Category: adventures

Books From Vacation

Having some time to relax also meant lots of time to catch up on reading I've been meaning to do for a while now (though there's plenty more). Here's a quick run-through with my comments:

Now reading:

I'll post reviews of these as I can. Your own reviews, recommendations and comments welcome!

Were I to commandeer the use of a water-craft

Confession: one of my great pleasures/sicknesses when distracted is playing the game of reframing or rewording song lyrics and titles to be more thematically accurate, pseudo-politically correct, and/or appropriate for use in a scientific research paper.

For example:

  • My Girl by The Temptations becomes: The One Who is My Significant Other, and Also Female
  • I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly becomes: I Have a Sense That I Am Capable of Sub-Orbital Flight Without the Use of an Aircraft
  • Oops, I Did It Again by Britney Spears becomes: I Am Struck That I Appear to Have Made the Same Error I Previously Made
  • I Wish It Would Rain Down by Phil Collins becomes: It is My Earnest Hope That We Will Experience Significant Precipitation in the Near Future
  • In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel becomes: I Perceive Something Noteworthy About Your Corneas

And so on. It's especially fun if you sing them to the original tune.

Does anyone else play this game? Or am I, as Gnarls Barkley should have called it in his hit song, Perpetually Experiencing Difficulty With My Understanding of Reality?

August Milestones

It was 10 years ago this month that I co-founded Summersault website development with Mark. We're celebrating with some donations to help improve the community, and a look back at our milestones over the years.

It was 20 years ago this month that my father passed away from cancer. I celebrate his life, the family he left behind, the impact he had on me, and the cycles of life that give the world meaning and possibility.

It was 30 years ago this month that I was born into the world. I celebrate the landbase that sustains me, my health, my successes and failures, my friends and loved ones, my past and future, the hope that drives me, and so much more.

And so here I am, in August of 2007. As E.B. White said, "I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult."

185 Fort Wayne Avenue in Richmond Indiana

185 Ft Wayne Ave.Last fall I took possession of the building at 185 Fort Wayne Avenue here in Richmond. It's a cool old space with a lot of history behind it - folks named Nye, Ezra and Starr had a place that made stoves and tinware there in the 1860s, and since then it's been used for tin/iron/slate production, residence for the Chief Engineer of the Fire Department, a warehouse, shoe repair, furniture retail, and more. There's a great apartment upstairs there now, which I've mentioned before, but the real fun is thinking about what's going to happen in the space downstairs.

It's been a bit of an adventure navigating the process of release forms, permits and construction planning (not to mention the fact that apparently all of this costs money - who knew?!), and that continues for a bit longer. But today it was great fun to see some outward signs of progress, as the storefront got a bright new coat of paint - thanks to the Richmond Urban Enterprise Association for helping make that possible. Apparently as Rick from Prosource Construction and his crew worked away on it this weekend, the transition from a dull and chipping old blue to a bright and energetic new blue brought lots of comments; I had fun this morning watching people drive slowly past, pointing and the work-in-progress, craning their necks, wondering what will be going in there. Yes, we're a town that likes the possibilities that come with our building facades.

We've got lots of dreams for "the building." If you'd like to be a part of the conversation about what use of the space would best serve the community, I hope you'll get in touch.

Doug, it's time to get up

Doug, Scott, Brandon and I were all sharing a room at Chicago's Drake hotel while on a weekend school field trip early on in high school. I was having a miserable time for various teen-agey angst reasons I won't go into, and I was tired of being cooped up in our room watching JFK (that is one long movie!). At the same time, I was quite fearful that our chaperones would make good on their threat to send us home early if we were caught even so much as peeking into the hallways after our prescribed curfew, so I remained stationary.

Doug, unfortunately, became the target of my antsy-ness. He had fallen asleep in one of the beds, and as 2 AM rolled around, I suggested to Brandon and Scott that we play a prank on the poor boy. All clocks were set to appear as 6:50 AM, the alarm clock was set for 10 minutes later (our prescribed time to start getting ready to go), the rest of us got into bed, the lights were turned off.
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Vacation and Vocation

I'm on a paid vacation right now. For those of you who don't already know, this means my employer, Summersault, is actually paying me to not show up to the office for a while. Ha - suckers! Apparently it's pretty normal for employers around the world to offer some sort of paid "break" from the expectations that normally come with the job - showing up, getting stuff done, etc. - in the name of rejuvenating oneself, catching up, getting rest, exploring the world, spending more time with family, and so on. But I thought I might take a few ironic moments to suggest that this practice of paying people to go on vacation is a rather silly one, at least in the context of the larger effort to create the lives we want for ourselves.
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An exchange on the street about biking Uptown

You may know about the ongoing conversation about safe bike riding in Uptown Richmond (the business district). At the end of last year, there was a nice improvement when signs that appeared to prohibit biking on that stretch of Main Street came down. I had an interesting related exchange today while walking on the sidewalk. A young man on a bike was riding on the sidewalk, headphones on, coming toward me quickly, and I saw him at the last minute with barely enough time to jump out of the way:
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One Day, Many Costumes

IMG_2282.JPGIt was a day where I've worn so many different costumes and had such a wide range of experiences, I know I'll never have another like it, and it just feels good to be alive.

Early Morning: black pants with dark blue dress shirt. Activities included helping track down someone selling stolen dogs and cats in New York, doing tech support for web hosting, setting up meetings for next week.

Late Morning: black pants with crazy silk vacation shirt, to perform a magic/juggling show with friends at Girls, Inc. Activities included talking to a ghost, making things vanish into thin air and then reappear elsewhere, feeling really good as an awesome group of kids and adults laugh and ooh and ahh.

Afternoon: black pants with black t-shirt. Activities included launching a new website, testing and delivering two other websites under development, laughing hysterically at some of the images on lolcats, cleaning up my inboxes (virtual and real).

Early Evening: black suit, white shirt, silver tie. Activities included eating from a buffet at a fancy dinner, hearing about some inspiring forms of servant leadership in my community, shaking hands and talking about the future.

Later Evening: tan shorts and a beat up t-shirt. Activities include tending the garden, sighing at the piles around the house, admiring the dusk, blogging.

On being outraged and paying attention

IMG_2215.JPGThese numbers came into my inbox today:

  • Number of US citizens (non-military) killed by terrorists in 2005: 56
  • Amount spent by US government on War on Terror in 2005: $136 billion
  • Number of people worldwide who died of hunger in 2005: 8,000,000
  • Amount spent by US government on aid to world's poor in 2005: $4.9 billion

(Sources: US Dept. of State; The End of Poverty; Congressional Research
Service)

When I was in College, where I learned that world-views which can be expressed on hip bumper stickers are the ones you really want to internalize and live by, I saw one that said "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I really liked it at the time, because it highlighted the curious and nearly universal practice of going about our daily lives while really awful, horrible, disgusting things are happening all around us.
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I was attacked by a vicious gang of raccoons

I was sitting on my back porch, typing up notes from tonight's first orientation session for the Wayne County Time Bank, when I saw a black furry thing approaching fast from the left flank. I thought it was a cat at first because a cat had approached from the same vector just 10 minutes earlier. But then I noticed that this cat was not a normal cat, but a piebald creature with a huge arching back and a long pointy snout. And then I noticed that it was not a cat at all, but a killer raccoon.
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