Shit is about to get REAL

Preface: I'm currently in the midst of discovering Hüsker Dü (10 minutes of "umlaut shortcut for mac" searching well worth it; heavy metal umlauts should be more prevalent in day to day life) so apologies if this post is tinged by that frenetic and groundbreaking Minneapolis punk sound that so well compliments my current disposition and this post. Or not.

Yes, the shit is about to get real. This is a true statement with law school now only hours away and my life as I know it destined to become only a distant, rapidly fading memory, tinged with nostalgia for the days of endless hours of mouth breathing and blank staring that may or may not have become a significant part of my life in this limbo between school and work and more school. It can't help that I'm reading the book One L right now that goes into graphic detail about one law student's perilous journey through Harvard Law School in the 1970's. I was told to read it with the overlying assumption that everything this guy went through I will not, at least to the extremes he did. This is comforting, but also rather frightening.

So I won't face the same pressures the author did, but I'll still face similar, if diluted pressures to perform under rigorous intellectual conditions. I certainly worked hard in undergrad, but the pressure to excel was not as pronounced as I expect it to be in law school. Or, to put it better, the competition amongst those seeking to excel will be more apparent compared to the laid back undergrad study culture (with the exception of that certain someone in the labs who was always too busy to even talk. Or think (but not to complain about being busy) even while the rest of us, with identical and similar if not more demanding extra curricular obligations were looking up cats that look like Hitler). It'll be interesting, to use my best Minnesotanease.

Speaking of Minnesota and being back home, I arrived just in time for my 5 year high school reunion. Despite some of my classmates' ambivalence or even hostility towards its arrival, for a myriad of reasons, I was genuinely mildly excited for it. Mild excitement being my version of turning up the amp to 11. Spinal Tap anyone?

As it approached, however, the vain insecurities of high school started to creep and I felt a little disappointed in myself that they had started to get a foothold once again. Looking back on it, high school kinda sucked at times, even most times, as I think it did for anyone who has moved on and realized that the most important things in life are not what the most important things in high school were. Walking under the marquee in Downtown Minneapolis (a trivial aside: I really love to see the word Minneapolis spelled out. For some reason it reminds me of a smile. I think it's that 'e' perfectly nestled in between the Minn- and the -apolis.) that announced our reunion to the world, I was met by an odd smattering of high school mates that now looked wildly out of context in a clubby bar. Cue the sheepish grin and the sustained glances towards the ESPN ticker on the flat screen that will probably forever be my anti-social cop out.

The first half hour was awkward. Like high school. But the drinking soon helped. That and a pep talk I gave myself about enjoying the party. I give myself too many of those. But aside from avoiding/ignoring the people I have no desire to ever see outside of the yearbook and the occasional facebook post, there were a lot of people I enjoyed reconnecting with. Despite my initial reversion to high school tendencies, the reunion served to chip away some of the social barriers that existed in high school. And, in between the pole dancing-bachelorettes, it was fun to hear about what my classmates had been up to. Even though I could just look it up on facebook.

Finally, in this scatterbrained rambler, is bike news. I finished it over the weekend and have already gone on a relaxed ride through Minneapolis (there it is again!) that served to remind me that bike rides can be fun and not just an excuse to burn calories. Thanks to Jeff for the front wheel, I love it. Thanks to Home Depot for the paint. Thanks to online merchandisers for the seat (Selle San Marco), seat post, lights, etc. Thanks to my local bike shops (Re-Cycle and Penn Cycle) for the rest. Thanks to my neighbor for giving me the original bike a few years ago. Thanks to my shed for keeping it safe through those tough Minnesota winters. Finally, thanks to my idle hands and mind for concocting a project to top off this month of waiting.

The morning paper

Preface: Lazy fiction. Because I can't sleep.

The old man awakes at his usual time. Though he sets an alarm every night before lights off -- better safe than sorry, he tells himself -- routine proves to be a better morning rooster, his hand hovering above the snooze button almost involuntarily at the waking time. Sometimes his aging mind plays tricks and he awakes in a panic during the dull gray dawn, certain a thunderstorm, or perhaps a freak solar event came ripping through the night, cutting power to his alarm clock, betraying that bond that exists between man and machine. He thinks to himself, I should really get a battery powered alarm clock. But he'll forget this when he runs errands that afternoon, as he always does. He will then silently chastise himself and miss his wife, who had a better memory but worse luck.

Sleepily and out of habit, he reaches a speckled, wrinkled hand to the other side of the bed but is met only by a remorselessly empty flower-patterned comforter, still precisely made from the night before. Still now years later, he feels a sharp urgent flutter in his stomach when this happens. A feeling deeper than disappointment or sadness. The old man gets out of bed and shuffles down the hallway to the bathroom. Finshed, he shuffles to the front door.

The old oak door creaks as he opens it, lifting up and outward to balance the shaky hinges. On the outside of the door, the red paint is cracking and peeling. Red flakes fall more regularly now as if the old tree, though mutilated, still remembers nature. As he opens the screen door, he makes a mental note to fix the empty holes with mesh from the garage. He will forget to do this too in the afternoon. He looks down. The paper is curled inside a green plastic bag. A curious object is nestled at the bottom. Like a giraffe to water, he splays his legs to reach down without so much pain. There is still some.

The sequence of the door is reversed and the old man retreats into the home he built decades ago. The plastic bag is emptied and the paper and the paper and the object fall to the cluttered WWII-era kitchen table. After donning a pair of drug store reading glasses -- he stashes them all over the house for times like these -- he picks up the small rectangular brownie-sized package and reads the label.

Luna Bar: The Whole Nutrition Bar for Women.

The name makes him sad and miss his wife. She would have clucked her tongue and said something about eggs, toast, and bacon being all the nutrition she needed. She also would have eaten the Luna bar later, after reconsidering, and would have gone out and bought cartons of them that same day. This is why he loved her. The bar rolls off his curled fingertips and into the endless clutter of bills, clippings, and abandoned foodstuffs.

He then scans the front page of the newspaper. This too makes him sad. He remembers John Lennon singing about reading the news. Oh boy. This morning he can't read the rest of the paper because everything is making him sad. He will make a cup -- only one cup -- of strong black coffee and one slice of rye toast with butter and cinnamon sugar. The rest of the morning, he will sit in the kitchen and look out the window at the birds feeding at the wooden feeder. The seeds are running low and he needs to remember to fill it but he will forget. The birds make him happy.

Oh how the migthy have fallen.

Preface: This post mentions the fact that I was one of the captains for the varsity baseball team at the Academy of Holy Angels in 2004. It does not go into detail regarding why I was used most often as a pinch runner during my stint under the [insert "glowing" adjective here] Coach Page. But after reading this, you may understand a bit better. Also, I kind of dig county fairs, and not in a wholly ironic way, either. It's a great expression of what it means to be an American. Both good and bad.

I had the opportunity to stay at my high school friend's cabin in Wisconsin this weekend. I had a lot of fun tubing, wakeboarding (actually being dragged through the water in a fruitless attempt to wakeboard -- more on that later), drinking, grilling, and Sing Starring. But the most enlightening experience was the Sawyer County Fair.

Watching the demolition derby, avoiding lewd carnies, and riding the Ferris Wheel are all pretty typical Wisconsin county fair things to do in my book. We did them Saturday. Some of my friends did spinny rides. I did not. I did, however, pay $2 to make an ass out of myself. Was it worth it? Probably not.

Since I didn't partake in any of the vomit-inducing rides, such as the multitude of centrifuge-inspired monstrosities that must make your internal organs mushy or smushed to the side of your body cavity, I spent some time engrossed in another wonder of the county fair - the games. Now why anyone would want a stuffed animal large enough to qualify for the HOV lane or a goldfish certain to be forgotten (while walking that thin line between floating upright and upside down) the instant it leaves the child's hands is beyond me, but hey, some of the games are fun.

I stood in front of the guess-your-speed baseball game and thought to myself, hey, I could do that! After all, I played baseball my entire life, how hard could it be? The country boys with their wide-eyed girlfriends were taking turns making elaborate, herky-jerky throws to the red painted box 15 feet away while a morbidly obese carny smoking a skinny cigarette and holding a radar gun in one hand and a 64 oz Big Gulp (for when you absolutely, positively have to consume four pounds of pop) in the other took their money and looked otherwise wall-eyed at the target. Two dollars for three throws; two warmup throws and a third that you had to guess the speed. Time and again, it went 54 mph, 54 mph, 55 mph -- fail. Ha, I thought, I can do better than these high schoolers - after all, I was captain of the famed Academy of Holy Angels varsity boys baseball team of 2004 (see preface).

So when I came back to the game with my group of friends, the gaggle of teens had moved on to greener pastures (probably the goldfish toss) and the fat carny and his carny friends were standing in a circle smoking and chatting. Slow night, apparently. I gave him my $2 and loosened up my arm to hurl a smoking fastball probably straight through the plastic banner but 15 feet away. The game was set up like a 3-walled cage, with stuffed animal prizes hanging from the ceiling about 10 feet above the ground. In my head I was already picking out my prize. Surely I would not fail. I couldn't.

I did. Epically.

My day thus far had, as I mentioned, consisted of attempting to wakeboard. My drag-friendly body couldn't get out of the water and for twenty minutes, the effort of strained lurching through the water, the wake frothy yellow, my face grotesquely expressed and red, meant my forearms were shot. I could hardly open a can (a situation upgraded to crisis level for the weekend's necessary activities). A moment of temporary forgetfulness or rather twentysomething invincibility/masculinity overtook me as I gripped the worn baseball in that familiar way, ready to fire.

A friend's flash lit up the scene -- me in a modified full-windup, my law school sweatshirt casually (of course) rolled up to my elbows, the carny smoking a cig/drinking Mountain Dew/holding the radar gun/staring off into space, my friends watching off to the side, the high schoolers suddenly all around me. It was all going so well until I felt nothing when I should've felt the ball being released from my fingers. I realized, to my utter mortification, that my hand had involuntarily released the ball when it was still by my ear, thanks to my useless forearms. The ball thankfully stayed in the game pen, but just barely. It hit a stuffed monkey. That got the carny's attention.

"You killed the monkeeee!!! Hehehe" [said through pursed, sugary, tobacco-y lips]

I looked at my hand, the traitor, like golfers look at their malfunctioning putter after missing a tap-in. I couldn't believe it. One sheepish grin and a shrug later and it was time to throw another ball -- technically still my first since my errant toss was apparently out of the radar's range. Suddenly mindful of my physical inadequacies, I took it more slowly this time and managed to hit the very top of the banner, still out of range for the radar. The carny was still loving it and his friends had joined in.

I thankfully got the last three throws within radar range and, needless to say, did not win a stuffed animal. I did, however, win the prize of having the carny take down the stuffed monkey I hit and proceed to heckle me as I walked away casually still (of course), but with some urgency into the cacophony of sounds, gaudy lighting, and questionable smells that is the Sawyer, Wisconsin County Fair.

Sometimes it takes a carny to put you back properly in your place.

In the works, a new bike

My late-summer project, Day 1

A single-speed commuter for law school!

It's an 80's vintage Fuji free from my neighbor, formerly blue, but will be painted satin black, with a world championship stripe left from the original. I'm going for a black/white color scheme, and would like to find a white seat and white handlebar grips. I thought about white tires, but that may be going too far. My budget is 1/5 of the cost of a new bike I was looking for ($500) and since I have a lot of stuff on hand already, looking for a new home, most of that will probably go towards new wheels (or beer).

1. Tonight and tomorrow morning: paint, order parts
   
2. Tomorrow: clean brakes
3. Next week: put everything together
4. Ride ;o)

Expect pics next week of the finished product.

Oh man, an Oman weekend!

Preface: I'm not usually prone to making such silly titles to my posts (ok, maybe I am) but this is an exception. Someone mentioned this weekend that they wished they could have their name put into a pun in a headline like their star athlete brother. Well, this isn't the Marinette Eagle Herald, but I guess beggars can't be choosers when it comes to last-name-pun-headlines.

I made the trip down to Davenport, Iowa this weekend to visit my MTU bud Laura who now lives down there. I met her and her sister Emily at their booth of the farmers market in downtown Davenport. The sisters, of Flours & Fibers fame, bake (Emily) and knit (Laura) their way to stardom in the Quad Cities area. I can imagine residents walking the mean streets of Davenport with scone or gluten-free muffin in hand, kept warm by knit hat, scarf, and mitten, and carrying records or french bread in intricate yet sturdy (because of the reinforced band of the bag, so I'm told) striped bags.

Eastern Iowa has a lot to offer. I witnessed the aftermath of my first tug-of-war contest across state lines (Iowa lost to Illinois, if they wanted to win, they should've played Wisconsin. They're sissies over there.), though I missed the actual event. The aftermath of Tug Fest involved a lot of large, sunburnt men wearing menacing sunglasses, menacing facial hair, and non-threatening, "barely there" tank tops eating fried food. Or a pregnant woman who nixed the frumpy maternity garb for the ever-popular tank top (everyone loves tank tops in Iowa, too bad I left all mine at the store) with the bottom rolled up into a super bra. I guess she wanted her baby to be secondhand tan when it came out.

But the highlight of Tug Fest was a visit to an antique store in quaint downtown LeClaire. Not expecting a whole lot and feeling a bit bad for not playing bingo at Tug Fest, I was definitely surprised by what I found. Many antique stores I've visited have an almost obligatory selection of records, usually in old milk crates and usually featuring bottom of the barrel selection. But not this one. Four crates held the greatest density of "good" records I've ever seen. I ended up buying (thanks, Laura, for the loan) Prince (1999), Derek and the Dominos (Layla and other Assorted Love Songs), Led Zeppelin (Physical Grafitti), and David Bowie (Let's Dance). And could have picked up another half dozen save for the fact that I was already borrowing money from my host...Amazing.

The next day we made our way out to Laura and Emily's friend Kathy's farm. I could devote a whole post to this amazing place, but it's late and I have to wake up early. I'll just throw out a few words from the experience. Corn-zebo. Einstein ducks. Overflowing Japanese beetles. The god of yarn spinning. Wildflowers. Napoleon the chicken (who, according to legend, won power through a "chicken coup").

Then a redux of finding amazing records occurred Monday. Emily brought me (after some confusion on the streets of Davenport) to this small record store on the second floor of an old building. We were greeted heartily by two guys who, let's just say, looked like they worked in a used record store! But they were nice and, once again, I ended up in records heaven. After some gut wrenching decisions, I came home with an Elvis Costello (Get Happy!) and a Grateful Dead (Workingman's Dead) record and couldn't be happier. Emily stuck out an hour of browsing the dusty vinyls and came home with some new (old) LPs of her own to play once she finds speakers at home...

So this weekend was really fun and thanks to Laura for having me at her sweet place in Iowa, I'll be back.

That hi-fi, phono sound

[ Preface: I do realize that this post makes me sound like a crotchety old man, stuck in the Seventies, sitting in a dimly lit, dank living room somewhere in Ohio with old dust-covered National Geographic magazines stacked behind the sofa, a near-deaf mother sitting quietly in the next room attending to her cats, while creditors send angrier and angrier letters to the house and life just swirls around me, the decades advancing. Or maybe like that guy at the bar, alone, drinking Fantas and eating something green, smiling maniacally, nodding, and systematically inching closer to your seat -- you two are the only ones at this bar, it's afternoon and you're killing time before a meeting, he is "recently unemployed", and you want nothing better than to be far away from this guy, but you're stuck -- you are waiting for a business contact to meet you there and then you find yourself talking to this guy, who is now drinking grape soda and still eating a green substance, and he is intense and smells funny and won't stop talking about seeing "the Jethro Tull" in concert in 1973. Fair enough. But I guess that's what listening to too many records will do to a guy.]

Nothing in this world sounds better than a vinyl record played on a decent turntable and stereo system. Nothing.

The pristine, glossy black of the record, its grooves shimmering and rippling in the light, almost begs for the light touch of the needle as it slowly descends. After the needle finds the groove, for a few seconds a dense silence exists, as if any sound, save for the random crackle and pop, is secreted away in anticipation. And when the music starts, everything is reversed.

Layers upon layers of sound come billowing out of the speakers, aided by the organic, analog qualities of records; this is, for the most part, a very good thing. To hear Art Blakey bellowing instructions to his Jazz Messengers, or Muddy Waters stomping raucously as he plays, adds another dimension to the experience of listening to vinyl. Pro Tools wasn't to help smooth over inconsistencies of the performances, so the clunkers stand out, but recording engineers and producers had a mastery of their craft that makes this a rare occurrence. Often, the transfer from analog to digital (think early-90's CDs of older albums) does more to ruin the sound than the orignial mastering could ever do.

And don't get me started on MP3s.

Selecting the perfect record requires more than just a thumb scroll. You have to get intimate. Thumbing through stacks of albums conjures up that old familiar smell, of basements and old boxes, that is comforting and nostalgic. Each exists in the same form it did in decades past, outlines of errant coffee mugs or water damage a testament to its age; or rather, wisdom. Although some are shabbier in appearance than others, the elaborate album artwork stands as a reminder when the art on the album mattered almost as much as the art inside. Each calls out to be played.

It's hard to quantify the difference between listening to a CD or MP3 versus a record. There is a distinct difference in sound and I suppose that some people may prefer one to the other. My guess is that most would choose the vinyl, but I guess you'll just have to come over and try it out for yourself!

Birthers

and while I've tried my hardest to ignore this utterly stupid phenomenon known as the birther movement, it's stuck around way too long for that to happen.

Article 2, Clause 5 of the Constitution states that only a "natural born Citizen" of the U.S. may become its president. I understand that. There is no doubt that Barack Obama fits this qualification and it's insulting that this is even an issue. He was born in Hawaii, just like our past presidents have been born in Connecticut, Arkansas, Massachusetts, and Illinois. With the economy still experiencing the throes of recession, our bohemoth healthcare system in need of serious attention, and our environment and climate facing unimaginable dire straits, why are we focusing on an insane but persistent (and LOUD) minority of theorists who question this?

Taken at face value, it appears to me that the only reason why these rabid conspiracy theorists have raised this issue is because they are desperate. In a society where information is free and only a click away, they no longer have domain over information on UFO's, Bigfoot, or David Ortiz's urine samples. Almost everyone has access to the same basic information. This access to information allows more crackpots to spin fantastical yarns on obscure web sites. It lessens their individual impact (unless your last name is Beck, Limbaugh, or O'Reilly) while magnifying the impact of a group as a whole. However, this horrendous din of the birther movement has a more sinister underbelly.

Their argument is unlikely to be based on a love of the Constitution; rather, it is based on a vicious undertone of jingoism that runs counter to the very fabric of the principles our nation was founded upon and which, at its best, it thrives on today. It insinuates that only one who is blessed by birth in the United States is worthy of leading it. By doing so, it places those of us born elsewhere who, by fate or choice, came to this country to build a better life, in a secondary caste, unworthy of aspiring to lead our country at the highest level.

Many birthers will assert that they are only defending the Constitution of their country. And every citizen has that right and should take part in its defense. But there are many juicier, more substantive Constitutional issues out there that require the efforts of those on both sides to interpret. But that won't get you on Lou Dobbs.