O.J.

If the O.J. trial ended today, the sequestered jury wouldn't know what the internet was.

Or electric dog shocker collars.

EasyMac.

Reality TV.

What else?

Time management on President's Day.

I had a test today at one o'clock.
I made the usual special preperation for it.
That is I invited every distraction known to man to avoid studying for it.
I worked until 7 and then went to the good old multiplex to see Hitch with Will Smith. Funny, plenty of Velveeta but funny despite that, go see it. Afterward, instead of studying I went to see Kimmet & Doug. This, of course, went very late leaving no time for my studies. I began studying at ten this morning and then decided to go to the bank to keep from studying. It's President's Day. Yes, today is President's Day and the banks are closed. So, I said the pledge of allegience and then thought of Mt. Rushmore and Bryan Meadow's hair, because it is very presidential. I just got so excited about the presidents. Man. I love 'em. Why couldn't it be president's week, or month even. We could all drive to Hope, Arkansas and have a picnic. With apple pie and baseball.
I then reasoned, "I had better study."
So, I did.

AAAHHH!!!

Can't we all just get along?
For the love.

The fam after my brother's wedding.

I'm a virtual green horn at posting pictures. We'll see what happens.
Left to Right
Meg and Shawn, Mom, me, Dad, Katie Anna, Amy, Nate, David Karston

New fixture.

It's been at least a month. To look at them now is kind of amusing. My roomate Jake rented two DVD's from Movie Gallery a while back and they have been checked out for so long they have a speaker sitting on them. It makes you wonder if there is a maximum late fee they will charge before they let you just purchase them. They're good movies too. Garden State and Wicker Park. I slept during Wicker Park but it seemed enjoyable.
It's odd looking at them even now, knowing they are desperately late, and we are all home, and we all have viable means of transportation, and Movie Gallery really is just down the street, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind.
They will be here tomorrow.

That time of year.

I want a dog.
I am constantly in want of a dog.
Until my brother revived the practice of pet ownership a few weeks ago, my family had given up on them altogether. In the 80's we had Ben. He was a Dachsund mutt that everyone loved. He got old and ran away to die. We reasoned such because he loved us so much that he couldn't stand to suffer in our presence. Like an elderly eskimo pushing himself out to sea on a floating ice tomb. For all we know he could have been stolen and sold on the Dachsund mutt black market. After Ben came Abby, I think. She was a Cocker Spaniel and as high strung and crazy as she was pretty. She was a picture dog. That is, the kind of dog you take your picture with. "Hey, get Abby in the picture." And you'd try and try but she was running back and forth with reckless abandon all over the place. We gave her away because she had this crazy look in her eye. I don't know, I was young. Then we had Herschel and he was beautiful but never made it to his formative years. I think mom backed over him in the car and it broke our hearts. I don't know what kind of dog he was but he was small. We Blackney's have always been suckers for the diminutive breeds. After Herschel we were petless for years, our hearts had grown cold. Then, Mom or Dad (I don't recall which) smoked some crack and got two dogs. Miniature something or others. It really happened out of nowhere. They were twins. Brothers actually. That sounds a little odd, twin dogs, but still, entirely true. Caeser and I can't remember. The twins answered the call of the wild one winter or some other season and ran off into the woods. Weeks later only Caeser returned. Either Caeser couldn't coax I can't remember to come home or he was stolen and sold on the unidentified breed black market. Caesar went to Florida we think. Smart money is on Caesar in some retirement village in West Palm Beach.
So, we've been dogless for some time now. But this time every year I get my hopes up. Mom and Dad are gonna get a new dog. Why?
Ever since I can remeber, pre-kindergarten, my father has been a faithful viewer of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. It is intoxicating. We could watch it for hours, which is proper because it is on for hours. And tonight, Best In Show is to be awarded just before 11 P.M. EST on USA, which by the way is the only thing that network is good for. You can rest assured my father will be watching, and I'll be praying.
For a chocolate lab.
Incidentaly, America's favorite breed, the Labrador Retriever, has never won Best In Show.
Maybe tonight's the night.
Tune in to find out. The pomp and circumstance begin at 8.

Get your slow wipe on.

Oh, did you miss out.
As hard as it is to believe there were no takers for the "Give Adrian a ride from Auburn to the airport two hours away in Birmingham" trip. Wade and I had all of the enjoyment to ourselves. Exhilarating conversation, cheesecake, coffee, other words that start with "c". That is until we actually got to Birmingham. As we made the descent off of Red mountain on the well travelled US280 into Birmingham things in Wade's trusty old Rodeo started going haywire. First the radio turned off.
"That's odd."
Then the warning lights came on. All of them.
"Hmm. The engine seems strong."
The pit-pat of rain signaled desperate malfunction. How, you may wonder, did the pit-pat of rain signal the end. Wade hit the wipers and they wiped.
No they wwwwwiiiiiiiipppppppppeeeeeeeedddddddd. Sssssllllllloooooooowwwwwwwlllllllyyyyyy.
We couldn't help but laugh, the wipers had become worthless. And it was really funny.
So I'm guessing it was the alternator. We pulled into the Summit and made phonecalls. The cavalry soon arrived (Bryan Meadows) and I made it to the airport on time.

Aside: I witnessed a quarter life crisis of sorts. Not really but it's fun to call it that. Bryan has just bought a house. Moved out of an apartment and bought a house. He owns a company. He leaned over in deep thought (To Bryan's wife, fear not, I'm dramatizing), "You ever miss it?"
"Miss what?", I asked, though I had a pretty good idea of where he was going.
"College."
Slow grin. Quarter life crisis.

I still don't know what happened with Wade's ride. But I do know of at least eight people that missed out on the trip of a lifetime. (That's a stretch, but it sure seemed like it at the time.)

The weight of a sentence.

I used to think I was a bit off for thinking about what a good sentence looks like, sounds like. No more. On my flight back to Louisville I had the good fortune of running into Dr. Nettles, a church history professor at the seminary. He teaches the hardest class I've ever taken in my life but that's beside the point. Upon landing, we walked and talked our way to baggage claim where, with some prodding, I expressed my discontent with popular Christian writing. Dr. Nettles is published many times over with a three volume set packed with over 900 pages of text due out any day. I learned from him in those ten minutes that it's okay to concentrate on sentences. It's actually pretty important. Don't expect to find a good one in this entry.

Who knew, GQ?

It's four thirty in the morning and I'm about to go to bed, I promise. I'm up because I went to see Kimmet & Doug tonight and when I got home I read an article found from a link on my brother's site. It is terribly long and terribly good. Read it, and expect more later today, (hopefully) this weekend was amazing.

New counter, familiar face.

Take a gander at my new counter on the right under the power blogger button.
Familiar face right?
But you can't quite put your finger on it.
I'm tempted to leave it a mystery and open the floor to guesses- but I won't.
It's William Hung from the last season of American Idol as Tom Cruise as The Last Samurai.
Cool counter indeed.

Kansas City Hot Brown

This unfortunate event happened while living in Kansas City.

When you have stepped on something and it sticks to the bottom of your shoe, gum for instance, you immediately acknowledge that fact. "Something is stuck to my shoe." It alters your gate, awaiting investigation, then the culprit is dismissed. Yesterday, I went to Blockbuster to rent a movie.*

*Blockbuster's have no public restrooms. If you've got to go, you've got to go someplace else. I know from personal experience and now practical experience, that you should use the restroom prior to your visit.

So I was walking around the store looking through the new releases.
Aside: When I am hiking through the forest I look down as I place my steps so as not to trip or twist an ankle. Urban living has erased this habit, level ground abounds, so as I pondered what to rent I unknowingly stepped in a pile of poo.
Yes, within the confines of such a fine establishment, some child (oh I hope it was a child) had confused the floor with the toilet and I was the victim. Dumbfounded by the idea that someone would lay a steamer right there in the floor, I was in denial, it had to be a dropped Reese's peanut butter cup. It didn't even look like one but my mind was made up. People just don't doo doo on the floor in the middle of the day. I rent my movie, walk outside, still in shock, and consider. There is no way that's poo. All logic and reason says that it is but come on, Blockbuster? Maybe if I'm walking through the park! I simply have to know. I turn up my foot, tap it with my finger, smell it, and dry heave. It was poo. I know. I touched it, then smelled it.
I have been defiled.

A Moving Comedy in Three Acts.

This story is one of misery. Plain and simple. Moving three times in a year is not something I would suggest to anyone. It tells the tale of a cross-country trek from Kansas City, Missouri to Louisville, Kentucky via the Loveliest Village on the Plains; Auburn, Alabama.

A Comedy in Three Acts.

Act I  How to move things from one state to another.

Typically, a person owns more than they can fit in their car. This is why moving is an art form, it's far from a no-brainer. I'm not baking cookies, there aren't directions. And it costs a lot of money. I had two options: Rent a moving truck and pull my car behind - $900, or have a hitch, a towing hitch, installed on my car, a sedan with a towing hitch, and then pull a trailer behind me with all of my stuff in tow - $500. I am now the proud owner of a Mazda 626 with towing capacity. I can pull up to a 20' boat. Apparently, most Mazda owners don't see this as a procedure conducive with owning a sporty sedan. This is why my hitch had to be special ordered. I must have called the dealer ten times on Monday. "No, Mr. Blakely, the hitch is not in yet." This was not happening. I had places to be, people to see. Finally, at 2:30 the hitch arrived and I convinced them to go ahead and install it. Twenty minutes passed and I was there, I wouldn't leave for another six hours. And so I paced. Back and forth. Was I finished packing, no. Was I seated, no. U-haul has no chairs. They've got boxes, every size and shape box imaginable. And bubble wrap, they could fill a house with all that bubble wrap, and then tape the doors and windows shut, 'cause they've got a lot of tape too. But they don't have any chairs. Unbelievable. And I wasn't even wearing comfortable shoes. They could have warned me, "Mr. Blakely, be sure and bring some good sturdy shoes with real arch support, or maybe wear some dirty clothes so you can lay in the floor, 'cause we got no chairs." After a few hours I started taking liberties with the merchandise. I stacked up some boxes in the corner to give my barking puppies a rest. Short lived relief. After a few minutes I felt guilty and put the boxes back.

Act II  When embarking on a long journey rest is important.

Got none. Dad's flight was delayed and I didn't get him from the airport until 12:30. At night. How we got all of my belongings into that little trailer I will never know. What I do know is that it took forever. And I was parked nowhere close to my door. Because the good parking spots were taken, everything had to be carried an additional 30 yards. Insult to injury. Pace for six hours at U-haul, empty handed. Pace for another four hours like a pack mule. And so, at 4:00 in the morning we hopped in the car and left. No rest for the weary.

Act III  This thing pulls like a girl.

If there was ever any doubt that the Mazda 626 was not originally intended to be a towing powerhouse, let those doubts fall away, because she was not. Conventional wisdom says leave towing to trucks. Here is why. Trucks have big engines, my car does not. Breaking 60 mph was an accomplishment. I have never been passed by so many cars in my entire life. Very humbling. Did I mention that God has a sense of humor, because He does. Like an exclamation point to end my days of heat in Kansas City, the U-haul geniuses managed to unhook my car's air-conditioning. Not a big deal at four o'clock in the morning, very big deal around noon. I called Foy Union to find a place that could fix auto air-conditioners in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Wouldn't you know the old orange and blue came through. One hour and fifty bucks later I was reunited with my old acquaintance, cold air. All told it took about six tanks of gas (normally two) and twenty hours (normally fourteen) to get to Auburn. On arrival, Andy and I struggled to get my(his) bed pulled out. There were few casualties. A broken bowl and an old VCR that had the nerve to fall into my shin. I threw it in the street. Also my pinky toe was splayed open when I kicked a cinder block trying to set up his new(old) bed. (Isn't the Raised-Bed-on-Cinder-Blocks-for-Storage a girl thing?) By three o'clock I was asleep, and at seven o'clock I was awake again. Back in the car and off to Kentucky.

The end of conversation.

Whatever happened to talking? Eye contact. Checking your breath.
Pause. Being nervous. Going for a walk. Sitting and not moving, not doing
anything. Listening, waiting and then speaking.
It has been taken away, twice.
At first what seems to have opened communication, given it new wings so to speak, has clipped its wings not unlike a caged bird. The cell phone, which makes great boasts, has taken away the smile and the frown and replaced it with the promise of accessibility. The cell phone is there for you! It intensifies flames that could be extinguished with a crooked smile and dulls any attempt at sharp wit. Great moments are forgotten and two people never really connect. The punch on the shoulder, the vital, undeniably important punch on the shoulder, and the hand shake, and the high five are traded away.
For what?
If having a conversation face to face is the real thing then talking on the phone is the fake thing. It is the not real thing. It is decaffeinated. It is saccharine. It is not what it said it would be and it is not what you thought it could be. It doesn't count. You think that it does, that it totally counts but it doesn't. Sitting on a tailgate watching fireworks and laughing about people and their pets, eating a turkey leg at the state fair while cheering on a friend in a karaoke contest- these. These are remembered, these are noteworthy. These conversations
make fast friends and are kept in a vault. Phone calls are placed in a yellow folder labeled "words" and filed away to be burned at the end of the week. Or sooner.
This is not the end. For what the telephone has taken away from the face the text message has taken from the voice. Watching someone laugh, watching them hold their stomach and rub their cheeks, that... is a great thing. Listening to someone laugh is fun and enjoyable but entirely lacking. It leaves you wanting. Wanting what could be remembered but will instead be filed under "words" and forgotten with the others. Reading a laugh is laughable in itself. Absent. Uninspired. lol. You've got to be joking. Reduce it all, bring it all down to ten words. If phone calls are filed away and burned text messages should never be filed away but instead are. Ten words put away and methodically deleted after three days of undeserved life. Ten words that were meant to mean nothing turned out to mean nothing after all. And they can't mean anything, they couldn't. The outlet can handle no more conversational flow than the occasional "Way to go team!" Anything more can be taken
as seriously as a marriage proposal written in ketchup on a cheeseburger. The worst news, however, is that we have succumbed. We send text messages. I send text messages. Often. I am ashamed. I have traded down. We have traded down for ease. For access. For crying out loud. Greater for less. Dollars for cents. We must either crawl out of the pit or else set up residence and begin answering only to screen names.
Here's to laying in the grass and listening to crickets. Sitting in silence as you gather your thoughts. Here's to stuttering, getting angry, and kissing. Eat. Breathe. Walk. Talk. All of it on the count of three. Let us bleed together. Let us run and be out of breath and then run more and trip and skin our knees and bleed and laugh and cry and talk about the blood that we are bleeding.
For the love.
For the children.
For Pete. If for nothing else, do it for Pete.

Oh, the heat.

Nice to think of the heat when it's freezing outside. I wrote this while I was living in Kansas City just just before I moved to the milder climates of Kentucky.

It's so flipping hot.
It's hit 100 four out of the last five days. At night it cools off to a balmy 95. The worst part is, I have no means of escape. I work in a tin can office trailer. It sits with no shade, in the middle of a parking lot like an egg in a frying pan. The air conditioner never turns off yet it never gets below 80 inside. It's like trying to cool off a toaster oven with an ice cube, a really little one that you just spit out of your mouth. If I don't let my car air out for a couple of minutes before I get in I swear it would bake my brain. I envision myself passing out on the freeway, the coroner arrives and says, "He's cooked." When I pull into the parking lot behind my apartment doom and gloom set in because I have just entered Hell. The three story brick exterior walls of the building form a three sided, breeze blocking convection oven. The asphalt is so black the unbearable heat could not escape if it tried. Cars are lined up like lava rocks in a gas grill. It defies the laws of nature. The hot air rises no more than six feet; it stops just to hover around your face. Seeking shelter offers no relief. Oh, I've got two ceiling fans, but a microwave has fans. They just move the heat around so there is nice fresh heat all around, not that stale hot air nobody likes. Did I mention that I am an idiot? A person has many options when he wants a cooler house. Buy a window unit, get an exhaust fan, or a box fan. I bought aluminum foil and covered up the windows. Not only is it still hot, I'm depressed! It's always dark! If you want to let in the light you've got to let in the light's second cousin, meet 130-degree solar wind. I have a DVD library, I just bought a Playstation2, but it never occurred to me to buy a fan and point it at myself. I've been dehydrated for two weeks! If skin touches skin, it sticks from the sweat. I sleep with hands and feet at the four corners of my bed. A sheet is out of the question. Anything coming between me and the weak-sauce revolutions of my ceiling fan is out of the question. Sleep is an exaggeration. It doesn't come for hours. The only time the temperature is okay is right when I get up. And where do I go when I get up? To work, where it's hot.

Compiling of thoughts.

I'm going to start posting things written long ago. Primarily so I'll have them in one place. I'll give some context at the top of each. Hope you enjoy.