Just in my head

I think 2006 was my best year for blogging. It was still new and refreshing for me. Which would explain why I managed to post more than 200 times during the year. And many of the posts were pretty darned good if I do say so myself. I'm lucky to crank out 40 or 50 posts a year these days.

I wonder at times if I'm just running out of things to say.  Or that I've come to the conclusion that blogging is a bit like talking to yourself and I've heard everything I have to say one too many times. I suppose since I always think I'm talking to myself when I blog, I get a bit startled when someone comments. I want to say, "Oh, was I talking out loud again? Sorry, I thought it was just in my head."

Free form blogging is kind of like having Tourette's. It can disturb those around you as you shout out your random obscenities. But there is this random absurdness to it all that I am drawn to. I don't tend to blog about anything in particular. Or be too particular about anything I blog about.

I suppose I shouldn't admit this, but sometimes I go through my blog archives and read old posts and marvel that I wrote them. It sounds so egotistical. But some of the posts are really entertaining. What really makes them entertaining to me is that more often than not I have forgotten writing them and it seems like new material written by a familiar stranger.

Could this be a bit what Alzheimer's is like? At least it tends to keep things fresh. On the other hand, it can be disturbing to barely remember writing about something and then to be impressed with how well you actually wrote about something you don't really remember.

Something tells me that this post isn't going to be one of those ones I reread a few years from now and marvel at what I wrote.

Sigh.

Going to the show

In baseball, going to the show means a player is brought up from the minor leagues to the majors. Its something I wouldn't have known unless I learned it from my friend Steve. He is the one standing next to the rocket above. I'm the one in the rocket. Steve died on May 6 after more than a year long battle with angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. He was two weeks younger than me.

Although Steve didn't play major league baseball, he was the ultimate baseball fan and a beloved coach of his son's little league teams. It seems only fitting that his memorial service was held in Safeco Field, the major league home of the Seattle Mariners.

I know very few people who have touched so many lives that their celebration of life could be held in a major league baseball field. I was in awe as I stepped into the field and watched multi-media slide shows depicting various stages in Steve's life. And I was touched as 9 people, including Steve's two high school and college aged sons, delivered eulogies.

Steve had broke the news about his disease to his friends via Facebook more than a year ago. Then he shared his battle with the disease via an online journal. It was a touching story filled with optimism and humor that anyone who knew Steve could recognize.  Steve's last journal entry came just days before his death. It was titled, "Cue the harpist." In it, Steve shared that the doctor's had given him between a week and a month to live. He then went on to tell everyone he was at peace and thank them all for being part of his life. I was blown away by the courage and grace of this wonderful person. I couldn't even imagine if the situation was reversed, having that much strength and selflessness.

Steve died three days later.

I met Steve about 15 years ago when he took over as the account rep on my advertising account with the agency he worked for. Being almost exactly the same age, we immediately bonded over the popular culture we could relate to growing up. He shared my love for language and trivia. We spent many hours while taping radio spots or watching photo shoots, swapping stories and quizzing each other on random trivia.

About five years ago, my company switched ad agencies. But Steve stayed in touch, occasionally getting together with me for lunch. We'd take up where we left off, talking about family, life and health. It never occurred to me that any of these lunches would be the last time I'd see my friend. But it was.

The thing is, I wasn't Steve's best friend. But anytime I was talked to him, I felt like I mattered. And from what I gleaned from the outpouring of testimonies and eulogies after his death, many people felt like that about Steve.

As I sat in Safeco Field listening and watching Steve's life celebrated, I couldn't help but selfishly wish that I had been Steve's best friend. And I couldn't help but wish I was more like him. If nothing else, Steve's life, and sadly his death, has taught me that I could be a much better person. It has taught me to appreciate the moments I have and ask myself how I would be remembered if I died tomorrow. And Steve has taught me that, even faced with the tragic inevitability of dying an early death, it is possible to face it with grace, courage and dignity.

That truly is a testimony to a life well lived.

Messing with the cosmos

After ranting about why being normal is sometimes a good thing, ironically, I've been going out of my way lately to break my normal routines. For example, for several years now, I've waited for my morning train in the same spot, boarding the first car behind the locomotive and more or less sitting in the same seat every day. Lately, it dawned on me that it would make more sense for me to sit in a car farther back on the train since it would put me closer to the station exit closer to my office building. So I forced myself to wait for the train in a different spot.

It really freaked me out, but I did it. It has also freaked out the people whose spot I've taken on the platform. Train riders are creatures of habit. Apparently so am I.

I've also been walking up eight flights of stairs at my office building instead of taking the elevator. This has been freaking out my legs.

So how has the cosmos been responding to my stepping out of the normal routine? The only thing I've noticed out of the ordinary since I started mixing up my routine was that the Chinese violin player who sits out in the plaza playing what I assume are traditional Chinese violin tunes almost every day was playing a version of "Old Suzanna" when I walked by him the other day.

That freaked me out.

Okay, so there probably isn't any connection between me riding in a different train car and the Chinese violin player playing "Old Suzanna." But it reminds me of how superstitious humans can be. I remember as a kid assigning cause and effect to everything. There was this plastic ring this kid had when I was in grade school that he swore caused him bad luck as soon as he'd got it out of a vending machine. Bad luck to him translated into being chased by some girls. I offered to take the ring off his hands because, even at age 8 or so, I didn't think being chased by girls was such a curse.  He gave me the ring. No girls chased me.  But I think it was because I'd stepped on a crack in the sidewalk. Wait. That's supposed to break your mother's back (which is a pretty sick thought).

But I digress.

I'm still going to mix things up. Because being stuck in a routine is like watching endless reruns of Pawn Stars because you are too lazy to change the channel.

Wait a minute...maybe I need to stop watching reruns of Pawn Stars, too.

Why be normal? Well, I'll tell you...

Someone posted "Why be normal?" as their Facebook status a few minutes ago and I had to fight the urge to  unleash a torrent of reasons why being normal isn't such a bad thing. For one, it goes a long way towards keeping you from being locked up.

Pronouncements like "why be normal," "march to the beat of a different drummer," "think outside of the box," and "draw outside of the lines" are trite, hackneyed phrases that scream of hypocrisy and make my eyes roll back into my head so far I'm afraid I'll need to learn to read Braille. People use these phrases to justify why they are weird and often outcasts.

Let's face it, everyone really wants to be liked and to be liked, you have to fit in. So if you have a strong desire to keep wild badgers as pets and walk around without pants (not something I'd recommend if you keep wild badgers as pets) you definitely won't appear normal and you likely won't fit in and have a lot of friends. Often times people who don't fit in overcompensate by making themselves even weirder. Then they seek out other weird people and band together to make fun of normal people and mutually embrace their weirdness. Case in point: Star Trek conventions.

I'm actually torn on this issue. On one hand, I have always felt I'm pretty non-mainstream. I don't like convention for convention's sake. But at the same time, I have no desire to stick out like a sore thumb. The solution seems to be to conform in public and rebel in private.

Kind of a cop out. But there is a certain survival aspect to this as well. When I was a kid growing up in Idaho, sticking out was a sure way to get the crap beat out of you by normal kids. And when was the last time you saw someone promoted in a company for thumbing their nose at the corporate dress code by wearing leather, sporting a Mohawk and etching a Swastika into their forehead.

Ridiculous example, I know. A non-conformist, creative type wouldn't want to be in a corporation unless they actually wanted to make enough money to survive. But at the same time, they would realize that it is useless to go into a conservative environment and demand that they conform to your non-conformist views.

Normal, after all, is a relative term (and I'm not referring to any of my relatives, because god knows none of them are normal). It may be normal to drink tea made out of rancid Yak butter in Tibet, but I wouldn't try and order it at a Starbucks in Seattle.  Though asking for a "double-tall, lowfat, no foam rancid Yak butter tea" does have a certain ring to it.

Unique and creative people don't need to scream out their uniqueness. I've railed before about the irony of art students all dressing in raggedy black cloths and piercing various body parts to make them unique in a sheeplike way.

So why be normal, you ask? Because the world is crazy enough without Bohemian wannabe's whining about being oppressed by a vanilla world.  Sometimes wrapping ourselves in a nice, normal routine is comforting.

Oh, but it is okay to color outside the lines once in a while.

VISA gift cards suck: A rant

A few years ago, someone gave me a $25 VISA gift card as a thank you for something. I thought it was a nice gesture, but tucked it away in a drawer. Then a few months later I was cleaning out the drawer, found the card and slipped it into my wallet. It eventually made it into my travel wallet as emergency money. But I never found a reason to use it.

Finally, on my recent trip to Boise I glanced at the card and noticed it had an expiration date of 8/2013. I figured I should use it or lose it. So I pulled it out at a store in Boise and tried using it. The card reader said the card didn't have enough money for the transaction (just under $12). I was puzzled, but didn't really think much about it.

I decided to go online to find out how much was loaded on the card. I looked on the back of the card and struggled to read type so tiny that it could have been used to inscribe the Bible on a grain of rice. It read:

This Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license from Visa S.A. Inc.  This card is distributed and serviced by either ITC Financial Licenses Inc. or IH Financial Licenses Inc. depending on the state or territory in which this Card is purchased. This Card is not redeemable for cash. Except where prohibited by law, a Service Fee of $2.50 per month will be applied to the remaining balance of this Card beginning in the seventh (7th month following the date of activation. Except where prohibited by law, a Re-Issuance Fee of $5.95 will be assessed for shipping and handling to replace the Card. By accepting or using this Card, Cardholder agrees to be bound by the Cardholder Agreement as amended from time to time. Cardholder agrees to notify immediately if this Card is lost, stolen or used without permission. For balance information go to www.vanillavisa.com or call 1.800.571.1376.

I'm no lawyer, but I immediately deduced that I had been screwed out of $25. Sure enough after visiting www.vanillavisa.com and entering the card information, eight $2.50 service fees were deducted from the card value. And although there were only $20 in service fees deducted from the $25 card, there was no value left on it. I'm not sure what happened to the remaining $5.

Adding insult to injuring, the website offers only a 1-800 number and a snail mail address for inquiries. Who in this century doesn't have an email address? My assumption is they no your average person doesn't want to waste the time and energy to write them knowing the response would be to read the user's agreement on the back of the card (which I could never have read without my bifocals). And who reads the user's agreement on a gift card? You would assume someone paid $25 for it plus a service fee up front. Charging $2.50 a month for the card if you don't use it seems borderline criminal.

And I love the legal mumbo jumbo line about "Cardholder agrees to be bound by the Cardholder Agreement as amended from time to time." How can you agree to an agreement that changes from time to time without your knowledge or review?

Shame on you Visa! Shame on you Vanilla Visa as well. I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of all my Visa cards and switching to American Express. And you can bet I'll never buy a Visa gift card for anyone for any reason.

But maybe I should check out American Express gift cards and read their user agreements first.

Man in Iron Mask with Starbucks

It has been a week since I returned from my business trip to Boise. And as usual, it was odd being a visitor in a town you grew up in. There is a sense of straddling two times that include the Boise of my past and the Boise that is now.

I like the Boise that is now much better than the Boise I grew up in. It is still laid back, but has a certain cosmopolitan flair that didn't exist when I was struggling through my formative years. The downtown I grew up with was fairly sterile and barren. The downtown now is lively and stoked with character and trendy restaurants.

Not that I had much free time to soak in the trendiness of it all. I spent most of my time in a parking lot in the countryside near Nampa watching television spots take shape -- a process not unlike watching paint dry. And although the weather was clear, it was unseasonably cold and windy for Idaho (not the ideal conditions for an outdoor shoot).

But we accomplished our job in the alloted three days and then hunkered down in an editing studio to piece together the puzzle of various takes and angles to produce a pretty great final product.

I caveat this all with an observation that I rarely talk about my work in my blog. I believe in a firm separation of  blog worlds and work worlds. But I made an exception here to explain why I've posted photos of me wearing an iron mask and one of me drinking out of a pineapple. They are simply props.

But I digress.

I did drive by my mom's house to see whether it had been torn down. I had mixed feelings when I pulled up to it unchanged except for a "FOR RENT" sign in the front yard. I really rather would see it torn down than to have strangers, especially renters living there. I truly hope my mom's spirit has moved on so she doesn't have to fret about things and people being out of place in her house.

Regardless, I enjoyed my time in Boise, surreal as it was. But it is good to be back in the land of the falling rain.

I miss that pineapple though.

A moment in time

I'm not sure why I typed my mom's address into Google maps.  The house I grew up in was sold to a developer after she died and was to be demolished to make room for what I assume will be hideous townhouses. I guess I was expecting to see a photo of a construction site or vacant lot. Instead I found a snap shot of the house from about a year before my mother died. She is working out in the yard while her dog rests in front of the door on the drive way.

I know some people question Google's efforts to capture these types of images. Although it makes me a bit sad, I'm actually glad they captured a moment of my mom's life that wasn't posed self-consciously and reflected something she loved, working in her garden. It is how I want to remember her.  It helps me try and get past the memory of her last days.

I kind of wish Google had existed throughout history and captured similar moments. I would love to see photos of the house at various times during my life. Photos of me playing in the yard with my brothers and neighborhood friends. Photos of me sitting with my parents on the front steps on summer evenings, enjoying a breeze and a break from the day's heat. Photos of life that didn't just involve people awkwardly posing in front of the camera at birthdays and graduations.

I am going back to Boise in a few weeks on a business trip. I plan to drive by the house (or where the house used to be). And I'm not sure how I will feel or react. It will be hard to believe that the place is gone, the tree, planted in the front yard when I was a small boy, cut down. The fence I jumped over torn down (the same fence I ran into with my bicycle when I was learning how to ride). The remnants of my childhood plowed under.

And it will be odd not to walk through the gate and up to the door as I did on countless trips home in the thirty something years since I left. Countless trips home. It just dawned on me that part of me subconsciously holds onto the place as my home when I haven't lived there for more than three decades. But now there is no physical place to hold onto, to ground me to my past. My mother was that anchor that held me to that place and now she is gone. And so is that home.

I couldn't wait to leave there when I was old enough to get my own place. After sharing a room with my two brothers for the first ten years of my life I longed for my own room. And then I longed for a place that was my own without other people's rules.

And I am nostalgic about the place being gone. Maybe we are like the salmon and other creatures who are drawn to the place of their birth.

Or maybe we are just drawn to moments in time.