typing out loud

"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." – Sylvia Plath

2010-03-12T11:46:00.001-06:00

I’ve been attending a writers’ workshop. We meet on Monday nights in our neighborhood’s residents’ center. The first week more than 20 people attended; last week, for our lesson on blogging, we had around 10. Maybe people nowadays know all there is to know about blogs, but judging from the questions asked during the session, I’d say the people who did attend knew nothing about the internet.

The workshop has focused mostly on fiction; for me, that’s like attending a swimsuit workshop where we’re all required to wear Speedos – I don’t “do” fiction. I’d much rather curl up with a good biography or nonfiction tome about history or politics. The only time I find fiction acceptable is when I’m stuck in a car for more than eight hours, and the fiction is in audiobook form. And even then it’s more mindless noise to help pass the hours ... and I can always count on at least one line that makes me laugh out loud, especially when the author probably didn’t intend it to be funny.

Case in point: “She didn’t know whether to shit her pants or have an orgasm.”

(helpful note: Don’t google that phrase, hoping to find the author. You won’t find it, and you’ll be shocked at what you do find.)

“The wastebasket is a writer's best friend.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer

So far, my problem has been this: I come up with an idea, and then I delete it because it’s stupid.
Are the ideas really stupid? Hard to say. I tend to have so much doubt about my ideas and my ability to execute them that everything is born and dies in the shower, which is where I get most of my “this will work!” ideas.

Why is this? I’ve been tortured by this lack of confidence for my entire life, regardless of what I’ve been doing – reporting, editing, IT work, training, photography ... you name it and I’ve doubted if I’m any good at it. My wife always laughs at me when we talk about careers, which is the white whale to my Captain Ahab, because I’ll talk about something and then, with all earnestness, say “You know, I think I’d be pretty good at that.”

It’s almost as if I’m talking myself into it – believing that I could do something competently isn’t a problem, but that I could do it spectacularly? That’s a stretch. The only thing I’m good at is denying that I’m good at anything.

If I could monetize that, I’d be hating myself on my own private island in the Caribbean right now.

“Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.” – Sholem Asch

And isn’t that the problem? Finding things to say?

For now, instead of forcing the issue, I’m going to write some stories about things I know – people, events, etc. Let’s see if that gets the juices flowing. It’s not exactly fiction, but some of the things that have happened to me don’t seem real anyway.

Everything's tied to everything.

2010-03-12T11:42:00.000-06:00

This is a test:

Can (1) MacJournal upload a post to (2) my Blogspot blog and then (3) automagically tweet it to the world?

We shall see.

So ...

2010-03-04T14:49:00.000-06:00

I’m testing this new “journaling” application called MacJournal, and my first post was to have been a picture of Fletcher that I took a few days ago. But the photo didn’t make it, and I’m trying again.

And by the way, WTF is “journaling” software anyway? Isn’t WORD a journaling app? Or TextEdit? Or the back of a cocktail napkin? This does not explain why I bought it ...

This is a test. Also, a cat.

2010-03-04T08:22:00.000-06:00

Sleeping (1 of 2)

2009-09-17T14:21:00.002-05:00

Sleeping (1 of 2), originally uploaded by pr9000.

A friend asked me to tell the story of why I'm so frustrated with my job today. I obliged ... it's long, but it came out so quickly that I feel changing a word would be a sin.

It's a story about documentation. The old IT director didn't write a thing down. I've spent countless (billable) hours fixing mistakes I made because I've had to make changes to systems about which I know very few specifics.

Latest example: our backup software needed to be patched. So I ran the installer, rebooted and my server suddenly lost all its config files, and said I didn't have a valid license.

Of course, the serial info isn't filed away anywhere. Oh, and the software is written by a company in Germany. It's 3 p.m. CST when this happens.

Long story short: the old IT guy did a very unconventional install – installing the Unix guts of the app on a second partition –and didn't document it, or do the symlinks correctly, because the patcher had NO IDEA the guts of the app were on a second partition.

(Stupid Facebook character limitations ...)

So the patch did what it was told to do and installed a new copy of the app in the proper location. I backed up before I patched, and now I'm trying to restore the config from the backup.

WRITE THIS STUFF DOWN, PEOPLE!

Also, the 80 GB boot drive of this PPC Xserve was partitioned into "Boot" and "Scratch." Guess which partition had the critical data? If you guessed "The one named after a notepad" you'd be right. Maybe it's some voodoo server naming convention about which I'm unaware, but in the graphic arts field –did I mention this is a video house? – a scratch disc is one that can be deleted without worry, because its contents are just temp files that can be recreated.

Also also, why partition ONE SINGLE DRIVE? The tech note said some installs could be done on separate volumes to keep the DB from filling the drive. Makes sense, and might explain the decision. But two partitions != two drives!

I am forever amazed at the crap sandwich I've inherited. There is no excuse not to document your installs – none whatsoever.

There might be an excuse to choose a vendor LOCATED ON ANOTHER CONTINENT in a country KNOWN FOR INVADING ITS NEIGHBORS EVERY SO OFTEN. There might be an excuse to say "Sun won't support our tape library" if you haven't, you know, CALLED SUN TO SEE IF THEY STILL WRITE CONTRACTS ON IT. There might be an excuse to keep some Adobe app install jewel cases, but not all, and then NOT KEEP THE INSTALL DISC, thus FORCING ME TO GO GRAB A TORRENT OFF THE INTERWEBS and break the law because Adobe won't send me an installer disc for old software.

I'm sorry, I've lost my train of thought.

Anyway, there's your story. Sorry to rant, but really, his head's probably stuck in his armpit because I doubt he could find his ass in the first place.

And here it is in Facebook:

don't forget

2009-09-11T15:31:00.001-05:00

trotter II

2009-09-02T09:12:00.001-05:00

trotter II, originally uploaded by pr9000.

This blog has been asleep lately. It'll wake up soon. Until then, it's enjoying the afternoon sun streaming into a dark, warm living room.

word to madison's mother

2009-08-25T09:55:00.002-05:00

the generosity of our neighbors

2009-08-19T22:41:00.001-05:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

2009-08-11T07:57:00.001-05:00

The Beatles - Abbey Road, originally uploaded by dag.

My head just exploded. What a great set of outtakes.

that's the goal

2009-07-31T21:25:00.004-05:00

that's the goal, originally uploaded by pr9000.

As I type this, I'm sitting in a recliner that will double as my bed this evening, on the fifth floor of St. Thomas Medical Center in Belle Meade, watching my lovely and courageous wife, Amina, go in and out of sleep. The tick-click of the IV machine helps drown the background noise of nurses shuttling to and fro, doing the work of the angels as they keep Amina and the rest of the A wing as comfortable as possible, given the planned trauma their bodies suffered earlier in the day.

(Sorry for the scenery chewing, but I'm feeling a bit melodramatic this evening. It's been a long day.)

We stayed at The Inn at St. Thomas, a wing of the hospital that's been converted to motel rooms where patients can stay the night before surgery, to avoid the 5:30 a.m. arrival that admissions requires.

We thought that 5:30 is 5:30, so we were ready at that ungodly hour. But if you're at the Inn, you've got at least an extra 90 minutes until they actually pick you up. And we got up an hour earlier than we needed to – 3:30 a.m. – out of excitement and nervousness. So by the time Amina was taken out of the room, we'd been up for almost four hours. A tense four hours.

I tried to keep my day as normal as possible, visiting clients and generally pretending that Amina was at a customer site and wouldn't be home until after dinner. The physician assistant called at 11 a.m. to say the first incision was made around 10:15 a.m., and that they were looking at every bit of six hours before they'd be done.

Consider that for a second – a six hour surgery. For a knee, when most ACL repair is done outpatient. I don't think any of us realized how drastic the injury was in the first few days after it happened.

Anyway.

I got to the family waiting room around 3 p.m. and the PA called immediately to say all was going well, but that they'd need at least another hour before Dr. Anderson would be finished. And she was pretty much correct – I got the call at 4:15 p.m. that Dr. Anderson was ready to see me and give me the news.

I pretended not to be nervous. Causally I gathered my laptop and charger (free wifi kicks ass when you've got nothing but time on your hands) and was escored to the little waiting room. I sat down, the door was shut and boom! No cell coverage. I suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, had a lot of time to think and worry. I prayed as best I could, but I think God will forgive me for being a bit scatterbrained, as I went from "Everything is going to be fine" to "She'll probably have lost her leg due to the arterial damage" to "Why the hell can't I get on Twitter? It's baseball trading deadline!"

Dr. Anderson almost bounced into the room. He had a hint of a smile that grew larger as he told me everything went as well as he'd hoped. The damage was bad – we were hoping he'd get in there and find less destruction than expected – and he showed me one gross photo of her knee as it was opened, and another kind of cool photo that showed the extent of the damage Amina had done.

To the untrained eye, it's hard to decipher, but let me try:

First, imagine that you don't have kneecap anymore. Then take a deck of cards, and imagine sliding it into the space where your kneecap was, kind of perpendicular to your leg. That's what I saw – her knee looked like a hollow little cave. There was no "there" there.

And now, miraculously, there is. The LCL and one of her middle ligaments were taken from her body, and the other middle ligament was cadaver tissue. Thus she only has half a zombie knee, which should be cool around Halloween. We can scare the kids and the insurance company at the same time.

I can't say enough about how incredible Dr. Anderson has been for us. It was the right choice, and I'm so incredibly glad we got to him when we did – we'd all but made our decision to go with another doctor, but he called us at home, on his day off, to say that he'd seen Amina's charts and would get us in the very next afternoon. He came recommended to us by Dr. Jeff Cook at the Franklin Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, who was recommended to us by very good friends in our neighborhood. It's like a Kevin Bacon story.

Amina resting comfortably, though the pain medication seems to wear out every three hours. I've got my phone alarm clock set to go off every 2:45, so that I can make sure I get the nurse's attention. I don't think that's going to be hard – so far I've been blown away by the care we've received. Our first nurse just happened to live in our neighborhood, which is kind of mind-blowing when you've already been up for 14 hours and you're living on caffeine and Doritos. Our overnight nurse is a free spirit, kind of spunky and not afraid to swear if the conversation demands it.

And, of course, the free wifi.

God bless you all for the help you've given us, the love you've shown us, and the prayers you've made made for us. It's amazing to me that I find myself praising God, and my friends and family, even in the midst of what should be a pretty crappy day.

the older i get, the more this rings true ...

2009-07-28T22:13:00.001-05:00

master guide power steering™

2009-07-26T07:35:00.001-05:00

master guide power steering™, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Given Amina's current condition, traveling anywhere by car can be a chore. First we have to get her down the stairs in the garage, which isn't that hard – it's more worrisome, because it involves hopping on the good foot (James Brown!) while she supports her weight on me. Once we're on the ground level, we walker over to the car, and then she contorts herself into the front seat, always being careful not to bump her foot on the door or the dash. It's almost like watching a gymnast navigate the beam, or one of those tall cranes swinging parts of a skyscraper around.

The problem is that, because the knee does not bend whatsoever, the car door must provide a lot of clearance – it's got to open wide. Our little SUV-type vehicle is a four-door, and the doors don't open very wide. But the convertible almost opens 90 degrees, so that's the vehicle of choice when we need to go somewhere.

After I get her into the front seat safely, I put a blanket over what passes for our back seat, and then gently lift the wheelchair into the back ... the trunk, you see, is too small for the chair. And once it's in the back seat, the top must stay down, because, again, the chair is too tall.

It's probably a pretty absurd sight – a luxury convertible with a folded wheelchair, gently surrounded by a hospital blanket, sticking up from behind the occupants. Not exactly a commercial, but it gets the job done, which is a testament to the vehicle itself.

I say all this to relate that, after getting home from yet another doctor's appointment Thursday, I left the keys in the ignition in my scramble to help Amina back into the house. By the time I realized it – late Saturday evening – the battery was dead. So dead, in fact, that this model car does not allow the ignition to turn.

My first thought: let's jump the car! My second thought: Where in the hell is the battery? Is it in the trunk? Let's check ... oh, wait: yet another feature of a dead battery – trunk is locked. And can only be opened by the key fob or a button on the driver's side door, both of which aren't operating because the battery's dead.

But come on, I think. This is a car! They're all the same! Until I realized that it's made in Germany, which means it's going to be (1) ruthlessly efficient and (2) more complex than necessary. I could poke around under the hood, but I'd rather know the exact details before I send volts of electricity surging through what might be the air conditioner or radiator or spare tire.

Mistakes cost money.

So I called the dealer, and was lucky to get them right before they closed. Service, though, had left two hours ago so they patched me to the Roadside Assistance center. After getting a few details and hearing my lamentations, they sent someone out to give me a jump.

This goes against every Man Law imaginable. I have jumper cables. I have another vehicle. I have testicles. I can do this. But no, the friendly woman on the other end of the phone purred, they'd have to send someone out.

And they did. Not some dude from the local garage, but a certified service expert. Matt was very nice, very helpful and he jump-started the car for me. It was exactly as I thought it would be -- red to positive, black to some large chunk of metal – and, really, it was a dream. I can call any time of day or night and they'll send someone to help change a flat, fill an empty gas tank, jump-start the car ... and it's nothing I have to pay for. I get it simply because I'm privileged to own this fine automobile.

Not good for the manly ego, but I'll take what help I can get.

sunflower (2 of 3)

2009-07-20T21:08:00.001-05:00

sunflower (2 of 3), originally uploaded by pr9000.

Trivial thoughts after a day in the maw of the healthcare system:

• I had a doctor use the "Can I still play the piano?" joke on us – instantly won my respect and admiration. All I need now is "Oh, nurse!" and "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" to complete the trifecta.

• The second most famous patient of the guy who set Amina's splint: Joeclyn Thibault. Happened, he says, at a Habs-Bruins game, which gives me the excuse to show this gem of a commercial.

• The most famous, of course, is Amina.

• It's amazing how many times we've had to repeat the story – at least five times in the ER, once to each nurse who saw Amina in the hospital, and now to two doctors today as well. I need to go to Cafepress and make up a t-shirt with the story on it.

• I'm proud of how well she's holding up through all this. It's exhausting – and tomorrow, with three separate doctor's visits in three separate parts of town, will be a marathon. I don't think she'll get out of bed on Wednesday.

our streets

2009-07-20T08:55:00.001-05:00

our street, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Well, actually, that's "our streets" two houses ago ... in lovely University City, Missouri. We lived on Stanford; Vanderbilt was the intersection.

Much of the next few weeks will have Vanderbilt – or maybe another hospital – at the intersection of life before the knee separation, and life after the knee surgery.

If you're the praying type, and you've not been adding us to your list before now ... shame on you. :)

Sleeping (1 of 2)

2009-07-18T18:48:00.001-05:00

Sleeping (1 of 2), originally uploaded by pr9000.

Feelin' kind of poopy today.

Walter Cronkite announces death of JFK

2009-07-18T14:31:00.001-05:00

Walter Cronkite announces JFK assassination

2009-07-18T14:29:00.001-05:00

that's pretty thick-headed ...

2009-07-14T08:04:00.001-05:00

candelabra IV, or "The Knee Affair"

2009-07-13T22:34:00.002-05:00

candelabra IV, originally uploaded by pr9000.

As some of you may already know, Amina took a tumble on her bike this weekend and ended up dislocating her knee. Take that literally – you couldn't find her knee if I spotted you two legs and a map. Where used to be the ligaments and other ... knee thingees ... there is now a whole lot of nothing.

Her injury is incredibly rare; usually knees pop to the side, but hers ... well, it's best described thusly: make two fists and bring them together, looking at the top of the interlocking knuckles. That's your knee. Now, take your right fist and move it on top of your left wrist. That's what happened to hers. All the ligaments are gone, but the docs can't tell if it'll be a reconstruction or a replacement until the swelling goes down enough to do more MRIs.

She has that leg in a temporary cast from her toes to her hips, and she can't do a thing by herself.

It's just shocking, how it happens in an instant – at 5:30 I was getting ready to make a great dinner, and at 5:45 I was strapped into the passenger's seat for my first-ever ambulance ride.

I was watching her scream in pain -- nobody seemed to realize she had dislocated her knee. The EMTs and ER docs all thought it was a compound fracture, so they gave drugs that should compound that kind of pain. Once the attending saw her x-rays he told the drug nurse "give her whatever she needs to be comfortable" ... and it was Dilaudid all the way (which, I've since learned, it's four times more powerful than heroin).

But before the groovy drugs, she was pretty much feeling the full effects of a dislocated knee, complete and pure without the diversion of narcotics. I went with her to X-Ray – notice my hip, in-the-know lingo there – and heard her cry out in pain that quite literally sent a chill down my spine. I know that's a cliche, but honestly, I could feel the hairs stand up from neck to heel and I charged out of the restroom, looking to kill the miserable bastard who was hurting my wife. I recall making eye contact with the rad techs. If I were the sort to have a shorter fuse, there probably would have been a police officer slapping cuffs on me.

Oh, there were a lot of cops in the ER. I bet that's pretty typical.

Once the ER docs popped her knee back in place – she was consciously sedated, which sounds like the first draft of a Pink Floyd song – they found us a room in the oldest wing of the hospital, which in reality was pretty cool. It looked like an unused Federation starship design from "Star Trek" ... of course, it could have been that it was 2 a.m. and I was exhausted from the day, but check it for yourself and tell me Commander Pike couldn't have taken that thing to the fourth planet in the Talos system.

As the lovely wife of my good friend John said on Facebook ... "LOL warp factor nerd." Takes one to know one, sister.

Some impressions of the 26 hours at Vanderbilt:

Even through the stress of the ER visit, I was chuckling to myself after visiting with one of Amina's nurses. "Hello, nurse!" (in my best Wakko voice) was in my head all night. If I ever need a catheter without benefit of anaesthesia, she can do it anytime.

They wheeled us over to the Round Wing about 1 a.m. or so, and the trip was almost like a Kubrick film – long, sleek, abandoned underground corridors, extreme white-blue florescent lighting, and the only sounds were the whirring of the air conditioning, the wiggle/rattle of the gurney wheels, and our footsteps. Very unnerving.

Vandy has a great cafeteria.

To top off the experience, Nashville experienced the second Biblical rainstorm just as we were leaving last night. Seemed to sum up the experience perfectly.

There is a long road ahead of us; surgery is unavoidable, and the task will be to find the best doctor with the best plan to get Amina back on her feet. Knowing my wife the way I do, I have no doubts we'll get there, and sooner than expected.

Geek Breakfast

2009-07-10T07:14:00.001-05:00

Geek Breakfast-12, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Ever have one of those mornings where you just can't sleep? You toss and turn, trying to get your mind right, and you look outside and think "Wow, it's cloudy this morning" because it's so dark until you realize that it's about 4:45 a.m. and of course it's dark at 4:45 a.m. unless you live above the Arctic Circle?

No? It's just me?

Anyway, that's what I had this morning. I try to talk myself into going back to sleep, which is impossible. So then my mind starts to wander over the past week and all the techno-geeky computer stuff I've been doing for a client ... which, truth be told, isn't all that complicated, but you need to stretch your muscles before you exercise, right?

Yesterday we put into place the first piece of a puzzle that, when completed, will have accomplished something my client has been needing for four years. It feels good to get it started, and it feels even better to know that I'm putting my stamp on it – my design, my implementation. It was so liberating that, after the day was officially over, I stuck around for a bit and started rearranging the cubicle I inherited from the former IT director.

When I start nesting, I'm feeling good about things.

What I haven't been doing, though, is praying, reading the Bible, etc. I'm not walking with The Big Man™ the way I should be, and I realize that it's not good. I can't keep thinking that I'm doing it all on my own; in my one year of living in Franklin (yesterday was the anniversary) I've been blessed far beyond what I expected. And as much as I'd like to think that it's my natural, boyish charm that's responsible for the success, I've got to realize that everything in my life comes from the Lord, and I need to start acknowledging that.

And I need to stop eating things like the photo above, which came from the Geek Breakfast I attended yesterday morning. I didn't order those pancakes -- I stuck with the feta/spinach/mushroom omelette -- but I've not been a stranger to the chocolate chips lately.

sweet dreams

2009-07-09T21:22:00.001-05:00

sweet dreams, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Turtle 1

2009-06-30T21:54:00.003-05:00

Turtle 1, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Last night, a turtle – looking a lot like the one pictured above, but really, it's hard to tell turtles apart – made its way into our garage. I only realized this because that little voice in the back of my head said "Go put your shoes on out in the garage" ... if I hadn't done that, I would have missed Mr. Turtle, because he was almost invisible where I found him.

I put him in a box to show Amina, who was due home any minute. She saw him and carried him back to the culvert behind our fence – basically, way in the back yard. She was proud of herself, because the land behind our backyard is currently undeveloped, waiting on this crappy economy to allow the building of McMansions again. There are lots of wetland areas back there, and logically, this is where Mr. Turtle was heading.

This morning, I got up early and headed to city hall to plead guilty to a traffic ticket, and as I'm backing out of the driveway, who did I see? Mr. Turtle – this time at the end of our driveway, heading across the street, probably muttering "Thanks, jerkface" under his little turtle breath.

Basically, the poor thing was making a trip, took a wrong turn, got forcibly detoured the turtle equivalent of 500 miles back the other direction, and then almost got run over by the same jerk who started the detour in the first place.

Oh, and then, after he made it across the ever-dangerous streets of Westhaven, he was harassed not once, but twice, by the very friendly, very inquisitive basset hound next door. I think Winston's owner also put Mr. Turtle in a box, from which Mr. Turtle escaped. I'm not at all sure of Mr. Turtle's current whereabouts; maybe I should open my mailbox and see if he got detoured there somehow.

Me? I'm starting the P90 workout regiment. Not P90x, which is like for superstudly studmuffins, but the "basic" P90, which is like for men who get sand in their (female private parts) on a regular basis. And it (the regiment, not the sandy vajayjay) is kicking my ass.

But I have no right to complain, because compared to Mr. Turtle, my life's all rainbow-shitting unicorns.

in the great smoky mountains

2009-06-26T12:51:00.001-05:00

in the great smoky mountains, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Sometimes I wonder what goes through Trotter's mind during the day. Is he happy? I'd think so, because he has a great disposition and seems about as relaxed as a happy dog would be ... but I wonder if being a domesticated animal is frustrating for him.

When he looks outside and sees a squirrel, all the training and commands go out the window and his tail goes straight up and he's ready to pounce. He rarely is allowed to go after it, though, and even if we do let him outside, the squirrel is up a tree before Trotter gets off the back porch. And when we take a walk in the construction area behind the house -- always off leash, of course -- he's so out of tune with being a hunter that I see the rabbit before Trotter does. So even when he's unfettered by rules and chains, he still doesn't "get it."

This morning he was watching some blackbirds that have invaded our feeders, and he was mildly interested in killing one and eating it. But he seemed kind of half-heartedly into it, and I wonder if he was going through the motions – for me, for himself, or for the long-lost ancestors who ate things more interesting than kibble from Costco.

"how to buy expensive thing using MONEY that you SAVED"

2009-06-24T07:06:00.000-05:00

crass, juvenile and very, very funny

2009-06-22T07:26:00.003-05:00

If you ever find yourself trying to explain why a man's behavior is ... puzzling, bizarre, nonsensical, etc. ... just remember that, in some very important ways, all men are still 14 year old boys inside.

That explains why this

is just so damn funny. There are many different tittilating and potentially disturbing subplots around our favorite comic book characters.

from left: nervous, happy

2009-06-21T08:41:00.001-05:00

from left: nervous, happy, originally uploaded by pr9000.

The title pretty much sums up the mood here in Franklin lately.

This image is from a shoot I did earlier this week, and we got some great results, even if the weather did not cooperate at all ... it was set for 4:30 p.m. and of course, the heavens opened at about 4:33 p.m. and kept us all on the porch for about 20 minutes. It was the hottest I think I've ever been, what with the humidity and the work and whatnot.

Anyway, it was a great session and this is one of my favorites. Enjoy.

Mike Lange Calls It

2009-06-14T08:44:00.001-05:00

Pittsburgh Penguins Win 2009 Stanley Cup - Celebration Begins

2009-06-13T08:03:00.001-05:00

second time i've posted a photo like this since february ...

2009-06-12T22:22:00.001-05:00

second time i've posted a photo like this since february ..., originally uploaded by pr9000.

game seven. i am ready.

2009-06-11T18:05:00.001-05:00

I was in my car, stuck in traffic outside Knoxville, on Tuesday night. Amina and I were driving to Bristol, and I'd thought we left in time to see Game 6, though truth be told I wasn't completely sure I wanted to see the game. The Pens had been decimated in Game 5 in Detroit, and I was worried that maybe the Pens wouldn't be able to come back after the physical and mental shellacking they took on Saturday.

I was wrong. But of course I didn't know it, because if I had, I wouldn't have chosen to be stuck on 440 E for what seemed like an eternity.

Luckily, a good friend decided to be my Twitter play-by-play source, updating me whenever anything relevant happened. And, of course, I did a search for #Penguins, which showed me all the relevant posts. It's kind of fun, following a game via Twitter. You don't have any real idea what's going on, but you can guess from the tweets you read. "ARGHHHHHHH F*CKING HAL GILL" is pretty easy to interpret, after all.

So between John and the rest of Twitter, I was able to keep tabs on most of what happened. Once we hit I-81 I was able to get Mike Lange on some Penguins Radio Network station, but it didn't last. I heard the call of Kennedy's goal and thought "That's it, game is over, a two goal lead is untouchable." Then we lost Lange and Twitter seemed to go silent. But no worries – Amina (who was reading the tweets for me while I drove) discovered the game was over and I felt good.

I was wrong to doubt this team, this year.

So what happens tomorrow night? Who knows. I'd say that, on paper, the Red Wings have all the advantages. My limited hockey mind tells me that the home ice last change has been the real reason the Pens won all three games at the Igloo, and conversely the reason they've been unable to do anything at the Joe. My limited hockey mind tells me that road teams are something like 2-12 in Cup Game Sevens.

But I've been wrong every step of the way. I thought the Caps' 2-0 start was going to be the end of that series. I thought that nothing at all could come of Game 5 but watching Hossa make out with the Stanley Cup at Point State Park.

So, I'm officially predicting that the Red Wings will win. Because I've not been right to this point. :)

star trek motivation

2009-06-08T22:12:00.001-05:00

star trek motivation, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Why is this my most-viewed photo on Flickr? Even yesterday five people viewed it ... given that it's buried deep into my photostream, it doesn't make sense.

Or it speaks to the eternal cheesiness of William Shatner.

planters

2009-06-06T23:30:00.001-05:00

planters, originally uploaded by pr9000.

There's a party going on somewhere in my neighborhood, and it's a still enough night that I can hear every song being played. That, plus the full moon and ... maybe that's it! That could be why my beloved Penguins played like crap! It must be the Teen Wolf Effect.

I must Twitter that ... And that was one sweeeeet tweeeeeeeat! Bro's a no-no for CoCo, after all.

I must admit that I like twitter far more than I thought I would when it first came out. I didn't "get it," and I didn't see why other people would waste my time (and theirs) with inane updates, thoughts, etc. Kind of like this blog, but in 120 characters -- and yet, that's the first thing that won me over. You've only got 120 characters to get your point across, and the old newspaper editor buried deep inside me loves that you've got to work and rework your post to get it to fit some arbitrary length.

That paragraph right there? 417 characters. I'd need to cut it way down to get it to fit Twitter ... something about that excites me. Let's try it again:

Didn't get Twitter at first; who cares, I thought. But 120 char limit makes my pants fit funny.

Just 78 characters that time. And isn't it better shorter? Most things (written) are.

The Party of the First Party

2009-06-05T18:38:00.001-05:00

FDR's D-Day Prayer

2009-06-05T18:14:00.001-05:00

The last minutes of "The Shield"

2009-06-05T17:36:00.001-05:00

I'd forgotten exactly how good that show was, and how incredible the final season turned out.

one of the funniest bugs bunny cartoons ever

2009-06-05T16:11:00.001-05:00

been busy lately

2009-06-02T08:00:00.002-05:00

originally uploaded by pr9000.

The young lady holding the W Hotels rubber ducky -- probably named "D" for Ducky -- is my energetic little niece, Hailey. She and her mom visited us in Franklin last weekend.

If you haven't spent time with a four year old lately, I highly recommend it. You'll learn a lot about a lot -- for example, I heard amazing tales about what makes poo and pee, and the relative size of dogs' and cats' "holes" for releasing it. (For the record: dogs have small ones, cats are slightly larger, which didn't make sense to me but I wasn't about to ask her how she came to this conclusion.)

I learned how to spell a lot of words. I learned that Hailey's mama is one of the smartest people on the planet. I learned Trotter is my daughter -- she's still working on the whole how-are-you-related-to-me? question -- and that Fletcher, due to his girth, is a doggie.

Actually, a "dottie" because she has troubles with her "g" sounds. And her "k's" as well, which also come out with a hard "t" -- she got very, very upset when we asked her to tell us about her kitties. "i really want nice kitties," she said ... do the math and tell me it's not the most hilarious thing in the world, even though she didn't think so at the time.

We watched movies. We made a smoothie. We went to the neighborhood swimming pool. We took a ride in the convertible and took Trotter for a walk and in general had a fantastic time.

She's so literal -- everything she says is meant to be taken seriously, and she'll interpret our words the same way, which causes confusion at times. When we pass the Factory and I show her the company I work with that makes cartoons featuring large, talking vegetables, she frowns for a second and then asks "Is that where the talking vegetables work?" I say yes, and she thinks for a second ... then "That's silly Uncle Paul!" and she giggles with glee.

You know, it is silly if you think about it, which I try not to do that often.

She's only going to be four for a few short months, and I'm glad I got to spend time with her during it. She's too old to be a baby, too young to be jaded and calculating with every reaction -- she's surprisingly, disarmingly matter-of-fact and I think that's a great way to go through life.

so what did i do this weekend?

2009-05-26T15:12:00.001-05:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I'm typing this with nine fingers, because one of the things I did this weekend was bang the ever-loving hell out of my left pinkie finger with a badly planned attempt to close an S hook that was about a foot over my head at the time ... not smart.

The rest of the weekend was spent planting an herb garden (here's a shot we took during one of the rare non-raining moments during the daylight hours) and putting in some sort of a crushed-rock-and-paver-stone path along the side of the garage. It entailed shoveling about a ton of gravel, tracking at least that much mud on the driveway and helping me to realize that I'm just not at all blessed with upper arm strength.

Of course, I could do something about it, but every time I do, the pain is so intense that I just drop it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Parrot massages cat's head

2009-05-24T06:45:00.001-05:00

This is just ... odd.

the future mayor of the ohio valley

2009-05-23T08:50:00.001-05:00

the future mayor of the ohio valley, originally uploaded by pr9000.

you know it's true ... one day Ryan will head up the combined river towns of the Ohio Valley. Martins Wheelingportairesville.

what about friday night?

2009-05-18T07:32:00.001-05:00

shoulda lit them candles

2009-05-14T07:59:00.001-05:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

The rain is coming -- radar shows a line of showers that pretty much covers Tennessee, north to south -- and that's pretty emblematic of my mood this morning ...

I really surprised myself this week. I'm getting more busy by the day; The Big Man Upstairs is opening doors for me, and I'm realizing how much being busy sucks. Yesterday, for example, I had a morning client meeting; spent 45 minutes in the frame section of Hobby Lobby; ran to a tech client to help troubleshoot a recalcitrant server; ran back home to mow the grass before it reached knee level; did an interview with a local reporter -- quelle famous! -- and then ran back to the client to do battle with the server and the crappiest switch Dell has ever slapped its logo on ... Started at 8 a.m., ended at 10 p.m., which I know will seem like a normal day to all those readers who happen to be parents, but I don't have kids. I have a dog.

Who, by the way, got Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets in his late-night dinner, because his father decided to drown his server woes in a chicken sandwich, extra pickles.

I'm not whining; I'm just stunned from yesterday, and the problems I had to battle with that server and switch, the first round of which I lost -- I was a -1 last night, but I hope to even it up this morning.

Chess Park Chairs

2009-05-11T10:39:00.001-05:00

Chess Park Chairs, originally uploaded by pr9000.

For whatever reason, as I was walking Trotter last night and we hit the local park near us -- Chess Park, so named for the large chess pieces -- I had a thought:

You know, I really should be running.

Mind you, I was wearing my three-sizes-too-big camo shorts -- heretofore known as the Mystery Fat Guy Shorts -- and a pair of old running shoes that had been relegated to Honey-Do shoes, mainly because I needed shoes that I didn't mind getting all stained with grass or paint. They offer no arch support and basically exist to keep me from becoming a southern stereotype when in public.

So I started running. Of the 1.5-mile course that makes up our nightly Adventure Walks, I probably ran 60 percent of it, with a two-block walk in between to make sure that when I died of a heart attack, I'd be walking slowly when it happened, and thus my body would fall gracefully to the pavement. Less chance of scuffmarks, you see, as my motto has always been "Life very slowly and leave a good looking, slightly overweight, somewhat pimply corpse."

The run went well, but I remembered why I tend to exercise (if at all) before 7 p.m. -- I was wired. Awake. 12:30 rolled around and I had no desire to sleep. But I did, which was very restless and filled with bizarre dreams about ... well, I won't get into too much detail, but they weren't pleasant. I woke up cranky and sore, which I guess is a good thing, because if I'm ever going to win the Music City Marathon, I've got to start somewhere.

in which i show my unabashed childish love of ytmnd.com

2009-05-09T08:01:00.004-05:00

I just want to scream -- How Could This Happen To Me?

STUNNED

here we go penguins, here we go

2009-05-08T20:50:00.001-05:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I know it's a photo from a Steelers game, but watching the Pens-Caps series has me remembering how much I really, really enjoy hockey -- even when it's not my team playing in the playoffs. I could watch Our Lady of Perpetual Motion's eighth grade girls hockey team play ... oh, I guess the Pittsburgh Pirates on skates.

And the girls would win, 6-5, in OT.

name: dr. bummer. bid: $69.

2009-05-06T22:50:00.001-05:00

gerb 35mm fake

2009-05-05T22:37:00.002-05:00

gerb 35mm fake, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So it's been almost a month since my last haircut, and I was beyond the "Hurts to Wear a Baseball Hat" phase, so I broke down and visited my local discount hair cuttery.

I should have known something was up when the woman who greeted me, and asked for my phone number, was someone I'd not seen before. But what the hey, I thought -- they're all trained professionals, and they note in my "account" on the computer what settings I like (number three, square in the back, thinned out on top, keep the sideburns). I decided to throw caution to the wind and sat down with "Dusty" (not her real name).

In the first two minutes, I learn
• Dusty's first customer today informed her that he hadn't showered in a week
• Dusty's got OCD problems, but don't worry -- she's on medication
• One of her OCD problems is with hygiene
• Dusty's got incredibly toned arms. Oh, and
• At one point in her life, Dusty saw a plastic surgeon and said "Give me the Dolly Parton Special."

Seriously – her boobs were like personal flotation devices. The rest of her body was like a teenage boy's: no real curves, nothing outwardly feminine. I call her "Dusty" in honor of this classic Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode.

Carl: I seen your billboard out on the interstate! You dance at the Wild Wild Chest!
Meatwad: You thinking of that girl down at Funbag Junction. That's Busty Bazookas.
Shake: I think you're talking about Nipple Hut.
Carl: Nah, you're thinking of Crotch Town.
Shake: Crotch Town?
Meatwad: Crotch Town?
Carl: Yeah, it's near Boob Burg but Boob Burg? Kinda weak.

I mean, that's classic television right there!

Anyway, Dusty was very nice and it turned out to be a cool haircut; she's got color-coded thingees for the clippers, and her thinning device is a razor with a comb over top. She just kind of combed my hair and boom! I lost five pounds of gray.

All in all, it was a very interesting experience.

Would you like to buy a monkey?

2009-05-05T21:21:00.001-05:00

product of chrysler corp usa

2009-05-04T10:58:00.001-05:00

product of chrysler corp usa, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Oh, Beyonce ...

2009-04-28T07:09:00.001-05:00

The "board feed" from her recent Today show appearance.

It's the Circle of Life ...

2009-04-27T10:48:00.004-05:00

reflections, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I'm about due for a haircut; I got one a few weeks ago in Hattiesburg -- good haircut; strong haircut -- and I didn't get it cut short enough. Now I'm ready, a full two weeks earlier than normal.

I got my hair from my maternal grandfather, Fid (well, I inherited the gene, not his hair, because that'd be kind of weird). It's super thick, lots of volume, and grows at such a rate that I'm personally keeping the local Super Cuts in business.

My hair goes through four stages after a haircut:

(1) The "my head looks too large" period – in which my desire to save $15 trumps my desire to look normal, and I order the Biff Tannen. I always get the urge to say, as I'm walking out the door, "Let's make like a tree and get out of here."

(2) The "Newscaster" period – in which I get out of the shower, shake my head just so, and boom! I've got Ken Brockman hair. This is the best period of the cycle.

(3) The "Bill Clinton" period – in which my hair goes from looking normal to looking like something from Bubba, circa 1993. I'm not coloring my hair to match my audience, though. It's getting gray naturally.

(4) The "It Hurts to Wear a Baseball Hat" period – by this point, the hair so long and so dense that I can't put a hat on without getting a tiny headache. Maybe it's the fact that my current preferred baseball hat says "Pittsburgh Pirates" on it. Either way, I wake up and I look like Marge Simpson.

When I get to this point, I head down to the local cuttery and start the process anew. I think Sigourney Weaver could get Discovery to do a "Planet Earth" about my follicles ... nothing as dramatic as this, which is easily the coolest shark footage ever.

Monkey-fighting snakes? That'd be cool.

2009-04-21T11:32:00.001-05:00

Love how they changed the line for TV broadcast.

murder was the case that they gave me

2009-04-21T10:18:00.003-05:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Our church has this thing called "Villages," which is just a fancy name for small groups ... everyone is required to start at a "Discovery Village" to learn how it works and get to know some of your church-going neighbors.

Part of the Discovery Village – I love the concept, but the name ... oy vey – is sharing your "story" with others in the group. It's a great idea, because you not only learn about other people and their walks with God, but you learn about yourself by distilling your life story into 15 minutes.

I told mine last night, and it was about as straightforward and non-dramatic as you would imagine, but in preparation for telling it, I was feeling kind of bad – stories I'd heard up to that point involved much more sturm und drang than mine: I grew up in a strong, Baptist household, my faith has always been there, God has provided above and beyond for me and my family ... it's kind of ho-hum, in a way. There have been challenges, and I've no doubt much harder ones are coming my way – nobody gets away with an easy life – but compared to my Christian brothers and sisters, mine has been a smooth theological road so far.

I was thinking of Abraham and what God put him through ... of course, I always think of it in Bob Dylan language:

God: Kill me a son.
Abe: Man, you must be putting me on!
God: No.
Abe: What?
God: You can do what you want Abe, but next time you see me coming, you'd better run ...

Anyway, all this is a long way of saying that God tested me in my sleep last night, in the form of a very overweight cat deciding to camp out on my shoulder while declaring how happy he was to have found me in this strange bed – I'd slept in the guestroom last night – by purring and meowing and doing that kneading-dough things with his paws.

Does "thou shalt not kill" apply to cats? I need a theology ruling here.

"sure, we all dream of the cleve ..."

2009-04-20T09:36:00.001-05:00

abbott and costello "tell me a joke"

2009-04-19T18:51:00.001-05:00

confidence

2009-04-18T08:14:00.001-05:00

It's a good message, a better commercial, a great song with a perfect lyric: "We can't try to understand the New York Times' effect on man" ...

lavender b/w

2009-04-17T20:52:00.002-05:00

lavender b/w, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Diane is my next door neighbor ... is "next door neighbor" the one directly across the street? or to the left or right of my house? .. anyway, Diane lives across the street and her porch is impeccably decorated, terribly inviting and thus is the "party porch" for our little corner of Westhaven. Once the weather turns hospitable – down here, that's late March – you'll find her out there most evenings, with an open invitation to come say hello.

Trotter and I did that today, after we finished our illegal walk today: it's illegal because we were told yesterday that neighbors had been complaining about dogs not being on their (the dogs') leashes while outside their (the dogs') yards. Apparently there are no other burning issues in this small slice of Tennessee paradise, because some pain in the ass neighbor has decided to complain that my extremely well behaved dog might not be leashed at all times.

So we took a walk in the woods. I hope the Tennessee State Patrol isn't reading this.

Anyway, after our rule-breaking walk threatened the very sanctity of the social contract and brought my yuppie subdivision one step closer to a Hobbesian free-for-all ... we stopped by Diane's, where she was holding court with her next door neighbor, Trina.

Trina told me that my Flickr site was on her daily bookmarks list. She's so sweet and has always been a huge supporter of my work. So Trina – if you're reading this, thanks!

"Frankenstein never scared me"

2009-04-16T20:27:00.001-05:00

Kevin Pollack

coming in for a landing

2009-04-16T09:16:00.001-05:00

coming in for a landing, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I had a dream about Katy Perry last night. I have no idea what the dream was about, but I know it involved me buying her album.

I think it was triggered by me singing to Trotter that "I kissed a dog and I liked it ..."

Flea Market Montgomery - Long Version

2009-04-15T07:23:00.001-05:00

Bruins Hockey Rules_Date

2009-04-14T17:47:00.001-05:00

happiness is a warm puppy

2009-04-14T13:05:00.001-05:00

happiness is a warm puppy, originally uploaded by pr9000.

"But I will defend to my dying day the statement that happiness is a warm puppy. I defy [the critic] to give me a better definition of what happiness is. ... In one sentence let him try to tell me better what is more happy than a little kid putting his arms around a warm puppy. If that isn't happiness, I don't know what is." – Charles M. Schulz

sunset at point clear

2009-04-12T20:01:00.003-05:00

sunset at point clear, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Last year around this time, Amina and I were househunting in Nashville. Things looked promising on the job front (and oh what an illusion that turned out to be) and the weather was nothing short of outstanding, especially considering that our front yard in Chanhassen was still frozen that week. We liked Nashville quite a lot, and were ready to take the plunge.

If you could get into your time machine and grab us – say, at the airport on our flight back to Minneapolis – and tell us that, just one year later, we'd (1) be vacationing in Alabama, of all places, and (2) consider it to be the best vacation we've had in four years ... well, you can see where this paragraph is headed.

What a great stay we've had at The Grand Hotel. The grounds are impeccable, the resort has a sense of history and grandeur, and our room was nothing short of perfect. We did the Easter brunch today and I was ever so impressed – amazing appetizers, every kind of dessert imaginable and service that knocked our socks off.

This part of Alabama is very quaint; it's almost like a little slice of New England, with accents that are just as hard to understand. The town of Fairhope is something out of a movie set, with tree-lined boulevards filled with quaint knick-knack, antique and book stores. The city fathers have done an admirable job of hiding the urban sprawl and chain restaurants far from the main streets ... we found a great little wine and cheese shop and bought provisions for a great in-room picnic dinner one evening, and Amina found an interesting hinged produce box from 1933 or 1934 ... it's not dated, but there's a huge NRA logo burned into one side.

The Grand is less than an hour from Orange Beach, which has gorgeous, white sand beaches and water about as blue as we saw in Cancun last year. We settled in for a long day yesterday; it was in the mid-70s with mild wind and mostly sunny skies. I wasted quite a few pixels on the beach, still chasing those elusive beach girls photos that I've been seeking for a few years now ...

I was dedicated to the cause, let me tell you ...

This trip certainly changed my attitude about the Deep South, though I'm sure I'm seeing just a slice of it here in southern Alabama. I held a pretty biased view of what ... well, of what everything south of where I lived happened to be like. This trip has changed a bit of that, and I look forward to opening my mind down the road. It's not quite "Sweet Home Alabama" but who knows? Maybe this governor's true.

Obie II!

2009-04-06T10:15:00.001-05:00

Obie II!, originally uploaded by pr9000.

We're puppysitting a 10-week-old goldendoodle named Obie ... after Obi-wan Kenobi, of course, though I think his mom puts that little "e" at the end just to make it seem less, well, Star Wars nerd-ish.

I like Star Wars nerd-ish.

We've had him since Friday afternoon, and it took him about 24 hours to stop being afraid of Trotter and to start biting Trotter wherever he could reach, to get Trotter to play. And play they have ... I'm very proud of my dog, because he's 3 1/2 years old and still can tolerate playing with a little puppy, including rolling over on his back to let Obie on top. That's the sign of a good, good dog, so Trotter – if you're reading this, good puppy!

I've been doing the late-night potty trips with Obie, and this morning he lasted until 4 a.m. ... After our potty party, I wanted to calm him down until I put him in his crate again, so we laid down on the floor in the foyer, and I let him bite me until he had his fill. Eventually he rested his chin and both front paws on my forearm and fell asleep. It was the sweetest part of my day, and it was only four hours old.

We have to take Obie to a kennel this afternoon, which makes me sad. I'll miss him, though he only lives a few blocks away, and I'm sure I'll be visiting again.

Here are a few shots I took last week of Obie, Trotter and our neighbor's basset hound, Winston.

that's cute!

2009-04-01T21:25:00.001-05:00

064, originally uploaded by beths96.

tulips

2009-04-01T21:17:00.001-05:00

tulips, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I shall brag for 30 seconds, then stop:

This photo make Explore on Flickr.com.

That is all. :)

Who is Mussolini?

2009-03-31T07:23:00.001-05:00

Watching Jeopardy together, originally uploaded by beths96.

anybody recognize this town?

2009-03-29T09:01:00.003-05:00

Me neither. It's Steubenville in the late 1950s, found via the awesome, amazing, time-suck-inducing Google Image Search of the Life magazine archives.

rock-hard ass

2009-03-28T22:37:00.001-05:00

rock-hard ass, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So I took a second shot at roasting a chicken. As you might recall, the first one tasted like ass ... but this time, I figured out which end of the chicken was up, and it turned out well.

I used Anthony Bourdain's poulet roti recipe from the Les Halles cookbook once again, and once again I'm convinced that his cooking time just isn't long enough. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this too. The recipe calls for two stages of cooking: 30 minutes at 350º then 25 minutes at 450º. Next time I'm going for 45 minutes at the lower temperature, and 30 minutes at the higher.

But it was still tasty ... and I've got one more carcass for the inevitable stock preparation.

Goofing Around With The Beatles

2009-03-27T20:36:00.002-05:00

As part of my next project ...

A remixed version of the beginning of Hey Jude ... It's not as good as it could be, but that's mainly because I don't have the keys to Abbey Road. Or "Abbey Road" for that matter. But I used to tell my radio listeners to do this with their speakers when I played the song – and now, through the magic of GarageBand, Audio Hijack Pro and too many cups of coffee ...

This Sugar Cane/This Lemonade/This Hurricane/I'm Not Afraid" – My Favorite R.E.M. Choruses

2009-03-26T14:48:00.012-05:00

wrigley, as the red sox were winning the series, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Part of my "Pop! Goes the Radio" metamorphosis involved the liberating power of the chorus. It's the most important part of any song, as this semi-hilarious video will tell you ... it's the part that you hum when the song is over, the part that elevates all that comes before. A good chorus is essential, but not necessary, to a good pop song.

So here are some of my favorite choruses from R.E.M. I could write a thousand words on each song; these are just my stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Maybe someday I'll elaborate on them, but for now, here they are ... and here's a handy pop-up window with all the songs. Or click on the links below.

"Be Mine," New Adventures in Hi-Fi

This one bowled me over when I first heard it, and I spent way too much time trying to figure it out on my acoustic guitar – mainly because you can't get good feedback on an acoustic guitar, especially when you're living with another person in a studio apartment. My first thought was "This is going to be a smash hit," but they didn't release it as a single. It's as dark and brooding a love song as they've ever written.

"Belong," Out of Time

One of the great wordless choruses. I don't know if that disqualifies it from true "great chorus" consideration, but since this is the only thing Google knows about when it comes to "great choruses of the rock era," I'm going to issue a ruling: Words aren't necessary. Certainly they weren't for this gem, which I used to learn fingerpicking during my senior year at Denison.

"Camera," Reckoning

I'll find myself humming this when I'm on a photo shoot. Not the thing most parents want to hear from their photographer, mainly because I can't always get the lyrics right. Who will be your face, indeed? And why are you locking your car doors like that?

"Daysleeper," Up

Oh man, this is killer. It's in 3/4 time, which always helps ... I was working as a temp at TargetCom in Chicago, doing tech support, and the phone system was set to play XRT when people were on hold – and we could pipe it through our speakerphones too. I remember walking down the hall of the Navy Pier offices when I first heard this song. It was late in the afternoon on a cool fall day ... I didn't know it was R.E.M. but I had a good hunch. It sounded amazing even in speakerphone. I'd actually got a sneak preview of the album, thanks to the Oxford American's Southern Sampler 1998, which had the better version of "Why Not Cry" as well as the great Hackberry Ramblers' "I'll Be There."

"Fall on Me," Life's Rich Pageant

I've interpreted this song as an anti-environmentalist song, which would be odd coming from Michael Stipe, but you tell me – "Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky, and tell the sky 'Don't Fall On Me'" ... I think it's a reaction to the anthropomorphism of the environment that was all the rage in the late 1980s. Don't anthropomorphize the environment, dude – it hates it when you do that!

"Falls to Climb," Up

Another one for the vasty underrated "Up," which was the first album after Bill Berry left the group. R.E.M. has a good knack for ending its albums powerfully. It's a martyr song, which makes it all the better for a melodramatic chorus.

"Imitation of Life," Reveal

A weird album – I'd broken my ankle two days before it came out; on that Tuesday, Amina watched me hobble down the street on crutches in Evanston to buy the disc before we ate lunch. It was a pretty weak effort (the disc, not the crutch work) but you can't deny the goosebumps when Buck's Rickenbacker kicks in toward the end. And the lyrics are among my favorite from the group ... I have no idea what they mean, but I understand every word. No one can see me cry ...

"It's a Free World Baby," In Time (Best of, 1988-2003)

This was a song I first heard as a bootleg when Adam Garratt and I shared the "Buena Vista" apartment in northern Chicago. It's a really bad bunch of lyrics, but that chorus! Oh man. "He hit his head!!!!" That's gold, I'm telling you ... I came across a bootleg of the song on T.U.B.E. and that inspired this post. I had no idea you could, you know, pay money for the finished version of the song. It was my white whale for years: "You know, back in they day, I heard the best R.E.M. chorus that's never been released ..." Oh, okay there grandpa. Tell me about how you had to rewind cassette tapes during the Clinton administration.

"It's the End of the World As We Know It," Document

Obligatory. You gotta put this on your list. And I had to include "Leonard Bernstein!" in the clip.

"Man on the Moon," Automatic for the People

In concert, this song just rocks. They played it during the "Monster" tour in '95 and it was a great singalong. I saw them in Pittsburgh, and I had a press pass. I took three rolls of b/w film and can't find the negatives. I kick myself every so often about that. I got a great shot of Mike Mills in his Elvis jumpsuit, pointing the headstock of his bass at me. I must find those negatives. I had an insanely attractive 17 year old girl from eastern Pennsylvania promise me that I'd send her copies of the photos; I did them up at the News-Register and printed out a huge newspaper-sized poster for her. She wrote back and wanted to be a "pen pal." I never replied because I was 23 and she was 17. What a fool I was.

"So. Central Rain," R.E.M. In The Attic

The. best. live. recording. ever. Did you never call? I waited for your call; these rivers of suggestion are driving me away. The oceans sang; the conversations dimmed ... Go buy yourself another dream, this choice wasn't mine. In my Denison years, when I would fantasize about playing a guitar in front of people, I did this song, and Tom Petty's live version of "The Waiting." I kicked ass.

"Until the Day Is Done," Accelerate

I can't agree with the political bent of the lyrics – hell, with most everything Michael Stipe stands for politically – but this chorus not only is eminently sing-along-to-able™ but it's also hauntingly beautiful. Very well produced by Jacknife Lee. If someone who voted the way I voted put this song on repeat on his iPod ... you know it's good.

"Wendell Gee," Fables of the Reconstruction

Named after the proprietor of Wendell Gee's Used Cars in Prendergast, Ga. (I love Wikipedia.) Peter Buck didn't like this song when it first was recorded, but he's come around to it. "Whistle while the wind blows," I'd say to Peter, were I ever to meet him. Given that I live in Nashville, who knows? It could happen.

"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" Monster

During my two years at the Wheeling News-Register, I was let out of work early for two record releases: The Beatles' "Anthology: Vol I," and "Monster." I had just gotten my first new car, a 1995 Chevrolet S-10 pickup with an after-market stereo system (later stolen while the truck was parked on Montrose Avenue in Chicago) and the first song I really cranked was "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and I was worried that I'd blow out the speakers before I'd made the first payment.

In the immortal words of Tony Kornheiser: "That's it ... that's the list."

Pop! Goes the Radio

2009-03-25T16:57:00.005-05:00

(This little story is just a prelude to a post coming later about ... well, about music.)

When I visited Denison as a senior in high school, I was hosted by a group of guys who – score one for the geniuses in Beth Eden – I came to realize were as nerdy (in their own ways) as I was, though at the time it wasn't obvious. Actually, even after graduation and, I'd wager, even today, it's probably still not obvious ... One of them (I think it was Todd Gutnik) was a bigwig at WDUB, the 50-watt (that's not a typo) radio station that broadcast as far away as Heath. My dad's CB radio had more power, but the station had a professional board and a huge record collection, and I decided during the visit that what I wanted most in life was to be on the radio.

Tryouts were announced in The Bullsheet not long after my first semester started, and I nervously went to the basement of Knapp to fill out the paperwork and be interviewed. DUB's studio was pretty amazing; it didn't look like much from the outside, but it was impressively spacious behind the door. There was a lounge with an absolutely skanky couch and a few offices in the back, an insanely narrow room to the right that housed the record collection ... and straight ahead was the Valhalla, the Holy Grail – the studio.

The board, with all its sliders and dials, intimidated me, though I had to laugh to myself because there actually were two turntables and a microphone, though I was never, ever, not even once, tempted to try my scratching skills ... The board in the studio looked down onto a large, soundproofed room with long tables punctuated by mics and headphones. It was like watching the engineering room on the Enterprise, and I often imagined that's what it was, though the room was usually empty and dark.

During tryouts, though, the senior staff was sitting around down there, and we were ushered into the engineer's studio, which was right next to the main studio upstairs. The windows were taped over – you couldn't see them, and they couldn't see you. I was told to back-announce a few songs I would have just played in my imaginary DJ universe, then to read some on-campus promotional items culled from press releases. I was nervous; I wanted to impress these faceless voices with my oh-so-hip musical tastes, and prove once and for all that the kid with the mullet and paunch was far cooler than he might look at first glance.

It must have worked, because I was called back, tapped on the shoulder and honored by being named as an apprentice for a semester. I was assigned to (if memory serves) Friday Abernethy, on whom I had a massive, major, super-duper crush, made all the more tragic by the fact that I had taken to wearing anti-sexual-attraction cologne for my first year on campus, which made me the pimply equivalent of her nerdy kid brother's even more nerdy friend who always wore that Millenium Falcon t-shirt and started wheezing whenever she smiled.

So I survived not getting ravished on the control room floor, and graduated to full-fledged DJ status to start my sophomore year. I'd been inspired by my good friend Rob (then) Plourde to do an all-Beatles show called "Sitting on a Cornflake," usually on Sunday afternoons – lighter in the first hour, heavier in the second. It was a good show, and had a few off-campus followers. One guy sent me a cassette of some bootlegs that ended up making it onto "Anthology Vol. I" ... the "Whoa love me too" part gave me goosebumps 18 years ago, and listening to it just now, I got 'em again.

I had success, but I got tired of being known as "the Beatles guy" around campus. My good friend Nancy was abroad during our junior year; she and I were active in the theatre department, though I'd say that only one of us actually had talent for it. (I was house manager, if that gives you the answer.) She was stage managing a show, and it was the stage manager's prerogative to play music through the house – she was the boss, and if the boss wanted ABBA, the boss got ABBA.

Which is what she wanted. I hadn't really considered ABBA before that point, but something about the long, October afternoon in Ace Morgan made "Knowing Me, Knowing You" sound like something I should get to know better. She'd brought back "ABBA Gold" from London, and I picked up my copy a few days later. I became transfixed – it was gorgeous, amazing, sugary pop music. The Beatles were pop, of course, but not like this; if the Beatles were chocolate cake, ABBA was cotton candy. And I liked cotton candy.

My final semester, the radio show became "Pop! Goes the Radio," dedicated to a flavor of pop music that didn't get played often on college radio, mainly because only old people were listening to The Turtles and Frank Sinatra and Cyndi Lauper at the time ... but it was all good to me. Something about a catchy hook and an irresistible chorus meant more to me than the latest angst from heroin-thin white men or the Kurt Cobain wannabes that ruled the playlists at the time. I was out of sync with my generation, and I was glad for it.

i was so much older then; i'm younger than that now

2009-03-20T08:53:00.002-05:00

When I was a consultant in Chicago, my accountant – Marc Winer, who's just an awesome guy and a pretty good accountant – got me believing that QuickBooks Pro was the way to go. And I was a disciple, too. I reconciled monthly, figured out the arcane splits feature, and even did payroll, all in QuickBooks. It was easy; it made sense to me in a way that made me happy to use it.

That was 2001. This is 2009. And in 2009, I absolutely hate QuickBooks. Not that much has changed with the software, but (apparently) a lot has changed with me. I'm not the QBB Ninja that I once was, and I find myself fighting with it far more than loving it ... which showed in how diligently I kept it up to date with what was happening in my bank account.

It's easy to think that we don't change over the years, that we remain pretty much static over time. I'm as handsome now as I was 10 years ago, and my weight is only about 10 pounds greater (though, at that rate, I'll be in I-wash-myself-with-a-rag-on-a-stick territory by age 60). But in this one area, at least, I've regressed, and I've really got to work on that.

french press technique

2009-03-15T19:09:00.001-05:00

Videocast #2 - French Press Technique from James Hoffmann on Vimeo.

darn it

2009-03-15T18:44:00.001-05:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

You know, I'm trying to re-enter the working world – in my own clumsy, half-hearted, gee-maybe-apple-will-call-me-to-replace-steve kind of way. I need to be more serious about it, though I'm making good strides toward that, and God is always poking His head in from time to time ... in the end, I think it's all good.

I'm planning an office swap with Amina; she gave me the nicer of the two upstairs bedrooms, and we've decided that, since she's the boss of me and all, she deserves the better space. It's fine by me – her office is a lot darker, which is better for editing photos, and I can better hide the gangly, Medusa-like tangle of cords and power cables I've got going on here ... I mean, two external drives, a printer, a scanner, a second monitor and a speaker cable – that's what I've got here, and my desk sits in the middle of the room.

ANYWAY ... I'm cleaning off my shelves today and I come across a very short story I wrote – it's actually three pages of dialog – more than 10 years ago. I was in a small writing group with (then) Molly Thorsen (now add "Connolly" to the end) and this was the best I could do, I think. It makes me laugh every time I read it. I scanned it in and am all ready to post it ...

... when I realize that potential employers will Google me, and this blog will show up, and that post will show up, and some HR person will read it and boom! goes the résumé. And the funny thing is, the story isn't that bad at all – it's kind of prurient in a juvenile, PG-13 way. But in this day and age, one must be careful.

So I promise: I'll post it, as soon as I'm gainfully employed.

coffee news

2009-03-14T07:46:00.001-05:00

more bubbles, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So I broke down and got yet another Bodum french press ... or is it French press? The internet's version of the AP Stylebook – and I have no idea why it's one word; if I were copy editing that, I'd make it "style book" – is Wikipedia, and Wikipedia says to capitalize "French," so henceforth I say as it is written, so shall it be.

Anyway. I got an eight-cup French press last night at Target; I went with the Brazil model because it's sleek, clean and with just a small landing strip of ... Wait a minute. That's the wrong internet search.

After drinking two mugs of coffee from it, I must say I feel as light as that bubble above ... A press is the only way to go, if you have the patience to wait for the water to boil and then for the grounds to steep. I guess I could go with an electric water kettle, as Alton Brown does, but add that to the cost of the press and we're in replacement coffeemaker territory pretty quickly.

No, I can wait a few minutes for water to boil ... then a few more for the coffee to brew ... because, to be honest, this is the best tasting coffee I've ever had at home.

The best coffee I've ever had outside home? A tie between (1) a little bistro in Worthington, Ohio, where my old friend Adam and his father took me for brunch one sunny weekend morning, and (2) the Paramount coffee brewed at the Sonny Boy restaurant in Lansing, Ohio ... I hear the Sonny Boy isn't as good as it used to be, but when I was just out of college, they brewed a mean cup of diner coffee.

tell me about it.

2009-03-13T08:38:00.000-05:00

stolen from The New Shelton Wet/Dry

it's tough ... it's really tough

2009-03-11T16:11:00.001-05:00

it's tough ... it's really tough, originally uploaded by pr9000.

But next time? Next time? I'm totally not putting up with the earmarks. Next time.

warren buffett is right.

2009-03-10T08:02:00.001-05:00

BUFFETT: Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you've heard this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a terrible thing to waste.'

BECKY: Yeah.

BUFFETT: Now, just rephrase that and since it's, in my view, it's an economic war, and--I don't think anybody on December 7th would have said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.

I wish we had real leadership in Washington.

i can't hear you over the sound of my own awesomeness

2009-03-09T14:54:00.002-05:00

playing around, originally uploaded by pr9000.

So I've spent a lot of time getting away from Facebook -- it's just not that much fun to me anymore -- and more time getting into Twitter.

Why? I find myself asking that question every other Apple-R in Safari ... I think it's because I follow people who make me laugh. Twitter is like the ultimate joke-telling tool -- you've only got 120 characters to get your point across. You must perfect what you're saying, hone it down to get the maximum effect out of minimum characters.

Unlike blog posts. (Ahem.)

So Big Daddy Avelis and I were chatting today and started up on twitter and what drives us nuts on it ... which, of course, turned into a blog post idea. So here's the

The Eight Twitter Guys You Just Want to Kill

(1) the "HERE'S THE WEATHER WHERE I'M AT TODAY" guy

(2) the "I'M SO MUCH HEALTHIER THAN YOU AND LET ME PROVE IT TO YOU IN MILES" guy

(3) the "I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY OWN AWESOMENESS" guy

4) the "OMG THIS TWITTER IS SO COOL" guy

(5) the "I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY SO I'LL JUST RT @EVERYONEINTHEWHOLEFREAKINGWORLD" guy

(6) all politicians who tweet

(7) the "OH GOD WHERE'S MY COFFEE" guy

(8) the "WHY ISN'T IT FRIDAY YET????" guy
tie
(8) the "OH MY WORK SUCKS SO HARD" guy

i heart spring

2009-03-08T09:44:00.001-05:00

i heart spring, originally uploaded by pr9000.

"The sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them ... as is my understanding." – Bart Simpson

Spring in Tennessee is more than we ever could have imagined. I say this knowing full well that it could turn "colder" next week – 53 is considered "cold" here – and that, in fact, I might be inviting that cold front down from Minnesota with this statement.

Nevertheless, spring has been an eye-opener here. It won't take me long to unlearn that "dreading March" feeling that Minnesota gives to its residents. April may be the cruelest month, but March in the upper Midwest is a close second. The calendar says it should be spring; the sun is out longer, the birds chirp more loudly, but it might still snow at any given moment, and you're likely to hit ice if you try to dig more than two inches into the ground.

My digital photography class is going well -- I only lost two students after week one -- and we were outside taking photos yesterday. Click here to see samples of the group's work. We had our first "photo walk" yesterday, and have another one planned for later in the month.

I'm really enjoying the class. It's giving me a chance to clarify what I've learned over the years, including the realization that I've been wrong about some "received wisdom" on a few topics. And I had forgotten how much work it is to distill all those annoying "yeah, buts" and "well, maybes" into a clear statement of fact that people can grasp.

Not that I do that all the time, of course. Trust me when I tell you that I find myself explaining more than presenting some of the things I put in the slideshow. But on the whole, it's a very satisfying class, and it's a fun group too.

Uncle Paul, this is for you. :)

2009-03-05T09:03:00.001-06:00

Uncle Paul, this is for you. :)
Originally uploaded by beths96

Of course, he's eating while he says this.

my other car is a tie fighter

2009-03-01T18:02:00.001-06:00

my other car is a tie fighter, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I was dong some makeshift product shots for a friend's project -- more about that later -- and to get a white balance test, I threw this little thing together.

"and that little boy who nobody loved grew up to be ... roy cohn."

2009-02-28T23:42:00.001-06:00

bloch bros., wheeling, w.va., originally uploaded by pr9000.

One of my favorite memories of growing up in the Ohio Valley was listening to WWVA. I think my love affair with AM radio started there -- that, and my pop having two transistor radios on the front porch at dusk, listening to the Indians on one, the Pirates on the other ...

WWVA was something special. It was 50,000 watts of pure power. I could see the broadcast towers from my front yard. When I was older, dad was forced to add extra phone jacks upstairs. His homemade wiring brought more than phone calls -- WWVA broadcasts came over the wires, and any calls I made after 7 p.m. was accompanied by hellfire and damnation from its religious broadcasts.

Two things about the station stick out. First is the afternoon mine report, where someone from WWVA's mighty news team (and it was mighty back in the day) read out the shifts at local mines that were working. It would be an anachronism today; nobody would understand what a McElroy or a Powhatan #6 is.

The second (and probably most important) thing: the daily ritual of listening to Paul Harvey at lunch.

I would make myself a bologna sandwich and turn on Paul Harvey precisely at noon, at which time I would stand by for news! He had the smoothest baritone in the business and a decidedly midwestern sensibility. You could hear his eyebrow raising as he read the latest bit of political news from Washington. It was different than Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite. He allowed opinion to color his reporting, but not so much that you'd call him a shill or a partisan. He was down to earth, translating what happened on the coasts into language a midwesterner could understand.

Paul Harvey's word was bond. If he endorsed a product, it was as good as Moses bringing down the tables with "Neutrogena" as the Eleventh Commandment. As we were cleaning out my grandfather's house last summer, I came across a desk drawer full of Wells Lamont gloves. Wells Lamont was one of Harvey's best sponsors.

Why? Because Wells Lamont is stuuuuuburrrn about quality.

See? I remember that. I remember all of it. I dare you to name me anyone else in radio who colors kids' memories 30 years later. You can't do it, probably because you're not a radio nerd like I am.

Imagery

2009-02-25T07:17:00.001-06:00

Imagery, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I missed the non-State of the Union speech last night. Oh, I'd heard that Obama was speaking to Congress, but nobody called it the SOTU and I try not to miss those, so I ended up watching some "Criminal Minds" we had on the DVR, and then -- much to my shame -- "Real Housewives of New York" with Amina.

I know they tape that show a few months before it airs. I can't wait to see what happens for next "season" -- some of those morons have to have been involved with Madoff.

Anyway, it's a sign of my continuing disgust and exhaustion with politics that I can't even bear to read the morning-after analysis of Obama's speech last night. None of it matters because whatever he says he's going to do he won't do anyway.

Somehow the photo above is fitting. I wish they all would just put a cork in it.

prostrate before God

2009-02-22T14:05:00.004-06:00

originally uploaded by pr9000.

As I was walking into church today -- I had to park the car far away because we were a bit late -- a thought hit me: What's it going to take for me to lay prostrate before God?

(Well, originally I thought "lay prostate" but looked it up when I got home.)

I'm in a phase right now where I'm almost willfully refusing His help and guidance with what's going on around me. I don't recall ever being this stubborn ... I've never had a problem with allowing God the credit for guiding me to where I am today, and yet over the past few months I have fallen silent toward Him.

Dave Ramsey was the speaker today; I didn't know this beforehand, so it was quite a shock to hear that he was going to be speaking. Apparently he was instrumental in the formation of Journey Church and has been a friend and adviser since the very beginning. Of course, being so new to the church, I'm sure there's a lot I don't know.

(I can hear Amina thinking of several jokes right now.)

Dave had a fantastic, amazing, so-relevant-it's-scary message today about, of all things, hope -- where to put it and why -- and some lessons that we could take away from the insanity going on in the world around us right now.

I truly believe God got us here to Franklin for a reason; too many boulders were moved out of the way in Minnesota to just be good luck or great timing. It's amazing to watch, and I think today I was reminded that, if I just open my eyes to it, He's doing it even now.

Yesterday, my stubbornness was at 11. Today, I think it's a few notches lower.

a warning from the past

2009-02-20T11:42:00.001-06:00

It was a glittering time. They literally swept into office, ready, moving , generating their style, their confidence. … It was an extraordinary confluence of time and men, and many people in the know quoted Lyndon Johnson’s reactionto them at the first Cabinet meeting. he, the outsider, like us, looked at them with a certain awe, which was no wonder, since they had forgotten to invite him to the meeting.

… They were all so glamorous and bright that it was hard to tell who was the most brilliant…

What was not so widely quoted in Washington (which was a shame because it was a far more prophetic comment) was the reaction of Lyndon’s great friend Sam Rayburn to Johnson’s enthusiasm about the new men.

Stunned by their glamour and intellect, he had rushed back to tell Rayburn, his great and crafty mentor, about them, about how brilliant each was, that fellow Bundy from Harvard, Rusk from Rockefeller, McNamara from Ford. On he went, naming them all. “Well, Lyndon, you may be right ant thye may be every bit as intelligent as you say,” said Rayburn, “but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.

From The Best and the Brightest, chapter 4, by David Halberstam (1969)

wright street

2009-02-20T10:27:00.001-06:00

wright street, originally uploaded by pr9000.

American Express just sent me a piece of junk mail. I think the first sentence says a lot about the financial crisis we're all suddenly up to our necks in ...

"As a valued American Express Business Cardmember, and someone who deserves premium travel benefits when traveling ..." (emphasis added)

Why yes, American Express. I'm different from the rabble. I am entitled to be treated as a superior. Thanks for noticing!

images from the big easy

2009-02-19T08:57:00.002-06:00

Open window, Royal Street

811 1/2 Royal Street ... I think it was on Royal. Google maps isn't helping.

krugman's a hack

2009-02-18T20:15:00.001-06:00

Another brick in the wall here ...

i might be the man for this job

2009-02-18T13:35:00.002-06:00

From a Nashville craigslist job description:

* Someone who can do less with more! We need team members that don’t need constant supervision ...

Forget the incorrect use of "that" ... An employer who will give me more, and yet expect less? That's brilliant!

"It'll probably turn out to be a very simple thing ..." or, One Man's Ascent into iDVD Hell

2009-02-17T20:16:00.011-06:00

In all of written and recorded history, few pieces of music have risen above the commonplace and ascended into the pantheon of cultural favorites -- and of those, even fewer can be identified by only a few notes.

Such is the case with, for example, the introduction to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. At first instantly recognizable and yet still stirringly fresh and new, these four notes have symbolized the power and majesty of music, and even brought succor and comfort to the Allies during World War II, serving as the audible equivalent of "V for Victory."

And yet I'd like to nominate another piece that, though lacking in age and refinement, moves men's hearts, lifting them to sun-dappled autumn afternoons, the sweet smell of fresh-cut grass wafting across pastoral fields of green, as another sort of victory is fervently wished.

I speak, naturally, of "Heavy Action," by the famed British composer Johnny Pearson.

What's that, you say? You're not familiar with the song? Of course you are.

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time
I was lucky enough to watch Super Bowl XLIII at the home of a client of mine. She had many people over, but reserved the big plasma HD room for "the adults." I was among them, biting my nails, cursing at referees until the glorious end ... and once it was over, my first thought: I've got to get that game off my DVR and onto some DVDs.

My second thought: It should be easy!

My third thought: I'll have it done by Tuesday!

And I finally did it. I am the proud owner of a two-disc set with the entire Super Bowl broadcast, sans commercials and the halftime show, with chapter markers and a cool opening menu.

What's that? You want to see the opening menu? You're in luck!

That music makes me cry.

What It Took
I don't want to get in trouble with my cable provider; nor am I looking for them to close this particular loophole. I'll just say this: it's a federal law that DVRs must have a port available for consumers to use to transfer data off the DVR. I think the common one used is FireWire. If you've got a Mac with FireWire 400 ports, you're halfway there. Google around to find the other pieces you'll need -- a FireWire cable and some software that is free, easy and readily available.

So I hooked my laptop to the DVR and pressed "Play" -- and the entire HD broadcast streamed to my laptop. The .m2t file ended up just a hair under 40 GB. I then used MPEG Streamclip to convert the .m2t file to something I could edit -- a 1280x720 QuickTime movie (encoded HDV 720p25, whatever that means) that topped out at 38 GB. From there I put the movie into my favorite near line editor, chopped out the commercials and was ready to go.

Except -- the 3.5 hour broadcast was too long to fit on a single layer DVD. Solution: get a spindle of dual layer DVDs. Which I did -- and my Mac spit out every single one of them. So I had to go back to my editor and make two files -- one for the first half, and one for the second half.

Then I tried to master the DVD using some professional-level software I have lying around. A big mistake, because I really have no clue what I'm doing with professional-level DVD mastering software. So I went to iDVD, which is Apple's gee-ain't-it-cute consumer DVD software. It hasn't been updated in years, because Apple's apparently realized that there are only several million DVD players in the world, and because it doesn't control the market on DVD players, it's only a matter of time before people throw them out the window and go with ... AppleTV boxes, I guess.

iDVD takes its time, and often crapped out five hours into the burn. Yes, I said "five hours into the burn," because each disc took around seven to complete. Each subsequent one took only 20 minutes, but there were crashes aplenty. By the time Sunday rolled around, I'd managed to burn a few copies of the disc.

The Horror ... The Horror
Remember when I said I'd have this done two days after the game? The Sunday mentioned above was two weeks after the game. It took me fourteen days to make about as many DVDs, during which time I had to change strategy a few times, reassess whether it would even work, and ignore that NFL.com is probably selling the damn thing on one disc for a lot less money than I'd have earned if I had a job -- and one that would let me spend two weeks wandering through my own personal "Heart of Darkness" adventure.

I'm not blaming Apple, because they make some pretty good software. iDVD is very slick and easy to use, and the editing and authoring software also comes from Cupertino. I shouldn't be allowed to know how to edit or build a DVD but thanks to Apple, I don't have to know everything. I just need to know enough to be dangerous.

I'm not blaming my cable provider, because they actually did a pretty cool thing -- they made it just hard enough to get shows off my DVR that piracy isn't running rampant, but not hard enough that a little elbow grease and a subscription to the Google can't teach you. It's not big corporations' jobs to make it easy ... it's nice when they make it not so hard, though.

No, I guess I'm forced to blame myself, because I had no earthly idea what I was doing. I distinctly remember thinking "Hey! It's 2009. This sort of thing ought to be possible by now."

Dangerous thoughts, because on projects like this, there are two ways you can go: a victory parade in Point State Park, or muttering "Rosebud" while your snowglobe crashes to the floor.

"boom! roasted" this isn't

2009-02-17T17:13:00.005-06:00

A friend (and former coworker) and I were discussing the guy who, at least on paper, runs the company for which we toiled. Apparently he's not very good at following through, which lead to this exchange:

I'm a bit embarrassed, because (1) of the "unino" typo, and (2) I think it's "as a good comeback should," not "like" ... it's the old Winston cigarette ad debate.

I like that look on him

2009-02-16T08:26:00.001-06:00

009, originally uploaded by beths96.

My nephew, Ryan, decided to decorate himself for Valentine's Day. He has the fashion sense of his uncle, that's for sure.

top secret project

2009-02-14T09:18:00.001-06:00

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I've been devoting a lot of my waking hours lately to a top secret project, about which I'm not currently at liberty to discuss. Needless to say it's something that's (1) totally unimportant and, therefore, (2) completely sucking up all my extra brain waves, in a vain attempt to make it happen.

All will be revealed, eventually, but until then, I just have to say that sometimes, what you have in your head won't translate to the screen, and when that happens it's insanely frustrating.

what "bipartisan" means

2009-02-10T21:26:00.003-06:00

I'm still trying to figure out what bipartisanship means, because the way it's been framed by the administration and the press is that it means the party in the minority should suck it up and go along with the president and the party in the majority.

The Beachwood Reporter is a must read for me, each day ... I'm guessing Steve Rhodes and I would disagree about a lot over the past eight years, but I think he's spot-on correct about Obama, the press and why we might have made as bad a decision last November as we did in 2000 and 2004. And I say that admitting that I voted for Bush twice, and that it was a mistake (at least the first time).

Maybe in a political sense Obama can't afford "the usual political games." But in a financial sense, we're the ones who can't afford it. We're not just getting the money; we're the ones who are spending it.

This "porkulus" bill will have the same consequences for the United States that the Iraq war has ... and I'm frightened for my country as I type this, as there's no real way to stop it from happening.

Sir Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl at the Grammys

2009-02-10T07:25:00.003-06:00

So tell me this: How amazingly awesome is Dave Grohl? The best part of the performance (besides McCartney's surprisingly young-sounding voice) is watching Grohl sing along in the background. I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs if I were in his shoes ... I heard tell that he tried to get McCartney to play one of those top-secret-unannounced shows on Saturday night, but McCartney didn't like the idea.

And what a great song choice, too. I know I'm the biggest Beatles homer in my area code, and I'll readily acknowledge that their music doesn't make everyone get all misty or goose-bumpy ... but "I Saw Her Standing There" is one of the best pop-rock songs ever written. What makes it more impressive to me is that it came from "Please Please Me," which is (1) the Beatles' first album, and (2) was recorded in one day, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Listen to that disc now and you'll probably not believe it could be done in one day, so tight and professional was the band, even in its "early" days.

I'd put "I Saw Her Standing There" on the top five best McCartney bass tracks, too. It's very melodic and pushes the song forward in ways that surprised me when I first heard it. You think "Love Me Do" represents how the early Beatles played -- it's very simplistic, not much imagination. To think that only a few months separate "Love Me Do" from "I Saw Her Standing There" ...

avocado salad

2009-02-09T08:05:00.001-06:00

I've lost my cooking mojo recently. The past two "complicated" meals I've tried to make have both turned out to be disasters. Last night, I attempted to sear scallops, to go with a garlic-olive oil sauce with linguini and grape tomatoes ... and that part turned out just fine, though the garlic did come a bit too close to being burned in the skillet.

See, I let the tomatoes, oil and garlic kind of marinate over extremely low heat for about 15 minutes. I tend to use the Emeril-esque "let the flavors mingle" theory, and it normally works out, but sometimes the garlic gets a bit too warm for its own good. Amina commented a few weeks ago that it smelled like burning rubber in the kitchen -- that definitely was a garlic emergency.

The real problem: the bay scallops. I normally go to Whole Foods to get my scallops (both sea and bay) and this time there were none to be had. Not to worry, I thought; I can get them frozen at another grocery store -- which I did, and I thought my problems were solved.

Turns out that even after careful thawing and drying, there was a ton of water in the bay scallops. My carefully created butter and olive oil mixture in the pan turned to a thin, white soup once the bay scallops hit the pan. Thus everything had to cook a lot longer to get the sear I wanted, which meant gummy scallops ... which are definitely not Good Eats.

(Couldn't resist.)

A few weeks ago, I roasted a chicken, following Anthony Bourdain's directions. I lovingly chose a chicken from my local butcher's. I dutifully mixed my herb butter. I treated the inside of the chicken's cavity. I did everything right -- being careful not to tear the skin as I patted the butter under it ...

I followed the directions. The chicken skin was golden brown, the veggies fragrant with the sweetness of the white wine. I pulled the bird out and let it sit while I made the sauce ... which turned out quite well, let me say, though not at all what I was expecting.

I assembled all the parts and started to carve the bird. Hmmm, I thought. There isn't much meat on the breasts. In fact, I couldn't even find the breasts. I called Amina over for advice. She also had trouble. I was amazed -- a plump, juicy bird was really lacking for meat.

Then it hit me.

I prepared and roasted the damn thing upside down. What I thought was the breastbone was actually closer to the business end of the chicken. The chicken roasted upside down. The part that was supposed to be the crowning glory was just an afterthought.

But my, what a tasty chicken ass dinner we had that nght.

Steelers Honored by Congressman Jason Altmire

2009-02-06T10:26:00.001-06:00