The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls chronicling her childhood and early adult life. To say she had a very hard and unusual upbringing would be an understatement, to say the least. As I read it, there were times when it was almost too incredible to believe. I did wonder if there was any embellishment on the author’s part to spice up the book. In the end, I have to believe that wasn’t the case because you would think her siblings or mother could easily dispute the veracity of the content. Some of the events in her childhood bordered on the bizarre. Some were downright awful, some were humorous and some were, in my humble opinion, child abuse/neglect. Her parents definitely had some issues. It made me laugh, it made me sad and it made me appreciate the relatively easy childhood I had. Considering all she went through, it’s an amazing journey and a clear example of what the human spirit can endure. Her writing style is engaging and she has weaved her story in a way that, for the most part, is very nonjudgmental when you consider the circumstances and events she endured.
This is definitely not a guy book. It could certainly fall under the category of a “babe book”, assuming that term carries the same connotation as “chick flick”. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. In the end, you hope it’s the human spirit conquering and overcoming life’s sometimes cruel and tragic events. I would definitely recommend it, especially to my “lady” friends.
Why the strange title for this blog posting? Today I went for my weekly run. Normally I do about 10-13 miles. Today I ran 15.6 miles. For you metric-challenged folks, 25K = 15.53 miles. There is an annual racing event in the Grand Rapids area called the River Bank Run. Old Kent Bank initially sponsored it but when they were bought out it became the Fifth Third River Bank Run. It is held on the second Saturday in May and starts and finishes in downtown Grand Rapids with the course at times running along the Grand River. There are 5K, 10K and 25K races. The 25K run is billed as the largest in the country.
I’ve never run in a competitive race but thought I’d go ahead and do the official distance for the 25K event. Hence the “virtual” title for this posting. I didn’t run the actual route because it takes you through busy sections of town that would normally be cordoned off during the actual race. I have a GPS watch that accurately tracks my mileage so I ran the distance in my local area. Today’s temperature at the start of my run was 16°. Probably a little chilly for most folks, but I enjoy running at any temperature. It was a great run with plenty of sunshine and the wind was pretty light for most of it. According to my GPS watch, I burned 2153 calories. I guess I can pig out today and not feel guilty! For an old man (I turned 59 three days ago), my body seems to tolerate most things pretty well. For most runners, my pre-run routine is probably pretty strange. I eat a bowl of raisin bran about an hour before I run and that’s it. I don’t hydrate before the run and I don’t hydrate at all during the run. My warm-up is about 30 seconds max and consists of squatting at the knees 4-5 times and bending around my waist for about 10 seconds. That’s it. Like I said, pretty strange.
Anyway, it was a great day and the runner’s high from the endorphin release always feels good.
Three engineers and three accountants are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy tickets and watch as the three engineers buy only a single ticket. “How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks an accountant. “Watch and you’ll see,” answers an engineer.
They all board the train. The accountants take their respective seats but all three engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, “Ticket, please.” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on. The accountants saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea.
After the conference is over, the accountants decide to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money, and all). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don’t buy a ticket at all. “How are you going to travel without a ticket?” says one perplexed accountant. “Watch and you’ll see,” answers an engineer.
When they board the train, the three accountants cram into a restroom and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the accountants are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please.”
Well, I’m missing my little girl. I know, she’s not so little anymore. She’s all grown up and her mom and dad are very proud of her. Do you ever hear music or see something on TV that brings up special memories? There’s an AT&T wireless commercial that’s been playing on TV quite a bit lately that jogs my memory of my early days with my daughter. It’s about a little girl who secretly puts her favorite little stuffed animal monkey in her dad’s briefcase before he leaves on a business trip. He finds the monkey and takes several pictures and sends them back to the family on his cell phone. What I love about this commercial are the expressions on the little girl’s face. It’s just shear happiness and love. The very last one where she hugs her dad when he returns home from his trip is precious. That folks, is pure and unconditional love. If you’re a dad with a daughter, that picture ought to bring up a special memory or two. There are few times in life when you get that kind of feeling. If you still have a little girl in your home, cherish those moments. They pass too quickly.
The picture above is my best shot at trying to freeze that last picture from the video, but it’s a little fuzzy.
You can see the 30 second commercial on YouTube by clicking here.
The above photograph was taken at the Horseshoe Bend Overlook in Arizona. Horseshoe Bend is an enormous curve in the Colorado River as it meanders along the northern border of Arizona near the town of Page. It is slightly downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam which itself holds back Lake Powell. The town of Page was actually formed about 50 years ago to house the construction workers who built the dam. The bend is located within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
I lived in the Phoenix, Arizona area for several years. I never really went farther north than the Grand Canyon area. This particular spot is well north of the Grand Canyon and is almost on the border of Utah. Seeing this picture reminds me of the many spectacular views I had while traveling along the canyons formed by the mighty Colorado River. It’s utterly amazing what thousands of years of river flow can do to create these majestic rock formations and canyon walls. I really like the way the photographer of this picture was able to capture the entire view with such uniform lighting. It must be an awe-inspiring image when you’re actually there in person.
The name of the photographer who took this photo is Dieter Biskamp. He is from Germany and was kind enough to let me use his photograph. Thank you Dieter. Dieter has quite a diverse portfolio of pictures including landscapes, desert scenes, portraits and animals. I would highly recommend you take a look at his many fine photos. There are some really interesting shots and I’m sure you’ll find your time well spent.
If you’d like to see a higher resolution image of the above photo, click here.
To see a gallery of Dieter Biskamp’s many excellent photographs, click here.
Today it got up to 63°. That’s a major heat wave for Michigan in early March. This has been a particularly cold and snowy winter. It seems like it has been at or below freezing most of the time. We’re also headed for our second snowiest winter on record. Any temperature above 40°- 50° this year is cause for celebration. I am so looking forward to Spring this year. I’d like all the global warming alarmists to explain to me the cold weather we’ve had the past two years.
Today was my day for running. I had a great run – 13.1 miles (half-marathon for you non-runner types). I do a 10-15 mile run every week. I feel so much more relaxed and in focus after a run. Today was also the first time that I almost fell flat on my face. I never run on sidewalks. I always worry about tripping on a seam or crack. The sidewalk was fairly new and looked pretty smooth. Bad assumption. I was about ½ mile into my run on the sidewalk and I tripped big time. I wish there was a camera to capture the moment. It probably looked pretty hilarious. So, why do I tell you this? If you see a runner running alongside the road when there’s a sidewalk that they could run on, now you know. Don’t curse them. They’re just trying to keep their original skin on their knees and hands.
A man staggers into an emergency room with two black eyes and a five iron wrapped tightly around his throat.
“I was having a quiet round of golf with my wife,” he tells the doctor, “when she sliced her ball into a pasture of cows. We went to look for it, and I noticed one of the cows had something white in its rear end. I walked over and lifted up the tail, and sure enough, there was my wife’s golf ball stuck right in the cow’s butt. That’s when I made my mistake.”
“What did you do?” asks the doctor.
“Well, as I was standing there holding up the tail, I yelled to my wife, ‘Hey, this looks like yours!'”
A couple of days ago there was a little note attached to our mailbox flag by the curb of our driveway. I figured it was the typical advertisement flyer you get for lawn service, maid service or some other commercial enterprise. Instead, it was a note from some high school girl who was trying to raise funds for a trip to Spain with her Spanish class this summer. She asked for any empty soda cans we could spare and to leave them on the porch on Saturday morning and she would come by to pick them up. Well, we figured it wouldn’t kill us to give her some of our empties – we drink way too much soda at our house so there are plenty of cans to choose from. We put the bag out Saturday morning and I then went for a little run – 14 glorious degrees out there people! It was a beautiful crisp morning and I had one of my fastest times in about a year. Ah, but I digress. Anyway, when I returned I found the above little card taped to our door window. What a thoughtful young lady. We certainly didn’t do it with any expectation of thanks. Now I’m glad that we took a few minutes of our time to help the young girl out.
Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make you think there’s still hope in this world. Lately, though, the only stories you see on TV or the Internet are depressing and sad. There is a lot of good out there, but the people who control the media seem hell bent on only giving you the bad stuff. The world needs a lot more random acts of kindness. It’s really not that hard – for us it was a couple of empty soda cans. How about you?
Assuming that you’ve read my blog before, you can tell that I’ve updated the look and feel of the blog. I went with a little cleaner and simpler design. I liked the old look, but for some people the gray text on a black background was a little hard on the eyes.
I do like the newer title display. It has a nice little graphic on the left edge showing the month/day the article was posted. The category name is below the title (“Miscellaneous” for this particular article) and is a hot link to that category, and the link to add a comment is now along the right edge of the title.
Additionally, there is a new “Tag Cloud” section in the right sidebar, a sample of which is shown below. It lists all the tags I used to categorize the articles I wrote. You can tell by the size of the word how often that particular tag was used. The tags themselves are hot links and will display all the articles associated with that particular tag.
Finally, you can collapse any of the sidebar lists by clicking on the little triangle on the right edge. Also, you can rearrange the lists by left-clicking and dragging the individual lists.
Anyway, I hope you like the new look. I tested the website on Windows using IE6 and IE7 and on Mac OS X using Safari and Firefox. If you have any suggestions or comments, they’re always welcome.
One night, the Potato family sat down to dinner. Mother Potato and her three daughters. Midway through the meal, the eldest daughter spoke up. “Mother Potato?” she said. “I have an announcement to make.”
“And what might that be?” said Mother, seeing the obvious excitement in her eldest daughter’s eyes.
“Well,” replied the daughter, with a proud but sheepish grin, “I’m getting married!”
The other daughters squealed with surprise as Mother Potato exclaimed, “Married! That’s wonderful! And who are you marrying, Eldest daughter?”
“I’m marrying a Russet!” “A Russet!” replied Mother Potato with pride. “Oh, a Russet is a fine tater, a fine tater indeed!”
As the family shared in the eldest daughter’s joy, the middle daughter spoke up. “Mother, I too, have an announcement.”
“And what might that be?” asked Mother Potato.
Not knowing quite how to begin, the middle daughter paused, then said with conviction, “I, too, am getting married!”
“You, too!” Mother Potato said with joy. “That’s wonderful! Twice the good news in one evening! And who are you marrying, Middle Daughter?”
“I’m marrying an Idaho,” beamed the middle daughter.
“An Idaho!” said Mother Potato with joy. “Oh, an Idaho is a fine tater, a fine tater indeed!”
Once again, the room came alive with laughter and excited plans for the future, when the youngest Potato daughter interrupted. “Mother? Mother Potato?
Umm, I, too, have an announcement to make.”
“Yes?” said Mother Potato with great anticipation.
“Well,” began the youngest Potato daughter with the same sheepish grin as her eldest sister before her, “I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you, but I am getting married, as well!”
“Really?” said Mother Potato with sincere excitement. “All of my lovely daughters married! What wonderful news! And who, pray tell, are you marrying, Youngest Daughter?”
“I’m marrying Dan Rather!”
“Dan Rather?!”
Mother Potato scowled suddenly. “But he’s just a common tater!”
