Mowing the Lawn

All I could see was "is that chicken?" I had just pulled the mail from our mail cubby. One of the great, modern suburban tragedies is that mail boxes have been replaced by the oversized mail cupboard with each house allocated a puny cubby. It's depressing to the very core. Bland, file-cabinet grey. Institutional locks. Our particular version is tipped slightly to one side from a collision with a car. The whole scene resembles a lopsided morgue refrigeratior for mail. (My personal favorite, by the way, is the KH500 with the 26-gauge, corrosion-resistant, stucco-embossed, coated steel interior walls.) Insert key. Open door. Slide out letters. Shut door. Remove key. Try not to drop key in the strategically-placed storm drain directly below. Throw mail away. Curse Wilmington, Delaware, for the avalanche of credit card applications. There is, occasionally, some mild drama when you're anticipating a package. The package—if it's a respectable package of a ...

"I'll be fast," she just said. "It doesn't take me long to be eloquent." Thelma is writing a blog as we speak. She is itching to get something out. I can guess what it is . We just returned from dinner with my parents and siblings to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday. Thelma and I walked into the Olive Garden lobby a fashionable ten minutes late at 6:40. My brothers had been there since 6:00. By the time we arrived, the natives were already restless. By seven o'clock the situation was becoming dire. We had been told repeatedly that a big party was getting ready to leave and we couldn't be seated until they had left. Meanwhile, numerous smaller parties were coming and going all around us. At 7:15, my brothers told me I needed to go deal with the situation as the oldest. I did my best to make the host and hostess uncomfortable about the situation. When that didn't help, I asked to speak to the manager. Restaurant or retail manager...

My wife is a blog hog—and a prolific one at that. On more than one occassion in the past few weeks, I've thought of posting to this blog about some topic only to find that she has beat me to it. The way our Christmas bear tradition was hatched in our poverty. My near-death experience with a pack of feral teenagers. The snowball luminaries I learned to make in Finland. It's that last one that really takes the cake. I knew I would have to be quick to the computer if I was going to write about it before Thelma did. But how quick? Impossibly so. Before I had my gloves of and had dusted the snow off my sandals, Thelma had beat me to the punch. Perhaps I'll start writing about what I'm going to do. I'm convinced that Thelma lives her life in draft. Somewhere in her mind she is always writing. She captures life in written form and then it's just a matter of finding time to get it down on paper. Dumbledore had a pensieve in the Harry Potter stories. Thel...

I was under strict orders from Thelma last night to come straight home with Braeden after Scouts. No dillying. No dallying. (Yes, I know "dillying" is not a word, but it should be.) I had every intention of being obedient when I set out from the Church. I let Colin Park ride in the front. Braeden sullenly slouched in the back seat because I had presumably ignored his cries of "shotgun" on the way to the van. I let Braeden move to the front after we dropped Colin off, but I let him know that his reaction was out of line. "Colin is older than you, he was our guest, 'shotgun' is not a binding legal contract..." And so forth. "But Dad, I just was looking forward to the two of us being together for a little while." I felt more than minor pangs of guilt. Here it was, about 8:30 in the evening, and I had given Braeden my undivided attention for about the seven minutes it takes to drive to the church building. That was all. That has bee...

Emma has started a blog. It's my solemn obligation as her father to brag a little. It is shaping out with a collection of her poetry. I'm really impressed that she can write poetry as she does at a young age. It's a talent that has always escaped me. Here is one of her pieces. A Tiger in the Sky A tiger is padding through the sky I hear him out my window He roars loud enough to be heard for miles Moments he scrapes the sky Once again he plays this trick Til he's moved far away What's the matter my dear friend? Can't you see it was just a storm? Emma's blog is a very exclusive place. Invitation only. If you ask nicely, I'm sure she'll let you in though. The poem reminds of Henri Rousseau's painting Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) . Emma learned about it in school and she was able to see it when we visited the National Gallery in London. You'll want to visit the photo page at the National Gallery web site to get a good view of ...

What is the funniest show you are not watching on television? Mayne Street . It's an ESPN production, it's not about sports, episodes are about four minutes long and it's only available online. The web series stars Kenny Mayne as himself: an oddball sports reporter whose dry wit makes him seem more suited for a good British sitcom than SportsCenter. You can subscribe to the video podcast , but you'll find a nice set of extras at the ESPN.com video page for the show. Here's one such extra introducing the cast of characters. Kenny Mayne came to fame in the late 90s when his humorous style of describing the daily sports highlights began to upstage the actual events. While other sports anchors might describe a homerun by saying a player "hit one deep", Kenny Mayne was saying things like, "Your puny ballparks are too small to contain my gargantuan blasts! Bring me the finest meats and cheeses for a clubhouse feast!" He has talent and humor to sp...

As we were driving home from Boy Scouts last night, I asked Braeden what he thought about the election process the day after. "I feel clean," he said. What a great answer. His whole life, he explained, he has only known one president. Now there will be a new president. There will be a chance to start again. A clean slate, I suppose. What makes it even more interesting is that I know Braeden preferred John McCain to Barack Obama. He's observant enough, though, to recognize the historic nature of the outcome. He's excited to show the rest of the world and elements of our own society that a person's race doesn't matter. People will judge you on the merits of what you say, what you believe and what you do. That is part of the greatness of America. It may have been narrowly applied by our founding fathers, but its a notion that can't be contained.

Eric Jorgensen and I were talking about ballot measures and voting systems as we trailed our trick-or-treating boys on Halloween night. One of the methods we discussed was range voting in which voters assign an acceptability score to various candidates or choices. Think of it like giving each option an approval rating. The candidate or option with the highest total score wins. I like the idea. It seems emotionally more satisfying to be able to express your level of support for a candidate or outcome instead of an all or nothing approach. In our current political environment, there are no viable third-party candidates. Casting a vote for someone other than a Democrat or Republican is more likely to spoil the chances of the candidate you would have selected if forced to choose between the two major parties. I hear people talk about the election between George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. Bill Clinton won with less than a majority of votes. If you were to give just the Pero...

What has our family laughing this weekend? This parody of the Lawrence Welk Show from a recent Saturday Night Live. Having watched this video a dozen or so times now, I'm not sure which is funnier: the video or listening to Emma and Mark imitate it?

Given how much I miss Thelma, it's only fitting that the song of week should be about love and longing. I've chosen "Tomorrow is a Long Time". I'm not sure who wrote it. I know Dylan and Elvis have covered it, but the version I prefer is by Nickel Creek. I was able to see them perform is live at work one day. Visits from artists who sell on our sites is one of the perks of the job. Amazon.com Widgets If today was not an endless highway, If tonight was not a crooked trail, If tomorrow wasn't such a long time, Then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting If I could hear his heart softly pounding Yes, and only if he was lying by me Would I lie in my bed once again I can't see my reflection in the waters, I can't speak the sounds that show no pain, I can't hear the echo of my footsteps, Or remember the sound of my own name. There's beauty in that silver singin' river, There's beauty in th...

I'm feeling strangely nostalgic as my trip nears an end. Perhaps "nostalgia" is the wrong word. That's a longing for the past. What is it called when you long for the present? What is it called when you feel emotion for a place that you know will someday become a memory? I suppose it's a type of anticipatory nostalgia. I'm sure I'll be back, perhaps even this year. But the writing is on the wall. My days traveling to the UK for business are numbered. It's difficult to manage clients in the UK from Seattle. With the eight hour time difference, many of the people I need to talk to and work with are in the office from midnight to eight AM when I should be asleep. There are just too many late nights and early mornings with long days in between. For the past year, I've been working to hire a team that can be based in the UK. My boss has always been based here. We've now been able to fill seven of the other eight positions. The only thi...

After 24 hours in the cocoon I call the Marriott Maida Vale, I finally emerged a few minutes ago for fresh air, exercise and food. I've done far too much sitting around and staring at a computer. It's strange this is what I call work. This sitting, typing, talking, thinking, writing. That's the new reality on the edge of cyberspace. It doesn't feel right to call it work sometimes. It doesn't burn enough calories. It doesn't get me dirty enough. A stain on a shirt every now and again when I spill something at lunch. What does it say that my clothes are so clean as to make a stain look out of place? If my hands are clean, if my palms are without callus, have I really created something of worth? There is danger when we stop being part of the creative process. There is danger to the human spirit when we can't see the product of our own hands. When we become just one step in a process, just one role in a factory, we stop being fully human. We are com...

London | 6:55 PM It's been a long time coming. Assuming nothing goes wrong between now and midnight, I'm only five hours from being able to launch the project that has been keeping me up at nights (with work, not so much with worry). Update | 12:15 AM Here we go. The first sign that something is happening. Update | 6:35 AM What a day (and a night). We were in labor for 4.5 hours, but at 4:45 this morning I helped give birth to a brand new web site for Mothercare . This is what has been occupying the majority of my professional life for most of the past nine months. Perhaps I'll write about it sometime, but not now. I've been awake for 24 hours. I need to get some sleep. The site will probably need feeding in a few hours.

Maida Vale | 7:20 PM I've decided not so sit around the hotel for the evening. I received a phone call from work not long after returning from the launderette. After 30 minutes or so talking on the phone and answering email, it was starting to feel too much like just another weekday. I need a break. Kilburn Park Park Underground Station | 7:30 PM I'm surrounded by people speaking Eastern European languages. Maybe it's Polish. There's a news dispenser outside the tube station for the Polska Gazeta . The promotional sign reads "Polish language only. Don't bother if you can't read Polish." I won't bother. It was nice of the publishers to spare me the trouble. In any case, I have all eight pages of the London Weekend Hotel Edition of the USA Today to help pass the time on the tube. It's supposed to contain the best stuff from USA Today over the past week. I'm impressed they were able to find eight pages. Interestingly, it contain...

On a scale from zero to three, with zero being best and three deserving adjectives like "abject" and "utter", this has been a 2 Tasty Kebab week. Tasty Kebab is the kebab and chip stand next to the train station a few blocks from my hotel. It's not great food, but it's convenient and fast--rare qualities in London dining where dinner can easily last three or more hours. The number of times I'm forced to visit Tasty Kebab is in direct relation to how busy or chaotic my week has been. (By the way, avoid the fish and chips unless you like your fish with the scales still on. Ask Braeden and Emma about it some time.) On the plus side, I was fully expecting this to be a 3 Tasty Kebab week. The fact that it stopped short at two is really rather positive. On the other hand, even a 2 Tasty Kebab week has left me so exhausted that it is now 4:30 in the afternoon and I've only been awake for a hour. I should be rushing off to the museums before they close...

My habitual clock is telling me that I'll be getting on a plane tomorrow morning to head back home. My calendar, though, reminds me that I still have six days to go. My heart, caught in the middle, is heavy. So are my eyelids. I'll wake tomorrow to a full weekend to myself in one of the world's great cities. I should be out and about. I'll probably just sleep. Maybe this time will be better. I've spent a few weekends in London on past trips. With all of the work there is to do on these trips and the difficulty of adjusting to a drastically new time zone, I'm usually too sleep deprived come the weekend to do anything but sleep. This week has been a little different. I'm still working 14+ hours a day, but I've managed to get at least five or six hours sleep each evening. So, where to go on the morrow? I can always do the tried and true. The British Museum. St. Paul's. Walk from Hyde Park to Green Park to Buckingham Palace. The Tate Modern....

I've never been one to bemoan Mondays.  Sure, I've occasionally regretted that the weekend was ending.  I get annoyed, though, by people who act like Monday is the end of the world instead of just the start of another week.  These annoyers are probably the ones buying up all of the infernal posters showing a kitten clinging to a branch with the caption "Hold on.  Friday's coming." If I were a superhero (which I'm not) and I had a kryptonic weakness (which I don't), it would be cat posters with cutesy sayings.  I'm not talking about the kind of weakness that makes you give into temptation like having a weakness for chocolate or babies.  I mean the kind of weakness that makes you lose your temper or become irrationally irate.  Of course, can a hatred of cat posters really be called irrational?  I puts it to you, guv'nor. Back to Mondays.  More specifically, Mondays in London.  The problem with Mondays here is that they never seem to fully start or fu...

What do you call a familiar place you never thought would become such?  "Strangely familiar" is already taken.  Is "oddly familiar" too similar? It's  strange  odd to me that there are places all over the world that feel familiar.  I'm off to one now.  I believe this is trip #21 to London in the past three years.  I "lived it up" on my first trip, never expecting to return.  Now I know exactly what to expect.  I know the good places to eat, the places to avoid and the shortcuts for getting either to or from them. There is something missing though.  Thelma asked me on the way to the airport if anything about the trip excites me?  I couldn't come up with anything in the moment.  Could it be that London is losing its charm? Probably not.  It's the charm that has me excited.  But not much else. The more I travel, the less I become accustomed to the overwhelming feeling that I miss my family.  The romance of the road or skies is nothing compare...

I'm nothing if not a humanitarian, so here's a bit of wisdom. It turns out that true bliss costs $100 plus gas. I'm not talking about in-the-moment bliss like Whac-a-mole or just-passing-through Bliss like the town in Idaho or even temporary bliss like the 90 minutes after you've had really good Chinese food . I'm talking about lasting bliss. The kind of bliss you can still feel when you close your eyes at night. The kind you think about the next day—that gets better the more you think about it. It's not true love, but it's a clear second. Yesterday Thelma fell in love with the raw beauty of Lake Chelan. I fell in love with the raw power of a four-cylinder, 1052cc, 20-valve, 110-horsepower, liquid-cooled, wave-running dream machine. For five and a half hours, it was the only thing between me and the lake. Throw my boys on the back and I'm in liquid heaven. I'm not exactly certain where my enthusiasm for wave runners originated. It must be...

Amazon.com Widgets To celebrate the first leg ( view map ) of our 2-day, 400-mile whirlwind of a family vacation to Lake Chelan, it's time for a road trip song. The song of the week is "Little Boy Blue (North of North Dakota)" from Jake Armerding's self-titled album. It was the last song I added to the iPod before hitting the open road this morning. Now, the lyrics may not fit the scene perfectly. June. North of North Dakota. But the sentiment is all there. Got myself a debit card, little bit of cash Petty on the speakers and I'm beating on the dash Daddy was a highway, Mama was a view I'm a little boy blue After dinner tonight I went night swimming with the kids in the pool. Braeden asked each of us what the best part of today had been. Mark and Emma named various things we had seen. For me, it was just spending time with Thelma. I'm a little bit of highway, shiny with the dew little bit of summertime, sitting next to you Never had a reason, ne...

It's just my luck that I would pick tomorrow, the day the earth is going to implode, to take my first real vacation in who knows how long. Check out the headlines. Fingers Crossed, Physicists Are Ready for Collider to Roll Worst Case: Collider Spawns Planet-Devouring Black Hole Researchers Set To Recreate Big Bang Scientists hope to find 'God particle' in mini Big Bang Will the Large Hadron Collider Destroy Earth? Scientists hope for surprises in Big Bang experiment They're doing WHAT! Anytime the world's top physicists feel the need to collectively cross their fingers, I start to get worried. What has physicists going to these extraordinary measures? At roughly 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, say they will try to send the first beam of protons around a 17-mile-long racetrack known as the Large Hadron Collider, 300 feet underneath the Swiss-French border outside Geneva. ( more ) The point of this 14 year...

My wife, the wit. Fatigued and sleepy, Thelma was laying in bed this evening longing for a water bottle from the kitchen. I started downstairs and told her I'd fetch it. "If you do, I'll be forever in your debt." "That must be some pretty good water," I joked. "No. I just don't have my own source of income." Well, at least I'm good for something. Then again, the bar might be pretty low. Earlier in the evening we were discussing the Hartman Color Personality Test. I found an example of the test online. During part of the test, you are supposed to select groups of adjectives that describe you most of the time. The problem, though, is that each of the groups always seem to include a poison pill. What group of words describes you most of the time? Smart, funny, dishonest. Logical, determined, prone to violent outbursts. Friendly, considerate, horrible body odor. Playful, spontaneous, still confused about why people insist on naming their c...

The lesson in Deacons Quorum today was about how to select someone to marry. John Thompson was teaching the lesson. He asked the class of 12- and 13-year-old boys to list the traits they wanted in a spouse. The boys were struggling with the concept and hadn't managed to offer up a single suggestion. One of them wondered aloud what would happen if the person you chose wasn't the kind of person you were looking for. I told the boys to think of a pizza restaurant. You don't walk into a pizza place and just take what they give you. You decide what you want and you order it. I told them it was similar to picking a spouse. Decide what you want and pick someone that seems to fit. Some of the boys took the analogy too literally. John asked again what kind of girl the boys would want to marry. Jared, sitting at the front of the class, shouted out "Spicy!"

John McCain gave a good speech on Thursday night. That's high praise considering his delivery often bordered on monotone and the speech hit a speed bump with a listless recitation of what feel like obligatory Republican bullet points: Lower taxes Strong defense A culture of life Judges who don't legislate from the bench Family values I'm for all those things, but I'm also for a little enthusiasm. In the end though, I thought Senator McCain made a better case for change than Senator Obama. What's more, he did it in a way that sounded more like a plea than a performance. It may have lacked flourish, but he made up for it in authenticity. Removed from the immediate aftermath of the speech, two things have stuck with me. The first is the way in which he openly criticized the Republican Party. "We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost -- we lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptation...

In keeping loosely with my previous blog, my song of the week is "Testing 1, 2, 3" from the BNL album Everything to Everyone . Amazon.com Widgets To be fair, though, I've really had the whole album in mind. Thelma and I have seven BNL albums in our collection. This is our sixth. It's a soft-sell criticism of celebrity culture, corporate excess and government policy, but somehow it still manages to play like a pop album instead of a lecture. "Testing 1, 2, 3" captures the internal thoughts of someone who wants to move beyond the identity everyone else seems content to affix to them. It rings true to me when I think about people who have an overly simple and static idea of who I am or what I stand for. Testing 1,2,3 Can anybody hear me? If I shed the irony Would anybody cheer me? If I acted less like me Would I be in the clear? I remember when Thelma and I were wrapping up our time in Provo. It was the summer of 1997. Braeden was just a few months old...

I was looking forward to reading Senator Obama's acceptance speech at the covention on Thursday night. I made a conscious decision not to watch the speech because I didn't want to be distracted by the pomp and spectacle. Thelma was watching it when I got home from work, though, so I decided to stick with it. I haven't gone back to look at the transcript yet. My immediate impressions after watching it? I felt like I was watching multiple people. On the negative side, there was the doom and gloom Obama predicting the end of the American dream if he wasn't elected. There was the ridiculous Obama insisting his candidacy is somehow a selfless act. There was the naive or disingenuous Obama claiming he could somehow pay for his giveaways by pruning government. On the other hand, there was the Obama who argued for more personal responsibility. There was the aggressive Obama willing to challenge his critics directly. There was the ambitious Obama declaring that we coul...

Our garage is 16 feet high. The shelves that hold Thelma's seasonal decorations are 14 feet high. One of the many things I love about her is the way she transforms our home throughout the year to match the seasons. It's technically still summer in the Pacific Northwest so our home is accented with American flags and treasures from the beach. In a week or so I can expect to see a sudden increase in apples and freshly shaved pencils. Thelma takes the same approach to her blog. Fall is just around the corner, as is a new look and feel for her site. As long as I don't take too long, she'll probably let me tinker with building her a new template. I figure to have about two hours to get it done. Three or four hours if the book she is reading is a good one. For this blog I use the same basic template as Ammon and Melanee on Life in a Dahl House, but we have different settings. They're young and hip so they go with a black background, a modern san-serif font and ar...

I'm tired of negative politicians telling me that life in America is on the brink of disaster, that no one in the world likes us, that the only hope for America is to elect some politician who can make everything better. Senator Biden's speach to the Democratic convention is just the latest example. "We learned [from our parents] the dignity of work, and we were told that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough. That was America's promise.... but today, today that American dream feels like it's slowly slipping away. I don't have to tell you that. You feel it every single day in your own lives." What a bunch of empty words. The problem is not the American dream. The problem is the American dreamers. Too many of us aren't willing to "try hard enough." It isn't sufficient for us to just "make it". We want more than we've earned so we go into debt to finance our purchases or vacations. And because we aren't wil...

I may not have expected Mark's reaction to A Little Princess  this evening, but I've seen the film enough times to know how I'll react.  It's easily one of my favorite films of all time.  I had already latched onto it well before Emma was a twinkle in anyone's eye.  I'm all the more committed now that I have a daughter. I sat down earlier this evening to list my five favorite films.  Without hesitation, these three came to mind (in no particular order or preference): A Little Princess Cry the Beloved Country Twelve Angry Men The next two were harder to select.  I needed a comedy, so I decided upon  Monty Python & The Holy Grail .  ( Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure  was hard to turn down.)  My fifth choice, Wait Until Dark , is a great thriller especially if you want your date to keep a tight hold on you. I'm not a big fan of soliciting feedback, but I'll make an exception here.  Leave a comment listing your five favorite films.  How are you ...

All tears can't be the same. Some feel heavier than others. Some seem to evaporate as quickly as they come. Some are mass produced. Others are homemade. Tonight has been a night of new tears. I can't adequately describe what happened. I've tried every which way. We watched A Little Princess as a family. Mark became engrossed in the story. He cried at the depiction of fathers and brothers strewn in the trenches of WWI. He cried as the father and daughter were reunited. I was in tears watching him. As he lay in Thelma's arms with his eyes fixed on the screen, I watched some of his innocence disappear. I also saw his soul grow larger. I am without words. I'll leave it to Thelma to paint the picture.

I found myself pleasantly unmoved by Barack Obama's announcement that he has chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. I'm not sure Obama could have selected anyone in serious contention that would have made me more inclined to vote for him in the Fall. In picking Biden, though, he selected someone who is clearly experienced in foreign policy and generally even-handed. Both are important considerations for me. When we lived in Connecticut I used to listen to Imus in the Morning out of New York City. Biden was a frequent guest. He was never too partisan and I generally agreed with his foreign policy assessments. Thelma, Braeden and I watched him campaign (on C-SPAN) during the Iowa caucus season and were impressed on balance by his demeanor and positions. He has a reputation for verbosity and not choosing his words carefully. The Republicans and affiliated pundits will blow all that well out of proportion in the upcoming days. Some of it might stick and some of it should. I...

"You know how Emma wants to learn Latin? We might find out that your Yale diploma is a certificate of participation." This is the type of loving, supporting comment I get from my wife after suggesting we move the futon into our newly painted room if the green couch doesn't match the walls. "Maybe when I die your next wife will let you do that. But probably not."

I'm guessing if you ask people to name a great summer song, most of them will come up with something loud, upbeat or sunny.  Cheryl Crow, "All I Wanna Do" or "Soak Up the Sun".  B-52s, "Love Shack".  Dixie Chicks, "Goodbye Earl".  Lynyrd Skynrd, "Sweet Home Alabama". For my money, though, the perfect summer song is R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming".  It might be none of the above, but it captures for me the freedom of driving with windows down on dark, warm summer nights.  The joyful exhaustion at the end of days spent in the lake, at the river or playing volleyball on the beach. Amazon.com Widgets Nightswimming deserves a quiet night The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago, Turned around backwards so the windshield shows Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse I remember that sense of liberty knowing there was no school, no place I had to be for hours a day. I would sleep late into the morning until the sun...