Jan 19, 2012

Some morning creativity

Made the decision to start off the day with a little creation before heading into the normal busywork that become my average morning. Since it’s about time for me to change my desktop wallpaper, it was only natural that my energy would bend in that direction.

I stumbled across the quote in an article from Zen Habits regarding Life as a Conscious Practice, and it struck a chord with me. Feel free to download the screen resolution that is best suited for you and enjoy. Also, note that there’s a couple at the end which can be used for tablets like the iPad and mobile devices.

Pick a size, any size… 1024 x 768, 1280 x 800, 1440 x 900, 1680 x 1050, 1920 x 1200, 2560 x 1440, tablet/iPad, mobile/iPhone

Jan 11, 2012

dead reckoning

floating face up, it was two in the morning, and
the Virginia sky was all there before me – all stars
splattered across darkness, all cosmos hugging orb,
all of heaven up there staring at me down here -
all of us wondering what would come next.

in one way or another, my life has been a process
of navigating from one disaster to the next, moving
from mistake to mistake, pushing my course further
and further away from the source. a series of
blunders that somehow finds me home each
and every time.

truth to be told, that’s how most of our lives
are – just moving from one spot to another
and praying that the whole thing doesn’t explode
along the way – that our mistakes aren’t great
enough to warrant punishment from the gods,
that our meager actions will go unnoticed
and unheralded just long enough that
we can escape with our pittance before the guards awake.

floating there with nothing left to lose,
my next move wasn’t clear to anyone including
myself, and especially myself. but somehow, it
has found me here to this house with this family,
to this poem and this beer and this
summer night so full of possibility and promise
that the gods are screaming in delight
as the bats sing their crazy cries from
the trees.

putting it that way, it all seems
worth it.

Dec 29, 2011

Developing Stage Chops

For something that’s supposed to be so uniform and regimented, marching band always brings up memories of chaos for me.

Whether it was trying to get into uniform on a moving bus with 40 other people because we were late to a competition, getting dressed AND warming up because we were so late that as to miss our prep time, or just changing drill sets an hour or two before a performance. It always seemed that time was the enemy and we were always just on the cusp of being finished… but never quite getting there comfortably. Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast and I wouldn’t change anything – but it did teach me something about not fearing chaos.

One drill that we used in college that I’ve rehashed in my head over and over was doing the show off the line – in other words, take the entire band (which has just gotten to the field) and tell them get your horn out, warm up to a minute, and then do the show form the beginning without any long prep. You have to practice how you’ll perform and sometimes, performances don’t take place under ideal circumstances.

All of which leads me to something that Sam, the guitar player for my band, came across and shared on Facebook – Practicing vs. Playing Live (from Guitar Player). It’s a short read, so I won’t bother quoting anything – it’s worth the 3 minutes of your time, whether you apply it to music or not.

Don’t fear chaos – accept it, prepare for it, and use it to your advantage.

 

Nov 30, 2011

Is Danny Ainge Just That Dumb?

Let’s get this confession out of the way – I’m not the world’s biggest basketball fan. I enjoy the occasional game on TV, will watch playoff games, and root for the Celtics because of lots of fond Larry Bird memories. However, I’m not the person to ask for a detailed breakdown of any particular team or scheme. Bob Ryan has forgotten more about basketball on a given Saturday afternoon than I’ll ever know about the game.

That being said, I’m completely convinced that not only is Danny Ainge a poor general manager, but he is a complete nincompoop as well.

Why else would be fully engaged in his third annual “Desperately Trying To Trade Rajon Rondo” Sweepstakes in 2011? Every year, Rondo seems to get better. Every year Danny Ainge tries harder to get him off the team. It’s like some sort of passive-aggressive vendetta. Did Rondo run over his dog during his rookie year or something? What gives?

For those willing to cite his lack of a consistent jumper and clutch scoring – save it. You’re describing the perfect point guard, which would be nice… if they existed. In every sport, every single player has faults – it’s the GM’s job to use strengths of one player to mask the weaknesses of another. Coach up what you can, hide what you can’t. Maybe he isn’t the top guy in the league – but he’s in the upper echelon, he’s young, he’s under contract for a reasonable amount of money, and mostly importantly, he’s had success in the pressure cooker that is Boston.

Why trade away a young player whom you can build around to support an aging cast of veterans who are for the most part over the hill and won’t be playing at all in another year or two? If Ainge was really that interested in winning a championship NOW, then he wouldn’t have traded Kendrick Perkins in what was really the last season of Boston’s current championship window. Perkins was playing for a new contract somewhere, the Celtics needed a big man, and they had no realistic alternative to replace him. Ah, but that would be asking for some type of consistency from Danny Dumbbell, which is a ridiculous expectation in itself.

Is it blasphemy to say these things about the GM who brought the Celtics to their 17th championship? No, because the man got lucky. Bringing Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett together was a Hail Mary to save his job and keep Paul Pierce happy enough to stay in Boston – and it worked out better than could’ve been realistically expected. No one could’ve imagined that Ray Allen had this much tread left on his tires and Danny was lucky enough that Kevin McHale was an even worse GM than himself to accept Al Jefferson and an expired Dunkin Donuts gift card for KG. Throw in drafting Rondo in the first place and you’re looking at the 3 really good moves that Ainge has made during his 8 years working for the Celtics. Not exactly the most impressive track record.

Luckily, it appears that Ainge will be saved from himself by the object of his desires, Chris Paul. Seems that even if the Celts could swing a deal for Paul that involved Rondo package deal, Paul wouldn’t sign an extension with the team – meaning that he’d be a very costly one year rental.

Maybe it’s all about motivating Rondo to get better. Maybe it’s Danny being a complete hammerhead. Both are possibilities, but I’d probably lay my money on option #2.

 

Oct 13, 2011

Sox Send The Wrong Guys To The Showers

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Over the past 10 years, the Boston Red Sox gave the impression of being somewhere between a well-run and model franchise. They were owned by people who cared about winning, tradition, the fans, and making a buck. Rather than wade into the “We need a new stadium… now!” waters, they looked at the situation, concluded that it wouldn’t get done and proceeded to renovate the living bejeezus out of Fenway Park to the delight of their fans and gobs of profit for themselves. See, I don’t mind team owners making a profit – even an obscene one – so long as they reinvest in the team, try to win, and don’t treat the fans like complete rubes. Keep that in mind because it’ll be important later.

Hope everyone enjoyed that decade of competency because all signs point to it being over. In the past week, the Sox have lost the manager and GM who helped the franchise get off an 86-year World Series schnide and then followed it up with another trophy three years later. Instead of shaking hands, smiling big for the camera and wishing them well, the organization has by all appearances shown them the door and then pushed them off the curb in front of a speeding cement truck. Allegations of painkiller abuse, airing the manager’s personal business, splitting hairs about whom was more responsible than whom when it came to certain personnel moves. It’s getting ugly enough around here that Yankees fans are placing calls to sports radio shows saying “Hey, maybe we collapsed in the playoffs, but at least we’re not the Red Sox”… and there’s no comeback for it. Continue reading →

Oct 10, 2011

Seven Years In Old Orchard Beach

Sometimes, things just work out.

Seven years ago today, at about this time of the afternoon, I married the woman of my dreams. Kim and I met, of all places, in a Chevy dealership while I was doing my best to become the world’s worst car salesman. We dated for a little over two months before I proposed. I didn’t plan it out, didn’t have a ring (or the money to buy a ring), and no inclination other than this was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

We were married in Portland, Maine on a day sort of like this one – an 80-degree October day that seems to be all the proof a rational person would need to prove climate change. After telling our guests that it was only a short walk from the church to the reception, we realized that most everyone who followed our seemingly solid advice would be showing up sweating like Willie Nelson at a tax audit. Of course, one bit of planning had saved them an even warmer walk – we’d started the wedding at 5 pm, which was due to the Patriots-Dolphins game at 1 pm. Once I’d sprung that on Kim and she’d dealt with it in stride, I figured it was definitely meant to be. After all, it’s one thing to propose to a woman at 10 pm with no ring and in such an abrupt way that she has to ask a half dozen times whether it’s a joke – it’s quite another to ask a woman to schedule the day she’s been dreaming about since the age of 5 for a midseason football game.

Through it all, she’s put up with various forms of idiocy on my part and managed to stifle the urge to smother me in my sleep after some particularly lively discussions. What I appreciate most about Kim is the little things – her laugh, her smile, her sense of humor, and that she had the huevos to play guitar for me after our first date.

Sometimes, things just work out. And sometimes, they work out better than you could’ve ever imagined. Thank you for saying yes Kim, you’re everything I wanted and more importantly, everything I needed too. I love you deliriously.

Oct 03, 2011

Your Obligatory Yearly Facebook Rant

It’s tough to start out this by saying “when Facebook made their latest changes” because by the time I’m finished typing, something else will have changed. Makes this whole thing a bit dodgy to begin with, but then again that sums up Facebook pretty well these days, doesn’t it? Dodgy. Which makes sense because after humble beginnings, widespread adoption, and a movie… the only thing left is either a slow, painful decline or for the entire thing to crumble. Either that, or the bass player is going to be discovered dead in a cheap motel bathtub shortly before the band hits big. Sometimes I get confused on these things… Continue reading →

Sep 19, 2011

The Art Of Undesigning

When I was mourning the untimely demise of my old G5 Power Mac, it wasn’t just the inconvenience of the time lost and the cost to replace it – there was an emotional attachment. That may sound a bit funny considering it’s chunk of aluminum with lots of bits and pieces inside, but I did have some sort of connection with that machine. I remember opening the box when it first arrived, marveling at the little details in the packaging, the minimal amount of effort in hooking up cables, and the intuitiveness of its initial start up. After a few moments, I sat back and said to myself – “This is a beautiful machine.”

Design, in many ways, can be like the referee in your favorite sport – they only get noticed when something goes very wrong or very right. At the highest levels, they are a necessity of the game, keeping both teams honest and the game on track – but overall, we’d like them to be as invisible as possible. The only time you learn their names are when they’ve made a number of bad calls or one horrific call that dooms your team for the day. Even when they make a call in favor of your team, it’s not that likely their name will cross your mind later that day. In other words, good design shouldn’t be obvious.

I’ve found that over the years, little details are much more noticeable to me. With my last new car, I was constantly marveling at the small things built into the overall design which served a very specific purpose but were also unobtrusive to everyday use. It was good design – give me something I can use, and when I need a little something extra it’s been right there waiting for me without making itself obvious. That’s brilliant design.

The idea of making something looked “undesigned” is fascinating to me because it represents a tremendous amount of effort, thought, and tinkering to make a thing look as if that’s the way it’s supposed to look – as if to say “Well of course it looks that way, how else could it look?” It’s a challenge to be answered.