Category Archives: Human Nature

The sadness of gravity

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Returning from space can be difficult.

Home, sweet home

I’ve been back for over 10 days and I’m still not acclimated to life on Earth.

Everything was so calm and cozy in that spaceship – Earth outside, round and blue. Just my fellow astronauts to bother me, but few challenges of every day life and dealing with people to stress about. Nope, just the hum of the space shuttle and the child-like joy of existing in a zero-gravity environment.

Everything I needed to sustain my life was in that confined, artificial space. My lungs felt good with reduced inflammation. My meals were brought to me. My treatments delivered and medicine piped into me. Oh, the quality of service in space.

And then I came back to Earth.

And its gravity. And its heaviness.

Its noises and traffic and people. Its smells, odors and sharp edges.

Its speed. Its weight.

I’ve been discombobulated since my return. I don’t feel in rhythm with my environment. People speak but their lips don’t sync to the sound. Damn Bluetooth lag.

Other than work, I’ve been less than productive. No blog posts. Little reading. And I’ve spent a good deal of time playing Forza 4 on Xbox each night. I’m practicing to beat @Onlyz after suffering numerous losses to him this weekend. Damn British drivers.

I have a bad case of the blahs and I need answers.

What’s the meaning of life, Siri?

Siri?

Are you there, Siri?

Is Steve Jobs really God, Siri?

Do the pearly gates have Apple logos on them? 

Siri, do you know what’s it like to be weightless? To float in space? To be confined for weeks at a time? 

Siri, honey?

Who am I, Siri? What’s my purpose? How should I spend my last days on Earth?

Siri? 

Oh, you’re just the beta version. Good, something to look forward to. 

“It’s not me, it’s you” and other thoughts from a hospital room

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This is the older hospital nearby. I believe it may be the one Marilyn Monroe was born in. There's your trivia for the day. You're welcome.

[Typos are my iPad’s fault – with a helping hand from the WordPress app]

After four days on a floor in the hospital that didn’t specialize in me, my confidence was rocked. Every other nurse I encountered seemed to be plotting how they would inject Draino or some other deadly chemical into my IV while I slept, waiting by my bedside to see my waking face, choking, as they took no action to save me, only smiling at my distress with my last image their middle finger.

Yes, not everyone likes me. Especially nurses who didn’t take studying seriously when they were in nursing school. But now that I am back on the Panda floor with my own kind, I’m living the life of a hermit and pissing off no one with RN in their title. Smooth sailing for the worse patient ever one floor down. But here I’m exotic and treasured. My quirks, not such a surprise. My needs, not so needy. And my fuzzy, furry charm, charming.

My room sounds like a spaceship. This is the white noise of space, a drone, and my room has it. At any minute I’ll be called to board the shuttle to the planet below to discover some life form that springs from an egg and clamps to my face. Yes, my room sounds just like the Nostromo and its constant hum of space ventilation.

And then there’s the pumping of the IV machine like a fast moving clock that skips a beat, but with a grinding of gears quality to it. And I’m leashed to it like a dog to its owner, the line of my port running up out of my collar.

Pieces of Pop Tarts, discarded pill wrappers, and empty hypertonic saline nebs litter my room. It’s a sty. The maid hasn’t shown up since I moved to this room, perhaps fearful, though it’s nothing like the documentary I watched last night, Wasteland, about people who work in a garbage dump in Brazil and the artist who makes them and their recyclables art. Now every time I toss a water bottle in the trash, or any trash, I feel guiltier than I did before.

I haven’t taken a shower in almost a week and I haven’t peed in a toilet either. I have developed the amazing talent of being able to guess exactly how much I will fill the plastic jug. 200, 250, and 300cc are the most common amounts. And there’s always the impressive larger amount that seems to come when the bottle is near full and reminds me of a hot summer day and pouring a Coke in a glass and wondering if the foam will push it over the edge and spill onto the table.

I’ve been walking every day for an hour, up and down the hills, huffing and puffing and having not the wind to blow down any house. But up I go, down I come. There were staff, students and others on the sidewalks today. On weekends, it’s a ghost town and I its lone explorer walking, breathing, breathing, breathing – grateful.

Christmas doesn’t go as planned (or failing at parenting in the golden age of consumerism)

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Years ago, when our daughter first “got” Christmas, Santa, and receiving presents just for being her – I think she was 3, almost 4 – she ran to the tree like a mad wind-up toy, her little legs pumping to get to “the goods.” If it had been a cartoon, a trail of dust would have followed her, along with a scorched wood floor revealing her path to the tree.

What an amazing Christmas it was as she played with her dolls and modeled a Snow White dress in the mirror, admiring her perfectness. As a parent, it was the winningest Christmas of all and the one we dreamed of, complete with big smiles and happiness in abundance.

That Christmas was not this Christmas.

Our daughter, now nine, had her list for Santa: Let’s Dance 3 for Xbox, a Fushigi glow ball (not sure where this request came from), and a soccer ball trainer.

And she had her “parent list”: Disneyland Xbox game and a piano keyboard.

Pretty simple requests, especially compared to the ones she created when younger. We talked to her about asking for fewer gifts. And to her credit, she listened. No long lists this year.

We also discussed the desire for “stuff” and consumerism with her. We watched “Story of Stuff” together. But as you’re about to read, we failed in our mission to teach her not want stuff too deeply. Or the forces of consumerism overwhelmed her. Or both.

Looking at her list, we crossed out one item, the piano keyboard. She’s taking guitar and voice lessons and doesn’t like to practice. How much would she use a keyboard? We figured it would collect dust after a couple of weeks of play.

It had to be pink.

We changed her request to a new bicycle, which she needs since she looks like a circus performer on her small bike with her knees sticking out on its undersized frame.

I spent a few hours shopping at local stores and looking online and found a pink and silver bike for her at a neighborhood bike store, not a chain store, which made me happy. I added a kickstand and silver water bottle holder to match the silver trim.

After she opened her presents, I told her we had one more gift for her and went to the garage to get the bike. She said to my wife, “Is he going to get my keyboard?”

Wow, she really wanted a keyboard, I thought.

When I was a kid, I loved having a bike. I remember all of them. And it was a big deal getting a new bike. So, I expected she would love it and gush with mad excitement.

But what is life if not the crusher of hope and expectations?

I wheeled the bike into the living room. Nothing. No response. Disappointment showed on her face. I wasn’t holding a keyboard in my hands.

I didn’t hear, “oh, Daddy, what a cool bike!” Or, “oh, my gosh, that’s the best present ever.”

I received the same reaction as if I had wheeled a giant load of coal into the room.

Our kids grow up, so do their bikes. The small bike is Cotton Candy and it served us well. I remember my daughter falling off it at the park where she learned to ride. We figured the grass would soften the fall. And it did.

Then came stunned responses from me: You don’t like it? I thought you’d love this. You need a new bike. Look it’s pink. 21 speeds. I don’t know if it can be returned or not.

My wife was stunned too as my daughter clung to her. Then, as I was speaking, trying to get my bearings in the situation, my daughter made a remark that made me feel like a servant when she said something like: “Why is he speaking right now?”

At this point, my friends, you should know to never visit this site for parental advice. Or you can visit it to learn what not to do as a parent. For in that moment, I felt like a failure. Not for choosing the wrong gift so much as for hearing such a queen-like remark from my daughter.

Was this my daughter speaking in that tone? That’s what hurt most – we had spent nine years raising her not to act like this.

When my wife told her how upset she was by the remark, tears followed and she ran to her room. We sat there stunned, our Christmas happiness taking a 180-degree turn to something unexpected.

When the three of us came back together, my wife and I chose not to pounce on my daughter, which at times wasn’t easy. We told her why we weren’t happy with her attitude and reaction to the bike, and used the situation as a learning experience to discuss the pressure she, as a nine-year-old, is under to “want stuff” and base her happiness on “getting stuff” like a keyboard.

We discussed basic manners when receiving a gift, but focused on personal happiness and how companies want us to connect our happiness with products and the newest versions of products. And to her credit she seemed to get it and respond with understanding comments, questions, and apologies.

Soon, her extreme desire for the keyboard faded and she realized how cool the bike was. As winners of the Christmas weather lottery and a 74-degree day in Los Angeles, all of us went for a test ride.

And while riding her first bike with hand brakes for skidding, gears for climbing hills and going faster than she had ever ridden before, she smiled like she did years ago when she rode her first pink bike with training wheels. Christmas joy returned to her face and ours. She looked so happy and proud and joyful in a way I think most parents know only a child can muster. It’s happiness in its purest form, unstrained and untainted by complex thought and hidden motives.

If I think of my memories of childhood, a lot of them include a bike. Now I wonder if my daughter will remember this Christmas and the bike years from now. It’s the most important Christmas for her to date and about more than the bike. It’s about her future happiness. It’s also a warning to us as parents that our child is under constant pressure to consume, to own stuff and shop.

My wife and I have quite the challenge ahead of us. We lost this battle, but we don’t plan on losing the war. “Owning stuff” will be a conversation in our house for a very long time. Just as this Christmas will be a memory in my mind for a long time. Because despite its sharp right turn to the unexpected, it was still one of the best – they’re all good when they could be your last – and I will never forget it.

Memorable Christmases are the best Christmases, even when they don’t go as planned.

Happy Holidays.

“What if we skipped the gifts at Christmas?”

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I miss the days when I believed in the big guy. Creative Commons: Brokenarts

When I suggested “no gifts” at dinner last night, my nine-year old daughter attempted to summon superpowers she doesn’t have to shoot laser beams from her eyes to take my head off at the neck.

“Bad idea, Daddy.”

Yeah, I guess if you’re nine it’s a bad idea, but what if you’re an adult and know the man in red and white is a pretender?

As an adult in age, not mental capacity, I like the idea. I’d still have the time off from work, holiday music, the tree, peppermint ice cream, and lights on houses, but not the gifts.

I asked the question because I have this theory that the gift-buying process has evolved to its most stressful and consumer-centric level yet and is making a large percentage of Americans unhappy.

And what made me think of this was an article about Best Buy canceling Christmas orders and leaving people out in the cold for presents.

Best Buy cancels orders

What's in the box? Is that the pair of flannel-lined pants I wanted? Creative Commons: Brokenarts

It made me wonder how much time these customers were going to spend contacting Best Buy, complaining during what is supposed to be a happy time of the year, writing a negative online comment about Best Buy, and how their holidays may have been derailed by the process involved in buying a holiday gift.

Is there a happy step in this process?

  1. Spend hours searching for a gift, online or in the mall.
  2. Go to really crowded places and look for parking spaces while avoiding speeding drivers who flip you the bird when they cut you off because they never bothered to crack open the DMV’s Rules of Driving booklet.
  3. Spend time looking for the best price, which might mean a late night after Thanksgiving when you stand in line to save money.
  4. Wait in line to give your hard-earned money to someone who won’t say “thank you” because they don’t like working in retail and are only doing it because all of the good jobs are in China and India now.
  5.  Put yourself in confined spaces with people who are tired and pissed off about the whole buying experience.
  6. Stress over getting the right present.
  7. Experience guilt, especially if you don’t get a gift for someone and they do for you. Or don’t spend as much as they did.
  8. Open January credit card bills. Experience overspending nausea.

The list goes on.

So, I dig the Christmas experience, a lot. But the buying presents part, no so much.

An American Work Vacation for Me

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I have three weeks off. It’s because I didn’t take much vacation this year and I can’t roll over the days to next year.

Here's where I want to be on my vacation. I'm pretty sure this island lacks cellular coverage

So, I’m catching up on projects around the house and working, as in “work work.”

Yes, the work I’m supposed to be off from right now.

Last week, just before we were about to launch a new video – 5 ,4, 3, 2, abort, ABORT – my manager asked for a major change  – one he and others could have caught early in the review process.

This led to a week of my time tweaking it and the programmers devoting another week to the changes. I like my manager, great guy, but the bummer of this change is that it won’t make much of a difference for the end user, and I now have to shepherd and review the project during my vacation.

Part of this is my fault. I have a hard time making a clean break from work. I have to come down slowly and wean myself off it like a junkie breaking a habit. But technology, limited resources in our department, and the economy are the pushers.

And one device stands out as the villain of my story.

Blackberry, oh Blackberry, the enemy and destroyer of vacations. Blackberry, oh Blackberry.

What a turd of a device at times and savior when I need it. I want to fling it like a rock across a glassy pond. Watch it bounce off the payment and explode into a thousand shards of plastic. But then there are days I want to marry it, be its mate. I love you, little BB.

Future generations will discover piles of these buried in landfills, plastic dinosaur bones

Blackberry, oh Blackberry, you tease. I try not to look at my email, but I can’t help it. I’m Pavlov’s dog and run when the ringer sounds or red light flashes. Email, must read now. Bark. Bark. Must read now. [Drool everywhere.] Why did I read that now? I’m such a stupid f**K. It could have waited. Where’s my bowl of food?

Now I imagine you reading this and thinking, “Why doesn’t someone else do the work while you’re gone?”

Good question, O Wise Reader. I have several answers for you.

First, no one knows the content like I do and they’re buried with their own work and planning for their own vacations. Second, we have limited resources. Over the years, we’ve been told “do more with less.” It’s all about maximizing production and working ourselves to the bone, which ties into my third answer to your question, the economy. Yes, if you don’t do more with less and work every minute of the day and beyond, there is someone unemployed who will. And if you’re thinking of getting another job, don’t.

“There ain’t none to be had, Mister,” said the imaginary hobo by the bus stop.

I guess I shouldn’t feel too sorry for myself. I have a very good job and according to this Yahoo!/CNNMoney article, $34.3 billion in vacation days to go unused this year, a good percentage of Americans don’t use many of the vacation days they earn. At least I get to take my days with some work sprinkled in.

So, bring on the holidays, Xbox madness, and day trips with my daughter to places unknown, like a lake with a smooth surface, perfect for skipping stones.

Mesmerize me

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Here are a few things that get my attention and hold it.

Dogs playing. We keep our two dogs in the kitchen during the day because the puppy works for a demolition company and chews the s**t out of everything if we let her loose in the house. I often walk in and find the two of them fighting each other in a playful way that makes me wonder when blood will start spraying like a Monty Python movie.

I hang out, watch them duel, feel thankful they don’t have antlers, and forget why I walked in the kitchen.

M&Ms, Smarties, and/or saltwater taffy, of course.

Go Broncos. Finish 2 and 14 and draft Andrew Luck, please.

Football games. What can I say. Even after all these years, I still like football and the Denver Broncos. And I’m sticking to my guns about Tim Tebow – he has heart but no NFL QB skills. When will the fans start yelling, “Quinn, Quinn”? However, football still has the power to make me plant myself on the couch for three hours.

Victoria’s Secret Commercials. I’m embarrassed to admit this one. Okay, I’m not. I can fast forward through a TV show at top forwarding speed, read on my iPad at the same time while I listen to music and talk to my wife, and still catch the quick flicker of a VS commercial.

And every time I stop, rewind and play it, my wife shakes her head and wonders why she ever decided to go out on a date with complete idiot like me.

I’m not sure, but I love her so much I’m building her a time machine.

Tricky commercials. One of the first lessons I taught my daughter was how commercials don’t tell the truth and deceive us. Beer ads don’t use exotic locales like AA meeting halls and skid row. Banks don’t loan people money because they’re nice. And only one in 100,000 people is going to learn the Chinese alphabet on an iPad (an app used once by my daughter who had to have it). And much to my disappointment no bird ever flew out of a box of Coco Puffs.

But I watch certain commercials like one might watch a magician perform a trick – how did he do that? I know, or at least I think I do.

Would you think less of me if I told you I've seen this movie over 10 times - or parts of it 10 times?

Movies I’ve seen five times or more. If I’m up late on a weekend and a movie I like comes on, one I can recite the dialogue to, I can’t stop watching it. Even with the power of a DVR at my fingertips, I stay up way too late and suffer the next day.

Examples include: Predator, Road House, Ronin, Heat, Bullitt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and a myriad of others. I can’t explain it but if I record the movie and watch it the next day it’s like eating a day-old bagel my daughter forgot to seal in a bag – stale.

Stay alert.

Why Halloween is my least favorite fake holiday

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I don’t like Halloween.

I wasn't aware there was a Halloween version until tonight.

I liked it when I was young, despite living in Colorado and being forced to wear a parka over my costume thanks to the snow that always dropped the day before. We froze our butts off in light, stiff, flame-proof costumes purchased at the grocery store, or drug store, or where ever my mom bought them before the Internet and corner Halloween stores were in vogue.

I remember the condensation from my breath made the thin plastic mask kind of gross – hot and cold at the same time. Yes, I was the kid with the drooling mask ringing your doorbell.

I did, however, like bobbing for apples, and was really good at it. Probably because I have two giant front teeth like a mutant horse.

Sadly, I was never able to turn my talent for apple bobbing into a lucrative career, though I do think it would make for a good sport to watch on TV. Place the camera at the bottom of the tub for intense action shots, and hire good-looking men and women to compete. Because, really, won’t we watch just about anything on TV if attractive people are in it?

So, as an adult in age, not mind, I have grown to dislike Halloween because I’m the one who has to sit home and hand out the candy. My wife and daughter go to a party and have fun. I am the dog reacting to every knock at the door.

Fortunately no pictures exist of me as a child sticking my head in a bucket of water, though I'm surprised a family member didn't try to drown me for laughs.

I get up every five minutes, tell our real dogs to be quiet, and greet the trick or treaters. Then, I have to pretend my neighbors’ kids are the cutest versions of the same Disney princess (girls), and any character that kills (boys).

I also have to monitor the candy because my wife is never sure if we’ll have enough, though we always have plenty leftover, and because 1 out of every 5 kids is practicing to be a Wall Street banker one day and inevitably reaches in and grabs more candy than allowed, on purpose.

These are the candy hoarders who one day will have to go to Congress and beg for a bailout because they bet everyone else’s candy on a risky financial scheme they didn’t understand themselves. Hey, the behavior of being a hog starts somewhere, folks.

So if a child tries to take extra candy tomorrow, reach over and grab their hand and say, “if you ever work in the financial services industry your head will fill with worms and spiders and explode in a ball of fire.”

It helps to dress as a witch when you deliver this curse. And don’t be surprised if your neighbors don’t speak to you again.

I fantasize about hiring someone to sit outside my house and hand out candy. But my wife gives me the look that spending $40 bucks on the idea will earn me a quick trip to husband jail.

Yet, how nice would it be to have my feet up and not worry about trick or treaters while the Swedish woman I hired on Craigslist sits on my front porch and hands out candy. I do think I’ll need extra peanut-butter cups and Snickers bars, however, when words gets out about my fantastic new hire.

Yes, my dear wife, it was the best $300 dollars an hour I ever spent. A small price to pay for getting my Halloween spirit back.

Building my fortress one camera at a time

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The security cameras are on the way – thank you, Amazon.

This weekend I’ll be climbing up the ladder, drilling holes, running wires, installing video cameras and looking manly in my tool belt. Female neighbors will bring me lemonade and cookies and marvel at my handy-manliness.

Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. Okay, pour the oil, honey. Pour it now.

Or, not. Probably not.

Perhaps they will if I wear my Stars & Stripes lounge pants.

It will take all of my willpower not to point each of the day/night cameras at my new neighbor’s house. Oh, how I miss the cold war – damn you, Reagan. 

Then, sometime this weekend I’ll be able to kick back with a cold one and spy the intruders coming up the walkway, at which point I’ll signal my daughter to pour vats of hot oil on them.

Is that an appropriate job for a young girl?

Ah, what the hell. Kids these days have it too easy. My daughter should know how to take down a bird with a slingshot and skin a pig at this age, not shoot pigs with birds.

After my security system goes in, a contractor will be over to tell me how much I’m going to pay for a wall so thick a helicopter can’t get over it, which I didn’t know was possible until you-know-who took a bullet to the face.

Unfortunately, I don’t live in Pakistan where building codes are lax, not to mention my neighbors might object to a wall of that size. Instead, I will have to build something decorative and nice looking.

Still, there will be a place to pike the heads as a warning to other criminals. Ah, London in the old days. Could they think up the best ways to torture people or what?

Would it be wrong of me to compare some of my hospital stays to being tortured here?

Then, when I’ve completed these two security upgrades, I’m going to sell the house and move to a cave with a gate. And there I’ll protect my family and live on bats and McGriddles.

That’s my story and I’m not sticking to it.

Why do you need an MBA to decipher medical bills in the USA?

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Hospitals bills and insurance EOBs in the USA are the equivalent of going to prison, surviving unharmed while there, getting released and being mugged and stabbed by ex-cons two months later.

I am always happy to get out of the hospital, but the real pain doesn’t come until a couple of months later when my wife and I open the mailbox.

The complexity and inaccuracy of medical bills bothers me, deeply bothers me, and makes me think we don’t live in what some consider to be the greatest country in the world.

undergear.com sells these for 9.97. BTW, that's me modeling them. I'm looking cut.

Either we have citizens who flunked basic math who are programming the billing systems, or we have creative geniuses inventing evil ways to delay and screw up payments so people just pay the bills because they don’t have the skills to figure them out.

So, we are either incompetent or immoral in this country when it comes to medical billing practices.

Example: Two months ago, we received a bill for my last hospital stay. We owed over $1,500 and the EOB matched up. Then for some unknown reason the hospital went back to the insurance company for seconds. The claim was readjusted. According to the EOB, our out of pocket is around $600 now and not $1,500.But the hospital is asking us for more money above the original $1,500.

What do you think the chances are we will get the refund we’re owed?

About the same as me never having to go back to the hospital again – unless I run in front of a bus wearing a suit made of EOBs and hospital bills (Our medical files are thick. I could make two or three suits if I knew how to sew paper).

Now starts the game we play to straighten it out. Well, my wife plays it. She has an MBA and works with numbers. It started with emailing 12 documents to the hospital, each with my wife’s handwritten notes, making them look like my junior high English papers.

If we ever get accurate and ethical medical billing in this country, I may start to believe we’re as good as we think we are. Until then, I’m hiding my Stars & Stripes lounge pants in my dresser drawer.

I speak to a police officer

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I would not want to be a police officer. At least not the kind who has to speak to annoying people calling to complain about their neighbors. No, not that kind, behind a desk, trying to decipher who is telling the truth, who is lying.

I'm looking good while patrolling the mean streets of Los Angeles. Kind of like Batman without the outfit and really cool car.

I’d rather go after perps in high-speed chases in the streets of L.A. And tap them in the rear bumper with my turbo-charged Hemi-powered Dodge and send their car spinning out of control. Then, I’d jump out and just shoot them. Well, not really. I’d play it by the book. But if they pointed a gun at me, I’d demonstrate the hours I spent on the range making holes in paper targets.

Back to reality.

I spoke to a police officer the other day. I told him the short version of the conflict I had with my neighbor. I’m sure it went down in the report as a “neighbor argument.”

Accurate, I’m afraid, but not quite what I would classify it as. Just as the police categorize incidents, I do as well. But try to explain how the type of communication someone uses, and the statements they yell out, differ from what most people might say in an argument. It’s not easy and I gave up trying to.

I’m talking about statements that make you say, “where did that come from?” Or, “that doesn’t make sense.” Or, “Am I talking to a rational person?” 

The verbal equivalent of a furry bat winging its way past your head in broad daylight. Was that really a bat?

How do you describe a non sequitur that might denote someone not playing by the rules most “normal” people play by? Then again, I wear a bag on my head.

“No, officer, he did not yell a profanity at my wife.” The point is he yelled at my wife for no reason. And after allegedly having a gun out in broad daylight a week earlier. So, I went to find out why he felt it necessary to call out to her.

Despite the officer being nice, I can’t say there’s much for the police to do now. It’s my psychological drama to live out. I’m committed to not provoking or speaking to the neighbor. Still, the memory of it hangs over me like smoke in a German restaurant in the middle of winter where no one will crack a window to clear the air, and four Germans at a table in the corner keep looking this way and laughing.

It’s uncomfortable and I can’t wait to leave the restaurant.