Space/Time Peculiarities

I suspect that I have a black hole somewhere in my apartment.

Why else would time become so accelerated during weekends, and yet run at a molasses-slow pace when I'm at the office? I was thinking that a 4-day weekend would be very leisurely and relaxing, and yet here it is, almost over...and I'm not anywhere near as far along my to-do list as I had hoped.

Thanks a LOT, Mr. Einstein.

The good news is that I'm having a great time and enjoying the little accomplishments that ARE occuring. I've made progress on editing my dad's autobiography, cleaned up some junk around home, done dishes, laundry, and all the other mundane chores that really should be handled by robots and/or eunuchs. I've also gathered the stuff we need to shoot the Tazmanian Hulu training video, which is scheduled to begin production today.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "But Terry, if you show everyone else the secrets to your absolute mastery of the Taz, then you may no longer be able to dominate, crush, and humiliate your competition in such a devastatingly thorough manner." Alas, this is true, but when you love the sport with as much passion as I do, well...you just can't help but want to share your knowledge with those less fortunate souls who have not yet experienced its beauty for themselves.

Plus, as far as I can tell, I'll be the first person ever to post a Tazmanian Hula video on the web. It'll probably be like the Star Wars kid, those guys on the treadmills, or the Mentos/Diet Coke dorks -- I could end up with my own TV show or something.

Well, assuming that thousands of people will be searching the Internet for information on the Taz, which, come to think of it, isn't at all likely. Most people have never heard of it, and if they have...don't care. Can't blame 'em really. It is a silly stroke.

But we were talking about the black hole in my apartment, so quit trying to change the subject, OK? The point is that I could use another three or four days of weekend time before I go back to work. Is that too much to ask?

Maybe there's some way to reverse the polarity of the black hole or something. Maybe I should watch a few Star Trek episodes and see if I can pick up some good science hints. If I find the answer, I'll let you know.

Have a great day!

Ice, Ice, Baby

Well, at least it was icy when I started my run. It was more like mud, mud, baby by the time I finished.

Yes, that's right -- it snowed last night. I was planning to run 10 miles or so this morning, but became a trifle skeptical when I looked out the window and saw all the ruts of ice on the streets. Still, what else was I going to do with my morning, right? I put on my tights, 3 layers of shirts, a hat and gloves, and headed out to Waterton.As usual, there was a fairly stiff wind blowing down the canyon. But it was very pretty, with little fluffy snow frosting puffs on every plant, tree, and fencepost. I had forgotten my watch, so for once, I was going to run, walk, or shuffle without any concern at all for pace or total time. Sweet!

Except that I'm a bit of a psycho when it comes to watching the clock. I get nervous when I don't have a timepiece to pace with. Oh well, this would be a good lesson in Zen, right?

The road was covered with a thin layer of snow, foreshadowing a slick and goopy surface on the return trip. But I've been wanting to get a new pair of shoes, anyway, so perhaps getting them caked in canyon glop would be the perfect motivation to get me to take the trip over to Boulder Running Company. We'll see.

The good news? My hamstring barely clenched on me at all. The bad news? It was icily cold in the down-canyon wind, and to make matters worse, I totally bonked after about a mile and a half. What I mean by that is that even though I had eaten a good breakfast, I felt hungry and depleted, with a craving for more nutrition. Thanks to my Boy Scout training, though, I was certainly prepared. I had a Clif bar and a baggie full of Swedish Fish. I ate them all as I walked for a bit.

Thus refueled, I started running again, and actually felt pretty good. Without a watch I have no idea what my pace was, but it felt quick. I get a kick out of leaving footprints in fresh snow. I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Since I haven't done a distance run for a while, I decided to turn around shortly after the 5-mile stick. As I headed back down the hill, I couldn't help but notice that the day must be warming up. The fresh snow was rapidly mutating into squishy mush. No problem, though -- there was still enough sand and snow along the outside of the road that I could (mostly) find a tolerably non-yucky track.

With about 3 miles to go, I felt something slapping against my left calf with each stride. That could only mean one thing -- my shoe had come untied. I glanced down to see whether it was completely undone or not...and was surprised to find it still tightly knotted. But something was definitely hitting me. I stopped to investigate.

Somehow, a small piece of nylon string had caught on my shoe. Maybe it got wedged in with a rock or something. I reached down to yank it off. But it didn't come loose. Hmm.

Further investigation revealed the problem: I had a fish hook embedded in my sole! A freakin' fish hook! It even had about a foot of line and one of those little paper-clippy things attached to it. That was what had felt like a loose shoestring. Problem solved!

Well, not really. The barb on the end of the hook had become quite solidly attached to the bottom of my shoe. There was no way I could pull it out with my bare fingers. I had to pop off my fanny pack and put on my running gloves to get a more secure grip. Hmm. Still couldn't get it loose.

I had to hobble over to the side of the road and sit on a rock to twist, pull, and wangle the stupid fish hook loose. It would've been easy with a pair of pliers, but with the fact that I had run on it long enough to drive the barb deeply into the sole, my cold fingers were barely adequate to the task.

Yeah, I know -- I could've just ripped the string off and run back to the car with the hook still in the shoe. Probably wouldn't have caused any harm. But...there was a chance (however slight) that the barb would work its way through the shoe rubber and into my toes. I figured I'd be hurting enough from running 10 miles in the snow; the prospect of a rusty harpoon embedded in my tender toe flesh just didn't sound appealing at all.

After sitting on the rock for so long, there was the usual problem of getting my legs warmed up again, but I was able to do it...and to finish the run. And yes, my shoes were carrying an awful lot of canyon mud on them by the time I made it back to the car. But overall, I'd have to say that it was a good run, and an excellent start to the day. Now it's time to get started on the rest of my chores for the weekend.

I hope you're having a good one, too! Enjoy!

Turkey Dinner

Ah, my friends, I hope that your Thanksgiving was as excellent as mine. I shall need to burn a few extra calories today, I'm afraid; but it was worth it!

The day started with a nice run around the charming town of Golden, Colorado. My friends Joe and Kristen hosted an event they called the "No Turkey" Trot -- a 4-mile fun run from their house, around the golf course, past the Taj Mahal, and back...followed by pumpkin bread, muffins, and juice. A couple of the other swimmers and a family of their neighbors showed up, and we had a nice workout. I can't say that I ran well, but I even managed to do the downhill sections without screaming too much. It was a great way to start the morning.

After that, I took a nice hot bath (which included an unintentional nap), and then spent the afternoon doing chores around home. I had made a to-do list for the weekend, and got right down to the business of scratching items off of it. I even did some of the tasks. (Ha! You saw that line coming, didn't you?)

Before I knew it, 'twas time to head back to Golden. Joe and Kristen had invited friends over for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and I was fortunate enough to be among the invitees. The entertainment began immediately upon my arrival -- a group of deer were wandering through the neighborhood. Apparently, they spend a lot of time there...and after watching them for a while, we each shared our own stories about close encounters with deer on the roadways.

Before the end of the meal, we had also shared stories about driving Camaros in snowstorms, riding motorcycles in thunderstorms, and general tales of woe about how bad the weather can be in godforsaken wastelands like Kansas and Nebraska. It was a fine time, and the food was delicious! I ate multiple helpings of everything, figuring that since my to-do list included several "exercise" line items, I'd work it all off by the end of the weekend.

I hope that everyone enjoyed a marvelous Thanksgiving, and that all were able to spend some time thinking about what's most important in life. For me, it's health, important relationships, miscellaneous snack foods, and reruns of Green Acres. For some, it may include things like getting all your Christmas shopping done on the day after Thanksgiving -- if that's YOU, then I'll wish you good luck and tons of fun fighting the crowds. I won't be joining you.

Whatever you do to kick off the Christmas Season, though, have a great time doing it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I won't waste your time by stating that I'm thankful for my family, friends, and loved ones, the food on the table, my extraordinary good looks, yada yada yada. I would hope that you'd know all that, and would be thankful for those same things in your own life. (Well, to the extent they apply, anyway.)

I would also hope that everyone is grateful for the American men & women who put themselves at risk for the cause of freedom around the world. That should be a given, as well. But I wanted to take this opportunity to list some of the little things that I'm thankful for; things that might pass under the standard thankfulness radar. I'll leave you with this short list, and then let you get on with the serious business of eating your yams* and pie. Have a great day!

Little Things I'm Thankful For:

• My acoustic guitar. (I'll bet you that if the mortgage industry CEOs would've had guitars to play when they felt stressed, we never would've had to bail 'em out.)
• Chocolate-covered peanuts. (Well, chocolate-covered anything, really, but I've kinda been on this peanut kick lately.)
• The SciFi channel. (The abysmal quality of their "made for SciFi" movies continues to give me hope that there's a writer/director slot out there for me somewhere.)
• Pepperoni.
• Pony tails. (Is there anything hotter than a good-looking runner chick with her ponytail flipping back and forth with each stride? No, I don't think so.)
• Political incorrectness. (I refuse to refer to idiots as "the judgment challenged", or to call a zombie a "heartbeat challenged citizen". And even though I've been accused of being overzealous in my recycling efforts, have all of my electricity generated by wind power, and love the idea of bio-mass fuel cells -- I am really getting sick of the term "Go Green". Slogans like that are for Kermit and the Hulk...just let the rest of us go about our lives without telling us what color to be, OK?)
• Weird Al.
• The wallet. (Think about it; how tough would it be to carry around all your credit cards and stuff without those neat little transparent pockets to put them in? Now if I only had some money to put in it...)
• And of course, YOU -- the great people who set aside your taste & maturity each day in order to read this column.

Thank you for your support! Enjoy your turkey!

* Seriously, does anyone eat yams on any other day of the year? Are there folks in, I don't know, New Hampshire or something, that come home from work and say, "Ah, it's Wednesday...YAM night!" and then sit down to a big plate of waffles, yams, and Jimmy Dean sausage? I'm just curious...

Short Work Week

Yeah, I know I get Thursday and Friday off this week, and that should make me deliriously happy. But the truth is that I want the rest of the days off, too.

Is that what they mean when they talk about "Corporate Greed"? People who don't want to go to the office very much, but instead are greedy for days off? I suspect not.

The good news is that there's not much going on at the office, so I'll probably be free to take some vacation. The bad news is that my car began to smell funny during the Kansas trip, so I'll have to take it into the shop. Beyond that, I'll try to get some quality time in the swimming pool, and maybe even get outside to run a bit before the snowstorms move in. It bums me out that the pool and gym are closed on Thursday, but I guess that just means I'll have to work out harder on Friday. I'll let you know how it goes.

For now, though, please accept my best wishes for you and your family to have the most excellent Thanksgiving ever. Enjoy your turkey, etc., and if you're out shopping on Friday...well, you won't see me. Have a great week!

Kansas

We had a pretty good trip to Kansas, but I'm glad to be home. Dorothy's opinion notwithstanding, it's always pretty sweet to cross the state line back into Colorado.

The trip east was uneventful. We experienced the usual wind and the resultant mad dash of the tumbleweeds. And there were the occasional roadside elements that gave rise to brief conversations: "Look, that hawk is flapping his wings as hard as he can and is still moving backward in the wind!" and "Weren't those giant windmills a brighter white the last time we passed through?", etc. Scintillating stuff.

Actually, on the way home, Tanner tried to calculate the windmill blade velocity at the tip -- and came up with a value of right around 100mph! Even if you were Don Quixote himself, you wouldn't want to stand on the ground next to one of these behemoths. Though the splindles only rotate at a pedestrian 20 rpm, the enormous length of the blades means that the tip would roar past you like a Japanese bullet train and would scare the Spam out of you, even if it didn't chop your head clean off.

Cool.

Of course, there are one or two other sights along the road that grab your attention:
Whew! 8000 pounds is a LOT of prairie dog. (He's made out of concrete, which makes him a tad heavier than he'd be if he were flesh & blood...but he IS pretty darn big, regardless. And they even paint him once every 25 years or so, so Prairie Dog Town is a swell attraction. Seriously, everybody should go there once...just to make you appreciate your own life just a little bit more. And yes, those are llamas in the background of the photo.

Yeah, I know -- you're wondering what llamas are doing in Kansas. Oh sure, you expect to see meadowlarks and Jayhawks perched on every available tree branch, but not a bunch of Andean pack animals roaming the plains. Buffalo, maybe, and probably a Hereford or two, but no badgers, and definitely no llamas. Sorry, but I cannot explain it.

Anyway, the drive was the same as it always is. There was a slight problem when we got to Wichita -- I spent 15 minutes trying to convince a hotel clerk that I had indeed made a reservation, despite the fact that he couldn't find me in his computer. Such things are usually due to the clerk searching for an incorrect spelling, so I made sure to repeat my name, letter by letter, slowly and distinctly. Nope. Not there. I figured it must've gotten lost somewhere in some dusty forgotten corner of the Internet, so I asked him if he had any open rooms, and how much they were. He told me the price, and I commented that that was quite a bit more than I'd paid online...which is when we both figured out that I had reserved a room with the East Kellogg branch, not the airport hotel. Oops.

The good news is that my idiocy cost me nothing but the extra drive time. It did make us late to dinner, but since my brother and his wife were taking us all out to a fancy-pants place for my dad's birthday, a quarter of an hour here or there made no difference. [For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of "fine dining", it's all about sitting in the dark for a long time while obsequious dudes hover around behind you with vases* full of water and lemon wedges, hoping for the chance to refill your glass and get a large tip. They expect you to be there all night long, savoring the various unpronouncable sauces they lovingly drip atop your food...so if you're late -- no biggie.] Our waiter (a young fellow named Mason) bore an unfortunate resemblance to Quentin Tarantino, and the room was too noisy for anything other than shouted conversation, but the food was tasty and the company enjoyable. My dad even made an empassioned speech/toast, and there was much familial bonding.

* OK, I'm missing something here. For uncounted eons, water glasses have been refilled from pitchers, emmintently servicable containers that hold much water and ice, and dispense them easily. When did it become all the rage to fill glasses from these pint-sized flower vases (I think they call them "giraffes" or some such), and then have to refill those after every second glass? I am beginning to doubt that I will ever understand high society. Sigh.

And after that, we went back to Dad's house for birthday pie. Mmm.

Pat and Liane are incredibly generous people. In addition to springing for dinner for the group, they also did the bulk of the labor at my dad's house throughout the rest of the weekend. My sister and her daughter also helped a lot, as did my son. Since my skills tend to lean more toward data processing than successful usage of power tools, I spent most of the time working on my dad's computer, diagnosing errors and helping with file organization. Much was accomplished, no one was hurt**, and additional pie was consumed at pleasingly frequent intervals.

** OK, Julie did suffer a bit when she stepped into a flowerpot full of water. It had been buried in the yard and covered with fallen leaves, in much the way the Viet Cong used to create punji-stick tiger traps. But other than a soaked foot and some frutrating wait time while her shoe and sock tumbled in the dryer, Julie appeared to be no worse for wear.

One of the major outdoor projects was the erection of a couple of Greek columns in the front yard. I thought that perhaps they were planning to bid on holding the next Democratic Convention in their yard, or perhaps film a Star Trek Episode, but Judy explained that the idea was to provide a vertical structure upon which the local ivy could climb, thus creating a vegetation canopy to protect the front porch from the heat of the summer sun. OK.

I have no idea how fast ivy grows, or what it is about non-weight-bearing columns that attracts such growth...but it will be interesting to visit next summer and see how well the plan has come together. In any case, it gave Tanner an opportunity to learn how to assemble and tighten guy wires, in case he ever wants to create a Stonehenge stage set for the band or something.

Anyway, it was a lovely trip, and I think my dad enjoyed his birthday. But I'm home now, and thinking about Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure it's going to be an awesome week all around.

On the Road

Just a few final things to do before I can hit the road. Empty the trash, choose reading material to take, make a last-minute run to the grocery store to pick up the keyboard batteries I forgot to get last night, pack clean underwear (in case of an accident), run the dishwasher, squeeze a little air out of the shampoo bottle so it doesn't explode when we get to lower altitude, gather up some BTO CDs and some Diet Coke (my dad's house usually only has -- ugh! -- Pepsi), lower the thermostat, and set the burglar alarms and booby traps.

Oh, and load all the stuff I'm taking into the car -- suitcase, gym bag, guitar, laptop computer, camera, etc. As usual, I will take too many clothes, too many books to read/tasks to accomplish, and not enough Prozac. Oh well, at least I'll have Tanner to talk to as we drive through the barren wastes of western Kansas.

Wish us luck, and we'll see you in a few days!

Getting Ready to Travel

There's not really a whole lot I need to do to prepare for a weekend trip to Kansas, especially when I drive my own car. I only need a couple of clothing changes, and there's enough room in the back of the car that space shouldn't be an issue anyway. The guitar takes up the most space, but everyone knows you can't travel without at least one guitar.

And because Tanner's coming, we'll need room for a keyboard, too. Hmm, maybe there won't be that much extra space after all.

I had hoped to have my dad's family tree and autobiography documents completed, formatted, and edited in time to present them to him on his birthday, but I underestimated the size of the task. They're in pretty good shape, and I've collected a TON of information, but neither document is really ready for publication. I'm hoping that Dad will be able to verbally fill in some of the gaps in the story, and clear up some of the conflicting information.

Other than collecting the suitcase, musical instruments and data files, the prime task is getting the car ready to go. This means removing the tennis racket, sock monkey (don't ask), and various empty water bottles, Gatorade containers, and refillable gas-station drink cups. I'll leave my swimming gear in the car, of course, since I'll be going to swim practice on Friday morning before we leave town. And I've got to make sure there are ice scrapers, spare jackets, and other cold-weather necessities -- it is a trip to Kansas, after all. Then fill 'er up with gas, check the oil, stash away a few cans of Diet Coke (my dad and his wife only drink, ugh, Pepsi), and we're ready to go.

I can't promise any blog entries during the trip; I'm uncertain of Internet access, free time, and how I'll react to the crushing depression that generally accompanies crossing the state line into the "Land of Ahhhs". Lordy. (Let's face it: "Colorful Colorado" may not be the jazziest slogan to put on your state line welcome sign, but when a story about a microcephalic scarecrow, homesick hayseed, and water-soluable conjurer is the sunflower state's only claim to fame, well, you can't really expect Disneyland, can you?)

But it will be good to see the folks. I'll try to take some family photos, and will definitely let you know if anybody has any good stories to tell. In the meantime, if you have close relatives that you haven't talked to in a while, why not give 'em a call?

Have a great day, my friends!

Birds

Have you seen these new commercials for "Madagascar 2 -- Mr. T's Revenge", or whatever it's called? I think it's a product tie-in for some fast food joint, but I haven't paid enough attention to know for sure. All I've noticed is that some kind of monkey-thing flings a penguin off a cliff, thinking it's a homing pigeon. And while cluelessly tossing flightless critters is always good for a laugh, the clip still doesn't make me want to see the movie.

I've tried several times to watch the original "Madagascar" movie, and just can't get through it. For some reason, I think it's kinda creepy. And perhaps that feeling, along with seeing that trailer so many times, is what sparked the weird dream I had last night. I don't remember the exact details, but it had something to do with sending carrier pigeons to attack the Energizer bunny hot air balloon, while the Indians from F-Troop described it all.

Anyway, you may be familiar with my general feelings toward our fine feathered friends, so you can probably guess how I feel about pigeons, even if you don't know about the neighbors I had during my final years in the suburban portion of Wichita known as Westlink.

My younger neighbor, Rod Nucholls, was practicing to become a pro golfer, so he was always chipping and putting golf balls around the yard. I had no problem with that, and in fact was quite pleased to learn that later he did indeed become a club pro, and maybe even went on tour. But his older brother, Rick...well, Rick raised pigeons.

He had a large chicken-wire cage in the back yard, right at the spot where we used to hit home runs over the Dotzour's fence. I'd estimate that there were about two dozen of the filthy creatures cooing and bobbing their heads and crapping all over everything. The smell was horrid, the avian vocalizations were unceasing, and there were feathers everywhere. Why would anyone want to spend so much time and money just to keep a cageful of birds you couldn't even eat?

According to Rick, their appeal was in their uncanny sense of direction. You could take any one of his birds hundreds of miles away from Wichita, and when you released it, it would fly unerringly home to this very cage. (Well, I don't really know about the "unerringly" part. They may have had to stop for directions multiple times for all I know...but at least they eventually showed up.)

OK, Rick, let's see if I got this straight -- you have this ugly, filthy, noisy winged rat that continually poops where it stands, and even if you take it to another state, it returns to your very own backyard, where it immediately poops again. And this is a good thing? Forgive me, pal, but I can't quite grasp the concept.

Oh well, at least the stinking pigeons didn't keep me up at night. But several years later, I had a neighbor whose bird certainly did. It was a peacock, and it had the nasty habit of shreiking like a banshee every morning somewhere between 2am and 4am. Now, I am an early riser, I admit -- but even if I did want to wake up at 2:00, I'd prefer to be woken with something gentler...say some 100-decibel Ozzy Osbourne, or maybe fingernails on a chalkboard. There's something bone-chilling about the piercing wail of the peacock. Beautiful plumage, yes, but their vocal cords should be classified as weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway, I don't know what any of this has to do with the dream I had, but I guess there's one conclusion that's inescapably clear: If you're going to have a bird for a pet, I'd recommend choosing a penguin.

Housecleaning

Where does the time go? Or perhaps a better question is..."Why do 1-hour tasks seem to take the entire day to accomplish?"

Is it just me? Or do domestic chores just seem to have 'exponential growth' as one of their primary characteristics?

Things kinda piled up while I was working so much on the last proposal. Plus, Tanner had been staying with me for a while -- there were many household chores on my to-do list, as well as teenager recovery duties (aka "toxic spill cleanup"). So once the proposal ended, I took some time off from work to try to catch up on everything I needed to do at home.

My guess was that one solid afternoon would take care of it all.

Yeah, right.

The reality of it was that each chore I attempted ended up revealing at least one more that would need to be done. I'll spare you the grisly details, but suffice it to say that I could take the rest of the month off and still not finish everything that I've added to my to-do list.

Hmmm. Take the rest of the month off? Not a bad idea. I'll have to see what I can do.

Foothills Swim Meet

I'm not sure anybody has better swim meets than we do at the Ridge.

Well, not "better" in the "caliber of competition" sense...but better in the sense of how much fun is had, how much laughter is heard, and how much food is consumed. We certainly excel in those categories.

It was a parents & kids meet, with all events designated as "choice" stroke. We had 9-year-olds swimming next to folks in their 50s, butterflyers competing with backstrokers, and even a few event where people wore fins or pull buoys. (Take my word for it -- climbing onto the starting blocks while wearing flippers is a bit of a challenge. And I'm not sure how she did it, but Katie even dove in without losing her already-in-place pull buoy.) Yes, the entertainment value of this meet was very high, indeed.
Stephanie did an excellent job putting the meet together, acting as both starter & meet director. She also brought the food and beverages, which we tore into as soon as the meet concluded. I have no scientific evidence to support this, but I think most people would agree with me -- swimmers are among the friendliest, smartest, and funnest people around.

Everyone agreed that we needed to do this again soon. Stay tuned, and I'll try to let you know when the next one will be.

After the meet, Tanner and I went back to Guitar Center to pick up the keyboard he had selected. I'll post some music samples using it as soon as he figures out how all the fancy features work. Let me know if you have any song requests, OK? And have a great day!

Keyboard Shopping

Winter took a long time to get here this year, but it finally did arrive. There was a bit of snow in the morning on Friday -- no big deal because it had melted off by mid-day -- but the real indicator was the wind in Waterton Canyon. If my life were a cartoon (no comments from the peanut gallery, please), it would be the kind of wind that stripped your body down to a skeleton and made the remaining bones rattle and drip icicles.

I wasn't quite ready for that.

I intended to go for my normal Saturday morning long run, and had dressed for winter. Tights, jacket, gloves, hat, etc -- the same outfit I've worn up the canyon in the worst weather I've faced. But when I started up the road, my body and willpower simply failed. I've run in such conditions before, but dadgummit, I haven't yet adjusted to this new season. My face was frozen, my legs refused to move properly, and my attitude was more suited to an epsom salt bath than an assault on Everest. I turned around before I reached the half-mile mark.

Well, I hadn't completely given up; I thought I might still be able to accomplish my run down on the flatlands within Chatfield State Park, where there was more sunshine and fewer hurricanes. As I passed through the parking lot on my way to the other trail, I greeted Joe, Kristen, and Emily as they set out to begin their run up the canyon. They were dressed properly, too, and intended to do soemwhere between 7 and 9 miles. I wished them good luck and headed onto the path toward the lake.

There was still plenty of wind, but it didn't have the knifelike quality of the undiluted canyon blast. I felt like I could run out here without danger of the frostbite, death, and the eventual mummification that would've certainly happened in the canyon. But my legs still refused to cooperate. I couldn't manage more than an anemic hobble. After only another half mile, I turned around and headed back to the car, thoroughly depressed and deflated.

And guess what? There were Joe and company, shivering & scraping frost from their faces, same as I had been. I told them that the flatlands were less deadly, and Kristen wanted to go try it, but the others voted to go for pancakes instead. Majority rules. They invited me to go along, and after a brief discussion and enthusiastic persuasion, I agreed.

My original plan for the day had been to run for several hours, and then take Tanner out to a nice lunch for his birthday. But the run was short, and I was about to fill myself with IHOP delicacies...so when I talked to the boy, we decided that it would be best if he dined with his mother first, and then joined me to go keyboard shopping.

That's right; after weeks of asking him what he wanted for his birthday, he finally revealed that he'd appreciate a parental contribution to his "keyboard fund". He's been using my Yamaha Clavinova for his gigs lately -- it's a full-sized digital piano, and while it sounds great and has excellent capabilities, it's really designed to be a household furniture item and not a touring performance instrument. You have to take it apart and reassemble it for each show, and besides, it's something like 10 years old...the new stuff on the market has far greater capabilities.

After enjoying hotcakes & eggs with my friends, I zipped home for a nice warm bath (including a short, watery nap). I also had time to accomplish a few chores before Tanner called and said he was ready to bop over to Guitar Center. On the way there, we discussed the features he was looking for -- the number one priority was the number/quality of voices and adjustability of those sounds, and beyond that he was looking for ease of sound control, playability, portability, and finally...price.

I enjoyed watching him test the various instruments. Normally, I'm not really a "shopping" kind of a guy, especially when I'm just watching somebody else shop...but this was more like entertainment. Not really a free concert; he didn't play entire songs. But more like a PBS documentary or a clip from "Spinal Tap", with quite a few "What the heck does this knob do?" and "Ooh, that's an interesting sound" moments sprinkled in. He went into the store leaning toward Yamaha or Roland, but ended up spending the most time playing with the Korg M50.

Tanner appeared to have made his final decision after a couple of hours of noodling around on all the keyboards. But since he didn't actually know how much money he could use from the band's bank account, we couldn't commit to a purchase. Besides, when you're talking about that much money, it's always good to take what you learned, supplement it with some Internet research and temper it with a good night's sleep. So we left the store with new knowledge and a better idea of the target, but otherwise empty hands. After I dropped him off, he was heading to band practice, where he would discuss the financing and probably make a final decision. We decided that we'd talk tomorrow after the swim meet, and possibly go back to the store to make the purchase. My financial contribution would serve as both his birthday and Christmas presents.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning up around my condo. I was hoping to motivate myself into going out for another attempt at running -- after all, the weather had improved considerably -- but I ran out of time. Besides, I have a swim meet on Sunday. I'll tell you about that tomorrow. Have a great day!

Happy Birthday, Tanner

My son was born 19 years ago today. Well, tonight, really. Although the visit to the hospital began around noon, he didn't show up until after 10:00 that night. I can't really complain, though -- his mom did most of the work.

But come to think of it, I probably did have the tougher job. After all, she got to lie down for most of it, while I was up running around, fetching ice for her, setting up the video camera, tracking down nurses, and doing all that breathing-coach stuff that I studied so hard to learn in Lamaze class. All she had to do was lie there and order me around.

Plus, she had drugs.

Oh well, I can't complain; it all worked out OK. Even though I had to stay up past my regular bedtime, and was on my feet more than I really wanted to be, I have to say that it was pretty cool to see my son being born and holding him for the first time.

Forgive me if I end up telling the same story every year...but my dad has done it every year on my birthday, too. I enjoy hearing about it. (Perhaps I can get him to be a guest columnist to share that story on MY birthday. Hmm.) Not a bad tradition, in my opinion.

Anyway, here's a brief summary of my main recollections from 1989:

• We videotaped the introduction to "The Tanner Heggy Story" (complete with scrolling titles and opening credits) before we left for the hospital. Of course, 1989 was before camcorders were invented, so I had a rather massive camera and a large tape deck to lug around. At that time, I still had dreams of becoming the next Spielberg, so my plan was to document the entire process in an entertaining and possibly Oscar-winning way. I didn't plan for the fact that I'd be busy doing other things during the day, nor for the fact that the doctor wouldn't allow me to videotape anything that might be used in a subsequent malpractice suit should things go sour. And though it became painfully apparent later, it didn't occur to me that nobody (not even the parents) really wants to watch a video of a kid being born. The process takes a dreadfully long time, there is screaming, cursing, and blood involved, and despite what shows like "Scrubs" would lead you to believe, there is precious little clever dialog and delivery room jokery.


• During the lulls between contractions, Tanner's mom and I watched "Risky Business" on the delivery room TV. For me, Tanner's birth shall be forever linked with images of Tom Cruise lip-synching in his underwear. (Shudder.)


• When the baby's heart-rate monitor showed an elevated pulse, the doctor decided to extract the boy with foreceps rather than let him continue his trek at his own annoyingly-slow pace. The procedure was successful, and he pretty much popped right out after that with no further medical difficulties...but his head was kinda squished in the process. It regained a normal shape after a couple of days, but I continue to wonder if that whole head-squishin' thing doesn't have something to do with the fact that he still doesn't have a job.


• Tanner was a tad jaundiced upon arrival, which means that he had a bit of a sickly yellow tinge to his skin. He was also covered with slime, in a foul mood from having his head yanked on with tongs, and generally ugly in that Popeye-esque way that all newborns are. Still, there are no words to describe the joy, love, and adoration that his mother and I felt right then. And we still haven't gotten over it, 19 years later.


• Within one hour of his birth, the kid had already demonstrated his tendency to show off. No, not with his musical talent -- that would come later...this was in the "feats of strength" category. To treat the jaundice, they placed him under an oxygen hood -- a bulky plastic dome that rested over his head. Within a few minutes, Tanner had reached up and flipped the dome off of his face. The nurses commented that they'd never seen such a thing before; babies aren't supposed to have the strength nor the motor skills to accomplish something like that. We knew right then that we had a physical prodigy on our hands. (Of course, when he still couldn't walk two years later, we realized that maybe the oxygen dome thing might've been more a fluke result of random thrashing rather than a pre-conceived bench press. Perhaps he wasn't the next Hulk Hogan after all. Oh well.)


• I couldn't spend the entire time at the hospital because I had to zip home to prepare the place for his arrival. His bedroom has just been painted by a professional, so I didn't need to mess with anything like that...but I had been ordered to assemble a crib. (Women can be SO unreasonable; I didn't see anything wrong with just spreading some newspapers out on the living room floor and letting him sleep there. But his mom had other ideas.) The entire "nursery" bedroom needed to be assembled and functional before we brought the baby home -- wouldn't want him to have a negative impression of his parents' decorating taste on his very first day in the family home, would we? Sigh. I didn't get much sleep that night.


• It snowed. I'm really rather surprised that the weather registered in my memory banks at all, since there was so much other stuff going on, but I do remember that it was a bit blustery when we took the kid home. The fee that the hospital charged included a carseat, which was good because I probably wouldn't have thought of it; we received a quick demo on how to strap him in and we were headed home.

Then the next 19 years are kind of a blur. But there are videotapes of birthday parties, baseball games, piano recitals, and various other childhood activities that seemed oh-so-precious at the time, but no longer make for compelling viewing. Still, I probably ought to digitize some of that stuff and use it as filler when I can't think of anything to write about. There's something to look forward to, eh?

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Tanner! Thank you for enriching my life in so many ways. I love you, Dude. Have a great day!

Ancestry

One week from today is my dad's 89th birthday. Other than some hearing loss, arthritic range-of-motion loss, and increasingly unreliable short-term memory, he's a pretty healthy fellow. We're planning to travel to Kansas to celebrate with him.

At that point, I'll be sure to tell you about the wonders and delights that one can experience while driving across western Kansas on I-70...but today's topic is the result of a request my father recently made. He was wondering about the status of one of his relatives who was about the same age, and asked me to find out if the guy was still around. In the process of the subsequent Internet research, my interest in the Heggy genealogy project was rekindled.

I had started a Family Tree project several years ago, and had traced a couple of the family lines back to Europe in the 1400s. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed, and my only backup of the data was on a spare hard drive. Normally, you'd think that having a backup on a spare hard drive would be adequate, but the warranty repair technician that Dell sent over decided to reformat my backup drive as well as the primary.

A word of advice: never let a repair guy touch your backup drive. Physically remove it from the machine before he arrives, and hide it in the kitchen cabinet behind the Spaghetti-Os. Oh, and also make backups on a CD or DVD regularly. Remember the First Law of Computing: All hard drives will eventually crash.

Well, OK, that might be the second law. I think the first one was "Buy Microsoft stock in 1978." But you get the idea -- do your backups.

Anyway, I was hoping to reconstuct as much of the genealogy chart as I could before the trip back to visit my dad. I thought he might enjoy seeing a printout of his family tree, and learning more about some of our interesting ancestors.

Here are some of the tidbits I've discovered:

• Heggie's Rock, near Appling Georgia, was named after my great-to-the-4th Uncle Archibald Heggie. As far as I can tell, all he did to merit his name appearing on this landmark was to marry the daughter of the dude who owned the land containing the rock. And the rock itself is merely noteworthy because, well...it's a really big rock. With trees growing out of it.


• A completely different uncle Archibald, a speculator in tobacco futures in the early 1800s, was shot while being robbed by highwaymen while walking home from a card game. He recovered, and almost a year to the day later, was shot and robbed again while walking home from the local tavern. He survived that one, too, and hopefully learned his lesson about wandering around after dark with money hanging out of his pockets.


• A contemporary of Uncle Archibald's -- L.A. "Tobe" Heggie -- was fatally shot during a dispute with a neighbor. According to the newspaper reports, he emptied his gun in the general direction of his foe, and then shouted out that he was out of bullets and would therefore like to end the dispute amiably. Apparently, the neighbor was disinclined to do so.


• A fellow named J.L. "Handsome" Heggy married a 19-year-old girl on his 60th birthday. I was unable to find any information about what happened after that, so I'll just assume that he lived happily ever after.

Another relative was arrested for operating a moonshine still, my great grandfather was on a posse that chased Butch Cassidy, and another ancestor was a regionally-renowned tailor. I was unaware that there were such things as regionally-renowned tailors, so this research has been educational indeed.

I still don't know exactly how the family got from Scotland to North Carolina, or from North Carolina to Illinois...or why any of them ever thought that moving to Kansas was a good idea. And I'm still trying to find the connection between myself and the dude that makes the delicious chocolates, but I'm sure I'll figure it all out at some point. In the meantime, though, you can bet I'm doing my backups. I hope you are, too.

A New Approach

Some of you have commented that my recent absence from the Blogosphere must be due to being hung over from celebrating the results of the recent election. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. While I do indeed appreciate the end to the @#$! campaign ads, and I'm aware of the fact that some people's enthusiasm for the new administration knows no bounds, let me assure you that my enthusiasm knows many bounds. And knows them well.

Uh, based on those last few sentences, it is apparent that my writing talents have bounds, too; grammar, style and talent being but a few of the areas of limitation. And as Clint Eastwood once said "A man's got to know his limitations". Of course, he was talking about how far a corrupt police commissioner could go in the pursuit of vigilante justice, and I'm talking about incompetent use of tired clichés, ignorance of the rules of composition, etc., but if you want to get that picky about it, well, go ahead and make my day, Punk.)

The point is that I seem to be incapable of blogging effectively while I'm working on a proposal. (Yes, I know that it can be argued that I couldn't blog effectively even if I had no other duties and distractions beyond feeding myself and using the restroom, but just bear with me here and cut me some slack, OK?) When I'm working weekends and extra hours, what few brain cells I have become entirely depleted, and I just can't bring myself to generate writing that contains my usual deep insight, pithy worldview commentary, and hilarious japery. So I simply stop writing.

But no more, loyal readers. You deserve a daily blog entry, even if it falls short of the abominably lax standards I impose upon myself. Ergo, I resolve to try to post something almost every day, even if it's just a sentence that says "I have nothing to say today". I have no idea if that'll constitute an improvement over what I've been doing, but I'm going to give it a try. As always, I thank you for your patience, tolerance, and continued patronage.

Have a great day!

Underdog

"When headlines in the papers read of those whose hearts are filled with greed, who rob and steal from those who need, the call goes out with lightning speed..."

When I was in fifth grade, one of my classmates started raving about "Underdog". I had no idea what he was talking about. My TV viewing at the time consisted primarily of Ed Sullivan, Bonanza, and Major Astro's after-school cartoon show. But this fellow's enthusiasm was infectious, so I watched the show the next Saturday morning. That's all it took—I was hooked.

The show was worth watching because of the theme song alone. But when you add the vocal talent of Wally Cox, the narration of George S. Irving, great puns, and some of the most engaging villains in cartoon history, well, you've got something special. Plus, Sweet Polly was pretty hot for a cartoon dog.

The Underdog show was good for my vocabulary, too. I learned the meaning of words like cad, riff-raff, and, well...underdog. (I even looked up "overcat" in the dictionary, but apparently, some stuff was just made up.)

The Underdog Mania among my school chums also presented an opportunity for entrepreneurship. Jeb Bolan and I took some old campaign buttons and bank-promo pins and painted them black, then scratched out a big letter "U" in the center. We claimed that they were official Underdog fan club pins, and that you'd definitely enhance your social status by wearing one. We sold them for a nickle, and probably made upwards of 50 cents total from the enterprise (minus expenses, of course).

All was well in Underdog fan-land...until one day our preacher gave a sermon that disrupted my youthful naiveté.

Most Sundays, I'd sit quiety in the church pew, reading the lyrics in the hymnal, or playing with the little offering envelope golf pencils, pretending they were rocket ships having great battles in outer space. I rarely paid any attention to the preacher...the sermons seemed to be just endlessly-repeated stories about old dead guys fighting battles in countries that no longer existed, sprinkled here and there with references to Satan or Jesus or some fat guy that flew airplanes (they always just called him "Paunchy Pilot"). But one day, when Rev. Curtis raised his voice and denounced Underdog, well, that got my attention.

During that sermon, I learned that Underdog and Adolph Hitler had much in common. Growing up in the suburbs of WASP Wichita (er, I mean West Wichita), I had very little sense of ethnicity issues at all. My parents never made any sorts of comments at all about anyone's race, culture, or heritage. Bill Cosby, Moms Mabley, and Lt. Uhura were the only people of color on television, and the only holiday that came in December was Christmas. I knew that Jesus had been dubbed "King of the Jews", and everybody liked him -- so I had no idea that I ought to be concerned with anti-Semitism encroaching into my little world.

But there it was: Reverend Curtis said that Underdog was anti-Semitic, and that we should all boycott the show. According to him, the character of Simon Bar Sinister is obviously Jewish, since "Simon" is a biblically Jewish name, and "Bar Sinister" is...well, I'm afraid that "Bar Sinister" is an English term arising from medieval heraldry -- but it sounds Jewish. And since Simon is a bad guy, well, this obviously implies that all Jews are bad and that Underdog is a Nazi.

Reverend Curtis was a powerful speaker and a nice guy, so I wanted to believe him. But I had trouble following his logic. Perhaps it was because I was only in the fifth grade, but I figured if Underdog were a Nazi, he'd probably want to exterminate Simon, rather than just punch him so hard that he flew into a jail cell. On the other hand, the name Sweet Polly Purebred is rather reminiscent of Aryan Supremacy dogma. I was confused, but overall...unconvinced.

Still, I had to give the Rev. credit for trying to make his sermons topical. But I think he'd have had a better case if he'd have spoken about Noodles Romanoff, one of the villains from the Roger Ramjet show.

Noodles was obviously a libelous depiction of Italian-American pasta dishes in general, and was even more of a hurtful representation of people who wore hats and/or trenchcoats. And let's not even talk about how badly the program specifically defamed the Solenoid Robots ("solenoid" being another vocabulary word for me, by the way) and caused general harm to the image of robotic citizens in general.

What's my point here, you ask? Well, there are a couple: First, if you're going to create a cartoon character who wants to use mad scientific schemes to take over the world, do NOT name him "Simon". (Try a name that describes his primary features, like, oh, I don't know..."Brain".) Second, if you're a preacher who wants to get a kid's attention, start ranting about his favorite TV shows. And third, if your desires to rid the planet of anti-Semitism include buying and then burning DVD copies of those egregiously Hitler-esque Underdog TV shows, DO NOT, under any circumstances mistake it for the recent "live action" Underdog movie. (You may burn that piece of crap entirely for artistic considerations.)

Democracy in Action

Capitalism had a good run, and served some sort of purpose, I guess -- but finally its mad reign of terror is over! Americans wanted CHANGE, and now they're going to get it.

It will be interesting to see if the methods proposed by the winners will really achieve the results they've promised. There's plenty of history that would suggest otherwise, but I think we all need to keep an open mind here. Perhaps it really is true that non-Americans hate us because of our success and dominance, and if we take a back seat in global affairs, the adversaries who have devoted themselves to our destruction will start to like us. (Personally, I'm sure how "being liked" necessarily translates into a better life for our citizens, but I'm willing to be taught.)

I'm also willing to concede that "greed" (ie, wanting a better life for yourself and your family) is inherently evil, and that financial security is prima facie evidence of greed in action. I am SO glad that I'm not rich, because that means I still have a shot at getting into Heaven.

Wait, aren't the streets of Heaven reputed to be paved in gold? And gold is surely a sign of wealth...and therefore EVIL? I'm so confused.

Oh well, once we get some new Supreme Court justices who can fix all the flaws in the Constitution, things will become much clearer. Things will CHANGE!

Hooray!