Happy Birthday Kritters!

Out of the mouths of babes

I had a couple of amusing encounters with kids yesterday.

Kristy and I went out for some cheap drinks and nachos in Old Town. Old Town was one of the first neighborhoods in San Diego, and some of the remaining buildings date from as early as the 1820's. It is now a historical park and a local attraction.

The place was packed with tourists and locals alike, and lines led out the doors and into the streets at nearly every place. With waits running at least 30 to 40 minutes at nearly every restaurant, we backtracked to the Alamo. The Alamo is this cheaper, outdoor place where you walk up to a window to order your food and drinks. But they had heat lamps going, and we found an open table with a built-in firepit. Though not near the nicest place in Old Town, the lack of wait and nice view of the bustling street more than made up for it.

Parking is always at a premium anywhere in Old Town, and with the streets and restaurants filled with people, we lucked out  by pulling in just as someone was about to leave. There was a no-parking zone right behind the car, so I pulled up next to the red curb to wait for him to leave. A BMW right in front of him had his lights on as well, but seemed hemmed in and unable to move.

When the car pulled out, a cute five year old kid was leaning out of a back window of the BMW. He held up his hand asking  me not to pull into the spot that had just been vacated. As his Dad pulled back and forward to get better situated in the spot in front, the little boy smiled and moved his hand back and forth as if directing traffic. When the BMW was properly in place, he gave us the thumbs up to thank us for waiting. We both thought it was pretty damn cute, and when we got out, Kristy complimented him on what a good job he had done. We walked on into the crowd of people with a fresh smile.

Earlier in the day I had stopped into my local Starbucks for some afternoon caffeine. I had worked a ten hour shift with the caterer and had been up since 4:45am. When I was headed back out, I walked ahead of a mother with a stroller and a little girl by her side, all stopped in the lobby. I quickened my step so I could get to the door to hold it open for them. The mom looked up and said "Oh, thanks" and "Come on Honey" as they moved to the door.

The mom passed through first with her stroller, but the little girl slowed then stopped in front of me. She was probably three years old. She looked up at me with a serious but pleasant look and said, "You are such a nice boy." This was not prompted by the mom, who I don't think even heard it. The moment did more to boost me out of my sleepy haze than the caffeine would.

Kids today.

Quote of the day

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you”

~ Friedrich Nietzche

Back in black

Just when I thought I was out, they pull you back in.

OK, in truth, I went back willingly.

I spent two decades working in restaurants, both casual and formal. As I mentioned before, most of my friends are people I worked alongside, or are related through one level of separation. My jobs since that time have been a mix of construction and finance, and a big part of me resisted getting back into the restaurant industry. I enjoyed my time there, but I wasn't looking forward to the odd hours and working weekends. But times have been thin for a long time, so I started putting in applications to supplement my income.

Unfortunately, no one has called back. There is no question in my mind that I would do well, be an asset, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I have been out of the game for eight years, and of course there are many more people looking for any kind of work these days. My job search for restaurant work was going about as well as my job search for office work. Nowhere.

And then I got the email. My friend Tami was chatting with a friend who does catering down here in San Diego, and mentioned my name. After a day of playing phone tag, we finally connected last Friday morning. After a quick chat about what we were each looking for, she said she could use some help that weekend. After work, I rushed out to buy a black, button-down shirt that only waiters seem to wear, and was up til midnight laundering, ironing and deciding which dress shoes would be the most comfortable.

I got the call early the next morning to be in at 10am. I showed up dressed head to toe in black, not knowing what I would be doing, or even where I would be working. I had sunscreen and sunglasses in case we would be outside, a notepad and pen in case I would be taking orders, and some folding money to make change or pay for parking.

It was all a bit of a whirlwind, and when I arrived there wasn't a moment to stop and get acquainted. The small kitchen was filled with a crush of people getting food prepped, and the woman who had hired me was busy working on one of the dishes. There was no separation of cooks and waiters, just everyone jumping in where needed to get the job done. I did my best to pitch in and hang on.

As each dish was completed and wrapped, they went into one of the two vans waiting to whisk it away. The clock ticked louder as the deadline approached, but somehow it all came together at the last minute. There were at least three events each day, so as soon as one was over, we had to pack, clean, prep and set up for the next one. Frenetic rushing around followed by slower moments of making sure everything was topped off and kept clean.

I ended up working Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I probably did more food preparation in three days than I had in eight years at the Keg. As the new guy I felt a little clueless, but as the weekend wore on, it all started to come back to me. The energy, the teamwork, the constant need to adjust priorities; the lingo, the jokes, the balance, the rhythm; an old familiar world brought back.

I am essentially on-call at this point, and I will be brought in when there are larger events in town, so I don't know how much work there will be. For now, I will take what I can get and hopefully things will pick up at both places. Like the job itself, you never know how busy it will be, and you always have to be ready to shift gears when take advantage of an opportunity walking through the door.

Spring forward, stay in bed

We spring forward and lose an hour of sleep tonight. I typically hate this day for its lost hour. Insomnia doesn't happen as often these days, but every morning still brings exhaustion, so every hour is precious. But this year, I am actually looking forward to losing the hour

I have tried multiple things to try to get a good night's sleep, and one habit that seemed to help for a while was to get up at roughly the same time each morning. Since I don't wake easily or on my own, that meant an alarm every morning, 365 days a year.

Years ago, my alarm clock was like an air raid siren. It would rattle the house, but I wouldn't hear it go off next to my head. Then there was the battle with the snooze alarm, giving myself an extra ten minutes with each smack of the hand. At some point I set the clock fast so I would scare myself awake and out of bed, but eventually I could do the groggy math in my head and it no longer worked.

At some point I made up my mind to stop using the snooze button. Even though I fell asleep between every ten minute interval, it wasn't the best sleep. I eventually decided to just get up when the alarm went off so I could get that extra, uninterrupted half hour. But I still need the alarm to jolt me awake.

No more.

Now I have an old, fidgety dog to wake me up every morning. I still set the alarm, but I am rarely around when it goes off. I could force her back to bed I suppose, but even though I am exhausted, I find it much more difficult to fall back asleep lately. It might be age, stress or some other new factor, but once I am pulled out of deep sleep, the best I can do is hover in that frustrating non-sleep limbo as she clicks back and forth across the floor.

After we set our clocks ahead an hour, sunrise will come after seven o'clock, instead of just past six. I am hoping that the extra hour before the world begins to brighten will keep Sierra from tap-tap-tapping on the floor so early.

A guy can dream.

Sharing a good read with a stranger

“A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.”

~ Henry Miller
The Books In My Life (1969)

I love bookshelves. I love books of course, but I love to see books displayed. Lately I have been searching online for library books or ebooks, so I miss strolling through bookstores and walking past all those possibilities. I enjoy looking over bookshelves in people's homes, looking for new authors and insights. I even love seeing what complete strangers are reading at the coffee shop or bus stop, letting random novels catch my eye out in the wild.

I don't have any shelves these days. Downsizing has forced them into boxes, tucked away from sight. As part of the effort to carry around and maintain less stuff, I only hang onto books that I really enjoyed, and can imagine reading again or loaning out. I used to sell books back to places like Half Price Books or Third Place Books up in Seattle. They never offered much money, but the books went back out into circulation, and I received a little store credit for more books at a discount. I haven't found (or looked) for similar places down here, so the few books I had were starting to pile up. 

I have started using a site called Book Crossing. It is a book sharing, tracking, networking sort of world library. From their website:

Label. Share. Follow. Breathe new life into books instead of letting your old favorites collect dust - pass them along to another reader. Our online archival and tracking system allows members to connect with other readers, journal and review literature and trade and follow their books as lives are changed through “reading and releasing”.

You register each book you would like to "set free" and assign it an identification number. In that way, the book's travels can be traced as it makes its way around the city, state, country and maybe the world. You can buy labels or print up your own to let the next person know about the project. The site was started back in 2001, and it is similar to the way people have been tracking dollar bills at Where's George. But books, like the ideas and stories they contain, were meant to be shared, and their travels are usually much less random than bills changing hands. 

You can exchange books with the nearly one million members on the site, but more often books are set free in the wild - left at a bus stop, coffee shop, doctor's office, or wherever you imagine another reader might pick it up. They ask that you do not leave them where there might be a security concern (airports), or where it would be inconsiderate, like in or outside a bookstore. Along with the tracking label on the inside cover, I have been clipping a note to the front cover letting people know that the book was not forgotten, but that it is looking for a new home. 

I was watching an episode of Charlie and Lola the other day (well, it was on for Annabelle, and I was watching her). The episode was about something that many of us did as kids. They released balloons with notes attached, not knowing where they would land, hoping that someone would find them and send back a note to let them know how far it had travelled. Releasing these books is sort of the same thing, but with the gift of a new read, instead of just a deflated balloon. 

When I released my own balloon in grade school, I never heard back. I have only released four books so far, so it is a little early to tell what the results will be, but I hope to hear back about their travels. 

Happy 140th Birthday National Parks

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

~ John Muir

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, was not only the first national park in the United States, it is widely held to be the first of its kind in the world. The National Park Service was not established for another 44 years, but the setting aside lands "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations" began at Yellowstone.

More from Wikipedia - Ferdinand V. Hayden (an early surveyor of Yellowstone), while not the only person to have thought of creating a park in the Yellowstone region, was the park's first and most enthusiastic advocate. He believed in “setting aside the area as a pleasure ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” and warned that there were those who would come and “make merchandise of these beautiful specimens”. Worrying the area could face the same fate as Niagara Falls, he concluded the site should “be as free as the air or Water.” In his report to the Committee on Public Lands, he concluded that if the bill failed to become law, “the vandals who are now waiting to enter into this wonder-land, will in a single season despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable curiosities, which have requited all the cunning skill of nature thousands of years to prepare”

There are now 58 protected areas known as National Parks set aside in the United States. A list can be found here. I have friends who intend to visit them all at some point, and after looking through the list it appears I have only made it to seven so far. I will never see them all, but I will never forget visiting the Grand Canyon, riding my bike through the Redwoods, or climbing part way up Mount Rainier.

Though I suppose there is a way to value all the land within the parks, it is impossible to put a price on what it means to have these wonders of nature set aside for us and future generations. As John Muir also said, "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."

I am thankful that they were saved from the foolish among us, to continue to nurture the best that resides in all of us.

Open that bottle night

Today is annual "Open That Bottle Night". The night where you open that nice bottle of wine that has been sitting on your wine rack. The bottle that is nice enough that it sat there aging, waiting for the right occasion to be opened. If no night or occasion seemed to measure up in the last year, tonight is the night to enjoy the wine, and make a an otherwise random Saturday special.

I wrote something about it a couple of years ago. We celebrated on an even more random day in April of 2010, but it was in the same spirit. And the wine and friends made it a special evening.

A Toast

I don't have a nice bottle sitting on my wine shelf these days, but maybe I'll go out and splurge on something good. You know, something over the $10 mark.

Suddenly I see

So the frames were all picked out, and it was time for the better picture.

When I first put the glasses on, Kristy had me close my eyes while she made the final adjustments to how the frames sat on my face. After a couple of bends and tweaks, I was ready to open my eyes. Before I did, Kristy said, "Now, don't expect miracles."

I opened my eyes and took the glasses on and off as I compared the corrected vision to what I had been looking at all these years. I was handed a card to check out the reading portion of the lenses, and no surprise, it was much clearer with the glasses on.

Then I tested the distance portion. I didn't feel like my long range vision was all that bad before. I could look to a hilltop in the distance and see the branches and leaves on a tree. But the testing revealed that I needed help. I looked across the large room to a display on the other side, alternately looking through and over the lenses. It was clearer with the glasses on, but the difference was more subtle. I had to pay attention to notice the difference.

As I looked around the room, things went swimmy. The room bent like I was a drunk in a house of mirrors. Actually, looking at the mirror offered the best way to describe the sensation. They have an enormous mirror leaned up against a wall for clients to look at, to take in their whole body and not just the frames on their face. As I moved my head from side to side, the rectangular mirror frame warped sideways to become a parallelogram. The more I moved my head, the more it bent. Some adjustment necessary indeed.

One of the tips I was given is to point my nose where I want to look. You can't just move your eyes, as the right part of the lens needs to be facing what you want to see. Moving my head side to side was what was causing the swimming sensation, but I was told that it would get better as time passed and my eyes and brain got used to the new way of working.

I purposely did not write this for a couple of weeks because I wanted to give it that time. Part of the problem is that I haven't been wearing them often enough during the day. As I said, other than reading, I don't notice a big enough problem to think to put them on, and at work I trade them for safety glasses. And although they have the cool transition technology that darkens the lens when they are exposed to sunlight, they do not get as dark as typical sunglasses (this is where complaining about how sunny it is will be met with mockery).

It has been better, and when I wear them for more than an hour at a time, the issues become less noticeable. That said, here are the issues. These things are listed on "things to expect" on several websites, so I am sure these have nothing to do with the particular lenses I have. They are simply a limitation to glasses, and progressives specifically.

• The field of view is smaller and more precise than I expected. It has taken me some time to get used to where I need to look through the lens to make things the clearest. Progressives are normally worn as people age and develop Presyopia, or the difficulty in focusing in on near objects. The reading portion of the lens is sort of an addition to a wearer's normal prescription. As I have never had a prescription before, the divvying up of the lens sections isn't what I anticipated. 

• The peripheral vision is not as good as expected. This goes back to needing to point my nose at what I am looking at, but it was surprising to me (as a glasses wearing novice) that the peripheral vision would be distorted, rather than just not-as-good. Again, this is a property and limitation of the lens, not an issue with my own pair.

• Walking through a grocery store and trying to look at all the items on the shelves is where the swimming sensation is most prominent. All those square edges distorting is still unsettling. To avoid the bending world sensation, I think I have developed the unconscious habit of blinking as I turn my head, but that isn't exactly practical when you are scanning a large area. It is getting better, but I think this will be the last thing to fade into the background. 

Of course on the whole, things are much better:

• The distance vision is improved, though again not as dramatically as the up-close reading portion. The leaves on the trees are different. I would describe it as seeing the colors a little more brightly as opposed to the edges being more clearly defined, but now things pop a little more.  

•  My eyes are not strained and fatigued at the end of the day. This is one of the biggest things I was hoping for, and it is definitely better. Night vision is also improved, so driving at night is not the strain that it used to be.

• I am reading much more these days. In the past year, I have been crawling through books. In the last few weeks, I have torn through a couple of books in a few day's time. I am sure that fatigued eyes were a big reason for the slowdown, and it is nice to be back on pace.

• The frames are lightweight and comfortable. When I stop obsessing over which area to look through, and just focus on what I am looking at, they sort of fade into the background. 

So, things are definitely better. There is more adjustment to be made, but I have a feeling that many of the issues will continue to fade into the background as I wear my glasses more often. As this is my first pair of glasses, I really had no idea what it would be like, and I probably was expecting miracles.

I just need to remember to put them on.

After reading my junk, go read this

There is just too much to read. I can't keep up with all the books, articles, and blogs. I stopped reading the daily paper to save a little money. I thought I would really miss it, and I do at times, but it turns out it was embarrassingly easy to let go. Other things rushed in to fill that quiet time I used to take in the morning to read a bit about the world.

There are some great blogs that have fallen off the radar as well. Some are for entertainment, but others I just love the writer's voice no matter what they write about. The 3six5 is one that I haven't been getting to regularly. Since it has a new author and new topic every day (including my post last March), you can't know what you will find. There are absolute gems in there, but at times it feels like I am sifting through too much river sand to find the nugget.

Just as every writer and story is going to be different, each reader is going to have a different story grab or resonate. I stopped by this morning and read through a week's worth of entries. I am glad I read through the first seven to get to this one by Katherine Ablan.

A nice frame for a better picture

I was waiting for a time when it would all become clear, and it has, but only for a narrow part of my life. Of course, I am talking about my new glasses.

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I have never worn glasses. I have made it forty-four years without correction, but staring at computer screens and trying to read ever-shrinking print has pushed me to the doctor. I was diagnosed with astigmatism in both eyes, and in need of correction both for reading and for distance, so I had to jump into the deep end by getting progressive lenses (essentially trifocals). I wasn't exactly looking forward to getting glasses, but was anxious to be able to read without strain.

But first I needed to pick out some frames. I was very fortunate to have both Holly and Kristy as guides here. Both have been opticians for years, and their shop Urban Optiks has hundreds of cool frames to chose from. I have a hard time enough picking out clothes, never really feeling that anything looks good on me, so picking out my first frames ever was daunting.

Fortunately, with their trained eyes they could narrow the field by looking at my facial features, the set of my eyes, and taking into account my particular lifestyle. Then I just sat back as they brought out frame after frame deciding what worked and what didn't. I would look in the mirror after each one, and as the process went on I learned more about what they were looking for, but it is clearly a well-honed talent to pick the right frame.

At first the frames came out slowly. Since they knew me and were used to my face without glasses, it was slightly more difficult, but soon we were having fun trying out different looks. We must have tried on forty frames in all, but we went with the first pair Kristy grabbed off the shelf. There were some funkier frames that worked, but since these are my first frames ever, we went more conservative. So the big unveiling...

Next, how I'm adjusting. I'll try not to whine.

Quote(s) of the day

I don't always know what I'm talking about but I know I'm right.

~ Muhammad Ali

---

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

~Mahatma Gandhi

---

"The scientific method consists of the use of procedures designed to show not that our predictions and hypotheses are right, but that they might be wrong.

Scientific reasoning is useful to anyone in any job because it makes us face the possibility, even the dire reality, that we were mistaken. It forces us to confront our self-justifications and put them on public display for others to puncture.

At its core, therefore, science is a form of arrogance control."

~ "Mistakes were made (but not by me)", by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.

Another red letter day

Just as the Super Bowl is a marker beyond the game for me, the day before Valentine's Day was the start of a few things that have little to do with the holiday.

Cherie threw down the challenge of running a marathon after a glass or two of wine on Super Bowl Sunday. I would like to say that I woke up Monday morning (the day all resolutions begin) and went for a run. I didn't. I had to go out and get the right shoes, shorts, a training log, and all other manners of putting off the actual work. But I followed through on the "Drunken Promise" only a week later, so I won't beat myself up too badly for the delay.

Being the number cruncher that I am, things don't really count unless they are recorded somewhere or thrown on an Excel worksheet. I have been keeping a training log ever since that first run, tracking distances, paces, heart rates and calories burned. I have experimented with a few online tracking sites, and these days my Garmin just burps the data up to the cloud when I plug it into the laptop. But I have maintained a paper journal since the beginning, and I continue to make notes to compliment all the metrics. When Buckeye Outdoors crashed on me last year, I am glad I had my own hard copy.

I dug out the training journal from 2005 and found the entry for my first run.

"First Run! The fantasy of a marathon begins here. Two short runs with a walk in between." 

Apparently the need to record time and pace didn't begin immediately, but I did make sure to note that it was 32 degrees out when I made that first step. I couldn't run more than a quarter mile without a walk break that first time, but I was running a 3.5 mile race just a month later. Seven years hence, I am still running, and that fantasy of marathon when I couldn't run a half mile is now reality.

February 13th marks another beginning. I arrived in San Diego two years ago with a pickup truck full of stuff and a road-weary dog. I received a very special valentine the next day.

Not everything has worked out as planned, but that is to be expected. I arrived here for just that reason. Even so, there have been some nice surprises and unexpected good things because of the move. I can't pretend to know what my life would be like now if I hadn't made the leap, but I feel like I am a better person, a better man for what has happened since then.

I don't know what the future holds, but I am better for having taken these first steps, making these changes, and setting out on a new path. I need to remember that and be a little braver when taking a risk and making a leap.

What to share

Most of us live online more than ever. Fleeting moments or hours at a time are spent on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and discussion boards. Do we really have that much to say?

Everyone uses it a little differently and even each outlet seems to have its own level of intimacy and disclosure. The level seems to match up nicely with the number of words used. This is certainly not hard and fast, but Twitter seems the most banal, a place to put the thoughts that fly through your head but rarely land. Facebook offers a little more depth (at times), and blogs seem to be where people take the time to work through their thoughts.

That is not to say that the fleeting thoughts and tiny topics are not worth sharing. Sometimes the smallest of observations can be enlightening. But no one comes home and describes their day in minute by minute detail. Everyone still needs to decide where to draw the line, and what to share.

I recently reconnected on Facebook with someone I hadn't seen in a couple of decades. His postings were pretty upbeat, usually inspirational, and gave the impression that he had figured it all out. No, not that he had figured it all out, but that he had come to terms with so many things, and yet he continued to try to improve every day.

We had a chance to meet in person not too long ago, and the person I met had little to do with the online persona. He was a bit crude, a little vulgar, and didn't give off the aura of enlightenment he had on Facebook. I felt a little like I had been duped by an online dating service.

For a while after that, anytime he wrote something online, I took it with more than a grain of salt. After seeing him in person, it all seemed so false and contrived. But then I began to wonder - maybe these inspirational passages and desire to be better were closer to the mark. When we met in person, we were only together for a half hour or so. Maybe he felt like he had to be a "guy's guy", and the more introspective part of him would have come out if we had more time.

Of course, both of these parts are who he is. We all change how we act in some respect depending on the audience. The stories we share with family, friends, drinking buddies and office acquaintances all vary. It doesn't mean that some are lies and others aren't, because they are all incomplete.

I have picked up reading a blog again that I had let drop off the radar. The author is going through a separation or divorce from her husband of eleven years. She is incredibly honest about the pain she is going through, while leaving out the details of why it is happening.

From a recent post:

Sometimes people send me advice and it is so colored by their own pain, pain that I honor and regard with reverence, but it wants to believe so much that isn't true about this. This thing that I'm living through. This thing that is full of details and dynamics and its own kind of pain, a kind whose shape I think I have figured out and then I turn it over and find another side.

I don't mind the advice, not at all. This experience wants to tell its story, and our common ground is the struggle. We share the simple hope that no one at the store will notice that we are wearing sunglasses indoors, sunglasses we won't take off until we've pulled into the garage and slouched over the steering wheel to resume sobbing.

And no matter who is to blame, no matter what happened or is happening we've each had those moments when the panic rises so fast in our throats that to hold it down is like swallowing the deep end of a pool. But then we make dinner, we help with homework, we somehow walk from one end of the room to the other. Like so many of you have assured me, that light at the end is around here somewhere. And sometimes just a glimpse of it is enough to get me to the end of the day.

I think we can all learn from this sort honesty, the expression of a common struggle that is uncommon to you. I detailed some of my own fight here and on the other blog, and I felt like I was being brutally honest, but I still didn't share the way she has. I didn't (and don't) describe every dip and valley - there is always some graphical smoothing when drawing up the elevation profile. Though the portrayal is incomplete, I try my best to be authentic.

In many ways, I have been more open and honest here than in person. Even though the audience is wider, I suppose the distance helps me be more forthcoming. But I am getting better about being open in person. I have seen the harm to myself and others with keeping everything inside, and finding relief only in writing instead of speaking aloud. An odd side effect is that my writing here has slowed down in the process, but I will take that trade off.

We share and over-share online. The medium opens us up to all manner of thought and opinion and at times allows us to be more honest. The post quoted above reinforced the value of sharing the things no one sees. My meeting with my friend reminds me that we still have a long way to go in order to live honestly and make real connections.

Quote of the day

"As I look back on nearly half a century of research, I am struck by the fact that my life in science has never proceeded along a straight line toward a goal, but in a series of steps in different and unexpected directions. It reminds me of the walks I loved to take in Paris- not journeys toward a particular goal, but random strolls that were directed, at each corner, by the curious or beautiful that appeared down one street or the other. I think it’s a good way to explore and a great way to live."

~ K. E. van Holde