Now that she’s 2, granddaughter Madison is into a strange New Orleans beads and dancing thing…
[Note: There used to be a cute video of 2 y/o Madison dancing in a diaper, but someone warned me about all the pedophiles among us, so no more vid…]
Author: fifteenkey (Page 27 of 95)
Yesterday my Facebook update read, “Leo Daley needs to write something. Anything really. Help a guy out with a topic.” A few of my so-called “friends” responded, so let’s examine their submissions and determine their blog-worthiness:
- Warren, obviously watching the green opener, asks, “how bout some Boston Celtics.”
Well Warren, beating King James and some other guys on his home court is impressive, but I’m not inclined to write much into it. - Suzanne gets clever and inquires, “ummmm…what’s new in your life? : )”
Well Suz, quite a bit actually, but I’m under an NDA and can’t write anything about it. Let’s just say if “life is a box of chocolates,” I got handed one spiked with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I’m tweakin’, man. - Phil, the other business major in a house full of University of Arizona Engineering Grad students, tosses, “There was this time we drove 1000 miles to see The Stones. That was fun.”
Yes it was, Phil, but I don’t remember much more then that. Oh, wait… It was 900 miles each way. Lisa chased us out of town and gave me beers. We had salad in Denver. We saw a kick-ass balloon show passing both ways through Albuquerque. You and I took about 3 hours finding a fuse for the car after the show, but had a great time looking. We saw a stupendous sky of stars while four of us peed in quadraphonic stereo on the side of the road somewhere in the New Mexico desert… Anything else? Yeah, my first Stones show rocked. - George from Orlando wonders, “sticking with the basketball theme, you could write about how there is no way the Celtics or the Cavs will be able to get past the Orlando Magic again this year in the playoffs.”
George, George, George… Even though you literally live in a fantasy world where dreams come true (mostly for little girls), I’m afraid your lofty expectations may lead to a tragic, not magic season. - Louise went for the Daley double suggesting “Agile vs waterfall methodology” and, “even better, Why do hotels give you 8 pillows on a bed. 8? Really?”
Hmmm… On the first request, I believe the Agile approach is more “real-world” and adapts to inevitable project change, while the first thing over the falls in a barrel in the latter methodology is the original project completion date. Your clever second suggestion demands to be answered with another question: “What stories do those pillows have to tell about what happened to them before you got to them?” I realize you travel a lot, so… sorry. - Keith, hopefully in jest asks, “How about some good lifecycle management topics that you’d like to see in a presentation at KronosWorks?”
After reviewing about 15/20 session PowerPoints for the conference with varying degree of that theme, I must write what I hope the Yankees will be saying soon: “Wait till next year.”
Thanks kids!
No, not really, but I have nothing to write about, so instead I’m providing you a rerun of the best show canceled after 8 episodes ever until I come up with some new material… Yeah, CBS dumped it and I was bummed, then hoped VH1 would pick it up (it didn’t), but now through the magic of your tube, here’s the pilot episode… Enjoy!
Love Monkey Pilot Part 1 of 5
Love Monkey Pilot Part 2
Love Monkey Pilot Part 3
Love Monkey Pilot Part 4
Love Monkey Pilot Part 5
Billiards is an interesting application of geometry. I get geometry. Back in the day, formula math like algebra and calculus were challenging, but I easily earned 4 Aces in the study of angles and the Pythagorean theorem*. It’s a right brain thing. If you have the capacity to see the angles required, you’re halfway there, but then you have to execute. That’s the tricky part for ADD me because it requires focus. Lose focus on anything but the simplest of shots and you’ll miss. There are a few degrees of imperfection that will still result in a made shot on most efforts, but they shrink as shot length increases, so focus is needed to assure the easy shots and to drop enough of the tough ones to win. Many things can affect focus during billiards and here are some I experienced last night:
- Environment – Noisy? Quiet? Lots of people moving about? Hot woman’s hips just beyond the corner pocket? Gotta focus…
- Intake – There’s a fine balance between relaxation and impairment and that’s somewhere between one and three Maker’s Marks. I stopped at two. Oh, and wipe the grease from those chicken wings off your hands!
- Headful – Bad day at the office? Monday audit with the IRS? That rash still hasn’t gone away? And then there’s that other stuff… Think like Crash Davis in “Bull Durham” and, “get outta the box you idiot, where’s your head? Get the broad outta your head!”
Anyway, last night all I saw was the ball, the angle and the pocket. Well, except that one hips and miss. I heard nothing while lining up a shot. I missed a few and had a bad scratch, but I played well and had some fun. It’s a right brain thing. Oh, and don’t forget to chalk your stick.
* a2 + b2 = c2
No, I didn’t do one and never have, but I’ve found the effect of alcohol as a creative catalyst interesting. Not so much while drinking, but the next day. It seems the addition of chemical cobwebs affects the old (and now fewer) neurons in a way that realigns thought. It changes perspective like when a batter is really dug in on a pitcher, comfortably zoned in for a good look, then gets head buzzed by a 95 MPH fastball that was audible. That gets you thinking. I guess mildly traumatizing events just change your perspective. Maybe that’s why drunks like Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson were such titillating texters. Of course they would have been good without the booze, but different and maybe not epic. Acid does the same thing, but I’ll save that fractal post for another time.
I love words. Yesterday I went truant on low-calorie 4:30 break outs to visit the Bellagio Gallery of Art. Experiencing art is another way to squeeze creative mojito and delivers without the hangover. The current exhibit is around the new “City Center” development on the strip. There were many sketches and models on display, but also less functional art at scale that will adorn the hotel. One was a shiny chrome representation of the Colorado River snaking like liquid mercury 7 feet up a white wall. In the new hotel it will flow inflexibly skyward some 80 feet. What stopped me cold though was a Times Square style neon messaging piece in hues of soft blue. The words… They were rapidly streaming across and I couldn’t stop reading. They were the work and words of Jenny Holtzer and brilliant as the LED’s forming them.
Speaking of words, I just heard Jeff Tweedy sing, “A sonic shoulder for you to cry…” That dude can turn ‘em.
On a recent weekend I lost my ATM card at a restaurant. I remembered where, but upon return learned their lost and found cupboard was bare. I was sure they’d have it, so that unreal expectation increased the blow when sudden inability to access cash prior to a business trip was confirmed. Losing things sucks, but it’s just stuff… and things. My card was replaced in 5 minutes after the trip. People aren’t as easily replaced and this life takes them indiscriminately.
I remember long ago talking over tears to say something like, “I’ll take this time to make myself a better person.” Self assessments are usually more critical than those of your peers, but I’ll put down a good grade on this one, although I don’t exactly feel improved lately. Recent actions harmed others emotionally and I feel badly about that. I am sorry.
Since starting this space almost five years ago, it’s been a kind of beacon, like the SETI project portrayed in Carl Sagan’s “Contact.” In the movie, Jodie Foster plays Ellie Arroway, an explorer of the cosmos dedicated to searching for life “out there.” Aside from her core team, most thought her efforts to communicate with extraterrestrial life wasteful and ultimately in vain, like the Stones song. She kept listening for something likely initiated long ago, and one night while cupped in headphones under a black night blanketing a canyon, life answered. Ellie was jolted and sped off to erase all possibility that the “contact” was false. Was it some CIA thing, a satellite, some alien doing a drink ‘n dial? It wasn’t.
Well, the space-shit really hit the fan after that and once translations were achieved and plans decoded, Eli faced the decision of whether to take the trip to the unknown in a machine designed by the unknown, but she really didn’t have a choice. [Commercial interruption: This new Built to Spill record is freakin’ crazy and ends with “Tomorrow,” a song now melting myPod…] Ellie had to go. She was scared and excited, but faced losing her love interest, a religious character played by that guy who can’t stand up straight. See, given the space-time continuum and traveling faster than the speed of light, leaning boy would likely be dead of old age once Ellie returned. None of the fear or prospects of losing mattered. Ellie had to go. After years of SETI work and then exacting preparation of the machine, she launched into the unknown. She had no sense of time, but it seemed like hours… 12? 28? 51? She had no idea, but when she returned it turns out the entire trip took just 7 seconds… [See scientific discourse on time-travel above.] Yeah, time really flies when you face is blurred because you’re being shot down a wormhole designed by non-locals. Anyway, doubters railed and Ellie’s story was squelched, but she knew the truth of it… Although an atheist, she had faith what happened to her was real.
Years later an older and content Ellie was speaking to school children out under brilliant sunshine shimmering off the SETI radio dishes. One child asked her, “Is there life out there?” “Well, I don’t know,” answered Ellie with a smile, “but it sure seems like a big waste of space if there isn’t.”
Chicago was OK, but I really wasn’t in Chicago, but an Anyplace Airport Hotel because I never left it. Last night a buddy recruited me for a city Blues night, but the 2-3am return didn’t jive with an 8:30AM flight this morning, so I’d have to supply the Blues myself. I scanned the room of co-workers playing pool, playing Wii, eating, drinking, and in one case, belting a great karaoke version of “These Boots are Made for Walking” by Frank’s daughter. A couple Sales reps approached me to say they loved my writing (internal promotional Spam), but I wasn’t engaging. I wasn’t there. At 8:30 I took my Corona back to 822 and poured half of it down the sink. The conference was fine and my presentation went OK. I met some new people and put faces to lots of names. The high point was catching up with my friend Barb Tuesday night, but that was more me marveling at the display of affection toward her by many passersby. Yeah, she’s like the well loved mayor and had a big part in the success of the meeting. When she wasn’t kissing Kronies, we used the 30 second breaks to say words… It was cool.
Corona spilled and a 12 hour day wearing, I again listened to a song that’s been on my minds turntable since friend Jeff posted it days ago. I looked on YouTube for a video and found this amateur effort from a fan. I didn’t go out for the Blues, but got the Black.
The future is a perfect place for a procrastinator. It’s the place where “later” is. I’m not talking about the future of mankind or anything heavy, just a minute, hour, day or lifetime from now. OK, that was kinda heavy. Recently I stopped thinking about what lay out there and just started being there. Yes, this is another in a series of fifteenkey allegory for real events… Thing is, the “being there” thing started back around my reconnection with the “mayor” of Anthem, AZ, and the experience of all the buzz of life in his world. This life has been more fulfilling since walking through that dream sequence because it illustrated the “mystery of the quotient,” the “solve for X” as experiences with people.
Awakening from suspended animation is somewhat disorienting and scary. What happened while I was in the black pod with the little face window? Stuff. Stuff with people. Get togethers… Dinner and drinks with friends. Trips to far off places… Paris. Sydney. What? The Red Sox won the World Series? Twice? Sure, I read about it in the archives, but who knows what alternate reality I came back to, and that 0-3 comeback against the Yankees had to be some Orwellian historical revisionism, right? I stayed in the pod. What if someone came to hit my defrost button and I was away? Over the years, my caretakers looked through the glass and tapped on it, curious to see if there would be a flinch or any reaction. With regularity they attended to primary needs with gourmet meals and live aural therapy. There’s not much difference between comatose and dead, but the angels in my life weren’t going to let me flat line.
Waking up in Arizona had a surreal blur to it, but later tests indicated that was either a.) nearsightedness, b.) the Absinthe, or c.) my head was treated like Teddy Ballgame’s while cryogenically frozen. Yesterday I watched a young woman scan and bag a few groceries with one hand. Her left hand, whatever was left of it, was shrouded under her red Henley. The outline of it was shrunken with more the look of a birth defect than an injury. A wave of empathy crashed over me, but quickly subsided as she dutifully went about her job. Sure, she knows it’s there, but there’s life to live and she’s not letting a physical handicap impede it. My smile and “thank you” for her had a little more life to it than typically expected from a guy with a just thawed head. Apparently my heart survived the reanimation process just fine.
This post began with the intention of writing about “the future” without cliché. Reading it I’m reminded of an old post where one caretaker asked, “enjoying the acid?” Actually I am. I’m enjoying it right now. I’m enjoying the sound of Kyle doing a “Harry Potter” impression while playing PlayStation, and in stereo the nearby sweet music of mother-daughter conversation. I’m enjoying the sounds of this keyboard and I’m grateful to have it. There is no future. Well, no guarantee of one anyway. Right now. It’s everything, (never thought I’d quote Hagar era VH…) but I still need to finish a presentation for… tomorrow.
I know I’ve written ad nauseum (by the way, that means, “To a disgusting or ridiculous degree; to the point of nausea.”) about “an old friend” who said or did this or that, and specifically for this post, made reference to music speaking to you in a certain way depending on where you are in life.
Back around 1995 is when another old friend was feeding me CD’s by Uncle Tupelo and their offspring, Son Volt and Wilco. The angst of those records was counsel to my tormented soul back in those tumultuous years, but eventually I got to a point where those mid to late 90’s reminders became unlistenable. I simply didn’t want to regress, so a more upbeat substitute in the form of Sloan sat near as sonic therapist.
Saturday night as Kyle and I glided home after seeing a movie with new friends, Wilco’s debut, “A.M.” appeared first under the “Albums” click of the LeoPod. Somewhat tentatively I depressed the white right pointing isosceles. What jumped out of the speakers was joyful and alive. It just didn’t drag at me the way it once did. Of course there are still depressing songs on the record, but the music was jumping in a way that turned sad words glad. I sang and Kyle suffered through it, but not without complaining that Wilco is the worst band ever. Maybe he thought I was high.
You never looked in my eyes
Long enough to find
Any piece of mind
But now you got it
And I, I must be high
To let you say goodbye
Bye bye byeI Must Be High – Wilco
After a wonderful dinner of Crazy Maki and Cold Gin, I thought I recognized an old high school classmate on the bathroom route. Uncertain of his identity, I opted against asking and we headed for the door and our goodbyes. Pulling out of the parking lot, I saw the guy again and stopped. Turns out it was Bruce and we caught up for a couple minutes. At one point he asked, “was that you over by the silver car?” When I responded in the affirmative, he added, “we speculated you two were having an affair.” I see… So what does an “affair” look like? My brief research didn’t turn up data on his third party perspective, but I did find on marriagebuilders.com, “50 Indicators of Infidelity. For the record, I’ve been single since 1996 and my date is definitely… Uh, well, let’s just say I’ve met enough of her friends and family to know she’s not married… Anyway, that being the case, I thought I’d run through some of this list in an effort to discover if any of my behaviors promped Bruce and his friend to see “affair” when looking at us…
50 Indicators of Infidelity
1. A sudden upturn in their demeanor or outlook on life. – Bad start. I will admit to that.
2. Constantly late. – Never!
3. More possessive toward wallet, pocket calendar or briefcase. – Nope.
4. Comes home more often with alcohol on breath. – Only on Thursday’s.
5. Starts talking about getting together with old friends they haven’t seen in years. – That’s a definite “no.”
6. Starts shopping for new clothes. – Do socks count?
7. Starts taking a renewed interest in their appearance. – Yesterday I let my Student-Stylist cut my hair, so… um, I mean… yes definitely!
8. Starts keeping an overnight bag in their car or office, ostensibly for a workout or a game of tennis. – One should always be prepared for a workout.
13. Takes a new interest in anticipated schedule. – Yes, see Thursday’s above.
16. Car is kept free of paraphernalia belonging to you or the kids. – Except for Maddy’s blocks and Kyle’s Voldemort wand, it’s a “cabin le affaire.”
17. Starts attending extended seminars or conventions. – Hmmm… 3 trips between now and early November…
18. Start using new words and phrases. – I hadn’t used “kazoo” in awhile.
23. Makes more phone calls late at night. – No. I hate the phone…
29. Smell of a different soap from the brand at home and/or you smell freshly showered at 1.00am. – Huh?
32. Loses a lot of weight and seems proud of new body. – Uhhh, well, that was before… and I’m still not content.
33. Saddest list item is: change in die-hard pro-life feelings on abortion. – Oh yeah, and I’m now also addicted to FauxNews.
35. Juvenile behavior and music interests!!! – I wouldn’t say that’s “changed.”
37. Knows all the new pop singers and has CD’s. – CD’s? When was this list compiled?
39. Uses the ATM way too much! – No comment.
49. Distances themselves from those with strong (any) moral values. – Yes, especially moralizing hypocrites.
50. Gets “coded” pager messages at all times of the day and night. – I freakin’ better not!
I don’t know. This list seems inconclusive. It must have been something else…