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In The Middle

Emily sat in the middle seat in row 26 of flight 945 from Seattle. It was the kind of flight that wasn’t too long or too turbulent. It was just one of those flights that kept you from sleeping and somehow got you completely untucked. It was Friday night and she was on her way home to Minneapolis after a long week of crisis management with her biggest client. The crisis was averted, she was good at that part of her life. 

She wondered why no one ever spoke to her on airplanes. She would see people chatting often but it never involved her. Not even when she sat in the middle seat – as she was so lucky to do today. There was a middle-aged man in the window seat, reading a book. The aisle seat was occupied by a young woman in her mid 20’s who was on her phone for the entire flight. They were sitting so close together that they shared armrests and recycled air but they were so consumed by what they were doing and so not interested in her that she could have died unnoticed somewhere over Montana. 

This thought was only slightly less depressing than what she had planned for the rest of her evening. She came off that jet-way a couple times a month with the hope of a friendly face yelling her name, smiling, waving. It had never happened before and today would be no different.  Not only was there no one at the gate to meet her but she had to dodge a couple engaged in enthusiastic PDA. She considered running her roller wheels over the slobbering couples’ exposed toes just for sport but she didn’t even think that would make her feel better. Maybe a little? She walked away from Gate D4 with a heavy heart and sore feet. “What the hell kind of shoes are these? I’ve been sitting for hours and then I take a few steps again and my feet are killing me.” She stopped suddenly, walking and thinking. Did she just say that out loud? No one was looking at her so maybe not.

She rounded the corner and went up the incline to head out through the main terminal. She happened to look down the escalator to the baggage claim and wondered why the hell anyone would check their bags. Just then she ran into some jerk on a cell phone who wasn’t paying attention – or maybe she wasn’t paying attention – neither one apologized. She walked on and decided to check her voicemail. She was hopeful that it would be full of offers for a fun weekend. She flipped open her phone, hit speed dial, entered her code and heard that monotone woman’s voice level an insult at her “you have no new messages.” “Bitch!” She definitely said that out loud and a few heads turned. It had gotten much quieter in the skyway to the parking ramp than it was in the main terminal. She walked out of the skyway to the spot where she had parked her car and it was filled by an enormous SUV. “God Dammit,” she said even louder than her outburst at the voicemail lady. This surprised a passerby who glared at her because she was a blasphemer. “I always park on this floor in Green.” She continued to think aloud. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a Gold reminder ticket and remembered that she couldn’t find a spot in Green so she ended up in Gold. 

She finally got to her car without any more talking – or swearing – out loud. Her car was one of the few things about her life that she truly loved. She deactivated the alarm and opened the doors, the beeps made by the car were converted to “hi, I missed you” in her lonely brain. It almost felt like a hug as she settled into the soft leather seats, adjusted climate control and hit play on one of her favorite CD’s. The roads were empty on Friday night and as her key hit the lock at home, for a split second, she dreamed that someone could be waiting for her on the other side with a meal and a glass of wine. Or, a mess in the living room and music playing too loud? She would have even settled for some lights on or a broken water pipe. That’s how lonely she was. But, of course when she walked in, everything was just as she’d left it. Sigh. She was tired so she got into bed, drifted off to sleep and settled into a dream about finding love.

Hope and the Hallmark Channel

The world and our country are dealing with crises – health, education, racism, economics, the environment. Sigh. But I have hope. America is the greatest democracy in the world and as long as we have serious, smart people, we can solve all of these things. Maybe not all today on my birthday and certainly not with simple solutions, but solve them we will. Until that day, here is a short list of things I’m doing on my birthday to bring happiness and keep hoping – note, I’m not getting paid for any of these endorsements, I’m sharing them for free.

  • Thank my friends and family for all the text messages, Facebook messages and LinkedIn posts. They are not as good as hanging out or hugging in person but it’s the best part of digital communications.
  • Open the cards from people who still send them – like my 85 year old mom and my wife and daughter.
  • Post happy birthday on my friend Rob’s page to celebrate the Marine Corps – who I share a birthday with – they are 245 years old today. Thanks to the Marines for their service and sacrifice.
  • Post on my friend Cathy’s page to wish her well in her battle against COVID. Post on our friend Ranell’s page because she lost her mother. Post on my birthday buddy Kaia’s page because she passed away earlier this year.
  • Order takeout – Braised Short Ribs and mashed potatoes – from our favorite restaurant, Birch’s On The Lake.
  • Listen to the Hallmark Channel Radio on Sirius XM when I go pick up my dinner. Hey, it’s snowing like crazy here so it looks like Christmas!
  • Turn on the Christmas lights for one day since I worked so hard to put them up when it was 65 degrees and sunny! Now it’s 26 and snowing.
  • Eat the birthday cake that my daughter made for me for her culinary class – Burnt sugar caramel cake with burnt sugar caramel American butter cream. No, that’s not on the Food Network, that’s in my house!
  • Not watch CNN or Fox News – at all – they are both on a time out for different reasons. Quick tip, just because it’s on TV or social media, that doesn’t make it true. If you want unbiased journalism, it’s tough but you can trust Reuters because they have been in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years and for my money, the Wall Street Journal as well.
  • Watch a Hallmark Christmas movie starring my good friend Candace Cameron Bure (I just call her Candy for short because she’s so sweet!) or whoever, they are all good. My favorite thing about Hallmark is I can count on seeing people work through a problem, fall in love and kiss at the end.

I know that none of this will solve the crises that we have in this country or around the world but because of these things, I have hope on my birthday and that’s all anyone really needs. Here are some great quotes about hope:

  • Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. – Helen Keller
  • We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. – Tom Bodett
  • Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. – Stephen King
  • Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. – Desmond Tutu

The Best Christmas Songs Ever

I have Sirius XM Satellite radio and I love it. I have a very long commute and spend a fair amount of time in my car so it’s worth it. No bad DJs, no ads, just all the content that I could ever want including music, comedy, news, you get it.

Well, one of the crazy things about satellite radio is that they change their programming based on subscriber interests and this year just like the Hallmark channel started running Christmas movies on Halloween, that’s also the day that SXM launched their holiday music channels. They have 6 of them. I have adjusted my presets on three because that seems enough – the pop one, the traditional one and the Hallmark one, hosted by Hallmark superstar Candace Cameron Bure. I recently decided that’s too much Christmas music – but I have had a chance to listen a lot and this year decided to compile some top Christmas songs – it’s too much work to go in order or stick to just 10 so I’m just going to give you the best from my perspective:

  • O Holy Night by Celine Dion…I mean seriously, CD is annoyingly French Canadian and looks increasingly more bizarre but wow can she sing this song. I cry, I really do, that’s how good it is. All others can just stop because this is the definitive version.
  • Santa Claus Is Coming To Town by Bruce Springsteen – I’m a Springsteen fan, it’s live, he asks the audience if they’ve been good and he asks Clarence Clemons if he’s been practicing real hard so Santa will bring him a new saxophone. Classic.
  • Christmas Time Is Here by the Vince Guaraldi Trio for the Peanuts Gang – I’m not even a jazz guy but the little kids voices and smooth jazz are so great.
  • The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole – I mean wow, I don’t know NKC’s music other than the weird duet on “Unforgettable” with his daughter where he was a poorly designed hologram at the Grammies. I don’t think chestnuts actually roast if he doesn’t sing this song.
  • All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey – by far the best “new” Christmas song in like 50 years. I mean seriously, it’s shocking that with her catalog of pointless pop hits, she actually gets writing credit on this song. It’s really awesome and was used in one of the best Christmas movies, “Love Actually.” Michael Buble actually does a great version as well.
  • Baby It’s Cold Outside by Dean Martin – now I know there was a dust up over this song but it’s just song about a date and has been done like a hundred times.
  • I’ll Be Home By Christmas by the Carpenters – originally recorded by Bing during WWII and banned because so many soldiers weren’t coming home for Christmas, the U.S. War Department later came to their senses and it is an absolute classic. Karen Carpenter’s haunting voice had to make the list and with her sad personal story, this song was perfect for her.
  • Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Frank Sinatra, yeah I know the original is from Judy Garland in the classic movie “Meet Me In St. Louis” but I just think Frank’s version is outstanding.
  • Two songs from Straight No Chaser. So, I’m a nerd. If I could do it all over, I wish for better vocal skills so I could be in a college a capella group. Straight No Chaser did it, they come out of the University of Indiana and they are the best. Their version of The 12 Days of Christmas is awesome and incorporates Toto’s “Africa” as are their reditions of other classic songs but their original song called “Indiana Christmas” is musically great and lyrically sentimental and I love it.
  • River by Joni Mitchell. “I wish I had a river that I could skate away on…” now that’s a sentiment that many of us feel on the holidays right?
  • White Christmas by Bing Crosby – there are few songs and performances that are actually so transcendent that they may stand for a season all on their own. It’s not only the best selling Christmas song of all time but it’s the best selling song of all time in excess of 50 million! I know Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, I’m a good Lutheran, but I mean come on. “I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas…” originally written by Irving Berlin and performed by Crosby on “The Kraft Music Hall” radio show on Christmas Day in 1941, it also won an Oscar for best original song in the movie “Holiday Inn” in 1942 and and made the movie “White Christmas” the highest grossing movie of 1954 as well. My family just goes about their business while I cry and watch it, it doesn’t get any better than Bing, Danny F’ing Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and that other lady. Wow.

 Merry Christmas to you and your families and happy 2020.

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for my blog. Thanks for reading. I have some interesting things planned for 2015 as well. Happy new year.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 770 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 13 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

PG-13 Changes Everything

Someone recently turned 13 in my home. I guess that becoming a teenager is a big deal but the most important thing that my son noticed was the fact that it opened up a whole new world of film entertainment – the PG-13 movie! Now, if you’re not a parent, you probably don’t pay much attention to PG, PG-13, R, you just stream movies and TV shows or order them on-demand and who cares about the ratings right? Well, not all PG-13 movies are created equally. In fact, if you’ve not paid attention over the years, the PG rating used to be a lot different. Compare the colossal Disney hit “Frozen” – which is rated PG with the 80’s classic “Uncle Buck” starring John Candy which was released in 1989 – also PG. I love the Internet Movie Database or IMDB as the kids call it. Actually, I think it’s just geezers like me that use that app but it’s incredibly helpful for those “who was that guy that was in that one movie with…” questions. Anyway, they have a parent’s guide for every movie that is not only accurate but cleverly written. According to that, there is an extensive amount of profanity in Uncle Buck (and none in Frozen), which is hilarious if you’re 13 and you don’t hear those words every day.

BS

That brings me to the photo here. My mom recently relocated to be closer to my family and she has a habit of writing her appointments and keeping almost a diary of sorts on a calendar that hangs on her wall. One day last week, my kids and I went over to visit and my son immediately noticed the entry on the 23rd and got the giggles. As you can see, she had “BS” scheduled for 9:30. Not long after my son buckled over with laughter, my daughter (who is 11) came over and asked what was so funny. He just pointed at the calendar and said “BS” and she looked at me and said with an inquisitive look, “Bible Study?” which was indeed what the abbreviation stood for. She hasn’t seen PG-13 movies or ridden on a middle school bus or spent any time with my dad who used the more profane version of “BS” in casual conversation to describe everyone from the weather man to our congressman.

I don’t know about you but I seem to deal with a lot of “BS.” I follow the process but the insurance company doesn’t pay a claim and the clinic sends crabby letters, our builder makes a total mess in our front yard last fall and doesn’t prioritize fixing it because we’ve already paid for our house, I get letters from our homeowners association about leaving the fire pit on the driveway overnight but I can see (and smell) a port-a-potty and five huge blue construction dumpsters full of garbage from my driveway. I could go on. Do you ever look at your calendar and see a meeting and then read “BS” between the lines. Maybe we should all schedule time to deal with “BS” (not bible study, also important but not the topic of my blog), would it be easier if we just knew it were coming on Wednesdays at 9:30? Maybe we should just watch more PG movies from the 80’s and laugh more.

Let’s Break Some Rules

We run into and up against rules every day. Now, let me clarify, I’m not talking about laws, laws are in place to protect society right? I’m talking more about rules or policies that restrict our work and personal life. I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences with rules lately and I’d like to share them.

First, on the personal side of things. I had the privilege of spending a week on vacation in Florida recently and after what seemed like several years of the “polar vortex” in Minnesota, I can only describe warm sun, sandy beaches and cold (alcoholic) beverages as heavenly. However, I did find some rather strange rules on vacation and I found myself wanting to break them. First, we stayed with relatives in a “seniors only” condo, which again was wonderful. But, it seems that when baby boomers have free time, they like to create rules. The craziest rules involve the beautiful pool at theImage building. It’s incredibly expensive to maintain a swimming pool with heat, chemicals, cleaning, etc. – but apparently the only time they want the pool to be used is one hour a day, in the morning, for water aerobics. There is to be no jumping, no toys, no splashing, basically no fun. In past year’s I’ve received warnings because my kids were playing with dive toys, throwing balls and because I was playing “marco polo” with them. Really? The other rule that I found myself breaking several times was walking into a “private” area of the beach and purchasing drinks from a “members only” snack bar. Don’t signs like this actually make you want to see if you can get in? Why would you refuse money from people who are thirsty on the beach? So, that retired people never have to stand in line at the snack bar? We’ve already established that all they’ve got is free time so what’s the big deal?

The other rules that I’d like to highlight today are those that I’ve encountered during a recent job search. I’m pretty sure that they were also created by the baby boomers that run most HR departments at large companies but that would be me just guessing. I find it very interesting that the human part of hiring has been replaced by elaborate rules that are enforced by technology called “applicant tracking systems.” I’m sure it’s at least 2% more efficient to use these systems to collect and manage resumes and they offer ample opportunity to create rules to limit the candidates who actually get reviewed by a person. Are we better off this way? In talking with other job seekers, they often feel like even though they are qualified and jump through the hoops involved with the application process, they don’t ever get an interview. I’ve also seen this from the other side of the desk when trying to hire people and working with HR – no one I’ve ever talked to seems to like the technology that manages the hiring process. What’s the point? Why can’t we just get back to letting people hire people? I love the model adopted by Internet sales experts at Zappos (now part of Amazon.com). I saw their founder Tony Hsieh talk about their culture and their values book one time. They hire for personality and culture fit, that’s what’s behind their legendary customer service. They have great questions like “what’s your theme song?” and “on a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?” I would probably not get hired there because my theme song is probably by John Mellencamp or Blake Shelton and I’m boring but they know what they want and how to get at it in an interview process. They have an amazing philosophy, read more about it here: http://onboardingnewhires.com/620965-Corporate-Culture-Best-Practices-Zappos.html

Florida is one of those places that’s so much fun to visit that you look past strange rules. Zappos is a pretty next generation company, not many boomers behind the scenes – after all Hsieh is just barely an Xer. Is there something to that? Will corporate culture and senior-only condos change considerably once Gen Xers and (god help us) Millennials start making the rules? Will there even be rules? What do you think about rules? What’s your favorite rule to break?

Musical Memories

We all have musical memories right? When that song comes on the radio and takes you back in time, you can feel those memories, smell them, maybe even taste them. That’s amazing isn’t it? That’s why music is so important.

Here are some of my musical memories:

  • George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning” takes me back to my dad’s Dodge truck, it was raining lightly, he was smoking and we were driving around looking at our crops
  • Chicago’s “You’re The Inspiration” takes me back to a gym at a school dance where I had my first kiss with a girl who was quite a bit taller than me
  • Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” takes me back to a time with my brother in his girlfriend’s Chevy Chevette driving way too fast on a gravel road where we grew up
  • Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” takes me back to my grandma’s basement at Christmas because my cousins got “Thriller” on cassette and we just sat there and listened to it over and over

Maybe you’re one of those lucky one’s who can actually make music. It’s interesting how many of us try, even Seth Godin says he played the clarinet for eight years but then corrects himself,

Actually, that’s not true. I took clarinet lessons for eight years when I was a kid, but I’m not sure I ever actually played it. Eventually, I heard a symphony orchestra member play a clarinet solo. It began with a sustained middle C, and I am 100% certain that never once did I play a note that sounded even close to the way his sounded.

I watch – and listen – to how much progress my son has made with the trumpet this year. It’s amazing. He played it for the first time about 20 months ago and that was painful, I’ll admit. The dog hid, we put him in a room with doors that we could shut, the neighbors called to ask if everything was ok. It was, and now it’s much better and it sounds like music. The whole band sounds like music. He’s not getting calls to join The Roots or anything but I can tell what he’s playing. Maybe he’ll be in the high school pep band, maybe he’ll get a scholarship to play the trumpet in college, maybe he’ll get paid to play the trumpet – who knows?

What I do know is that he’s learning a system and once you learn a system like math or music or another language, you can transfer that experience. For those of you who don’t think that technology is changing everything, even the way people learn, let me tell you about an app called SmartMusic, check it out at http://www.smartmusic.com/ This is a piece of software that listens to you play an instrument and then gives you instant feedback on the quality of the notes so that you can fix them. That’s a revolution. I wonder if it would have helped Seth? I wonder if these first memories of my son playing the trumpet will be one of those moments that I remember for my whole life or if it will be those first bad notes instead? What are your musical memories?

 

 

An Olympic Observation

I read and enjoy Seth Godin’s blog nearly every day and have read a few of his books, I think he’s smart and prolific. This week, he posted about the Olympics and surprised me a little. Not with the fact that it may be time for the model to change, I could support that. It’s his opening phrase that threw me a little “I confess that I don’t watch the Olympics…” I guess he’s busier or cooler than me because my family has watched every night of prime time coverage and DVR’d some things as well. Heck, I even ordered an upgraded cable package so we could see more Olympics coverage on the “Networks of NBC.”

As we look ahead to the closing ceremonies, here are five observations and their corresponding hashtags from two weeks of winter Olympics coverage:

  • I viewed the results online before watching nearly every event covered in prime time. Does that make we weird? It was hard not to pay attention to all the headlines during the day and wait for prime time TV. I didn’t share what I knew with others so as to ruin their experience like my son did one night. My wife and daughter were settled in on the couch with popcorn with hope to see the first women’s bobsledding medal for the U.S. in like a hundred years. In seeing this when my son came around the corner, he looked up at the TV and said, “oh cool, they get silver.” #Spoiled
  • It’s hard to have a daughter who is interested in sports. The Olympics are one of the only times you can watch girls participate in sports at a high level. My son also likes sports and because of cable television, there is literally always a game on. Often my daughter hears sports on television and comes around the corner only to be disappointed to see Sports Center or the PGA, NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, etc. Not during these two weeks, there are girls on TV participating and winning medals! You can debate whether luge or ice dancing or sitting in the back of a bobsled is a sport but because of them, girls are on TV and the front page of the newspaper and that doesn’t happen every day. #Roar
  • The pressure on athletes at an event that only happens every four years is incredible. It’s not just the fact that years of preparation, perhaps your life’s dream, comes down to a hundredth of a second or less. It’s also quotes from people who didn’t succeed that I heard in almost every sport, “You know it’s (fill in the sport), and anything can happen.” Some competitors like our our ice dancers Davis and White, practiced together for 17 years and finally won gold. Skaters and snowboarders fell and skiers and sliders lost by a hundredth of a second. But, some athletes proved that it wasn’t about medaling but more about just being there. One great example of the spirit of some of these athletes is a skier named Heidi Kloser, who fell in a qualifying run, asked her parents if she was still an Olympian, and limped her way through the opening ceremony. It almost makes me cry just writing about it. #Winner.
  • Sports with judges, not clocks or scoreboards, are really hard to watch. In several events, points are awarded based on your ability to complete tricks or “required elements” and controversy nearly always ensues. Figure skating is the toughest to watch. The judges are anonymous and the competitors are all amazing but as someone who knows nothing about the sport, it seems crazy to me. Though I’m not sure that it’s worth conspiracy theories about countries trading points with each other but who knows right?  Either way, the Russians won a team gold and a ladies figure skating gold and the U.S. won ice dancing and those who didn’t win complained about the scoring system. I was even more struck by the post-race “adjustments” to times in long track skating that initially showed one competitor winning gold but then another. #Fishy
  • What does a silver medal mean? Is it second place or is it an amazing achievement? I’d like to close with two examples in women’s sports that I will certainly highlight for my daughter. The U.S. women’s hockey team had a great tournament and was beating their arch-rival from Canada for the gold but then lost in overtime. Sure, they were disappointed to lose the game but was it this bad? On the other side of the medal, a little known skeleton racer from Utah named Noelle Pikus-Pace battled incredible adversity after finishing fourth in Vancouver to even make it to Sochi where she accomplished her Olympic dream by winning a silver medal and wearing it so proudly. #Class

Thank god for school projects

I know, a lot of parents actually dread it when their kids come home with big projects from school. Just like the class from Christmas Story groans when their teacher says those dreaded words, “I want you to write a theme.” But, I just survived two big class projects, History Day in middle school and the Science Fair in elementary school. I supposed I could fault the school district for assigning both of these projects at the same time or say what most parents said when I saw them at the school after all the projects were done, “thank god it’s over.” That would be a little too easy though, right? Say what you want about American public education. My daughter’s 5th grade teacher, who is in his first year, says that today’s 5th graders are covering the content that he learned in 7th grade. I’d probably stretch that out a few more years because I’m older than he is. Do you believe the comparisons to other industrialized nations that say we’re falling behind? Maybe that’s because we over-emphasize extra-curricular activities? The high school my kids will attend actually sponsors 30 sports and probably twice as many activities. They don’t have a high school alpine ski team or jazz band in Indonesia for example but they are the happiest school kids in the world. Check out this study published in the December issue of the Atlantic which draws a reverse correlation between happiness in school and how are good you are at math. Did you see the best country in the world at math – Korea – also the most unhappy. The U.S. was much closer to Korea on the list than Indonesia. I’m sure we still need more focus on STEM – science technology engineering and math – so that would make me favor the science fair over history day.

 

Image

But I’m here to advocate for them both. Kids need to learn how to learn, that’s why projects like these are important. My son studied World War II but he researched an often forgotten aspect of it – the fact that the U.S. put Japanese Americans in internment camps because we were afraid of them after their country bombed Pearl Harbor. He learned that a young man named Fred Korematsu actually fought the U.S. government and lost. He also learned how to work with two other kids on this project. They actually let other kids do their projects by themselves, which I think should be penalized. They also let some kids’ parents do their projects for them but whatever. The bottom line is that my son learned something and taught me something. And, when it was over, he was happy.

 

 

 

ImageMy daughter learned the scientific process. She wrote a hypothesis, which she proved wrong. She ran an experiment and documented the results and told her story to lots of other kids and parents in a packed elementary school gym. She learned something and taught me something. And, when it was over, she was happy.

 

So, thank god for school projects and for kids learning. Not learning how to take tests or score better against other countries. Learning how to learn and then being happy when they are done.