I was supposed to be on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" on Sunday morning. I didn't tell too many people because these sorts of things, especially given the topic I was to discuss, often get bumped. And it did.
That's the problem with being booked into the "kicker" segment -- the short segment just before the end of the show, usually about something witty and/or clever.
I'm supposed to talk about the Fantasy Legislature application we came up with (if you're not familiar with it, Google "Fantasy Legislature" and then click the "news" results and you'll see.
Fox says they'll want me on next Sunday at the same time, but that will probably get bumped too.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
Where do airplanes come from, daddy?
This was written for a column on the RV Builder's Hotline
A week ago, I was cutting the aluminum stock that forms the rear spar doubler on my RV-7A's right wing (I had messed up the original). I was using my father's old Delta bandsaw. When I finished, I looked at the piece and said, "thanks, Dad." See, although my father died in 2004, he's helping me build this airplane.
Last summer, I cleaned out -- or started to -- the workshop in the barn that my Dad used for years and even though I've got a cheap old Harbor Freight bandsaw, his Delta bandsaw was still new enough, and well-made enough, that I figured I'd drive it back to Minnesota, clean it up, put a new blade on it, and make it part of the airplane factory in my garage.
It's only a 9" bandsaw -- less than the Harbor Freight model -- and I've only been able to find a 1/8" width blade for it, one that will cut aluminum -- not as sturdy as the 1/4" Harbor Freight blade -- but there's a big difference between the cheap model and the Delta: The Delta was his. And so was the tap-and-die set I used to make the flap pushrods. And so I like to think that my Dad made the flap pushrods and my Dad made the trim on the rear spar and to the extent I'm not the greatest builder in the world but I want to be, well, that was my Dad's handiwork too. The sign in my workshop that says, "you're only a failure if you don't try," once hung in his.
My plane's registration number will be N614EF, and while you might think that's 6-1-4-echo-foxtrot, it's really June 14, Eileen and Fred. The day they were married. I figure it's their airplane too. They helped build it, so their "day" should be on it.
In the years before he died, he didn't get around too much, but I'd talk to him from time to time on the phone and when the subject came to building an airplane, he'd always say, "well, just make sure you're careful."
If you have a father from the Greatest Generation, you learn to speak "Dad talk." You know that line in the Dixie Chicks song where the daughter is leaving home and as she's pulling out, Dad says "check the oil."? That's Dad talk. And it doesn't mean "check the oil," any more than "Gee, the Patriots didn't play too well today" in our conversations meant something about football.
These are the connections that I find all over Planet RV. And while folks may not be saying it; they're "speaking it" just the same. Sons aren't saying to Dad or Mom , necessarily, "this plane belongs to you." Well, at least they're not saying it with words. But they're saying it nonetheless. Sometimes it's an N number, sometimes it's just a ride in an airplane. But they're saying it.
Saturday morning is my favorite day of the week, and not just because it's the time when I realize I don't have to get up and go to work (when you're an online editor for a company whose core media is radio, you're always at work).
Nope Saturday is the morning I get to sit around and read my e-mail. The pressure of scrounging up something to stick in the Hotline (which is how most of my mornings begin) is gone, the issue has been sent out, and the time is all mine.
And once I get through all the spam, there's usually a couple of personal e-mails from RV friends, most of whom I haven't met personally.
Now, you've probably realized by now that this particular column each week isn't about how to build an RV; I focus mostly on the personal connections we have because of these projects, either to the projects themselves, each other, or someone else. This week is no different.
Last Thursday night, I got a note from Walter Tondu, who has a terrific Web site for RV builders , indicating that he'd signed up his father, Larry, to receive the Hotline. My mind immediately snapped back to one of my favorite RV-themed videos. The one where Walter -- and his Dad -- moved his project to the airport.
It's my favorite video, not so much because of the process of moving the plane, but because there was a segment in there featuring Larry. Now maybe it's because I'm a proud father, or because I like to think I once had one, but I easily detected the face of a proud dad along with one very infectious laugh, and an obvious great sense of humor.
"I'm the proud one," Walter said about his Dad when I told him that. And, darned, if that isn't obvious when he flew his plane home to Michigan last year after Oshkosh.
Oh, there's more. This week, I was patrolling the various EAA chapter sites and came across the nifty shot you see over on the left. It's a photo of Mark Navratil and his Dad. They can wear the sunglasses, but you can't mask the pride. This shot, according to the EAA newsletter, won in the General Aviation category of the Iowa Department of Transportation photo contest.
Although we don't seem to be a bunch that talks about these things much, there seems to be a lot of "Dad" in a lot of RVers and aviators. And many times, a lot of moms too.
A few years ago, my Mom came out to visit. She's 85 years old now, and I was renting a Piper Warrior. That's the one-door-and-you-have-to-walk-up-on-the-wing Piper Warrior. My mom was in no condition to walk up the wing, but there was no way she was missing her first-ever ride in a small airplane, especially one piloted by her baby boy. So she sat on the wing and pushed herself up and into the cabin.
We launched for a flight over fly-over country and she told me how, when she was a girl, she wanted to grow up and be Amelia Earhart.
"The plane's yours," I said, and an old lady got a chance to live a dream of flying a plane for a few seconds, and a middle-aged man finally figured out where his love of flying came from.
Then there's Gerry Humphreys of Limerick, Ireland. He had his first flight in his RV-7 on Tuesday. He sent me the picture you see here. Aside from the fact his family appears to be postcard perfect, check out the look on his Mum's face. She's holding the bottle of champagne. Isn't that priceless?
And so, being a news guy, I had to poke into this a little bit more, and asked Gerry to tell me about her.
"My mum is a retired anaesthetist, has has been living with my obsession with flying since shortly after I was born when my Dad, an ex-RAF WWII era fighter pilot, 'flew' me around the room in his arms," Gerry wrote. "He left flying in the late '50s and started farming when his uncle left him the farm here in Limerick, about 18 miles East of Shannon airport in South West Ireland."
"I only discovered he was a pilot when I was about 7 and found some old photos in a drawer. He never talked much about flying, but I made up for him! I dreamt about flying and aeroplanes when I should probably have been dreaming about girls, and started building models as soon as I could. Mum and Dad always encouraged me and over the years paid for more than their fair share of engines, radio gear, fuel etc."
"They were both proud when I got a scholarship from the RAF in my last year of studying Aeronautical engineering at Queens University in Belfast. I spent 20 years in the RAF mostly flying Harriers and retired home to the farm when we discovered my dad had cancer and 6 months to live. That was in 1997, and since then I have been farming organic beef cattle and found a way to stay flying with the local flying club at Coonagh, noteworthy as probably the shortest, narrow licensed strip where prople learn to fly in Europe (400 x 9 m)."
"I met my wife Vicky in the RAF, so she is used to aircraft, in fact I ejected from a Harrier the day after we got engaged; I was supposed to be leading a 4 aircraft formation over her station and did not show up. I had a generator failure followed by engine failure on short finals at Yeovilton down the road. I had a 0.4 sec parachute ride, fortunately no-one was injured and they found a mechanical fault next day."
"We are very lucky to live here on the farm, lots of space, and of course, an airstrip, which was one of my first projects when I took over the helm. I started flying professionally for a local company www.pacnetair.com and after the strip was complete the obvious next step was to build my own aircraft. The RV7 was the obvious choice, and so the last few years have seen me with plenty to do in my spare time!
We are always happy to see visitors, so drop by if you are in this part of the world!"
Yep, that's a mighty fine airplane that your Dad, and Mum, and wife, and children built, Gerry.
I recall a thread on VAF a year or so ago where someone maintained you have to be a "special" person to build an RV. I thought it was enough to scare off a newbie who thought there was something magic about this process, and that much of the character -- persistence, patience etc. -- is something that we can mostly acquire through the building process.
But I suppose, looking back, there are obvious traits in an RV builder -- they come from a solid line of hearty, airplane-building-character stock. Sure, a lot of what we know once we build these things we acquired in the process. Sometimes it's a result of some fancy book learnin'. But all of the time we can thank the gene pool and some people who served as role models.
We build these planes ourselves. But we never build them alone.
A week ago, I was cutting the aluminum stock that forms the rear spar doubler on my RV-7A's right wing (I had messed up the original). I was using my father's old Delta bandsaw. When I finished, I looked at the piece and said, "thanks, Dad." See, although my father died in 2004, he's helping me build this airplane.
Last summer, I cleaned out -- or started to -- the workshop in the barn that my Dad used for years and even though I've got a cheap old Harbor Freight bandsaw, his Delta bandsaw was still new enough, and well-made enough, that I figured I'd drive it back to Minnesota, clean it up, put a new blade on it, and make it part of the airplane factory in my garage.
It's only a 9" bandsaw -- less than the Harbor Freight model -- and I've only been able to find a 1/8" width blade for it, one that will cut aluminum -- not as sturdy as the 1/4" Harbor Freight blade -- but there's a big difference between the cheap model and the Delta: The Delta was his. And so was the tap-and-die set I used to make the flap pushrods. And so I like to think that my Dad made the flap pushrods and my Dad made the trim on the rear spar and to the extent I'm not the greatest builder in the world but I want to be, well, that was my Dad's handiwork too. The sign in my workshop that says, "you're only a failure if you don't try," once hung in his.
My plane's registration number will be N614EF, and while you might think that's 6-1-4-echo-foxtrot, it's really June 14, Eileen and Fred. The day they were married. I figure it's their airplane too. They helped build it, so their "day" should be on it.
In the years before he died, he didn't get around too much, but I'd talk to him from time to time on the phone and when the subject came to building an airplane, he'd always say, "well, just make sure you're careful."
If you have a father from the Greatest Generation, you learn to speak "Dad talk." You know that line in the Dixie Chicks song where the daughter is leaving home and as she's pulling out, Dad says "check the oil."? That's Dad talk. And it doesn't mean "check the oil," any more than "Gee, the Patriots didn't play too well today" in our conversations meant something about football.
These are the connections that I find all over Planet RV. And while folks may not be saying it; they're "speaking it" just the same. Sons aren't saying to Dad or Mom , necessarily, "this plane belongs to you." Well, at least they're not saying it with words. But they're saying it nonetheless. Sometimes it's an N number, sometimes it's just a ride in an airplane. But they're saying it.
Saturday morning is my favorite day of the week, and not just because it's the time when I realize I don't have to get up and go to work (when you're an online editor for a company whose core media is radio, you're always at work).
Nope Saturday is the morning I get to sit around and read my e-mail. The pressure of scrounging up something to stick in the Hotline (which is how most of my mornings begin) is gone, the issue has been sent out, and the time is all mine.
And once I get through all the spam, there's usually a couple of personal e-mails from RV friends, most of whom I haven't met personally.
Now, you've probably realized by now that this particular column each week isn't about how to build an RV; I focus mostly on the personal connections we have because of these projects, either to the projects themselves, each other, or someone else. This week is no different.
Last Thursday night, I got a note from Walter Tondu, who has a terrific Web site for RV builders , indicating that he'd signed up his father, Larry, to receive the Hotline. My mind immediately snapped back to one of my favorite RV-themed videos. The one where Walter -- and his Dad -- moved his project to the airport.
It's my favorite video, not so much because of the process of moving the plane, but because there was a segment in there featuring Larry. Now maybe it's because I'm a proud father, or because I like to think I once had one, but I easily detected the face of a proud dad along with one very infectious laugh, and an obvious great sense of humor."I'm the proud one," Walter said about his Dad when I told him that. And, darned, if that isn't obvious when he flew his plane home to Michigan last year after Oshkosh.
Oh, there's more. This week, I was patrolling the various EAA chapter sites and came across the nifty shot you see over on the left. It's a photo of Mark Navratil and his Dad. They can wear the sunglasses, but you can't mask the pride. This shot, according to the EAA newsletter, won in the General Aviation category of the Iowa Department of Transportation photo contest.Although we don't seem to be a bunch that talks about these things much, there seems to be a lot of "Dad" in a lot of RVers and aviators. And many times, a lot of moms too.
A few years ago, my Mom came out to visit. She's 85 years old now, and I was renting a Piper Warrior. That's the one-door-and-you-have-to-walk-up-on-the-wing Piper Warrior. My mom was in no condition to walk up the wing, but there was no way she was missing her first-ever ride in a small airplane, especially one piloted by her baby boy. So she sat on the wing and pushed herself up and into the cabin.We launched for a flight over fly-over country and she told me how, when she was a girl, she wanted to grow up and be Amelia Earhart.
"The plane's yours," I said, and an old lady got a chance to live a dream of flying a plane for a few seconds, and a middle-aged man finally figured out where his love of flying came from.
Then there's Gerry Humphreys of Limerick, Ireland. He had his first flight in his RV-7 on Tuesday. He sent me the picture you see here. Aside from the fact his family appears to be postcard perfect, check out the look on his Mum's face. She's holding the bottle of champagne. Isn't that priceless?
And so, being a news guy, I had to poke into this a little bit more, and asked Gerry to tell me about her."My mum is a retired anaesthetist, has has been living with my obsession with flying since shortly after I was born when my Dad, an ex-RAF WWII era fighter pilot, 'flew' me around the room in his arms," Gerry wrote. "He left flying in the late '50s and started farming when his uncle left him the farm here in Limerick, about 18 miles East of Shannon airport in South West Ireland."
"I only discovered he was a pilot when I was about 7 and found some old photos in a drawer. He never talked much about flying, but I made up for him! I dreamt about flying and aeroplanes when I should probably have been dreaming about girls, and started building models as soon as I could. Mum and Dad always encouraged me and over the years paid for more than their fair share of engines, radio gear, fuel etc."
"They were both proud when I got a scholarship from the RAF in my last year of studying Aeronautical engineering at Queens University in Belfast. I spent 20 years in the RAF mostly flying Harriers and retired home to the farm when we discovered my dad had cancer and 6 months to live. That was in 1997, and since then I have been farming organic beef cattle and found a way to stay flying with the local flying club at Coonagh, noteworthy as probably the shortest, narrow licensed strip where prople learn to fly in Europe (400 x 9 m)."
"I met my wife Vicky in the RAF, so she is used to aircraft, in fact I ejected from a Harrier the day after we got engaged; I was supposed to be leading a 4 aircraft formation over her station and did not show up. I had a generator failure followed by engine failure on short finals at Yeovilton down the road. I had a 0.4 sec parachute ride, fortunately no-one was injured and they found a mechanical fault next day."
"We are very lucky to live here on the farm, lots of space, and of course, an airstrip, which was one of my first projects when I took over the helm. I started flying professionally for a local company www.pacnetair.com and after the strip was complete the obvious next step was to build my own aircraft. The RV7 was the obvious choice, and so the last few years have seen me with plenty to do in my spare time!
We are always happy to see visitors, so drop by if you are in this part of the world!"
Yep, that's a mighty fine airplane that your Dad, and Mum, and wife, and children built, Gerry.
I recall a thread on VAF a year or so ago where someone maintained you have to be a "special" person to build an RV. I thought it was enough to scare off a newbie who thought there was something magic about this process, and that much of the character -- persistence, patience etc. -- is something that we can mostly acquire through the building process.
But I suppose, looking back, there are obvious traits in an RV builder -- they come from a solid line of hearty, airplane-building-character stock. Sure, a lot of what we know once we build these things we acquired in the process. Sometimes it's a result of some fancy book learnin'. But all of the time we can thank the gene pool and some people who served as role models.
We build these planes ourselves. But we never build them alone.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
So I had this idea
One of the things I like to do in my real job is to figure out how people consume information vs. how we -- the media -- give it to people. The two are quite often not the same. Surely the recent decline of the newspaper industry has told us that.
In the '80s, I used to preach the downfall of commercial radio news to various broadcast groups with the theme, "who killed radio news? Radio newspeople." Since I was speaking to radio newspeople, that usually didn't go over big. And I'd love to tell them all "I told you so," except they're, you know, extinct. I imagine 20 years from now, nobody will be able to gloat to a polar bear, "you know, you probably shouldn't have gotten use to living on an ice flow." But I digress.
If you want to see people roll their eyes in a newsroom, propose this idea: Fantasy Legislature. It's based on the same principle as fantasy baseball and fantasy football. People build teams of real legislators and earn points from what they really do.
This was tried last year with Fantasy Congress, but I didn't really like the interface. And it also allowed people in the same league to "own" the same lawmaker. That's dumb. Plus it doesn't do what I think Fantasy Legislature could do. And that is, give people actual news content, but in the form of a game, because that's how people are consuming information now and the age of radio newscasts pontificating and pronouncing as if it was a tablet from Moses is over. (Shhhhhhh!)
I think it was a good idea. Newspeople didn't much care for it, but that's only because part of a newsroom's nature is to chisel tablets. But the farther you go from the core of the newsroom... the more enthusiasm within my core media company developed. That should tell us all something.
Maybe that's changing, because apparently the idea has gotten some notice.
In the '80s, I used to preach the downfall of commercial radio news to various broadcast groups with the theme, "who killed radio news? Radio newspeople." Since I was speaking to radio newspeople, that usually didn't go over big. And I'd love to tell them all "I told you so," except they're, you know, extinct. I imagine 20 years from now, nobody will be able to gloat to a polar bear, "you know, you probably shouldn't have gotten use to living on an ice flow." But I digress.
If you want to see people roll their eyes in a newsroom, propose this idea: Fantasy Legislature. It's based on the same principle as fantasy baseball and fantasy football. People build teams of real legislators and earn points from what they really do.
This was tried last year with Fantasy Congress, but I didn't really like the interface. And it also allowed people in the same league to "own" the same lawmaker. That's dumb. Plus it doesn't do what I think Fantasy Legislature could do. And that is, give people actual news content, but in the form of a game, because that's how people are consuming information now and the age of radio newscasts pontificating and pronouncing as if it was a tablet from Moses is over. (Shhhhhhh!)
I think it was a good idea. Newspeople didn't much care for it, but that's only because part of a newsroom's nature is to chisel tablets. But the farther you go from the core of the newsroom... the more enthusiasm within my core media company developed. That should tell us all something.
Maybe that's changing, because apparently the idea has gotten some notice.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Pssttt! Hey earthling! Want to get lucky?
As I continue to get use to life in an empty nest, I'm trying to figure out something. Does everything seem perfect with my kids because everything is perfect (You have to realize that "perfect" has a very broad and inclusive definition here.)? Or does everything seem perfect -- comparatively speaking -- because I just don't see them every day the way I used to?
You know the old saying, "I don't want to know" when someone tries to tell you something you don't want to hear? Or "ignorance is bliss." I don't know if I'm ignorant or not but if I am, I kind of wish I were ignorant a long time ago.
It's gotten pretty busy at work, what with the Legislature starting again and me trying to get a new application (Fantasy Legislature!) off the ground. So I haven't even had time to sit and look through the Christmas pictures. Until tonight.
The picture above is now one of my favorites because what you have there appears to be pure joy. Sean and Patrick have given Carolie an angel for the top of the tree.
The angel at the top of the tree has a long history in the Collins household. When I was growing up, we had this plastic, but lighted angel with real angel hair. The problem is, she looked kind of slutty. And as time went on, she looked even worse. She became known as the "whorey angel." We have no idea where she is now.
So we have a new one here now and I just checked. She has her eyes closed and looks very peaceful and happy; not like she's hoping to get lucky.
Like me.
Friday, December 22, 2006
My plane, my child
I ordered my RV-7A slow-build kit in the spring of 2001. Like many airplane builders, I wasn't sure I had the skills to build an airplane. I wasn't sure I had the money either. As I get started on the finishing kit five -- almost six -- years later, I'm still not sure where the dough is going to come from for my pay-as-I-go project. It's a balancing act to make sure there's not more "go" than "pay." But so far, so good, so slow.
What intrigues me about the slowness of the project is how many life forms it has taken on. I talked a few weeks ago about how the project is building me too, but the project has also been quite transformative.
When I first contemplated a homebuilt, I thought it would be a great way for my kids to be involved in something with me. At the time, they were 15 and 12 and, looking back, I probably should've started it earlier. But, of course, there wasn't the money to do so because, among other reasons, there were two kids who were 15 and 12.
Long-term, I viewed an airplane as the way to visit the kids when they went off to college in the far-flung corners of the universe. I saw the plane as the magic carpet for Dad.
The kids were as excited as I was when the tail kit arrived. They enjoyed helping to unpack everything. But as I started the project, it was rare to find more than one of us in the garage. The 12-year-old made a few more appearances during the original construction of the "H" jig to build the HS (at that time), probably because 12-year-olds are more "Dad-friendly" than 15-year-olds, who are starting to discover girls, TV, sleeping late, videogames, and one-word answers to any conversation the old man should initiate.
So the project became an occasional solo act. By the time the wings came along, things had changed. We realized one of my sons had some special needs at the time and it was a difficult time for all of us. The annual trip to Oshkosh with him, and his occasional bit of help on the plane turned the project into "therapy" for a short time, and between it and me, the strings that connect a father and son, though frayed, never broke. Never.
When things got worse, however, enthusiasm for the project waned because life was getting in the way. It's hard to be excited about flying, when your child is in pain on a near daily basis. And so, in a fit of my own desperation, the project was put up for sale. Fortunately, it didn't sell and I listened to someone on a bulletin board who said, "just roll it into the corner." Since it was a pay-as-you-go project, leaving it alone for awhile didn't cost me anything. And so, my project became an abandoned project.
As a few months went by, the ups-and-downs of family life started to stabilize a bit and work resumed on the project. From time to time, my youngest boy, then 15, helped me buck the rivets on wing skins. And my oldest son would take a crack at it too, and proved quite good at it.
I started treasuring more, those times. I started treasuring more, the dings or dents that they helped me make in my wings (OK, I made most of them by myself!). When they would help me with a particular section, I would have them "autograph" the inside of the part with a Sharpie pen. I have quite a few autographs and messages that will be there forever. I'll never erase them. And so now, my project was a father's scrapbook.
Just this morning I was downstairs finishing up putting some nutplates on the wing skin (where the fairing attaches) and I started looking over those wings that have sat in the family room for the last 3 years. I cringed at one bad rivet on the rear spar doubler, and then started looking inside the skins and finding the messages from both kids on the days they helped shoot some rivets. "World's best flush rivet," one said. Another just said, "Sean," in his barely-legible signature that didn't mask his pride at mastering something. Anything. Something propelled him on his road to adulthood, past the minefields of adolescence. I think a few well-shot rivets deserve credit.
When the fuselage kit arrived, both of my lads were becoming young men -- fine young men. I realized as I looked back on the project, that there's a parallel between building an airplane and raising children. Plenty of people tell you it can be done with patience and a lot of money. That you'll start out trying to get the hang of it, make your share of mistakes, but pressing on and doing the best you can, you'll get better at it. And by the time the finishing kit arrives, you'll realize you were better at it than you sometimes thought, often wishing that you could go back and do the parts again, armed with the knowledge you didn't have before. Sometimes you'll look at other builder's projects and wonder why theirs are so perfect to the naked eye, but then they note that they made mistakes too, and you feel better. Your project is another of your children.
And then the first flight comes and your project is a finished airplane flying on its own power, and you burst with pride -- and maybe some tears -- at your accomplishment and the beauty of your project. The folks who said, "it'll get better" when you were folding over rivets, were right. It does. It gets darned near perfect and the occasional poorly-executed task in the past seems insignificant, no matter how much sleep it caused you to lose at the time.
My sons are out of the house now. They're flying on their own. My oldest son, now 21, isn't pounding rivets with me anymore, but he is working with me at my place of business, and it's been a great time. My youngest son, 18 and counting, shares an apartment with the brother he used to battle on a daily basis, and is Minnesota's youngest EMT, working on becoming an advanced EMT and paramedic. He's going to school and working full-time. I didn't build them by myself, but I did some of it.
And so now my airplane project is my youngest child; keeping the old man company and reminding me on a daily basis that when I'm gone, it, the dings, the dents, the autographs, and the eventual flying magic carpet, will remind someone that I was once here. Doing the best I could, making my share of mistakes, and loving every minute of it.
I dream of the day my project will be fully grown, and we can go flying with its siblings.
(This article originally was written for the RV Builder's Hotline)
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Video Bob
I'm late getting to this but when MPR did its election-night party in November, a talented gentleman named Bo Hakala produced three segments on how blogs have changed the way we cover politics (yeah, I know, the header says I don't cover politics here.).
I wasn't aware they'd been subsequently posted online but here they are. I'm discussing Polinaut, which I started last December, and how, ummm, it was accepted -- or not -- by a mainstream newsroom.
Here's the segment on the blog's spot in history.
And here's a segment called "Putting the V in blog."
I wasn't aware they'd been subsequently posted online but here they are. I'm discussing Polinaut, which I started last December, and how, ummm, it was accepted -- or not -- by a mainstream newsroom.
Here's the segment on the blog's spot in history.
And here's a segment called "Putting the V in blog."
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Dance of the Sugarplum Idiots
My wife and I have a lot of stuff; we don't need any more stuff. So this year we're not buying a bunch of Christmas presents for each other. And the kids are grown now, so for the most part they'll get one big present each. And my siblings and I have never exchanged Christmas presents. So our stress when it comes to shopping is at a very low level.
Instead, this year, we're buying as much stuff as we can for the kids in pediatric mental health facilities. You know, the places where the athletes with TV cameras in tow rarely visit. We're also buying Christmas presents for a man and his little girl that my wife knows that barely has enough money to keep the lights on.
Every year, we've both always taken a day off from work and gone shopping at the Mall of America, mostly because we like to watch people, and it's usually a nice time with a relaxing lunch to boot. This year was no exception.
At every turn there was a good memory. One time we took my mother and father there. Dad was in a wheelchair and he'd wave his cane (jokingly) to clear people out of the way.
Today, we stopped to watch some kids in a band set up and play. I like kids in bands. Don't ask me why; I was never in one. But I do remember the first time I saw my son, Sean, play at one of those elementary school band nights. He played the trombone and, I guess, he played it well, even though I don't recall hearing him practice. But the particular night I went -- it might've been 5th grade or 6th grade -- it was the first time I saw my son as someone other than my son. It was the first time I recall seeing him master something I never mastered and realized this kid really was his own person.
The same is true for Patrick. He played the trumpet, although -- again -- I never heard him practice. Now, you have to understand elementary school bands. First, they have too many clarinets and, second, because they have drums... everything they do has to have drums in it. So if they did Beethoven's 5th... it always comes out as Beethoven's 5th march.
And you can also sort of hear the kids saying "1-2-3-4-" in their heads as they played. Patrick was different. He grooved on the trumpet thing. He'd swing his head back and forth, the way a trumpet player should. For all I know, he couldn't play a lick. But it doens't matter. Band is like golf. It's not important to be good; it's only important to look good.
That's what I was thinking about as I watched the kids get ready. And then they played the theme from the Nutcracker and Carolie remembered stuff too. One time she was decorating a tree at home and listening to the Nutcracker CD. Carolie being, well, Carolie, she started dancing as if she were a ballerina. Patrick, quite young at this age, was astonished. "How do you know all the steps?" he gasped.
"Dare me to start dancing," she said to me today when the kids started playing.
"Yeah," I said.
So she did. She walked up to the front of the atrium hall where a huge Christmas tree was and started the whole "ballerina" thing. I was laughing so hard I couldn't get my camera to work right (picture is a re-enactment). And because we were laughing so hard, we had to excuse ourselves from the concert and continue our shopping.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Instant karma
There are times, I guess, when we're embarrassed by our children. I know when my oldest son was very young and learning how to talk, my wife was embarrassed because he couldn't say "truck" quite right and he'd take him with her to the town square Post Office, which, unfortunately, has a fire station next to it. When the fire truck would go by, Sean would point and say "fire truck," only it was one syllable and didn't sound like truck.
Then there are times when you want to scream, "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."
Such a moment occurred just a few minutes ago.
I work for a large corporation; a corporation which pays its employees well and gives them all the benefits they can eat. This afternoon an ice cream social was held for the company's annual giving campaign; basically, throw some money out of your paycheck each week to a charity, such as a homeless shelter, or a food shelf, or a community health organization.
I was not quite surprised to find a near-empty reception area, but I was delighted to see my son, Sean, eating some ice cream, and filling out a form to contribute some of his money.
Sean is an intern here, gets no benefits, is not well paid (but he's not complaining), and, like any kid just out on his own, there's usually too much month and not enough money. And yet, there he was, giving it away.
"You make me proud," I said to him, reminding him that karma will surely come into play.
Of course he was reminded that when he gave up his place in a line for concert tickets because there was only one left and a girl really wanted to see the act, the ticket-seller told him he will be rewarded via karma.
"I went back to my car and it was towed away," he reminded me.
"He didn't say you'd be rewarded today," I said, even though I was.
Then there are times when you want to scream, "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."
Such a moment occurred just a few minutes ago.
I work for a large corporation; a corporation which pays its employees well and gives them all the benefits they can eat. This afternoon an ice cream social was held for the company's annual giving campaign; basically, throw some money out of your paycheck each week to a charity, such as a homeless shelter, or a food shelf, or a community health organization.
I was not quite surprised to find a near-empty reception area, but I was delighted to see my son, Sean, eating some ice cream, and filling out a form to contribute some of his money.
Sean is an intern here, gets no benefits, is not well paid (but he's not complaining), and, like any kid just out on his own, there's usually too much month and not enough money. And yet, there he was, giving it away.
"You make me proud," I said to him, reminding him that karma will surely come into play.
Of course he was reminded that when he gave up his place in a line for concert tickets because there was only one left and a girl really wanted to see the act, the ticket-seller told him he will be rewarded via karma.
"I went back to my car and it was towed away," he reminded me.
"He didn't say you'd be rewarded today," I said, even though I was.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
A life in murals
I've been working on a few Flash-related projects lately. I'm not particularly proficient at Flash, although I'm better than I was last year and better than the year before that. By the time, I retire, I'm hoping to warm up to average.
I did one for MPR the other day on a Cooperstown exhibit, and I finished one today about a gentleman out in Moorhead (on the North Dakota border), who spent much of his life painting murals at Concordia College.
He died in May at a young age and left a legacy behind. Not bad. Of course, you'll need Flash installed to see it. Also you will not see it if you're using Firefox. Use Internet Explorer; just this once.
I did one for MPR the other day on a Cooperstown exhibit, and I finished one today about a gentleman out in Moorhead (on the North Dakota border), who spent much of his life painting murals at Concordia College.
He died in May at a young age and left a legacy behind. Not bad. Of course, you'll need Flash installed to see it. Also you will not see it if you're using Firefox. Use Internet Explorer; just this once.
Friday, November 24, 2006
What I did on Thanksgiving
I made this for a piece that ran this morning on MPR. You'll need at least Flash 8 to see it. Click on the image. Baseball season is coming. Indians tickets went on sale this morning. BTW, I bought a brick at the new Heritage Park.
There was a game back in 2001 in which the Tribe was trailing 12-0 after just a few innings. Carolie and I went to bed and Patrick, being a real fan, stayed up. After couple of minutes he popped into the bedroom announcing the Indians had scored a run. "That's nice," we'd say, and roll over and put a pillow over our heads.
Patrick kept coming, only he got more excited. "Now they're only down by 6!," he'd shout. That's nice.
This went on for some time until he came in announcing, "they're only down by 1 and Lofton just hit a triple with nobody out."
We got up to watch the end of a game the Indians would win over Seattle 15-14.
So the brick will say,
"'Dad, now they're only
down by 6!'
8/1/05 CLE 15 SEA 14
Patrick Collins kept the faith."
We'll be traveling to Jacob's Field next year to find our brick.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Turkey echoes
OK, so it's Thanksgiving and the Collins family is getting a taste of its own medicine. We won't have the whole family for dinner today. Bummer.
Patrick had a ride-along last night with the ambulance folks in Arden Hills, and he's working at his regular gig today since he's not exactly senior in command. (He works for Allina Health Care's transportation folks, taking people to and from the hospital. I guess they need an EMT for that sort of thing).
Sean is coming over later, but we don't know when. You may recall last summer at Patrick's party, we invited the Carter sons over for Thanksgiving since their parents were moving back to Boston. But Carolie hasn't been able to get ahold of them all week. So we presume the sound of a full house is going to be replaced today by the sound of an empty nest. This, of course, takes some getting used to.
A few years ago -- well, many years ago now, I guess -- we vowed one year (even with a full house), to get out of here for Thanksgiving, and the next year I took everyone to DisneyWorld, which was great fun since we stayed in one of the nice on-park hotels (Boardwalk).
Carolie and I, in our youth, always worked Thanksgiving. It wasn't until we moved out here, I think, that I pretty much stopped. It was a little easier to take when I worked at the RKO Network since it was located at 1440 Broadway and there was some sort of parade going right by the building.
At the station where Carolie and I first met -- WBEC in Pittsfield, Ma. -- there was a man who lived in the house across the street who always used to make a full Thanksgiving dinner for the announcers and newscasters who had to work each year.
We've had varying amounts of success every year in trying to get more people to our Thanksgivings. When we lived in Belmont, Ma., Carolie invited a woman she worked with to our home for dinner. And after she cooked, we waited and waited and waited and she never showed up. A day or so later, at work, she admitted to Carolie that being African-American, she felt uncomfortable coming the mostly-white Belmont. Right. And using a telephone's a real stretch too, right?
We had a friend who lived nearby who we called to see if he wanted to come over for dinner. In fact, he got several such last-minute phone calls; a testament to our inability to pull in a crowd.
I wish he lived nearby now.
Patrick had a ride-along last night with the ambulance folks in Arden Hills, and he's working at his regular gig today since he's not exactly senior in command. (He works for Allina Health Care's transportation folks, taking people to and from the hospital. I guess they need an EMT for that sort of thing).
Sean is coming over later, but we don't know when. You may recall last summer at Patrick's party, we invited the Carter sons over for Thanksgiving since their parents were moving back to Boston. But Carolie hasn't been able to get ahold of them all week. So we presume the sound of a full house is going to be replaced today by the sound of an empty nest. This, of course, takes some getting used to.
A few years ago -- well, many years ago now, I guess -- we vowed one year (even with a full house), to get out of here for Thanksgiving, and the next year I took everyone to DisneyWorld, which was great fun since we stayed in one of the nice on-park hotels (Boardwalk).
Carolie and I, in our youth, always worked Thanksgiving. It wasn't until we moved out here, I think, that I pretty much stopped. It was a little easier to take when I worked at the RKO Network since it was located at 1440 Broadway and there was some sort of parade going right by the building.
At the station where Carolie and I first met -- WBEC in Pittsfield, Ma. -- there was a man who lived in the house across the street who always used to make a full Thanksgiving dinner for the announcers and newscasters who had to work each year.
We've had varying amounts of success every year in trying to get more people to our Thanksgivings. When we lived in Belmont, Ma., Carolie invited a woman she worked with to our home for dinner. And after she cooked, we waited and waited and waited and she never showed up. A day or so later, at work, she admitted to Carolie that being African-American, she felt uncomfortable coming the mostly-white Belmont. Right. And using a telephone's a real stretch too, right?
We had a friend who lived nearby who we called to see if he wanted to come over for dinner. In fact, he got several such last-minute phone calls; a testament to our inability to pull in a crowd.
I wish he lived nearby now.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
On funerals
I've been to two funerals in the last week. I go to more funerals now than I do weddings or baptisms. Such is life... and death.
Yesterday, Carolie, Patrick, and I went to the funeral for former Rep. Jeff Hansen, whose son, Adam, has been a friend of Pat's since kindergarten days. Adam is one of the Twins batboys and graduated from Woodbury High School in June, as did Patrick. And he's a darned nice kid.
Eighteen is too young an age to be burying your father and it was hard watching Adams watching his father for the last time.
I find funerals, however, fascinating. The religious part of it, of course, is always worthy of thought and consideration but I also feel at times that funerals are the last great act of theater. I can't go to a funeral anymore without leaving thinking the person must've been the greatest person that ever walked the face of the earth; and perhaps they are. If they were as described, they were and are all better people than I'll ever be; not that I set the bar particularly high for that sort of thing.
Tell the truth, though. Do you ever sit at a funeral and think, "I wonder how many people will come to mine?" Or, "what will they say about me?" I kind of think I'd rather have a eulogy that says something like, "he really tried to be good at what he did, but what made him such a schmuck?"
Also yesterday, they had the funeral for Ed Bradley in New York and, as expected, it was a jazz funeral. Bradley, apparently, really was as good as they say he was and the funeral appeared to be a party, which is what funerals should be.
At Jeff's funeral yesterday, I half expected "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to be on the list of hymns since he was such a big baseball fan, but no.... it was pretty standard stuff.
It better be at mine. How cool would it be to have a huge pipe organ in a church belting out Take Me Out to the Ballgame?
The only other request I have just for the record -- is for a small band of some sort that can play decent Greatful Dead music to play "Ripple."
Here, listen to it. (RealAudio required)
If funerals are a celebration, why don't we actually celebrate?
Yesterday, Carolie, Patrick, and I went to the funeral for former Rep. Jeff Hansen, whose son, Adam, has been a friend of Pat's since kindergarten days. Adam is one of the Twins batboys and graduated from Woodbury High School in June, as did Patrick. And he's a darned nice kid.
Eighteen is too young an age to be burying your father and it was hard watching Adams watching his father for the last time.
I find funerals, however, fascinating. The religious part of it, of course, is always worthy of thought and consideration but I also feel at times that funerals are the last great act of theater. I can't go to a funeral anymore without leaving thinking the person must've been the greatest person that ever walked the face of the earth; and perhaps they are. If they were as described, they were and are all better people than I'll ever be; not that I set the bar particularly high for that sort of thing.
Tell the truth, though. Do you ever sit at a funeral and think, "I wonder how many people will come to mine?" Or, "what will they say about me?" I kind of think I'd rather have a eulogy that says something like, "he really tried to be good at what he did, but what made him such a schmuck?"
Also yesterday, they had the funeral for Ed Bradley in New York and, as expected, it was a jazz funeral. Bradley, apparently, really was as good as they say he was and the funeral appeared to be a party, which is what funerals should be.
At Jeff's funeral yesterday, I half expected "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to be on the list of hymns since he was such a big baseball fan, but no.... it was pretty standard stuff.
It better be at mine. How cool would it be to have a huge pipe organ in a church belting out Take Me Out to the Ballgame?
The only other request I have just for the record -- is for a small band of some sort that can play decent Greatful Dead music to play "Ripple."
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air
(Chorus)
Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men
There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone
(Chorus)
You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home
Here, listen to it. (RealAudio required)
If funerals are a celebration, why don't we actually celebrate?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The picket fence syndrome
As I remember it, my mother came into my room on the day -- or pretty near the day -- I turned 16. Since I was a teen, I was sleeping late. She said it was time for me to get a job, or paint the white picket fence that surrounded our house. I chose the picket fence. About 20 pickets later, I was working at McDonald's, and with a few minor exceptions, I've been working every day since.
Looking back, I'm going to guess that the announcement of my employment future that morning came after severe parental projection. Parental projection occurs late at night when you sit and try to figure out where your kids are heading. You project the future and then you try your darndest to prevent it. Oddly enough, I find most parents project the worst-case scenario, which is odd considering you start out projecting them as future presidents. When they get their first hit in T-ball, you suddenly see scholarship opportunities. Sometime between then and, say, 16, it all goes south.
I'm very bad at this. I spend considerable time trying to figure out where my kids are going to end up. I'm not any better at it this week because Sean told me over lunch the other day that he's down to one class at school while working fulltime. "Are you going to take classes next semester," I asked. "Probably not," he said. In my house "probably not" translates as "no."
He doesn't feel he's learning anything at school and he's probably right. Sean is pretty much a genius and he needs a real challenging class -- or classes -- that will help him get "his certs," which I think has something to do with what computer geeks need to have a comfortable life with, umm, computers.
I tried to explain that he has to look at things "long term," and that at 21, working at MPR -- even as an intern -- with some tremendously talented people who can teach him, and the possibility of a full-time gig someday -- maybe -- is a good place to be, especially since he likes it so much.
"Keep your options open," I tell him, trying to get the message through that continuing studies is a long-term solution, not a short-term one. But I don't think it's going to work out that way and I hope he knows what he's doing, and doesn't end up selling pencils on the street.
But kids don't look long-term sometimes. They look at what they're making now and what the quick payoff could be. I have a hard time relating to that because I got in the radio business working 6 days a week for $105 a week because it's the price I had to pay in the business. Survive for a few years, and things start opening up.
And things did. The folks that didn't want to make $105 a week dropped out of the business and, suddenly, paths started opening and I've done, well, OK. Nonetheless, I think about how I'm going to stay employed, until I retire 12 years, 6 months, and 13 days from now.
Smart, eh? Long-term thinking. Except that from time to time I remember that from the day I started painting a picket fence to right now, I've gone to work in the radio or news business each day, and I often think if I were to do it again, I'd go be a bush pilot in Alaska when I got out of school ... or work with Special Olympics... or build Habitat for Humanity houses ... or fly LifeFlight helicopters for next-to-nothing, and worry about the future... later.
I don't regret what I've done, but I also recognize what I didn't do.
Tonight, my oldest son, is sleeping on a sidewalk outside of the Best Buy in Oakdale, becausetomorrow on Friday morning they'll sell Playstation Wii'ss to the first 20 people in line for a couple hundred dollars and he knows he can immediately turn it into $2,000 on E*Bay.
I hope he uses the money for classes, but maybe he'll buy some flight lessons and a ticket to Alaska instead.
Looking back, I'm going to guess that the announcement of my employment future that morning came after severe parental projection. Parental projection occurs late at night when you sit and try to figure out where your kids are heading. You project the future and then you try your darndest to prevent it. Oddly enough, I find most parents project the worst-case scenario, which is odd considering you start out projecting them as future presidents. When they get their first hit in T-ball, you suddenly see scholarship opportunities. Sometime between then and, say, 16, it all goes south.
I'm very bad at this. I spend considerable time trying to figure out where my kids are going to end up. I'm not any better at it this week because Sean told me over lunch the other day that he's down to one class at school while working fulltime. "Are you going to take classes next semester," I asked. "Probably not," he said. In my house "probably not" translates as "no."
He doesn't feel he's learning anything at school and he's probably right. Sean is pretty much a genius and he needs a real challenging class -- or classes -- that will help him get "his certs," which I think has something to do with what computer geeks need to have a comfortable life with, umm, computers.
I tried to explain that he has to look at things "long term," and that at 21, working at MPR -- even as an intern -- with some tremendously talented people who can teach him, and the possibility of a full-time gig someday -- maybe -- is a good place to be, especially since he likes it so much.
"Keep your options open," I tell him, trying to get the message through that continuing studies is a long-term solution, not a short-term one. But I don't think it's going to work out that way and I hope he knows what he's doing, and doesn't end up selling pencils on the street.
But kids don't look long-term sometimes. They look at what they're making now and what the quick payoff could be. I have a hard time relating to that because I got in the radio business working 6 days a week for $105 a week because it's the price I had to pay in the business. Survive for a few years, and things start opening up.
And things did. The folks that didn't want to make $105 a week dropped out of the business and, suddenly, paths started opening and I've done, well, OK. Nonetheless, I think about how I'm going to stay employed, until I retire 12 years, 6 months, and 13 days from now.
Smart, eh? Long-term thinking. Except that from time to time I remember that from the day I started painting a picket fence to right now, I've gone to work in the radio or news business each day, and I often think if I were to do it again, I'd go be a bush pilot in Alaska when I got out of school ... or work with Special Olympics... or build Habitat for Humanity houses ... or fly LifeFlight helicopters for next-to-nothing, and worry about the future... later.
I don't regret what I've done, but I also recognize what I didn't do.
Tonight, my oldest son, is sleeping on a sidewalk outside of the Best Buy in Oakdale, because
I hope he uses the money for classes, but maybe he'll buy some flight lessons and a ticket to Alaska instead.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Accentuate the negative
I've been working on covering the campaign of 2006 since January of 2005. I'm glad it's over. It's taken a lot of work, 7 days a week at ridiculous hours of the day and what do I have to show for it? A bunch of other people got new high-paying gigs and get to drive shiny black Escalades. Well, good for them.
Sen.-elect Amy Klobuchar was in yesterday so I introduced myself. "Oh, you're Polinaut," she said. Nice. I introduced her to Sean who noted that he worked backstage Sunday night at the MPR Senate debate, and then -- being my son -- he told her he thought she was better at the State Fair debate. The two then engaged in a wonderful exchange of tactical analysis of the campaign, and the one thing I noticed is that Sen. Klobuchar kept focused on Sean and what he was saying, where a lot of politicians would've blown him off and focused on some, oh I don't know... blog writer. That was cool. And it told me a lot.
I like covering politics, it's people who like politics that drive me crazy. By the end of the campaign, the rabid element of the electorate is foaming at the mouth, ready to kill anything, not for the sport of it, but because their brains are sparking from the wrong neurons.
We had a Democratic wave in our corner of the universe too, with the exception of our congressional race, which was won by a woman who is far right wing, and goes to church on Sunday and apparently listens to God, but not the 44% of the voters who don't like her.
Her opponents said she was a crazy, out-of-control rabid, God squadding, gay hating, Pope killing monster. "Just listen to her," they said. They're pretty upset with the media because the media didn't report every day "Crazy, out-of-control rabid, God squadding, gay hating, Pope killing monster still in race for Congress." Neither did her opponent. "It's not the opponent's job," they said,showing a fairly sizeable ignorance of the democratic process.
So the morning after Election Day, one of the calm, well-reasoned, logicians sent me an email, "Fuck you, Collins. Good riddance." I'm guessing he doesn't get the concept of irony.
I wrote my last post on Polinaut Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning, several had admonished me for being cynical and negative, although -- as near as I could tell -- they didn't explain why Polinaut's readers had made it the most read page on the MPR Web site in just a few months.
What the detractors have done is what a lot of us do during the political season. They assume that democracy hinges on people doing things their way. They insist that there is one right belief, and it is theirs.
This is the true source of their irritation, since there are now 300 million people in America and at any given time, 4 of them will need months to come up with a proper date for a picnic.
This "negative" thing on the other hand, is one that has dogged me for some time. I happen to like being known as "the idealistic cynic" (that should've been the name of the blog), for while the people who call other people "cynical," mean it in the negative, it betrays their ignorance of who the cynics were... and are. They believed that perfection was possible and, if nothing else, one should strive for it.
That's a difficult concept for Minnesotans to understand, for they will gladly forfeit perfection -- or the drive for it -- in exchange for the perception of warm civility.
It's called passive aggressive. In Minnesota, a person might smile and say to someone else, "have a nice day," when they really mean, "you should die."
The other person will say "thank-you," and then walk away, and both will think "what did he mean by that?" They will then substitute reality for the answer to that question.
In a world where you only have so much time and energy to expend, far too much of it here is spent trying to figure out what the words that are used really mean. Communication in the upper Midwest is an entirely fraudulent exercise, something that frustrates just about everyone who has ever moved here, especially those from the East, which has become the mover-and-shaker capital of the world because the time not spent trying to figure out what someone else really meant is used to move and shake.
It is not everyday I quote Harvard professors. But Phillip Greenspun has a tremendous treatise on "the negative people" today. Many Minnesotans won't understand it, but maybe some will:
The true pessimists are those who never complain.
And they are the ones who can make a difference
Sen.-elect Amy Klobuchar was in yesterday so I introduced myself. "Oh, you're Polinaut," she said. Nice. I introduced her to Sean who noted that he worked backstage Sunday night at the MPR Senate debate, and then -- being my son -- he told her he thought she was better at the State Fair debate. The two then engaged in a wonderful exchange of tactical analysis of the campaign, and the one thing I noticed is that Sen. Klobuchar kept focused on Sean and what he was saying, where a lot of politicians would've blown him off and focused on some, oh I don't know... blog writer. That was cool. And it told me a lot.
I like covering politics, it's people who like politics that drive me crazy. By the end of the campaign, the rabid element of the electorate is foaming at the mouth, ready to kill anything, not for the sport of it, but because their brains are sparking from the wrong neurons.
We had a Democratic wave in our corner of the universe too, with the exception of our congressional race, which was won by a woman who is far right wing, and goes to church on Sunday and apparently listens to God, but not the 44% of the voters who don't like her.
Her opponents said she was a crazy, out-of-control rabid, God squadding, gay hating, Pope killing monster. "Just listen to her," they said. They're pretty upset with the media because the media didn't report every day "Crazy, out-of-control rabid, God squadding, gay hating, Pope killing monster still in race for Congress." Neither did her opponent. "It's not the opponent's job," they said,showing a fairly sizeable ignorance of the democratic process.
So the morning after Election Day, one of the calm, well-reasoned, logicians sent me an email, "Fuck you, Collins. Good riddance." I'm guessing he doesn't get the concept of irony.
I wrote my last post on Polinaut Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning, several had admonished me for being cynical and negative, although -- as near as I could tell -- they didn't explain why Polinaut's readers had made it the most read page on the MPR Web site in just a few months.
What the detractors have done is what a lot of us do during the political season. They assume that democracy hinges on people doing things their way. They insist that there is one right belief, and it is theirs.
This is the true source of their irritation, since there are now 300 million people in America and at any given time, 4 of them will need months to come up with a proper date for a picnic.
This "negative" thing on the other hand, is one that has dogged me for some time. I happen to like being known as "the idealistic cynic" (that should've been the name of the blog), for while the people who call other people "cynical," mean it in the negative, it betrays their ignorance of who the cynics were... and are. They believed that perfection was possible and, if nothing else, one should strive for it.
That's a difficult concept for Minnesotans to understand, for they will gladly forfeit perfection -- or the drive for it -- in exchange for the perception of warm civility.
It's called passive aggressive. In Minnesota, a person might smile and say to someone else, "have a nice day," when they really mean, "you should die."
The other person will say "thank-you," and then walk away, and both will think "what did he mean by that?" They will then substitute reality for the answer to that question.
In a world where you only have so much time and energy to expend, far too much of it here is spent trying to figure out what the words that are used really mean. Communication in the upper Midwest is an entirely fraudulent exercise, something that frustrates just about everyone who has ever moved here, especially those from the East, which has become the mover-and-shaker capital of the world because the time not spent trying to figure out what someone else really meant is used to move and shake.
It is not everyday I quote Harvard professors. But Phillip Greenspun has a tremendous treatise on "the negative people" today. Many Minnesotans won't understand it, but maybe some will:
The true pessimists are those who never complain.
And they are the ones who can make a difference
Monday, October 23, 2006
Dimwits and lightbulbs
For a large part of my adult life, I have offered wondered where people get the time to do the things that people do. You know, stuff aside from raising kids and schlepping off to work everyday etc.
Occasionally a few folks will pass through the newsroom on their way to the studio to do a talk show on their recent four-month expedition to the Arctic Circle. Who can get four months off from work?
I've often thought that maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just not willing enough to not know where the next paycheck is coming from, to take that many risks. Heck, I can remember a time when I decided not to go into politics because there's no job security. Looking back, I realize that, sure, you might lose an election, but between lobbying and patronage, those folks are never out of work.
Stupid me.
So why do I bring this up today? This is why:
Yep, it's a lightbulb, and yes, that's an image from this site, which
provides a live Web camera of the light bulb. This isn't just any lightbulb, however. This is one that has burned for more than 100 years in some fire station in Colorado.
OK, so who has time to periodically look at a stinkin' light bulb in Colorado on a daily basis?
Unfortunately it's, ummmmm, me.
Occasionally a few folks will pass through the newsroom on their way to the studio to do a talk show on their recent four-month expedition to the Arctic Circle. Who can get four months off from work?
I've often thought that maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just not willing enough to not know where the next paycheck is coming from, to take that many risks. Heck, I can remember a time when I decided not to go into politics because there's no job security. Looking back, I realize that, sure, you might lose an election, but between lobbying and patronage, those folks are never out of work.
Stupid me.
So why do I bring this up today? This is why:
Yep, it's a lightbulb, and yes, that's an image from this site, which
provides a live Web camera of the light bulb. This isn't just any lightbulb, however. This is one that has burned for more than 100 years in some fire station in Colorado.
OK, so who has time to periodically look at a stinkin' light bulb in Colorado on a daily basis?
Unfortunately it's, ummmmm, me.
Friday, October 20, 2006
The toolbox
My son, Sean, turned 21 a few days ago. I don't know how it happened, but it happened and it beats the alternative of not happenning, which happened -- or didn't -- to my best friend's son a year ago, when he was killed in a one-car crash while driving home early on Sunday morning in Providence, Rhode Island.
I haven't heard from my best friend since and there has never been -- nor will there ever be -- something I can say to ease my friend's pain, even if I were able to make contact. The only thing that bonds fathers... are sons and daughters.
The utter frustration of life is fathers and sons cannot understand each other until it is too late -- or nearly so. My son loves me and I love him and both of us have known it forever, but that didn't stop us from often behaving like, well, fathers and sons.
As he is not yet a father -- thank God -- I thought long and hard about what to give him on the occasion of his 21st birthday. And then his brother, Patrick, called and said he needed to change the light bulbs in his car and didn't know how to do it. "Oh, and all of the lights except for one are burned out, it's night, and I have to drive home," he added. So I gathered some tools, and headed into St. Paul to change his light bulbs. It was there in a dark garage with nowhere near enough tools to do the job that I realized the gift I'd give.
The next night, I went to Sears, bought a toolbox and then -- and you have to understand I want my ashes spread in the hardware department when I die -- raced around to fill it with the right tools to start.
Then I came home and wrote him this letter to put inside:
I haven't heard from my best friend since and there has never been -- nor will there ever be -- something I can say to ease my friend's pain, even if I were able to make contact. The only thing that bonds fathers... are sons and daughters.
The utter frustration of life is fathers and sons cannot understand each other until it is too late -- or nearly so. My son loves me and I love him and both of us have known it forever, but that didn't stop us from often behaving like, well, fathers and sons.
As he is not yet a father -- thank God -- I thought long and hard about what to give him on the occasion of his 21st birthday. And then his brother, Patrick, called and said he needed to change the light bulbs in his car and didn't know how to do it. "Oh, and all of the lights except for one are burned out, it's night, and I have to drive home," he added. So I gathered some tools, and headed into St. Paul to change his light bulbs. It was there in a dark garage with nowhere near enough tools to do the job that I realized the gift I'd give.
The next night, I went to Sears, bought a toolbox and then -- and you have to understand I want my ashes spread in the hardware department when I die -- raced around to fill it with the right tools to start.
Then I came home and wrote him this letter to put inside:
Dear Sean:
Many years ago -- probably about 16 -- I was trying to get at some water pipe that was frozen below the kitchen at our house in Sheffield. I didn't have the right tools so I just took a hammer and whacked at the cabinet floor covering the pipe. "Mom, Dad's breaking the house," a young child said. That was you, with an early -- yet precise -- assessment of my handyman skills; this, on top of my historical lack of success with tools (See attached).
I don't know when it was that I started getting interested in tools; perhaps it's a "guy thing" that develops sometime, you just don't know when. I was a late bloomer. And since you are like me, this gift will probably mean nothing to you. But someday it will. And just as your grandfather (Papa) gave me my first toolbox, I give this to you, including a few to get you going. Rest assured: you'll need more.
I think tools are a metaphor for life in general. You start out with barely enough to get by and when you try to use what you've got, well, sometimes you end up breaking the house. But you keep at it and you just keep adding more tools. You add more tools first because you might need them someday, and then just because tools are cool.
I give you this with these few words of advice, metaphorical or not:
1) Don't buy cheap, crappy tools. No matter what kind of deal it seems like, no matter how much -- or how little -- you spend, when you get home and open the package, you've got cheap crap. Buy good tools.
2) Don't throw away tools. Find a good home for them instead.
3) Build something someday. It doesn't have to be anything big. It could be an airplane, it could be a birdhouse. Just build it as well as you can and it'll serve as a reminder to all that you were here.
4) Don't be afraid to break the house.
5) If you have a son -- or daughter -- someday, give 'em a toolbox when they turn 21. And then someday later, give him your tools. One at a time, so that when you're gone, they're still building things that remind people that you were here.
That way, when your kid uses a tool you gave him, he'll be reminded that his Dad loved him like there was no tomorrow.
As I love you.
Dad
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Lucky 21
My oldest son, Sean, turned 21 today. So today I celebrate his ascension to adulthood and mourn the loss of a damned good tax break.
I wish I had a really great picture to post here, but alas, Sean is one of those people who doesn't like to have his picture taken (pssst.... there's one back in one of the entries in July).
Sean has always been in a hurry. Always. He was born a month early and has been go-go ever since. We lived in White Plains, New York at the time and when my wife said it was "time," off we raced to the hospital. Only it wasn't time, it was too early. So the docs -- we had two great obstetricians -- did what they could to delay his delivery because they weren't sure he'd be fully developed.
So Carolie had to put up with contractions for something like three days. It was a, ummm, interesting time.
I remember the Cardinals and Dodgers were playing in the National League Divisional Series, so Carolie would sleep between contractions and I'd watch the game. But they had a fetal monitor going and it would also show a number that seemed to indicate a contraction was coming.
I thought it was a cool machine, and so a couple of times I'd notice the number on the machine going up, so I'd whack Carolie awake and say, "it says you're having a contraction." I only did that twice.
Eventually Sean was born at 4:36 (or was it 5:36 Eastern Time?). He was colicky and didn't like sleeping much and didn't like us sleeping much either, apparently. Then he had to go back to the hospital for jaundice. Tons of fun, and we thought we were -- as most new parents do -- the first people on the planet ever to have a baby.
We had lunch together today and tonight his friends are taking him out and I'm guessing they'll do some bar hopping because isn't that what you're supposed to do on your 21st birthday?
Alas, I don't want to know. He's an adult now. And I'm not supposed to worry.
Right.
I wish I had a really great picture to post here, but alas, Sean is one of those people who doesn't like to have his picture taken (pssst.... there's one back in one of the entries in July).
Sean has always been in a hurry. Always. He was born a month early and has been go-go ever since. We lived in White Plains, New York at the time and when my wife said it was "time," off we raced to the hospital. Only it wasn't time, it was too early. So the docs -- we had two great obstetricians -- did what they could to delay his delivery because they weren't sure he'd be fully developed.
So Carolie had to put up with contractions for something like three days. It was a, ummm, interesting time.
I remember the Cardinals and Dodgers were playing in the National League Divisional Series, so Carolie would sleep between contractions and I'd watch the game. But they had a fetal monitor going and it would also show a number that seemed to indicate a contraction was coming.
I thought it was a cool machine, and so a couple of times I'd notice the number on the machine going up, so I'd whack Carolie awake and say, "it says you're having a contraction." I only did that twice.
Eventually Sean was born at 4:36 (or was it 5:36 Eastern Time?). He was colicky and didn't like sleeping much and didn't like us sleeping much either, apparently. Then he had to go back to the hospital for jaundice. Tons of fun, and we thought we were -- as most new parents do -- the first people on the planet ever to have a baby.
We had lunch together today and tonight his friends are taking him out and I'm guessing they'll do some bar hopping because isn't that what you're supposed to do on your 21st birthday?
Alas, I don't want to know. He's an adult now. And I'm not supposed to worry.
Right.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
What time is it?
This is my mother, you met her some months ago -- July 4th, to be exact -- a day she considers the last day of summer. She's sitting, I think, on a beach in the Parker River Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island (Newburyport, Mass.) looking at... well, I don't know what she's looking at. Probably nothing.
If I were there, I'd be doing the same thing. Staring at nothing but the water rolling in and rolling back out. Over and over and over again.
Fire is the same way. Light a fire at campsite and you'll sit and look at it burning, doing nothing.
Why? It's hypnosis? Why? Where does it take us when it whisks us from the land of S'mores and boogeyboards?
My mother's favorite time of the day at the beach is around 4 or 5, when people leave it. She's sitting at a beach in October. She thinks summer ends on July 4th.
Wherever we go when we consider fire and water, there's no calendar or clock there.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Life in the wind
This is one of those fall days in Minnesota where you begin to realize what a man feels when taking his dying breath. The sun is warm, the trees are golden, the baseball game is on TV and the air has the faint aroma of fallen leaves spiced with everything good that happened to you when you were young.
Breathe deep and savor it; tomorrow we die. Winter's out there somewhere, moving this way.
And so I raked my suburban lawn today and then knelt into the pile of leaves to gather them into a trash bag...small handfuls at a time, like a man looking for something lost.
For me it's 1967. I was 13 years old with time on my hands. The Red Sox -- the Impossible Dream team -- were playing the Minnesota Twins on the last weekend of the regular season, with a chance -- a poor chance when you think about it, but a chance just the same -- of winning the American League pennant back when it meant something; back when there were 10 teams and no divisions.
I spent much of that last weekend with a glove, a tennis ball, and a radio... listening to the Red Sox game and throwing the ball when Ken Coleman said, "Lonborg winds and throws..." Thump. The ball bounced back and I, now Rico Petrocelli, would field it to end the inning against the dastardly Twins, who were also playing for the pennant.
For the next inning, I moved to the side of the barn just up the street, because it had a tall roof and if you throw the ball just so, it would bounce at the end of the slate roof, and fly back.... back.... back to the five- or six-foot-high stone wall of Mr. Murray's house; the one that protected his prize gladiolas.
It played well the part of Fenway Park's left field wall. And I was now Carl Yastrzemski. Except that Yastrzemski never had to deal with pieces of slate falling from the sky.
And so it went, until the game ended, or the Murrays chased me away from the gladiolas, until finally the Sox beat the Twins, and the team captured the American League pennant.
Eventually the Sox went to the World Series and fell in 7 games to the St. Louis Cardinals and -- though I was a bigger Cleveland Indians fan than a Red Sox fan -- joined the ranks of New Englanders who'd gone before, heartbroken in the fall by a team they followed.
It was many years later -- 2004 to be exact -- when the Red Sox finally won their World Series. "It'll be the worst thing that ever happened to those people, " I said to a friend. "They don't realize that their joy is born from their heartbreak." Take a Red Sox fan's heartbreak away, and you've taken away their soul.
But like fall, Sox heartbreak returns every year. And the true New Englander learns to savor both.
Breathe deep. And find your youth.
Breathe deep and savor it; tomorrow we die. Winter's out there somewhere, moving this way.
And so I raked my suburban lawn today and then knelt into the pile of leaves to gather them into a trash bag...small handfuls at a time, like a man looking for something lost.
For me it's 1967. I was 13 years old with time on my hands. The Red Sox -- the Impossible Dream team -- were playing the Minnesota Twins on the last weekend of the regular season, with a chance -- a poor chance when you think about it, but a chance just the same -- of winning the American League pennant back when it meant something; back when there were 10 teams and no divisions.
I spent much of that last weekend with a glove, a tennis ball, and a radio... listening to the Red Sox game and throwing the ball when Ken Coleman said, "Lonborg winds and throws..." Thump. The ball bounced back and I, now Rico Petrocelli, would field it to end the inning against the dastardly Twins, who were also playing for the pennant.
For the next inning, I moved to the side of the barn just up the street, because it had a tall roof and if you throw the ball just so, it would bounce at the end of the slate roof, and fly back.... back.... back to the five- or six-foot-high stone wall of Mr. Murray's house; the one that protected his prize gladiolas.
It played well the part of Fenway Park's left field wall. And I was now Carl Yastrzemski. Except that Yastrzemski never had to deal with pieces of slate falling from the sky.
And so it went, until the game ended, or the Murrays chased me away from the gladiolas, until finally the Sox beat the Twins, and the team captured the American League pennant.
Eventually the Sox went to the World Series and fell in 7 games to the St. Louis Cardinals and -- though I was a bigger Cleveland Indians fan than a Red Sox fan -- joined the ranks of New Englanders who'd gone before, heartbroken in the fall by a team they followed.
It was many years later -- 2004 to be exact -- when the Red Sox finally won their World Series. "It'll be the worst thing that ever happened to those people, " I said to a friend. "They don't realize that their joy is born from their heartbreak." Take a Red Sox fan's heartbreak away, and you've taken away their soul.
But like fall, Sox heartbreak returns every year. And the true New Englander learns to savor both.
Breathe deep. And find your youth.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
The days I always wanted
When my kids were growing up, I didn't really dream of them becoming president of the United States, or changing the world with Nobel prize-winning research (although I've always believed -- and still do -- that either one of these kids could change the world.).
My dream? Having my kids call me in my older years and say, "let's go to a ballgame."
How tough would that be? Every dream can be dashed and I have to admit at times I thought this one would be too. My oldest son had an illness that kept him out of school in the last few years and at times I wondered if he'd be able to survive on his own. The youngest son always seemed to be ready to snap the leash and never look back.
Kids are like that and the moment you realize that they're not going to grow up to be president, you begin to think it'll be a great thing if they just stay out of prison.
Give a parent a brain, an imagination, and the ability to project the future, and they'll screw it up every time. Ask me how I know.
My oldest son moved out and onto his "own" more than a year ago and I spent a few late nights looking to the southwest (he moved to Richfield) sending my "Dad messages" by telepathy. My youngest son moved out not long after graduating high school earlier this year. And just like that, I had myself an empty nest and a telephone that didn't ring, and a bucketload of guilt that when I moved out of my house after high school (and off to college), I didn't go back home or call more often. When you're 18, 40 miles seems like a long way away.
But a funny thing happened, son #1 enrolled himself in community college; him with his 145 I.Q., to get his various computer and networking certifications. And when an internship opened up in the information technology department of Minnesota Public Radio, he applied for it and -- on his own -- got it. I work at MPR, but I had nothing to do with it. And I told him that mentioning my name around MPR is as likely to get a door closed in your face as it is to open one up.
My best day in 30 years in the radio business. The day my son called me from his cubicle and whispered, "I feel like an adult." And in the months since, from what I can tell, he's become a valuable member of MPR. I hope they hire him fulltime sometime.
He stops by the newsroom once or twice a day and I think, "how good is my life?
I also begin to realize why my Dad, a successful insurance agent, tried to get me to take over his business as he neared retirement. For a time I did work with him and I was OK at it, but fathers-and-sons often don't mix well and radio came calling. I'll bet the day I started in his business was one of the best in his career. I'll bet the day I left was not. Kids.
Son #2, currently the youngest EMT and first responder in Minnesota, is also in community college (by the way, community college is simply the best bargain in higher education as near as I can tell) to get higher certifications and become a paramedic and whatever comes after that.
This week, he started with the Allina Health System, operating a unit that transports people to and from hospitals. He stopped by MPR yesterday, in his EMT uniform, parking his unit at the front door and like my other son, looking every bit the young man I dreamed he'd be.
I showed him around the new MPR digs and eventually he and his brother connected and then his brother started showing him around the MPR digs, paying particular attention to the technology that's all around the buidling that he can explain, but which sounds like another language to me.
In minutes the two of them were hopping from place to place as I began to fall back, and watch my two boys in my workplace, one being proud of who he's become, the other becoming prouder. And occasionally I'd stop to introduce son #2 to an MPR exec with the words I love more than any other -- for either boy: "this is my son."
Later, as they left to go grab something to eat together, it was hard for me to remember that these were the same two kids that occasionally tried to kill each other.
Last night the phone rang. It was son #2 asking me if I wanted to have dinner at Mickey's, a famous diner in downtown St. Paul (you may remember it from The Mighty Ducks), that neither one of us has ever been to.
So today, after I finish the newscast on the Current, he'll swing by, we'll grab son #1 and my boys and I will go to dinner.
"At Mickey's," I said to my wife this morning, noting that it's not exactly Kincade's.
"These are the days you always wanted," she said.
Yeah.
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