While our first and second trips turned out a much better variety of quality shots, we are happy with what we got. Remarkably, this time they used a filter that took about 24 pounds off of Shannon.

Benjamin was quite wriggly and not very cooperative. It’s pretty tough to do much about that when the boy’s just laughing at the photographer’s buffoonery and trying to add his own.

I nearly found myself saying, “Son, stop having so much fun and just smile.” That wouldn’t have worked, anyway, because when he smiles on command he looks like he’s trying to pass a koosh ball. Blithely mentioning Kung Fu Panda saved the day more than once.

As usual, the studio gave us permission to use the low-res images (even the rejects) however we see fit. So, here’s my shot at that. (click any pic to enlarge)

“My dad paid good money for this haircut. Smile? Whatever.”

I’ll finish with two that we did not order but that I liked (my crops).

Of all of the above, which are your favorites?

Happy Independence Day to all United States citizens! Belated Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians! Use at least one exclamation point today!

Somehow my wife didn’t fully appreciate my taking my DSLR camera into the restaurant Tuesday on date night. I got my shots quickly and stopped — well, except for one right there at the end, but that was nowhere it could embarrass her.

Directly.

(click any pic to enlarge)

Whether you appreciate the pics or not, if there’s a Buca di Beppo near you and you haven’t tried it, then do so at least once. Their menu features items sized for two for about $16. They also have meals sized for four and, at the other end of the delicious spectrum, Buca Mio. That’s Italian for “loner.”

Besides the food, there was the ambience. Designed to look like the basement where the restaurant started in Minneapolis (you know, where all the Italians live), none of the dining areas have windows, and the ceilings are standard height. Nearly every square inch of wall space is covered by black-and-white photos and shelves bearing funny trinkets.

It’s a great place to go, and neither of us could believe we’d never heard of it in our three years here.

On Wednesday night, we let Benjamin open the presents we bought him for his fifth birthday. The big party is this weekend.

Doug wolfed down a couple ham and cheese HotPockets and showered for work. His company’s willingness to let him set his own work shift had saved him a lot of trouble. Before that, telecommuting had been his only option, and he wanted the social atmosphere of the workplace.

Or so he thought.

Polly Renault stood waiting at his cubicle, as she did every day. “Douggie-wuggie! How are you this evening?” she said. Her curly brown hair, cut just above her shoulders, bounced as she spoke.

“I’m fine, Polly.” His standard answer.

“Great! Me too.”

Doug set down his laptop backpack and unzipped it. He glanced at the shelf in his overhead bin as he pulled out his laptop. A sigh pushed through his lips; the cleaning staff again had knocked his miniature Star Trek spacecraft off their stands.

Rafe Steinholm, a short, stocky young man with prematurely gray hair, appeared seemingly from nowhere. Unlike Polly, he always waited until he heard Doug’s voice, then came running.

“Doug lass! What up?” Rafe said.

“It’s all up,” Doug said. He had learned not to vary from their unofficial welcome dialogue. Anything else was sure to elicit responses that required him to fein interest. Insecure co-workers who believed he didn’t care for them made poor project partners.

Taupe liquid sloshed from Rafe’s clear glass coffee mug as he gestured toward the disheveled ships. “The Enterprise has seen better days, yo,” he said. “The new piece I finished today would look good in that spot. Pop over to my cube when you get a chance, homey.”

“Only if you swear to stop talking hip-hop,” Doug said.

Despite his resistance to know these people better, Doug never missed a chance to see one of Rafe’s new pieces. The man had artistic talent. Using Sculpey, he created small sculptures without sharp corners and a little extra material hanging off ledges and rooftops. The “curves-not-corners” style that made each work flow, Rafe said, was inspired by an architect named Gaudi, but Doug had no idea who that was. He only knew that he liked things and people that stood out from the everyday.

Just like him.

——-
“And here are the objectionable pictures in his browser’s cache folder, ma’am,” Lori said as she switched the view to show thumbnail versions of each picture file. The 20-inch LCD monitor was awash in flesh tones — Caucasian, Asian, African-American, and anything else she could imagine, depicting children doing things she could not.

Mayor Susan Lancaster leaned her tall, stocky frame over Lori’s shoulder to get a better look. “Oh, my God.” She stood up straight and shook her head. “That just makes my heart sick to think of him looking at this stuff. Such a sweet man.” She sighed. “This is going to ruin him.”

Lori felt her rage well up. Ruin him? She tried to change the focus. “So, why are the city cops handling the case if he’s a county employee?” She had worked for the city’s Information Systems division for only a few months; she had spent that time learning the computing infrastructure, not law enforcement.

A week earlier, while she defragmented a hard drive at the police station, one of the detectives had asked if she could provide computer expertise for a sensitive case. She had jumped at the chance, but wished now that they had not asked her in the first place. She had seen enough depravity to last a lifetime.

“His office in the courthouse is within the city limits, so it’s our jurisdiction.” The mayor reached for a nearby chair and pulled it over to sit. She pushed her dark brown hair behind her ears. “Listen, Lori, is there any possibility that someone else used his computer to access these sites?”

“Well, it would have been pretty difficult. Each user has a folder on the computer that stores only his or her own information. Sites they’ve accessed, documents they save. That kind of thing. Someone would have to know his username and password, or have administrator privileges.” She minimized the cache folder window and brought up a page of text. “Here are the county’s web proxy Internet access logs. Getting to the Internet requires a separate login, and the sites that his username accessed are what tipped the county IT guys off in the first place.” She minimized everything to the bare teal desktop.

“That’s not to mention that someone had to get into his locked office in the first place,” Lori finished.

“I used to dial into my computer from home and use it without ever setting foot in my office,” the mayor said.

“Yes, ma’am, but his computer wasn’t set up for any kind of remote access.”

Mayor Lancaster furrowed her brow, thanked her for her time, and headed back to her own office. Lori had stayed a few minutes late to show the mayor the evidence, but she still had time to catch her usual ferry.

She walked through the long shadows of downtown on her way to the dock. With the swirling breeze and the dry air, passing from sunlight to shade meant the difference between being comfortable and feeling chilled. It was a welcome change from Houston’s oppressive heat and humidity.

New restaurants sat vacant inside old brick buildings. The main street revitalization effort had not taken off like local leaders had hoped. The bridge they were counting on to supersede the ferry was six months behind schedule. They had hoped it would bring more people to the island to spend money, but Lori figured it would act as a more convenient way for locals to take theirs elsewhere.

Her bright red knitting bag bounced off her hip with each step. A businessman passing by grumbled when it bumped into him. The ferry ride freed her hands up to work during the commute, but lugging the supplies to and from the dock had become annoying. Appearances be damned, she was determined to carry on the tradition her late grandmother had passed down to her.

Brown pelicans sat atop dock posts, preening and keeping their eyes out for snacks in the water below. The ferry bobbed slightly as a system of cables and pulleys lowered its tailgate ramp onto the dock.

Most of the ferry riders drove aboard in their cars and stayed put. Lori meandered through the throng of vehicles and walked through the door to the enclosed sitting area. Only five of the 25 seats were occupied. Her fellow walkers sat staring out the windows, reading books, listening to music — plenty of choices to avoid human contact.

While they sat waiting for a passing ship, Lori watched dolphins breaking the water in the wake of its bow. Before her move to Ralston, she had seen dolphins only in aquariums and Sea World. She had felt sorry for them, imagined some way to end their captivity. There on the ferry, amid her fellow clock watchers, Lori envied the dolphins’ freedom.

(Continue to Part Three, on my story blog.)

Alex noticed that the SUV parked in the neighbors’ driveway was empty, but its headlights shone on the garage door. They had SUV’s of the same make and model but two different colors. It was the gray one, the one that the traveling husband drove, that sat drawing attention to itself.

“Hey, their lights are on,” Alex said. “They’ve been on the whole time we’ve been getting ready to leave.”

His wife, Liz, struggling to buckle their son into the child seat, said, “Okay.” She pieced together the two parts of the bottom buckle and loudly snapped it into place. “Got it.”

“I’m going to go tell them they left them on,” Alex said and stepped out of the minivan.

He quickly took the five steps across the side yard to the neighbors’ driveway and peered through the vehicle’s windows. Seeing nobody inside, but the keys in the ignition, he made his way up the front walk and knocked on the door. Above it was a sticker he had seen several times before, bearing what he guessed were Hindi letters. The landlord, the home’s original resident, had Indian parents. It occurred to Alex that he never had asked what it said.

The dog wasn’t barking. Usually when he knocked, the little dog went nuts. To test his suspicions, he rang the doorbell. A moment later, after no answer from within the small house, he turned back toward the SUV.

“There’s nobody home, but the keys are in it.” he called to Liz.

With hopes there was no alarm, he lifted the driver’s door handle. He heard the whir of the climate control system and felt warm air blowing on his face. Was the engine running? Unwilling to commit to sitting in someone else’s vehicle in that situation, he leaned down and use his hand to press the accelerator.

Nothing.

Feeling somewhat criminal, he turned the key to the “off” position and turned off the headlights. He left the keys in the ignition and closed the door, leaving it unlocked, then made his way back across the narrow strip of grass to the minivan.

“That was weird. I hope they’re okay,” he said as he pulled his door shut.

(to be continued)

“That’s okay. If it breaks, it’s just Goodwill,” he said. I wasn’t surprised to see that his shirt read: Yeah, I know. Go to my room.

“What? Man, that’s not right,” I said while laughing.

“Well, you know, this is going to a store where they won’t care.”

He and his co-worker then explained that the quality of goods and the prices in Goodwill stores vary according to their socioeconomic surroundings. In different terms, sure, but that’s basically what they said.

“So, are you guys volunteers, or what?” I said.

“We might as well be,” said the guy stacking boxes of our history into a trailer.

That scene played out on Saturday, just one weekend following a garage sale that brought in about $770, not including my in-laws’ take. A moving sale for Shannon’s mother and stepfather and an empty-the-attic sale for us, its preparation required hours of application of their elbow grease and organization skills. I tacked on a little heavy lifting just a few hours before the starting horn sounded.

What the heck could we have sold for that much money at a garage sale?

Click any pic for a look at the goods.

I know, I know, the truly charitable thing would have been donating it all in the first place — but we want a patio now, not after taxes next year. Plus, think of all the “economic stimulus” it provided.

He plunges a toy squirting frog under the water and squeezes it, then lets it slowly draw in its fill. “My frog loves the water,” he says.

“Yep, most frogs do. You know, frogs are amphibians. That means they live on the land or the water. Or both,” I say. Then I consider that reptiles fit that description, too, and go on to distinguish the two. “Amphibians start out breathing underwater, and then they switch and breathe the air.”

“Frogs are amphibians?” Benjamin says and squirts water from the frog to the tub wall.

“Yes.”

He makes a glug-glug noise as he again sinks the frog to the bathwater’s depths for a refill.

“My pee-pee’s not an amphibian,” he says.

Accustomed to conversations turning to someone’s bottom, a toot, or Ben’s privates, I dial my laughter down to a chuckle and say, “No, son, it isn’t.”

Both are westerns set on the Texas-Mexico border, and both are set in the present. Unlike most westerns I have seen, these are packed with emotion. The testosterone set need not worry, though; these films do not shy away from the brutality of the times, places, and people they cover.

(no spoilers)

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

I liked a lot of things about this movie, but it left me with one big question: are all Mexicans living near and/or trying to cross the border gentle and kind to strangers from the United States, even those who have severely wronged them? Watching this movie gave me that impression. The white American protagonist repeatedly encounters groups of Mexicans, and is accepted with open arms every time, no questions asked. One woman, understandably hesitant to help given the context, very quickly changes her mind and, like the others, can be considered a saint. In contrast, every white person is of questionable moral character, at best, except maybe the old man living alone in the desert. Now that guy adds a sad touch.

None of this worries me enough to keep me from enjoying the film, but I think it goes a little overboard with the sharp line between good and evil.

The acting is great all around. As usual, Dwight Yoakum does a great job as a slimy villain, evoking his role in Sling Blade, while Tommy Lee Jones is outstanding in a role quite unlike any other I’ve seen him play. His character possesses an unflagging sense of friendship, and expresses it in sometimes disturbing ways. Poignant scenes appear throughout, but the gradual piling on of frustrations seems palpable as we watch more worry lines form in Jones’ face (in HD!).

Lone Star

This is an intriguing film that features mystery and a little romance (which also has a twist). Chris Cooper, an underrated actor and one of my favorites, stars as a sheriff whose father (Matthew McConaghey) infamously held the same job in the small Texas border town. As in Three Burials, characters from both sides of the border interact in both everyday life and tense situations. Here, however, instead of painting with separate black and white brushes of morality, the filmmaker mixes the palette, giving us characters from various ethnic backgrounds that are neither all bad nor all good. Except maybe Kris Kristoffersen’s role. I find even less to like in his character here than I do in his acting.

The ancillary characters in both films are better developed than the leads in most Hollywood fare.

I watched both on one of the “free” HD channels that come with my DishNetwork HD package. The sand, the branches, the whiskers and the wrinkles all came through with stunning clarity, and the widescreen vistas invited me into their world.

During one of many trips between our house and the house my in-laws just sold, I recalled a joke from the stick of the Pop Sicle knock-offs a nurse gave to Ben while he recovered from an allergic reaction to fire ant stings.
Me : What do you call a skunk that can fly?
Benjamin: I don’t know.
Me: A smellycopter.

Less than 5 seconds later came this exchange:

Benjamin: What do you call a horse that can fly?
Me: I don’t know.
Benjamin: A neighcopter.

You mean, like, even if that source is Jon Stewart? No. Way.

As a matter of fact, way.

In 2004 The Associated Press reported that, “21 percent of people aged 18 to 29 cited ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ as a place where they regularly learned presidential campaign news,” according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Late one night in 2004 I just happened to be watching Stewart’s show when he mentioned this Pew study. After informing his viewing audience of their tendency to rely on his show for all their news, he stared wide-eyed for a close-up and said, “Don’t do that!”

I’m sure that deep down Stewart was lapping it up, and I suspect that the percentage would be higher if Pew conducted the same study now.

For years we subscribed to the daily paper and watched television news. We broke the TV habit about eight years ago, and I ditched the morning paper for National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” For years I read U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) for balance, but having a child stopped that.

Like the newspaper and USNWR, NPR spends more time on each story than the TV news does, and I don’t have to put up with commercials. Plus, it’s not as politically slanted as other media (but leans a little left). Somewhat ironically, I first heard NPR on a newspaper’s darkroom radio while working as a (paid) photojournalism intern, and it planted the seed that ultimately spurred me to cancel my subscription.

Well, that and the fact that I could get Dilbert for free online.

Believe it or not, that brings me to another of my news sources — Scott Adams’ blog. He’s the creator of Dilbert, and he posts serious articles as often as he does jokes. He works humor into all of it, but he also gets me thinking. That’s art.

Which is what we all look for in a news outlet, right? Okay, maybe not, but his topics and the discussions that result from his arguably above-average intelligence readers are much more practical than the (hilarious) bits on “The Daily Show.” Although he covers topics from religion to evolution to offbeat news of the weird, politics are Adams’ main focus lately, and he makes a lot of sense. If you go to his site, keep in mind that unlike most blogs, his puts the latest post at the bottom of the page.

What about CNN or Fox News for political coverage, you may ask? Yikes. Surely those aren’t the best news sources on television today. Some, including his peers, say that the recently deceased Tim Russert ran one of the best shows out there, backing down to nobody regardless of party affiliation. I never watched him, so I can’t comment with any credibility. I do know, however, that never again will I watch Anderson Cooper after his botching of the Sago Mine Disaster, which I first wrote about back when it happened.

I don’t want to turn this into a political blog, but it’s hard to resist the topic completely during an election year.

My main point here is that, like Adams said on his blog, most people don’t know very much about world news or what makes a good presidential candidate. To know as much as we can, however, at the very least we should reach for a variety of sources in the process of becoming completely confused.

For example, from what I’ve read and heard, I figured that most countries’ opinion of the United States has plummeted in the past couple of years. Just a quick glance at Pew’s site reveals that from 2007 to 2008, in most countries polled favorable views of the United States went up. In South Korea the jump was 12 points and in Tanzania a whopping 19. Surprisingly, Japan showed the biggest drop — 11 points, while also showing more respondents somewhat or very interested in the US presidential race than those of us who live here.

What’s the Japanese word for “Daily Show?”

What is your news source?

A classmate’s girlfriend said she was anxious to go to the dinner at the country club. Her life up to that point apparently had not included trips to such places, and her eyes danced in anticipation of regal surroundings.

My friend laughed and said, “No, you don’t understand, this is a country club.”

The hometown crowd cracked up because we knew exactly what he meant. I knew a little better than most because my family had a membership.

Don’t go thinking that meant we were rich (but I know that’s a relative term). Let me tell you what set our club apart from what your mind conjures up when you hear “country club.”

First, one of the primary attractions for paying members was the bar. We lived in a dry county, meaning no liquor stores, no beer stores, no wine stores — period. The nearest place to get all that was about a 45-minute drive. The law also meant no bars unless they were private clubs, and restaurants didn’t serve alcohol. I suppose there was a dining area, but I don’t remember ever using it.

That brings me to the establishment’s name: Thunderbird Country Club. Yes, it shares its moniker with a low-end fortified wine. I suppose it’s better than Night Train Country Club. Ripple, however, has a nice ring to it. (those who want to spoil my fun might point out that it could have been named after an older, much nicer club in California, whose introductory web page you can’t get past without being registered)

Regardless of its name’s origins, many of us affectionately called it the Thunder Chicken.

The sports facilities were not top tier. The golf course consisted of nine holes — 18 if you went around again and started from the alternate tee boxes. To have anything nicer demanded more money, and at that time golf was not the popular sport it is today. I think there were a couple of tennis courts nestled in a patch of pine trees near the pond on the ninth/18th fairway.

There were two features, however, that are pretty much the same no matter where you go — the swimming pool and the billiards room. Sure, the fancier clubs dress them up by adding high diving boards and more tables, but the sensation of cooling off on a hot summer day or putting the eight ball in the corner pocket isn’t enhanced by higher monthly fees or Mercedes in the parking lot.

The most popular poolside game was rag tag. The two taggers wadded up a soaked t-shirt (the “rag”) and stood on either side of the deep end, turning the diving board into a gauntlet for every soul that chose to use it. The often unwitting targets used various strategies to avoid being tagged. Covering the eyes was always a good idea, because invariably the rag would come partially undone in the air and grow whips.

I still remember the sloppy fwop as the rag hit its target. Hitting someone put you back in the rotation, where you then had to hope their revenge shot missed.

Snack time was a favorite for me. Almost always with a friend, I exited the chain link fence around the pool and walked barefoot up the sidewalk to the pro shop. The 100-degree days often sent me off the blistering sidewalk into the grass.

I walked through the door to a patient white-haired lady who merely tolerated us. Dripping wet, I shivered as I gave her my candy bar order. She took my quarter, turned slowly to open the refrigerator, and then handed over my sweet reward. I hurried back out the door, hoping the pro shop’s brief, frigid blast and the candy bar would keep me cool for that half hour I waited to get back in the water. To do otherwise meant certain death.

Chilled Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups always hit the spot. Sometimes I went for a Butterfinger, or the now-defunct Marathon Bar. Its braided caramel remained remarkably brittle in the hot sun, thanks to the arctic refrigerator, but it was delicious.

The most dangerous moment was the day that “Mel,” a friend of ours, was climbing up the ladder from the deep end. The number one tee box was beside and a little behind the pool. Someone hit their shot right off the toe of the clubhead and the ball zinged over the fence and hit Mel in the middle of his back. He didn’t wail until he knew what had hit him, and obviously either from his shriek or word of mouth the powers that be heard about it; the fence was higher soon after.

When the chlorine sting in my eyes or the sunburn got bad enough, I retreated to the lone pool table on the premises. My pruny fingers readily absorbed the blue cue chalk, and if I wasn’t careful I started looking like a Smurf. My wet swimming trunks felt like ice each time they brushed against my legs, and my hair was a cold mop on my head. When not playing, I watched as the older kids mixed international terms like “English” and “massé,” but seemed unable to demonstrate them with any regularity. They also peppered their speech with what they jokingly called “French,” but that I knew as “cussing.”

After pool became tiresome and my lips started turning blue, it was back outside to the pool.

Ah, yes, the Thunder Chicken. Country club living for those who weren’t rich (but they were welcome, too).

So, what was your favorite childhood summer hangout?

(Note: Before my brother retorts, I must point out that the golf course was a source of many memorable moments and, although still only nine holes, has improved since our glory days.)