RushingAround

Thought I would post a quick screenshot of my nearly final Chemistry grade. I would do this more often, but very very few of my classes post grades like this.

And the third graders are celebrating urban hipster style. Seriously.

I have read quite a few books that I might recommend. I just finished “I Am Not a Serial Killer” by Dan Wells. It is a young adult novel about a sociopath teenager who is obsessed with murder and serial killers. He has some idea that he is not normal and makes rules to help control himself, lest he turn into something he doesn’t want to be. That is, until a serial killer moves into the neighborhood, and his years of studying serial killers makes him the subject matter expert, and possibly the only one who can stop him. Just this once, maybe he will let the monster out of himself, but will he be able to control the beast once he has let him out? It actually is a really good book, and the first young adult book I have read in quite a while. I would suggest it as light reading over a couple of hours.

I also just finished “Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians” by Brandon Sanderson. This is also a YA book and better than I expected. It cashes in on the Harry Potter craze a little late, but in a very interesting way. It is almost like the author studied the HP books and meticulously wrote down every flaw in them, and went about trying to make them more realistic. All the while he allows a narrator to break the 4th wall and mock the story (both his own, the book you are reading, and the HP books!). I wouldn’t recommend you read this for anything but the laughs, but the laughs are enough. This book had me rolling for the several hours it took me to read it.

And what am I reading now? I am splitting my time between “The Book of Mormon” on audio, and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer” on my iPod Touch.

(BTW – I rarely buy dead tree variety books anymore. I read Serial Killer on the Kindle application built into my iPod Touch and a little on my Mac and I listened to Alcatraz on audio from Audible, mostly while I ran, but also while I did dishes and cleaned. Less room, less money and more portable. I like non dead tree variety books!)

I don’t know how many of you I have told of my new shaving preference, but most of you probably know that my neck has always broken out horribly when I shave. I had tried everything, from $30 cans of shaving cream to using only women’s razors to shaving under scalding water to using $12 5 bladed cartridge style blades and then only for 3 days before disposal (yes, they make them that expensive, just for people like me). Nothing ever helped. I always cut myself to shreds, to the point where Märia wouldn’t be around me when I shave because it was too gross and she told me not to use the “nice” towels because I got them too bloody. Seriously.

So about a year ago I went out on a limb and started “wet” shaving with an old fashioned safety razor. Here is a stock photo of the razor I got:

I read many reviews of it, and everyone said it was a good razor for beginners (at classic wet shaving, not at shaving in general I came to find) and so I decided to get it.  Really, I have been desperate for years and I thought it couldn’t be horrible.  Plus, they had a 30 day guarantee that if you didn’t like it you could return it and only be out the shipping.

So, to cut to the chase a little bit, I got the razor and blades (100 of them!) and a badger brush and a couple cans of shaving soap and a brush holder.  I think I spent something like $125 on the whole shebang.  And the razor did better than the normal cartridge razors I had used.  I only cut myself maybe 25 times per shave instead of 200 as was normal for me.  I was somewhat thrilled!  But it still wasn’t quite what I knew that most men could accomplish.  I went back onto the shaving forums and found a guy who knew the people over at Goodfella and said they were planning on putting out a less aggressive razor.  This sounded great to me so I emailed Goodfella and asked when it would be available, and they shipped it to me (head only, the handles are interchangeable) for free, only asking that I give them some feedback on it as it was still being tested and not available for purchase.  This head was only a very little better, noticeable, but not what I hoped for.

Let me go ahead and say that these razors are probably wonderful, and my face is just picky to the extreme.  I am not trying to put these guys down at all.  They were wonderful and far nicer in emails and practice (shipped me a free razor head!) than they needed to be.  But their razor, while better than anything I had ever used, just wasn’t what I was looking for.  I was looking for a razor that would shave me without cutting me.

So I went to ebay.  I bought 4 razors.  Razor 1 was a Gillette safety razor travel kit from the early 1960’s ($7 plus 3 shipping).  It came in a little 2.5″ x 3.5″ black leather zip-up case that held the blade, a 2 inch handle, a pair of finger nail clippers, and spare blades.  Razor 2 and 3 were identical, coming from the same auction.  They were “Christy Advertisers” and the seller said they were from the 30’s ($15 plus free shipping).  Blade 4 was a Durham Duplex Straight Razor with replaceable blades and a safety comb that was manufactured in 1911 ($10 plus 5 shipping).

Dang, this is a long story and I am feeling long winded and this is going to be a long post.  Sorry!  =)

So I tried out the Gillette travel razor, and while the shave was smooth, the handle was too short for good control and maneuverability.  I tried out one of the Christy’s but that was just a disaster.  The blades were too old and hadn’t held up as well as the blades from the Gillette and the Durham and it wasn’t pretty.  I was afraid of the Durham, but I had to try it, only to say that I had straight razored my face.  I only did the right side, and it wasn’t pretty.

It turns out that the handle for my Goodfella was interchangeable exactly with the little stick on the Gillette and so I just switched them and that is what I have used for the last year or so.  My shaves have been far nicer and I am definitely a convert to classic wet shaving after this last year.  Every once in a while over the past year I have tried out the Goodfella razor again, every time thinking that surely I have learned enough about wet shaving that I won’t cut myself up, but every time it ends in disappointment.  It just kills me that the razor I spent money on chills up on my shelf while the $10 blade shipped is the one I use regularly.  I really ought to sell the Goodfella if only to stop myself from going back to it over and over.

So what happened this morning that was different?  I don’t know, I was feeling brave and decided to try out that straight razor again.  It went very well, and I only cut myself very minimally, and I know it was my own fault and none of the blades.  I think I will try this one out for a few weeks and see how it treats me.

You can click the Durham pamphlet pictures to see the full size if you care to read them.  Also you can click the Goodfella picture on top to visit their website.  Really, they are good peoples running their own small business, and I am sure their razor is perfect for 95% of new wet shavers.  My face just needed something even more special than their special razor.

But they kicked me out of the lineup before I could get on the plane. They had a weight limit of 250 pounds and when the weighed me in my clothes and heavy shoes I came up as 254. “no jumpy for you. No can has jumpy.” Ugh. Meany heads.

So Seporah has generally refused to put on her own socks and shoes at home, causing much worry for Märia and I as Felicity has been putting her own on for a long time now.  There several things that Felicity does that Seporah doesn’t, or that she doesn’t do well.  Felicity is also way better at summersaults and self dressing that Seporah.  But we went to Seporah’s IEP meeting yesterday and she was putting her shoes on without any issues at all.  So when she woke me up this morning at 6:15 before the alarm went off (“Sunny day Daddy, It’s a Sunny day!”) I took the extra time to make her dress herself and put on her own shoes and figure out what she was forgetting (brushing hair and her backpack).  We will be holding her hand (not literally of course) a whole lot less I think from what we heard and saw at the IEP meeting.