Enough Already of 2011, Bring on 2012

I don’t know about you, but now that there are less than a handful of days left in 2011, I’m more than ready to unceremoniously boot this tired and tattered old year to the curb and welcome in the new one with open arms and high hopes.

What last Sunday morning was a magical mishmash of tinsel and trappings, garland and gewgaws, bright greens, reds and golds – by Monday was starting to look more than a tad garish and gaudy. Youthful excitement and anticipation of the coming Christmas festivities had already begun to turn into the familiar adult dread of the coming credit card statements. The tips of the branches on our tree seem to droop a bit more with each passing hour (as does my enthusiasm for hefting all of the containers of decorations back into the attic once again). Our vast collection of treasured Christmas CDs has already been locked away in the family media vault until sometime late next November. To be totally honest, you couldn’t bribe me to play a single song from that play list until then.

I mean no disrespect to anyone for which this year has been all unicorn smiles and rainbow sprinkles – but speaking for myself (with the possible exception of an adventurous late summer attempt to summit Mt. Whitney), 2011 has mostly been one big pain in the proverbial patootie.

I’ve had more than enough of the terrible economy, near-historic unemployment levels, rising international turmoil and, please, from now on let’s stop giving those petulant “occupy”ing lowlifes any more attention.  

I’ve had enough inept, incompetent and inexcusable “leadership” from politicians who are paid too much, enjoy too many perks and aren’t affected nearly enough (if at all) by the terribly oppressive and harmful taxes, regulations and laws that they create and enact. I just read that at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, over 750 new laws will go into effect. That alone should frighten every thinking person straight into the voting booth next November. I for one can hardly wait.

I’ve had enough of the winds, thank you. It’s pure coincidence that our gardener (who really doesn’t actually “garden” in any traditional sense of the word – we affectionately label his services “mow, blow & go”) shows up every Wednesday afternoon, and the past three windstorms have all started on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. But it would really be nice to have a yard that isn’t buried under mountains of pine needles, dead leaves, lethal pinecones, fallen branches and Wicked Witches of the West for more than a few hours after he mows, blows and goes. Oh, and power that stays on is a nice thing, too.

I’ve had enough of mail order catalogs that began their annual holiday/Christmas deluge about two weeks before Halloween. I foolishly hoped for a slight pause between the Christmas surge and the post-Christmas/New Years Sale avalanche. No such luck. Last Friday our mailbox was filled with “Last Minute Gift Ideas!” By Saturday catalogs announcing “Unbelievable End-Of-Year Savings!” began arriving.

Before we yank the plug on 2011, I want to mention the brilliant commentator, Peggy Noonan, who wrote in her Wall Street Journal column last weekend that in the moments just before he disconnected from that great Ethernet in the sky, Apple founder and techno-visionary, Steve Jobs looked for a long time at his sister, then his children, and then his wife. Finally, his gaze lifted above and beyond their shoulders, his eyes widened and he said,  “Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow!” Ms. Noonan pegged Jobs’ last words as the best thing said in 2011.

I agree. (iAgree?) Finally, I’d like to express my thanks and gratitude to the faithful readers of this blog (column) and of the CV Weekly newspaper this year. My end-of-year wish for everyone is that 2012 bring fewer events that make us say, “Oh, no …” and many more that make us say, “Oh, wow!” 

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 12.29.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

A Visit from Santa (Anas)

 (With my annual apologies to Clement Clarke Moore and a big, honkin’ “Thank you!” to So Cal Edison employees.)

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the Valley,

The shoppers were combing the stores, streets and alleys.

Looking for last minute bargains and buys,

Before they collapse with a whimper and sighs. 

Our kids had come home from their colleges far,

They were raiding the fridge and borrowing the car.

And me in my slippers and mom in her robe,

Were finding new patience to match that of Job.

When out in the yard there arose such a clatter,

I burst through my screen door to see what was the matter.

The winds had returned and were blowing quite hard,

There were branches and tree limbs all over our yard.

The moon on the wreck of my neighbor’s wood fence

Let me know -- from the wind -- we would have no defense.

Our gardener had come only hours before,

He had mowed and had blowed ‘til he couldn’t do more.

Then from inside the house my dear wife, she did shout,

“Oh crud, not again … our dang power is out!

The lights have gone dark and the heater just quit,

My blow dryer’s dead, I’m so mad I could spit!”

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a big snorkel truck that was loaded with gear.

With a no-nonsense driver, all frazzled and furry,

I said to myself, “This old guy’s in a hurry!”

More rapid than eagles, up our driveway he came,

He went right to work, never saying his name.

Checking our breakers and wiring and power,

That old guy was good, it was his finest hour.

A big coil of wire he had flung on his back,

And he looked like an angel with hope in his pack.

He was dressed all in denim and flannel and hardhat,

He worked fast with his tools, not once stopping to chat.

The end of a line he held tight in his teeth,

Transformer smoke encircled his head like a wreath.

His face it was weathered, his hands very calloused,

They worked wire cutters with such nimble prowess.

Then throwing a switch at the top of the pole,

He quickly climbed down and commenced to extol.

“That’s it, I’m all done, you can wipe off that frown,

You’ve got power again and the wind’s dying down.”

My wife was ecstatic, our fridge was back on!

We could once more leave lights on from dusk until dawn.

The meat in our freezer would not be thrown out,

The veggies and bread loaves and “fresh” frozen trout.

But who was our hero, I wanted to know?

This electrical wizard now packing to go.

I wanted to thank him with great gratitude,

To just let him leave would be terribly rude!

But when I walked over to give him our best,

He got back in his truck like an unwanted guest.

He started the engine and put it in gear,

Didn’t want any thanks, that was perfectly clear.

With a wave of his hand he bid us goodbye,

Drove away down our street with his headlights on high.

But I heard him exclaim with his window rolled down,

“Merry Christmas to all, and I’ll see you ‘round town!”

Note: This is a post of my column published yesterday, 12.22.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Getting the LED Out At Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like … uh, Vegas? Am I the only one who cringes at the glaring, glowing sight of all the new LED-type Christmas lights on houses throughout the neighborhood? They may be more energy efficient (or to put it in the mantra of the moment, “green”), but they certainly aren’t as cozy and Christmas-like as the old school incandescent ‘C-9’ lamps.

For my tastes, LED (which stands for “light emitting diode” in case you care and please don’t ask me where diodes come from) Christmas lights are as warm and cheery as the rotating blue beacon on top of a police cruiser. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that if you look at LED lights long enough they’ll blow out every rod and cone in your eyeballs.

Now, I’ve heard the arguments promoting LED lights as being longer lasting, energy-saving alternatives to the old, glass-blown, incandescent bulbs. I’ve read that the glary LEDs use only 15% of the energy of a standard bulb and put out more light, there’s no filament or glass to break, they don’t get dangerously hot and blah-de-blah, blah, blah. Or rather, bah humbug. You might as well remake A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge played by Justin Bieber instead of George C. Scott. Puh-lease.

It’s Christmas time, people. A sacred time of excess and extravagance. I want to see my electric meter spin like a Frisbee on crack when I flip the switch on my outside lights. I want Edison shareholders to send me a handwritten, tear-stained note of thanks at the end of their fiscal year.  

Sorry, but I insist that my Christmas lights be a warm and cheery red, blue, orange, white, green – not environmentally sanctioned, Sierra Club-approved “green.” I want mine made from glass so they shatter when I drop them on the ground or step on them on the lawn as I’m trying to figure out how a string that was carefully and neatly stored away in January mysteriously became a tangled Gordian knot of green wire and broken glass while sitting undisturbed in a storage container in my attic for eleven months.

My wife and I love to walk various neighborhoods in the early evening and enjoy seeing how individual homes are decorated for the various holidays. One La Canada neighborhood that we frequent is a microcosm of trends – both old and new – in lighting technology, with many homes decked in tasteful rows of cozy and inviting traditional C9 lights and their next-door or across-the-street neighbors’ homes bedazzled with newer LED laser-like light shows. (I’ve considered donning my Maui Jim’s as I pass by these homes.)  

For me, it’s the difference between listening to White Christmas or Let It Snow sung by Nat King Cole, Lou Rawls or Burl Ives as opposed to hearing these venerable classics “interpreted” by Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne or Ceelo Green. It’s just not the same experience, if you get my (snow) drift.

Maybe I have this thing about old school lights because they nearly killed me in my youth while stringing lights at my parent’s house. Turning on the lights to see if any needed replacing, I unscrewed one that wasn’t working, saw that the metal contact at the bottom of the socket was not touching the base of the bulb, and – forgetting that the power was still on – stuck my index finger into the socket to bend the contact up. Dear holy mother of Donder and Blizten. I had no idea I could fly. When I came to I was laying on the lawn about 15 feet from the ladder with the smell of singed hair in the air. I’ve felt this odd, tingly connection with Christmas lights ever since.

Anyway, now that I’ve thoroughly positioned myself as a lighting snob, I’ll shut up -- for this week at least. Besides, I have to find a ladder and go replace some burned out bulbs on my roof. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published Thursday, 12.15.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Unplugged & Unhinged

That’s it. I’ve officially changed the lyrics of the classic Christmas song, “Let It Snow” to “Let It Blow!” I’m mean, chill out, Mutha Nature. That Santa Ana event our county weathered last week was nothing short of epic. In my many years here in Southern California, we’ve  made the national news several times due to spectacular wildfires that make for riveting video footage. But never (at least to my knowledge) have we received network coverage for our windstorms. Until last week.

Listening to the winds as they ripped through the trees around our home last Wednesday night, I kept looking at the clock on my nightstand so I’d know when we lost power. In the backyard, I could hear pine cones dropping like heavy mortar-fire onto our lawn from a neighbor’s pine tree that towers over our back fence. With nervous laughter, our family has always called these football-sized pinecones “widowmakers” because of their wicked, talon-sharp scales and impressive weight. The thuds as the cones hit the turf made me thankful our dog was sleeping fitfully alongside our bed and not outside in the line of fire. Thankfully, no animals or small children were lost in the pinecone barrage.

We eventually lost our power sometime early Thursday morning and didn’t get it back until Saturday. Which meant, of course, that we also lost a significant amount of food from our kitchen fridge and the separate freezer in which we store all those great Costco buys out in the garage. Sigh. As frustrating as it was having to throw food away, I have to admit to feeling a sense of adventure as I dusted off our ancient Coleman gas lantern (and had to remember how to replace the fragile cloth mantles) and hung it from the ceiling fan in our den to read by. Without Facebook, email or TV (among other e-distractions), I read more in the few days we were powerless than I’ve been able to read in months. In fact, I almost finished author Stephen King’s latest cinder block-sized novel (all 800-plus pages of the beast) released only a few weeks ago. I was sure the book would last me well into the New Year.

Yes, it was cold in our house, but we bundled up and made the best of it. And to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to resetting all of the digital clocks in our house when the power returned. For me, however, the worst part of the power outage was witnessing how dangerously ignorant (or willfully reckless) many of our fellow Crescenta Valley drivers were in blasting through busy intersections where the signals weren’t in operation (which means almost every intersection along Foothill). Did the DMV change the law about treating an intersection as a four-way stop when traffic lights aren’t working? I lost track of how many times I waited at an intersection – watching the dance of the drivers try to figure out whose turn it was to creep out into the no-man’s land – only to have some clueless chucklehead blast through it without so much as tapping their brakes. How there weren’t more head-ons or destruction derby-like collisions is a mystery. Note to the DMV: make it more difficult to pass the driver’s test from now on, please.

Thankfully, the winds seemed to shut off just in time for the annual Montrose Christmas parade to go off without a hitch – or at least without spectators and participants alike having to be tied down like so many warmly dressed balloons. I hope everyone who made it out to the parade route had as much fun as all of us on the CV Weekly float did waving to you all. Oh, and thanks for all the much appreciated shout outs of support as we passed by. We love you too.

With my LED flashlight and a boatload of AA-cells close at hand these days, I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my edited column first published Thursday, 12.8.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Winter Wonders

Thanksgiving is over and I can “legally” play and sing Christmas music. However, I have to fess up and admit to singing one of my favorites, “I Wonder As I Wander”, no matter what season the calendar says it is. In addition to loving the beautiful melody of this classic carol, I probably like this particular song because I do, in fact, wonder oddly disconnected thoughts every waking hour of every day. Like these for example:

I wonder … if anyone else sees the irony in our usual post-Thanksgiving SoCal heat wave occurring last weekend, the very weekend so many of us put up outdoor Christmas lights and decorate for what’s supposed to be a wonderfully wintery season? It was actually painful for me to drive along Foothill this past Saturday and see live Christmas trees for sale, withering in our mid-80-degree temps. Now, I realize many people love our climate more than ever this time of year because of this very kind of summer-like warmth. All I can say is, bless your heat-loving hearts. Maybe I can interest you in buying our house when we load up the moving van and head for the Yukon. Bleh.

I wonder … if we’ll ever see an actual bike parked at one of those new racks all along Foothill Blvd. So far, a not one. 

I wonder … if anyone else is as creeped out as I am by that LensCrafters commercial with the guy on the bus who is reading over the shoulder of the lady several rows ahead of him and laughing out loud like a recently escaped patient from the Happy Home? Stop the bus, please. I really want to get off. 

I wonder … (speaking of commercials) if other people respond as negatively as I do to that whacked out lady in red who stars in the onslaught of Target commercials airing lately. How do those spots make me feel? Well, imagine taking a big bite out of an old, moldy lemon hours after the Novocain from your oral surgery wears off – then finding half a worm inside the lemon. It’s kinda like that – only worse.

I wonder … how lazy does someone have to be to actually think electric salt and pepper grinders are a good idea? I saw them for sale last week at an upscale cooking store in Pasadena. Really? Have we become that lethargic? What’s next, a remote control TP dispenser?

I wonder … if I’ll ever be in decent enough shape to wear a cycling jersey and pants without looking and feeling like a large, brightly colored kielbasa link on wheels? Why do the makers of bike clothing assume every cyclist is a recovering anorexic or native of Munchkin-land?

I wonder … if anyone else out there is repulsed by the shopping mania that overwhelmed the Thanksgiving season this year? To watch TV news or read the newspaper last weekend, you’d think that scoring a smokin’ hot deal on a humongous, flat-screen TV or video game console was the only thing many Americans live for. Sadly, maybe it is.

I wonder … who knows the identity of the “electric elf” who every year magically makes Christmas lights appear along the footbridge that connects the west end of Two-Strike Park with Henrietta Ave. I know, but there’s no way I’m spilling Santa’s little secret!

I wonder … if anyone else thinks the title of the new blockbuster in the werewolves vs. vampire movie franchise should have been “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Wind”? (Sorry, that was just too easy to pass up.) 

I wonder … speaking of wind – if Southern California has ever had a windstorm like the one we’ve been experiencing since this past Wednesday? Trees down everywhere. Power out for days at a time (which is why this post is late). Roofs blown off. Houses and cars crushed. Traffic accidents up the wazoo because drivers don’t know enough to stop before blowing (sorry) through intersections where the signals are dark. Stores closed during the busiest shopping season of the year because cash registers won’t work. Fun times.

I wonder … if you’ll see me waving as I ride along with the rest of the CV Weekly crew in the annual Montrose Christmas Parade this weekend? Please come out and enjoy this wonderfully small town tradition and give us a wave and a yell.

And if I don’t see you along Honolulu Avenue Saturday night (or we all get blown away in the process!), I’ll see you ‘round town.  

Note: This is a post of my edited column first published Thursday, 12.1.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc. 

A Bushel of Thanks

I’ve written on this page before about a cherished tradition my family once had of putting up a Thanksgiving Tree on our living room wall in mid-November each year. My wife is uniquely gifted when it comes to creative handicrafts (and cooking, too, but if I follow that train of thought we'll be here for a week!).

Every year, she would somehow transform a stack of brown paper grocery bags into a whimsical tree trunk and branches. Then, using yellow, orange and red construction paper, she’d cut out dozens upon dozens of autumn leaves about the size of your hand. We would put those blank leaves into a basket on the dining room table. As Thanksgiving approached, any family member with something to be thankful for would take a blank construction paper leaf from the basket, write their name and that particular sentiment on the leaf with a marker and tape the leaf to one of the brown paper branches on the Thanksgiving tree.

By the time Thanksgiving Thursday rolled around each year, our “tree” was in full Autumnal bloom with yellow and orange leaves of thanks from every member of our family and relatives or friends who may have stopped by to visit. The tree was always a thing of beauty – each year similar to others, yet with distinctively different thanks given from each of us.

Today, our “kids” are scattered from Kailua to Missoula and from San Diego to Santa Clarita. That, plus the reality that two of them have their own young families, in-laws who not-surprisingly also want time with them, the miles between us all, our busy lives (and throw in a shaky economy to really mess things up) – it all combines to create a situation that simply doesn’t allow us to gather together for Thanksgiving these days. Life happens, right?

I miss those days. But while our wall may not have had a tree on it on recent Thanksgivings, I’d like to take the opportunity to express my thankfulness in a slightly more public way. And so, with your indulgence, I’ll pull out just a few of my “leaves” from this year’s bushel, namely:

I’m profoundly thankful for the privilege this year of celebrating 25 years of marriage to my beautiful, patient, talented and devoted (among her many other qualities!) bride. In a rapidly changing culture that increasingly discounts the foundational importance of strong marriages, I don’t take our cherished union for granted and pray that I never give my wife a reason to think that I do. I am a blessed and grateful man, indeed.

I’m thankful that our four kids have grown into responsible, thriving persons who love God, love life and love this country.

I’m thankful for four beautiful, healthy, happy and growing grandkids. God willing, we’ll be blessed with many more in the coming years (along with the time, energy and resources to visit them all often!)

I’m thankful for cold and rainy days, dry firewood, a good roof and a sleepy old dog.

I’m thankful for contemporary technology like Facebook, Skype, IM’s, emails and smartphones. With the airline industry and Homeland Security teaming up to make travel costlier than ever (in terms of both finances, time and personal dignity), today’s technology has been a godsend for staying in touch.

I’m thankful that the nearby bucolic burg of Montrose, CA is still the same sleepy, home-town place it was when my mom would drop me off in front of the old, long-gone single-screen movie theater on Honolulu to catch the latest double-feature with my best-buds.   

I’m thankful for Robin Goldsworthy (Publisher/Editor) and her tireless CV Weekly staff, its loyal and growing multitudes of subscribers, advertisers and supporters who have made the publication of this paper possible each week for well over two years now.

I have many more leaves, but no more space. So I’ll close by wishing you and yours a day to surround yourselves with the warmth of food, friends, family and faith.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 11.24.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Discounts for Dessert

So are you ready for the big day? Can you believe it’s only one week away? Are you feeling the excitement? Made all your preparations? Ready to consume as much as you possibly can?

If you think I’m writing about the Thanksgiving feast, you are so-o-o-o-o old school. No, I’m referring to the official kickoff of the annual shop-a-palooza extravaganza known as the retail holiday shopping season.

That’s really the point of the season, isn’t it? I mean, it’s bad enough that we no longer blink at the sight of Christmas decorations on sale across the aisle from Halloween displays. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as restraint at the altar of commerce. I did see one notable exception, however. One of my Facebook friends posted a photo recently of a sign posted in the window at an unnamed Nordstrom location. The sign said, “We won’t be decking our halls until Friday, Nov. 27. Why? Because we just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time.” Now, how refreshing is that? I hope Nordstrom is swamped with cash-carrying customers. If I had any, I’d definitely support them.

Few people know better than I do that this economy has devastated businesses across the country. But this relentless push to lengthen the end-of-year retail ritual has gotten out of hand. For years, as Halloween has grown in popularity and profitability and as Christmas has been turned into little more than a secular spending spree, I’ve wondered how long it would take the combined worlds of media and commerce to figure out a way to make something more lucrative out of Thanksgiving. New Years is big business. Valentine’s Day makes retailers swoon. Easter and Fourth of July make cash registers ring-a-ding-ding. But Thanksgiving has been relatively untouched by commerce, with the exception of the shopper stampede to grocery stores and the availability of some lame greeting cards that nobody ever actually buys.

But this year it’s finally happened. They’ve figured out what to do with Thanksgiving. The answer? Ignore it. Rather than tolerate the spending speed bump that this holiday has been, this year Thanksgiving day itself has officially become a starting gate for the Christmas season – oops, sorry – for the Happy Holidays season of super sales. More than ever before, the overwhelming, non-stop message is: why wait until the Black Friday or Cyber Monday to begin racking up more credit card debt? Drop that drumstick and get out there and shop, people!

Last year the big news was that some stores would open their doors at 4 a.m. on Black Friday. This year, many stores have already announced that they’ll open at midnight on Thursday hoping to draw shoppers in like moths to a deeply discounted flame. Wal Mart has even announced they will open up for business on Thanksgiving night itself at 10 p.m. I’m sure others will follow. What a shame.

Even if you don’t succumb to the incessant push to buy, buy, BUY! – one can’t escape the onslaught of “holiday” mania.

I’ve written before how I steadfastly refuse to listen to our family’s extensive collection of Christmas music until the Friday after Thanksgiving. The season is so special to me in both meaning and tradition I don’t want to lessen its significance by rushing things.

And yet, more than a week before Thanksgiving, my wife and I ended an evening walk at a local Starbucks and found ourselves listening to – you guessed it – Christmas (dang!) holiday music. Good old Lou Rawls was singing of glad tidings as the baristas merrily went about decking the halls with trappings of politically correct comfort and joy. Sigh.

Ever one to put a positive spin on things (stop snickering) I suppose the dearth of folks around Thanksgiving tables this year could ultimately be a good thing. After all, it means more leftover pumpkin pie for yours truly.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

PostScript: Days after writing and submitting this column to my editor, I read a blog post from a national marketing writer that mentioned the same Nordstrom window poster I reference here. According to the piece in TalentZoo.com,  “ … this photo first appeared in a follow up to a story that originally appeared on the Consumerist blog back in 2007 and has been widely circulated around the Internet every November since. Almost without exception it is followed by comments praising Nordstrom and vows of Holiday patronage.”

Unfortunately, the writer went on to explain, since 2007 Nordstrom has “caved on its promise.” It seems that shoppers at the company’s flagship store in Seattle early this October were treated to Christmas/Holiday/Seasonal decorations of red ribbons, pine boughs and golden bells hung over signage printed in off-red and off-green fonts. According to the Seattle-Post Intelligencer,  however, Nordstrom’s PR spokesperson rejected accusations the department store had reversed its policy claiming, “The window décor downtown is commemorating the upcoming social season – not the Holidays.”

Right. And I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus while the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy looked on. 

Note: This is a post is a longer version of my column first published yesterday, 11.17.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Cycles of Life

So how did I find myself before the sun came up last Saturday morning, sitting on a hard, painfully narrow bicycle seat, waiting with my wife and thousands of other cyclists for the start of a 50-plus mile “fun ride” through the Santa Inez Valley, in 38-degree, fog-laden air with nothing more than a micro-thin layer of stretchy polyester fabric between the near-freezing morning air and my pasty white, goose-bumpy skin? Glad you asked.

It began with the first bike I can remember owning – a beautiful, candy apple metal-flake green Schwinn Stingray with a white faux leather banana seat and sissy bar in the back and often-waxed, chrome “ape hanger” handle bars up front. My radical, 60s-vintage ride had a smaller front wheel to make it look more dragster-like and big, fat, “cheater slick” tire on the rear wheel. My other grade school biker buds and I would ride our bikes as fast as we could down the street, then stand hard on the pedals to lock up the coaster brake and see who could leave the longest skid mark.

Granted, riding a bike in the Crescenta Valley is no easy task at any age. Our unavoidable hillsides quickly build up one’s leg muscles and fondness for a good set of brakes. Nevertheless, my childhood home was within a few pedal strokes of Two-Strike Park with its racetrack-like layout of smooth, mostly flat concrete sidewalks, quick turns and endless loops of bike-riding fun. When someone (I won’t say who and you can’t make me) would scoop piles of sand from the swing set area up onto the sidewalk, the resulting skid pad effect made for hours and hours of thrills, spills and skinned up appendages. Good times, indeed – and we didn’t even have to wear helmets in those wild frontier days. Imagine that. 

Until I learned that it would ultimately loosen my spokes, I would clothespin stiff playing cards to the forks of my Stingray to get that cool “revving motor” noise. The faster I rode, the louder and more motor-like the cards slapping against the spokes would sound. I was a Harley rider wannabe even then, I guess. And as it so happened, from my early teenage years until well into middle age, I temporarily traded my love of bikes for motorcycles of all different kinds, including torquey off-road 4-strokers, snarly 2-stroke motocross-racers and eventually a massive, rumbling V-twin cruiser that I rode like Dennis Hopper for many years.

Then, some ten years ago, a good friend from church introduced me to the wonderful world of road biking and I was hopelessly hooked on pedal power once again.

There are some things you have to get used to when taking up the sport of road biking; like the seemingly silly and oh-so-stretchy clothing that serious cyclists wear. Or the “ram’s horns” handlebars and bent over, low-center-of-gravity position you assume in order to achieve optimal wind-resistance. Or feeling like a kid learning to ride all over again as you learn to use the bizarre clipless pedals (or “scary pedals” as I heard one cyclist call them) that lock your feet to the pedal and make you fall over at stop lights. I did say this was great fun, right?

It’s all been more than worth it, however, as my wife and I have enjoyed unforgettable rides together from Azusa to Seal Beach and back, or on a deserted stretch of blacktop skirting Crowley Lake in the Sierras where it’s hard to tell if it’s the altitude or the views that so quickly take your breath away. Or on the annual Solvang Prelude ride (our third time riding this 50-plus-mile event) last weekend.

Yes, it was freezing cold. Yes, it was one of our most exhausting rides ever. And yes, it was as much fun as sticking playing cards in your spokes or laying a big honkin’ skid mark down the middle of Harmony Place.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 11.10.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Home Is Where the Office Is

Last week I “celebrated” 15 years of self-employment. That word is in quotes because, frankly, the economic freefall of the past few years has hit my industry even harder than most. In the ad biz, it’s common knowledge that when the economy goes south, advertising budgets are the first to get cut and the last to be reinstated. And today’s U.S. economy is further south than a penguin’s patootie in Antarctica.

For the last few years, at least, there hasn’t been too very much to celebrate. My friendly neighborhood bankers no longer bother to make happy talk with me when I come in for my regular juggling of rapidly diminishing funds. They know better. Like too many other folks, we’re holding on by our financial fingernails. (Or circling the debt drain, is probably the more appropriate alliteration.)

As a money manager I spoke with recently told me, “If you have a job, you’re okay. If you’re out of work or underemployed (that would be me), you’re hurting big time.” To which I can only say, ouch.

That said, I also have much for which I am grateful. Not the least of which is that – for 15 years now – I have not had to make the daily commute to the mid-Wilshire area where I was on the creative staff at various large ad agencies. I used to have drive from our La Crescenta home through an hour-long gauntlet of traffic jams, stop lights and side-street detours five or six days a week. The ride home (usually well past sundown) was even longer, by as much as 30 or 40 minutes more. My dear, long-suffering wife used to worry endlessly (and often silently I found out later) about the immense stress that my morning and evening commute would add to an already demanding day. After all, the ad world is fueled by stress even in the best of times. One well-known agency with headquarters in Santa Monica used to tout their company slogan that warned employees, “if you don’t come to work on Saturday, don’t bother showing up on Sunday.” Nice, right?

By working from my hillside home office here in Southern California’s Crescenta Valley, however, my daily commute was reduced to a whopping 10 or 15 seconds, from either my bedroom or the kitchen. Traffic consists of stepping over a sleeping dog or two. That’s it. “Honey, I’m home!”

Needless to say, my stress levels are much lower – at least from the commuting portion of any given day. Yes, my work still piles on the pressure of ridiculous deadlines, difficult and demanding clients who often don’t know what they want until after they’ve seen days worth of work that turns out isn’t quite what they didn’t know they didn’t want and now they remember some important details they probably should have told me in the first place and oh by the way the due date for this project has been pushed up by a few days! (Deep breaths, Jim. Look out your balcony office window at the Verdugo mountains and relax. Thanks, that’s better.)

Having your office only steps away from your living room, bedroom or kitchen also means you’re never really not working. No matter where in the house I am, if my office phone rings, I hear it and make an NFL-worthy blitz to answer the thing before it goes to voicemail. (That’s another downside to self-employment; never, ever, under any circumstances, let a job or client get away from you. Ever.) There are no starting or stopping times in a self-employed person’s day. No paid sick days, vacations or holidays. I don’t work, I don’t make money. Period. End of funds.

That said, the biggest, most priceless benefit of fifteen years of self-employment has been the ability to simply be here as “Dad” – present and accounted for – 24 hours a day (mostly) as my kids grew from crumb crunchers, house monkeys and curtain climbers into the amazing young adults they are today. While actually working more hours during any given week (because you’re never really NOT working when your office is at home), I’ve been able to shift time as needed to late into the evening. working all night if need be – or long before the morning sun comes up – in order to have spent precious, irretrievable time at school events, field trips, ceremonies, helping with homework and other important times in our kids’ lives.

Frankly, I wouldn’t have traded those opportunities for any title on a business card, corner office, regular paycheck or benefits package. I don’t care if building security knows my name. My kids know me and I know them. I am well-compensated.  

Now, if only I could figure out a way to deposit some of that karmic-currency into my checking account.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a longer version of a column first published yesterday, 11.3.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

A Whale of an Expensive Day

Welcome back. Okay, where were we last week? ("Getting Soaked at SeaWorld" CV Weekly, 10/20/11) Oh, yes … outside the exit to SeaWorld’s Shipwreck Rapids ride discussing the $5-a-pop walk-in “drying stations.” It’s actually an ingenious set up – first you soak shivering riders to the bone, then offer them immediate relief, for a price.

You’ve gotta give the SeaWorld people credit (but I’m sure they’d take cash). Because they’ve done everything possible to make sure you don’t leave the park at the end of the day with even loose change in your pockets. For example, overlooking one point in the same Shipwreck Rapids ride, spectators can push a big button to spray the riders on the rapids below with water jets that increase the wet factor. Mischievous fun, right? Sure, but you pay for that privilege too, at 25-cents a spray. See what I mean?

Want to feed tiny dead anchovies to the seals or dolphins? Who wouldn’t. Just plunk down $6 for a paper tray holding five, count ‘em, five of the little fishies no bigger than your little finger. For the mathematically challenged, that’s $1.20 per slimy sea lion snack. Can you say insane profit margin, boys and girls? So where’s the “Occupy SeaWorld” movement?

As for people food, a SeaWorld food pass costs $30 per person and allows you to eat all you want throughout the park, but only at certain concession stands – not at all of the in-park restaurants – or at least that’s what I read in online reviews of the new option. Other than one small $5 bottle of water (I almost choked!), we bought no food or drink during our visit. In an attempt to save at least a few dollars, we brought along a picnic lunch and had to walk outside the park to find the one and only concrete bench near the one and only patch of lawn under the one and only bit of shade where we ate lunch.  

Once back inside the park, as our day progressed I became more and more numb to all of the creative extra costs and charges. In fact, I even began to look for revenue-enhancing opportunities they missed. I imagined the profit possibilities of “accidentally” being pushed into the water at the Shark Encounter. A park employee could be stationed nearby with a credit card reader and laminated menu of rescue options: the Standard Rescue ($50) would take up to 30 minutes before a ladder could be lowered into the tank. Of course, park guests could opt for the Premium Rescue option for only $89.50 and be placed on a priority list for rescue – PLUS!! – receive an 8x10 glossy keepsake photo of the experience to cherish forever. For the best value, however, the popular Rapid Rescue Pass (value-priced at $295) would allow guests to fall into the shark tank at anytime during the calendar year and be rescued immediately. Afterward, guests would enjoy a catered tank-side meal of fish and chips as the same sharks who almost had you for dinner swim slowly by giving rescued guests the stink eye.

And if they use that idea, I want a commission.   

To be fair, the SeaWorld people don’t hang you upside down from a yardarm and shake the money out of your pockets or purses. We certainly had a choice whether or not to pay the money and spend our day there. (It does bring new meaning to the phrase, “spending the day”, doesn’t it?) We also learned that free admission is offered to both military veterans and current service personnel – a wonderful gesture certainly worthy of noting. More importantly, the four of us did have an awesome day – although I’m pretty sure we would have enjoyed ourselves just as much if we’d spent all day at our son’s college talking and drinking coffee.

Then again, the smell of dead sardines on your fingers has to be worth something, right? I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 10.27.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Getting Soaked at SeaWorld

On a recent Saturday, my wife and I drove to visit our son and his girlfriend down at the small college they attend just north of San Diego. After a relaxed al fresco breakfast with a side of great conversation, the four of us headed out to spend the unseasonably warm, early Fall day at the SeaWorld amusement park in nearby Mission Bay.

Over the years our family has been to this popular Southern California attraction many times as our kids have grown. We’ve always enjoyed the many live shows featuring killer whales, dolphins, sea lions and even a comedic walrus and sea lion duo. The corny, slapstick jokes (think Benny Hill with flippers) haven’t changed in decades but they’re still just as funny and goofy to see.

One big change we noticed on our latest visit, however, is the trainers in the Shamu “One Ocean” show no longer get into the water with their 12,000 pound, black and white stars – an obvious reaction to the tragic whale-induced drowning of a SeaWorld trainer in Florida last year. Now, rather than having the tractor-trailer-sized whales launch them out of the water while standing on their noses, or riding rodeo-style around the tank on the creatures’ backs – the wet-suit-wearing trainers stay safe and dry on the platform doing a silly, side-to-side shuffle. While they do this nautical line dance, a saccharine-sweet audio track blares its green-world, blue ocean environmental evangelism message about one planet, one ocean, one people, one chance – blah, blah, blah. I started looking for one barf bag as the trainers sang about becoming one with the whales (I could be wrong but I think you have to get into the water with them to do that), one with the lobsters and crabs, sea urchins, clams, jelly fish, seaweed, sand – you get the idea.

The other change we noticed are the many new and ingenious ways SeaWorld has devised to separate guests from their economically challenged, hard-earned dollars. I mean, holy anchovies, don’t these people know there’s a recession going on?

At $14, it’s expensive just to park your car, unless you actually want to park in the same Zip code as SeaWorld, in which case it’ll cost extra for “preferred parking.” But the fleecing has only begun, because the cheapest general admission is now almost $70 per person. That’s a lot of clams.

True, the many delightful animal shows are included with the entrance fee. However, a costly new wrinkle is the availability of an annual “Platinum Pass” which allows you to sit in the better seats at every performance. So what if you planned ahead and showed up a half hour early to get a good seat. Tough tuna. If you don’t pony up (or porpoise up, I suppose) extra cash for the privilege of sitting in the reserved Platinum Zone seats – the majority of which were empty the day we attended, thank you very much – you’re stuck with the proletariat riff raff high up in the stands or far off to the side. Take that, you huddled masses!

SeaWorld has also taken a page from those Master Marketers in Mouse Ears just up the freeway in Anaheim who place souvenir stores in every conceivable location. For example, it’s physically impossible to exit SeaWorld’s Wild Arctic, Turtle Reef, Penguin Encounter or Shark Encounter attractions without be funneled like cattle through a stockyard chute through the middle of a store brimming with plush toys, t-shirts and other silk-screened crapola. Forget the kids. Hold on tight to your wallets.

Oh, and if you get sopping wet (the signs guarantee you will) on the Shipwreck Rapids ride, don’t worry – there are ingenious walk-in drying stations available as you exit. How convenient. How thoughtful. How mercenary. To dry off will cost you another $5 a person. Talk about getting soaked.

I’ll have more thoughts about our SeaWorld experience next week – but don’t worry, there won’t be an extra fee to actually read them. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 10.20.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.