From the air up here…

Able to get an exit row. Stuck against a window, with a lady who alternates between offering me gum ( I accepted – not sure if I needed it but if I did I feel safer), frenetically changing reading material, and eating through a large tube of Lays stackers.

I bring this up because it’s almost more fun than thinking about commuting on the train.

Some brief observations.

Couples really start to look alike the more you study them. The skinny sophisticate who hemmed and hawed when she had to move because two people got on late looked a lot more like her boyfriend then I originally realized. The Euro crew, unshaven, and drinking some type of drop in tablet in their water have a wacky pair of headphones that look like a cross between earbuds and mini sound blockers. They have some over the ear cup like those ridiculous ear warmers.

Infants are cute but REALLY LOUD.

I JUST LOST THE ARM. I JUST LOST THE ARM. F%$CK, I JUST LOST THE MIDDLE F$%CKING ARM.

The guy behind me is old, finely dressed, and using my chair for futbol practice.

I am contemplating the bathroom.

Hurley was in LaGuardia,I was thrilled he was not on this flight.

I like Kings of Leon.

There is a guy in first class who is pacing the aisle with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He has explained to 11, nope make that 12 people that he needs to do this because he otherwise will go nuts without his cigarette. He has not seen the Don Johnson/Kurt Russell classic “Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man” and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked.

Why are all these people going to Nashville?

Thoughts from a Plane…

I can not take credit for the title of the post so thanks EZ E.

Sitting in LaGuardia this early afternoon, I came to appreciate the form of travel I loathed for so long. To think on the first Saturday of February vacation that I would leave my little home in the burbs, come into Boston, park at Logan, go through security, and be in a rocking chair waiting to depart in an hour and 10 minutes is basically unheard of. Yes, I printed my boarding pass before I left home, which helped, but overall, it was quick, and painless. And yet sad.

This might sound strange, but I am sitting in a little sports/rocker bar outside of a corridor leading to area D, and there is no one here. There is a guy next to me on a laptop, a girl reading a book, and one family in this restaurant. There was a family that considered getting some chicken nuggets to share for their 3 kids under 7, but that’s about it. WHERE THE F$%# IS EVERYONE.

At home.

It’s tight out there, and it sucks.

Too many friends and acquaintances getting the axe. Reading way too often about some poor Mom or Dad who ends it because the home is going to be foreclosed on. Or worse, taking the whole family with them. Too much news about how executives are bristling at salary caps if they take bailout bucks. And way too much about the market, the doom, the drops, and the length of time it will take to get it back. Or let’s even talk about A Rod, Bonds, the 103, spring training, and the fact that Manny and Boras are somehow surprised that he has not landed somewhere yet. It’s over. The new mom with octuplets is getting screwed by pampers and Enfamil! ( She may have a screw loose and the fertility doc is a moron, but those eight bums and mouths could use a little dry comfort and some powdered based goodness – so step up!)

Go Simple. In your own way.

I have to say I am having more fun with simple things. Family time, family swim, the Y, a little HBO, friends over, and thinking of spring. There are a lot more frozen meals in the office, a lot more fruit, and a lot less dining out. There are more trips to the gym and less trips to Target. Hide and seek is a perfectly acceptable way to spend an hour outside and damn, that blue building in the center of town is called a LIBRARY, and it had lots of things called BOOKS!

Don’t be afraid to say no. Or “it’s not happening right now”, or, “Dude, meet you at my place- bring some Tangueray, I got the juice! No need to go to Estate/Plaid/Vive/palace/manland/Club Zero – you were not going to get any anyways, and now I just saved you 150 bucks and more therapy” (this one might need some editing based on your friends and your ability to be direct and honest but you are at least thinking it…).

Yes, I believe our President wants to do good and is trying damn hard to steer this great nation in the right direction, but while I am hopeful, I can’t be putting my hopes in one basket, and I don’t expect any personal trickledown bailout. I know I need to be a little more self aware and responsible.

You might need to also.

Good luck.

J and BJ – welcome to the beginning of a great life! Cherish, guide, and nurture…

 

 

Why A – Roid Why?

Alex,
Come on!

You’ve been beat up by Tek, played slap hands in the playoffs, ripped an MVP away from Papi, hit a GWHR off Paps on a night I stayed in the pouring rain to watch it, and various other incidents. I’ve purposely never drafted you for a fantasy team because you were the one player i could not bear to have on my team.

But I respected you. I respected your ability, your talent, and your consistency.

You will always be tainted.

Will the clean slugger please stand up?

a sad day at UMass

http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2009/01/dea_rejects_uma.html

Just think…someone actually growing marijuana legally in Amherst…I guess it was just not to be…

Congrats Jim Ed Rice!

It took 15 years but Jim Rice was elected to the Baseball hall of fame today. Jim Rice was my first real baseball hero. I grew up watching him, reading about him, and collecting his baseball cards. Every day I went to the Globe not only to read about the game from the night before but to read the box score and look at Rice’s stats.

It’s amazing what you recall 25-30 years later, but I remember quite vividly watching Rice play left field, and I still to this day disagree with those who found Rice to be slow. After all, Rice did have two straight seasons of 15 triples in 77 and 78. That 78 season was a bittersweet one with the loss to the Yankees in a one day playoff, but it solidified Rice in my mind as the hero of my Red Sox youth. 46 home runs, 135 RBI’s and a .315 average were great numbers, and something more…my original fantasy baseball passion. Yes, Jim Ed helped me enjoy math, enjoy stats, and enjoy the game behind the game.

Congrats Rice, it never should have taken 15 years.

it’s nice to be back

Sometimes you just need to take a break, or you have nothing to say, or perhaps you follow that old adage, ” If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” For me, I am partial to the first or second, and don’t find I often follow the third nearly enough…but I am trying.

Happy New Year! Hope your Christmas was merry, that the stress of the holidays didn’t get to you, that Santa was good to you, and that you made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight.

I actually had a hard time thinking of what to write for a good month this fall because i found myself so caught up in the election that I was not sure where to start.

First, when I started writing this blog it was just random thoughts about the commute, about life bullshit, and about any other smarmy topic I had an opinion on. Writing about an election didn’t seem apropo AND certainly didn’t seem to be in line with what I normally wrote about. 

But I realized that perhaps one of the reasons i had nothing smart alecky to write was for a while I wasn’t feeling that little edge inside. 

For the first time in about 7 years when it came to national leadership I felt hopeful. Not over joyed, not merely positive, but hopeful, about national leadership, about direction, and about how engaged EVERYONE seemed to be in this election.

So where do we go from here?

I think I’ll keep writing from the train when it hits me, but I also want to engage in a new dialogue and see what people might have to say. So I am starting a blog entitled: “What I see in America”.  It’s run on WordPress also, but I  also bought the website www.whatiseeinamerica.com and you can reach the blog there.

The title isn’t meant to be cornball.  There was a little elementary school notion there that I felt was important to note. The title felt a little like the start of a fifth grade essay – which is fine, because I’d be happy to have a fifth grader give an opinion here.  It also conveyed to me something simple in a different way…ownership.  I’d like to have you give your thoughts and opinions, no matter whose corner you stand in, what corner you stand on, or even what ever corner you are sent to.

I hope you’ll join me.

www.whatiseeinamerica.com

 

john

Phish is Back…

yep…soon we will be bouncing around the room again. 

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2008/10/01/4_years_after_disbanding_phish_to_reunite/

my big umbrella

Getting off at South Station this morning I observed something very strange.

When I got out to the corner at Summer Street, the rain was coming down, however the ground was completely dry!!! I was stunned by this until I realized that while I was standing under my sizeable wind vent golf umbrella, so was everyone around me, except for some guy named Stan who was about 12 feet away.

Stan was soaked, and I mean it was literally as if buckets of water were being dumped on his head. This was almost true. What had actually happened was that every other person with their golf size umbrellas and a few with the well placed “tote” size umbrellas had created a river of water that was just drenching Stan.

As I stepped off the curve in my little Goretex lined bucks, my stain and water resitant khakis and my LL Bean Gore Tex lined coat, I took a quick look over my shoulder to make sure that my umbrella was also covering my bag, which is also waterproof. Thankfully I was dry.

I headed for work and thought about my fortune in being so well protected by the rain. I did get a little scared when I was passing people that they may hit me in the eye with their umbrellas so I am going to bring in one of my other two umbrellas next time.

The first one that I have, which should be helpful in keeping me dry, is my backyard table umbrella. It’s a little on the big side ( about 8′ across) but it should be able to keep me dry and ensure that no one can undercut my umbrella. While one guy on the train was a little aggravated when I put it in the storage above the nine seats around me, it’s important (tough shit… man), I need to be dry.

Sometimes though, when you need to move quick the backyard umbrella gets a little cumbersome, so I have my customized chariot umbrella. This one is equipped with chariot wheel style blades on all 8 sides and not only helps me move quickly through a crowd, but also works to cut the umbrellas of those who come a little too close. I do find it is VERY important to open and close it carefully ( sorry Al!).

I think with all of these options I should be good…I will let you know how it goes..

Facebook fun…part two

So I mentioned the article on Facebook I wrote  to a friend yesterday who was telling me of some of the funny stuff that shows up on their live feed so I decided to actually look at this today and found out the following:

 

someone I know is in training today….( are you currently somehow unfit for your job?)

another friend is jealous of her girlfriend’s boots…( buy better ones)

on one friend’s page someone was posting while taking their morning dump…( their post, not mine)

another opined about the birds eating the bird seed…( if you have time to post this while the birds are eating your bird seed, you could spend it spreading hay over your bird seed, or perhaps following the directions and tilling the seed into the lawn…)

someone else is running their computer on reserve batteries….

another felt better after taking Tylenol pm…

someone got free food and someone is going to some cool restaurant

someone is a fan of Salvador Dali

another guy has a huge ass grill and a cool wine collection

And….

some of you just read redigested content from Facebook…

love, hugs, and kisses…

from the train.

facebook…the new face of Gen X…or…lessons in how to not use Facebook if you are over 30.

Having worked at colleges for a while I have had a Facebook account for some time. It started when a student innocently started an organization based on a program I ran and I was concerned about how he might portray our program so I got an account so I could help manage the face of the program.

Over time, students would “friend” me which was fine also. And as students became more savvy to FB they started to realize they did not want me to have access to their information or pictures or anything else. All of this is also fine and also the reason why I do not actively seek student friends on FB because

1. it’s creepy  2. it’s intrusive 3. it’s unnecessary.

Students also thought it might be a smart idea to block me from their accounts which meant I could not find them on Facebook or see their info – again something that I think is a good idea because if I am a student I do not want administrators looking at my info, or pics of me having a good time with my friends.

All around, I found Facebook to be a peaceful coexistence with students. I would happily use it to promote “student” events to them, and put up some tidbits about myself so they could reach me if they had questions.

and then it all changed….

Yes, if I were Mark Zuckerberg, I’d have done the same thing- make Facebook an open site for all to use, make joining easy, create a bunch of crap add ons or better yet, let other companies do so, and let the world in. In actuality, a great idea from a business perspective.

When Facebook became a much more open site, I saw a merging for myself of the professional self and personal self, because all of a sudden, lo and behold, it was like old home week…

Friends from high school who I had not heard from in years would find me, or I would find them, or they would mistake me for a friend ( this did happen where an old high school colleague drunkenly mistook me for someone else, I drunkenly responded I was not they guy, we are now facebook friends and we both thought it was funny, not uncomfortable.. but funny). So a neat way to say hi to people you have not seen in 10-20 years. I have been able to reconnect with pals from high school that I never would have found and that is, to me, a very cool thing.

Also, I found that college friends came out of the woodwork too. It became a great way to get back in touch with people I had not heard from in years and for them to do the same. It’s really quite cool to get a message from some guy you used to spend 2 nights a week with stumbling down the streets of Amherst, or find out about how the lives of many have changed or not over time. It’s also great because when 200 people who all were part of Greek life want to plan a little get together…good ol facebook is there to help them start a group to do so, and if you don’t like the group that is planning it, you can even create private groups where you control the membership and only let certain people in, or even make the group private so it won’t show up on your “groups’ site at all…it’s like being at rush all over again…

Of course with this comes some new “funny..ha ha” moments. Such as when people you went to college with post pics of you from many a year ago. I always look at them and then detag myself from them, and I’d recommend the same to you. Why…because you never know who is looking at them, and, you never know who will. So while I think it’s funny to find pics of myself doing…I am not sure everyone would. Which reminds me, if people take the time to scan old photos of you and then upload them, just think  of how useful the old camera phone is today…think before you blink my friends….

Also, for all of you Facebook rookies…don’t poke anyone, the Superwall is lame, and having too many games, quizzes, and gifts is just too much clutter…but it does give me an many an idea of just how busy or not busy you are at work…make sure you look at those old date and time stamps…they tell a hell of a story.

Also for rookies…Facebook is a nice place to visit, but not so nice a place also, so avoid the stalkers and get rid of your birthdate, home address, and the 20 identifying pictures of your children. Take some time to look through the security settings and make sure you are only showing people what you want to show them.

Consider who should be able to look at your full profile, your pictures, your wall, and anything else that you might enjoy sharing with friends, but not necessarily the world. You can creatively set up groups to create access points for your friends…and your “facebook only” friends.

If you send me a beer, a lily patch, or a video don’t be upset that I didn’t respond. Similarly, I intro’d the blog to pals on Facebook so they’d know I wrote one, but then I stopped because, hey, if they want to find it, all they really have to do is ask…they don’t need me to self promote it.

I didn’t write this for the undergrads who might stumble upon it. I wrote it for you…Tim, Dave, Tommy, Cindy, Janet, Sally, and Rex. Yup, all of you have way too much info out there, and the nude beach pics seemed like a cute thing to post for the newlyweds but c’mon…

it’s a digital world…you never know who is looking.