Building Castles on the Beach

I don't have much to say about shootings at the Century 16 theater .  You can follow the news yourself. I've had   9News  on all day. For me,  it's too shocking and horrific. I don't feel especially eloquent right now. Still, I thought I'd let everyone know that my family and I are safe. And especially to those reading this who I don't know personally, you might know I'm from Aurora, Colorado. It says so right over there to the right. But Aurora is a big place, east of Denver proper, spreading out into the plains of Colorado. We're urban and suburban, even rural. So the chances of a tragedy of this magnitude happening in Aurora and still hitting close to home are pretty low. The apartment where the shooter lived is only a mile from my house. Right now the police still haven't entered the place. It's booby-trapped. Authorities have evacuated a  radius of a  couple of blocks. That doesn't reach my place, but it's literally close to...

Inspired by Charlie "The Skunk Whisperer" at Notice Your World , I've been meaning to write this up for a while now. I decided his drawings would better illustrate my story than any stock photo stolen from the web, so I've asked him to guest-art my blog today.  He's also recently published his novel, The Crystal Bridge . For only 3.99$, you should check it out, though you won't find any drawings of rabid rodents. Mature trees shade most of our backyard. Beds of roses and tulips and peonies line the fencing covered in clinging vines. After a rainy week, our yard tends more toward jungle, but that's the way we like it, hidden away back here in our neighborhood that will never be called gentrified. That is, until the nuclear mutant squirrels attacked. The first year we moved in, we ordered expensive, special new windows installed. With windows that weren't 300 years old and sliding out of the frames, our home was considerably warmer. But soon af...

I feel violated. I don't live in the most savory neighborhood. But I do have a pretty great house. My wife and I obtained a deal through the Teacher Next Door Program--you can't sneeze at a house for half price. That arrangement was supposed to result in heaps of equity and the chance to move to a better land after just three years. Of course, the housing market sank and we're still here almost six years later, but that's another story and the point is that we were glad to have the opportunity to move into this house, in spite of its location. If this isn't feng shui, I don't know what is. The inside is just the right size for us, and we were able to fix it up right. Refinished hardwood floors. Paint paint paint. New appliances. Completely new bathrooms. The living room has cool rounded doorways, and the ceiling has this swell molding that looks, I don't know, Victorian or something. Outside, we've got a decent yard with mature trees, a covered ba...