Art for art's sake
Here's a rare solicitation, one from which we're not actually asking for any money: Go take a look at some new stuff on The Freelance Gig. The photographer took a trip to Maine last summer and, needless to say, came away very impressed. I think you'll come away very impressed with her work.
One of the reasons I really enjoy working on that site -- and referring people to it -- is that all it really asks of you, the viewer, is to appreciate the artistry in her photographs. Yeah, she's running a business, and yeah, she'd like to sell pictures to everybody who hits the site, but that's really secondary to the primary vision. That vision is simply to take a look and think about what you see. If you like it, it'll brighten your day a little bit. If you really like it, you'll hit the e-mail link and ask to see more. If not, you're out nothing but the minute or two you spent to check it out.
Too many creatives spend too much time worrying about marketing and copyright and from where their next check is coming, which necessarily takes time away from the main mission: being creative. I understand economic realities and all that. Sometimes, though, it's nice to take a break from all that and simply appreciate the work. I invite you to appreciate hers. No obligation.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Bonus! Two random stray thoughts for the price of one
Actually heard in my house today ... The Boy, 4, to his 2-year-old sister, who's been annoying him for two hours leading up to this: "Urrrrrrgh! I'm going to sell you on eBay!" (This, of course, begs the question: How the hell does he know about eBay? I'll keep an eye out for mysterious deliveries of action figures ... )
After the post below ripping the American automotive industry, is it any coincidence that my Oldsmobile almost left me stranded at work last night? Had to get it towed to the dealer from work to repair a "faulty ignition module." Thank God for Roadside Assistance and the 60,000-mile extended warranty. (Take that, Detroit.) Of course, it should be noted that Hondas or Toyotas probably don't need 60,000-mile extended warranties ...
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Fuck change
I'm working in Detroit in 1979.
For the last 30 years, we've been making cars the by-God American way. Big, lumbering cars, straight-line interstate gobblers, cars laden with steel and chrome and power windows. Cars that take up space and shut down gasoline, the purest reflection of the by-God American way: Consumption.
A weird thing is happening around me, though. All of a sudden, people aren't buying what we're making. Worse, they're making fun of what we're making. It could be argued they hate what we're making and what we represent.
People are making concessions to the fact that gasoline is no longer cheaper than tap water. Individuals are suddenly feeling a need to take up less space. Function is starting to overshadow form: People don't want chrome, they want a car they can drive 150,000 miles, just in case they get laid off from their job when President Carter finishes crashing the economy. It's becoming less important to one-up your neighbor with a bigger, chromier car; in fact, society is beginning to turn on people who do so.
But we're in Detroit in 1979. We remember 20 years ago, back in the '50s, when somebody said, "As goes General Motors, so goes the United States." We're not going let a bunch of Japanese people with a better idea stomp all over the by-God American way.
Here in Detroit in 1979, our answer to Japan is to build slightly smaller versions of the same cars we've been building for the last 30 years. So, instead of a big, roomy, comfortable rear-wheel-drive gas guzzler, we're making oddly designed, smaller, cramped rear-wheel-drive gas guzzlers. It's OK, too, that these cars are only good for about 75,000 miles. It wasn't all that long ago -- say, 1955 -- that the economy was roaring and people bought new cars every three years whether they needed to do so or not. Durability is pretty low on the priority list here in Detroit in 1979.
That's OK, because treating the employees well is becoming lower in the priority list, too. The companies react to a downturn in the economy the only way they know how, by passing the pain on to the workers. The workers react in turn by building even crappier cars. Doesn't matter; nobody's buying them anyway.
------------------------------------------
We all know what happened next. The best-selling cars in the United States bore the names of Honda and Toyota, not Ford and Chevrolet. And these cars weren't being built in Tokyo or Hirsohima; they were being built in Maysville, Ohio, and Georgetown, Ky., by people who just wanted to be paid an honest day's pay for an honest day's work and who wanted to feel like they had a stake in the final product that rolled off the assembly line.
Suddenly, only idiots and old people drove American-made cars. The quintessentially American industry had been completely taken over and co-opted by people who had a better idea. The better idea was not to build a revolutionary new car that flew on air or magically jammed toll booths; the better idea was simply to listen to what the buyers wanted out of a car, and then building said car and offering it for sale.
I'm on the Edge of America in 2003. I don't work on an assembly line. I make newspapers.
But I'm in Detroit in 1979.
I work for an industry that doesn't really give a crap what its consumers want. We stick doggedly by tradition, remembering the glory days nearly 30 years ago, when a newspaper single-handedly brought down a president. We put out newspapers the way we want them to look, not the way that people want them.
We respond to readers who think that newspapers are a wasteful use of trees by making them bigger, packing in more sections and more stuff. Then we make them smaller, going to narrower page widths while telling people how we're "giving them more" and making them "easier to handle" and more "environmentally friendly".
We treat our workers like they're all white men from middle-class backgrounds, despite the fact that they're all different people with different approaches to life and different needs from life. We treat them like chess pieces, wedging them into a five-day, 40-hour work week because that's the way we've always done it, not because it's the best way to produce the best newspaper.
Meanwhile, much in the way Hudson and Nash and Studebaker and Kaiser and Frazier disappeared from the automotive menu in the 1950s, media choices are dwindling, not expanding. Media has its big three now, and you can kind of draw automotive-industry parallels there -- Gannett (General Motors, the big lumbering monolith with the best-known brand), Knight-Ridder (Chrysler, the financially shaky purveyor of products of inconsistent quality) and Tribune (Ford, the consistent, unexciting, tradition-bound conservative).
Better ideas are pooh-poohed. We give away our online products and charge people for the newspaper, despite the fact that people seem to want the former more and the latter less. The idea of putting interesting stuff in the newspaper is anathema to grizzled, ink-stained wretches who know what DBI stands for*. Too many people in charge of newspapers long for a lost time when we could simply write stories, and let the composing room handle the rest. They refuse to see there might be another way, and they defend their stance in the name of "traditionalism."
And the people in charge at the corporate headquarters will do whatever they need to do to ensure minimum profit margins that General Motors or Ford or Chrysler could only have dreamed of, even in the best of the tail-fin and chrome years.
The American automotive industry almost put itself out of business because of the mistakes it made in 1979. It took 15 years of irrelevance and one government bailout to save those millions of jobs.
Newspapers don't have 15 years to be irrelevant, and you can be damn sure the government won't bail us out. Now you know why I'm concerned about my future.
(oops, almost forgot: *- DBI = "dull but important," as in, "I have to find space in my section for a 40-inch DBI ... ")
I'm working in Detroit in 1979.
For the last 30 years, we've been making cars the by-God American way. Big, lumbering cars, straight-line interstate gobblers, cars laden with steel and chrome and power windows. Cars that take up space and shut down gasoline, the purest reflection of the by-God American way: Consumption.
A weird thing is happening around me, though. All of a sudden, people aren't buying what we're making. Worse, they're making fun of what we're making. It could be argued they hate what we're making and what we represent.
People are making concessions to the fact that gasoline is no longer cheaper than tap water. Individuals are suddenly feeling a need to take up less space. Function is starting to overshadow form: People don't want chrome, they want a car they can drive 150,000 miles, just in case they get laid off from their job when President Carter finishes crashing the economy. It's becoming less important to one-up your neighbor with a bigger, chromier car; in fact, society is beginning to turn on people who do so.
But we're in Detroit in 1979. We remember 20 years ago, back in the '50s, when somebody said, "As goes General Motors, so goes the United States." We're not going let a bunch of Japanese people with a better idea stomp all over the by-God American way.
Here in Detroit in 1979, our answer to Japan is to build slightly smaller versions of the same cars we've been building for the last 30 years. So, instead of a big, roomy, comfortable rear-wheel-drive gas guzzler, we're making oddly designed, smaller, cramped rear-wheel-drive gas guzzlers. It's OK, too, that these cars are only good for about 75,000 miles. It wasn't all that long ago -- say, 1955 -- that the economy was roaring and people bought new cars every three years whether they needed to do so or not. Durability is pretty low on the priority list here in Detroit in 1979.
That's OK, because treating the employees well is becoming lower in the priority list, too. The companies react to a downturn in the economy the only way they know how, by passing the pain on to the workers. The workers react in turn by building even crappier cars. Doesn't matter; nobody's buying them anyway.
------------------------------------------
We all know what happened next. The best-selling cars in the United States bore the names of Honda and Toyota, not Ford and Chevrolet. And these cars weren't being built in Tokyo or Hirsohima; they were being built in Maysville, Ohio, and Georgetown, Ky., by people who just wanted to be paid an honest day's pay for an honest day's work and who wanted to feel like they had a stake in the final product that rolled off the assembly line.
Suddenly, only idiots and old people drove American-made cars. The quintessentially American industry had been completely taken over and co-opted by people who had a better idea. The better idea was not to build a revolutionary new car that flew on air or magically jammed toll booths; the better idea was simply to listen to what the buyers wanted out of a car, and then building said car and offering it for sale.
I'm on the Edge of America in 2003. I don't work on an assembly line. I make newspapers.
But I'm in Detroit in 1979.
I work for an industry that doesn't really give a crap what its consumers want. We stick doggedly by tradition, remembering the glory days nearly 30 years ago, when a newspaper single-handedly brought down a president. We put out newspapers the way we want them to look, not the way that people want them.
We respond to readers who think that newspapers are a wasteful use of trees by making them bigger, packing in more sections and more stuff. Then we make them smaller, going to narrower page widths while telling people how we're "giving them more" and making them "easier to handle" and more "environmentally friendly".
We treat our workers like they're all white men from middle-class backgrounds, despite the fact that they're all different people with different approaches to life and different needs from life. We treat them like chess pieces, wedging them into a five-day, 40-hour work week because that's the way we've always done it, not because it's the best way to produce the best newspaper.
Meanwhile, much in the way Hudson and Nash and Studebaker and Kaiser and Frazier disappeared from the automotive menu in the 1950s, media choices are dwindling, not expanding. Media has its big three now, and you can kind of draw automotive-industry parallels there -- Gannett (General Motors, the big lumbering monolith with the best-known brand), Knight-Ridder (Chrysler, the financially shaky purveyor of products of inconsistent quality) and Tribune (Ford, the consistent, unexciting, tradition-bound conservative).
Better ideas are pooh-poohed. We give away our online products and charge people for the newspaper, despite the fact that people seem to want the former more and the latter less. The idea of putting interesting stuff in the newspaper is anathema to grizzled, ink-stained wretches who know what DBI stands for*. Too many people in charge of newspapers long for a lost time when we could simply write stories, and let the composing room handle the rest. They refuse to see there might be another way, and they defend their stance in the name of "traditionalism."
And the people in charge at the corporate headquarters will do whatever they need to do to ensure minimum profit margins that General Motors or Ford or Chrysler could only have dreamed of, even in the best of the tail-fin and chrome years.
The American automotive industry almost put itself out of business because of the mistakes it made in 1979. It took 15 years of irrelevance and one government bailout to save those millions of jobs.
Newspapers don't have 15 years to be irrelevant, and you can be damn sure the government won't bail us out. Now you know why I'm concerned about my future.
(oops, almost forgot: *- DBI = "dull but important," as in, "I have to find space in my section for a 40-inch DBI ... ")
Random stray thought
If I wasn't so bothered by how absurd things seem to be, I could laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Blue-collar man, sort of
So on Sunday morning, I found myself driving a white van with "1800flowers.com" emblazoned on each side in big purple letters.
I was loaded up -- an arrangement in a Lenox vase ("The vase is worth way more than the arrangement," the florist assured me); two identical arrangments going to houses on the same block, and the old standby, a dozen long-stemmed red roses going to a woman in an apartment.
I was doing this as a fill-in for my wife, who drove 16 hours on Saturday from the dog show in Cleveland to our home on the Edge. She's buddies with the guy who owns the flower shop, and delivers for him on weekend mornings to help finance her dog habit. After all that driving on Saturday, the last thing she needed to be doing Sunday was driving the flower van. So I stepped in.
I'm lucky enough to have never worked at a minimum-wage job. The only time I have done anything resembling work outside my chosen profession is a very short teenage stint in my uncle's business, where my role was basically to be The Boss's Nephew. Other than that, the summer in Texas spent umpiring Little League baseball, and The Freelance Gig, I've never collected money for any work other than newspapering.
This has clouded my perspective in life, of course; I went years wondering how anybody actually made a living doing anything else. Most other jobs seem so much like, well, work. At this point in my life, of course, I envy those people, people who get holidays off and who aren't on 24-hour call at the whims of some terrorist or untimely celebrity death.
For a few hours on Sunday, however, I was just the flower-delivery guy.
So, of course, where was my first delivery? You guessed it: A television newsroom. The recipient of the Lenox vase works for the local Fox station. A security guard leads me to the newsroom, telling me along the way that he owned a flower shop back in New Hampshire or New York or New Jersey or somewhere new. The newsroom looks much like the one in which I work, except with fewer square feet and more video equipment. Manning the newsroom at 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday were two young male producers, who were most impressed with the ornate white vase in which the recipient's flowers were arranged. "Jesus Christ," said the guy who signed for it. "How much does that go for?" I was about to tell him I didn't have a clue when a loud beeper went off. "Uggghhh," he said, running to the source of the beep. "Breaking news ... "
With every bone in my body, I wanted to stick around and find out what the breaking news was. But ... I was just the flower delivery guy. I almost blew an internal gasket in the process of saying, "Thanks, have a good day," and walking back to the van.
It was interesting to be on the other side of the desk, as the service-industry guy rather than the servee. People, of course, are very nice to the person who delivers flowers to them. But I could tell I was still just the delivery boy. People are way more impressed with my real job than they should be, and at times, that has created in me an overblown sense of my actual worth to the world. I had no such issue on Sunday morning.
Having made all my deliveries -- on time, on target, safely and without incident -- I returned the van to the florist and prepared to return to my real life after essentially a three-week vacation. Alas, when I arrived Monday morning, that newsroom wasn't in a lot better shape than when I left it.
Chucking it all and delivering flowers for a living isn't an option, of course. But my four-hour foray into the real world has made me wonder even more what else might be out there.
So on Sunday morning, I found myself driving a white van with "1800flowers.com" emblazoned on each side in big purple letters.
I was loaded up -- an arrangement in a Lenox vase ("The vase is worth way more than the arrangement," the florist assured me); two identical arrangments going to houses on the same block, and the old standby, a dozen long-stemmed red roses going to a woman in an apartment.
I was doing this as a fill-in for my wife, who drove 16 hours on Saturday from the dog show in Cleveland to our home on the Edge. She's buddies with the guy who owns the flower shop, and delivers for him on weekend mornings to help finance her dog habit. After all that driving on Saturday, the last thing she needed to be doing Sunday was driving the flower van. So I stepped in.
I'm lucky enough to have never worked at a minimum-wage job. The only time I have done anything resembling work outside my chosen profession is a very short teenage stint in my uncle's business, where my role was basically to be The Boss's Nephew. Other than that, the summer in Texas spent umpiring Little League baseball, and The Freelance Gig, I've never collected money for any work other than newspapering.
This has clouded my perspective in life, of course; I went years wondering how anybody actually made a living doing anything else. Most other jobs seem so much like, well, work. At this point in my life, of course, I envy those people, people who get holidays off and who aren't on 24-hour call at the whims of some terrorist or untimely celebrity death.
For a few hours on Sunday, however, I was just the flower-delivery guy.
So, of course, where was my first delivery? You guessed it: A television newsroom. The recipient of the Lenox vase works for the local Fox station. A security guard leads me to the newsroom, telling me along the way that he owned a flower shop back in New Hampshire or New York or New Jersey or somewhere new. The newsroom looks much like the one in which I work, except with fewer square feet and more video equipment. Manning the newsroom at 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday were two young male producers, who were most impressed with the ornate white vase in which the recipient's flowers were arranged. "Jesus Christ," said the guy who signed for it. "How much does that go for?" I was about to tell him I didn't have a clue when a loud beeper went off. "Uggghhh," he said, running to the source of the beep. "Breaking news ... "
With every bone in my body, I wanted to stick around and find out what the breaking news was. But ... I was just the flower delivery guy. I almost blew an internal gasket in the process of saying, "Thanks, have a good day," and walking back to the van.
It was interesting to be on the other side of the desk, as the service-industry guy rather than the servee. People, of course, are very nice to the person who delivers flowers to them. But I could tell I was still just the delivery boy. People are way more impressed with my real job than they should be, and at times, that has created in me an overblown sense of my actual worth to the world. I had no such issue on Sunday morning.
Having made all my deliveries -- on time, on target, safely and without incident -- I returned the van to the florist and prepared to return to my real life after essentially a three-week vacation. Alas, when I arrived Monday morning, that newsroom wasn't in a lot better shape than when I left it.
Chucking it all and delivering flowers for a living isn't an option, of course. But my four-hour foray into the real world has made me wonder even more what else might be out there.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
AT&T, AT&T Wireless, mLife
(UPDATED with response! Well, it was kind of a response)
The above is for the benefit of search engines. Anybody who's considering switching to AT&T Wireless, here's a solid recommendation that you should choose somebody else instead.
When I get frustrated with a big monolithic company, I dash off a letter. It accomplishes little other than making me feel better; but a company can't fix a customer service issue unless it knows about the issue. And, I have received some interesting responses, often in the form of gift certificates or rebates. I once received a very nice letter from the Missouri Secretary of State after I sent him a letter ripping the customer service at the Department of Revenue.
Anyway, in somewhat edited form, here's what some poor minimum-wage schlub at AT&T Wireless is forwarding to his her or supervisor, who will read it and delete it:
To whom it may concern, if anybody:
My mobile life hasn't been made better. In fact, my mobile life pretty much sucks.
We chose AT&T as our wireless services provider when we lived in the Dallas area. We're long-time customers of AT&T Long Distance, which has a pretty solid customer-service record (we've tried the others, and we've always come back to AT&T.) Our trust in the AT&T brand led us to AT&T wireless.
When we moved from [Very Large Metropolitan Area] to [the Edge of America], our service took a turn for the much, much worse. Our service in our home area is spotty at best; it's at its worst in our own home, in a suburban area 15 miles from a large city. Our friends in the area who have other wireless services -- Verizon, Sprint, Cingular -- don't seem to have this problem. One friend who has Sprint uses it as her only phone. There's no way we could do that with our current service, even if we wanted to.
We signed a contract, however, and we believe in living up to our end of an agreement. to our end of a contract. We've questioned it, but we've lived up to it. Now, we're questioning why we would want to live up to it.
My wife has spent the week at an event near Cleveland. She's rooming with a Verizon customer and a Cingular customer. To reach her, I have to call one of them. Her AT&T phone is useless, less than 20 miles from downtown of one of the nation's largest cities.
I understand the aforementioned contract guarantees us nothing, except that you'll charge us and we'll pay. That said, at the current level of service we're receiving, we're certainly not going to renew said contract when it expires, and we certainly can't recommend AT&T Wireless to anybody [on the Edge of America] -- or to anybody who travels at all.
I wish we had known when we signed the contract that the "m" in mLife stands for "mostly static."
[our names and cities here]
The good folks at "AT&T Wireless" respond, thanks to the wonders of cut and paste:
Dear [Unrepentant Ex-Texan]:
Thank you for contacting AT&T Wireless regarding coverage reception. Wireless service is normally available to your telephone, when it is within the operating range of our system and it may be available outside of that area in other carrier service areas. However, the quality of your service is subject to transmission limitation or interruption caused by natural conditions such as atmosphere and topography. Also, there may be other limitations such as capacity limitations, system repairs/modifications, and/or other conditions.
Please note that coverage concerns or equipment related inquires are not currently supported via e-mail inquiry due to the number of factors that can affect your service. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
In order to troubleshoot the issues you are experiencing with your equipment and/or service in the most effective manner possible, we will need to have you contact one of our Customer Care representatives by calling 1-800-888-7600 between the hours of 6:00AM and 1:00AM CST, 7 days a week.
Please click on the link below to take a short survey about your AT&T Wireless email Customer Care experience. Your opinions will help us improve our service to you.
[link to survey]
If you are unable to click on the link above, simply copy the link and paste it into the browser where you enter web addresses, and press enter.
Thanks for choosing AT&T Wireless. We appreciate your business.
That was a lot of words to say, "blah, blah, blah, sorry, but whatever." Of course, if they'd called me on my cell phone to tell me that, all I would have heard was "blah ... bl ... ry ... er."
(UPDATED with response! Well, it was kind of a response)
The above is for the benefit of search engines. Anybody who's considering switching to AT&T Wireless, here's a solid recommendation that you should choose somebody else instead.
When I get frustrated with a big monolithic company, I dash off a letter. It accomplishes little other than making me feel better; but a company can't fix a customer service issue unless it knows about the issue. And, I have received some interesting responses, often in the form of gift certificates or rebates. I once received a very nice letter from the Missouri Secretary of State after I sent him a letter ripping the customer service at the Department of Revenue.
Anyway, in somewhat edited form, here's what some poor minimum-wage schlub at AT&T Wireless is forwarding to his her or supervisor, who will read it and delete it:
To whom it may concern, if anybody:
My mobile life hasn't been made better. In fact, my mobile life pretty much sucks.
We chose AT&T as our wireless services provider when we lived in the Dallas area. We're long-time customers of AT&T Long Distance, which has a pretty solid customer-service record (we've tried the others, and we've always come back to AT&T.) Our trust in the AT&T brand led us to AT&T wireless.
When we moved from [Very Large Metropolitan Area] to [the Edge of America], our service took a turn for the much, much worse. Our service in our home area is spotty at best; it's at its worst in our own home, in a suburban area 15 miles from a large city. Our friends in the area who have other wireless services -- Verizon, Sprint, Cingular -- don't seem to have this problem. One friend who has Sprint uses it as her only phone. There's no way we could do that with our current service, even if we wanted to.
We signed a contract, however, and we believe in living up to our end of an agreement. to our end of a contract. We've questioned it, but we've lived up to it. Now, we're questioning why we would want to live up to it.
My wife has spent the week at an event near Cleveland. She's rooming with a Verizon customer and a Cingular customer. To reach her, I have to call one of them. Her AT&T phone is useless, less than 20 miles from downtown of one of the nation's largest cities.
I understand the aforementioned contract guarantees us nothing, except that you'll charge us and we'll pay. That said, at the current level of service we're receiving, we're certainly not going to renew said contract when it expires, and we certainly can't recommend AT&T Wireless to anybody [on the Edge of America] -- or to anybody who travels at all.
I wish we had known when we signed the contract that the "m" in mLife stands for "mostly static."
[our names and cities here]
The good folks at "AT&T Wireless" respond, thanks to the wonders of cut and paste:
Dear [Unrepentant Ex-Texan]:
Thank you for contacting AT&T Wireless regarding coverage reception. Wireless service is normally available to your telephone, when it is within the operating range of our system and it may be available outside of that area in other carrier service areas. However, the quality of your service is subject to transmission limitation or interruption caused by natural conditions such as atmosphere and topography. Also, there may be other limitations such as capacity limitations, system repairs/modifications, and/or other conditions.
Please note that coverage concerns or equipment related inquires are not currently supported via e-mail inquiry due to the number of factors that can affect your service. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
In order to troubleshoot the issues you are experiencing with your equipment and/or service in the most effective manner possible, we will need to have you contact one of our Customer Care representatives by calling 1-800-888-7600 between the hours of 6:00AM and 1:00AM CST, 7 days a week.
Please click on the link below to take a short survey about your AT&T Wireless email Customer Care experience. Your opinions will help us improve our service to you.
[link to survey]
If you are unable to click on the link above, simply copy the link and paste it into the browser where you enter web addresses, and press enter.
Thanks for choosing AT&T Wireless. We appreciate your business.
That was a lot of words to say, "blah, blah, blah, sorry, but whatever." Of course, if they'd called me on my cell phone to tell me that, all I would have heard was "blah ... bl ... ry ... er."
Somebody out there gets it
And gets it way better than most of us.
Quick setup: Here in my hometown, a man went nuts and killed two of his four children, in very public ways. He threw two in a pond and, a day later, drove his car carrying the other two into the path of an oncoming semi. One child died in each incident; the father died in the car wreck, as was his intention, as laid out in the suicide note found on the passenger's seat of the car.
I wrote:
It's not going to do any good for me to write what I think should become of this subhuman monster's soul.
Somebody went me one better. She came up with some ideas that might actually do some good. She shared them in a guest column which appeared in today's local newspaper, as follows, edited to avoid naming names:
I wanted to give in to the anger that [a local columnist] expressed in his column the other day. The easiest answer is for us to turn our sorrow against this man. But then, after my sleepless night, it came to me. What if, instead of hurling our anger and sorrow at this deeply disturbed person, we took those emotions and used them for something good?
What if everyone who read the story committed themselves to helping a family in crisis this month?
What if we baby-sat for that stressed-out mother next door?
What if we bought a gift certificate from a Target Superstore for a family whose father was laid off to ease the burden of providing for so many little people?
What if we called that man or woman in the midst of a failing marriage and asked them to lunch or breakfast?
What if we took the kids of a family in crisis out to the movies?
What if we volunteered at a shelter?
What if we told the children in our classroom that we cared about them and that we were there for them if they needed it?
What if we took five minutes out of our day and prayed for that family in crisis that lives across the street?
What if we sent an encouraging e-mail or card to that person in pain?
What if we made it easier for those who are hurting to reach out for help?
What if [the local columnist] wrote a column that listed all of the services in [our city] and Internet resources and books that could help another father or mother out there in quiet agony before it is too late?
What if the [local newspaper] wrote a series highlighting these services?
We can all honor their precious lives by committing ourselves to one action in the next few weeks that would bring relief to a family in crisis.
Well put. Wish I had said it first.
And gets it way better than most of us.
Quick setup: Here in my hometown, a man went nuts and killed two of his four children, in very public ways. He threw two in a pond and, a day later, drove his car carrying the other two into the path of an oncoming semi. One child died in each incident; the father died in the car wreck, as was his intention, as laid out in the suicide note found on the passenger's seat of the car.
I wrote:
It's not going to do any good for me to write what I think should become of this subhuman monster's soul.
Somebody went me one better. She came up with some ideas that might actually do some good. She shared them in a guest column which appeared in today's local newspaper, as follows, edited to avoid naming names:
I wanted to give in to the anger that [a local columnist] expressed in his column the other day. The easiest answer is for us to turn our sorrow against this man. But then, after my sleepless night, it came to me. What if, instead of hurling our anger and sorrow at this deeply disturbed person, we took those emotions and used them for something good?
What if everyone who read the story committed themselves to helping a family in crisis this month?
What if we baby-sat for that stressed-out mother next door?
What if we bought a gift certificate from a Target Superstore for a family whose father was laid off to ease the burden of providing for so many little people?
What if we called that man or woman in the midst of a failing marriage and asked them to lunch or breakfast?
What if we took the kids of a family in crisis out to the movies?
What if we volunteered at a shelter?
What if we told the children in our classroom that we cared about them and that we were there for them if they needed it?
What if we took five minutes out of our day and prayed for that family in crisis that lives across the street?
What if we sent an encouraging e-mail or card to that person in pain?
What if we made it easier for those who are hurting to reach out for help?
What if [the local columnist] wrote a column that listed all of the services in [our city] and Internet resources and books that could help another father or mother out there in quiet agony before it is too late?
What if the [local newspaper] wrote a series highlighting these services?
We can all honor their precious lives by committing ourselves to one action in the next few weeks that would bring relief to a family in crisis.
Well put. Wish I had said it first.
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Reading the newspaper makes me cry
Warning: What follows is not objective reporting of facts. What follows is raw human reaction, and it's not very nice. I apologize if anybody takes offense, but I don't apologize for the way I feel.
This month's candidate for The Worst Story Ever happened four miles from my house Sunday and Monday.
It started Sunday afternoon with the bizarre report that two young children had been found in a retention pond not far from the Interstate by a guy who went out to go fishing Sunday morning. The 2-year-old girl was dead; the 4-year-old boy was clinging to life. No children had been reported missing. Police cast a net all up and down the eastern seaboard trying to figure out who these kids were and how they wound up in the water.
On Monday morning, the authorities had pieced enough together to determine they were looking for a gold-colored Dodge Durango. As they were getting ready to issue an Amber Alert, police two suburbs up the Interstate were called to work a fatal accident ... involving a gold-colored Dodge Durango.
The wreck tying up Interstate traffic for 20 miles Monday morning turned out to be no accident at all. It was caused by the father of the two children who were dumped in the pond, who chose to commit suicide by driving his Durango in front of a truck that was hauling new cars. His other two children, 6 and 9, were in the Durango. They survived, although one child remains in critical condition.
News reports revealed the father to be an upper-middle-class suburban man, distraught over the loss of his job and the impending breakup of his marriage,
whose behavior had become bizarre to the point that his estranged wife sought a restraining order and restricted his access to his children. The kids were with this man for a weekend visit.
"The system failed [the mother] and her children," the mother's attorney told a local television station.
Bullshit. The "system" did everything it could do. The father -- for whatever reason -- became a subhuman monster.
Listen, I understand being dazed and confused from the blows life deals you. I've never lost a job, and my marriage has been pretty sound for nearly a decade and a half, but I do know stuff can turn in an instant. And I've seen worse things happen to nicer people.
The thing that separates men and women from animals is how you take the blows. Our species stands up and takes the blows and thinks its way to a solution. Animals lash back.
I understand being desperate. I understand this man thinking, "Damn, I played basketball at Dartmouth, for Christ's sake. I graduated from Dartmouth. I shouldn't be wondering where my next house payment is coming from." By a lot of contemporary standards, the guy was a failure. It somehow never occurred to him that our society is rife with opportunities for redemption, even for its worst failures.
I understand that despair, although no despair I've ever felt runs as deep as I'm sure this guy's despair ran.
But, dammit. Your despair is your despair. Leave your children out of it. When you have nothing else left of yourself, you still have an obligation to protect your children against everything. That's the root of our existence. It's the one thing you can do when you can't do anything else. To not do so is the highest violation of natural law.
Some people try unsuccessfully for decades to have children. Some people have children with health problems who demand constant attention. It's an insult to all of these people all over the world when somebody treats a child's life as disposable.
I didn't know anybody in this family and I probably never will. But this story cleaves me to the bone, and it would do so even if it happened in Spokane or Minneapolis rather than within a long bike ride from my house.
Although I'm not smart enough to conceive how this is possible, pray that the mother left behind, and the three remaining children, find some way to find peace.
It's not going to do any good for me to write what I think should become of this subhuman monster's soul.
Warning: What follows is not objective reporting of facts. What follows is raw human reaction, and it's not very nice. I apologize if anybody takes offense, but I don't apologize for the way I feel.
This month's candidate for The Worst Story Ever happened four miles from my house Sunday and Monday.
It started Sunday afternoon with the bizarre report that two young children had been found in a retention pond not far from the Interstate by a guy who went out to go fishing Sunday morning. The 2-year-old girl was dead; the 4-year-old boy was clinging to life. No children had been reported missing. Police cast a net all up and down the eastern seaboard trying to figure out who these kids were and how they wound up in the water.
On Monday morning, the authorities had pieced enough together to determine they were looking for a gold-colored Dodge Durango. As they were getting ready to issue an Amber Alert, police two suburbs up the Interstate were called to work a fatal accident ... involving a gold-colored Dodge Durango.
The wreck tying up Interstate traffic for 20 miles Monday morning turned out to be no accident at all. It was caused by the father of the two children who were dumped in the pond, who chose to commit suicide by driving his Durango in front of a truck that was hauling new cars. His other two children, 6 and 9, were in the Durango. They survived, although one child remains in critical condition.
News reports revealed the father to be an upper-middle-class suburban man, distraught over the loss of his job and the impending breakup of his marriage,
whose behavior had become bizarre to the point that his estranged wife sought a restraining order and restricted his access to his children. The kids were with this man for a weekend visit.
"The system failed [the mother] and her children," the mother's attorney told a local television station.
Bullshit. The "system" did everything it could do. The father -- for whatever reason -- became a subhuman monster.
Listen, I understand being dazed and confused from the blows life deals you. I've never lost a job, and my marriage has been pretty sound for nearly a decade and a half, but I do know stuff can turn in an instant. And I've seen worse things happen to nicer people.
The thing that separates men and women from animals is how you take the blows. Our species stands up and takes the blows and thinks its way to a solution. Animals lash back.
I understand being desperate. I understand this man thinking, "Damn, I played basketball at Dartmouth, for Christ's sake. I graduated from Dartmouth. I shouldn't be wondering where my next house payment is coming from." By a lot of contemporary standards, the guy was a failure. It somehow never occurred to him that our society is rife with opportunities for redemption, even for its worst failures.
I understand that despair, although no despair I've ever felt runs as deep as I'm sure this guy's despair ran.
But, dammit. Your despair is your despair. Leave your children out of it. When you have nothing else left of yourself, you still have an obligation to protect your children against everything. That's the root of our existence. It's the one thing you can do when you can't do anything else. To not do so is the highest violation of natural law.
Some people try unsuccessfully for decades to have children. Some people have children with health problems who demand constant attention. It's an insult to all of these people all over the world when somebody treats a child's life as disposable.
I didn't know anybody in this family and I probably never will. But this story cleaves me to the bone, and it would do so even if it happened in Spokane or Minneapolis rather than within a long bike ride from my house.
Although I'm not smart enough to conceive how this is possible, pray that the mother left behind, and the three remaining children, find some way to find peace.
It's not going to do any good for me to write what I think should become of this subhuman monster's soul.
Time to talk football
Two weeks into the best time of the year, and some things are already becoming evident:
--The Dallas Cowboys cannot be as good as they looked Monday night. That's a classic up-for-the-big-game that the Cowboys, in their down periods, tease their fans with every year -- twice a year for the Redskins and now, apparently, twice a year for the Giants. That said ... it's amazing how much less Quincy Carter sucks now that he has a crew of legitimate NFL receivers.
--The Philadelphia Eagles cannot be as bad as they've looked for the last two weeks. Getting it handed to you by the Bucs is one thing; coming out flat against the very average Patriots is another entirely.
--Speaking of the Bucs: It's starting to appear that the Bucs' defense is going to have to score, too. The Tampa Bay D is already doing everything else. Brad Johnson has no more to show for throwing 61 passes than to lose 12-9 in OT? The Bucs are champions until proven otherwise; all of a sudden, however, they have something to prove.
--Who's worse: the Bengals or the Jaguars?
--Which is worse: Lisa Guerrero on the Monday Night Football sideline or the Coors Light commercials?
--I'm reminded of how difficult it is to watch Monday Night Football in the Eastern time zone, with or without Guerrero. Just about the time the game starts to get interesting -- as is happening right now, with the Giants going for a potential game-tying 2-point conversion -- I'm ready to go to bed.
--I take back what I said about the Cowboys a minute ago, as they just gave the Giants not one, not two, but three chances to get those game-tying 2 points. Guess I'd better go back and watch the game.
Two weeks into the best time of the year, and some things are already becoming evident:
--The Dallas Cowboys cannot be as good as they looked Monday night. That's a classic up-for-the-big-game that the Cowboys, in their down periods, tease their fans with every year -- twice a year for the Redskins and now, apparently, twice a year for the Giants. That said ... it's amazing how much less Quincy Carter sucks now that he has a crew of legitimate NFL receivers.
--The Philadelphia Eagles cannot be as bad as they've looked for the last two weeks. Getting it handed to you by the Bucs is one thing; coming out flat against the very average Patriots is another entirely.
--Speaking of the Bucs: It's starting to appear that the Bucs' defense is going to have to score, too. The Tampa Bay D is already doing everything else. Brad Johnson has no more to show for throwing 61 passes than to lose 12-9 in OT? The Bucs are champions until proven otherwise; all of a sudden, however, they have something to prove.
--Who's worse: the Bengals or the Jaguars?
--Which is worse: Lisa Guerrero on the Monday Night Football sideline or the Coors Light commercials?
--I'm reminded of how difficult it is to watch Monday Night Football in the Eastern time zone, with or without Guerrero. Just about the time the game starts to get interesting -- as is happening right now, with the Giants going for a potential game-tying 2-point conversion -- I'm ready to go to bed.
--I take back what I said about the Cowboys a minute ago, as they just gave the Giants not one, not two, but three chances to get those game-tying 2 points. Guess I'd better go back and watch the game.
Saturday, September 13, 2003
Some good things I saw today
Ahead of me is a week of chaos, in which I, the Dad left behind while Mom goes on a trip, take on three children. In preparation for this, I treated myself today to a relaxing drive through Florida countryside. Ride shotgun with me:
--At a Wendy's in the rough part of DeLand, a mom and her kid walk from the Dollar General Store next door and deposit that day's shopping and a stroller in the back of a beat-up, rusted-out baby-blue '89 Mercury Topaz. They come into Wendy's -- mom looking a bit shabby, kid looking shabbier -- and sit down. Kid, about 3, gender undetermined, runs up to counter and yells, "Daddy! Daddy!" They're waiting for dad to get off from work behind the line at Wendy's. Kid looks happy to see Dad; Mom looks happy to see Dad. They seem like a perfectly happy family, despite material circumstances that appear way less than ideal. Good for them. It ain't what you don't have; it's what you do have.
--U.S. Highway 17 takes you north from DeLand to DeLeon Springs, a neat little town around a big state park. Impossibly tall pines, nothing but trunk for maybe 100, 150 feet before branches and needles appear. The road is lined on either side with these trees, standing majestically in perfect formation.
--Take a left on State Road 40 and head west over the St. Johns River into the Ocala National Forest. Owing to our rainy summer, everything is green; rivers run clear and strong; and the flora and fauna are vibrant. This is in stark contrast to when I lived here a few years ago, during one of the worst drought and wildfire periods in Florida history. The renewal is a thing to behold, and a reminder of how resilient nature is.
--State Road 40 takes you by Silver Springs Park, one of the pre-Disney Florida attractions struggling to remain viable in the New Economy. The parking lot stretches for nearly a mile along 40, and then for another mile south along SR 35. The parking lot was nearly empty on a Saturday afternoon. This is a shame; I've been to Silver Springs, and while it's cheesy just like other theme parks are cheesy, it's cool in a way that no other Florida theme park is. One of the attractions is a glass-bottom boat ride on the Silver River, which takes you into the real Florida, a land of cypress, clear springs and fascinating wildlife. It would be a shame to have that go the way of the drive-in movie.
--SR 35 leads you into Belleview and dumps you on County Road 25, which leads you east along the shore of Lake Weir through the little towns of Ocklawaha and Weirsdale. Weirsdale is the home of the Orange Grove Opry, by all appearances a really serious honky-tonk. I would have stuck around to hear the local talent if I'd had more time, but alas, CR 25 had other places to take me.
--CR 25 took me to U.S. 27/441, the road home. U.S. 441 leads me to Apopka, the home of the 2001 Little League national champs. I stopped off at the field where the Little Leaguers were playing as day turned into evening. Packed stands, burgers on the grill, Slim Jims and M&Ms available at the concession stand. The teams were from the 9-10 year-old division. Crisp uniforms, with names on the back. Three coaches on each team. (Although, oddly, only one umpire. When I called games in Texas, I was part of a two-man crew. I can't imagine facing all those coaches by myself.)
I stuck around for a couple of innings, long enough to see some redemption. A kid was having trouble controlling his swing; he had struck out mightily his first time up. His next time up, with teammates on second and third, he was facing a 1-and-2 count. The coach tried to calm his hitter down. "Just looking for a base hit here, buddy," he said. "Don't try to hit it over the fence. Just make contact." The kid nodded in his best "Yes, coach," nod, and took a couple of oh-so-level, oh-so-controlled practice swings. He took a deep breath and stepped back in. The pitch came and, disregarding his coach's instructions, he took another mighty cut -- and the ball sailed 10 feet past the center-field fence. The three-run homer broke the game wide-open. "Guess I'll go get that one," the coach said, smiling wanly, as he trotted out the gate and around the field to retrieve the ball.
--A couple of miles from home, I saw planted beside the road a series of homemade signs, the sort which usually announce garage sales or some such. These signs, hand-written in large, feminine penmanship and lined up in Burma-Shave fashion, read as follows:
"Hey you! Yeah, you!"
Then:
"Where have you been?"
Then:
"We've been waiting for you!"
Then:
"It's been 7 months!"
Then:
"OK, blame the Navy"
Then:
"Interested in some desert property?"
Then:
"The party's THIS way!"
An arrow pointed into a subdivision entrance. On either side of the entrance are two huge trees, each festooned with a yellow ribbon. The last sign, inside the subdivision, bigger than the rest, with two small American flags taped to the top corners:
"Welcome home, Marc!"
The party was several houses down, but you could feel the love all the way out on the main road. I thought briefly about finding a parking spot, ringing the doorbell, asking for Marc and, over the din of a houseful of really happy people, shaking his hand and saying "Thank you." Thank you for defending our country, and thank you for coming home alive to family and friends who clearly think you're really cool.
I didn't, of course. But it made my day to know I could have.
Ahead of me is a week of chaos, in which I, the Dad left behind while Mom goes on a trip, take on three children. In preparation for this, I treated myself today to a relaxing drive through Florida countryside. Ride shotgun with me:
--At a Wendy's in the rough part of DeLand, a mom and her kid walk from the Dollar General Store next door and deposit that day's shopping and a stroller in the back of a beat-up, rusted-out baby-blue '89 Mercury Topaz. They come into Wendy's -- mom looking a bit shabby, kid looking shabbier -- and sit down. Kid, about 3, gender undetermined, runs up to counter and yells, "Daddy! Daddy!" They're waiting for dad to get off from work behind the line at Wendy's. Kid looks happy to see Dad; Mom looks happy to see Dad. They seem like a perfectly happy family, despite material circumstances that appear way less than ideal. Good for them. It ain't what you don't have; it's what you do have.
--U.S. Highway 17 takes you north from DeLand to DeLeon Springs, a neat little town around a big state park. Impossibly tall pines, nothing but trunk for maybe 100, 150 feet before branches and needles appear. The road is lined on either side with these trees, standing majestically in perfect formation.
--Take a left on State Road 40 and head west over the St. Johns River into the Ocala National Forest. Owing to our rainy summer, everything is green; rivers run clear and strong; and the flora and fauna are vibrant. This is in stark contrast to when I lived here a few years ago, during one of the worst drought and wildfire periods in Florida history. The renewal is a thing to behold, and a reminder of how resilient nature is.
--State Road 40 takes you by Silver Springs Park, one of the pre-Disney Florida attractions struggling to remain viable in the New Economy. The parking lot stretches for nearly a mile along 40, and then for another mile south along SR 35. The parking lot was nearly empty on a Saturday afternoon. This is a shame; I've been to Silver Springs, and while it's cheesy just like other theme parks are cheesy, it's cool in a way that no other Florida theme park is. One of the attractions is a glass-bottom boat ride on the Silver River, which takes you into the real Florida, a land of cypress, clear springs and fascinating wildlife. It would be a shame to have that go the way of the drive-in movie.
--SR 35 leads you into Belleview and dumps you on County Road 25, which leads you east along the shore of Lake Weir through the little towns of Ocklawaha and Weirsdale. Weirsdale is the home of the Orange Grove Opry, by all appearances a really serious honky-tonk. I would have stuck around to hear the local talent if I'd had more time, but alas, CR 25 had other places to take me.
--CR 25 took me to U.S. 27/441, the road home. U.S. 441 leads me to Apopka, the home of the 2001 Little League national champs. I stopped off at the field where the Little Leaguers were playing as day turned into evening. Packed stands, burgers on the grill, Slim Jims and M&Ms available at the concession stand. The teams were from the 9-10 year-old division. Crisp uniforms, with names on the back. Three coaches on each team. (Although, oddly, only one umpire. When I called games in Texas, I was part of a two-man crew. I can't imagine facing all those coaches by myself.)
I stuck around for a couple of innings, long enough to see some redemption. A kid was having trouble controlling his swing; he had struck out mightily his first time up. His next time up, with teammates on second and third, he was facing a 1-and-2 count. The coach tried to calm his hitter down. "Just looking for a base hit here, buddy," he said. "Don't try to hit it over the fence. Just make contact." The kid nodded in his best "Yes, coach," nod, and took a couple of oh-so-level, oh-so-controlled practice swings. He took a deep breath and stepped back in. The pitch came and, disregarding his coach's instructions, he took another mighty cut -- and the ball sailed 10 feet past the center-field fence. The three-run homer broke the game wide-open. "Guess I'll go get that one," the coach said, smiling wanly, as he trotted out the gate and around the field to retrieve the ball.
--A couple of miles from home, I saw planted beside the road a series of homemade signs, the sort which usually announce garage sales or some such. These signs, hand-written in large, feminine penmanship and lined up in Burma-Shave fashion, read as follows:
"Hey you! Yeah, you!"
Then:
"Where have you been?"
Then:
"We've been waiting for you!"
Then:
"It's been 7 months!"
Then:
"OK, blame the Navy"
Then:
"Interested in some desert property?"
Then:
"The party's THIS way!"
An arrow pointed into a subdivision entrance. On either side of the entrance are two huge trees, each festooned with a yellow ribbon. The last sign, inside the subdivision, bigger than the rest, with two small American flags taped to the top corners:
"Welcome home, Marc!"
The party was several houses down, but you could feel the love all the way out on the main road. I thought briefly about finding a parking spot, ringing the doorbell, asking for Marc and, over the din of a houseful of really happy people, shaking his hand and saying "Thank you." Thank you for defending our country, and thank you for coming home alive to family and friends who clearly think you're really cool.
I didn't, of course. But it made my day to know I could have.
John R. Cash, 1932-2003
My father instilled in me a deep love for country music, a love I re-discovered about 10 years ago. With my dad, Willie Nelson was No. 1. But not far behind was Johnny Cash, a man without whom there would have been no Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings or any other modern country star. Without Johnny Cash, country music would have gone the way of polka after Hank Williams died.
Cash sang the requisite love songs, of course, but he took country music a step further. He was as close to Everyman as any artist before or since. His songs seemed to genuinely identify with the lives that many of his listeners led. The only songwriter who comes close to being able to match that skill now is Alan Jackson, and he would probably be the first to admit he couldn't carry Johnny Cash's pen.
Cash cultivated an image of a brooding, melancholy man, but you can't listen to "A Boy Named Sue" without laughing out loud. You can't hear him sing "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die" without believing that he actually had done that very thing. (He didn't, but you still believed it anyway.)
And his swan song, the Nine Inch Nails dirge, "Hurt," was painfully, searingly, caustically appropriate -- a man looking death square in the face, conceding, but not before he grabbed your emotions one last time.
I never saw him in person, but it gives me chills to this day to hear his signature concert opening. In an age of "HOW YOU DOIN' ATLANTA!" or "DALLAS, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK????" there will never be anything more dramatic than a cavernous baritone saying simply:
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
The voice is silenced. The music -- and a genre -- lives on.
My father instilled in me a deep love for country music, a love I re-discovered about 10 years ago. With my dad, Willie Nelson was No. 1. But not far behind was Johnny Cash, a man without whom there would have been no Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings or any other modern country star. Without Johnny Cash, country music would have gone the way of polka after Hank Williams died.
Cash sang the requisite love songs, of course, but he took country music a step further. He was as close to Everyman as any artist before or since. His songs seemed to genuinely identify with the lives that many of his listeners led. The only songwriter who comes close to being able to match that skill now is Alan Jackson, and he would probably be the first to admit he couldn't carry Johnny Cash's pen.
Cash cultivated an image of a brooding, melancholy man, but you can't listen to "A Boy Named Sue" without laughing out loud. You can't hear him sing "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die" without believing that he actually had done that very thing. (He didn't, but you still believed it anyway.)
And his swan song, the Nine Inch Nails dirge, "Hurt," was painfully, searingly, caustically appropriate -- a man looking death square in the face, conceding, but not before he grabbed your emotions one last time.
I never saw him in person, but it gives me chills to this day to hear his signature concert opening. In an age of "HOW YOU DOIN' ATLANTA!" or "DALLAS, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK????" there will never be anything more dramatic than a cavernous baritone saying simply:
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
The voice is silenced. The music -- and a genre -- lives on.
Friday, September 12, 2003
Technobabble
My next computer is so going to be a Mac.
As a print designer and sometime graphic artist, my first 10 years or so of computer use was almost exclusively on a Macintosh. I worked on what a guy I know calls a Turtle Mac, a light-brown, self-contained unit with a 9-inch black-and-white screen. I advanced to a Mac IIsi, and also claimed as my work machine a Quadra 700, a Quadra 650, an 8500/180, a tan G3, a silver G4, and my current work-issued Mac, a Powerbook G4 laptop with all the toys.
I was at one time a give-me-Mac-or-give-me-death person. Oddly, however, I've never owned one.
I, in fact, did not have a computer at home until 1999, when we received the first of two hand-me-downs. When I finally had enough cash flow, thanks to my first web project, to purchase a brand-new, all-mine home computer, I had the choice of a well-loaded Windows XP machine or a low-end iMac.
I weighed the options: The Windows machine had bigger numbers (more processor, more RAM, greater expandability) in every category except the price. My wife had never used a Mac. I needed maximum compatibility with work machines (which by that time were primarily Windows-based) and maximum compatibility with my web customers (well, customer), who were Windows people.
I chose Windows. I chose wrong.
I've kept up with installing the near-daily Critical Security Updates, which lately have been accompanied by media reports confiriming what Mac users knew all along: that Windows is more porous than the Mexican border and more corrupt than the Nixon administration. I've muddied my way around the Windows XP interface, which is way superior to any previous Windows product but still not as intuitive as the Mac. I routinely run my anti-virus software in response to every news story about the latest virus, which always includes the boilerplate paragraph, "Mac users are not affected."
The final straw came today, when I was making some mix CDs for my wife's impending road trip to the National champion-dog show in northern Ohio. I tried to use Windows Media Player to do this, because I don't have third-party CD burning software. It was a monumental pain in the ass. I finally threw my hands up and pulled from its case my work-issued Mac. In clear violation of company policy, I booted it up for personal use. (Please don't tell anyone.) Having never used iTunes, I found it completely intuitive. In the hour it took me to make one CD on Windows, I made six with iTunes.
Of course, now I need an iPod. And a Mac of my own.
My next computer is so going to be a Mac.
As a print designer and sometime graphic artist, my first 10 years or so of computer use was almost exclusively on a Macintosh. I worked on what a guy I know calls a Turtle Mac, a light-brown, self-contained unit with a 9-inch black-and-white screen. I advanced to a Mac IIsi, and also claimed as my work machine a Quadra 700, a Quadra 650, an 8500/180, a tan G3, a silver G4, and my current work-issued Mac, a Powerbook G4 laptop with all the toys.
I was at one time a give-me-Mac-or-give-me-death person. Oddly, however, I've never owned one.
I, in fact, did not have a computer at home until 1999, when we received the first of two hand-me-downs. When I finally had enough cash flow, thanks to my first web project, to purchase a brand-new, all-mine home computer, I had the choice of a well-loaded Windows XP machine or a low-end iMac.
I weighed the options: The Windows machine had bigger numbers (more processor, more RAM, greater expandability) in every category except the price. My wife had never used a Mac. I needed maximum compatibility with work machines (which by that time were primarily Windows-based) and maximum compatibility with my web customers (well, customer), who were Windows people.
I chose Windows. I chose wrong.
I've kept up with installing the near-daily Critical Security Updates, which lately have been accompanied by media reports confiriming what Mac users knew all along: that Windows is more porous than the Mexican border and more corrupt than the Nixon administration. I've muddied my way around the Windows XP interface, which is way superior to any previous Windows product but still not as intuitive as the Mac. I routinely run my anti-virus software in response to every news story about the latest virus, which always includes the boilerplate paragraph, "Mac users are not affected."
The final straw came today, when I was making some mix CDs for my wife's impending road trip to the National champion-dog show in northern Ohio. I tried to use Windows Media Player to do this, because I don't have third-party CD burning software. It was a monumental pain in the ass. I finally threw my hands up and pulled from its case my work-issued Mac. In clear violation of company policy, I booted it up for personal use. (Please don't tell anyone.) Having never used iTunes, I found it completely intuitive. In the hour it took me to make one CD on Windows, I made six with iTunes.
Of course, now I need an iPod. And a Mac of my own.
Thursday, September 11, 2003
What really matters
"Look, the flags are flying at half-staff," I pointed out to the Old Daughter this morning as we maneuvered the minivan into the car line in front of her school.
She looked. "I see," she said. "Why?"
"Today is September 11," I said.
"Oh yeah," she said. "I had forgotten today was September 11. We'll probably sing The Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful today." The Old Daughter is 9. She was in second grade in North Texas when I took her to school that day, the last act I completed before the world stopped turning.
"I remember Mama came and took me home from school that day," she continued. "I think she was scared."
"A lot of people were scared," I said. "It was a very confusing day. Stuff happened in New York, then in Washington, then a plane crashed in Pennsylvania. We didn't know if something was going to happen next in California -- "
"-- or Missouri," she jumped in.
"Right. Or in Missouri, or in Texas. We just didn't know what was going to happen next."
"People were panicking," she said.
"Well, not really panicking," I replied. "It was semi-controlled chaos."
"I don't understand what you mean by 'semi-controlled,' " she said.
"Well, chaos means a situation out of control ... "
"I know what 'chaos' means," she replied. This is a kid who just read the first two Harry Potter books in less than a week. "I just didn't understand 'semi-controlled.' How can you have something that's chaos and controlled at the same time?"
"Well, it wasn't really panic, in that people weren't getting violent, or running around screaming, or anything, at least not where we were in Texas," I said. "But it was confusing, and that confusion was disruptive to life. You had to miss school, a lot of people went home from work, business kind of came to a stop."
"That's what the terrorists wanted to do, right?" she said. The car line inched slowly forward, as kids popped out of cars one by one and walked into school, many cars in front of us. "To confuse and disrupt us."
"Right."
"Why wouldn't they have wanted things to shut down entirely?"
"Well," I said, "I'm sure they did. But terrorists aren't that smart, or that good, or that organized. Pretty much all they can do is cause relatively small disruptions. They mainly just try to scare us. But it would take a lot more than just terrorists to shut down America."
"Because there are so many of us," she said.
"Right."
"And because Americans aren't going to be shut down by a few terrorists."
"Absolutely."
I could see the front of the car line, finally, through the windshield of the minivan. The Old Daughter gathered her stuff, completely oblivious to the profound words that came from her 9-year-old mouth. She was headed into school for just another day, its only distinction being that they would sing The Star-Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful when they normally wouldn't. It's been six hours since we had that conversation, and six hours ago was probably the last time she'll think about it.
But she gets it, just like the rest of us get it: Americans aren't going to be shut down by a few terrorists.
Peace, y'all.
"Look, the flags are flying at half-staff," I pointed out to the Old Daughter this morning as we maneuvered the minivan into the car line in front of her school.
She looked. "I see," she said. "Why?"
"Today is September 11," I said.
"Oh yeah," she said. "I had forgotten today was September 11. We'll probably sing The Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful today." The Old Daughter is 9. She was in second grade in North Texas when I took her to school that day, the last act I completed before the world stopped turning.
"I remember Mama came and took me home from school that day," she continued. "I think she was scared."
"A lot of people were scared," I said. "It was a very confusing day. Stuff happened in New York, then in Washington, then a plane crashed in Pennsylvania. We didn't know if something was going to happen next in California -- "
"-- or Missouri," she jumped in.
"Right. Or in Missouri, or in Texas. We just didn't know what was going to happen next."
"People were panicking," she said.
"Well, not really panicking," I replied. "It was semi-controlled chaos."
"I don't understand what you mean by 'semi-controlled,' " she said.
"Well, chaos means a situation out of control ... "
"I know what 'chaos' means," she replied. This is a kid who just read the first two Harry Potter books in less than a week. "I just didn't understand 'semi-controlled.' How can you have something that's chaos and controlled at the same time?"
"Well, it wasn't really panic, in that people weren't getting violent, or running around screaming, or anything, at least not where we were in Texas," I said. "But it was confusing, and that confusion was disruptive to life. You had to miss school, a lot of people went home from work, business kind of came to a stop."
"That's what the terrorists wanted to do, right?" she said. The car line inched slowly forward, as kids popped out of cars one by one and walked into school, many cars in front of us. "To confuse and disrupt us."
"Right."
"Why wouldn't they have wanted things to shut down entirely?"
"Well," I said, "I'm sure they did. But terrorists aren't that smart, or that good, or that organized. Pretty much all they can do is cause relatively small disruptions. They mainly just try to scare us. But it would take a lot more than just terrorists to shut down America."
"Because there are so many of us," she said.
"Right."
"And because Americans aren't going to be shut down by a few terrorists."
"Absolutely."
I could see the front of the car line, finally, through the windshield of the minivan. The Old Daughter gathered her stuff, completely oblivious to the profound words that came from her 9-year-old mouth. She was headed into school for just another day, its only distinction being that they would sing The Star-Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful when they normally wouldn't. It's been six hours since we had that conversation, and six hours ago was probably the last time she'll think about it.
But she gets it, just like the rest of us get it: Americans aren't going to be shut down by a few terrorists.
Peace, y'all.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Dateline: Washington
I've just discovered America's greatest city. So much to write about, so little energy. I'll come back to this topic in daylight.
I've just discovered America's greatest city. So much to write about, so little energy. I'll come back to this topic in daylight.
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Let the restoration begin
As August pulls into the pits and September takes the track, I'm hopping in for a ride to recovery.
It's been a long year. The upheaval that began roughly this time last year is still heaving, to some extent. The adjustment to the move back to the Edge has been longer than expected. It hasn't helped that the work has been constant, the rewards minimal, and the time for rest and relaxation almost non-existent.
That all changes soon. I work tomorrow and Tuesday. Then, a three-week voyage back to sanity.
Week 1: I hop a plane Wednesay for a trip to the nation's capital for a work-related seminar. It'll be my first trip to Washington. I'm pretty fired up about that. I don't know how much work-related seminaring I'm actually going to do, but I will get in plenty of sightseeing and reflection.
At the top of the list of the many sites I want to visit one that will make me very, very sad: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I'm not sure why the draw for that is so powerful for me, but it is. The Vietnam War was the definition of my parents' generation, and it defines the way many people of my generation view our government, for better or worse. It's the same pull that drew me to the Oklahoma City National Memorial in 2000. I don't know why I feel I need to pay my respects. But I do.
Week 2: I return Sunday to the Edge for a week basically to myself and my family. So much around me is in disarray: My computer desk, my CD collection, the interior of my car, my garage, my marriage, my brain, my psyche. I need to somehow relax, decompress and refocus -- and be productive -- during this time. But I'm going to do so in the lowest-pressure way possible.
Week 3: On Sept. 13, The Wife leaves for a trip to Ohio to hang out with champion dogs and the people who own them. This is a big deal and a crucial time for her and her Champion Wannabe golden retriever. Champion Wannabe won the first of the two major titles required for Champion Dog status on Sunday. The dog is on the brink of major national success, and if The Wife plays her political cards just right on this trip, good things will result. I don't pretend to know much about how the whole dog show thing works -- I'm not really a dog person, and my interest level in my wife's hobby is high only because of the amount of happiness it brings her -- but it's an important trip for her.
What it means for me is one full week of Me vs. The Mini-Humans. Vegas has the Mini-Humans as 28 1/2-point favorites right now, down from 30 a few days ago. I'm not sure what's causing the fluctuation in the betting line, but I'd take the Mini-Humans and the points.
This is an important stretch of time for me -- perhaps more important than any three-week stretch previously. I've been a very unpleasant person for a very long time. I'm not getting enough rest, I'm eating poorly, and I'm carrying every possible work stress with me everywhere I go. As soon as I get on that northbound plane, my list of excuses shrinks to zero. I need either to get my brain focused on what I'm doing now or get my brain focused on doing something else. I haven't had time to do this for a long time.
I'll have the time now. How well will I use it?
As August pulls into the pits and September takes the track, I'm hopping in for a ride to recovery.
It's been a long year. The upheaval that began roughly this time last year is still heaving, to some extent. The adjustment to the move back to the Edge has been longer than expected. It hasn't helped that the work has been constant, the rewards minimal, and the time for rest and relaxation almost non-existent.
That all changes soon. I work tomorrow and Tuesday. Then, a three-week voyage back to sanity.
Week 1: I hop a plane Wednesay for a trip to the nation's capital for a work-related seminar. It'll be my first trip to Washington. I'm pretty fired up about that. I don't know how much work-related seminaring I'm actually going to do, but I will get in plenty of sightseeing and reflection.
At the top of the list of the many sites I want to visit one that will make me very, very sad: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I'm not sure why the draw for that is so powerful for me, but it is. The Vietnam War was the definition of my parents' generation, and it defines the way many people of my generation view our government, for better or worse. It's the same pull that drew me to the Oklahoma City National Memorial in 2000. I don't know why I feel I need to pay my respects. But I do.
Week 2: I return Sunday to the Edge for a week basically to myself and my family. So much around me is in disarray: My computer desk, my CD collection, the interior of my car, my garage, my marriage, my brain, my psyche. I need to somehow relax, decompress and refocus -- and be productive -- during this time. But I'm going to do so in the lowest-pressure way possible.
Week 3: On Sept. 13, The Wife leaves for a trip to Ohio to hang out with champion dogs and the people who own them. This is a big deal and a crucial time for her and her Champion Wannabe golden retriever. Champion Wannabe won the first of the two major titles required for Champion Dog status on Sunday. The dog is on the brink of major national success, and if The Wife plays her political cards just right on this trip, good things will result. I don't pretend to know much about how the whole dog show thing works -- I'm not really a dog person, and my interest level in my wife's hobby is high only because of the amount of happiness it brings her -- but it's an important trip for her.
What it means for me is one full week of Me vs. The Mini-Humans. Vegas has the Mini-Humans as 28 1/2-point favorites right now, down from 30 a few days ago. I'm not sure what's causing the fluctuation in the betting line, but I'd take the Mini-Humans and the points.
This is an important stretch of time for me -- perhaps more important than any three-week stretch previously. I've been a very unpleasant person for a very long time. I'm not getting enough rest, I'm eating poorly, and I'm carrying every possible work stress with me everywhere I go. As soon as I get on that northbound plane, my list of excuses shrinks to zero. I need either to get my brain focused on what I'm doing now or get my brain focused on doing something else. I haven't had time to do this for a long time.
I'll have the time now. How well will I use it?
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Work, and life, and stuff
If you work for a newspaper that hits driveways every morning of the year, you're going to work nights and weekends. That's a given. You're also going to find yourself adjusting your life pretty dramatically on the whims of breaking news. Say you had plans for Tuesday evening, Sept. 11, 2001. Sorry; canceled. You're at work. Horrendously hung over on a Saturday morning? Pray God it's not the Saturday morning the space shuttle falls out of the sky. A fire breaks out in a warehouse downtown at 6 p.m., just as you're about to head home for dinner? Put it in the fridge, honey; I'm grabbing a notebook/camera/mouse instead.
Then there are the nights that don't involve breaking news. I can look around my newsroom at any given time and see some mid-level editor heading for his or her 11th or 12th hour -- even on normal days. On my staff, overtime is routine; somebody's working it pretty much every week. Some weeks, I have people working double shifts just to get the paper out.
And most of these people are working all of these wacky hours and subordinating their personal lives to the greater mission of daily journalism for less than $50,000 a year -- despite the fact that many have advanced degrees, despite the fact that they've worked here for five, 10, 15 years, despite the fact that the company that owns the newspaper is profitable in bad years and wildly profitable in good ones. They aren't busting their asses for doctor money or lawyer money or even car-salesman money. They aren't busting their asses because they might someday be editor of the newspaper if they do so. They bust their asses because they care, and because they love their jobs, and because they believe passionately in the greater mission of daily journalism.
As for me, I'm one of those mid-level managers. On a routine day, I put in 10 hours. If something happens, figure on 11 or 12, maybe 13. For the extended coverage we did on the shuttle report for Wednesday's paper, I was in at 10:30 a.m. and done at midnight -- and then sat at my desk decompressing for an hour before leaving at 1 a.m.
I'm lucky enough have a wife who loves me and supports the fact that I'm living a dream through my job. She's a full-time parent, which means, during the week, she's a full-time parent. I'm out the door not long after our oldest goes to school at 8:15 a.m., and I'm not home before the kids are in bed. On many days, I'm not awake at 8:15 a.m., which means that it's not uncommon during the school year for me to go the entire work week without seeing my oldest kid awake.
I don't work all those hours because it makes the paper better. I work all those hours because my boss expects me to; because his boss expects him to; because her boss expects her to, all the way up the line. And they all do it, too. Overworking yourself is almost a fucking badge of honor.
That's wrong. And stupid. And really not an investment in anything, because my raise is already budgeted and it's going to be the same whether I bust my ass or not. And really, it results in diminishing returns, because the more you do it, the more you're expected to do it.
Yet I do it, and I work with at least 100 people who do it, too. I ask people on my staff to do it. Some of them say no. I think that's to their credit. I don't get angry about it; I respect it.
The downside is that, if somebody on my staff takes that step to protect his personal life, the work is still there and must be picked up by somebody. That somebody often is me. It's a tough balancing act. I do it voluntarily, so I can't whine about it. But the cycle continues.
Some co-workers get sanctimonious about their roles as parents. I disagree with that attitude. I understand that for people without children, a bowling league or a pottery class or a yoga session or whatever is just as important. The bottom line is the same: A journalist who doesn't have a life outside of work is a damn bad journalist. You can't expect to tell people about the world when all you see of it comes to you through a computer screen or the CNN on the TV over your left shoulder.
I left this place four years ago to work for the nation's eighth-largest newspaper -- a paper that was staffed-up enough so that I worked in a department where night workers had four-day workweeks, where overtime wasn't necessary just to put the paper out, where if an editor had to leave for a family commitment before a story was ready, another editor was available to step in. For the most part, it was good to its people, but it lacked the frenetic energy to which I had become accustomed and which, for some reason, makes this career both worse and better than every other career.
I left that environment and came back to this place, because it's a better place to live.
I can't complain, because I have everything I ever wanted. I'm paid well, I work with people who care, and I live with the best four people on the planet. And I can't complain, because I chose this career, I chose to work at this level and I chose to have management responsiblities.
Absent my petition to extend the day to 32 hours from 24 being accepted, I must choose to be better organized and more energetic.
If you work for a newspaper that hits driveways every morning of the year, you're going to work nights and weekends. That's a given. You're also going to find yourself adjusting your life pretty dramatically on the whims of breaking news. Say you had plans for Tuesday evening, Sept. 11, 2001. Sorry; canceled. You're at work. Horrendously hung over on a Saturday morning? Pray God it's not the Saturday morning the space shuttle falls out of the sky. A fire breaks out in a warehouse downtown at 6 p.m., just as you're about to head home for dinner? Put it in the fridge, honey; I'm grabbing a notebook/camera/mouse instead.
Then there are the nights that don't involve breaking news. I can look around my newsroom at any given time and see some mid-level editor heading for his or her 11th or 12th hour -- even on normal days. On my staff, overtime is routine; somebody's working it pretty much every week. Some weeks, I have people working double shifts just to get the paper out.
And most of these people are working all of these wacky hours and subordinating their personal lives to the greater mission of daily journalism for less than $50,000 a year -- despite the fact that many have advanced degrees, despite the fact that they've worked here for five, 10, 15 years, despite the fact that the company that owns the newspaper is profitable in bad years and wildly profitable in good ones. They aren't busting their asses for doctor money or lawyer money or even car-salesman money. They aren't busting their asses because they might someday be editor of the newspaper if they do so. They bust their asses because they care, and because they love their jobs, and because they believe passionately in the greater mission of daily journalism.
As for me, I'm one of those mid-level managers. On a routine day, I put in 10 hours. If something happens, figure on 11 or 12, maybe 13. For the extended coverage we did on the shuttle report for Wednesday's paper, I was in at 10:30 a.m. and done at midnight -- and then sat at my desk decompressing for an hour before leaving at 1 a.m.
I'm lucky enough have a wife who loves me and supports the fact that I'm living a dream through my job. She's a full-time parent, which means, during the week, she's a full-time parent. I'm out the door not long after our oldest goes to school at 8:15 a.m., and I'm not home before the kids are in bed. On many days, I'm not awake at 8:15 a.m., which means that it's not uncommon during the school year for me to go the entire work week without seeing my oldest kid awake.
I don't work all those hours because it makes the paper better. I work all those hours because my boss expects me to; because his boss expects him to; because her boss expects her to, all the way up the line. And they all do it, too. Overworking yourself is almost a fucking badge of honor.
That's wrong. And stupid. And really not an investment in anything, because my raise is already budgeted and it's going to be the same whether I bust my ass or not. And really, it results in diminishing returns, because the more you do it, the more you're expected to do it.
Yet I do it, and I work with at least 100 people who do it, too. I ask people on my staff to do it. Some of them say no. I think that's to their credit. I don't get angry about it; I respect it.
The downside is that, if somebody on my staff takes that step to protect his personal life, the work is still there and must be picked up by somebody. That somebody often is me. It's a tough balancing act. I do it voluntarily, so I can't whine about it. But the cycle continues.
Some co-workers get sanctimonious about their roles as parents. I disagree with that attitude. I understand that for people without children, a bowling league or a pottery class or a yoga session or whatever is just as important. The bottom line is the same: A journalist who doesn't have a life outside of work is a damn bad journalist. You can't expect to tell people about the world when all you see of it comes to you through a computer screen or the CNN on the TV over your left shoulder.
I left this place four years ago to work for the nation's eighth-largest newspaper -- a paper that was staffed-up enough so that I worked in a department where night workers had four-day workweeks, where overtime wasn't necessary just to put the paper out, where if an editor had to leave for a family commitment before a story was ready, another editor was available to step in. For the most part, it was good to its people, but it lacked the frenetic energy to which I had become accustomed and which, for some reason, makes this career both worse and better than every other career.
I left that environment and came back to this place, because it's a better place to live.
I can't complain, because I have everything I ever wanted. I'm paid well, I work with people who care, and I live with the best four people on the planet. And I can't complain, because I chose this career, I chose to work at this level and I chose to have management responsiblities.
Absent my petition to extend the day to 32 hours from 24 being accepted, I must choose to be better organized and more energetic.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Spaced out
The long journalistic odyssey that began on Feb. 1 with the crash of the space shuttle Columbia ended today. The Columbia Accident Investigation board released its 248-page report, blaming NASA's "culture" for its cavalier attitude toward crew safety for Columbia's doom. The report noted that NASA is underfunded and deadline-driven, and managers don't listen to underlings. In short, it runs just like every other governmental agency.
How about privatizing the entire program? When Boeing or Lockheed designs and builds a passenger jet, engineers oversee engineers, redundant systems back up redundant systems and voila! you have the safest mode of transportation ever invented. With NASA, you have Congressmen overseeing engineers, and corners get cut in order to shave costs and make deadlines.
Let rocket scientists build space shuttles. I'd rather see us spend our money to fix the "culture" in underfunded, deadline-driven and top-down state child-welfare agencies first, then worry about NASA.
The long journalistic odyssey that began on Feb. 1 with the crash of the space shuttle Columbia ended today. The Columbia Accident Investigation board released its 248-page report, blaming NASA's "culture" for its cavalier attitude toward crew safety for Columbia's doom. The report noted that NASA is underfunded and deadline-driven, and managers don't listen to underlings. In short, it runs just like every other governmental agency.
How about privatizing the entire program? When Boeing or Lockheed designs and builds a passenger jet, engineers oversee engineers, redundant systems back up redundant systems and voila! you have the safest mode of transportation ever invented. With NASA, you have Congressmen overseeing engineers, and corners get cut in order to shave costs and make deadlines.
Let rocket scientists build space shuttles. I'd rather see us spend our money to fix the "culture" in underfunded, deadline-driven and top-down state child-welfare agencies first, then worry about NASA.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Recycling
One of the things I really enjoy about this forum is the ability to look back and see what the hell I was thinking during a particular time period. I culled this from this week last year. I think it's a good dog-days-of-summer thought, and because it is after all my forum, I think I'll share it again.
Simplicity (from Aug. 22, 2002)
I was going to work up something really deep, and thoughtful, and introspective, and stuff. I decided against it. All I have is this:
Today'd be a good day for a good day. I sincerely hope you're having one.
One of the things I really enjoy about this forum is the ability to look back and see what the hell I was thinking during a particular time period. I culled this from this week last year. I think it's a good dog-days-of-summer thought, and because it is after all my forum, I think I'll share it again.
Simplicity (from Aug. 22, 2002)
I was going to work up something really deep, and thoughtful, and introspective, and stuff. I decided against it. All I have is this:
Today'd be a good day for a good day. I sincerely hope you're having one.