Category Archives: Paul

There’s no day so frustrating that getting a jury duty notice won’t make it worse.

Every citizen’s civic duty!

Otherwise known as eight hours of your life that you’ll never get back in the most boring place in the known universe with the potential to have it turn into days, weeks, or months that you’ll never get back or get paid for with the opportunity to either have a mistrial at the end of all which turns it into a TOTAL waste of time or to be part of a group that makes one of the epic “on what freakin’ planet was OJ innocent??!!!” moments.

Do they still charge you with contempt if every time they ask a question you answer with “Hangin’s too good for ’em!” and attempt to disrobe?

Just asking.

Chuck Wendig, wise and worldly as he is, has an excellent article over on his website today. Go read it.

While he is very correct about participation being given far too little credit, and while I agree with his assertion that failure is a positive and critically important paving stone in the road to success, I have been thinking about how participation without progress or improvement can be so difficult.

For example, I’m 5’6″ (soaking wet) and I don’t expect a growth spurt any time soon. If I were to be a fanatic about basketball and my one and only dream in life was to be a center in the NBA, “participation” isn’t going to cut it.

I could practice till I bled every day from kindergarten on through college, but I’m not going to be an NBA center. I might conceivably make it to the NBA as a guard, a three-point specialist, or a coach, but I’m never going to be a center.

If I truly love the game for its own sake, then playing every day could and would be an end unto itself. Participation would be sufficient – improvement would be the icing on the cake. But if my goal was truly to be a center in the NBA, even if I would accept another position, then being short, slow, and a lousy shot would never be overcome by sheer participation.

Perception is also an issue – trying to figure out if there’s any progress, improvement, or even change happening as a result of participation. If having at least some progress is a key goal (i.e., Chuck’s first five novels that sucked, then sucked a little less, then only sucked a little, with all of them leading to the point where his books didn’t suck and got published) isn’t it critical to have some sort of measuring stick to see what progress (or lack thereof) is being made?

That progress measurement is tough when you’re up to your ass in alligators. You get so tied up in just trying to make it from Day One to Day Two to Day Three and so on and sometimes it never, ever seems to end. It’s “Groundhog Day” over and over, the Red Queen’s race where you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. Under those circumstances, it seems that “participation” means “surviving in near perpetuity.”

Should that be given a reward?

What if there are no rewards? What if you live your particular Groundhog Day over and over ad infinitum but there’s  reward, no “atta boy,” no “you go, girl!” What if it all just grinds you down and exhausts you until you break and run away to join the circus?

Eternal stubbornness and participation as its own reward are important. But there’s a lot to be said for knowing when you’re being a damn fool and walking away, trophy or not.

Yesterday I participated. Today I was a participant. Tomorrow and all of the tomorrows beyond that I will participate.

I hope I’m not being a damn fool.

Some days we all badly need a good belly laugh more than other days. Somehow a conversation at the hangar turned to favorite comedy bits and someone remembered this routine, but didn’t remember the comedian or some of the key details.

It’s long been a favorite of mine, and since I needed the laugh and looked it up, allow me to share, from the April 1990 HBO Special, Dennis Wolfberg:

I remember first hearing this routine on the radio. One of the Los Angeles rock stations (KLOS?) used to have a feature called the “Five O’Clock Funnies” where they would play some comedy bit every day at that time, figuring (correctly) that people might need it at the end of their work day, on the commute home. I tried to listen most days and I remember people worrying that they were going to have to call the paramedics to keep me breathing I was laughing so hard.

RIP, Dennis. We’re still laughing.

About two weeks ago, when The Long-Suffering Wife had a day off, she went out to the huge outlet mall in Camarillo. It happens to be just a mile or so from the CAF hangars there, but in all the years I’ve been going to the CAF, I’ve never gone to the malls.

Not my thing.

She got an article of clothing for me that I had mentioned as something I might like to try. It turns out that I like it quite a bit.

I’m not a “clothes person.” I consider myself more of a card-carrying pragmatist, particularly in terms of items (such as clothing) which are a necessary part of daily living, but which I consider to be nothing more. If and when I find something that I like (i.e., it’s comfortable, fits well, and I like the way it looks) I tend to go buy a whole slew of them so:

1. I don’t run out or have to bother going to find more for a long time, and;
2. I don’t have to think about it or spend any time on it.

Thus it was, after a long day at the hangar, I spontaneously decided to go find that store in the outlet mall and stock up. I did so, with the sales lady at the counter being suitably impressed.

“You really want to buy two dozen of these?”

“Yes, you have it in six colors, I’m buying four of each.”

“Nice!”

When I arrived home, The Long-Suffering Wife was also impressed, but for a different reason.

“I thought you hated shopping!”

This is true, for the most part. I do hate shopping, considering it a waste of time. I will make an exception for books, computers, and cameras. But shopping for clothes? Yes. “Hate” might not be a strong enough word.

BUT…

Today I did not go “shopping.”

Today I went “buying.”

I knew exactly what I wanted and I knew exactly where to find it. It took me a couple of tries to find the exact location of the store (it’s a really, really freakin’ huge outlet mall, or rather, malls, since there are three or four of them side by side) but once there, it took me less than five minutes to find that particular rack of clothing, pick out the two dozen I wanted, and get to the counter.

“Shopping” to me implies meandering through a store or several stores, perhaps somewhat aimlessly, looking at many different options and then deciding which one you like. This may in fact require you to retrace your steps and go back to someplace you were before.

I understand that many, many people actively enjoy this process. They love to shop! I’m not in any way denigrating or dismissing the act for those who enjoy it. You will also note that I’m not making any sexist or stereotypical statements here, in particular about women. Many people enjoy shopping, often on its own behalf as much or more as the actual results of the shopping process.

There was nothing aimless about what I did, and I didn’t explore any options at all. I was like a cruise missile closing in on a target. I was “buying” something very specific which I needed and wanted, and got it from the exact place I expected it to be.

This was not necessarily “shopping,” although I can see where the two terms might be related and easily confused.

Poe-Tay-Toe. Poe-Tah-Toe.

Checklists are wonderful, in their place. If you’re flying a plane or piloting a spacecraft or doing an experiment on the ISS or performing a spacewalk to assemble something in Low Earth Orbit, you would be an idiot to do it without a checklist. And then follow the checklist.

Unless there’s an emergency. But then you have an emergency checklist, so you just switch to that. Generally, due to their nature, pilots and doctors and EMTs and Marines and astronauts who might need an emergency checklist have the first few steps memorized and well practiced, so that if/when the emergency hits they can react and buy themselves time to actually get to a printed checklist.

Where checklists are not appropriate is in my daily routine, especially when it comes time to go to bed. Granted, they’re mental checklists, not literal written ones, but I still find myself saying, “Damn, I’m tired, it’s time for some sleep. Wait! I still have to do this, that, and then some other thing…”

This could be a sign that I’m doing it incorrectly. I need some spontaneity!

I’ll put spontaneity on tomorrow’s checklist to make sure I don’t forget to do it.

(C’mon, that was a easy one.)

Many, many moons ago, when I was a senior in high school, I had a great deal of fun participating in our Senior Play. We did Mary Chase’s “Harvey,” which was in turn made into the utterly delightful 1950 film with Jimmy Stewart.

Despite my complete lack of any previous acting experience, I tried out for the lead role of Elwood Dowd. I didn’t get the part, but I did get to play Dr. Chumley, the psychiatrist who runs Chumley’s Rest, where Elwood is taken by his sister to be locked up as a nutcase. We all know how that turned out.

My favorite scene was always the one where Chumley and Elwood are discussing Harvey. By this time Chumley has seen Harvey for himself and has started to think perhaps there’s something in it for him if he can play his cards right.

After hearing that Harvey can stop a clock, Chumley asks Elwood if Harvey would do that as a favor for himself. Elwood asks Chumley what he would do with the opportunity. Chumley gets all misty and talks about how he would go to Akron, lie down in the trees with a pretty, strange, quiet woman for two weeks straight, drink beer, tell the woman all of the things locked up inside of him, and have her hold out her hand to him while repeating over and over, “Poor thing. You poor, poor thing.”

Elwood, more wise than the entire rest of the cast combined, says, “Two weeks?! Uh – wouldn’t that get a little monotonous? Just Akron, cold beer, and ‘poor, poor thing’ for two weeks?”

I’ve always seen the wisdom in Elwood’s judgement of Chumley’s fantasy, but some days I begin to finally understand what Chumley was looking for. Two weeks in Akron with “poor, poor thing” is starting to sound better by the day.

Instead, it’s well after 23:00 and I’ve got a Construction Meeting at 09:00 tomorrow morning and still things to get done before I can go to bed tonight, so Akron is just going to have to wait.