The Window Shades of Death

 

Well, at least Lucy doesn't look any worse for the wear. Here she is, paws crossed, completely at peace with herself, guiltless and guileless. Meanwhile, I am contemplating a Sunday morning trip to Patient First.

Yesterday, I awoke to a strange yellow ball on the horizon. The further it rose in the sky, the warmer it became. A quick Google search revealed that this was, in fact, the sun. I resisted the urge to find a calf and butcher it at the top of the nearest mountain. Instead, I thought it might be fun to take Lucy to my office while I paid some bills, a little morning outing with my loyal dog at my side.

We rode over to the office without incedent. Upon arrival at the empty parking lot I walk up to the front door with my keys and briefcase in my right hand and the handle of Lucy's leash in my left. 

She is a bit wary at this point since she's only been here a couple of times, but so far, so good. Then it 

gets tricky. The welcome mat at the front door is still wet from the recent snow so I don't want to set my leather briefcase on it while I unlock the door. Instead, I jam it between my knees. I then unlock the door and swing it open. As I do so, I hear the timed chirping of our alarm system which gives you thirty seconds to enter, and punch in a password. Failure to do so will set off an ear-piercing sound and launch a call to the police. After throwing the door open, I stuck out my backside to prop it open so Lucy could enter, while simultaneously reaching for my briefcase. That's when the fun started.

The front door to our our office is adorned with wooden shades, large, clingy, wooden shades which make a loud clapping noise when you brush up against them. When these shades collided with my rear end, the loud clapping sound sent Lucy into a terrified panic. Instead of entering the building, she bolted for the parking lot...practically ripping the leash handle from my hand, and jerking my left arm back at an odd and very abrupt angle. So, there I was, the door propped open, my briefcase dropped on the wet mat, trying desperately to coax Lucy into the office, all the while, the countdown of death chirping inside! Trying to calm down a lunatic dog while coaxing her to enter a building through a door with wooden shades emitting scary sounds is hard enough. Try doing it when right at point of entry the intruder alarm goes off!! Lucy spent the entire time pacing nervously in my office, shaking like a leaf. In retrospect, not my best idea. 

About an hour later, I headed over to AmFam for a workout. Once there I noticed that my left shoulder had started to hurt... A LOT. Instead of lifting weights, I opted for an hour session on the treadmill, all the while, my surgically repaired shoulder barking it's resistance. Now, 24 hours later, after a fitful night's sleep, it is killing me. I'm afraid I may have ripped something apart in there. Not good.

So, I will go over to see my maniacle Indian doctor at Patient First, get it x-rayed and hope for the best. Dog ownership isn't for sissies.

Slippery Slopes

The list of Golden Retreiver Rules I put on Facebook yesterday is one of the coolest things I've run across in quite some time. It's so funny precisely because it is so true. When Lucy arrived we too had all sorts of noble plans. This time it was going to be different. THIS golden wasn't going to take over not only our house, but our lives too. Five months later she strides around here like she owns the place...because she does!

The gist of this list of rules is the infamous "slippery slope" argument. This is the line of reasoning, usually employed by politicians when losing an argument, whereby it is contended that if a relatively benign and insignificant thing A is allowed to pass, it will slowly but surely lead to catastrophic plague B. We heard it most recently in the Net Neutrality debate. Now that the camel's nose of government regulation is under the tent, surely censorship of content and rate hikes will follow. We also heard it with regards to the gay marriage debate. Allow gay people to marry one another and before long people will be rushing down the aisle to marry their parakeets.

However, despite the overuse of the device, slippery slopes do in fact exist. No one can seriously argue that there isn't a ton more vulgarity on television than there used to be. Today in prime time, there is more profanity, graphic violence, and nudity than there was in R rated movies from forty years ago. So, it was a slippery slope from the censors allowing the sound of a toilet flushing on All in the Family in the 70's to Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Some will argue that this is a good thing. But just like the famous frog and the pot of boiling water, the American people would have melted down the phone lines if an episode of Family Guy had been aired in 1970. But now, we don't bat an eye.

My point is that it is true that every society evolves, and in doing so we constantly test the limits of things. Sometimes little compromises, small, seemingly minor decisions do lead to unintended consequences. We can argue about what leads to what, but we can't argue that actions taken today will never have unforeseen consequences tomorrow. There's a phrase for it....the slippery slope.

Will Net Neutrality lead to excessive government meddling? I hope not. Will Fred marrying Fido be commonplace in ten years? I think not. But this I do know. There isn't a person alive today who was born before 1960 who ever would have believed that a President of the United States could survive getting caught having oral sex in the Oval Office with an intern. But he did. Imagine how long Harry Truman would have lasted under the same circumstances? 

Slippery slope indeed.

Dueling Weatherpersons

Oh boy. Here we are on the cusp of another winter storm, which can only mean one thing...the revenge of the weather nerds is upon us. 

That's right, the Internet has been buzzing with NAM's, EURO's and GFS's for days now. With each new run of these computer models, meteorologists great and small burst forth with their latest predictions. Barely comprehensible maps appear with lots of colors and squiggly lines offering visual "explanation" for why we can absolutely, positively count on 2-8 inches of snow. Each of these forecasts comes with the requisite weasel words which allow the meteorologist with enough ass-cover to allow for plausible deniability if we end up getting nothing but rain. But it's all great fun, and as far as I can tell, the professionals have about the same record of accuracy as the growing legion of homegrown, do-it-yourself weather forecasters...like my friend and former youth pastor Jeremy Welborn. Weather forecasting seems to be the hobby of choice for the kind of people who might have put together model airplanes or collected stamps fifty years ago. Apparently, anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can take up this new hobby. The best part of meteorology is the fact that, just like baseball, if you're successful just thirty percent of the time, you're in the Hall of Fame.

This particular storm must be something special because it seems that each of our three local TV guys has a different forecast. Our infamous, and obnoxiously arrogant Internet weather expert,who prefers the exotic "DT" changes his forecast about every thirty minutes and produces more incomprehensible maps than anyone. He also provides some level of entertainment by constantly berating his television competitors for being "idiots and morons." Whenever the TV guys wind up being right, DT lowers the cone of silence over his operation before finally explaining that he was actually right all along but we were too stupid to understand his superior, if nuanced, models.

 So, depending on who I chose to listen to, I'm prepared to endure each of the following; a day of cold rain followed by a bit of sleet, a wintry mix( an ass-covering formulation if ever there was one) which may or may not switch over to all snow anywhere between 11 am and 4 pm, or a brief interlude of snow that could drop anywhere from a trace to ten inches of the white stuff, in an area that may include all of the eastern seaboard, or may be confined to an area the size of New Kent County.

I prefer the old days of George Carlin's imagination and his famous "hippy-dippy weatherman"...

"The temperature outside is 52 degrees at the airport...which is stupid since nobody lives at the airport. Tonight's forecast...DARK, followed by widely scattered light in the morning. Tomorrow's weather will be dominated by a large Canadian low.....which is not to be confused with a Mexican high!!"

 

The Stone Brewing Boondoggle

One of my all time favorite Millenials posted an article on Facebook the other day concerning a City Hall fight brought on by the Stone Brewing riverfront property deal. Because he is a Millenial, I assumed he did so to protest the worthlessness of petty politicians standing in the way of progress. I assumed that like most Millenials, he thought that nothing could possibly be cooler than having yet another micro-brewer in town. When I asked him his actual opinions on the issue, I discovered the truth in the old admonition that assuming often makes asses out of you and me. My favorite Millenial was very much against the notion that local governments should get involved in picking winners and losers in business. He sent me to a Wall Street Journal article which essentially made the following point.

Imagine that you are an aspiring entrepreneur in Richmond 25 years ago who decides to refurbish a dilapidated old warehouse building downtown and turn it into a restaurant. You do so at great expense and considerable risk, since no one is sure whether an upscale restaurant will survive in such a parking challenged location. Despite considerable headwinds, your dream becomes a thriving reality. Twenty five years on, your enterprise is a profitable business which pays lots of taxes to the city treasury while employing 140 people. You are a vibrant, responsible corporate citizen who contributes much to the city.

Then one day, you discover that your city council has entered into an agreement with a California company to build not only a brewery but also a giant restaurant who will be in direct competition with you. The deal hammered out offers them not only massive tax relief, but also includes building said restaurant with public money, out of the taxes that your twenty five year old enterprise has faithfully paid. Not only that, your shiny new competitor is given a sweetheart twenty five year lease. The best part is that if this new enterprise fails, your future tax payments will be required to bail the city out of the deal. 

The owner of the Tobacco Company Resturant might reasonably ask why his city council is getting in the upscale restaurant business. He might also wonder where all of this tax relief and free construction money was twenty five years ago when he was building HIS building. The fact that my favorite Millenial understands the innate unfairness of such an arrangement renews my confidence in his generation. Maybe it will be the Millenials who will apply some hard-headed rationalism to government boondoggles like the Stone Brewing deal and ask the question, is this really what the people's representatives should be doing?

It's Home Improvement Time!!

March. I feel better just typing that. If it’s March, then there’s hope. In February, you’re screwed from beginning to end. It’s all winter, all the time. With March, there’s the hint of spring, the suggestion of warmth, the promise of a thaw.

For us this means doing something about the landscaping in our yard. When you spend the last seven years of your life putting your children through private, out of state colleges, there isn’t much money left over for home improvement projects. So when hurricane Isabelle came through and laid waste to the shrubbery several years ago, I was forced to tear the rest of it out and place “new landscaping” on the  “things to do when we’re no longer poor” list. Our post-modern minimalist look has worn thin on Pam who insists on nothing less than a full-blown landscaping make-over. This means venturing into our back yard, or as it has come to be known…the swamp that time forgot.

To that end, I began contacting landscaping contractors in the area a while back and finally settled on one who was young, credentialed, and didn’t reek of fertilizer. He came over and inspected the grounds, jotting notes into his tablet computer as we walked. When he sent us his proposal a week later, it came complete with drawings, a written description, and a five figure price tag. On the bright side, the cost was less than one semester’s tuition at Belmont, so I’ve got that going for me. Everything must be placed in perspective in life. After all, it’s only money, then you die.

So, I’m already over the cost. I’ve moved on to visualizing myself back there grilling steaks on my new stone patio, watching Lucy running across the new turf grass, frolicking amongst the shrub-lined fence, all splashed in sunshine thanks to the removal of several light blocking trees. Lucy will be over her digging fetish since she will no longer be a puppy (…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). It will be like Eden before the fall. Well, except we will be fully clothed…for the most part.

Once the landscaping project is finished, I’m told that there will be painting projects and interior design schemes to launch. Before this year is done, I will be recalling the years of writing obscene tuition checks as the good old days.

Success or Failure?

“I think I fear success more than failure,” he said absently, sitting at a conference table with his business partner.

“What?” his business partner asked, looking up from a pile of bills spread out in front of him. “What’s so scary about success?”

“Success can change a person, totally change their life.”

“That’s right, Einstein. Success can transform a starving, hopeless and disgusting business failure into a rich, well-fed entrepreneur practically overnight. Man, you beat everything…worrying about impending success while everyone else, including me is busy worrying about bankruptcy.”

“No, I’m serious. Have you ever thought about what you would do if you won the lottery, say 20 million or so?”

“The first thing I would do is buy you out so I wouldn’t have to have these idiotic conversations.”

“I mean after you paid your house off, cleared up the business debt, then maybe bought a vacation home somewhere, couple of new cars, new golf clubs and all, you would still have millions left over.”

“Yeah, I can definitely see how that would suck.”

“Then the trouble would start. Everyone you ever knew back in high school and college, all of your distant relatives would start hitting you up for money. If you turned them down they would end up hating you for it. Then, the do-gooders would come calling…the Red Cross, March of Dimes, the preacher, they would all come out of the woodwork and unless you gave them money, they would end up hating you too.”

“And then you would take comfort in that new car smell as you drive to your vacation home with your new golf clubs in the trunk. It’s like the circle of life. All of your old friends from the poor old days would get replaced with shiny new ones.”

“You know what the worst part about too much money, too fast?”

“Oh, I don’t know…if you spend it less than an hour after you get it you get cramps?”

“The worst part is that everything would be finished. You would be done. No more reason to care about things, nothing more to worry about, nothing to get you out of bed in the morning.”

“Dude, you are so weird.”

“Listen, right now the business is doing ok but we still struggle month to month, right?”

“Yes. Which is something that I’m counting on your 20 million dollar lottery windfall to fix.”

“No, don’t you see? We’re just like everyone else! We have common cause with our fellow man. We’re all in the same boat, we’re all struggling to make a go of it. If I win 20 million, I’m out of the club and I can never be like everyone else ever again.”

“That club you’re talking about? It’s called the sucker’s club and yes, 20 million gets you kicked out. But then you get kicked up into the millionaires club, which has way better food. That’s the American Dream my friend…the American Dream.”

“I guess so…”

“That’s right partner…the American Dream. So, get your upwardly mobile ass up and get me a Dr. Pepper out of the fridge while I figure out a way to balance our checkbook.”

He walked into the kitchen and brought a cold can back to the conference room. It made a sharp metallic sound as he sat it in the glass table top. He went to the window and stared down at the air conditioner unit with its big fan blades turning slowly. After a few minutes he walked back to his office.

“Maybe we should buy a lottery ticket,” he said as he disappeared down the hall.

Net Neutrality, My Son, and Me

I have a very smart son. He and I discuss things political on occasion and often we disagree. We recently had a long back and forth about the “net neutrality” issue. With yesterday’s vote, his side of the argument has prevailed, so I will have to take his word for it that this is a very good thing.

Like I said, he is very bright (he takes after his mother), and also very opinionated and argumentative (he takes after me). He paints the net neutrality business as narrow corporate interests vs. the greater public good and the interests of the little guy. He accuses NN’s opponents of appealing to the public’s distrust of government with overblown rhetoric about higher taxes and a government takeover of future content. The decision came down on a strict party line vote, which should come as a surprise to no one. Is there any other kind of vote anymore that isn’t straight party line, where Republicans are in the back pocket of business and Democrats always favoring anything that empowers the regulative state?

Anyway, now that the deal is done, I will have to take my son’s word for it that everything is going to be alright, that the heavy hand of government bureaucrats aren’t going to screw up the most vibrant, creative industry in the world. I’ll have to banish visions of DMV incompetence, Postal Service inefficiency, and IRS complexity from my mind. I will have to move on from my fear that this whole NN thing is nothing more than a government money grab.

My son knows much more about the internet and technology in general than I do, so perhaps I should give his views on this subject the benefit of the doubt. However, there is a very good reason why NN’s opponents appealed to the American distrust of government. There is an awful lot to distrust. When he complains that the current system leaves too many people at the mercy of too few giant monopolistic enterprises, I counter with the observation that I would rather be at the mercy of giant companies who are at least ultimately accountable to their share-holders, than to be at the mercy of some future Department of the Internet monolith who will be accountable to absolutely no one.

Five or ten years from now, thanks to this very internet miracle, my son’s views and my fears will be a matter of public record. We will both be able to look back on this blog and decide who was right and who was wrong. Somebody will owe somebody else a beer.

 

I sincerely hope I’m the one buying.