Same as the Old Boss

I doubt anything I type here will add much to the national discussion that's currently taking place about Blago's arrest. However, while doing research on the previous governor's arrest I happened across this little gem of a website - www.congressionalbadboys.com. It's a witty compendium of our nation's history of Congressional malfeasance. I've just started exploring it so I'm not sure what all is in there. It appears they've divided it up into sections dedicated to classes of political corruption.

Some of the more interesting section titles are "Congressman and Teenagers", "Congressman Who Ended Up in Jail (The Prison Caucus)", and my favorite "Do They All Come from New Jersey?: BadBoys--state by state." There is even a "Partisan Scorecard" that, despite the Republicans' recent rash of scandals, shows they still trail Democrats 56 to 26 when it comes to the number of BadBoys from 1975 to the present. Which only makes sense considering Republicans have controlled congress for only 8 of those 33 years (6 really considering the Dems achieved a narrow majority in '06).

So, my fellow Illinois-ians take heart. Congress is still a way dirtier place than Springfield and maybe even Chicago. Maybe.

Wonder. Fear. Love.

These emotions, from what I can tell after just two weeks, constitute the primary colors of parenthood. More often than not they are in various proportion to one another providing an endless array of feelings at any given moment I'm with my son. But there have been moments when I have experienced each in its purest form, absent from the others. Wonder is all I felt when I heard his first cough followed by the tiny wail announcing his arrival. Ice cold fear gripped me when I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I heard him choking over the baby monitor. And love? I'm sure it will come as no shock to learn that I find undiluted love to be the most potent and persistent of the three.

If you've yet to see any pictures of our boy, you'll find some here. And if you're wondering why we named him Eli, this post from August 2005 should offer some insight. More later. My boy is currently screaming his head off and its daddy's turn to give him the bottle.

Delay of Game

Tonight we were to be admitted for an induction. Laurie called at the assigned time and was told to call back in 20 minutes. Twenty minutes later she called and was told to call back in another 20. The next time she called back she was told, "Don't call us again, we'll call you in 20." 45 minutes later I called, and after 10 minutes on hold, was told to call back tomorrow morning at 8. They were insufficiently staffed to admit us tonight.

We understand that inductions take a back seat to natural births, but it still makes for a bit of a let down. Its like being called to battle stations only to be told, "Stand down. This was only a drill." I know the disappointment is even greater for my wife. Still, we're fine, the baby is fine and he will get here eventually.

For now we're focusing on the silver lining of one more night in our own bed and the possibility that the delay might allow nature to take its course. As we marched around the mall in preparation for the night's festivities Laurie had three really good contractions.

I probably won't provide another update until we've actually been admitted. In the meantime we thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

Any Minute Now

We're just 4 days from the due date of our son. Laurie, God love her, is having a tough time staying comfortable in any position be it sitting, standing or laying down. The good news is that at the last checkup the doctor said that things might be progressing toward a conclusion here soon. We can't wait.

I think we're both past the point of anxiety about this. We're just impatient now. We want to see him. We want to get on with it. People ask me all the time, "Are you ready?" As I'll ever be. It's funny, but I was more anxious 5-minutes after she showed me the EPT stick than I am now.

I will confess I'm getting a little tired of hearing, "Your life is about to change forever." I don't doubt for a second that the people who say this say so out of affection and with the best intentions. But this won't have been the first time either of us have experienced change in our lives. Graduations, jobs, marriage, it's all changed my life forever. If there's anything I'm acutely aware of as I knock on 40's door, it's that my life will change.

For those of you whom I text on a fairly regular basis, you can expect a message when we're headed to the hospital. Consider that the starter pistol. As soon as our son arrives, I'll send another. If you call and I don't answer right away, well, I know you'll understand.

Here's hoping my next post has a picture of my son. Later.

I'm Counting on Your Vote

So much happening at once. In just 21 days I will most likely have a son and we will have a new president. I'm ready for the former. As ready as I'll ever be. I can't wait to see what he looks like. I'm just wondering if we will get an Opie like I was or he'll favor his mama's side and pop out a toe headed, blue eyed Dutch boy. A coworker of mine, a relatively new mommy herself, guaranteed I wouldn't be disappointed. Somehow I believe her.

As for the election, I'm ready for that to be over. For almost two years we've had to listen to these prima donas tell us that our relationship with them is more important than our relationship to the people we live around and work with every day. That we are to get in the face of our neighbor if they don't share our views. That we're to get mad. Basically, that we're to argue their case for them so that they can have power.

I don't care who you vote for, Obama or McCain. The fact is neither one will be around when you're truly in need. When your car breaks down and you need a ride, Barry isn't going to come pick you up. Try calling John McCain at 2 a.m. when you can't sleep and need someone to talk to. These guys only want one thing from you. Your vote. Once they have it, as they've amply demonstrated throughout history, you'll be lucky if they keep their word. That is if they can even remember what their word is, they offer so many versions of it.

The only people that have consistently come through for me in any administration are my friends and my family. And even a few people that I don't even know that well. They've all done more to better my lot in life than any president.

As anyone who has read this blog knows, I've relished shooting my mouth off in pursuit of political points for someone who really has no clue who I am. But lately I've been asking myself, "Are my political views really worth a single relationship I have with any of the people who actually inhabit my life?" Please don't think I'm suggesting we cease reasoned political discourse all together for fear of disagreement. I think everyone reading this would agree that making well thought out decisions about who to vote for is important and that talking about it with one another is a great way to work it out.

All I'm trying to do is keep it in perspective. Because come November 5, whoever is headed to the White House isn't going to be thinking about me at all. They're not going to be the ones excited about the arrival of my son. They're not going to join me for a beer at Esquire to celebrate. They're not going to talk to me for at least another two or three years until they need my vote again.

So, if from now on you find me unusually silent on this blog about political matters, you will know why. I will never dispute that who we elect can have a profound effect on our lives. I just may not think it's important enough to dispute with you who we elect.

I am Uncle Lar and I approve this message.

"Burn" is Good. Great? Well . . .

I saw Burn After Reading last night. I've been looking forward to this ever since I saw the first trailer. And while it was very funny I left a little unsatisfied. I know the Jordan simile has been used a ton, but it works so here goes. I've always viewed the Coen Bros. as the Michael Jordans of cinema. But even Jordan had an off night. Granted, an off night for him was the equivalent of a career high for many of his peers, but when you watched Jordan you expected magic every time his hands were on the ball.

This, I'm afraid, is the mindset I carried with me into the theater last night. I was expecting something on par with O' Brother Where Art Thou or The Big Lebowski. Instead I saw something that could have been called Intolerable Lebowski. Honestly, I think Intolerable Cruelty was funnier. To keep the Jordan analogy going here there were some telegraphed passes in this one. I began thinking, "I bet he accidentally shoots somebody in the face," after about the 3rd or 4th time Clooney's character mentioned he hadn't discharged his gun in 20 years. There were also a few bits that seemed more Farrely Bros. than Coen Bros. In particular Clooney's "secret project". I'll say no more.

Still, would I recommend you go see it? Absolutely. It's got some great performances (Malkovich's in particular) and despite being sub-par by Coen standards, is still way better than most everything else out there.

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!

I've been reading and hearing A LOT about Sarah Palin. It's impossible not to these days. In fact, if you'd just woken up from a 4-year nap in front of your TV in the middle of her ABC interview you'd swear she was the front runner for the top spot in this year's election based on the journalistic rectal exam she was given by Charlie Gibson.

I'll confess I've yet to see the entire interview, but he really went after her. And while some pundits on the right have been criticizing him for a double standard, I for one was glad he did go after her even if he wasn't even handed. From what I saw and heard she did about as well as any other candidate--some good answers, some not-so-good answers and some good ole' fashioned election-year non-answers. I think there will be plenty of ammo for both sides to come out of this.

But one thing I really, truly do not understand is the vilification of this woman and I'm used to the liberal hate machine. I mean she's yet to have a confidant commit suicide under mysterious circumstances or had to disown her pastor of 20 years for his racism, yet we are being told she is some she devil that has emerged-no wait-crawled from a swirling cesspool of "Babies, Lies and Scandals" in Alaska to steal reproductive rights, shoot wolves into extinction, persecute rape victims and probably eat our young. OK, I haven't heard that last one yet but it's only a matter of time. In the last three days I've seen more big media stories examining her conduct as a governor and mayor than I have investigative reports of Obama's voting record in the entire year+ he's been a candidate for President. And he has admitted ties to a convicted felon.

I can only conclude one of two things from the furor she's generated. Sarah Palin is pure evil OR the media and Democrats have lost their minds again. I'm not alone in suspecting the later. Camille Paglia, an atheist feminist, who also happens to be one of the most brilliant minds God has put on this earth, would say as much herself. At least that's what I gather from her essay that appeared in Salon a couple of days ago. I strongly encourage you to give it a read, especially if you want Obama to win.

Fresh Blood for the Vampire

On the Lam

Friday night I looked at my wife and said, "We outta' get out of town." I just felt the need to scram. Thankfully, she was willing so Saturday morning we hopped in the plane and set out for Kentucky. The flight down was about as perfect as they come. We flew at 7,000 feet above a scattered layer of big cotton ball cumulus clouds that were drifting along about 1,000 feet below us.

As we made our way south, some of the clouds started to push their tops up to our altitude and by about the Indiana/Kentucky border we were punching in and out of the bases of some. We arrived in Jamestown at about noon where Grandma and Grandpa were waiting for us.

We didn't do much of anything except relax. That was the only agenda item. How we relaxed was entirely left to our whims. It was great. Saturday night we decided to drive into Somerset for dinner and to get a few groceries. We ate at the infamous Golden Corral buffet--an experience that I imagine could be likened to an ancient Roman food orgy. Only instead of good looking Italians in togas, we dined with a lot of tourists and locals in NASCAR T's and cutoff shorts. I have to admit, for a buffet, the food was really good. I know now why my father and brother speak of it with some reverence and awe. It will destroy your waistline.

Today we got up and had coffee and rolls on the screened-in porch while we listened to the woods come to life. That hour alone was worth the entire trip. In fact it was what prompted me to fly down in the first place. All my best memories in that house revolve around coffee on the porch in the morning.

I also spent some of the afternoon in K-Mart buying some fishing gear that I can keep down there. Next time I go down I'll be set. Just need to see if I can corner my cousin Crowley so he can show me where the monsters are. He's a championship bass and striper fisherman. Spending just an hour with him on the lake would be like getting and hour's worth of free investment counseling from Warren Buffet.

After dinner with Mom, Dad and the grandparents we took off and headed home. The flight back was punctuated with a really cool 10 minutes or so above a thin layer of clouds that were illuminated by the full moon. It looked (and felt) like something straight out of a dream. Or the opening credits of Highway to Heaven. I'm still not sure. We touched down in Champaign about 9.

All in all a successful escape. Here's to more.

Goodbye Oleg

Yesterday a voice was silenced. But not by the people that sought to silence it before it could expose them. I learned this morning that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn passed away in his Moscow home yesterday at the age of 89. He died a free man who had taken the worst that the Soviet regime could throw at him and lived to watch it die. He is one of my greatest heroes. And while I knew this day was coming, it’s hit me harder than I thought it would.

Like any favorite author, he was as much a friend as a literary figure to me. I became acquainted with Solzhenitsyn during a very lonely period in my life. I bought a copy of the Cancer Ward after reading excerpts that had been used in another book. The main character, Oleg Kostoglotov, is a former prisoner of the Gulag who, after serving a "tenner" (Soviet slang for a 10 yr. sentence), had been sent into "perpetual exile" from his friends and family to the Kazakh Republic. The novel opens with Oleg sitting in the waiting room of a cancer ward in the Uzbek Republic after having been diagnosed with stomach cancer.

I realize that to some that might not sound like the right novel for a lonely person to be reading, but I think I identified to a small degree with Oleg's isolation. I too was thousands of miles from family in a place where few people knew me. When not at work I was almost always alone. Yet, what drew me most to Oleg was the fact he didn't let any of the adversity that life handed him define who he was or dictate his happiness. He was the perfect picture of a truly free man. A man who had been stripped of everything by the State and, as a result, had nothing further to fear from it. The material world had become immaterial and he was free to dwell on the things that truly mattered.

After finishing the Cancer Ward I wanted to know more about Solzhenitsyn. In doing so I learned that the character Oleg was, for all intents and purposes, Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn had served a tenner for some disparging remarks he had made about Stalin in a letter to friend during WWII. After completing his sentence he had been sent into perpetual exile. While in exile he contracted stomach cancer. As with all fictionalizations some characters, times and places had been altered, but for the most part the Cancer Ward was a chronicle of his experiences.

After that I devoured anything by him that I could get my hands on. I read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and then "The First Circle". I discovered rare collections of short stories and speeches. Strangely, I didn't get around to his most famous work, "The Gulag Archipelago", until about eight years ago. I've yet to finish it. With the exception of C.S. Lewis, I would say no other author has shaped my current worldview more than Solzhenitsyn.

Tonight, my sadness at his passing is tempered by the knowledge that nothing in Aleksander Isaevich’s life happened by chance, even his death. He was sent to prison as a young man so he could use the powerful voice he was given to speak first hand about an evil that millions silently endured. He was exiled to the West in the 70’s so that he could warn us about our complacency in the face of such evil. And today, in one of the tragically few articles I was able to find about his life, I saw God’s hand even in the timing of his death:

In a bookstore in central Moscow, a selection of his most famous books was put on display beneath a large black-and-white portrait of the author.

Television channels and radio stations ran constant solemn reports on his life but some younger Russians confessed they knew little about his work.

"He is very famous. I'm just starting his works," said Viktoria Danilova, a 17-year-old in central Moscow. "Unfortunately I haven't read very much yet."

I can think of no better time for the young men and women of Russia to pick up Solzhenitsyn than now as Putin and his puppets seek a return to the Soviet glory days.

If you are interested in Solzhenitsyn, I suggest starting with “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”. It's a quick read. If you like that, follow up with “The Cancer Ward” and then “The First Circle.” These novels are, in my opinion, his best works but they might be a bit long for someone who just wants to get a taste. Another good place to start is "The Solzhenitsyn Reader" that was just published a year or two ago. This is a collection of political essays, novel excerpts and even some poetry. And if you can find it, check out “Warning to the West” - a collection of speeches he made shortly after his exile to the United States.

D.C. Wings

Since before she met me, Laurie has been an avid participant and promoter of the Center for Civic Education's "We the People" program. It's a great program that works with educators across the country to try and foster a greater sense of civic responsibility in elementary and secondary students. Recently she has deepened her involvement with this program by becoming the WTP representative for all the school's in Illinois's 15th Congressional District (basically Champaign Unit 4). While this is by and large a volunteer job, she does get one very nice perk--an all expenses paid trip to Washington D.C once a year for the annual WTP conference of district representatives. Since they allow spouses to come along (all I had to pay for was my own airfare and any meals I had on my own)I decided to tag along.

While Laurie was in her various sessions I explored the city. There are many things I saw which I could write about, but I'll mention just one. While taking in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall, I spotted a brochure about the Steven F. Udvar-Hazay Center--a sister museum that is located about an hour's bus ride away in Chantilly, VA. I had heard some of my pilot friends talk about this museum and how it surpassed the facility on the Mall in both the size and quality of the collection of aircraft on display. I had to see it.

The next morning, after about an hour on D.C.'s Metro trains and buses, I was standing at the entrance of one of the largest aviation museums I have ever seen. Located just to the south of Dulles International, the sprawling facility consists of massive hangars that house, among other things, a Concord, the Enola Gay, a prototype 707, rare Luftwaffe secret weapons from WWII and the space shuttle Enterprise.

As I entered the largest of hangars I stopped awestruck in my tracks. I was standing on one of the many balconies in the facility. Just to my right, hanging almost within arms reach, was an F4U Corsair. To it's left, also seemingly within reach, was a P-40 Warhawk. On the floor directly in front of me was an SR-71 and beyond it in the adjacent hangar the space shuttle.

As I told Laurie later, I experienced a tingle up my spine that I hadn't felt since I first set foot in Six Flags when I was 10. I had our camera with us and took a bunch of pictures. I'll let them do the rest of the talking for this post. All, I'll say in closing is if you love aviation, this is a place you simply have to see before you die. Do whatever it takes, but get there. Even if you're not a pilot or fellow wingnut, but simply a student of history, it's well worth the trip.

Now, to the pics.

Is Anyone There?

In my last post (November of '07) I put away my O Uncle Lar pen until I could find something interesting to write about. At least something that interested me which stood a better than average chance of interesting anyone who happened to read. I think I've found said inspiration with the impending arrival of my son.

I'll do my level best to keep things from getting too maudlin or cloying. Kind of like my flying blog, I really just want to be able to keep track of what's going on with these months leading up to the birth for my own edification. And if Blogger is still around when my son is old enough to read, for his edification too.

Tonight I went to the first of several pre-natal classes which will prepare us for the process of childbirth and the first few weeks following it. Those crucial weeks when I will be acclimating myself to an entirely new world. Of course so will Laurie and our kid so I'll be in good company. I anticipate more than a few moments where we'll all just be staring at each other with, "What the . . .?" looks on our faces. I fully expect my child to give me that one the first time I try to change his diaper. Or maybe he'll just giggle as he pees on my shirt. Who knows. But according to our First-Time-Daddy-Class instructor I can pretty much count on the latter. I guess the cool air on his undercarriage during a diaper change will make the little guy go. The instructor said they actually make "blast" cups specifically for those moments. I figured one of those small Dixie cups we keep by the sink would work just as well.

I think the most valuable thing I learned tonight was how important the first few minutes outside the womb are for the imprinting process. According to our instructor, animal babies only imprint with the mother. Only human babies can form an imprint for the mother and father. Shortly after birth they say I should let junior lay on my bare chest so he can taste, smell and touch me in addition to seeing and hearing me. This will form an indelible bond between he and I. She said he'll already recognize my voice as they can hear pretty well from the friendly confines of mom. Which means I guess I'll have to start watching my language already.

Perhaps the most comforting thing about the class was getting to meet a lot of guys who were in the same boat as I. I thought for sure I'd be among the older guys, but I 'd say about half the class or more were within 5 years of me. I think there was maybe one or two guys that were older than I.

We wrapped the class up with a video that included a natural birth. Not sure I needed to see that, but it didn't really bother me. I will cop to getting a little misty, though, when they laid the newborn on dad's chest. It was just a lingering shot of the kid laying there working his little mouth and hands and glancing up now and then to try and get a look at dad's face. Trying to get a grip on his new surroundings. I'm really looking forward to that part.

I promise not all posts from now on will be about the kid, but I'm sure it will be a major theme for a while. Like I said, I'm really writing all this down for me, but wanted to share these thoughts with family and friends that are interested. So if you read this far, thanks. I can't wait for us to meet my son.