The Truest Sentence You Know?

In A Moveable Feast Hemingway discussed his writing method. Over the many years and pages he developed a technique to both begin and end his writing day. He said he would never end a day’s story without knowing what was going to happen next –He never stopped completely empty. He would leave those words along with the words that would come after them down in his creative well to brew until the next writing day. Sometimes drawing those words and thoughts weren’t as easy as dipping down and pouring them from the pen to the page; especially if he were starting a new story. To get the writing flowing Hemingway advised to “Write the truest sentence that you know.” And then go on from there.

“It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”

One sentence is easy enough. Everyone knows at least one thing that is true at any given time.

What’s the truest sentence that you know right now?

Be serious, humorous or anything in between.

Popcorn Bag Economics

Yesterday I was frustrated with my convenient store clerks inability to make correct change. My total was $8.54 (the cost of 1 large Red Bull and 2 Diet Cokes) and he gave me $10.46. I tried to explain how you count up from the amount to the nearest dollar then up to whatever the amount given was – in my case $20. He repeatedly confirmed I had indeed given him a $20 suspecting I was trying to scam him with a $10 but eventually relented and gave me the remanding dollar owed. It amazed me he was unable to make this simple transaction, especially with the convenience of a modern cash register telling you the exact change to give.

This reminded me of my second job working at the local dollar movie theater at the tender age of 16 in the small town in East Texas in which I grew up. At this job we did not have the technology my clerk friend had; all we had was a cash drawer and our high school math abilities. It was up to us to tally the cost of the items the patron purchased as well as give back correct change doing all of those calculations in our heads.

While I was always able to do the calculations correctly, not everything about the transactions were completely honest.

The owners of the theater were cheap. Very cheap. Too cheap to provide cash registers. Too cheap to pay well. Too cheap to update the theaters themselves – the last visit I made back home I visited the theater and those chairs were the same as they were 20 years ago.  Too cheap to provide well-fitting, non-thread bare uniforms and certainly too cheap to give out any sort of bonuses or paid vacation time. The lack of any electronic computational devices also meant the lack of any electronic tracking of sales which ultimately meant a younger, not-so-honest self found ways to exploit those methods of inventory and income tracking to mine, and all my co-workers gain.

Here’s how the scam worked.

Inventory was done by hand. Cups, popcorn bags, hotdogs, and candy were all counted before and after shift. So were the cash registers. At the end of the night the totals were reconciled and if everyone’s math was correct the tallies were even or at least in the positive. This hand counting was the fault of their low-tech, low-rent system.

Given the only way to determine how much concessions were sold was by counting the inventory we found you could simply ‘sell back’ already sold/used popcorn bags and pocket the extra money. The scam originated as a secret between a few employees but before my tour of duty was over (moved out of town not to jail, btw) everyone was in on it – including the manager.  At the end of the night we would go through and help the janitors by collecting mostly unmolested popcorn bags and add them to our own inventory (which included a secret spot above some ceiling tiles in the men’s room.

Surely there must have been some sort of checks done? There was in fact a formula used company-wide that said for each ticket sold x amount of concessions should also be sold or something was off. We solved this problem by reducing the amount of tickets sold. How might you do that? Well, when you a buy a ticket what happens? You’re given a (whole) ticket, hand it to the ticket taker (me) who then rips the ticket in half handing you half and then directs you to the appropriate theater. With a little slight of hand the savvy ticket taker could palm the whole ticket and hand you another half, returning the whole ticket to be sold again. That’s right, we’d sell both halves of the ticket; pocketing the money and making the patrons-to-sales math work out.

Not exactly honest but it was pretty ingenious. Especially for a 17 year old kid who almost failed out of high school because of a shorthand credit. Everyone was in on it and I suppose we all considered it our own profit sharing, except we took our cut off the top. As far as I know those scams continued after I left. It’s nice to know I left a legacy behind.

Although I do inspect any popcorn bag I get at any theater these days.

A Window Outside My Life

I recently rearranged my home office so that I sit in full view of these bay windows that look out onto the street and neighborhood in front of my house. The windows have nice blinds that allow me to control how much light comes in and what the people outside can see when trying to look in (and I know they try). I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood so there’s really little activity going on outside my vantage point. That doesn’t stop me from making up drama and exciting things about the mundane activities I do see happening every day.

There’s the elderly Indian gentlemen who has a predictable walk every morning. He’s a thin man. Slight but with a strong stride. His hair is white, his mannered face is solemn and respectful. Anytime I’ve ran into him outside of the house he has removed his hat and smiled as I’ve said hello. He looks to be in his mid 60′s but I imagine him to be much older. I imagine and adventurous life abroad before retiring in a sleepy neighborhood in North Austin. I in vision a young, strapping Gupta living aboard a ship, working as a spice trader fighting the Arabian Sea. Living and loving, exploring the world and seeing sights only few have or will ever see. Thoughts of his adventurous youth keep him contempt as he watches his family live and grow on much calmer seas.

Then there’s the very busy, very mobile soccer Mom across the street. Her house is directly across from my house so it receives most of my surveillance. It appears it is only Mom, Dad and one small child. Dad leaves predictably every morning at 8:30. It’s pretty quiet until around 9:30am when the car trips begin. Mom leaves with child and returns alone, then continues to leave the house and return roughly half a dozen times throughout the day. Her last trip of the day is usually half an hour before her husband gets home and that trip always has the little one in tow. Is she an out-call escort on the side? Perhaps they have a grow room in the attic and she delivers marijuana as a service to the greater Austin area? I’m sure she’s just a stay-at-home Mom busy with household chores but who knows. Now that I think of it, the family does look mid-eastern. Terrorist in the hood?

Neighborhood kids pass by after school lets out. They aren’t as interesting to me. Being a kid is easy; you just go to school and play with your friends. But it also isn’t terribly great; you always have someone telling you what to do, you can’t drive, you have to be at home at certain times and have limited say in anything you do. It’s all in your best interest but as a kid you don’t realize that. The schools in my area are supposed to be some of the best in the city so who knows, maybe there’s future doctors and lawyers skateboarding along my sidewalk. In this day and age I’ll settle for a future anyone-who-has-a-tax-paying-job.

Switching shoes, I wonder what the neighbors think of me? I’ve lived here for years but know only one of my neighbors and only in passing. S leaves predictably mostly every day to go into the office but I work from home much of the time. Sometimes not leaving for days on end. Other days leaving many times. Am I a shut-in? Hoarder? Maybe I’m the drug dealer. I guess that’s the mystery of living in a neighborhood of people too wrapped up in their own lives to get to know the people they are literally feet away.

Think I’ll close the blinds for now. Those damn skateboard kids are making a lot of racket.

“Get off my lawn!”

Merge the Herd

Off in the furthest room of my modestly-sized home is unrest.

If you listen; through the sounds of the TV, the dishwasher and other ambient household noises it can be heard.

It starts with a thud and then a low rumble. A thud, a pause and then a low rumble -A storm is brewing in my home. Two powerful forces are on an collision course in what may be a perfect storm of a danger, destruction and mayhem.

My finance’s cats have moved into the house.

The thud is that of Chico’s head hammering against the closed door of the room in which he has been sequestered in with his brethren: Remmy and Doodlebug. The low rumble is  coming from my cat, Mr Kitty, opposing the new inhabitants of her domain. So far there has been no bloodshed but unless attitudes change among the feline population (specifically Mr Kitty) I see no way to avoid it.

The order of events which my future wife and I are following as far as spending the rest of our lives together isn’t that much different than what I suspect many couples follow:

First there’s the agreement to take these steps.

You move in together.

You get married.

You live happily ever after.

Currently, S and I are mid-way through the second step. Last weekend we moved over the essential items S needs to stay here full-time; including her 3 cats. As part of the transition and introduction, we’ve limited the exposure between the two camps: Mr Kitty and everyone else. As a way of them getting to know each other we’ve allowed the cats to congregate with a door in-between. I think I read about this method somewhere -so far it’s not working. Claws and bites along with growls and hisses dart from under both sides of the door.

Another method for cat introduction and acclimation suggests taking a towel or blanket that has the cat’s scent on it and put it in with the new cats and allow them to get used to each other by their smell. We tried this with a blanket S’s cats use for bedding. Mr Kitty pooped on it.

I’ve tried making personal introductions by taking Mr Kitty in my arms and carrying her amongst the new cats letting her know they aren’t bad and everyone should all get along. Usually Mr Kitty will growl and scratch at me to get away. I’ve got the marks to prove it.

It’s always been just me and Mr Kitty so I expect this transition will take some time. Life is about change and this is a big change for all of us; human and feline. My hope is that with luck and time everyone will become friendly and we’ll all live happily ever after.

Travel Bug

Air travel may be the single most greatest exposure to sickness the average person willingly puts themselves through. I consider it a necesary risk for exploring the world. I go to great extents to prevent pre-travel sickness but once you’re on the move there are too many factors to reasonably control. This was the case in my most recent travel to Peru.

I do have what some people might consider a pretty extreme pre-flight anti-germ regiment. It starts about a week before fly-time. During that week I work from home, limit my exposure to people in general -especially sick people. I take a battery of daily vitamins, wash my hands more than usual as well as stay on top of the allergy pills and sprays I take every day year-round. Those consist of antihistamine pills, steroid nasal sprays, supplemental antihistamine sprays as well as sinus rinses.  I once read an article that proposed that a majority of sickness first has to incubate in your sinuses. Logically, if you keep your sinuses flushed and healthy you’re less likely to get sick or have allergy problems. Sounds reasonable to me and for the most part has worked well. In the 2 years I’ve been following this mantra I’ve only gotten one cold – this week.

Once you’re on-board there’s not much you can do; you’re at the mercy of your fellow passenger’s health. The air, claimed to be filtered, is recycled; so you’re sharing germs with everyone no matter what class of service. I’ve been lucky, in all my travels, I’ve never gotten sick during the trip itself. It’s as if my body goes into overdrive to do it’s best to fight off all infection. Maybe it knows the amount of time and money I’ve spent on the trip and fights extra hard to keep me healthy and enjoying my time away. After travel is complete I really don’t care. Usually I’m sleep deprived, have been eating a horrible, fatty diet and uncaring if I miss a few days of work (as was the case with this last trip/week).

Post travel this trip, to compound my germ-fear, along with a cough/cold, fever and achy-ness -which started about 2 days after we flew home, I also had a gnarly bug bite received while hiking around Machu Picchu. Those symptoms coincided with the minimum incubation period for malaria (I looked it up). Faced with some of the symptoms I called the travel clinic who vaccinated me (and assured me that I wasn’t in a malaria hot-zone). I assumed they would put me at ease, tell me to wait a few more days/weeks and that everything would be just fine. Instead, they sternly informed me that the next call I made would be to my primary care physician to have him look at my unhealed bug bite and check my other symptoms. My stress levels increased to pre-flight levels.

After a quick examination and hearing out my symptoms, the doctor gave me the assurance I was looking for. The bite, while not healed was not unusual. This was the first time I’d be bitten by this particular type of bug (being my first exposure to South American insects) and it would take my body a few extra days to heal. The cold symptoms were just that: a cold. Two days since that doctors visit (and 2 days laying on the couch) and I’m almost back to normal and already planning my next trip.

Hawaii here we come!

Zen and the art of light packing

Today is the day before my big trip to Peru. Packing day. I’ve taken the day off to take care of various going-out-town-for-a-week errands as well as packing. As I said in a previous post, this trip is different from all of the other long trips I’ve taken; I’m only taking one carry-on bag. Because of this, packing becomes more of a thought-out, deliberate process. It becomes more than something you do an hour before you head for the airport. This time I will be packing light.

On the bed I have laid out everything I’m taking. Everything on the bed is there because it was first on a list that I’ve been revising for some weeks now. My travel items, all spread out look considerable but will pack down well within the bag space available.

Each item I’ve folded, placed on the bed and considered. As I’m holding whatever it is: clothing, travel accessory, luxury item, I think about it, how many times will I be able to use this? Do I really need it? I imagine the itinerary of activities and consider when this item will be needed. It’s almost a form of meditation.

Everything I’m bringing is made specifically for travel. I’ve got synthetic clothing with moisture-wicking properties which can be washed in the sink and dried easily on my travel clothesline. I have wool socks and base layer which have their own wicking qualities that will provide warmth as well as be easily cleaned. I’ve broken in my new hiking shoes. My shaving bag is full of travel-sized toiletries 30z tubes of various shampoos, conditioners and soaps. I’ve got a small pharmacy of just about every medication I might need on the road. In addition to my standard medications the Travel Clinic where I was vaccinated sold me a kit of every travel-related med one should ever hope to never need. Probably overkill and I’ll likely thin it down.

I know that even though I’m going to these lengths in selecting what I’m bringing with me that I will still pack things that will go underused or unused all-together. It’s a learning process, so next time I’ll have even less strain my shoulders as I head to my connecting gate. 

For whom the (wedding) bells toll

For most men, eventually, no matter how hard you fight it, your turn to walk down the aisle will come. For the longest time (36 years) I never thought I would make that trip. This all changed around a year ago. I warmed up to the idea and eventually started looking forward to it. Now that I’m engaged, it’s very much a greatly-anticipated reality. Soon those wedding bells will toll for me.

S and I attended quite a fancy wedding this past weekend. I haven’t been to too many weddings but this one was by far the most extravagant. The brides parents went all out. There were 4 open bars, a sushi bar maned by 2 Japanese sushi chefs cutting fish to order, a candy bar for the kids (and adults), a 3 course meal, a banana split bar, live music and even an espresso bar -real barista and everything.

The ceremony itself was short, very short, 10 minutes short. The bride is Jewish and when I saw the wedding program I expected the ceremony to be consumed with traditional reading from scrolls, Hebrew prayers and all sorts of foreign rituals. The Rabbi said a few things, the bride and groom exchanged vows and rings, the groom broke a glass with his foot and that was it. There were some Jewish customs observed at the reception afterward. The brides parents recited a prayer over some bread and wine and they did do the chair dance which I found most entertaining. Neither S or I could even speculate how much the shindig could have cost, much more than either of us would ever spend, hopefully S didn’t get too many ideas.

On the drive home I began to think about what marriage is and was. Marriage’s definition and even relevance has changed quite a bit over the generations. In the olden times couples got married young and had many children, much of the time out of necessity. Life expectancy was short, livings were made from working the ground and the extra hands were put to use. Families were large and divorces rarely happened. These days couples wait longer, have fewer kids and more often than not fail to keep their promise of ’till death do us part’.

With the unfavorable statistics  you wonder why anyone would even want to get married in these modern times? The answer that both S and I agree on is: Family. It may be trendy to have children outside of wedlock but personally I think the symbolic, traditional and legal bonds of marriage tie a family together in a way that gives them an advantage for success. Numerous studies show that 2 parent households result in more happy and successful offspring. I really believe it takes 2 parents to raise a family. If you’re lucky you get help from Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and close friends.

There’s plenty of risk involved; emotional and financial but I think it’s worth it. I’ve lived a pretty fulfilling life so far; I’ve been to many place and seen lots of things and I think that this final, great, life-long challenge will be even more rewarding than the sum of those experiences. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to do half as well my parents did with me.

Even Metal God James Hetfield is married with 3 children. How awesome would that be to have Metallica’s front man for a Dad?

The Perfect Bag

I’ve been fortunate and have had the opportunity to travel all around the world. For me, planning for a trip is just as fun as going on the trip itself. One of the most important, if not the most important component of any trip is the luggage.

Early in my travels I traveled heavy, very heavy. I recall a 2 week trip to Australia where I actually packed a set of clothes for each day. The wheeled duffel bag I used could have easily held a full grown kangaroo. It was so big it could have easily held a kangaroo, me and the luggage I travel with now. I learned a lot from that trip; wagging around that gigantic bag, dealing with keeping the dirty and clean clothes separated and just contending with the sheer size of this item that I had to share sometimes limited  space with was educational.

As I gained more travel experience, my taste in travel style began to shed weight and size. For longer trips, I still would check bags but for short trips I got by just fine with a few carry-ons. I’m embarking on another trip later this week and have gotten ambitious; for this trip I’m going to carry only 1 bag. For such an undertaking I needed the perfect bag.

I’ve done a lot of research on the topic. Size, style and brand are all key points in selecting a bag. Backpack or wheeled? Lightweight materials or sturdy? Big named brand or boutique manufacturer? How much space do I need for my gear? How much space will I have to store my bag?

The web is full of sites to help make the decision. Finding concrete data for various airline’s capacity for bag stowage has been dificult. Each airline is different for the various jets, their configurations and class of service. I had to use the limited available data to create my criteria. In making my decision I read a lot of bag reviews. Reading someone else’s experience with a product is invaluable. Advertising is one thing, real-life testing is something much much more.

Eventually I decided that I wanted a sturdy, backpack no bigger than 18″x14″x7″. After much dilberation I decided on the Red Oxx airborne carry on rucksack. This American-made bag fits all my criteria, has a great warranty and is made by a small manufacturer in Montana. Red Oxx products are geared toward the outdoors, adventure travel and safari.

The true test will come later this week. I’ll be packing up a few sets of clothes and other paraphernalia for a 9 day trek to Peru. We’ll be traveling through Lima, Cuzco and Machu Picchu and we’ll be doing it with one bag each. No checking bags, no waiting and worrying for luggage at the carousel. Only liberating, no-fuss travel with all that we need on our backs.

Packing for such a trip with such a limited space requires a lot more thought and planning which could/may be it’s own post. You’ve really got to be sure that each item you pack can be used well and serve many purposes for many days. I’ve actually done a test pack already. Carefully packing my gear, my clothes take up about 1/3 the space in my C-ruck. My camera gear and toiletries will take up another 1/3, leaving another 1/3 for miscellaneous debris and things I’m sure we’ll pick up along the way.

I’m excited to try out all my new gear. I forgot to add I bought all new travel clothes for this trip too – new bag = new gear, right?

Links:C-Ruck by Red Oxx