Unjustified Panic

When, exactly, did we become a nation of wimps and fraidy-cats, anyway?

I think it might have something to do with the emergence of the Internet as the venue of choice for retrieving information. It's making the traditional news media freak out...and in their desperation to retain some relevance in our society, they have learned to routinely create panic and monger fear as their core business model.

[Side question: Why isn't the word "monger" used more extensively these days? It's a perfectly cromulent word, and it has that interesting "MNG" phoneme, which always reminds me of Ming the Merciless, who, come to think about it, is another interesting topic that doesn't get much press these days. Anyway, wouldn't it be possible to monger other things besides "hate", "fear", and "fish.]

I know what you're thinking. You're probably assuming that I'm talking about the Iranian nuclear program, and the fact that some irresponsible news outlets are discussing it as if weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a megalomaniac dictator with fanatic devotion to the annihilation of specific countries and groups of people is a credible threat to world peace. Well of course I think that's ridiculous...when has a crazy dictator ever actually used his country's weapons to wage genocidal war on anyone? (I'll confess that I'm not really a devoted student of history, but I'm pretty sure it has never happened.)

Or you might be thinking that I'm just annoyed that I didn't invest in Purell stock right before the Swine Flu panic created a market explosion for both hand sanitizer and the placards that tell everyone (not just fast food employees) to sterilize their hands.

But no, I'm talking about the fact that we've begun to pre-emptively shut down civilization if the news media weather forecasters tell us it's going to snow more than one inch. Geez.

I live in Colorado. In addition to having some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, fascinating historical sites, and the occasionally successful sports team, the state is also known for being the premier ski destination in the country. In other words, people, sometimes it snows here! You'd think that the folks who live here would be prepared to deal with a bit of the white stuff every now and then.

The fact is that the weather in this great state has been known to change from shorts-wearin' balmy to fireplace snugglin' frigidity within a matter of hours. In fact, I have created a phrase to succinctly define this tendency: "If you don't like the weather in Colorado, wait a minute." [Note: you may quote me on this, but please be sure to attribute it appropriately. I just now made it up, but I suspect it has the potential to be repeated.]

Our last snowstorm did indeed create some hostile conditions, including icy roads and a need to break out the windshield scrapers. But there was no reason at all to close businesses, schools, and swimming pools. And what was most annoying about it was that they announced many of these closures before the first inch of snow was on the ground. In other words, they believed the forecasters without question...when weather forecasting has been repeatedly documented as being the most chronically incorrect profession that exists on the planet. (Well, except for "predicting that increasing taxes to solve social problems will work", that is.)

But it shouldn't matter; even if the predictions were accurate and it was the King-daddy blizzard of all time, most of us would still be able to get through it. Why, when I was a kid, we walked 27 miles to school, uphill through 4 feet of snow, carrying our books, band instruments, and lunch pails, in the middle of the night while being chased by rabid wolves. Today we have all-wheel drive Japanese cars, magnesium chloride, and talking GPS devices. Shouldn't it be easier to get through it all?

(Well, OK, with the various government agency budget crises, I guess we should expect some, um, reduced services when it comes to plowing and de-icing. But every neighborhood has a few guys with snow-bladed monster trucks; maybe we could pitch in and give 'em a few bucks to dig out our side streets so the good people on the government payroll don't have to. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?)

OK, I've done my griping for today. Sorry for being all whiny and grumpy and stuff. And to be honest, I really wouldn't mind having a stay-home snow day once in a while...so I could sit in front of the fireplace and drink hot chocolate and read a good "aliens and robots" novel. But I do have my reputation as a crackpot curmudgeon to maintain, and when a writer gets an opportunity to use the "uphill through the snow" line, he is required by Union rules to find a way to work it into the text.

But this is Colorado, and despite the closures, traffic snarls, and apocalyptic wails of woe from the media, we'll probably be back in shorts and t-shirts by the weekend. But even if the snow sticks around, get out and enjoy it, my friends. Build a snowman, make snow angels, and lob a snowball or two at anyone who appears ready to blame the above-average snowfall on Global Warming. Take some photos of the pretty, white-draped trees, too, and have a great day!

Refinancing

Some businesses get it. It takes about 2 seconds to order something from eBay, and it arrives in the mail a few days later. No hassles, no paperwork, and you get what you paid for. If you go into Taco Bell and order a cheesy double-beef burrito, chances are excellent that you'll get what you asked for, and it will cost what the menu said it was going to cost. So why does the mortgage industry work SO differently?

Short answer: because the government is involved. (Well, at least that's part of the problem.) Or maybe the answer is "because we let them get away with it." But whatever the cause, the fact is there's no reason at all that refinancing your home should take more than a Google search and couple of mouse clicks. But that ain't the way it works, my friends. And I'm afraid with the recent industry meltdown and the attempts of our valient Congress to "fix" things, it's going to get worse before it gets better.

I did find one place, ING, where the process seems to be reasonable and accomplished with minimal hassle. But they didn't offer the type of loan I needed, so I couldn't use them. Instead, I looked at other online vendors (QuickenLoans, etc) and local lenders. They all had closing costs out the wazoo. I mean seriously, why does it cost $800 for a "title search"? For 800 smackers, I expect Indiana Jones to have to wade through snakes in order to get the info, but you know that it's done in 20 seconds by a minimum-wage clerk by pushing a button on a web page somewhere. I know the companies have to make money for what they do, but why fluff it up with all the BS about mythical tasks that I don't care about (eg, $50 for "addtional endorsement")? They should present you with just two numbers: your interest rate and the amount you're going to have to pay up front to get the loan. Or better yet, just the interest rate, and let them make ALL of their money from good old-fashioned usury, not from "processing".

Anyway, it would take a chartered account to make sense of all the figures. So despite the fact that I was in so-called "Honors" math classes in high school, it required considerable effort for me to sort through the apples vs. oranges comparisons necessary to select the vendor I wanted to work with. I finally made a decision, though, and began the tedious process of filling out the paperwork.

And THAT, my friends, is when you really want to join the Libertarian party. It turns out that there are no less than 27 separate forms requiring signatures, all "required by the government". They say nothing useful (no one actually reads them anyway), and they exist for no other purpose than making the file folders thicker. But by golly, a signature must be applied to each and every one, sometimes in multiple places, with initials, dates, and a variety of secret Illuminati code symbols. I suspect that the real purpose of all these forms is to wear you down so you are happy to finish the process, and therefore likely to succumb to the broker's attempt to convince you that your happiness is due to joy of having successfully applied for a new mortgage, rather than the relief at the fact that the piranhas have finished this stage of their feeding frenzy.

Of course, that's just the beginning. After the application, you still have to go through the Captain Dunsel appraisal, the dreaded submission of forms, and the gawdawful ordeal of "closing"...which is just another word for "Fill out all the same stupid paperwork again, only this time, bring money." If I survive it all, I'll be sure to share my delight with you. Maybe I'll post some photos, too. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, be sure to read the fine print...and have a great day!

Perspectives

When there are no Rockies games on, I don't listen to the radio much at home. (I sometimes turn on the Beverly Hillbillies in the background while I do my chores, though -- nothing like doing laundry with some good banjo music in the background, eh?) But I always have the radio on in the car.

I try to mix it up: Classic Rock, Big Band Swing, Jazz (no, that does NOT include Kenny G), and every now and then I'll make an attempt to listen to the head-banging stuff that my kid likes. Some is dreck, of course, but some of it's not too bad. Hey, I know how this works; after all, when I was his age, the same stations that played BTO also featured The Captain and Tennile. But sometimes, it seems like every station is playing the same Bruce Hornsby/Jackson Browne interchangeable moan-fest, and I'll switch over to a talk station.

I can't take a steady diet of that, either. The political programs just make me upset, and I can only stand so much of NPR's constant whining about how I am personally responsible for the impending death of the planet. And my tolerance threshold for Broncos chat isn't all that high, either. But occasionally there's an interview with a Tuvan Throat Singer, a Bob Einstein tribute, or a documentary about Spam.

The other day while I was driving to swim practice, I heard a discussion about why women get frustrated with men. The show's host was a woman, as was the phone-in "Expert" discussing the topic. The host said that the biggest problem was that men seem to be lazy, since they don't do the expect volume of work around the house. "Oh no, they're not lazy," the expert replied. "They simply are not good at recognizing what needs to be done." She went on explain that women are inherently better at constantly keeping their mind focused on their to-do list, while men think about...other stuff. But that doesn't mean that males are worthless -- if you tell them specifically what you want them to do, they'll generally comply. Just don't expect them to see the big picture regarding chores, because they aren't wired to spot and catalog all the myriad necessary tasks that women can naturally visualize.

The discussion then turned toward how women should feel a bit sorry for these pitiful creatures; after all, how horrible would it be to go through life without the innate ability to instinctively grasp the magnitude of household entropy?

Hmmm. I wonder if there might not be another explanation for this chore-spotting gap?

I mentioned this dilemma to my son, who immediately offered another viewpoint. "Might it be," he said, "that men do indeed have that same ability to recognize uncompleted tasks, but have an altogether different interpretation of 'what needs to be done'"? The women on the radio assumed that there could be NO discussion on whether chores need to be done...of course they do! But from a teenager's perspective, hardly anything ever needs to ever be done at all.

Vacuuming? Complete waste of time. Doing dishes? Well, you caused that problem by not eating at McDonalds, so don't blame me. Replacing a burnt-out light bulb? Hey, it's better for the environment if we just lived in the dark, anyway.

And of course, if you try to reason with a boy that age, he'll have an answer for everything. If you explain that dirt wears down the carpet, he'll tell you to just buy new carpet every few years. If you explain that carpet can be expensive, he'll tell you to get a better-paying job. If you explain that unnecessary carpet replacement damages the environment by adding to landfills and requiring additional resource usage to manufacture new rugs, he'll suggest that you just learn to live on a dirt floor. After all, it was good enough for Jesus and Abe Lincoln and Jimmy Carter, so why not us?

For some reason, that reminds me of the time my brother and I were kids, sharing a bedroom in the basement. One day, I noticed a couple of squashed bugs lying on the floor. When I asked my brother why he didn't clean up the carcasses, he explained that he was leaving them there "as a warning to the other bugs". So it's not that he didn't recognize that cleanup was a possibility; it was just that he interpreted the situation from a different viewpoint.

I'd suggest that there's room for multiple viewpoints. I personally like having clean dishes and unsoiled carpet. However, I may not feel a compelling need to vacuum every single day, nor do I feel the need to repaint the entire house if there's a nick in the baseboard. I think there's middle ground between "doing every possible thing that could be done" and "living like a European". The fact is that I'm perfectly content to let women use their hyper-perception to develop extensive to-do lists, but I'd suggest that they discuss these with their men, and consider whether certain chores might not be, um, negotiable. That's all I'm saying.

As B.B. King (or one of the other Kings...I don't remember which) once said: Can't we all just get along?

Sleep Management

Disclaimer: I know that I actually have a pretty sweet life. I have enough income to live in moderately comfortable conditions. I eat regularly, enjoy pretty good health, and never have to worry about being attacked by cobras, hippopotami, or giant squids. (I do occasionally have nightmares about zombies and/or animated skeletons with swords, but recognize that those threats are remote...at least as long as I stay out of the Carribean and whatever ocean Greece is in.) I have a son who tolerates and humors me, a swim team that delights me, and various other loved ones who provide a network of support and encouragement. I have no right to complain. I do understand that.

So, please spare me the lectures about why I shouldn't whine about the few minor challenges that occasionally crop up. But I firmly believe that it's healthy to vent every once in a while. It's sometimes good to rant about life's minor injustices, and get all that frustration out of your system. And that's what I'm planning to do today. So if you're not in the mood to listen to unjustified griping about minor annoyances, you are free to go. Thanks for dropping by.

Those of you who are sticking around may find that you and I have some lamentations in common. (Especially if you work in the business development field, or if you frequently find yourself trapped in a room listening to comb-over engineers with laser pointers.)

As many of you know, the greatest impediment to my writing (and other creative endeavors, not to mention my fitness, love life, and ability to enjoy good movies) is when my boss assigns me to work on a proposal. As proposal lead, I am expected to coordinate and/or perform all the graphics, editing, and desktop publishing chores for any documents to be submitted to the customer. If I could write it as well, then the situations wouldn't get so ugly --I could get the job done on time, but it doesn't work that way. I am completely at the mercy of the engineers and scientists who develop the content.

These guys know amazing amounts of math and have prodigious stores of astrophysical knowledge and technological expertise. They routinely design stuff that pushes the boundaries of human accomplishment, and are responsible for the kinds of things that make us normal humans drop our jaws and say "Wow!" But as a group, they have a very poor understanding of the meaning of the word "deadline".

My latest proposal was a bid to study advanced "multi-qubit" computing techniques using microscopic lasers to read the state of ionized molecules, allowing information to be processed at much higher rates than are currently possible. Very cool stuff—it will probably be the foundation for the computer processors you use in another decade or so. But I didn't get the document until Friday, even though it was due on Monday. And when I did get it, it was almost twice the length allowed by the solicitation requirements! We had to edit, manipulate graphics, cut out a boatload of text, and do the final destop publishing layup, all over the weekend.

And the Rockies were in the playoffs...and my brother was going to try to get me some tickets. How the heck was I supposed to squeeze all this in?

The answer, of course, is... long hours, intense effort, and gallons of caffeinated beverages.

I'll spare you the bloody details -- perhaps they would provide a good topic for a Halloween blog. But despite the fact the authors were supposed to be finished when I first looked at the document, we ended up having multiple complete rewrites, massive graphical and layup challenges, and even some (say it isn't so!) problems with various Microsoft products. Over those three days, my avereage bedtime was about 6 hours later than usual, I was forced to skip my usual restorative exercise, and my eyes became frighteningly unfocused and bloodshot. I essentially became one of those zombies from my own nightmares.

I was planning to go to the Rockies game on Saturday night, but it was probably a good thing it got cancelled because of the cold and snow. I'd have never finished the proposal if I'd have gone downtown that night. I'd have had more fun, certainly, but I'd have probably been fired.

The good news is that my brother was able to get me a ticket for Monday night's playoff game. The bad news is that the Rocks could not get the final out in the bottom of the ninth, and ended up letting it get away. I'm certainly glad I was there in the bottom of the eighth to experience the incredible happiness and energy that accompanied the Rockies' come-from-behind surge. But I probably could've done without the ninth inning collapse that took the crowd from feeling their Colorado Mile-high exuberance and left them feeling lower than dirt, as if they were mere Kansans or something.

And of course once it was all over, without the adrenaline from first being motivated by a proposal deadline, and then being electrified by playoff fever...I pretty much collapsed. And to make it worse, the next two webcasts I was assigned to cover were all about calculus and software architecture. While I recognize the importance of these disciplines and admire the practitioners therein, such classes do not exactly peg my thrill-O-meter. So here I am, nearly catatonic from sleep deprivation (and cursing the ghost of Ben Franklin for bringing baseball to Philadelphia)...and I have to remain alert at the recording control panel while some pocket-protector egghead drones on and on about Fourier tranform equations or 100 Hz wait-table processing delays. Yawn. And yawn again.

Bottom line: I need a vacation. Hopefully one that contains lots of time allocated for sleeping. Let me know if you have any ideas. In the meantime, get plenty of rest, fire up for next year's baseball season, and have a great day!

Can We Get a Do-Over?

Sometimes, all it takes is the perspective of a little time to help people realize they voted for the wrong person. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to go back in time and correct these mistakes?

I'm talking about Oscar winners, of course. You wonder if there isn't some sort of conspiracy -- Sometimes, the voters get it SO wrong.

The most obvious mistake, of course, is "Out of Africa"...one of the very few movies that actually made me barf up my Junior Mints. A terrible film on so many levels; I'd never choose to see it on my own...but sometimes you do things for a woman that you severely regret later. (I learned my lesson, though -- never again would I pay money for anything with the word "Streep" attached to it. Ugh.) However, "Africa" may not be the worst movie to ever win an Oscar, and quite frankly, I expect the winning film to be terrible each year. The Academy members vote for those movies because they want to appear "deep", when in reality I suspect that (with the obvious exception of Chuck Norris), they're really pretty moronic.

No, my gripe with "Out of Africa" isn't that it was horrible, or even that it didn't have any of the stuff you normally go to see Africa movies for -- my complaint is that a little film called "Back to the Future" was released that same year. Seriously, people, what kind of a world do we live in where "Back to the Future" isn't considered the best film of the year? (The only year where there would've even been competition is the year "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was released, but it wasn't nominated either. Something is wrong with this Universe.)

But I digress. The thought process that initiated this discussion began when I decided to pick up a bake-at-home pizza for lunch. There's a Papa Murphy's just across the street, and they were having a sale on their "Cowboy Pizza", which sounded good to me, even though I'm not sure Matt Dillon or Billy the Kid would have any idea what a pizza was. (I'm not sure such a delicacy existed even in Roger Staubach's day, to be honest.)

Anyway, as I was standing there watching them prepare the pizza (and reminding them that there was no need for black olives on a pizza, ever) I started wondering why guys who own pizzarias so often want to be called "Papa". Perhaps there's some Italian cultural imperative I don't understand, but it seems to me that calling yourself "Papa" does not automatically bestow magical pasta chef powers upon you, nor does it imply that you have any special ability to wrangle yeast, cheese, or marinara sauce. Perhaps it does imply a certain jovial nature and family orientation (which may have customer appeal), but it just seems a bit archaic to me.

And that thought process led to wondering whether Papa Murphy bore any relationship to Father Murphy, who was a guy on a spin-off of Little House on the Prairie, which I never actually watched because I heard that it was so sappy that watching it would turn you gay. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Anyway, Little House on the Prairie was produced by Michael Landon, who is just one of the many celebrities who have had the pleasure of shaking my hand. And therein lies the tale.

Back in 1984, I got tickets to the World Premier of a movie called "Sam's Son". Why anyone would hold a movie premier in Littleton (and fly Michael Landon in on a helicopter for it), I have no idea. I also don't remember how I managed to score tickets to this event, but it seems to me that demand wasn't all that great if I remember correctly. Anyway, "Sam's Son" was another one of those millions of movies about high school javelin throwers (which may explain its lack of popularity -- I mean seriously, are there even any high school javelin throwers?) The clever thing about the title was that the kid felt that his spear-chucking powers were due to the fact that he didn't cut his hair (like Samson..."Sam's son" -- get it?) And the girl wanted him to cut it off, because, well...because you couldn't have the catchy Biblical title tie-in if she didn't.

When Landon's helicopter arrived and the star debarked, I was struck by two things. One, he had about 50 gallons of shellac in his hair, which made his carefully-applied suntan look even more out of place among the local Littletonites. And two, he was really short.

That shouldn't have been a surprise. Everybody knows that Hollywood tries to make guys look bigger than they really are. And after all, his character on Bonanza was called "Little" Joe. But he was always beating guys up on that show, and so I guess I was expecting a fellow who at least came up to my shoulders.

But I'm digressing again. What I'm trying to say is that the movie was supposedly based on Landon's life (yes, he really did throw the javelin in high school, and was actually pretty good at it -- I'm not sure about the hair thing, though). And Eli Wallach played the role of the titular Sam, whose son was the kid based on Landon's life. This Sam dude was a movie projectionist who made his kid work at the theater, which explains how Little Joe became enamored with the idea of becoming a Hollywood thespian.

It was actually a pretty decent little movie.

But the ever-elusive point is that Eli Wallach is one of my all-time favorite actors! (You knew I'd eventually get to it sooner or later, didn't you?) He's been fabulous in every role he's ever played. But the true crime against humanity that inspired this blog is that he did NOT win an Oscar for what is arguably the best cinematic acting performance in history...the role of Tuco in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".


It's a travesty. Wallach was not even nominated. Do you know who won the Best Actor statue that year? Paul Scofield. Yes, Paul Scofield, whoever that is. Geez. Let's think about this for a second -- Eli Wallach movies are shown all the time...heck, GB&U plays at least every few weeks on one of the classic movie channels...but can anyone tell me the last time you saw a Paul Scofield movie featured in heavy rotation? Anyone?

I didn't think so. My friends, it is time to end this foolishness. We need to make our voices heard. When obviously correct choices are ignored by idiot voters and the wrong people win, we need to do what we can to correct those mistakes. So let us rise up, my friends, and work hard to make sure it never happens again!

OK, that's all I have to say. Let's watch one more clip, shall we? (Or just listen; the music is fantastic.) Thanks for your support, and have a great day!

Rocktober

The Rockies are going to the playoffs!

I'm sure their success is mostly due to my support as a fan. After all, I went to what, like, 3 games this year? I also listened to the early innings of several games on the radio. (I'd listen to the whole thing, but most games continue well past my bedtime.) I would've watched the games on TV, but my basic cable package doesn't include the Fox Sports Network, and if I upgraded, I wouldn't have enough money to eat the Chipotle burritos that sustain my life and vitality.

Anyway, it's been fun to be a part of the excitement. My brother and his wife had an extra ticket to Tuesday night's game, and generously offered to let me attend with them. The weather was perfect, the seats were right behind the Rockies dugout, the ballpark pizza was delicious, and the game was exciting -- it was a delightful evening! And Ianetta's walkoff homer in the 11th was a fine way to finish it off, for sure.


Yesterday afternoon's victory clinched the Wild Card spot for the team, and if they win their last 3 games against the Dodgers, they'll win the NL West. Unlikely as that is, you still have to be excited about the possibility, and I suspect today's game will gather a lot of attention. I might even have to stay up for the entire thing.

And since they scored 9 runs yesterday, the 4-for-a-buck taco deal is on at the Bell, so my dinner plans are already set. (Yes, I do consider Taco Bell to be an adequate substitute for Chipotle once in a while. What's your point?) I can hardly wait to get through the workday and begin the evening...and the rest of the weekend. It should be an excellent Friday, shouldn't it?

Please join me, my close personal friend Dinger, and all the other serious weirdo baseball fans in cheering on the Rockies for these last games and on into the postseason. And have a great day!