Great minds

Sheesh!

Mary and I made a Half Price Books run this evening and one of my finds was a John Irving anthology which would have been a steal at three times the three bucks they charged me.

So I’m thumbing through this find and I read the first paragraph of Trying to Save Piggy Sneed:

“This is a memoire but please understand that (to any writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false. A fiction writer’s memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have…being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven’t had the opportunity to see.”

Now, I have to admit I was a bit taken aback at the cheek of the guy, so shamelessly plagiarizing my comments in an earlier blog. But then, I realized that the fact of my finding this anthology in a clearance bin at HPB probably means that the Irving work predates mine own musings on the topic in these virtual pages.

I suppose I should be thrilled at Irving’s implied inclusion of moi in the “us” of writers with good imaginations. I wonder how he knew.

Wonders in ice

A couple of times in the last decade, I’ve happened to be in Fairbanks during or just after the World Ice Art Championships. Both times, it was a stellar experience. And not just because of the blanket of stars above.

Anyway, my bro and his wife will be up there this year just in time for the end of the judging and they’re crazy if they don’t check it out. And I realized this is something I want to share with any of you who’ve vacations to plan and have never perused professionally carved ice art.

If you have the brains Gawd gave a corkscrew, you’ll stop reading right now and follow this link: http://www.icealaska.com. And be sure to click on “The Sculptures,” after which I promise you’ll be terminally hooked.

And if it should come to pass that you actually find yourself traveling to Fairbanks to view ice art some future winter, perhaps you’ll consider some advice from one who’s made the trek from the Lower Forty-Eight to the land of frozen masterpieces:

·         Take warm clothes. I have a garment we call my ‘Alaska coat’ that I swear would keep me toasty in anything above absolute zero. It has a hood and a whole bunch of large pockets that I’ve filled with gloves, mittens, a scarf, a watch cap, and several chemical hand warmers. It goes with me to Fairbanks in March, even if I have to pack an extra bag to manage it (the thing is huge).

·         Try to time your visit for just before – but not during – the judging. You’ll avoid the judging crowds and you’ll see a nice mix of finished goods and artworks in progress. And many of the carvers are only too willing to chat with genuinely interested touristas. Especially if you offer to fetch a hot drink.

·         Go at night.  Most of the artworks are intended to be seen with the lighting the artists have provided. It’s worth the shivering (which won’t happen if you’ve heeded the advice adjacent to the first bullet above).  And if you do manage the trip, by all means…

·         SEND ME PICTURES!

You can thank me when you get back.

Another customer service rant

I’m midway through a course with (name of international online university based in Seattle deleted to avoid lawsuits) just now and I’ve been unable to gain access to my university-provided e-mail for about a week. Three contacts later, no joy. The guy on the help desk had to send it in for “troubleshooting.” Isn’t troubleshooting within the realm of tasks the help desk person should be able to accomplish? I’m just sayin’.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of education. The Khan Academy, MIT-x, and even the Brand X organization with which I’m currently, unfortunately enmeshed have made me think a lot about how we provide stellar education and training, where and when needed.

There are a lot of serious minds working on this but seemingly, none of them work for the “University” to which I tendered a couple grand in return for which they’re utterly failing to provide me with anything approaching a satisfactory learning experience.

I’m not bitter.

Okay, so yes I am. The big rub is that I really love both teaching and learning and I won’t have that many college-level courses in my future so I’d like to make each one count. I love going to school and it’s frustrating to have the experience ruined by technical difficulties that should be among their core strengths, being online providers and all.

Let me just say – and I mean this in the most profound sense – wa-a-a-a-a-ah!

Pleasant is plenty

I had a couple of nice customer service encounters today and thought I’d share them with you.

I was trying to check out at the drug store and the guy ahead of me had printed a whole raft of photographs in a variety of sizes and styles. The young guy helping him couldn’t find the photo price list so the customer went through this long-winded dissertation that included not only so many of this size and so many of that, but also a fairly detailed discussion of the content of each picture.

I suppose some of you expect to read next that I fumed and grunted and eventually read someone the riot act. Admittedly, that might occasionally have been my response to such a delay. But it didn’t happen this time, and not because of any forbearance on my part. You see, this young guy kept giving me glances of acknowledgement and a couple of times apologized for the delay.

Even more to the point, he held me at bay without making the picture guy feel rushed. He knew his lack of knowledge about how to handle the transaction – he had to go back and forth to the photo machine a couple times to confirm his understanding of what he was handling – was delaying both of us. We knew it. And he knew we knew it. But his pleasant approach made the whole thing all right.

Later, I was picking up fish and chips from Ivar’s and the young lady taking orders and running the register was delightful, if only marginally competent. Turns out she had been working there just a couple of weeks and this was her first night running the front solo.  The reason I know this is that I asked her while I was waiting for the order I’d had to repeat a couple times before she got it right.

She’d had some trouble figuring out what the customer next in line wanted, as well. But she persevered, asking and repeating in her friendly way until she got it right, smiling genuinely all the while. And in chatting with her once our orders were back, I found that she truly loved her job, working with the public and bustling about, keeping her station clean and stocked. She was in her element, even if she hadn’t quite grasped all the elements.

Nothing particularly profound here except that in separate customer service encounters today, young  folks kept this crotchety old turd reasonably happy and even entertained when I could very well have been impatient and annoyed. And have been, in similar but less friendly situations.

Sometimes, pleasant is all you need.

Utterances to avoid on Thanksgiving Day

I’ll hold your hair for you.

No, I LIKE my turkey rare.

This is almost as good as my Mom used to make it!

Um, what is this again?

I’ll do the dishes.

It’s alright – he yakked it up!

Was I supposed to pull out the little bag before I cooked the turkey?

Hey, at least the dog’s happy!

I’ve never seen one actually explode like that…

And my all-time favorite, uttered innocently as your spouse’s expression heads south, “No, was I supposed to?”

…for which I’m thankful

      ·         I am not on Survivor with Abi

·         That place on my side stopped itching

·         I haven’t caught Clif’s cold…yet

·         I found a last course that I’ll actually enjoy

·         Lots of rain = no yard work

·         Most of the people at LA Fitness are as unfit as I

·         Tomorrow I get to eat turkey that I don’t have to cook

·         Almost all my clothes are clean

·         Three books I haven’t read on my shelf

·         I have enough leftover teriyaki for a light lunch before turkey dinner

·         My new hoodie jacket is da bomb!

·         Really cool chop in the Lake today

·         Daughters having fun together in Boston

·         Mary

·         All of you

No clear answers here

So, I-502 goes into effect December 6^th in Washington state. For those of you who reside elsewhere, this is the questionable result of an initiative aimed at legalizing marijuana in the state. Which has now come to pass.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I do believe our jails and prisons are way over-populated with people whose crimes harmed no one but themselves. On the other hand, I’m not enthralled with the idea of more people being encouraged to toke up.

The bottom line for me is that the government must have, as the Supremes are wont to say, a ‘compelling interest’ when it moves to constrain the activities of its citizens. And truly, I don’t see how cannabis represents a more compelling risk to the populace than booze. The last time we tried to outlaw alcohol, I don’t believe it actually went all that well.

Now that a couple of states have declared marijuana legal for recreational use, I’m going to be very interested to watch the Feds’ reaction. When the Washington Supremes and the 9^th Circuit come head to head on this issue, as eventually it seems to me they must, we may just have an interesting discussion of states’ rights. Too bad it will be over such a silly issue.

Marijuana  has long represented a conundrum for parents who grew up as I did in a time when pot was widely available and a three finger bag without too many seeds or stems cost ten bucks – or so I’ve been led to understand, doncha know. You really don’t want your own children getting stoned and driving over the center line. But then they ask the question and what do you do – lie?

For those of us in the “Yes I tried it once – for about six years” category, it’s become increasingly difficult to counsel abstinence while looking your offspring in the eye. And frankly, one look at my midriff might easily lead the impartial observer to wonder just how many times I heard the Call Of The Munchies over the years.

As I said, I’m torn on this one. But it comes down for me to the fact that as a government of the people, we just have more important things to do than incarcerate something on the order of 40,000 people for marijuana-related offenses while drunk drivers are allowed to keep re-offending until they kill someone. It’s a matter of balancing priorities.

Putting people in jail for toking is just not one of mine. Sorry if that offends you.

Best

As I’ve mentioned before, I keep a running list of ideas for future missives, stories and rants.  Some will end up on this site, some will be incorporated into other writing and some will never succed in capturing my interest.  I have ideas on various scraps of paper in stacks I’ve been meaning to sort. Ideas are written on the backs of ads and receipts and some wind up in the trash without ever being read and turned into something. Some are written on the backs of my hands and don’t survive the next shower.

One list came to my attention tonight that wasn’t my own. It’s captured in a Word doc in my computer writing file called “Mr. Woods’ Essay Topics.” And I really enjoyed reading it just now. Perhaps I’ll share the list with you in a future rambling.

Some background: Mr. Woods was Daughter One’s English teacher in high school and one ‘extra’ he offered was coaching in preparing for college apps. He was constantly encouraging his students to think of topics beyond the time-worn examples that admissions officers get tired of reading. So, he put together a list of topics that he would hand out to sophomores and juniors who were not yet immersed in the college quest. His idea was that every now and then, an underclassman would pull out one of the topics and jot down their thoughts. Then, when they had to write college app essays, they’d have all these starter ideas. I still think it’s a cool idea.

So, I was glancing through his list and one of the lines read “The best reason for going to college is…”

I’m engaged in completing my degree right now and to be frank, taking these last few classes is not going to do much to enhance my career opportunities at this stage of the game. I’ve told you before that I’d promised my mom I’d finish and now that she’s gone, I can’t renegotiate. But really the fundamental reason I’m working to finish the degree is because I want it for myself. That’s my reason. And you know, it really is the best reason.

That question could apply to a lot of aspects of our lives. What’s the best reason for…you fill in the rest.

One of you has been thrilling me with the trips she takes. I’m thinking about writing a blog entry about the best reason for taking a vacation. By which I mean, a specific vacation.

We know or think we know why we do the things we do, but it’s the word ‘best’ that makes this thought process so interesting to me. If I simply ask why I want to go on vacation, I might end up with a white bread version of what should be not only relaxing but invigorating. But Sheila thinks about the ‘best’ reason to plan a vacation and she ends up with the best vacations. We’ve watched her photos from some of the most interesting locales in the world and she’s soon to be off for an ice hotel north of the Arctic Circle. Now the reason for that choice is a best reason.

I think this is the essence of what Mr. Wood was inviting his students to explore. Don’t settle for the first answer. Or even a really good answer. Take the time to think of the best answer and you’ll get into the college that’s perfect for you, find a vacation that’s outside the right box, recall the most important advice you’ve received and thus be able to consider taking it.

Thanks once again to Mr. Woods. And as always, to each and all of you for listening.

Blockage

Our walk yesterday took us through my childhood neighborhood, past most of the houses I once served as the neighborhood paperboy. It was a lot of fun showing Mary where the various adventures of my youth took place. And me being me, it got me to thinking.

This neighborhood defined my world from ages two through fourteen. And as we walked, I realized that in some ways, I’d never left. The memories didn’t so much flood back as well up.

I could share fine details of the lives of most of the families on my block but outside that rectangle , the information becomes fuzzier. To put a point on it, one’s block actually referred to the houses on both sides of one’s street but only as far as the cross streets on each end. We knew some but not all of the folks behind us and nothing at all about the folks one street farther gone.

As I said, within narrow geographic confines, I can recall lots of stuff.  There were eighteen houses and at one point thirty-four dogs (yes, I counted – it got boring making the newspaper rounds at five in the morning) on what I considered ‘my block.’ The woods behind the Windalls’ and the Franks’ houses were shared by all the kids on the block as a sort of communal back yard.  In that grey house, Dave Hunt had a great train layout in the extra bedroom and used to let us watch him fly his model airplanes. He was a teenager who didn’t mind a ten-year-old tagging along behind him so long as said ten year old was available to fetch things from time to time.  Then there was the time he decided to walk across the Wilburton trestle – not, as it happens, the best idea he ever had. And I followed dutifully along, which was not my best idea.

As we rounded the corner headed toward the erstwhile Chez McDermott, I told Mary all about Johnny Sullivan who broke his arm playing buck-buck and Cha Cha Hitchcock who’d had a flagpole fall on his leg as a kid and spent most of his time in a wheelchair. There was the Wilde girl who learned the hard way that a fallen bee hive was not to be kicked and Steve O’Donnell, whose mom was the first woman I ever saw naked when I went to the back door looking for Steve just as she came out of the shower. Over there lived the Reeks, in whose driveway my cousin Sue taught me to ride a bike and just there was the powerline over which Pat’s toy parachute man met his lonely fate. And the Sullivans lived there and Nicholas’s here and all the other families whose kids we played with. I could tell you the precise layout of every house on our block but cross one street and the mental images become sketchy. Beyond our block, even my paper boy’s knowledge of the area ended at each front door.

I could spend hours telling these stories about life within the space of a few acres centered on 14410 SE 15^th St., but almost nothing about the blocks beyond.  It was as though there was a Great Wall at 144^th and a sheer cliff at 148^th, separating our block from the rest of the known world. Oh, there were occasional islands of familiarity. Within a couple of blocks, we knew the Velottas, the Golkas and the Owens – sort of – and the Lallys. But not the people living to either side of them because that was another whole universe.

My friend Mike Nowak lived a mile or so away beyond our school and while I could walk blindfolded around the Nowak house, I always felt a bit like an alien in the Nowaks’ neighborhood. I wondered what it must be like to live there.

My daughters must have had a different sense of neighborhood growing up. They went to a school a bus ride away and so most of their friends lived in ‘other’ neighborhoods. We didn’t have groups of kids blocking off our street to play kickball or Frisbee. There was no such thing as ‘going out to play,’ except to the back yard to play with each other and the dog.

We did everything we could to allow Daughters One and Two to have their latter day analog to the neighborhood gang. I hope they feel we succeeded. In a lot of ways, their view of the world was wider than was mine growing up. I lived in a kind of cloister in which I knew everyone. Heck, I delivered papers to most of their parents.  There is a physical place I can walk through with my wife and show her the framework within which my childhood played out.

For One and Two, it will be different. I hope different doesn’t mean less. Because good memories are the blanket that keeps you warm on cold nights.  

I’m probably worrying too much, a habit of mine that I wish I could kick. Because the truth is, a bunch of houses facing a common street don’t make a neighborhood. It’s not about proximity, at least not entirely. I’m guessing One and Two will have memories of their own ‘hood and it has more to do with the friends than with street addresses.

It's that time again!

No, no, it’s not another list. Relax.

The election is over and the holidays approacheth. Which means three things that tickle my giggler: extra days off, lots of good, home cooked food and Christmas movies!!!

I LOVE Christmas movies! Especially the formulaic ones put out by the well-meaning but tasteless folks at Hallmark.

It probably sounds like I’m doing a back-handed slam at the Christmas movie industry but I swear that’s not the case. I truly believe these movies are the least creative, most predictable features ever filmed outside of porn (or so I hear) or perhaps military training films. And I love them, every one.

Mary and I watched one today. A mother of three who’s been deserted by her ne’er-do-well soon-to-be-ex husband finds herself stranded in a small but lovely town where the good people all pull together to help her arrange a great Christmas for her standard Hallmark kids – the elfish toddler, the wise beyond her years girl and the troubled little boy – and she starts to feel attraction to the young-cop-with-baggage until they have a misunderstanding and he gives the appearance of going back to the harridan who left him at the altar although of course he’ll eventually end up with the heroine, but we don’t know that yet (okay, so anyone who’s ever seen a Hallmark movie knows they’ll end up together at the end, duh!). BIG BREATH! And there’s an older widow who takes her under her wing and a sensitive but clueless minister and of course, the gruff-but-caring old geezer, usually played by Ed Asner but today by Edward Hermann. Asner must have been busy. But Hermann-Asner did a great job of pulling the mother out of her funk and on the side, giving the son just the advice he needed to deal with the playground bully at school.

You get the picture but if not, just watch any Hallmark Christmas movie. They’re pretty much all the same. No surprises. Minor but predictable heart tugs. Don’t know why I love these things but I do.

Except the one this afternoon with Jamie Gertz doing a really ba-a-a-a-ad Jersey accent. Why anyone would intentionally pretend to have a Jersey accent is beyond me but if you’re going to make the attempt, for goodness sake, do it well. That may be the only Hallmark Christmas movie I’ve ever turned off.

‘Tis the season to be hokey and I intend to wring every drop of Christmas spirit out of some of the dumbest made-for-TV movies ever to hit the airwaves. Or, the cable, as the case may be.

I can’t wait for the day after Thanksgiving, when the non-Hallmark Christmas movies start making the rounds of the re-run circuit and my Christmas cheer kicks into overdrive. The original Miracle on 34^th Street is my all-time fave, but I’ll gladly settle for The Santa Clause. And when there’s nothing good on the tube, it’s Anne Murray’s Christmas on the CD player.

For the time being, though, it’s Hallmark time and this holiday hopeful will watch every one I can.

Progress?

I’ve been reading a book for the sheer delight the last several days. Or at least, it started for the sheer delight but has become something more. This author, an international phenom with a string of best sellers, has always been dependable for action and mystery, compelling characters and unexpected plot turns. And absolutely reliable in the sense of providing reading for entertainment that required little introspection, that transported me to a fascinating but utterly disposable world of what if. The author has been a great benefactor for the frequent flier.

The author has taken a different path in this book, electing to use it as a vehicle for explication of a certain personally held philosophy. The book does a great and subtle job of displaying the fallacies and potential horrors of utilitarian ethics and promoting the fundamental truth that even in the calculus of greatest good for the greatest number, the individual must remain sovereign. Even the greatest end does not justify a means that includes violation of the rights of the individual.

I’ve really enjoyed this book on several levels. It was a great read, as they say and also a thought-provoking experience.

By now you know there’s a ‘but’ coming, a ‘however’ that justifies the tone of this missive and the fact that I’m hiding the names of book and author. After all, if I wanted to recommend the book outright, I’d do so. I will later in another post, where I can hide the connection to this blog.

Here’s the rub: The book is badly edited. Ba-a-a-adly edited. I started to become leery at about the third misspelling. Then, I caught syntax errors that couldn’t be explained by lingua franca or regional voice. The real tip-off came when I noticed the frequency of redundancies.

This book wasn’t exposed to the ministrations of a competent copy editor. They used a program! Perhaps even one as lightweight as the spell and grammar checker in standard word processing software.

Living where I do, I’m surrounded by the folks who write many of the standard office programs (get it? Office programs?) that most of us use. And from close association with them, I can tell you that perhaps the smartest thing one can do if you enjoy writing and value proper usage is to disable the supplied language / usage monitor. The folks who write those programs are the same ones who have turned ‘access’ to a verb form and pronounce tilde with a long ‘e.’ They mean well but don’t get it. They don’t understand the gulf of difference between computer language and language.

So, back to the book in question. The errors are all consistent with the use of a program rather than a human. The misspellings were all of the type that software doesn’t catch – a misspelling of the intended word that is still a legitimate word in its own rite. The redundancies would have been caught by a competent copy editor but were entirely hidden to a program designed to find and delete only literal and proximate word repetitions.

There may well be some of you thinking I’m a prig and of course, you’d be right. But I’m not writing this merely for the sake of priggishness. I believe in good writing. I wish I could write as well as the author in question. So it hurts me physically to see this author’s writing corrupted by what had to have been a bean-counting decision to cut out the cost of an adept and sensitive copy editor.

The true tragedy here has nothing to do with me. Well, okay. It’s somewhat about me or I wouldn’t have written this post. But it has more to do with the general dumbing down of, well, everything that’s part and parcel of our descent into reliance on others. The others in this case made some bad decisions.

When I’m teaching process, one refrain I always include, several times in a multi-day class, is that tools are good for organizing and displaying information but people should make the decisions. The more we leave the decisions to the tools, the riskier the proposition becomes.

When we trust the tool, we trust the tool maker. And in the case in question, an experienced copy editor with a passion for great writing is infinitely more trustworthy than a programmer with an English degree.

Relying on ‘editors’ employed to create lowest-common-denominator software filters rather than engaging professionals isn’t progress, it’s surrender. I’m not ready to wave a white flag.

Why I voted how I voted

I started to read the various postings today regarding the election but I had to stop. Between the snarky comments and the whining from those who found themselves on the “losing side” of various choices, I just couldn’t read any more.

The ones that really chap my hide are the pundits who profess to understand why we all voted the way we did. Here’s a clue-in: I voted the way I did because I felt this person was more qualified than the other and is likely, in my view, to help take us where I think we need to go.

I voted in favor of this idea because I think it’s only fair and against that one because passing it will – in my humble opinion – have some very negative unintended consequences.

I voted against a few people, too. And I did so because they’ve aligned themselves with a movement I consider poisonous. I made one decision based on my analysis of which candidate I consider to be fundamentally honest.

Here’s the thing: I don’t know if all my votes were for the ‘right’ person or proposition. But I made them based on my hope for the future and the best information at hand.

Just please don’t second-guess my motives just because you’re ostensibly an expert. Because one thing is for sure – in every contest decided last night, half of you “experts” backed the wrong horse.

That was silly

So, today I decided to tackle the kitchen sink. I’ve been sick for over a week and I’m really fed up with being a moaning, hacking couch potato. And the sink was both leaking and failing to drain, so it was high time to clean out and re-set the strainer.

Now, we’ve been having this problem for some time, including several weekends when Mary and I were both home. Why I chose today, when I’m not entirely up to snuff (I’m still sniffing) and no one else is in the house to help will remain a mystery.

Here’s the thing… If you’re going to pull the drain and strainer assembly from your kitchen sink, one of two conditions must prevail. Either,

1.       You need to have a helper; or,

2.       You need to have a tool called a strainer wrench, in addition to the strap wrench you use to turn the locking ring.

I had neither a helper nor a strainer wrench. Which means I spent about an hour trying to grow a third arm or alternatively, find some way to jam the strainer in place so that it wouldn’t just spin while I tried to free the locking ring. Note for those of you who might try this in future – long screwdrivers, duct tape, the handle end of a channel lock wrench and an old butter knife are all equally and utterly useless for this task.

It’s entirely possible I created several previously unimagined expletives this afternoon. I’m proud of a couple of them but not proud enough to share them here.

I blew about an hour before I headed off to the hardware store, tail between my legs, for the right tool. Of course, by then I’d bludgeoned the existing strainer out of round, so I had to buy one of them, as well.

There’s an old saying to the effect that nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

The job I did today should have been foolproof.

Ahem…

Disambiguate

Yes, it’s true – I have a new favorite word du jour and I’m fixin’ ta go on ad nauseum about how cool it is. Sorry. But then, not so much.

Sorry, that is.

I’ve always sorta liked this word. I love words in general but this one is not only cool sounding, but its meaning is something I can definitely get behind.

In the transitive verb form (alright, I looked that part up, what of it?) it’s disambiguate, which is to make less ambiguous. Which is to make more clear. Direct, even.

I wish the folks on the extreme fringy right would get behind disambiguation. I wish they would just come out and say what the rest of us know – that they don’t really give a rodent’s rear end for the Constitution, and in fact, they don’t really understand the whole point of it. Which is this:

Government exists to organize the factors that must be organized in order to allow us to live together in relative peace and prosperity, and to take advantage of the economy of scale and buying power that allows us to provide ourselves with the things that all of us need collectively and none of us could afford individually. Things like roads, public education and national defense.

Government does not exist to allow a bunch of self-absorbed yahoos to shape our self-governance on the basis of their favorite prejudices or their deeply held religious superstitions. And in every case you can name in which government is based on or subordinate to religious tradition, I will be glad to point out the segment of that society that is being subjugated.   

If that’s not enough disambiguation, let me try this: I worship neither Gods nor flags. I believe deeply in this society and our Constitution. I hope both can survive this swing to the right. Because I would give my life to defend this country but I don’t pray and I don’t pledge allegiance to scraps of cloth.

I’m not a committed – or even comfortable – Democrat. It’s tragic to me to have to vote for candidates while holding my nose. But the folks who have misappropriated the name Tea Party have made clear that if they take over, ultimately they’d be putting people like me in camps. They claim to be for personal freedom but what they’re for is the freedom to force the rest of us to toe their mark.

Sorry for the rant. I promise to be more antidisambiguous another time.
Or not.