Author: franla1917

The trip–a week later

I feel a lot better about our recent trip. We saw some cool stuff. And we spent some nice time together. The latter part of it was exhausting, but that was also expected.

After a week of reflection, I realize that the trip was something of a closing, not opening activity. Which means, I’m in the opening of something right now.

We openly embraced this trip as something of a “last chance” to all go on a vacation as a family. Knowing people with older kids, that isn’t exactly true. We still vacation with Amy’s parents and my dad so I guess it can last your whole life. But, Nathalie will be making her trip to her college next summer, barring some radical shift in her life plan. This time next year, I’ll be trying to talk myself into driving across country or whatever. If she goes to school in Boston, then she and her stuff will need to get there, as opposed to what monument to see in Rome. Nathalie really enjoyed the trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her plan her junior year abroad in Rome, Milan, Turin, or wherever. Seriously, she could learn Italian in 6 months of serious study, knowing that she would be immersed for a school year following.

A thought on my own Italian study. I knew a lot more Italian than I needed to know for a trip. I think I might continue to take courses because I enjoy it. It’s a great exercise for my particular brain. And judging from Nicole, Mike and Christine, our familial brain has a “knack” for it. I’m not saying we are idiot savants but clearly there is something in the wiring that allows us to not be intimidated by the prospect of stumbling along with the language. As well, there seems to be a higher than average ability to internalize vocabulary and phrases in the short term. And, while it might be easier for me than, say, Amy, it is still exhausting at times.

I didn’t get many opportunities to speak Italian, which surprised me. My neighbor is a Columbian woman and she asked me about this yesterday, as we exchanged pleasantries. I told her that I was surprised that in one place, I walked to the counter and the server said, “What can I get you?” Never even a pause before completely flipping the bit to English. My neighbor said, “Really. You don’t even look like a gringo,” which, oddly, made me feel better. Apart from hello, good-bye, thank you – you can feel pretty good that English will be okay. I could not say what it might be like outside of the tourism industry because we were squarely in the middle of that.

So closing this chapter is a theme for me. I realized some of this as I spent the week back at work. My team has been dysfunctional for a long time. That’s harder and harder to take. I just don’t want to be there. That’s not as simple a conclusion as it sounds as the Catholic guilt (you’ ought be thankful you even have a job) and the Puritan work ethic (work harder at it) combine with the more visceral conclusion that this is not a sustainable position.

At the risk of going to deep here, I hardly ever think about my heart. It works fine. Apart from a yearly check up, I go about my life like everyone else. But there is a part of my sub-conscious brain that is aware that my time could be limited. Orthat my normally functional time might be limited. I know people who literally cannot fly because of the risk of blood clots, for example. And lots of people get through life with bigger, more difficult handicaps. For me, I am literally unaffected. However, I know that I have 8 years of 15-20 year ticket punched before I have to become medically unconscious and wake up, intubated, with an incision on my chest.

I think that weighs into my thinking about things like “toughing out” another year in a bad job.

I also think that we are living in a time where there is no concept of “retirement”.  I’m not talking politically here. I’m saying that we, or I , do not have a good mental picture of what it’s like to be 60 or 70 years old in the future.

What does this sea change mean for me? I don’t know yet. I know that my job, even apart from my present team, is in jeopardy. Software development is not bound by political borders. There is nothing to say that American-made software is even distinguishable from Chinese or Indian software. Who makes the software you are using right now? If it is IE then I guarantee you that it is in part Indian-made.

In the middle of writing this, I spoke to my homeboy, Mark. He shed some light on my predicament by asking a simple question. What do you want to change the most? Or something like that. And the answer, after a little bit of thought, was clear. I want more control. It’s not that my job is bad. I’ve liked similar jobs. The difference was that I had more control. I had bosses that said things like, “you just do your thing and you let me worry about reporting it to management.” The uncertainty in the industry is less about predicting the next twist and turn in the software development road. It is more personal to me to know that I am not some kind of flotsam in water being affected by the changing current and crazy, unpredictable weather, later washing up on some beach as little more than debris, unwelcome pollution.

In the past, lack of control lead to two things, often, simultaneously: Consolidation and research. I can live with both those things. In particular, I love consolidation. I love having less stuff. That’s a bit harder to envision as a father of nearly grown up kids and a husband, but not impossible. And research is what I do. At the close of this week, that is not a bad place to be.

Indulgent reflections on a vacation (1,700 words)

I usually spend a good deal of my vacations in a somewhat reflective state. I sometimes know that it will be introspective and other times it is more of a surprise. For me, a vacation is a way to escape the grind of daily life so that my mind can go places that it doesn’t normally go. I don’t expect a vacation to be an educational experience or a physical challenge to make a contrast. I expect it to be a more introspective experience.

This vacation to Italy did not deliver that. It was not completely without reflection but instead provided something other than reflective moments in the main.

I don’t own a camera. I never have owned a camera and really never wanted a camera. I consider site seeing to be a strange experience. I realize now that this is a bit odd. I remember my first trip to Europe. I was 18 and just finished high school. I brought a camera because it was expected that I take pictures to share with my family and as a remembrance of the trip. I’m sure I have at least some of the photos but I don’t know where they are. And I took all the photos in one day of a 10 day trip. I remember thinking well I better uses this camera so I walked around and took a bunch of pictures. One was the price of gas in litres, which I found fascinating.

In short, I really suck at being a tourist.

In some ways, I was trying to push my internal limits by not writing in a journal on this trip. For one, I wanted to try and be more externally focused and less internally focused. This was a good experiment for a couple reasons but before I spell those out, some basics. The main purpose of this trip was to do a fun “last” vacation with our kids before they move out of our house.

Nathalie will finish high school next year and, if our neighbors are any guide, next spring and summer will be all about her graduation and future college plans. We know that Nathalie is highly independent minded so it could (though probably will not) be her last summer at home. Amy likes to “take vacations” too and we have gone on big trips in the past. Going on a trip was never a big part of my life experience prior to meeting Amy. Marc is good compliant company on our trips, too, so it is not hard to imagine him tagging along in Italy. This proved to be true, too. Marc, in contrast with Nathalie, has always been the tagging-along kid, flexible and compliant with the any of the big ideas of any trip. If someone on the trip says, “I was thinking of bungee jumping and then eating some poisonous blowfish,”Marc, who previously had never spent a minute of time thinking about either thing, will say, “Can I come?”

I appreciate that because I’m not like that at all. My reaction would be (and Nathalie’s too), “WTF? Why?” Or, “Isn’t it like 95F outside?” Or, “I didn’t bring the right underwear for that.”

Amy, as some of you know, is a planner. This vacation was well planned and went off without a hitch. She will have an itinerary that includes research. Research will be absent from my planning, and to be completely honest, my planning will and did amount to scheduling the vacation so that I am not at work.

I performed this task spectacularly by delivering a 20 minute presentation to 50-75 customers visiting from around the world on Monday, two days before we left. I spent Tuesday fixing everything else that I had been neglecting to sustain itself of 20 days and then spent Wednesday, the morning of our departure, packing my suitcase and washing any clothes that I was supposed to take with me. I’m not one for chaos so this is exactly what I expected to happen and it was fine. But, and this is the point, I had no idea what Florence or Tuscany had to offer other than broadest of outlines: beautiful countryside, and religious art. I can read more about it on the trip, right?

Amy had a very good itinerary planned. We went to a bunch of cities and had tours, which I have learned to love on trips. Tours are great because, a) they are in English; b) are opportunities to let someone else figure stuff out; and c) a great way to compress some of the backstory for a place into a short amount of time. Sure you can get stuff on Ipods or whatever, and you can use self-guided stuff for less money. But both suffer on several levels: Hard to do with more than one person; cannot change on the fly which a good tour guide can do (oh you play the tuba, let me tell you about the Venetian Tuba quartet – which is not a real thing); and go at your pace not the pace of the recording.

The tours on this trip were good-to-excellent. Amy also knows that I like tours so as she has honed her planning skills to the point of planning to address our multiple quirks as a people. This proved to be another solid win.

Cell phone side-bar

One responsibility of mine before the trip was to figure out the cell phone thing. Amy really wanted us to be able to have 2 working phones. Her thought was that whenever we split up our party, we should be able to contact each other. I did the research and even bought a special phone and SD cards for the trip from National Geographic. This is the short version of the story.

In short, don’t waste any time with this. You should just use your existing phone (infrequently) and know that it will be fairly expensive. Just ask your provider how to minimize the expense and do what they say. They know better. My buddy, John Kennedy, had said this to me before the trip and I tried this other thing. He was right and I owe him an I-told-you-so bagel. He only does this every six weeks or so, moving from the UK to USA, what could he possibly know that I can’t figure out? Well, plenty. Let me make this perfectly clear: every penny and second I spent on this other than going to ATT (which actually Amy did) was a waste. We ended up turning on that World Phone option on Amy’s Iphone because the experience of our National Geographic phone plan was complete shit.

Mike and Nicole both had much better experiences with their phones and providers.

Time spent in our apartment in Tuscany was very relaxing: Beautiful scenery, laid-back attitude. We spent a week doing this after our arrival in Rome (where we spent the first two nights). Rome was very hot when we arrived, and the first couple days of 9 hour jet lag are tough.

From Thursday to Friday the following week (8 days) was with Mike, Charlene, and Nicole. It was great. I don’t know what I expected, but it was really cool to see my little brother and his wife completely throw themselves into the experience. Mike had a real knack for it, not shy about throwing Italian words around where he could.

Nicole and I have done this before. She (and Derek, Doug and Christine) were with us in France so I had the pleasure of seeing her navigate similar waters before. I don’t really know why I find that so fascinating, but I do. And it was very cool to see everyone stumble through some initial obstacles and quickly see them master the experience to a point of bending it and themselves to a point of enjoyment.

Perhaps, as the big brother figure of this crew, I have always taken a more avuncular (means like an uncle – I looked it up) view of my siblings. This is the source of some pain at times, but far more joy. I realize now that familial pride that I felt seeing my younger siblings succeed in various endeavors was a pre-cursor for the same feeling I have had as parent. Indeed, it has often surprised me that the emotion was so similar.

Let me try to be specific about this. There have been few times in my life when I knew exactly what I would do in an uncertain situation but there have a lot more ambiguous ones. I was not a “tough guy” growing up, but when I met any prospective boyfriend of any of my sisters, I knew that were any of these guys to do the “wrong” thing, I would fix that situation with very little concern for life or limb. This kind of clarity of purpose to an emotional stimulus is rare – for me. I feel this same way when I meet any of Nathalie’s friends too. It’s exactly the same thing.

To see Mike and Nicole completely owning the experience of making their respective ways in this uncertain environment, I get a familiar positive emotional charge. You might say this, it makes me happy. Which of course, confuses me at first but on the whole, I enjoy.

And, in Tuscany, we had a great place to spend some quantity time together. Going to the pool, going to the market, going to the beach, going site-seeing. I know that everyone does not have the desire to cast the scene in such broad relief. Saying good-bye at the end of the week was tough, but I think we all can look back on the week as a fun time.

Traveling around on trains to the big cities was the objective in the second week. We managed that well. I’m not going to lie to everyone and say I loved this. It had its moments. In the spirit of trying to be flexible and not torpedo anyone’s experience retro-actively, I can say that I liked the first week more. Seeing the sites in the big cities was interesting. In the long run, I will appreciate it more than I do right now.

I guess the trip is more introspective in hindsight (I could say retrospectively introspective but that’s too much word play, right?) I’ll be thinking about it for long time.

See Sea Change

We’ve generally avoided the political on the blog and I consider this non-political anyway.
President Obama. For everyone with a “funny” last name like Langlois,  Decicco, Garcia, Kulik Songdahl, Hu, Kusakabe, NGuyen, Saif, or Abolrous. For everyone who has looked at the paintings of the presidents past, Washington, Jefferson, Reagan, Carter, and Bush to name a few. Forty-three in total.
For anyone who is part of a visible and even less visible minority in the US, who has never had a president that wasn’t a white protestant, who felt underrepresented in the American political experience, this is a sea change.
Note: Kennedy was president from January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963. That’s it. That’s the only exception.

I’m an introvert

And it’s not a bad thing.
I had a bit of a breakthrough this week when someone told me the reason my boss drives me crazy is that she’s an extrovert. She’s an extrovert relating to me like an extrovert. When she does that, she essentially steals all the energy from me or anyone else in the room who’s an introvert.
I felt like Ben Stiller because I plaintively said, “I’m an introvert?” Rather than engaging the real point of the story, the dynamic between my boss and me, I was stuck on the premise.
I realized that I have always thought of myself as an extrovert and for some reason pitied (too strong? felt bad for) introverts. In some way I had extolled the virtue of extroverts and impugned the opposite of virtue from introverts. I don’t know why. On the various tests that you do, such as Myers-Briggs, I come up extrovert. But not overwhelmingly.
Plus, I know I’m social. I don’t get nervous in front of a crowd or classroom. I’m fundamentally not shy. I like telling jokes, and otherwise cutting up in groups. And I figure, with a large family, we must all be extroverts, either that or you starve for attention.
Guess what? Most of that’s true except for the conclusion! Which is another way of saying, I was wrong! We aren’t all extroverts. In fact, most and possibly all of us aren’t (that is, if I now understand the difference).
I guess I thought that being shy was the same as being an introvert. And being shy, somehow, seemed like an unfortunate thing. But even that sounds crazy now. I guess I equated being shy with somehow being out of touch, either with your own emotions or your own needs. I figured if you are shy then you must be an introvert. And if you aren’t (which I am not), then you mustn’t be an introvert.
But the more useful way for me to think of the polarity, is this:
Introverts: lose energy when acting in social settings. Eventually, all the energy is used up and must be marshaled again, usually by something more solitary.
Extroverts: gain energy when acting in social settings. It is how they marshal energy for themselves.
It’s not particularly scientific, granted. But sometimes, it is more of a mental framework for understand social and human dimensions rather than a measurable electronic voltage, per se. And if you remove the value judgment, then it seems more useful.

where’s my happy place

Warm, breezy.
Cool on my skin.
Sunlit. bright.
Quiet, natural, sounds.
High contrast colors,
Eyes relax.
Clear air, breathed easily.
Mind disengages.
Curtains flutter.
A screen door squeeks open, slams, and clatters to a close.
Children. Voices at a distance.
Laughter. Shouting.

Written at a meeting last week.

My recollection of the triathlon

by Nicole

I woke up Sunday morning at about 3:45, hoping to get 15 more minutes in before my alarm went off. But I had to pee so badly I couldn’t fall back asleep. I lay in bed arguing with myself about whether I should get up and pee and try to fall back asleep, or just get up. And that’s when I saw the first flash of lightning and heard the rain start hitting the windows.

I’d heard the rain wasn’t supposed to start until 2:00 that afternoon so I was pretty irritated that it came early. I had no faith that the weather would clear up. I thought all the training and preparations were going to be washed away by lightning strikes changing the course distances or canceling parts of the race. At very least, I thought we were going to have to wait to start the race until noon. Since I was already awake at 3:45, and I cannot nap, this did not bode well for my performance.

So I got up, made myself a little coffee, grabbed a breakfast bar that I had made the night before and tried to relax a little (after I dug out all the rain gear Derek and I had put away after the Boston Marathon in April 07). Tina showed up at the agreed upon 4:30, we loaded up my bike, and jumped in the car. The ride to Webster was short, but we had plenty of opportunity to watch the lightning fork across the sky and listen to the menacing rumbles of thunder. I indulged my fears of a turbulent swim, sucking in lots of lakewater, skidding on wet roads and running in blisteringly wet shoes.

We parked in the closest lot and decided to stay in the car for a while, no rush since we knew we’d be in the last heat. I kept in constant contact with Derek via text messages both for weather reports and moral support. I text messaged my ironman and ironwoman friends who reminded me (nicely) to get over it.

Dawn started to break, so did the weather. Daylight increased, thunderclaps and lightning strikes decreased. We put up our hoods and made our escape. As we walked our bikes the half mile to the start area, the rain got lighter and lighter, and by the time we were in the race area it had stopped completely.

The word was that at 7:00 (when the first wave should have started) we’d find out if they were canceling the swim or simply postponing it. By 7:15, it was clear that the day would go on as planned.

Tina and I set up our transition stations next to one another and made friends with the people around us. We found our other teammates and started watching the elite swimmers start their race. It was amazing to watch someone swim one half of a mile in about 7 and a half minutes. Even more amazing were the crowds. Almost 2500 timing chips were recorded, but there were many more people there.

Somehow among all the action we even met up with many of our cheering section: Derek, Doug, Louie, and my ironman friend and swim coach Tony and his lovely girlfriend Jess. My perfomance anxiety was helped by the same homeopathic remedy that I had used during my board exams to calm “exam nerves”: Gelsenium. It was also helped by a phone call from my ironwoman friend Melissa who reminded me to go slow during the swim and gave me some sage advice: You only get one first time at this, so enjoy the journey, enjoy the day. You’ll have lots of time in the future to work on being fast. Today, pay attention and don’t miss it.

We got in line for our swim heat. They had us get about ankle deep in the water and we instantly felt the current dragging us into the lake. I thought it was a myth, but when you are in the last wave, there is a current created by 2,300 women swimming in the same direction for the last hour and a half. When the bell went off I immediately rolled into “sweet spot,” a swimming drill that I used frequently to remind myself to go slow and take the swim as a relaxing exercise rather than a panicked “churn and burn.” After a few seconds of that I started swimming.

The whole swim felt as relaxed as if I was just doing my swim drills. I thought about Tony’s advice to swim 3 freestyle strokes and then 3 breast strokes. I focused on some advice my brother Fran gave me – was I rotating enough in my freestyle? Do i feel the water squeeze through my legs during my breast stroke? Sure I got kicked and elbowed and grabbed, but it was very polite. People were actually apologizing to one another. I tried to draft but I kept swimming over the people I was drafting. If you think about it, I was actually drafting all 2,300 before me with that current.

As we rounded the first buoy I cheered to the women I was with “We made the first turn!” As we approached the second buoy I cheered us on again. As I swam the last leg I thanked the swim angels who were waiting in the water to help us out and cheer us on. I slowed down as I approached the shore and out we came. I had done it. I didn’t suck wind or water, I didn’t feel
wasted, I didn’t finish last. And, Fran, I didn’t wear a noseclip.

We emerged to cheers and encouragement. I jogged along the path to Derek who traded me my prescription sunglasses for my prescription goggles, and off I went to the first transition.

My sister Michelle had swum the first leg of the relay and came over to help out. She aided me in the removal of my wetsuit and powdered my feet. I choked down a nutrition gel and got ready to bike. While I walked my bike to the bike start and I cheered on some women who were finishing their swim, I nearly dropped my bike.

I jumped on the bike and noticed my seat was way too low, so I jumped off of it and adjusted, unfortunately it wasn’t enough, but I wasn’t getting off again. I hit the first hill and noticed how much my quadriceps were burning (a side effect of the seat being too low, wasn’t getting enough extension), and thought about getting off the bike and walking the hill, but when I went to get my foot out of the pedal I couldn’t. So I figured it was a sign from the gods. I remembered Doug the Bicycle Repairman’s advice and stood the heck up.

At the top of the hill I saw some more friends there to cheer us on. They let me know that I was catching up with Tina who had crushed me on the swim.

I tried not to wimp out on the down hills, used what my momma gave me and pumped those little piston legs. I felt very strong on the ride, I caught up with Tina and made some friends. I said thank you to all of the volunteers and police officers. I cheered on people who were struggling, and those who were kicking my ass. I teased spectators, shook my fanny at Tina and generally had a great time.

As I entered the end of the bike I rode by both of my sisters who had started the run portion and yelled to them getting the best cheer ever from Chrisso which made quite a few people laugh. I jumped off the bike for an easy transition to run and grabbed a Vanilla Cliff Shot, and promptly spit it out gagging. It was so disgusting. Grabbed a raspberry one which was only slightly less disgusting, at least it did not make me gag. And I took off, at a very slow jog.

My cheering section was the best, and hollered for me. I was so happy to have people yelling my name and teasing me. I knew the run was not going to be great for me so I just took it slow and started high-fiving everyone who would do it. I passed my sisters again and hugged one, high-fived the other. My knee started to hurt, an old injury rearing its ugly head, and I had to alternate jogging with walking. I stopped at every water station and let the little kids throw water at me. I probably wasted a lot of time goofing around. 🙂

On my way back into the race area, I heard my name again and when I looked it was my brother Mike and sister-in-law Charlene who were an excellent surprise. I smiled for the camera and finished up my race amid more cheers and photo ops.

I was treated to flowers from my dear friend Nicole and snuggles from her new baby Nolan. I gave sweaty wet hugs to all our cheering section. And then I went to Michelle and Tom’s house and gorged myself on fresh salsa, grilled fish and delicious salads. And, of course, a beer.

As I mentioned earlier I’m not much of a napper. After we got home Derek napped while I just looked at the internet and thought about my blisters on my toes, a side effect of wet feet. At the appointed hour I decided I felt up to doing a little bowling, so we went to our last bowling match of the season and I bowled a good 20-30 points over my average on all 3 games. I decided the bowling made for a quadrathlon.

I don’t feel any different, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything special. I really do believe that anyone could do that triathlon. But I’m proud that I learned how to swim so much better, I’m proud of how well I did on the bike, and I will likely do more of these sprint triathlons.

haikus from the trip

Romanticized thoughts,
aglow with optimism.
Extinguished with age.

What to eat tonight.
I’m getting a bit hungry.
Soon, I’ll drink a beer.

Out of the milieu,
ethereal mist inhaled,
molecules divide.

Inward bound currents,
Invisible barrier,
Give up and subside.

Water laps a pace.
Its rhythm perplexes me.
I stop listening.

Tuba revisited

I sent my new tuba to this guy to repair it. In an odd case of connect the dots, Matt, my tuba supplier, knew this guy Jc in music school (Oberlin). Turns out there are not many repair techs who can ‘draw tubes’ for repairs. So while Jc fixes my tuba to professional level, I have a loaner from Matt. I’ve played a total of 5 different tubas now in the last 2 years. A Yamaha 5/4 BBb, a Miraphone BBb, a Big Ass Tuba (BAT)modeled after a York of unknown origin (piston valves), the Yamaha YCB661 CC tuba that I own, and now a Rudolf Meinl CC 5 rotor valve tuba.
That’s more tuba’s than I tried in the rest of my life. It’s great having this opportunity with Matt – the trombone player in the M-soft Orch.
The tuba I own sold for around $5,000 new, back in 1992. I’ve been told that the Rudolf Meinl (made in Germany) sold for around $20,000 when it was new. That’s right, more than a brand new Ford Taurus. It is an extremely nice tuba and likely to fetch close to $10,000 today.
On the plus side, it is not 3 times better playing than my tuba. But it is better. It is very pretty, good sounding and has some really nice details such as as thumb trigger for the second valve (like the third valve on a trumpet) for fine tuning any of those notes. I’ve never seen one of those.
What a treat!
(Correction to the model I have; it’s a YCB 661)