Domination of Eiler: Home The Declaration of Domination What Is the Domination? Latest Fiction The Dominator . Journals: Typical VT WI WI IN IL MO WI WI IA IL MI WI WI WI ?? ON. Blogs: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 . Domination of Eiler 2007 Summer Fun Blog #10 August - July 2007 Previous: June - April 2007 March - February 2007 January 2007 - December 2006 November - September 2006 August - June 2006 May - April 2006 March 2006 - October 2005 September - June 2005 May - February 2005

In This Episode:

• 29 August - 4 September 2007: The Huron Offensive
• 31 August 2007: Do's and Don'ts of Seeking Gay Sex
• 19 August 2007: 2007 Summer Fun Update
• 18 August 2007: Get Your Muddy On
• 5 August 2007: Eiler Town
• 4 August 2007: Who's Sinking Next?
• 25 July 2007: 25th Anniversaries in East Lansing-Michigan
• 21 July 2007: Sports Nutrition Festival
• 13 - 15 July 2007: Secret Road Maneuvers
• 7 July 2007: Cow-Colored Bandana Update

19 August 2007

2007 Summer Fun Update Definitely this year is the most Summer Fun since 2006.

Summer's almost gone. The sun sets before 9 pm, the students are coming back to town, the air conditioner is optional sometimes, and some trees are even starting to change color! (Blame the drought for early foliage, since the Domination Effect moved to town.) So, it's time for a Summer Fun Update. Twenty-five years ago, the studious young Dominator was summering in Indiana and then going north to university in Michigan. Even at the time, he realized this was backwards, because sensible people go north for the summer and south for the winter. Now, the Dominator has finally spent a summer in Michigan! And it's turned out to be like the summer he should have spent there long ago. 2007 has provided great Summer Fun, better than any other year except maybe 2006. 2006 was like being out of college for the summer and having a part-time cashier job; 2007 is like being out of college for the summer and having a full-time intern job. Of course, there's full time and there's full time. Prior to 2006, the Domination of Eiler sent its engineering forces into major corporations, on disadvantageous terms (a.k.a. "We Give You A Salary"). As far as the corporations were concerned, there was full time, and then there was mandatory extra unpaid time, which one did just because one was grateful to the corporation for being allowed to work at all... Summer was much like any other season then. In 2006, the Dominator started a series of major force realignments to avoid corporate entanglement. For the first realignment, he demoted his Domination Guard engineering force from "Senior Engineer" to "Cashier". Free time resulted. In 2007, the Guard force got promoted to "Intern". Which is to say, "Contractor - Developer", but any smart intern could handle that job. There is still free time, largely spent riding bike. The Domination Guard engineering force is still almost as smart as any intern, and much more experienced. As such, it does the work of three regular employees, instead of the two whom a smart intern could have covered. As such, the Domination Guard's influence in the workplace is much like that of Saturn in our solar system. It may not be the biggest force around, but it still has a lot of draw, especially when Jupiter is busy cleaning all the inner planets of rogue planetoids and can't pay attention to Saturn's orbit. The local workplace probably didn't plan on suddenly needing a new orbit for a new Saturn. The Sun seems to be happy, but let's not get into how Jupiter is reacting. Besides, who cares outside the job. Despite its new influence, the Guard force has successfully avoided weekend entanglements - unless it's paid for each hour, much the way the interns get paid. Meanwhile, all the regular employees are being exhorted to Work Longer, Scum. And contractors are being invited to become regular employees. No, thanks. Instead on the weekends, the Dominator can go out and do fun things. For instance... This morning at church, some people were saying, "Why don't we go out and enjoy nature any more?" The Dominator promptly said, "I went out and got muddy yesterday" - and provided photographic evidence! In short, the Domination Plan for the continent of North Eilerania is proceeding well - and providing Summer Fun which grows each year. All Hail the Domination!

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18 August 2007

Get Your Muddy On The Domination of Eiler attacks the local river - for charity.

Mass mobilization against the river. River mud vs. the Domination of Eiler. Mud did not visibly win, just because the Domination Guard wore its dirt-colored pants for the occasion. Lansing-Michigan seems to have generated a spontaneous environmental organization, the Drawdown Cleanup. It's a spinoff of "Adopt a River". The point right now is: hey, the local Gov has raised the river dam and lowered the river level so as to investigate storm drains, and there's been a drought anyway (ever since the Domination Effect moved into town), so why not pick up the trash from the river bed? A spectrum of organizations from the Sierra Club to the Judson Memorial Baptist Church mobilized to support this effort. The Baptists brought the Domination of Eiler in, by preaching about God's redemptive love for the whole Earth and the local Grand River - and not using the word "stewardship" even once. The Domination Guard force moved into the area at about 11 am. Impressively early for a Saturday. It would have been even earlier, except the Legion of Substitute Heroes (!) made it onto Saturday morning cartoons at 10 am, causing a half-hour delay. Boy, it's strange for us old comic book fans to live here in the future. On site, the local Baptists eluded contact, perhaps because they're morning people and were already a mile down the river bank. There was a lot of river to clean. But the Guard force established contact with other local forces, then sat on the riverbank picking up trash. Arm's reach from any seated position was able to fill one medium-sized trashbag. And we environmentalists cared enough to put broken glass in one bag, rusty metal in another. Free pizza, sandwiches, salad and cookies for lunch, due to local restaurant sponsorship, thanks. Also much reclining and socializing on a shady slope with the other workers. As much fun as sitting at the usual sort of lunch counter - and cheaper! After lunch, helped navigate a pickup truck around the bike trails, lifting trash bags and various muddy items. As a bonus, volunteers including ourselves had been issued with orange vests so we looked like authority figures who could drive pickup trucks on bike trails! Items were then duly deposited in dumpsters. Separated into Broken Glass (plus intact Potential Museum Pieces), Rusty Metal, Modern Plastic, and Plain Old Muddy Trash by lots of especially caring volunteers including ourselves. On checkout, conquered some free swag, including T-shirt and cloth shopping bag. This almost exactly compensates for what the destitute people of Lansing swiped from bicycle one night. Justice is served. The Domination Guard force might even have made it on TV! A local news team was filming the whole affair. The Domination Guard attracted the cameras at one point, by singing a variant of its Garbage Song (as swiped from Mr. Hankey): Here's a game I like to play, Throw it in the truck and say, Hi de ho ho yum yum yum, Cleanup Day has come! Unfortunately, at the Domination's expediently-chosen dining counter, the expeditionary force lost control of the television at exactly the wrong moment. (Three TVs, two viewers, one baseball game.) So as far as the Domination of Eiler knows, maybe the effort got televised, or maybe the local reporter woman waded in the river to pose with a rusty kitchen sink for nothing. Oh well. Adopt-a-River does this stuff every two months or so, though admittedly just on the riverbank and not in the riverbed. This is to be considered as local charity of choice. Back in Illinois, the human deserving-poor were the best charity to support. In the Chicago suburbs, a lot of freelance homeless people live unobtrusively under bridges, and sometimes get forgotten. Here in Michigan, destitute humans practically govern by proxy. This leads to a lot of neglect of other things, because destitute humans can't afford much. The thing which gets forgotten under the bridges, is the river. It's not obvious to the Domination of Eiler whether humanity or nature is the greatest threat to the peaceful operation of the Domination of Eiler. It might be appropriate to give attention to humanity at some times, nature to others. Nature has gotten the attention today.

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5 August 2007

Eiler Town South Lansing-Michigan is full of well-marked neighborhoods. Here's a new one.

REO Town of South Lansing. Fabulous Acres of South Lansing. Old Everett Town of South Lansing. Eiler Town of South Lansing. What Is the Domination of Eiler? Through much of greater Lansing-Michigan, the neighborhoods proudly identify themselves with placards atop the street signs. It was thereby discovered that East Lansing-Michigan has a Historic District other than Michigan State University. But don't go out of your way to see it; it's just houses, and average houses at that. Down here in South Lansing-Michigan, there's even more neighborhood pride. As one goes south from uptown Lansing-Michigan, there are in sequence: REO Town. Near the old General Motors / Oldsmobile plant. REO = Ransom Eli Olds, who built the first Oldsmobile in 1900-something. But the plant's closed down. The neighborhood is dominated by bars (largely closed) and three very lazy smokestacks. Fabulous Acres. It's unclear why it's called that, though an ancient real estate scam is suspected. The main feature there is the local headquarters of the Quality Dairy Company. (Undesignated.) The Ingham County Medical Center dominates here. Old Everett. Everett High School dominates here. (Undesignated.) Shopping malls which include the Go Workout Southside gym, Hooters, and Meijer Thrifty Acres dominate here. The principle seems to be, when the neighborhood has less to attract people to it, it has more neighborhood pride. Well, one of the "Undesignated" neighborhoods has attracted the Domination of Eiler to it. The Domination has declared, its home neighborhood shall now have pride like all the other neighborhoods. Therefore the Domination flag was raised there last night, at the Great Hall of Eiler. The Great Hall of Eiler has a dominating location within the neighborhood, visible for blocks away. Previous tenants have actually taken advantage of this. (Without getting into details... Some parts of the World Wide Web think they still do. Updating the Web is somebody else's problem.) The Domination of Eiler shall likewise take advantage, just to show the flag. The landlord seems to be cool with this. He's overjoyed that he has a tenant who wants to help maintain the house at all. So far, he's gotten some major home improvement projects out of it, such as the painting of some unpainted parts of the house. From the tenant's viewpoint, it's like working at Habitat for Humanity, only you actually get to live in the house you work on. When the flag was raised, the neighborhood watch noticed, almost immediately. (Wow, there is a neighborhood watch! That's part of the attraction.) The flag has been explained as, "It's my personal flag, and I want to go everywhere, and that's what this flag is about." The neighbors have shown an inclination to do what they will. Which is to say, the kids hang out at the corner because it's a cool place to watch the neighborhood from, and the neighbors' friends park nearby because this side of the street is the parking zone, and the whole neighborhood walks by because it's on the way to the neighborhood pub. That's all fine. But now people will know that there is a landholder in residence at the Great Hall of Eiler. This part of Lansing is hereafter referred to as "Eiler Town". "Domination Town" was considered as a name, but it's probably a bit too scary for public consumption. And the public will be heavily involved, because the Domination of Eiler battle flag now flies where they can't miss it. The Domination of Eiler now longer lives here in secret; it lives here in dominance. And it awaits feedback via its neighborhood pub, church, et cetera, as is practically inevitable. Here in Lansing, a strange new flag on a house might even make the local news. All Hail the Domination!

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4 August 2007

Who's Sinking Next? First New Orleans, then a bridge in Minnesota. This could be a trend.

It's come to the attention of the Domination of Eiler that more things are beginning to sink into rivers. This time, it's a highway bridge in Minneapolis. People are already blaming the state governor for not investing in infrastructure. But if Minnesota is anything like Michigan (where the Dominator lives), the Gov's afraid if they charge any more for services, all the people who can afford to pay, will go live and work somewhere cheaper. Like maybe Bangalore in India. This is the sort of problem that nation-states were created to solve. But now a one-nation government isn't enough, because jobs can go overseas. Overseas jurisdictions will not be sympathetic toward maintaining a First World standard of living, unless they can have it too. It's pretty obvious, the world can't afford that, especially not for six billion people. Too bad we didn't stop at one billion or so. The Dominator's already said, the world is changing, and we have to live differently. In this instance, we probably have to not whine about paying our state and local taxes, or else stop whining when the Gov doesn't give us services. But living close to work would be a good thing to do too, so as to reduce highway traffic. This is the principle behind the Domination of Eiler's current occupation of South Lansing-Michigan. Perhaps it is not the perfect neighborhood, but people do live here and try to make their lives good here. Likewise shall the Domination of Eiler. The Dominator's cow-orkers (a.k.a. co-workers) already envy him because he lives one mile from work. Why don't we all? ... Oh, right, we've spawned and our nests are far away from work. Which is to say, we have to raise our children somewhere safe, not like South Lansing or downtown Minneapolis. Let's not make the Dominator preach about that; let's just say, for the good of all mankind, the Dominator has avoided spawning. Working from home would be good, for those occupations where people don't need to see your ugly face. Ironically, the Dominator could do this if he didn't live a mile from work already. When the Domination of Eiler comes to formal power, telecommuting will be the rule, not the exception. Thinking globally, acting locally... At least if the Domination's favorite vehicle falls in a river because another category of bridges suddenly needs urgent inspection, the Dominator can let go of the handlebars and float to the surface.

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25 July 2007

25th Anniversaries in East Lansing-Michigan In the spirit of 2007 Summer Fun, here's a micro-adventure log.

The Domination of Eiler braved some approaching rain tonight, because its troops are finally Michigan-tough. It thereby arranged for unstructured exercise: a bike trip from home base in South Lansing to a randomly selected campus hangout "The Riv", in East Lansing where the Dominator went to college 25 years ago. By random chance, the hangout was celebrating its 25th anniversary, this very night. The Dominator was probably the only guy in the place who could have drank there when it opened - had he been there for summer session, that is. Two months ago was the 25th anniversary of his turning drinking age - in East Lansing-Michigan. (The Dominator is so old now, he has a hat that's drinking age.) But ironically, he never noticed the new place back then. He was a studious young Dominator, and merely enjoyed some good beer from a six-pack of Lowenbrau Dark on occasion. It's just as well he didn't mix drinking with Honors College. It took Reagan-era defense contracting to drive him to drink. The staff tonight was dressed in black, with managers in tuxedos. The 25th anniversary crowd was young and enthusiastic and dressed like college students, though formal dress was encouraged for later. The music was Frank Sinatra. Perhaps the venue was trying to get an average effect of 1982. One of the students told a story of going to work as an intern in industry, and being surprised when he still had to observe dress code (no untucked shirts) on Jeans Day. His dream is to go back, with a honkin' big Southern-style belt-buckle on. The Dominator immediately displayed his own John Deere belt buckle which he'd worn to work at a certain major corporation that day. Some people dream; some people live the dream. In the Domination of Eiler, we even bring the dream back to where it started once - and can start again.

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21 July 2007

Fitness Nutrition Festival The exercise provider to the Domination of Eiler serves the Breakfast of Champions: pizza and beer!

Last month, the Go Workout Gym of South Lansing-Michigan partnered with Hooters to offer an exercise / chicken wing package. Today, they did better than that. It was Outdoor Block Party Day - with free pizza and beer! And structured exercise, held outdoors. Weather was about as perfect as could be expected for July within Domination-held lands... but sunstroke was a strong possibility, and doing pushups on hot tarmac just sucks. Still, the exercise was inspirational, and included: Weightlifting ("Group Power" tm). Hip-Hop dance, whose instructor went to great effort to get a trooper from the Domination Guard to show up, because otherwise the class would have zero men. Bicycling class... from which the Domination Guard force went AWOL, after doing a stud lap of the premises on the Domination NARF-Cycle. In the Domination of Eiler, when we ride our bikes outdoors, we expect a 15 mile per hour breeze to result. The festival is still going on... but the Domination Guard has found a nice cool pub to provide most of the day's nutrition and alcohol ration. Submit to the Domination, for it dares all things, even sunstroke - within limits.

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7 July 2007

Cow-Colored Bandana Update Another episode is added to the tale of the Domination of Eiler's cow-colored bandanas.

Conquered in Key West-Florida, 1995. Blown out to sea from the Statue of Liberty in NYC-New York, 1997. Conquered in Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco-California, 2001. (Update) Swiped from the NARF-Cycle in South Lansing-Michigan in 2007, along with a bag of sweaty gym clothes, incidentally mostly of Vermont origin. What, someone thought there might be a wallet in there? Aww, too bad for them. In truth, this is a minor offense. More damage is done to the bike with each flat tire - four times in five months in Lansing. Road maintenance is not the best here. And even then, it's cheaper than driving. Still, it's the principle of the thing. Staff at the restaurant where the bicycle was parked, responded to this theft by saying, never leave your stuff in a vehicle at a restaurant which lies between two liquor stores. Domination of Eiler force policy is now instead, never park your vehicle there. Goodbye forever, Auggie's Pub. Conquered in Devils-Lake park of Baraboo-Wisconsin, 2006. (Update) This is now the primary cow-colored bandana of the Domination of Eiler. But there's a backup... (Update) Conquered in Sparrow's Nest Thrift Store of Palatine-Illinois, 2007, shortly before the Domination of Eiler left town to go dominate South Lansing-Michigan. This bandana sits in reserve, so as to not slowly lose its black color and turn gray like all its predecessors have, especially the one that thieves took the favor of taking.

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