Important Lessons From 2008.

Even though the year is only 11/12ths over at the time of this writing, I'm already reflecting on the 2008 experience. As it turns out, I did learn a few things this year.
Here's the list for 2008, as I recall it:

• From a distance, bravery and stupidity can look pretty much the same.
  
  
• Don't leave a hammer on top of your ladder... when you are going to stand under the ladder and move it.
  
  
• A bad day playing guitar is better than a good day in a cubicle.
  
  
• Never underestimate the Speed of Stupid. e=mc^2/IQ
  
  
• Never go to your bee hives to feed your bees wearing sandals. And, if you do, don't spill the sugar syrup on your feet.
  
  
• One bee INSIDE your bee suit is much more dangerous that 50,000 outside of your suit.
  
  
• An angry bee can fly faster than you can run... with a bee suit wadded up around your ankles.
  
  
• A backhoe is not a toy.
  
  
• Covering your Check Engine light with black tape is NOT the same as fixing the car.
  
  
• That guy in Nigeria with $30 million to split with me probably doesn't have the money, but he is awfully fun to mess with via email.
  
  
• A lousy craftsman blames his tools. A bad musician blames his instrument.
  
  
• Take the time to seek the silence between the notes.
  
  
• Lighten up. Seriously.
  
  
• There is no better gift than love, but hospitality is a close second.
  
  
• If you don't understand unconditional love, let my dog sit in your lap for a minute.
  
  
• Even your worst enemy has a best friend... somewhere.... Can you believe that? (but he's probably an asshole too)
  
  
• Embrace the crazy.
  
  
• The art of music is not learning a foreign language, but discovering my native tongue that had been inadvertently misplaced.
  
  
• Have some guts, why don't 'cha? No body ever got anywhere cool by being safe.
  
  
• Working your tail off does not guarantee success, but sitting on your ass does guarantee failure.

That's it for now. I'll add more as I continue to recall the wonder and glory that was 2008. Feel free to post any you think of in the comments section.
Please enjoy the rest of this lame-duck month as we roll head-long into 2009!
-CW

i don't know what else to say

why don't people love each other more? seriously.
why can't we have compassion for each other, and act on it?
why can't we be good to one another?
why can't we share without a second thought?
why can't we try to build each other up, rather than tear each other down?
what happened to altruism?
what happened to truth and justice?

why don't we trust each other?

Why? I'll tell you why. It's because secretly, we fear that the evil we know, that lives deep in our own hearts, is in our neighbors heart too. And we don't trust them not to act on it.

i am sick to death of greed.
i am sick of anger and hatred.
i am sick of deceit.

i don't know what else to say.
let's all try to be good to each other, or if we can't manage that, at least 'better' to each other.

I have to admit, today I'm pooped. We are recovering from a full day of activity in town yesterday. It was the 4th Annual Nashcar Race and County Picnic in Nashville. The event was put on by the We Care Gang, to benefit people in need of food and shelter in our community. It was a really good time, and major kudos go out to the We Care Gang for putting on a first-class event. http://www.wecaregang.org

The events of the day included a short parade of the 9 race teams, highly competitive corn-hole and plunger toss games, and the feature event - the Outhouse Races. Yes, you read that correctly, we were racing outhouses. (insert potty-humor joke here).

Our team was racing for the Brown County Community Foundation. Other teams were from Habitat for Humanity, Bear's Hardware, "The Pirates", Brown County Solid Waste, and others.
Our team consisted of Chuck "Crash" Wills, "Richie Bobby" Wallace, Gas-Man Garrett Higbee and the world famous Teresa Turbo as our fearless driver.

The competition was really tough. Seriously. Garrett and Richie Bobby started the corn-hole competition for our team, and quickly worked their way through the heats to the final round, only to be severely trounced by Hills-O-Brown Realty team. Those guys took no prisoners and cleaned up 21 to 0. We ended up in 2nd place, which is pretty good for our first year in the game.

The real focus of the event - besides the amazing smoked pork sandwiches - was the Outhouse Race. Teresa Turbo worked her strategy of intimidation to psych-out the other racers. She was in full safety gear - helmet, neck brace, fireproof gloves and overalls. In the first round she piloted us to 3rd overall, beating the other 6 outhouses by a wide margin. We made it to the next-to-last round, where we came in 4th overall.

You can see more pictures by clicking here

It was a day of great fun, food, friends and competition. The day was rounded out by amazing music from The Thunder Club. The We Care Gang did an excellent job, and raised nearly $6000 for folks in our county.

Great job everyone, and we'll be back next year!

I am a vegitarian.

I have been thinking about sustainable living for several years now. It's not enough to buy an SUV that uses slightly less gas, or use a canvas sack to carry bottled water from the grocery store to the Hummer. It seems that "Green" has been co-opted by the masses, and diluted to the level where it's easily consumed without much effort. People think "I'm green because I use organic soap", and they still eat food that's shipped half way around the world... which is decidedly *not* green.

Life has been made easy in the past few decades, with cheap petroleum and convenience stores full of slim-jims, and it's obvious that society in general is resistant to making changes towards sustainability. Our current way of life is unsustainable in the long haul, and people need to not only face the facts, but make personal changes right away.

I am committed to do my part.
Some time ago, I latched on to the idea of "food miles" - how far your grub is transported before you eat it - and I committed to eat as "locally" as possible. I shop at the local farmer's market and eat seasonal stuff. It's really a good way to become more connected to the earth and to support your neighbors and local farmers. THIS is the future people!

Well, I'm making one more commitment, and that is to become a vegetarian.

I have looked at all the permutations of plant eaters, from the start of history until now. I started by researching the Brachiosaurus to find out about ancient vegetarians, and then studied the deer that currently eat all of the plants in my yard.

My research revealed that there are currently several categories of vegetarian people:

There are vegan people - they only eat plants that we're lightly killed, and they seem particularly proud of the fact that their food "never had a face". I guess that takes pumpkin pie right off the menu for them, with jack-o-lanterns and Halloween and everything. Mr. Potato head too. I shudder when I think of what their reaction would be to the Planter's Peanut guy. I think vegan's are most green, since they pretty much only eat things that are green. You are what you eat!!

Next on my list was the Ovo-Lacto crowd. These people eat eggs and dairy. I think it's probably true that ovo-lacto people can make a hell of a spinach omelet, since that's pretty much all I can think of doing with eggs and dairy and green veggies. I guess ice cream is probably ok for them, as long as it doesn't have any animal shaped candy bits in it.

After looking at these options, I'm not sure that I quite fit in within the confines of their narrow niche. So, I'm taking the best of all of them and striking out with my own branch on the vegetarian tree:

I am an Ovo-Lacto-Herbivoro Vegetarian.
Like the Vegan, I eat the tasty plants without a face, and I lightly kill them before consumption. If I'm feeling edgy, I don't kill them at all. I ate a live green bean last week and thought I may have heard it whimper. It was fresh baby! And like the Ovo-lactos I eat dairy products, too. Especially ice cream with chocolate sauce! MMMmmm!

It got interesting when I added "Herbivoro" to the list. I decided it was prudent to have some meat in my vegetarian diet, so I added animals that don't eat meat. The Herbivores. Meat is a great source of protein, but I wanted to be politically correct, and most of all "Green" in selecting the right ones. I do believe that being a vegetarian is going to save the planet, and it's more green than any other diet option, so I'm only eating vegetarian animals.

When you look at the carnivorous animals, it's really appalling. I mean, lions and tigers and wolves pretty much hunt down their prey and eat them alive! I can't support that! Can you? That's why I'm committed to eating only plant-eating animals. If you really "are what you eat", then I want to eat animals that hold the same vegetarian value system as me. I really don't see any other solution.

So, nice grass fed beef, or maybe a pig that's had some corn - they both happily fit on my plate. But, due to their abysmal life style I will not eat cougars or rattle snakes. Alligators and croc's are right off the menu, as are bald eagles and leopards.

I hope that you have found the results of my research as enlightening as I have. With a little help, I think Ovo-Lacto-Herbivoro can really have an impact on our country and our long term sustainability as a culture. It's obviously the "Green" thing to do.

And on that note... I did see another deer eating my raspberry bushes this morning. Deer are plant eaters, right? Here, Bambi.......


p.s. Some have questioned me about fish. Fish often eat other fish... so are they on the "good" list or the "bad" list? Does that make them carnivores? I contend that fish are not exactly animals, so it's OK to eat them. Fish don't really have a consciousness like a dog or anything. Have you ever tried to play fetch with a fish? It doesn't work, and half the time I ended up with the aquarium knocked on the floor, which is no good for me or the fish.

So, in closing, fish are not animals, but they are meat. Eat up everybody!!!

Two bees or not two bees... the story of my swarm

As if I don't have enough to keep me busy, I seem to have picked up a new hobby in the last few months. My name is Chuck, and I am a bee keeper.

For over a year, my good buddy CJ had been telling me about his bee hives and how much fun they were. He had so many cool stories about being stung, and relating bee culture to The Borg and communism... how could I resist? Any time we can bring Star Trek, Carl Marx and venomous creatures into the same conversation, I'm going to be intrigued.

So I got approval from Teresa Turbo to set up a hive - as long as it was away from the house and away from neighbors, as everyone assumes that my "killer bees" will eat their children and carry away their pets. I ended up picking a spot that was next-door to the middle of nowhere. Obviously chosen for its easy access and convenient proximity to places I don't go.


CJ set me up with a hive from a friend of his, I bought a bee suit and a copy of Bee Keeping for Idiots... and next thing I knew I was a bee keeper. I set up the hive, opened the lid and though "Dear God, this looks nothing like the book". It was going to be a crash course, for sure.

Fast forward one month since the hive touched down:

The bees and I have been getting along fine. I leave them alone and they don't sting me. It was a perfect relationship. Until today.

This afternoon I went out to the bee yard to see what was going on, and things seemed quiet. A little too quiet. Nobody was flying around the hive, rather, there were a few just hanging out in the entrance taking a siesta. That's when I saw it - about 10 feet away, across the barbed wire fence on the neighbors property there's a big post that's covered in woody vines - and on it my bee colony had swarmed. The mass of bees was a little larger than a football. Nice.Some quick advice from CJ was to "get a box and knock them into it." He also stressed that it was important to get the queen. That's pretty easy, since she looks almost exactly like the other 20,000 bees that are hanging on the shrubbery, right?

So I donned the bee suit, opened a big storage tub, and hoped for the best. The good news is that the post was at eye level, and the bees were pretty calm. If they had been 30 feet up in a tree, I would have just ordered more bees. The bad news was that the bees were all around the intertwined shrubbery, and the post was wrapped with barbed wire. This was not going to be easy for the new guy.

The easiest thing to do was to rip out sections of the shrub so I could zero in on the center of the swarm. But even with that, it was still not possible to knock them all in at once.

I was able to scoop the majority of them into the box in one move. I had no idea if the queen was in that group, so I just kept at it. CJ said that they would follow the queen, so if I got her, the rest would just tag along eventually. No such luck. After a few minutes of this there were bees in the box, bees outside the box, bees on the post and bees in the air. They seemed pretty confused, so I decided to take a break.

You know, the sound of a swarm is unique, and surprisingly loud - think of it as 20,000 little fluorescent lamps with bad ballasts. But as I walked away from the swarm, the sound didn't get any softer. I looked in at my reflection in the truck window and was startled to see that about 1/3 of the swarm was now calling the back of my bee suit home.




Is this really how it's supposed to go for a new bee keeper?

Another call to CJ (hey man, what's that sound - it sounds like you are inside an electric motor!), and he suggested that I simply open up the box and jump up and down next to it to knock the bees in. A combination of jumping jacks and a long handled bee brush got most of them into the box. You know, the neighbors thought I was eccentric before I was doing calisthenics in a Hazmat suit. I wonder what they think now?

I went back to check on them and do a final collection just after sundown. I was able to scoop up a few more straglers, but it appears that I got the majority of them in the box. At that point I realized that the only way I could get them home, and into a new hive, was to put them in the back seat of my SUV. How would you feel about sharing a ride with 20,000 new friends? Ok, what if they all had stingers?

I feel very fortunate that I wasn't pulled over on the way home. Living in a small town, unusual things often make the local paper. And I was driving home with a truck full of bees wearing a full bee suit. My guess is that qualifies as unusual around here. On the plus side, I now have a 2nd hive, and zero stings from the swarm collection!

Kayaks on the rocks

Well, it's a month ago to the day since my fledgling flight into the blogosphere. It looks like we all survived that first trip with only a few scrapes, so I thought I'd give it another try.

Three years ago I started kayaking. It instantly became my summer addiction, sort of like a 14 foot plastic crack pipe. I paddled every waterway I could find and was really quite disappointed when cold weather set in to curtail my watery expeditions.

This winter I've been plotting and planning to start kayaking again in the spring. All of the gear was hanging in the garage waiting to hit the water, and I've been hitting every paddling outfitter in central Indiana to see if there would be any deals to be had before the season started.

Much to my delight, I gained two new kayak buddies over the winter. Sara J has been a good friend for... well... a long time, and I was really thrilled to find out that she had gotten herself a kayak a few months ago. She spends part of each summer on a lake in Canada, and started paddling up there last year. She found a deal on a boat down here in Indy, so now she can paddle here as well as "the great white north".

My other new kayak buddy is Elizabeth. She actually works with my wife as a coffee guru at Starbucks, but we've got a lot of common interests too. She's an avid environmentalist and a great kayaker as well.

So the three of us paddlers have been in mothballs all winter, braving the cold and waiting for our moment to hit the water again. We've been to our favorite outfitters to at least soak up some good paddling vibes while we wait on winter to knock it off and spring to hurry up and get on with it.

You can probably imagine our excitement when the weather forecast for last weekend included temps around 60* and sunny! Actually, down here in Nashville the temps were predicted as "low 60's", and we were taking every degree that the weather man would give us. Not a bad forecast for the first weekend in March... through I can't help but think the warmth was due in part to the extra day of February that leap year had given us.

So, we planned a Major Springtime Paddling Event. We'll call it "Late Winterish Paddlefest '08"... and yes, we're still talking about kayaking! Sunday brunch, followed by a nice kayak expedition around Yellow Wood Lake. We got together here in Brown County for roasted vegi frittata, home made pancakes and mimosas, then loaded up to hit the water.

Elizabeth decided to stay back at the house and help Teresa maintain the fragile drinks-to-pancakes ratio rather than kayak with us outdoor crazies. I have to admit, it was a tempting choice to stay on the deck with a drink... but Sara J and I decided to persevere and pack up for the big waters of Yellow Wood. So, with the gear loaded into the truck we headed out.

Sara and I got to the lake, parked up in the trees near the boat ramp, and took our time unloading and getting our gear ready for what promised to be some very cold water. It was about a 30 yard walk around the corner and down the boat ramp, so I packed my remaining gear into my boat and started to carry it down to the waters edge.

I got within about 10 feet of the water, looked out across the lake, and saw nothing but ice! Even with days of warm weather, Yellow Wood was frozen up like a TV dinner. It almost didn't register at first because months of anticipation refused to let my subconscious take it all in. We had planned this trip for some time, taking all the precautions for cold water kayaking... except for the key step of making sure the water is liquid and not solid!

There was a couple in a car that had been watching us for about 15 minutes, and they were quite amused that we intended to paddle and not skate. I cursed them under my breath and set the boats on the ice just to see what would happen... and the wind nearly sent my boat skating across the ice to the middle of the lake. Well, all I can say is "what's the point of starting to make good decisions at this point in the adventure?"

Sara thought about paddling ice-breaker style, but the crust was about 1" thick, and was just impenetrable by anything that is paddle powered. So, we packed back up and returned to my warm sunny deck to aid in the maintenance of the all important alcohol-to-snack ratio that we had entrusted Teresa and Elizabeth with. As a souvenire, we brought back a 5 pound chunk of Yellow Wood Lake with us.

So, winter won that round, but it won't be able to hold on for too much longer. And next time I may just double check the actual water conditions before the next paddling extravaganza.

(Thanks to Sara J for the pix!!)

The dawn of technology as viewed from my tin can and string

I never really considered what might be the inspiration of my first blog post. It had never crossed my mind... until I lost my internet connection today. Boy, what a reality check that is. Suddenly no e-mail, no Google, no CNN, no RSS feed of the up-to-the-second report on Britney.

Unfortunately, the cause of my connection loss was beyond my control. You see, I live in the woods in a rural county. That means my neighbors have cool things like guns, hunting dogs, canons, bulldozers... and my neighbor with the bulldozer K-O'd my connection to civilization. Damn it.

With one misstep of his blade, my little DSL connection was toast. Done in by a wacko with a backhoe. Hey man, what happened to "call before you dig?"

So, suddenly I found myself alone in the woods with no umbilical to the mother-ship. After the tremors of info-deprivation subsided, I remembered that it's possible to exist outside of the cyber realm. Sort of.

With nothing better to do, I started to ponder how this whole tech thing got started, and came to a startling conclusion. What started this whole "information now all the time culture" is The Fax Machine!

Actually, I think the fax is the lynch-pin in the downward spiral of the family and our over-worked modern culture. Think about it - with the fax, suddenly we could get actual documents across the country (or world?) in a few seconds. Before that, snail mail was the only way to go... and we didn't really consider it "snail" at that point. Overnight package service was a serious luxury. You got to sit and wait, and there was such a thing as "after hours" where people could have a private, personal life. 6pm was dinner time with the family and work was a distant recollection. People had boundaries, time for non-career pursuits... it was the stuff of dreams.

Then came the fax - we could communicate across vast distances with something beyond conversation... and people could work more, from more places. The expectation of availability and productivity started down a slippery slope.

Fast forward 30+ years, and to me it seems there's a direct correlation between the dawn of the fax... followed by dial-up modem computer communication... and pagers... and cell phones... and e-mail...

And now Jr High School kids want a blackberry. To me, it has slowly evolved into an instant-access/24-hour "i want it now" culture. It's just not healthy, as the normal boundaries of human relationship are blurred by this encroaching expectation on productivity and limitless communication excess.

So, back to my no-DSL situation. There is an up-side to this. In my little town, the only place that has WiFi at this time of day is the local tavern. So, here I sit with my frosty bourbon-cask ale, along with my neighbors (with the notable exception of the wacko with the backhoe). What started as a search for a surrogate cyber connection has resulted in ACTUAL CONTACT WITH HUMANS THAT LIVE NEAR ME.

What an unexpected twist of fate. And not one fax machine to be seen anywhere.