Embrace the Hippo!

Memorandum

To: Board of Directors

From: Marketing Department

Subject: Hippo as a Symbol of our Company

In our search for a symbolic, metaphorical, and aesthetic object converging the current state of our market perception and product placement, it has been proposed that the hippo be aggressively incorporated into a campaign to represent our company. In light of overwhelming research, we should immediately implement and fully execute a market saturation effort which utilizes the hippo as our primary branding symbol. The focus of this campaign will be the distribution of five hundred thousand bright yellow squeezy hippos, emblazoned with our corporate logo. These should be presented with greatest speed to all current and potential customers within the industry.

The “squeezy” phenomenon can not be denied or ignored. Our company started with the clever squeezy fish, which was an excellent foray into the squeezy field, but only applied to the small niche of Fluorescent in-situ Hybridization customers. The conventional squeezy stress ball, when given in conjunction with an appeal to purchase and with reference to the seamless operation of technical equipment, seemed to alert our focus groups to an irony that they felt was humorous. Other rejected ideas include the squeezy globe, which we felt is quite inappropriate for implementation by one of our German-based competitors in light of previous attempted world-domination aspirations. The squeezy pink brain was also rejected because post market introduction reports indicate that, when wet (25% of our customers give them to their children as bath toys), these items appeared to ooze pink fluid, which was quite unappealing. Our instinctive choice was to stick with the hippo and trust him to guide us through these treacherous marketing waters.

It is anticipated that there will be a slight amount of current customer backlash to our campaign, as common perception is that the hippo is a relatively sessile, lumbering behemoth—insinuating stagnation, slowness, inefficiency. Aha! In reality, not so—according to National Geographic and the Hippo Institute for Performance, these high achievers are able to run up to 30 miles per hour on land. It is felt that this dichotomy of perception and reality accurately portrays our market status of not trying to be the flashy market front-runner, but rather to exploit and market our company's subtlety, introspection, evolutionary development, teamwork, and perseverance to achieve greater results.

Market Comparison

Continuing the analogy, the underestimation of the hippo is a perfect mirror of our competitive position and is representative of our current possession of over 50% market share despite the general population's perception that our competitor, Brand Z, is the frontrunner. In this analogy, Brand Z is perfectly characterized by the Shark, an evolutionarily ancient Apex predator who kills with a lot of flash and splash. When they do sell a product, however, it often turns into a bloody mess, although it may be done with a certain style.

Brand O, the low-cost (bottom-feeder) provider, is portrayed by a Vulture in this illustration, circling and gaining sustenance on scraps left by the primary producers in the market. Energy and technological investment are reduced, aiding in efficiency. However, the indiscriminate feedings lead to economic instability for this competitor, and their strategy tends to leave abandoned carcasses of unsatisfied customers strewn across the market.

Brand L is an unpredictable force that could be characterized accurately by the snake. Unpredictable, and sometimes startling when initially encountered, it fills a certain market need or two within its influential sphere but really isn’t much to fear. It only eats once every two weeks or so and is, overall, low-energy.

By contrast, the hippo, our chosen symbol, provides a trend of firm results. It is documented to actually be more dangerous and responsible for more attacks than any other animal in Africa. A comparative analysis is graphically represented below.

Demographic Data

Not surprisingly, hippos had great appeal to the male demographic in general. Among the more educated decision-makers in the market, the hippo’s often subtle characteristics tend to be known, which reinforces our assertion that the subtlety of the hippo as the symbol of our company will be fully appreciated and embraced by our target market. The avoidance of obvious pandering and the appeal to intellectualization in our strategy yielded favorable perception. The hippo’s unconventional appearance produced a 50-75% increase in average visual impressions, and market response in a test market yielded a 10% increase in response from new contacts (no direct sales data available at this time).

An unanticipated market niche that was greatly increased was the 22-36 year old female demographic (the “hot chick” demo). We’ve always tried to target this market, but abandoned it after multiple attempts. Inadvertently, it seems that we’ve located a winner in this category as well. I personally ordered exhaustive focus testing on this group to ensure its effectiveness, and can report a 33% increase in appeal over previous campaigns.

Lastly, we ran a squeezeability test vs. our primary competitors, which resulted in the hippo being the perfect convergence of strength, stability, ferocity, and again surprisingly, the highest “Squeezy Factor”. Please note that the calculation of this factor was a complex formula adopted from the TY® group’s beanie babies research in the early ‘90’s. We feel that, by attacking this marketing device early, we exploit the highest potential for “Squeezy Factor” still available.



Corporate Image

There is no doubt that our corporate image is safely invested in, indeed enhanced by, the hippo.

The hippo promotes teamwork, as hippos work in groups, (called “bloats”), to attack. This emphasizes our recent campaign of corporate interconnection, specialization, commitment to excellence and the “One Team” concept rolled out internally in recent memos.

As a hippo’s bellow has been measured at an ear-splitting 115 decibels, our interpretation focuses on the excellent communication capability, providing customer security in our internal means of transmitting information and efficiently handling their data requirements.

It is an interesting note that the hippo is actually a vegetarian, and therefore attacks for sport and fun. This emphasizes our corporate image of fun, excitement, and highlights the ease of our supra-sustenance culture. This protective instinct mirrors our company’s market share and technology niche protection.

When compared to the Apex predator in our market, the shark, the hippo wins as the more highly evolved being. The shark is an evolutionarily ancient animal which is committed to it’s prehistorically derived survival strategy of reflexive, solitary existence. Conversely, the hippo, a mammal, is evolutionarily more advanced and complex, just as our technological advancement is more refined and better targeted.

In summary, our company could do worse than to embrace the hippo! Besides, they're just cool!

The Hippo as a Marketing Device

If you look up SWAG in the dictionary (Okay, the online Urban Dictionary), it's interesting:

1. Promotional merchandise for a band, record label, or other entity in the music business, usually distributed at concerts.

The chief difference between swag and regular merchandise is that its purpose is not to make a profit, but to promote the band/label, and reward its supporters by giving them something cool and unique

2. Any corporate/branded merchandise given out for free in order to promote the company/brand. Usually little trinkets or doodads, sometimes clothing, and always cheaply mass-produced. Etymology of this term most likely stems from a middle-English use of the word 'swag' often in pirate circles or other criminal circles as a euphemism for loot or plunder. How anyone can really consider the modern day definition of swag as plunder or loot (since it's worthless) is beyond understanding.See also: schwag

(This is the one I'm referring to, but there are some other, fun ones:)

Acronyms
Scientific Wild Ass Guess (Yeah! one of my favorites)
Semantic Web Agreement Group (Zzzzzzzzzzzz)
Shock Wave Generator (where's the A?)
Silly Wild Ass(ed) Guess
Simulated Waste Access to Ground Water (huh?)
Sold Without A Guarantee (Like my Yugo)
Sophisticated Wild Ass Guess
Souvenirs, Wearables And Gifts
Standard Written Agreement (Blah blah blah lawyer talk)
Still Wondering and Guessing (Pass the bong, dude!)
Stolen While At Gig
Stuff We Acquired Gratis (This Reminds me of Abbie Hoffman's "Steal this Book" from 1970--I was born in 1970, so I'm remembering it from...well, whatever)
Stuff We All Get (Or: Stuff we ain't gettin')

So, here's the point:

I'm a sales rep, and sometimes I work at trade shows and we're given random stuff to give out to potential customers. This is serious business-I'm sure there are marketing meetings, long discussions, focus meetings, branding strategies, etc. that determine exactly what we end up handing out. This is done just so marketing people can actually stretch their dubious responsibilities to equal 40 hours in a week (just kidding--I respect you guys).

Here are past winners: posters, pens, mouse pads, key chains, badge holders ("We don't need no stinkin' badge holders"--a joke which came to mind all week--from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre--which most people had heard but haven't seen the movie...).

Then we got into the "squeezy" stage (don't let your mind wander too much here)--like stress balls--these just sit on your desk and gather dust and look pretty (?). Seemingly random, sometimes there reason behind the insanity--for a couple of years we gave out "squeezy fish", but there was a clever underlying joke--a technique that a lot of our customer base uses is called FISH (an acronym for Fluorescent in-situ Hybridization)--so there was a little something to it...at least serious thought could be claimed, if necessary.

Then we come to last year--we were handed bags of "squeezy hippos". And, like a group of failed faith seekers, we all searched for meaning...and found none.

Among my colleagues, there are some of us who are in awe that some people make their living by trying to analyze the collective thoughts of thousands of strangers (aka potential customers) the trends in what is appealing, deciphering mass-media eccentricities, and then, in turn, interpret our engineering gobblety-goo into something appealing, trying to hit a mark at some point in future that represents the convergence of product releases and media cycles (this is my definition of marketing). So, my colleagues and I assumed the existence of and looked for the well thought-out logic in all marketing decisions. When the squeezy-hippo was released, we were flooded with the single question "Why a hippo?" from many of the happy recipients (I'm convinced that you could give pretty much anything away at the meeting and they would still be happy to take it at the time, then get home and say "huh?") Since the national marketing manager happened to be at the meeting, we tracked him down on the streets of San Francisco and asked him across the crosswalk what was the significance of the hippo is to our product--he just shrugged his shoulders and said "I dunno--they just kinda seemed cool..."

We were disappointed. Utterly so.

Stay tuned, I'm doing a little marketing research and my full report is forthcoming on why the hippo was an excellent choice to represent us to our customers...

Wassup!?

First of all, I have to say "Congratulations!!!" to Nate and Nicole. Nicole is my sister (half-sister) that I met for the first time last year (actually, just found out about her last year). Nicole is a neat girl, and now she's hitched, so there's that. Nate is a super-smart, fly-fishing, ex-bull rider, scientist, so he can catch a fish (by kicking it's ass if necessary) and then diagram it's molecular makeup--which, I guess, could come in handy...

I met them in Idaho and they took me around town. At the time, I thought "Basque" was what you did in the sun when you were trying to get a tan...I guess it's a food...and something about a bunch of kids dancing and stuff...

Nate tied me this cool fishing fly for Christmas--the "Green-Butt Skunk". I didn't even get offended--I mean, how was he supposed to know that was my unfortunate nickname in college? Seriously, it's very cool--I keep it right by my desk.

Then we went in a record store. Gotta say, they have some funky taste in music, but I dig some of it! but they can have my Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix when they pry it....(out my my hands).

Well, they're both hilarious and cool and hard-working and they make a great couple. They were married last Saturday in Seattle on the beach. Congratulations, you guys, and good luck!

My Little Girl is getting so Big...

I can't believe she's 18 months old!

She cracks us up all the time. One of her favorite tricks is played on Fran's mom--We are all terrified of her choking, of course, and Kaitlyn knows it. She'll get something like a domino or a relatively small toy and put it in her mouth and cough a little...it makes Fran's mom freak out, jump up, yelling, and dive for her. Kaitlyn will have her hand on the toy the entire time and when we lunge for her, she pulls the toy out and runs the other direction, laughing, for us to chase her.

She can also say:

"Up...down"
"No!"
"Yes (prounounced "yesth")
"1,2,3"
"I Love you"
"uh oh, spaghettios"
"Mama", "Dada", "Lala" (Ryan, not the Teletubbie)
Can sing her ABC's perfectly in tune, but only gets: B,C,D,G,H,K,M,P,R,S,V,X,Y,Z

She's learning to climb the stairs, but we had a mishap with Ryan when he was little and he tumbled down the stairs...during a party at our house--so I'm paranoid.

She also understands pretty much everything we tell her to do...Fran's mom swears that she understands Spanish, too.

So there's the update!

Ten Minutes til Wapner...

I was cleaning out our car and, peering into the trunk, was mystified by this bag.

Inside were hundreds of (what do you call them?) aluminum pull tabs, each one carefully peeled off, rinsed, and placed in this ziplock bag. Then repeated over and over and over pathologically until the bag bulged heavily. I fantasized for a split second that they were gold dubloons.

"Oh, sure, I can see how these are going to be useful..." I thought to myself.

More like: "Has Fran gone over the edge, finally? I knew these two kids were going to wear her down, someday! She's somehow morphed into Rain Man and she's going to weird-out on me..."

I picked up the bag which was surprisingly heavy. I took it inside the house and dropped it dramatically on the table and the ziplock gave way, spilling a few of the tabs on the table, and clinking them all togther like coins. Before asking Fran what was going on, I searched desperately for any kind of explanation...any explanation that would even be acceptable. Nothing came to me. Come on, there has to be a good reason. Nothing...

Fran came around the corner, spied the bag on the table, and burst out laughing--I couldn't tell if it was the circumstance or the expression on my face.

She explained: Ten years ago, while on vacation, her aunt had seen a girl wearing a belt made out of these tabs. She asked her about it and the girl told her that she had bought it for $20. Twenty bucks! So she did the math and figured out that she needed about 50 or so per belt--they drink lot's of coke--they could make a killing! It'll all be so easy!

So this little business plan was set into motion, executed faithfully, and now I was marveling at the ten year stockpile, the result of this meticulous process. But now the aunt decided that she didn't want to make the belts, but someone should. somehow, that anonymous someone politely claimed the tabs while visiting the aunt with Fran and somehow, inexplicably, left this precious cargo in our car and hasn't come looking for them in, um, 2 months now...

Well, how can I throw them away, now, realizing all the effort and thought that went into collecting them? Someone pried these can tabs off every coke can for years, chuckling to themselves about how they were going to beat the system and cash in.

Ebay!?

A suit of chain mail armor?

Snow chains? (uh, I live in Texas, so scratch that)

I'm open for suggestions...

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes. Thought I would own up to it...

Cheers to getting this last year behind me!

Mike

Lost and Found

Sadly, I'm marching my Alaska post (saga) down the page into blog oblivion (aka archives) with these inane posts (happily: my BS in Biology post has disappeared), but so it goes...

Is this a real (old, Indian--I'm not asking if it is actually in existence...) arrowhead? It certainly looks authentic to me (it's not as perfectly as symmetrical as I thought it should be), and I found it out hiking on a trail earlier this year--it was slightly off the trail in the dirt, kind of in the middle of nowhere...If so, it's the first one I've ever found.

One time, while hunting in Abilene, TX, a friend and I came across an old trash pile. My buddy spotted several old glass medicine bottles and jars down in there--they were thick, wavy cut glass and were pretty cool. Some were clear and some were green-tinted. I think he broke most of them with rocks.

Another time, I was walking in the post oak woods of north Texas, and I saw a rusty piece of metal jutting out of the ground about two feet. Upon further inspection I discovered an entire horse-drawn wagon frame buried in the ground (sans horse). The metal piece that first caught my attention was the brake handle. The metal wheels were still attached and barely arched out of the ground. I became fixated (have you ever read "The Tommyknockers"?) with digging out the perimeter, and then I grabbed the brake handle and tried to pry it loose. It weighed a ton and I couldn't budge it.

Another time I was deer hunting in Montague county in North Central Texas, and I found myself in a very weird-looking landscape. The land had a very unusual topography and overall feel-- there were huge sharply defined crevices where it looked like the earth had been recently ripped open. I looked down to the bottom of one of these 40-foot-deep crevices and saw what I would swear was a shoulder bone (scapula)--only it was HUGE--about 4-6 feet across! Later, I found out that this area is known for multiple large dinosaur finds. I told an acquaintence, a geologist, about it and he literally drooled right in front of me (embarrassing). I guess we couldn't go back there, because the doctor that owned the land was put into prison for something or other...(actually I know this story exactly but it is a blog entry in itself and I may need to take the 5th).

When I was in Alaska, one memorable moment occurred when I was traveling on the highway and the guy I was riding with, an Alaska native, pointed to the right.

"That way is Anchorage and Denali."

Then, casually pointing left, he said "If you get a few miles into the woods in this direction, suddenly you're where modern man hasn't been. It's over a hundred miles before you get anywhere close to where people live..." That was enough to make my head spin. My mind wandered to thoughts of prehistoric people living in that land, gold miners on dogsleds, how quiet and still and clean it must be. A little overwhelming, but it's good to know that there are still places like that where you can really get lost.

Contact!

My contacts are starting to get foggy--I tuned in my Ipod expecting to hear "Hey Ya" by Outkast and got "Hey You" by Pink Floyd. Oh, well--it brought back a memory.

I went to a Pink Floyd concert when I was a teenager (maybe '86 or '87)--it was sweet! I think I may have been the only one there that wasn't stoned, including, of course, the band. I was actually working in the concession stand to pay for a trip to Boston later that year, but when the band was playing practically no one came out, so I was able to go watch the band and the laser show. I remember seeing the lasers carving cool figures into the smoke...

I also joked that they only played 4 songs--they were just 45 minutes each.

Lasik isn't in the plan just yet. I'm limping by with one final pair of disposable contacts. My prescription is three years old, and I need to get in for another one. My eyes start getting tired and I have to stop reading every night when they just wear out. It doesn't stop me from writing, though, because I'm sure you can see that I don't proofread very well.

Contacts are a little bit of a scam, don't you think? I think the optometrists mark them up a lot, so they get a little defensive when you tell them you're going to order them online. And some companies won't let you order them without a prescription that's under 1 year old (Thank you, Canada!).

I only got my contacts so I could go hunting and not have to mess around with glasses. Little did I know that in the heat they can slide out of your eyes and in the cold they can fog up and practically freeze. Oh well. Here's a little secret--I used to have this terrible fear of touching my eye, so in the first year of contacts, Fran had to put them in my eyes for me--it was a whole production that took about 20 minutes. Isn't that pitiful? I would have to carry around a pair of glasses, so when something happened to my contacts I would have to switch to glasses because I just couldn't put them in!

Yes, I'm a basket case, sometimes...

The Latte' Investment Plan

If you are a number-crunching accountant, I'm sorry but your search engine has betrayed you--you are about to get roasted here, so beware!

I was watching the Today show and a financial analyst came on and introduced a plan called The Latte' Plan for financial investment toward retirement.

Essentially, it says that if, instead of going to get a latte' every day, you put that money into a retirement account, it would add up to $100 per month. Then, using compounding interest, etc. you end up having enough to retire on in....I'm not sure, but it seemed like a long time.

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY STARBUCKS, YOU CRAZY BEAN-COUNTER!!!!

Here's an alternative reality for me: Stop drinking coffee, in 2 weeks all systems crash, lose your job, and go work at Wal-Mart where you can guzzle cheap coffee in the breakroom for free.

Life isn't worth living without occasional pleasures that we allow ourselves, right?

I know it's a distillation to simplicity, and just an analogy to make you think, but on more than one occasion I've felt a twinge of guilt handing over $4 for a coffee. A lovely, huge, hot, chocolately-tasting mocha packed with calories and fat and laden with whipped cream. I don't wanna feel guilty, dammit!

Here are some alternative investment plans:

The "ramen-noodle-for-dinner-every-night" plan
The "live-in-a-card-board-box" plan
The "turn-off-your-AC" plan
The "don't-rent-movies" plan
The "clunker car" plan

Given enough analysis, I think every decision of your life can be proven to have an alternative that has a better result for the bottom line. Let me tell you, when we audit the books, kids seem like the worst investment ever! I mean, I could hardly sell them for half of what they cost so far!

Geeks are useful for some things, like deciphering tax laws--just look at them, though--don't let them tell you how to live.

Unforgiven

It took place exactly one year ago today. It was a bad time for my family--my 6-month-old daughter was in the hospital with a sudden respiratory problem that scared me to death. She was in a large, thickly-painted, white institutional baby crib--there is nothing as depressing as that crib--it looked like prison bars with a child inside, hooked up to flashing and beeping monitors. To add to the despair of the situation, my wife had just had emergency surgery and was also hospitalized, so I was handling this crisis alone.

I received a call from one of my co-workers, named Mike B. We had been in a disagreement, mostly because his manager had badly handled a counseling session--instead of addressing issues that needed to be solved, the manager had told him that I had mentioned a couple of problems with his performance at demonstrations.

The fact is that we had had 10 poor demonstrations in a row, and nothing I told Mike B. was working (he was new, and I had 5 years' experience). The manager had called me and asked my opinion of his performance, mainly because we had not sold one thing together in a 10-month period (supposed to sell one system per month). I told the manager, "We don't seem to be communicating properly--maybe you should come to our next demonstration and evaluate his preparation and knowledge." I thought I was taking the high road--after talking to his manager, I called Mike B. and told him exactly what I said to him, adding "I think it would be helpful to get another opinion on how we should go about doing things." The fact is, I knew he was flawed and arrogant and too proud to accept advice.

The manager took that info, didn't come to the next (failed) demonstration, and told Mike B. "(Mike-me) tells me that you are unprepared and don't know what you're doing!" Great management technique, huh? Mike B. was furious, of course--understandably so.

So at this terrible time, Mike B. called me and asked to pick up a computer which I had in my car--I hadn't unloaded it due to the family emergency so it was in the back of my car out in the hospital parking lot. I hadn't slept in 48 hours. Mike B. insisted on coming and picking it up immediately. He didn't ask about my daughter, my wife, anything.

When he arrived at the hospital, he walked in the room, sullen and pouting. He didn't even look over at my daughter in the crib. Instead, he held out his hand for my car keys and asked "Where'd you park?" I ignored the anger that welled up inside me and handed them over, rolling my eyes at him instead at his oblivious actions. I told him where it was.

When he returned, he wordlessly handed the keys to me, turned around, and walked out. I can't help but assume that this was purposefully done to slight me by not giving importance to my family emergency.

God help me lose this bitterness and wrath that I have in me. I want to kick the hell out of this jerk every time I see him.

I guess he wins--he was trying to offend me, and it's one year later and I still become upset by the situation. Mike B. was reassigned to another person's territory, and had to move away--he barely speaks to me.

But something inside me wants to be a better man and forgive him for his simple-minded selfishness. If it was an offense against me, instead of directed at an innocent 6-month old child, I could easily do it. Is it pride? Paternal instinct? I think it would be impossible, even if I thought someone had wronged me, for me to be so horrible to them.

Can I forgive him?

Alaska...

Here's a secret that I've never revealed: I didn't really catch this fish.

The truth is, I caught about 25 like it, but not this particular fish. This sometimes happens when you are the self-appointed photographer of the group. You end up getting fantastic shots of everyone else, but when you start putting your photo album together, you realize that you never had anyone get a picture of you, so you take what you can get. This was kind of a nice, scenic area, and I had just taken a picture of my friend, Chris--he insisted on taking my picture at the same time with the same fish, and it ended up being one of the only shots that came out good of me with a fish. It was a trip that I took to Alaska four years ago this week.

We had flown into Anchorage, and went straight to Wal-Mart to buy fishing licenses. I was with 2 guys that I didn't know very well, and we were joining a group of 10 other guys who were already in Kenai. It turns out that, even though we booked our trip as everyone had agreed, the other 10 guys had come in 2 days earlier and had all done a fly-out trip to a glacial lake where they caught lake trout, got swarmed by mosquitoes, and saw a brown bear across the lake--it sounded like a wonderful experience. When I found out that we had missed out on that experience, I was a little pissed off, but I got over it.

Leaving Anchorage for the drive to Kenai, we saw a gray fox run across the road in front of us. Anchorage felt like a small town compared to many of the large cities I have visited--rough and remote. During the summer, Alaska gets tons of daylight due to the tilt of the earth--even though it was 1:00 AM, outside it was still light, similar to a dusky evening sunset. As we wound our way through the mountains, it started to rain and the clouds rolling in covered the already-dim sun and night fell dark all around us while we were on the road.

We woke up at the gates of a state park in Southern Alaska, car windows fogged and stuffy, waiting to meet our buddies. We had driven through the rain and it was clear and there were now stars above us in a dizzying array all around. When the sun came up, I realized that we were in a panorama of beauty--down in a valley among steep mountains on all sides. I wanted to take a picture, but I guess I didn't know which way to point the camera--it was a feeling I had during the whole 10 days I was there--everything was scenic, everything breathtaking. Film couldn't possibly capture the grandiose nature of this view. We were on the Kenai peninsula in July, and it felt like heaven.



We fished the Russian river with our fly rods using flesh flies. These are wet flies that look a lot like the flesh from salmon which have already spawned or were eaten. The flesh breaks off and goes back downstream, and the other fish chow down...The rainbows were pretty aggressive and, before long, everyone had hooked one or two. Except Gavin--I'll have to get back to him later.

Our guide for the trip was Matt--Matt was a man of few words. He's one of those guys who is not a very good communicator, but thinks he is being very clear--as a result, I had a lot of misconceptions about our trip. For example, he told me over the phone, "We're hiking in when you get here--expect it to be about 5 miles or so." So I scaled down my clothes and toiletries and everything because I thought I was carrying everything for 5 miles. What he really meant is that we were going to get situated in our campsite and then hike along the river for 5 miles (lie!: it was about 8 miles and took all day). Matt was a fishing guru--he was absolutely insane about fishing and was a master.

But misdirection didn't keep me from being stupid on my own--I brought along a large, green backpack that I bought from Orvis. Here's how I was stupid: Orvis charges way too much for said backpack, and I didn't need a backpack in the first place. Additionally, my buddies felt very lucky to be able to give me crap to cram into my backpack to keep dry, since I was the only moron who brought one (I wanted to keep my stuff dry). Pretty soon, my pack was bulging--I had to draw the line at Gavin asking me to put his shoes in my bag, though, to which he responded by whining.

Turns out that Gavin was our token pain-in-the-ass on the trip--probably the reason that they covertly scheduled the fly-out day before our group arrived. Matt nicely described him as "low energy", which I later learned was just his nice way of saying lazy, cheap, whining bastard who actually doesn't like fishing but didn't want to be left out of the fishing trip (!). So I, being the newest member of the group (some of them had known each other for 10-15 years), initially got stuck babysitting Gavin (right up to where I unstuck myself by telling him to piss off). About 5'8" with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and an impeccably trimmed beard, Gavin was really dependent on his wife for managing any hassles in his life--she had seen him off at the airport and told my wife that she was really worried about how he was going to do on his own.

He liked to brag about how smart he was and how great it was that he had an easy job where he didn't have to work too hard--he was a systems operator for a school district. Every time we paid for anything on the trip (like gas for the trucks or boats we were using), he would shove his hand in his pockets and look the other way. Even when we would pay for our own meals, if we had someone run to go get burgers or something, he would try to pay a dollar short. I don't normally notice stuff like that, but with Gavin you couldn't help but notice. Even when I got fed up and said something, it rolled off his back and he didn't pay attention to it.

During our hike along the Russian, he got overconfident and got ahead of me (I was trying to relax in the beautiful scenery and he wanted to talk about computers or something). Gavin had seen me catch the first fish and had wanted to get ahead of me, complaining that I was fishing the holes out before he got to them--he didn't catch a fish all day and started losing his cool and getting very impatient, casting heavily a couple of times into each hole, not letting his fly float cleanly into it, and abruptly moving on. Then I would come behind him, catching a few along the way, which would just make him go nuts.



The embankment got steeper and steeper--sometimes we had to climb a trail up the side of a hill 30 or 40 feet--in our waders and carrying our rods carefully. My green backpack started to feel ridiculously heavy and bulky--I started joking to myself that it was like Luke carrying Yoda on his shoulders through the Degobah swamp in The Empire Strikes Back, so I nicknamed my backpack Yoda--somehow, and I know this is hard to believe, nobody else thought that was funny whatsoever when I told them the joke later, which made me kind of sad.

So Gavin fell face-first into the freezing cold Russian river and water started flowing into his waders. He was about 100 yards ahead of me, and I had waded out to get a good angle under some trees, so there was no way I was going to be able to wade out, hike down the trail, and save him--it would have taken about 5 minutes. Gavin spit and sputtered for about 30 seconds until he got his balance again, then stood up, totally soaked from head to toe.

He started screaming at me, asking why in the world didn't I rush over to help him out. I told him, "I was here downstream, dude--somebody had to snag the body when it finally floated over here!" (thinking: if I was near you I would have thrown a rock on top of you!). He was still excited about his near-death experience and mad from not catching fish and his whole Alaska experience wasn't going as he had hoped with him being the Grizzly Adams hero he had envisioned himself to be. It was now getting hot and dry so I wasn't too worried about him getting hypothermia but I didn't say anything to put it into his mind (he wasn't a camper, so it didn't occur to him to be worried about it). We hiked along a little faster to keep his body temperature higher for a while till he dried out.

That night I got my first taste of salmon fishing on the Kenai--it was fantastic! The funny part is that the salmon really don't "bite" your fly--you rig it to bounce along the bottom of the river at the level where their mouth is, then you are pretty much snagging them in the lip as they instinctively close their mouth. They aren't feeding at all--they are swimming upstream to spawn and die. They start out at the mouth of the river to be very silver and shiny, and as they use up their energy swimming against the current, they get this reddish hue with a green head--so you can see we were quite upriver when we caught this one. If you have polarized glasses, you can see them swimming along the banks of the river, stopping in certain eddies to rest before moving along further upstream.



I caught five fish--my limit for the day, and looked up--it looked like noon but it was midnight--now this was my kind of daylight hours! One guy in our group, Brian, fished all 10 days (he came in early so it was actually 12 days)--pretty much dawn to dusk. It was unbelievable, and I applaud him for his stamina and enthusiasm, because I got tired of fishing (!) about halfway into it and had to take a break for a day.

The 20 hours or so of daylight was throwing me off--I started to sleep only a couple of hours a night and eat only once or so a day--sometimes we would snack on dry smoked salmon prepared in a smoker with brown sugar and soy sauce--it was sliced into sticks and we would eat them with cheddar cheese--my gosh it was good! I grew my beard out during the whole trip (confession--I knew I was going to do this and started a couple of days early to further dramatize the effect when I got back.)

The next day when we went out to go salmon fishing again, I was having a terrible time catching anything and started to get frustrated. It took me about 2 hours to figure out that we had moved to the other side of the river, and I had gotten really used to the casting movements from right to left, and I was having a really hard time throwing left to right and getting a feel for the bite coming the opposite direction--it took me about 4 hours before I caught my first fish. Then I got on a roll and almost had my limit, but my friend's dad had put all the fish into a huge net and just laid the net on the bank. Gavin, who had miraculously caught a fish, didn't put the net back all the way the net mouth dipped into the water--we lost 10 fish out of it before someone figured it out.

So, we sat there for another 2 hours and caught another limit of fish to take back with us! I had mine flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen and FedExed home--Fran cooked them when I got back and they were fantastic!

The next day we tried, unsuccessfully, to troll down the middle of the river for king salmon--we saw lots of bear and moose tracks, but I never ran into either one of these on foot while fishing. I saw lots of moose from the car---I even saw one in town near Wal-Mart when we were getting supplies.

On my birthday, I had an adventure on my own--I went on a halibut charter out in the ocean where we fished off the Barren Islands (about halfway to Kodiak from Homer). Originally, three of us were supposed to go, but the other two guys changed their minds the night before. So I got up at about 3:00 AM and drove myself to meet the charter at 6:00. At 3:00 the moon was low in the sky and I'll never forget the deep indigo sky that wasn't quite completely dark and black like the midnight sky home in Texas. Driving to Homer, I had to be very careful because there were moose everywhere along the side of the road--I saw several huge bulls grazing right by the side of the road as I drove along. I flipped on the radio to hear the news and weather, and my sister Melanie, who is a news radio anchor, was giving a report. Her news show was syndicated in Alaska! Who knew? My worlds collided a little, because I felt that I was all by myself, having seen no cars or signs of human life for about an hour--in a way it was disappointing that I could turn on the radio and hear my sister--like I hadn't tried hard enough to get away from home...

The boat was small, and there were about eight of us in the party--the other guys were pretty cool, and we all had a good time. I caught the first fish, and the most, but not the largest--my biggest fish was about 35 pounds, which was nice but not huge as far as halibut go--the biggest of the boat was about 50 lbs for the day, but we were all hoping for a one hundred pounder at least. The tide movement was the largest of the year--22 feet! This had an effect on our fishing as we were fishing at the bottom off the islands. We had lucked out and gotten the lead captain for the charter company, so he took us around and we had the best day by far of any of the boats--when we went back in at the end of the day, the other guys were watching us unload our fish and eyeing our catch.



On the last day of the trip, three of us rafted back down the Kenai, float fishing and trolling for trout along the way. I hooked my largest trout of the trip that afternoon as we pulled into the shallows, and I hopped out of the raft and fought him to the gravel bank. He was a 20-inch rainbow and beautifully colored--I was just blown away--it was a perfect climax to the trip.


When we put the raft in near the truck, I saw a moose swimming across the river, fighting the current to get to shore. A bald eagle soared overhead. The day was bright and clear. I climed to the top of a cliff and looked out over the mountain range in the distance, the red fire weed in front of me, and I realized that I would always have a spot in my heart for Alaska.

I See Dead...snakes

My friend, Marty, is compiling a photo book of various roadkill. You'll have to ask him why--I think it started as a joke.

I think it started out being roadkill of Texas, only, but we were on a trip to Oklahoma together and we got some real gross shots that Marty liked. We got out of the car, etc. to make sure the angle was right, or to catch the skidmarks right in front of the flattened corpse. Gross, isn't it.

Sometimes, there isn't a mark on them--just like still life images. Other times, it gets a little gruesome, of course.

I think he's now gone international, with shots from Australia and Africa--maybe even Europe, who knows at this point?

So, the above picture is my contribution.

It goes with my little personal problem of being "haunted" by snakes--unfortunately real, live snakes instead of snake ghosts, though. It's one of those self-fulfilling things where I just accept it like a weight tied around my neck. At this point, I think it's just because I'm looking

To all my friends, I warn you that this is not fodder for jokes. I'm telling you, I'm not responsible for what I do.

Driving toward work, I thought I spotted a dead snake, so I backed up to check. Sure enough, it was run over in the road. I went back to my house to get my camera for Marty's book--I thought it was a fitting contribution from me. I stopped in the road and took a couple of shots from my car window.

Maybe I can autograph the page when his book comes out...

BS in Biology

When I was in college studying Biology, it was still considered a "soft science", vs. the "hard sciences" of Chemistry and Physics.

As a result, instead of learning about Biology and things Biological, we were all assaulted and tortured with math, which the instructors felt would somehow legitimize their studies. Yeah, dude, it's real precise--"A deer requires 2.1 acres of land to roam". Don't you think that could be a little subjective? I would rate it a 5 on a scale of 1-10 for fitness...

Ecology seems to be full of formulas such as carrying capacity of a habitat, etc. I've been hunting with hack, self-appointed biologists who start yapping about the carrying capacity of the land and I feel like saying "Shut up, Bubba, and have another chaw of terbacca or something..."

Not that I don't believe in mathematical models as they apply to real life, but I think that nothing occurs in a vaccuum and you can't possibly plug in all of the factors that affect your calculated value.

One thing that sticks out in my head as the biggest case of bullshit this side of "I didn't inhale" and "we're going to find weapons of mass destruction" pertains to herd animals and whether or not they raise an alarm. Since this is a blog entry, and has low likelihood of gracing the pages of Science or Nature, I will avoid brain-numbing terms such as "indirect fitness" and "genetic altruism" (aka "BS theory #1" and "BS theory #2"). But, if you are interested, there's a link below...

Here's the theory: If there is a group of herd animals, like antelope, it is disadvantageous to be the one who raises the alarm when a predator comes around. It calls attention to the animal raising the alarm and makes it a prime target.

(duh! Anyone who has ever worked in a hostile office environment knows this)

In order to determine whether or not to risk raising an alarm instinctively, the animal does this immediate, crazy genetic calculation. If the sum total of the individual's genetic material is greater in the animals around it, it raises an alarm, thus protecting a greater number of genes which are identical to it's own.

Apply it to humans--If a mom is taking her kid to the store, and her kid rushes out in front of a car, she throws her hands up and thinks "Well, if it was 2 kids, I would do save him, but since it's just one, it's only half my genetic material therefore it is reproductively advantageous for me to just buy a tiny casket."

I don't freakin' think so.

I call "BS" on that!

Had to get it off my chest--it's been bugging me for 10 years, now...

Listen to the Sounds of Silence

Late night again.

I think I like writing in the quiet of the night. I had some odd experiences today.

I was waiting by an elevator with an older woman who unexpectedly started talking to me:

(I smiled and said hello)

"You know, just one more day and it's the weekend. I'm so tired."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"In fact, I took two mental health days last week"

(thinking: Look close, is she holding anything sharp? Do you really want to get on the elevator with her? Come on, it's just a few floors down, and there are the stairs...) "Really?"

"Yes--I just stayed in my pajamas and read a couple of books and stayed inside all day"

"That sounds nice, actually"

"I never get any 'me' time, now that my parents have moved in with me"

(thinking: they must be 100 years old)(isn't that ugly to think?)

"I know exactly what you mean."

And suddenly I did.

Then I remembered how inspired I was during and after my recent trip to Maine. I laughed at myself thinking what in the world about the ocean and mountains and birch trees, for God's sake, made me come home and crank out 150 pages of observations and thoughts in seven days?

It wasn't the scenery. It was the solitude.

I couldn't do it forever, but it was nice to have some down time to myself to just gather my thoughts in private without a soundtrack of kids, work, cell phone, fax machines, computer boot-ups and shutdowns, the AOL guy telling me "You've got May-ul", the Sesame Street theme song running through my head, a car engine, Ipod mixes, talk radio, and my own incessant chatter.

After a couple of days, against my will I experienced silence and solitude, and it was inspiring. It made me think about who I am. That can be a scary experience--open your mind and pay attention to what you receive in your thoughts...

Another odd experience today: I walked into an office of an acquaintence, again an older woman in her late 60's, that I've known for about two months. Actually met her about 7 or so times, and I thought she was being a little chilly toward me. Her mother died a few weeks ago and I sent a quick note with my condolences.

When I walked into her office, she held her arms out to hug me and said "Mike, I need a hug--my mother died."

I froze. Then hugged her.

The I felt so terrible that it wasn't my first instinct to have compassion for her. I was more worried that I was sweaty from coming in from the 100-degree heat 15 minutes ago. I had two bags in my hands. I have a hard time hugging people that I don't know well--really hugging them. I can always do it as a joke, or if I disassociate myself from it, but not really. Yeah, I'm weird that way.

It made me wish that it was my first instinct to have compassion and be genuine about acting on it. It made me feel like a phony that it was so easy to send a quick note but when I should do something, I hesitated.

It made me wish I was a better person than I am.

Then I contemplated my writing, and it depressed me. It really pisses me off that I don't have the skills to convey all the thoughts that I have--concisely. It reminds me of my daughter Kaitlyn, who is learning to talk--sometimes she gets frustrated and just bellows out gibberish because she can't form the words that she wants to. We patiently decipher what she says--if you've made it this far into the rambling, that's what you're doing, too.

I read about this camera company that is making a device to record an entire experience--you wear it like a backpack and it records sounds, video and still images from different angles, and even collects air in a vial so you can experience the smells from your recorded event. To me, that's what writing is supposed to be--skilled writing, anyway.

I have some interesting friends that I want to write about, but I just can't do it. My words can't sufficiently encapsulate their essence--only a brief window, like bringing something into focus for just a fleeting, tangential moment. To try to do this would be a slight to them because I would inevitably leave something out.

When Faulkner wrote "The Sound and the Fury", he tells the story from 4 different vantage points. To summarize his explanation, he wrote that he tried to have one character write it, then another, then the last one. Finally, the 4th version is written in 3rd person, which represents Faulkner as the omniscient author. He stated that he still wasn't sure that the story was completely told to his satisfaction. I guess I am in good company by feeling this way, though I obviously don't compare...

But this makes me wish I wasn't trying to write. I thought it would be funny to have a blog entry entitled "The End", and just stop--I'm sure that's been done before, somewhere.

It's silent all around me--everyone is asleep, and I'm just thinking, now...

Hello Darkness my Old Friend
I've come to talk with you again (Simon and Garfunkel)

Fishing Smack-Down

My sister's fiance', Nate, has a cool blog about fly fishing--it's inspired me to write down some funny memories about my 10-day fishing trip to Alaska a couple of years ago....but not today.

What I'm thinking about today happened about 10 years ago when my friend Gar and I would sometimes take a day off from work and go fishing at Lake Grapevine, near my old apartment.

For some reason, we became fixated with catching fish from a long, floating dock that jutted out over 100 feet into the lake. On the left was the mouth of a cove and on the right was a long beach. We never had too much luck in the three or four years that we went out there, but it just looked like such a good place to fish that we just couldn't resist going there and trying it out every time.



One of our favorite things to do was to try to figure out why today wasn't the perfect day for fishing and why we weren't having any luck.

"If it were just 5 degrees cooler"
"We should have gotten here an hour ago"
"Gosh, these minnows are a little big"
"Why didn't you get those other hooks?
"What we really need is for it to be overcast"
"You should see this place in September--I bet they bite like crazy"
"Have you ever seen the water level so high?"

One drawback to that floating dock is that Gar doesn't swim, and the water is pretty deep--this led to a little bit of anxiety on his part. One time, he either drifted off to sleep or was deep in thought when a fish grabbed his pole and yanked it off the dock into the water. I could see it sinking, pulsing under the water as the fish was dragging it away from us. I've seen people jump in after poles in situations like that, but we weren't at that point yet. Gar moved aside quickly and I grabbed the dock with my right hand and plunged my left arm into the murky lake water up past my shoulder to my neck and the side of my head, quickly grabbing the butt-end of the rod just as it was being pulled away out of reach. I handed it to Gar, who just laughed about the goofiness of the event as he reeled in his fish.

One morning we walked out to the dock and there was a boat tied up about halfway down. We looked at each other but didn't even say anything--we were going out on the dock to fish. We said "hi" to the guy in the boat as we walked by in the early morning darkness out to the end of the dock where we started to set up.

To our surprise, the guy on the boat decided to move and anchored a little out from the dock out at the same level as we were setting up, which was a little annoying. Somehow, perhaps because he had a boat and we didn't, he felt the need to start bragging a little bit about all the fishing that he had been doing during the summer, and all the neat equipment that he had. He was really going on and on, obnoxiously, for several minutes. Plus, he started casting against the dock where we were setting up--a little rude.

"Yep, we were out here the other day and we strung up 15 white bass. They're running. This depth finder that we use costs $450."

"Oh, that's great!" Knowing Gar, I knew this guy was getting on his nerves because Gar hates bragging of any kind. Gar is a Buddhist who is very humble and he has always appreciated subtlety and humility.

Here's a funny Gar joke: We're out fishing, and a lady walks by wearing one of those floppy, wide-brimmed hat which, mysteriously, is covered with shiny decorative pins from all different places and events and everything. I mean, the hat is completely covered and looks silly--it must weigh 2 pounds. She walks by and Gar doesn't say anything. About half an hour passes. After all this time, Gar shifts where he's sitting and looks up at me and says "One more pin on that hat and it would be too many, huh?" I burst out laughing and he stoically looks back at his fishing rod before losing it and grinning widely.

So we were a little tired of this braggart, but didn't want to be ugly--we were out to have a nice, relaxing day of fishing.

Just as he starts telling us that his rod costs $150 from Oshman's and his reel was another $100 or so, I hooked the first fish of the day, not a bad size.

As I'm reeling it in on my cheap Zebco outfit, I say, sarcastically, without missing a beat, "Not bad for a $10 outfit from K-mart, huh?"

He kept reeling, now silenced.

When I got the fish to the dock, I unhooked it and was about to throw it back in (we don't usually keep them).

The guy asks, "Ummmm, could I have your fish?"

All bragging stopped at that point.

When the guy in the boat left, Gar died laughing at the perfect timing, and he still laughs when he tells the story.

Haiku II

Don't know why I'm feeling poetic today ( as poetic as I can get). Maybe it's because I'm reading Shogun, but I feel compelled to retry haiku's, this time seriously, instead of my previous sarcastic poems. So, here they are: poems about a sunset I saw the other day, fly fishing (inspired by Nate's blog), the Texas summer, a field of wildflowers I saw this year, my fear of snakes, an armadillo that once tried to walk over my legs while I was deer hunting and sitting on the ground, and the Texas hill country. Hope you enjoy!



Staring intently
yellow, beaming sun; lands, brown
yawn passive replies



Blue cool river nymph
your sheen, blinding, shielding fruit
How to unlock you?



Thy plains are mighty;
waves of grass on dry ocean
grace serene sunsets



Wad'ling awkwardly
you see me not; then, startled,
bolt with trembling heart



Like corals, flaming
pink, rose, orange; thin cloud wisps-
eve repeats never



Coiled fear, seeking me--
I tread slyly, seeking thee;
Cornered, I must strike




Crimson and golden,
adorning her vast apron
drying spring's hot tears

Banzai!!!!

Went to see Ryan's swimming lessons--Ryan (my 6-year-old boy) just banzai'd off the diving board like Spider-man. He was so fearless--I was amazed. Most of the other kids just kind of dribbled off the diving board, but Ryan "caught some air." He really listens to me, and last week when we were talking about swimming lessons I told him that, since you are falling into the water anyway, why not jump as high as you can and see what it feels like. I didn't remind him today--he remembered it on his own and came out of the water with a big grin and a thumbs up.

So, driving home, Ryan asks me "Dad, can I go hunting with you sometime?"

I answer, "I can't wait for you to come with me--but would it bother you for us to shoot an animal?"

(long pause)

"Maybe we could go crocodile hunting."

Then...

Tomorrow we are having a neighborhood block party. Ryan asked me whose idea it was to organize the party. I told him it was "Mr. Doug", one of our neighbors.

Ryan asked"Did he do the party because he wanted to thank God for July?"

"No, I think he just wanted to have fun."

"Dad, what's more important? God or fun?"

"Well, I think Mr. Doug was just wanting to have fun and wasn't thinking about thanking God."

"Dad, I think it's for God, and who is more wise, you or me? I think me."

Well, okay--he's got a point.

Late Night Musings

It's late. 1:15 AM.

I'm preparing for a meeting (no I'm not--I'm blogging against my will...I originally typed "blobbing", which, arguably, is true, too).

I'm sick. I love London, and my heart is hurting today for them. I love English people--worst people at giving directions, though. If you get the "full English breakfast", that means they are going to pour pork and beans all over your eggs, so watch out for that. And they can stomach fish for breakfast, which really freaks me out (sorry I'm such a dork).

They called me "Love" and "Guv'ner" while I was there--c'mon, that's cool. I asked the woman at the flea market if the gloves that I was looking at were real wool. She answered "Yes, Love." In the words of John Lennon, "All you need is Love." It just made me warm inside.

A guy was trying to get me to go to some lame tourist attraction and told me "Hey Guv, you wouldn't want to miss that, would ya?" It was only 20 pounds, so I gave in...What the heck? I'm on vacation...

For mysterious reasons, we consider Ryan to have a link to Stonehenge (no, not that--thinking that would be kind of creepy and a little goth for me--Ryan was born 12 months later). There were 2 stones that were theorized to bring a baby if you touch them simultanously--well, I did, and here he is--it's been our private joke, up until now.

Wanna know how many countries have visited my blog? Here are some: Canada, Uraguay, Venezuela (hola!), Great Britian, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Sweden, Singapore, France, Turkey, The Netherlands, Brazil, Portugal, Spain--Even more--just can't remember them all.

Why am I preparing at 1:15 AM? Because a guy I work with screwed me over, again. We spoke earlier this week and he was supposed to get me some materials for the meeting tomorrow, some equipment to show to a customer. He dropped it off incomplete with just enough equipment to "look" right but when I started getting ready, it wasn't all there, including some very tricky things that are camoflauged to look like they're there...hmmm. After some last-minute scrambling (I always have a plan B like any brilliant person should...), I think I have discovered a work-around.

My gut reaction is to not give this jerk the satisfaction of knowing that he inconvenienced me. My original knee-jerk reaction was to punch his lights out the next time I see him (really grown-up attitude, huh?), but I'm trying to zen out and not think that way. He has done this every time I rely on him for help (a necessity in our company, but I'm trying to figure out how to avoid this now)--it's at least the 4th occurrence. He's a peer, and it's been a somewhat contentious relationship since he came 2 years ago. Aside: I get along with most of my peers, but I have been the highest producing employee of our company for 2 of the last 3 years and have received a bunch of awards, so I think that sticks in his craw a little and he is determined to bring me down a few pegs.

Went to the manager before, no effect. Mentioned it to the manager above him, and he didn't want to hear it--it even made me look a little like a whiner, like: "just work it out". Besides, I may be up for a promotion, and, if I'm promoted, I would be this guy's boss. If I document a big conflict with this moron, it could prevent me from getting the promotion.

Sorry for the ramble. I'll get back to work and finish off my notes for the meeting tomorrow. Peace out!

Mike

PS. Do you realize how hard it is to set the alarm for 6:22 AM when you are setting it at 2:58 AM?

PPS. Plan B worked! Even better than Plan A would have... So there!

Battle of the Bands, Dumbass Edition

Nothing says "God Bless America" like that "Boot in yer Ass" country song, right? Gosh, I was so proud of our collective songwriting genius.

I have this friend who arranges outings like a Norman Rockwell Painting: "We'll all be out by the lake. Late afternoon 'til after sundown. Some people will be fishing, some of us will just drink beer by the picinc table. The kids can take turns on the jet-ski. I'll be cooking hot dogs and put on my Yo-Yo Ma CD..." Never mind that nobody else wants to hear Yo-Yo Ma except him. We are all just participants in his well-intentioned fantasy choreography and we seriously need to do a better job of following stage directions without question.

So, when Ryan and I pulled into the parking lot across from the shopping mall (funny aside: Later, Fran and I were watching the Washington DC fireworks in front of the Washington Monument and Fran said "Someday, I would like to be in DC watching fireworks along the Mall--I replied "Ryan and I just back from doing that..."), it was a mixed bag of people. I could go into decribing them in detail, but there was pretty much a representative of everyone there. Think you could stump me? Try me out: Organ grinder and monkey: check. Outlaw biker gang: check. Yuppie in a beemer: check (right next to us). Masai warrior with shield: check. Someone blowing "fire breath": check.

I thought it was pretty cool to be in such an unusually random group of people, and right when the fireworks started Hillbilly Hank decided to crank up a stirring rendition of "Boot in yer Ass" to complete his wonderful Fourth of July Holiday...Blazingly loud. Well, one look at his chain-smoking, wife-beater t-shirt-wearing scraggly butt told me that this guy was really just praying that he could finish off the Fourth with either a) a well-thought-out debate, between swigs of Pabst Blue Ribbon, over his Constitutional right to annoy the nation with his crappy musical tastes or b) a UBC-style bare-knuckle cage match. I mean, he was sitting there waiting to sucker punch someone, and it wasn't going to be me. We kind of all looked at each other and let the song finish, hoping he was getting it out of his system. I thought to myself that, well, maybe some people need to stir themselves up to be patriotic. Maybe his version of Norman Rockwell is painted with different colors than mine--there's room for tolerance. Maybe his kid's in the service or something, or he lost someone at the WTC...at any rate, I was trying to go along with his scene for a moment...or maybe he'd put a boot...

Ryan was sitting in my lap sideways with his arm around my shoulder, and he was loving the fireworks, oblivious to the nonsense. He was having a great time.

So, Poindexter in the Saab decides that he'll do him one better, and passive-aggressively cranks "Stars and Stripes Forever"--even louder.

Then, one of the ex-members of Motley Crue, who happened to be in the parking lot, cranked up his song: it was either a live recording of a camel vivisection or some kind of acid-metal-speed-rock thing with guitar and I think the feedback was part of the song, but it was utter crap as well. Can't remember what he was driving but it was either one of those double-decker buses from England or a dunebuggy with a flag on the back.

So now we had a discordant concoction of music blaring from three corners of the parking lot. It reminded me of the 3-way gunfight at the end of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (now THERE's some music they could have played!).

"Boot in yer Ass" guy started feeling a little limp in light of everyone else's kickin' audio systems, so I saw him finish off his soldier and reach over and click off his radio, whipping out another cigarette and tapping it on the box before firing it up with a butane lighter.

This prompted Saab man to wait a minute or so until the song ended, and he put down his half-full Merlot to turn his radio off. I guess he figured the he and Crue man had cooperated to shout down das Boot. Nein.

No, no, Crue decided to keep the jam alive, so we all got "rocked out" for another 30 minutes--I didn't even know that Slayer put out a box set...It sounded like a 'roid raging Cookie Monster screaming over a mic with someone randomly playing stacatto guitar cords in the background. I was laughing to myself (a little). I was thinking: If Fran was here, she'd ...bravely and angrily pick a fight and then step back innocently for me to finish it. An aside: I think there was blood dripping out of Crue's car, but I'm not completely certain of it.

Have you ever noticed that when fireworks are over, there is a collective mindset of "Wow! Those were great! Yeahhhhhh!!!!! (clapping) I Love this Country!"

Then

"Let's get the hell out of here before the rest of these yahoo rednecks! I'm gonna cut that one off! Let's pretend we don't see him comin'..."

God Bless America (seriously).

Me + Fireworks + Camera

I thought I would try to take some shots of fireworks for the first time in my life...I used a tripod and tried a couple of random settings--I'm sure there are better ways to do it, but here were a couple of my favorites...

A True, Texas 4th of July Ghost Tale

Lots of people ask me about my blog stories--the most common question is "Are your stories true?" The answer is YES! And this one, as eerie as it is, is true as well...(These pictures are really from the haunted farm, also...)


Our Ford pickup was covered in dust when we finally came up the rock trail to the main farmhouse. The old, wooden house looked like it was at least a hundred years old, but it had been a painted brilliant white and was well taken care of since it's original heyday. Something about the topography of the land enabled you to see for miles in every direction--not that there was much to see besides parched yellow grass and scrubby brush with an occasional mesquite tree randomly thrown in. Even the colors around us had a washed-out appearance to them...

We got out, tired from the road, and I was a little irritated. We had driven way out of the convenient path home to come to this place. The story would be better if we were lost and tired and worried about sunset coming and not having a place to stay then randomly coming across this inn, but that's not what happened. Fran had researched Bed and Breakfasts in the famous Texas Hill Country, and had found this one and scheduled us to stop and stay there on our way back to Dallas from San Antonio.

The only saving grace to my interest was that we went through Marble Falls, Texas, which was featured as the home of Mike Teevee in that psychodelic Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory movie. Wow--3 whole stoplights and a Dairy Queen. I guess I got the joke at that point: it was an obscure place, not worth mentioning.

As we pulled up to the farmhouse, there were no signs of life at all, aside from the couple dozen head of cattle standing still like statues in the scorched, unshaded field of grass. The heat could be seen coming in waves off the melting earth below. It was July 3rd, 1996 at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

We weren't really sure what to do at this point. We were a little early for checking in--I think they were expecting us around 4:00 or so, and it looked like no one was home. I walked up to the front door and knocked, and waited. We've stayed in B&B's before--sometimes there is a main house and a separate guest house, and I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot by just walking into their home. Plus, I wasn't exactly sure we were at the right place--no sign. But then again, there wasn't another house for miles in each direction, so I was sure it was the right house...pretty sure, anyway.

After waiting a minute, I decided to open the door and go in. I walked a couple of steps in, with my eyes adjusting to the dark. The house was beautifully decorated but it was a little dark and stuffy inside. I had a quick flashback to what this house must have looked like a hundred years ago, with the floor creaking as I walked and the smell of old wood. Small decorations were on the several side tables scattered throughout the parlor area, and the walls had been carefully covered with beautifully framed and matted original paintings of dramatic cowboy scenes.

I looked up, and there sat two Hounds of Hell: a doberman and a German shepherd sitting quietly and alertly watching me from the middle of the stairway, their eyes unblinking and their ears pointed right in my direction. My instincts made me jump a little and they sensed that I felt out of place and calmly got up and started down the stairs. I took two steps out the door and closed it behind me quickly. Now I didn't know what to do...

"Nobody in there?" Fran asked.

"No. Just a couple of big dogs." She would know exactly what I meant. She knows I have had a thing about big dogs since I was mauled by a German shepherd at age 4 and had to have rounds of rabies shots. Ever since then, on a full moon...I would like to joke with people.

So we sat in the air-conditioned truck for a couple of minutes, talking, until the front door opened and a woman came out.

She was in her forties, and ten years earlier she had been very cute, I'm sure. She was small and wore the clothes of a twenty-something girl. After talking to her for a couple of minutes it hit me that she looked and acted a lot like my old boss who had, a couple of years ago, completely freaked out and gone on a verbal rampage through the office which ended in her dismissal. I had seen it coming (but had kept it to myself) when she had verbally assaulted me violently during a review, screaming obscenities and ripping my review document in half, then storming out of the office. I needed the job so badly that I had just sat there humbly until she came back and I had ignored the craziness and we moved on. Six months later she apologized and gave me a different, glowing review. The rampage was twelve months after my experience. I had seen that indiscriminate rage pent up inside her, and knew enough to steer clear.

So I was perhaps a little subconsciously wary of our inkeeper, who acted pretty flaky from the moment we met her. A little too scatterbrained and happy and oblivious and airheaded to not be an act. We weren't staying in the main house--our room was on the second floor of the revamped barn. She told us how her husband, who had "gone to town", had worked so hard to rehabilitate the ramshackle building--indeed it looked brand new, and the inside was furnished with rustic furniture, leather, and there was a common area outfitted with twenty worn-looking VCR tapes of western movies. I remember her saying something about an old water tank adjacent to the barn--they were going to build on to it to add more rooms in the future--it's been so long now I can't remember.

Our room was a little unusual--it was the old upstairs loft of the barn and was odd-shaped. There was a cleft over the bed that made me a little uneasy--the wall was about 10 feet high and then there was an area where the roof, which was about 18 feet from the hardwood floor, went way back about twenty feet or so behind the headboard, leaving a deep, dark cave right over our heads. It generated a little bit of an echo when we moved and talked, and felt a little creepy--like we were sleeping in the middle of a warehouse.

We took a couple of minutes to unpack and then I lay down on the bed just to rest from the road--rest my eyes and back. Fran was saying something about trying to go out and get something to eat so we could find our way back before it got too dark. The inkeeper had said something about another couple coming in later that night. My head had a dull ache that I couldn't shake.

When we came back from our long trek and from eating small-town Chinese food, in which I could taste the sizzled scorch of heat lamps, the sun was setting, silhouetting the farmhouse and barn against a blue curtain of prairie sky. When we went into the barn and through the common area, the other couple were there. We changed into comfortable clothes and came out to sit and chat with them. My head still throbbed, quite uncharacteristically for me, but I didn't want to miss the chance to meet the other guests.

They were from Houston, and they had kids our age. Nevertheless, we talkedover coffee for almost two hours about lots of things. Our travels, other Bed and Breakfasts we've stayed in (one time when we were young and newly married, we spent a week doing nothing and enjoying ourselves in the American Beauty Rose room at a B&B in Fredericksburg, Texas, where we met a doctor's family, a psychiatrist, and an author of a novel about Winston Churchill). The older man was quite large and was very proud of his role as Papageno in an annual performance of The Magic Flute. We talked momentarily about church, then discovered that they were from a church that apparently doesn't like the church we go to, and thinks we're all crazy, so we pretended that the topic didn't come up, and continued to have a nice discussion.

When it was time to go to bed, my dull headache was distracting me and I remember just seeing black and white for a while, almost like the cones in my eyes were turned off and only the rods were working (or vice versa?) At any rate, I wasn't feeling quite right. I felt dread like a lump of dough in my stomach, and I suspected that perhaps the owner had some kind of perverted camera setup in our room. I even joked with Fran about it, carefully, because once she gets a feeling she seems to go with it. It was too late this time.

"This place is definitely haunted, " she told me.

Chills went up my spine.

"You always think every place is haunted, honey."

"No, I really don't. But this place is."

Oh, no. She gets these feelings and something usually happens. She believes in that stuff, and I refuse to believe in it--I refuse to see it in any way, and luckily, I haven't ever seen direct evidence of ghosts.

But one time I had clearly seen the look of surprise and fright in her eyes when we were alone in a building working. The building was built over an old Indian trail, and many people who worked there overnight complained about weird noises and odd occurrences. Fran had looked behind me and said "Who's there?!" I had whirled around and there was no one, but she had definitely seen something. She had described a girl wearing jeans and a flannel shirt with black hair and no face...

But that night I slept fitfully, waking up, dreaming weird, vivid dreams of random, disconnected events. Waking up and noticing that the pink glow from a lamp with a wavy, glass shade that was left on all night, but not being able to move to turn it off. I tossed and turned and couldn't get comfortable. When sunlight started coming in through the partially open horizontal blinds, I got up and noticed that Fran was awake.

"I haven't slept at all"

"Really, why not?"

"Something was watching us all night. Something was up there."

"Honey, no there wasn't."

"I'm telling you, this place is very haunted."

"I didn't realize it mattered how haunted it is..."

"No, really, I'm going to ask the inkeeper about it..."

"Please don't do that? What is she going to think? Besides, we're leaving today. Just leave it alone."

"Something's going on here." She said it confidently, and the words were stuck in my head as we got ready.

We dressed and went downstairs, where the inkeeper and her husband were preparing breakfast. He was ten years older than her, with a droopy cowboy mustache, and looked like he had just walked off the set of Lonesome Dove. He was very kind and cheerful, and was cooking pancakes and eggs. The other couple came out to the breakfast table (The world of Bed and Breakfast visitors can be broken into camps of: people who shower and get dressed nicely for breakfast and then the other type, like our baritone and his wife, who just roll out of bed and look like kidnap victims. Once, while we were staying at a very fancy home in Virginia, our hostess was visibly horrified when the young couple from New York came down in their tattered nightclothes with bedhead and bare feet to eat her delicately-prepared 5-course meal on fine china in her museum-like formal dining room).

We had nearly finished eating a large breakfast and drinking cowboy camp coffee (not a compliment), when our hostess sat down at our table and stretched out her arms toward Fran.

"How did you sleep last night?"

Oh, no, now you've done it.

Fran carefully answered, "You know, I didn't sleep very well at all, even though the bed was so comfortable. Is it possible that this house is haunted?"

The couple from Houston had decided that there was a good reason that people from their church hate people from our church. But I saw a flash in the inkeeper's eyes and she shot a very subtle, quick glance at her husband. The other couple excused themselves and got up from the table.

The inkeeper looked right at Fran and said, "Dear, you must be very sensitive to that sort of thing-did you see any of them?" Oddly, she seemed very pleased. Calmly and seriously, now, now, not an airhead.

Chills again. Then, I thought to myself, This lady is whacked.

"No, I didn't see anyone, but I know someone was watching me all night."

"Those would be the children. We think there are three of them, but we usually just see the girl, if we see them at all...I call them my 'angels'."

"So other people have said this, too?"

"Every once in a while someone picks up on it...."

"We normally don't make a big deal out of it--it's harmless," the husband finished.

"Oh, no, they wouldn't do anything to you--they just watch," she added.

The lady then told us about a haunting of Shakespearean proportions. It was so shocking and horrible that it seemed unbelievable. I wasn't buying it, but Fran was focused on her and I knew she was breathing in every word, and vicariously through her the entire story became terrifying to me.

The farmhouse was originally owned by an officer in the Confederate Army. He was quite prominent in the area, and they used to entertain. During these parties there would be lots of music and dancing, and the the officer, whose name was Adam, as well as his wife, Josephine, would move all the furniture out onto the lawn.

This couple had moved in three years before, and, on random nights since they've moved in, they have awakened to find all the lights in the house on, the radio playing loudly, and a very loud, unmistakeable racket of furniture being moved across the wood floor. Even when they turn everything off, sometimes it would all come on again. Other times they would see the whole family, with Adam in the lead, followed by Josephine and children, descending the stairs in the house.

Of course, skin crawling and all, I was still having a hard time believing this. Studying their faces, I knew for a fact that they weren't trying to impress us or anything. It was almost like it was a relief to talk about it with someone that knew where they were coming from and would believe their wild stories. As flaky as the woman seemed to me to be (again, possibly prejudiced by her resemblance to my old schizo-boss), the man seemed sober and competent. But this was still unbelievable.

They were very serious.

She continued, " I even have a room in the farmhouse dedicated to my angels--I call it the 'angel room' and I have some of my paintings of angels and other angel decorations..."

"Tell her why you picked that room, babe."

She looked at her husband and smiled, then rotated that smile toward me and Fran "That's where I saw my first angel. He was so beautiful and he came to me and talked to me. He was floating above the floor."

I wanted to run. I did not want to know what he said to her, almost cringing to not hear it in case she said it, like you cringe to not hear the tales of a pathological liar--you know it isn't going to make sense, and you don't want the responsibility of having heard something and having to react to it or accept it.

Searching my feelings, I knew I felt weird while I was there, especially right when I had walked into the house. I had felt a headache the whole time, which is very unusual for me. Fran had never seemed to me to be so affected by a place, but she is prone to attributing behaviors to the supernatural, to an extent that I felt was irrational. But something was going on--either we were talking to crazy people, which was cause for fear in itself, or I was the lone, skeptical holdout in the room.

I excused myself and walked outside to get some air. Cowboy paraphenalia had been collected and was hanging from the rough wood porch. Some of it was saddle tack, some of it was relatively indecipherable. After a while, Fran joined me with a fresh cup of coffee.

The other couple packed pretty early and sped away without saying goodbye. Was it because they thought we were weird, or because they were uneasy or saw something, too?

Then the inkeeper's husband approached me. He told me very plainly, as though the other discussion hadn't taken place, "Every 4th of July we go to Luckenbach (Texas) to the Willie Nelson concert. We're taking off, now, so just lock up when you're ready to leave."

I froze. I did not want to go back into that room, especially if Fran and I were the only living souls for miles around. Fran and I looked at each other. We ran up the stairs.

When we walked in the room, Fran said out loud, "Okay ghosts, if you're here, we don't want to see you! Just leave us alone and we will pack up and get out of here!" (I wonder if that works...)

I told her "Yeah, they know we're scared to death of the ghosts in this place, so they know they can trust us to get our stuff and get the heck out of here...Maybe it was a scheme to make us check out early!" (I was saying this hopefully but it was not heartfelt).

"Pack one bag and go down to the car. I'll get the other and be down in two minutes." She knew I was severely freaked out. She was calmly but urgently packing her clothes and toiletries. She didn't have to tell me twice. I got out of there.

I went downstairs and outside and the inkeeper and her husband were gone. We were alone on the prairie at the haunted farm. I'm not sure what I was afraid of, but I was afraid.



I got the truck started and waited outside for Fran to come down. The last image I have of the place is the feel of the sudden prairie wind rushing in my face, blowing the hanging pieces on the porch as I ran to jump in the truck to make my desperate escape. I can still hear the metal pieces softly clank-clanking together as I slammed the truck door closed.

The truck kicked up dust violently as we sped down the driveway, and neither of us turned to look back.

What This Blog Needs is:

MORE COWBELL!!!!!!

I GOTTA HAVE MORE COWBELL, BABY!!!!

When I saw that SNL skit, "Don't Fear the Reaper" (Please, for the love of God, someone FedEx me the Little, Brown handbook so I can figure out how to punctuate things) was stuck in my head for weeks.

If you Google "More Cowbell", you will see that I am in no way original or funny in bringing this up. Buzz-kill.

For 24 hours one time, "Who will save your soul?", by Jewel, was playing non-stop in my head. I was on a ride-along with paramedics (don't ask), and I woke up at 1:00 in the AM to go to a car accident and it was still in there, echoing at full volume.

This week, I was sitting and watching Ryan doing his swimming lessons, surrounded by soccer moms. Safety tip: Soccer moms are vicious about their parking spots. Soccer moms will slit your throat and watch you bleed over a parking spot--they will go scorched earth on your ass! Do not fear--they WILL get their kids to swim lessons on time, even if it means they have to mow someone over...(Second derivative tangential side note: The song "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne has been totally ruined for me with the commercial that shows the housefrau-looking mom with the silver van and the motorized door...Somehow, that idiotic commercial overrode my previous, lovely mental image of Stacy's Mom...)

Another cool note: I was holding Kaitlyn, my one-year-old daughter, last night at a restaurant and there was a guy playing guitar. He busts out with some fantastic-sounding Bob Marley (Is This Love) and what does my daughter do? Starts jamming to the beat and swaying back and forth! What a cool baby! The guy thought it was cool, too and turned around and started playing the guitar to her and smiling at her. (Nicole tells me that if I reference Bob Marley people will assume that I'm firing up a doobie out while typing it out...so I feel obliged to say that I may be among the few non-smokers (and you know what I mean) to love Bob).

So...back to Ryan's swim lessons. I'm sitting there after almost being evicerated in the parking lot, and getting a little work done by the pool while Ryan has his lesson. All of a sudden, I listen to myself humming a song...a catchy song...then I put words to it...and panicked.

See that girl,
watch that scene,
dig in the dancing queen....

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(By the way, if a song could use more cowbell, it's that one...)

My first impulse was to immediately STOP humming that song and then look around to see if anyone in the near vicinity was looking at me strangely...no, thankfully, they were brushing cheeto crumbs from their beach towels.

Then I frantically searched the obscure synaptic impulses that brought me to this desperate point. After some contemplation, I figured it out--I think a guy on jeopardy the other day incorrectly answered a question about broadway musicals with "What is Mamma Mia! ?" (a broadway show about Abba) , and that triggered my memory of a sorta funny foreign film called "Muriel's Wedding" (I wonder if the Little, Brown handbook, under punctuation, says "just put everything in quotation marks and hope for the best"). Anyway, Muriel was obsessed with Abba and "Dancing Queen" was played about 20 times in that movie.

Crisis averted (?). Crazy brain successfully roadmapped for future reference.