Retrieval System

I now admit that there are retrievable memories stored in my head that, but for the sake of some trigger, will never be released. I went to a fireside meeting last night and the following chain of events triggered a memory from 1970 (when Eva Von Zeppelin, heiress of the airship designer, sues in an attempt to stop 'Led Zeppelin' from using the family name). Ok, here it goes...

Last week, Doug Waldie told me he was going to a fireside featuring renowned author and historian Richard Bushman (Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University) - ((Gouverneur Morris was the guy who wrote the friggin constitution)) so naturally I asked if I could crash the party. The party, you see, was actually being held in Scottsdale/Phoenix where Doug's brother-in-law is the Stake President. Let's now rewind back about umpteen years from when I was 2 years old to 12 years old (6th grade) and living in the vicinity of 56th Street and Osborn. I went to Ingleside Elementary School (which is now Ingleside Middle School) which at the time was a K-8 school. When I was in 4th or 5th grade there was a new coach who started his teaching career/coaching career at Ingleside and was our new, crew-cut coach with an attitude.

Flash forward to the events following the amazing fireside with Dr. Bushman (Harvard BS, Harvard MS, Harvard PhD). After 'amen' we all stood and I saw a very familair older, crew-cut gentleman walking toward the refreshments. I said 'Bevel...' to which he reacted but didn't pursue as he continued walking toward the back. I followed him and eventually stopped him in the gym and asked him if he was Coach Bevel. He indicated that he was and I introduced myself. I said nothing about his hair. He remembered me, or at least pretended to, and I related the following story to him - thus proving that I used my head for more than just holding my ears apart as my father often said was its only purpose: "I remember when Coach Bevel first started at Ingleside and he was our new coach. We did and exercise called 'Six Inches' where the victim lies down on his back and raises his heels off the ground six inches. Then he waits. Not more than six inches. Not less than six inches. No bent knees. No feet apart. In fact, if he violates the prescribed leg position, Coach Bevel would throw the football he was holding at the victim - trying to hit him in the stomach - which by now contained a burning muscle straining against the ever-increasing weight of his legs. I was a victim once - I guess my feet weren't in the correct position and I heard Coach Bevel holler and then **BLAMM-O** a football hit right next to my head. You see, those who can't do, teach. And those who can't play quarterback coach in elementary school.

Fortunately, he laughed at my story. I told this story to his wife as he was listening and he actually began laughing when I started the story with "...we used to do this exercise called 'Six Inches'." I don't know why, but I have very fond memories of Coach Bevel. I also told him that when I was playing football for Westwood High School he was coaching at Scottsdale High School. I greeted him at the end of the game and he claims he sort-of remembered that brief meeting as well. He asked me who my contemporaries would have been that stayed around to play sports in later years. I named a few of my friends from Ingleside and he said he had actually received an email from one of them a week prior. Pretty cool.

After this encounter, I went back to the refreshment table and Debi was there - Coach Bevel came over and met her too. After he left, I saw another familiar face which was confirmed by Doug as John Driggs (former Chairman of Western Savings) so I went over and spoke with him. He was Wil's good friend and we spoke for a few minutes. I love it when I meet someone my dad knew because they invariably charished their friendship with Wil.

I'm amazed at the retrieval system we have. I can't imagine the memories stored there. I have taken to trying to remember these and start writing them down when I get a chance.

What a lovely evening.

Boy or Girl

Boy or Girl? This is the first question usually asked about a person. In the olden days (I always wanted to say that) there were no ultrascans and high-tech imaging devices to expose your pre-birth winkie so the does-the-apple-have-a-stem question was usually answered at birth. It has been a goal for most of my life to never have that question asked of me again. I'm sure when I was luggage my mom had to dress me in something blue so folks would not make the mistake of calling me a girl, thus incurring offended mother wrath. Still, I was born in the 60's so the 70's were during my formative years and all role-model boys around me had longer hair. Girl hair.

I bring this up because today my wife (who is a verified girl) and I were dining at Chevy's and she noticed a woman/man/thing sitting at a table near us. Debi pointed out that 'Pat' was wearing a white shirt, slacks and a necktie but had pierced earrings. Short, sticky-uppy gray hair, glasses, a bit corpulent (thus concealing boobs or man boobs) and had a high voice. I have 'Pat' tipping the female scale but Debi wasn't too sure. This got me to thinking: is it desirable to be misjudged as a girl?

Well, that depends on who you are and where you are. Our painter has a son named Page. May be Paige. May be Peij. Who knows. When I was introduced to Page, our painter went out of his way to say, "...this is my SON Page." Good thing, too. I saw a pretty, petite, young 12-year-old with shoulder-length, curly, strawberry-blonde hair and delicate features who looked up at me and said, "Hi." I thought, OK, first of all, cut that kid's hair off, get him to go outside and scream a lot to rough up his voice, and maybe even get a marker and fill in a little mustache to butch him up a little. Wow, what a sad situation for this kid. And there is no way he doesn't get butchered at school. Unless he goes to an all-girls Catholic school.

Which brings me to my next point...I remember wanting to dress and act as a girl to see if I would be detected in certain unmentionable social situations. The problem was I was 6'2" and 195 lbs. I don't think I could have pulled it off (so to speak) which accomplished my earlier-stated goal. I remember talking to a girl who wanted to try the same sort of reversal so we discussed binding her breasts (I volunteered, it was the least I could do...) and trying to talk lower and meatier but she just couldn't pull it off. I've decided that nearly none can. When I see a trannie I often identify them as having switched before it becomes aparent. I am not sure, however, if I am right all of the time.

There are several movies that do a poor job of passing the girl off as a boy that I have seen lately. It takes a great deal of suspended reality to get me even close to believing these movies. In each of these movies there is the obligatory 'let-me-see-your-junk' skinny dipping scene where she can't toss the laundry with the chums for fear of flashing the fronts. I guess that is what makes great cinema - I just never buy it. Perhaps this is because I was thwarted as a lad with my huge, um, muscles and bulging, um, pecks. No guys I know like their prom dates to sport stubble.

Oh well, the chick in the restaurant remains a mystery - not her gender, but why she would look that way in the first place...

No Experience Necessary

“I'm impressed by your 'yada yada' “ (where yada yada refers to the attributes of our conduct, intellect, and vision). That is what we heard one day while interviewing technicians. This kid was a college student. His graduation was eminent. A computer science degree. And he must have been coached to say something along those lines. It seemed genuine but somehow scripted. Here's the problem with it as I pointed out to my partner after this candidate left. “Hey, lookie here, we impressed a college student. Whoopie!

My problem isn't that he had the ego to come in to our offices and profess his superiority (thus nearly elevating us to his status by being 'impressed'). My issue with his attitude is that he clearly does not place value in the most important element of knowledge: experience. Perhaps he isn't experienced enough. I felt like saying, “...excuse me drooling college pimple who couldn't code his way out of a paper bag...kiss my umpteen-years-of-sitting-in-front-of-a-computer-with-glassy-eyed ass. You don't even know what you don't know yet. You'll not be able to handle technical questions, computer questions, customer questions, boss questions, colleague questions, wife questions, and mother questions with the degree of elegance I have for some time. It will take you years to master the art of time-filling and clock-burning. I will take you longer – if ever – to refine the art of butt-kissing-without-seeming-like-it-is-butt-kissing.” I know, them's fightin' words. Don't worry, I'm a CodeWarrior.

Experience shows most, I think, when troubleshooting or problem solving. Book smarts don't reach the far corners of a boot failure. I was over fixing a friend's computer. He has been a plumber for 30 years. I sat down, diagnosed his trouble, made the proper corrections and adjustments, and his computer was fixed and singing again. He commented that he had invited several people over to fix his computer who had all failed. One, in fact, was a newly trained and certified technology company technician and installer. I hope that was ambiguous enough.

Nothing against the fine and reportedly thorough training program he had just completed, he just lacked the experience of having been there. I asked my friend if it would be better to entrust the most complex plumbing problems to someone who had just graduated from a trade school in plumbing or himself. He didn't hesitate because there are things he knows about plumbing that he can't teach. (Water flows downhill and never lick your fingers...among others) Thoughts, feelings, impressions, and twinges all result from experience (or old age, I've discovered – especially the twinges).

I get that there are entry-level jobs that post no requirements to be hired. No experience necessary jobs, however, don't exist. You have to have made a sandwich, or at least seen a sandwich made to make one.

I heard a statement the other day that said, in effect, "...if you are a different person today than you were a year ago it is most probably a result of something you read or someone you met." To this I would add Jeff's wise and crappy advice, "...it could also be a result of something you did (to gain experience) or a disease you got."

I've seen people change for change sake. No external forces, no real reason, just something that made them change. Drastically. I think it would be hard for me to change drastically. I make little changes in my life but I am tightly integrated with my current life. Deviation would create ripples beyond reasonable control. There are those who hate ripples. That's been my experience.

I Know Stupid Stuff

There is a virtual traveling trophy (one day we will have a real one when this gets serious) in our office called the KOOK Award. Yes, to the biggest kook. Kook stands for Keeper Of Obscure Knowledge. Every once in a while somebody in the office snaps off a definition of a practice, object, or idea to which everyone else immediately responds, "...BS." The validity of said obscure fact is then validated on the Internet and the person keeping such knowledge is then awarded the KOOK award. This trophy is a badge of both honor and wonder. I will give some examples.

There is a practice known as threading. It is a form of facial hair removal where two pieces of thread are twisted together around a group of hairs on a face and then BITTEN off. This one came out in a conversation in the office and I was actually frightened that this kind of knowledge could be attained, let alone retained.

The funny thing is that there is a great deal of knowledge in my head that I take for granted that is sometimes surprising to my co-workers. I think everyone should know that the Kashmir is a region in India, once the capital, and also a song by Led Zeplin and not to be confused with cashmere the wool or lead whose chemical symbol is Pb. (I learned the chemical symbol in 8th grade chemistry and the way I remembered it is we used to say that Lead Zeplin played a concert at Pacific Beach. Strange remembering strange facts but even stranger knowing how and when you learned them.) Everyone should know that neon is inert. So is Krypton. Used to make Kryptonite...I think.

Keeping obscure knowledge is not a problem for my wife. She used to be the smartest girl I know. Then, is seeped away. I don't know why. I still think she is the smartest KOOK because often she knows that Ben Afleck is no longer dating Jennifer and now dates Paris or Angelina. I can also call her whenever somebody asks a question about a movie such as, "...you know that movie with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Al Pachino?" to which she replies, "...you mean 'Men of Honor' with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Robert Deniro?" We're not worthy. Her friends call her 'Google' because she knows so much.

I'm glad she's not in my office or the KOOK Trophy would constantly reside in her office. Virtually.

Managing Thickness

I have learned throughout this process of remodeling the house that life is ALL about managing thickness. When you buy a new pair of socks, the thickness of them determines to some degree if they are comfortable and if your shoes fit. However, never has the thickness debate been more evident than when building something. I had some sense of this before I began so I didn't worry too much about it as we went. Adding to a room meant just kicking a wall out, adding some studs and drywall and painting over it. Not so. The concrete guy was 3/4" off on one side. This has caused me more grief and cost me about $6,600.

Doors swing to hit floors and other doors if thickness is not managed. Will there be tile or granite? Different thickness in the finished product means different materials used to arrive at the finished product. What's on the floor? Carpet? Tile? What's under the floor? Concrete? Wood? What will you put out there once it is done? Flagstone? All these questions help the designer determine thickness.

We had 'whoops' in our walls. That’s what our painter called them. Our drywallers, of all subs, have been the worst and cost us the most in repair/redone work. So much for saving a buck. Of all the subs, I think the drywallers were one of the most important and I didn’t realize that until now – amid paying to get their mistakes fixed. They did a poor job of managing thickness.

Through this process my hair is thinning. I guess I will have to manage the thickness of that , too. I remember an old Fernando sketch done by Billy Crystal where he had Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on his show and they were discussing Muriel Hemmingway’s boob job. This is back in the day when breast augmentation was rare. Fernando asked G and R how much difference the surgery made to which Roger replied with a hand gesture demonstrating thumb and index finger about 1.5 inches apart. This is not where I got the original idea to employ hand gestures demonstrating various breast statuses but it should have been the genesis.

Another thickness which I have believed for 20 or more years comes from the Jethro Tull album “Thick as a Brick” which Richard informed me while we were young referred to unit size. There is a line in one of Tull’s songs that says, “…I’m tight against the seam,” which, of course, infers a state of arousal – the seam being the seam of ones pants. That song, of course, was from “Songs From the Wood.” I think the thickness in this instance is more centered on my thick skull for believing this. See for yourself. The song is called “Velvet Green” and is about grass and trees and cows. Silly me.

OK, items to blog:
Cruise
Remodel

We went on a cruise to the exotic land of Catalina, San Diego, and Ensanada, Mexico. We spent Christmas Day at sea. The weather was perfect and we had a great time.

We have not much remodeling left. Just the cabinets, the flooring, the electrical and plumbing, and the countertops. Not bad.

The end.

Just kidding. Not much in the blogging mood right now. I will do a brain-dump later. However...

On the cruise we met a rather interesting gentleman named Yefim. We became friends on our short trip and I got him to tell us a little about himself. He is 77 and a Russian Jew. His English was rough so I couldn’t get as much out of him as I would have liked. I first learned that he was a ship-building engineer and later learned that he was in the military during the Cold War. Yefim said that in 1965 he was in a Russian submarine looking through the periscope at San Francisco. And ‘America’ didn’t see him. He now lives in San Francisco.
His family has an interesting tale to tell as well. His father is one of 11 children – nine of whom were killed by Nazis. His father and his uncle were the only survivors of their family.

Yefim was there with his grandson Martin. Martin slipped between English and Russian freely. They were a delight. I will post some video soon showing them and us and such as that.

ttfn