I Thought That Cover Looked Quaint

Stanley Dudek, on behalf of his mother, returned Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country to the New Bedford, Massachusetts library a little late. The due date was May 2, 1910. The $360 late fee was waived.

On the Off Ramp

I have several different routes to and from work. The variety helps relieve tedium. This habit of mine drives my wife crazy, as she likes her routes well-mapped out and consistent. I try to remember this when she's riding with me and keep to the same routes, because giving her a nice comfort level is worth it to me.

Part of my route this morning was on the interstate. After taking my exit, I had to stop for a red light at the bottom of the off ramp. I was in the outside one of the two left turn lanes. There was no car next to me for a couple of minutes, and I had a clear view of a fresh cigarette butt. I watched the smoke rising from it as it rolled away from me toward the edge of the road, and I envisioned a tumbling, fiery wreck. After all, cigarettes are dangerous -- no one but those who are ignorant of a half-century of scientific research, those who are willfully delusional, or tobacco company executives can believe differently -- just much slower in the damage they inflict. And in this mental image, I felt strangely, strangely alone.

Then, the light changed, and I came on in to the office. I think I need another cup of coffee.

A Breakroom Exchange

A co-worker was filling his water jug when I walked in to get hot water for my coffee. Here's a portion of our conversation:

Co-worker: And how are you today?
Me: I can't complain.
Co-worker: You could try.
Me: I could, but it wouldn't do any good.
Co-worker: I like that, a self-aware man.

Not a bad way to start a morning, being called self-aware.

The Things Twitter Leads You To

The personal trainer t-shirt. If this doesn't have a bigger future than the pet rock, it should at least have a more practical one.

A Doggone Good Job

Thanks, Sandy!

A Moment of Recognition

Yesterday, I left work at 7:00 pm, in the late autumn evening darkness. I noted a clear sky, a warm temperature for the season, and twinkling stars. Once I parked my car outside the apartment, I looked through the open patio door and saw our Christmas tree and my wife sitting at her computer.

My thought right then? I'm richly blessed.

50 - 238: The Holiday Moratorium

Monday starts an annual event at work. For three weeks, lacking executive management approval or a system outage affecting customers, we can't move any changes to production. This is a self-defense mechanism implemented by the European parent corporation, a reaction to the sheer number of people taking time off from the job. The reasoning goes, "Where is the production support coming from, if a change breaks something?"

While I enjoy my Christmas vacation as much as anyone, I've been on-call during the holiday period, and I've handled work calls on Christmas Day before, so I just can't imagine a purely American company operating so.

This is simply one of a myriad of cultural differences.

The most prominent difference is that the parent culture prizes consensus, the prolonged decision making where everyone is welcome to question and to provide input, up to the point that the group realizes a decision has been reached. At that point, everyone is expected to conform to the group decision and not rock the boat.

American culture prizes individual initiative, giving the one who takes the lead the freedom to rock the boat, as long as the path taken works without exorbitant costs in either money or process.

In the current structure of my company, this difference is exacerbated by a recently completed reorganization. Here in Greensboro, we used to act like the internal IT department for our largest local client company; we're under the same corporate umbrella. Now, the parent company's mantra is that we work with common methods on global solutions. Further, over the next few years, the company will be creating centers of competency, thereby locating specific functions at one or two sites, each serving the entire corporation. This means that jobs will be rightsized to a rationalized cost structure.

Because I have a good deal of contact with my customers, because I have accepted the function of maintenance manager for multiple applications, and because I already work on a global application, I'm not really scared of losing my job. At this point, I'm more concerned that the nature of my job is going to change into something that is less enjoyable than what I do now.

Be that as it may, I have a job that I am reasonably well compensated for, that lets me support my wife, that lets me pay my share of the college tuition for my two oldest children, that provides shelter and clothing and a few luxuries for my family. I have programming challenges that keep my mind engaged, customers that I generally keep happy with the support I provide, and colleagues with whom I enjoy mutual respect.

And oh yeah, quite a few genuine friendships at work that I treasure.

So, how's the holiday moratorium going to affect me this year? Well, I got the last of several required user approvals on a package of enhancements to my global application this morning, IT approval to implement this afternoon, and tomorrow right after the end of the business day, I going to move this set of changes to production. Good for me.

There's a change to one of my web services that I'm working with a European consumer on, and we've had coordination problems for the last month. I've already started the process to get executive approval on a moratorium exception on this one, since project funding runs out at the end of the year. There's still testing to do, but I'm optimistic that this will work out.

A Christmas Greeting

Compare And Contrast: A Trans-Siberian Orchestra Concert And A US Airways Flight

In the past two days, I've attended this year's TSO concert in Greensboro and taken a flight on US Airways to visit my kids at Thanksgiving. Let's examine a few aspects of the two experiences.

Food. We ate a meal at CiCi's Pizza before the concert. It's certainly more expensive there now than when I could take all the kids and feed all four of us for under $15. Still, it's filling (very), there's plenty of variety, the pizza is quite tasty, and we were satisfied.

I took a couple of breakfast bars on the flight out Greensboro, Chex Mix Turtle bars, to be exact. They're my favorite quick breakfast this side of Chick-Fil-A's chicken burritos, but they left me feeling hungry.

My connecting flight was through Philadelphia, and I had enough time to get a larger breakfast of scrambled eggs, home fries, and sausage. Yummy, and reasonably priced for airport fare. It's a little bit surreal that I got this from an Italian eatery...

All told, the concert experience wins the food battle.

The wait. We got into the parking lot at the Coliseum with very little delay. TSO scheduled two shows in Greensboro this year, the four o'clock show started a half-hour late, and since they perform for 2.5 hours, we had to wait to enter the arena for the 8:00 show. Of course, that show started about 20 minutes late...

Both of my flights arrived at their destinations on time, but they were stuck on the tarmacs before departures. In fact, the flight from Philadelphia to Indianapolis left Philly about 20 minutes late, but we still arrived early in Indy.

This one's a tie.

Seating. There was more room on the airplane than at the Greensboro Coliseum. The flight wins this leg.

Noise. Who are we kidding here? TSO puts on a rock concert, wired for sound and light and light and sound, and they rock hard. Next category.

Speed. Greensboro to Philadelphia to Indianapolis in less than six hours, including 2.5 hours of airport wait time. Point to US Airways.

Atmosphere. The air at the Greensboro Coliseum was smoky from the pyrotechnics used in the show. The air before the flight from Greensboro was foggy, enough so in Philly to make us wait on the runway. Tie.

So, Eddie, who won? I did, in every way imaginable.

This Makes Me Happy

I had a similar experience, way back in the dark, dark pre-YouTube days. I didn't have a camcorder back in 1994, so there's no record of David shakin' it to Alan Jackson's Livin' On Love on the radio, but the memory gives me great joy.

50 - 254: Where He Says "If", I Am

In my Taking Stock series, I usually do not rely on the words of others, but the publisher of Skeptic magazine captured my belief on religion vs. science perfectly.

If one is a theist, it should not matter when God made the universe -- 10,000 years ago or 10 billion years ago. The difference of six zeros is meaningless to an omniscient and omnipotent being, and the glory of divine creation cries out for praise regardless of when it happened.

Likewise, it should not matter how God created life, whether it was through a miraculous spoken word or through the natural forces of the universe that He created. The grandeur of God's works commands awe regardless of what processes He used.

As for meanings and morals, it is here where our humanity arises from our biology. We evolved as a social primate species with the tendency of being cooperative and altruistic within our own groups, but competitive and bellicose between groups. The purpose of civilization is to help us rise above our hearts of darkness and to accentuate the better angels of our nature.

- Michael Shermer, cnn.com

I'm Just Wondering

Would the world be a better place if folks did like I did at the grocery store this morning? After I unloaded my cart and pushed it over to the cart return, I took the time to gather the scattered carts together. I normally only do that with my cart, but there were only three others this time, and by taking about 30 seconds out of my day, I made things easier for the next store employee who will be sent out to bring carts in, and I made sure that three carts were less likely to roll around the parking lot.

It's a simple courtesy that I didn't used to care about, but I find now that, like giving a smile to someone as I walk by, it costs me next to nothing and brightens my small corner of the world.

From 4 To 5

There's always been a periodic something, throughout my whole career, about that last hour of the workday. I experienced it twice this week, for the first time in quite a while. It's something you'll probably understand, if your labor is more mental than physical, as mine is when I'm deep into a programming task.

I literally cannot count the number of times that I've opened my work day optimistically, just knowing that I've picked apart a knotty bit of logic and that I was going to dazzle myself and my fellow developers. Almost every time, I would have been better following the old saw about being a pessimist -- you're pleasantly surprised when things turn out well.

Programming is described by Fred Brooks, the project manager behind IBM's OS/360 and the author of The Mythical Man-Month, as the discipline of building things out of pure thought stuff. This means that there's no limit on the raw material needed for the job. It means as well that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to do any particular task, and even more ways to it wrong.

Programming is an exacting discipline. Computers make no assumptions, provide no defaults. This means that developers must supply all the details in every layer, from the bare metal and plastic and silicon to the operating system to the network to the database to the web page in the browser.

It's those little details that trip me up: the need to specify an absolute path to the directory where I want to write a file rather than a relative path from the web page I'm programming; drilling down to the exact property of an object to get the value I want to work with rather than stopping at too high a level; forgetting a period or a semi-colon (depending on the punctuation a programming language demands) and thereby blowing the scope of a conditional statement.

These are just a sampling of the reasons that programming, testing, and debugging are still more art than science.

So after the optimistic start to a day writing computer code gets shot and left dying in the dust, after frustrating hours of echoing obscenities in my head, how is it that in that last hour of the workday, my subconscious mind is liable to offer up a solution? Not only a solution, but one that is usually not only workable, but even elegant?

I rather hope this remains a question whose answer eludes me. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have graduated from craft to engineering, and I'll feel more like a cog in a wheel than a mystic.

The Lil' Spittle Maker

He drools. He sticks one leg straight up in the air when he licks his nethers; I think of this as his "little teapot" pose.

There are commercial opportunities to be had here. I wonder if anyone is cybersquatting on TheLilSpittleMaker.com.

Yankees 4, Phillies 2

Well, I can't honestly say that there's a lot of joy in the World Series results for this National League fan. However, I must acknowledge that the best team in Major League Baseball did win.

I was right a couple of years ago when I said that Alex Rodriguez would succeed in the post-season when Curt Schilling did not. After all, retiring from the game would preclude success in the October (and November) baseball.

Homecoming

This past Sunday was Homecoming at Pleasant Plains Baptist Church. My parents' church, the one I grew up in. It was also the final celebration of the church's 175th anniversary.

The usual order of the day at Homecoming is, as with the invitation to family and friends and former members, to invite a former pastor to come back and deliver the message. This time, instead, there were three speakers, members at Pleasant Plains, who gave testimonials to what the church has meant to them, to the history of the church.

The most noteworthy of the speakers, to me, was Dan Gore. He's a scholar, a farmer, a preacher, and an accomplished storyteller. He rambled a bit, as all the best Southern spinners of tales do, and one of his vignettes concerned a heavy church bell installed in the steeple belfry back in the 1930s. About a year after they got the bell, several church members were concerned that it might be too heavy for the structure to bear long-term. Several trustees of the church were nominated to climb up in the belfry and inspect the bell. Dan's dad Scott was one of the trustees, so he got to tag along.

The stairwell up through the steeple was dark, Dan recalled, but there was plenty of light at the top. They examined the timbers holding up the bell, and one of the trustees said, "You couldn't blow that out of there with a charge of dynamite."

That's all there was to the story, except for two small details. The trustee didn't pronounce the word "dine-a-mite"; he said "din-a-mite". And the trustee's name was Don Ward.

My granddaddy. I heard him say "din-a-mite" many, many times.

This was a new story to me. It's been nearly 30 years since Granddaddy passed away, but for a few minutes last Sunday morning, in a rare and precious gift, Dan Gore brought him back to life for me.

This Old Lady Has It Down Pat

Two old women meet for the first time since graduating from high school. One asked the other, "You were always so organized in school. Did you manage to live a well planned life?" "Yes," said her friend, "My first marriage was to a millionaire; my second marriage was to an actor; my third marriage was to a preacher; and now I'm married to an undertaker." Her friend asked, "What do those marriages have to do with a well planned life?" One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go!"

via Varley.net

Quote of the Day

There are a lot of voices calling for sf/f to get the recognition it deserves, but I think that's wasted breath. We're trying harder and harder to get recognized and admitted to a club that just keeps getting smaller and duller and less important. What we need to understand is that sf/f is the seat of innovation, modern creativity and true cultural relevance. Of course the literary establishment is borrowing from our toolbox. It's the best toolbox there is, and they're welcome to borrow it. It's kind of amusing to watch them treat time travel, or the apocalypse, or whatever else as a shiny new plot device. They probably won't hurt themselves.  - Tim Akers

via SFSignal.com

Quote of the Day

Someone in the 2009 World Series will likely hit a home run with a piece of carefully turned, meticulously sanded wood that a year ago was living on the 8,000 acres of woodland that Louisville Slugger owns in Pennsylvania and New York. Babe Ruth held a Louisville Slugger when he called his Game 3 shot in Wrigley Field in 1932. Jackie Robinson had a special bat for the Series in 1955 when next year finally came to Brooklyn. Roberto Clemente got his 36-inch, 37-ounce World Series model in time to hit .414 over seven games for the Pirates in 1971. The players change and the game does too, but one thing remains the same: get to the World Series and the folks at Louisville Slugger will make a bat for you.  - Kostya Kennedy, si.com

Quote of the Day

A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.   - Walter Bushell

Quote of the Day

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

via Wordsmith.org

RIP Alton Mathis

Here are the basic facts. He was born in June 1918 and died in October 2009, age 91. He lived his entire life in Newport, Arkansas, except for his time in the Army during World War II. He made his living as a farmer and service station owner. He was married to Liz for 62 years and survived her by a little over 6 years. He was the father of Mary, Dianne, Ronnie, and Kathy. He was a grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather 37 times over. His oldest grandchild is my wife Lisa, and she misses her Papaw more than I can adequately convey.

Here's my own surreal moment concerning the man: I was 45 when I first met my grandfather-in-law at a family reunion in 2005.

During that visit, while we were watching a baseball game, Papaw asked us if we "could hear those birds chirping." He was adjusting the volume on his hearing aid at the time, and yes, we could hear "those birds".

A little later that evening, he encouraged Lisa and I to take his bedroom and "do what young people do." I refer you back to how many descendants the man has.

The rest of that visit, and a similar one in 2006, were full of the details of daily life, the kind of things that enrich a family without making for riveting reading for those outside the family.

Sadly, I didn't see him again in this life. I did get to hear many kind and admiring things said about him this week, from his fierce independence and self-reliance to his delight in holding his youngest grandchildren on his lap. I didn't know him nearly as well personally as I would have liked. I do, however, know quite a few members of his family very well, and I know Alton Mathis through them. My life has been deeply enriched through his, and I can only say, "I miss you too, Papaw."

Quotes of the Day

Have you ever noticed that an angry man can only get so far, until he reconciles how he thinks things ought to be with the way things are? - Don Henley, "My Thanksgiving"

The question was not why it had happened, but how to stop it. - Brandon Sanderson, "The Hero of Ages"

Go For It!

Here's a look at an unconventional high school football team. Thanks to Jon Wertheim for the story.

RIP Mary Travers

Peter, Paul & Mary were all about honesty and sweet harmonies in the service of social justice. I fondly remember my vinyl 45 of Puff the Magic Dragon, as well as many radio broadcasts of Blowin' in the Wind and Leaving on a Jet Plane.

There really aren't many musical groups that remained a going concern for nearly five decades. PP&M deserve our respect for their passion, their talent, and their perseverance.

RIP Myles Brand

As President of Indiana University, Myles Brand will be recalled most strongly as the man who fired Bob Knight. As President of the NCAA, SI.com said this about him:

The first former university president to run college sports' largest governing body, Brand worked to change the perception that wins supersede academics and earned accolades for his efforts.

Too bad those efforts didn't achieve a greater or more lasting effect.

RIP Patrick Swayze

He was a breathtaking dancer who lived life to the fullest, and as an actor, he had a couple of blockbusters in Dirty Dancing and Ghost. He deliberately pursued idiosyncratic roles, which likely robbed him of a bigger career. And he never quit his three pack-a-day cigarette habit, even while fighting the cancer that killed him.

You've got to admire a man who lives life on his own terms, even when you think he made the wrong choices.

My Life in Books Meme, A Response

Using only books you have read this year (2009), cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.


Describe Yourself: The Complete Sherlock Holmes

How do you feel: Bone Crossed

Describe where you currently live: Titan

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Dirty Secrets Club

Your favorite form of transport: A Midsummer's Night Dream

Your best friend is: Agent To The Stars

What's the weather like: Lightning

Favourite time of day: The Temporal Void

What is life to you: Just Another Judgment Day

Your fear: Turncoat

What is the best advice you have to give: Magic Bites, Magic Burns, and Magic Strikes

Thought for the Day: Daemons Are Forever

How I would like to die: MythOS

My soul's present condition: Gone Tomorrow


Care to have a go?

Via A Book A Day, Or The Year Of Reading Dangerously. Thanks, Fifecat!

A 9/11 Remembrance

Eight years ago, at almost this exact moment, one of my co-workers walked by the work pod I shared with a couple of other folks and told us that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. A bad and very unfortunate accident, I thought. A half-hour later, I knew, along with the whole world, just how wrong that assessment was. Two hours after that, both of the Twin Towers were piles of rubble and remains. Yes, a few walked out of the rubble alive, a very few. There have been far bloodier days in American history, but not involving civilians.

We've been at war ever since. Not with Iraq, nor Afghanistan. Most certainly not with Islam. No, with barbarians who have perverted a religion that has common roots with mine, one whose holy writ espouses peace.

Let's remember, in appropriate silence, those who fell. Let's give thanks for those who survived, and for those who labored to rescue the injured, then to identify the unknown. And let's fight the good fight, both to make peace with those who will live along with us and to end those who would destroy us, simply because we live free.

50 - 332: I Lost A Vote

The 2010 Greensboro Relay For Life Committee met last week to begin planning next year's event. The final item on our agenda was a proposal to change the time Relay is held from Friday overnight to Saturday from noon to midnight.

The ACS website has this to say about Relay: The American Cancer Society Relay For Life is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease. At Relay, teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events up to 24 hours in length. And in 2006, a Texas Relayer said this.

You might say I have strong feelings concerning Relay as an overnight event.

Greensboro's 2010 committee, by a two-thirds majority, disagrees. I've spent most of the last week just plain pissed off over the issue, to the point that I discussed moving to some other community's Relay with my wife. Then, over my last two lunch breaks at work last week, I watched The Last Lecture again, and one of Randy Pausch's points really hit home.

Paraphrasing: The brick walls are there to make us show how much we want things.

I want Relay to succeed in Greensboro in 2010, with my help and participation. I still believe that the overnight symbolism is extremely important and should be imprinted on the psyche of every Relayer, but not as important as the cause.

I do intend to vote for the event to be held overnight in 2011 and beyond, but the issue is decided for this year.

RIP Ted Kennedy

The "Lion of the Senate" was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery today. He was a veteran, so that is totally appropriate. I find that I believe in many of the same end goals as Senator Kennedy, especially in the area of health care. I contend that, in a country as affluent as America, that no one should have to go without health care, and everyone knows that was one of Senator Kennedy's passions.

I differ with Mr. Kennedy on the methods of reaching the goals we both believe in; I am leery of government financed public compassion. No, I don't have the answers, since I haven't devoted my life to the issue, but I do believe that America can solve the problems we face.

I knew that the Senator was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I was truly surprised that he was equally involved in the No Child Left Behind Act. This only illustrates his ability to work with his fellow legislators of every political stripe.

He was a hardcore American liberal, and he never wavered from his convictions. Even though I am much more the conservative, I salute his constancy.

Of course he was flawed. His political career would have ended with the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident had he been anyone other than a Kennedy. But he was a Kennedy, and he was larger than life.

Joe and LaToya Were Right

Michael Jackson's death has been ruled a homicide. Not a conspiracy, just a doctor who was either incompetent, overwhelmed by celebrity, or bought off.

The mind would spin with befuzzlement, were such stories not so prevalent nowadays.

Did I Say...She?

We took the cats to the vet overnight Tuesday when we went to visit family in Whiteville, and the professionals there had something different to tell us than the volunteers at the SPCA. The new cat is a three year old guy.

We haven't figured out his name yet.

She Followed Us Home, Can We Keep Her?

Lisa and I have been discussing getting a companion for Blazer. Earlier this week, a co-worker sent me a flyer from the SPCA of Guilford County, about their "Adoption Frenzy" this weekend. We went to take a look around, and this two year old girl came back with us.

We're trying different names. She's sort of responded to Piper and Tempe, so far. Something will work out soon, I'm sure.

And, of course, Blazer is going to learn to tolerate her. One step at a time.

Sunday morning edit: I believe her name is going to be "Tempe", as that what she actually responds to.

David Turns 16 Today

Today has been a reprise of a couple of years ago, of sorts. David is here in Greensboro, and he's flying back to Indiana tomorrow. I captured him doing something he truly loves, and I'm very proud to share it with the world.

Happy birthday, son. I have loved these past two weeks, listening to you play your guitar (and Lisa's keyboard), riding along while you drive, watching movies we haven't watched in ages, and catching up on Burn Notice. I wish you could be here longer, but work, school, and friends beckon. Lisa and I both love you, more than we can adequately tell you.

2nd Anniversary

I've now been babbling here for two years, and I couldn't have cheaper therapy. Nor a more enjoyable catharsis.

Sleepy Man

Last night, like many nights lately, I settled in our reclining love seat after a big dinner, popped the foot rest up, laid myself back, and fell asleep about 9:30. Lisa woke me about 11:15, and we went to bed. I got myself in bed and was almost out before Lisa came out of the bathroom. She leaned over and said, "Sleepy man." I was just awake enough to respond: "Somnambulist hero of legend, when only stillness and even breathing will do." She said something back, but I was already drifting off again.

That often happens with us, a silliness where we riff off of each other. Our dialog is often juvenile, puerile, intimate, or some combination of the three. We laugh until it hurts, sometimes until we cry, and our world is a better place for a while.

Up

CAUTION: HERE BE SPOILERS!

I am a huge fan of Pixar and have seen most of their movies multiple times. However, nothing they've done before prepared me for Up. I'm of an age now to truly appreciate what this movie has to say about loss and promises, but I'm not so old that I have forgotten what it has to say about both the yearning for and the sustaining power of a dream.

I never cry over movies, but I almost did during the silent montage that covered Carl and Ellie's life together, when we learned that there would be no babies for them.

I felt like I was living the daily grind with them of slowly building savings for a dream -- going to Paradise Falls in South America for Carl and Ellie, getting a house for Lisa and I -- and suffering through the setbacks the daily grind throws at you, the ones that eat away the savings and postpone the dreams.

I admired Carl every time he crossed his heart to emphasize a promise.

I was delighted at the whimsy of attaching thousands of helium balloons to a house, to fly away in it.

I was astonished at Carl's ingenious mechanism for steering his flying house.

I appreciated his curmudgeonly aggravation with those who simply wouldn't leave him alone with his memories of the dream he and his Ellie shared.

I felt his fear at the thunderstorm (David leaned over and whispered what I was thinking: "The Wizard of Oz"), his impatience with Russell the Wilderness Explorer, his satisfaction at making it to Paradise Falls, his determination to pull his floating house the last few miles to land it right next to the falls, his thrill at meeting his childhood idol Charles Muntz ("Adventure is out there!"), his righteous satisfaction at putting the house within inches of where he intended it would be, his indignation at the betrayal by Muntz, and the incredible shifting of his mental landscape as new dreams came to life.

In the hands of a lesser outfit, these elements of the characters and the story would have, at best, felt both derivative and manipulative. In the hands of Pixar, they meshed into Art, a melding of High Tragedy and Low Comedy and Old Fashioned Adventure Movie.

And I haven't even mentioned the literal aerial dog fight!

No matter the outcome of the Oscars next spring, this is hands down the best movie of the year.

A Belated Farewell to "The Most Trusted Man in America"

Walter Cronkite passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 92. We watched Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC when I was a kid, so I didn't know the man the term "anchorman" was coined for from the nightly network news. And even though the Apollo moon missions captured my imagination, I don't remember seeing Cronkite and Arthur C. Clarke on the television coverage of the height of America pushing mankind's frontiers outward.

No, I knew him from his narration of The 21st Century. There was just something in that voice. "And that's the way it was..."

Matrix Ping Pong

via Lying for a Living.

Today's Treat

David has been here for the last week. Tonight, we finally got to see live music together. The Astanza Project was playing at the Tate Street Coffeehouse. They're a flamenco/gypsy/latin/fusion trio, two guitarists and a percussionists. All three are virtuosos on their instruments, and two hours passed like ten minutes.

David critiqued the guitarists -- he has been playing for several years -- with a touch of envy. I believe this evening just might be an inspiration to him.

Quote of the Day

I once thought luck was something that just happens to us-it was a random act of chance or success. But, what I have discovered on this journey is, luck doesn't just happen; we actually create our own luck by looking for the opportunity in our lives to seize the moment. In other words we must create our luck by examining our lives and coming up with a plan to change our direction.

- Nancy Howard on SparkPeople.com

50 - 385: A Blinding Flash Of The Obvious

I was reading Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews today, and I came across this line:  For me, evil is striving for an end without regards for the means. This clarified some of my own moral thinking.

I have never believed in the idea of something being for "the greater good". How can something be good in any way that treats anyone as disposable, as an unwilling or unwitting sacrifice?

I believe absolutely in free will. Nothing in life means a thing without choice. Nothing.

I do not believe in anarchy. Civilization exists so that we can live better, so that we can live together. I believe in choosing to be part of something. I believe in the right to choose actions that cross lines society has set up, but I also believe in taking responsibility for my choices, even when accepting that responsibility means I'll be punished.

What's your choice?

Definition Of The Day

Cross-functional — A hyphenated word everyone starts using when they decide to not fail alone.

Via Rands In Repose.

Office 2010 The Movie

50 - 387: A Rapprochement

I would not have a thing to do with her, nor she with me, but for the fact that we have three children together. It broke both my heart and my self-identity when she told me she preferred a woman to me. It did both again when she took a job 700 miles away and took those three children with her. That was irony for you, since I passed on my chances to look for more lucrative work that would have taken me away from central North Carolina and the children.

I reforged my self-identity over several years, but I held on to a low level rage for a long time. That's not really me, because grudges are just too much work for way too little return. Of the issues that were between us, only the children remain, and the two oldest are adults now. I guess someday there may be grandchildren, but that's another bridge for another time.

For now, I've made my peace with Suzanne. There will likely be conflict between us again, as there often is between divorced couples. That's okay, though, because I have Lisa, who helped me through the last barrier to being whole.

Quote of the Day

Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people. But somehow it’s turned into ‘I can be an asshole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.’ It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech.

-        John Mellencamp

Today Was "Morale In The Toilet" Tuesday...

As he ordered one last round
He said I guess we can't complain
God made life a gamble
And we're still in the game.
  - Joe Diffie, "Ships That Don't Come In"

For the second time in less than four months, we had a layoff at work today. This one was a lot smaller than the last one, 4 co-workers gone compared to 21. I even understand why, but that doesn't help so very much, not when someone from my team is one of those gone. Someone that I had worked closely with during the last month, whose skills I had come to appreciate, respect, and depend on.

This is the third time in 23 years in IT I've weathered a layoff. I'm feeling a bit of survivor's guilt, but I have dependents to provide for, so that suppresses the guilt.

All in all, the quoted lyric seems appropriate.

The Bare Essentials Of Air Safety

Via lying for a living.

A Video Statement

This clip shows one of the best moments ever in a baseball game.



Via Pyle of List.

Terrorism Alert Update

The British.....

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats in
Islamabad and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved."

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even
"A Bit Cross." Brits have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940
when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized
from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance."

The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was
during the great fire of 1666.


The French.....

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror
alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France
are "Collaborate" and "Surrender."

The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white
flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has
increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate
Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations"
and "Change Sides."


The Germans.....

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to
"Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher
levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".


The Belgians.....

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only
threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .


The Spanish.....

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy.
These beautifully designed subs have glass
bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old
Spanish navy.


The Americans.....

Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their
allies, just in case.


The New Zealanders.....

New Zealand has also raised its security levels - from "baaa" to "BAAAA!".
Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the
airforce being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and
the navy some toy boats in the Prime
Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which
is "Shut, I hope Australia will come end
riscue us".

In the event of invasion, New Zealanders will be asked to gather together in
a strategic defensive position called "Bondi".


The Aussies.....

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to
"She'll be right, mate". Three more escalation
levels remain, "Strewth!', "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this
weekend" and "The barbie is cancelled". There
has not been a situation yet that has warranted the use of the final
escalation level.

Nicked from alt.books.dean-koontz, with thanks to Bigbazzza

Farewells

In the last week-and-a-half:

Ed McMahon - Pancho Sanza to Johnny Carson's Don Quixote.

Farrah Fawcett - The poster. The year on Charlie's Angels. The incredible acting chops shown in The Burning Bed. The courage to show the world what cancer had done to her.

Karl Malden - The Streets of San Francisco. "American Express. Don't leave home without it."

Billy Mays - The pitchman's pitchman. Without him, we wouldn't know about OxiClean, Orange Glo, or Mighty Putty. Whether that's a good thing is left as an exercise for the attentive reader.

Michael Jackson - I debated saying anything about this strange, strange man, but his influence on pop culture through his music and his dance is undeniable. I divide his life into halves, for the sheer joy of the music he made with his brothers and on his first two solo albums; then, for his increasing weirdness and creepiness. And he was aware of it. I'm almost certainly paraphrasing what I heard in an old interview with him, but he said he was happiest performing on stage and most uneasy trying to interact with the common people. He was, in the end, what his father labored mightily to to create.

50 - 400: Who You'd Be Today

Think about regrets for a moment. Everyone has them, whether for "only wondering what if" or for "my life would have been so much better if" they'd done X. Some regrets are tiny, insignificant; some are huge, life-shaping. Most are somewhere in between.

My biggest regret concerns my children. They moved far away with their mom in 2003, when she got her career job. The separation from them is still very, very sad, but it's not specifically the regret. No, the regret is that I didn't insist that their mother and I amend the custody/visitation stipulations in our separation agreement, which was the basis of our divorce decree.

It would have been smart to have a required structure for when and how long I would have physical custody of the kids each year. The time I have with them gets shorter each year. That's partly to be expected, since as they get older they more surely get their own lives, and that's just the way things are supposed to be. And, as the two oldest are now legally adults, they get to choose when, indeed if, to visit. I'm happy that they still choose to come back to North Carolina. More than that, I'm proud that they do. It speaks volumes to the quality of the relationships we have with each other.

My youngest child is still a minor, but he has a job, he plays in a band, he has friends, he has a life completely outside my influence, completely outside my knowledge. I desperately want to have him here more, but I will not try to force the issue.

I believe I have, and want to keep, the same quality of relationship with him that I do with his sister and brother.

Now, what do regrets and visitation have to do with a Kenny Chesney song, especially one about death? Up until the last line, Who You'd Be Today is one of the saddest, bleakest songs in the world, about loss and sorrowful memories. This fits how I see the part of their childhoods my daughter and sons got to spend with me. It's mostly gone, and many of the memories are touched by, perhaps even charged with, the emotions the song evokes.

But what about that last line? The only thing that gives me hope, Is I know I'll see you again some day.

I'm a sucker for a redemption story, the optimist looking for a rainbow to chase down, a windmill to tilt at. My children are how I look on the sunny side.

----------------
Now playing: Kenny Chesney - Who You'd Be Today
via FoxyTunes

Deadshrinker

Jo Beckett calls herself a "deadshrinker". She's a forensic psychiatrist, the expert who is called in when a death is equivocal, when we don't know if the cause is accident, murder, or suicide. She painstakingly recreates the state of mind of the deceased, to such a degree as to meet the burden of proof in a court of law. She tells the truth for those who no longer can, like Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead.

She's the protagonist of Meg Gardiner's thriller The Dirty Secrets Club. San Francisco's most beautiful people are dying in at least pairs, including a rising star in the federal prosecutor's office -- she drove her BMW off a bridge and crashed into an airport shuttle. Little things at the scene don't add up, and Jo Beckett is asked to consult by the SFPD. Her examination leads to the discovery of the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of rich and powerful people linked by awful things from their separate pasts, things they would rather die than see become common knowledge.

DSC has the combination of snappy one liners, quirky characters -- especially Ferd and Mr. Peebles! -- and suspense that Meg Gardiner is known for. It also has a wonderful sense of place. San Francisco and its close environs are as tangibly rendered as anything I've read, and the ways they shaped Jo are vital to the story.

I like Jo Beckett, and she's one of the few characters in contemporary literature I'd like to know personally.

The Oldest Hall of Famer

This is the sport I love.

Gone Tomorrow

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of telltale signs. Mostly because they're nervous. By definition they're all first-timers.

This is how Lee Child's 13th Reacher novel opens, and Jack Reacher, the former Military Policeman and current drifter who is a combination of Sherlock Holmes and focused Viking beserker, remains the best thriller character going today. It's no wonder that "Reacher's Creatures" includes such fans as Stephen King, Hugo and Nebula award winning SF writer John Varley, and new convert SI.com NFL columnist Peter King. Oh, and your humble Babble On scribe. I cannot recommend this entire series highly enough.

A Balanced Equation

A couple of days ago, the Applications group, both maintenance and new development, received a request from our overall boss that we report no more than 40 hours a week. This is another facet of cutting our customers' IT costs; it's a very good thing to make sure that we don't price ourselves out of the customers' affordable range. The flip side to this is that we've also been told not to put in time that's not billed back to the customer.

No problem. If all I can bill is 40 hours per week, then I'll make sure I don't work more than 40 hours per week.

Gattaca

In the near future, your place in life, indeed the very opportunities available to you, are determined by your genetic profile at birth. Or, as Ethan Hawkes' character Vincent, a "de-gene-erate", puts it -- and here I paraphrase -- "We don't need class or race to discriminate anymore. Now, we have science." However, there are still loopholes for those clever, desperate, and determined enough to follow their dreams to crawl through.

I believe this is the most deliberately paced movie I've ever watched. And that's appropriate, for it is a meditation on every theme it touches. Consider this key line of dialog: You want to know how I got this far? I never saved anything for the swim back.

Are Weekends Supposed To Start Like This?

During the first two hours after I got home from work on Friday, I felt as if several days jumped out of a dark alleyway and mugged me.

My company, starting next month, is requiring employees to pay a higher share of health insurance premiums. And that, along with flat salaries this year, means effectively a small pay cut. Well, I find that an acceptable trade to still have a job.

There was a letter informing me that the company has engaged an outside auditing firm to ensure compliance with eligibility requirements for covered dependents. Fine, I can deal with providing a copies of my marriage license and birth certificates for each of the kids. It's a little more of a bother to ask my daughter to get me documentation from her university to show that she's taking enough credit hours to be considered a full-time student and to show her expected graduation date. I'm far less overjoyed to give them a copy of some acceptable joint bank account statement, bill, tax return, or lease for my wife and myself. Even considering that the auditing firm expects all financial details to be redacted.

There was another piece of mail that was even less palatable. My latest credit card bill showed that my interest rate has more than doubled since the last statement. I called the credit card company and learned that I hadn't rejected the rate increase after receiving a letter from them back in April. Now, I'm sure they did send the letter, but I don't remember it at all. Of course, that's no one's fault by mine. They did let me reject the rate increase during the phone call, and I'm locked in to my old APR, as long as I don't use the card.

The weekend has gotten better since then, even though the Braves lost yesterday and today to the Orioles, for goodness sakes. At least the re-read of Watchers lived up to my high expectations.

Comfort Day

Yesterday, I spent my morning reading the first half of Gone Tomorrow, the latest volume in Lee Child's Reacher series. Then, in the afternoon, Lisa and I finally caught the Star Trek reboot and had an early supper at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I then proceeded to fall asleep in my favorite recliner at 8:30, missed the penultimate episode of Pushing Daisies, and woke up just enough to drag my sorry carcass off to bed slightly before 1:00 am.

Sounds nice and comfy, eh? So why was it a "comfort day"? Summer planning, my friends, summer planning.

50 - 426: Sketches of Family

In knowing myself, I think it's illustrative to briefly portray those who mean the most to me.

My father Huston - two Latin phrases: Esse quam videri and Semper fidelis.

My mother Alice Faye - the family Caregiver, the one who has always assumed the task of looking after someone chronically sick or weak. There is someone like this in every family I know, and this is the person with the least amount of control over his or her own life. I conjecture that this is why Mom spends a lot of her energy cleaning where no one else can see a spot.

My wife Lisa - my Everyday Miracle.

My daughter Georgia - Teacher-to-be, nearly ready to tackle the world.

My son Andy - the family Empiricist.

My son David - the family Believer.

My mother-in-law Meki - Survivor and inspiration.

300, Again

For the second time since I started this blog, a major league pitcher has earned his 300th victory. The Big Unit didn't do it as the dominating flamethrower who won five Cy Young awards. He did it with persistence and craft, and by all accounts, he appreciates his own achievement and its place in baseball history more for having to work harder for it than he used to.

Congratulations Randy Johnson, and may the Giants treat you better than the Braves treated Tom Glavine today.

50 - 427: Do you know what your Sin is?

In the movie Serenity, the Parliamentary Operative, a government assassin and a moral monster if ever there was one, asks this question of two people he is about to kill. The first victim, a research scientist whose overconfidence upset a weapons project, never answers, as it's rather difficult to formulate a coherent answer to any question when you're dying around a sword that's been thrust through your chest. The second victim, the rogue hero of the story, is still standing and still fighting.

The Operative answers for the first victim, "It's Pride." The second answers for himself, "Ah Hell, I'm a fan of all seven. But right now, I'd have to go with Wrath."

Like Malcolm Reynolds, I know what my Sin is. Unlike him, I won't claim to be a fan of any or all of the Deadly Sins. However, I must claim ownership of an aspect of Sloth. I'm a procrastinator.

After all, I've been thinking about this post for at least a month.

Procrastination...where did it enter my life? My parents do not suffer from this affliction. My brother doesn't. I'm not following any negative examples there.

On the other hand, I enjoy solitude and a different quality of the life of the mind than anyone else in my family. Call it introspection.

In my career as an IT professional, I have a different rhythm to my programming than my peers. I have always spent a great deal of time contemplating before I write any code, imagining the ways that what I'm about to set down won't work, and then figuring out how to get around it. I'd like to think that there's something rather Zen about this approach.

On the other hand, I also make myself prone to "analysis paralysis" by overthinking what should be simple and easy.

In my personal life, well, procrastination hasn't caused me much but difficulties and heartache. There have been too many instances where I didn't get the girl or the job because I waited too long, where an important decision was taken out of my hands and decided in favor of the other guy because I hesitated too long.

On the other hand, I've been learning how to wrestle this demon, and I can't regret the "not getting the girl" part, because I didn't wait, didn't hesitate when it came to Lisa, and I won the heart of the fair maid.

Recently Read

Unlike Kanye West, I am a proud reader of books. And in the last week, I've finished the latest volume in each of two ongoing fantasy series.

The first was Turncoat, the eleventh volume in The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden, P.I., is Chicago's only publicly practicing wizard. He has gone from being an outcast under a death sentence for using magic to kill the wizard who mentored him -- self-defense was, in the eyes of the White Council, no excuse -- to being a Warden, one of the Council's magical enforcers. He's grown in power and commitment to doing what is right over time, while never coming close to outgrowing his sarcastic, semi-cynical outlook. He's no straw man; he faces temptation, and while he wants to do what's right, he's the first to admit that sometimes he just can't figure out what is right: Is it sticking to his principles? Is it doing what's going to hurt the fewest people and keep the most alive? Is it staying alive to fight another day? This series is unique, in my experience, in that after 11 books, it is still getting richer and deeper with every volume. The mix of humor, action, philosophy (the ongoing discussion of retribution vs. justice is worth the price of admission), and pure fun is fantastic and should not be missed.

The second was MythOS by Kelly McCullough. It's the fourth volume in the saga of Ravirn, descendant of the Fates from Greek mythology and hacker extraordinare. Yes, hacker, for in this series, magic comes from Chaos, which is the primal force in the universe, and Chaos is tamed with...computers. This time, Ravirn (also known as Raven) and his sometimes goblin, sometimes laptop companion Melchior, along with the Fury Tisiphone, are trying to repair damage done in the previous volumes to Necessity, the mainframe that runs the multiverse they inhabit. Unfortunately, they are swept up in a conflict in another universe unconnected to theirs, where the underlying information infrastructure is based on Norse mythology. You know, Odin, Loki, Ragnarok, frost giants, Valhalla, Valkyries, and all that implies. This is another book that is chock full of action, humor, and deep thought. Consider this passage: When we think of memory, we tend to focus on the power of remembering, of how we learn from our past and how that affects our future. But forgetting is just as powerful as remembering. It allow us to move beyond the pains of the past to live in the present. I think that's simply beautiful.

Kanye West Wrote A Book

And in an interview, he says such gems as: I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. Well, me neither, Kanye. I prefer the author's autograph.

Of course, the real kicker is that this self-proclaimed proud non-reader of books wants us to buy his book.

Nope, not feeling it.

2009 Relay Wrap Up

Our 2009 Greensboro Relay For Life was held on the 15th of this month. It was not an easy year at all for fund raising, but I knew this going into our campaign and downgraded my goal accordingly. It turns out that I set my sights too low, as at last check I was at 175% of my goal. We're still, as far as I know, a good bit under the overall goal for the event, but we have a bank night Tuesday to collect offline donations contributed in the last two weeks, and the campaign is still open until the end of August.

So, how about Relay itself? It would still be really nice to have one more person to stay overnight with Lisa and I, but we had done enough up front prep work that we had a fairly good handle on setting up and decorating our campsite. The theme for our event was Rockin' Relay, and we took as our part of the Rock Era the Disco Days of the 1970s (including our Stayin' Alive team banner for the first participant lap; cancer survivors get the very first lap). Party City had a lot of gaudy baubles, including a pinata in the Travolta pose, and we had a hoot decorating the pop-up gazebo with these. Our on-site raffle of donated restaurant gift cards did quite well, but the donated bread from Great Harvest Bread Company didn't do as well as last year. And between the Starbucks team with their product and the Moses Cone Regional Cancer Center team with Caribou Coffee, our own coffee sales were rather anemic this year. No matter, we still had the only fresh-brewed coffee on-site, and we enjoyed it.

Our planning committee is getting better each year at the symbolic aspects of Relay. They did a superb job with both the luminary and closing ceremonies.

We're one of the sites chosen for the CPS-3 study. Lisa and I are both taking part.

What would Relay For Life be without entertainment? Unlike last year, I did not sing at Relay Idol; I was, however, asked to be our "Simon" on the judges' panel. I've never watched a full episode of American Idol, but I'd read and heard enough about the show to give it a try. I didn't try for completely brutal honesty, but I did have to tell the "boy band" From The Bottom Of My Heart, To That Tree, after their massacre rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, "My ears have been assaulted, and I want to press charges".

Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back. I'd say we covered it all.

Firefly (and Fanboy) week on xkcd

05/04/2009

05/05/2009

05/06/2009

05/07/2009

05/08/2009

Lost vs. Star Trek...

and the winner is...us!

50 - 460: Glue

Glue is a funny thing. It's absolutely familiar -- you do remember Elmer's, with Bessie the Cow on the bottle, from elementary school, right? -- and absolutely overlooked at the same time. Consider it for a minute and make your own list of what you'd use to fasten things together. I come up with zippers, nails, tacks, hook-and-eye door latches, bungee cords, twine, and rope. Where's glue?

Modern adhesives, which we genericize as "glue", are used by craftsmen and builders far more than most people realize. Glue is designed to dry both colorless and odorless, and to often be stronger than the material it's bonding. But unless the person applying the glue has been sloppy and has not cleaned up, we don't see it. It's just there, doing it's job, holding things together.

I've had my brief flirtation with fame. It's fun, for a while, to be recognized and to hear a touch of envy in others' voices. But it doesn't get anything done. I'm rather tired of the one account manager at work who calls me "the celebrity" every time she sees me. No, I prefer to be recognized, if at all, as the guy who gets the job, whatever it may be, done.

I used to frequent the rec.arts.sf.written, and I remember a regular there, one Mark Atwood, whose posting signature was "If you do things right, people will think you haven't done anything at all." I've lived with that, since I was an IT professional through the Y2K scare.

I'm a glue guy.

What We Really Enjoyed in Gatlinburg

Well, we're a couple of hours away from heading home. Our anniversary trip is nearly complete, and here are our favorite things from the week:

1. Room 119 at Zoder's Inn, with the creek and the ducks.
2. Supper at Blue Moose Burgers & Wings.
3. Lunch at The Old Mill Pottery House Café & Grille - the Fried Green Tomato BLT and the Vegetarian Panini.
4. The show at the Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre - Pretty went up on stage!
5. Old standbys - Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, the Pepper Palace, and breakfast at the Applewood Farmhouse.

Celebrating the Fifth

As I'm writing this, I can hear the soothing sounds of a mountain creek just outside the room. Lisa and I have been feeding ducks from our balcony and taking lots of pictures and videos.

Zoder's Inn is our favorite vacation spot. We've had wine and cheese at 5:00 each afternoon the past couple of days, milk and cookies at 8:00, dinner in-between at new restaurants.

We're in Gatlinburg, TN, where we got married on April 30, 2004. We've known each other for 9 years, been husband and wife for 5 years, and we're the best of friends. I couldn't ask for more from a helpmate, and I have reason to believe she's pretty satisfied with me.

A possibly unfortunate confluence of words

I'm one of the web application testers for a change to the security infrastructure at work, and we got an email this morning concerning our upcoming test schedule. This line was lifted directly from the email: Focused testing sessions will core project team members, which have proved successful with a couple of applications over the past couple of weeks. I wonder if any of those project team members have ever been described as the apple of someone's eye?

And here it is...

The point of the previous post, besides being my usual wise guy self, was to see how Blogger's email posting works out. As it happens, outside of the different font face, it's pretty seamless. And that's really all I have to say about that.

Procrastination

I’ll have more to say about this later…

RIP Mark Fidrych

I remember the media coverage of "The Bird" in 1976. He was a genuine character on the diamond, and if you didn't enjoy his antics, you just didn't enjoy baseball. Of course, he was more than just a daft player; you don't go 19-9 with a 2.34 ERA and win AL Rookie of the Year on your personality. Nor do you pitch 24 complete games at the age of 22 -- 7 of them in one month -- without grave risk. He was 10-10 during the rest of his injury-shortened career.

He died a couple of days ago in a farm accident, suffocating when his clothes got caught in a power take-off on a dump truck he was working on. I worked around PTOs enough to know that just a moment's inattention would be all it would take.

Mark Fidrych, you're missed already. Your joy for the game was infectious. That had to be why you played, right? After all, your 1976 salary of $16,500 was certainly less than some players now make per game.

50 - 482: These Hands

These hands have held newborns and have helped carry caskets from the hearse to the grave.

These hands have cradled open books for pleasure and instruction.

These hands have, in compassionate acts of destruction, held pistols and shotguns, aligned the barrels with the backs of the heads of injured animals, and delivered the coup de grace.

These hands have spent uncounted thousands of hours upon the steering wheels of tractors, tilling the soil so that my father could follow and plant the new year's crops.

These hands have struggled with pencil or keyboard, trying to shape the perfect word, the perfect phrase, so that there was no place for ambiguity in what I had to say.

These hands have cleaned and dressed wounds.

These hands have placed rings upon the fingers of three women, in ceremonies ending in "I do".

These hands have signed two divorce decrees, saying "I don't, not anymore."

These hands have caressed lovers and rebuked children.

These hands are the instruments of my will, the tools I use to effect my small changes upon the world.

These hands are part of the long chain of humanity, past, present, and future. Everything they do has been and will be done again.

These hands are uniquely mine. Everything they do is done by me.

50 - 482: Beginning the countdown

August 5, 2010 is 482 days from now. That day, at 9:25 in the morning, I will be 50 years old. In place of a mid-life crisis, for nearing 50 seems the time for such, that would involve buying a bright red high-performance car, hooking up with a young blond woman of negotiable virtue, and hitting the road, I intend to firmly establish the what and, hopefully, the why of my life.

In one of my early Babble On pieces, I said that I had three reasons for blogging: memory, clarity, and the honing of my skills as an essayist. While the third reason is still a goal, it will always be a work in progress; it's the journey, not the destination.

For the next 17 months and change, I will be concentrating here more on memory and clarity. I have often joked, "I have a degree in history, but that's behind me now." No, not really. I have to understand where I've come from to have a grasp of where I am, and further, to plot my course from here.

Along the way, I will strive for humor and optimism, for I prize those traits especially. I will not be looking to cheapen anyone else in my recollections, but I almost inevitably will at some point, so I apologize in advance.

I expect joy and pain in the telling, for that is the life that has come from the exercise of my God-given free will. So, a pause to gather my wits, and let's go.

Pinging Andy White

I saw a bumper sticker on an SUV Monday evening when I was on my way to a Relay For Life meeting and immediately thought of you. You'll understand why, I'm sure:

Carolina: The Force

Duke: The Dark Side

UNC 89, Michigan St 72

After more than 30 years as a Tarheel basketball fan who has known my team to give away more leads than I can count, I spent the first half on pins and needles. There was no need this time; the Heels were otherworldly on both ends of the court.

It's mildly ironic that the highest scoring team in the country dropped its offensive intensity in the second half. The defense that was lambasted from all quarters during the first three months of the year never let up.

It's Wednesday evening, I'm finally coming down from Monday night's adrenaline high, and all I really have left to say is GO HEELS!!!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

He's 77 today, and he's left his woodworking behind, except for one more show. Dad, Lisa and I will be at the Blueberry Festival in June. Hope it's been a good day.

The Queen of Trash Abdicates

Congratulations are due to my mother-in-law. She retired today from her job as the Superintendent of the Sanitation Division in the Public Works Department for the City of Harrisonburg, Virginia. Way to go, Meki! You're only 18 years ahead of me.

Not Worth It

At work this morning, several of us were in the break room waiting on the first pot of coffee to finish brewing. One of my co-workers, a project manager, was especially anxious. She said she had checked her email first and really needed to get back to her desk. I remarked, with humorous intent, that the only way that could have sounded worse would be if she checked it on her Blackberry. She agreed, said that her husband had given his back, and that it wasn't conducive to her personal life to have a boss that would email her at 10:30 on a Friday night and expect a nearly immediate response.

I recognize that I have a responsibility, indeed an obligation, to be available for application coverage. That's been part of my professional reality for over 20 years; being on-call is part of a programmer's job. Sometimes that requires, for a short period, 24/7 availability.

I reject the notion that a corporation has any more of a claim than that on me, not without a lot more loyalty and commitment than the workplace gives any employee these days.

Relay 2009

Has your life been touched by cancer, in any way? Have you taken care of someone stricken with this disease? Have you rejoiced with someone who has been cured of it? Have your mourned someone who died from it?

We understand, and we want to help. We're Team Investing in a Cure, with the 2009 Greensboro Relay For Life. Each of us has been touched in some way by cancer, and we're helping the American Cancer Society fight back.

On Friday night, May 15th, you can find us, with a bunch of other teams, around the track at Page High School in Greensboro. We're going to keep someone on the track all night. Why? Cancer doesn't sleep, so for one night we're not going to. We're going to play games, hold raffles, have a silent auction, listen to music, and eat good food. Why? To celebrate that we're alive and fighting back, and to raise money to expand the fight. We're going to line the track with luminaries that will be lit at 9:00 pm and shine the rest of the night. Why? To celebrate our survivors, honor our caregivers, and remember those we lost.

We want your support. Send us pictures of loved ones who have been stricken with cancer, and we will use them on our Relay campsite Wall of HOPE; after all, where are we against cancer without hope?

We want to support you. Are you yourself a cancer survivor? Register at the Greensboro Relay website, and come join us for a dinner in your honor on May 15th. Then, take part in the Survivors' Lap. This is the first lap of the 2009 Relay For Life, and there will be literally thousands of people cheering you on.

We want your support. Come out to Relay and see what it's all about. Cheer on the survivors. Purchase a chance in a raffle. Play a game. Bid on something at the silent auction. Get something to eat at a team's campsite. All the money you spend at Relay is donated to the American Cancer Society.

We want to support you. The American Cancer Society funds research for cancer cures, legislative advocacy, support programs for those afflicted with cancer, and cancer education.

We want your support. In the end, it takes money for any health-related issue, and cancer is one of the biggest. Any amount, no matter how little, helps.

If you'd like more information about Relay For Life in general, visit here. Visit our team Investing In A Cure to donate or to join the fight.

I'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you to Meg Gardiner, who writes mighty fine thrillers, for mentioning us on her blog lying for a living. Buy her books!

The Forgotten

There are days that I purely hate the image that my beloved country presents not only to the world, but to me and my fellow Americans. Witness this.

I really don't care so much about the name "Freedom Tower" being lost. It was an insult to the lives lost on 9/11 that the site of the Twin Towers wasn't consecrated as a memorial to those people and left alone. No, it was dedicated as a temple to commerce, and now the sop of the first skyscraper name is being thrown aside as the temple is rededicated.

Contrast this to the Gettysburg National Military Park. Or to the Bayonne Teardrop, a memorial to the 9/11 victims by a Russian sculptor.

To New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was quoted thus in the CNN.com story I cited above: From a patriotic point of view, is it going to make any difference? Yes, Mr. Mayor, it is going to make a difference. We do not become any safer, nor do we become any more solid a people, when naked commerce wins at the expense of the memory of lives stolen by people who hate us.

RIP Dan Seals

The first headline I saw on CMT.com this morning announced the death of Dan Seals from lymphoma at age 61.

"Who?", you may be asking. In the 1970s, he was half of the duo England Dan and John Ford Coley; their biggest hit was I'd Really Love To See You Tonight. It was a nice piece of pop fluff, but I was partial to the title cut of the album that song came from, Nights Are Forever. I have a very fond memory of listening to this song on the radio at my grandparents' house; that would've been 1976. Grandmama was still alive, and Granddaddy's mind was not yet lost to dementia. Both of these things had changed by the next summer.

The pop duo lasted into the early 1980s. After they broke up, Dan Seals moved to country music. According to the CMT.com story, he had eleven #1 songs during his country career, including Bop, Meet Me In Montana (a duet with Marie Osmond), and Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold). He won CMA awards for the first two.

The Dan Seals song that made the biggest impression on me was They Rage On. It's got a gorgeous melody that Seals' voice simply fits, the instrumental arrangement is a perfect accompaniment to the melody, and the lyrics have a melancholy-yet-not-quite-despairing feel. It's the kind of country song that I easily fall in love with. Here, courtesy of Youtube, is the video.



Thank you, Mr. Seals, for some especially poignant recollections.

Knowing

Just got back from the latest Nicholas Cage flick, and all in all, this one's a loser. It simply can't make up it's mind what kind of story it wants to tell. Is it an end-of-the world disaster movie? Is it about numerology? Is it about faith vs rationality? Is it a low budget horror film? Is it trying to rip off Childhood's End or Inconstant Moon?

There are a lot of ambitious stories that hit almost all of these themes. The successful ones are grounded in their characters. In Knowing, the actors are neither powerful enough in their performances nor generous enough in their characterizations to rise above the flaws in the story. Don't bother, even with Netflix.

Further Reflections On The Battlestar Galactica Finale

Can't help myself, it's not often that a television show engages the mind as well as the emotions.

Here be spoilers.

• I was not surprised that the resolution of the series would bring the survivors of the Twelve Colonies here. That's a common trope in both science fiction and New Age pseudo-science (remember von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" from the 1970s). The unexpected part was that the BSG survivors got here so far back in our past: 150,000 years!



• The time capsule approach to time travel was pretty cool. No deus ex machina here, as long as you discount the FTL jump technology.



• It felt like an appropriate and proportionate response that Boomer and Tory received rough justice at the hands of Athena and Tyrol, respectively.



• It comes as no surprise that a show that demands you take faith seriously would demand you do the same with angels. The identity of the angels, though? That, my friends, requires a bit more pondering.



• For a show with such an Old Testament feel, the redemption of Gaius Baltar was a nice touch.



• Lee Adama, Luddite! It's rare to see a story deal with a society that uses high technology to survive long enough to reach a point that they can recognize how their use of that technology is damaging them spiritually, that decides to discard their technology so that they can start anew, and that actually follows through on the decision. That's moral courage, people.



• If my count is correct, the role of Moses in this drama took four parts: Adama, Roslin, Starbuck, and "Galactica" herself. And they all got to see the Promised Land, even though none of them got to dwell there.



• Our last image before the fade to the ending credits was of Six and Baltar, arm-in-arm walking away from us, becoming lost in the Manhattan crowd. With the strong notion of cycles throughout not only this episode but the entire series, I'm trying to remember if the miniseries began with them arm-in-arm walking toward us? I'm thinking no, that it began with Six alone, in her sexy red dress, on her way to meet Baltar. If that's not a false memory, then I'll leave BSG taking away the message that cycles of destruction can be broken, and that we certainly, no matter who we are and what we've done, do not have to end up alone.

They Have A Plan...

The series finale of BSG had its share, and more, of holy frak moments tonight. I found it very satisfying, from the frantic moments of combat to the awe inspiring sight of ships deliberately flying into the sun to the Return of the King-like multiple goodbyes at the end. I'm a sucker for a good redemption story, and there were several redemptive threads here.

It's refreshing to see a very SFnal story that not only doesn't ridicule faith, but embraces it as essential to life.

It's also fitting that the Sci Fi channel is bidding farewell to its most critically and popularly lauded show in the same week that it has announced that it is changing its name to "SyFy". The network's press release said that the new name is more of an "extensible brand", one that will be free of connotations of -- and I paraphrase here -- video game loving geeks who live in their parents' basements, and will appeal more to females. Talk about dissing your core audience...

Given the pure dreck that "SyFy" usually broadcasts, it's also fitting that some marketing genius missed, as has been pointed out widely on the Net this week, that "syfy" idiomatically translates as a venereal disease in Polish, and as excrement in at least one Nordic language.

It's rather fascinating to watch a whole cable network jump the shark.

Think about it...

This is a pregnant sentence

24 and the Shark

How, in this post-modern metaworld where everything is a reference to and a comment upon itself, does a television show jump the shark twice? I ask because, last night, 24 did it again.

There's never been another show to compare to 24. Each season, one day, 24 episodes, each occurring in real-time, a massive conspiracy, and America survives because of one man. Jack Bauer. It shouldn't have worked the first time, not when the big event in the debut episode was a terrorist blowing an airliner with several hundred passengers aboard out of the sky. And she escaped. Not when that episode was delayed in the aftermath of 9/11.

As a reader primarily of science fiction, fantasy, and suspense thrillers, I long ago learned to bring a willing suspension of disbelief to my reading. It's a required tool, more so in these genres than in fiction at large, and it transfers to the medium of television quite well. Without it, I could never be a fan of such a show as 24, as I was for its first five seasons.

You see, 24 has always had large credibility gaps in its story lines. It also had the uncanny ability to take its lead character, put him in the most outrageously stressed situations, lead him up to the very edge of a gaping hole in credibility, and have him successfully cross it on a tightrope made from the tautest razor's edge of suspense. It worked, not only because of the always unbearably heightening tension, but because of the character of Jack Bauer.

Take a fundamentally decent man, one with a seemingly endless ability to love (especially something larger than himself), with a driving need to protect that which he loves, and with self-discipline to shame a centurion. Train him in the myriad uses of deadly force. You then have a warrior, whose one and only priority is his mission.

You have Jack Bauer.

That is why the first five seasons of 24 worked, because Jack Bauer was always a soldier, fighting to protect something worthy of his devotion. It helped that for the first four seasons, as well as his country and her people, he had a leader, in first Senator and then President David Palmer, who was worthy of the mission. And, of course, season five was about avenging the death of David Palmer, among other fallen comrades.

In season six, there was no tighter focus than the amorphous threat to the country. And, lacking that tighter focus, there was no way to anchor that tightrope of suspense, no way to make it over the widening craters of the plot holes. After five seasons in which missing an episode of 24 was a reason for a week-long depressive funk, I quit watching the show with a half dozen episodes left. I still don't know what happened in the season six finale, and I really don't care.

I had no intention of watching season seven, but a week before the season premier, Fox rebroadcast 24: Redemption, the movie from last November that set up a reboot of the series. It was a dead night for television otherwise, and it piqued my interest. So, I started season seven the next week. And was caught up in the old 24 fashion.

Until last night.

An attack on the White House by commandos under the personal leadership of an African warlord? A Secret Service force that doesn't at the first sign of a threat move the President to a completely secure location? A Secret Service force, where every man is a deadly marksman, that knows it's facing armed men, manages to set up a somewhat protected position, and doesn't take down at least as many men from the opposing force as it loses? The evil warlord finds a White House staffer alone in an office on the phone, tells her to hang up, she complies, he guns her down, and then takes as a hostage the first armed man his force compels to put down his pistol? The commandos have complete electronic control of the White House, including the combination to the armored door of the panic room? The commandos manage to capture the President's daughter, who refused to listen to the advice of a seasoned and trusted security agent, which might have kept her safe? The President, upon seeing her daughter in the warlord's power, telling the one person in the panic room with her -- Jack Bauer!!! -- to open the door so she can keep her daughter from being killed? Jack Bauer complying, without reminding the President of how many men have already died this night to keep her safe?

It doesn't work, not for me. 24 requires a complicated balancing act, dancing as it always does on the edge of a precipice. It's a tribute to a large number of creative people that it pulled it off for most of five seasons and that it succeeded in a series reboot after jumping the shark in season six. Last night, however, was a profound disappointment that has, once again, shattered my willingness to suspend disbelief.

RIP Paul Harvey

And now, he knows...the rest of the story.

RIP Howard Zieff

It's the rare 1 minute TV ad that's truly memorable almost 40 years later. Howard Zieff starred -- yes, starred -- in the Alka-Selzter "Spicy Meatball" commercial, which is right up there with the Mean Joe Green Coke spot, as far as I'm concerned.



After this, he went on to direct movies, including Private Benjamin. I got more enjoyment from Mr. Zieff than I ever knew.

A Sig Line

Back in the days when I was a regular poster on Usenet forums, I used to read and write posts with pithy or humorous signatures, "sig lines." Lisa and I first became friends through the alt.books.dean-koontz forum, a couple of years before we ever met in person, and it's a joke between us to take some absurd statement and say, "I feel a sig line coming on."

This morning, Lisa was cleaning out a closet in one of the spare bedrooms, and our cat Blazer snuck in when I opened the bedroom door to ask her something. If he were allowed free run of the room, Blazer would end up in closed into some nook or cranny at the back of the closet and mewling pitifully in the dark for hours, until we finally managed to figure where he was and let him out. It's happened before.

I picked him up and carried him out into the hall. Lisa followed and handed me a nice pair of scissors to put in a utility drawer. I hugged her, and out of my mouth popped, "I have a cat, a pair of scissors, and a hot woman." She said, "The hot woman's leaving the room before you figure out what you're going to do with them." I replied, "I feel a sig line coming on."

It's probably a good thing the thought went no farther.