Five Questions About Being Bold and Going Places

This weeks theme is five questions about being bold and going places.  Give us more than simple yes, no answers, details, we want to hear the details.

1: Have you ever crashed a party?
2: Have you ever been backstage?
3: Have you ever crossed an international border, by accident?
4: Have you ever been turned away at the door of a restaurant because you were not "properly dressed?"
5: Have you ever out-pouted a French  maître d'hôtel ?

1: Crashed a party?  Shortly after I finished law school I went to an annual lecture held by the school at the Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville. Justice Scalia was the speaker that year.  I bumped into one of my former professors in lobby and we talked for a minute.  He said we are headed into the Brandies Society Reception, a private reception with the guest speaker for big dollar donors to the school, people who had donated $10,000 or more in the last year.  I said, oh, I don't have an invitation to that.  He said, just follow me and act like you belong there, no one will say anything.  He was right, very good champagne, and Scalia was rather funny.

2: Been backstage?  Does being in the tunnels under "Main Street USA" at Walt Disney World count?  I can't say how I gained entry, the person responsible still works for Disney and I think it is a firing offense. We went all the way from the employees entrance in the back lot to the fire station across from the train station. Even rode on one of the electric carts along the way.  We only had to hide behind a door a couple of times.

3: Crossed  an international border by accident?  Yep, I missed a turn when we were in Germany and ended up in France, for two minutes.

4: Been turned away by a restaurant based on what you were wearing?  Only once.  I was in Paris in January 1991 - just after the start of the first Gulf War.  It was a Friday, I was wearing jeans, a navy blue wool sweater (I still own it and wear it), a leather jacket, and hiking boots.  We were meeting an acquaintance for lunch.  Part of my dream of Paris was lunch at Maxim's.  The taxi pulled up out front, I opened the door to the taxi, and the doorman closed it.  I opened it again and he said, nooo! I stepped out and he proceeded to tell me, in his best snooty french style, that I couldn't enter the restaurant because I was not properly dressed.  I proceeded to tell him in my best arrogant American style, I would spend my money elsewhere.  And I did, we went around the corner, down a narrow street, and into a tiny restaurant and had one of the nicest and most expensive lunches I have ever had.

5: Out pouted?  Now I have to start by saying the French people are generally not snooty, or rude, they are welcoming, warm and inviting (at least by DC standards.)  But they do have their moments. About a dozen years ago, I got a wild hair, and we went to Paris for Christmas.  I was pissed at something my mother had said, and decided we would go do what I wanted to do one year without family.  So on Christmas Day, we were visiting the Eiffel Tower.  There is a restaurant on the first level, at the time it was called Altitude 95, being 95 meters above sea level (it is actually 57 or 58 meters above the ground and has changed names.)   I decided to see if we could get in for mid-day dinner.  The Maitre'd asked if we had reservations, and we didn't.  He stood there and silently pouted, and I stood there and silently pouted back - for about five minutes. He didn't tell me no, he was expecting me to turn tail and leave.  I didn't.  I could see they had open tables.  Finally one of the young ladies who was showing people to tables looked at me and said, deux? I replied "weee" and we were seated with a spectacular view. It was a wonderful adventure!

Bah Bah!

When I win the lottery, I will buy a farm someplace close by, hire a farm-boy - or two or three (I am not doing manual labor, but I will supervise and watch) and keep a nice flock of sheep.  I want to call it Black-Sheep Farm, and have a nice large flock of black sheep.  I'd like a huge garden, flowers, vegetables, fruit.A nice place to escape to for a day or two when I have had enough of the city.

Looking at the World

The older I get, and boy am I getting old, the more I come to understand that happiness is found in how I look at the world.

I see a world filled with diverse people.  Many of them have figured out how to do something better than I have, if I can find and learn that, my life is better.  

I hear a world of diverse sounds.  The rhythm  and beat of music, traffic and daily life differs as I explore this great adventure of life. I am loving online streaming music, I can mix something old and something new every day, hearing the world in new ways.  

I see differences in light, color, art, architecture and landscape. When a travel I take pictures, lots and lots of pictures.  When I look back through the archive of images, I see the awe and wonder of the adventure of the world, I catch a glimpse into the lives of the people of the world.   

My perception of the world is colored by my experiences.  My perception is my reality.  The deeper and more diverse my adventure, the more I see the good and happiness in the world.  

   

A top 10-World Must See

The Grand Canyon is on most every must see list of world attractions.  I have been there four times, twice as a child - one of my earliest vivid childhood memories, and twice as an adult.  It is an amazing whole in the ground.  The depths, the shapes, the colors.

Have you been there?

Olympian Challenge

How about a picture of an ancient Greek temple to start off a discussion of the massive challenge of hosting the modern Olympic games?

The opening of the Rio Olympics will be Friday of this week, hopefully plumbing works and most of the paint is dry.  Building the venue, the facilities for the Olympic games is a HUUGE project, with multiple and specialized arenas and stadiums, housing for thousands of participants, hotels for hundreds of thousands of of spectators, transportation infrastructure, security, food service, health care.  Maybe they should put the Donald in charge, he claims to be the best at HUUGE projects.

Moving the games around the world sounds like a wonderful idea, but the reality is that the only places that have most of the needed facilities in place, are places that have recently hosted the games.  Every host city struggles to build and pay for the specialized facilities, let's be honest there is not that much call for a "Velodrome," no city can afford to have housing for 10,000 participants set empty between games - every city builds the athletes village with a plan to convert it to housing for locals as soon as the games are over.  Even with the best of planning, host cities are left with specialized facilities and the astronomical cost of developing them.  It is likely impossible to recover the costs of non-reuseable facilities from revenue from the games.

Is it time, to move to a permanent host site.  I would suggest one of the recent host cities.  Beijing has air quality issues, London might be an option, my suggestion would be Athens.  The weather is wonderful, the people are welcoming and have a long history of catering to tourists, the venues are there.  Over a couple of cycles, the city could finish building out public transit and add some new hotels.  Every four years, the city would add a few thousand new housing units.  Greece is the historic home of the games.  I'd go. And we could send the Donald over there permanently to be in charge of this HUUGE project.  Double score!

Political Posting

I don't get it, I know five people who are planning to vote for Donald Trump, one is retired and the other four are unemployed and three of them do not have health insurance.  All of them are benefiting more from government programs and services than they are contributing.  All of them would be worse off with smaller government - none would benefit from lower taxes - because none of them earn enough money to owe any taxes.

All of them rant about the evils of Obama care.  The bottom line is they are disappointed that health care reform didn't result in them having health insurance coverage.  They want to repeal the affordable care act - doing so won't result in them gaining health insurance coverage.  What they really wanted, was free health coverage, universal health care, a national health care program.  Two of the three have significant health issues, they really need coverage. If they have a life threatening illness - they get treated and billed for care, bills they will likely never pay .  If an illness is not life threatening, they only get the care they can pay for out of pocket.

One is constantly being told by her doctor that if she will pay for $5,000 in tests, he can likely treat her more effectively, her illness is not life threatening, and she can't pay, so she gets narcotics instead of diagnosis and treatment.  Her lack of insurance is resulting in bad-medical care for a chronic and painful condition that no one is really sure of the cause of.  She is so fucked up from the pain pills that she can't hold a job long enough to get insurance and a proper diagnosis.  And she is one of the most vocal in her opposition to evils of Obama care, and Hilary.  Maybe the drugs have clouded her mind so much that she can't realize that she is voting against her own best interest.  All of them need to look at, and think about the hate and bigotry they intend to vote in favor of.

Like a Panda

Panda's continue to be a huge draw around the world.  People flock to zoos to see them in the fur. If you want your zoo to be a success, rent a Panda. So what is it about Pandas that people find so loveable?  How can we be more like a Panda?

• They are slow 
• They are cute and cuddly 
• They are fuzzy
• They are entertaining 
• They are unusual and exotic  
• They ignore people
• They are not obsessed with sex 
• The eat to live and live to eat 

Maybe I am part Panda? 

Optimism

Have you noticed the grin on Bill Clinton's face, he must be thinking how wonderful it will be to oversee the White House Interns program when Hillary is elected.  One of the things I get to do at my office is recruit our college interns and externs.  Most of our students are second or third year law students (in the USA, law is a three year graduate degree.)  They are generally very bright, but once in awhile one or in the case of this summer two of them really stand out and give me great hope and optimism for the future.

This summer's students just finished.  T is a law student from the middle of the country, actually she is doing a joint JD/MSW program.  She was one of the brightest students I have worked with.  Her research skills are top notch, she is fast and efficient, she asks the right questions, and was fun to be around.  I am sure her dream of being a social entrepreneur - making a difference in the lives of older adults will be a reality.  She can do anything she puts her mind to.  P is a law student from the middle Atlantic, attending a prestigious law school at a major University in  the middle of no-where north of here.  When he was starting High School, he was only interested in sports and girls, his parents found a really good private boarding school - sacrificed to pay for it and changed his life. He is a great student and a real gentlemen.  He is interested in career in public service and politics.  I asked him to invite me to the Convention when he runs for President - a good reason for me to want to live for another 25 years so I can be there and vote for him.  He'd be good, really very good, nobody can do good like he can, trust him, you'll see (sorry I have heard too much (t)Rump.) Maybe he will invite me to run the White House interns program someday.

Seriously, if these two are any representative of the graduate students who are working through the system, our future is in good hands.

Five Questions About Your Crappy Week

So it was been a long - somewhat rough week, at times I felt like I was been spinning my wheels and running into roadblocks.  A fellow blogger, might describe it as a shit storm of a week. In the end, I got a lot done, faked being nice to an _sshole, and moved on. It is time to pause and reflect on the week, and on what I might do next week, to clean up the mess and move forward.

1. What is the worst thing that happened this week in your life?  Go ahead - it can be good to talk about it - get it out - verbalize it.  
2. A year from now will you still be bothered by the worst thing that happened last week? 
3. What was the last thing you laughed about? 
4. Which felt better laughing or being pissed of?  
5. What will you do next week to laugh more and fuss less? 

My Answers: 

1. I finished a significant project that I had been working on for a month, only to be told, we don't want or need it.  
2. Will I be bothered, I might not even remember it.  Actually I will change a procedure so this never happens again - for if it does I might not be able to control my anger.  
3. On my morning commute I was reading a travel essay book, I love them. The author was traveling from California to France with two Pug dogs in carry on bags. While clearing security at the airport in San Francisco a security agent grabbed the bags with the dogs and started to walk away, when asked where he was going with the dogs, he responded, "to the X-ray machine, these dogs look strange, they could be packed with explosives or something."  To which the owner responded, "They are Pugs, they always look like that."  I laughed so hard I cried.  
4. Laughing always feels better, anger, frustration, depression are such a waste of energy.  
5. I can control what I read and what I watch.  I will find humor in the absurdities of daily life. If I find humor in the shape of the dark cloud, the rain will wash away my fussiness.   

Secret Squirrels

Spies, spin doctors, and intentional misinformation experts, the longer I live and work in DC, the more I realize how many of these there are.  Secret Squirrels are common in this and most other world capitals, but they are also out there in every city, and even in the middle no where.  If they are good, really good, you never know who they are and what they do.

I have met a handful of retired secret squirrels.  Some, though not all, after they have left the office for good, will tell you who they once worked for, a few can even talk in general details about what they did.  The first, John, had worked Presidential security from JFK, to Jimmy Carter. He had started as an air-corp officer in Germany at the end of World War II, he was fluent in German, and was recruited by intelligence to trade in the black-market in post war Germany. It helped to know what was being bought and sold and what the prices were.  His talent was noticed and a career was built.  He didn't tell his wife what he did, until after he retired.  There are a few strange places here in the DC area.  For many year's the Russians owned an apartment building on a hill overlooking the Pentagon for embassy staff to live in.  Yea, the Pentagon didn't really like that.  About the time I moved here it was converted to condos and sold.  I looked at it (great location.)  In the garage there was a stack of safes, I asked and the salesmen said, "when we renovate the apartments, we find a hidden safe in almost every unit."  Yep, it was just Russian embassy staff that lived there.

A few years ago it was revealed that secret squires were reading the email and listening to the cell phone calls of European leaders.  Great indignation was expressed around the world.  Here in town people snickered and said behind their hands "if we hadn't done that, we wouldn't have been doing our jobs, if they aren't trying to read our email, they are not doing their job." And now Rump has encouraged the Russians to spy on US Government Officials and leak the findings, WHAT AN IDIOT, and people think he should be President - - - Maybe it is time to emigrate. It is one thing for secret squirrels to hear and read, and quite another to release stolen messages to the press and public.

Elegant Flowing Lines

Wow!  It looks like it is going 100 miles per hour standing still, and she looks even better floating down the highway.  The long elegant lines, the artistic use of color to emphasize the shape and flow of the body lines.  A wonderful example of timeless and enduring beauty with long elegant flowing lines.

I've seen it twice. 

To answer the question about the first picture, It is French, I think it is a Delahaye, here is the dealer tag on it.

Truisms

If you live your life to make others happy, they may be the only one who is happy.

No two people see the world from the same perspective, I can't see the world through the eyes of another. That does not mean I can't understand, but I can't stand in the shoes of another.

There is no reason to live in, or relive, a past that you have moved beyond.

Random Family Photo

This was taken almost 10 years ago. I bought to shirts for my siblings as a joke, a couple of them got the joke.  Oh how much change has occurred in the past 10 years.  How simple it all looks on the surface and how complicated it is.

Our Friends the Cows on Warm Summer Afternoons

I have never tipped a cow.  Amazing since I grew up in an area where cows outnumbered people, heck the farm across the street had more pigs than there were people living in the township.  I always had too much respect for our friends the cows to disturb their bucolic slumber by giving them a solid nudge on the hip and watching them roll over onto their backs.  Yes, I have heard how it is done, but no I never did it.  You see cows frequently sleep standing up, kind of like most office workers looking like they are seriously contemplating the acme merger at their desks, when in reality they are off in dreamland imagining life with the billion dollars they could plunder from the company if only someone would place them in charge.  I missed the class in law school on how to sleep with your eyes open, but I did make it to the one on how to look like you are the office working, when you are really out rolling down grassy slopes on warm summer afternoons.

Where does your mind wander to on warm summer afternoons?  What is your favorite way to sneak away from work, while appearing to be working? (Mine is working lunches, long two hour lunches.)

Let your Freak Flag Fly

I am a little weird.  I know it, a few others know it.  At times I rather enjoy it.  Most of the time we put on a public face of being "normal," of fitting in, of being one of the many, but we really are all a "one of a kind!"

I work in an office that is officially "business casual" and I stretch that as far as I can.  I dress comfortably, on the verge of sloppy.  On the surface I am business like, but what do I wear underneath it all? My socks are often patterned and bright colored.  My underwear you ask?  It has become needlessly boring, black boxer-briefs - mostly Under Armor.  I really should mix that up a little, I use to wear a wider and much more interesting array of underwear.  There is no reason for the routine things in life to be boring.  A Mahala said the other day, let your freak flag fly.

Yes, I did take the picture above, no I have never dressed like that, I certainly have never worn a fishnet bodysuit - fishnet is so uncomfortable.

A letter to my 24 year old self

Fellow blogger John Gray posted the other day a list of 10 things he would like to say to his 24 year old self.  This inspired this Sunday five questions, if you could go back and offer advice to yourself when you were 24 years old, what would be your advice on the following 5 issues.  Oh, if I had known then what I know now.

1: What advice would you offer about work and jobs?
2: What advice would you offer about love and relationships?
3: What advice would you offer about travel?
4: What advice would you offer about education?
5: What advice would you offer about money?

My answers:
1: What advice would you offer about work and jobs?
Don't be afraid of seizing opportunities when you have the chance,  find work that makes you eager to get out of bed each day, work that inspires you.  Don't mistake job stability for job security.

2: What advice would you offer about love and relationships?
The only person who has to love your love, is you.  Don't let what others might think, get in the way of relationships that make you happy.  We all deserve happiness, if you are not making one another happy, move on sooner - rather than later.

3: What advice would you offer about travel?
Don't wait until you can afford it, seize every opportunity to travel. If you make travel a priority in your life, you will find a way.  Don't let worries or insecurities keep you from exploring the great adventure of travel.

4: What advice would you offer about education?
You are never done learning.  There is no expiration date on being a student, so learn what you want to do.  Education opens doors.  Follow your passion.

5: What advice would you offer about money?
Avoiding debt, and paying off what you borrow as fast as possible will serve you well in the long run.  Learn to live within your means, don't confuse wants with needs.  Minimize the number of expensive hobbies.

Images from the past

My photography went entirely digital 12 years ago.  I have thousands and thousands of images stored on my computer.  An archive of my adventures, a record of my life. The image above is a fresco in Rome painted about 1,600 years ago.  It is an archive of the time, a record of the lives of the people that lived then.  It is also very easy to see.  I wonder of 1,600 years ago, anyone will be able to view my images from the past.

My Father Hated The Way I Grew My Hair as a Teenager

I finished High School 39 years ago, in my high school graduation picture I have nearly shoulder length curly wavy hair, mutton-chop sideburns, and a cheesy mustache.  My father hated it.  He thought it looked silly.  It was very much the style of young men of the time.  His mother, my grandmother told stories on my father.  When he was a teenager she would give him 25-cents and send him off on a Saturday afternoon to get a "proper gentleman's haircut."  He would get a 5-cent buzz cut and use the other 20-cents to see a movie.  She urged me to ignore his complaints and I did.  As I have grown older, the hair styles of young men have varied widely, sometimes looking a bit silly.  I remind myself that my father thought my hair looked silly.  Unique hair styles are part of being young, thinking the styles are silly is part of being old.  I try not to think old.  Express yourself.

Sorry Mitchell, I had this posting scheduled before I saw your posting yesterday.

Open House

I received an email this week announcing the opening of Buckingham Palace for summer tours. The first time I was in London, way back before the internet was invented, all you could get into was a small art and history gallery.  But a few years ago in an effort to raise a little cash for maintenance and renovation and in an effort to improve relations with the peasants public, the decision was made to run a summer Open House.  The last time I was in London, in 2011, I made reservations and away we went.  No photographs are allowed in the palace.  The second picture above is the back yard, as I recall John Gray was there for a garden party with his sister last year.

I enjoyed the tour.  The spaces are grand and historic.  It was well worth the modest admission fee.

Blue Ice

When I think of blue ice in the US, I think of frozen chunks falling off of airliners as they land from a malfunctioning chemical toilet. Hmm, somehow I don't think that is what the owners of this Ice Cream shop in Rome were thinking.  No I didn't sample the goods.