Eastward into Big Easy or (Never Pass Up an Opportunity to Get Gas or Use the Restroom) or (How to look like you did the nasty when you didn't) Part 1

The story really starts just a little north in Vicksburg Mississippi. At a well known road side destination for octagenarians driving vehicles way too long for them to drive, flaunting their inflated retirement accounts in mobile houses. One could park 3 cars in the same space these establishments dedicate to the RVs. Anyway...

We stopped to eat lunch in preparation for our final descent to the bottom of America and our vacation in New Orleans.

Having lived in New Orleans for a couple of years in the late 90s we were familiar with the city's layout and reasonably confident of our ability to find our way around. But we made a mistake. We approached from the west having driven down I55 to the west end of Lake Ponchartrain and entered the city on I10 through the swamps. We had always approached from the East in the past.

Just about an hour from New Orleans, the lunch I had eaten; please excuse the graphic details; was trying to climb its way out of my butt. Patt could hear the rumbling in my belly and she surely could see the odd way I shifted from cheek to cheek every other mile or so.

Did I mention that we were almost out of gas?

Did I mention that there are no gas stations in the swamp, except of course, as Patt reminded me, the 3 or 4 I had passed back there some ways?

We took the correct exit off of the interstate that should have taken us East to Canal Street then a right on St. Charles and oila! the Lafayette Hotel, just a 15 minute walk to the Cafe Du Monde.

Did I mention that we were out of gas?
Did I mention that it we drove directly into the Halloween Parade?
Did I mention that there are at least 3 Canal Streets in New Orleans?
Did I mention that East, West, South, and North get all jumbled up when one is navigating the bowl of spaghetti that is the downtown New Orleans road system?
Did I mention that many of the streets no longer have road signs to let you know which road one is on or which road one is turning onto?

Grumble, Rumble, shift a cheek, let out a sigh. Something bad was going to happen -- and soon!

(to be continued)

KNOW-IT-ALLS, THE LAZY, THE INTERNET, AND ME

The Age of Data is upon us and it has pummeled us near to death. Was a time when what I didn’t know didn’t worry me. Now I am expected to know too much and my brain is full. I now have to make a conscious decision about what I am going to delete from my brain to make room for the latest thing I must remember. This decision is not made arbitrarily. Not at all! I have a risk based algorithm I use to determine what will happen if I forget the last thing I was supposed to remember after I delete it from my memory bank for the newest thing I can’t fail to remember. What I did not realize until well after developing this algorithm, is that the algorithm itself, this mathematical formula I needed to clear the memory banks, was, indeed, something else I needed to remember. Anyone with me here?

So, I did what the rest of the world seems to be doing: exporting all the things I have to remember to an external databank, so I have room in my brain for things I used to enjoy: like 19^th century French literature, Patrick O’Brian and John Le Carre novels, and memorizing poetry. The benefit to this, and the only benefit I can find, is that it takes up space somewhere else, though I find I am getting stupider as the days go on.

Internet thou art my memory, thou art my knowledge, thou art my sage, thou art my oracle!

There is a secret to maintaining one’s humanity when relying on the internet to store one’s memory and answer one’s questions. If one can do that; maintain one’s essential humanity whilst enjoying the ability to present the illusion of omnipotent wisdom, one can become truly wise.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are essentially three types of people using the internet: only one of which should one want to become.

The internet is replete with people who have nothing better to do than to tell the world how much they know about everything. This is the first kind of person and without them the internet would be empty.

The second kind of person is the kind that is too lazy to read books (books require work and are full of all sorts of extra things like…words?) or to experience things themselves (like looking at pictures and headlines for a political rally rather than really attending the rally). Without these people, the internet would be full but not used by anyone but the know-it-alls telling no one how much of everything they know.

Regardless of the search engine one elects to use, the main one, or the dozens of others, type in any question into the magic window and one will get an answer. Seriously, try it. Here are real questions searched on the internet (courtesy of Blazepress.com)

If I eat myself will I become twice as big or disappear altogether?

I ate 52 pizza rolls am I going to die?

Why do black people call say Monica to each other?

What is the phobia of chainsaws called? Answer: Common Sense.

Each of the questions by the second kind of person was, of course, answered by the first kind of person.

Here’s the third kind of person, and the kind I endeavor to be. I want to leverage the first two kind of people, without giving preference to either one, without them knowing about it, and as often as possible. If I am going to have to live with this internet thing, I am going to get as much out of it as I can.

I had to take a service call at a local health care facility where they were having problems with a battery back up to a large instrument they were using. "It keeps beeping" they say.

I looked for the user's manual, really I did. See I tried to read.

I searched through menu after menu of the back up system until I final stumbled upon the error code log. See I "experienced" in real life, the real thing that was there in front of me.

Then, not knowing what the error code meant, because the makers of the battery back up couldn't do something like give me real words to read, they had to put in a special code. I searched the internet.

Here's what I typed: "What does error code 199 on an Eaton 9130 powersupply mean?"

Of course, someone who had nothing better to do, wanted to show the world how much he know about everything, posted the answer to this very question. The question, by the way, had been asked before, because the search engine, popped the question up onto my screen before I finished typing.

Be the third person not the other two. Somewhere, someone has asked the internet a question and somewhere there is someone who thinks they have the answer. By taking advantage of this symbiotic relationship between the know-it-all and the lazy…you have your answer.

Now go search the internet for the definition of “symbiotic”.

Floating Obliviates

I don't always know what I want. But once I settle on something, I want to get there and get it done. It's a curse...

Waiting for a parking space...man and wife exit the store, open their trunk, load their stuff, get in the car...and sit. Put the damn key in the ignition, turn it, slide the shifter into reverse and move.

Walking down the hall...I'm walking down the hall because...you guessed it... I have somewhere to go. But no. I can't get there because three women, failing to adhere to the universal (American) law of stay to the right, spread across the 12 foot aisle and saunter along, yacking like a flock of old hens. Don't try to pass on the left, the left most hen will sway into your path blocking your passing lane, veer to the right? Nice try, the right most hen will do the same. If you are walking down the hall, at least, pretend like you have somewhere to go.

Shopping...I go to the store to get stuff, right? I have a pretty good idea of what I need, and unless the store has rearranged itself, like it is wont to do, since the last time I forced myself to go shopping, I know where it all is. But NO! Aisles are packed with Floating Obliviates, veering back and forth across the aisle in a dazed stupor, as if they accidentally found themselves in this retail establishment and are still wandering (and wondering) what it is they are there for.

Rule for Farming (or really anything one tries to do)

Rule for Farming (or really anything one tries to do)

Follow these rules and it will lead to success or at least help one justify not achieving success/

1. Most deadlines are completely arbitrary.

Plant tomatoes starting in May in Arkansas. Except for this one. This is pretty much a sure bet unless one wants to overcome April 13th frosts. And taxes, the tax deadline is pretty much a solid deadline. But those are the only two I can think of right now.

2. You will never get completely done. There will always be something left to do or something you've completed before will change and turn to crap and have to be redone. I believe the proliferation of machines on the farm and in other walks of life is due to humankind attempting to over come this law. We are seeking a machine that will help us get completely done with something faster so we can sit and enjoy (s) the results of our labor, or more likely, try to find something else to do.

3. If you don't do anything, nothing will get done.Sometimes, we don't know where to start, or we've invested money enough to do it all, but realize we'll fail. Not doing anything will almost surely mean you won't get there.

4. If you do something, something will get done. Just because you can't do it all doesn't mean something shouldn't be done at all.

Wisdom from Carlos Mencia

From what I remember of  Mencia's standup routing describing an interview he participated in for inclusion in a political discussion roundtable concerning immigration reform.

Interviewer: So, what is your angle?

Mencia: Upright

Interviewer: I mean, where are you coming from?

Mencia: My home. Why don't you just be man enough to ask me the question you want to ask me?

Interviewer: Ok, are a Republican or a Democrat?

Mencia: Neither

Interviewer: What do you mean?

Mencia: Well, I consider myself reasonably intelligent and I don't like being half right all the time.

Interviewer: Okay, Are you conservative or liberal?

Mencia: Yes.

Interviewer: What do you mean by that?

Mencia: I have a teen age daughter. When it comes to her I am very conservative - Bible believing, bible belt buckle, thou shalt not, fire and brimstone, truth, good vs evil all the way.
But with your daughter - I am liberal.

Mencia was not asked to be on the panel to discuss immigration reform.

U2 The Joshua Tree, Led Zeppelin IV, Ted Nugent The Great White Buffalo, Jim Hendrix Electric Lady Land, Beatles, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club, Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon.

All crap compared to what I just heard. I mean, the first four tracks of The Joshua Tree would be a tour de force, if, released as an EP. The rest of the album just kind of fizzles out. Led Zeppelin is, well Robert Plant screaming and Jimmy Page fumbling through riffs in some kind of substance altered state. Dark Side of the Moon, good, pretty good in a black-lit tapestried room with those big Princess Leia ear phones on either side of one's head. The Beatles, maybe I am too young. Never liked the Beatles.

Joe Bonamassa's Dust Bowl, is perhaps the best recording I think I have ever heard. Okay, I'll go ahead and say it. It IS the best all-around recorded album ever digitized and sold in those impossible-to-get-open, ostensibly thief-proof land fill fillers.

Think Stevie Ray Vaugn with a little more precision, bless his soul.
Think Joe Satriani with less technician and more emotion.
Think BB King (Bonamossa opened for BB King when just 8 years old)
Think honey riffs floating off rosewood.

That's Joe Bonomossa.

Here's the deal. Bonamossa doesn't skimp on the music. You'll get close to a full hour of music for your $18.00. Anyone remember when cassettes and vinyl cost you $5.99 and every song was good? Now you pay $20 for a couple of hits and the rest has been picked up off the studio floor, dusted off and slapped on the end. And even then, you get maybe 30 minutes of music for your bill. Not with this guy.

Every song on Dust Bowl is a keeper. Bonamossa floats from grungy yet precise delta blues, lyrical with his instrument and earthy with his lyrics like in Black Lung Heartache; to soulful, slow, beautifully precise yet stocked with emotion, in Last Matador of Bayonne; to whimsical, almost country blues in a duet with John Hiatt in Tennessee Plates and his duet with Vince Gill, yes Vince Gill, in My Rowena. It's all good. And that's not bad for walking into Barnes and Noble, picking it up without ever hearing one track (our B&N did away with their headphone song sample system), slapping down my $20 and listening to it all the way home.

I know where my allowance is going for the next few paychecks...I am going to own, on CD, something I can hold, every thing he's ever recorded.

Failure Misunderstood

On my first day back on the job, at my old work place, before going half crazy and attempting to "live off the land", I was greeted by an old friend. It was not, however, the warm greeting I had hoped for.

"That whole farming thing didn't work out did it?"

At this point along my journey to reentering the rat-race, I was unprepared to answer this kind of greeting.


9 months later, after a serendipitous chain of unfortunate events, I find myself back in my old job as the department manager and, as a result, find myself speaking with many of my old manager coworkers in this, my new-old sphere of influence.


Friday was my first big "meeting" with many of these former, and once again, co workers. Again I heard many of the same comments on my return...."Farming thing didn't work out huh?" was the ubiquitous response to meeting me again for the first time. There was another, "I told you, you were crazy!"


And it struck me that many in our American society regard trying something and failing in that endeavor is somehow less honorable or sane than having never tried at all.


So let's break it down. Was my too o'er hasty "retirement" a failure?


If success in our attempt at full time farming is measured in dollars earned or in longevity in the endeavor, or a stubborn refusal to quit, then I would have to say yes to this question. We failed to do what we set out to do.


If success in our attempt at full time farming, meant we learned some very important things...


1) we learned just how little we can live on.
2) we learned that we really enjoyed the experience, over all, and I had a year of spending every day with my wife. Something I may never have again.
3) we learned that dreams can be realized and that it is okay if they are not what we expect.
4) we learned that failure is less tragic than "failing to try" something new for wont of courage
5) we learned that living life in a line is much more difficult than it sounds, especially when life offers you a circle back to try again.


then I would have to say that our attempt at full time farming was an overwhelming success!






Why is the failure almost always held to be more shameful than the failure to try? In the last three years, we've been called crazy; we've been called failures; we've been accused of going back on our word, one person actually chastising me for not letting my Yes be yes and my No be no. We've met people, who for forty or more years have never left the town they were born in; who can't comprehend the insignificance of social status, income, stuff. Its as if, they are still in terror of this mythical permanent record we've all been told about since grade school.


How do I measure or success or failure over the last 4 years? I guess I would have to say, it was neither a failure or a success; or to muddy the waters even more, we were successful in our failures even in our failure of achieving success. The greatest success derived from our failure is the conquering of the fear of trying something, just because you want to try something new.


Success then, is the acceptance of whatever comes one's way, either from the failure or the success one achieves.