Today seems like a good day for Bedoiun Soundclash

I'm also left wondering if the air will ever feel more like air than like water ever again. Because it's been a while.

Things I shouldn't look at

My sister has spent a while considering getting a dog. I think she and I both have similar dog-wanting desires, as we've both been raised with the same dogs for most of our lives and we've both recently begun living on our own in places where having a dog might be plausible. Her more than me, in that regard. Since she moved into a condo I get the impression that she's felt a more and more pressing urge to get a dog of her own.

We grew up with purebred dogs from breeders. And while I can't complain about how that worked out, I've definitely come to be an advocate of rescue programs more and more lately. And I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she felt the same way.

Me, being as teacherly as I am, I have trouble considering getting a dog that someone else trained before me. I certainly wasn't alone in the process, but I think I did as much as anyone else did when training Jake, and I just have trouble with the idea of getting a dog I don't get to train.

But Meagan's far busier, and in turn, far more of an advocate of getting a dog that has some training already. Not to mention that she's far more ready to actually get a dog. She's looking to get one in the next year or so. I'm at least a couple years away from being able to handle/afford having a dog of my own. But I've offered to help with her dog whenever I can, whether it's in terms of training or anything else.

And as part of that, I tend to check up on local rescue dogs from time to time. I don't doubt that she's doing the same thing, but I still like to be able to say "Hey, here's an adorable dog you should check out."

And while that's generally all well and good, I can't help but get the occasional "I must have that dog" feeling. Tonight's instance was Liam, who I would not be surprised to find that he's been adopted and taken off the page before you read this. And, bearing that in mind, here's a pic that won't get deleted:



He's pretty much exactly what I want in a puppy, but probably a little younger than what Meagan's looking for. And with that in mind, I'm stuck with that "I desperately want him but can't have him" feeling.

And that's the biggest problem with looking at these dogs. At least, there's like 10% of them who leave me feeling like "Wow, he/she's adorable and I must have him/her" But, at most, Meagan will end up with one of these dogs. And I'll likely end up with none of them, at least in the relevant future. So I'm mostly just left feeling guilty for not adopting all of these dogs.

But I swear I would if I could. Liam, especially.

Why I love computing...

I got my internet installed today. I chose the "Don't make me pay $50 to have some guy hook up two wires to my modem/computer" option. In theory, it may have been a mistake. In actuality, it probably would've just meant that the guy left me with everything hooked up but the internet not working, which is where I was about two hours ago.

I figured I was smart enough to hook up a modem to my computer and get the internet working. I'm not sure I was wrong.

That said, I hooked it up and it didn't work. I spent the better part of an hour doing all the obvious troubleshooting things, and solved a few apparent problems, but they just kept coming. I'd fix one thing and another thing would go wrong.

So after an hour or so of messing around with that, both by doing things to the modem itself and by doing everything I could think of with my computer, I gave in and called Comcast tech support. I first talked to a guy named Jason (or, I like to imagine, Jayson). He was a nice enough fellow, but he had a speech impediment that reminded me of some character who I still have yet to place, and he clearly wasn't the star of the team, so to speak. I spent probably 15 minutes talking to him and he took me through a bunch of relatively obvious stuff before telling me that the problem seemed to be on my end and that he was pretty much at a loss. Then he said something about looking around for a tech who knew more than him who might be able to help me. He put me on hold.

When someone came back, he asked me what phone number I was trying to activate. This was pretty standard cable company incompetence, by my recollection. Apparently Jayson had accidentally (or intentionally?) transferred me to someone else in a completely different department.

Ironically, perhaps, this guy was at least as helpful as Jayson. He took me through a lot of the same steps, and then did a couple things "totally from memory" because apparently people who are not in the internet department have no access to computers and can't know what shows up when you open, for example, "Network Connections".

I spent another 10-15 minutes with him, but eventually he said that whatever it was was probably over his head. Then, he did the greatest thing anybody at any cable company has ever done for me: He said he'd transfer me back to the internet department, but it wouldn't be a cold transfer. He'd get someone in the department, tell them why I was being transferred, and then come back on the line with me and tell me who I was being transferred to. For a cable company, that's a pretty big deal.

So, finally, I got back to someone who seemed to know what he was doing. If I wasn't aware of the type of people he deals with on a regular basis, I would've thought he was being a condescending ass. But, thinking about it, if someone like my mom were to call him, she'd probably think he was the most helpful guy ever. He walked me through literally every step in the process (e.g. "Left-click on the Start Menu. Now find 'Control Panel' along the right side. Left-click on that." And so on...).

He took me through a bunch of stuff I had already done. Then he took me through a series of more in-depth things that I didn't change. It was basically a bunch of "Ok, go to this menu. This, this, and this should be clicked. They already are? Great." I didn't make a single change to any setting. But when it was all done, it prompted me to restart my computer, something I had done about 10 times already. So I did it again.

And when it started up again, everything was working. Not for any particular reason. Not because I had changed anything. But, apparently, because Windows needed me to acknowledge that I didn't want to change anything.

In total, I spent 48 minutes on the phone with Comcast. A solid chunk of that was on hold listening to ridiculously loud jazz music. And, in total, they had me change nothing, but they fixed everything.

We are way too reliant on these ridiculous machines. Me especially.

I think I'm going to need a grill

And a place where I can grill. And whatever else is necessary for grilling.

My parents are gone for the weekend, so I've been left alone to feed myself. To this point, I think I've grilled every meal I've had this weekend except the omelet I had for breakfast yesterday.

I started off pretty simple. Some hot dogs, some burgers, some brats. I messed around a little bit with spices and toppings, but generally kept it pretty straightforward. But then, for lunch today, I got a little creative.

I got some shrimp, wrapped it in bacon, and then mixed up a little BBQ sauce and Tabasco and put that on them. Then, I cut up a little pineapple and threw it all on some skewers and grilled it.

It was spectacular. Maybe the best food I've ever cooked for myself. I hadn't had shrimp in forever, so that was great. And bacon on anything is pretty fantastic. And grilled pineapple might be my favorite fruit ever.

I'm trying to figure out what I can do to top that for tonight. I've got some ribs thawing right now, but I don't really know what I'm going to do with them. I might have to spend a little time messing around with sauces and spices again to see if I can find something good. We'll see how it goes...

Admiration is such an odd thing...

I've been hesitant to write about this. In part because it's been a constantly developing situation that I've only been tangentially aware of. Also in part because I get the impression that it tends to deal with issues that I imagine are supposed to be beyond the scope of my knowledge.

In keeping with that idea, I'm probably going to be more vague than I'd like to be from time to time. But, in fairness, that comes from a combination of lack of knowledge and inability to share the few things that I may know. Maybe I'll get into more of it later, but I just want to apologize in advance for any vagueness.

I've always respected my dad. I've always loved my dad. These are things that I imagine most reasonable people in reasonable situations could say about their parents. But today was, to the best of my knowledge, the first time I've ever really admired my dad. That is, this is the first time I've sat back and thought "You know, if I was in that position, I'd like to think I'd do what he just did."

My dad quit his job today. This is where the "maybe I can't explain everything" thing starts to come in. What I think I can comfortably say is that he's spent the last month and a half or so going to work without getting paid, but that his quitting was more a matter of principle than it was a matter of money.

Over the last couple months, I've seen a lot of instances where Denny Hecker has been vilified in the local news. I made a couple attempts to make the distinction between Denny himself and his employees in the comments on Strib articles. By and large, those distinctions seem to have been lost on people. Similarly, I get the impression that they were lost on Denny.

I think, on the whole, my point was that Denny Hecker may be an unscrupulous businessman and I can understand people wishing ill on him, but he employs a lot of good people these people will suffer a lot more from his troubles than Denny personally will. The last 6 months or so have made that more and more abundantly clear.

No doubt, Denny is not as well off as he was say 5 years ago. But the people who are suffering most from the collapse of his business are the people who are living paycheck to paycheck. If he goes a couple weeks without paying his employees, he'll be fine. And so will most of the people who work at his corporate office. But the people who depend on a weekly paycheck stand to suffer a lot. And it's unclear to me whether he's oblivious to that fact or if he just doesn't care, but I get the impression that he's focused more on himself than he is on realistically helping the people who would suffer the most from his business falling apart.

So, with all of that in mind, my dad, as one of the employees at the Hecker Auto Group corporate office, quit today. He turned down a paycheck because of what I maybe can't describe more accurately than as "for moral reasons". I get the impression that he's losing out on an amount of money that would pay for a significant part of me going back to school. It's certainly not insubstantial.

And, for what it's worth, I can't help but admire him for it. I don't doubt that it's not easy. I don't doubt that there's a temptation to take the money and keep doing what he's doing, seeing as a month's pay for him seems to be pretty significant. But he turned it down.

Politically, I think my dad and I are pretty diametrically opposite. I don't know that we've ever really discussed it with any depth, but he's decidedly more conservative than I am. And, bearing that in mind, it's hard to find a point where I can say "I sincerely respect where he's coming from". But today, I definitely found that. And then some. And, without question, I admire him more than I ever had before.