I Helped That Along A Little...

Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 Team Delivers
First DARPA Limb Prototype

http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2007/070426.asp

It's nice to have this start to see the light of day.

-Ed

Sunscreen

I've always been a sucker for visual media. Unfortunately, I'm too tired to turn that simple thought into a longer blog entry, so, for tonight, lucky you! 8)

I've been jumping around youtube and have found that for several popular songs, people have made "music videos". What is wonderful about these videos is that they are not commercialized and, instead, focus on some meaning of the song. Sure, sometimes the focus is a little monochromatic, but it sure beats the focus of many high-budget music videos of sex, lights, and closeups of the band.

When I listen to a song, I don't care what the band looks like, or what facsimile of fashion the lead singer chose that day. I like the song because it resonates with something going on in my life. So, I like the moving pictures that accompany the song to speak to those experiences. That and homemade videos have that amateur twinge to them that I really, really like.

One of my favorite songs is "Everybody is Free to Wear sunscreen" from Baz Luhrmann based on the essay by Mary Schmich.

check it out.

-Ed

Live Life Like You're Gonna Die

I have a secret....

I really like William Shatner's singing. I liked his kookie talking-to-the-music style from rocketman to Common People.

I even enjoy, if enjoy is the right word, Live Life Like You're Gonna Die. The lyrics, darkly humored as they are, state a simple truth over and over again:


'Cause maybe you won't suffer maybe it's quick
But you have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn't I taste it?
You'll have time 'cause you're gonna die

Over the past several years I have, quite morbidly, developed a subconscious way of approaching people, especially during times of friction and conflict and it was quite easily summed up in those lyrics above, with a minor, minor twist:

Live life like they're gonna die

That might need explanation...I've known, and loved, too many people who have passed on. People in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 60s, 80s, 90s. Accidents. Disease. Once, through grim improbability, I witnessed a suicide. I've been the last person to whisper in someone's ear as they have passed on. While certainly no expert on the subject, I know that life is too precious and too unpredictable to be taken for granted.

And that's really what we do when we get angry at someone we care about, or when we get angry at someone whose approval we are seeking. We take them for granted, since the act of being angry with them, of judging and distancing from them, is to punish them, to seek some emotional equilibrium and that takes for granted the idea that they will be around long enough for this process to work itself through. When we have been wronged, it is too easy to transform someone into an ideal and forget that they are, in reality, a human -- and quite temporarily so.

My mother tells the story of the last time she saw her father alive -- he had stopped by her house unannounced, which was odd for him. They spoke a bit, nothing substantial. When he went to leave she was in the kitchen and she was overwhelmed with the thought "what if this is the last time I ever see him again?" With that thought, she made a point of stopping what she was doing and gave him a hug and a kiss goodbye. He died shortly thereafter, I cannot remember by how many days, of a massive heart attack.

And so, while I am completely reconciled to living life like I'm going to die, that isn't the thought that keeps me up at night. The thought that really keeps me up at night is that "they" are going to die -- those "they" that I have come to love and need in my life. And it helps take the edge off of family feuds, because when someone is gone, there is no chance for them to right past wrongs. There is no chance to hear them say I'm sorry, or for you to say you're sorry. If you are particularly unlucky, as I was particularly unlucky many years ago, you are left with the sadness that the time you did have left with someone was spent in a chess-match of frustration and anger.

I'm known by all as a "hugger" now. Linda's poor brothers, all four of them, have given in and all give me a big hug during family get-togethers... and then shake each other's hands. I don't care. In each of those hugs there is the smallest hint, through some improbability on my part or theirs, that this is my last chance to do so. I could not bear to think it a chance wasted.

-Ed

Time to redefine

Coming up with a perpetual, lasting definition for this blogging space is a frequent favorite past-time of mine. I've railed against "I did my laundry today" blogs even as I have blogged about my laundry. I've purposefully skimmed blogs outlining lists of daily chores as I have written tomes on my own daily chores.

During these months away from the blog-o-sphere, I've learned two things about myself:

1. I'm a hypocrite, as evidenced above, and...

2. I just like to have a space where I can write something fanciful every now and then.

In the past week that my blog has been, as it were, resurrected, I've had several people e-mail me and say "I see you are blogging again, and I'm glad."

And such is the nature, I suppose, of these messages in a glass bottle -- you rarely understand that they may be read on some more distant shore. Instead, you assume, quite insanely, that these sentiments are private: no one is in this room when I type these things. No ones generally mentions to me the things I type.

This prose becomes a missive to a future self, or a young one. Perhaps in reading through these lines there is a little prayer, a confession in guise of truthful exploration. Or just a son who wanted to show his author mom that he could sling a word or two. So rarely is the audience for these blogs known and, rarer still, is that audience member a real person, in the here and now. And so, quite resistant to rote, I remain surprised when I am reminded that there are real people, in the here and now, who read me.

Yet, forgetting about the audience is what lets me, I hope, write something honest. Dance as if no one is watching... and all that jazz.

And I wonder if that same sentiment, same pattern, isn't the meaning of purpose in one's life. To keep your focus on that Platonic Ideal, that ethic, that higher horizon and know whatever physical things you manifest will not be perfect, but they will be as honest as can be, for you and for those nearby.

And so, I realized, that I type because I like to and because I have something to say, if even to myself. And if I am so inspired by my laundry, we will hear about laundry. And if I see a truth in my overbookedness, I will laundry-list my chores.

10-years-hence Ed can wait a while, lest in the desire to provide him quality fare there is nothing presented on this virtual plate!

Fin.

Equilibrium

Yesterday I was walking between rooms and my foot caught on one of Kaitlyn's toys that had fallen out of its collecting basket. Mid-fall I found my body, subconsciously, flailing about in a desperate attempt to reconquer my center-of-gravity. I can only imagine that I looked like a drug-induced goose trying to dance swan lake, on ice (although, in fairness, I've never actually seen that and, as such, cannot vouch for its visual accuracy to my described predicament). Maybe it was my five years of martial arts devoted to constantly knowing my head-to-floor distance. Maybe, unbeknownst to me, one of my cats heroically dove into my back to help me reposition. Maybe I've just got a killer inner-ear. Whatever the reason, I regained myself and continued through the room, my knee slightly worse from the twisting.

But, clearly, the experience got me thinking about what subconscious mechanisms we have that constantly measure our equilibrium, and how these mechanisms might repeat themselves in certain non-inner-ear related ways. So, here, for you, is my theory on equilibrium and how it almost destroyed my home.

It's really quite a simple theory: as new things are added to our lives we either match our surroundings to this new thing or we match this new thing to our surroundings. Or we lead a shabby chic psychotic existence, which is equally possible but unbefitting to my theory and, as such, is conveniently omitted.

Proof? How often have you purchased a new suit or outfit and needed to update accessories? Has a new painting inspired a new wall color? Has a new chair begotten a new rug? That new computer game sired a new monitor, didn't it? Such luxury possessions are actors and our envisioned experience is their play. When our Sean Connery is too old to play James Bond to our brand new Halle Berry, we toss it aside and purchase a new Pierce Brosnan. Or something like that.

Our last luxury purchase was a large-screen television. One of the things that most impressed me about the television was the multitude of connections available in the back of this set. My inner-engineer was intrigued -- I simply had to find a way to plug each of these inlets. Clearly, my home electronic equilibrium was out of balance....

I needed to find a way to bring 8 bajillion wires into my living room, post-haste. How does one run so many wires into one's living room? You need to open up a few walls! And, clearly, the best thing to do it drop 2" diameter PVC piping through the walls to make running even more cables in the future easier. How do you run so much piping through the walls? Easy! All it takes is a hammer and some guts..

I'm jumping over some stories here that I will post about later. Let's suffice it to say that it took some events to get to that large hole. Let's play where's waldo.... can you see the section of drywall that was already starting to be patched? Can you see the hole at the bottom fo the bulkhead? Can you see the large sheet-metal clad cold-air return directly under the living room wall that had to be cut into? Sure you can!




Of course, when running pipe between two points, you need a second point, which means another hole closer to the exterior wall of the house where the cable comes in.



Here, the PVC pipe routes cables from the living room into the joists right next to the cold-air return.... why? It isn't code to run things lengthwise in a cold-air return. Do you see the hole drilled about 8 inches to the right of the PVC? That hole is a blog entry all by itself...




Both the exterior cable and the cables/network cards from the living room meet and are routed to my "distribution hubs" located in a secret, undisclosed location in the basement. For maximum security, they are located behind the kitty litter boxes. So far, we have multiple cable and Ethernet runs with nylon ropes so we can pull more things through in the future.




After lots of drywall, lots of dust, lots of cussing, and lots of trips to Lowes my house, at least, regained equilibirum as my new big-screen TV now has 4 out of 6 inputs filled, and my house re-wiring project is well underway.

A funny side note, but the last coat of paint on the ceiling repair work was completed at 2am on the day of Linda's surprise 30th birthday bash. That, too, is another blog entry.

-Ed

More Than This

I have found that the discovery of life's universal truths is harder than it should be. One might think that the very definition of universal truth would imply a proliferation that aids this particular type of philosophical scavenger hunt. Alas, my list of universal truths is short and, to my consternation, growing shorter.

So, what latest universal truth was sacrificed on the altar of proof-to-the-contrary? I learned you cannot reverse the progression of time. Sure, it seems like an easy thing to anyone who has ever seen the Superman movie: simply travel faster than the speed of light and all of a sudden the earth moves backwards, people move backwards, and time itself moves backwards. By the time you're finished moving so fast, simply pick up where want to.

I know this is not possible because I've been trying it for many months now, and no matter how quickly I hurtle through the day, the earth has not reversed itself, people only walk backwards on purpose and, excepting some daylight savings time hell a little while back, time has kept marching forward.

Perhaps I haven't been traveling fast enough; as I contemplate slowing down I can feel the past several months catching up to me. Clearly I have had some lead on time. I'm sitting 3.5 months into the new year and am at a complete loss to describe them.

Oh, sure, we had some fun... Linda turned 30 and had a huge catered bash, I almost blew up my house cutting through some piping, we got some new techy gear, Kaitlyn does a new thing every 3 minutes, and my various groups of friends have birthed 13 kids in 2.5 years.

In Edland it's still early January, 2007. So that is where I need to pick up. I have yet to start thank you notes for all the kindnesses received last year. I'd like to start that here and now, as February 2007 will be arriving in a few moments...

To everyone who gave such vivid support, thank you so much. Special "thanks you"s to people who reached out beyond existing levels of friendship. Thank you to the people who posted support to this blog, like Phil and Stacie and Otter. Even "thank you" to the people who, despite years of acquaintanceship, never mentioned my mother's passing; they have given me one less set of people to worry about. You can learn a lot about a person by the way they treat your mother, anonymous or not, posthumously or not. But that, like my house evacuation, is a different story.

So, I'm back; The revolution will be blogged.

In the meantime, please be content to hang with the latest picture of my 6 month old little girl.