The 2024 Best-Ofs!

 

Every year I promise little to no fanfare for the annual Best-Ofs, and this year I am going to honor my word. (Actually, I’m under the gun timewise with work, so I’m rushing the writing of this during my lunch break.)

 

Okay, you know the drill. The best and worst of my experiences this year (but mostly reading and watching stuff). Without further ado, here they are!

 

Best book: The Sum of All Fears (1991) by Tom Clancy

   My favorite book of my mid-90s Clancy phase turns out to be my favorite book of my 2024 re-read return to the Jack Ryan universe. It’s all there – terrorists, a-bombs, political intrigue, the CIA, the Navy, and all those acronyms. I recommend it highly if you’re into this sort of book or want to dip your toes into such water.

 

Worst book:

   Nonfiction (allegedly) – The Man Who Killed Kennedy (2013) by Roger Stone

   Garbage. Yeah, I’m about 95 percent Lone Gunman, but this is a book full of unsubstantiated rumors and wild leaps of faith. I’m not particularly a fan of LBJ, but this book reeked of cheap shots and I had trouble finishing it.

   Fiction – Satan’s World (1969) by Poul Anderson

   This is not the Poul Anderson I remembered fondly from my youth. Picked it up and read it on a whim, but it was a struggle to get through. Maybe it was me, but I don’t think so. Very sixties-ish but also very forgettable. In fact, I’ve forgot the plot and remember only the name of the main character.

 

Bucket Lists:

   I managed to power through The Republic and two out of six books of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

 

Best Film:

   (tie) My Dinner with Andre (1981) and Parasite (2019)

   Andre is a wonderful anti-movie: the viewer is basically a third wheel at a dinner between two intellectuals whose conversation ranges all over the philosophical landscape. A dream for introverts like myself who yearn for such conversation in real life.

   Parasite is a Korean-language film detailing how a poor, down-on-its-luck family cons their way into a wealthy CEOs life. It’s clever and comedic with dark undertones that come out in the final scenes. Shouldn’t have won a Best Picture Oscar, but worth a watch and I was truly surprised when I checked it out on a whim over the summer.

 

Worst Film:

   I Saw the TV Glow (2024) – barf

   Runners-up: Kill the Irishman (2011) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) – also barf

 

Best TV:

   Netflix’s Arnold 3-part biography was pretty decent (the shame of that whole “screw your freedom” thing during the Wu Flu notwithstanding). Also, Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War, about the gunfight at the OK corral and also on Netflix, was promising, though the Mrs. and me have so far only watched the first episode.

 

Worst TV:  

   Any New York football game

 

Personal Accomplishments:

   Kept two 2024 New Years resolutions! A new spiritual devotion (plus a second one begun in October, both to be kept private for now) and Soda Free for 365 days!

   Also painting my backyard fence over the summer.  (Next year’s goal – disposing of the empty buckets of stain and paintbrushes… 😊)

 

Phases:  

   Tom Clancy

   Kurt Vonnegut

   Dean R Koontz

   The growing LP collection (now up to 44 albums)

   Bernie Madoff deep dive (February)

   Mozart deep dive (May)

   The Kennedy Administration (October and November)

 

Best phase:

   Re-reads! Nostalgic and surprising. Really enjoyed those Clancy and Koontz books. Worth some research into my young adulthood to see what other authors to tackle next, maybe this summer.

 

Proudest moment:

   Little One’s European adventure in the spring and her student teaching in the fall.

   Patch’s successfully negotiating the complexity of becoming Confirmed as a Catholic.

 

Best Podcast:

   The Rest is History; great for long walks.

 

Best Youtube channel:

   Any of a number of true crime channels (Dreading, Dr Todd Grande, The Lawyer You Know, Bruce Rivers, Christina Randall, etc.), though for my overall mental sanity I need to cut back on the true crime in 2025 …

 

Song of the Year:

   Actually, album of the Year: Catalina Breeze by the Blue Jean Committee. Go ahead, check it out on Apple music or YouTube. The album has seven songs and is ten minutes long. It’s a win-win for all!

 

Workout tally:

   46 weight workouts

   89.5 miles walked

   They don’t average to much divided over the course of a year, but I tend to work out in clumps … one month gung-ho, six weeks sedentary, six weeks Schwarzeneggarian, three weeks couch potato, wash rinse repeat. A 2025 goal would be to work-out more consistently.

 

Reading tally:

   39 books read cover-to-cover (21 fiction, 18 nonfiction). A low number historically, due to eight massive Clancy hardcovers and the thousand-page A Thousand Days review of the JFK administration.

   12 of the 21 fiction books were re-reads dating back to 1989.

   Read 2/3 of the Old Testament in the Douay-Rheims translation (up to Isaiah).

   Abandoned seven books (three fiction, four nonfiction) anywhere from 49 to 587 pages in. Life’s too short …

 

All in all, overall, a fine year. Not the best, not the worst. It had the feel of a “harbinger” year for me. I find my tastes in literature, viewing, and listening are changing, pointing towards something or things more challenging. A “harbinger” of better – or just different – things to come. We’ll see …

A Nightmare

 

Had a creepy nightmare last night. May I tell you? Okay!

 

My wife and I were on the boardwalk one evening and found ourselves in front of an old-timey movie house. We entered and discovered that a participatory play type of thing was scheduled – except, we learned, a play more like the Squid Game than any dinner theater. There was a huge group vying to get in, something like a hundred people, so the rewards definitely seemed worth it. We agreed to sign up and were ushered in.

 

The premise was simple and B-movie-ish: You had to keep your eyes closed no matter what. If you opened them, there very well could be the chance you’d be staring eye-to-eye with a demonic being. A black shadowy entity with glowing red eyes. And once you glanced into those eyes, even for a split second, you could not look away – and something very, very bad would happen, something involving a lot of gore.

 

The next building we entered turned out not to be that old-timey movie theater but a Catholic church. People were shuffling in but urgently taking up positions. The ideal position seemed to be as far up from the floor as possible, hence men and women of all ages standing on pews, on tables at the end of each pew, and in stained-glass window frames. My first instinct was to go up on the altar, but I was hesitant, but soon discovered others weren’t. So I raced up to the altar, the sanctuary as its called (giving my nightmare much spiritual and religious significance), passed the empty priest’s chair, and stood on a table (not the tabernacle) at the rear of the sanctuary, and forcibly closed my eyes as the “game” started.

 

We all began to hear surprised shrieks and short screams vaguely in the distance, but definitely approaching. Then it was quiet for a long time, and then I felt a dark presence come over me. Blanket me. Dark, oppressive, menacing, evil, touching but not-quite-touching me, moving over my head, from one ear to the other. Whispering to me with its rancid breath, daring me to be curious, open my eyes and take a look. Even to open them just to look down on the floor. Though severely frightened, I did not yield to the voice and kept my eyes forcibly shut, though my head was definitely aimed downward. After what seemed an eternity, the presence moved on.

 

Then a whistle blew and we were told we had a break. Our eyes could be opened safely and we could move around. I did so, and noticed people were talking about everything but what we’d just been through. Weirdly, I began practicing a golfing exercise I hadn’t done since my 20s, which I learned in the only golf lesson I took. This impressed a few people nearby for some reason, and I felt a large degree of hubris. I’m sure this has a deeper symbolic meaning, but it escapes me now as I struggle to get this all down before the dream fades.

 

An unexpected signal alerted us that the “game” would begin again. I dashed back to the altar and saw my prior spot was taken, so I had to rush to find a new one – this off to the right of the sanctuary. I sat on a table, and in grim expectation of being visited again, I noticed something unpleasant in my mouth. I fished around with a finger and realized that there was some debris of some sort between my cheeks and gums. I withdrew my finger and it was covered in what looked like chopped up tomato parts, but was warm and sickening to the touch. I wiped it on the side of the table, and pulled more and more of it out of my mouth.

 

Quickly the scene morphed into a third trial of the “game.” The break was uneventful and my dream did not linger on it. Instead, I sat in the open priest’s chair, directly behind the altar. That dark evil entity again descended upon me, but was much weaker this time. In fact, I was not scared at all, and it quickly passed by.

 

Then, I awoke. The house felt cold and it seemed pitch black outside, so it must’ve been four or five in the morning. Was it 3:15, the bane of my overnights? I don’t think so, but I can’t confirm, because I would not open my eyes. Turning over, I went back to sleep, and my cell phone alarm went off in what seemed a few short minutes later. Light crept in through the blinds. I threw the covers off, put on my socks, and got up to clock in to do some remote work, and get this down on paper before I forget.

 

Some Thoughts on the UHC Crime

 

1) Yes, we do live in a multi-tiered society as far as the justice system is concerned. Were I or one of my family members gunned down in NYC in a similar style, it is doubtful the entire local, state, and federal law enforcement industrial complex would move heaven and earth to apprehend the perpetrator.

 

2) I am appalled at the love the perp is receiving. As of last night a casual stroll of X (Twitter) showed about a 50/50 split between praise for the murder / murderer, and conspiracy theorizing (more on that below). No matter who the victim is or what the victim does, murder is always wrong and never justified. There are several conditions to this, however. Self-defense being the first that springs to mind. But our (admittedly multi-tiered) legal system is based on trial by jury, and no one has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.

 

3) We live in a dumbed down world that is getting dumber by the minute. I say this in reference to the knee-jerk “everything is a conspiracy” mindset that washes over just about every major event that happens nowadays. As one who recognizes that conspiracies have existed in the past and can theoretically still occur, and groups can and did hide in the shadows, not everything that happens is part of someone’s Grand Scheme. The fact that the percentage of seemingly intelligent people believe the moon landing to be a hoax has been growing every year convinces me of this unchecked plague of dumbth.

 

4a) All the points above need to be taken with large amounts of NaCl crystals. Grains of salt, that is. The Internet is a weird place. Being anonymous, it’s a playground for the Societal Id, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s like the movie Purge but for keyboard warriors. So I don’t believe its entirely true. I don’t think that if one questions a group of 20 people all face-to-face that 10 will praise this sick weirdo and 10 will say the oligarchy planted another Oswald. I think a lot of the Internet is spiteful, contradictory, ideological, drunk-uncle-ish, and/or just plain uninformed. A lot is feelings over reason. So it’s not an accurate barometer of a culture. 

4b) Yet I don’t deny people generally speak more truthfully in a setting of anonymity. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say the aggregate Internet response to any global event is likely to be around 60-70% truthful but with an intrinsic (as opposed to apparent) intensity of only 20-25%.

 

(And as I’ve always said around here, only 85% of what I type is full-on truth. The other 10% is stretched out a little bit here and there. The other 5%, however …)

Sigh

 

Seems like it’s open season on my wallet this month …

 

Happy Halloween!

 

Average or Awesome?

 

So I got this from management where I work:

  

It’s a candle. I must admit when I first took it out of the bag I thought it read, “Thank You For Being Average”!

 

😊

 

If I really was “awesome,” though, wouldn’t they give me a raise, like a two-percent increase? Or maybe a one-time $500 bonus? Or even a $25 gift card, maybe every now and then when I do something “awesome”?

 

Not to be bitter, though, the company does give us a lot of perks. Wednesday they catered for the entire Finance Department (about 200 of us), and I feasted on barbecue brisket, turkey, cheese macs, and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. They also raffled off a ton of swag, but I didn’t win anything. I did win a fleece hoodie two years ago that I gave to Little One. Last year they gave us all t-shirts that, honestly, are pretty decent. I still wear mine 2-3 times a month.

 

A little work humor to end the week …

 

Klaus

 

After the rush to flee Globe Life Stadium with the stink of defeat upon us (the Yankees lost in humiliating fashion to the Texas Rangers), we managed to get out of the stadium parking lot ahead of the vast majority of hometown fans, still celebrating wildly. My wife was driving as she’s naturally more adept for situations like this, her career having her negotiate New York City, Washington DC, and now Dallas city streets on a near-daily basis. We quickly found ourselves on the highway heading home, around 10:15 pm, a 45-minute drive from Arlington.

Anyway, to entertain the Mrs., I monitored the Yanks’ twitter account and some fan blogsites reading aloud comments and commentary on the night’s debacle. To be honest, it was really quite funny. New York fans are the best and come up with some of the choicest one-liners. Most, however, were vulgar and I can’t really post them here. Regardless, we were chuckling and the shock of the night wore off as my wife turned off the main highway and drove the few streets before turning onto our block.

And there was Klaus in the middle of the road!

Klaus is the large Doberman who lives in the house diagonally behind us. He’s the size of a small pony and has a thunderous bark that often keeps us up at night, especially if he’s out in his yard chasing bunnies. He has a companion, an ancient bulldog named Champ, built like a fire hydrant made out of concrete. Though they’re both intimidating on first sight, they are sweet animals. Klaus is spastic and full of energy, about seven or eight years old, and Champ meanders along like a tank. I know this because I have met them several times. My youngest daughter Patch walks them every now and then for $15 an hour, and she always brings them by when she does. These dogs are the epitome of “bark-worse-than-bite.”

 

Patch and Klaus

 

My wife slammed on the brakes a few feet away from Klaus. Because I knew this dog, I rolled down the window and called his name over and over. We realized he was off the leash, escaped from his yard and wandering the neighborhood. Klaus heard me and paused, but by the time I got my shoes on and jumped out of the car he bounded down the alley behind my house.

I ran after him calling his name. Not sure what I’d do, since he was collarless. But perhaps I could re-assure him, pet him, calm him down, and maybe Patch could call his owner or even walk him back to the yard herself. I was halfway down the alleyway when Klaus stopped. Turned. And began growling at me, a low, menacing rumbling from his big chest.

Uh-oh.

I backed up as he advanced on me, slowly then more focused. Something had made him upset, very upset, and he obviously did not recognize me in the dark. I retreated up my driveway. I knew I couldn’t outrun him, and the only defense I could see was my giant recycling bin. Could I hide behind it? Could I throw it at him? These thoughts raced through my head as Klaus advanced up my drive. This all happened in something like ten seconds.

The Mrs., still in the car in the street facing the alleyway, illuminating the area with her headlights, fortunately hit the garage door opener at this moment. Klaus halted, spooked by the sudden noise of the door rumbling up and the new light from our garage shining in his eyes. I trotted inside the garage where there would be more items I could defend myself with – fold-up chairs, a broom, a weed whacker, even. But with all this new stimuli the dog turned on its heels and raced down the alley into the darkness.

Patch came out at this time, calling Klaus sweetly, with no luck. The wife pulled into the garage and we debated a course of action. Patch texted Klaus’s owner with no answer. She was confident that Klaus wouldn’t hurt her. In fairness, she has spent about a hundred times more, uh, time with him than I have. But I didn’t want her to go by herself. So for a half-hour we walked the neighborhood, calling his name, attuned for any motion or any barking. Nothing. All was silent and the only thing on the move were the foraging rabbits. Eventually we got in my car and slowly drove down to the ponds and a few further streets, again luckless.

We turned in for the night around midnight. Then – the owner texted Patch back! Klaus did, in fact, escape the yard when the woman got home from her job and let the dogs out. But he returned and she let him back in the yard before reading her texts and not seeing or hearing us looking for Klaus.

Lesson learned: Never, ever, ever approach a strange dog. And unless you’ve scratched his belly, all dogs are strangers.

 

The Verdict on the Fence

 

Well, it was a hard-fought project. Took me eight weeks, mostly working a few hours on the weekend in the morning before it got too hot, and I did miss two weekends due to rain. All in all, I tallied 39 hours of work, done mostly while listening to podcasts and slathered up in sun block.

 

Here are the before pics:

 

And the after pics:

 

I learned from my neighbor that he paid two guys $1,500 three years ago to paint his fence. Since my corner lot is a somewhat bigger than his, I guesstimated the current cost to me to have it professionally painted would have been around $2,000. This on top of buying the three drums of stain as well as the rollers, paintbrushes, and trays used.

 

So my 39 hours of labor saved me $2,000. If I was one of those pair of workers mentioned above, I’d have earned $25.64 an hour for the job. Not bad but not great, but better to have paid myself in my imagination than to write a check to some painting company in real life.

 

Verdict: Glad I did it, but I ain’t doing it again. Before we sell the house in a couple of years I’ll touch up the faded areas, but I’ll be doing that in the winter when it actually gets cool around here.

 

N.B. I listened to a lot of true crime podcasts while painting, as well as an hourlong interview with a JFK assassination author, an hour on why history is false (it didn’t convince me) and a whole bunch of movie reviews.

N.B. 2. My favorite “treat” meal after a three-hour painting session was a ham-and-swiss hero with lettuce, tomato, mayo, washed down with an ice tea, bought from a new deli that just opened two miles from my house. Ham-and-Swiss on a roll with lettuce, tomato, and mayo is just about the perfect lunch sandwich ever created.

N.B. 3. My “reward” for the job was an “Atlas of the Civil War” magazine. I may have jumped the gun as I bought it before I finished my work, and now my interest has moved on, so it is now gathering dust on the shelf. Oh well. The maps are pretty.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 

 

Little One posing in Ireland at the cliffs of Moher, 

four hundred feet above the Atlantic, 

over the weekend.

And February's a Wrap!

 

Dog on Dog Crime

 

 

Something shocking happened to our family on Tuesday. Our gentle, five-year-old Jack Russell mix Charlie was a victim of dog on dog crime.

 

Patch is Charlie’s designated walker. We give her a $2 allowance every time she takes him on a twenty-minute walk. She mixes the route up regularly to keep him guessing and keep ever new scents and smells available to his inquisitive nose. Sometimes he gets two walks a day, sometimes none, but he probably averages ten walks a week, which is perfect for his size and temperament.

 

He has not, however, acclimated too well to new humans and new – rather, any – dogs. Might be our fault when he was a pup. He’s all bark and no bite, and when someone new enters the house he’s all bark for a good hour or so. Out in the world beyond our front door, he dissolves into a neurotic mess when in range of most fellow canines.

 

But there are exceptions. There’s a big golden retriever who lives behind a fence along one of their routes. Whenever Charlie walks by with Patch in tow, the golden pokes its snout out a hole and they sniff each excitedly. Our neighbor has a dog and my daughter walks two other dogs in the house behind us (a Doberman named Blitz and a pitbull named King), so he’s somewhat used to their smells. There’s also an aged corgie that makes the rounds as well as a giant puffy longhaired dog and another white and brown mix who could be Charlie’s uncle in the neighborhood.

 

Charlie has gotten along well, as well as can be expected, when the occasional passing-by happens on his walks.

 

Now, back to last Tuesday.

 

Patch took him out in the fading daylight, which happens around 5:45 here. She took him on a new walk on the roads behind our house. Someone was unloading groceries from their car parked on the street, and as the door to the house was opening and closing, an overly excited brown critter burst out and charged headlong towards our Jack Russell mix, pacing along the sidewalk blissfully unaware.

 

Patch was caught off guard. Charlie had no idea what was coming and was completely blindsided. The maniacal dog, larger and darker and angrier than Charlie, pounced on him and began the tussle.

 

My phone rang a few moments later and Patch was on the other end, breathing heavily, in a tone halfway between crying and hysteria. I pieced out what happened listening to her rapid fire outbursts: The dog jumped on top of Charlie, bit into him several times on the back. Charlie retreated, making noises Patch has never heard him make before. The dog flipped Charlie around, clamping down on Charlie’s hind leg. My daughter struggled to maintain control of Charlie’s leash and to separate our boy from this crazed animal. It was all over in seconds as the owners raced from the house to separate the two dogs and get theirs under control.

 

They asked if our dog was all right. In the fading light Patch gave him a once over and he seemed okay, aside from his weird barking. I told her to come immediately home and she replied that she was only a few minutes away. After she left the house holding the wild dog another adult left his truck and made sure she and her dog were okay, which Patch confirmed.

 

Gentlest boy in the world ...

Once inside the safety of our house we examined Charlie. He had two blood marks on his spine but no bleeding. His right rear leg, however, was the bloodiest part of him. We separated out fur as best we could to get to skin but did not see any serious bleeding – and by serious I mean no signs of continuous blood flow. If there was such an emergency we’d have called his vet and their voicemail system would have detailed instructions on who to call and where to take him. Plus we have catastrophic insurance out on him, so that would not be an issue.

 

We decided not to tell my wife until she got home from work. Did not want her to get into an accident or possibly be ticketed for speeding or running red lights. Charlie is, after all, her third child.

 

We babied him more than normal the rest of the night. He seemed a little dazed and not himself the rest of the evening, but recovered somewhat the following day. By the weekend he returned to full normalcy: not afraid to go out for walks, wanting to play “tuggy” and fetch with his rubber bone, and eating as usual.

 

My wife, however, immediately ordered a small can of pepper spray from Prime to affix to the leash and gave instructions for Patch to use it on any animals – dog or human – looking to mess with Charlie – or her – out on their walks.

 

We dodged a bullet, and I would urge any one of my miniscule audience, whether a pet owner or not, to always practice situational awareness at all times.

It Asks, I Answer

 

This randomly popped up online a few days back and I replied, “OK, Universe. You asked.”

 

 

1) Bobcat. We have bobcats around here. I saw one down an alley on my early morning walks (it was down the alley, I was on a main street). Patch saw one, twice. One of those times it came right up to her. They’re about the size of an average dog, with long, lanky legs. And sharp claws at the ends of those long, lanky legs. I think it’s not too boastful to think I could punch one into submission if it attacked me, so long as I can keep those sharp claws away from my major arterial systems.

 

2) Three times. Half a century ago Ian Fleming wrote, “Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” I believe it. Though we have some diverse avian wildlife down here (egrets, herons, grackles, and deep-sky hovering hawks), have yet to see an owl. Though I think that would be cool. Two owls in one day might be a little eerie. Three, and I’d be searching the indices of my Matthew Henry bible commentary for “owl.”

 

3) Buy a house for the equity. Don’t think I’ve had a decent night’s sleep since I first became a homeowner, nineteen-and-a-half years ago.

 

Some literature on deck in a few days!

 

Seven Book Covers: 7

 

Seven Book Covers: 6

 

Seven Book Covers: 5

 

Seven Book Covers: 4

 

Seven Book Covers: 3

 

Seven Book Covers: 2

 

Seven Book Covers: 1

 

Seven Movie Posters: 7