I'm writing this on a standard lined writing tablet (not yellow but a subdued gray color). I admit this because I'm trying to kick the habit, the dreaded habit of buying electronic gadgets that are a "must" as rationalized by me for their timesaving characteristics. 'Timesaving" is an oxymoron like "Army Intelligence" and, likewise, is "bass ackwards."
Wait a second! I'm getting ahead of myself.
"My name is Kevin and I'm an electronics addict."
That's how I start each "EA" meeting (Electronics Anonymous). Yes, they have a 12-step program for those of us afflicted with this disease.
(Excuse me for a second. I need to call my sponsor. I just fell of the wagon and used my Franklin electronic Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus to look up how to spell "disease.")
Now where were we? (By the way, he told me to trash the electronic dictionary immediately; they have books now that you can use to look that stuff up.)
It started simply enough by buying a small electronic Spanish-English dictionary and using it occasionally, just on weekends, recreationally really, just taking a break from the monotonous task of fingering the little red covered book I used with my Spanish lessons. Now I'm into an electronic five language translator with currency calculator. Where will it stop?
Let's inventory my extra bag before I started rehab. Yes, roller bag, black bag and electronics carry all. In no particular sequence I'll just pull them out:
∑ iBook (12" computer with 1100 digital pictures)
∑ i Pod (MP-3 player, of course, with 3,200 songs, all purchased by CD or bought in the itunes store online)
∑ cell phone (with camera that can send pictures to any and all e-mail addresses or phones worldwide)
∑ digital camera with 3x zoom
∑ electronic dictionary (aforementioned)
∑ five language translator and currency calculator (also aforementioned)
∑ noise canceling earphones
∑ digital bedside clock with snooze feature
∑ charger for the cell phone
∑ charger for the iPod
∑ charger for the iBook
∑ USB cable for the digital camera
∑ telephone line for on-line access
∑ extra batteries for the digital camera and noise-canceling head phones and, of course,
∑ a bag of plugs to fit European, Scandinavian and South American wall sockets to ensure 100 percent charges for all devices at all times. (Did I mention I was "OC" (obsessive compulsive)? But that's another story.)
I'm sure I forgot something but that's enough electronics for now. Total weight is 11.33 pounds. Whew! I need an ibuprofen just thinking about lifting it.
When I realized I was using electronics excessively (headache, bleary eyes, thinking about my e-mail all the time), I tried to cut down by myself. Only two electronics a night and not before 5 p.m. (it worked for alcohol, I think). At first I couldn't decide which two electronics I'd use, then, after deciding, I would watch the clock for the appropriate time. It worked for a while but then I'd move the time up a little each day. Then it happened. Twelve noon and I was online checking my e-mail, then on the cell phone checking voicemail, then both at once when I got a text message and call waiting at the same time.
I had a melt down and went cold turkey that afternoon. I shut everything off.
I'm still an electronics junkie but with the help of my new friends at EA I "choose not to use." Thank goodness there is a government program to help us addicts wean ourselves off the need for electronics and the rush it gives us. They give us paper products to ease our pain of withdrawal.
This morning I received note cards, postcards, this writing tablet and a newspaper. This will keep me busy till the meeting tonight. I can't wait for the coffee they serve at the meetings. I think Starbucks gives it to them for free. I wonder if that's a marketing tool. It worked for Phillip Morris.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Hard and Soft People
I'm a pilot. Pilots are generally hard people. Not hard in the sense of tough or rough-and-ready but hard in the good sense of hard numbers, by the book, empirical by nature and that sort of thing. Pilots try to create a black and white world or a binary one with ones and zeros. “Climb to and maintain Flight Level 350” means exactly 35,000 feet above mean sea level and not one foot more or less.
Hard people seem to remember numbers easier than soft people – or just have to because their line of business depends on the recall of certain numbers. When children or adults come into the cockpit before flight they comment on all the “buttons” (in their eyes, we push buttons for a living). They ask if we have to know what all those “buttons” do. We say “yes” and there are numbers associated with all the “buttons” we need to know.
Soft people don’t have all those “buttons” to memorize but can remember all your relatives, their children’s names and ages. Soft people can be innovative, independent, show initiative and change plans as often as they like. Hard pilots may have a little difficulty going there.
Soft people are extremely fun to watch and be with as they go through life. I know because I’m married to one and she’s interesting, exciting and a self described non-numeric. We’ve been married 35 years and just completed our 23rd move.
Over the years I’ve tried to explain how easy it is for me to remember numbers like our new telephone number. I dump the old telephone numbers like I try to dump the DC-10 and B-727 numbers I no longer use. Explaining to my wife how I link numbers together to make them easier to remember is like reading your insurance policy late at night in bed when disinterest and sleepiness overcomes anyone in a 15-foot radius. On the other hand my wife types faster than I can read and does difficult crossword puzzles that overwhelm me instantly.
Here’s how I tell her to remember our new telephone number. The number is 555-541-1744 (it really isn’t) and you remember the fives and 4+1 equals 5, next the 1+7 equals 8 and the 4+4 equals 8 so all you have to remember is 5 and 8. I’m 58 so that’s easy for me. Simple, right? I don’t think so. Simple for hard people and inconsequential for soft people. They’ll learn their new telephone number. It’s not a test or a race. Write it down, carry it in a book and look at it when you need it. That’s just as simple.
Another indication that you’re soft or hard with numbers was when you were in elementary school and were learning your times tables. When you came to the nines it was tough. You memorized 3 x 9 = 27, 4 x 9 = 36 etc. Well if you were gifted with a photographic memory, then that was less than a great problem. The rest of us struggled. Others like my niece Katy picked up on a mathematical relationship that goes like this. Take any single digit number times nine and the answer is simply figured out this way: subtract one from that number and that’s the first digit of the answer. Subtract the original number from ten and that’s the second digit of the answer. Hence, 3 x 9 = 27 or 8 x 9 = 72. Are you following instructions or did you already know this? Anyway if you understand this then you qualify as a hard person.
Here’s another easy test. It involves Centigrade to Farenheit conversions. Hard people take the Centigrade temperature, double it and take 10 per cent off then add 32 and “voila’” there you have it. Soft people say “30’s hot 20’s nice ten’s cold, zero’s ice.” My wife’s asleep now that I’ve read her this article. Her crossword puzzle is strewn across her lap. Does anyone know a nine letter word for half blood wizard?
Hard people seem to remember numbers easier than soft people – or just have to because their line of business depends on the recall of certain numbers. When children or adults come into the cockpit before flight they comment on all the “buttons” (in their eyes, we push buttons for a living). They ask if we have to know what all those “buttons” do. We say “yes” and there are numbers associated with all the “buttons” we need to know.
Soft people don’t have all those “buttons” to memorize but can remember all your relatives, their children’s names and ages. Soft people can be innovative, independent, show initiative and change plans as often as they like. Hard pilots may have a little difficulty going there.
Soft people are extremely fun to watch and be with as they go through life. I know because I’m married to one and she’s interesting, exciting and a self described non-numeric. We’ve been married 35 years and just completed our 23rd move.
Over the years I’ve tried to explain how easy it is for me to remember numbers like our new telephone number. I dump the old telephone numbers like I try to dump the DC-10 and B-727 numbers I no longer use. Explaining to my wife how I link numbers together to make them easier to remember is like reading your insurance policy late at night in bed when disinterest and sleepiness overcomes anyone in a 15-foot radius. On the other hand my wife types faster than I can read and does difficult crossword puzzles that overwhelm me instantly.
Here’s how I tell her to remember our new telephone number. The number is 555-541-1744 (it really isn’t) and you remember the fives and 4+1 equals 5, next the 1+7 equals 8 and the 4+4 equals 8 so all you have to remember is 5 and 8. I’m 58 so that’s easy for me. Simple, right? I don’t think so. Simple for hard people and inconsequential for soft people. They’ll learn their new telephone number. It’s not a test or a race. Write it down, carry it in a book and look at it when you need it. That’s just as simple.
Another indication that you’re soft or hard with numbers was when you were in elementary school and were learning your times tables. When you came to the nines it was tough. You memorized 3 x 9 = 27, 4 x 9 = 36 etc. Well if you were gifted with a photographic memory, then that was less than a great problem. The rest of us struggled. Others like my niece Katy picked up on a mathematical relationship that goes like this. Take any single digit number times nine and the answer is simply figured out this way: subtract one from that number and that’s the first digit of the answer. Subtract the original number from ten and that’s the second digit of the answer. Hence, 3 x 9 = 27 or 8 x 9 = 72. Are you following instructions or did you already know this? Anyway if you understand this then you qualify as a hard person.
Here’s another easy test. It involves Centigrade to Farenheit conversions. Hard people take the Centigrade temperature, double it and take 10 per cent off then add 32 and “voila’” there you have it. Soft people say “30’s hot 20’s nice ten’s cold, zero’s ice.” My wife’s asleep now that I’ve read her this article. Her crossword puzzle is strewn across her lap. Does anyone know a nine letter word for half blood wizard?
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Napoli revisited
The year was 1960, I was 13 years old and had traveled across America in a car three times but I came of age in Naples, Italy. I transformed into a “scugnizzo” roughly translated as a Neapolitan street kid. That’s what I was. Too young to drive, I was regulated to riding the trolleys in Naples. While in Napoli do as the “scugnizzos” did, I jumped on the back hitch of the moving trolley so as not to have to pay the five lira to ride inside. If I was lucky the collector would try to play tag with my hands “left one up, right one up, left-right." I wonder now if the collectors were issued sticks to bat our hands or they picked a nice one up on the way to work. They must have been bored like us.
Our family’s local education was derived from our maid, cook, and live-in babysitter. Lina spoke “a gooda English” and showed us off to her local friends and acquaintances in the market place as her “boys.” She lived in a room in our apartment Monday through Saturday. On Sunday she visited her two daughters who boarded at a convent school. Lina was not a disciplinarian and four boys were a handful especially when two were teenagers and only the youngest hung to her skirt. He was the “Golden boy” with freckles and strawberry blond hair in a country of dark haired, olive skinned men and women. He drew crowds in the local piazza and had permanent dimples in his cheeks from the pinching that inevitably occurred on his and Lina’s daily shopping rounds. We older boys were more aloof and headed out by bus, ”funicular” and trolleys to the more exotic parts of “Napoli.”
After a few games of foosball in Luna park it was time to jump on another trolley past Pozzuoli (Sofia Loren’s hometown) to the beach. My Dad was in the Navy and stationed here so we had access to the Armed Forces recreation area and beach.
The beach was a young boy’s European education as men of all sizes and shapes paraded around in “speedos” and the women didn’t shave under their arms. Wow, was I torn between beauty and the beast.
Although the majority of Americans lived in a string of high rises on the hilltop our family lived in a large villa (we rented a whole floor) overlooking the Bay of Naples. Following a path along the cliff past the guest house where the "contessa" now lived (I imagined her wrapped in a white flowing dressing gown with her hair stuffed into a turban looking desperately at Sorrento for her lost love. She never came out.) you wound around until a cave appeared where a boat builder worked. We immediately bought a row boat with a sail to learn what we could about the bay (three brothers, one older two younger). Later that year with a three dollar set of plans sold to us by a new company called Sunfish, my Dad built us a wooden surfboard with a mast and sail. Like its future fiberglass siblings this sunfish could be tipped over and popped back up by standing on the center board. The usual trick if a sightseeing boat came close (ok so we sought them out, I was thirteen and looking for excitement) was to tip the boat in front of the unsuspecting tourists. Vintage mahogany speed boats would come over to offer help after we had intentionally tipped over along side the tourists. Everyone looked on in horror until we stepped on the center board and took off on our own. What better way to spend a summer day?
Our family’s local education was derived from our maid, cook, and live-in babysitter. Lina spoke “a gooda English” and showed us off to her local friends and acquaintances in the market place as her “boys.” She lived in a room in our apartment Monday through Saturday. On Sunday she visited her two daughters who boarded at a convent school. Lina was not a disciplinarian and four boys were a handful especially when two were teenagers and only the youngest hung to her skirt. He was the “Golden boy” with freckles and strawberry blond hair in a country of dark haired, olive skinned men and women. He drew crowds in the local piazza and had permanent dimples in his cheeks from the pinching that inevitably occurred on his and Lina’s daily shopping rounds. We older boys were more aloof and headed out by bus, ”funicular” and trolleys to the more exotic parts of “Napoli.”
After a few games of foosball in Luna park it was time to jump on another trolley past Pozzuoli (Sofia Loren’s hometown) to the beach. My Dad was in the Navy and stationed here so we had access to the Armed Forces recreation area and beach.
The beach was a young boy’s European education as men of all sizes and shapes paraded around in “speedos” and the women didn’t shave under their arms. Wow, was I torn between beauty and the beast.
Although the majority of Americans lived in a string of high rises on the hilltop our family lived in a large villa (we rented a whole floor) overlooking the Bay of Naples. Following a path along the cliff past the guest house where the "contessa" now lived (I imagined her wrapped in a white flowing dressing gown with her hair stuffed into a turban looking desperately at Sorrento for her lost love. She never came out.) you wound around until a cave appeared where a boat builder worked. We immediately bought a row boat with a sail to learn what we could about the bay (three brothers, one older two younger). Later that year with a three dollar set of plans sold to us by a new company called Sunfish, my Dad built us a wooden surfboard with a mast and sail. Like its future fiberglass siblings this sunfish could be tipped over and popped back up by standing on the center board. The usual trick if a sightseeing boat came close (ok so we sought them out, I was thirteen and looking for excitement) was to tip the boat in front of the unsuspecting tourists. Vintage mahogany speed boats would come over to offer help after we had intentionally tipped over along side the tourists. Everyone looked on in horror until we stepped on the center board and took off on our own. What better way to spend a summer day?
Monday, October 8, 2007
Eighth and Ninth Grades in Naples, Italy
I was becoming a "Scugnizzo". I rode on the back of the trolley without paying. One morning I jumped off at Luna Park downtown by the port. It was a brown, dry patch of dirt with a few old trees surrounding it. No video games in 1960 but a lot of action at the thirty or so "foosball" tables. Here kids like me and much older men sweated playing their national pastime on old gaming tables with shining metal rods and handles made to spin their stiff soccer soldiers. I was curious. They were yelling, screaming but laughing and grim at the same time. Pick a partner, put your 100 lira coin on the corner of the table and wait your turn. Goallll! 6-5; good, our turn has come. Jees! They were fast. Their wrists snapped the handles so quickly I couldn't see what was happening. Goal! How can I defend this show of brute strength and speed? "Stroons" I said. The cuss word came easier than the defense Giovanni was showing me.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
My wife's name is Dawn
Top Ten Things You Love The Most in This World and One Reason Why
Dawn
Family
Kids
Love
Commitment
Cuddling
No fear
Sports activity
Enabling
Teaching
I love being loved
Dawn
Family
Kids
Love
Commitment
Cuddling
No fear
Sports activity
Enabling
Teaching
I love being loved
Interesting talks
Top Ten Most Significant Conversations in Your Life
Pre-marriage thoughts and dreams
Will you marry me?
Why I had to go away to war
Why I was not religious anymore
Why I voted for Richard Nixon
Why I became a democrat
Wallowing in Watergate
Discussion about adoption
Every night before bed
Every morning after coffee
Pre-marriage thoughts and dreams
Will you marry me?
Why I had to go away to war
Why I was not religious anymore
Why I voted for Richard Nixon
Why I became a democrat
Wallowing in Watergate
Discussion about adoption
Every night before bed
Every morning after coffee
What me worry?
Top Ten List of Significant Moments (big or small, life-changing, epiphany, or slight shifts in the way you see the world) in your Life
Eighth and ninth grade in Naples Italy
End of high school-acceptance to the Naval Academy
Letter to parents defining my beliefs
Discussion with Father concerning women and marriage
Vietnam combat duty
Post military life goals
Discussion about adoption
Newly wed life
Sharing everything
Large extended family and realization that my wife and I are enablers
Eighth and ninth grade in Naples Italy
End of high school-acceptance to the Naval Academy
Letter to parents defining my beliefs
Discussion with Father concerning women and marriage
Vietnam combat duty
Post military life goals
Discussion about adoption
Newly wed life
Sharing everything
Large extended family and realization that my wife and I are enablers
Food Food Food I love food
Top Ten List of meals you've made with love for someone or were made with love, for you.
Hot dogs
Fried eggs
Hash browns
Chicken Fried Steak
Steak Diane
Thanksgiving
Christmas
South Beach Diet meals
Cornish Game Hen Gallentine
Standing Rib Roast
Hot dogs
Fried eggs
Hash browns
Chicken Fried Steak
Steak Diane
Thanksgiving
Christmas
South Beach Diet meals
Cornish Game Hen Gallentine
Standing Rib Roast
Fear of Flying
Top Ten List of the topics, moments, and subjects you've always wanted to write about, but thought was impossible or too scary to actually write about.
The feeling of flight
Fighting
War stories
Fear
Sport defeats
Some family members
Kids
Love
Committment
The feeling of flight
Fighting
War stories
Fear
Sport defeats
Some family members
Kids
Love
Committment
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