Clodhopper's Ploddings

this is just to say

2008-05-19T18:26:00.001-07:00

that my internt usage is spotty at best.

Call me at 712 441 2979 if you needs to talk to me

bye!

Bring me up, tear me down.

2008-01-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

Crazy weather. Two days ago, you could walk around in a t-shirt. Today, I get in my jeep and notice that my hands start steaming because they are so much warmer than the surrounding air. Kinda Ghost Rider esque, sans cycle and my skull starting on fire.

Oh well.

I feel sorry for anyone who would have to spend the night outside, its not a making snow angels sort of winter at the moment, this is the kind of cold that kills. But I can't complain, I've got a warm apartment, good food around. Its all good.

Sorry about the lack of substance

monochromaticisms

2007-12-30T09:41:00.000-08:00

The view out of my window right now consists of a white roof, snow covered trees, and a horizon rendered indefinable because the sky and land are the same colors.

Its nice for a change.

Kirbee and I were talking about this while driving to her house, and we agreed that when the whole word is whitewashed, the things that retain their color stand out in a fashion never obsereved before. Like a blue dumpster behind a house. Or a green roadsign. Or a barn (whose red in any other season would be faded, but now nearly burns in its contrast).
One other thing that this complete snowcover does is act as a preservative. The cackle of snowmobiles at night is followed by graceful arcs though the fields the next day. The silent nocturnal cris-crossings of rabbits which were never before noticable are now plain for even the most blind eye to see. But other things are preserved that may not seem so lovely. Blood trails from other nightime activities are impossible to ignore. The cold that preserves the snow also requires some payment from the weaker residents, and their bodies also stand out in the snow.

The snow simplifies the landscape to a single color, and all that moves and marks within it becomes very clear.

We may even consider that the most lost places in the world are the best to be called home

2007-12-18T14:05:00.001-08:00

can't get that out of my head

Everything all at once!!

2007-12-12T19:39:00.000-08:00

Since I havn't posted in a month, I thought that I'd do everything all at the same time, in the interest of exploding your already expanding minds.

First, cute photo

Thats me, looking excited about a very pink blanket. I'm somewhere in the 4 ish age. Alex, on the left, is two and looking very concerned/puzzeled about the bellyflopped state of travis, whom I'm guessing is simultaniously 1 and very stunned by the camera flash.
-------
Now for the next blog post thing
Random poem!!

The Plantation

Any point in that wood
was a center, birch trunks
ghosting your bearings,
improvising charmed rings

Whenrever you stopped.
Though you walked in a straight line
it might be a circle you travelled
with toadstools and stumps

Always repeating themeselves.
Or did you re-pass them?
Here were bleyberries quilting the floor
the black char of a fire,

And having found them once
you were sure to find them again
someone had always been there
Though always you were alone.

Lovers, Birdwatchers
Campers, gypsies and tramps
left some trace of their trade
or their excrement

Hedging the road so
it invited all comers
to the hush and mush
of its wispering treadmill

Its limits defined
so they thought, from outside
they mush have been thanful
for the hum of the traffic

If the ventured in
past the picknicker's belt
or began to recall
tales of faog on the mountains

You had to come back
to learn how to lose yourself
to be piolot and stray-witch
Hansel and Gretel in one.

Good stuff, eh?

Clodhopper reaps, sows, and sleeps

2007-11-05T23:06:00.000-08:00

I organized a meeting of the student body last week thursday. Seemed to go pretty well, the students brought up good points and maintained their civility. I'm not entirly certain what the next step is. a) is meet with members of the administration and get answers to the questions, b) is have a town-hall style meeting and let the adminstration more or less face the firing squad. b is my vote, though I should do some of a to flesh out my understanding of this situation.
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In other news, the wine that I asked Robin to send me showed up, and I think that I'll break it out for thanksgiving. Should be fun, and I am excited.
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Wedding guestlist: 207 thus far.
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Clodhopper at War

2007-10-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

I had this printed in the diamond last issue. I want to know what you think, because this could become something so much larger.

Perhaps you remember reading that Dr. Horton, our resident organ instructor, received first place in a international organ competition. What you will not read is that he will not be coming back to Dordt this coming year. You will not see that announcement in this paper, or in the press release sent out by Dordt College.
I know that there is very little that can be done to change that. I understand that his contract was not renewed because it was deemed necessary to restore a fiscally healthy student to professor ratio. And I know that the last thing anyone wants to hear is a rant about the bad timing of this cut in relation to football.
But when I started asking professors throughout the college about the loss of Prof. Horton (and others), the response I got disturbed me. I heard the expected anger and sadness in their voices, but I also heard something else, something almost next to fear. I was told that I couldn’t write certain things down, and that many things were not to leave the room.
What good can be said of a college where things need to be hushed? Why is this a college where a discussion of faculty to administration relations is filled with frustration? Why does this division exist in the college? You know as well as I do that not every detail of a college needs to be open knowledge. You know that no college run by man is perfect. You know that no matter how hard any of us try, people will be let go and programs will be cut or shrunk while other divisions grow and hire new people. Yet this is a college that is supposed to be different, supposed to be something unique, yet we are as divided as any college picked from a hat.
But why do I have to look at professors who I have learned from and admired for four years and see the hope and pride in their college fade? There is so much good in this college, so much that makes us unique, so much that should make us proud. Yet students are complacent, professors are frustrated, and the college that you and I call home has lost a part of its vision. That vision is greater than you or me, Professor Horton or any administration or faculty. That’s because visions are ideas, and ideas are beyond the ownership of any one man. But ideas are shells without people to live them.
Next fall the organ that Dordt College takes so much pride it will be without someone who can truly make it sing. People will play it, but who will teach new people to play? An organ is nice, but without anyone to play, it’s nothing more than shiny pipes on the wall. This college is good, but without the unity of faith and vision between all its members that we tout so loudly, it will be nothing, and its proclamations turn to dust in our mouths.

Don't forget to tell me what you think

7 months, 2 days

2007-10-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Till I get married. For those in the audience who are mathematically challenged, that comes out to June 20. I expect you to be there, I didn't get all trussed up for nuthin'.

Kirbee and I are getting into the nuts and bolts of the wedding planning, and for the most part, its fun. There are a ton of details that I wasn't thinking about when I asked her, and its probably ok, because if I had been thinking about how many tables I needed when I asked her, I never would have been able to spit it out.

Other than that, the year continues its ramble forward. I fear the end of this life that has been mine for the past years, it seems like most of what I've worked so hard for these past years will come to a rather sad close. But I've got Kirbee to start things out with, which is a great blessing ;)

I'm off to see A winters Tale

Goodnight you all.

Plodding for the day: Cast your thought out to the wilderness, and it will not come back unchanged

Though everything changed, nothing has

2007-10-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

Thats a positive sentiment, by the way.
Because

I asked Kirbee to marry me.

And she said yes.
At the moment its hard to communicate how awesome and terrifying this is. Perhaps it has something to do with the newness of being engaged. (I've never done it before, have you?) It feels like being half asleep and on a caffine high all at the same time, and you're never sure if you're dreaming. But it is a pleasant sort of staggering.

Oh, I suppose you want how this whole engagement thing went down.
I took Kirbee home for the weekend. She was a bit unhappy with me for doing this, due to homework, and having absolutly no idea that her ring was in my possession. We went on a four-wheeler ride in my pasture on Saterday evening, which is something that we do quite often. We got off and started walking (again, something that we do all the time). I took her out to this huge cottonwood in our pasture. Its off by itslef, and like all cottonwoods, the leaves sound like rain when the wind blows through them. And then I asked her. She was so taken off guard that I think that she thought I was kidding. Then I showed her the ring, and she knew that I was very, very serious.

And that was that. And now we're both diving into the mess of wedding planning and everything else. Its fun. We're happy.

But we're both still weird and full of mischief, so nothing much has changed

mmm, barbarians

2007-09-25T08:39:00.001-07:00

So this weekend was more or less dominated by the 48 hr film festival thingy. It's far more fun to talk about in person, but suffiice it to say that we were busy. I came out on the high end of the deal, I actually got decent amounts of sleep. I'm mostly satisfied with the result, though a few things could have turned out differently. But I'm not the director, so I suppose I can't expect to get everthing that I want.
The premire isn't till Nov 9, which makes us all a little groucy, because we want to show it off. Anyhow, I have laundery that needs doing.

-your ever loyal barbarian

(see http://youtube.com/watch?v=0DXfVhO3FZY for what I based my charecter off of)

A quest for a low E, vol 26 and a leak free tire

2007-09-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

I recieved some bad news today. Dr. K informed me that as much as I would like to, the chances of me being able to consitantly hit a low E are almost physiologically impossible. Although you can always go higher, your ability to go low is ultimatly limited by the size of your vocal cords. This is frustrating, since it'd be really nice not to have to up an octave half the time. Dr K made some comment about the Russians being able to hit low notes like those more often, though he didn't know if it was genetics or vodka. I asked if he wanted me to take up drinking vodka before reheresal, but that apparently thats a bad idea. (Who knew?)

A bit of library drama: An entire class seems to be looking for Vol 26 of Poetry critism. At the same time. Apparently their moms failed to teach them to share.

Late last week, Kirbee's beloved car Indy decided to have a flat tire. One morning she walked by, and Indy was looking a litte tipped. Being the pushover that I am, I pulled the tire off today, and we went to get it patched. Turns out the rim had rusted to the point of causing a leak at the bead. No biggy, right? Unfortunatly, about the time we got the tire back on, I heard a nice hiss coming from the bead. So I took it off, brought it back, the tire guy put some black goop on the bead, and now indy is looking level once again.
very exciting day, as you can tell.

-
Oh, and I hate those stupid scissor jacks that come with cars.

2007-09-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

The Forge

All I know is a door into the dark
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short pitched ring,
The unpredicatable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music
Sometimes, leather aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where fraffic is flashing in rows
The grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To bear real iron out, to work the bellows.

-Seamus Heaney

old scars

2007-09-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting behind the library desk, feeling quite bored, and got to looking at the odd scars that pock my hands and arms. They're mostly the result of odd injuries related to farm work (not so many papercuts from working the check-out desk) However, one of them is a bit different.
I remember exactly the day I got it; November 29, about 7:00.
It was when I was informed, not only that Jon Kooima had died, which was sad, but avoidable, but that my brother had been the last person to see him alive. I'm ashamed to say that my thoughts were not for Jon, his family, my brother, or anyone related to his death. My thoughts were for me. My thoughts were consumed by rage that now I had to deal with a brother who knew grief of a caliber I didn't. That now I would have to face my weeping mother, my grieving father, both mourning for their son's loss. I had to acknowledge the loss because it was too close to pass aside, and I was furious beyond anything any of you have ever seen, beyond the petty rage of any farm or school frustration. I muffled that raging scream that would have been heard by all of east campus, but I found a more silent out. I beat my bed with all my might. Three shots with my right hand, hard enough that the bed or my hand should have broken. Hard enough that I bled. And as the blood pooled around the wound, I became the calm "mature" christian who showed only faith under trial, saying the words that I hoped would ease the undiluted pain of those around me. But before I could help them I had to fall and exhaust my childish rage. And I lied to everyone who saw that fresh blood on my knuckles.
I have a scar today between the knuckles of my ring and pinkie finger. Look for it sometime. It reminds me of two things. 1) Jon Kooima. 2) My cowardly denial of my sorrow.

I ask your forgivness for the lies I spoke.

Extractions

2007-09-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

Concerning the last post:
I apologize if that turned you off or created feelings of disgust. Unfortunatly, what I said is the truth. Look at yourself long enough and I think that you'll find it in yourself to mirror my actions, if not in exact form, then at least quality of dark.

Present:
Life expects a balance from you. I find it hard to equally hold the ideas presented in the works that I read, and which I feel to have some truth, and those I find in the Bible, which I know to be true. I find that the feelings and thoughts I have appear, on the surface, to be only the results of some chance driven balance. Its a balance that requires me to feel joy and sorrow in the same day, hour, minute even. The low ends are frustrating, in the same way that being held beneath the surface of water is frustrating. You know that its within reach, you know that you can get there, except for something holding you back, and so you remain close, but not close enough to breath easy.

Every choice seems to be weighted ill, and the choices become so numerous, and so alike in darkness that instead of a fork, or a diversion, I'm in the center of a empty field, and I can no more choose where to go as I can remember where it was that I came from.

These are the thoughts of a moment that will pass in a minute

A production of potbag industries

2007-08-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

I've decided that The Wasteland was far to serious for my delusions, and decided that a new name would help. Anyone know how to change the colors on blogger? I'm not enough of a compaddict to know HTML color codes.

Welcome to dordteche everypeople!
I find that about three hours ago, everone started getting twitchy and ready for classes, or at least ready to do something. We've all told the summer stories to most everyone without leering towards the dangerous land of double-dipping audiences.
Speaking of which, a few notes on summer:
My father said that he was really happy with the way that I worked for him this summer. I don't know if I can communicate how important that was to me. He can be very demanding, and he has a high standard for the work done, so its not just a flippant turn of phrase for him to compliment me. (Ok, enough vanity, I just wanted you to know that not everything this summer was turned to dust.

I saw alot of death this summer, mostly by my hand. I got good at a few jobs that are ugly, and I began to enjoy them. I got a taste for that moment when you watch an animal go down into that very unique set of movements that signal that life is being torn out. I sometimes wish that you were there to see it, I wonder if you would be proud of my precision, the deftness in execution. Or if you'd recoil at my callous pleasure at a foul job done with relish. I began this summer with a bit of a hesitation towards the harsher sides of farm life, but by the end of those months, they had become the coarse outlets by which I produce for one second that which most men seek: Destruction that is catharsis, a feeling of bleeding out the emotions pent up in the odd corners and focusing them into drive, strength, courage, stocisim, and even the ability to kill. Call them the coarser virtues.

Ploding slow enough finds the weeds in any field

Slippery madcap days

2007-08-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today we finished the final big project of the summer. This project involved getting rid of all of the old tin on one of our finishers (its small, thankfully) and then replacing it with new. Not so complicated, until about 7:30 this evening, when the tin began picking up dew, and getting very slippery, to the point where sliding off the roof became a real posibility. But that of course didn't happen, since an injury would mean all sorts of havoc for the vacation that starts tommorow, and as my dad said, "that mean staying at the most expensive hotel in the country (read: hospital)."
Today was just madcap all the way around. We had to do every single chore that could be done in advance so that the guy taking careof our farm wouldn't have to do it. Bleh.
My family and I will be in the southeastern portion of the state through monday next. Should be good.

He's Funny!

2007-08-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

That was the response I got from a very hyperactive 4 yr old on the 34 hour train ride back home from BC. She and I had been playing a very intense game of peek a boo. Good times

The rest of the trip was pretty fun, even the parts involving inhaling second hand pot, mainly because Kirbee and I got to gripe about it together;) We got to ride ferries and get kicked off them, eat awesome fish and sample local wines, and all sorts of fun stuff, which I'm going to wait to tell you in person once the school year gets started.

My mother asked me: So, with a four year degree, what sort of jobs would that qualify you for? (internally I swore) I feel sunk right now, which is unfortunate on many levels.
hrrrm

Oh Canada, and the Desert of the Midwest

2007-07-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

We got rain, as kirbee's comment last post indicated, but we're basicallly where we were last post, only a bit worse. We're laughing about it, b/c it really is only a drop in the bucket, and we'll bounce back.
Still, it hurts to see everything crisp

So in a desperate attempt at crisis avoidance, kirbee and I will be taking a little trip out to B.C. (woots and huzzahs all around). This is my first time out to the Pac Norwest, and I'm exicted to outside in sub 90s and seeing green again. And I get to do it with Kirbee (woot again). We'll be visiting Michelle and Eryn (who will be heading home the same time) and just enjoying the beauty, so I've heard, of the pacific coast.

Unfortunatly, it is past my bedtime

Considerations of Trials

2007-07-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, my home is currently in what might be called a drought. In the month of June, we got 3/10ths of rain. We've had none this month. One quarter of land (about 1/6th of the total acres we farm) will barely break 50 bushels an acre. Compare that to 150+ bushels an acre in the past years. All of our land is in desperate need of rain, some of it is beyond recovery. The situation compounds itself when you consider that we feed all our corn to the pigs, meaning that we will have to buy corn, which will cost dearly. (My father has already bought 15,000 bushels, about 2 and 1/2 months worth). It is possible that we will not be able to raise cattle next year because the corn would cost us more than we could make. In addition, the cow/calf pairs that some of you saw in deep green patures are having to pick out the reamaining sheaves of grass, since the pasture has not grown back at all.
This is our situation. It is not the first time, and certainly not the last time that this has happened. The risk of farming is that we are tied to the land and the weather that determines its product. Every year we gamble. This year it won't pay.

I'm asking why. I know that God has his plan set, and that there is a purpose in it. If nothing else, this year will remind us that we can't control everything, and that we are still His subjects. That doesn't mean I like seeing the corn wilted and brown, and the yard grind to dust in the wind. That doesn't mean I have to like watching the strain that this puts on my family, and seeing the frustration as the sky stays blue and clear.

In time we will know
Now we wait

set em on fire

2007-07-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

No matter how much I want to hide it, I think that I'm bound for a life of manual labor. I really think that I'd waste away behind a desk, even if teaching demanded a lot of me. Maybe I need to find a form of manual labor that I'll get paid really well for, and then I'd be set.
But really, I never feel so good as I do when I'm actually getting myself worked into a good sweat doing something filthy.
The problem with that feeling is that it means that I'd go mad if I taught college, and that has been what I've been working for for most of my college carreer, which makes me feel that I've somehow wasted my time.

Another addition to the overeducated underfunded

seeing pink

2007-06-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

Thats right, I was seeing pink. I found that if you look at nothing but brand new white tin for 3 hours of full sun, it messes with the color perception of your eyes, and you'll see pink. Or at least I did. All I know is that the gravel on our yard is not pink, but it sure looked like it. Also, it was freaking hot up there, to the point where it didn't feel hot anymore, which scared me a bit.
Road construction is going full swing by us. The guys have been pretty good about grading the road smooth at the end of each day, so its staying mostly drivable. Still if you plan on swinging by, call me.
And I'm taking my motocycle test tommorow. I'm excited.

On executions

2007-06-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

Every now and again, a pig needs to be killed. Usually the pig in question is sick or injured in such a way that its natural death will be long and costly, and it will not recover to be sent off to market
I remember watching my father do this for years before I did it my first time. I was frightend. Rabbits and sparrows are nothing to standing 3 feet away from an animal I was taught to keep alive.
Memories of how messy a good execution are flooded my 13 year old brain. I knew what is supposed to happen, and when I shot I knew I had done it wrong. No death, instead a squeal and a shake of the head, now bleeding from a wound between the eyes. I breathed easy when the second shot proved a success, meaning the pig went into death treamors, flinging blood from its nose, kicking in a circle, trying to get away from something that had already caught it

I began to realize this summer that I like this job. This frightens me. I've got it down to an art. The steady walk to the pig. Check to be sure a round is chambered. aim. Speak " Look at me" When the pig looks, I line up on the sweet spot centered a half inch above the line between the eyes. I fire. The pig dies. The looked for flailing and blood splatter. I check to make sure the pig has stopped breathing, and doesn't blink when I prod the eye. Then I haul it away to the pile, and my job is done.

I find something intoxicating about saying "look at me" and then killing. Maybe its a power thing.

All of me is still attached!

2007-06-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

I realized tonight why I always feel like I get nothing done at college. Its because I get crazy amounts of stuff done at home.
Check this out, I feel productive!

6:15 Up and at 'em, bred sows
6:30 Dock tails
6:45 Move bred sows
7:00 feed gilts, do walk through of finisher
7:30 breakfast
7:45 Start sorting cattle
8:45 Finish sorting cattle (pulled off 72 without anyone dying)
9:00 Casterate a room (me and the scalple will be best buds by the time the summer is done, though the stupid little blighter already left a nice gash in my finger)
9:45 Realize that the cattle we sorted out will not be loaded out today b/c the plant won't be killing angus tommorow, so they have to wait for a day
9:46 Lunch (also known as snack to some people)
10:00 Help Dad set up the sprayer (transfer 1200 gal water, add 4 different chemicals, including Atrazine, Ammonium Suflate, Corn Oil, and Callisto, which is nasty stuff, a gallon of it will kill anything that isn't corn over a 30 acre spread
10:45 Water gets cut off, which is a problem
10:46 Start setting up to load corn out to town
11:15 Water comes back at some point, but at half pressure and volume, power gets cut off. (I should mention that we are in the midst of road construction.)
11:30 get wagons loaded with corn, realize that tires are low. Inflating tires with 40,000 lbs corn in them is well nigh immpossible. Oh well
12:00 Dinner
12:15 drive load to town. Get rained on while driving cabless tractor
1:00 Begin getting things set up to reload sprayer, and using math skills, I realize that there is no way that I will have enough water, call dad. Load corn up, and due to low water pressure, am unable to do another job (which involves a power washer) while I wait.
1:30 Load out to town
1:45 load out to town
2:00 Drive water wagon to town, and I get to live a childhood dream when I get to use the grandaddy of all faucets (10 gal every 5 secs baby!)
2:15 Load up the sprayer with chemical
2:00-4:00 (did some odd jobs that I cant remember)
3:55: Lunch
4:00 Chores, includes cleaning up manure, feeding cattle, pigs of various sorts, and other miscellanious stuffs
5:00 load up chemical, drive to town, fill water wagon, fill sprayer
6:00 Supper, insert face into food
6:15 water pressure is back (huzzah)
6:30 Feed chickens, which I had failed to do earlier. They had not quite resorted to cannabalism
6:35 Realize I've lost the pliers that I bought less than a week ago. Curse. Go on futile seach. Curse again.
7:00 That sprayer thing,
8:20 Begin chopping down maple tree
8:25 come to the unfortunate understanding that the tree has a predisposition to fall towards road. Start sweating
8:45 Timber! Tree falls towards road, but not before I find myself holding a tree back from falling as I wait for a car to pass.
9:00 Limb, cut to stove length, and find storage for the wood.
9:30 Fill water wagon one las time
10:50 In house, shower, blog
10:39 finis. sleep

and all of me is still attached

Yesterday and today via numerals

2007-05-31T17:12:00.000-07:00

135 welds
48 pairs nuts and bolts
3 sets of gates each weighing
120 lbs
40 pigs casterated
1 pliers MIA
4 new cuts/scrapes
3 cc ocytocyn
40 cc iron
45 cc strep vac
43 tails cut
12 cement lags
1 exucution
1 poem idea
8400 lbs cattle feed
200 pages of the Silmarillion
200 baby chicks fed
0 Kirbee :(
2 baby calves tagged
1 very irate cow
2 hard blows to aforsaid cows head with a grain shovel
1 bloody nose in aforsad cow's face
30 second phone conversation with Kirbee on top of a three teir scaffold
2 days

Curses and Salutations

2007-05-21T19:21:00.001-07:00

For all you all's reading boredom, I present: Le weekend and monday

Friday: Journey to the tagney home, stayed up late to watch red eye. It was dissapointing, and I slept on a short couch

Saterday: Went and rode horses. Crusier was feeling stubborn, so I fought him most of the ride, which was frustrating, since I know almost nothing about horses, and was feeling quite wrathful towards him. (when I say wrathful, I mean that if a pig would have made me this angery, he would have recieved a severe/approaching fatal beating. Cruiser did not recieve anything of the sort, except me glaring at the back of his head, and trying to point him the direction I wanted to go
We then went on a picnic to a local state park. Kirbee had procured a kicker picnic basket, which apparently most of you knew about, congradulations to all youalls for keeping it under wraps
Next was supper at Cafe Reniassance, which was a good time. its a very styling resteruant, complete with live piano music, flaming cheese (yes, it was on fire, and tasty) We almost got sideswiped on the way back, I offered to give chase to the offending idiot with my unsharpend (but scary looking) kurkhi. We decided this was a bad idea, but still funny (think of it; Kirbee driving her corsica, with me waving a 17inch knife out the passenger side. Its funny, laugh)
Saterday: Ran around with family, went and picked up a shelty puppy with them. In the process of which, i saw what a house looks like with 15 sheltys in it. It looks like a furry hurricane

Monday: Basic workstuffs, even notable for a frentic sharpening session of the kurkri (maybe I should name it, its almost a sword suggesstions?) and reading paradise lost, which is quickly going up in my esteem

Thats about it

oh, and after riding horses this weekend, I can share Gimli's sentement: Put me on the ground with an ax and room to swing and I'll be fine. ( i know thats not an exact quote, sorry)

Bits

2007-05-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

Made my first attempt at dagger making today. Lets just say that shaping metal the modern version of fire and a rock does not immediatly lead to a polished blade worthy of assasinating political enimies. It looked like a craft project from an orc preschool. Ugly and disfunctional. I'll try again tommorow.

I had a june bug flying up against my window screen. He was annoying me with his futile buzzing attempts to fly through my screen, so I flicked him with my finger. He's probably twitching ont he ground wonding why God allowed him to exist if only to die such a pointless death. Which leads me to wonder: Why did God give the gift of flight to something so stupid?

Saterday I spent spraying the land that will be planted with beans with a herbacide that kills weeds, but also kills corn, so its very important that this herbicide doesn't end up on the bean ground. I had nightmares all night of the tractor going out of control and spraying chemical all over the place and ruining half the crop. Other than that, I slept good.

My plan to ride my brothers dirtbike to dordt has run into several snags
1. He's trying to sell it, and miles =less money
2. at 60 mph, the rpms are @ 6000. This is out of the friendly extended operating range.
3. It ups the chances (three fold) that I will die this summer

Home?

2007-05-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

Despite insurmountable odds and a jeep that won't start, my jeep, me, and all my junk made it back to this place that I guess is home.
Its weird, this is the first time in two years that I'll have spent more than a few weeks at home. It feels like an old pair of work jeans that are stiff from not being worn, but fit so perfect that it makes you smile, and as a bonus, there's five bucks in the pocket! (no really, that actually happened today)

All my stuff disappeared into my room somehow, I'm surprised that my dresser isn't groaning from the load of fifty books squatting on it, or that my closet hasn't exploded out of sheer disgust. My father suggested we build a bookshelf on the wall opposite the balcony. Its a good idea, except this wall is about 8 feet off the ground (its above the entry to the frontroom) and my mom scoffed it into oblivion. My genius fuels the flames of scorn

I'm trying to get back into being farmer nate. It's an odd feeling.

I'm trying to get back into being son nate. I have to ask before I do things. Its a regression in freedom, and it makes me nervous that I'll do something that'll really get me into hot water.

I have to be up before 7 most days now. Prepare for sleep schedule reboot

I have a veiw of the west and its sunsets again, something that has been grossly lacking this past years. (stupid town)

Kirbee and I will spend the majority of this summer apart.

2007-05-10T10:30:00.001-07:00

finis

In honor of my 143rd post, you get innumdated with poems

2007-05-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

or, I'm bored and don't want to study

The Mass
These austere and holy offices
toll out to the wavering masses
come, buy bread without money
and wine at no cost
for all has been paid for.

As circle around the altar
fearing it like a fire
fearing the priest who will hand me YOU
Your very body
Your very blood,
and into my hands will I commit your spirit.
I fear my sin
I fear your justice

So in this most timid of moments
I will bow to receive you
and eat of the bread
and drink of the cup
and proclaim your death
until you come

Patience
Is taking the time
To slowly pull out
The entire resisting cord
Of a fragile night crawler.

Fireglow
My grandfather could sit for hours
Staring into an evening fire with grandmother
And not one word or gesture would pass between them
Except the fireglow seen in each other's eyes

Eventually her fire went out
And the seat by the hearth was cold
But he still sits
Ash at his feet and in his eyes

In the Loft
Deep in the pit
Of a

Green-black haymow
Surrounded

By the smeared, laboring forms
of men

is a single,
spackled
shaft of July sunlight

Felling
I’ve always loved the way
My palms shivered
Then turn to sinewy iron
On first embracing ax handle
And the first chop
Was no blow
But a shout
Labor’s Hallelujah

And we sing
Ax and I
Rhythm and blues
Shudder and hum
Moaning and groaning
Yelling strikes like a square dance caller
And we build the tune
Ax and I
For hours
Setting tempo and melody
Until his tempered tenor is pitch perfect

When we finish singing
We stand aside
We stand silent
For that interminable five second hour
While the tree
Silent until now
Gives her solo
A sighing
Funeral
Cadenza

Snow
Last night while we
slept the clouds
burned down
and their ashes have covered us.
Now a pale cremation blanket
silences the world
Almost as if to venerate
the passing of some great saint
Last night the clouds caught fire
and now we shuffle through the ashes

Prisoner
Met a prisoner today
He was recently thirty
In jail since twenty

Got busted for drug running
Twelve kilos in the trunk
A pistol on his belt
Submachine gun under the seat

Locked away for ten years now
Ten years of this institution
This tile and concrete and iron
And weight
That pulled him down in the noose
He Hung from the bars in his cell

Just him
And the rope
And the tile and concrete and iron
And He

Who
Would not let him go
Would not let him fall
Would not let him alone

But called so softly no one heard
But him
And so loudly he could hear
Nothing else

He’s been deaf to the world
Ever since

Night Run
Running at night
Sharp and crisp under parking light
I approach the end
The line where light stops, and night begins.

And I, free
From scrutinizing glare of the sleepwalking world
Bound over the curb
Embracing the darkened field
Printing noiseless as a panther
For a few pure, brief moments
I am running

Running at night
Smooth and free from any light

On Climbing the Windmill
I found, it’s not the height
It’s the fall
Of everything
The ladder, windmill
Earth, sky and heaven
Sun, moon and stars
All collapsing and falling away
Leaving me hanging
Without anything to grasp
Or anything to fall to.

Courage
Is outrunning
A lumbering herd
Of maternally incensed cows
And stopping
Turning
Embracing
The ballering snotty mass
With nothing more
Than waving arms
With a barrage
of made up
cursing

Last Hour on the Hayrack

The last hour, exhaustion has been wrapped around
our ankles.
Sweat has glued the stagnant stinging dust our
eyes and throat.
Tripping, staggering, shuffling on the shreds of the
haydust
we grab the bales, lift, turn, carry, loft, set, turn
and grab again.
This weighted dance set to the beat of the baler's
thud and snap,
The roar of the tractor and the sun, deafen all
remaining sense
Until we're no more than patterns, servants to
the dance,
The waltz of grab and lift, turn and carry, loft and set
And grab again

any good?
personal favorite?
Burn them all?

you know who you are

2007-04-22T19:34:00.000-07:00

because you didn't come to the poetry reading tonight.
Your loss.
But, since I am feeling happy, you'll get the poem that I read for the first time tonight.

Felling
I’ve always loved the way
My palms shivered
Then turn to sinewy iron
On first embracing ax handle
And the first chop
Was no blow
But a shout
Labor’s Hallelujah

And we sing
Ax and I
Rhythm and blues
Shudder and hum
Moaning and groaning
Yelling strikes like a square dance caller
And we build the tune
Ax and I
For hours
Setting tempo and melody
Until his tempered tenor is pitch perfect

When we finish singing
We stand aside
We stand silent
For that interminable five second hour
While the tree
Silent until now
Gives her solo
A sighing
Funeral
Cadenza

(any good?)

Jars of Clay-Oh My God

2007-04-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

worse when we don't bleed,
there is no cure for our disease.
Turn a phrase and rise again,
or fake your death and only tell your closest friends,
Oh My God.

Oh my God, can I complain?
You take away my firm belief and graft my soul upon your grief.
Weddings, boats, and alibis,
All drift away, and a mother cries...

Liars and fools, sons and failures, theives will always say..
Lost and found, ailing wanderers, healers always say..
Whores and angels, men with problems, leavers always say..
Broken hearted, separated, orphans always say..
War creators, racial haters, preachers always say..
Distant fathers, fallen warriors, givers always say..
Pilgrim saints, lonely widows, users always say..
Fearful mothers, watchful doubters, Saviors always say..

Sometimes I can not forgive
and these days mercy cuts so deep,
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep.
While I lay, I'd dream we're better, scales were gone and faces lighter,
When we wake we hate our brother, we still move to hurt each other,
Sometimes I can close my eyes and all the fear the keeps me silent,
Falls below my heavy breathing, what makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder, we all have the need for wonder.
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the plunder.

Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven,
All the times I thought to reach up, all the times I had to give up.
Babies underneath their beds, in hospitals that cannot treat them.
All the wounds that money causes, all the comforts of cathedrals,
All the cries of thirsty children, this is our inheritance,
All the rage of watching mothers, this is our greatest offense

Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.

video(has a slideshow running with it, but the audio is good): http://youtube.com/watch?v=txqeyisb688

Frog Prince-Keane

2007-04-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

An old fairytale told me
The simple heart will be prized again
A toad will be our king
And ugly ogres are heroes

Then you'll shake
Your fist at the sky
"Oh why did I rely
On fashions and small fry?"

All promises broken
Feed your people or lose your throne
And forfeit your whole kingdom
I'd sooner lose it than still live in it alone

You were our golden child
But the gentle and the mild
Inherit the earth, while

Your prince's crown
Cracks and falls down
Your castle hollow and cold
You've wandered so far
From the person you are
Let go brother, let go
Cos now we all know

Soon, someone will put a spell on you
Perfume, treasure, sorcery, every trick they know
You will lie in a deep sleep
That's when

Your prince's crown
Cracks and falls down
Your castle hollow and cold
You've wandered so far
From the person you are
Let go brother, let go
Cos now we all know

Children of Men and revolutions

2007-04-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

Starting point: See title. In my opinion, its one of the best movies that I've seen in that genre in a long time.
Song: Schuberts "Death and the Maiden" 2
Does anyone else want a revolution?
I find that I always want that edgy secretive, estatic lurking that goes on with the revolutionaries. They have that fire, that self-destructive life consuming drive to see their ends achieved that I feel is so lacking. Maybe this is just my subconsious telling me that I need to get out of the midwest. Maybe its telling me that I need to find a reason for wanting to fight for something. I want passwords and late nights and dirt and sneaking through the streets and symbols and missions and all that goes with a revolution. Of course, my romantic notions leave out certain death, unjustice, and a rebellion usually being worse than the orginal problem.

Given our current complacency, its no wonder we we ignore the revolution sitting in front of us: Christianity. It has all the good things listed above, but we ignore it because the revolution is quietly dying away.
I suppose I should find the battle front, but I'm attracted to the ones with voilence, and Christianity is a battle of faith, not of weapons.

Sigh

Perhaps this is my favorite poem

2007-04-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Into My Own
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm thy scarcely show the breeze
Were not as ‘twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal way,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew
Only more sure of all I though was true.

-R. Frost

What we want

2007-04-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

We want truth
and we want to apply
that which we learn
beyond the academic

We want to live peace
but yet enough strife
so that we can claim we actually live

A sense of accomplishment
a feeling of belonging
a hope for the future
being content with the past
satisfied with the present

A chance to be more
for we waste our lives
A chance to claim some small hope
having a small part of it
in some good thing
that we had something to do

To give
to sacrifice everything
to gain even more beyond
the scope of our sight

We want a life beyond life
a earth beyond earth
a realization of the wonder
of the small part we play

All that is now will become dust
our hopes shadows
our achievments forgotten
if we forget the eternal
if we forget God
who is beyond eternal

What then shall be said of man
and his trivial life?
That his hope is in God
and his life not lived until he died

a house fit for me

2007-04-04T18:19:00.001-07:00

If I would have designed a house when I was 12

it wouldn't be anything like this concrete block cell I'm in now

A proper house for a mysterious gentleman such as myself

should be old and creeky in all the right places

full of hidaways and closets and odd nooks and crannies

with pantry doors that were really safes

and trapdoors under carpets

and their should be wiskey for me to drink

because its what mysterious gentlemen such as myself drink

and there should be fireplace, big enough to roast a pig

make that two pigs

and the fireplace should turn to reveal a secret lair

for me to hide the booty I stole from pirates when I was researching

my book on the living dead of the Sahara who will eat the soul

of any unfortunate wretch who wanders within sight of their hidden lair.

(which is only slightly less spooky than my underground lair, but just)

And my house would have hallways within hallways

tangled like a witch's hair

so treacherous that a person unguided by me

would never come out again.

And there'd be ghosts

but friendly ghosts

the sort that like birthdays, and helping me scare my sister.

Yeah, that'd be my house, and you'd all come

if you weren't too scared

Let us whisper, you and I

2007-03-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today would be very dreary, if were not for the hordes of songbirds gossiping outside my window.

I looked at my blog from last year when i had just returned from the monestary. Unfortunatly, it appears as though I learned the exact same things, and that i will forget them in about a month. Rather depressing.

I was reminded again today of the smallness of our lives. I have a feeling that I will laugh when I look back at the way that I fret about my life now. We forget our hope in eternity, and how that can change the meaning of everything we do.

Vade retro Satana!/Where my beeps at?/Someone backwashed in the communal wine

2007-03-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

Basically, that right there is a summery of my week at the monestary.
It was good, and more than just the "I enjoyed it" kind, because a week at the monestary seems to bring up odd, ugly things, and that can be hard, because there is absolutly nothing to distract you from them.

So, here is le schedule of a regular day at the monestary

6:30 am: wake up, shower
7:00: Morning prayers. Takes about a half hour, consists of responsive readings of psalms( they go through all 151 of them every week, which is impressive), some chants, a responsive prayer
7:30: breakfast
after 7:30: read bible( I impressed myself, I read Luke, Job, 1,2 Peter, 1,2,3 John, Jude, Ephesians, Galations, Ecclesiasties and a good chunk of psalms), read fun book (poetry mostly), and write in an (futile) attempt to get my thoughts straight.
12:00: Midday prayers, similar version of morning, though shorter
12:30: Dinner, which is cool because of the presence of monk bread, which kicks all other breads in whatever part of bread that one kicks.
1:00: Wander. probably the best part of the day. I went on walks to a chapel that is about a mile or so in the woods,(an excellent place to pray). During this time, i found out that the monestary is sponsering the first hand written bible since the 1500s, which is uber cool.
5:00: Mass. Slightly stressful the first time, because they do it very differently, and if you screw up, you burn
6:00-7:00 eat/read
7:00 Evening prayers
9:00 Compline, which is basically a prayer for a good nights rest, so that we might wake strengthened to serve. I wanted to steal the prayer book for that, but it would be frowned upon.
10:00 bed (this means that unlike most of all ya'alls, I'll return from spring break rested)

And that is a very paltry summery of everything. But I am too lazy and too inept to type everything, so you'll just have to find me and I'll spew stories about how we screwed up Compline so bad that no one showed up the next night. (thats twisting the facts a bit, but it did happen)

The Book of Monastic life

2007-03-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

Just so we are all clear on this, Rainer Maria Rilke is awesome

This is something that I found in The Book of Hours by said poet of awesomeness.

Dear darkening ground,
you've endured so patiently the walls we've built,
perhaps you'll give the cites on more hour

and grant the churhes and cloisters two.
And those that labor-will you let their work
grip them another five hours, or seven,

before you become forest again, and water, and widening
wilderness
in that hour of inconcievable terror
when you take back your name
from all things.

Just give me a little more time!
I want to love the things
as no one has thought to love them,
until they're worthy of you and real.

I want only seven days, seven
on which no one has ever written himself-
seven pages of solitude.

There will be a book that includes these pages
and the one who takes it in his hands
will long sit staring at it,
until he feels you holding him
and writing though him

I was thinking that I would like to have a book worthy of that last stanza, but we will have to see how that goes.

anyhow, I hope all ya'alls have a good and safe break

Morning ugly!

2007-03-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

For your poetic pleasure, I revisited the crotchey old 12 year old/bossy grandfather poetic voice for this monstrosity

They say spring is warm
but that puddle in the ditch turned my toes blue
I heard that spring brings life
but that cat that got plastered in December is still there
and still dead
Where's the explosion of singing flowers
and mascaraed bunnies pirouetting on some meadow?
All I see is a crow cackeling lecherously about the cat he just found
And wasn't spring supposed to smell nice
I smell frozen crap getting smooshy and smelly
and that stupid cat going gamey

Whenever people tell me about spring, you see their eyes go happy
talking about sunshine and health and green pastures
Well, its cloudy, and muddy and cold
I've been cheated
I want a new spring
and this one better not have a rotten cat
or I might just stay inside till summer

Welcome, Brother

2007-03-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

Went to jail again last night. We witnessed a man getting fully immeresed in baptism for the first time. i've never really seen a church go that nuts over something that mattered. I finally felt, and gave vent to, a desire to cry "Amen!" with my brothers. Chris, who was the one who got baptized (the first for this jail church) just about split his face from smiling. When he came back from the baptistry, he couldn't sit down for a bit because everyone he walked past had to embrace and congradulate him. I hope that when these men get out that they won't walk into a chucht hat rejects them because of their past, for that would be one of the saddest things I've every heard of.
Tim and I were talking about how this is one of the best churches that we've ever been to. There is a flawless community in that place, and an air of a brutally honest faith. These men are there because they want to, they are in the minority in their jailhouse world, and so there is no room for a half-hearted faith.

I guess it's just uplifiting to see such a fellowship of belivers again

in the jailhouse now

2007-02-24T20:46:00.000-08:00

Spent a good portion of last night in the SD state penitentiary. That was a most excellent of times. The worship there was very honest, at least i think. I don't know if any of those men were there just out of habit, it seemed to brutally straightforward to be hypocrisy. I was remeinded of the monestary that I was at last spring break. In both the prison and the monestary there is this feeling of the outsider coming to worship with the insider, but when we come before the Lord, there is only the Church, and where we go after has no bearing on who we are before God, and I think that that unity is what a chrisitian community can and should be. I think that things like this are the reason why I came to Dordt, not to learn at the college, but so that I would have the chances to do these tremendously important things that I wouldn't have otherwise. We have good brothers and sisters on the other side of the walls. Don't forget about them, they serve and are loved by the same God who bled for you.

and now, something we all can enjoy

2007-02-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

we had to write a poem on an apple

see here stupid, you can't just eat any apple right off the tree
who knows what you might bite inta
you've gotta pick a good one
the best one

I don't care if you have to climb until the branches bend over backwards
you find the best, the reddest juiciest apple on that tree

go ahead, circle round the tree, scout out the one that shines
make sure its perfect before you pick it, because if you pick it
you've got to eat it

Once you pick out the best one
look it over real good
squeeze it, find the bruises
But hey! not so tight you make new ones
find the scratches so that you don't bite into one
No, I don't think their poisonous, just don't do it
Because it feels funny, that’s why

Now shine it good and bright so you can see your face in it
Like this see, on your knee

At least pick a spot on your jeans that isn't dirty,
you're gonna be eating that.
Cripes man, you'd eat dirt if I told you it was food

Yeah, now you can eat it, just don't take such a big bite you choke
Then I'd have to drag your sorry butt the whole way home
we all know how well that'd go over

and such

2007-02-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

the weekend in Rochester was good, and I learned alot, though most of it came by ways not originally in the plan. For example, thursday we went to a bar to have a drink, and we met this christian who had "fallen from the path" as he said. The depressing part came when we found out that he hadn't always been this way. He had started out as a bit of a drug addict, then converted and gotten his life turned around. He did some mission work in africa, but when he came back, something set him off and he went back to drinking and smoking and heroin. Now he's got it back down to just drinking, but its a thursday night, and this guy is completly smashed. When he was at his more lucid, he would finish verses in converstation, and you could tell that this was a man who had spent a considerable time around the Bible, but he had no church, no community, nothing to keep him from his own devices, which were not helping anything. His name was David, not sure if that means anything
Thats all I can write for now

long lost brother

2007-02-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Somehow, the strangest thing about living is how to understand "ok". What is ok, anyhow? I drift through these days that are not really notworthy sometimes, and then things are just ok, but I can't remember anything. Its hard to know if I should wish for something bad to mark the passage of time.
You know what's scary? Waking up some morning and realizing that the last years of your life could have been better than good, they could have extraordinary, they could have been memorable, they could have been the days that people would recall, that you could say that you did everything you could, that you made good use of your loan of life, but they weren't. I fear that, I fear knowing that things could have been better, and they were'nt because I didn't make the effort to be something more.

Still, can I even say that? I've got nothing to complain about, I've certainly got more than I deserve. Maybe I need something to fight against.

my soul

2007-01-24T20:26:00.000-08:00

is black
is white
is grey
it is evil
it is broken
it is cursed
it is chained
it is eating me
it is a result of my actions
it is a demon
it is a hypocrit
it is almost a saint
it is never good
it is mine
it defies me
it can do the unimaginable
it commits the unthinkable
i am its slave
i am nothing without it
it is nothing without me
all is born
all is dying
no rest for the wicked and rightous
it makes me all things so that i become nothing

oh yeah, that

2007-01-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

while I was digging out my jeep, I was humming this song, its called "Highway 95" by David Francey. I think it was stuck in my head simply from irony

Three crosses in a copse of trees
A long way from Calvary
Kiltered in the southern breeze
In Northern Carolina

Words of God are advertised
High above in an empty sky
I feel sad and I don't know why
In Northern Carolina

Driving down the 95
Left winter far behind
And it might rain but I don't mind
'Cause I've got the window down

Woman in the Welcome House
She's a flower of the South
Words are jewels in her mouth
In Northern Carolina

Had the Southland on my mind
Crossed the Mason-Dixon Line
I'm a long way from my kind
In Northern Carolina

Driving down the 95
Left winter far behind
And it might rain but I don't mind
'Cause I've got the window down

Three crosses in a copse of trees
A long way from Calvary
Kiltered in the Southern breeze
In Northern Carolina

For better lack of a story

2007-01-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

...I put myself in a position to create one.
Sooooo...
Last night, Kirbee and I were traveling back from Sioux Falls. Being the types that we are, we decided that it would be a more entertaining drive if we made up our own route back. So I took the first road that I saw that was heading east, and it happened to be a very nice gravel road. This very nice gravel road turned into a B level maintainence road, which was all bumpy and narrow and sometimes almost barely a road
That was fun, we said.
Forced by the irregularities in rural gravel raods to once again turn south and pass through rock rapids(valley?) We once again took the first eastbound dirt road. That was fun for about another 5 miles, when we saw appraoching the happy sign announcing that out raod was turning into another B level maintainence road. As we were merrily approaching, we saw snow on the road. No big deal, I threw my trusty Jeep into four wheel drive and dropped into some old tracks, tracks I assumed would cover the length of the snow patch.
Wrong.
The vehicle that had attempted to ford this drift had a slightly higher clearance than me, meaning that my jeep began to lose momentum only when the snow started to lift my jeep off of the ground.
yeah, we were stuck, and stuck good.
The snow was drifted hardpack, enough so that I could stand on top of it. So I spent the next half hour or so using my wonderfully handy army issue folding shovel, and proceded to remove all the snow that was holding up my jeep. We made a few attempts, and just as we were starting to think that i might need to call for a little assisstaince, we dislodged my jeep.
hoozah and such.

So, moral of the story: attempting to break through an unplowed road is often

foolish

here we go again

2007-01-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

yay people!
yay babies!
yay for the vauge scent of obliterating amounts of homework in the air!
huzzah and such

going home has messed me up. No joke, its true. I feel all guilty now because I'm not working non-stop from the moment that I wake up, and then I feel on edge because I'm supposed be social, when I've gottne reaccustomed to being on my own most of the time. Its rather sickening, since I'm trying to relax, but for now, its just not working so well, so sorry for my behavior, if you happen to be one of those people who happens to notice those things.
Do you ever start out the new semester thinking that this will be the semester that you finally take your academic work out of the normal, and start doing things that people will remember you for? I keep thinking that at some point I'll start doing really, really excellent work, that at some point I'll actually be able to write. But it never happens. Short of some rare radiation striking me in the brain and turning me into the stephen hawking of british literature, I'm on my own on this one.
good morning to all

2007-01-08T17:39:00.001-08:00

If phil does it, it must be cool

B-A-S-I-C-S-

x What is your first name?: Nathan
x What is your middle name?:Lee

-L-O-O-K- -A-T- -M-E-
x What is your natural hair color?: brown, shades variet upon season
x What is your current hair color?: " " " " "
x What color are your eyes?: Brown, very brown
x Piercings?: well, there was this one time I jabbed a hypodermice needle through my thumb
x Tattoos?: nothing, nothing absolutly nothing
x Long or Short Hair?: I have short hair, or I have bushy hair. Long doesn't happen, it just keeps growing in whatever bloody direction it chooses
x Straight or Curly?: straight ( I wish)
x How tall are you?: somwhere in the >than six ft
x What is your shoe size?: 13-15esque

-C-U-R-R-E-N-T-L-Y- -W-E-A-R-I-N-G-
x What shirt are you wearing?: white cut-off, complete with one of a kind oil stains
x What kind of pants are you wearing?: BDUs!
x Necklaces?: one orthadox cross, one homemade one that weighs about a pound
x Bracelets?: nope
x Mascara?: dirt?
x Eyeliner?: only never
x Any other make up?: no, sorry

-T-H-I-S- -O-R- -T-H-A-T-

x Rock or Rap?: classical!
x Coffee or Hot Cocoa?: coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee
x Hummer or Sports Car?: Opel GT, and you all should do an image search for this one
x Bracelet or Necklace: Necklace
x Pink or Purple?: plead the fifth
x Science or History?: how about history and science?
x Sleep in or Early to rise?: i guess i'm a sleeper
x Beach or Boardwalk?: how about we skip the people places and go ramble out in the sticks?
x Hoodie or Tee Shirt?: Hoodie (hodie?)
x Night Or Day?: Night (werewolf)
x Boxers or Briefs?: who's idea was it to discuss underwear? furthermore, what kind of person wears boxers AND eyeliner? this survery is failing at being unisex
x High School or College?: College, because then I could find lots of people who were just as weird as me
x Jeans or Capris?: see what I mean? who wears capris, eyeliner and boxers?!
x Love or Fun?: this is another weird one
x California or Florida?: California, can't stand the people infested swamplands
x Simple Plan or Good Charlotte?: what sort of a question is this, really?
x Babe or Baby?: For a kid, or a girl? mmmmm, baby (its the other other white meat)

-H-A-V-E- -Y-O-U- -E-V-E-R-

x Kissed the same Sex?: (awkward)
x Hugged someone?: sure
x Been on the phone until the sun came up?: I was on the phone when the sun came up
x Put a song on repeat for more than 2 hours? only when I walk out of the room and forget to turn it off
x Gone Skinny dipping?: hehehe
x Flashed anyone?: with my headlights
x Got chased by the cops?: only when I play paintball with them on sundays
x Got detention?: nope, I was one of the kids who found it too inconvient to get in trouble.
x Went to Juvy?: not so far, I guess my chances of getting that have kinda disappeared
x Went streaking?: I'm just so streaking fast...
x Crashed a party?: not so much
x Slept past 4 in the afternoon?: I don't think that I'm that nocturnal
x Dumped someone?: yep
x Got Dumped?: yep
x Rejected someone?: more or less
x Skipped a class?: more or less

-T-H-E- -L-A-S-T-

x Person you talked to in person?: baby jesus
x Person you talked to online?: that would be an eryn seinin
x Thing you drank?: milk
x Thing you laughed at?: younger brother travis and his conversation killer skills
x Person you kissed?:
x Person that kissed you? that would be patty, who is one of kirbee's horses, and I was a bit surprised by that one
x Person you told you loved them? can you feel the electronic love? neither can I

-R-A-N-D-O-M-

x Do you like surveys?: no
x What kind of shampoo do you use?:blue
x Have you ever been on the phone over 2 hours?: es posible
x How long were you on the phone?: a time, in a place, in a world, in a world before time
x Are you scared of what life will be like in 10 years?: I'm scared of tommorow
x Do you get along with your parents?: mas o menos

wow, I always think what a waste of time these things are, yet I keep coming back for more

"Oh what tangled webs we weave when we practice deception, and charlotte dies, but wilbur lives on forever"

2007-01-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

March in January! Or Is It Mayday?
It's Nice Out There, But Global Warming Dampens the Fun
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2007; D01

Never has good weather felt so bad. Never have flowers inspired so much fear. Never has the warm caress of a sunbeam seemed so ominous. The weather is sublime, it's glorious, it's the end of the world.

January is the new March. The daffodils are busting out everywhere. It's porch weather. Put on a T-shirt and shorts, fire up the grill, blast "Rastaman Vibration" into the back yard. Everyone out for volleyball! The normal high for this time of year is 43 degrees; yesterday's high at Reagan National was a record-breaking 73. And yet it's all a guilty pleasure. Weather is both a physical and a psychological phenomenon. Meteorology, meet eschatology. We've read the articles, we've seen the Gore movie, we've calculated our carbon footprint, and we're just not intellectually capable anymore of fully enjoying warm winter weather. Just ain't right. Ain't natural. Cherry blossoms during the NFL playoffs? Run for your lives.

"Amazing, but it makes me think we might not be here too much longer, because of global warming," said Laura Ingoldsby, a grad student getting ready for a jog on the towpath at Fletcher's Boathouse.

"I think it's a bit scary. It's too warm," said Ellie Motazedi of Bethesda as she paused during a bike ride.

"Days like this, I worry about global warming, and we're not doing anything about it," said Coby Dolan, an attorney basking in the sunshine on the porch of the clubhouse at the Hains Point golf course. Let the record reflect that he did not appear to be suffering.

At the U.S. National Arboretum, horticulturist Scott Aker has been keeping an eye on a Magnolia zenii: "The buds are ready to pop." They mow the meadows in winter when the ground freezes solid, but it's still soft out there. Last year's petunias are still going strong in Aker's yard -- and there's no serious winter in sight.

Bulletin: A Washington Post editor nearly drove into a black bear Friday night in Prince William County. Official word from the authorities: "Oh yeah, it's so warm, they can't hibernate."

Bulletin: British scientists say there is a 60 percent chance that 2007 will be the warmest year on record.

Bulletin: Ski resorts are struggling to open in the Alps.

Bulletin: Palm trees are growing around a tiki bar in Antarctica.

So maybe we made up the last one. Still, we don't need anyone to tell us that some computer model in some climatologist's office is showing that a doubling of atmospheric carbon will lead over the next century to approximately 3 degrees Celsius warming in the average surface temperature of the planet, etc. Because we've been outside. We can detect climate change epidermically.

What if those climate models are wrong, because they're insufficiently dire? Everyone's suddenly shifting from models to observations. Look: Big ice shelf breaking off an Arctic island. Look: Greenland melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

Listen: Scary quotes from experts.

"Is it really a broadly based area that's seeing particular change? The answer is yes," says Ted Scambos, a glaciologist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "From Europe, the East Coast, north to the Arctic and across to Siberia, there's a very large swath of the Northern Hemisphere for the months of September, October and November that [were] exceedingly warm . . . "

So it's bad. Except for one thing. What you might call, at the moment, the Denver factor.

Denver got four feet of snow in December. The third big storm blew in Friday. Snowdrifts of 10 feet! An automobile-snuffing avalanche in a mountain pass west of town! In Denver, January is still January.

Because what we are experiencing and what Denver is experiencing are both part of a thing called weather, not climate. Climate change is real, but it's a background phenomenon, the cicada-song white noise on the horror-movie soundtrack, distinct from the thuds and screams and moans of specific weather events.

"It's very dangerous to blame climate for weather," says Richard Alley, a professor of geosciences at Penn State University.

But he doesn't let climate change off the hook when discussing our warm winter.

"No, we didn't cause it, but we made it more likely," he concludes. It's like rolling loaded dice in a craps game.

But Dennis Feltgen, a National Weather Service meteorologist, says climate change isn't the culprit. It's El Ni?o. Warm water in the tropical Pacific, changed wind patterns, lots of balmy air blowing our way from the southern United States.

"We're in an El Ni?o, which has absolutely nothing to do with global warming," Feltgen says. "It keeps a lot of the cold air locked up in Canada, and makes the West Coast of the United States stormy, which we've seen, and makes the southern one-third of the country wetter than normal."

And for some, El Ni?o is dandy.

"Keeps the hurricanes away and the cold winter away. I'm all for it," said Colin Offner, golfing happily at Hains Point.

Bulletin: Cooler weather is imminent. The weather will be almost normal, briefly, before all hell breaks loose again.

(ed: giggle)

of masterpieces of art and piston rings

2007-01-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

Yet another venture into the wide world for your ever loyal potbag

pre-thursday: farm stuff, chores, mud, manure, and shooting cattle with straw. (highly amusing, its like giving a little brother a facewash with snow, except you're using a tractor and a bale of straw, and you don't get in trouble for it)
thursday: drove to kirbee and family's home (yeah, i've been doing that alot, and I have an excuse because on .....
Friday: went to Minneapolis institute of art (MIA) to see a guest exhibit. It had a delightlful collection of really high quality art from portions of the renaissainse and such. It was a good time, not to mention getting to run around in the rest of the museum, which is just plain cool. The collections are from a wide variety of eras, but mostly pre-modern pieces. I'm allright with this. We returned to the tagney home, then went to nearby litchfield to eat at a local chinese type place and watch "The pursuit of happyness." Thats probably the best movie that I've seen since "The Prestige", which I guess isn't saying much, since about the only new movie that I've seen between those is eragon, which gets a C from me.
Saturday (that being the day which is today for another 3 hours 2 minutes) Returned home, which was more than its usual amount of entertaining due to an attempt to pass that was foiled when I realized the approaching car was going way faster than anticipated.
Finally got in some decent time working on the 450. We replaced all four of the cylinder sleeves, and put the pistons back in, and got to try out my dads new torque wrench. (tools, tasty) Worked getting some old bolts out of the exhaust manifold out. This involves a trick of my fathers. (hjon, you'll love this) We took the acetelyne torch with the rosebud attachment (its like the uber torch, it creates so much fire you can feel it press back in your hand, al la saturn V, in a handheld version) We heated up the manifold till it was red hot, which causes it to expand, but tried no to get the bolt any hotter than we could. This still meant that the bolt was glowing red, but it was a cooler red than the manifold. This means that the bolt is loose in the hole, and comes out(relativly) easy. The kicker is that the manifold is a big peice of metal, and was still noticble warm to the touch half an hour later.
and thats about it
I apologize for the typos, the new blogger's speelchecker doesn't work with macs

Losing Hope-Jack Johnson

2007-01-01T20:21:00.001-08:00

I got a faulty parachute
I got a stranger's friend
An exciting change in
My butchers blend
A symbol on the ceiling
With the flick of a switch
My new found hero
In the enemy's ditching

Well somebody's something was left in the room
And man, now that its gone well of course we assume
That somebody else needed something so bad
That they took everything that somebody had

Losing hope is easy
When your only friend is gone
And every time you look around
Well, it all, it all just seems to change

The mark was left
Man it's never the same
Next time that you shoot
Make sure that you aim
Open windows with passing cars
A brand new night
With the same old stars

Losing hope is easy
When your only friend is gone
And every time you look around
Well, it all, it all just seems to change

Feed the fool
A piece of the pie
Make a fool of his system
Make a fool of his mind
Give him bottles of lies
And maybe he'll find
His place in heaven
Cause he might just die

Losing hope is easy
When your only friend is gone
And every time you look around
Well, it all, it all just seems to change
But hanging on is easy
When you've got a friend to call
When nothings making sense at all
You're not the only one that's afraid of change

So this is the New year

2006-12-31T22:58:00.000-08:00

and I don't feel any different

Its easy to be very depressing on a day such as this. Every year, I see old friendship slowly fading away, little by little the joy we had in high school is seeping away. Some things remain, many things are lost. Now we begin to understand the temporality of many things.

Yet I have high hopes for this year, many good things will come, hopefully some bad things will change for the better. Hopefully some dreams will become realized.

Goodmorning, I hope to see you all soon

I lied

2006-12-31T15:29:00.000-08:00

That's correct, I lied.
To kirbee no less
(I can hear you all gasping now)
The Man who was Thursday (see last post) was bought for her, right in front of her. mwahahhaha. I got an elbow in the side for that one, but it was a happy elbow in the side.

Concerning the story connected with last post's title.
We (being the tagney family and your ever loyal potbag) we're discussing tattoos and there recipients. Kirbee was delightfully deriding the entire endeavor, while I was of the more sarcastically supportive side. Kirbee began impersonating a hypothetical tattooed person, and in doing so, lowered her voice to bearded leather clad biker levels. I simply observed that "apparently, getting a tattoo lowers your voice." It was at this point that I received a (perhaps deserved) elbow to the kidney. If ever I'm eaten by a cannibal, I do hope that he observes what a mellow tenderness that my kidneys possess. If I'm still talking at this point, I will humbly explain that it is all due to the good-natured physical abuse leveled upon me by my girlfriend. I think that would be a nice conversation to have at some point in time.

The north wind is howling around my windows. I missed that sound. It makes one want to wander outside, or stay up all night writing.

Apparently, getting a tatoo lowers your voice

2006-12-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

This may or may not be true, but getting a cold sure does, and it sucks because Chistmas has such wonderful songs, and if you can't hold pitch, its no fun

Anyhow, a report from your ever loyal potbag

Fri: Played floor hockey at 7 am (thats right, first full day of vacation, and I'm up before 7) General farmish stuff. Worked on 450, although half of the tractor is still on the floor. Tractor Damage report: cracked head, cracked valve seats two cracked sleeves, one pitted piston, carb and fuel injectors both in need of rebuilding and tuning. (If this thing wasn't a bit of a rarity, we'd sell it for scrap, b/c the entire tractor is pretty much busted.
Christmas with immediate family, wished that snow from denver would have hit us instead. Happy with response from Kirbee concerning her present.

Sat: Nykamp extended family brunch. Good time, got to introduce Kirbee to the entire family, which was nice. its a fairly small family, but rather ecclectic in jobs and such, so conversation ranged from the 450 to illegal immigrant medicare policy. (apparently, the cost to Los angles for giving healthcare to illegals is in the hundreds of millions)
Drove to Kirbee's house. Realized that I was sick, and that playing floor hockey had made my back very, very unhappy, felt and sounded like old man.

Sun: Chuch with tagney family, watched Kirbee play in the christmas service. (she makes me smile) Ate a supper of entrees

Mon: Opened gifts with tagney family. Got a black fountian pen that is nothing short of stellar fromKirbee. The thing weighs feels like it is made of solid metal, very happy with that one. Spent rest of day in vegatative state. Watched various movies, read, and fed horses. (that was mainly ate my request, because the horses are just about the most enjoyable animals I know to feed)

Tues: Went into st cloud with kirbee, bought "The Man who was Thursday." by G.K. Chesterton, one of my all time favorite books, and you all should read it. Now. Ate at Olive Garden for the first time, and was satisfiably stuffed. Said goodbye to Kirbee and family and drove back home.

Weds: sold pigs, built some shelf mounts, put heater-housing on 966. found out that cattle will not walk over an electric fence wire that's six inches off the ground. (although I'm pretty sure they would run right over it, so its only good for temporarily keeping them from walking through an open gate. ) Finaly began to clean up the disastor that is my room. Resolved to write some poetry this break. Bored you all to tears.

Happy new years to all. s

When will I meet my end

2006-12-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Somewhere along the line I lost my momentum. I wish that I could have been able to say that all I had this week were exams, but sigh, such is not the case. This means much less fun for what could have been the easiest week of the year. On the other hand, the ten pager can be on any topic I want. This is good, except all my topics suck, and only good enough for about four pages 10-4=not good enough.

Went to the christmas show at CC, that was highly entertaining, although I think that I spent more time laughing at Kirbee laugh than watching whatever it was that Kirbee was laughing at. Meh, it was a good time.

Today, my father requested that I send him the final copy of my philosophical anthropology paper. (the ten pager that I've been whining about). Gulp. Not sure if this is a good thing, or it'll get me thrown out of the family. I wonder how I can talk to my father sometimes, the worlds that we are a part of can be so different. I'd say that he's got the better end, he does things that are physically notable, while I can work for days, and no one can tell any different. But its becoming harder and harder to relate

everything I learn takes me further from home.

Spring! (?)

2006-12-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

honestly, I need to find whoever makes this weather and give them a stern talking too. Everyoneknows that December is miserable, and that is why we have holidays in them, so that we feel less uber cranky.

Hasn't stopped me though, seems like I can get anything done lately without feeling obliteratingly exhausted. Per request of some odd people

When the cities are buried in fog
How will we sail by the sun?
When the nightimes storms bank over
What star will still shine?

Where is peace like a river
to attendeth my way?
When sorrows of the sea rise
what anchor will I find?

There is hope only in blindness
In depression is true joy found
No peace without turmoil
In our deafness will God resound

(this is actually a strange mashing of about four different poems in about as many days. Just goes to show that I get stuck in four line patterns)

consider

2006-12-12T20:58:00.000-08:00

What do you see in yourself?

Do you think you see the same as others?

Are you blind to yourself?

Do you feel?

What is your goal?

What do you really want?

Are you motivated beyond yourself?

Who dies, you? someone else?

Can you give of yourself as you hope to be given to?

What do you fear?

Can anyone know you?

Are you fully known to yourself?

Shift the load

2006-12-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

To whom has the arm of the lord been revealed, that man may know his purpose? life is glass on bare feet. People are fragments unbroken from a common mold that truth may slip past the edges of the father who knows all but tells nothing. No card in any deck trumps death on the mind. But peace flows like a river, but no river is ever the same and no water clear once you step in it to cool your feet but poision the innocence of the children whos parents knew know knowning of knowledge now nought but fraught with the plauge of teh unrightious who see lose in victory over insubstantial smoke and mirrors of breathing again, once more

2006-12-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

anger is fueled by the soul

when the fire burns out, nothing is left

We must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine-G.K. Chesterton

2006-12-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

I want a old typwriter for chrismas

that is all

Jars of Clay-God will lift up your head

2006-11-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

Give to the wind your fear
Hope and be undismayed
God hears your sighs and counts your tears
God will lift up
God will lift up
Lift up your head

(Chorus:)
God will lift up your head
God will lift up your head
God will lift up your head
He will lift up, lift up your head

Leave to His sovereign way
To choose and to command
Then shall we wandering on His way
Know how wise and how strong
How wise and how strong

(Chorus)

Through waves and clouds and storms,
He gently clears the way
Wait because in His time, so shall this night
Soon end in joy,
Soon end in joy
Soon end in joy,
Soon end in joy.

Thanksgave pt 2

2006-11-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

Not much has happened except
Sunday: Tried to have Kirbee and I's respective parents meet. Failed miserably due to a molotovianesque combination of poor communication and diabolically poor roads. Ended up having to pick up Kirbee in Pipestone from parents, had a remarkable swell ride home.
Today: Decided to go as fast as possible on slick roads. Testement to my mad driving skills was made when Kirbee didn't notice till i pointed it out.
Freaked out mother when she found out that we got back in the usual time amout(evil cackle)
Meet people of various sorts. Finally had a chance to use camo scarf of awesomeness that is so awesome that it took the combined awesomeness of Laura H and Eryn(we don't need a last name initial, how many Eryns do you know?) and two skeins of camo-ish yarn to complete it in all its camo-awesome glory. (huzzah, I have contibuted to the watering down of the english language, therby making my job as a writer completly impossible)

Enough of that

Thanksgave pt 1

2006-11-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

Update time
Tuesday: Watched new james bond movie, gets a 6. Drove home, slep
Wendsday: did various stuffs around farm, Kirbee went shopping with my mom, who I think just loves the fact that she has another female to hang around with. Drove to Kirbee's house, only got misdirected once. Caught head cold that made me rather unhappy, though I think that I hide it reasonably well.
Thursday: Rode horses with Kirbee and her mother, felt old and very sore afterwards. Shot clay pigeons with Father and Bother Tagney and family friends the Andersons. Then ate thanksgiving dinner where we railed on movies and debated the potential alchoholic qualities of the perhaps slighty fermented with age non-alchoholic fizzy cider. Also winced when head cold got cranky due to shreaking crystal glasses. Also drooled over the Anderson's collection of unique firearms, played various fast and/or violent games with Kirbee's brother and friends. Did my best to impress. Succeded ( I think)
Friday: Drove home, sped like a maniac and made excellent time. Sighted in muzzeloader, found that it shot worse as it got dirtyier. Decided that it would be best to shoot deer on the first shot in order to be garenteed accuracy. Went to sioux falls with family, got fitted for a suit, and hung out. Decided to come up with a good reason to own a handgun...Failed.
Saterday: Went hunting with brothers and father. Shot at doe, missed. Got overshot by uncle, and was very thankful that I had hid behind a dirt mound. Watched in frustration as a nice buck and doe happily watched me from 150 yrds in a postition where I could not sneak on them.
Now: Decided that past tense passive voice is tiring to write, and must be downright aggrivating for you to read. Decided to Laugh. Failed.
Will see Kirbee again tommorow. Decided to smile. Succeded.

To do the right thing

2006-11-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

Tonights original plan
Go to concert
Work off tail on paper

Tonights actual events
Take up extra shift for another person who had a meeting mid shift, meaning that I will not go to the concert, and I will get less of the paper done, meaning that I will probably get a poorer grade in a class that needs my full attention.

Explain to me why I did this.

Actually, I know exactly why.
but I won't say it

-----

On the plus side, I wrote most of my paper while I was taking a nap

stupid global warming

2006-11-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

I hate happy weather

giggle

We could have three feet of snow tommrow and I would be a happy man. Or like a four day blizzard would been good too.

Anyhow.
Got to hang out with Kirbee's 'rents yesterday, they're cool people.

Dengler threw a five pager at us. I should be doing that now instead of this, but I'm an idiot, so I won't.
sigh
Does anybody need a tree whacked down? I really miss having an excuse to play with my ax, like really. Maybe I just need to excercise more, or eat fewer peanuts, or something.
I should scram

For once I want to be the car crash

2006-11-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

There is a hallway
lined with doors
this old metaphore we've all seen before

To make a choice
to pick a prize
to pay the price

why is the door to rage so easy to find, and the door to peace always locked

why is it that this emotion, so true 4 hours ago, so far from the truth now?

I want so much to open your eyes cause I need you to look into mine

2006-10-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

How empty can you feel before you simply cease?
How long can you echo inside your self before the walls that held now simply fade, and the gated darkness becomes a lightless wilderness?

It was a bad morning, and as I saw the results of my half-ass labor recieve what was there due I felt the false hopes that I had drain out like the most fine of sand.

Be thankfull for cold, it makes one draw up into oneself so that at least the emptyness feels warm

Would you just PLEASE bury me with it

2006-10-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today is a day
today is a bad day
today is a good day
today is a homework day
today is a easy day
today sucks
today rocked
everything is good and bad and burnt and fresh and born again in the grave before the closing of the door upon the imprisnment that we call land upon the hills burn the hills and set fire to the sky and destroy the evil and sign a treaty with the sinners and kill the love so that the innocent may die better upon altars cast in the bones of your sins everything buildin and building until the realisation and the letdown and the dissapointment and frustration of the stupiedities of the self and nothing is nihil is nothing is strengh is valere is death is life

Its already turned loose
Its already coming
It can't be called back

The Red, it filters through

2006-10-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yay monday!

Actually, its not half bad, the weather is charmingly crisp, and all that huzzah.

Went to see my littlest brother in a one act version of Shakespeare's "A comedy of errors." Pretty much the coolest play that I've seen the little shafer crank out. Sad part was that I was perhaps one of 12 people who understodd everything that was said.
But thats understandable, reading the Faerie Queen in brit lit has been screwing my english all the way up, today I said "...to see what woeful penance awaits you..." without even planning it.
I though it was clever, than again, i also think that raw potatoes taste good, and apparently that puts me in the freak list, so....
The harpischord concert/dedication was a wonderful demostration of a rather underappreciated instument. I liked it, and all you peoples should have come, but you didn't, so you fail. I'm sure that you all had your excuses, flimsy and transparent though they be, and your punishment for your fauly unattendance shall be swift, as soon as I cease to be a lazy bag of hot air.

Oh, and Rainier Marie Rilke is about the greatest bi-lingual poet ever, and you all should know it, and read it. "Ahead of all Parting" is a good place to start.

Jack Johnson-Middle Man

2006-10-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

Well he's not necessarily trying to say that he minds it
But someone plays evil tricks on that kid
Well he's not necessarily trying to say god can't be trusted
But someone plays evil tricks on that kid
And certain situations scream for deviations
But somehow he always gets stuck in the middle
Of this and that and man he should try less
Because every time he's rejected man he loses affection

But don't we all, don't we just got to give a little time
Maybe give a friend a call instead of making him confused
What a terrible thing for you to do
What an awful thing for you to say
What a terrible thing for you to relay

Well I know some people's they got a little less than nothing
But still find some to spare
And other people got more than they could use
But they don't share
And some people got problems man
They got awful complications
Other people got perfect situations
With no provocation

But don't we all, don't we just got to give a little time
Maybe give a friend a call instead of making him confused
What a terrible thing for you to do
What an awful thing for you to say
What a terrible thing for you
Confused
What a terrible thing for you to do
What an awful thing for you to say
What a terrible thing for you to relay

Somehow we always get stuck in the middle
Confused, what an awful thing for you to do
Confused, what an awful thing for you to say

Exultation in the Agony

2006-10-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

I like this cold weather, makes the company of friends warming instead of stifiling. Everything snaps into focus, the world is still and clean. In this frosted world we wend and wander, sleeping in the cold, waking in the cold, living and breathing and rejoicing in the morning walk while we hunch up against the canyoned wind. That we might stick our heads up to feel the cold soar down our necks, then we might find the good in the uncomfortable

What I'll remember most -Over the Rhine

2006-10-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

The saddest songs are the happiest
The hardest truths are the easiest
Put us both to the test
And tell me if you still need me
And I will swallow these words
And see if I can still believe

The biggest lies are the little ones
When the look in your eyes is the distant one
Angel or demon
You know that they can share one bed
I've laid awake so long
I've got them both inside my head

This is what I'll remember most about dying
So many moments like ghosts
Slipping through my hands in vain
You were 80% angel
10% demon
The rest was hard to explain

This American dream may be poisonous
Violence is contagious
Crowded or empty
I walk these city streets alone
Whoever brought me here
Is gonna have to take me home

This is what I'll remember most about dying
Loading these moments like a gun
Hoping to kill the pain
You were 80% angel
10% demon
The rest was hard to explain

-this has nothing to do with actual people, events, or me, it just seems to fit tonight's moodness, I guess

Horror of Horrors

2006-10-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back

The tri-state as a whole was a shmashing success, and an all around good time.
Random bits of nothing:
This morning I moved 236 calves by putting a haybale on a bunk. The whole yard spooked, and then I was all alone. You have to give the calves some grace, they miss their mommies, and are feeling a bit spooky.
Yesterday: 82, dry, windy
Today: 60, wet
Wedsday: forcast of 40, possible snow
I love October

I like melancholy

So far, the hardest part is being able to count to nine

2006-10-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

That's what I had to say about combining. The statement isn't totally true, but counting to nine is an important part, and its tough. This is one of those things that is just easier with hand gestures, sooo, yeah, it'll have to wait.

Anyhow, harvest is going wonderfully, and I'm having a hi-o time. Though it is a little erie when the moon is haloed from soybean dust. But the beans are in super good shape, probably one of the best years ever. Got to show Kirbee around, give her Harvesting 101, and it was a good time. I think that next time she comes around harvest, she can drive. Maybe;)

Right now, we have exactly zero cattle on the yard. By 6 this morning, that will have jumped to around 250-300. Since its 10 pm now, that means that sometime during the night we will be getting a couple of semis full of calves. Should be fun.

Temptation, stay thou away from me!

2006-10-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was working in the archives like I do, when I noticed once again the absolutly gorgeous old Bibles and assorted other books down there. You have to understand that there is nothing keeping me from touching these books. The ones that are behind glass are not locked, and the others are just blissfully sitting on shelves in easy reach of me.
This is so tempting to me. I'm too freaking curious about what is all inside them. Doesn't matter that the bibles probably say about the same things as the bible that I have, but my bible is not a bossed, gold etched metal latched monstrosity of archival wonder. I mean, these bibles are so huge you could knock a bull senseless with them. And they are so beautiful, and I want to touch. There are even gloves there, so I don't have to worry about ruining them.
I'll be nice, I promise ;)

grrrr

Take Take Take Take it away

2006-10-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ahhh....emo

Anyhow, I think that whoever thought that an Indian summer was a good thing obviously hadn't heard of Asian beetles. So much for introduction of beneficial foreign insects. I think that I may be in the minority for liking rainy 50 degree weather. But as our experience in America shows, any minority that complains loud enough is right. (got my predictive out of the way now)

Ugh, Sundays are always bad, especially days like today always turn into headaches and that too warm in the head feeling.
But tri-state is almost here, which means harvest, and that is always a good thing, though I feel terrible about slowly getting more and more distanced from the farm, its sad, I'm becoming urbanized.
ah well.

Resharpening

2006-09-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

Does anyone have a tree that needs to be cut down?
I really need a vent, and work at fixing pallets didn't do that, since I smashed my own shin with a wrecking bar. I felt stupid, and it hurt, and then I destroyed the pallet. That felt good, but then i had to fix it.

Everytime that I let myself daydream, all I see is myself sprinting down a trail in the forest, ax raised to attack, but I never see what it is that I hate so much, and I fear that I'll miss, and someone dear to me will get hurt.

Thankfully I have a few good people to navigate off of.

Good night

----

The poetry thing was super cool. I tried to do my best redition of a langston hughes poem, but seeing how I'm not an African American living in Harlem in the early 20th century, it was a tad weak. Maybe next time I'll have something of my own, which would be an absolution of the year that I've spent locked in a cage of my own lack of self-confidence.

Good Morning, I guess

You Foolish Man! What you sow cannot live until it has died!

2006-09-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Edges of

2006-09-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

A storm ius gathering on the westeren edge, the world grows becomes wrethed in depp dimness, and the edge approaches. this out of season breaking of the pacifist edge is the becoming of something unearthed and splitered. The air becomes elixir clear, and the rain-scent appraches and mingles in my hair. BRING ME A STORM!!

Sea of Verbage

2006-09-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

Words are flowing endlessly under my eyelids, and maybe a dropper full will remain to be of some rememberance. I feel wasteful to know that all the work of so many writers will never again be known beyond the cursory speeding glane of comprehension that i give them. I wish for immortality so that I could spend the proper time to learn the things of value in this word, instead of having to constatly re-learn the simple and vain things.

John Updike is,....pornagraphic. Not sure how I am supposed to justify the unfortunate truth with the filthy feeling that it leaves behind. Why do all the good ones have to be so foul.

Massive doses of caffine is like drinking in reverse. Tense, overactive fine motor control, over-reactive, unsettled. The big 21 is in a month plus a handful, not sure what that'll do. I know what should be done, just not sure if I can/want to/will be able to.

Si Vales, Valeo

Explorations in splitting the pyche

2006-09-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

This day, was really good. I had a good shift at the library, found some super cool books that will have to be checked out if I get the chance to elbow it in in the midst of all the cool stuff that I get to take this semester. This includes such potential wonders as "The Concept of Irony" by Kierkegaard. Very good stuff. I feel like I can happily explode into a million academic bits most of the time, and I think that if I don't let myself slip, I should be in good shape. This means that I may have to use that planner that everyone is so happy to be recieving.
I got new running shoes, which should be a vast improvement over the clunky baskeball shoes which have been falling apart for the better part of the summer. Huzzzah muchly

(take note of the post below made about 6 minutes ago. Good example of how screwy the human mind is, that both of these are true, just different parts of the same day.)

I hate you, and I hate you, and I hate you, and you can go burn

2006-09-07T14:51:00.001-07:00

How on earth I'll manage to cope with the swinging nature of these days I'll never know. I want so much, hope so much, and work so much, and then I get this horrible feeling that I'm missing something, or that everything will turn out less than I had hoped. This entire world is so twisted and gargantuan that I know that I'll never find out the half of what I wish to know. Everything and the confusing beauty of it is screaming to be explored and I cannot see the end of any of it. This is why I'm taking 19 credits and resisting taking more. This is why there is never enough to be done, and I am never done with any of it.
And I thought that I had another chance to go to the UK. And I was wrong (shit shit shit!)

Fury and Frustration

2006-09-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

yet I feel okay, I'm strangly allright with what most seem to think is my losing my mind.
I find myself strangly unhappy with the limitations of my abilty to absorb materail, and therefore learn. I want to take so much that I know I will leave this campus without having done half that I wish. At the same time, i am slowly backing out of the extracurriculars, as they seem to take to much time for a reward that is not worth it, in addition to taking away from the natural education that occurs when you have free time to do things like spend a half hour discussion preconceptualism. Very fun stuff.

I need to find something worthwhile to put here.

Exploration of the outer reaches of idiocy

2006-09-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

Today was horrific
Today was wonderful
Today had great things
Today had me at my most idiotic
Today I succeded
Today I failed
Today was, well, today

But I had a lot to do, I had the first day at the library, which though hardly stunning, was fun, and I think that i can handle working there.
Somehow I had all this profoundness, but I think that when I am in a good mood, it gets filed somewhere that I can't seem to find. Unfortunate, since I don't enjoy the down swing, but it sure makes writing easy

Idle hands make for an Ill Mind pt. 2

2006-09-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Home is strange today.
It feels like a fading spring, since it's cold, but wet like spring, but yet everything is dying. All of natures clocks are slowing down, and telling itself to begin making small steps towards prepping for the night.

But my house smells a bit like Christmas. This is silly, since everything is still very alive, but yet, there is that strage lingering scent in the kitchen of baked goods. Maybe its just that coming home feels like Christmas even in the face of september.

I'm trying to figure out what makes me so moody, or "stormy" as Kirbee puts it. It's proving to be a bit hard to study, since whenever I swing up, I have no need to dwell on darker things, and when I swing down, all I want to do is destroy, not deciepher. Strange psyche. I'm foolish and childlike and moody and violent and mean and confused and frustrated. How do you balance knowing that you hold in your hands cruelty alongside mercy, how do you deal with knowing that you could be the best, or the worst thing that has happened to another person's life?

goodnight

I think this thing is busted

2006-09-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Midwestern

5% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Idle hands make for an Ill Mind

2006-08-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

This entire sphere known as dordt stands on the precpice (stay well clear) I been in limbo for a few days now, and now is the time we most desire a task. There is only so long that my hands or my head can remain idle, and the resulting mental drifting is having equally unachored results. Time now to wait for the dawn, for the starting gun, for the shock and the start and the jar and the plunge and the impact of the mind against the whetstone. Time now to sharpen, to prepare, to make ready and make good the loose ends left untide these past months. The weaving left from a month ago now has to mesh with the scattered threads of a summer, and there is now the jarring feeling of rembering old ills and old joys, old bitterness in the midst of old smiles, all the world is now coming back, and a bit of muddy turbulence belies the double-takes of a thousand fold.

We're ready, or nowhere near, but now it is time to begin, to pick up what has been left undone.

Little Shafers everywhere Pt. 2

2006-08-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm in the gameroom, and there are little chillins everywhere

Its fun
They're a well behaved bunch
but I'll be glad when everything is done
I'm ready for school
Things are fallling into place

about time

The bearable confusion of begining

2006-08-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

I never thought that I would feel claustrophobic on a college campus. At least, not in relation to the people who are here. I feel like anyone who is here that I don't know is innatly hostile towards me. Rather odd.

So this year is looking a bit packed. I've got the usual 18 credits, Diamond, P&W, Anago, Library workstudy and off campus job. But I don' want to not have any of these things, they all serve some purpose that I want to retain. Blast.

Anybody feel like helping me babysite an unknown quantity of children of unknown age? I've got a gameroom shift coming up tommorow that involves the little siblings of the freshmen, sans parental supervision. I'm not good with kids, I frighten them, and come across to harsh. Which stinks, because kids are fun.

Stange, all the excitement of starting up college has seemed to fall away once the year actually got close to starting. I hope this isn't the start of something really unmotivated.

Waiting by the phone

2006-08-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

People have begun to come back to dordt.
Its a rather savage protectivness that I feel, now having to share the echoing confines of the campus center with more than a handful of people. But yet, there is the feeling of coming home in many of these people, and I cannot deny them this. Not to mention that seeing people that I have missed most desperatly will indeed be a blessing.

But still, I'm sitting in the gameroom, and its rather dull.
The sad part is that I am full of stories, but cannot seem to remember a one.

But Kirbee is coming back, and that is super exciting.

The past retold

2006-08-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

The past events of this week:
Going to Kirbee's house, doing fun stuff like learning how to ride a horse
From there to Breckenridge to watch her little brother play baseball
Then back
Good times

Last night was gameroom, and about the worst/most bizarre shift everywhere.
I should have closed up when a kid came up to me and said "the handle of your door came off" as he held the door handle divorced. That was bizarre, and I have no idea how I will explain this to my boss. So if you can't get into the gameroom, try the other door, because it still has a handle, which appears to be one of the more vital part of a door, right next to a hinge.
Then a small child of the five year range got his hand stuck in a machine. That was of the more stressfull times at the gameroom, since I've never had to exctract a childs hand from a machine. Fortunatly I managed to remove the lodged limb without leaving any parts behind, or shattering the ones that had become wedged. If you want to hear the story in more detail, you'll have to ask in person, its easier if I can gesture.
Startd moving into C1, which will become the rockinest place on campus once I get all my crud over there.
Anyhow

Obvious Advice for the Day
Warning labels are put there so you don't repeat some one else's dumb mistake.

Who yo sniper?

2006-08-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

Today was a day.
(Deep thoughts right there)
basically nothing happened that cannot be related to books, vacummns, or blood.
Books: Finally updated my Libary spreadsheet, and noticed that the number of books on the top of my Dordt issue on-top-of0desk-thingy has made it visably bow. I was excited, and happly told everyone almost as excitedly as the news that I'm a father. (wait a minute...)
Vacumns: I fix them. It makes me happy. They're my friends. (You don't have any friends, nobody likes you)
Blood: I Have glue on my arm that looks like blood. I also shed a good deal during my apartments nearly daily halo (aka "bonding")games. I'm noticing that my roomates are getting better. This means that I cannot clobber them anymore. Blast

Thats about it.
Although, the scary part about today is that in nine days I will be moving into my fall apartment. (Saints preserve us)

Of Dandruff and Turkish Delight

2006-07-31T13:50:00.000-07:00

Today at work we hung ceiling tiles in S105. Why the old ones were bad is none of my buisness. But as with anything involiving ceiling tiles, I ended up with a nice sample in my hair. Given its current busy status, it will take some time in the shower to extract.

Last thursday I got the Warner's from the Omaha airport. They invited us over for Sunday dinner, and they gave Ruth Turkish Delight, which she shared. I must say that I would not sell my soul to the witch for it, but maybe I would for a good cup of coffee. Anyhow, for those of you not in Iowa, the temp is about 98, and the heat index is about 5 degrees above that. I want winter, or at least a cold front to break this hot streak. The crops are starting to wilt and brown, and every day that goes on we loose yeild. They are predicting a storm mid-week, Please God we need this.

You legalistic prig!

2006-07-25T18:42:00.000-07:00

That's me!
It involves me not letting any of the PRC convention kids in the gameroom. I was told not to let them in, but on their schedule, it says they can. A person of grace/mercy/leniance would let these High schoolers. However, a staunch, stubborn, stuckup, stuck-in-my-ways CRC simpleton such as my self would not allow such a deviation from the standard.

Oh well, at least some faculty/staff/students are here, otherwise I'd feel really dumb.

I must away to plot some other devious plan of legalistic overlording.

The ax is upon the roots

2006-07-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

The tree is dead
but shivers at every blow
the faded husks of leaves hesitantly descend
the widowmakers tremble

The cut is made
your hands are raw
there is nothing left
in me
or the tree

The axhead dully reflects
the green surround in every arc
the biting shock of the act
saps strength from my hands
blood is on the handle

Now stand feet wide apart
take a firm grasp
make the final blow
hear the first fibers shear
hear the first splinter
as this dead tower falls
no protest, nothing beyond
the shatter of branch
the single pound
of the fall

Now to home
to bandage my hands
and wait for tomorrow

This is what I'll remember most about dying

2006-07-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

Another week begins at dordt.
This has actually been one of my more liked summer jobs, but up against working at a mink ranch, just about anything looks good. I'll be ready to be done.
Its strange, the summer on campus help must move into their fall apartments on August 12. Its so the east campus ladies can clean the summer apartments. The only bad part is that my apartment is of the non-ac variety, and I doubt the temp will be sub-80 by then.
Ah well, its a roof over my head
Speaking of which, I now know a few things about getting on the roof of the campus center, and some potentiall cool crawlspaces in the ceiling. The unfortunate thing is that the roof is locked, but the crawlspaces aren't. (this could be potentially cool, or get me a level)

Other than that, life is good and bad. I decided that the worst thing about going out into the middle of nowhere in an attempt to straighten out my life is coming back and realizing that not much of anything has really changed.

Thus are the meanderings of me

I'm back, for at least a week

2006-07-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

so I just got back, again. Last week thursday I left sioux center for home, then friday was home to minneapolis, then sunday was minneapolis to two harbors (one hour north of duluth) then this week Wendsday drove from two harbors to home, then home to sioux center. Then on thursday, drove to Nerstrand State park in eastern minnesota, (240 miles) then drove back today.

Ugh
I don't want to touch my jeep for a week, which is exactly how long it'll be till I have to go home to go to a wedding.

Two Harbors/Duluth/Minneapolis was excellent, spent time with family
Nerstrand was good in a different way, spent time with God.

I need to go buy groceries

I hold within my hands/grains of the golden sand

2006-07-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

So I'll be gone for the next week or so, up messing around in the Duluth area, so if you need me, I won't be anywhere. I like this vacation thing, mainly because today was the hardest that I have ever worked in a given day, and tommorow promises more of the same, cept I won't be there. Huzzah

In any event, good day