Must everything be commercial? There's a headline on blogger.com about how to make money with your blog. They must be in cahoots with the State of Florida Road 417 Commission that charges $2.75 (each way) to get from I-4 to MCO. Capitalism is the means, not the end, people!
Yesterday was a blur of working and cleaning and packing and JBL ordering and driving and laughing. Highlight: "Are you OK? Can we have the frog?!" Then, up until almost 2 packing the Penske - two hands multiplied by two people make for lighter work.
Last day at MPYD today. Goodbye Stripeout, goodbye Eames chairs, goodbye plotter, goodbye phones, goodbye payroll tax deposit, goodbye boat show, goodbye webmaster, goodbye lunches around the reference table, goodbye downtown Sarasota, goodbye Palm Avenue, goodbye cars, goodbye Segways. Goodnight boats, goodnight folks.
Hello, Michigan.
posted at 10:35 AM - comments
Thursday, August 26, 2004
In the last few days of work I've had an increasing number of moments available to scan the horizon that is available through the blogthis! toolbar. The realm of languages, designs, ages, spelling ability, content, personalization, and emotion spanned by just a tip of the blog iceberg is totally astounding. Ranging from the mispelt diaree of a 13 y-o grl to the methodically compiling of URLs that support a single narrow point of view, this brave new media is clearly publishing for everyperson. Plus me.
On my way to London and back I read a great collection of essays by Colson Whitehead called The Colossus of New York: A City in 13 Parts, which has been in my mind more and more lately because of his awesome use of free association; his ability to take one's surroundings and put them on the page. It slipped into yesterday's post, and I like it so it is going to be around more.
Busy day at home and at Chris & Nancy's house, with chicken cordon bleu for dinner and the kind of funny-deep conversation that only Nancy can crank up. First there was a walk-through with my property manager who gave me the thumbs-up and indicated (in writing) that all is well. Packing has waned off, cleaning has ramped up, and a white Penske van sits in the TimberChase parking lot ready to be filled to overflowing with the contents of my current-but-soon-to-be-former apartment. Trucks designed with you in mind. This vehicle limited to 75 mph. Stay back. Lift with your legs. Final water payment with-held from security deposit.
Boooooooooooo YAH! In a flash, I'm funded. The old-fashioned way; not paid-for, not financed, but funded. There's an interesting feasibility study being verified by the University for the Navy regarding contingency-producible corvettes for the "navy-after-next" and now I'm a part of it. Should be a strong addition to my CV and good exposure to the world of lean manufacturing and first-tier production in second-tier facilities. Business schools please form a line to the left. No pushing. Now Serving: 1. We apologize for the delay. Visit our website. Heavy call volume. You are important to us.
NBC has gone unmentioned long enough in this blog. Time to sling some mud, so stand back. The Olympics are about competition...people winning, people losing, people with stupid grins and pure agony on their faces. Last night I tuned in and saw "Olympic Moments" and the gymnastics night of champions or some such thing. No winners, no thrill of competition, nothing. So listen up, Dick Ebersol & Co: the Olympics, the Games of the 28th Olympiad, are just that! GAMES! It's not the "Sad Stories and Remarkable Showmanship of the the 28th Olympiad," so let's watch some sports. Show all the countries, show more of the action.
The packing intensity has been taken up a notch or two as time winds down to a day or two. At some unknown point last evening I realized that last Thursday's ride had been my last as the list at home seems to grow rather than shrink. Even the Olympics have proven to be a distraction over the past day and a half as I need to concentrate more completely on putting my life into boxes and purging that which I don't need.
posted at 12:37 PM - comments
Monday, August 23, 2004
Last weekend, incredibly, in Sarasota. To mark this momentous occasion I spent five hours on the roof of the FUMC Habitat house, sweating profusely and saving old(er) men from sliding to the ground while still clutching 4x8 sheets of plywood. Then home for packing, Olympics, a finale excursion to Best Buy and Barnes and Noble, and Olympics. Sunday was church, A/V duty, and a moment of recognition at the sound table in front of (or behind, as it were) an applauding congregation. Then home for packing and Olympics before heading to Anna Maria to bid farewell to the tropical paradise on Clark Road. After swimming, some volleyball, a trip to the dunes, a few hamburgers, and a rousing game of foos it was back to Sarasota-town, possibly down LBK for the last time, and home to packing and Olympics.
posted at 11:51 AM - comments
Friday, August 20, 2004
The end of a week of packing and riding - my last so-called "normal" week here. The contents of 511 are largely already into boxes and what remains will be put into their various traveling containers over the weekend. Gritty ride last night, with just 3 members of the B group sticking it out over the length of the island for an average that we coaxed up to 24.60 with a killer final 8 miles. It seems strange to think that there's just one more flying island in my future and that if things aren't coming together at home (or it rains) it won't happen. Home after the ride for dinner, packing, Olympics, Labor Day planning, and time with Jenelle even if not in the best way. Lunch was on Patrizio today at Hob Nob, another likely 'last' before they start in earnest tomorrow.
posted at 1:30 PM - comments
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Hummmmmm. Wednesday, a good day. A fine day, really, with not much going down at work and some packing and organizing at home. Predominantly good news by phone, too, of upcoming visits to and from Ann Arbor. Plus, Olympics - a bonus given everything else going on - were in rare form last night with the return of competition to Olympia and a men's gymnastics final that was closer than any ever before. Today I had prints made from the pictures I took (man is digital ever cool) during the whirlwind that was Englad a few short weeks ago in advance of a major photo-album assembly a week from Sunday and then probably at least two rounds of photo-album browsing in two weeks. Pictures are cool and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the whole collection.
posted at 12:44 PM - comments
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
There's a funny state of mind that you get into on the bicycle, a near-vacuum of thought and emotion. Last night's 24.31 average was completed without ever entering that zone, though. In my head I was thinking that just over a year ago I was getting back into the ride, having overcome a "where were you when" moment. Then I got to thinking about Hurricane Charley and realized that in my head there's a distinction between the tragedies we bring upon ourselves and those delivered by the environment we live in. Somehow the disaster of the hurricane seems smaller than the loss of Columbia because it was out of our hands.
After the ride, home for more Olympics and a tiny bit of packing and prep for the ever-closing moving date. Caught the very notable 4x200 freestyle relay, too, which has to be the most exciting event so far. Klete Keller is the man, and that's what the games are all about; let the so-called little guys stand up to the folks with nicknames.
The oly-oly-Olympics are in full swing now, and boy are they ever fun. For my money there's no better televised moment than the opening montage and associated voice-over every night..."the Games of the XXVII Olympiad." Last night was swimming, men's gymnastics, and a touch of synchronized diving. China has roared to the front of the medal count, but watch for the US and Australia to roar past them once the bulk of competition moves from the pool to the track.
posted at 12:34 PM - comments
Monday, August 16, 2004
Some weekends create a plethora of talking points for the blog; this was near the top of that category.
Hurricane Charley whipped everybody into a frenzy late last week and then fizzled (for me, at least) into a day spent indoors without anything to do but pack house and watch Charley coverage on TV. I was one happy camper when the opening ceremonies of the Games of the 28th Olympiad finally came on at 8:15. The funny thing about hurricane preparation, to me, is the way people assume that their house is going to be the one used in the little icon on national news to symoblize the destruction. Perhaps this pessimistic, defeatist attitude is part of the problem? I looked long and hard at the information presented by the National Hurricane Center and decided that a 39% chance of the storm passing with 75 nautical miles of Sarasota wasn't quite enough for me to head to a shelter. That's just me, but I guess that could have bitten me pretty hard if the eye-wall had whipped across Fruitville road and into my apartment.
Then, the rest of the weekend has to be all about the Olympics, for better or worse. The better are the sports where individuals and teams work like crazy for years and years and the measure of their success is Olympic glory. Phelps and Vendt going 1-2 in the 400 IM was a highlight, as was the gritty performance of Sandeno in the 200 fly. The worse are the sports where spoiled brats play like a collection of overpaid, under-appreciative punks and get beaten badly. I'm speaking, of course, of our so-called basketball "dream team" and their brutal loss to Puerto Rico. And, as mad as I am at them for not giving a care, at least they gave enough of a sliver of a care to join the team. To those NBA players who declined spots on the Olympic team I say how can you be too good for your country? You are not doing anything this summer as important as the Olympics. Promise. Lance, this goes for you, too. If you want to spend the summer with your kids you ought to quit Le Tour, too, or maybe fly your kids to Greece for the game with a few thousand of your twenty million dollars. "Too busy for the games" say our athlete-kings. Too selfish for words says me! That millionare whiners on the basketball team could be decorated with the same honor as 25-year old gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj, who showed up at practice for nationals with burns on her arms from the pizza oven, is truly what's wrong with America. Boy am I ever hot over this one! The good news is that I cooked up a solution to the problem - let's send the Pistons instead. Puerto Rico (or Italy, or Argentina, or China for that matter) couldn't score more than 25 against The Show, and Ben Wallace would be infinitely more honored than is Allen Iverson.
The rest of the weekend was Habitat house fascia boards and roofing, A/V duty, ice skating, talking with Jenelle who is back and we're both glad, and talking with the myriad folks who called to be certain I was and am alright.
Rock me like a hurricane! Charley is on its way and this region is bracing in a major way - mandatory evacuations for barrier islands and low-lying areas, grocery stores out of water, home improvement warehouses out of plywood. Preparations for me are minimal, since I live just outside the flood plain on the ground floor. My hope is that the Timber Chase pond can absorb the rain that is on its way and that the tree outside my window can hold together or, if push comes to shove, break in such a way that it doesn't come through my glass slider. In the meantime, I'll be getting provisions ready for the first weekend of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games - the Summer Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.
posted at 1:11 PM - comments
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Last night's ride would have been a PB for certain if it weren't for the snarly attitudes of a pair of A-group sandbaggers riding with the B-group. So, instead of barrelling home at 26 or so, I chugged in, solo, with a two-four point two-four average. Then home to eat cajun leftovers, buy a final mini-round of sundries; gasp! I got the smallest packages of dish soap and TP available at Eckerds for the final few weeks before the move. More signs of the impending life-shift at lunch today when I arranged for stop and start dates for cable & electricity at home and in Ann Arbor.
posted at 1:44 PM - comments
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Off after work to check out Drew & Kim's new house - very nice, very inviting - with some of their family from the area. Home from there to talk with Jenelle, whose time in London is down to final days. After that, I cooked up the cajun-style sausages that I'd been seasoning since Saturday. I grilled the sausages then added them to a red bean-stew, served over a bed of rice. Very, very, good, although the beans didn't soak up quite as much cajun fah-lavah as I would have liked. Suggestions? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
posted at 12:32 PM - comments
Monday, August 09, 2004
One of three Floridian August weekends has ticked away. Saturdays were at three, and I devoted this one to hip girders on the FUMC Habitat house, packing up the mainstays of my "art collection," a trip to sell Surfy McWaverson, recycling my old Epson printer, shopping for computer bags, and buying boxes and packing paper...now they number two. Same with Sundays, this one spent A/V-ing and packing and skating, and now they are down to two. Lunch out today with Kim and Drew for Mexican food, which was a pleasant way to start the week.
posted at 1:18 PM - comments
Friday, August 06, 2004
It keeps on raining 'round here, although it was clear last night for another blustery, overly windy ride. Felt pretty tired but did a fair amount of work and got up to 23.09 over the course, then headed home to collapse into the pool. There's other stuff going on, too, but mostly it is business and moving stuff that makes for pretty dull blogging. I mean virtually none of the top blogs are called, like "Clerical and Personal Documentation Gathering" or "Insurance Policy Switching for Business and Pleasure." All the same, it is stuff that needs to get done and will make things better later. But for now, bring on the weekend.
posted at 12:46 PM - comments
Thursday, August 05, 2004
It's Thursday and there's nothing wickedly exciting happening or on the horizon. But lunch hours have been full of productivity and I got to talk to Jenelle, fix the bike, and eliminate the rattle from a door panel on the James last evening so all is right with the world. Somewhere lurking there is a post about management and managing, about the creative process as a manufacturing process, and about taking work personally but today is not the day.
posted at 1:09 PM - comments
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
And I'm back in the saddle again. After a two week hiatus and on a very windy evening in between (and just in front of) rainshowers, my 22.70 mph average seemed pretty decent. Went down to Sarasota Schwinn Cyclery at lunch today, too, to get some tuning and ride-position advice after some, uh, saddle-related discomfort and the way south last night. It is nice to just get helpful, nonjudgmental, free advice from smart, amiable folks. In your eye, BnJ! Home last night in time for dinner and a continuation of detail-sorting, which so often takes the form of document gathering. Tonight I'm hopeful that I'll get to mark several to-do's off my list and still have time to tinker with the T2k before le peleton heads out once more.
posted at 3:03 PM - comments
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
I've often wondered what my response would be if I asked for a sound-off among readers of this forum, but I think I have gotten the equivalent of that since last Friday when the pictures from London went up. If you haven't chimed in with some comment, please let me know and I can get a more official tally of browncow readership.
Home last night to re-organize my life again. Talked to Jenelle for a bit, then took care of rather a large heap of correspondence and bills before talking to Robin and Dad about fun and business alike.
A whirlwind wedding weekend to cap this summer's social calendar has been and gone. It started with a celeb-sighting that tries to match those recorded recently in this forum but falls short; I saw Maura Tierney, E.R.'s Abby, on my DCA-LGA shuttle. From there it was a seemingly frivolous 27 hours on the ground on Long Island for Jackie & Drew's big day, with ceremony, reception, beach party at Webb, and morning with the Comptons - all funded by US Airways thanks to a bump I took after Karyn & Rob's big day. Then last night another return, this one delayed by computers (CNN coverage) until the early hours of today. There's also a largely-ignored breach of civil liberties in my mind because of this weekend's travel, that of the cabin movement restriction in all airspace with 30 minutes of Reagan National, but that'll be a beef for another day. This day started with good news from Drew & Kim, who found a steal in the Indian Beach part of town and are now fast-tracked towards a life of home-ownership and financial independence. Congratulations all around!
posted at 11:41 AM - comments
Friday, August 27, 2004