Baggage

I give up on baggage, I have been through so many suitcases in the past 15 years that I have lost track.  Luggage gets busted up in travel, fabric gets torn, zippers snapped, wheels break off.

I keep three basic sizes, a 20 inch "carry on" good for a one or two night trip - if I am not carrying a lot of extras.  A 24-26 inch bag, for trips of 2-5 nights.  This is my general purpose utility bag, if the trip is purely leisure, in warm weather, I can get a week or more out of this size.  Even full, I am able to keep these under 40 pounds and easy to haul.  I also keep at least one large bag, 28-29 inches.  I have to watch these or they run overweight.  I use them for longer trips, or road trips giving me the freedom to pack carelessly.  Sometimes I carry two bags, the mid sized and the carry on.  I have done this on longer trips to Europe, carrying the small bag on board and checking the larger one.  I also do it when I drive to Florida and spend a week with family, I pack the smaller bag with what I am going to wear coming and going and carry it into the hotels between here and there, and the larger bag I pack with what I am going to wear while I am in Florida.

It is time for a new mid-size bag, the current one suffered a puncture
on the trip to Hawaii.  Shopping I go.

Hey Tony!

I was wondering the side streets of lower Manhattan, headed into the financial disctrict when I stumbled across LesHalles.  One of many old school French restaurants in New York City.  What sets this one apart is a former chef.  Tony lead the kitchen for a decade, dealing with his personal demons, writing a couple of crime novels and then a book about life in a restaurant kitchen, "Kitchen Confidential."  That book launched Anthony Bourdain as a celebrity.  First is was interviews about the book, and life in the back of the house, then TV came calling.  A Cooks Tour was quickly followed by No Reservations, and now Parts Unknown. I love his writing style, a mix of exploring the local culture and politics through the lens of local food and drink.  I had already had lunch when I came across LesHalles, I will have to go back again.

Well that was unexpected

In nearly 7 years in the DC area I have seen a lot of things, but coming across a roach on the floor of the men's room was unexpected.  They say roaches have been here longer then humans, and will likely be here long after we have gone extinct.  The "scientists" that rant about the impact of humans on the earth and sound so concerned about the long term existence of the earth and the environment, generally bug me.  The earth will survive, the environment is remarkably resilient.  Look at Chernobyl, 30 years after people and nature is slowly taking back the place that mankind has most severely messed up.  Roaches have succeed at outlasting civilizations despite our efforts to have them all leg side up on the floor.  Mankind may go extinct, when we do, the earth will heal, the environment will find balance, and the roaches will live on. Well this roach won't, I made sure he was truly dead before I left the room, it takes a lot to stop the antennae from moving.

Hotels

I have kept a log of hotels that I stay in for over a decade.  Frankly, they all run together after a while, few of them stand out.  This is the atrium of the Marriott in Covington, Kentucky. The hotel is on the river, overlooking downtown Cincinnati. Beyond that, it is just another nice Marriott.  It is rare for a hotel to stand out. Occasionally the view is spectacular, a great view of a great city, an airport, or a nice water view.  In January I had a nice suite in southern California for a couple of nights.  Not a spectacular view, but  nice living room and separate bedroom. Rarely does the decor stand out, when it does sometimes it is because it is hideous - I remember one near Stanford that was overdone in a frilly colonial.

TBT

 Born Mary Louise Broadhurst in Swansea, Wales in about 1890, this is my paternal, maternal, great grandmother.  My father's mother's mother.  She lived to about 90.  As a teenager she married an English miner, turned tunnel builder.  She had two children while living in London, then on the eve of World War I, my great grandfather landed a job digging tunnels in New York City and they moved. They had a third child after moving to the USA. The nature my great grandfather's work involved moving every 2-3 years as a project was finished.  They lived in New York, Memphis, Toledo, Chicago, and Detroit.

She was widowed around the time I was born, and lived in a second floor apartment in her youngest daughter's home for a decade. That ended when the daughter's alcoholism made that no longer safe. She then moved in with my Grandparent's on the farm, literally around the corner from my parents home.  By that time in life, she was legally blind with a lot of health issues.  She walked almost everyday up and down the sun porch on the back of the house and spent hours listening to the radio.  I can remember her speaking in Welsh, once or twice, as a child it frightened me.  When I was a teenager, she got sick one summer, she was in the hospital for a while, then admitted to a nursing home.  She spent the rest of her life between a couple of nursing homes, surviving a broken hip.  Her mind remained strong, but her spirit was broken by illness and isolation in the nursing home.  She died during the summer of 1977, my last summer on the farm.    

Computers - Making Our Lives Better - Sometimes

So I was having this weird problem with Microsoft Word.  If I had a document opened from one drive, and went to open a document from another drive, Word would crash, and have to shut down and start over.  It was not allowing me to have two thoughts from different sources at the same time, well it would, when it got over it's "spell" both documents would be open.  A couple of minutes of lost time, but then I could do what I wanted to do.  So I emailed "customer care" and asked the IT people to fix it.

I know, I know, never call in the IT guys unless it is truly broken.  To fix this they decided they needed to reload Word, it is easier to reinstall Office, then it is to just reinstall Word - oh my!  When they finished, not only did I have the same issue with Word, but Outlook wouldn't allow me to log into the server, meaning no email and no calendar.  I tried, and failed.  The network administrator tried, and tried, and tried and I went to lunch, and he tossed the machine and replaced it.  So when I came back from lunch lots of things were missing. I have spent the afternoon getting software reinstalled, email syncing to my phone and recovering my calendar.  It does appear that we fixed the issue with Word - after about four hours and simply replacing the machine.  It is s good thing I am not being compulsive about being productive today.  Sometimes I understand why the windows in the office building don't open, if they opened we would either throw windows machines out the windows, or jump.

Updated: 7/15/2015
Now I can't print.  Well I can, my print requests are going to someone's desktop printer in Chicago.  I am in DC.

The Start of Another Day of Fun!

What can I say, that the rising sun does not say?  Each day we get a fresh start, a new chance to go forth and make our way in the world.  Any day that we wake up, not decomposing, is a day with potential.  What will I make of this day?

Bear Festival

One of my doctors suggested that I try swimming to work on the muscles in my back.  At one time I swam 100+ miles per year, now that was 25 years ago, but as they say you never really forget how.  The condo has two pools.  An indoor pool that is open year around and a large outdoor pool that is open in the summer.  I have lived here about 6 years and had never used the pools.  I decide to start using what I am paying for.  Pleasantly, within 10 minutes or so I remembered how to swim.  It feels good to move, my endurance is steadily increasing.

I came home Friday afternoon a couple of hours early, the weather was bright and sunny with a temperature in the high 80's, so I headed off to the pool for a nice swim.  I finished my laps (15 minutes) and was lounging in the water.  I looked around and realized that I was surrounded by a crowd of large, fuzzy, hairy older people.  It looked like a geriatric bear festival.  In the Gay community bears are large, kind of round and hairy.  Bears are a subset of the community, people who are not afraid proud of their body image and people who like being around them.  Jay and I have grown into being bears (if we like it or not.) He has always been my sweet bear, and there is more of him to love then there was when we met 23 years ago.  There is a whole lot more of me then their use to be. When we met I was still swimming a couple of miles a week, and running 15-20 miles per week, and riding my bike 100 miles per week, working 50 hours per week, taking college classes two nights a week, sleep was optional, I didn't own a television.  As I slacked off, I rounded out and I very much fit the body of a bear.  Now if I can only become comfortable with this body (hey it is the only one I have.)

I have never been to a bear festival, but I have seen the pictures and there I am Friday afternoon in the middle of a crowd that would fit in well in the middle of any Palm Springs Bear Bust.  Well not exactly, they were all sober, and the average age was just shy of decomposing.

Then the bear crowd started to grow, as the men started to arrive and join in.

Newark!

Classic, old school, grungy, all words to describe the platforms at Newark,  If you fly into Newark, you take a shuttle train, the commuter train, take that into the Newark train station and then change to the subway.  I am not sure if this is the subway platform or the commuter rail platform, but one of the two.  My father would likely know, this is largely unchanged from when we was there during World War II.  If you dig around you might even find a cigarette but he dropped in 1945.

From John at http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/

From John at http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/ 

Well I Never

25  fascinating facts about me

1. I have been to 48  US states, and 11 countries 
2. I am well into my second career
3. In 1989 I took part in the US National Sprint Triathlon Championship 
4. I kissed a girl in the first grade 
5. I have earned two college degrees with honors (BA and JD)
6. I failed the first grade 
7. I married a woman once - it didn't work well for either of us 
8. I have been to the Disney Parks in Florida over 100 times 
9. I toured EPCOT when it was under construction and was a guest at a pre-opening party
10. I once had tea with the Archbishop of Canterbury 
11. I tried to learn how to fly as a teenager - never mastered the landings
12. I have touched the Liberty Bell 
13. I photographed Ronald Reagan 
14. I have been a licensed Real Estate Broker since 1980
15. I sold three houses on New Year's Eve in 1988
16. I am mildly dyslectic 
17. I learned to read without learning how to spell (16 and 17 are related.) 
18. I recently had a huge Schwannoma removed from my spine 
19. I have owned 15 cars (I only regret parting with one of them.) 
20. I am moved to tears by the recording of the first manned landing on the moon, I remember where I was when it happened 
21. I was just across the river from the Space Center for the first Space Shuttle launch 
22. I am ill prepared for retirement 
23. I regret most,the opportunities I passed on, not the risks I have taken 
24. I am going to ride a Zeppelin later this year 
25. I have touched a moon rock 

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a standout landmark building, a real symbol of New York City.  It is easy to pick it out of the crowded skyline, the first time I saw it was from 38,000 feet headed to London.  This is the ground floor elevator lobby, ornate and detailed, a masterpiece of art-deco, I did go to the top, I forget how long the wait was, but it was longer then I wanted to stand.  I will go back.  

TBT

I have long wanted to own something like this.  A car that moves in elegance, and comfort, that makes a statement.  But alas most of what we own, is transportation.  I am amazed when I look at the collector car market at the outrageous prices people are paying for common cars built in the 60's and 70's, while the market for true classics is languishing.  You can buy this Bentley for less then the price of a 1960's Chevelle, the Bentley was built to endure as elegant transportation.  Lets face it the American cars of the 1960's and 70's were throw away cars, designed and built to start falling apart as soon as the warranty expired.  I am a throw back to the past, I like my elegant luxury.

I am ready for my closeup!

A couple of times a year I get an opportunity to indulge in my agrarian roots.  I like farms, and farm animals.  I grew up in the middle of farm land, now we were not real farmers, bees are kind of hard to herd, but there were herds of cows, and pigs and flocks of chickens, ducks and turkeys around. Occasionally neighboring farmers would plant wheat or corn in the couple of tillable fields on the farm, for a decade there was five acres of alfalfa in the  back corner of the biggest field.  I like the look of crops growing, all the neat rows, the maturing, the abundance of grain.

I have driven a tractor a few times, kind of fun, the first time was a monster four wheel drive machine, capable of tilling 100 acres in a day.  There was a time when I thought I wanted 10 acres in the country with room for pigs and chickens, but farming is hard manual labor.  I don't do manual labor.  But I can admire a nice farm, when I travel I am always on the lookout for a farm, or country fair.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls, I have been there twice, the first time was 15 minutes on the US side only, the second time we stayed on the Canadian side overnight.  I remember two things on the hotel, the doorman mistook my wombat for a beaver (a stuffed wombat who was traveling with us that summer) and the hotel had "free wired internet access" but the free didn't include the cable.  They wanted to charge $15 to "rent" a cable overnight.  Silly.

Travel Penguin was rather taken by all of the wonderful water, fortunately he didn't dive in.  I have fished him out of the Mediterranean, and a gator infested swamps in Florida, but I don't think I could get him out of this, he'd wash up in Niagara by the Lake, sipping Ice Wine no doubt.

Back to the World of the Living

We met friends for lunch Sunday afternoon in Old Town Alexandria.  It was nice to be out among the crowd.  Monday morning I am headed back to the office for the first time in two months.  I am looking forward to getting my bearings, figuring out my calendar and sorting through email.  Two graduate student interns that I recruited started in May, I get to see them at work, one of them I interviewed over the phone and have never met (I understand she likes to talk more than I do.) Then I will start looking at my projects and figuring out what has happened to them over the past two months and what needs to be done next.  I have a conference call to reschedule - a key person is on vacation and he didn't want to reschedule it before he left (sent me a text message asking me to.)  I need to verify that HR and the extended medical leave insurance company know that I an still alive and coming back to work.

For a couple of weeks I expect that my health will be the center of a lot of conversations, I am looking forward to that not being so. I am slowly returning to the world of the living.

What have I learned:
1) You never know when you won't be back tomorrow.
2) Don't assume that you know what is happening in your body
3) Most of the people in healthcare are there for you
4) Healing sometimes hurts
5) To move forward, sometimes you have to push
6) Some things take time

South Pacific

When I was a child, my mother had a couple of LPs of show tunes, Oklahoma and South Pacific.  As a tween and teen I listened to them endlessly.  I can still remember the lyrics of many of the songs.  We lived out in the middle of no-where, I never dreamed that I would see any of the shows.  So after the "Wind Comes Sweeping Across the Plains," my brain goes to Happy Talk.  I have see the movie version of South Pacific a few times and saw it live in "dinner theater" once in Florida  The most memorable line in "stingy bastard - stingy bastard."  My X used that line to describe me for weeks after that evening.  I kind of liked it.

Happy Independence Day

Happy Birthday America! 

Back Into the City

The dome of the capital is shrouded in scaffolding, repairing the cast iron for the first time in well over 100 years.  It is getting a newly extended life, I know the feeling, I was back in the City this week.  I am newly repaired, still coming back up to strength.  I attended a large meeting, with representatives of lots of organizations that work in the field.  I really felt it was important that I be there.  The rumor mill has been talking about me, how repairable was I, would I ever be back, could my priorities and points of view be discounted?  Guess what, I am back and getting stronger everyday.  Like the dome of the Capital, I am am better then before and ready for many years to come.

TBT - The Castro

This was taken sometime in the past 15 years, before digital - so between 10 and 15 years ago, on Castro Street in San Francisco.  For a gay man, going the Castro is a bit of a pilgrimage. There are interesting shops, restaurants, and bars. I am not much for bars and I have never gone to the Castro at night.  From Union Square you can hop a street car out Market Street to the end of the line less then a block from Castro Street.  A great way to visit.

Back to Meeting Land

I am about to dive back into the land of endless meetings, emails and phone calls.  I have been doing a few conference calls from home, frankly I am better organizing calls from at from home, then some people are at their offices.  Wednesday I am headed into the City to attend a meeting.  It is an important one, and will be the first official work function since early May. Meeting with an assistant cabinet Secretary about the future of the project that funds most of my work. If she does not have the Presidents phone number, her boss does.

I once watched a training video titled, "Meetings, More Bloody Meetings," produced by John Cleese.  After Faulty Towers, he went on to produce office training videos for a few years.  They were rather interesting. My office email disappeared from my phone a week ago. It was suppose to go in May when I went on extended paid medical leave, but somehow, they didn't kill my phone access.  As a result I have stayed in contact with what was happening, until last week.  The only ugly part of that is my calendar was also wiped off my phone, I only keep one calendar, and it is gone. The first week I was in the hospital, I billed 30 hours of work, all done on my cell phone.  I have joined meetings by conference calls from the car, the beach, mom's house, not a bad way to make a living. I have responded to office email from interesting locations, a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska, I think my all time favorite response to an office email started out as follows, "I am having lunch in Brussels and have a moment to respond."  That is dedication - or insanity.  There is a fine line between the two.