My Mammoth Vacation, Day 1

I got to spend last week with my boys, just the three of us. This year, we went on a camping excursion to Mammoth Cave National Park.

It wouldn't be a vacation with me if I didn't forget something. This year, it was my camera. I'm not a huge shutterbug, but I do like to snap a few shots every now and then to mark the occasion. I was forced to purchase a single-use camera at the camp store. A single use film camera. I hadn't realized it had been so long since I'd used a film camera, and I had forgotten the joy and, for some reason, anxiety that comes along with spinning that little clicking knob after taking a shot. I missed my digitial camera.

As I said, I'm not a huge shutterbug, so I didn't get many pictures — not enough to fill the camera. Eventually, I'll fill the camera, get some digital prints, and post some of them here. But for now, this'll be mostly unillustrated.


So anyway, we left Monday morning after breakfast. We lunched in Seymour and had a quick rest stop just south of Louisville. As we journeyed deeper into Kentucky, we combed over the handful of tourist brochures I had snagged at the rest stop. The Mammoth Cave schedule said that there was something called a "River Styx Tour" at 3:30. Both the boys have been reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, so Greek mythology is at the forefront of their minds. It looked like the gods of time might be with us, and we could make it there just in time to get on the tour.

We pulled into a parking spot just a few minutes after 3:30 and rushed into the visitors' center, where two things happened in quick succession. First, we learned that Kentucky is on Central Time, so it was actually just after 2:30 there. A whole hour before the tour started! (Time zones have never made a great deal of sense to me, and this makes it even worse.) Second, a quick trip through the ticket line revealed that the River Styx Tour was completely sold out.

Through Sunday.

So let this be a lesson if you're planning a visit to Mammoth Cave during peak vacation season: Buy your tickets early online. I, for one, am not a big planner when it comes to vacations, but I do hear that there are some people who schedule every waking second of a vacation. I assume that the River Styx tour that we missed included quite a few of this latter type of vacationer.

But no matter. I got us three tickets to the Discovery tour, the only self-guided cave tour. We checked in with the ranger, got ourselves a camp site, and set up the tent before returning to the mouth of the cave.

A snapshot of our camp site will eventually go here.

The neatest thing about Mammoth Cave in the summer — and caving in general — is the natural air conditioning underground. It was in the mid-nineties above ground, a steady mid-fifties below. A wonderful summer respite.

The Discovery Tour doesn't go very deeply into the cave, sticking to wider areas of the caverns. What's more, it's the starting and ending points of some of the longer, guided tours. The moral: Don't buy tickets for the Discovery Tour if you're going to buy tickets to one of the other tours that goes through there.

For my younger son, this was a first experience with caves. He was rather nervous, as I probably was the first time I went into a cave. My elder son, though, is now a Boy Scout. He's been dirty-kneed, head-lamped spelunking a couple times before, so this cool, dark, open space was a little tame for him. I was just happy to be out of the heat and finally having some vacation-time fun with my boys.

One of the other things that we found in our brochures was Lost River Cave. I had gone to Mammoth Cave on a family trip when I was younger. I remember that Mammoth Cave Nat'l Park had offered underground boat tours, but at the time, the water level was too high and the boat tour was closed.

Mammoth Cave doesn't offer boat tours anymore, so we hopped in the vacation-mobile and shot down to nearby Bowling Green, where we just managed to get tickets to the final boat tour of the day.

Vacationers: If you're looking for a souvenir or gift to take back with you, the gift shop at the Lost River Cave is a great place to go. They do have some kitschy stuff, but they also have some really wonderful keepsakes at prices you don't usually see in a gift shop. I was tempted to spend a lot of money here.

The boat tour itself was pretty cool, and at least one of my boys thought it was the best part of the vacation. For an adult, the history behind the cave is as interesting as the tour itself. You can find out more on their Web site, but the really interesting part doesn't start until the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy" section.

While we were on this tour, we found out why Mammoth Cave doesn't offer boat tours anymore. It seems that a rare species of blind cave shrimp was discovered in those caves. To protect the species, boat tours were discontinued. All of Mammoth Cave's boats were then sold to the Lost River Cave people, who now use them.

After that, it was a late dinner at The Olive Garden (love their new dishes, hate their new prices), firebuilding at the campsite, s'mores, and sleep. Well-earned sleep.

The Dangers of Theocracy

Warning: The following post is of a political and religious nature. The only talk about cute ducklings, my genius sons, the joy of music, and my love of language occur here in this warning, and are therefore already past.

Last week, I read from a few sources about Sarah Palin calling for a "return" to a government based on the ten commandments, which are of course just gateway rules to full-on theocracy based on someone's interpretation of the words of the Bible. So many Christians and ultra-conservatives (which are not mutually exclusive groups) believe that such a shift in government can be only a good thing, because Christians are holy and just and all those good things. What could go wrong?

A story I found this morning from Mail Online gives us some hint about what a theocracy can be like. According to the story, a 23-year-old woman asked for a ride from a man. That man, instead of taking her where she needed to go, took her to another house, where she was gang raped by that guy and four others. That rape was followed by an unwanted pregnancy. The woman tried to get an abortion but wasn't allowed.

When authorities eventually heard the whole story, what was the result? The woman was convicted of adultery (even though she wasn't married) and sentenced to a year in prison. After her rape baby is born, she will receive 100 lashes — and I ain't talkin' about no Revlon lashes here. The fate of the five rapists? Apparently, no one really cares about them.

This case comes from Saudi Arabia, which adheres to what Mail Online refers to as "a strict form of medieval law," which is based on the tenets of Islam.

But there can be no connection between this Saudi corruption of justice and a Christian USA, right? Perhaps, but it really depends on whose interpretation of Christian dogma and scripture holds in the White House, the Supreme Court, and Congress. There are certainly some hard-liners who oppose abortion in any cases, even in a case of rape, so, in a Christian America, this woman could face the judge for attempting an abortion.

If a Defense lawyer — or worse, the judge — wants to adhere to the writings of the Old Testament, the results could be much worse:

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. Deut. 22:28–29

A strict interpretation of this passage would result not in a rapist put behind bars, but in a woman being forced to marry (and never be able to divorce) one of the men who raped her. Still, it could be worse:

If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. Deut. 22:23–24

So, unmarried rape victims must marry their rapists and never get divorced. Married rape victims are put to death. That's some good ole godly justice for ya.

But, you say, these are taken from the Old Testament, and Christianity is all about the New Testament. True, but does that mean that Christians ignore the Old Testament? Of course not. Creationists wallow in the words of Genesis. Women look to Old Testament scripture for guidance from strong Biblical women — because there aren't many in the New Testament. Christians find their morality lessons in the Old Testament stories of Job, of Lot, and of Noah. And don't forget, Mrs. Palin called for a return to the ten commandments, which are found in Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament.

So how would a Christian theocratic government choose which parts of the Old and New Testaments from which to draw legislation and legal decisions? Would we just leave it to our elected, Christian officials (and their ministers/pastors/priests) to make that decision? Would you feel safe with that? Would you feel that justice has a fair hand in that? Would you vote for that?

Yummy Mother's Day Meals

Saturday afternoon, I headed down to my parents' place for Mother's Day weekend. When we got there, my mom wanted to go down to Bloomington and check out the Bloomingfoods co-op. So we hopped in the car and headed south.

The result was two wonderful meals. For dinner on Saturday, we had this nice sampler spread. (I apologize for the quality of the photo.)

Here you have spinach gnocchi with (a bit too much) basil pesto, banana peppers stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto (the whole think was harder than I expected), and marinated sweet red peppers stuffed with goat cheese and spices (these are absolutely delicious!). On the second plate were three cheeses: A locally produced Gouda, a soft and nutty St. Jerome cheese, and the most amazing cheese ever: cocoa-rubbed goat cheese. I couldn't really taste the chocolate while eating the cheese, but it left a mocha-y aftertaste. Deeeeeeelicious.

For Sunday lunch, we sculpted this masterpiece:

Carrots, broccoli, onions, chicken, a little mayo, and dill weed wrapped in crescent roll dough and topped with an egg glaze and slivered almonds. It was a delicious cross between chicken pot pie and a calzone, and we ate it with fresh polenta and pesto-marinated mozzarella balls.

I haven't eaten this well in a long time. And it was otherwise a wonderful Mother's Day weekend.

And, seriously, those marinated sweet red peppers stuffed with goat cheese and spices were absolutely divine!

Free Reward! An Infinity of Hoops!

Thank you, Taco Bell, Dr. Pepper, and EA Games for wasting a good twenty minutes of my evening with your ridiculous offer of free stuff. Grrrrrrr.

It started innocently enough. I had lunch at Taco Bell on Friday and got one of their ecologically unfriendly plastic fountain drink cups. On that cup was a 12-character code that, according to the cup, I could enter at TacoBell.com to get some "exclusive in-game content for [a handful of] EA Games and more!"

One of the games is Spore, one of my favorites. So I went to TacoBell.com. As expected, I had to create a user account there. After I did that, I had to answer four simple questions about my drink choice, and then I entered my code. Simple enough, and totally expected.

Clicking the button to continue took me to a page at DrPepper.com, where I expected to download my freebie stuff. I was faced with a login page, and so I entered the user account info that I had just given at TacoBell.com. That was the wrong info.

I was at a new site. And I was expected to open a new user account at DrPepper.com. I rolled my eyes, but I am a big fan of Spore. So I took a couple minutes to enter my information and create a new password. After that, I was asked THE SAME FOUR QUESTIONS THAT I WAS ASKED BY TACO BELL.

Weird, yes, but not all too time-consuming. I forged ahead, entering my 12-digit code AGAIN at DrPepper.com. I was notified that I have a "reward" that I could redeem, and the only thing I had to do was LOG IN TO THE EA GAMES WEB SITE to retrieve it. And I didn't have a user account at EA Games.

I managed to hold back the deluge of four-letter words that were threatening to shoot from my mouth -- my two young sons are here, after all -- and I was ready to give up. I had already spent too much time and received nothing but the promise of more spam e-mail.

But my elder son is even more of a Spore fan than I am. And he has some adorable puppy-dog eyes.

So I created a new account at EA Games. I wasn't asked any questions about my drinking habits, and I didn't have to enter the 12-character code again, so I hoped I was actually getting somewhere.

Once I was logged into EA Games, I had to choose one of the games that offered some in-game content. I clicked on Spore, and I was getting a little excited -- the "prize" was a set of cybernetic body parts that I could use to build characters in my game. Totally Star Trek cool.

When I chose Spore, I was magically transported to the Spore Web site where -- guess what?! -- I was supposed to log in yet again. This time, though, I already had an account there, and I even remembered my password.

So I logged into the Spore Web site and got to the page with the longed-for link to the free awesome download. The link was right there! But the other text got in the way -- specifically, the text warned me of a known issue with a file path, followed by these instructions for working around that problem:

To fix this issue, please complete the following steps:

1. Uninstall Spore and Spore Galactic Adventures
2. Re-install Spore
3. Re-install Spore Galactic Adventures
4. Return to this page to install the Spore Bot Parts Pack.

So I jumped through the TacoBell.com user account hoop. I jumped through the DrPepper.com user account hoop. I even jumped through the EAGames.com user account hoop. The Spore.com user account was a much easier hoop, so I just stepped through that one. And now I am expected to spend the next hour uninstalling and reinstalling two programs on my computer before installing my "exclusive in-game content."

I like Spore, and I would really like to have this Bot Parts Pack. But I like my time better. I can make much better use of my time than un- and re-installing software. Sitting here typing away about this travesty of a marketing campaign is a better way to spend my time than that.

I wish I could say that I was denying the perpetrators of this crap what they wanted, but unfortunately, the marketers at Taco Bell, Dr. Pepper, and EA Games have already gotten their rewards.

If any marketers are reading this, take this as a great example of how to piss off the very people you're trying to turn into customers. I will undergo this Sisyphean effort for nothing less than a new car. And it better not be a Daewoo.

And to the people at QDoba: You're now my favorite Mexican fast food restaurant. See you Monday.

Signs of Spring

Earlier this week, I found this undeniable sign that spring has arrived . . . on my patio.

I was a little worried that the duck that laid these eggs had abandoned them. But then, when I came home from work today, I found this:

So, good news. And Spring is definitely here. (I wish someone would tell the Canadian geese.)

I hope the heat stays away for a while, though, because it looks like I won't be running the air conditioner until the ducklings arrive.

My Mistake: THIS Is the Definition of Irony

From FriendsOfIrony.com via FAILblog.

The Definition of Irony

Ten Reasons I Hate People (7)

You can find a lot of people worth hating at (The Customer Is) Not Always Right.

This is a collection of all-too-believable interactions that employees have had with customers. Many of them are, as the banner advertises, stupid and funny. But buried (not too deeply) among the hilarity and stupidity are some of the core psychological problems that just scrape my scabs. It won't take you long to find interactions with people who believe that the world should fit itself to them; that anything that inconveniences them in any way is stupid and unnecessary at best and, at worst, is a violation of their rights.

I wish the sense of entitlement among some of these people (which I will now refer to as "self-centered douchebags") was unbelievable, but we see it every day — in TEA party rallies, in Congressional debates, in international politics, at stoplights, where people walk dogs, in the 12 items or less lane. They're everywhere.

Along with the sense of entitlement, these self-centered douchebags never seem to recognize the possibility, no matter how minute, that they could be wrong. And that's sometimes worse. These are the douchebags who rear-end you and then insist that you stopped too suddenly; the douchebags who buy a vacuum cleaner, use it for a month, and then return it for a full refund because it completely lost suction because they never cleaned the filters; the douchebags who "buy" a ginormous, flat-screen HDTV the day before the Super Bowl and then try to return it the day after and see nothing wrong with that.

(sigh)

People.

 

Ten Reasons I Hate People (8)

Ten Reasons I Hate People (9)

Ten Reasons I Hate People (10)

Sarah Palin, Language Victim

Sarah Palin has been victimized be language again.

The perpetrator is Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, in a private weekly strategy meeting "featuring liberal groups and White House aides," some expressed their intention "to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul."

Emanuel's response: "Fucking retarded." (It's unclear from the reporting whether he was speaking about the ideas or the people who had the ideas.)

Mrs. Palin has gone to Facebook to show her outrage that a public figure would use such a derogatory term, saying that retarded is a "slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them...," comparing it to a more well-known and more universally hated derogatory epithet: the dreaded "N-word."

What does Mrs. Palin want? "I would ask the president to show decency in this [internal discussion] process by eliminating one member of that inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm's continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts." Leaving the Chief of Staff out of discussions by the White House staff? Is Mrs. Palin expected Rahm to be fired?

Once again, Mrs. Palin overreacts to a situation she doesn't like, which leads me to the following gripes:

Gripe One: Who Called Whom What?

In her Facebook reaction to Rahm Emanuel's horrible misdeed, Mrs. Palin once again put her son Trig — who suffers from Down's Syndrome — on public display. She argues that Trig, and the thousands of people with cognitive and developmental disabilities, were denigrated by Mr. Emanuel's scornful soubriquet.

Rahm was speaking to and about some of the people in the meeting. Mrs. Palin, Rahm Emanuel did not call Trig retarded; you did. Why are you so vehement on turning your son into a victim?

Gripe Two: Sarah Palin Plays the Race Card?

Mrs. Palin compare's Mr. Emanuel's use of retarded to "the N-word." This is an unfair comparison. Retarded has a long history of legitimate use outside of the medical (and name-calling) field, and it is still used as such. Numerous situations exist in which I — or Rahm Emanuel — could use the word retarded and no one would bat an eye. Hell, the word retard is part of the California Health and Safety Code (Section 9636)!

On the other hand, situations in which the word nigger is acceptable are few and far between (such as in a discussion of derogatory terms). Nigger has no history outside of racial disparagement.

Yes, in recent decades the word has been claimed and owned by some African Americans and defused so that it is acceptable within their groups — in the same way that the homosexual community has claimed ownership of fag and dyke. But that's the opposite of what Mrs. Palin is apparently doing with retarded. Instead of defusing a term that can and has been used derogatorily, she has suffused it with more power.

I grew up with a cousin who was born with mental retardation. At the time, we used the phrase mentally retarded to describe his disability. In our family, he was retarded, and there was nothing derogatory about it. That was way back during the 1980s. If calling my cousin retarded was acceptable in the Christian family I grew up in, then comparing retarded to nigger is totally too far. At worst, retarded is comparable to person of color. Or Afro-American. Or homeboy.

And anyway, who dealt Mrs. Palin a race card?

Gripe Three: A Tribute to Eric Clapton

The knee-jerk reaction of right-wingers to any faux pas, simple error, or moment of temporary stupidity from a Democrat is to call for a resignation or termination.

As Eric Clapton sang, "Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself." Right-wingers' lack of "outrage" to the (sometimes extreme) shortcomings of fellow right-wingers is a clear sign that it isn't about Right or fairness or "protecting the children"; it's all about politics. Consider:

• Pat Robertson claimed that the entire population of Haiti suffered from a horrible cataclysm because they made a deal with the devil. Yet the outrage that Mrs. Palin most assuredly felt at such unconscionable claims apparently didn't merit the public response that Rahm's gaff did.
  
• When South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer compared people on government assistance programs — including children on reduced-price lunches and the hundreds of thousands of people who suddenly found themselves on unemployment comp in the last few years — to stray animals, Mrs. Palin did not feel compelled to call for him to withdraw from the race for South Carolina's governorship. Why not?
  
• But the greatest example of hypocrisy — and the most ironic considering Mrs. Palin's attempt to play the race card — is that the GOP and southern conservatives (and yes, I recognize that Alaska isn't part of the South) are the ones who kept segregationist Strom Thurmond in Congress until he died of old age! Calling an African American a "nigger" is one thing; trying to keep African Americans out of the good schools, restaurants, theaters, etc. is something entirely different.
  

Gripe Four: What a Rush

I feel dirty that I fall on the same side of this controversy as Rush Limbaugh. Filthy. Ick!

Gripe Five: V for Victim

Sarah Palin didn't get a fair shake because of sexism. She was treated unfairly because she had an accent. She was unfairly mocked because her teenage daughter got pregnant out of wedlock. She was made fun of because someone overspent on her wardrobe.

At every turn, Sarah Palin is a victim of some new liberal attack. You might say she's made a career out of being a victim. And now she is steering her children toward a lifetime of being victims. Her younger daughter was a victim of David Letterman's unacceptable and unfunny "jokes." And now her poor son Trig is a victim of the potty-mouthed Chief of Staff of ultra-liberal, un-American President Obama.

It's time someone in that family reconsidered what it means to be strong and stopped being the victim.

Gripe Six: Members Only?

Who told? The real douchebag in all this isn't Sarah Palin or Rahm Emanuel, but the person who attended that private meeting and took it to the press. If the President needs to eliminate someone from these closed-door strategy meetings, is the one who opens those doors to let the press in.

How She Should Have Reacted

The reaction I would have loved to hear, which would have finally put a point on Mrs. Palin's "Sarah vs. The Liberals" scoreboard, would go something like this: "Rahm Emanuel's the one who's fucking retarded. My son Trig has enough of a sense of decency not to talk to people like that." But that would have been out of character, unfortunately. Too much for me to ask for.

So besides that, Mrs. Palin's response should have been to demand an apology from Mr. Emanuel.

But wait. He did apologize. Twice. First, in a private phone call to Tim Shriver, head of the Special Olympics. And then again to a group of disabilities advocates. (To be fair, the apologies probably started after Mrs. Palin's Facebook reaction.) I would hope that this would be enough, but the story is still growing like a foot fungus.

The Worst Part of Fatherhood

During the last weekend of 2009, Gremlin the Younger, who had just turned seven, was complaining about a toothache. I peeked in that gaping maw and saw that his gums were a little red area, but not much else. When the next day rolled round, he wasn't complaining about pain anymore. After a while, we just sort of forgot about it.

This evening, I got a call from the Mom, and apparently the toothache is back. She took a gander in his gob and found some sort of red, infected-looking growth on his gums. We're going to try to get him into the dentist tomorrow, but in the meantime I've got the fatherhood flutters, imagining all sorts of horrible worst-case scenarios, from oral cancer to herpes, that result in the most horrid medical procedures: pulling a tooth, slicing out a growth and sewing his gums back together, chemotherapy, removal of his entire lower jaw. Sometimes it doesn't pay to have an active imagination.

This isn't nearly as bad as the time he literally cracked his skull and spent a night in the hospital after a playground stumble, but the worrying is definitely the worst part of being a father.

And I'd like to take this moment to apologize to my parents for every time I put them through this. Especially the time, that one summer, that I gave Beth a ride home after band practice — with a little half-hour unplanned 'diversion' on the way. Don't ask.

[Update Tuesday morning: Got the little guy to the dentist after lunch this morning. The X-ray showed that he had tooth decay between two teeth, and it had eaten down to the root of both. This decay had caused an abscess in his gums. (Imagine cutting the eraser off a pencil and shoving it up under your gums, on the outside. That's what it looked like, plus it was red and bleeding a little. Yuck!)
Anyway, the best course of action was pulling the two teeth, which isn't a big deal because they're both baby teeth. When I left him there with his mother, he had made it through the syringe-to-the-gums stage (the worst part), and they were waiting for the Novocain to kick in.
All in all, not even close to the worst that could have happened. Stomach flutters are flittering away.]