flight paths

Jose and Jose Felix are packing, we'll be taking them to the airport in a few minutes with maybe brief stops on the way at IKEA and Mall of America. Even though I was working most of the time when they were here, they had a good time with Jerry experiencing the joys of Minnesota winter. Jose Felix and I went to the Timberwolves game last night. He was very excited to be going to an NBA game -- he said it's kind of a Puerto Rican guy's dream. He loved every minute of the game. He says he loves every minute of his life. Even when his ears were freezing as we walked home. Oh, to be 31 again!

So, anyway, they're flying out, back to tropical temperatures. Minneapolis/St. Paul to Orlando, Florida to San Juan.
*****
My brother Davy called yesterday. He's the brother in San Antonio, Texas, where they actually had snow the other day -- an unusual occurrence. Tuesday he flies back to China to begin another semester of teaching English. San Antonio to San Francisco to Shanghai and then by train to the city three hours from there where he'll be teaching (A city he hasn't been to yet). You know how he loves China, but it's sometimes hard to think of him living so far away. I need to visit him during one of these in-between-semesters when he's in San Antonio. We should spend more time together. And remember, Texas is one of the three states that I haven't been in yet.
*****
It's Superbowl Sunday (yawn)... How many people this week asked you where you'd be watching the game?

a date with an atheist

A Saturday at the office --

I was anxious to hear how my co-worker Mary's date went last night. She now and then meets guys who have been "matched" to her through an online dating site, and some of her stories about her "dates" are entertaining, often amusing. She had told me ahead of time she'd be meeting this new guy, and when I had asked her what she knew about this latest dude, she said "He's an atheist." That label seemed to make Mary, a recovering Catholic and spiritually undefined, a little apprehensive. Or maybe it just seemed odd that this was information he was volunteering before they even met.

So I asked her how it went, and she said it went okay! "He's a really nice guy." Like she was expecting a self-described atheist to be not nice? I've known plenty of nice atheists and have known plenty of non-atheists who are definitely NOT nice. So go for it, Mary. Maybe you can convince him to convert to whatever it is you are, if you ever figure that out. :-)

mid-winter sports update

Football: Even though I'm kinda sad that football season has ended, it's generally hard to get too excited about the Superbowl because a) the Superbowl show itself is pretty irritating and b) it's usually two lame teams that are playing. This year is certainly no exception in the b) category: the Green Bay Packers vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers. As I walked through the downtown Minneapolis skyways today over my lunch hour, I noticed a lot of people wearing Packer jerseys because of course we have a lot of Packer fans around here, since Wisconsin is a just few minutes from here. The downside of the Packers winning the Superbowl is that we would have unbearably obnoxious Packer fans around us that we'd have to hear spouting off next week. Pittsburgh is at least far away and there aren't many Steeler fans around here, so we at least don't have to listen to their loud mouths. But the Steelers have already won so many recent Superbowls, so how boring would it be if they won again? So maybe I'll sort of root for the Packers, since I sort of like Aaron Rodgers their quarterback. And we wouldn't watch at all (we were planning on going to the movies that day), but Diane and Tony, lusting after our big screen HD TV,wanted to come watch with us, so we can at least enjoy their company while the game drags on. And then no more football til another summer is gone. :-(

Basketball: My brother Ronnie (who is feeling better, by the way) and I were discussing the weaknesses of the NBA (National Basketball Association) last night on the phone -- or maybe it's the weakness in the media coverage of the NBA -- that only wants to focus on the "super" showcase teams -- currently, the Lakers, the Celtics, and the Heat -- while ignoring most of the other less super-starred teams, who become punching-bags year after year. This causes weak franchises and fan bases that drift away. And, speaking of punching-bag teams, my local favorite, the Minnesota Timberwolves, at about the midpoint of the season, have now won 11 games and lost 37. Ouch. It's getting harder and harder to give away our season tickets.

Hockey: The Minnesota Wild struggled in the first half of this season but lately have been HOT. Go, Wild! And over there in the other conference, my sentimental favorite, the Philadelphia Flyers, are one of the top teams of the year. A Stanley Cup year for them?

Baseball: Spring training starts later this month. Even if you hate baseball, ya gotta feel good about that!

one and a half men

I only have three or four current TV shows that I watch regularly, and one of them is Two and A Half Men, a show in which Charlie Sheen plays the part of a character who is a wild irresponsible drunk who spends inordinate sums of money on prostitutes. Charlie Sheen himself is also a wild irresponsible drunk who spends inordinate sums of money on prostitutes, and occasionally he makes the real-life news for getting into some sort of trouble involving his real-life excesses. Until this week. Now he has reportedly checked himself into rehab, and the network has announced that the show is on hiatus until Charlie the actor gets back (because a show named Two and a Half Men obviously can't go on with just one and a half men).

And everybody, including me, is wishing Charlie the actor good luck in rehab and hoping it "takes" (which it usually doesn't -- right, Lindsay?). But when he returns to the show (which he will, since this is one of the most popular shows on television), what happens to Charlie the character? Will an in-recovery Charlie Sheen still play an out-of-control drunk? Or will the Charlie character on the show have a re-awakening and get sober? In which case, what would the show be about? And how did I let myself get tangled up into even using my brain on such questions?

vacationing in the opposite direction

Due to the nature of my work, I can't be taking winter vacations, but everybody else around me (other than co-workers) seems to be headed for short trips to warm places. A nice break from the sub-freezings if you can afford it...

Then there are the anomalies: the people who come to Minnesota during the winter instead of leaving it. My niece Becky was here a couple weeks ago, visiting from Philadelphia. Philadelphia isn't quite as wintry as Minnesota is, but it's not all that much different -- maybe not so big a deal. But now we have visitors coming from somewhere much warmer: San Juan, Puerto Rico. Jerry lived in Puerto Rico for a year many years ago, and his friend Jose from back then is paying us a visit and bringing along a friend of his, Jose-Felix.

...And they are actually excited about coming here. Having lived in the Caribbean his whole life, Jose-Felix has never in his life seen snow. He will see plenty here. They want to go ice-skating and skiing. The St. Paul Winter Carnival is going on this week, so Jerry is going to take them to the ice-sculptures in Rice Park. You get the picture.

We'll see if they still want to do all those romantic-sounding activities once they step off the plane tonight and the temperature is zero degrees.
*****
It's February 2, Groundhog Day, and the groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, didn't see his shadow, so that means an early spring. HA!
*****
I just read that Anderson Cooper was attacked by an angry mob in Cairo today. What the heck are you doing in Egypt, Anderson? Do you really have to be there to report the story? This isn't a hurricane!

getting turned off

The anti-government protests in Egypt are getting larger and more dangerous, and that country is in major crisis. Apparently the Egyptian government thinks it's not in its best interests that the angry mobs be able to communicate with each other, so their government has for the moment shut down their Internet. Which makes me wonder, how do they do that? Do they just flip a switch and it's gone? Could our government do that too? And what would that look like if the Internet were suddenly gone, even for a day? Would it get us away from our computers and into the streets, developing into a rabid mass of Twitter-less nomads?

As Conan was saying in his monologue last night, if you want people to stay immobile in their homes, then the last thing you'd want to do is get rid of the Internet!

moody mood?

(This is one of those videos that, if you watch it, you should click that little "x" so you won't see the advertisements)...

I saw that tickets went on sale Saturday for a Moody Blues concert here at the Orpheum in June, so I've been debating whether to maybe buy tickets or not. First of all, I'm not good at planning that far ahead. And am I really that much of a Moody Blues fan, even though they've had some very likable music since the mid-60s? And what do they sound like at this age?.... and yet.......

Anyway, I like this song from the 80s. The video is kind of corny, but there are times when I'm in the mood for corny. As you know.

suite smell of success

Oh wow. I'm so tired and was headed up to bed when I realized that, Damn! I hadn't blogged yet today! and I have a streak going! so here it is, faithful readers...

Tonight, Jerry and his business partner Clark had a Client Appreciation Party upstairs in the condo's party room (22nd floor) and needed my niece Ruthie to help out, which left me to be the babysitter for Ruthie's kids, Corey (2 years old) and Kylie (1). They are sweet kids and we had fun watching Toy Story movies together, at least until it became bedtime when they quickly became tired of Uncle Howard and suddenly nothing could please them. You know how that goes. And Uncle Howard got tired of changing their diapers, so I guess we're even, and Ruthie came back and saved the day.

*

Last night! Our office, maybe 16 of us, had a, what?, Team Appreciation Party? at the Timberwolves game. We had a suite for the evening, which would have been cool no matter how the Wolves did, but the Wolves actually broke their losing streak and hammered the Toronto Raptors, who apparently are even worse than the Timberwolves are. So it was a rewarding evening. And the reason I picked the Toronto game for our suite night? --- So that I could hear "O, Canada!", which I love. Those Canadians are lucky to have a cool national anthem!

*

Well hey, I need to push the "publish" button before midnight strikes. Gotta keep the streak alive.

toy stories

One of my weird little quirks is that I like seeing the all of the Best Picture Oscar nominees every year (Which isn't easy anymore now that there are ten nominees instead of five). The Oscars will be held in late February, and I've seen six of the ten.

The sixth one was last night, and I'll tell you about that. I was dreading it. Toy Story 3. Not only did we not want to see it, but we were thinking, can we see Toy Story 3 without seeing 1 and 2? But all three were on Pay-Per-View, so over the last couple days, we bit the bullet and watched all three movies. And this is why it's good to have low expectations: We loved all three. A cute story, unbelievable animation, appealing Disney-type characters. I think maybe we liked 2 the best of the three. 3 shouldn't be the Best Picture of the year, but it sure deserves to be in the Top Ten.

So four films yet to see and only one to actually dread seeing: that one where James Franco cuts his arm off. Yuck! We're going to wish we were back hanging out with the toys.

updating

I talked to my brother Ronnie on the phone a few minutes ago. He sounded better and says he maybe feels better than he has since early December. He should be going home from the hospital again soon. Best news of the week.

An exhausting day here at the office, but I'm not complaining. It's a job, and it even has its occasional rewards. Life is good.

Weekend will bring some relief even while I'm working. The phone won't be ringing, and it's the phone that I learn to dread.

knowing when to be afraid... (always)

Wow. The Department of Homeland Security is finally doing away with the color-coded terror alert system, which had to be one of the silliest ideas ever conceived.

I mean, look at this chart. What is the difference between "elevated" and "high", or when does "high" become "severe"?.. And if the risk goes from orange to red, what do you do then? Stay home, not go to work? Cancel your plane reservations? Or were the alerts just a reminder that we should live in FEAR?

And you might be interested to know that the alert has not been below orange since August 2006. Would it have been such a big deal to reduce it to yellow now and then? Or did they just need to be able to say, "Well, you can't say you weren't warned!" if there is an actual terrorist attack?

We'll see what they replace this with. Whatever it is, it won't be any less useful.

you say you want a resolution

I got home from work last night as the State of the Union address was wrapping up and couldn't handle the idea of listening to the talking-head analysis or the other-party responses (If I were a Tea Partier -- which is hard to even imagine -- I would be very upset that a dumbass like Michele Bachmann has become the spokesperson for the movement), so we flipped over to Pay-Per-View and watched, Winter's Bone, a film that I hadn't even heard of til yesterday when it was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It's an intense movie -- meth use in the Ozarks kind of stuff. Very low budget but pretty good.

So I got to bed kind of late but still woke up at 6:15 this morning and thought, what the heck?, and headed to the gym again (But am I becoming sleep-deprived?). And I must say, it surprises me how many people are at the gym that time of day, a workout before work. It's been busy after work too, which is when I usually go, and I think that's because New Year's resolutions haven't been totally blown off yet. January is always a busy month every year at every gym, and it's amusing to watch the crowds begin to gradually dwindle as the new year moves along and good intentions fizzle out. Sort of like a new Congress.

resisting at the egg and i

Worked late last night, as I will be working long hours morning and night until April. I get into a routine, a groove to get through it all, but then I wake up some mornings and resist that routine and take a break.

Well, it didn't help that I woke up in the middle of the night all conjested and runny-nosed and all that, and I thought, Damn! I'm getting a cold because I haven't been going to the steam room at the gym lately. So I got up extra early and went to the gym and steamed the heck out of my head and lungs and we'll see if that helps. Feels better so far.

Then I went back home and pulled Jerry out of bed and said, "Hey, let's go out to breakfast!" So we went over to the Egg and I Restaurant over there in Uptown and had an utterly fantastic breakfast and had a chance to catch up on what's been going on.

So I got to the office a couple hours later than I would have normally but now should be more productive (except for the five minutes writing this blog) and with some better perspective... Back to work... well, after I check out the Oscar nominations that were just announced this morning...........

easing into the last week of january

Some days, you just need Chopin. Other days, you need the Rolling Stones.

let's get radical

My brother Ronnie, much to his dismay, is back in that Philadelphia hospital -- fever, pneumonia remnants, fluctuating blood counts. I talked to him this morning, he's depressed and scared. And he's very unhappy that he's back in that dingy little hospital room. This has been a long, awful ordeal for him, and I'm sure he also is stressed at the financial implications of this period of no income and unknown medical costs.

Then I called my cousin Bev to update her on Ronnie's condition, and that was another sad phone call. Bev has gone through hell with breast cancer and the treatments 0ver the past two years and is now dealing with overwhelming medical bills and no job and the possibility of losing her home because of this illness.

... and while they and millions of other people have to struggle with the financial trauma of medical catastrophes, the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to repeal the Obama health care law, the benefits of which haven't even kicked in yet. The bill will not survive in the Senate so repeal won't happen now at least, but I am disgusted that these Congresspeople would be willing to sell their souls for the insurance companies and go back to disgraceful policies that have already destroyed so many lives, which the Obama law only begins to correct. Shouldn't there be some innate benefit to being an American citizen? Can't obscene profits be taken out of the health care system? If that is socialism, then I say, Bring it on.

My feeling is this: Nobody should be making a profit on somebody else's cancer. There has to be a better way, and, if government is the answer, then so be it.

if you're thinking about moving to minnesota...

As we deal with a couple days of subzero temperatures and a snowier than usual winter and as we're thinking, "Hey, Becky likes it here -- Wouldn't it be nice if she moved here?", here are some of my words of wisdom for people considering a move to Minnesota and thinking "I don't know if I could handle the Minnesota winters!"

-- If you have a car, make sure you have a garage or some other kind of indoor parking; otherwise, make sure you have a good snow shovel and battery cables and that you stay informed on parking restrictions during snow emergencies.
-- Live somewhere near your job. Commuting during bad weather is a major stress-inducer (And commuting during good weather is really no picnic either).
-- Live in or somewhere near the urban core of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I used to live out on the prairie in southwestern Minnesota for a while, and it's a whole different world out there when the weather is bad. For one thing the wind never stops blowing. Wind chills and snow drifts can be ridiculous. Plus, there are lots of things to do here in the Cities even when it's cold. If you're out in the boonies, you're going to have major issues with cabin fever.
-- Focus on all of the positives of living here. Winters are something you sort of get used to.

a higher percentage of good-looking people

My niece Becky, who lives in the Philadelphia area, visited us here in Minneapolis last summer and liked it here, noting how many fun places there are, how clean it is, how there seems to be a higher percentage of good-looking people here...

... so, a couple months ago, she made reservations to come here for a January weekend. She arrived last night, just in time for what they are calling the "coldest 48 hours of this winter." There were predictions of temperatures last night as low as minus 22 for the Twin Cities. I'm not sure if it got quite that cold here in the urban core, but it's cold enough for Becky's first below-zero experience....

... and the good-looking people don't have tans and are wearing unflattering parkas and stocking caps... Wonder if that will make a difference in Becky's judgment!

... but she's doing fine and seems to be making the most of her mid-winter visit. As I write this, she and Jerry and Joan are at the Mall of America shopping. That should keep her nice and warm.

double vision

I was whining for no good reason, because my computer transition went well and I'm not finding any major glitches. Windows 7 seems fine (It helped that I had been using Vista at home, so it's not such a stretch as moving right from Windows XP might have been). Thanks for the encouraging feedback from my blog readers!

A new experience: Dual monitors. I have windows open all over the place. It's kinda cool!

technological trauma

I shudder as I write this post. It's the last one I will write from this office computer. My new computer is on its way, and Dave our outside IT guy will install it later this morning...

... and I'm traumatized by the idea of a new office computer! I've had this machine for seven and a half years, a fact that for some reason tells everybody that I'm way out of date, but it's been a great computer and still seems fine to me and if it is somehow deficient, the deficiencies are not obvious to me, the user.

... But will all of my programs still work on the new computer? Something always seems to get lost in a transition -- plus I'm going to be the office trailblazer with Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010... I don't have enough room in my brain to learn new systems!.... Oops, I hear Dave, he's arrived.... Signing off...................... :-(

while under the clippers

As I was walking in the door of the salon, a pile of snow fell off the roof of the building and hit me in the head... so my hair was already wet when I sat in the chair.

Brian, the guy who cuts my hair, didn't seem to notice, and now I am freshly shorn. I've been kind of in a wearing-my-hair-longer frame of mind and Brian seems to love to chop it all off, but he restrained himself mostly.

Things we talked about as he clipped, which also indicates the shallowness of my cerebral functions these days --

-- The football playoffs -- the way the games turned out this past weekend (Mostly great, except for Chicago winning).... (Jerry and I are rooting for the New York Jets to make it to the Superbowl, by the way).
-- How were your holidays?
-- The weather (Of course. This is Minnesota).
-- The Golden Globes. And since you're dying to know, I thought Ricky Gervais was great as host. Not sure if any of the stars are really offended by his jokes. They shouldn't be. But it sounds like Ricky Gervais will never be invited back.
-- Any travel plans coming up? No. None.

Really now, wouldn't making small talk be the worst part of being a barber/hair stylist?

happy MLK day

The video clip is from Martin Luther King's March on Washington (the "I have a dream" speech rally), 28 August 1963.

what hibernation looks like

Hey, it's cold out there, and it's warm in here, so it's a bit of a couch-potato weekend. We had tickets to the Wolves game last night, but it's a cold 8-block walk over to Target Center, so Jerry, Tom and I opted for staying home and curling up under throws and afghans and dozing in front of the TV. Jerry made dinner, and we channel-flipped back and forth between the Wolves game, the Packers-Falcons playoff game (happy to see the Falcons lose), and the Miss America Pageant, which is, surprisingly, back on network TV. Today hasn't been any better. Jerry made us an enormous breakfast, and we've been sipping coffee and eating Entenmanns donut-holes and watching football off and on, with no worthwhile agenda. Hibernating on frigid January weekends is what Floridians miss out on.

... and did you even know that the Miss America Pageant even still existed? It's been all downhill for that organization ever seen it left Atlantic City, and it's only a shell of its former self, but we still found ourselves rooting for Miss Hawaii, who deserved to win, and being outraged that Miss Nebraska won instead. The judges, obviously, were airheads and they picked one of their own.

... and maybe we'll be watching the Golden Globe Awards tonight, if we aren't on couch-potato overload, and finding plenty to complain about... But life is good.

in love with shakespeare

Naomi, sixteen-year-old daughter of my friend and co-worker Theresa, loves Shakespeare, and we have started taking her to local Shakespeare plays as they come about. Last year, it was Macbeth at the Guthrie. This year, we have a bunch of Shakespeare to potentially squeeze into the next several months. Last night, it was The Comedy of Errors, again at the Guthrie (but performed by the Acting Company of New York). Starting soon at the Guthrie will be The Winter's Tale. Within the next several months at various local theaters are a couple of local productions of Hamlet and who knows what else. We find ourselves being educated in Shakespeare by Naomi and whichever friend she brings with her, sometimes in the car on the way to the theater. Last night, there were a lot of other high-school age kids at the show, all bussed in from the suburbs and obviously more prepped for this play than we were.

The Comedy of Errors was funny and entertaining, though. One thing I don't understand about most recent Shakespeare productions is the reasoning behind updating to modern-day dress and a more current time frame instead of original Shakespeare-era settings. Naomi, the Shakespeare purist, agrees with me on this. If the intent is to make Shakespeare more relevant to 21st-century audiences, then they don't seem to realize that it's the Shakespeare English that is difficult, not the funky Shakespeare-era costumes. Oh well, I guess they all know more about this than I do. I struggle just to get the basics.

black swan

Black Swan. The word has been that this movie is intense, and Jerry can handle only so much intensity (on the screen, that is -- not in real life), so he opted out of seeing this film. Jon, my son, can handle lots of intensity on screen, being a fan of numerous slasher movies, and this should movie be a lot tamer and more civilized than those, so he went with me last night to see it. We went to dinner first, at Green Mill over there on Hamline Avenue in St. Paul, and then off to the Highland Theater, a neighborhood theater we hadn't been to in quite a while. The crowd was sparse, maybe because of the snowy streets (St. Paul is infamous for not plowing) or maybe because Black Swan had been playing for a while. We had a fun evening though.

The movie? Well, maybe our expectations were too high, but, although we both liked it, it mostly rated an "okay" from us. The suspense was less than we expected, and the story didn't seem to be all that original. But the acting is good, Natalie Portman especially as the conflicted white swan/black swan, and our favorite aspect of the film may have been the Tschaikovsky Swan Lake soundtrack. Worth seeing, and everybody knows that it will be a nominee for Best Picture Oscar. And I think even Jerry could have handled the intensity level.

who inspires what?

I would be amused, if it weren't such a somber subject, by the video that Sarah Palin defensively released yesterday, in which she basically blames the media for somehow inspiring hatred and violence by implying that she is partially responsible for inspiring hatred and violence with her nasty, divisive, weapon-loving speeches. The ironic part of her blaming the media is that the media have totally created her. It wasn't any accomplishment on her part or her intellect or her skills that made her, theoretically, a would-be Presidential candidate. It was her bizarre uniqueness that made her a celebrity, and it was the media that brought her out of nowhere to become a household name right up there with Paris Hilton. She owes the media for all the money she is making now as a speech-maker and a political cartoon character. If she can't divide people, she has no message. Compare that Palin video to the unifying, sensitive, and articulate speech by President Obama last night. If these are the choices, I'm so thankful that he's the one who is President.

last night's tarmac thoughts

The plane we would be taking was late arriving in Philadelphia. Our flight was supposed to be leaving for Minneapolis at 6:35 PM, and it was well past that when the incoming flight finally landed. Then they had to unload those passengers and get us on the plane as fast as possible so that the people making late connections in Minneapolis wouldn't miss their flights. It was the fastest boarding I've ever seen. Everybody was cooperating, getting their carry-ons stored and getting into their seats quickly. I was impressed.

But then we were loaded, and we just sat there and sat there. The pilot finally came over the intercom to say there was a mechanical problem that had to be checked. So we waited and waited, getting nervous about the people making connections and also about the heavy snow that had started and was accumulating around us while we sat there helplessly. The mechanical issue was resolved eventually, and we pulled away from the gate. And sat some more. And then had to wait to be de-iced. More waiting. Then waiting in line to take off. And finally out of there. Almost everybody that had connections in Minneapolis missed them.

While sitting on the tarmac, I was wishing I could be blogging, although the blog posts would have been frustrated rantings about the annoyances of air travel these days, and you got to hear some of that today anyway. I had the time while waiting to read yesterday's New York Times, which is something I wish I had time to do every day, but that brought some more irritation. There on the front page was a large photo of that demented Arizona killer. I bet you could win the Nobel Peace Prize and not get your picture on the front page of the Times, but you can if you're a nut-case murderer.

And then today I see that Sarah Palin is appalled that people are blaming her and other irresponsible loudmouths of her ilk for helping to create an atmosphere of guns being glamorized and painted as solutions. Her gun talk -- her "don't retreat, re-load!" idiocies -- gives permission to the unstable to go after their perceived political enemies with literal firepower.

...and anyway, I'm home and back at the office, with no time to read the Times today.

PHL to MSP

1.11.11.

On my way to the Philly airport, hoping to beat the winter storm... Had a good visit here in Jersey... Now back to reality. Or is this the reality part?

you know what i mean

Well, Goodbye South Jersey would be more appropriate, and I don't know who this singer is, but I'll flying home out of Philadelphia again tomorrow, which always makes me sad, so you get the idea.

It's been a good visit here, watching as my brother Ronnie recuperates and spending time with my sister Mary. I'm happy to have siblings -- all five of them.

embracing the snow

Staying with my sister Mary while I'm here in South Jersey and having a great time with her. It's been a long time since we've had some one-on-one time.

But this morning, while she went to church, I got in my rental car and drove to Atlantic City, about a half hour away. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. There was a fresh layer of snow everywhere, the sun was shining, the roads were good. It was a perfect winter morning in AC on the Boardwalk.

Mary and I visited yesterday and this afternoon with my brother Ronnie, who is recovering at home and seems to be making good progress. He mostly seems like himself. His immunity is still very low, so he'll be confined at home for a while, but he's in good humor and we had a great time talking and watching the football playoffs (Lamenting the Eagles loss, though).

I'll be leaving on Tuesday, although there is a big snowstorm predicted for here for Tuesday, so who knows, maybe I'll get snowed in here. Maybe that's okay.

MSP to PHL

On my way, an early morning flight to Philly, then the drive over to South Jersey, where snow is predicted for today... :-(

he ain't heavy...

It's been a long, long road for my brother Ronnie the past month, spending most of that time in a hospital in Philadelphia in pretty bad shape. The hospital sent him home on Monday, even though he was still extremely weak from those hellish and scary weeks (there is some question whether it might have been an insurance-company-driven decision to discharge him), but he was thrilled to get home even though he is still very confined and limited. I talked to him on the phone the other night -- he sounded pretty good, although he says he doesn't recognize himself in the mirror anymore.

So, with the intention of trying to help him get through the boredom and tedium of recovery (and not making it worse, I hope!), I'm going to go visit and spend some time with him this weekend. Flying to Philly tomorrow (Saturday) morning, back Tuesday evening. It will be good to see him and my other family members there in South Jersey.

definitely not a susan

I was in the 6th grade, and the teacher, Mr. Taylor, announced to me and the class that my dad had just called to tell me that my mom had just given birth to a baby girl. I am the oldest of six siblings, this new sister is the youngest: three boys, three girls, a good balance. In those first couple days, I lobbied my parents hard to name my new still-unnamed sister "Susan". I'm not sure if they even paid any attention to me, but they named her Joan, and she sure seems like a Joan now.

There are twelve years between me and Joan, but somehow it has turned out that she is the sibling that I know the best, and we are very close.

That 6th grade day was 52 years ago today. Happy Birthday, Joan!

the tears of a clown

The new U.S. Congress starts today. The Republicans are in the majority in the House now, and it looks like there may be a circus atmosphere as they go through the motions of trying to un-do the accomplishments of the Obama Administration, all for short-term political points and not for solutions to long-term problems. The Tea Party faction of their party will be doing their own sideshows of distraction and disruption. It will be an awful session but perhaps kind of entertaining as the media focuses on the clowns.

Leading the circus for the Republicans is the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner -- the guy who cries at the drop of a hat, during speeches, during interviews, usually when talking about himself. There has been a lot of discussion lately about what the reactions would have been if it had been Nancy Pelosi or some other woman politician with so little control of their emotions. Would they have been laughed out of Washington? Probably. But somehow this Boehner dude has reached this pinnacle of political success, and in his new position he has indicated that he does not intend to cooperate with Obama and the Democrats, so here we go with more gridlock.

Not sure whether to watch the spectacle in Congress out of some morbid curiosity, or, out of helplessness, look the other way and take a leave of absense from politics (Like my son Jon is doing). I feel bad for the elected officials who would like to really accomplish something positive. I don't think it's gonna happen.

the walls came tumbling down

My poor hometown of Millville, New Jersey. The city has been going through rough economic times, coincidentally starting at about the time I left in 1976, due to a lack of planning on what would happen if the glass plants all closed (Which they did). Downtown Millville, like many downtowns across the U.S., mostly died, unable to compete with big-box stores outside of the downtown core.

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Several years ago, a big push was made to turn downtown Millville into an arts center, which has gone fairly well, but the centerpiece of the newly fashioned downtown was to be the renovated Levoy Theater, a 102-year-old theater which hasn't been used in 30-some years. Local citizens formed a non-profit organization and set out to raise the money, and reconstruction started a few months ago.

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I was surprised, though, when it turned out to be a re-building of the theater as opposed to a renovation. Only the outer walls were saved (the roof was already gone), and everything else was gutted. The dream, as imagined in the picture at the top of this post, ended yesterday, though, when the outer walls collapsed, and the building is now a rubble. Millvillians, past and present, are feeling very sad about this nasty and unexpected turn of events. There are a lot of memories from long ago lost in that pile of bricks.

one of my predictable moments

It was inevitable that this would eventually be one of my Monday videos.... Today, it seemed appropriate. Busy season starts today, the holidays are over, my brain is on hold until at least April 15.

brett favre's last game...

... and he probably will be on the sidelines, not playing because of a concussion...

This afternoon will be the last Vikings game of this football season, since they were too pathetic to make the playoffs. And Brett Favre's final game will be anticlimactic since the game is pretty meaningless and he'll be out of the action. He'll just be over there on the bench while the announcers gush about his career. This his final year as a player just sort of fizzled out, but he found ways to be at least interesting on the field and off the field. He's been a major presence in the sport since 1992, so it's sort of sad to see him finish.

Our friends Tony and Diane are coming over to watch the game on TV with Jerry and Tom and me, saying goodbye to the Vikings 2010-2011 season and preparing for the off-season ways the Vikings will have to stay in the news: Who will be quarterback next year with Favre gone? Will there be a season next year or will there be an owners' lockout? What will happen to the still deflated Metrodome? Will the Vikings move to Los Angeles after the 2011 season if they don't get a new stadium? The drama will continue.

can you picture donny osmond throwing up onstage?

Well, that didn't happen. But it could have. Theoretically. He called in sick instead.

After risking our lives slip-sliding on icy roads last night between Minneapolis and Mystic Lake (20 miles or so) to see Donny & Marie, we sat down for a quick bite to eat at the casino's food court. I went to get us some sodas, and on the way to the free-soda machine, I saw the signs that said that Donny had the flu, hadn't been able to make the trip to Minnesota, and that Marie would be performing solo. We were there for my sister Joan, the Osmond fan, and I had the dreadful task of going back to the table and telling her that our plans had gone awry, that her beloved Donny was a no-show. I give her lots of credit for not bursting into tears on the spot. She had already decided that 2010 was a bust, and this was just icing on the cake, the year's last gotcha.

But you know what? Marie's solo show turned out to be pretty darn entertaining, and we had a good time regardless. The casino gave us gift cards to partially make up for Donny's non-appearance, we gambled a little afterwards and rang in the New Year as we went slip-sliding home.

another year shot to hell

(Very unimaginative of me -- that's the same title I used on 12/31/07)

I was just watching a news video of fireworks and celebration in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, where it's already 2011. We in the U.S. Central Time Zone still have a few more hours to savor 2010.

2010 was kind of weird, but aren't they all? For me personally, it was kind of a transition year -- difficult at times but better than the "unsettled" year of 2009. 2010 was the first full year of my new business partnership and the year of our remodel of the condo that we finally moved into in late April. The saddest part of the year was the death of my brother-in-law John, who I will miss tremendously, and the serious health issues and financial crises of so many family members and friends.

But like any year, there were many happy times to balance the sad ones, and life is mostly good.


Best book I read in 2010: By far -- Life by Keith Richards.

Best movie I saw in 2010 (not that I saw all that many): The Social Network.

Best vacation: Hawaii in November.

(I may fill in some more "bests" later as they occur to me) :-)


I'm optimistic about 2011, mainly because pessimism is a drag.

wolves and lambs

Busy as the year winds down....

Went to the Timberwolves game last night, we took my nephew-in-law Ryan, the Wolves played well but lost (big surprise - they are now 8-25), we had a good time anyway. Came out of Target Center to a rainy evening, and the rain continues today: Lots of rain and melting snow, big puddles everywhere, it should be interesting when it all freezes later tonight. Sometime this evening we're going over to our former neighbor Dee's house for a combination one-day-early New-Year's-and-Jerry-and-Howard's-anniversary dinner/get-together with former neighbors. Dee has made this sort of an annual tradition, and it will be good to see former neighbors and Dee also. Sad news from Dee -- her cat Ming is dying, so we may be saying our goodbyes to Ming.

Tomorrow evening, we will have kind of a bizarre send-off of 2010. We are taking my sister Joan to see two of her favorites from her '70s teenage years, Donny and Marie Osmond, at Mystic Lake Casino. Why bizarre? Well, Mystic Lake allows no-alcohol anywhere in the building, so it will be an alcohol-free New Year's Eve party, which is a little hard to picture. The no-drinking piece of it, though, will fit right in with the squeaky-clean Osmond Mormon image. And, wouldn't you know it? These are performers that I'm not at all excited to see, and somehow we managed to get perfect seats in the second row center -- surrounded of course by aging Osmond fans (This show sold out immediately).

Saturday, the first day of the New Year, back for another Wolves game. I sure wish they could think of a way to avoid all those turnovers.

somebody's definition of the best

I used to know the top songs of any given year, at least in those years early 60s through early 70s. Now I don't hear new pop songs, let alone know which ones are the "top" of the year. I thought it would be cute, though, to list the "top 10 songs of 2010" for you year, so I went Googling for some info about the current top of the pops and print the lyrics here for you, and the more I found, the more depressed I got. What a bunch of junk (Which is exactly what my parents said about the 60s stuff). Plus, this is a family-friendly site, and the lyrics are, well, explicit at times. So I'm going to spare you. You should thank me.

standing in line at toxic hell

We were at the Mall of America last night, which was really kind of weird because there were too many people, all for the after-Christmas sales, I'm sure, and we hadn't even done any Christmas shopping this year at any mall, it's just not our thing. But we had seen that Nordstrom was having a sale on certain Ecco shoes, and there was a certain kind I wanted since my old Eccos in that style were falling apart. Needless to say, that particular style was not on sale, so it turned out to be a dumb time to go, but I bought them anyway.

Afterwards, we strolled the Mall a little, had a quick fast-food dinner at one of the food courts. Or at least I thought it would be quick. Jerry finished his dinner (Japanese) and was still hungry so went to find something more. Out of all the food court choices, most of which had no lines of people, he picked Taco Bell (also know as "Toxic Hell"), which had a line of about 20 people. Well, first of all, I don't do lines. I'd rather skip dinner entirely than stand in a line that long. But, Taco Bell? To me, the food is kinda repulsive. But there Jerry and all those people patiently stood for probably 15 minutes in a line that hardly moved. It's a world I don't understand, waiting for Taco Bell when you could choose from all those not-busy places.

So I sat at one of the food-court tables and played with my Blackberry and people-watched a good cross-section of Twin Cities suburbia walk by with their bargain treasures. The mall life in the 'burbs is an okay place to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there.

googling a lookback

This will be the week to look back at another strange, awful, wonderful year of our lives.

another boxing movie

You know how weird I get about trying to see the Best Picture Oscar nominees, which of course haven't been announced yet, but there are some films that are a shoo-in for a nomination, like Black Swan and The King's Speech and The Fighter, so maybe we should do some of those to avoid a February last-minute marathon. I'm thinking today or tonight might be a good day to see The Fighter since it might be cute to see a boxing movie on December 26, which is Boxing Day in various remnants of the British Empire.

Of course, Boxing Day has nothing to do with boxing, although it's unclear what its original purpose is except to extend Christmas for a day -- something to do with boxes set up for donations to the needy, according to Wikipedia.

I must admit disappointment that there is another acclaimed boxing movie, though. I mean, haven't we been through enough of those -- Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby, etc.? Joan says it's good. We'll see, tonight or sometime soon.

while the televised yule log burns

As Jerry finishes making dinner and Joan texts Merry Christmas to her nieces and nephews and we wait for Jon and Tom to arrive, we have a TV channel on playing holiday music while the screen shows a fire in a fireplace. Funny how it warms up the room!

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I hope all my faithful readers are having a warm and wonderful holiday.

what christmas 2010 is going to look like

White, very white. We even got a little more snow overnight to make it a very-clean looking fresh white, and it was enough to officially make this the snowiest December in Minneapolis history (If you're gonna do it, you might as well do it big). This photo I took a few minutes ago at one of our condo building entrances, right after I took a leisurely walk through downtown to watch the last-minute shoppers panicking through the stores. I'm usually one of them, but this year we finished everything early, even the wrapping. Now I'm not sure what to do with myself! :-)

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Our Christmas routine: This evening, as usual, we spend Christmas Eve with our friends Diane and Tony and some of their other friends and family. It's always nice, festive, always sort of overdone by Diane and Tony. That's how they are. I might go to church late, we'll see. Then tomorrow morning my sister Joan will come over, and my sons Jon and Tom will show up a little later for Christmas gift stuff and dinner and all our usual traditions. Our Christmases are always beautiful... I hope yours are too.

flipping back and forth

Across the room, there's a movie on TV, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and it's over my head, I guess, because I'm really not sure what's going on, story lines flipping back and forth confusing me (if I'm really paying attention at all), but it sure looks good on HD, sort of like moving art work interrupted by sound and commercials, so it goes on and we haven't switched it.

Cozy evening at home. The Christmas tree looks good, I'm glad we have it. Happy to be at home.

And I keep thinking about my brother Ronnie, lying in that hospital bed in Philly feeling weak and awful. He won't get home for Christmas. He probably won't get home until 2011. I wish I could go see him.

308,745,538

The 2010 census numbers are in, and the "official" population of the United States is 308,745,538. That sounds like a lot. The population according to the 1950 census was 150,697,361. No wonder the stores seem so crowded! On the other hand, I just heard that with only three days left until Christmas, one in five people had not started their Christmas shopping yet. My question, obviously, is this: Who did a poll to find this out? Out-of-work former census workers??

winter begins...

....or so my calendar says. After record-setting snow and cold, it feels like we should be nearing the end. Guess not.

The end of the home Vikings games for this year ended infamously last night at that outdoor stadium at the University of Minnesota. The way they played this year, the end is a good thing.

The end of Christmas season approaches. The end of 2011 next week.

Ah -- a good end -- Over the weekend, the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"...

well, why not? it's christmas week

The Christmas spirit? Again, not sure what that means, but I thought maybe my Monday video this week should be my favorite Christmas carol. And why a Josh Groban version? -- well, that's for Vickie.

the mouse king and all that

Well, we found a real tree, and it's not overwhelming and is actually quite nice. We didn't give in to the temptation to go artificial. Not this year, at least.

Then last night, spur of the moment, Jerry, Tom and I walked over to the State Theater and saw Nutcracker Fantasy, the Loyce Houlton version that has been performed this time of year here in Minneapolis by the Minnesota Dance Company for many years now. It's a beautiful, elaborate production, and it was fun. Maybe we're finally getting into the "spirit of the season", whatever the heck that means!

on the verge of selling out

For some reason, it's been sort of a melancholy kind of week for me. Maybe it's the dreary cold weather or some lack of motivation at the office or worrying about my brother in NJ who has been in the hospital the past week (And not responding to treatment as he should be). Or some combination of these things and everything else.

But, on the positive side, most of our Christmas shopping is done, which is unusual for us by this date -- a week before Christmas. Back on the negative side, we don't have our Christmas tree yet, and it looks like we need to go get one today. It's just been too cold to go schlepping through Christmas tree lots to find the right one. I actually spoke verboten words to Jerry the other day: that maybe we just sell out and give in and buy an artificial tree this year. He dismissed my words as that of a madman, but I just got to thinking about dragging a real tree up the elevator and dealing with needles and dirty looks from the other condo residents. And any real tree will take a day or two to thaw out after sitting outside all this time. Oh geez, somebody talk me off the ledge!

wiser heads prevailing

OK, we're not going to the Monday night Vikings game after all. Tony and Diane decided it would be a miserable experience, so they're going to get their tickets refunded. A sigh of relief from me and Jerry. We'll watch the fiasco on the HD screen at home.

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More Facebook news. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year. Good choice, isn't it? Think of how Facebook has affected the lives of us who have been suckered into it! In addition to that Time recognition, the film awards for the year are starting to be announced and the somewhat fictionalized movie version of Zuckerberg's story, The Social Network, is already racking up nominations and awards (Good movie!). Zuckerberg also recently announced that he plans to leave most of his wealth to charitable organizations. That Computer Nerd sure made it big with such a simple concept. Why couldn't we have thought of this?

too many people on a lesser scale

Our friend Tony called early this morning to see if we want to go with him and Diane to the Vikings-Bears game Monday night. The Metrodome is still deflated, you know, so the game is going to be played outdoors at the totally-unprepared-for-the-NFL University of Minnesota football stadium.

Reasons to say No to Tony's offer:
-- It's going to be colder than a witch's you-know-what. Monday evening the real temps could be 12 to 15 degrees, so you can imagine what the wind chill will be like, winds gusting across that field. Plus, there is a possibility of snow.
-- It's going to be chaotic. There will be a potentially 64,000 Vikings fans squeezing into a stadium that seats 50,000. No reserved seating. First-come, first-serve.
-- The Vikings have totally disintegrated as a team this year. The third-string quarterback will probably be starting this game. They have almost no chance of winning the game.

But will we probably go, just for the experience of witnessing a potential catastrophe to be remembered for a long time? Of course!

i sometimes think there are too many people

It used to be, back in the 70s, maybe even the 60s, that we used to always hear from people who were concerned about the "population explosion" and about promoting "zero population growth", but we never seem to hear much about those issues anymore, which makes no sense to me. In 1970, the world's population was about 3.7 billion people. Now it is almost 7 billion.

The possible overpopulation of the earth came back to me as a concern while reading the Jonathan Franzen book, Freedom, in which one of the main characters has what becomes his life mission: to convince people to have fewer or no children in order to somehow save the earth, which of course has limited space and resources. At the current reproduction pace, the earth eventually is going to run short of the necessary resources to feed the world, which will lead to wars and mass starvation in some parts of the world or who knows what else.

But what to do? Political leaders only think of terms of the next election, so don't expect any answers from them. Churches, especially those which are against birth control, are still encouraging people to have lots of babies. The Bushes loved starting wars over Middle Eastern oil, but can you picture wars over water and food? It could happen within a couple more generations. Our cheery thought for today.

hey, it's time to go home

I got too wrapped up my work, and here it is 6:30. I'm sitting here dunking Oreos in coffee and watching out my office window for the traffic to subside before I start out for home. Rush hours the past two days have been nuts because there is so much snow everywhere that the traffic lanes have been narrowed; plus, people forget how to drive on snow-packed streets. And call me crazy if you want, but I'd much rather eat Oreos than sit in traffic.

no brown christmas for us this year

the Vikings always find a way to stay in the news

As I write this, there was supposed to be a game here at the Metrodome. Whoops. There went the roof.

The Twin Cities are digging out. It's fun. Joan took the bus over from St. Paul (yes, the busses are running again), we met downtown for coffee and compared stories about how hard it was to cross intersections getting to the coffee shop. How boring might it be to live in a place where they never get a snowstorm!

the cool thing about blizzards

Having a home. Being warm at home.

Our worst snowstorm in years. Cars stuck and stranded everywhere. Travel isn't advised. But my son Jon drove from St. Paul to Minneapolis this afternoon ("to be defiant", he said) only to find the event cancelled that he drove over for. Jerry has been out in his four-wheel drive Subaru several times and loves driving around in this stuff, except for having to maneuver around the cars that can't make it through. The New York Giants football team can't get into town for tomorrow's game against the Vikings -- they've been diverted to Kansas City.

I say, it's time for a cozy weekend at home. This is the reason hot chocolate was invented.

feeling the vibes

It's getting weird. I'm not crazy about carrying this Blackberry anyway (I mostly dislike the whole concept of cell phones), but there it is on my belt, and every time I get an email, it vibrates on my hip, and I look and it's usually a worthless email anyway. But then sometimes I feel a vibration and look, and there is no email. I just imagined the vibe. It's getting really bad now: Sometimes I feel the vibe, and I'm not even wearing the Blackberry! What is this thing doing to my body??

jobs without a bubble

The unemployment rate is still high. As a band-aid, it looks like unemployment benefits will be extended for the long-term unemployed, and all politicians say their #1 priority is to create lots of jobs.

I keep wondering, what kind of jobs will they be?

It used to be that the U.S. could count on the manufacturing sector to create good-paying jobs, but factories have shut down and manufacturing has been shifted to other countries where labor is cheap. Then in the '90s, there was the dot/com bubble that burst somewhere around y2K. In the middle of this past decade, real estate and mortgage companies were booming but that all crashed circa 2008 and it's hard to see real estate coming back big anytime soon.

So is there another boom coming that politicians can see that the rest of us can't see? Or do they think, "A job is a job", regardless of whether it pays enough to support a family or sustain middle-class lifestyles?

requiem

My friend Elke sent me a CD of a concert that her choir in northern Germany did last month, the highlight being Mozart's Requiem, which she knows I like. So I've turned off my Sirius Radio for a while and have been listening to the Requiem on my car CD player, sometimes in bits and pieces on those short drives. Full blast, this is adding some Amadeus-type drama as I meander through my chilly downtown Minneapolis life. It's a fine recording, the choir and orchestra sound good. Thanks, Elke!
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Thirty years ago today, my friend Steve (now deceased) called to tell me that John Lennon had just been murdered. It still seems as odd today as it did then: Why would anybody want to kill John Lennon? When the news came that he had been killed not by somebody who hated him but by a fan, that made it even more odd. I wish John would have still been with us these past years. I feel like my generation missed out on part of its history.

bombing

Haven't heard much about Pearl Harbor Day this year... December 7, 1941 -- "a date that will live in infamy", according to FDR. Not long ago, I was reading a poll that was testing Americans' history skills, and there was an amazing lack of knowledge of that attack that launched the U.S. into World War II. A large number in the survey thought that the Pearl Harbor bombings was the beginning of the Vietnam War! A sad commentary on our educational system.
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Am very disappointed that Obama caved in to the Republicans so easily on extending the Bush tax cuts. His political base is appalled at his weakness.

celebrating my location

Back at work, back at home, back in Minneapolis, and trying to remember all the good things about living here.

A couple of ironies in showing this as my Monday video: That I, the un-Republican, am posting a promo video targeting the delegates to the 2008 Republican National Convention; and that the Convention wasn't held in Minneapolis, it was held across the river in St. Paul, and St. Paul never gets a mention here.

P.S. If you can't find reasons to celebrate your location, you should be moving.

confessions of a doorknob

Jerry, Tom and I went to a fun Timberwolves/Cavaliers game last night. Wolves beat Cleveland 129-95 -- a total blow-out. We saw another Wolves game like this last month where they blew away the New York Knicks and looked unstoppable, and you'd sit there wondering, How can these guys ever be beat by anybody? Ah! But this is a team that so far has only won five games this season while losing fifteen. Sometimes they look so absolutely pathetic that you wonder if they've ever played the game of basketball before. How is it that the very same players can be so nearly perfect some nights, feeding off each other's energy seemingly without limits, and then other times they seem weighed down by anchors? An impossible energy to maintain indefintely?
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Tonight, Sunday evening, I'm at the office for a little while, trying to get a jump on Monday morning, catching up on two-weeks' worth of mail, email, phone messages, and administrative details. Say what you will, but this will make Monday morning much easier to face, and at the moment I'm fired up to get back to work and go gangbusters. Funny how I can go through periods of being totally motivated -- not just with work but with my social choices, work-out routines, healthy eating, etc. -- and then go through periods of being a total inanimate doorknob and can't shake myself out of inertia no matter what I do. Phases of the moon? No, I don't think so. Sometimes I can be ultra-motivated and something will happen -- somebody saying something that drains the positivity right out of me. It just takes a split-second, and it's over and I can't get it back. Or is that just my excuse to withdraw and re-group?

red mud on my shoes

Yesterday afternoon, our last day in Hawaii, Jerry wanted to go to a state park located remotely near a mountain neighborhood overlooking Honolulu, so we picked up some take-out KFC and headed up the mountain for a picnic lunch. A lovely park, lots of tall trees and good views, nobody there but us and a few chickens. Cannibal chickens, as we found out when Jerry tossed some leftover KFC chicken their way (By the way, it's very eerie eating chicken when there are a bunch of chickens standing next to you watching).

The dirt in this park was very thick and red (as is a lot of dirt in various parts of the Hawaiian Islands) and it had rained earlier in the day, so walking around was a little icky. Not a big problem until I got back to the condo in downtown Honolulu and realized I was tracking red mud onto the carpet. Jerry went to work cleaning my shoes (not an easy task, it doesn't come off very handily) and worked on them even more when he got back home to Minneapolis because they still had some crud on them. These are the only shoes I have that are good in snow, of which we were greeted with much on our arrival this morning. They're still not spotless, it might take a while. I guess it was just my way of bringing part of Hawaii back with me.

here we go, aloha-ing again

To me, the hard part about living in Hawaii would be the isolation way out here in the South Pacific, the fact that it is so far from the rest of the world.

But the great thing about being here for a two-week vacation is the isolation way out here in the South Pacific, the fact that it is so far from the rest of the world.

I do have a conscience, though, and would feel guilty if I were to complain that this is the day we have to go home. The people that I know and love back home have been putting up with the miseries of an early winter -- low temperatures and wind chills, ice, snow, dreariness in the past couple weeks. I know we were lucky to have this time here. My way of justifying it all: Now and then you need to step away from your life and take a look at it from far away and see how it all shakes out. The issues back home don't go away while you're gone, but maybe you're better able to handle them. I do have a Dilemma Number One (which I can't discuss in these pages) that I feel better able to face plus some of those other more minor nagging problems. My head feels cleared. A Hawaiian brain enema, maybe that's what it all was.

The plane leaves at 6 this evening. I'm going to go enjoy the day.

sudden notice of the deficit

Believe it or not, I do try to keep my political rants to a minimum, since I know it sort of irritates some of my loyal readers... But sometimes I can't hold back.

The Republicans in the Senate have announced plans to block every bill until they can get the tax cuts that their corporate-goon paymasters want. If they got everything they wanted (continued lower rates for millionares), the budget deficit would grow much worse in years to come. Plus, this is the party that got us into wars we can't afford and allowed Wall Street to create an economic disaster that required a massive government bail-out. So it's obvious to me: the last concern they have is the staggering budget deficit.

But now a bill is coming up to extend unemployment benefits (A relatively modest amount, I'm sure, compared to the above travesties). I admit that I don't know what the answer is regarding the long-time unemployed, but the Republicans have already lined up against the bill because it "would increase the budget deficit"! I guess they just aren't dependent on the jobless voters to help fund their re-elections.

(One of the effects of being on vacation is that I get to spend more time keeping up with the news).......

hawaiian sunburn

No, I don't have a sunburn, a little pink maybe... When I go to the beach, I tend to mostly stay under this umbrella; otherwise, I'd be burned to a crisp, and that's not a pretty sight.

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I actually spend more time on the extended patio outside the condo (in the shade, mostly) reading and/or listening to my iPod. A delightful existence -- and without sand between my toes. Jerry spends a lot more time at the beach than I do, snorkeling and developing a beautiful tan, of which I am envious but unable to attain.

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The "Hawaiian sunburn", actually, was the name of a wonderful fruity drink I had last night at a place called Cheeseburger Waikiki... Vodka, raspberry, pineapple, I'm not sure what else -- all very Waikiki. Good cheeseburger too!

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Back to the patio now, as the days dwindle down to a precious few.... After a stop-and-go start, I've really gotten into the book I'm reading now, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

end-of-the-month odds and ends

First of all, has John McCain lost whatever sanity he had left? He is saying, as North and South Korea edge perilously close to war, that we should be considering "regime change" for North Korea. We might all like to see regime change in that country, but "regime change" as a buzzword flashes us back to when that term was being used to overthrow Saddam Hussein and bring on the unnecessary and disastrous Iraq War. Sen. McCain surely must know that militarily North Korea is not the pipsqueak country that Iraq was, so such talk is reckless. In the meantime, as he anxiously awaits World War III, he is leading the charge in the Senate on a mission fighting the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in the military even though more than 70% of the military when polled were okay with that stupid law being repealed. He's giving the appearance of a doddering old man, out of touch with the country, locking himself in a cage of his own making. Thank God this man isn't President.
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And what about this "Wikileaks" thing? Is it really such a big deal? I haven't seen much of what's being disclosed, but what I've seen so far would at most just hurt the feelings of some world leaders.. And if you can't stand having your feelings hurt once in a while, you shouldn't be a world leader.
*****
And poor President Obama... He can't even play a pick-up game of basketball without being injured... 12 stitches! Let's hope that 2011 is kinder to the man. We need stuff done!

warsaw concerto

Way back in my piano-student days, Warsaw Concerto by Richard Addinsell was my signature piece, and I still like to play it now and then when I'm feeling a little less lazy than usual. I wish I could play it as well as I did when I was 18. The rendition in this video was done by the West Forest Sinfonia in Berkshire, England, and I think the young pianist did a pretty good job on it. It's a great piece, and fun to play on the piano.

(when I'm out of town for two weeks, I start missing my Steinway)....

notable

The New York Times every year come out with its list of 100 notable new books of the past year. Here is a link to its 2010 100 Notable Books:

http//www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/books/review/100-notable-books-2010.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=books

(The sad part of this is that the "Best of 2010" lists have already started!)

On the non-fiction side, I've read two of the books on the list and am enthusiastic about both: Life, by Keith Richards (which I just finished a couple days ago) and Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent. Fiction-wise, I'm back to reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and will finish it this week.

You already know how much I loved the Keith Richards book, the most enjoyable read I've had in a long time. This is how the Times describes it:

Reading Richards's autobiography is like getting to corner him a room to ask
everything you always wanted to know about the Rolling Stones.

surfing is harder than you think

Jerry, always ready for a new adventure, had never been surfing, and surfing in Hawaii of course is a way of life, so he went, along with a new friend of ours named Steve, for a surfing lesson yesterday on the east coast of the island. They had a young, 25-ish, blond surfer for an instructor, who made it all look easy. It wasn't easy.

Jerry came back to the condo exhausted and in major distress, having used muscles he hadn't known about before. His back and neck were in major pain. He cried out for his chiropractor, who of course is thousands of miles away in Minneapolis. The new friend Steve, a 58-year-old guy visiting from Vancouver, also had some new muscles making their presence known. Apparently (for them, at least) the hardest part of surfing is lying on the surfboard, paddling out into the ocean to catch a wave. Or maybe, if you're going to be a surfer, you just need to start at a very young age.

I took Jerry on my long morning walk this morning, and that somehow seemed to help his back and shoulders sort of get back to normal. They're talking about going surfing again on Monday!

tryptophan hangover

It's kind of funny what the day after Thanksgiving has become: an almost-automatic extra day off from work, a shopper's dream and nightmare, a recovery day from excess food (Don't you love hearing in detail how miserable people are from overeating?).

Jerry is off somewhere having a surfing lesson. I'm hanging out in Waikiki, taking walks, reading, trying to avoid any acknowledgement of Black Friday. It's not beginning to look a lot like Christmas, for me at least.

the t-bolts

Thanksgiving 2010 -- our second one in Hawaii (the first was in 2007). We popped the turkey into the oven an hour and a half ago and walked over to the Wailana Coffee House for breakfast. (One thing we notice that's different here -- everything seems to be open -- grocery stores, restaurants, just about everything). My cousin Karen, who has lived in Hawaii for close to 40 years, and her husband Eric are coming over later for dinner.

In our house, growing up, dinner seemed to always be secondary on Thanksgiving to the Millville-Vineland high school football game. My mom was always frustrated that she had to plan dinner around when we'd be home from the game. Those Millville football games used to be so much fun -- Millville was such a football town -- and the Millville-Vineland game on Thanksgiving was the highlight, sometimes drawing 8,000 to 10,000 people. The rivalry goes on, and I know the games don't draw nearly the crowd or the excitement that they used to -- Millville has changed a lot -- but you know what? -- If I still lived in Millville or nearby, I'd be at those games, cheering on our Thunderbolts.
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Added later: Todays final: Millville 28, Vineland 0.

will you still need me, will you still feed me?

When the Beatles came out with this song ("When I'm 64" from the Sgt. Pepper album, 1967)who'd a-thunk that I would have made it this far or that it would go so quickly?...Thanks to all for the birthday wishes.

opting for the pat-down

At the Tax Conference last week, I ran into a guy that I used to know, vaguely, years ago, and we chatted for a while. He started talking about how much he travels for work now, and we veered over to the topic of airport security, the new see-through scanners and all that. He told me he once opted for the "pat-down" instead of being subjected to the new machines, I assume because of the concern a lot of people have about the potential harmful effects and invasiveness of the new scanners, and was then appalled how thorough the TSA person had been in his search of his body. He felt he had been "groped" by the guy.

Which makes me laugh. This guy, an overweight nerdy accountant, thinks that a TSA security dude picked him to fondle out of the hundreds of guys he had probably patted down that day? I'm thinking it was a bit of wishful thinking or an overly paranoid imagination, but who am I to say? Maybe it's intended as a TSA employee benefit and in their training they're taught the right ways to "cop a feel"!

I think if I'm faced with the decision, I'm gonna go with the pat-down. A little groping might liven up the nervous drudgery of going through airport security. Unless the "pat-down" line gets too long with other would-be gropees (I hate lines!), in which case I'll take my chance with the rays.

enjoying while i can...

football for breakfast

Found a better place for breakfast -- a cool little Italian place two blocks from the condo -- so the Big City Diner might be history for us. oh well!

...but what's weird is having an early breakfast on a Sunday morning and then coming back to watch football starting at 8 a.m. At home the games start at noon, on the East Coast they start at 1. Currently watching the Vikings play the Packers. The game is at home, in Minneapolis, where outside the Metrodome, there is a bad ice storm happening. If we were in town, we'd probably be at the game, assuming we didn't slip on the ice on the way into the stadium and end up in the emergency room.

We might go to the beach later.

2000 light years from home

My body is still on Central Time, so I was awake early jet-lagging. Since he's been here two weeks already, Jerry adjusted to Hawaiian Standard Time long ago, so he slept in while I went for a walk exploring the neighborhood. Walked over to Waikiki area, where I found a Starbucks and had coffee while I read my Keith Richards book, which I love.

It was a good airplane book too, made the time go fast. Between Minneapolis and San Francisco, there was a woman next to me with an Amazon Kindle, which she says is great. I haven't been able to make the switch from paper books to computer books, but who knows where I will end up on that topic. I never say never. One thing I did notice -- when we were taking off and landing, when they tell us to turn off all electronic devices, she had to turn off her Kindle, while I kept reading.

Then between San Francisco and Honolulu, there was a super-nice kid next to me, a sophomore at San Jose State, on his way to the football game (today) between San Jose and the University of Hawaii. He was reading a tedious-looking book for school and would rather have talked the whole flight, but my nose was buried in the Rolling Stones story. It's going to be one of those books that I'll hate to see end.

back at the big city diner

First day of a two-week vacation in Hawaii, spending it so far just hangin' out, slowly recovering from the long trip, the four-hour time-zone change, a cold, and a stressful last few days at the office trying to be able to be gone for a whole two weeks.

Jerry found us a very nice rental condo in a neighborhood close to Waikiki. Our one venture outside the building so far today was driving our rental Volkswagen Beetle over to the Big City Diner for breakfast. The Big City is one of our favorite haunts here, although it's not that big a deal, come to think of it -- it's just a Honolulu tradition for us.

The next big stressful decision is whether to go to Hula's for Happy Hour. Mai Tai, anyone?

MSP to SFO to HNL

The phone rings at 6 a.m., and our land-line phone has this weird music it plays instead of a normal ring, and I can't wake up enough to know that it's the phone and not the alarm (even though I knew I hadn't set the alarm).... So I played with the alarm, trying to turn it off, and when I finally woke up enough to realize it was the phone, it had stopped that annoying song and I worried about what the call might have been that I missed. It was Joan, my sister, and she called back a few minutes later... Her cat had not-being-able-to-pee issues and was in distress, and we needed to get him to the vet asap. So I headed to St. Paul, on a rescue mission, and I'm hoping that by now after was probably a very unpleasant experience for him, the cat is free-flowing once again.

That's how some days start, and then they end up in a totally different scene. In a couple hours, I get on a plane to Honolulu, Hawaii (with a stop in San Francisco), and when I'm in that warm other-worldly paradise tonight, it will be funny to think that my day started with a plugged-up cat.

lunch with Jon

My son Jon and I met for lunch today at Jersey Mike's, a place that had been "closed for renovation" or some such excuse for a couple months and which we assumed would never open again. Restaurants that close "temporarily" never seem to re-open. And this place even had the phone disconnected during the temporary close, an almost-sure sign of abandonment.

But it was one of the few places in Minnesota where we can get something resembling a Jersey-style cheesesteak, so we didn't want it closed. A person can not be expected to live without cheesesteaks indefinitely.

And what did they do to renovate?.. Nothing that we could see, except that the map of New Jersey was moved to another wall and some new Jersey-shore photos were hung here and there. Same menu. I guess they just needed a break. We all do now and then. Mine starts tomorrow.

what not to wear to the humane society

I need to stop at the Animal Humane Society later today to pick up a prescription for my sister Joan's newly adopted cat (see November 7 post).

Meanwhile, I'm on a high today, as a Philadelphia Eagles fan, after seeing the Eagles trample the Washington Redskins last night on Monday Night Football, 59-28, led by the flawless (last night, at least) quarterback Michael Vick. Michael Vick, besides being a great quarterback, is infamous for running a brutal dogfighting operation several years ago, for which he went to prison and which theoretically ended his football career.

Joan and I and other Eagles fans were dismayed when the Eagles picked him up last year, but it's amazing how forgiving we have become. We've learned to love the dude. I can even picture myself wearing a Vick jersey, although today probably wouldn't be the day to stop and buy one, at least not on the way to the Humane Society!

Monday morning wake-up

They say the Three Stooges are a male/female thing -- that women are shaking their heads and saying how stupid this is while the men are laughing their heads off.. We'll see.

lessons in uncertainty

For the next two days, I'll be sitting in continuing education classes with a couple thousand other CPAs for the annual state Tax Conference (I know you're envious). It's the 27th year in a row that I've gone to this conference.

Normally, these classes are held to update us on tax changes and related topics and to prepare our firms for the upcoming busy season. What will be different this year is the uncertainty at this late date of what those changes might be. You see, the "Bush tax cuts" from 2001 are due to expire at the end of the year, and, if nothing is done by Congress in the meantime, tax rates and other tax regulations will go back to where they were in 2001. This is extremely important for upper-income taxpayers in particular, whose top tax rates would go up significantly.

Considering the horrible federal budget deficits, some are saying, "Let them go back up!" The Republicans are saying, "Cut the rates for our rich buddies even more!" So there will be a fight in the lame-duck Congress between now and December 31, and you'll hear about it. I'm hoping that Obama will be not so anxious to compromise as he has been so far. He needs a win.

view from my laptop on a saturday morning

OK. So they were right, and it's still coming down. I must say I enjoyed trudging through the wet snow to the coffee shop a little while ago, the novelty of the first snow. It would just be nicer if it would snow and we could enjoy the beauty of it for a couple days and then it would go away until next year.

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A good day to settle in and watch it all from the window. Tom and I will play some cards and enjoy the moment.

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Wow, did we ever have a good time at the Timberwolves game last night -- the best Wolves game I've seen in years! Wolves 112, New York 103. Kevin Love (nephew of Mike Love of the Beach Boys, by the way -- your dose of trivia for the day) had a 30-30, the first in the NBA since 1982 (30+ points and 30+ rebounds in the same game, for you un-basketball readers).

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As long as we have plenty of good indoor activities, winter isn't ALL bad... just MOSTLY. And the forecast for Honolulu next week is mid-80s and sunny.

a word before shutting down the office

It's not quite 4 p.m. on a Friday. The rest of the office is gone for the weekend. I'm thinking, can I really accomplish much more today? Should I just head out? Should I grumble-blog about the weather first?

Then I look out the windows (I usually have a great view from my office, by the way), and it's gray and almost dark already. People are talking that a snowstorm is coming. When I check the forecast for tomorrow, the number of predicted inches of snow keep going up. 8 to 10 inches, they say now, or might this be one of those snowstorms that never happens?

But I look out at the sky again. It feels like snow. Maybe I'd be predicting it too.

I worked late every night this week: the price to pay for leaving next Thursday for two weeks in Hawaii. Tonight -- another Timberwolves game with Tom, this time against the New York Knicks. The Wolves have a one-game winning streak going. Gotta start somewhere to keep hope alive!...

... and maybe it won't snow.

veterans' day

Today is/was Veterans Day, a sort of "hug-a-veteran" day. There has been a lot of gushing today about "sacrifice" and "price of freedom" and such things, but a lot of people saying those kind of things are secretly just glad it was somebody else who went into the military and not themselves. All day I was trying to think of something profound to say about how the best thing any of us could do for veterans is to learn from their experiences; to save the future veterans from needless death and injury, mental and physical; to wage no unnecessary wars; to say No to the greed and bloodthirst of the military-industrial complex. But I just couldn't think of the right words to say, so I guess I won't.

... and I'm a veteran, you know (Vietnam-era draftee). I haven't been hugged yet.

eventually there will be a last appointment

At my funeral (which I do hope isn't too awfully soon), I hope that somebody thinks of this and says it: "At least the poor dude won't have to go to the dentist anymore!"

I mean, I have nothing against my dentist, who is a cool guy. And the dental hygenist who does my twice-a-year cleaning is a sweet young woman named Jenny. I wouldn't mind meeting them for coffee or lunch or a night at the opera, but I live in absolute dread of being in that dentist chair.

Yep, you guessed it, today is my appointment. And when I'm done and make my next appointment for a cleaning, I'll dread it again for six months, counting down the days. And what if they find a cavity and I have to come in sometime in between? It's a vicious cycle. But not endless.

late-night temptations

Monday evenings have become couch-potato time for Jerry and me. We have what we call "our shows". How did this happen?

... and now especially that he's in Hawaii, I curl up on Monday evening, cover up with a soft afghan, eat some leftover spaghetti and a bowl of vanilla ice cream, and turn on the TV: Two and a Half Men, Mike & Molly (which I admit I fell asleep during), and Hawaii Five-O, occasionally flipping the channel to check out the score on Monday Night Football. It is all too easy. I don't dare to check what shows might be on other nights of the week.

But last night brought an extra bonus after "our shows": the premiere of Conan O'Brien's new late night talk show. Loved it. Hope it doesn't become part of a five-night a week routine! That HDTV is a vicious temptress! Will I go back to reading books??

inspiration for a monday morning

a scene from my favorite movie, Moonstruck...

joan's cat

My sister Joan is a cat person and has been grieving for her beloved cat Alex, who died this past summer. She needed some space, apparently, between the loss of Alex and getting another cat, but she said she would know when the moment was right.

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Yesterday the moment was right. My son Tom and I drove her to the Animal Humane Society to find an adoptable cat, which turned out not to be as easy to do as we thought. She just couldn't pick just any ol' cat, of course -- there had to be good chemistry. We ended up going to three different animal shelters -- one in Golden Valley, one in St. Paul, and one in Woodbury -- before finding the right cat -- meaning one that was the right age (not a kitten) and the right temperament (a lap cat).

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So last night was their first night together in Joan's apartment. I talked to Joan on the phone a few minutes ago. This cat (named Tony by previous owners but subject to change) is a very energetic cat and slept perhaps not a wink. My first thought is, "Good thing the Humane Society has a 30-day return policy!" But I know Joan well enough to know that she's already hooked on him.

losses, real and potential

Ticket prices this year were dirt cheap and we've been Timberwolves fans since the team's inception and the arena (Target Center) is just several blocks away, so we have season tickets. That's about 40 home games. It will be interesting to see how many of those tickets we actually use.

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As I heard somebody say sometime, here's a problem the NBA (National Basketball Association) has: No matter what game you see, you feel like you've seen it before. There isn't enough variety to keep enough people interested long-term.

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That is true with the Timberwolves, who have been losers more years than not and particularly since Kevin Garnett was traded in 2007. We've seen every kind of loss more than once. Last year, their win-loss record was 15-67. This season, they are 1-5 so far.

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Tom and I went to last night's game and were pleased that the Wolves only lost by 10 points; after all, earlier in the week they had lost a game by 42 points. I guess it's all only about expectations because he and I had a great time anyway.

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What concerns me is that the NBA, because of overall financial problems and maybe because of the lack of enough exceptional players, has begun to discuss the possibility of contracting four teams (out of 30) into extinction. Minnesota would be an obvious consideration since it has the image of a failed franchise.

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It would be sad to lose the Wolves, but I don't know what will save them. It won't be forty times this season, but I guess we'll just do our part by filling our paid-for seats when we can and hope that the current players can win more than fifteen games.

hereafter

Another movie, another five bucks. Eight other people in this audience this time, and this wasn't the late show. And I almost bought some popcorn this time until I noticed that a small plain popcorn was $5.50, fifty cents more than the movie! I'm not cheap, but I'm no fool either.

Anyway... the movies for me two nights in a row, and this one was very un-Jackass-ish: Hereafter, the new movie starring Matt Damon and a bunch of no-names and directed by Clint Eastwood. It has three distant main characters whose stories come together in the end (and an unnecessary but interesting-to-watch tsunami in the beginning): afterworld stuff, the spirit world, psychics, near-death experiences. A good story, thought provoking. I liked it, and I think the other eight people did too.

No movie tonight. Timberwolves game with Tom.

so who's the jackass?

Fortunately I didn't see the 3D version of Jackass 3; I mean, do you really want to see a guy puke in 3D? The 2D version was what you would expect from a Jackass movie -- wasn't as good as Jackass 2 -- but I guess even sado-masochists run out of ideas eventually.

I walked over to the late show last night at the downtown stadium-seating cineplex at Block E, and I do wonder how that place stays in business. Fourteen screens and hardly anybody around. The ticket was only five bucks (Monday through Thursday all day), and there were seven other twisted people at my Jackass movie, all under 25 years old, I'm sure. That's $40 the theater made in that showing, and I didn't see anybody else, including myself, with popcorn or a soda (I was already over my Pepsi limit for the day).

I promise to make my day today more uplifting. That shouldn't be difficult.