Tornado

I woke up this morning at 7, ready to start another mathematical week with 40 energetic freshmen. One shower, two pieces of toast, a mug of coffee, and a lovely packed lunch later, the phone rang.

"The power is still out all along 29," Mr. Daniels voice cheerfully related. "Traffic is terrible - we're canceling for the day."

Jenny is giving me a question-mark look. "No school!" I say. We're not sure what to do with ourselves.

And then it hits us: Evan doesn't have to leave for Hillwood for another hour. What should three logical people do with an early-morning hour? Play Dominion. Done.

Summer is an interesting thing - three summers ago I was sailing on Hayden lake. Two summers ago I was eating goat-ass rice in Mongolia. Last summer I was directing clinics in Ethiopia. And this summer I saw a crazy-as tornado.

It's safe to say I was scared $*&!less. David just laughed. But then again, I'm not afraid of daddy-long-legs.

Bras, Babies, and Toys R’ Us…

Yesterday evening, those of us living at the Howe’s house had a conversation about the different generational meanings of derogatory words such as “jerk” and “tool.” It wasn’t difficult to arrive at an accepted definition of a jerk, but tool proved a little more difficult. We thought maybe it meant that someone was “purposely annoying” or simply rather “useless.” I would like to submit my actions in the following story as a possible definition…

Like many amusing actions, I don’t recall exactly why we chose to do this, but we did. After a group conversation about sending large amounts of spam to a certain teacher, Cody and I decided that “Spam 2.0” would be a good idea. After an initial failed attempt… we settled on signing Alban up for some mail. We started with some nice companies like Chadwick’s, Toys R’ Us, Baby Gap, but we quickly matured into the old high school standby, Victoria's Secret.

It was pretty amusing when magazines and emails began to arrive for “Mr. Alban Howe” that displayed everything from breakthroughs in “under wire technology” to the latest in middle-aged women’s fashion. However the real treat was listening to Alban try to explain why he had been singled out. “It’s probably because my name is on the bills…” Phil helpfully suggested that it might be because Alban had a Safeway card. Cody and I smiled and agreed… “yeah, that’s probably it.”

We had planned to tell him about our questionable actions but then we got greedy. We decided to just let it go. Then later in the school year, his spam problem was featured on the Backside of the Collegian.

The funny part wasn’t so much the actual spam as much as it was having a secret. They say that secrets don’t make friends, let’s just hope they don’t unmake them…

At this point “Spam 2.0” had become too big to end it by simply giving ourselves up. Cody and I tried to think of a way to end the experiment and never could quite think of a satisfactory course of action.

I suppose this is just about as good a way as any…

Taylor Swift

Random Radio DJ: "If you're a tween or a teen, that was Taylor Swift and we've gotta concert comin' up..."

Since the assumption among radio DJs is that Taylor Swift fans are either tweens or teens, David can officially be ridiculed for his devotion to said artist.

The time Alban had something burning in his room!

Ear candles are strange (potentially dangerous, cultish, not doctor recommended, silly, etc.) things that people like Tommy use. And when I say people like Tommy, I mean people with excessive ear wax. Supposedly when you burn these candles in your ears, it softens the wax (in your ears, but also the candle wax too) and draws it out. Tommy pulled this stunt once before (four years ago), but decided to try it again. I think it was because he was getting as hard of hearing as Phil.

While working on something important in the back of the house, David and I smelled birthday candles. Venturing into the front of the house, we found Tommy frantically clutching a smoking candle to his ear. I instantly realized he was having one of his "episodes" and decided to get my camera.

As you can see from the picture, Tommy apparently collapsed between the living room and the entryway. We decided to move him to Alban's room where we closed all the windows and shut the door while Tommy continued to stick his burning candle in his ear.

After forty-five minutes or so, we decided Alban's room had seen enough (we determined this by waiting until we couldn't stand upright in the room and instead had to lie on the floor to breath). A little while later Tommy regained coherence and abandoned the ear candle idea.

When Alban came home a little while later, he walked whistling to his room.

In the aftermath, it seemed strange to me that Alban never checked for something burning in his room. His bedding could have spontaneously combusted or something. But then, I would have probably instantly assumed it was David's fault too.

Karma Police

When i first imagined this blog post, it was with pleasure.

Saturday night, at Tommy's request, i agreed to drive a couple of friends from Clarkston up into the Mill Creek Watershed so they could go looking for antlers. In order to get to the starting point by dawn we needed to leave the Estate by 4:00am. I wasn't really what kind of people go out at 4 in the morning to find antlers but if they were friends of Tommy, they couldn't be that bad. ( I found out later that they call themselves "Horn Nuts")

On the way up we talked about Women, Law, and Bigfoot sightings. The ride was enjoyable and the view from the hill was fantastic. My plan was to return home, ruminate on my experience, and write something profound about preconceived ideas...

Then i got stuck.

On the way down the mountain i slid in some snow and ended up with my front right tire totally submerged in compact, crunchy, slush-snow and the other three spinning like hamster wheels in a vacuum. It happened to be in the same spot that the guys had shown me bear scratchings and wolf tracks. I spent the next six hours playing phone tag with Tommy, Alban, Phil, My Parents, and the Cops. I'll let you guess which of those options was the least helpful. After trying to dig out with a rock, I was finally saved by a couple bearded men with a huge Ford truck who were just "out for a drive."

I'm not really sure what the moral of this story is. Maybe it's that Karma doesn't really exist and sometimes you get screwed when you try to do nice things. Or that the police really are nearly worthless.

The story is funnier if you hear it in person, i promise.

The pathfinder law is for me to ...

I remember in 1080p clarity an image from my childhood. I suppose that's not too unusual, except that it's not an image of something I actually saw but of something I imagined. In Sabbath school one morning I recall imagining an image of a dark blue soft-bound bible sitting on a dark shelf covered in dust and cobwebs. Every once in a while that image comes to my mind, usually when I think of neglect – the state in which this blog has been for several weeks.

Why the Pathfinder logo? For some reason, whenever that image would show up in my thinking, I would immediately attach it to a tenant of the Pathfinder law. But I just realized it doesn't really fit. The Pathfinder Law is for me to ...

do my honest part

care for my body

keep a level eye

be courteous and obedient

walk softly in the sanctuary

keep a song in my heart

and go on God's errands

nope, nothing there about neglect, but I'm as sure snake skin that a Pathfinder wouldn't neglect his communal blog, and I think it's time someone add that to the Pathfinder Law.

Hannah Montana Suffers Major Setback

A month ago David and Alban announced that Mylie Cyrus was off their list of eligible starlets. The main cause of her topple from on-high (besides her under-age status) was her poor showing on American Idol. While some have claimed that her pole dancing at the Teen Choice Awards gave Mylie extra consideration, David and Alban have chosen to show her no mercy. This may be more significant than you think. Without Mylie Cyrus providing ample distraction, David might actually start pursuing Taylor Swift. Alban, on the other hand, could get caught up by some indie musician and might actually obtain access.

Lest our speculations get out of hand, let me provide some solace. Though interpretations of this development have been wild and varied, all this talk seems to be empty bloviation since David and Tommy still refuse to remove the combination Mylie Cyrus/Hannah Montana poster in their bathroom.