emerging technology

So the kids each got netbooks from their Nana for Christmas this year. We all agreed that they were ready, more or less responsible, and would enjoy having their very own computers. At the very least, it would help ensure that our MacBooks did not suffer a disastrous fate in their little hands.

Make no mistake, I am a huge fan of Apple products and I have neither the time nor the patience for anything Windows. In my mind, Windows equates to work and toil. Apple products are like a friend, someone you look forward to hanging out with. But these netbooks were impossibly inexpensive compared to anything equivalent in the Apple world, so it made sense to suck it up and deal with Windows for the affordability.

Out of the box, these sleek little machines proved to be adversarial. We plugged them in, turned them on, and I was immediately filled with anxiety. All of the gyrations required with a new Windows machine nearly sent me to the bar for shots of anything containing alcohol. The amount of promotional, trial, and unnecessary software loaded on these things was simply overwhelming and actually caused some system drain even though they were brand new. Killing alerts, tool bars, and pop-ups became a game of whack-a-mole.

Eventually, I achieved a fair degree of success to the degree that the kids are now able to actually turn on the computers and not have to go find something to do in the time it takes for them to boot up. It all happens now with amazing proficiency somewhere within 20 minutes or so. Once booted though, they run great.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I decided to set them both up with Gmail accounts. I thought it would be fun for them to be able to receive email from us while at work, or send them photos of kitties, or race cars, or influential figures throughout history. I thought perhaps having their own email access would encourage them to start writing more and better understand how words go together to form sentences, and how sentences become thoughts. It would no doubt make them think they are cool.

Eagerly, I sent my son (age 6) an email from work one day. “Hey buddy! Have a great day!” I wrote, imagining how special he would feel receiving a note from his dad. I couldn’t wait to get home to show him how to pull up the note so he could read it.

I raced home that day, had him start up his computer, and showed him his Gmail inbox. He thought that was pretty cool. What was even cooler though, was when his sister (age 8) showed him how to reply. “Dad! I sent you a reply!” he shouted. “Oh, ok, buddy, I will see it when I get to work in the morning! Can’t wait!”

So I got to the office the next day, raced up the stairs and signed in. I pulled up my email to see what he wrote.

His reply? None other than the underlying timeless gold standard of male comedy.

It said simply, “poop”.

“The bad guys think the good guys are the bad guys.” –Holden Phillips, age 6.

environmental intentions

Dear Work;

First, I applaud your effort to (finally) implement an organized recycling program.
However, handing out printed materials to everyone in attendance at six separate meetings and distributing printed fliers in everyone’s mail bins (on top of emailing them as PDF attachments) sort of started out the program in a deficit.

And while I really like the new blue wastebasket with a recycle logo on it, I wonder what happened to my old large black wastebasket. Hoping it didn’t end up in a landfill.

Cheers,
Your employee

In praise of autumn

Fall is by far my favorite time of the year. It may sound cliche, but I love the changing colors, the crisp air, the way the light just seems different. I am warmed by traditions that arrive this time of year heralded by scents of roasting chiles, cider, beer, football games, and Oktoberfest.

But more than any of that sappy imagery, the best part about Fall is that there are fewer people flagging their ugly, gnarled toes in flip flops.

juvenile sports

I bet the best part about being a sports announcer is getting to say "sack" on the air. And "penetrating the red zone".

a cancer story that's not a cancer story

Often when you hear a story about cancer, you read about someone who had no symptoms then launched headlong into a life-mangling battle with the disease. “I went in for what I thought was strep throat, and the next thing I knew, my hair was falling out and I was puking like a frat boy at a keg party.”

The stories we hear and read about the disease are almost always those of detection, diagnosis, and treatment; hopefully of survivorship, and sadly of death. It’s a heart-crushing scenario in any case. We rally around the patient and we use words like “fight” and “battle” and vow not to let cancer take control. These are valiant words and they give us all – patient and loved ones alike – a sense of empowerment to squash this invader who threatens someone very dear. You go ahead and try to conquer a very good person, alien cells, but you will be denied because this person is too good to suffer.

But what about a cancer story that is seemingly not a story at all? One of my best friends in the world was recently convinced that he had a tumor in his jaw and neck. He had many symptoms that indicated something was indeed wrong: a lump under the jawbone, soreness in his neck, and he had been a tobacco chewer since his youthful invincible years. There’s a frightening feeling that beckons to be addressed – one is keenly aware that this needs to be investigated right away, yet the crippling fear of truth is a powerful deterrent. The mind jumps to conclusions and runs directly toward being laid to rest while family and friends sob uncontrollably, residual victims of something that neither prayers nor medicine could halt.

With great bravery, my friend sought a doctor’s opinion. This was perhaps the most frightening time in his life. The doctor even surmised that based on the symptoms and history, there was a high probability it was indeed cancer. Tests were run, scans, waiting…..several anxiety-soaked days and sleepless nights passed. Bleak thoughts entered his head and arrangements were pondered should the news come back as expected.

The fateful day. The eagerly awaited and dreaded call from the doctor. The results were negative. No cancer. We met for coffee a couple days later, as we have done most days for the past three years or so, and he divulged his ordeal. Until now, he had kept it private so as not to cause any worry or distraction. Now the burden had been lifted and life was once again new. 

My own life had been so impacted by cancer in negative ways that all I knew of the disease was how it changed lives with a positive diagnosis. My parents, two uncles, a cousin, more than a couple friends were all lost to cancer. Others who are close to me had been diagnosed with cancer, experienced its unfriendly demeanor, and lived to tell about it. But never before had it really occurred to me how cancer can wield such a powerful influence even when it is not found. My friend's life had been temporarily upended by the mere notion that he just might have the disease, and for me weighing the thought of losing another friend gave me chills. 

So this cancer story mercifully never really happened. It was effectively little more than a bad dream after all was said and done, but it still changed a life and made for an ominous consideration of what could have transpired.

I suspect we'll meet for coffee for years to come, and the coffee will now taste a bit more robust.

Lance, Heroes, and Hope

No hero is infallible. Whether your hero is a parent, a political figure, an actor, a writer, or an athlete, as long as heroes are human, there is always some slightly less than desirable trait that underlies the sparkling image we see and read about.

The thing is we need heroes. We need heroes to affirm that anything is possible and that we can aspire to their greatness. Heroes, quite simply, give us hope.

So now we have Floyd Landis who wanted to be and tried so desperately to be a hero that he cheated to become one.  In 2006, he won the Tour de France…briefly.  A positive doping test bled into the media just as sports writers were finishing up their pieces about his amazing victory that year. Tarnish and stain. But Floyd seemed like a good guy and many thought surely the results were wrong or would be proven false. He embarked on a media tour declaring his innocence and he even wrote a book (now a joke) about it boldly entitled, ‘Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France’. We wanted to believe Floyd because he appeared to be an average dude like the rest of us and we thought he would have been crazy to use any form of performance enhancing drugs right before a stage that he fully intended to win. Stage winners, after all, are almost certainly guaranteed to be tested.

Floyd fought seemingly endless court battles and spent pretty much everything he was worth to defend himself and to have us believe that surely he wouldn’t bankrupt himself to support a lie. In addition to that, he endured bizarre exchanges in court with former Tour winner and persistent Lance attacker, Greg Lemond, and the drama of it all served to paint professional cyclists as completely psychotic head cases.

Cut to Spring 2010. Out of the blue, whaddaya know, Floyd admits doping. It was all a lie after all. His book, his media blitz, his insistence that he did not cheat….all exposed as lies just as we were all getting excited about the upcoming Tour de France. I’m sure the timing was a complete coincidence. Oh and by the way, he now joined hands with his former adversary Lemond and together they kind of slipped in a thorned word or two about Lance Armstrong being a fraud, a cheat, and a liar. Hey Floyd…pssst…your bucket has a few holes in it.

So here we go again hauling Lance through the fire when time after time inquiries and tests have proven nothing. Lance is the most tested athlete certainly in cycling and likely in the entire world of sports, but there has never been any positive test except for his use of a steroid cream for saddle sores. And that was approved by cycling’s medical authorities.  No, Floyd’s admission couldn’t be simply to clear his conscience and to embark on a mission to teach young athletes about not using drugs, could it? Instead, he is working very hard (with the help of FDA investigator/witch hunter Jeff Novitsky) to drag everyone in the world of cycling into the ugliness that will surely overshadow Floyd’s little problem. This is his Plan B to become a hero without regard to the fact that his credibility is zero. Attempting to ruin others is not a form of heroism. It is instead a manipulated form of schadenfreude and in the end, Floyd, you will still appear to be a bitter, disturbed man no matter the outcome.

I am so worn and tired from reading and hearing about this perennial attack on Lance. I do not believe he doped. I do not want to believe any of the allegations. He is a hero to more than 28 million cancer victims and countless others who have been affected by cancer’s wrath in one way or another. His foundation has given hope and provided a valuable source of advocacy on Capitol Hill in the fight against cancer. The LiveStrong campaign has united and ignited the world in the fight, and quite frankly these efforts have transcended even his amazing feats on the bike.

Even if Lance has been lying and did use performance enhancing drugs (which I am certain will not be proven to be the case), I will go so far as to say that at this point I don’t even care. Maybe it turns out that my hero was fallible. So be it. What matters in the end is the good that he has produced in our world, and that to me far outweighs the negative witch hunt agenda of Landis, his buddy Lemond, and Novitsky.

LiveStrong, Lance. I’m on your side.