My So Called Life

Are things worse than they ever were?

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Do you ever feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Doesn’t it always seem like we’re on the brink of just slipping into the abyss? Between politics and corporations, Twitter and ADHD, shootings, crime rates, loose morals, and constant media bombardment, this is the low point of humanity, right? I seriously can’t tell if things are worse than they’ve ever been, or maybe if I’m just older and only now realizing how bad it’s always been.

Then along came this comic from xkcd, which absolutely floored me. He’s pulled out quotes from the late 1800s to early 1900s that could have easily been from today. It’s absolutely eerie; the quotes are expressing things like fear that all the advanced and rapid communication would rot the brain, society was on the brink of total disaster and things were better in the “good old days”, the art of conversation was lost, the pace of invention was destroying the world, even that the sanctity of marriage was in danger because of society’s loose morals (in the hovertext). You could directly apply those quotes in the modern day by only changing a word or two.

I find this oddly comforting.  It makes me feel a little better when things are awful and miserable to know that things have *always* been awful and miserable. After all, all those people worrying 200 years ago were wrong; so doesn’t it stand to reason that worrying about the exact same things today is most likely just as wrong?

Politics in particular frequently get me down. When that happens, I just remind myself of old Charles Sumner. That’s right, there was a time in our country where a senator was actually beaten unconscious right there on the floor of the senate. Say what you want about the current state of politics, but it quite clearly has not sunk to it’s lowest possible form (you know, to say nothing of the entire Civil War).

So, no, the answer is that things are NOT worse than they ever were. They’re mostly just the same, and in some cases quite a bit better. “The sky is falling!” has been the status quo for at least 200 years, and probably will be for 200 more.

Movie Review: World War Z

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Sara had planned to take me to see the much anticipated World War Z for our anniversary, but our plans were ruined by a little unexpected mishap, so I’m just now getting around to seeing it.

Sara and I don’t get to see a lot of movies in the theater. In fact, the last time we saw a movie was actually January 2012. And actually, when we watch movies at home we have to move the couch close enough to be able to see the screen on our tiny tv. So keep in mind that the enormous, high-definition screen and hyper-realistic sound system kind of seem like magic to me, and that probably colors my experience just a little bit.

First off, I loved the book and I was really looking forward to the movie. It turns out that, aside from the title, there is literally no other connection between the book and the movie. Not a one. No characters, plot, scenarios, nothing. That’s kind of a shame, because I think the book would have made a really cool movie. The book is much more documentary-style vignettes as the zombie apocalypse sweeps across the world, which would have been a really unique look and feel.

That being said, I LOVED this movie! So good. The beginning (always the best part of any zombie movie) very skillfully built the tension and kept it high. Despite having watched many, many zombie movies, my heart was pounding and I was totally sucked in. The middle was great. It swept across the world and showed reactions in so many different ways, being very epic in a way most zombie movies never attempt to be. And finally, the ending was plausible and very satisfying in a way that I didn’t necessarily expect. Like I said, I loved it.

And the whole way home I was eyeing up both people and dark alleys suspiciously.

I knew going in that the movie was nothing like the book, and I’m sure that helped me enjoy it. Instead of sitting there comparing them, I tried to pretend this was an entirely different zombie movie altogether, and it worked. And honestly, it’s probably better that they didn’t try to include more from the book, because if you have just a few things it only highlights the discrepancies. Why they decided to use the name “World War Z” instead of just making it unrelated I guess we’ll never know, but I can enjoy them both for their own merits.

My all time favorite zombie movie is the Dawn of the Dead remake from 2004. World War Z ranked right up there with it. I don’t think there was enough that was really “new” to unseat Dawn of the Dead, but honestly, that’s probably more a product of the timing. If I had seen this movie first and Dawn of the Dead 8 years later, I probably would have liked this more. “Fast zombies” were still new when Dawn of the Dead came out (remember, 28 Days Later had only come out 2 years before), and the whole concept just seemed so fresh and awesome. However, World War Z is a modern movie with top notch production and the special effects, acting, and just general craft of the movie are very well done, meaning that cinematically speaking it’s probably the superior movie, just not as groundbreaking.

However, I do have to give them a little bit of credit here. World War Z is not gory. A non-gory zombie movie! Zombie movies are specifically designed to gross you out with as much disgusting blood and guts as possible, but they managed to maintain the tension and terror without it, implying it and doing most of it off-screen. Superbly done! I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t just seen it. In fact, they do it so well, that I didn’t even notice it wasn’t gory until halfway through the movie.

So, World War Z, highly recommended, both the book and the movie (since they are two entirely different things).

Break-in Follow-up

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Since the break-in at our house, everybody has been asking me the same question: what are we going to do about it?

The short answer? Nothing.

In the aftermath of the whole thing, I expected to feel very unsafe. The fact is, I never felt it. I’m sure losing so little has a lot to do with it, but honestly I don’t feel any different today than I did before this happened. It’s just a thing that happened.

Yes, we talked about putting bars on the basement windows. We haven’t ruled it out. But at the end of the day, if someone wants to get in, they’ll get in. We’re not going to bar up every window of our house, and there are plenty of windows they could break if they wanted to. Heck, they could just stand outside and break windows, and that would probably be costlier than anything they could steal.

Honestly, if I felt like we needed bars on our windows, then I think we shouldn’t be living here anymore. But I don’t feel like that. I feel like some stupid kids did something dumb, and it could have happened anywhere. First and foremost, don’t blame Chicago. Everyone who doesn’t live in Chicago gets a look on their face like, “Well, that’s what you get for living in Chicago!”

Look, statistically speaking there are probably more break-ins in Chicago, but there are a lot of factors in that; you have to look at it on a per capita basis, you have to factor in neighborhood and habits and personal associations. Even after all of that, we might still be more statistically likely to have a break-in, but I bet the difference is smaller than you think. And certainly anecdotally I know of at least two break-ins that were much worse and happened in much smaller towns: one with 2.3% of the population of Chicago, and one with 1.1% the population.

I think you also have to look at the cost of “preventative measures”. There’s always more you can do to “protect” your home, but is it really worth it? The window would have been broken in any case; would it have been worth $1000 to save $30 in stolen items? Is it worth creating an atmosphere of terror and paranoia for the kids to save *any* amount of money? My happiness and well-being would be negatively affected by surrounding myself with security measures and bars on my windows. I don’t know what my happiness and well-being is worth, but I’m certain it’s worth more than any object my house has to offer.

At the end of the day, it was just a thing that happened. It could happen again, or it could not. Maybe I could have prevented it, maybe I could not. Maybe next time it could be worse; they could have stolen more, or damaged more, or we could have been home. I could get mugged or hit by a stray bullet. But I also could be hit by a car, or hit by a falling anvil, or contract antibiotic resistant MRSA. You can not 100% ensure your safety.

So the question is, do I spend my time between now and then living in fear, or do I forget about it and move on? I think you already know the answer to that question.

Someone broke into our house

/ Shane / 5 Comments

I was at work when I got a call from Sara.

“Did we leave the bedroom doors open today?” she asked.
“Hmm, I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I guess we could have,” I said.
“What about the front door, did we forget to lock that today?”
“No, for sure that was locked. I waited by the back door until I heard you lock it, because I wasn’t sure if I should come lock it or if you were going to get it.”
“Huh, well, it’s not locked now. Maybe I just partially locked it?”

5 minutes later she called back again.

“Someone broke into our house. I’m standing outside, and I’m calling the police.”

As far as we can tell, they cut the screen on the back window first, before circling around to the front and breaking a window. They must not have been in the house long, and they must have exited through both the front and back doors. Our neighbor saw the front door open around 3 p.m. and called a few times to see if we were home. Finding we weren’t, he shut the door for us, but did not notice the broken window.

I’m so glad for our neighbors, one of whom checked out the apartment for Sara to make sure it was safe before I could get home, and another helped us fit a board contraption over the missing window. Right at that moment I don’t think I would have known exactly what to do, and I seriously doubt I would have been able to come up with something logical. But now I know what to do! So I guess I gained some experience out of the whole ordeal. Whoo hoo!

Now, the joke really was on whoever “robbed” the place, because they broke into the wrong house. We really don’t have much for them to steal. I can only imagine the looks on their faces, like “Oh no, someone got here first and stole all the tvs!” That being said, we’re not exactly talking about “professionals” here, considering they didn’t take any jewelry (including Sara’s engagement ring) or our cameras, all of which were sitting out.

Instead they stole some loose change and a bike I bought at Goodwill for $10.

The strangest part is that they stole about $0.65 off the counter in the bathroom, but they picked through it and only took the silver, no pennies. Beggars can’t be choosers, my thieving friends! Pennies still spend here in America! They rifled through quite a bit of stuff, including emptying a bag on the bed (side note, we CAN NOT figure out what bag they went through, since it contained only really old kid’s clothes; when’s the last time we had a child wearing 2T pants?) and taking change out of the bowl I keep next to the bed (leaving the pennies untouched, naturally). The “big score” was our container of probably $10 in card-playing change.

Sara pointed out that if they wanted to make some real money, they should have grabbed a couple of hundred dollars worth of yarn.

By far the most bizarre incident was the box of shoes. We had ordered some shoes for Oliver for the wedding, and they had just arrived the day before. So the box was sitting right by the door, unopened. I don’t know if they saw the box and said, “Hey, a package, might be electronics!” or if they recognized Zappos and said, “Maybe they just bought some cool kicks!” In either case, they were bound to be disappointed (unless they were, in fact, criminal 3 year olds).

So Sara said, “You know, I’m going to go look around in the alley, because when they realized they were kids shoes, they probably just dumped them right away.” Even more so when she discovered the box in the dumpster; so we knew that they had opened them and saw what was inside. Sara was sure she would find them somewhere, but we didn’t. So she quickly hopped on the computer and ordered a new set of shoes so we could get them in time for the wedding.

Later that night, totally unrelated, Sara opened up the knitting cabinet looking for some knitting needles, and there were the shoes!

This completely baffled us. So they opened up the shoes in the house, saw they were kids’ shoes and then hid them in a cabinet? And then politely took the box out to the dumpster? Sara and I have been puzzling over this ever since. How could that possibly make sense? Sara said, “I’m not going to sleep tonight. Not because I’m scared, just because I’m confused.” In fact, we were so confused we kept saying, “One of us must have done that and then forgotten, right? I mean, that’s the only thing that makes sense.” Eventually though, Sara pointed out that if we had opened the box we would have put it in the recycling, not the dumpster. So it definitely couldn’t have been us.

So, as far as robberies go, I’d say we got off as lightly as possible. The broken window was by FAR the worst of it.

The truly miraculous part was that the kids weren’t here. This was actually the end-cap on our first nights without the children EVER. That’s just about six years without a night off. I would say it was wonderful, but, you know, it kind of ended badly. On the other hand though, I’m so glad the kids don’t know that this happened, and we’re certainly not telling them. Evie would probably never sleep again. She is such a worrier, and I just know this is the sort of thing that would really rattle her. So it was amazingly fortunate that they just happened to not be here. We’ve been able to keep it from them, but we wouldn’t have been able to that night while we were dealing with the cops and broken glass and everything.

Speaking of the police, I was less than impressed with the stellar performance of the Chicago PD. Despite Sara telling them on the phone she wasn’t going back in the house until they came, it took them 4 hours (and 2 phone calls) to actually make it out (luckily Sara relented on waiting outside!). By that time we had already cleaned up the glass and boarded up the window. The officer was really nice and apologized for the delay. At that point I just wanted to have an official report in case we needed it for insurance or something, but she actually called for a crime scene technician to come out and take a look. We filed the report and she said the CSI tech would be out in “twenty minutes to an hour”.

Now, call me crazy, but I did not expect any kind of attempt to actually solve the crime. I mean, we all know they’re not going to catch these guys. But having a CSI tech come out was kind of badass, especially when he was dusting for prints. And then this happened:

csi_ourhouse

Unfortunately, the CSI guy did not arrive in “twenty minutes to an hour”, he arrived at 11:30 p.m., about an hour after we went to bed and a full 7 hours after we originally called 911.

“Did you touch anything?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. We called at 4:30,” we said.
“Oh. Well, we won’t be able to get anything then.”

He did attempt to dust for prints, but basically he pointed out that anything we had touched, or breathed on, or looked at funny would have lost the prints. And cardboard doesn’t hold prints. And doorknobs are no good for prints. Apparently fingerprints are delicate little snowflakes and are almost impossible to get (especially if you show up, like, a day after the crime was committed). Needless to say, he didn’t find anything and it was a big waste of everyone’s time.

So that’s it. As far as break-ins go, pretty tame, and I almost feel funny mentioning it. Things are already back to normal around here and we haven’t even gotten the window fixed yet.

As for our ferocious guard-cat, Nala did take the opportunity to make a break for it. Kind of. She walked out through the broken window, munched on the plant a few inches away, and then immediately came back inside and threw up said plant on the glass-strewn windowsill. Not a Shawshank Redemption-level jailbreak perhaps, but she did experience several seconds of freedom and apparently that was enough. I can only imagine these thieves walking around our house with Nala following after them everywhere they went, talking their ears off. Maybe she is a good guard cat; that’s probably why they left so quickly – they were sick of that nuisance cat.

Happy Anniversary

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Sometimes it seems like 9 years is a long time, especially when I think about all the things that’ve happened since then; job changes, moves across the country, buying a house, and having two kids to say the least. On the other hand, sometimes I remember our wedding so clearly and it seems like it just happened.

My wedding ring is inscribed with the words, “The Luckiest”, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s been absolutely prophetic. I don’t just mean because the ring was missing for a year before being found by a stranger, but I mean my marriage in general. I know it’s pretty cliched to say “I’m the luckiest man!” when asked about your marriage, but I feel like in my case it’s far more justified.

You know that guy who was super popular in high school? Captain of the football team, popular-girl girlfriend, nice car, cool clothes? And then 10 years later he’s working at a gas station and still telling stories about his high school glory days? Sara is the exact opposite of that guy. I caught her on the way up, and she’s still going up. I probably married her the last possible second that I actually had a shot at her, because by now she’s way too good for me.

I call that being the luckiest.

I’d like to take credit for that, either claiming that I influenced her to greater heights, or at least claiming that I saw the potential. However, that would be completely inaccurate, which is why I’m putting this down to sheer luck. I realize that I’m walking a fine line here, because I run the risk of insulting her. After all, aren’t I kind of saying that she was sucky before? Not at all. I was totally happy with the Sara I married, even without knowing that she was just going to get more and more awesome.

Before we had kids, I was worried that Sara would be too grossed out to change a diaper. No joke, I told her this later. I really didn’t guess that there was a super-mom hiding inside of her. We used to watch every tv show on the planet. We used to eat frozen buffalo chicken strips for dinner multiple times a week. Yeah! This same Sara! I have a lot of trouble rectifying that person with the one I know so well now, who cans, and knits, and gardens, and doesn’t drink pop, and runs half-marathons.

These are my favorite things about Sara:

  • Sometimes, out of the blue when you least expect it, she drops some amazing, thoughtful thing on you that is so touching it just blows your mind
  • She doesn’t settle for something that is sub-par
  • She never forgets things we need to do or lets Important Events slip through the cracks
  • She tries as absolutely hard as she can every minute of the day to make sure our kids are being raised in the best possible way
  • She forces me, kicking and screaming, to be a better person, whether it’s to take better care of myself, or to stop annoying habits, or to have more patience

Not to say that it’s all unicorns farting rainbows around here. Marriage is hard work, and anybody who tells you otherwise is probably operating a drive-through marriage chapel. Sometimes it’s really REALLY hard work. Sometimes it probably seems like it’s just all grumbling and complaining and someone might say, “Well, geez, that sounds miserable.” So I’m writing this all down here to say that, on the record, the good so very vastly outweighs the bad, even if I don’t always remember to say it.