Whine Cooler

I'm having a run of bad home maintenance luck these past few weeks. I know, it could be worse, especially considering the original HVAC system is nearly my age. And now I fear I've jinxed it.

A while back my dishwasher broke. While at Home Depot shopping for a replacement, I fell in love with a beautiful wine chiller. Stainless steel and tinted black glass with electronic touch controls, I justified it as the design centerpiece around which my kitchen would be remodeled.

Five years later and the appliances are still beige and I'm still hand-washing the dishes. And now, the bottom half of my beautiful chiller ain't chillin.

But unlike my dishwasher, it's considerate enough to give me an error message.

"E4" is appliance for "cough, cough, croak".
Looks like I'll hafta put my tool belt on.

The Great Eggo Crisis

It's another soggy morning in Atlanta. No shock there, it seems like it's been raining every day for weeks. Still, it's better than the drought we had a few years ago. My PTSD still flares up when I flush.

I was reading an article yesterday on Weather Underground. It seems we have a "cut off low" hanging over us. Neat.

A cut-off low is the meteorological equivalent of that guy at work who, when he hears two or more people enjoying a spirited conversation, drifts over to dominate the discourse with a barely related personal anecdote about once being part of the Jet Stream which he thinks makes himself appear cool but really just bores the hell out of everyone. Unable to read the social cues, he drones on until all you can do is wait for a two second gap to say, "Well, I better get back to work." At which point everyone scatters back to their desks leaving the cut-off low drifting in search of the next ray of sunshine he can precipitate the fun out of.

Yes, it's just like that.

The article mentions that while this weekend's weather system raised area rivers to flood stage, it isn't as bad as the "Great Atlanta Flood of 2009".

What?? I missed a Great Flood?  Following the link to Wikipedia, I was curious to read about the disaster I can't remember effortlessly surviving.

Okay, I think it's coming back to me now. I recall clips on the news of some of the roller coasters at Six Flags getting swamped. Ten people died. No, not at Six Flags. (Although that place is deadly.) Most of the victims perished in their cars on flooded streets. I imagine their last words being, "That puddle looks deep. Finally, an opportunity to justify my purchase of a 4x4 SUV even though I never leave the city."

Then I came to this factoid...

"Located along the Chattahoochee River in west Atlanta, the R.M. Clayton sewage treatment plant, the largest in the Southeastern U.S., was swamped with four feet of water as the river rose by twelve additional feet. Millions of gallons of untreated sewage were released into the rising waters."

That's gross. But it was the rest of that paragraph that seemed oddly non sequiter...

"Also located near the Chattahoochee, a Kellogg Company food plant was flooded, resulting in the closure of the plant and a subsequent national shortage of waffles."

Now I'm afraid. Not only do I not remember the Great Flood of 2009, I have absolutely no recollection of soggy, sewage-tainted breakfast pastries precipitating a nation-wide waffle shortage? Not one memory of the ensuing hoarding, looting and government-imposed waffle rationing? Really? You'd think I'd remember something like that.

Note to self: make an appointment to get checked for Alzheimer's. I should probably write that down somewhere.

"You were warned."

Where were you during the Great Eggo Shortage of '09?

The Perfect Friend

My deepest apologies to the late Charles Schultz.

Life Of A Torpid Sloth

Even if my FitBit doesn't motivate me to actually burn more calories, it definitely elucidates exactly what kind of torpid sloth I am. This isn't cool, but I'm showing you anyway. In my defense, I occasionally get bogged down in work and this week is one of those occasions.

For those who might not know what a FitBit is, it's basically a tiny electronic pedometer which monitors every movement you make and automagically uploads the results to the Internet. The idea is that, if you know your friends are watching your every move, you'll be motivated to move more. But really it just gives my sister one more thing to taunt me about.

Designed to wear 24 hours a day, the FitBit is tiny enough that you can keep it in your watch pocket and forget it's even there, usually until the 2nd rinse cycle.

That's how my first FitBit died. Washing machine. And that's the insidious part about wearing a FitBit. You get so used to being able to quantify your daily activity that when you're not wearing it, you feel like any uncredited twitch is a waste of time and energy. Well, that's how I feel.

In response to my still, motionless grief, JB replaced my dead little buddy with the latest model, the FitBit One. Which I promptly proceeded to launder. Not only does this version seem more resilient to such treatment, I earned thousands of steps in the spin cycle.

Another feature about the new FitBit I really like is the vibrating alarm. JB hates when my alarm clock wakes him five hours early, all because I have to go to work. Wearing the FitBit on my wrist not only tracks my sleep quality, it wakes me up a minute before my alarm goes off.

Anyway, let's have a look at my day yesterday:

2am: Having gone to bed early after a long, exhausting day at work, I get up to pee. Return to bed.

6am: Turn off alarm clock. Pee. Return to bed.

7am: Get up, feed the cats, make coffee, make oatmeal, sit down at the computer.

8am: Get another cup of coffee, comment on StevieB's blog posts, forget I made oatmeal.

9am: I notice the time. I shave, pee, shower, dress, pack oatmeal in tupperware and drive to work. (I left out a step and I might have efficiently combined two of those other steps into one.)

9:30am: Walk from the parking lot into the office, wave to the guy living in his Toyota, sit at my desk.

10:00am: Walk to the break room to get a spork for my oatmeal. Eat oatmeal at my desk while frantically writing code for a project known internally as BAMBI.

1pm: Quietly wonder what BAMBI stands for. Catch myself crying. Not sure if I was remembering Bambi's mom getting shot or wondering what happened to my life. Wipe away tears and daydream about upcoming vacation. All without moving, evidently.

4pm: Pee. Walk to the break room for a cup of coffee to discover the coffee machine is mysteriously gone. Walk to the next building over to find coffee. Reach my activity peak for the day. Go back to my desk to check in my code.

7:30pm: After building and testing my code changes, I walk to my car. I wonder where Toyota guy goes at night. Drive home, walk into my house and eat the plate of dinner JB saved for me. Fish.

9pm: Go to bed early after a long, exhausting day at work. After peeing.


2212 steps total. I know. Pathetic.

Details, Details

"Next."

As my birthday trip to Denver rapidly approaches, there are so many details yet to plan. Where will we stay? What will I wear? What age will I say I'm turning? I'm trying not to let it all overwhelm me.

We took care of the first detail this weekend when we booked a room at the Warwick Denver. It wasn't easy. With JB being a flight attendant, it's not in his nature to pay for hotel rooms at all.

While I was pushing for the Warwick all along, JB had to give the matter due diligence by starting with the hotel/motel/hostel advertising the lowest rate and working up from there.

It was then up to me to present the reasons why that particular choice of lodging wouldn't do at all. My first consideration was location. Wherever we stay must be within walking distance from the Denver Wrangler. Without the need to carry water and trail mix, I felt it necessary to add.

This requirement alone narrowed down the list of choices which were in JB's acceptable price range to exactly zero. He reminded me we'd have our rental car, which would put the entire Front Range Urban Corridor at our fingertips. I asked if this meant he was volunteering to be the designated driver. "Okay, give me the number for the Warwick."

I could only hear JB's side of that conversation. After wincing at the quoted nightly rate, he started asking what that price included. Parking? No. Breakfast? No. Wi-fi? No. Airline discount? Sorry. "Let me get back to you."

JB returned to his laptop. "Here's a place not far from the Warwick, and it's not too expensive." I started reading aloud what the Yelp reviewers had to say about the EconoLodge. The beds all have rubber under-sheets. And signs are posted in the rooms asking guests to kindly use the available ashtrays – not the walls please – when snuffing out their smokes.

Classy.

"What's the number for the Warwick again?" JB went into full-flirt mode and sweet talked the guy into giving him a "travel agent rate", whatever that means.

Now... what to wear?

It's my birthday and I reserve the option to put
my butt out wherever I damn well please.
And no, I don't smoke.

Confluence

My junior year in high school I signed up for a summer canoe trip in Isle Royale National Park. In order to participate, I had to write three reports by the end of the school year which pertained in some way to the island.

I wrote one report on the shipwrecks of Lake Superior. Another on the ecological balance between the moose and wolf populations on Isle Royale. And finally a report about prehistoric indigenous copper mining on the island.

I didn't realize it at the time, but being encouraged to learn a little historical background allowed me to much better appreciate the experience while I was there. I'll never forget the thrill of coming across holes dug into solid rock and knowing ancient Native Americans once mined for copper in those pits. I left for the Island a boy and returned a filthy, sunburnt boy with parasites.

What stuck with me longer than the ticks and leeches was my fascination for geology and history. How every place that exists today is the the product of the random geologic processes which shaped its environment coupled with the aspirations and fortunes of the humans who chanced upon it, and either moved on or settled there permanently.

Later, while attending Michigan Technological University, I was able to learn much more about mining history and industrial archeology from a professor who quite literally wrote the book on the subject.

A few years later I took my first trip to Colorado just to visit several of the state's early abandoned gold and silver mines. Yeah, that's how fun I am.

After moving to Atlanta, I couldn't wait to explore the historic gold mining areas in the North Georgia mountains. Several booming communities were formed during Georgia's gold rush days of the 1830's only to go bust as more lucrative lodes were discovered in California and the prospectors moved west. Some of these early mining towns found other means of industry or survive today as tourist attractions while the rest are just stone foundations overgrown with trees and brush.

One of these North Georgia ghost towns is just outside of Dahlonega.  Auraria is Latin for  "land of gold". Legend has it the Georgia Gold Rush began in Auraria when someone tripped over a gold nugget. Today just a few ruins remain as evidence that earlier generations of Americans lived out their hopes and dreams on that spot.

I explored this ghost town years ago, but just this week I learned more about its story. Something that, had I known then, would have made standing there – the only human being in the derelict town of Auraria – even more significant.

In 1858 a group of prospectors left Georgia to follow rumors of gold in Colorado. Their party settled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at the confluence of two rivers. Perhaps they were homesick, because they named their settlement after their home in Georgia.

As Auraria, Georgia gradually withered away into obscurity, it's namesake in Colorado continued to thrive, and still exists in name today as a neighborhood of Denver, the city which developed around the settlement.

I learned this because, as a nerd, and I like to study the history of a place before I visit.

By Your Side, Always

I know I can be long-winded sometimes. I plan to work on that, really.

Sometimes I start writing a comment to a blog post only to realize my "comment" has begun to dwarf the original post. This happened today while responding to a post on BosGuy's blog. Please read "Gay spouse forcibly removed from Kansas City MO hospital" then come back for my response.

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I have to remind myself how lucky JB and I are to have the support of each other's families and to live in an area where healthcare professionals are accustomed to regularly dealing with same-sex families. In every medical situation we've experienced together so far – and there have been a few – I've been very impressed with the sensitivity and dignity that's been extended to us. It leads me to believe there's been some level of institutional awareness and training intended to avoid these types of incidents and the ensuing negative publicity.

But BosGuy is right: this story serves as a reminder that we can't be complacent, either legislatively or from a personal and practical legal standpoint. Without the standard protections of family law, basic contracts like medical power of attorney are vitally important. The fact that we've been lucky in the past is irrelevant when it comes to the law and, until reading this, has only served to entrench my complacency.

While having medical power of attorney didn't prevent this particular outrage, the fact this couple had one goes a long way to remove any argument that they were in the right and the hospital was wrong.

A simple yet powerful image, Mark Kelly holds his wife
Gabrielle Giffords' hand at her hospital bedside.

Yes, there are rays of hope on the horizon. But I realize I can't let my optimism deter or delay me from taking action now to protect me and mine from the injustice of current reality.

Like BosGuy and so many others, I think this story resonates because I just can't picture myself voluntarily leaving JB's side under my own power.