Escape from New York

I'm back from my cross-country jaunt. It was a great trip, and I'm at that anguishing moment where I can feel the last of my vacation slip away before reality slaps me in the face. As soon as I finish this, I'll be dragging my jetlagged self over to bed and tomorrow will be the dreaded return to work.

Chicago and New York were both great experiences. There are many things about the trip that I want to memorialize in this medium soon. Most likely it'll be spread over a couple of posts.

There's just one thing that I want to mention right away. For Sandra this trip was partially about business. She had a class to take. For me, this trip was about having a good time and seeing some good friends that I don't see enough. Every step of the way, people I am lucky enough to call friends, spent their time and energy making my trip as simple and enjoyable as possible. I feel rich for having these people in my lives, yet poor for knowing I could never have enough time to spend with them. Sandra and I owe all of them a thanks and an invitation to California to return the favor.

It's just another reminder. It's about the people not the bling bling.

Cat Care & Travel

A new experience that I have not had to deal with until recently is making sure my cat is provided for before I can travel. I'm not sure what most people with pets do. I've never been asked to look after anyone else's pet before. I think part of me would be honored to look after someone's pet, but part of me would be really scared. People are pretty emotionally attached to their animal friends and I'd hate for my ignorance to cause any animal any harm. They've done bad sitcoms on trying to find the fish or a bird that looks exactly like the one that was accidently boiled on the stove or eaten by the cat. I know that's just worse case scenario, but those kind of thoughts would cross my mind.

In terms of the actual traveling, I'm hopping on the plane for Chicago tomorrow. After that it'll be New York. Chicago is always a fun town. New York is more of a love/hate thing even though I grew up in the suburbs of the Big Apple. It'll be interesting to see whether the love or the hate is stronger after twelve years.

Blind leading blind

Someone was trying to get Sandra and I to volunteer our time up in Berkeley. There's a program related to the Cal optometry program where you learn how to ballroom dance with a blindfold and after that you teach blind people how to ballroom dance. This well-meaning friend thought that my wife and I might enjoy dancing and bringing some smiles to people. Actually, it sounds like a great idea if we weren't who we were.

I have two left feet, but one of them is mildly deformed and masquerades as a right foot. And with dancing, as with most things I do, my individualism shines through rather than my ability to follow direction. Imagine a trusting person with no vision trying to dance with a person with two uneven feet. It's just not a good idea.

She thinks we were just looking for a polite way not to volunteer. In this case, we're doing a service by not volunteering. But if anyone wants to spend one Saturday a month dancing up in Berkeley let me know and I'd be happy to hook you up.

Remove your crayons

Today I am going to descend into the depths of self-indulgent, psuedo-philisophical mularky just because I've been wondering about about this question and my answer to it.

In an episode of the Simpsons, it is discovered that Homer is a dumb ape because he's had a crayon up his nose for a very long time. Once the crayon is removed he is suddenly intelligent. At first this is a blessing. For the first time he understands Lisa. But by the end of the episode he realizes that he'd be dumber but much happier with his crayon up his nose.

So the questions is dumb and happy or smart and miserable?

I've always loved knowledge, learning and understanding. And knowing some stuff has led me to a pretty good place in life. But I also have the miserableness of knowing my limitations or at least how little I have done to challenge some of the things I see wrong with the world. There's a yearning to do better. But smart and miserable is my answer.

Dumb and happy has charms. Who hasn't had those moments where they just want to shut down their brains and have a good time. (It's called alcohol.) But dumb and happy feel like an illusion to me. Like using up all our oil even though we know there is only a finite amount on this planet. Like ignoring the greenhouse effect and the ozone hole. We might be happy now, but we're dumb and sooner or later we're going to pay for it.

Would most people pick the first answer? I think they would, but really the cynic in me says they live by the second.

New Naming Convention.

There is some value in names. There are a bunch of GOP types who routinely refer to their mild opponents as the Democrat Party. They drop "ic" at the end of the word, Democratic. It could just be a party wide inability to speak or it could just be a way to annoy the Democrats and make the Dems sound just a little off kilter and not mainstream. It's subtle and it's worked.

In fairness, I feel like I owe the Republicans a name. Sure, the Demosquids lack backbone, but the G.O.P. lacks morals, heart, ethics and a host of other attributes that are far more ruinous to the rest of us. Repulsicans, Republicraps. Rich White Guys Out to Screw the World? I've thought about it a bit, and settled on another animal totem. Henceforth in my blogverse they are the Republiskunks.

Beam Me to Crawford

If Crawford Texas was within a six hour drive I would probably drive out and show my support for Cindy Sheehan this weekend. I guess I'll just have to hate Bush from afar.

Office Place

As an overworked individual I try to keep my office as inhospitable to outsiders as possible. Paper covers every inch of my desk. Some of it in folders, but most of it loose paper that flaps anytime anyone breathes too hard. My chair is the only chair in this room. I keep my bike across the desk so people need to stand between my bike and my pile of papers when they want to talk to me. I keep no supplies. No one can borrow a pen, a stapler or even a paperclip from me.

I have also been experimenting wtih various forms of music to see what reduces the walk through traffic. Most forms of rock and pop music don't faze people. And for some reason femminist punk seems to attract people. It seems raggae and African music is the best at keeping people away. It's just another reason to like that music.

I've been thinking of taking that one last step and closing the door, but I think people would think I was making myself unavailable.

Sudoku

So when we were in LA a couple weeks ago, Sandra and I played a couple math/logic puzzles called Sudoku puzzles. And having a rare unscheduled Saturday night, we attempted a couple more of these puzzles this weekend. I know most people probably think one of the last things they would ever want to do on a Saturday night is math, but it was some quality time spent together and a use of more brain cells than a movie would have been. Before we knew it the whole night was gone. These puzzles are really fun. I highly recommend some if you have some time to play with.

It's much too frequent that we get to do something like this. Most of the time we're scrambling around doing this or that. Little logic puzzles seem like the last thing anyone should have time for. It's the equivalent of doing the jumbo or the crossword in a paper.

Is it a waste of time? I don't think so. Even outside of work and providing for my little family, there are causes I should be more active in. Things I should be doing to make a difference in this world. There are ways I should be raising my voice and demanding changes. But we can't be champions all the time. Sometimes we're meant to just sit around and do simple things that give us simple pleasures. Otherwise all the battles that we fight in lfe don't mean anything. We're just one couple trying our best to balance it all.

Missed Opportunity

I was scheduled to interview someone for a position at my office at nine this morning, but no one showed. At about ten-thirty I received a call not from the candidate, but from the candidate's mother. The mother explained to me that her daughter had had a flat tire and was very sorry for missing her appointment and would it be possible to reschedule. Her husband was out fixing the tire, and she could be available as early as three o'clock that afternoon. My nature is to give people the benefit of the doubt in these sort of circumstances. And I actually did suffer the misfortune of a flat tire on the way to a job interview once, so I know these things can happen. If the candidate had called herself and she seemed truthful, I may have considered rescheduling, but there is something about having one's mother call that just didn't seem right. It felt like a mom making excuse for a kid and I didn't want to hire a kid. I imagined someone hung over or someone who overslept who begged her mom to put in some good words for her. I pictured someone who couldn't be responsible. I ended up telling the mother that we had several other candidates lined up, but I would call her at the end of the week if none of the others panned out.

Transforming Demosquids

I've been reading Ted Rall's Book, "You're Liberal How we can take America back from the Right." I know no one else will ever read this book, so let me just summarize Chapter 3. It talks about issues where most American's fall on the American side, but Demosquids have failed to capitalize. They might not be the top issue in people's minds, but they are issues that are winable.

1. Healthcare. Greedy HMOs and Healthcare companies = healthcare costs rising faster than any other costs. Too many uninsured. Even those insured have bad deals. This is killing our economy and bad care for most.

2. Minimum wage increase. Helps reduce state welfare rolls. Pushes up payscale for everyone. Increases consumer spending. And basic moral principle. Working 40 hours a week should allow for basics like food, shelter and medical care.

3. College Tuition. Replace student loans with grants. Many students priced out of education. We are generating pre-bankrupted youth. Banks are making a killing off these loans.

4. Vacation Time. Americans take less vacation than anyone. It's a quality of life issue.

5. Price Fixing. A lot of collusion goes on despite antitrust legislation.

6. Free Trade Run Amok. NAFTA has led to more pollution and lost jobs.

7. Crises in schools. There are too many bad schools in America. Mostly it's a matter of wealth distribution. Suburban schools use high property taxes. Inner cities use state aid.

8. Quality of life issues.
a. Do Not Email Registry
b. Order corporations to offer free tech support for a set number of years after purchase of their products.
c. ban on-line cookies, trojan horses and other programs that invade personal privacy.
d. force airlines to refund money for non-weather related delays and/or give away unused first class seats.
e. fine businesses without enough service clerks to handle customers
f. elimiate ATM fees
g. revive better business bureau with on-line postings for everyone to see

I'm not sure I agree with absolutely everything he says, but it's at least interesting food for thought.

Why Camping?

Camping means spending time away from the wife and cat and trading it in for bugs, heat, hunger, aching muscles, long car rides, and a couple of dirty sweaty guys. Some would argue that this would never be a good trade in. But the pay off is seeing the places where men tread more softly. It's a chance to step away from the fishbowl lives we usually swim in and see a world maybe a little closer to what it should look like. The sky is bluer out there. The trees are greener. At some points the water is so clear you can count the fish at the bottom. At others the water is a white blur as it tumbles down the moutain with a loud roar. And instead of reality tv or video games, at night you can lie out on a rock and watch the stars just to remember how small you and your problems are in the whole scheme of things. That's why.