Here is a recent piece of schoolwork Matthew did. The idea is pretty simple. Color the fruit correctly in the cornucopia, then graph the results, in the corrrect colors, on the table to the right.

I don’t think I was doing anything as complicated as this in kindergarten. What do I remember from kindergarten? I remember unrolling the mats for nap time and lots of toys that involved pounding square pegs into round holes. 

[Elise is thankful for volcanos and her whole family.] 

I traveled to Wisconsin Rapids to celebrate Thanksgiving with my grandpa. He’s quite a grand old fellow. He is 88 years old and still preaches at his local church. After our Thanksgiving feast I had to find a vacuum cleaner to pick up after my kids. It was the same vacuum clean I remember from when I was a kid and my parents lived with my grandparents. It still works great after all these years. I’m sure it is quite a bit older than I am.

As soon as I get to grandpa’s house I always find myself headed to the cookie jar. It’s the same cookie jar they’ve always had out on the counter. Grabbing a cookie at grandpa’s house is as natural for me as removing my shoes is at my own house. It’s not that I’m desperate for a cookie — ordinarily I can take or leave store bought sandwich cookie. I found Oreos in the jar this time. I ate four or five over the couple of days we stayed there. Somehow when I’m at grandpa’s house I’m eight years old and I can’t pass up a cookie any more than I could pass up a free iPod today. I think I’m reaching into the cookie jar and I’m looking for more than a cookie. I’m looking for a sense that there are some things in life that don’t change. I think I’m trying to remember what it felt like to be eight and have no angst about anything at all.

I call it grandpa’s house but we all really know it’s grandma’s house. She put her stamp on everything she touched. She directed the vacuuming on Saturday. She picked out the colors that made the house so easy to find. She held forth at dinner, reading scraps of poetry or cute stories she had run across or telling us about something that happened long ago to people we would never meet. She isn’t present the way she used to be at holiday dinners, perched up on stool, eating on the pulled out cutting board ready to jump up and get something more for us. I hope she always feels a little present with us.

I took grandpa out to the cemetary. Grandma’s plot is just a stone’s throw from the family farm she grew up on not far from the Wisconsin River. “Bury me there too”, I told my wife. I want to hear the Wisconsin River gurgle in the spring; I want to be under the same sand that used to run through my hands. Bury me in Wisconsin, where the sand hills lie.

This weekend I thought a lot about what Pearl said about missed love ones being like amputated limbs complete with ghost pains. The loss I felt this holiday weekend wasn’t the loss of not having grandma around; it was the loss of her getting to see interact with my children the same way she used to interact with me.

Jeannie and I had a nice quiet date at the 128 Cafe recently. It’s a small, chef-owned restaurant in St. Paul near St. Thomas. The restaurant is located in the bottom floor of an older apartment building. The space itself is kind of odd. The tablecloths and flickering candles were an odd contrast to the shiny cafe  counter stools and wide knotty pine.

 The menu was relatively small, but almost every item looked really interesting. I had grilled vegetables with shrimp served with saffron cous cous. The cous cous included a variety of raisin I had never had before called golden raisins. They gave the dish a really nice sweet note..

The only thing I have against this restaurant was that it was cold. I wondered if the temperature problem was just because the season had just changed. The heater on the wall made me think the drafty cool atmosphere might be the normal state of things in the winter.

 I couldn’t find any parking in the area so had to use their five dollar valet parking. Apparently all the side streets in the area are reserved for St. Thomas students. When I go back I’ll have to figure out where I can find a parking spot in the area since I would rather spend the money on an appetizer instead of valet parking.

The restaurant was intimate. The food was very good. I wanted to order almost everything on the menu, far more than I could possibly eat. I’ll be back again. Next time I’ll wear a sweater or wait until spring.

When I check out my web server logs I find referers from the oddest of places. When I check out my logs the youth oriented blog communities like MySpace and Xanga I always feel sooooo old. Was I ever this young? Anyway, I thought I would give some props to my peeps. I don’t know you, but I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts here and there.

• oflove
• idealistbliss
• twine4max
• Chelsea86
• UbiquitousMusez
• uncookedramennoodles
• Brian Cooksey
  The Dagger of Mild Reason
• toddlyles
• Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft

I saw Storyhill at the Cedar Cultural Center last night. The show was a benefit for Twin Cities Homeless Shelters. The proceeeds benefited Simpson Housing Services, Our Saviours Housing & St. Stephens.

The music was awesome. It’s an acoustic duo starring Chris Cunningham and John Hermanson. The sounds they produced with their guitars blew me away. I had heard all of those sounds made by guitars, but never in such a rapid fire fashion. Their vocals were a great match for the strong bright chords and impressive finger picking. If you like acoustic folk style music you should listen to these guys. I was especially blown away by the song “Somewhere In Between”.

"I've tried to get through to let you know
how much of who I am I owe to you.
But you won't let me and you turn
and twist my words and make cracks for them to fall through.
And I waste my time trying to be honest.
Looking for words to bridge the gap between us.
But you don't hear them, and I'm still talking.
They're somewhere in between us.
I was sleeping, I don't know if we're in Iowa or Missouri.
But it doesn't matter,
it all looks the same between the corn fields and snow flurries.
And I'm just passing through on the way to somewhere.
The destination's distant, but I don't care.
I haven't yet arrived, but I'm I'm not just starting.
I'm somewhere in between."

I love being able to support a worthy cause and have a great time doing it. You can bet I’ll be going to their show the next time they are in town. Thanks for the invite Clay!

Every once in a while I cough up a list of links for your browsing pleasure. Enjoy.

I love this amazing paper model of a V-8 engine. I admire the discipline, exactitude and obsessive-compulsiveness that goes into a work of art like this. I’m quite sure there is medicine for this, but I’m glad it wasn’t used.

I’ve seen a few cool t-shirts lately. I especially like this one for bird watchers.

If you were thinking God had it in for New Orleans, you were wrong, it was Japanese Yakuza. 

If you thought you had every known accessory for your iPod, think again. It’s the music that is making me smile, honest.

This smiley jewelery would make a nice Christmas gift for your favorite IM’er. 

I like Cringley’s speculations about Google, seems plausible to me. 

The Religious Policeman takes on racism in the Magic Kingdom. 

Seems like these water toys might be fun in the summer and help me avoid the flu in the winter if I could just wedge it through the hallway at work.

I have never really liked trusting other people with my data. I make some exceptions. One exception in particular is gmail. I really like having ssl access to my email everywhere I go. I really like the interface. I really like the nearly unlimited storage. I really don’t like them having security holes that expose my data. I hope the smart folks at google stay on top of this stuff and work to build trust with their users. Their lack of a timely public announcement is the part of the story that worries me the most.

American IV: The Man Comes Around

by Johnny Cash

I saw "Walk the Line" the Johnny Cash bio a few nights ago. I haven’t seen the last few musician biopics so I don’t have a lot to compare this movie to, but I liked the movie quite a bit.

Reese Witherspoon tore up the stage as June Carter. I mean she could have a career in country music in the time it takes for you to shed a tear in your beer. Based on her portrayal of June Carter it was easy for me to see why Mr. Cash fell in love with her — I think the whole audience was in love with her by the end of the movie. I loved how the movie showed them dancing around each other for so many years. I loved the way she walked around his addiction then plunged right in to help him when it seemed he needed it most. I loved her smile.

Joaquin Phoenix was ok as Johnny Cash. He had the mannerisms but something was missing in the way he covered the music. Personally, I would have preferred that more of the music was gleamed from the original recordings.

I’m predisposed to like any movie with a tragically flawed hero, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt.  I give it four stars out of five. The worst thing about the movie is that it ends to soon. I wanted to see him as an old man with June Carter still at his side.

After seeing the movie, I had to get out my "American IV: The Man Comes Around" album. I love that album. Cash’s cover of Trent Reznor’s "Hurt" is haunting. The original Nine Inch Nails version is good, but Cash’s treatment, with it’s spare melody and emotional voice, is fantastic. Once you see Cash’s personal struggles with addiction on the big screen the song takes on even more life and meaning. The whole album is really good although I’m not fond of the duet on "Bridge Over Troubled Waters". It’s not that I dislike Fiona Apple; it’s just that she doesn’t add much to the song and their voices don’t seem to compliment each other at all.

I think I need to add a few more Johnny Cash albums to my Christmas wish list. I don’t think I’m alone in this. I went to Target to pick up some grocery tems on Saturday; the Cash section was all sold out.

The snow melted and it warmed up enough on Saturday to mow the lawn one last time. You know you’ve waited too long when you need mitts like these to mow the grass. (BTW, if you aren’t from the Iron Range in Minnesota you might not know these are what one properly calls "choppers". I don’t know why they are called choppers, I just know that is what they call them. Mine are hand-made from Moose hide by a guy in Ely.)