July 2007 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

V-A-C-A-TION

This is sad. I’ve realized that I had, again, forgotten the art of the vacation. As I’ve suggested, this has happened before.

First off, I need to define vacation. Generally speaking, visiting the relatives, as much as I love them, does NOT qualify as vacation. One exception: I went to visit my sister Leslie in the late 1980s in San Diego, and we went together to San Francisco.

When I was working at FantaCo, I didn’t go on vacation much, especially in the early years. I didn’t think I could afford to, either monetarily or workload-wise. I distinctly recall Tom pretty much insisting I take some time off, so I took five Wednesdays in a row, and went to a movie matinee almost each week.

I did make it up to Montreal in 1992, but that was a business trip. (Also, in 1991, but that’s another story.) Indeed, I HAVE gotten to go lots of places for work and had time to play.

In my current job, the first real vacation I took was in 1998. I took off two weeks, which I seriously doubt I’ve ever done before or since, again excluding family trips. The first week, I went to Detroit to visit a friend, and saw a Tigers game, Motown and Henry Ford mementos, etc. I had intended to spend the second week at home, catching up on my clutter, but ended up going to DC to try out for a game show.

In 1999, Carol and I did the honeymoon in Barbados, but then my wife was a poor college student, so I can’t recall going anywhere until our 2002 trip to Concord, NH, followed by our 2003 trip to Maine. Nothing since, though, which seems to have correlated with the addition to the household.

So, it was Christmas 2005 or was it Christmas 2004?- when when my parents-in-law offered us, and their other children as well, to make use of their timeshares, which are all over the country. But one has to book these things well in advance. My wife must have booked ours late last year for the last week in June. If she told me the dates, it must not have stuck in my mind, for in the beginning of the year, I scheduled my annual physical for the same week, which I subsequently had to postpone.

I think it’s because the description of the place sounded OK, but the notion of the vacation seemed rather fuzzy. “It’ll be a chance to get away.” Away from what? Work? I can take off days from work without going anywhere. It was a week when my wife was off from school before starting to work on summer school. I suppose if the literature for the place wasn’t filled with things such as “close to” all these other places, I might have been more excited. What inherent enjoyment will we find at the place, I was wanting to know? And lacking that, I was not very enthused about the trip.

This was going to go on, but:
Big storm in Albany on Monday evening – electricity in our house for over 11 hours (6:40 pm-6 am) + the hottest night in the year – electricity at Lydia’s day care on Tuesday + Roger watching Lydia = Story To Be Continued
***
And speaking of sad, cartoonist Doug Marlette died in a car crash. He drew a great Reagan.

ROG

“Life Changing” gadgets

Last month, USA TODAY recently came out with their top 25 “Life Changing” gadgets, services, and inventions since 1982. Here is their list in their order of importance, and my opinion of same.

1. Cellphones – OK, it’s life-changing, but is it a good thing to be available 24/7?
2. Laptops – I now actually covet one.
3. Blackberrys – this is a technology that has entirely passed me by.
4. Debit cards – much of the protection one has purchasing on a credit card, such as challenging a charge, is lost on a debit card. I have one, which I use at the ATM.
5. Caller ID – I LOVE CALLER ID. Sometimes, I’m watching TV and the caller ID will show up on the screen; I can, and do, decide whether or not to answer. (Hint: if the ID says “unavailable”, I’m not.)
6. DVDs – I have some, and a player. It WAS one of the fastest accepted technologies.
7. Lithium rechargeable batteries – I have a few, but is this as wide-spread as some of the others?
8. IPods – don’t have one, but recognize they’re ubiquitous, even without me.
9. Pay at the pump – I’m surprised that there are ANY gas stations that don’t require some sort of pre-payment, given the propensity of some to “pump and run”. Use this one a lot.
10. Lettuce in a bag – I suppose this is a category that also covers spinach in a bag, pre-shredded cheese, and all of those things that offer “convenience” at a price.
11. Digital cameras – should get one someday, as I do recognize their value.
12. Doppler radar – it does make for pretty pictures during a storm.
13. Flat-panel TVs – maybe next time. My current TV I bought in 1987. Doesn’t have SAP or the V-chip.
14. Electronic tolls – NYS has E-Z Pass on the Thruway which is also accepted in Massachusetts and some neighboring states. It’s convenient, it saves gas, but it feels a little Big Brother to me.
15. PowerPoint – the 20th anniversary of PowerPoint was earlier this year. I’ve sat through innumerable PP presentations. I’ve DONE PP presentations.
16. Microwave popcorn – the popcorn manufacturers are right; sometimes, it’s two and a half minutes in one machine, four minutes in another.
17. High tech footwear – my daughter has shoes that light up when she walks. She LOVES this.
18. Online stock trading – making stock traders even more crazy.
19. Big Bertha golf clubs – couldn’t say.
20. Disposable contact lenses – my wife uses.
21. StairMaster – I find this amazingly boring to do.
22. Tivo – I LOVE the DVR, which isn’t Tivo, but close enough. Time-shifting my TV watching, I like. What I DON’T like is that I record more than I have time to watch.
23. Purell – do hand sanitizers really work? My wife uses them, and if she offers, I use them too, but I’m not convinced of their efficacy.
24. Home satellite TV – still have cable.
25. Karaoke – I’ve never done karaoke, but acknowledge that maybe one or two others have.

There are things that do seem to be missing from the list: Google, which is the way many people think they can find all the information they need; YouTube, which is not only an entertainment vehicle, but has had an impact on Presidential politics already; GPS, which provides us more sophisticated ways to get lost; Viagra/Cialis and all of the other drugs we need, or think we do; DNA testing, which has been HUGE in freeing people wrongly accused; e-mail, which maybe they’ve taken for granted; and of course, blogs. I think if I were doing the list, some or all of the above would make it, and golf clubs and Stairmasters, for sure, would be off.

ROG

Dancin’ with Myself

After going through a week-long computer withdrawal, I’m finally catching up on perusing some of the blogs I generally read and discover my name a few times. Gordon apologizes to me for being a little snarky to me on his podcast. Of course, I read the apology BEFORE hearing said podcast.
It turns out that I mentioned Fred Hembeck and Lynn Moss’ anniversary on my blog before Fred did on his, for good reason, which you can on the June 25 posting.
Then, I discovered that I got tagged by Tosy & Cosh with THE most convoluted initial instructions I’ve ever seen:

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1. No Smoking in the Skull Cave
2. Electronic Cerebrectomy
3. Byzantium’s Shores
4. Tosy and Cosh
5. Ramblin’ with Roger

Next, select five people to tag.

Oh, I’m not much on tagging, but…

1. The Life of a Wife and Teacher
2. Renaissance Geek
3. Blog To Self
4. Hydrogen Jukebox
5. Blog THIS, Pal!

“And, after what felt like unduly preliminaries,” quoting Tosy, the questions:

What were you doing ten years ago?
I had the same job. I was living in an apartment in Albany, not in a serious relationship, seeing LOTS of movies. Probably saw more 1997 movies than any other year.

What were you doing one year ago?
Going to the Olin family reunion again, as we did, in fact, this past weekend.

Five snacks you enjoy.
1. Oatmeal raisin cookies – must be soft – with milk
2. Apple with cottage cheese and a touch of mayo
3. That dip made with spinach and sour cream, with good bread
4. Strawberry ice cream
5. Wheat Thins

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics.
I was at the Y last week , and one of my racquetball partners started singing “(There’s a) Hole in the Bucket”. I asked him where he’d heard that song. It was from a Harry Belafonte album. My sister and I learned it from my father, and used to perform it in public when we were teenagers. That song I definitely know. Also:
1. “Beep Beep” by the Playmates
2. “The Boxer” by Simon & Garfunkel, but not that dumb, tacked-on verse: “After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same.” Or however it goes.
3. “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music, not just the obvious part, but from “Let’s start at the very beginning…” Wish I could sing harmony with myself.
4. “Go Where You Wanna Go” by the Mamas & the Papas, and also the Fifth Dimension. My sister Leslie and I sang this at my 50th birthday party; another song from the repertoire.
5. “The Word” by the Beatles.
By the way, I would never go on that show The Singing Bee, which debuts this week. I’ve heard enough renditions of Beatles’ songs this week, where the artists, including the Beatles themselves, change the lyric, that I’m as likely to muff a word as they are.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
1. Write more.
2. Travel (a lot more).
3. See more theater, movies.
4. Give more away.
5. Get one or two extravagances. Probably #1 is a laptop.

Five bad habits.
1. Misplacing things.
2. Procrastination.
3. General messiness.
4. Rushing through tasks.
5. A certain melancholy.

Five things you like doing.
1. Playing racquetball, as much for the camaraderie as the exercise.
2. Going out for ice cream. So much better than eating it at home, no?
3. Riding my bike on a country road.
4. Going to the movies.
5. Going out to a nice dinner.

Five things you would never wear again.
I actually owned two leisure suits in the mid 1970s, one brown, one lime green. Seriously, can’t think of anything else.
ROG

Nicknames

Here’s something very weird. My bud Lefty does a Friday Three Questions almost every week. One week, he asked, among other things:
Do you have a nickname people call you? If so, what is it? Is there a story behind it you’d like to share?

I warned him I was going to steal that question, so here it is.

I always liked the name Roger. It doesn’t easily lend itself to nicknames, as do names such as William (Bill, Billy, Willy, Will) or Robert (Bob, Bobby, Rob, Robby). I think that was part of my father’s motivation in naming me. I mean people call me Rog, and that’s fine, but other people have tried to inflict nicknames on me, and often, I have actively rejected them.

Just last week, my mother said that people used to call me Mr. Encyclopedia when I was a kid, because, over a number of years, I pretty much read the entire Encyclopedia Americana, PLUS the yearbooks, that were in our house. People asked me questions, and either I had the answer or would seek it out. (And yet it took me until I was 37 before I decided to go to library school; what was up with THAT?)

My grandmother used to call me Roggie, and I refused to answer that, because it sounded so juvenile. Yet later, when one of my co-workers called me Raji, it didn’t bother me so much, maybe because it sounded slightly Asian Indian, and therefore exotic.

Or maybe it was because it reminded me of the bookish Raj on “What’s Happening”. I RELATED to Raj. The eldest, responsible, bookish, glasses, the eldest child, pesky little sister (actually I had two – love you both).

When I was in junior high, we were really into using our middle names as our monikers. I was Owen, Baby, dubbed by Sid, which was not his middle name, but a truncation of his last name, but that was a short-lived period.

The summer of 1975, when I worked in Binghamton City Hall as a janitor, I cleaned the cells, picked up the trash in the detectives’ offices, washed windows, and buffed the floor. (Note: if you ever turn on a 1975 vintage buffer, be sure to start it in the middle of the floor, lest you poke a hole in the baseboard. I know this because…I heard about it?)
Well, I worked with two guys who were impressed that I could finish my work in five or six hours in an eight-hour day. Generally, I ended up either speaking to the police captain, who was a great guy (unlike some of his subordinates), or go hide somewhere and read a book. These two guys started calling me Flash, because they thought I was so fast. I wasn’t that fast; it was that they had the wonderful ability of taking a six-hour job and stretching into eight. I patently rejected this nickname, and act as though I had not even heard them if they called me by that name. (One of these guys was more “flashy” – the first man I ever met with two children by two different women, neither of whom he was married to.)

Oh, there have been other nicknames in matters of the heart, but I’ll pass on those here, thank you.

So here’s the weird part; Lefty’s piece was July 7, 2006. I must have started working on it, saved it with a 2007 date somehow, and only discovered it recently. Or I did publish it before, but can’t find it, which would make it a summer rerun.
***
And here’s a year-old cryptic Note to Lefty: Don’t succumb. Do what Mr. T would do: pity the fool. And hope for the best.

Summertime QUESTIONS

I NEED sunglasses, preferably those that will fit over my prescription glasses. When I left my office – with its tinted glass – a couple weeks ago, right before our vacation, I was frustrated that I had left my sunglasses on my desk at work, and since the bus was coming, I didn’t have time to retrieve them; I cannot get into my building over the weekend.
So, that Sunday, right after we left the 50th anniversary party for our friends Vaughn and Hugh Nevin, I bought another pair, right before our trip. The next day, I misplaced THOSE and suffered greatly, so I bought another pair. My wife said, “Did you know those are women’s sunglasses?” “Yes,” I grumbled, “and if I didn’t, the tag on the glasses with a picture of a woman wearing them would have tipped me off.”
In any case, the following day, we went to another store and I bought TWO pair of (men’s) sunglasses, then on the last day of the trip, Carol found the pair I misplaced.
So, with the pair I left at work, I now have FOUR pair. This is a good thing; my eyes really suffer, especially in the summer, but also off the glare of the sun on the snow in the winter. And Carol now has a spare pair.

(BTW, I read a bit ago that U2’s Bono’s penchant for sunglasses comes partially to eyes very sensitive to light.)

This leads us to the question of the week, a real audience participation gig, I hope: What is your best piece of advice for getting through the summer? Mine would be to protect not only your skin but also your eyes from harmful UV rays. I learned from JEOPARDY! last month (June 21) that “the American Academy of Ophthalmology declares July safety month for these [UV] rays.”

Also, any summertime recipes, summertime fun suggestions, cures for the summertime blues. One specific thing my wife wants to know is: What’s the best way to boil an egg so that the shell peels off most easily? Does it have to do with the boiling method, the cooling method, the cracking technique? So, stuff like that.
***
The Summer Olympics start one year, one month and one day from now in Beijing. Today seems to have numeric import as well, I hear.
***
One more reason I oppose the death penalty.
***
In case you missed it, Keith Olbermann quotes John Wayne.
ROG