% underclassmen, so every situation they see is a first, each play something of an experiment with this group.

It's disappointing when Michigan loses, but the alumnus in me, the one that went to a ruthlessly progressive school, is sometimes floored by how conservative his fellow alumni suddenly are when it comes to the football program. I know last year's school-worst 3-9 record sticks in one's head - it does in mine - but really, as awkwardly as the coaching search was handled, and with a coach who went all-in with his system (which I would have done too), an off-year was pretty much guaranteed. Overall, I see great progress - more in-conference wins would be nice, of course.

Poll #1476100 Feeling Topical
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0

What topic shall I expound on this week?

see more Engrish