Entangled

Surrounded by the likes of men

without one thought pursues another

she waits if only in a memory

and strengthens him once more.

In silence scarce a whistle blow

alert to some but not complete

recurring thought disturbs sweet sleep

no fault of him mid pleasant dream.

The sun bathes part, the light burns dim

a sketch of solitude confines

the origin of demented thought

leads him closer to the dark.

And goes she with the angels shift

moves to and fro and back

explores the reaches of his mind

and waits for his sustained embrace.

Majestic scenes decorate the ground

with hope of one so stark and real

the sluggish resting casts a pall

to fuel desires deep within.

The quiet shapes cast shadows deep

to feed the soul and spike the notion

come quickly here be still and see

or lend a voice that echoes strong.

Fill his mind with open sky,

with smooth resolve and calm repose

and spark the fire fanned within

to nourish his imaged world.

Then he will seek the meadow green,

the sky of blue, the amber glow

and watch and wait with heart entombed

no claim save hers allowed to dwell.

Her wistful gaze a dagger makes

her eye a saber, hands as thorns

or pedals both continuous

and yet admired each alike.

The hellish sound the cutting crack

of distant, violent, unquiet men

disturbs the setting in his mind,

distracts from blossoms and warm wind.

He waits unable not unwilling

for his time creeps without end

wanting to his core attempt

a sculpture of life to shape and mold.

Weak and torn his being tried

far such goes beyond compare

to try resolve to bend or rupture

ignorant of driven love.

The ocean shallow the desert narrow

the universe space is filled

the morning brings another tryst

of sane and insanity.

So love contained that gnaws like hunger

unplanned spills and takes a shape,

a form anew bathed in pale light

reflected off a thousand tears.

Imagined union chides his pain

one moment from the next

and stills the speechless babe once more

his sentence to longing dream.

And twilight finds this broken man

withdrawn into the echoes grim

who hates the cage, who scarce awaits

her phantom healing dreams.

You Smell Good

Before it jumped the shark, Boston Legal used this line (Spader to Rhona Mitra) in place of something meaningful a boy would say to a girl. She muses that when boys are smitten they often say something really sharp like, "you smell good." Yes, they do smell good. That’s how they get you. Or at least that is what I heard on a TV show last night. A little boy had a little girl over at his house and then later when he was talking to his dad about it he said, “…she smells good,” to which his father replied, “...that’s how they get you.”

 

I remember Uncle Doug telling me that he likes waking up in the middle of the night so he can smell Lynnetta – look, I don’t make this stuff up to creep you people out. But when he told me that he didn’t have to explain to me. I get it. My wife smells good. Really good. She is clean and smells fresh and good and yummy. This is the truth: when we were dating and often even now, my wife’s breath smells like peaches. I used to tell her that but she didn’t believe me. It is still true. I should probably study why this phenomenon occurs.

 

I had a girlfriend when I was 19 years old named Ruthie Jones. A year later, while in Japan, I was in a drug store and SMELLED her. I was walking down an aisle and was so convinced she was there that I actually looked over a few aisles just to verify that I was still in Japan and that she was not there.

 

Nothing has a more mind-altering affect on humans than music. Smells, like the cherry-almond smell of lotion or the un-duplicatable smell of Prell, can make you think of something or somebody, but a song can take you somewhere. When talking to a non-drug-impaired adult about an old song they happen to hear on the radio or in a store, they usually use words like, “…this takes me right back to the back seat of the 1973 Country Squire station wagon with my brother playing head-punch...” or something like that. The emotions surrounding music are strong. The song that everyone else seems to dislike but that you rock out to probably brings you back to your bedroom, in your underwear, gazing at the mirror with a Coke bottle mic in your hand screaming the lyrics at the top of your lungs and hoping that you both would and would not get caught while dreaming of being David Lee Roth rocking out on a stage and wishing your hair were longer/chest were harrier/voice were lower/voice were higher/fame would catch on.

 

To put a finer point on it, I was whisked back to the locker room annex at Westwood High School the other day by a rousing and too-loud version of Tommy Bolin’s Post Toastie. What caught me off guard was not the memory of the annex: the sights of the tackling dummies, locker room, powder footprints leading from the shower box, the stacked high-jump pits awaiting a different season, the team and personal record plaques posted on the walls, the orange slump-block construction, the concrete floor worn smooth by cleats, the cage filled with pads and helmets, or the navy blue Volkswagen parked in the carpark in front. It was the smells I actually smelled. I actually identified two smells. One was the smell generated by the sweat so prevalent that it could be wrung from the gray shirt worn under the shoulder pads. The other smell was the musty, sort of old smell of the equipment storage. This smell was not bad to me, but it was nostalgic. This is not the first time nor will it be the last that a song brings back many senses at once. Sight and smell seem to be triggered by sound. Interesting.

The Pancreas Truck

I tread lightly on the pancreas issue...Dave had pancreatitis and didn’t particularly enjoy it. He was what you call sick. And not that kind of sick. Oh, no, I feel a divergence coming on. I can’t fight it – I have to follow it…ah, I just figured out how to tie them both in – buckle up and give me a little latitude. When I was in high school I had a girlfriend named Jeri. Jeri was a All-American and NCAA Title-winning gymnast. Have you seen gymnast’s bodies? I have. They are great. She actually had a body exactly like Shawn Johnson. I picked this picture to illustrate the legs – those extremely powerful legs. About 10 years ago Jeri was inducted into the ASU Hall of Fame for Gymnastics. So, we were driving near the place where I worked – a small meat locker/butcher shop owned by my dad’s friend Bill. I should set aside a day and blog nothing but that. Anyway, as we drove by I proudly pointed out where I worked and commented that it was the “…baddest place to work,” to which she replied, “…you don’t like it?” So the ‘sick’ comment above (frequently used by my daughters when describing something great) spawned that. I digress. Anyway, back to the pancreas. At that very same meat locker business they owned a powder/baby/sky/oxidized/light blue truck. The braking system on this truck was suspect – only functional when you had plenty of road and plenty of patience to eventually stop. This truck was called the pancreas truck. It was used for other functions and deliveries occasionally but its main function was to make a 20-30 mile trip to various meat processing plants around the greater Phoenix area to pick up cow pancreas glands harvested from the day’s meat source to be processed and used as medicine – insulin to be specific – for diabetics. Twice a week we would make a pancreas run. This was not, however, a trivial task. I remember distinctly the first time I went with Dennis on the pancreas run. Somewhere in the middle of Phoenix, we went through a light and there was a vehicle stopped just after the intersection awaiting other cars so they could turn left. Remember the part about the brakes? Well, looking out the front windshield of the pancreas truck was much like a dream sequence of a violent ride – kinda blurred (probably from the goo transferred from our hands after handling pancreas) and very surreal. I remember Dennis telling me that there was no way to stop and then he just veered left into the middle suicide lane and kept going as if he had planned it. Thinking back on it, I really wonder how we survived those trips. I can tell you that if we had gotten in an accident it would not have hurt the pancreas truck at all. Just hose the blood off the dashboard and move on. No sense worrying about that. I think an accident would not have reduced the resale value of the truck, either. The rotting bovine pieces took care of that. Sort of a sweet, pungent, sour, decaying smell that resembles what a tyrannosaurus’s breath must have smelled like because he didn’t have the dental formula kibble available to him for good oral hygene. Much like the choices you have for soup and sauces at a Chinese restaurant. I think we should have died a few times but then again looking back on my life, there are MANY times when dying was a possibility. I hate death.

It's made of people

It’s about people.

 

The movie is Soylent Green. No, I haven’t seen it. I hear Heston is great in it. I thought of this because recently I have been thinking of the people in my life and wondering if I am a good enough people in someones life to make a difference. People make all the difference. My father thought that. He was ALL about people. If he was talking to people he was happy. I believe this too. I have many people in my life that dramatically affect me. My friend Richard got me carrying a knife and cleaning my new gun. My wife is an ever-changing influence on me. I love her and when I contemplate all that she is I am in awe of her. I really appreciate her talents, intellect, and wit. I try to be worthy of her. This continually shapes my actions.

 

I was thinking about the dedication prayer offered last Sunday by Pre s. O st ler for the new building on McDowell. It was one of those things you hear that changes you. He is a great man and one that has influenced my life. I think of him or his words or his actions in various facets of my life and am once again pleased and honored to know him. This example is legendary. I’ll give you one example this: In passing during a meeting, Pre s. O st ler mentioned that he often has difficulty getting out of bed in the morning. He is 100% successful, though, using a trick he learned and has now passed on to me. He says he counts to three. 3. One, two, three. On three he gets up. Why? Because he has told himself that he, “…doesn’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t get up on 3.” Simple, effective. I love this. I have often thought of this when waiting to arise. I guess I don’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t get up on three.

 

I was channel-surfing the other day and stumbled, digitally speaking, upon a man preaching the gospel of success. He was directing a success seminar in which he stood in the middle of a crowd and taught them wearing a beard, a bald head, and a shirt that can only be described as hick-fire. As the red, orange,and yellow flames shot up his black corduroy sleeves, he told the crowd that they were in charge of whether they were successful or not based on what they were thinking and doing. He then ridiculed a guy for writing that down as if it were a new concept. He did, however, teach one concept that stuck with me. He said that to become successful we had to do something. Anything. Don’t tell me what it is. Shut up and do it. He said he was tired of *hearing* all the things people were going to do to become successful. He asked the audience to stop talking about it and do it. Anything. Sleep on the wrong side of the bed. Anything. You are at your current level of success because of your current actions. So, change them. This change may lead to other things that will influence your behavior and the outcome could be success. Or cancer. You choose.

 

My son, Max, is on a mission. I’m sure he is having an impact on people in his sphere. There was a missionary here from Japan who had a sudden and dramatic impact on me. He arrived a couple of months ago and told me he was from Tokyo. Cool. So, I took him and his companion to sushi a couple of times and chatted with him. He left Tuesday (yesterday) for home but not before coming over to our home to visit and teach us a little bit. He and his companion, Silski, were very grateful for the rides and food I have provided them but they were all business at first when they arrived. I busted out the pictures of Japan and softened them up a bit. Utagawa was interested in the pix of home so I took a second to show him what was there.

 

Funny, in a country of 127.5 million people, I asked Utagawa if he knew three people. One was my first companion Watabe Masasue, one was a greenbean I knew named Koyama Norio, and one was Ikeuchi Eiji. The odds were about 42 million to one that he would not know these guys but I took a shot. Let’s ignore the focal effect of church affiliation – it sounds better. He knew two of them. Get that? Two of the three people I asked about he knew – one of whom would be his relative soon as a member of his family is to marry a member of Koyama’s family. Cool, right? He knew two of them and had heard of the other one. We had a funny discussion about this. After identifying that Watabe lived in Orem and had a son named Leo, Silski piped up and said, “Wait, I know him, he was in a class with me at BYU.” Tiny, tiny world.

 

 

Japan — Population: 127,433,494 (July 2007 est.)

According to https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ja.html

 

 The following is from Wikipedia - so there's nobody to credit but the last line is funny.

Soylent Green is a 1973 dystopian science fiction movie depicting a future in which overpopulation leads to depleted resources on earth. This leads to widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables, and meat are rare, commodities are expensive, and much of the population survives on processed food rations, including "soylent green" wafers.

 

The term "soylent green" and the last line "Soylent Green is people!" became catch phrases in English, in part due to a Saturday Night Live parody where comedian Phil Hartman mocked Heston's acting in the final scene of the movie.^[4]

Soylent Green is referred to in a number of television series and other media, either for dramatic or comedic effect. The film was referenced in an episode of the US television sitcomBarney Miller (1975-1982), which was set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The animated American sitcom Futurama, which is set in the year 3000, makes a number of references to fictional "soylent"-based foods. The show, created by Matt Groening, depicts billboards that advertise a variety of "soylent" foods, including "soylent cola" (the taste of which, according to Leela, "varies from person to person").

Dig Bean Town

So there I was. Teaching a software class. You know I used to teach 30-80 member classes for two days on how to run their software. And they loved it. Well, the first day we always wore suits. I wore a suit to teach the class at Boston. Boston was a great experience. I remember having baked beans and seeing the Green Monster at Fenway. I remember meeting a dealer and having him show me around – to where Cheers (exterior) was filmed. The interior, I discovered, was NOTHING like the interior of Sam's famous bar from the television show. However, I could say that I had been to Cheers, really called Bull & Finch Pub, had eaten there in the really cramped, underwhelming atmosphere, and lived to tell about it.

The day of the class, I dawned my suit and made my way to the training room, which was customary for classes we all taught. In the very front row was the dealer who had been so kind as to show me a good time the night before. She (just kidding) He waited until a few minutes into the class to call me over to where he was sitting and inform me that my fly was down. On my suit. I said, "You're kidding!" I mean I whispered. Then I stood and casually walked to the back of the room and out the door ostensibly checking for late-arriving pupils and gently but firmly and carefully zipped it back up. I really don't understand the stigma surrounding the down-zipper other than it is like I didn't fully get dressed. It's not like my winkie was in free-dangle danger. But it is still funny even for old guys.

One thing I learned in Boston was about the Big Dig. This was supposed to be an $800 million project to dig under the city and run a freeway to alleviate the growing congestion in Boston. When I was there they had completed some of the dig and were talking about cost overruns topping $1.2 billion dollars. I thought this extreme. I couldn't imagine a road being worth such a whopping figure. I was reminded of the Big Dig today for some reason so I looked it up to see if it had been completed and to see if the tally had escalated. Wow.

So the total for the Big Dig will reach $22 billion dollars. 38% of the transportation funds expended by the state of Massachusetts pay debt only. There's not money to fix roads and bridges left.
I have a solution. Or, um, a retrolution. How about instead of paying this much money until 2038, you just pay EVERY HOUSEHOLD in Boston $90,000 not to drive so much. Just telecommute one day, ride the bus one day, or walk, or carpool or do something and cash this check from the government. You could take a couple of years off. You could invest it. You can do with it what you want. No tax on it. We don't want it back. Just stay off the streets. We will be checking. If you don’t stay off the streets, give the money back and we will distribute it to those who will.

Do YOU know what to do?

My darling wife told a friend of mine this and he told me. No, I don’t know why she didn't tell me. She said that I am a complete optimist. I've written about this before. I will probably write again. But one thing she said that he repeated to me was that, *…because Jeff Crandall is such an optimist, he always has options.* Interesting to me. I agree, by the way. I have been given the ability to think outside – sometimes WAY outside – the box. I have a few stories to demonstrate this:

 

When I worked for DHI, which stands for – ehem - Dairy Herd Improvement, I was stationed in the computer room. This was a very large room in the center of the building in which were several mainframe computers and various disc and tape drives and a few card-punch machines. Yes! Card-punch machines! Age-ist! I was an operator. This job entailed sitting at the consoles of the mainframe computers and making sure the jobs and processing happening on these machines, um, happened. There were two things about that job that were the best: the climate in the computer room was VERY controlled so the temperature was always a comfortable 68 degrees, and, of course, Debi regularly brought me steak and cheese sandwiches from The Italian Place. Mmmmm. What memories! Anyway, the DHI experience was good, and fodder for another day. But, while there, there were a couple of times that I was called upon to save or save or save or save the brilliant programming staff from their blunders.

 

Mainframes run jobs. These jobs are submitted by programmers. They execute instructions and product output – usually in printed form. Because they could process many jobs at once, the printers could not keep up with the output. So, the print jobs went into queues. These queues held the print jobs until it was time to print. If there were a job that someone did not want printed, they could ask the operators to access the queues and, using a command, remove or delete the print job from the queue. You can see this one coming down 5^th Avenue, can't you? One time, an egotistical operator issued a command to the mainframe to delete all the print jobs in the queue. Not a job, ALL jobs. The mainframe supported wildcard commands and he issued one that would clean out EVERYTHING. He typed it in just to look at it and then instead of deleting what he had typed, he accidentally pressed the equivalent of GO! He immediately pressed a big red button on the keyboard that is labeled STOP. Everyone knew that this button is NEVER to be pressed. It would interrupt so many processes as to cause pain to users and more pain to the person who pushed STOP in the first place.

 

He came scurrying to me and asked what he should do. I went over and saw the command he had typed and he told me that as soon as he hit enter he hit stop. So, I thought I may have a chance. I remembered that when all goes terribly wrong in mainframe world, you can do the equivalent of REBOOT. It is called IPL – Initial Program Load. I also remembered that IPL'ing also restored the queues as part of its function. The only way to stop the deleting was to IPL. So, I said, "Watch this, jellyman," and I IPL'ed the machine. Wow, it reloaded, and restored the queues and only a few of the A's were deleted from the queue. I had saved the day. Nobody else could think of any options to overcome what had happened.

 

Story 2: There were two mainframes. They were connected to each other. One was significantly more powerful than the other. Programmers submitted test programs or jobs on the weak machine and production jobs on the mighty one. One day, two programmers came running in with a panicked look on their faces. They explained that they were experimenting on the mighty mainframe with a wildcard program that would lock all the records on the whole machine. You lock a record when it is being updated so the same record is not being accessed and changed by two different sources. Anyway, they sent a job that locked EVERYTHING. Can't unlock it because it is locked. Can't send a job in because it is locked. Can't access it through the console because it was locked. Can't do anything but come running into my environmentally controlled heaven and cry to me and admit what you did. Waaaah! I thought for a moment and then proposed that they instead submit an unlock program reversing the effects of their lock program through the weak mainframe. They were connected together and I had seen jobs come over from weak to mighty all the time. It NEVER occurred to them that they could do this. I, the optimist with options, was the only one who thought of it or suggested it.

 

I could go on with this riveting dialog about mainframes and jellymen but I'm afraid the reader hasn't even made it this far. Suffice it to say that I have been blessed with the vastness of options. I also like it that I realize that it is a blessing. I see others about me who are unable to do this. The jellymen were completely incapable of these sorts of solutions. I often take it for granted that I can try other things. When I help my kids with math and they struggle with my first explanation I have 8-10 other ways I can explain until they get it. I'm just wired that way.

...another puke story

It's been too long since my last puke story – so I think it is time to spew one out for you today. OK, this one involves a young and testosterone-laden me on a date. I must set the stage:

 

It was my junior year in high school. That means 1978 – disco was just crowning in the birth canal and I was only too proud to be wearing my Angel Flight triple-knit polyester pants and tight fitting hook shirt. We quadruple-dated this night so there were eight of us waiting in line to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I recommend it. Before leaving the house, I took some medicine for my pizza-face. I was on an antibiotic – probably tetracycline prescribed by Dr. Ponitch, a tiny dermatologist (visualization: two thumbs up high over the head air-squeezing a zit). This medication is not to be taken on an empty stomach. No problem had we followed our original plans to eat first but we decided instead to see the movie and then eat.

 

While standing in line, I began to feel queasy. Green. Nauseous. Vomitous. OK, it wasn't that bad, but I decided to calm my stomach down before things got out of hand. I left the rather long line and found a kiosk selling food and snacks and drinks and such. They had one of those machines that is a big tank on top that fountains inside itself to mix the beverage that it contains. Grape juice. Perfect. I ordered a large grape juice and began to sip it before we went into the theater (or is it theatre?). It made me feel, um, different. Better? Maybe. But at least different. As we neared the door to enter the theatere I noticed the sign that read, *No food or drinks allowed.* So, I hurriedly finished my juice so as not to waste it.

 

We sat together in one row and I was close to the aisle. During the credits I heaved. No, not once, not twice, but I emptied. On the lady in the row in front of me. On the floor. On my Angel Flights. Purple wheeze squirting out of me – I swear I should have looked at my eyes to see if any leaked into them. I didn't know what to do so I just got up and ran to the bathroom. I think my date hailed an usher, or a cab, I'm not sure which.

 

In the bathroom, I saw the rather large, purple stain on my pants and so I did what every red-blooded American, 17-year-old boy does – I dropped trou and washed them in the sink. I found it liberating to be standing in the men's room in my tight-whites with my pants in the make-shift laundry sink. They felt cool if not cold slipping back on my body and I returned to my seat to find the usher swearing and finishing up the mop job he was doing. Everyone else on my row was laughing.

 

The lady in front of me never turned around. I pointed out the chunks in her beehive hair to my date. We couldn't pay attention to the movie because of the tears of laughter...

My Girlfriend

Can I first say that I hate election years? 

OK, so there was this guy who graduated with me in college - very intelligent. We found each other early on in our major. And by found, I mean, used. In several classes, within the first few days, teams were formed for a major project which would be due at the end of the semester. I was fortunate enough to get him on my team in one of my first classes and he was different than most of the other participants - he worked, lead, criticized, improved, and contributed. I really don't know why it was, but until that point I was always the one who was working, leading, criticizing, improving and contributing to the teams I was on. He and I realized that we both had similar talents, work-ethic, etc. and decided that we needed to arrange for classes together so we could have a better time conquering same. 

Our strategy was simple: we took the same classes. On the first day we split up on opposite sides of the class and covertly began interviewing other unsuspecting students in an attempt to determine if they would be good team members and if they could comply with our demands: get an A, pull your weight, don't whine when we correct your writing or thinking, work hard, have fun, dominate, claim superiority, and eventually rule the world. 

Our strategy worked. Well! The student/victims were easy to spot. The best ones always looked ready to start and their informal interview would reveal their GPA and an elicited complaint about having to carry previous groups or teams of which they had been a part. BINGO – you're hired, er, um, yes, you should join our group. See my blog April 27, 2007. This is not why I started this jag. 

I wanted to tell you about my girlfriend. That is what Betsy and Debi started calling him. He was the really smart guy. So, he wasn't terribly good with the ladies and so he would ask me to coach him. Also, he called often. Oh, and he wondered what I was doing. And, um, what I was doing. And, could I come over and eat. And, we need to get together and work this project out. And stuff like that. He was hetero but that did not mean he was not, um, attentive. 

I remember running into him years later at a restaurant Debi and I love in north Phoenix. He was on a date – with his soon-to-be-second wife. The first one disappeared in the night when he was on a business trip some years earlier. Anyway, when I walked up to his table, he abruptly reached out his hand to shake my hand and I instinctively matched his jerky motion reaching for his hand. The trouble was, his full water glass was twixt the two of us. I hit it and it didn't just topple, it slammed to the table and doused him. 

He jumped up and slipped off his loafers to reveal the powder in them then sheepishly commented that I was trying to sabotage his date. I wasn't. Even though he was my girlfriend.