Wanderings and Wonderings

Does anyone even pay attention to this thing anymore? I seriously want to write, but it just seems like everyone's moved on. Some things can't be said in 140 characters, but I seriously miss the community that used to be on here...

Last week, I got sick. And not only did I get sick, but I went fucking all out. 

It started Wednesday night. I was out in the new garage wiring up a few new outlets before we start the project to finish it off. I was up on a ladder running some wire and suddenly I just felt so tired. Like unbelievably tired. So tired I could barely hold my head up.

I got down off the ladder, went inside and sat down, figuring I had just pushed myself too hard. It was nearing bedtime anyways, so I decided just to head to bed early. But, before going to bed, I took some Pepto Bismol because I was feeling a little bit nauseous.

I woke up a short time later feeling absolutely terribly nauseous. I went in the bathroom, and after several episodes of diarrhea (I'll spare you the graphic details, but the term "pure liquid" is probably accurate) I violently threw up in the trash can. Immediately, I began to feel better, so I figured, okay, maybe I just ate some bad food.

I tried to go back to bed, but then the chills started. I had cold sweats. I've never had cold sweats in my life. I had to go to the bathroom again for more diarrhea and about an hour later, vomited again. At this point it's like 4am and I'm just sitting on the toilet, sobbing. Wanting to rip my stomach out, wanting it all to be over.

My wife made me some tea to help settle my stomach, and we went to the doctor at 8am. He diagnosed me with norovirus. Unfortunately, there's no real cure for norovirus; you can just treat the symptoms and ride it out. So he gave me a shot of promethazine in my arm to control the nausea, a prescription for anti-nausea pills, and sent me home to.

I slept about 40 of the next 48 hours. No shit, I have very little recollection of anything from Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon. And, because we have a baby in the house and I didn't want to get my wife and daughter sick, I had to ride it out pretty much alone in the guest room, quarantined from the rest of the house. Fortunately, my wife would bring me food and gatorade, but otherwise, I got to watch a lot of really crappy TV and stare at the ceiling.

Sunday, I finally started to feel my appetite coming back, and by Monday I was almost completely back to normal though there are still some lingering after effects. I've noticed I've been having a lot more heartburn, for instance.

I was trying to think of the last time I got that sick. I usually don't get puking sick - I get really bad sore throat sick. I get lots of respiratory infections, but not often do I get like this. The last time I can remember getting this sick was probably 12  years ago, my freshman winter at Auburn when I had the flu.

Regardless, I'm very happy to be back among the land of the living.

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

In my last entry, I mentioned how the move process was going. I also said we were supposed to be closing on September 26th, and moving shortly thereafter.

Well, it's October 3rd, and we're still in our old house.

What happened? Well, pull up a chair, and I'll pick up the tale where I left off last time.

The Inspection

As I mentioned in the previous post, we sold the house. And, as is common, the buyer of the house wanted to get an inspection done on my house. No problem. It worried me a lot because we had just found (and fixed) the leak in the chimney, and I had no idea what else might be lurking to be fixed. But, you do what you have to do, so they did their inspection on Monday, September 10th.

Now, according to the contract, they had 3 working days to present me with a list of repairs. Well, Wednesday and Thursday came and went, and I thought we were in the clear. Then, Friday, they finally get me a list of "requested repairs." and I very nearly blew a gasket. I fully believe their inspector to be batshit crazy. Here were some of the "requested repairs":

• New driveway and sidewalk due to "cracks." Every fucking driveway in the neighborhood has cracks in them. It's a 20 year old house, and the driveway is in fine shape for it's age.
• Wanted the siding replaced. The siding was just replaced by the previous owner in 2005.
• Wanted a new roof because the roof vents were too narrow and the bathroom vent vented into the attic.
• Wanted some major work done on the electrical system. The electrical system is fine and hasn't been touched.
• Wanted the laundry vent line re-routed to be "shorter." The laundry room is in the middle of the fucking house. It's as short as possible already.
• They wanted the motherfucking chimney extended two fucking feet! Apparently there's some code that says chimneys have to be a certain height above the roofline, and mine was two feet short. But every house in the neighborhood built on the same plan has the same height chimney, so it was obviously okay when it was built.

And that was just the crazy ones. That's leaving along the other 20 or so items they requested that were somewhat reasonable. I'm being serious when I say I almost lost my shit. My first instinct was to tell them to fuck the hell off because they broke contract, that they aren't getting shit from me, and I'll see them at closing.

In the end, because I have to work with this guy, I ended up agreeing to fix 12 minor items. Most of which was done in a weekend and was completed thanks to [Bad username or site: koakako's help. @ livejournal.com] Fortunately, they agreed. Could have done without the drama.

Comes The Appraiser

As I mentioned in a previous post, the new house we are buying doesn't have a garage. It was the model home for the neighborhood, and, when the builder built it, they finished in the area that would have been the garage. We wanted to keep that because it adds enormous square footage to the house.

It's also his last property in the neighborhood, so he's under a lot of pressure to get it off his books. So he's selling the house at a massive discount. We're buying the house at $76 a square foot, when most of the stuff in that neighborhood has been going in the mid $80s. We were confident that we could write the contract for above the purchase amount of the house and escrow the remaining amount (essentially, borrowing against the equity the house would already have at closing because it's so underpriced) and use that to build the garage.

So we had everything set up with the loan. But their appraiser dragged his feet for the maximum amount of time he could before going out there (he had 10 business days and waited until the 10th day, then tried to reschedule - my realtor told him that he couldn't and we were closing in 3 days). According to my realtor, he had a foul attitude about having to drive down, and didn't spent a lot of time there.

Then we get the report back. He refused to value it any higher than the MLS listing, which is fucking retarded. The MLS listing is so low you couldn't rebuild it for that price. It's worth more than that in materials alone! (Not even kidding about this - every insurance estimate I've gotten has been almost 1.5x what we're paying as the estimated rebuild cost WITH the garage factored in).

Then, the mortgage broker informed me that, even if the appraiser had approved it, they would not have done the escrow in spite of us having been completely upfront with them from the very beginning about what we were trying to do. At the last minute, they were just like, fuck you.

That was Monday the 24th. We were supposed to be closing in the 26th. Everything fell apart that day. I'm not even kidding - I had moving vans arranged! I had the utilities scheduled to be in my name. Everything had to be stopped while we circled the wagons and figured out what our next move would be.

Starting Again

So, this time, we're taking a little bit different approach. First, we're talking to an actual bank, and not a mortgage broker. We're getting a construction loan for the full amount, buying the house, and then building the garage with the remaining amount on the loan. Then, we'll close the construction loan.

But people are still dicking with us. After we got all that set up, I got a call from the bank saying they couldn't send an appraiser out until they got drawings from the builder. Then they said they had the drawings, so I asked to see them. They had the wrong drawings. That took three days to work out, going between realtors, builders, and banks. Either way, it may be another 2-3 weeks until we can get into the house.

In the meantime, my wife is 8 months pregnant and looks like she could pop at any moment. Time is of the essence here, but nobody seems to be in any kind of hurry. I'm seriously losing my cool with it all.

The End

We also made a decision that this was the end. If something happens at this point, we are calling the entire deal off. All the way off. We are pulling our offer on the new house and pulling our house off the market. We'll wait a year until after Scarlett is born, then try this whole thing again.

All this stress has been absolute murder on me, and it's been holding us up from doing the things we need to do. I really hope it gets resolved soon, because both of us are just worn out of "one more thing."

My cousin is currently touring Yellowstone with his wife; they're posting pictures on Facebook and causing me to reminisce about where I was 10 years ago.

About this time I was wrapping up my final few weeks of my last tour as a Park Ranger at Yellowstone. And while I loved the park and, to a certain extent loved the solitude, I would be lying if I said I was looking forward to getting back to Alabama, and to my friends. Still, that summer changed me. Perhaps more than any short period of time in my life before or since.

2002 was, by far, my longest tour of duty in the park. Most of the experience was overwhelmingly positive. I still have a love of "western" and Native American culture. There were some negatives, and one in particular that I don't talk about much. But overall, I came back from Yellowstone in 2002 a different person than when I left. It showed, when I was willing to stop floundering around in my life, start tacking some of the tough decisions and taking responsibility for myself. That next year I really turned things around. Got things right with school, started living [more] on my own, and got a real job.

It was that real job that kept me from returning to Yellowstone in 2003. I had to make a choice - quit my job in Auburn and go to Yellowstone, with no guarantee of what would be waiting when I returned in the Fall, or work through the summer, stay in school and be a semester closer to graduating.

The me prior to 2002 would have hit the road without a second through. The me of 2003 did't. The me of 2003 stayed in Auburn, worked, studied and continued pulling myself out of the tailspin I'd been in. But, even then, I knew I'd probably never go back. The changed me sacrificed any chance to "do it again" because of what I learned about myself.

I try not to dwell on "other paths," but, seeing my cousin's photographs makes me wonder what that other path would have been like. I almost chose that path again in early 2005 when I couldn't find a job out of Auburn. But, just as I was getting my paperwork together go back and considering the possibly going to NPS seasonal law enforcement training at Sylvan, an offer appeared to go work in Huntsville. The rest, they say, is history.

And I haven't been back since.

I still miss the park. I miss the quiet and solitude. I miss the long drive to Jackson, or to Idaho Falls. I miss the wildlife - the moose, the elf and the howls of wolves. And yes, I even miss the annoying tourists.

Although I can't help but smile a little bit. Next time we go, I get to share some of that joy with my daughter.

As a college football fan, I would be remiss if I didn't at least have some thoughts on the biggest scandal ever to hit college sports.

I remember when this first started to surface last year. I was very cautious at the time as everyone around seemed to be out for a pound of flesh. I generally try to avoid mobs and witch hunts - what I most wanted was to let the investigations play out, and find out who knew what and when did they know it. Because only once we know the facts of a case can we truly sit in judgement.

Well, now we know the facts, and it's worse than I could have ever imagined.

Now, I haven't read the Freeh report - I really haven't had time (or desire) to digest a 227 page report detailing the actions of a child molester and the people who enabled him, even after they knew. But the report is the probably the single most damning thing ever to land on a college athletic program. It eclipses Kentucky's point-shaving in the 50s. It eclipses Louisiana-Lafayette's academic shenanigans in the 70s. And it most definitely eclipses SMU's "Pony Excess" in the 80s.

This is, without a doubt, the worst, most rotten thing I could possibly imagine. I don't think this would have even been imaginable 15 years ago. And yet, here we are. All of those cases pale in comparison to what happened at Penn State.

As the report details, the problems at Penn State were wider than just the football program. Many, many people, from the President down to janitors, knew what was going on ... but nobody said anything. A culture of silence and, more importantly, a reverence for athletics beyond all reason, pervaded everything that happened in State College. Nobody would go against, or risk threatening, the almighty sacred golden calf that was the Penn State football program. For all intents and purposes, Penn State football and Joe Paterno were sacrosanct and any attempt to confront them would elicit the highest orders of outrage.

What happened to those kids was terrible - and the justice system will see to it that those responsible are held to account for their crimes, as will the completely justified lawsuits which are sure to follow. But there are some other points surrounding this whole thing that I think are worthy of pondering here as well.

For the longest time, I held Joe Paterno and Penn State as the paragon of stability that all athletic programs should strive for. I mean, here was a guy that was head coach for 45 years. In that same time period, Auburn had six coaches and Alabama had eight. In retrospect, I can't help but wonder if that same stability allowed a culture to flourish that enabled something like this to happen. Is it good for one person to be allowed to accumulate so much power and hold it, unchecked, for so long? Would a few changes in administration have helped deter this situation?

I would like to think so and, in truth, it may. But think the problem is bigger than Penn State and cuts right to the heart of the worship of college athletics in the United States. This same "athletics can do no wrong" culture can be seen at many major Division I schools. I mean, in my heart I would love to believe that something like this could never happen at Auburn. But I also cannot discount the power that the athletic department holds. The same can be said for Alabama, LSU, Oregon (whose program I think is absolutely rotten to the core on so many levels) and so many programs. Can I honestly believe that a janitor who sees something like that janitor at Penn State saw and has to decide between his job and reporting will do the right thing? And even if they keep their job, would have to constantly be on the lookout for some crazed "fan" much like we hear every week on Finebaum to do something insane?

That's the thing about this whole sad situation that I don't think is getting enough discussion. This scandal is an indictment of the worship of athletics that pervades colleges across the US. Penn State just took that same worship that happens at every Division I program and turned the knob to 11. As a result, a culture of silence allowed a child molester to run rampant for years with the full knowledge of many people, who placed covering up for the name of the Nittany Lions above doing the right thing.

This. Has. Got. To. Stop.

The thing that is so damning about all of this is that it's not the oh so loved "lack of institutional control" that we usually hear about when it comes to sports scandals. In this case, the institution was in such complete control of every aspect of Nittany Lion culture, that no one would dare go against it. This is unique, uncharted waters for college athletics.

Now, I don't know what the NCAA will do, if anything. Frankly, my opinion of the NCAA is right down there with the UN in terms of being able to do anything useful. But if there's any justice in the world, the NCAA will drop the hammer on Penn State and end the program. At least for a couple of years. And if the NCAA doesn't do it, Penn State should, for once, do the right thing and pull the plug themselves. Shut everything down, cool everything off and, in a few years, return with a new focus on what is really important. Because even though all the people responsible are gone, the culture is still in place. You have to change the culture.

Yes, I said it. I'm talking the Death Penalty. A slap on the wrist - a few scholarships lost, a TV or bowl ban - would be insulting. To do anything less in this situation is to condone the very attitude that allowed Jerry Sandusky to molest children for years. A message needs to be sent, to universities and fans across the nation that there is a line of acceptable behavior and culture when it comes to college athletics, and that Penn State flew over that line at supersonic speeds. There must be accountability.

SMU paid some played. Kentucky shaved some points. But at Penn State, a culture of silence and reverence for athletics enabled a child molester to go unchecked, with full knowledge of the administration, for years. If that's not worthy of the ultimate penalty, the entire NCAA is s sham and should itself be disbanded.

For the average college football fan, this should be yet another sobering reminder of the dark places that operate at some of alma maters. For as much as we would like to believe in the purity of sport, this scandal - perhaps the saddest and worst ever- indicates of the depths to which evil can spread.

How can you possibly put into words what was one of the most unexpected, best experiences of my entire life?

I'm not going to write much about what actually happened at Cursillo. It's not out of any secrecy or shame - to the contrary, I wish I could share the joy of what I experienced with every person on Earth. But I also don't want to ruin the surprise and, no matter what, I don't think words could adequately express the joy of the experience. Regardless, my experience was different from that of my fellow pilgrims, and from past and future pilgrims. It's different and unique for everyone; we all experience it in different ways.

Coming out the other side, it feel like a new person. Cursillo was literally a life changing experience.

I will, however, share with you one observation I made about myself over the weekend:

As part of the weekend, they take your cellphones and watches. Not having my cellphone made me consciously aware of how much i actually look at my phone, and how socially ... lame ... it has made me. The first day or so any time there was a lull in any conversation, I found myself unconsciously reaching for my pocket. But by the third day, I wasn't doing this anymore, and seem to have recovered some of my atrophied ability to socialize. I'm going to try to be more consciously aware of it in the future.

It weirds me out a bit to think about how long, and yet how fast another 10 year marker has gone by.

Ten years ago, right now, I was driving across Nebraska. I had left a Days Inn in Lincoln and was heading for Rawlins, Wyoming. In Rawlins, I would spend the night before heading up US-287 towards my final destination: Yellowstone National Park.

Upgraded the stereo in my truck.


The new head unit is a Clarion CX-501, which has built-in support for Bluetooth audio streaming from my iPhone as well as built-in support for Satellite radio. I figured since I'm probably going to be driving the truck for the foreseeable future, I may as well have a good sound system.

It seems like a lifetime ago...

I was working at my first real career type job - a junior programmer for a transit company. All summer I lusted over a 2000 Ford Focus. And, if there was one indispensable soundtrack to that "last summer" before I left for Auburn, it was the Titan A.E. soundtrack. 

It was only 12 years. Why does it feel like a whole different life, and a whole different person?