Category: life

As the days roll on here, routine begins to to shape. On Thursday there were still a few straggling piece of the workweek to be handled. Not for all of us in school (slackers) of course, but for Freeman and Vinay. There were also trips to be made to stores like Vons, Costco, and Home Depot, all in preparation of the festivities which were to follow.

Our days have consisted of a significant amount of Guitar Hero and beer pong. Thursday was unique as it was sprinkled with Detroit sports throughout. We tried to get Tigers-Red Sox double header on tv but couldn’t find it. Then the Pistons clinched their series and the Wings let one slip away but all-in-all a pretty big sporting day for the D. It is really fun to finally get to watch some of these games with a big group of people, especially people all tied to the same team.

The whole trip has turned into an even bigger reunion than initially imagined. Vinay was able to make it here thanks in part to a business trip and Brian Egan came up from LA to hang out for a night as well. Tricia is on the west coast for a stint of work and has come down from Salinas to hang out and show us how hard real guitar is. Everyone is really coming through to spend some time together and take incoherent and sometimes funny pictures.

Friday we began to see the additive effects from repetition of our newly established, if still evolving, routine. Also, with some of the conference calls and grocery shopping out of the way, all of us were free to fully emerge ourselves in the spirit the weekend: celebration of Chad’s achievement (which we all found out is forthcoming in October). Devotion to the cause, created more opportunity for reminiscence, catching up and general ridiculousness. For example, see the clip at the end of this post, when Vinay was dared to stick his hand in the ultra cold cooler for what we thought was an impossible length of time. I think he got a few dollars for it. By the end of the night, Mikey was volunteering this type of activity every 3 minutes.

I am proud of the way we all come together and have a good time though. We even come up with ways for Vinay to play flipcup without drinking. It’s refreshing to operate in an environment with a number of people who are very comfortable around one another, but perhaps this is where the lunacy comes from. Also, the dynamic of a large group of men is starting to become more and more apparent to me. I am used to having a woman around all the time or working in an environment with a majority of women (RSPH). I will try to think more about differences and how the group dynamic works. We’ll see what develops as the weekend rolls on.

warning! strong language
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3372337054204354572&hl=en

I arrived in LA last night and was picked up by Freeman and Gill in their blue Dodge Caravan. The timing of it all had a sense of starling efficiency. It would have been even smoother but Mikey missed his original flight. Something about traffic. Eventually we got everyone assembled, headed to Burbank, picked up Mark and ended up at Chad’s at 11:20.

One thing Mikey and Freeman made sure to pack was their extraordinarily large video game controllers. It was all part of a plan starting with an e-mail message that detailed the location of Gill’s PS2 (it was at Chad’s house). The controllers, their axes as they call them, are for use with the series of video games called Guitar Hero.

You may have seen this in a local arcade, but basically the game follows the lead of the incredibly popular Dance Dance Revolution. And like DDR, it is inexplicably fun and hilarious to watch people try it for the first time. Mikey, Gill, and Freeman are seasoned pros, but it’s surprising to see how fast you can pick it up. No idea to mediocre is quick but decent to Jimmy Page takes a long time.

The games (Guitar Hero 1&2) have a really good selection of songs and it’s cool that they actually let you play the entire thing rather than an abridged version. The solos are where it becomes really interesting and the most difficult but also the most fun.

Stay tuned, next you may get to hear about the Trailer Park Boys.

Not Ramirez. Me.

For the last week I was a nanny for Bodhi. I was helping out John and Shannon as Shannon returned to work and there was a week before daycare started. Something like that, anyway they needed a nanny, or manny as it turned out.

I spent around 10 hours a day with 13-week-old Bodhi. I watched him at the house that J+S are renting in Druid Hills. For those of you not familiar with Atlanta, this is not some cultist mountain monastery. This does remind me of how I love the feeling when you first move to a town and are free of all your associations with different neighborhoods. However, one drive down some of these streets and you wouldn’t need a tour guide to figure out the character of the place. I should say that there are also good things about getting to know places. If all you know about East Point, you picked up in a Goodie Mob track, then some time at the velodrome is all it would take to change your opinion.

Oh yeah, mannying. We went on walks to Emory village, watched TV, had some tummy time, visited commencement. I did feel a bit emasculated as the only male pushing a carriage around town. The landscapers, sewer maintenance guys, and construction crews all nodded as I walked by but I feel like they laughed after I passed. I wonder if they thought I was a real manny, or a stay-at-home dad who shockingly could live in this neighborhood.

Mostly the kid slept. There were episodes of intense crying. But those were usually in anticipation of the feeding that was on the way. But what a life. When was the last time you had someone push you around while you spent half an hour pushing out gas so hard you crap your pants and then pass out,exhausted. Waking up to the tune of some cleaning you up and changing your pants. All of this taking place immediately before your feeding which is followed promptly by your nap. Ahhhhh, to be young again.

The biggest problems of the whole week were with my dog, and even then they were manageable. So, to all the people who questioned my decision to try this I say, “I did it. The kid’s fine (better than fine… dry, fed, exercised, clothed, baby eisteined, burped and cute). You may have been nervous when you heard I was taking care of a 3-month-old all by myself, but I knew I could do it.” Moreover I know you can do it too when the time comes. We’re programmed to do it. The hardest part is not being able to communicate with him directly. All you’ll want to do it give them what they want but they can’t tell you what that is and you can’t tell them how hard you’re trying. So good luck and if you need a manny, call me.

On Wednesday I finally did something that I have wanted to do since moving to Atlanta: I got a haircut at a serious barbershop. Once, in Ann Arbor I took the advice of a coworker and went to an old barbershop for a haircut. The main selling point was the conversation and the ambiance. I don’t remember too much about that particular haircut and maybe that says something. I thought the guys in there would be talking amongst themselves, bringing me into their conversations about the game last night or the latest current events. Why is it (and I feel this is strongly an American thing) that we try to romanticize everything and turn it into a Utopian experience, even a haircut. I think it has something to do with the movies and how they help us define Utopian haircuts.

The Faith Barbershop in the Edgewood Retail District is where I went on Wednesday in search of the perfect haircut. I introduced the experience as a visit to a serious barbershop but what I really mean is a black barbershop.Atlanta is nearly two-thirds African American (to use the parlance of our times) and is consistently regarded as one of the best cities in the US in terms of opportunities for black Americans. A great part of moving to a vibrant city is the opportunity to incorporate part of the other cultures around you into your own. Again, I romaticize.

I have to say that this experience was much more enjoyable than the trip to the Ann Arbor barbershop and definitely better than Supercuts or my waiting room visits to fancy salons where Lauren is getting her hair cut. As I parked my bike outside next to another bike a guy came out of the shop to talk to me. It was his bike next to mine and immediately we were talking about riding around town, accidents, and pants vs. shorts. Soon we introduced ourselves and we stepped inside so that Kenneth could give me a haircut.

One thing I’m always bad about is giving instructions to people giving the haircut. and this time was especially confusing. Usually you could just say a number on the side, and a bit longer on top (that’s Supercuts lingo) but here the guards all have different numbers, so I was off to a poor start. I told Kenneth that he could do what he thought was best and not to be afraid, because it would grow back. He said, “Shiiiiitt. I want you to come back.”

Another thing that I’m still learning about haircuts is that you have to go to someone that knows your kind of hair and style. I was first introduced to this at my job at GDOT when I learned that some black women go to the salon every week and then don’t wash their hair. Then last week Lauren was pointing out how not all short haircuts are the same and the importance of going to a skilled stylist when you are girl with short hair. Anyway, I estimate that the expertise of the black barbershop is the fade. They spent a good deal of time on this. The fade should be kept tight and clean thus people come back often to get them taken care of.

They had a tv on and one guy was just sitting over in the corner reading a book, but most of the guys were all talking. At one point Kenneth took a break from cutting my hair to act out someone running and having to pull their pants up. That was part of discussion about how the kids wear their pants so low. “At that point, you’re basically making yourself a one armed man” said one Master Barber. They also have cards that they give to customers and they say things like ‘Master Barber.’

I even got dissed because I move my head around so much, apparently like a 6 year old. Kenneth talked mostly to me about his apartment, his failed marriage (a topic people like to dive into after hearing that I am happy in mine) and bike rides. At the end I felt like I usually do in foreign situations, I didn’t know what to do. Someone had already had his fade finished and was sticking around to chat and hang out. Do you have to be invited for that? How much to tip? In the end, I handled it like every other haircut situation and everything worked out. So maybe all the nuance I expected, all the new culture, the Utopian bliss of Faith Barbershop was in my head and getting a haircut is really just that, a haircut. We’ll see next week when I go back to get this fade tightened up.

Over the weekend Lauren and I hosted our sisters as guests of Atlanta and our home. We had an event-filled couple of days over which the weather varied. My original intention in suggesting this weekend to them was to get them here for The Dogwood Festival and some lovely Spring weather. I thought it would be a welcome respite from the mid-April snow showers they’d been enduring and Spring in Atlanta is great. Plus the braves were in town.

On Thursday and Friday we had great weather and took a stroll around Atlanta’s CBD – not what I considered to be a stop on most tourists lists, but looking back maybe it’s the most touristy place of all with World of Coke, Underground, and Centennial Olympic Park. We also had the chance to catch Dr. David Kleinbaum on the jazz flute at the Old Scottish Rite. On Friday we visited the aquarium and that night went to the Braves’ game. Braves got killed but we had a good time and saw some fireworks.

I told my sister to bring her soccer gear so we could go play on Saturday morning at Tech. The weather held up but we almost couldn’t find parking because of Barack Obama. It was fun and she showed me up a few times. Then the weather got ugly but we had all indoor events planned. John and Shannon had a dinner party and then Priya was celebrating her 25th birthday and their place.

Finally on Sunday we tried to get over to Dogwood. It was remarkably cold and ugly outside and to see the festival so empty was pretty sad. We decided to go see Hurricane on the Bayou and later Lauren made some awesome lasagna for dinner. Then Jennie was shipped off to the airport and I turned to face homework.

The weekend had concluded but for a few days it was a assemblage of family, keeping the generation together.

Viente y ocho, hai mui tam, er shu ba, however you say it, I have that many of them in years. To mark the occasion I thought I’d research the number. Google returns 28 million results.

Wikipedia is the first hit on the search and has some great info. For example, it is a Keith number, because it recurs in a Fibonacci-like sequence started from its base 10 digits: 2, 8, 10, 18, 28… Also, it’s a happy number, which only 12% of all integers are (considering numbers up to 10^20). A happy number is any number that eventually reduces to 1 when the following process is used: take the sum of the squares of its digits, and continue iterating this process until it yields 1, or produces an infinite loop. AWESOME!! This is gonna be a great year.

Years normally follow a 28-year cycle, since there are seven days in a week and leap year occurs every four years; a calendar from 28 years ago is the same as this year’s. This is the first time (of several, hopefully) that I’ll get to relive a year exactly as it was the year I was born. Need to break out the almanac.

It’s the atomic number of nickel, and the number of dominoes in a standard dominoes set. There’s also a band called twenty eight out of Cape Cod. I wonder if they are good. One album that people apparently think is great is one that I picked up in college called The Great 28, by Chuck Berry. I never knew it was so well regarded, I thought is was like a greatest hits.

Other people also blog about turning 28, but this guy is not as excited as me. And some people receive bills from their fathers when they turn 28. Like this guy whose dad sent him an itemized invoice for his life to that point totaling $2 million. Thanks mom and dad for the millions you’ve put into me.

When I think about the years… the number, I guess actually last year was a happy number year and maybe I should be researching 29 now…

Without Lauren around I find myself talking more. Often just to hear a voice. I’ll talk to animals, repeat lyrics and just have no one to count on in carrying on the conversation like I do when she’s here. Also, I’ve been participating in focus groups and interviews at school for classes. All this is to say that sometimes when you are forced to speak up and answer questions you wind up thinking things through for the first time and (especially with the focus groups) you wind up revealing things to yourself at the same time that you do to everyone around you.

The first focus group I was a part of dealt with stress at school and the second was about physical activity at Rollins. The second is the one I’m really here to talk about. In talking about my own activity patterns I described them as “opportunistic and utilitarian.” I’ll jump into a game if I have time and I’ll ride my bike if it gets me somewhere, but I’ve known that I hate gyms and jogging for awhile now. This focus group was on Thursday, a timely discussion with the first-ever Georgia Marathon taking place this weekend.

A marathon is about as far from opportunistic as you can get. I have been talking a lot with Liza about her training for the marathon, which I witnessed today. And yesterday I had the opportunity to have dinner with the Ironman himself, Chuck. Chuck’s done at least 8 full Ironman races and several other races, such as the Iceman Mountain Bike Race. The Ironman is something that baffles me. I may never have the capacity to understand how it is possible. I think I need to see it, and today I got a glimpse of it by following the marathoners around Atlanta on my bike.

Chuck’s a good source for information and advice on how to keep going all the way to the finish line, in a figurative and literal sense. While watching the Tour de Georgia a few years ago at Brasstown Bald he gave non-race riders encouragement all the wat up the hill and told me that you just “gotta keep turnin’ it over” in that situation. I keep that in mind when I ride today on my comparatively simple routes. For the prospective marathoners he says to take it easy early on, “once you take it out of the tank, you can’t put it back in.”

Well, Chuck & Liza, I gotta say that you make me think about my motivations and whether or not I can really do something like that. That’s what inspiring people do. Maybe you can expect some calls from me about how to get into this stuff, what kind of bike to ride and maybe you’ll even see me at the Iceman one year. And, Chuck, I’m always here to answer your questions and perhaps provide some inspiration if you’re thinking about a blog.

And here’s a pic of me and a probable future ironman; Chuck’s grandson, Bodhi.

Spring break has always been a welcome respite from the life of homework and lectures that is school. What it has never been for me is a hedonistic romp on a remote Caribbean island.

One year I went to Italy with Paul to visit our girlfriends who were ‘studying’ in Spain. We made a whirlwind tour of it hitting up Venice for Carnival, Rome to see the Pope, Sienna and Florence with a Leaning Tower sighting, and back to Milan for what I will always remember as a wonderful Sunday walk through the city with crepuscular light shooting between the towers of a Gothic church and down the narrow streets. That last day was just Paul and I oddly.

My senior year I thought I was getting ready for law school. My friend Hilary was also looking at grad schools (for an MPH) and we decided to spend our spring break on a NorthEast Tour of schools. All my house mates went to Jamaica. We started in NYC where we stayed with Paul’s cousin in a posh West side condo. Near 78th and Broadway. We ate in possibly the only bad Chinese restaurant in the city, but had an awesome time. This was not my first time to New York but really my first opportunity to spend a good amount of time there (more than a day trip) and get out and see some things (not bound to tours). I loved it. Took a look at Columbia, NYU, and made it up further north on the island than I’ve ever been since to see Columbia PH (@the Med school) with Hilary. I remember we noticed that a lot of people were sporting berets and Hilary bought one on the street, which I don’t think she’s worn since.

We also stopped by New Haven to look at Yale and stay with a friend, Darius. He is a really cool guy and we had a lot fun. Some students there seemed to have connection to politicians, and people of power that baffled me. It was amazing. You could tell Hil loved it there, she even picked up a sweatshirt before leaving. Ultimately she ended up going there and I think it was a great decision.

We also made a stop by Boston, still my only real visit. I don’t count the pre-wedding trip to Malden for Lauren’s threading appointment in Little India. We stayed with a friend of Hilary’s at BC and visited BU well. Looks like areal fun in the sun kind of vacation, huh? We even took the tour of Harvard. Yale’s was more impressive. I still remember little tidbits about the rare book library and the fitness center.

Still I think all of these were really great spring breaks. This year I have been thinking about what I did over spring break. You’re probably sick of hearing about them but I built another fence on the west side of the house. Now the yard is finished. But, really I did all the stuff that needed done that wasn’t getting enough attention with all the schoolwork flying around. And, I watched lot of basketball. It, too, was another great spring break spent on my own little island away from the hustle and bustle of school.

I wonder if there are people who never have to think about what they’ll do with their life; fifth generation doctors, sons of coal miners (see Derek Zoolander), women of colonial times. In creating that small list it occurred to me that in every case, the occupation precedent came from the parents. I’m sure William Clay Ford Jr. gave as little thought to his career path as his parents did with the name. Regardless of how setup for a certain path you are, I am sure the thought of being a paleontologist crosses your mind at least once after learning about dinosaurs in 3rd grade.

The idea of what I will do when I am finished with these degrees is something that often graces my psyche. The disconnect comes from developing complicated interests that don’t always translate directly to a line of work.

dinosaurs = Paleontologist
making sick people better = doctor
improving urban environments for the health and quality of life of their people = garbage collector

Lately I have been hearing that I should be a teacher. This has come from several different sources with different interests but without collusion. In younger, more headstrong days, I would have ignored such outside insight and plowed ahead – taking the LSAT and applying to law schools – but with a bit more (not much)experience under my belt I am carefully considering the words of those who see me with different eyes. On one hand, I have put a lot of work into find a path of interest and pursuing it. Once I am finished with school I would not even be in a position to go on to become a teacher and perhaps everything I am doing now would be for not. On the other hand, being a teacher sounds rewarding and interesting. Maybe I could be good at it. Other people seem to think so. Of course I think I am good at what I am doing now (what was I just saying about being less headstrong?).

Here’s something Matt said to me recently over some chips and salsa fresca “I figure if I am ony going to make around 40k when I get out, why not go (back) to teaching and feel like I am contributing more.”

When I think about jobs I could do out of grad school, sometimes I lean to research, sometimes program implementation (perhaps with NGOs), sometimes I think I want to work at the city level because I think I could get more done there (more of what?) and sometimes I think about starting a firm (again, to do what?). Most of the time I am so confused I feel like 4×2=circle triangle.

So, as my first lesson plan, I have drafted this pop quiz for you, the reader. What should I do with my life? Be assured your comments will be considered thoroughly. Don’t forget to include your name (otherwise you’ll never get your grade back).

1. Which of these jobs best suits vargo?
a. scientist
b. teacher
c. politician
d. consultant
e. dj
f. blogger/journalist
g. doctor
h. other _________________

1a. If you said scientist, which type? Paleontologist?
1b. If you said teacher, which level and subject?
1c. If you said politician, which party and what level?
1d. If you said consultant, please describe the work you see him doing?

2. What skills does vargo have that would help him in the job you identified above? (nun-chuck skills are a given)

3. Suppose you lived near vargo, and occasionally saw him socially, what kind of job would put him in the best mood when you saw him (consider # of hours/wk, co-workers/clients, dress code and subject matter)?

3a. What type of work would you like to hear him talk about when you met?

4. What size organization do you see vargo working for?
a. 1 person, he runs his own show
b. 2-100, small office, lot of go-getters OR he runs a bigger show
c. 101-1000, larger org with couple small offices, think Innertrode
d. 1001 – 50,000 stuck in cube pushin’ paper for the man

5. Had you given the issue of vargo’s future any thought previously?
a. no, I have my own problems
b. once of twice, but I don’t really care
c. just now, but I am happy to help him with this
d. all the time, what is wrong with this picture

Thank you for participating, I look forward to seeing the results.