I have to pass these on this morning, in case you haven’t seen them already.

1. Prime Time America conducted an hour-long interview with Ayaan Hirshi Ali, author of Infidel, a memoir on her life in and out of Islam. Ayann is an intelligent woman telling a moving story about rejecting the principles of radical Islam.

2. I heard another interview last week, one with Mark Steyn, who has written America Alone on the threat of Islamic revolution and how liberals undermine their own freedom. I don’t like thinking about current events anymore. It makes me pray harder.

3. On the lighter side, two popular children’s books and movies are reviving the toy train market. Can you guess which books have done this?

I am the man. I’m half horse and half alligator. When I roar, mighty beasts flee.

After a white collar guy like me does a job of work like I did today (and last night), he’s entitled to beat his chest a bit, I think. Because that’s all the reward he’s likely to get.

Picking up last night’s enthralling narrative, not long after I posted yesterday evening I got a call from the school’s dean, saying they were canceling classes tomorrow (that is, today) due to the snow.

I went to bed earlier than usual, needing the rest pretty badly. I didn’t set my alarm clock.

I got up around 7:30, ate my breakfast, and went out to face the day and the evil thereof.

We’d had more snow overnight, and high winds as well, so there was a lot of drifting. I was tempted to think that all my work of the previous night had been wasted, but I think it would have been harder without it.

I had the idea that if I set up my rope-tourniquet differently, I could get a tighter hold and hold a seal on the snowblower tire.

I found that my rope wasn’t strong enough to do what I wanted it to do. It snapped.

So I reverted to Plan B, and took up the shovel again.

Briefly put, it took a long time. I rested frequently, and more often as time went on.

My neighbor’s wife came back from work around 10:00, because her office had closed too. She joined me when I was about half way down the driveway, and together we finished it up.

This is how it looks in my back yard today:

It’s snowed some more since, but I don’t think it’s going to interfere with me when I drive to Hutchinson for a Viking Age Society event tomorrow. It’ll be indoors, in a mall, but we’ll do live steel, so I’ll be able to try out my new shield(s):

I apologize for the egregious ugliness of the rawhide edging on the finished shield in the picture. It was the first time I’d worked with rawhide, and I went far astray.

I made a point of showing the back of one shield so you could see the handle. This handle construction is (I believe) my own invention, and I predict it will be a major success with live steel fighters, bringing me… nothing at all.

Archaeology tells us that Viking shields (which were made out of boards laid side-by-side, not plywood like these fakes) usually had handles made of wood. But sometimes the wood handles were covered by a gutter-shaped iron covering, making them stronger.

When I bought the wood molding (it has a precise name, but I’ve forgotten it) for my handles, I worried that it wouldn’t be sturdy enough. Finally I decided to buy some thin steel bar stock in a 1” width. I drilled holes for my fastening bolts through both steel and wood, and came up with a fairly light, pretty strong handle, based on the Viking principle.

I’ll see how it works tomorrow.

If I’m able to move after all this shoveling.

I never stop to wonder why I left the farm. I left the farm for many reasons, all of which I remember vividly.

But if I had forgotten why I became an urban drone, dwelling in a ticky-tacky house, this evening would have reminded me.

The storm we’d been told to expect began as promised, and it ain’t over yet. It started last night. I was worried that I’d need to dig out before going to work, but it had only snowed a couple inches, and I drove out. Then I spent all day at work worrying that I wouldn’t be able to get back home.

I did get in, though, and then I set to work with my master plan to get my neighbor’s snowblower (which, as you know if you’ve been following the last few episodes, he keeps in my garage in return for clearing the shared driveway) going. As you doubtless recall, a tire on the blower was flat last weekend, when he tried to use it. He took it someplace and got some kind of wrench that allows you to squoosh the tire down so that the bead seals, so you can pump it up again. He refilled the tire, but it went flat again. Probably a puncture.

And then he left town on business.

But I figured I could do the same squooshing thing with a length of rope and a tourniquet. And I have an air compressor of my own.

Story in short—it was tougher than I thought. I gave up at last. I took up my shovel and went to work. It took two hours, but I got it done.

And the snow was already beginning to accumulate behind me.

But I hope I can get out to go to work tomorrow, and then I’ll have the evening to repeat the process. We’re supposed to get up to ten inches more before it finally relents sometime tomorrow.

I could have taken a picture while the light lasted, to show you how much deeper the snow is, but I wanted to get to work before I lost the light.

I was also going to share a picture of my completed shield, which I finished last night, but Photobucket is down.

So you’ll have to settle for this.

It’s winter. We all have to make sacrifices.

Or if you don’t, I want you to feel guilty.

Nice weekend, all in all. The predicted snow came, and for once we got as much as was promised. I think it was about fifteen inches, and this is how my back yard looks today:

I got a call Saturday night that church would be cancelled. This did not break my heart, because (mea culpa) I go to church out of obligation, not desire. Suffering as I do from a psychological condition clinically known as “being nuts,” I don’t enjoy gathering with other people much. A guilt-free Sunday morning off does not cast down my heart.

I was in the basement Sunday morning when I noticed my neighbor’s wife through the window above, shoveling our shared driveway. This was curious, since my neighbor has a snow blower. He keeps it in my garage, and the deal is that in return for that accommodation he clears my side as well.

I could have pretended I hadn’t noticed, but I decided to pretend to be a responsible adult. I went out and grabbed my shovel. I found my neighbor out there too. He explained that the blower had a flat tire. So I pitched in and we managed to clear adequate paths. This is the kind of work where overweight, middle-aged men tend to fall over with heart attacks, but I dodged the bullet.

The snow in the picture, I can tell you with absolute moral authority, is wet and heavy. This was, in fact, the heaviest snowfall our metropolis has experienced in several years.

I think there’s a sense of satisfaction all over our fair state today, a grin behind the grumbling. With a few hiati, this winter has been pretty easy so far, and that’s bad for our self-image. Minnesotans think of themselves as the hardy folk who thrive in arctic conditions for half the year and like it—yes, like it, by golly! In our secret hearts, we think it makes us better than folks who live in easier climes. Now we’ve earned a little cred back, and we’re swaggering a bit.

I think I’ll swagger over to the thermostat and turn it up.

Sorry for the late posting. My wireless connection chose this evening to forget its way home, and all my blandishments and caresses were of no avail. Now suddenly, having come back upstairs from my shield project (of which more below) I find the necessary light back on again, and I’m able to resume communication with you, the Esteemed Reader.

I wanted to call Earthlink Customer Support about the problem, but I had to leave the phone line open, as a guy had made an appointment to come over and look at the room for rent tonight. Or rather, he was going to call to get directions tonight, and then come over. But so far, no action on that front. I have a suspicion he’s going to stand me up.

Which is only justice, in the greater scheme of things. I remember a couple times I did the very same thing to landlords, in my youth. When I’d decided not to check a place out, I never had the nerve to phone and tell the manager personally. Avoidant stuff.

But I was itching to finish painting my shields tonight, so I finally went down to the basement and worked on that, with the door open so I could hear the phone (haven’t got one down there).

I’d already done the blue base coat. Tonight I put on the decorations, and now they look like this:

I’m not entirely happy. I’d like bolder colors—ideally I’d have preferred the bright red and yellow I usually paint my Viking stuff with. But I’m trying to conform to the general standards of the big-time re-enactors, and they prefer muted colors, because bright was hard (and expensive) to do a thousand years ago. So I took somebody’s advice and went to a paint store and looked for “mistints,” which sell cheap. These were the most interesting colors I could find, but the reddish thing is almost pink, and it underwhelms me.

I’ll live with it, though. Better this than have an English re-enactor (should I ever chance to encounter one) get in my face.

The design, by the way, is based on the heraldic device of the island of Karmøy, where my great-grandfather was born.

We’re supposed to get a big snowstorm tonight, which will continue on through Sunday. If you don’t hear from me again, it’s because I starved or froze.

Or because my wireless has gone out again.

I think I may have had the flu last night.

I’m not really sure. As I was IMing with someone last night, I began to feel tired and physically weak. I told my friend I thought I might be getting sick. Flu maybe.

This morning I got up and felt fine, but later in the morning I had a bout of what I’ll delicately call “intestinal distress.” But when that was done, it was over.

Maybe it was something I “et,” but I’ve noticed a pattern in the last few years. I’ll feel like I’m coming down with something in the evening, but after a good sleep I’m fine.

I’m coming to believe that I’ve developed a superhumanly strong immune system. When I was a kid I got sick a lot. When I grew a little older I got sick less often. Now that I’m entering my golden years, I don’t seem to ever get sick anymore.

I know a guy my age ought to get flu shots, but I’m kind of scared of upsetting this remarkable balance I seem to have achieved.

It’s a strange time in the library these days, for me. I’ve been given a new assistant, and I’m not sure how it’s going to go.

The new assistant is a short-term seminarian from Africa, an elderly pastor so far ahead of me spiritually I can barely make out his silhouette on the distant horizon.

We like to give our foreign students part-time jobs on campus, because they usually don’t have the option of driving. I imagine the Higher Powers decided to send this pastor to the library because they figured the library is a light job.

It’s light in terms of lifting (mostly), true enough. But I fear that this pastor may be finding it pretty heavy in emotional terms.

He has almost no experience with western technology. He’s never used a computer in his life. The control of a mouse is an extremely frustrating exercise for him, much as learning to operate a video game controller would probably be for me. Even the electronic typewriter we type check-out cards with frustrates him.

I hope it’s not keeping him awake at night or anything. I hope I’m a patient trainer.

Culture Shock is my middle name. Or middle names.

Another beautiful day, the last for a while. Tomorrow will be colder, and there may be snow over the weekend.

Hope I can finish this and get it posted before I leave for church. I’m reading Scripture tonight, and that’s one of the few things I’ll confess to being good at.

Will Duquette of View From the Foothills sent me the following meme. Memes are easier than thinking of something to write about.

1. What is your occupation? Librarian/Bookstore Manager.

2. What color are your socks right now? Black.

3. What are you listening to right now? Hugh Hewitt on the radio.

4. What was the last thing that you ate? A Banquet turkey TV dinner.

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? I’d be tan, but I’d wish I were red.

7. The last person you spoke to on the phone? A woman who’d called about my room to rent for herself and her husband (I told her I thought it would be a little crowded).

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? So far as I know him online.

9. How old are you today? 56.

10. Favorite drink? Diet Orange Sunkist soda.

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? Live steel combat (participation is better).

12. Pets? None.

13. Allergies? Adhesive bandage tape makes my skin turn red. Other than that, nothing.

14. Favorite foods? Roast turkey, pizza, steak, hamburgers. Chocolate.

15. What was the last movie you watched? Stranger Than Fiction.

16. What do you do to vent anger? I don’t. I stuff it.

17. What was your favorite toy as a child? Toy guns.

18. What is your favorite season fall or spring? Spring.

19. Hugs or kisses? I don’t get either.

20. Cherries or Blueberries? Cherries.

21. Do you want your family and friends to email you back? Does not apply.

22. Who is most likely to respond? DNA.

23. Who is least likely to respond? DNA.

24. Living arrangements? I live in a house by myself, until I get a renter.

25. When was the last time you cried? Don’t recall.

26. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes. Boxes. Dust.

27. What did you do last night? Walked, blogged, straightened the living room, worked on an opinion piece for Hunter Baker.

28. Favorite smells? The sea. Popcorn. Roasting meat.

29. What inspires you? Sublime music.

30. What are you (most) afraid of? Rejection and humiliation.

31. Favorite dog breed? Not sure. But something large.

32. Number of keys on your key ring? Eight on the main one.

33. Favorite day of the week? Sunday (specifically Sunday afternoons).

34. How many states have you lived in? Five. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida.

35. Favorite holiday? Christmas.

36. Ever driven a motorcycle or heavy machinery? No. I tried a motorcycle once; nearly had an accident. In somebody’s yard.

37. Ever left the country? Yes. Mostly to Norway.

38. Favorite kind of music? British folk music, classical, Ennio Morricone spaghetti scores.

39. Last book you read? The Two Towers.

The temperature was up around forty today. In Minnesota, in February, that counts as a beautiful day. The sun shone, and our thin snow cover faded like the new congress’s gravitas.

I even had time for a walk before sundown, though evening shadows were lengthening by the time I finished. As an added bonus, somebody had left a bookcase out in front of their house, with a “Free” sign taped to it. I jumped into Mrs. Hermanson, drove back and snagged it. It’s kind of beat up, granted, but I meant it for the basement. I can never have enough bookcases.

S. T. Karnick has been relentlessly asking hard questions about the Tim Hardaway controversy. I’m not sure I agree entirely with his position, but I’m not sure I entirely agree with my own either. Assuming I have one.

When I was young I came to embrace a passionate, Jeffersonian view of freedom of speech. I believed the American approach was essentially based in a Christian world view. If everybody, regardless of how outrageous his opinion, is permitted to make his case the best he can, the marketplace of ideas will make the truth evident to all, because there’s power in Truth.

However, there’s another way to look at it, also based in a Christian world view. That approach would say that, since human beings are sinful and essentially perverse, they will always choose the answers they find most convenient, flattering and profitable, regardless of the merits of the arguments.

When arguing with people about vulgar music and movies, whenever I’ve been subjected to the inevitable accusation that I’m in favor of censorship, my standard response has been to say, “No, I don’t want censorship. I want public opinion to shame these people into silence. I want to make publishers ashamed to produce this stuff.”

Which is precisely what the left is doing with Hardaway.

So I ought to be OK with that.

But I can’t dismiss Karnick’s argument that it’s pretty hypocritical for people to self-righteously pretend they don’t share Hardaway’s feelings to some extent, and to justify themselves by throwing stones at him.

I’ll let you know if I come to any conclusions.

They tell me that, Dennis Prager’s curmudgeoning to the contrary, today is not legally President’s Day, but Washington’s Birthday. “Presidents Day” is just what the stores call it. I’m not sure why. “Washington’s” is twelve letters, if you count the apostrophe, and “Presidents” is ten letters (eleven if you add an apostrophe, which isn’t strictly necessary), and that’s not going to make much difference to your ad copy column inches costs.

Let’s see, what do I know about Washington that doesn’t call for a lot of research on a holiday that’s mostly already over as I write?

Washington’s ideal—the model that inspired him—was the farmer-statesmen of the Roman republic. Those guys who reluctantly left their fields to shoulder the burden of civic responsibility for a time, then joyfully laid it down again to go back to their real lives. You can see echoes of that pattern everywhere in the great man’s career.

Even the architecture at Mount Vernon was a statement of this ideal. In contrast to the Greek Revival architecture favored by Jefferson and his crowd, Mount Vernon is Roman to the foundations.

He wasn’t a fun guy, Mr. President Washington. He was “on” all the time, playing the role, conscious that he was setting a benchmark by which his successors would be expected to measure themselves.

It definitely helped.

For a while, anyway.

I spent my weekend working on my new Viking shields for live steel.

Here’s how far I got:

I’ve got three rounds like this now, and I drilled holes in the two bosses (the boss is the bowl-like metal thing there). One round will be a spare, for when one gets shattered (which will definitely happen).

The great challenge was getting a 4×8’ sheet of 3/8” plywood home from Home Depot. First I drove around trying to find an auto parts store that sold clamp-on car top carriers. Turns out nobody carries them anymore.

Then I figured, well, if you take an old blanket to protect Mrs. Hermanson’s roof, you can just buy some tie-downs at the store and strap ‘er on and drive home that way.

Which is what I did, but it took a while. We had a stiff wind (pretty cold too) that wanted to blow the blanket off, so I had to bungee that down first. Then I got the plywood sheet up and discovered that Mrs. Hermanson, being one of those SUV’s built without a top rack, is specially designed for the frou-frou set, having no projections or inlets of any kind to which a conventional tie-down may be attached. I finally got the tie-downs hooked into the window channels, but only in the same way that you can chin yourself up on the molding on your living room wall.

I was also concerned that the front of the panel would get lifted by the wind as I drove. I was just starting to unfasten everything and see if I couldn’t fit the thing inside Mrs. Hermanson, at an angle with a bend, when a Home Depot employee came to help me. The inside-the-vehicle experiment didn’t work, but he helped me load it back up on top, and suggested running a strap down the center in front, hooking it on the hood to hold the leading edge down. Wish I’d thought of that.

Wish I’d thought to tip him too.

Once at home I set to work with a keyhole hand saw (I don’t own an electric saw) and managed to get what you see done by Sunday night.

Next step: painting.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress, when there is some more to report.

Because I know it matters to you.

The Presidential Prayer Team has been organizing prayer for today. They have almost 4,000 people enrolled so far.

I saw a headline this morning which raised a question for me. If you could declare another U.S. president for honoring on this day or another President’s Day holiday, who would you recommend? I ask this despite my reluctance to recommend any of them. I like many of our presidents, but making holidays isn’t something I want to think about. So, I blogged it instead.

I see a new president for 2009 has already been declared.