Ramblin' with Roger

As Much of a Rant as I Can Muster

Ken Levine had an interesting post about ranting. He ranted about Christmas decorations in September, sports seasons that gpo on too long and the like.

SamuraiFrog links to a young woman ranting about a giveaway of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, and for good cause. (Language NSFW.) SF is also good at ranting, himself.

I suppose I’ve ranted now and then in the comments sections of other people’s blogs. I know that at least on one occasion recently, I got rather incensed that a letter writer suggested that the blogger was being racist, essentially because the blogger saw some of the reaction to Barack Obama as being racist. I felt the need to defend the blogger, though I knew the blogger didn’t need any defending from me. But I was SO incensed that I was compelled to anyway.

My little rant here, I guess, is small potatoes. My wife is a big fan of figure skating. During the fall and winter, there are six Grand Prix events that take place across the world. Apparently, though, according to this site, the only event that will be televised this season is the Skate America, and for that, only the Ladies Free Skate. No short programs, no men’s, pairs or dance. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships will be shown in January, but in the season leading up to an Olympic year, one wants more opportunities to gauge the skaters from other countries as well as the American contingent.

Meanwhile, NBC IS showing what I frankly consider junk events such as Halloween on Ice Starring Mannheim Steamroller or Musselman’s Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular. These are exhibitions, not real competitive skating. And while I don’t care personally, I think the coverage of he sport does it a disservice. It’d be like showing pre-season games and the All-Star Game without showing the regular season competition. Of course, the fact that the junk events are scheduled so often may be a reflection of the ratings, in which case I suppose the skating viewers may be to blame as well.

Oh, know what else is bugging me? The fact that when i type the words men’s, women’s, or children’s in Blogger and elsewhere, they are underlined in red as though they are misspelled. Sure I can ignore it, but why is it indicated as incorrect in the first place?

ROG

L is for Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor, now part of modern Turkey. Its population spoke an Anatolian language in the Indo-European language family known as Lydian, which became extinct in the first century BC. Coins were invented in Lydia around 610 BC.

Lydia was also a rich businesswoman of Thyatira in modern Greece, who appears in the Biblical book of Acts. She housed the apostle Paul and his colleagues. Ah, that money linkage.

The church that I went to as a child in Binghamton, NY, Trinity AME Zion, was two very short blocks away, down Gaines Street over Oak Street, to the corner of Oak and Lydia. On weekdays, I would walk down Lydia, zigzag five more short blocks to my school, Daniel S. Dickinson.

Yet none of that, save for the vague recollection about the New Testament woman, was consciously in my mind when we decided to name our daughter Lydia five and a half years ago.

Here are pics from her first two and a quarter years; the last picture was developed 6 July 2006. Some of the earlier pics I never used in the blog before.

And a more recent shot, from her fourth birthday party:

ROG

Date afternoon

One of the things those relationship “experts” always say is that, in order to keep a relationship strong, you need to continue to “date” your spouse/s.o. It’s ESPECIALLY necessary when you have children.

So we decided on a date afternoon this past Sunday. We used to do it once a month, in the middle of the month (we got married on 15 May), but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. The trick about Sunday is that it was communion Sunday (which means a longer service) AND the wife was partially in charge of the after-service snacks. And because my wife’s a deacon, people had things to ask her. So while she was talking, I struck up a conversation with someone. It turns out she kept talking because I was talking, and I was talking because SHE was talking. By this point, our babysitter, who had previously had just been sitting around, had engaged in conversation.

So, it’s 12:45 pm by the time we get home. too late really to feed the child and get to the 1 pm movies. So instead we went out to a restaurant. It’s a Middle Eastern restaurant called Ma Moun. The food was good, but we were mildly worried that no one else came in the whole time we were there.

Then we went to Staples to buy a paper shredder. Tres romantique, n’est-ce pas? Except that it was just nice even doing something that mundane. the cool thing was that they were on sale 25%. The confusing thing was that the one we decided on was only marked down from $79.95 to $74.95; a larger machine would have cost the same. We took it to the counter for a price check and stated our confusion with that minimal discount; the clerk called the manager, who surveyed the situation and said, “How much do you want to pay for it?” Well, since you asked…The manager took $15 off, and the $59.95 was what we had in mind. Usually it’s the wife who picks up on these pricing discrepancies, but this time I sussed it out.

It was a nice date.
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Did that radio thing I was worried about yesterday; I haven’t heard it yet, but once the nausea went away, I guess it went OK. I’ll listen to it when it’s available.
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Yesterday afternoon about 5 pm, Joe Fludd, long-time FantaCo customer, e-mailed me with the sad news that Nic Morrison, another FantaCo regular who worked there for a time had died. I enjoyed seeing Nic around from time to time. As the obit noted, he “entered into eternal life on his 47th birthday, October 1, 2009, at the Hospice Inn at St. Peter’s Hospital, ten days after suffering a devastating stroke.” The wake was Sunday, the funeral yesterday; had I known sooner, I might have made one or the other. Quoting a mutual friend, “Nic was a gentle soul and a good person. 47 is too young.”
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Apparently, Blogger has a limit of 2000 labels, and I have reached that threshold. Thus, e.g., I cannot add Nic Morrison to the label. Sometime when I have absolutely nothing better to do, I will deal with relabeling fifty-three months of blogging.

Doane Made Me Do It

OK, Alan David Doane didn’t MAKE me do one of those Facebook thingies; I CHOOSE to do so. Since he sent it a few days ago, my answers are as of lunchtime on Thursday, October 1.

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth?

Flavored ice pop; more for the hydration than the flavor.

2. Where was your profile picture taken?

In my office at work, I think.

3. Can you play Guitar Hero?

Never even tried. It seems that if the child shows an interest someday, I might give it a go, but otherwise can’t foresee doing it.

4. Name someone who made you laugh today?

I was playing racquetball, and my partner made a terrible swing, awful swing, which was so unpredictable that it hit the ball sideways and we made the point.

5. How late did you stay up last night and why?

10 pm, working on a proposal for a session at a conference.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?

Don’t believe so. I’ve been under fireworks; didn’t like being singed or the volume.

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you?

Probably Bill and Orchid.

9. Do you believe ex’s can be friends?

I definitely do. There were at least three at my wedding to Carol and she knew it. Oh, and I thought you spelled the word “exes”,

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?

Ambivalent. Haven’t had it in years.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard?

Listening to an adagio a couple weeks ago. Wrote about it.

12. Who took your profile picture?

No idea. Could have been any one of a half dozen roving amateur photographers in our office.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?

My daughter Lydia.

14. Was yesterday better than today?

Well, it’s a toss-up. Yesterday was more productive, today is more fun.

15. Can you live a day without TV?

Well, for myself, it happens quite a bit, judging from my DVR. But 30 minutes/day for the daughter is magic.

16. Are you upset about anything?

Not actively.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?

I do.

18. Are you a bad influence?

I used to be; ah, those were the days…

19. Night out or night in?

Well it’s choir night AND it’s garbage night, so I won’t be in the house until 10 pm.

20. What items could you not go without during the day?

I’ve gone without the computer but prefer not to.

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?

My friend Mike Attwell, I believe. He’s much better now.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?

What’s a text message? Are we talking cellphones? I haven’t used the feature. If we’re talking e-mail, haven’t used the feature in a very long time.

23. How do you feel about your life right now? It could be worse.

24. Do you hate anyone?

Not presently. Though there are plenty who tick me off.

25. If we were to look in your Facebook inbox, what would we find?

Lots of virtual plants I haven’t gotten around to accepting.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?

Not if it was looking for caffeine.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?

Yes, and they were WRONG.

28. What song is stuck in your head?

You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates; my wife says the bit in 500 Days of Summer using that song is one of her favorite parts of any movie EVER.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2 a.m., who do you want it to be?

You know the anxiety if someone doing it would negate whatever joy it would have. Really, it couldn’t wait until morning? But if it was one of three friends I haven’t seen in 20+ years, MAYBE they could get away with it.

30. Wanna have grand-kids before you’re 50?

Moot point. I’m over 50, was over 50 when the CHILD was born.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow?

Go to my daughter’s school to see the Apple Run, whatever that is. EDIT: It’s a bunch of kids in the five kindergarten classes running around a track of about 200 meters,. the girls and boys riun separately. Lydia won her heat.

ROG

Now, I’m a REAL Albanian

I was at a party in Albany, NY in the early 1980s. Someone commented how difficult it was to be considered “from Albany” if you weren’t born here, or had not been here “at least thirty years”. And I always remembered that.

Well, finally, I am real-life, dyed-in-the-wool person from Albany, with all the rights and privileges that come with it. Especially the right, nay, the obligation, to make fun of people on commercials who say Al-ban-y (like the guy’s first name) instead of ALL-BAN-Y .

I moved to Albany in 1979. So I didn’t remember, I was not present for:
*When WRGB moved from Channel 4 to Channel 6
*TV children’s entertainer Freddy Freihofer
*What Albany looked like before it was torn up to build the Empire State Plaza

But I HAVE been here long enough to remember:
*When Erastus Corning was mayor
*When the band Blotto was on MTV (Worst video? NO WAY!)
*When the band Fear of Strangers was the Units; own a Units single
*When the Spectrum Theater in Albany was the Third Street Cinema in Troy
*The Honest Weight Food Co-op, two addresses ago
* Metroland, a half dozen addresses ago
*Justin’s, a couple owners ago
*When Phil Jackson coached Albany Patroons, who played in the Washington Avenue Armory, and won the 1984 Continental Basketball League title
*The 1986 Albany Tricentennial Celebration
*The October 4, 1987 snowstorm
*When they filmed Ironweed in Albany; had a Jack Nicholson sighting at the Palace Theatre
*When the Knickerbocker Arena (or whatever they’re calling it now) was built
*When Jerry Jennings ran for mayor as a progressive
*The July 15, 1995 derecho; woke me out a sound sleep with 70 MPH winds rattling my bedroom windows at 7 a.m.
*Albany First Night

I should note that I did, in fact, live in Schenectady for a year and a half before moving to Albany. But everybody knows that, except for going to work or for special events (going to the Troy Music Hall, Proctor’s in Schenectady, the Palace Theatre in Albany, e.g.), travel between Albany and Schenectady, or Albany to Troy, for that matter, is strictly prohibited, enforced by the barbed wire at the borders. Likewise the cities and the suburbs.

I’m a homeowner now, but I was a renter for a number of years. As a result, I have lived on a number of streets in Albany, including: Hudson Avenue, Madison Avenue, Morris Street, Lancaster Street, Manning Boulevard, North Allen Street, Ontario Street, Second Street, and Western Avenue. Though I’ve been in the same place for the last nine years, I’m convinced that my friends still write my address in their address books in pencil.

In the last primary election cycle, one of the candidates indicated in the literature being born in Albany, while the opponent came here only in 1991. Is that 30-year rule is breaking down? If I’m remembering correctly, the transplanted candidate won.

Photo from the NYS Education Department
ROG