Randy’s Blog

Stanley Kubrick has long been one of my favorite film directors. I first became aware of him in my teens, after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey on the OETA Movie Club one Saturday night (OETA is the Oklahoma PBS channel). When the star child appeared in the final scene of the movie, I knew I had seen something tremendous. The credits listed Stanley Kubrick as the director, and I remember thinking I wanted to learn more about him. Gradually, I watched all of his movies.

Kubrick died suddenly while I was in college; I still vividly remember one of my friends coming to my room to break the news. His final film, Eyes Wide Shut, was completed shortly before his death, and is the only one of his movies that I saw in theaters during its initial release.

I mention all of this because in the past few months I've come across several articles about Kubrick, for a variety of reasons:

• It's the 25th anniversary of the release of Eyes Wide Shut
• A short documentary was recently release about the making of The Shining
• A new biography of Kubrick was released this year

There were several tidbits in the articles that I found fascinating.

The first article, found at The Film Stage, is an interview with a Brazilian director who talked about seeing Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket in a theater on opening day. It was full of very loud, obnoxious teenagers who had just gotten out of school and didn't care what movie they saw. They were so loud that no one could hear the trailers, and they didn't shut up as the movie was starting. But then as the first scene began:

we begin to see those soldiers losing their hair along with the music and the whole place just calmed down. Just the image of those men losing their hair is so mysterious and enigmatic and everybody kind of shut up... It was completely silent until the end of the film. I never forgot that. The film kind of hypnotized everyone in a way that I have rarely seen. It was really crazy and it says a lot about who Stanley Kubrick was as a filmmaker.

I think he's right. There is something hypnotic about all the recruits having their heads shaved. I liked Full Metal Jacket, but it is a powerful movie, with some scenes that messed me up. 

The other article, titled Spaces Between The Stars, is a review of the new biography. There are a couple of things I found interesting:

For a long time, Kubrick wanted to make a movie about the Holocaust. When he was discussing the idea with a screenwriter, the screenwriter suggested that Schindler's List surely fulfilled the need for a Holocaust movie. Kubrick surprisingly replied that he did not think Schindler's List was about the Holocaust, saying:

The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler’s List is about six hundred people who don’t.

A sobering response.

One final point:

Early in his career, Kubrick directed the hit movie Spartacus, although he was frustrated by the experience because he didn't have full creative control. While filming a movie much later in his career, Kubrick was spending an inordinate amount of time adjusting a camera, causing the extras to get annoyed. One extra muttered in annoyance, followed by another. Kubrick got angry and demanded to know who had spoken:

One of the men said, ‘I am Spartacus,’ another fell in, ‘I am Spartacus,’ and so it went, an act of organised resistance, a homage and parody of a moment he had shot from a different crane.

Several weeks ago it was Friday the 13th, and we had quite a day. I jotted down notes right afterwards to turn into a blog post; it took me a bit longer than I anticipated to write this. So, here goes:

In a way, our Friday the 13th really started a few days prior. Wednesday evening, the water company notified us that our neighborhood was under a boil order. Apparently a chlorine pump failed, and once it was fixed, they needed two straight days of passing water tests before the boil order could be lifted. That likely meant Saturday. Bummer.

Friday got off to an early start. We were woken up at 6am by loud yowling and hissing sounds from the cats. I first thought they were in a massive fight. We got up and hurried downstairs. Both cats were below the basement window and in a very agitated state with puffy tails. I decided they probably were not fighting with each other, but guessed they were reacting to a neighborhood black cat who had been walking through our backyard every so often in recent weeks. We couldn't see anything out the window, though. The cats calmed down after a minute or two, so Wendy and I went back to bed. Right when I finally got back to sleep my alarm went off. Ugh.

I checked the trail cam in the morning to see if it held any clues to what the cats saw. The only videos I found were of a deer walking through our yard early in the morning, but not at the moment the cats had freaked out.

The rest of the morning was fairly unremarkable, except for the fact that I was very tired.

At lunchtime, I dropped one of our cars off at the dealer for its routine maintenance. Wendy picked me up and we drove home.

As soon as we got home, a plumber texted that he was on the way. We had scheduled him to come by to fix a tiny leak in a valve before it became a bigger issue. He arrived, shut off water to the house, replaced the valve, and turned the water back on. It took about an hour, and then he left.

Right after he left, Wendy left to get her covid and flu shots. While she was gone, the dealer called to say our car was ready.

A few minutes later, I was completely startled by the sound of the faucet on the outside of our house being turned on, and water flowing through the pipes. "Who on earth is doing that?!" I thought. I looked out the front window and saw a guy from the water company, with a bunch of water-testing equipment spread out on our porch. I went out and chatted with him for a few minutes. He was testing the chlorine samples in 5 houses around the neighborhood, and had chosen our house because it was near a fire hydrant. In his first test, the chlorine level was too low, so he was letting water run from the faucet for a few minutes before he tested again. That was all well and good, but it would have been nice if he'd given me a heads up first.

As we finished our conversation, Wendy got home from getting her vaccines. We immediately got in the car and drove to the dealer to pick up the other car. By the time we got home the water company guy and his testing equipment were gone.

A little bit later, we heard yowling, hissing, and a thud from the basement. We went downstairs and found Chili on the window sill hissing at the neighborhood black cat in the backyard. I went outside and chased the black cat away. That's surely what spooked the cats that morning. I also made the connection at this point between a black cat and Friday the 13th.

After a while, I heard the sound of our outside faucet being turned on again. The water company guy was back. This time he was also flushing the hydrant near our house. A hose snaked from the hydrant and across our driveway, where a truly huge stream of water sprayed into our yard.

At this point it's now late afternoon and it's been a crazy day. We decided to hit the easy button and order pizza for dinner. For the first time in a long time, Dominos actually delivered our pizza on time, which was very welcome.

Right before the pizza was delivered, we got an automated call from the water company. Was the boil order finally lifted? Nope. There'd been a water main break and now we would have no water for the next 12 hours. Oh, and this extended the length of the boil order, too. Ha! That's. just. great.

Ugh.

After dinner, I looked out the window and was surprised to see a van in our driveway. We had momentarily forgotten that our farm CSA vegetables were being delivered on Friday instead of the normal Sunday. We got the vegetables and packed them into the fridge.

We then went for a walk around the neighborhood. We saw a bunch of water streaming out from the bottom of our neighbor's driveway. The water flowed into a ditch, down the hill a few houses, across a pipe under the road, and poured out into the pond. Yep, that was the water main break.

The evening was actually fairly relaxing. Around 9pm, though, we started to hear the sound of heavy machinery. I went outside and saw 5 or 6 big trucks dropping off construction equipment, like a backhoe. They were about to start repairing the water leak.

What a crazy day it had been! When we went to bed, we could still hear the sound of heavy machinery in the distance.

Around 5:30am Saturday morning, I woke up again to the sound of cats yowling and hissing. I ignored it and went back to sleep. We didn't have a chance to sleep in, though, because at 8am one of the cats knocked the phone handset off a shelf in the office, which hit the cable modem, knocking it off the desk, and sent the handset careening to the other side of the room. What a ruckus! There was no point in trying to get back to sleep after that.

This time the trail cam did record the black cat right at the moment the cats were hissing at it:

Thankfully the water main had been fixed by this point and we now had water. I heard from a neighbor that the construction crew worked throughout the night and finished up at 6am.

The boil order was finally, finally, finally lifted Monday morning.

An egret hanging out by the pond:

A turtle crawling through our backyard:

A family of raccoons running through our backyard:

Two frogs that I very rudely startled:

Last month I attended the Chicago Paranormal Convention for the first time. It was a one-day event featuring half a dozen or so speakers and lots of vendors. Checking the schedule ahead of time, I decided the last two speakers sounded the most interesting to me. So, on a Saturday afternoon, I put on my Sasquatch t-shirt with the word "Believe" on it, and drove down to check it out.

At the entrance I met Jack, the event organizer. He immediately said he liked my shirt. He talked a little bit about the convention, and mentioned it's an annual event, and will be at the same location next year.

I registered at the entrance table by paying a $1 admission fee, and then I was inside, where there were many rows of tables with many, many vendors selling all sorts of paranormal-related merchandise. I completely forgot to take pictures of this. I looked around for a few minutes, and then headed to the seating area for the presentations.

J. Nathan Couch

The first speaker I wanted to hear was J. Nathan Couch, who talked about Goatman encounters. I was completely unfamiliar with this topic. Supposedly over the years there have been sightings of a half-man/half-goat creature, somewhat like satyrs or Pan of mythology. A surprising number of places around the country have legends of such a creature living in the woods outside of town.

Couch said he grew up in Georgia and routinely heard monster stories at the dinner table, which filled him with fear as a child, and later turned to fascination. (I couldn't help but think of my own fear and fascination with aliens as a kid.)

After moving to Wisconsin as an adult, Couch learned about Goatman stories circulating in the community. He began researching the topic, and eventually published a book in 2014 titled "Goatman: Flesh or Folklore?". During his talk he covered some of the sightings discussed in his book.

He said the Goatman legends often occur in "lover's lane" locations (reminiscent of the lustful nature of mythological satyrs), and sightings can often occur near places that are sacred to Native Americans.

He didn't elaborate on this last point, so at the end of his talk I asked what Native Americans think about Goatman. He gave a lengthy answer, and mentioned his efforts to talk with a tribe near Green Bay. They always gave him cryptic answers, though. One woman explained that they don't like to talk about it even within the tribe, because many are afraid of the creature. I was impressed with his answer, and glad to hear he had done research in this area. All too often it seems like the Native American viewpoint is ignored. (For example, last year Wendy and I visited the Arizona meteor crater. There was a very nice museum there which included the history of the crater, but I did not see any mention of the Native American views. It was almost as if the crater didn't exist until a white man discovered it!)

After his talk I bought a copy of his book, which he autographed. Later I discovered that in 2015, the Fortean Times magazine favorably reviewed his book, saying it "should become a template for how to investigate reports of cryptids, and every fortean should read it." High praise!

Allison Jornlin

Speaking of high praise, at the very end of Couch's talk, he mentioned the next presentation was Allison Jornlin speaking about "Scary Fairies". He said he wished he could stay to hear her speak, but he had to go back to his booth. That's a promising sign, I thought; he apparently holds Jornlin in high regard.

Allison, a former school teacher, gave a fantastic presentation which lasted nearly an hour and a half. She started by showing clips of interviews she's done with people around the world who claim to have had fairy encounters, which included a young man from the country of Bhutan in south Asia, a Native American, and a retired police officer from Illinois.

At one point she showed a slide on how to see an elf in 3 days:

(I think someone else came up with these steps. I have not tried them, so I cannot confirm whether they work.)

The main focus of her talk was the more dangerous aspect of fairy folklore. For example, the police officer she interviewed claims to have seen what's called a brownie. Brownies, if angered, turn into boggarts, and boggarts is where the term "bogeyman" comes from. She says that Stephen King must be steeped in fairy folklore, because some of his books are clearly inspired by it.

One interesting thing she talked about is how the movie "Nightmare on Elm Street" (which I've never seen) was inspired from news reports of something that became known as SUNDS: sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome! It only affected young, healthy men from Southeast Asia (mostly Hmong refugees). The media described it as a "death dream", which is what caught Wes Craven's attention; he later wrote and directed the movie. I was not aware of any of this.

While she did not have a book to sell, she did pass around a copy of one called "Fairy Films: Wee Folk on the Big Screen" in which she wrote a chapter on Scary Fairies.

There was a lot more she talked about, and were it not for the fact that it was 6:30pm and I was getting hungry, I would have loved to hear more. After her talk, the convention was coming to an end, so I headed home.

BONUS GOATMAN

I finished reading Couch's book and it had a twist ending that I did not see coming! (SPOILER ALERT) After researching all the Goatman legends he could find in the U.S., he noticed a pattern: the legends only dated back to the 1960s. There weren't any earlier than that. Something must have caused this, he thought, and eventually he found the answer. Starting in 1930, and continuing for decades, a vagabond by the name of Ches McCartney roamed over much of the country with a herd of goats. He smelled terrible and often wore goatskin clothes. He was a Christian, preaching racial tolerance and selling postcards and a pamphlet of his life story as a source of income. He caused quite a scene wherever he went, and local newspapers often wrote stories about him. Couch is convinced this man became the source of nearly all Goatman legends.

There are still a few modern firsthand accounts of Goatman sightings that can't be attributed to McCartney. If these reports are to be believed, Couch leans towards some sort of nature spirit that occasionally becomes visible. It's admittedly a bit crazy, he says, but not really any crazier than believing in ghosts. He says at the end (very wisely, in my opinion) he hopes he never encounters Goatman himself, because he just might lose his grasp on reality.

I've mentioned a few times on this blog about my interest in Edgar Cayce and the 14,000+ psychic readings he gave throughout his life. Cayce spent part of his early life in Hopkinsville, KY and is buried there as well. The city has embraced Cayce:

• A local museum has a permanent exhibit about him
• A self-guided "cell phone tour" is available that covers 12 places of Cayce interest
• Each year in March, the city hosts festivities to celebrate all things about him.

In June of last year, while we were visiting family in Kentucky, I took a solo side trip to Hopkinsville to see some of the Cayce sights. The main thing that interested me was the Pennyroyal Area Museum exhibit, so that was my first stop:

The Cayce exhibit is only a small section of the museum, but it packs in a lot of information. Various displays told the story of his life. There was a replica of the couch Cayce would recline on when giving a reading, along with his actual desk and all sorts of personal items from his life.

There were a variety of pamphlets and books about Cayce and the A.R.E. organization (Association for Research and Enlightenment) that was founded to carry on his work. I sat on the couch and read some of this material for a while. I was especially interested in a book on what the Cayce readings said about dreams.

Cayce was a photographer by profession, and there were many pictures he took on display. This was probably my favorite:

Something new I discovered about Cayce is he created a card game called Pit, which simulates the frantic buying and selling of commodities traders. He sent the idea to Parker Brothers, and they started selling the game nationally, but without any credit or money going to Cayce. He complained about this, and the company responded by sending him $6, a few Pit decks, and their compliments. The display said that Pit was available for purchase in the gift shop, and I was quite excited to buy a Cayce-created card game, but I could not find it. I asked the staff, and they looked everywhere, but couldn't find it either. Oh well. I did some research about the game later, and I learned that someone else had come up with the same concept a few years before Cayce, so it may not have been that unique of an idea.

There were several other interesting exhibits in the museum. One was about how Hopkinsville is the "batter capital of the world" (the wheat grown in the county is used in all kinds of products from the Krusteaz company).

Another exhibit covered a purported alien encounter just north of Hopkinsville in 1955, sometimes referred to as the Hopkinsville Goblins. I'd heard of this before, but didn't remember the details. There were various little goblins/aliens displayed in the museum:

A few months ago I read an excellent article about the event, titled The Long, Surprising Legacy of the Hopkinsville Goblins. Steven Spielberg worked on turning the Hopkinsville case into a movie. It didn't pan out, but the script became the inspiration for 2 other movies: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and Gremlins!

I looked through the gift shop on my way out. They had a number of Cayce-related items (but no card game).

After leaving the museum, I decided to try the self-guided cell-phone tour. I remember it was quite hot that day, so I tried driving around to the locations instead of walking. It was harder than I anticipated to navigate and drive and find the right spot by myself, so after a few stops I gave up and just listened to the rest of the audio commentary.

My final stop was the cemetery where Cayce was buried. I tried my best to find his grave based on directions and a photograph, but I could not find it. I did find his father's grave, though.

Despite that, I still found my trip to Hopkinsville worthwhile. The museum's exhibit was fantastic, and I would consider going back to Hopkinsville to experience its annual Cayce celebration.

One of these days, I also want to make the pilgrimage to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where Cayce spent the last 2 decades of his life, and where the headquarters of the A.R.E. is located.

I did not sleep well at all the night before the eclipse. It took me a long time to fall asleep. And then, unbeknownst to us, our hotel room's alarm clock was set to go off at 6am. That was... an unpleasant surprise. I never really got back to sleep after that.

After breakfast at the hotel, I loaded up on caffeine, and we started the 2 hour drive west to Vincennes. Along the way, we saw people preparing for the eclipse. There were several parking lots full of RVs, and some people out setting up telescopes. The weather went from partly cloudy, to totally cloudy, to "we can't see the sky because of all the fog", and back to partly cloudy. Wendy was texting with her family along the way, and we arrived at the golf course around 11am, just a few minutes after they got there.

We found a spot underneath a shade tree and started to get settled in. Wendy and I brought 2 folding chairs, which we hadn't used in a long time, and it was at this point we discovered mice had thoroughly chewed up one of them. Yuck. I threw that chair into a dumpster. Thankfully, Bill and Beth were ultra-prepared (as usual!) and had an extra chair we could use, so everyone had a place to sit.

There were already a lot of cars parked at the golf course when we arrived, and they just kept coming. The staff did an impressive job packing a bunch of cars (and a couple of school buses as it turned out!) into a fairly small space. Thankfully, people could sit anywhere they wanted on the golf course, so everyone spread out and it didn't feel crowded despite a lot of people being there.

We had about 4 hours to kill before totality, so to pass the time, we:

• sat around and chatted
• ate the picnic lunches we all brought
• waited in long lines at the bathrooms
• took a walk around part of the golf course
  
• rolled down hills:

The golf course offered a catered lunch, but we did not take part. I grabbed a moon pie at one point, though, and I discovered that wow, moon pies are not very good. I must have known this back in 2017 because our hotel gave us free moon pies, but I apparently forgot what they taste like, because it was not good at all.

Amazingly, the entire time we were at the golf course, the sky was almost totally clear. There were a few very thin, very faint clouds, but there was no doubt we would be able to see the eclipse. How nice!

Finally, at 1:47 PM, the moon made "contact" with the sun, starting the partial phase of the eclipse.

As it progressed, the effects became noticeable. Our shadows got sharper:

And you could see evidence of the moon covering up the sun:

In the few minutes before totality, the sky grew eerily dark, and we were able to see Venus, Jupiter, and the star Capella. Then we saw the "diamond ring" effect, and then totality began! It was very cool and awesome and hard to describe. It was absolutely wild that the sun turned black. The corona was easily visible, and very impressive. I think it might have been more impressive than in 2017. We also saw a Bailey's bead (a tiny bright speck of sun caused by hills and valleys on the moon).

Totality lasted for about 4 minutes and 6 seconds, but it went by fast! It did not feel like four minutes. Just like in 2017, I set up a digital camera to record reactions during the eclipse. The video is embedded below, which starts about a minute before totality. (At the beginning you can hear a motorbike in the distance, but thankfully whoever it was took a break when totality began.)

One thing I did differently for this eclipse is I brought along a compass and checked it periodically before, during, and after totality to see if the compass needle changed at all (at one point in the video you see me run to the camera where I grabbed a flashlight so I could check the compass). This idea came from Gregory Little who has done a lot of research on Native American mounds. He organized a small citizen science project to get people to check for any magnetic changes at Native American mounds during the total eclipse. Obviously I was at a golf course, not a mounds site, but I decided try the experiment anyway. (Although there actually is a mound in downtown Vincennes, the Sugar Loaf mound.)

I did not observe any changes in the compass. Later I learned that some people used a video camera to record their compass during the event, and Little said five people detected a small half-degree blip in the compass needle right at the start of totality. Interesting! Now I wish I'd aimed my camera at the compass, and somehow attached a flashlight for when it got dark. (Maybe that will be a project for the 2045 eclipse!) I'm not sure how valuable my observations were, but I did send them to Little, and to say thanks for participating, he sent me a free t-shirt:

(He joked that he even autographed it to "make it worth less"!)

Shortly after totality ended, Wendy's family headed out, since they had a long drive back to Kentucky. Wendy and I stuck around a bit longer, but then we drove the 2 hours to our hotel. There was a lot more traffic on the way back, but it wasn't too bad. We were both starving and exhausted by the time we got to our room, so we ate our leftover pizza (hurray for hotel rooms with refrigerators!) and sat on the couch reading/watching TV for the rest of the evening.

The next day, Tuesday, we drove home. Traffic was heavy, due in part to construction and accidents, so it took about an hour longer than it would have normally.

And that was our trip! I'm so happy we got to see the eclipse. It was a lot of fun to share the experience with Wendy's family.

Last week Wendy and I traveled to Indiana to see the total solar eclipse!

Seven years ago we went to Nebraska to see our first total solar eclipse. For that trip, I did a ton of research ahead of time: reading books, attending lectures, scouring over maps, and making a lot of lists. I was determined to be prepared for any eventuality. If you recall, that trip ultimately culminated in an epic 4-part series of blog posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (the actual day of the eclipse), and Part 4.

Although I was still excited for this year's eclipse, I did not do nearly as much preparation. In 2017, we picked Nebraska for our viewing location because, historically speaking, it had the best odds of clear skies. Since that worked out well, I decided to follow the same line of reasoning for this year's eclipse. The historical cloud cover maps said south-central Texas was the place to be for clear skies, so around this time last year I booked a hotel for us in San Antonio, which was just inside the path of totality. I figured we could drive a bit closer to the center to get an even longer totality experience.

Right after I made the reservation, though, I started to think about backup plans. Bill had mentioned possibly going to Indiana to see the eclipse, since it wasn't too far from Abby and Matt. The historical data said the odds were not good for clear skies in April in Indiana, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to make a backup hotel reservation since it could be canceled if needed. So I looked around and was able to find a hotel in Columbus, IN, which was just south of Indianapolis and would get roughly 3 minutes of totality. I felt better having a backup plan.

As the eclipse got closer, plans came into better focus. Wendy's family was going to drive north from Kentucky to a town called Vincennes, IN, and watch the eclipse from a golf course. Vincennes was almost right on the center-line of the eclipse path, and would get just over 4 minutes of totality. Plus, it was only a 2 hour drive from our Indiana hotel, so it was feasible for us to drive there the morning of the eclipse, and watch it with Wendy's family. That pretty much sealed the deal and made Indiana become our eclipse destination. I canceled our San Antonio hotel.

The week before the eclipse the forecasts were predicting around 50% cloud cover for Indiana, which wasn't great, but it turned out San Antonio was looking even worse! So I was thankful I was going to the better spot, and I crossed my fingers and reminded myself cloud cover forecasting was very difficult to do.

Sunday morning, the day before the eclipse, Wendy and I drove down to Indiana. It rained during the first leg of the trip, which was not an auspicious start. To our surprise, though, traffic wasn't that bad. However, when we pulled into a rest area in Indiana there were so many cars that we had to wait in line to find a parking spot! It turned out there were plenty of spots at the end of the lot, but no one pulled forward far enough to see them. The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful, and by late afternoon we were checked into our hotel. The city of Columbus was going all out for the eclipse, and had tons of events going on. We heard about a renaissance fair, and saw a bunch of people out jogging as part of a 5K run.

That evening we went out to eat at a place called Hot Box Pizza, which was surprisingly good. Afterwards, Wendy remembered she had recorded a Nova episode about solar eclipses on our DVR at home, but had forgotten to watch it before we left. I discovered the entire episode, called "Great American Eclipse" was available on YouTube, which the TV in our hotel room could access. So we watched that, and it was pretty good.

Before going to bed, I checked the forecast again. A popular website among amateur astronomers for cloud cover forecasts is cleardarksky.com. It showed two different models for Vincennes. One said the sky would be completely clear, the other said it would be completely cloudy. Go figure!

A few weeks ago, Wendy and I were in Arizona doing some sight-seeing with my family. One day, after lunch, we stopped at Insomnia Cookies for dessert. I ordered a triple-chocolate-chunk deluxe cookie. The employee went into the back room, came back, and said they were out of those. I thought he said I could have two regular chocolate chunk cookies instead, for the same price. So I said sure. He handed me the bag of cookies, but when I opened it a moment later, there were actually three cookies inside!!! I was totally excited and ate all three. I regret nothing. They were delicious.

This reminded me of another momentous occasion, one that occurred in high school, and which I enshrined in a college application essay. I looked through the files on my computer and found a copy of it. The application had asked me to describe a dramatic moment in my life. This is what I wrote:

“Yeah, I’d like two quarter pounders and a medium Coke.”

“Okay, that’ll be three twenty-three, please.”

I paid the money, got my food, and sat down in the same seat of the same booth I always sit in when I go to that pinnacle of fast food franchises:  McDonald’s.

I was in my senior year of high school, and it was a wonderful time because McDonald’s was having a special offer:  two quarter pounders for two dollars.  By far the best fast food burger in town, the quarter pounder was now being offered at nearly half off it’s original price.  O Glorious Day!

However, the day was not going to be so glorious.  It was 3:30pm, and I had just gotten out of school, I had to be at work in half an hour at a local grocery store where I was employed as a stocker, I had to work until 10 that night, I had a Physics test the next day over momentum, a Calculus assignment on derivatives, the deadline for our high school news broadcast was in two days, and I, being the editor, had quite a bit of editing to get done by then, and, finally, to top it all off, it was Halloween.

My mind was racing as I finished my first burger, racing around and around, wondering how I was going to get everything done in time.  I stopped.  Looking, with great anticipation, at the box that held my second burger, I opened it.  But wait!  A mistake had been made:  instead of another quarter pounder with cheese, I had been given a double quarter pounder with cheese!  O Joyous Rapture!  I ate the whole thing and enjoyed every bite of it.

You may be wondering how this event is a dramatic influence in my life.  Well, it isn’t.  Not now, anyway.  But at the exact moment I discovered the mistake, it changed the way I looked at everything I had to do that night.  I got through work with a smile, finished my Calculus assignment, got an A on my Physics test the next day, and had our news broadcast edited and turned in on time.  That little surprise provided me with the enthusiasm I needed, and it’s little surprises like those that make life all the more fun. 

I don't remember which college the application was for, or if they even accepted me after reading my essay!

Anyway, returning to cookies: Last night Wendy made two huge chocolate chip cookies, following a recipe called Two Huge Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were delicious! Highly recommended.

If you have a favorite cookie recipe, please feel free to share in the comments!

A couple of Decembers ago, I wrote about the cat cubes I bought and how adorable it was when Chili and Jalapeno curled up inside them. Unfortunately, they have not done that in a quite a while. Recently, though, we put some cat beds in the bay window, which faces southeast and gets a lot of sunshine. The cats now love sitting there; it's become their favorite spot in the house, especially on sunny days:

There was some excitement a week or so ago, when I noticed a possum in broad daylight in our backyard, eating the seed that had dropped from the bird feeder. The cats were super interested!

Since possums are nocturnal, I wondered if maybe it was sick, but after some research I learned that it's not uncommon for possums to be seen during the day, especially during harsh winters when food is scarce. That was most likely the case here, as an arctic blast had just come to an end. I could see the possum shivering, and I felt bad for it, so I put out some wet and dry cat food for it, which it enthusiastically ate up before eventually wandering off.

While all this was happening, a rabbit stopped by to see what was going on:

All this talk of animals reminds me of a blog post I never got around to writing. For my birthday this past summer, Wendy booked us a visit to a local alpaca farm! We got to feed and pet the alpacas, and take lots of pictures and videos with them. It was very cool.

Here's a video of an alpaca chewing the cud. Wendy was quick to notice the figure-eight pattern its mouth made:

The last alpaca we visited was very, very friendly and enjoyed lots of pets. At one point, though, he stood up on his hind legs, and it was kind of terrifying to realize just how big of an animal he was!

Coming back around to cat beds, at the alpaca farm we bought a small mat made of alpaca fleece that was advertised as a pet bed:

The cats really liked it at first, but then they started biting it and pulling it apart, so it went into the closet. I will occasionally get it out and use it as a mat for me when I'm using my standing desk. It feels very luxurious!

For a long time (I've forgotten how long, exactly) we've subscribed to the Northwest Herald, which is the local newspaper in our neck of the woods. It's been a fine newspaper. You could tell they were cutting back on costs over the years, like when they switched to a smaller paper size, and when they stopped producing a Sunday newspaper, opting for a Saturday paper instead. We subscribed to the Saturday-only paper.

Last summer, when we took a trip to Kentucky, I put a hold on our newspaper delivery as usual. After our vacation, our newspaper didn't start delivery again. I didn't take any action at first, thinking it was a fluke and delivery would start again soon. But it didn't start again. So I called customer service and was told they would "send an email to upper management" about the problem, and credit my account for the missed delivery. That seemed fine and dandy.

Except the paper still didn't get delivered. So I called again, and they said the same thing about upper management.

But the paper still didn't get delivered. So I called again, and was told the same thing about upper management. Surely, this time would fix it, I thought.

I was wrong. The paper still didn't get delivered.

I don't know how many times we went back and forth like that, but none of it helped. At one point I got an email from them asking me to fill out a survey. I did. And l gave them negative ratings and left them a nasty note explaining my problem. I didn't hear anything back immediately.

At this point I devised a new strategy. I decided to stop calling and complaining, so they would stop crediting my account for missed deliveries, so they would charge my credit card again. Then I would file a dispute with my credit card company, hoping they would get involved and finally get the attention of the paper's "upper management". It took about a month for all of that to play out (can I play the long game or what?). And I never got a newspaper during that time. When I filed a dispute with my credit card company, they instantly refunded the charge from the newspaper, but that was it. I was disappointed; I was hoping for more fireworks.

A few days later, though, I was contacted by the newspaper. They were finally following up on my negative survey response. (Did my dispute with the credit card company actually help? The timing makes me think it did, but I don't know for sure.)  They put me in contact with one of their customer advocates. This was a friendly man who apologized for the issue, and explained they recently switched to a 3rd-party contractor for deliveries in my area, and they were having a lot of problems with that contractor, he said. A lot of problems. 

Since I hadn't called to complain in a while (due to my credit card strategy), he wanted me to start calling him directly when I didn't get a delivery, so he could have evidence that would "hold the contractor's feet to the fire", so to speak.

At this point, I should mention that what started as failed deliveries over the summer had now dragged on into the fall.

So I started a new cat-and-mouse game, following his suggestion. Every Saturday morning when I didn't have a paper, I would leave him a voice mail stating that fact, and then I would call customer support to request redelivery. They would routinely say the paper would be redelivered by 1pm. AND IT NEVER WAS! So I would call the man back after 1pm and leave him another voice mail saying I never got a redelivery. Then he would call me back Monday morning, confirm I never got a paper, express dismay and disappointment, and then credit my account.

THIS. WENT. ON. FOR. WEEKS.

Finally, one week I got a newspaper delivered. Unbelievable! Finally, the problem was solved. Except the next week it wasn't delivered. And not the next week, either. Or the next week.

I forget how many weeks it went on like that, but finally in mid-November I reached my limit. I'd gotten precisely one paper delivered in over 4 and a half months. I called customer support to cancel. When they asked why, I explained I hadn't gotten a newspaper in months.

They replied that they could "send an email to upper management".

I don't remember if I laughed or scoffed or threw the phone out the window. It probably wasn't the last one because I still have my phone.

But, anyway, I canceled, and decided to try a subscription to the Chicago Tribune instead. So far they have delivered my newspaper every day it's supposed to be delivered, and it's wonderful. I love it.

This afternoon I got a phone call from the Northwest Herald retention department. They stated right up front they wanted to win me back, and asked why I canceled. I said because they didn't deliver my paper for 4 and a half months no matter how many times I called to complain. The woman was stunned, quietly exclaiming "4 and a half months?! That's a long time." Yes. Yes, it was, I said. And then I added, with a fair amount of frustration: "I'm not coming back." She said she understood and thanked me for being honest.

I hung up the phone and now I've written this blog post and my rant is over.