I Will Never Forget

Taking some time today to contemplate the meaning of Memorial Day, I find myself feeling genuine heartache at the ultimate sacrifices of our men and women, young and old, at home and across the oceans in times of strife. Some made a choice, some were drafted. Most put aside their way of life and did their best.

Parents lost children, children lost parents, loved ones dying on foreign lands in order to free people of other nations and defend our own.

I am small, I am selfish and I am unworthy. But most intensely, I am grateful to all that I live in a country of peace and prosperity where there are STILL people who are willing to sacrifice their lives in service of our nation.

Thank you, dear Americans, and to my loved ones in particular, for making that profound choice. I will always be in awe of your courage to follow through.

Sigmund Kopec, KIA, WWII

Chester Kujawa

Daniel Kujawa

Donald Barberini

Richard Kujawa

James Pauling

John Kawa

J. Scott Holley

Erin Howle

Benjamin Bridges

Jacob Veness

Jeffrey Juhnke

What Fresh Hell Is This?

What the heck is going on here? Have Facebook and my smarmy iPhone killed my creativity?? The best I can come up with is an anecdote that isn't even mine. After riding our mountain bikes in the Lowes Creek County Park this past Tuesday, my brother said to our friend E, "Oh man! I could go for a chili cheese dog from DQ right about now. Nothing like a bunned pork stick!"

To which I cracked up and couldn't stop laughing about it. So I kept making him say it. Even today. I asked him about his creative process and he says, "I don't know. Shit just pops into my head."

So how come no shit has popped into my head? Is it because I use my best stuff on my text messages, emails, status updates, posts and Tourette's and don't save any for my blog? Is that all there is to my wit? Just blurbs and twitches? Gech. Maybe I need to go make some stories.

Artificial Album #4

Yes, Virginia, you CAN change out your own air filter

I decided to post this little DIY after I went to get the oil changed out of my cage (motorcyclist speak for "car") last week. I only wanted an oil change, and after getting the "You need to replace/change this because it'll cost you an assload down the road" speech for about 5 or 6 things, I smiled and nodded and told the guy to just change the durn oil. I was somewhat insulted that he thought I was fool enough to need someone else to change out my air filter. I realize not everybody has access to a Busted Knuckle Garage (read: Daddy's house and his Shop Class Jeenus brain), but you ladies and less-than-mechanically inclined gentlemen (I've known a couple) should be able to at least change out your own air filter without any tools and save enough scoots from a lube-n-wash for an overpriced double-tall mocha latte, mit foam.

I give you, Kuj's DIY air filter change:

The air filter does just what it says. Your car's engine draws in air in order to create combustion. Air mixes with fuel in the cylinders, the pistons compress the mixture, the spark plug creates the explosion, the explosion pushes the piston back down and the process is repeated in a not very difficult to understand cycle. Check this out if you want to know how an engine works.

Since the engine needs relatively clean air to function properly, the air filter prevents sand, dust, dirt, leaves, etc. from entering the cylinders. As a result, the air filter can get pretty skanky...it'll get skankier faster if you live in a dusty or sandy environment or drive off road a lot.

The air filter typically sits in an easy-to-find spot to one side or the other of your engine. The filter is located inside a largish, plastic box with a big hose attached to it. Here's the air filter box in my Saturn ION (standing in front of the car, on the left side of the engine compartment).

Here's the air filter box in Anya's LHS-mobuick (left side of the engine compartment).

And here is the air filter box in Brother's Nissan pick-em-up truck (right side of the engine).

The air filter box is kept closed by two or three clips you can pop off with your fingers. The opposite side of the box is almost always comprised of a few tabs you'll need to hook together before you clip the box closed again.

Once you've unhooked the clips, you can lift the top of the air filter box and you'll see the air filter. You can pull the filter right out. It just sits on top of the bottom half of the air filter box.

Once you've removed the filter, look at the underside (the fins sticking out, not the flat side). This is where all the trapped dirt and gunk is. If it looks totally filthy or is greasy, it's time for a new one. Put it back in and head over to your local auto parts dealer and ask them for an air filter for your year/make/model car (ex., mine's a 2003 Saturn ION3). They typically will just give you a standard air filter unless you specify you want a certain name brand or high-performance air filter (which you likely don't need).

In my case, here's what my air filter looks like.

When I turn it on its side and bend it back slightly you can see there's just a little surface dirt on the very edges of the fins, and it's dry, so I'll shake it out to get the bigger stuff out if there is any, and if you have an air hose you can blow some of the dirt off.

Then drop the air filter on top of the bottom half of the air filter box, fins down, flat side up, hook the tabs on the one side of the air filter box, and push the clips back on. All set!

There's no reason why everyone on the planet shouldn't be able to do this. It leaves out all that intimidating nut-and-bolt-reefing I'm so good at....breaking off. And buy me a beer next time you see me with that labor money you saved.

"We all po baby, but rich in friends"

It's been an ugly two and a half months. I used to love Winter and deep down, some part of me still does. I don't think I would be able to enjoy living where there's no change of seasons. But the last couple of winters have seemed...joyless. Something to bundle up and hibernate through. It is at all possible that, having moved from the Chicago area to the Northwoods, it's because the amount of exposure I have to the sun up here is less? Truthfully, we get 5 minutes less sun than Chicagoland. Does it affect me? Who knows? That seems so minuscule a number, 5 minutes, that I can't seem to believe it. Is it because I have a summer hobby that has become so much a part of me that it's ruined Winter? Maybe. At any rate, it seems the winters are more consciously tougher to deal with, but there they are every year, same as Summer, Spring and Fall. I'm always aware of the futility that most people seem to not notice when I hear them say, "I can't believe it's getting cold" when October rolls around, or "I wish it was warm" in February. What's the point of wasting breath on the whining when it'll get here when it gets here? Yeah I've done it too. But it's just wasted energy. Same thing with Mondays and Fridays. The seasons and the days of the week are just "Boo! Yea! Boo! Yea! Boo! Yea!" ad nauseum in the eyes of most people. Humans are never happy when it comes to the inevitable.

Look at me on a tangent...back to my point. It's been an ugly two and a half months. In addition to the newly acquired "Boo!" to winter, I was let go from my job, panicked at the knowledge of not getting another job at similar pay and threw myself (nearly literally) into a full-time college schedule at a fledgling school with a RIDICULOUS tuition, merely because my brain said "IT'LL TAKE LESS TIME!!! GO! GO! GO!" Meanwhile, I was trying to find a part-time job and foolish enough to think I could handle four classes of homework AND work.

I'm just not wired that way. I am a woman of leisure.

Now, halfway through my first quarter, I'm breathing slower again. I realize that panic blinds me. I see that I need to explore options, take my time and do the research that I always do before I make a big decision. And GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS SCHOOL. And so I shall. Hey, Expensive University of Chaos! Color me gone at the end of your quarter! It's time to find a full-time job, so that I may live in the manner to which I was once accustomed. Take the schooling to a better, and ironically cheaper, grounded, established collegiate system. Part time, baby, part time. Low and slow. Research my interests thoroughly (and not just what I know how to do, but something I'd enjoy doing). In the deadest, beaten horse way. Summer Session to start? At the big U? Verrry likely. I can do this.

How can I do this? How have I gotten to this point of calm?

Family. My mom, who can bring to startling clarity the common sense things I should be doing that I never thought of actually carrying out. All while gently pointing out that she did NOT raise an idiot, but a bright, smart human being. My dad, who shows me a clear path through the mess and then hands me the flashlight with a comforting smile. My brother, who, with a hug can make all the stress, anxiety, pain and fear come spilling out, leaving an exhausted, but quieter soul.

Friends. Friends don't have to be in your life. Friends want to be in your life. What is that magic that binds you to a complete stranger for the remainder of your existence? Does it have a definition? Some people seem to think that quantity matters over quality. I have around 100 "friends" in Facebook, yet I only need and want a select few to keep their place firmly embedded in my heart. Trish, who does not waste her time focusing on the whining and the emotional bullshit, but (and you can almost hear it when it happens) switches gears from extremely witty and caring to straight thinking, problem-solving superhero. Possible, common sense solutions fly at you. You need only reach out and several hit home. Diz, whose near-daily, pop culture-laden, intellectual conversations can lift the spirits and paint philosophical pictures you didn't know existed. Together we are a pair of sounding boards, alternately flinging life's poo and candy off each other and walking away from it relieved and cheered. Between the incredible photography from him and the word paintings from me, we are one artist. Wood, whom I've only ever met once in person, but has been, for so many years, as much a part of me as to wear my socks while I'm in them. You, my friend, are my soulmate and the very definition of a gift. When I have had the worst moments of self-doubt, fear, and hopelessness, it's you I go running to and you have never turned from me. You have infinite patience and optimism. You are my cheerleader and my solid ground. You have earned your Knight in Shining Armor status many times over.

Thank you all for letting me be welcome in your lives.

"We all po baby, but rich in friends." - Wood

....You do realize, there just has to be a fart-related post coming soon, right? :)

Flashback

A friend of mine and I were having a discussion back and forth via email about his passions. At one point he mentions an old TV show where the self-contained episodes were very short. I immediately had this Vietnamish flash of memory of....

"The Lottery"

Part One

Part Two

It was a short story made into a movie that we were forced to watch in Advanced English my Sophomore year in high school. Sure, it had a grand, sweeping statement to make about dystopian society and the human condition, but it totally sucked the soul out of you. And it looks like Ed Begley, Jr. made his debut in this gem.

Suddenly all these other memories started flooding my head. My good friend Ian, who sat next to me and closest to the window of our classroom. My Adv. English teacher, Miss Gollberg. That nasty lime green pantsuit she wore too frequently. That she would say, "Um" so many times a day, Ian and I started keeping a tally. Ian throwing giant spitballs on the chalkboard while she had her back to us and she just kept on "um"ing.

Our East Campus was the original high school before the West Campus had been built one town over. It was built in the 50's, now houses only the Freshman and Sophomore classes and, in the 80's was wholly depressing and still without A/C. Miss Gollberg's room was next to what must have been a courtyard once, but I suspect its only purpose by the time I was imprisoned there was to ventilate the inner rooms. Bees would come in the open, screenless windows all the time. Ian would spend his time lying in wait with a small, thick English book propped open to the middle, like some kind of pious monk reading a Bible. If a bee was foolish enough to fly within arm's reach, WHAM! He'd slam the book shut, crushing the bee and scaring anyone who wasn't watching him half to death. And us erupting in giggles.

Gollberg would make us watch all kinds of insufferably depressing old movies and read gloomy, dark old stories. It was in that class I had to read Great Expectations, and watch "The Lottery" and...

"The Veldt"

Part One

Part Two

All I can think as I'm going through this mental mess is: 1) Where can I get some uppers? 2) How did Gollberg not HANG HERSELF?? and 3) Thank Sweet Sweet Jeebus for Ian.

Surf Nazi

There's a young guy in my Composition class. He wears a bright white chunk of bling in one ear that you can see across the room. And he is swathed daily in Hurley surf clothing, much as I am fairly regularly donning Triumph wear. So every time I'm in class, I'm torn between assuming he's a poser, and asking him where all the surf nazis hang their toes off here in the Chippewa Valley. Honestly, I don't want to know bad enough, and wondering if he is or isn't, is more fun than asking will be.

...Sometimes I think I'm not a very nice person.