Atta Girl Sasha

It turns out that my presentation isn’t until tomorrow in the afternoon, but I got some feedback from my thirty-plus page document. The word is good. In fact, the commenter wants to use my doc as a template for future versions. Not bad. Some of my pre-interview studying has paid off.

I was up until midnight watching the Olympics. It’s cliché I know, but I love watching the women’s figure skating, and in the Summer Olympics I am a sucker for the women’s gymnastics too. I’ve heard women complain about my demographic, that we are a bunch of lecherous old men. For me there is just so much beauty, such grace, heart, determination, and excellence bundled in a small package. Some of these girls are just sixteen, and yet they are performing under enormous pressure such that we will never experience in our lifetimes. I find myself rooting for all of them, and I feel sad when they fall and pride when they land without a bobble.

I watched Emily Hughes, younger sister of Olympic gold medal winner Sarah Hughes skate wonderfully in place of the injured Michelle Kwan. As good as she was though, the Russian Irina Slutskaya made her look like rookie, who is favored to win the gold—was I think, before Sasha Cohen started her routine. All I can say is: you should have been there. She is in first place after the short program, but it is within four one hundredths. Stay tuned for more competition.

I’m going to start working on another short story based on my post about the man in the wheelchair. I came up with an ending in the shower this morning, and when those hit me, it’s time to start writing. That’s how my mind works I guess: I need a basic premise, a sprinkle of theme, and a nice twisted ending.

Pack The Gym Bag

This weekend we signed up for a gym membership for basically the cost of one mortgage payment. I know everyone says this, but I will use it. Riiiiiight…

It all started when my wife and I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I don’t need to tell you girls out there that Brad Pitt looks great with his shirt off. My wife looked at me and said, “Do you think you could ever look like that?”

“Well, I never have, but I’d like to give it one more try.”

We’ve both been feeling a little heavy. Inactivity and late night eating are catching up with us. I’ve never been perfect, but there was a brief time in my young history when I took my shirt off and liked what I saw. Today I look and think things could be worse.

***

On NPR this morning, I heard a story about a website that is connecting young men and women, boys and girls, with the wisdom of the elderly. This is an astounding idea. Maybe it’s because I’m climbing in years, but the elderly are largely overlooked, and any forum that gives them a voice is aces by me. They’ve adapted and survived everything life has to throw at them, so who better to consult?

The questions asked of the elders at first were simple, often mundane. Then they became more complicated, harder to answer. One was from a little girl whose parents leave her alone at truck rallies with predatory friends, who are becoming increasing overt in their advances. She wants to know what to do. Or another, a letter from a girl explains that she is best friends with a boy, and although she has zero sexual attraction for him, she feels that a real boyfriend would eventually come between them. She wants to know if she should marry him. Can you just see this discussion at a nursing home? I would love to be in that room.

***

Back to work for me. I’m not sure when I present my designs, so more on that later.

Busy Today

Just a quick note to anyone dropping by. I am working hard at finishing some software design documents that I have to present tomorrow. I cranked out a data model today, which means absolutely nothing to anyone reading, but to me and hopefully to my peers and superiors, this is going to look finger-licking good.

More tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have the good news that my client was quite impressed.

Thanks For Making Me Blog On The Weekend Eve!

Current clothing: Long sleeve cotton shirt, Old Navy pj-bottoms, socks, slippers

Current hair: Flat top. My wife has taken over for the local barber, bought her own shears. I used to have long moppish hair, but I got sick of it and cut it all off and loved the look.

Current mood: Recovering from a cold and a day with my cranky two-year old

Current refreshment: Poland Spring water

Current annoyance: My son won't let me go downstairs until he goes to sleep, and there is no way to sneak down because the stairs creak.

Current avoidance: Good question. Writing anything of substance.

Current smell: Popcorn that we just ate downstairs

Current thing you ought to be doing: Sleeping

Current thing or things on your wall: Picture of my kids, two traced hands, an old Mattise print from my single days of an indistinct naked woman

Current IM/person you are talking to: Nobody

Current jewelry: My wedding band

Current book: The Sea, John Banville

Current worry: Wow, none really

Current love: My children, my wife

Current longing: To write

Current disappointment: That I haven't written anything

Current lyric in your head: All I want is you, The Cars

Current music: The sound of my son caughing in his room

Current Favorite book: I'll let you know when I read it. I have lot's of historical favorites, but right now I am in desperate need.

Current undergarments: Spiderman underoos. Just joking.

Current desktop picture: My kids at Christmas

Current plans for tonight/weekend: Watch our recording of Friday's Battlestar. Then sleep the sleep of the gods.

So what are you currently doing? I told you that I owe you one. Tag Moni, you're it.

A Little Poop Humor

As much as you try parents, you can’t avoid it. You might as well tell the Greenland icecaps to stop melting. Sooner or later you are going to find the key to that creaky old box that holds your childhood memories, blow off the dust, open it up and pull out a few of those old poop jokes that caused you to spit Cap’n Crunch all over your sister at the breakfast table.

Or maybe it’s just me. I read in the Pocket Parent, or rather it was read to me by my wife after interrupting my own reading of Terry Pratchet for the fifth time, that one technique parents have adopted is to take one night off from discipline and let the children reprimand them for bad behavior. The parents play with their food and belch, and probably make other bodily noises I imagine, and the kids run out of breath laughing so hard.

My wife resisted it for a couple years. It started when I came home with a volume of Captain Underpants books. My wife put her foot down, and the books went into the darkest recesses of the catch-all closet. We gave it to Jackson for his sixth birthday, and now, every night before bed, Jackson and I read them together.

If you can handle a little potty humor, these books push the silly button for a young boy. The author Dav Pilkey is like Tom Hanks in Big, who is a young boy in a man’s body. This guy remembers what it was like.

Some people won’t like these books because the heros are two young boys who cause trouble, always pranking. They get in trouble with their principal Mr. Krupp, so they hypnotize him with a hypno-ring. Now every time Mr. Krupp hears the snapping of fingers, he becomes Captain Underpants. Later he acquires actual super powers by drinking Super Power Juice found in the cockpit of the space ship of alien invaders. Sounds silly? You bet. That’s why the kids love it. My son laughs so hard that he falls into choked silence for long stretches and his mouth wide open.

Last night we read this joke:

Why did Tigger stick his head in the toilet?
Because he was looking for Pooh.

And:

Knock knock?
Who’s there?
I’m a pile-up.
I’m a pile-up who?
That’s not true; don’t be so hard on yourself.

Jackson is still laughing.

A La Moni

Ok Moni, here you go:

Four jobs I've had:

Windshield Washer at Chevron
Bagger at a grocery store
Burger flipper at McDonalds
Car Salesman

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over again:

Breakfast Club - It's in my profile, but it's my favorite
Braveheart
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Outside Providence

Four TV Shows I Love:

Battlestar Galactica - The new one. The best drama on TV of any genre.
Deadwood - Seth Bullock is the man I wish I was. Perhaps he could simmer down just a bit.
Six Feet Under - May it rest in peace
The Sopranos - It can't end well

Four Places I've Lived:

Juneau, Alaska
San Francisco
Seattle
Couer d' Alene, Idaho

Four Favorite Dishes:

Beef Stroganof
Cheeseburger and Fries
Prime Rib
Pot Roast

Four Sites I Visit Daily:

The Dallas Cowboys Blog - Even in the off season, I just have to know the scoop.
PowerLine - Nothing liberal about it, and no bullshit either. These guys busted Dan Rather when he and his cronies tried to pull a fast one.
RealClearPolitics - A good spread of various news sources to quickly catch up on the breaking stories
Victor Davis Hanson - You might not like him if you're a hard-core liberal, but I challenge you to descredit his logic

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now

Sitting in the cockpit of my new MiG figher jet
Watching the Dallas cheerleaders taking a shower
Sitting on a rock I found atop Mt. Tamalpais that had a perfect saddle
Seeing San Francisco from Twin Peaks on a clear night, or from a vantage point on the Saucalito side where it seems you could reach out and touch the Golden Gate, at Fort Point where Kim Novak once dove in to be pulled back out by Jimmy Stewart
With my mom the day before she died

I Swear I'm Not A Stalker

Yesterdays post got me thinking about the ones that got away, and there have been a few of those. Of course nobody has ever believed me when I told it before, probably because I’ve always had a flare for the dramatic.

The funny thing about love is that when it fell overhead like a cloudburst, I usually had to ask if it was raining. Of course at home, soaked like a sea sponge, I was once again capable of basic math, but by then I didn’t have the numbers to add up.

I lived in Santa Clara some fifteen years ago. My friend Bob and I decided to buy mountain bikes in Santa Cruz, but we had to stop by his bank which was just down the street from the bike shop.
Bob had the personality that I would classify as type ice-breaker. Every group needs one; somebody who is fearless of beautiful women, able to introduce himself and his friends in the most intimidating of circumstances. The teller at the bank was vintage California, lean, tan, sparkling blue eyes and sun bleached, sandy blonde hair. She was the kind of beauty that severs the neural network connecting the mouth to the brain, unless of course your name is Bob.

In two or three sentences, the entire staff of Bank West was gathered behind the counter, laughing and cheering Bob’s decision to buy a mountain bike. I was dimly aware of all this as I watched her mouth, that bright smile that doubled her intensity.

We bought the bikes and rode them back to the bank, because for some reason, Bob needed to get more money from the ATM. The bank was closed now, and I felt a stab of disappointment that I wouldn’t see her again. I was a little short on cash myself, so I put in for forty dollars and stuffed my wallet in my bike pack.

“Is this the bike?”

I looked up and there she was, dressed casual now with her dad standing behind her. “Yeah, how do you like it?”

I got off and tilted it towards her. She ran her hands over seat, and then tried the gear controls and brakes. “Oh, this is very nice. Very nice.” Her face wasn’t more than a foot from mine as we looked at one another. I may not have been the Love God, but there was something carnal in that gaze we shared.

“Is there a good place to ride nearby?” I asked her.

“There are lots of great places to ride.” She was so excited as she explained to me a set of mountain trails she liked to go to. I wanted to ask her to come with me, but I felt a little weird with her father standing nearby, who was not threatening in anyway. Rather he seemed quite friendly. But I didn’t pull the trigger, and I went home a frustrated guy.

I couldn’t get her out of my head, so a week later I drove to the bank and waited outside for her to come out, feeling suddenly like a stalker. I saw her finally, so I got out of my car and walked to the ATM, as if I just got there. She looked at me as I went by and gave me a friendly hello. I did the same—and kept walking.

Insert chicken clucking here.

It gets more embarrassing, trust me.

So a month later, I actually opened an account. I went to her counter and she directed me to another window. If she recognized me I don’t know. My home address was thirty miles away, and it must have seemed very strange. I walked out frustrated again, but with a bad feeling this time. It was too late. I closed the account a month later, and vowed to at least say something to her.

“Aren’t you the one that gave me directions to some mountain trails,” I said like a total jackass. The Monte Python knight with a flesh wound had more sense.

“Probably,” she yawned without looking up.

It was one of those moments, and I’ve had quite a few, that I wished for the power to snap my fingers and simply disappear.

The Right Thing

I heard a story on the radio today told by a handicapped man, not totally paralyzed but bound to a wheelchair. He met a woman who saw through his disability and married him, because just like a woman, she fell in love with the intangible. He explained about the prejudice he has to endure; people are always assuming they are brother and sister; that she is his nurse, etc.

At a small Irish pub on Geary Street in San Francisco, in the twilight of my single years, I met an amazingly beautiful woman who was escorting a diminutive, legless man in a wheel chair. I had all the same thoughts the man on the radio described, but my internal censor stopped me short of asking the question; and as a result, I left without even attempting to get her number. I felt a strong connection, and yet I was trapped. Even if the two weren’t a pair, which I highly doubted, I could have turned out to be an insensitive prick for assuming it. The man was in a wheelchair, and undoubtedly, at least in my mind, he must have looked at people like me at the time--strong, healthy, and impossibly handsome (cough)—and wished to trade places, even for a day. Hey, there could be a story in that…

So out of respect I walked away. But the way she looked at me that night--you know the look guys. Normally we're like salmon swimming upstream, crashing into the rocks; she politely laughs while scanning the room. Not always though. Sometimes she really finds you interesting and often funny, which inspires the inner comedian. Maybe you get the slight touch on the arm that you pretend not to notice. She was all those things. And while I enjoyed it immensely, I was ever conscious of him, and I felt his helplessness and pain.

I used to think of that night a lot, but since I met my wife those coulda-beens don’t haunt me any more. The story on the radio however made me feel somewhat vindicated. I may have done the right thing after all.

No Beginning

Good morning all; good afternoon or evening to others. There was an interesting mix of reactions to my last post, and I’m grateful for every one of them. I’m not depressed or anything like that. I’m starting to realize that I’m much older now, and my memory is fading; outing the unneeded, such as those of the faces I took for granted that composed the landscape of my immortal and unchanging world. It was a glimpse inside of my mind when someone is telling a story to my slack-featured face and I say, “I’m sorry, what were you saying?” I partied a lot when I was younger, but definitely not anymore, for what should be obvious reasons—wife, kids, responsibility. All good reasons, for whose lack of probably had me sidled to the bar. Still, mix one part full moon and two parts free time and I’ll ride like Paul Revere.

One thought that arrests me is the concept of no beginning. God has no beginning, if you believe that. When I was a teenager, and most likely stoned—which I cannot verify for sure, but this kind of revelation is in line with that state of mind—I stared at the stars while laying on the hood of my friend’s car, in his driveway, waiting for him to finish getting ready. The impact of no beginning hit me like a wrecking ball through a shelf of fine china. How is it possible? And yet it has to be. My heart felt like a gyroscope as those two thoughts churned inside me until I was forced to shut it off. My mind is too simple to ever understand the basic nature of our existence. How can a computer program know what it is?

Think about it. We are just like software, unique from one another in many ways, but in the most important ways we are no different at all. We live, grow old and die. In between we struggle with the same issues, yet deal with them differently according to our programming. When backed to the wall we will almost to a man fight with vicious ferocity. We read stories that capture the human condition, that bit of programming that makes us all the same. We all want to love and be loved, and how successful we are with these basic tenets shapes the person that we are.

If there is a God, he made the laws such that we will never travel the breadth of this universe. The way out is one that we haven’t considered, to which we are incapable besides. Perhaps we have been banished to this place, a prison surrounded by the infinite vacuum of space, and given fragile vessels inside which we must adapt or die. Perhaps we are being tested, the last rite of passage into a holy fraternity. Hey, am I starting to make a case for heaven?

I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

Temporary

Often I think about how temporary life really is. Not just life itself, but the communities we belong to that form and dissipate like clouds. Everything for which I laughed, cried, and raged no longer exist, as if it never did. I'm only connected by a frayed thread in my ravaged mind, which has been pummeled over the years with alcohol and deadened by apathy and the will to survive. Sometimes I reconstruct a friendly smile, or the ghostly image of a girl stumbling from the dance with tear soaked hands covering her face, and I feel a sense of loss, that maybe I should have paid more attention.

Perhaps heaven is lacing those shoes again.

Lunch With A Friend

I met the inestimable Mr. Schprock yesterday for lunch. It was a bit surreal at first; meeting someone I’ve only known by merit. I guess it’s like meeting a disc jockey or a famed author. There is a certain mental image you draw of a person, and it is always interesting to see how close you came to the target. Mr. Schprock has posted pictures of himself on his blog, so his was probably the bigger adjustment. I don’t look much like Wyatt Earp, the likeness of whom I chose as my avatar, after all.

As an aside, don’t you think Wyatt Earp looks a little like Kurt Russell?

Mr. Schprock is as likeable and personable as you would expect from someone who delights his blog buddies with wonderful posts and thoughtful comments. It was an honor.

Today I need to make some progress at work. I got lost on the way back from lunch, which challenged the inner navigator in me—and of course, like the guy I am, I didn’t ask for directions. So I was gone more than I had planned.

Jackson called to say good morning. He handed me over to my wife, while he and Emmett rewound a scene from the Wiggles of Greg prancing in a tutu. Just one more advantage of Tivo. Emmett gave my wife a kiss this morning, then looked her in the eyes and said, “High five momma.”

The Oxen is Slow...

One of my favorite movies from my teen years was High Road to China starring Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong. I fell deeply in lust with Bess when she wore a bikini in The Four Seasons, and I’ve been waiting ever since for her to be so bold again. She was frustratingly clad in High Road to China, but I loved her just the same.

The point? Oh yeah. There was an ancient Chinaman who gave some advice to the intrepid heroes of this yarn: The oxen is slow, but the earth is patient. At the time I laughed at the inanity of the statement, and have used it in conversation where advice is needed and I have none to offer.

Him: My girlfriend dumped for some other guy.
Me: The oxen is slow, but the earth is patient.
Him: Huh?
Me: Exactly.

Maybe listening to NPR has broadened my horizons--*tongue in cheek*--but in the last couple days that phrase has been on my mind. For years a thread has been spinning in my head, trying to make sense of it. Perhaps I always knew.

Last weekend we took Jackson’s top bunk out of his room and put it in Emmett’s, replacing the crib which has been officially retired. Emmett has been sleeping in our bed for almost a year now. Believe me, this is the absolute best form of birth control there is. Beth and I didn’t hold out much hope that Emmett would sleep in the bed, but he did. For the first time since time immemorial I need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning. Gone is the foot in the small of my back, or the sudden back handed bitch slap.

He got just a little older, like the slow drip-drip-drip of water into an empty bucket—except it isn’t empty anymore. Time moves slowly, like the ox plowing the field, and yet it flies when you’re having fun. Soon I’ll have to steal my kisses when he is sleeping.

Before Jackson, when we found out we were having a boy, I had already planned his life. I couldn’t wait to teach him to throw a football, to build a model airplane; I wanted to juice my soul and serve it to him in a silver chalice. Now he is six, stretched out and skinny, no longer a baby, but a little boy with a mind of his own.

The earth is patient is another way of saying what’s your hurry? My answer of course is, there’s plenty of time for that later. Right now my boys want to be silly, to hide in obvious places, to run at half-speed just to be caught.

Emmett “calls” me at work now.

“Hi daddy.”

“Hey little buddy, what are you doing?”

“Haburbity glub ker go go.”

“Oh, you’re watching Go Diego Go?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, I love you, let me talk to mommy.”

“Lubby too daddy.”

That my friends is as good as it gets.

Fighting

I was a tall kid growing up, and very outspoken, a combination that amounts to an outstretched hand and yelling ooh, pick me, pick me. Ironically though, I wanted to be invisible, above the rules. I didn’t want to grow up—to think about girls, to be serious about school, or to fight with the other boys for accidentally making eye contact. I may as well have willed the sun not to rise or a dog not to bark.

I have a natural fear of fighting; and that’s probably an insight to my active imagination. In an after hours diner once, I saw two men square off in an exchange of shouts. One got the better of the other and grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face twice into the floor. Both times there came a hollow, bone crushing thud, like you might imagine from a dropped coconut. The fight was gone from the man, who amazingly was able to sit up, bleeding and wondering why he was on the floor, likely trying to remember his name.

I was teasing a boy once on the school bus. We were friends—or so I thought. He warned me a few times that he was going to beat me up if I didn’t let up. Boyd Gardner followed me off the bus, which struck me as odd because his stop was well after mine, but I didn’t get it. Mike, the boy sitting with Boyd on the bus got off at the stop before mine, which was only a block away, and sprinted up the street. Still, I didn’t get it.

“Why did you get off at my stop,” I asked Boyd as we walked along together.

“I’m going to visit a friend.” I still didn't get it.

“Ok. Hey, I’m sorry about all that business on the bus. I was just joking around.”

“That’s ok.”

“I was starting to think you were taking me seriously.”

“Nah.”

"Friends still?"

He looked at me and smiled. "Sure."

Up ahead, at the intersection of two streets, Mike came to a halt and stared at us together. He was out of breath.

“I thought you were going to kick his ass!”

I turned to Boyd with a quizzical look. In one fluid motion, he dropped his school books and balled his fist and hit me square in the face. I can't remember what hit first, his books or his ham fist. What an odd sensation it was, not at all what I had imagined. With some amount of relief, I realized that it didn’t hurt. But still, I had no interest in letting it happen again. I tried to reason with him, but he had the battle lust and swung at me again. I ducked him easily and tried to hit him back, but he swatted me away like a pesky insect. It didn’t take long to reach the conclusion that I needed to get away, or I was going to get really hurt.

He was easy to avoid, being big and slow, but he was half again my weight, so he used that to his advantage and wrestled with me and threw me to the ground. He straddled over my chest and raised his fist, and there was nothing I could do for it.

Then suddenly he was gone in a streak of red, brown and white. This is one of the advantages of having a St. Bernard. I called Baron away and let Boyd get up, who decided to try this another time. He followed me off the bus a few days later, but I just kept walking. A day later and we called a truce.

There was another Mike at school that liked to harass me by hitting me from behind, then squaring off and offering to fight. I always refused. Then one day I wasn’t thinking when his familiar jolt surprised me out of my reverie. I chased him around like a broken windmill. Boyd walked up behind him and shoved him against a brick wall.

“You want to fuck with me?” Boyd offered.

“N-n-n no!”

“Then don’t let me catch you messing with him again, or you’ll be sorry.”

And that was that.

You Aint Seen Nothing Yet

Congratulations to the Steelers, now five time Superbowl champions.

Congratulations to Troy Aikman, who has been voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is not so easy to achieve, as there are only a select few that can be voted in each year. Some very good football players are still waiting to get in. Can you say Michael Irvin? Or how about the man for whom the zone defense was created for—Bob Hayes.

Enough football talk. The commercials during the Superbowl didn’t live up to the expectation. Nor did the halftime show. Hey Mick, hang it up buddy. If you performed like you did last night at the beginning of your career, you would have been a shoe salesman or a truck driver instead. My advice for you is to go back and watch the tapes of Paul McCartney, who knew how to bring his A-game to the really big show.

Has anyone seen the news about the offensive cartoons depicting Mohammed teaching suicide bombers how to strap on the vest in a Danish newspaper? A couple European rags reprinted the cartoons and now there are demonstrations, on the violent side mind you, across Europe and even in the states.

The protestors are paying homage to their heroes, the perpetrators of 9/11 and the whacks that blew up the London subways—and governments are apologizing to them.

Do not adjust your television sets.

I am starting to see that maybe the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was wrong. We should have launched a cartoon campaign instead and dropped those leaflets all over the Middle East, and apparently in New York City, Denmark, England and France. Better toss San Francisco in there for good measure, or just the Berkeley campus.

I say cram this right down the throat of Islam. I know some peace loving Muslims, and I love them dearly. But their religion is being twisted for purposes they don’t agree with. I understand how painful these images must be to them, but the truth they tell is undeniable.

The whack-jobs have tipped their hand for the whole world to see. You can take smart bombs and military invasion, but dunk the Koran into the toilet…

I’ve got news for all you radicals. You just wait until the media wakes up and realizes that it has the power to smoke you out. In the immortal words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, oh b-baby you just aint seen nothing yet.

What I Would Say

A few words on the president’s State of the Union.

I know most of you hate the president, so take a step back for a moment and breath. You can resume your normally scheduled programming when I’m done.

Was it just me, or did I hear the president say that we need to invest in alternative sources of energy? This should be an issue that both parties wholeheartedly endorse. John Kerry himself espoused some of the same ideas during his campaign, and in a way, he should be proud that he had anything to do with it. All Democrats for that matter should pat themselves on the back—publicly.

But what did they do after the address? They blasted GW for not insisting that car companies demand better gas mileage from new cars and trucks. Good point for sure. In my mind though, the Democrats are sliding further and further away from being real contenders in any upcoming contests. Why? Because they have become clouded with hate.

I’m no politician, but if I were a well-intended Democrat, one that entered into public service to help America, I would have had something like this to say to the cameras afterwards.

Ah hem! The president has said what I think Americans have been longing to hear for a long time. It’s true that we have become drunk on foreign oil. In the interest of our security, we need to pursue alternative fuel sources and reduce to what amounts to our tacit support for hostile regimes. So I applaud the president and will support him with my vote in Congress. However, the president could go much further. By raising the standard of fuel efficiency for our fleet of cars and trucks, the president could cut our consumption by at least 50 percent. But the president has made it clear that our parties have to work together, and I am confident that by combining our approaches, we will resolve this all-important issue. I for one am willing to put aside my differences to do what’s right for our country.

Of course I would be shot before the upcoming elections.

Random Thoughts

Does anyone out there think life has a point? Do you think we were put here for a reason, however small? Do you believe in coincidence; or do you believe that there is a master plan, that every chance meeting was not chance at all?

Do you believe in God?

My answer to these questions varies on my mood—and I’m comfortable with that; because really, I don’t have to take a stand on any of these issues.

According to my Aunt however, I have until the moment I die to believe that Jesus Christ is my savior, and she will do everything in her power to save me. I personally think Jesus will understand.

I pray, even though I accept that I may very well be talking to myself. Which is ok. There is power in believing in yourself. Christians believe that God is in every man, woman and child, so praying to ones self is the same as praying to God, and with the same results perhaps.

They say there are no atheists in a foxhole, and I know this is true. When the chips are down my hands go together. Lately I’ve been praying at night—a faint whisper for the safety of my children. It can’t hurt. Even though I rationalize that it’s pointless, I feel a quiet calm afterwards that everything is going to be alright.

What is the value of a human life to God though? People die by the thousands, like herd animals at a slaughter house. Sometimes I think if there was a God, he would have designed us a little better. We have a few flaws, in case you haven’t noticed. Foremost is our overwhelming need to reproduce. I’m very Freudian in the belief. As men we jockey to be the herd bull. Growing up we struggle to find our niche market within which we shine the brightest. Women simply hate one another for the same reason, but for them the predicament is worse. While men can be appreciated for a variety of skills-- such as musical talent, intellect, swell personality—women, at least in the estimation of men, really only have one asset that care about. Do I need to say it? I didn’t think so.

I’d say something brilliant like Bill and Ted, like “Be excellent to one another.” But that isn’t in our wiring. We are doomed to be shit-heads by our very nature that makes us attractive to almost no one. If there are aliens that do happen upon our planet, what would possibly motivate them to make contact. I would seriously question their intelligence, which would lead me to question their motives, and then of course, I would have to advocate war.

This post knew not where it was going.

Working Stiff

Hello yeah it’s been a while.
Not much.
How ‘bout you?

Steely Dan?

I’m sitting in at a strange desk in a strange office in a strange town. Say goodbye to icy landscape outside my window and the happy din of children jumping. Hello white walls and florescent lights, and bookshelves of abandoned technical manuals and paperclips and Ethernet cables.

Am I happy? Actually yes. I miss my family, but the selfish part of me is thankful to be learning the back roads. How many times have I sat in traffic at the Alewife station, wishing that I knew a back way around. Three days on the job and I’ve got it nailed.

I’ve stepped into something here—quite unexpected. It seems that I have been given the reins of my own project, a chance to put to task all the theory of which I so eloquently espoused in interviews. If I nail this, then I am officially a software architect, instead of the loose title I’ve held for the last eight years or so.

So, from now on, I’m up at five, and on the road by six, then into the office by seven. Leave at four, home by five. Good luck--especially when I stay up so late.

I hope my blogger buddies are still hanging with me. I have to watch my internet usage at work. Not only that, but this is important to me. Everyone knows I want to be an author, but like the song goes, I like adventure with security. Sticking this job opens a whole new avenue, a road to a peak only a minority subset of developers in my profession ever achieves. Just in case you are wondering, it also means higher pay, which always soothes the nerves. New England is not the cheapest place on the planet to live.

I’ll be checking in as time permits today. Maybe I’ll grab a sandwich and do the rounds at lunch.

The Deal is Done

Another opportunity popped up for more money and closer to home, but it wasn't a for sure deal, so I did the right thing and went with the bird in hand. It's funny, but the recruiter that got me the job did so in three days from inception to closure. Not bad for either of us. I submitted my resume to his company a couple weeks ago with no response, so I called the main line and asked to speak with a technical recruiter. Joel answered the phone and looked at my resume, hung up, and called me a couple hours later. We met the next day, and the next day I had an interview, and the next, today, I had the job. That has to be a record.

I put off my start date until next monday, as in a week from this monday. I'm spending some quality time with my family. No job searching, no working, just play.

Emmett, my two year old, is beside me learning how to click on a mouse on Playhouse Disney. He'll be a great programmer some day.

Be John Elway

I have a big interview today that could set me up with a good paying contract for the next six months or more. I have all the skills for the job and more, so it all depends on the questions they ask. I've been to interviews where the questions are so pointed that it seemed like I didn't know anything about technology I use every day to great effect.

There has been considerable drama concerning an investment I just put half our savings into. My cousin is a commerical real estate mini-tycoon in Houston, and he structured a partnership so that his family could all combine to qualify as one investor with the minimum contribution. I panicked at the end when I had to wire funds to the partnership bank account because I got the partnership papers and instructions to wire the money immediately, which sent off the alarm bells and I asked to pull out.

My cousin has been going through hell dealing with another family partner who has been screaming about I don't know what, so he is swearing off any family involvement in the future. Then I had a change of heart and asked to be put back in. People, this is half of my savings at a time when I am out of work, and our current expense exceeds what I was making before, and the salaries here in the Boston area are lower than what I was making. I was a little bit spooked.

Anyway, we are back in. The projected payoff is somewhere between three and five to one. I won't be a made man if it does pay in this range, but I will have some lattitude to invest in a business of my own. It would be a good start. When I pulled out, I felt more like a sailing ship in the middle of the ocean without a wind to push me.

That's the current status. I'll let you know how the interview went. I have to remember to not laugh suddenly, and keep the random spittle factor to zero. Keep calm, no clammy palms, and be John Elway.

I'll Be Bach

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm still alive. I've become one of those bloggers that falls off the virtual landscape once the job search begins in earnest. The editor from the Globe West wrote me back and politely told me that the news business is a hard one to break into, and that I should consider trying out a smaller newspaper to learn the structure of a news story, and to determine if I am truly a news person. I was relieved to hear something back at all; there is nothing worse than no reply.

We went to New York and visited with some old friends, and really had a nice time.

I'm submitted to several companies, and there seems to be opportunity all around me. I'm interviewing well as long as I hold the expectorating to a minimum. My nose is in the study material.

I miss writing, but my wife and I have been bouncing around an idea for a novel that might just have some legs. It has potential, more than most of my half baked inspirations that are no more than a single scene in my head.

I'll be back my friends.

Good News and Bad News

The good news is, I aced the interview. The bad news is, I'm too expensive. We'll just see about that.

Some excerpts from the interview.

Him: Do you have any questions for me?

Me: What's the working environment like here?

Him: Good I think.

Me: Do you look forward to coming to work each day, or is it just another day at the grind?

Him: I really get into it actually.

Me: How about the people here? Are they easy to get along with?

Him: Mostly, but there are a few.

Me: I worked with a guy that refused to work on a Microsoft product. He had that prototypical balding man's ponytail in back ( interviewer laughing ), and a belly full of ho-hos. He refused to do anything unless it was his way. He made it for a month or two until we fired him.

Him: Well, we've had a few of those come through here too.

Later, the CTO walked in and shook my hand. He had a bald pate and a pony tail down his back. Is it possible to interview and keep your mouth shut?

At one point I cracked up at a joke, and a tiny bubble of spit blew through a ray of sunshine and landed between us. He pretended not to see.

Got an interview tomorrow morning at 10. This one involves project management, and they fully understand that I have never functioned in that role. Should be interesting.

One more thing that my dad said to me that I totally forgot to include. He compared me to John Elway. Already I was put off, because I've never heard him say anything good about the guy, and frankly Elway reminds me of a donkey. Dad said this: "When he first came into the league, John Elway was the most baby-faced mother fucker you could imagine. But by the time he left the league, he was transformed--into a man. That's you."

Sometimes he really hits the whole dad thing in stride.

In My Corner

I have an interview today at two with a small company that hasn't really made clear what it is they're looking for. They definitely want someone with my general experience, but it sounds like they develop their own solutions instead of buying it from third party vendors--in other words, my kind of people.

I've always had the philosophy, one that doesn't sit well with my teammates, that it is better to develop it in-house than to rely on other people to get it right for you. This puts me in the extreme minority, and often I have wax poetic about the opposite. An analogy would be a Catholic saying he's Jewish just for a nights pleasure.

Another interview is setup for Thursday, where my new favorite recruiters, Steve and Tom, are trying to set me up as a project manager, even though I've never officially been one. Steve says Tom has an uncanny ability to match people to the hiring managers, and I'm the one.

I told my dad about it, who told me... Well, just listen:

"I've always told you that everybody stoops to shit."

"Yeah, that's true dad."

"It took me a long time to learn it. Things in Ohio were so bad that I moved to Florida where the work was, and my dad told me that they would have me for lunch."

"Wow," I said, "I can't believe that."

"But I did it. And I wore a brave look, but inside I was scared, like maybe my dad was right, that everyone was right, that I wasn't good enough. But I gave you the confidence and you do it without the fear."

"I'll give that one to you dad, I'm not afraid to jump in. But I could be better..."

"Bullshit. I've seen you when you dig in, like Clint Eastwood. Your face gets all scrunched up and nobody is getting in your way. You look those people in the eyes and tell them point blank how it's going to be. If another person can do it, you can do it better."

"Well, alrighty then!" I laughed.

"Ok, I'll get off the soapbox son. Just go get 'em."

How can I fail with that kind of trainer in my corner!

I still haven't heard back from the editors of the Globe West, but I promise to call every other day until I recieve an official rejection, and then I'll call every day after that. I'm good buddies with the receptionist, who remembered me and said the editor was at the main office downtown and hasn't been in yet.

Email, I told him, can be read anywhere.

Maybe I should have left that one out.

Could Be Interesting

I met with both recruiters. The first was very official, giving me the ra-ra speech about her company and what they have achieved over the years. I did my best to look like I cared. For those not in the software biz, a recruiter fills a vital role, one which I respect and value, but some recruiters think there is more to it than there is. Once I take the job, they send me a paycheck and I never speak with the recruiter again. They know it and I know it, so I don't understand why all the hoopla.

Anyhoo.

The second was my kind of guy. Being a recruiter is a sales position, and you may or may not know, but I hate sales people. But every once in a while I meet one that knows how to do it right. He introduced me to the account manager that has a particular job in mind, but my salary requirement is a little higher than the client is willing to pay. I suggested that he put me in front of the client and let me do the talking. They loved my spunk. We'll see.

But here is the real news of the day, and this is why I like to get out of the house once in a while, because shit has a way of happening. Chloesuggested that I take this opportunity to become a professional writer. I only mildly scoffed at that--there are bills to pay after all. I walked into the building--all marble, glass and steel--fifteen minutes early and looked for the company name on the directory by the elevator. I had just taken a deep breath and thought to myself, "And so the job hunt begins." Across the lobby was a sign on a window that said, "The Globe West."

If you are not from here, that naturally means the Boston Globe.

I couldn't help but feel a small sense of destiny. Go ahead and laugh, but things happen like that to me, little coincidences to which I've learned to pay heed. I stood in front of the doors and put my hand on the knob, but chickened out and turned to walk away, when I saw a beautiful woman wearing a long coat and winter hat.

She looked at me as I was turning around. I asked her, "Do you work here?"

"Yes I do," she said with a curious expression.

"So you write for the newspaper?"

"Uh huh."

"Alright, how does one become a writer?"

She laughed out loud, but not in a way I felt was directed at me if you catch my meaning. "That is a very good question, and every writer has a totally different answer."

"A friend mine," I said, "once wrote stories for a small California paper. Apparently there is a list of stories that the staff reporters won't do, but for a guy like me who is hungry to see his name in print..."

"Sure, we have a pool of freelance writers that choose from a variety of stories. I'm sure our editor would give you a trial piece to do."

And so she wrote down the names of her two editors, and gave me the phone number, and let me use her name as a reference. As I was leaving she said, "And stop by anytime."

Wow. I swear that wouldn't have happened in California.

I called and left a message, but the receptionist gave me the man's email address, so I introduced myself properly, in a manner appropriate for the task I wish to acquire: in writing.

The wheels of fate are turning?

Off to Interview

Quickly, I'm on my way to meet two recruiters, one of which has a client whose senior programmer gave notice. I've stepped into situations like this in the past--a complex jumble of code and nobody around to guide. This is where I shine, and I'll be sure to let them know.

I'm touched by all the responses. I promise to stop by later when I get the chance. It's hectic right now, holding down my job for the next two weeks while interviewing at the same time. And I have customers with support problems that don't know I'm leaving who inundate me with questions.

More later...

Feeling Good

And so the circus begins. I submitted my resume on DICE for a couple positions, and I got a call today from a recruiter, who I have agreed to meet with in Framingham tomorrow morning. This sounds like good news, but in my experience, meeting a recruiter is worth a free lunch--who said there was no such thing?

I feel a little better though. Yesterday I was getting a little down, as if looking for two days constituted abject failure. A guy needs to provide for his family. It's the hunter instinct.

My friend Jeryl has a husband that can best be compared to a sloth--a totally lazy, good-for-nothing leach of a man that is content to live off the fat-o--the-land. She is a very successful business woman, and was an attraction of mine when I was much younger. She knows it too. What a flirt she was. She always wanted a husband to give her kids and the good life, so she always picked the slick ones that seemed to be on a fast track to success. As you can imagine, this methodical approach to dating produced chemically stale results, producing one asshole boyfriend after another, culminating in a loveless, parasitic marriage. Now she has three kids, one of which suffers from an extreme immune disorder, where even a common cold could be fatal.

My heart goes out to her. But how does this guy look at himself in the mirror each morning? He is never around, and he physically abuses Jeryl. She raged at him for not being around for her and the kids, and he answered with a body slam and a full nelson. I've never met the guy honestly. She is my friend but we haven't been in the same town for nigh twenty years. I have a fantasy of walking in the house and beating the living shit out of him, like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, walking out of the house and handing the bloody pistol to Jeryl. Hide this.

I have a lot to do. I will visit you all as I can. There is so much to do.

Wish Me Luck

Just to let you know, I lost my job yesterday, so this puts me in a situation. I've been working at home for the last year, and have enjoyed being with my family, even if behind a closed office door. My wife told Jackson that I have to find another job, and that when I find one, I'll have to be gone during the days again. Jackson said, "You mean daddy won't be back until dark?" Yes. He cried.

That's assuming I can find one in this area. I've spoken to recruiters, and the reviews are mixed, but consensus points to a recovering economy, that people in similar situations are finding work. We'll see.

So, if you live in the Boston area and know of a company that hires software developers of the java server variety, then I'm the man.

I don't know how much I will blog. There is a stack of books beside me now. Design Patterns Explained. XML Schemas. I have tutorials on web services, struts and tiles, and working with JBoss. I'll have to dust off the text books on database design principals so I can answer the haughty questions about first normal form and the difference between a left inner and a right outer join. I'll probably have to explain linked lists and hash algorithms, and solve the Tower of Babel puzzle in 8086 assembly language. All in all, I'll have to be Jesus Christ and Mohammed rolled into one great big power joint, one hit from which will knock your dick in the dirt--all to get a job that pays half of what I make now. And by the time I get the job, I'll be grateful.

Dial a Prayer

My Sigma Chi days were short. After accepting my invitation to join, I moved my scant belongings into a small room on the bottom floor--a pile of tee shirts, two pairs of jeans and a Sears cassette player. The window had a view of nothing but a parking lot surrounded by trees, and hardly anybody in the house had a car. I borrowed a VCR from the front room and practiced being Dan Akroyd from a recording of a live Blues Brothers performance. It's a funny thing how easy something looks until it's tried. John Belushi got all the press, while his partner quietly stood eclipsed by his shadow, apparently happy to do so. I learned to appreciate Dan Akroyd as I frantically scissored my feet like electric clippers in an all but impossible attempt to imitate him. Once in a while I could see a dark shadow pass the window after the dull report of a slamming car door in the lot outside, checking me out on the way by and avoiding my gaze as I tried to see who it was. I must have looked like a circus clown to them, bouncing around with sweat streaming in tiny rills.

I refused to sleep upstairs in the sleeping porch with the rest of the pledges, and in general I thumbed my nose at any authority whatsoever. Pledges were supposed to be humble, but I was anything but. The members were getting restless. All along it was as if I had a foot out the door. I never intended to stay, although I never consciously acknowledged this. I just wanted to know what it felt like to belong to a respected house.

But I have to be honest about something. I was drinking too much, and I had basically given up on getting a degree. My grades by now had dipped below a point eight, which means I had an F average. The friends I had anymore only had pity for me, seeing the inevitability of my way. Sigma Chi was my last shot. I was meteor, a bright comet that was about to fizzle. And like a dying man whose doctor has told him to make his final preparations, I was living like there was no tomorrow. I wouldn't be back next year, and only I knew that for sure.

You may remember Conrad, the guy who invited me to join. He and I went to a bar for a few drinks on a Friday night. We sat with Sherrie, who met me for the first time that night, but I remember she had the hots for my friend Jay the semester before, and like all women that approached Jay, she was something to behold. It must have been the Sigma Chi shirt I was wearing, which to me had special powers, like a super suit, that rendered me irresistible. I had a brief chat with Sherrie that I wish I could reproduce, but it ended with her giving me her phone number, then going away with her girlfriend.

Conrad looked at me funny as she left. "You think you did pretty good there, don’t you?"

"Yeah, I think she likes me." I was glowing and it showed.

Conrad shook his head. "No chance. She just got through telling me that guys are always hitting on her and she’s sick of it."

"You're a cute kid Conrad, but a little naive." I said, "Perhaps she just wanted to back you off."

He raised an eyebrow as he motioned toward the bar napkin in my hand, "No way is she going out with you."

"We'll just have to see about that."

I waited for as long as I could, a day perhaps, picked up the phone and punched in the numbers written with such flowing, feminine style. One ring was all it took. My heart stopped as I groped for something to say, but I didn't need to bother. A recording of a man's voice spoke first, kind and understanding.

"Let me ask you a question: have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior? Only through Him can you find eternal sal--"

In My Country

I saw a great movie this weekend called, "In My Country." Let's just say that we are lucky to live where we do. And let us just further say that being white is a privelege that can't be taken away, and can't be given back. Go ahead and whine. Self denigration, loud protestation and empathy don't change a thing.

I'll say the word, but resist your inner file manager, the one that says, "Ah, this goes right here" in the Shit That Doesn't Affect Me folder. Already your eyes are glazing over, because the phase triggered an unconscious brain mine, your heart rate accelerated and your hand is absently twitching the mouse towards the Next Blog button. It's a choice really, how we live our lives. We all know that bad stuff happens, and some of us are really put out by it. Hell, we might even get indignant and pretend to really care, especially when rightly accused of apathy. But next week I'll have totally forgotten about it, swimming in the Soma of my own petty problems, and my life will continue unabated on it's present course.

What's the word?

Later. I have more to say.

I admire the kind of person who gets up one day, tired of all the bullshit, tired of hearing people complain about the state of the world, tired of talking about the injustice of it all, and takes action.

Do you ever wonder what it must be like to be a field reporter? Someone who doesn't hear it first on the news; rather someone who gets a call at three in the morning. Get your ass to Oklahoma City. Someone who walks through the rubble of an explosion and finds a shoe that fits in his white-knuckled fist with a tiny, gushing foot still in it? Someone who witnesses an execution with the family of the condemned man's victim and his sobbing mother, tendrils of smoke snaking from underneath a metal kippah, the smell of burnt meat wafting and pervasive, like a roasted pig in a pit. Someone who walks through a refugee camp after eating a hot breakfast, and sees the body of an emaciated child, skin pulled impossibly taut over a rib cage like a vacuum sealed freezer bag, with a fly casually cleaning its wings atop a sightless open eyeball. Someone who has consoled and transcribed the events of countless victims and survivors of violent crimes.

I do. But I live right here, in my little office that overlooks my slice of the Shire while the world turns on its hostile axis. I wish sometimes that I would have joined the service, or traveled abroad. I feel fortunate to have shoveled shit, to have worked in the freezing cold, to have rubbed two pennies together and wished them into silver dollars, to have loved and lost, to have tried so many times, to have been told I couldn't do it, to have risen above the caste I was born to.

Maybe if we all had to see the dark side of life, to squirm from its oppressive grip, we would have some respect, for each other and for the lives of people who never even had a ticket in the geographic lottery. Maybe we would have more of a stake in the future.

If I could do it all over, I would live a different life. I'm happy, but feeling a little guilty, like I'm living on the backs of slaves. I'm not rich by my country's standards, but on a world scale I'm living in Graceland. Make that Disneyland.

But like I said, I'll get over it. A movie like In My Country is like a cup of Peets: jolting, but the buzz eventually wears off.

The word? Oh yeah.

Apartheid.

Who's Better Off?

Ironically, it was mommy and daddy who couldn't sleep, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring--not even a mouse. Don't always believe what you read, even on food labels. Oh sure, it might say decaf...

Downstairs in the front room, which I believe is called the "living" room--I can never remember which is the family room, and which is the living room, so for arguments sake, the living room is the room classically reserved for the formal china and fancy schmancy table and chairs--is what we classify as our play and guest room, depending on the context. We set up a queen-sized bed for dad's recent visit, when it was only known as the playroom. It also has a fireplace, so we put the Christmas tree next to it and hung the stockings. Jackson and I slept in the bed and waited for Santa. He promised to stay up all night waiting, until we let him know about Santa's ability to know when you are sleeping. Kapow! Fast asleep.

Jackson got up first and saw all the presents. He was excited, but not like I used to be. It wasn't disappointing, just interesting. The world has changed for kids. Maybe I make a little more money than the average Joe--I'm not rich, but when political pundits say there is a war on the middle class, I'm it. Middle: not poor, not rich, just playing the game by the rules.

When I grew up it was different.

I saw a train set in a toy store that I pointed out to my Aunt Bev. "That's what I want for Christmas." She frowned. I was young, perhaps eight or nine. But the look on her face is with me still, not like a photograph; more like a strand of DNA, a twisted ladder whose rungs connect her pain to mine, her desire to provide to my outstretched hands, her disappointment to my dawning comprehension of our place on the food chain.

"Maybe something...” she paused. The words were difficult. "...a little smaller."

"NO! I don't want anything else. I want that."

My dad would have back-handed me over the train table, through three displays and the display window, and onto the front sidewalk, shivering and bleeding. But my aunt just whispered, "I-I'll see what I can do."

She told my step-mother, who talked to me when we were alone. "Your aunt Bev told me you asked her for a train."

Shame washed through me like a chill wind. Mom looked at me with those eyes that see, that could read my thoughts as from a teleprompter. Her expression softened when she saw that I understood. For once she wasn't angry. And I sensed something else too, something I would rarely see from her--a faint wisp of compassion, like a nip of perfume.

I found an old Lionel train set in my grandmother’s basement that used to belong to my father. It was heavy and smelled of oil. It didn't work any more, but I set it up anyway and imagined it did. That was the closest I ever came.

My own kids don't wait nearly so long. They have three train sets, remote control cars and planes, a Game boy, race tracks, Hot Wheelz, board games, figurines of dinosaurs and every genus of animal from the African deserts to the Arctic, and a crate of Disney movies that would take weeks to get through. When my oldest gets up on Christmas morning, he gets back in bed next to me and tells me Santa came, and waits patiently for me to wake up. Sometimes I put toys into the attic, and it takes months before he notices. I was made do with a broken down train set that only left from Dream Central Station. My son can play with a new toy for a day and lose interest.

Who's better off?

Christmas is Upon Us

Update:

We interrupt our normally scheduled posting to bring you this breaking news. Check out Moni's new song. She's been telling us about it for a while now and due to much encouragement from her friends, she has finally put it online for us to check out. I am impressed, so drop by, have a listen, and let her know what you think.

Now, back to business...

***

Christmas is almost upon us. I looked at the mountain of gifts we bought for our kids, and thought, man, this really bites! After wrapping five or so, I got into a groove. Not a wrinkle or tear, and all my lines straight. My mind started wandering to a long ago time when my brother and I couldn't sleep, my eyes drooping like Adrienne Barbeau's breasts, anxious to catch Santa in the act--but I never could stay awake. The morning came and my eyes popped open, the sun cast striped beams through the slats of my window, dust dancing in and out of its swath. I kicked the upper bunk and my little brother jumped to the ground as if jolted with a cattle prod.

"Did he come?" I asked him.

His body was a coiled spring--like a wide receiver waiting for the quarterback's signal. "I'll go see!" And off he shot, through the door, his feet padding through the hallway and stopping at the entryway to the living room--then back again.

"He did come--and he ate the cookies!"

I was already sitting up by now, and my feet found my slippers. "Let's get mom and dad!"

We ran into their room. The air rumbled from dad's snoring, but that ended with a loud report as we jumped between them and announced that Santa had really come, and they had to see.

And even dad, the crusty old crab-legged curmudgeon, couldn't resist our infectious enthusiasm, even though the battle was hard-fought behind those brown eyes.

Now I have my own family, and my own two boys who wait impatiently for Christmas morning. We've tantalized them further by setting up a bed by the Christmas tree and letting them sleep there on Christmas Eve. Jackson told me a secret that he is going pretend to be sleeping so that he can catch Santa in the act. But I know another secret. Jackson could sleep through an earthquake.

So Christmas morning the kids will awake to cookie crumbs and a thank-you note, and a mound of colorful packages that were carefully wrapped to be thoughtlessly torn open.

Christmas is for the kids--at least that's what I always thought. There is no greater joy than to see your children laugh.

***

To all my blogger friends: thanks for dropping by with all your words of encouragement. I'm not sure how to wish you the best this Christmas without sounding like a Hallmark card, so consider yourself told. Here's to you my friends, may we still be going strong next year.

Captain Caveman

I've been swimming in a sea of new technologies. Was it Darwin that said use it or lose it? That certainly applies to the brain. I'm in the software development business and I can tell you, complacency is the drooling tongue on the back of food stamps.

We've all lived the great hipocrisy, the self-creating lie. You must have experience to qualify, and yet how do you get it but on-the-job. Companies typically keep you working on the same task ad infinitum, until you could do it blindfolded, wrists bound and mouth gagged. They don't want you to learn something new--that would make you a marketable commodity, increasing your value and bargaining position come review time.

So what do you do? Lie of course.

Q: Do you have any experience with Web Services?
A: Services schmervices. Of course I do.
Q: Can you tell me what a Web Service is?
A: I could, but then I would have to kill you. Ha ha ha.
Q: Wow. Smart and funny. Seriously, what is a Web Service?
A: I know what it is, but do you?
Q: I'm not the one being interviewed.
A: That's what I thought.
Q: What?
A: You don't even know what a web service is.
Q: I was hoping you could tell me.
A: Oh, so you want me to do all your work for you?
Q: You are applying for a job aren't you?
A: Yeah, but I was hoping to learn something new here, to live in the now.

You get the picture.

I'm in a customer-driven business--what the customer wants, the customer gets. Mostly. So when a customer asks for the latest and greatest technology, and several others are chirping about the same, we move to learn and adapt our products. This happens every five years or so.

Our CEO is a typical dinosaur that comes from a time when you clubbed your woman over the head and drug her to the cave for a thirteen second bout of unprotected Zug Zug. He still keeps a stack of punch cards in his desk drawer, and has been known to pull one out and fondle it when reminiscing about the good old days, when programmers didn't suck.

He thought the internet was a passing fad, the buzzword du jour. But customers complained, so our products went online. Now customers want to consume our products as web services, and Captain Caveman is grumbling again.

The Island

I saw a great movie this weekend, but I will warn you: if you haven't seen it then I am about to spoil it for you. I have to. Otherwise I can't really talk about it.

The movie is called The Island. Did you get that from the title and the image? Remember, I only get to see movies when they come out on DVD, and only after the kids go to bed. I thought the science fiction movie had gone the way of disco, a guilty pleasure nobody can admit to. How many sci fi films have you seen that you can truly call original or engaging? Not many. But this movie gave me hope.

Let's dispense with the disclaimers first. One one level, this film was nothing more than a hollywood action film that John Woo is probably kicking himself for not getting involved with. One scene has the actors falling from a several story skyscraper and landing safely in a net. Visually stunning but insulting to the intelligence. I will say that I hate action films for this very reason. If you are a fan of John Woo, Van Dam, Segal, etc, and love to watch bullets fly A-Team style, cars explode Dukes of Hazzard style--well, this movie is just perfect for you.

What intrigued me was the actual fiction, you know, the story, that despite the intrusion of all these pyrotechnics, really stole the show. The story is set in the near future, where people are cloned as insurance policies to the insanely rich. If you need a new heart--no problem. It will be harvested from your clone and a new clone will be grown to take her place. The insured think their clones are insentient beings, bags of protoplasm with no self-awareness, and the company presents it this way. But the reality is that these clones are living, walking, talking people who think they live underground, protected from a contaminated world. The Island, they believe, is a Garden of Eden, where the lucky few are sent by lottery. Of course there is no Island, and those that are sent there are euthenized when their real function is executed.

It reminds me a little of the Truman Show, another movie that I loved. Because this is a realistic, believable and forseeable future. Money rules. If you have it, you can have anything.

For all you Bush bashers out there, what movie would be complete without a passive aggressive, back handed slap of the president? The president has an insurance policy as well, who Ewen MacGregor refers to as an idiot. If this were Bill Clintons day, he would have been portrayed as the clone who couldn't keep his tool in his tights, even though his sex drive had been removed. I don't understand it sir. We cut it off but it keeps growing back!

Oh, this is funny. I was about to rave about the writer, Caspian Tredwell-Owen, so I googled him and found that there is a suit filed in Federal Court. Apparently this story is a copy of a low budget Indy film called Clonus.

Interesting.

Oh, and Scarlett Johanssen. Nuff said.

Gotta Turn it Off

Sunday was the last weekend of football for me. The Cowboys... got... crushed--by the Redskins. That's like getting beat up by your little brother. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. This was the worst ass kicking the Cowboys have taken since... I don't remember when, and frankly I'm burnt out from thinking about it. It's hard being a Cowboys fan, and it has been for nine years or so. I was like an excited puppy at the beginning of the season, so happy that I hardly had bladder control. But today I watched the total self-destruction of a crew that seemed destined for a division title and a deep run into the playoffs. Now, if they make it, and that's a big if, who cares. They were embarassed like a cheerleader whose top flew open, caught on camera like God created her for the world to see, destined to be wallpaper on computer monitors across the America.

I'd be surprised if Bill Parcells returns as the coach next year. He won't be fired; he's just too old for this shit anymore.

Listen all. I've been busy and haven't been around as much. You know the drill, we've all said it, we've all read it, so you can fill in the rest.

It's late and I'm going to bed. I hope to spend some time trawling tomorrow, but I think I am going to be swamped for some time.

Geez I'm tired. Does it show?

Good night.

Progress Report

Work has certainly kept me away from my blogging responsibilities lately. That's a good and bad thing. Good because I am happily chugging away and my day flies by, bad because I miss my daily labor of love. Maybe someday I can do this for a living and have the best of both worlds.

Keep practicing.

Janey gave me a writing technique book to read called Techniques of the Selling Writer. At first I thought, geez, what a dry, formal, pedantic read--but I quickly got over it. It was written nearly forty years ago, and writers have since then lightened up. But that was only the first chapter. In chapter two, the pace quickened and the advice was golden. I especially liked the section on the use of the word "had." The book advises to avoid this evil word at all costs, because it slows the pace if only for a jarring instant, taking the reader out of the now. I put the book down and reviewed my short story and counted around ten offenses--and I smiled. I learned something.

I'm also reading All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg. I haven't gotten very far, because my time is limited. What was that old saying? If you chase two rabbits you catch none? I can't help myself. Bragg is amazing. His recollection of the tiniest detail is humbling. It's no wonder he was a writer for the New York Times. The book is a memoir, homage to his mother who raised him in the harshest of impoverished conditions. I don't know much more about the book, but my initial reaction is that Rick Bragg has an unpretentious, easy-to-read style that invites the reader to read on. He comes from a humble background, and has risen to the top despite all roadblocks that would stymie the average person.

Happy Fifth

In a clearing amidst a grove of oak trees, surrounded by farms and swampland, lives a cape style, three-story home, red like boiled lobster. Inside, past two young boys jumping from the living room couch onto a stack of pillows and blankets on a dark, wooden planked floor, past their mother folding piping hot t-shirts--softened silky smooth with the fragrance of baby powder--from the dryer into a basket, and upstairs past their father hunched in his office chair, sipping coffee and staring blankly into a computer monitor pretending to work, through the attic hatch that pulls down like a dragon's maw--with a folding ladder tongue--by a retractable string as the springs groan in protest, and into the biting cold, in the farthest dark corner on a sheet of chipboard stretched atop open ceiling rafters stuffed with dirty pink, cotton-candy-like insulation, lies a box marked "Mom's Things" in black Sharpie.

The box is sealed with packaging tape over every crack to protect it from bug intrusion. Inside are stacks of papers, books, and pictures, and trinkets that once adorned her desk at the Houston car dealership where she steadfastly kept herself busy while the cancer spread through her lungs, up her spine and into the brain. A little green book, hardly the size of a palm, could be seen just under top flap of the box if it were opened. Inscribed in plain gold letters is the title, "One Day at a Time." Tucked into the book's pages is a card in an opened envelope, with a platinum and black chip featuring the roman numeral five tucked inside, and a message written in neat black-ink script, "Happy fifth Mom. I'm proud of you."

Almost Out Of Time

What a weekend.

We were heading to Santa's Village until the big snowstorm hit, so we waited until morning when the snow plows and sunshine had made the world safe from dumb ass drivers. Sure, I have four wheel drive, but not everybody else.

On Saturday morning we packed our things into laundry baskets. We have suitcases, but laundry baskets are more convenient for one or two-day trips. Emmett fell asleep at ten in the morning, which is not like him. His eyelids were drawn irresistibly down, and his breathing was labored and shallow. For a week now he coughed and thrashed at night, but so far we thought he had a cold. Beth took him to see the pediatrician, who calmly told her to take him to the emergency room.

"Can I pick up my husband on the way?" Beth asked the doctor.

"No."

At the emergency room, Beth filled out a registration form and waited to be called. When she was finally shown to a room, and after chest x-rays from technicians, she waited for two hours for the doctor to come in. By now Emmett was dehydrated and hungry. The doctor apologized, but he didn't know she was even waiting until minutes ago.

I wish I had been there. Think Shirley MacLean in Terms of Endearment. If you haven't seen it, just watch the scene when her movie-daughter has cancer and hasn't had her pain shot, and MacLean goes to the nurse’s station to secure one. Get the shot. I'm sorry maam-- Get the shot! GET THE SHOT! GET THE SHOOOOOOT!!!!!

But it ends well--Emmett's infection is viral, a huge relief because I almost died when I was a baby from the same. Not that I can remember. Emmett "called" me from the emergency room, just to say hi. I've never heard him utter a word on the phone, not even a grunt. But I heard him clearly, "Hi dada." In the back of my mind, after we hung up, the eerie thought crept up from my unconscious, "What if that was the last time I ever spoke to him?" I scooped him up when he came home, and he rested there with his cheek on my shoulder--and I didn't tire so quickly.

Last night he woke up while the wife and I were watching the Fantastic Four downstairs. Another first, Emmett got out of bed. Mind you, he's just two years old now, so there are many firsts. The volume on the TV kept it from us for a while, but like a strange disturbance in the force, or a tickle of Spidey sense, we realized something was wrong and I paused the movie. Emmett screamed at the top of the stairs in a hoarse rasp, unique to having done so for a while, which pushed my panic button and propelled me up the stairs in three or four bounds. I scooped him up and he collapsed into my shoulder without so much as a sniffle.

Can you say melodrama?

Oh well. We brought him downstairs and he passed out between us. His sweet little angel face looked towards the heavens, and Beth and I took turns touching his face and pinching his nose, exploring the behind his ears and feeling his soft little neck. Then I thought of Jackson, older now and annoyed with such attention.

There isn't much time left before Emmett won't need us like this anymore.

Good Friends, Good Coffee

It's Friday in New England and we are getting pummeled with rapidly accumulating snow. This is the time of year when I ask myself what the frack I'm doing here. But Jackson is over at the neighbors sledding and drinking hot chocolate, so for him this is just a colder slice of heaven. There isn't much more to wish for than a happy child.

Thanks for all the comments on my book review. Eve made a good point, that I shouldn't be shy about my opinion. It was proffered honestly. I feel a little bad that I'm picking on a dead guy, but then again I don't have to worry about him finding my remarks and putting me on the black list with any of his publisher friends.

Janey gave me a link a while back to a list of questions to consider in a reading-group discussion on the Larry Brown book. After reading through them I felt I had missed some subtleties, of which there is no doubt. But I still didn't care for it, but perhaps it was well crafted, even if the story wasn't personally moving.

I don't know if I mentioned, but our friends Vicki and Richard visited a couple weekends ago, friends I've had since before I met my wife. They were engaged and living together, and I was the single guy who would most likely be so--forever (cue the evil laugh). But of course I did get married and had our first son before they got pregnant themselves. My wife and I became outsiders to them for a while, until they had a child of their own. Vicki gained an immediate appreciation for the trauma we went through raising a child without any help from anyone. After Vicki had her baby, she gained a new respect for us, and we've been good friends ever since.

Back in the early days before kids, we would sit in their small San Francisco apartment and play Euchre and smoke the wacky, laughing, telling stories, imitating our favorite Star Wars characters--as time raced like the Lombard traffic that roared unnoticed outside our windows.

During their recent visit, the most amazing thing happened. The kids played with one another. They didn't need us. Then Vicki said, "Hey, I know. Let's play some Euchre." Whoa. How long had it been? It took us a long time to find two decks of cards to shuffle together, but we did. And we managed to play three full games before the kids finally called an end to our foolishness. They acted like they didn't remember the rules, saying things like, "Now what's higher, the Jick or the Jack?" Yeah right. They stomped us so bad, that when we won our first point somewhere in the second game, Vicki said, "Aww Rich, that's so cute. They scored a point."

The only thing missing was the wacky that we took for granted in those days. I've said before that I don't have any way to get any here, and I'm not about to ask around.

We got a FedEx package in the mail today. Inside was a beautiful framed picture of their boy and ours, sitting together under the canopy of our play set in the back yard, a nice reminder of our time together. Richard is a photographer, and a damn fine one at that. As Jackson and I were looking at it, the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"It's Vicki."

"Vick," I said, "we just got your package. I just love the picture."

"Oh," she paused, "are you just now opening it?"

"Yeah."

"Have you seen the coffee?"

"No, you sent me some coffee?"

"Yeah, but it's special coffee."

"Like Starbucks? Cool! I just r..." Then it hit me. "Ohhhh. You mean special coffee."

"It's just a little, so don't get too excited."

"You are insane, and unbelievably cool."

"We had such a good time with you guys, and we were talking about it when we left your place that night, and we decided we had to do it."

Like I said, it's the little things in life. It's nice to be reminded that there are a few people out there that so highly of you.

The snow has let up, so it's off to plow I go. Tomorrow morning, if the weather allows, we are off to New Hampshire and Santa's Village. Then on Sunday it's Jackson's birthday.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Review: Father and Son by Larry Brown

The general feeling I get when I put this book down, is that I must be missing the point. I surfed around for other book reviews to get the reaction of other more sophisticated readers, but unfortunately, it seems I am left alone to fend for myself. The jacket builds the expectation that a master is going to take you on a psychological thrill ride; but the reality, at least for me, was quite different.

The story begins with the release of Glen Davis from prison, where he has been for three year years for manslaughter. Glen is a pure force of rage, and has revenge on his mind. His girlfriend Jewel has waited for him faithfully during his internment, and has been raising the child that Glen gave her--a child that Glen refuses to recognize as his own. Glen returns home to his father, Virgil, who Glen hates because of an affair that Virgil had with Mary Blanchard, which hurt Glen's mother, who died while Glen was in jail. To complicate matters, Virgil and Mary had a son, Bobby, who is the sheriff that put Glen away, and who is seeking to have a relationship with Jewel.

Does this sound like a soap opera to you? It does to me too.

There are other characters, whom Brown spends time building. Glen has a brother Randolph, or Puppy as everyone calls him, who picks him up from jail. Later we learn about his failed attempt at running a car repair business, and his strained marriage. In the end, it seems that Puppy was an extra, playing no integral role in the outcome of the story. I can only assume his part fed into the theme of fathers and sons, but served no other purpose beyond that.

It seems that much of the book was spent feeding an artistic theme, but didn't propel the story forward, leaving me wishing this were a short story instead. The ending was done well, but it took an age to get there. Even then, when the story's "Sweet Sue" was metaphorically tied to the railroad tracks, we are tortured with descriptions of the countryside, and treated to fond memories of days gone past.

Make no mistake; Larry Brown is a gifted writer. His scene descriptions are beautiful, and his dialog feels authentic. For my own tastes, I'd like to see more story movement and the art seamlessly woven in. In the end the message is one we've all heard before, with nothing new to add. It really hit home when I described the story to my wife, who summed it up in one word: typical.

Free Writing

I am taking a three week writers workshop from my local community education department. The teacher had us free write, which is writing without correction or pause, in response to prompts she gave. It was a little intimidating, but I was surprised at what came out of me when I let go. Of course I held back a little when my mind wandered down the darker roads because I didn't want to freak anyone out on my first day. Nothing bad. The prompt was, "It was the first day of..." So I went with "...the new year, and I had resolved to never drink again. Unfortunately it was also the night of the bachelor party, and I was the best man." Pretty soon I'm talking about strippers and her hairy knuckled escort. The mental brakes brought me into a tailspin thinking, I have to read this aloud.

The teacher participated in the drill too, and read it to us. I was amazed. She talked about the first day of college, how she wanted to back out once she got there. I can't reproduce her prose, but I remember this line: "I didn't know if I wanted to plant myself in a garden of strangers." She has a background in poetry--and it shows.

My friend Joe sent me a link that pokes fun at Chuck Norris. You can find the whole thing here, but my favorite is this:

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

I'm almost finished with the book Father and Son, so I'll review it tomorrow. I've been a little scarce on other blogs. I will visit everyone soon.

Hi Sigma Chi

After my aborted attempt at being a Greek, I decided to give the frat life another try--nobody ever accused me of being a quick learner. The only problem the first time around, I figured, was the lack of estro-curricular activities. I just needed to find a cool fraternity whose name wasn't the torn ACL of trivial pursuits.

Sigma Chi had an informal rush, which is to say that you could just join without all the official fanfare. If they liked you, and you liked them, you became a sorta-pledge until you went through basic training with next year's recruits.

I'll have to give him a name, but for the life of me I can't and don't want to remember him. Let's call him Conrad. Conrad was about five ten and a 150 pounds soaking wet, but he had a smug confidence, a cool veneer that I longed to crack with brass knuckles. He was the runt of the litter, but was Rico Suave and boyishly handsome, with a built-in twist of evil that naturally made him irresistible to the fairer sex--at least he thought so.

Conrad represented the house during informal rush. He showed me around the three story affair, not much different than any other on frat row. It had a large kitchen and dining area on the first floor, bedrooms along long corridors on the second floor, and a sleeping porch on the third. And of course the ever-present smell of stale beer chemically fused into the floors and counters.

Conrad told me that Sigma Chi was having a "date" function, and I was invited. "You can get a date, right?"

I knew just the girl to ask. She had a boyfriend at home in Puyallup. Pronouncing Puyallup, by the way, is one of those insider things that only Washingtonians can do. So, for your edification, it goes like this: pew-AL-up. The accented syllable is pronounced like the name Al, as in short for Allen. But I digress. She was a nice mixture of pretty and cool, making her pretty damn cool, and she was delighted to help me out. She belonged to a sorority but lived in the dorms. When I told her it was Sigma Chi, her eyes lit like you see on Star Wars when C3PO wakes up from a nap. I brought her to the house and introduced her around. There really wasn't any sort of function that night, just a few guys in the TV room watching a video--and nobody else had a date. Mine, however, impressed the hell out of Conrad, who informed me that the guys in the house really liked me, and that if I chose, I was invited to join the house. I gladly accepted.

It was totally different than being a Fiji. Girls of a wholly different category just hung around, for the fun of it, needing no invitation whatsoever. The house had functions with the well-known sororities, and the house members had girlfriends that made me chew on my open palm. Of course I bought a shirt that advertised my house affiliation, and suddenly the girls were stopping me on the street to have a chat.

My dreams had come true, and I proved to myself that I was "cool" enough to bluff my way into the fold of a good house. But there was the pesky problem of paying the rent. But worst of all, I sucked at being a pledge.

The Small Things

It was a nice family weekend. Recent Christmas holidays have brought the deaths of my mother and grandfather, and for one reason or another we haven't been at our own home with our own tree for quite some time. This weekend we dusted off the ornaments and decorated the tree. The last to come out was the train, which orbits the tree stand in a large oval. The kids don't see the train, or the "Ch-choo" as baby
Emmett calls it, but once a year, so the excitement level is extreme.

Our neighbors invited us over for dinner, and we had our best visit yet. Our five year olds are engaged to be married when they come of age, and it is the cutest thing ever to watch them sit close together on a couch that could accommodate six or seven kids across, with their legs drawn up and leaning into each other. A Kodak moment as they used to say.

We've been friends for almost a year now. But this weekend is the first time our personal history with drugs came up in conversation. We had this same talk with our friends in California, almost again a year after we met. If you have any experience living in a neighborhood where you plan to stay for a spell, there are many personal habits you might want to keep to yourself. I'm sure some of my younger blogger friends will disagree, that being yourself is the only way, but life has taught me a few lessons in group dynamics. If a single person in a community with a loud voice takes a dislike to you, the wheels of fate will run you over and plant you six feet under. I promise you. Issues concerning religion, sex, drugs, abortion, political leanings can be your undoing. So naturally, it's best to keep your mouth shut.

And that is hard for me to do.

That is why I am always the ice breaker between us and our newest friends. I don't come right out and ask, or tell; I talk around the issue like a game of tetherball. As the ball travels around the pole, the rope pulls it closer to the pole the more revolutions it makes. I don't keep madly batting at the ball; rather I serve it up for my "opponent" to either hit it back or pass it along in the same direction. My neighbor Tracy decided on the latter, and soon enough we were sharing old college stories. It turns out too that her husband Ian and I have a similar taste in books. So now I have a handful of Terry Pratchet's, which is only a small slice of his collection.

Life is about the small things.

Robert Gregory Browne

I found a new blog from a new novelist, Robert Gregory Browne, who just got a two-book deal from St. Martin's Press. His book, A Measure of Darkness, comes out in 2007. He details the whole process from the beginning, how he managed to get his story in the right hands, the acceptance from the publisher, getting assigned an editor, etc. Reading it I get a bit of a vicarious rush. St. Martins publishes one of my favorite authors, Wilbur Smith. A Measure of Darkness is a cop thriller that has a supernatural twist. Although none of my writing so far, at least on this blog, has ever attempted it, this is the kind of writing that seems to interest me most.

I remember watching an episode of Six Feet Under. Nate's wife was murdered the previous season. He was jogging when a dog captures his attention, beckoning with its eyes for Nate to follow, which he does. The dog leads him to a psychic, who tells him that his wife is trying to reach him. It sent chills through my spine. The show isn't about supernatural activity, but once in a while something unexplained happens like this.

Wilbur Smith wrote a book that just floored me called the Sunbird. I won't explain the story in detail, but the first half is about the discovery of an ancient civilization that had almost been wiped from existence. The second half goes back in time and details its fate. The principal characters in present day, the discovering archaeologists, are reincarnations of the principal characters of long ago. One of old characters communed with the God Baal, and was able to draw from him some magic. It was a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, and a gripping read.

Anyway, best of luck to Mr. Browne, whose career has certainly begun in earnest. As for me, it's time to get serious and join the party.

Rome

My wife and I watched the first season of HBO's Rome. At first my wife, ever the wimp that she is, couldn't stand the graphic violence, and the overt sexuality of the society that existed in the first century BC. But as the season progressed, we both became fascinated by the complex story line that entwined itself around the actual events leading to the death of Julius Caesar, and the fictional characters Pullo and Vorenus, who always manage to be at the right place at the right time, and are silently instrumental in all major historical developments.

Pullo is an overlarge teddy bear, a little dopey, but loyal to a fault. Vorenus is a stoic man who lives by a strict code of ethics, for which he is willing to die for. He loves his wife dearly, but he can't escape the trap of his societal programming that dictates the place of a woman in a relationship. Vorenus is deeply conflicted, and faces several moral dilemmas throughout the series that pit his sense of duty to that of friendship and love. Pullo is a much simpler man, who often is a victim to his own impetuousness. He lives only to fight and have sex, and to protect his friend Vorenus, even if Vorenus doesn't appreciate him.

Both Pullo and Vorenus are soldiers, and fortune always puts them in the critical midst of the fray, which captures the attention of Julius Caesar, who takes a liking to Vorenus and promotes him eventually to Senator.

There is so much more to it. HBO attracts the best of the best. The actors are outstanding, and the casting is perfect. The actors that portray Julius Caesar, Vorenus, Pullo, Marc Antony, Octavian, Brutus and Cicero are spot on. All the others too for that matter, but these are the key players, and they are simply amazing. The season ends with the death of Caesar, but the actual history of the fall of Rome promises another season that is rife with possibilities. We will see the rise of Marc Antony, and the subsequent war with the young Octavian, who is only sixteen this season, but is played by a brilliant young man who bears the mantel of authority convincingly.

If you saw this series, then you know what I'm talking about. If not, then look for the DVD collection soon; put it on your Netflix queue. I followed a link by Hugh Hewitt once (settle down my liberal friends) to a history of the Roman Revolution that starts with the career of Tiberius Gracchus to Octavian/Augustus, and I highly recommend that everyone read it. It's easy to follow, and easy to leave and come back to. I read the whole thing, amazingly enough, well before I saw the Rome series. When I revisited the history again, just today as a matter of fact, I was amazed at how closely the events of the Rome series followed the historical facts. Plus, with that viewing experience behind me, I was riveted by the read, especially the part concerning what happens after Caesar, and how Octavian becomes the first emperor of Rome, and holds the GNP of Egypt in his personal fortune.

Check it out here.