Happy New Year!

Wow!

I've been out of town 20 days out of the past 25, so this is why my posting has become so irregular. I've eaten a bran muffin and drank some prune juice, so I'll be on track again soon...

I'll be chiming in soon with some stories, but for now, I feel like the wanderlust has left me and I'll be sticking by home for a while.

I realize I left a relatively gloomy post on my page for quite a while, so sorry about that...Read about "Harmonica Man" if you didn't notice that the story was inserted a couple of posts down...

Have a Happy and Safe New Year!

Mike

Opposing Points of View

Overwhelming Proof that I'm mellowing out as I get older:

Ryan's friends were over playing while I was out of town. Ryan says that one of the boys was trying to keep them all out of Kaitlyn's room, which is empty because Fran is still hand-painting flowers on the wall. In trying to keep them out, the boy piled a bunch of paint cans against the door, which the other boys knocked over, spilling a gallon of white paint on the carpet.

I walked in a week later to the hardened layer of paint across a square yard in the room. I laughed and thought to myself "You know, I bet we could replace the carpet in here with something that goes much better with the room."

Overwhelming Proof that I'm still a high-strung jerk sometimes:

It was time for Ryan to go to sleep, and he wasn't listening to my requests that he get into bed. Although I am a little worried that he's been sleep deprived because he stayed with some friends while we were out of town, I have been more irritated with his not listening to me, and he was just playing without acknowledging that I was talking to him.

So, instead of patiently explaining again to him that it was time to go to bed, I reached out, grabbed the cable, and unplugged his video game from the TV while he was playing it. He didn't really say anything, but I could tell it really hurt his feelings.

After I had put him in bed, I thought to myself: This isn't the kind of dad I want to be. That just seemed like such a violent and ugly way to treat my son, and I really regretted it.

Back, and to the left--Harmonica Man strikes...

I love listening to live music, so when this guy set up and started playing some nice tunes over by Fisherman's Wharf, I wandered out of the shop I was in with Fran and sat down on a bench by myself and and listened to him.

Being from Dallas, I am constantly reminded that the JFK assassination (in 1961, long before I was born) was a pivotal part of our local history. Whenever people visit from out-of-town, I ask them if they would like to go see Dealey Plaza, the site of the shooting--also, I guess we are exposed to lots of the trivial/lesser-known facts about the event. One of these things is "Umbrella Man", the investigation's nickname for a guy who stood by as the motorcade went by, and, I guess, opened an umbrella (even though the day was bright and sunny), which makes him a very suspicious character.

Since that was such a random thing to do, it sometimes strikes me as funny when somebody does a bizzarre, random thing-like wearing a gorilla suit to a party or something-I have a private joke going that "gorilla-man" (in this case) is up to something sinister...

So I was shocked when, while listening to this musician, a man in a blue sweatshirt and dark sunglasses sureptitiously slinked up next to me and sat quietly in the shadows against a building column. I was really afraid that he was going to ask me for money, like nearly a dozen other people had done in the last 10 minutes.

But no.

He whipped out a harmonica and started to harmonize (from 50 feet away) with the musician who was playing. First quietly, then getting gradually louder until people started to stare at him a little. I thought he might be a friend of the musician (sorry, I don't remember his name), but eventually I realized he was just goofing around and trying not to be noticed by the musician. He would play on some songs and not on others, but he sounded pretty good. Harmonica-man: another San Franscisco enigma.

So, I started chuckling to myself that this was the San Francisco version of umbrella-man, and that he was assassinating this poor guy's music by harmonica-ing to it. And I wanted my own official documentation of this character, but my camera was in my bag, and I thought it would be very rude to just point and click--he might freak out. Feeling like a CIA operative, I very slowly unzipped the bag, turned on the camera and disabled the flash and, without looking while still watching the (real) musician, I slowly pointed the lens toward harmonica man and snapped a couple of shots, looking down to make sure they captured him...


A couple of minutes later, he suddenly got up. I looked over at him and he shot me a wide smile, revealing two or three missing teeth in the front. He still had his harmonica in his right hand, and he shoved both hands into the pouches of his sweatshirt, turned quietly and slowly walked away, and within a minute had completely blended into the crowd.

Scenes from Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco

Pier 39--Sea Lions come here to hang out...and escape the Great White sharks in the bay. Here's a big one:

There are lots of shops owned by non-English-speaking people. Here was a noteworthy sign:

"Hey, that sweater looks like crap on you!"

SO....

I started putting more pictures and stories from my trip, but then had a vision in my head of my uncle showing a slide show and droning about his trip to the Grand Canyon...but, if you would like to experience more photos, witty commentary, and wildly amusing anecdotes about my trip, please visit my photoblog...

Highlights:

1) Homeless and Crazy--two things that seem to go together well...

2) Break-Dancing!

3) Dude--it's foggy!

4) Fran has never (ever) been to the woods...

5) Smokin'

6) Wacky Self-portrait

7) Why buy a postcard when you can lean out of a cable car and almost die?

Not seen in the photoblog: The mysterious story of harmonica-man...

Thanks!

Just Another Evening at the Pub

Boy--I really felt like a country boy yesterday evening...

After dinner, I went with three of my colleagues to a nearby pub just to sit and relax and chat for a while. We didn't know exactly where to go so, when one of them spotted a club with a neon blue martini glass on the sign out front, we headed that way, but to our dismay its entrance was in the middle of a dark alley and the interior looked very questionable (envision the Biker Club from Pee Wee Herman), so we kept going.

As we passed an empty shopping cart on the sidewalk, my buddy Mike D. muttered something about someone losing their home...

We sat down to Irish coffees and a red-headed singer reminiscent of a roughed-up Susan Sarandon (not among my favorite actresses), took her red electric guitar to the mike and started playing. I thought she was a great guitarist, but couldn't believe she could make a living singing--it sounded like she gargled gravel every morning.

The guys I was with, even after five straight days of being aound each other all day, insisted on talking passionately about things involving business, and I, being in a different department and also considering the fact that I seriously didn't care to talk about work, started paying less attention to them and was keeping an ear open to the music. The funny thing is that she played a mix of Averil Levigne, Cat Stevens, the Eagles, and John Lennon--eclectic enough that it could have even come out of my Ipod. Just when nobody was paying attention, "she" dramatically dropped her voice and sang "Sixteen Tons", in a deep bass voice that rivals mine! Aha! So that was the gimick, straight out of Victor/Victoria--a trans-gender singer (later confirmed by the singer herself, who finished the song, grinned, and asked "Any Questions?"--someone replied "Yeah--What's the capital of New Zealand?")...Well, welcome to San Francisco...

The funny thing was watching my buddy's reaction--he is homophobic to the point of irrational behavior, so during "Sixteen Tons", my immediate reflex was to whirl around and see him squirm on his barstool and the hair shoot up straight on the back of his neck. I don't know exactly what he is afraid of, but he gets practically violent in situations like this, so before long he started giving me a hard time about enjoying the music, which I was.

As they continued drolling about how the spacing of the taskbar on screen A51 should be right centered and not left centered, and the option for xx should be "greyed out", I got another Irish coffee and relaxed before my 12-hour day tomorrow--MD nudged me and spat out "Don't tell me you're enjoying this shit?"

I fished some money out of my wallet and realized that MD was going to give me a hard time about leaving any money--If someone is a half-decent musician, I generally leave something for them--Fran and I used to go to an Italian restaurant in our neighborhood which featured live piano music, and the woman came to know us over the years--Fran would always request "Isn't it Romantic?" and we would leave her a nice tip because she played beautifully. One time, even after we hadn't been in for a year or so, we walked in the restaurant and the piano player, who was toward the end of a song, held a cord, and then launched into "Isn't it Romantic?" as we were being seated at the table (now I know how the president must feel when they play "Hail to the Chief").

We got up to leave and I went over to put the money in her tip jar--another of the guys scrambled to take a picture of me with his cell phone since I was tipping a trans-gender (Oh, the search engine hits I'm going to get...) singer, which I suppose in some way makes me less manly or something?

We walked back to the hotel quietly. As we passed a menagerie of crazies shaking cups and begging for change, I turned to MD and told him "I give money for no less than being a trans-gender lounge singer." He laughed.

Well, it's definitely something you don't see every day...

Morning in Chinatown

I took a left out of the front door of my hotel this morning.

I had awakened early again and, after a quick breakfast with my friend, Mike D., decided to enjoy my 1/2 day off from the conference by walking over to Starbucks for a Venti Peppermint Mocha. There was a line so long that the last person in line had his butt squashed up against the door, so I decided not to add myself to that line, first of all so butt-man didn't go tumbing out onto the sidewalk, but secondly I feel like a person standing in the open doorway completely disturbs the Feng Shui of a place--even a Starbucks.

The Union Square area where I am staying is beautifully decorated for Christmas--red-ribboned trees and golden lights everywhere. Walking around this city is a nice treat, because in Dallas everything is so spread out that the only walking is from you house to your car, from the parking lot to the stores, etc. I've heard it said about ten times in the last few days that "San Francisco is a great walking town!" I guess it must be so--the cab lines are about twenty minutes of waiting time, so you might as well just walk to where you are going. As cosmopolitan as it is, it took me a couple of days to get used to the constant barrage of oddities encountered on the sidewalks--I think the pandhandlers spread out at least 10 feet from each other, and it's like running a gauntlet to get through them. There are tons of grizzled, homeless people pushing carts, sitting on crates, and all around just looking raggedy and crazy. It's a little alarming. Traffic crawls around the stilted streets and an occasional bus goes crackling by, powered by ubiquitous overhead power lines. Cable cars, outfitted with garlands and bows, ding their bells and add to the atmosphere.

So this morning I saw the butt in the window at Starbucks and decided to keep on walking in my uncaffeinated state. Pretty soon, I was away from the hustle and bustle of the fancy part of town, and saw the gates of Chinatown in front of me. Intrigued, I went on through into the light shadows and ornate colors.

The morning was very crisp and gray today, with temperatures in the 50's and overcast skies. Rounding a corner, I realized that I probably wasn't dressed warmly enough, but was determined to keep going for a while.

Chinatown was just waking up. I walked passed gated stores, restaurants, and shops, stepping on Chinese-lettered brown cardboard boxes that had been flattened and stacked against the curb. A man stood hosing down the sidewalk in front of his shop--he stopped the water as I walked by and started it up again when I had passed. An older woman didn't appear to even notice me as she was using a pole with a hook to hang silk blouses vertically along the sides of her clothing store, and a man in a beige ballcap suspiciously eyed me walking by as he slowly smoked a cigarette. I felt a little self-conscious about intruding on the peace of the neighborhood, almost like I got to a Broadway show while they were still putting out the props.

A restaurant had long ago posted 8x10 color photographs of entrees across the front entrance--these had long faded and now appeared to be quite unappetizing. I had to laugh to see an Asian-style building ornately decorated with red and gold, then upon closer inspection I realized it was a Bank of America. I kept walking past several shops with tables full of jade carvings, beaded necklaces, gold bracelets, and Chinese plates and teacups. I had a few dollars in my pocket which I was willing to spend on a little something if I saw something I liked, but somehow nothing persuaded me to break from my silent walk through the neighborhood.

A few of other tourists passed me going the opposite direction--I laughed at a couple of them in my own mind for being such nerds--they were still wearing their conference name badges even though they were miles away from the convention center. Another huge man, who was nearly seven feet tall, was walking loosely toward me in slacks and a blue dress shirt that was slightly untucked. He swung his arms like a gorilla and his head bounced around on his neck like a bobble-head doll--he looked very odd, like he might stumble to the ground at any moment.

At the base of a hill, I stopped and decided to turn around and go back. Stopping at a couple of windows, I spotted some bootleg DVD's and a store full of shiny China figurines that were really very nice--not nice enough for me to go inside and inquire about the price, though. Besides, Asian art, as much as I sincerely like it, doesn't really go with our home decor . A display of golden Buddhas nested in an uneven circle caught my eye.

On the other side of the street I spied a store full of cream-colored silk linens, lined in black--they were displayed very beautifully across the wall. Next door was a storefront advertising Psychic Readings--a young girl came out with a trashcan, set a bag in the street, and turned around to go back in. I thought to myself, If you can read my mind, turn around and look at me. But no. Maybe she was the psychic's assistant.

Rounding the corner and going back up Sutter street toward my hotel, I really regretted not bringing my camera on my walk with me--words don't really do the experience justice, and I've already forgotten about half of what I came across on the walk. But for an hour or so I had invaded another world, leaving it quietly again without making a mark on it. Maybe I'll go back later when the show is all set up and ready to receive me.

Are you Going to San Francisco?

One day last week, I was sitting in Dallas experiencing the lowest temperatures I can ever remember--13 degrees!

Two days later, I was introspectively standing in a dark forest of towering redwoods, then a few hours later I was standing on a cliff overlooking San Francisco and the golden gate bridge. I'm in town by myself for my job, and there are already a ton of stories that can be told, starting with sitting in the waiting area for the plane, just absolutely convinced that I was going to be crammed up against the huge, sweaty, fat guy scarfing down the garlic and limburger pork sandwich.

On the plane ride over, I watched Casablanca for the 20th time, and challenged myself to not get choked up a certain scene that always "gets me". Sure enough, it got me again and I was embarrassed to get emotional (I'm sure no one noticed the lump in my throat) in front of total strangers. The scene is the part where the German officers take over the piano at the bar and sing a gloating, dark war hymn--Victor Laslow becomes enraged by this, and, casting fear aside, risks his life and leads the band to play Le Marsailles in a "round" fashion, overpowering the Germans and igniting the bar to stand up proudly with him. I guess I'm a sucker for patriotism and symbolism--the idea of standing up and being counted for what you stand for always strikes a chord with me...

I'm a little stifled in my writing, though, because I'm typing on my laptop keyboard--normally, I utterly pound the hell out of a keyboard that I attach--I really like springy keys that fight back!

I read a book review in the San Francisco Chronicle, about a book by Rebecca Lemov called World as Laboratory. I consider myself somewhat of a hack behavioral psychologist, just meaning here that I try to look a little deeper at people's motivations and make practical applications of what I know of psychology. One very interesting study to me whas done by Stanley Milgram in the '60's and it was profiled in this book--I actually watched an old, black and white documentary film on this study while I was in college. The study sets up a situation where a subject believes he iss giving near-lethal electrical shocks to another person by pressing a series of buttons. Many of the subjects refused to stop because a supervisor kept demanding that they continue, even though the other person cries out in pain very loudly each time a button is pressed--it is eye-opening, and was used to gain insight to some of the cruelty of the Holocaust. I guess I have Nazi's on my mind these days, huh?

But the chilling item that surprised me in this book was a description of behavioral studies conducted by the US military in the field of mind control--subjecting soldiers to sensory deprivation and mind-altering drugs--very similar to the treatments shown in The Manchurian Candidate (I really liked both movies for different reasons--haven't gotten to the book yet). The fact is that I believe I am acquainted with one of these subjects--I know him on a certain level through a friend. He was awarded many medals for valor including three purple hearts, and he has told a couple of people that there are things that he participated in for the military that won't come out until after his death--he described some of the experimental conditions, but not as though he was bragging, but just as an experience. I know he has been through a lot of trauma, and, according to his brother, he was a rational, kind, compassionate person before going to war in the '60's and '70's. Now, he is a mess, mentally unstable, constantly in trouble, and is practically destitute, but still powerful enough to scare the hell out of his family by zoning out and standing in the middle of the house with a loaded gun, as well as getting arrested for cutting a guy with a knife--over fifty times (it was a flesh wound (?)). In a bizarre series of occurrences, my wife and I ended up giving him a ride in our car and I kept envisioning headlines of our bodies being discovered somewhere--of course he behaved himself completely, and I have pity on him. I wonder what the result of the study was--was it worth sacrificing this guy's life?

I was standing in a convention center today with 10,000 people from all over the world scurrying by, and I was suddenly greeted warmly by a friend of mine, Victor, who is originally from Russia. I haven't seen him in two years--he spotted me across the room and came running up to me and gave me a big hug, saying "I'm so happy to see you, Mike! I'm so glad you are here!" How often does something so positive and affirming happen? My friend now lives in the outskirts of London and has invited my wife and me for a stay--perhaps in a couple of years we will take him up on it...

My friend and I got to know each other by discussing Russian literature all the time when he lived in Dallas. I love the Russians' dry sense of humor and irony (Victor tells me that, any time you take a boat out in Russia, you always bring a spare motor because you know the first one is going to go out, and at least you have a chance that the second one may start...). If you have ever read Doctor Zhivago or anything by Dostoevsky (my favorite is Crime and Punishment, but I had 3 "false starts" before the book caught hold with me), you will know exactly what I mean by this attitude coming across beautifully and hilariously in literature.

Victor asked me one time about a scene he observed in an American grocery store--he went to the store in the evening, and one of the clerks was piling bread into a cart to throw out--Victor thought that surely this was not possible, and that they were sending it to another store or something--I assured him that they were throwing it out, and that they probably did it every night. People in America won't buy bread that is old--this absolutely blew his mind and actually made him pretty angry. I remember that an Indian man who worked in the law office with Fran actually had to go get counseling when he went to college in the US because of all the food that was thrown away each day in the lunchroom where he worked.

I've got other things on my mind, but I'll end it there for this evening--hope my rambling thoughts come together to mean something to someone... (More photos on Mike's Photoblog--linked to the right somewhere...)

Things I Can't Write About

My blog has been a great outlet this year to journal what's going on. Even when I don't think it's significant, it can be: I was printing out my blog (like 600 pages or so!) and I noted where Kaitlyn said her first two word sentance (pointed to toilet and exclaimed "Dis yucky!"). That was the kind of cool thing you forget about.

No matter how hard I try, I can't bring myself to comment on some things--thought I would jot them down...

1) Politics (yawn)

2) Anything too romantic (Two reasons: 1) I'm a little to inhibited about things like that and 2) Fran has forbidden disclosure of anything too personal in exchange for never complaining about my blogging time). So, even if I completely make something up, it will either be too like our situation for Fran's comfort, or so unlike it as to make her suspicious....

3) Anything too critical of someone who may read my blog (afraid of sniper fire)

4) Any personal stories about people it may get back to (trust me, this cuts my material in half).

5) Stories that are self-deprecating without my having won a moral victory somewhere (I'll try to think of one ;) ) .

6) No matter how hard I try, I can't write in anything other than first person without feeling very self-conscious. I think I'm too polite to ask other characters to do anything against their will...

7) Lately, I've been too self-conscious to write about anything that leaves my true feelings exposed. That's depressing. Actually, I think the truth is that I've always been that way, but maybe I'm just now realizing it.

In short, I feel myself winding down. Maybe I've painted myself into a corner by inviting too many friends to read (if you're one of these friends, don't feel self-conscious--I don't mean you specifically (ha ha--see what I mean). Of course, you heartless bastards never leave comments, though, you just blurt them out to me in passing...

This could also be just the time of year, or even just the way I feel today. Sometimes the feeling strikes me that I will never have anything to write about again--then a couple of days later about three or four different ideas wash over me.

Hey There, Gift Horse, Lemme see them molars...

My mother-in-law is a saint--she comes over and helps us out all the time with watching the kids.

For some reason, she needs to hold a prop whenever she's in our house. She walks in and goes straight to the kitchen and starts cleaning....even if it's already clean. I try not to take this the wrong way--like as a criticism that our kitchen isn't clean enough or something....

If there is laundry to do, she somehow finds it--no matter how hard we try to hide it (I suspect Fran doesn't try too hard). Not sure why, but it creeps me out a little to see her folding my underwear...

Another quirky thing--she is completely incapable of allowing my daughter to cry for any length of time. Anyone with kids knows that this is just a fact. So...Kaitlyn knows that when "Ita" is over, she is free from naptime as long as she just cries. Fran and I came back one night at 10:30 and there's Kaitlyn, bleary-eyed and nearly comatose, sitting in Ita's lap. When we ask her to babysit during the day occasionally, we have to budget a time to swing by and put Kaitlyn down for her nap. We're going out of town for a few days in a few weeks--I wonder if the child will sleep at all...

We also have an odd relationship where she asks me questions in Spanish and I answer her in English. She does that with all of her nine kids, too. That one is a little puzzling.

But the funniest thing is that my mother-in-law puts things back in weird spots. Like the measuring cups in the refrigerator, plates in the cabinet for pots and pans...I think it's a combination of Fran having every variety of kitchen utensil on the planet and her mom pretending that she is putting things away in her own kitchen.

When I run across a wooden spoon stacked on top of my coffee mugs, it's almost as though I can hear her say "Now, doesn't this go better here? Why would you think of putting coffee mugs in here?"

Yesterday she wedged a packet of fish food behind a picture frame in Ryan's room, thinking "That's a great spot! Now it's completely out of the way..."