May 28th and memorial day

Hi.

Today's the anniversary of my wedding to Carol White. 16 years ago today was a gorgeous late-May day in Frederick, Md., at the church next to the school I'd attended for a few years as a kid. Lovely day, lovely bride. My best friends and a ton of my relatives made the trip (I guess hers were there too). A tremendous limo ride to the reception that I won't describe here. Best. Ever.

Then a trip to Disney World, in our hearts were are geeky Disney nerds....both of us.

Of course, the long years of marriage followed and there's been many good days and many bad ones. Through it all we've remained friends, which is good.

That's as good as any place to stop. More yapping would only annoy her. Love ya, Carol.

The weekend brings the great Memorial Day onslaught of mixing patriotism with consuming goods and services. Buy a car! Buy a sofa! Salute the troops and buy yourself a Nintendo Wii!

Nah.

All of my grandparents served in the military during WW2, my grandmothers served here at home and my grandfathers both earned purple hearts in European combat. I remember them with pride. My father served in the National Guard and was never called to fight in Vietnam. Up to my generation, we had had veterans in every war fought by this country dating from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam.

My brothers and I have been fortunate, in a sense, not to have to serve. It's opened up many opportunities to live a more settled life. But, there's that silly sense of legacy in my head that tells me that - when duty called - we didn't show up.

As the father of 2 sons and 2 daughters, I worry that some unknown battlefield in some faraway place will claim one of my children. I hope not.

The remembrance that ostensibly is observed on Monday is not for vets, not really. It's for the vets who didn't come home and the families of the fallen. Again, in that respect, I've been lucky enough to have known my father and grandfathers....they came home in one piece. I'd be stupid not to recognize how lucky I am.

But for those who didn't come back, and the families that grieve for them...remember them. If you've never seen the Vietnam War Memorial in DC, it's worth the trip, the sheer numbers of the names are oppressive. Remember, remember...

The final finality of finale's

All Alliteration aside....

Annoying, right?

This week has seen the end of two television shows I followed from beginning to end, a rarity for me thanks to getting old and having 4 kids. I was a middling fan of both "Lost" and "24" over their runs, and of course I had to tune in and tune out Sunday and Monday nights.

First, a bit o' the personal history. I've watched plenty of TV. So have you, I'm betting. I was a fan of "Batman" and "The Banana Splits" and lots of other cartoons as a kid. When I was in my teens, I got caught up in "Miami Vice" ( I recall having whitish pants, too, owned the 2 soundtracks...creepy). I followed "Vice" from the pilot episode clear through its' finale in the Spring of 1989. I remember when the last episode aired (it was titled "Freefall") feeling like I was losing part of my life. It was a little sad, but ultimately just another "Vice" episode....the cops found a way to ride off into the sunset, literally.

There were other series endings that I recall...."Seinfeld" and "Friends", both shows I generally disliked. The end of "Cheers" managed to be poignant, like saying goodbye to old friends. The final episode of Ricky Gervais' "Office" was excellent - and I do enjoy sappy happy endings.

Am I a nut, here? [yes] There's an emotional discomfort I sense within myself when a show blinks out of existence. Is it my own mortality? Or am I so friggin' vacuous that I just don't know what I'm gonna do Mondays and Tuesdays next Fall?

With that in mind, I thought "Lost" got it right and "24" disappointed.

"Lost" had alot of mystery and intrigue but at its' heart was about connecting to the audience through the characters in the show. Yeah, there were great action sequences and terse dialogue and f-d up things going on, but it managed to make you care about the castaways stranded in parts unknown.

OK, I admit it, the finale' got to me. The "sideways" reality where they bump into each other and, in a flash, remember all that had come before, was an almost beautiful mechanism. It allowed the characters to re-unite in a somewhat believable setting and allowed the audience to re-live and remember the relationships that existed between the characters. The guy-gal flashbacks got to me the most, obviously this makes me a raging douchebag. Sun and Jin. Sayid and Shannon. Charlie and Claire. Sawyer and Juliette. Ye gods, I'm getting sappy as I age.

Anyway, it summarized all that had come before and then took us to the end of all things. OK. Well done. No, every plot hole was not filled. I think it would've required another year of exposition to fill in all of those holes, so....well done.

"24" was always a different animal. All joyriding in a Ferrari compared to "Lost" and it's exposition. "24" was always about the "oh shit!" moment where something unbelievable happens and yet - though we all couldn't believe it- we did because it was 24.

Last night's finale' was more of the same, but whimpered out. Good ole' Jack goes into exile as he did in season 3 or 4. I was personally rooting for a plot twist that saw Jack become 100% evil...that 10 seasons of being beaten down and used by his country finally broke him and he would defect to the bad guys....y'know, the whole Darth Vader thing.

No such luck. No twists. Nothing crazy. Just another episode where some bad acting occurs between the gals playing the presidents of the US and a fictional Middle Eastern nation. I mean, really bad.

But I watched, lemming that I am. I'll miss Jack Bauer and his crazy shit. I'll kind-of miss being angry at the ambiguous endings of "Lost" episodes.

Who knows? Perhaps I'll read more, now?

The Red Hair-ing

Part of me really loves politics and civil discourse and part of me really hates it. Most folks I communicate with can talk back and forth without much rancor or unpleasantness. There have been some who will throw up their hands in disgust and stalk off, or - more frequently - will simply slip away from my presence because (I think) they're sick of me.

And my wife - who is fairly well stuck with me - sympathizes.

We, as a country, are often divided up by Those Who Know into groups. Some of them are slef-evident: Young/old. Poor/rich. Black/White. Some of them are not: Pro-life/pro-choice. Green/...un-green. Cool/dorky (the line here is blurry, it's cool to read some comics but not to read others...there's a line between "cool" comic guys and dorky, I don't know where I stand).

I don't know if all of this dividing is really helpful, and in a couple of the aforementioned examples I think they do more harm than good. Most of all, I think they're illusory.

Two points:

Going green. We hear it alot. In casual conversation when someone tells me they're "going more green" I automatically re-calculate my estimation of their intellect downwards. [As a corollary, when someone says "this is my style" I REALLY lower my opinion]. The term "green" is illusory, a big fat red herring. There is nothing "green" about using paper bags instead of plastic ones. Or using woven handbags (which to me look like a total pain in the ass) to buy groceries. Planting invasive species isn't green. There is nothing about our human existence that IS green - unless you follow the credo of a guy like the late Christopher McCandless and live off the land, simply. You wanna be truly green? Stop driving a car. Lose the air-conditioning. Have less children. Eat less food. Cut the electricity to your house.

Pro-life. Another doozy. After the Roe decision anti-abortion activists coined this term and have force-fed it to Catholics ever since. Abortion can be managed by the several States but has been declared (in good old 1971) legal. Every election cycle we have the same silly argument over who's pro-life and who's pro-choice. Here's my stance: Abortion is murder, it takes a life and extinguishes it. Therefore, it's wrong. But, thanks to the Judicial branch, it's legal.

That's it. Until the Court re-visits the issue that's the last word. So, for some, elections become a way to weigh in on the abortion issue in the hopes that the new administration will appoint a Justice who will help change the Roe decision. OK. So they've been working at this for nearly 40 years.....to what end?

Assume someday Roe is overturned, then what? Some States will legalize abortion and some will not. What has been won?

This, of course, ignores the issue of why women abort pregnancy in the first place. I have no real-life experience to draw from. The myth is that women don't want the inconvenience of a child. I doubt that's true for most women, but it's probably a percentage. Poverty. Desperation. Fear. To my ear, those sound more likely than callousness.

In both cases, though, it's easier to slap the label on than get under it's skin and attempt to think it through. We cede the exercise of reason to talking heads who instruct us how to think and feel, getting us to holla "hell, yeah" instead of actually thinking. In a constant state of emotional appeals, reason and logic are lost to the ether.

Isn't it true that the point of "going green" is to reduce pollution? Yeah, I think it is. I don't know if you get credit for the effort as I don't know that any of the recycling centers or electric cars and the like do any real good but I believe that making those attempts can't hurt anyone. While I may dislike the label and consider it non-sensical -and perhaps a marketing term, it harms nothing to try.

The abortion divisions are likewise Frankenstein-esque creations of political manipulations. Neither side wants to be "anti" anything. There are pro-life believers who believe quite illogically and immorally that the death penalty is absolutely beyond reproach - thus having it both ways. There are pro-choice believers who maniacally resist any type of rational curbs on the practice of abortion (I'm speaking of parental notifications, for example, or trimester limitations).

I almost want to end this by telling my fellow Americans to "move on, there's nothing to see here." The green and anti-green forces bicker and profit from the fight. The abortion foes and their political stooges do, too. It's a constant state of detente in which only the citizenry loses....every few years there are small victories or defeats and these folks rally for another fight or crow over their win....then accomplish nothing.

And.... while we're all distracted, there's a war still going on. Move along, y'all, there's nothing to see here but red herrings. And please, whatever you do, think.

Randomness

No theme. No point. I despise themes, really. You know how some people's abodes look like a particular furnisher's catalog or the like? I'd hate my life if I lived in such a place.

My place? Very messy. And it screams "lots of kids" and "these people just don't give a shit".

Yup.

Movin' on.

I've reached the point in my Spring where I've moved from energized (thanks to the good weather) back to tired (thanks to all the work I'm doing thanks to the aforementioned weather). Dammit.

We had a new patio poured, a great idea that - like acts of Congress - creates unintended consequences. Namely, that I gotta go and landscape the area around the new patio lest the estate languish as a mudpit for the kids and the two dogs.

Again.....dammit, I say. Dammit.

No matter, I'm not yet 40 and used to landscape plenty as a kid and am still strong enough for the work. It entailed moving a bunch of gravel - I did that on Sunday. Then I'll have to grade the mud into something resembling a bed and toss some mulch on it - AFTER digging out a trench for the drainpipe and connecting it. All in all, not a really big deal. Just crap that's gotta get done.

So last night Arlen Specter lost his Senate job. So long, pal, and thanks for....?? He was great to watch on TV when he was leading those Senate hearings (especially on the Judiciary Committee, which I seem to recall he chaired for a very long period of time). Godspeed. He's got his health, I think.

As for the so-called Tea Party, I guess their guy won in Kentucky last night. OK. Not sure what that says for the November elections. Here's how I see it: the folks who like the idea of the Tea Party's platform aren't voting Democrat any day soon, so it makes little sense for a Democratic candidate at any level to woo them. The Republican incumbents are jumping over each other to prove their bona fides to this "grass-roots movement", and that makes sense to me because most of the Tea Party's followers appear to be very, very white. I wonder if this is White America's last gasp before the demographics change forever. Only time will tell that tale.

I question the "grass-roots" movement that Fox News seems to love portraying on their propagandist airwaves. Does anyone recall there even being a "Tea Party" before the 2008 election? I think I can independently (without looking it up) recall some rumbling after the Bush-led bailout in 2008, but I don't recall anything "unified" until after President Obama's inauguration in January 2009. Almost immediately, people (mostly white people) were voicing "anger" at his policies.

At that time....I was drawing an incredulous blank...what policies??? He'd only just been sworn in.

Now, about 2 years into it, at least these folks have been given something to be upset about. The high cost of the bailouts and the healthcare battle have at least created tangible issues to justify wadded panties.

ANGER.

When I think of the word I recall Master Yoda's speech in Star Wars Ep. 1. "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."

There's entirely too much of it in our society. You can see it in the way we jockey for parking spaces at a mall or grocery store. Or how we all rush to get the best spot in traffic, or the best this or that. I realize that competition is part of America, but I'm not sure naked frustration is the same. Or that it needs to be so petty. I've heard many people express themselves using anger as their focal point: "I'm pissed about this" or "That really pisses me off".

Why?

I haven't got a clue. But irrational anger must come from somewhere. What was so incredibly awful about our sitting President's policies that inspired so many to travel to DC and protest? I don't know. Or the former President's war in Iraq? (as an aside, where are all the war protesters now? Last I checked our boys and girls in uniform are still over there fighting and dying for....what?).

I understand disappointment. Frustration. Betrayal. Fear.

I guess I'm not one to hold a grudge.

EXCEPT WITH MY SPORTS TEAMS

My Boston Bruins blew it Friday. I was sad. The Red Sox are like this blog - all over the place. The Nationals are over-achieving. The Orioles? Uh, last place. And the Dodgers are streaking, finally perhaps achieving.

I'd hoped LeBron James would've won one for Cleveland this year, and by proxy the state of Ohio. They've gone a long time without a professional champion in the Buckeye State and the fans of those teams have weathered some of the worst of the current economic recession. Earnest Byner. The Florida F'ing Marlins. And now Bron Bron going belly-up. Sorry, Cleveland.

Speaking of Kentucky, as I did earlier, I'm endorsing the show "Justified" on FX. I'm a fan of FX's "Sons of Anarchy" which is....uh.....a man's soap opera. Justified isn't quite that, it's more a simply good cop show. Kinda funny in parts, and gripping in parts. Elmore Leonard's the producer and creator of the character of US Marshal Raylan Givens, played by a pretty good Timothy Olyphant (it's either Olyphant or Oliphant - I forget).

If you liked Get Shorty or Out of Sight, you'll like Justified.

Lost is chugging to a conclusion, as is 24, and I don't care. I think I could see where Lost was going sometime last year. I'll watch, like a lemming. Like I have a choice, I gotta know how it ends. Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer is going bananas killing everyone he encounters on 24, so - uh - I guess he's gonna be a bad guy.

I play ice hockey but, at 38 and with a major leg surgery behind me I don't play very well. Time waits for no one, hair today gone tommorrow (and the hair on top of my skull is definitely going...going.....going more.....it might be...it could be...). But it's fun and good exercise, plus I play with a pretty good group of guys. The interesting thing to note is that the longer I play the more I've moved from brash young upstart to team captain to grizzly veteran on his way down the depth chart.

Circle of Life and all that. Hakuna Matata, bitches!

Bye

Not saying goodnight, just sayin'

Travellin' man...or is he?

Last week our schedule was torpedoed with an electronic mail message that advised us our son was to attend three days of travel hockey tryouts. As I recall, it required us to give up Saturday evening, Sunday morning, and Monday evening.

A brief background: like baseball, kids hockey is divided between "rec" and travel. Rec is more instructional and there's only one practice a week (plus, you're mostly local). Travel requires a huge commitment of time and money, trips to Toronto or Cleveland aren't unheard of.

He loves playing the sport (a big plus), so...why not?

The first couple days he was obviously not a top-tier player and he was very aware of it. Instead of getting down about it he kept skating and by the end of Sunday's session he was looking better.

The funny thing about Bobby is that he's all about the path of least resistance. When we asked him if he wanted to play travel his first question was "how hard do they practice?" When we told him that it'd be tougher his reply was "eh, no thanks."

Still, we wanted him to get the extra ice and see how the travel players roll.....

I think Carol and I were initially rooting for him NOT to make the cut. The combined expenditures of time and money were daunting. Plus, if he'd be on travel it would be stressful for everyone living under our roof. Dragging a family of 6 from rink to rink and spending many hours at those rinks is......awful.

So it was funny to notice how my thinking changed Monday evening when the coaches announced that there'd been 45 kids who tried out and there'd be 36 or so slots to fill (for 3 teams of travel kids). Statistically, the odds favored him. And I started thinking about how cool it'd be for him to be chosen (even if he chose not to play on travel), how cool it'd be to watch him get the extra practice the travel kids get, and - yeah - cool to say my son's a travel hockey player.

His last session wasn't bad. He skated well enough. He was clearly not the cream of the crop but he was likewise not the least-talented player out there.

I asked him after the game if he thought it would be cool if he was picked. "Nah," he said, "I don't want to play travel."

Ah, he has his father's ambition...marvelous.

So, Carol and I wait days and days, and the call came on Saturday. He didn't make it. We fretted about telling him, trying to think of a way to tell him he'd been rejected without having his feelings hurt.

Finally, I think I just told him. He looked up and smiled broadly, thenlet out a "woo-hoo! I didn't want to play travel!"

And scurried off to play with his cousins. Carol and I looked at each other and shrugged.

That, obviously, was that.

Sturm und Drang

This is not what makes the NHL playoffs great.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are the greatest athletic playoffs in the world - but for the World Cup. The NBA Finals are fine. The NCAA Final Four (and Frozen Four) is a fun diversion in March. The MLB playoffs can be gripping. The NFL puts on a great show, but more often than not kind of fizzles.

Hockey? Regular season hockey can be monotonous and unwatchable at times. The teams don't always summon forth the effort and certain players won't play with much passion - ESPECIALLY if their teams are a lock to make the top 8 teams in their respective conferences (thus assuring them of a playoff spot). For lack of a better word, some really talented teams sleepwalk through portions of the regular season.

But, once the Cup playoffs start, the game changes. Everyone hits. Everyone gives up their bodies to block shots. Everyone cares. And sleepwalkers? They're exposed - badly [I'm thinking of you, Mike Green and Alexander Semin].

There's a story from the 1980's regarding the once-dominant NY Islanders and the Edmonton Oilers. In the early '80's the Islanders were a dominant Cup contender and won a few. The Oilers were young Turk upstarts led by future Hall-of-Famers Gretzky and Glenn Anderson. The Islanders knocked the Oilers out in '83 or '84, I can't recall which. The story goes that, after the game, some of the young Oilers walked by the victorious Islanders locker room. Instead of seeing a group of champagne-swilling jubilant champs, they saw a MASH ward of glassy-eyed vets staring into space. Ice bags were everywhere, some guys were bleeding, and - they say -it was as quiet as a church. The Oilers learned the lesson and the next year went out and won the Cup.

The point being that playoff hockey is brutal, and winning requires physical sacrifice by each player in order to achieve the common goal. 16 wins get a team a Cup (and your name engraved on it, which is cool) but it's rare to ever see a team good enough to play only those 16 games. And each series is a war unto itself.

When have you ever seen an NFL player lose 8 teeth in a game and have a dressing-room root canal in between quarters and return to the field? Never. Eric Belanger did it for the Capitals last week. Stitches? No biggie, the NHL trainers patch eyes right on the bench in plain view.

Baseball? Forget it - in the Majors a guy sits out 2 weeks when he pulls a muscle in his back from a sneezing fit.

Basketball? Willis Reed and his broken ankle. Anyone else? I can't name one.

It is true that, in some seasons, the best team wins it all and does so rather easily. That's rare. The nature of playoff hockey almost always requires these teams to pass through the crucible. This year, for example, the 3 best teams in the East were bounced by the 3 lowest seeds. [I know, parity sucks and most consider the East to be weak].

Another great thing about the Cup playoffs is that it rewards the unknown players and creates heroes out of them. Role players, checking line guys, lunchpail fellas who can skate and hit but also happen to know a thing or two about getting a clutch garbage goal. In this, hockey is no different than other sports (remember Timmy Smith?). Still, it's fun to see the no-names get a chance to become "names." Real hockey fans love those guys, you'll see 'em sporting those jerseys when you go to a game (names like Bradley, Hartnell, or Lucic).

Best of all is the aforementioned Cup. I've seen it in Toronto. It's big and silver and has about 10- 15 years of teams engraved on it at a time. The team is named and each and every player's name is as well. Pretty frigging cool. It's in the Hockey Hall of Fame in a room that looks more like a basilica. If your team wins, you get to have it for 24 hours. Some have lost it, others partied with it....the stories are legend.

This year, I was hoping for a Cup in DC. It looked good for about 5 days and then deflated ever-so-slowly. I have no doubt that the smart folks running the Caps will rebound from this and put together another good team next year. But that's another year of tread worn off the tires of some very good hockey players.

If you're not watching these playoffs, you're missing a real spectacle. I've got a team I'm pulling for but I won't name 'em because I'm superstitious. I will say that I'm pulling for an all-Original-Six Cup Finals....

Hot day, on beer #1 after working outside in the sun and nearly melting.

Don't know who reads this, but Happy Birthday