It's Not How Well the Dog Dances

Clearly the world needs more writing from me

1 January, 2019

So I just finished doing a bunch of work on the various blogs and wordpress sites we host, including this one, and I decided if I’m going to have a blog I should really write more.

I follow Seth’s Blog for a bunch of different reasons, but one of them is that he somehow manages to come up with something interesting to say every morning. Some of it promotes his own stuff but a lot is just really thought provoking. So I’m going to have a crack at that. Although my wife thinks I would be doing well to do this once a month, I’m going to try to post every morning and see what happens.

Apropos of nothing at all, today is the beginning of the Virtual Team Erg Challenge, so I think I will now go row. A lot.

Canal Boating: Expect the Unexpected

21 September, 2017

A brief summary of our Escapades Fluviale

One of the great things about canal boating is you never know what to expect…

Year 1: We arrive equipped with elaborate plans for what to do on our boat trip on the Canal du Centre, including which wineries to visit etc. Problem: Canal du Centre is closed due to lack of water, try a different canal. Outcome: Excellent — we visit Pont de Vaux (a tiny canal to a tiny village) and Louhans, at the top of the navigable Seille river, which has the most amazing market (including livestock!) we have ever seen.

Year 2: I book the wrong boat (was supposed to be the deluxe two cabin version, actually was the non-luxury three cabin version of the same size boat). Additional problems: Bow thruster doesn’t work and my bed broke and dropped me into the bilge. Weather is freezing cold most of the time and the crappy boat has to be driven from inside when it’s raining because there is no dodger or anything of the sort over the outdoor help position. Outcome: Excellent — we have a fantastic time with great friends, searching for geocaches along the route (my normally risk-averse wife crawled out onto a disused railroad trestle over the river to find one), and met a winemaker in Rully that we still visit regularly (Domaine De La Folie, highly recommended).

Year 3: I book the right boat (yay) with the right company (Saone Bateaux) and we actually have decent weather with Kim’s dad and stepmom. Problem: Plan is to go up Canal de Bourgogne and make extensive use of e-bikes for Ron and Claire to tour around the area — but they both have trouble getting used to the e-bikes so we mostly stay on the boat. Outcome: Excellent — after panicking over possibly running out of fresh water for showers etc., we make it to a lock with an anchorage run by two fantastic people who make us great food. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous. Hope to go back soon.

Year 4: I book the right boat again and we go up the Canal du Rhone au Rhin with same friends from Year 2. Problems: None. Outcome: Excellent, had a really great time, dropped Alison and Kyle off in Besancon for their return and then went up the Canal du Centre for a couple days on the way back to turn the boat in.

Year 5: Great weather, so great that I get heat exhaustion/dehydration from standing out in the sun driving the boat! (Wine might have played a part…). Outcome: Excellent, we were so hot we swam in the Saone off the back of the boat for the first time in 5 years. It was deliciously cold.

Year 6: Cold and rainy to start, now shaping up very nicely however as I write this. Problem: Atlantic side of Canal du Centre closed due to a broken lock (They had to drain the canal!). Outcome: So far, excellent — we get to spend more time in the Cote d’Or visiting wineries.

In general — one of the fun things about doing this canal boat vacation is that you never know what France is going to throw at you.

On roofs

11 September, 2017

I woke up this morning to more news from the BVI, where it seems like the whole world has more or less fallen to pieces following Hurricane Irma. The news was not good. We learned yesterday that Irma removed the roof on my in-laws’ house like a giant hand had plucked it off and flung it aside. We now know the same fate has befallen the beloved guest house where Kim and I always stayed when we visited — among our favorite places in the world. We don’t have a photo of the guest house, or what’s left of it, yet, but here’s the main house:

Our house at Indigo Point. The entire roof structure including rafters was lifted off by the hurricane and deposited in the lot next door.

It’s important to understand that compared to the permanent residents of the BVI we have nothing to worry about. After all, we still have a roof over our head. It’s also important to understand that the house was under contract for sale. We had already made peace with the idea that it wasn’t going to be ours any more and had planned a now-unnecessary trip down to help organize and remove the things in it that matter to us. Given that, I really have nothing to complain about at all.

And yet…

There is something so symbolic about having the roof ripped off a place that is important to you. It turns out roofs really matter. People will go to great lengths to get under them, and it’s the first or maybe the second thing we think about when we’re talking about our well being. “A decent meal and a roof over your head.” “It may not be much, but it keeps me out of the rain.” We don’t talk as much about building walls, even though they’re pretty important. Walls divide us; we use them to keep other people and things out, to separate us from them. Roofs bring us together. We “get everyone under one roof.” A house or a shelter of any kind doesn’t amount to anything at all until it has a roof on it, and then suddenly it starts to matter.

Back in the days of the Famine in Ireland, which of course was not a famine at all but a genocide against the poor, when the landlords were trying to run the tenants off their land they sent thugs to pull the roofs off the cottages. Usually they did this at night, during a cold rain (not too hard to find one of those in Ireland). The people thus deprived of the roof over their head died of exposure fairly quickly. There’s less written about the landlords actually demolishing the cottages, although I’m sure that happened as well. It’s the symbolism of the roof that really resonates with us.

So, as you’re reading news about the hurricane and about the people in the Caribbean and elsewhere whose only roof is now floating in a bay somewhere, remember the importance of roofs and what they symbolize.

If you would like to donate to the BVI relief effort, Richard Branson is getting things organized. See his post here.

Problem Solving Flowsheet

26 April, 2017

This never stops being funny.

Our wedding anniversary

20 July, 2016

So, facebook just asked me what was on my mind. I wrote approximately the stuff below… and then it crashed when I tried to post it.

*facepalm*

But, let me not be among those who cry over spilt words. Here’s another crack at it, hopefully a bit more permanent.

What’s on my mind, facebook asks?

25 years and a day ago, dinner at Lulu Wellington’s, a Philadelphia restaurant. My mother convinced everyone in the room to light sparklers (provided by her) in the middle of her toast to us. We set off the smoke alarms and the fire department came. It was excellent.

The next day, my beautiful bride, walking across the lawn to me through a crowd of family friends (and a few of our own friends). She looked entirely cool and collected even though the temperature was 104 (40 c). I was bathed in sweat.

The tailcoat I insisted on wearing, despite it being both outdoors and before 6. I said “I’m only getting married once and I am getting married in a tailcoat.” Weirdly I was right, without knowing why.

My dear old dad, who was wearing navy blue socks with his tux. I honestly don’t think he could see the difference. He prevailed upon a whole bunch of our guests to give us cash as a wedding gift so I could buy a vibraphone for $4000. Appropriate? Not really, but it was life changing anyway. Dad did not stand on ceremony.

My mother, who looked happy and bemused the whole time, and her best friend from college Lynn who turned up at the last minute. Also Kim’s mom Carol who looked fantastic, like a proud peacock despite the heat.

Mom’s sister — my aunt — Liz, who dragged herself all the way up from Atlanta in that godawful heat for what reason I do not know except she wanted to support me. I am so grateful she was there.

My brother, my best friend, who arranged the most beautiful song for us and then sang it with my fabulous sister. He was determined to recite the silly Shakespeare sonnet I asked him to recite from memory, and of course he froze in the middle and had to rescue himself with the wedding program that Kim insisted he keep in his pocket just in case. Then rallied and gave the best wedding toast ever.

Our friends, who played the music, gave us our co-bachelor party, and showed up.

Ron and Claire, Kim’s father and stepmother, who made everything happen and made it seem easy. I knew when I first met Ron that we were going to be good friends. I did not know that he would be, after my brother, my closest friend in the world.

And after all that, what’s on my mind? The one I married. Happy anniversary, my only love — here’s to another 25 years.