The First Day Of The Rest Of Our Life

Twenty-three years ago I woke up feeling a little anxious. I met with my best friends Bill, Steve, and Kyle and my brother, John. We gathered at The Kettle restaurant for a hearty breakfast. I ate well, if I remember correctly, despite my stomach starting to do flip-flops. The levity of my friends and family, along with some juvenile behavior like spoon hanging (I wish I knew where that picture was), helped with the nerves.

After breakfast we went back to the hotel and got all fancied up. We gathered in the parking lot and as we waited Steve showed us a trick to keep our shirts straight - reach into your pockets and tug down on the bottom of your shirt from the inside. We then tested how it looked with a group photograph.

As you can see, my good friends were keeping my anxiety in check.

Once my parents joined us we headed to the event. The drive was short but the butterflies were getting more restless. At the venue we had our pictures taken - me alone, me with brother, me with Bill, Steve and John, me with parents, me with parents and brother, etc. The sheer tedium of this settled the butterflies.

Once we were done with pictures we waited. Well, all except for Kyle who was helping to seat friends and family. The waiting was the worst part. That's when the nerves took hold. It didn't help that my "friends" were having a jolly time watching the nerves build and were encouraging them by telling me that the person I was there to meet was wearing an inappropriately-colored dress. Despite the dress having been described to me previously by other parties, they said it so much I started to worry that something had changed.

Eventually, it was time to take our places. Bill, Steve, John and I stood at the front of the room. As the music played a beautiful woman entered from the back. Everyone stood to greet and honor her. Thankfully, she was wearing a flowing white dress with a slightly pink hue to it (and not the blazing red dress my friends had teased about). Her father walked her to the front of the church where he passed responsibility and entrusted me with her care.

For twenty-three years I have loved and cared for my beautiful wife, Shelly. We've overcome obstacles and tested our vows but together we are strong. I love her more and more every day. Happy anniversary, sweetie. I love you.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

I was recently watching an Intel commercial and the supposed Intel employee was talking about GPS on your phone and other cool stuff and then posited, “I wonder what apps that we’ll take for granted in five years?” That got me thinking about all of the things we already take for granted – like apps on our phones. No particular app, just apps. I recall when the closest thing to an app was the Snake game built in to my Nokia 5900 series.

It seems not too long ago for me that “car phones,” for all intents and purposes, didn’t exist. We called them car phones because that’s where the phone was. In the car. It needed a large, heavy battery to be portable (that was a bag phone) or needed to run off of the 12 volts provided by the car. Don’t even get me started about antennas.

Now, everyone carries their phone in their pocket. My wife and I don’t have a house phone. I have my phone and she has her phone. This is actually something I dreamed of in the late 70s/early 80s when I first learned of cordless phones. I was so disappointed when I learned it needed a base station plugged into the wall jack.

A friend recently posted a picture on facebook of her son standing in a phone booth. A real glass-walled, close the door, claustrophobic, Superman dressing room phone booth. I made a “what be that strange device” comment on the picture and she responded that her son asked if he could get in it because he never had.

So, without further ado, here is a brief list of the things I now realize that I take for granted:

• Television remote control. There were remote controlled TVs when I was young but only the richest people we knew had one. Our remote control was my father yelling, “Joe, go change the channel.” Or “John, you’re closest to the TV, turn up the volume a little bit, please.”
• The Compact Disc – which is now on the endangered species list – I remember one of the local radio stations having someone bring one in and tie it into their broadcast board. I listened on my father’s stereo (which, BTW, had quadrophonic sound) but didn’t hear much difference because, well, radio propagates through the air and picks up a certain amount of… doesn’t matter. I was blown away (almost literally by canon blasts in the 1812 overture coming through a massive pair of subwoofers) the first time I heard a CD player demonstrated live.
• Digital music. Real music. Not tones generated by the computer itself.
• MP3 players – In my day, we had the Sony Walkman portable cassette player
• Satellite broadcasting, cable TV, satellite TV, HDTV
• the universal serial bus (heh, take that one back to 1982 and people might think you’re talking about a spaceship shaped like a bus where you can have breakfast on your way to work)
• laptop computers – heck, personal computers, wireless networking, the internet for crying out loud, and even podcasts.

The list goes on and on for each generation. Looking back at all of these awesomely cool devices I think it will be interesting to see what is groundbreaking to us today (or tomorrow) that we take for granted in 5 years.

First Time Around The Block

My brother's first car - and he has had many since - was a 1976, I believe, Chevy Camaro RS. It had a 305 V8 engine, two-tone gold and primer paint and must have been made out of steel because this thing had the longest, heaviest doors of any car I've ever seen. I would describe it better but I've never been much of a gear head (I had to Google the engine size). In 1981 when he bought it, the only thing I knew was it was loud, fast and cool.

I enjoyed riding around in my brother's car but never had any aspirations of driving. I've always been one to get information first, then try something. (Unless information is not available in which case I will thoroughly screw things up with no outside assistance.) I was content to sit in the passenger seat (or the back) and just enjoy being with my brother in his loud, fast, cool car.

One weekend he had been working on it (as he often had to do) and ended up letting a friend, who had come over to help (or maybe just drool over the car), take it for a spin. Later, he and I were heading out on an errand and he pulled over and stopped just after turning the first corner on the route away from the house. He instructed me to get out and come sit in the driver's seat.

I was... confused would be a good word. I had no idea what he was trying to do until he told me he was going to let me drive his car out to the main street. I was... still confused would be an accurate description. My brother told me he didn't want me to be jealous because he had let [insert name of unremembered friend] drive the car and was going to let me take the wheel. I thought what the hell and got in the driver's seat.

Up until this point, my only experience in control of a motor vehicle was limited to an incident with a malfunctioning school bus and the bus driver asking me to give it some gas (the parking brake was on) while he gave the engine a magic stare that would presumably accurately diagnose the difficulty and allow him to repair it without tools or duct tape. I pushed down on the pedal and what happened next broke his concentration, thus rendering the magic stare useless. I didn't mash the pedal down to the floor - I knew that would be too much - but I did give it a firm press and the engine revved up so quickly that it startled me and I removed my foot very quickly.

Recalling this incident, I knew I had to be cautious with the gas pedal. It wouldn't do to go barreling down the street only to ruin someone's manicured lawn and begin a lengthy and costly renovation project by rapidly installing a new, wide doorway directly into their living room.

I put the car in gear and pretty much let the idle carry me to the end of the short street. I signaled right and gave it some gas to make the turn. Being a V8, the engine accelerated more rapidly than I expected so I reacted by removing my foot almost completely from the gas pedal. The effect of this was to squish us gently into the seat backs then hurl us forward to be impeded by the shoulder straps.

I rounded the corner on inertia but had to correct our course when I almost drove it into the curb. Of course, I over-corrected slightly so immediately following the forward lunge was a lovely bi-lateral jolt.

I eventually managed to orient the giant, steel projectile I was strapped into relatively on course and on the correct side of the street but we were on a slight upward grade so idling to the corner wasn't going to happen. I pressed the gas pedal again and my brother and I were treated to a repeat performance of the squish-lunge maneuver. I wanted so bad to do this well but each time I tried to accelerate smoothly the vehicle informed me that I was seriously underestimating the power of its 305 engine.

I made it about half way up the street and decided to give up before I gave one or both of us whiplash. I pulled over, said "thank you" to my brother and let him take over from there. It wasn't until I took driver's education that I took control of a vehicle again. I wasn't afraid but it was nice to have someone next to me telling me to gently press down on the gas pedal.

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Edit: I have been notified by my brother that it was a 1971 Camaro with a 350 V8. He doesn't remember the incident but he let me know that I got the car wrong.

How I Met My Wife

With the original Hallmark Holiday that is the celebration of all that is mushy, sappy and romantic just around the corner I thought I would share the story of how my wife and I met and how our relationship unfolded (like the pedals of a rose).

Alright, enough of the melodrama.

It was 1988. I was living in a sterile, high-rise dormitory in college and had the hots for a rather lovely young co-ed (not my to-be wife) I met in one of my classes whom I had taken to a couple of dorm parties and who I went out clubbing with a few times. She lived in a different dorm. An older building with a lot of character and close-knit residents. It was an upperclassman dorm so the people there were, allegedly, more mature but were at least better behaved than the freshmen and sophomores I was encountering in my dorm. Like a puppy dog, I moved to the other dorm to be closer to her, using the excuse of a couple of people I knew living there.

On the first night I ran into one of those friends who I had gone to high school with. Being the new kid on the block I was planning to just chill in my room but he asked if I wanted to go to a birthday party. I was a little hesitant to invite myself but he assured me it would not be a problem. I would later find out that he was 100% right. The environment and fellowship in that place was like no other. Everybody knew everybody else and those who caused turmoil were shunned so, overall, it was friendly.

We got to the party, which turned out to be for the roommate of the person who I would marry, and I started to meet some of the other residents. I was mildly smitten with one of them (again, not my to-be wife) and tried to get to know her a little better than the others. She was, surprise, another friend of my to-be wife. We talked, had cake, and the evening ended up being rather pleasurable. As for the girl I was drooling over, I learned she had a boyfriend that also lived in the dorm so, while I was still drooling I was doing it from a distance albeit closer than before.

The next day I ran into the girl from the party and her friend, my to-be wife (MTBW), and they asked if I wanted to go watch a movie with them. MTBW had a VCR of her own in her room - a rarity in those days - and they had rented a tape. I had nothing better to do and wanted to spend some time getting to know other girl better so I went with them and watched a movie.

From that point MTBW and I would run into each other from time to time and in very short order we left a gathering (I think it was Sunday night Star Trek) at a similar time and she was climbing the stairs in front of me as I was exchanging smalltalk with another friend. I had gotten to know her a bit better so, trying to compliment her, I called her a stud muffin. She took offense. I was surprised. Where I come from that was a compliment. To this day she still says I insulted her.

Do you remember that I said everybody knew everybody? This also meant that the social circles intersected a lot and I often saw MTBW around the dorm and at dorm functions. Every once in a while I would run into her and she and others were going to a movie or making a run to the store or something similar and she would ask if I wanted to join them. She didn't care either way, she was just being nice because she knew I didn't have a car and she did.

We got to know each other a little better and would often sit with each other in the cafeteria at lunch. This was nothing special either since the residents often stuck together. Of course, one of her friends saw something between us and made every effort to get us both in the same place at the same time as often as possible.

As even more time went on we moved ever closer to the major dorm party of the year, The Luau. At the Luau, a big, off-campus beer bash/dance (there was a beer truck with built-in taps), I spent a lot of time trying to get closer to the girl for whom I had originally relocated (hot co-ed). I danced (and drank) with her most of the evening but she ended up leaving the party with some other friends a little while before I did. Shortly after that, MTBW came up and said to me, "I don't think it's fair that you've spent the whole night dancing with [her]." So she and I danced, including a slow dance at the end of which I kissed her. It wasn't anything deep and romantic, it just happened.

The next evening, I attended another, private party with hot co-ed. Like with many young females I had drooled over at the time, the party fizzled since we were not there as a couple but I was only invited as a friend. It was still fun but I bailed relatively early in the evening.

As I was walking back to the dorm I heard the honk of a horn and MTBW and her friend (girl from the birthday party) pulled into a nearby parking lot. They motioned me over and asked if I wanted a ride back to the dorm. I hopped in and we went on our way. After a short time, MTBW said, "Do you realize you kissed me last night?" To which I replied, "Do you realize I fully intended to kiss you last night?"

From there we started hanging around each other a lot more and doing things together a lot more. We hadn't ever gone out on a "date" so it was fun when people would ask how long we'd been dating and we could actually say we weren't dating. We had such an active circle of friends that we just never ended up going anywhere by ourselves on a "date." (our first "date" is a story for another time)

I remember going to the airport with MTBW to drop off a friend (the one who was trying to get us together) who was flying out to go somewhere. I went along because it was something to do and that kept MTBW from having to drive back by herself. Somewhere in between the time the friend left and the friend came back (we picked her up, too), our relationship changed. As we were walking through the airport to meet our friend we were holding hands. Our friend was happy to see this. She had been working on each of us moving one toward the other for months. She said something like, "this is new," followed shortly, I think, by, "it's about time."

I can't say we lived happily ever after. I broke up with her a while later because A) I was stupid, B) I was confused by a couple of sirens who had entered into my life and C) I was scared of the commitment. The breakup didn't last long and I decided she was the one. She didn't have any plans of ever getting married so I spent some time working on her. On April 15, 1989 I proposed to her. I got down on one knee and everything. On May 12, 1990 we were married.

We've had some bumps in the road. We almost divorced once - odd story, that. And life has taken its toll from time to time. But through it all we've celebrated our highs and seen each other at our most vulnerable and didn't get scared away. Sometimes it feels like our marriage is a comfort zone but it's not the kind that you try to move out of.

The Passing Of A Legend (in his own mind at the very least)

I heard today that Oral Roberts passed away yesterday at the age of 91. I mention this not because I was a follower or a fan but because I grew up in Tulsa, OK where Roberts' ministry is based. Tulsa is also the home of Oral Roberts University.

When I was growing up, Oral Roberts had an evangelical broadcast every Sunday. I don't know if it was syndicated* or not but I never watched. The reason I remember the man is that he had a way of extending his reach beyond the Sunday Broadcast.

Roberts was one of the first televised evangelical preachers. Most of what I remember about his broadcasts was that he often talked about faith healing, which I believe is possible but not to the extent he claims - especially not what he claimed personal responsibility for, and appeals for money. I think it was him that I once heard say, with closed eyes and face toward heaven, "I feel
someone's arm healing. Someone who is listening tonight. Someone in the audience has an arm that is feeling better. I want you to reach that arm deep into your pocket..." In all honesty, I cannot tell you if the part about reaching deep into the pocket was real or not (the first part was and similar proclamations were common) or if it was inserted into my memory by my opinion of him.

Four things about his ministry stand out in my mind. One of them relates to his son, Richard, but we'll get to that in a moment.

First is Oral Roberts University. The university in and of itself is not terribly remarkable but the campus has one interesting feature: The Prayer Tower. The Prayer Tower stands prominently in the center of campus like a miniature space needle. It is visually interesting (click the link for a picture) but I once had the opportunity to see beyond its decorative purpose.

During a church retreat, presumably in an effort to learn more about other religions, we took a tour of the prayer tower. We went up into it and saw that the outer edge is lined with rooms (prayer rooms) into which Pilgrims (for lack of a better word) can go to pray. The unusual part was that there were phones outside each room that visitors could pick up to listen to the pilgrim praying and, I would think, join in. I guess for the faithful it is something important but it has always stuck in my mind as weird.

Second is the City of Faith hospital. The hospital was wrought with controversy before ground was ever broken. The hospital was built adjacent to the university campus. The city council noted that, at the time, there was not a need for a medical facility in that area of town and made requests that it be relocated to a more appropriate section. Roberts apparently needed to have his creation close to home base. (check the link, it has some information on the events that Tulsans got to poke fun at while the CoF was being built - including the infamous 900-foot Jesus)

The hospital tower itself is beautiful. Its golden facade stands tall and shines in the sun. It can easily be seen from several miles away when traveling NE on interstate 44 from Oklahoma City. I once had an opportunity to go inside (I think on the same church retreat) the lobby while it was still operating as a hospital and it was a monument to true opulence and excess. At the time, the 60-story center tower was only complete up to the 32nd floor or so and the 60th story was complete but everything in between was still under construction. If memory serves, those floors never were completed while it was a hospital.

Now, the CityPlex Towers are mostly office space but they once housed the Tulsa office of Cancer Treatment Centers of America which, in my opinion, did more good overall than the hospital ever did.

Within six years, the City of Faith was bleeding money and Roberts told his television audience that he had had a vision that if he did not raise $8 million by a certain date, God was going to "call him home," meaning he was going to die (this was event #3). The fundraising was down to the wire but an anonymous donor pledged the remaining amount. I don't remember the actual amount but it was significant. And, yes, he had that kind of power over people. Some Tulsans wanted his efforts to fail just to see whether or not his vision was true. Being as he reached the age of 91, I guess God wasn't near as ready to call Oral home as he had thought.

Finally Oral's son, Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University at the time, was accused of misuse of university assets (money). I recall seeing a television interview with him regarding his expenditures (which may not have been related to the ORU scandal). The reporter asked Richard why, if the ministry was in need of money (which they were constantly asking for), was he building a multi-million dollar mansion? Richard's response was that a member of the congregation had donated the funds to build the house. The reporter countered by asking why Roberts had not requested that the money be put into the ministry rather than a house that he did not need. Roberts just insisted that the money was specifically for the house. This went back and forth a bit but the gist of it that I came away with was Roberts saying, "But it's MY money."

There are many other stories and jokes and incidents I could relate but let's just say it was interesting growing up in the midst of all of this.

To all of Roberts' followers: I do not belittle the man's passing. He was somebody's husband, father, friend, leader and inspiration. He will be missed. It is not my intention to shed a negative light on him but to share my memories of him and his ministry which tend, unfortunately, to be largely cynical. I am certain that he did good works and there are people in this world today that wouldn't be where they are without him. That just isn't the side of him to which I was exposed.

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* I accidentally misspelled that sindicated - I found it somewhat Freudian.

Wrestling With Sports

The room was oppressively hot. The air was thick and heavy. The stench of adolescent sweat permeated the thick, vinyl mats lining the floors. The coach said he made the room hot to reduce the chance that someone would pull a muscle. It made sense but it was still somewhat of a hostile environment. Actually, it wasn't just the temperature that made it hostile.

I've never been one much for sports. I had played T-ball in second or third grade. I only had a basic knowledge of how the game was played. Hit ball, run bases, don't get tagged, score point. My brother had played a couple of years before me and was now playing real baseball. I figured it was the thing to do so I joined up.

I figured it was like any other game. There were some rules somewhere that we would go over then we'd take the field and all play by the rules. Nobody told me that the rules and strategies were supposed to be encoded in my DNA by that age. I'd never watched a real baseball game, my dad and I never played catch in the front yard, and basically, even at T-ball, I sucked. The coach was no real help being as he wasn't really a coach but more of a baby sitter. I can't think of any direction he really gave.

As time went on, I continued to suck and get more confused by what I was supposed to be doing. I thought my coach and my teammates were supposed to help me understand what I was supposed to be doing but they just shoved me out in left field and left me there in my confusion. Actually, much of my life has been like that but that's an entirely different story.

Our team was one of the worst in the league. I attribute it to most of my teammates concentrating on watching me screw up and laughing at me instead of paying attention to the game. I say this because the next year, when I didn't play, the team was one of the best in the league and the roster hadn't really changed.

I let it go and went on with my life. When I got to high school, the mistaken notion that I had to involve myself in some sort of sports activity entered my head again. Having been previously involved in baseball, I headed for familiar territory. That's where this story began.

The baseball coach at my high school was also the wrestling coach. Baseball doesn't play during the Fall semester so all the baseball players were subjected to working out with the wrestlers. Presumably, the wrestlers would work out with the baseball team in the Spring semester but I never made it that far.

I spent many of my afternoons in that hot, sweaty wrestling room learning about opening moves and wrestling tactics. I pretty much sucked at that, too. There was one guy I hated being paired with. He got some sadistic pleasure out of pinning me, placing his arm across my throat and laughing as I lay there and turned blue. I really wish I'd had the fortitude to make some sort of "don't f--- with me" move but it never even crossed my mind. His actions were only one part of the torture I had to endure from many of my compatriots.

When the weather was warm enough, we would go out to the field and concentrate on baseball for a while. I wasn't as confused as I was in the second grade but there was still something I didn't get. The coach did try to help but he couldn't spend the amount of time with me that I needed. The more we played baseball instead of rolling around with each other on the mat, the more I saw a familiar pattern. Everybody was so busy watching me screw up that they weren't concentrating on what they were supposed to be doing. For the good of the team, I quit.

I don't remember how the team did that season or any subsequent season. I don't care for sports and my definition of baseball, and I may have acquired it from another source, is fifteen minutes of pure excitement crammed into two hours.

I tried again with the golf team but just landed with a coach who's idea of coaching was to let you keep trying and you would eventually get it on your own. So, thus ended my foray into sports. I don't regret anything I did or didn't do in relation to sports but it's one of those things I look back on when I think, "I wonder what my life would have been like if..."

The Microbus With A Theme Song

In 1980, my father bought a used 1979 Volkswagen bus (van). It was two-tone brown with a four-cylinder pancake engine mounted in the rear. Just like many VW's of the time, it sounded like a reved-up sewing machine. It had "armstrong" power steering (the stronger your arms, the more powerful the steering) with a flat steering wheel. The front seats were mounted on the wheel wells and it had a built-in citizen's band (CB) radio. I have a lot of fond memories of that van.

We drove the van to Vermont to visit relatives many times. The van got its theme song on one such trip. When we fired her up to hit the road, her song was playing on the radio (although, it wasn't her song yet). When we piled in after a pit stop and a fill-up, her song was playing on the radio. After lunch, we turned the key, and there was that song. Over and over it happened that way. It seemed that every time we started up the van, her song was playing. Dad remarked that it must be her theme song and it stuck. Thus, the theme song for the VW bus was "On The Road Again" by Willie Nelson.

Another time I remember was around Thanksgiving. One of my uncles was getting married and we all piled in the van to head North. In November in the Northern United States, it has a habit of snowing. That van had a tendency to embarass other drivers in the snow and ice. While they were spinning their wheels or sliding backwards, it was the little microbus that could. All you had to do was to let the van do the work. We'd cruise by and wave at the silly people in their fancy cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles.

There was once during that trip that we were the embarrassed ones. I don't recall what state we were in. Pennsylvania, maybe? We drove into a sleet storm in the late afternoon. The further we went, the slicker the road became. I was lying down asleep in the back seat and my sister was riding shotgun. I have no idea what precipitated it but there was an over-correction and, despite traveling relatively slowly, we started to spin out. The centrifugal force was enough to rouse me and I sat up to see the world rapidly spinning by. We ended up doing a double 360 and landed in a ditch. We came within inches of plowing down a mile marker sign. My sister can still tell you which mile number it was because, when it was all over, she was staring right at it big as day.

We tried the CB but, as usual for a CB, its urgent need circuit kicked in and we weren't able to raise anyone. We were lucky enough that someone in a Scout or Bronco or some similar off-road-type vehicle happened by in the next half hour and pulled us out. The near miss with the mile marker (and the spinning) convinced dad that it was time to stop for the day. We weren't far, relatively, from the next town but it took us a while to get there. I don't think dad broke 25 MPH until we stopped for the night.

We took her to Disney world once. We left on Christmas day. We had opened gifts and been to church. We were going to take a little time and leave later that afternoon but an ice storm was moving in. Mom decided that we'd better get out while the getting was good. Our original plan was to head across on I-40 then turn South. Had we done that, the storm would have followed us and we'd have probably repeated the wedding trip fiasco. (would that be a Fusco fiasco?) The weather was just starting to inch its way into Tulsa so we hit the road and headed straight South through Dallas. Mom was right. Had we stayed, we'd have been stuck.

What's relevant about the van in this case was that it gained a permanent navigator. My brother, John, had received from his girlfriend (later to be his ex wife) a small Disney Christmas tree ornament in honor of our trip. It was a small, stuffed Gus Gus (a mouse from Cinderella) with a string looping off his hat to hang him on the tree. John had first crack at Shotgun and, on a lark, hung Gus Gus from the sun visor clip on the passenger's side - facing outward. Dad dubbed Gus Gus the navigator and there he stayed. When we sold the van, Gus Gus got transferred to the new car. To this day, Gus Gus holds that place of honor in my dad's van. Ah, the silly things we do.

When I was old enough to drive, I had the privilege of practicing my driving skills in the van on occasion. On one such occasion I was driving to school with dad in the passenger's seat. We got to and on the Broken Arrow Expressway with no trouble. As I passed the 15th street exit and started taking a wide curve, a small convertible (something like an MG) came up the on ramp and started to move right over into the traffic lane without so much as a glance. I could tell he/she never looked because the top was down and I was taller than his/her car.

So there I am, a relatively inexperienced driver in morning rush hour traffic being pushed over by an idiot in a sports car. I couldn't speed up because there was someone in front of me. I tried to slow down a bit but the gap didn't widen enough and the MG wasn't going fast enough to slip into it. My initial thought was to just move over but there was a car to my left. I was boxed in.

I adjusted my speed and moved over as slowly and as much as I could to avoid having this dumbass take a suicide swipe at my broadside. As the curve straightened out, I was out of options. There was now a gap beside me but it was still partially occupied by the back end of the car that had previously been pacing me. I finally made my move at the last second and ended up clipping the back part of the car with the front part of the van.

In a panic, I looked at dad and said, "What do I do? Should I stop? Do I need to pull off?" He looked as flustered as I was but observed that the other car, now several lengths in front of us, was showing no signs of stopping so I should just proceed as if it didn't happen (easy for him to say). It's a wonder there wasn't a great deal more mayhem, death and destruction on the BA that fine morning.

That poor van went through long family road trips, stalling/starting problems and even an engine fire. Somehow, Walter the mechanic kept it running. It served us well for many, many years. I'm pretty sure it was my dad's first van. He took a brief side-trip with a VW Rabbit but to this day still insists on driving a van.

Billy

Growing up on 57th place in Tulsa, OK, we had many friends. There were Kendall and Scotty, Jeff and BJ, Ronny and Jeff, Chandra, Carl... the list goes on but there was one friend we all shared and, for some reason, revered: Billy. Billy was older. He was in college, I think, so he wasn't around much but it was a big event when he came home. When Billy was in town, the word would be passed up and down the street, "Billy's home," and we would wait excitedly for him to make an appearance.

Don't ask me why we all got so excited when he came around. Maybe it was because he was older and actually paid attention to us. I don't know. Come to think of it, I don't remember him actually doing much of anything with us. I think one of the other kids thought he was the coolest thing since dry ice, told all of us so, and we went along with it (hey, what else was there to do?).

One thing I remember about Billy was his silly singing. We never went into his house but there was a piano somewhere near a window. He would gather us all up (or we would gather ourselves), go inside, slide open the window, then start playing Christmas Time Is Here from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

As we stood listening to him tickle the ivories, he would suddenly break out in a falsetto voice and make fun of us to the tune of the song. "Joey is, a big turkey," he would begin, "he falls down a lot," or something to that effect. We'd point and laugh at the subject of the current refrain as he went down the line and sang about each of us standing there in his yard. When he was finished, he'd come outside and we'd laugh some more and eventually disperse so he could get some grown-up things done.

Every time I hear that song, especially done on piano, I think of Billy. Simple times. Good times.

Tramp

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My early years were spent in a three bedroom ranch-style on East 57th Place. We knew most of the people up and down the block. Mostly because we were kids and most of them had kids and, well, there were only 4 stations on television and one of them was the education channel.

I don't remember when he first showed up. I don't think I ever knew exactly who he belonged to but I knew somebody in the neighborhood owned him and it wasn't any of the kids we hung out with regularly. Somehow we learned his name was Tramp.

Tramp was a German shepherd. He would come over when we were playing outside. We'd say hello, love on him a bit, then he'd go lie down somewhere close and we would continue with whatever we were doing. I don't know if he was looking for companionship or was keeping an eye on us but we were both glad for the company.

One of the things I remember most was coming home from school, church or even just a run to the store and finding Tramp waiting for us in the front yard. We would pile out of the car, say our greetings then head inside. Sometimes Tramp would lie back down on the grass, sometimes he would find another house to watch while the neighbors were gone. We once went on one of our summer trips. We were probably gone two weeks. Tramp was the first to welcome us back.

I don't remember who was the first to leave the neighborhood - us or Tramp. He just kind of showed up one day then wasn't there another day. Nobody really wondered where he was or thought of him when we left but I do remember him. I can still see that mellow, black and tan shepherd lying in our yard, waiting for someone to come home and say hello.

Is Windows Vista, In Fact, The Next Windows ME?

I was just reading a Slashdot article saying the next version of Windows, Windows 7, is scheduled to be released in "the second half of 2009." (original story)

I remember when Windows ME was released, amid a large volume of hype and stampeding consumers, on September 14, 2000. I eventually bought into the hype and purchased an upgrade copy (that I still have somewhere). It was different. It had some interesting new features. And it crashed - A LOT!

When Windows XP was released just over a year later on October 25, 2001, amid similar hype and stampeding consumers, I figured out the purpose of Windows ME. Windows ME was not a revolutionary new operating system. Windows ME was 1) a way to bring to market the "next" Windows operating system that had already been delayed multiple times and 2) an operating system designed to provide a kinder, gentler transition from Windows 9x to Windows XP for all of those stampeding consumers. I support my second statement by pointing to the fact that Windows ME was shipped with thousands of known bugs and never had a service pack. In addition, support for Windows 98 and Windows ME ended on the same day (July 11, 2006).

Overall, Windows XP has been a successful operating system. It included some compelling security, feature, interface and back-end updates. It included a lot of backwards-compatible device and software support. What it didn't support, really needed to be updated anyway (I had a copy of MechWarrior 2 - the DOS version - that wouldn't play anymore under XP).

Then, Windows Vista emerged on January 30, 2007 amidst a great deal of hype (do we see a pattern here?) and expectation. The operating system did spend over five years in development with at least one instance of the developers scrapping the code altogether and starting from scratch. It was met, however, with lukewarm enthusiasm at best and outright seething hatred at worst. Like ME, Vista had a problem with adoption in the enterprise (business). Even though it has a business version, I've been told it is a "nightmare" to work with the networking and device support was sketchy at best. This, combined with the lack of obvious advantage to the end user, has made consumers shy away from Microsoft's latest offering. Sure, the aesthetic differences are obvious and "shiny" and there are a few of the tools that have been tweaked, but nothing revolutionary. The biggest selling point I have heard so far is increased security but the consumer doesn't see that. What they do see is their neighbor, an IT professional, lamenting the encroachment of Vista systems onto his landscape.

Now, we're starting to hear rumors that the next operating system will appear within two years of the release of the current operating system. This despite widespread rejection of the current offering. Much as I liked Vista, such as it was, I really hate to see it labeled as the next ME but if it walks like a duck...

That Was The Year That Was

So here we are at the end of 2007 and I present to you my recap of the year's events as they have happened in my life. 2007 was the year that I:

• Saw Star Wars again for the first time.
• Discovered that hard drives sing when they die.
• Learned, without a doubt, where I stood with my former employer.
• Understood what it was to be unemployed.
• Then re-employed.
• Then unemployed again.
• Discovered and employed the use of blog labels.
• Started listening to podcasts. (my favorites are Geek News Central, The Naked Scientists, Buzz Out Loud, and TWiT)
• Learned how to pack a house in two weeks for an interstate move.
• And discovered it really can't be done with all the crap we had.
• Got pushed way out of my comfort zone.
• Remembered what it was like to deal with a landlord.
• Turned the big Four-Oh.
• Decided Windows Vista Media Center was nothing short of AWFUL.
• Learned all about FROG rooms.
• Decided that John Lennon was the brains behind the Beatles.
• Experienced epicurial culture shock.
• Experienced medical culture shock.
• Was exposed to scams for the unemployed.
• Celebrated my FOURTH year of blogging (late again).
• Learned more about being "Uncle Bubby"
• Did a little stargazing outside a SciFi convention.
• Tried to make sense of it all.
• Felt the iPhone was a foolish investment (I still do).
• Reached a turning point.
• Learned where I really needed to be.
• Watched a beloved pet die.
• Experienced a paradigm shift.
• Decided to never eat a Taco Bell EVER AGAIN!!
• Was truly thankful for many things.
• Reviewed Windows Vista after a year... and found it lacking.
• Took a look at recording industry paranoia throughout the years.

Wow, it's been a really big year and a lot has happened in the past twelve months. I have experienced a lot of things for the first time. I have experienced a lot of things that I didn't want to experience again or never wanted to experience in the first place. But through it all, I have survived and, more importantly, I have learned. I don't know if I am a better person for it but I do know that I am a different person for it.

Flashback to 1977

One of my Christmas gifts this year was the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD.  I got the Limited Edition, which includes the versions Mr. Lucas ruined and the original theatrical releases.  Last night, I finally had the opportunity to watch the first one and was instantly transported back to 1977.  This is a movie, and a version of a movie, that I haven't seen in many, many years.  My face was suffused with a semi-permanent grin.

The disc is only encoded with two-channel stereo, there are color shifts throughout the film, the Darth vs. Obi Wan light saber battle has these mysterious yellow flashes throughout, and many of the flight effects during the Death Star battle are far from transparent but I remember.  I remember being a wide-eyed ten-year-old watching robots, and stormtroopers, and laser guns, and light sabers and... light speed!  I also remember the hick in the row behind us, near the end of the Death Star battle, loudly remarking in an Oklahoma drawl, "Oh no, R2 got shot," and I remember our whole family laughing about it.

As I watched, I took note of how three specific items were handled:

1) The opening crawl does not state that it is "Episode IV"
2) HAN SHOOTS FIRST!!!
3) During the chase on board the Death Star, there is no call of, "Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors!"  My wife and I both remember it so, unfortunately, this is not the original original theatrical release but based on one of the later, edited prints.  No matter, it's close enough.

It was quite interesting to watch both reminiscing with my inner ten-year-old and as I am now, having seen the rest of the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.  There is a lot of foreshadowing and some interesting subtleties to the dialogue - some they worked into the backstory well, some they did not. (i.e. "Obi Wan? That's a name I haven't heard since before you were born.")  It's GREAT stuff... even 30 years later.

The Year in Review

Instructions: Go to the FIRST BLOG of each month for the past year. Copy and paste the LAST SENTENCE of each blog. That is your Year in Review.

Dec. 2005: Life just got way too busy and I need to get more comfortable in the new job before I pick it up again.

Jan. 2006: No fires have broken out near our home nor the homes of my wife’s family.

Feb. 2006: Just wanted to touch base.

Mar. 2006: 10. The last thing Joe Needs is more bad luck

Apr. 2006: Man, the beer I had with dinner on Friday tasted SO good!

May 2006: Here's to hoping I can find time to update more often.

Jun. 2006: I think I'm going to like this new space.

Jul. 2006: Both Kevin and I got a refreshed attitude and will be going into the holiday with a smile.

Aug. 2006: Steve's Digicams doesn't have a review up on it yet so I don't know if they've kept any of the conveniences they left out of the D70 and put into the D70s (such as a wired remote connection) or if they've added any features users feel were lacking on the D70 and D70s (such as bottom contacts for a vertical grip) but I'm anxiously awaiting it.

Sep. 2006: I'm still deciding what to do with the rest of the base material.

Oct. 2006: (yes, that's a broken guitar he's pitching off stage - he breaks at least one per concert)

Nov. 2006: It will be difficult in the short run but will make my life MUCH easier in the long run.

Wasn't that interesting?

It's Been an Interesting Evening

My original plan for the evening was to do some grocery shopping after work. When I mentioned this to my wife last night, she reminded me that we had been invited to attend a dress rehearsal for a play at the community theater (we're friends with the director). I am SO glad I didn't go grocery shopping.

We decided to grab some dinner before going to the theater. As we were finishing up our dinner, I looked up and in walks my High School US History teacher! His son-in-law, Jarrod, and I were friends in HS and have kept in touch off and on. Jarrod works in town so we see him once in a while but I haven't seen Mr. Marcum in at least fifteen years, probably more like eighteen.

I can't tell you how much US History I actually learned in Mr. Marcum's class but he's definitely one of those teachers you never forget. For me it wasn't because he had a particularly profound effect on me during some critical turning point in my life but it was because he cared. He genuinely cared and had a passion for his job. You remember the ones who care.

We traded email and contact information and I'm sure we'll be conversing again.

We went to the theater and just before the performance, a lady asked me, "Aren't you an audio guy?" I wasn't too sure how to answer because I was wondering if she thought I was with the theater. She saved me by introducing herself. She I hadn't seen in about ten years. I had done some work for her while I worked for the Audio Visual Center at OSU (during one of my former lives). She had some questions about audio and the internet and wondered if she could pick my brain a bit. I gave her my card and I'm sure I'll be hearing from her again.

The play, Sylvia, by A.R. Gurney, was quite fun as well but I'll be remembering this evening for the connections to the past.