Wait ... um ... hey ...

God, it just got a little crazy there for a while.

A co-worker's death. A business trip extended by the flu. The Young Daughter's dread disease rearing its ugly head. A little too much reality to digest all in one month.

A couple of weeks ago in New Hampshire, my new co-worker and I didn't feel very good. I plowed through the workshop we were conducting; she curled up in a fetal position in her hotel room for most of the trip. We somehow made our way back to the airport Thursday morning. She resumed the fetal position at the gate. I went to the bathroom to throw up.

When I came back, I decided I wasn't quite ready to fly just yet and went to tell the gate agent this, so she could put me on a later flight. Then I discovered I was using the gate agent's counter to hold myself up. I told her, "I think I need medical attention." Next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance.

I called The Wife. I didn't tell her much. She, of course, went into an utter panic. Early the next day, she found herself in New Hampshire, too, sitting beside me while I grumbled in my hospital bed about being hot, then cold, then hot. The Company was kind enough to fly her up there for me. It was a lifesaver.

I was kicked out of the hospital Saturday morning, with a diagnosis of flu and pneumonia. The Wife and I spent the next two days in a hotel room in Manchester, N.H., where I, well, slept from Saturday afternoon until the kickoff of the Super Bowl.

It was the next Friday before I felt like I was back at full strength. Basically, flu sucks. It's the first time I've had it in probably five years, and by far the worst that I've had it. Damn that shortage of flu shots. Next year, I'm getting in line.

-----------------

How about this lede: My kid has a brain tumor.

OK, it's a very small brain tumor. As yet, it's not threatening anything. It's something that bears watching, say her doctors, but nothing more than that at present.

Benign tumors are a symptom of neurofibromatosis, a mysterious genetic neurological disease. Of course, best we can tell, it's nowhere in our genetics; we're not comforted by the fact that 50 percent of the cases occur spontaneously, with no genetic basis.

The tumors don't cause any serious medical problems, unless they get too close to a vital organ, or the brain. That's why this bears watching.

Right now, everything's fine. She's 100 percent fully active and healthy. We check it again in a couple of months. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center are working on a cure. We root for them like we've never rooted for anybody in our lives.

--------------------

I shook off the flu just in time for my brutal travel schedule to resume. This gave me the opportunity to visit California for the first time. Not just California, mind you: San Francisco, California, which is my new favorite city, based on only four hours there. My God, what a beautiful place. Water, mountains, the Golden Gate, great restaurants every-friggin'-where you turn. I can certainly see the appeal, and why people are willing to pay five times what they'd pay to live anywhere else.

The co-worker who was in Montreal urged me to eat dinner at a delightful downtown restaurant called The Crustacean, which, as you might suspect, serves seafood. It's seafood with a Vietnamese twist, however, I had a whole dungeness crab simmered in a three-wine sauce with black pepper and scallions, with garlic rice on the side. It was fabulous, and worth almost every bit of the per-diem-plus that I paid for it.

I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, just to say I did. Dipped down into historic Sausalito, and racked my brain trying to think of that sticks-in-your-head-like-glue song, "Sausalito Summer Nights." (Answer: The one-hit wonder Diesel, in 1982.) We drove to Frisco in the Rambler/The radiator running dry ...

Next week: New Hampshire, again, reluctantly. I get home Friday with enough time to do laundry and sleep before boarding a plane for my first-ever venture off United States soil.

I'm headed to the home office in Denmark for some training. I'll spend a few days with a customer in Copenhagen, and a few days at the company's Scandinavian headquarters in a little North Sea town called Aalborg.

Then, back to New Hampshire. Then Minnesota, then Dallas for a big trade show. It'll be my first time back in the Very Large Metropolitan Area for something other than an airport layover since leaving in 2002.

All the time on the road is good; it means The Company is prospering, which means The Family and I are prospering.

But it also means an awful lot of stuff is whizzing by at 542 mph. I'm moving, as Seger once sang, eight miles a minute for months at a time.

I'm going to go take a minute I have now to go hug some people I love. You go do the same, and be thankful you can.

Sharon, 1966-2005

She didn't make it. Dammit.

Melanoma. Fought it like hell for two years before finally turning away Sunday.

Dammit. 38 years old. Two children, one born the same day as our son, one born in late 2002. Two little girls.

Madison, Hannah, Brian, peace to y'all. I don't know what would bring that peace; something much stronger than all of us. Peace to y'all.

Goodbye, LZ

In 1989, I was pretty much at a life crossroads. I had just been promoted to a full-time job in the career of my choice. I was 21-going-on-16, and in the process of attempting to piss it all away. Drinking too much, driving too fast, spending money I didn't have, hanging out with people who had no vision of their own futures.

I became aware of the uncomfortable position in which I had put myself by the time 1989 became 1990. I began turning the corner, and had a lot of help from friends and family and career mentors in making that turn.

One of those mentors was the then-new editor of the Anytown Daily Bugle. He was a relatively young guy himself, and he had made a few bad choices during the early years of his career. He shared the consequences of those choices with me, and showed me how focusing on work could help pull me out of my personal downward spiral. He had no reason to do this; it's not typical for a top editor to pay any attention at all to a young sports copy editor, unless there was a screwup in print.

But he did, and I responded by working at about 114 percent of my talent level. Some of the best work I ever did came during that 1990-92 era, and the learning I did during that time laid the foundation for the job I have today. I have a file in which I've kept every complimentary letter or memo I've ever received relating to my work. I have a sheaf of them with the initials "LZ" at the end. He made sure that every good move I made was noticed, and through my boss, that every bad move I made was corrected.

He promoted me into my first management position in late 1991. I was going to be assisting our young sports editor in running the department. Then, in a surprise move, the sports ediitor left to take a job in Florida. Suddenly, for a month, I ran the show.

I'm not sure I did it very well, but I kept things afloat and kept us from embarrassing ourselves in print. The editor hired another man who became one of my mentors as sports editor, and I settled in as his assistant in January 1992.

At the end of December 1991, we all received an extra payroll envelope with our Christmas bonuses, which by then had dwindled to $30 per employee. Imagine my surprise when I opened my envelope to see an extra "0" after the "$30."

In it, a handwritten note: "A little something extra. Great work this month. Looking forward to the future. -LZ"

I'm not sure what happened in the summer of '92 between him and the publisher, but he quit. The publisher was, um, moved to a corporate damage control position shortly thereafter. A new editor took over; I learned a lot from him, too.

But I'll never ever forget the lessons I learned from Lou Ziegler, especially those relating to how to treat the people who work for you. Praise publicly and frequently; criticize privately and only when necessary, but every time it's necessary. I took those lessons to bigger jobs and bigger places, but the techniques and the results were the same.

Lou died Saturday at 56. He was running the newsroom in Fargo, N.D.; despite his declining health, he was still teaching and helping people until shortly before his death.

Peace, man, and thanks for helping me save my career.

Hey Julio, another drink, por favor

Did the Leader of the Free World just say we need more Hispanics here to "do jobs Americans won't do?" Twice?

Jobs Americans WON'T DO? We're too good for work all of a sudden?

And worse, a room full of journalists didn't call him on that remark?

"Jobs Americans won't do." As I recall, from 1789 to 1863, we called that slavery.

Screw us.

A comprehensive update

It's 7:31 a.m. in central Minnesota. The temperature outside is 18 below zero, and it's not expected to get much warmer. The sun is poking its head up over the eastern horizon; it appears as if it's trying to decide whether it really wants to come up or not.

My first start-to-finish project with my new company is scheduled to launch on Monday. So far, everything's on track and in order. I've been lucky enough to have been working with very skilled people on the customer side. If everything goes as planned -- and there's no reason to think that it won't -- a small newspaper in central Minnesota will be using a computer system that I installed, starting Monday.

This for me has been the culmination of a wild, wild year. Eleven months ago, I was sitting on the other side of the computers, doing the same thing I had been doing for all of my adult life and a good chunk of my late adolescence. I was bored to tears, tired of the constant second-guessing that goes on at every level of a newsroom, and frustrated with the thought that, because I had devoted my entire life and what little formal education I had to the pursuit of journalism, I wasn't qualified to do anything else.

Then this thing fell into my lap. I was given the opportunity to use what I knew about how a newsroom works in conjunction with what was arguably my best natural skill -- manipulating the technology -- to help design, sell and install that technology in other newsrooms. It gave me a chance to make good on one of my frequent grumbles: "When I design my own computer system, it sure as hell isn't going to work like this one ... "

Well, OK, I'm not exactly designing it, but I'm getting a chance to contribute. My newsroom experience has gained me much respect inside the company and with customers. People don't second-guess every decision I make. I don't second-guess every decision I make. In short, career-wise, it so far appears that I've made a perfect landing.

I pointed out last year, when I was deciding whether to do this, that it's a volatile industry. And it still is. We're hiring a bunch of people right now. A lot of those people might be let go if business takes a turn. I might be let go if business takes a turn. Our company is one of the smaller players in the industry; the chance of being bought out is very real, at least in the medium term. A lot of uncertainties are attached to this gig.

But one thing is certain: So far, it works for me. Right now, I'll take that.

-----------------------------

The new career has meant a new lifestyle for the family. After nearly a decade and a half of working at night, on weekends, working a non-set, uncertain schedule, having to drop everything and come to work to cover a major news event, I'm now leading the normal life of a 9-to-5er.

Well, almost. I'm also on the road most weekdays and a few weekends. If we have to work for a client on Monday, we have to travel on Sunday night. So it's not perfect.

But it's better than the previous arrangement. My weekends have largely been free to spend with the family; to let The Wife pursue her pursuits without worrying that she's going to get a call at 2 p.m. Saturday saying I have to go to work because a terrorist was found in the Middle East. We're able to have weekends with the kids and explore the wonder that is Florida. I have friends in our neighborhood, friends outside of work. We spend weekend nights with them, drinking, talking, basically just doing what humans are supposed to do in their time off: relaxing.

I'm home for dinner most nights. We have what's called "Circle Time" at dinner, which The Wife devised as a way to give the kids a forum to report on the events of their days. The Old Daughter lists hers off methodically. The Boy breathlessly speaks of the latest book he's read or the five or six people he played with at recess. The Young Daughter stretches out her time by reporting what she's done, then repeating it. I usually say, "I helped people with their computers." What I'm doing is not nearly as important as what they're doing.

-------------------------

The travel is rough sometimes. I enjoy being out and seeing new things and meeting new people. I don't like being away from the family for extended periods. But the perks are good.

The Wife and I used those perks -- a bundle of Delta SkyMiles and Marriott Rewards points -- to spend her 34th birthday in beautiful downtown Manhattan. The Wife has always wanted to see a Broadway show. So last Saturday, we went to a Broadway show.

It was weird to think that it was almost as easy for us to go to a Broadway show on Broadway as it would have been to go to a Broadway show in St. Petersburg. We left Friday night, went to the show Saturday and came home Sunday. Spent $400 on food, transportation, show tickets and stuff.

We ate lunch Saturday at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. We ate lunch Sunday at an Italian joint in Little Italy. Both would rank near the top in our experience of those restaurant genres, although neither was ranked high enough in the eyes of travel-guide writers to merit a mention. That's part of what makes New York fun: The ability to discover great stuff just by looking for it.

We saw Wonderful Town at the Al Hirschfeld Theater on West 45th Street. Brooke Shields played the lead. She's actually far more talented than her career credits would suggest. Live theatre seems to be her niche, and she has a much-underused gift for physical comedy. The music was good without being cheesy. The seats were comfortable. The company was great. It couldn't have been a better evening.


This is not the kind of thing we'd be able to do if I wasn't doing what I was doing. It doesn't take all of the sting about being away from home, but it helps a little bit.

------------------------------

Life's not perfect. It never is. But mine right now is basically a sequence of perfect moments. That's about as close as you can hope to get in this less-than-perfect world. I didn't just change careers on Feb. 4, 2004. I changed everything, and I dragged four people along with me for the ride.

Risky? Yeah. But so far, worth it. The lesson: You're never bound to something that sucks unless you choose to be bound to something that sucks. It takes more than a finger-snap and a decision, but really, in the broad sense, not that much more.

New York, New York

Trip report to come. Let's just say that it was everything we expected and then some. Nothing about that city is overrated.

Welcome to the new life

It's 7:45 a.m. I'm awake before everybody else, which is the new "normal" in our house. After years of being a night person, I've learned to enjoy a good sunrise.

It's Jan. 2. Tomorrow, I'll be on an airplane for the first of two times this week. I'll be heading to New Hampshire for work until Wednesday, then on Friday, The Wife and I are leaving to celebrate her birthday in New York. We've never been to New York. (I'm listening to suggestions, by the way; we're only going to be there for the weekend, so we're going to be trying to pack a lot into a very short time.) This is also the new "normal" in our house, a house from which 12 months ago we were lamenting the fact that we didn't leave very often.

Roughly this time last year, I urged my readers -- which is to say, I urged myself -- to break free of whatever was binding them to stuff that sucked and to head out in search of something good. In a triumph that ranks as one of the biggest triumphs in my entire existence, I have done so. I hear tales from elsewhere of others doing so, too: Otis, Lynniechan, Janel (aka West Virginia Mountain Mama), countless other people I know.

It can perhaps be attributed to some form of mid-life crisis. But the best way to deal with a crisis is to face it head-on and take action. I'm proud of everybody I know who has done so in the past year. That includes myself.

Happy 2005, y'all. May it be a year of doing whatever the hell you want to do.

Peeking from behind the barrier

See, I wasn't going to go an entire month without posting something. I just need to gather my thoughts a bit. It's been a wild month; travel, parties, gifts galore, excitement and bliss and wonder. Basically, all the reasons one would wake up every morning.

So today, the day after Christmas, I'm surrounded by the debris from the Mini-Humans' barrage of Christmas joy. Dora the Explorer is praising my youngest from the TV screen. The oldest just emerged from her room, wearing a new outfit. The Boy is trying to decide which of his new pirate ships should pillage the castle.

Had a good conversation with my little sister last night. She's going to give me a niece in May. It's the first time I've spoken to her since the news broke. Life has been kind of a struggle for her the last several years, to say the least. Much of the drama has been self-created, but that hasn't made it any easier. Anyway, for the first time in, like, ever, she has a reason now to believe in the future. I couldn't be happier for her.

No work Friday, no work yesterday, no work today, no work tomorrow. No thinking about configuration issues or search requests or integration with existing systems. See how I'm not thinking about it?

This is what contentment feels like. I feel the overall inspiration coming back. I'm starting to feel like Me again. This is a good thing.

Good stuff all around

Good suggestion from utexas.edu, which has resulted in dark text on a light-ish background. This isn't the final design -- in fact, it's still mostly the generic template you'll see on 24,695 other sites. But at least it's an easier-to-read generic rendition.

Good news from the Carolinas. Always glad to hear things are going well for Otis and his group.

Good company for Thanksgiving dinner -- The Wife and the Mini-Humans. We have no family nearby, and their visits to us are reserved for Christmas. We were invited to a friend's dinner, and The Wife (who doesn't give up traditions easily) was strongly considering it. She presented the idea to the children; the younger two were all fired up about hanging out with their friends, but the Old Daughter vetoed it. "Thanksgiving is for family," she said. "That's our tradition. We should stick to it." So noted. It's comforting that a kid who has seen so much change in her life can find something to use as an anchor. Further evidence that when it comes to her, I really have nothing to worry about.

Good story in one of the Edge of America's rags today, worth a look. Brian Griese is a son of privilege. Thankfully, he knows it, and chooses to use the gifts he has received for the good of others. Few causes are more noble than his cause.

Good to be able to paint the outside of your house in late November. Bad to have to paint the outside of your house in late November. But good to be able to do it.

Good to watch The Wife lounging on the couch watching her favorite movie, Gone With the Wind. A well-deserved reward for a great Thanksgiving dinner, and for making my life generally, well, good.

Good to hear good reports from Anytown about Thanksgiving. My grandfather got out of the house and went to the celebration, which probably wasn't easy for him. Today marked the first time since 1937 that he wasn't celebrating my grandmother's birthday with her. The aunts and uncles and a few cousins got together, and, I'm told, a reasonably good time was had by all.

Awful lot of goodness around. Be thankful for all of it.

Silent cry, invisible tear

Looks like bad weather today in my hometown, not unlike a November 24 from 17 years ago. Today's a little bit of a rough day. Not that every day since that day hasn't been in its own little way, but when those numbers all come together, a "1," a "1," a "2," a "4," for some reason, it's just a little bit rougher.

I miss my father. Yeah, I know, he's still here. But the brutal truth is, he's not. And I think that sucks.

It's OK for me to think that. And I'll be fine, in a while, for a while.

I just needed a few minutes alone with November 24 to tell it what I really think of it.

Yasser Arafat, 1929-not soon enough

Proving once again there is no justice in the world, gallstones got him before the Israelis did. The fact that his name is on the Nobel Peace Prize is an insult to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin and to Shimon Peres.

Speak ill of this dead bastard all you want.

Nothing matters and what if it did?

Click, Drag and Delete have been pretty busy tonight. I keep trying to write something coherent, but bullshit comes out instead. My tolerance for bullshit is pretty low, and getting lower all the time.

I've been trying to make sense of the post-election babble. What are people really trying to say? Because 51 percent of us were too stupid to vote for W, the country's going straight to hell in a handbasket? Funny thing; most of the people who seem to be the most blue about Kerry's loss have access to computers and a good command of the written word, and jobs that give them a platform to share their feelings. Most of the people who stand around with my wife waiting to pick up their kids from school couldn't be more pleased with the election results. I know of nobody among the rapidly widening circle of friends we're gaining here on the Western Edge who voted for Kerry. If they did, they're doing a good job verbally faking their happiness over the result of the election.

What does that actually prove? Well, really, nothing. My suburb might or might not be typical. I would lean toward "not." A majority of my neighbors are officers in the Air Force, who work at the nearby base that houses Central Command. Some of them are headed to Iraq soon. Some of them have had to send people who report to them over there. All of them have strong feelings about the war, for and against. All of them voted for Bush.

It seems very possible that we're outgrowing our little democracy. What "unites" us? Really, nothing.

It took the deaths of 3,000 people who decided to not skip work one Tuesday in 2001 to get us to unite for a common cause, and that lasted, what, about two months? Then we were back to bitching and squabbling and back-biting. And that's not the fault of the left; if we must resort to schoolyard discourse (and apparently we must), the right started the whole "we're perfect and you're stupid" thing. They started it ...

An aside that doesn't really fit in anywhere else in this rant: Stop trying to convince me George W. Bush is a knuckle-dragging functional illiterate. He's not the most articulate person who's ever stood in front of the Great Seal. But last time I checked, they weren't just handing out degrees from Yale, even to people whose dads went there. I dropped out of a not-very-prestigious state university. I'm not going to pretend I'm smarter than somebody who found a way to make it through Yale.

God knows there's hypocrisy to spare in both red and blue hues. Bill Clinton was a womanizer who got a hummer from a chubby babe right there in the Oval Office. His successor sat in that same Oval Office and sent people off to die for ... well, for ... well, to defend us against ... uh, dammit, we had to bomb somebody! Michael Moore is a lying sack of shit. So is Ken Lay and the rest of his Enron cronies. I'm not sure any of Moore's lies have cost anybody their retirement savings.

Bottom line: We're facing a pretty serious hero shortage on both sides. Why? Because the good people are too damn smart to get involved. Colin Powell knows better. You know somebody's gunning for Barack Obama, the latest political Flavor of the Month,; not to attack his political ideas, all of which are sound, but to find out which of his college girlfriends he cheated on or how many speeding tickets he has or some other indiscretion with an actual relevance value of zero. We're going to be stuck with Hillary Clinton in 2008, not because she's the best or the brightest, but because she has good "name recognition."

The pool of statesmen and stateswomen is pretty thin these days. Good leaders are out there, but they're too busy leading to get caught up in the smoke-and-mirrors act that is the United States political system. The truly intelligent and visionary people don't want to play the game -- or they get drummed out of the game. (See index entries "McCain, John, too much integrity for own good," and "Dean, Howard, too visionary and passionate to be taken seriously").

Besides, we don't really want a leader as our president. We want somebody who looks good on TV and who can quip one-liners. We don't want a human; we want an image. Is Arnold Schwarzenegger the governor of California because he has an advanced degree in international economics? No. Did you know he has an advanced degree in international economics? Probably not. Lots of people have degrees in international economics. None of them was the Terminator. You likely won't see any of them as the governor of California.

So, now that I've declared the Repbulic extinct, what do I care about? I care that I'm not paying more than my fair share of the tax burden. I care that the things for which I am paying those taxes are of the highest quality, and are being built and maintained by people who are themselves being paid a living wage. I care that my children are safe, and I know that's primarily the responsibility of my wife and me. I'm less worried about international terrorists than I am about the registered sex offender who lives eight houses away from us. I care that the person who's being paid to watch him while he's on probation is doing her job. (We checked. She is.) I care mostly about stuff that's happening within about a 12-mile radius of wherever I am at the moment.

The most important vote I cast last Tuesday wasn't for president; it was for sheriff and the county commission.

I'm not choosing to be isolated; I'm choosing to mind my own house, and to take as much control as possible of what I can see. I'm participating in the process, but only to the extent where it affects me. I don't care what they do in Boston. I don't care what they do in Wyoming. I'm not sure anybody else in my immediate line of sight does, either. My hot-button issue is not abortion, or gay marriage, or "moral values," whatever the fuck that means. My issue is taxes. Bush sees it my way on taxes. Therefore, I voted for Bush. It's up to the people I send to Congress to keep him honest. (My vote for Senate went to the Democratic candidate, who lost to her slimebag opponent by about 132 votes ... Oops, there we go with the schoolyard stuff again. My bad. But he is a slimebag.) Bush wouldn't have been able to send all those people off to die if Congress hadn't let him. Kerry wasn't going to do anything about it anytime soon. All things being basically equal -- and they were -- the Republicans keep my taxes low, I'm voting Republican. As soon as the Democrats find some way to make it personally beneficial for me to vote for them, I'll vote for them.

So much for "united" states, huh? That's pretty much what I'm suspecting.

A logical criticism for what I have just written would go as follows: "You wrote god-knows-how-many-hundred-words and I still don't know what you believe." If that's the case, you weren't paying attention, and I'll sum it up in a few sentences.

I believe in the power of the individual, and I believe in the power of integrity and vision. Few of the choices with which I was presented last Tuesday showed me any of that. I support integrity and vision, no matter what party provides it. Does that explain anything?

(I'm not sure that this was any lower on the bullshit scale than any of the stuff that fell victim to Click, Drag and Delete, but I needed something to show for the last hour of typing. If I lose my balance while standing on this fence, it's really going to hurt my nuts. Click "Publish Post" and go on to the next thing, I guess.)

A weekend in Florida

On a beautiful Saturday in November (and here in Florida, there is rarely anything other than beautiful days in November), here's the way my two days off are shaping up ...

Surrounded by chaos: I have four extra children this weekend. The three younger ones pair off with our three quite nicely, and the oldest one is 11-going-on-34, so she's actually quite helpful. However, there is no way to have seven kids in your house and have peace ? no matter the hour. One of the kids who isn't ours was in bed with us last night.

The kids belong to friends of ours. They're off at the husband's 20-year high-school reunion in Wisconsin. Compounding the pain: The Wife is off at a dog show. I'm not yet at the edge of my sanity, but I can certainly see the edge from here. Thankfully, I have a bottle of 80-proof Danish liqueur within easy reach, when it becomes necessary. (Memo to Department of Children and Families: For me, not the kids.)

The friends who left us their kids are the most interesting people I think we've ever known. He is a major in the Air Force, tall, good-looking, flies KC-135 airborne refueling tankers when he's not leading his troops. He went to the Air Force Academy on a wrestling scholarship. I forgive The Wife's crush on him. I can certainly see why. His wife is also good-looking and in excellent shape; she is a nurse, the PTA president, a volunteer for god-knows-how-many other causes and still manages to find time to raise four smart, well-adjusted, good-looking and talented children. Their son is 5; he plays on my son's football team, and also plays the piano and does complex math. Their daughters are 4, 8 and 11, and are all smart and talented in their ways.

I can get through all of that without having to mention that they also face with grace and aplomb the daily challenges of being an interracial couple. He's white and grew up in rural Wisconsin; she's black and grew up in inner-city Chicago. That's the only thing that visibly separates them from the rest of us average suburban folk. For them, however, it's a complete non-issue. Yes, they take some crap every once in a while, but not nearly to the degree that they would have, say, 30 or even 20 years ago. For all the backward steps the country is taking as this tilt to the right continues, we certainly seem to be making strides against the cancer of racism.

The price of victory: The Boy's 3-7 football team somehow managed to squeak into the league playoffs. This sucked, because we were more than prepared for the season to be over. The coaches are becoming more annoying, and getting up at 6 a.m. every Saturday is just getting old.

In a stunning development, our Broncos pulled out a most unfortunate victory. This means yet one more week of football practice and one more Saturday of being awake at an ungodly hour. Thankfully, we're playing the champions of the other division, who went 9-1.

This experience has certainly confirmed all of my previous bitching about organized youth sports. Two weeks ago, one of our team's assistant coaches was kicked out of the game for questioning the officials. A parent was kicked out of the stands shortly thereafter. They weren't being violent or belligerent, just annoying and immature. Their reactions were well out of proportion to the importance of a game involving 5- to 7-year-old boys.

Because the coach was ejected, he was barred from participating on the field the next week. So he instead sat atop the press box with a video camera ... and a cell phone. He was calling plays down to the remaining coaches on the field.

I can't imagine any circumstance under which that would have been necessary.

New arrival: We have a new Champion Dog wanna-be in our house. A cute little golden retriever puppy replaced The Wife's male dog, who had behavior issues that derailed his chase for a championship. I don't like dogs, at all. This is a well-known fact. However, I'm going to take a shot at getting off on the right foot with this dog. Maybe if I'm reasonably nice to it, it won't hate me so much. Wish me luck.

Well, kids are starting to holler at each other in the other room. Guess I should see what's going on. Where's that liqueur again?

What's new is old again, or something like that

It's time for a change here at Dateline: Anytown, USA. It's been a while, and the debris was starting to get pretty thick. I was writing my name in the dust. The stench was not yet overwhelming, but it was certainly noticeable. And the occasional cockroach crawling by was yet another sign that I needed to do some serious cleanup.

I had three choices:

1/Put in the necessary mental elbow grease to do the much-needed renovations
2/At least do the minimum to clean up the existing mess
3/Blow the whole damn thing up and start over

Because I'm lazy, and because I secretly enjoy a little bit of violence and mayhem now and then, I chose "3."

So much to talk about. So much has happened over the last several months. So many new adventures, so many new towns, so many takeoffs and landings. Lots of new people, which has been a good thing for me; I'm making progress against rapidly advancing agoraphobia. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, but I'm no longer actively avoiding other humans.

So much to think about. Wondering if my former Governor can fix in four years the damage he's done in the previous four. I earlier said I wasn't going to tell you how I voted. I'm going to go back on that, because it deserves some reflection, and because I kind of like pissing you off. I voted for Bush -- not because I think he's done a particularly good job, but because I think the Democrats can do better than Kerry, and I want them to focus on doing so in '08. Kerry didn't show me anything to make me think he was a better alternative, at least not in the short term. Remember, he got hornswoggled by that whole WMD thing, too. I have a history of votes that I question later: I voted for Perot in '92. I have a feeling I'm going to be questioning this one soon.

So much to be pissed off about. As mentioned in a post in the dusty forum, my former employer laid off a whole bunch of people last week. One of them was the best human being with whom I had ever worked. He was my boss when I had the boring job that I whined so much about. He was the only good thing about that job. He was also the only bad thing about that job. He never quite got his arms around the upper-management thing. After I left in '02, he got shoved aside and shoved aside and shoved aside until he finally was pushed off the edge. He's 43, with a kid in high school and a kid in middle school. I'd like to think he'll have no problem finding another job; he's smart and he's skilled. But it's not a great market for 40-ish white males, so ...

Some 60 people were excused from further participation. I know about 25 names. To a person, most of them were older people; some of them were people who hadn't kept up with the technology, some of them were people whose jobs had been kind of phased out as the newspaper reduced its coverage, and some of them were certainly less than competent. But I hate it when anybody leaves a job under any terms other than his or her own, through no real fault of their own.

And I especially hate it when good, hard-working people are victims of mismanagement by those in very high places. This newspaper pissed away more than $60 million over the last five years; $40-some million on a bad technology investment and the rest on refunds to advertisers after it was revealed they had been fudging their circulation numbers. Upper management was quick to say the circulation scandal had absolutely nothing to do with the layoffs. Upper management is, of course, full of shit.

Now, of course, the question looms: How in the hell do I wrap this up with something that'll make you come back for the next one? I've asked myself that question every time I've sat in front of this (or any other) keyboard over the last three years. I've never come up with a good answer for it. But y'all keep coming back anyway, for some reason. I'll keep searching for that answer.

This is only a test

If this were an actual post, it'd still be boring as hell. But it's not. It's just a test.

Meanwhile, back here at the funny farm ...
We're off to a good start with Election 2004 here in Florida.

Now hear this, America
The way I see it, folks, we have two choices:

We can let the ruling class decide who leads our country for the next four years

We can be the ruling class.

Choose the latter. Get the hell out and vote tomorrow.

As always, I don't care who you vote for, and I'm not telling you who I'm voting for. I do care that you put in the time and effort to make the decision. Don't leave it up to the radicals on either wing. You have an opinion; scream it from the rooftops. I want to hear you.

Dark day in Texas
Several friends got hit in a mass layoff at the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper. I'm sad about it, and very pissed, because it's largely the result of high-level mismanagement.

More on this topic later.

Needing some music
My iPod count stands at 504 songs -- pretty weak for a guy who claims to love music as much as I do.

So: I'm asking for your help. Recommend five songs to me -- from any genre; you don't have to know or care what I like. I want to know what YOU like, and I want to share it.

I buy songs pretty much exclusively from the iTunes music store, but if you happen to spring a song on me that I can't get there, let me know where I can get it.

Anyway: Five songs, from each of you. Click on "Enlighten us" and enlighten my iPod before my next road trip.

For the record, here's five from my playlist:

Baby Girl, Sugarland: Newly created "supergroup" featuring three notable singer-songwriters from Atlanta's music scene. They put together a helluva band. Their CD is scheduled for release Oct. 26. Another good song, not yet generally available: "Down in Mississippi (and Up to No Good.)

Love Means Never Having to Say You're Hungry, Charlie Robison: From his new album, "Good Times." Raunchy, not-safe-for-the-minivan paean to ... well, let's just say you won't be able to hear this song without thinking about a certain Dixie Chick's, um ... well, just listen to the song.

Lough Erin Shore, The Corrs: Instrumental from an Irish band of siblings. The rest of their stuff is a little too poppy for me, but man, what a bunch of great musicians. Amazing violin, piano and tin whistle evokes the best of Irish music without making you think of "Riverdance."

Kick my Ass, Big and Rich: Actually, this whole album is worth a listen. Big and Rich is heading for some serious commercial success, which means you should take a listen before Nashville beats them down and turns them into everyothercountryradioact. You won't find too many albums that combine straight-up country, hard rock, rap in Spanish and Bon Jovi-style power ballads.

Pocahontas Proud, Gretchen Wilson: "I'm the biggest thing that ever came from my hometown," hollers the Redneck Woman, and it's hard to argue against that statement when one's hometown is Pocahontas, Ill. I like Gretchen Wilson mostly because she reminds me of every third girl I knew as a teenager in Anytown, girls from the surrounding small towns who drove Chevy 4x4s and would beat you up as soon as hold your hand. I like that in a woman. (A little bit about my taste in women: I think this picture is just about the hottest picture of any woman on the Web.) I like this song because I appreciate people who understand where they came from and are proud of it.

Your turn. Five from you.

That's him. The fat guy
I'm generally a pretty average guy. The one thing that has always made me different from you is that I'm really, really thin.

I didn't weigh 100 pounds when I graduated from high school. The first time I had my body fat measured, during a physical for my track team, my body fat registered 1.8 percent. I could buy my clothes in the children's section until I was 26.

Even with the inevitable settling that comes with adulthood, I still tipped the scales at around 130. (I'm just shy of 5-foot-7). I took great pride in being able to maintain a slim profile, despite eating large quantities of whatever the hell I wanted and drinking enough beer on some nights to make you puke just from watching me.

I knew it was going to catch up to me eventually, I really did. And I probably should be glad it took this long.

I stepped on a scale a few days ago for the first time since February. That time, I weighed 134. I almost had a heart attack when I saw the number that popped up the other day. (OK, the heart-attack thing might have been because of the clogged arteries, but anyway ... )

One-fifty-seven.

Damn near 160 pounds. Once again, just shy of 5-foot-7.

I knew something was up during one of my road trips earlier this summer. I packed my normal bunch of clothes, and suddenly, my slightly snug 31-waist pants didn't fit at all. They weren't "slightly snug," nor "really tight." They would not snap around my waist, despite my best efforts to suck it in.

This happened, I swear to God, overnight. I found myself in Washington state suddenly having to shop for pants. In a 33.

So, now, I'm faced for the first time ever with the idea that I might have to care about getting my weight down, or at least making sure it doesn't go up any more. I actually might have to start somehow forcing myself to eat fat-free stuff. (God, I hate fat-free stuff.) Two words: Light beer. A few more words: A lot less of it. And, oh yeah, exercise ...

Part of it is more of the Inevitable Settling, now that I'm closer to 40 than to 30. Part of it is my new job, where I find myself sitting a lot in 757s and in airports and behind desks, and eating restaurant food on other people's money.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not in danger any time soon of being the blubberbutt you see walking away in a TV news story about how we're making the planet sink because we're all so damn fat. And vanity was something I gave up when I started losing my hair, anyway.

The reason it concerns me, mostly, is because I have heart disease coming at me from both sides of my family. I don't really need to make things any harder on my ticker than my genetics already dictate they're going to be.

I'm easing into this. I'll mix a few diet sodas in with the four or five regular sodas, and maybe even a glass of water occasionally. I'll eat well one day, and like I usually do the next day. I had a morning walk for a while as part of my routine, but time and the need to sleep has been stealing that. I need to get it back.

And in that paragraph above, I just mistyped "steak" insead of "steal." And I paused for just a second and I thought, "Mmm, steak ... "

Innocence rules
The Old Daughter finally unleashed her first curse word.

She didn't say it to her teacher, or to her mom, or to her gramdma. Nobody heard it at all. She whispered it to herself in her bedroom. Several months ago.

We would never have know had she not come out of her room this evening, sobbing. "Mommy, I gotta tell you something," she blubbered. "I said a bad word. I feel terrible about it."

Then she told us the part about having whispered it to herself in her room several months ago. "I just" snif snif "wanted to see" snif snif "what it felt like."

I'm not too worried about teenagerhood, all of a sudden. I think she'll be OK.

And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, as long as she doesn't say it to any of the aforementioned authority figures listed above, she can say whatever the fuck she wants to say.

Too tired to duck again
I'd start an eyeofjeanne.blogspot.com, but geez, I'm so bored with the whole hurricane thing at this point. This one is probably going to hit us with more than a glancing blow. We're not prepared, other than what is left over from Charley and Frances and Ivan.

This whole Edge of America thing might be up for discussion soon.

Whew. OK
So perhaps I can go through the week without having to do another hurricane blog. Perhaps that damn storm will fall apart somewhere in the Gulf before it hits Mobile, Ala. For the sake of the Mobilians, I hope it happens that way.

Bringing an end to a month's worth of hurricane panic forces me to resume the focus on what we so loosely call "normal life." You know, that thing that involves a morning routine, then work, then an evening routine, followed by sleep, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. That cycle seems refreshing now that "hurricane panic" isn't in the mix anywhere, at least for the moment.

It's September, which means it's time for football. Up until this year, it was the kind of football that kept my ass firmly planted on the couch on Sundays -- you know, the 1 p.m. game, then the 4 p.m. game, then, if my long-suffering wife had finally given up, the 8:30 p.m. game. This is followed, of course, by Monday Night Football, for which I probably won't last past halftime, now that I'm a member of the Real World, that World which is at work by 8:30 each morning.

But that routine has been shaken up a bit by Saturday morning football -- football of the flag variety, featuring kids ages 5 to 7. Mine is No. 14, the one on the bench checking out the cheerleaders.

The Boy's team suffered its first loss on Saturday, leaving them 2-1. They pretty much took it in stride, however; at least, the players did. All they knew was that when the game was over, it was time for Laffy Taffy and juice boxes. The coaches, of course, were deeply disappointed, and grumbled and mumbled about lack of execution and concentration to a bunch of boys who can't read, much less have any idea what "execution" means.

These coaches held the game up for nearly five minutes disputing a fumble call at the goal line -- in a game involving 5-year-olds. Talk about needing to get a grip.

But: These coaches had spent much of the week at their real jobs. One owns a construction company; he's been working his ass off helping people in Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte recover after Charley and Frances. One is a deputy sheriff; he spends his days dealing with "crapbags," as he puts it, and loves nothing more than to hang out with a bunch of innocent kids, hoping to play some part in keeping them from growing up to be crapbags. They can be forgiven if they want to win a football game a little too much. As important as their real jobs are, it's heartening to know that a little boys' game can be that important to them, too. If it helps them stay sane, I'm all for it.

As for me: I'm back on the road next week. Two days in Minnesota, three days in Illinois, in the never-ending pursuit of deploying better software. Thankfully, the hurricane threat in Minnesota is minimal. I'll miss next Saturday's game, most likely; unless we make dramatic improvements in the software in Illinois between now and then, I'll be landing at my home airfield just about the time the final horn blows. But that's OK; I'll still have Sunday, and I'll be able to explain to The Boy once again that guys in the NFL don't wear flags.

Surely they're kidding
From the National Hurricane Center ...

Hunkered down, again
Well, guess it's that time again here on the Edge. Go here for the official word, and go to eyeoffrances.blogspot.com for what it looks like from our backyard.

He's a divider, not a uniter
Singeth The Boy:

"This land is your land/This side is my land ... "

It's not really a new post
Mostly, this is just typing exercise. I just need to loosen my brain a little bit. And lucky you; you get to watch.

I'm on vacation this week, for the first time in a long time. It doesn't mean I don't still have a pile of work to do; that pile's still there, and it's still laughing at me every time I look at it. This vacation, for me, basically just means I work when I want to, and I can lean on my, "Well, I'm on vacation," reply if anybody asks anything about anything.

A smart person would have taken the battery out of his laptop and stored it somewhere off-site. But my intellect can certainly be called into question.

In totally unrelated events, my son is playing flag football. He's 5. I've ranted about the folly of organized youth sports before, but hey, when in Suburbia, do as the Suburbanites do. He doesn't get much playing time; he's a lot smaller than the other 5- and 6-year-olds on his team, and it's very possible he's a victim of his genetics in that he's not exactly blessed with natural athletic talent. His only appearance Saturday was on the kickoff team after his team's second touchdown. He did chase the returner with abandon, and almost ran him down, but it didn't matter, because the ball had been blown dead 30 yards back.

There was a little bit of miffedness among the family unit about The Boy's lack of playing time. Dragging him out of bed at 6:45 on a Saturday morning so he could play for one kickoff seems a little silly. But, as that discourse was being discoursed, the usual Perspective Builder came into sight: The team's waterboy, a crew-cut 5-year-old in an electric wheelchair, gamely wheeling himself around and spraying the players with water. Bet he'd be really happy to get in for one kickoff. Bet his parents would be positively giddy.

So, no more whining about The Boy's playing time. We can still whine about the coaches, for whom it seems to mean a lot more to be 2-0 than it does to make sure all the kids are learning how to play football. But I'll keep that waterboy in mind.

Saturday, of course, followed Friday, at which The Wife had to attend a hastily called parental conference for The Old Daughter, who had an incident of speaking out in class. This followed days of warnings about speaking out in class. She is genetically programmed to be a talker, and she's learning how to use that switch that tells her mouth to stay shut when her brain comes up with something it thinks needs to be said. But sometimes that's a tough lesson to learn.

And the Very Cool Mother-in-Law is visiting this weekend. We're about to launch another enhancement to The Freelance Gig in a couple of months. I'll be working my ass off -- while I'm working my ass off -- but the result is going to be very good, I think.

Finally, the 5-day forecast track for Frances is now touching the southern tip of The Edge. It's too early for action, they tell us, but you might want to check your hurricane shutters just to be sure.

There. My typing fingers feel a little looser, and more comfortable now.

The happiest day of their lives ... so far
Otis and Mrs. Otis welcome a new addition to the world. We welcome him as the newest addition to our family. They're 24 hours in, so I know they're all three tired -- but not too tired to know that they're about to embark on a wonderful journey.

Congratulations to Otis and Mrs. Otis. And congratulations to us, too, because our world just became a better place.

We're hiding over here
Go to eyeofcharley.blogspot.com for ground-level updates, courtesy of us, on the progress of Hurricane Charley as it approaches the Western Edge of America.

And wish us luck. For you praying types, we'll accept those too.

Here it comes
Hurricane Charley is on its way. Nobody knows what's going to actually happen here on the Western Edge, but we're getting ready for the worst. We are not in an evacuation zone, but we're really close to it.

More later if/when something actually happens.

Deep sigh
For the first time in a long time, I wrote a post that I thought was moderately entertaining.

I hit the wrong button. It's gone. And I'm too damn tired to rewrite it.

Ugh.

Wish I had said it first
"Media's the plural of mediocre." --Jimmy Breslin

Wondering here in Allentown
Business this week has brought me to the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area of Pennsylvania, and of course, I have Billy Joel stuck in my head. And it's getting very hard to staaaaaaaaayy ...

In my quick tour of the area, I have to question why anybody did stay. It's a shell of a city. The local section of Thursday's newspaper was essentially a six-page crime report. The downtown Bethlehem area has some very cool architecture, but it morphs quickly into a depressing neighborhood of dilapidated row houses, places whose occupants would apparently rather mill around outside than inside. A city government official in Easton made news earlier this week by calling a newspaper reporter a "stupid bitch" in the middle of a public hearing. (To his credit, he did resign the next day.) Some of the surrounding area is very pretty, but it doesn't take long to wind up in another depressing little town where nothing has happened since 1940. And normally, I like small towns.

In a word: Yuk.

The last thing you see before the little regional jet lands at the Lehigh Valley International Airport is a big hole where a strip-mining operation kept families fed for the first half of the 20th century. The hole's still there, and there's nothing anybody can get out of it and nothing anybody can do about it. It said to me, "Well, we got ours; you go find a way to get yours."

It's a shame. Small cities in the United States should be centers of innovation and ideas and creativity. Industry and the trades should provide a living wage (Everybody had a pretty good shot/To get at least as far as their old man got). I understand how capitalism works, but I think we're starting to see some of the long-term effects of capitalism on humans. I hope I'm not right about that.

Summertime blahs
My recent reticence is not attributable to anything other than that I'm receiving an awful lot of input these days. But that's a good thing:

This job, about which I was so worried two months ago, is starting to pan out very well. I'm enjoying my little adventure into the real world, and learning a lot that has nothing to do with software. (Thankfully, I'm learning a lot that does relate to software, in an effort to actually keep the job.)

We're getting settled on the Western Edge. The house is good, the yard is good, the neighborhood is good. Kids like it, The Wife likes it, I like it. Nothing about which to complain, or expand upon.

And my life is a large step forward toward completion because I now, like 94 percent of the rest of the world, have an iPod. (Happy birthday to me! and thanks, guys.) From you, I seek recommendations for new stuff to put on this little white box of joy.

A decade of delight
Here in a few minutes, as I write this, I'll be the parent of a 10-year-old daughter. Time flies when you're having fun.

The Old Daughter has seen a lot in 10 years. She has moved 10 times. She has so far only spent one full academic year at the same school. She's been in the tailwind of our pursuit of the Best Possible Situation, and thankfully, she has been very adaptable. I hope to not have to be testing that adaptability again any time soon.

Along the way, she welcomed a brother and a sister after spending almost five years as an only child. She adapted to that well, too, and has been a wonderful role model for both of her siblings.

Sometimes I forget she's a few minutes away from being 10. She can analyze thoughts and concepts in nearly adult fashion; you can tell there's a lot going on behind those eyeglasses, and it's fun to run ideas past a brain that performs at a high level and is unburdened by years of preconceived notions. She also has a maddening tendency to act half her age sometimes. She's a wonderful and complex person, and it's fun to watch her become a person.

I don't have a favorite child. No parent of multiple children does. But each of our children is special in his or her own way. The Young Daughter will always be the Baby. The Boy will always be the only boy. The Old Daughter will always be the first.

A couple of our regular readers are going to become parents soon. I don't claim to be the least bit qualified to give out parental advice, and wouldn't for a second think of doing so. But I do hope they feel a little bit better about their impending parenthood by participating in this forum, and following along as I muddle my way through it -- if nothing else, hopefully, they'll gain the security of knowing that if I can do it, they certainly can.

Anyway, happy birthday, Old Daughter. And thanks for being you.

Where the hell is everybody?
Suddenly, I'm alone with my thoughts. I'm looking at the buddy list of the IM program on the left side of my screen; everybody's offline. What are the chances of that happening? I'm looking at the list window of the IM program on the right side of my screen; "mdgradyfl," a co-worker, is online, but "Away." I try her anyway, and the cyber-brushoff comes back, "Auto-reply: I am away from my computer right now."

The kids are asleep. The wife is in bed with a head cold. It's 9:50 p.m. EDT and everybody who I might call is in bed or headed that way soon. I'm not a big phone guy anyway, so I'd only resort to that as a last option.

But I'm suddenly having a night where I don't really want to be alone with my thoughts. I don't have anything particularly profound to share, really; I'm frankly a hell of a lot more interested in what you're thinking. I know what I think, although it helps me sometimes to bounce it off a few other people to make sure I really think it.

But I'm inspired by knowing what you think. My thoughts are more complete when they're enhanced by the thoughts of other people.

I've been seriously considering the idea of launching another forum, a collaborative in which people can expound on their places in the world through any medium necessary: words, shapes, colors, sounds, photography. I know an awful lot of people all across the country who are incredibly creative, but who are getting paid for something other than their creativity. I'm one of those people. I need an outlet, but more important, I need to know it's not just going into a vacuum.

If you'd be interested in contributing to such a thing, let me know. There's nothing in it for you but the chance to share your thoughts and feelings and skills with a few other people who would be incredibly supportive. I'm sure there's some value in that.

Wherever I go, there I am
The idea goes something like this: Write a little bit about your place in the world. How you got there, why you're there, why you won't leave, why you would leave.

I've been thinking about this sort of thing quite a bit lately. I've had a run of "How did I get here?" moments in the last month or so. How did I come to be driving a Lincoln Town Car down Washington Highway 16 with Mount Rainier looming in the sunrise? How did I come to be getting out of that Lincoln Town Car and into a first-class seat on a cross-country flight? How did I come to be eating on the roof of the Hotel Washington, looking down at the snipers (at least we thought they were the snipers) perched atop the White House? How did I come to be speaking Danish while drinking Czech beer in a bar in Washington, D.C.? How did I come to be living in a 2,400-square-foot house with a tall, beautiful, fun wife and three kids who are already smarter and funnier than me?

See, this story started out to be a story about geography; how a guy from Anytown, USA, could wind up on the west coast of Florida via Cincinnati, Orlando, Texas and Orlando again. How a guy who didn't cross the Missouri state line until he was 12 and who didn't own a home computer until 1999 could find himself jetting all over the country, telling people how to use their computer systems.

It's been a strange run, and I'm wondering how I got here.

For the first time in my entire life, I'm not wondering what's next.

This could be because I'm fast approaching my 36th birthday. The line marking "old" is now behind me, at least by my standards.

This could be because I actually enjoy what I'm doing now, something new and fun and challenging (and at the same time frustrating and frightening). I'm learning a lot about a subject in which I'm intensely interested, and I'm getting paid. Kind of feels like I'm beating the system.

This could be because I don't really care what's next; because I'm trying to milk the very most out of right now.

This could be because what's next kind of scares me. I'm closer to 40 than I am to 30. Like it or not, the clock is ticking. Forty years from now, there's a very good chance I'll be dead.

Yeah, that's kind of a blunt way to put it. But that's kind of my point. The end comes eventually. When my end comes, I'll be ready to answer the question, "What did you do with your life?" in the following way:

I did whatever I wanted to do.

They say happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want, or something like that. I don't claim to know what happiness is. That's for greater minds than mine to decide. But right now, I'm doing what I want to do. I'm living the life I want to live with the people with whom I want to live it.

How did I get here?

It doesn't really matter, as long as I'm where I want to be. And I am.

Kick in the behind
It has been brought to my attention that I've been a really crappy friend lately. I've already apologized personally. I'm now apologizing generally. I'll try to do better.

The best songs ever
Some of these probably don't appear on too many others' lists of "best songs ever." Some of them you've probably never heard. Some of them are not even on my usual list of favorite songs. But, my memory having been jogged by having heard one of these songs yesterday for the first time in a long time, I offer you a list, not ranked in any order, of what I believe to be the greatest pieces of modern songwriting.

"Don't Stand So Close To Me," The Police: You know this girl. And this man. Every time I hear this song, I get a really clear mental picture of a cold, rainy day in the mid-1980s at Central High School in my hometown. The girl is standing in the rain on Benton Avenue, waiting for the teacher to stop and pick her up. His car, after all, is warm and dry.

"Downstream," The Rainmakers: One of the best second verses of all time can be found in this song.

Well, we picked up Harry Truman
floating down from Indepedence
We said "What about the War?"
He said, "Good riddance"
We said, "What about the bomb?
Are you sorry that you did it?"
He said, "Pass me that bottle
and mind your own bidness"

The song weaves 20th-century history through a float trip down the Mississippi with Missouri historical heroes Mark Twain, Truman and Chuck Berry. You're not going to find many songs with Mark Twain, Truman and Chuck Berry playing starring roles. Plus, I love songs that are musically simple, and it doesn't get much more simple than F-sharp, F-sharp (rest) B-F-sharp. And, this band's drummer has my e-mail address. Nobody else who appeared on MTV in the 1980s has ever sent me e-mail.

"Freebird," Lynyrd Skynyrd. Go ahead, laugh at me. And then go find me a song that connects better with its intended audience.

"Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning," Alan Jackson. Major tragic historical events are fertile breeding grounds for maudlin or jingoistic tunes, sappy songs about heroes and Go-America-Kick-Some-Ass rockers that instantly vault to No. 1 despite being complete crap. This song was the exception: A song that captured what all of us thought at one time or another in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and did so without being overdramatic. I love a song that tugs at the heartstrings without intending to do so.

"Seminole Wind," John Anderson. You have to 1/have lived in Florida and 2/know that John Anderson was born in Florida to fully appreciate this love song to his home state.

Your turn.

May you have a day as good as this one
It started ominously, late Monday night, with a call from the wife at 11 p.m. PDT, which was 2 a.m. at the computer screen at which she was sitting. She was calling to tell me about the wonders of online shopping, in which, at 2 a.m., one could decide to send flowers to one's grandmother and nobody batted an eye.

Well, American Express batted an eye. American Express wouldn't let her send flowers at 2 a.m.

This did not bode well for me, because I was 2,600 miles from home with our American Express as my only financial instrument.

A glitch between our bank and American Express had rendered my only financial instrument temporarily useless. The problem would be fixed, but it couldn't be fixed until the American Express offices opened at 5 a.m. PDT. My problem was that I had to check out of my hotel room at 4:30 a.m., drive 63 miles from our customer site to Seattle, and return a rental car on which the trip computer read, "47 MILES TO EMPTY" in time to catch my 7 a.m. flight.

But, of course, I had nothing to worry about.

I checked out of the hotel promptly at 4:30 a.m., ready to try to explain away the American Express issue. The desk clerk said, "We're in the process of our night audit ... can we just mail you a receipt?" Why, yes, you can.

At the gas station, I managed to find $3 in singles and change at the bottom of my bag. In my wallet, however, I found a credit card that I thought I had forgotten to bring. It doesn't have much on it, but it had enough to get me enough gas to get to Seattle.

At the airport, I was prepared to deal with Hertz and the American Express. Instead, I got, "Our computers are down. Can we mail you a receipt?" Why, yes, you can.

Along the way, I saw Mount Rainier at sunrise, a sight that was too beautiful to put into words.

Along the way, Delta Air Lines' computers gave me my first free first-class upgrade as a Medallion member.

And at the end of my journey, The Wife was looking as beautiful as ever, the mini-humans were as loud and as fun as ever, and I am home.

Long time gone
The worst thing about letting this forum go stale for too long is trying to re-start it again. Not because there's nothing happening; far from it, in fact. The problem is: Where the hell do I start? So many topics:

We've moved -- one more time -- in pursuit of Home. We like where we've landed, certainly. We're now sharing a city with the Stanley Cup Champions, for what that's worth ...

My new job -- which by this time is not so new anymore -- both fascinates and stymies me. It's a lot more like the real world than my newspaper jobs ever were, which is both bad and good. I'm learning a lot and getting from it what I want to get from it, both in knowledge and in fringe benefits (for instance, I just qualified for Silver Medallion status on Delta. First class, here I come.) ...

I'm in the Pacific Northwest one more time, fine-tuning a project that didn't get off to the flying start the company hoped it would have. It wasn't a disaster, but we were looking for better; so I'm here with a Danish co-worker (meeting yet another Danish co-worker) trying to make it better. At this point, I'm actually capable of helping. That's a good thing.

I'm going to have to miss the Party of the Year (I refer you to the link to A Night in South Carolina in the links list at right, because I'm too lazy to add the link here) because I'll be at a trade show next weekend in Washington, D.C.

I miss my wife and kids and house. I enjoy the travel part of traveling; it's the not-being-at-home part that sucks.

But really, the question is: Do you have any real interest in hearing any more about any of that stuff? Probably not.

So I search for something instead in which you might be interested. The search so far is proving futile. I can't imagine you care about what I think about Ronald Reagan's death (enough coverage, already!) or the NBA Finals (maybe a 12-second shot clock might be a better idea, not that it would help the Lakers any) or the current state of the media industry (I'm certainly enjoying the hell out of looking at it from the outsider's point of view; it's a lot less scary.)

Then, it occurs to me that this is my forum, not yours. I'm not supposed to care what you think. I'm supposed to articulate my thoughts and present them in the written word as a catharsis for myself, not as some sort of weak source of entertainment for you. This is supposed to be All About Me.

But there's something empty and selfish in that, and I certainly don't want to be empty and selfish, especially not on your time.

Now you see my quandary. Help me through it.

Hey, y'all ... still here
Busy time right now. More to come soon. Promise.

Be all that you can be ... really
Anybody else notice how many more advertisements for the armed forces seem to be hitting the airwaves? You know, the ones extolling the virtues of courage and dedication and stuff? Coincidence, I'm sure.

It does too smear the entire effort
Warning: Hard left turn ahead. Hang on, or jump off now.

As a visual journalist, I've looked at a lot of really disturbing images, and have been party to decisions whether to run those images or not. The incoming photo wire shows us everything, and it's up to the editors to decide what to show you. In a run of really disturbing images from the last three years of my journalism career, one sticks out in my mind. It was from the Liberia scuffle last year, the mini-civil war that erupted. It was a picture of a skinny black man, clad only in his underwear, being worked over by uniformed members of the opposition. His face showed the fear and the humiliation in clear detail. I was very shaken up by what I saw -- I saw pictures of wars overseas every day, but this one had particular impact. They weren't just trying to hurt this guy. They were cutting him down to his very soul, and then slashing through it. It chilled me to the bone to believe that people could be that evil to other people, here in our supposedly enlightened age.

But that was Liberia. Thankfully, I live in a country that's above performing such humiliation to its enemies.

Right?

Condoleeza Rice, one of the few remaining members of the Bush Administration for whom I still have a great deal of respect -- and yeah, it's waning, too -- said this of the atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. military officials minding the Abu Ghraib internment camp in Iraq: "The actions of a few should not overshadow the many good works that are being done."

I'm sorry, Ms. Rice. I've been a strong defender of yours for nearly three years now. But you could not be more wrong.

These actions do overshadow whatever good we've allegedly done in Iraq. These actions lower us to the level of Saddam Hussein himself. We were on shaky ground, anyway, frankly. Our job was to go over there and depose Saddam and find those elusive weapons of mass destruction. We should be happy with our 1-for-2 and get the hell out. We shoudl leave so we don't waste any more American lives, and we should leave before any more crap like Abu Ghraib happens again.

High-ranking U.S. officials have been quick and strong in decrying the alleged abuses. But is that message getting through to the Arab world? You think they're broadcasting that part on al-Jazeera? Let's say the message is getting through (the Arab press is known for its objectivity and fairness, right?); one has to guess that probably something is being lost in the translation. I doubt know if there's an Arabic word for "isolated incident,"
especially not when something of this gravity is involved.

I was very much in favor of getting the job done, getting some sort of stable government set up in Iraq and getting out by June 30. Of course, I keep hearing this "June 30" date being bandied about, and I can't help but notice nobody's specifying June 30 of what year. Screw June 30. It's time to get out now, before any more stupidity occurs, before any more people die.

Look at it this way: If a few hundred thousand Iraqis swooped in and took over our shores and installed some benevolent white guy who was sympathetic to the cause as president, and then they decided to hang around for a while after that and break a few more things just to make sure we got the message that a Muslim theocracy was the best form of government ever invented, would you pick up arms against them? You'd be an "insurgent," of course, if you did. And let's say a few thousand Mexicans and Canadians decided to come in and help you out against those occupiers. Surely you'd welcome their help. But they'd be "insurgents" too, and their presence would be used as an argument that "well, we've got the Americans under control; it's these damn Mexicans and Canadians who are coming in here causing problems. The Americans welcome us with open arms."

And let's say that, despite all the good they've done in convincing us that a Muslim theocracy was the best way, some renegade Iraqi unit decided to take a few American "insurgents" prisoner and strip them down to nothing and slap hoods over their heads, and then take pictures.

If they don't like us on the "Arab street," wherever that is, we've sure as hell earned it.

Please feel free to try to convince me I'm wrong on this one. I understand what I'm saying is extreme, and I understand what I'm saying undercuts my previously stated support for our troops. And for God's sake, don't give me any crap about how "they" killed 3,000 of our innocent souls on Sept. 11, 2001. "They," the Iraqis, didn't have a goddamn thing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. Don't cheapen the deaths of the Sept. 11 victims by saying that gave us an excuse to invade a country just because we had to bomb somebody. And sure as hell don't cheapen the deaths of the Sept. 11 victims by suggesting it's OK for Americans to become terrorists themselves.

I do support the guys who are over there just following orders and trying to get a job done and trying to leave a good impression of the United States.

And I'm sure someone, years down the road, will say that the people who committed these atrocities were just "following orders."

If that's the case, whoever gave those orders should face the ultimate punishment.

War is indeed hell. And it apparently brings out the worst in military units which are being sold to the world as being virtuous and noble.

It's time to end it. Now.

The Man
Just after a Pacific Northwest dawn on Friday, I was sifting through pages of documentation I had written for software I don't know, with Soledad O'Brien giving me the morning's news in the background. Then her sidekick, Bill Hemmer, came on with his solemn, well-we've-got-breaking-news tone.

A book was on the nightstand next to my hotel-room bed. When Hemmer finished his sentence, I threw the book across the room in genuine anger. The sentence was punctuated by 200 pages of Random House hardcover flying into a hotel-room wall.

I was really hoping for a happy end to the Pat Tillman story. You know, guy gives up promising NFL career to join the Army after Sept. 11. Guy refuses all interviews, gives up his $3 million contract, leaves his new bride behind in Arizona to join the Rangers.

It wasn't just that, though. Pat Tillman was no dumb jock with an uncontrolled aggressive streak. He graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State in 3 1/2 years, while ascending from walk-on to starter on the football team. He was picked in the seventh round by his hometown Cardinals, who were willing to risk a low pick on an undersized defensive back. He had worked his way up to a starting spot, and then to a $5 million free-agent offer from the defending champion St. Louis Rams in 2001. Out of loyalty to the Cardinals, he turned it down and took $3 million from his hapless hometown team.

After Sept. 11, a lot of us were pissed, and wanted to go kick some Taliban butt. Most of us got over it. Tillman didn't. His brother joined the Rangers. Out of loyalty to his brother, he did the same.

Some -- many -- of us might question his decision-making skill. We might question the fact that he didn't capitalize on his status as an NFL player to make a splashy entry into the service, only to take some low-risk duty so he could make a triumphant return to the field in a couple of years. The Army would have been fine with that. Would have been a great morale booster. The NFL, of course, would have been fine with that too, in the age of Terrell Owens and no-names like Joe Horn pulling out cell phones in the end zone.

I had to question myself about why the news of Pat Tillman's death threw me into a book-throwing rage, while the other 700-some deaths have simply made me sigh deeply and say a little prayer for their families. It's selfish, really. I wanted the Pat Tillman story to have a happy ending. And it just makes me angry at the monsters who created this situation in the first place.

Even without the happy ending, though, the Pat Tillman story sure as hell has a beginning and a middle that we can all respect.

Rest in peace, Man.

And that capital "M" is not a typo. It's there for a reason.

High in the sky
It's about 9 a.m. Saturday. I'm typing because I'm 35,000 feet over the Florida-Georgia border at present, and I have nothing else to do. Lucinda Williams is singing to me in my headphones. A delightful little girl with glasses, probably not quite 5, sits next to me with a book of animal stickers. She's from "Crystal Springs," she tells me. Her mom patiently explains that's the name of their subdivision. "He means, What state do you live in?" Mom said to the little girl. "Pennnnnn ... sylvania!" she said, very pleased with herself for having been able to get past that first syllable. The first syllable is, after all, the hardest part.

The little girl and her family are heading to Disney World, of course. Her name is Lauren. She explains that her little brother, Dominick, "puked all over me when he was, about, I think, 10 months old." Mom gives me an apologetic look. I explain that it's OK; I have three children, and I've been puked on plenty of times myself, and I wish I was cute enough to share that detail with a total stranger without fear of somebody looking at me like I was a candidate for the loony bin.

I've spent a lot of time lately at 35,000 feet, living my life three letters at a time. Last week, it was MCO-to-ATL-to-MCI and back for my grandmother's funeral. This week, it was MCO-to-ATL-to-EWR and back, with a two-hour drive from the gawdawful Newark airport to western Connecticut to lead some software training. I spent most of Friday night trying to get to the gawdawful Newark airport, caught in a traffic jam in the Bronx. It was my first time through New York, a city which clearly is going to require more careful examination in the future.

No time for that right now, though. I'm headed back to my MCO home base, then off tomorrow morning to SEA via IAH. A week in the Pacific Northwest, living life three hours behind the rest of you. A weekend and a couple of office days, then off to DCA for a whirlwind tour of some customer sites in the Washington area.

Half the fun is getting there, of course. "What's your favorite movie?" the delightful little girl asks. "Mine's The Lion King. I've seen it a million hundred times!" Mom smiles at me and says to her, "I think he's trying to read his book right now." That's OK. I can set aside the wild, savage life of Hunter S. Thompson for a delightful little girl. In a short while, I'll be with my delightful little girls -- and delightful little boy, and incredibly delightful wife -- again, for a little while. Half the fun is getting there, but that's only half the fun.

Grandma, 1921-2004
I have many, many cousins, products of my grandparents' eight children. Most of those cousins have been blessed with some sort of special talent. For a few of them, that talent is a beautiful singing voice.

The story goes that it was the voice of one of those cousins who sang my grandmother to sleep shortly before April 4 became April 5. As 20-year-old Rachel sang "Amazing Grace," a small smile crossed my grandmother's lips, and, while she was tapping along with the time of the song, went to be with her Lord.

My grandmother has earned her rest. She put in 82 pretty hard years on this earth. She was born to migrant-worker parents in a small town in north Texas. They weren't prosperous people even before the stock market crashed, when my grandmother was 7, and the Depression didn't help. My grandmother quit school when she was 11 to help raise her eight siblings. She got married five years later and gave birth to nine children of her own.

Her first child died very young, of some sort of childhood disease that doesn't kill people any more. Shortly thereafter, her oldest brother died in World War II. There are those who say she would have recovered from the death of her son -- childhood diseases were hard to avoid back then -- but that the death of her brother left a void that was never filled.

She went on, however -- "The sun will come up tomorrow," she often told me, "whether you want it to or not" -- and left an impression upon everybody with whom she came into contact. You often hear at funerals, "Nobody had a bad word to say about (the deceased)," but in my grandmother's case, it was true. Testament to the effect she had on members of her family: Four of her sons' ex-wives attended her funeral service. Once you were a member of Grandma's family, you were always a member.

She had a unique ability to view everybody through a totally objective prism. She didn't fail to acknowledge people's faults; she merely accepted them as a part of being human. She knew that many of the people she loved were flawed, and she accepted them just the same -- although she would deliver a scolding when she felt it was appropriate, and when she did, you knew she meant it.

She had a special love for children; it was one of the crowning moments of my life when she picked up my oldest daughter for the first time.

She had been in declining health for several years; I am reminded of this from a couple of years ago.

I wasn't particularly sad when I received the news of her death; I was more relieved that, after many scares, she had finally been allowed to move on. She leaves behind my grandfather, who is 86 and in poor health of his own. She leaves behind a bunch of people who are better people for having been a part of her family.

I wasn't there for the anecdote with which I led; that's the story as it was related to me. I was there, however, for her final trip through Springfield, Mo., the town which she called home for more than 50 years (while secretly and not-so-secretly pining for her beloved Texas).

As she got older, Grandma had a tendency to, shall we say, think out loud. She would say things that she clearly didn't intend to be heard, but because she wasn't hearing anything well -- including herself -- she wasn't aware she was saying them. One time we were sitting in her house, and a white Coupe de Ville pulled up at the house across the street. "That's going to be him sometime," she said of me, "pulling up here to see me in a white Caddy."

As she was driven through Springfield one last time -- in a white Cadillac -- traffic stopped on both sides of every major street in town as her family followed behind, in a procession more than half a mile long.

Had she been an observer of that scene, as my favorite aunt pointed out, she would have said, "That must be some high-falutin dude to stop traffic like that."

And she would have been extremely upset that all these people were making such a fuss over her -- outwardly, at least.

She would have admitted, in an unguarded moment, that it was pretty cool.

A better obit for her can be found here. I'm proud to have known her, and a better person for it. Goodbye, Grandma, and peace to you. Keep an eye on me up there.

And now, a word from Steve Miller
If I buy a certain combination of tickets for my next business trip, I could very well find myself in airports in ... Phoenix, Ariz., Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta and LA.

There. Now the song's stuck in your head, too. Keep on a-rockin' me, baby.

Worth a look
Because he said it better than I would have, I'll send you over here this evening. Share his relief, remind yourself you've been there (and you have; and I sure as hell have) and remember to please be careful, for yourself and for those around you.

And, another quick trip elsewhere: Run over here and drop Mrs. Otis a line telling her how beautiful she looks. New life is the coolest thing ever, and it's always worth celebrating.

Man, it sure is dark at this hour
For no good reason, I'm starting my day at 4:48 a.m. I have no earthly idea why, and I doubt I'll receive any benefit by doing so. But my body has told me in no uncertain terms, "Hey, it's time to get up." So, I'm up.

Back to the office today after essentially two full weeks on the road. I vaguely remember how to get there (point car westbound on the interstate and wake up in an hour and a half, is how I recall it).

From the Things that Don't Really Matter file:

One of the, um, great things about working for a company that's based in Europe is that when I wake up in the wee hours, I already have lots of e-mail. The latest involves some sort of controversy in which I find myself squarely in the middle. This is a lot of fun for me, as the new guy. New people generally just do what they're asked to do. As somebody who's been the new person -- and who's had to work with lots of new people -- I think it generally helps when, if the new person is asked to do something, the existing people know from where the order came. Nothing worse around the office than a lone-wolf new person. Apparently I've been asked to do something which has strongly offended at least one Existing Person, an Existing Person who happens to be in a time zone six hours ahead of mine. But in my string of correspondence regarding the situation, I have been careful to document exactly what I have been asked to do and why I've been asked to do it -- not in an effort to duck responsibility, but in an effort to let people six time zones away know what I'm doing.

Apparently that wasn't good enough. So, I have no idea what I'm going to walk into at the western terminus of my Temporary Long Commute in a few hours. This is the life I've chosen.

Things that do matter:

The Boy turns 5 today. We took advantage of my day off yesterday to celebrate. One of our stops was a go-kart track, which has some vehicles specially built for kids his age. To say he took to it quickly would be the understatement of this or any century. The kid is a natural behind the wheel, which, frankly, doesn't bode well for his parents' future sanity. It took him about two laps to figure out he could keep Dad from passing him by simply driving in front of him. He almost pinched me into the wall, Earnhardt-style, four times. After the fun, of course, comes the presents. He received a pirate ship, a pirate castle, a book about pirates ... you get the picture. The Boy likes his pirate stuff.

It's fun to celebrate The Boy, because he's a lot of fun, and because he was in many ways a triumph. Astute mathematicians will note there are a lot of numbers between the ages of our first and second children. We didn't really intend for it to happen that way, but nature deals the cards, and she dealt us a few really bad hands between 1997 and 1999. You never really forget an experience like that. But days like yesterday remind you why you put yourself through it.

The mystery of me
It has been noted that I've been away for a while. That's because, well, I've been away for a while. I've been to the Lehigh Valley, I've been to a nondescript small town in South Carolina, I've been to the middle of Connecticut and I've had my breath stolen by the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. I've been to towns that barely exist, and to towns that probably shouldn't exist. It's been a wild ride, and if I tried to tell you I've enjoyed every minute of it, I'd be lying through my teeth.

But I've enjoyed a lot of it, and I'm certainly learning a lot about the country into which I've been born. It's fascinating to travel the United States during an election year, certainly. I'm still trying to figure out the differences between each different part of the nation I've seen. So far, all I can see is what's the same. You can pick up CNN and Rush Limbaugh no matter where you are. I wake up with Soledad O'Brien in the red states and in the blue states. People in Connecticut are just as likely as people in Washington state to think Bill Clinton was a sex fiend and nothing else. George W. Bush will probably win South Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and Florida, and every other state I've visited, and most of the states I haven't. I'm not sure what to think about that, other than that being president of the United States shouldn't be as easy as George W. Bush makes it look.

I miss my family when I'm on the road. I miss them a lot, and it makes me question why the hell I made this particular career choice. But I enjoy the work I do when I'm on the road, and it beats the crap out of sitting behind the same desk and dealing with the same people day after day after day. I enjoy the work I do when I'm on the road much more than I enjoy the work I do when I commute an hour and a half to the home office. But I'm not sure it's worth the price I'm paying in time lost with my wife and children. This is the battle that wages inside my head, minute after minute of every day.

I wonder what I'm going to be doing with my life this time next year. George W. Bush knows what he's going to be doing this time next year; he's going to be president, whether anybody wants him to be or not, and he'll likely be contemplating yet another invasion of Iraq because the last one felt so damn good. Osama bin Laden will still be incognito somewhere near Peshawar or Poughkeepsie, there might or might not have been another terrorist attack somewhere (and how quickly we've forgotten about Madrid! Always take the under on Americans' attention span) and I'll still be wondering why the hell I'm doing whatever I'm doing with my life, no matter what it is. (By way of weak explanation, and as perhaps a crucial setup, I refer you back to this, which I batted out long, long before I had any idea I'd be doing what I'm doing now.)

The company for which I work sells software to newspapers, mostly small newspapers. I've seen newsrooms far smaller than any I've ever seen before. I feel like a major-league player who rose fast through the ranks and retired too young, now checking out locker rooms in Class A for the first time and wondering why the hell anybody would be there voluntarily. These newsrooms, like most Class A teams, are populated by two kinds of people: the ones who are trying to get the hell out and the ones who never will. The upside: They're also largely populated by people who believe deeply in what they're doing. The managing editor of the small paper in South Carolina genuinely loves being the managing editor of a small paper in his Palmetto hometown. I think that's every bit as cool as working for the eighth-largest newspaper in the country, as I did. I probably never enjoyed that job as much as he enjoys his.

I'm learning a lot on this journey. I'm learning a lot about my country. I'm learning a lot about my capacity to endure. And I'm learning a lot about myself. Somewhere in there, I need to install some software. I'll get to that. Right now, the other stuff might very well be more important.

Another idea, stolen
Many thanks to RER and, by extension, Up for Anything. This requires I fill in some blanks:

I AM: Sitting in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, waiting for a flight that leaves at 11:15 p.m. PST, alternately excited and frightened by the career choice I have made which has caused me to question my intelligence, caused me to wonder if I've led my family down the wrong path and is currently causing me to be sitting on my ass in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

I WANT: My children to never lose the ability to be shocked, my wife to be happy and content and fulfilled in the home she has built, and a black Corvette convertible.

I HAVE: A teddy bear that my wife gave to me 17 years ago, long before she was my wife. She gave it to me when I was a sportswriter spending a lot of time on the road (although back then, I was much more likely to be stuck in a cafe in Stockton, Mo., than in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.) The bear fit very nicely between the front seats of my truck. It is a small, light brown bear, with a little medal dangling from its neck which reads, "Take Me Home."

I WISH: I wasn't sitting in a middle seat on this overnight flight from Seattle to the other Edge of America.

I HATE: That I have to question everything I do to the point of creating this mental inertia that turns all of my fears and neuroses into prophecies which very efficently fulfill themselves.

I FEAR: Having to do something I don't want to do.

I HEAR: People having a conversation in an Asian language ... a young child screaming ... the voices inside my head ... a girl talking on her cell phone to her friend back in Georgia about how much she drank over spring break ... the CNN Airport Network.

I WONDER: Why I can't just be happy in the moment.

I REGRET: Nothing, really, although one could certainly argue that I should. I've learned a hell of a lot from the myriad mistakes I have made. Occasionally, I even apply that knowledge.

I LOVE: My wife's awful morning breath, the Young Daughter's 100-decibel voice, the Old Daughter's never-ending inquisitiveness, the Boy's full-speed approach to being almost 5, the sight of the ocean, the sight of the mountains, my wife's never-ending support even when I've done nothing to deserve it.

I ALWAYS: Think I should have done more.

I AM NOT: Bound by tradition, dogma, doctrine or superstition.

I DANCE: With my daughters.

I SING: ... but really, I shouldn't.

I CRY: when I read sad news stories, when I hear beautiful songs, when somebody does something nice for me.

Random stray thought

I am who I claim to be. But that's all.

Datelines
Today: Sumter, S.C.
Two days ago: Lehighton, Pa. (Stayed at a very cool Victorian hotel that I'd highly recommend if you ever find yourself in the foothills of the Poconos.)
Week after next: Bremerton, Wash.

I already have qualified for a free ticket on US Airways. I saw the Manhattan skyline from the window of the Newark airport. I've learned a lot about all kinds of stuff I didn't know.

And yeah, I'm kind of wondering how the hell I got here and whether I made the right decision. That little speck disappearing from sight below is my comfort zone. That's a good thing. I think.

Tomorrow night: Home. Looking forward to it, for so many reasons.

Where am I?
Good question. I'll get back to you with an answer in a bit.