Seven Sons

It’s been over a month since this blog has been updated, and like knowing the cat needs brushing, these long intermissions nag at my subconscious while I hope that someone else does it and then I finally decide I will just go ahead and get out the brushes and take care of it. Also like brushing the cat, this doesn’t guarantee excellence, just results.

Mil Milington has a close-your-office-door hilarious blog cum book called Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, and he parlayed his popularity to a facebook page with the ear-flattering name of Tiny Boons. The latter is a repository of little things that happen to you or someone else over the course of a normal day that prove that there are still reasons that we should rejoice in the human race instead of counting the days until the next massacre in Kandahar, Kisangani or Kent State. For a while I have been collecting examples of the opposite of tiny boons, and because I have the creativity of a piston I have introduced my inaugural list here with the ear-insulting title “little sucky things.” I am, it should go without saying, open to better ideas.

Without further ado:

• Alarm clocks that don’t have a battery backup and start flashing “12:00″ when you plug them back in after using the outlet for the vacuum cleaner.
• Appliances that have clocks and flash “12:00″ after a power outage.
• 3-way lamps with 2-way bulbs installed in them.
• Toilet paper rolls installed so the end unrolls in the back instead of the front.

Now, this isn’t the complete list that I have come up with so far – I have about 9 more (and growing) that I’ll use as fodder for future posts if I feel like it. But these four are related. Bet you can’t guess how – so I’ll tell you. They all represent examples of design flaws that lead to a poor user experience. When people start throwing out words like “design flaws” and “user experience” they are usually talking about software and writing for an online magazine that gets a lot of hits from slashdot. But whoever designs and markets simple items that we use every day and take for granted should pay attention (***alert! read this article and get a promotion!***) and think about little things they can do to make their product just a little more user friendly.

Let’s examine the examples above. I can knock out the first two really quick: a built-in rechargeable battery and a low frequency time signal receiver. These features will raise the production cost of your product but there is probably a VP that can be canned to recover that money, if removing the buttons and circuitry for manually setting the time doesn’t do the trick. People will actually start recommending your alarm clock to friends if you add this feature. Recommending an alarm clock – can you imagine? Brookstone will be ringing your office begging you to triple the retail cost and let them sell it on airplanes.

Considering appliances specifically, first things first – does your appliance really need to show the time of day? The stove – ok, maybe, if you ever use the delay start feature on your oven. But, then again, has anyone EVER used this feature, in the history of ovens? Microwave: no, it doesn’t need the time of day. Just because it has to show how many minutes left until you overcook your left-over Chinese food doesn’t mean it has to show squat when the radiation generator is not in use. And for the love of pete, why in the hell does my new glass-rimmed, stainless steel overhead exhaust fan (sexy as it looks) have a damn clock??? Might as well put one on the vacuum cleaner that you just blew your alarm clock’s brain away with.

Now, how do 3-way lamps fit in? Because, like the battery backup for the alarm clock that is sold with “battery not included,” anyone buying a lamp will  (a) not look that closely at the label to notice that it has a 3-way socket, because they are more concerned with matching their Ikea couch, and (b) use a leftover 2-way bulb in the lamp after they get it home anyway. And then what happens? The switch on the lamp does something that, after all these years, is still completely, heart-breakingly unexpected – it must be turned twice to turn the light on, and twice more to turn it off. Ouch. I cringe just thinking about it. This is a LAMP. With a SWITCH. If it is OFF, and you turn the switch, the lamp should turn ON. If it is ON it should turn OFF. This should be as true as death, taxes and the boiling temperature of water at sea level given standard atmospheric pressure. Switches should always change the state of the device they are connected to unless they are BROKEN, at which point they should be (again it should go without saying) donated to the local Goodwill store. Did I provide a constructive solution in that paragraph? No? Sorry – include the damn 3-way bulb with the lamp, plus a spare. By the time the user burns out both of them, the switch will most certainly be broken, or the couch will, and the whole lamp-shopping dance will start all over again anyway.

Finally, toilet paper rolls.  Frankly, though I think that there must be a simple design solution to prevent the innocent or (more likely) completely diabolical, sadistically evil practice of installing a new roll of toilet paper with the free end escaping downwards towards the rear of the roll, I haven’t actually come up with it yet. The solution may be to create a roll holder that sticks straight out so the paper unrolls to the left or the right, but I am not comfortable with that design yet. Something must be done, people, help me out here. Full disclosure: I am well aware of the fact that cats and very clever 1-year-olds will be foiled in their attempts to unroll an entire supply of Charmin on the floor by the backwards installation of the toilet paper, but to sum up this entire post: Solve the problem at the root, with clever, simple design. Don’t solve the symptoms.

Don’t get me wrong- I actually like Texas and Texans.  Just not the moronic group that chooses the state’s text books.  Unfortunately, the state’s text book board is the nation’s most powerful because of the number of students they serve (California apparently does its own thing) so Texas has huge sway over what the rest of the country ends up using; publishers for the rest of us tend to follow their demands.

So in this context, it’s fair to ask about the heights of erudition achieved by the members of this remarkably powerful group.  Let’s hear from the chairman:

“We are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan — he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last 20 years because he lowered taxes.”
– Dr. Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas Board of Education, which recently approved a controversial new school curriculum

Excuse me?  “The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see….”?

Hmmm.  The way I evaluate text book board chairman, among other ways, is how well they manage to put a sentence together.

I won’t even go to his sub-third grade logic regarding Reagan, low taxes, and 20 years of “the good economy”.

Have at it, Texas.  But please- if you’re going to choose textbooks for the rest of us, go ahead and make good on your threat to secede.

I’m a home brewer and beer lover. Today I’d like to list some specific issues that seem to come up frequently in conversation among those who are similarly inclined.

1. Are we beer snobs, afficianados, connoisseurs, lovers, advocates or geeks? I have seen each of these terms and more used with derision and affection. The bottom line on this one is easy – call yourself what you will, and develop your situational awareness. In the press, beer geeks are lovable and interesting. In conversation, calling yourself a beer advocate gives you an air of authority. A beer lover can be a Coors-shotgunning frat boy or a wine eschewer, depending on the context. Choose carefully.

2. What is the difference between a porter and a stout? This debate has probably gone on as long as these beer styles have existed. There are a few conventional answers. (a) Stouts are made with roasted grains, and porters are not. (b) Stouts are darker than porters. (c) Stouts are from Ireland, porters from England. Here’s the real answer – it is whatever the brewer decides to call it. Seriously. There is so much overlap in the style that beer judges would find it impossible to differentiate the styles.

3. What makes a beer a double IPA, and what should I call the style? Again, very subjective, but here’s the general guidelines. A beer that approaches or exceeds 8% (the traditional starting point for “strong ales”), is dry (i.e. not sweet, with no lingering malty flavor after you swallow), and has “hop forward” character (meaning you can smell copious amounts of grass, grapefruit, and other fresh scents before you take your first sip) is a double IPA. There are better names for the style, in order of my preference: West Coast IPA, San Diego Pale Ale, Imperial IPA, Double IPA.

4. Why are IPAs so popular among beer geeks? Same reason bourbon-barrel-aged beers are popular, sour beers are popular, and Russian imperial stouts are popular. They have FLAVOR. Never forget that beer has the potential, the capacity and the birthright to be an exceedingly flavorful creation. Celebrate and revel in those flavors – all of them. Beer advocates like to say that beer and cheese go so much better together than wine and cheese, the more popular pairing, since the flavor and variety of ingredients in beer can match and stand up to even the strongest cheeses.

5. When I go to a beer bar, what should I look for? Three things: Selection, draft quality and information about the beer. The selection doesn’t have to be huge, but variety (a mix a different styles, including light pale ales, IPAs, a stout or a porter, Belgian style brews and a mix of rare or specialty offerings like casks, barrel-aged or sours) and a good theme or focus across all the handles are always appreciated. Tap handles that highlight local brewers are a plus. Draft quality is usually apparent over time; is the flavor and temperature of a particular beer consistent? Are the tap handles cleaned regularly? Do some handles sit empty (or worse, unsold) for days on end? And as for information, a large format board listing the beer selection is always appreciated, and the more information on the board (style, brewer, alcohol percentage, IBUs) the better chance I have of making a decision that I’ll be happy with. Whether or not there is a board, the servers should all be well versed in the tap selections and be prepared to make a recommendation after a short conversation with a patron.

There are more topics to cover than this, but a friend convinced me to let this draft fly without picking at it for too long. Filling in the gaps is what the comments section (below) is for.

Less than 30 hours to go in this decade.  No idea what we’ll decide to call this decade.  It’s not like they ever decided what they should call this one.  And now that we’re ready to shuffle the corpse of this one off in a few more hours in a haze of alcohol and bad decisions, it seems as appropriate a time to being writing the epitaph for the next one as ever.  The 2000’s haven’t been complete rubbish. Only mostly rubbish.

I for one navigated the chasm between my third and fourth decade on the planet only to find that in retrospect my thirties were a relatively useless span of years.  I changed jobs, gained weight, and started going gray.  Also it bears mentioning that for the modern American male, you spend the majority of your professional career while in your 30’s being viewed alternately as an overly ambitious career climber and an inexperienced whippersnapper.  Most often by people younger or older than you by less than a decade themselves. There’s something settling about forty.

But the past decade—like my past decade—is wholly remarkable for its utter lack of utterly remarkable things. Yes, yes, yes– there are images of the 2000’s forever burned in our collective memories.  The attacks on 9/11. President Bush and the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the deck of the aircraft carrier declaring the end to a war that we’re still fighting. Paris Hilton’s eyes lit up like a raccoon sifting through a trash can on her “accidentially leaked” sex tape. Notoriety is the new black.  It goes with everything. Sheryl Crow hit it earlier in the decade—”We got rock stars in the White House, and all our pop stars look like porn.”

Ford brought back a Mustang that looks like a Mustang, and Pontiac ceased to be. We have our first black president to close the decade. One that ironically began with our first special ed president. We spent ten years getting more. Too much actually.  And I suppose the challenge is to see if we can pay for it all in the next ten. My bold prediction is that we will have to learn to do without. Money, much like matter, can neither be created nor destroyed. Yet no one can seem to figure out where it’s all gone.

Banks have failed.  Automakers have failed—oops, covered that one already. Even Jay Leno—the most infuriatingly populist of the no-talent late night hosts—has failed. Jay has failed because he’s the ideal American product. Loud. Rich. Smarmy funny in that used car salesman way. But we’ve stopped buying American cause we’ve come to view the product as crap. We’re lucky Jay failed.  If he hadn’t, then all original scripted programming would’ve vanished into the air like the settlers at Roanoke. And we’d have been subjected to a Malcolm McDowell-like cavalcade of night-time viewing more fitting for an ill-thought through remake of A Clockwork Orange.

America makes art for the dinner theater crowd.

Here I’m going
Walkin’ with my baby in my arms
‘Cuz I am in the wrong end of the eight ball black
And the devil, see, he’s right behind us
And this worker said she’s gonna take my little baby
My little angel back

But they won’t getcha,
‘Cuz I’m right here witcha
On the Night Train

Swing low, Saint Cadillac
Tearin’ down the alley
And I’m reachin’ so high for ya
Don’t let ‘em take me back
Broken like valiums and chumps in the rain
That cry and quiver

When a blue horizon is sleeping in the station
With a ticket for a train
Surely mine will deliver me there
Here she comes …
I’m safe here with you
On the Night Train

Oh mamma, mamma,
Concrete is wheeling by
Down at the end of a lullaby
On the Night Train.

Rickie Lee Jones. From the eponymous 1979 album. The song is “Night Train.” It is beautiful and haunting.

I first heard it when I was probably 16, maybe four years after the album was released. Even then it spoke to me. A desperate woman. A helpless baby she’s responsible for, completely now that ‘dad’ is long gone, assuming he was ever there for anything but the requisite chemical reaction in the first place. And if he stuck around for a while, it was probably just to do more damage.

“And this worker says she’s gonna take my baby, my angel.”

In many years of this work, I’ve yet to meet the mother or the child who welcomed the intervention of Child Protective Services (or ACS, Administration for Children’s Services, as we called it in NYC). Few jobs are more difficult than that of a CPS worker, pulling a screaming and terrified child from her mother, sometimes in the middle of the night, for reasons the child can’t possibly fathom. Anyone who believes that a hungry, dirty, abused or neglected kid will welcome the strangers who arrive to remove her from the only reality she’s ever known is sorely misled. It really doesn’t matter what the child is dealing with, and how miserable and inappropriate it seems to the well-intentioned interlopers. To the child, the barren cabinets, the rotten smell in the fridge, the rodent droppings and the paint chips in the hallway are just what she knows. And it’s all she’s ever known. Given a choice between what’s awful and what’s unknown, most adults- let alone children- will grasp the former.

So word gets around, and sometimes, the mothers run. They do whatever they can to stay a step ahead of those who purport to know better, whether it’s the right thing to do or not. Running is open-ended, like an impulsive visit to a casino. It’s a one-way ticket to something better, maybe. Or maybe not. In any event, it’s an uncertain path. On that path, they trust no one. And frankly, I don’t blame them.

“But they won’t getcha, ‘Cuz I’m right here witcha. On the Night Train.”

I’ve worked with women who had been victimized by life- and every male in it- up until the thing that put them on the other side of my desk. Sometimes it was the biological father of the child in a sex case; a lot of people are surprised at how often biological fathers sexually abuse their own children. Sometimes it was a boyfriend, or a second husband, or whoever else looked at the time like something stable and basically good. Until, of course, that illusion disintegrated in a principal’s office, or a hospital, or a police station. Until it fell through like wet paper with the details of what he’d done to her daughter or son behind her back. While she was at work. While she was with friends. While she was out clubbing, or at a 12 step meeting, or wherever else the daily routine took her. The details ring in her ears while she clutches her purse and fights back tears. And wonders what the hell she’ll do now.

So the gears of the system turn, and eventually she arrives in my office.

At that point it’s crucial to remember, if I’m going to be effective in any way, shape or form, that to her I’m simply the next man in the line. I’m further trouble, just not the kind that will leave a bruise. The tie I wear glows as malevolently as a nightstick. The desk I sit behind is the perfect barrier between everything that I am and everything that I’m entitled to, and everything that she is, and will never have. It’s that simple.

And so I come out from behind the desk, and sometimes I lose the tie. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“When a blue horizon is sleeping in the station, with a ticket for a train, surely mine will deliver me there. Here she comes. I’m safe here with you. On the Night Train.”

The train image might be a little antiquated. The urge to run isn’t.

“Concrete is wheeling by. Down at the end of a lullaby.”

The end of a lullaby. That’s where I work, which is say, live. I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else.

I heard about the 32% hike today on CA public university students. I feel terribly for CA residents- as long as they’re not the small percentage who, over the decades, created this culture of state government. I don’t know what CA can do at this point- they’re a microcosm (although not very micro) for the whole country. Taxes need to be raised to keep up basic and necessary state services. But raising taxes might squelch a recovery.

My partial solution? It’ll come as no surprise. Soak the fucking rich. They can afford it. And please- don’t be fooled by their insistence that taxing them will have a negative trickle-down effect on the little guy. Because it won’t. Tax the rich, and they’ll grumble and pay it. Period. So tax them. Up the fucking ying-yang. If they don’t like it, they’re welcome to move to any other developed western country, where their tax rates will be many times higher.

If the last 30 years have taught us anything, it’s that giving the rich more money equals nothing other than giving the rich more money. Milton Friedman was wrong. Fuck them all. In the ass. Oh, and by the way, I’ll entertain no philosophical arguments about how it’s “just wrong” to punish the “successful” either. You’re successful? Great! You’ve been the equivalent of a 16 year-old boy in a whorehouse with a shoebox full of 100’s and a cask of whiskey for the last 25 years. Time to fucking pay up- taxes are the tolls you pay to drive the highways of American life. Fuckers.

I’ve been reading up lately on how TARP/bailout money is being used by the big banks. Seriously, if people really understood how thoroughly the Goldmans of the world are fucking us, they’d be in the streets with pitchforks. Here’s the progression:

1. The big banks engage in ridiculously reckless speculation on margin from the 80’s on, and they pressure the ‘government’ into relaxing the rules more and more so that said speculation (gambling) can flourish unabated throughout 2007.
2. The house of cards crashes in 2008.
4. The big banks go to Paulson, Summers, Geitner and others, and demand hundreds of billions to avert a crisis in September 2008.
5. Said hundreds of billions are given by the taxpayers to the big banks.
6. The big banks use the money they’ve been given to buy up securities that are (in the fall of 2008) worth a fraction of what they were worth before the crash. So…with our money, the big banks buy worthless securities at bargain basement prices.
7. A Wall Street recovery ensues- the value of the securities bought by the banks with taxpayer dollars increases dramatically. The big banks are now holding securities that are worth billions more than what they paid (with our money). They begin to trade among themselves, and the value continues to rise.
8. Rather than lending TARP money or their newfound gains to, say, a small business in Vidalia, Illinois desperate for a loan, they instead internally speculate within (using our money) and continue making tons of money from each other on fees and transactional costs. And they pay out billions in bonuses.

Scott pointed this out a while ago- there is money being made, but not from money going to produce anything. Instead it’s the same money being sloshed around with little pieces being cleaved off for the players. Not a cent of it is trickling down, unless you count an increase in guys getting paid to shine shoes in lower Manhattan.

The system is rigged- beyond belief. Why anyone does anything with their cash other than putting it in a mattress or buying precious medals is beyond me.

God Bless the USA.

Trained the prosecutor on this case. He’s about 26 and this is his first case. He’s doing a damn good job. The case is a tragedy. Step-father on daughter, although the daughter grew up thinking he was her bio father.

The victim is now 14. Abuse started when she was about 10. She finally disclosed to her mother last year. Not the best disclosure circumstances- she was ’sexting’ a boyfriend and mom found a compromising picture of her on her cell phone. Girl started crying and said that she felt all screwed up, partly because her father had been doing x, y and z to her for years.

Of course there was a ready-made defense at that point- she made it up to avoid getting trouble for sending pictures of her breasts to some kid. It’s rarely a viable defense; most kids don’t make up sexual assault to avoid getting out trouble, even major trouble, let alone display the ability to concoct text-book grooming behavior and a years long progression of abuse. But it works surprisingly often. And unfortunately, a lot of kids disclose exactly when they get in trouble for something else they did- usually some small thing, and particularly a sexually involved thing. They do so often because a sense of justice kicks in, or they make on some primitive level the connection between what they’re driven to do and what’s happened to them. So they just leak it all out. And it creates a ready-made defense.

Thankfully this guy pleaded guilty and admitted to just about everything. And there was compelling medical evidence and DNA- the last assault was only a day before she finally disclosed. He’s looking at 25 years- we’ll see. I’d have been lucky to get 18 months for this case in the Bronx.

So I’m in Clarksville, Tennessee a town that services Ft. Campbell, KY.
We’re staying just off of I-24 at an Interstate island featuring a
strip of strip malls and big box stores, 10-15 fast food franchises
and adult book stores, mammoth, ever-glowing 50 telescoping signs for
McDonalds, Shell, Applebees and about 40 other places.

I walked from the hotel over to a nearby Target after dinner.  On my
left, very easy to miss, is a fenced-in, civil war graveyard founded
sometime around 1855.  It is sandwiched between the Marriott
Courtyard, the Days Inn, the Homewood Suites and some other chain
dump, bathed in the light of all that is the meeting of I-24 and US
79.

I simply can’t imagine a worse place to lay for eternity.  Thanks for
your sacrifice, young Tennesseeans.  In return, won’t you please
accept this garishly-lit eternal resting place along a six lane
boulevard lined with grease pits, gas stations and porn shops?
Thanks.  Hopefully not too many Big Gulp cups fall upon you.

I started a class on Chi Running today.  It’s supposed to be a blend of Tai Chi and running that uses mental focus, posture and the martial arts’ focus on core strength to avoid injury and increase efficiency.  No matter–within 5 minutes my addled mind had left all that behind and was cranking out David Carradine jokes.  Running with a rope around your neck and pants around your ankles is apparently bad for you.

Once that had run its course, I noticed the instructor was still talking so I began to listen and follow.  I got the parts about elongating my spine and relaxing my shoulders.  But lifting my pelvis?  That took awhile.  Then it was to the track to start running while holding the position of a store window mannequin.  It did get easier with each lap and the additional focus on striking with the midfoot and not the heel helped as well.  The focus on efficiency is right up my alley and I discovered that I’d already been trying to do a lot of this on my own but didn’t know how.  I still don’t but maybe after 6 classes I will.

That said, my knees were killing me by the time I left.  Only ran a mile or so today.  Ran three yesterday and will go four tomorrow and due to the excessive heat, nearly all of my runs for the past 2 weeks have occurred on a 1/16th mile indoor track.  The constant turning and changing stride has begun to play havoc with my shins and knees.  So tomorrow I’ll head out on the road at 6am, I prefer road work anyway.

The culmination of this class is a 5k sponsored by our church.  That will be my first actual organized event.

The current health care system is riddled with inefficiency. Health insurance companies spend, what, 1/3 of their money on overhead? Vs 1/2 of 1% for Medicare? I’m not saying reproduce Medicare, but there’s a hell of a lot of room between 33% and .5% for cutting. And let’s not get into Big Pharma and their advertising budgets for Celebrex or whatever they’re pushing this month (God damn the pusher man…)

Give me a public option plan, minimal overhead like Medicare that lists exactly what they will pay for and how much (be it a drug or a procedure), and watch it drive down everyone else’s fat-ass profit margins to something far more reasonable. You don’t think providers will take patients from a public plan that covers 20% of the population? They’ll just ignore that?

Seriously, THIS IS NOT FUCKING HARD. A ten-year old can grasp the math. You don’t need a degree in economics, just basic sense. But ten-year olds don’t need campaign money if they want to turn 11.