2013

Have a happy New Year's!

Rise Above

Another track

Still playing around with GarageBand. It's really rough, but I've got two tracks in there...

Wasteland Survival Guide

Like everyone else, I have been stocking up on canned goods, twinkies (because they can stay fresh for centuries), and firearms as I prepare for the coming apocalypse. When civilization comes crashing down and the world as we know it turns inside out on 12/21/12, I want to be ready. It would be foolish to stand by and do nothing to prepare for the worst, especially since an ancient tribe of people from nearly two-thousand years ago ran out of steam when putting together calendars for the future and called the project quits when they reached 12/21/12. Of course this is an accurate prediction of the end of the world, a person would have to be nuts to think otherwise. To ignore this obvious warning sign would be crazy. CRAZY, I TELL YOU!

In preparation for that Friday morning, I have put together a list of things that I will do to ensure the survival of my family (and anyone who stumbles into one of our hidden pitfalls that we've set up around our yard... er, I've already said too much). On that fateful day when the internet becomes nothing more than folklore and everyone is left staring at their iPhones in disbelief, I will be busy ransacking Cedar Rapids. Here is my plan:

1. My first stop will be at HyVee. No more helpful smiles in the aisles on this day! I will load up on all the food I can fit into my HEMTT A3, a handy-dandy rig that will be easy to pick up from the local National Guard base amidst all the confusion. I will also acquire a substantial supply of Dr. Pepper from HyVee. Why? Just because.
2. After I have left HyVee in smoldering ruins, I will proceed north to Guitar Center. Once I have completed a few laps around the parking lot crushing parked cars (there's no way you could drive one of those things around and not crush stuff), I will stop in and gather up a few guitars and amps to keep up our spirits during the long days to come without Facebook or Netflix. The rig should easily accommodate 20 or 30 guitars with room to spare, so I will strap them down carefully before moving on.
3. Where can you find all of your apocalypse survival needs? At the Home Depot of course, and on this particular Friday they will be running the sale to beat all sales: a first-come, first-serve, five-finger discount sale! I'll make my way across the parking lot from Guitar Center, leaving a trail of crushed Fords and Chevys in my wake. This is where I will acquire a couple generators to power the guitar amps... and our household appliances, too.
4. Next up, I will swing through Lowe's to pick up several chest freezers and their largest charcoal grill along with a smoker. We'll be grilling out for a year after cleaning out HyVee's meat department.

I'll head back home and – as long as Cedar Rapids doesn't burn up or get destroyed by a meteorite – spend the following months sitting out in the yard taking it easy, grilling and shooting stray cats. This end-of-the-world situation doesn't seem so bad after all. I'm looking forward to it!

Thanksgiving with Arnold

Life is full of twists and turns and things don't always work out as planned. Sometimes we are faced with making difficult decisions when we're not prepared to make them, but we do the best we can. My sister had to make a tough call recently when she broke up with her boyfriend of 1 1/2 years the day after Thanksgiving. After he had been included in all of the family pictures. The pictures we take at Thanksgiving are usually sent out with Christmas cards to everyone, so this situation pretty much makes that impossible. Or does it?

My brother suggested Photoshopping my sister's ex-boyfriend out of one of the photos and sending that one out. Great idea, except that the ex-boyfriend is standing right smack in the middle of the group. If we remove him, then there is a really obvious and fake-looking gap in the group photo. We thought about shuffling people around in the photo, but that will start looking very fake in a big hurry and in the end it really doesn't get us anywhere.

But if we intentionally make it look fake, maybe that will work? We can't send the picture as-is, but why let it go to waste? Might was well make the most of it and fix up the photo so that we at least have something to send/post. On my brother's suggestion, I've replaced my sister's ex with someone who will definitely boost my family's coolness factor. Not that we aren't already cool. Here's what we ended up with:

It really is an improvement. If you saw the "before" picture you would understand.

Will a MacBook Pro stop bullets?

Cynthia's Dell laptop is feeble and dying and needs to be put to rest, so I've been keeping an eye out for a replacement for her. Not replacing Cynthia, I mean replacing her laptop. ANYWAY, I spotted a deal on craigslist yesterday for a MacBook Pro that an Iowa student is selling because the WiFi on it started flaking out. It's got an ethernet port, so it can connect to the internet that way until we get the WiFi fixed. Cynthia mostly keeps her laptop on her desk at home and doesn't really carry it around, so a repair may not even be necessary.

I got a hold of the dude who was selling the MacBook and he gave me his address in Iowa City so that I could stop by on my lunch break and check it out (since I work in Iowa City). If you're not familiar with Iowa City, it has a reputation for being kind of a snooty place for being a small town in the middle of Iowa. (Apologies to anyone from Iowa City reading this. If you're cool enough to be reading my blog, then you obviously are immune to the uppity vibe there. ;) It's a town full of pseudo-intellectuals as well as a handful of truly smart people. The signs posted on roads entering Iowa City indicating that nuclear weapons are prohibited by city ordinance give some indication of the ridiculousness you should expect there. Not that I usually bring my nukes to work with me, but the fact that I have to be told not to bring them puts me out.

The address that I drove to turned out to be a large campus of apartment complexes in an area that stood in stark contrast with the rest of the town. Lots of people wandered aimlessly around in the middle of the road glaring at anyone who passed by and Caddys with oversized rims filled the parking lots. Each apartment had its own entrance – sort of like an old motel – and some had broken windows. There were broken bicycles and trash scattered about. There were people everywhere; not going anywhere or doing anything, just standing around watching. It felt like they were all waiting for something, it was very strange. It was very quiet, except for a couple of people a block away yelling at each other and the faint thump of music from an apartment nearby.

After parking the car, I walked along a sidewalk between two buildings as I looked for the apartment number that MacBook Dude had given me. A door swung open and a Muslim woman with a scarf around her head stood in the doorway and looked at me as if I was expected. She closed the door again after I walked by. A guy across the courtyard got up and quickly went inside. If this were a movie, I think this is about the part where the shooting starts.

I ducked around the corner and saw the apartment number I was looking for. Of course, it was almost the very last apartment and on the side of the building facing away from the parking lot. MacBook Dude was friendly, which made him seem out of place. The laptop turned out to be as described and worked fine, so I paid for it and began the scenic trek back. A group of guys standing along the sidewalk stopped talking and all turned and glared as I walked toward the car which made me wonder, Will a MacBook Pro stop bullets? It wouldn't even be a problem if I would have been allowed to bring a nuke with me. Thanks for that, Iowa City.