A friend of mine wrote a musical. I knew he'd been working on it for a few years. I mainly knew because he asked me to go to some recording studio and scream into a microphone for a demo reel. After a few takes, they thanked me for my time and sent me home. Not a soul was surprised. I'm a writer, not a yeller.
Then one day years later, he mentioned, in passing, that his musical was being...
i recently had reason to go on facebook and came upon this lovely bit of history. glad stacey wrote it down as i failed to and it was nearly lost. i don't recall this bit of wisdom but it surely has marty's thumbprint all over it. thank you stacey!
there is a handful of humans who think i have it too easy. they believe that the world just opens up before me and provides me undue rewards and riches. these boons come in all sorts of sizes and looks. my assumption has always been that everyone gets these sorts of things. they can be as big as scoring the mother i did and as small as getting the good table by the window. those that don't know me...
it was the last day of elementary for anthony and it was the last day of middle school for alex. when anthony and i were walking to school, our last one-mile walk to school ever (next year he will be taking the bus), i asked him if we would remember this final day with any sort of vividness or if it would just blend into the soup like most days. he said we probably wouldn't remember it in any special way other than it happened. sadly, i had to agree.
after dropping anthony off and returning home, i went to alex's middle school graduation. when the ceremony was over he came home with me to start his summer. we were home for about an hour before we had to walk back up to anthony's school to greet him for his end of school and start of summer. alex and i got there a few minutes before the last bell and grabbed a comfy spot on this bench in front of the school. we waved and chatted with the other families as they arrived. many people commented on how big alex (and his hair) had gotten. then the kids started getting released and there were lots of whoops and cheers and smiles.
anthony spotted us and joined us on the bench. we sat for a bit chatting with each other and folks passing by. after a bit the boys asked if we should start heading home. i said we should wait a minute. they asked why. i told them that when you were a celebrity it was good to make yourself available to the people, so they could see you out in public and take you in. the boys looked at each other and then started taking turns making jokes about me. the short story was that if i WERE a celebrity sticking around might be a nice thing to do BUT since i was just a loser who didn't know how to dress, we were probably safe to start home. when they were mostly done, i said that i would bet them that in the next minute someone would ask to take our picture. they looked at one another, deemed it a safe bet and said i was on. with some ceremony, anthony raised his wrist, called out the time, and the game was afoot.
he held his hand out so both he and alex could see the second hand charging around the watch face. they called out the times. 30 seconds left. 20 seconds left. 15. 10. just after they called out the number 5, a woman stepped forward and said, "well look at this handsome set of men, would you mind if i took your picture?"
the boys looked at each other in shock and disbelief. they then fell into hysterics, aided by my tickling them. while they reacted i calmly said to the lady, "yes, of course, we would love to have our picture taken." and that is what led to the below series of photos.
now part of me feels that fathers, like magicians, should never reveal their trade secrets but in this case it is only fair to let you in a bit more on this moment. as the boys started suggesting we head home i noticed a woman had seen us on the bench and was making her way toward us. and it wasn't just any woman but marty's best friend jona. i had seen a phone in her hand so had a sense she was going to ask for a picture since marty couldn't be here at pickup (marty had to go back to work after alex's graduation), and jona is thoughtful like that. on her way to us a family stopped jona to chat. this was when the boys started asking if we could go and i brokered the bet. i was hoping, desperately in the end, that jona could peel away from her conversation before my minute was up. my hope almost didn't come true, as you could see the boys got all the way to 5, but because of the last second save, it made the moment all the more dramatic. as you'd imagine, jona was a bit perplexed at the boys reaction and is why she thankfully snapped this series of images, images i am super-grateful to have.
the best part of this expertly and luckily executed plan is anthony and i will now forever remember not only his last day of elementary, but his last moment of elementary.
i have mentioned him twice before (way back in
2013 and again in
2014).
for the last few years, st. louis has spooled up a bit of an indie game thing. enough so that folks around the country were noticing it. enough so that a film studio in california sent a crew out here to make a documentary about it. as the film team began their work interviewing the known studios they ended each interview by asking the dev shops if there is anyone in particular they should talk with. all of them unanimously said "the coster boys over at butterscotch". after repeated recommendations, the movie men reached out and scheduled a twenty minute informational session. that meeting lasted three hours.
the next day the film crew re-contacted the coster boys and (1) thanked them for their time and (2) asked if they might be interested in having a feature length film done about their story. they said yes. well, technically they said, "heck yes" turning the typically two syllable phrase, somehow, into a five syllable verbal roller coaster because that is just what they do in life.
the documentary just came out. here are some related matters:
today i'm going to talk about someone else's list: famous year-end list pusher TIME Magazine. this year i have the honor of knowing one of the people on one of their lists. a dear friend of mine produced a game that made TIMEs list of TOP 10 GAMES OF 2016 (#7). the game is called crashlands.
for those who know my friend's story know that this is an extra-poignant victory on numerous levels. in short, my friend got sent through life's wringer being told at the mature age of 24 that the odds of him being alive in a year's time were quite bleak. hell, i think there was a time they said if he was alive in a month, it would be rather miraculous. if you've ever seen first-hand a greater example of tragedy, devastation, spirit, strength, resilience and perseverance i would deem you a most-fortunate individual as witnessing this young man's ordeal changed me in no small way.
for those of you who don't know my friend's story, here's an abbreviated version of the crashlands saga (in list form):
sam graduated college and started making kooky ios games with his brother, seth (e.g. piloting a rocket ship with occasionally working controls through an asteroid belt)
sam and seth, working as butterscotcth shenanigans, saw modest but growing success with their early games.
out of nowhere the crazily-healthy sam was told he had stage 4 cancer. the day before he thought he was coming down with a cold. three days before he beat his also crazily-healthy brother seth in a three-mile footrace.
it was bad. all very bad.
modern medicine met super-human samuel coster and a chance, albeit a meager one, was found.
in the middle of the multi-month, in-hospital treatment sam said to seth, "i don't want the last game i make before i die to be about a sloth riding a motorcycle through the jungle."
the next day the first crashlands neuron was fired.
months later sam rang the bell and walked out of the cancer treatment ward, a free and cured man.
crashlands development began in earnest and began to take for-real shape over the next year.
the cancer returned. bigger and bolder.
a half-year medical battle was waged, again.
sam rang that bell, reserved for few, a second time.
crashland's work resumed.
after more than two years of effort, and two cancer treatments, including a bone-marrow transplant, the game was released.
as for how crashlands did, its first week out it sat right below minecraft as the most popular iPad game, ready to be the first to knock Minecraft off the #1 perch it held for more than a year. while they never succeeded in taking the pole position, assuming the second spot in today's flood of games is a remarkable feat in itself.
and it also did well enough for time magazine to name it a top ten game of 2016 which is representative of the popular and commercial success it saw.
and lastly, if you're wondering what a kooky ios game looks and sounds like, get a taste of the coster boys work and style below. the voice you hear is sam's.
oh, and there's also a documentary coming out about all of this. the last i heard it is scheduled for release on january 21st, 2017
one last thing. regarding the second round of treatment sam went through. to erradicate the cancer, they, the doctors, had to, essentially, kill him, sam, to kill the cancer that re-invaded his body. when both were dead or in sam's case, walked right to the door of death, the doctors would attempt to nurse him, and just him and not the cancer, back to a healthy state, which they were astonishly able to do. since watching sam shoulder that hell-wrought wildcard from life's deck, i've never looked at another of my "trials" the same.
speaking of food (yesterday), the fiancé of a good friend of mine just started documenting her nurturing her newfound love of food and food-making. and, it doesn't take long to see that her style of 'documentation' is a bit richer and deeper than most folks form of documentation.
I think the relationship between food and our bodies is magical. One moment you can be looking at the apple in your hand, and the very next it is inside of you, becoming part of you - your cells, your bones, your heart, your brain.
and her instagram page should come with a full-on warning as i first looked in on it before bed and can tell you that that is a wicked kind of mistake.
https://instagram.com/diana.zeng
and a few days after seeing this alex caught her fiance, and my friend, super-sam, slipping something into our mail slot. upon opening the door and surprising him he confessed that he was dropping off a chocolate bar he just made for us to try out. later, when opening it up for the family to try, i found a personalized note on the wrapper's backside (you're not going to get that with hershey!!!) part of which said:
I recently began making chocolate from scratch. It's a 3 ingredient recipe. This has a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and is a bit melty to the touch. I'm working on the latter issue.
There's also a mustache emblazoned on the back. Because why not!?
my favorite birthday correspondence from last week
this comes from a friend and former neighbor who is now living in germany.
Peter and I were reminiscing about you and Marty a couple of weeks ago. We were at an International Fair at Drew and Meredith's school. Parents from each country represented in the school (about 50 countries) had booths with typical foods from their home country. It was a feast! The American tent had chili, rice crispy treats, candy, chips and soda. Yes, as sad as that sounds, that's what we're known for. Peter and I might hijack the booth next year and do pulled pork, slaw and baked beans, layered in a large cup like a trifle dessert .... but I digress.
The booth next to the American booth was Korean. There, high above the table, hung the sign Korean Bulgogi. I remember Troy describing one of his favorite dishes that you were preparing that night and the favorite restaurant that served it. He asked if I was familiar. No, I wasn't, but gosh it sounded good. A few hours later, one of your offspring rang the doorbell and handed me a plastic container of bulgogi and rice. "Here. My dad wanted you to try this. Bye." Mmmm, it IS good!
we've had some great dinner table questions as of late. things like:
if the kids were here home alone, and one of you, let's say anthony or alex, were reaching onto the counter for something and cut the underside of the forearm deeply--like deep where blood was pulsing out of the cut--what would you do?
what do you think makes someone a good conversationalist?
...
what follows is a talk my friend sam gave at a gave developer microtalk event. the talks of the night, expectedly, dealt with coding and development and the act of creating. mercifully batting cleanup, sam's talk, generically lableled PROCESS, blew the lid off the tenth floor of a twenty-five story building.
I still have a viola, purchased in a sprint of optimism two year...
i had lunch with a friend. we talked about many things. family, both immediate and extended. the generational divide in belief and approach. he talked about how disengaged his parents were with his children. he went on to add that he shouldn't be all that surprised because they weren't all that engaged with him when he was young. now rolling in his deconstruction of the relationships he said the following, and i'm paraphrasing here:
my girls are the only two people i will know for every minute of their lives. i mean i saw them enter this world. i held them moments after. i cleaned maggie off minutes later. and i've seen every moment since. i get to witness them experience the world for the first time and am watching them turn into adults before my eyes, and get to help mold and direct that. i mean how f'ing amazing is that. how could you not want to be part of that if you're fortunate enough to have the chance?
when he paused i complimented his beautiful verbalizing of the experience, confessing i had never thought of it in just that way—that as a parent you get to experience nearly every facet of a child's experience in this world and how that isn't going to happen anywhere else, like ever again, except for maybe as a grandparent if you're lucky enough to have grandkids and live long enough to see it but even then you will spend much of the time in the next room, thus making your parental run all the more special. then, selfishly, i expressed my dismay at not verbalizing that sentiment before he just did (and me over-thinking just about anything kid related that can be ruminated on).
a young friend of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer. it arrived with a suddeness and ferocity that is hard to comprehend, let alone understand. the manner in which this young man, sam, has shouldered this dark card in his deck is as hard to comprehend as the event itself. i have twenty years of life experience over this fellow and even had the privilege of once calling myself his teacher, and he has faced this moment with a maturity and courage i don't think i've ever witnessed first-hand, like ever. suffice it to say i often feel as though i'm the one in the auditorium looking up at him standing tall and confident at the lecturn. to give you a taste of this young man, i share his latest broadcast from his company web-site:
When I got my cancer diagnosis in November I was completely blindsided. I went in on a Friday afternoon to get a lumpy piece of my chest checked out and the doc, calm as a hurricane eye, stepped back from the table and crossed his hands.
"You're...how old?"
"I'm 23."
"This is going to... sound strange. I'm nearly certain that this is cancer. You'll need to get it cut out as soon as possible."
I went out to my car and had an earthshattering bawlfest that lasted a brief 4 minutes. Then I called my brother Seth, the programming half of our studio.
We are a two-man team, doing everything from inception to launch on the games we make. In telling him about the diagnosis I admitted I was terrified that this cancer would take our fledgling indie studio and throw it under the ground, as it may throw me. Seth reassured me and became my chauffeur for the next week as we went up to Iowa from St. Louis to do surgery, get the diagnosis complete, and figure out treatment.
It was Stage 4 lymphoma. It was on my spleen, my liver, my pelvis, my entire lymph system. The docs at the time said it might even be in my spinal fluid. A PET scan showed that my insides, rather than consisting of nice fleshy pinkness, were a coating of tumor. Despite how aggressive the cancer was, I was given a 65%-ish cure rate. Chemo was to begin the next week before I decided to up and die from tumor load.
The two weeks between diagnosis and treatment was a true whirlwind of activity and emotion. It wasn't until after I received my first chemo infusion that my anxiety settled and Seth and I sat down to begin again on our project at the time, Extreme Slothcycling.
As we began to plan a wry feeling started bubbling up from my chest. Something about this was wrong. Hysterically wrong. I interrupted Seth as he was in mid marker-swing across the whiteboard.
"Seth. I don't want Extreme Slothcycling to be the last game I make before I die."
you can follow the adventure, and get plugged into their next game which my alex is feverishly awaiting, at their website butterscotch shenanigans.
if personality equalled stock portfolio, these two would be in the fortune 500
i have a friend (and former student) who makes iphone games. he works with his brother and they are a most colorful duo. every week they send a mailer out to their followers about what they've been up to. there's always loads of kookiness in their sendings but then again, who'd expect anything less from a group that calls themselves butterschotch shenanigans. at the base of a recent update mailer was the following.
and before you start, and if you're like me, i'll save you the trouble of looking up the fact the TL;DR stands for "too long, didn't read".
TL;DR
We're delaying the iOS launch until we get some engine-sourced bugs DESTROYED.
Our Android users are lovely people who are putting up with our crashing bugfest quite splendidly.
If an Android QR player and an iOS QR player meet on the street in some distant utopian future, the iOS user should say "Hey, thanks for making this game better for the first time I booted it up, even though I hate you for having it way earlier." And then they should high-five and bro-fist pound.
Towelfight 2 is still free on iOS!
TTLDRWTLSIDRI ("The tl:dr was too long so I didn?t read it")
were i to use twitter i would not only be brief in characters (as mandated by them) i'd also be brief in contributions (as mandated by myself). after some thought, i've concluded my one and only contribution to the twitter morass would be the following.
in life, always:
1. act with respect.
2. make mature choices.
honor those and you will sleep well and hit life's end line content and grinning.
the above text is taken near verbatim from an email exchange with a former student, who is now graduated and i need to just start calling a friend given our ongoing relationship. he and i have shared two lunches recently. the first to celebrate a new responsibility given to him at the dream job he secured six months ago. the second lunch, just a few weeks later, focused on how he could depart the company. it turns out the owner, who at first seemed to be a warm and patronly mentor is mildly, but not quietly, deranged. when sam explained what had gone on, i expressed surprise that he hadn't left already. one week after the second lunch i received an early morning email from sam announcing his plan to put an end to the crazy job this day. usually i'm not a spry mail responder (like, that happens at nine, ya know) but given the import of the moment, i took a minute to dash off a quick reply, hence the brevity of the message. the only bit removed involves a statement that no matter how the world around you (e.g. shitheel boss) behaves make sure to conduct yourself with grace and aplomb.
i have a friend who is an outdoorsman, both out of interest and profession. whenever i have an expensive or uncertain purchase to make, i reach out to him and each time he answers. virtually every time i hear back from him (as i try not to pester him too often), i'm astonished anew at his breadth of insight and depth of his thoughtfulness. being a collector of thoughtful objects i wished to add th...
in response to aleo's card yesterday, a friend sent me a note their kid wrote, saying she wished she could claim aleo's instead of her daughters. while i wouldn't trade aleo's note for the world, i can confess to being crazy jealous that one of my kids isn't responsible for the following: please come see me.
the downside of nicknames is you don't get to pick your own.
yesterday while remembering erik, i recalled another memory. it dealt with his nickname, skip. all of the guys in the band had nicknames. there was scarecrow and two-beer, and bee-keeper and eventually nick the new guy among others. it certainly seemed to be a simple and expected part of the terrain which they all accepted, all but erik. he was the one guy who seemed to dislike his nickname. after observing this distaste, one day when the group was sitting around, i asked about his reluctant moniker. erik's countenance winced at the question but all the other guys chuckled and looked at one another as if deciding who would be the lucky one to get to share the story.
miguel, the guitarist, got tapped. he explained that erik was always a very good and conscientious student and son. one day his high school friends had talked him into skipping soccer practice to go screw around with them. erik was against the choice but his friends chided him into doing it through the usual adolescent tactics. so erik relented and didn't go to his practice and hung out, reluctantly, with the guys instead, where they did something completely inconsequential and unmemorable. as it turned out, on this day, the first day ever erik skipped his soccer practice and was not where he was supposed to be, his father, also for the first time ever, left work early to come see his son's soccer practice. ever since that day, erik was, to his obvious chagrin, forever known as skip.
always my answer to what kind of music do you like.
in the early 90's a former high-school classmate of marty's invited marty and i to a concert. the friend's name was ligaya and her brother's band was performing in a local venue. as for me, i never met this ligaya NOR did i know anything about this band AND i had recently sworn off loud and smoky bar scenes so was highly unenthused about event. marty wanted to see her friend but didn't want to go alone so asked, kindly, if i would take one for the team and go with her. i relented.
upon seeing us arrive, ligaya waved us to some seats she had near the stage of an intimate local venue (the duck room of blueberry hill). ligaya proved to be a charismatic and engaging young woman. she and i quickly discovered a shared fondness for latin american literature and began exchanging thoughts on books and authors. while ligaya and i lost ourselves in our impromptu book chat, marty caught up with other old friends also at the table. so compelling was the ligaya time, (coupled with the fact i was facing away from the stage) i lost track of time and my surroundings for while ligaya and i were deep into borges, the band had taken their places on the stage, donned their equipment and were primed to play. so it was without warning that the sentence i was in the middle of was interrupted by the distinct clap of drumsticks as the drummer called out one-two-three-four in unison with the clicks. hearing this call, i turned towards the stage. i found i was sitting less than three feet in front of the horn section of a six-piece band. before i could blink twice to adjust my eyes to the stage lights, the horns let me have it. if my hair was the kind of hair that moved, it would have moved. before the first song was over, i had become the most ardent fan this group would ever know.
their name was the secret cajun band and they were a lively ska band comprised of young men that were every bit as lively and interesting as the songs they wrote and performed. their act was indescribable. it was a constant sea of unpredictable motion and antics. you'd constantly marvel at their ability to play an instrument while skipping merrily across the stage or balancing one-footed on a speaker or running, vigorously, in place. halfway through the show they were soaked through with sweat but the fans were even moreso as they were also driven to motion and excitement through the raw energy that emanated from the stage.
after that first night where those horns transformed me, i never missed a local show. their cassette (it was in the early nineties, mind you) was the only tape my car stereo played for more than two years. i, and at times marty, became a mainstay at a scb concerts. i'd help them carry equipment in or out, i'd watch the merchandise table, i even once was called up on stage to help sing big house with skip and skank with miguel. through my constant and doting presence, i came to know the band members. as for them, they grew up together and had a camaraderie and comfort i'd think all young men, lacking such pals, covet and i was surely no exception. they were such a colorful and quirky lot my relationship with each proved unique. some were easy and light, a few strained and awkward, a couple grew mature in time.
one of the relationships, the one i want to speak of today, was with the lead singer, erik, referred to as Skip by his bandmates. erik was a charming and handsome young man with lots of quiet charisma. add to this a soulful ability on the sax and top it all off with a distinct and strong singing voice. to an awkward musically incompetent fanboy like me, erik was just about everything a young introvert could hope for. in time, erik, marty and i became friendly. after shows we would sometimes sit for twenty minutes and after praising the night's production would talk about any and all topics. on a few occasions we went out to eat after a show. these would inevitably be at some all night diner where we'd continue our talks over soggy burgers and even soggier pancakes. on these more involved outings a common conversation point was relationships. in hindsight i got the sense that erik admired the straight and simple relationship marty and i shared just like i admired the exotic and famous lifestyle i imagined he lived. i still remember those late night conversations in those overly bright diners (extra-accented given where we just came from) like they happened five days ago and not fifteen years back.
the reason i bring this up is that erik rogers died yesterday. those of you who knew him, or his family, may have been keeping up on this, but a few weeks ago erik fell off a ladder while working in his backyard and was gravely injured in the fall. at the time of this accident, he was long past the music scene and was a working man and the father of two young girls. while it's obviously hard to see any young person unexpectedly pass, especially a father of young children, it is extra hard to loose those that were so bright with life and promise. completely heartbreaking.
i leave you with some of my favorite erik-sung cajun band songs from their big house album:
BELLA
mom, has dad been wearing the same pair of shorts for awhile now?
MARTY
well, yes, but he has a couple pair of them.
BELLA (reflectively)
oh. ok. that's good ... that he has more than one pair. i guess.
the worst thing marty may have ever said to me was that not only did my capris look nicer than my cut-off jean-shorts, but that they actually looked good on me.
my two best friends got to see me in my new manpris recently. one said they looked less girly than he expected and the other said it made my butt look fat. my fashion style has long aimed for a less-girly sort of look so it's nice to see me in the vicinity there and regarding my butt looking big, my butt is big.
i was at a small dinner party of a friend almost ten years ago. while there an older lady struck up a conversation with me. she had a thick accent which she told me was bosnian. she asked what i did for a living and i told her i was in technology, web-technologies specifically. to this she lit up, put a hand on my arm, and asked if i would talk to her son, zavisa, who was in school studying graphic design and had interest in "this web stuff". being part of a burgeoning industry such requests were frequent so i easily said sure, of course i would talk to her boy, knowing that serious inquiries rarely followed, especially ones that began with a mother's nudge.
this was not to be the case here. a few days later i received a message from the lady's boy, zavisa, or zavi to be kind to ethnocentric, american mouths. the message was quite long by today's hurried, email standards. in it he explained his studies and interests. he forwarded me a number of websites he had done for friends and university organizations and asked my opinion about his work. given the effort he put into this message, i replied in kind, reviewing his sites, making notes where i thought things could be improved, and commenting on his work's general strengths and weaknesses. when i hit reply i figured he would deem this mine empty and move on. again, this was not to be the case. he replied with another long email asking for clarification on some points, questioning others and with this our exchanges continued for several rounds. in time he gave me a profuse thank you and that was that.
more than five years later i bumped into zavisa through a co-worker. zavi was doing well in life and work as his earlier, voracious emails would imply such a mind would. he's gone on to become an everyman judge and represents one of my most thorough and eager eyes. at last year's everyman party he and his girlfriend arrived late, coming through the door as marty and i were saying goodbye to what we thought was our last guest. zavi, his girlfriend laura, and i sat by the fire and chatted, catching up. he expressed dissatisfaction in his job. i'm going to blame my severe fatigue at the moment but i fear i came on strong in my response. i all but chastised him for staying at a job he was unhappy in. i listed his many skills, his many gifts and said it was crazy that someone as talented as him do anything he doesn't want to. i even pulled out the dreaded "if i had your skills when i was your age, what i could have done" bit, which in some regards is valid but in so many more is not. again, i was deathly tired. his response was that the market sucked and no one was hiring. to this i said i never knew a passion that waited for a market. passion is passion and if you have it you just do it whether you're paid or given benefits or not. when he left i felt poorly about the conversation. i like and respect zavisa and felt that i was overly heavy-handed with him at what should have been a simple and relaxing social encounter.
a few months later i received an invitation to zavi's thirtieth birthday party. these days i go out a handful of times a year, but he's always been supportive and helpful to me so i decided to turn in one of my few kitchen passes with marty to go to the saturday night event. when i arrived the apartment was filled with people all more than ten years younger than myself that i didn't know. i made my way through the shotgun layout to find zavi and laura churning out custom pizzas for their guests (it was a make your own pizza party). i chitted and chatted with folks practicing my cold conversation skills and then got to catch up with zavi in the back. remembering something he lit up and said he had a cool thing to tell me. it was this. laura was out of town at a conference and he was left alone for the weekend. a friend had asked him for a bread recipe. when he went about getting it together, he had a notion of doing something a little different than just boringly typing out the steps and sending an email and instead spent a few hours of his solo-weekend afternoon making a graphical version of the recipe (shown below). when it was done he posted it to his facebook page. shortly after that it was picked up by reddit. and shortly after that he was contacted by two men asking if he wanted to collaborate on a project with them. when he asked more about the two men he came to learn one of them was an internet pioneer who created a recent-ish technology anyone reading this page uses and benefits from daily.
i'm surely not going to imply that my passion talk in december had anything to do with this success (believe me, i wish i could take credit for zavi's body of work) but this is definitely what my passion-talk was about. kudos zavi for this success and the others that are sure to follow in its wake. beautiful and inspiring stuff.
when i talked about swimming a mile and shared the schedule, i commented that it looked less impressive on paper than it felt achieving the goal. a surprising number of people commented on my choice of words and said i was wrong and it did look impressive. but yesterday one fellow in particular, a friend i used to work with, took it a giant step farther than the other folks by vividly proving me wrong.
fact of the matter is, he was a bit astonished that i didn't graph it myself and instead used a pedestrian and mockable table to showcase the data. i have no defense but his email charting my effort put a big and excited smile across my face. thank you ryan b.
a friend and former neighbor sent me the below email and pictures she recently happened upon.
Troy,
I was combing through my photos in search of candidates for 8x10 frames. This series made me pause. Not sure if you've seen them before. I think they capture your spirit to a tee. Appropriately, I named this section of photos "Fun with Troy". Not your typical dad. Most would never dream of letting kids climb on top of their vehicle. It's no surprise that you still make time to play Ogre with the kids at school.
this moment happened as i was driving home from work. a mess of neighborhood kids, including my two, were playing a few doors down from our house. all the moms were in huddles and sitting on steps chatting and commiserating. i pulled to the curb to say hello to the group. with the alacrity of a military operation, my car was besieged by the little ones (which was most likely set in motion by a war-like cry from bella). as suggested in the above note, my now-twenty-year-old car was (and is) treated as a playground apparatus. much of the coolness of this was lost on my children who climbed on my car in front of our house all the time, the same could not be said of the other kids who weren't allowed to climb on and in and around their parents cars so for them it was still pretty cool stuff.
i thank miss anne for (1) capturing these images back in the day and (2) taking the time to pass them along now. taking them in, and seeing a mini-bella and a tiny-aleo, reproduced the smile seen in the first image below. thank you miss anne.
and as a side note, i think had she told me she was in possession of a directory of images titled FUN WITH TROY that was from my past and didn't tell me the nature of subject matter, she may have been able to blackmail a pretty penny from my uncertainty. i guess i owe anne another thank you for not cleaning out the $64 in my savings account.
allow me to direct your attention to the girl in the passenger seat, who is not my child,
who is taking a giant pull from my water bottle.
the only surprise here is that drew beat bella to the top of the car,
via the sunroof of course.
that roof-spot is for a number of reasons, considered the catbird seat
i don't know what they're are pointing and laughing at,
but odds are it is not something in my favor.
good money could be put down on it being vomit or feces related.
one look at bella's face confirms that children come without guile or deception.
kids come to us clean and pristine. the uncertainty and insecurities come from the adults.
while i was fully prepared to do a lap with them glued hooey-blooey to all parts of the car,
a few of the moms thought that may not be prudent.
(and look at how close the side mirror is to completely capturing aleo's adorable little face.
how perfect would that have been.)
thanks again anne! you made my day!
you also made the day's posting much more colorful than what was originally planned. hat tipped.
I had never heard of Stieg Larsson or his novels until I wrote a paper about him earlier this year. He died intestate and his live-in girlfriend of 30 years received nothing from his estate. Everything went to his "estranged" father and brother (at least his girlfriend claims they were estranged). Larsson was a heavy smoker and died of a heart attack after walking up five flights of steps because the elevator was broken. He died before any of his novels were actually published so he never lived to see literary success. His fourth and final novel is on a laptop that his girlfriend is holding as ransom. So maybe it's only fitting that the technology reference remains...it probably references the computer that holds Larsson's last novel.
it's quite amazing any of us are any sort of normal or sane.
after bella asked me about girls and bras a few weeks back and i had to confess ignorance, i emailed a girl i knew in my elementary school days who has a son around the same age as bella. it read:
hey carrie,
if you help me answer my daughter's questions (link), i promise to help you with any curve balls your son may throw your way.
troy.
reliable as always, carrie responded, and in great detail, with the following:
The short answer is YES! And the long answer starts way back at Bauder Elementary school in the 5th grade! My guess is 5th grade is closer to 3rd grade in this day and age. It all started with one girl, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, who matured, filled out, developed long before the rest of us! Once she got a bra, it started the bra rolling (I mean ball rolling). Then each day someone new came with one, this had nothing to do with whether or not they actually needed one. Let me just say, some of us may not have ever needed one until child birth, but that is another whole story of how children change your life forever! So yes many of the girls followed suit and got bras. The crazy thing is that the girl who started it finished her growth spurt by 6th grade and never got any taller. The rest of the girls who were further behind still grew taller and taller. So what may have seemed like an advantage (1st one to get a bra) turned out to not be such a advantage at all.
then days ago marty was telling me about a friend of ours whose daughter just got a breast bud and how that phase of maturity would be starting for us soon. i first asked marty to describe what a breast bud was. she did. i next asked marty if she meant to say that the girl got just one, and if she still had one budless side. marty said that yes, that is what she said and that is how it tends to happen. marty went on to tell the story of when her first breast bud popped, she was sure it was cancer and remembered specifically thinking about how sad her mom was going to be that one of her daughters was dying.
the blank, lifeless stare i gave marty during my breast bud tutorial was not due to a lack of understanding. it was due to an exaggerated sense of understanding and an immense gratitude that when it all began for me one of the two face-down cards i was dealt had a giant Y on its face.
a friend made a great observation/addition to my natural gift theory. first, a refresher:
i believe all people get dealt one natural gift and one demon. the natural gift is something they can do better than 99% of people without even trying. the demon is some non-positive trait they will struggle with even when exerting great will against the vice. through these i believe one's satisfaction, success, and fulfillment in life comes from one's ability to (1) identify and leverage their gift and (2) tame and control their demon.
to this my friend added that the very most effective, and successful people are those who not only identify and check their personal foe, but also turn it to their favor, using it as fuel for some productive or competitive element. in example, an athlete using a rage issue in their sport or a compulsive person using their obsessions for detailed labors such as art, coding or other creative outlets.
in thinking on this for a moment, it seems this fella is a natural to point this out because when he was in his twenties he swam the english channel and two summers ago, while in his early-forties, he ran an unsupported fifty mile foot-race on the spine of a mountain range. i believe the race was called the devil's backbone. i also believe that in addition to carrying his own water filtration system, he also had to carry a can of bear mace. i guess once you've put your personal demons behind you, a bear on the weekend is nothing but child's play.
their name was the secret cajun band and they were a lively ska band comprised of young men that were every bit as lively and interesting as the songs they wrote and performed. their act was indescribable. it was a constant sea of unpredictable motion and antics. you'd constantly marvel at their ability to play an instrument while skipping merrily across the stage or balancing one-footed on a speaker or running, vigorously, in place. halfway through the show they were soaked through with sweat but the fans were even moreso as they were also driven to motion and excitement through the raw energy that emanated from the stage.
