Going up north next week

Oct. 12 wifie and I will fly to Minneapolis.

















We'll spend Thursday night near the airport, then drive 4 hours to Moorhead, MN and visit the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center that includes information about the region's Scandinavian roots.













Next, we'll drive 3 hours to Bemidji, MN (also see here) where the Mississippi River begins within Itasca State Park.

There we will spread the ashes of wifie's late husband as he had requested.







The next day we'll drive 6 hours back to St. Paul, where we have tickets to see Garrison Keilor's A Prairie Home Companion.

Sunday we'll drive 4 hours down to Madison, WI where we'll check into the University of Wisconsin for my week-long class in energy utility regulation.






I'm sure wifie will enjoy things to do on the campus and in Madison while I'm learning.

After class is done on Friday, we'll check into our motel in Edgerton, WI. Saturday we'll drive back into Madison to attend the Michael Feldman radio show Whad'Ya Know at Monona Terrace, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. So it'll be a National Public Radio trip.

After the show, we'll make a leisurely drive back to Minneapolis, driving through the countryside to enjoy local scenery, crafts and food. We may even pay a visit to Westby, Wisconsin (also see here) where I played a show with Leroy Van Dyke in May 2000.

We return Sunday night to Music City.

I hope to have stories and pictures to post after our return.

Inner Light 1973-77

This is "Inner Light," the band with which I played a total of 362 jobs from late 1973 through April 1977. I'm the one seated in the middle with the leather top hat, which was my trademark.

We were (from left to right behind me) Steve Boyle (bass), Carol Kozelzky (drums), Susan Frazier (vocals) and Jerry Kozelsky (guitar).




We cut our teeth playing Friday and Saturday nights from 8:30 to midnight at the historic Olney Inn in Olney, Maryland during 1974. [The Inn burned down a few years later as the result of a suspicious fire that was later discovered to have been set to collect insurance.]

Here's my then 3 year-old daughter Sheri standing beside me with a melodica.

After Olney Inn, we signed on with Washington Talent Agency in early 1975 and quickly became one of their top bands. The highlight for me was playing Jimmy Carter's Election Night celebration for the Democratic National Convention in November 1976 at the Statler-Hilton in DC. The picture was taken during 1976, when we were at our peak.

Here I am at a video shoot in October 1976.

We played many weddings, bar mitzvahs, bat- mitzvahs and country club dates in suburban Maryland. Each job was a one-time show, requiring us to set up and tear down our equipment. I hauled my Wurlitzer Electric Piano (weighing over 100 lbs. in its case), Peavey Musician amp (also weighing close to 100 lbs.) and other gear in my 1972 Plymouth Custom Suburban station wagon, which must be one of the biggest station wagons ever made.

Here I am mugging at the camera while playing a wedding reception in suburban Maryland.

I look back with fond memories and also with the perspective of 30 years since these pictures were taken.

I resigned from Inner Light in April 1977 to spend more time at home with my children (7 and 5 at the time). My marriage was on the verge of breaking up due to my extended absences on weekends. I thought I would never play professionally again after that, but through a series of "fortunate events" I got back into music in 1988. My marriage did eventually break up, but not until 1994 when the kids were on their own. A second marriage to and the lure of Music City brought me to Nashville in 1998. My second wife died in 2003 of leukemia, and later that year I married for the third time.

Music and love remain central to my life.

What a long, strange trip it's been!

Mirage 1988-91

This is "Mirage," the classic rock band in which I played keyboards and served as leader during 1988-91. This picture was taken early in the band's development, before we headed toward classic rock. I'm the one seated on the right, with my "Freddy Kruger" hat (I never saw the movie, but people told me my hat looked like the one Freddy wore).

I had been out of music professionally for 11 years following my 1973-77 stint in "Inner Light" (see previous post). During a fortuitous vacation to North Carolina's Outer Banks in the summer of 1988, I sat in with "The Wilder Brothers." I thought I would never play again, but lo and behold, my fingers remembered how to play!

Upon my return from vacation that August, I searched the Washington Post classified and found a band that was auditioning keyboard players. I passed the audition.

I remember during the audition the band asked if I could play "Old Time Rock & Roll" by Bob Seeger. I said, "sure, what key?" The bass player, Steve Bray said, "Let's play it in F Sharp." I said to myself, "Whaaaa?" but quickly found the right notes in that weird key and started off the song.

The band was originally going to play pop country, but as the months went on, the band found itself heading toward classic rock instead. This development prompted our leader, Chelsea Gahar, to quit. Thus I found myself not only the keyboard player but also the leader of the band. Since Chelsea had owned the PA and light system, I sold all my AT&T stock (about $5,000 worth), purchased PA and light systems and over the next 3 1/2 years marketed the band to local clubs. We did fairly well, grossing about $50,000 during that time. Mirage enabled me to put my daughter through two years of college.

Our name: We were originally going to call ourselves "Change of Pace," but after we took the picture above, someone noticed the brand name on the prop ("Mirage 1000"), and we all agreed that "Mirage" was a better name for us anyway. At the time the picture was taken, we planned to target the country club/wedding/corporate gig scene, which is very profitable. That's the reason we are pictured in tuxedos, which we almost never wore except for the occasional wedding reception.

Some day I'll write a post about choosing a band name. It's always a hilarious process, usually involving many obscene choices and resulting in much laughter and little progress. When musicians get together, they have a hard time getting serious about anything other than music. Thus after several unsucessful sessions devoted to picking a name, the photo shoot proved to be the source for the name we chose.

We really did play some kick-ass classic rock.

My nerd score

You can tell that I'm not much of a nerd, although my son (now 34) might dispute that.

When I hired on with C&P Telephone Company of Virginia in 1969, they were just completing conversion to a new computer-based language called "USOC" (Universal Service Order Code). Before that, a service representative might type "Black wall phone" on an order for service. Orders were transmitted from the Business Office to the Assignment Office (where cable pairs and central office equipment were assigned), then to the Central Office (where the wires were hooked up) via 5-channel paper tape. It was about 1 inch wide, and the machine punched it with a system of holes that were read by a tape reader. The reader transmitted the orders over a multi-point, hardwired network including terminals each Central Office. After the Business Office was notified that the work was complete, a completed order notice was sent to the Comptrollers in Richmond, which caused a series of punch cards to be created that represented the customer's account. Each month at billing time huge carts laden with these cards were rolled down to the computer room, which had a raised floor and special air conditioning. The mainframe, which I believe was an IBM 640, had an amazing 16Kb of memory.

I was programming linear and multivariate models in VM/CMS on mainframe terminals back in the late 1970s, using a Fortran-based language called Statlib, which meant "Bell System Statistical Computing Library."

In 1984 I purchased a Sinclair on which my son and I used to write little programs. Later that year I bought a PC-1, the original IBM PC with 64Kb of RAM that could be expanded to 640Kb. It cost about $4,000 including a dot-matrix printer.

I remember taking my son to a meeting of the Washington, DC Capitol PC Users' Group. There were less than 100 of us in attendance.

So I suppose I should get "honorary" nerd status. But then, maybe I'm really just a poser.

Jonell Mosser at the library

One of the great things about living in Nashville is that many world-class musicians make their homes here. Today at Noon a friend and I walked a few blocks from the office to the public library to hear Jonell Mosser perform.

















Jonell has sung in the studio with Etta James, Rodney Crowell, Patti Smyth, Vince Gill, B. B. King, Wynonna, A. J. Croce, John Gorka, Waylon Jennings, Trisha Yearwood, Maura O'Connell, Lee Roy Parnell and many others.

She recorded and performed as The New Maroons with Ringo Starr, Don Was, Benmont Tench and Mark Goldenberg, including a performance at Farm Aid, and has also performed with Delbert McClinton, Levon Helm, John Prine and Keb Mo'. Bonnie Raitt brought her on stage at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to share the lead vocal on Prine's "Angel From Montgomery". Jonell has appeared on TV shows "The Road", "Austin City Limits" and "American Music Shop", and on the movie soundtracks for"Hope Floats", "Boys On The Side" and "Look Who's Talking Now".

And I just got to see her perform live, free.

What a great city I live in!

Hummingbird!

I took this picture last Saturday in a friend's front yard in Kokomo, Indiana. It was a brilliant September morning on a country road, surrounded by fields of soybean and corn. I was crouching very still, trying to get the best picture of the flowers illuminated by the morning sunlight, and the little guy just flew right into my field of vision, maybe six inches from my camera lens.

Tagged

In response to Prairie Bluestem's post of 9/4/06...

1) Are you happy/satisfied with your blog's content and look?

I’m okay but not particularly thrilled with it. I’d spend more time designing it if I had more time to spend.

2) Does your family know about your blog?

My wife and son know about it but not my daughter.

3) Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?

I’m not embarrassed to let my few friends know about it. Sometimes I post my private gnashings of teeth and later realize they sound very self-serving or whining. I hope my readers will forgive me.

4) Did blogging cause positive changes in your thoughts?

Yes.

I’ve journaled most of my 60 years in the old fashioned way with pen and paper, capturing private impressions and insights one at a time as they occur to me. I nurture the belief that if I write all this stuff down, someday I’ll be able to make sense of it all. I describe this gradual development of insight as like assembling a complex puzzle. You discover each piece of truth one at a time, then you gradually understand where that piece fits in relation to the others. But there’s more: Many times you grasp the same truth from different perspectives, and you realize that each understanding is correct within the context of its own perspective. In this way the analogy expands from assembling a two-dimensional puzzle to constructing a hologram.

Whereas journaling is private, blogging allows me to write for an audience. It has widened my literary creativity, provided the opportunity to venture into photojournalism and allowed me to indulge in more humor than is usually present in my private journals.

5) Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or do you love to go and discover more by yourself?

I have a limited amount of free time, so I tend to visit the blogs of those who have left comments on my blog. My wife has also turned me onto a number of blogs.

6) What does a visitor counter mean to you? Do you like having one on your blog?

I love the visitor counter and like to examine the details. I’m always amazed at the number of complete strangers, some from faraway lands, who read my blog.

7) Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures?

Yes. I have posted a real picture of myself, and I enjoy seeing the faces of other bloggers.

8) Admit. Do you think there is any real benefit in blogging?

Yes. I have always enjoyed writing, and the positive feedback I’ve received through blog comments has encouraged me to write more. Writing is one of my primary skills, so any way in which I can exercise it is beneficial to me. I hope my writing benefits my readers, but that’s for them to say. One of my dreams is to write professionally, and I see blogging as a kind of practice journalism.

9) Do you think that bloggers’ society is isolated from the real world or interaction with events?

For starters, would someone please identify the "real world" for me? Which events are "real," and which are "non-real?" What is the "bloggers' society?" Somehow I've missed the meeting dates. Maybe I haven't paid my dues.

Now that I've made a mockery of the question, let me attempt to answer it in the spirit in which I believe it was intended.

I can’t speak for other people, but I’m sure that bloggers are a diverse lot like the rest of us. I imagine that some bloggers are isolated and some are completely involved with the "real world" (whatever that may be).

I have known many non-bloggers who don't live in the real world (or at least not in the world I inhabit). Some people live in the world of alcohol, some live in the world of music, some live in the world of ideas. Some live in the world of politics, and some live in the world of corporate power. I live in the world inside my head and find myself constantly exploring its outer reaches.

It might be argued that people who take time to blog aren’t really contributing to the welfare of society, but I believe that any forum in which people are allowed to speak their minds is healthy for society in general.

10) Does criticism annoy you, or do you feel it's a normal thing?

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered any critical comments, even on some of my more opinionated posts.

11) Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?

I select what I read based on my interests, and I don’t waste my time reading crap. Time is our most precious resource, so why should I waste it reading things that make me feel bad? I suppose you could call that “fear,” but I call it selectivity.

12) Were you shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?

I view blogging as a form of free speech that should be protected as part of U.S. First Amendment rights, and therefore I do not believe that bloggers should be arrested for what they say. Free speech can threaten those in power, and people who live in totalitarian societies do not enjoy the same liberties.

Nevertheless, like any form of free speech, what you say can get you fired. If people have things to say that might get them fired, they should be very careful how they say them and to whom. It’s just common sense.

13) What do you think will happen to your blog after you die?

It will probably melt down in the coming global catastrophe. Seriously, I hope to save my more poignant ramblings in a less volatile format (e.g., paper) before I leave this world. As of this writing, I expect that my son may continue my story.

14) What do you like to hear? What song would you like to link to on your blog?

I love many types of music, but I hate to hear the same song over and over again. So if given the chance, I would like to link XM Satellite Radio’s XM Café to my blog.

15) Five bloggers to be the next "victims"?
Mean Things They Say to Me
Life of a Capriquarian
Annie's Blog
A Day in the Life of Me
Dream Mom

Busy weekend

Wife and I drove 5 1/2 hours to Indiana Friday afternoon, then partied hard into the night with great friends Friday night.









Had lunch Saturday with deceased wife’s parents, who are in their last years.

Drove home Saturday afternoon to host wife’s mom and two nieces (8 and 2 years old).

Entertained the girls Sunday with a visit to the Adventure Science Center,

















then Hendersonville’s public park where the girls played and fed the ducks. The 8 year-old enjoyed throwing bread to the ducks, while the 2 year-old enjoyed eating the bread. I forgot how tiring it can be to keep track of an extremely active toddler.

Monday we cleaned out the garage.










Now I’m resting at work.













Whew!

The vortex

An alcoholic creates a vortex that sucks in everyone within reach, including family, friends, neighbors and anyone else who cares.

The vortex seems to be a part of the disease of alcoholism.

People who love the alcoholic rescue them over and over again from the consequences of their actions, often risking finances and sometimes risking their lives.

It’s hard for folks outside this vortex to comprehend the power of the disease to draw them in time and time again.

People feel responsible for rescuing children of the alcoholic. How can anyone with a heart let a child suffer?

Alcoholics Anonymous is the only effective way to combat this disease.

Following quote is from the Al-Anon website:

“Alcoholism is a family disease. The disease affects all those who have a relationship with a problem drinker. Those of us closest to the alcoholic suffer the most, and those who care the most can easily get caught up in the behavior of another person. We react to the alcoholic's behavior. We focus on them, what they do, where they are, how much they drink. We try to control their drinking for them. We take on the blame, guilt, and shame that really belong to the drinker. We can become as addicted to the alcoholic, as the alcoholic is to alcohol. We, too, can become ill.”

Busy life

I haven’t posted since Aug. 7 because too much has been happening to take time to blog about it until now.

We began the morning of Aug. 5 by signing papers to sell wifie's 1995 T-bird to her brother and sister-in-law, who had driven up the night before from Florida.

Next we hustled off to our church's all-day Marriage Equality Summit, which wifie had played a big part in organizing. She had arranged for the keynote speaker, Jack Senterfitt to come up from Atlanta where he is Senior Legal Counsel for Lambda Legal. Other speakers included Jerry Jones of Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Public Affairs Office and Randy Tarkington of the Tennessee Equality Project. Nashville in Harmony provided uplifting harmonies to send us on our way. Nearly 50 people attended from all corners of the state, including Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Oak Ridge and Murfreesboro.

Follow this link to a local news story about the Summit (complete with a picture taken by yours truly!).

Certain right-wing bigots in our state are pushing a constitutional amendment that would write discrimination into the state constitution. They want to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. The proponents believe that “straight” marriages are somehow jeopardized if people of the same sex are allowed to marry. I have trouble understanding how anyone else getting married could possibly harm my marriage.

They talk about preserving the “sanctity” of marriage. Look up the word “sanctity” in the dictionary: Mine has three definitions: (1) Holiness of life or disposition; saintliness; (2) The quality or condition of being considered sacred; inviolability; and (3) Something considered sacred. These are religious concepts, and according to my understanding of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the government should stay out of the business of promoting religion. Furthermore, a Justice of the Peace or state judge can perform marriage ceremonies; a church does not have to be involved at all.

The civil institution of marriage gives 1,138 civil rights to married people. These rights are not granted to people in domestic partnerships or civil unions. Therefore, this battle is about civil RIGHTS, not religious RITES.

As a straight person, I have absolutely nothing to gain by putting myself on the line to defend the civil rights of same-sex couples. But look at history. White people needed to stand up for blacks in their struggle for civil rights, and men needed to stand up for women in their struggle for equal pay and civil rights. What side of this struggle is the right one, and which side do you want to be on?

I say it’s time for straight people to come out of the closet.

Three days later, on Aug. 8 wifie and I left for the 5-hour drive to the southern Illinois suburbs of St. Louis. It’s a long story, and I won’t go into too many details here. But it involves helping her sister fight to retain custody of her 3 small children and keep her ex from abusing her and them further. Wifie went to support sis, and I went to support wifie. We spent Tuesday night in a crappy Quality Inn in Caseyville, and then got up the next morning bright and early for the 9 a.m. court date in Edwardsville. She had brought along her mom plus the 3 kids (ages 8, 2 and 1). Her ex told her she had to bring the kids, but we know now that there was no reason for them to come. He didn’t even try to see them, although he knew they had made the 2-day trip up from Florida. So wifie’s sister, mother and 3 kids (2 in diapers) were crammed into a motel room. The only respite was the indoor swimming pool, which wifie and I enjoyed along with the 8 year-old.

After the hearing it became necessary for us to stay another night, because younger sister needed to meet with her attorney, and the only appointment available was late that night.

So picture me standing on the sidewalk in the hot afternoon sunlight with my cell phone, trying to find a motel with a 2-room suite and a pool for that night. Big, loud trucks rumbled by as I strained to hear. After several attempts I finally found another Quality Inn, this time in Fairview Heights that at offered what they call a “one-room suite,” which is somewhat larger a two-bed room with a couch. This one turned out to be much nicer than the previous motel, and they let us check in at 1 p.m., two hours before the published check-in time.

Wifie and I took the 8 year-old out for a late lunch at Chevy’s, then donned our bathing suits for a nice long swim in the motel pool.

Then I drove younger sister 30 miles to the attorney’s office in East Alton, where we waited from 6 to 8 p.m. to see her. I was fairly pissed by this time, but once we sat down with her attorney, I changed my mind. She spent a full two hours with us, and by 10 p.m. we had covered most of the bases. Two more hearings would be scheduled, one of which would require wifie, mother and several others to testify about the jerk.

Last Saturday (Aug. 12) we attended a memorial service for a friend whose son died an untimely death from a heart attack at age 27. It was a musical sendoff, like they do in New Orleans. Our friend asked me to lead off the afternoon, and I played an original song written by my college bandmate Wayne Jones (who died at age 25 of a heart attack). I accompanied two other singers, and we enjoyed 3 ½ hours of great music, most of it written by the performers.

Next week wifie and I have to drive back to Illinois to testify at a court hearing on Aug. 23. Hopefully this will be the last one, but you never know about these things.

You show up for family.

That’s one lesson life has taught me. I showed up for my mother during her last years of life, even though it precipitated the end of my first marriage. But I now realize that marriage had been over for years anyway. I showed up for my late wife when she was diagnosed with leukemia (and died a year later, in 2003). I show up for my late wife’s parents, who are in their late 80s/early 90s in Kokomo, IN. That’s what you do – you show up.

In this case, I show up to take notes and provide suggestions. But it’s a fine line to tread between helping and being too intrusive. A few months ago I may have been resented, but now my assistance is greatly valued.

So that’s why I haven’t posted more recently.

I hope to get back to posting funny stuff soon. I bring my camera along wherever we go, and I’ve accumulated some amusing photos that I’ll post soon. One was a sign we noticed in the elevator of the crappy Quality Inn. It was pasted over the little door to the elevator phone and said, “IN CASE OF EMERGENCE USE PHONE.” That’s right – EMERGENCE! We thought, “Wow – if something emerges from that door, I don’t think I’m gonna try to get the phone!”

If something started emerging from the phone door, it would be like….

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!

My poetry form - what form are you?

Thanks to WIP for the idea.

I am heroic couplets; most precise And fond of order. Planned and structured. Nice. I know, of course, just what I want; I know, As well, what I will do to make it so. This doesn't mean that I attempt to shun Excitement, entertainment, pleasure, fun; But they must keep their place, like all the rest; They might be good, but ordered life is best. What Poetry Form Are You?

This little computer-generated verse actually reveals a lot about who I am. I am a lifelong professional musician by night and consultant by day. I am an inveterate writer of prose and poetry; my screen name is "RunAwayImagination." Music and words are very orderly - anything but random or disorderly. I pay a lot of attention to the order and structure in society and in the larger world. I make my living in the world of ideas, words and numbers. The world of music and the arts has its own structure. The dynamics of melody, rhythm and chord changes create power, which is one way in which I understand the importance of music and art in human culture.

Anticipation is over

The anticipation is now over. My boss finally told me.

I’m going to support a task force that will study and recommend a statewide home energy conservation plan.

It’s not a new job, and there’s no pay raise involved. So I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. It’s my own fault for getting my hopes up so high. (That’s my “Runawayimagination” at work - lol) However, on the other hand, and most importantly, I will have a chance to do something that could actually benefit the people of my state.

I spent an afternoon researching on the Web and discovered that there are many government and private resources devoted to helping people weatherize their homes and pay for heating bills. I’m not sure exactly what more this task force can do, except perhaps to ramp up some of these programs a bit more. Maybe I’ll devise some innovative approaches.

Time will tell.

Earlier in my career such an opportunity might have meant a chance to position myself for a promotion. Maybe I would receive a bonus or merit raise if I did especially well at such an assignment. But now I work for the state, and state employees (at least the ones in my agency) never receive a bonus, and the only raise I’ll ever get will be the same annual “cost-of-living” raise that every state employee gets. And with only six years left to work, I doubt that any prospect for a promotion is realistic.

Does this sound like sour grapes? Maybe it is, but maybe it’s also just realism setting in.

I have found that true satisfaction in life cannot be obtained from material success. Every raise I’ve ever received has been spent on the necessities of life. I’m justifiably proud of what I have accomplished during my working life, but I’m much more proud of having raised a son and a daughter to adulthood. The pay I’ve earned has served as a means to that end.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I am justifiably proud of my professional accomplishments. In 1980 I wrote the first-ever book explaining how to forecast demand for local telephone service, and in 1991 I edited Bell Atlantic’s first Strategic Technology Plan. And there are many more. At the same time, I have maintained a parallel career in the arts, playing keyboards professionally, which I do to this day.

Life just looks different from the perspective of 60 years.

Being

Times of turmoil, times of ease.
Times of anxiety, times of peace.
Times of sorrow, times of joy.
Times up, times down.
Times young, times old.
Times healthy, times sick.

Nothing ever stays the same.

Always changing,
always moving,
always in the process

of becoming.

Something else

that is not yet

but forever

on the verge

of becoming.

So then life is a process,
not a state of being.

A vector,
not a location.

And this idea we call time
is only our way of understanding
the
flow.
of
Being.

For being is not being,
since how can something be
when it is constantly
becoming?

I was born, it is true, on 2/14/46 at 11:35 p.m.

But my birthing was only
a step
in my process
my flow
my vector.

Before that I was developing in my mother’s womb.

But before that I was raw potential
contained in a million million possibilities
of union
between
two
lovers.

Each of these possibilities could have
become
but did not.

I myself am a million million possibilities.
Things I might do,
Places I might go.

Only time will tell.

But whatever I might do is only a step in a much longer chain of doing that began before the sun was lit

and shall continue long after it burns itself into an empty cinder.

And every place I might go
is only a stop on my way to
someplace else.

As one word proceeds the next
and follows the one before,
until the last one this hand writes.

But my writing will continue
by another hand.
Perhaps by the hand of my son.

"Anticipation is everything"

My boss left me with those words yesterday afternoon.

The day before yesterday I had spoken to a task force at the state legislature about broadband deployment & adoption. My talk was very well received, and that afternoon my boss came into my office, sat down across from me and repeated what a good job I had done.

Then he told me that I my efforts might result in a new opportunity for me. I tried to prod him for more information, but to no avail.

Yesterday he gave me a summary of a report and asked my opinion about whether we should purchase it. I read through the summary, consulted with a co-worker and replied that I thought it was a good investment for us to make. He thanked me, and on his way out I asked if this was the opportunity he had mentioned the day before. He replied, “No,” and he grinned his final words, “Anticipation is everything.”

This makes me speculate that this might indeed mean a new job. Maybe a raise! My runaway imagination is now running wild (as it is wont to do).

I started work with the state six years ago, having moved to Nashville after wrapping up a 29-year white-collar career with Bell Atlantic (now part of Verizon), then spending 18 months playing music professionally. Imagine a 53-year old man touring the US with a country-rock band, driving 7,500 miles crammed into a 1991 Econoline van with six other people, pulling a 2,000 lb. trailer laden with instruments and luggage, driving 19 and 26-hours at a stretch. Playing music for a living (well, not “quite” a living, but let’s say a ‘career’), writing a book about my experiences while living a real-life Odyssey – an internal journey of self-discovery wrapped inside an external journey across the country. I learned that my keyboard chops were up to world-class standards at the same time that most of my Bell Atlantic cohorts were settling into their comfortable front porches after having secured financial security for life. I gave it up for love (another long story for another post).

Then reality began to set in. The purchase of a house required a regular income, and one thing I had learned so far about the music business was that even the best players were unable make a living in Music City by playing music. The key to a successful music career is called “day job.”

So began the job search, my first since 1969.

After nine months of intensive searching and increasing desperation, I began to wonder if I would soon take my place alongside the kids bagging groceries at Kroger. Then one day I noticed an ad in the employment section of the classifieds. A state agency needed someone with telecom experience, and I knew I was their man. It would mean a $32K cut in pay from what I had been making in 1998, but it was a Helluva lot better than any alternative that had presented itself up to then.

There was a lot to learn, but I absorbed it easily and began applying my writing and computer skills to the job, settling into a relatively unchallenging job and riding out long periods of nothing to do by inventing challenges for myself.

The task force presented me with a rare opportunity to demonstrate my public speaking skills and ability to summarize complex information for executives.

So what could this new opportunity mean?

Like my boss said, “Anticipation is everything.”

Triumph!

Yesterday morning I presented a summary of a GAO report to a task force at the state legislature, which included a state representative and senator who had sponsored the bill creating the task force.

This was my first major presentation since I retired from Bell Atlantic (now part of Verizon) in 1998. I knew it was a “big deal” and was understandably nervous for weeks beforehand. Usually we dress in “business casual” for work, but yesterday was an occasion for me to wear my new suit.

I batted “cleanup.” The speakers who went on before me represented the telephone companies, cable TV companies and organizations that provide backbone facilities to major research institutions, universities, public schools and libraries. But all of those speakers either dodged the central issue or danced around it, which is, “why are our rural areas unable to get broadband access to the Internet?”

They all had their own turf to protect. Neither the phone companies nor the cable TV providers want to show their hand to their competitors, and so they didn’t really reveal very much about where they had deployed broadband infrastructure around the state.

By the time my turn came, time was running short, and the task force was becoming frustrated by the lack of useful information provided thus far. But I had sensed early in the morning that this situation was playing directly into my hand.

Without going into a lot of detail in this post, I was able to summarize the 70-page GAO report in about 15 minutes, looking directly into the eyes of the Task Force members instead of at my slides (since I had pretty well memorized my presentation). I used my best calm but authoritative voice to deliver them the message they needed to hear:

Broadband take-rates (the likelihood that people will buy broadband if it is available) are determined primarily by income and education, not rural versus urban environments.

However, this is a “chicken and egg” situation, because:

Access to broadband Internet is critical to 21st century education and income opportunities, particularly for small, isolated communities.

There is a win-win solution to this problem.

I introduced them briefly to the ConnectKentucky program, in which the government served as a catalyst by creating a public-private partnership involving computer manufacturers, providers of Internet access and other major industry players, all of whom who stand to benefit by increasing the number of broadband subscribers. I think this is a good model for our state to emulate.

They seemed very interested.

I showed them some tables I had created that listed broadband penetration rates by state. I had created the table by using housing unit estimates I got from the Census Bureau and numbers of high-speed lines serving residential households from the FCC. It showed that our state was 5th in our region and 37th in the US.

In case you’re interested, the state with the highest broadband penetration rate is Connecticut with 45%, and the state with the lowest is Mississippi with only 14%. The US average is 31%, meaning that only one in three US households have access to broadband. Chances are that you are one of these, because uploading and downloading large files is very time-consuming on dialup.

Lastly, I showed them where the US ranks in the developed world in terms of broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. We are #12.

Who’s ahead of us? Iceland, South Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Canada, Sweden, Belgium and Japan.

And so after 6 years of working for the state and not doing too much really exciting or very important, yesterday I got my moment in the sun.

I’m still basking. Opportunities like this don’t come often, and so you have to make the most of them when they do come around.

Seven deadly sins

Greed:	Very Low
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Very Low
Sloth:	Low
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Low
Pride:	Low

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

Survey says...

1. FIRST NAME - You already know it if you're close to me
2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE – Yes, since I’m a Junior I was named after my dad. He was named after family friends, one of whom was a cowboy, and the other was killed by a runaway horse team in the early 1900s.
3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY – Today when talking on the phone with a friend whose partner’s son was found dead yesterday.
4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING – No, it’s complete crap and always has been. I lost the ability to write in cursive sometime in my 20s. My signature is somewhat artistic, although you would never discern my name from it.
5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT – About any kind – I’m not picky.
6. KIDS? – Daughter 36 and son 34.
7. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Sure, it wouldn’t be hard being friends with myself (although it’s taken me some years and lots of effort to understand who I am). The hard part would be being another person.
8. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Yes. I’ve documented my life in great detail.
9. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Not when I can help it.
10. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Nope; had ‘em taken out when I was ten.
11. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not risk-adverse, but I don't believe in temping Fate, either.
12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Crunchy oat stuff.
13. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Yes.
14. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Yes, pretty strong. I’ved Jazzercised for 18 years.
15. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Chocolate! (but most any flavor will do – like I said above, I’m not picky.)
16. SHOE SIZE – 10D
17. RED OR PINK? Red.
18. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Soft teeth & flat feet. Other than that I’m just fine. Oh, sometimes a tendency to introspect a little too much and get too down in the dumps about stuff. But wifie always picks me back up.
19. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My 2nd wife who died of leukemia 3 years ago, and my father, mother and grandparents. I suppose I miss all the people I love who I’ve lost.
20. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? If they want to, sure.
21. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Tan pants and shoes.
22. LAST THING YOU ATE? Frozen chicken alfredo
23. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? XM Radio -- XM Cafe. XM rocks, y'all.
24. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Dark red.
25. FAVORITE SMELL? Wifie’s unadulterated fragrance, good coffee brewing, homemade bread baking, wifie’s perfume (that I got her, of course).
26. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Wifie.
27. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? That they are attracted to me? (What kind of question is that?)
28. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Oh YEAH!!
29.FAVORITE DRINKS? Fresh coffee in the morning, cold water during the day and an occasional Cosmo or Margarita on weekend nights (prefer my own homemade).
30. FAVORITE SPORT? Frisbee and volleyball
31. EYE COLOR? Blue, sort of
32. HAT SIZE? 7 1/2 (large)
33. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No; I wear glasses.
34. FAVORITE FOOD? Homemade pancakes or waffles, a good steak on the grill
35. This question was blank. I wonder what’s supposed to go here? Maybe the author wants to see if I’m creative enough to answer an un-asked question. Umm… lemme see…. THREE! That’s the answer!
36. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED AT THE THEATER? An American Haunting
37. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? tan
38. SUMMER OR WINTER? I guess you mean what season is my favorite? I’d say fall and spring.
39. HUGS OR KISSES? Both! Bring ‘em on!
40. FAVORITE DESSERT? Frozen custard or malted milk or banana split or… (you get the idea)
41. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? http://nashvilleworkinprogress.blogspot.com/
42. LEAST LIKELY TO Someone who doesn’t read this blog. I dunno – maybe Chairman Mao?
43. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? Old Jules by Mari Sandoz (from the same town as my dad)
44. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSEPAD? I don’t have one, since I use a trackball. But before I got a trackball I had a mousepad with a design made by my oldest granddaughter.
45. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? "The March of the Penguins" (DVD)
46. FAVORITE SOUNDS? Dear wifie sleeping, dear cat purring, birds at night before they bed down, the sound of XM radio, the sound of a band I'm playing in. (You can see I'm very much into sounds.)
47. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? What kind of question is that?
48. FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Tofino, which is on the Pacific coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
49. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? Playing piano
50. WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Feb. 1946 in Arlington, VA.
51. WHAT IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING SOMEONE HAS DONE FOR YOU? The first time I met wifie we went for a ride in the car after talking for two hours in Applebees. The most romantic thing was when she gently placed her hand on my arm and said softly, “I think I need to kiss you now.”
52. WHAT WAS YOUR PROUDEST CHILDHOOD MOMENT? When I was accepted into my first rock band at age 15.
53. STAY HOME OR GO OUT? Usually stay home but can be enticed to go out if there’s something better out than there is at home (which is very rare).
54. FAVORITE MOVIE? I'm not much of a movie person, but I loved Airplane, Top Secret and Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
55. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I stole it from http://nashvilleworkinprogress.blogspot.com/.

An untimely death

We were shocked to get the call yesterday afternoon.

A good friend's son was found dead in his car of an apparent heart attack.

He was only 27.

He had just started to get his life back on track after a very difficult period and had begun a steady job.

He was her only child.

My son is 34.
My dad died suddenly of a heart attack at age 57.
He died shaking my hand after my 25th birthday party.

I lost my wife 3 years ago to leukemia.

My wife lost her husband 7 years ago to a heart attack.

The death of a loved one almost too much to bear;
especially an untimely death.

But bear it we must.

Russellville trip and philosophy

The weekend before last we decided to take the new car out for a country drive.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The ostensible reason for our trip was to find a butcher shop. It seems that the part of Nashville in which we live is bereft of such establishments, but wifie found a listing on the Internet in Russellville, KY.






As is our wont, we took the back roads.




























Rt. 76 took us from White House west to Springfield, then we followed Rt. 431 north into Kentucky and finally Russellville, which we found much to our delight is richly populated with proud old homes like these.
































On our way back my wife drove so I could snap pix of the many picturesque barns that dot the landscape. Some of the barns are very traditional in their shape and color. I'm sure that http://prairiebluestem.blogspot.com/ can tell us the purposes for which these structures were built.














Others are more like large sheds.











































Others are a bit more interesting.















Some of the structures are in the process of being digested by the landscape from which they arose.














I find a subtle kind of beauty in the way the old houses and barns gently sag under the weight of time and the ravages of termites and eventually succumb to Mother Nature's beckoning call.
At first the paint peels off,














Vines begin to gain purchase on the rough wood














and before long the timbers begin to crack under the unrelenting attack of the elements.














and even the homes that once housed the barns' owners are slowly digested as well.














Before you know it, the housing stock of a new generation arises from the ashes.
















And Interstate kitsch appears near the exits.















I am tempted to draw value judgments from my observations about the demise of rural America, the pollution of our environment or the unsustainability of our modern lifestyles.

However, I believe that in the broader sense we and all that we build are destined to be consumed by Nature.

I suppose a future generations' photographers (assuming the human race doesn't extinguish itself before then) will lament the demise of our quaint lifestyle, along with our quaint Internet, our quaint little laptops, quaint little cell phones and so on.

Remember, high tech is always disposable, never permanent and always in the process of becoming something else.

Just like life itself.

I tagged myself

Several blogs I read have been tagged. It sounds like a fun idea, so I decided to post my own answers.

A) Four jobs I've had in my life

Rodman on USGS survey team (summers of 1964-65)
Naval officer (1968-69)
Local Area Forecaster for the Telephone Company (1972-90)
Professional musician (keyboards, 1962 to present)

B) Four movies I would watch over & over

Groundhog Day
Airplane
Monty Python & The Holy Grail
Dead Poets Society

C) Four places I have lived:

Falls Church, Virginia
Newport, Rhode Island
Williamsburg, Virginia
Nashville, Tennessee

D) Four TV shows I love(d) to watch:

The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
My Name is Earl
The Office

E) Four places I have been on vacation:

Jamaica
Canada
Outer Banks of North Carolina
Yellowstone

F) Web sites I visit daily:

Yahoo! News
Blogs of http://nashvilleworkinprogress.blogspot.com/, http://prairiebluestem.blogspot.com/, http://obxbill.blogspot.com/, http://dreammom.blogspot.com/, http://fatdoctor.blogspot.com/ and http://www.capriquarian.blogspot.com/
New York Times
Snapfish

G) Four of my favorite foods:

Spicy stuff
Sweet stuff
Salty stuff
Crunch stuff

H) Four places I would rather be right now

Jamaica
Outer Banks of NC
Hawaii
British Columbia

I) Four friends I think will respond:

I have no idea. Let’s see.