Vacation

I can't remember the last time I had a real vacation. After leaving my job with KPMG with semi-reckless abandon to attend, of all things, art school and our Money Pit-style house renovation, there hasn't been much budget for trips to warm places with cold drinks. We have taken a few trips back to New England for family visits. Now, I love home visits (especially a summer's night dinner at a clam shack!) but family visits do not count as real vacations. Vacations are true getaways from one's world and, hopefully, oneself. 

You're not that marketing guy trying to finish off a proposal or re-designing "the book" on parking architecture, or even the son who floats into town and ducks questions about ever moving back or having kids. No, vacation is about one connecting with one's inner pleasure seeker, be it relaxation, adventure-seeking or even learning (love those art museums). It is preferable that vacations be in a place that offers the least resistance of every day life.

Being of that working-class Irish blood, vacations were not a "must-have" thing in my life growing up and it is still a forced behavior on my part.

You might have guessed I'm going on vacation. A seven day Princess cruise to Mexico with stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. Yes, it's the full on Love Boat experience. I just hope Gopher doesn't lose our luggage. See you in a week! (Notice the first guess star shown below. The second most famous Dana going...)

An Ode & Eulogy to the Daily Newspaper

The end has been on the horizon for some years now, creeping in like the fog on the San Francisco Bay or like the cowboy villain on his horse in some early Clint Eastwood movie. It's the death of the printed newspaper and it saddens me. Who will be around to write the obituary and, more important, where are we going to be able to read it?

For many years after moving to California from Massachusetts, my mother would mail to me a copy of our local paper, The Old Colony Memorial (the oldest paper in the USA), to keep me up to speed on the slow lane of Plymouth, MA. I thoroughly enjoyed paging through it, reading the Main Street news and finding out who was married, birthed, arrested and arraigned. Who doesn't remember the absolute joy of having your picture in the paper, even if you were just in the background of some sporting event?

Then, sometime around 1996, I discovered that you could read the news online, in particular the Boston Globe. The Globe is famous for having the best collection of sports writers in the country and I have thirst for sports stories. This was ecstasy! Not so slowly, I jumped on the technology bandwagon and decided that those relics made of pulp were twenty-five cents of old news. Who needs to pay for dated reporting when I could get up-to-second news for free! I told my mom she didn't need to send the paper anymore when I found the OCM online. I think she was a bit saddened by that as she enjoyed the ritual. I thought I was saving her money...

Sadly, I felt this way for years, many years. Occasionally the sight of a Sunday paper, with it hundreds of pages of paper, would give me a warm fuzzy of old days of reading the funnies after going to church. Even the insipidness of the Parade Magazine had some kitsch value. But it was not enough to make me a regular buyer of the newspaper.

Even the progressives with their green agenda were working against the printed news industry. How many trees were being lost to the printing industry? Were they being replaced? Wasn't reading news on a computer monitor, a renewable resource, making us a much better tenant of the planet? Of course, electronic waste was never really mentioned during these arguments and much less sexier of a report verses the destruction of rainforests and such. 

With all these things going against newspapers, it seemed like it was either re-invent the industry or fade away. I was okay with this...

Then something happened to me. One night I got a knock on our door and was greeted by two teenage boys looking to raise money for college by selling newspaper subscriptions. They seemed sincere enough, I wanted to support a good cause, and the price was right for a subscription to both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune, so I bit and  wrote a check. Soon I was getting morning and weekend papers.

And you know what? I've fallen for newspapers again. The chosen editing and selection of stories was so efficient compared to the lack of self-editing that comes with a seductive endless strain of hyperlinks. You can start out reading about Israeli military aggression  and end up looking up the movie career of Eric Bana and the evolution of the Incredible Hulk in seconds time. This is not a good thing. The paper offered notes and hints to places to visit in the Bay Area that I would have missed on my way to perusing my Facebook friends' status updates.

I was happy.

Then I saw this. And then this.

Like a temporary remission of a cancer patient, I found hope but was hit with what felt like a punch in the gut. Could both the Boston Globe and the SF Chronicle be gone by the end of the year? My god, what will happen to the Family Circus?

I can only recommend you run out and buy a paper and spend some time reading it. You might find yourself enjoying it. Do it, while you still can...

The Hangover Post

Well, I had no intention on having a few drinks in the city on my birthday. I really had no intention at stopping by our local island legend tiki bar down the road from our house. Alas, these actions conspired to give a bit of hangover this morning, the first one of 2009. I guess I should see this as warming up for what promises to be a 7 day succession of parties on our Mexican cruise vacation starting next week (no, I am not trying to rub this in - wait - that's a lie. Whoopee!)

In honor or my hangover, an ode to the 1980's, the time of my youth, and to the young ones today who think that the 80's must have been the coolest time ever to be alive, I leave you this, a shot by shot remake of a classically bad 80's music video...


P.S. The kids today did not spend the 80's standing up against a gymnasium wall, watching in angst at every junior high school dance. Now that was the 80's...

Sticking up for the First Amendment in my Blog Comments

I still don't believe anyone is really reading my poor little blog but it was pointed out to me that the comment function here was limited to only those with special email IDs. After digging really deep into Blogspot's control functions, I have lifted those limits. 

May free speech and open dialogue last forever and let it begin in the little boxes below! 

One Year Left to Live (Thirtysomething)

Forgive me this self-indulgent entry (even though it is my blog) and note that tomorrow (March 6th) is my 39th birthday, which means I have exactly one year left to live as a thirtysomething. Soon I will on a ship sailing west to the Blessed Realm of the Elves (forgive me again for watching the LOTR movies over the rainy weekend)...

I remember turning 29 exactly 10 years ago and having an incredibly bad year. The thought of turning 30 was too much to bear. Taking stock of what has and has not been done in life became an unpleasant hobby for me. I am trying not to let those Thought Orcs creep into my head again for the coming 12 months, but we shall see.

It's a bit humbling to think that you have a vivid remembrance of your parents being your age and that the gray hairs on your head and chin seemingly lie about the youthful spirit hiding beneath them.

Isn't 40 the new 30? Please?!?

Twitter - Jumping the Shark or Blowing it Up Chief Brody-style?

For those not in the know, which is an absurd notion if you are actually taking time to read a blog, Twitter is a microblogging/network utility that allows people to send and read limited messages of 140 characters, known as "tweets" of other people who are on the network. Twitter has gotten a lot of press recently from reports of Lance Armstrong breaking news of his stolen race bike first on Twitter and the backlash from the media against congressmen who were writing and sending tweets while sitting and watching President Obama's first speech to the Legislative Branch.

The media's instant analysis of Twitter based on recent events is that it is a meaningless, self-indulgent novelty format which distracts people and further adds to the lessening attention span of people in general. To a degree right now that is true. I subscribed to Twitter and then tepidly stepped into the Twitter world, being very cautious to who I would follow on it. I am also not very extravagant with my tweets, with maybe one a day or two if I force myself. I try to keep mine more towards observational points verses "about me" thoughts, which goes more towards my "face in a crowd" persona and my uncomfortableness with the spotlight.

I am very interested in following people, looking for a spark. Much like Morpheus searching for Neo in the one decent Matrix movie, I am looking for the Da Vinci of Tweeter, that person who will elevate tweets to the art form it could be. As haiku is to poetry, so could Twitter be to blogs. It is way too early to call the artform of the tweet refined and someone will find an angle to make this so-called novelty something not to miss. Who could it be?

Sadly, President Obama is not allowed to tweet anymore. I have a friend who is posing as an international movie star and is garnering at least 50 new followers a day. Some of my favorite television programs (okay, Mad Men) have their characters "tweeting" from 1962 to us today. The possibilities are limitless, Twitter just needs to find it's Neo...

Legos = Geek Love

Last night I had the pleasure of hanging out at my friends Bryce & Kathy's apartment for a "B-Movie Night", in which a select group of people, carefully selected by Kathy, brought foodstuffs and in return were treated to a big screen treatment of the forgotten classic sci-fi 1958 flick, Queen of Outer Space, starring a comely Zsa Zsa Gabor and featuring strings of blatantly sexist remarks. It basically is about a spaceship crew from the far future. 1985, that discovers that Venus is inhabited by a race of hot women who only wear really short dresses. The rest just really sells itself.

What made the evening memorable for me was the post-movie conversation that engaged David, one of the guests. David is my age (Late 30's) but, unlike me, did not grow out of his love for Legos at age 11. He is so serious a collector of those plastic building bricks that he has a website dedicated to his projects:

Xenobuzz

Holy cow! Now, I have seen online people dedicated to Lego building, including a guy who rebuilt Yankee Stadium, but this was my first first-person encounter with a "brickhead." Now, everyone needs a hobby, I have bemoaned by someone I live with (my wife) for my collection of soccer jerseys (which topped off at 80 kits but I have been giving some away to friends' kids who love soccer), but I never considered my hobby a lifestyle choice. Go back and look at the Xenobuzz again, did you see the walls of containers full of Lego pieces? 

What made this meeting even better was one of the other guests at the party was a certified "Lego Freak", Jeff, who engaged David in a lengthy fanboy conversation the likes of which I have never heard before. Turns out there are years of Lego kits, series, color schemes and specialized piece that get the thumbs up or down from this niche fan-base. Who knew?

I even heard about a man who required that his company build him work desk made completely out of Legos. My jaw is dropped in shock...

I have to admit to being a joyful spectator to this whole conversation. It's not often that I come across a subject matter that leaves me unable to at least partially engage, being the dilettante I am.

Do you have an obscure hobby or obsession you care to share?