Sunday, January 29, 2012

Yikes!

It has been a week since I wrote anything here and I am rather miffed about that fact.  I will do better this week, promise.

This is so Facebook stuff, but much of what I write is:  my very good and oldest (I met him when I was 18) friend Flip (John to his other friends) was in Dallas this week. He normally lives in Hawaii.  I suggested that he call my daughter and at least hook up for a drink or a quick dinner.  He made the call and Jenn, being the cook that she is, said why bother going out, come over here and I will cook for you.  He did, she did, and they had a great time.

Flip is one of the few guys I went out with in my youth that I didn't sleep with, a fact that I don't give up lightly but I just did.  (If anyone reading this blog has had better thoughts of me than that, well, sorry. It was the 60's after all.)  We have remained very, very good friends for all these years.  Currently we talk on the phone at least once a week. Flip leads a much more "cutting edge" and active life than I do, but he lets that slide and still loves me.  And I love him.  There are some people that you just love. If they called and said "I need you" it would mean dropping everything and jumping on the next plane to be there. I know Flip would do that for me and he knows I would do that for him.

I think my kids have met him maybe three or four times in their lives, the last being at least 20 years ago. But that Jenn and her girlfriend had Flip over for dinner after all these years makes me so happy!  It's all family.  It's all about the connection, the love, the support, the care.  My connection with Flip goes back years. He helped me through some tough times and I have helped him through the same.  In essence, we grew up together. He used to come over to my house in Torrance, CA on Sunday afternoons and vault over the back fence to have a scotch with my Dad.  He didn't really care if I was there or not, he liked hanging out with my Dad.

I have great stories about me and Flip, and some I will share here in the future.  Suffice it to say that I am happy he is in my life and now in my daughter's as well.  We all (me, Jenn, Gabe, their respective mates)  need to go to Hawaii and let him show us his native state.

That's it for tonight.  Might have a book review tomorrow.  If nothing else I have some stories about the inn in Healdsburg to pass on.  All good.  It's all good.

Thanks again for all of you who are reading along with me and for your patience in waiting for the next episode. I will do better at getting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) in the coming days.


.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Movie Review: Moneyball

Sometime in the past year I wrote a blog review of this book by Michael Lewis but I can't find it now. Maybe I just imagined I wrote it.  I know I didn't read it, but I did listen to it while driving across the country from Texas to California, or the other way, west to east.  Can't keep all those journeys straight.

But I digress.  The book "Moneyball" is as much about the science of baseball statistics and how different statistics can (and possibly should) affect which players a team buys as it is about baseball itself.  Lewis presents the statistical theory created by a guy named Bill Jones and gives the reader a lot of analytic information about various baseball statistics.  It is a different way of picking a team.  Instead of picking the players with the most hits, for example, a team owner might pick a guy who had the most walks because that will, statistically, mean more runs. 

The movie zooms in on the first general manager to use this theory, Billy Beane of the Oakland Athletics.  Without a big enough budget to compete with teams like the New York Yankees, Beane knew he had to find some way to buy good players for cheap money, which meant players no one else really wanted.  With the help of an economic graduate, Beane begins to see how sabermetrics (the name given to this specialized analysis) could help him get those players and turn the team into a winning dynamo.  While it worked, it didn't work well enough in the beginning to get the Oakland A's to the world championship, but other teams have used this approach and had great success.

All the above is just a short summary of the mathematical theme behind this story.  The movie does give an overview of how this differs from the classical approach to hiring baseball players, but the movie is really about the A's and Billy Beane and ultimately, about baseball.  With a great deal of stock footage we get the back story on the A's and the story of their incredible turn-around in the 2002 season, going from one of the most losing teams to setting a record later in the season for the most consecutive wins:  20 in a row!  It's a good story about baseball and how sometimes, even in a sport as deeply steeped in tradition as baseball is, someone has to come along and shake things up.

Brad Pitt is good as Billy Beane. He isn't suppose to be pretty and he isn't.  (But still, quite nice to look at.)  Beane has weak people skills but razor sharp baseball intuition and an incredible knowledge base about the sport. Pitt plays him well, not making him warm and cute but driven and still vulnerable.  I could have done with less chewing tobacco and less spitting in the cup, but that's a minor quibble.  When you read the book, you have no idea how they can turn it into a movie because there is little action, just a lot of talk about action. The movie skips the talk (for the most part) and gives us the baseball action.  It has a good supporting cast, although the family bits certainly aren't necessary.  For a movie that just focuses on one team in a small part of one season, it is not slow, it doesn't lag and it has some real-life sport suspense as well.  Check it out, now on DVD.  It's a very nice way to spend a couple of hours, especially now, in off-season.


.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Cold and other subjects

Yes, I know I haven't written in a week but I have been thinking about writing so perhaps that will count.  Or not.  Cold, yes.  It was 23 degrees this morning, I kid you not, as I drove to work.  No, I don't have a temp gauge in my car, the economy models do not have such a thing, but a bank I pass on the way to Calistoga enlightens me on the temperature each morning.  At 7:16 it was 23.  That's cold.  I can't wait to see what it will be tomorrow because it's supposed to be even colder tonight.  Even Cooper is pretending (I hope) that he has a sore foot so he doesn't have to go outside except to pee quickly then hobble back inside.

What else?  Got two excellent old movies from the library last week.  "The Apartment" which is pretty much a perfect movie, Jack Lemmon, the incredibly cute Shirley McLaine, Fred McMurray as an asshole and a great supporting cast.  One of Billy Wilder's best, totally entertaining and even today it holds up.  Makes me want to rent a few of his other films, which I will.  Also got "Sorry, Wrong Number" with the young (and therefore handsome) Burt Lancaster and the creepy Barbara Stanwyck in another black and white flick.  Totally cheesy overacting by Stanwyck and Lancaster, but oddly suspenseful.  The last scene is classic. 

Gifts:  my most excellent friend Tom gave me a Kindle Fire this week, completely unexpected and most appreciated.  Tom received one for xmas as a gift and loves it and I am now loving mine. It's a remarkable little machine, small and light and ever so versatile. I haven't even begun to crack the surface on what it can do but I am enjoying exploring the capabilities it has.  Already I have downloaded several free books and some apps.  Gosh, I almost feel like a 21st century person!  

Kids:  I spent a couple of hours on Sunday with Ben and Stacey and Sam and Henry.  It's odd but when I hang out at their house it feels  like I have come home.  The boys are totally cute, Sam fluctuates from being totally out of control (for a minute or two) to being completely adorable and the perfect little boy.  Henry at three months (almost) is starting to smile and make cooing noises, especially at his parents and will be a charmer like his big brother.  Ben is starting to smile too and often coos, especially when watching football and drinking a beer.  Stacey has moved beyond the cooing stage and just shakes her head a lot at all the males in the room.  It was a lovely couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. 

Alrighty, you are up to date.  I haven't mentioned the rodent problem here at my apartment and won't go into detail but let's just say that I have no problem inflicting great bodily harm and intense pain on these creatures, no matter what PETA says.  

More in the next few days.




.
 

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Book Review: "The Call" by Yannick Murphy

Again, this is a book I got out of the library on a recommendation from someones "Best Reads of 2011." I had never heard of it before, and the author's name begs some sort of cultural dichotomy.

This is a good book, albeit written in an odd format.  The main character, whose name we don't know, is a large-animal veterinarian and the "call" refers to just that, the call he gets about an animal in need. The structure of the book is almost like a play, or a screenplay:  in capital letters and bold type the author tells us what is coming.  There are statements such as THE CALL:  and then we know who called and why.  ACTION:  what the vet did with and for the animal.  RESULT:  obviously, the outcome of the vet visit, whether the animal lives or dies or gives birth.  Along the way we meet the people who own the animals as well and their stories are as important as the vet's care of the animals.   WHAT THE WIFE SAYS:  again, obvious but usually in response to what he said or what the kids said or did or just a general observation about their lives together. There are other categories as well:  WHAT THE WIFE MADE FOR DINNER, WHAT THE KIDS SAID, etc.

The story is set in rural Vermont, and the turning point is an almost fatal hunting accident that brings the family into clear focus as they try to make sense of this terrible event. The story expands from here and is basically about people looking for meaning in a world that seems to make little sense, but they don't give up the search.  While they are trying to make sense of things and holding out hope that the accident won't prove fatal, many other odd things happen: strangers show up at their house who end up not being strangers, there might be a spaceship hovering above the vet's house, the vet might have some weird disease that he is supposed to get checked and on and on.  These things aren't distractions.  Instead they lend reality to the characters because this is exactly how real life is: jumbled, confusing and complicated.  This book has a strange cadence, perhaps because of the structure, but the characters, especially the vet, become more and more real as the story opens up. It's a short book and a quick read but you end up liking everyone and you want them to be good and healthy and happy.  There are bits of brilliance in the writing, the everyday made beautiful:  We stood in bright sunshine right outside the door, slipping on the melting ice dirty and matted with Newfoundland hair from where the dogs sometimes sat and kept watch, looking down our driveway and out over our field to the pond. ... The snow wasn't soft, but more like gritty crystals that stayed in Jen's hair as she lay, still laughing, on the snow. Sunlight came through the branches of the apple tree and the children, breathless, lay back on the snow beside Jen and let the sun hit their faces."

Check it out of the library, let me know what you think.




.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Last day, new year.

The arrival of a new year should always make one stop for a few moments and take stock of one's life.  Or maybe it's just tradition that we do so. 2011 was a tough year for many.  You all know my employment and housing woes, but those were temporary (although sometimes it seemed otherwise) and not life threatening.  Others had much more serious concerns: health, home foreclosures, death of friends and relatives.  The turbulent political climate everywhere in the world didn't help, either.  Whether it was the economy, the environment, human rights, public protests, war, famine, poverty, there were so many sad, unsettled and tragic moments this past year that we are all lucky to be amoung those still standing.

The beginning of a new year is like being given a clean slate. Nothing personal is written on it yet and each of us therefore has the opportunity to try and make this new year our own.  We cannot control destiny, of course, but we can control our approach to the future and how we individually deal with what is thrown at us.  Some people make resolutions.  Some people pick one word to tack on the wall as a guiding force.  That word could be anything:  love, propsperity, house, peace, new car, family, health, baby, education, the list is endless.

I haven't figured out a plan for 2012 yet.  But I have realized this:  2011, as difficult as it was, certainly wasn't dull!  And it was educational in many ways, at least for me. I learned so much about myself (for example, that I really liked flush toilets!) and about my small world.  I learned to accept the kindness and generousity of friends and family without feeling that I had to always reciprocate.  I learned which people were willing to listen to my frustration about my situation and which were uncomfortable doing so, and I accepted that. 

There is no way I would have gotten through 2011 without my friends and especially my family.  My two kids each gave me a place to live for several months, which I know was an imposition at times, but I loved being part of their everyday worlds for a while.  Friends helped me find part-time jobs, or paid me under the table for a few months so I could still collect unemployment benefits and thus afford health insurance.  Those friends also helped me find places to live short-term and a couple of them encouraged me to stop worrying and just settle down for six months and see how that felt. 

Bottom line, I want to thank all those folks who were on my side last year.  Without you all, I wouldn't be as happy as I am now with my simplified life, my part-time jobs, my pared down way of living.

It's odd but I am happier right now than I have been in quite some time.  A big part of that is my decision to stop worrying about "what's to come" and live in the present moment.  Yes, I am eating up some of my savings but that's what it is there for, to help me through tough times.  Yes, I still only have part-time jobs but they are mostly paying my way.  I have a very small place to live that I can afford and it is in a fine neighborhood.  In the big picture of the world, I am totally safe, secure and healthy.  In the small snapshot of my tiny world, I am safe, healthy and the insecurities that I harbor are of my own making.  It's not a bad way to start a new year.  Let's look forward to 2012 being full of good adventures!