What's wrong with kids these days

I'll tell you what's wrong. They're small, immature, silly, contrary, alternately lazy and hyperactive, too smart for their own good and stupid beyond belief. They range from completely to selectively helpless and they don't know what's important. They're fascinated by the newest thing for no reason other than that it's the newest thing. They cluster in packs, eat stuff you wanted and don't enjoy the things they ought to enjoy, like art and classical music.

The significance of others

Of all the weird little turns of language that have reached prominence in the, what do we call this decade anyway? In the 20's century everyone was comfortable from every decade starting in the 1920's to be "the 20's, the sixties, etc." And then everything fell apart at the beginning of the new millennium and we started trying things like the "oughty-oughts.:"

And now there's been nothing to pick up the slack. I fear we are seeing a new generation that doesn't understand the importance of the round-numberness of the decades. We're in our teens now, aren't we?

Sorry, got sidetracked there. What I was going to say is that there's almost no phrase that I utter frequently that makes me feel more awkward than "significant other." Both of my daughters are in their 20's and it seems weird to call a 28 year-old guy a boyfriend. Though I have no trouble referring to my father's 92 year-old girlfriend (he calls her his 'companion.'). So often when I describe everyone coming to the house for Thanksgiving I refer to my daughters and their significant others. And I seem to be able to do it without irony, which is surprising, but it still doesn't seem right.

What made me think about this was the reaction by people we know to their coming, the awkward questions about "where are they going to sleep?" Honestly, do people really still think this way? That a 20-something kids in a serious relationship is not going to sleep in the same bed? "Not under my roof, I tell you!" Says...well, nobody I know. Maybe it's the time I grew up (The Sixties!) and maybe we're just cool parents. Either way I find it kind of laughable, so "Ha."

The word for these adult relationships is a long running joke with me and one of my friends. We remember reading something, in the National Lampoon or some such thing, where a narrator refers to someone as his paramour and then laments, "I wish there were a better word." And of course this is English, so there's almost always a better word, but not for this.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the phrase significant other, aside from the wild variations of meanings you can attach to those words. A significant other could be a statistically meaningful alien. So you could mean that when you're talking about your boyfriend and he'd never know. Are we all okay with that? I'm not sure. I'll be back to you in the 20's.

The only thing we need to stress about is stress itself

My senior class, who are now in their second year with me, were telling me today how stressed they were about their midterm in my class. I got uppity about that and told them not to let the stress they're feeling about everything else in their lives bleed over into my test.

The word of the year seems to be stress. I'm trying to think back to when stress was invented. I think it was in late 1990's, with the coming of the new millennium. We all needed a new mental state to carry us through the next 1000 years and the powers that be seem to have settled on stress.

When people tell me they're stressed out, I always mean to ask them what they're talking about. Mind you, I don't ever ask, because if I did they might mistake what I'm asking and start telling me about their lives, but I don't really know what they mean when they say that.

Here's my hypothesis: Stress was invented because people needed a new excuse when "I'm tired" ceased to be believed. Saying that you're stressed is a way of deflecting the blame for you getting yourself into the mess you're in. In nearly all cases I encounter, people claim stress because of outside stuff that's going on. It's never their inability to deal with it. For a while, what people would say when you asked them how they were would be the euphemistic "Too busy." But now they just come right out and say"Stressed out." It's the default reaction to any outside stimulus.

The problem  and the reason it's nothing but and excuse is that the outside forces themselves are not inherently stressful. They are just there. A test is not under any stress whatsoever, nor does it contain any stress among its pages. Nor does an IRS audit or a performance review or a budget meeting or college admissions notifications. None of those entities experience any stress. One hundred percent of the stress comes from us and the way we handle ourselves. We're the stressful things, the only stressful things.

And there's a problem with spending so much time and effort learning to deal with stress. The danger is that we're treating the symptoms and ignoring the disease. The world has changed rapidly in the last 10 years and we are not adapting well. We've lost homeostasis and we won't really feel okay until we understand why, no matter what techniques we use.

I'm aware that mine is not the prevailing opinion, and I don't presume to have the answer for anyone else. There are so many books about how we got ourselves into this position that we clearly have no clue, (it's well known that the number of books on a topic is inversely proportional to how well we understand it). That's why I'm not reading any of them. When there's only one book I'll read that. Keep me posted.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't stressful things in the world. But to paraphrase "Born Yesterday," if a building burns down, who are you going to blame, the fire? I think we owe ourselves a good hard look in the mirror and a good round of "What the hell am I doing? What is my life such that I feel so bad? Why am I doing this to myself? What changes should I make?" before we start blaming the world for the fact that we're not able to calmly deal with the world.

Tis the season to be annoyed

I'm annoyed at someone. And I'm annoyed at myself for being annoyed at this person. And I just wanted to let you all know that if it gets to the point where I'm annoyed with myself for getting annoyed with myself, just bury my ashes in the family plot because I will probably have spontaneously burst into flames.

I think if you made a word cloud from school that "annoyed" and "stress" would be the biggest words.

I wrote this next thing for a group of students recently because we were doing a unit on kindness. Yes, they have math teachers doing this. Go figure. Anyway, I thought it might be worth posting:

Trying to be kind without being lame

I think that one of the biggest problems that people have with thinking about being kind is that
“kind” has a connotation of weakness, the same way as “nice.” Someone called me nice to my
face on Friday and a little part of me cringed. I don’t think about being nice; I think about being a
good person. Since part of being a good person is treating others the way you want to be
treated, niceness happens without your trying.

Kindness, however, takes effort. It requires thinking about another person and considering what
would be helpful to them. I was in the supermarket today, carrying two avocados and a tomato.
As I headed toward the plastic bag dispenser, another woman, carrying pears, approached the
same bag dispenser and got there before me. She pulled a bag off and then looked up and
handed it to me. I thanked her and smiled, and it made me feel really good for several minutes
afterwards. That’s what a small act of kindness can do.

Someone in our advisory group asked me if I had a stock line when dealing with customer
service people and I think I said that I didn’t. I realized later that I do. If I carry something over
to the checkout and they ask me if I want a bag, I usually say “No, that’s okay. I got it over here
without a bag and I think I can get it out to my car without one too.” This is slightly cute and
slightly funny, but it always makes cashiers smile.

I think I know why. It’s because when they asked me if I wanted a bag I responded to them as if
they were actually speaking to me, not just reciting a line. And that’s what I do. I also take note of where they are and what they’re doing. I talk about how busy or not busy the store is. If they seem tired I ask how long they’ve been on and when their break is. We discuss the merchandise, or something that’s happening elsewhere in the store. 

Here's another example. Today a cashier at Giant routinely asked me "how are you?" and I replied "I'm annoyed at someone..." Both she and the woman behind me in line looked up at me and I continued, "...like most people, I guess." This got nods from both of them and soon the cashier was telling us how upset she is with her constantly-demanding sister and how selfish she was being and how unfair it was. I said, "You know, sometimes people just can't see outside themselves." And she looked at me and smiled and said "You're right. Thank you for that." And off I went with my adult beverages. It made my day.

What those things have in common is that I’m engaging in people's lives to some small degree. I think even customer service people prefer being treated as people and not as devices.

My point here is not to tell you all how wonderful I am. I can be a jerk sometimes just like
anyone else. My point is that sometimes all it takes to be kind to someone is to see them, listen
to them, and think for a moment what might make them smile or what would be helpful. It’s
being thoughtful. And I don’t think there’s anything lame about that.

The debate

I'm quoting here from Infinite Jest. " I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile."

This is a good expression for how I'm feeling watching this debate. I am watching because, well, I don't know, maybe because I can't look away.

This is one of the most unpleasant things I've experienced semi-voluntarily in recent years. I have nothing left to say

The Death of Irony

I wish. Irony became cool in the 80's as a reaction to the post-hippie era, where the sincerity and generosity of Baby Boomers' younger years matured into arrogant, humorless sanctimony. It needed to be punctured, and people like David Letterman did an admirable job of doing that. But that was 30-something years ago, and I don't think it even occurred to anyone that ironic distance would be the new norm. But it kind of is.

Here's the thing though, irony is no better than sanctimony. Being cool and distant is not inherently superior to being holier-than-thou. They're the same thing. Irony is originally a literary device, using that perspective to communicate the author's point. It's a good thing to recognize. But there are other literary devices, like alliteration and metaphor. Why don't we try those out for a while? Wouldn't alliteration be absolutely amusing?

The common ground between irony and sanctimony is insincerity. Holding to a particular perspective for anything, regardless of what it is, necessarily separates you from everything. It's safe and cool and ultimately sterile. It's bad for you; it's the opposite of vulnerability, which is the only way we can let new feelings or perspectives inside ourselves.

I say all of this as someone who enjoys irony as much as anyone. I spent many years in a state of ironic distance. It has its place, which is not everywhere for everything. Those years were miserable for me most of the time. Vulnerability is scary and can be painful, but it's the only way to make deep connections with other people. Which is ultimately the most important thing, isn't it?

I'll finish with a quote (a paraphrase actually, but he was speaking stream-of-consciousness and I added a bit of structure) from Bo Burnham: "Ironic self-awareness isn't enough. It isn't okay to be a self-aware asshole- you need to stop being an asshole."

Here are some unconnected, but all from me and therefore not random, thoughts.

I'm still waiting to see the headline-
"Reality TV Star Alleges Media Conspiracy Against Him."

I always have this thing in my head that says every literate person appreciates a well-placed semicolon.

I used to wonder which I'd end up being when I got old, the wise sage that everyone came to for advice, or the cranky old guy shouting "Get off of my lawn." Based on all evidence to date, it appears I shall be both.

There's a wonderful quote (actually there are a great many) in James Brooks' excellent movie Broadcast News, where Bill, William Hurt's character, asks Aaron, Albert Brooks, "What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?" Aaron, who's jealous, replies "Keep it to yourself." That's a good punch line, but the question itself is more intriguing. It's a societal question and one I'll return to in another note.

Getting your money's worth

I'm never sure if people realize that images like this belong to you. You're free to download them and use them in whatever fashion you'd like. Yes, they're on the NASA site and other places as well, but you, as a taxpayer, own them, because NASA is an organization funded by the US government and therefore by you.

I'm holding back my inner scold here, but your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Space Station Flight Over the Southern Tip of Italy

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html
http://www.uahirise.org/katalogos.php

Phun with Philosophy, or Give Me Novocaine

I'm finding it hard to live with myself from time to time these days. And I don't mean it in the soap opera sense of "I couldn't live with myself if I..." It's more existential than that.

Part of it is my physical age- when did stretching equate to excruciating pain? But the real problem is that my brain is never been particularly cooperative. Because that's how brains are. They are independent entities that have to be coerced to cooperate. I understand mindfulness and know it's not like you can't steer your brain one way or another, but technically, it's your brain that's doing the steering. Forget about how to do it; what does that even mean? And that, my friends is why philosophy is so paralyzing.

Maybe the fact that you can't actually know for sure if you're moving or have ever moved is kind of paralyzing too. Figuratively if not literally. I remember doing this stuff in college and knowing that somehow I liked it, even if I had no idea what any of it meant. Metaphysics versus Epistemology. Big words for simple but confounding questions. Do we exist and what do we know? Or is it the other way around? Where's the dividing line between conscious and unconscious thought? I need to sit down. Or am I already sitting?

My best birthday present (aside from the obvious)

As Facebook won't let me or my friends forget, yesterday was my birthday. I'm in Miami now, hanging out on a windy but pleasant morning until the coffee's kicked in enough for me to go for a bike ride.

Yesterday was a fairly typical day here, really. We've been to this place 6 or 8 times before and know the drill. I got up early and rode my bike over to the mainland (we're on Key Biscayne, it's an 8 mile ride to Miami proper) and then had breakfast, sat on the beach until it got windy and they took our umbrella away, then by the pool, where they have less wind and sturdier umbrellas.

For dinner, we went to Zuma, considered by many to be the best restaurant in Miami. We were in no way disappointed. It's what they called Contemporary Japanese, the word "contemporary" in this context meaning that they can do whatever they want and if it's similar to flavors from Japanese food it's good. I don't think that's what the word really means, but no matter.

We got the tasting menu, which was too much food, but just wonderful. It went on for a couple of hours. I think it was a dozen courses plus 2 palate cleansers. Everything was delicious, and the dessert presentation, featuring fresh fruit, sorbet, pudding and chocolate lava cake, was maybe the best dessert I've ever had. Raspberry-wasabi sorbet? Bring it on!

But the bonus was, we missed the debate! I've read about it, of course, but to not have to listen to it was a gift to the senses and a great extra birthday present.

Digressions from the swamp

Before I get started, I just was wondering why we call it "passing gas." Isn't the gas passing us? Unless it's short for "passing gas along to those in close proximity." Yes, long walks with the dog can lead to the mind wandering into strange places.

In the slightest of rebellions again people saying they're "too busy," I have been referring to myself as "swamped." It's not literally true, of course. I'm not even slightly damp, but swamped has evolved from referring to sinking ships to having too much to do and/or too little time available. Saying "too busy" seems to imply "busier than you," which is a needlessly competitive thought. It's actually kind of mathematical, now that I think about it. It's not just too much work or too little time; it's the ratio between them. If the ratio of time required and time available is greater than one, that's when stress starts to creep in.

If you think about it rationally (that's a math joke), there are two ways of dealing with this imbalance ('im' is a variant of 'in.' I'm not sure what's wrong with inbalance, but im is used before the letters b, p and m, while the variant ir goes before r-words and il before l-words. I'm sure you're all thrilled to know this). To cure the imbalance you need to either reduce the amount of stuff to do or increase the amount of time available.

There's no shortage of work that I'd rather not do, but there's more than enough of what I like doing to unbalance (wait, there's unbalance too? English is ridiculous) the ratio. My solution has generally been to try to increase the time available. Because I can't actually stretch a day, this necessarily involves less sleep. Not sure how that will work long-term, and the one time I tried to cut it shorter, (this involved a 5:45 AM CrossFit class on a day I had to be at school until 10 PM for back-to-school night, not such a good idea looking back) I didn't feel so good the next couple of days.

Nonetheless, I am going to push it to the limit because an extra hour awake every day adds up fast.

First rugby match

I saw my first college rugby game Sunday; my nephew is on the Haverford College club team. I have to say, I enjoyed it tremendously.

It's an incredibly dumb-looking game. And from watching it it appears that both the people who made it up and the people who played at are in on the joke. Who invented the game like that? People rolling around on the ground banging into each other with no padding, throwing a ball this way and that and then occasionally kicking it. It's wonderful.

I like it much more than I like American football. Football is equally dumb, but they take themselves very seriously. I can enjoy a rugby game without even knowing the rules. I wasn't even sure there were rules, but there was a referee who occasionally took the ball away from people and gave it to someone else, so there's that.

There are a lot of great things about it, but I think my favorite no doubt is the throw-in from the sideline, which is a little bit like soccer throw hands except not at all. In a rugby throw in, you hold the ball with two hands and throw it, similar to soccer, but people from both sides are lined up to try to catch it. The trick appears to be you throw it up in the air high and everybody lifts there tall players up in the air to try to grab the ball before anybody else does. I've never seen anything like it. If seems like cheating, but it's sort of like a jump ball in basketball except that instead of jumping people are lifted.

In the game I saw today, one team was definitely better at this than the other at this, so the team that was not as good eventually stopped trying to get the ball and instead just tried to whack at the ball and the opponents' arms to keep them from getting it either. That left the ball just go roaming free and it was surprisingly effective. I guess sometimes it's easier to prevent someone else from doing something that it is for you to do that thing yourself.

The other thing I noticed is that there are certain plays in which before you pass the ball with your hands, you need to touch it to your leg for some reason. Rugby is not like soccer, they never just kick the ball around unless they're just punting (or whatever they call it) to push the other team all the way back into their own territory. But I know they have to do this like touch thing because they penalize the team for not doing it once. And I got the sense the ball has to touch their leg below the knee. I cannot imagine what possible significance that could have. I played a lot of sports in my life and I'm stumped.

I'm sure I'll go again, and I'm determined to not learn the rules, because it was too much fun not knowing to mess with it.

Who put the Web in webinars?

As a teacher, I get invitations to a lot of webinars. I really wish they could have actually named those something instead just sticking "web" on instead of "sem."

Today I got a couple for teaching economics. Since I don't teach elementary school, I wasn't so interested in the "Furry Economics Lessons Using Children's Literature" (yes, that's really a thing- it's on October 25 if you're interested), but "Using Dytopian Fiction to Teach Economics." has a certain apocalyptic appeal.

More ruminations on death

Something very like an email I'm about to send.

Dear _________,

It was nice seeing you at ___________'s birthday party. It's always nice to catch up and I look forward to meeting up with you in the Adirondacks.

I'm writing you now because I want to enjoy myself when we meet up, but at least part of the time that I'm with you now, I think about death. Not your death, mine. I don't think about death a lot, but for obvious reasons it pops into my head when I see you.

I need to get my act together and get a cemetery plot, and since you're president of __________ Cemetery and I don't know anyone else in the business, I figured I'd check in with you before I did anything else.

So how do you do this? Is it like making a reservation at a restaurant? Plot for 2 please, at 11:30AM on April 23, 2042. Or maybe later. Is it like that? Or do I go to the place and look for a nice spot?

I'm always aware when I'm at a particularly pretty gravesite that I'll be choosing the location in a kind of peculiar manner. Even though I'm the user of the product, the product is not for me- it's for everyone aside from me who happens to be there. My own satisfaction is pretty much guaranteed no matter what. There aren't a lot of things you can sell like that, are there? As a marketing person, that's intriguing.

So I want to be in the Jewish section for the usual reasons. I know there is one because your sign says so, but I've never been there. I've never been to the grave of anyone I know in Pennsylvania- I've been to cemeteries, but for parents of friends, not anyone I've ever met. I guess I ride my bike through them from time to time as well.

Anyway, I want something for me and my wife, but is there any way to give my kids the option of worming their way (so to speak) in there as well? Do you have to purchase a larger site than you need just in case or can you have something more optional? How about a sublet? Can you lease it to someone with the understanding that they may be moved to a less desirable spot at a later date? I'd give them a good discount. Are there laws about this kind of thing? I don't know what kinds of laws there are about dead people.

I'm way off track here. Can we set up a time to talk and have a walkthrough? I might as well walk it while I still can, right?

I look forward to speaking with you. Best to ____________.

Frank

Two things I was thinking about this morning

I slept badly and woke up early, so I went for a bike ride once the sun was up. There's a lot of traffic, so I have to pay close attention to the road most of the time, but it made me think about an important distinction.

Often, when I'm riding home I do the last couple of blocks on a major road. It's the quickest easiest way. There's another way on smaller roads, but it's longer and harder. But as I approached today, I thought, "I shouldn't go on that road, it's stupid." And then I thought, yeah, it is stupid, but the problem with it isn't that it's stupid, the problem is that it's dangerous.

For me at least, that's an important distinction to keep in mind. I do stupid stuff all the time. I'm a human being; it's hard-wired into me and I don't torture myself about it. Plus stupid stuff is often fun, and I like fun. Dangerous, however, is a whole 'nother matter, and even though I've ridden probably 20,000 miles on local roads without even coming close to getting in a serious accident, I always try to minimize the probability that my chosen action will kill me. Not a bad rule to follow in general, even when you're not riding a bike. When in doubt, pick the option less likely to result in your death. Yes, I like that.

The other thing I was thinking about is completely unrelated. I have a large number of college recommendations to write, and as always, many of the associated students are applying to the same schools. I have to be careful about not repeating myself, so when I think about the whole process I find myself kind of stockpiling superlatives. Because if I have 3 students applying to one school and I've said about all 3 that they're exceptionally good at learning new concepts, that would be kind of contrary to the meaning of exceptional. It's a good test of my ability to say roughly the same thing a bunch of different ways, so weird as it may sound, I'll enjoy it. And I like sound of stockpiling superlatives. It sounds very positive and makes me feel good.

Parts of speech

Given that "deplorables" is now a noun, can you be a deplorable? Like is the singular also a noun? If so, time to ramp up some paraphernalia. Baseball caps anyone?

What happened to me?

Notice how different the sense of that title is just from my putting a question mark at the end. But that's the sense I'm looking for.

Here's what I don't understand. I'm part of this group that's supposed to help out with all the new computer systems that we all should have been trained on before it was introduced. So since we haven't all been trained, there are a bunch of us more tech-savvy (is there possibly a more attractive term for this? I hate ______-savvy people) teachers who are supposed to help the others.

Since none of us have been trained, we all have these pockets of things we've learned. So tomorrow we have a meeting where we're supposed to make small groups and help them. When asked to choose which group we wanted to lead, everyone else went for things they were good at. I went for things I am not good at, just give me advance notice and I'll figure it out.

Yes yes, I'm contrarian, but that's not the point. When did I become not lazy and disengaged? Notice how the sense of that line is not changed the question mark. I've been less lazy as I've gotten older, partly because my energy level is weirdly higher and partly because of fear of impending death. But when did I get engaged like this?

Ultimately I think it comes down to my feelings about the students and my colleagues. I guess it's not surprising that this somehow leaks over into feelings about the so-called institution. In a way, I'm disappointed because I have a general dislike of institutions of all kinds, but ultimately it's okay.

Start of school metablogging

I look at a lot of my recent notes and, aside from the travelogues, they seem awfully serious and earnest. I'm certainly capable of being serious and it's important to be earnest, at least sometimes. But I think I used to write more funny stuff.

In a way that's okay, but in another it's terrifying. Oh god, am I becoming that person who insists on constantly imparting life lessons to people? I hate that guy. When I was younger I always imagined that I'd grow up to be some combination of a sage and a cranky guy yelling at people to get off of his lawn. The person who drones on and on about stuff that everyone else should understand is important!!! was never what I was shooting for.

Fortunately, it's not too late. I'm not really the best judge of these things, but based on people's reactions to things I say I have not totally lost the ability to be funny, so I just need to bring it back into what I write.

One week down, or one week is up?

What a great language, man. How can you use two exact opposite words to describe the same thing?

So the first week of school is over. It was a whirlwind. I got to meet all of the students I'll be working with in some capacity and eventually even teach a little bit.

I should note, for those participating in the office pool, that it was exactly 6 minutes into the first class when we were interrupted by a PA announcement. It took a whole day for the bells to stop working.

I have to admit that the teaching part was surprisingly challenging this week. I never felt completely over my feet, which is unusual for me. It was better by the end of today. I asked a couple of my students if I was making sense and they said I was, so that was reassuring. I don't think you can ever take for granted that what you think makes sense is comprehensible to anyone else. That's part of why I like working with people who ask lots of questions, because I can tell from their reaction if I've given them an answer that they can understand.

I've had a weird transition in my relationship with the school over the course of the last few months. I've suddenly gotten myself involved in all kinds of things directly relating to the running of the school. I've always avoided that kind of thing like the plague, because it can be a black hole that just sucks you in and never lets go. But I think I've felt free-er (how do you spell that anyway? "Freeer" doesn't look right) to talk about this kind of thing to people who are in charge of such things.

I think part of this is that I'm just feeling more comfortable with my place in school. Until recently, I was sure that at some point someone would figure out that I had no idea what I was doing and that they'd fire me. But it's too late, because I actually am pretty good at this by now. The other thing is that, through no fault of my own, a lot of people in the school seem to like and even respect me. Unfamiliar as that feeling may be (no need to get into psychoanalysis at this time), it's pleasant and can be useful if I want to get something done.

I know I said people like me "through no fault of my own" before, but I can tell you what I do. I listen. When I ask people how they're doing, many of them actually tell me because they know I really listen and respond to them. It's really not that hard and people seem to really appreciate it. Too bad I didn't realize it until I was 50 or so.

Sorry to get meta, but that was 5 straight paragraphs beginning with "I." That usually means it's time to stop.

What I want my students to know

Here's what's most important: I have a motto of sorts, which I try to live by and which I would like you to try to observe, at least in our classroom. It is short and simple.

Be where you are and do what you're doing.

Of course, simple and easy are not the same thing and this isn't the easiest principle to live by, but it works for me. I've rarely found myself in a stressful situation that could not be improved by my asking myself. "Where am I and what am I doing?"

So in math class, what that means is be present. Don't be doing other stuff or thinking about your other classes or obligations. Do math class when you're in math class. It will simplify your life and reduce your stress.

Never doubt that I'm on your side. Your job is to learn, and my job is to motivate you and help you. I might push you and prod you and test you, but my only purpose is to help you learn and grow.

I cherish the time I get to spend with you. I truly love my job, and classroom time is pretty much my favorite time of day. I do not enjoy making up or grading tests any more than you like taking them, but it's part of my toolkit to push you along.

A classroom is a two-way interaction, at least my classroom is. The more your participate, the more you buy into what we're trying to do, the better your experience and that of your classmates will be. Don't worry about sounding dumb, you won't. And don't worry about embarrassing or upsetting me, you won't. I will try to answer every question I'm asked in every class.

Because the interaction is essential to the success of the class, nobody is allowed to comment on what any student says except me. This is simply a matter of showing respect to a peer. No insults, no sarcasm, and no praise either. You never know if you've hurt someone's feelings until you've done it, and you can't ever unsay it.

I will try to not waste your time, either in class or with too much homework. I will be completely honest with you about the practical application (or lack thereof) of the particular work we are doing at any time. So you have to trust my judgement about the wisdom of working with material that may not seem valuable or interesting.

I need you to be honest with me and with yourself. Don't try to tell either one of us that you're busting your butt when you're not. It isn't really that hard to tell; I'm pretty observant. And along those lines, I promise I will try to always listen to you and be fully present when I do so. I expect the same from you, both with me and, more importantly, with your peers.

Students think this is kind of funny, but I'm not really a math person. I'm teaching math because I like to teach and math is something that makes sense to me. And math is a useful thing in the world; life is better if you can do some math. But I spend very little time aside from class and class prep thinking about math.

Finally, try to have fun. There's no such thing as boring material. The material is what it is, the boring part comes from how you approach it. Don't expect everything to be awesome. There are lots of great things that inspire absolutely no awe whatsoever. You just have to look carefully and think about what you're doing.

(I may edit or amend this, because I'm writing a parallel thing for parents and I want them to be complementary).

More Favorite Fifteens

I know I haven't written for a bit; it's been busy. I'll share a few of my Favorite Fifteens with you though.

On my last ride in Lake Placid, there's a 6 mile descent after you've climbed seemingly endlessly out of town. It then drops 1200 feet in a series of 3 hills. My cycling computer was dead, so I have no idea how fast I was going, but I was pretty sure that if I crashed out that I would be dead. It did occur to me though, that if I had to die in a cycling accident, that this would be where I wanted it to happen (as opposed to, for example, a 4-way stop in Narberth). Needless to say, I (1) did not crash or die, and (2) was exhilarated beyond belief. That makes it an easy Favorite Fifteen moment.

I should note that you spend the last 15 miles of this route regaining all of this elevation, but it's easier than doing it in the other direction, which I've done a couple of times. It's amazing how steep a 5% grade seems when you're going up it for 2 miles straight, times 3.

Since I got home, I've had some other favorite moments, ranging from picking up our very happy dog, to sitting with my 16 year-old twin niece and nephew for nearly an hour, just talking, to having an old friend from high school whom I'd not seen in 25 years drop by for an afternoon, to spending a couple of hours with a much-missed former colleague.

It's easy to pick out the peak moments when you're doing something exciting, but it's equally important to savor what you get every day. On today's bike ride, I felt like everything was flowing perfectly and I just enjoyed the sensation of being strong and smooth, and then a jump in the pool to cool off was wonderful.

Please sir, may I have another?

And it's over. They always have to end. I've been here probably 20 times and there has never been once (except maybe the time I was severely injured) that I've wanted to leave, felt like I'd had enough. I could easily handle another week here; I actually teared up a bit on the way out of town.

In the 6 non-rainy days I rode my bike 153 miles, including yesterday's 43.5 mile, 3 hour loop that includes a total of over 2000 feet of climbing. I've swam (swum?) further than I'd ever done in open water, kayaked and SUP'ed all over the lake and various walking things. Eaten lots of good food and had company for our children the entire time. It's been a great 8 days and I'd like 8 more just like them. I'm already trying to figure out how to stay longer next year.

The ride home was awful. It started off badly when I got honked at a red light in Keene Valley, a tiny town 25 miles east of Lake Placid. The guy behind me wanted to make a right turn, and so even though I was in my lane, he wanted me to move over so he could use the road and the shoulder. It wasn't a polite little "May I please?" kind of honk. It was long hard one, and the guy looked angry too. Sorry I couldn't read your mind bro, I'll try to do better.

The entire drive wasn't horrible- it was mostly okay until we reached Albany, but the New York Thruway is an awful road. I guess it doesn't have potholes, so I can't say it's substandard in every way, but certainly as a road you pay to drive on it's bad. The road is only 2 lanes for most of its length, so any little thing, like a merge, causes a back-up. It took us 3 hours to go a bit more than 100 miles. The rest areas are tiny and horribly overcrowded. It makes the New Jersey Turnpike look like heaven on earth.

Once we got through that part it was fine, aside from the heavy rain and the stupidity of people driving in it. I don't know why people think they can drive the same during a downpour. There were the remains of crashes left and right, and people are still swerving on and out and even more honking. Assuming they were all coming back from vacation, it must not have been as relaxing as mine was.

So now I'm home and I have to get back to it. School starts, the student part anyway, in 2 1/2 weeks but meetings start next week. Ugh. One more week, that's all I ask.

Fifteen seconds of drinking pleasure

Thursday in Lake Placid started with my daughter's taxi taking her to her plane in Plattsburgh. That all went smoothly.

Somehow, in the course of her departure, I tweaked some muscle in my leg. I'm not sure how that happened; all I was doing was walking up and down a few steps, but it affected how I approached the day. My intention was to try to tackle a hill that I had been unable to successfully climb on previous visits. It's a vicious little thing, coming after about 1000 feet of climbing from low point to high, there's a fairly steep uphill followed by a short flat followed by a 200 foot rise in about half a mile. That may not sound like much but you try it.

I decided that a wiser course would be to nurse it through a more forgiving course (though there are no flat rides to be taken here of more than 3 or 4 miles and I am not here to do laps) and see just how bad it was. The idea was that if it was actually injured that I only had one hard ride left in me and I didn't want to do it 3 days before the last day. I did around 15 miles and it was sore at times but not awful. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, I think. I kayaked a couple of times (including an unusually close encounter with a loon- they really are beautiful birds) and had another long swim.

I think my Favorite Fifteen (and I'm not going to blog about these forever though I will continue to think about them) was fifteen seconds this time. It was my first sips of a very delicious beer at the restaurant where we had dinner. It was a really delicious farmhouse ale, which is one of my favorite varieties, and it just hit the perfect spot at that moment. I just read that, thanks to the microbrewery explosion, there are now more breweries in the US now than there have ever been, and as someone who has been a beer drinker since 1973 (drinking age was 18 when I was in college), I really appreciate the quality of many of these small batch beers and ales.

I had such a busy summer that I was counting on my time here to actually unwind and relax. I don't like staking so much on any one thing, but in my experience, Lake Placid rarely fails me. I've slowed down but kept my sharpness. I've slept more than usual and spent the vast majority of my time outside in this marvelous air. I don't want to go home. But I'll be back.

And by the end of the day, my leg wasn't hurting at all. A 60 year-old body is such a weird thing.

A very long day

Wednesday was a really up and down day. I got up ready to go for a bike ride and even though the weather looked not so great, out I went. But after around 3 miles I was just starting to think more and more that I was simply not enjoying myself, so I came back and walked around the lake instead.

One of my kids was supposed to fly home from the local airport in the afternoon, and the other kid and her boyfriend were due here around the same time. So I drove her over (around a half hour) and saw her through security and came back, where the others had arrived. And then about 45 minutes later I got a text from her saying they were having a mechanical problem and there was no mechanic on site. So they had to cancel the flight because the mechanic was at another airport 2 hours away and I had to go back and get her.

The stupid part was that there was another flight arriving later and the plane was then returning to Boston. They could have gotten on, but thanks to our Republican friends in Congress and their budget cuts, TSA couldn't authorize the overtime to keep someone on staff there, even though they had all already cleared security. Apparently someone has to stay and watch them.

When I arrived, Joann, the sole airline (Cape Air) employee, was trying to help 3 people at once. My daughter was the only person just going to Boston. Everyone else was missing connections, including someone traveling on frequent flyer miles to Amsterdam. If you've never had missed connections on a rewards ticket, count yourself as lucky. Because the canceled flight was not part of the award ticket, Delta wanted to charge them $6000 for new tickets. It only got worked out because Joann from Cape Air had the bright idea to call her colleague in Boston and have them personally walk over to the Delta office and work it out.

As for my daughter, they first wanted to put her in a van to Boston (which the people who missed the Amsterdam connection took), but ultimately they paid for a taxi to Plattsburgh this morning and a flight from there on another commuter airline. So she’s back in Boston finally.

So we arrived back at the house tired and cranky. I got on my bicycle and rode for an hour on a beautiful clear late afternoon, and then had my Favorite Fifteen, which was a swim across the lake. It's only about a third of a mile round trip, but I'm not really a swimmer. I mean, I can swim okay, but I don't do a lot of swimming for exercise and open water swimming is much harder than swimming laps. I'd wondered if I could make it, and I did with surprisingly little trouble.

I guess I do enough endurance exercise that even if I'm not an efficient swimmer I can keep going. I made sure to stop a couple of times on the way to just look around at where I was, there in the middle of the lake. The weird thing is that there's a law in New York that if you go out on a boat you need a life jacket, so everyone in kayaks or on SUPs had life jackets on. But I could swim without one. Does that make any sense? They are out there with a floating thing and I am not, yet they are the ones who need the life jackets.

At this point I was no longer tired and cranky, so we went out to dinner and had some very good Bar-BQ with pretty atrocious service. Still it was fun. And again the evening ended with some Olympics. So it ended up okay.

Wednesday morning in Lake Placid

I got up yesterday knowing that the weather forecast was ugly. Cloudy, then rainy, then cloudy and then rainy again plus windy. So I decided to get my stuff in early.

I started off with a paddle around the entire lake. I'd never done that before. You kind of have to do it first thing in the morning, because the wind seems to pick up as the day goes on. When I went out, the lake was so smooth that my stepping into it made ripples that seemed to go halfway across the surface. Once I was out on the lake, I immediately had a sense of well-being, the feeling this place always brings me, bad weather or not.

My Favorite Fifteen of the day happened early, on this paddle. Once I'd looped around toward the middle of the lake, I saw 3 loons. I will here admit to being big loon fan. I love their calls and I love watching them in the water. I'd never seen 3 together before, so I stopped paddling and watched as they swam, flapped their wings and then dove, first one and then the other two.

If you don't know loons, they dive for fish and can swim underwater for a good amount of time and distance. Typically, once they go down they are gone for about a minute and then pop up somewhere completely different, sometimes out of my field of vision. So you play a little mental game, guessing where they'll pop up.

We saw them again near the house later, but I then paddled the rest of the way around the lake. It was raining lightly, so I didn't feel like cycling, so I took my raincoat and headed for a walk around the lake. My Favorite Fifteen the first evening here, when the weather was miserable, was on my walk. If I go clockwise from where we're staying, I walk for about 20 minutes and see nothing but houses and trees, and then at one magical point, the houses are done and you see Mirror Lake, reflecting the town and its evening lights. It's always my favorite moment on this walk, which I do almost every day when I'm here, regardless of the weather.

It's always beautiful, but I was so looking forward to being here and the weather had been so awful (and it still wasn't very nice out) that the sight filled my heart with joy. I was here. Ahhh.

As for the rest of yesterday, it was fine considering the weather. After I'd walked around, I did a bit of reading and writing. Went to the supermarket. That kind of stuff. I even did a bit of schoolwork.

We had dinner at a small lakeside restaurant. It was stormy and windy out, and we were right by the window. It was magnificent. Until we had to go back to the car, but what can you do?

Then an evening of watching the Olympics and that was Tuesday. Now the sun has come out and it's almost hot. Think I'll go for a swim.

New feature!

I'm in Lake Placid now. One of the things I especially love about being in Lake Placid is riding my bike. Unlike my usual suburban deal, here there are very few traffic lights and even the roads are miles apart, so you can have a wonderful, long ride without ever having to even slow down, much less stop.

I'll tell you about yesterday later, but today I rode to Wilmington, the town closest to the Whiteface ski area. It's about 12 miles from here- downhill the whole way there, uphill the whole way back. But today I had to take a detour on my way, because there's stretch of back road, called River Road, that runs from the ski jump area outside of town 4 miles to the main road to Wilmington. This is my favorite place to ride a bicycle for a bunch of reasons, all of them having to do with its natural beauty, its quiet, and a faint but noticeable spruce forest smell that is always there.

As I was riding along, it occurred to me that in all likelihood, this would be my favorite moments of the day, which leads to my newest feature, Favorite Fifteen. What are your favorite fifteen minutes of your day? Today mine was this piece of what ended up being a 31-mile bike ride. The road is rolling hills, first through farmland, and then with the woods on one side and a river on the other. There's a school and around a dozen houses along the road, and a designated fly fishing spot. Today I saw 2 cars the entire time. Sometimes there are a few more. It doesn't matter.

The main road is not too shabby either, with (I think the same) river on one side with mountains beyond it and woods to the right.. Eventually you see a chairlift on top of one of the peaks and you know you're getting close to the ski area. It's kind of behind you when you're traveling northbound, but I got a quick peak. After that, it's into Wilmington, a scruffy little resort area highlighted by North Pole, home of Santa's workshop and a road that goes up near the top of Whiteface Mountain.

I've taken that road before. It goes up. And then you park, where someone built a small castle for some reason (vanity, in all likelihood) that now has a snack bar and bathrooms. You can then either climb up to the top (1/2 mile trail with a 200+ foot vertical) or walk through a long, spooky passageway and take an elevator. Yeah, an elevator in the middle of a mountain. Amazing views from the top on a clear day.

But for me it's just a turnaround, and the climb back to Lake Placid (about 800 ft. vertical) was harder at the beginning because of a headwind, but easier at the end than I remembered. You get a clear view of the ski area in this direction. They're always interesting to look at out of season. Took a bit more than 2 hours of riding overall. But that fifteen minutes on River Road were the peak.

Yesterday, my Favorite Fifteen was a kayak ride with my daughter. Mirror Lake is very nice. Pretty small, maybe a mile long and a quarter mile wide, with no motorboats allowed. It's quiet, and smooth and, well, mirrory. I love being out in the middle of it and just looking around and breathing the air, and doing it together was wonderful.

Anyway, I will keep reporting on my Favorite Fifteens and will ask about yours when I see you.

The wisdom to know

For whatever reason, I had the old Serenity Prayer in my head this morning while riding my bike along Lobsterville Road. I can't just reject such thoughts out of hand, because I try to live by a well defined code. Maybe not so much a code as much as guidelines. Anyway, if you don't know or remember it, it goes something along the lines of "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

From my perspective, this is all perfectly sensible. I think the problem with it is that you can't go there without checking the first draft of the prayer, which, if you must know, I just made up. That one reads, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know that you probably don't understand what the words serenity and courage mean."

If most people knew what serenity meant, there wouldn't need to be the current craze around mindfulness, because you can't have serenity without it.  It's not the same as accepting Jesus or whatever the person who wrote the prayer actually meant (the full version mentions that fellow- the familiar part is just the first 3 lines). I think of serenity as true inner peace, where you are completely present and your mind is clear. In other words, a rarity, something that most of us rarely or never touch.

Courage is even stickier, because being serene requires simplicity and courage is much more complex. It's also gotten stuck with a connotation about physical bravery, which is not at all what the prayer is talking about or what courage means. Courage is some sort of indescribable mixture of fortitude and boldness; it's not just about going out and fighting for something, though sometimes that's exactly what it means. And it's not about simply enduring, though sometimes that's exactly what it means. It kind of means doing both at the same time, which is a little hard to picture and a lot hard to do.

I know if I try to go any deeper right now that I'm not going to finish, so I'll have to settle for one of three results. Either I have ruined your favorite little prayer, or I've helped you think a little more deeply about the things you read and hear, or I've accomplished nothing. And I can accept that.

How I write something that takes way too long to get to its point

I'm writing this on a boat from Quonset, Rhode Island, home of the world-famous Quonset Huts (kind of like Pizza Hut, but without pizza) to Martha's Vineyard. We're taking, for the 3rd time in 7 days, something called the Vineyard Fast Ferry.

One of the nicer Quonset huts you'll see.

One good thing about Rhode Island is that nobody ever asks where something is in Rhode Island. If it's in Rhode Island that narrows it down enough. In Providence/near Providence, that's it. And before you start wondering why this involves Quonset, let me state that Martha's Vineyard is a pain in the butt to get to no matter what, especially from Philadelphia. It's an island, so you can go by plane or boat- no other options. The pain can be financial (had we flown into the island airport this weekend from Philly it would have cost $2500 for the two of us for a trip that requires a change of plane in both directions, making a 250 mile trip take 4 1/2 hours from takeoff to landing) or mental (the closest place you can drive for a direct flight is JFK Airport, which is its own kind of anguish) or literal (drive 5 or 6 hours to a ferry and I guarantee your butt will not forgive you).

So Quonset is the place where you can catch something called the Vineyard Fast Ferry. It's the closest ferry to New York and points south, which makes it our best option if we're not flying. Last weekend, we flew to Providence and took a taxi to the ferry. That was okay, but the connections required us first sitting in the teeny ferry terminal (not in a Quonset Hut for some reason) for an hour and a half, and then on the way home, at Providence airport for 2 1/2 hours. This time it was a 4 1/2 hour train ride and then a van shuttle to the ferry.

Admittedly, this is a lot of whining and it's not the point I'm trying to make. I've buried the lede. The point is that on this trip, for the first time, I went outside onto the deck of the ferry to see what that was like. And it was pretty great. You don't really understand what Fast Ferry refers to until you step outside. That boat is cooking; 35 miles an hour over water is really fast. The wind is incredible and feels amazing and ultimately is so strong that it renders you unable to see or breathe normally. I loved it.

I'm about to fall into a trap that is endemic to people my age; everything is a metaphor. Going out on the front of the boat was a step, just a small one, outside my comfort zone. That's where the peak experiences can happen. In your comfort zone, the best you can get is, well, comfortable. Outside is where the high highs and the low lows take place, and if you're prepared to deal with the occasional bad experience, you will find yourself feeling more alive.

I guess this is why mindfulness is so important. If you're truly present, there is no comfort zone. Everything is new and fresh, even if it's familiar. It's something I strive for all the time and manage to achieve sometimes.

20 hours on Martha's Vineyard

We left for Martha's Vineyard in the rain. The biggest problem with getting here is getting here. There's no decent way of doing it from Philadelphia without chartering a private plane. Here are the choices:

Fly to Boston and then change planes and fly here. That can be done all on JetBlue (which we're doing next week) or on American and something called Cape Air, which flies 9-seat twin engine prop planes back and forth all day and charges a bloody fortune ($200-300 for a 25 minute flight).

Drive to Washington or New York and take a direct flight. There used to be one out of Newark, which was how we always came, but they stopped that 10 years ago, so we'd have to go to JFK, a 2 1/2 hour drive.

Go to North Jersey and take a boat. This takes about 5 hours and is a good way to do it if you want to be completely hammered by the time you arrive. Great party in good weather and pukefest in bad.

Finally, you can go to Quonset, Rhode Island and take a 90 minute ferry ride. You can drive there, which we did last year, take Amtrak to Providence, or fly to Providence. This time we flew. Driving is the cheapest way, flying is next best.

It's an ordeal of sorts no matter what, but pretty much the moment we arrived here the weather turned beautiful and so far has remained so. My older daughter and her boyfriend had arrived the previous day and were just chillin. I say that from time to time but it looks weird when I type it.

We hung out at the house for a while and I swam in the pool for a few laps. Then we went into Edgartown, one of the 3 big towns on the island, and the one with the most nice stores and restaurants. We made an obligatory stop at the Black Dog shop, and I actually bought something, a bike jersey that is guaranteed to make me the envy of everyone I pass. And nobody will pass me because they will be transfixed by its coolness. I don't know. I don't have an overabundance of bike jerseys and this was a nice one.

We strolled around and eventually were lured into a skin care shop by a smooth-talking, handsome gay Israeli guy, who softened our hands and made all us smell really good. He showed us his (gorgeous) boyfriend and offered to be Facebook friends. We bought some scrub to reward his excellent salesmanship.

Eventually we had dinner at a good, if overpriced, restaurant and toddled home. It was almost midnight by the time we got back, in part because I took a wrong turn. It was a very nice afternoon and evening.

So this weekend, we're...

So off we go again because of course. This helps ensure that there are no weekend days between July 10 and August 27 that we find ourselves home for more than a few hours.

This weekend we’re off to Martha’s Vineyard. Then again next weekend. There are a myriad reasons why we don’t just stay the entire time, but it certainly would have involved less back and forth. We’re going to hang out with my older daughter and her boyfriend. Next weekend we’re hanging out with our younger daughter and her boyfriend. In between the younger daughter is coming home from Boston, meeting us on our return from this trip, and then going back to Boston in order to meet up with us the next weekend. Got it? It’s amazing how much simpler things are once the kids leave the nest.

I’ve been going to Martha’s Vineyard most summers since the early 80’s, when my parents fell in love with the place, first renting and ultimately building a house there. Ronnie's been coming here almost as long. The house is full of mixed memories for me, as family vacation houses tend to be. My parents used to hold huge parties there, weekend-long bashes for 150 or more people. The house was designed to accommodate such things. It’s huge and open and sleeps about 20 all told.

Those party days are long gone. The parties stopped when my mom was diagnosed with ALS. And my father retired, shedding many people whose friendship was based on mixing business with pleasure. It’s still a nice place, with a big, beautiful swimming pool and access to a pond for paddling and a private beach. It’s just more than we need at the moment and it can feel empty.

I’d say it’s time to drop the melancholy, but it’s hard. The memories are everywhere and it just feels strange to be there sometimes. It will be better once we’re actually there and not just sitting on a boat thinking about it. Before the boat, more time on a plane after returning from England on Monday. We flew to Providence and now are on the Rhode Island Fast Ferry (how fast is it? About 35 miles an hour, which isn’t bad).

We’ll be docking in about 10 minutes. Will check in again soon.

Political rant that's not really about politics

I have to go on a little bit of a rant here, because there are things about what's usually referred to as the mainstream media that are driving me crazy. Actually, they're not driving me crazy; that's a euphemism. They're making me mad.

 The usual complaint about the big political conventions is that nothing really happens, they're just a show. It's all choreographed, there's no action (all the stuff going on in smoke-filled rooms) and so forth. I am in no way an expert on politics or political conventions, but it occurs to me that the purpose of the political convention is (1) nominate a candidate, and (2) introduce and promote that candidate to the viewers, listeners, readers, whatever. Makes sense, right?

And the networks and the newspapers complain about how it's not news. The New York Times has three fairly highly regarded Washington correspondents at the convention, and they're having a live chat while it's going on. On the first night, which in general was pretty dramatic because of behavior of a small group of Sanders supporters, they could not have been more blasé. Someone gives a speech saying something the Republicans aren't going to like that they'll jump on that. But in general, there's nothing about what any of the speakers saying, nothing about the political content or any attempts to explain why what they're saying might be interesting or relevant to anyone who might be reading this chat. Instead, the conversation is completely meta. How's the convention "going" in their opinions. They sound bored. Completely jaded. Don't care. Does that seem right? Elizabeth Warren spent a half hour clearly and systematically pointing out the differences between Clinton and Trump. Is that not worthwhile to note? 

So on the second night, they put their focus was how many actors or otherwise famous people were speaking. Did they listen to anything they said? Does any of it have any interest or import or is it something that might resonate with somebody out in the rest of the country? No discussion of it at all. Just, yawn, another celebrity, this is really just turning into a bunch of stars, blah blah blah. I think one of them even referred to it as a snooze fest.

This is part of why newspapers, even sometimes great ones like the New York Times, are dying. Any correspondent behaving like these three are should be fired. They are not doing their job. If they can't find something interesting in it, they shouldn't be there covering it. They probably shouldn't even be a reporter anymore because they're burnt out and useless. I spent the first hour during the convention listening to a webinar on how to use the calculator to explain a particular calculus concept. It was an hour long, it probably contained five minutes that were specifically relevant to the purported topic at hand. The rest of it was all talk around the concept itself and how the teachers running it presented the topic, which was absolutely not the point of it. And the calculator part of it seemed more like a promotional vehicle Texas Instruments' more advanced calculators than an explanation of how to use the calculator that 90% of people use.

But you know, I sat through it, even though I didn't particularly feel like it and you can ask my wife, were my complaints anything beyond what I just wrote here, which are specifically about the content? No they weren't, and I learned a couple of things that'll be useful what they teach the topic in calculus. Plus, the demonstration technology they were using was something I've never seen before and am now downloading a trial version to try using myself. I think it's going to be extremely helpful in teaching all of my classes.

If someone is bored, in any circumstance, it says more about the boree than the borer. The only way to be bored is to have nothing interesting going on in your brain, and the only reason that that should be happening is that you're not trying. And that's precisely these people were doing; they were not trying.  Maybe they took the "chat" part of live chat too literally, and thought they should chat just like if they were sitting at a bar watching it after a couple beers after a long exhausting day at work. That's fine for what it is, but that's not what they were supposed to be doing.

There are huge fundamental issues in this campaign, regardless of how you feel about the two candidates. Is there really nothing happening in four hours at a political convention that has any bearing on that whatsoever? Does that sound ridiculous to you? It does to me. It's only possible if you're not paying attention and you're not listening and you're not thinking. And people who are doing that don't belong covering news events for anybody else.

Winding it down

We're now in Glasgow, or in a hotel outside town. It's a castle, or more correctly a castle style large home, built in a leafy suburb by a rich bourgeois man in the style of the day for these types. I think it's quite lovely, though I can't be sure until I get outside, which according to Accuweather has been rolling at 20 minutes from now for the last 20 minutes. There is no fitness center or anything, so I'm starting to get a little stir crazy, but I'll get out eventually, weather be damned.

Yes, it's that dark out. It's been raining pretty hard the whole time we've been here. Go figure. We had remarkably good weather the entire trip. Who would have thought that heat would be out biggest problem? And now, on a day when we have pretty much nothing planned except transit, it's been raining since the transit began.

The train station in Glasgow, at least Queen Street, the last stop for ScotRail in Glasgow and where we got off, is a piece of crap. There are tons of platforms but so sign of an actual station. Although the platform was marginally indoors, in spite of the leaky roof, you had to walk without shelter around the side of the station for get a taxi. I never did see the front of it, if there is one.

We took a taxi out here, in a suburban neighborhood not far from the airport. I don't think there's any sort of commercial activity within a mile of here. I walked around for a while, after the rolling 20 minutes of rain finished, and didn't see a store or anything of the sort. There was a traffic light in the distance. But it's a lovely neighborhood, full of greenery and beautiful big houses with Benz's and BMW's and Range Rovers in the driveways. 

I'm tired. As much as I've enjoyed the trip, it's been a lot of work at the same time. It's not bad work, in fact it's a blast. I mean, look at this place now that it's not raining.

It's still a lot of effort being away from home and figuring our how to do everything. I do love traveling though.

Last morning in Edinburgh

About to set out for our last few hours in Edinburgh before we head over to Glasgow for our flight out in the morning. It's a rainy kind of day, which means alternating sprinkles and just clouds. I went for a walk, mostly in the rain. First I walked up to the hill next to our hotel, Craydon Park I think it's called. There's a bunch of monuments here. A tall tower dedicated the Admiral Nelson, who must have been very well endowed to deserve all these pillars.

There's also a little unmarked house and a strange-looking thing called the National Monument. This picture captures a lot of what we've seen here. They have this grand, Greek-looking thing, but in the foreground there's a fine supply of litter, and the monument itself is grey and dingy.

All the big, impressive things in Edinburg are sooty. The National Monument looks the way it does because they lacked the money to make the complete Greek Temple. So there you have it. Great views though; the vistas in this place are unreal in general. The setting and the topology couldn't be much more striking.

Just a scooch to the left and I think I can take out the clock in that tower over there.

From there I thought I'd try to walk down to the Leith, which looks like a stream of some sort, but it seemed too far for this kind of day. So I turned and walked through New Town, which was mostly deserted (not really meaningful, because it was 8:30 on a rainy Sunday morning). There are all kinds of architectural styles jumbled together. And there are a lot of developments with these weird dormers that look like converted water towers. They also seem to have been very careful to make sure everyone has their own chimney.

Eventually I ended up back in the center of things and and ended up at the west end of a lovely little park right beneath the castle. It had some great views too and a floral clock at one end that seemed to be keeping very accurate time.

A quick post-trip note before the end of the trip.

As we were sitting in the hotel bar after concert, I said to Ronnie that it had been a good trip. She noted that of course it was easy to say that after a great evening like we'd had, but yes, it had been good.

I'm not even sure a summer would really give you a chance to properly explore the UK. And the UK is small, though dense in history and culture. As much as everyone talks about global this and that and how the world has gotten so much smaller because of instantaneous communications, but that's only true un the most shallow sense. Yeah, it's harder to find unique things to buy, for instance, because you can order anything online. But there are artists everywhere, all of whom you can buy from online. But how would you know and how well would you know it without being there and meeting them or at least seeing their creations in tangible form.

Even leaving London out of things, because London would take a lot of time explore in itself, we just hit a few chosen highlights, most of which worked out as we would hope. And in fact the things Ronnie bought that she likes the most were bought at a one-off store in Durham, a city that we knew little about and that in ways was a mistake in the itinerary because it wasn't close enough to the main attraction we were coming to see.

I can't say we completely get Edinburgh, but that's okay. We've been her for 48+ hours in peak tourist season at the end of a 2-week trip. I remember getting to Venice at the end of a similar bounding about trip and just not being able to handle to crowds and the business. This hasn't been as bad because Edinburgh is more manageable and it's less taxing being in an English-speaking country. And it's small, there is much less water, and the maps make at least a modicum of sense.

Don't know if we'll ever be back to the UK. I'm okay with that, but I certainly wouldn't mind returning.

Oh my god, Jools Holland!

So back when we were planning this trip, I was looking at what was going on in Edinburgh when we were here, and though we were missing the very famous Fringe Festival, there was an R&B festival going on. Looking at the lineup, I saw that Jools Holland and his R&B Band were playing on the Saturday we were here, so I bought tickets.

Honestly, the only things I really knew about Jools Holland were that he was in Squeeze for while and then quit and that he was a British TV personality and "character." What I did not know what that his music style was boogie-woogie and that he had a big band with numerous guest singers in his show.

As soon as he sat down and started playing that boogie-woogie style I was hooked. If I could be gifted a talent overnight I would wish for the ability to play boogie-woogie piano. It's so cool and free and fun-looking. He was clearly enjoying himself, and even though he's the "name" he's a totally generous performer. Eventually he was joined on stage by an organist, bass, guitarist, drummer, 3 trombones, 3 trumpets and 5(!) saxophones. And couple of background singers of course. Everyone got their moments.

They played a bunch of boogie songs and then he got up and announced it was time for some ska. I always loved ska- the Specials, Madness, all those bands. If you don't know ska, it's kind of like very fast reggae. So two new singers, a man and a woman, came out and they were great, to the point of getting an enthusiastic but obviously reluctant-to-stand crowd to its feet. Things kept getting better, because he then brought out someone named Ruby Turner, who turned things up to 11. Big woman, huge voice, great stage presence and terrific rapport with the band. I'd never heard boogie gospel before, but it's pretty great.

Unfortunately, he's not coming to the States this year, at least as far as we can see, but it was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. But if you ever get the chance to see him, jump at it.

The City of Incompetent Pedestrians (if I'm being generous about it)

After our brief visit to New Town, we headed back to the main drag. Actually, that's a particularly good way of describing that street (Princes Street). It's a complete drag to get anywhere. The sidewalks are packed, mostly with tourists in groups of 4 to 20, and it's nearly impossible to make progress at a decent rate. There's no way around it that doesn't involve excessive hill climbing.

And maybe it's too many people who don't know where they are, but the pedestrians here are either rude or incompetent. I know, incompetent pedestrians, right? But I can walk up 7th Avenue in New York from Penn Station at 5:30, when half the Midtown population is headed in the opposite direction, and make quicker progress without ever making contact with anyone. Here you can't go 10 feet without someone jostling you or walking straight at you without showing any signs of moving out of the way.

We had a nice dinner down a steep alley (or close, as they call it here) and then came back to the hotel. We've not watched much TV, which has been very nice. I don't usually watch much TV in hotels anyway, because I don't like to watch in bed, and that's mostly what hotel rooms are made of and the TV is usually at the foot of the bed.

We went to bed reasonably early and I was up early on Saturday as well. That gave me a lot of time to walk around, and walk I did. Up and down hills, up Royal Mile without the crowds, through Old Town all up and down. Little visual treats everywhere

Particularly like the little symbols.

Up at the Castle from Old Town

Across the train station to our hotel (middle right- not the turret)

Made it back in time for breakfast, after which we set out to see an art show at the Queens Gallery. There are probably lots of Queens galleries. This one is next to the Palace at Holyroodhouse. Or some sort of redundant name like that- I know the Holyrood part is right. It was a small exhibit, but beautifully curated and had one exquisite Vermeer painting that was the reason we went, but there were other great paintings by Dutch masters, especially Steen. I'm not super knowledgeable about art, but I know enough to like those Dutch painters. Maybe it's because when you're going through museums in chronological order, they're the first things you see without Jesus in them. Or maybe it's because they're great.

From there, we walked around Old Town and had lunch in a nice outdoor market called Grassmarket. And strolled back toward the center of town, and again endured the unruly hoards on Princes Street. I think that may have been enough for us today. We're still going out to see Jools Holland and his R&B Band later.

Grassmarket

Pub humor