Today, for the third time in a week, my blog site would not accept my attempts to log in. I've been considering getting a new site anyway. Lucas's blog seems to get found by the Google crawler (and now I know why -- Google seems to own blogspot) and, in some egotistical way, I would like my blog to be more likely to get found than it has been.

So, I am moving my musings to a new site, for a trial period. If I find I can write as I want, create links as I want, and generally make good use of that site, my blog will move there, permanently.

So, Hello blogspot.com, goodbye angelfire.com.

My new site is http://snippetsandwisps.blogspot.com

Mike and I agree about a lot of things. We disagree about a few, too. But we do it with respect.

In any case, whether I agree or disagree, I enjoy his blog. And this particular entry is dead-on correct.

Way to go, Michael.

On Thursday, May 10, 2007, we ate dinner on our deck. While I have grilled many times since the deck was built, we always at the food indoors. Until 5/10/07.

It was a beautiful day. Hot, even, as the temperatures in Rochester had reached 87 F. But the deck was comfortable, windless, sunny and mostly insect-free.

Adam and Marisa joined Sherry, Leah and me. We had steak. Mmmmmmm. Grilled steak, outdoors, on our new deck!

Now that is an excellent way to enjoy a meal!

So Mike is thinking about retirement. In particular - "Where to live?"

I can't say I had given it much thought. Which is to say, really, that whenever I had pictured myself being retired, I just figured I'd be living where I am now - in the same state, same town, same house.

Sure, we've talked about how our home is not exactly set up for old legs and knees. Several of our older relatives have had trouble in our house because you have to take a stairway (albeit a short one) to get to a bathroom.

Still, leave the family home? Hard to imagine.

Many retired people these days have a "winter place." I don't think such a move will be part of my retirement, but it's hard to say. We'll start hiring people to do snow removal and lawn care at some point. And we definitely want to be able to travel frequently -- so it would be great to have people we love in cool destinations like San Diego so we have a great reason to travel.

Whatever we do, we want to be able to see our kids (and grandkids, eventually) frequently. Sherry's parents have missed so many things our kids have done because they are in Arizona for sports seasons, drama productions, and concerts. That would make my heart ache. Of course, it's possible that our kinds and grandkids will be so spread out geographically that we can't be as big a part of their lives as I would wish. If that happens, a "winter place" might happen in order to get us closer to them.

Something to think about, I guess.

But how did I get from being a grad student to considering retirement so quickly?

Whatever I do, I bet I'll still be playing games.

Mood:  not sure

Why is it that one of the most frequent responses I have to being swamped is to get paralyzed into inaction?

It's so counterproductive!

With too much work to do, doing nothing is helping me exactly not at all.

To-Do lists help.

Until the list gets so long, you need to add "prioritize this list" to the list!

Stop. Breathe. Close your eyes. Breathe again.

Take a cleansing breath.

Get back to it.

There. That helped.

For exercise, I run. I got started running outside, of course. When the weather is nice, running outdoors is refreshing, invigorating and uplifting. Really, it is. Especially if you've been dealing with man-made stress at work for eight or nine hours. A good run under a blue sky reminds you that beauty exists, and that your body can do something more than sit in a chair.

But, in Minnesota, the weather just isn't conducive to running outdoors all that often. Well, at least if you're as interested in comfort as I am, it's not. Additionally, while I love my neighborhood, it just doesn't have many options for a good three-to-four mile route. About two years ago, I started running on a treadmill when the weather, or boredom with my route, made me hesitate to run outside.

To make the treadmill run less boring than an outdoor run, I started watching DVDs during the run. In particular, I started watching "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" from the beginning. Let me tell you, it's actually easier for me to run for 30 minutes in front of a good story, with a real warm-up and a real cool-down surrounding it.

Anyway, I'm now watching episodes in season seven. The series has been as good as I remembered. But one thing I had forgotten was how many episodes in seasons six and seven had the character of Vic Fontaine as portrayed by James Darren.

For those of you who don't want to follow the link, I'll sum up: Fontaine was a self-aware holographic character who was a lounge singer in a nice Las Vegas club. The episodes in which he appeared (and in one excellent episode in which he did not) featured Darren singing songs which I guess would be called "Swing Standards." Some of them: "Come Fly With Me," "That Old Black Magic," "It's Only a Paper Moon," "I'll Be Seeing You (in All the Old Familiar Places)."

Well, as I watched those episodes again, I realized how much the music added to the stories, and how much I really, really liked the songs. Consequently, my latest amazon.com purchase included This One's From the Heart, an album of those standards, from which the songs in DS9 were taken. It's been a great purchase. I just might have to buy some similar music from the originators of the standards: Sinatra, Como, and others. But, in fact, I love the smooth interpretations Darren sings. And since they are part of those DS9 episodes, I will probably prefer his versions anyway.

And that's another example of how one thing leads to another. Streams of consciousness are a natural part of my thinking, because, really, life is a stream of events which are interrelated, with some effects stemming from causes one would never expect. Running, leading to buying a crooner's CD? It happens.

Oh, and yes, James Darren is not exactly foreign to science fiction TV. He starred in The Time Tunnel.

Related Links Vic Fontaine James Darren. This One's From the Heart The Time Tunnel

Though I'm quite familiar with the Internet and how it works, I'm still somewhat amazed at the opportunity it provides for the creation of value where it did not exist before. Way to go, gentlemen.

Also impressive is how quickly a Google search picks up the new domain name. And how it can find the reference to the site in Lucas's blog!

By the way, Ask.com still doesn't know about it. But if you've got Google (or Google has you!) that's what really counts.

Twenty-three years ago today, it was the first day of Final Exams for my second semester in the Masters program at Purdue. I didn't have any exams that day, so Adam decided to be born, four weeks early. I was already inclined to place "family" higher on my priority list than most other things, but this event certainly helped start my fatherhood out on the right course.

A few things I will always remember about that week:

• After leaving the hospital that day to go back to Married Student Housing to try to study for my exams, I turned on the car radio. The song which was playing: "Let's Hear it for the Boy." FEver since then, I've always thought of Adam when hear that song.
  
• I did better on the finals I had that week than I had done on any of the other tests I had taken previously at Purdue. It makes no sense -- I certainly didn't feel like I was more focussed.
  
• Sherry got to stay in the hospital for four or five days. In those days, insurance paid for whatever the hospital said was necessary. There were so few babies in the maternity ward (I think Adam was the only one for a while) and the nurses knew they would be sending a first-time mom back to a student father -- they wanted to keep mom and baby a few days to let everyone get some needed rest.
  

And now, Adam's working full-time. The wedding date has been set for June 21, 2008. He owns a home. He's one of my favorite people. And he still helps me keep my priorities straight.

Well done, son. Happy birthday!

This weekend, I got an idea for the "Father of the Bride" toast I could give at Leah's wedding reception.
Leah is currently sixteen years old, and not even close to getting married. But I got the idea nonetheless.
Since it's possible she might some day read this, I have to leave out the details. But it relates to something she once gave me, and I now have it stored safely with some memorabilia so I can find it again in, say, ten years.

And what about a toast for Sarah's wedding reception? Have I gotten that far? Not yet. I have thought for years that Sarah and I ought to write a father/daughter wedding duet, and sing it at her wedding. I remember mentioning it to Sarah once -- I wonder if she remembers.

Yet, it's Adam who will get married first. Hmmm, I wonder if people still do those toasts? A co-worker of mine says his daughter did it last year. Once they have all the other stuff planned, I'll have to ask Adam and Marisa about it.

On the other hand, it might well be that I'll be too choked up to give a toast anyway. Last week at choir we practiced a piece for which Sarah sang the solo in 2000. I remembered the song well because the first time we performed it, I couldn't really sing once the solo began. I just listened to Sarah and realized I was too caught up with pride to be able to sing.

Can I imagine being able to speak at the kids' wedding receptions if I couldn't sing during a normal church service?

Old softie!

Now that I know that worked (see the entry just below this one), I simply have to embed a Spiderman 3 preview. Finally, a clear indication that the filmmakers did not completely screw up the Venom story line.

If you don't like ANY spoilers, don't watch this trailer. But if you have been worried, as I have, that they were really screwing up Venom, the trailer helps assuage your fears.