Yes, it kind of sucks to not have power, but with the advent of 3G (though AT&T seems to be having some serious issues with mobile backhaul in my area) and devices that hold a charge for several days, I’m really not nearly as cut off as I was in the past.

There have been three saviors in my world — gas appliances, ice, and my trusty coleman lantern. We had pancakes for breakfast. We had coffee when we needed it. We have cold drinks and haven’t lost any food (yet). And here I am at 10:00 PM and I’ve got light.

Yes, it’s kind of a pain in the ass. But at least Irene was followed by some cool weather and a nice high pressure system. So the fact that I don’t have the AC on is only a problem in that I’m listening to my neighbors generators.

Other than that, it could be a lot worse.

He was horrified to see his brethren die on that tragic day when the towers collapsed.  We talked in the days after the events of 9/11 about the job that the men of FDNY were doing.  I could hear the pain in his voice.

As a nation, we rallied around each other.  Many of us reacted in ways that we didn’t fully understand.  In retrospect everything seems different.  Ten years of war and a recession have changed my views.  Becoming a father has changed my views.  Meeting my wife changed my views.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about the death of Osama Bin Laden.  It’s almost meaningless to me.  There is an entire army of new recruits that has been formed over the past ten years.  And now to find out that he’s been “hiding” in a populated area?

I cannot celebrate.   The chest thumping is ugly.

I long for a day when the “threat level” is not orange.  What will a day that is “green” be like?  Will we ever see one?

When will it be safe to move on?

April is a blur.

I’ve been keeping insane hours since the beginning of the month. Each week has been wall to wall busy with different projects, trips, and me bouncing from one meeting to another with barely any downtime to actually do any of the work that I need to do.

I’ve been down to Florida, for a day trip. Out to Virginia for nearly a week, and out to Sunnyvale, CA for a whirlwind trip consisting of two full days of travel for a single day of meetings.

As this week comes to a close, I’m excited about the fact that I have completed my part of a large proposal (save any last minute edits that need to occur over the weekend — I’m hoping for none, but doubt that will work out) and to have knocked off a list of 15 “action items” throughout the day.

I’m actually finishing the week with a clean slate for next week. I’ve got a chance to breath.

And that’s what I’m gonna do. Breathe in the air, the smell of soaked wet ground, and enjoy a few minutes of solitude.

Unplugging won’t do in this age of wireless and 3G, what’s needed is a shutdown, a black out. Maybe a lead suit that will protect me from all forms of communications.

It’s been a long three weeks. Even on this dark and rainy afternoon though, I finally see a bit of light.

I’m headed toward that light.

As the alarm went off this morning I realized two things — this was the second time I’ve set an alarm since leaving Discovery and I really hate WYPR on a Saturday morning.  I hit the snooze button.  It was only natural.  

Eight minutes later, I something clicked.  I’d known that the reason for the alarm was to get up to ride, but to be honest, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to get out of bed and meet the peloton when the alarm first went off.  I could certainly ride on my own as I did a few weekends ago.  But something clicked, and I got myself out of bed and scrambled into a pair of bibs and a jersey.

Since, I’d stayed in bed for an extra eight minutes, I really didn’t have time to make coffee.  I grabbed an energy bar and a banana, filled the water bottles with Gatorade and headed to the shed.  Walking out the door, I looked at the thermometer.  58F.

Let me tell you now, I need a new thermometer.  Or at least a wind gauge.  As I rode out of the neighborhood I was hit with a wall of wind coming out of the northwest.  That meant that the ride into town would be nice, the ride home would be — well — sucky.

I met up with the peloton at the appointed place and we were treated to a lesson in philosophy.  I’d passed the man on the trail on the way to the Rusty Bridge, but hadn’t taken notice of him.  Now that he had an audience he was revved up.  He kept talking about our “blinky-blinks” (lights) and that it cost money to do what we were doing and that we were doing this for ourselves and that was good.  Then he noticed the lone female cyclist among us (who also had never ridden with us) and said something to the effect that we all owed here a debt of gratitude because without her, none of us would be here. I’m sure it made sense in our philosopher’s reality. Ann took it in stride.

Now, we usually don’t start bang on at 7:30, but today we did.  We needed to get rolling to get away from Mr. Kierkegaard and his rants before he got into the whole Fear and Trembling bit.  The ride down was brisk but pleasant.  Twenty-four of us took were headed down the trail, but we lost one rider to a broken derailuer and were down to 23 at the end of the trail.

I had some good conversations with a few of the riders that I knew from previous rides on the way into town.  One rider, I’d run into in my professional life earlier this week, and Chris and I talked about how it really is a small world.  Another, I’d not seen in several months and we got a chance to catch up a bit.  In short, it was nice to see the group.

At breakfast, I ended up sharing a table with Ann, and we got to talking about her writing.  Ann is living at least one of the dreams that I’ve had for some time.  To be a writer and make money at it.  She was totally willing to share here story and give me some background on how she got started.  This kind of information is invaluable and I was grateful to get a chance to pick her brain on the subject.  We ended up riding back to Severna Park together and had a great conversation the whole way.

In the end, I logged 38.73 miles in just under 3 hours of riding time and felt great about it.  If I’d rolled back into bed, I probably would have gone that distance today, but I would have missed out on so much more.  I’d have missed the opportunity to enjoy the camaraderie of cycling.

The raindrops make music as they hit the roof – some are big some are small, some are fast, others slow…it is a rolling and ever changing song of percussion for my ears this morning.

The house is quiet.  No television blaring in the other room.  No children screaming.  Only the sound of the rain, and my keyboard clicking away as I write a few lines celebrating the day.

I need to celebrate more often.  Celebrating the moments is key to living a happy life.  I’m going to resolve to keep these words by my bedside and read them each morning:

Waking up this morning, I smile.

Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.

I vow to live fully in each moment

and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

–Tich Nhat Hanh

When I look back and think about what the best advice I ever got might be, I usually think of my teacher, Ms. Furlong, from high school. She taught my Freshman year World Cultures class and was the coach of our Forensics (Speech and Debate) Team. One of the most important things Mary taught me was that there are two sides to every story and the truth often lies in the middle.

I remember her drawing an inverted triangle to represent this on the black board. On the left she wrote “Thesis,” on the right “Antithesis” and at the bottom point she wrote “Synthesis”. Later in life I would come across this in my studies of Kant and Hegel (I’m a scholar of neither).

Somehow this makes incredible sense to me. Usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Buddhists call it the middle way or path. It can be very liberating to walk the middle path, because you do not have to agree with the extreme right or the extreme left, but rather can take good from both sides.

After that we went to the Lewes Beach and did a little swimming.  Mr. Grey got tired early so we headed home (1 block) and grabbed some lunch.  I promptly took a nap.

To be honest, I was a little grumpy in the morning because we kinda screwed up on meeting up with some good friends at Cape Henlopen.  Yeah, we royally screwed the pooch on that, but friends are friends and thankfully they will forgive us.

After I woke up from my nap, we chilled for a bit more.  Mr. Grey decided a nap was in order for him, and Mrs. TKD and I snuck out for a trip to the grocery store.  I picked up fixins for a take on cuban inspired pork chops (lime, cilantro, cumin and peaches).

When we got back Mr. Grey was up, and we went to the beach.  I played with him in the sand and the water.  He was really digging the water.  He was in up over his head with the help of his life vest.  He’ll be a sailor like his papa and a fisherman like his dad for sure.

A lot has changed since he was a little dude.  This photo is from 2008.

He was afraid of the water back then.

The bike search will be put on hold today as I haul furniture up to my brother’s and fetch some from my mom’s house.  Mr. Grey needs a big bed and he’s going to get the same bedroom set that I had when I was a boy.

And it’s sure been a cold, cold winter

And the wind ain’t been blowin’ from the south

It’s sure been a cold, cold winter

And the light of love is all burned out

It sure been a hard, hard winter

My feet been draggin’ ‘cross the ground

And I hope it’s gonna be a long, hot summer

And the light of love will be burnin’ bright

…

It sure been a cold, cold winter

My feet been draggin’ ‘cross the ground

And the fields has all been brown and fallow

And the springtime take a long way around

God damn, I love that song. For those that don’t recognize it, its “Winter” by the Rolling stones on the Goats Head Soup album.  If you haven’t given it a listen before, well, you should, you’ll recognize a bunch of good tunes on there.  And if you have, but haven’t listened to it in a while, well, give it a spin – or whatever we do with digital music these days.

Spring is here!  It was 72 F here in Severna Park today!  Beautiful days.  I grilled.  I wore short sleeves. I knocked off work a tinsy bit early.

I’ve got spinach growing in my garden – it wintered over!  So did the collards and kale that I never go around to picking.  Even after the ridiculous snow and cold we had!  And most extraordinarily, so did my parsley.  I’m excited for the spring and getting my garden going again!

Call me a Curmudgeon.  Go ahead, get it out of your system, cause you’re probably going to disagree with me on this post.

The “Tip Jar” has gotten way out of hand.  Everywhere I go, there seems to be a tip jar on the counter.  From Starbucks, to the local pizza joint, to the freakin coffee shop in my building at work, everyone’s got a tip jar out.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to tip people working in a capacity where tipping is customary and usual.  This is especially true where someone’s base salary is below minimum wage because they are expected to make the difference up in tips.  But come on people, not everything in life deserves or requires a tip, especially if you aren’t doing anything but filling a cup of coffee or putting a slice of pizza on a paper plate for me to take to my table – and subsequently bus – myself.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, when I was a teenager working in a sub shop the idea of putting out a tip jar on the counter never even occurred to me, because I wasn’t performing a service that deserved or required a tip – I was making sandwiches, which was in actuality, my entire reason for being behind the counter.  Tipping me for making a sandwich would have been ridiculous.  And even if I had thought of putting a tip jar out, my manager would have summarily dismissed the idea and threatened termination of employment if I’d done it.

This is part of what I call modern society’s “entitlement syndrome.”  Everyone seems to think that they are entitled to something.  Apparently, now everyone is entitled to be paid extra for doing their jobs.

I’m putting a tip jar on my desk.  Feel free to put a five-spot in it the next time I create a VLAN for you.