Where have I been for the past couple of weeks?  I don't seem to have been posting for some reason.  I've been spending all my free time sewing.  It's something that I don't anticipate ending for a couple more weeks, but when I get everything together (probably after Christmas,) I'll be sure to post pictures.  I started working on a haversack* a couple of weeks ago.  Sewing canvas by hand is a very difficult process.  If you've never done it, I suggest not starting.  It's actually only slightly more difficult than sewing through metal duct work.

Once that was completed, I moved on to a pair of Civil war drawers.  Now that those are nearly completed, I've begun working on a new pair of trousers (or trowsers as they called them in the mid-19th century.)  If you've seen my old ones, which I don't believe any of you have, at least in the past couple of years, you'd understand the need for new ones.  I'm putting off the last of my new stuff (new shoes, a sash, and so forth) until around Christmas.  Hopefully, once you see the finished product, you'll think, "Wow!  He looks sexy like that!  It was TOTALLY worth not getting posts for a couple of weeks to see that."  I know you all think like that.

*Imagine a man-purse for food.  It's very European... or 19th century.

250.2

All the news here in Kentucky is about Memphis having their 2007-2008 men's basketball season, including a Final Four appearance, stripped from them.  In case you have no idea why Kentuckians would care about what happens to a basketball program in a university in another state, let me add that then-Memphis head coach John Calipari is now the University of Kentucky's head basketball coach.  The loss of the record is the result of a basketball player being ineligible because he never took his SATs.  Calipari was never mentioned in the ruling passed down from the NCAA, just as he was never mentioned when the University of Massachusetts was stripped of its 1996 season and Final Four appearance for a similar reason when Calipari was the coach there.  Calipari has a reputation for bringing in flashy recruits who want to play a flashy style of basketball under a win-at-all-costs coach.  He tends to leave a path of destruction in his wake due to his questionable recruiting tactics.  Memphis suddenly seems happy to have him gone, which is probably because they only lost the one season and were not given any further punishment.  The school probably did not get punished with loss of scholarships or ineligibility for post-season play because the coach behind the scandal is gone, even if he was never mentioned in the report.  Back on this side of the state line, Governor Steve Beshear took time out of his busy schedule to reassure UK fans that the report never mentioned Coach Cal.  What he fails to realize is that Eddie Sutton was never mentioned in the report that contained UK's three years of probation, two years banned from post-season play and a one year ban from live television, when he was responsible for similar recruiting violations in 1989.  Those violations would reportedly have been worse if the university had not preemptively fired Coach Sutton and the athletic director and former UK basketball great, Cliff Hagan.  (There are rumors that Memphis's punishment also would have been greater if Coach Cal was still there.)  In fact, Gov. Beshear went on to say, "I think he's a very upstanding guy.  I think that's his reputation and I think that reputation will be with him here.  I really don't foresee any problems."  This is coming from the same governor who could not get the general population of the commonwealth to agree to allow casino gambling, so he tried to push it through the state legislature.  When the legislature would not pass it, he vowed to remove members of the opposing party who stood against casino gambling.  This has resulted in the local state senator being offered a job in a different state organization.  It appears that the governor and the coach both share a win-at-all-costs attitude towards their work.  I foresee it coming back to bite both of them as well as the rest of the commonwealth.

251.6

I had posted a little while back that I wanted to lose weight.  Last week, I ordered new trousers for reenacting.  As long as I don't GAIN weight, they will fit me.  If I lose weight, they will fit more appropriately.  This afternoon, I stopped in for a book signing for a book that a friend of mine just had published a few weeks ago.  After the book signing, I went to Walmart* to pick up two things: a canvas drop cloth that painters would use (about 20 years ago) and scales.  Due to the reason that everybody uses plastic drop cloths now, they did not have any, but I did get a scale.  I selected a weight goal of 220 pounds,** which is about 10 pounds more than I weighed three years ago when I left Louisville.  I have entered that goal into my new scale, and it will track my progress as I strive for that goal.  From here on out, I will be weighing myself first thing in the morning, but I wanted to go ahead and get my starting weight entered.  My plan, for extra motivation, is to put my morning weight at the end of all my blog postings until I hit my target weight.  That should make me feel more motivated to not have a major slip-up.  As a side bonus, this should give me more motivation to post more regularly!

*I'm still having trouble with the whole thing of it no longer being WAL*MART.
**Once I hit this goal, I will enjoy a pint of ice cream and set a new goal of 200 pounds.

They say that a clock that doesn't work is still right twice a day.  That's like saying that if you shoot enough bullets, you're bound to hit something.  I have to believe that if the clock had made an effort in school, it would probably me right more than twice a day, and if it was right more than twice a day, it would be much more likely to get hired and thus work.  I realize that this isn't a universal truth in the current economy.

It amazes me how much people don't pay attention to what's going on.  I'm not talking about a Stalinist healthcare system or a Citigroup banking monopoly.  I'm talking about little things.  Who are your neighbors?  Do they like to hotdogs?  How are your co-workers families doing?  How many stop signs are there between your home and work?  What WAS that last song on the radio on the way to work this morning?

Those little things are what make life entertaining.  You can tear your hair out over politics and it won't change anything.  If you enjoy those little things in life and take notice of the people and things around you, you'll not only change your life, but you'll also change theirs.  You'll both end up with a new perspective on things.  THAT is what will make a difference in the world.

I was watching either the History Channel or the Discovery Channel one day, which should be no surprise, and they were talking about how checks are processed.  They went to a check clearing house, where they reroute hundreds of thousands of checks a day with over 99.999% accuracy.  They asked the person who managed the facility how they did it so accuracy.  His response was that they don't get hundreds of thousands of checks rerouted correctly every day.  They reroute one check correctly, and do it again hundreds of thousands of times every day.

Pay attention to the little things, and life runs much smoother.  You'll also find that you're right more than twice a day.

Last week it was facebook, now it's Excite.  I find myself unable to check my email.  While I get a good chunk of my email through hotmail and much of my communication is through facebook, which is why it was very annoying last week, I get most of my personal correspondence and email from two organizations that I am active in to my Excite account.  I am currently waiting for responses from members of both of these groups.  I don't know if person X is currently in a psychiatric facility or just seeing a therapist.  I don't know if I'm supposed to conduct a meeting this weekend.  I am waiting on clarification on a request for information.  I hope the email comes back up soon (I've waited for a week before when it's gone down) so I can email everyone to use a different email address and back up all of my emails on Excite so I can close the account.  That's right, Excite.  I hope you've got people surfing the web and reading this, because you've lost a user!

If you had a problem with twitter today, raise your hand.  Yeah.  I know.  I didn't raise my own hand, because I didn't try to get on twitter.  I did however have problems with facebook all day (and not just in the morning as facebook claims the problems were limited to.)  Both networking megasites were hit this morning by a denial-of-service attack, resulting in frequent problems for facebook users and a complete inability to use the service for tweeters.  I had been reading about this very vulnerability in twitter for days.  (In fact, I've been reading about it for over a year, but things had gotten better for a short while.)  I definitely did not find this to be unexpected.  The attack on facebook was highly annoying, since I couldn't post anything or reply to anything or send any messages.  I just kept getting the annoying pink error box.  I do have to say that the pink box is slightly less annoying than seeing twitter's Fail Whale fly.  Although I didn't see it today, I did try long, long ago to go to twitter and look around the site to see what it was about (well before Amanda signed up.)  The only thing I saw when I went to the web address was the Fail Whale.  First impressions are hard to break.

My new toy came in today.  By toy, I mean sword.  It's a reproduction US model 1850 foot officer's sword.  It's made of shiny steel.  In fact, it's shinier than I anticipated.  I thought there would be some sort of markings on the blade of the sword, as swords of that type often had.  Instead, it's completely smooth and un-etched, aside from a faint marking of "India," where it was made.  I plan to have that removed and in it's place, I want a 19th century maker's mark etched into it.  Does anybody know anybody who made swords in the 1860s in the Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus area?  I had a feeling you didn't.  I can't wait to take it into the field.   I only need to buy two more things before I can really get into my new reenacting role. I'm starting to get excited about this whole officer thing.

I'm sure I've said it before: There's something soothing about the rain.  I used to not like it growing up.  If it rained, we couldn't go play outside.  We couldn't go swimming (heaven forbid we should get wet at the pool!)  There was definitely no fishing on rainy days.  I remember getting frustrated at having to sit inside and play Nintendo games.

Now, I love the rain, and that's a good thing, too.  It's rained at nearly every reenactment I've been to this year.  It's also rained most of the day.  I've really enjoyed taking the day off and just listening to the rain falling through the trees.  Granted, I didn't stay home the entire day.  I stopped by the church and talked about what a cool month it's been.  I don't think we've had a single day over 90 degrees all month, and we usually have one or two over 100 in July.  I also had to stop into the office and do about an hour of work because of a deadline.  That was no big deal though.  I just threw on a hat and strolled from the church to the office, using an umbrella as a walking stick.  This has definitely been a fantastic day!