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Everybody’s goin’ off the deep end

A blow-by-blow account of my weekend:

  • Friday morning: arrive at work, unload bike bags, drop off bike at Bike Gallery for repairs next week
  • Friday: work, trip planning & preparation, Max ride to Gateway Transit Center (no bike)
  • Friday evening: Tina and boys pick me up at Gateway TC, dinner at El Sombrero, shopping at Costco, strained right calf walking to checkout line
  • Friday night: organized trip items at home, haircut, Tivo watching
  • Saturday morning: woke up early to finish organizing trip items, discovered that I didn’t have my travel papers, emailed office admin and a co-worker to help retrieve it
  • Saturday morning (continued): packing for camping (Tina had pre-organized) using our new roof rack, meet up with scouts for 9:30 am departure to Beacon Rock
  • Saturday morning (later): Arrive at Beacon Rock @ one hour later, setup camp as rain begins, twisted right ankle stepping in mole hole, helped John setup portable canopy near our tent
  • Saturday: huddled under canopy and cooked occasionally, skipped 1.5 mile hike up Beacon Rock because of rain, calf and ankle – Graham disappointed
  • Saturday evening: enjoyed Boy Scout Campfire including two flag retirements
  • Saturday night: retired early and muddily to bed, slept well despite the loud nearby campsites, awoke twice to urinate, wiped my muddy feet on my pants before getting back in bed
  • Sunday morning: awoke @ 7:00 am, struck camp and packed for home
  • Sunday morning (continued): Breakfast at Charbroil’s in Cascade Locks, drove home
  • Sunday morning (continued): Arrived home, checked email and received missing travel info, showered (while Tina unpacked the car), packed my bags (using this list), cleaned cat box, put out recycling, drove to airport
  • Sunday afternoon: waited at airport and started writing this
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Rob Kremer on parenting

Oregonian Rob Kremer usually writes about political issues on his blog, but yesterday he wrote this incredible piece about his daughter who recently graduated. One of the commenters there called it “lyrical” which I think is an apt description. He digresses from his ode briefly to ruminate on the nature of parenting:

Woody Allen once said that 90% of success in life is showing up each day. I think that is very true about parenting. Let’s face it – none of us really know what we are doing. We are just winging it, dealing with all the various issues, situations, conflicts and decisions by making day-to-day judgments about what seems right. Showing up – being there – doesn’t take any particular genius, but it just might be the most important part of parenting.

There isn’t any magic formula. Great parents can have kids who stray. Lousy parents can have great kids. Bottom line, we do what we can, and we are all hoping we get lucky.

But what all parent should know is the difference between mspy vs spyrix to avoid children find a way around typical filtering programs and internet monitoring.

Wow. I couldn’t agree more with that last part. Several years ago I asked my mom about the huge responsibility of parenting, particularly about how mistakes you might make could have a huge negative impact on your children’s lives. She said that although she realized that was true, she didn’t think about it much and didn’t regret any of the decisions that she made as a parent. To paraphrase her: “You can only do what you think is right and move on.”

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WWDC Packing List

Personal bag

  • Newton (with freshly charged batteries)
  • Digital camera
  • iPod and earphones
  • Cash ($200)
  • Credit cards & driver’s license
  • Mini-wallet
  • Letter from California Health Dept.
  • Remove everything not needed for the trip
  • Remove money clip and Leatherman
  • Mocassins
  • Envelope for receipts

Laptop bag

  • Travel credentials
  • MacBook Pro with power adaptor
  • Long ethernet cable
  • Firewire cable (get from Erik)
  • Book (need to pick a new one)
  • DVDs (pick three)
  • Camera charger and USB cable
  • iPod USB cable for charging
  • OS install CDs/DVDs
  • New business cards

Checked bag

  • Underwear (5 pairs)
  • Shorts (3 pair)
  • Pants (2 pair)
  • Shirts (2 long-sleeved, 4 short-sleeved)
  • Sandals
  • deodorant
  • brush
  • tweezers, nail file, nail clippers
  • toothpaste, tooth brush and floss
  • South Beach snacks
  • Airport base station
  • CPAP machine

Action items

  1. Verify Find travel credentials are correct
  2. Verify conference credentials and password
  3. Remove all banned items from carry-on items
  4. Laundry
  5. Charge Newton batteries
  6. Haircut
  7. Charge camera battery
  8. Clean catbox
  9. Pick a new book (small paperback)
  10. Get cash
  11. Verify all code is checked in and builds on laptop
  12. Copy rynosoft.com web pages to laptop
  13. Streamline handbag
  14. Pick some DVDs I haven’t seen
  15. Load new music on iPod
  16. Print health dept. letter
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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 1263
Weight lost: 58 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 7
Hours billed last week: 45
Aches & pains: right wrist, lower back
Current reading:: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, Prey by Michael Crichton
Recent listening: The Pixies, The Rising Tied by Fort Minor, Collision Course by Jay Z with Linkin Park, Teaches of Peaches by Peaches, The Mercury Anthology by Rod Stewart, Meat Puppets II by Meat Puppets
Recent viewing: 2007 MTV Movie Awards, Ocean’s 12, Gilmore Girls, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Sportscenter, NBA Finals
Recent playing: Virus 2, Excite Truck
Recently accomplished: Paid bills, Tivo scheduling to ensure NBA Finals are recording while I’m gone, dropped bike off at Bike Gallery, renewed BTA membership, packing list for WWDC
Imperative To Do: Pack for WWDC, RMA old Tivo drive, backup Thomas, backup Graham, backup Tina, sift through inbox, CDs to post office, return cans

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NBA Finals, Game 1

  • I can’t believe they have Jeff Van Gundy broadcasting the finals. I really can’t stand him. He has no real insight, speaks in platitudes and always sounds like he is straining to be heard.
  • Mark Jackson is OK, but I really like Kerr, Albert and Collins. Too bad they work for TNT and not ABC.
  • Ginobli has a breakaway layup off a steal towards the end of the first quarter. Lebron James is right there and doesn’t foul him.
  • Robert Horry isn’t nearly as good as he used to be but he’s still what is known as a “wily veteran.”
  • Lebron James has a bad habit of dribbling at the top of the key for too long before starting his move. The consequence is that the pass he makes has to be an assist – there’s not enough time for more passing.
  • Donyell Marshall is a very capable three point shooter. When is he going to start hitting shots?
  • I suppose I would like to see Michael Finley get a ring. He’s gone from one of the “big three” in Dallas to playing the 2 and 3 off the bench. I admire veterans who can go from “star” to role player because there are so few who have done it. Ron Harper and Brian Shaw come to mind. I thought Magic Johnson could do it in his comeback, but even he failed.
  • Add me to the chorus of Daniel Gibson admirers. There’s a good chance that Gibson will be Scottie Pippen to Lebron’s Michael Jordan.
  • Although Parker and Duncan are better than ever, this may be the weakest Spurs team to reach the Finals, especially in the frontcourt and on the bench.
  • It’s unbelievable that Brent Barry is still getting playing time – he’s got length but he has no impact on either end of the floor. He’s reputed to be a three point shooter, but I’ve seen none of that this year during the playoffs.
  • Francisco Elson is grom the Netherlands. Somehow I never imagined that there were people of color in the Netherlands.
  • Drew Gooden is a solid player but has a hard time keeping focus, I think. He’s a great hustler, though, and has a really nice post game.
  • I don’t understand why the Cavs aren’t working their big men more on offense. Both Ilgauskus and Gooden could really give Duncan a workout.
  • Weaknesses in Lebron James’ game: jacks up too many threes and questionable ball-handling sometimes. He might be a little too patient in waiting for the game to come to him. He also seems unwilling to stick with the same strategy after it fails once.
  • The San Antonio veterans have a great killer instinct especially Ginobli, Parker, Horry and Duncan.
  • Cleveland played a pretty good defensive game for three quarters.
  • Mike Brown needs to realize that Larry Hughes can’t play starter minutes on his gimpy foot now. It’s time for Gibson to start.
  • Pavlovic needs to have a bigger role in the offense. He’s a good shooter and capable of high flying lane penetration. Unfortunately, his position overlaps with Lebron’s and he has the smallest role of any starter.
  • Duncan had a ton of offensive rebounds and they were all clean (no pushing).
  • R.C. Bruford has to be the most under-rated GM in the league. Year after year the Spurs have one of the best rosters in the NBA but they still have a fair amount of turnover in personnel. They’ve lost some good talent to free agency but they always seem to replace it.
  • Despite the loss, the Cavs should feel good about this game. The Spurs are beatable.
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Getting Old Sucks

Yesterday morning I injured my right wrist in the shower. You might think that there was some sort of freak accident which involved slipping or falling or maybe both, but it was not nearly that dramatic. The sad truth is that I was simply washing my hair when it happened. The act of rubbing shampoo onto my scalp with my hand caused the injury to my wrist. I wasn’t rubbing particularly vigorously or pressing very hard. It just started hurting and has hurt since.

Since I turned 40 I have been noticing more and more that my body has become much more fragile. Injuries that used to take a day or two to heal now takes weeks or even months. Last year, on a trip to the coast, I made the mistake of hefting too many laptops in my shoulder bag. Result: a popping sensation in my left shoulder that has only recently gone away.

It wasn’t like this when I was 20 or even 30. When I was in college, I used to do crazy things so people would think I was crazy. One of the crazy things I did was to jump out of a second story window once when I was drunk. Because I came away from that experience completely uninjured, I concluded that I would never be injured jumping out that window and demonstrated my theory a few days later. Even though I “rolled” with the impact, I injured my right ankle enough that I rolled around on the ground in pain for several minutes before limping off for a beer.

It probably took only a week for that injury to heal, but it has come back numerous times to haunt me in recent years. In the last year especially, that ankle has gone from normal to painful in a matter of minutes. And the transition doesn’t even have to involve movement. I can be sitting with my feet off the ground for a long period of time but when I stand I’m suddenly in excruciating pain. The extreme pain fades but a dull pain lingers for days after. I plan to speak with my doctor about it next time I see him.

Sometime between jumping out that window and now my body decided it could no longer put up with my shit anymore. Or perhaps it was no longer able to put up with my shit. Whatever the correct shit-putting-up-with verb, my actions now have consequences on my fragile body. That fragility has not only created a greater awareness of physical consquences but has also led to increased caution and hesitancy. Straining to move that bookshelf a few inches further while the body is twisted awkwardly is no longer an option. Greater planning and frequent plan re-evaluations are the order of the decade now.

And when the body says, “Pain!” – it’s time to finally listen.