Today

Writing a blog has been a new experience for me. I have a lot of things to say, but it's tricky to know how to say them or even where to start. I guess one of the most important things is honesty. I've read blog posts from other people who I know personally and they aren't even honest with themselves. How messed up is that when you can't even be truthful about your life in your own blog?! A personal blog should be the one place where you can tell it like it is. No whitewashing, glossing things over, or distorting the facts. Otherwise it's just fiction. Which is fine, as long as everybody knows it's fiction. Anyway...

So I'll start off my blog with some honesty: I'm typing this while sitting at my desk at work. Yup, I'm writing this while on company time. My excuse for this is that we have some downtime at the moment and there isn't anything else to do. I simply have to be here in case a problem pops up or a rush project gets thrown my way. It's the day before Christmas vacation and we have completed all of the 2011 publishing deadlines. So here I am at my desk typing away and my coworkers are surfing the internet. Probably should have been a sick day. Oh well.

On the upside, one of my carpool peeps brought me a plate of cookies this morning which made for a great breakfast. I don't know why everyone bothers with trying to eat healthy crap to start off their day. Most of the "healthy" stuff you buy in the store is loaded with sugar and preservatives. Some of the granola bars have almost as much sugar as a candy bar. They're overpriced, lack protein, and generally underwhelming. At least with cookies you know what you're getting. And cookies don't come in a foil wrapper that explodes saw dust all over when you try to open it. Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Nature Valley!

Let's see, where was I... oh right, talking about blog writing. Blog writing has been kinda fun. I used to write stuff every so often and then delete it when I was done. I didn't really have anywhere to post it and I'm shunning Facebook because it's against my religion (not really, I just got Facebooked-out). Now that I have this blog, I can post all sorts of ridiculous, cockamamie stuff. And I can use words like "cockamamie" just to annoy everyone who reads this. In fact, I think I'll start dropping some old-timey words and phrases into my blog posts from now on and no one will know what the sam hill I'm talking about. See if that don't butter your necktie.

Alright, I should get back to eating cookies. Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

A letter to Gerald Lee Harmanson

This is a letter I wrote a while back (before I had a blog) and have never gotten around to posting it until now. It was posted on Sheila's blog about a month after I wrote it, I think.

This letter is part of the reason that I started writing a blog. I've written lots of things over the years, but with each one, I've deleted it once it was finished. Writing is a good way for me to speak my mind or get things out of my system, especially since I'm not much of a talker. When something is stuck in my head and I need to shut it off, putting it down in words usually seems to work. There's a lot of things that I should probably write about, but for now I'm putting this one to rest.

Anyway, here it is:

Dear Mr. Harmanson,

We've never met, but I've heard quite a bit about you. I know that you have always been known as a good storyteller and I think that you would be interested in the story I have to tell you. This story stretches over many years, but is certainly one worth telling. As any good storyteller would agree, it's best to start from the beginning.

On October 31st, 1950, a beautiful, healthy baby girl was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was the cutest baby anyone could ask for and best of all, she was yours. For some reason that still remains a mystery, shortly after she was born you left. Her mother struggled to raise the tiny baby on her own, something that would be a daunting task for a single mom today; but much more so in the 1950s.

Her mother raised her well, despite hardships. She was much like her dad; besides sharing his middle and last name, she had his kind sense of humor, his eyes, and even his smile. She was hard-working and intelligent, helping her mom around the house and excelling at school. He would be proud of the way she gave her best effort at everything she did, from piano lessons, to her studies, and even in her friendships. Yet there was always an awful void that overshadowed everything she did. With each birthday, she hoped that she might get a card or a gift from her dad, or maybe he would write her a letter. Maybe he would even show up on her doorstep. He might even come back to stay with her and put her on his knee and tell her stories to make her laugh. But he never did.

She couldn't help wondering if he left because of her. She wondered if he had wanted a boy instead of a girl. Then she wondered if he had even wanted a baby at all. Maybe he left simply because she was born. That burden of undeserved guilt hung over her every day. Didn't he want to see her? Didn't he want to know what she was like? Had he forgotten about her? Her mother wouldn't tell her anything about him. Not even his first name. If she knew his first name, she might be able to find him, but then maybe he wouldn't want to talk to her.

For years, she searched for him. Even if she found him, she wasn't sure he'd want to talk to her, but she had so many questions. There were so many things that they could talk about and so many things that she needed to hear. A smile and an "I love you" would have made a world of difference. So many things were left unsaid. He never reached out to her and her mother had no idea if he was still in Illinois or somewhere several states away.

Time went by and her mother became ill. Knowing that her mother's time was running out, she asked again for his name and anything else her mother could tell her about her dad. Her mother revealed his name and she even had some photos she had saved of him from shortly after they were married.

Not long after, her mother passed away. Now she began searching in earnest, hoping that with a full name and some pictures she would be able to turn up something. The search hit one dead end after another, but she was persistent. She searched records in several states, but to no avail. It seemed as if he had completely vanished.

Today, 60 years after you left, she found you. There you were in the obituary section of the newspaper. Even in that grainy photo, the resemblance between the two of you is unmistakeable. The brief biography in the paper revealed fascinating details from your life. For many years the two of you lived only 15 minutes apart. I wonder if you knew this. Did you know her house? Did you ever drive past? In spite of all, your daughter still loves you and grieves for all the years that she spent not knowing you. Even though she's no longer the tiny baby you left behind, she is still your daughter.

I'm writing this letter knowing that you'll never read it, but hoping that you found peace. I hope that your daughter can finally have some measure of closure and that she can put this part of her life to rest. As I mentioned at the beginning of the letter, you and I have never met, and yet I have learned some important things from you. Being a father myself, the circumstances of your life have impressed upon me the importance of fatherhood and the need to always be a steady part of my daughter's lives. Many of the things I often take for granted are so much more important than I ever realized, whether it be spending time with my daughters or simply telling them I love them and how important they are to me. You can rest assured I will always be there for them, no matter what. I thank you for that lesson.

Your grandson,
Mark

My garage

I have a garage. When I go out there, my hands get dirty, I bang stuff around, and I frequently spit (on the grass, not on the floor). My walk becomes more ape-like and I fart a lot more (I dunno what that's about). There's always something to tinker with and plenty of hammers and screwdrivers to assist with the job. That's about all I have as far as tools, but you'd be surprised how much can be accomplished with just those two things. It's really great to go out there and be all manly and whatnot.

This weekend I have to tune up my snow thrower and get it ready for winter. It's a beat-up old 1974 Bobcat and the loudest, meanest snow thrower on the block. There's nothing like firing it up early in the morning and shattering the snowy silence with a mechanical roar and a puff of smoke. Every time I use it, I find myself scratching my armpits and my speech reduced to grunts.

Yeah, the garage is OK.

Going nowhere

There are worse places to live than Cedar Rapids. Really, there are. For example: Detroit, MI; Jackson, MS; Atlanta, GA; Miami, FL; New Jersey (yup, the whole state); Albuquerque, NM; nearly all of Nebraska; and most of the rest of Iowa, to name a few. But if you really feel like you'd be better off anywhere else, Google suggests getting some ink done. If you Google directions from Cedar Rapids, IA, to "anywhere": you'll end up getting a tattoo. Or three.

Planning to go nowhere in life? Go to college. Don't get mad at me, Google said it first.

Silver screen

I really like watching movies. Not TV shows so much, but if I had a job that required me to watch movies all day, that would be alright. Old movies are especially fun to watch, for some reason. It's interesting to see how early movies have clearly influenced contemporary flicks and often been remade and presented as something new.

There are a number of elements in older films that make them interesting to watch. One, they had no CGI or sophisticated special effects of any kind. Any fancy stuff had to be done by hand and since they were inventing techniques as they went along, it required a lot of creativity and invention. Making the transition from stage acting to film acting (two very different things) took some time, too. Stage acting required exaggerated movements, expressions, and dialogue since much of the audience often sat some distance from the stage and did not have the benefit of being up close to the action. This is why much of the acting in early films was so melodramatic and overstated.

Another thing that makes old movies so fun to watch is that society and culture has changed so much over the past one hundred years that much of the common parlance back then has been lost and comes across odd or just plain funny when we hear them now. This is true when it comes to styles of dress, mannerisms, and the contrast between the things that are entertaining now and the things that entertained people back then.

I'm a fan of the film noir genre from the 40s and 50s, but I also like to watch some of the early silent films. Some of them actually hold up to today's standards – as far as dialogue and plot go – but others are just bizarre. For example, I watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari earlier this week. This movie is full of creativity and weirdness, but the weirdness is what really makes it shine. It was filmed in Germany in 1920 and had a very surreal, expressionist set with crooked doorways, oddly-shaped windows, leaning walls, and strange props. If Tim Burton traveled back in time, this would've been his movie.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is all sorts of disturbing and most of the time I really had no idea what was going on. That just added to its creepy, sinister vibe. The dialogue frames in the movie were few and far between, so a lot took place between each one, leaving me guessing as to what was going on. One of the characters, Cesare, was especially chilling and I think his appearance has inspired the makeup for a lot of metal bands. He sort of reminded me of Edward Scissorhands, too, for some reason. It moved along, though, and didn't drag on into tedium (which old-timey movies sometimes do).

Anyway, here are some stills from the movie. Those old-timers knew how to keep it creepy!

Rain

It's a great day to not do anything.

A sinister smile in every aisle

Last night I had another dream that has stuck in my head. Most dreams fade quickly after I wake up, but this one won't go away. To give you some background, I have a strong dislike of Hy-Vee. It's important to understand that, or much of the significance of this dream will be lost. It's not even a rational feeling of animosity. It's sort of like the feeling you get when you are about to visit a new dentist. Of course that dentist isn't going to tear your face apart and pull all your teeth out. We know this. But he could.

Loathe, detest, abhor, despise. These are words that come to mind when I try to describe how I feel about their stores. The people who work at Hy-Vee are great, and they are all professionals. Except for a few who aren't. The problem I have, is that roughly 50% of the visits I've had at a Hy-Vee (not just one location, or even in the same city) have ended badly. Once I waited in a long line with all my groceries as people ahead of me argued with the cashier. When I finally got up to the counter and all of my groceries had been rung up ("rung up" sounds very old-timey, but who cares), that's when the dude at the register decided to tell me that the debit/credit card reader was not working. And I didn't have my checkbook with me. Or $64.00 cash. No wonder everyone ahead of me was so mad. Then there was the time that the lady in the bakery refused to wait on me. I still have no idea why. She waited on everyone else, but flatly refused to wait on me. There was the time that a grocery item wouldn't ring up. Instead of figuring it out, they asked if I really needed it. Sure, I just brought that up here for kicks. I didn't really need that lunch meat. Once in January or February I went out to Hy-Vee late at night to pick up some hot chocolate for Cynthia. They didn't have any. See how horrifying this is? Anyway, about my dream:

********

I had to run to the store to pick up something. I could go to Walmart, but that's twice the distance as Hy-Vee and almost as bad. In this dream, I decided to go to Hy-Vee. As I walked across the parking lot toward the store, it was sunny out, but as usual there were ominous black storm clouds above the store. ONLY above the store. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as ghost-shaped plastic shopping bags blew past in the wind. The automatic door opened with a haunted house-like creak and I could hear a loud cackling echoing from somewhere in the store. The air was unnaturally cold when I walked in and for a second I wondered how badly we really needed another gallon of milk.

Suddenly, all of the Hy-Vee employees ran to the front of the store where I stood and sprang into song. In a carefully choreographed routine, they danced around and sang some show tune about friendly smiles and how much fun it can be to shop at Hy-Vee. It was a Hy-Vee musical! I couldn't tell if this was better or worse than my usual experience. They tap danced on the conveyor belts and even clambered up into a giant human pyramid for the finale. Colored confetti rained down from nowhere and colored lights swirled patterns across the floor.

********

Then I woke up. How's that for weird? (Not the waking up part, the dream part.) Trust me, if I posted half of my dreams on here, no one would want to talk to me anymore.

Get up and win the race

When I was growing up, my dad had a phrase he'd use as his way of offering encouragement. When he saw someone struggling with something in their life, he would say, "Get up and win the race!" I didn't get it, especially since the situation didn't usually involve a race, but I thought it sounded inspiring and it seemed like good advice.

As I got older and I would hear him say that, I used to think it was kind of corny. I realized he was speaking metaphorically, but I still felt like I really didn't need that advice. I watched other people make their mistakes and I learned from them. There was no doubt in my mind that I was not going to make the mistakes that other people had made and I knew that I would never place myself in a position to end up needing that advice. Every time a friend or acquaintance found themselves in tough circumstances, I used to think, "Wow. There's no way I'd allow myself to get into a mess like that." If you're smart and you work hard, life is going to go your way, right? Yup, I really was that naive.

Now I'm older and I've fallen down many times (literally and figuratively) and I know that it's not always possible to control the situations life deals out. Sometimes things just go wrong and you can't do much about it. Everyone falls at some point, but to have the resolve and the persistence to get back up each time is not easy. It takes grit and determination and even that is not enough.

Hebrews 12:1–3 says, "1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." God has given us the strength to get back up each time and has set an example for us in His son, Jesus.

This race is not about coming out ahead of everyone else, but about fighting the good fight, finishing the race, and keeping the faith (2 Timothy 4). It's about getting up each time we fall and not giving up, despite what life throws at us.

My daughter is smart

FIRST
Stephanie wore a ponytail. The next day, the class copied her.

NEXT
She wore a ponytail on the side of her head. The class said it looked ugly, but they copied her.

THEN
Stephanie is not happy that they are copying her. She tells the class she is going to shave her head.

FINALLY
The class shaved their heads. Stephanie came to school with a ponytail.

A lesson in chronology by Rose, age 6.

Everyday

When I was 17, I was diagnosed with acute non-convoluted precursor b-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. There were very few documented cases of this type of lymphoma and no established treatment for it. The disease was in Stage IV by the time it was diagnosed correctly. The oncologist who planned out the regimen decided to include all of the chemotherapy drugs that had been used in patients who had survived or shown some improvement from the treatment. Most cancer patients who are prescribed chemotherapy are given cycles that rotate 2 or 3 different drugs over a period of a few weeks or months. The experimental treatment that my doctor developed called for an initial blast of 9 drugs given consecutively, followed by 11 months of 6 drugs administered in cycles. It seemed that if the cancer didn't kill me, the chemo would do the job.

In 1995, chemo treatment was a little different from what it has become now. At the time, it was unknown if some of the drugs even had any effect on cancer cells, but when combined with certain other drugs they often did reduce the regions where cancer cells were found. The unofficial term for the effects of these drugs was "bleaching". They would wipe out the good and bad cells alike. One of these drugs (still in use today) is called Methotrexate. I was given a lethal dose of Methotrexate via IV over a period of several hours. Once the dose was finished, blood would be drawn every few hours around the clock to see how low my white cell count had dropped. Once it reached a critical level, a process called the "leucovorin rescue" would begin. A highly-concentrated dose of leucovorin would be administered to rapidly neutralize the Methotrexate and stop the destruction of white cells. By the end of this procedure, I had mouth sores and ulcerations, abdominal pain, nausea, shortness of breath, dizziness, and a generally not-so-great feeling. This fun process was repeated 6 times over 11 months.

You might say that's really enough for one person, but no: when I was 10, a water moccasin bit me. Aside from two puncture wounds, I was fine. A herpetologist who was a friend of my family said that maybe the snake's venom glands hadn't fully developed. Since then, I've been electrocuted, shot at, and I even ate at a White Castle once. I have a tendency to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and when things go bad, I inadvertently make them worse. If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I'm resilient.

These are all things that I don't like to talk about. It's tough to even put this on my blog, but I thought that maybe somehow some good can come of it. The thing that really bothers me is that when I do mention any of these hardships to someone, the response I frequently hear is something like this: "Oh wow, God must really have great plans for you." Plans that apparently include not dying anytime soon.

I've often thought (mistakenly) that the hardships and trials that God chooses for us to go through will be balanced out by some equally fantastic ministry or some great reward here on earth. So many times I've been told that God must be allowing me to go through these things to prepare me for something spectacular. Anybody who knows me can tell you that I am not too spectacular. My contributions to the world don't add up to much and are largely unseen. Does that make them less important? No.

Sometimes God allows us to go through troubles to teach humility, to strengthen our trust in Him, and to teach us that everything happens in His timing. God is not under any obligation to tell us why we go through the things that we do. Even though we may never see the good things come from the hardships we face, we have to trust that His plan for us is perfect. In a cynical, Godless society it's not easy to have a childlike faith. Everything about our faith is under scrutiny and our reasoning is constantly questioned. It's important to remember that we are just sinners saved by grace and that our reward is not here on earth. We must store up our reward in heaven and persevere through the troubles here on earth.

Here's a great verse that has always been an encouragement to me: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." – Romans 8:28

I don't know what God has planned for me or anyone else and I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers. There's a lot of ups and downs in life, but God has given us a purpose and we know that He has a reason for everything.

10/14/01

Ten years ago today, I was carrying around a ring in my pocket and waiting for just the right moment to take it out and pop the question. It was a moment that I had carefully planned out and hoped would turn out right.

Only a few months earlier I had met this girl who seemed too good to be true. Cynthia Conrad wasn't like anyone else. Besides the fact that she was beautiful, lots of fun to be around and had become my best friend, I realized that I couldn't live without her. She was a perfect match for me.

I remember being nervous about asking her the question. Luckily for me, she said yes! That was the start of an awesome life together. October 14th, 2001, was one of those days that I won't ever forget!

The cicada zombie apocalypse

As I sat in a friend's backyard one night, I noticed a few blades of grass moving nearby. Taking a closer look, I discovered that it was a large cicada crawling up out of the ground. It was slowly stretching its legs and beginning to move above ground for the first time after spending many years underground. Its front legs flailed around clumsily as it tried to grasp the next blade of grass to continue its ascent upward. For a harmless bug, they sure are evil, primordial-looking things.

Some movement in the grass a foot away caught my eye and I saw a second cicada begin climbing up out of the ground. What are the odds of seeing two of them coming up out of the ground at the same time like that?! I sat back down on the lawn chair and then noticed that there was all kinds of movement throughout the yard. I started looking around and that's when I realized that the entire yard was dotted by an army of cicadas all coming up out of the ground at once! They didn't make a sound, but continued to slowly and purposefully crawl upwards, intent on reaching a destination that had taken them years of preparation.

I moved my foot and noticed one scrabbling up from the ground next to my shoe. They were everywhere! They were like hordes of prehistoric creatures that had finally begun their invasion; their vacant, staring eyes looking skyward as they crept along.

I got up and took off out of that yard. Not that I was scared of a bunch of harmless bugs, I just had better things to do. Their malevolent, staring gaze burning in my mind. I mean, what can a little bug do to a person? Swarms of them descending. They probably don't even know I'm there. Thousands of tiny, razor-sharp mandibles greedily tearing into flesh. It's not like they care about people anyway, they're just trying to reach the trees. The whir of wings. Blinding pain and screams of agony. If I leave them alone, they'll leave me alone. A silent yard littered with carcasses picked clean by the swarms. The metallic scent of blood in the air.


OK, now that's just ridiculous. But you have to admit they are creepy-looking. To me, they always signal the beginning of the end of summer. They remind me that summer won't last forever and I better make the most of it.