I nearly got creamed coming out of my driveway this morning. I stopped at the sidewalk and looked both directions, very carefully. By turning my whole upper body. There were no approaching vehicles in view.
I lifted my foot off the brake pedal, allowing my car to roll gently back into the street.
A flash of black-and-chrome, my rear view mirror is filled with pickup truck.
My reflexes are pretty good, and I stomp on the brake pedal again, as he swerves around my rear end, doing perhaps twenty-five miles per hour. We do not collide.
I live on a residential street which runs parallel to an arterial four-lane road, and people often disregard speed limits, in spite of the city's deliberate neglect of the pavement. The street has dips at most intersections that will bottom out almost any car exceeding twenty-five, and evenings at my house are generally punctuated with periodic BANGs as people discover the dip at my corner. (Suspension and chassis parts are a not-too-uncommon sight on the street and sidewalk.)
So, I am accustomed to speedy travellers. This is why I look carefully before backing out of my driveway.
This guy, however, was part of a relatively new phenomenon. He was speeding (you KNOW he hit his brakes as he maneuvered to avoid me)...and he had run the stop sign at the corner of the street he turned off of. Had to. If he'd come from anywhere else, I would have seen him before he filled my rear view.
I'm noticing now (because I can watch that stop sign from my window as I type this) that a lot of people ignore that stop sign. Most who do render honors to the stop sign do so in a passing manner; tap the brakes and damn-the-torpedoes-Gridley-it's-full-speed-ahead.
Then there is the kid with the motorized scooter. No, I am not talking about a motor-scooter with a seat, I am talking about the kind of scooter that was popular a few years ago (Razors? Remember them?) but with an unmuffled two-stroke gasoline engine on it. It is ridden standing up, and I swear, the thing will exceed twenty-five. (I doubt that he will exceed twenty-five, if he keeps riding the thing on the street. Or on week nights after 11 pm.) I mention this kid because that stop sign apparently doesn't apply to him, either.
People seem less concerned about being annoyingly noisy these days. Motorcyclists come to mind, but also pretty much anyone who goes to the movies these days. Is the conversation during the movie really necessary? I can forgive the odd comment to one's neighbor, but a conversation on one's cellular phone is beyond rude, especially after the snazzy polite-but-feebly-humorous public service announcement theaters play to remind you to turn off your cell phone. The message from these people seems to be, "Fuck you, what I want is more important than what you want."
Malls and airports seem to attract people with no sense of how to get along in crowded society. Yesterday, while hurrying to meet RadiantSmile's plane, I encountered a smallish cluster of people that were all but blocking a narrow spot on the main walkway through the terminal. One was a woman with a canine-companion-in-training, talking with another woman who was fawning over the puppy in spite of the message on its yellow sweater which read, "Leave me alone. I'm in training, so please don't slobber all over me because I'm cute," or words to that effect. Lastly, there was a couple with a five-foot-long tandem stroller parked crosswise to the traffic lane. As I approached at the quick-step, the father of the two toddlers steps into my path. I said, "Oop!" and managed to stop without running into him, but by a scant couple of inches. Now, I know that a man my size can be unintentionally imposing, so rather than meet his gaze, I looked down at the floor...no need to appear threatening, after all...but backing up was out of the question. First of all, it was crowded, and I probably would have backed into someone behind me, and second, I was fighting inertia, which still wanted to carry me forward through the gap in humanity that now no longer existed. Dad simply stands there and glares at me. Clearly, he would rather I stepped on the puppy than ask him not to block the terminal thoroughfare. And it's also apparent that he and his wife felt entitled to do their baby maintenance right there regardless of how they affected those around them.
Several years ago...about a month after 9/11, in fact...while standing in a two-hour long security line, the woman in front of me turned and asked, "My flight's in twenty minutes. Do you think I'll make it?" When I suggested that she talk to a ticket agent, she asked if I would watch her bags. Without waiting for an answer, she started to walk away. The second time I said no, I made sure she heard me, and to the amusement of the other passengers in line, she called me an asshole. The airline responded to her obtuseness (and obtuse she was, since one would have had to go to incredible lengths to deliberately avoid any knowledge of the speed bumps involved in air travel so soon after Al Qaeda had its messy way with us) by giving her a personal escort to the head of the security line. Worse, all of the airlines then began to patrol the security lines for passengers short on time...escorting each of them to the head of the line to be whisked through to catch their flights, while those of us who didn't ignore the plentiful warnings about long security lines had to stand and watch. In retrospect, I should have left her bags where they were and pointed them and her out to the nearest security agent...just like the announcement says.
One of the things I find enormously frustrating these days is the tendency to ignore the recommendations of people who know what they're talking about, in favor of continuing a debate about how to solve a particular problem. This happens often in my professional community. Now, I'm the first to admit that I'm not ever the smartest guy in the room, but I am often the most experienced. If you come to me with a problem and I offer you a solution, please do me the courtesy of at least trying my solution before coming back to me with the same problem and asking my advice again. Last year, a colleague asked me for my input on the sixth draft of the same document I'd seen five times before. I have the utmost respect for him...he's smart, experienced and thoughtful...but he was over a year late in finishing that project, and it needed to get unstuck, so I flatly refused to look at the thing until after it was published. He's moved on to another position, but his successor is doing the same thing...and it's bogging the whole community down.
What all of these people have in common is the misperception that their own thoughts, feelings and desires are automatically given the same consideration as those of the people around them. News flash: they're not.
I've started to think of this philosophy as Neo-egalitarianism: the belief that, in a society of equals, an individual has a right to assert his or her thoughts and desires with the expectation of acceptance, and can act with the certainty that acceptance is a foregone conclusion.
It's that last part that gives people the sense that they have a right to be pissed off when things don't go their way. Watch people closely, and you'll see what I mean.
The worst part of it all is that we reward people for behaving this way. Late for your flight because you ignored dozens of warnings about increased airport security? Go to the head of the line!
The military has an interesting word for the process of resolving clashes: deconfliction. Ideally, deconfliction measures anticipate problem areas and provide a means of avoiding them. A stop sign is a good example of a deconfliction measure. So is a warning about heightened security, or a lame pseudo-trailer featuring Indians and a herd of buffalo scared off by a cell phone.
As much as we'd like to think that Equality is possible, it really isn't. There will always be differences in the way people think or act; differences in personality, talent and experience mean that the best we can hope for is parity.
Based on my experiences lately, I'd say there's not much hope of that, either. Not as long as most of us put ourselves above the people around us.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Where The Hell Is Alan Funt When You Really Need Him?
I read Erica's post on the horror of discovering that you're out of baby wipes and thought I'd share my own, rather charming story.
Yes, this has happened to me. Worse, it happened to me the day my older daughter was born. Her mother, never one to miss an opportunity to remind everyone around her that they're stupid and she's not, refused to let me live it down. She mentioned it in virtually every quarrel we had for the remainder of our marriage, and had my lawyer not conveniently forgotten to put it in there, she would have had it included in our divorce papers.
Here's what happened: Our daughter was born at roughly 2:30 pm. Evanston Hospital's equivalent of the Keystone Cops (I swear, the routine they had for getting a newborn under the rolling french fry lamp was one nurse in lingerie short of a Benny Hill sketch) counted her fingers and toes (which I'd already done, thank you) and made her cry (holding up little Olympic Judge Score Cards: 5.9, 5.9, 5.8, 5.7, 6.0...some guy named Apgar apparently invented a difficulty factor for the newborn's first angry hollers at the world). Once mom and I had had a chance to exchange a few furtive glances with the baby, the green-clad Greek Chorus of pediatric nurses whisked our new baby away for a valve job and an oil change.
We, new parents that we were, were shown to a maternity room, where we were allowed to make exhorbitantly expensive phone calls to everyone we knew, until they came and took my ex-wife away for breast-feeding class. Apparently, it takes a certain amount of knowledge to do things naturally; who knew?
While my ex-wife (who, for the sake of clarification, was still my future ex-wife at that time) was in class, one of the nurses wheels my daughter in with one of those combination bassinette-and-AV-cart things, one wheel wobbling and squeaking like a high-mileage shopping cart. She (the nurse) speaks to me like I am a slow five year old, which is to say that she spoke a little too loudly and a lot too chirrupy: "Hello, Dad! Is Mom in class?"
I nod and clutch at the air, as if trying to find my blankie, which I haven't needed since I was 4. No, actually, I didn't do that, but I am sure that's how Nurse Patronizing saw me.
"Well, would you like to spend some time with your daughter while you wait for Mom to come back?"
I am all eagerness. This is my chance to commence spoiling my daughter, a process which will take the rest of my life, if done properly.
The nurse looks dubious. "Will you be okay if I leave you two alone?"
Sure! What can go wrong?
She clucks as though she knows a whole host of things that can go wrong and firmly believes that I would never understand any of them. Though it's obviously against her better judgement, she leaves me alone with my daughter.
I don't remember much of that first father-daughter conversation we had, and I suspect that my daughter doesn't, either. Since I abhor "goo-goo" noises, I probably began speaking to her like an adult right then...a habit I have maintained for 16 1/2 years. (This is a particularly good habit to have, especially since she would abhor "goo-goo" noises now.)
But at some point in the conversation, she turned momentarily purple, and then let out an enormous wet fart, followed by a tiny sigh of relief. I didn't have to be William Petersen to recognize she needed a diaper change. I looked under the bassinette, and sure enough, disposable diapers! I'm ready to go.
So...I open the current diaper, and it is filled with toxic waste that I am sure would have been rejected as unsafe by the State of Nevada. I am amazed that one tiny wet fart could have produced so much volume. I am further amazed that so much volume could have come from such a tiny baby.
The stuff was roughly the consistency of...well, halfway between spackle and roofing tar.
I look for something to wipe her little bottom. There is nothing. Well, there was something. Gauze pads. I quickly discovered that dry gauze pads do not make effective baby wipes. In fact, they are about as ineffective in that role as it gets.
My daughter, with apparently no trouble at all this time, unleashes another load of blackish-green goo. And then another. There is so much gunk in her diaper now that I am seriously concerned that if it happens again, she will will begin to look like an underinflated basketball.
Frantically, I check all of the drawers in the room. No wipes. What kind of hospital is this? I wheel my daughter and her goopy diaper out into the hallway, looking for a nurse. (As we go, I have one hand driving the AV cart and one hand desperately gripping both of my daughter's wrists and ankles, as I try to keep her from delightedly smearing herself in her own shit. Seriously, Charlie Chaplin would have been inspired.) I go to the nurse's station, and there are...NO NURSES!
There are also no baby wipes in view.
By now, I am beginning to panic. I have been left alone with my daughter for fifteen whole minutes and it has been a disaster. I am torn between the sense that this is a Special Occaision (my daughter's First Shit Ever) and the certain knowledge that if I don't do something fast, I will be reduced to a cautionary tale for pediatric nurses for years to come.
How is it that I am the only person on the ward when this happens? Did the nurses take all the baby wipes with them when they went to their meeting in the cafeteria? Are they watching me on the closed-circuit security cameras? Yes, that's what it is...there's no breast feeding class! All of the females on the ward have gathered in some small, dark room filled with baby wipes to watch as New Dad wheels his wildly shitting newborn around the ward, bellowing "A wipe! A wipe! MY KINGDOM FOR A WIPE!"
Then, Clint Eastwood came to me in a vision. Just as he did in "Heartbreak Ridge", he growled, "You improvise, you adapt, you overcome!"
So, I wet some paper towels and did the best I could.
The results were...well...less than acceptable. But, at least I could give her a fresh diaper and wrap her up again.
Forty-five minutes later, my then-future-ex-wife strolls in to the room with two nurses in tow. They are laughing. She tells me she is ready to feed our daughter now, and I...confess everything.
There is a moment of shocked silence, during which the whole thing becomes my fault, apparently because I am the only one in the room with testicles. The nurses coo over the baby and take her away for a bath, while my then-future-ex-wife explains to me that she always knew that I would be a shitty father. (I take some small satisfaction in the knowledge that she didn't think I would literally be a shitty father. At least I exceeded her expectations in that regard.)
And I never did find out where they kept the damn baby wipes.
Yes, this has happened to me. Worse, it happened to me the day my older daughter was born. Her mother, never one to miss an opportunity to remind everyone around her that they're stupid and she's not, refused to let me live it down. She mentioned it in virtually every quarrel we had for the remainder of our marriage, and had my lawyer not conveniently forgotten to put it in there, she would have had it included in our divorce papers.
Here's what happened: Our daughter was born at roughly 2:30 pm. Evanston Hospital's equivalent of the Keystone Cops (I swear, the routine they had for getting a newborn under the rolling french fry lamp was one nurse in lingerie short of a Benny Hill sketch) counted her fingers and toes (which I'd already done, thank you) and made her cry (holding up little Olympic Judge Score Cards: 5.9, 5.9, 5.8, 5.7, 6.0...some guy named Apgar apparently invented a difficulty factor for the newborn's first angry hollers at the world). Once mom and I had had a chance to exchange a few furtive glances with the baby, the green-clad Greek Chorus of pediatric nurses whisked our new baby away for a valve job and an oil change.
We, new parents that we were, were shown to a maternity room, where we were allowed to make exhorbitantly expensive phone calls to everyone we knew, until they came and took my ex-wife away for breast-feeding class. Apparently, it takes a certain amount of knowledge to do things naturally; who knew?
While my ex-wife (who, for the sake of clarification, was still my future ex-wife at that time) was in class, one of the nurses wheels my daughter in with one of those combination bassinette-and-AV-cart things, one wheel wobbling and squeaking like a high-mileage shopping cart. She (the nurse) speaks to me like I am a slow five year old, which is to say that she spoke a little too loudly and a lot too chirrupy: "Hello, Dad! Is Mom in class?"
I nod and clutch at the air, as if trying to find my blankie, which I haven't needed since I was 4. No, actually, I didn't do that, but I am sure that's how Nurse Patronizing saw me.
"Well, would you like to spend some time with your daughter while you wait for Mom to come back?"
I am all eagerness. This is my chance to commence spoiling my daughter, a process which will take the rest of my life, if done properly.
The nurse looks dubious. "Will you be okay if I leave you two alone?"
Sure! What can go wrong?
She clucks as though she knows a whole host of things that can go wrong and firmly believes that I would never understand any of them. Though it's obviously against her better judgement, she leaves me alone with my daughter.
I don't remember much of that first father-daughter conversation we had, and I suspect that my daughter doesn't, either. Since I abhor "goo-goo" noises, I probably began speaking to her like an adult right then...a habit I have maintained for 16 1/2 years. (This is a particularly good habit to have, especially since she would abhor "goo-goo" noises now.)
But at some point in the conversation, she turned momentarily purple, and then let out an enormous wet fart, followed by a tiny sigh of relief. I didn't have to be William Petersen to recognize she needed a diaper change. I looked under the bassinette, and sure enough, disposable diapers! I'm ready to go.
So...I open the current diaper, and it is filled with toxic waste that I am sure would have been rejected as unsafe by the State of Nevada. I am amazed that one tiny wet fart could have produced so much volume. I am further amazed that so much volume could have come from such a tiny baby.
The stuff was roughly the consistency of...well, halfway between spackle and roofing tar.
I look for something to wipe her little bottom. There is nothing. Well, there was something. Gauze pads. I quickly discovered that dry gauze pads do not make effective baby wipes. In fact, they are about as ineffective in that role as it gets.
My daughter, with apparently no trouble at all this time, unleashes another load of blackish-green goo. And then another. There is so much gunk in her diaper now that I am seriously concerned that if it happens again, she will will begin to look like an underinflated basketball.
Frantically, I check all of the drawers in the room. No wipes. What kind of hospital is this? I wheel my daughter and her goopy diaper out into the hallway, looking for a nurse. (As we go, I have one hand driving the AV cart and one hand desperately gripping both of my daughter's wrists and ankles, as I try to keep her from delightedly smearing herself in her own shit. Seriously, Charlie Chaplin would have been inspired.) I go to the nurse's station, and there are...NO NURSES!
There are also no baby wipes in view.
By now, I am beginning to panic. I have been left alone with my daughter for fifteen whole minutes and it has been a disaster. I am torn between the sense that this is a Special Occaision (my daughter's First Shit Ever) and the certain knowledge that if I don't do something fast, I will be reduced to a cautionary tale for pediatric nurses for years to come.
How is it that I am the only person on the ward when this happens? Did the nurses take all the baby wipes with them when they went to their meeting in the cafeteria? Are they watching me on the closed-circuit security cameras? Yes, that's what it is...there's no breast feeding class! All of the females on the ward have gathered in some small, dark room filled with baby wipes to watch as New Dad wheels his wildly shitting newborn around the ward, bellowing "A wipe! A wipe! MY KINGDOM FOR A WIPE!"
Then, Clint Eastwood came to me in a vision. Just as he did in "Heartbreak Ridge", he growled, "You improvise, you adapt, you overcome!"
So, I wet some paper towels and did the best I could.
The results were...well...less than acceptable. But, at least I could give her a fresh diaper and wrap her up again.
Forty-five minutes later, my then-future-ex-wife strolls in to the room with two nurses in tow. They are laughing. She tells me she is ready to feed our daughter now, and I...confess everything.
There is a moment of shocked silence, during which the whole thing becomes my fault, apparently because I am the only one in the room with testicles. The nurses coo over the baby and take her away for a bath, while my then-future-ex-wife explains to me that she always knew that I would be a shitty father. (I take some small satisfaction in the knowledge that she didn't think I would literally be a shitty father. At least I exceeded her expectations in that regard.)
And I never did find out where they kept the damn baby wipes.
Friday, August 26, 2005
I've Started Making Funny Noises Again
No, it isn't that I've got a pinhole leak. I. am not. a balloon. (eeeeeeeeeeeeeee.)
When I was younger, still in my teens, I was a pretty happy guy. Life was good: I was healthy and good looking, well liked and widely regarded as smart, funny and wise. Basically, I was so pleased with myself and my life that I couldn't contain it, and I'd take the stairs two-at-a-time, every time, singing "Bing-bing-bing" with each footfall. Heading DOWN stairs, it was one at a time, but with a rhythm: "Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump." Except the sound effects department in my head had me chiming, "Ba-dink" or "ga-bink", depending on my mood...which was nearly always good.
I'd sing for no apparent reason, sometimes with nonsensical lyrics, made up as the song progressed. Lyrics like:
"Sam and Janet Evening,
you will see a stranger...
you will see a stranger
who holds a brown balloon."
That last line would sometimes be "who acts like a baboon," or even, "who's crazy as a loon."
The words weren't as important as the expression of joy that drove them.
Then, for a long time, I was silent. I don't even know what got in the way of my happiness, and I can't point to a particular memory of discovering that the sound effects department had closed up shop. I just know that for nigh on twenty years, there have been no weird noises emanating unbidden from me.
Well, no happy weird noises, anyway. By the time you get to be my age, you can't escape weird noises. But that's a completely different subject.
In the last few days, the noises have come back. I am singing nonsensically again. Life is fun and good.
I have no idea why. My life has not drastically changed for the better. I am not in love.
Or, maybe I am in love. With myself. Maybe that's what this is. Maybe, after years of feeling darkly D-pressed and O-pressed, and taking responsibility for things I shouldn't, I'm finally accepting that I'm a good guy. I'm smart, talented, wise and sometimes even funny. Maybe it's none of that and it's just that without really meaning to or even realizing I was doing it, I've finally decided to like myself again.
There is other evidence of that...I haven't been doing a thing about my weight this summer. In fact, if anything, I've been doing all the wrong things: fast food, no exercise and ice cream every night! (WOO HOO!) Somehow, I've managed to lose weight, though. This morning, I put on a pair of pants that because the two sides of the fly seemed to be no longer on speaking terms, had been relegated for the last six months to the darkest recesses of my closet...that area I think of as the Optimism Rack, the clothes I'll hopefully someday get to wear again. Never mind that they will be hopelessly out of style. And yet...I wore a pair of Chinos to work today that I thought would never again grace my large-ish, somewhat hairy backside.
Clearly, there's an energy thing going on. The changes in my life that began as entirely attitudinal are now manifesting themselves as a smaller waistline and a stream of goofy noises. Who knows where it goes from here? I'm not terribly inclined to put much thought into it.
I'm just happy.
Ba-dink.
When I was younger, still in my teens, I was a pretty happy guy. Life was good: I was healthy and good looking, well liked and widely regarded as smart, funny and wise. Basically, I was so pleased with myself and my life that I couldn't contain it, and I'd take the stairs two-at-a-time, every time, singing "Bing-bing-bing" with each footfall. Heading DOWN stairs, it was one at a time, but with a rhythm: "Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump." Except the sound effects department in my head had me chiming, "Ba-dink" or "ga-bink", depending on my mood...which was nearly always good.
I'd sing for no apparent reason, sometimes with nonsensical lyrics, made up as the song progressed. Lyrics like:
"Sam and Janet Evening,
you will see a stranger...
you will see a stranger
who holds a brown balloon."
That last line would sometimes be "who acts like a baboon," or even, "who's crazy as a loon."
The words weren't as important as the expression of joy that drove them.
Then, for a long time, I was silent. I don't even know what got in the way of my happiness, and I can't point to a particular memory of discovering that the sound effects department had closed up shop. I just know that for nigh on twenty years, there have been no weird noises emanating unbidden from me.
Well, no happy weird noises, anyway. By the time you get to be my age, you can't escape weird noises. But that's a completely different subject.
In the last few days, the noises have come back. I am singing nonsensically again. Life is fun and good.
I have no idea why. My life has not drastically changed for the better. I am not in love.
Or, maybe I am in love. With myself. Maybe that's what this is. Maybe, after years of feeling darkly D-pressed and O-pressed, and taking responsibility for things I shouldn't, I'm finally accepting that I'm a good guy. I'm smart, talented, wise and sometimes even funny. Maybe it's none of that and it's just that without really meaning to or even realizing I was doing it, I've finally decided to like myself again.
There is other evidence of that...I haven't been doing a thing about my weight this summer. In fact, if anything, I've been doing all the wrong things: fast food, no exercise and ice cream every night! (WOO HOO!) Somehow, I've managed to lose weight, though. This morning, I put on a pair of pants that because the two sides of the fly seemed to be no longer on speaking terms, had been relegated for the last six months to the darkest recesses of my closet...that area I think of as the Optimism Rack, the clothes I'll hopefully someday get to wear again. Never mind that they will be hopelessly out of style. And yet...I wore a pair of Chinos to work today that I thought would never again grace my large-ish, somewhat hairy backside.
Clearly, there's an energy thing going on. The changes in my life that began as entirely attitudinal are now manifesting themselves as a smaller waistline and a stream of goofy noises. Who knows where it goes from here? I'm not terribly inclined to put much thought into it.
I'm just happy.
Ba-dink.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
...And I missed such a great opportunity for a joke.
My last post, about people spamming my blog...I can't believe I didn't include this:
It's not got much spam in it.
Bloody Vikings.
It's not got much spam in it.
Bloody Vikings.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
You May Notice A Change
My blog has been spammed. Three times now.
While I think it's nice of Mr. Ed Warner (22144827) to make sure that I am so well informed about the timber industry, his use of the comment feature in my blog to advertise his ten-cent stock offering is an inappropriate intrusion. He compounds the problem by not including a "make-it-stop" link, which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but when did that ever stop anyone?
From now on, when you elect to leave a comment here, you'll be asked to type a verification word that confirms that you're human. I feel like I should be apologetic to you, my loyal readers, but that's a feeling that doesn't sit well with me. I shouldn't have to apologize for someone else's unwanted misuse of my blog.
A quick Yahoo! search for the term "Global Cedar" yielded 5,830 results, many of which are comments in people's blogs from none other than Mr. Ed Warner (22144827). Energy and Asset Technology, Inc. turns out to be an Australian company. The initial press release from which Mr. Ed Warner (22144827)'s text appears to have been taken lists a point of contact, but no e-mail address. I'll keep looking, and when I find it, I'll post it here so that all y'all can write Down Under to complain.
I'd like to thank Erica for pointing out this option in the blogspot comments settings, and I hope you'll still elect to share your thoughts even though I've added another step to the process.
While I think it's nice of Mr. Ed Warner (22144827) to make sure that I am so well informed about the timber industry, his use of the comment feature in my blog to advertise his ten-cent stock offering is an inappropriate intrusion. He compounds the problem by not including a "make-it-stop" link, which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but when did that ever stop anyone?
From now on, when you elect to leave a comment here, you'll be asked to type a verification word that confirms that you're human. I feel like I should be apologetic to you, my loyal readers, but that's a feeling that doesn't sit well with me. I shouldn't have to apologize for someone else's unwanted misuse of my blog.
A quick Yahoo! search for the term "Global Cedar" yielded 5,830 results, many of which are comments in people's blogs from none other than Mr. Ed Warner (22144827). Energy and Asset Technology, Inc. turns out to be an Australian company. The initial press release from which Mr. Ed Warner (22144827)'s text appears to have been taken lists a point of contact, but no e-mail address. I'll keep looking, and when I find it, I'll post it here so that all y'all can write Down Under to complain.
I'd like to thank Erica for pointing out this option in the blogspot comments settings, and I hope you'll still elect to share your thoughts even though I've added another step to the process.
Friday, August 19, 2005
I'm Sorry, How Much Was That Again?
Nasty surprise when I got home yesterday afternoon: My daughter's car was gone from where it had been parked when I left for work.
I called the San Diego Police Department, and surprisingly, got a dispatcher on the second ring. "Hello," I said, giving my name and address, "my daughter's car is missing from where it was parked this morning, and I'd like to report it stolen." I gave the license number, make and model of the vehicle. Very politely, she asked me to hold, and came back a minute later with this little piece of information: "Sir, that vehicle had been parked in the same location for more than 72 hours, so it was towed."
Um, excuse me, but it was in front of my house.
"Yes, sir, but it was parked on a public thoroughfare and cannot be left unattended for more than 72 hours."
Um, excuse me, but it was not unattended, it was parked in front of my house.
"Yes, sir, but it was on the street. For more than 72 hours."
I could see where this was going (around in more circles...this is why I am not a NASCAR fan), so I asked where it was, and was given a phone number, which I called.
Initially, I was polite.
After ascertaining that Star Towing did, in fact, have my daughter's car and that I could come pick it up any time, I asked how much it was going to cost me to retrieve it. The gentleman on the phone tapped some keys on his computer and came up with a number.
And this is where I lost my temper.
Because I was thinking, like, you know, fifty bucks. Enough to get pissed off about, but not really pissed off about.
He explains that the SDPD charges a $25 fee per day for storage, and slapped a $102 impound fee on top of that. The towing itself was $125, plus $4 per mile over five miles, and since Star Towing is located 11 miles from my home, that added $24 to the cost of the tow.
Two hundred and seventy-six dollars.
Payable in cash or credit, no checks, please.
It would have been cheaper to park it at the airport for a month.
Oh, and when the impound attendant turned over the car, he said, "Nice BMW. You really shouldn't park it on the street."
As he handed me my keys, a piece of paper under the windshield wiper caught my eye.
It was a parking ticket. Dated yesterday.
I called the San Diego Police Department, and surprisingly, got a dispatcher on the second ring. "Hello," I said, giving my name and address, "my daughter's car is missing from where it was parked this morning, and I'd like to report it stolen." I gave the license number, make and model of the vehicle. Very politely, she asked me to hold, and came back a minute later with this little piece of information: "Sir, that vehicle had been parked in the same location for more than 72 hours, so it was towed."
Um, excuse me, but it was in front of my house.
"Yes, sir, but it was parked on a public thoroughfare and cannot be left unattended for more than 72 hours."
Um, excuse me, but it was not unattended, it was parked in front of my house.
"Yes, sir, but it was on the street. For more than 72 hours."
I could see where this was going (around in more circles...this is why I am not a NASCAR fan), so I asked where it was, and was given a phone number, which I called.
Initially, I was polite.
After ascertaining that Star Towing did, in fact, have my daughter's car and that I could come pick it up any time, I asked how much it was going to cost me to retrieve it. The gentleman on the phone tapped some keys on his computer and came up with a number.
And this is where I lost my temper.
Because I was thinking, like, you know, fifty bucks. Enough to get pissed off about, but not really pissed off about.
He explains that the SDPD charges a $25 fee per day for storage, and slapped a $102 impound fee on top of that. The towing itself was $125, plus $4 per mile over five miles, and since Star Towing is located 11 miles from my home, that added $24 to the cost of the tow.
Two hundred and seventy-six dollars.
Payable in cash or credit, no checks, please.
It would have been cheaper to park it at the airport for a month.
Oh, and when the impound attendant turned over the car, he said, "Nice BMW. You really shouldn't park it on the street."
As he handed me my keys, a piece of paper under the windshield wiper caught my eye.
It was a parking ticket. Dated yesterday.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
...and a 5.7 from the East German judge...
Had a meeting this afternoon in another building...one with a little handicapped access ramp between the sidewalk and the parking lot. Got to talking with an old buddy I hadn't seen in months, and as I headed across the parking lot, I was looking at him, and I stepped off the curb...
Or so I thought...
I actually stepped off onto the edge of the ramp.
Which threw me off balance.
...so I'm staggering with all my weight forward, headfirst into the parking lot...
...which also serves as one of two main roads between the front gate and the main parking lot...
...and I'm thinking, "Gotta get my feet back under me. Am I gonna fall? Maybe I won't, but it looks like I will. I should get my feet under me any step now..."
Nope. Didn't.
I did a non-graceful three-point splat a foot short of the traffic lane. The heels of both hands and my right knee look like road pizza. It's a macadam parking lot. Not smooth. Lots of loose gravel.
Ow.
My right pinky seems to be slightly sprained, and my knee is a bit sore.
What I don't understand is why, after years of martial arts training (okay, admittedly that was five years ago), I didn't just tuck and roll as soon as I lost my balance. What was I thinking? The tuck and roll would have looked much cooler than the masterful display of fat-guy gymnastics I actually did put on. (Hey, you had a great score until the dismount!)
Dorko here gets up, and looks around to make sure Freckles is nowhere to be seen before examining his wounds.
My new fellow cubizen, Buck, was with me. He was sympathetic, making sure I'm okay, and managing not to laugh before he's sure I'm okay. (I'm not sure I could have done him the same courtesy.) I'm fine, I tell him, dripping blood and bits of gravel from both hands.
Halfway up the hill behind our office, Buck starts chuckling.
"What's so funny?" I ask.
"You need to find a girlfriend ASAP," he says. "Can't masturbate with both hands looking like that!"
Or so I thought...
I actually stepped off onto the edge of the ramp.
Which threw me off balance.
...so I'm staggering with all my weight forward, headfirst into the parking lot...
...which also serves as one of two main roads between the front gate and the main parking lot...
...and I'm thinking, "Gotta get my feet back under me. Am I gonna fall? Maybe I won't, but it looks like I will. I should get my feet under me any step now..."
Nope. Didn't.
I did a non-graceful three-point splat a foot short of the traffic lane. The heels of both hands and my right knee look like road pizza. It's a macadam parking lot. Not smooth. Lots of loose gravel.
Ow.
My right pinky seems to be slightly sprained, and my knee is a bit sore.
What I don't understand is why, after years of martial arts training (okay, admittedly that was five years ago), I didn't just tuck and roll as soon as I lost my balance. What was I thinking? The tuck and roll would have looked much cooler than the masterful display of fat-guy gymnastics I actually did put on. (Hey, you had a great score until the dismount!)
Dorko here gets up, and looks around to make sure Freckles is nowhere to be seen before examining his wounds.
My new fellow cubizen, Buck, was with me. He was sympathetic, making sure I'm okay, and managing not to laugh before he's sure I'm okay. (I'm not sure I could have done him the same courtesy.) I'm fine, I tell him, dripping blood and bits of gravel from both hands.
Halfway up the hill behind our office, Buck starts chuckling.
"What's so funny?" I ask.
"You need to find a girlfriend ASAP," he says. "Can't masturbate with both hands looking like that!"
Friday, August 12, 2005
Deep Smit
An interesting morning, actually. A good cap to a good week.
There's a woman at work I find very nice to look at. A year ago or so, when she was new at the command, she said something friendly at the lunch wagon, and I said something very dry in response...funny dry, I hoped, but dry as a bone, I'm afraid. And then I could think of nothing else to say, which is how I generally respond to beautiful women. We parted company that morning having separate conversations with each other in our heads. Well, I can't speak for her, but I will admit that while stealing furtive glances at her while we waited for our respective sandwiches, I had a whole conversation with her that she could not have been aware of, as we both stood rocking back and forth between the balls of our feet and our heels. Later, I looked her up in the command directory and learned her first name. For here, I will call her Freckles.*
Since then, I've seen her around, but we haven't spoken since, and she's mostly walked past me with an intense look on her face, deep in thought. I am so often the one deep in thought and oblivious to my surroundings that I feel a sort of kinship with her in this. Whenever I see her, I think, "Lookatmelookatmehellohellohellopleasenoticeme," which, of course, never works.
I am such a dork.
This morning, as I was concentrating on the task of opening my safe, I heard a female voice behind me, asking for one of my office mates. "I have no idea..." I said as I spun, realizing as I spoke that I must have sounded mildly annoyed or at least don'tdisturbmeI'mbusy.
My heart stopped.
It was Freckles.
"Okay, thank you," she said, hastily retreating, thinking who knows what. Crap.
She returned later, still looking for my office mate, who had stepped out once again, so I invited her to stay for a few minutes and wait. She raided my office mate's box of "Ice Breaker" candies with a sort of conspiratorial look that was not entirely unapologetic but thoroughly endearing. We slipped into an easy, "so what do you do" conversation, and I learned that she takes tremendous pride in what she does, that she has professional goals that are in danger because of office politics that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with some of my office mates (though she is unaware of the underlying story there, just that she may not be able to achieve her goal). I found myself conversing easily with her, actually being charming. I made some helpful suggestions about how she might go about achieving her goal, and discovered that she is smart and articulate and friendly. And she smiled.
And then I realized that I was being charming.
The effect was not unlike what I imagine I might feel if I suddenly realized I was tightrope walking over Niagara Falls. (Ohdamnohdamnohdamnohdamn.)
I didn't clam up this time, but I started sweating. And not just a little. I looked like Robert Hays on final approach in the movie "Airplane!".
She HAD to notice.
I managed to avoid wiping my face with both hands, but only barely.
She managed to stay funny and sweet and bright and beautiful.
When my office mate returned, I politely made my excuses and let the two of them conduct their business, but I felt like I was in high school again. I couldn't think of much else all day. I wanted to ask my office mate, "So, do you think I should go for it?" As if he'd respond with anything other than derision: "What are you, fourteen?"
It was only after I'd headed back to my own cubicle that I realized I'd never introduced myself. Crap.
Crapcrapcrap.
I am such a dork.
But she smiled at me anyway.
*I have a distinct weakness for women with freckles. Some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time writing haiku for the mental exercise, and I wrote this one:
freckles, like living
leaves fallen across the bridge
of her nose, she laughs
There's a woman at work I find very nice to look at. A year ago or so, when she was new at the command, she said something friendly at the lunch wagon, and I said something very dry in response...funny dry, I hoped, but dry as a bone, I'm afraid. And then I could think of nothing else to say, which is how I generally respond to beautiful women. We parted company that morning having separate conversations with each other in our heads. Well, I can't speak for her, but I will admit that while stealing furtive glances at her while we waited for our respective sandwiches, I had a whole conversation with her that she could not have been aware of, as we both stood rocking back and forth between the balls of our feet and our heels. Later, I looked her up in the command directory and learned her first name. For here, I will call her Freckles.*
Since then, I've seen her around, but we haven't spoken since, and she's mostly walked past me with an intense look on her face, deep in thought. I am so often the one deep in thought and oblivious to my surroundings that I feel a sort of kinship with her in this. Whenever I see her, I think, "Lookatmelookatmehellohellohellopleasenoticeme," which, of course, never works.
I am such a dork.
This morning, as I was concentrating on the task of opening my safe, I heard a female voice behind me, asking for one of my office mates. "I have no idea..." I said as I spun, realizing as I spoke that I must have sounded mildly annoyed or at least don'tdisturbmeI'mbusy.
My heart stopped.
It was Freckles.
"Okay, thank you," she said, hastily retreating, thinking who knows what. Crap.
She returned later, still looking for my office mate, who had stepped out once again, so I invited her to stay for a few minutes and wait. She raided my office mate's box of "Ice Breaker" candies with a sort of conspiratorial look that was not entirely unapologetic but thoroughly endearing. We slipped into an easy, "so what do you do" conversation, and I learned that she takes tremendous pride in what she does, that she has professional goals that are in danger because of office politics that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with some of my office mates (though she is unaware of the underlying story there, just that she may not be able to achieve her goal). I found myself conversing easily with her, actually being charming. I made some helpful suggestions about how she might go about achieving her goal, and discovered that she is smart and articulate and friendly. And she smiled.
And then I realized that I was being charming.
The effect was not unlike what I imagine I might feel if I suddenly realized I was tightrope walking over Niagara Falls. (Ohdamnohdamnohdamnohdamn.)
I didn't clam up this time, but I started sweating. And not just a little. I looked like Robert Hays on final approach in the movie "Airplane!".
She HAD to notice.
I managed to avoid wiping my face with both hands, but only barely.
She managed to stay funny and sweet and bright and beautiful.
When my office mate returned, I politely made my excuses and let the two of them conduct their business, but I felt like I was in high school again. I couldn't think of much else all day. I wanted to ask my office mate, "So, do you think I should go for it?" As if he'd respond with anything other than derision: "What are you, fourteen?"
It was only after I'd headed back to my own cubicle that I realized I'd never introduced myself. Crap.
Crapcrapcrap.
I am such a dork.
But she smiled at me anyway.
*I have a distinct weakness for women with freckles. Some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time writing haiku for the mental exercise, and I wrote this one:
freckles, like living
leaves fallen across the bridge
of her nose, she laughs
Sunday, August 07, 2005
When the Parrots Come Back to San Diego
Yep. Parrots. A couple dozen green ones. (Beautiful plumage.)
I woke up this morning to the sound of their squawking outside my bedroom window. They're gone now...it's quiet in my neighborhood again, but they'll be back. They always come back.
Parrots are not indigenous to Southern California. This is a case of someone releasing at least a mating pair into the wild. The "wild". San Diego can be pretty wild, but the only jungle here is concrete. I'm sure whoever released them did so by accident. Parrots are not cheap. On the other hand, they often live eighty years, so maybe these were inherited by someone who didn't want them.
In spite of the raucus group visit this morning, I woke up slowly, and it took me a few minutes to think of Monty Python. Perhaps I can be forgiven, since it was so early, but I can't help but wonder if I'm losing my mental edge.
You see, these parrots are not dead. They are still with us. They are not pushing up the daisies. They have not passed on, gone to meet their maker. They are not bleeding demised.
But at 6:30 on a Sunday morning...the last day of my vacation...I do wish they'd ring down the curtain and join the Choir Invisible.
I woke up this morning to the sound of their squawking outside my bedroom window. They're gone now...it's quiet in my neighborhood again, but they'll be back. They always come back.
Parrots are not indigenous to Southern California. This is a case of someone releasing at least a mating pair into the wild. The "wild". San Diego can be pretty wild, but the only jungle here is concrete. I'm sure whoever released them did so by accident. Parrots are not cheap. On the other hand, they often live eighty years, so maybe these were inherited by someone who didn't want them.
In spite of the raucus group visit this morning, I woke up slowly, and it took me a few minutes to think of Monty Python. Perhaps I can be forgiven, since it was so early, but I can't help but wonder if I'm losing my mental edge.
You see, these parrots are not dead. They are still with us. They are not pushing up the daisies. They have not passed on, gone to meet their maker. They are not bleeding demised.
But at 6:30 on a Sunday morning...the last day of my vacation...I do wish they'd ring down the curtain and join the Choir Invisible.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Strangers To The Ground
I haven't written much about the writing process...or, to be more precise, my writing process, but I feel inclined to do so this evening. I'm going to settle in with a glass of wine, cool barely-breeze from my window gently moving the dog-eared cover of an FAA flight publication on my computer desk...and tell you about the novel I am working on.
No, actually, I'm going to tell you about the characters in that novel, whom I am slowly getting to know.
I am not getting to know them in the way I would like to, from the beginning to the end of their stories. From a creative standpoint, it would be easier if I did, but they don't seem to want it that way.
In January, Lew started waking me up in the middle of the night. He'd sit on my dresser and slowly tell me his secrets without volunteering anything. He'd only answer questions, which is odd, since as a young man, he was playful and vibrant and gregarious. Lew was an overgown boy until he went to war in the summer of 1940, and when he came home in the fall of 1944, I think the boyhood was all out of him. He admitted to me that he'd gone off to England to escape the things of his life that threatened to make him grow up, though by then he was nearly 25. It took months of quiet talks in the small hours of the morning for him to trust me with the deepest of his truths. When I finally got it out of him, when I finally asked the right questions, he stopped waking me up. It was as though he needed some time to process things himself. Just last week, he got into my car at an intersection and we chatted for a while about his life after the war. Lew was a fascinating man.
Lew's grandson Leo has been almost as hard to get to know. Leo's been too busy to talk much, and all I knew of him until recently was that he'd grown up loving airplanes, and one airplane in particular: a British fighter plane from World War II called the Spitfire. He'd learned as a boy that Lew flew them in the war, and that connection was all he needed to dream of Spitfires his entire life. Lew died before Leo was born, but legends of Spitfire pilots filled the place in his heart that a boy usually reserves for a grandfather...instead of fishing, Leo and Lew shared flying. As Leo grew up, he also learned to fly.
Leo tells me that having an imaginary hero for a grandfather can go a long way to making a young man into a romantic. By the time Leo was my age, he was making his own journey to England...to realize his dream to buy and restore a Spitfire.
I have only briefly met the women they loved. Gwendolyn grew up in Wales, and met Lew because they were posted to the same base. She, too, has been quiet about her experiences during and after the war...but I am patient, and I know she'll come around.
Gillian is...well...a mechanic. Not just any mechanic, Gillian is an artist, making airplane engines from parts that haven't existed for twenty years. She is quiet, studious, and brilliant, and like Gwen, I know she'll come around for a chat sooner or later. Gillian is the type who'll stay busy doing her own thing until she sees what I'm writing and then she'll drop by to set the record straight.
By now, I'm sure you're wondering if I've gone insane. It's possible. For me, though, the process of writing isn't mechanical or programmed; it doesn't fit into the simple boxes my various writing teachers have described over the years. I seldom outline, and when I do, it's never on a piece of paper or in a file in the computer. I get to know my characters and let them find their own voices.
And then I listen while they tell their stories.
So, is Leo really just me, or me as I'd like to be? Absolutely...so is Lew, and Gwen, and Gillian. They're all me-and-not-me. Lew, for example, is a drunk, which is decidedly not me. That particular trait comes from William Powell's Nick Charles, who for at least four of the six Thin Man films was an enthusiastic and erudite lush, without ever being sloppy.
It occurs to me that the development of these characters in my own mind is part will and part intuition...I know where I want them to go, but they know how they'll get there, and the understanding of them comes from unexpected places.
However this turns out, I am enjoying these people. I don't care if they're real or not.
No, actually, I'm going to tell you about the characters in that novel, whom I am slowly getting to know.
I am not getting to know them in the way I would like to, from the beginning to the end of their stories. From a creative standpoint, it would be easier if I did, but they don't seem to want it that way.
In January, Lew started waking me up in the middle of the night. He'd sit on my dresser and slowly tell me his secrets without volunteering anything. He'd only answer questions, which is odd, since as a young man, he was playful and vibrant and gregarious. Lew was an overgown boy until he went to war in the summer of 1940, and when he came home in the fall of 1944, I think the boyhood was all out of him. He admitted to me that he'd gone off to England to escape the things of his life that threatened to make him grow up, though by then he was nearly 25. It took months of quiet talks in the small hours of the morning for him to trust me with the deepest of his truths. When I finally got it out of him, when I finally asked the right questions, he stopped waking me up. It was as though he needed some time to process things himself. Just last week, he got into my car at an intersection and we chatted for a while about his life after the war. Lew was a fascinating man.
Lew's grandson Leo has been almost as hard to get to know. Leo's been too busy to talk much, and all I knew of him until recently was that he'd grown up loving airplanes, and one airplane in particular: a British fighter plane from World War II called the Spitfire. He'd learned as a boy that Lew flew them in the war, and that connection was all he needed to dream of Spitfires his entire life. Lew died before Leo was born, but legends of Spitfire pilots filled the place in his heart that a boy usually reserves for a grandfather...instead of fishing, Leo and Lew shared flying. As Leo grew up, he also learned to fly.
Leo tells me that having an imaginary hero for a grandfather can go a long way to making a young man into a romantic. By the time Leo was my age, he was making his own journey to England...to realize his dream to buy and restore a Spitfire.
I have only briefly met the women they loved. Gwendolyn grew up in Wales, and met Lew because they were posted to the same base. She, too, has been quiet about her experiences during and after the war...but I am patient, and I know she'll come around.
Gillian is...well...a mechanic. Not just any mechanic, Gillian is an artist, making airplane engines from parts that haven't existed for twenty years. She is quiet, studious, and brilliant, and like Gwen, I know she'll come around for a chat sooner or later. Gillian is the type who'll stay busy doing her own thing until she sees what I'm writing and then she'll drop by to set the record straight.
By now, I'm sure you're wondering if I've gone insane. It's possible. For me, though, the process of writing isn't mechanical or programmed; it doesn't fit into the simple boxes my various writing teachers have described over the years. I seldom outline, and when I do, it's never on a piece of paper or in a file in the computer. I get to know my characters and let them find their own voices.
And then I listen while they tell their stories.
So, is Leo really just me, or me as I'd like to be? Absolutely...so is Lew, and Gwen, and Gillian. They're all me-and-not-me. Lew, for example, is a drunk, which is decidedly not me. That particular trait comes from William Powell's Nick Charles, who for at least four of the six Thin Man films was an enthusiastic and erudite lush, without ever being sloppy.
It occurs to me that the development of these characters in my own mind is part will and part intuition...I know where I want them to go, but they know how they'll get there, and the understanding of them comes from unexpected places.
However this turns out, I am enjoying these people. I don't care if they're real or not.
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