Entries from November 2005 ↓

My calendar says that today is Veterans Day. Someone I respect greatly has made a good point, albeit indirectly, about days like this one. While it’s important to honor those who’ve served their country by putting themselves in harm’s way, it makes little sense to restrict our gratitude to one particular day of the year.

I’m not a patriot, and I’ve made no secret of that. There have been times when I felt mild patriotism and solidarity as an American; the days following the World Trade Center attack are an example of such a time. Most of the time, though, I’ve found myself ashamed. I feel sick when I think of what this country has become, particularly when I consider its auspicious and hopeful nascence.

Having said that, I have nothing but the greatest of respect for our veterans. I’m not particularly religious, but there are a few pearls of wisdom to be found among the scriptures. One of them is, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Veterans are people who have given of their lives and livelihoods, and made great sacrifices to act as instruments of their country’s foreign policy. As Lord Tennyson so eloquently put it:

Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die

While it makes little sense to sing their praises on just one day, it is entirely fitting that we be reminded on this day of the sacrifices they’ve made and the courage and selflessness they’ve shown. If it takes a holiday to bring these heroes into the minds of the people, then let’s have that holiday. Let us never repeat the injustice that was done to our returning Vietnam veterans, whose valor went shamefully unrecognized in the face of a national recoil from the foreign policy that sent them into the breach. Let us never fail to thank them, even in the knowledge that our thanks can never be sufficient.

The following are people will be in my thoughts today. To those who still draw breath, I offer my heartfelt thanks for your service. Those who are no longer with us have known my gratitude in days past, and will continue to be remembered with great respect. If I know a veteran who is not on this list, please accept my apology along with my sincerest gratitude.

Ramey Bruce Lee (deceased)
William Aaron Lee, Sr. (deceased)
Lucian Victor Lee (deceased)
John Milton Lee
William Aaron Lee, Jr.
Baxter Lightfoot Lee
Paul Johnson (deceased)
Leonard Louis Dreyfus
Harry Robert Weber, Sr. (deceased)
Harry Robert Weber, Jr.
John Schuske
Kirk Anthony Steele
Laurence E. Richardson (deceased)
Robert F. Alexander

This morning, as I went about the process of waking up and getting ready for work, I started to think about the concept of closure.

I think that people tend to unnecessarily narrow the definition of closure. Sociologists have generally used the term to denote the end of a relationship. In a broader sense, however, I think that closure is important even in far less significant matters than these. It’s also something with which I’ve always had a great deal of difficulty. I’ve never been comfortable with how things end, and I’m not sure why.

In many cases, of course, closure is precluded. Death tends to force its own sort of ending. My father died before I had the chance to have the sort of dialog with him that would have left me satisfied that I’d said and done all that I should have. My mother also passed away suddenly, leaving me with deep regrets and more questions than answers. It’s a cruel sort of separation. I hope that when the time comes for my life to end, I’ll have more of a warning. I want to have the time to draw those I love close to me and open my heart to them.

I also hope that, by that time, I’ll have figured out how to end a conversation. That’s one of my biggest closure issues. How will I ever learn to achieve proper closure of my life, or of any chapter of my life, if I can’t even manage to end a conversation without sounding awkward?

Some conversations are easy to end. When I take a business phone call, for example, the conversation is very issue-focused. A customer has a question that needs to be answered, and I draw on my knowledge, my resources, or my magic 8-ball to provide an answer that satisfies him. He thanks me, I thank him, and we hang up. I’m not worried about exiting gracefully. I’m not concerned that I’m being too abrupt. It’s just business, and business protocols demand brevity and efficiency.

Structured communications should be easy, but often aren’t. Let’s use amateur radio as an example. The final transmission of almost every ham radio contact I’ve ever made has fit a simple pattern.

I send (in Morse code, of course):
ITS BEEN A PLEASURE. TNX QSO ES 73 OM. WILL STBY FOR UR FINAL. K2XYZ DE KD4DCY SK
(It’s been a pleasure. Thanks for the contact, and best regards, old man. Will stand by for your last transmission. K2XYZ, this is KD4DCY. End of communication.)

The reply:
R TNX ES GE TO YOU 73 KD4DCY DE K2XYZ SK
(Roger. Thanks, and good evening to you. Best regards. KD4DCY, this is K2XYZ. End of communication.)

We’ve both sent the proword, “SK.” That signifies the end of a communication, and specifically means that we’re not going to send anything more. For some reason, though, I always feel the need to let the other guy know that I heard his final transmission. He knows I heard it, just as I heard every other transmission he sent, but I don’t want to be rude. So, in defiance of logic and at least one FCC regulation, I reach for my keying paddle and send two spaced dots. “Dit (pause) dit.”

I am not the only ham who does this. In fact, I learned this silly practice from other hams, and I’ve tried to eliminate it with only mixed success. I think it’s a problem for me because the same thing happens in other personal communications. I have no idea how to end a conversation gracefully and properly, without awkwardness.

Sometimes my problem is just one of protocol. I don’t know who’s supposed to say what, and when. I try to fit in all the things with which I want to leave the other person at the end of our exchange, but I don’t know how to properly order them. The other person is often doing the same thing but is usually handling it far better.

With no one at the other end, of course, it’s easy. I used to have a daily radio program, and I ended that one-sided conversation the same way, every day.

“That’s going to wrap it up for me, Scott Johnson. It’s been a pleasure sharing the afternoon with you. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow. Until then, all the best from me to you and yours. So long.”

I’m sure that sounded corny to some, but none of those people ever called in to say so. It felt like a good end to the show. On those few days when special news coverage or other contingencies kept me from properly saying goodbye to the listeners, I felt bad. Expressing that I’d enjoyed the time, thanking them for their time, and wishing them all the best was something I owed, and when I’d satisfied that need I felt closure.

When there’s another person who’s also trying to interleave their parting comments with mine, the equation becomes complicated. I feel the need to say certain things. I also feel the need to listen and respond properly to the things the other person needs to say. Awkwardness results, as I struggle with listening, talking, and respecting time constraints as the other person grows impatient, or at least wonders what sort of dolt can’t simply say, “Bye!”

When I’m conversing with a loved one, another dimension further increases the difficulty. There are feelings to express, and I want to be sure I’ve expressed them. I want to leave her with a smile on her lips and a warm sensation in her heart. I don’t want to end the conversation too abruptly, lest she feel brushed off, but I also don’t want to prolong it unduly and leave her exasperated and annoyed. I want to tell her that I love her, but in a way that expresses true emotion and doesn’t sound like rhetoric or, worse, like prompting.

Unfortunately, as with most things in life, there are no absolutes. As far as I know, no one has ever published a set of protocols for conversation closure. Even if such a thing existed, no one would need it but me. Everyone else seems innately to know how to wind down and close out a conversation. I was born without that gene, I suppose.

Even in slower forms of communication, such as e-mail, I’m never quite sure how closure occurs. If I send a friendly e-mail to someone, and he sends one back, am I then obligated to reply? If I do reply, will he then feel obligated to reply to that? If so, where does it end? Does one of us have to say, “Enough, already?” Or, is one of us bound to wonder if his last e-mail was simply ignored?

The great minds of this world are focused on curing cancer, feeding the hungry, and bringing peace to a conflict-ravaged world as I ponder who’s supposed to hang up the phone first. Perhaps I just need a bit of perspective.

The following was written in June, 2003 during a trip to Weslaco, Texas. I’m preserving it here so that it won’t die when the Geocaching forum on which it was posted eventually purges it.

This week, I found myself in South Texas for the second time, thanks to a balky DSP module in a console mainframe that wouldn’t work until I personally blessed it (out). Having had a lot of fun hitting all the caches within 20 miles on my last trip two weeks ago, I decided to hit a few more distant ones this time.

I wasted my weekend … picked up a nasty cold on Friday and spent the weekend recuperating. Realizing the only caching time I had left was nights after the 6PM newscast, I decided to make the most of it.

It’s Wednesday night, and I’m back in my hotel room after the last of three such adventures at sunset, and it was probably the most eventful of the three. I thought I’d share it, for those of you who love a good comedy.

Now, they say that everything’s big in Texas, and I’ve found that to ring true in most cases. There’s a great burger chain here, a Texas tradition known as Whataburger. There are more Whataburgers here than McDonald’s, and it’s a good thing — the burger compares favorably with some of the very best, including LA’s “Astro Burger” and “In-n-Out Burger”. A big ol’ slab of char-broiled beef on a Texas-sized bun.

After today’s Whataburger, I decided to hit some caches in the South Padre Island area. After days of drive-by, historic-marker virtuals, I discovered some traditional caches to be had near the island. After hitting a quick virtual on the way in, I arrived at “The South Won This One” (GCBE47).

I was relieved to see that there wasn’t a lot of brush or scrub to slog through to get to this one. Snakes I don’t mind … I saw a coral snake (red touch yellow, kill a fellow) on a hunt earlier this week. Eight-legged critters and I, however, do not get along. By that I mean that if I saw a spider walk by and there was a priceless Ming vase at hand, I would instantly and reflexively grab the vase and use it to smash the spider to an unrecognizable pulp. I once found a wolf spider crawling on my shoulder and slapped it so hard I left a bruise. Pure, abject, irrational horror is hard to rein in, or reason with.

Bouncing across the critter-free sand without a care, I quickly found the cache, sat down and signed the log, sealed everything up, and hiked back to the car. What a beautiful place — right alongside the Rio Grande, cacti everywhere, mesquite scrub in the distance … picturesque. I hopped into the car, fired it up, and started to pull onto the pavement.

That’s when I saw it. There it was, standing on the yellow line of the highway, defiantly, daring me to drive past it. It was … the WhataSpider.

I do not exaggerate at all when I say that this spider was the size of my hand. I call it the WhataSpider because it probably weighed as much as the burger I consumed earlier, a burger that was now signalling its interest in returning the way it came. The spider, front legs in the air, was clearly of a mind that a Chrysler 300M was no match for it. It was probably 5 yards in front of the car and I could clearly see its fangs. It was solid black, and appeared to be wearing the pelts of small mammals it had eaten for breakfast. It waved its forelegs, wiggled its fangs, and just generally tried to look evil.

I rolled down the window … after all, I had to confirm that this wasn’t some sort of optical illusion. “Look … I don’t want any trouble!” I yelled, trying to sound friendly. There was no reply. We were only a few hundred yards from the border, though … “Mira! Mira! No quiero te molestar!” Still no response. The nearby water park is called “Schlitterbahn”, so perhaps this spider spoke German. It stood its ground.

I wasn’t about to run over this thing with the car. In the first place, I am an arachnophobe, but I’m not merciless. In the second place, running over it it might have only made it mad. In the third place, I could envision myself running over the bugger, and NOT seeing it in my rear view mirror, and wondering where it was … dead, or hitchhiking in the wheel well, knowing I’d have to get out of the car SOMETIME, and plotting its revenge.

I willed the Whataburger to stay down, steered for a wide berth around the eight-legged roadblock, and headed out. I watched it in my rear-view mirror as it ambled off into the weeds. I watched the road ahead, too … all the way back to Weslaco, every speck in the road looked eight-legged to me.

I passed an agricultural inspection station on my way out, and the border patrol guys gave me a good, hard look, wondering why I was sweating bullets in an air-conditioned car, and why my face as white as the sand. They took a brief look at the car and, finding that I was smuggling nothing more harmful than Whataburger wrappers and a travel bug, sent me on my nauseated way.

Hidalgo County, Texas, has the distinction of being the original US entry point of the Africanized “killer” bee. Naturally, I had expected that if I were to experience any critter attacks while caching, they would be of the air-superiority fighter variety. I was watching the skies, oblivious to the ground threat. I didn’t expect an eight-legged tank.

Next time, I’ll be ready. A propane tank full of Raid Ant’n'Roach ought to do it. Or a shotgun.

Totals this trip: 9 virtuals, 2 traditionals, 8 legs, 1 major creep-out.

For those who’ve wondered, let this serve as confirmation that I still live. I’m still above room temperature, I’m breathing constantly, and I’m still consuming food, although the quality has increased and the quantity has decreased somewhat. I’m even in motion, now and then, which is what this entry is really about.

For the last eleven weeks or so, I’ve been on a fairly serious self-improvement program. I’ve been eating a healthier diet and getting more exercise. At first, a daily walk sufficed to burn a few calories and help with my cardiopulmonary conditioning, but after a short while I felt ready for something a bit more strenuous. I brought my bicycle to the office and began riding at lunchtime and after work. I started at five miles a day and have been steadily increasing the mileage as my fitness and speed improve. I’ve lost a great deal of weight, and I feel more fit than I’ve been in years.

My boss, Karl, is also a cyclist. He hadn’t ridden for quite some time, but when he saw what I was doing, he brought his bike in and began to join me on some of my rides. To my surprise, I’ve found that I can keep up with him fairly well, even though he’s in far better shape than I. Last weekend, though, he offered me a challenge.

West of Atlanta, winding through rural sections of Cobb and Paulding counties, is a path known as the Silver Comet Trail. It’s what’s known as a rails-to-trails project. A disused section of railroad track was torn out and replaced with a smooth, paved multi-use trail ideal for bicycling. Because it’s built on old railroad bed, all its grades are gentle. I’d ridden five or six miles of the trail before, but Karl proposed riding ten miles out and back. I accepted.

Last weekend’s ride was not easy, but I amazed myself by completing it without any real difficulty. We actually pushed the distance a bit farther, to a total of 24 miles. Keeping up with Karl was easier than I’d expected but still cramped my style a bit. Like most bicyclists, I tend to do best at a particular pedal cadence, and I found myself shifting gears constantly to maintain that cadence while keeping Karl’s pace. We’d also misjudged the time. We ended up riding the last five miles in chilly darkness. Despite this, I finished the ride feeling tired but proud of the accomplishment.

The next day, I could feel the effect of the ride. I felt energized. I began to convince myself that I could have gone farther if we hadn’t run out of daylight. The idea of a longer ride began to form in my mind. Karl tentatively agreed to accompany me.

This brings us to yesterday, Sunday morning. Having not heard from Karl on Saturday, I assumed my ride would be solo. I put my backpack together, made sure I had a spare tube in case of a flat tire, lubed up the bike, and headed out. I arrived at the trailhead around three in the afternoon. Immediately after setting out on the trail, I noticed that the cable for my cyclometer had been damaged when I’d loaded the bike into the car. So, I had no cadence or distance information. After a brief moment of panic, I remembered that the trail has mile markers and rode on.

At the 4.4-mile mark on the trail is the Silver Comet Depot, a bike shop and refreshment stand. There, I borrowed some tools and made the necessary repairs to my cyclometer cable. After a brief delay, I was back on my way.

About 45 minutes out from the Depot, I arrived at the 12-mile mark, where we turned back last weekend. I took a picture of myself by the marker, drank lots of water, and kept moving. At this point, I had no idea how far I wanted to go, but I felt capable of significantly more distance than this. I decided that I’d go as far as I could before 4:30 PM rolled around. That would give me time to safely return to the car before darkness fell.

4:30 PM found me at about 16 miles. 32 miles would have been an impressive ride, but for some reason it just wasn’t a very satisfying number to me. Four more miles would put me at 20, and I liked that nice, round figure much better. I pressed on. A long, demoralizing climb followed, nearly making me regret the decision, but despite the grade I managed to cover the remaining four miles in just under half an hour. I arrived at the twenty mile marker sweaty, exhausted, and completely exhilarated! I took another photograph at the mile marker, got back on the bike, and realized I was now two hours from my car with about an hour of daylight left. So, at 5:30 I began the second twenty miles of my ride.

The slow, demoralizing climb I’d encountered in my last four miles became a refreshing downhill run on the return trip. I made good time until I reached the section of trail that I call “chevron hill”. This was the steepest grade on the trail, and in this direction it was uphill. I hunkered down, thought of pleasant things, and pushed the pedals. Darkness descended like a blanket, and the white line down the center of the trail became my sole visual reference. I couldn’t see my cyclometer anymore, so I counted off my cadence and breathed deeply. When I reached the top of the grade, I felt oddly elated. I upshifted to my top gear, built up a nice burst of speed, and reached my tired arms skyward as the wind cooled me down. I zoomed for the next few miles.

When I passed the Depot, now closed and deserted, I knew I was home free. I was reaching the end of my endurance, but there were only four miles to go. I think I must have entered a sort of trance, because I don’t remember those last four miles at all. I do remember seeing the lights of the parking lot finally appear and feeling a wave of pride. I’d ridden 40 miles! (That’s 64 kilometres, for you Brits.) The wave of pride was quickly replaced by a wave of nausea, telling me that I’d probably found the limit of my endurance for now. I shakily loaded my bike into the car, sat down, and rested for twenty or thirty minutes until I felt conscious enough to drive home.

My legs were rubber. It was a real challenge just dragging myself up the stairs to my apartment. I went inside, got into bed, and just rested.

Oddly, this morning, I don’t have a single sore muscle, and just like last Monday, I feel energized. I’m completely ready for my lunchtime bike ride. There’s a bounce in my step. So, if you’re wondering why I’m telling you about this experience, the reason is simple. I’m telling the world! I am unashamedly proud. I really surpassed my own expectations, and my ego might be just a little out of control. It doesn’t happen often, and I think I can be forgiven.

If you’d like to view other photographs from my ride, you can find them in my photo gallery.