Gucci Golf

A couple of years ago I tried to get Linda involved in playing golf. The conversation went something like this:

Ed: Hey Linda!
Linda: Hey, Eddie!
Ed: Would you like to learn how to play golf?
Linda: No!

Thusly thwarted I realized that a different approach would be required and, a few weeks later, I started casually mentioning the ways in which one could accessorize the sport.

Oh, look at these golf gloves with the hole in them for your wedding ring!
Hey, did you see that piglet-like club caddie?

And, the clincher...

Wow. Look at that purple golf bag!

And thus a ladies golfing star was born. We took lessions. We go out and play on occaision. We have a tee-time this month and went to the driving range this weekend.
We also went to Dicks Sporting Goods (whose web site is not www.dicks.com -- please don't click on that link at work...).

There is something special about the golf section of Dicks. It's not the set of space-like putters that are all the rage. It isn't the ability to test drive clubs by hitting them into a net with no indicaiton of whether you can hit the club or not. It isn't even the ability to casually glance up at the televisions playing golfs great moments as if you'd watch golf on tv at any other time of your life. No, the truly magical thing about Dick's Sporting Good Golf Section is that they sell purple golf clubs:





Needless to say, Linda now is the proud owner of a set of purple golf clubs! Let the gucci golfing begin!

Fenced In

The fence, she is finished.

Linda and I spent 7 hours on Friday painting the fence. Today, me, Kathy, and Paul spent an hour putting on the remaining fence caps and doing touch-up paint. Boy, was that a job. Let's "add it up"..

Two Fridays ago... 1 person, 4 hours.
Saturday... 3 people, 10 hours.
Sunday, 3 people 7 hours.
Last Friday... 2 people, 7 hours.
Today, 3 people, 1 hour...

(1 case of poison ivy... priceless...)

that's alot of hours. That's 76 person hours. What's amazing is convincing my mother that, indeed, this was not too much trouble. It felt good to be able to make a dent in her home, which has gone far too long without significant maintenance.

Evolution

Very good friends of mine are now mommies and daddies! Last Thursday at 3:18pm our group of college friends firmly entered a new stage of being with the inclusion of... children! Well, not plural children, but a child. And once there is one kid, you know others aren't all that far behind.

Growing up I've seen several people have children, most notably my older sister, who has two children. But, she's 10 years older than I. This is the first time that someone my age has gone through this life evolution.

It's a chance to see a couple very much like ourselves go through these strange and joyous times. It's the recognizition that our "social circle' is entering a new phase as we take on new responsibilities. I'm so excited and happy I can't see straight.

It's amazing to see the slight shift from the personal accumulation we all engage in to a steady and constant preparation to take care of a completely dependent little life. A shift from good times and parties to caretaking and building. Now, clearly, these things are not mutually exclusive, and we have plenty of good times ahead. But it is an evolution that is wonderful to watch.

In truth, I wonder if this is the general nature of emotional evolution: inward to outward. Can we truly understand our skills and talents until we have had such great charge placed in our hands? "Rising to the occaision" is a terrific and self-affirming feeling, and one that can't really be felt unless there is occaision present upon which to rise. And what an occaision happened last Thursday.

Heartfelt congratulations to the newly-parents.

Pearls Before Swine

is the name of a comic strip that Linda and I like to read when we read the Sunday paper. Actually, Linda likes to read the Sunday paper... I like to read the Sunday comics. Some will say there is a difference.

Nevertheless, "Pearls before Swine" is a cute comic strip...




Something else I like to read is the "dictionary of cultural literacy". I find the tome absurd, but it is an excellent tome of bite-sized trivia helping me to be a little more culturally literate. The chapter I just finished reading was all of the cutural references we get from The Bible. Things such as "do unto others", "go the extra mile", and "don't cast pearls before swine".

I never knew the phrase "cast not pearls before swine" was from the New Testament. Moreso, I felt a little confused by its implication (as intepreted, thankfully, by the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy):

do not share with/give to people things that they cannot appreciate.

Does this maxim allow room for personal growth? Evolution? Since this comes from The Bible, how is it intepretted in the religious sense? Would Jesus be "casting pearls before swine" in trying to convert humanity?

Who needs pearls the most? I'd argue it's the swine! Everyone should have the opportunity to share in anothers experience, to be able to grow from it, learn from it, use it for self-reflection, or just file it away in one's memory banks until a later time when they can better access it. Believe me, we are all swine at some point and in some areas of our lives. The next time I am on one of my tunnel-visioned, mud-rolling truffle hunts, I certainly hope that someone will have the charity to cast a few pearls my way.

Of course, this is through the dictionary of cultural literacy, and based on some of their other definitions, I wouldn't say it is the be-all-and-end-all on the subject. The Old and New Testament are filled with advice for being practical. Tossing out "emotional pearls", or "pearls of wisdom" has no cost associated with it. Perhaps the pearls we should refrain from casting are the pearls of our time and the pearls of our tangible resources. That's an advertised restraint I can live with.

And I think that's a significant distinction. Far too many people are frugal with both time *and* support, resources *and* insights. Remember, the swine in our lives need a pearl just like the rest of us.

I like typing swine.

swine swine swine

Incarceration, II

Time to elaborate a little bit on my weekend incarceration. And, before I begin... no, you do not need to go to the smoking gun to see police line-up pictures of your favorite blogger...

You see, to be incarcerated, one needs only to be confined, or trapped. Medically speaking, this may also be applied to a hernia, which, oddly, would not be a misapplication of the word to the events of the past few days.

So this past weekend, I was confined. Where was I confined? My mother's back yard -- normally a place happily remembered from my childhood, site of baseball games and pitching greens and archery practice and running amok with my pet dog, Patrick. What item was doing the confining? Ostensibly a wooden fence long pasts its prime.

I say ostensibly because the fence, in its present-day condition, would not thwart a hamster bent on crashing through it (Forgetting, for a moment, that any given hamster would have no desire to break into my mother's backyard. Further forgetting that were a singularly minded rodent to decide that such trespassing was a worthwhile endeavor, it could easily squeeze through the open gaps between fencing boards.). Trust me, when speaking of this fence: an immovable object it ain't. What truly kept me there was a promise made in March to "paint your fence, mom, one day this summer".

23 solid hours later and the fence is not yet painted. How?? you may ask... well.. read on!

Ed's Guide to Bass Ackwards Pence Fainting

(Friday) Step 1: Pressure Wash The Fence
This almost always involves a device called a pressure washer. Many, many thanks go to my friends John and Liz for the gracious donation of their washer for this effort. The pressure washer was picked up Thursday evening. I took a half-day on Friday and started pressure washing. After 4 hours, about 80% of the interior of the fence had been pressure washed.

(Saturday) Step 2: Trim Foliage away from the Fence, the first try
Large sections of the fence were invisible agains the overgrown backdrop of trees: white pines, holly trees, oak trees, saplings, bushes, evergreens, poison ivy, poison sumak, poison oak, poison grass, poison poison, moss, lilac bushes, weeds with inch-thick stems, etc... Saturday morning, 9am, Linda and I were trimming back trees and pressure washing the outside of the fence. This took the entire morning.

(Saturday) Step 3: Discover boards that must be replaced
The process of pressure wshing a fence is good for three things:
1. Removing caked on dirt and moss from fence boards.
2. Removing crackling paint chips from fence boards the need repainting.
3. Punching great gargantuan holes through fence boards so rotten that they only hold a fence-like shape out of habit.

By Saturday afternoon 37 fence boards had been marked for replacement.

(Saturday) Step 4: Repair fence boards While Helpers Scrape the Fence
Linda and Kathy went on post-pressure-washer-post-tree-trimming paint-scraping duty. Even after a good pressure washing, a little scraping needs to be done. I went to Lowes, bought about 37 fencing boards, and began replacing boards.

by 8:30pm on Saturday, all boards except for 6 were replaced. The fence was scraped. We would paint Sunday. It would be easy.

(Sunday) Step 5: Continue to trim trees and foliage
Mom called her landscaper to come on Sunday in the AM to help us remove trees and foliage that we could not cut with our meager cutting implements. He came and removed several small trees that had grown into the fence. He removed dozens of pounds of weeds and overgrowth. We could have our own burning man competition in the back yard now.

(Sunday) Step 6: Continue replacing boards
Just 6 boards to go. Oh, wait, in the process of clearing trees and foliage, 10 more boards disintegrated for no good reason. Quickly, a trip to the local Lowes hardware store for 12 more boards (always good to have extra!). Oh, wait, upon returning, 6 more boards had disintigrated. Turn around and go back to Lowes hardware for 6 more boards (never hurts to have extra). Oh wait, 2 more boards broke, using up all the extra. Board replacement, tree trimming, paint scraping, and some horrible thing I will just refer to briefly as "tarp management" was finished by 3pm.

(Sunday) Step 7: Paint!
3:30pm on Sunday, after dozen of grueling hours preparing, stripping, trimming, itching, biting, gnashing... the fence was ready to be painted. We took out and assembled the newly-purchased paint sprayer. We painted 1 fence section and the sprayer clogger. Why? We forgot to thin the paint. 20 minutes later we were happily spraying. 45 minutes later, we had to stop so that we could go to see a play we had tickets for.

-Ed

epilogue:

Linda and I skipped the play, as Linda had been ill before, and this weekend of manual labor left her in need of a quiet night in. We will go back to mom's on Friday (I'm taking Friday off) and will finish the painting job then. Of course, having replaced 50-some boards, felling several trees, pressure washing, and hand-scraping, I don't think paint-spraying will be too much trouble!

Incarceration

I was incarcerated this weekend.

Details coming.

-Ed

Scotty Just Beamed Up

James Doohan died this morning at 5:30am. He was 85 and had been suffering from Alzheimers and Pneumonia. "Mr. Scott" was a science fiction cultural icon, but he also had a special place in the hearts of engineers everywhere.




I'm not trying to eulogize James Doohan, as anything I'd write would be pretty inadequate compared to what you will be seeing in the days to come.

But I can say that he was a loved character and, transitively, a loved man, in the engineering community. Quite simply, "Mr. Scott" could fix anything. He made things work. He got you out of trouble. He did it with charisma. He had a great Scottish accent for a Canadian.


Fair winds, James.




The star trek website will have lots of news and tributes shortly.

How the West was Won

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how the west was won, as I came upon the scene many, many decades after the victory. But I have read alot of romanticized crud about how the west was won, and it usually goes something like this:

The American pioneer looked out into the wild yonder and saw a way to claim their own land and, thus, their future prosperity. Armed only with a faith in God and their craftsman capabilities these brave spirits went off to build a new nation with their bare hands.

I just have a hard time swallowing that. I have my own specific fantasy about the origin of manifest destiny:

Bud: I like it here in the city.
Old woman 2 stories up: Look out below. plop
Jeremiah: Sweet buttered corn, what is that stuff.
Bud: I do believe it is.. it is.. sniff... sniff Oh gawd.
jeremiah: What say you we run into the woods, build a farm, and try and live past 32.
Bud: Whatever, let's just get off this street.
Another Old woman 2 stories up: Look out below. plop
Yet Another Old woman 2 stories up: Look out below. plop
Bud: Go West, Jeremiah, Go West!

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and I imagine that any pioneering spirit was born out of simple emotional darwinism, the common side-effect of those who "made it" in the West. Of course, that's just an opinion, and from an engineer, no less.

I was pondering this pioneering spirit the other day as I tried to disassemble my BMW. I was wondering, as I removed door parts, motors, gears and wires, what made these men and women of yore start down a trail from which they may never return. As I tried to keep the myriad of screws together, I wondered the risks that these people took to tame the wild west, unsure if their skills were up to the challenge.

You see, my BMW is a bit like the wild west. Last week the rear passenger-side window stopped working, and I was faced with a choice:

- Take it to the dealer and spend a minimum of $300 to have them fix it (faintly reminiscent of "look out below! plop)

- Take the passenger side door apart and see if I could rig something up (Go west! Go West!)

The necessity of not spending $300 on my car was the mother of my door-ectomy invention. So, here is how Linda found me in my own auto-parts wagon train:





Using a firm faith in God and my craftsmanlike abilities, I was able to find out that my window regulator was busted and that a replacement part could be ordered online for $75.00:





So my part should arrive Wednesday. My rear passenger window is currently "tied" in the up position, and after my sister told me the dealership charges $600 to replace a window regulator, I am going out to purchase the service manual for my car as well.

So, I cannot even begin to tell you how the west was won, but I can start to tell you the story of how Ed conquered his BMW or, alternatively, how the BMW conquered Ed. Either way, I'm sure the struggle will make for some humorous reading in the months to come.

A Shot in the Arm

For the past several months at work I have been involved in something that I like to think of as "The Great Slog". It is the slow, tedious, uphill slog to launch for the project I am currently working on...



Good progress is being made. Bugs are being fixed. The spacecraft is slowly being seen as a complete and functioning unit. Now, the probe has been a complete and functioning unit for some time, but it always takes the people who built it a lot longer to stop thinking of it as a loosley tied set of independent machines.

On the software side, it is another embedded software project. You have requirements, code reviews, test machines, etc... etc...

This morning I gave an training class to mission operations for the couple of pieces of the spacecraft software for which I am responsible. Seeing the set-up mission operations center was a real shot in the arm for me. You start realizing that this isn't just another piece of software that you are working on, it is a piece of software for a spacecraft and that's pretty cool.





During the training session people were talking about sun angles and star trackers and science observations, and plans for maneuvers once we get past Mars. I've never been part of a software engineering effort whose operational environment context included Mars before.

The process of reclaiming the larger picture of this effort, of meeting the people in charge of taking care of this spacecraft for the next 13 years, of seeing some of the operational equipment and long-term flight planning, was very energizing.

It makes one realize what the phrase "can't see the forest for the trees" means.

It also makes one wonder how many other "forests" are being missed because we allow ourselves to become too focused on the "means" that we temporarily forget about the "ends". I would imagine that there is a huge temptation to live solely within the "means" of our daily lives. To allow routine and comfort to supercede self-analysis and personal evolution.

Sports coaches have an eloquent way of handling such profound mysteries of the human condition. They say :

Keep your eye on the ball, stupid.

Sounds good to me.

_Ed

Telling a Joke in Print

I've collected father figures throughout my life -- a pasttime owed to not knowing my dad as well as I would have liked. Collecting father figures is, I imagine, like collecting anything else: some figures are better than others and the ultimate goal is having a complete set. Unfortunately, I don't get father figures from the Danbury Mint...

...so I'm not really sure when my collection will be complete.

I was reminded on one particular father figure the other day when I was talking to a friend about my blogging. They said something akin to "hey, I never knew you were funny". They didn't use those exact words, but the concepts of "humored" and "surprised" were both encoded in the conversation. You see, it's really hard to be funny in a blog because it's a print medium. Pitch and tone and body language and timing and pickles and eye contact and facial expressions and little old women don't come through in a print medium.

In high school I worked very hard to learn how to tell a joke in print. My senior year, I almost got it. I wrote a story about a group of bank robbers on the run who kidnap the pope and wander around in the Sahara and a friend of mine published it in the school newspaper. It was almost funny: it had the pope. The Sahara. A couple going through a mid-life crisis. It had everything you could possibly want in such a story, except a sense of timing and, perhaps, a discernable plot.

But I kept at it. My senior year of college I wrote a story for a writing class about my AP Composition teacher, my literary father figure through parts of high school. It was a rambling retelling of my coming of age through his tutelage, although at some point he was compared to Barney Rubble (trust me, it all made sense). The paper got an "A" so I sent it to him, along with a cartoon of Fred Flintstone and a caricature of my teacher's face on Barney's body.

A few weeks later I received the story back, marked up by my teacher, just as any of my AP Composition homeworks would have been marked up -- mastery of the semi-colon would elude me for some time. At the end, in lieu of a grade, was a small note which, paraphrased through over a decade of memory, went something like:


I am honored to be the subject of this exposition. I've showed this to my wife, ????, and we both had a very good laugh. You are a good writer and have finally learned the very difficult skill of telling a joke in print. Good luck in all your endeavors.


High praise from a stern teacher, especially a stern teacher that had just been cast as Barney Rubble.

Blogging is slowly awakening in me a desire to compose, and since humor is near and dear to my heart, it will stick its head up on occaision in this blog. Some people have been quite surprised by the humor in my blog. Others have been downright surprised by the lack of humor in my blog. Personally, I've been surprised by the lack of pictures in my blog. I can't stand to read my blog when it doesn't have pictures and have no idea how you have the patience to have gotten this far into this post.

All of my old High School papers are still at my mom's house. I need to stop by there one day and pick them up and reconnect with my literary self who is (quite literally) stuck in the early 90's. One day when I am brave, I will read the 300 page "book" that I wrote the summer after 8th grade.

My pre-pubescent foray into science fiction, I am sure, will make Piers Anthony look like E. B. White.



Of course, back then, I had not yet learned to tell a joke in print.

Common Cents

Jakob and Anna and I were walking around the park and we saw a bowling alley set up where you could win a stuffed animal. Jakob and Anna really wanted to play, and I had some money, so I said "sure".

I walked up to the woman at the game and asked how much and she said "$5 for 2 balls".

I said "sure" and gave her $10.

Jakob and Anna then got into adjacent lanes. Each picked up a duckpin ball and promptly threw it in the gutter. Really. Right in the gutter. Not rolling into the gutter, not falling into the gutter, but a dive-bomb right into the gutter.

Practice round over, they picked up another ball and did the same thing again. Two kids. Four balls. Ten dollars. Eight seconds.

What part of my brain doesn't work that I allowed that to happen? What loss-limiting mechanism is broken within me that didn't say "this is a bad idea"?

I have no common cents. I've spent them all.

-Ed

Look Out Below

At one point at King's Dominion I was escorting Anna and Jakob around the park as Brian, Linda, and Julia were getting on roller coasters. What does escort mean? It means I was carrying a 300lb backpack, and two 64 ounce coca-colas (one in each hand).

First, we went to play arcade games. The three of us sauntered into the arcade, and I made my way to the front desk area to get change for a $20. I did this by holding both 64 ounce sodas in one hand, balancing the backpack on the opposite shoulder, leaning to the point of being on one leg for balance, and fishing for my wallet in my front pants pocket. Jakob began jumping up and down on the skee-ball machines and Anna was completely absorbed by the claw-machine which gave you the chance to win gold watches - face pressed up against the glass and yelling "I want to win one for daddy!"

5 seconds and $5 later, we were on our way to the Eiffel Tower replica. You can go up the elevator to the 1/3 scale replica's top and look out over the amusement park. So, there we were, the three of us, me with my backpack and two 64-ounce cokes (filled to the brim, of course). I am standing 5 inches from the guy operating the elevator and giving us the rules of this "attraction".

Guy : Please, for our safety, no food or drink is allowed at the top of the tower. Also, for the safety of our guests on the ground below, no spitting.

He said this with me carrying 128 ounces of coke in front of him. I am carrying a gallon of soda, 6 inches from him. Does he mind? no. We get off at the top and immediately see the pay-per-view binoculars which, of course, Jakob and Anna must use before they allow themself the luxury of another heartbeat.

Remembering my experience trying to fish out a $20 at the game arcade a few minutes before, and not wishing to be so encumbered at the edge of a 300 foot drop, I set the sodas down first before searching for my wallet. I set them on the floor a few feet away from our feet. Jakob looks through the binoculars first, then Anna. As I am helping Anna down I notice something...

One of the soda containers was knocked over. Jakob says "oops, sorry Uncle Ed" and then goes off looking out the other side of the tower. So, apparently, a half gallon of soda is now plummeting 300 feet down into the amusement park below.

I comfort myself with the thought that, at the very least, it was not spitting.

Flagging an attendant I let them know what happened and ask if they have a towel or trash can to minimize further drippage and we get the whole mess sorted out. (Well, by sorted out I mean the attendant stared at me with a look of disgust mixed with horror, and then walked away and I went to the other side of the tower and took pictures with the kids).

I did not read on the news that anyone was killed by falling soda at King's Dominion on Saturday, so I guess we got off lucky, but if I were you I would give that tower a wide berth next time you visit.

Where My Silver Lining At?

< Sorry, this was the second half of the last post, which I separated out because I think it is more digestable as a stand-alone blog entry >

I started thinking to myself yesterday... why was the day so successful? We had very few temper tantrums. We didn't go nuts on games or in shops. We hit almost every ride. We stayed fed and hydrated. Everyone had fun and got to do everything they wanted. We had no arguments. No side-bars. The longest we stopped was to eat lunch or dinner. It was a perfect day.

In short, I was trying to figure out how on earth that happened! Why? Because I over-analyze. It's what I do.

Clearly, it is pretty easy to show kids a good time at an amusement park. But it isn't the amusement park that provides the fun. Trust me. We saw several miserable families that day at King's Dominion. Walking into an amusement park is no guarantee of a fun day. Amusement parks provide a distraction from the daily "grind" which allows people to stop being the obstacles to their own enjoyment. You don't need Kings Dominion to get out of your own way, and if you are too stubborn, King's Dominion ain't gonna help ya. I grew up with some stubborn people, trust me on this one.

Too many times we rely on context to dictate how we feel about something. When you spend the money to go to a place, any place, that advertises family fun, you are paying for someone to construct, for you, a context. Specifically a context in which you feel allowed (if not obligated) to re-align yourself to be considerate for your kids, your spouse, your family, your friends.

But make no mistake, it is that re-alignment that makes things fun. Not the park itself. And anything that inspires you to re-align yourself will give you those joys. And if you are one of those selfish people who just refuses to re-align yourself, you'll be wandering around wondering what you are missing.

That's what this weekend taught me. That's why I want to blog about it. It wasn't just a fun weekend. There was an experience behind the experience...

We were immersed in physical activity... blinking lights, lots of sounds, gravity-assisted machinery, food, games, sun, water... it's all good. But, beyond that there is a whole different emotional plane of existence: kids trying to spend more time with their parents; learning surprises can be good things; struggling with being too cool for activities they still really want to do; conquering fears of the dark, of gravity, of water slides.

Looking at things in that slightly different light, the otherwise completely random behavior of many kids suddenly made quite a bit of sense (including the kids we were with). Once I stopped trying to read the map and started trying to read the kids then plotting a course throughout the day to make sure we all had fun became easy.

Let me give an example with a dad and his daughter that I saw when we were first in the park. Some little girl was tugging on her dad's shorts to show him some cartoon character painted on the ground. The dad was trying to get her to look at the scooby-doo-character taking pictures with people. The "tug-of-war" that ensued had nothing to do with either scooby-doo or floor paintings. The adult couldn't comprehend how a character painted on the asphalt was as interesting as a real-life scooby-doo. The daughter just wanted her dad to pay attention to her and share her little moment of wonder. After about 20 seconds of being on a different "wavelength"... Bam! Crying daughter. Confused father.

There were hundreds of examples that day. Whenever I decided to take a look around you were hit over the head with just how ignored some of these kids were during "their day" at the amusement parks. It kind of makes you wonder how many times that exact same pattern plays out through everyday life.

Parents often say that kids grow up when you aren't looking. I'm not a parent, and I'm sure that is true. But I think it is true because truly, truly looking takes alot of effort and creativity and most parents just get burnt out.

What will make another blog entry one day is that there is nothing in the above which is specific to either kids or amusement parks. You can facilitate that joy, that interest, that reading and bonding with adults too. It's not just about caring about others, it's about seeking solidarity with them. There is, most certainly, a difference.

-Ed

As an aside, Linda and I were up until about 3am talking about this very topic last night. I came in, laid in bed, and went into how hard it is to construct this series of thoughts in the abbreviated form of a blog entry. I doubt I have done an adequate job. But, upon my first retelling of this "insight", her response was...

"Well, duh."

Which is just as well, because, most probably, she is the one who taught it to me.

-Ed

The Best Things in Life are Free

What on earth does that mean? To find out, you could always go to the The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy and look it up... I did... but let me tell you: that definition is so silly in its dismissal of the philosophy that it just made it onto My Top Ten Blog Rants. Whoa! Ed has a rant list, whodda thunk? So why haven't you seen this list? Two reasons:

1. The first thing on Ed's Top Ten Blog Rants is arrogant bloggers that rant too much when no one cares about their opinion. So I really try and not post my rants. I may talk you into a corner with them at a party, but I won't post them.

2. I didn't start this blog entry to talk about cultural literacy.

So why, then, did Istart this blog entry?

On Saturday Brian, Linda and I took two nieces (Julia, 12 and Anna, 8) and one nephew (Jakob, 7) to King's Dominion for the day. The kid's spent the night on Friday, we left the house at 7:30am, drove to the park and opened it at 10:30am, and left, exhausted, at 10:45pm. After dropping off two nieces at my sister's house, we finally made it home by 1:30am.

Ok. Cool. Good Uncle duty. You went to an amusement park. How on earth does going to an amusement park inspire anyone to utter any phrase containing the work "free"? Tickets are $35 for adults (My work gets us a discount off the $45 price), and kids 7 and over are "adults". Sodas cost $3 each. Pizza is $4 a slice. Some places like the lasertag arena cost extra. Lunch for 6 cost almost $60!

Let me side-step that question for a moment, ignore the blazing hole in my wallet, and recount for you my favorite memories from the day:

- Holding on to the handrail of the Rebel Yell while Anna buried her head in my shoulder on her first adult roller coaster ride.

- Going into the deep end of the wave pool with Julia, and giving Julia, Anna, and Jakob "Uncle Eddie" rides in the pool. An "Uncle Eddie" ride involves having many children jump on your back and the ensuing attempt to not drown is, apparently, much fun for those that are not "Uncle Eddie".

- Watching Julia be so excited coming off of the "Flight of Fear" roller coaster that her hands were trembling.

- Watching Julia climbing all over the cartoon construction playground (after scoffing at the idea) once she realized that 12 is not too old to enjoy such things.

- Seeing Jakob explain to a little girl stranger that his light-up LED sword had a different color sequence than hers, but that she shouldn't worry, because hers looked good too.

- Having all my nieces and newphews at some point or another accidentally call me "dad". Also, having all my nieces and nephews, on some ride or another, fight over who got to sit next to "Uncle Eddie".

I could make a longer list, but you catch the drift: None of the above cost a dime. My favorite moments involved making kids happy, or watching kids be happy. They were about knowing that I had facilitated joy. There is a special feeling when you have done something truly positive for another person. I would go so far as to say that such a feeling is one of "the best things in life".

treadmilling is getting better

You know, either my right foot is getting used to arch support, or the constant pounding on the shoe has obliterated any type of support in the shoe. I don't care which, but I just did 4 miles yesterday and can walk today, which makes me unbelievably happy.

Intelligence or Wisdom

If you had the chance to be reknowned for either your intelligence or your wisdom, which would you pick? Wait, not sure of the difference between the two? Here:

in·tel·li·gence
n.
1. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, especially toward a purposeful goal.


wis·dom
n.
1. The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.

Now, clearly, everyone realizes that deep down inside they are both intelligent and wise... but humor me. Where would one spend this ficticious capital given above? Would you purchase the intelligence booster or the wisdom generator?

For me the answer would have been intelligence. But, today, I'm not so sure. Certainly while in school the answer would have been intelligence. I imagine it would be the choice of anyone getting a BS instead of a BA! 8)

Even since college, intelligence has certainly held the public spotlight. I mean, given how easy it is to communicate these days (like reading blogs and such) it is much easier to exchange knowledge than insight. If I want to know a piece of trivia I go to www.google.com. My friend had an Indian wedding. I learned everything I wanted to learn about Indian weddings in 2 hours with the help of google.

If I want insight and the ability to discern what is true or meaningful, that's a different can of worms. Wisdom is much fuzzier than intelligence.

And that is what led me to favor intellect in the first place. Facts is facts. Math is math. There is a constant security when living amongst axioms. In fact I would know some who'd say wisdom is an illusion brought about by the mind's inability to accurately book-keep it's collection and application of knowledge. Or, at best, wisdom is a subset of knowledge and collecting knowledge then implies collecting wisdom. You simply cannot be wise and dumb as a post at the same time.

So, what brings up this thought process? In my short-but-ever-lengthening life, I've known and worked with several people who were very, very intelligent but had the wisdom of a small grapefuit. Over time, I have somehow come to respect these people less and it probably has something to do with my internal shifting values:

I know some very smart but very unhappy people and I get concerned, sometimes, that I would become like them. So I self-deprecate, and sometimes give the wrong answers so as not to mind-compete, and try and figure out what differentiates the happy from the unhappy.

I think the answer, the differentiator, is wisdom. I used to call it perspective. I think it must be, for without an ability to discern what is true and right (at least for yourself) how can any other skill be brought to bear in the correct way, at the correct time, and in the correct amount?

I'm wise enough to think that I would like to be wiser.

I'm reminded of a time, several years ago, when I started buying drums from the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I had no rhythm. I couldn't hold a beat to save my life, and yet I kept buying drums and going to the festival. I called it "my grand search for rhythm". I would stop other people with drums and ask them to teach me rhythm. I would bang out my beats at the festival (once having a shopkeeper shoo me from playing so horribly near her shop). After about three years, I could bang the drum fairly well. I held my own at the end-of-day drum fests, and people didn't give me hate-stares when I played. I knew I found rhythm when, playing one day at the festival a group of belly-dancers who had been walking by stopped and danced to my drum beats for a while. But that, most certainly, is a different story.

I imagine wisdom isn't all that different from rhythm. It's all about timing and degree, and in its pursuit you will certainly be shooed away from your fair share of doorsteps. I don't know that a group of wandering belly-dancers is the olive branch hearalding the arrival of wisdom, but then again, I don't know that it isn't either. If I find out, I'll let you know.

-Ed

Uncle Eddie

I'm no stranger to uncle-hood. In fact, I've been a certified uncle (and godfather) for over a decade (12 years and counting). My sister's kids are the best nieces in the world and every time I hear about them they have done something else to make this uncle proud.

When I married Linda, I more than doubled my unclehood, going from 2 nieces to 3 nieces and 2 nephews. I'm starting to get used to being called "uncle" Eddie. I have started getting used to signing birthday and christmas cards "uncle". One of my nephews graduated high school and I'm used to looking at anyone under the age of 25 as a child barely out of 3rd grade.

As an aside, I am sure I will be a terror as a senior citizen:

93 Year old Ed: You young kids don't understand a thing about living.
73 year old next to me: Oh give it up already...

So what has me re-evaluating my unclehood? My 7 year old nephew, Jakob, is spending the summer up in Maryland (he lives in NC). Specifically, he is staying with Linda and Brian and I for the next 6 weeks.

So Linda and I have been trying to juggle play-dates and pool memberships and trips to Chuck-E-Cheese and "chores" around the house and sports to play outside. We have a 6 week itinierary we need to fill and we didn't fill it by the time he came up. Brian was thinking ahead though and warned Jakob he would need to do chores for allowance money over the summer, which means Linda's gardens will be well weeded.

Yesterday morning Jakob walked into the screened in porch where Linda and I were eating breakfast and reading the paper and announced: "I'm bored!". This is the first horseman of the apocalypse when you are babysitting.

He couldn't possibly be bored, as he had just gotten up (and Linda and I had just sat down). Frantic, I grabbed a pen and paper and proceeded to draw little mustaches on cartoon characters in the funny papers. Jakob thought it was the funniest thing since sliced bread. We gave him some markers and he had an activity that held up for the next 45 minutes. Disaster was, thus, narrowly averted.

This is a new stage of "unclehood". This isn't "stop by and see the nieces and play for a few hours and go home". This is 24-7 uncleage. And, unlike my other nieces and nephews, Jakob isn't surrounded by school friends and neighborhood kids and planned summer camps. He's starting from scratch up here for 6 weeks, which means he needs all the help he can get to make this summer a fun one.

Last night, watching the tail end of Scooby-Doo with a sleepy Jakob using me as a pillow, I realized that, as far as 24-7 uncles go I do pretty good.

Why am I good at it? I claim no credit. When I was growing up I had the best uncle in the world: my uncle Ralph. We would do every kind of activity imaginable. He was batman, I was robin (unless I was batman and he was robin). We were the Dukes of Hazzard fleeing Boss Hogg. He taught me to play golf and bears full responsibility for the horror that is my golf game.

When I'm interacting with Jakob I find myself continously thinking: what would Ralphie do in this situation. I have no idea if my answer is anywhere close to what Ralph would do, but so far, my guesses have worked quite well.

Which reminds me, I need to give Ralph a phone call and thank him for teaching me how to stay young. I also need to get on the internet and get a crah course in Pokemon.

-Uncle Ed

Life's Fireworks

Fireworks are slightly more legal in Maryland than they used to be. Certainly the small sucky ones are legal, but it is, apparently, less stigmatic to smuggle in the cooler more dangerous ones too. The result of this new availability? The long 4th of July weekend becomes filled with pops, bangs, and lights. As early as Friday night one could hear the impatient shooting off their stashes.

Driving home from an event on Sunday night there was a fair amount of such aforementioned aerial activity. The problem with these "prosumer" displays, of course, is that they don't last very long. 5-10 bursts, low on the horizon, at best.

The fun, then, comes from trying to catch glimpses of these shows. Manifested in a car ride (assuming you aren't driving) this means looking out the car windows, scanning the skies for a quick pop of bright green or red or (less often) blue.

Seeing them, by itself, isn't all that great. As far as fireworks they pale in comparison to the professional ones. But there is a different pleasure in catching them, an almost voyeristic feeling that you have snuck a peek at something meant for someone else. Or that you were made privy to this occurance through your own determination to see it while others around you miss it.

It is akin to catching a glimpse of a shooting star just as you happen to turn your head skywards. Why wish upon a shooting star? You have to be pretty lucky to catch a glimpse of one, so you might as well do the asking when fate seems to be paying attention to you.

So, there I was, sitting in the back seat of a car, for 30 minutes, starring at the sky to see a 2 second flash of light in the sky. My nephew, Jakob, was in the seat next to me, playing on his game-boy.

Me:Look in the sky, fireworks!
Jakob: I don't see anything.
Me:Keep looking at the sky. They might happen again.

pause... pause.... pause

Jakob: There are no fireworks in the sky. Why would you say there were fireworks in the sky? I don't see anything. Look. See? Nothing. No fireworks. It's not nice to make things up. I'm going to play my game.

8) Jakob's a fun and funny kid (you'll hear more about him in the upcoming weeks).

Now, I kept looking at the sky and there were no more fireworks for quite some time until we got off the highway and closer to home and the above conversation was repeated a few more times, in just about the same form.

And maybe it was that I like to stare out windows when I'm in the car, or maybe I'd eaten one too many spicy sausages at the picnic that day, but I was struck with an interesting thought:

Staring out a car window to try and catch a glimpse of fireworks is all about hope. Not important "I hope this surgery goes well" hope or "I hope I keep my job" hope, but it is hope nonetheless and, as such, has something in common with all hopes.

So I sit like a dork and scan life's skies trying to catch life's fireworks.

At the end of the car ride it doesn't matter if you spent those unrecoverable 30 minutes of your life trying to optimize traffic weaving or trying to find the best song on the radio, or trying to beat the next level of Pokemon, or just sitting like a dork looking out the window. Nihilism excepted, the what we do is often eclipsed by the why.

-Ed

ps. Wow. I called myself a dork twice in my own blog...

Eddie the Leper

It's funny how some can be sick so regularly. By regularly, I don't mean frequently, I just mean with some predictable periodicity. Case in point: myself.

I've been happily married for 2 years (that's 20 in speech years). And for the past 2 years I have been utterly, inexcusably, terribly ill for our anniversary. Head-throbbing, throat-scratching, chest-coughing sick. For our anniversary. Twice. Batting 1000 in the germ department.

What possible effect our nuptuals could have had on my immune system is beyond me. Until the genetics have been appropriately studied, Linda is doomed to the following exchanges...

Linda: Happy Anniversary!
Ed: bleh. blech. blarf
Linda: Where would you like to go for dinner?
Ed: bleh. blech. blarf
Linda: Would you like to see a movie?
Ed: bleh. blech. blarf
Linda: I love you very much!
Ed: bleh. blech. blarf
Linda: Why don't we stay home...
Ed: bleh. blech. blarf
Linda: ... in different rooms.