I bought an Iphone and kind of hate myself for it...

Lets start this thought process out by admitting something:  I’ve used Apple computers exclusively since 2006.  When the Dell laptop my parents bought me for college died, I started looking around at my options.  I loved my new ipod and the software that came with it, and was intrigued by Apple’s “It just works” buzz amongst people.  So I bought my first Mac in January of 2006 and left Microsoft behind without any regrets.  

Now lets admit something else:  I love Google.  Love it.  I was an early adopter of gmail, and quickly jump ship to any new product they put out.  Google Maps?  So long Mapquest.  Google Music?  Love it.  Google+?  I tried it but teaching my Mom to use 1 social media website was tough enough.  

I loved Apple because they did what they did well and didn’t worry about being anyone’s fastest shiniest option.  Could I have bought a more powerful laptop for less money in 2006?  Absolutely.  Would it have lasted as long or worked as well as my little iMac?  Hell, no.  That was what was so great about Macs.  I left the rat race of faster processors, endless software options and virus protection for something that was easy to use, did everything I wanted and didn’t worry about being the fastest kid on the block.  “Do what you do, and do it really well,” seemed to be the motto and I’d be lying if I didn’t internalize it a little bit.  

Google, on the other hand, was about innovation and giving me things that I didn’t know I even wanted.  When Gmail came out with enormous storage capacities, I remember shrugging my shoulders as to why anyone would need extra gigabytes of storage or why I’d need to search for individual words within one email out of thousands.  Two things, now, that feel absolutely necessary.  Not to mention the specificity and simplicity of it’s search engine, which is something we now take for granted.  They redefined online functionality and raised the bar as to what a website could be and do for it’s users.  

Lately, though, everything’s been getting screwed up.

Apple and Google both seem to have disregarded my original love for them (reliability & functionality) for new directions that feel hollow to me.  Apple suddenly wants to be the shiniest fastest kid on the block.  To their credit, they’ve retained the reliability that originally drew me to them, but it suddenly feels less that I’m making an informed decision when I buy their products and more like I’m just doing it b/c that’s what people do.  That lemming mentality bothers me and, quite frankly, pushes me to look at rival products more closely just to make sure I’m not going with the flow of people too easily.  

Maybe this is why I bought the Samsung Fascinate in 2010.

My overall Android experience has been okay, but not great.  I find myself back in the software updating world where each update brings it’s own mixture of solutions and problems.  Also, the overall feel of the Android OS system feels a bit more techy than than my comfort level allows.  

So when my upgrade rolled around this fall, I spent a lot of time looking at the Galaxy S III and the Iphone 5, and barely recognized the qualities that drew me to these companies in the first place.  Sure, the Iphone is sharp, works and is endlessly aesthetically pleasing.  But you know what?  I distrust people the minute people tell me I should trust them.  Same thing with food.  When you have to advertise the health benefits of a food, it’s probably not that healthy at the start.  So the fact that Apple needs to tell us over and over and over again how special the Iphone 5 is going to be and how they really worked hard to make the ultimate phone makes me suddenly wonder why they’re trying so hard.

And Apple Maps?  Do you think I would have spent my hard earned post-undergrad money on an ibook G4 if there was a chance that one of the Apple made programs (iphoto, itunes, garage band, etc) was an abysmal failure?  

And Android?  The endless tweeks that have gadgety people going nuts about doesn’t do much for me.  Neither does having to read endless reviews about the 8 different Android phones, their similarities and what makes each so unique.  Day dreaming about my ideal Android phone (if only I could combine the HTC One X with blah blah blah) is not how I want to spend my time.  Ever.  Where’s the Google that made everything so easy to use?  The Google that told me I wanted unlimited email storage (or close to it) without me asking for it?  Or where I could upload 20,000 songs for free to listen through a browser?  I sure as hell didn’t start using Google as a search engine because of the endlessly techy things I could do to personalize it.  

So I put in an order for Iphone 5 and kind of hate myself for it.  The thing that finally pushed me in that direction is that last year when I finally dropped my iBook G4 one too many times I decided to buy an iMac.  I love it, it’s big, it’s pretty and, most importantly, it just works.  The ability to sync everything up was too appealing, especially now that my wife decided to enter the smartphone world with a $50 Iphone 4 from Best Buy (which, of course, became free several weeks later when the Iphone 5 came out, but that’s life).  Plus, the ever expanding screen size of Android phones makes it more and more likely that it won’t fit in my pocket, which is still a deal breaker for me when it comes to cell phones.  

Apple:  I love your products but hate what you’ve become.  Google:  I feel bad, but the ability to sync up with our home computer won out in the end.  Maybe we can reconnect one day, but for now I’m with Apple, but not exclusively.  We can still see each other on the side.  

Teddy, my Teddy

Usually, when I finish a good biography, I grieve for the person whose life I’ve been following.  I’ve seen the ups and downs of their lives and when they finally pass along, well, some part of me is sad they’ve left me and the rest of the world behind.  

I surprised myself, though, because when I finished Edmund Morris’s third, and final, installment of Teddy Roosevelt’s life I didn’t have an urge to grieve. I had an urge to go back and start rereading all three volumes all over again.

Now, I don’t see that happening anytime soon (2488 total pages) but I came away from the latest volume wanting to know more about Roosevelt.  I’ll say that again in case you missed it:  After reading 2488 pages about Teddy Roosevelt, I just wanted more.  

By today’s standards, it’s difficult to wrap our minds around how popular he was with the American people and all the things he accomplished pre-Presidency, Presidency and post-Presidency.  In fact, it makes sense that this is why Morris broke his volumes up in the ways that he did.  Any man who accomplished a third of what Roosevelt did in his entire life would deserve a biography, and trying to cram everything into one volume would have been an impossible read, both for its omissions and its length.

This third volume follows Roosevelt after he leaves the White House, tours Africa, breaks apart from his own party to create a 3rd party, causes that former party to lose the next presidential election because he dislikes their direction, explores South America, predicts WWI before anyone else and writes/speaks to thousands of people on a regular basis.  No modern President could boast Teddy’s global popularity after leaving the White House or have as much influence on modern politics as he did in his time.

This volume also sees the world moving past Roosevelt as planes become more important in warfare than his beloved calvary and electricity becomes the norm (he eventually succumbs and has his house wired but not heated).  His Victorian ideals toward society and warfare were challenged by the random unheroic nature of modern warfare and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.  

Even after finishing this volume, it’s hard for me to describe Roosevelt without listing off his accomplishments.  His Victorian sensibilities lacked a lot of emotion and/or personal reflection, so my image of him as a person is always shrouded behind proper behavior and larger-than-life achievements.  

It seems, after 2488 pages, that I still don’t know Roosevelt well enough to grieve for him and need to dive back into Morris’s volumes, which isn’t a critique of Morris’s extensively detailed biography.  It speaks to the quality of writing (I’d enjoy reading these again) and the complexity of the man on which they’re written.

Evolving Bonfires

I’ve written about Todd Snider before, and it’s probably not that different from anything anyone else has ever said about him.  He’s witty.  He’s smart.  He’s an unapologetic tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, barefootin’, folk singin’ liberal, and damnit if I don’t love him for it.

He just makes so much sense and is able to articulate thoughts so clearly, not to mention making them funny and rhyming it all together.  He’s like a musical version of Jon Stewart who smokes a little more pot and doesn’t try quite as hard (probably because of the pot).

I was thinking about writing a review for his new album Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables, but I wanted to respect a line from a song in an earlier album that it’s unfair to judge a book (cover or no cover).  So instead, I thought I’d say why I didn’t like the album, even though it’s a good album, and that it says more about me than the quality of Snider’s music.  

I love Snider’s music because of the lyrical and musical clarity I mentioned earlier.  The lyrics, his guitar playing and the production are just really sharp both musically and lyrically.  Even Peace, Love & Anarchy, an album of demos, sounded pretty damned polished to me.  So when Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables suddenly veers away from the biting, witty and clean lyrics I was looking forward to hearing and moves towards some biting, witty and messy lyrics, I was left a little confused.

Not messy like clumsy, but messy like he’s singing falsetto and sort of rhyming thoughts into a song form but somtimes not and sort of singing clearly enough for me to understand him but sometimes not.  He’s still got a few witty zingers on the album, but I get the feeling that his heart is in these under-produced messy works where he’s growling out thoughts and wanting us to catch up to him.

And that’s where he loses me.  He’s never been that interested in people catching up to him in the past.  He’s always seemed content to dance bare-foot around a bonfire, watching it burn and singing his songs regardless of who’s there to listen.  It was that nonchalance that pulled me in when I heard “Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” for the first time.   Now he wants me to keep up as he strings a lot of lyrics together in ways that are hard to follow.  

I know how this sounds:  “Wahhhh!  I want what I’ve always had!  Wahhhh!  New things are hard!,” and maybe there is a little bit of that in there with me.  On his website, though, he says his goal was to make a messy album that made kids want to vandalize their school.  My first thought (besides the fact that kids don’t listen to Snider, they listen to this) was that I don’t want people to vandalize their school because I work at their school.  Suddenly I’m not his audience, and that shift really took me by surprise.

I guess I’m trying to say that I don’t begrudge Snider to try new things (and he does them well on the album), I’m just wondering if the bonfire he danced around moved away from me or me from it.  

Summertime in the Kitchen

The end of summer has brought an avalanche of good food to our home, both because of emerging dietary needs and desires to try something a bit different.  Some of the experiments have been a success while others have been, well, less successful.  

Side Note:  Do you refer to your favorite chefs by their first name?  We do.  Mark (Bittman).  Heidi (Swanson).  Alton (Brown).  Julia (Child).  I’m sure there’s a few I’m forgetting, but these are the ones that spring to mind.

Kelly sent me a link a few months ago for homemade Cliff bars, and I decided to give them a try.  Sadly, the end result resembled peanut buttery rice krispies more than an energy bar.  I may have scrimped on the peanut butter (using chunky instead of smooth) and using Agave Nectar instead of Brown Rice Syrup.  Smooth peanut butter would have been a little creamery and I would have used more Brown Rice syrup than agave, which I think would have made the difference.  A little more glue and a little less substitutions and I’d have bars.  Instead I have a crumbly snack.

Not to be discouraged, I next tackled a recipe for grilled portobello mushrooms and pesto mayonnaise.  Becoming curious, I checked with Alton and decided to make my own mayo, which turned out to be easy and very tasty.  

I’d say the grilled mushrooms (which I marinated) with the mayo and some avocado made for the prettiest meal I’ve made in a while.  Although, truth be told, the presentation points should be given to Kelly.

My first attempt at arrangement had me tossing the avocado into a pile.  While I got my camera ready, Kelly was kind enough to rearrange them a bit.

To round out a week of good cooking, I worked on two of Heidi’s cookie recipes (second recipe) and ventured into Saint Paul’s premiere fish market, although I didn’t do anything interesting enough with it to post.  

How long will my desire to cook good food and write regular blog posts hold out?  Not sure, but at least it’s made for an interesting week or two.  

Insert baseball metaphor here

Here’s a confession for you:  Baby Boomers bug me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of Baby Boomers.  My mother happens to be one as well as many other members of my family.  Some of the best mentors and teachers I’ve had in my life have been Baby Boomers, but man when they all get together do they ever bug me.  

Their need to always stay young or their inferiority complex about their parents’ generation or the crippling effect they’re having on pension plans because they want to be retired for 40 years before dying.  50 is the new 30!  Blow me.  

So imagine my surprise when I loved The Brothers K by David James Duncan, a family drama set in the 1960s.  We follow the Chance family through the eyes of a middle child as he, his brothers and sisters, grow up worshiping their father, baseball and navigating their way through adolescence, adulthood and Vietnam.

I wrote that last word (Vietnam if you’ve already forgotten), with a little trepidation.  Baby Boomers love to write/talk/sing about Vietnam and, not surprisingly, it bugs me.  So much has been written about it and said about it and copied about it, that most aspects of literature/television/art that references it feels cliched.  Surprisingly, though, I don’t hold it against Duncan or his novel when the story stalls while he writes his obligatory Vietnam hate-letter.  A brother gets drafted and sent to Vietnam unjustly and he has a breakdown from it?  Color me bored.

I should hold it against Duncan and his story, I know.  The thing is, by the time it happens I’m in love with all members of the Chance family to such a degree that I don’t care.  
These characters become so real so quickly that I end up just wanting to spend time with them, regardless of the circumstances.  Duncan hero worships the Dad and baseball a bit, but no more than most Baby Boomers hero worship their Dad and baseball.  Besides, Duncan at least acknowledges faults with both, something a lot of Baby Boomers still have trouble doing.  

These beautifully flawed, broken characters manage to grow up while themes of theology, philosophy and morality swirl around them.  Again, this kind of mentality from Baby Boomers (“We questioned everything!  All of us!  All the time!) wears on me, but Duncan handles it beautifully with his messy characters, love of baseball and adoration for father figures.

The fine art of being bored

 I recently spent 3 weeks in Europe, and discovered a lot about myself as I looked history that predates American history (which I love), topless beaches and the art of being bored.

Cadaques, Spain.  We spent 3 days here wandering through the city, eating tapas and enjoying the beaches.

The history was just humbling.  Being in Spain and talking about the Spanish conflict against the Moors that lasted 700 years was crazy to think about.  700 years.  That’s older than America.  Heck, that’s a longer period of time than people have been in America.   European people, at least.  Lets not get too racist this early in the summer.  Anyways, it was refreshing to in a place that takes such a long look at history.  There aren’t as many WWII enthusiasts b/c every country in Europe has seen better wars and had more decisive victories.  

The Alhambra, a Moorish palace built when they invaded Spain in 711 A.D.  The carvings on the pillars are the Qur'an and took 100 years to carve into the stone throughout the palace.   

As titillating (pun intended) as European topless beaches are for Americans, they get a little overwhelming at the same time.  Sure there’s some attractive ladies there, but there’s also Mom’s and their kids, Grandmas with grandkids and plenty of men in speedos.  Plenty.  Again, though, there was something refreshing about being in a place where human bodies, by themselves, aren’t sexual.  Sexuality is a personality trait that people show or they don’t, just like any other emotion or personality trait.  Sexuality isn’t boobs, sexuality is boobs combined with emotions and feelings.  Just boobs?  Not sexual.  

Did you think I was going to post a picture of a topless beach?  It's not that kind of blog.

One of the things, though, that I greatly appreciated about my time was the boredom.  Part of my trip was chaperoning kids on a schools sponsored tour complete with buses, schedules and tour guides.  Turns out the freeway in America is about as interesting as the freeway in Spain, so I had plenty of time to think, read and be really really bored.

You know what I realized, though?  I’m never bored at home.  Never.  As soon as I feel boredom creeping into my mind I reach for my phone, on demand Netflix or the internet.  Boredom, though, pushes me.  It propels me forward to be creative and really think about what I want from my time.

So, in my never ending quest to create a theory of living for myself that solves all of my problems in one giant swoop, I’ve decided that every day needs to be filled with ASO.  Active Spritual Output.

Do I look contemplative?  I'm hoping to go for contemplative.

Every day I need to be active (walking, hiking, jogging, biking, gym), spiritual (praying, reading, journaling, reflecting) and outputing (anything that isn’t passive sponging on my part, such as writing, playing guitar, coaching.  Pretty much anything where I’m putting something out instead of just sitting and taking in).  

Did I eat some good food?  Oh my God, yes.  Did I relax on the beach and have a wonderful time?  Yep.  I’m hoping, though, that my appreciation of my time moves beyond the “wonderful vacation” mode and really nudges me in a different direction.  

A picture of a pretty door?  Deep.

Gone, but not lazy

Even though my blogging has suffered the last month, please don’t think I’ve been remiss in my mission to become a better man through my actions, thoughts and daily interactions.  I’ve had two big DIY projects I’m hoping to present to you, my nearly 10s of readers, as well as some warmer weather thoughts as the school year melts into summer vacation.  I coach lacrosse, which takes up the most time of all my extra curriculares, but I’ll be back on the blogging horse soon enough.  

Right now, I’d like to take some time to go over some media I’ve been digesting the last few weeks.  Mostly music and books (my preferred media intake) of one kind or another:

Tegan & Sara “The Con” - This definitely fell into my Bob Dylan theory of music where I hate it at first listen but my annoyance quickly evolves into deep appreciation.  Strong lyrics and interesting sound structure make up for any feelings of vocal repetition.  

Astronautalis “This is our Science” - An indie rapper who recently relocated to the Twin Cities from Portland.  Great lyrics, a commanding voice and interesting things to say.  What’s not to love?

“Zone One” by Colson Whitehead - Check out my review on Goodreads

“Daredevil” by Brian Michael Bendis - I’ve read a lot of comics.  A. Lot.  And let me say these issues are some of the best I’ve ever seen.  The pacing of smaller stories within larger overarching plots is incredible, the characters jump off the page with caring authenticity and the way they acknowledge 50 years of backstory without getting bogged down in it should be used as the standard for current comic book writing.

“Usagi Yojimbo” by Stan Sakai - I love westerns, and a lot of westerns borrow heavily from the Samurai history and mythologies of ancient Japan.  Sakai has been writing this comic for more than 20 years telling the story of Yojimbo, a masterless samurai who travels across the Japanese countryside.  Some of the stories are single issues that look at Japanese culture, folklore and art, while others are longer narratives.  Slower, novelesque pacing and recurring characters who become more complex and entwined with each issue.