I was right, I was wrong

SPOT ON: See the post headlined May 23: iTunes downloader ready. I was right; The new Dixie Chicks album is damn good. It's an exquisitely manicured middle finger standing tall against the crap they've had to endure over the last three years.

And it is, thankfully, more than that; it's a nice transition out of the hard-core country world into tunes that cross many lines. "Easy Silence" showcases the voice not of Natalie Maines the Texan, but that of Natalie Maines, the former Berklee student.

All that said, it's hard not to point out that the Chicks have been the top album download on iTunes all week while the president's approval rating struggles to stay above 30 percent. Take that, rednecks.

EATING MY WORDS: I wrote this in February 2002 after the Super Bowl. Musing about the commericals:

Cadillac has finally figured out that its customer base is, like, almost dead. The average age of a new Cadillac buyer is 69. The marketing folks catch a clue: Cadillac cues up the Zeppelin, finds a '59 Eldo, and voila, a star is born. Not crazy about the CTS; it's kind of a funny-looking car.

Well, maybe, I might have to amend that: Everybody else's CTS is funny-looking. The one that'll be in my driveway for the next 39 months looks pretty cool.

On the clock

I have 20 hours to complete two PowerPoint presentations for an upcoming conference. During that 20 hours, I must also have dinner, sleep, have breakfast and get children ready for school, and I'll lose one more hour to commuting.

How do you like my chances?

Flight 93 tapes out

First gut response while the CNN babe is reading her transcription of the Flight 93 tapes released today in Alexandria, Va.:

Am I to believe that, under moment of great stress and trauma, that these hijackers would be sending their final prayers to Allah ... in English?

UPDATE: The New York Times notes that the hijackers were indeed speaking Arabic. Which still leads me to wonder how a presumably non-Arabic speaking CNN reporter would know just minutes after the tapes were released what was being said. No tinfoil-hat stuff here, just saying ...

Sad and pathetic

A lot of heavy stuff here lately ... time for a chuckle in my most favorite way -- at my own expense.

Funny scene on the streets of suburban Tampa on Friday afternoon:

Guy in a black 2006 Rapidlyagingdudemobile, late 30s, sun shining off his receding hairline, windows down, 7-speaker Bose cranked up to the max, just absolutely rocking out ...

The song? "Behind these Hazel Eyes" by Kelly Clarkson.

Hi.

Simple rule

And one that would save me a lot of money: When you're not hungry, don't eat.

The latest

The Wife was telling me a story the other night about one of her dogs throwing up.

The Young Daughter observes this mess and says something along the lines of, "She must not have taken her medicine. When I take my medicine, I don't get sick."

The Wife was quite surprised by this. We had no idea that The Young Daughter had drawn the connection between her medications and her episodes of the past few months, which were usually punctuated by vomiting unconnected to any real nausea or upset stomach or carsickness or any other condition that usually generates vomiting.

Among the medicines she's taking is Thalidomide, the drug immortalized as one of the memories of the '60s in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." (Third verse: "Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide.") Baby boomers remember that the drug was originally the miracle cure for morning sickness, with the unfortunate side effect of horrendous birth defects. The drug was taken off the market in the United States until 1998, when it was approved for heavily controlled clincal trials. There are those, including one of the doctors that we are seeing, who believe it might be effective in treating neurofibromatosis.

I, of course, am in favor of most things that might help. Research seems to indicate that only serious side effects of this particular treatment are in utero. The Young Daughter's 5; that's not a high risk. But that doesn't make us any less apprehensive about it.

In two weeks, The Wife and The Young Daughter are traveling to Birmingham, Ala., to meet with the man who literally wrote the book -- actually, several books -- on NF1. Will he have some answers? We don't know. But we'll keep asking the questions.

------

I am reminded of a story from May 2002 (click here and scroll down to May 10, 2002), back when I had no understanding of the realities of this situation and wanted said understanding even less.

The link to the press release in that post was active until fairly recently. It's been awful quiet out of Dr. Parada's office lately. He said "five years." He has one year and one month left to restore my faith in the medical profession. The clock is ticking.

The clock is ticking, goddammit. Find a way to fix this. Now.

I stand and salute

From our wire services:

CHATTANOOGA, TENN. -- The only U.S. conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor in the Second World War has been buried at a national cemetery with a 21-gun salute, although he refused to carry a weapon while serving as an army medic.

Desmond Doss, 87, died March 23 in Piedmont, Ala., where he and his wife, Frances, had been living with family.

A horse-drawn hearse delivered the flag-covered coffin to the gravesite Monday in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Military helicopters flew overhead in a tribute formation.

Doss was ridiculed for his beliefs but "remained true to his convictions even when it was not the most popular thing to do," said Patti Parks, a retired U.S. navy commander and director of the Medal of Honor Museum in Chattanooga.

Doss, who refused to carry a weapon during his wartime service in the Pacific, was the subject of a book, The Unlikeliest Hero, and a 2004 documentary, The Conscientious Objector.

Medal of Honor Society records show he was among 3,461 recipients of the highest U.S. military honor.

While under enemy fire on the island of Okinawa, Doss carried 75 wounded soldiers to the edge of a 120-metre cliff and lowered them to safety, according to his citation.

During a later attack, he was seriously wounded in the legs by a grenade. According to the citation, as he was being carried to safety, he saw a more critically injured man and crawled off his stretcher, directing the medics to help the other wounded man.

"He wanted to serve. He just didn't want to kill anybody," said a veteran who attended the service, Fred Headrick, 85. "Most all of them (Medal of Honor recipients) received their medal for killing someone. He received his by saving lives."

Now this dude's a hero. There's a way to be a patriot without killing other people in the process.

Why I hate technology

I'm so disgusted by this story. I would be just as disgusted if the guy wasn't a high-ranking federal official in an agency entrusted for securing the safety of the American people. If he is found guilty of the crimes for which he's charged, he's both sick and stupid, and I hate the fact that my wife and children share a planet with people like him.

The Wife and I have been batting around the idea of letting the Old Daughter have limited, heavily guarded, heavily filtered Internet access on the computer in her bedroom. The Wife has always been staunchly 100 percent opposed to it; I was 99 percent opposed to it, thinking that there might be an argument in favor of letting her have some freedom to do research, play her games, e-mail her friends, etc., without having to use the centrally located desktop in the living room.

The Old Daughter, of course, is 100 percent in favor of having Internet access in her room. We were almost ready to bend; I proposed that as long as she was fully open to random and unannounced searches of her browsing history, e-mail sent items, and the rest of her hard drive, I would consider it. The Wife reluctantly agreed to that proposal.

I've changed my mind. If I caught something in a history or a cache, it's too late. That toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube. I'm now back to being firmly opposed to letting children have Internet access in a non-common area of the house.

In my house, at least, I'm sure the problem wouldn't be outgoing material. And if an indecent proposal did make its way in, I'm sure it would be reported the second it hit the screen.

But we can't take the risk of letting the sick and the stupid into our house.

Another day, another airplane

Sitting in coach Sunday afternoon, on an airline where I don't carry Gold status. It's much more entertaining to people-watch in coach. In first, you see several variations of the same person, either the old white guy in a suit or the overdressed 50-ish woman self-consciously knocking back a bloody mary before takeoff.

From Seat 7D, I quietly look around from under the earbuds, only seeing, not hearing. It's much easier to make up stories about people when you can't actually hear what's going on ...

-- At the bulkhead, there are the young parents with the 5-month-old baby. They're trying desperately not to be Those Parents. They're both looking around just the slightest bit; whenever they make eye contact with someone, they give the apologetic "I'm sorry she's so loud" look. They're doing fine, though, in comparison to ...

-- ... The Militant Single Mom, three rows back and across the aisle. She sits in the middle as her kids (I'll call them Tyrone and LaKeisha) fight over the window and the aisle. Tyrone and LaKeisha are generating enough volume to get in under my Shure E300s. MSM, meanwhile, doesn't give a shit, and she just absolutely dares you to say something about it. Her big brown eyes are spitting fire; it might be directed at the kids, and it might be directed at you. Best not to find out. It's all she can do to get these kids back home. She's been taking crap from them for an entire week of "vacation," and she doesn't care at all that you're going to get two hours of it.

-- Taking a deep breath and running his fingers through what is left of his hair is the guy on the aisle across from MSM and her brood. He's wearing a white polo shirt with a logo of some small software company, as anonymous as the one for which I work. Clearly, he's carrying the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. It's written all over his face. I'm reading it line by line. He's been traveling too much and working too hard, his marriage is faltering, and he'd rather be getting an ice-water enema than making this particular trip. Two things are true about a business guy traveling on Sunday: 1/he's outbound, not inbound, and 2/he's leaving behind stuff he'd rather be doing and stuff that, in the scheme of things, is more important than whatever he's headed off to. Both, I can tell, are true of this guy. He's been sitting in his seat quietly enduring MSM to his right and the baby up front; he gets his laptop out of its briefcase and taps away idly on it. If I got out of my seat to go to the bathroom, I'm pretty sure I'd see a typical business traveler's work: a half-hearted game of solitaire.

-- The Young Lovers, he in a New York Giants jersey and gym shorts, she in a pink sweatshirt and flip-flops. Their spring break didn't go well. They probably won't be talking come May. Wonder who paid for this trip.

-- The old fellow next to me has a hospital bracelet on. He apparently broke his arm during his Florida business trip. He takes up way more of his middle seat than a guy his size normally would. He looks very fragile. I'm scared to bump him for fear he might shatter.

Turn off your electronic devices, turn off your brain, watch as everything that's really important to you disappears at 1,000 feet a minute. Sit back, relax and enjoy the flight as best as you can.

My life, brought to you by iTunes

A tremendously fun meme. Simple rules:

1/Get your iTunes library.
2/Set it to shuffle
3/Ask the questions below and hit Play (or next)
4/Whatever song comes up, go with it.

Q) How does the world see you?
A) The Road Goes on Forever / Robert Earl Keen
This is a song about a girl I knew back in Anytown. Several of them, actually. However, the story never ended as well for any of them.

Q) Will I have a happy life?
A) Drinkin' on the Job / The Rainmakers
Now there's an idea.

Q) What do my friends really think of me?
A) Manic Depression / Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
They could certainly be excused if that's what they thought.

Q) Do people secretly lust after me?
A) Free Bird / Lynyrd Skynyrd
Yeah ... probably not.

Q) How can I make myself happy?
A) A Million Miles Away / The Rainmakers
This song is a really really deep song about a guy who could be recovering from a traumatic experience, drug abuse, or homelessness. I always took it as that he was contemplating suicide, but that might be reading a little bit more into it. It does feature one of Bob Walkenhorst's very cool turns of phrase:

And the landscape in the dark,
it could have been New Zealand
New York, or New Mexico
So what else is new? Jim thought

Q) What should I do with my life?
A) More than a Feeling / Boston
Ah, a great song from the speakers of the Trans Am in the mid-'80s. Not much guidance there, though.

Q) Will I ever have children?
A) I Know My History / Van Zant
My history would suggest that I'd have a big family. By 21st-century standards, I do.

Q) What is some good advice for me?
A) The Three Fine Daughters of Farmer Brown / Eddie from Ohio
Hmm ... nah, that would probably cause trouble.

Q) How will I be remembered?
A) Creepin' In / Norah Jones
That's me, sneaking into places where I don't belong, over and over.

Q) What is my signature song?
A) Small Town Jericho / Sugarland
I always wanted to live in a small town. I never have. And I think it would be too late now. If you weren't born there, you'll never belong.

Q) What do I think my current theme song is?
A) Take Me Down / Kelly Willis
I don't believe the words you're saying
And I know the game you're playing
So it's only just for now
That I will let you take me down

Q) What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
A) Wide Open Spaces / Dixie Chicks
I lived in one place for 25 years. I haven't lived anywhere else for more than three. Might explain a lot about a lot.

Q) What song will play at my funeral?
A) The One That Got Away / The Rainmakers
The old man's lament.
Well I did this and I did that
And I guess I did OK
I did whatever I had to do
And I did it my own way
Whatever hand I drew
Whatever hand I played
From place to place
I come face to face
with the one that got away"

In a lot of ways, that's strangely appropriate. I've never felt I've made the most of the opportunities I've had.

Q) What type of men/women do I like?
A) If I Wanted To / Melissa Etheridge
Odd that she'd pop up in that spot.

Q) What is my day going to be like?
A) Snakedance / The Rainmakers
This is the lion's den ... And yeah, I knew that before I came in.

From largelypro.com (and please note: the fact that the blogger had a close association with a band that popped up repeatedly in the above list had no influence on the content).

A small request

If you are the praying type (and it's cool with me if you are, or not), I'd be grateful if you'd send a few our way.

May 23 ... iTunes downloader ready

This oughta be good.

Getting what I pay for

I'm going to blame my extended absence from this forum on Blogger's recent tendency to lag -- apparently for as long as a day or two -- before posts actually show up. Yep, that must be it.

Arrgh

Here we go, devolving back into monthly mode. I hate it when that happens.

Quick hits:

-- The Wife's Champion Dog had another litter of puppies. These dogs are apparently all the buzz in the world of dog-show people (at least, those who show her breed.) This is a very good buzz, and very good for The Wife and the Champion Dog. Five years ago, when she first got into all this, I wondered why the hell she was doing it. Now I understand. Very cool.

-- The Old Daughter recently won her school's spelling bee. Normally, this would not sound all that impressive -- hell, back in '82, I won my junior high's spelling bee -- but she did it 1/against a whole bunch of kids, way more than the 10 or so I beat and 2/she's in sixth grade, and given her July birthday was very likely the youngest kid in the competition. The win qualified her for an appearance in the county-wide spelling bee, against 45 other kids, most of whom were also in eighth grade. Her exit was far too early -- she got tripped up when the reader gave an obscure and kind of odd definition of the word "regency" -- but she'll be back.

-- I will be spending a good portion of my next two months in Montréal (I am there, in fact, as I write this), one of North America's most fabulous cities. Every time I'm here, I'm busy as hell and don't get much of a chance to see/enjoy much of anything. Plus, it's colder than crap. But one of these days, I'll share with you some of the wonders of this city.

Crawling back into my hole. I promise I'll try to come out before next month.

Coach of the Century

I love this story; stop me if you've heard it already.

I've found my new favorite basketball coach. His name is Jim Johnson, and he coaches high school hoops in a little town outside of Rochester, N.Y., called Greece. The school's name is Athena.

For their last home game, against a somewhat overmatched opponent, Johnson let student manager Jason McElwain dress and sit on the bench in uniform. I was a student manager; I would've probably given my right nut for the chance to do that.

With 4:30 to go and his team way up -- they eventually won, 79-43 -- Johnson put McElwain into the game. The fans go nuts, chanting "J-Mac! J-Mac!" It probably could have been interpreted as teasing. This was, after all, the 5-foot-6 student manager.

He gets the ball and throws up an air ball on his first shot. Then he missed a layup. So much for the nice ending; sit down and grab your clipboard, kid.

Not exactly.

Over the next four minutes, the kid hits 7 of 11 shots, including 6-of-10 from behind the 3-point line. The manager scored 20 points in four minutes, and set a school record for most 3-pointers in a game. I would have given both my nuts and a few of my toes to do something like that.

The manager scored 20 points in the only four minutes of high school ball he'll ever play.

Oh, by the way: The kid is autistic.

"I've had a lot of thrills in coaching and I've coached a lot of wonderful kids, but I've never experienced something like this ever in my life, you know other than my own personal family things," Johnson told WROC-TV. "My emotions, I couldn't stop crying."

I love this story. I hope this was the breakthrough moment for this kid; experts claim that high-functioning autistics can have experiences that actually help unshackle them from disease.

"This is the first moment Jason has ever succeeded and was proud of himself," Debbie McElwain, Jason's mother, told WROC. "I look at autism as the Berlin Wall; he cracked it."

For his sake, may that be the case -- and may he keep finding hammers to chip away at that wall.

Yep, definitely on a fast train headed way South

(somewhat continued from previous post)

Kids received money in the mail today for Valentine's Day from various relatives. Have no idea when the hell that tradition started; all I know is that it started about 25 years too late.

Anyway, each kid netted about $9 or so. We took them to Wal-Mart so each could buy $9 worth of toys.

The Old Daughter looked, and looked, and then found what she wanted:

Chips.

Yep, poker chips.

I got The Look again.

Instead of the bedtime story, The Boy and the Old Daughter opted for a few hands with me. Says The Boy, with an evil not-yet-7 smile: "Bluffing is fun. I like bluffing."

God help us all. God help me when The Wife delivers my well-deserved beating for my bad influence.

I suspect I'm going to Hell for this

Grandpa Mike was teaching the kids to play five-card draw. They were using K'Nex (think Tinkertoys of 2006) as chips. They were enjoying that, and then I came home. I said, "Let's learn a new game."

"Cool," said The Old Daughter, 11. "What's it called?"

"It's called Texas Hold 'Em." I dealt the pocket cards, explained terms and the betting, and set down the flop. The Wife rolled her eyes. The Boy, not quite 7, said, "Hey, this looks fun."

The Boy bluffed his way to win two consecutive hands, one of them after he stared down his sister, who folded to his pair of 4s. Grandpa Mike won a few hands, I held out until the river for a flush to win one, and then it was dinnertime.

Didn't think much more of it until a few days later, when we were driving to Lowe's or Home Depot or Chili's or somewhere suburban in the minivan. The Wife said, "It's awful quiet back there; wonder what's going on?"

The silence continues for a few seconds. Then, the Old Daughter's voice: "Now, here's the flop ... "

Yeah, I got The Look. You know, the look one's wife gives you after it becomes completely evident that you've corrupted the children in some fashion; the look I get when The Boy knows the words to "Bohemian Rhapsody." I'm pretty sure I deserved The Look. I'm not going to worry about it, at least not until my two older kids show up to the table in sunglasses.

Best of ...

Digging through the back issues, I found this from Aug. 29, 2002. No particular relevance to anything, other than a reminder that if you must wage war, there are plenty of things against which war should be waged. Here's one of them.

"There is never a shortage of bullshit"
Thus declared The Wife a couple of days ago. She noted that while we suffer deficits of many necessary things, there seems to be a perpetual bullshit surplus.

This is reality. Some people deal with it by meditating, or smoking weed, or lighting incense, or getting an occasional massage and spa treatment.

The Wife, right-leaning person that she is, has declared war.

"I am declaring war," she said, "on bullshit."

Now there's a war I can get behind.

This is a noble cause. Instead of obsessing and bitching and moaning and freaking out over things over which we have no control, now would be a good time to simply choose to not worry about them. Many things are just not going to get any better. That's OK, 'cause they're really pretty good. Let's say I take that excess energy freed up by ceasing to acknowledge bullshit and devote it to things that really matter, and who knows? Maybe I'll take less aspirin.

I know I won't be able to dodge the opponent every day, but it'll at least know I'm there.

The War on Bullshit is on. All are invited to join the effort.

We're still accepting volunteers.

You heard it here first

Steelers 24, Seahawks 20.

State of our Union: Fashion-challenged

So, Cindy Sheehan was arrested at the State of the Union shindig, and all I can think is, "Dear God, she wore a t-shirt to the Capitol?"