Being unable to sleep has made me highly productive this morning. I got a workout in this morning and returned home before anyone else had woken, which meant that I was able to shower and dress and get to the coffee house for a little reflection before the onslaught of work begins.

There are two men – one on each side of me – reading the paper. I don’t think that I’ve seen two people reading a paper in years. I know that my parents still read the paper, and while their rural location doesn’t lend to finding information quickly online, I believe that even if they had a good internet connection it wouldn’t replace the tactile relationship that they have with the local paper and a hot breakfast. Kami and I ordered the paper for six weeks when we first moved to the Seattle area, but we were so overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of paper that we canceled our subscription before we were forced to line the hallways.

There are two large market papers in Seattle – the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (or the Seattle PI). Oddly enough, they’re owned by the same company. They tried to sell the Seattle PI a few months ago, but with no success. So they’re going to be forced to move to an online-only format, which means that bloggers are becoming the paper, and papers are becoming blogs.

While I regret that employees of the PI will be without work, I can’t help but think that it’s little wonder that the PI wasn’t profitable. My relationship with the local papers is not a fond one – in a recent newsletter to my clients I pointed out their duplicitous nature – selling papers with a dramatic headline that the body of the article seemed to refute. As with most anything, I think that when a company becomes more concerned with the sales of their product rather than the quality of their product, their business will suffer. I have two examples on opposite sides of the issue that readily come to mind: GM and Apple. I remember about six years ago the CEO of General Motors apologizing to his customers for 20 years of shoddy craftsmanship – which was a trend not easily reversed, if their present day concerns are any evidence. Apple Computers has had slow growth in comparison to their competitors, but I know that they’ve always been concerned with quality design and quality products, and over the last eight years they’ve reaped the benefit.

The last example has become very practical to me lately. Although I wanted a MacBook Pro notebook computer, financial prudence compelled me to order a Dell computer at 1/2 the price. In short order though, it became readily apparent that Dell’s mission was less consumer-centric than Apple’s, and I’ve since cancelled my Dell order so that I can order a computer that I want. I need to practice what I preach after all: you get what you pay for, and while I could have gotten a discounted product with discounted customer service from a discount retailer, I’m voting with my dollars for a company and a product of quality.

By the way – the order that I cancelled with Dell – they shipped it anyway. They didn’t mean to, and they shouldn’t have, but they did. Which means that I have to go through the hassle of processing its return and waiting two weeks for them to reverse the charges to my credit card. The Dell computer should arrive today – I’ve never looked forward to returning something so much in all my life.

I bought my last car new six years ago, when I was 25. I love my car. Like an old saddle, the seat is broken in, and like a trusty steed, it gets me where I need to go reliably. I can’t justify the expense of a new car, but that doesn’t keep me from wanting to sit in an unblemished chariot, to breathe in the exhale of treated leather and plastic.

My current steering wheel is eroding – the fake leather wrap wasn’t meant to hold my grip like a saddlehorn. I remember driving old Ford pickups where the hardened amber of plastic had broken from the metal skeleton of the steering wheel. I think the tolerance of the men that drove these rigs before me must have been diminished in the presence of anger. Or nicotine. Or resolve.

My steering wheel quivers at the thought of such men.

I think best when stuck with loud mundane tasks. Today I pressure-washed our back patio and mowed our lawn, which was about 2.5 hours of the loud and the mundane. As I swept the sprayhead back and forth like a metronome I realized that it might be time to end the blog. It’s had a good run – over four years of at least weekly posts, sharing thoughts, pictures, events and media with friends and family. But life is becoming more and more complex, and it might be time for me to simplify things. I don’t know yet for sure, but it’s a fertilized egg of thought that will soon have nailbeds and teeth.

My tv recommendations haven’t gone that well in the history of the blog. “Creature Comforts” was pulled after three episodes, despite years of success on the BBC. I loved it, but many of you weren’t too impressed. I tried to turn my family on to a little known show on Spike TV called “MXC” – which is just a japanese game show with dubbed American voices, and as funny as anything on tv. Most of the laughs come from watching an uncoordinated contestant take an uncomfortable fall into a big lake of goo, but the dubbed commentary is side-splitting as well. ABC has replicated that show in a new offering called “Wipeout”, with American contestants and American commentary. There is an element of the entertainment that is missed (the eccentricity of Japanese showmanship and its interpretation by dubbed American voices), but the physical humor remains. I watched “Wipeout” tonight, and I can tell that I’m going to have a hard time turning it off.

I’m not one of the masses that usually complains about the rain in the Puget Sound, but this truly is having its affect on me. It’s JUNE! I’m supposed to be lathering my daughter in sunblock and letting her run in the grass. Perhaps the worst part for me is the spread of melancholy – which I’ve become accustomed to staving off during the winter months, but much like the rain, I can feel its grip wrapping around my bones.

Here’s the good news: I’m trapped inside – I may as well try to edit a video for my next post.

          SPINNING

                         y’all.

The other tab is for our new Selah page, and I don’t think that I have to explain this one Kami wanted a place where she could post photos or videos of Selah more frequently, and again, everyone will be allow to comment on our lovely little girl.

Thanks again to Mike – as putting this together was way outside my comfort zone.

So start by answering the poll. Songs are listed in the order that they appear, so if you don’t have the cd nearby but know what track number it is, you should still be able to vote. Additional comments are appreciated, so don’t be afraid to expand on your selections. If you haven’t received a Blog Sessions disk, CLICK HERE and send me a quick email with your address.

Those of you who aren’t familiar with the Coen Brothers by name might be more familiar with their work (Fargo, Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, O Brother Where Art Thou?). If I had to pinpoint what makes a Coen film different, it would probably ride on their ability to humanize the villain. Violence is prevalent in their films, but I wouldn’t say that it’s glorified – rather, each depiction seems to reveal the absurd and futile nature of the act, and – in turn, the absurdity and futility of the character carrying out the violence (Fargo probably illustrated this best).

This ideal takes a sharp turn in “No Country for Old Men,” and not having read the novel, I’m guessing that this is due more to McCarthy’s influence than a change in the Coen brothers. The violence, while absurd – doesn’t reveal the futility of the villain, but the futility of the fight against evil. In their other movies, justice has a voice. In this movie, it’s the silence of justice that has one of the larger roles.

I, myself, believe that evil should be fought, and that that fight isn’t futile – so the film didn’t sit all that well with me. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t good for many other reasons, but this was not the indefinite feeling I was hoping for in attending a Coen film.