A shot glass and a piece of chalk

The idea of shots of jaeger always sounds better in the preparation and the implementation but not so good in the day after explanation and in some cases regurgitation. In hindsight after the miserable day after hangover which seems to last an eternity and much longer than the fun the night prior we can appreciate the night out more than regret it. Good times with friends don't always have to have shot glasses raised but it doesn't hurt, at least not too much...

A great friend is leaving the country and on a voyage to another land. In the olden days of the 18th or 19th century it would be goodbye forever. Nowadays with Facebook and virtual communities which seem more vibrant than actual cities people live in, it's more likely I'll check your profile next week. Still it is sad to see a friend go even though the opportunity to experience other parts of the world is something we should all be fortunate enough to embrace. There is a ton out there to see, beyond the confines of the cities we were born and raised in.

It's interesting how certain people or friends can impact our lives. First impressions aren't always the best ones to go upon. Sometimes great friendships build over time and sometimes they don't exist at all. The one thing I appreciate is perspective and depth. People that are curious to the world we live in and how we reflect upon that world are people we need more of. It seems that too often we fail to challenge ourselves and take the safe path instead of the bold path. It doesn't mean you have to take drastic actions in life decisions, it can simply mean picking up a book that reflects a different perspective than your own. Another way to see things is a better way to understand if we are seeing them clearly at all.

One analogy for myself I always go back to is a chalkboard. I remember growing up before white boards, yes I'm that old, when teachers wrote with chalk on chalkboards. If they wrote one word we could focus on it and absorb it. Yet, if they continued writing that word was harder to focus on, we would start to train our eyes on the words that best fit us in our minds. If the board was full of words then maybe none of the words stuck with us and we were just overwhelmed by the volume of words. Our minds cluttered with the meaningless and less important information. Or maybe we would get transfixed by the different color chalk. The point is, our minds are like the chalk board. We may have something important we should be focusing on but the day to day inundates us with the meaningless. Pretty soon that one word message that should be what drives us gets buried under the powder of chalk.

There are important friends in our lives, there are important conversations, there are important moments, and there is a lot of dust and powder. It is up to us to determine what sticks with us and what resonates in our lives after the dust settles.

De mist, La niebla, The Fog

The major problem with fog is that you can't see in it. The view is obstructed, more so than snow, sleet, rain, or hail. Even the mailman's creed doesn't guarantee that you will receive your mail in this element. In Adventures in Odyssey, the character Wooton Bassett said the mailman motto is: "Rain or shine, snow or sleet, we deliver your mail! (But sunny days are optional...)" He should have added "and fog?..your shit out of luck bud."

Fog, or de mist in Dutch, has romanticized, horrified, and mesmerized us for centuries. It has also wreaked havoc on travel, caused countless accidents, and most recently denied my paycheck's arrival by several days. This is a combination of my head being in de mist for the last two weeks and not setting up direct deposit into my account the way I should have already. Instead I have been awaiting paper delivery in which la niebla has decided will not happen just yet. Today the rain was supposed to wash away this lingering wall of gray but it has only pushed it back a few feet. It's still there ready to pull forward once more, like walls closing in, and surrounding oneself in a fortress of isolation. Almost as if caught in a shimmering web of time, unaware of what lie ahead or what was left behind.

I remember growing up in the fog in the San Joaquin Valley. We didn't get the snow nor much rain, we just got drowned in layers of dense fog. It was almost as if you could scoop it away with your hands the stuff was so thick. On family trips we would go to the central California coast and go deep sea fishing off Morro Bay. The tiny fishing vessel would get lost in the fog a few miles off shore. You would feel as if you were adrift in the middle of the ocean. Behind the fog Jaws could be ready to pounce, a giant octopus could be surfacing, or a pirate ship itself lost in time could be slowly creeping up. All those await behind the uncertainty which is what la niebla represents most of all. Once it clears and the sun melts it away it is not a shark but a seal, nor a pirate ship but a buoy and we feel relieved and disappointed all at once.

Flying home for Christmas one year on Christmas Eve from Seattle I remember the fog causing much mischief. The plane was rerouted to San Jose and when we weren't given clearance to leave the plane there, once again directed to Monterrey. From there buses were scheduled to drive us the two plus remaining hours to Fresno. When the bus drivers decided a 1 am drive was not on the agenda a fleet of taxis were the back up option. I arrived to see the family Christmas day at 4 am. This would only be unusual if it wasn't so frequent. The east coast may have to deal with snow but the central CA valley and fog have caused far more delays and rerouting over the years and of that I would wager on.

There are many things I like about the fog. It is mysterious. It does make my mind wander with possibilities. In movies the scenes of fog can introduce lovers or villains. It can surprise soldiers in battle or save heroes from being pursued. It is then both a friend and an enemy, to be appreciated and feared, and make one instropective and aggravated. I know it does both to me. Yet at least it is the weather that is making things less clear than my mind which for the first time in a while seems pretty focused, minus a paycheck..that better be there Monday. Damn fog!

20 turns 11

It's funny how we all turn so nostalgic on New Years. It really is one day. One bitter, cold, sometimes snowy day that turns the clock on one month unto another and we all celebrate and reminisce somehow imagining that after the clock strikes midnight we start all over again. We wipe the slate clean. We put bygones behind us and forget old acquaintances with the promise of new and improved acquaintances appearing in our lives. In reality it's a day after hangover that awaits us and a lazy day of football after the headache subsides from all that damn champagne or whatever else we decked the new year with. We are the same person in the same situation, maybe with some renewed optimism and a list of resolutions that will be filed away January 2nd never to be seen again.

Well I'm as much a sucker for symbolism as the next person so I will play along with this year in review angle. I had a surreal year in 2010. It was everything I could have hoped for and against. It started with a trip in February to Havasupai and the Falls in the Grand Canyon. That would be the harrowing portion of the year. The life changing trip that still sticks out in my head more than Europe even. It was reckless and crazy and even more spontaneous than quitting my job to travel to Europe. It was a one man journey into the a canyon on a ten mile hike that was necessary and ridiculous all at the same time. I camped out for one night, saw some waterfalls that were truly stunning but less so than the youtube clip that prompted the trip, and hauled back home the next day in writhing agony and stupidity. I climbed a mountain, dug deep within myself, and deemed the journey a success. It was my Mt. Kilimanjaro minus about 12,000 feet.

The trip overseas was amazing and I won't forget the experience and look forward to getting back there. I am appreciative I didn't travel alone and enjoyed the time that was spent there. Italy is not to be missed if I get a chance again. Spain will be visited again, France..not so much. I think I have exhausted my ability to keep talking about it though. I've become one of those obnoxious people who relates everything to my 4 week experience abroad. While amazing, I didn't see as much as I should have. Didn't stray off the chartered path, stayed within the comfort zone, missed far too much. Next time I will be more adventurous regardless of the events outside.

Hired back by my the job I left in April it feels as though I never left, yet I feel refreshed. I'm not anxious or flighty. I feel more settled and balanced. I don't know if it was the break from work, the travelling, or the anxiety of not working but I feel in a better place even though technically I am in the "same" place. Maybe seeing lifestyles elsewhere makes me realize it is not a race to the finish line. There is no set destination, it's the moments and experiences we need to hold onto. When we catch them we want to bottle them up forever but it isn't supposed to work that way. Some memories grow stronger over the years and some fade away. The same holds true for years. 2010 will stay longer than most because it ranged like the valley I live in. High mountaintops, low deep ditches, and more balanced climbing gets me to where I am today. Sometimes we need to sink to depths to find depth.

I do write resolutions. Maybe it is hokey. Maybe they will get shoved into a drawer or left unopened in a file on my computer the week after I write them. I did it last year and many of them happened. Sometimes it is just planting the seed and letting life provide the dirt, rain, and sunshine for them to grow. Sure, life is about writing goals everyday, following through everyday, not just one cold bitter day in the beginning of January on the calendar. Yet the beauty of that day is that together we all look back at the good and bad, and we take the eraser and wipe the annual whiteboard clean. It's a collective exhale of optimism, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Happy New Year.

When the circle goes full

One of my favorite television shows growing up was Melrose Place. It was the first show I became truly addicted to. The premise of the show was all the characters that lived in this apartment complex down the street from Beverly Hills 90210. They all had dreams and aspirations, some further in their careers than others. I remember season one every episode either ended at a bar named Shooters where they all shared a beer and a laugh or at the courtyard pool where the ladies lounged and the men swam. By season two they were all suspecting someone was cheating with their boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, Shooters was shown only when the dirt was being dished, and most of the boring characters had been written out. By season three they were all conspiring a homicide of some sort and the pool was responsible for half the casts deaths. It was a hell of a lot more interesting show once they starting whacking people. Without Michael Mancini that show would have been cancelled two episodes in.

It was interesting when they tried to bring that show back. I never watched the new version even though I believe Michael Mancini made a few appearances. It's tough to go back. The cast is always changing, the plot lines are not as engaging, and the good actors left or were fired years ago. The actors who got a taste of fame in the first couple of seasons of the old Melrose saw that fame disappear immediately when they tried to branch out into "real" acting roles. People wanted the soap opera and after they introduced Sydney no one even remembered the blonde that Michael was married to before. Her storyline was kind of a sad afterthought. The people that left the show for greener pastures and Hollywood feature films occasionally appear on a Lifetime movie reruns from the early 2000's. Luke Perry left Dylan McKay in 1995 to pursue his "professional" career only to gratefully jump back into his role in 90210 three years later.

People leave and come back, sometimes to great success and sometimes to epic failure. Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls after three titles to go play baseball. He was the only one to return from a sudden retirement to reappear even better in winning three more afterwards. Most returns aren't as successful. That same Jordan's disastrous Washington Wizards comeback proves there is a limit. Allen Iverson's return to the 76ers was a failure and he is now waiting tables in Istanbul somewhere, possibly at a bar called Shooters. Jason Giambi's return to the Oakland A's was a disappointment as are most returns by sports hero's when their careers have faded from their glory days. Not many athletes return in their prime, they usually return in a former caricature of themselves like Ken Griffey Jr's in Seattle. We look at their brilliance from yesterday and unfairly compare them to it, full well understanding they can't be that player they once were but also saddened that they are not.

When political leaders return it can be just as nostalgic. People gather behind a candidate from their youth and hope to recapture those same feelings they once had. As if the person they are supporting has not changed with age themselves and that conditions remain the same. Time changes everyone and events change, when the candidate is steadfast in their old ways we punish them by telling them they are not adaptable (even though those where the qualities we admired). When they do change with the times we punish them by saying they are not the candidate we remembered at all and are selling out for their own interests. They are in a situation they can't possibly win because the past does not equal the future, good or bad.

It does, however, feel good to be back in familiar territory. There is something to be said of past success equaling the potential for future success. It's not a bad thing to be comfortable. We can't all be leading men in the movies. There needs to be that Michael Mancini that watches all the new characters walk in through those doors at Melrose with big dreams and aspirations and who watches those same people fade out into the sunset in pursuit of their own starring roles somewhere else. Hopefully it is not on a street corner in West Hollywood.

Hoax is a twelve point word in scrabble

You could blame the folks that listened to the radio on October 30, 1938 of being naive. Aliens were not attacking the world, contrary to Orson Welles War of the World's radio broadcast. Six million Americans listened to the CBS radio show and it was reported 1.7 million of them actually believed it was happening. So prolific was the success, that over 10,000 news articles were written and even Adolf Hitler used it to reference the excess of democracy and decadence. This was a radio broadcast and a gullible public swallowed it up wholesale. Surely we are smarter now...these seventy two years later. We wouldn't get sucked into anything so foolish as a social trend promotion and blindly follow a trend without doing our own research. After all we have the Internet now right?

Those folks in 1938 didn't even have television. How were they supposed to know? We aren't just blind mice are we? Grab the cheese. We're idiots folks. Face it. We have become so addicted to the Internet and social media we just blindly follow whatever the mass is selling or telling us. What's in? What should we buy? Who's cool? What's the picture we are supposed to post on our profile? Cartoons? Sure...it sounds good. Never vetting, never researching, just blindly associating and off we go. If everyone you knew jumped off the bridge would you do it? Well did they post it on Facebook?? Maybe...

Wikileaks is posting classified information. Is it harmful, sounds like it could be. It puts international relationships at risk and endangers operatives in other countries. We have so far managed to diss several heads of states and have shown our true feelings about supposed international partners. Now the Wikileak founder is on the run for rape charges. He is threatening to release even more classified documents. There is a nuclear option that he will unveil if he is captured or tried for treason. This is a colossal story involving every country we deal with and I'd bet 85% of the general population is more aware of the final BCS standings, the new Harry Potter, or this Facebook campaign where you all put up pics of your favorite cartoons only to discover it wasn't to help promote child abuse at all. No one vetted. Everyone just followed. We have to assume what we are being fed is the truth right? No one would intentionally lie to us? I mean, we're all too smart now right? This is the information age after all. Of course no one told you that information flowing in from a million channels into a billion computers worldwide is often never truly vetted. We just absorb it and spew it out as fact.

I bet more people are upset over the Facebook hoax that they will learn about in the next few hours they were a part of then the WikiLeaks story which exposes everything said and done regarding national security and foreign policy between countries we go to war with or against. Maybe we need to socialize our important media. Maybe we need cartoon anchors on the news telling us what we need to retain, what is important. Get the Situation to explain basic finance and talk stocks on CNBC instead of Kramer. Get Snooki to talk about what is going on in North and South Korea and the financial situation in Europe. I loved the SNL clip about TMZ and Wikileaks being combined below:




This is maybe hyperbole. Maybe this all falls on deaf ears because we are over saturated with our jobs, personal lives, the social media, to actually absorb what's important, what we really need to know. It doesn't mean we have to be negative, or gloomy, or live in fear. It just means we have to be more educated than the new life forms we are finding on this planet. When scientists discovered bacteria that is thriving and living in Mono Lake in California we can now assume that life can exist on this planet without oxygen. This bacteria feeds off of arsenic. Which makes it possible that life can exist in this solar system. Alien life.

Orson Welles didn't believe that so many people would take his broadcast seriously. Out of six million listeners, 1.7 million, a little less than 1 out of every 3 listeners actually took the bait. We haven't grown any more intelligent, less gullible, or more observant in the last seventy years. They just have more access to us.

A lemon, some tart fruit, and a change in direction

Sometimes life gives you lemons, then you make lemonade, and you drink it, and then you get rushed to the ER because the lemon was poisoned. Maybe after they've pumped your stomach can you reflect on how to better approach lemons. Throw them away. I can't turn lemons into a beverage, not when they are busy being pelted at me by an angry mob. Or maybe they are raining down on me like the frogs in the movie Magnolia. Giants lemons just pouring down on me. Sometimes that is what life feels like, a constant downpour of tart fruit.

After my car broke down and I steered it safely to the side of I-5 I sat back and reflected. I thought about a great quotation on Facebook I saw recently from my old manager: "Life isn't happening to you, life is responding to you." Holy cow, what message am I sending out there? Life has been kicking my butt. I drove home to visit family and on my trip back I am two hours from home, but breakdown and seem years away. I sat in my car looking up at the mountains surrounding Lake Shasta and pondered. Were past decisions a reflection of my current events? Sure, I could have taken better care of my car, but even the Audi dealership I took it to in Fresno told me I was fine. I had some things fixed but when that check engine light fired up, and the battery light flashed, and my engine roared, and that damn steering wheel locked I was looking down the turn at a steep drop through a gazillion beautiful Douglas Fir trees. Those trees led into a gorgeous blue ice cold Shasta Lake. That arrival would only be delayed if the car didn't first flip over and project me through the windshield into a macabre Tim Burton holiday ornament.

Instead of the absolute worst timing and fateful moment occuring, my car was steerable to the side. I was able to pull over. I sat in my car, once again, grateful. It's only a car. The damage may be severe, but they were damages I could live with. I looked up at those Douglas Firs engulfing the mountains surrounding and watched as the fog creeped over the tops of them making their images softly fade out into white. I was calm. The tow truck took an hour and a half to greet me, but I sat patiently. The rental car place did not come through and as frustration began, I settled it. I ended up holing up in a Ramada Inn off the freeway like a man on the run, but I wasn't running anymore. If this was what life has to offer, I can face it. Of course my family,  my poor parents who stressed more than me over the ordeal while they sat eating their second Thanksgiving meal, they continue to prove to me how lucky I truly am. When I called them they went to work like a high powered PR team cleaning up some A-list movie star's latest TMZ mess. They make the Wag the Dog team look like amateurs. And yet unfortunately the mess is not an event, more like my current affairs of my life. Before I could count to ten I was on their AAA policy. Before I could count to fifty they had a auto body shop to take the car mapped out. Then a rental car was ready to be picked up and when that fell through, that "on the run" special at the Ramada Inn. They did more dialing than the tea party for Bristol, or every 80's movie fan for Jennifer.

A great friend came today to pick me up. She was like an angelic vision as she pulled up her large Toyota truck. She could have topped one of those decorated Douglas Firs, just not Tim Burtons. Her positive vibes immediately washed away the subdued melancholy. I was no longer resigned to my destiny, I was optimistic it was still of my choosing. An email potentially offering me my old job, was further proof of the shift in climate. Life may respond to us. Maybe I was bringing these events upon me, but these are not major crisis's. They are minor. Good people do exist, they bail you out of hard situations with their incredible outlooks on life. Karma does exist. It has to. That or we turn those hard-pelting lemons into meringue pie with some whip cream on top, smile at the absurdity of it all, and throw them back.

Happy Thanksgiving

Tomorrow, if you are lucky, you will be sitting across from people you care about eating turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, yams, and whatever else your family or friends traditionally cook on this day. My family cooks German sausage along with the traditional fare; we have a chocolate turkey for desert. Of course that is along with a ton of pumpkin pie.


I’ve celebrated with family and friends on this day all over the west coast. When I lived in Seattle and was unable to make it down south for Thanksgiving I celebrated it at friend’s houses. One friend smoked a turkey and failed to start it until the middle of the day. It wasn’t finished until 10 pm. We ate everything but turkey and finally got to the turkey as a late night snack. I’ve experienced a vegetarian Thanksgiving with cousins, and even had one or two turkey TV dinners in my time. I think it was the Hungry Man dinner with corn and potatoes when neither family nor friends were an option. Those by far were my least favorite ones, although I did usually talk to family and experienced their gathering if only through the phone.

I am appreciative of the ability to be down home this Thanksgiving and seeing family face to face. Obviously I think about our soldiers overseas, not just Iraq, Kuwait, or Afghanistan, but South Korea and parts of Europe and their sacrifices. It’s not the Mondays or Wednesdays that are the hardest to be overseas and away from family, it is the Thanksgivings and the Christmas’s. Being away from family on those days is definitely a lot more difficult. I know that doesn’t always seem the case if you are chatting up your crazy uncle or nutty brother or sister-in-law but that is the truth. You get them for a couple of days a year and most of us can handle one or two days of it, and may even look forward to the bizarre exchanges.

Four hundred years ago 50 Pilgrims sat across from 90 Wampanoag Indians and ate venison and water fowl. The Pilgrims were celebrating a bountiful harvest and showing off their gun power. The Indians were interested in the new visitors and obviously not aware of the waves that would follow to one day build factories and shopping centers where everyone could buy a frozen Hungry Man dinner and a flat screen television to watch a parade and football.

We may not be experiencing our most ideal Thanksgiving tomorrow. Maybe we’ve been unemployed in forever. Maybe we lost someone close to us recently. Maybe we are undecided of where life is taking us. And maybe we are sitting in room with complete strangers. Thanksgiving though is more than the food and present company; it is memories of our past and promise of our future. Its tradition and tradition lasts.

We can build new memories and appreciate less than glorious moment’s years later with a fresh perspective. We can give thanks to another day on this planet and give thanks for another day to remember and another day to plan. If we had a bountiful harvest we can appreciate and give gratitude for that. If we did not, well we can give thanks that we have the opportunity to sow the garden and fields again next year and plants crops again. Many people in other countries don’t have the vast resources that we do, the opportunities we do, the fortunes we do. Thanksgiving is above all else appreciation for life, however you got to this great land..whether by ship, by stork, or by God. Eat whatever you like, just please no stuffed stork.