Pardon me for getting off track for a moment.  I suppose that first of all I have to give some excuse for not writing for days, busy week, busier weekend (putting up that darned misplaced wall again), blah blah blah.  Actually, maybe I don’t need to apologize, since it is my BLOG.  In any case, let me rant a moment, or not, as you prefer.  (If you choose, not, just go up to your browser and go to another favorite site).

House full of girl scouts tonight.  My son and I were able to escape most of it by going to worship at the temple of Home Improvement.  We bought wooooood, and naaaaaaaiiiiils.  Tomorrow, since he is out of school and I took a day of leave, we are going to finish framing the basement bathroom.  I just can’t wait to Blog about all of the mistakes I will probably make on the pocket door frame I’m going to install.  But, as usual, I digress.

The girl scouts had a late gift exchange, you know, for Christmas?  Tonight.  So one girl got something I’ve never seen before called Moon Sand, which, according to the package “never dries out.”  Okay, this is my rant.  First of all, if that is true, if it NEVER dries out, isn’t that kind of creepy?  I mean, everything dries out eventually right?  I could buy some moon sand today and when I’m ninety and shriveled up and hunched over because my joints are drying out and my bones are brittle, the moon sand would still be wet?  Isn’t that wrong somehow?

The truth is it probably will dry out, and probably within the first few months after it’s opened.  Which leads me to the second part of this –  how many advertising slogans are there that as soon as you see them on a package you KNOW absolutely that the company is lying.  Here are the handful I can think of right off the bat.  These slogans have all been laboratory tested (in my home) through practical trial and error.

Won’t make a mess.  Doesn’t leave stains.  Never needs ironing.  Lasts six months.  Tastes just like the real thing.  Has no unpleasant odor.  Food won’t stick.  Easy to assemble.  Never dries out.   Simple and fun.  Adheres instantly.  Fast acting.  No side effects.  Dries in minutes.

Ready for your additions….

Would someone care to explain when it became my responsibility to cater to myself when I go to a store? I enter an establishment prepared to pay good money for merchandise and find, in an ever-increasing selection of stores, that I have to go through a tortuous ordeal called self-service to pay for my choices.

I suppose it started with gasoline. Our parents used to get full service, check the oil, wash the windows, pump the gas and would you prefer a free set of glasses or a toy gas truck with that sir? All for a reasonable price. Then the stations began to go to self-service, ostensibly to lower the price of gasoline for us. We learned to pump the gas ourselves and watched as some fools continued to pay full price for service while we saved two cents a gallon. Two cents a gallon you idiots! I just saved twenty-six cents filling up my tank! Woo-hoo! This self-service stuff rocks!!

Anyone paid for gas recently? What do we get now? Pump it yourself if the pump is working or come inside and see the attendant if she is awake, check your own oil if you brought a paper towel with you in your car, try to wash your windows with the squeegee sponge that was left from the last time your father got full-service, and press here if you want to pay $6.50 for a car wash that might break off your antenna or dent your roof when the dryer wheel crashes on it. And what low price are we paying for this wonderful privilege? It’s all the way down to about $2.97 a gallon where I live, how about you? Woo-hoo! Thank you self service! I just paid $58.00 to fill up the minivan!!

Okay. Back to my point. Now I go to Target, or Lowe’s, or Home Depot, or Wal Mart, or any one of several grocery stores in my area and they expect me to perform my own checkout service! I DON’T WORK HERE! I’m not paying any less for this deodorant or these oranges, so why do I have to work in your store? I don’t remember filling out a job application! I don’t get health benefits! I don’t recall you asking my opinion! Meanwhile thousands of people are out of work because I am now expected to do their jobs. Please forward my paycheck to my home address, I don’t want the Army to know that I am moonlighting.

Now, I want to go on record as saying I’m not falling for this scam twice. Remember the thing with the gas pumps? Fool me once, shame on you and so forth. I will NOT check myself out.

Here’s the part that really gets me. Have you noticed that they started with one self-checkout? Then, as more than one person in a hundred could actually figure out how to use it (five in a hundred are scamming the store anyway, so get ready for the price hikes), they added more? Now some stores have one checkout aisle with a line to the back of the store and all the rest are self-service. I look over and see some teenager who doesn’t know what stores used to be like, and he’s looking back at me with a get-with-the-times-dude look of smug self-checkout-satisfaction on his face, and I’m thinking, just wait. Soon there will be outdoor, drive-thru, self-checkout mega grocery stores with one attendant in a locked booth is the middle of a parking lot. Is that what you want? And pull up your pants for goodness sake.

The Ikea in my area has gone all the way self-serve. There are NO humans left at the checkout lane except the one that stands between four registers helping the computer illiterate. When I get to the register I call her over. “Please check out my things,” I say. “You have to check yourself out sir.” “You didn’t lower my prices,” I say. “I don’t work for you,” I say. She stares at me. “Please call your manager,” I say. She stares harder. “Now,” I say firmly. Other people in line back away from me. They see that I have a new frying pan in my cart and fear that I may use it.

I move out of the way to allow the Lemming family to check themselves out as I wait for the manager to appear. “May I help you sir?” he asks in a friendly manner. “Yes you may,” I answer, “I want a human being to run my cash register. I don’t want to do myself in your store.” I wait. He looks to see if I am serious. “Certainly sir,” he says with a smile. “We want you to be happy.” “If you want me to be happy,” I say, “put at least one register back with a cashier.” Other people in line nod their heads in agreement, but don’t say anything. I pay for my things and rush to exit the store, angered that I have to deal with this on an increasingly more frequent basis. Before I can exit I am stopped by two other people. “I like what you did back there. I’m sick of these self-service things.” I nod thanks and smile. “Fight back,” I say. “Don’t be a lemming.” They laugh and walk away.

What if we started a movement? The “I’m mad and I’m not going to use self-service aisles without remuneration movement!” You want us to check ourselves out? Pay us! Reduce your prices! Give us the profits you got by firing all your cashiers! Maybe we could pick one day out of a month and refuse to use ANY self-service aisles. Maybe one day a year we could all stop going to stores that have no human cashiers!! Maybe we could actually get some human beings back on the telephone when we call the bank!! (Okay, that’s an impossible fantasy that I just threw in there for effect). Seriously though, how long are we going to allow ourselves to be dragged along to the self-service slaughterhouse without even putting up a fight? Are you with me?!!

It’s funny how some things in life seem to come full circle. In 1981 I was a brand new Private First Class stationed in the Washington D.C. area with the Presidential Honor Guard, The Old Guard. Today, stationed here again in a different capacity as a full Colonel, I happened to drive down a small street I hadn’t been down since I walked it twenty-seven years ago.

When I was a Private, I had no real financial responsibilities. The Army housed me, clothed me, gave me three meals a day (four if I had night duty), and provided various sorts of athletics and recreation free of charge. My girlfriend lived in another state, my car insurance was paid six months in advance, and gas was relatively inexpensive. Though I didn’t understand it at the time, I had it made.

One payday, with exactly four hundred and ten dollars in my pocket, nearly a month’s pay, I walked past a shop I had never seen before, something called a “Computer Boutique.” You have to recall that at that time, there were no real PCs available to the masses. Most of my friends were gaming geeks and computer nerds (imagine that) and knew practically everything there was to know about the most recent advances in “data processing.” Two of them were even computer programmers for the military, which means they could speak in obscure languages like FORTRAN and COBOL (I still don’t know what those words mean, but you should remember the languages spoken by your friends, even if you can’t speak them yourself).

One of my friends had a miracle of modern science in his barracks room, a Radio Shack TRS 80 that he had built for himself from a kit. It had one game program, a primitive version of lunar lander where you used voice to accelerate and decelerate the rocket motors on a crudely depicted version of the Apollo Landing Module. We spent night after night watching Ken adjust the program, trying to ascertain whose voice was most readable by the machine (mine), and watching the lander crash into snowy black and white lunar cathode ray geography. I listened to them use computer related words and, because I actually had a girlfriend, even though she was hundreds of miles away, I could never really understand what they were talking about. Nonetheless, as an early Foreign Area Expert, one who could move freely between the worlds of nerds and jocks and brains, I thought that I had mastered the vocabulary of the time, even if I hadn’t.

On the day in question, which incidentally is probably the last time in my life I can remember having four hundred dollars cash in my pocket, I confidently entered the boutique to talk to a salesman. How much can something like that cost anyway, I thought? There were no computers on tables, or banks of monitors, or walls filled with boxed software. In fact, as I looked around the neatly decorated store that looked pretty much like someone’s living room, I thought perhaps I has misread the sign out front. I turned to leave. “May I help you young man?” a guy who couldn’t have himself been more than twenty-one asked from a desk in the corner. “I thought this was a computing shop,” I said, “but I don’t see any data processors or programmable calculators or anything.” If a twenty-something can raise their chin in a snobbish manner, this fellow did. “This is not a computing shoP,” he said, accent on the “P.” “It is a BoutiQue!” Accent on the “K!”

What I had been hoping to find, for under four hundred and ten dollars, was a ready built computer like Ken’s, only better. So I asked for exactly what I thought I wanted. “I want to look at some good software,” I said, as though the emphasis on the word software would let him know that I had friends who were computer geeks and that, while I wasn’t actually a member of the computer literate, I knew some people who were. I didn’t know what I was asking, but he did. “What, exactly, did you want your application to do?” he asked. Did he say application? I rolled through my mental rolodex - job application, application of medicine, application of liquor…nope…no personal understanding of application in reference to data processing.

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound insulted.

“We can assemble code for any contextual application you require, but you have to be specific in your design parameters.” He looked at me and waited. Code? Design parameters? I was in way over my head. I just wanted some kind of game you could play on a screen, which is incidentally what 99% of people still want from computers nearly three decades later. “I don’t need an application,” I said, “I need a program.” He looked at me and realized I was in way over my head. He glared. I looked at the floor and then back at him, admitting through body language that I had little real clue what I was talking about. He raised his chin still higher. It actually got easier from there. (This is where I first learned that if you are honest up front about your computer illiteracy, or even your technical incompetence, you may actually be befriended by a kind, all-knowing and all-powerful geek. Actually, befriended comes later in life, this is where I learned about being intellectually bested by a snobbish prat).

“Do you have a computer?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“We custom build computing machines here for businesses and organizations and affluent customers. Do you know what you want us to build for you?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Do you have at least five thousand dollars?” he smiled, knowingly, triumphantly.

“No,” I said flatly.

“You might be interested in the music shop next door,” he said, pointing helpfully while grinning like the lion after its meal.

I thanked him for his time, and because I didn’t want him to think I had been too dense to understand his suggestion, I actually went next door to the music store.

It wasn’t a music store, it was a music boutique.

It didn’t sell music, it sold instruments. Oh brother!

Twice in one day I had walked into a shop I really had no business being in. At that age however, there is too much teenage pride coursing through the veins to ever openly admit that a mistake had been made. I could have turned around and walked back out. Instead, I looked around the shop quickly and pointed to the instrument closest to me. “How much is that mandolin?” I asked.

“Well, let’s see young man. Do you play?” This gentleman was older, clearly wiser, and already seemed to know the answer. Mistakes are only bad if you don’t learn from them. He was still waiting for my answer. “Do you play son? Would you like to?”

“No sir,” I said. “I don’t play any instrument. I’ve held one once or twice, but I don’t read music and I have to admit, I don’t know a thing about it. I’d like to though.”

“Well son,” he said, looking me straight in the eyes, “an instrument can be a friend to you when you most need it.” He reached for the price tag and pulled his glasses farther down his nose to read the price. “Good choice by the way. This one here is not quite as pricey as some of these others. It’s only four hundred and ten dollars with tax.” He stopped and looked me in the eye again. “I’ll throw in a book and a few picks if you want it,” he added. I stared at him, stunned.

“Did you say four hundred and ten dollars?” I asked.

“Including tax,” he said. He smiled as if he knew what was in my pocket.

“I’ll take it,” I said, “and thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Hope it brings you luck son.” I never went back.

Several years and several girlfriends later, when I could play eight or nine chords and pick a few notes, I serenaded my lady with an original song, accompanied by that mandolin. She loved it, and me apparently, enough to marry me less than a year later. During our first Christmas together, she bought me an antique mandolin from a flea market in Germany. Over the years several other mandolins have ended up hanging from the ceiling in what we call the music room. The original was stolen during a move from Europe in 1999, and we’ve since replaced it with one that was similar, though not exactly the same. I still like to play them occasionally but hadn’t really thought in many years about how I had chanced upon the first one. Until today.

Some things change and some things stay the same. I passed down that street today driving, not walking, with slightly more than four dollars and ten cents in my pocket. The computer boutique and music boutique are both gone, long since converted into pricey row houses. I still have friends who know much more about computers than I do, but I don’t try and pretend I understand things I don’t. Unfortunately, I tend to know more about computers than most of the salespeople working in the Computer Mega-boutiques, emphasis on the “Mega.”

I am happier now than I ever could have imagined being at that time in my life. Some of my computer friends still don’t have girlfriends. Some of them are married with children. Some of them play the mandolin better than I do. I can’t imagine that many people are as happy as I am, though I hope they are. I sat in front of those two houses and wondered what would have happened in life if I had entered the music store first…

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority manages 41 hospitals, of which 14 are have Accident and Emergency clinics. All other clinics in Hong Kong are apparently run outside of the hospital system and are structured for routine medical care. As I made my way towards the airport clinic in search of band-aids, I stopped at several news stands and gift shops hoping to find them on my own. At each stop the salesperson was polite, friendly, helpful and eager to point me towards the medical clinic.

The clinic waiting area was much like that of a doctor’s office anywhere in the western world. The receptionist first asked me to have a seat and pointed me towards a wall of chairs. Some magazines in both English and Chinese had been scattered around to ease the waiting time, but I really had no interest in reading at that time. I was the only person in the waiting room. I smiled at the receptionist. She smiled back at me. “Are you ready now?” she asked. What? I looked at her quizzically. “Did you want to be seen?” “Well, yes,” I began, “you see I…” She handed me a form and asked me to fill out the nature of my complaint. “We only cater to departing passengers,” she said. “If you are arriving, you should proceed to the nearest hospital.” “I just need a couple of band-aids. My knees are bleeding.” She looked down at my knees briefly and gave me a smile of pity. “Do you have a boarding pass?” What? “Uh….yes…I do…right here,” I handed it to her and she checked my personal information and began typing it into a computer. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said, “I just need some band-aids, and there don’t seem to be any in the…”

The Doctor came out of the patient area and smiled at me, holding the ends of stethoscope around his neck with both hands, like a boxer holds a towel. “How are we today?” he asked, without waiting for an answer. He took my boarding pass and asked me to follow him. A short well-lit corridor, a small office off to one side filled with medical books, and we quickly entered a patient examination room complete with a stainless steel tabl, medicine cabinets and a cute little Asian nurse straight out of one of my son’s manga novels. “Please sit here,” nurse Cutie said as she stuck a thermometer in my mouth. “I don’t have a temperature,” I protested, taking the thermometer out, “I just need a couple of…” “Do you have a cough?” the doctor asked. A cough? A COUGH?! “No, I just need…” The sound of the doctor putting on latex gloves made me turn to look at him. The gloves were a light reddish color. Strange.

Nurse Cutie put a blood pressure cuff around my arm while she smiled and looked into my eyes with compassion. Doctor Strangegloves began to listen to my chest. “Breathe!” he commanded. I did so. Each time I tried to explain that I just needed to get a couple of…he would move the stethoscope and tell me to breathe. He checked my breathing from the front and from the back. He examined my head for bumps. He looked into my eyes with a small light. Nurse Cutie finished taking my blood pressure and removed the cuff. She then started stroking my arm gently where the cuff had been and telling me that “Everything will be all right.”

In retrospect, I could have been angry. I could have exploded. I could have made a fuss and demanded to have a few band-aids. I just found the whole situation to be so otherworldly, so unreal, that I just decided to ride it out. And nurse Cutie was massaging my arm after all. “How long have you been sick?” Doctor Strangegloves asked. “Just since the broken cart flipped me onto the concrete,” I replied. The doctor and nurse exchanged glances. He looked down at my knees, noticing them for the first time. “You seem to be bleeding,” he said. “I AM bleeding,” I replied calmly. “Ahhh,” he said.

The doctor left the room without a sound and only a slight glance at nurse Cutie. She stopped rubbing my arm and went to assemble a tray. I thought, you have got to be kidding. I watched intently as she placed a small bowl with betadine or iodine or some other orange foul-smelling substance, cotton balls, some gauze, and finally…a few band-aids. She placed the cart on a rolling stand and brought it back over to the table.

She looked at my pants and began to blush, pointing towards my legs. “May I?” I assumed she meant roll up my pants legs. “I can roll them up for you if you prefer,” I offered. She smiled broadly in a wash of relief and said “Yes thank you!” I rolled up my suit pants past the knees while she grimaced and winced sympathetically. “It’s not that bad,” I said. She placed her hand on my arm and looked into my eyes. “Does it hurt much?” she asked. Inside I was laughing hysterically. Outside I smiled and assured her I would live.

If I had ever had a fantasy about a cute sympathetic Asian nurse tending to my wounds in an exotic location, not that I ever did mind you, but if I had…this episode would have crushed it. She was gentle, she was compassionate, she was kind, and she was incredibly, amazingly, unbearably sloooooooow. She spent ten minutes washing the wounds. She wiped up every bit of blood anywhere on my legs. She strategically placed band-aids over the scrapes after conducting what must have been five minutes of preliminary mental measuring and adjustments. Finally she was finished. She rolled my pants legs back down for me and in spite of my anxiousness and agitation, I suddenly felt as though we had reached a new plateau in our patient-nurse inter-cultural relationship. “Are you married?” she asked. What? I mean, WHAT?! “Yes,” I smiled. “Very happily so.” I showed her the ring on my left hand, the +5 Wedding Ring of Protection against cute Asian nurses. She pouted and left the room.

The moment she left, and while I was trying to puzzle through what had happened, the doctor returned. “I’m sorry for the mix-up earlier,” he said. “We thought you had SARS.” I looked at him stunned. He was holding two pieces of paper in his hands, a bill, and my boarding pass. I reached for the boarding pass. He handed me the bill. I did a quick calculation at the current exchange rate and it was…WHAT?…”TWENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS?!!” He gently fanned himself with my boarding pass and waited for me to come to my senses.

“I really don’t think I should have to pay for DOCTOR CONSULTATION and MEDICAL TESTS when all I needed was a band-aid!” He smiled at me. Nurse Cutie came back in and seemed to glare at me with a sort of “Did the time we spent together mean nothing to you?” glare. The receptionist came in with the cash box and a complaint form. “If you are unhappy with the service sir, after you pay and leave Hong Kong, you may fill out this form and send it back to the airport authority,” she said. I looked at the three of them standing there. They had had no patients since the time I arrived. My plane was already boarding. My boarding pass was right there. I would write the complaint form to end all complaint forms. I paid the twenty-eight dollars and left. “Thank you for your business sir,” the receptionist said as I departed.

Only two important parts remain to this tale of woe. First, I went through three security checkpoints without ever being stopped, or questioned, or even scrutinized. Seventy-three year old grandmothers were being pulled from the line for full-body searches and small children were being separated from their parents to have their teddy-bear backpacks searched by men with hands larger than their heads. I was wearing torn blood-stained clothing, was clearly annoyed and disheveled, but no one gave me a second look. Within minutes I was sitting in business class, sipping champagne, talking to my traveling companions and getting the sympathetic ear of a former playboy bunny in the seat in front of me, (don’t ask now…that’s a different story altogether).

Second, I did fill out the complaint form and send it in. Normally I suppose, the officials hope that you will never get around to filling out the forms and actually mailing them, but I was moved to action. I wrote several pages about the faulty cart, the vanishing monks, the helpful security apparatus, my ordeal in the medical clinic and sent it via post. Within six weeks I received an email from the Hong Kong Airport Authority Chief of Security and Investigations. Hong Kong was very sorry for any trouble that I had been caused, it read, but after a lengthy investigation involving the checking of numerous luggage carts, no faulty brakes had been discovered. Thank you for your interest in Hong Kong Airport Safety. There was a break in the email and then it began again. In light of the fact that you endured such mental hardship while traveling here in Hong Kong, we wish to compensate you for your troubles. If you will kindly fill out this complaint form and sign the sworn affidavit below that you will never, ever talk about this incident to anyone, ever, anywhere, we will send you (quick exchange rate conversion) sixty dollars. What? The government of Hong Kong wishes to buy my silence for sixty dollars!? Unbelievable!!

As you can see by this posting I did NOT sign the form. Next time I travel, I’m bringing my own band-aids.

I was traveling in Asia a few years back and spent an overnight in Hong Kong on my return trip to Sri Lanka. In the morning I packed my things, had a leisurely breakfast, and made it to the airport by about 0900, several hours before my flight time. Taxis drop passengers off at the terminal entrance which is on ground level, but the actual departure terminal is two levels below the street. To get down to the departure desks there are several long and somewhat steep concrete ramps, about eight feet wide that head down perpendicular from the street above.

I loaded my two big suitcases and my laptop onto a luggage cart, the kind with a braking bar at the handles, and steered towards the ramp. As I started down the ramp, gravity began to help me and I found it necessary to release the braking handle to slow the cart down. Unfortunately the brakes on this particular cart were apparently not working. As I dug in my feet to try and stop the cart I found that it only got worse. The steepness of the ramp, the weight of my luggage, the existence of gravity and the lack of friction between my leather dress shoes and the smooth concrete created an effect that I can only describe as “Airport Skiing.”

I plummeted down the ramp, knees slightly bent, feet sliding down the concrete as I struggled to keep myself upright, the luggage cart going straight, and my maximum velocity below the speed at which the wheels might begin to melt. The ramp was actually two ramps with a small landing about ten feet across halfway down the slope. This one level spot was my one hope for bringing the cart under control before I began to approach the bottom. I remember thinking that it was a miracle that I was the only passenger pushing a cart down the ramp or there would have been a brutal accident.

As I approached the flat area I leaned backwards a bit, hoping to dig in my heels on the flat surface and prevent the cart from heading down the second ramp. Leaning back brought the front wheels slightly off the ground, (okay, in truth it was a high speed luggage cart wheelie) but at the speed I was going, threatened to tip the entire luggage cart back on top of me. I managed to tip it back onto all four wheels at a slightly reduced speed, just before the cart went over the edge of the platform and down the next ramp.

Because there had been a sudden lurching forward of the weight of the luggage as I tried to get the wheels back on the ground, the cart had additional momentum just as it started down the ramp. So as it picked up speed and I resigned myself to just go along for the ride and get it under control at the bottom, I noticed that I was hurtling towards a cluster of saffron-clad Buddhist monks who had gathered at the bottom of the ramp for reasons known only to them. Great, I thought, I’m going to be the first and last contestant in the international bowling for monks tournament and by evening, I’m going to be in a prison in Hong Kong.

I started yelling to get their attention so that they would move out of the way, but as one of the principle tenets of buddhism is ahimsa, or inaction, they very calmly looked up at me plummeting down towards them and did not move. Not one inch. I screamed louder and got the attention of a number of other people in the terminal who looked up at the spectacle, but no one took any action to get the monks to move. They also didn’t clear away from the ramp in case my cart plunged through the monks into the crowd beyond.

Just as I neared the bottom of the ramp and a mere ten feet away from the monks, I noticed that there was a gap, about three feet wide, between the right-most monk and the wall at the end of the ramp. Perfect! With my shoes smoking from the friction, and my arms about to give out from trying to pull the cart back up the hill, I completely disregarded the laws of physics, specifically that one about inertia, and tried to abruptly wrench the cart towards the opening.

If you have studied physics you likely already know what happened to each of the variables in the equation. If so, please wait for the others to catch up. If not, I will tell you. The cart and I turned towards the opening. The luggage did not. As the luggage continued hurtling off the cart towards the monk, the cart, now free of its burden but on a new trajectory with only me to hold it back, began to turn end over end. Remember that old song that begins “Kind sir I write this note to you to tell you of my plight?” The one that ends, after the Scotsman has been battered and beaten by falling objects and oncoming platforms while he held onto a rope attached to a pully? “As I lay there bleeding on the ground, I let go of the bloody rope!” Like the Scotsman and his rope, I let go of the bloody cart.

At this point, everything went into slow motion. I saw the cart headed off to my right, bounding and skidding on the concrete. I saw my suitcases and laptop flying, like images from a Samsonite commercial. I felt rather than saw myself bounce, several times, off the concrete. I heard a ripping of fabric and began to feel something wet on my knees. I must say in retrospect that the biggest injury was to my ego and so I jumped up with surprising speed and agility considering what had just happened to me and gathered my things quickly. I secured the broken cart as evidence, piled my lugagge on top of it, and looked about to find the chief monk so that I could apologize.

Not only had the monks adhered to the principle of inaction during my downward plummet, they had also ensured that they would not be distracted from their chosen path, by something as ordinary as a human bullet. Without so much as an “are you okay?” or “learn to be more careful young man,” or even a nodding “we don’t speak English, but these monkly gestures will let you know that we care for your well-being,” they were gone. On to a flight to Orlando Florida no doubt, and a trip to Disney World. I looked about for someone else to connect with, if even for a moment, just so that I could apologize to someone, to regain even a small amount of dignity, but no one, not one person, was paying any attention. It was like it had never even happened.

I walked to the security attendant at the entrance to check-in and explained what had happened to me. He listened to me intently and asked me if I would be getting in line to check in. I told him that I would like to find someplace to get a band-aid, a bandage for my bloody knees and he very politely said “of course sir, you can go to our medical clinic as soon as you check in. Please get in line. ” I got in line. Since carts were not allowed in the check-in line, I asked him to keep the broken cart there until I had checked in, so that I could show it to airport management. He nodded and said “of course sir.”

I approached the business class counter in a suit with both knees ripped out, blood oozing from both legs, my hands scraped and my hair in disarray. No one said a word. There was blood on my passport. Fresh blood. The lady behind the counter wiped it off on a tissue without so much as a glance up at me and very calmly checked me in. “Have a nice flight sir,” she smiled sweetly. For a moment I felt like a ghost. No one was looking at me. No one cared that I was torn and bleeding. Everything was absolutely normal to them. I went back for the cart.

“May I help you sir?” said the sweet young security girl working at the check-in line where I left my cart. “Where is the man who was here a moment ago?” I asked. “He has gone sir. Is there something I can do to help you?” “I need the cart I left here a moment ago,” I told her. “Did he take the cart?” She looked at my laptop, and must have wondered why I wanted a cart when I had no luggage. She pointed to a cluster of carts about ten meters from where we were standing. “You can get a cart there if you like sir, but you can’t take it through security.” I must admit feeling a bit defeated. I just stood there a second to determine what to do next. “Is there something else sir?” “Yes,” I replied. “I need to get a bandage for my knee. I don’t want to get blood all over the plane.” She pointed towards a sign at the other end of the terminal and said “Good luck sir, I hope you aren’t too sick!” I began to look around for Rod Serling… (TO BE CONTINUED).

It’s gone now Matieu, thrown in the trash. You’ll never get to see rain gutters on the gingerbread birdhouse…but just so you can remember it…

Is it just me, or does it seem like the world falling apart around us?  I don’t think I’ve stayed in a hotel in the past two years that didn’t have two or three things broken in the room.  The government building I work in is falling apart.  Bridges are collapsing all over.  Metro in Washington DC has had more track fires and train wrecks because of deteriorating infrastructure than ever before.   Sidewalks are cracked, door handles are broken…what’s with all the decay?

My workplace is crumbling.  Can’t drive up on the parking deck because the ramp is undergoing maintenance.  Can’t walk up the steps because they are being repaired.  The door handles are broken.  The carpet is frayed.  The cafeteria ran out of bagels, and coffee, and napkins, and cup lids and courtesy.   Don’t get me started on the IT infrastructure or more importantly, the hideous state thereof.

I’m sure that someone out there has a theory on the entropic nature of the universe…but why does it have to start on the roads I drive upon, the building I work in and the places I frequent?  Too tired to post tonight.  Wait.  I just did.  They say that memory is the second thing to go…

Twenty-eight years in the Army.  Five continents, twenty-three moves, travel or work in thirty-some countries, hundreds of friends and thousands of experiences.  Learned eight or more languages, earned three graduate degrees, have a bucket-load of ribbons and medals.  Dozens of separations and deployments and exercises and operations.  Been held at gun point three times, kept in a foreign prison (briefly) once and toured foreign prisons multiple times.  Been hauled up the side of a mountain on a rope and pushed out of an airplane at altitude.  I’ve trekked in the High Himalayas, walked across the highest motorable road in the world, lived through dengue fever and dysentery and worse.  Ridden elephants, camels, horses, donkeys and oxen.  Flown in gliders and single props and massive C-17s in combat zones.  Cleaned up suspected anthrax, and worked in and around wars, tsunamis, hurricanes, insurgencies, acts of terrorism and foreign internal violence.  In 110 ten more days I get to see how the rest of the world has been doing it all these years.    I think I might be more nervous about the future than I have been in the past…

Okay…I’ve been sending out a resume or an application every day now for several weeks. I’ve already had a few interviews and have had a few offers. The real problem is, I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up…or at least I didn’t until today. At the link below is the best job ever! Chief Magic Official for Disney!! I think I’m going to apply.

http://www.dreamcmo.com/chief-magic-official-video.php

In my circle of friends there is an unspoken rule, “don’t mention any potential project out loud, no matter how wild or impossible it might seem at the time, unless you really want me to do it.” At work, I’m normally a big idea guy. I think the big thoughts, see the big picture, plan the grand scheme, and someone else gets to fill in all the little details like, oh, making the impossible possible. I get to manage, direct, decide, and execute (in the executive sense), but I seldom get to do anything.

At home, I like to get my hands dirty and actually see a project through from fertile idea to splendid though often exhausting completion. I have a high success rate, which means I am constantly crossing things off my ‘honey do’ list, but my honey also continues to add things, as do I, which means the list never seems to end. This is how we end up with a sixteen foot long bridge over our creek sturdy enough to drive a truck full of stone over (or fight upon in armor), a forest fairy play set with towers that have individually cut and hand painted tar paper leaves, and a deck the shape of a redbud leaf with a stem of stairs leading to the water. We have a faux stained glass window hanging in our foyer that is eight feet in diameter and weighs several hundred pounds, an English parterre with raised beds in the backyard, and any number of projects ongoing in the basement and garage.

Many of them started with words from the forbidden list, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” or “what if you could…” or “I’ll bet you might be able to…” — you get the idea. We’ve built eight foot tall castle walls out of paper mache’ rocks (enough to decorate the walls of an entire union hall), built a cake in the shape of a castle that was fourteen inches tall and four feet on a side (and required us to remove the door frame to get it out of the house), and have plans for a portable tudor style home that could be transported in a semi-trailer.

At one point in my life, when I spent time working in a specific medium for a period of time before moving on to another, my friends were very wary of allowing me to be exposed to ideas. I saw a medieval pavilion (tent) in a book and decided to make one. Then I made twelve more. I saw a picture of a wooden bed and decided I could easily build one. Or six. I made my friends some medieval armor. Then I made several other sets. It was a wonderful time of life. Have an idea, make it reality. See something I liked, make one myself.

One day some friends came over while I was lying on the floor watching TV with my head against the front of the sofa. I vaguely heard the door open, heard a strangled scream of “NOOOOOOOO!” and suddenly found myself being dragged out into the back yard and hosed down with water like a dog that had made a mess on the rug. “NO. NO. NO. NOOOOOO!” They had come in to find me watching a history show about Welsh stonemasons hand carving blocks of stone to rebuild a medieval fortress. Give me a break. I didn’t even own a stone chisel at the time. And I lived much farther from a stone quarry than I do now. Not to mention the climate where I lived then was not as appropriate as it is now. You have to know your limitations. You also have to know how to be patient.

So for now, I’m finishing my basement, putting final touches on the gardens, perfecting the playset, and planning my next small projects. I’m listening intently to the project ideas of my friends, like the one who suggested that I was a bit obsessive for putting an address and stamp on the 1/4 inch long letter made of chewing gum that went into the mailbox next to the sidewalk in front of this year’s gingerbread house, but I’m also recalling all the projects I’ve been patient about over the years. There are some wonderful open areas in the woods behind our house. Who knows what I could build there. History Channel anyone?