tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83129988454086340892024-02-06T22:02:54.498-08:00Straight Outta BoiseAn Idaho guy living and working in urban exile in Washington, D.C.Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-76291456983694022872020-05-17T08:28:00.002-07:002020-05-17T08:40:03.283-07:00Shelter in Place (Day 61): Coworkers<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first time we shared an office was the <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-fling-with-summer-intern.html">summer we met</a>. It was 1991 and Carissa was a summer intern at the daily newspaper where I toiled as a young punk journalist. We married the next summer after she graduated college and we each followed separate career paths. The summer of 1991 remained the one time we shared the same work space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Until now. After a gap of nearly 30 years, we are together again, sheltering in place as our modest part in the effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. For the past nine weeks we’ve become “coworkers” again. Living, working, sleeping, eating, breathing, trimming our toenails, leaving dirty dishes in the office kitchen sink, and dirty socks on the executive suite bathroom floor. Together. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Week after week. Fun fact: this time around, for better or worse, we are no longer a couple of love-struck kids sharing office space. In fact, we are joined in this coworking venture with a couple of kids of our own, a college freshman and a sixth-grader. <i>The Office</i> meets <i>Married with Children</i>, except set during a modern Plague that triggers the next Great Depression.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am grateful for many things right now. We are healthy. We are food secure. Probably a little <i>too</i> food secure. Carissa and I both have jobs and can work from home. Our kids are with us and safe. Their distance learning experiences seem to be mostly working. We have three bathrooms. I am also grateful to everyone who makes it possible for people like me to work from home. When we come out on the other side of this I hope we examine who we value, and how we value them. We also need to remember those many people whose jobs and businesses are gone or at risk right now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So I don’t want to bemoan my personal circumstances. Kidding! I do want to bemoan my personal circumstances! Like many of you, I am adjusting to the new normal of working from home and spending all of my time – all of it – with my family. So much togetherness! As our college kid observed the other night, it’s hard to separate “home life” from “work life” when it’s all one life. Then she asked to sample one of her mom’s hard ciders. Momma is highly protective of her hard cider supply so the answer was a hard no, but I respect the kid’s hustle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Initially, I aspired to post a how-to guide on how to absolutely crush working from home with your family during a pandemic quarantine. But, as it turns out, I have not crushed working from home with my family during a pandemic quarantine. I am scrambling every day to figure out how to balance work and school and family and sanity and how not to drink half my monthly booze supply in the first ten days of the month. The reality of our new reality is that anyone claiming that they are crushing working from home with their family during a pandemic quarantine is (a) lying, (b) full of shit, or (c) both. It’s not even the “working” part that is the problem. All I need to perform my job is a laptop, cell phone, and internet access. Just that and a few blocks of uninterrupted time every day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But there’s the unicorn. Those mythical blocks of uninterrupted time. Home life and work life are all one life. My coworkers and I try to establish routines and boundaries and adjust to one another in our shared office space. One coworker learns that it’s rude to blow his nose loudly while another coworker is addressing her board of directors on a conference call. A different coworker says it’s embarrassing when a supervisory coworker barges into her bedroom and scolds her about the mess without realizing its all playing out on Zoom in front of a middle school math class. And some coworkers bristle when accused of wearing the same T-shirt all week when it was in fact only three days, four at most. That’s not even factoring in the stunts of the cat who is incapable of sauntering past a webcam without announcing her presence. Finding routines and establishing boundaries is an ongoing process and I have discovered no shortcut, no #lifehack. I will not be the one to tell you how to MacGyver your work from home experience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But there is something that I can tell you. Reuniting as a coworker with Carissa after so many years has been revealing. You can learn a lot about your spouse when you spend a couple of months listening to her work. And when I say “listening to her work” I mean we <i>literally</i> listen to the sound of her voice every day, all day, and sometimes on evenings and weekends. It’s not always her voice. Sometimes I hear other voices coming out of the speakers on her computer. I am reasonably confident that I can now match the names and voices of Carissa’s entire staff even if I’ve never seen some of their faces.(They are doing great work, by the way.) But it’s mostly Carissa’s voice filling our home, starting each day with <a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://1" style="text-decoration-color: rgba(128, 128, 128, 0.38);" x-apple-data-detectors-result="1" x-apple-data-detectors-type="calendar-event" x-apple-data-detectors="true">a 9 a.m.</a> staff meeting. Am I exaggerating? Consider that our youngest coworker wrote her mother a note in the form of a clue in a plastic egg that was part of an Easter morning scavenger hunt, providing instructions for finding the next hidden clue. The note said: “You will find me where you Yak Yak Yak all day (in a good way!).” The clue was in an egg hidden on the built-in desk in a converted hallway and storage space that Carissa has commandeered as her office. We did not realize how great the acoustics are from that corner of the house until the last two months. So loud! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We learned some good stuff while listening to our coworker over the past two months. The kids and I had front row seats to some inspiring acts of leadership, for starters. Carissa is the CEO of a K-12 education policy organization that represents state education leaders. When coronavirus cases began to spread and school across the nation began to make difficult decision about whether or not to close, and what would happen if they did, she and her team were instantly engaged. They worked long hours in those early days to provide information and guidance to state school chiefs while pressing political leaders and federal agencies for relief to help schools navigate an extraordinary moment in history. She’s been interviewed by Politico, New York Times, and other media outlets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is another side to the coworking experience, though. A darker side. The side that can test even the strongest relationships. Carissa, you see, understands the importance of using stories as an effective communications technique when making larger points to an audience. What the rest of us have come to learn during our time as coworkers is that sometimes those stories are about <i>us</i>. And they are not always flattering! Sometimes they’re embellished! During one meeting Carissa described our children as “going feral” in a story intended to signal that everybody is struggling with work and family boundaries and that’s OK. Our younger coworkers overheard this story while they were both in their rooms quietly doing school work. I’ve overheard comments about my quarantine beard, which she openly loathes. In one particularly heinous instance, I listened to Carissa on a call repeat something funny I told her a few days earlier when the sketchy ice cream truck rolled through our neighborhood minutes after the governor’s statewide order locking down ”non-essential” businesses became effective. My observational humor as told by my partner for life provoked laughs from her audience with no credit to the creator of the material.They say laughter is the best medicine, at least untils you discover you’re married to a joke-stealer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are moments when work life and home life being one life feels like a lot. I don’t have answers on how to manage that feeling. <span style="font-size: 11pt;">We’re safe and healthy and for now that has to be enough. And it’s no small thing to watch – or listen to – your spouse engage in a national education crisis with a laptop and a cell phone from a desk in a corner the basement of your home. When I first met Carissa in a Nebraska newsroom during the summer of 1991, she came across as smart, talented, and exceptionally competent. What I’ve learned as a coworker during the covid-19 pandemic of 2020 is that if anything my first impression of my future spouse was woefully insufficient. She has been remarkable. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Another differences between 1991 and 2020 is that maintaining a secret office romance is more difficult when you sleep in the same house with all of your coworkers. To be fair, a not-secret office romance isn’t that simple either when the coworker you share a bed with is snuggled in with a laptop catching up on work email. And one coworker stops in to complain that she can’t sleep. Another one is practicing the harmonica downstairs. The cat bats a toy mouse down the hallway into the room. </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Life in a pandemic. </span><br />
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-79071533901248172672020-04-18T15:13:00.001-07:002020-04-19T14:27:06.193-07:00Shelter in Place: Day 33<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve been hunkering down waiting out this global pandemic for more than a month now. A span of time sufficient to recognize the vastness of the difference between what I anticipated I would accomplish during my isolation versus what I have actually accomplish. As it turns out, my big plan to spend more time reading, writing, and pursuing other creative interest didn’t materialize. What did materialize is binge-watching all seven episodes of Tiger King on Netflix.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">Originally I imagined sheltering in place could be managed by focusing my energy on those things that I could control: staying home as much as possible; maximizing social distancing; keeping on top of my work; being sensitive to the way I interact with my family; securing essential supplies (i.e., eggs, coffee, whiskey, and toilet paper); figuring out the number of consecutive days it is appropriate to wear the same socks. Those sort of things. As a corollary, I imagined minimizing the energy I would expend on things beyond my control: how long it takes to flatten the curve; ventilator distribution; progress on a Covid-19 vaccine; the state of my 401(k) plan; when schools will reopen; survival of the human species. I’d let those things go.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">I also anticipated extra time in my day. Getting ready for work would be simple. No need to shave or put on pants. Roll out of bed, grab a cup of coffee, and fire up the laptop. No commuting in D.C. traffic. No hustling a kid to practices and games. Then add in the time not spent watching college basketball or major league baseball, both cancelled by Covid-19 concerns. I carefully plugged all the variables into my statistical Coronavirus Quarantine Extra Time Model™ (CQET model), which predicted I could expect to reallocate at minimum 10 hours each week to creative endeavors.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">So my big quarantine plan was to control what I could, ignore what I couldn’t, and use my extra time on self-improvement. When better than a global pandemic to focus on personal betterment? I would finish the neglected 700-page history of the United States from reconstruction through the gilded age that sits half-read on my nightstand and then speed through the Ta-Nehisi Coates novel, a Christmas gift, that’s next up in the stack. I would write more words for my blog. Not just more words, but beautiful words that would capture a moment in time or an eternal truth. Maybe learn to play guitar.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">None of the above came to be. In hindsight, what in the actual hell was I thinking? From the moment we went into shelter-in-place mode, I was acutely aware that both my wife and I would be working full time from our house while our sixth-grader and our college freshman would be engaged in distance learning from that same house. And that we would fight with the sixth-grader (<a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2020/03/shelter-in-place.html">the</a></span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2020/03/shelter-in-place.html"> one who farted on me on Day 5 of shelter-in-place</a>) about unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the cat’s litter box. And that her psychology major sibling, a Bernie supporter and college newspaper opinion writer, would be sharing a lot of hot takes about society and culture. And that we would be in the midst of staggering unemployment and business closings as the nation remained under attack from an invisible enemy predicted to kills tens of thousands of Americans and infect hundreds of thousands more. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">It turns out this was not the ideal time for me to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Here’s what went wrong:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;"><b>1</b>. </span><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">The “don’t-worry-about-things-I-can’t-control” debacle.</b><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;"> I’ve been a compulsive consumer of news most of my life. So the idea that I would suddenly, while living in a moment of epic historical significance, choose not to freak out over current events was incredibly misguided, to be generous. Of course I am going worry about shortages of protective gear for nurses and doctors, lack of hospital beds for suffering patients, people losing their jobs and businesses. Yes I will be consumed by maps and charts showing the awful progress of the virus, watching for curves to flatten. Will I be outraged by news coverage of college kids crowding Florida beaches taking body shots of tequila off each other’s sun-burned stomachs? By the feckless political leaders who declined to stop these gatherings? Yes and hell yes. Reading the news and being outraged is just something I do. I should have recognized from the start that I would not discover my moment of Zen.</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>2. The “control-the-things-I-can” fantasy. </b>All I have to say about this </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">is that I can’t even stop myself from touching my face. I can’t stay out of the Amazon-delivered bags of Easter candy– and I don’t even enjoy milk chocolate that much. The idea that there are things that I can “control” is an illusion. Social distancing is within my control until a stranger on a nature path who apparently isn’t a good judge of distance attempts to stop me to engage in conversation. And as note above, I can’t make myself stop obsessing about the news. The notion that I possess the degree of self-control necessary to embark on a journey of personal betterment does not comport with that reality. Stay up late with: a) a good book, or b) a glass of whiskey while posting snarky political commentary on Twitter? I think we all know the answer.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>3. The “extra time” fallacy. </b>Statistical models are only as good as the assumptions they rely upon. For example, my CQET model failed to consider that I would not use the extra time for creative endeavors but instead would use it to stay up late drinking whiskey and posting snarky political commentary. So I did not end up with the extra 10 hours per week devoted to creative endeavors that I my CQET model predicted.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px;">The good news is that I now possess the self-awareness to know that I lack the self-control to control things within my control. And that I lack the self-control to ignore things beyond my control. Better news is that our family coziness allows me to watch my kids demonstrate resiliency and compassion under historically challenging circumstances. Also to fight with each other and me and their mom, but mostly resiliency and compassion. I’ve also learned what it’s like to be my spouse’s co-worker. Not coincidentally, I’m working on a new post with lessons learned about becoming co-workers with your spouse. And I’ve made it into the twentieth century on my reading journey from reconstruction through the gilded age. Progress.</span></span>Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-43264369081470273252020-03-21T10:05:00.000-07:002020-04-18T15:13:46.252-07:00Shelter in Place: Day 5<div style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">On </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the evening of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Day Five</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of our family’s pandemic shelter-in-place </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">isolation</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> my 12-year-old very deliberately and loudly farted on me after I told her to p</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ick up dirty clothing</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> from her bathroom floor. I was not amused by </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">her response </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and very deliberate</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ly and loudly shared my thoughts</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> with her. Which in turn caused her to be outraged at me for failing to appreciate</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that farting on</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> dad was an obvious joke and I should not be angry with her, she should be angry with me for failing to appreciate </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">her humor.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> It escalated from there. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">What was </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">remarkable is the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">farting </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">incident </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">was the first notable negative</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> outburst</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in our home since my wife and I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">decided early on </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">restrict our social interactions</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as our small effort in the larger campaign to limit and slow the spread of the coronavirus. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We made the decision without fully thinking through the fact that we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">both can be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">strong-willed and opinionated and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we have passed those traits on to our children</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Under the best circumstances, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we can be noisy and disagreeable</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> over issues big and small.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Lock</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> us into a confined space for an indefinite period and</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> it could turn into a goat rodeo in a big hurry</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Yet </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">so far into our self-imposed isolationism, our collective behavior </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">has been, farting incident aside, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pleasantly </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">agreeable. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The kids deserve much of the credit. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Our sixth-grader’s last day of class was March 13.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Our </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">college freshman came home on </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">March 15. Both have extended spring breaks through the end of March and then begin remote learning for the rest of the school year. Our college kid </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is forgoing a trip to Colorado with friends, opportunities</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to work and save </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">money, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as well as</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> any of the freedoms earned by typical 18-year-olds home from college</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">She has not complained or lashed out or sulked. Instead, she has engaged her 12-year-old sister in constructive activities, including “bullet journaling” which is the process of using a blank journal to create your own daily planner/life organize. They</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">go on daily walks. They’ve been to a local park to shoot baskets. They’ve taken a yoga class from a YouTube video. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">T</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hey </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">cleaned and organized the junk drawer in the kitchen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Our youngest </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">an extrovert and extreme social animal.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> In normal times, she plays on</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> competi</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">tive soccer and basketball teams and up until last week had practice or games most days of the week as an outlet for her extra energy</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. In her ideal world, she hangs out with her large circle of friends just doing stuff. Our no</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">person-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">contact-with-friends rule hit </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">her hard.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> She needs her people.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I am proud of her for managing</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> her disapp</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ointment and understanding her personal sacrifice is part or a broader effort. And thanks</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to social media </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">she still can </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">interact with friends. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Yesterday she demonstrated that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">it’s possible to converse on FaceTime with four friends simultaneously while </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">also </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">grabbing a snack from the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">kitchen </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pantry</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Not all of my kids’ </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">peers</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> have been as limited in their in-person int</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">eractions as my kids have been, of which they are regularly reminded through social media connections. I know they must feel like they are missing out but they’ve understood. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Admitt</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">edly, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">w</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e’ve </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">drawn a harder</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> line </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">on</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> social distancing </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">than some. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Did we make the best decision? </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Could we loosen some of our restrictions? Honestly, we don’t know. But it feels right for us (and is increasingly the rule many communities, cities, and entire states). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Outdoor b</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ike rides and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">neighborhood </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">walks to break the monotony </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">are encouraged but we consciously </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">maintain the recommended six-foot distance </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">from</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> friends and neighbors</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> we see on the street</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Especially those neighbors who</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> share</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> long</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">seemingly </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pointless</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> stories and aren’t good at reading social cues. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Currently, in </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my state of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Maryland, bars, restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters have been ordered closed and we limit trips to the grocery and liquor stores. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">But Governor Hogan, please consider this notice: if you </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">shut down the liquor stores, I will riot in the streets</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">careful</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, of course,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">maintain</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> a six-foo</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t distance from </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fellow rioters</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My wife and I are</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> fortunate</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in many ways</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Our jobs are </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">not in danger. W</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e are both able to work from home. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We have healthy immune systems. We’re old, but not </span><span class="s2" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">at increased risk to die from COVID-19</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> old. And we have good kids even if at times they will</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">literally</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> fart on us when we</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> tell them to pick up their dirty clothes. I plan to spend more time blogging during my confinement because it helps me organize my thinking and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">maybe</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> share experiences </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">with similarly situated friends. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">For instance, I have some thoughts about </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">what it’s like to work in the same space as your spouse. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">You can </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">learn a lot about a person </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">when you are forced to hear them talk on conference calls 1</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">0 hours a day.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I also have thoughts about sheltering in place with someone who </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">has already ordered a rototiller and ingredients to make</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> ou</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">r own hand sanitizer </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">from Amazon</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">What is happening? </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We are</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> not the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fucking Little H</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ouse on the Prairie</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Or maybe that’s where all of this is heading. Stay tuned. Maybe you can use our rototiller to start your victory garden in exchange for a roll of </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">toilet paper.</span></span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-48752118558764929292019-06-06T16:55:00.000-07:002019-08-19T20:37:21.189-07:00Letting go<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 17px;">It’s May 3, 2001 and outside it’s snowing. Nothing unusual for Laramie, Wyoming. I remember it only because I am watching the swirling, drifting snow from the window of the maternity wing of Ivinson Memorial Hospital while holding my newborn daughter. My first moments as a father. She arrived in the middle of finals during my final year of law school. But I’m not thinking about that. I want nothing more than to hold this baby girl.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s September 11, 2001, a brisk but sunny fall morning in Laramie. Four months have passed. Law school is done. I’ve passed the bar. Summer is over. I’m preparing to leave for Washington, D.C., in a few weeks to start my first job out of law school. Today, though I am home with my infant daughter while Carissa, my wife, is at work. I roll out of bed, check the baby, start a pot of coffee, turn on the television. ESPN has been preempted by ABC news. The screen shows a video clip of a jet flying into a tall building in New York City. Nobody seems to know what is happening. I go upstairs and lift my daughter from her crib. I return to the television to watch the news and try to understand where and what and why. </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">I hold my daughter <a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://3" style="color: black; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.258824);" x-apple-data-detectors-result="3" x-apple-data-detectors-type="misc" x-apple-data-detectors="true">while she sleeps</a> and whisper everything will be alright even though I don’t know that to be true..</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">She’s two and a half. We’re living in Boise, Idaho. She’s cuddled beside me on the couch while I read from her favorite book. She’s silently mouthing the words as I read aloud. When my mind wanders and I omit a portion of the text, she tugs my sleeve and corrects my error. . . . She’s five. She beats me at chess for the first time. I’m proud of her, a little embarrassed for myself. . . . She’s eight. We’re in the front seat of my pickup. She wants to talk about underlying causes of the Civil War and the meaning of <a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://4" style="color: black; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.258824);" x-apple-data-detectors-result="4" x-apple-data-detectors-type="misc" x-apple-data-detectors="true">Johnny Cash</a> lyrics. . . .She’s six or eight or ten. We’re traveling to piano lessons, basketball practice, soccer games, to the ski slopes, to summer backpacking trips where we fish for trout in alpine lakes and snuggle beside campfires roasting misshapen marshmallows retrieved from our packs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s February, 2013. Cold and gray, winter inversion season in Boise. She’s 12 and on the couch, angry, sobbing. She’s just learned she’s moving back to her temporary childhood residence of Washington, D.C., a place of which she has no memory, away from her friends, away from her home. She does not want to be held, she says. She does not want to be comforted by the parents who caused this to happen. We hold her anyway, offering reassurances. Promising her that everything will be alright. We hope we are right. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">She is 13, 15, 17. She adapts to her new home in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., slowly at first and then finds her footing. Academic summer camps. A growing circle of friends. Drivers license. Varsity athlete. Student newspaper writer and editor. A bushel of AP classes. Solo travel to Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle, to visit family. Coaching youth basketball teams. Babysitting. College visits and applications. Senior prom (she’s stunning).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Stop. Exhale. It’s June 2019 and the mid atlantic region is transitioning from spring to summer. A change of seasons. Last month she turned 18. Today she graduates high school. In August she starts college a thousand miles from home with a full-tuition scholarship and honors program invitation. She’s a picture of strength and grace and beauty. Intellectually curious. Self-motivated. Wicked sense of humor. When she tells me she will one day burn the patriarchy to the ground, I don’t know whether to laugh at her audacity or to laugh nervously and wonder about the long-term security of my societal status. Or both.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">I often tell my daughter that my job as a parent is to prepare her to not need me. To be self-reliant, competent, capable, independent. The hard irony, of course, is that I don’t want her to </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">not</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> need me. I want to comfort her and protect her the way I could when she was an infant. To hold her and whisper that everything will be alright.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">But the hard truth is that she’s ready whether I am or not. So I will remind myself that this is not the ending. Today is the start of our next chapter, the second act. And I expect more chances to celebrate her accomplishments and maybe even be a shoulder for her to lean on from time to time. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Today, though, if feels like I need the shoulder and someone to tell me everything will be alright.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Love you, kid.</span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-48979195529551556782018-10-27T07:29:00.001-07:002018-10-28T08:05:53.468-07:00Nebraska isn't for everyone.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.284; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nebraska officials recently announced a new campaign centered on a slogan designed to sexy up its underwhelming reputation as a tourism destination: The new slogan designed to sexy up Nebraska for tourists? </span><span style="color: #222222; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly, it’s not for everyone.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fNbN6BcYzK00Mx7WpwAsZVt7F18MlxdHZNEvvHjT88QCWf7to0krscieWpstOiOG5Ia5TkT7C_fCrkZsQ4bSSkHk4i7JoRXlx1M65hnBCgvvx8DTuHd9ceGQ6PUdhsTdxJNPlOuJ-Lcs/s1600/D6FC37E4-7429-49E3-B20D-48685ACE062B.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="1200" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fNbN6BcYzK00Mx7WpwAsZVt7F18MlxdHZNEvvHjT88QCWf7to0krscieWpstOiOG5Ia5TkT7C_fCrkZsQ4bSSkHk4i7JoRXlx1M65hnBCgvvx8DTuHd9ceGQ6PUdhsTdxJNPlOuJ-Lcs/s320/D6FC37E4-7429-49E3-B20D-48685ACE062B.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly. That’s the slogan. </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9ZuJ9vl3V0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not everyone believes “it’s not for everyone” is a good slogan</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Some Nebraskans </span><a href="https://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/state-s-new-tourism-tagline-prompts-a-deluge-of-comments/article_7ba88616-e4e1-5f70-933b-51c72c56ce65.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">even believe this slogan is a thing that is unholy</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, like the 1994 Orange Bowl or the first six games of the University of Nebraska’s 2018 football season. But you know what? Those people are idiots. The slogan is brilliant! And I should know. Not only did I spend a good chunk of my 20s in the Cornhusker State as a journalist, I also met and married my Nebraska-born-and-raised wife there. Our romance began at a Nebraskaland Days rodeo dance in North Platte. She asked me to marry her in a canoe on the Niobrara River (she disputes this but it is true). I’ve watched College World Series baseball in Omaha, covered high school football in Grant, written about the Ogallala aquifer and ethanol plants, attended a wedding in York and bachelor parties in Lincoln, fed cattle at my in-laws’ ranch in Garden County, walked in wagon wheel ruts left by Oregon Trail settlers at Windlass Hill and Chimney Rock. I even discovered the best prime rib in America at Butch’s Steakhouse in a Quonset hut off U.S. Highway 30 in Hershey.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that’s only partially why I am the most uniquely qualified person in all the world to comment on Nebraska’s new tourism slogan. <a href="https://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2012/09/idaho-isnt-for-everyone.html">You see, a few years ago I wrote a love letter to my home state of Idaho in the form of a blog post.</a> The post was my response, delivered years after the fact, to a woman, a senior government official, who pretentiously “apologized” to me when she learned that I was transferring for work from Washington, D.C., to Boise, Idaho. “Eww. I’m sorry,” she said. She grimaced as if she had caught a whiff of something unpleasant. As my Aunt Jean might put it, the woman acted as if she was holding a turd on her upper lip. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I wanted to do in that moment was crush her arrogance with my superior wit and devastating rhetoric. What I actually did in that moment was mumble awkwardly about looking forward to the opportunity, that I was from Idaho and happily escaping the big city to return to my roots. Weak! So obviously I devoted considerable time over the subsequent years to coming up with what I should have said. I had an epiphany on a backpack/fishing trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains while drinking cocktails around a campfire with buddies. “You’re right,” I told my antagonist in this version of my story, smiling smugly and replying sweetly. “You probably wouldn’t like it. Idaho isn’t for everyone.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nebraska’s slogan works basically the same way. It concedes the fact that Nebraska is not high on most - but not all - people’s list of top tourist destinations. That’s the point. Yes, it says, we recognize that we don’t have a national park or a world famous city. We lack ski resorts and our Lake McConaughy sandy beaches can’t compete with Florida (or even Delaware). No destination amusement parks. We’re too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. And don’t get me started on the wind! Also, we’re a long way from population centers on both coasts. These are facts and if you’re the type of person who can’t get past this, well, honestly? Nebraska is not for you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Put another way, if you’re the kind of </span><s><span style="color: red;">superficial snob</span></s><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: red; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">traveler</span><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> who needs to be dazzled and entertained, that’s what Orlando and Times Square are for. But if you’re looking for authentic experiences, if you’re curious-minded enough to try something different, why not Nebraska? History nerds intrigued by the Oregon Trail? </span><a href="https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ne-plattevalleyoregontrail/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We got you covered.</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Bird enthusiasts experiencing the spectacle of 600,000 Sandhills Crane fueling up on Nebraska cornfields for their northern migration? </span><a href="https://visitkearney.org/sandhill-cranes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Check</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Quirky roadside attractions? Hello, </span><a href="http://carhenge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carhenge</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://www.pioneervillage.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pioneer Village</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">! And while it might not be for everyone, only the most insufferable elites would ever regret exposing themselves to a small town 4th of July parade and rodeo or a county fair.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look. If you’re coming up with a tourism slogan for Nebraska, the reality is that Nebraska does not have the advantages of California. But it has something California does not. Carhenge, yes, but also relative obscurity! But that is an advantage if you find those specific travelers who are looking for something, well, relatively obscure. And fresh and different. Travelers who return home and tell pretentious neighbors at cocktail parties in elite enclaves that they probably wouldn’t like Nebraska. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly. It’s not for everyone</span><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">BONUS POST</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FREE IDEA FOR NEBRASKA TOURISM OFFICIALS: </span><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj4kpm/nebraska-tourism-slogan-honestly-its-not-for-everyone-perfect-vgtrn" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rather than pay a Colorado marketing firm to create your tourism campaign</span></a><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, I hereby grant to Nebraska tourism officials a free idea that is certain to boost visitor numbers and revenue: Go after affluent parents! In my corner of the East Coast, wealthy parents are willing to pay big money for their children to have “authentic experiences” that look good on applications to elite colleges. They understand that admissions officers will look favorably on only so many essays about teenagers going to Haiti to help a community, only to discover that it was the Haitian community that helped them learn something about themselves. Imagine a program where rich kids can spend three weeks detasseling corn at the Senator Ben Sasse Lofty Rhetoric Leadership Academy. Yale just might be interested in a prep school kid exposed to honest labor in the Heartland. But wait! There’s mor</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">e: </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nebraska Storm Chaser Experience, a
two-week summer camp where kids ride along in rugged vehicles loaded with
gadgets looking for tornadoes. </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And what prestigious college wouldn’t be impressed by an applicant deputized as a </span><a href="https://goo.gl/images/zNyaD9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“cattle guard”</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> though a special Nebraska Cattle Association in</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">teractive program? Alternatively, learn bovine sciences and the chemical and biological properties of "muck" in a Nebraska cattle feedlot at the "Smells Like Money" work-study program. Or, for the right price (and a signed waiver and full indemnification agreement), my brother-in-law might even let a kid drive a tractor over his summer fallow. This is a potentially lucrative cash stream. Act soon before Iowa or Kansas grab this model. </span></span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-68104583587306525672018-05-26T13:23:00.000-07:002018-05-26T13:23:44.996-07:008 simple things I suck at<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />Dissenters may exist, but I generally believe myself to be of reasonable competence and fair to middling intelligence. To earn my keep, I’ve engaged in everything from shoveling pig shit to dispensing legal advice. They’re similar, yes, except 1) the work environment is generally more pleasant in a barn full of hogs, and 2) a good hot shower can rinse off most of the stink. But I digress. The point is, I’ve managed to acquire a relatively wide range of life experiences over the past half century or so and these varied experiences generally serve me well in navigating simple day-to-day challenges. While I don’t claim to be MacGyver, give me enough baling wire and duct tape and I can get shit done.<a name='more'></a></blockquote>
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Nonetheless, certain life challenges remain beyond my reach, even if most folks seem to grasp them with little or no effort. Perhaps for the same reason that I count steps whenever I ascend or descend flights of stairs or record when, where, and how many miles I run annually, I am compelled to track simple things that I suck at. Here is my current catalog of those things:</blockquote>
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<b>1. Using “begs the question” in proper context. </b>The best I’ve been able to muster is that the phrase “begs the question” is not the same as “raises the question.” And I hate/want to be one of those pretentious jack-ass pedants who can’t resist playing the “well, actually . . .” card whenever someone not steeped in the arcane arts of philosophy and logic misuse the phrase. A free Straight Outta Boise T-shirt to anyone who can explain this to me in 50 words or less.* </blockquote>
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<b>2. Understanding “offside” rule in soccer.</b> I never played soccer but have watched my daughters play the game a hundred times. Probably more. Gradually, over the years, I’ve come to understand that the game is much more than running in a pack while chase a ball. There are different position! Players have different roles! They run plays! Also, there are rules. I’m still working on those. I understand that depending on who touches the ball before it goes out of bounds, it may be a corner kick or a goal kick. Is that right? I think that’s right. But the “offside” rule continues to baffle. It has something to do with the offensive player receiving the ball behind the deepest defender? All I know is that when a whistle blows and I don’t know why, and another parent asks what happened, I say: “Looks like it was offside.”</blockquote>
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<b>3. Using electric power drill screwdriver function. </b>More specifically, how to use my electric power drill as a screwdriver without stripping the shit out of screw heads? Because I strip the shit out of screw heads. Every. Damn. Time.</blockquote>
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<b>4. Cooking easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs. </b>Hard-boiled eggs are good AND good for you. But I don’t always have 15 minutes to pick crushed shards of calcium carbonate crystals off my morning protein source. Please understand that I have studied ancient texts and modern food science for the fool-proof method to preparing HBEs so that the bond between shell and egg magically dissipates when gently pinched by forefinger and thumb. But my HBEs still shatter and splinter into an intricate mosaic of itty-bitty, crystalline pieces resembling a puzzle-map of gerrymandered Maryland congressional districts. I’ve tried adding salt to the water. Vinegar. Boiling longer. Boiling less. Cooling on ice. Leaving in pan longer. Nope, nope, and nope. Still need extra-long fingernails or tweezers to peel my HBEs.</blockquote>
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<b>5. Signing special occasion cards at office.</b> Or writing a note in any type of card of congratulation or condolence, to be honest. Folks don’t fully appreciate how difficult it is to attempt earnestness or sincerity when your life is built on a foundation of sarcasm and irony. If I write something nice, will recipients assume I mean the opposite? Will “Have a Happy Retirement and thank you for all you have done for the office Kathy” cause Kathy to roll her eyes, stick a finger in her mouth and pretend-gag? Probably. But what if I stay true to myself and write “Hey Kathy now you have more time to get drunk and post racist memes on facebook!!” as an inside joke because Kathy and I often, in private, mock our colleague Roger whose late night social media habits have a certain vibe to them? What if Kathy doesn’t pick up on the joke? Or what if Roger does?</blockquote>
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<b>6. Spinning basketball on fingertip. </b> I can curl my tongue into a taco. Wiggle my ears. Raise one eyebrow. Do the split-fingered live-long-and-prosper Vulcan salute. Pat my head and rub my belly (and vice versa). I’ve wasted hours over the course of a lifetime attempting unsuccessfully to spin a basketball on my fingertips.</blockquote>
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<b>7. Correlating names with faces of daughter’s friends.</b> Maybe it’s a vowel thing, or a too-much-Irish-whiskey thing, or simply a getting-too-old thing, but I struggle to connect names with faces of my 10-year-old daughter’s friends. One would assume that when you see the same kids and hear the same name repeatedly, an association would form. In my case, one would assume wrong. These girls play soccer and basketball with my daughter, I see them at my house, at the neighborhood pool, at the bus stop, hear them discussed in terms of playdate demands or schoolyard drama. But I can’t make the name-face connection. I like to think it’s the vowel thing and that whiskey and age are non-factors. Think about it. Every single fourth grade girl in my daughter’s school have name that begin and end with vowels. It at least feels like every single one. Elisa, Aliza, Anya, Ava, Eva, Elaina, three Olivias – there are probably more but I can feel a manic attack coming on so I have to stop thinking. I don’t have boys but I image that if I did I would have similar struggles with the Ians, Ethans, Elis, Aidens, Alexes, and Olivers that populate the fourth grade in our leafy mid-Atlantic suburban school system. What’s with all the vowel names? A slightly off-topic/not-off-topic thing by Drew Magary (another Bethesda dad!), in GQ magazine: <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/white-baby-names-2018">Why are my fellow whites still so awful at naming babies?</a></blockquote>
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<b>8. Avoiding awkward texting. </b> I communicate almost exclusively by text messaging these days – phone calls and email are tedious and inefficient, a position I share with the millennial in your life. So you’d assume I’d be good at texting. Once again, you would assume wrong. I am not good at texting. I’m not talking about embarrassing auto-corrects and thumb-induced typos, of which I am often guilt. I’m talking about my habit of responding to text messages without confirming that when I hit “send” my message is on the right thread and going to the right audience. I’ve sent political rants to parents in the soccer carpool text group. I’ve awaken in a Sacramento hotel room while traveling for work and texted, instead of Carissa, my wife, a group of buddies planning an upcoming backpacking trip to announce that I’d enjoyed a great night’s sleep and that I loved and missed them. Likewise, I’ve texted a client, a former college football offensive lineman and PhD fisheries biologist, a quick “I love you” message. Sorry John, that was a mistake. I like you, but professional standards demand that we maintain appropriate boundaries.</blockquote>
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This list could be much longer. I am a work in progress. Or maybe a work in decline? Oh God. Maybe I’m regressing! But it’s good, I think, to be honest with ourselves from time to time and call out by name those things that make us human. Consider this a small effort to remind myself of my own humility. And that I should search for a YouTube video on how to spin a basketball on my fingertip.<br /><br /><br />*If we e<span style="caret-color: rgb(38, 40, 42); color: #26282a; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">ver print up any Straight Outta Boise T-shirts and if I remember. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Employees or family of Straight Outta Boise not eligible. </span></blockquote>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-91376225591165144552017-12-21T18:21:00.000-08:002017-12-21T18:27:35.070-08:00A Christmas Story<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Every great
story has a villain. Christmas stories are no exception. Remember King Herod?
Ebenezer Scrooge? </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/settling-the-argument-once-for-all-why-die-hard-absolutely-is-a-christmas-movie/"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hans Gruber</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">? The burglars from <i>Home Alone</i>? This year, our family has its
own Christmas Story. And it brings me no pleasure to confess that the Grinch of
our story is me. Or at least it was.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To
understand our Christmas Story, some context is useful. Our family of four is
heading into its fifth year of urban exile in Washington, D.C., a consequence of chasing career opportunities. This holiday season we can reflect
and be grateful that we have been genuinely blessed again this year. And by “genuinely
blessed” I mean we live every day of every week of every month pretending that
we are successfully navigating work, school, activities, and other elements of
everyday life while in reality we’re just running around like our clothes are
on fire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Google
family calendar app has become our touchstone in the struggle to look like we
have our shit together. My wife, Carissa, is the driver behind adopting this
technology, and nothing triggers the Wrath of Carissa</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">™ like failure to enter all relevant data into
the family calendar app, the kids and I have learned</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">. Likewise, failure to check the
family calendar before asking about the day’s agenda will trigger the Wrath of
Carissa</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">™, we have learned: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me
[sets down fork while eating breakfast and reading news]: <i>Who’s driving Kendley’s soccer carpool Wednesday and what time is Sydney’s
basketball game tomorrow night? And can you remind me which days you’re in
Nashville next week?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Carissa
[looks up from loading 2018 kids dentist appointments into family calendar
app]: <i>You’re [expletive deleted] kidding me,
right? Check the family [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] calendar for your
[expletive deleted] self. How many [expletive deleted] time do I need to
[expletive deleted] explain this to you?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me
[turns slowly to camera]: ><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/3ELtfmA4Apkju/html5">blink</a><</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So she can
be annoying as hell about the family calendar situation. To be fair, though,
any successful family calendar requires an enforcer to be effective, and
Carissa is that enforcer. With our family calendar app and the Wrath of Carissa</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">™ we still may be</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> running around like our clothes are
on fire. But we’re running in the right direction. The last thing we need is an
additional distraction</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Which brings
us to our story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For many
years I’ve held a hard “no pets” line. We don’t have time to be responsible pet
owners because, well, check the [expletive deleted] family calendar for
yourself. Pets don’t fit our lifestyle. Plus I rage at my kids plenty already; I
don’t want to rage at them over walking the dog or emptying a litter box too. Also,
pets shed hair. They stink and make the house smell bad. They claw curtains and
couches and chew shoes. They climb onto counter tops and dig through garbage.
They piss, puke, and poop where they shouldn’t. They get sick and rack up vet
bills. They require someone to care for them when we are out of town. Pets are
fine, they’re just not for us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The issue
first emerged within our family unit about a decade ago, when our now 16-year-old
daughter, Sydney, started nagging us for a puppy or kitten. No pets, I told
her. Ever. Full stop. She persisted with her demands but about this time
Carissa found out she was pregnant with our second daughter. So we said: <i>How about a baby sister instead?</i> After
some thought, our little scam worked and she picked little sister over pet. And that was that, at least for a while anyway. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps more
important than the villain, a good story needs a hero. Which brings us to the
the little sister, Kendley. She is now nine and has many admirable
traits. She’s kind, generous, a reliable friend. But for the purpose of this
story, you need to know that she is one of those kids who can be described as
“strong-willed.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She has been low-key working me on her desire for a pet –
specifically a cat – for most of her life. But this fall something changed.
Maybe a friend got a cat and solidified her thinking on the matter, I’m not
sure. But her thinking did in fact solidify until she became a living
manifestation of Wurzite boron nitride, a synthetic compound that is harder
than diamond. She resolved to bore through my layers of resistance and persuade
me that she deserved a cat. She researched cats on the world wide web and wrote
reports. She developed responses for my every objection. She made promises. She
issued threats. She raged. She cajoled. She conspired, recruiting her mother
and sister to her cause. She. Would. Not. Stop. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was
exhausting. There’s no way we’re having another kid, so I came up with an
alternative scheme to put off her relentless push: I made her a deal. She had
three months to show me that she could be responsible and mature enough to care
for a cat without the need for prompting or scolding. If she accepted the challenge and successfully
demonstrated her capacity to pick up after herself, cheerfully accept
additional household chores, complete homework and piano practice without
prompting, I would consider her rebuttals to my additional concerns. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In other
words, she’d won. Kendley had worn me down and I was reduced to delaying
tactics, buying myself time to adjust to the idea of life with a cat in the
house. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the
Friday after Thanksgiving, we picked up Cali, a two-year-old Calico rescue cat
who had been in foster care for the past 10 months. After searching online shelter
sites and visiting Cali’s foster home, the girls and Carissa fell immediately
in love. We agreed that Cali would be the family’s cat, but we all acknowledged
that Kendley’s persistence made it possible. Cali holds herself with typical
feline aloofness: she decides when and if she interacts with human interlopers.
But she’s also playful, loves exploring her new home, sleeps with Kendley at
night, and hops in laps and purrs when the mood strikes her. She’s a perfect
fit for our family. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’m not
saying my Grinch heart grew three sizes with the addition of Cali to our family.
But I will say that when Cali jumps in my lap when I’m sitting by the fire
trying to finish a work email on my laptop, I don’t push her off.</span></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-84732166620514167722017-08-13T09:38:00.000-07:002017-08-13T10:14:28.691-07:00Road Trip <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We began our journey early in the morning on the 4th of
July. A father-daughter road trip, the start of a grand American experience.
The cross-over SUV was fully fueled and packed. Riding shotgun is the 52-year-old
dad in a Mariner’s baseball cap, cargo shorts, a UPF +50 button-up shirt, and
the low-top Converse sneakers he wears when his wife isn’t there to give him
that look that says he’s too old for Chuck Taylors. The 16-year-old daughter is
behind the wheel, tank top and denim shorts, her own hat slung low over her brow,
perhaps to avoid recognition. The possibilities of the open road beckoned.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That’s not exactly right. We live inside the infamous
Washington, D.C., Beltway – also known as Interstate 495 – and even at 7 a.m.
on a national holiday there is no “open road” to beckon us road trippers.
Nonetheless, traffic was relatively light and the 16-year-old needed road time
with a licensed adult to become eligible for a driver’s license of her own. This
was one of the reasons we were driving the 1,700+ miles to South Dakota, to
meet up with my wife and younger daughter, who were flying to Rapid City, the
jump-off point for our summer vacation. But first, the teen and I had to cross
five lanes of hurtling Beltway traffic to reach the left-lane exit to I-270
West, which would propel us away from D.C. In heavy traffic, this crossing feels
like a real-life version of the video game “Frogger.” In light traffic with a
rookie driver, it feels like a terrible endless dream where I scream over and
over “YOU HAVE TO HEAD-CHECK WHEN YOU SWITCH LANES! YOU NEED TO SLOW DOWN! OH
MY GOD WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We escaped the Beltway without physical or lasting emotional
harm and formerly rookie driver soon was navigating interstate traffic, not
exactly with ease, but with competence. She also was a good hand at
road-tripping. I’m biased, naturally, but for a kid, she’s pretty cool. And by
“cool” I mean “nerdy.” She can be ironic and snarky, so we understand each
other’s language. She’s a voracious reader, follows current world affairs,
isn’t afraid to voice an opinion, willing to engage in free-wheeling debate. She
even – on occasion – will laugh at my dad jokes. Even better, when driving she
couldn’t disappear into her smart phone and avoid my attempts to pry into her
world. (“<i>Tell me again how Snapchat
works.</i>” “<i>You’re saying that it’s
acceptable to use ‘they’ as a gender-neutral singular pronoun</i>?” “<i>Am I appropriating culture by cooking ethnic
foods in my home?</i>” “<i>Would you rather
fight one 100-foot tall Stephen King or 100 one-foot tall Stephen Kings</i>?” “<i>But what if it’s not an allegory and it’s
just a story about boys alone on an island getting into a little mischief</i>?”
“<i>They made a movie about emojis? You’re
fucking with me, right?</i>”). As it turns out, there really is a movie about
emojis. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Successful road trips, however, must be more than esoteric
discussions and lame dad jokes. Successful road trips require planning with a
good mix of random happenings. Here are a few of our highlights:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day 1 – Bethesda, Maryland, to Ann Arbor, Michigan (500 miles)<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>America, the
Soundtrack</b>: The importance of music to a successful road trip cannot be
overstated. We spent Independence Day on the road and the 16-year-old was all
over the July 4 Road Trip Playlist. The selection included: <i>American Girl</i> (Tom Petty), <i>American Idiot</i> (Green Day), <i>American Woman</i> (Lenny Kravitz), <i>Angry American</i> (Toby Keith), <i>American Pie</i> (Don McLean), <i>Back in the</i> <i>USA</i> (Berry), <i>Born in the USA</i>
(Bruce Springsteen), <i>Party in the USA</i>
(Miley Cyrus), <i>Surfin’ USA</i> (Beach
Boys), <i>I’ve Been Everywhere </i>(Johnny Cash),
<i>The Road Goes on Forever</i> (Robert Earl
Keen), <i>Country Roads</i> (John Denver), <i>Copperhead Road</i> (Steve Earle), <i>On the Road Again</i> (Willie Nelson), <i>LA Freeway</i> (Guy Clark). That’s how you
do a July 4 Road Trip Playlist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Milestones:</b> I
keep track of things. These things I track may seem trivial, but to me they are
threads that help tether me to my version of reality. Like how many miles I ran
in 2010 (1,358) or how many states I’ve lived in since birth (10). I mention
this because you can drive to South Dakota from Bethesda without going through the
state of Michigan. But not if you’ve never 1) spent the night in or 2) logged running
miles (not counting Detroit airport) in the state Michigan. A little out of the
way, but <i>check</i> (41st state with
overnight stay) and <i>check</i> (36th state
with running miles logged). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day 2 – Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Chicago, Illinois (290 miles)<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Baseball:</b> We left
Ann Arbor early because we had tickets for an afternoon game at Wrigley Field (9th
ballpark visit) to watch the Chicago Cubs play the Tampa Bay Rays. Dad’s advice
to bring a hat and put on sunscreen was ignored with a partially successful
outcome. After watching my daughter squint into the sun while we waited for the
first pitch, I caved and dropped $30 on a Cubs cap to keep the sun off her face.
Nonetheless, there were no Cubs pants for sale to keep the sun off the unprotected
tops of her legs and she earned the sunburn to prove it. Oh, and the Cubs came
back from a 3-0 deficit in the 6th inning to win 7-3. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Food</b>: Chicago is
one of my favorite food towns because Chicago believes in big food. Before the Cubs
game we ate lunch at a place near Wrigley named Lucky Sandwich Co., which had
been featured on an episode of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNMHjkP0uR4"><i>Man v. Food</i></a><i>,</i> a show
about a guy (hero?) whose job is to eat a lot of food. By any estimation, the
sandwiches at Lucky’s are huge and are served with fries and coleslaw. On the
inside. <i>Man v. Food</i> guy ate three. I
finished one sandwich plus two beers and then fought the urge to nap through the
first three innings of the baseball game. Post-game I made a comeback in time
to travel downtown for deep dish pizza at Gino’s East. Obviously we ordered the
one named “Meaty Legend.” The cornbread crust was nice too. We ordered a large
so we would have leftovers for breakfast. We then went back to the hotel and
slumped into Chicago-induced food comas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day 3, Chicago, Illinois, to Fairmont, Minnesota (450 miles)<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>College</b> <b>Daze</b>: My daughter soon starts her
junior year in high school so there is plenty of time to start thinking about
college later. That’s her attitude. Her parents, meanwhile, are freaking out
because she has about a year before making decisions that will in many ways
determine the rest of her life and SHE NEEDS TO GET HER SHIT TOGETHER ASAP! For
now, though, we are hanging back and allowing her space to operate at her own
pace. Kidding! Of course we did not do that! What we did was start arranging
college visits to correspond with our summer road trip. The good news is she liked
the one college she and I visited on the Bethesda-to-South Dakota leg of the
family vacation. Loved it, even. The bad news is that it was Northwestern
University, a fine, highly selective, private college on the shores of Lake
Michigan with a price tag of about $60,000 per year. To provide some balance,
later in the trip she visited the University of Wyoming, a fine, small, public
university where she qualifies for a tuition discount since both her parents
are alumni. She said it was “nice.” Never test drive the Range Rover of
colleges before the dependable and functional Ford F-150 of colleges. Lesson
learned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Big 5-0</b>:
We left Range Rover U. in the Chicago suburbs at mid-day and soon crossed into
the state of Wisconsin. For reasons explained earlier, this was a major event
because I can stop tracking the number of states visited because Wisconsin made
50. Unless I have missed something, that’s all of them. Even if our non-driving
Wisconsin time amounted to a quick lunch at a truck stop north of Madison. My
life’s purpose can now shift to finding reasons to spend the night in
Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
New Hampshire, and Vermont. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day 4, Fairmont, Minnesota, to Dupree, South Dakota (440 miles)<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Dawes Act of 1887:</b>
I saved something special to share with my teenage daughter on the final day of
our road trip before reaching Dupree, South Dakota (pop. 527) for a family
reunion and its annual Pioneer Days celebration. It was a lecture I had
prepared about the Dawes Act of 1887, also known as the Indian Allotment Act,
also known as How Our White Ancestors Acquired Ranch and Farm Land on the
Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Legal history, American history,
family history all in one package. It was brilliant, to be honest. My daughter
was absolutely blown away probably. I still have my lecture notes and would be
available for book clubs, bachelorette parties, kids’ birthdays, bar mitzvahs –
all kinds of gatherings. Call my agent and we’ll </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">set it up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Later that day we arrived in Dupree where we watched a local
rodeo, attended a small-town parade that featured a horse-powered wagon train
and Native American fancy dancers in town for a powwow, rode ATVs through the
streets, and hung out with assorted cousins, aunts, and uncles. We also helped
kill a rattle snake.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The best thing about our road trip was the time I could
spend with my daughter. Our shared experience created lasting memories. After a
few weeks out west, my daughter and wife had their own road trip traveling back
to DC while I flew home with my younger daughter. Which meant she and I could
pass time on the flight home planning a road trip of our own. </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-80755185934165512432017-04-08T07:48:00.000-07:002017-04-08T10:19:56.794-07:00It's not you, Country Music, it's me<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dear County Music,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I heard that you featured the Backstreet Boys on one of your
fancy televised award shows the other night and the crowd loved it. The fucking
Backstreet Boys. Are you kidding me? But you know what, County Music? I
ain’t even mad.</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes, there was a time when I would have been insanely outraged
to see you debase yourself in this casual way. We’ve been through a lot
together, you and me. Remember how you would sing to me all summer long though
the AM radio while I endlessly drove that tractor around those dusty dryland
wheat fields? Those rowdy college parties and dive bars? The rodeo dances? That
time my first marriage unraveled? That one night after my dad died and we
stayed up late drinking whiskey? We had us some times, Country Music, yes we
did.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My dad, by the way, introduced us back so long ago I that I
don’t even remember when it happened. You were just always there. He had a
stack of vinyl albums with names like Williams, Snow, Wills, Tubbs, Robbins,
Cash, and Haggard. I spent my formative year seduced by your stories. You were
often sad, lonely, melancholic, but you could also be joyous and angry. You
spoke of bad habits and soured relationships, work that didn’t pay enough,
bills that didn’t get paid at all, rain that never came. You were the poet of
rural folks, the chronicler of the working poor. You spoke in the vernacular
and of the values my grandparents and parents understood. You had your gimmicky
and trite side, too, and often leaned too heavily on nostalgia. But at
your best, you were Truth and you could make magic with just three
chords. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To be honest, I’ve been losing my interest in you for a while,
Country Music. For years, actually. Keith Whitley died. Garth Brooks released a
pop album. No more Merle Haggard on the radio. George Strait was great, of course,
as was Dwight Yoakam, early Reba, and Alan Jackson. The trend, though, began
moving away from songs and toward performers. And the songs were always
what I loved most about you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You’ve also smoothed out some of your rough edges, favoring
pretty voices and Bros in tight jeans, avoiding the risks of saying something interesting. You look nice, but your songs have taken on the character of your
performers. And that’s too bad because the rural folks and working poor who
were your roots have been struggling for a while. You used to make songs that spoke
of those struggles and to those struggling. It seems like a missed opportunity,
that there’s a lot that a song could say about these times.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ll give you this. You still can entertain. You’re still a good
time. But you seem stuck in the rut of promoting the cultural heritage of
socially conservative young southern men who like pickups and bonfires. You
drink the “good stuff” to become the life of the party, never to drown your
sorrows or hide your pain. I guess what I’m saying is the County Music that I
used to know was not exclusively about escapism and celebrating our carefree
younger selves. You used to use songs to search for meaning in this hot mess we call life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But listen to me carrying on. I don’t want to be the guy
complaining about the noise and all the partying. I don’t mean to put the blame on you. There’s nothing wrong with the direction you’ve taken if it
makes you happy. A lot of people love you. You’ll continue to do fine without
me. It’s not your responsibility to make me happy. I guess what I am saying is
that it’s not you, Country Music, it’s me. Goodbye.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">@straightouttaboise<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-78217022244863443662017-02-21T16:01:00.000-08:002017-02-21T16:01:11.534-08:00Ignorance without arrogance<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The other day a hubristic
31-year-old “senior White House official” made a widely televised cringe-worthy
appearance that reminded me that I wanted to write about one of my brothers who
runs a blog titled </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://ignorancewithoutarrogance.blogspot.com/">Ignorance without Arrogance</a></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Don’t worry. His blog is not about politics. Neither is this post.
Judging from daily news events and social media content I’m seeing lately, though, a lot of us
would be served by giving the concept behind the title at least some thought.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The story of the blog starts about seven
years ago when my brother, who I will call “Clay” (I’ve changed his name to
protect his identity – his real name is “Clayton”), accepted a job teaching
elementary school at a remote Yup’ik village in Alaska near the place where the
Yukon River empties into the Bering Sea. And by “remote Yup’ik village” I mean a
village that you can’t get to from here without catching a series of
increasingly smaller aircraft departing from increasingly smaller airports
until eventually it’s just you, a lawnmower engine mounted to a hang-glider on a gravel strip, with an instruction manual and map. Once you arrive at
the village, motorized travel is limited to jet boats in the summer (roughly
the third week of July) and snow machines (what we lower-48er’s call snowmobiles)
the rest of the year.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The origins of his blog (<a href="http://ignorancewithoutarrogance.blogspot.com/">here's the link</a>) most
likely started a few years before his teaching gig in Alaska, back before he
quit his job as a long-haul trucker and went back to college in mid-life to
become a teacher. His initial attempt at college after high school– at three different
colleges, in fact – failed once he finally realized he wasn't going to find one that offered credit for
drinking beer and not attending classes. Out of viable alternatives, he
enlisted in the Navy and spent six years as a submariner in the Pacific,
followed by a series of mostly truck-driving jobs before he realized it wasn’t
too late to go back to college. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">With his brand-new
teaching degree in hand, the opportunity in Alaska was attractive because 1) he
was looking for his first teaching job at the precise moment the entire economy
cratered and school budgets were evaporating and 2) this remote village in
Alaska had a job waiting at a salary that was significantly higher than most
starting teaching jobs in the lower 48. Maybe spending months at a time beneath
the ocean in a submarine and thousands of hours alone looking through the
windshield of an 18-wheeler prepares a person for this kind of a
decision as well. Perhaps it also helped that Clay is married to an incredibly tolerant,
adventuresome, and adaptable partner (who I am calling “Monica” because, well,
that’s her name) who has subsequently finished her education degree and teaches at the same school as Clay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After starting his job as a rookie teacher, Clay began blogging about his
experience in the tiny, isolate village where he was one of the few non-Yup’ik
residents. In fact, nearly the entire village was comprised of Yup’ik natives
except the handful of school teachers cloistered in school-provided apartments
near the school. Nearly all of his students lived in extreme poverty and few
had ventured far from their home village. Fewer would finish high school. His
new community lacked a medical clinic, law enforcement, or even a grocery
store. If you didn’t subsist on seal and salmon, as did many of the villagers,
your food came by air from Amazon Prime and Costco. Further, it was a “dry” village, meaning it was illegal to consume or even possess booze, although that’s rather
an abstract edict in a place where the nearest law enforcement is several hours by air away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The village also
experienced many social problems that are endemic in communities the world over
where poverty is deeply rooted: High unemployment, substance abuse, suicide, domestic
violence, and sexual assault were all-too-routine aspects of village life, and
the consequences did not stop at the classroom doors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But these were not the
circumstances Clay chose to write about. Instead, he writes about the
challenges confronting an outsider navigating the nuances of a new culture. He
writes about the joy and energy he discovers in the classroom. He pokes fun at his
inexperience and highlights classroom antics that elementary school teachers
everywhere might recognize. He works in enough of the difficult challenges
of teaching in a remote Alaskan village that his blog can be read as an
essential “what to expect” classroom guide for any teacher in the lower 48
entertaining similar ambitions. But, again, that is not the focus of the blog and
he has not attempted to moralize or otherwise pass judgment on the social
challenges experienced by his students and their community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When he first told me about the title of his blog, I didn't get it. <i>Ignorance
without Arrogance</i>. Could you not imagine a duller title for a blog? WTF
does that even <i>mean</i>? Did you not run this by a <i>focus group</i>? Was your goal to encourage people <i>not</i> to
read about your experiences? How does ignorance and arrogance relate to a new
teacher arriving in the Alaska bush attempting to teach Yup’ik elementary kids
to read, write, and solve math functions? Were you drinking homemade hooch from
a 5-gallon bucket in the back room when you came up with this title?</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">Of course</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, with a little thought, the
title of the blog has everything to do with an outsider moving into an Alaska
village to teach native kids. Failing to consider that fact was the
result of my own ignorance and arrogance. Rather than writing about the
dysfunction and deprivation of his new community - the more salacious and “clickable”
aspects of his new situation - he focused on interactions with students
and his new community. He didn’t express pity or
despair or contempt. He didn’t insert himself into the story as the hero, changing lives one student at a time. He wasn’t condescending or paternalistic. He
wrote about his students as they were – curious and intelligent and teaching
him about the world as much as he was teaching them.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Teacher turnover in
remote native Alaskan villages is high. That Clay and Monica are still there
after seven years is testament to their dedication. As is the fact that they are not worn down
or cynical or despairing about the challenges of teaching kids who seldom enjoy
the luxury of making academic performance a priority. The truth is that they, like
many of their peers, are not in “receive mode” waiting to for administrators to
tell them how to reach their students. They do it because they believe the kids are worth it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Clay and Monica, as teachers, are unique in where they teach and in some of the challenges they work with on a daily basis, but in other ways they are more like many teachers that we all know. They are examples of why teaching is a profession, and often a calling as well. Not all of us are suited for the job. The best
teachers recognize that their own ignorance is a learning opportunity in
disguise and use that knowledge to become better teachers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That doesn’t apply just to
teachers. All of us could benefit by a lot more ignorance without arrogance in these times. </span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-77113181787712548712016-12-24T10:02:00.002-08:002016-12-26T11:31:19.036-08:00Letters to an advice columnist<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I’m not the kind of person who sends letters to
newspaper advice columnists. I’m the kind of person who writes letters to
newspaper advice columnists but never sends them. Here is a collection of
letters I have written but never sent to Washington
Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax:</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Is it weird that I fantasize about living apart from my wife
and children? I don’t want to abandon them. I love them and can’t imagine
living without the sense of purpose and wonder they instill in me each day of my life. But at times I want to listen to the music I want, watch the
television and movies I want, use the toilet without interruption, revel in the
luxury of finishing whatever I’m reading without interruption. Simple things
like that. At the same time, I also want to maintain my relationship with my family. My idea is a
“dad pad” in the back yard, a simple studio-style apartment with a modern,
high-end kitchen (I enjoy cooking for my family), comfortable chair for reading
and watching television, a couch for guests, and a television that occupies an
entire wall. Also, a kick-ass sound system and a deck for grilling and smoking
meat. My wife and kids would be welcome to come any time they wanted. I would
continue to drive kids to sports practices and other activities, help them with
homework, take out the trash from the main house and my dad pad, and other
duties that contribute to the well-being of those I love. My family is amazing,
don’t get me wrong. It's just that I sometimes I am overcome by a general sense of twitchiness and crave a safe space to occupy. How should I broach this subject with my
wife (who would have an open invitation to spend the night when she wanted)?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <b>***</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My wife read my letter to you and thinks that it is "weird" and "too long." Usually I trust her instincts but this time I'm not so sure. Is it coincidence that her criticism comes shortly after she asked me what I thought of a new coat she had purchased (on sale) and I panicked and blurted that it was "weird" and "too long"?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>***<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Who is the bigger monster: pet owners who neglect to pick up their dogs' crap when it poops on my lawn or grocery shoppers who pay by check <i>and</i> neglect to dig their checkbook out until tab is totaled? People
who text while walking on public sidewalks or wait-staff who are all chatty and attentive up front
and then disappear when the kids are fussy and you’re ready for the check?
Vegans or Cross-Fitters? Colleagues who needlessly reply-to-all when emailing
or people who leave voice messages that would have been texted? Who am I missing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>***</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I’m always right and sometimes people – even people I love
and respect – fail to see that I am right. I’m not asking for advice, I
just need you to know the situation in case my wife or kids write to
you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>***</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I made a joke in public at the expense of one of my
neighbors (I mistakenly believed his beard was intentionally ironic)
and now it’s awkward every time we encounter one another at school bus stop or
other neighborhood gatherings. He lets on like it doesn’t bother him, but deep
down, I know he resents me and given the opportunity, I’m convinced he would
try to physically harm me. Should I confront him, or go to the authorities and
seek a restraining order?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <b>***</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My eight-year-old daughter received a participation trophy
at the conclusion of her youth recreational soccer season. I was outraged and
took the participation trophy away from her, doused it with lighter fluid, and
burned it in the backyard. It took a while because hard plastic does not burn
quickly. Also, it doesn’t burn all the way, it just melts into a smoldering lump.
My daughter cried and cried while her participation trophy burned. But I held
her tight and explained that you don’t get participation trophies in real life.
Now she doesn’t want to play soccer anymore. What is wrong with children these
days?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>***</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I recently discovered that my teenage daughter is writing "fake news" for one of those website you regularly see on your social media news feeds that are corrosive to social discourse and weaken institutional pillars of our democracy. What she's writing also contributes to partisan cynicism and dangerously inflames rhetoric in a politically unstable environment. But she's talented at what she does and, for a high school kid, is making serious money. Serious enough to make significant contributions to her college education. Also, she writes from a political perspective that is consistent with my belief system. My wife thinks we should make her stop, but I'm not seeing the problem. How do we resolve this issue? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <b> ***</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To be honest, I am hesitant to share my real issues (gluttony, that recurring dream where I am buying a Sherlock Holmes style pipe that is somehow an app for my smartphone, that feeling that my short-term memory is drifting away, shouting at the television when cable news is on, <i>etc</i>.) in letters to a newspaper, even when I don't actually send those letters, and even when I'm sending them to you. I bet you get that a lot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <b> ***</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Carolyn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Been doing some soul searching. You always say that it is best to be honest with yourself
and with others about what you need to be happy. Well, there’s no easy way to
say this but I’ve been writing and not sending letters to Amy Dickinson. You
may know her. She’s an advice columnist, like you, for the Chicago <i>Tribune</i> where her Dear Amy column is
syndicated. She’s also a regular panelist on NPR’s <i>Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me</i> and is consistently funny and charming. Not
that you are not funny and charming. You are. It’s just that I am happy when
I’m writing and not sending letters to Dear Amy and it’s not always easy for me
to be happy. It’s not you, Carolyn Hax. It’s me. I will always cherish your advice. Good bye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Basic Bethesda Dad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-53383762412624327452016-11-11T16:23:00.000-08:002016-11-11T16:31:33.978-08:00Bad career adviceTwice in my life I have quit jobs without having another job waiting. Three times, to be honest, but the first time involved a college job as a part-time clerk at a shitty Texas convenience store that I mostly quit to deny a jackass middle manager the ability to claim he fired me. But that’s a story for another day. As is the story about how I had to take a polygraph test as a condition to being hired for the part-time shitty Texas convenience store job and how I learned that you could lie on a polygraph test and not get caught.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I digress. This is a story about bad career advice. In my case, bad advice that was well intended, but completely wrong. I received this bad advice not once but twice, which coincides with the number of times I have quit career-path type jobs without another job waiting. Both times I had to make that awkward walk to an editor or publisher’s office to give notice of my intent to leave my journalism job at their daily newspapers. And awkwardly reveal that I wasn’t quitting because <i>The New York Times </i>had called. Not even the <i>Walla Walla</i> <i>Union-Bulletin </i>or <i>Laramie Boomerang</i> (<a href="http://www.laramieboomerang.com/"><i>Laramie's Voice Since 1881!</i></a>). Nope. Just quitting. This seemed remarkably stupid to my bosses, who both delivered remarkably similar lectures premised on the proposition that only an idiot would willingly leave a job without having another job waiting from him.<br />
<br />
The worst career advice this idiot has ever received.<br />
<br />
To be fair, the advice seems prudent and reasonable. If one of my kids someday comes to me with a plan to quit a job without having another job, my Skeptical Dad Eyebrows™ certainly would rise. In my case, though, I had a plan. My bosses utterly failed to appreciate my plan in the way that I did. And they failed to appreciate that I wasn’t looking for career advice.<br />
<br />
I was 26 years old when I first quit a job without another job waiting. I was working for a small daily newspaper in Nebraska, missing mountains and sagebrush plateaus of my home turf out west. Plus I had an opportunity to paddle a canoe down a couple of hundred miles of the Yukon River in Yukon Territory, Canada. But I didn’t have much vacation time. So my plan was to quit my job, spend a couple of weeks up in Canada, and then stay with my parents while I looked for a new newspaper job. Upon hearing my plan, my wise and distinguished editor looked at me as if I’d just explained to him that I planned to kidnap the Pope for ransom and then retire to Bolivia and live off the subsequent riches. <br />
<br />
But it turned out great for me. It took a few weeks of living in my parents’ basement, but I eventually ended up working at another small daily newspaper in southern Idaho with close proximity to mountains and desert and plenty of public lands for recreating. I eventually became editor of a weekly magazine put out by the paper. In the five years since quitting my job in Nebraska, I had the job I’d always wanted in a place I wanted to live. Or at least the job I thought I wanted.<br />
<br />
By now I was married and my wife worked at a junior college. We weren’t getting rich, but we had no kids, no mortgage, and little debt. Then one day my wife was offered a job at the University of Wyoming. One of the perks was that the university would pay her tuition to pursue a graduate degree plus half tuition for a spouse. Wyoming sounded like an adventure. I decided that what I really wanted to do was go to graduate school and become a history professor. Upon hearing my plan, my<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><s><span style="color: red; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> wise and distinguished </span></s>publisher bluntly told me that I was making a terrible mistake. At one point in the discussion, he complained that “half the fucking people traveling around the country in the summer are college professors.” That is not how talking me out of quitting my job to become a professor works, sir.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I went to Wyoming but ended up in law school after graduate school so I don’t spend summer semester breaks clogging up National Parks and Interstate highways. But the outcome once again worked out more or less as intended. Not that I’m saying “I told you so,” that’s for others to decide. I have, however, learned a few lessons about giving advice. Especially unsolicited advice giving. Extra-especially unsolicited career advice giving. First, don’t be condescending and assume the person on the receiving end of the advice hasn’t thought through his or her plan, even if it’s as stupid as quitting a job without having another job. Second, don’t mistake your values and interests for the values and interest of the person on the receiving end of the advice. For instance, if you’re old, hop in the way-back machine and remember the freedom of being young and poor. No kids, no mortgage, no job, no problem!*<br />
<br />
The trip to the Yukon, by the way, was an experience of a lifetime and led to similar adventures over the years with my step-father, Larry, who was the instigator of that trip. Larry, by the way, also provided me the best career advice I've ever received. When I called home about the Texas convenience store situation, and whether I should quit, wait to be fired, or fight what I considered unfair treatment, he reminded me that I had gone to Texas to attend college, not work at a convenience store. I quit the next day. Another experience that I wouldn't trade was the opportunity to return to graduate and law school after spending 10 years working for a living. Graduate school was reading books I'd always wanted to read, talking about books I'd always wanted to read with smart people, and then researching and writing about things I cared about. Law school provided me a framework for critical thinking, an opportunity to forge lasting friendships, and the pathway to a second career that allowed me to use many of the hard-learned skills and tools developed during my first career. <br />
<br />
So my career advice to anyone who asks is always this: Put your affairs in order, give your two-week notice, pack the 4WD and head to the Yukon Territory. Alternatively, go to law school. Kidding, of course. My real advice is to stay young and poor and out of debt. Then you can afford to ignore career advice that conflicts with your plans.<br />
<br />
*<i>Nothing herein is intended to nor shall apply to any advice that the author may someday give to his children nor in anyway be used against him by said children known and unknown. </i><br />
<div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-39374012631338855412016-09-18T06:42:00.003-07:002016-09-20T15:30:58.317-07:00e pluribus unum<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This isn’t going to be one of those blog posts where I
gently mock me as the bumbling suburban father and husband transitioning from
Mountain Standard Time to life on the East Coast. Regular programming will
resume in the near future. Instead this is me writing a “think piece” about
what the fuck is going on! Because something
the fuck is going on in this election cycle that has in recent history been
suppressed or marginalized by The Establishment.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You may be thinking: Why
would anyone read a political essay written by a guy who blogs about <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2012/06/things-my-wife-hates-about-me-my-beard.html">how much his wife hates his beard </a>or that <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2015/01/10-things-not-worth-money.html">village-sized movie popcorn is not worth the money</a>? Fair question. I may in fact be an idiot committing career suicide (I’ve
compiled a list of relevant disclosures at the end of this post to explain why
I in fact may be an idiot committing career suicide but why I am posting anyway). The
primary “why” I’m writing is twofold.
First, Donald J. Trump is running for president of the United States as a major
party candidate while peddling a vision for America that directly conflicts
with core political principles that over time have enabled America to become
(and remain) an exceptional nation. Donald J. Trump is appealing to
nationalistic impulses rooted in fear and bigotry that would take us backward.
Second, Donald J. Trump is a thin-skinned bullshit artist who would be a
disaster as president. Sad! He has a man-crush on Vladimir Putin. Weak!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here’s the “something” that’s going on, the thing that
explains much of Donald J. Trump’s appeal. There are a lot of pissed off people
who are tired of being ignored. Pissed off conservative white people, mostly
(although Bernie Sanders found some pissed off liberal white people too. I’m
not qualified to speak for pissed off people of color, women, and other
minority demographics, but judging from the polls, none of them are voting for
Donald J. Trump). More specifically, there are a lot of pissed off conservative
white people who for decades have faithfully voted for a Republican party that
seems primarily interested in protecting Wall Street banksters and corporate
interests who don’t need government services like Social Security or Medicare
and want more economic liberty. By “want more economic liberty” I mean “want to
avail themselves to publicly financed infrastructure while paying zero taxes
and repealing all environmental and public health regulations.” Some of those
pissed off working class folks (who pay taxes and who benefit from public
health and safety regulations) have been left behind by economic policies over
the past several decades supported by their political leaders. Many other Americans,
even if they are themselves economically secure, see friends, families, and
communities that are struggling or even failing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is a legitimate economic and social crisis that has been shamefully ignored by Republican and Democratic leaders alike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Enter Donald J. Trump, reality television egotist/narcissist
and self-proclaimed billionaire (who won’t release tax record to prove it).
Donald J. Trump providing angry conservative white people the opportunity to
send low energy Jeb(!) Bush and the rest of The Establishment a message! That
message was: Screw you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But as satisfying as it may be to give the middle finger to
The Establishment, a Manhattan real estate and golf course developer seems a
curious messenger. To his credit, Donald J. Trump speaks directly to concerns
of working class Americans. Donald J. Trump promises to deliver manufacturing
jobs by negotiating favorable trade deals with other nations and threatening
companies tempted to outsource jobs. Which is why he scares the hell out of the
corporate friendly GOP and gives House Speaker Paul Ryan ulcers. Donald J.
Trump presents (this is important) no coherent or reasonable plans for how his
meddling with America’s economic framework will work in theory or in practice. Instead
we get a lot of “believe me” and “trust me” talk from Donald J. Trump. Donald
J. Trump tells us that that Donald J. Trump (yes, he refers to himself in the
third person) is uniquely qualified to break up The Establishment and return
America to greatness because he develops hotels and golf courses and please ignore the fact that he’s declared bankruptcy and stiffed creditors and investors several times and couldn’t even profitably run
a freaking casino. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In case you miss this point, he often wears a red cap over
his “hair” that says literally “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” Dumb! As if
“greatness” is a finite commodity that we must claw back from “others” and not
something that we can generate more of as our population and economy grows (which
in fact has been happening for a couple of centuries, although not without some
bumps along the way). As if, relative to the rest of the world, we are not
already doing pretty well, thank you very much. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But, again, we should do better. Especially among segments
of the population who have been economically and socially disenfranchised by globalization and automation while others benefit. When
Donald J. Trump speaks about making America great again, though, he is speaking
to a specific audience. Many Americans – particularly minority members of
society and women – enjoy more freedoms and liberties than they have ever enjoyed in the history of America. That’s pretty great, right? Yet Donald J.
Trump campaigns on the cynical innuendo that societal privilege – like economic “greatness”
– is a finite commodity. America is suffering from too much political
correctness, says Donald J. Trump, who could not have come into this world with
more privilege. Yet this son of wealth knows how to fix America: Deport 11
million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in America. Make
Mexico pay for a wall along the 2,000-mile border it shares with the
United States to keep out rapists and drug dealers (and conveniently ignore
that most immigrants are here to supply specific labor demands and pay taxes
for goods and services or that many are children who have known no other home).
Ban Muslims immigrants and refuse to accept Syrian refugees on the chance that
we invite terrorists into our country. Which is weird since the most recent
attacks on American soil in the name of radical Islam were perpetrated by American
born citizens. But Donald J. Trump is not concerned about facts because he is a
messenger of fear and failure. A strong, proud America does not need Donald J.
Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s not just Muslims and immigrants – documented or
otherwise – whom Donald J. Trump treats with contempt. Donald J. Trump mocks
a reporter with a disability (and refuses to own up to it). Donald J. Trump
insults women by insulting their appearance or suggesting that harsh questions
were influenced by a menstrual cycle. An Indiana born federal judge is unable
to act with objectivity in a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump’s scam
“university” because of his Hispanic heritage. He mocks John McCain’s
experience as a Vietnam prisoner of war (while Donald J. Trump benefited from
five draft deferments that kept him from the war John McCain helped fight – but
to be fair one of those deferments happened because Donald J. Trump’s doctor wrote a note to inform Uncle Sam that his patient had a sore foot). Donald J. Trump mocks the parents of an American Army
Captain slain in Iraq when those parents challenge Donald J. Trump’s presumptions
about Muslim American patriotism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Make America great again. I’m a straight white male
red-blooded American. I hear you, Donald J. Trump. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGrvQ1c5khU">Say no more (wink, wink,nod, nod). </a>Say no more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, let’s say a bit more. This is what most bothers me
about Donald J. Trump. Yes, he’s promising an economic resurgence for the
working class (again, without any reality-based plan for how). But part and
parcel of Donald J. Trump’s America is targeting racial and religious
minorities. Donald J. Trump is actively promoting a cultural devolution that
looks to the past and not to the future. And the past, again, was not so great
for many Americans. Not all Donald J. Trump supporters are xenophobic bigots.
But it is a fact that xenophobic bigots identify as Trump supporters. And if
you support Donald J. Trump and you’re not a xenophobic bigot, you should
reckon with that fact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ultimately Donald J. Trump is asking us to decide what kind
of nation we want to be as we move forward: A nation founded upon political
principles able to absorb diversity and reflect our differences as a greater
good even if that means a “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/09/02/492390405/-memeoftheweek-taco-trucks-on-every-corner">taco truck on every corner</a>” (yes, please)? Or a
nation that bends these principles to embrace a “blood and soil” nationalism that
reclaims our greatness from “outside” threats and influences? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For me, the choice is simple. America’s “exceptionalism”
arises from the political principles upon which the nation was founded. The
principles are within the four corners of the U.S. Constitution. Separation of
powers between the three branches of the federal government. Shared sovereignty
between federal and state. Protection for individual rights and freedoms against
the whims of the majority. Equal protection under law. Not a perfect system, except
compared to all others. It’s these political principles that define “America”
and “Americans.” It’s these principles that have allowed us to advance as a
nation of immigrants, not as a homogeneous racial, ethnic, or religious
monolith. It’s the principles that promise an equal opportunity for all
Americans, even if that doesn’t always feel quite true. But we all came to
America from somewhere. Even Native Americans from whom we, ahem, acquired our
current geopolitical boundaries migrated to North America from Asia in
pre-historic times. Hell, most of Donald J. Trump’s wives have been immigrants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We’ve had an uneven history when
it comes to recognizing and accepting those “others” who are “different.” Yes
the arc of the moral universe bends slowly, but it’s more or less bending toward justice. We are uniquely designed to absorb diversity and emerge
always stronger. Donald J. Trump proposes to reverse the bend of this arc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Donald J. Trump’s willingness to blow up the status quo is
appealing to many Americans. I get that. The status quo is not serving all Americans
fairly. I’m not arguing that the only realistic alternative – Hillary Clinton –
is without flaws. But her flaws are not likely to plunge us into trade wars and
abandon the Baltic states to Russia. This isn’t a direct pitch to vote for Hillary
Clinton. It’s a pitch to vote your conscience (as many in Donald J. Trump’s own
party urge).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When voting your conscious, if nothing else, consider that
Donald J. Trump gives no indication that he even understands the political
principles that have forged this nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">###</span></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">*<b>RELEVANT DISCLOSURES<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Writing about
politics is dumb because you risk pissing off those who disagree with you while
persuading no one to change preexisting positions. Plus Donald J. Trump might even be my boss come inauguration day. So it seems like a good idea for me forge ahead. I provide the following list
of disclosures to explain my biases and perspective so you know what motivates
my belief that Donald J. Trump is uniquely unqualified to lead America.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. I work for the federal government in a non-political civil service capacity. I started working for the federal government early in George W. Bush’s first term and expect to be here following the conclusion of Barrack Obama’s second term. Whoever wins the 2016 election will appoint my upper level bosses and set policy that will largely determine what kind of work I will be doing. (If Donald J. Trump wins and you don’t hear from me after inauguration day, please locate the Re-education Center where I’m being held and sneak me reading material and cigarettes). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. Politically I’ve leaned left, even while growing up in rural communities that leaned right. I blame my late father, who despised Nixon, was a union carpenter, and likely benefited as a child from New Deal programs. But I also have family who are proudly and vocally conservative and preach the gospel of independence and self-sufficiency. I’m a registered Democrat but I’ve voted for Republicans on occasion when the GOP incumbent seems decent and the Democrats fail to field a competent opponent. I’m much more moderate than radical and am more comfortable supporting, in most cases, incremental change. I read (and occasionally agree with) conservative writers and follow smart conservative thinkers on social media to avoid living in a political echo chamber. </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. I am biased against The Establishment. I grew up mostly in a working class timber mill and logging town in rural Idaho and a few other rural pockets of the Pacific Northwest. My father helped construct hydroelectric dams throughout my early childhood. We also lived on a small farm where we raised pigs and chickens and milked a cow by hand. I come from a large extended family of working class/farming and ranching folks. My grandparents dropped out of school after eighth grade, my folks graduated high school, and my generation (me, my siblings, and cousins) is the first to produce college graduates. I know actual humans – friends and family – who are long-standing conservatives and who are on the Trump Train. I doubt they will be impressed or persuaded by my arguments here, but I’m pretty sure we can still drink beer together. None are “deplorable” to me, but some certainly are, um, racially insensitive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. I currently live in one of those highly educated, affluent zip code in the D.C. suburbs populated with Liberal Elites. Members of The Establishment lurk as well. There are no Trump campaign yard signs in my neighborhood. The couple next door, however, was split early on: she had a Hillary bumper sticker on her Prius and he had a Bernie sticker on his Subaru. </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. I am biased against the Ivy League. All eight (nine before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia) justices on the U.S. Supreme Court attended either Harvard or Yale law schools. President Obama is a Harvard Law graduate. President George W. Bush attended Harvard and Yale. President Bill Clinton attended Yale Law School. George H.W. Bush attended Yale. Hilliary Clinton also attended Yale Law School. Donald J. Trump is an outlier in that he attended University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, yes, but not Harvard or Yale. I’m a proponent of education and the time I’ve spent in college (bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and law degree, all from public land grant universities) has benefited me. Ivy Leaguers I know personally seem like fine folks. But would it be so wrong to have a little academic diversity among our governmental leaders?</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. I’ve spent more time reading and thinking (and texting with friends and Tweeting) about what the fuck is going on than is probably healthy. Someday when my grandchildren ask what I did during this time of political and social and cultural upheaval, I can say that not only did I post snarky Tweets and exchange private texts with liberal friends, I wrote a blog about what the fuck was going on! </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">7. I spent part of August in Quebec City, in the Quebec province of Canada, during my summer vacation with my wife and kids. One of the oldest North American cities. Feels like Europe. Quebec was originally a French colony and at the time of British conquest in 1760, Quebec negotiated a truce that allowed the province to retain much of its French character and heritage, including French as its official language and close affiliation with the Catholic Church. While visiting Quebec City’s <i>Musẻe de la Civilisation</i>, which recognizes the Quebec Province’s preservation of its French heritage, it sharpened my own thinking about how the United States is defined in a much different way. For Quebec, its identity depends on its adherence to language and cultural traditions. For America, it’s about our rights and freedoms, and our governmental system of checks and balances. We as Americans forget this sometimes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8. Read <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547">Hillbilly Elegy</a></i>, a recently released memoir by J.D. Vance with impeccable timing. A great read. Vance looks at economic and cultural obstacles faced by his community and family in Appalachia and Rust Belt Midwest (key Trump constituencies). Vance broke away from cycles of domestic violence, addiction, social upheaval, after enlisting in the Marines as a teenager, and later attending Yale Law School. He writes from a conservative perspective and while he is a strong proponent of personal responsibility, he knows first hand the structural societal obstacle that get in the way of individuals attempting break cycles of cultural dysfunction. </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9. Listen to <i><a href="https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/bj-barham-american-aquarium-solo-rockingham">Rockingham</a></i>, a new album by BJ Barham, a North Carolina singer-songwriter. Barham usually fronts an alternative rock/country band called American Aquarium out of Raliegh. Like J.D. Vance’s Kentucky and Ohio, Barham’s native Rockingham County is another of those places hard hit by changing economic circumstances over the past several decades. Barham was playing with his band in Brussels, Belgium, during the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. He was moved to write a series of songs about his hometown and the people living there struggling to achieve the American dream. Or in many cases, falling short of achieving that dream. Barham presents an authentic, unsentimental vision of his hometown while showing empathy for their struggles. Like <i>Hillbilly Elegy, Rockingham</i> presents the struggles of working class Americans with depth and empathy rather than as caricatures and stereotypes often depicted in mainstream media. Both Vance’s book and Barham’s songs should be required reading for anyone who doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up in struggling or failing working class or rural communities. </span></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-66712997711527495092016-05-14T16:41:00.003-07:002016-05-14T16:41:51.066-07:00Lies I tell my children<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have told lies to my children. There. I said it. It’s
wrong. I know it’s wrong, and it’s time to stop.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To be fair, my kids lie to me all the time. They will look
me straight in the eye and deny they ate the last tray of Tagalongs that had been hidden on the highest shelf of the tallest cupboard, even while their faces are
smeared with chocolate and their breath smells of peanut butter. The big one is
a poor liar – under enhanced interrogation (basically, looking her sternly and
saying “Really?”) she folds like a cheap lawn chair and confesses to her sins.
The little one is harder to break. Ask her if she’s brushed her teeth, cleaned
her room, or completed her spelling homework, and the answer is “yes” even though
the correct answer nearly 100 percent of the time is “no.” She knows that we
know she is lying. She just doesn’t care. Here’s a typical morning
conversation:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dad: Did you practice piano?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">8-year-old: Yes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dad: Rhetorical question, sweetie.
I’ve been sitting here all morning in the same room as the piano and I know
that you in fact have not practiced piano.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">8-year-old: Yes I have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dad: >head explodes<<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nonetheless, “society” expects me to be the “responsible
adult.” To be the “parent.” Ugh. Yet I love my daughters and I don’t want them
to grow up to treat the truth as an abstract concept. I must lead by example. I
must confess and repent. So, girls, you need to know the following:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I didn’t
invent the “high five” while a sophomore JV basketball player back in the day.
But I like to think I helped popularize it. Also, I didn’t invent bitcoin or
the dental floss/toothpick combo. Pretty much I haven’t invented anything, so
if I’ve ever told you otherwise, I lied.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Neither of you were born with vestigial tails
that had to be surgically removed shortly after birth. Neither were either of
your grandmothers. It’s not a family condition that skips every other
generation.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I wasn’t the inspiration for the character
played by Kevin Bacon in </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Footloose</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I was never briefly engaged to Katie Couric, back
before I met your mom.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That scar on my bicep is from a barbed-wire fence,
not a knife fight.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">My government lawyer job is really a government
lawyer job. It isn’t cover for a job as a CIA agent. And when I say “I’m going
to Sacramento for work,” it’s not code for “I’m going to Pakistan to infiltrate
the Taliban.” I actually am going to Sacramento for work.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Your mom isn’t really allergic to dogs and cats.
We just use that as an excuse not to get you a pet.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Your Grandma never smoked pot with Ringo Starr
at an after-party following a Beatles’ concert in 1964 at the Cow Palace in San
Francisco while she was in the Army.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">That one Christmas Eve, I didn’t really catch
Santa Claus rummaging through the dresser drawer where your mom keeps her
underwear.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Your Uncle Clay didn’t used to be a woman.</span></span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is not a complete list, but it’s a start. From now on,
nothing but the truth. Honest. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-698818227444264012016-04-11T20:45:00.000-07:002016-04-13T13:32:02.859-07:00Merle is gone and I don't feel so well myself<div class="MsoNormal">
Last Wednesday afternoon, my wife, Carissa, texted me the
news that Merle Haggard had died. It’s not like you couldn’t see that one
coming. He was 79 and there is ample evidence that he lived out many of the sad
songs that he wrote and performed. As much as we may not like to admit it,
there really is a limit to how much whiskey and cigarettes a body can absorb
(unless you are Willie Nelson or Keith Richards, although perhaps the type of
cigarettes you smoke make a difference). <br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1VAKqqg8lNoZRBzYPGT5vSegXdxrAvoiYlcfhWYhvVEGME-MdVb5xnL9XaVKIKKNuN6MYKhP5pg4-SbNdC1CJUilis99ZajveV2C0DYQ_r5iKkwb4DDmDEoGxzuhY5WUvgwXkYruXfXg/s1600/Merle-Haggard-Discography-Simplified-TD-001-Strangers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1VAKqqg8lNoZRBzYPGT5vSegXdxrAvoiYlcfhWYhvVEGME-MdVb5xnL9XaVKIKKNuN6MYKhP5pg4-SbNdC1CJUilis99ZajveV2C0DYQ_r5iKkwb4DDmDEoGxzuhY5WUvgwXkYruXfXg/s320/Merle-Haggard-Discography-Simplified-TD-001-Strangers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So the news wasn’t a surprise. But I was surprised that the
news left me in a fuzzy haze of nostalgia. Which I hated, because nostalgia too
often is one of those self-indulgent emotions that should not be trusted. Nostalgia is what makes us fondly remember
the good old days when in fact the good old days were not good because everyone
smoked, kids ate lead paint chips, racist jokes and bigotry went uncontested, “batting
average” and “RBI” were common metrics relied upon to measure baseball performance,
we didn’t have the internet, and you couldn’t pay $10 for a six-pack of artisanal
beer. We didn’t even have selfie sticks. Get in the way-back machine if ya’ll want,
but I’m staying here in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I read Carissa’s message, I was sitting at my desk at
work in front of a double-monitored computer display editing an environmental
assessment/finding of no significant impact (in NEPA-speak, an EA/FONSI). Some
might call me a hero, but I’m just a regular guy trying to make a living. At
that moment, a sad regular guy in his office in the middle of Washington, D.C., a
few blocks away from the White House, contemplating the death of one of his
musical heroes. And then Merle’s <i>Big City</i>
penetrated my subconscious. <i>Big City </i>is
a song about a guy stuck living in a city because of the necessities of making
a living while he dreams of leaving it all behind and heading for Montana. I’ve
always loved that song. No (emotionally crippling) regrets about leaving Idaho
for D.C., but <i>Big City</i> has elbowed
its way into my subconscious more than once .while navigating traffic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like I said, my instinct is to resist the impulse to wallow
in nostalgia. But for Merle I make an exception. Some of my earliest
recollections involve listing to Merle, who was my hard-drinking construction-worker
father’s favorite country artist. And by “favorite country artist” I mean “favorite
artist” since that was the only genre of music acceptable in the Miller
household in those days. This was the early 1970s and in our house there were
no Beatles, Stones, Dylan, or Elvis. It was Merle, Johnny, Hank, Bob Wills, and
the like – but mostly Merle. My mother recently said that when my dad moved out
of the house before the divorce, he was more concerned with packing his Merle
Haggard albums than his clothes. That sounds about right to me. I remember times
as a kid when he was a few beers into an evening, he would sing Merle songs to
me and my brothers. He wasn’t Merle, but he wasn’t all bad. I can still hear
him singing <i>Today I Started Loving Her
Again</i> and <i>Silver Wings</i> from those
times. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I became a teen, ventured off to college, and developed
my own musical aesthetic, I never strayed far from Merle and other artist from
the three-chords-and-the-truth school of poetry. It just hits close to home for
me. I have no talent for singing (although after a whiskey or two or three, I’m
really not too bad, I’m pretty sure), but to this day I know the words to all
the Merle Haggard standards: <i>Workin’ Man
Blues, Mama Tried, If We Make it Through
December, Think I’ll Just Stay Her and Drink, If We’re Not Back in Love by
Monday, I take a Lot of Pride (in What I Am), Farmer’s Daughter, White Line
Fever, The Running Kind, The Bottle Let Me Down, Carolyn, Misery and Gin</i> – that’s
not a complete list and I may need a refresher on some of the lyrics, but every
one of these songs evokes family and friends, times and places. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re not familiar with Merle Haggard beyond his redneck
anthem <i>Okie from Muskogee</i> (a classic
that is not one of his autobiographical songwriting exercises) his family moved
from Oklahoma to California to escape the Dust Bowl and search for opportunity.
His father died young. He was in trouble at school at later in trouble with the
law. He spent a few years in the notorious San Quentin prison for attempted
burglary. All of this became fodder for his songs. If you want to understand
the Dust Bowl, read Steinbeck’s <i>Grapes of
Wrath</i> and listen to Merle. This is from <i>Tulare
Dust</i>, a song Haggard wrote and released early in his career about life in
the California cotton fields: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Tulare dust in a farm
boy's nose<br />
Wonderin' where the freight train goes<br />
Standin' in a field by the railroad track<br />
Cursin' this strap on my cotton sack<br />
<br />
I can see Mom and Dad with shoulders low<br />
Both of 'em pickin' on a double row<br />
They do it for a livin' because they must<br />
That's life like it is in the Tulare dust<br />
<br />
And I miss Oklahoma but I'll stay if I must<br />
And help make a livin' in the Tulare dust<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He didn’t finish high school, but Merle captured the essence
of the rural poor and working class in ways others could not. He couldn’t get
air time in today’s country music market, where the focus centers on good times
and glosses over the struggles of the rural working class. That’s not Merle
Haggard’s kind of music. Thank God. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
RIP Merle Haggard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-5459311854651298442016-02-06T16:32:00.004-08:002016-02-06T17:31:22.534-08:00Surviving Snowzilla<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let history record that on Friday, January 22, 2016,
flurries of snow began to fall on the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region as
the noon hour approached. The start of the storm caused little alarm and even
less panic. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nope. Alarm and panic had set in long before flurries first
descended upon the Nation’s Capital. Citizens of the Mid-Atlantic region were well
into Peak Freak Out days before the storm would arrive. About a week out,
scientists had identified a big, slow moving weather system approaching and
began predicting the arrival of an epic storm.
Headlines proclaimed that the Storm of the Century was on the way.
Donald Trump appeared and vowed to MAKE WINTER GREAT AGAIN. Immediately, the
9.3 million people who live in the D.C. metro area made a collective run on
local stores. Shelves were stripped of bread, milk, batteries, booze, and other
staples. Even lactose intolerant singles who lived alone were buying three
gallons of milk just because it seemed the right thing to do. People who didn’t
own pets got swept up in the excitement and bought fifty-pound bags of dry dog
food because they seemed to be going fast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLcSMQxjAS0Bysix2AwW1Cfievt1ExY-B96OSY-wwmGPjgunRJtmYcD1Nls1njxwyBUb-6Xu_IETSt3kIx6D8xlLo9ZHezAbwIFU3QYY7NctK99XhnHqEssxybSlqgvQo9pJrIE7-9gdmV/s1600/snow+montage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLcSMQxjAS0Bysix2AwW1Cfievt1ExY-B96OSY-wwmGPjgunRJtmYcD1Nls1njxwyBUb-6Xu_IETSt3kIx6D8xlLo9ZHezAbwIFU3QYY7NctK99XhnHqEssxybSlqgvQo9pJrIE7-9gdmV/s320/snow+montage.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even before the Great Blizzard of 2016 arrived, thanks to a
poll conducted by the Washington Post, the pending storm had a name: </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Snowzilla</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> (</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Snomageddon</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Snowpocalypse</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
had both been used in 2010, during the previous Storms of the Century). Naming
winter weather events seems strange to me. But OK. Not to brag, but I’ve seen
winter before. Back in Wyoming and Idaho and eastern shadows of the Cascade
Mountains in Washington state, we always called major winter weather events “</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">snow</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">.”
Or, if we were attempting to lug a snow blower up a ladder to remove
snow from the roof of our house to keep it from collapsing, the “</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">god-damned snow</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">.” In any event, here in
D.C. we now had a name – Snowzilla – for the beast about to devour us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s been more than a week since Snowzilla’s rampage. Those
mid-Friday flurries increased in intensity and continued through Friday night
and all of Saturday. Over the next eighteen hours 24 inches of snow accumulated
at our home in Bethesda. Other parts of the area had even more. The street in
front of our house wasn’t plowed until Wednesday. Many workplaces were shut
down for the first part of the week following. The Montgomery County Public
School District (motto: OH MY GOD! SNOW! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!) remained shut
down for the entire week (plus the previous Friday based simply on the forecast
of snow).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We fared just fine out our house. We had plenty of food and
Irish whiskey as well as a box of batteries, flashlights, headlamps, candles,
and matches set out just in case. We also have gas fireplaces and gas range. We
managed not to lose power during the storm, but we were prepared and we were
relatively confident that we would neither freeze nor starve. The bigger danger
came from all the forced family time. That Cabin Fever shit is real. My wife,
Carissa, and I both attempted to work from home, negotiating (we don’t call it
fighting in our home) for work space and yelling at kids to STFU because mommy
is on a conference call. Also, ProTip: <i>The
Shining</i> isn’t a good family movie night choice when you’re trapped in your
home by a winter snow storm. But we survived Snowzilla and the experience made
us closer and stronger. Or left us with lasting, crippling, emotional scars. Who
knows? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I also learned that D.C. as a community is not that chill
about adverse winter weather. Not only did people generally lose their shit in
the days leading up to the storm, thanks to the disproportionate number of
journalists, editors, producers, as well as cable and network news teams and
anchors, our local weather story became a worldwide event. Two feet of snow in eighteen hours will cause
a mess in a community of 9.3 million people. Especially in a region that
prudently does not maintain a snow removal fleet capable of handling this kind
of an extreme event. No shame in shutting down at least for some time when
that happens. I’m complicit in feeding the hype machine because, like millions
of others, I contributed to the social media blizzard of photos and updates
about my local weather event. All the HEY LOOK AT US stuff can seem rather precious, I suppose. Especially if, say, you're in Torrington, Wyoming, and it’s forty below, wind is blowing 70 mph, and your truck
won’t start. And you're watching 24/7 coverage on CNN of a storm that weather modeling predicts will hit D.C. within the next 72 hours. Yes, it's a bit much. Maybe we can maintain our composure next time,
D.C. Maybe act like we’ve done this before?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The public reaction to D.C.’s snow drama taught me another
lesson, this one about myself. I hold myself out be a refugee, living in urban
exile on the east coast while my heart is back in Idaho. Snowzilla was one of
those shared experiences that bring communities together. My next door neighbor baked us cookies to say thanks for shoveling her walk. Down the street, neighbors used snow blowers and shovels to make sure a pregnant woman would have access to the nearest plowed road. Groups of kids organized sledding parties
and sleepovers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So when friends and family from North and South Dakota, Colorado,
Minnesota, Wyoming, Idaho, and elsewhere snickered out loud about our “storm” and compared them to their winter storm experiences, I was surprised to feel a little bit defensive. Especially since I also enjoy mocking the winter hardiness of east coasters. Yet it’s one
thing for me to call one of my brothers a pedantic asshole and another for you to agree with me, which would require me to engage in any and all means necessary to defend my family's honor (depending on which brother we were talking about). Likewise, Snowzilla may be an over-hyped
drama queen, but she’s <i>my</i> over-hyped
drama queen. So don’t be one-upping my Storm of the Century with tales of how
the schools didn’t even shut down for your Storm of the Century and the kids
all wore shorts to the bus stop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Someday I will return to Mountain Standard Time for good.
Meanwhile, little by little, I’m realizing that my residence in exile is
feeling a little bit like home. Or at least a place I'm willing to defend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-72985024941454229892015-12-02T16:53:00.000-08:002015-12-02T18:50:23.293-08:00Top 10 Christmas Peeves<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">10. Christmas music before Thanksgiving. So wrong. Christmas
music, maybe, for a few hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. The
Christmas music industrial complex is garbage. All of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">9. Elf on a Shelf. Conditioning children for constant
surveillance by a security state. Big
Brother much?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">8. Christmas trees. Total racket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">7. Christmas movies. Meaningless college football bowl games (looking
at you, San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl) are better than every Christmas
movie ever. Yes, even holiday tripe like <i>Miracle
on 32<sup>th</sup> Street</i> or <i>It’s a
Wonderful Life.</i> Ugh. (Note: does not
include the unrated version of <i>Bad Santa</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />6. People in public humming Christmas carols. Worst. Monsters.
Ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />5. Threatening kids with the <i>Santa-won’t-come-if-you’re-not-good</i> bullshit. Empty threat and kids
know it. You’re horrible parents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />4. The IT guy at work asking if you want to buy overpriced boxes
of Christmas cookies his daughter is selling to raise money for her school
basketball team. Great. The one guy at work I can’t afford to piss off engaging
in holiday extortion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />3. Office Christmas parties. Like I want to hang out and make
small talk with people I work with all day. While trying to avoid becoming
trapped in conversation with someone from management. And avoiding the IT guy
carrying around an order form for holiday wreathes. The only mitigating factor
is that these nightmares usually involve booze.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2. Stop-motion animated </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rudolph
the Red Nosed Reindeer</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> television special. This show is a hot mess. A
simple redemption story about a little reindeer with some sort of birth defect
who is bullied by other reindeer must involve an abominable snow monster? An island
for misfit toys? A creepy prospector named Yukon Cornelius? WTF?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1. The manufactured outrage of the War on Christmas and the
culture warriors who fight it. Look around sheeple. We, as a nation, just
celebrated the impending birthday of sweet baby Jesus with BLACK FRIDAY, the mother of all
spending orgies. A clerk at Target wishing us “Happy Holidays” is not the
problem.</span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-5393575869354375352015-11-13T17:14:00.000-08:002015-11-14T06:16:58.139-08:00Thermostat wars<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Autumn has arrived. And with it comes that seasonal
indicator that is as predictable as shortening daylight hours and piles of
orange and golden leaves left ignored in my yard and driveway. Yes, I’m talking
about fighting with my wife, Carissa, over where to set the thermostat.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7qBtcvy0_ATk-b6V6kVSvEG953hSKI3PjM1P-2VoBwfG2huQPavQGTR1_NU7tDZRJsmpiI8s8w-CyA8eJLG9XF5TSF6Q5UkoiO1QNX87yY4Ma5t2zzg4m0TK2VrZEQXsT4UUOB3pqpjz/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7qBtcvy0_ATk-b6V6kVSvEG953hSKI3PjM1P-2VoBwfG2huQPavQGTR1_NU7tDZRJsmpiI8s8w-CyA8eJLG9XF5TSF6Q5UkoiO1QNX87yY4Ma5t2zzg4m0TK2VrZEQXsT4UUOB3pqpjz/s200/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A little context: I hate the mid-Atlantic summers.
Mid-Atlantic summers are hot and sticky. Mid-Atlantic summers cause me to sweat
through my shirt and keep my underwear perpetually damp (or moist if you
prefer). Mid-Atlantic summers do not cool off at night. Mid-Atlantic summers
have too many mosquitoes. Mid-Atlantic summers make me wonder why people choose
to live in such an inhospitable hellhole. But I digress. Autumn
has arrived and life is almost tolerable. The
days are cool and crisp and the evenings even cooler and crisper. I love opening the windows at night and burrowing under a down comforter. I love
the fresh smells and brisk breezes circulating through those open windows. I love a
soft fleece shirt and warm slippers paired with a morning cup of coffee and the
Washington Post. Autumn is nature’s apology to me for being such a miserable bitch all
summer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yet even as I am invigorated by autumn’s arrival, the change
in the season drains from Carissa of all sense of warmth and comfort. Autumn invites
her to close up the house tight and wrap herself in a blanket and wait for
winter. Autumn emboldens her to crank the thermostat to a temperature level in
our home suitable for slow roasting the Thanksgiving turkey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Thus begins our seasonal war of the thermostat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">According to the early Greek philosopher Aeschylus, the first casualty of war is the truth. And so it is. In the early days of our marriage,
Carissa and I lived in studio apartment in the basement of an old house. We
converted a small windowless storage room just off the bathroom into a bedroom by
throwing a mattress on the floor. Despite its cozy dimensions, the room had an
electrical baseboard heating unit along one wall. One autumn night while
preparing for bed, Carissa felt cold so she secretly turned the thermostat on the unit to the maximum ninety degrees and promptly fell asleep.
I fell asleep as well, for a few hours. Then I awoke soaked in my own sweat and
nearly incoherent due to dehydration and/or heat stroke. I assumed I was dying.
I had never been so hot. I stumbled out of bed and into a long cold shower and
felt remarkably better. While I was in the shower, Carissa realized what had
happened and reset the thermostat to a level where life was sustainable. She did not reveal her
deception until much later in our marriage. For years I wondered what the hell
had happened to me that night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My offensives in the thermostat war have always been more
direct. I’m usually the last one to bed
and the first one up. In autumn evenings on my way to bed, I turn the furnace
off and open windows. Carissa later wakes up, closes the windows and turns the
furnace on and the thermostat up. The next morning I rise, start a pot of
coffee, turn the thermostat off, open the windows, and dig through the leaves
in the front yard for the morning paper. A short while later, Carissa rises,
closes windows and cranks up thermostat. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Thanks to technology, the thermostat wars have escalated, as I have discovered. A year or so ago, Carissa had one of those fancy WiFi-enabled
thermostats installed in our home. From an app on her smart phone, she can control the
temperature in our house from anywhere in the world. She can keep the house warm
or cold (depending on the season) if we happened to be away on vacation, and
then set it to a more comfortable level while at the airport on our way home. Like
most gadgets, I am happy for the details of the fancy thermostat to remain a mystery to me and
preserve my brain cells for other things. Like storing trivia and drinking whiskey. So long as Carissa or the kids are around, I’m
able to enjoy the benefits of technology without troubling myself with figuring
out how any of it works.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I failed to fully appreciate the consequences of my <i>laisse faire</i> approach to technology. It was one of our kids who finally reveled to me what
was happening. I’m not telling parents anything new, but there is nobody in the
world worse at keeping your secrets than your children. They are essentially
little spies living in your home, conducting surveillance and gathering
intelligence that they share with teachers, neighbors, relatives, and basically
any adult they spend time with when you are not around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The other night while putting my second-grader to bed, I agreed to lay with her with the lights out for a few minutes while she went to
sleep. It was a cool and crisp evening and I opened one of her windows to let
in the evening breeze. As we lay there in the dark, my daughter whispered that whenever mom sees me turn the thermostat down, she uses the app on her iPhone to turn it back up. Aeschylus may have lived in a mild Mediterranean climate in
the days before iPhones and thermostat apps, but the dude knew his shit about
war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yes, truth is the first casualty of war. Meanwhile, I'm sleeping with the enemy and depending on traitorous children for information. War is hell. Kind of like the Mid-Atlantic region in summer. I should probably download the app. Who am I kidding. I need to open a few windows in here and let in some fresh autumn air.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-18767157204287938582015-10-25T11:37:00.002-07:002015-10-25T13:47:36.190-07:00Guide to Idaho cultural history<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Living and working in urban exile in Washington, D.C.,
sometimes in conversation it comes up that I am from Idaho. Often this fact
triggers not even the faintest flicker of recognition, as if I had told someone
I was from one of those European countries no one has ever heard of, like
Estonia or Moldova. <i>I-da-ho</i>, they
repeat, pronouncing each syllable as if deciphering an unfamiliar word from a
strange, exotic language.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even worse are those who know just enough about Idaho to
think they know about Idaho. For these people, Idaho is a far away land of heavily
armed white supremacist potato farmers who enjoy world class white water
kayaking and downhill skiing on pristine powder. Not true, I tell them! Some
prefer snowboarding! All of this, of course, is a gross exaggeration. That’s why today I will attempt to improve your understanding of Idaho. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m not talking about Idaho’s unsurpassed natural attributes
– mountains, deserts, canyons, evergreen
forests, rivers, lakes – or that its state capital is one of the most livable
cities in America. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8312998845408634089#overviewstats">I’ve previously written about all that.</a> The truth is most
Idahoans are happy to allow you to wallow in your own ignorance about the state
because they don’t want you and a bunch of your friends moving in and screwing
everything up. Idaho is already overly Californicated. The last thing it needs
is an influx of east coasters (who are currently restricted to spending money
and building their second or third homes in Sun Valley).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I want to do is create better awareness of Idaho’s
contribution to the cultural fabric of the nation. We’re more than
conspiracy-minded survivalists and politicians wearing cowboy hats. The idea to write about Idaho's presence on the national stage originated recently while hanging out with friends from Boise who, like us, are serving time in D.C. for
career-related reasons. The topic of
“Idaho” references in pop culture came up and we imagined an Idaho version of
the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon trivia game (<i>i.e</i>.,
Kevin Bacon was in <i>The River</i> with big
deal actress Meryl Streep//Streep was recently in <i>Rikki and the Flash</i> with actor and former Saturday Night Live star Bill
Hader//Hader is married to director and screenwriter Maggie Carey//Carey was a
soccer star at Borah High School in Boise, Idaho. Four degrees. Boom).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consider this your introduction to Idaho cultural history.
It’s not a comprehensive compendium of Idaho’s contributions to our shared
cultural heritage, but it’s a decent start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Potatoes, Beer, and TV<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj552knd3GaGyXy7ttARs6ndBd5BXodn5cQKxBby6HdoMz7TF_BIIhvRmH36NSesIvWQEz4B36yUBarbqZhM7OL8vp39fdCSV587m8c1-_ykNYnPETxYRU3jDIAHOlnl7XnyhEi6dQHkih7/s1600/Marilyn+Monroe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj552knd3GaGyXy7ttARs6ndBd5BXodn5cQKxBby6HdoMz7TF_BIIhvRmH36NSesIvWQEz4B36yUBarbqZhM7OL8vp39fdCSV587m8c1-_ykNYnPETxYRU3jDIAHOlnl7XnyhEi6dQHkih7/s320/Marilyn+Monroe.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although much of Idaho’s landscape is dominated by mountains
and desert, thanks to broad valleys, rich soils, and irrigation, agriculture is
a big deal in Idaho and the benefits accrue to all of us. Idaho grows 30
percent of the nation’s potatoes (and the state’s first billionaire, <b>J.R.
Simplot</b>, essentially invented <b>McDonald’s
French fries</b> and <b>tater tots</b>). The Idaho Potato Commission is so powerful that every single Idaho license plate carries the slogan "Famous Potatoes" whether you want it or not. Also, in 1951, it somehow persuaded Marilyn Monroe to wear an Idaho potato sack. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Idaho also grows a big portion of the nation’s barely and hops, the two essential
ingredients in <b>beer </b>(in addition to
water). Also, a guy named <b>Philo Farnsworth</b> who grew up in Rigby (pop. 4,000) contributed key inventions back in the 1920s leading to the development of the first <b>television</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For all of this, you’re welcome, America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Politics<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Twin Falls (pop. 45,000) native <b>Mark Felt</b>, a senior FBI
official at the time, was integral to bringing down the corrupt Nixon regime.
You probably know him better as <b>Deep
Throat</b>, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s anonymous source in the
Watergate scandal. It was Felt who advised Woodward and his partner, Carl
Bernstein to “follow the money.” <b>Sarah Palin</b>, a reality television star
who briefly served as governor of Alaska, was born in Sandpoint (population
7,500) and studied journalism and communications at the University of Idaho.
She ran unsuccessfully on the GOP ticket as the vice presidential candidate in
the 2008 elections. Former U.S. Senator <b>Larry
Craig</b>, the pride of Council (pop. 800) made national headlines a few years
back when he was arrested for soliciting sex in a public restroom at the
Minneapolis airport from a man who turned out to be an undercover cop. The
family values promoting senator later claimed that his “wide stance” in the
toilet stall was misinterpreted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">History<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The famous<b> Lewis and
Clark expedition</b> marks the start of recorded history in what would become
the state of Idaho. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their crew (featuring Idaho-born Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian) were the first explorers to cross the
North American continent by land. They had a tough time in the mountains on the
Idaho portion of their trip. Pretty much a standard story by now: east coast
white guys show up unprepared, and natives save their asses. <b>Gutzon Borglum, </b>the son of a Danish
immigrant, was born into a polygamist Mormon family near St. Charles
(population 136). He grew up and carved <b>Mount
Rushmore</b> in South Dakota and also helped restore the <b>Statue of Liberty</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Movies and Television<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The best movie written and directed by an Idahoan (<b>Jared Hess</b>), set in an Idaho town, and
filmed in that same town is beyond debate: 2004 cult classic <b><i>Napoleon
Dynamite</i></b>, a quirky story about an alienated teenager struggling to find
his place in his small rural high school in the real-life Preston (pop. 5,000).
The best television series featuring a central character portrayed by an Idaho
actor: <b><i>Breaking Bad</i></b>, featuring <b>Aaron
Paul,</b> who grew up in Emmett (pop. 6,500) and Boise (pop. 200,000) and who nailed
the part of small-time meth dealer <b>Jesse
Pinkman</b>. How would a kid from Idaho have the insight to nail the part of
small-time meth dealer? We just don’t know. Rupert (pop. 5,500) native and
University of Idaho grad <b>Bill Fagerbakke</b>
is the voice of <b>Patrick Star</b> in the
Nickelodeon series <b><i>SpongeBob SquarePants</i></b>. He also played “Dobber,” the dimwitted assistant
football coach on the television show <b><i>Coach</i></b>. <b><i>Mad Men</i></b> actress <b>Christina Hendricks</b> grew up in Twin
Falls where she began her career in children’s musical theater. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Music<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Josh Ritter</b>, singer/songwriter
and all-around Americana music heartthrob grew up Moscow (Idaho, not Russia)
(pop. 25,000). Critically acclaimed jazz vocalist, sax player, guitarist,
songwriter, etc., <b>Curtis Stigers</b>
grew up and learned his craft in Boise (@curtisstigers also brings a decent Twitter
game)[UPDATE: @curtisstigers advised me via his decent Twitter game (#humblebrag) that I had omitted hot Boise-based indie band <b>Built to Spill,</b> led by frontman<b> Doug Martsch</b>. My shameful omission is now corrected]. Southern-fried rockers <b>Lynard Skynard</b> are not from Idaho, of
course, but their epic Ode-to-the-One-Night-Stand, <b><i>What’s Your Name</i></b>, is set
in Boise. Also, highly recommend roots rock/alt-country Idaho bred bands featuring
the Braun brothers – <b>Reckless Kelly</b> (Willy
and Cody) and <b>Micky and the Motorcars </b>(Micky
and Gary), originally from Stanley (pop. 100) and now making great music in
Austin, Texas. Once a year in August they invite a cast of all-star friends
from Texas and Oklahoma to Challis (pop. 1,000) for Idaho’s best party/music
festival, the <b>Braun Brothers Reunion</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Literature<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Anthony Doerr</b>, author
of <b><i>All
the Light We Cannot See</i></b> (2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction) is a resident
of Boise. He once wrote the greatest <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/boise-idaho-big-skies-and-colorful-characters-59522457/?no-ist">Why Boise is So Much Better Than Where YouLive article ever written</a>. <b>Marilynne
Robinson</b>, raised in Sandpoint, won the 2005 Pulitzer for fiction (<i>Gilead</i>), was recently interviewed by
President Barack Obama who wanted to meet the Iowa-based writer to discuss faith,
democracy, education, and writing. <b>Vardis
Fisher</b> was born, raised, and spent nearly his entire life in Hagerman
(population 850). Not widely known, but critically acclaimed. Best known for <b><i>Mountain Men</i></b>, which was
later adapted into the movie <b><i>Jeremiah Johnson</i></b> starring Robert
Redford. Idaho played a pivotal role in non-Idaho writer <b>Wallace Stegner’s</b> epic historical novel, <b><i>Angle of Repose</i></b>, where
his protagonists spent an important portion of the book living in the Boise
Valley in the early days of statehood. Another
Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction. <b>Ernest
Hemingway</b> was a part time resident in Sun Valley and died there of a
self-inflected gun-shot wound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sports<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hall of Fame major league baseball player <b>Harmon Killibrew</b> from Payette (pop.
7,000) could hit a baseball very hard and very far. As a Minnesota Twin, he
dominated the 1960s. Elected to the MLB Hall of Fame in 1984.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kristin Armstrong</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, Boise-based Olympic gold medalist cyclist in both 2008 and 2012. A bunch of Olympic medalist skiers (</span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kristin Cooper/Picabo Street/Bill Johnson/Jeret “Speedy” Peterson) </b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">because Idaho has mountains and snow. Oh, and <b>Warren Miller </b>invented the ski film as a young man in Sun Valley in the 1950s. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gary Stevens</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of Boise rode three Kentucky Derby winners and had an acting gig in the 2003 movie</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sea Biscuit</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jake Plummer,</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> a Capital High School
(Boise) product, played quarterback for Arizona State and in the NFL for the
Arizona Cardinals and Denver Broncos. </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Justin
Gross</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> of Fruitland (pop. 4,500) became a pro-bowler in 2008 and 2010 with the Carolina Panthers.
Another Sandpoint product, </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jerry Kramer</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">,
was an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers team that won the first two
Super Bowls and should be in the NFL Hall of Fame. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"># # #</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is your beginners’ guide to appreciating Idaho’s
cultural contributions t the nation. I didn’t even mention that <b>Bruce Willis</b> once owned the Soldier
Mountain Ski resort near Fairfield (pop. 300). Or that Bruce Willis starred
with British actor Alan Rickman ("Snape" from the <i>Harry Potter</i> series) in <i>Die
Hard</i> and Rickman will appear with Idaho’s own Aaron Paul in the upcoming
thriller <i>Eye in the Sky</i>. The point
is, once you know the facts, you discover that Idaho is probably the center of
the universe. <br />
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-63279847112494100662015-09-20T11:09:00.002-07:002017-07-24T13:11:47.132-07:00Conference Call Bingo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Stuck on another dull and unproductive conference call? Suffer no more. Just in time for the holidays we at Straight Outta Boise have created a brand new game that will turn your next call into an adventure-filled contest. Play with your colleagues. Satisfaction guaranteed. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWEwXHJNkqWhM24bKLVu-M2EDJqjGIftUjT4pxuc3b7KK2gyF5jpI-J9TUncmYZE7v6d702vaV-reCxvqr6IDABTuyA84iQ_Wt2c1RF5itjhgwH3gIURnmXrBRurYsJU5El0hkcbiW4PDw/s1600/Conference+Call+Bingo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<a name='more'></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWEwXHJNkqWhM24bKLVu-M2EDJqjGIftUjT4pxuc3b7KK2gyF5jpI-J9TUncmYZE7v6d702vaV-reCxvqr6IDABTuyA84iQ_Wt2c1RF5itjhgwH3gIURnmXrBRurYsJU5El0hkcbiW4PDw/s1600/Conference+Call+Bingo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWEwXHJNkqWhM24bKLVu-M2EDJqjGIftUjT4pxuc3b7KK2gyF5jpI-J9TUncmYZE7v6d702vaV-reCxvqr6IDABTuyA84iQ_Wt2c1RF5itjhgwH3gIURnmXrBRurYsJU5El0hkcbiW4PDw/s640/Conference+Call+Bingo+1.jpg" width="640" /></a>© 2015 StraightOuttaBoise.blogspot.comStraight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-66226219595198513022015-09-12T20:29:00.000-07:002015-10-03T11:25:08.940-07:00Things my wife hates about me: bedroom behavior<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fourth in an
occasional series about things my wife hates about me. Earlier installments
include <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2012/06/things-my-wife-hates-about-me-my-beard.html">my beard</a>, <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2012/07/things-my-wife-hates-about-me-movie.html">movie-blurting</a>, and my <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2014/08/things-my-wife-hates-about-me-trivial.html">love for trivia</a>.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When my wife, Carissa, and I were first married 23 years ago,
she was fresh out of college looking for work and I wrote for a small daily
newspaper. So basically we were broke. We rented a studio apartment in the
basement of an old house. Once, a neighbor next door shot a hole through the
wall of the apartment directly above us while “cleaning his gun” during an
argument with his girlfriend. Welcome to Twin Falls, Idaho. Another time, the large,
hairy, sweaty guy upstairs pounded on our door at 2 a.m. on a week night to ask
if we’d like to join him in knocking off the rest of the jug of Thunderbird
wine he was clutching. We politely declined.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not the nicest living situation, but we were young and
living on love. Well, love and a lot of potatoes because Idaho. Our cozy apartment
didn’t have a bedroom, but it had a big windowless storage room just off the
bathroom. We pulled a single-sized mattress into what was essentially a closet and instantly
converted it to our master suite. We are tall people and even one of us did not
fit on that mattress all that well. But we did not care. Love and such.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, eventually we cared. Love has its limits. As soon as
we could afford it, we moved into an apartment with a real bedroom and finally
had room for my waterbed from college with the double-sized mattress. Don’t
judge. It was a different time. It was also only marginally better than a
single mattress on the floor. The heater for my old waterbed that kept the
mattress at body temperature and thus prevented hypothermia did not work and I
hadn’t bothered to replace it. We slept on top of an unzipped sleeping back,
flannel-lining side up and nylon side against the frigid bladder. The sleeping bag
slipped and slid on the plastic surface of the frigid bladder. Even the
gentlest movement created waves in bed. The metaphorical kind, yes, but also the
real kind that tended to slosh Carissa around the bed. This is also about the
point in our relationship we were becoming less tolerant and more territorial
about encroachments on to “our” sides of the bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Some will be surprised about this next admission: I don’t
get a lot of requests for marital advice. But if some enterprising young couple
were to ever ask me for the secret to a long and happy marriage, I would tell
them to purchase the biggest, most expensive mattress that they can afford. Or
max out your credit cards, cash out your 401K savings if necessary. Whatever. Just
do it. Nothing will strengthen your marriage like a fancy king-size
posture-pedic-style mattress. At least that worked for us. We sold the waterbed
to a college kid and moved up to bigger and better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is not to say that everything is great in the bedroom
these days. Don’t freak out. This is the PG -13 version of things I do in the
bedroom that Carissa hates with a white hot intensity. I was willing to take
this up to NR-17, but Carissa shot that right down. What I’m talking about here
is the normal, routine every-day things that drive my wife up the wall. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That everything is not “great” is not a surprise, to be
honest. We’ve spent, by my estimate, more than 8,000 nights together over the
more than twenty years we have been married. You spend that much time with
another person – even your soul mate, <i>especially</i>
your soul mate – something about that person’s bedtime routine will annoy you. Especially
if that person is me, it turns out. Most of my conflict-creating bedroom
conduct can be traced to the fact that I’m content with six hours of sleep
while Carissa holds strongly to the eight-hour rule. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That means on a typical night we go to bed with different
expectations for the 9:30-11:30 p.m. time slot. Carissa is there to sleep. I am
there to chat about the day, bitch about things we don’t want our kids to
overhear us bitching about (them, their friends, their teachers, our families,
the neighbors, etc.). This plan generally is rejected quickly, so I move to
Plan B. Reading or web surfing. This also is a problem because after 9:30 p.m.,
Carissa’s super power becomes the ability to detect even the slightest hint of
light. Turn on a night light or open an iPad in bed and tiny particles of light
will reflect and refract directly into her retina, causing tremendous irritation,
even when her eyes are closed. Next I will try Plan C: Shut down all
light-emitting sources, tiptoe down the hallway and into the kitchen for a nightcap,
a little whiskey on the rocks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oops. Bad move. Carissa’s other nighttime super power is
enhanced auditory sensitivity. I can generally pull off opening the cupboard
that holds the bourbon without detection. But the sound of the refrigerator’s
ice dispenser dropping a few cubes into a glass apparently approximates the
sound of ten thousand howling demons burning in a sea of molten lava. No bueno.
And then I come back to bed and set the glass on the nightstand without using a
coaster. Double no bueno.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You would think that after a few thousand exchanges about my
bedtime habits, I would look for solutions. Like maybe drinking whiskey neat
instead of on the rocks or investing in night-vision reading glasses. Sometimes
I fantasize about building a Dad Pad™ out back where I could live but still see
Carissa and the kids every day. It would be a pretty cool place. I’d grill
steaks on my industrial quality grill and Carissa and the kids could come over
for dinner. After dinner, we could watch baseball on my sweet big screen. Then
at bedtime, Carissa and the kids could go home to sleep and I could sit up
watching the end of the game, reading a book with all the lights on, and operating
the ice dispenser on my fridge full of beer with reckless abandon. When I was
goddamn good and ready, I’d turn off the game and crawl into my king-size water
bed with a heater and wave-controlling baffles and turn off the night light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In theory, a terrific plan. But I’d miss that 9:30-11:30
p.m. time slot with Carissa. The reality is that a successful marriage is about
compromise. And a king-sized bed. But mostly compromise. I pretty much suck as
a partner if you want to go to sleep at 9:30. But Carissa on most nights will
sacrifice an hour of sleep to rehash the day’s events with me. And on most
nights I will turn off the lights before I would prefer and lie perfectly still
so she can sleep. In our king-sized bed with extra fancy pillows. While I
fantasize about creating the perfect Dad Pad™. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-49550351843052262842015-08-21T18:29:00.001-07:002015-10-03T11:26:43.082-07:00In defense of participation trophies<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Did you see the story about the NFL star who returned his
young sons’ “participation trophies?” Linebacker James Harrison of the Pittsburgh
Steelers didn’t just return the offending trophies to the youth sports league
that awarded them to his children, ages six and eight. Harrison returned the offending trophies and
then announced on his Instagram account the reason that he had returned the
offending trophies:</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I came home to find out that my boys
received two trophies for nothing, participation trophies! While I am very
proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I
die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy. I'm sorry
I'm not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I'm
not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are
entitled to something just because they tried their best...cause sometimes your
best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better...not cry
and whine until somebody gives you something to shut u up and keep you happy.<a href="https://instagram.com/explore/tags/harrisonfamilyvalues/" target="_top">#harrisonfamilyvalues</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Harrison's post was wildly popular and spread quickly through
the world of social media. He struck a nerve with a great many Americans who
share his opinion that participation trophies are the embodiment of all that is
wrong with the over-privileged, over-indulged, narcissistic, weak, lazy-ass, disrespectful youth of today. You might as well give a kid a trust fund and an Ivy League education if you are so unconcerned with fostering an expectation of entitlement. I mean, can you even imagine? Awarding a kid a cheap plastic trophy?
For doing nothing more than participating?
You certainly won’t get anywhere in this world by participating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh wait. That’s exactly how you <i>will</i> get somewhere in this
world. And that’s the flaw in the logic of Harrison and the rest of you non-participation trophy fans. In Harrison’s own words, recognizing a kid for <i>participating</i> is the equivalent of
recognizing a kid for doing <i>nothing</i>. Think
about that for a moment. It's utter nonsense. Participating is the <i>exact opposite</i> of doing nothing. Every single one of life’s successes
is built upon participation. Getting involved. Getting our hands dirty. Working
up a sweat. We should be <i>encouraging</i>
our kids to participate. In fact, the better argument is that we should award
our kids even <i>more</i> participation
trophies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Harrison makes the secondary argument that participation trophies stunt the desire to excel, to strive for perfection. Because once you receive a participation trophy, what else is there to accomplish? <i>Wanna toss the ball around, son? No thanks, Dad. Think I'm gonna go to my room and play with my participation trophy</i>. That just does not happen. Think about the kids that you know. Most of them have their shit together much more than you did at their age. More than you do now, probably. And almost every one of them has a shelf somewhere in their room stacked with participation trophies (except the
Harrison boys and my oldest daughter - we gave all her participation trophies to
the Idaho Youth Ranch one time when we decided we needed to unclutter our home). In fact, the No. 1 complaint us Old People have about Kids These Days
is that they don’t participate <i>enough</i>
in activities (or real life). We complain that they bury their noses in smart phones while texting friends or that they can't be pulled away from video games. Yet best not to reward them with a cheap trinket for completing a season of soccer unless maybe they win the World Cup.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Participation trophies may be a convenient target for you haters who fondly reminiscing about the glory days. Count me out. Encouraging
kids to participate is much more important than any misguided effort to teach a
lesson about doing better than your best, as Mr. Harrison expects from his children. In his defense, he has spent his life with football coaches who are always in your face about giving 110 percent. Apparently football is not constrained by mathematical truths. Fair enough, but I'm more concerned that my children will manage a good, honest effort at life and just maybe find something approaching happiness along the way. So more participation trophies, please. Let’s
call this #StraightOuttaBoiseFamilyValues. </span></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-62121296174065121152015-08-01T07:54:00.000-07:002015-10-03T11:26:57.987-07:00Heroes<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven’t had a sports hero for a long time. I can still be
inspired by brilliant performances, but as former NBA great Charles Barkley has
noted (and frequently demonstrated), athletes should not be looked to as role
models. A Venn diagram of high school seniors voted both “Most Likely to Lead
the NFL in Sacks” and “Best Personality” would probably be the loneliest population
of overlap in the history of Venn diagrams. I don’t even need to recite the
dumb and selfish shit that star athletes try to get away with. We read about it
and hear about it every single day. Gene pool winners
who can perform jaw-dropping athletic feats, yes. Heroes, no.</div>
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At least I used to believe that. Today I publicly announce that my hero opinion
has changed. Understand that I am not admitting to being wrong, merely that
additional evidence has come to light and I have adjusted an opinion
accordingly. I have changed my opinion because I am the dad of a seven-year-old
girl who loves soccer. The dad of a seven-year-old girl who insisted that we
watch the 2015 Women’s World Cup soccer tournament together on television. A
seven-year-old girl who was visibly thrilled, positively vibrating with excitement,
as we watched Team USA win its World Cup championship.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Believe me when I tell you that this was not an example of
dad projecting his passions onto his child. I’ve already established that I’m
too old and too jaded to have sports heroes. Plus soccer to me is a strange,
exotic spectacle. In the rural little corner of America where I grew up there
was no soccer. We played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and
baseball in the spring and summer. Period. (If at this point you are tempted to interrupt
to explain the distinction between <i>American</i>
<i>football </i>and <i>fùtbol</i>, don’t be that guy.
We all get it, dude.) Anyway, soccer was weird, something at which the foreign
exchange students excelled. Not something that I had ever played or even
watched. And then a few decades later I’m spending weekends watching my
daughters chase soccer balls around fields (pitches?) and yelling “spread out”
and “hustle” and “good job” while not really know a whole lot about what was
going on out there. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Hanging out with my daughter watching the United States
defeat Germany in the semi-finals and then Japan for the championship, part of
me was <i>maybe this will be the gateway drug that will hook her on
watching real sports on television with me! </i>And by real sports, I
meant major league baseball and college football.<i> </i>But the
more I watched, it gradually occurred to me that these soccer games (matches?)
were sort of exciting. The athletes were amazing. Explosive quickness,
endurance, bone-jarring mid-field collisions, advancing the ball up field like
a basketball fast-break. The games were genuinely interesting. What I suddenly
realized was that I hadn’t introduced my daughter to the concept of watching <i>my</i> sports
on television so much as she introduced me to the thrill of watching
world-class women’s soccer on television. Another day, another lesson taught to
me by my children. God I get sick of their crap sometimes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Watching the World Cup with my kid didn’t change my mind on
heroes, though I liked the idea that she was inspired by watching strong
young women compete on the playing field as she dreamed of someday becoming one
of them. I am not so old that I can’t remember dreaming that I would grow up to
play first base for the Seattle Mariners (until I finally accepted I couldn’t
hit a breaking ball or even a decent fastball). A few weeks after the World Cup
final, some friends asked if we’d like to watch a National Women’s Soccer
League match between the Washington Spirit and Chicago Red Stars at a stadium
not far from our home in the DC suburbs. The NWSL is a professional league
that began play two years ago, and the Washington-Chicago match would feature
prominent World Cup team members on both squads (Ali Krieger and back-up
goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris for Washington; Julie Johnston, Christen Press, and
Lori Chalupny for Chicago). The game was terrific and even a non-expert like me
could recognize the skill and athleticism in front of me. Perhaps most amazing:
I watched an entire soccer game that ended in a 1-1 tie and was completely
entertained. I would not have predicted that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Adding to the entertainment was the near capacity crowd of
5,000 plus. Of those 5,000 it seemed like 10,000 were school girls wearing
soccer jerseys. When the World Cups stars made their appearance, the place
erupted into a screaming noise chamber that made me wonder if Taylor Swift had
crashed the party. Nope. It was Ali Krieger and Julie Johnston and their
teammates and these school-aged soccer players were celebrating their heroes. And
then I noticed my seven-year-old emerged from a scrum of screaming school girls
wearing soccer jerseys with an autographed program from Lori Chalupny and
another signature on her red and white soccer jersey from Julie Johnston. Utter
joy. Living a moment she will remember forever.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That’s when I changed my mind about sports heroes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-50685687419200912922015-07-09T11:27:00.000-07:002015-10-03T11:32:25.465-07:00How to talk to first graders about your job<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My wife, Carissa, and I both work outside the home. That
means that at the end of each school year, when the number of opportunities for
parental participation at school functions increases exponentially, the number
of opportunities for us to fail at parenting increases exponentially as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Spring musical performances, class field <i>days</i>, class field
<i>trips</i>, end-of-year class <i>parties</i> . . . so many opportunities! This year we
somehow managed to miss most if not all of them because, well, we had other shit to do. Fortunately, our 14-year-old
was completely chill with our parenting failure. She's just not that into us, to be honest. But her seven-year-old sister was less
forgiving. And by “less forgiving” I mean that she worked herself into a
furious rage that erupted into a fit of self-righteous indignation over her absentee parental units. A meltdown for the ages. Her general grievance appeared to be that everyone else’s
parents came to every single school functions while her parents were pathetic neglectful losers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the long explanation for how I recently found myself
in front of 22 first-graders with 20 minutes to talk to them about my job. I
was slotted into the 11:30 a.m. opening on the Thursday of “career week” at my
daughter’s school. Game on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It should have been Carissa. She is under almost all circumstances much better suited than me at any form of public communication. She is engaging and dynamic. I am awkward and never quite sure what to do with my hands. But she is a senior executive at a
national non-profit organization in D.C., and, well, her job is wonky and difficult to explain if you’re
not deeply immersed in the arcane technical world of education policy. It's not
just first-graders who glaze over when she has to explain her job. I don’t even
know exactly what she does, except that she travels a lot and has a fancy
office. When people ask me what my wife does for work I usually tell them
she works in the adult entertainment industry which helps eliminate follow-up
questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In other words the job of not failing as parents by showing up for career week fell to me. Which was not ideal. Not only am I awkward in front of people, I’m a lawyer for the government. Not a cowboy or an ice cream truck driver. I'm not even some hot shot federal prosecutor
bringing down corrupt politicians and international drug cartels. More like the
kind of government lawyer who spends a lot of time talking to his clients on conference calls, editing
documents on his computer, and reading and writing email at his desk. <i>Hey kids, how many of you are familiar with
PowerPoint! Telephone mute button, the greatest invention in the history of the
world – am I right! Hey, raise your hand if you’ve ever filled out a Doodle
Poll! Who likes to Webinar! Show of hands: WestLaw or LexisNexis?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That’s pretty much my work life right there. That and Casual Fridays.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Still, it’s not like I walked into the deal empty handed. My
job is to represent federal agencies that restore natural resources injured by
oils spills or releases of hazardous materials. I might be a glorified desk
jockey, but my clients have amazing jobs. So I slapped together a slide show of
photos spotlighting oil spilling from a wrecked oil tanker, oiled beaches, oiled
pelicans and sea otters (charismatic mega-fauna, as we say in the business), along
with scientists cleaning oil from charismatic mega-fauna and beaches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I muddled my way through the presentation and probably didn’t
embarrass my daughter in any lasting way. But I certainly made some rookie mistake. So I did what trauma victims sometimes do. I poured myself a tall glass of
bourbon and compiled a short list of lessons learned. Out of an abundance of generosity, my friends, I now share
my hard-earned knowledge with you.</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Lesson 1: Control the
room</b>. It’s one thing to negotiate with high-priced corporate litigators. It’s
an entirely different and more difficult thing to engage a room full of
seven-year-olds. My basic mistake was to ask open-ended questions and to
encourage them to interrupt with their own questions and comments. Holy shit
was that a mistake. I had inadvertently invited a non-ending cycle of kids
sharing any random thought that entered their developing minds. I started out
explaining what lawyers do, how sometimes companies make mistakes and pollute
the environment, and then there are legal consequences. I barely was into my
opening statement when hands went up. <i>Yes,
you in the front, you have a question?</i> Rosa Parks was arrested. <i>Yes, that’s true. Thanks you. What about you
in the red shirt? </i>Smoking is pollution. <i>Yes. OK, another hand. You, in the back</i>. Smoking is bad for your
lungs. <i>Um,</i><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important;">
<i style="font-style: italic;"> yes, absolutely
true. Anyone else? </i>Did the Titanic
spill oil when it sank? <i>Wow. Tough crowd. </i><i style="font-style: italic;">I think it
was a steam ship? So maybe it lost some coal? Anyway, moving on . . .</i>Bottom
line: don’t let the inmates set the agenda. </div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Lesson 2:</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> <b>Bring swag.</b> I solicited advice from
friends before my first career week gig. One thing a lot of people told me I
should do is tell the kids that I’m a fireman or as</span>ronaut. They also said pass
out candy or stickers or something cool. That’s a good idea, I thought, but I
never got around to doing that. Because I have a job. I barely have time to stop by the liquor store. How am I expected to track down candy and stickers? Besides, I had prepared a slide show with oiled otters
and pelicans. At home that night after my presentation, I asked my daughter how
I did and she told me I’d earned a solid B. You know who rated an A from my
daughter? The investment banker mom who works with developers who construct
apartment complexes. WTF, right? Why does a banker building apartments get an A
while a lawyer who saves mega-fauna from corporate polluters earns a B? Because
the banker brought foil-wrapped chocolate coins to explain her job. Never
forget: Kids dig swag.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Lesson 3: Know the
competition:</b> If possible find out in advance from your kid or her teacher
who the other parents presenting to the class will be.Then you’ll have a
better idea about how much effort you’ll need to put into your presentation. I
went in cold. Not a good idea. Didn't do my homework. Didn’t know there would be a banker with
chocolate coins. I also learned (too late) that there was a
city planner who created his own Monopoly game to teach kids about zoning, a physical
therapist who talked about muscles and how they work, and a doctor who surgically repaired
a stuffed toy and let kids play with her stethoscope. The coolest parent, according to my daughter, was
the dad who is some sort of forensic investigator who explained his job with a story
plot that involved stolen cookies and then shared cookies with the class as
they helped him solve the mystery. Total dick move. He’s probably the same guy
who gives his kid a pony for her birthday and takes his wife to Paris for their
anniversary. Slow down, cowboy, it’s career week at Wood Acres Elementary, not
the freaking Super Bowl. Take away: Do not underestimate parents who participate in career week.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That’s my tall drink inspired short list. As my own kid pointed out, I brought my
B game to career week. Lame dad move. Next time I will be better prepared. Next time investment
banker moms with candy will fear me and forensic criminal investigator dads
will wonder if I’m going to take over their stranglehold on network television
procedural dramas. Next time, I will impress my most honest critic to the point that she awards me a solid B+. </span><br />
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Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8312998845408634089.post-27638695587187746982015-06-06T15:01:00.000-07:002015-10-03T11:29:10.826-07:00How I celebrated my 50th birthday<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One day last winter I realized that I would be turning 50
come springtime. So I completely freaked out. I bought a motorcycle, got a
tattoo on my neck, slept with an attractive married woman. Wait. That’s not
true. Not all of it at least. I didn’t buy a motorcycle. I don’t have any tattoos.
But I did sleep with an attractive married woman. It was my wife, Carissa, which
was (and is) great, I am not complaining one bit. But it’s hardly the stuff of
bat-shit-midlife-crisis-crazyville either. And it felt like I needed to do
something epic and regrettable to mark the survival of half a century.</span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I decided to run a 50-kilometer ultra-marathon. For those
of you who believe the metric system is a godless United Nations socialist
plot, that’s roughly 31 miles. It seemed like the perfect birthday gift to
myself. I liked the 50@50 symmetry. It also seemed like it would give me a head
start as I entered my next half century. Or maybe it would kill me. Either way,
I was going to make it happen. So I searched events on the world wide web and
discovered a 50k trail run a few hours away scheduled for the day after my
birthday. I signed up for the <a href="https://maniac50k.wordpress.com/">SingleTrack Maniac 50k near Williamsburg,Virginia</a>, and started training.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Full disclosure: I was actually a little arrogant about
signing up for the SingleTrack Maniac (STM) 50k. The course organizer warned
that the STM course was difficult – single-track mountain bike trails with
hidden roots, twists and turns, and more than 1,500 feet of elevation gain and
loss. Sounded legitimately challenging, but I’ve been a runner for more than 20
years and finished 10 marathons in the last 10 years. Nearly all of my running
happened while living out west where I had grown up and where I had adopted the
common conceit of westerners that we are exceedingly hardy compared to our
effete fellow Americans back east. In fact, this would not even be my first 50k.
I did one in Idaho back in 2011 – the Foothills Frenzy 50k (you can't organize a 50k trail run without coming up with a wacky name - it's the law, you can check it out). The Foothills
Frenzy was a brutal, unforgiving course. Nearly 6,000 feet of elevation gain on
trails passing by scatterings of sagebrush and a few pine trees. So I wasn’t intimidated
by the thought of running on “mountain” bike trails in the quaint hills of the
Virginia piedmont. Or tidewater maybe (I’m still learning the mid-Atlantic
geography).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But (foreshadowing alert) my last 50k was three and a half
years ago. In the meanwhile, I’d had a couple of non-running related surgeries that
had disrupted my running routine. We also moved from Boise to D.C., further disrupting
my routine. And I’d gained about 10 pounds, which over a 31-mile run can start
to feel like you’re carrying a belt made from a 24-pack of Deschutes Brewery Mirror Pond Pale Ale
bottles. Only they jiggle instead clank.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you’re here to read a straight-up, no frills STM 50k race
report, <a href="http://straightouttaboise.blogspot.com/2015/06/race-report-singletrack-maniac-50k.html">check out this link right here</a>. If you want your race
report with the frills and not necessarily written for runners, keep reading. My
family – Carissa and our girls, ages 14 and seven – indulged me by making my
50@50 birthday celebration a weekend event. As soon as the girls were out of
school on Friday, we jumped in the SUV and headed south from our home in
Bethesda to Williamsburg. The trip is roughly 120 miles, but on a Friday
heading south on I-95 out of D.C. (aka the world’s longest parking lot), that
meant about five hours on the road. We stayed in a condo with two bedrooms,
which was nice to have space when I was up at 4:30 sharp on Saturday
morning to prepare for the 7 a.m. race start. If you’re wondering why I would
get up at 4:30 for a race that begins at 7 and is only 15 minutes away
from the condo, let me say only that biological functions are best dealt with before starting a 31-mile run and that pooping on demand is not one of my super powers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The STM 50k is a great local race. Roughly 85 runners
started. This is the event’s third year and was perfectly organized, except
they forgot to do something about the shitty weather. It was already warm and
sticky with temperatures in the upper 60s (and heading for the 80s) as we lined
up for the start. OK, the weather could have been worse. But this Idaho boy is not a fan of the
mid-Atlantic humidity. Still, I started out fine. I held a steady pace as we
covered two miles of asphalt and gravel road before heading into the single
track mountain bike trails. The shade was great – mature oaks and pines lined the entire course. The runners quickly spread out and it was easy
to feel alone in the woods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The race organizer did not misrepresent when she said the
course was twisting and turning and snaky and up and down and sideways. There
were no mountains to climb, but there was not a single straight line or level
plane on the entire course. She also spoke truth when she said that there were
lots of roots on the trail, many of which were obscured by layers of leaves and
pine needles, as I would discover. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I blame the warm, humid weather, but I started thinking
about cold beer at Mile 8. At Mile 9 I caught a toe on a hidden root and fell
to my hands and knees. No big deal. By the end of the day I would go down to my
hands and knees three or four more times, and another three times landed flat
on my stomach after finding a hidden root. The belly flops were a bigger deal,
but I escaped serious harm. The black toenails and abrasions on my knees and
hip, though, would tell that story the next day. I cruised along fairly well
through Mile 15, roughly the midpoint. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But by Mile 18, as the sun climbed higher and the flies
started buzzing, as I stubbed an already battered and bruised big toe on yet
another unseen root, I entered that phase that endurance runners call The Wall.
Although I had been regularly eating packets of specially formulated energy gel and drinking water and sports drink along the way, there came that point where
my body had consumed its available fuel supply and I was running on fumes. It
becomes difficult to do something simple, like knowing I was at Mile 22 of a 31
mile race but struggling to do the math that would reveal that I had only nine
miles to go. Or remembering the name of the race I was running. Or the names of my children. As your
brain is shutting down, you enter a world where gravity exerts and increasingly
heavy pull on your body and your toes find more and more things to stumble
over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That typically doesn’t last forever. Miles 18-24 were the
worst, and then I took a few minutes at an aid station to take on extra food
and drink. Then it was time to grind out the last few miles. Quitting, of course,
is not an option absent a compound fracture or complete physical and emotional
breakdown. That’s the point of competing in endurance events, to finish what
you’ve spent four months religiously training to finish. In 2007 at the Portland
Marathon near Mile 20, I came up on a guy who had shit his running shorts <i>and kept on running</i>. That was a
wonderful incentive for me to pick up my pace and move far, far away from that (yes,
I’m going to say it) crappy situation. But think about it: the guy shit his
pants and kept on running. The point is, the end of an endurance race can get
weird and the challenge is to focus mind and body and finish with as much
dignity as you can summon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">No poop-stained runners were on hand at the STM 50k to push my to run faster, but I had some incentives pulling me toward the finish. For one, Carissa had blabbed on social media the day before that I was running a 50k on my
50th birthday, so it would have been awkward to not finish. Never underestimate the power of shame as a motivator. I also focused on the delicious cold beer awaiting me back at the condo. Finally I thought about my family
at waiting at the finish line (I had recovered sufficiently from my early funk that I could now remember their names). One of the best
parts of the day was racing my seven-year-old to the finish line after she
joined me for the last 100 yards, although she wanted to race and is fast so I hustled a bit more than I wanted there at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I finished the course in 5:46:15, a little
slower than my previous 50k but given the course and the weather, I was
suitably humbled and reasonably satisfied with my effort.<a href="http://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=26795#"> I finished 17th overall and was the first of the 15 finishers aged 50 or older,</a> (you have to click the 2015 tab for this year's results) which meant
that I won the “Grand Master” division. It felt a little like cheating to win a
division that I was a member of for all of one day. Nonetheless, that has not stopped me
from demanding that my family address me as Grand Master.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now that 50@50 business is over and I survived. I’m done
with mid-life crisis mode for a while at least. But I am starting to think
about how to celebrate when I turn 60. At the moment the leading idea is 60@60 – 60 different
beers over my 60th birthday weekend with my brothers and few friends in
Las Vegas. I’ve got ten years to train.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I can’t wait to turn 70. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Straight Outta Boisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865599696421840583noreply@blogger.com0