Are my eyes really blue?

So this year’s trip was to the Dirty Coast and parts slightly north. I have clear and distinct thoughts on all three stops, but I will need time (and not to be swamped at work) for them to spiral out. So in the meantime, the travel debriefing itself:

1) Houston’s airport is terrible to fly through. I mean, yes, it’s Texas, so you could be forgiven for thinking that even the air has potholes, but seriously, the climate makes smooth takeoff and landing damn near impossible. It also makes me laugh that the Palm is going to try to open in Terminal C. Don’t know who that reflects worse on, to be honest.

2) The new travelwear that washes out in the sink actually did so, saving my ass a time or two. However, in future, laundry stops will have to be explicitly scheduled and executed if I’m going to try to halve the load with the cunning use of detergent. That said, the simple expedient of reverting to hybrid Dixie/California behavior and getting rid of socks seems to work as well as anything…shoes permitting. Which leads us to:

3) Shoes that don’t lace are critical to getting through the airport. However, the new magic chamber apparatus will think the handkerchief in your pocket is something to be alarmed about. Feces-throwing monkeys would do a better job of being adjusted to heightened threats of terrorism TEN FUCKING YEARS LATER than this country is.

4) Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have something in between “nice jeans” and “black suit” for strategic going-out purposes or Easter Mass. Something to think about next time, especially when a solid pair of khaki flat-fronts would be cooler than denim in late Southern spring.

5) THAT all said, if I had it to do over again, I think I might need something nicer than my battered Clarks loafers for the daily wear; not sure they would have passed muster for Sunday morning. It’s become apparent that since moving to California, my wardrobe has become more informal and less attuned to coping with high heat and humidity, especially vis-a-vis footwear. Maybe I should have gotten the DM tassel loafers when I had the chance?

6) I never once unracked the Bluetooth keyboard for use with the iPhone. Surprisingly, I didn’t do very much scribbling in the hip-pocket notebook either. I did the vast majority of the driving on this trip, which cut into the time that I would probably normally have wanted to jot things down or write, but I rather enjoyed piloting a big ol’ Dodge around the highways and byways of the Deep South, so this is by no means a complaint.

7) The iPhone had some issues, which may or may not have been down to the 4.3.2 update before I left. Battery life struggled a LOT, even with push turned off, but I didn’t make the necessary notes to see whether the usage pattern was having an impact. Meanwhile, the Kindle proved far superior to the iPhone for reading in all respects but one: when I was sitting up with bad reflux and trying to let everything settle before returning to bed, the backlight was essential for not waking everyone else up.

8) This leads me to believe that an iPad 2, 16GB with 3G, would have been ideally suited for this trip: only buy data service for the trip and then use it as the primary car navigation option; the larger screen and easier text entry would be a difference-maker when using Google Maps. Proof again that the line about “it’s a BIG iPod Touch” is actually an apt description of the iPad’s killer feature.

9) It should be obvious at this point that I didn’t put nearly enough time into loadout for this trip. I can only plead that the social ramble ain’t restful and that we are basically going full speed ahead until June, but still, the only real problems I had were things that could have been handled with a little foresight and a pen and pad.

10) The new Timbuk2 custom bag passed its shakedown voyage with flying colors. Hugely capacious yet able to be cinched up to a very reasonable size – I can’t imagine needing anything else for a whirlwind 3 day getaway or for a full-load carryon bag.

11) Relatives are no substitute for family.

More to follow…

I’ll be nine days on the road to parts South. As always, folks are directed to the matching Tumblr for live updating as we go, although I am considering taking the wireless keyboard. I have been officially absolved of carrying my laptop so I’m officially not going to – iPhone and Kindle only. Wish me luck…

“Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they’re willing to support a candidate for President next year who firmly rejects the birther theory.”

Read that again. 3 out of 5 GOP primary voters will not support a candidate who insists that the President of the United States is an American citizen.

We’re basically fucked.

Thirty years ago, I was going around with a ragged copy of the March 1981 issue of National Geographic, with a cover article entitled “When The Shuttle Finally Flies” – a comprehensive look at the next stage of American spaceflight. I had the Columbia’s first four mission patches, of course, stitched to my jacket along with two dozen other assorted patches. Little did I know that over two decades later, I would be a guest at the wedding of one of those astronaut’s sons – or that I would spend a year working as a contractor for NASA myself.

The thing is, even though that was thirty years ago, the launch itself was only twenty years from the day that comrade Yuri Gagarin demonstrated quite possibly the most elephantine balls of any human being in history to that date, as he climbed on an enormous pile of explosive fuel and Soviet-grade engineering and became the first person ever launched into orbit around Earth.

Twenty years from a glorified Roman candle to the space shuttle. Hell, less than nine years from that candle to human footprints on the moon. And thirty years from that shuttle to…no shuttle. Well, maybe one more.

I know every generation thinks the next one is the dumbest yet, but I think we’ve reached a point where it’s not the kids going backwards, it’s everyone else rushing to keep up with them. It’s not just reality TV, or the end of American manufacturing, or the fact that DONALD FUCKING TRUMP is leading polls for the GOP in 2012, or the fact that we don’t have a news media that could carry the ashtray of John Cameron Swayze or Ed Murrow, or the fact that public debate is carried on at the level of sports talk radio and 14-year-old gamer chat. It’s all of the above and more. It’s the size of the Farmville economy. It’s the fact that our best and brightest got routed into doing math tricks on paper to create shitstorms of fake money that got bailed out with real money. It’s the fact that nobody seems to care about it anymore. It’s the attention span that lasts thirty seconds for anything more complicated than celebrity news. It’s the fact that people have long since forgotten we have two land wars in Asia, a potential revolution on the boil in the Middle East, a Chernobyl-grade nuclear disaster in Japan, and a planet that’s slowly warming up with real and demonstrable consequences.

We’re not arguing what to do about things, we’re not even arguing about the priority of things, we’re arguing about what reality is.

And because we chose to embrace and stupidity as a valid way of life, we’re stuck in the mud, instead of grasping at stars.

Alarm goes off, earlier than normal. Make sure everything is stuffed in the bag – it’s sure not packed as well as when you arrived three nights ago – get all the key stuff in your pockets. Hastily finish off the donuts and instant coffee you bought to keep from going out – and only get halfway through. Out the door and into the gray light of morning, whirring of the street sweeper, businesses closed and dark except for the drugstore across the corner (and, you’re sure, the Starbucks at the other side of the block). Hurry into the train station, that inexplicable smell of bread baking. Which train? Oh God not the one calling “All aboard” – phew, it’s the next one. Plunk down in your seats, look at each other, you made it.

Only this time, instead of London or Paris, it’s just San Francisco, and the Caltrain is taking you back to real life, Monday morning, team meeting at 8:30.

Still, a nice break, as such things go – and proof that all you need for travel is an iPhone and a signal.

Well, the iPhone client resists allowing it, but there should be a pic here of the championship ring for the 2010 World Champion San Francisco Giants. Designed and produced by Tiffany and Co. and based on the 1933 championship ring, it’s white gold with 77 diamonds weighing approx. 1 carat and yellow gold accents including a Golden Gate icon on one shank.

Championship rings are something that almost every guy will look on with a certain amount of reverence. Even something as simple as my brother’s state championship ring from high school basketball is impressive in its way. Makes me wish we’d had rings for our state championship in 1989 for scholars bowl…

But when you get right down to it, I have two championship rings. One went along with a masters degree and a University Graduate Fellowship from a nationally prestigious institution, which is meant to serve as some sort of validation that I was really smart once upon a time. The other championship ring can be found on my left hand. 🙂

The Masters is a microcosm of everything that’s wrong with this country: a contrived event, inaccessible to most except on television, operated by a tight clique that wants to stop time about 1959, and yet hyped to the stars as the be-all and end-all of sports. Oooh how pretty, ooooh look azaleas, ooooh the beers are only $3, oooooh a tradition unlike any other. Please. If Grantland Rice hadn’t had to fill column inches on the way back from Spring Training, nobody would know where the hell Augusta is. The rest is just the 84 Lumber Classic with better landscaping and the soporific kiss-ass stylings of Jim Nantz.

Anything that you can do while smoking and while somebody else carries your S isn’t a sport. If golf is a sport, so is waiting in line at the airport.

If you think Donald Trump should be President of the United States of America, kill yourself. You are too fucking stupid to live and you deserve to die for the good of the human race.

(cross-posted from Anchor of Gold)

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it three or four times: when in Vanderbilt’s situation, every non-conference football game should either be a guaranteed win or an opportunity to elevate the program. Non-conference games against the likes of UAB or MTSU or even Duke offer very little reward and a lot to lose, while the national picture has proven that as long as you go 13-0 or 14-0, nobody cares who the 13 or 14 actually were. Cupcakes, layups, whatever you want to call them; that’s our slate.

Except.

If you have a chance to go to Columbus and play Ohio State, one of the Mount Rushmore-type programs and most storied traditions in college football, you have to take it. It elevates the program. It puts us on the stage against a power team. If we get blown away – same old Vandy, whatever, but better to take such a blow from a national title contender than from UConn.

But…

App State beat Michigan. JMU beat Virginia Tech. Any given Saturday and all that – there’s no reason to think Ohio State is any less vulnerable, and they’ve struggled in early-season OOC games before. I don’t think CJF would put this game on the board if he thought we were going to Columbus to get the beatdown and slink back with a 56-0 loss on the board.

Here’s the thing: we’re not going up there with 2010 Vanderbilt to play 2010 Ohio State. We’re going to face a team that could well be reeling from NCAA penalties, that might well have somebody other than Jim Tressel at the controls – and we’ll be going after two years of James Franklin’s coaching, recruiting, and promotion, and hopefully improved administration support to boot. This game is a bet: that within two years, Coach Franklin will have pulled us up off the mat, cinched up our gloves, mopped off the blood and given us a puncher’s chance. And besides, isn’t it time we joined the long SEC tradition of pummeling that other conference?

This is what the new era of Vanderbilt football is about. We don’t shirk from the challenge. We don’t shy away from taking on the big boys. We don’t make excuses about how hard our conference schedule is, we don’t cringe at anything that might take that sixth win away, we don’t tuck tail and run. We stand, we fight. Anywhere, anytime, anybody. If you want to put a motto on the crest of the CJF era, make it this: NON TIMEBO MALA.

I. Will. Fear. No. Evil.

All in?

ALL. IN.

It was my second chance, which was my first mistake.

I first started looking at grad school in the spring of my junior year of college, just around the same time I accepted that I was not going to be able to save my undergraduate experience from crash-roll-and-burning. My first official visit was Emory, in Atlanta, and I had the unusual experience of being put up in their guest lodging and being reimbursed for the mileage of driving over. I bought a T-shirt, I took the flyers for the PowerBook offerings in their computer store, I met with two faculty (including Alan Abramowitz – how different would my life have been if I’d wound up apprenticed there?), and – oh irony – I watched the Giants beat the Braves that night in my guest room, kicking off a chase for the ages in the NL West, the last real pennant race.

And thus began the grad school hunt. I invoked the help of faculty. I did research. I actually took the practice GRE before taking it once for real (as opposed to just rolling out of bed and taking the SAT and ACT the way I had in high school, with no more prep than making sure to eat bacon and eggs instead of cereal). I even found myself counseled by the director of graduate studies at one of the top five programs for political science in the country – albeit one that didn’t offer funding for first-year grad students. I made sure all my applications were in by Thanksgiving break, including a mad run back to campus to print out personal statements and another mad run to the airport to make sure everything went in FedEx on time.

In short, I did everything I should have done but didn’t when applying to college. And that was the mistake – I was looking to hit the reset button on my college experience, rather than pick out the most suitable graduate school. Which is how I wound up going to a school that offered me the best funding package – but which was in retrospect the lowest-ranked program of the five I got into. (For the record, the other four were Wisconsin, Emory, Washington-St Louis, and Florida State, and how different would my life have been at any of those?)

I think about this now because it has lately occurred to me that college was when spring stopped being good and turned into a misery of exploding allergies and creeping doom. Weather getting hotter, the bleak prospects of needing to find a job for the summer, the misery of moving back home and going back to being miles from anything. Not good. For a decade after starting undergrad, 1994 was the only positive flicker, because I was leaving undergrad and heading north. Even that was bittersweet, because I was still stuck with a psychotic girlfriend and I could already feel the regret at having wasted four years.

Since then? Mixed bag. 2001 came closest to the good ol’ days, with the promise of a new beginning involving a girl from California and the not-inconsequential advent of Mac OS X. But spring thereafter always seemed to mean swamped with work , swamped with work and planning for a job change, or swamped with work and getting married, and the pollen. Always the pollen. At one point, it led to a prescription of three different drugs and a steroid injection for my nose, just do I could inhale enough to get back to the office.

Spring is supposed to be the promise of a new beginning. When the early morning sun sends filtered light down through a canopy of pale green new leaves, and it’s still just shirtsleeve-cool at 8 AM, you can almost believe it. But my new beginnings are always in fall, when the heat breaks and Saturdays bring football. Spring usually just means trouble on the way…