Apr 08

Review: Steel’s Used Christian Books

Steel’s Used Christian Books has one of the absolute best selections of any used bookstore I have ever seen. Not only do they carry religious books of several orthodox and non-orthodox Christian denominations, as well as complete other religions.

They also carry books on history, mythology, and various other odds and ends. When I was there I picked up a dictionary of mythology, a book on Christian symbolism, and Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson.

However great the selection is, though, you will be hard-pressed to find any bargains, at least as far as used book prices go. There were several very nice books I considered, but did not purchase because I could get the same copy new for the same price or less at christianbook.com.

The guys who run the store are pretty laid back, and played Led Zeppelin the whole time we were there.

Apr 07

Rear-view mirror

One of the ways you can tell whether a car belongs to a man or a woman is to look at the rear-view mirror.

For a guy, a rear-view mirror is for looking at things behind him, and, just maybe, a parking pass.

For a woman, a rear-view mirror is gallery waiting to be populated. It is not unusual to see about 30 pounds of stuff hanging from a woman’s mirror, consisting of, but not limited to: beads, rosaries, pictures of her children, religious symbols, necklaces, old flowers, concert passes, stuffed animals, feathers, keychains, bottles of perfume, and even other mirrors.

Apr 06

Donuts

My friend Kay has written an article regarding donuts; I take exception to her spelling ‘doughnuts,’ but she is the one with the journalism degree and I am the one who dropped out of art school.

Her site is kayhoflander.com, but here is a direct link to the article.

Personally, I love donuts. It’s not a question who I would kill to get a donut; a more accurate measure is who I wouldn’t kill to get a donut.

Back when I used to work at Ace, I would have three fresh glazed donuts and a quart of whole milk for breakfast every morning. It was because of this that my boss Tom Runge called me Donut Dan, an appellation I took as a compliment.

I don’t love all donuts, of course. As anyone in the KC area knows, you are in one of two camps: Lamar’s or Krispy Kreme. As I have already stated, I love donuts, therefore I am a Lamar’s man. Krispy Kreme doesn’t make donuts, they make liquid-sugar-encased-grease-rings.

I don’t mean to make the disingenuous statement that I in any way dislike grease or sugar; I love ’em.

But come on, man; show a little restraint.

Apr 05

Jury duty

My wife Heather has posted a funny and extensive story about her many jury duty experiences over the past few years over at her blog.

I’ve never had to go to jury duty, but I was subpoenaed to appear as a special witness a few years ago because I had worked with the local police to draw a sketch of an armed robber.

They caught the guy. When I saw him in court, it was interesting to see that I had captured his eyes and chin based on the victim’s description.

However, it was about as bad as most police sketches, and it showed that my primary training was as a cartoonist and caricaturist and not a portrait artist.

I don’t know what gave it away really, but I think it might have been the giant head on the tiny body in the little car.

You never can tell.

Apr 04

Overheard: slow

“It goes so slow, but if you jump straight up you won’t move an inch.”

Apr 03

The all-seeing Kaleb

My friend Kaleb notices everything. EVERYTHING.

I found this out a few years ago when I started my job. I got up as usual one morning, got dressed, got in my car and went to work. When I stepped out of my car, I looked down and noticed that I had put on two different shoes.

“Maybe no-one will notice,” I thought.

So I’m in my office standing behind my workbench around a corner and Kaleb walks in.

“Hey, you have two different shoes on!” he said, quite amused.

It’s bad enough to do something dumb, but the process behind it just made it worse: I wasn’t in a hurry, one was brown and one was black, there was plenty of light, and the shoes had two different textures. The only way they could have been more different was if I had grabbed one of my wife’s shoes.

Mar 31

Jury Duty Myth

The myth: Jurors are picked randomly. That is, the procedure that picks prospective jurors is done by a computer that randomly selects names from a list of all of those who live in a certain county, city, town, state.

This is why I believe this myth to be false:

I have been served with jury duty notice 4 times since 2002. Daniel, my sisters, my brothers and most of my friends have NEVER been served with these precious papers. Let me take you through my experience.

2002 – I received my juror questionnaire for Federal Petit Jury Kansas City in the mail and I asked to be excused, because at the time I was watching several children in my home and my being gone would not only disrupt my family but four other families. Thankfully I did not have to serve.

July-December 2005 – I received my juror questionnaire for Lafayette County Grand Jury in the mail and at this point had no excuse not to go. I was hoping that they would not pick me because I was in college at the time and I felt my place was in the classroom. They did not agree. In fact, I was picked and spent one day a month for the next 6 months deciding the fate of hundreds of deadbeat fathers, child molesters, thieves, and countless other criminals (who were innocent until proven guilty). Overall this was not a bad experience (except when the cases involved children). Also, they taught me how to make crystal meth-amphetamines.

January 2006 – I received my juror questionnaire for Lafayette County Petit Jury in the mail and filled it out stating the fact that I had just served as a juror on a grand jury. I guess the fact that I still hadn’t received my ‘huge’ salary for serving on said jury helped me get excused at this point.

January 2009 – I received my juror questionnaire for Lafayette County Petit Jury in the mail and filled it out stating that I would rather not have to serve since I had been summoned SEVERAL times before, and that I would like to give my spot up to my husband who hadn’t been summoned at all. Ever. In fact, I gave the name, address, and SSN numbers of my whole family and a list of my friends with addresses so that they could contact them to help fill the slots. They thanked me for my help but told that as I was the winner that the prize was non-transferable.

Now, I don’t mind doing my civic duty but I thought this was crazy that I had been picked so often. The timing was also bad because I had just had surgery the week before I was supposed to appear AND I was planning on putting in my two weeks notice at my job the day before. Not good.

So I did the only thing possible at the time (no, I did not move to Mexico or Canada) I prayed. Actually, I prayed very hard that God would intercede on my behalf so that the case that jurors were being picked for would be settled out of court (this happens a lot). It wasn’t.

The day before, the prospective juror is supposed to call a number to see if they are still needed. Yes, the case was going before a jury and I needed to be in court. No, you can’t get measles in one day and not be able to show up. If you do have a rare disease that pops up over night please come anyway and we ‘might’ excuse you.

“Please Lord, don’t let me be picked.”

For those of you not ‘lucky’ enough to win this lottery, when you arrive at the court house there is water, coffee and donuts waiting so that you can pass the time until the judge is ready to start the process. I did not partake of this because I had already eaten breakfast. You are crammed into a room adjacent to the court room (or in this case, crammed into two rooms plus the court room) and you wait until all the prospective jurors arrive. If some ‘forget’ then you have to wait until they are tracked down and ‘reminded.’ After everyone has arrived, you are called one at a time and given a paddle with a number on it and then crammed, as tight as possible, into the courtroom (yes the same one that held one-third of the people before).

When the judge arrives you are all sworn in and the questions begin. Oh yeah, the judge informs us that he is visiting from Boone County and that if we are selected to serve we will immediately have to return home, gather our things and return to the courthouse to be bused back to Columbia where the trial will be held. Also, the trial should ‘only’ last three days.

GREAT!

Not only will I miss three of my last days of work but I will be away from my family whom I cannot even contact.

“Lord, PLEASE don’t let them pick me!”

The questions began:

  • Is there anyone here that would be unduly  hurt if they had to serve on this jury? Several farmers and people with really small children were excused. Not me.
  • Is there anyone who wouldn’t be able to sit through several hours of a trial? Several people with heart, kidney, prostate, gastrointestinal problems along with others with more sever health problems were excused. Not me.
  • Is there anyone who has been a jury foreman? Not me.
  • Has anyone ever had a criminal case against them? Not me.
  • Has anyone been involved in a criminal case (witnesses)? Not me.
  • Has blah blah blah? Not me.

At this point in the questions I realized that I had to tinkle. Not bad, mind you, but it registered that I may need to visit the facilities afterwards. Now, all my life I have had NO problem holding my bladder when necessary. In fact, I used to pride myself on being able to hold it on long car trips when I was a child.

Needless to say I wasn’t feeling very prideful at this time.

As the judge continues with the questions and the people continue with their answers I start thinking back to what I had to drink that morning, and trying to figure out the last time I had gone.

No, I only had a glass of water with breakfast. No coffee. No milk. Nothing extra to drink. I went to the bathroom when I got up at 6:30 and it is now only 10:45. Only 4 hours or so into this and I shouldn’t be having problems.

No I hadn’t been experiencing  any kind of problems since the surgery, no UTIs, bladder infections or kidney problems (I already answered these questions for the judge). So why in the world was the urge to run from the room and find a hole to pee in so bad?

So bad in fact that I was bent over at the waist pressing my stomach to help ease the pain. Not only that, but the people on each side of me and the bailiff asked me if I was okay. “No, is there any way I could go to the rest room?” was my answer to all their questions. The bailiff went to the judge and asked when we were going to break because someone needed the bathroom.

“What number is it?” he asked. When she told him he made a face and turned back around to watch what was going on with the lawyers. (At this time he was done asking questions and the lawyers had taken over). After the first lawyer was done the judge announced that there would be a ten minute break. Before he was done talking I had stood up and was moving to the end of my row.

“But before that I need to read you this statement.”

It was basically saying that we wouldn’t talk about what we had been discussing and that we could not use our phones. On his last breath I made a mad dash to the nearest bathroom and peed for about an hour. Straight.

Well, it seemed like it anyway. When I was done I went and sat back down to wait.

You remember at the beginning I told you that I did one thing: I prayed. Well I believe that God struck my bladder and caused it to fill up abnormally. That is the only explanation I have for what happened. No, I wasn’t picked for this jury, and all because I couldn’t sit through a 4 hour jury selection. God does answer our prayers even when we don’t know how.

I still have the possibility of being picked for another jury and I go to my mailbox hoping not to find a white postcard that says I need to report to the court house in Lexington. I plan on sending a letter to whoever is in charge of the selection asking them to recheck their selection method because I think I have had enough for several lifetimes.

And so has my bladder.

Mar 31

Review: Monsters vs. Aliens

A better title might be Dan vs. Sheer Boredom. Guess who wins?

Monsters vs. Aliens is an overlong slapstick and booger joke with no character development, no emotion, and few laughs. I saw it for free and I still got ripped off.

However, to be truthful, it is funnier than getting cancer.

Probably.

Mar 31

Nugatory

I was sending a text to my woman, and I was in the process of typing “nuh-uh.” I got as far as “nu-” and my Razr suggested this word: nugatory.

I thought some funny programmer had inserted his favorite duuuuude-speak version of negatory, but I was wrong.

It’s an adjective of Latin origin meaning “of no value or importance.”


Mar 31

Notes

Several years ago I wanted to do something cool for my wife, so I wrote about a dozen little notes, printed them off and folded them neatly. Then I took them around to a dozen of my friends to ask them to deliver them to Heather for me.

The idea was akin to having flowers delivered, except a dozen personalized flowers showing up randomly throughout the day. At first one of my friends thought maybe Heather and I were having marriage problems, and had to be reassured that everything was great before she would be party to delivering the note. My ideas of what would be really cool aren’t always as cool as I think, and they don’t always work out, but this one worked out nicely: Heather loved it.

The men I gave these notes to delivered them dutifully, no big deal.

However, I found out later that the notes piqued the curiosity of some of the women, and before they delivered them–they read them.

I wasn’t angry; I think I literally laughed out loud when I heard about it. Besides, I hadn’t written anything I would have been mortified to have revealed, and nothing everybody didn’t know already (I think Heather is the greatest, I like being married, etc).

It was a valuable lesson, and unlike most lessons, it was painless.