Thanksgiving Musings

After arriving back in Houston from the trip to Vegas and Spokane on Tuesday Nov 23rd, Thanksgiving was upon us. Our daughter, Kristen (five months pregnant) and her husband Kevin, and our grandson Ben flew in from South Carolina to spend the holiday with us in La Grange. It was a great time to spend “Dad-o bonding” with Ben. He loved the ride to La Grange in my Escalade with the “movie”. The time went fast as he watched Star Wars II. I also heated our pool up to about 95 degrees – that’s right, the whole pool. He swam every late November day, even when the temp was as cold as 48 degrees. We were sad as they boarded the plane and left us on Sunday morning.

On my mind over the holidays was the anniversary of the day I met my wonderful bride, Becky - November 22, 1989. Thanksgiving is a holiday of reflection, of counting our blessings. Perhaps my life's greatest blessing happened on this day. It is a story worth scribing in this log.

Ironically, my divorce from Mary was final just the day before, on Nov 21. As Thanksgiving approached, I made arrangements to fly to Atlanta to visit my brother Robert and his family to celebrate the holiday. I was still smarting badly from the divorce, and wasn’t accustomed to the solitude of single life. I was not inclined to spend the holiday by myself. There were no non-stop flights available from Houston to Atlanta, so I was forced to connect through Chicago with a three hour layover there.

As I boarded the American Airlines flight, I braced for what I thought was going to be a horrible travel day. Surprisingly, my flight arrived at O’Hare about 15 minutes early, and as I scrambled off the aircraft with my carry-on luggage, I noticed a flight right next door had already boarded and was leaving for Atlanta in five minutes. I rushed over to see if I could get on as a stand-by.

As I made the request to the gate agent, he said, “Sir, this is a full flight. You know, the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year.”

“Please look to see if there has been a cancellation.” I pleaded. I did not want to spend three hours in the O’Hare terminal.

“Well, well! There is one seat left”, he said as he busied himself with the details of switching over my ticket. I barely made it on the flight before the flight attendant closed the door.
As I scrambled down the aisle with my carry-on luggage, I spotted my seat, right next to a beautiful professionally dressed brunette intent on reading a book. When she saw that I was struggling to find a spot for my carry-on luggage, she stood up and rearranged her things in the overhead bin to make room. The aircraft was an MD-80 set up with the seats in the familiar 3-2 configuration. We were lucky enough to have the "2 side". Her's was the aisle seat, so I contorted a little and shuffled into a spot by the window.

I thanked her, and tried to make idle conversation. But the paperback is what held her attention. As the aircraft departed O'Hare, I switched on my light, dropped the tray table, pulled some papers out of my briefcase and began shuffling them around. The flight attendant soon came by with drinks, and then a hot meal appeared. (Yes, gentle reader, back in the olden days, American Airlines served hot meals and enjoyed financial health.) Only now was conversation with her a possibility, as the paperback slid into her bag.

We talked about a lot of things, first our names, where we were from, about our jobs, and where we were going on this trip. She was living in Oklahoma City in route to a high school reunion. I asked her if she was single, she said "yes". I asked her if she was divorced, she said "yes". That lead to a conversation about our exes, and how our divorces happended. She asked my how long I had been divorced.

"Including today?" I quipped, "One day." She was thinking I was all kinds of trouble.

Still we talked, about religion, politics and decided that we were both Christians, politically conservative, and agreed on most issues of the day. She never picked that book back up, and we talked for the duration of the flight.

As we began to de-plane, I asked her, "Do you mind if we exchange business cards? I like to keep in touch with people I find interesting. " She gave me a card with only her business contact information on it.

I thought about her over the holiday, and told my brother about her. Upon returning, I sent her a Christmas Card. She sent me one back with ere phone number. I called her, and that's how it started.

Some people say luck, others fate or Karma. I personally believe it was divine guidance.

Spokane, Washington

We arrived in Spokane 4:30 Sunday afternoon, just as it was getting dark. It was a long hard day. Rain and IMC in normally sunny Vegas delayed our departure by about 4 hours. We hurried from the airport directly to Dr. Bradley Bale's Heart Attack Prevention Clinic, where despite the late hour on Sunday, we were met by Pamela, one of Dr. Bale's nurses. She did bloodwork and some test that were needed for Monday's session with Dr. Bale. We had been fasting for 23 hours, so finishing up and getting our only meal of the day, put a nice exclamation point on an otherwise trying travel day.

We checked in to the Davenport Hotel, and what a pleasant surprise! http://www.davenporthotel.com/

Its a beautifully restored grand old lady built during the Victorian Era. A delightful 4 star in an unexpected place.

We flew to Dr. Bale's clinic in Spokane primarily because despite two years of pharmacological effort by doctors in Houston, my lipid numbers have remained awful. Dr. Bale is on the leading edge of compiling and rendering the complexities of hyperlipidimia into treatment programs that arrest and reverse the adverse effects of high cholesterol. Monday we spent most of the day at his clinic analyzing our data, and learning about Dr. Bale's program. I'm convinced it's the best thing around.

Monday afternoon we freed up and decided to take a drive over to Coeur d' Alene, Idaho. There's a big "glacier formed" lake there by the same name, so we decided to stop and wander around. We spotted a C-206 on floats and a tiny dockside FBO, so I naturally had to have a look. Lo, and behold, it was for rent, as was the CFI. So for the first time in my aviation career, I flew a floatplane.

It felt very familiar, as I climbed into the left seat, and the CFI took the right - very Cessna, much like my c-210. Its cold here in late November, and the Cessna had not been flown all day. As we cranked up, we did a few lazy circles in the lake to warm the engine up. As the oil temperature reached an acceptable level, we turned, and becasue there are no brakes on a floatplane, performed the runup and mag check while moving downwind. The CFI asked me if I wanted to fly her. What the hell! Is that a trick question? I eagerly took the controls.

Takeoff from the water was much like a short field takeoff: Yolk all the way back, full power, leveling as the craft reached planing velocity, and at 45 kts, the craft just lifted off the smooth surface of the lake. I circumnavigated the entire lake (120 mile shoreline), and landed (or is it "watered") just as the sun was setting shooting purple and orange streaks from behind the mountains to our west. I had also never flown in Idaho. Logged two firsts. Impressive day.

Vegas

As I pen this entry, I am looking out of our 19th floor window at Venetian Resort onto lots of action on the Las Vegas strip. Treasure Island just finshed one of their booming shows, which happen every couple of hours, and our suite affords a great view.

We are here for an American Academy of Pediatrics Continuing Medical Education event. My wife, Becky is a pediatrician, and is here for annual training. I get to tag along and hang out in Vegas. I have also been assigned the title of "events coordinator" for the trip, and in this capacity, have arranged for us to see a couple of shows.

The strange thing about me and Vegas is that I don't really gamble here in the gaming mecca on Planet Earth. Its not that I have anthing particularly against gambling, I just have trouble being comfortable risking my money while on the steep portion of the learning curve. Being uncomfortable translates to an ordering of things that compete for my entertainment dollar. I prefer the shows to the casinos, and that's the bottom line. Why?

Probably because the odds of winning are low, and I am convinced that if I play long enough, I'll surely lose. If I don't gamble, believe that I come out ahead. And it all operates at a subconsious level anyway, because blinking slot machines, craps tables, and roullette wheels give me anxiety, if I give them more than a casual glance. This is my fourth trip to Vegas, and I havent even gambled a quarter. Enough of that.

Friday night – The first show, O is, according to the concierge at the Venetian, the most popular show in Vegas, and the toughest ticket in the city to get. I paid a ridiculous amount of money from a scalper to acquire the best “same day” seats that I could get for Becky and me. The full extent of our “ticket agent’s” effectiveness would become apparent later.

As I picked up the tickets, the concierge told me that these seats were row A – that, I knew. Becky noticed the ticket was imprinted with “wet seat” on the face. She made a call to the concierge, who assured us that a few sprinkles were all we could expect. As we arrived at the O Theatre at Bellagio, we were shown to our front row, center seats. They were a few feet from the swimming pool stage – close enough to smell the chlorine.

As the crimson curtain first billowed, then furled and vanished into the set, the water’s edge was approximately 8 feet distant. As always, Cirque’s props were boldly colorful and very otherworldly, drawing obvious inspiration from the work of surrealist Salvadore Dali. The unlit water was black to the eye, yet shimmered from the stage’s backlights. Smoke drifted in from stage left. A faceless, legless human torso hung in suspension a few yards over the water, as was a Victorian era full length gown. Both moved silently on their invisible wires. Clowns in white face opened the show. Costumes were in wild contrast; some inspired by red clad Beefeaters at the Tower of London in full powdered wigs. Others actors were clad in skintight almost transparent leotards, either painted or beaded to resemble Star Trek’s arch villain, The Borg.
At several points during the show, fountains, or actors leaping into the pool caused significant splashes to wet us thoroughly. I found that as each new act unfolded, I was analyzing its potential to wet us further. Like all Cirque productions, O had no plot per se, however a logical thread is woven throughout all the acts, more appropriately described as “connectivity” rather than a ”plot”. The nut of it is mostly humans doing things the human body is not really designed to do. O is part magic, part acrobatic and trapeze, part modern dance, and part synchronized swimming. The show was fabulous and very entertaining.

Saturday night - Zumanity, another Cirque production, was playing at the New York New York casino. As much as I liked "O", I disliked Zumanity. Billed as a "another side of Cirque du Soleil", and was supposed to be a sexier, tantialzing, provocative offering from the Canadian entertainment group. Well, it was NONE of those things. While the show lacked the artistry of previous Cirque productions, its flavor was more like a gay pride event than anything else. Oh sure, there were young sexy actors, but at least half of the acts were "gay" - either boy/boy or girl/girl, and clearly these gay acts were more "celebrated" than the others. But the absolute worst aspect of the show was its "preachiness" - condescendingly "teaching" us all a thing or two about sex. I mused that the actors we like the evil twin/mirror images of "Carrie Nation" marchers at thed of the nineteenth century, heralding the beginning of the temperance movement. Come now! A total turnoff, despite all the tight young skin.

From here we are off to Spokane

Hectic Day at the Office

Today, tomorrow, and Friday, my company is having a Quality Audit to API Q1 and ISO:9001:2000 standards. It was a hectic day - not time for anything else.

I founded the company in 1999, and serve as President/CEO and chief rainmaker. Our success has been nothing short of remarkable. We have gone from a four man startup firm operating in one of my partner's garage (Camp David - as it was affectionaltely known) to $5 million per year in gross revenue and fifteen employees. We build equipment that makes offshore oil rigs safer, environmentally sensitive areas less likely to suffer damage from an inadvertent oil spill, and equipment that allows extraction of more hydrocarbons from existing reserves than ever before.

The story is quite amazing, and I am constantly in awe of what we have accomplished. More on my company later.

Veterans Day Remembrances

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is when the Great War (WWI) ended. Formerly known as Armistice Day, it was renamed Veteran's Day by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.

I never served in the military, although there were/are many times that I wish that I had. Just too busy with things, and it never fit in the schedule. Same with golf, but that is another story. I was nineteen years old in 1970, and classified 1-A in the selective service draft. The Vietnam war was winding down, and educational deferrments were suspended in favor of a national lottery. On Jul 2, 1970 and with great anticipation draft age boys looked for their lottery numbers in local newspapers the day after the much ballyhooed drawing. My number was 172, and I believed it was on the cusp.

My dad was a Navy man, so I decided to go down and talk to the Navy recruiter, who "silver tongued" me into signing up. I took the all the tests, physicals and filled out all the forms necessary for induction. Apparently I did very well on the exams, and got my pick of schools, and a submarine assignment. But the whole "cattle car operation" of military induction I believed, was a bellweather of an impending surrender of my individuality, and made me think that I was being hustled. I really never had a problem with America's position on Vietnam per se, but I always believed that we were being "prevented" from winning the war from within. I mean, why not bomb Hanoi? Only because the press and peaceniks at home were running amok, and the Nixon Administration had a PR problem.

The recruiting office was in a run down main Post Office on San Jacinto St. in downtown Houston. As I sat across a worn wooden desk from the naval recruiter, the smells of old wood, leather and old stuff filled my head. He lifted a file filled with all my particulars from a drawer and offered up an official navy form. He said, "Just sign here, Sonny and you're in the Navy."

"Hold that thought." I replied. "I'll be back to see you when I get my draft notice."

He smiled and said, "We'll be here when you're ready." That was the closest that I came to military service. Whether you view this as bad or good, that's how it happened.

In 1971, Dad was fired from his job as an air traffic controller for the FAA because of his involvement with the controllers union, PATCO. The firing launched Dad and the rest of our family into a crisis. In 1971 we moved to Toronto, Canada when he landed an ATC job there.

No, I wasn't dodging the draft. In fact, shortly after moving, I made a trip to Buffalo, NY and registered for the selective service there, indicating our address in Toronto. The recruiter just smiled at me. Even so, No. 172 was high enough because the draft notice never came, and the highest number ever drafted from the lottery (accoring to http://www.sss.gov/lotter2.htm) was 125.

Fast forward to the year 1981. I was a senior at the University of Houston, and finishing up my engineering degree. My life comprised working full time to support my family, attendance in part-time night classes, weekend family events, and little else. The average work day for me was 14-16 hours long. This particular semester, I was taking an elective course, "U.S. Military History" as well as a technical course. Often after class some friends would gather at the "Cougar Den" bar in the University Center to blow off steam, and to share a pitcher of draft beer before hitting the freeway for the long drive home.

It was Veteran's Day - four guys and three girls joinned me that evening at about 9:00pm. As the beer arrived, we talked about the class, our professor, and just things students normally talk about. Ironically, while I remember this event with stunning clarity, I do not remember anyone's name at the table that nignt. In fact, after this event, we never met there again. The brain's primary function, remember?

The beer flowed and table talk turned to the somber subject of Veteran's Day. All the guys at the table were Vietnam Vets, and talk soon turned to homecoming experiences. All were very, very bad. First one guy then the other told of getting off the airplanes in their uniforms to be greeted by shouts of "Murderer!" and other horrible insults. One person was spat upon, another ran quickly into a restroom and changed out of his uniform. One after another, I realized these vets were very scarred from events in Vietnam, as well as the revile experienced by their countryment upon coming home from the war.

After a few moments of somber silence, all eyes at the table turned to me. And what was my Vietnam experience? I related the draft board story above, and predictably, those same questioning eyes showed stunned disbelief.

"Well, I'm not going to sit here and drink beer with a son-of-a-bitch like you." The angy vet rose to his full 5'-6" height and glared at me. He did not cut a particularly imposing figure, as he was as round as he was tall, had long unruly black hair and an untrimmed beard. The slammed his empty beer mug down on the table and stormed out of the bar. I was a very fit 6'-1", and despite my sympathy for the story he had revealed to us, he had actually called my manhood into question, and in front of ladies! I followed him out of the bar, fully intending to kick his unstable ass.

The cool November air was invigorating as I passed through the door, and I looked around only to find my potential adversary slumped in a corner, head-in-hands, sobbing deeply. I sat down, put my arm around him and tried my best to console his obvious grief.

That legacy of Vietnam is with us still.

Divorce and Ex-es

I believe you should not ever get one - and ex or a divorce. However, sometimes its just can't be helped.

Its been almost 17 years since we divorced. The anniversary of the event is approaching, and is why I am musing about it now. I've remarried - very happily - and this time it will be forever. My wife and I are soul mates. But in my experience, it has taken an unhappy marriage, and a horrible divorce to really help me to understand and appreciate a great relationship.

Mary (the ex-spouse) and I met in 1975 on an ice skating rink in Houston, Texas. She was just 18 and the product of a very unhappy, even chaotic home situation - workaholic bristly mother, and an unstable homosexual father. And they still lived together! Mom stayed sequested in one part of the house while Dad entertained his gay lovers in another part. She was very ready to get out of the house and be married. While I was a only handful of years older, I should have known better than to get married just three months later. And the full depth of disfunctionality of her childhood homelife was concealed until after our wedding.

Within two years we were blessed with a bright, healthy son, and only fifteen months later a beautiful and talented daughter, both of which are now grown and have children of their own. Unfortunately, these offspring were the only two good products of the marriage. I must assert that I was always a good father, attentive husband and excellent provider. During the early years of our marriage, I attended school at night and earned a mechanical engineering degree, but always devoted weekends and every spare moment to the family. The degree greatly enhanced my earning power, and in my late twenties, launched a very promising career in the oil industry.

The prosperity seemed not to be quite enough for Mary. It was as if the chaos experienced during her formative years required her to construct a facade, so the world would see only what she chose to reveal. While this scenario is true for many humans, the small degree to that "truth" played into her construct was abnormal. While far from qualified for any sort of clinical diagnosis, I believe she was (and probably still is) a borderline sociopath. If facts didn't fit the facade, she would just change them. This means I continually caught her in little untruths. Most were little things - typical of young marrieds. "Did you mail the check to so-and-so?" "Yes" she would answer, but she would not have done it. She lied about the places she went, the people she saw. Little things, Inconsequential things. Very puzzling. While I made note, I only confronted her infrequently about them, because it would always cause a horrible fight and crying fit. "Boo-hoo-hoo. You just don't understand..." While it was true, I didn't understand, for 12 years, I tried to be supportive.

But it began to come unraveled when she stole money from "us". Money just disappeared without logical explanation. She told me she had no money to pay her share of the bills, at one point she was two thousand dollars behind on just her credit card payments - and these were credit cards that I did not know she even had! As a remedy, I borrowed several thousand dollars from my 401K so she could pay off the complete card balances with the condition that she close the accounts. She took the money and made the promise. 6 weeks later, I found out that she had made only the minimum payments, and the rest of the cash had disappeared. "She's so fine, there's no telling where the money went..." The confrontation put a stake in the heart of our marriage.

I suppose some people just get a little crazy in their early thirties, when things don't work out like the fantasies of their twenties. Mary was no different. She had a career, someone made a pass at her while on a business trip, and she disappeared for three days. I mean off the face of the earth. It was a boyfriend she later married. Her justification? I didn't trust her anymore and drove her away. To this day, I am certain she does not believe she was cheating on me.

The marriage officially ended on Nov 21, 1988 when the ink finally dried on the divorce papers. The process of obtaining the divorce was rather painless, after I got over the fact that Texas Dads don't have a snowball's chance in hell in a child custody fight. She got the house, and she got he kids.

While sitting alone in my cheap inner city apartment, I had trouble understanding why my life had to change so radically. And I really, really missed the daily interaction with my children, who were now 9 and 10.

Its the stuff county and western songs are all about....and now I had to live it.

Heaven and Earth aligned

SoxYankees2004 <<---<< In comment to this blog

It was the fourth game of the 2004 World Series. The game was in the 2nd inning as I climbed aboard a regional jet from Houston to Asheville, NC for a weekend at our mountain home in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We were incommunicado in the RJ, insofar as baseball was concerned. The Sox were up 3-0 on the Yankees in the series - Yanks with their back to the Green Monster, and the "Curse of the Bambino" hanging by a thread.

As the captain pushed the nose over for our descent into Asheville, he made a broad left turn to intercept the final approach path. As the aircraft rolled into the turn, an odd muted reflection found its way into the window, traced its way across the seatback in front of me, jumped over to my leg, and began moving up my chest. I peeked out the window to make an identification of the source. The moon was in full eclipse - the first time I had ever witnessed the phenomenon from 30,000 ft.

"Its a sign", I thought. "Heaven and Earth are in alignment. The curse is broken." As I climbed in my rented Deville, equipped with XM satellite radio, I tuned in the game in the 8th inning.

As the scorekeeper registered the third out in the ninth inning, "Red Sox Win!" flashed up on the XM receiver. Imagine. This final game being played during a rare cosmic event, to immortalize a rag tag group of men more resembling Amish Pirates than a baseball team.

Heaven and earth were in alignment to break an 85 year old curse. 'Tis the stuff of baseball legend.

--a fan of the world's greatest game--

Life Experiences

The following is a set of my life experiences. Most are short, some are funny, some are poignant, and all are very true. They have no particular chronological or logical sequence. They are arranged only in the order that they occur to me, and that is highly random. I've often said that our brain's primary function is to forget things to protect us from ourselves. If we could remember every hurt, disappointment, injury, or bad experience, we would surely go mad. Unfortunately, my brain if too often very efficient in this respect - for I forget far too may things I wish to remember. This blog is to help me organize the random manner that my brain allows remembrances.

You are welcome to read and comment.