Stuff About Stuff and Having Too Much of It

Whoa, say what? While in Nantucket last week, I ventured into a local bookstore in search of tales of the sea or perhaps a nautical map that appeared to hail from centuries ago. Though sadly much of the store turned out to be run of the mill bookstore fare, I did find a couple of books and a magazine worthy of purchase. As I stood in line, I noticed the guy in front of me head toward the exit with a book about "stuff". I thought nothing of it and made my way to the counter, unaware that I was headed for some serious irony.

As I stepped up, the lady behind the counter informed me that they were giving away a free book and tote bag to everyone making a purchase. Okay, I guess I'm all for some free stuff I thought. Perhaps it's something with a bit of local Nantucket flair or something tied to the island's whaling past? Nope...



That's right, it's a book about how we all have too much stuff and how that fact is destroying our lives and the planet. And how best to promote such a minimalist philosophy? Why, by handing out unsolicited copies of your book and a similarly themed tote bag to people who have expressed no discernible interest in them of course. Unreal. Alanis Morissette, in the unlikely event that you Google yourself and find yourself reading this blog, that's ironic.

Why yes Alanis, it is ironic.

Power Outages, Vacation, and the Philly Connection

A power outage here at the house tonight almost prevented my posting for another day, but thankfully I am back up and running. There is nothing more instantly debilitating than losing power at your house. When I arrived home from work to a powerless house, my thought process went something like this.

6:30 (Pulling into driveway) "Hey, the garage door opener isn't working."
6:32 (Walking into house and noticing all lights and appliances off) "Ahh, it looks like a power outage is to blame."
6:33-6:40 (Walking around outside with dogs) "Hmmm, I guess the computer and television will be unavailable."
6:41 "Wait, I can't heat up or in any other manner prepare food."
6:41:30 "Wait, it's too dark to read in here."
6:42 (While standing in the closet with a candle looking for a t-shirt) "Uhhh..."

And that, my friends, is how you find yourself sitting solo with a magazine and an oversized sandwich at a Philly Connection 15 minutes from your house at 7pm on a rainy Monday night. It's not a good place to be mentally. Actually, it's just literally not a good place to be. Luckily, I called home and the answering machine picked up, confirming that power had been restored. It was just in the nick of time as well, for my next move was to go watch the movie Salt by myself had the power still been out.

A far cry from last week, which we spent in Boston and Nantucket. We had a fantastic time in both places. In Boston, we walked around and saw a number of the historical sites in addition to taking in a Red Sox game at Fenway. Let me offer this piece of advice. If you find yourself in Boston looking for Fenway, do not operate under the otherwise reasonable assumption that people wearing Red Sox shirts and jerseys must certainly be headed to the same place you are. I pity Paul Pierce or Tom Brady mulling about that town searching in vain for someone sporting Celtics or Patriots gear. Over the course of three days I saw zero Bruins clothing items, one Patriots t-shirt, and two Celtics items (one shirt and one hat, I believe). Red Sox gear, meanwhile, is everywhere. It is unreal.



After Boston, it was on to Nantucket, which is just a flat out different world. Anytime in the course of a day you can notice a ring for sale for $121,000, a woven basket for sale for $2,500, and then sit next to a guy at a bar who starts off a conversation- "well the thing about snow in Vermont is...", you know you have ventured onto foreign turf. It was a beautiful place, though, and we had a great time. While walking around the island, I came upon this gravestone. If you have to go, and I suppose we all do, this seems like about as good a writeup as you can have...

He was a seaman on board the ship Northumberland 84 guns under the command of Sir Geo. Cockburn that conveyed Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena in 1815 and received marked notice from the Great Emperor. He was also a seaman in the Albion 74 in the attack on the city of Washington in 1814. In 1820 he was shipwrecked on the island of Nantucket where he resided the remainder of his life. He was well known as a successful master rigger for 50 years. Honored for his integrity, respected for his uniform courtesy and beloved for his kindness and generosity.

I'm Back!

Well, after a fantastic week in Boston and Nantucket, I am back home and back on the blog. Permit me this Sunday evening to hole up and recover, and then I'll be back with more. I was going to try to post something more substantial, but I started off by going to Google image search. I see that even something that ran as smoothly as Google Images can't be left unchanged these days for too long. Thanks Google, it wasn't nearly challenging enough before when you could just type in what you were looking for and have returned to you pages with a manageable number of pictures and a brief description that made it clear why this picture might be relevant to your search. Far better, apparently, to barrage my screen with hundreds of pictures requiring me to scroll over them to understand what marginal similarity they might bear to my search. Things I don't enjoy- Sunday nights, change, and Google images.

My next post will have a brief trip recap and will be of a much sunnier disposition. I was going to close with some relevant- yet still humorous- picture but, ah you get the idea...

Brace Yourselves

Can I ask you to take a seat please? Are you sitting down? Okay, I need to let you know something. I am headed out on vacation tomorrow morning, and as such there is likely to be only a single post next week. I know, I know, its going to be a struggle for you. We are headed to Boston and Nantucket for a little R&R. I plan on posting something mid-week. Until then, I'm out!

A Note to All You IT Guys

If you are in the network engineering field or in IT more generally, please read this. I had a conference call with a couple of network engineers at my company yesterday. Without getting into specifics, their team rolled out a project a couple of months ago that triggered some unintended consequences for me and some vendors with which I work. They are now about to roll out phase two, and so they did me the courtesy of placing a call to discuss the status of their corrections for the first set of issues. Fantastic! Thanks for the kind gesture...or so I thought.

I have one thing I would like people in IT to realize- the rest of us don't know what in the hell you are talking about! After some brief introductions, they launched into the details of what had happened and what was in store for me when they rolled out phase two (which they were very excited about). I pulled my Post-It Note pad close and tried to capture the essence of the call. This is what I honestly ended up with...

"Great, thanks for the call, I think I've got it."

Farewell, My Friend

Last night as I was about to hop in bed, I grabbed a wadded up shirt to don for the night. Then it hit me that this shirt, now serving as a last line of defense for our bedding against the inevitable Monday night sweats, was once a proud member of my wardrobe. In happier times this shirt spent its days on a hanger amongst other clothing items that might be selected at any time to be worn in public settings. Now, like a great pitcher five years past his prime, it was being called on for mop-up duty.

The downward spiral of a great t-shirt is a lengthy, and ultimately depressing, path. Unlike when you notice a glaring rip in your boxers and start the six month wind down process (six months is about right, no?), the t-shirt is capable of hanging on for years past the time when decency should have demanded its retirement. And hang onto it you will, for it is indeed rare to find the shirt that hits the mark on every possible attribute- overall length, fit, sleeve length, neck size, neckband width, material weight, and style.

In its infancy, a top notch t-shirt can find itself being called on as a fashion statement in social settings. Once a bit of visible wear-and-tear sets in, a downgrade to errand running and milling about the house duty is in store. Finally, the former alpha shirt finds itself resembling Swiss cheese, partially see through, sporting an armpit hole large enough to fit your arm through it, and being called on for a yard mowing session or a night of sleep when the forecast calls for heavy sweat.

The great champion, in its final days

Over The Hill

As I type this, I am embarrassed to note that Lionel Richie is playing in the background on iTunes. That embarrassment will be short lived, though, my friends. Not because the song will come to its end momentarily. No, it is because when I awaken tomorrow I will officially be an old man, and old men may freely jam out to Lionel without a care in the world. I may no longer be able to navigate my way to that song if I accidentally accept the download of the latest version of iTunes, which will assuredly be a technological bridge too far for me. Should I encounter Say You, Say Me or Penny Lover, though, my 36 full years on this earth will entitle me to sweet enjoyment. Yes, my birthday is tomorrow. I shall bid farewell to year number 35 and begrudgingly usher in the back half of the thirties.

Today while waiting dutifully in line to purchase the 20 oz. Diet Mountain Dew required to power me through the afternoon, I was forced to listen to the abomination that is Lady Gaga on the radio behind the register. For just a moment I worried that my desire to shove my fist through the radio was a sign of my old man instincts kicking in, that I was officially out of touch with pop culture. But then it hit me- there's nothing wrong with being appalled by an "artist" for whom these are the suggested search results...


So I will look to moments of enlightenment such as that to offset the sinking feeling I get the next time I can't figure out how to operate an iPad.

Craig D'Arcy, age progressed to tomorrow morning.

God Bless You, King James

I had begun to lose hope. It's been a long, long time since I've been passionate about the NBA. Certainly I've tuned in to watch the Hawks get mauled in the postseason, but for the most part I had reached the point of indifference. But perhaps just in the nick of time LeBron James has come to my rescue. I realized tonight, while suffering through ESPN's stomach turning special in which he announced his decision to join the Miami Heat, that I believe I now hate LeBron James enough to pique my interest in the NBA.

It was hard to say whether the whole disgusting production left me angrier with James or ESPN. From Stuart Scott continually referring to James as The King to the perfectly placed Vitamin Water reach-in cooler behind James in the gym from which he crushed the collective heart of Cleveland, it was appalling. The very fact that LeBron and his entourage went to ESPN and engineered airing the whole thing on a special entitled The Decision is beyond disgusting. It's what 17 year old high school kids do to announce what college they're attending, not what 25 year old "men" do when hopping on the first train out of a town that worshiped them. Not to mention the fact that I view his decision as a cop out. Unlike Jordan, Kobe, Magic, and Bird, he couldn't get it done on his own. So he's taking his ball, his ego, and his sycophant posse to South Beach. Perhaps the most annoying part of his announcement was the fact that I think he's lying about when he actually made his decision. I don't believe for a second that he made his final decision this morning. I think he's known it for at least a week and probably for longer than that. Otherwise, I don't think Chris Bosh would have already committed to the Heat. For LeBron to actively play a role in building the whole situation up just so he could maximize the shock value of his decision strikes me as petty and obnoxious.

It works out great for me, though. LeBron has taken a huge step towards joining two former stars for whom my hatred ran deep- Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas. That might just be enough to get me back into the NBA again (at least until the inevitable strike next summer). If I can get the image of Linda Cohn and the voice of Stuart Scott out of my head before my nightly dreams kick in, the hour I spent forcing myself to watch The Decision may have been well worth it.

LeBron says goodbye to Cleveland, and I say hello to my new least favorite player.

Correction

Since I strive for accuracy here on the blog, I felt the need to make a correction. While walking down the hall at work today, it dawned on me that I slightly misstated the reason I started my personal boycott of Atlanta Bread Company in a recent post (yes, these are the things that bounce around my brain while at work). I wasn't mad specifically about the limited amount of turkey I received. What angered me was the fact that I didn't want any of the standard sandwich fillers- lettuce, tomato, etc. I did however request a slice of Swiss cheese. When I realized that I was charged an extra $0.75 for the cheese, even though my sandwich was approximately 1/3 as large as everyone else rolling through the line, the boycott commenced. Just needed to set the record straight.

It was the cheese!

How I Spent My Weekend

I hope everyone had a great 4th weekend. Did you spend it at the lake cruising back streets in oversized golf carts drinking jello shots and Nuvo with your lady, then capping off the evening watching the entire fight card for UFC 116 with a crowd of lake locals? No? Just me?

French vodka, sparkling white wine, and passion fruit nectar- what's not to like?

(As an aside, you have to love that the drop down box to enter your age on the Nuvo site goes to 12/31/2008. I admire their responsibility in turning any 18-month old children away from their site attempting to read up on this tasty adult beverage.)

Well, it was a solid time despite the rather unusual itinerary. We actually did hang out by the lake for quite awhile before transitioning to the aforementioned nighttime plan. One of the locals had the Nuvo, which he selflessly shared with all the ladies, as well as a round of jello shots. As I mentioned, the main focus was UFC 116. I'll skip the recap, but it basically entailed fists and elbows slammed into faces, some uncomfortable looking submission holds, and a good bit of blood on the canvas. I did learn that they don't test for steroids in UFC, a fact obvious to anyone who takes a good look at the evening's champion Brock Lesnar.

Happy 4th of July!

Just a quick note that I'll be out of pocket for the next several days. Hope everyone has a great Independence Day. One quick depressing thing to pass on. I didn't watch the first episode of the new season of The Real World in New Orleans, so I just found out this morning via a Mississippi State message board that a fine student from MSU is one of the cast members this year. She's, uhhh, not great.