Too Creepy even for Republicans.

Ok, let me start out by saying that I am NOT a Democrat. I’m not a Republican either. I’ve always felt that I can figure out where I stand on issues all by myself, I don’t need some wanker who got a lower GPA than I did (both wankers in the last Presidential election) telling me where I should stand on the issues that affect my quality of life, thank you very much. And frankly I don’t care much for either party, especially these days. But that’s a blog for another day.

The reason for this little tirade of mine is a woman from Florida by the name of Katherine Harris. Ms Harris is a Republican Representative currently seeking election in the US Senate.

If the name sounds familiar it might be because she’s come across the country’s radar before, but more on that in a moment; here’s what caught my eye most recently:

When asked for a statement by a religious journal she responded with a real gem. She stated that the separation of church and state is "a lie" and went on to say that God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." (God?! When the hell did god weigh in on the subject?)

The amazing thing is that it doesn’t stop there.

She went on to say, and this is a direct quote: “If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin…"

Now, I’m torn. I can’t figure out which quote I find more offensive, that the separation of church and state is a lie, or that if you don’t elect Christians you’re legislating sin. They’re both pretty deplorable, actually.

By the way if Katherine Harris’ name sounds familiar it’s because she was the spunky little Secretary of State in Florida who beamingly handed over that state’s electoral votes to W back in 2000. Now I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist but in light of these very worrisome little glimpses into her psyche I have to say that it does give one pause.

The Bushes, meanwhile, are having none of it. Harris is apparently such a loose cannon that several months before this last round of comments Jeb (currently the Governor of Fla) “distanced” himself from Harris by publicly supporting a different candidate for the Senate seat. It is perhaps worth noting that the man he supports is not, in fact, running.

Makes me kind of glad I don’t live in Florida.

Ok I’m being lazy and swiping this from DNA Princess.

1. How old do you wish you were?
I don’t really mind being 40 and surprisingly most people seem to think I’m much younger (although that probably means I’m just immature). Although when I think about my heart attacks or when it isn’t as easy to do the things I used to take for granted I wouldn’t mind having my 21-year-old body back!

2. Where were you when 9/11 happened?
I was in my living room in Austin about to leave for work. I had time reserved at the shooting range that evening but it was so totally swamped with crazy people that I went to Barb and Tony’s house and drank on their back porch instead.

3. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?
Report it to the people who own the machine, they’re usually pretty receptive.

4. Do you consider yourself kind?
I think I am although some people would disagree.

5. If you had to get a tattoo, where and what would it be?
I’d probably get something across my upper back along the lines of a large Celtic knot.

6. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?
Chinese –it just seems like it would come in handy.

7. Do you know your neighbors?
Yes, but I don’t like them.

8. What do you consider a vacation?
A trip out of town that isn’t for work.

9. Do you follow your horoscope?
No.

10. Would you move for the person you loved?
That’s why I’m in Iowa!

11. Are you touchy feely?
Not even a little.

12. Do you believe that opposites attract?
That depends on how you define attraction. I believe that opposites might initially interest each other but over the long term they are basically incompatible.

13. Dream job?
Once I dreamt that I was a train conductor and I was driving the train into this tunnel on the side of a lush mountain…

14. Favorite channels?
CNN, MSNBC, Food, Comedy Central.

15. Favorite place to go on a weekend?
Austin.

16. Showers or bath?
Shower.

17. Do you paint your nails?
No, but occasionally naked women paint them for me. Although my wife thinks that’s fine, it disturbs a woman named Amanda a great deal. I don’t know why, but then again I don’t really care.

18. Do you trust people easily?
Nope.

19. What are your phobias?
I don’t like snakes.

20. Do you want kids?
Nope.

21. Do you keep a handwritten journal?
Nope.

22. Where would you rather be right now?
Maybe Hawaii.

23. What makes you feel warm and safe?
A sleeping bag and a .45

24. Heavy or light sleep?
Usually very light.

25. Are you paranoid?
Nope.

26. Are you impatient?
I’ve gotten better over the years --but it would be inaccurate to describe myself as being a patient person.

27. Who can you relate to?
Rebecca, a couple friends from college.

28. How do you feel about interracial couples?
Like I said, I’m not a “feely” person.

29. Have you been burned by love?
Duh.

30. What's your life motto?
It’s a toss up between “Sua Sponte” and “do unto others, then run.”

I was out walking our dog Kuma the other day by the river. It was a hot day and Kuma seemed like he was getting pretty overheated (he wouldn’t even chase rabbits) so I stopped on a bench under a tree for him to rest.

We sat there for a little while when the local Air Force ROTC kiddies came jogging up in a group that might possibly have been a formation, if a formation was oblong and had no rows or columns.

“Excuse me Sir,” says a kid whom I presume to be the Ex-O, “would it bother you if we did our P.T. here in the shade?”

I couldn’t resist.

You mean you’re going to do Air Force P.T.?

“Yes, Sir.”

No, it won’t bother me… unless one of you snores really loud.

Wow, what a shitty week.

After moving all of our shit (and we have A LOT of shit!!) over to the new place by myself (the guy I was going to hire to help me decided he didn’t really need the money), things were starting to settle down and I was finally starting to get a few things un packed. Mostly everything was still on the floor in boxes though. Thursday night at about seven I was sitting at my computer when I heard what sounded like water running, I followed the sound (and the really big puddle) to the corner where there is a kind of utility closet, and there to my dismay is water coming out of a cracked pipe!

Normally that wouldn’t be too hard to deal with but as it turned out the hole was between the wall and the shut-off valve for the house. To put that another way, there was no way to shut off the water inside the house. But being a good boy scout I’m prepared for this kind of thing so I went and got my water meter key and headed outside to find the junction box between the main and the house. After looking around for a while I found what appeared to maybe be a junction box but quickly ascertained that there was no way my Texas-style water box key was going to shut off an Iowa-style water valve. In Texas they bury the box and the meter together about six inches underground since there’s no danger of the frost line getting that deep. (It turned out that the box here was about six feet deep). Realizing that I was in over my head (figuratively and perhaps literally) I went inside and called a plumber who said yeah, he can shut it off he’ll be right out. About an hour or so later he shows up and says “shit, that’s pretty bad” then goes out and tries for about twenty minutes to shut off the water with no success. Mr. “I’ll be right out” then recommends that I call the city and maybe they can do something but he doesn’t think they can and meanwhile he’s going to go back to his shop and see if he can find some tape to tape up the hole.

It is at this moment that two things occurred to me. One is that the plumber that I called doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground; and two is that all our stuff is pretty much fucked.

So at this point in the story it is almost nine o’clock. The flow from the pipe has grown to that of a garden hose on full blast and the water level in our apartment is between three and five inches depending on where you’re standing. It also bears noting that the entire time I haven’t been able to contact the woman who owns the house. I figure she’s out on a date and won’t answer her phone.

After three or four tries I finally got the city emergency shut off crew’s number and after talking to two different people they finally agreed to come out to the house to “take a look.” When they got here their response was the same as everyone else who had seen the place –oh, shit.

So the city people called into their dispatch desk who radioed them back with the coordinance of the junction box. In case you’re curious, it was 41 feet south of the south house line and six feet east of the west house line. The box we found the first time wasn’t a shut-off box at all (just confirming that as I suspected, the first plumber really didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground). They got our their metal detector and swept it around in the suggested area until they got a strong tone then dug down under the grass a few feet and voila, a junction box. Why the hell couldn’t I have found that?

By then there was a huge city truck and the truck of a passing plumber who stopped to lend moral support (it is, after all, Iowa) not to mention a strong contingent of curious neighbors standing around looking. And just about the time the first plumber showed back up the lady who owns the house turns up too –woo-hoo, it’s a party! To her credit and to my relief she didn’t freak (and why should she, none of her stuff was ruined). I just didn’t want to deal with hysterics after all that.

But the story doesn’t end there. As it turned out, even with the proper key, the valve wouldn’t turn (it was, by all accounts, over 100 years old) so in came the backhoe to dig up the junction box. One really-huge-fucking-hole-in-the-front-yard later and we had the water turned off and our apartment slowly began to drain.

By the next morning there was only standing water in a couple of low spots although the wool Persian rugs were holding several hundred gallons a piece and all the boxes that were on the floor were pretty much soaked.

Now it’s five days later and the dehumidifiers and the fans are still running (although at this point I suspect that its just a matter of Servicemaster™ padding their bill to the insurance company. I’m sleeping on a friend’s couch and I’m still waiting to see just what all is lost. I guess it could be a lot worse but lately I’ve definitely had a lot of those days where I wake up and think to myself “Why the hell did we ever leave Austin?!”

The moral of the story: given the choice, it’s better to have a flood before you move, that way you don’t have as much shit to carry!

Hey, WTF? Where did all of my posts go?! First it was half of my last post now its half my whole damn blog. Has this happened to anyone else?

For the last five days I've been moving. Moving sucks and we have way too much shit. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the move.

Meanwhile, Rebecca has been on vacation in Yosemite. I think my buddy Dave (also Jewish) summed it up in a pretty amusing way when he noted: "She doesn't try to be a Jap, but sometimes it just comes naturally..."

The whole time I was moving I kept thinking of things and making mental notes "that would be a good subject on which to blog." Now that I have a little down time I can't think of a damn one of them.

One of my upcoming blogs is going to be about the unique mental pathology of ivy league grads. A good friend of mine from college has been living in Iowa City for a few months and it's been really interesting seeing some similarities between him and other people we went to school with, yours truly included. But those ideas haven't yet gestated to the point that they're ready for prime-time consumption so they'll have to wait for another day. I know you're all a titter with anticipation on that one.

One amusing little episode over the weekend was that Girls Gone Wild, those whacky purveyors of soft-core porn on late-night-t-v were in town looking for, ahem, "talent." Anyway, after a long night of trolling for trollops they somehow managed to drive their bus over a bicyclist.

Beyond that details are a bit sketchy. Imagine every possible scenario, then add a few impossible scenarios and that gives you a rough idea of the number of first-hand accounts there are going around. Nothing this exciting has happened to IC since half the town was blown away by the tornado. For some reason I find this all absolutely hilarious in spite of the poor schmuck who got run over. I do hope that at the very least that GGW provides him with some DVDs to break the monotony of his recovery.

Ok, time to go figure out which box I put the silverware in.

d