Getting into some high brow culture

(Full disclosure--I toyed with using a vulgar or course title using swear words or curse abbreviations for this post. You know, as a way of creating a clever dissonance with the content to come. But then I didn't. But that didn't stop me from taking even more time to type this out and explain it to you, so that you can pat me on the back for the joke I didn't make. I guess that is why people hate bloggers.)

Last Saturday, Lynda and I attended the Columbus Symphony Orchestra's performance at the Ohio Theater downtown.

You would be justified to think at this point Most of those words have never been presented in that particular order about something YOU did. 

But I did it because of the particular music they began the performance with: Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring. (I didn't know that the second piece would be based on letters written by Abraham Lincoln, but that was a nice bonus as well.) You can click this link to see some of the details of the show.

Copeland has been my favorite American composer since I was in high school. This was because of a set of circumstances that combine pop culture and marching band--so of course, it had to happen to me.

If you are of a certain age, you likely remember the "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" commercials that ran frequently on television during the Reagan Eighties. The jaunty upbeat symphonic music that linked cattle on the range to your Saturday night dinner table was courtesy of Aaron Copeland. (It is from the Rodeo suite, to be specific. The fourth movement is named "Hoedown.") Copeland became an even more mainstream name because of this bump in his musical exposure and brought awareness deep into South Georgia to me. 

I was further locked into Copeland soon after when my high school marching band capitalized on this popular awareness by incorporating the beats and some musical elements of "Hoedown" into the percussion feature of a halftime show one year. 

But that only linked me to Copeland himself. It didn't take very long for me to hear Appalachian Spring for the first time. And that was courtesy of the (Garfield) Cadets (of Bergen County) drum corps show of 1987.

(The final two minutes of this show . . . from the enormous musical hit of "Simple Gifts" through the scatter drill break and resolve into the march off of the field remains in my top three most impactful drum corps moments over 40 years after seeing it for the first time. Just chills-inducing.)

It was all over for me at that point.

I listened to a cassette recording of Appalachian Spring MANY times in the intervening high school years. In my bedroom at night, in the dark, with the volume down. Sometimes riding my bike around town via my Walkman. (When I wasn't otherwise listening to XTC's "Oranges & Lemons" or R.E.M.*)

But--to bounce back to the present.

It was a great thrill to enjoy such stellar music live. Copeland especially, but the entire program was great and we had such a good time. We are lucky to have the arts available to us here and I'm very happy we had the chance to be there and listen.

*More on this in an upcoming post.

Elon Musk, the Treasury Department, and partisanship

Over the weekend, there were many credible news reports that Elon Musk--Tesla owner and President Donald Trump friend--initiated access into the U.S. Treasury Department's computer system. The people acting on Musk's behalf are reported to be members of the Department of Government Efficiency "group" that has no actual legal basis--as it has not been created by or voted upon by the U.S. Congress.

These six young men who have gained access to the Treasury Department are not government officials. They have not been vetted by our elected representatives. They are therefore operating outside of law and government authorization. It would be no different than if I showed up to the Treasury Department and gained access to these systems myself. I have no authority to do it and I would be caught and prosecuted for doing so.

Elon Musk is also NOT an elected official. He does not represent in any legal way the United States of America. He has not had public hearings in front of the U.S. Senate. He has not been subject to questions by our political leaders. He is operating under some very vague "permission" given by the president but there is no legal scaffold surrounding anything Musk is doing right now.

The information that Musk's men have access to is personal identification and financial information for federal employees, taxpayers, and so many others. The U.S. Treasury department is the agency responsible for paying out government money to wherever it goes. That includes all of the American taxpayers that get refunds. And even if you don't get a refund, you might get Medicare or Medicaid payments or you might get monthly Social Security payments. The government has stored that information in these computer networks to send out all of these payments. This sort of private information can be used to track individuals throughout their personal and financial lives. When misused, it can wreck families, finances, and lives. And--again--the people who have now forced themselves into possession of it have NO LEGAL BASIS for doing this.

For those of you who voted for Donald Trump in the November 2024 elections . . . is this what you envisioned? 

I'm confident that you disliked Democrats and what the Democratic Party supported. You thought Joe Biden was ineffectual and that you wanted a strong personality in the White House. You may have been uneasy with what you believe are changing social and moral norms in the country today.

But did you want laws ignored?

Did you want people with no oversight or legal guardrails gaining access to sensitive private information, including your finances?

This type of ungovernable, illegal activity is very dangerous and needs to be taken seriously.

These are violations of law and they are high crimes and misdemeanors that qualify for yet another impeachment process for President Trump's administration. Will the members of the House of Representatives stand up to their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States? Will the people we elected represent us and defend the law that they claim to revere?

Total Eclipse 2024

I'm putting my memory eggs into an unpredictable basket by headlining this post with a Facebook video. No telling what the state of social media will be a year from now, much less twenty years from now. (As if anyone will be eagerly seeking out WWYG?! in 2044.) But nevertheless, this encapsulates the experience in my time, in my "backyard." And, if nothing else--I am hopeful that this significant event will be recorded for posterity in some retrievable fashion for the benefit of the future.

(So . . . let's double down I guess . . .)

But . . . for me . . . this was a truly memorable event. As others have noted today, reflecting on yesterday--it exceeded my imagination. I know the theory of an eclipse. I've experienced partial eclipses. But seeing a totality occur was something that felt awe inspiring.

To have the reality of something match up so well with the description (huh . . . science KNEW what it was talking about!) was remarkable. The diminishment of the light. The coming of twilight. The reveal of stars (probably planets) at 3 pm. The complete blockage of the sun and the exposure of the so-real-it-seemed-fake image of the sun's corona and its electric umbra dominating the black blue of the sky. Seeing the street lights turn on. And through it all, listening to the excited crowd around me as people reacted in wonder to what was happening. I laughed in astonishment and excitement. It took me by surprise how remarkable it actually was.

I wasn't in a spot that was directly in the middle of totality. So our moment of totality was maybe a minute or so in length. What it must have been like to see that blockage, that midnight blue, that electric light for almost four minutes? 

But I'm so happy that something this remarkable occurred in my backyard. (Though Lynda, Jay, and I drove down the road to the soccer fields on Cleveland Avenue--across from the Westerville Community Center.) 

Part of me wishes that I had tried to take better pictures of the totality. But I'm glad that in the moment, I was more focused on the world around me and less on my technology. And I hope that these words can help me remember this moment for years afterward.

There have only been a few times in my adult life were I was unexpectedly caught off guard by the impact of an event. The other that comes immediately to mind is standing at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in 2012. The moment of awe and the realization that something so much bigger than me was happening . . . really something.

 

Goodbye . . .

 . . . forever?

Accidentally, maybe. But also no. That title was only an eye-grabbing tease. Did I tease you?

Actually, this is just goodbye to #HatofSummer2023.

See below (please click as Jeb Bush might tweet).

(I apologize for sounding like Bilbo after the barrel ride to Lake Town.)

COV95D-19

This week (Friday, apparently) marks two decades of working at my office. 

While attending a weekly Zoom meeting with my department members and friends, Lynda surprised me with a celebratory set of balloons, a wonderful card, and two dozen (!!) Krispy Kreme doughnuts (donuts?). It had been secretly coordinated by my great friends who wanted to mark the occasion and delivered the gifts during the meeting. Everyone had such nice things to say and they were terribly complimentary. I was reminded again that everything you say will be remembered and repeated to you eventually. So make sure that what you say is done with a smile. 

It was wonderful and embarrassing, and lovely--and I was attention-sweating the whole time.

Twenty years of anything is noteworthy. And (these days) twenty years in the same company is downright miraculous. Lord knows that many of the people reading this right now cannot say the same--and most of my loyal readers were definitely some of my colleagues and friends who have worked with me along the way.

Simply put, I'm luckier than I should be allowed to be. 

I hope you all are lucky enough to experience good office colleagues in your life. We spend so much of our adulthood in jobs. It is such a blessing to share that time with very good and admirable people.

— David (@dtm1971) June 15, 2020

I've been part of lots of good, stimulating work. And I am still engaged by the work all these years later. Happily, I've learned my way into the job and most of the time these days I can actually feel like I have finally learned how to do it pretty well. Right now I'm engaged with very exciting new work that is equal parts interesting, daunting, and (I hope has the potential to be) important. These projects tend to take a while to complete, so I'll be neck-deep in it for quite a bit of time to come. But when it is done, I hope to look at the completed work with happiness.

I can't say much more without wading into violations of corporate policy . . . and wouldn't THAT be a spectacular way to start a 21st year? So I'll bring this to a close by saying thank you to everyone who has helped to get me here--lots of former and current work friends, my wife who can share my work stories and bounce back her own. Many of the happiest, funniest, most impactful moments of my adulthood have been in and around my work and the people I've shared it with. 

It's been much more fun than you can expect a job to be.

COV82D-19

There are some days when I start my work hours with a pit of anxiety in my stomach. Either I'm worried about getting things done properly. Or I find that how I imagined the work to be more complex than it is turning out to be. Or any number of other workplace scenarios.

Most likely you can relate in some way to this problem.

How to fix it? 

Generally, by getting started.

Beginning the tasks, no matter how confused I may be or how wrong I might misunderstand. Or how badly I didn't anticipate the issues before me. By getting started, I start making sense of the problem. Or at least I better understand what the problem actually is. And I start figuring out how to fix it. Or I begin asking others for advice on how they can help me fix it.

But beginning something is definitely preferable to imagining how bad the work might be.

COV61D-19

I took a day off of work today. It was a needed break for me. A time to step out of the house and breath some fresh air. And I was lucky enough to have a day on my schedule that didn't have any predetermined tasks that I had to accomplish AND it was a bright and sunny day and not very cold.

So, I took Sarah with me because she is out of school and she doesn't have any work right now.

We first drove down to Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City and wandered around their trails, taking pictures of the river and the woods. After that we drove back into Columbus and hung out on the Scioto Mile. We ate some lunch and relaxed in the sun. And we talked about many different things. The news. Culture. Life. Friends. School. 

It was so nice to be out and away from my routine and my home--even for a few hours. We wore masks when we went inside. We social distances. We remarked at how silent and empty the downtown area seemed on a day like this. We saw bikers and walkers and families. But the OSU neighborhood was eerily empty and still.

Such is life in the time of coronavirus.

I hope that each of you has an opportunity soon to step away from your responsibilities and give yourself a moment to recharge. It felt good for me to do so today.

COV44D-19

Last night I was watching the Netflix documentary show Ugly Delicious. L.A. chef Dave Chang devotes each episode to a food or a style of cooking: barbecue, pizza, fried chicken, etc. He examines his own personal views on the food, as a Korean American who is in the food business. He travels the country and the world to see how different regions and different cultures view the food or how they cook it. He talks about the history of the food and what it means culturally.

These last two narrative lenses were especially evident in the most recent two episodes that I watched on barbecue and fried chicken. There were discussions on why there are arguments about different types of barbecue, different types of sauce and seasoning, different meats of choice. And then there was a careful examination of the fraught history of fried chicken in America and the stereotypical weight that this food has for African Americans--and Chang's own lack of understanding of that history from his own cultural background and childhood.

Such a discussion made me examine my own problems with this question.

So often, the people making excellent examples of this food are doing so outside of my cultural experience and my neighborhoods. My connection to the style of Nashville hot chicken is a suburbanized version of it in Columbus (Hot Chicken Takeover). But according to Chang and other articles I have read on the food, the original version can be claimed by Nashville's Boyland's Chicken. It started becoming mainstream (i.e. gentrified and suburbanized and consumed by whites) thanks to Nashville's Hattie B's. And then it spread beyond Nashville and across the country.

Fried chicken, as with barbecue, can be found everywhere--from KFC to City Barbecue, from Ray Rays to Popeyes. But these mass-produced foods are templatized and popularized so that I can eat a simulacrum of the food without going outside of my own comfort zone. I know there are delicious barbecue places in Columbus where wonderful meats being smoked in rundown cinderblock buildings in neighborhoods I don't frequent. I know there is great fried chicken being made in soul food restaurants I've never heard of. And the reason I don't seek them out and the reason that I don't visit them is because I am scared.

I'm not physically scared. I'm emotionally scared. I'm hesitant to be there because I can only imagine--and I am only imagining--what it would be like. I presuppose what the usually minority visitors to such restaurants would think of me. 

And that is 1000 percent MY FAULT. 

Who am I to assume anything about any of them? But I carry that hesitancy with me even if I never test it out in reality. And it prevents me from fully experiencing the world. And it denies me the chance to be better. And I don't have a real point here except to put it down in public and to try and be slightly honest about what I thought when I watched it. And maybe start the process of challenging myself to change.

That's it.

COV42D-19

If you have about an hour to yourself today, you could do so much worse than watch this excellent 1982 video of R.E.M. playing live in North Carolina. 

Oh boy . . .

Some thoughts:

1. If you can understand and decipher more than 30 percent of Stipe's lyrics, congratulations! There is something so wonderfully nostalgic about the Mumbles-era of R.E.M.

2. I very much love Michael's outfit of Greek t-shirt under suit coat with an unnecessarily floppy pocket square.

3. This is proof and a reminder that Michael has been dancing this way forever. It was not created for the Out of Time tour when people started paying attention to their videos on M-TV.

4. I miss Bill Berry's drumming.

5. A very random thought . . . but this makes me think that Robert Downey, Jr. could have performed Michael Stipe in a biopic.

6. Chronic Town is absolutely one of my Top 5--maybe Top 3 R.E.M. albums.

7. Thanks--among many OTHER reasons--to my brother Mike for introducing me to R.E.M. when he was fresh out of college student at Georgia Tech and I was starting high school.

8. Also thanks to Kevin Orr for pointing me in the direction of this wonderful video. I almost feel 20 again.

COV26-19

It's approaching a full MONTH of working from home. It honestly doesn't feel like I've been away from the office that long. It doesn't feel like its been that long since the kids all came home and we hunkered down to ride this out. It is remarkable what your brain can accept. Or maybe that is just MY brain . . . filtering out the stuff that I don't want to think about. (And I've had little in the way of crisis through all of this. A few bad days here and there, but my lucky streak continues, compared to so many others out there--some whom I know and other hundreds and thousands I'll never know.)

Good luck to us all. And may our democratic experiment continue through all of this and may we have time in the summer and fall months to reset the national conversation back to the EXTREMELY important question of what leader and what people and what goals will guide the United States, and your state, and your town beyond COVID-19 and into the rest of this decade. Who makes the decisions that direct your days is vital--as I hope you have seen through all of this. The way decisions are made. The people who make them. The motivations they bring to those decisions. The way that they communicate those decisions. And (God help us . . . ) but the slim chance that they might inspire us and motivate us . . . ALL OF IT IS IMPORTANT.

**steps off of soapbox**

I don't know about you--because, well, obviously . . . I'm not you. And I can't get inside of your head. Nor can you get in mine--beyond what I choose to write here on my blog. And it is only an imperfect representation of what is in my head--either by conscious choice (whereby I selectively edit what I think in written form to protect my true inner self) or through the imperfections of my skills as a writer (whereby both you and I struggle to convey information in the most efficient, clearest way possible . . . and this last paragraph is most definitely NOT an example of THAT, amirite?

ANYWAY . . .

I don't know about you, but one of the first and hardest decisions of my day during these shelter-in-place days is footwear.

Do I put on shoes during the day? Or do I simply put some slippers over my socks and get to shufflin' through the day.

Either choice has merits and consequences.

Slippers is obvious, as I'm definitely NOT going anywhere and so why put my feet through the uncomfortableness of strapping on shoes? But slippers don't promote proper walking technique--something that I need to be aware of for personal/medical reasons. And even beyond those considerations, which matches my clothing choice for the day? Because hey, maybe no one will see me, but I've got mirrors don't' I? If you don't try to impress yourself, then why even get out of bed and shower every day? (And if you're not doing that . . .. then we've got to increase that six-foot distance between you and I.)

What mundane problems plague you these days?

COV23D-19

Today was better because I spent good portions of it outside. 

This morning Lynda and I cleared out the side area of the yard that has been blocked off for years by a simple picket fence (which we removed last week). Now that the fence is gone, we had to clear out the accumulated leaves and sticks and detritus that gets wind-blown there every season. And I also cut down lots of little sucker trees and trash stumps and generally got the area ready for something sometime in the future. Maybe it will just be grass. Maybe we'll plant some small shrubs there to be a different kind of blocking. Or maybe just put in some flowers. Whatever it ends up being it will be more intentional and hopefully neater. (I bet our neighbors are happy to see us doing something nicer over there.)

Once that was done, I spent time reading on the front porch. And after dinner was finished just a bit ago, I came back out to type this up. The trees are blooming, the flowers are out, and families are taking advantage of the nice weather and walking up and down the street--like they've done in the past* and such that you might momentarily forget that we are still living through a very odd time of isolation and worry. But it didn't really feel like that today. It just felt like a nice Saturday in Springtime. I hope I have more days like this to come. And I hope that our country can enter into its own Springtime soon.

*The only oddity of families out and about today was that kids were walking up and down through the middle of the street with no concern of cars driving. That is a bit on the unusual side. But if you don't think too much about why that is, you can go on telling yourself that everything is normal.

COV22D-19

  I don't have anything illuminating to say today. I guess I could wait until this evening and see if anything interesting happens . . . but really what are the chances of that? I can't go farther than my driveway, so what exactly might happen? Sure, the Internet is full of stuff. But I can't be sitting and watching it all day. I can't dream and imagine. I've got actual work to do. (Thank God that I do, to be sure.) I can't go down into the basement because it currently smells of cat food and litter box.

So I'll likely sit at the dining room table, staring at my laptop screen. Flipping between programs. Thinking, planning. Trying to be as productive as possible. Getting up and stretching every who knows how many minutes. Seeing the sunlight creep across my table and into the corner of my eyes. Putting on headphones and taking them off. Wanting ANYTHING to be different.

But it's not different. It's week three and moving into week four. It's almost Holy Week. But there is no church to attend. There are no Livestream Eucharists to watch. There IS daily Morning Prayer to participate in (and thank you ASEC for that). It's strange. It's disheartening. But it is reality. 

I guess I need to fight through today's disappointment and try to find a positive. It's too early and my coffee cup is too full for me to be thinking straight yet. I can't know what today will bring. Maybe it will be unexpectedly good. It is up to me to make it so.

COV9D-19

Now is the time for you to get worried.

It's been over a week of self-isolation and why you might ask, is NOW the time? Well, I am going to spend my Saturday rearranging furniture, using a measuring tape, and trying to be a general handy-man. So, even if you have more equilibrium to not worry for yourself--you might want to spare a little concern for me. I might end the day trapped under a relocated couch or something. Me and homework (non-office edition) are NOT friendly.

So--why and what?

We are preparing to turn our home into office/school for the foreseeable future. Sarah begins her digital classes at CCAD next week. Grace helped move her out of her dorm on Friday afternoon. And while we went through this last summer during the break, this is different. She's home physically, but mentally she'll need to be in school mode. Just like Lynda and I are home but also at work, so must she be. And--to varying degrees--so much Grace and Hannah be.

To help provide Sarah some studio space to work, we are going to consider some furniture adjustments. Originally my idea was just to move her paints and materials and whatever down into the basement. And that is the simplest, quickest option. But as I lay in bed this morning I started dreaming up other considerations. Maybe Sarah shifts over to the sitting area by our fireplace where there is more natural light. That would mean moving the couches out of that area to give room for a table--either our current breakfast table or the larger one from the basement. So maybe that means that the (current) breakfast nook gets turned into a sort of relaxation, sitting area and some of the smaller couches/loveseats shift there? (That is why I've got the tape measure out--to judge lengths and such.)

Lynda--who has been mostly in the basement--may now move up to the bedroom where she can be on conference calls undisturbed. But that means moving around desks from the kid's rooms to give her space. And that means moving the recliner out of the bedroom and elsewhere?

There are lots of permutations running through my head right now and I'm sure I won't be fully happy with any of them. But at the same time, I can see it generating some excitement and creativity this weekend. It's the sort of project that can get people involved and bring out personalities and ideas and new ways of thinking. Now if all of that can be sprinkled with a bit of patience and some helping hands?

Let's hope that it works out. I'll let you know how it turned out in the coming days. If you don't hear from me, then that means I've probably broken a leg or an arm or something.

COV7D-19 (part 2)

The process of becoming a stay-at-home worker continues.

Some mornings (in the very small sample size that I currently have) I get going at the start time and I am very focused and everything is mostly okay. And then other mornings, I'm sitting down and I've got my laptop on and I'm connected to all of my files and etc. But it feels like its just lots of clicking and typing and then I look up and it already past 11 am.

I've started using new communications platforms that I had but didn't need to use before (Teams). And this afternoon I got the small, cheap, portable plug-in monitor that I purchased a few days ago. I could have gotten one of my work monitors from my desk office, but honestly, I didn't want to set that up at home. For you see, I've been working at the dining room table down on the main floor all of this week. And when I'm done working, I need to close it all up and put it somewhere else. And I didn't want to hassle of moving that monitor and the cables and related power cords all over the place each and every day. My desire for order is already stretched to the near breaking point right now as it is--what with all of the kids and their laptops and charging cords and phones and charging cords and glasses and napkins and whatever everywhere all the time. They've got nowhere to go and so everything is everywhere. And Lynda is already set up mostly in the basement at our secondary table down there. (Mostly because she is involved in far more phone conference calls than I am every day and needs to be in a lower amount of ambient noise for her WebEx connections. Plus it's colder down there. And there is less sunlight than where I am with a window directly to my left and the big picture window in the room to my right.)

But speaking of sunlight . . . I'd dearly love more of it. As I'm sure it has been with you, it's been two days worth of rain lately. And I'm even more stressed. Plus the kids have no chance of getting out to go for a walk or anything. Bad times.

And then . . . the week started well with my not eating too much. But in the last few days, I've been snacking more than I should. And Grace and Sarah (bless them) made chocolate chip cookies last night, so that is also a temptation that I'm not avoiding well.

When I'm done working for the day, the girls and I have started rewatching LOST (including Hannah for the first time). Hannah--as is her nature--is always asking questions. And you know that LOST is not a show with quick, abundant answers. Plus . . . waiting for the reveal is so much a part of the fun. But she doesn't realize that yet. I don't know how long we'll keep it up or how far we'll actually get. But maybe I can get a few more entries completed in the long fallow LOST Rewatch project.

In other other other news . . . I conceived of a few digital ideas for private groups that are turning out fun--stuff for the North Marching Band, and of course the launch of the #OfficialHat2020 campaign. (I'm really asking people to put their increased computer time to more focused use. I just hope they will click on all the links and vote like I want them to.)

I'll probably dream of something else to do soon. But that will be a blog post for a different day. I'm sad that the unfinished Band Room decoration project is on hold, but there is plenty of school-based stuff that is sitting still right now. I hope that when this all passes, I can dive right back into that and check that box complete soon.

That's it for today. My back hurts and I'm tired of staring at this laptop screen any further.

Check back in tomorrow for video #2 in this year's #HatofSummer fun. (And don't forget to go vote!)

COV6D-19

Monday evening, Sarah, Grace, and Hannah built a room-sized pillow fort in the front room. And it appears that they slept down there as well. So, I guess they are finding ways to occupy their time.

Grace and Hannah do have digital work assignments that they need to complete from their teachers, even if they are not in classrooms right now. So I've got to make sure today that Hannah spends some time doing schoolwork instead of watching YouTube. But in that way, it makes it like every other day--virus isolation or not.

Sarah is supposed to resume her sophomore semester on Monday after having an extended week away from classes. And she'll be participating in digital-only instruction. Neither she nor I really know what that means in the context of art classes. How do you digitally instruct watercolor painting techniques? I guess we'll find out. Or maybe I won't, because . . .

. . . is Sarah going to want to go back to campus over the weekend? I'm afraid that she will want to. And that she will say that she can socially isolate on campus and in her apartment taking digital classes just as she has been doing here at home for two weeks. I don't think the CCAD campus has closed so I am bracing for this conversation to occur. And I am worried about it.

[UPDATE ON THIS FEAR--I talked to Sarah about it this morning and she will NOT be returning to campus for the restart of the semester on Monday. She doesn't know how her classes are going to proceed digital only. And she surely misses her roommate Josiah. But that at least is clear for now. I am definitely sorry for her and wish that something could be done to ease this burden for her somewhat.]

In other worrisome events: it looks like the latest personal casualty to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States is our end-of-May summer vacation to Myrtle Beach. I'm saddened but not surprised that this happened. But it is starting a frustrating chain of events for us. We canceled our trip to DisneyWorld last December because we were uncertain about our company's financial footing. And that turned out--for us at least--to be overly cautious. (Even though it was definitely prudent.) And now we are being pragmatic again and cutting off this trip before too much is pre-paid and we learn down the line that we wouldn't be able to go anyway. Being an adult sucks.

In other other news . . . my video-making for #OfficialHat2020 has been going well. I've made a teaser video that went online yesterday. And I've also made a start the campaign video and three other videos for 60 percent of the hats on option this year. As befits this time of uncertainty, I'm trying to capture the mood in my videos this year. It's been a bright spot of fun in some otherwise frustrating days, so I hope that everyone enjoys the fun when it all goes live very soon. I'm debating when to actually start releasing finished videos and in what order I want them to appear. Or even if I want to try and order them in any sequence. Maybe I should just put them up all at once?

I hear voices downstairs, so I think the pillow fort bunch is waking up. I guess I can go downstairs now and make some coffee and get ready for the workday to begin.

I hope you are healthy, relatively happy, and have a path forward for this day.

We'll talk again tomorrow.

Sliding Doors for #HatofSummer

As I mentioned in a previous video, the timing for the reveal of the 2019 #HatofSummer overlapped with our planned family summer vacation. And I really didn't want to add my laptop to the list of items that needed to be packed in the car. Some said items being:

• luggage
• two beach umbrellas
• cooler of car snacks and drinks
• cooler of kitchen supplies and some foods
• pillows (!)
• collapsible beach wagon
• etc.

So, there was plenty enough to already be worried about.

And I was reasonably confident in the top two contenders. I'd been watching the votes come in each week and the Skyline bucket hat and the Columbus Zoo cap were the steady contenders for the top spot. I was a bit worried initially that the Zoo cap would get a surge of last-minute voting and sneak into the lead. But during the last two weeks, the voting slowed to a trickle and I made an executive decision.

I took a risk and decided to put my "money" only on the Skyline hat. That was the only hat that I packed, with the strong assumption that it would emerge the winner. BUT . . . I also hedged my bets just a bit. I recorded two videos. The first was revealing the Skyline hat as the winner. That is the official video that was scheduled to post on Memorial Day Monday and is the live video. But just in case, I filmed a second video that assumed the Columbus Zoo cap as the winner. I structured it the same as the Skyline video and I made sure that if the need arose, I could, from my iPhone, remotely halt the scheduled go-live of the Skyline video and instead push the Zoo video.

As it turned out, that swap was unnecessary. (And if I had needed to do that, I would also have needed to post a follow-up video of me--hatless at the beach--that apologized for not having the Zoo hat with me and ready to display.) Truth be told, Sarah was excited about the possibility of this need and sort of wanted it to happen--to throw my plans into a cocked hat as it were.

Andbutso . . . for posterity sake I'll provide a link to the unofficial video that is not available for public viewing and isn't public on the WWYV?! channel.

Bathroom Mirror Thoughts

source: thebeardstruggle.com

I used to have a beard. But several months back I decided to shave it off for reasons that don't add up to anything other than the fact that I wanted to change how I looked in the mirror. But THAT is not really what this post is about.

Since I eliminated the beard, I have to shave approximately every other day. And this morning was one of those days. And as I started the face-wetting/lathering/scraping process I had a random thought . . . who was that first person who decided to shave the hair off of their face? And secondarily, was that person a male?

When I first started thinking about it I imagined a GEICO-ass caveman experimenting with a sharp rock and freaking out 2001 style when he (yet, initially he) discovered the consequences of a sharp edge on facial hair. But then as I thought about it more . . . why does it have to be a man? Maybe the neolithic patriarchy enforced female facial smoothness a really long time ago?

Who's going to ever come up with an answer to this?

Happy WWYG-versary

Yesterday marked the fourteen year that I have managed to keep this blog live on the Internet without giving up completely and deleting the entire affair.

It's a meaningless date, but I still find a bit of happiness whenever I reach this point. And every year I hope that I can find some use for it . . . or at the very least find a reason to write on it more regularly.

For instance . . . Sarah and Grace just starting watching LOST episodes again. Which motivated me to go back through my existing LOST Rewatch posts from the past and edit them and clean up obvious typos and replace broken images.

[See the link at the top of the page if you are interested.]

Maybe, maybe, maybe I'll squeeze a bit of time now and then to add a new post and AT LEAST finish season 2?

Nomination Speech Introduction . . .

Credit: hillaryspeeches.com/

Last night I watched President Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

I haven't watched either the RNC or the DNC gavel-to-gavel.
I listened to some of Trump's acceptance speech last Thursday night--as much as I could put up with before the wave of fear and negativity overwhelmed me.
I watched Michelle Obama's speech this past Tuesday morning on the Internet.
I intended to listen to Bill Clinton's speech on Tuesday night, but quickly turned to something else because it was meandering and seemed unnecessary to me. (Which it was . . . for me, if I'm being honest. He doesn't need to sell her to me.)

But, Obama's speech? I listened to every word. And I thought he spoke well of why I am proud (mostly) to be a Democrat. I am proud of the optimism on display. I am proud of the inclusiveness.* I am heartened by the open-heartedness. And while I am not so naive that I don't recognize that the Democrats should do MORE to honor the inequalities brought forth by Bernie Sanders and his cohort, I am far prouder to associate myself with the Democrats that with what many Republicans have tried to sell for the last decade or more and whatever it is that the Trumpians are calling "Republican."

So after it was over and I was laying down to sleep, I thought to myself--if I was Hillary Clinton and I was preparing to follow that speech on Thursday night (tonight as I type this), how would my introduction to the speech go? And I got to thinking what the Democratic Party stands for to me and I guess I'd write something like this . . .

The Democratic Party is the Party of Jackson--the party of the people, the "common man", the barbecue thrower, the rough talker.

It is the Party of Roosevelt--the party that faced economic crisis and responded by widening the safety net to catch the disadvantaged. It it the party that worked to ease people's pain and give them the chance to recover and improve when things were desperate.

The Democratic Party of is the Party of Kennedy--the inspirer who aims us higher, telling us to not ask what can be done for us, but reminding us that we have things to do for our country. We are active participants in its future.

It is the Party of Johnson--who devoted some of his time to fighting poverty in dramatic, bold, purposeful ways. It is the Party of Big Swingers, who don't think small, but dream as big as Texas.

It is the Party of Carter--a Party willing to speak honestly about weakness and still keep trying. It is a Party that recognizes that service takes many forms and doesn't stop when the spotlight turns elsewhere.

It is the Party of Clinton--a Party of data and facts and thought. It is a Party that listens and feels and empathizes.

It is the Party of Obama--a Party that embraces change and changes history. It is a Party with a vision that expands further and further . . . because why not? Why shouldn't we? If we are a blessed as we say we are, let's push our blessings further and wider and deeper.

Platitudes? Yeah. Simplifications? Sure. Ideals? I hope so.





* But I am uncomfortable with the "Spanish-speaking speech introductions" that Dem candidates trot out ever four years like a party trick. Which exposes my caucasian bias because it just seems so superficial to me. I've never been a minority, though.

Memories of Red, White, and Boom

It has been a good eighteen years.