The charity workers

On a street corner of a traffic intersection near where I work stood four middle-aged black men in worn clothes. In their hands were sturdy plastic buckets filled with lollipops. As I drove my car toward the intersection, I caught sight of the men, who were dressed in orange-colored safety vests that made them look like crossing guards. But they weren't crossing guards. Instead, they seemed to be collecting for a charity, trading the lollipops for money from drivers. What put things out of place was that there was nothing that identified them as working for a charity, like the Kiwanis on "Peanut Day" would have the charity's name printed on their safety vests.

Right away in my head I made a silent plea to God. "Oh please, don't let me get stopped at a red light!" If I got stuck, one of the men would come over to my car window and want a donation in return for what he had in his bucket. I didn't want that. Luckily, I was on the busier of the two cross roads and my light stayed green for a long time. I was able to zip right through the intersection.

The visceral reaction I had during this incident is the same as when I see a homeless person on the street holding a sign asking for money. My "spider senses" go off, because I'm not sure if the person is truly in need or is just running a scam. Once when I worked in downtown Chicago, I gave a woman on the street $5 just for the performance she gave me....she said she was from St. Louis, and her car had run out of gas, and she had brought money with her but it must have been stolen during her time in the big city..... She was just spitting the frustration out of her mouth. It was an obvious scam, but I rewarded her for being so elaborate and theatrical.

The thing is, I guess, is that I prefer my charity workers to identify themselves. A day earlier, at another intersection, I fished around for change in my car and gave it to one of the Kiwanis peanut people. At other times, I have waved over the charity workers who are offering Tootsie Rolls in return for my money. I have even flagged over those charity workers who give away the red paper hearts.

But these four guys on the street, I didn't want to deal with them. Were they actually panhandlers instead of charity workers? Would I have had the same reaction if they were white?

At another intersection a few miles away, I noticed another black guy, all by himself, threadbare around the edges, holding the same kind of sturdy bucket. Inside were the same kind of lollipops. But this guy also had a homemade sign, just a big piece of white cardboard with three words written in black marker, one word on top of the other:

Women
Children
Charity

I surmised that this guy and the other men were collecting for their church, and that they were granted authority to do so because they would have been chased away by police otherwise.

Still, even being secure with my assumption, the thought of being stuck at a red light with these guys makes me feel uncomfortable. Does that make me racist? I hope not.

Trains

I hate trains. The town I live in is located outside of Chicago. Intersecting the town is the nation's main rail line going west. Multiple times per day, commuter trains and freight trains travel the line, to and fro. Traffic in my town, and countless others dotting the line along the way, are paralyzed when the trains come through. Most of the towns have roads crossing the tracks---no bridges over them or viaducts under them.

It is when these frequent trains come through and I am in my car or on my scooter or walking on foot and I want to cross the tracks that I really start gnashing my teeth. The trains literally paralyze society, bringing everything on both sides of the tracks to a standstill. And there I sit, with everyone else, twiddling our thumbs as this lumbering temporary wall has appeared in front of us.

I can think of no other situation where society is legally allowed to be paralyzed like this. We are often informed about statistics that show that people spend X amount of hours in their lives commuting to work. I guess waiting for the train at a M-F'n crossing falls into that category.

This isn't new information, so this blog is nothing but my venting about it. When I sit waiting at a crossing, I sometimes fantasize. I think about what would happen if I had the legal right to paralyze society, too. Would I travel down a busy highway and then just decide to stop and pull out a lawn chair and sit in the middle of the road, making all traffic around me stop until I decided to get back in my car and go? Would I spot an ambulance speeding to a hospital and then decide, "Hold on, you can't pass here, I've decided to fly this kite from this location right here in the road"? I think you get my point. Man, I really hate trains.

The Polish painter

This morning after I was dressed and ready for work, I walked by my bedroom and noticed that the bed had been made. I asked my wife Julie what that was all about, since I hadn't made it and she almost never does. She replied that she had done it because the Polish house painter was coming by. Since he might peek inside the bedroom, no need to have him think that we are slobs.

My wife and I have had arguments over the years about making the bed. I like having it made, she thinks it's a waste of energy. I get my passive/aggressive revenge sometimes because of this issue. (My wife says that most of what I do to annoy her is because of my passive aggressiveness.) The revenge comes in the form of a top sheet that my wife likes to have on the bed.

Our use of a top sheet is rare, but on the occasion when my wife puts one on the bed, it is nice going to bed for the first night or two. The bed is made like you'd find in a hotel, with freshly laundered sheets and pillow cases, and made up as if the maid had just been there. But, after a nite or two, the top sheet usually becomes balled up somewhere under the covers. When the next evening comes and I climb into bed and slip under the covers, the balled-up top sheet is cramping the space for my feet. "What the hell is this?" I grouse. "It's the top sheet," my wife replies. "Just reach down and pull it up."

But I don't like to do that. I like to come into my bedroom and get into bed and then have no responsibility. All I want to do is read, watch TV, or go to sleep. Having to deal with the balled-up top sheet is too much like work.

Ultimately, what happens after a few nights of this grousing is that I awaken in the morning and decide to make the bed, and without the top sheet on it. So I take the top sheet and throw it to the floor and jam it under the bed. Then I finish making the bed.

Usually it takes my wife a few nights to notice. "Hey, where's the top sheet?" she asks. I tell her it's under the bed, and then she gets angry and accuses me of passive aggressiveness.

But I tell her that all she has to do to rectify the situation is to make the bed in the morning. That never happens, of course, which is why the top sheet remained under the bed the last time that I looked.

You are probably wondering how the Polish painter fits in here. The other day my oldest daughter Faith announced that she wanted her bedroom painted a new color. The color she picked is blue/green, offputting at first, but attractive when it's on the walls.

Someone had given my wife the name of the Polish painter and said that he does good work at a cheap price. So the guy was hired and he came over while I was at work and he did a good job on my daughter's bedroom.

Now, all of a sudden, my wife has announced that she wants the basement painted, and the kitchen, and some exterior woodwork by one of our large bay windows. The Polish painter has been hired for the job.

So today comes, and the bed is made, and the doorbell rings, and there at the front door is the Polish painter. He is a 30ish guy, tall, lean, dark curly hair, and he has that Eastern European accent when he speaks English.

My mother-in-law, who is omnipresent in our lives, leans over and says to me, "Wow, Julie never said anything about how good looking he is."

But as I figure it, I have been married to my wife for 13 years and have been with her for more than 15 years. If the result of this is that the bed gets made every day while I am at work, the Polish painter can come over all he wants.

Wednesday evening run

During my run on Wednesday evening on a path through the woods, I passed an attractive 35-ish woman who had a cellphone to her ear as she walked along. Was she really talking with someone, or was it a ruse to thwart any would-be attackers?

I must admit that I got a bit angry with the woman. It amuses me when I see people who seem always on the phone, either driving in their cars or walking down the street. But here, in the woods, where it's peaceful and the flora is lush and where families of deer are sometimes up ahead on the path, is it really so important to be on the phone? I wanted to yell, "Fer crissakes, lady, look around and enjoy nature!"

But I simply gave her a smirk as I passed and then forgot about her in another minute.

Thinking about it now, however, and being a man, I could be being unfair to the woman. Maybe a public safety official would say that holding a cellphone to the ear is a wise thing to do in an isolated area like the woods. But I could argue that it would make the woman less focused on her surroundings and possibly more vulnerable to attack.

Plus, would it really sidetrack an attacker, knowing that he has the isolation going for him, regardless of whether or not the woman were linked to the outside world by phone? A few years ago on the path where I run, a man suffered a heart attack. A runner came by and found the man lying on the ground, and he dialed 9-1-1. When asked where he was in the woods, the runner could not give an exact location, but only that he was between two main streets, which were miles apart. By the time the ambulance got there, the stricken man had died.

In my mind, if the women were attacked, she might be able to say to the person on the other end of the line, "Help! I'm being attacked! I'm in the woods!" And that would be about it. By then, she'd be too busy fighting for her life or the attacker would have gotten the phone away from her.

As I type this, though, I am starting to realize that having the cellphone visible is probably a good thing. Even if successful in his attack, the attacker would have to think that he's on the clock, that there is a chance that police would have been called and that they'd be racing to the woods. And he wouldn't know which direction they'd be coming from. Sure, the police would probably not have an exact location, but the attacker would know that his chances of being caught had just gone up.

Okay, I apologize to the lady. Still, I hope she realizes that if she is walking through the woods, she should take time to look around and enjoy the surroundings.

Zombie rights

The zombie who had once been a salesman in a dark suit and tie walked stiffly up the dirt driveway and around a back corner of Neil’s ramshackle farmhouse, spotting the two old people asleep in their wheelchairs up on the porch. Neil herself had built the porch, which wasn't nothing more than a handful of plywood sheets nailed to some support posts sunk into the ground. The porch wasn't no more than two feet high and had no railings around it. If the old people were of mind to wake up and release the brakes on their wheelchairs and push themselves to the ends of the plywood, they could fall off.

But that never happened, which was why Neil felt comfortable being inside the farmhouse working on a neighbor's broken coffeemaker. Her job was fixing small appliances and motors, with some taxidermy done on the side. For years, to help make ends meet, she also served as caregiver for some of the town's seniors. The county's old folks’ home was too damned expensive for most of the families in the community, and Neil's place was much more affordable. All it cost was a couple bucks per day for the old folks to be a-settin' on the shaded porch for hours on end.

Neil was a tough woman, independent, had tried marriage once, to Toby, the drunk, but he had been careless one night and had gotten eaten. After that, she decided that there was no need for a husband, or children, because, hell, if a growed man could get himself eaten, what chance did a helpless child have?

Now in her early 30s, Neil looked a few years older than that, not wrinkled but just tired from lack of sleep. Some nights, when she wasn't ready to lay down, she would sit in the dark, a shotgun across her lap, waiting. With her short dark hair and lean body, and from a distance in her usual t-shirt and jeans, she looked like a teenage boy. But up close, her oval-shaped dark eyes and high cheekbones made her distinctly feminine, although she did nothing to highlight her features.

The old people—a white haired man and woman—snoozed contently. Inside the house, Neil’s dog Earl, sleeping, snapped its head up and started barking as it sensed something outside. What it sensed was the zombie, who by now was banging its legs against the side of the porch as it stiffly tried to negotiate stepping up on it. There were no stairs to the porch, and the only way on to it was to bend a leg and step up, or take the wooden plank that was leaning against the farmhouse and use it as a ramp. That's how Neil got the old folks' wheelchairs up on the porch.

But the zombie, being generally mindless, had no intention of using the ramp, which is why it kept banging its legs against the porch. Through all the commotion---the banging of the zombie and the barking of the dog---the old folks slept. Neil, inside the house, set the coffeemaker down and grabbed her shotgun. She pushed open the screen door and pointed the gun at the zombie.

“I don’ figure you aim to turn tail and git out a’ here,” she said in a raised voice. By law, zombies had rights equal to those of any human. No action could be taken against one unless it explicitly caused a threat. Although civil rights attorneys had argued that the mere presence of a zombie was not enough to cause a hostile response, the courts had found that any act by a zombie deemed to be harmful to a human could be a cause for termination.

Neil knew that the law would find that a zombie in her backyard was guilty only of trespassing, but that once it got close to the defenseless old people, she would have legal precedent to defend them. “Once you step foot on the porch, I will have right to do what I have to do,” she muttered, not sure if the zombie heard her above the barking dog.

The zombie had no intention of stopping. It could not stop. It wanted only to eat. Eventually the zombie lifted one foot and placed it on the porch. When it raised itself up and landed its second foot on the porch, putting it within three feet of the old man, Neil let loose with both barrels. The blast tore away the top half of the zombie, its parts scattering to Neil’s backyard that opened to the cornfield, and its bottom half teetering for a few seconds before falling back into the weeds surrounding the porch.

The old folks jumped awake at the boom of the blast, and Earl stopped his barking. There was nothing more to see here that any of them had not seen before, however. The old folks drifted back to sleep, and Earl--an old dog of mixed and unknown breeding--- turned and ambled through the open door to lay down inside next to the refrigerator. Neil lowered the shotgun and walked over to inspect the porch near where the zombie had stood. No black blood had splattered the porch deck, which was unfortunate because such evidence would make it an obviously justified shooting. But Neil reckoned that the angle of the blood and guts on the lawn and the position of the zombie's toppled bottom half in the weeds at the base of the porch was enough to make a convincing argument.

Neil went back inside and dialed the sheriff. “Nestor? This is Neil. I just kil't a zombie. Yes, it was self defense. Yes, I did issue him a warnin’, but he jus’ kept comin’. I would say that he is with the Lord now, but I don’ think even the Lord would want him. Okay, I'll be here when you get here.” Neil hung up the phone.

She went back outside and sat down on the porch, her legs hanging over the side. Glancing back at the snoozing old folks and pulling a cigarette from her sleeve, she turned back to survey the carnage, figuring she'd have to do some cleaning with the hose once the sheriff had come and left. "Damn zombies," she complained to herself, and took a deep drag on her cigarette.

My brothers

It's been a long time since I made an entry here. Just got back from a short vacation in Wisconsin with my two brothers, Jon and Bob. Bob has a cabin in Door County....well, technically it's a house, not a cabin. It's a really beautiful place in the middle of the woods about a half mile from a small fresh-water lake and about 2 miles from Lake Michigan. (In photo, Jon is bearded, Bob is in middle, and I am on the right. The photo was taken in '08 at Bob's Wisconsin house.)

It's interesting to note the personality differences in my brothers. Bob is the classic Type A, which Wikipedia defines as follows: "Type A individuals can be described as impatient, time-conscious, concerned about their status, highly competitive, ambitious, business-like, aggressive, having difficulty relaxing." (By the way, I would describe myself as a Type B personality, which Wikipedia defines as "patient, relaxed, and easy-going under-achievers, generally lacking any sense of urgency.")

Jon I would describe as having a passive personality, certainly much more Type B than A (but not B when it comes to "generally lacking any sense of urgency").

The point of all this is to illustrate two examples of the types of personalities that my brothers are.

In the first example, Jon and I were driving up to Wisconsin to meet Bob at his house. We had gotten a late start. It was lunch time and Jon was driving and we searched for a place to get some food. Jon said that any eatery would be fine with him. On the passenger side of the road was a White Castle. I suggested pulling in there because of the easy entry/exit---it would be fast and convenient so that we could get back on the road. Jon said it was fine with him. Later, after we had eaten some greasy burgers, both of our stomachs felt queasy. Jon said, "I don't like eating fast food because it makes me sick." I was floored by his statement, because I too prefer to stay away from fast food. I said, "Then why did we go there?" He replied, "Because you had suggested it."

In the other example, it was days later and I was out to dinner in Wisconsin with Bob (Jon had driven back home earlier in the day). Bob perused the menu and said, "How about an appetizer?" I said sure. He suggested the tuna appetizer. I replied that I don't like tuna. He said, "Okay, we'll get the tuna" and he ordered a plate of it.

So there you have it. A small slice of my brothers, who are pretty far apart on the personality scale.

the Festus guy

Dammit, this sucks. I am on Day 10 of transcribing audio tapes of this guy I interviewed a month ago in New Mexico. I'll be writing a story about the guy, so while I was interviewing him I took notes and had my tape recorder running. I recorded the interview because sometimes the people I talk with will venture into very technical territory and I don't want to screw anything up as I write the story.

Usually there is a woman in my office who does my transcribing, but after I gave her these tapes she came back a day later to return them, complaining that she couldn't understand the guy.

The guy is originally from Texas and has lived most of his life in the southwest. He is incredibly likeable, and humble, and technically brilliant. But for the past 30 years, he and his wife have resided in New Mexico, so he's got that Texas twangy way of speaking. To me, he sounds like Deputy Festus (see photo) from the TV show "Gunsmoke" (if you are old enough to remember).

Festus might talk to Marshall Matt Dillon this way: "I don' aim to be butt'n in, Matth-you, it's just I ain't feelin' worth a hoot!"

This is the way the guy on the tape sounds. So for the past 1o work days, I've been transcribing what it is he is saying. Believe me, it hasn't been easy, and it's been a lot of boring work.

But I am near the end of my journey. Soon the transcribing will be complete, and I will be so thankful for it. As a result of my arduous journey, I am surly and tired and ready to snap, and it's the reason why there haven't been many of my posts lately on this blog site. I've just been too damned busy trying to make sense of the stuff that emanates from the tapes.

I just wish the guy had enunciated his words, had used proper English, and had clipped his many rambling statements. After all, there have been many good and effective communicators from Texas. Why couldn't he have been more like George W. Bush?

the bunny in my backyard

My backyard is huge and fenced in and filled with plants and trees of all types. It is a Garden of Eden. On any morning when the temperature is above freezing and there is no snow on the ground, I can look out a back window of my house and see a collection of wild animals doing whatever it is that nature commands them to do. Usually there are squirrels and rabbits and birds of all sorts (robins, cardinals, blue jays, some hawks....these are the only birds that come to mind, but there are others there, too). On occasion there are chipmunks and skunks, and there probably are raccoons, foxes, and possums that have journeyed through the yard.

Inside the house is my old and overweight dog Chase, a Golden Retriever that at this stage of his life should more aptly be called Lay Down and Sleep. We also have three cats---Oliver, Mia, and Zoey---that are new to our home

Because of a lot of rainfall and some extenuating circumstance in the past two weeks, I haven't been able to cut the grass at my house. Now the grass directly beyond my patio is incredibly overgrown, much more so than the rest of the lawn on my property. I don't know why this happened. Maybe it's because this area received a double dose of fertilizer last year.

In any event, one of the rabbits that lives in my Garden of Eden interpreted the long grass to mean that it was safe to dig a hole there and give birth to a litter of bunnies. The bunnies are newly born, each one barely three inches long and not able to do much but suckle its mother and lay in the nest as it grows.

Now comes the part in this story where my big overweight dog Chase is involved. Yesterday before dusk, I let him out back to take a pee, and he ambled around the area where he usually does his business and discovered the rabbit's nest. The grass is long there, and the mother rabbit thought it was safe.

But it was not. My dog, being a dog, sniffed out the bunnies and thought, "Eureka! Food!" So he gobbled one up in his mouth, gave it a chomp or two but found it not to his liking, and then deposited it still alive right outside my sliding patio door. When I went to let Chase back inside the house, there was the baby rabbit, suffering in pain.

I looked at it from inside the house and thought, What is that? A bunny that Chase chewed up? I called my oldest daughter Faith over. She looked at it and said, "Its guts are hanging out." Upon closer inspection, I realized that she was right. The poor little baby bunny, barely a few inches long, had two puncture wounds on its body. One bite had severed its back and the other had ripped a gash near its butt, from where some innards were protruding.

My dog, being a dog, seemed oblivious to all this. He had done what dogs would naturally do, and now his only interest was in finding a spot inside the house to lay down and sleep.

The bunny, meanwhile, was suffering in silence. Its eyes were closed, but its limbs moved frantically trying to alleviate the pain. I initially had wondered if I should move it back to the nest, but decided that this was pointless.

As the event was unfolding, the thought had occurred to me, "Can the bunny be saved?" I knew that it probably couldn't, that the vet's office would be closed, and that even if I found a vet still open, would I want to pay to have a wild rabbit mended?

I wondered if I should drown the bunny to put it out of its misery, but realized that I couldn't make myself do that. I asked Faith if I should take a heavy decorative stone that we have out back and use it to crush the bunny's skull, and she squealed in horror, "No!" and I knew I certainly wouldn't be able to do that, either.

I ended up looking in the phonebook for a 24-hour vet's office. I asked if there was a way for me to put the bunny out of its misery. The vet, who was 30 minutes away by car, said that I could bring the bunny in and it would be euthanized. But as I was on the phone, I saw that the bunny had stopped moving. I told the vet that nature had taken its course and that the bunny had died.

The death was a relief for me. Hey, I am a meat eater and enjoy cow or pork or chicken or fish almost every day. If someone prepared a fine rabbit dish, I'd probably enjoy that, too. But I didn't want the bunny to suffer, which it was doing in a terrible way. Now that it was dead, I could honestly say that it lifted some of my guilt.

About 30 minutes passed before I decided that it was time for the bunny to be disposed of. In my recycling bin was a plastic container that had once held cookie dough. This would serve as the bunny's coffin.

So I went outside and used the container's lid to scoop the bunny inside the coffin. Surprisingly, I saw the bunny's upper limbs move slightly. So, it wasn't dead yet. But by this time, I knew that the bunny was beyond the grasp of life. I felt sorry for it, but knew that it would have to die in the warmth of its plastic coffin, which I put in the garbage can by the side of my garage.

Life would go on in my own personal Garden of Eden.

On a break

I have not been on vacation, just have been doing other things since my last post. I hope to get something new up here soon. For now, time to go bowling.....!

a joke

The greatest joke of all time:

A forlorn horse walks into a bar and orders a drink.

The bartender asks, "Why the long face?"

the book

When I started this blog site a few weeks ago, a friend asked me if it was for therapeutic reasons. I told him that it was, but I guess that is only a partial response. The rest of the truth is that I am not exactly sure why I started it. Deep down, I think I am hoping that Oprah or David Letterman or someone in power finds my site, that Hollywood comes knocking on my door asking me to write screenplays, and that agents and book publishers flood me with offers that I can't refuse.

When I was young, I honestly thought the day would come when I would write the Great American Novel. I carried that belief for decades, but truth is I never embarked on the journey because, as I frequently told people, I didn't know what to write about.

In my mind, the great books have to be outlined long before the pen hits the paper (or, in this era, the fingers hit the keyboard). The characters have to be fully developed, the reasons for their existence explained, the plot carefully crafted, and each chapter detailed so that the writer knows which direction he or she is heading when the writing actually begins.

I could never do all that, I told myself. So the dream of writing a book was put off for a later time. But then in the past decade or so, I took notice of a number of nonfiction books written about how to write a book. These books declared that you really didn't need an idea, or characters that were developed, or have an inkling of how the book would unfold as the chapters rolled by. The key, these book claimed, was that all of this would happen naturally.

Still, I have not progressed past the first few pages of writing a book. In November each year, there is an online contest in which countless participants take part in writing their books. There is no prize for writing one, just the personal satisfaction of completing the job. The contest urges people on by offering online support groups, and word-count devices, and forums where chapters of your book can be posted. I have started these writing journeys a few times in the past, but have not gotten beyond a few days, all because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be writing about. My dream has died during these Novembers, and I haven't even started the contest in the two most recent years because I know how it will end. I just don't have an idea for a book.

Perhaps I should study the classics more and try to emulate the techniques of the masters. There is Twain, Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Ayn Rand, Virginia Wolf, and so many more. The best way to begin is to copy what someone else has done to find success.

"It was a dark and stormy night...."

the bad guy

I watched a movie the other day from 1992 called "Bad Lieutenant" about a corrupt NYC cop, starring Harvey Keitel. As the movie opens, the viewer takes a liking to Harvey because he is such a tough and hard-nosed SOB of a cop, someone who would give real shit to the bad guys.

But then as the movie continues, the viewer sees Harvey as indeed "bad" as the title foretells, as he sinks into a morass of all that is lousy in the world: He's a crook, a drunk, a cheater on his wife, a gambler, and a big-time drug user.

In one scene, Harvey has just shot up some heroine, and after groping around with some female heroine friends, he stands naked in a corner. I don't know why this scene is in the movie. I suspect it's because Harvey wanted it to be. The movie would have been just fine without it in depicting Harvey as a horrible human being, i.e., his drug use, his gambling, his drinking, etc. But this scene....why? I think it's because he thought it elevated his stature as an actor, as if his Hollywood peers would be left thinking, "Hey, Harvey Keitel is standing naked in a movie. Wow, he must really love his art to do that!" and Harvey thinking, "Fuck you, this is what us great actors do for our craft!"

I'm not trying to take anything away from Harvey. As I calculated things, Harvey was in his early 50s when this movie was made, and believe me, he is in shape like a tough mother fucka. I don't know much about Harvey's career, but from that naked scene, it looks like he was some kind of serious athlete his whole life. Plus, there's the case of Harvey's dick being on display for the whole world to see as he just stands there during that scene. That steers back to my earlier statement about him elevating his stature. Harvey is by no means short on stuff down there, if you know what I mean, but at the same time he appears to me to be rather average. So it's got to be the whole "Hey, I'm Harvey Keitel, I'm a bad ass and hung like a porn star, so fuck you!" attitude that I think he has.

The movie as a whole is a good one, and I am sure that it received good reviews when it was released back in '92. But there had to be others like me who were irritated as hell by Harvey's action late in the film. What I am talking about is when Harvey's character reaches the stage when he is a dead man walking. At this point, when he gets really distressed, he cringes his face and emits an irritating "E-e-e-e-e-e-e...." sound that just grates on the nerves. It lasts for minutes it seems, and I am just glad that I had the movie TiVoed so I could fast forward past these scenes.

In any event, if you haven't seen the movie, it's worth your hour and a half. Just be prepared for some naked Harvey and some irritating Harvey. And I hope that if he ever reads this, he doesn't come beat me up, naked.

my mom

My mom is old and in the process of dying. Tomorrow, Thursday, I am scheduled to fly to Albuquerque to attend a "black-tie optional" function at night for the grand opening the next day of a new nuclear technology museum. On Friday, after touring the museum for a few hours, I'll fly back home.

I hope my mom will be all right while I'm gone. Today I received a phone call from her caregiver, who was frantic because the previous night had been tough on my mom. The caregiver is Polish, and I don't speak much Polish. All I know is that it was a tough night, which means my mom was struggling for breath and was in pain. My mom has what is called end-stage heart disease, so however long she's got on this earth, it's guaranteed that she's not going to get better, like someone with pneumonia might recover.

About five years ago I had to go to New Orleans for work. Upon my return to Chicago, as soon as my plane touched down at the airport, I turned on my cell phone and learned that my mom had suffered a heart attack and stroke. She has been living on borrowed time ever since. I think that, at least according to how the doctor spoke to my brothers and me five years ago, she was supposed to be dead back then. That she has survived this long is some sort of miracle.

She has had incidents over the past five years---gasping for breath, lungs filling with fluid---where we thought she was a goner. But she has always bounced back. I am hoping that she does the same thing this time, yet I know she is living on borrowed time. I am just hoping that nothing happens while I am gone in Albuquerque. I would hate to lose my mom while I was away. When her time comes, I hope I have time to say a final good bye. She is my mom, and I will miss her, and I love her. It's a tough part of life, this part about dying.

the big stink

I am busy at work today and am really into it. The adrenaline is flowing. The endorphins have kicked in and I'm feeling good. The articles that I need to write are being written.

At least, that's how it's gone for most of the day. What has changed in the last few moments is that it really stinks in here now because of a foul smell coming into my office.

The source of the smell is a co-worker in a nearby office. The co-worker loves to eat, and the food is usually foul smelling. So, from being in a good mood and working hard at my desk, I am now in a foul mood and not working.

The co-worker is a large person, and there are usually large plates of food sitting on the co-worker's desk. I sometimes imagine that if this were a different work place populated by high-powered people, there would be no plates of stinky food sitting around.

But that's not how it is here. The co-worker piles the plate with food and then generously tops it with some spice, the smell of which wafts into the air and throughout the whole area and into the individual offices of the other co-workers like me.

I have complained to the higher-ups here, but have had no success. Perhaps they are afraid that the company will be sued by the co-worker for some new injustice that would be recognized today by the courts. I mean, you can't go around saying "Hey, fatty" to a fat person or else you'll end up in front of a judge. The same probably goes for persons who enjoy stinky food. If I were to say anything nasty to the co-worker, perhaps I would be in violation of some new "gastrically challenged" law meant to protect these people. (They vote too, ya know.)

In the past, I have made polite comments to the co-worker about the offensive smell of the food, but they have been rebuffed. In the co-worker's eyes, the ranking seems to be "food-God-country," so it doesn't seem likely that the plates of food will be disappearing anytime soon.

I have an old desk fan in my office that I plan on using to blow away the smell. If people ask me why the fan is on my desk pointed toward my office door and blowing out, I'll be matter of fact about it: "Because it stinks in here!"

It boggles me that the smell problem is allowed to happen. If I were to light up a cigarette, someone would be up here complaining in a jiffy, for sure. But I wonder what would happen if I squatted over an empty plate and then took a crap on it and left it sitting on my desk all day? Would people complain? Perhaps I could use the excuse that I am rectally challenged. Rectally challenged people vote too, ya know.

almost quitting time

Today is one of those days when I sit at my desk shifting stuff from one side to the other. Fact is that I don't want to do any work today. I am bored. I am restless. I wish my job were as exciting as those jobs I see other people do on TV and in the movies. Plenty of jobs suck, we all know that, but there has to be something that is exciting all of the time. Constant excitement might be too much, of course. Contentment is probably better. Then again, some would argue that contentment means not living up to one's abilities.

In my job, there are highs and lows. It might be hard to believe, but it's true. When I try to explain this to my wife, she laughs. My wife is a nurse who works in the intensive care unit at a hospital. People are living or dying there every day. Miracles happen constantly. Someone expected to die somehow pulls through. My wife deals with this all of the time.

In contrast, the greatest challenge in my job might be picking a place to go for lunch each day. There are deadlines in my job, however. The deadlines arrive twice per month, and they are there so that my work must be done by the time they show up. When I find myself two or three weeks out from deadline, in my mind that deadline is not really there. Only when the deadline actually nears does the adrenaline start pumping in my body. With the deadline looming, I am probably putting myself at stress, and doctors would advise me to try to work on a more even keel by spreading the workload out over the weeks before deadline. I'd have less stress, they'd say.

But that's just not how I operate. It's the same way with my dentist. Every time I go to see him, he advises me to lay off the Diet Coke because it rots my teeth. But in my world, laying off the Diet Coke means drinking only half a case a day instead of the whole case.

I guess as I type this blog today, it's a way of keeping myself from doing actual work. It's a delaying device. Seems that I will use any tactic available to keep me from my job.

But the deadline is looming again and I really should start doing stuff I have to do. I can already feel the angst building up. I'll be wishing that I had started my work sooner instead of waiting until the last minute. I'll be telling myself that if I stretched my work out more evenly, I'd be able to produce more copy and of better quality.

But that is something for another day, I think. I can definitely start it tomorrow. When I get into the office tomorrow, I'll turn on my computer and start working from the get-go.

But for today, it's only a few hours until quitting time. No sense jumping into a project when I know that I won't have long to devote to it. It's better if I prepare now for a quick start tomorrow. I should go through my papers and make piles so that tomorrow I'll know what is priority and what is not. Then again, maybe I can put that job off for another hour or so. Seems like there is always something else that can take up my time.

Hey, did I tell you that I bowled a 289 the other day?

a story about bowling

I bowled a 289 game last night. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but to me it meant a lot. My ball was really working, and as the strikes piled up on the scoresheet, I told myself that there was no reason why I couldn't shoot a 300 game. Of course, the 10th frame tested my nerves, but I told myself to stay controlled and not speed things. If there is anything that has plagued my game over the years, it is that I usually get to the line a split second before I am supposed to. It means my timing is off and I rush my arm through and don't get the natural extension and lift on the ball that drives it to the pocket.

In any event, my 10th ball of the game was a good one, hooking into the pocket and knocking all the pins down. My nerves on the throw were amped up, so I didn't lift the ball like I had in the previous nine frames, but still the ball was good enough to do its job.

Then with my 11th shot, I noticed how everyone on the lanes surrounding me was watching. I tried to block that out of my mind as I lined up for my shot. I told myself to be in control and I started my approach. I was only two shots away from a 300. I could do this, I told myself. But I noticed that my legs seemed a bit stiff, which I attributed to nerves. My timing was still solid, but my body's tension disallowed full extension. The result was that I didn't lift the ball like I did previously in the game. The ball crossed over my mark and started breaking for the pocket. When I had first released it, I thought immediately that it would be a weak ball, but then when I saw it going for the pocket, I told myself that yes, a 300 game was possible.

The ball smashed into the pocket, but because I didn't have proper lift, there was no drive to the ball. Instead, it deflected around the 5 pin---that's the one directly in the center behind the 1 pin---and suddenly my dream was over. A friend who I told this story to this morning said that the 5 pin standing there by itself was like the bowling gods giving me the finger. But I can't blame anyone but myself, because the fact is that I just didn't lift the ball on my throw.

One guy on my team, who has bowled a handful of 300 games, commented afterward that if I'd never thrown a perfect game before---which I hadn't---then I needed this game to prepare me for the next time I put a string of strikes together to get me to the 10th frame.

Perhaps I am just writing this post for posterity, so that someday a grandchild of mine can find it on the Web and realize that his grandpa almost shot a 300 one time. Or, perhaps, in the next couple weeks, I'll be writing in a blog that the 289 game had prepared me for the 300 that I just shot, as my teammate had said.

By the way, my other games for the night were 185 and 225. Add everything up and it's a 699 series. That's just one pin away from a 700 series, which I have never shot. So, with fingers crossed, here's hoping that I get to post another blog item soon about climbing that peak, too.

big birds

On my drive to get a hamburger for lunch yesterday, I noticed a group of giant birds sitting on top of a double-sided billboard. The billboard was next to an expressway I was traveling. When I first noticed the birds, I couldn't believe how big and how many they were. Without really thinking, the image of giant eagles popped in my head. There are no eagles around Chicago, of course, so that image quickly fell away. Hawks? Must be, I thought.

As I neared the billboard, I realized that the birds were plastic fakes. I wondered why they were up there. I've seen fake owls sitting in gardens and at the tops of buildings to scare away other birds. But why scare birds away from a billboard? Was there a poop problem? I never noticed other billboards with that problem. Some old buildings have had it, from years and years of birds roosting and pooping. But a billboard? Never saw a messy one.

The giant advertising sign that was posted on the one side of the billboard was for a car dealer or something. Certainly nothing to do with birds, or poop. So I zoomed by the billboard, the novelty of the giant birds being lost already, continuing on my way to my destination.

On my return trip, all of a sudden that same billboard caught my eye. The fake birds were still perched on top. This time, however, the advertising on my side of the billboard was related to the birds. I can't say it was effective advertising, because I don't remember exactly what it was for, a CPA or financial firm or similar. The tag line was "We keep all your birds in order." Above that tag line were the names of the types of birds sitting on top. To the left it said "crows" and there were three fake crows sitting above it. In the middle it said "pigeons" and there were three fake pigeons above that. And on the right, there was another bird named, with three of those type sitting above.

As I think about it now, maybe it is effective advertising after all. I am remembering the birds. I am writing about the billboard. Although I can't remember exactly what the advertising is for, I am sure that the next time I travel the expressway I will be looking for the sign. I am sure that for the drivers who travel the expressway every day, the name of the company doing the advertising in ingrained in their minds by now.

I bet the workmen who had to put that sign up are glad that the birds aren't real. Think of the amount of poop they'd have to work around.

for lunch

For lunch today I drove 20 minutes to a place called Five Guys hamburgers. I'd read about it in a Q&A interview of a national baseball writer, who was asked to name his favorite places to eat while on the road. Five Guys was one of them.

I Googled the place and found that Five Guys is a chain, and that there are several of them in the Chicagoland area where I live. The closest one to my work place is in the city of Oak Park, less than 6 miles away, so that's where I went for lunch.

I'd never heard of Five Guys and didn't know what to expect. I was thinking it would be like McDonald's, with a drive-thru window and a big parking lot, but it wasn't anything like that. The Five Guys that I visited is located in a storefront on a semi-busy street. I was lucky to find street parking, but had to feed a meter so that I wasn't ticketed. Once inside Five Guys, I ordered up at the counter like everyone else, and then picked up my food when it was ready. Everything comes served in a brown sack, even if the plan is to eat in.

The decor of the place is simple, just tables and chairs and a counter along the wall if the tables are full. No booths, no waitpersons. The color scheme is red and white. Signs adorning the place have quotes from newspapers across the country, declaring "Best hamburger ever!" I don't know if that's true, but it is a good hamburger and fries. I ordered a small hamburger, which in fact isn't small. I'd done some pre-lunch research and found that a "regular" hamburger at Five Guys contains 70o calories. A "regular" serving of french fries is 620 calories. If you add cheese or mayo to anything, that's more calories.

The small hamburger isn't small in the way that a White Castle hamburger is small. The Five Guys small hamburger also dwarves McDonald's regular hamburger. I explain this so you realize that calling something "small" doesn't necessarily make it so.

I recently walked into a Wendy's to get a Diet Coke. I asked how big the "medium" drink was. The countergirl responded that the "medium" cup is what used to be the "large" cup, and the "small" is what used to be the "medium." I guess now the large size is as big as a bucket.

But back to Five Guys. The small hamburger was plenty enough, at 480 calories. I ordered a "small" fries, too, which isn't small, either, in that it filled up half my bag. I ate only half of the fries, however, which I figure was 310 calories. There were also free peanuts at all the tables, and I had a handful of those. So, what, gotta figure it was a 1000-calorie lunch, don't you think?

My rating for Five Guys is a big thumbs up. Is it the best hamburger I've ever had? Probably not, but it's very good, and fresh, and the foreign guy who handed me my bag of food looked me in the eye and seemed sincere in thanking me for coming in. That right there counts for something.

a good show

Why do the phones never work on the TV show "24" when you want them to? You could almost set your clock by how predictable the show is during certain situations, such as when the phone works or not. On one hand, Jack Bauer (the show's hero) could be 10 miles below ground and only 2 minutes beyond surviving a nuclear blast, but somehow his phone would work if the scene called for it. On the other hand, if a whole crisis could be settled with one phone call, then Jack's phone would be out of order. "They've jammed the frequencies!" he'd proclaim.

This is just an observation, not a complaint. I love the show and will miss it when it's finally gone. I love how it brings back past characters that haven't been seen in a long time. Remember that likable secret service agent who was in a handful of episodes in Season 3? Well, there he is again, popping up for a few scenes this season. It's like seeing an old friend again.

The character I miss now is the show's first president, a big and strong figure who just happened to be black. I've heard jokes about how the show actually paved the way for the U.S. to elect Barrack Obama, because white voters were made comfortable by seeing how effective a black president could be on "24". I thought that the actor who played the president was named Dennis Hastert, but it strikes me now that Dennis Hastert is the name of a retired GOP politician from Illinois.

There has been a whole handful of presidents on "24". There was the first one--the black guy--and then the current one (a woman). There was the Dick Nixon look-alike. There was the actor who played Rev. Jim Jones in the late '70s TV movie. Jim Jones was the guy who convinced all his followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid at his church compound in Africa. (They all died.) There was the second black president, who was the brother of the first black president. There had to be a few more that I've forgotten about.

One thing I got a kick out of during a past season was when there was a nuclear blast in California. The location might have been Los Angeles. I didn't get a kick out of the blast going off, of course, but by the fact that in a later episode there was a scene of people at a crowded intersection just going about their way, waiting for stoplights and window shopping and that sort of thing. That was actual real life, of course, meaning that the people who produce "24" just positioned their cameras to film a generic background in the city. But c'mon, do you think that if a nuclear blast went off in your town, you'd be stopping for some window shopping? Well, neither would I.

the end of the road

In 15 minutes I am leaving to take my mother-in-law to the airport. She is flying to St. Louis to attend the funeral of a sister-in-law. It's about the fourth time in a year that she's flown down there. Seems like all of her brothers and sisters and their spouses are dying.

I wonder how this reality will play on my psyche when it is my generation's time to go. When you're young, the thought of getting old and dying is so foreign. When I was young, most of my older relatives were living to really ripe old ages. When you're a young adult and someone in the family is 50 years older than you and they are still doing fine, well, it can leave you feeling immortal.

That's how I felt once upon a time. I was 20, then 25, then 30, then even reached 40 and I was fine. All the relatives were still living. But then when I reached 45, they started dying off on me. It just made me realize how all on the clock we are.

Something peculiar that I found myself doing on two separate occasions was saying a final good-bye to an old person that I knew I'd never see again. One person was my brother's father-in-law Sam, who was in his mid to late 70s and looked like the picture of health but who had terminal cancer. Sam was clever and quick witted, had been a college professor, and was a WW II veteran. According to my brother, he was a great story teller. I would see Sam perhaps once a year, at a kid's birthday party. On this one occasion, my brother had filled me in on Sam's pending fate, so that when the party was breaking up and people were leaving to go home, I shook Sam's hand and gave him a sincere "Good-bye, it's been great to know you." I didn't mean to be so maudlin, and I was disappointed in myself for making my sorrow so obvious. But Sam didn't catch on right away. At first, his reaction was, "Why so melodramatic? I'm only going home!" But then within a few seconds he realized that I was saying a final fairwell to him, and he gave a resigned "Yes, yes, good-bye." Of course, I felt like a fool for making Sam think about his ultimate doom.

The other person I did this to was my Aunt Sophie. She was not a blood relative, but had married my Uncle Al, who had recently died. Sophie was in her 80s and her health was diminishing fast, although she too had a sharp mind like Sam's. On this certain occasion, we were at a bbq at my brother's house. Same scenario, party was breaking up, people going home. Sophie was offering farewells to everyone, and when it came my turn I gave her a firm hug and a kiss on the cheek, and a solemn "Good-bye, Sophie." But Sophie was aware of what was going on. She knew her fate. I didn't catch her off guard like I had caught Sam. She gave me a thin smile and a knowing "good bye." Then her grandkids helped her to the car. Within a few weeks, Sophie was dead.

In my life as I play it forward in my mind, one of the saddest parts is having to say good bye to my three girls. They will be adults by the time I go (I hope I live another 30+ years!) and based on our lives together so far, I am sure that we will love each other for the rest of the time we have together. It just makes me sad to think that I will make my girls sad by delivering them the disappointment of my death.

more power to us

Let's kill two birds with one stone. Projections say that the population in the United States will keep growing and that we'll need an abundance of electric power to keep everybody happy. Environmentalists are generally against adding more fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants, and smart people know that solar and wind power will provide only a fraction of the power that we need. So, that's a problem.

Then there is the problem of dealing with the government's deficit that keep growing. As time passes, more and more people will need some sort of financial assistance, and it doesn't look like things will get better.

Let's use both of those problems to find a solution. Here's what we do:

• We create, all over the country, giant stationary bike centers run by federal contractors. The bikes would be attached to a common axle that would connect to generators that ultimately would feed the electricity grid. The axles would turn only when people were on the bikes spinning the pedals.

• Who would these people be? They would be those getting government assistance each month. Why would they pedal? Because it would be the only way they would get their monthly stipend from the government.

I am not talking about 40 hours a week on the stationary bike. The only requirement would be one hour a month. How many people get government assistance? Probably millions. So, for one hour a month, those folks would have to go in and pedal a bike. Pedaling also could be done as ordered by a court as a form of punishment, or on a voluntary basis. An added benefit would be that jobs would be created, because Congress would mandate that only U.S.-made stationary bikes could be used in the stationary bike centers. So, bike manufacturers would pop up throughout the United States.

If we got millions of people each month powering generators, that would be a lot of "green" electricity that could be supplied to the nation.

There are all kinds of loopholes in this idea, I know. Ambulance-chasing lawyers would have a whole new field opened up to them: "Your honor, my client injured his thigh muscles while pedaling a defective bike...." Drug addicts, old people, kids, the injured, the afflicted, etc. would not be able to pedal a bike. Some percentage actually would drop dead from peddling. There would be valid reasons to be excused. But, c'mon, what healthy and sane person couldn't offer one hour a month? By employing this method, we would be killing those two birds with one stone: Putting people back to "work" and providing the nation with "green" electricity.

The stationary bike idea would work only in a perfect world. But what a better world it would be.

a movie

Last night I saw the movie Watchmen and it was like no superhero movie I had ever seen. From what I know of its reviews, the movie has garnered more bad comments than good, although one prominent critic--Roger Ebert--gave it four stars. I won't say whether I liked the movie or not, or whether it is good or bad, because I don't want to color your judgment before you have a chance to see it. I will say it is dark and brutal, and it cleverly assumes that you know the backgrounds of the movie characters just as you know about Superman and Spider Man, because these latter two have been part of our culture as we've grown up.

A few times I found myself gnashing my teeth during the movie because of its depiction of nuclear power as "a bad guy." I will reveal that the movie shows electric utility executives as corpulent and chortling, and that one of the superheros chastises them for pushing (cue the ominous music) "fossil fuels and nuclear power" on the world. In the movie, these fuels are bad things, of course, and the superhero is engaged in searching for the ultimate clean energy solution, which will have the result of ending all the world's wars.

I will admit here that I am employed by the nuclear industry. I have found that the reason why most people fear nuclear power is because it is a complex technology that is largely beyond their current knowledge. Few have taken time to learn about it. I have always likened the public's reaction to it the same as how the villagers react to the "monster" in the movie Frankenstein. The villagers see the immense creation, are afraid of it, and want to kill it. Yet, the monster is shown in scenes as being capable of being tamed. Logically then, with its great strength, the monster could be put to purposes to serve the villagers if only they realized that potential. So it is with nuclear power. Strong and dangerous, yet capable of being tamed to serve mankind.

It just galls me that much of the entertainment offered on TV and in the movies seems to depict nuclear as the bad guy. My time on the soapbox could go on and on, but I will end now by urging you to seek out some honest information about nuclear. How much better the world could be if truths were told.

true story

The following really happened and is an ongoing story. At home we had cable TV for years, but then the monthly expense kept getting higher and higher. We realized that for the hundreds of channels offered, there were only a handful that we actually watched. We called the cable company, which I'll call Company A, and complained about the price, but they said take it or leave it, so we left it.

We turned to another company, Company B, which installs the big dish on the outside of your home. It is an okay service, and the monthly bills are cheaper than the cable bills. The DVR system that came with the dish service was confusing, but we got the hang of it.

Then about two months ago, our Internet service, which was provided by yet another big company (Company C), went screwy. It seems that Company C, which also provided phone service to our home, had made an auto upgrade to its Internet system. The upgrade affected our wireless router so that we were no longer able to get on line on our computers. We called Company C about five times, but they were unable to fix the problem. Finally, frustrated, we canceled Company C's service.

We went back to Company A, which had previously provided us with cable TV. This time it was not to re-order cable TV, but only to get Internet and phone service. The company's workman came out and installed what he had to install. Then the following sequence occurred:

• By installing his new equipment, Company A's serviceman knocked out some of Company B's dish signals to our TVs.
  
• We called the dish people (Company B) to come out and fix things. The dish serviceman came out and fixed the TVs, but within a day Company A's phone and Internet services went dead, because he had crossed the lines of the dish equipment with those of the phone/Internet equipment.
• We got back on the phone with Company A to come out and fix things. The Company A serviceman came out and did his repairs, but in the process he did something to Company B's dish equipment so that the signal no longer reached the TV in our bedroom.
• We got back on the phone with Company B to come out and fix things. The Company B serviceman came out and after much investigation he proclaimed that the problem was that Company A's phone/Internet service and Company B's dish service were trying to share the same line. His suggested solution was to drill holes in the front of our house right outside our bedroom and have a black cable hanging down. The black cable would run from our bedroom TV out through the wall and then down the front of our house where it would ultimately snake to the back of the house where it would connect to the dish. We told him no thanks, the eye sore was not needed.

So, we are going to wait until our "dish contract" with Company B runs out in early April and then we will cancel service and go back to cable TV (Company A), which we probably shouldn't have left in the first place. When that happens, Company A will be our provider for Internet, cable TV, and home phone service. Hopefully, the company won't screw things up.

The bigger the world becomes, the more inept and unconcerned the larger companies seem to be. Having dish TV at the same time as having home phone/Internet service should not be a hard thing to do. Apparently, nothing is easy anymore.

the singing fish

McDonald’s is running a TV commercial for its fillet of fish sandwich that shows a frumpy guy sitting in what looks like a messy garage. On the wall is a mounted rubber fish. As the guy starts eating his McDonald’s sandwich, the fish starts moving and singing, bending itself forward so that its head comes away from the wall plaque where it is mounted. In the commercial’s background is catchy beat music, with the fish singing---mouth open, mouth closed, mouth open, mouth closed---about the sandwich the guy is eating.

I’m not sure what the fish is singing, but I think it’s “Give me back that fillet o’ fish, give me that fish!” It keeps repeating itself throughout the commercial as another guy comes into the garage and exchanges glances with the first guy. All the while the music is playing and the fish is singing. That's all there is to the commercial, which basically ends with "Buy a McDonald's sandwich now."

I would dismiss the commercial if it weren’t for the fact that I was driving home one night after a poker game and a guy on the radio was saying how much he loved that commercial. He said he couldn’t get the catchy jingle out of his head, and he kept punctuating his talk by singing the fish’s line: “Give me back that fillet o’ fish, give me that fish!” It made me want to see the commercial again.

Here it is days later and I’ve since seen the commercial on TV and now I can’t get it out of my head: “Give me back that fillet o’ fish, give me that fish!” I took the bait and now I've been hooked. I haven't been to McDonald's yet, but I'm sure I will, probably to buy one of those fish sandwiches. That, my friends, is effective advertising.

the monkey method

I am like the monkey that picks winners in the stock market. The difference is that I do it in an online fantasy golf league, which I joined because a friend runs it. Like the monkey, my success is due purely to blind luck. The league is set up so that each week a league member uses “$1 million” (or points) to pick a team comprised of five professional golfers. Based on how these golfers perform in a real-life tournament each week, points are assigned to the teams in the fantasy league. The better your golfer plays, the more points your team gets. The team with the highest number of points is the league’s winner for the week.

So far, my team has performed amazing well through the use of what I will call the monkey method. I will assume that the monkey picking the stocks has no idea what it is actually doing. The monkey just goes down a list of company names and makes random picks. As this occurs, some clever human—representing a TV station, probably—films the monkey’s actions and follows the progress of the stocks. When the stocks perform well, the TV person goes on air and proclaims, “Aha! Even a monkey can pick winners!”

So, I am that monkey, except I do it for the golf league and there is no camera. Every week I go to the league’s website and scroll down the list of golfers’ names, randomly picking five of them until I use up my $1 million. While others in the league may mull over selecting John Smith ahead of Pablo Gonzalez, I don’t do that. Fact is, if there actually were a John Smith or Pablo Gonzalez on the golf tour, I wouldn’t know about them because my interest in golf bottomed out about a decade ago. Others may agonize over picking their teams each week, but my process takes less than a minute.

I am not bragging here, just reporting facts. So far, in a golf season that is probably five weeks old, my team has won a week’s play on two occasions, and my overall point total for those five weeks has placed me in the league’s number 1 spot.

Blind luck? Certainly, because there is no other explanation. The only caveat is that when Tiger Woods is healthy and playing, I usually pick him for my team. Everyone knows of Tiger Woods, of course. Selecting him is akin to putting a banana next to a company’s name on the stock sheet. Even a monkey would make that pick.

American Idol

Today I am tired and cranky and don't want to write whatever it is that I am writing here. Perhaps it is because I am exhausted from the emotionally draining American Idol episode last night. Who will stay, who will go home? Will the blind guy make it through after his bland performance? Will the east Indian guy get enough votes from his home land? And what was with the pretty girl singing "Rockin' Robin," one of the worst songs of all time?

Okay, as I type this, I realize that what started as a satire has morphed into reality. It's true, I do watch American Idol. I alone am guilty of this foolish pleasure. I can't blame it on my kids, because they drift in and out of the room whenever the show is on, unconcerned with whether the channel is changed or not. But every week, there we are, my wife and I, in front of the TV watching as some pretty mediocre performers warble on stage.

It's a good thing that we have TiVo or whatever Dish TV calls its recording option. It allows us to zip through most of the performances until the end, when the judges offer their sobriquets or lob their bricks.

For the record---swallowing my pride here, I guess---let it be known that of American Idol's eight seasons, this is only 2.5 for us. That means we've watched only two seasons and are now half way through the third. So while we're hooked on the show this season, it's not like we're American Idol junkies.

I will close by saying "Bring back Ju'not!" If you know what I'm talking about, then you watch American Idol too.

baseball

Five things I learned while looking at box scores from the World Baseball Classic on Monday, March 9:

1. The Koreans had six position players in the game with the last name of Lee.

2. Stubby Clapp is still playing baseball, for the Canadian team.

3. Of the 14 players who appeared for the Italian team, only two of them had names that didn't end in a vowel, and those two--De Santis and Cooper--don't sound Italian.

4. The team from the Netherlands has a 1-1 record. Just who did they beat?

5. A guy named Ngoepe and another guy named Botha play for the South Africans. That makes sense.

World baseball. Gotta love it.

the submariner

I had lunch the other day with Maciek, the Polish caregiver who looked after my dad at the end of his life. Maciek has a very limited grasp of the English language, and I have even less of Polish. Somehow, we are still able to communicate.

Maciek, who's in his late 50s, was reminiscing about his days as a sailor aboard a Polish submarine. On this one occasion, he said, the sub was pulling into a busy port in France. I assume it was for a refueling and some R&R for those on board. Sailors topside on the sub offered friendly nods to sailors on subs from other nations that had come into port. Poles waved to Americans, Americans waved to Russians, Russians waved to Poles. This camaraderie is common among servicemen, he said.

The exception is the relationship between the Poles and Germans. Old wounds are still open from WW II days. When the subs of those two nations passed each other in the port, the Polish sailors placed the tips of their first two fingers under their noses, representing nubs of a mustache on their upper lips, while crying out "Hilter! Hitler!" This upset the Germans, of course, who offered back clenched fists and expletives from their angry faces.

Maciek laughed as he related this story, acting it out as he went along, perhaps embarrassed by his foibles of youth. I laughed too, because the situation he described is funny, the fact that the young German sailors who weren't even born when Hitler was alive would have to wear the albatross around their necks in peace time, and that the young Polish sailors would not let them forget it.

the zoo

Went for a walk today at lunch at Brookfield Zoo. With temps over 70 degrees, the zoo was a popular place to be. There were lots of moms with not-yet-in-school kids, some retired folks, but not many animals, at least not outside in the viewing areas.

Not too many people wanted to go inside the animal buildings on such a beautiful day. The whole point of being at the zoo on such a day is to be outside, to welcome the coming spring. I am not a fan of hot weather, but being in the reasonable warmth of the sun felt good.

One thing I learned while at the zoo is that March 1 is National Pig Day. God bless the pig. He tastes so good with a little mustard between two slices of rye bread.

A lot of construction activity is going on at the zoo. They are building a new outdoor area named the Great Bear Wilderness, scheduled to open in 2010. On the display sign announcing the new area there are photos and silhouettes of wolves, bison, and some kind of elk, in addition to the bears. But why are those other animals pictured there? Are the bears going to eat them?

my first blog entry

Okay, here we go. I've just returned from a walk at lunch. Nice day today, sunny, high 50s. It's March 5, so that's a good temp. This is my first blog post. I dunno what I am supposed to say. I notice the little icons at the top of the margin as I type this. One icon is an eraser. Another is a small photo. A third looks like a piece of film. I suspect they are used for deleting, posting photos, and posting video. My god, I am catching on quick.

Tonite is bowling. I've been doing that every year for about 25 years, I think. Well, I haven't bowled every nite for 25 years, but every Thursday nite during the bowling season, it's off to the lanes I go. It's the camaraderie more than anything else. My average is about 185. I'd like to get to 200, but I dunno if I'll ever get there.

Have to go. Support nuclear power!