What I Did On My Holiday Break

Condo life has afforded me some opportunities to do some things that previously took a back seat to chores such as raking leaves, cleaning roofs/gutters, and all the other stuff that goes with maintaining a wooded half-acre.  This time of the year, we get a generous bunch of holidays between Christmas and New Year's Day (courtesy of my employer) and this is the first time we haven't been churning through the rain and mud in late December just to try and keep the place looking respectable.

This past Friday, I took a short drive to Issaquah, WA to have lunch and visit a guy I used to work with (and for) more than 25 years ago.  Dick Rosenkranz was the Tooling Manager in the Boeing group that I was hired into back in May of 1986.  Dick was responsible for large parts of several big government contracts.  He was good at what he did but that's hardly the reason that I keep in touch with him to this day.

Dick Rosenkranz With BowlingJoe

 He made coming to work a lot of fun.  How many managers have you seen who bring their trombone into work to give an impromptu concert?  Or taxi remote control airplanes up and down the aisles of the work area?  I'll bet not many.  Especially in the age of politically correct, buttoned-down, image-conscious managerial hacks that roam our offices these days.

Dick is in his eighties now and is enjoying a much-deserved comfortable life at what looks like a pretty nice condo development that has everything.  His wife is in an assisted living facility next door, a mere two minute walk for him to see her as he does every day.

We talked about old times and ex co-workers who are still alive as well as those who have moved on.  He suggested that I write a book of stories about some of the characters we used to deal with in those days.  Well, if only I could find an audience that would find a MEAC funny (or even know what that is).

Most of all though we laughed.  A lot.  Before I left him, he told me that was the most he'd laughed in a long time.  Me too, Dick. Let's not wait until the holidays to get together and do that again.

The Ministry of Silly Walks Clock

In my younger years I was a bit of a fan of the series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  Not as big of a fanatic as some of my friends, but many of their sketches were funny in the 1970s and to me they’re still funny today.

They brought us “Twit of the Year” and a hilarious soccer match bit between German and Greek philosophers (spoiler alert: Socrates scores the only goal of the match).  And then there was Ministry of Silly Walks featuring John Cleese, which lampooned England’s thick bureaucratic structure.  Rather than try and explain the scenario in this post, you can watch it here.  Even if you’ve seen it, it’s worth seeing again.

I recently saw a “Silly Walk” watch that was being marketed that included Cleese’s crazy legs as the hour and minute hands.  Wondering if there was a corresponding clock for sale, I did some searching but came up with nothing.  So I took things into my own hands and grabbed an unused but functional clock out of the garage.

Using nothing more than Silly Walk images that were on-line, glue, scissors, and some light cardboard backing, I made my very own custom Silly Walk Clock.  Here’s the result:
 

My plan is to rotate it amongst the members of our Plummeting Tortoises Book Group, making it our official clock.  And if anyone knows these guys it’s an extremely appropriate clock.  Whoever is the next book group host will get to take the clock to his residence for the month before and during the meeting, and then give it up to the next host.   Each of us will have the honor of it gracing our living space for three months out of the year.

BowlingWidow has expressed interest in me making another clock to occupy a permanent place in our condo.  She really has no idea what she’s asking for though.  It may inspire me to take up public Silly Walking as my next hobby.

Time Passages

I spend a lot of time thinking about the notion of time.  Perhaps I spend too much time doing this.  I developed a very simple theory about time and why it seems to accelerate as we advance in years.

First, let’s assume that we have no conscious knowledge of any past lives we may have led and the clock starts to tick from the time we’re hatched from our mothers.

When we reach the age of ten, an interval of one year constitutes 10% (give or take) of the length of our lives to date.  Fast forward to the age of fifty, which is near where I’m at now on this journey, and that number is reduced to 2%.

Let’s do some simple math:  10 divided by 2 is equal to 5.  Therefore, I profess that time seems to travel five times faster for a 50-year-old than it does for a 10-year-old.  The good news for us AARP types is that, while time will continue to “move faster” for us, the rate at which it’s changing won’t seem to be as fast as it was when we were younger.  And that’s just about the only silver lining I can come up with on this topic other than to say we’re all wiser or something like that.

What do you think?  Spot on or B.S.?  I’m sure someone else must have thought of this but in the off chance that I’m the only one, this concept is officially copy written, patented, and proprietary so you can send me $20 if you want to use it in a public setting.

In the meantime, I think I’ll spend the next few minutes of whatever time I have left listening to the song that inspired this post:  Time Passages.

Thoughts About 2012 and Beyond

I rarely write about my political views on this blog because, frankly, I’ve seen how social media has fractured relationships that would have otherwise been okay.  The conversation usually goes something like this:  (insert political party or candidate here) is ruining our country and only the presence of (insert other political party or candidate here) can save us from impending disaster.  And then civil discourse takes a back seat and it starts to get personal, etc.  Just like everyone else, I have opinions but will only attack the issues and the people behind the issues.  Not friends, acquaintances, family members or anyone else who might be reading this.

People who know me know that I tend to lean Democratic, as (a) they actually have a chance to win elections and (b) they more closely represent my viewpoints on most issues.  But  every now and then though, I’ll vote Republican for what I deem to be good reasons as I did this year in our state gubernatorial election.

There’s something though that I always remind myself of before I cast my vote:  Democrats and Republicans all work for the same people.  Money talks and their campaigns are being funded by PACs (they really need to go away), insurance companies, banks, hedge funds, energy conglomerates, and so on.  And they expect a return on their “investment”.  I have no expectations of anything getting better strictly by virtue of who wins or loses a presidential election.

Having said that, I do try to assess what kind of a future might be looming by trying to understand a political  party’s platform.  Four years ago, I dropped a blog post regarding how thrilled I was that Barack Obama was elected.  Four years later, I’m not nearly as excited and have come to understand just how polarized we are in this country.  There are nearly three times as many annual filibusters in the Obama years as the “W” years, for example.  Lots of people with a –R at the end of their names really dislike this guy.  Because he’s a Democrat?  Because of his policies?  His race?  Yes, yes, and (unfortunately in 2012) yes.

Has Obama done a perfect job in his first four years?  No he has not.  But despite the ideologues who refuse to work with him, and want to see him fail no matter what the cost to the middle and lower class, we are slowly coming out of the long-term mess caused largely by a person I consider the worst and most irresponsible president we’ve had since I’ve been on this rock.  And that even includes Nixon.  I could go on about Bush but why bother.  He’s yesterday’s news.  Let’s learn the lessons we’ve had to learn and move on.

Here are a few things that I'd like to see happen this term (not that anyone has consulted with me on this):

•  Obamacare needs to get roots.  It HAS to be a priority, end of sentence.  We’re getting older as a demographic and unless there’s a plan like this in place, the day is not too far off when far too many of our citizens (and their family members) will have to decide whether or not to go bankrupt to stay alive.  Then we can all watch every other form of consumer spending bite the dust along with it.   If tax increases are necessary then so be it.  Tax the wealthy at the rates they paid 20 years ago.  Alter the laws and tax structures so that the Mitt Romney's of the world aren't rewarded for moving their millions offshore.  Heck, tax me a bit more.  I’m not rich by most definitions but am doing okay and am fine with that if we can avoid turning away our disenfranchised.  And by the way, at the risk of being called a “socialist” (a word bantered around by some righties in a completely misunderstood fashion) I’m for a single payer system as well and believe health care needs to be available to all.

• Related to this, we need to make sure that big businesses (such as insurance companies who would just as soon exempt you due to a pre-existing condition as see that you’re treated) play by the rules as opposed to circumnavigating them so that a few lucky VPs at the top of the food chain can get rich.  I think we all saw how well that worked with the lending industry a few years back.  If they can’t police themselves, pass legislation and send a few to the Greybar Hotel.  The rest of the corporate lab rats will see this happening and start to push the button that doesn’t deliver the electric shock.                        
• Get out of Afghanistan.  Enough said.  And let’s use the money we’re not spending on wars to start fixing our infrastructure before it crumbles away.  The shelf life is closer than we think.

I could go on, but I’m up to more than 700 words on this post already.  So I'll just say here’s to hoping that during the next four years we decide to look out for one another with more conviction than we have in recent memory.

“A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Meeting Ken Levine

This short blog post has been sitting in limbo for a while now, but it’s time for it to see the light of day.

I’m very fortunate in that every now and then I’ll get a chance to meet someone I admire and appreciate in the worlds of music, books, sports and so on.  Several weeks ago I had an opportunity to do that once again.

One of the links I have on this blog leads to another blog (and a darned good one) written by a guy named Ken Levine.  He’s actually had a few full-time careers over the years that include Emmy winning television writer (M*A*S*H, Cheers, and Frasier are among the many shows that he’s worked on).  He’s also written a few books, two of which I own and have read.  Oh, and in his spare time he’s a major league baseball broadcaster, currently with the Seattle Mariners.

BowlingJoe and Ken Levine

I first heard Levine on the radio back in the 1980s, the FIRST time he was with the Mariners.  Those were some god-awful Mariner teams that used to inhabit The Kingdome in those days (my old college buddies and I used to enjoy sitting in the left field cheap seats giving washed up Mariner left fielder Gorman Thomas "the business") .  But Ken Levine was a breath of fresh air.  When the first batter up in a given inning got to first on a base on balls, he’d quote what he called Levine’s Law, which states:  “When you walk the leadoff batter, he comes around to score 100% of the time.  Unless he doesn’t.”  How can you argue with that?

And then there were the traffic reports he’d give in the 9^th inning of another Mariner blowout loss waiting to become official.  He’d tell the listening audience to avoid the Highway 520 bridge due to an accident.  Of course that was fake.  Levine used the bridge to get home and wanted a clear path to get there after the game.

When I had the chance to meet him at the Mariner’s team store in Seattle and get a couple of books signed, I jumped on board.  During our short chat he was very friendly and gracious.  I think I tried to make a joke.  Something about how I enjoy reading his book during sittings in the smallest room of our house.  Which brings me to something I’ll call BowlingJoe’s Law:  “Never try and be funny around someone who writes comedy for a living.”  After all, you wouldn’t demonstrate your lightning fast left jab for Mike Tyson, right?  I should really thank Ken for not ejecting me from his book signing for that lapse in judgment.

Finally, I know he’d appreciate me hawking his latest book on this blog, even though I only get about 200 site visits a month, half from people who are somehow related to me (which isn’t bad but I’ll bet he gets 20,000).  So here you go, Ken, this one’s on me.  You can order Ken Levine’s hilarious new book, The Me Generation…By Me (Growing Up in the 60s), right here.  Available in Kindle or paperback.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Me-Generation-Growing-60s/dp/0615653529/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/188-3745147-0523011

Southport Lanes in Chicago

Well, here's a post that actually is about bowling for a change.  After the Chicago Cubs' baseball game we made a short walk from Wrigley Field to this unique little bowling and billiards joint called Southport Lanes and Billiards, on the corner of Southport Ave. and Henderson Street.

Southport Lanes and Billiards

Southport Lanes and Billiards was built in the 1920s by The Schlitz Brewing Company.  History tells us that, like a lot of places in its day, it was once a front for a speakeasy with a brothel located on the second floor.  But what makes it really unique is that this four-lane house is one of just a handful of alleys in this country that are currently using manual pinsetting machines operated by "pin boys" in the area behind the pins.

Southport and Its Four Lanes

In fact almost everything about the operation includes original equipment including the above-surface ball returns.  The main exception to that is the lanes themselves:  the expense of maintaining the original wood lanes was too much to bear for the owners so they were replaced with synthetic lanes and approaches a few years ago.

It was a slow day when we were there, so I was lucky enough to convince the general manager to give me a quick tour of what life is like behind the lanes, something he said he doesn't do too often.

Mind the Rules and Don't Bowl If You See Legs!

The first thing I noticed is that being skinny (which I'm not) would be an advantage in getting back there as I contorted my body up and around the ball return between lane one and the wall.  There's also not much room when you do get back there and I'd find it amazing if a year goes by without somebody getting hit by a ball or a flying pin.

We didn't actually bowl at Southport (and in case you're wondering there are no sanctioned leagues here).  Just being there was special enough.  Here's a good news story I found that was done by a Chicago TV station a couple of years ago, followed by some photos I took.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/17819843/southport-lanes-and-billiards-preserves-chicago-history