SPECIAL REPORT: We're moving

Our work is done here. We've found a better place to store this dreck.

Come on over to anytownusa.wordpress.com for the continuation.

Why? Well, I like it better. I hope you will too.

Thanks to all the good folks at Blogger (from the pre-Google days, even) for basically creating this phenomenon.

See you at the new place. Update your bookmarks. Housewarming party soon.

Speaking of redesigns ...

My favorite news site, MSNBC, launched its redesign this morning. It looks like nothing so much as a ... well, it looks like a newspaper.

That said, at very first glance, I think I like it. Very functional, uncluttered, and accessible. I'm a fan, so far.

When all else fails ...

... change the template.

One of these days, I'll remember how I once had this thing "designed."

(It's true. I did. Really.)

Seeking inspiration. Results to come.

Nail, meet hammer

Those of you who have been listening know that I said this five years ago. Not the "newspapers should embrace online" part, necessarily, but the "institutional arrogance will be our demise" part.

Leave all your money here, please. All of it

LAS VEGAS -- What's the first thing you see when you emerge from that jetway into McCarran International Airport?

Slot machines. Of course.

Now I don't mean like, "Well, it wasn't exactly the first thing I saw -- that was the gate agent's butt -- but it was the first thing I actually noticed." The First Thing I Saw was the slot machines.

And not just one or two, like you see with those video poker machines in convenience stores in Louisiana. Hundreds of slot machines, right there at the gate. Come on, man. Leave some of your money here. What comes to Vegas stays in Vegas, if it came here in your wallet.

(And, I'm guessing, that voice might be exactly why Otis stopped carrying a wallet.)

Anyway ...

I walked. After all, it's just an airport, just like the 60 or so other airports I've trudged through in the last four years, right?

So I trudged. Down in baggage claim, billboards. Huge billboards. Come on, man. Come see our show. Penn & Teller, man; who can resist Penn & Teller? Tickets start at $74.95. Toni Braxton, Rita Rudner, Celine freakin' Dion ... and aren't Celine Dion and Toni Braxton a little young to already be sentenced to Vegas? I thought that's where obsolete performers went to die. I'm certainly not arguing Toni Braxton's obsolescence, but I thought there was an age minimum.

I'm here for business. Have a meeting tomorrow, home Friday morning. I'm not here for fun; I'm not here to drop a huge wad of cash in hopes of becoming really rich. I'm not here to drink myself to death.

I'm staying in a hotel way, way off the Strip. However, as it turns out, if I wanted to have fun, lose a lot of money and look for somebody to be Elisabeth Shue to my Nicolas Cage, I could do so. Right here.

I purposely did very little pre-trip research before this, my first trip to Vegas. So imagine my surprise to discover that my hotel has a casino right here. And a liquor store, right here. Dammit, that voice again: Come on, man; get the fuck off that computer and come downstairs. It's only 11:33 p.m. here, and really, what is time, anyway? Give us some of your money.

Well, my body and my computer think it's 2:34 a.m. I have to be in front of customers tomorrow. I have to be coherent. I have to go to bed.

Tonight, anyway.

We're all gonna be 40 soon -- but you're first

Insomnia sucks, but it gives me an opportunity to make note (once again) of the Young Daughter's seventh birthday. (At one point in the evening, when she felt like someone else in the house was getting a little too much attention, she said to no one in particular, "Don't you have something to say to me?" Yeah, kid, nobody has said "happy birthday" to you in the last five minutes. Sorry about that.)

The crushing inability to sleep also, however, gives me a chance to say happy birthday to my friend TLC -- who is the first of my high school classmates (at least, the first of the ones who matter) to turn 40.

(The dateline above suggests I'm a day late. Screw that. As I write this, it's still Oct. 23 in her time zone.)

She was the first to get a driver's license; she was the first to turn 21; and now, she's the first to peek behind the door of the Fifth Decade. Which makes her Older than Us. But not much.

Ain't nothin' but a number, y'all. Happy birthday, TLC.

Why beer is bad

For elephants, at least.

It's been a long time

October 2001 was a long, long time ago. Since then:

* I've moved from one major metropolitan area to another, then another yet.

* I've executed a career slingshot -- took a small step backward that led indirectly to a huge step forward.

* I've watched three Mini-Humans grow from tiny little semi-functioning beings into full-fledged children. Back then, the oldest of them was 7. In two days, the youngest of them will be 7. The oldest is now a teenager.

A lot of things have changed since I banged in that first post at my desk at the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper, the one with the cubicle where the window looked out on the concrete jungle of the nation's eighth-largest city.

I type this post looking out into my backyard, with the towering playset and the big pool. The girl who "celebrated" her first birthday in rather dubious fashion during that first month of this forum -- by learning that she has a neurological disease -- is now 7, outwardly perfectly healthy, and interrupting my typing every few words with some other question.

In the last six years, my two remaining grandparents have died. My father was diagnosed and has largely beaten colon cancer. The last remaining member of my mother's immediate family passed on. My sister had a baby and got married, in that order, after years of quiet desperation.

The original inspiration for this forum left his cubicle for things I suspect even he can't yet fully comprehend; a chance to become fully immersed in something he dearly loves. I've sensed a bit of "Be Careful What You Wish For" in some of his writing. I've had that thought more than a few times myself over the last 2,191 days.

Sitting here this morning, I've come to realize this: "Careful" people don't ever find what they want. They're too busy being careful. A "careful" quarterback racks up a 70-percent completion rating but never makes a big play. A "careful" politician can hold on to his seat for 35 years without ever having an accomplishment with his name next to it. A "careful" mom raises perfectly average kids.

Screw being careful. Throw that long pass, quit that job, say something that people aren't going to agree with, and write it all down so you can refer back to it later or perhaps help somebody else through a similar situation. That's what I've learned since 2001. And I've learned it largely through expressing myself in this forum, and through following others through similar forums along the way.

It's important to learn. It's important to share. Thanks to all of y'all for sharing with me.

--

I noted in yesterday's post that there is nothing else in my life that is six years old or more, other than my wife and children. There is some truth to that. I have one prized possession that predates 2001: A black-and-white Telecaster, purchased with my first paycheck as a full-time sports writer in 1988.

I'm a big fan of committing to things that matter. I made a commitment to a young woman in the fall of 1990. Now I'm growing old with her. (Odd how she isn't growing old; it's just me. How the hell does that happen?) It has been everything for which I could have possibly hoped: To spend my life with a beautiful woman with charm, energy, intelligence, and wit.

The story of Us makes little sense to those who were not a part of it (i.e., everybody but her and me.) I've tried to recount it here in the past, but the story transcends the words available to me to tell it.

Over the course of the six years of writing stuff down here, we've moved from Years 11 to 17, which I guess aren't exactly milestone years. But know this: Every day is a milestone, and for me, every day is another day in which I'm getting better than I deserve.

That's what wakes me up every day. That's what makes me want to write it down. Can't wait to see what happens next.

A major victory for the First Amendment

In Arizona. And a reminder: If we don't protect the First Amendment, none of the others matter. The fuel that powers a democracy is the free press.

Greenville to Baton Rouge ...

... 30 years ago today, the real Day the Music Died. Obligatory story from the hometown paper.

Clearing the cobwebs

See, the problem is, that when I have good subject matter with which to work and still find a way to make it boring, that’s when I start to think I don’t know how to do this anymore. Some people – real professionals – would say "you have to write through it," the same way a major-league hitter would try to get out of a slump. And that might work. But instead, I just crawl into a shell, try to grab on to something else that’s out there, and try to find my inspiration that way. And oddly, it never works.

I’ve had some great subject matter with which to work over the last several weeks.

I had an anniversary celebration that was straight out of the dream. It is still a bit overwhelming to think about, to try to wrap my mind about how I am blessed so far beyond what I deserve. She knows that too. I am. That’s a good thing.

--

See, the problem is, I have this long, long, long list of things I should do. I should eat better. I should exercise more. I should write more. I should focus on one task at a time at work, rather than let myself be distracted by all the stuff going on around me. I should do more stuff around the house. I should do a lot of things. I don’t do very many of them. I find this frustrating. Sometimes it’s just as hard to be me as it is to deal with me. I hate that.

--

There are things, however, I really like. Randomly:

-- Single-malt Scotch. A group of like-minded co-workers holds a monthly Scotch-and-cigar fest. One of those guys, G, is way more into it than, well, most people. He’s been choosing the distilling region and doing hours of research on the best whiskies from that region. He provides a long list of recommendations, and he and the rest of us buy a different bottle from that list to sample. We’ve been through the Islay, Speyside and Highland malts. The favorite so far, to my palate: the Speysides, authoritative drinks which pack a gentle wallop.

-- My dry cleaner. They lost a shirt of mine a few weeks ago – a shirt I had never worn. I am probably the only person who has had that happen to him twice in his life. (Yes, 15 years ago, another dry cleaner did the very same thing – lost a shirt I had never worn.) This one had a happier ending, though; two days later, they found the shirt. But that’s not why I like these people. I like these people because Martina behind the counter calls me by my name, knows my starch preferences, and has my clothes hanging for me before I even come in the door because she knows my car. That, friends, is good customer service, and there are few things I like better.

-- My son’s swimming coach. She’s incredibly good with a bunch of hard-to-control 8-year-olds. She’s in her early 20s, and is studying to be an elementary school teacher. She’s going to be a really good one.

-- New toys. One of the joys of my job is getting fresh technology and not having to pay for it. My latest new toy: a T-Mobile Dash. Nice to have a QWERTY keyboard again. I’d much rather use Windows Mobile than a Blackberry or Treo, and this device adds the bonus of being a really nice, clear phone. The great thing: About the time I get bored with it, some new device will show up on my desk. That rocks.

--

Today’s main event: The Young Daughter turns 7 on Tuesday. Her party is today. The Wife found a local firm that is putting together a princess party from start to finish. All we have to bring is the juice boxes. This should be fun.

--

If the Young Daughter is turning 7, that means this forum is turning 6. The only other thing that I’ve stuck with for six years or more is my marriage. In my adult life, I’ve never driven a car, lived in one place or held a job title for six years. Like so many other things in my life, I don’t treat this forum as well as I should. But I’m glad it has stuck with me for all this time; and I’m glad you have stuck with me. I’ll put this on the list of things that I should do better, and I’ll start attacking that list.

Extreme Business Travel

SEATAC, Wash. -- I mentioned earlier that this is my last extended trip for a while. I'm definitely making the most of it.

My day started with work at 7:30 a.m. Pacific time. I left the paper in north-central Washington at 4:30 p.m. for the four-hour drive to Seattle.

That four-hour drive took me along U.S. Highway 2, one of the most stunningly beautiful roads I have ever seen. Ever. And that includes the Pacific Coast Highway. The western slopes of the Cascades on one side and the Wenatchee River flowing on the other, gentle curves and slopes leading me to Seattle. Just fantastic.

Now, for the "extreme" part: I'm waiting for a flight that leaves at 11:45 p.m. PDT. This flight will land in Houston just shy of 6 a.m. Central time. I'll wait there for a couple of hours before boarding a puddle-jumper to my little South Texas destination, which will land about 9 a.m.

The plan goes something like this: Early check-in at hotel, quick shower, shake off the cobwebs and be in front of the customer at 11. On site until 7, grab some dinner (maybe) and a few hours of sleep, and be homebound at 5:20 a.m. CDT Thursday.

The trip to Texas was planned. The trip to north-central Washington wasn't. The Texas trip, however, couldn't be moved. The trip to north-central Washington couldn't be avoided. So here I am. My hotel room tonight is seat 8D of a Boeing 737-800. I'm guessing there'll be no chocolate on the pillow.

Cleared for landing

WENTACHEE, Wash. -- I'm surrounded by some serious natural beauty right now. I'd take a picture, but alas, I forgot to pack a camera.

I'm at the confluence of the Columbia and Wenatchee rivers in North Central Washington State. The Cascade Mountains are off in the distance. It was a 3-hour drive from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to here, along the prettiest Interstate highway that I've ever seen. I'm told the alternate route, along U.S. 2, is even better.

I'll be here until Tuesday, when I will change direction and head down to Corpus Christi, Texas, on my way home to the Western Edge.

The reason this trip is significant is pretty simple: It's the last major trip I'm going to be making for a while. The project in Iowa is winding down. That project is officially the last project to which I'm committed. I will move into my real job full-time: Managing a nine-person team which will do my old job, all around the world.

I'll still be hitting the road occasionally -- I have a couple of one- and two-day trips scheduled for next month -- but the week-long-or-longer trips should be coming to an end. I have two more commitments to the Iowa project, one in October and one in December, but I won't be spinning the numbers on the Marriott points nearly as fast as I have been over the last three years.

I've seen a lot of really wonderful things. Now seems to be as good a time as any for a review, top 3 style:

My favorite places, overall:

Montreal: The best of Europe and North America, all in one place.

Sydney: Getting there isn't half the fun, but it's worth every hour aloft.

Bermuda: Speaks for itself.

My favorite places, domestic (after discovering none of the U.S. stops made the cut):

Bremerton, Wash.: The west shore of Puget Sound provides many options for relaxation. Great people, too.

San Diego: Quite possibly the United States' most perfect city. Ocean on the left, mountains on the right, an international border right there, Los Angeles 100 miles to the north. Oh, and it's 72 degrees every day.

Washington, D.C.: The best place in the world to eat when you're spending someone else's money. Great food and drink from every corner of the world.

Favorite airlines:

Continental: Always clean planes, always good service, and when they're not on time, they tell you why.

Delta: Seriously. Never had a serious problem with them, and I don't find the Atlanta airport to be the hellhole everyone else does.

US Airways: Their lack of competence for handling luggage is offset by the hoops they were willing to jump through to get us to Bermuda. Plus, the Charlotte hub is easy to get around.

Least favorite airlines:

Air Canada: Crowded plane, bad service, connection in Toronto.

Southwest: I love everything about Southwest Airlines, except actually using its product.

United: Doesn't extend Star Alliance benefits to non-United Star Alliance customers. Screw them.

Favorite airports:

Montreal: For all it's trying to do -- Customs, security, getting planes out on time even in awful weather -- it does it very well, in two languages.

Bermuda: Can't forget the island music guy playing in the Customs lobby.

Houston Intercontintental: Good food makes up for long walks between concourses.

Least favorite airports:

Philadelphia: Always steaming hot, lost luggage x 3, rude employees.

Washington Dulles: Grim, dank, dirty.

St. Louis: Dark, rude security, long, long bus ride to rental cars.
(I've never had serious problems at Atlanta, DFW, or O'Hare, which I guess makes me really, really lucky.)

Favorite rental cars:

Ford Mustang: Even the V6 has a wonderful low rumble.

Hyundai Azera: Still the car I probably should have bought.

Pontiac Grand Prix GXP: Supercharged fun, all the bells and whistles; not sure why anybody would choose a BMW 5-series over this.

Least favorite rental cars:

Tie, Chrysler PT Cruiser and Chevrolet HHR: Those cute little retro exteriors hide the two most unintuitive, uncomfortable interiors among any car I've ever driven (including my 1978 Mazda GLC.)Oh, and both are slower than crap, too.

Toyota Camry: A great car for people who don't like to drive.

Pontiac Sunfire: The wrong choice for trying to get around D.C., not that there's a right choice, other than taxi or Metro.

Top 3 things I have learned:

Pack light. Look to reduce weight everywhere. Every ounce counts.

Know who goes where. My knowledge of relationships between airlines and airports has gotten me home when other people took an involuntary overnight. Know when and how to use the airlines' web sites, and if you can't match an airline to its hubs, you're not a Business Traveler.

Being in a hurry really sucks. Do everything you can to avoid it. Being bored once you get past security beats missing your flight, every time.

It's been a helluva ride, it really, really has. I'm now looking forward to getting off. There's an aisle seat available for the next person.

Peeking into the brain

We haven't had to talk much about the Young Daughter's medical condition lately, because, well, there hasn't been a whole lot to talk about. It's been a pretty quiet period.

We've seen little signs of this and that over the past few weeks, oddly timed with a previously scheduled sleep-deprived EEG that she'll endure today. The whole thing struck her as pretty cool, last night; she got to stay up until 12:30 a.m. doing basically whatever she wanted (and what she wanted was to click around on Webkinz until we finally said it was time for bed. The little detail we left out was that the alarm clock was gonna ring at 5:30.

Trepidation always accompanies these not-so-routine routine physician visits. My biggest fear is that they find nothing. I'm strongly of the belief that it's better to know what's going on, whatever it is.

But, no time to think about all that right now. My duty: Keep the kid awake in the car for an hour-or-so ride through traffic. That should be fun.

Perhaps Delta should try this

Next time the pilot comes on and says, "Hello again from the cockpit; uhhhhh, we seem to, ummm, have a bit of a, um, mechanical problem and, ummmm, Maintenance tells us they're waiting for a part and, uh, it'll probably be about an, ummmmmm, hour or so," tell them to try this. It seems to work in Nepal.

This week's desktop background

From Bermuda, back in June. If you listen close, you can hear the waves.

Ears of gold

Read here about Rick Rubin, the producer who's basically responsible for saving what's left of the music industry. He has this radical idea that the music industry might be in better shape if it was turning out, you know, better music. The main thing I took note of: He likes The Gossip. I liked The Gossip two years ago. Rubin, of course, is also responsible for turning two of the greatest challenges in modern music history into successes, those being the Dixie Chicks' post-Natalie Outburst album and the last years of Johnny Cash. Evidence that a good ear far outweighs "technical skill."

Worth reading

An exploration of the press's responsibility in the face of hypocrisy, by Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute.


Good discussion going on in the comments, too. Worth checking out.

Rushing to judgment

Some things are just right, or wrong. Some things, it's not quite so clear-cut.

Take, for instance, criminals. You've heard of them. They're bad people. They do bad things and they go to jail. They break the laws of our land, and they get their just punishments, and they deserve our contempt.

But: Let's say you know the person behind the rap sheet. Does that make things any different?

Let's first walk through a completely hypothetical situation.

Nasty car accident. Other person dies. Sad all the way around, isn't it? We're not talking about an out-of-the-ordinary car accident; just your basic collision, but at just the exact miles-per-hour or angle that caused one of the drivers to die. We feel terribly sorry for the surviving driver; imagine bearing that guilt? In some ways, he or she is a victim too.

OK. Now let's look at the surviving driver's driving record:

4/85: Failure to yield, non-injury accident
4/87: Speeding
4/87: Speeding
6/87: Speeding
10/88: Failure to yield, non-injury accident
6/90: Speeding
10/93: Speeding
9/96: Failure to yield, no accident
6/97: Speeding
4/00: Speeding
10/01: Lane usage violation
11/05: Failure to change lanes when officer is on side of road
6/06: Speeding, construction zone.

Suddenly, that's no accident. That's vehicular homicide. This driver was clearly a menace and probably should never have been on the road. Sumbitch should be locked up and never allowed behind the wheel again. Perspective changes a bit, yes?

Well, now, let's change the perspective again: That's my driving record.

Those who know me know that I'm not a dangerous driver, other than that I've had a lifelong tendency to view speed limits as guidelines. But those who don't know me would not give me the benefit of that doubt. They'd want me locked up.

You, who know me, would argue vigorously against locking me up. After all, it was an accident, and excessive speed wasn't even involved. But somebody reading about my hypothetical wreck in the paper -- or in a manila folder on a bench wearing a funny robe -- would hypothetically recommend I spend some time in a hypothetical prison.

Now let's walk through a real situation.

In a really cryptic post below, I refer to a "good person who's done a bad thing." The good person is a former co-worker of mine. He was the person assigned to make me feel at home when we first moved to the Edge of America 11 years ago. He did the same job as I did at the paper, and did it pretty well. He was extremely helpful, and became a good friend. He was funny and talented and fun-loving, and kept the entire department laughing even during times of the highest stress.

I haven't talked to him in years; we each moved on in our careers, in different directions.

He stands today accused of a pretty heinous felony. Nobody got hurt, and there was no real possibility that anyone would have been hurt, but it was likely very scary for the victims just the same.

I knew he treated himself occasionally to substances that were a bit stronger than Bud Light. Word is he's been treating himself lately to substances stronger yet, substances that have ruined his career and are likely responsible for the position he's in today.

I want him to get help. I know he needs to be punished. I know the general public thinks he's just another criminal. I think that sucks. But I can understand why.

If you've known somebody or had a family member who found himself on the wrong side of a correctional facility, you understand the conflict in emotions it causes. It throws off the whole right-and-wrong, don't-do-the-crime-if-you-can't-do-the-time simplicity of it all. I have some pretty solid ideas on right and wrong; I still stand by my contention, for instance, that anybody who does hard drugs deserves whatever he or she gets, whether it be rehab, prison or untimely death.

And maybe it all really is that simple. But I'm not convinced of that.

This week's desktop background

During our trip to Colorado, we rented Jeeps from this fellow in a hotel parking lot in Frisco. His business model is pretty simple: "Here's the keys, here's a map, trust your Jeep, have fun."

The words "Trust your Jeep" rang in my head frequently as I drove my wife and two younger children over small boulders, through creeks, up and down hills on this path that bore some resemblance to a road. We were in low-range 4-wheel drive for nearly 40 miles on the odometer. It was the most fun I've ever had covering 40 miles in 7 hours.

Here's one of the hundreds of fantastic views from that trip. This was at about 13,500 feet, somewhere between Keystone and Breckenridge. To the right you'll see the road we were on; that was the smoothest, safest part of it:



Happy Friday. I'm headed for the mountains, if only in my mind.

First-day jitters

It's nice to see that, nearly 18 years after I was actually last in a classroom, I still have insomnia on the Sunday before the first day of school.

I'm not going to school tomorrow, except to make sure my first-grade daughter and third-grade son get there safely. The eighth-grade daughter has a bus; she's on her own, mostly.

Outfits are selected and have been modeled. Lunches have been planned. Forms have been filled out. Summer 2007 is officially over here on the Western Edge. It's been a good one; I think I'm gonna miss it.

Life's ugly turns

I'm sad today. A bad side of a good man I knew was exposed to the world in an ugly way earlier this week. I'm going to keep the details to a minimum, for now, and hope that this person I know gets the help he needs.

Road warrior loses battle

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- I'm sure, after a good week of getting the system ready to unveil for the users after months of work and setup, I'll feel better about things. After a week of clicking here and having good stuff happen up there on the screen, I'll stop bitching.

But until then, if I ever get on an airplane again, it will be too soon.

Wh- wh- wha - ... ?

ERLANGER, Ky. -- I'm not supposed to be waking up in Greater Cincinnati this morning. Yet, somehow, I am. Thanks, Delta.

Whew

Good news: Doctors say they got it all, and no bad drugs or nuclear options are necessary. All indications are a full recovery lies ahead.

It doesn't get any better than that. A big thank you is due to the medical professionals who made it happen, and to St. Stepmom, who once again is the rock on which my dad and all her family lean.

Update No. 1: Week 2

RALEIGH, N.C. -- I just spent probably two full minutes trying to put a title up there. That's a good sign that you should just hit the tab key and start writing. So I will.

It's been two weeks of bullshit and bliss, two weeks of heart-warming and heart-pounding. Two weeks of wonder and two weeks of fear.

Each week was highly emotionally charged, for completely different reasons. At some point soon, I'll write about each.

I'm going to write about them in reverse, and separately.

The thing which I kind of glossed over earlier for Week 2 was this:

My father was diagnosed with colon cancer. He had surgery Aug. 2.

Right now, all is as well as it can be. The upsides are that he's relatively young (57) and it was found relatively earlier. The downside is that he's profoundly disabled as a result of a 1987 car accident, and that adds a serious level of complication to, well, everything. Oddly, even that has an upside; because of his disability, they were able to remove more of the parts that might be cancerous because they didn't have to worry about his future mobility; to put it simply, they could safely remove more of him and leave more of him disassembled 'cause he wasn't using it anyway. Or something like that.

We await results of testing to determine whether the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes. Those results were supposed to be available Monday. We're still waiting.

The rest of the family is waiting back in Anytown; The Wife and our kids wait in Florida, and I wait in North Carolina this week and Iowa next week.

The Wife, the Mini-Humans and I arrived home from Colorado in the single-digit hours of July 31. In the single-digit hours of Aug. 1, we had deposited the kids with a friend and were on another plane to Missouri. I've driven nearly 2,000 miles in the last 20 days, none of which were in my car.

I don't know how everything is going to turn out, but I have no reason to believe it'll be anything other than OK. We're survivors; my dad and his brothers have cheated death in some highly creative and stunning ways, and my dad's parents lived way longer than any actuarial tables would have expected them to. So we wait, and try to keep the worry to a minimum as things move on.

But I can tell you this: I've never wanted to go home more than I do right at this very second. Never.

I'll go back and write that head now, and do Week 1 later. Something tells me I should be sleeping now.

Altitude adjustment

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. -- We're now on Day 4 of our mountain adventure. The Mini-Humans have seen a lot of very cool things for the first time.

We spent the weekend at the home of The Wife's grandmother in Colorado Springs. We spent a fair bit of time driving west on U.S. 24 from there. We saw Cave of the Winds, the Indian Cliff Dwellings, and Manitou Springs, a very well-kept little mountain town with a serious dose of weird. Had some great Mexican food at a place across the street from the hemp shop.

We drove up the mountain Monday to the cabin in which we are staying with 13 of The Wife's relatives. This is an emotionally volatile group, for reasons both valid and otherwise. The occasion is Grandma M's 80th birthday (which is actually in October, but you don't want to be in a cabin in the mountains in October, I'm told.) It's a highly charged atmosphere, and some sparks are flying already.

But when you look past those, you see a group that is deeply devoted to each other underneath some of the stinging insults and thinly veiled judgmentalness (is that a word? It is now). It's an interesting case study into the role of the matriarch, a role which might be dying out with our generation.

Grandma M is probably the biggest influence in my wife's life, and there could be no better role model. She's a woman who carries herself with class and dignity while at the same time also being a helluva lot of fun. She cares about nothing more than the happiness of her family, and in an age where it seems there's suddenly a whole lot of things about which to care, she still keeps her priorities focused. She's a beautiful woman, and it's a beautiful thing to be able to watch her be her first-hand.

It's just before 9 a.m. Tuesday up here in the mountains right now. We're getting ready to gather for a family photograph and then will scatter off to various mountain-y places. I'm going to go take a few (really deep) breaths and continue the acclimation process.

All I never wanted

Getting ready to head out on a non-vacation vacation on Saturday.

Week 1: Colorado, shuold be a semi-delightful trip to place I haven't seen in 20 years and my kids haven't seen at all. Can't wait to see their reaction.

Week 2: Well, more to tell when there's more to tell.

I can say I very much will welcome the break from work.

Eensy weensy tenny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini

Hey, Walden: Need some commentary on this story. My two cents: She's an idiot.

Norteño, sureño

SAN DIEGO -- I slipped away today.

For about 30 minutes, I was completely out of reach of United States authorities. Nobody knew where I was. I had stealthily slipped across the border, and nobody recorded my movements. One minute, I was in the United States; the next, I wasn't.

OK, it wasn't so stealthy. I just walked through a turnstile, and then another, and then I was in Mexico. Apparently, that's all it takes to cross the border in that direction.



I'm a guy who's been held up by zealous Customs agents who thought it was their duty to prevent me from going into Canada. I'm used to having my passport stamped, my picture taken, my iris scanned, everything short of a full body-cavity search.

To get to Mexico, however, all you have to do is pay the guy at the border parking lot $7 to keep an eye on your crappy rental car and walk for about five minutes. One turnstile, two turnstiles, and there you are, in Tijuana.

Frankly, the place kind of freaked me out a bit. I called The Wife as soon as I was across the border. "Don't drink the water, don't drink anything with ice in it, and don't eat anything," she said. "And watch out; the little girls selling beads are actually pickpockets." Just then, a little girl came up to me offering to sell me beads. I politely told her "No," put my hand on my wallet (which I had placed in my front pocket after buying some pesos) and walked on a bit.

In every direction, I saw ... well, I didn't see taco stands; I didn't see souvenir shops; I didn't see restaurants and bars. I saw ... pharmacies. Lots and lots of pharmacies.



This is what Tijuana offers tourists. Not a taste of Mexico, but relief from the fucked-up United States health care system. An opportunity to beat Big Pharma at its own game.

Past the first wave of pharmacies, there was one restaurant, which sported big Corona banners and looked very much like a Mexican restaurant you'd find in St. Petersburg, Fla., or Rockford, Ill. I decided not to walk past the aggressive shopkeepers down to Avenida de la Revolucion. I turned around and headed for the northbound border crossing.

I walked past a long line of folks who I presumed were waiting to cross the border. I kept walking, though, following the gringo family that seemed to know where it was going. After about 150 people, I determined the line was for the U.S. immigration office. This is where people who were not carrying U.S. passports had to wait. I walked past all those people and went on through Customs, where I was subject to the wary eyes of the agents, a scan of my passport, and a muttered admonition to "have a good day."

We're trying so hard to keep those people out. They're trying so hard to get here. Why? It's not because we have more pharmacies. It's because they believe in the promise of a better life in the U.S. And many of them are willing to work their asses off for it.

Take a look the next time you drive past a strawberry patch or a construction site. Listen to the Spanish flowing from the tongues of the workers. Say "hola" to the woman who's cleaning your toilet at the next hotel you stay in. Then, take a look at the guy with the sign standing in the median. Bet he doesn't speak Spanish. Now tell me who has the sense of entitlement.

These people come over, and we give them jobs. We give them jobs because it helps us balance our books better. We give them jobs because, in the words of The (Holy Crap, This Dumbass is the) Leader of the Free World, "they'll do jobs that Americans won't do." You want to prosecute somebody? Don't prosecute the illegal workers; prosecute the companies who hire them illegaly. Yeah, that's gonna happen.

All I needed to go south was to spin two turnstiles. All they need to go north is to stand in line for hours, days, weeks, years, and beg for permission.

As I emerged from the border crossing, safely back on American soil, with my steps having been scanned and noted by the Department of Homeland Security, I crossed the pedestrian bridge over Interstate 5 in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego. The first thing you see at the foot of that bridge? An outlet mall. God bless America.

Don't talk to me, and nobody gets hurt

SAN DIEGO -- I was an asshole this morning. In my defense, it was completely justified.

I have a very well-defined System that takes me from one place to the other with maximum efficiency. It's very important, for a guy like me who goes from one place to the other with great frequency, to have an efficient System. That's how I get from one place to the other without losing things like my passport or my credit cards or my right ear.

Part of the system involves how I carry my bags. I have a basic roll-aboard suitcase, and a backpack that plays the part of "small personal item," despite the fact that it basically has the contents of an Office Depot inside. The backpack is strapped to the suitcase. On cross-country flights, such as the one I was on Monday morning, I strap one of those neck pillows to the suitcase-backpack rig.

So I'm getting ready to board the shuttle that takes me from landside to airside at the Home Airport when a salesman-looking guy spies the rig. You know the Salesman Guy: Tall, in good shape, mid-40s, polo shirt, black Dockers. Being a Salesman Guy, he has a pathological need to make small talk. "So, you got your pillow; you're all ready."

Now, he doesn't know that I'm pathologically opposed to small talk; he doesn't know that before 7 a.m., I can be violently opposed to small talk. I gave it my best, "ha-ha, yeah, I got a long flight."

He doesn't get the message. "So, you got a blanky packed away in there, too?"

I gave him a look of utter contempt, and just barely by the skin of my tongue stopped myself from saying, "Man, shut the fuck up." I proceeded to untie my shoes; this is part of the System, also. I have a hard time finding shoes I like, given that I wear a size 6 1/2, and all the shoes I own have laces.

"Ah, yes, you'll learn someday," he said. "Slip-ons for travel. You don't do this very often." He continued to leer.

By now, I'm openly fuming. He's attacking my Travel Skill. "I travel a lot," I said, through a fake smile, "and I like these shoes." I then gave him the Shut-the-Fuck-Up look again. This time, he did.

I needed THAT start to my day at 7 a.m. when I was faced with sitting in a middle seat from the Western Edge to Phoenix. Fucker.

Later, after some soothing music, I realized the guy is just one of those people who have perpetual diarrhea of the mouth. Well-meaning, but possessed with a belief that people want to hear what they have to say. Poor guy couldn't have been more wrong at that particular moment, but hey, everybody has his weakness.

I tried to get some of the good travel karma back. I managed to get an aisle seat for the second leg of my trip, but gave it up so a woman's 6-year-old daughter could sit next to her. I was also excrcuiatingly nice to the person sitting to my left in the new seat; her headphone thingy wasn't working, so I let her string the headphone wire across me to my seat so she could watch the movie. Having already had my Asshole card punched for the trip, it was the very least I could do.

Bombs away

Never one to miss a chance to participate in an apparent Google-bombing attempt, I must make reference to a Hairy gymnast. Don't ask. I don't know, and I'm probably better off not knowing.

Somebody else's bad day in the air

I've been in New York's Kennedy Airport once. It was awful. Apparently not as bad for me, though, as for these people. Particularly liked the part about how the guy's wife called Delta to ask about the status of her husband's delayed flight, and Delta said "it took off hours ago," and the wife said, "well, no it didn't, I just talked to my husband," and Delta said, "well, fuck you." Or something like that.

So we've been pretty hard on American Airlines in this forum. Now it's Delta's turn. Who's next?

13

I'm the parent of a teenager, as of today.

The Old Daughter is 13. I'm not sure we're ready for that. I know we don't get a choice.

She is 100 percent as perfect as one can expect a 13-year-old girl to be. Which is to say that she's often a pain in the ass, but not so often that it's the first thing you say about her. She's smart, which is to say that in some moments, she's not as smart as she thinks she is, and at others, she knows way more than she gives herself credit for. She's beautiful, which is to say she's beautiful.

I'm the parent of a teenager. I need a few minutes to digest that.

Buying their memories

As a frequent air traveler, I have a lot of time to read. And, of course, I buy most of my books at airport bookstores. Looking through the selections wadded up in my backpack, it appears my taste has gone toward contemporary memoir.

I just finished "Bright Lights, Big Ass," by Jen Lancaster. Over the last year, I've also read all of the offerings from Laurie Notaro, Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris, who apparently doesn't have a web site.

Quick reviews:

Lancaster is mostly very funny, but the footnote thing got old after a while.

Notaro is constantly flat-out hilarious. Her life would be a good stand-up act.

Augusten Burroughs: David Sedaris for the rest of us.

Sedaris needs to stop whining, and we need to stop enabling him.

What do these four essayists have in common? They all write about their basically mundane, everyday lives, and a large audience seems to enjoy reading about them. Also: None of them are heterosexual men.

Which leads me to believe: There must be no way to make the life of a heterosexual man interesting to a mass audience. (I suppose, if there was, I'd be writing more about it.)

I'm not sure why I enjoy reading other people's navel-gazing. I know I'm partial to funny women, which explains Lancaster and Notaro. Sedaris is wildly popular among people who are much smarter than me, and I picked up "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" based on the recommendations of said smart people. I guess my disdain for him must indicate that I'm not all that smart. Burroughs? Meh. He's a slightly less insufferable version of Sedaris.

That said, I keep buying the books. I'm headed out now to get Lancaster's first book, "Bitter is the New Black," and the new Notaro tome (which is actually a memoir disguised as a novel), "There's a (Slight)Chance I Might Be Going to Hell." There's a (slight) chance I might be a sucker.

The times that try the media's souls

This guy asks whether bloggers should be protected by the First Amendment. He poses a question:

There's no specific definition of "press" in the 45 words of the First Amendment. So who might be bound by responsibilities that go along with the role of a free press? Are bloggers and other Web users part of a broadly defined "press" even though they certainly could not have been envisioned by the Colonial-era Founders who wrote the First Amendment?

Uh, wait a minute ... the Founders not only envisioned such a thing as bloggers; one of the Founders, Thomas Paine, essentially was one. His pamphlet, "Common Sense," laid the foundation for the Declaration of Independence. He was by no means a reporter or columnist in the traditional sense either then or now. If Paine was writing 210 years later, his stuff would probably appear at commonsense.blogspot.com (dude needs to give up that blog name, by the way; now, I want it.)

The Internet is a powerful and, alas, often-misused tool. Nobody's quite figured it out yet. This has been a big problem for established media, who had just figured out how to gain control of their own environments.

For better or worse, free, unfettered communication is the thing that will save America as we know it. No president, no Congress, no judge can subvert the will of an informed people. We have more information available with which to evaluate candidates and make decisions than ever before. We just have to learn how to use it.

And yes, it should be protected. The same law that protects purveyors of porn needs to protect purveyors of opinion, belief, and fact. Nothing less than the survival of the Republic depends on it.

An open letter to contractors

Dear Contractors of the World:

I have deep respect for most of you. My role in this economy is to make enough money to be able to pay you to provide your services to me. You have skills that I lack, and I have come around to being OK with that. Without you, my family would have no air conditioning, no indoor plumbing, and a swimming pool full of green, fetid malodorous swill. I thank you for your work, both in words and in cash (or, sometimes, American Express.)

But: The fact that you have skills that I lack does not give you license to steal money from me. At least not anymore.

So: Please note below the conditions under which from this point you will be allowed the privilege to work in my house and profit from its imperfections and our lack of ability/desire to maintain it ourselves. If you meet these conditions, you also get the privilege of speaking to my wife, who handles all the financial matters in the house and is usually good for a few one-liners. (She's also really hot, so keep that in mind. It's not often in our neighborhood you run into a woman who's attractive and pleasant to be around).

Everything is in writing. Everything. There will be itemized statements of work, and if we opt to not have a particular item completed, we will not pay for it.

Your time is valuable. So is our money. Payment terms will be as follows: No more than 40 percent upon signing the above-mentioned statement of work. Final payment will not be provided until we are completely satisfied that the work has been done to its completion. Your need to pay your subcontractors or suppliers is not our problem until such time as said subcontractors have finished their work. That is what in the real world is known as "the cost of doing business," and said cost is borne by the business person, not by us. We're not business people. You are.

We're big fans of helping out the little guy. We'd rather have a talented individual or small company handle a task than, say, Lowe's or Home Depot. But: We'll treat you the same way we'd treat them. You will be accountable for completing the work on time and within budget, and if you don't, we'll find someone who does.

We will be reasonable in setting a schedule for the completion of the project. We realize we aren't your only customer. (At least, we hope we're not.) We do expect that schedule to be met, short of extremely extenuating circumstances.

If you are responsible for obtaining the materials for our job, you are responsible for ensuring said materials are of sufficient quality at the time at which they are obtained, not 20 minutes before you are to start our job. Further, if it turns out you obtained crappy materials, and it will cost you more money to obtain non-crappy materials, that is also not our problem. If you're willing to lose a $15,000 job over a few hundred dollars, we're willing to take the job from you.

Did we mention everything will be in writing? If you say it will cost $6 a square foot to lay tile floor, that means $6 a square foot, not $6.01. Or $7. Or "oops, that doesn't include taking the old floor away." It is your responsibility to figure your profit before you present us a quote, not after.

Final decision about whether we like the work lies with us, particularly The Wife. If she's not satisfied, we're not paying. She's the person to whom you need to be nice, not me. I couldn't tell you within $500 how much we have in our checking account at any given moment. She controls whether you get paid, and if she likes you, she might contract with you for extra work (which means more money for you.) Me, well, I hate you. I hate you because you can do things I can't do, and because, by default, I think you're stealing my money until proven otherwise. You'll never win me over. Don't talk to me. Talk to her.

Thank you again for sharing your skills with us and for allowing us a place to put some of this excess cash that we would otherwise waste on food or toys or something.

Sincerely,

RJ

No day at the beach

Hung out at the beach yesterday for the first time in a long time. The five of us hiked west to soak up some UV and splash around a bit.

It was just about as unpleasant as it could possibly be.

The beach was horrendously crowded. This weird stink permeated the air, the stink of some sort of decaying sea life. Not sure if it was decaying plant life or decaying animal life, but it stunk like hell. The water was as warm as a bath, greenish, with seaweed floating just below the surface. It felt, well, thick.

The kids had a good time, and the wife sunburned the parts of herself that she forgot to sunburn in Bermuda. So that was OK.

So, I decided to take another swing. My weekend was going to be largely filled with work, and I needed to be able to say something other than "I worked all weekend."

So the wife and I went to see Knocked Up. Five-word review: Damn funny. Highly recommend it.

Today, I did most of that work. I just checked my calendar to see if I was going to be able to finish it in the morning. All signs point to "Yes." I'm going to reward myself by going to bed early and finishing it tomorrow. Thankfully, the recipient is in Pacific Time, which buys me three more precious hours. I'll take everything I can get.

Disclaimer: That last post was not intended to be the least bit entertaning, nor informative. (Maybe you found the five-word review helpful, but I'm not counting on it. Or, hey, if it helps you to steer clear of Clearwater Beach, that'd be a good call.) I just needed to write something other than semi-technical blather. One of these days, I'll learn to write again, I promise. Until then, this. You get what you pay for.

And it was, indeed, there and back

I find myself taking for granted things like a trip that goes something like this:

Get on the plane

Make your connection

Get off plane

Go to meetings

Get on plane

Make your connection

Get off plane

Drive home.

No delays, no drama, no having to negotiate with gate agents, no running. It seems to happen a lot less these days. Makes for a boring story, but for a much happier me.

There and back

I'm preparing to embark on what essentially is a day trip to the West Coast. Florida to California today; back tomorrow.

Island time

HAMILTON, Bermuda -- It started out as a battle between Good Karma vs. Evil Karma. It turned out to have a happy ending -- a beautiful trip to a beautiful place, a place that defies description. I spent years pooh-poohing The Wife's desire to visit one of the touristy islands. "We live in Florida," I said. "Why would I want to go to an island?"

Bermuda showed me why.

Words won't do it justice. Beautiful cerulean blue water, pink-sand beaches, everything you'd see in a tourist brochure and then some. Imagine a couple in love walking along a peaceful, secluded, empty beach, and you have a good picture of what we were doing last week. And by that point, we wouldn't have been talking about how we almost didn't get there.

The original plan called for us to clear Bermuda customs at about 3:30 p.m. Saturday and have a little better than a day and a half of a weekend before I had to go work at the island's daily paper Monday through Thursday. That plan was scuttled when the plane's weather radar wouldn't function, which was a bad thing on a day when a tropical storm was hanging out off the Florida coast.

Time for Plan B. Between my wife's sweet-talking and my quick work on the airport's wireless connection, US Airways rebooked us on a Delta flight to New York, which connected to the last flight out of the U.S. to the island on American. We had a half-hour to catch the Delta flight and a little better than an hour in New York. No problem.

Oops, one problem. The Delta flight was landing at LaGuardia. The American flight was leaving from JFK.

We were already making our plans to just concede and stay the night in New York when Good Karma shoved it up Evil Karma's ass. We landed a bit early at LGA. The taxi hit little traffic on the 11-mile ride to JFK. We finally convinced the American gate agent that our handwritten permission note from US Airways was indeed legit. We landed in Bermuda -- without luggage, of course, but it would be there the next day, right? -- at little after 7 p.m., a little later than we wanted but still plenty of time to see the sunset during the taxi ride across the island.

Sunday was an absolutely glorious day. We zipped around the island on our rented motor scooter, which should have been pretty easy. I've been riding motorcycles for a good portion of my adult life. Nothing I know about riding an 800-cc motorcycle, however, translates to riding a 50-cc scooter. Especially not on the left side of the road. After some reflection, I have to be honest: Every second on the scooter was pretty damn scary. Point A and Point B, however, were wonderful.

We rode along the shoreline roads, stopping occasionally at big rock bluffs and tiny little beaches. We went to St. George on the island's northeast end, a charming little town with architecture from the 17th century. We ate and drank and ate and drank some more. Oh, and our bags did show up, but on Monday, not Sunday, and not before I had to spend about 2.5 times what I would normally spend for an emergency set of business clothes.

While I fussed with software during the week, The Wife had a spa treatment and a snorkeling trip. She deserved every minute of her leisure. She's been busting her ass without a real vacation for, God, I don't even know how long. It was glorious to see her so relaxed. It was worth every stride through those airports and worth every penny.

Here's the best travel tip I can give you regarding Bermuda: Make the trip on someone else's money. A perfectly ordinary lunch at the Asian deli for myself was $18. Every dinner we had was well into triple digits. I'm pretty sure the Cokes from the mini-bar were $8; I didn't even look. My expense allowance covered most of it, if you have a fairly loose definition of "most."

Thankfully, I'm a rich man. Not because I have a big bank account; far, far from it. What I do have, though, is the memory of kissing a beautiful girl while the Atlantic Ocean crashed into a coral reef behind us and a bright pink sunset above us.

Anybody got a stagecoach?

Bermuda travelogue later. Rant about airlines now.

You could say the American air travel system is broken. That would imply that there is a system at all. Case in point:

As I type this, I'm at the Philadelphia International Airport. The operation here is in complete chaos, owing to an FAA computer failure earlier in the day and storms over the northern Midwest this evening.

My flight was scheduled to depart at 8:30 p.m. from Gate B9. As of 8:15 p.m., that gate's previous flight, to Seattle, had not yet departed. All the gate agent at B9 could tell us is that my flight was not departing at 8:30 p.m. from Gate B9. She couldn't tell us when it was going to depart, or from where; all she could tell us is what wasn't going to happen. That was information we already had.

At about 8:35, the gate agent at B9 announced that our flight would depart from C24. But they didn't tell the agent at C24. We told the agent at C24. The agent at C24, needless to say, was surprised as hell to see us.

So an unhappy gate agent is now facing 200 unhappy people -- not to mention the people who are getting off the plane that just landed, many of whom have missed connections because of all the chaos and confusion.

As of right now, my flight still shows that it's taking off at 8:30 from B9. It's 9:08, and there ain't nobody at B9. A couple of people just ran like hell to B9, only to get redirected here. However, at the U.S. Airways web site, the flight shows it's taking off from C24 at 8:30. That was 38 minutes ago, and we're all still here.

So I ask:

Why wouldn't somebody at B9 call the guy at C24 and warn him we were coming?

Why isn't the information updated in one central place? Great that the usairways.com website was updated; however, that's not very helpful to a bunch of people in an airport who don't have access to a computer. Shouldn't they have updated it on the boards first?

Why, when it becomes apparent that chaos is going to happen -- and if the computers go down, there will be chaos; when there are storms, there will be chaos -- why do airlines wait so long before making adjustments? They've been through this enough already. You'd think there'd be a contingency plan. I'm not saying it would be easy, or readily apparent, but it seems it could be done.

Why the hell is it always so damn hot in the Philadelphia airport? No matter what time of year, this place is always a steambath. At least you can count on something when you're traveling.

And most importantly: Why do airlines not staff at levels appropriate to the demand? It's completely inhuman to make one gate agent face 200 people who want to get on a plane and 200 people who are on their way on the plane. That's 400 vs. 1; even if only 10 percent of those people have questions, that's 40 people.

A system that is built to work only when conditions are ideal is not a system. I guess it doesn't matter, because people won't stop traveling. We get what we pay for.

Edit to all this: We boarded the plane at 9:41 p.m. Because of all the backed-up flights, we took off at 12:02 a.m. We were on the plane on the ground longer than we were on the plane in the air. At least the air conditioning worked.

Working on island time

If I wasn't having so much damn fun, I'd be providing you daily updates from Bermuda. But I am, so I won't. A comprehensive update will follow. Suffice to say:

This place is not for the faint of wallet

Nothing you know about riding a full-size motorcycle will help you ride a 50-cc scooter

I'm married to the most fantastic woman in the world.

More to come.

Next stop: The islands

I'm headed here tomorrow morning. The Wife and I are flying first class, courtesy of all of my customers who have been flying me around the world the last year and a half. I'll be working next week, but will be enjoying beautiful island sun until Monday with the greatest woman in the world. Your envy is merited.

Pollo sin cabeza

What request of yours have I not fulfilled today?

Ugh.

More about ... me

I've been tagged with one of these meme things by Cousin Otis. I'm cool with memes. I usually learn something, even about myself. And in this case, I'm particularly grateful, because it prods me to post after a month of sheer wackiness. So, here goes:

Seven things you might not know about me

1. I do not apologize for my love for Kelly Clarkson. Even though I probably should.

2. I was never suspended from school. I never skipped school. I was never in serious trouble at school. That doesn't mean I didn't do things that would have merited serious trouble; it just means that I was very good at covering my tracks.


3. I can read with decent comprehension four languages other than English. However, I have not learned enough about Spanish, French, Danish or Norwegian to consider myself the least bit fluent. I can answer in English most e-mails sent by my European co-workers in their native language. I am more envious of people who are truly bilingual than I am of professional athletes.

4. I work in the technology industry -- but I did not own a home computer until 1999.

5. I once interviewed Ted Nugent. And yes, he's at least as much of a wacko as you think he is.

6. I've ridden a motorcycle 140 mph. But I have never, and will never, get on a rollercoaster.

7. I bought my clothes in the children's section until I was 26. And with my size 6 feet, I can still occasionally find shoes in the boys department, for half the price of the comparable size 8 in the men's area.

Alas, I can't think of any tag-ees at present. We'll come back to that.

Friendly skies, my ass

Would someone at American Airlines please justify this? A little explanation from somebody would be nice.

I travel a helluva lot, and I've had my share of bad airline experiences (and part of your share, too). But this little string of events is just getting silly. And it's not the fault of the $26,000-a-year employee who megacorporation American Airlines leaves at the gate to face 200 passengers. He or she gets paid and gets to go home that night whether he or she is an asshole or not. Aggrieved passengers say they want some "accountability." Why should the front-line employees be responsible for accountability? They're not going to get treated any better or worse by their employers no matter how professional they are. The best customer servants will likely be rewarded with the opportunity to work more unpaid overtime. The worst will keep their jobs. Doesn't sound like much incentive to me either way.

Disclaimer: I've flown American Airlines twice in my life, both times by accident and neither for a round trip. (On each occasion, I was rebooked on American after the flight I had purchased on another airline was canceled.) I can guarantee you after the situations in Austin and the one described in the link above, I will continue to not voluntarily fly American. Not that my primary airlines are much better. It's rare that I run into a Delta employee who isn't a jerk, and US Airways has mishandled my baggage enough times that I'll now find a way to carry on for a 10-day trip.

So, why? Why do airlines treat their customers like shit? Why do airline employees continue to work for employers who treat them like shit, which they pass on to the customers? Why do airlines allow their employees to treat people like shit? It's a vicious swirling circle.

And, I guess most importantly: Why do I care, as long as I get to Point B safely?

I got nothing

What does one say about senseless violence? What does one say when a guy who found a way to survive the goddamn Holocaust when he was in his teens gets gunned down by some pussy with two guns and a bad attitude? What does one say when 32 people who were living the part of their lives that makes for great stories in 20 years are just gone? Gone because some guy had violent images in his head and felt he had no choice but to act on them? It damn sure takes "not fair" to a previously unreached level.

I don't want to argue about gun control. I don't want to rail about how Virginia Tech officials should have put out more warning. There's nothing to debate. Thirty-two people died yesterday, most of whom made a fatal decison to simply not skip class.

I don't want to blame video games or slasher movies. Well, maybe I do, a little bit; ours is the society in which Wal-Mart demands that musicians censor their sex-fueled lyrics yet prominently displays the unrated version of "The Hills Have Eyes" and other slasher films. It's a society where you have to buy condoms in brown-paper-bag-wrapped stores, but you can buy a gun ... well, at that same Wal-Mart where you got the slasher film. You can buy it in the "Sporting Goods" department, no less.

But none of that is the problem. You can ban guns and slasher movies and Grand Theft Auto, but you can't ban wackos. You can't ban violent psychopaths and people with grudges. You can't protect a college campus the way you would protect an airport or an inner-city high school.

All you can do is hope, and keep your head up.

Justify this

We're over there so they don't come over here and kill us. Like this.

Somebody please make this stop. You can't convince me that what we're doing over there is the least bit right.

Real World update

Many worse ways exist to eke out an existence. My gig is not bad at all. I get to play with computers all day and when I'm done playing with computers, I get to talk about newspapers. I get to go to some cool places and hang out with some cool people. I occasionally fly first class, and I eat a lot of food and drink a lot of beer and scotch and other people pick up the tab.

My job allows me to not have had to pay for a vacation in three years. My job allows me 2,500 square feet of living space and a new "near-luxury" car (that's what J.D. Power calls it, "near-luxury." I find that funny, for some reason.) It allows for The Wife to have thousands of dollars worth of dogs around the house and to put her stamp on something she loves and that feeds her soul.

It allows for my seventh-grader to not have to go through the same hell I went through in seventh grade. Don't get me wrong: seventh grade in 2007 is apparently equally as hellish as it was in 1981, but at least it's not for the same reasons. If she came home crushed by somebody having made fun of her clothes, she can go buy different clothes. She never has to worry about the check for her field trip bouncing, or about not having lunch money. And before you ask, yes, I still after all these years know how to identify an overprivileged brat, and when I see her showing signs of being one, I call her on it.

I'm also lucky that, when I show signs of being an overprivileged brat, The Wife calls me on it. That is a good thing. I've been prone to show said signs (and have been all my life, even before I had even the remotest qualification to do so), and I know those signs well enough now to hate myself a little bit after I find myself guilty of it.

More than all of that, I have had opportunities to broaden my perspective that I never thought I would have. I never thought I would be counting kroner at a McDonald's in Denmark or driving a car from the passenger's seat in Australia. I never thought I would sit in a roomful of executives at some newspaper and have them listen to me.

And more than all of that, around all this stuff, I get to occupy the same house as four of the most fantastic people I'll ever have the privilege to meet.

I work with a lot of people who don't realize how good they have it. I work with a lot of people who get no joy from their work at all and it makes me wonder if they get joy from anywhere. I work with a few people who worry about whether the numbers on the spreadsheets add up and who are charged from above with the task of making sure they add up or it's their ass. I can see how that might suck out one's soul. I work with people who have everything I have and then some and think they "deserve more."

My job puts me around people who have no soul left. Maybe it's because they had to work too hard for the same level of success that has seemingly come so easy to me. Maybe it's because their life is all about spreadsheets and not about actually accomplishing something. Maybe it's because I no longer work with artists and instead work with Business People. Avid readers — well, maybe reader — will remember a post from low down on this page, from when I was contemplating making this career change, when I interviewed with the president of the company:

He was a Businessman. I've spent years cultivating a deep contempt for Businessmen. Soulless assholes who care nothing more than making a buck, who hire people based only on what they can see on paper, who don't create anything.

That guy was shitcanned a couple of years ago. Not much patience among Businessmen for guys who don't make their numbers. Whatever that means.

I was worried then about transitioning from a job that required a lot of soul (while simultaneously stealing said soul) into a job where soul was not really a requirement. I've done OK, and I've done so without having to give up too much of what makes me, well, me. It does require a different approach. I have an obligation to the Spreadsheet Drones. I have customers who could give a shit about my work-life balance. Sometimes I overdo the amount of energy I put into bringing soul into my job, and I don't have enough left over for things that actually matter. The Real World will take whatever you give it, and no matter how much you give it, it usually wants a little bit more.

But as I get settled into Year 4 of Life in the Real World, life after journalism, I'm OK with what it has provided me so far. There is a post below which might be interpreted as, well, a rant. And it was. I'm entitled to that occasionally, too, because the pace can be frenetic and frustrating. But the rewards are really pretty cool.

If any of the above comes off as arrogant, I'm genuinely sorry (and it's not often I put "I" and "arrogant" and "sorry" in the same sentence.) I sincerely don't mean for it to be; far from it. I'm genuinely grateful for what I have. I think it needs to be said.

Drip, drip, drip

The kids are home from school today, but instead of doing fun things, they'll be waiting while Mama tries to convince the insurance adjuster that our dirty laundry was on that closet floor and therefore needs to be part of the settlement.

This is the fallout from Thursday's toilet catastrophe. Apparently, after a routine flush, the toilet never got the signal that it was full. The water dutifully kept running, and by the time it was discovered — at a point in another room, 15 feet and three walls away from the actual toilet itself — nearly $10,000 in damage had been done.

Where there was Pergo and carpet, there is now bare concrete. Where there was peace and quiet, now there are fans, roaring. I like sleeping with the sound of a fan, but this one is a little extreme.

But where there is disaster, there is The Wife, who kept her head even as she sloshed her way through our bedroom. After it was determined that towels weren't going to cut it, the first phone call went to a friend knowledgeable about house stuff. He said her next call needed to be to the insurance company. Barely an hour after the initial discovery, the fans and dehumidifers were roaring. This prevented even more damage and more disruption. I shudder to think
of what would have happened if it had been me left in charge while she was somewhere off working.

And because she's smart like that, where there could have been a seriously bad weekend, there was instead Easter, and a great time. We took the kids fishing yesterday. Didn't catch a thing, but it was worth the time anyway. And Saturday, we were distracted by the news from a distant dog show, where Champion Dog 2 won big ribbons for being the best in her breed and one of the top 10 of nearly 650 entries overall.

And in a couple of hours, the fans will be gone, and we'll be able to hear the usual chaos again.

Stop

And read this. Now. Seriously. It's worth your time; just like so many other things that you think you don't have time for.

The worst kind of news

Local TV weather guy John Winter died today. The sheriff's office is investigating his death as a suicide.

He had been with the station since 1994. He was 39. He lived in the next neighborhood over from us.

His co-workers were left behind to read the news to the public. It was difficult to watch. I can only imagine how much more difficult it must have been on the other side of the desk.

Thirty-nine. Same age as me. That's too damn young to be giving up.

High and dry

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- I'm looking out my hotel window at Corpus Christi Bay. If I had a really powerful telescope, I could look straight across the Gulf of Mexico, through St. Petersburg, Fla., and across Tampa Bay to my house, where apparently a toilet exploded, leaving several inches of water on the floor in the bathroom, bedroom and adjoining areas, and possibly enough water under the floor to necessitate replacing it. All of it.

Meanwhile, The Wife has houseguests of both the human and canine variety. In short, we could not have picked a worse day to schedule a plumbing disaster.

Just another day in the life of a guy who makes rich guys richer

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Here we go again, go, go, go, go, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, go, go go, the kid in 2C has been screaming since takeoff (actually he’s been screaming since we were at the gate), turn up the iPod, let Patrice Pike scream at me instead, at least she has some sense of tone, go, go, go, “I presume you’ll send the updates on this document tonight,” yeah, I’ll do that, after I land at 10 p.m. after I’ve been working since 7 a.m., go, go, go, THEM: got time for a question? ME: no THEM: just a quick question? :) , ME: k, what’s your question? THEM: can we do blah blah blah blah blah? ME: no, we can’t make the system do that, THEM: why not? Shouldn’t it work that way? :-( go, go, go, can I get a decision on this document I gave you Tuesday?, go, go, “no, we’ll have to put that in front of the committee,” go, go, go, Wendy’s for lunch, McDonald’s for dinner, I can sleep after I’ve made some more money for these other people, go, go, go, what a team player you are, what a professional, “the most professional person I’ve ever worked with”, go, go, go, gotta go, answer the phone, “got a question,” it’s a two-parter, a three-parter, let’s go back to the first thing you said, I can explain that part, “why does it work that way?” I don’t know, I’ll never know, it wasn’t my decision, I don’t defend the functionality, I just describe it, go, go, go, go, go, it can always be worse, at least you have a job, at least that’s not your kid screaming in 2C, it could be so much worse, go, go, go, let’s get going, but wait, there are storms, somewhere, we’re not going to go just yet, can’t go, it’s not safe, ok, now let’s go, on to the next thing, no time to do this thing right, it's about 90 percent there, "well, that's enough, let’s just go on to the next thing, we can go back to the other thing later," go, go, go, go, I gotta get back to the other thing, but I can’t remember what it was, go, go, go, phone’s ringing again, can’t get it now, hit the Ignore button, if it was important they’ll leave a message, gotta send a message, go, go, go, hey, you know, I don’t think I can do this anymore, “yeah, me neither, things are tough all over, did you update those spreadsheets I asked you to update?” go, go, no time to listen or evaluate or try to come up with a way to go more efficiently ‘cause we gotta for christ’s sweet sake go, where are we going? hell if I know, I just know we gotta go, 'cause that’s what we do, we go, next place, “ding” you have new mail “ding” THEM: I think we found a bug ME: what kind of bug? THEM: it does this when it’s supposed to do that ME: let me check on that for you THEM: I’ll be waiting :-) ME: k, I’ll get right back to you after I “ding” come see me when you have a second “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrring” I need some help right now, THEM: you there? ME: no, go, go, go, keep going, goddammit, because if you stop, you’ll be forced to think about how ridiculous it all is.

It's been a long time

1984: We're driving from school to my house in J.T.'s 1973 Dodge Dart. This Dart was sharp as hell; 360 V8, Centerline wheels, shackled up in the back just enough to look cool. J.T. had laid significant amounts of rubber on the way home, including a donut in the Fassnight Park parking lot. On the stereo was what I thought was typical late-'70s classic rock. "Listen to this guy hold this note," J.T. said. J.T. was a musician of some renown; he was a saxophone player in the school marching band, and he was probably the person from whom I learned the most about playing guitar. He had an appreciation for good music. The song was "Peace of Mind." The band was Boston. I was stunned by this guy's vocal power. That was the missing piece; that was the thing that Boston had that the other Camaro-rock (or, in this case, Dart-rock) bands had. I was hooked right there. I borrowed the tape, copied it, and played it over. And over. And over.

1986: Boston had not put out a new album since 1978. The Rock 99 morning jock was hyping the new single. "We're playing it at 8:15," he said. Damn. My first class was at 8. I decided, "Not today." I drove around campus, waiting for the song. As I heard the first few chords of "Amanda," I said, "Yeah, that's Boston."

1987: Rock 99 is giving away tickets to the Boston tour. Unfortunately, the closest stop to Anytown is more than 1,000 miles away. We didn't win, but we went anyway. I had a friend who lived near the Alpine Valley venue in Wisconsin. F. had a relative who lived nearby. M. had, well, a few days off. I had some friends who lived up there who could hook us up with a party. We packed up my 1980 Citation and pointed it north. The odometer showed "21245" or something like that when we left. That was back in the days where cars didn't usually last long enough to necessitate the "1" that should have been the first digit of that six-digit number. The car miraculously held up for the trip. It fell apart soon thereafter. The show was incredible; outdoors, fourth of four nights, more than 45,000 at the venue.

1989: Headed home after a night of abusing various substances. In the passenger seat of Mickey's 1988 Daytona Shelby. Trying to hold it together and not throw up all over said Daytona. Mickey's worried about my health (or, more likely, his upholstery.) He pops in a tape. I hear "Rock 'n' Roll Band." I breathe easier, and relax a bit in the seat. The urge to yak has passed. Mickey says, "I knew that would make you feel better."

I like a lot of different types of music. Some of these types leave me open to ridicule. I'm OK with that. I love Boston. It has been the one constant through nearly 25 years of my personal evolution. It still makes me feel better whenever I hear a Boston song, just like it did that night in Mickey's car. "Don't Look Back" is my personal transition song, the first song played when I start some new job or new thing. I hope they play "Long Time" and "Party" at my funeral.

And yes, the two albums they did after "Third Stage" sucked. I'm aware of that.

I'm very saddened by Brad Delp's too-soon departure; saddened in a way I don't remember feeling since hearing that Stevie Ray Vaughan's helicopter had crashed (oddly, it crashed leaving the same venue at which we saw Boston in 1987.)

From the Boston Globe's appreciation: "Brad always signed everything that people brought him,'' said [Sean] Sturgess [general manager of the club where Delp's band Beatlejuice, a Beatles tribute band, was supposed to have played tonight]. "Some bands just draw 45 people and you can't get them to stay around to greet their fans. Brad often stayed until the end of the night. We'd even have to tell him to leave sometimes because it was getting late.''

The two times I saw Boston play, Delp seemed to be very much enjoying himself, and very much in tune with what the band's fans wanted to hear. He certainly was in tune with what I wanted to hear.

A few words I hear in my head whenever I start to overdo on the job-stress thing:

Now you're climbing to the top of the company ladder
Hope it doesn't take too long
Can't you see there'll come a day when it won't matter
Come a day when you'll be gone ...

Brad Delp is gone. The music still matters. Thanks, man, and RIP.

Brad Delp, 1951-2007

The voice that made Boston unique among the Camaro-rock bands of the late '70s died last night in his southern New Hampshire home. He was 55. More from the Boston Globe here. More from me later.

Turn the key to the left

For most of January, I was in Australia. For most of February, I was in North Carolina. Suffice to say those two places are separated by a lot more than 10,000 miles and a really big ocean. Suffice also to say that neither of those places is home.

My calendar shows no items in green type this week. This means no trips. No airport parking, no expense reports, no Planter's Fruit and Nut Trail Mix. I have become inexplicably addicted to Planter's Fruit and Nut Trail Mix -- but I only eat it at airports. Don't ask me why, because I just won't have a good answer. Traveling for business requires a certain level of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It's important to do things the same way, every time. Traveling is unnatural enough as it is; the routine is the reality, and any deviation from the routine can cause enough of a wrinkle in the space-time continuum to drive you completely over the edge.

For the next 10 days or so, blessedly, none of that matters. I'm home, and doing Home Things. Sunday was one of those glorious This-Is-Why-We-Live-in-Florida days. Clear, bright, 72 degrees. The Boy and I detailed my car. I took a short but rewarding motorcycle ride. The Wife was looking glorious, as she always does. Just a wonderful day, the kind of day I wish I could go to File --> Save As and recover from a folder whenever I needed to recharge.

For the rest of this week, I'll commute back and forth to The Office. Cool mornings lie ahead; it'll be Thursday before it'll be warm enough to make motorcycle commuting practical. Catching up on the inevitable work that piles up when I'm out will keep me busy during the day. Home-cooked meals (for a change) will keep me fed during the evening. It's going to be a good week. I hope yours will be, too.

Random stray thought

Writing is so much easier when you actually have something to say.

There's cold, and then there's Iowa

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Minus-9 degrees, and I'm currently suffering from insomnia.

February in Iowa ... I was reminded of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper as my Delta Connection flight hovered over Eastern Iowa, 48 years almost to the day after The Day the Music Died. Buddy Holly would only be 71 if he were still here, 10 years younger than Chuck Berry. ... five years ago, in February, Waylon Jennings died. It was Waylon, then an obscure bass player from the Texas Panhandle, who was bumped from the plane because J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson had the flu and didn't want to ride the bus. "I hope your old bus freezes up," Holly teased Jennings. "I hope your plane crashes," Jennings said to Holly. Those who knew Jennings say he never recovered from having said those five words, even at the height of his future stardom.

For my money, Buddy Holly was the king of rock 'n' roll. The skinny kid from Lubbock lit the fuse for the British Invasion. Listening to Holly and The Crickets, you hear the pre-Beatles, the pre-Rolling Stones, the framework for music as we know it today. Not fade away, indeed.

Meanwhile, it's 2:19 here, 3:19 in my time zone. I need to fade away.

The ticking of the clock

A story that really affected me, for reasons I don't quite understand. It's long, but it's worth your time ... and be thankful that you have the time. Take note, also, of some fantastic turns of phrase along the way. Just a very nice piece of writing.

Link brought to me by my home page, Arts and Letters Daily. Tremendous repository of good writing that might not be brought to your attention by anybody else. I envy the job of the person who compiles this daily.

How things change

RALEIGH, N.C. -- This time last week, I was in Sydney; it was sunny, warm, the middle of summer, and everybody was nice and polite and wonderful and speaking with those delightful accents.

Today, I'm in North Carolina. It's none of the above.

on the way home

sitting on board the united 747 that will take me on the first step home. i'm ready to go home. but i certainly will miss this place.

Scenes from a New South Wales Sunday

My Australian co-worker and I spent Sunday as tourists. "I love being a tourist in my own country," he said repeatedly. I loved it too; it was fun to watch the looks on other people's faces when he introduced himself in his thick Melbourne accent as an "American."

Here are a few snaps from our day, which started in a bright sunny downtown Sydney morning and wound through the Hunter Valley, the eastern Australia coast's wine country.

Sydneysiders love their city, and they love summer, both with good reason.

The Queen Victoria Building. It was a train station. Now it's a mall. In between, it was almost torn down. Score a big one for the preservationists.

The obligatory kangaroo picture. Saw this one at the Australia Walkabout Wildlife Park near Calga.

In 1830, a bunch of convicts were assigned to build a road from Sydney north to the Hunter Valley. Much of the road remains. Read more about it here.

The vineyards at the Brokenwood Winery.

Australia's shame lingers

As most people know, Australia was originally a British penal colony. Thousands of petty criminals were transported here from the British Isles from 1790 to around 1870. Under the not-so-gentle supervision of their overseers, their labor laid the foundation for the Australia of today. But not even the convicts were there first.

Groups of people known collectively as the Aborigines populated Australia many tens of thousands of years before white settlers. Nobody's quite sure how they got here. Research shows their time in Australia predates reliable overseas navigation, yet the Australian land mass was never connected to another continent. And the Aborigines weren't telling; some scholars estimate the various tribes combined for 750 different languages, none easy to discern.

So the Europeans, many of whom who weren't emigrating to Australia voluntarily, did what Europeans in those days did to people they can't figure out: they tortured them, they marginalized them, and they took their land and anything else they could take. They built cities and forced the Aborigines into the bush. They killed thousands of Aborigines, some by violence, most by European diseases to which the Aborigines were not immune.

Then they tried the most awful way possible to "fix" the problem. From 1900 until 1970, the Australian government did not recognize the parental rights of Aborigines. The states took thousands of Aboriginal children from their parents and put them in orphanages, in foster care, in concentration camps. The intentions behind this were almost worthy: The idea was that these children would be more easily assimilated into larger white society if they were raised outside of their tribal customs, giving them a chance at jobs, education and a successful (read: more white-like) existence.

In reality, children were taken from their parents, always against the parents' will, sometimes violently so.

The policy no longer exists, and Australia has spent most of the last 20 years apologizing for it in various ways. But it's also still paying for it.

A few of the surviving Aborigines are often seen around Sydney, usually drunk, aggressively panhandling. I saw evidence of this sad phenomenon this weekend; a scruffy looking dark-skinned man scrubbing windshields at a busy intersection near my apartment, two wasted young women screaming at passers-by to give them money in the Central Business District's more touristy section.

How do Australians feel about this? Don't dare ask. In a country that prides itself on its largely liberal views and its belief that everybody deserves a "fair go," the Aborigines are not a subject to be discussed. My Australian friend and co-worker, who's very liberal, very tolerant and very willing to talk about anything related to his home country, won't discuss them. Other Australians I've talked to dismiss the subject by saying, "yeah, mate, the Aborigines, it's a problem." The fact that many visible Aborigines in urban Australia are drunk, homeless and unpleasant toward others doesn't help their cause.

Few nations have proud records with regard to treatment of indigenous peoples -- not Canada, not Mexico, not most of Europe, and certainly not the United States. And Australia as a nation has been forthright and contrite about the wrongs committed in the past, even if Australians individually would rather not talk about it.

I didn't intend to spend so much space writing about Aborigines. It's an incredibly complex subject, and really kind of out of place in what is otherwise a fawning travelogue. If you're interested the subject, Google the term "Stolen Generation," or read about Cathy Freeman, the Aborigine who won the 400-meter run at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, in front of thousands of cheering fellow Australians of all races.

Many, many things about Australian society are wonderful, and then some. The Aborigine situation, however, is a stark reminder of the fundamental imperfection of humanity.

It's the weekend, mates (so stop calling me!)

SYDNEY -- The work week sputters on in the U.S. like a car that won't turn off. One of the joys of being here is that co-workers can call you into a meeting at 7 a.m. Saturday and not feel terribly bad about it. I certainly wouldn't, if I was there instead of here.

But now that the 5:30 bell has rung in the Eastern Time Zone, it's time to officially start a Sydney weekend.

A co-worker and good friend, S, landed here yesterday. This is his second trip to Sydney for this project, but it's more of a homecoming of sorts for him. He grew up in Melbourne, and still speaks with that accent that American women (including The Wife) love so.

When he came here back in October, he seemed more excited about it than I expected he would, given that the Australia Novelty Factor was less of a factor for him than it would be for, say, me.

"Well, mate, I've never been to Sydney," he said.

Wait a minute. You lived in Australia for more than 25 years and have never been to Sydney?

"Well, it's not exactly a small country," he said, with that slight touch of miffedness that Australians will occasionally express when a common misconception about their country is brought to light yet again -- say, for instance, the common belief that Keith Urban is Australian (he's actually from New Zealand.)

Australia, you see, is a very large country. Geographically, it's about the same size as the U.S. The main difference is that 280 million fewer people live here. Melbourne and Sydney are as far apart (and, in many ways, as different) as New York and Charlotte, N.C. And I was in my mid-30s the first time I visited New York.

The other difference, of course, is that some 90 percent of the population is in about 5 percent of the land mass. Imagine the U.S. being populated from New York, down the East Coast and around Florida to New Orleans ... and Los Angeles. Everything else is virtually empty. That's Australia.

So today, my friend and I will explore downtown Sydney, and I'll be the one with the funny accent. Tomorrow, we're loosely planning a trip to wine country in the Hunter Valley. And I'm hoping like hell that cell phone reception is spotty.