A Glimpse: The Plants

A few years back, a teacher brought a couple of plants into The Girl's library in Hamilton. 

Those couple of plants have, over the years, increased in number (some by purchase, some by gifting, some by splitting) to a point where The Homestead sees its back decking covered in flora all summer long.

In past years, those plants have wintered in The Girl's library - Hamilton or Lakota depending on the year.  This year, though, The Girl doesn't have a library to which the plants can return so they've come inside.

I dig 'em.  The Girl's a little annoyed with 'em.  I'm kinda afraid that the younger dog is snacking on them.  Yesterday there were a few piles of puke to suggest that something wrong had been injested.

A Glimpse: Me

It'd been a while since I'd updated my photo album of myself on my chemistry webpage. I try to keep a bunch of decent and embarrassing photos of myself posted so that when my students complain that I'm posting horrible photos of them, I can point out tat I do the same of myself.

And it's about time for me to update that album. So here's a new album of your humble ChemGuy.

The initial pic up above, by the way, is courtesy of my new laptop's built in webcam and captures me in my typical fall/winter weekend glory.

A glimpse: the DVDs

Because it's clearly something that you folks demand, our "A Glimpse" series continues with the DVDs that I own and that live on both sides of my stereo above the television...left side first...from left to right...


Sin City was a great time in the theater. Loved it. The movie hasn't held up on further viewings. It's neat and all, but it's not one I love seeing again and again. And the double disc version is amazingly tedious - except for Robert Rodriguez's Ten Minute Cooking School - which is brilliant and should be watched and to which I would link if it didn't end with a horrific vulgarity.

The Muppet Movie was a gift from Calen after I crabbed that it was stolen by some punks who broke into my house a few years ago. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, and the jokes get me smiling and laughing every time. Cameos out the wazoo - Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Edgar Bergan, Charlie McCarthy, Charles Durning, Richard Pryor, Dom DeLouise, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Bob Hope, Elliott Gould, Carol Kane, Madeline Kahn, Telly Savalas, Orson Wells - all brilliant. One of my all-time favorite movies.

Fight Club is one I can watch over and over again. I know the twist is coming, and the movie works even better for me because of it.

Hoosiers is the other favorite movie. I'll watch it three or four times every year and break into tears when the minister gives the David and Goliath speech every time. When I first got the DVD, I watched every game scene and skipped every other one...tears anyway. This edition is great because it has all the deleted scenes that make the plot holes close right up. Plus, bonus points because "I think Jimmy can get an academic scholarship to Wabash College."

Then the whole Kevin Smith oeuvre - cartoon, Clerks X, Mallrats 10th anniv, Chasing Amy (the best he's done yet and the one I enjoy watching the least...the movie spoke to me at the time, what can I say), Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (the worst of them and the one I probably watch the most). Don't know why Degrassi is way out of order, but that a'ight.

North to Katahdin is a documentary about the Appalachian Trail that I bought for The Girl a while back and that we've watched once. It did give me some idea of what her 2100+ mile trip was like.

A Lion in the House is heartbreaking, and I've blogged about it twice before.

The next two are Wilco - one of the band and one of Tweedy alone. The first is a better movie by far, the second a simple concert DVD with extra content that I've never been able to get to work. Which sucks.

The Big Lebowski is the funniest movie I've ever seen. Love it.

The two two-flick DVDs were about $10 each at Target, and I've seen Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity enough to justify both purchases.

The Wimbledon up top is the last of these to have been in the player. It's the classic final from this past summer. Five full hours of fascinating BBC coverage of the match.



LA Story is the second movie that The Girl and I went to see - our second date. It's a magical and hilarious tale written by and starring Steve Martin.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension is an atrocious piece of 80's filmmaking. It's a product of its era as strongly as almost any I've ever seen. I love it - especially the end credits. The special effects and the make up are awful. AWFUL. I love it.

Family Guy pretty much isn't funny. I enjoyed it briefly, but I hate it now.

Spirited Away from Miyazaki is beautiful. It's an animated feature of stunning beauty. It's been a while since I've seen it because Calen's daughter hasn't been over in a while. She watches it nearly every time she visits.

Rozencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the tale of "Hamlet" as told from a different point of view, focusing on his two bumbling friends and their struggles with trying to acknowledge that they have very little - if any - control over their own path in the play. Funny, witty stuff.

Field of Dreams has me in tears at the end every time.

Hero is the finest movie ever made. I stand by that statement. It's the only one that I've given a 100-rating to on criticker.

The Aristocrats is not the Disney movie that you're thinking of. It's the most vulgar movie I've ever seen, all about a single horrifically off-color joke. Do not see it if you're at all offended. By anything. Anything at all.

Kill Bill volume 1, only.

Time Bandits is one out of the childhood and another gift from Calen.

The Triplets of Belleville is an animated film almost entirely in French, probably not ten English words and not many words at all, honestly.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the other flick - with Lebowski - for funniest film I've seen.

The ones up top are all borrow films - Matrix from my neighbor at shcool, Signs and Saving Private Ryan from Coach Sullivan, The Secret as an absolute joke from the guy who lived in my basement last summer, and the 15-Minute Workout is The Girl's loaner.

I'm not sure there was a lick of anything revealing there at all.

Thanks for getting that far.

A glimpse: the bookshelves

The whole shelving unit
Moving downstairs, we have the bookshelves. These are Metro shelves that we bought when we first moved into our first house - speaking of first houses, big congrats to my neighbor at school who just bought his first house - and needed somewhere to put all our books and cd's and television and kitchen implements. We've now got a dozen of the units (from more generic manufacturers than Metro) in our shed, our garage, our laundry room, and the downstairs family room. They're awesome, utilitarian shelves, but I'm starting to think that I'm at a point in life where I want some shelves that are more stylish, more solid, more wooden than these.

But that's for another day. For today, let's take a look in more detail at each part of the shelves.

Up top - only visible in the top photo - we have a dozen Kevin Smith Inaction Figures from Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Clerks. I gave up on the collection before Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back came out. I even have Walt, Steve Dave, and Dixie Cup Brodie 'cause I'm a completist like that. I did, however, pass on all the Kevin Smith figures.

...for which I'm a little sad from time to time...

And the cats are from World Market and were a gift to The Girl on her worst birthday with me yet. Good times that one - big fight, but that's for another day, too.

Now, moving downward to the top shelf, left to right...

Top left
The bobblehead is Frank Robinson, picked up a couple of years ago at Great American. A few books over is Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show which is a hell of a book and took a long route back to these shelves as I loaned it out to a student of mine at Mount Healthy. This past school year - about eight years later - Jason found himself as an observing teacher ed student at PHS and brought the book back to me. I never thought I'd get that book back, and I was okay with that. Book lent out should never be demanded back. Let them go, set them free. And when/if they come back, they're gifts.

Further across is another book that has had more of an effect on me - The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I read that one as a sophomore at Wabash as part of a course that every sophomore took (and still takes) and as a text that every Wabash student had read and discussed. I learned more about how a man can change - and Malcolm X made amazing changes in his lives - in his life and absolutely refute what he had so readily believed beforehand. I remember wondering - ignorantly - how Wabash could have a multi-cultural center named after Malcolm X who was - as I said at the time - against our country and in favor of violent revolution. A junior in the room asked me what I really knew about Malcolm X, politely but pointedly questioning my dogmatism, and I had little to back up my statement. A year later, after I had read The Autobiography, I knew much more and have tried not to make such stupid, assumptive statements since. People are much more complex than simple soundbites and historical snapshots could and do ever show.

Most of the rest of those books aren't mine. I'm not in the paperback fiction world for the most part. The silver cup - generic metal with a clear plastic base - holds sea glass collected on the beaches of Scotland and foreign coins brought back from my year overseas. I haven't looked in the cup for a long time, but it reassures me to know that it's there.

The other two books up there that matter to me are Brave New World and Slaughterhouse Five. The Vonnegut is probably my favorite book of all time though the Huxley is in the running as well. I read Slaughterhouse every couple of years and enjoy it more every time.

On the second shelf down is the lone book that I've ever stolen from a library - not accidentally kept, not lost, absolutely and intentionally stolen, kept, and paid for: Electric Brae. During my summers between college years, I was reading a whole lot, browsing the public library sort of at random, and I picked up Electric Brae a month or so before I headed to my junior year in Scotland. I began the book and found myself deep into a fantastic love triangle in and around Aberdeen where I was flying in a few short weeks. I didn't know the setting before I started reading the book. The coincidence caught me and meant something to me at the time.

A year later, I checked the book out again and found a bookmark inside it, left there by a previous reader. On the front of that bookmark was a phone number and name of a friend of mine, and on the back was another of each. I mentioned this in passing to The Girl, and she mentioned that she'd checked the book out on my recommendation and must've left her bookmark in it. I believed - or assumed or hoped - that somehow only she and I had checked the book out in the year. I kept the book and sent a letter and a check to the library explaining my choice.

The Harry Potters are ones I've read maybe half of. The rest I've listened to, enjoying Jim Dale's voices.

The "Really Really Dangerous" toy is The Box which tested The Tick on the first episode of his cartoon series. The toys weren't popular, and I've got every one. Actually, The Girl has every one as I bought them as gifts to her - collecting them on her behalf.

The figures are The Bride from Kill Bill, the Golgothan from Dogma, and a Crazy 88 killer also form Kill Bill.

Top right
The ceramic stein celebrates my high school's lone basketball state title from 1973, two years before I was born, and it sat on my parents' shelves for a couple of decades before I took it to college with me. I have no idea whether my parents know where that stein ever went. Mom, if you're reading, I've got it. Thanks.

Next shelf down, behind the Crazy 88 killer, you can see "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead", a play by Tom Stoppard based on "Hamlet". It's a hilarious, brilliant play but one that shouldn't be read until after you've digested and understood "Hamlet". I'll also recommend the movie version with Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfus.

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by WP Kinsella - author of Shoeless Joe which became Field of Dreams. This one's a little more fantastical but no less marvelous. It tells the tale of a baseball fan and researcher who finds himself slipped back in time, playing in a game of a league that only he remembers existing, falling in love with a woman whose spirit echos that of his oft-absent wife. Around this tale weaves in and out the tale of a native American spirit who is using his every bit of magic to support the local team against the Chicago Cubs traveling team in a game that lasts forty days and nights while the clouds drop steady rain and the river rises, threatening to wipe away the ballfield. It's a magical ride and one I need to take again.

The far right - hanging up - is my Lambda Chi Alpha associate paddle (it's a pledge paddle but without the hazing). It was given to me by John Prince, the second Prince brother to go through my fraternity house. John and his brothers graduated from the same high school that I did, and John was a great mentor at Wabash and in the house. His elder brother, Steve, was the one who got me to first take a look at Wabash, and I owe him immensely for that.

Center left
the marbles came from my paternal grandparents' home, and I stupidly broke the first glass containers that I put them in. The big blue ball is LeRoy's favorite toy. He can't quite get his mouth all the way around it, so he can't pick it up and chew on it, but he loves to bat it around and scratch at it. It's annoying and hilarious.

Again, a bunch of books I don't care about and/or haven't read.

The wooden fish came from The Girl's grandmother's house. It's never held books in our house.

Flatland - behind the fish - is a dual book with Sphereland taking the story to another dimension. I first read Flatland as a seventh-grader in my English class with Sandra VanOsdol (sp?), a wonderful teacher whom I loved dearly.

Next shelf down...lots of my books here. City and Pyramid by David McCauley are brilliant books, telling historical tales of ancient societies through graphical means. They're not for tiny kids, but they're certainly for certain kids in the mid- and upper-elementary grades, and I first found them then. They're in our artsy section of the shelves and are next to three Eschers and a Matisse. The Escher's are mine; the Mattise The Girl's.

She also owns the next few music books - Rolling Stone's encyclopedia, the Beatles book in black and pink. They're from college classes that she took at Indiana University. There are very few instances when I am or have been envious of people attending any school other than Wabash, but The Girl's three classes on the History of Rock (parts I and II plus the Beatles) were certainly those.

American Songs and Ballads is a collection that I should know better and that was passed down from mom's shelves.

We are Still Married is a collection of Garrison Keillor, and I brought it back for The Girl from Scotland, my lone gift for her and something I picked up from a used book store there. We weren't romantically involved at the time, but I apparently thought the title meant something and remembered listening to Prairie Home Companion on Sunday nights in Bloomington together.

Two more dog toys that we have to lift up and keep away from LeRoy for much of the time. He'd drive us bonkers and hurt himself if we didn't.

Center right
Past the fish now...all of my Hunter S Thompson books. The Great Shark Hunt is the best and most inconsistent of those. It has the best writing that Hunter ever put together and is one to read for anyone interested in checking out Hunter for the first time.

In the middle of the Thompson is Night by Elie Weisel, the hardest book that I've ever read. I read that the same year that I read Malcolm X, and I enjoyed Night far less. It moved me every bit as much, however, as it is a phenomenal account of a man's life.

There a bunch of cartoon books then. The Bloom County material has aged poorly, and I haven't read any of them in a long while. The Bus on the bother hand, is ageless, hilarious, and just weird.

Downward again...you get another book that came coincidentally to me. In my freshman year, we read Infinite in All Directions, a memoir by Freeman Dyson. It explored Dyson's thoughts on all sorts of aspects of science, and we looked at what he had to say on the morals of modern technology. I took the book with me to Aberdeen and began to re-read the tome on the airplane to Scotland. I noticed then that the book was built from a series of lectures given at the University of Aberdeen, where I was heading to spend a year. Another coincidence? Well, yeah, but it felt meaningful to me at the time.

Bottom left
Not much to look at here. There's a pile of books too big to fit upright on our shelves. There's In the Shadow of No Towers, a withering honesty, frighteningly personal reaction to the 9/11 attacks from Art Speigelman. It's not comics for children, and it's not even comics for most adults. It's worth a read, however.

There's another Escher at the bottom of that pile and a bunch of magazines between - Rolling Stones, National Geographic, Time, and others - including the two years of yearbooks from my junior high school years.


Bottom right
The two Sandman volumes have a matching first volume that's loaned out to TL right now. and they're the expensive, uber hardcover versions of Gaiman's masterwork series. They're expensive, and they're indulgent, but I love them.

The last books there - the furthest right - are the yearbooks from my first year at Mount Healthy and the my three years of high school yearbooks. At least I think they're mine. They could be The Girl's because we were in high school together.

Hmmm...rather anticlimactic. Sorry, folks...

Next week, my cd's...there are a bunch of them, so I don't know how much commentary I'll be offering.

A glimpse: the fridge

The entire act of blogging is about as narcissistic as anything could ever be.

For some reason, I seem to believe that people would care about what I have to say, what I think, and what media I intake. And you people consistently prove me right - which probably isn't all that healthy for my ego.

And which leads me to do crap like this.

For the next few Wednesdays, I'll be providing a bit of glimpse into The Homestead where The Girl and I reside. I'll be posting a photo or two of some part of The Homestead that might give a little idea of the world where I reside.

Today it's my fridge door, where so much of our modern world ends up posted for ourselves to see.

Lets start in the bottom left and move upward, left to right pointing out some of the stuff...

Those polaroids are of Harlan's teeth. The vet wanted to point out how nasty they were before his last teeth cleaning and then how clean they were afterwards. That's been a couple of years now.

The blue-blanketed baby in the bottom right corner is the first of many birth announcements telling us that our friends have joined the breeder world while The Girl and I remain firmly as travelers (a friend of ours pointed out that some people are breeders...other are travelers). Hiya, Noah.

The magnet holding that photo card up says "I quilt...He cooks", and I'm slowly working on making the second part of the statement more true.

The pig and cow magnets came from Alton Brown's cookbook, one of the coolest science/cooking books I've read and one of the least useful cookbooks.

The red JOY card is another birth announcement - hiya, Henry.

The business card/calendar is for Terry Hartke with her lion's mane of hair. Terry sold us The Homestead and sells a bunch of houses in our neighborhood. We see her a few times a year when we visit all the open houses for the neat houses. Typically, we'll walk or ride our bikes.

The small trio family is one of my regular readers - Coldnorthgamer - and his wife and daughter. Gamer and I go way back, and he might be the person with the most photos on the fridge who doesn't live in The Homestead.

Jana Lewis is the assistant principal where The Girl worked for the past four years.

Another birth announcement. Hiya, Adelaide.

The lion is a souvenir from the summer's trip to New York.

One you reach a certain age, you aren't sending out birth announcements anymore. You're sending out "we bought a new house" announcements, and that's what a coworker (and good friend) did when he and his wife moved across the river to Northern Kentucky so they could live under the approaching jets.

The Disney postcard was sent to The Girl from some of the other runners after she completed her second marathon for Team in Training.

That's me on the right in the tux. Gamer's on the left and was the man of the day there. I was honored to be able to stand up for him.

The photo with the horrible glare - I'll post a better copy without the glare at the bottom of this post - is of the four national merit finalists in my graduating class. I'm in the green shirt, back left. Gamer's in the white shirt and the cast. It was a rough senior year for him.

That's me in the blue shirt and tie with The Girl in her grandmother's house. Must've been the Christmas that we spent there. Wow, that's been twelve years ago now.

#1 Nerd was a gift from The Girl to me.

In the cute bow sweater and the huge grin is Hannah. Hiya, Hannah.

The two pinwheels next to me and Gamer are from this summer on the Massachusetts part of the vacation. I'm all down with my spirographs.

I can happily endorse Grady Veterinary Hospital. They're awesome vets.

The receipt is from Lowe's and is for a Bancroft 4" CS LA which apparently cost $88.00. I have absolutely no idea what a Bancroft 4" CS LA is or why we still have that receipt.

Hiya, Matthew and Christopher. The only twins on the fridge.

I don't know Ashley or Richard very well at all. We got invited because the guy who bought the new house in Northern Kentucky is Ashley's dad, and I'm a good friend of his.

The Girl didn't look her best at the end of her training run for one of those marathons.

Herrmann Plumbing is a solid plumbing, heating, and air business that we don't use anymore because they have a significant trip charge to get out to where The Homestead is.

The burger is a coupon for a free White Castle hamburger. The coupon - and the other one in the top right corner - has long since expired.

Above that are a Papa Johns magnet (our second choice locally for pizza), a PLCH magnet, and a magnet for Amighetti Bakery in St. Louis. The library is the one that we far and away most frequently use.

The next guy is Gabrielle. Hiya, Gabe.

And then hiya to Taylor and Jillian.

The Christmas card is for the family that briefly lived in our basement a year ago. Hiya, Jake.

The ticket is for Lebowski Fest in Chicago, the one that I sadly got snowed into Cincinnati for.

Thankfully, we end with the Nerds are sweet stuff magnet.

Here's the unglared photo of me, Gamer, Richie, and Brant in from of our high school.


I'm thinking...for the next few Wednesdays...photos of our bookshelves...our keepsake shelves...my cd collection...our kitchen table (which is typically a huge pit)...the fridge's insides...the DVD collection...

A couple of questions...do you give a crap?...and are there any particular areas of The Homestead (short of the front view which The Girl has asked me to keep a bit private) that you'd be curious to see since I'm guessing most of you folks won't be visiting any time soon?

Unless you end up house sitting for us - we are travellers, after all. Joey, Katydid - how are you folks with cats and dogs?