The Twelve-Hour Brain

I had been content to leave Halloween to my wife this year — really, there's just too much else going on here these days. Two years ago I spent a week (or more) putting together the legendary robot costume for my son; last year he wore it once more. The question of this year's costume remained undecided up until about a week ago, when his mother decided that "Mad Scientist" would be easiest. He already has a white lab coat, after all, and goggles, and other stuff that might prove useful.

But then it was left to me — the day before the school's Halloween parade! — to fill in the details. (So much for contentment.)

I gave up my beloved bright orange squishy Nerf Brain, painted it grey, hollowed it out a bit (I would have done that first, if only I'd thought of it), and used the flashing LED lights from some old toys to bring it to life (though that would require a fair bit of rewiring). And I put two big bolts in it — that's where the electrodes are attached, of course, connected to a helmet (which is, in fact, a small colander). It took about twelve hours from start to finish, including lots of running-around-getting-stuff time.

My eight-year-old was completely and totally delighted — though he later admitted (to someone else) that watching me put it together really wasn't very interesting.

Kyle-of-The-Future

So what would you do with a four foot hole in your backyard?

Here's what we're doing. My eight-year-old son and I will write a letter (maybe even send a drawing, as well) to the Kyle-of-The-Future. We'll write about the present, what we think might happen, and hope might happen. Everything will be sealed in a (mostly) airtight and (hopefully) moisture-proof box, and buried. We might even send a toy into the future — though I've warned him that I'll be in no great hurry to dig this hole again anytime soon, and anything that goes into the future, stays in the future.

I have no idea when that will be. Five years? Ten years? These are the days I'm not entirely sure we'll still be in this house next year. But my hope is to put this off 'till he's old enough to take an active part in the digging.

Dig

I have been digging an enormous hole in my backyard. I don't think there's any part of me left that doesn't ache.

We have had, of late, what I will euphemistically refer to as "a plumbing problem." It's not that much of a euphemism, it does involve actual plumbing, but trust me, you really don't want me to get into the details. The best we've-tried-other-solutions-and-none-of-them-worked hope of addressing this problem was to come in through what's called the "clean out," an access point along the main drainage pipe, closer to the street than the house. I was kindly provided with a diagram of where the pipes lurk, somewhere beneath the ground (courtesy of our Town Engineering Department), with measurements and everything — but the connection goes this way and that at several points, and I had no way to turn the angles that had been carefully noted into anything that would be remotely useful. So I had to make a best guess. But I was reasonably certain I'd come close, based on what I could work out from the diagram.

Making matters worse, though, the notes were that the clean out was 4' deep underground, more or less. So not only did I not know where it was, I'd have to dig four feet down, maybe more, to even have a chance of finding it.

Armed with a brand new shovel (I couldn't find the old one), and the desire to avoid the quoted $850 excavation charge, I dug in (heh), hoping for the best.

Three hours later, I'd come to an impasse. I was almost 4' deep, but it had become virtually impossible to get the loose dirt out of the hole, which at this point was only slightly larger than I was. I had made the hole slightly wider at the bottom, so I could maneuver better (I thought that might offer a better chance of finding a buried pipe, as well), but I wasn't getting much of anywhere. I climbed out of the hole to call my wife and admit defeat. Shameful, ignominious defeat that would set the cause of our budget back by $850.

It was after I got off the phone with her that I noticed the very small patch of blue green against the dirt, on the wall of the hole. At first, I thought it might be a leaf.

Sure enough, though, it was the clean out. All along, it had been right next to where I had been digging. Even better, it wasn't four feet below the surface — it was four inches. If I had moved just a step further away from the house when I started to dig, I would have uncovered it in all of three minutes.

I walked into the house, calmly, quietly, and let loose with the loudest and longest torrent of cursing I think I have ever uttered in my adult life. (But it was all in cartoon voices, and there was nobody but the cats at home to hear it, anyway.)

Mad

My eight-year-old, the poor kid, is in absolute dread that his third grade teacher might be mad at him. Not always, just in those moments when he's uncertain over aspects of his homework, something he thinks he should or shouldn't have done. I've done my best to calm him, and reassure him that he has nothing to worry about, but geez, once that kid gets all worked up over something, it can be difficult to convince him otherwise.

I know third grade is asking more of him, but he's excited (mostly) by the challenge. It's still early in the school year, and I've met his teacher only once (and briefly, at that), but I know he likes her. There's just this quiet anxiety that seems turns up every so often.

I didn't tell him that I've had people mad at me, too. (I didn't tell him that because if I did, I'd have to explain why people might be mad at me, and that's not really a discussion I want to have with anyone, much less my eight-year-old.)

Sweet Smell of Success

I was watching Sweet Smell of Success earlier in the evening, for the first time (I came in a bit late), and it felt as though I'd stumbled into watching the longest episode of The Twilight Zone I'd never seen.

It looks like a Twilight Zone episode — beautifully photographed in black-and-white, most of the story seems to take place at night, on city streets. It even sounds like a Twilight Zone episode — strange, not-quite-natural dialoge (much of it written by Clifford Odets), and a great jazz soundtrack (by Elmer Bernstein). Martin Milner is in it, too — and you know something just isn't right when he's been cast as a jazz guitarist.

Adopted

There was an interesting piece of news earlier this week, when an analyst from the firm Bernstein Research made the claim that the iPad had become "one of the most successful consumer electronic device launches ever," surpassing even the (likely estimated) 350,000 DVD players sold during that product's first year.

Once you start paying attention, you learn not to pay too much attention to what an analyst says (some of them predicted the iPad would be a dismal failure), but as anecdotal evidence goes, this is interesting:

Target started carrying the iPad just this week, and I was in one of the stores this morning (this was early this morning, before 9:00 AM), and during the five, maybe ten minutes I was there, one person bought an iPad, and another was just about to.