October 2016

There were 14 posts published in October 2016 (this is page 2 of 2).

Homesick in Seattle

Baggage Carousel 10 at Seattle-Tacoma (SEATAC) Airport

Baggage Carousel 10 at eattle-Tacoma (SEATAC) Airport


I’m traveling this week for business to Seattle, arriving at SEATAC airport this afternoon. As I’m walking up to the Southwest baggage carousel, I turn instinctively around to my family to joyously announce that our vacation has finally started.

Only my family’s not there. My colleagues Ken and Cameron don’t notice as my face falls and I get really quiet, looking around the room and imagining what fun I might be having there with my family. I spend the shuttle ride to the rental car place looking down at my hands as tears well up in my eyes.

What fun we’ve had here as a family. What precious memories we’ve built. What amazing adventures have begun first with a trip to the baggage carousel.

I return to my hotel room after a few hours of work, alone with my memories, laptop, and the feeling that I am blessed far beyond any man could hope to be.

Biting the government hand that feeds you

Does this man work in government?

Does this man work in government?

Back when I felt compelled to enter political debates on Facebook, one of my conservative friends chimed in on a post I had regarding something about the government (probably me expressing my wistfulness for a health care public option). My good friend comes from the Ronald Reagan “government is the problem” line of thinking and commented something to the effect that the government can’t do anything right.

Even though we don’t see eye to eye on many political points he’s still a friend and I do respect him. It was all that I could do, though, to keep from pointing out that as a first-responder he actually works for the government. Not only does he work for the government, for all practical purposes he is the government. He is the public face of government to the people he serves.

That’s not to demean the work he does, of course. It’s important work. I just have a hard time understanding how conservative individuals who work for the taxpayers belittle the very government that they, themselves, make up. What accounts for this self-loathing?
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Expanded horizons

Cruising Resurrection Bay in Alaska, August 2015

Cruising Resurrection Bay in Alaska, August 2015

I got an unexpected invitation from friends yesterday for Kelly and me to join them for a week of sailing around the Caribbean. Of course I’ve been a sailor since 1988 and I finally made it to the Caribbean with our family trip to Jamaica and Puerto Rico. For some crazy reason, though, it never occurred to me that this was a possibility – that we could go ride the waves for a week in an exotic place. This was a dream of mine in my 20s but I didn’t have the means, or at least it didn’t seem like I did at the time. You either have all of the time and none of the money or all of the money and none of the time.

Back when I was in high school, my dad and his best friend Carl offered me the opportunity to spend the summer working as a deckhand on Carl’s tourist boat in Florida. I opted not to take the offer for some forgotten reason but looking back now it would’ve been a hell of a lot of fun, I’m sure. I love being out on the water, testing oneself against Mother Nature. Facing the great unknown. Humans have been doing it for millennia.
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Facebook filtering

facebook
Earlier this week I saw a funny post on Facebook that appeared briefly in my feed when a friend commented on it. I know of no way to track down these kinds of feed items once you scroll past them because don’t tend to stay in the feed and you can’t simply visit your friend’s page to see them because they aren’t actually my friend’s posts, they’re just her comments on posts.

I decided to wade once again into Facebook’s search feature, or what has passed for a search feature. As long as I’ve used Facebook I’ve hated its abysmal search ability. To my amazement, Facebook has done quite a bit to improve its search functionality. I was able to zero in on my friend’s posts, narrow them down by time, and search for a string. It used to be that this was not possible (as least, as far as I know).
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