Sentence of Dave

Traffic Cone = Cinema

Heraclitus warned us that "the only constant is change." For many years, the American school system eluded this inevitability, but not this year. EVERYTHING has changed. No textbooks. A new tablet device. We're wireless. And Bluetooth. We've adopted a new learning management system. Canvas instead of Google classroom. OneDrive instead of Google drive. OneNote instead of something else. And there's the looming threat that the winds of change will soon to remove our desktop computers.

Also, I still have stuff on Evernote.

Yesterday, I couldn't even figure out how to play a DVD. Every year, in Honors Philosophy, we read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and then we watch the first thirty minutes of The Matrix. Because it's the best visual representation of Plato's allegory.

But yesterday, I couldn't get the DVD to play. Apparently, Windows has removed this function from its Media Player. People stream now. Have you heard of Netflix? Amazon?

Coincidentally, both of these are blocked at our school. Even if you've purchased the movie on Amazon. So I freaked out a bit (in front of the children) and then I downloaded a bunch of weird free DVD players (and probably infected my desktop with some weird viruses . . . now whenever I use the search bar, it sends me through Yahoo! instead of Google).

Then the tech guy came and showed me that there WAS a player on my computer. The VLN player. The symbol is a traffic cone. It didn't open automatically when I put a disk in, so I didn't know it was there. And when the tech guy scrolled down through my apps and showed me the traffic cone, I wondered: why is orange traffic cone synonymous with playing a DVD? But then he started telling me about all the changes in my future-- they were taking my desktop, my DVD player, my big monitor, and my hardwired internet . . . and so I shouldn't even get used to the VLN player.

"They're not making your job any easier," he said, "and they're not making my job any easier either."

And why is the VLN Player logo a traffic cone? There's an enigmatic explanation on Wikipedia, but it adds more to the mystery than it resolves it: "The cone icon used in VLC is a reference to the traffic cones collected by École Centrale's Networking Students' Association."

If anyone can make sense of that, please leave the explanation in the comments.

Do You Respect Wood? I Respect Wood

Do you respect wood?

I respect wood, but-- luckily-- so does my wife, so I won't have to divorce her. In fact, it's my wife who suggested that I run to TJ Maxx with some of our hard-earned garage sale money and buy a a shelving unit made of genuine Acacia wood so that I have a spot for my amplifier and loop pedal.

The piece of furniture is awesome, shelves on hinges, cool looking hardwood, but when Ian and I got it home, we noticed that there was a crack in one of the bottom pieces. So I took my respect for wood and put it to use. I got some wood glue and a clamp, and went to work. Hopefully, it will set.

All Hail The Town-Wide Garage Sale

It's over. We cleaned out, set up, and raked it in. All day Saturday and half of Sunday, my wife channeled the soul of an Ottoman bazaar storekeeper and turned our driveway and front lawn into a souk. Once almost everything was gone, we put up a FREE sign and hid inside while the vultures picked over the carcass of our sale. Then Alex and I packed up the remaining odds and ends and drove it over to Goodwill.

And while the cash we made was significant, the purging of the house was priceless (as were the arguments between my teenage son and her about exactly what constituted his stuff, the sale of which he could claim full profit on . . . I tried to stay out of the debate and just warned him that you don't f-@% with mom on garage sale weekend, especially since she does the bulk of the set up and organizing).

Never again, my wife says.

I hope she's right (but the fact that the same older son who got into all the debates bought a glow-lamp in the shape of a box turtle doesn't bode well for us keeping the house clear of garage sale crap . . . and I bought an ancient Bakelite View master, thinking it would be worth thousands of dollars, but I was wrong . . . I paid $5 and it might be worth $12 . . . so there's probably another garage sale in our future).

Some Hard Things Are Harder Than Other Hard Things

I often see people running on concrete and I want to yell to them: "Don't run on concrete! It's much harder than asphalt!"

While I've never actually yelled this out my car window, I'm factually in the right. Concrete is definitely exponentially harder than asphalt.

But it may not matter. Running shoes and other factors may make the difference negligible. So while I'm going to continue to run on grass or asphalt, I'm not going to chastise anyone for running on concrete (until I finish my advanced materials physics degree).

Some Bueno Advice

Head down Woodbridge Avenue to the Edison Tex-Mex Deli and get the al pastor tacos-- I promise you won't be disappointed: the pork and pineapples are on a spit!

Dave Parks the Bus

Someone (or something) has hacked my Blogger account and so Sentence of Dave keeps doing weird stuff, which is as good a reason as any to start writing sentences over here.

I might write one sentence a day, or I might write several.

I might write nothing at all.

But the best thing about the whole hacking of my blog is that I was able to import all my brilliance from Sentence of Dave over to Park the Bus. So if you need to catch up, it's all here.

Being able to migrate all my sentences (and zman's comments!) is almost as awesome as listening to my son Ian dictate quotations from Catcher in the Rye into the journal entry he is writing on the kitchen desktop computer (he is doing this as I write).

Dave's Not Here, Man, He's Over at PARK THE BUS

There's something weird going on with my Blogger account, so I'm closing up shop at Sentence of Dave and posting all my sentences, paragraphs, and other random garbage at Park the Bus . . . and-- in case you have some catching up to do-- I've imported all my fabulous sentences from here over to there.

Double Technological Miracle Sunday!

Freedom!

Yesterday, with the help of my wife-- who claims she is an expert in Velcro-- we installed a magnetic screen door behind our sliding glass porch door, and this is the best 15 dollars I've ever spent; it's an absolute miracle, and while it took a little while to train our dog Lola to walk through it-- at first she thought it was weird voodoo and didn't want anything to do with it, but the kids got down on all fours and showed her the ropes, and now she's got it down now and can enter and leave as she pleases . . . and then-- miracle number two-- I wanted to watch the US Open Finals but we don't have cable and it was on ESPN, but I was able to set up a free trial of Hulu Live TV-- which I will cancel today-- and I was able to watch the match with having to constantly get up and down to let our fickle dog in and out of the house . . . double technological miracle Sunday!

Double Technological Miracle Sunday!

Freedom!

In The Meantime . . . a Bout of Namenesia

Blogger has been acting weird since Friday, and so I wasn't able to post yesterday or this morning . . . here's what went on:

Soccer practice was cold, wet, and rainy Friday afternoon and I wore my stupid blue jacket that looks like a rain-jacket but is actually just a windbreaker and I froze my balls off.

Saturday I did some rollerblading while listening to 90's instrumental guitar rock (Steve Vai and Joey Satriani) and this was the right music choice;

then, in preparation for the Grant Ave block party, Cat and I went to Cypress Brewery to drink a beer and purchase a growler's worth of 17 Mile IPA and the waitress in the little tasting room greeted us warmly and hugged us and I thought it was Rachel, a teacher from my wife's school and then the waitress left to get our beers and my wife informed that she was NOT Rachel, the teacher from her school-- though she admitted that this person looked just like Rachel-- and so we racked our brains, trying to figure out who had just hugged us, and while we were under a serious time constraint, we were able to discuss our namenesia aloud because our waitress had gone next door to check on a large party that was drinking in the brewing area and she literally had to leave the tasting room and walk outside the building and then enter by the large bay door-- so we discussed and used process of elimination and then I took a stab when she returned with our beers and said, "Are you doing girl's soccer again?" and she said, "No that's Rebecca, we always get mistaken for each other" and that's when I remembered who she was-- she had taught both our kids English in middle school-- but she was wearing a baseball hat and a Cypress Brewery tank-top and jeans, so it was tough to identify her-- normally we would see her in back-to-school-night clothes-- but I got it in time, no harm no foul, and my wife was duly impressed;

today I went to the gym early and lifted, then played 90 minutes of soccer, but I erased all that fitness at lunch-- my son has had a Taco Bell gift card since Christmas (a grab bag gift) and we finally used it, he ate some large hexagonal shaped item with several meats and a giant tortilla chip inside, and Ian and I had quesadillas and tacos-- this is the first time I've had Taco Bell since college and I'll admit it was edible and it hasn't done anything awful to my stomach . . . yet.

In The Meantime . . . a Bout of Namenesia

Blogger has been acting weird since Friday, and so I wasn't able to post yesterday or this morning . . . here's what went on:

1) soccer practice was cold, wet, and rainy Friday afternoon and I wore my stupid blue jacket that looks like a rain-jacket but is actually just a windbreaker and I froze my balls off;

2) Saturday I did some rollerblading while listening to 90's instrumental guitar rock (Steve Vai and Joey Satriani) and this was the right music choice;

3) then, in preparation for the Grant Ave block party, Cat and I went to Cypress Brewery to drink a beer and purchase a growler's worth of 17 Mile IPA and the waitress in the little tasting room greeted us warmly and hugged us and I thought it was Rachel, a teacher from my wife's school and then the waitress left to get our beers and my wife informed that she was NOT Rachel, the teacher from her school-- though she admitted that this person looked just like Rachel-- and so we racked our brains, trying to figure out who had just hugged us, and while we were under a serious time constraint, we were able to discuss our namenesia aloud because our waitress had gone next door to check on a large party that was drinking in the brewing area and she literally had to leave the tasting room and walk outside the building and then enter by the large bay door-- so we discussed and used process of elimination and then I took a stab when she returned with our beers and said, "Are you doing girl's soccer again?" and she said, "No that's Rebecca, we always get mistaken for each other" and that's when I remembered who she was-- she had taught both our kids English in middle school-- but she was wearing a baseball hat and a Cypress Brewery tank-top and jeans, so it was tough to identify her-- normally we would see her in back-to-school-night clothes-- but I got it in time, no harm no foul, and my wife was duly impressed;

4) today I went to the gym early and lifted, then played 90 minutes of soccer, but I erased all that fitness at lunch-- my son has had a Taco Bell gift card since Christmas (a grab bag gift) and we finally used it, he ate some large hexagonal shaped item with several meats and a giant tortilla chip inside, and Ian and I had quesadillas and tacos-- this is the first time I've had Taco Bell since college and I'll admit it was edible and it hasn't done anything awful to my stomach . . . yet.

They Might Actually Be Nice

I told my colleagues in the English Office that my students seem really nice this year, and Chantal said, "They always seem nice for the first two days, you idiot."

They Might Actually Be Nice

I told my colleagues in the English Office that my students seem really nice this year, and Chantal said, "They always seem nice for the first two days, you idiot."

Barking Up the Right Tree

I couldn't figure out why my dog Lola was barking like mad, trying to scale a thick oak tree, so I took some time and looked through the branches very carefully and realized Lola's instincts were dead on, as there was a squirrel napping on a branch (something I've never seen before, the squirrel's eyes were slits, and it looked way more groggy than the squirrel in this picture . . . it was hugging the limb and must have been out cold-- until Lola rudely woke him).

Barking Up the Right Tree

Technology Marches On, Sweeping Dave Along With It

We've got new devices and new LMS (Learning Management Software) this year at my school and it's all making me feel very old: the screens keep getting smaller (now we're all on tablets) and they're threatening to take our desktop computers away (even though I can actually read stuff on that screen and my computer has the only DVD player in the room) and we've replaced the simplicity of Google Classroom-- which is free and seamless with Google docs, Google slides, and YouTube-- with an expensive program (Canvas) where everything is very small and every task requires a lot of clicks . . . I'm hoping I retire before this happens again.

Technology Marches On, Sweeping Dave Along With It

It's Over (Except for the Crying)

Nothing coherent to report: I'm in a befuddled haze from endless first-day-of-school meetings, room preparation, running soccer practice, my older son's botched summer assignments, Taco Tuesday, and an endless argument about how much my kids tipped the barber today for their back-to-school-haircut . . . it looks like the summer is coming to an abrupt close.

It's Over (Except for the Crying)

Mrs. Bridge, Dave, and Socrates Walk into a Bar

I don't know how I missed this one, but Evan S. Connell's 1959 novel Mrs. Bridge is a weird and understated modern classic, funny and sharp, and a good book for me to read as I approach 50 years . . . Mrs. Bridge is a Kansas City country-club-wife and the book details her life and times in 117 vignettes during the years before and after WWII . . . and while the nation is changing, in regards to race, etiquette, social class, and the labor market, Mrs. Bridge remains the same-- and while she has moments where she almost introspects, she always avoids it, and lives the opposite of Socrates' most famous dictum . . . "the unexamined life is not worth living," and while I certainly get why she likes to remain ignorant and blissful, I'm trying to examine my life as I hit the big 50 . . . and I'm making some hard decisions-- fitness-wise, I'm switching from basketball to running (less injuries and I need to get fit, not beat up) and I'm playing a lot more tennis with my kids-- I won't be able to do that forever-- and health-wise, I'm trying to drink less beer (except on holiday weekends) and replace it with tequila and seltzer, which has less calories and doesn't make me gassy: I think these epiphanies would make Socrates proud.

Mrs. Bridge, Dave, and Socrates Walk into a Bar

Summer is Over (Time to Wash Off the Vaseline)

As usual, the greased-watermelon-rugby-polo-challenge signified another summer in the books-- and this was an especially epic summer (a trip to Costa Rica, a lot of soccer and tennis, a couple trips to the beach, and my kids had gainful employment) and an especially epic greased-watermelon-match (which my friend John decided to document, so perhaps this one is coming to a theater near you . . . hopefully his daughter/camerawoman caught the magical moment when I kicked my son Alex in the head) and now it's time to shower off all the petroleum jelly and get ready to enter the work week.

Summer is Over (Time to Wash Off the Vaseline)

Getting Your Money's Worth Will Cost You

My friends were discussing the great museum scene in DC, and how there's no pressure to get your money's worth-- the museums and the zoo are free, so-- as the always sagacious Zman put it: "You can run into the Museum of Natural History for 20 minutes just to see the Hope Diamond, some dinosaurs, and a basilosaurus (and its tiny hip bone) without feeling pressure to get your money’s worth" and I'm a big fan of this-- not getting your money's worth-- as getting your money's worth almost always leads to frustration, injury and disaster; I have no problem leaving sports events and concerts early, to avoid the mad rush and the traffic; when I go snowboarding, I get off the mountain sooner rather than later, because getting your money's worth with a lift ticket leads to fatigue and injuries . . . and when we were in college, we were obsessed with the all-you-can-eat Wendy's Superbar and it led to some supreme gluttony (including a day where we were ostensibly studying for exams, but we started the studying at the all-you-can-eat Shoney's Breakfast Bar, then-- after stuffing ourselves on pancakes, sausage, grits, and French toast-- we took a long nap, then headed back out with our books and our bloated stomachs, and sat for many hours at the Wendy's Superbar, repeating the same charade . . . we got our money's worth and it cost us dearly).

Getting Your Money's Worth Will Cost You

Locke and Key May Be Coming to a TV Near You

It took a while-- in fact, I forgot all about it-- but then something jogged my memory (perhaps someone opened my brain with the head key and fiddled with my consciousness) and I remembered to seek out the rest of the Locke and Key comic book series and the boys and I recently read all six of them, in the nick of time, it turns out, because Netflix is about to release a Locke and Key TV series . . . the comics are compelling and wild, but I should warn you, they are also grisly, disturbing, and totally fucked up; Joe Hill-- Stephen King's son-- did the writing and Gabriel Rodriguez did the art and the combination is chilling and horrific, I hope the series captures the mood, as this is a good one.

Locke and Key May Be Coming to a TV Near You

Dave is More Right (and Almost Modal)

The new episode of Planet Money attempts something ambitious, to determine the "modal American" . . . it's easy enough to find the median or the mean, but the mode-- the most common-- is more difficult because you can't categorize things too large or too small-- there are more women than men, but that seems like too large a category and they had to discount kids-- because kids all fall into all the same categories-- they don't work, they haven't been to college, and they aren't married-- but once they narrowed things down a bit-- they were looking for age, marital status, income, college education or not, race and ethnicity, and where the person lives-- and the solution, spoiler ahead (you might want to listen to the podcast) is surprising and-- for me-- fairly relatable . . . the most common American-- and they are 2 million strong-- is a Gen X married white dude who lives in the suburbs, works full time, does NOT have a college degree and earns (as a household) an upper middle class income . . . they actually talked to a 47 year old guy who fits the categories, he works at a car dealership and is married to a nurse and has one kid and owns some plaid shirts (grunge!) and while I can realte to this guy, the big differences are that he doesn't have a college degree and he lives in the suburbs . . . although the definition of suburban and urban areas are not particularly well-defined and you can really go down a rabbit-hole trying to figure out which areas are urban and which are suburban, even within city limits (Alec, Connell, Paul and I had quite an argument about this on the way to the pub) but if you go by some data compiled by FiveThirtyEight, then Highland Park is definitely urban, as urban areas tend to have more than "2,213 households per square mile" and Highland Park is 1.8 square miles and-- in 2010-- it had 6,200 households and the town's population has grown since then, so while Connell is right to say that Highland Park is the outlying area of a larger city (New Brunswick) and thus sub-urban, I am more right in saying that the density and feel of Highland Park is more urban than suburban.

Dave is More Right (and Almost Modal)

The End of Napping is Nigh

A good end of summer morning today: I got to ride the away bus with both my children and coach them in a JV scrimmage, and then we ate lunch out, but after all the fun and excitement, I took a two hour nap . . . I'm not sure how I'm going to pull off an entire work day next week (unless they work "nap time" into the high school schedule).

The End of Napping is Nigh

Music Review: Proceed with Caution

It's tough to recommend this album with a straight face, but Mannequin Pussy's new one-- "Patience"-- is awesome: fast-paced punk rock with chaotic squalls and compelling lulls . . . and I guess since our Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief brought back the p-word, it shouldn't be as difficult to tell your friends about this one (and the band is mainly females, so I suppose they're using it ironically).

Music Review: Proceed with Caution

Is There a Position Open for Doing This?

My friend Dom, who I just spent a week with at the beach, would like it to be known that-- in addition to his general congeniality, his ability to consume gin/vodka, and his formidable biking stamina-- he has an uncanny knack for identifying 80's songs in two or three notes (even Aldo Nova's "Fantasy").

Is There a Position Open for Doing This?

Space Werewolves > Intergalactic Politics

During our beach vacation, I had some trouble getting through John Scalzi's novel The Last Colony; it's the third book in his Old Man's War series and it's not exactly a beach read: there's a lot of intergalactic political strategy . . . John Perry and his rather unusual wife Jane Sagan (she's a special forces soldier made from the DNA of John's original wife) are trying to colonize planet called Roanoke-- a name which doesn't bode well-- and the colony becomes a pawn in an increasingly complicated series of alliances between the Conclave (412 alien races that have banded together) and the rest of the denizens of the universe (including the humans) and while all this is compelling and interesting, the part of the book I enjoyed the most was towards the middle, when the humans were still trying to colonize the planet and they ran into some werewolf life creatures with stone-age technology . . . this is something you can pay attention to, even when there's women in bikinis wandering around, but unfortunately, this plot-line is never revisited and so I struggled to finish the book at the beach and didn't get it done until last night, in the quiet of my very own bed.

No Ordinance For Offspring

Thursday morning, our peaceful vacation slumber was perforated, pierced and punctured (at 7 AM) by staccato bursts from several nail guns-- the crew framing the roof of the new construction across the street were getting an early start-- and while this didn't bother me, because I was up and ready to roll, Catherine thought the noise was excessive and so-- as she is wont to do-- she solved the problem; she called the Sea Isle police and they informed her that there was an 8 AM noise ordinance and they would ride by and inform the workers . . . and they did and the next morning the crew didn't start work until later; BUT soon after that, the three little kids set up a stand on the corner right below our front porch and they chanted-- for at least two hours straight-- "FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE!" and it seems there is no ordinance on the books to stop this sort of insanity (and the creepiness of the "free" aspect has really turned their patrons off . . . there's quite a bit of foot traffic and not one who walks by takes them up on the offer, as everyone knows there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially when it's offered by miniature towheaded redfaced sirens with high pitched voices).

No Ordinance For Offspring

Miracle on 51st Street

After running on the beach yesterday, I took an outdoor shower and then-- standing in the driveway, wearing only a towel-- I decided to throw my wet spandex and shorts onto our porch (rather than carry them through the house, where they would drip seawater everywhere) but my shoulder has been hurting and I can't throw wet clothing overhand, so I pitched them underhand and-- miracle of miracles-- they BOTH landed on the railing (and I've got a photo to prove it . . . although I guess you could photoshop something like this if you were that sort of person).

Miracle on 51st Street

You Could Probably Unfuc*k Yourself

Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life by Gary John Bishop is a silly little book, obvious yet inspirational, but mainly, you'll think: "I could have written this!" but the point is that YOU didn't write it, Gary John Bishop did . . . and that's why he's a rich and famous life-coach and you're not (the Scottish accent might also help).

You Could Probably Unfuc*k Yourself

Star Crossed Neighbors

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, which begins with a pair of Irish cops on the beat in 1970's New York City who end up living nextdoor to each other in the suburbs, and -- like the Montagues and the Capulets-- the two families are oil and water, but the children fall in love and though the time sequence is much much longer than the three breakneck days in Romeo and Juliet, Keane makes her novel race through time at a relentless pace-- I loved this the most about this book (which is a bit depressing at times . . . regret, alcoholism, mental illness, and being shot in the face are some of the themes) so while there are rough times, you know you'll see the end of them (sort of).

Star Crossed Neighbors

Meatball Night is also LeCompt Night

Last night at the beach-- after stuffing ourselves with Cat's Famous Meatballs-- we all went out to The Springfield Inn (Sea Isle's most wonderful dive bar, which has been slated for destruction for years now) to see Mike LeCompt and his inimitable cover band; making it to the third set is always an issue for me because there's an interminable break between sets two and three, but once we talked to Mike-- who is undergoing daily chemo for colon cancer-- and he said he was having a rough day (they had already played a hot and humid outdoor set at Wildwood) we all decided we had to stay-- if he could do three sets on chemo, I could do three sets on Bud Light (which are $3 a pop until midnight, and then they figure everyone is too drunk to care and they randomly raise the price to $5) so we made it to the end (aside from Lynn and Ed, who headed home and prepared some dumplings and pigs-in-a-blanket so we could have late night food right when we stumbled in) and the band and the crowd really picked it up for Mike, who had to take a couple of breaks-- but, nonetheless, it was an inspirational performance and motivated me to get off my ass this morning and do a 35 minute beach run-- I had a bit of a headache, but it's better than colon cancer . . . here is the setlist . . . he did a lot of Who songs:

The Boys are Back in Town
Bargain
Behind Blue Eyes
Pinball Wizard
Come Sail Away
Tempted
Abacab
Thunder Road
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
With a Little Help From My Friends

Baba O'Riley
Brandy
My Girl
Whole Lotta Love
Pressure
Just What I Needed
You're in My Heart
Maggie May
Forever Young
Here I Go Again
You're So Vain
Hey Jude

Leaving on a Jet Plane
The Kids are Alright
Suspicious Minds
All I Want is You
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
So Lonely
Wild Nights
Long Train Running (Doobie Brothers)
Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters
Levon
Love Reign O'er Me.

Meatball Night is also LeCompt Night

Meatball Night!

Not time to write a sentence, I have to cut rolls for Cat's famous beach house meatballs (Mac's Famous Mac and Cheese? I mean, I'm your roommate and I've never heard of it).

Meatball Night!

Not time to write a sentence, I have to cut rolls for Cat's famous beach house meatballs (Mac's Famous Mac and Cheese? I mean, I'm your roommate and I've never heard of it).

Reading + Dad = $$$$$

When my kids were looking around town for odd jobs and such, I told them I had just read in The Week that folks with DM expertise were getting paid up to $250 dollars an hour to teach adults how to play Dungeons and Dragons and I suggested that they offer this service and so they added it to their list of jobs they would do and two days ago, they actually got paid to help some younger kids make characters and get a campaign going, which really beats pulling weeds (they are covered in poison ivy) and so now they've got a taste of the good life and white collar work.

Reading + Dad = $$$$$

The Big Apple Ain't What It Used to Be

Lawrence Block's hard-boiled crime novel The Sins of the Fathers-- the first in the 9 volume "alcoholic shamus" Matthew Scudder series-- takes place in a degenerate '70's version of New York City that now only exists in film and fiction . . . the story is gritty, callous, boozy, and-- at times-- downright graphically obscene, I'm not sure if I'll read another Scudder book any time soon-- but winter is coming, so maybe I'll wait until then.

The Big Apple Ain't What It Used to Be

Hail Fellow Well Met?

I saw a lot of myself in Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking-- while I'm not a full-blown recluse, I always trend introvert on those Myers-Briggs type tests; Cain explains that while introverts need down time to recharge, they can be quite comfortable socially-- once they're familiar with the situation-- and that one of the main factors may be that introverts don't need as much stimulus as extroverts . . . introverts can be easily over-stimulated, so while many can do a pretty good job acting "hail-fellow-well-met"-- an odd compound word I learned in the book-- they salivate more when they taste something sour, they don't need the volume as high, and they stick to the sides in a roomful of people (something I definitely do) and I think this explains why I can't watch two TV shows in a row and why even a graphic novel is sometimes too much stimulus . . . my kids get annoyed that I can't plow through them (although I just finished The Walking Dead . . . holy shit! it's over!) and why I read a lot . . . I love reading because it's just the right amount of stimulus for me . . . but I don't have many of the great traits that some introverts possess: while I like to deliberately practice things when I'm alone, I'm not necessarily most organized and focused person to have on a project, I'm not super-detail oriented, and I do things fast and cut corners, so while I'm definitely an introvert, I've got to embrace the type a bit more and perhaps I'll get better at some of the characteristics I'm missing.

Hail Fellow Well Met?

Journey to the Center of the Suburbs

Yesterday, the boys and I watched the episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when Mac and Dennis move to the suburbs . . . it's one of my favorites and Alex and Ian loved it: the rage, the boredom, the pool filter, the mysterious chirping that Dennis heard the whole time, the neighbor, the naked storm, the commute, the cable guy, Frank's bet, the old black man, and the truth behind Mac's famous mac and cheese; then-- that evening after soccer practice-- in serendipitous parallel, Alex and I drove from our densely populated town deep into a bosky township aptly named Branchburg-- we wound through small leafy lanes and emerged into a wide-lawned development of absolutely giant suburban homes-- and we were tired and hungry (it was the first day of double sessions) so when the tree-lined road yawned open into pristine lawns and shrubbery and McMansions, I said, "It's like Always Sunny!" and Alex said, "I said that five minutes ago . . . don't you listen?" and then we pulled up to the address and there was a perfect tableau in the driveway: some preppy adults, a couple of tow-headed kids, and a fluffy dog-- we were there to purchase a used surfboard that Alex had found on Facebook Marketplace and it was already 8 PM so I was hoping to get in and out quickly, but the couple and their twins (and their dog) were incredibly nice (and so was the surfboard, according to Alex) and so we ended up chatting with them for a good half hour before we bought the board; the dad -- a fit little guy wearing a tucked in polo shirt and pressed jeans-- was a big surfer and had just gotten a new board and I think he really wanted this board to go to a good home, so he was very pleased that my son was buying it with money he earned walking dogs and pulling weeds; we got on the topic of Costa Rica, where my son did some surfing this summer, and-- of course-- they go every year, to Nosara (one of the places we went this summer) and they almost bought real estate there and they grew up in South Brunswick before they upgraded and moved to the serious suburbs and their kids play baseball and do dance and on and on . . . three cars passed by while we were chatting and they waved at all three vehicles and Alex just couldn't believe it-- how suburban the whole scene was-- the entire family out on the big lawn, the one girl with her brand new iPhone lounging in a giant lawn beanbag chair, the casually well-dressed mom and dad (although Alex was disappointed that the mom was drinking a Mike's Hard Lemonade . . . he thought it should have been chardonnay) and the general atmosphere of trust and good-nature and being so far off the map that nothing bad could ever happen . . . it's amazing that Branchburg is only a thirty minute drive from New Brunswick.

Journey to the Center of the Suburbs

Street Smarts

My friend was sick of getting parked in by spatially incompetent parallel parkers, so he painted his own parking lines on the stretch of road in front of his house-- each space is ample enough so that you can't get parked in, and neatly delineated . . . brilliant.

Street Smarts

Two Ways of Looking at Dave Looking at a Bird

It's rare you get two viewpoints of stupidity, but Friday afternoon days at the park, Catherine and I spotted some kind of large raptor and it was behaving oddly: perching on low branches, walking around on the grass, acting dumbfounded and perplexed . . . it was weird; we couldn't tell if it was an eagle or an osprey (and now we think it was a Cooper's hawk) so I approached it and got very very close, and then it seemed as if it was going to fly right at me-- perhaps to tear my face off-- but it wasn't interested in me (or my face) and it turned out the bird was stalking a snake in the grass, which it finally grabbed with both claws and then flew off . . . perhaps it was a juvenile hawk and not sure if a snake was good eating; anyway, I got a good shot of the bird up close, and my wife-- from a safe distance-- got a good shot of me approaching the bird so here are both videos (as a side note, later that afternoon, when we were walking in New Brunswick, we saw a very tall young lady, her legs were just endless, wearing short shorts riding an adult sized electric powered kick-scooter . . . quite an afternoon, but we didn't get a video of that . . . or of the fat guy ambling down the street sporting a "Busy Doing Nothing" t-shirt).

Two Ways of Looking at Dave Looking at a Bird

You Can't Call an Ambulance for Your Dog

I find that the "do you drive on empty or stop for gas when there's a quarter tank left?" is an excellent (and politically neutral) debate topic that you can use to break the ice in any situation; we were discussing this at the dog park last week and a woman gave a rather unusual rationale for keeping a good amount of gas in the car . . . she said that she used to drive around on empty, but then she realized that the emergence veterinary clinic wasn't nearby and-- as she noted, "You can't call an ambulance for a dog"-- and so she keeps gas in her car in case there's a canine catastrophe and she has to rush to the animal emergency room.

You Can't Call an Ambulance for Your Dog

If You're Gonna Get Shot, Get Shot in the Shoulder

Walter Longmire is definitely a candidate for "Protagonists' Hospital"-- a Demetri Martin bit about a medical facility that only treats shoulder injuries-- and so am I, in fact, last night my aching shoulder kept me awake and ploughing through the intensely plotted Hell is Empty-- Craig Johnson's seventh Longmire mystery . . . this is my favorite one so far, although there's nothing new: the small town Wyoming sheriff braves a snowstorm, chases fugitives, makes rash decisions, messes around with guns, suffers horrible injuries, and has a spiritual experience in the Bighorn Mountains, a land that wasn't always under the jurisdiction of the white man . . . I think you could start with this one and work backwards.

If You're Gonna Get Shot, Get Shot in the Shoulder

Anand Giridharadas is Hard to Say

While I can't pronounce Anand Giridharadas's name, I did read the article version of "Winners Take All" and apparently TED talks by "thought leaders" aren't all they're cracked up to be: they are actually sanitized, perpetrator-less, micro-tweaked, anti-solutions that have risen to the top of MarketWorld because they give corporations exactly what they want . . . and if you can give the plutocrats what they want, then you'll make a hell of a lot more money giving speeches than you could as a "public intellectual" who has written a good book.

When You Get Old, Go Out into the Universe and Kill Stuff

If you're looking of something fun, fast, and thoroughly entertaining, I highly recommend John Scalzi's sci-fi novel Old Man's War . . . it definitely has a Starship Troopers feel, but it's even funnier (and also-- at times-- quite touching, especially about the subject of marriage) but mainly it's about old folks abandoning earth for the Colonial Defense Forces, where they will be somehow outfitted to fight hostile aliens throughout a "dark forest" type universe-- I won't spoil just how these geriatrics are transformed into soldiers, but once it happens, then the fun begins-- so much fun that there is quite a bit of criticism and debate about the book . . . some liberal reviewers claim the book lauds jingoistic fervor and overly-aggressive, xenophobic tactics towards the other, and these ideas certainly weigh on the protagonist-- especially when he's stomping the one inch tall (but highly aggressive) Covandu to death . . . supposedly, the rest of the series sorts out these controversial themes, but this book is also great as a stand-alone.

More (Capricious) News in the World of Tennis

My shoulder hurts . . . I think I need to reevaluate my rash abandonment of the two-handed backhand: while it's a bit inconsistent, apparently-- once I've played for over an hour-- I need two hands to get the ball back over the net.

Blinded with Science

The nefarious Pruitt/Wheeler/Trump EPA recently dropped restrictions on a pesticide that kills bees; my acupuncturist told me this, so I took it with a grain of salt, but she was right:

"sulfoxaflor, manufactured by DowDupont’s Corteva agricultural division, can now be used on a wide range of crops, including corn, soybeans, strawberries, citrus, pumpkins and pineapples, the EPA said . . . sulfoxaflor has been found to be “highly toxic to honey bees at all life stages,” according to the EPA’s own studies — and harms wild pollinators like bumblebees even at low doses; yet Alexandra Dunn, head of the EPA office that oversees pesticides, said the agency was 'thrilled' to approve new uses and lift past restrictions on sulfoxaflor, which she called “highly effective . . . Dow contributed $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee"

and this taps into the larger (and very weird) culture war that's happening . . . if you're pro-Trump, you may very well be anti-science . . . because scientists are now pointy-headed liberals who want to tell you what to do and how to live . . . so if you love Trump (and hate science) you might purchase Trump brand plastic straws to show the hippie environmentalists just what they can do with their assault on plastic-- it's right out of The Graduate; this stuff all fits into the new conservative brand-- global warming is a Chinese hoax, etc. -- and while at least Trump has shifted his stance on vaccines (his old take, from 2015, is that vaccines are meant for horses and cause autism) because of various measles outbreaks, I think that shift was pragmatic-- he didn't want to preside over a plague-infested country-- but I still find it a shocker that this is the Trump-brand: the scientific-method is fake news, a plot cooked up by the liberals to restrict your rights.

Blinded with Science

Four Funerals and a Divorce

Mindy Kaling's reboot of Four Weddings and Funeral is headed in the wrong direction . . . Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell are old-- and so are the people that saw the original romcom in the theaters (way back in 1994 . . . my wife and I are part of this crowd) and so it's time for the inevitable: Four Funerals and a Divorce . . . the film (or TV series) could have horror overtones, as you wait to see who the lucky survivor is (who then gets divorced) or it could just be a straight-up depressing cancer/heart attack/stroke type movie . . . either way, someone get on this, it's going to be the feel-good hit of next summer.

Four Funerals and a Divorce

Breaking News in the World of Tennis

I have officially decided to give up on my two-handed backhand.

Breaking News in the World of Tennis

I have officially decided to give up on my two-handed backhand.

Sentence Canceled (Due to Extenuating Pub Night)

It was a late one last night, for good reasons: shots were drunk (drank?) to the passing of Winston-- a good dog-- and shots were drunk (drank?) because Dan's friend bought them . . . he was once an avid golfer but he got in a car accident-- hit from behind-- and (small world) it turned out that I taught the person that hit him . . . and then there was the darts and gambling portion of the evening . . . so no sentence today, I'll try to fire up the brain again tomorrow.

Sentence Canceled (Due to Extenuating Pub Night)

Craig Johnson vs. C.J. Box: Wyoming (Zone of) Death Match

Craig Johnson and C.J Box both write mystery novels set in Wyoming, but Craig Johnson's Longmire series is more small-town and has an archetypal Western-tone, while C. J. Box-- judging by the Joe Pickett novel FreeFire-- is tackling much more modern and political subjects; FreeFire reads a bit like a Michael Crichton thriller and I thought it was pretty far-fetched, but apparently Box does his research, so . . .

1) there actually is a "Zone of Death" within Yellowstone National Park, where an enterprising criminal could commit the perfect crime . . . although it hasn't happened yet;

2) Yellowstone's heat resistant microbes are valuable resources being used (exploited? contracted?) by international companies, and there is a debate as to whether this is "bio-mining" or "bio-piracy" and as to who should get the profits;

3) bio-stimulation in coal seams might produce natural gas or liquified fuel . . .

anyway, as far as the Wyoming detective novel shoot-out goes, Joe Pickett and Walt Longmire are different animals . . . so if you're looking for something more evocative and slower-paced, with a lot of charm, then go for the Craig Johnson mystery, but if you want fast-paced action with politics, conspiracy, and wild plot-lines, then C.J. Box is for you . . . FreeFire even has a gun moll from Jersey and the book gets into this kind of stuff:

"There are so many factions . . . Zephyr versus the Park Service . . . environmentalists against resource users . . . hunters outside the park versus park policy . . . the three states fighting with the Feds . . . even in the park service, it's law enforcement versus interpretation, and seasonal rangers against full-timers . . . it's bureaucracy run amok."

Johnson vs. Box: Wyoming (Zone of) Death Match

Craig Johnson and C.J Box both write mystery novels set in Wyoming, but Craig Johnson's Longmire series is more small-town and has an archetypal Western-tone, while C. J. Box-- judging by the Joe Pickett novel FreeFire-- is tackling much more modern and political subjects; FreeFire reads a bit like a Michael Crichton thriller and I thought it was pretty far-fetched, but apparently Box does his research, so . . .

1) apparently, there actually is a "Zone of Death" within Yellowstone National Park, where an enterprising criminal could commit the perfect crime . . . although it hasn't happened yet;

2) Yellowstone's heat resistant microbes are valuable resources being used (exploited? contracted?) by international companies, and there is a debate as to whether this is "bio-mining" or "bio-piracy" and as to who should get the profits;

3) bio-stimulation in coal seams might produce natural gas or liquified fuel . . .

anyway, as far as the Wyoming detective novel shoot-out goes, Joe Pickett and Walt Longmire are different animals . . . so if you're looking for something more evocative and slower-paced, with a lot of charm, then go for the Craig Johnson mystery, but if you want fast-paced action with politics, conspiracy, and wild plot-lines, then C.J. Box is for you . . . FreeFire even has a gun moll from Jersey and the book gets into this kind of stuff:

"There are so many factions . . . Zephyr versus the Park Service . . . environmentalists against resource users . . . hunters outside the park versus park policy . . . the three states fighting with the Feds . . . even in the park service, it's law enforcement versus interpretation, and seasonal rangers against full-timers . . . it's bureaucracy run amok."

No Graceful Exit to This Situation

Before playing tennis this morning, I entered the Porta-John next to the courts, latched the door, and then realized there was a giant wasp inside the enclosure with me (and while I escaped without being stung, I will admit to doing some flailing).

No Graceful Exit to This Situation

Dave Naps While His Children Labor

Since we have returned from our two vacations, our family is on a strict budget (until my wife and I get paid again in September) and I'm enjoying this frugal starving time, as it gives me an excuse to do things I enjoy that are free or already paid for: run, go to the library, read, listen to podcasts, eat rice and beans, nap, wake up early, rollerblade, play tennis, acupuncture, go to the gym, etc. and there are no other options to distract me from these simple, wonderful things-- but my kids weren't taking as well to the spartan life and so (with the help of my wife) they have taken matters into their own hands--literally-- and they've been doing manual labor for anyone and everyone who will hire them; I've never seen them so motivated or get along so well; they have a little notebook with all the addresses and times for their jobs, and they've been mowing lawns, carrying boxes, assembling basement floors, weeding, and doing any other odd job they can manage . . . despite the family economic shutdown, they've already earned enough to buy a Nintendo Switch and Smash Bros (so refusing them to buy a video game system beyond the Wii has really turned out well for me, I've never seen them so driven and organized, I didn't have to shell out for a new system, and they're bickering far less than normal . . . they're too busy counting their money to fight).

Dave Naps While His Children Labor

Dave Stays in Wyoming (Because Jersey Sucks Right Now)

I'm charging to the finish of Craig Johnson's fifth book in the Longmire series, The Dark Horse, and after reading two of these, I'm noticing some patterns-- snow, cold, wind, cowboy stuff, horses, guns, damsels that might not be in as much distress as the knights think, Clint Eastwood-style fistfights, drunks, and Walt Longmire taking the brunt of it all . . . and I'm enjoying fantasizing about the bleak chill of Wyoming so much, as I sit inside during the Jersey heat wave, that I actually checked out a C.J. Box mystery from the library today-- a Joe Pickett novel called FreeFire, which is also set in Wyoming . . . so there's going to be a head-to-head match up of Wyoming detective mysteries, I'll let them duke it out and elect a winner later in the week.

Dave Stays in Wyoming (Because Jersey Sucks Right Now)

A Good Way to Visit Wyoming

A Cold Dish by Craig Johnson is a great book to read if you're stress-free and hardly-working-- which is the state I'm in right now-- it's the first in the Longmire series, and while it rambles a bit for a mystery novel, that's to be expected because the main character of the book is Wyoming-- which is a state that rambles on and on and on-- with Walt Longmire a close second (and various guns-- modern and antique-- a distant third) but Johnson seems to hit his stride better in the the fifth installment, The Dark Horse, which is a much faster read (and I tried the Netflix series, just because, and that's not too bad either).

A Good Way to Visit Wyoming

Money Talks and Bullshit Walks (Toward Nassim Taleb?)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is smart-- and he won't let you forget it-- and while there's some fascinating stuff in his new book Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, it's hard to know what to believe and what not to believe, and the book is definitely abrasive and fragmented, but he will get you thinking, you're just going to have to do more research to flesh out what he's saying . . . here are a few things that struck me:

1) Taleb prefers the Silver Rule to the Golden Rule . . . the Silver Rule is sort of the Negative Golden Rule: "Do not treat others the way you would not like them to treat you," and Taleb prefers it because it is more Libertarian and less restrictive-- the Silver Rule encourages you to mind your own business-- you're not doing things unto others and guessing what they would like . . . it lines up nicely with our First Amendment rights;

2) Taleb really hates Steven Pinker and all the non-mathematical non-stock-trading intellectuals associated with him, and while Taleb claims there are major statistical problems with Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature, this claim doesn't seem logical and more of a sour grapes character assassination attempt and Pinker has a reasoned and rational rebuttal to Taleb's jealous and rather weird claims . . . Taleb wants to apply his "Black Swan" reasoning to Pinker's thesis but Pinker has already anticipated this in his book . . . it's a fairly strange obsession and I don't really get his hatred of intellectuals, aside from the fact that he considers them the ultimate evil because they make pronouncements without having "skin in the game" and contribute to the "monoculture" of thought;

3) Taleb thinks we should take a more statistical, skin-in-the-game look at politics offers a great reminder of how important scale is in determining our values and morals:

"A saying by the brothers Geoff and Vince Graham summarizes the ludicrousness of scale-free political universalism . . .

I am, at the Fed level, a libertarian:
at the state level, Republican;
at the local level, Democrat;
and at the family and friends level, a socialist . . ."

4) Taleb likes to throw around the fact that he's Lebanese and grew up in Lebanon, and he frequently mention the many religious groups and sects that live there and in Syria-- I find this interesting because I lived there-- but I can see how the explanation of the dynamics of the Druze and the Shi'ites might grow tiresome to some audiences . . . I think he likes these examples because he's a big fan of the "the Lindy effect," he likes rules and institutions and foods and objects that have survived a long time-- the Lindy effect is the "theory that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy" . . . so things like the cup and the Ten Commandments are going to be around a long time because they've been around a long time . . . these are the kinds of rules and books and thoughts that Taleb trusts-- including advice from your grandmother and superstitions-- because they have weathered the test of time . . . he's not a progressive and he loves the fact that Trump got elected, confounding all the liberal, pseudo-intellectual types;

5) Taleb is at his best when he's talking about probability . . . he explains (hypothetically) that while terrorism and people falling down in the bathtub may take the same number of lives in any given year, why we have to treat terrorism so much more seriously . . . because it would take an incredible statistical anomaly to double bathtub deaths, but it only takes a major event or two to exponentially increase the deaths from terrorism . . . terrorism has the potential to reveal "unknown unknowns" or "black swans" or whatever you want to call them, but things can happen on the long tail that take many many lives . . . so he gets into the idea of how much tolerance we should show the intolerant, and when it comes to Salafi Islam, he believes we should be showing them no tolerance, because they have the potential of creating those kind of black swan events that pseudo-intellectuals-- who are too liberal-- don't assess with the correct amount of risk . . . it's something we all have to think deeply about, and it's the most important part of his reasoning;

6) on a more positive statistical note, he argues against Thomas Piketty's extreme take on economic inequality, and uses an idea called "ergodicity" to show that people move all over the map as far as where they lie in the income ladder over the course of time . . . so any one person might be in the top ten percent in one part of their life, then in the middle, then maybe at the bottom; I'm not sure I understand all the math, but it's an interesting take . . . although it seems that salary isn't the real culprit in income inequality, it's acquired wealth-- which is why I like Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax . . . I would never want to put words in Taleb's mouth, because he's so unpredictable and irascible, and I doubt he would like a wealth tax, but it does fit more into his worldview that acquired wealth doesn't have any risk to it, so it might as well be taxed and used for infrastructure or schools or clean energy or something interesting;

7) in the end, I wish there was more math and less railing against some imagined intellectual class with no skin-in-the-game . . . Taleb really believes that entrepreneurs should be venerated and I agree with him . . . it's much easier to be a salary-slave and the longer you do it, the more skin-in-the-game you have to protect your job and your reputation, but that doesn't mean you can't do good work; it's worth reading Taleb's books, but you just have to take everything with a grain of thought and take your time with each page and idea and think about what he's saying and if it really holds water.

Late Night Learnin'

Last night was a very educational Pub Night . . . here are a few of the things I learned:

1) there is an app called TouchTunes which allows you to control the pub jukebox from your phone;

2) "Love Potion Number 9" is one of the worst songs on that jukebox;

3) The Park Pub has a drink special, which is only advertised on the TouchTunes app . . . the special is "Buy Two / Drink Two . . . All week";

4) eating a White Rose burger after the pub wreaks havoc on my digestive system . . . I've already learned this lesson, but every three years or so, I have to relearn it;

5) I also learned a bunch of little things which are too numerous to list, but here a re a few: Paul can make a little Mexican pizza in five minutes; back in the day, Linda Carter was really hot; everybody loves to sing "Suspicious Minds"; and you should watch Barry season 2 episode 5, even if you haven't seen the show.

Late Night Learnin'

Fumble! At 45 mph

I am guessing a fair number of automobile accidents are caused by various kinds of balls- particularly tennis balls . . . although my nemesis today was a little orange foam football-- when they roll from one part of the car to the driver's side, and interfere with the gas pedal, the brake, and the driver's concentration (because when there's a loose ball, you've got to get down on the floor and grab it).