Paul McCartney & Eric Clapton - Something

A special dedication...from the simply outstanding "Concert for George"...

Happiness (Gordon Livingston, M.D.)

From the book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart...

"The three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to."

Dr Livingstone goes on to say that the term "work" can encompass any activity, paid or unpaid, that gives us a feeling of personal significance.

He defines "love" as a state where the importance of someone else's needs and desires rises to the level of our own.  He goes on to note that true love requires us to become totally vulnerable to someone else.

Insightful stuff.

Critics of the hurricane Irene warnings

I continue to be amazed at the Monday morning quarterbacks who bemoan what they perceive as the overly hyped warnings associated with hurricane Irene.  These are, without a doubt, the same folks who would complain the LOUDEST if the damage from the hurricane were greater than anticipated.  Pardon me, but when it comes to protecting human life I will always air on the side of caution.

Conversely, kudos to the hard working folks at the National Weather Service, NOAA, and all of the state/local officials (including NJ Governor Christie) who cared more about safety than expediency.  In this day and age when too many are quick to point the finger of BLAME at government for all the ills of society, it's important to point out where government plays an essential role.

Road Apples, #109

Earthquake...Kind of ironic that this was centered near Washington D.C., hay'na or no?  (By the way, did I use "hay'na" correctly?).  Anyway, I was working on staff mid-year performance appraisals when it all went down and I didn't feel a blessed thing.  People on the second and third floors of my building (including my oldest daughter) did feel it, so best guess that was that since I was sitting on a concrete slab I didn't but those sitting on open-web steel joists did.  Oh well.  In other news, apparently people in California...land of fruits and nuts...are mocking the earthquake response here in the east.  Big deal.  Let's see Los Angeles handle 6 inches of snow.

Family Genetics & Maine...As was documented ad nauseum here, I spent a week vacationing in Maine.  Loved it...and if you like the outdoors at all you should really consider going there once in your life.  Anyway, it seems that my cousin Jeanine also loves Maine, which makes me wonder if there is some kind of genetic thing going on.  Anyway, I really do recommend vacationing there, although it's not exactly a great place if you like swimming in the ocean.

WILK...I see & hear where WILK is thumping Lou Barletta (the man who has the whitest teeth I have ever seen on another human being) on a regular basis these days, as reported HERE among other places.  Now for the record I was pretty harsh in my criticism of Paul Kanjorski over the years, so no one can successfully label me as a shill for the Democrats.  However this is a self-inflicted wound for Barletta.  If you are going to be critical of the former incumbent for not having town hall meetings, then damn straight you had better have lots of them...and even more importantly...don't talk about how you can't have them because of disruptive constituents (or "nuts with cameras", as Kanjorski used to say).  Here's one other thing about Barletta that I want to get off my chest:  he can stop already with the canned, GOP-fed word for word talking points.  Barletta seems like a personable guy, so maybe he should leverage his people skills just a bit more by being himself.  Talk to people in the public domain.  Skip the scripts.  Doing stuff like having a closed door meeting at the uber-WASPY Westmoreland Club doesn't exactly inspire confidence.  Having the ability to handle critics well in the public domain can be a pretty positive thing.  Seeming to duck critics can be the opposite.  Man-up Lou.

NEPArtisan...I have an open invitation to continue posting at NEPArtisan, so I'm thinking I should actually write something one of these days.  It's so hard though for me to get excited about political stuff these days.  I normally find politics to be ever so slimy, and in this current political climate that normal layer of viscous sludge is growing even more repugnant.  What's more, I think they are all mostly self-serving bums in Congress anyway.  Excuses, excuses.

Movies...Movies that are coming out that I am interested in seeing include Apollo 18 and The Rum Diary. The former is your standard Sci-Fi horror thing, and the latter is a movie version of an early Hunter S. Thompson novel.  I never real this particular HST piece by the way, so it should be interesting.

S-WB Yankees...Apparently a local group of investors has come forth with an offer to buy the management rights of the S-WB Yankees.  Good thought, but probably isn't going to work, as I believe that there already is legal stuff in place to transition the ownership to the Yankees organization.

Sports...Finbar O'Brien has a great post on college football that you can link to HERE.  It's one of those things that I read and immediately wished I had written it.

School Starts....today for a number of local districts.  Here's to a safe and productive new year of learning for all the kids out there.  The first day of school was always this kind of magical time for me when I was a kid, and while I am now years past such things I can still recall that feeling of wonder/awe/anticipation.  

What I Read

I was talking to someone the other day about my reading habits, which like just everything else about me is ever so slightly bent.  So what's the dealio?

First and foremost, I love to read.  I read constantly.  I am proud to say that my kids read constantly as well, as this was something that was strongly encouraged.  The fact that my daughters have a teacher for a mother didn't hurt as well.  We had books all over the place.  In fact, it kind of creeps me out when I go into a house and see no books laying around.  Conversely, when I go into a house and I see bookshelves filled with stuff I automatically get this feeling of quasi-comfort.  Reading isn't just an activity, it's a way of looking at the world.  It's a way of acknowledging "I don't know everything and so I am willing to learn".

While I do love to read, I don't love reading just anything.  Sure, the errant product label can make for an interesting diversion, but by and large there are fairly broad categories of things that I am interesting in reading about, and those for which I have no interest.  What I read most the most is probably the news. Whether it's the one or two newspapers I may read during the day, on-line news (I read Drudge, Foxnews, CNN, MSNBC, CNET and Space.com just about every day), or news magazines, I just love to consume the stuff.  I subscribe to three magazines by the way:  Bloomberg Businessweek, Mental Floss & Fast Company.  I'll also pick up a copy of Time every once in a while from Ms Rivers, when she is kind enough to share.  This stuff what I consider to be my "steady diet" of reading.

As for actual books, I have to say that I am not the biggest reader of fiction on the planet.  What works of fiction I have read over the years include mostly Star Wars and Star Trek novels.  I could list a few titles, but the list would end up being mighty short.  I've always been this way.  I recall getting into trouble during a summer program, back when I was about 12 or 13, because I would not read Hinton's "The Outsiders".  I just didn't really care about the adventures of Ponyboy...in my mind it was all just made up stuff anyway.  I still recall trying to explain this to my mother.

When it comes to books, I love biographies.  I've read so many over the years that I've lost count.  Probably by favorite was "First In His Class", which was written about Bill Clinton, but others that I've enjoyed include books about Keith Moon, John Lennon and Lee Iaccoca.  I know, not exactly the most mentally weighty stuff, but I do so enjoy it.  I also love reading books that center around personal growth. My current read is "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" by Gordon Livingston, M.D., which is just outstanding.  I'd offer up a few more titles, but then I'd run the risk of having someone who is reading this really think I was a nut.  Speaking of odd (at least for a 47 year old man), I am a sucker for poetry, so I have a few of those books, including a well-worn copy of "The Poems of Emily Dickinson" (as edited by R.W. Franklin).

Lastly, I love reference books.  I have books on...

...music trivia
...cartoon anthologies (for Bloom County)
...quotations
...astronomy
...home improvement
...local history
...religion/philosophy.

...to name just a few topics.  Sometimes I find some find enjoyment in just picking up a book at random and going through a few pages before I go to bed.

Bottom line?  I don't know how anyone could live a life without consuming the written word.  It is, basically, glorious.  Read on!

Tuesday Morning Random Thoughts

I really don't have time to write this morning, but I don't really care...I'm a-writing anyway.  What to say?  How about a few random thoughts:


Getting back into the groove isn't as easy as it should be.

My cat seems to have grown while I was away.

I still can't sleep really well. Just shy of 5 hours last night.

While on vacation the government in Libya fell.  If I go on vacation again perhaps the Syrian tyrant will fall.

The reality of my youngest daughter going away to college is starting to sink in.

I really need to get a washing machine.

Behold the wonders of the "To Do" list.

I am trying hard to worry less about the actions of others and instead of focus on what I can actually impact:  my self.

I dread what my Lotus Notes account looks like at work.  Best guess?  250 new emails...if I am lucky.

I hate checking voice mail.  Hell, I basically hate the phone, period.

The nuttier Rick Perry and The Bachmann sound, the more reasonable Jon Huntsman & Gary Johnson sound.

Scranton Teachers are apparently going to picket the opening of a new school.  Bad move.

Apparently Scranton City Council...you know, the group that passed the last budget...continues to disclaim all responsibility for the results...of their budget.  We knew Mayor Doherty spends money like a drunken sailor on shore leave in Bangkok, but weren't the members of the "stupor majority" supposed to held SOLVE the problems?  Funny, any idiot can point a finger and say "It's all HIS fault".

I am stalling rather than making my lunch for work.

I have to work on my weight.


Okay, enough stalling,  The day has to begin now.  "le sigh"

Field Notes, la fine

Preface

I love the sound of the Italian language, so what better way to end a series of blog postings than in Italian?  Speaking of “La fine”, I’m going to end up writing this in pieces over two days, with the result no doubt being something that is rather disjointed (or should I say “more disjointed than usual”?).  For that I will say “Mi dispiace”.

****************

“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”

-          Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau, for me, is a lot like Italy…the younger I was the less I “got” it; the older I have become the more I understand just what all the fuss is about.  As I sit here thinking about the week that was, contemplating just how this was intended to be a time and place for great contemplation, the more I realize that Thoreau was absolutely right.  Now translating revelations, even of the minor sort, into reality is easier said than done.  That isn’t to say though that I haven’t learned many things over the past week.  Here are a few, just for starters:

Guilt

I thought a lot about guilt.  I even finished reading a book about guilt.  Do I feel guilty? Should I feel guilty?  Well the answers are “sometimes” and “mostly not”, in that order.  What’s important though about this particular topic is that I do realize now just how corrosive a force guilt can be.  Even more important, I now actively question many of the feelings I have taken for granted over the years.  Now in fairness, I’m not claiming that a week in Maine will cure excessive guilt, but I am going to claim that thoughtful study and introspection will almost always lead to the same conclusion when it comes to guilt.  That conclusion?  Well it’s that we all shouldn’t feel guilty about putting ourselves and our needs first sometimes.  Illogical selflessness is seldom actually selfless if you think about it, because in an effort to blindly please others, are we not actually just trying to make ourselves feel good?  Is that actually a selfless act?  I think not!  Yes, feeling guilty has a proper place, but that place shouldn’t come about as a result of someone else trying to manipulate or control our behavior…even if that attempt is not consciously made (but especially if it is).

Simplicity

Since about December I have made something of a conscious effort to simplify my life.  It has, in a very real sense, become something of a mantra to me:  I want to live a simpler, more honest life.  The Maine connection is actually pretty direct here:  there is nothing that screams the beauty of simplicity than, for example, fog in a harbor.  The fog just seems to happen, it doesn’t seem to over-think whether or not it should roll in or how rolling in will somehow impact something else. Life, like fog in a harbor, just happens.

Kindness

I was shown tremendous kindness on this trip.  I have intentionally left out many of the logistical details of the trip to protect those who may not wish to be drawn into my own personal vortex, but I will note that for all of the week (Sunday to Saturday) I was the guest of a family where parents were celebrating a 50^th anniversary.  They didn’t have to invite me, but they did, and I was made to feel at home at every opportunity.  It has been difficult, of sorts, for me in the past to be the recipient of things.  As I noted during the week, my lot in life so far has been that of the “provider”; now I wasn’t providing much but instead was the recipient from others.  That has been something of an instructional order for me:  I accepted the kindness of others and I didn’t feel guilty about it. 

Challenges

I know I have more than my share of challenges ahead, and some of them relate very directly to challenges in the past.  I spent more than a fair amount of time thinking about some of them during the week, but as Thoreau notes, those things…be they past or future…really aren’t as important as what lies within me.  I need to practice.  I need to work on me.  I need to continue to grow as a person, in perpetuity, until the day I die.  Growth is essential because the challenges are not going to go away, and while I can’t stop them, I can improve my ability to deal with them.

Everyone Has a Story

I learned that everyone has a story.  As singer/songwriter David Gates noted in the song “Been Too Long On the Road”…

“Always looks so good on the outside”

…and I believed that somehow my life of fortune and misfortune has been unique.  I believed that other folks, well, they had “normal” lives.  I was wrong.  I was very, very wrong.  Yes, my personal story has its own unique set of twists and turns, but so too do the stories of everyone else.  We all have stories and that’s okay.  In fact, this is something almost worth celebrating in that it is such a revelation.  Not that this particular revelation all of a sudden came over me, but rather this particular road apple of wisdom has been building over time, and was most definitely solidified over this past week.  In a bizarre sort of way, I feel less threatened, less alone.  I can revel in being part of the “us” collective of dysfunction of stead of the solitary “them” who feel all alone in solitary dysfunction.

I know that people throw around terms like “life changing” all the time, and that in some respects the over-use of the term can be annoying at best.  Never the less this past week was life-changing for me.  Maine is this place of simple beauty where your thoughts can clear just as the fog clears from the harbor.  No, my life is far from perfect, and yes I have a lot of work to do yet (see above), but I walk away from the week a better person than I was at the beginning of the week.  This is a very good thing.

Grazie

In sincere gratitude I want to thank the extended Rivers clan for their hospitality over the past week.  The entire family was so much more than just kind to me, in both big things and in small, and for all I am eternally grateful.  

Field Notes, Friday August 19th

Today is my last full day in Maine, with an extended return trip home in the offing for Saturday & Sunday.  Actual touch-down in Scranton will come on Monday.  From there it is actually a short week, with Friday being a day off to take my youngest daughter to college.  The timing couldn't be better actually in that I've had more than enough time for resting, relaxation and contemplation this week, all in preparation for one of those big things that parents do in their lives, namely send their children off to fend for themselves for the first time.  Well, in a "kinda-sorta" way, if you consider being off at college "fending for one self".

Ah the timing of it all.

The timing of these events reminds me that I don't consider the universe to be governed in exquisite detail by some old white guy sitting on a cloud.  I guess that's another way in which Texas governor Rick Perry and I will part ways (well that and the notion...I suspect...that he feels the universe is 4,000 years old), but so I digress.  Not to piss off the Atheists out there, but I also don't think that all of this is the result of some random collision between two molecules either.  The very fact that I can ponder these very questions makes me believe that there is far more to the universe than simple bio-chemical reactions and random chance.  Anyway, one bit of evidence that seems to point to there being "something more" out there lies in how things in our lives just seem to fall into place.

I have not lived some  life of grand luxury, a-la the drunken Kennedy family, being given all the world has to offer on some kind of silver platter.  I have not always been what one would call "fortunate" in the most economic and social sorts of ways.  I have not been predisposed to great interpersonal relationships throughout my life.  Yet I also have experienced many things where, at that moment, I would have gladly traded in a kidney just to alter my fate, but yet in hindsight all of those "things" seem to have happened at the right time for the right reasons, always resulting in a better long-term outcome.  Being a good American I loathe short-term pain in exchange for long-term gain.  Yet I have had so many instances of "short-term pain, long-term gain" that it's hard to believe that it's all just some meaningless bio-chemical illusion.

Has everything in my life been engineered in perfect detail by some omnipotent deity?  I'm think not.  Best guess on my part is that we are set off in life with a series of talents & gifts, and we are pretty much left alone to use them as we see fit.  Every once in a while in our lives there seems to be something of a nudge on the part of something out there in the universe to ever-so-slightly change our course.  Some of those changes seem needlessly cruel...at the moment...and I suspect that some of the changes end up costing us our lives.  In the end though I think we are given the opportunity to take whatever is thrown our way in life an turn it into something better...better for ourselves and sometimes better for others as well.

Tirades are us.

Yes, this tirade on religion and philosophy has been brought to you, via Steve Albert, by the State of Maine, which wants to you know that cool morning mist and harbor views are conducive to deep thoughts at any stage in life.

Field Notes, Thursday August 18th

I had this preconceived notion of just what Maine is supposed to be like, you know, not all that different that the preconceived notions that many of us have about other places (for example that the Jersey Shore is full of air-headed greasers and orange bimbos with multiple tattoos).  It's heartening to know that, on balance, those notions were correct.

The above noted, I give you the Bass Harbor light house...

Yes, rocky coast, waves crashing, buoys buoying, sailboats plying the coast...it's all here, in living color.  This place is as exactly as advertised.

There is a certain uniqueness in this day and age to a place like this.  I know, it sounds as if I am writing advertising copy, but too bad, 'tis how I feel. I am sure that, somehow, the Maine tourism folks would be happy at this spew.  I think that in this day and age we get accustomed to the sensational.  We expect the be dazzled at the moment so that then we an move on.  This is the same culture that decided that instant communication via email wasn't enough...no, we also need it is about 60 characters or less via Twitter.  In all of this crazy pace, you know what?  The sailboats seem to move up and down the waterways here at what must be the same speed they have always moved.  Couple that with the fact that I sit here typing via a wireless Internet connection and we get an interesting dichotomy.  Despite the speed of my connection and the wonderful tech I have in front of me, this place still seems to move slowly.

Ah, moving slowly.  I sometimes forget just what "slow" means.  Here and now I appreciate just how fast my life moves.  Whether it is the mile and a minute pace of work (where I seldom actually get a sit-down lunch) or evenings filled with trying to get stuff crammed in, now I think I truly appreciate just how fast my life has become.  This is part of the uniqueness of this place:  it forces you to measure time the old-fashioned way.  Tides don't operate in Twitter time and the fog takes most of the morning to clear out.

As the week winds down I'm beginning to think about some what I will be taking back to my "real" life.  I know that there will be some tangible things, such as maybe 300 pictures and a tee-shirt or two, but I am mostly interested in the tangible things that sit in the back of your head, things that persist long after the tee-shirts are fashioned into rags and the photos misplaced.  These are the things that really matter.  I suspect I will have a few of these really important things to take back with me Scranton.

One things I know to be true:  I needed to be in this place at this time.

Field Notes, Wednesday August 17th (Whale Watching)

There be whales off the coast of Maine...

It's going to take me a good hour or so to get the salt out of my Sony H7 but it was worth it.