the Unexpressed Advantage

note: this is part one of the baby montage. semi-lame pictures next week.

This is the time of figuring out how to be uncle Dan. Or as I like to refer to it, BABY WARS

Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit. But now that everyone I know is having their babies in droves (think seeds in a popcorn popper, something like that). I figure I have only a few options in how I relate to my newly-made-parent-friends and their seed:1

Option 1: Be that guy who's totally clueless about babies.

This is actually pretty common for guys who are over 30 and unmarried; I see it a lot. The basic idea is that you just keep being yourself and don't let the springing of new life all around you affect you very much. This guy doesn't really ask very many questions about the baby, doesn't want too know too much about the baby or the general process with birthing the baby and raising the baby. He's not really too keen to hold the baby, but will do so awkwardly when necessary. He generally avoids couples with babies and re-adjusts his social life toward more interaction with non-baby presenting couples or other single people, perhaps younger ones. This isn't really me, as I'm keen to keep walking with the people that I'm currently, well, walking with, and generally averse to being clueless about anything, unless it has to do with reality TV, ignorant people's mindsets, or how Beth has somehow memorized all of the world's knowledge by age 23.

Option 2: Be that guy who's irritated by babies.

This guy, if he's 30+ is a little young for his age. He intentionally doesn't understand anything about babies and pretends that they kind of bug him. He avoids people with babies and occasionally shoots them a look of disapproval, sending the constant message, "keep that thing away from me, and we're fine." He's secretly irritated whenever babies cry in a church service and thinks that people make way too big of a deal about the miracle of birth. I understand this guy. I was a lot like him when I was, oh I don't know, 14. But if he's over 25 or so, then having that attitude will probably serve him well, he just won't have many friends who aren't in college.

Option 3: Way over-excited about your baby guy.

You don't see this too often, because when a guy is "way over-excited about baby guy he's basically channeling a 14 year old girl (i.e, ohh the baby! ohh can I hold him! oh he's so precious – and then he/she disappears and you don't see your baby for an hour). Eventually this person kind of creeps out the new parents even more than the irritated-about-babies-guy. That combined with the 14 year old girl thing made me realize that this isn't the baby perspective for me.

Option 4: Be the phenomenally cool super encouraging and supportive ecstatic uncle guy who totally affirms your new baby but doesn't seem overly obsessed with it and is comfortable with the fact that he doesn't have babies yet but probably one day will and nothing that your baby does ever bothers him because, hey, he doesn't have to take your baby home therefore it's just that cute.

So, basically the Fonz but not afraid of babies. This is what I'm shooting for.

1. before you go getting all hussy, that's a biblical reference and therefore a nice compliment: [ƒ]

According to Google Analytics, tons of people from all over Germany are reading my blog. Well, at least they have read it once; or rather, they have been to this website once. That said, I'm wondering who all these German people are and why they are enjoying it so much. Since I've got hits from Germans in nearly every German municipality, I can make some pretty suave assumptions about who these Germans reading my blog are.

My guess is that the readers in Hanover are related to my Aunt Adelheid, they're probably some distant family looking for news about the baby (note, i'm not pregnant (note-note, I'm not married (note-note-note, no, I wouldn't "just have a baby out of wedlock for the heck of it))). The reader in Erkrath is probably some girl who has a crush on my friend Robin who's also from Germany. She's probably just hittin' up my blog to get some info. To her I say "step off yo! u ain't gettin' no info fro' me ya."

In Albstadt the one visitor is most likely a friend of my friend Thomas (also from Germany). The Albstadt visitor is most likely a time traveller who read a future post that I do/did in the future about Thomas and then he future googled it and found the future version of this website and…

...

The rest of the Germans are girls who are crushing on me after they saw the picture on the about page.

DK

Bus Pass

I kind of like riding the bus. Well, not really. If we're talking "really", I hate the bus. But actually I don't mind it. It's a fine mode of transportation. I take the same bus to and from UBC (where I go to school and work) every morning. It's about a 6 minute walk, a 6 minute bus ride, and then another 6 minute walk.

I usually leave the house 10 minutes before I need to be somewhere. See if you can figure out that math.

Anyway the interesting thing to me is the ritual of the bus pass. That's right, I have a bus pass which in some way or another I'm supposed to present to the driver every day. According to the guidelines I'm supposed to put the bus pass in the bus pass reader and wait for the reader to suck it up, read it, "beep", and then spit it out. I don't usually do that.

Usually I just show the bus driver my bus pass. The bus driver nods and I get on the bus. Eventually though this became a problem for me when I noticed that the bus drivers wasn't really paying attention to me showing them the bus pass anymore, which is understandable considering they have to watch 78,000 students and professionals get on the bus every day.

Nevertheless, it cause a slight angst in my daily routine because of my internal need for a high Action to Purpose ratio. My natural response then was to simply stop showing the bus drivers my pass. This worked pretty well for a while, about 80% of them didn't seem to care; but the 20% who did seemed to care a great deal often yelling at me things like,

HEY! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHOW YOUR PASS!

and then I would say, "what?" (since i'm usually wearing headphones)

then the bus driver would say,

HEY! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHOW YOUR PASS!

by this time my headphones are off and so I would say, "Do you want me to show it to you?"

again,

THE REGULATIONS SAY, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHOW YOUR PASS!

at which point I'd show my pass and go away. Usually a given bus driver will find some way to berate me again before I get off in that situation (IT'S EASIER IF YOU GET OFF THE BACK!).

You see the 20% of bus drivers who want you to show your pass are also coincidentally just a little bit crazy, and me and crazy don't communicate very well. It leads to a lot of dirty looks. Oh well.

So to solve this problem, I started showing my bus pass again. Then one day I was waiting for the bus with Andrew and when we got on I accidentally showed my VanCity bank card instead.

The Bus driver didn't mind.

Of course! Why hadn't I thought of it before?!? If I just show the bus drivers a new card every time (I have hundreds in my wallet it seems) then I can get on the bus with purpose (humour) justifying action (showing the driver something). And if it goes south I can just apologize and pull out my actual pass.

So in the previous week I've used the following

My Safeway Card
My Regent-College Library Card
My Visa
My Business Card
My Prescription Insurance Card

and my favorite, today I just opened my wallet up and showed him the inside of my wallet.

All with success. I've still got about 20 different cards to try, including my dentist's business card, my VST library card (a blank white card with the words DANIEL K. RAY on it in black marker), and my staples copy card.

If it keeps working I'm going to start feeling like Dr Who. And if anyone gets that reference, and that anyone is a cute girl, we should talk (wink).

dk

So the last few weeks of shoddy posting have been due to a busy schedule obviously. At least I'm not crapping out completely this time again. In the last three weeks I've preached two sermons, read 5 books, written 5,000 words of paper (not including another 4,000 words of sermon) cooked a meal for 20 people, and spent all weekend in a wonderfully fulfilling yet emotionally tiring counseling class. Nobody can call me lazy, at least.

But it's all good. It's most good that so many of my beloved friends are shooting offspring out of their wombs. That's a macabre way to put it, but any excuse to type the word macabre twice in a blog is worthwhile in my book.

It's actually really great. I'm gearing into this whole "uncle dan" thing quite nicely I think. I can hold babies with the best of them and sometimes I even make them stop crying (Luke Daniel Nevens you are seriously grounded when I babysit you 8 years from now).

So in response to lack of blogs and some prodding by Jeff Boian (see the 9 or so links on the right) to get my butt in gear, I'm working on a baby montage to publish in the next couple of days. That's right, a baby montage.

You ought to enjoy that Jeff, it will be especially for you. – dan

hahaha – the picture, which was clearly the best part, is long gone…

Since I know that many of you often think "I wonder what's on Dan's desk at work" I obliged and took a picture and labeled it accordingly:

1. Nifty Microsoft "many-button" type keyboard. This keyboard has many buttons. Some of them are normal buttons, like the Q and the S button, that are used for typing queues and esses. The rest are stupid buttons that either do nothing or just plain confuse me. Like the button with the picture of a house on it. What does that button do? Call my house? How does it know? Lame. It does nothing. Or like the "F-Lock" button. All that button does is drive me nuts, what's the point of having a quick key, like F-11 when it doesn't work unless you hit it 4 times, then realize you need to press F-Lock before it will work. That's not quick at all.
2. Big 'ol Sweet LCD Monitor. Unfortunately, it often has "work" for me to "do" on it, and no movies.
3. Mega-Clip. Essential for clipping Mega amounts of paper.
4. Carefully placed supply of Mini-Clips. Everyone in my office knows that I know at all times how many of these Mini-Clips are on my lamp. Nobody would dare steal one from me, and if they did, it would be at their peril (see #9).
5. Old broken paper clip container. With paper clips (rare).
6. "Tall" size starbucks mug that I stole from my Mom's house in California. Sorry Mom, and no, you can't have it back. It has coffee in it even now, although it's been in there for two or three weeks.
7. Logitech MX-650. The best mouse ever made. I own three. Did you expect any less?
8. Irrelevant sticky note from a year ago with no useful information.
9. Decoy Mega-Clip that when it makes contact with the top wire of the lamp emits a 120VAC electric shock (sparks and all), some of the mini-clips are wired this way as well, but only I know which ones " src="http://draynet.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" />
10. Work. I didn't know that was there until I looked at this photo.

11. The Lord's Prayer on a piece of paper. Not Kidding. I'm just that Spiritual.

Special thanks to the program snagit which made Labeling this picture an under 10 minute task.

---

Also pretty good (but less accurate) are my colleague Crystal's responses:

1. crumb tray that doubles as a keyboard (genius!)
2. procrastination box
3. spark-inducing fire hazard
4. rock-climbing style obstacle course for a microscopic person
5. snack jar disguised as paperclip holder (genius!)
6. likely to be a jar of salsa
7. taser disguised as mouse (genius!)
8. american idol performance schedule
9. ipod rest
10. written synopses and reviews of previous night's a.i. performances
11. daily affirmations: i'm good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!

I just have to say, that the Sun is finally out in Vancouver, And I know that I go on and on about it's presence and lack thereof, but it just constantly surprises me how much effect it can have when it finally reappears in such a sun-starved place like the Pacific Northwest. Somehow my body knew it was coming out before I even looked out my window (I wake before it rises), as I put on less clothes, different shoes, and no tuque (a wintertime rarity). So I'm glad.

In other news, apparently there was a lunar eclipse last night, which I missed, and my mother is now hammering me about for missing, and now I guess I don't get to see one until 2010 (which incidentally, although it sounds far away, is only 2 years away – cue the transporters and turn on the inertial dampeners). I don't know. I saw a lunar eclipse in like the third grade or something and I wasn't really all that impressed. I mean, what's so exciting about something that any third grader can draw on MS Paint?

Exactly.

again, missing picture, maybe I'll redraw this one.

I was so good at third grade. They should seriously let me come back.

Sometimes, I feel this way. But replace "mom" with everybody and "boots" with everything.

Have a nice weekend!

Also, a side note to annie, who's in the middle of quite a storm, prayers are directed your way from Canada. This weekend, I'm preaching Psalm 121. I"m thinking I'll see some helpful perspective in there. Let the practical meet the academic.

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All I have to say is, Patrick Stewart is cool.

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Jedi Ginsu Knife Commercial – These bloopers are hilarious

peace…

I'm starting to enjoy looking at this picture of Arlen Specter, which is in the news every other day:

I don't really know who he is, but he's in the news every day and he seems to be somehow connected to sports, politics, and the news. I'm thinking he's a member of the Pentavrit described in the movie, "So I Married an Axe Murderer." Regardless, he seems pretty cool.

In this article the Washington Post makes it clear that Arlen Specter is in favor of letting people in churches get together and watch the Superbowl. Which – apparently – is illegal in some countries that I don't live in.

Now I'm just going to go out on a limb here, and guess that any large organization such as the Superbowl that tells kind-hearted, devoted, religious type people that they can't get together and share potato salad, chicken, and football on free TV – without getting sued at least – is a a herald of the Anti-Christ, Satan, Skeletor, or some sort of really really bad person.

Such a person would clearly invoke the wrath of God upon themself(ves) and their product probably WOULDN'T make history with a record-breaking 19-0 season.

Sheesh.

Point in case…

I'm heading out my door on my way to the bus stop. Along the way, I grabbed some rasberry yogurt and some of this new "V" brand cereal that I actually kind of like. I'm crunching it along the way and then the bus comes. My cereal isn't finished yet, so after I'm on the bus I continue crunching it. Now, I know you're not supposed to do that, but I figure it's just cereal, the bus is too crowded for the bus driver to care, and nobody really pays mind to anyone else on the bus. It would be one thing if I were eating a bag of Doritos or some other really smelly food, but It's just cereal and yogurt, and I'm kind of proud of myself for eating cereal anyway – instead of eating something full of cheese and butter or even worse, my usual breakfast of nothing at all.

So I joyfully keep crunching my tasty cereal.

I notice a very Canadian man staring at me, then my cereal, then me again. I think to myself, "maybe he wants some of my cereal."

Then he clarifies this by saying these exact words:

You know that this is a bus and not a cafeteria, eh?

exactly those words, with glaring eyes

Several witty responses popped into my mind, such as:

• "Oh, they stopped selling food on these things eh?"
"This is a BUS?"
• "Silly… You must be from Toronto!"
• "Je suis Desolee, Je ne parle pas anglais"
• "That's not what your mama…." er, nevermind that one.

Anyway I didn't say those things. I just turned around and faced the door with my back to him and finished my cereal.

So whaddya think? Am I a massive Villian here? Am I missing something? Or is this just water under the bridge?