Reruns

Yesterday, I mentioned Christmas cookies. So sure enough, my friend Lisa brought snickerdoodles to swim practice this morning. I know I said I would avoid such temptations...but I guess I'll start tomorrow.

No, the photo above is NOT one of Lisa's creations. This is from a batch one of my co-workers brought into the office a while back. I do like the idea -- a peanut butter cookie with an Oreo on top, smothered by a Salvador Dali chocolate chip cookie...but I suspect it would taste much better when fresh from the oven.

For some reason, this reminds me of the time my brother and I decided to create our own cookie recipes. I had recently fabricated my own cookie sheet in Mr. Ridgeway's metal shop class, and was dying to test it out at home. I'm sure I came up with some sort of cookie recipe myself, but it is long forgotten. I will never, though, forget the results of my brother's culinary creation. He called them "Pat's Great Cookies" and painstakingly crafted a neatly-printed recipe card detailing the ingredients and steps for baking his sugar-based treats.

As I have mentioned before, if I have any talents at all, you can be sure they do not include expertise with hand tools. While a cookie sheet may be the simplest possible thing to create from sheet metal, it still requires moderately precise bending and crimping. The corners of my finished product were not anywhere near 100% sealed -- which we discovered when smoke began to billow from the oven. Pat's Great Cookies had melted into liquid and dribbled from all 4 corners of the sheet onto the bottom of the oven...and then caught on fire.

I think we both learned something about the value of sample testing before committing to full-scale production. But I'm pretty sure I derived a lot more laughter from the event than my brother did.

Anyway, the real point of today's blog has nothing to do with any of that. Today's point is that I realized that I'm becoming quite redundant.

I've written about Slim Pickens, various Bucks, and even fruitscakes on other occasions. This would not be an issue if each story remained unique -- but the truth is that I have no idea which stories I've already shared. It's quite possible that I've become the pitiful old man who says the same things over and over.

Hmmm.

I like the idea of being organized, and there are some nifty tools available to assist a person in the never-ending fight against entropy. Heck, I probably already own all the tools I need to be a regular Della Street. I have databases, spreadsheets, MS OneNote, and regular old file cabinets. But the information still needs to be gathered and input. There's the rub.

This may be too much personal information, but I'll share that I actually own a spiffy little shoe shelf that sits in my bedroom closet. And yet, my shoes remain in an unruly pile near the front door. Why is this? Partly because I am a straight male, and therefore consider shoes to serve as foot protection and nothing more. If someone were to neatly put the shoes away for me, I'd have no objection...but I've learned not to expect such things from myself.

And so it is with electronic data.

I should compile and keep a consolidated record of all my blog topics. This would help me avoid redundancy in ranting, and would come in handy when it comes time to pull from these tales in assembling the next book. But it would require considerable effort to build such a database, and (as with hand tools) the word "effort" does not appear in any accurate description of my daily life.

So, I guess I'll rely upon your generous and forgiving nature, dear readers, to cut me some slack when I repeat myself. But if you do have any suggestions on how I could somehow get all this logorrhea categorized and searchable, you'd probably have to put up with fewer topical regurgitations. I am certainly capable of thinking up new topics...IF I could remember which is new and which is old.

And besides, if I can't think of topics, I can always link to some good music. As far as I know, the fellow below doesn't have a nickname like Slim or Buck or Boxcar, but still manages to do some adequate pickin' and grinnin'. Enjoy, and have a great day!

Fruitscakes

In the past week, I have received two different pieces of snail mail that were sent to other people at my address. If it were junk mail, I'd trash it without a second thought, but these both appeared to be legitimate correspondence.

I wrote "Not at this address" on the envelope, and threw 'em back in the outgoing mailbox, and hoped the Postal Service could figure out where those fellas actually live now. But it got me to thinking about stuff.

When I was a kid, my mom made a boatload of cookies and fruitcakes at Christmas. I'm not sure how many other neighborhood moms did this, but I'm guessing it was not uncommon. If I remember correctly, she parceled out the goodies based on some sort of hierarchy determined by how big a role that individual played in our lives. Close friends received a dozen of the best cookies AND a fruitcake, while the electric company meter reader may only get a half dozen crumbly cookies from the "slightly singed" batch.

The point is that my mom actually knew the meter reader. And the mailman and the milkman and the paperboy. She knew their names, probably the names of their family members, and maybe even where they lived. Back then, it seemed that there was a lot more personal connection with the folks who provided goods and services.

The preacher and the church choir director would also receive Christmas cookies, or even the occasional dinner invitation. I don't remember this specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that she may have distributed goodies to her hairdresser, or even my dad's auto mechanic. I doubt the practice extended to bankers, insurance agents, or grocery clerks...but I bet my folks knew them all by name.

Development of such neighborly relationships may still happen in smaller towns or certain neighborhoods. But I don't see it. Part of it is that meter reading is done by machines, newspapers have disappeared, mailboxes are consolidated in many communities, and milk delivery is not an economical practice for most folks.

So, my question is: How many service providers do you know personally these days?

I know the names of a couple of folks at the grocery store. Richard usually sells me my lottery tickets, and Peggy is most likely to be the available checker during the early hours when I like to shop. I have had the same insurance agent for 30 years, but only talk with her when something needs to change. My Sunday mornings are spent at the swimming pool instead of church, and it should be pretty obvious that I cut my own hair. I do know a few of the lifeguards and front desk personnel at the Ridge, but I pump my own gas, bank online, and because I leave home before sunrise and am asleep before primetime, I don't hang out with my neighbors, either.

Has automation and millennial culture shift turned our society into a collection of isolated hermits? Have the Internet and WalMart destroyed our society's opportunities for fruitcake exchange?

Perhaps. But I would say no.

But I'm not sure I can speak for society in general. You see, I have a bunch of really great friends, and do occasionally experience the joys of goodie exchanges with people who matter in my life. But these friends are mostly folks I know from athletics -- runners, swimmers, bikers, and gym rats. They are not mailmen and meter readers.

That's not a bad thing. Other than thinking that Comcast's prices are outrageous, I have very few problems with any of the services I receive. I don't feel a compelling need for a connection with anyone who works with the power company -- as long as the juice keeps flowing. I suspect that hanging out with my fitness buddies is far more satisfying and fulfilling than any connection my mom got from the neighbors and/or letter carriers she encountered around the house.

Anyway, that's what some misguided mail got me thinking about. What do you think?

But speaking of fitness, I am a little ashamed to admit that I'm even more sore today than I was yesterday. I'm ashamed for two reasons; one is that my soreness is from a run I should be able to do routinely -- which indicates what a slacker I've been lately. And the second is that I realized it's been a LONG time since I'm been this sore...which means that I haven't been pushing myself hard enough. It's time to stop being such a slug.

I do NOT believe in the "No pain, no gain," adage. Pain is an indicator that something is wrong, and that's to be avoided. But I DO believe in the necessity of discomfort in the pursuit of gains. If you never get sore at all, you're most likely not achieving any growth. Somehow, it appears that I've let myself slide into an "always comfortable" zone. This is not acceptable.

So, my friends, I am asking for your support. Keep challenging me. Don't let me get away with complacency. It's OK to give me a hard time when you catch me acting lazy. My legs may be sore today, but I want to get my arms sore tomorrow. So, let's charge ahead and embrace the discomfort that comes with making progress, OK?

Thanks. I'll see you at the pool, at the gym, and up in the hills. No fruitcake, no cookies, just work. (Then maybe an Epsom salt bath and a massage.)

Let's get to it, and have a great day!

Slim, Hulk, and Buck

Slim Whitman's real name was Ottis (pronounced AH-tis) Dewey Whitman. I have no idea whether he was a skinny kid, or whether Col. Tom Parker just decided that the name "Slim" would keep people from confusing him with Elvis. I also don't know if his left-handed guitar playing (a result of losing part of a finger on his right hand) was the inspiration for Jimi Hendrix...but I'm guessing it probably was.

Boxcar Willie's real name was Lecil Travis Martin. The name "Boxcar Willie" was from a character in a ballad he wrote, but he later adopted it as his stage name. He and I have much in common, since he once worked as a flight engineering on a Boeing KC-97, and I worked in the engineering department at Boeing in '79.

Slim Pickens was originally named Louis Burton Lindley, Jr. I don't know whether he even played the guitar, but I do know that he was one of the most entertaining cowboy actors ever. His crowning achievement is probably his portrayal of Major Kong in "Dr. Strangelove", where he gives the wonderful speech regarding "strong personal feelins about nucler combat". But younger folks may know him better from his role as Hedley Lamarr's halfwit lackey in "Blazing Saddles." Good stuff.

Hulk Hogan's real name is Terry Gene Bollea. Obviously, if you want to achieve success as a tough guy, you can't be named "Terry", which is a girl's name, after all. "Hulk" is a pretty macho moniker, though, so you ought to be able to beat up some punk named "Rocky", right? As for the mustache, well, I don't think someone named Terry could handle one of those, either.

This one has a few layers. "Clubber" is a character in a Rocky movie, and in that movie, the guy's name is actually James Lang...so that's our official answer. But if you dig deeper, you'll notice that the actor was "Mr. T", whose birth name was Laurence Tureaud. So I guess you could've said that Clubber was really "Larry" -- except that Larry wasn't a choice in the right column of our puzzle.

Oddly enough, Tommy "Tiny" Lister has also appeared with the aforementioned Terry Bollea. He was a character called Zeus in the movie "No Holds Barred." My favorite role is his portrayal of the President in "The Fifth Element", followed closely by the criminal guy who threw the remote detonator out the ship's window in "The Dark Knight."

Beef Jerky was the stage name of actor Jethro Bodine, an understudy of the esteemed thespian, Dash Riprock. Bodine's film career was short, and mostly involved being blown up in various explosive stunts. Jethro seemed content, however, to spend most of his time in his roles of Boy Jeenius, and International Playboy.

Aviator Douglas Corrigan was originally named "Clyde Groce Corrigan" by his parents, but wisely changed his name to Douglas as an adult. He claimed the nickname "Wrongway" when he filed a flight plan to go from New York to California, but instead ended up in Ireland. Much evidence points to his flight being intentional, since he had asked for clearance to make that trip but had been declined.

Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson was a music composer who didn't really embrace the nickname. You can't blame him; I'm not sure I'd want to be known for the number of peripheral structures I had on my property, either. Maybe if I had "two cats", or "two Zambonis" -- but not just for something as pedestrian as sheds.

Guitarist and musical genius Donald Brian Roeser took the stage name of Buck Dharma, and achieved fame as a member of the second greatest rock band in history. Known for deeply spiritual lyrics such as "She's as beautiful as a foot" and "Hornswoop me bungo pony, dogsled on ice", the Blue Oyster Cult used Buck's guitar skills to also pay homage to cultural heroes such as the Grim Reaper and Godzilla.

Junious "Buck" Buchannan was a fearsome defensive tackle for the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs, and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was part of the team I followed growing up.

Of course, the wisdom that comes with maturity has now led me to understand that the Chiefs suck and that the Broncos are the team to follow, but I still hold some affection for Buck and Lenny and Otis, and the rest of the team from those years. Would I have been as big a fan if I'd have known his name was Junious? Yeah, probably...but I fully support his use of the nickname, even if he couldn't play the guitar.

As far as I know, this guy doesn't play the guitar, either. Buck Henry was originally named Henry Zuckerman, but changed it to help out his career as a comedy writer. He has appeared many times on Saturday Night Live, but is probably best remembered for his writing contributions to such successes as "Get Smart", and "What's Up, Doc?"

And finally, another Buck who does play the guitar. Alvis Edgar Owens had a long career as a country-western singer, but is most fondly remembered for pickin' and grinnin' with Roy Clark on the TV show "Hee Haw!" That segment proved that the lamest jokes in the world can be entertaining as long as they're accompanied by banjo music. Thanks, Buck.

My only remaining question is why I've never heard of anyone else with the names Alvis, Ottis, Junious, or Lecil? Where did their parents come up with these names? Were they drunk? Just bad at spelling? Determined to torment their children? What?

If you know, or if you have any other good stories about bizarre real names being replaced by good nicknames, let me know. In the meantime, don't forget that you can just call me "Speed" instead of Terry. Thanks, and have a great day!

Summer

I was planning to do something fun in the mountains this weekend, but too much of the state is on fire.

The lovely sunrises we're having serve as a reminder of the devastation and loss that so much of Colorado is suffering. It's hard to appreciate the aesthetics of the smoky sky when thinking about the people who have lost so much, and how much of our grand green forests have been turned to ash.

So, instead of heading up to go camping or riding in the high country, I chose to spend Saturday morning riding my bike around Chatfield before heading to the pond for a swim.

It was colder than I expected when I started at 5:30am, so I pulled on my tights and sleeves. While the smoke formed a dense curtain across the eastern sky, I could barely smell it, and it presented no detectable breathing hazard around the lake.

Sometimes, I forget to enjoy the exercise experience. I get stuck focusing on pedal cadence, shifting, and watching the road 6 feet in front of my wheel. But on this ride, I decided to not worry so much about my level of effort, and spent some time looking around. In addition to all the pickups hauling boats and the SUVs headed to the dog park, I was also treated to the sight of a few herons gliding low across the morning sky. It was a delightful ride.

I finished the ride and was ready to check in with the COMSA monitor right at 7:30. The pond was calm and serene, and my friends Lisa and Reynold were getting ready to swim across the lake with me.

The water was quite comfortable for non-wetsuited swimming, but Reynold is training for a race where he'll wear the thing, so he wriggled into the neoprene. He was apparently feeling pretty peppy, and maintained a strong pace throughout our journey to the other side and back. My crummy vision and the uniform green of the vegetation made navigation a challenge, so I probably swam an extra 25% farther than I needed to. (Makes me really appreciate races like Horsetooth, where they kayaker does all the sighting for you.)

I worked pretty hard, even throwing in a bit of butterfly here and there. I went home feeling pretty good about the morning's exercise.

On Sunday, I ran Green Mountain before swim practice. I started later than I normally would, so that I could go straight from there over to the pool for swim practice. Bad idea. At that time of the morning, the trail is overrun by mountain bikers, hikers, and dog walkers. I still had a pretty good run, but stopping so many times is something I'd rather avoid. Next time, I'll start at sunrise.

The bad news is that it's obvious I haven't been running enough; my legs are sore this morning. The good news is that despite the hills and rocks, my knees seem to be fine. And as strange as it sounds, the hardest part of my Sunday was getting through swim practice. We did a bunch of hard sprint sets...and those are always excruciating. Intellectually, I accept the fact that there are people who enjoy sprinting -- but I doubt I will ever really understand how that's possible. They're mutants.

Anyway, I had a wonderful weekend, and I hope you did, too. I apologize for not yet providing the answers to the nickname matching quiz, but I will try to get that posted later today. Please check back again, and in the meantime, have a great day!

More Signs of the Apocalypse

With the passing of Slim Whitman, the world is now bereft of yodeling cowboys. This does not bode well for humanity in general, and it makes me very sad.

It also makes me wonder what will happen to his fortune. He reportedly sold over 70 million records (2 of which were purchased by yours truly), and (like most yodelers) was not known for flagrant spending and an opulent lifestyle. So I'm guessing he left a good chunk of change for his kids, and because he had a reputation as an extremely nice guy, there were probably generous endowments to cowboy charities, as well. In any case, I'd like to express my sympathies to his family, friends, and fans across the globe. RIP, Slim.

But that's not the main reason I woke this morning with a sense of dread. That was because of a horrifying nightmare.

Regular readers know that I rarely remember my dreams, and when I do, they usually involve things like swimming, space travel, or Cybill Shepherd. In other words, pleasant and comforting things that are natural extensions of the thoughts I have throughout my waking hours. But this morning, I awoke from a dream where I had just won a Gold Medal at the Olympics.

Sounds like something to celebrate, right? After all, I am reasonably competitive, and I continually strive to improve as an athlete. Yet while it's obvious to most people that I'm not entirely grounded within reality, I have never become so completely deluded as to believe I had a shot at beating Phelps, Lochte, or Tyler Clary in swimming. Still, it's OK to dream, and if I were to somnambulate my way to the podium for a victory in, say, the Olympic 10K Open Water event, I'd consider that a delightful fantasy.

But this dream wasn't about swimming. It wasn't about triathlon, either. Nor giant slalom, luge, or bowling...or any other sport in which I might have aspirations.

In this dream, I won the gold in the 100-meter dash.

Yes, that's right -- the two things I most thoroughly suck at in the entire world: running and sprinting. Even within the dream, I could not accept the grand cosmic wrongness of it. I vividly remember diving across the finish line to beat Sylvester Stallone by a fingernail's width, while Khan Noonien Singh was close behind in third. As I was escorted to the podium, I protested that this didn't make any sense, and that I was certain I hadn't even signed up to run that race. But they draped the medal around my neck nonetheless.

I woke in a sweat, and after calming myself down and reorienting myself to reality, I recognized that the clarity and power of the dream was almost certainly fueled by some aberrant salsa I had consumed at dinnertime. But still...if a dream can be that far from any conceivable reality, it's not unreasonable to assume that the end of the world is approaching. And with no yodeling cowboys to protect us, what are we to do?

Go to work as usual, I guess. That's what I'll do, assuming no particular strategic epiphanies strike me during these final few hours before the solstice. And regardless of the possibility of impending doom, there's probably no reason we can't play a little trivia game to keep ourselves amused as the Horsemen approach.

Here's your challenge: Column 1 contains a list of folks who go by a nickname. See if you can match them to their actual given name from the list in column 2. Try to do it without using the Internet. Good luck, and we'll chat tomorrow (assuming there is one.) Have a great day!

"Slim" Whitman "Boxcar" Willie "Slim" Pickens "Hulk" Hogan "Clubber" Lang "Tiny" Lister (pictured above) "Beef" Jerky "Wrong Way" Corrigan "Two Sheds" Jackson Buck Dharma Buck Buchannan Buck Henry Buck Owens

Henry Terry Ottis Tommy James Donald Douglas Jethro Lecil Louis Alvis Junious Arthur

Evolution

The theory known as "Darwin's Bane" postulates that certain facets of evolution are halted when a species develops technology. My son Tanner's very existence is a testimonial to this idea. Without the science of optics and the development of vision correction tools, my poor eyesight would've ensured my disappearance from the gene pool long before I sired any offspring. I might have been eaten by a puma, bitten by a rattlesnake, or (most likely) just walked over a cliff because I couldn't tell for sure where the path ended and the plunge began.

And even if I wasn't completely erased due to visual incompetence, I probably wouldn't have been able to make a living with graphics skills. And as an unemployed myope, I would've been even less attractive to females, and thus would've reached the end of my family line.

The weird thing is that Tanner's eyesight is pretty good. Hmm. Perhaps there are still beneficial mutations occurring to advance the race, despite contact lenses, wheelchairs, and blood pressure medicines that allow us to cheat Nature.

Or perhaps I'm not really his father. He is smart, talented, and good looking, after all...which would seem to contradict genetic expectations. On the other hand, whenever his mom gets mad at him for some aberrant behavior, she always complains to me by saying "He's just like you!"

But I digress. The point I was planning to make is that I hate birds.

Oh, c'mon, don't get all Greenpeace on me. I'm not saying that all winged creatures need to be expunged. Heck, I like seeing eagles and hawks cruising around in the sky when I'm hiking in the foothills. It's actually fun to watch them eat prairie dogs and voles and stuff. And I certainly don't object to the existence of chickens and turkeys; there's some good eatin' there.

But if you were to ask me to justify the existence of city birds (pigeons, sparrows, magpies, woodpeckers, etc), I would be completely at a loss. They are totally annoying.

And here's where my "Darwin's Bane" protest comes into play. Every morning, the stupid sparrows outside my condo start chirping like an Oprah audience, starting at about 3:45am. If technology hadn't advanced civilization to the point where people make up rules for living in neighborhoods, those annoying pre-dawn chirps would spell certain death for these birds. If I was a caveman trying to get my sleep before a hard day of hunting antelope, I'd start hurling rocks and spears at the trees at the first hint of this inane warbling. Either the birds would become my breakfast...or they'd evolve the wisdom to stay silent. (Or perhaps they'd just move to some other location.)

But NOOOO...evolution apparently can't be allowed to operate within the city limits. You start hucking projectiles at any animal noisemakers at 4am, and pretty soon you'll find yourself on television, sitting in the back of a squad car wearing nothing but your underwear and a set of handcuffs. Sigh.

I'm not arguing that we should eschew technology and disband civilization in the interest of evolutionary progress. I'm just saying that maybe we should set aside a week each spring where we all agree to apply preventive measures to ensure full nights of restful sleep throughout the summer. I'll let others debate the details of what methods would be most effective (deployment of feline enforcers among the tree limbs, strategic application of high-velocity buckshot, electric barbed wire strung throughout potential nesting areas, etc), but I'm quite certain that the challenge is nothing compared to what we've already overcome with the invention of things like bifocals and microwave ovens.

In the meantime, I guess I can just go to bed earlier--so that when the chirping starts, I'll have already accumulated my eight hours of sleep. Or I could just wear earplugs.

If you have any better ideas, please let me know. In the meantime, I hope you'll get all the sleep you need. Have a great day!

Fatherhood

Father's Day got me thinking.

What are the most important things we dads are supposed to teach our offspring, anyway? How do you measure success as a parent?

Some of the criteria are pretty easy to assess. Is your adult child living on his own and able to support himself as a productive member of society? Is he basically a nice person, who exhibits respect for others and has the habit of common courtesy? Is he happy?

And perhaps most important, is he vigorously engaged in the fight against Communism, and is he supportive of American efforts to build a space fleet capable of defending us against the Klingons, Romulans, and Borg?

Hmm. According to results of those tests applied to my son, I'm clearly above the parental Mendoza line...yet fall well short of batting 1000. But I'm quite proud of my son, and continue to have high expectations that he will surpass his father's accomplishments in all areas of life.

Well, OK, probably not in swimming. Or in the uncanny accuracy of my Clint Eastwood impersonations. But Tanner eclipsed my musical skills by the time he was 3, and probably understands more about science than I'll ever know. I might still be able to hold him off in a game of Jeopardy, but the gap is closing every single day.

And I do honestly believe that one day in the not-too-distant future, he'll finally learn how to balance his checkbook. Seriously, I really think he will. Probably.

Anyway, if you ask the same questions about my own father's parenting efficacy, I'd have to classify his efforts as successful.

But once you've accomplished the basics, what other learning should be passed down by a parent? Schools still seem to do a pretty good job of teaching basic facts -- like how Franco Columbu discovered America, and how astronomers arbitrarily agreed to demote Pluto from his position as Mickey's dog. We can trust them to teach about Gilbert O'Sullivan operas, techniques used to fake the moon landings, and how gravity was discovered when a fig hit Newton's head.

But schools do not teach other important lessons, such as:

• The Beatles may have had more hit songs, but they're still second place to Led Zeppelin in musical quality.
• "Tiberius" is an awesome middle name.
• The Olsen twins are fraternal, not identical...and they're not related in any way to the Folgers coffee lady.
• It's possible to remain gainfully employed even though you totally suck 100% of the time. (This is also known as the "Hamilton Burger/U2 rule".)
• "Back to the Future" is one hundred million times better than "Citizen Kane."
• No matter how hard you try, ya canna change the laws of physics.
• Despite Tennille's testimony to the contrary, you don't become a military officer simply by putting on a navy hat.
• While it's possible for intelligent men to disagree about whether Kirk is better than Picard, everyone agrees that it's not at all wise to turn the helm over to some douchebag Commodore who just happens to be on board the ship.
• And of course, if you find yourself involved in any sort of zombie apocalypse, call Bruce Campbell immediately.

Oh, and speaking of the zombie apocalypse, there is evidence that Americans have been concerned with the possibility for decades:



Anyway, the point is that parents have obligations to nurture cultural literacy as well as fiscal responsibility. I'm not sure my son could distinguish between Mjolnir and Grabthar's Hammer, or between dilithium crystals and a Dohlman's necklace, so I may still have some work to do. I shall keep at it, though, sharing wisdom with him at every opportunity. Wish me luck, and have a great day!

Vampires

Appliances that consume small amounts of power when they're not in use are called "energy vampires." You know, stuff like your Betamax machine that uses electricity to flash the 12:00 numbers all day and all night, even though you only watch your "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" tapes once every couple of weeks.

(A better term would probably be "energy ticks", because vampires are not easily ignored, and tend to siphon off significant amounts of hemoglobin and then go away, whereas ticks can attach themselves unnoticed, and consume trickling amounts over long periods. But I'll admit that the "vampire" terminology does have more linguistic appeal.)

You'd think that as an employee of a "green energy" company, I'd be concerned about stuff like that. But I have to confess that I'm not too worried about it. Oh sure, I turn off the lights when I leave a room, and I avoid the "dark" setting on the toaster...but if there's current being lost because I left my phone in the charger after it was topped off, well, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that.

Yeah, I know. Making such a statement will probably earn me a visit from the political correctness police. But the truth is that if we could figure out cold fusion (or better yet, controlled matter-antimatter conversion), such things wouldn't matter a whit. And if we'd just get our space program going again, the Vulcans are bound to notice and would probably contact us with all those technologies tied up with a neat little bow and ready to rock.

Anyway, the point is that my REAL problem is "time vampires." And I suspect I'm not alone in dealing with this affliction. You see, I start each and every weekend thinking that I'll accomplish glorious things...and then wake up each Monday with the realization that my grand plans have once again been thwarted.

It's not that I don't enjoy weekends. I do. A lot. And I do get some things done. This past weekend, for example, included a nice long phone chat with my son (yeah, he actually remembered Father's Day!), a couple of tough swim practices, and a delightful ride up Highgrade Road. I also made significant progress on producing the DVD of my latest Veteran's History Project interview. But the fridge is empty and the laundry basket is not. And rather than take responsibility for these failings myself, I choose to blame the vampires.

Email, Facebook, ordering new swim goggles online, and reconciling my checkbook -- those are a few of the time-sucking activities upon which I cast blame. Each one tends to offer opportunities for sideways excursions that melt the hours away. For example, when updating my Quicken file, I noticed that one of my mutual fund prices was showing as zero. I knew the market had taken a dip in the last week, but I wouldn't have expected this fairly conservative fund to have suddenly become completely worthless. I tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Long story short; this was a known software bug, and there was a solution on Quicken.com, and it did work. But it took some time to get from identification of the problem to implementing the solution.

Did I need to do that? No, probably not. But I'm a nerd, and things like that tend to capture my attention and keep me from doing important things. And because I was a broadcasting major in college, it's only natural that certain types of TV programming will become a distraction as well. Therefore, it's obvious that my weekend's time is not spent productively because of deficient software engineering, television scheduling executives, manufacturers of chocolate-covered ice cream products, and various other external forces over which I have no control. They're all vampires, and I am a mere innocent victim whose defenses contain insufficient quantities of metaphorical garlic and crucifixes.

Aw, who am I kidding? These small tasks that eat away at my productivity aren't the real problem. If I am to be completely honest with you (and with myself), I'm afraid we all have to admit that the true time-napping culprit is the Colorado Lottery Board. If they weren't so incompetent in their efforts to provide me with the winning Lotto ticket, then time would not be so scarce for me. As long as their ineptitude exists, though, I guess I am forced to mitigate the vampires through additional efforts with time management. I'll get right on that -- as soon as I wake up from my next nap.

Anyway, I hope your weekend was a good one, and that you accomplished everything you wanted to. Let's hope we can all stay productive, and have a great day!

Reflections

It's funny how a person's thoughts connect to each other though the framework of one's experiences. Most people probably do not have a direct neural connection between the thoughts of the Romulans breaking Code 2 and cans of Coleman fuel...but I do.

Let me explain.

My recent post comparing "old Shatner" with "old Kirk" got me thinking about on-camera makeup. This reminded me of when I was required to wear makeup while appearing as onscreen "talent" for a series of computer training videos. (More about that in a minute.) And that got me thinking about what a wide range of activities I've done for money over the years -- which included a couple of summers spent in toiling on an assembly line that cranked out cans of Coleman fuel.

There are some good stories to be told about those summers, I assure you. But those tales belong over in the historical blog (The Shy Man's Life, which has been ignored for far too long), not here.

My next book (currently scheduled for release in early 2015) will document my entire career path, but here's a bullet list of the things I've done to keep food on the table over the years:

• Magician
• Lawn care laborer
• Paperboy
• Vacuum cleaner salesman
• Coleman fuel cannery assembly line drone
• Disk jockey (jazz and country/western)
• Motivational training course salesman
• Lifeguard/Swim instructor
• Aircraft company tech writer
• Aerospace company procedures engineer
• Retail camera and electronics salesman/clerk
• Fast food clerk and fry cook
• Day laborer/contract office worker
• Masters swim team coach
• Self-help book author
• Classroom and video computer trainer
• Adult education instructor (dating, self-motivation, poetry)
• Energy company communications manager
• Contract technical writer/proposal manager
• College English and Math teacher
• Aerospace company proposal editor/facilitator
• Webcaster/videographer

I'm sure I've forgotten something along the way. But it's obvious that I've led a scattered and unfocused life to this point. The downside of this randomness is that it has not led to a large nest egg that would ensure my retirement could be filled with love boat cruises and jewel-encrusted trips to the Riviera. The upside is that I'll always have stories to tell and things I can write about.

Today's tale is about makeup.

Most of the computer training videos I shot did not require me to slather on the greasepaint. I just sat at a desk and yakked about software while the camera pointed in my general direction. As a certified geek, I was expected to look dorky, and the producers only asked that I not wear plaid or pinstripes that would freak out the camera.

But there was one gig where the customer wanted a more professional setup. They hired a cute girl as my "co-anchor", and brought in a full crew of lighting technicians, camera operators, and makeup professionals. They'd be cutting back and forth between myself and the hot babe, so they wanted me to look somewhat less hideous than I normally do. The makeup guy brought in a special razor to give me a closer shave, held a Pantone swatch card next to my face, nodded, and then hauled out his Revlon tackle box and to paint me up.

Once sufficiently spackled, I took my seat in front of the camera. They switched on the Klieg lights and proceeded to roll tape. The director shouted "Action!" and the camera zoomed in on the babe. "We're here today with computer expert Terry Heggy, who is going to demonstrate some advanced techniques using Microsoft Windows 98. Welcome, Terry!"

"Thanks, Heather. It's great to be here, and I'm excited to show you all the tips and shortcuts that can make your computer experience a lot more efficient and fun!"

But then the director yelled "Cut!" and motioned toward the makeup guy. They mumbled to each other for a moment, and then the makeup guy strolled over to me. "Um," he said, "We're getting some highlights we want to eliminate. Let me grab what I need and I'll be right back."

No big deal, I thought. My rugged chiseled cheekbones just needed a little more powder to take off the shine. It'll just take a second and then we'll be back in action.

But instead of powder, or even the petri dish full of fleshtone goo, he came walking back with a tub of black shoe polish. Yes, shoe polish.

It turns out the "highlight" was actually a bright spot on the top of my head, where my short hair was too thin to prevent reflections from the massive lights. The solution was to coat my head in bootblack so that the spaces between the hairs would absorb the light that was causing the problem.

By the time he finished, I not only felt like I was wearing a hat, but I thought I looked like an incomplete Al Jolson. It was ridiculous! But the cameraman and director assured me that I looked like Tom Selleck through the viewfinder, and that everything would be OK.

And they were right. The rest of the shoot went well, and the final product looked just fine during playback. Of course, the shoe polish made a bloody mess in my shower that evening when I tried to wash it off my head, but I suppose that's a small price to pay for Hollywood handsomeness.

Anyway, that's my one and only makeup story. And of course, it reminds me of a hundred other tales of drama and intrigue from similar experiences...and it also reminds me that I need to get all of those old training tapes digitized so they'll be forever preserved as learning aids for future generations of Windows 98 users. But those are things that will have to wait until later. For now, I'll just smile knowing that I have a ready-made solution for thinning hair problems if I need one. If anyone is interested, I can share more tales of unusual work occurrences in future posts. Otherwise, I expect to return to oddball graphics and unsolvable trivia contests in the coming weeks. Until then, don't forget your sunscreen, and have a great day!

Makeup

I have always been jealous of people whose talents and ambitions align (and are recognized) at an early age. For example, Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy's, pictured here with some chicken cook guy) knew he wanted to run restaurants before he was even a teenager. My best friend Mickey knew he wanted to own an oil company when he was still learning to fling newspapers from his car window in west Wichita. George Takei knew he wanted to be a thespian while growing up in an internment camp during WWII.

Those guys all achieved their goals, as do most people who grow up with such focus. Me? Well, my childhood ambitions ran the standard gamut from cowboy to helicopter pilot to matinee idol, etc. The problem was that I had no talent in any of these areas, and was completely clueless as to where my talents (if any) might actually lie.

And dadgummit, I still haven't really figured it out.

Fortunately, though, I have managed to muster enough skills to remain employable over the years. And along the way, I have at least been able to gain a slightly better understanding of my own aptitudes.

For example, when I was studying filmmaking in college, I found myself drawn to the recording side of things more than to what was in front of the camera. Of course, I did take classes that covered lighting and set design, dealing with actors, makeup, and wardrobe, etc...but I didn't care about any of that stuff. I found that I would much rather spend time as a cameraman, sound engineer, or film editor.

But...seeing the recent Star Trek movie and thinking about diverging universes (also known as the "Doc Brown chalkboard, 1.21 jiggawatts, don't-date-your-mother timeline deviation effect"), made me think about what it would be like to actually see if your predictions about the future came true. And that got me thinking about makeup.

I don't think the Original Series makeup guys understood the aging process all that well.

Actually, they didn't do that bad of a job with Spock...but then again, he wasn't aging as fast as the other guys.



But instead of unrealistically white hair and dark forehead stripes, perhaps they'd have been better off with nothing but jowl appliances.





And this one is just embarrassing:



I'd say they came the closest with Dr. McCoy. (Click to embiggen.)



For some reason, DeForest Kelley ended up playing "old Bones" in several different incarnations. The fourth panel, though (from TNG) starts to veer off in a bad direction...reminding me of Miracle Max, who I threw into panel 5 just to see if anyone was paying attention.

Anyway, I just found this study to be interesting, and thought I'd share it. I hope the techniques of aging an actor through makeup has matured as the artists have found more real-life "before and after" examples to learn from.

In my next post, I plan to share some more thoughts about my own convoluted career-path meanderings, as well as my own story of experiencing on-camera makeup first hand. Until then, stay away from irradiated comets, and have a great day!

Summer 2013

I know I'll be complaining about the heat in a week or two, but for right now, I am enjoying the fact that winter seems to have finally departed.

It's outdoor time!

The sun was shining on Sunday morning as Kim and I rode our bikes up Highgrade road. It was gorgeous, even though it was still a tiny bit chilly when riding through the shade. Kim was still recovering from doing the 100-mile Elephant Rock ride last weekend, and I'm just not in climbing shape yet...so we both were a little slower than usual as we tackled the ascent. But we enjoyed the chance to savor a lovely mountain sunrise on two wheels.



I miscalculated the time it would take to get through the CityView loop and back through South Valley, so I was taking my time snacking and drinking while stopped at the schoolhouse at the top. It wasn't until we turned from Turkey Creek back onto Deer Creek Canyon road that I realized I was at risk for being late for my coaching obligation at the swimming pool. I told Kim that I needed to crank it up the rest of the way home...and we were off!

Getting down Deer Creek quickly is more a matter of how much risk you want to take on the curves than it is about sustained pedal power. There are a few spots where you are going slowly enough to apply power -- but most of it is about streamlined coasting, careful navigation, and traffic awareness. I pedaled when I could, tucked down as appropriate, and stayed off the brakes to the maximum level my sense of self-preservation would allow. We were flying down that road!

Even so, some other guy came up from behind and passed by. I have no problem with that -- if somebody has better cornering skills than I do, I am happy to let them go. But this dingus came up on me like a shot, zipped around, and then...well, then he slowed back down once we got to the flatter section. With only a short distance to go until the turn into the Valley, I didn't see any point in trying to go back around him. I just took the draft and coasted for a bit.

I was starting to think I had made up the lost time, but then I had to wait for a long line of bike and car traffic before I could make my left turn onto the valley road. This effectively ate up any time gains I had made by Mad Maxxing it all the way down the hill. Sigh.

I made it home safely, though, and completed a pretty quick transition at my condo to jump in the car for the drive to the pool. I wasn't the first one into the water, but I was there early enough to yell at the slackers like I normally do. I don't think anyone really took notice of my tardiness.

As you can imagine after such a ride, my legs were pretty useless for the first half of swim practice. And to make it worse, the main set consisted of sprint 100s, for which I'm pretty useless under the best of circumstances. But I slogged though the practice, and finished feeling that I'd gotten a really good workout.

Kim probably had the more difficult workout, though; after the bike ride, he was going to go home and work on repairing his sprinkler system. As much as I hate 'em, I'll take sprint 100s over maintenance housework any day.

Unfortunately, even though the weather remained wonderful for the rest of the day, I felt obligated to spend my afternoon editing a veteran's interview and doing my laundry. But I kept smiling, knowing that summer is here and it's only a matter of time before I am able to zip up to Park County for a weekend of camping and hiking among the pines. Perhaps even next weekend. We'll see. In the meantime, I plan to savor the knowledge that my heater is turned off for the season, and that many more lovely weekend workouts are coming. Until then, enjoy the sunlight, and have a great day!

Star Trek - Into Darkness

I finally saw the new Star Trek movie. Don't worry, I'll try hard not to reveal any plot twists or spoilers.

Bottom line: It's pretty good.

There's a LOT in this movie that will delight fans of the series. But those are precisely the things I can't talk about. So I'll just provide my feedback in generic terms.

Let's begin with a comparison to the first of the reboot movies.

Chris Pine is pretty good, and I like his take on Kirk. Since this story takes place before the "five year mission" of the original series, his youth and brashness seems an appropriate basis for the more mature captain we see fighting thralls and outwitting Nazis a few years later. In fact, I like this Kirk so much that I find myself wanting to see more about how he handled getting through the Academy. I want to see him fighting with Finnegan, facing whatever educational challenges they had in addition to the Kobayashi Maru test, and studying the works of Daystrom and Cochrane in between overnight encounters with nubile coeds.

Sylar is exactly who I would have chosen to play Spock, too. And Bones, well...as in the first movie, Bones is perfect. I wish he'd get more screen time.

I had a little trouble with Simon Pegg as Scotty in the first movie, but I'm on board now. He's great in this one. I think his wart-faced pet thing is a little weird (and completely unnecessary), but I'd certainly call on Scotty if I had an engineering problem to solve. Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov are OK in this one, too. I was disappointed that Yeoman Rand still hasn't appeared, but I suppose that can wait.

I like Captain Pike, too. And having Robocop as an admiral was also a good move. The uniforms look sharp, and the bad guy was appropriately menacing.

My only two complaints about the casting are these: The hot chick shouldn't speak with a British accent. And the bad guy would've been better with long hair and a different accent as well. But those are minor nits.

I loved all the tributes you'll find in this movie. From the opening scene's reverence for Indiana Jones to the various twists on dialog from previous Trek incarnations, this movie is jam-packed with moments where your previous viewing experience is leveraged to enrich your enjoyment of what's happening here. Oh sure, there are more explosions and fights than are necessary -- after all, the foundation of Star Trek franchise has always been the relationships and ideas -- but despite the overabundance of action and noise, there is enough of the deep philosophy and entertaining banter to hold your interest and affection.

There are a couple of things, though, that bugged me. First, there's a whole bunch of new types of aliens on the Enterprise. I don't object to the concept per se, since I'll accept that there should've been more blue and green folks on the original crew if it truly is the United Federation of Planets. But in this movie, every time they showed one of the new species, it took me out of the plot for a second, as I wondered why they felt it necessary to shove in a bunch of political xeno-correctness at the risk of the story.

Second, there are a few things that conflict with the original series' timeline. Yes, I know that things changed when the Hulk blew up Vulcan. But that event would not magically make Tribbles and Gorns suddenly appear years ahead of when they had been discovered in the previous universe. I understand that new Kirk and new Spock may make different decisions this time around, and that T'Pau and T'Pring have probably been reduced to atoms...but that doesn't mean that the encounters with Gary Sevin and Edith Keeler, et al, are suddenly in the past instead of the future.

(Well, OK, those were probably bad examples, but you know what I mean.)

And c'mon -- ships that were launched before the formation of the Federation would still be in space...not in some warehouse where they could be accessed for nefarious purposes. It's as if Star Fleet somehow found Nomad in some old crate under the building and trotted him out to help sterilize some new lab equipment. Blowing up Vulcan doesn't suddenly bring stuff back that was launched 100 years before.

(And in a related query, wouldn't you think that Original Spock would recommend that Star Fleet contact the Organians so the whole Klingon thing could be resolved earlier this time around? That seems like the logical thing to do.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that I'm strongly recommending the movie. And I'm already looking forward to the next one. Buy your ticket, enjoy the ride, and have a great day!

Foothills Feat Triathlon

There was a brief time when I considered working for a newspaper. After all, I graduated from the acclaimed William Allen White School of Journalism, and mostly paid attention in my reporting classes. Mostly.

You can probably guess why this career path did not align with my vocational strengths. That's right...newspapers have deadlines.

I'm finally getting around to writing about the Foothills Feat Triathlon. But a full week after the event, my reporting wouldn't exactly be considered timely. I apologize for that. But it was a fun race, and deserves coverage, even if it's tardy.

My friend Trish Byerley (owner of Mojo Fitness) was the race director. I volunteered to help with the swim. My fellow Foothills Masters Swim Team coach Stephanie was in charge of this segment of the race, and she did an excellent job of managing the chaos of hundreds of athletes -- many of whom were young kids in their first-ever race.



The athletes gathered in the gym, and Stephanie gave them the pre-race briefing. After being organized into the appropriate groups, they were herded down the hall and lined up for their heats in the pool. If you've never volunteered to help with a race or a swim meet, you really should -- you can't help but love the energy and enthusiasm that floods the area around the starting line.

Foothills Masters superstar Rich Clark was one of the faster swimmers in the race, and he and his lane-mates were kind enough to pose for a photo before they cranked out their laps.



Rich did the race last year, but has made astounding improvement since then. Each leg of his race was significantly faster than last year. As his coach and occasional workout partner, I'd love to take some credit for his current blazing speed, but the truth is that its the result of discipline, enthusiasm, and hard work. He looked great steaming across the finish line.





It was a beautiful day for the race, and it went pretty smoothly. After the swimmers were all out of the pool, I spent a little time delivering water to some of the course marshals, then stood at a corner and directed runners for a while myself. Since I had reported for duty at 4:30am, I hadn't thought to put on sunscreen, so I didn't want to cook under the sun for too long. Fortunately, the last runner passed me shortly after I started to worry about UVs, so I was able to hang up my volunteer hat and call it a day. But it was fun, and I'm very proud of our swim team racers Rich (7th overall), Kevin (5th overall), and Mark (3rd overall), and all the swimmers' kids who did the race. And thanks to everyone who helped put on the race and make it such a success.

I'll see you at the next one! Have a great day!