Halloween Party

I went to a halloween party last night. It was a traditional costume manditory two-kegger. My friend Mike recently purchased this place in Kentucky and this was also sort of his housewarming party. By the way, if this post comes off as reading kind of disjointed or whatnot it's because I just rolled out of bed and my head is still killing me. Let's just say that I'm not in my right mind at this time.

First of all, much thanks to Mike. The invite was much appreciated and I was glad to have been there. As a matter of fact, I was given permission, nay, kicked out of my house by my wonderful wife for the evening. I wore an old russian soldier's uniform that I had in the closet. It meant I had to spend no money on the costume. It turns out that it was also the right thing to wear because it tended to steer the conversation towards topics of politics and social theory. See, Mike's friends are a little different from the common mouth breathing, knuckle dragger that populates this area. They are smart, socially concious educated people and very pleasant to talk to. I had a great time drinking beer, discussing the world's issues and enjoying the scenery. Mike's friends are also, on average, a younger group and some of the women's costumes were, shall we say for the sake of being gentlemanly, easy on the eyes. There was what I believe to be a devil girl there, a Marilyn Monroe, a Janis Joplin, a Wonder Woman, an Alice, a Strawberry Slutcake (at least that's how I heard it described by a nearby bystander), a Catwoman and just the cutest little boy scout (whom, it should be said, was not at all a boy or anything else masculine for that matter) you've ever seen.

The men, while less interesting to me from a titillation perspective, were no less interestingly dressed. One guy used stilts and a lot of brown fabric and came as an eight foot tall killer potatoe. Another guy was dressed in a suit, wore red horns on his head and walked around offering contracts for people to sign. (actually, I didn't see him doing this and he may not have been but that was the intent as I understand it and besides, it makes for a much more interesting post) It was really funny. The boyfriend of the boy scout was dressed up as a girl scout. If you've ever seen Tim Curry dressed up as a wilderness scout in Loaded Weapon 1 you get the idea. The guy who, in my humble opinion, won the costume contest hands down was a guy who'd spent a tousand dollars or better putting together the most authentic Darth Vader Costume I'd ever seen. Light sabre, flashing lights, the whole nine yards. Nothing about this was cheap and cheesy, it all appeared to be genuine empire issue gear. Great job Hoop.

The night went on and we drank. There was a member of the revelry or two that passed out. At one point there was some idiot who crashed the party with a few friends. Some moron who had had a rap show at the bar down the street. White, neck tattoos, somewhat retarded. He kept going on about how he had this show and no one showed up and he wanted us to play his CD. People were generally polite but, I think much like myself in that we all wished he'd really just go away. After this mental midget tossed a beer bottle into the neighbor's driveway, shattering it, and, from what I hear, tried to start a problem with a few of the guests, Mike came out to deal with the situation. In an amazing display of tact that I could never reproduce, he got the guy to leave without incident.

All in all, great party with probably the most quality people to live in this area. Thanka again for the invite Mike. I had a great time.

The Grand Naming

Well, we're a little closer to a name for the baby. We have the first name sorted out but we're still haggling over the middle name. After going through the lists of names we decided on the first name of Finn. He will be known as Finn Taylor. Oddly enough, after the fact, I ran an internet search and found that there is indeed one Finn Taylor out there in celebrity land. You can find his imdb.com page here.

See, I wanted something that reflected my Germanic heritage since my daughter reflects our (Heather's and I) Celtic heritage. We found that "Finn" was of both Scottish and Old Norse origin and with my religious beliefs being what they are we decided that would work just fine. Now we just have the middle name to contend with. Heather wants him to have two middle names so that she can honor both her mother (Scott) and her father (Ward). Personally, I think that's too cumbersome and I think it should be restricted to just one middle name. Besides, I don't want Erin running around asking why she only has three names and Finn has four. Urgh!

As an added bonus for Finn, he wont have the curse of having a common name like his father. Someday I'll have to post all of the crap that people have dug up on me when doing background searches like the multiple DWIs and the other dumb stuff that has nothing to do with me. Did you know I owned an antique shop in Annapolis Maryland just last year? Was news to me since I haven't lived there in near four years. Where's my cut of the profits?

Baby Announcement

My wife and I are having a boy. Actually, it's happening sooner than we thought it would as Heather's already 25 weeks along. It's a boy and we're still haggling over the name. Here's a picture taken just today



That's my boy. More later....

Anti-Diversity

One phenomenon that I find interesting is the use of seperatist euphamisms in an attempt to describe one's race. More specifically I'm speaking of the widespread use of the term "African-American" to describe black Americans. While there are those that speak of themselves as Irish-American or Italian-American, they generally do so in the context of describing ancestry when that is the topic at hand, such as describing the requirements for membership for the Sons of Italy or a St. Patrick's Day parade. When ancestry isn't relevent to the conversation, peoples of European ancestry are generally described as "white" or "caucasian". Similar treatment for blacks, such as use of the terms "black" or "negro" has been decried to such a loud, pervasive and obnoxious level that the term used nearly universally in polite conversation, the media and nearly anything official is now "African-American". This is problematic to the goal of diversity for several reasons which seem to have a snowball effect. First, black people born in America and living in America are about as African as George Bush. Africa simply doesn't play into the equation here. It's dishonest but also, to take this conversation further, disturbingly seperatist. If we assume that peaceful racial diversity and harmony are a goal (note: I make no judgement here on racial seperation or the issue of segregation. That's for another post) then we must also assume that a certain amount of community integration is a part of that goal because, let's face it, groups of people, living together with no commonality (values, traditions, etc.) are not a community. Allowing one group to settle for, in fact even have imposed upon them, a generic color such as "white" while blacks insist on the term African-American is a means of placing unequal value on the two groups. It is, indeed, only one means of blacks seperating themselves from other races. Evidence of this can be seen in the existence of "Black Entertainment Television", periodicals directed at a strictly black audience (Jet, Ebony, etc.) and even special holidays invented for blacks (Kwanzaa, first celebrated in 1966 and invented by a black nationalist. Click here to read more) To the best of my knowledge, outside of white nationalist circles, there are no holidays or mass media vehicles (periodicals, TV networks, etc.) that cater to a specifically white audience. Black people seem to have demanded and won this seperation for themselves.

Now, the question becomes, does this assist in the formation of a harmonious, racially diverse community or hinder it? I think that the inescapable conclusion is that it hinders it. It bears repeating that the goal is a harmonious, racially diverse community of equality. It also bears repeating that for this to exist, said community must have some commonality in the way of values, traditions, and goals. When the goals of each of the seperate groups are at odds then that serves to hinder the harmony of the community. When the goal of one group is to seperate itself via the name it demands for itself, the holidays it demands for itself and whom it speaks to (I.E. speaking to one's own sub group rather than the community) via it's media vehicles then it can be safely assumed that that this group does not harbor the goal of the rest but rather works towards the antithesis of that goal.

City Personalities

I just got back last night from a two day trip to Chicago. Well, I should say Elmhurst but it's all within the major metro area. Being in the business setting I didn't get much of a feel for the place so later on, after business hours, I decided to go out and get a bite and maybe a cup of coffee. Actually, the coffee was an afterthought until I ran across a Caribou Coffee (Yay Caribou! - Notation to my readers: If you have not had Caribou, find one and try it. It beats the pants off of Starbucks.) Anyway, I digress...

Image Courtesy of T Katch, U of British Columbia

Having been to a few big cities, I've noticed that every city has a very distinct personality. Lately I've been dealing a lot with Cincinnati, Indianapolis and most recently, Chicago. Upon interacting with the locals in Chicago is they are more aloof but not in a bad way. I was suprised to see that people in Chicago are very sure of themselves but without being mean or nasty. While Cincinnati is very nice it... well... the only way I can think to describe it is that it tries to hard. It's like when you were in high school and there was one kid who was very cool and self assured and there was another who was sort of a dork. He had the right act but it seemed real contrived. I would call this the difference between Chicago and Cincinnati. Lastly, you can lump Indianapolis in with Cincinnati but Indianapolis is just much more dumb. I've been calling Indianapolis "Cincinnati jr." as of late. Both cities have nearly their entire identity wrapped up in their sports teams and are full of truck driving, knuckle dragging yokels. Cincinnati just seems to be a little better educated.

There - that ought to get me a few death threats which will, of course, only reinforce what I just said.

Living Like Civilized Savages

It's day six and the power is supposed to be back on today. It's been an interesting five days. Actually, the whole experience hasn't really been so bad. It helps to have a nice arsenal of camping equipment. For food we have a nice large cooler that we picked up for an outdoor concert a few years back and a couple of camp stoves - one propane and one butane. Gas is cheap and readily available. We've been able to keep our "refridgerables" cold and we've eaten very well. Add to that the backyard grill and we've eaten better that we usually do.
Cleaning hasn't been so bad either. We'd get up and clean the kitchen starting with the dishes. We'd heat up water and pour it in with the colder tap water and there was plenty of warm water for dishes. We laid a towel out on the table and by the time we were done, most of them would be dry enough to put away. Heather even washed a pair of pants for me the old fashioned way, afterwards letting them dry outside on the back deck.
The worst part has been bathing but even that was only a matter of my own laziness more than anything else. Erin had a nice warm bath via heating water with the camp stoves. I got lazy and decided to tough out a cold shower. Man, did that ever suck! I will not be doing that again. Despite my experience and subsequent advice, Heather decided to do the same thing. It was really the only moment all weekend that I've really wished for the power to return.
At night we'd go out to the local coffee house and check e-mail, charge the laptop and take care of our power needs. We'd charge the cell phones in the car. Afterwards we'd come home and play cards or read until it got late then we'd blow out all of the candles and crawl in for the night.
So, in short our suffering through this minor tribulation has been minor at best. Duke Energy can suck it!