Get Down
Hello World,
Happy Solstice! We've now gone past that magical time of year which officially ushers in the summer season, at least according to the meteorologists, so you know it's all downhill from here. No, wait a minute, that can't be right. Actually, the whole summer is spreading out before us like a beautiful beckoning oasis, amid the hectic and humdrum rigors of modern life, and about as welcome as Ed McMahon with that big cardboard check from the sweepstakes. So let's all get out there and enjoy all of the joys of the season, and make the most of summer while it's here. I think there's some kind of law against watermelon, lemonade and hammocks after Labor Day around here, and you certainly don't want to take any chances with getting on the wrong side of the Climate Police if you can help it. I only mention this as a public service, I'm sure you're the soul of propriety when it comes to the proper seasonal observances.
Speaking of large checks, earlier in the week, I was having another one of those days where I just couldn't seem to get out of my own way, and every other thing went badly awry. I was weary and haggard from running around and stamping out fires, and that was just in my own office. I finally packed it in at long last, having done as much damage in one day that a person could do, and headed for home a little after 5:30, and glad to put the day behind me. Out on the sidewalk on my way to the parking lot, I bumped into Terry from the Cashiers office, and I was surprised to see her at that hour, and I couldn't help but remark that it seemed that she was getting out of work rather late. "What happened?" I asked her, "Did the hospital get so much money today that it took this long for you to count it?" She laughed.
Of course, the previous week was no better when it came to disasters, notably my infamous memo being distributed with the wrong date on it. We have an alert reader (thanks, Linda!) to thank for this cogent commentary on the subject:
===========================
Did ‘anyone’ notice the date on your memo??
From my experience with memos I sent out at school, no one read them, much less caught any typos!
===========================
I'm sure she's right about that, because I was in Administration yesterday, and spotted their copy of my memo posted on the bulletin board by the fax machine, and when I pointed out the typo in the date, they all cheerfully admitted that they never noticed it. Somehow, that's refreshing and depressing all at the same time.
Speaking of depressing, of course, there's always the news. That is, except for the parts where it's inadvertently funny in spite of itself. I happened to be skipping past a TV news segment on health, and a pretty young correspondent from the news station was interviewing a doctor about a common prescription medication and its potential side effects, one of which she described as a "persistent cough that comes and goes." Okay, you can call me a linguistic stickler if you like (don't you dare!) but the dinosaurs and I can remember a time that the word "persistent" would not be used to describe something that comes and goes, in fact, that would be basically 180 degrees from what the meaning of the word would refer to. Then yesterday in our local paper's Life & Style section, the headline on the front page screamed: "Can Rap Regain Its Swagger?" And here is the first that I'm finding out that people are apparently concerned that rap music has somehow gotten too genteel (!!!) until it's lost all credibility with its core audience. From what I hear of it, if this is anyone's idea of "too genteel," well, I may as well just go join the rest of the dinosaurs in the tar pits, because this would just be too much for me. And finally, we can thank the AOL Welcome screen for bringing us what I consider the news story of the week, complete with pictures, of protesters in Switzerland, of all places, demonstrating against racism and fascism, by way of having office chair races. Please don't ask me to explain this, because it doesn't make any more sense than that. The picture shows motley teams of men, in abbreviated swimsuits, sneakers and helmets, with one seated in a standard office chair on wheels, being pushed through the streets by his team-mate, no doubt with the tumultuous accolades from opponents of racism and fascism cheering them on to ever greater glory. Frankly, how office chair races can accomplish increases in diversity and freedom on an international level is a concept that continues to elude my best efforts to pin it down, but I will say as a news story, you just can't beat it with a stick.
Meanwhile, in automotive news, we get the following from Bill, who is always alert to the presence of serendipity around him:
============================
I got to Dennis's this morning to find the place parked nearly solid -- space for only one car, which was me, tucked across the very end of the apron. The odd part was, not only were there two 3-wheeled baby carriages waiting in the garage, apparently for service, but a large portion of the space was taken up by a 70's-vintage white hearse. White. Whoever heard of a white hearse? I went inside and said, "I guess you guys fix everything from the cradle to the grave, hunh?"
============================
Well, I don't know about you, but I can't think of any way to improve upon that. In other vehicular matters, it will come as news to no one that this was one of the worst years for allergies, and anyone could tell what the trees were doing in the spring, if like me, they found themselves driving what could only be described as a green fuzz-mobile instead of their usual transportation. I know this is no peculiarity of the Escort, which is navy blue, because the same exact thing happened last year to the Tempo, which was a deep solid black, except in the spring, when it was fuzzy green all over. In any event, that time of year has obviously passed, because now when I walk outside, I find myself unlocking the door of a tan dust-bucket instead, and I can't say the change has been all that much of an improvement. Even when it rains, and we've had some serious downpours recently, it only manages to somehow re-arrange the dust, and create trails of tiny rivulets along the windows, without actually washing any of the dust off the car at any point. I can see that my only choices will be to buy myself a green and tan car, or to move some place where they have a local weather condition that makes cars turn navy blue. Or perhaps it just needs to stay down in the dumps. (Get it?!)
Of course, everyone knows that I have a Teac GF-350 that copies vinyl records onto CDs, sometimes with the unintended consequence that you very carefully digitize and preserve for posterity the pops, hisses, scratches and skips of the original material, and thank you very much not. This can be a hit-or-miss proposition, but I've been making progress at about the rate of two steps forward for each step backward. While digging through our vast assortment of albums for songs to copy, I was frustrated by a lack of organization in the collections, especially the singles. Instead of just putting the records in order by title, which any normal person could have done in a reasonable amount of time, I decided to create a document that listed all of our 45s, with the name of the artist and the titles on both sides of the record. It may come as a surprise, even to people who already think we're just a couple of lunatics, that between us we actually have over 400 singles, and in a testament to the diversity of musical tastes in this wide world, very few of them are duplicates. (As a word of warning, I will say that I do have this list and will not hesitate to send it, with the proper provocation, so scoffers beware.) Typing this much information into a table, I don't mind saying, after a while I was just getting cross-eyed and couldn't think straight. I had a simple process of keeping it in alphabetical order as I went along, so all I needed to do with each new title was insert it in between what would have been the song that would come right before it, and the one right after it, which any schoolchild could do in a snap. But hundreds of titles into this thing, I found that I simply could not alphabetize any more, and lost all ability to interpolate the new entries into the rest of the document, without moving them several times, higher or lower, and sometimes both. It would not be an understatement to say that this was a humbling experience, and the best that can be said about it is that at least it's over. (I said to Bill later that the one good thing about making lists of records is at least you know you're never going to get any more of them at this point.) After all, I wouldn't want to come down with a bad case of the (navy) blues and have to go join the Escort down in the dumps.
Happy Solstice! We've now gone past that magical time of year which officially ushers in the summer season, at least according to the meteorologists, so you know it's all downhill from here. No, wait a minute, that can't be right. Actually, the whole summer is spreading out before us like a beautiful beckoning oasis, amid the hectic and humdrum rigors of modern life, and about as welcome as Ed McMahon with that big cardboard check from the sweepstakes. So let's all get out there and enjoy all of the joys of the season, and make the most of summer while it's here. I think there's some kind of law against watermelon, lemonade and hammocks after Labor Day around here, and you certainly don't want to take any chances with getting on the wrong side of the Climate Police if you can help it. I only mention this as a public service, I'm sure you're the soul of propriety when it comes to the proper seasonal observances.
Speaking of large checks, earlier in the week, I was having another one of those days where I just couldn't seem to get out of my own way, and every other thing went badly awry. I was weary and haggard from running around and stamping out fires, and that was just in my own office. I finally packed it in at long last, having done as much damage in one day that a person could do, and headed for home a little after 5:30, and glad to put the day behind me. Out on the sidewalk on my way to the parking lot, I bumped into Terry from the Cashiers office, and I was surprised to see her at that hour, and I couldn't help but remark that it seemed that she was getting out of work rather late. "What happened?" I asked her, "Did the hospital get so much money today that it took this long for you to count it?" She laughed.
Of course, the previous week was no better when it came to disasters, notably my infamous memo being distributed with the wrong date on it. We have an alert reader (thanks, Linda!) to thank for this cogent commentary on the subject:
===========================
Did ‘anyone’ notice the date on your memo??
From my experience with memos I sent out at school, no one read them, much less caught any typos!
===========================
I'm sure she's right about that, because I was in Administration yesterday, and spotted their copy of my memo posted on the bulletin board by the fax machine, and when I pointed out the typo in the date, they all cheerfully admitted that they never noticed it. Somehow, that's refreshing and depressing all at the same time.
Speaking of depressing, of course, there's always the news. That is, except for the parts where it's inadvertently funny in spite of itself. I happened to be skipping past a TV news segment on health, and a pretty young correspondent from the news station was interviewing a doctor about a common prescription medication and its potential side effects, one of which she described as a "persistent cough that comes and goes." Okay, you can call me a linguistic stickler if you like (don't you dare!) but the dinosaurs and I can remember a time that the word "persistent" would not be used to describe something that comes and goes, in fact, that would be basically 180 degrees from what the meaning of the word would refer to. Then yesterday in our local paper's Life & Style section, the headline on the front page screamed: "Can Rap Regain Its Swagger?" And here is the first that I'm finding out that people are apparently concerned that rap music has somehow gotten too genteel (!!!) until it's lost all credibility with its core audience. From what I hear of it, if this is anyone's idea of "too genteel," well, I may as well just go join the rest of the dinosaurs in the tar pits, because this would just be too much for me. And finally, we can thank the AOL Welcome screen for bringing us what I consider the news story of the week, complete with pictures, of protesters in Switzerland, of all places, demonstrating against racism and fascism, by way of having office chair races. Please don't ask me to explain this, because it doesn't make any more sense than that. The picture shows motley teams of men, in abbreviated swimsuits, sneakers and helmets, with one seated in a standard office chair on wheels, being pushed through the streets by his team-mate, no doubt with the tumultuous accolades from opponents of racism and fascism cheering them on to ever greater glory. Frankly, how office chair races can accomplish increases in diversity and freedom on an international level is a concept that continues to elude my best efforts to pin it down, but I will say as a news story, you just can't beat it with a stick.
Meanwhile, in automotive news, we get the following from Bill, who is always alert to the presence of serendipity around him:
============================
I got to Dennis's this morning to find the place parked nearly solid -- space for only one car, which was me, tucked across the very end of the apron. The odd part was, not only were there two 3-wheeled baby carriages waiting in the garage, apparently for service, but a large portion of the space was taken up by a 70's-vintage white hearse. White. Whoever heard of a white hearse? I went inside and said, "I guess you guys fix everything from the cradle to the grave, hunh?"
============================
Well, I don't know about you, but I can't think of any way to improve upon that. In other vehicular matters, it will come as news to no one that this was one of the worst years for allergies, and anyone could tell what the trees were doing in the spring, if like me, they found themselves driving what could only be described as a green fuzz-mobile instead of their usual transportation. I know this is no peculiarity of the Escort, which is navy blue, because the same exact thing happened last year to the Tempo, which was a deep solid black, except in the spring, when it was fuzzy green all over. In any event, that time of year has obviously passed, because now when I walk outside, I find myself unlocking the door of a tan dust-bucket instead, and I can't say the change has been all that much of an improvement. Even when it rains, and we've had some serious downpours recently, it only manages to somehow re-arrange the dust, and create trails of tiny rivulets along the windows, without actually washing any of the dust off the car at any point. I can see that my only choices will be to buy myself a green and tan car, or to move some place where they have a local weather condition that makes cars turn navy blue. Or perhaps it just needs to stay down in the dumps. (Get it?!)
Of course, everyone knows that I have a Teac GF-350 that copies vinyl records onto CDs, sometimes with the unintended consequence that you very carefully digitize and preserve for posterity the pops, hisses, scratches and skips of the original material, and thank you very much not. This can be a hit-or-miss proposition, but I've been making progress at about the rate of two steps forward for each step backward. While digging through our vast assortment of albums for songs to copy, I was frustrated by a lack of organization in the collections, especially the singles. Instead of just putting the records in order by title, which any normal person could have done in a reasonable amount of time, I decided to create a document that listed all of our 45s, with the name of the artist and the titles on both sides of the record. It may come as a surprise, even to people who already think we're just a couple of lunatics, that between us we actually have over 400 singles, and in a testament to the diversity of musical tastes in this wide world, very few of them are duplicates. (As a word of warning, I will say that I do have this list and will not hesitate to send it, with the proper provocation, so scoffers beware.) Typing this much information into a table, I don't mind saying, after a while I was just getting cross-eyed and couldn't think straight. I had a simple process of keeping it in alphabetical order as I went along, so all I needed to do with each new title was insert it in between what would have been the song that would come right before it, and the one right after it, which any schoolchild could do in a snap. But hundreds of titles into this thing, I found that I simply could not alphabetize any more, and lost all ability to interpolate the new entries into the rest of the document, without moving them several times, higher or lower, and sometimes both. It would not be an understatement to say that this was a humbling experience, and the best that can be said about it is that at least it's over. (I said to Bill later that the one good thing about making lists of records is at least you know you're never going to get any more of them at this point.) After all, I wouldn't want to come down with a bad case of the (navy) blues and have to go join the Escort down in the dumps.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:37 PM
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