Vacation By The Numbers

Getting away from it all really does lighten the load.

 I got out of Pittsburgh for a few days in June to visit my riding instructor/ inventor friend, Robin, who lives near Albany, New York. It was a relaxing getaway for a number of reasons. 

Reason 1: I drove. My reasoning was that I wanted some time to think about various projects with a minimum of stress. Flying would add too much stress without giving me much thinking time. Besides, the weather was nice for driving, I stopped for some good meals, and I wasn’t on a schedule that day. 

The only glitch happened because of my GPS device. These things are great most of the time, but just five minutes from my destination, mine decided to take me on a short cut, then didn’t know where it was. I stopped at the small post office to call, but I was in a dead zone for cell phone service. Finally, I called from the Taconic Parkway, and got directions. As I approached the house, Robin and Vic were out there waving at me so that I would be sure not to pass the house.  

Reason 2: Robin’s house is in the aforementioned dead zone for cell phone service. I still had Internet access, but I wasn’t drawn to check my phone for messages every time I heard a bird chirp. A scant mile and a half down the road at the barn, I could get reception. I’m sure my carrier’s coverage had nothing to do with the spotty signal. I won’t tell you what carrier I use, but its initials are AT&T. 

Big John

Reason 3: The barn and its occupants. Like me, my friend is an animal lover. Along with her two cats and one dog, she has a dozen chickens and two horses. Great gentle-souled beasts, Big John and Black Jack were a calming influence as I helped Robin muck out the paddock and give them fresh water. 

I took it upon myself to feed and water the livestock by myself one morning because the Internet connection was down and I was at the barn anyway to check mail and messages, and Robin was down with a 24-hour bug. That was when I mistakenly tossed an extra flake of hay over the fence for each of my equine friends. Note: horses don’t care who feeds them, and if you accidentally give them a little bit more to eat than usual, they hold no grudges. 

Reason 4: Old friends and new. I had a couple of meetings with prospective clients, both nicely facilitated by friends. Robin got me in to meet with the director of a local art academy. And my friend in Hyde Park, well-known Realtor Christine Jones (who knows everybody), arranged a meeting with a lovely couple who have a fascinating story to tell. The great thing about that dinner was the fact that both Robin and Christine knew the same people they did. “You know so-and-so? I knew so-and-so. He lived just around the corner from that other so-and-so.” It was old home week there for a while, but I got to talk a little business, too. 

Reason 5: Advertising. I’ve long had an interest in advertising, having given lectures on the subject while teaching at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I sat in while Robin met with designer Rich Kraham about revving up the marketing of her Whipwatch, a riding crop with a built-in timer. (Google it, it’s really cool.) Rich is very knowledgeable, and it was fun trading ideas and concepts.

 

Reason 6: Cat shaving. Mirabelle is a white, long-haired beauty with a gentle disposition. Her gentleness was mildly ruffled when she was shaved for the summer. (You remember, I hope, that this is a cat we’re talking about) The process looks like torture, but her mood was even nicer afterwards because she felt better. They took off everything but the hair on her head, legs, and the tip of her tail. She looked like a lion wearing leg warmers, but she felt cool enough to curl up and sleep with me that night. 

Maizie

 

 

 

Mirabelle’s new look had no effect on my friend, happy-go-lucky Maizie the pug. But the other cat, George, gave the newly shorn feline a wide berth. This served to prove that dogs evaluate the world mostly by scent, so Maizie wouldn’t have cared if Mirabelle had been shaved bald. But cats seem to get more information through their eyes, and that’s why it took George longer to adjust.

 

Reason 7: The bonfire. There’s nothing like sitting around a gentle fire. Well, this was nothing like a gentle fire. This conflagration was as tall as the house thanks to a neighbor adding some extra wood of his own. But it was well-contained and controlled. The adults drank wine and the kids toasted marshmallows and made s’mores. (The only reason I don’t go for s’mores is the mess factor. Chocolate in my hair is not a good look for me.) 

That was also the night I felt a little like the ugly house guest. It had already been arranged that I would sleep in the room of Robin’s daughter, Aubrey, and she would sleep on the enclosed porch. However, because of the strength of the fire, it wasn’t even close to being out when everyone wanted to turn in. Someone would have to stand fire watch, which simply meant sleeping outside so as to be closeby if necessary. Because she’s college -age and ever the adventurer, Aubrey eagerly volunteered and wrapped herself in a sleeping bag and comforter. But I still pictured disapproving looks when I described my stay: Oh yes, I slept in the daughter’s room and she slept out in the yard. 

Reason 7: Riding bareback. We had time for only one lesson, but it was a great experience. I hadn’t been on a horse for a couple years, and am in no way proficient. I felt a little vulnerable sitting atop Big John with no reins or saddle. Robin led us around and gave instructions. While I haven’t yet mastered changing from sitting light to sitting heavy (or staying centered for that matter), I did get John to turn right just by pulling back my right shoulder. This will take a lot of practice. 

Reason 8: Visiting with daughter and son-in-law. I took a less direct route home because I went due west to Jamestown on Chautauqua Lake where I met Emma and Tony for dinner. Nice visit. Emma showed off her new phone, a BlackBerry Storm that Tony had given her. That’s one sleek device. Made me want to upgrade mine. We left the restaurant in a deluge, and part of the trip home was spent with the windshield wipers on max. 

Technology did serve me well on that leg of the trip. On my GPS, I could see where I was on the map as I drove south on I-79, and on my phone, I could see the weather map and where all the rain was. Not that I could have avoided it, but at least I knew roughly when it would stop. 

Mirabelle after the shave

After pulling out of Robin’s driveway at just after 10:00 AM, I pulled into my garage at 9:00 on the dot that evening. I was tired, but it was a good tired. It had been a great trip, and I got to see most of the people I intended to. Unfortunately, my schedule didn’t match that of another friend near Utica. Guess I’ll just have to go back.

Names, the More the Better

I’m noticing a pleasant trend on such sites as Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as in general practice elsewhere. Married and divorced women have begun to use all three names as an identifier. They have begun to use their maiden names as well as their married names. Sometimes they’re hyphenated, sometimes not. I have a few ideas why this is happening, but I’ll keep them to myself for now, so as not to influence the responses.

I’ll be surveying my three-named female friends and contacts in an attempt to ascertain why this phenomenon is taking off so rapidly. The fact that so many women seem to be converting at once is what piqued my curiosity.

So I’ll send out the survey and you ask your friends what’s what, and we’ll see what information shakes out. If you find out something interesting, please let me know. Three-named women, feel free to respond directly.

Linkbook and FacedIn

There’s something I’ve been saying to my audiences about e-mail for a long time, and it’s that e-mail is whatever we want it to be, whether we use it for business letters or a form of instant messaging. You can use it for both, but confusing the two can lead to disaster. The same holds true for Facebook and LinkedIn, except for the disaster part.

LinkedIn started as the stodgy business site where you’d find such announcements as “This month, I’ll be in Fargo, ND, speaking to the annual convention of the National Society of Flange Adjusters” and “Read my latest article in the March issue of the Wall Street Pennysaver.”

And on Facebook, you could find such riveting status updates as ”dude hear are pics of me geting waisted on spring break sorry their out of focus” and “I’m eating cheese now.”

A few changes have happened in the way some of us are using these social networking sites. Or maybe it’s a change in attitude toward them. (I’m talking about these two entities because I use them. I’m on Plaxo Pulse, but I really don’t pay much attention to it.  And whatever happened to MySpace?)

Have you noticed a change in the respective tones of Facebook and LinkedIn?  I’m seeing hints that many of us are using them interchangeably. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; I’m just throwing it out there.

Lately LinkedIn is lightening up and Facebook is forming part of our marketing strategy. I have many friends and contacts in both networks, and 99% of them are balanced in their use of both sites. But I’ve seen a few of them instigate the creeping casualness on LinkedIn and strafe us with business blasts on Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the two networks are in imminent danger of becoming each other. But I do notice a centering trend. Do you?

More to come on this topic in the next newsletter. (Subscribe to the Legacy Road Comminique here) Weigh in with your own observations and I’ll try to include them in the article.

A Nielsen Family Twenty Years Later

I was a Nielsen family recently, even though it’s just me and two cats, and I don’t let them watch just anything.

 

There are no cost-of-living increases in Nielsen Land. Twenty years ago they paid me a whole dollar to keep a diary of my television viewing habits. They sent me the same amount this time, but for a lot more work. Today they ask you to enter not just the shows you watched, but also the shows you recorded. And because we have such complicated channel grids these days, Nielsen requests that you attach a copy of your cable provider’s channel lineup. I did the latter, but not the former. Mainly because I had just had a DVR installed at the time and didn’t really know what I was doing.

 

I still haven’t gotten one of those Nielsen boxes that actually records the channels you’re watching. Just a diary. One for the office, one for the living room.

 

The Nielsen diary is not an invasive procedure at all. Not like the Trendex system used to be. Trendex was a method of TV ratings where you filled out a form saying what you watched, then they called you on the phone to see if you were really watching it. You were pretty much busted when you said you’re enjoying Masterpiece Theater and the laugh track from Laverne & Shirley is blaring in the background.

 

But even the Nielsen method is an obligation, like doing homework. When they send me another diary in 20 years, I’m holding out for two dollars.

 

 

 

 

 

The Oxford Comma

This particular punctuation mark might seem a little pretentious sporting such an academic name. But using it correctly can eliminate confusion. Here is a great example of the reason you should use the Oxford comma, sometimes known as the serial comma. It appeared in the Sunday, January 11, 2009, edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the editorial page. We’ll get to it in a minute.

In a series of three or more items separated by commas, the Oxford comma is the comma that separates the final two items and comes just before the conjunction. “Go to the store and get eggs, bread, milk, and celery.” Some style manuals advocate omitting this comma. That would not be a problem in the previous sentence, but it some cases,  the omission creates ambiguity or momentary confusion. “My favorite foods are steak, pizza, macaroni and cheese and crackers.”

See if you can spot the problem in the following sentence: “A recent Post-Gazette review of Allegheny County restaurant inspections turned up some pretty disgusting conditions — dead roaches on the floor, live ones scurrying across steam tables, rodent droppings and foods of all sorts being kept at unsafe temperatures.” (italics mine)

The end of that sentence had me wondering just what the safe temperature for rodent droppings might be.

The Latest Burial Artifact

I saw a news report the other day that said some people are now asking to be buried with their cell phones. Down through the ages, the dearly departed have often been interred with belongings that had some significance in their lives: jewelry, letters, food, weapons, their boots… anything to help make their trek to the other realm safely and comfortably.

Now it’s cell phones. Apparently, they don’t want to be out of touch even after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. Of course, a few of them are witless enough to require the explanation from their funeral director that they cannot be cremated with their BlackBerry because the battery would explode.

We’ve all seen and heard people talking on their phones who seem to have no volume control in their own heads. Recently, I heard a fellow chattering into his device very clearly from all the way across a fair-sized parking lot. So I’m going on record as being in favor of the idea of people being buried with their cell phones. My question is do we have to wait until they expire on their own?

An Electoral Collage

A few (mercifully few) thoughts on the election:

I’m not a political animal. Rather I tend to observe from a distance. Except for yesterday. I wanted to be a part of something momentous. So I voted.

That’s not something I’m keen on doing since I have a hard time getting past the way most politicians and their minions twist and sprain our language in the rush to promulgate their half-truths and non-truths. And what some of them think they need to do to attain the office they’re seeking. But yesterday was different.

I take some modest credit for the massive turnout. In the Tip Jar section of my newsletter, which came out on election day, I wrote only one word. Guess what it was. (Four letters, starts with V.) And one of my friends on Facebook changed her middle name to Hussein. Between the two of us, I’m sure we lit a fire under all those non-participators.

Television news played its part in the festivities, as usual. Don’t get me wrong, I like the media. They’re a large part of my entertainment diet. But they weren’t as entertaining last night because they had such an easy time of it. When you can call the winner of a national election with certainty minutes after the polls close out west, well that’s like shooting carp in a coffee can.

During the day, local news had to scramble to find something dire to report. They told of long lines at the polls, but that was during the early morning hours when people stopped to vote on their way to work.

I was able to go to my polling place, a school gym, at a few minutes after 11:00. A number of people were standing around and talking, but only one person was in front of me in line. There was even time to chat with a neighbor of mine who was working the desk. My machine worked perfectly, and I could even have bought baked goods on my way out.

Even the live broadcast of a combined Daily Show/ Colbert Report was off its stride. The jokes struck me as both lame and too earnest. I see a difficult future for those shows, and for the temporarily rejuvenated Saturday Night Live. I hope they can find a way to make fun of a president they like.

This just in: Cabbage Patch Dolls are available in the image of all four candidates. Make up your own comment.

The one downside to this election: the loser wants a recount.

Ralph Nader doesn’t think 1% can possibly be right.

Dumb Human, Smart Squirrel

I’ve done dumb things in the past and likely will in the future. I don’t let that tendency bother me because I’m a writer. Whereas most people want their dumb doings to stay hidden, writers use them for material. Case in point: 

 

I lived on the second floor of a duplex once. The only redeeming quality of the place was the wildlife in the back yard. This was in the suburb of Pittsburgh known as Dormont, where the squirrels are well accustomed to humans. Especially the ones who feed them. 

 

I was coming down the back stairs heading for the laundry room, and glanced out the big window in the back door. In the fork of the tree across the driveway, a squirrel was waiting. Looking right at me. Intently. He wanted peanuts. This was one of the neighborhood regulars, one of the squirrels that came right up to me and took peanuts from my hand. They knew me. I was Mr. Peanut without the top hat and monocle. 

 

I wanted to let the little guy know I had seen him, so, absurdly, I signalled “wait a minute.” You know, raise your index finger as a kind of sign language? Like the squirrel is going to understand, check his little watch and tap his little foot and say. “Okay, but make it snappy, I’m late for my next tree.” 

 

Dumb move, yes. But in my defense, when I came back upstairs, not only was the squirrel still waiting for me, but he had moved to the back porch. To be closer to the source, I suppose.

 

My gesture might have been dumb, but the squirrel wasn’t. So go ahead and make good use of your goofs.

 

Nostalgia For a Time You Never Knew

Someone once told me about her little niece, who, after seeing both old black-and-white movies and new color versions, asked, “When did the world turn color?”

That made me remember my attitude toward the past and my desire to time travel to black-and-white times when men wore hats and long topcoats, when women got dressed up to go downtown on a shopping trip, and everyone dressed up for a plane trip. That desire probably comes from interesting stories heard from my parents and aunts and uncles when I was a child. I associate those stories with innocent times because when I heard those stories, the world was still black and white to me. You know– before I knew how screwed up the world really was.

Can you feel nostalgic for a time you were too young to fully understand? A time when the I Love Lucy episode in which Ethel was shocked that Lucy wanted her to go downtown on the subway in her blue jeans actually made sense. Ward Cleaver of Leave It To Beaver and Jim Anderson of Father Knows Best sat around in the evening reading the paper in a coat and tie. Granted, that was television and fictional representations of fashion and family, but they had to get the idea from somewhere.

Our ideas of proper attire have devolved precipitously, for some more than others. Around 20 years ago, when I was working for somebody else rather than myself, that somebody was just introducing the concept of casual Fridays. This meant no suit and tie for the men, but one man didn’t get it. He came in wearing a tank top, cutoffs, and a Steelers cap. He looked more prepared to clean his garage than to work a day in the business world.

Even a venue as tony as Heinz Hall here in Pittsburgh sees its share of jeans and T-shirts for many performances. Yes, I have worn jeans to Heinz Hall, but that was my bottom half; my top half was wearing a jacket and dress shirt.

But no hat. The world is in color now.

Linking

Links appear to be important in the way Google looks at blogs. That and the spirit of friendship leads me to add links to the blogs of friends. To the right are links to Trina Hess’ comedy blog, Lynda Stucky’s blog on speech issues, and Patty Kreamer’s blog on getting organized. Good stuff there. Take a look.

But don’t forget to come back!

I’m also allowing anonymous comments for the time being. But it would be nice if you at least gave us your first name. We’ll see how that goes.