Humble pie, no Reddi-wip

I recently learned via Turtle that our neighbor across the street is recovering from cancer surgery. Yesterday, when I got home from work, the neighbors were just going in their front door, and from out of the blue came the thought that I should give my neighbor my yellow LiveStrong band as a show of solidarity.

My neighbor and I are not close. He doesn't acknowledge my greetings when we're out in our yards, and his grown children and their families practically live at his house, their vehicles lining the street. But I've learned to go with it, when I get these “random notions”, so I cleaned up the band (which I've been wearing on bike rides for a number of years) and walked it across the street to present it. His wife answered the door and called to him to come downstairs. After a couple minutes he appeared, and I stammered something about the history of the band and how I had made a habit of presenting them to fellow cancer patients and survivors since my own cancer nine years ago. My first yellow band was given to me by a mountain biker who had survived bladder cancer, and I passed that one on to a friend several years ago when she was fighting breast cancer. But I replace them and pass on whatever one I've been wearing.

There's a lesson to be learned from this sort of gesture, though. God encourages us to reach out to others but, I think, He's not so keen on us feeling too proud of ourselves for making them. As reinforcement of this lesson, my neighbor's response to all this was something along the lines of, “Uh… thanks. What's your name again?”

Here's your humble pie, Foo.

Randomness

I can't explain it, but every time I'm mowing and come to the northeast corner of the fence line in the back yard, the word Germany inexplicably forms in my mind (and sometimes Bismarck). What's up with that?

20 Questions (less 17)

1. When a guy at work dresses down a subordinate for checking Facebook on company time and then spends the next forty-five minutes nattering on to his boss about his kid's sports activities, is that an example of irony? Or hypocrisy?
2. A guy comes into the men's washroom and stands at the urinal. He has earbuds in and his iPod turned up so loud that I can identify the tune even as he talks very loudly (presumedly to hear himself over his tunes) to the guy at the next urinal. Does he deserve a slap to the back of the head? Or a swift kick to the knees?
3. When I'm out riding my bike in the neighborhood, what scientific basis is there for the phenomenon that causes children to run into my path and fall, hurling their scooters, soccer balls, etc. under my wheel?

Creative Pause

I've long felt that I do some of my most inspired thinking just after waking in the morning, while in the shower. On those occasions when I share this information with family or coworkers, the listener tends to smirk and imply that my inspirations may not be entirely technical in nature.

Which is why I was interested to find Cameron Moll's posting, “Why thinking in the shower may be an ideal model for ‘creative pause’” – and find comfort in knowing I'm not the only one.

Now… that dream I had last night about Madonna? That, I can't explain. Not that I need to – Turtle dreams of Vin Diesel and can't afford to be judgmental – but why couldn't it have been Jennifer Connelley or Diane Lane?

Roll on...

In 2001, Turtle and I were conducting our long-distance courtship and doing our part to keep TWA in business. A typical visit had me catching a flight to St. Louis on Thursday after work. We'd spend the weekend trying to soak in as much of each other as we could before Turtle dropped me off at the airport and send me back to Texas on Sunday afternoon. It got to be pretty routine, but there was one Sunday at the airport that sticks with me.

I was making my way briskly toward my gate when an athletic-looking young man blew past me in a wheelchair. And then two more, hot on his (w)heels. It was the sort of thing that caught my attention in those early days of getting to know my favorite wheelchair athlete, and I wondered what their story might be. But I didn't have to wonder long. When I arrived at my gate, I found the same three boys and about another half dozen besides, all milling about in wheelchairs and carrying duffel bags on their laps.

A basketball team.

Having put Turtle on a number of flights, I knew the early boarding drill and wasn't at all surprised when the whole pack of them headed down the ramp to board the plane about 15 minutes before the rest of us were called. Eventually, it was my turn to shuffle down the narrow aisle of the plane to my seat. Shuffle a few steps. Wait. Shuffle. Wait. Wait.

I craned my neck to see what was holding up the line. Instead of the usual clueless traveler trying to shove a foot locker into the overhead compartment, the hold up was young man hauling his heavily-braced legs down the aisle and laughing as he harassed a couple teammates already in their seats. A fifty-ish man ahead of me twisted in his seat to scowl at the boy.

“All right, that's enough,” he said firmly. “Find your seat and park it.”

The boy in the braces smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Coach.”

The line started moving again, and I realized that I had the window seat next to the coach. I paused for a moment, giving him a chance to pull his legs back or half stand to let me by. When he did neither, I glanced down and noticed his wasted legs – at about the same time as he caught me at it.

That's how I met Jim Hayes, coach and founder of the UTA Movin' Mavs wheelchair basketball team.

During the flight, we had a very interesting conversation. He told me about his work with the team and about the tournament they were returning from. I told him about Turtle and her wheelchair racing.

Last evening, I was watching the news and learned that Jim Hayes had passed away this past Saturday, after a brief illness.

This evening, Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears were in the news again, and it struck me as very unfair that such shallow, wasted lives seem to get all the attention and that truly worthwhile, inspirational ones go largely unheralded. I know that this posting won't do much to balance the scales; but a little additional recognition for a life well spent is the least I can do for Coach Hayes. If I feel richer, having only spent an hour with him, I can only imagine the impact he must have had on the lives of those who really knew him.

Ruffled but unscathed

Spring in Texas means storms. Lots of storms. Noisy, windy, disconcerting storms in such quantities that one is tempted to mute the alarm on the weather alert radio just to avoid being wakened every 15 minutes, as some squall line or another claws its way inexorably eastward from Weatherford to Paris. “One” being me, in case that one got by you.

So it was business as usual when last night's news was filled with dire pronouncements of thunderstorm and tornado watches – and yet something told me I should unmute the weather alert radio before going to bed. And sure enough, the thing started going off at around 3:45 to tell us that Ft. Worth was getting hammered. I put it back on standby and got back in bed. The weather alert went off again a short time later, this time to inform us that the storm was dropping large hail and threatening funnel clouds in the neighboring county. This time, I put on my glasses and turned on the TV to see what the radar said.

The radar was very red with lots of little spinny things indicating areas of rotation that were moving at about 60 mph toward my little town. The radar was telling me, "Roust the Turtle out of bed, grab the kittens, and get ye to the guest bathroom away from the windows. Take ye also the little Casio TV and a candle.

“P.S. - Don't forget matches.”

About five minutes later, the storm hit. I wasn't sure if the roaring was the wind, or hail, or just a whole bunch of rain; and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. The power went out, so I lit the candle and switched the TV over to batteries. By 4:15, it sounded safe to come out and go back to bed.

I rolled out of bed about 7am – an hour and a half past my usual weekday wake-up time. The power was still out, and as long as that was the case I wasn't going to work anyway. I pulled on a pair of jeans and headed outside, bracing myself for the sight of tree branches and shingles and sections of fence lying in the street. Instead, I was relieved to discover that not only was my house and yard intact, but so were the neighbors' places.

When I heard voices down the cul de sac, I shuffled that way and found one of the neighbor ladies and her kids taking stock, as I was. She was on the phone with the power company and had been, off and on, since 5:30. I successfully fought off the temptation to observe that the power company, having taken down her report once, might just have more pressing concerns than answering her repeated phone calls. Across the street, a large trampoline lay, mangled, in the middle of the entrance to the alley, apparently having failed to stick its landing after a successful leap to freedom over a back yard privacy fence.

“Ah well,” said the trampoline's owner, who had just come outside. “We were wanting to get rid of that thing anyway.” When we and her son picked up the trampoline to move it out of the alleyway, it dutifully fell to pieces.

“Well, there you go,” I said. “So much for having to disassemble it.”

One of the neighbors said that the expensive new development three or four miles to the west of us had been hit hard and that she'd heard that a category one tornado had touched down there. I said a little prayer of thanks and headed back to my undamaged home where my wife and pets were dry and safe to wait for the power to come back on.


Now playing: Remy Zero, Villa Elaine

Contemplating contentment

I've never put much stock in a lot of the psychological manure thought up by the classical psychologists. Although Carl Jung always struck me as being less full of crap than many, the notion of synchronicity sure seems like a large wheelbarrow load of the stuff. And yet when, two days after posting my album cover made from a photo of a classic Rolls Royce, I was tailgated home by a late model Phantom, “synchronicity” was the first word that came to mind. I'll leave off repeating the next few; I hate being tailgated, and I like to try to keep this blog under the PG-14 wire.

Anyway, with that huge silver grille looming in my rear view, I pondered what sorts of wrong choices I might have made in my life that had led the guy in the Rolls to be driving what he was driving and me to be driving what I was driving. The thought occurred to me that if he didn't get off my bumper before the next time the driver in front of me randomly applied her brakes, I might find myself a bit nearer to being able to afford a Rolls – but I digress. I imagined I knew where he'd eventually turn (north into the neighborhoods of sprawling mansions and two-acre lots in Fairview) and wondered to myself what sort of work he must do (if any). Was he married with a family? Were they happy, or did they only put up with their workaholic husband/father because it was a lifestyle choice? Could he afford all of those fancy things, or was he in hock up to his eyeballs, developing an ulcer while chugging Dewar's and agonizing over how to stay afloat and keep the IRS at bay?

It was about that time that we came to an intersection where we parted ways – he turning north toward Beverly Hills Fairview and I heading south toward where my loving wife and kittens waited in our unpretentious, warm, dry home to welcome me after my day at the software mill. After I'd had a chance to relax in my humble but comfortable chair, we'd thank God for our many blessings and have a simple but satisfying dinner. We'd clear away the dishes, washing some by hand and tossing the rest in the fancy dish washing contraption, and then we'd settle in to watch a movie on our new flat-screen TV and enjoy the luxury of deep bass and crisp surround stereo from the new receiver and speakers I installed over the weekend.

And I'd realize that I didn't want the Rolls Royce (I love my Dorian); the house with ten bedrooms, five baths, two kitchens, and a media room with theater seating; the alcoholic trophy wife and avaricious snob-spawn; and certainly not the financial headaches. I realized, in that moment, that when I stopped long enough to realize it... I'm content with how green the grass is (or isn't, at this time of year) in my own yard.

Nerds and the fashion void

In case anyone is keeping track, it stopped raining a month or so ago. The wet weather and cooler than normal temperatures have given way to the customary hot, dry weather that we north Texans are used to. When I rolled into the driveway after my evening commute, Dorian's in-dash thermometer read 105 °F.

I've been working some long hours lately. That has put the brakes on my after-work bike riding and makes it tough to find time for routine chores like mowing the lawn. Turtle, being in attuned to such things, was waiting for me when I walked in the house.

"You're not planning to mow the lawn, are you?" she asked. When I didn't immediately respond with the 'no' she was looking for, she continued. "I was talking to Mom, and she says you should take it easy, have a nice cold beer or two, and not die."

"Mmm," I said, noncommittally. I knew that the only beer on the premises was in the garage, where it was about 120°.

But what's that got to do with nerd chic? you're probably wondering.

For as long as I can remember, one of the defining characteristics of nerds has been their complete lack of fashion sense.* Thick glasses, held together with safety pins and Scotch brand tape. Highwater trousers. Sweater vests. Not last year's fashions, nor even those from the year before—five years, ten years ago.

I've always felt it was unfair to assume that nerds can't dress themselves presentably. It's just lower on their list of priorities than hacking the Linux kernel or re-watching the entire Firefly series from start to finish (including Serenity) in one sitting. Why blow perfectly good money on a new pair of eyeglasses when it could be spent on a Visual Studio 2005 upgrade?

It's with that kind of mentality that, the minute Turtle's car was out of sight and on the way to her meeting, I went to my closet and grabbed my old red, sleeveless cycling jersey (the one whose elastic waistband was shot). I dug out an old pair of navy gym shorts (the ones whose drawstring had broken) and my old Halo sweatband, dressed, and headed out to mow the lawn.

Sure, the combination of tight cycling jersey and shorts that displayed just how weird a cyclist's tan lines really are would have elicited hoots and jeers from the guys down at the local day labor office. But from a practical standpoint, the wicking fabric of the jersey got me the most cooling benefit from what little breeze there was to be had. The sweatband kept the perspiration (okay... rivers of sweat) from burning my eyes. The shorts... well, let's just say I don't have the flabbiest man legs and bum on the cul de sac.

I was just finishing up when one of those Lexus [snicker] trucks pulled up in front of the next door neighbors' house, and a woman in a tailored white linen suit climbed out. As she made her way up the sidewalk, I saw her eyeing me and imagined that she was horrified by my attire.

Yep, I thought, cracking a grin. Still got it.

That, or she was mesmerized by my tan lines.

* I say "their", but I don't think that's fooling anyone. We're talking about me.

The inner nerd

Thanks to okkernoot.net blog for this:

One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for many people, is not that he’s socially inept—because everybody’s been there—but rather his complete lack of embarrassment about it.

- Randy Waterhouse in Cryptonomicon

Look to the future

Over on Write Lightning, Deb suggests an interesting visualization technique that might be used in clearing away emotional clutter when one is faced with a decision. The short of it is this: you imagine walking in to a house, then into a room where you sit with an older, wiser version of yourself and discuss the situation.

Some of you may recall from one of my earlier postings that I have not been, historically, a huge believer in visualization techniques; but I've been trying to decide whether I really need this [some nondescript luxury item that won't distract from the point of the narrative], or if it's my inner child whinging down the aisle of the virtual toy store, so I gave it a whirl.

I walk up to the stoop*—my imaginary old folks' home has a stoop—and knock politely on the front door. No answer. Old Foo must have his hearing aid turned down again, I think, so I try the knob and find the door locked.

Curses.

I take off my t-shirt, wrap it around my knuckles, and clench my teeth as I punch through one of the door's glass panes. No burglar alarm (not that the old codger could hear it if there were). Older and wiser, my hindquarters.

After reaching in and unlocking the door, I step into the foyer, grimacing at the sound of crunching glass and feeling guilty about scarring the hardwood floor. I make my way toward the living room and spot my older, wiser self. He's sound asleep in his chair, with a crocheted throw pulled over him and a laptop computer on his lap. Tropical fish swim across the LCD display, uninterested in my arrival.

"Old Foo?" I say, tentatively, not wanting to startle him.

No response.

"HEY OLD FOO!!"

The old fart duffer jumps, blinking his eyes, disoriented. "Huh? Wha--?"

His eyes focus and I see recognition dawn in them.

"You! GET OUTTA MY HOUSE, YA LITTLE BASTID!!"


Seems I'm 0 for 2 in the visualization exercise department.

* n. Chiefly Northeastern U.S. - A small porch, platform, or staircase leading to the entrance of a house or building.


Now playing: Kansas, Song For America

I feel for you (but don't tell anybody)

Every now and then, my lovely bride reacts so strongly to something she sees on TV or hears on the radio that I'm left feeling like I might have spent too much of my time in the company of machines. It could be argued that this is less the cause for my apparent lack of empathy than a symptom, but the fact is that I often take as facts of life the same things that nearly reduce Turtle to tears. Driving down the road, I see a bag of trash that fell off the back of someone's truck; she sees someone's German shepherd, hit by a vehicle and left for dead. She hears about someone setting a cat on fire or sticking a dog in a laundromat washer and turning on the hot water and is furious; I hear the same story, and I'm disgusted but not surprised.

That's why I found some encouragement in a chance encounter I had during Monday's icy slog home from work. At a stop light,* I found myself behind a black Kia Spectra hanging off the back of a tow truck. The right rear taillight was obliterated, as were parts of the rear and quarter panels surrounding it. I could see that the hood was buckled and most of the right front of the car caved in. Ouch.

As I waited for the light to change, I also noticed that there was a sort of fuchsia-furred tribble-like thing hanging from the rearview mirror. Young woman, I inferred.

The temporary license tag on the back read "1-29". When I bought Dorian, my temp tags were only good for about three weeks, so I further concluded she'd only had the car for about a week and a half.

That sucks, I thought. On my mental movie screen, I saw the Spectra's driver headed to work at The Gap (probably because I was stopped alongside a mall at the time). She'd rather not, because she's nervous about having to drive her new car on the slick roads with all the maniacs, but she has to. She has a car payment now, and she can't get off work. Suddenly, brake lights flash in front of her, and she steps on her brakes—new, unfamiliar brakes that work much better than the ones on her old, clapped out Toyota. The car starts to skid, the rear end slowly swinging to the right.

WHAM! She slams into the rear of the car in front of her. The slide turns into a spin, slamming the right rear of her car into the side of a car in the next lane. What a tragic mess, I thought, giving the unfortunate Kia owner a mental pat on the shoulder.

As the light turned, some young chicklet with a cell phone pressed to her ear whipped her Honda Civic between the mashed Spectra and Dorian's front bumper. My imagined scenario with the Kia driver changed, and my newly-rediscovered empathy evaporated as quickly as you could say "Hello... State Farm?"

NOTE: Apparently, that last paragraph was just a bit too poetic to be clearly understood. Dorian is not wrecked. Quite dirty, still, but unharmed. My State Farm comment was made in reference to a future that might have been, if not for Dorian's four-wheel disc brakes and what's left of my aging reflexes.

* Some people call them "traffic lights", but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I say it's a duck.

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Why is it that spammers like Alexandra, who keeps e-mailing me about "emaciate whirlpool", constantly warn that "This is our final attempt to reach you"—but it never is?

Meanwhile...

The latest batch of search terms (not including the poor souls still trying to figure out how to make their cars and their RoadRunner internet service work):

• sasquatch's cousin Yeah... you know, I can't remember her name either. We only went out a couple times.*
• carrie underwood's nickname in college Just because we drove past her home town on the way back from our holiday trip, that makes me an expert?
• road rage shooting plano texas I could see that being a possibility...
• b48a7bb1654c8f50f2e1aee00dcb99828be05147360a Oh yeah? Well, 6120686578206f6e20796f7520746f6f.

* And having said that, I'll probably receive a nasty letter from the same lawyer who's representing the cavemen in those Geico ads.


Now playing: Coldplay, X & Y.

A matter of perspective

Over the past couple months or so, I've seen several interviews with actor Ryan O'Neill. In each, the interviewer eventually got around to asking, with varying degrees of tact, about Farrah Fawcett's on-going battle with intestinal cancer.

"I guess you can really relate to what Farrah's going through, huh? Because of your own battle with cancer?"

Now, it's always a little difficult to tell when an actor's reactions are genuine and whether he's just... yanno; but O'Neill's response to this question is invariably an expression of mild irritation mixed with pity.

"Compared with what she's going through," he says seriously, "I didn't even have cancer. I took a pill, and that was it."

I think I know how he feels. I see little kids on TV with a couple pathetic wisps of hair left over after their radiation therapy. I see the the young woman with the large, dark eyes, gauntly beautiful with head wrapped in a scarf. I see the news story about the wife and mother who had both breasts and her uterus removed because tests revealed that she was genetically predisposed toward both types of cancer.

I'm a cancer survivor, technically. The fellow cyclist and bladder cancer survivor who gave me my first yellow bracelet solemnly discouraged me from downplaying any cancer. I understand what he was trying to tell me, but like Ryan O'Neill, I look around at the battles that others are fighting and can't help thinking that my thyroid surgery and one little radioactive iodine pill were hardly like having cancer at all.

And I thank God.