Where Clark gets his information

Believe none of what you hear, half of what you see and the opposite of what you read. It used to be that media were driven by the quest for information and truth, but those days are long gone. Increased competition and corporate ownerships have made the bottom line the Holy Grail and principles are soluble in cash. There isn’t an advertiser butt most publishers won’t smooch these days.

What brings this to mind is a review of Cincinnati as a travel destination posted by Lonely Planet. I’m well past the point of trusting any tourism reviews because this is a segment fraught with advertiser influence. But, this example is worth the read for entertainment value.

The write-up recommends some entertainment venues located in Over-the-Rhine, an area it describes as “once-dangerous.” That’s like describing the government as “once-wasteful.” Two years ago, insurance companies ranked Over-the-Rhine as the most dangerous neighborhood in America in terms of violent crimes per capita. Just last year, it was still in the top 25. And, earlier this year, rival gangs were littering the streets of it with bodies in a battle for control.

Cincinnati has a world class zoo, great art museums, outstanding symphony and one of the finest examples of art deco in the country. So, what do they list as its favorite attraction? The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a failure by almost any yardstick you choose.

Go ahead and trust the travel writers if you so desire. You could always be the next Clark Griswold.

Hello Dalai

I came across this nugget and thought it to be an interesting observation. Given the source, it’s natural to accept it as the gospel. But, I have a tendency to evaluate, regardless of the origin of the data or interpretation.

Some people do sacrifice health to make money, but it isn’t limited to that. They give up family, friends and other things of value in life. On the other hand, there are others to whom that process is living and they derive the most fulfillment from it. So, I’m not willing to call it a sacrifice. We can’t do everything so there are always tradeoffs.

Likewise, I don’t believe fretting about the future is universal. I’ve run across too many people who agonize about their pasts, which is extremely unproductive. You should never worry about what you can’t change or control. And, relating to his first thought, I believe those who stew about the past are prone to more health issues. At least with the future you can determine your outcomes so giving it some thought can be worthwhile.

But, what do I know? The Dalai Lama probably has more readers than I do.

Angie's List is on my S-list

About two weeks ago, I unsubscribed from the daily (or so it seems) spam I get from Angie, promoting one of the businesses that pay her (can’t imagine they don’t) to send them. I’ve found these to be almost worthless and annoying.

I received a response that it might take some time. I call BS. About everyone else does it within a day or two. The only reason I can think of for the delay is to artificially inflate their subscriber list, which, in my opinion, would be a ripoff for those paying them for the circulation of loyal Angieites.

I did originally sign up in contemplation of getting a new roof. I found the information limited and the prospects I selected didn’t match the reviews, in both directions.

Save your money and don’t pay to get angina.

Follow the money

Bowl season, the most exciting time in college football. It’s all about those who have worked and sacrificed to be the best meet on the field of combat to determine who attained championship status. It’s the epitome of sport that the true believer awaits, confident that the purity is ensured by the preceptors of our academic institutions.

Kicking off the extravaganza a few days ago, Temple and Wyoming squared off in a battle of titans, as did powerhouses Ohio and Utah State. Wait a minute, these teams are supposed to be the cream of the crop, right?

Well, at least we can look forward to the Music City, Meineke Car Care and Gator Bowls. Six teams at 6 and 6. That is, not a winning season among them.

In a rare display of candor in the world of academia, you have the Fight Hunger Bowl, pitting a team with a five hundred record (Illinois) against UCLA, boasting credentials of 5-7. That’s not a typo. The featured players are a breakeven team going up against a loser. A loser ascended to Mount Olympus, albeit one from a large media market. At least that unmasks the true purpose behind all of this.

The only thing more sincere would be to hold the Who Cares? Bowl, as in, “Who cares who plays, as long as we can find sponsors with cash?” I propose that the combatants be the teams with the worst records and largest media markets.

.

For the man who has everything (except sense)

I’m skipping a review of the ludicrous Christmas gift catalogs because I’ve about done them to death. However, Brookstone does have one item that cannot pass without mention.

That would be the desktop missile launcher. Just hook it up to your computer, acquire target and commence the launch sequence. You’re fully equipped to irritate anyone in the room with up to four projectiles. And, you have remote access, so you don’t even have to be at home to attack your loved ones. But wait, it gets even better (or, more inane).

It is also capable of being controlled by anyone on your “buddy list.” So, you can enable you friends to shoot at you or your family. No isn’t that a good use for a handful of sawbucks?

I’d guess they have their engineers working on a way to send a potent current through your mouse for next year. Get on the waiting list, now.

Sounds

As I’ve written before, odors are one of the most potent evokers of memories and emotions. Each generation has its own set. Mine includes burning leaves and Ditto machine documents.

But sounds also have the same capacity, especially in music of an era. Last week, I had the pleasure of one of those moments.

I was cruising the back roads of rural southern Illinois, a bit lost in thought. I was jarred back to attentiveness by the blare of a klaxon horn behind me and the peripheral blur of a vehicle passing. An ah-oo-gah horn? When was the last time I heard one of those?

The car streaked by and into my main field of vision. Holy crap! A lead sled! That would be a Mercury, circa 1949-51, usually heavily customized for a low and menacing appearance. And, just as likely, the customizer yanked the flathead V-8 and substituted a screamer with eight jumping pistons.

That was clearly the case here as I enjoyed music to me ears; the banshee howl of a large bore quad on a high rise manifold. There’s nothing in the world like it (“Pedals to the floor hear the dual quads drink…” from “Shut Down” by the Beach Boys). You don’t get that from a fuel injected engine (damn the EPA, anyway).

Okay, Clyde, I’ll play. Let’s see if you’ve got the prunes for some real back road boogie. I reached to slam my Hurst Mystery Shifter back into third and oxidize a little latex. And, of course, it wasn’t there. My mind might’ve been in ’66 but the rest of me resided in the 21st century. I watched the rump of the big Merc disappear toward the horizon and strained to savor the last of its exhaust note. My pulse had jumped about 25%.

And speaking of nostalgic sounds and that number, this will be the 25th anniversary of Darlene Love appearing on Letterman’s show to perform “Christmas (Baby please come home).” If you can watch her belt that (http://tinyurl.com/23zcsu) out without a shiver running down your spine, you’re made of stone.

The fault lies not in our stars

The University of Cincinnati/Xavier basketball game ended in a brawl, sending all kinds of officials scurrying to place blame and address that situation. You solve a problem by identifying and dealing with it, not a symptom. And, be assured, the fight is symptom. Having the athletes stand up and apologize is like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

So where does the responsibility lie? It’s at the top and I place the turn of the tide in 1986 with the NCAA’s passage of proposition 48 that lowered the standards for admission of college athletes. They, of course, did this at the bidding of the administrations of the member schools. When the leadership of academic institutions states that academic performance isn’t that important, “Houston, we have a problem.”

The proposition was passed under the guise of providing equal or better education opportunity, but one would have to be exceptionally naïve to miss that the objective was to optimize prestige and revenues from the athletic departments. Review the majors of the players on the rosters of the Division I schools and the graduation rates if you harbor the notion it’s about education. And, was it really an endorsement of “All men are created equal” to say that you aren’t capable of learning so we’ll lower the bar? All races, genders, etc. are capable of academic achievement, so why not bestow the scholarships on those willing to make the effort? They’re the ones who deserve the help and will benefit from it.

If you want to blame someone, put the spotlight on the boards of regents. Ohio State has a history of bad actors on their teams and was recently rocked by disclosures of shenanigans that led to the dismissal of the football coach. The leadership of the university was so affected by that that they went right out and hired a replacement who had 30 player incidents in his previous program. On the heels of that travesty, the board of regents awarded the president of the university a six-figure bonus and a raise. What do you think their priority is? Surely, not player standards and behavior.

Getting back to the University of Cincinnati, there’s another Ohio school with player (and coach) quality issues, with the brawl being the most recent example. Its president also received a six-figure bonus and healthy raise. You get what you incentivize.

So, if you’re into the blame game, the fault lies not in our stars (star players), but in ourselves.

He was always so quiet

Isn’t that what they always say when someone goes over the edge? I don’t know why. The signs are almost always there.

What brings this to mind is a television news report. I was poised to click off the remote and there was a mug shot from a recent arrest on the screen. The guy had been pulled over for a traffic stop and flipped out.

I’ve kayaked with him several times and am not surprised. A couple years ago, I was tipping a beer with a few other paddling group leaders from the state. One opined that if we each wrote down the most aberrant people who had ever posted on our respective web sites, there would probably be at least an 80% overlap. He was right and this guy was one of them who came up. The signs are almost always there.

It’s doubtful any reporter will ask me about this. But, I wouldn’t be giving a reaction of surprise.

Fun with Dick and Jane

Early in the movie “Fun with Dick and Jane” (original version), the title couple find themselves in difficult financial straits and rob the phone company. The patrons waiting in line cheer them on. I could relate then and, almost 35 years later, am even more empathetic.

My real issues began about ten years ago when I allowed myself to be dragged out of my dial-up cave. I received a modem in the mail and assiduously followed the instructions to hook it up. No soap. I retraced my steps without success. Access denied.

I called customer service and navigated through the various levels of automation that ascertain who you are, what language you speak and what kind of problem you have. When I finally established contact with a human being, he walked me through the proper set-up, noting that they were still packing obsolete instructions with the modems. Wouldn’t it be cheaper and create more good will to revise them than to have frustrated customers call in? If they’re pre-packed, why not slap a sticker on the outside with the corrections?

I assumed they were at the tail end of a print run or something. Not so, two years later, I helped a friend set up his modem and had the same issue.

Since that time, I’ve ramped up the computer capacity and the connection appeared to keep pace. That is, up until a couple months ago. Download speed slowed and the connection became intermittent.

I called customer service and wended my way through the maze until I reached a tech with a heavy accent. Not a great match for my impaired hearing.

He put me through a series of exercises that mostly consisted of unplugging and rebooting various components. I protested that I had already tried that but he insisted. I’d already caught onto the fact that rebooting is the equivalent elixir to the hard slap on the cabinet of my youth. The exercise was futile so we scheduled an appointment. I was given a four-hour window so write off a good part of the day.

The tech arrived and took several readings at various points in the circuit. He replaced an exterior box and the ancient modem, splitting the lines that serviced the computer and the phone. We tested it and everything worked fine. But, then again, sometimes it did.

The system waited until he cleared the block before acting up again. In retribution for my attack, it spread the glitches to the phone line. I called customer service on my cell the next day.

I jumped the hurdles of the automated system and gave the tech the history of the problems. He said he was looking at my information and they had the wrong settings. Great. He did a reset and it was of little help.

He said he’d give me a repair appointment but would first change the settings again so I’d have less trouble. I asked if it would be slower. He paused to contemplate and replied that it wouldn’t actually be slower. Actually? What does that mean? It was more like it would be different. What does that mean? Not the same as before. Thanks for walking me through that one.

The repairman arrived and took readings. He acknowledged that it was slow. He called up something on a device he had and asked where a street was that began with an “M.” M? Yes, his handheld was giving him an address of a junction box but only revealed the address number and the first letter of the name of the street. This is the 21st century, isn’t it? I could think of two streets offhand and he took off in search of the box.

He returned an hour later. He said he went to the main box and saw that my line was adjacent to a high capacity commercial line. Sometimes there’s interference. You put them together or don’t shield them because? He switched me to another line. Then he went to the neighborhood box and switched that line. With the previous alterations, I was all new from the main box to the computer.

We tested the speed and it had about doubled. Halleleujah! It was fixed! But, you’re ahead of me, aren’t you?

This time, it waited a couple hours before crapping out. I called customer service. Instead of it offering me a choice of language, it informed me that it was forwarding my call for service. I received about twenty seconds of music that would make Mitch Miller puke and then it hung up on me. I tried again. Same result. This was repeated a half dozen more times.

But, I’m not ready to go down to the phone company, brandishing a pistol. Not yet.

Stoops

I was walking around the neighborhood and saw a young boy bouncing a tennis ball in front of his front porch. He looked record bored.

I walked up to him and held out my hand. “Let me have the ball. I’ll show you something.” He handed me the ball. “Now stand back there and catch it before it hits the ground. If it hits the second square of the sidewalk, it’s a single. The second, a double, and so on.” He looked puzzled so I went through it again.

He shrugged and trudged about halfway down the walk. I threw the ball against the steps, going easy on him and not using my accumulated storehouse of cunning in this field. It didn’t take long for him to catch the third out.

I flipped the ball to him. “Your turn.” He had no moves and went three up, three down. Time to go to school. I employed some of the more basic strategy and moved my men around the bases. He started to catch on and earned his bats again. I was happy to see him mimic some of my strategies. And, I was especially glad to see him get into it.

Third time up. The gloves are off. I ran him up, back and side to side. It was time he learned a lesson in life. He was at least ten. Take your victories where you can.

We were soon talking smack and laughing. I let him get close, but didn’t give it to him. No free lunch in life. We finished and I flipped the ball to him. He wanted another shot at me but I shook my head and tried to conceal my gasping. “Teach it to your friends.”

“What’s it called?”

“Stoop ball.”

“Stoop ball? What’s a stoop?” I pointed to the steps, but it’s a lot more than that.

I was born in a row house neighborhood. The most important feature was the stoop. Unless there was a blizzard, every evening, the adults and little children sat out on the stoop. Few had televisions. They’d also wander up and down the street, visiting and sharing leftover food and a little vino.

Pre-teens might be playing stickball, half ball (variation of stickball using half a ball – space was limited), soccer or football in the street. The games were periodically interrupted by an adult yelling about damage to the cars lining the curbs. The teens were hanging out in front of corner candy stores. (where the pinball machines dwelt), always wary for interlopers from other turf).

The games went on in the street (or in the alleys behind the rows, where wall ball was played) because the stoops were occupied. During the day was the time for stoop ball.

The stoops were a significant social factor. Everyone networked via them, although it wasn’t called that. Now, I barely know the people on my street, let alone the rest of the neighborhood. Back then, I knew everyone. And, they knew me. If something happened anywhere within the eight square blocks, it spread like wildfire. There were no secrets.

It was a different time.

The Lamest Generation

I suppose every generation feels this way, at least the male of the species. My father would always shake his head about the perceived frailties of my age stratum. I recall steeling myself to let him know I was giving up boxing for football, correctly anticipating the reaction. “A sport where they penalize you for unnecessary roughness? What kind of roughness isn’t necessary in a man’s sport? And what’s with all those pads and the hard helmet? Do you have to wear a dress, too?”

What evokes this memory was sitting in a waiting room today. The selection of magazines was very limited and I found myself settling for “Men’s Health.” I consider it to have more to do with the financial health of their advertisers than your wellbeing.

The article that snags my attention is “15 Top Tech Problems We Want Solved in 2012.” I’d settle for getting through the year without having to call the cable or internet company, but I’m willing to listen to their gripes.

The first one to elevate my eyebrows is “Make cars anyone can drive.” Excuse me? “…it shouldn’t require a ten-minute lesson in starting it and putting it in gear.” Is this really a problem for this generation? I’m the furthest thing from a tech geek and can fire up any rental car thrown at me without tutoring. I learned on a vehicle that had a starter (floor mounted) separate from the ignition switch and had a motorcycle with a manual spark advance. Wasn’t rocket science.

“Stop our mailboxes from filling up. Create an automatic archiving system that works – with no chance we’ll miss an email.” Aw, poor baby. How much effort does it take to decide if you want to file or delete? And do you want a machine making that decision for you?

“Don’t let us sext our boss, our mom or our plumber.” What they’re whining for is a system that detects sexual words and forces you to double-check the intended recipient. If you have a brain circuit that connects your mother with that content, you may have bigger problems than inadequate automation.

“Make autocorrect not embarrass us.” So, turn it off. If you’re concerned about the precision of a message, wouldn’t you proofread it anyway? Or would that exhaust you?

And finally (drum roll, please), “Make auto-flush toilets that don’t terrify our toddlers. This is a major problem.” It is? Part of my retirement was running a mental health clinic in which our clients numbered four figures annually. In eight years, I don’t recall a single case of PTSD (Post-Toilet Stress Disorder). Do not fear the automated flusher; fear the germs on the handle.

If the current generation is cowed by these challenges, I weep for our future.

Greatest Taillights

Now here’s a subject you don’t see every day; the greatest car taillights of all time. And yes, I am killing time (waiting for a phone call).

Heading the list are the 1967-70 Mercury Cougar sequential taillights. They’re the first I know of that created movement (in the direction of the turn). That would be child’s play to pull off today. But, back then, it caused quite the stir.

What elicited this thought was a 1970 Chrysler I pass by frequently. The “boomerang” taillight was artfully integrated with the tail fin (see photo).

In 1959, Chevy set the world on its ear with the catseye taillights that were the centerpiece of the rear view design. This included horizontal fins (brow-like) that fomented the rumor that the rear end of the car would lift at speed.

Another good example of design integration was the 1959 Cadillac bullet lights that blended well with the fin theme. Ensuing versions were similar, but this was the cleanest.

Finally, I’ll nominate the 1956-7 Chevy lights. It’s not because of their particular appearance, which was somewhat mundane. But, one side was hinged and concealed the gas cap. This eliminated the fuel door, making the whole car look better. Other GM marques employed this type of light at various times, but this was the best-known.

If that call doesn’t come in soon, I may be back with my favorite windshield wipers.

Fitness kills

I was late to meet someone today. I apologized and before I could explain, he launched into an anti-fitness spiel, knowing that I was coming from the gym.

I’d heard it before. If you take all the hours you spend working out and deduct them from your lifespan, you lived less, not more. And, you’re risking premature joint damage and other ills, some of them fatal. Blah, blah, blah.

I could’ve made the argument for extended living. I might have trotted out the enhanced quality of life. Or countered with higher self esteem and brighter mental outlook. But, instead I ordered pizza.

He’s partly right. Fitness programs do put you at risk. But, it’s of death by pneumonia. I can prove that statistically.

I was late today because my workout was interrupted by a fire alarm. That propelled me, hot and sweaty, into the cold wind and rain, where I stomped my feet for 45 minutes. It took that long for them to ascertain that it was a false alarm. Not statistically significant? I beg to differ.

While I was stomping around and beating my arms in a futile attempt to maintain core temperature, I engaged in some calculations. This was the fourth time I had been driven outside by a fire alarm and two of them occurred at a gym during inclement weather. I’ll throw in a fifth. I had just returned to my motel room from a long run when we were evacuated into a snow storm because of a potential shootout between state troopers and bank robbers holed up in one of the rooms. That was a de facto workout.

So, 60% of the time I’ve been evacuated, it was in the pursuit of fitness. And 100% of those times, it was into adverse weather. Fitness kills by degrees (low and wet ones).

The prodigal canoe

Addendum to the previous canoe post. The seller emailed me that he told a friend of his about our deal and his friend said that I screwed him. It was worth twice what I paid him. He thought that it was lousy that I tried to look like I was doing him a favor by upping the price when I was really sticking it to him. I’m paraphrasing him because it wasn’t quite that printable.

I responded that I believed his friend to be mistaken (and a couple other things I didn’t mention) and that he should feel free to check pricing on the link I was providing and see for himself that I gave him market value (didn’t remind him that I had paid more than he asked). Or, I’d be happy to drive the boat back over immediately and he could refund my money and allow his friend to double it for him (he deserved the onus). He wanted the boat back, so I complied.

Back to square one. I engaged all the search engines once again. One ad caught my eye, mostly because it was practically in my backyard. The details were sketchy and, once again, the seller didn’t know much about it. The price and location made it worth a look.

I knew what it was the moment I laid eyes on it. I had bought one in 1984 and cut my teeth on solo whitewater canoeing with it. Ah, the times I had in that boat (and, beside, behind and under it). But, the kids were growing and a solo canoe no longer fit into the picture. I sold it to a guy named Gary.

Now, I was looking for a flatwater boat. So, I thanked the man for his time and started to turn away. Something tugged at me. I looked at the canoe again.

Mine had been the same color with the identical wood trim. It was outfitted exactly the same way as I had done mine. The registration decal had been bought in 1984. I asked the seller how he had come to own it. He said he bought it from a friend of his a couple years ago. The friend’s name? Gary.

Twenty-seven years of nostalgia washed over me. No, it wasn’t what I was looking for today. But, it was the boat I bought. The return of the prodigal canoe.

Caveat Emptor

Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. Yeah, but what about the seller?

The presumption is that the seller has the advantage, armed with more information. But, that’s not always the case.

Many years back, I rode motorcycles and was in the market for a vintage Triumph. I responded to one ad, listing the bike for a reasonable price and describing it in good condition. The address was way out in the country but the journey seemed worth it, should everything be as it appeared.

Not only was it far from the city, it was far from the road. My Firebird slewed back and forth as I made my way up a long, muddy driveway in a driving rain. The buzzer didn’t seem to work so I knocked on the door of a weather beaten cottage. Paint flaked off like dandruff. The man who answered was more unkempt than the house. He cast an eye skyward and asked if I was sure I wanted to look at it today. I had driven almost 50 miles, so I affirmed my desire.

He went inside and pulled on some boots and donned a filthy slicker. We slogged through the mire to a barn that had an alarming lean toward starboard. The hinges screamed as he swung the door open and led me inside. In the dim light, I could make out four boxes of cruddy motorcycle components. “Are these spares?” I asked.

“Nope.” He broke into a hacking, wet cough and spit. “That there’s the bike.”

I groped for words. “The ad said it was in good condition.”

“Tis. Just ain’t put together.”

I had no trouble finding words for that. My judgment could’ve been better. After he had his say, we sloshed back to the house in silence. He watched me get into my car. Then he watched some more. And some more. And some more. My wheels were spinning and cutting a rut.

I rolled down the window. “Can I get some help, here?”

“Yeah, when the sheriff comes. I’m goin’ in to get dry. If you ain’t gone in ten minutes, I’m callin’ him with a trespassing complaint.” The door slammed and more paint fell.

I got out and looked around. There was a wood pile beside the house, covered with a dirty canvas tarp. I whipped it off, quickly stuffed it under a tire, and the car waddled out of the rut. I muttered oaths aloud much of the way home.

The next day, another ad cropped up in the paper. The price was low but the motorcycle was described as “like new.” I called and reached a woman who didn’t know much about it. We set an appointment for that evening when her husband would be home.

I was still smarting from the previous day and went into this with my shields well up and a bad attitude. The home was modest and an elderly couple met me at the door and walked me to the garage under the house. The garage door swung open and there stood a shiny Triumph in showroom condition. I could hardly believe my eyes. I checked the odometer and it hadn’t registered its 500th mile. And, yet, the price was that of a junker. After yesterday, I was due for this.

Or, was I? “Well son, what do you think?” asked the kindly older gentleman.

“I’ll take it!” sprang to mind, but I hesitated and rolled it around in my mind. “I think it’s worth more than you’re asking.”

He smiled. “That may be.” He continued on to tell me how their son had bought it and had the opportunity to ride it only a few times before being shipped out to Korea with his unit. He would write about how he couldn’t wait to get back and ride his bike. Then, he was killed in a truck accident. They just wanted to get rid of the bike.

I thought a little more and made a fair offer above their asking price. He shook his head. “Just pay us our price and we’ll be happy that someone is enjoying it as he would’ve.” I paid his price.

That became relevant today. I responded to an ad for a canoe. The owner didn’t know that much about it and couldn’t answer my questions, so I went to look at it. The location was in a low income neighborhood. A young man answered the door. I could see at least three children wrestling around on the threadbare rug behind him.

He led me around back of the house. I recognized the model and knew it was worth more than he was asking. Without being obvious, I probed for the story behind it.

His uncle died a couple years before and left it to him. He’d meant to take it out but never found the chance with the kids and work putting demands on his schedule. Then, he lost his job and was trying to think of what to sell off to stay afloat.

I offered him a hundred bucks over what he had advertised. He was puzzled, but I explained that was the market value. He was still bewildered but eagerly glommed onto the cash.

Over the years, I’ve heard people brag about how they stole a deal, inside and outside of the business world. But, I always remember the words of Will Rogers. “I’d rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the one who sold it.”

Blacker Friday

The flat screens at that loom over the exercise machines were filled with people venting their anger about the extended shopping hours of some store over the Thanksgiving holiday. The ire spilled over into the gym. “When they told my son he’s working, he was about ready to tell them to stuff the job along with their turkeys,” related Clem.

“Yeah, well Tyrone ought to be giving thanks that Walmart has standards low enough to employ his stupid butt. They’re probably the only ones who would,” replied Bob (Clem’s brother, I should add).

“Maybe so. But that doesn’t make him less pissed about being pulled away from his family in the middle of a holiday.”

“You mean, pulled away from the food and football games,” came back Bob, again.

I looked at the angry faces of the people being interviewed on television and listened to the tone of their voices. There was something else in there. Something that really galled them.

For decades, I’ve watched interviews with firefighters, nurses, utility workers and other who had to work holidays. Disappointment? Maybe. Outrage? No. If anything, there was some pride in that they were so essential, the world couldn’t keep spinning without them at their stations. I expressed this observation.

“So what you’re saying,” said Clem, “is that there was a good reason for them to be on the job. But, for those employed by some of the retail sweat shops, there’s no good reason for their butts to get dragged in, except the owners want to make a few more bucks.”

“And what really frosts them,” added Bob, “is that those owners are sitting at home, stuffing their faces.”

Close, but no cigar. What I hear in those voices is the anger of being deemed a commodity. They are being accorded no more respect, regard or value than the fry grease at McDonalds. They are used, replaced or discarded with little or no thought.

My opinion is that the conflict originates deeper than this latest decision. If they were esteemed by the management, some of them would be happy to take one for the team and make a few extra bucks, to boot.

Three things I'm not paying for

I read an article about banks backing off additional debit card fees in the heat of criticism. Pity. If I had a debit card, I’d deserve to get dinged. Why would I use a debit card when the reduction in my funds is almost immediate? I can use a credit card and make use of someone else’s money. I don’t pay a fee on the ones I have.

Another thing I wouldn’t cough up is a stadium seat license fee. You can put excessive club initiation fees in the same category. I should pay to be handcuffed to renewing a service? If the purpose was solely revenue, it would be built into the ticket prices or dues.

Why would I pay for vanity license plates when I can get a bumper sticker for a fraction of the price and change my mind about the sentiment any time I want? And just what is the money used for, anyway? So the governor’s wife can get to design an unneeded one and we get stuck with a 50-year supply (Ohio)? I’m not underwriting her whims.

The end is near

An acquaintance of mine teaches college. I just saw a posting of hers on the web, bragging about some of her students.

She boasted one wrote a paper of the Justin Bieber baby-daddy situation and another took on the Kim Kardashian wedding fiasco. “…and they both totally nailed the analysis.” No kidding, and this isn’t even a graduate level course?

And to think, I frittered away my modern culture education researching people like Bobby Seale and Ralph Nader. I should’ve been writing a thesis on the Cowsills or maybe a treatise on Gilligan’s Island.

So, we’re inculcating the next generation of leaders with the priority that whom Kimmy is boinking this week is of paramount significance. Wonder what the outcome will be.

Socrates wept.

Say it ain't so, Joe

Law enforcement officers, social workers, mental health therapists and those in similar professions have high rates of depression. This is in part due to the fact that, day in and day out, they are immersed in the underbelly of society. I suppose the flip side of this is the buoyancy we feel when encountering the heights to which human nature can soar.

This week, I am anything but buoyant. I’ve lost one of the major underpinnings of my faith in human nature.

As a child, I was fascinated by biographies; Ben Franklin, Clara Barton, Albert Schweitzer, Harriet Tubman, Jim Thorpe, Joan of Arc, Andrew Carnegie, Harry Truman, and others who exemplified the potential of mankind. I wasn’t aware that I was perusing the sanitized versions that larded the school library.

My illusions began to shatter locally. The cop who walked the beat turned out to be on the take. A teacher was spirited away for reasons only hinted at. A priest was arrested.

Getting into regular newspaper reading was of no comfort. The musician turned out to be an addict, the star baseball player who corked his bat, the mayor who was on the take and so on. I recall graduating to works in the public library that revealed more about the founding fathers, such as they may have been motivated as much, if not more, by a quest for power and wealth than liberty and justice for all.

Over the years, I came to see all sides of prominent businesspeople, elected officials, directors of charitable organizations, educators, professional athletes and entertainers and others who society elevated to prominence. I lost the tendency to look outwardly for benchmarks to shoot for. Except, perhaps, for one case who was a shining beacon in a sea of refuse.

I first met Joe Paterno when he recruited at my high school. I was profoundly impressed with the time he spent with me talking about life in general, even though it was readily apparent that he saw no place for me on his team. Even then, before college athletics became a more unseemly commercial enterprise, I was moved by his emphasis on doing things the right way. I distinctly remember him fielding a question from the group about his not recruiting Joe Namath, a football icon in our state. He gave an account about going to visit Namath and quickly determining that he was not of the character he required in his players.

His quarry at our school was a quarterback gifted with all the athletic talents in the world but sullied with a prodigious sense of entitlement. My opinion of Paterno spiked when he kicked him off the team the following year for reasons that had nothing to do with football. I would later learn of similar actions he took against other outstanding players who failed to live up to standards of conduct.

Over the years, I would have a few contacts with him, directly or indirectly. Some years back, I called him seeking advice in behalf of a small college starting a football team. I was certain he didn’t recall who I was but he readily rendered assistance for them in addition to the requested counsel.

I watched him donate athletic scholarships back to academics, eschew the gaudy trappings for himself and his team and otherwise reflect an adherence to guiding principles. As college football sank more and more into the quagmire, he prominently ascended even higher above the muck. He was the one figure in any walk of life who was determined to do it the right way, regardless of cost. Or, so it appeared.

Now, the boots have been stripped off and the feet of clay are in the public limelight. It’s a very sad day, and not just for academia.

The hits just keep on coming

Some blogs back, I wrote about being engaged in a negotiation to trade a kayak. I said I checked the hits on my photo site to gauge how eager my prospect was to have it. Someone asked me how else I use that data.

I don’t very much or even look at it that often. But, sometimes it comes in handy. For instance, a couple weeks ago, I sent a proposal to a company about co-sponsoring an event with my group. I included a link to photos of a previous similar event to communicate the nature and scope. I asked the recipient to review the information and I’d call him in a couple days.

I watched the counter on those photos to see how many times he viewed them, if at all. There were no hits. I did the follow-up call anyway and, as expected, he acted ambivalent about the idea. Since there were no hits, I surmised he hadn’t delved into it and I had a fallback position ready, which worked out.

I alluded to a paddling event in my previous posting. The organizer emailed me to ask how I thought it went. I just posted the album link this morning, but checked the counter; over 11,000 hits already. I should footnote that isn’t the number of viewers. It’s the number of times any photo in the album was viewed. It’s one indicator of how much the trip was enjoyed although there are other variables (e.g. (number of participants and quantity of photos). My average event album draws about 6,000 hits so I was happy to report to her that she scored high. I could’ve gone into more detail (like which aspects of the event drew the most interest), but decided to keep it simple.

I guess it’s my business background. You establish benchmarks and measure everything you do against them so you know how you’re doing and what you need to adjust.

It's a beautiful thing

It all started when I was researching places to paddle in the Florida panhandle. Paddlers living there were only too happy to offer suggestions and advice. In the process, I was invited to join an event that included several of the paddling clubs.

It was only a few weeks away, but I managed to pull it together and go down for a long weekend with a member of my club. We launched the first day with paddlers representing almost a half dozen organizations. By the first turn in the river, we were sharing experiences, observations and jokes. By lunchtime, we were like one group.

It’s like that with some other avocations but paddlers seem to share a special bond. It may be rooted in a love of the sport, appreciation of nature, the spirit of fun that pervades or all the above. I don’t know for sure.

But, it’s a beautiful thing.

One picture is worth...

I was emailing with a leader of another paddling club about setting up a joint event for our organizations. That concluded, I complimented her on what a fine club she runs. She said that she was just about to say the same thing to me and wondered what I keyed on when I made the assessment of her group.

I went through the metrics you’d normally employ (events, members, growth rate, participation in board discussions, etc.) and asked the same question of her. There was a pause before she replied. “I was going to say I looked at your event photos, but that seems like a silly answer, now.”

Not really. A few years ago, I was approached by a PhD candidate working on her dissertation. She asked if I’d be willing to fill out an extensive questionnaire about our club. The gist was that she was researching photo analysis and wanted to compare results she’d draw from looking at our event shots to the answers to her questions. In exchange for my time, she would share the results.

That sounded interesting, so I asked what tools this entailed. She ran down a list that included body language, distances between people, facial expressions and a few other variables. Correctly anticipating my next question, she said it wouldn’t matter that some of the shots are posed. The analysis accounts for that and there are things we reveal anyway. She addressed another concern, saying that names were unnecessary, so there would be no violation of privacy.

I was a little dubious, but curious nonetheless. I agreed to do it and sent her a link to my photo web site, as she had requested. A few weeks later, I received her questionnaire. “Extensive” didn’t begin to describe it.

A couple months later, she sent the results. Surprisingly (to me), she had been amazingly accurate. She identified where relationships existed and their type and intensity. She zeroed in on who were the leaders, catalysts, issues people, introverts, class clowns, etc. While some of this may seem obvious, she put her finger on many things that wouldn’t be. Even where she appeared to be wrong, I found myself considering that maybe she wasn’t.

So, I told my fellow group leader her answer wasn’t silly. In fact, it was probably quite perceptive.

Through another's eyes

We recently completed a kayak trip and I posted photos from it on the web. Those included one of someone else trying out the kayak I took. Since I’m usually the one taking the photos, my boats and I seldom show up in the album and I give the appearances little thought.

Today I received an email from someone about the photo of the kayak. She went on for some length rhapsodizing about the sleek and graceful lines of it. Really?

I bought the boat primarily as a tripper. That is, its capacity for hauling gear. At the time, I also tried out a really hot stable mate but reeled in my lust and bought what I needed instead of what was tantalizing me. And, I opted for the less costly demo boat in plain gray (they call it “granite”) as opposed to the brightly colored new boats in stock. This was a pragmatic purchase.

I went to my photo site and called up the photo. It is one beautiful boat. I replied to the email and told her she was right. I just hadn’t taken the time to look.

Her response was that we seldom do and it’s good to look at our lives, relations, jobs, etc. through someone else’s eyes sometimes so we can really appreciate them.

Right again.

At war with the kilometer monkeys

This summer, I drove through a country to the north. I won’t name it but they use maple syrup as salad dressing and end most sentences with a question mark (eh?). And, they probably molest beavers. Yes, I’m a little peeved with the off-brand white people.

And, it’s not just because I encountered a McDonald’s up there that wouldn’t accept American dollars. McDonalds is American, you moose sniffers.

But, what set it off today is the receipt of an invoice for traversing their roads. Apparently, one or more of their glorified cowpaths was a toll road. In all fairness, there was signage. They were scanning plates. If you wanted to avoid the fee for that, you could send away for a transponder. Right. I have to be in Snug Harbour in three hours, so I’m going to pull over, download a transponder application, mail it and wait a couple weeks at the exit ramp for it to arrive. How about you put up a booth and I pay you now?

So, they recorded my plate and my own government was only too happy to sell me out to them with my private information. I’d like to take a gander at that agreement.

Fair is fair and I’ll take responsibility for any reasonable charge I incur. Let’s see, sixteen bucks for just under 35 km. That’s a buck and a quarter a mile, which strikes me as a little pricey, but okay. Three bucks for an account fee. Did I open or authorize an account? Okay, let’s not split hairs. And, $54 for the video because I wasn’t carrying the transponder. Transponder this! If they had a toll booth, the cost wouldn’t be anywhere near that much. This is highway robbery (literally).

I call the customer service number and get a young lady who sounds literate enough to function outside of her third world country. After putting me on hold a few times to check into some things, she informs me that the high fee is because I was driving a heavy truck. I ask her to define that and she replies that it’s anything over five tons.

First of all, when I’m up there, everything is kilogram this or kilometer that. You bring up an English unit and they look at you like a chimp. But, when it comes time to stick it to you, they suddenly know tons. Even if she’s referring to a metric ton, that’s more than a real (U.S. of A.) ton.

I inform her I drive a pickup truck and defy her to name three, no make that just one, pickup truck that even approaches five tons. She asks me to hold again while she checks the video. What is this, instant replay? If I’m wrong, do I get charged with a timeout?

She finally returns and informs me that she’s reversing the charge. And, she hopes I enjoy my next visit up there.

Yeah, like that’s going to happen real soon.

A guide for the corporate rebel

Chuck wants to leave his current employer and start a competitor. He was aware I had done that and sought my advice. Here it is.

1. First, don’t say, write, email or otherwise record your thoughts on this until you’ve done step two. It will come back and haunt you, probably labeled “Exhibit A.”

2. Retain a very good business lawyer. That would be someone who not only knows all the pertaining law and precedent, but who is skilled at rational negotiating resolution of issues. There will be a lot of emotion about this and someone who can calm the waters and resolve the conflicts outside of court will serve everyone well.

3. Be selective about which current co-workers you will allow to join you. Don’t relieve your future competitor of their problem children. The temptation may be to minimize their ability to respond by taking a lot of people, but you’re doing them a favor by hiring those who always have complaints, negative things to say about everything and who are at the center of most tension. Your job is to drive the new organization’s growth, not become the mayor of Loserville by accumulating the malcontents who will be attracted to the conflict inherent in rebellion. The same is true with problem customers and suppliers.

4. Be prepared to play hardball. No matter how much you toe the legal line, someone can still sue you. And, they will sue for an amount intended to rock you. Also, they will probably seek injunctions and take other measures to divert your attention and shake your resolve. Be mentally tough and ready for it and prepare your staff to do likewise.

5. Keep your eye on the ball. Companies who focus on their plans and goals do well. Those who obsess with their competitors often fail.

Philly this!

In his act, Texan Ron White takes offense at what Cincinnatians proffer as chili. “No self-respecting southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits,” avers Mr. Tipton in “My Cousin Vinnie. Brooklynite Tony Gizzi upon being served at an Italian restaurant in the heart of Missouri: “I ordered pizza, not grilled cheese.”

True believers take fierce pride in their regional cuisine, and I’m no different with the pride of Philadelphia: the cheesesteak. For many years, I have tried to ignore what several chains have tried to pass off with their ersatz versions. But, one has just crossed the line.

Arby’s recently introduced the “Philly” and more outraged I could not be. The first red flag and bit of weaselism is that they skirt calling it a cheesesteak. Because it’s not steak. It’s what they imagine roast beef to be, which is a whole other issue. The Philadelphia icon is the cheesesteak. So there is no “Philly” without that. Unless you’re a steaming pile of dog droppings trying to mislead the unwary public.

In addition, check the ingredients. Swiss cheese? You’re seriously going to try to pass this off as a creation from the heart of Guidoland? Aioli spread? “Spread” probably sidesteps the trap of actually having to include real mayonnaise, which is basically what aioli is. Mayonnaise on a cheesesteak? Gag! And aioli is French (gag again) and is mostly used with fish and vegetables. Arby’s needs to do some employee drug testing.

Let’s cut to the TV commercial, which approaches the product in hideous qualities. Some dork declares, “I know a good Philly and that’s a good Philly.” You know something that doesn’t exist? I discount the claim that this commercial was shot in Philly with locals. If it was, that declaration would be met with, “Philly this!” or, at the very least, “You suck!” Philadelphians are gourmets at the feast of insults.

Go to the Arby’s web site and your eyes are assaulted with, “Close your eyes and take a bite, you’ll feel like you’ve been teleported to the City of Brotherly Love.” You’d better be doing that well outside the city limits. Talk trash like that in Philly and close your eyes and you won’t be opening them.

I’m far from the only son of Philadelphia who is outraged and the web is aboil with commentary. We’ll put up with total government corruption, routine choking of sports teams and a high percentage of the female population sporting mustaches. But this crap will not stand.

Timing is everything

Oscar decided to paddle his kayak from his native Germany to Australia. I’m guessing he wasn’t your classic underachiever.

It would take years, but he did it. Along the way, he was subjected to attack, robbery, disease, imprisonment and other atrocities, primarily in the more backward countries along his route (India, Sumatra, Java, etc.), where he was also somewhat out of touch with the civilized world.

Given these years of trials and tribulations, imagine his relief when the coast of Australian territory finally came into view. Share in his joy when a cadre of police rushed to meet him. And feel his surprise when they dragged him off to prison where he would languish for more years.

He landed September 20, 1939, proudly flying the flag of his homeland (complete with swastika). That was just three weeks after Germany attacked Poland and came to be at war with Australia. Timing is everything.

How would you like to have been an Iraqi kayaker who crossed the Atlantic and landed at Battery Park at the end of September 2001?

Your case is paper thin

Through my various businesses and organizations, I landed on numerous prospect and customer lists. I suppose I could get myself removed, but it helps keep me updated on emerging technologies. Well, about as current as I can get.

Today’s communication from a printer made it worthwhile, if only for the amusement value. It was promoting the use of printing as a medium of prospecting and selling. It was a well thought out treatise on how the most important documents in history were printed on paper, paper is tangible, paper has good retention, etc., etc.

The argument was compelling and the writing finely crafted. And, it probably would’ve been effective had he not sent it out via broadcast email.

F***book

I previously blogged about the inaccurate stereotype of the grumpy old man. It isn’t me (feel free to differ). I’ve mellowed. The perspective is that time is limited on earth and the things and people who might’ve been worth the bother before carry no weight now.

And yet, some still manage to pierce the wall of indifference. I will grant them recognition for their extraordinary effort.

Taking top prize this week is Facebook, which some refer to, with reason, as F***book. Forget that they change the format, procedures, rules, etc. every seven seconds. That barely qualifies as an annoyance.

Every day, they inundate me with hundreds of friend suggestions. Why do they think I relate to the undertaker in Des Moines? Or, the basket weaver in Saigon? Doesn’t matter.

However, when I come across a fellow kayaker who I share some interest with and hit the friend button, FB grills me about if we are friends, co-workers, etc., warning that I may have my privileges suspended if I’m fishing. Whoa, back up the train!

First of all, upon registration, you ask the purpose of joining FB and include networking as a choice. Isn’t reaching out to those who share your interests networking? You promote FB as a networking tool and then threaten reprisals if I use it as such.

Secondly, what about that undertaker and basket weaver you shoved at me. Not to mention hundreds of others I have little or nothing in common with? FB recommends these complete strangers but warns about attempting to link with those whom I overlap with, under penalty of shutting off my friending and deeming me spam.

On the other end, I get these inquiries about people who have fired off friend request to me. FB is trying to verify that they are friend, co-worker or whatever so they can come down on them if they are not. No thanks. I can make my own decisions and don’t need FB to do it for me. And, I’m not going to abet FB in wreaking havoc on these people attempting to network by denying we have a prior connection. What I am willing to do is report every FB email I receive as spam. Have a taste of your own medicine.

Honorable mention goes to the Canadians, aka off-brand white people. In August, I was driving around Ontario, spreading tourist dollars to bolster their economy. En route, I drove on their equivalent to interstates, although some were designated toll roads.

If there had been a tool booth, I would’ve happily parted with the coin of the realm. But no, there were just signs, stating that they are tracking vehicles and you can save some money by buying a transponder and making it easier on them.

Right. I have to be in Snug Harbour in three hours, but I’m going to pull over, download a transponder application form, find a way to print it out, mail it in and wait at the ramp for the shipment. Get real.

I forgot about it until this week when an invoice arrived (they scan and trace your license plates). It was for $17 in tolls. Fair enough. Plus, $50 for not having a transponder. Tabernac! (Canadian cursing) I’ll gladly pay the toll. But, until you facilitate a reasonable way to pay it or acquire a transponder at the point of entry, you can suck maple syrup before you get the punitive fee.

That out of the way, I’m back to my mellow self.

So you want to be a CEO

I was treated to dinner tonight by a name you would recognize. He requested confidence, so I won’t even hint at his identity. I will footnote that this struck me as a little odd, considering the notoriety he’s seemed to enjoy, not to mention the large sums of money that went with it.

He’s come to grips with the fact that he’s at the end of that career and is eager to start a new one. He’s creating a company. His lawyer advised him to talk with a number of people about that and I was on the list.

I made a few of suggestions but the basic plan was decide what industry or company he had a passion for and approach an owner about employment that would transition into a buyout, giving him a chance to learn the ropes.

No sale. He wasn’t going to work for someone, he wanted to create his own thing from scratch that reflected him (and his name) and he wanted to do it now. He wasn’t that fussy about what industry and how it was trending, although he would like to do something cool.

There was more to it than that, but here’s what it boiled down to, although I’m not sure he was completely tuned in. He wanted the title of company president, the prestige of that along with being the founder, the corner office with a view and an army of minions poised to do his bidding. Whether or not it made money was almost irrelevant. He had money. Yes, but there’s more prestige in running something profitable.

Okay, this is easy. Kind of like designing a motorcycle that looks as hot as a Ducati but doesn’t have to match it in performance (or even run).

I gave him some basic building blocks of starting a company and asked if he had any questions about that. He wanted to know if I thought he should keep his present car or would a Porsche Panamera or Mercedes S class be more of a CEO image. He didn’t need me. He needed “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

I told him he didn’t have a passion for starting a company, which was what was required. What he wanted was to be a CEO. That didn’t seem to register and he just plowed ahead, almost giddy with the prospects.

When we were wrapping up, he laughed. “One thing I’m not going to miss is the nutty fans, especially the babes who try to latch onto you. Don’t get me wrong. Most of the people are cool, but there’s always a few who are just whacked out. I’ll be glad to move on from that.” Guess again.

I have found over the years that many employees covet the CEO’s position and think it’s all sweetness and light. They have no idea what the trials and tribulations are, especially in this area.

When you’re the CEO, you’re the authority figure. That’s fine, more or less, for the stable minds in the organization, which are the vast majority. But, there are others who have problems with authority. Or, some further out on the bell curve will engage in transference. That is, in their minds, the CEO becomes the former husband who dominated them, the father who never approved, the older sibling who bullied or some other figure who evokes inappropriate emotion and behavior.

I gave him the brief version although I don’t think it took root. In his eyes, I thought I saw him decorating his new office. Hope it’s big enough for his new fans.

Not enough of a difference

Some old friends got together for lunch and to get caught up with each other. So, the main topic was what we’ve been doing with our lives.

Jeff wasn’t among us because he was off touring the Greek isles. This trip came hard on the heels of one to New Zealand. Bruce explained that Jeff had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and was making the most of the life her had left. He was dying.

Bruce turned to me. “You’re living the good life. What’s your reason?”

“Same reason. I’m dying. We’re all dying. The only difference is that Jeff has some idea when.”

Not enough of a difference for me.

Weird

Thursdays were pretty intense at high school football practice. One day before the weekly game and players and coaches were ramping up into a frenzy. Thursdays were the days we had the most fights in practice. Thursdays were the days you could get a hard kick in the ass from a coach. Literally. Things were different then.

The blood was in the water and we smelled it. This is not a drill. The ears were laid back and the teeth were bared. Snap your chinstrap baby ‘cause I’m comin’ for ya.

So, it didn’t pass without notice when the head coach left the field about a half hour into practice one Thursday. But, notice was about all we gave it. There was work to be done.

Not long after he disappeared, an assistant coach looked toward the building, nodded and blew his whistle. He told us to double time it into the locker room. Someone asked why and he said because he said to and meant right now. No one was ever too happy after messing with coach Hart, so we ran in.

The head coach was waiting there with a weaselly looking guy with slicked back hair. He could’ve been a mob button man or maybe a repo guy. But, he wasn’t. “Guys, I want you to meet Al Davis. He runs the Oakland Raiders.”

Davis eyed us for a few seconds. “Youse guys are probably wondering what I’m doin’ here,” he said with a heavy Brooklyn accent. “You probably know we drafted Harry, who some of you probably watched play here. Maybe even knew ‘im. Anyway, the minute he put on his cleats, I knew he was Raider material. I asked ‘im where he got his attitude and he told me right here. I told myself the next time I got back east, I was gonna see dis place and here I am.”

There were a few moments of silence before Jerry said, “Forget this happy sh**. We got Wilson coming up tomorrow.”

The coach started forward but Davis held out his hand. He grinned. “That’s the attitude I’m talkin’ about.”

Jerry was a halfback and had all the flab and softness of a leaf spring off a Buick. He was as fit as they come and one of the toughest guys I’ve ever come across. At the end of that brief meeting, Davis told Jerry he’d be keeping an eye on him.

Starting that day, I kept an eye on Davis. I watched him build the winningest franchise in all of professional sports.

Yesterday, Davis died. So did Jerry. Weird.

Aliens

There’s a scene in “Men in Black” where K is telling J that aliens have lived among us for some time and shows him a split screen of some of the wackier celebrities, politicians, etc. The implication is that they’re obvious if you give them any thought.

But, that’s fiction. The part about those people, I mean. In reality, there are aliens among us and I know who they are.

I returned to the gym today after a week’s vacation (and a couple days to recover from the vacation). While I was gone, someone evidently added a few pounds to each weight plate and lengthened the running track. Fifteen minutes into the workout, I was sweating enough to float an aircraft carrier.

I heard a greeting. Wiping the burning sweat from my eyes, I was able to make out Ed standing in front of me. He was returning from two weeks of vacation travel.

He told me he was signed up for one of those team races the coming weekend where you cover ridiculous distances with various forms of human powered locomotion in an attempt to generate extreme pain and induce cardiac arrest. And, you get a t-shirt. His partner became disabled (gee, what are the odds?) and he wanted to know if I would sub.

Here’s a guy who’s been off his program twice as long as I have (although I spent my week as though the plane was going down) and he’s ready to go out and pump his limbs across half a small state. It’s going to take me a month just to get back to where I can make the control panel on the stationary bike light up.

He’s not the only one. Another friend who doesn’t train at all, as far as I know, called me last year and asked what I was doing that weekend. I told him I was competing in an open water swim across the Ohio River and back. He said that sounded like it could be a hoot and asked how he could sign up.

I trained for six months and my heart was about punching through my chest at the finish line. He had no preparation and not only finished, but beat me. And then, I crawled out of the water and found him trying to pick up the woman who had driven me to the race.

When I was in high school, I competed in water polo during the summer, up until football practice started in August. Water polo is somewhere between sprint swimming and wrestling, making it an exhausting workout. The first week of football practice included running up and down the bleachers in the heat of the day. Gary, who spent his summers working in a frozen custard stand, would lap me on the stands, barely breathing hard.

Humans, like me, sweat, strain and grunt to achieve some small measure of muscle tone and endurance, however fleeting. These others, my friends, are the aliens.

Popcorn

If money was no object. We’ve heard the phrase many times but it’s never been the case for me. Even at the peaks of my entrepreneurial career when I indulged myself somewhat, I never let go of my blue collar roots. I always think I could be back to living on pork n’ beans tomorrow, so I keep a good cushion for a soft landing. And, as I’ve aged, material things mean much less compared to the true joys of life.

But, I have had a taste of the high life now and then. This past week was the latest.

I had visited the enclave of the Midwestern very rich decades ago. I was starting a business and went to visit a potential investor at his place in northern Michigan. He picked me up at a small airport and drove miles up the coast, turning down a long driveway with overarching trees. That led to a house on the lake with a dock out back, equipped with runabout, sailboat, jet ski and a few other water toys. We entered and I was struck by the high ceilings, rich woodwork, polished marble, beveled glass and other details that are usually too expensive to be from the present day. “I hope you don’t mind being quartered in the guest house,” he intoned seriously. This was the guest house? It was about double the size of anywhere I had lived. I won’t even attempt a description of the palatial principal residence.

Nor will I try to describe the lifestyle, other than to say that you do nothing for yourself that a small army of help couldn’t do for you. And, that no item, no matter how prosaic, escapes the quest for the best. I can live without gold plated bathroom fixtures but apparently they can’t.

That was a little more extreme than last week, but was good preparation for it. The home became available for our use through an acquaintance of my traveling companion. It lies within the bounds of a gated community in a posh area of northern Michigan. Like many such communities I’ve seen, this one had its own golf course. Unlike some, it also had its own riding stables. Wait, I’m not done. It backed up to and included several mountains (such as mountains are in that area) and had its own ski slopes and lifts. You could practically walk out your back door and be swept up to the summits.

That’s why it was available now. The owner skis, but doesn’t indulge in the other activities. It’s a different mindset to plop down few million on a place you’ll use only a portion of the year.

One of the first things my companion wanted to do was to go into town to shop. Okay. She’s the host. I’ll play. She might’ve sensed my slightly less than enthusiastic reaction because she added, “They have an outdoors store.” Now we’re rockin’.

We entered a clothing store and she went left to the women’s section. I went right and was scanning the sports shirts, looking for something that wasn’t well into three figures.

An elegant woman approached and asked if she could help me. “Yeah, tell me why this shirt is worth $250.”

From her expression, you might think I had asked why water feels wet. “Why it’s a (brand I’ve never heard of and don’t recall).”

I could’ve pointed out it was still just cotton, dye, etc., but it was obvious I still just wouldn’t get it. She moved on to more promising prospect.

We wended our way through a few more such shops and finally arrived at the promised pot of gold. The outfitter. I managed not to trample my friend entering, but just.

It was unlike any outdoors store I had ever seen. To begin with, there weren’t the usual stacks of clothing. Everything was artfully laid out like a high end department store. The brands were not only the top echelon but the highest strata of those lines. While my closet does contain some of these logos, it’s invariably because I bought them through one of the liquidation sites carrying last year’s designs at clearance pricing.

This was heaven. But, the price tags were hell. The standard (for this village) impeccable clerk inquired if she could be of assistance. “Do you have discount racks with season-end stuff?” I thought I detected a flinch at either “discount” or “racks.”

“We don’t usually mark down. But you might find something of interest there.” She indicated a single display. At my customary Bass Pro of Dick’s Sporting Goods store, there would be multiple racks and tables of clearance items. Here there were a few lowly remnants on a table off to the side. I found one very cool jacket in my size that was discounted a hundred bucks. I didn’t need it but how cool would that be? I mustered up my self control and moved on.

I arrived at the paddling department, the Holy Grail. Inventory was sparse, perhaps making room for the upcoming ski season. However, there was one outstanding example of the British kayak industry. $3,900. “She’s beauty, isn’t she?” I turned to find a man who I would learn was the owner of the store and a fellow paddler.

“To say the least. Any wiggle room in the price?”

He smiled. “I think I know why you’re asking but, no. Around here, people buy those boats like popcorn. In this town, those are the expensive kayaks.” He indicated a couple cedar strip boats with intricate inlays that carried five figure price tags.

We chatted a bit, exchanging paddling experiences, but it was time for me to go. The jacket still loomed in my mind and I grabbed it before good sense could reassert itself.

I was getting rung up when a woman breezed by the counter. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt (albeit of a designer origin) and jewelry worth more than my first house. “Have those skis and boots sent to the house, Gina. And, by the way, Justin is getting ready to go back to school in Florida and he’d probably like that pretty blue kayak (the $3900 one). Have that sent over, too.” Apparently people like her don’t have to be rung up, much less carry their goods.

And, around here, people buy those boats like popcorn.

Falling for fall

It was the summer of ’84. I had qualified as a trip leader for the paddling group I was a member of and had organized some events. It was fun and I hungered for more.

But, the talk was of the season ending. Ending? Why? People ski, skate and snowmobile in the winter, why not paddle? You’re moving a lot slower through the cold air than with the other sports. And just who invented kayaking anyway?

Maybe winter wasn’t the most attractive option, but how could you miss with fall? I organized and posted a canoe trip in the Hocking Hills of Ohio.

A dozen hearty souls signed up. Much of the rest wrote it off as folly.

The weather toward the end of October is a crap shoot in Ohio. You can either get Indian summer or cold winds driving snow or sleet. We lucked out. The weather was gorgeous. Ensuing word-of-mouth was that it was a blast. I planned another the following year and the number doubled. I’ve done one almost every year since and, except for a few when the weather forecast was severe, sold out every one. It’s hard to beat fall for paddling.

Last year we went down into Kentucky and had a lakeside campsite. It was a great time and this year’s event sold out almost a month ahead of time.

It’s one of my favorite trips of the year and that’s saying something. I’m leaving on a pretty sensational trip of another kind tomorrow and still have the fall trip in the back of my mind. The brilliant color, smell of the campfire and laughter of many friends around it. It’s hard to beat fall for paddling.

The Hardest Part

Today was a doubleheader. Some of my former employees at a mental health clinic called to ask about something. I haven’t worked there since I arranged its acquisition over two years ago by a much larger organization. I discussed what they wanted to but had to ask why they were coming to me instead of their home office.

The answer was nebulous; unclear in a way that indicated they really didn’t want to get specific. I could read between the lines, but there’s room for error in that. However, I thought I knew.

The second call made me think I was right. By coincidence, it was from Russ, a patient of the same clinic. It hadn’t been unusual for him to call when I ran the clinic. Or, others like him. Certain mental defects cause people to see conspiracies, plots, slights, etc, in almost anything. And, always being frothing at the mouth and on a rant goes hand-in-hand with that. Convinced they were being victimized by the employees, they demand to go straight to the top with their issues.

That would be me. I didn’t have to see them or take their calls, but it made it easier on everyone. Except, if they were armed, and then it was a bit stressful on me.

I always kind of enjoyed this guy. He’s a college professor and no idiot. It amused me that he would always preface his complaint with, “Look, I understand I’m a lunatic, but hear me out.” I’d hear him out.

He called me a few times after I left, but I hadn’t heard from him in a long time. When he called this time, I had to interrupt. “Why are you telling me this? You know I don’t work there anymore and must realize I can’t do anything about it.”

There was a long silence and I thought Russ might’ve hung up. Finally, in a quiet voice he asked, “Do you know what the hardest part of being mentally ill is?” It was a rhetorical question. “Everyone ignores you.”

That’s also why I think I received the first call. The new home office doesn’t listen to them. That may be the hardest part for anyone.

Addendum: Someone already pointed out that if Russ was complaining to me about the service he was getting at the clinic, he did have a therapist and, therefore, someone listening to him. And, what about family and friends?

While he did have a therapist, he looked at it as she was paid not to ignore him. Russ differentiated between that and me taking his calls.

He applied a similar standard to family. Some had to abide by virtue of the living arrangement. The rest maintained some distance.

He had very few friends, partly by his own doing. He surmised that those who surrounded him were fellow pariahs and it depressed him to see himself reflected in that group, so he cut off contact. He was still largely rejected and ignored by normal people, like others of his ilk, which is what he means by the hardest part.

Tripping

A paddling friend invited me to do something this weekend and I said I’d be away, taking a little vacation. He observed it must be quite a break planning a trip for myself instead of our paddling group. One would think.

And one would be wrong. Let’s begin with the trip concept. For the group, I solicit some ideas, opinions, preferences, etc. I boil that down to a choice that seems to engender the consensus of the group and post it on the calendar. That’s it. If it appeals to you, fine. If it doesn’t, don’t go. You’re getting a free organizer/guide. If you want something that fulfills your specific personalized needs, hire your own guide or a travel agent.

It’s a little more complicated on the other end. I ask my traveling companion what she’d like to do. “You know what I like. Come up with a few ideas.” I know what she likes? You mean, this week or two weeks from now? If I had those powers of prediction, I’d be going to Vegas and playing the wheels. And, I’d have a better chance of being right.

I have two choices. I can say I don’t know her preference and need for her to just tell me, suffering the consequences. Or, I can go through this initial round, be wrong, get mildly admonished and move on to round two. I’ll go with mild.

That provides some additional direction and I generate that list, which of course will still prove to be inadequate. But, in being told why it falls short, I acquire some additional specifications. This cycle will repeat three or four more times until we have a winner and she beams with delight. Then, she’ll get a serious look. “This is something you want to do, isn’t it? The trip is for both of us.” Hasn’t that been made obvious in this process?

Actually, it is okay with me, but the screening has been subtle. Any concepts that aren’t appealing to me never make the list presented to her.

Now it’s time to research and make arrangements. While some of our group expeditions may appear complex, all they really want is access to the water and a small slab of ground to pitch a tent. It can be more than that, depending upon the subset of the group and type of event, but it’s usually pretty simple to research weather forecasts, tides, and other key variables. It really isn’t that hard to exceed the free services expectation.

Not so when you’re traveling with someone who views keeping a thousand balls in the air as child’s play. She’s expecting that every minute alternative for every aspect of the trip has been surfaced and the perfect choice has been selected and confirmed. How do you find the thread count of the sheets used by this B&B and if that restaurant uses real butter in their sautéed vegetables? And, of course, the itinerary will contain an extensive detailed timetable. I’ve shot myself in the foot by being good at this on previous occasions, raising the expectations.

For our group events, I pack a toothbrush. And, a paddling outfit. If the trip lasts less than a year, one outfit is more than enough.

On the other side of the coin, I have to add a razor and other grooming products. Then, I consult the itinerary and must pack the appropriate garb for each entry. She’ll change clothes a few times a day to suit each event and I have to approximate the pace. A medium duffel bag gets me through almost all paddling events, but we’re talking a large suitcase here. For me. She’ll triple that with her road ensemble.

Virtually everyone has been happy with our group outings. There is almost always a small percentage that lives to wallow in issues, as there is in the macro arena of life. When the few lodge their complaints, I smile politely and say I’m sorry it wasn’t to their satisfaction. And, I’m glad as all getout I’m not living your miserable life that dwells in the negative aspects of everything. I don’t say that.

Sidestepping the gripes isn’t an option on the private side. When the dissatisfaction is expressed, I have no choice but to bring things into compliance. Oh, I do have a choice. But, I have to think of how I want to spend the rest of the trip.

So, all in all, it’s easier to plan the group trips. But, I’ve been tongue-in-cheek here about the personal ones and wouldn’t do them if they weren’t extremely enjoyable.

New Relationships

I previously wrote about the maiden voyage of a kayak I built. The design and characteristics of the archaic skin-on-frame boat were alien to me and fomented some trepidation going into that. So, shaking down a manufactured boat should be a walk in the park, right?

Not if the boat is toward the high end of the performance spectrum, which is where a recently acquired kayak resides. These kayaks will reward good technique but punish bad. The temperatures are getting a little cool to fully enjoy going to school on my faults.

Having some following means you held to congruency in words and actions. Therefore, I wasn’t totally surprised when someone asked why I would buy an expensive kayak without having paddled it. I have preached try-before-you-buy, especially if you’re not willing to eat the cost on a gamble. That’s not always easy if the seller is distant, which was the case here.

However, I had previously test paddled the plastic version of the boat. While manufacturers give some of them the same model designation as their composite counterparts, they are seldom really the same kayak. But, you can get an idea of what the stable mate will be like.

I found the plastic one to be very responsive and exciting. That ran contrary to some reviews that described the boat as too twitchy. I’ve learned to take those with a grain of salt. They may reflect a design trait but could also indicate a shortcoming of the paddler. This could be a tossup. Even though the plastic version didn’t feel excessively twitchy, the finer lines of a composite could push it over the line.

The opportunity to shake down this boat I chose was an outing with a paddling club. Not wanting to an audience for the trials, I arrived an hour early to put the boat through its paces. I launched and paddled to the beach area of the lake. This way, should I mess up, there was a nice sandy bottom. Paddling is about confidence and anticipating failure can undermine that. But, to avoid slogging through the mud, I was willing to take the precaution.

The boat readily leaned to the edge of the cockpit rim as I executed some turns and other prosaic maneuvers. So far, so good. A power boat went by and I used its wake to gauge the boat’s reaction to choppy water. Probably more accurately, I was measuring my performance in that boat. It went well.

Now for some rolls and other acid tests. At that moment, a girl’s rowing team rounded the bend in five sculls. Oh good, I really need spectators for this.

I quickly flipped over, hoping to get in the roll before they noticed me. Too quick. In my haste, I had neglected to affix the nose clip and I was inhaling lake water.

In a real world situation, I probably wouldn’t be wearing the clip but this wouldn’t take me by surprise. In this case, I was subconsciously expecting the protection and didn’t react fast enough. So, I lost a little cool and rushed the roll. A panic roll doesn’t work and this was no exception.

Regaining composure, I reset and the kayak responded with a perfect rendition. The girls had pulled even and gave me a cheering ovation. I simply waved, unable to vocalize with a lung full of water. I managed to wait out their passing before coughing it up.

Having successfully passed that threshold, I threw myself into a series of different kinds of rolls, remembered the nose clip this time.

It’s a bit like establishing a new relationship. You’re learning the reactions and testing the limits with worst-case scenarios. As with other relationships, if there’s going to be problems, better to find out now than later.

Absolution

It’s been over ten years but I recognized the name engendered in the email address. I hadn’t communicated with Ed since we did the deal with Bill at that time, and it’s no coincidence.

The email linked to Bill’s obituary. Ed added that he was happy to see that it was the result of a lengthy illness and that the dogt**d hadn’t gone peacefully in his sleep. I felt neither joy nor regret. The past is the past.

I first did business with Bill when I was a young employee of another company. He sold me something and sent the purchase agreement. I perused it and signed it. Later, the hidden costs emerged. Our verbal agreement wasn’t accurately reflected in his written contract but the differences were cleverly hidden. Or, at least cleverly enough to get by someone still a bit damp behind the ears. I would learn that this was SOP for Bill, but had paid the tuition of looking bad in front of my boss.

Bill was notorious for his sleazy tactics but still managed to build up a business through fanatic effort and taking advantage of the unwary. He consistently increased revenue, but not profits.

Ed’s reference to him wasn’t without meaning. Bill had been asked to speak at a chamber of commerce luncheon about his selling techniques. During the ensuing Q&A, someone asked why Bill hadn’t mentioned that his primary tactic was fabricating and spreading malicious stories about his competitors so everyone here would know what a dogt**d he really was. I recall expecting an embarrassed murmur as this seemed out of place in such a venue. But, one person started clapping slowly and emphatically, and that grew into an ovation. I guess when you’re a dogt**d, you’re a dogt**d.

Bill’s response was also interesting. He just grinned in delight. He had no shame about being a sleaze and, in fact, took pride at being good at it.

I went on to have businesses and Bill would sometimes call on me. I was certain he didn’t remember our previous encounter because I had just been one of thousands of marks for him. I hadn’t forgotten, but just declined his offers.

Years later, Ed approached me with a deal. Bill’s business had grown to be quite large due to an economic trend and he decided to cash in while he was riding the wave. It still wasn’t making much money though and he needed us to fatten it up for the kill. I took that as he needed someone with my skills and was using Ed to get to me. A lot of people knew that Ed and I went way back to college and were good friends.

I told Ed that, given the reputation Bill had earned, it would be crazy to have anything to do with him. Ed agreed that it would appear that way. But, we would get a substantial cut of the amount that the sale price exceeded current value and he had one of the silk stocking law firms comb through the agreement he and Bill had hammered out, eliminating any loopholes. What he didn’t add was that his own recent business failure had put him into a hole and that he really needed this.

The money didn’t matter that much in my decision. I let Ed’s predicament cloud my judgment.

I could’ve written the script. We fattened the calf, Bill sold it and screwed us out of our money. Somewhat oversimplifying it, Bill sold the company to someone for the original value, so we weren’t due anything. Then, in behalf of the buyer, he resold it to someone else for a much higher price, with his commission being the difference, less whatever he kicked back to his conspirator.

We went through the dance. I had a lawyer threaten a suit we all knew would just drag on for years with the lawyers bleeding us white if carried through. Bill’s lawyer countersued and then offered us the go-away money to settle, which we did.

Bill got away with it because Ed hadn’t had the deal scrutinized by a high power corporate lawyer as he had told me. In his insolvency, he didn’t have the money to do that and just looked it over as best he could, thinking he had caught all the pitfalls. Ed told me he knew it was wrong to deceive me but he didn’t anticipate any harm would come of it.

After the deal, I never had anything to do with Ed again. With the current email exchange, I could tell he was using the death to seek some kind of absolution and asked for forgiveness and a cessation of ill will. I told him I bore him no ill will but didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

When you’re a dogt**d, you’re a dogt**d.

Think you have a bad job?

Some time ago, I wrote about the worst job I had ever seen. At the time, I was in college and willing to do about anything to earn an extra buck. So, I signed up for every study, blood donation or whatever that came along.

Responding to a bulletin board flyer, I showed up at a warehouse one morning. We were issued an unlabeled tube of a substance to smear under our arms and a clean t-shirt. We then worked diligently, shoveling sand from one pile into another until we had all worked up a good sweat.

Then, we lined up and a man with a clipboard went from one to another, asking us to lift our arms. He would lean forward to the armpit and take a deep sniff, making notes. I deemed that the worst job I ever saw.

But wait, we have a new champion. Yesterday, we attended a barbecue at a friend's house. DJ, his son, was home and I got to talk with him. He's a bright kid, studying to be a physician's assistant.

He's into rotations and I asked if he's encountered any interesting things for his memoirs. He said the ER has provided some fodder, but the weirdest thing came in his training.

They were instructed in how to give a prostate exam (the "magic finger"). Then, they were each provided with two subjects to do it on. These guys were paid to be subjects and also to give the students feedback, which DJ found especially bizarre when one told him he had particularly gentle hands.

Now that's a bad job.

Bizarro follow-up: eating the black bird

I received some emails asking how the unfinished deal in the last blog turned out. That just occurred this afternoon and I’ll take my crow well done, thank you.

I got up this morning and took my counterpart’s pulse. That is, I checked the counter on my online photo site. Someone had been hitting the pics of the kayak last night that I had offered to trade to him and also wandered around the site. It was most likely him, so he was still intrigued.

Noting that, I should’ve avoided making a similar mistake. I scrolled through the photos of his boat that he had emailed. Oh, jeez. That boat is so hot and an once-in-a-lifetime shot at a package that would approach five grand new. That is to say, not-in-a-lifetime for me, because I wouldn’t shell out near that much for a kayak I’d paddle part time. With the fleet I have, all boats get paddled part time. I gazed at the beautiful lines and construction and issued an audible moan. Doh! Shouldn’t be doing this. I’ll go off to the gym and burn off the boat lust, awaiting his succumbing to his own ardor.

I sped through the workout with visions of his kayak dancing in my head, quite sure his capitulation would await me in the email inbox before the morning was out. I quickly showered and checked my Droid. Yes! There it was. Good thing I stretched because it made it easier to pat myself on the back.

His email began with a repeat of the great sum he had paid for the boat and its accessories. Back to that again. Then he went into how his boat was universally acknowledged as the epitome of kayak design and was constructed of the most high tech materials, while mine was basically pedestrian. Whatever.

This wasn’t sounding good. More like he was dug in, which turned out to be the case. Except he was offering to meet me halfway location-wise to make the swap, which was something. He ended by saying that this was his final offer. Really. Really final. Absolutely final. Okay, I get it. He’s a little irked that I had baited him from his last final offer and he’s not going to lose another point regardless of what it costs him.

But, it was a little incongruent with what I had been reading. In this email, he had inadvertently revealed some personal data. That would enable me to do a web search and gain more perspective.

This yielded results including photo albums of his fleet, which was very impressive. Forget the plea of desperation. He was already sitting on a cache of expensive kayaks so it would be no big deal to him to wait out the winter. The money wasn’t all that important. And, as a footnote, his meandering around my web site probably told him much the same about me, leading to his hardened position.

Do I dig in my heels, which would probably scotch the deal with someone so intent upon winning? Do I walk away, playing for the draw? Or, do I give him the victory and drive away with the dreamboat?

Life’s too short, which was reinforced this week with the death of another high school classmate. Keep your eye on the prime objective, which is to get the boat, not win the game.

I took the deal.