A great book

Talk about timing. My wife brought home a book for me to read last night that couldn't have come at a better time. I read the 200 pages in one night. I was enraptured, spellbound, laughing and relieved. I felt I had a compatriot, a comrade in my struggle, someone who understood me.

The book:

"The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't" by Robert I. Sutton.

Wow. Please read it if you get the chance.

His Web addres is www.bobsutton.net. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet because I am so giddy from his book. It kept me so entertained and offered such astoundingly good -- and realistic -- advice that I even turned off "Family Guy" to finish this book.

Thought: I think the author heard my cries in the wilderness!

Who are you?

Do you know me?

Come on. Think about it. Most of you know a part of me. Maybe you know me as the neighbor as we grew up together, or the guy in high school or college. Maybe you just know me because we work together.

My parents and my wife know the most about me.

Odds are, though, you don't know much about me.

What got me thinking about this was a conversation I was forced to have with someone who thinks he knows me. He told me I'm narrow-minded, bitter, vindictive even (backstabbing, manipulative also came to be spoken). The situation was not casual banter, mind you. This was serious stuff -- the kind of thing that, if handled poorly, destroys my life as I know it and injures my family, perhaps in ways I cannot foresee.

So, how can this person know me?

He has once been in my driveway (and didn't get out of the car!). That's it. That's about as personal as it gets. He's never been in my house.

Does he know the real reason I don't eat meat? Does he know where my family spent our summers as I was growing up and how this impacted my life? Does he know if I have siblings? The classes in school I failed or excelled in? How many needle shots I endured in my finger tips at one point in my youth? My birth defect? Does he know who my friends are? Why I feel a pain when I hear the name "Rufus"? What charity work I do? About the first time I got drunk? What BoozerFest is? Who "Mr. Letchworth" is? The first time I ever threw up in front of people? My friends who have died or killed themselves? What made me cry at my wedding? Why I love my wife so much? My first newspaper job offer and why it was a turning point in my life? Why I chose the college I went to? Who is my college mentor? About the auto crashes I've been in? My faith? Why Juan in the tunnel and I can talk so freely?

You get the point.

You see, I'm not always sure who I am and if I know my real self. I know that, like all people, my soul is divine and shines like 10,000 suns in the blackness of the universe. I know yours does, too.

Thought: To know, know, know him, is to love, love, love him . ... (Does he know why I love oldies and who Rockin' Robin was?)

Ice, ice baby

I once again gave my neighbors and those passers-by on Main Street a site to chuckle at. I was hacking away at ice the other night on the roof.

An icicle four times my width (and that's width, baby) had formed on a corner of the house above our porch. I knew there was trouble because water was running through the porch roof. Time to hack.

So, I spent an hour to two shoveling the roof (more than 2 feet of snow on it) and axing the monster icicle.

The challenge was to cut the icicle so it didn't crash on top of me. That would be bad. I think I chiseled the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt before I was done. I was starting on Crazy Horse when the whole masterpiece collapsed. I did a quick dance step as it slid down the roof and crashed below.

Satisfied and exhausted, I leaned on the ax and looked as all the other ice. I then did what every red-blooded American homeowner would do -- I called a roofer to finish the job.

Jim Selden came out from Ganges and took care of much of the ice. He installed most of our roof and will be doing more work for us this summer. He also taught me some techniques I can use next winter to keep the ice problem under the control. None of them involved axes.

Thought: Icicles are pretty ... until you've had to ax them.

Pickwick revisted

I just finished Dickens' first novel, "The Pickwick Papers." I've read this once before -- back in high school, so long ago I think I was a contemporary of Mr. Pickwick. I didn't like the novel much then and it's still my least favorite.

When I reread "The Old Curiosity Shop," I found lots of nuggets of humor and great description I hadn't noticed before (I'm still struck by the details of the furnace tender and Little Nell's figurative journey into Hell it represents). I had hoped for the same revelation in "Pickwick," but didn't find it. Now, that doesn't mean the book was a waste of time. ...

I enjoyed the use of dialect with Sam Weller and his father. It could be hard to read at times, and I think Dickens was aware of this. He used the same approach with Ham Peggotty in "David Copperfield" and worked better there. Ham's dialog was kept to a minimum, while the Wellers had pages of conversation.

Mr. Jingle's telegraphic talk was just the opposite of Sam Wellers' colorful, metaphoric speech. A nice foil.

The story itself wanders -- it was meant to. It was set up to support the art work of hunting expeditions and the like. In typical Dickens fashion, though, the words overtook the art and once Sam Weller was introduced, the serialization was a sensation.

I did enjoy Mr. Pickwick's time in the Fleet debtors prison. I could see a hint of Dickens' lively social commentary in this, but the Pickwick scenes are lighter than those in "David Copperfield" and "Little Dorrit." By the time Pickwick is in jail, the novel started to hum along nicely and I could see a prelude to Dickens' other works.

I don't recommend "Pickwick Papers" to the casual Dickens reader. In fact, this is the only novel I would not suggest. It's long -- I think my paperback with no illustrations is more than 750 pages -- and if you're not in sync with the Victorian approach to reading, then this novel will just be a drag.

What's next?

I'm thinking of rereading "Dracula." I started watching the PBS presentation of it last night and was totally lost. I know the novel is all about sex and the repression of those emotions, but the PBS approach was just too heavy on the horny folk.

Something completely different

Here's a few things I just can't shut up about:

-- Please don't compare Anna Nicole Smith to Marilyn Monroe. There is no comparison. Monroe ranks as one of the top performers of our time. She's there with Hepburn, Bogart and Brando. Smith couldn't act (reality TV is not acting!) and didn't seem to be the brightest bulb on the tree.

-- Grammys? Never much got into these, but I find it funny that awards celebrating music are broadcast on television. Shouldn't they be on the radio?

-- War with Iran? George Bush is f ---ing insane. Why can't this crazy man be stopped? How many more people must be murdered before Bush is sent to jail? Of course the U.S. can win a war with Iran on the ground, just like the U.S. won the tactical war with Iraq, but winning the peace is where America has failed and, I think, will fail in Iran.

Thought: Yes, I said f ---ing.

It's winter

Another long week has gone by. Lots of long meetings early in the morning (after I worked beyond midnight the night before). The real challenge this past week had been the snow and cold.

Above is a picture of the house shovelled out Monday. I finally got time Sunday and, with the help of my wife (much appreciated) and neighbors (many hands making light work about the area), we all got dug out.

It's been snowing since last Tuesday, but the big blast came over the weekend. We must have gotten another foot of lake effect with strong winds. Translated -- a blizzard.

I'm familiar with the dangers of blizzards (ask the family about the Blizzard of '77), and I travel with the weather in mind, but even I was appalled with the coverage local television gave the weather. Our Chicken Little Station, WOOD-TV 8, or as I like to call it, Panic 8, spent all day Saturday on the air spreading chaos over the airwaves about how Armageddon had arrived.

The broadcasters were talking about survival kits (Please. This isn't North Dakota) as they patted themselves on the backs for their bravery in standing by the local expressway as cars crawled along.

To put this in perspective: Yes, it was cold. Yes, there were strong winds. Yes, it snowed a lot. Yes, it was dangerous to be out in (I know. I was in it). But ...

No, there were not wide-spread power outages. No, people were not dying in their vehicles (like the Blizzard of '77). No, roofs were not collapsing from the weight of the snow.

So, the weather has been annoying and dangerous, but not the end of the world as Panic 8 forecast. That comes tomorrow!

Thought: How many days until spring?