Miscellaneous Drivel

Cherry Coke Zero is the best beverage going right now. Coke Zero is slowly taking over the world.

Next season, Jack Bauer will climb aboard a spaceship and (with the help of Chloe and his cell phone) rescue the universe from the big crunch. All in 24 hours.

I still miss Rich Mullins.

At this point, the Democrats are going to destroy the Republicans in the 08’ elections. And the way the Elephants have governed, they will deserve it.

Scooter and Skeeter go ga-ga over Superchick.

300 is too violent. That’s an odd statement to make about a war film, but I think that it is accurate. Saving Private Ryan was violent, but its violence was in service to its realism. The violence in 300 was stylized in an attempt to make it hip. Also, as a general rule, I try to witness no more than one decapitation every 5 years. This film had a good three or four of them. (A pet peeve: the posters for 300 all said “From the writer of Sin City.” I was unaware that Herodotus wrote Sin City). Kadie’s comment after watching the film: “Esther never would’ve married that guy!”

There are few things more pitiful than a four year old with a stomach virus. Squealer simply doesn't understand what is going on. All he knows is that his Daddy won't give him some milk when he's thirsty or a PB&J when he's starving...mostly because Daddy is tired of washing his comforter, sheets, and mattress pad because he's deposited partially digested milk and sandwich all over the place.

We have gorgeous oak trees in our neighborhood, but twice a year (in the Fall and Spring) they shed like long haired cats. Plus we live at the end of the block and every time it rains they all drain down into our front yard.

March Madness is almost over. Finally!

I really like the automated check out lines that are now ubiquitous throughout the retail world. I use them constantly, even when I exceed 15 items. (I am careful to always ask for a special suspension of the rules). I get to move in and out of the store quite quickly. The only downside is that I never bag the groceries correctly and end up with squished bread. A small price to pay.

Chewing gum is underrated.

I really, really enjoy Celtic Woman. I suspect that the high-brow among us sniff down at their popularity, but I like them a lot. There is something very compelling about songs in unknown languages. (Plus it’s very fun for the whole family to try to sing along with Sail Away.)

Lastly, when people point out all the pain, suffering, and bitterness in the world today, I can point out what a wonderful God we serve who accomplishes magnificent things like this.

A New One

I was approached this morning after church by an older (early sixties) couple. The gentleman asked me if I would marry him and his girlfriend, but not register their marriage with the courthouse. She is in her early sixties and is drawing social security due to the death of her husband a few years ago. If she marries, those checks stop.

He wants to get married so he can “be with her” (their words) and she wants to marry, but can’t live without her husband’s social security. For some reason their combined incomes won’t offset the loss of the government’s check.

They want to get married “in the Lord’s eyes” but not in Uncle Sam’s.

I told them that I wouldn’t marry them without registering the marriage at the courthouse. I suggested to her that she needed to prioritize her decisions and ultimately decide whether she loves him more than her Social Security check. If not, they shouldn’t get married.

Have any of you heard of this “Married in the Lord’s eyes” line?

You Gotta Hate Those Hidden Rules...

Acadmic blogs can affect your career.

"Snow" by Scooter

Because it is winter,

I am falling, but the wind catches me

It is then when I realize I am not alone

I see all of the other flakes dance around me

The wind moves me with my tiny particles

I skid and land on a bush with a blanket on top

A deer eats berries and carries me on its back

As the deer moves faster, I am pelted onto a leaf

But now I am falling, falling to the ground

High Stakes Testing

This is the week. Both Scooter and Skeeter are taking their high stakes tests this week. These are the results of the No Child Left Behind acts that categorize various state schools according to their kids scores on these exams. It is an emotionally draining week for kids, teachers, and administrators a like.

The schools hold rallies, play games in preparation, and write encouraging cards to one another as they psych up for these exams. Apparently to mixed results. They then use these exams as bench-marks for evaluating students, teachers, and the schools themselves.

Skeeter (3rd grade) brought home a card that read “You’ll do really well on the exam!” over a construction-paper flower. I asked her who gave it to her and she shrugged and replied “I dunno, some second grader.”

So at her school the second graders make encouraging cards for the third graders. Thus they spread the anxiety level for students across two years instead of one. By the time the exams roll around (this morning) the kids are bundles of stress, nervously anxious about the exams.

We have several teachers in our Sunday School class at our home church. They tell frustrating tales of aggravation in having to “teach to the test” in terms of both materials and testing methods. The entire year is geared toward a one week period in March. So teachers tell me that very little gets accomplished after the exams.

I like accountability and think it is important to evaluate teaching. (In fact, I am an advocate for post-tenure review on the university level). But we have developed a system where the principals are under pressure from the state (via federal school rankings), the teachers are under pressure from the principals (via teaching evaluation) and the students are at the bottom end of the pyramid, bearing the weight of the entire system.

I’m not sure we could’ve developed a more dysfunctional system of educational accountability if we had intentionally set out to do so.

The Chairman of the Board and the King

A very cool duet here

Stranger...

Two of my buddies from college and I are discussing the film Truth is Stranger Than Fiction over on Mr. Ginger's Bolg. It is actually interesting!

Ummm.....we are discussing a rather key plot point, so if you have not yet seen the movie, then please don't click here!

The Sports Lacuna

My sports passions revolve around football and baseball in that order. Hockey doesn’t exist and basketball is largely irrelevant. That is ironic given my childhood. The one sports I played more than the others was basketball. I still harbor fond memories of playing for our church in the Royal Ambassador’s league. I recall arriving early at the gym on Saturday mornings and shivering as we started bouncing basketballs in the cold, empty gym.

I was never a gifted player and looked forward to my minute or two of playing. I took from my playing time an appreciation for teamwork and a marginal jump shot (which I have recently used to devastating effect) but little else. I have concluded that at the end of the day, basketball is far more fun to play than to watch. I will, from time to time, catch a part of a professional game. (Who could ignore the incredible run the Mavericks are on right now?) But I NEVER watch college basketball.

Which brings me to March.

To say that you cannot stand college basketball is to utter blasphemy. It is the same as yelling “Raca” before the Sanhedrin. A stoneable offense. March Madness has become a cottage collage industry as millions are heaped upon schools for the benefit of the viewing audiences.

But it’s not the demand upon financial resources that I despise, but rather the drain on sports resources. Every sports commentary on radio, blogs and newspapers is filled with minutia regarding the teams, bubbles, their coaches, and fans. March Madness, with its infernal brackets and its overexposed Dick Vitale, is a vast wasteland of sports, a great Black Hole of useless activity.

I can’t stand it.

Only a little more than two weeks until a real sport begins.

Late Night (II)

A month before my trip, I went on Dave’s site and filled out a form for tickets. Several days before my trip, I received a call from the Letterman show. They asked me a question about the show (“What is the name of Rupert Gee’s store?” The answer “The Hello Deli”). After answering it correctly they told me to come by the show between 3:00 and 3:30 on Wednesday, February 14th. (Sadly, she repeated the question “Just one ticket on Valentine’s Day??”). After arriving there, I waited in line and received instructions on how to cheer (Rule #4: No Booing) and then left again. They told us to gather at a building across the street from the Ed Sullivan Theater (around 4:00) and to wait there. The building was a dump, but the 400 or so of us were in a pleasant mood. They lined us up into four groups of 100 and marched us across the street and into the Ed Sullivan building as the taping began.

I ended up on the third row with an aisle seat. Before the show began, the band played a lot of numbers to generate a great deal of noise and get the crowd warmed up. Then out came a comic who got us laughing by telling jokes he’s probably told a million times or more.

Letterman then came out (sprinted out, actually) and took two questions from the audience. One question was “Why don’t you wear wrestling sneakers?” After numerous questions of his own (Who are you? where are you from?) Letterman finally replied “I’ve been on television for twenty-five years and I haven’t worn them for the last twenty-three.” A second questioner asked him when he would make a sequel to Cabin Boy he said “Probably about the same time I start wearing wrestling sneakers again.” He made some sly references to these questions throughout the show…with people at home presumably having no idea what he was talking about.

I was pleased that he had a juvenile Central Park squirrel joke and he then had some Valentine’s Day cards that were mildly humorous. His Top Ten list was things you don’t want to hear on Valentine’s Day. My favorite was “Honey, I got us two tickets to Norbit.”

The guests I could take or leave. Martha Stewart was there (showing how to make a flower mobile that hangs from the ceiling) and an X-rated ventriloquist that was spectacularly unfunny. (Following his performance Dave said “This show feels a little smutty tonight.” To which Paul Schafer said “What do you mean tonight?”

In fact, the night would’ve been average at best, were it not for the musical guest Norah Jones. The night belonged to her. Her performance was simply dazzling. She is so slight, but her smoky voice filled the entire theater and the place was absolutely silent as she performed.

Absolutely mesmerizing.

Then the show ended with a lot of music and a final thanks from Letterman who ended the show by taking off his blazer and tossing it across the stage, where a CBS page dutifully picked it up.

I enjoyed the experience a lot. The theater is much smaller than I expected. They don't let you take any pictures inside, and there was so little time spent in the building that I didn't get a real sense of the history of the place. The show was shot in order, including commercial breaks. I watched it when I got to my hotel room and there was very little editing.

All in all, a great afternoon diversion.

Late Night

Two entertainers have influenced my view of New York far more than any other: David Letterman and Woody Allen. I’ll save my view of the controversial Allen for another time, but Letterman is particularly worth noting.

Letterman has charted my own sense of humor ever since I started watching him on NBC back in high school. For a complete career summary (his, not mine) see here.

Leno rules the Neilson’s, but Letterman has made an impact on culture, helping to define the New Yorker attitude and using cynicism to puncture pretension and unctuousness wherever he may find it. Who else has equally offended both Madonna and Bill O’Reilly? These two polar opposites share nothing in common other than arrogant condescension. (Letterman’s interviews with them both are available on Youtube, but Madonna’s is filled with far too much bleeping for this family blog). Letterman wields his scalpel with tremendous skill.

He can also be thought provoking and downright appropriate when the situation calls for it. For example, he had a powerful interview with Dan Rather a week after 9/11. On one occasion he was graciously disarming to a Christian artist who appeared on his show.

He also had the best commercial at the SuperBowl last month.

The hallmark of Letterman’s humor is its self-effacing nature. Humor at your own expense is one of the best (and safest) forms. As one example, shortly after Letterman had a quadruple bypass surgery in 2000, he retuned to the show a few months later and said: “My career flashed before my eyes. I'm telling you something. It was mostly awkward silences.”


Tomorrow, the long awaited (by both of you still reading this blog) final installation of the NYC trip…including a trip to the Late Show with David Letterman.

Museums

While in NYC, I spent two afternoons in museums. I spent one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one in the American Museum of History Natural. The art museum was by far the better of the two. I saw great works like the Death of Socrates and works by Titian, Rembrandt, and Picasso. The sculptures were fascinating. The attention to detail in, for example, the muscles of this foot were amazing (The foot was about a size 32. Shaq would be jealous).





There were art students everywhere. A few summers ago I read a book on Michelangelo that described his work on the Sistine chapel. As soon as Michelangelo finished the chapel, art students began arriving and, setting up their palates and copying his works. It is interesting that hundreds of years later, students continue to do the same. Here a student is copying a work by Titian.


Given his tremendous ego, it is likely that Titan foresaw that centuries later, a student would paint his works. It is less certain, that he foresaw the student would be wearing a Yankees' rugby shirt.


All in all, it was a remarkable time.


The American Museum of Natural History?

Not so much.

Most of the information is presented via the medium of the diorama. I don’t recall ever articulating the thought in this way before, but I’ve decided that my interest in dioramas peaked around the age of twelve and has rapidly fallen off.

Since 95% of the collection is explored through this manner, my stay in the museum was short. Two things I loved: a section on meteorites, including the largest meteorite currently in captivity, and a full scale model of a blue whale.

By far the best thing to come out of my visit to this museum occurred after I returned home. I took the kids to see A Night at the Museum and they were awestruck that I had visited that same place.

It really helped my street cred with them, and I need all the help I can get.

Let it snow.....

While I walked around town on Tuesday evening, it began to snow!

In my hometown, we very rarely get snow. It doesn’t snow nearly as much as it does here, or ice as much as it does here, or get as cold as it does here. In short, when I see snow I tend to get as giddy as a small child hopped up on Cherry Kool-Aid.

Plus this was the first snow of the year in NYC and it really cast the city in a different light. The snow kept a lot of people at home Wednesday morning, so the city was less congested than it was when I arrived.

The snow didn’t stop the traffic.

I especially enjoyed walking around Central Park and seeing some of the famous squirrels.

(Side note: Have you noticed now that news organizations will "brand" bad weather. This snowfall was called the "2007 Northeaster". Every news show called it the same thing. I guess ratings improve when you name a storm.)

Based purely on observation, most of the other people in New York didn’t appear to be enjoying the snow as much as I did.

The Big (and Small) Apple

(Over the next few days, I'll share some pictures I took during my stay.)

After my shock at the courtesy of the bellman, I checked into my hotel and through myself on my bed in exhaustion. But I didn't fly here to rest, so I had to go for a walk.

I’m struck by the simplicity of the streets. It is almost like the earliest city planners knew that tourists would flock to this place one day. The street numbers start at the bottom of the island(i.e. south) and get bigger as they go “up” (head north). The Avenue numbers run north south and get bigger as you move from left (west) to right (east).

Uptown is north of downtown (a simple concept that I didn’t know originated here). So if you hop on a subway headed downtown you will go south. So as long as I knew that my hotel was on 53rd street and 7th avenue, I could tell how many blocks I was from “home base.”

One thing that struck me immediately was not only how big Manhattan is (I assumed that) but rather how small it is. What I mean is since real estate is so expensive here, and so many people are so crowded into this area, that everything from restaurants to hotel rooms, to parking lots seem diminutive.

Here’s an example of a parking lot that has to deal with the reality of squeezing numerous cars into a small lot. There are lifts which allow cars to be parked on top of one another.

Also my hotel room was quite small, but still ran $200.00 a night at the conference rate. I could easily hear the patrons in the rooms on either side of me laughing, talking, or taking a shower. It wasn’t uncomfortably small, but it wasn’t the vast spaces of the South either.

Arrival (II)

As I carried my suitcase through the streets of Manhattan, I made sure to switch the suitcase back and forth between my arms. I was concerned about only working out one arm. I didn't want to end up like Freddy Rodriguez from the film Lady in the Water.

Arrival

I flew into Newark International airport around noon. The flight was much cheaper than a flight into JFK or LaGuardia. My first view of New Jersey confirmed all of the punch lines I’d heard over the years. I saw a great deal of chemical processing plants and those large tanks that hold caustic liquids of various kinds.

Just perfect for dropping a body into.

I asked a lady behind a counter the best way to get into Manhattan and she recommended Greyline Bus service. I paid $14.00 (as opposed to the $50.00 cab fare) and rode the 12 miles into town. One of their stops looked reasonably close to my hotel, only several blocks away. On the map it didn’t look too far.

That was my biggest mistake of the trip.

They dropped me off at Grand Central Station. I then had to carry my enormous luggage case countless blocks to the Sheraton Manhattan Hotel. There were two problems with this:

1) I do have rollers on my luggage, but the handle was broken on my last trip, a fact I had forgotten.

2) My suitcase was weighted down with file folders, resumes, as well as several days worth of clothes. It weighed 47 pounds.

I am a beast of a man, but carrying that weight got old quickly. It took me a good hour to make it to the hotel in 25 degree weather. I sweated the whole way. When I finally arrived at the Hilton, I brought the suitcase in and collapsed while they looked up my reservation.

“Ummm, Mr. Taran? We don’t seem to have your reservation.”

What?! I took out my itinerary and noticed…….my reservation was for the Sheraton, one more block down 53rd street.

A bellboy (or whatever they call them now) saw my plight and offered to carry my suitcase a block down to the Sheraton. He was fussed at by his supervisor because he would be wearing his Hilton uniform to the Sheraton lobby.

But he carried it down for me anyway and was incredibly gracious. It was then I learned a shocking lesson that was repeated for me on numerous occasions during my several day stay.

Manhattanites are NICE!

Plane Thoughts

For the next few days I’ll be sharing some experiences from my recent trip to New York.

Some random thoughts from my flight from the deep south to Newark.

****I was told that I couldn’t take my Coke Zero through the security area of the airport, but that I could drink it quickly if I wished. So I chugged it immediately. I suspect that the few square feet on the other side of the metal detector (where people put their shoes back on) contain more belches per square inch than any other real estate in the country.

****As we prepared for takeoff, the stewardess went through the standard litany of safety features and procedures of our plane. Nobody listened to her at all. People kept talking or reading their newspaper. I bet it really bothers the airline attendants when people ignore them. I bet inside they are saying “I hope this cabin depressurizes so that the gas masks will fall down in front of the passengers. Since they’ve ignored my safety instructions, they won’t know how the masks work. They will then frantically ask me but I will refuse to tell them. Ah ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!"

****Plane departure: 6:35 am. First announcement after we are airborne? “Beer and wine are available for purchase.” The time of that announcement was 6:38 AM!

****After my plane landed in Memphis, we got our stuff out of the overhead compartment and stood in line waiting for them to open the airplane door. I was prepared to move quickly so that I could make my connecting flight. But they kept the door closed so we all just stood in line on the plane. I could see my suitcase being unloaded. My luggage got off the plane before I did. I think that they wanted to give it a head start.

I'm Back

I returned from my busy trip to Manhattan this evening. I'll blog about my trip over the upcoming few days.

One travel note: This is why I rarely initiate conversations with people on the plane.

We're waiting for takeoff on the connecting flight out of Memphis to my home town. There are 12 people on the plane. There are empty seats all throughout the plane.

Me: "Wow, they sure are taking a bath on this flight aren't they!"

Him: (after gazing at me for a second with smoldering eyes) "I sure hope so after this airline has treated me like @*#& all day today."

Me: "Oh."

We didn't share another word the rest of the flight home.

Just Great

In an effort to save money while in Manhattan, I brought a bit of food from home to eat while here.

Yep, I brought some peanut butter. That peanut butter. According to an news report I read, salmonella may "reside in the gut" for up to a year as a person acts as a carrier.


I wonder if the money I've saved will cover the cost of my gastroenterologist for the next year.

A Note From New York

I am in frigid Manhattan and am pleased that I caught the first snowfall of the year.

Curiously, I've been here for 72 hours and no one has yet flipped me off.




Clearly I'm doing something wrong...


More to come as I return home and have increased connection to the Internet.

Parenting

I am convinced that 94% of parenting a four year old consists of redirecting them from destructive to almost destructive behavior.

Maybe 98%.