It takes a bit of time without home Internet service to appreciate just how essential network connectivity is to living a happy and productive life.  Checking e-mail and USGS from the office just doesn’t cut it.  Now that I’ve switched from Comcast cable service to AT&T DSL (which, believe it or not, netted me an increase in actual bandwidth — My 3MB DSL service gives me average downloads of 2.7MB, compared to roughly 720K for Comcast’s “6MB” service) all is again at peace with the world.

Of course, since it’s been three weeks since the last update, there are some obligatory additions to the Chronicle:

1. I went to the 12:05 a.m. showing of The Simpsons Movie with Tony, in Lansing, on opening day.  Well worth it!  The theater was crowded, but the film was superb, and Tony’s company (especially the part where we were pulled over by the police) was almost as amusing as Homer, Bart, and the clan.
2. On the subject of movies … I saw the latest Harry Potter flick with my mom, grandmother, aunt, and cousin.  Yet again, a charming film — and I eagerly ancitipate the final two, even though I can’t bear to read the books.
3. I marched in the Kentwood and the Byron Days parades for my dojo.  It’s kinda cool doing kata demonstrations in a parade — people really seem to enjoy it.  And you can really tell who is interested in supporting the dojo by seeing who attends.  On the bright side, both events allowed me a ride in a Mustang convertible — a shiny new 2007 model for the Kentwood parade, and a cherry-red 1965 model at Byron Days.
4. Tony, Emilie, Jon, and I met for our quarterly fine dining extravaganza in Lansing.  Tony brought us to the State Room, a little restaurant on the MSU campus.  Dinner was lovely, although Tony couldn’t stomach his apple brandy.  Then we went back to Tony’s apartment for hours and hours of fun and games (Wii and board games), although I’m not sure which is more hilarious — the games, or watching Emilie hate the games until she wins, at which point she considered the games fun in retrospect.
5. And on the Emilie/Jon topic … I received their wedding invitation in the mail a few weeks ago.  As expected, it was the height of elegance (she even had the envelopes sealed in wax).  I look forward to the ceremony and reception, almost as much as look forward to seeing whether Tony or I win our bet about when Emilie degenerates into Bridezilla.
6. We had a family picnic at Mary & Doug’s a few Sundays ago.  A very nice time, and it provided me with an excuse for wearing my pith helmet in public.  Much to my amusement, my little nephew Kyler (now 2-1/2 years old) wanted to climb into the branches of a willow tree.  So, I gently put him up there, and then I climbed up, too.  But Kyler was not amused; he looked at me very sternly, shook his head, and said (very deliberately), “Uncle Jay, get down!”  Several times.  It was cute, but you had to be there, I guess.
7. My cousin Callista, who will soon be departing to UW-Madison to begin graduate work in French, was also at the family picnic.  She really looks good; I guess her training for the Riverbank Run paid off!  It was actually a motivation to get back to the gym to return to my normal running routine, which was on temporary hiatus as my right sural nerve recovered from some unknown trauma.  Unfortunately, it’s use-it-or-lose-it when it comes to cardiopulmonary fitness, and it was clear I couldn’t just step back into my old routine cold-turkey.  Ugh.
8. I ran across the wedding site of former co-worker Adam Voigt.  The thought of Adam getting married makes me feel … really, really old.
9. Despite my very careful attention to proper stretching and warm-ups before working out or beginning a karate class, I managed to pull a muscle in my mid-back this morning.  How?  By rolling over in bed.  Some days, it just doesn’t pay to be me.  I might have to take up yoga or something.
10. Earlier this year, I was asked to stand for election to be the Publications Officer-Elect for the Quality and Productivity section of the American Statistical Association.  OK, cool.  At the last minute, though, a statistician eminently more qualified than I applied to the ballot, and quite appropriately, she won.  Then she declined the office, so I was appointed to the job by the section chair.  This should prove to be an interesting professional opportunity.
11. Work has been interesting.  My division, by the stroke of a VP’s pen, was dissolved.  We’re in a period of uncertainty as to what will happen next (although there’s no risk of unemployment … just concern about where our boxes will land).  On top of that, we’re in the meat-and-potatoes phase of building our comprehensive performance analysis and improvement plan, which is the end result of what I’ve been working toward for the last few years.  The timing is a bitch, though — just as we’re getting our front-end revenue cycle ducks in a row, we get integrated with Coding and the back-end of the revenue cycle.  One step forward, one step back, two steps to the side.

All for now.

I’ve been a bit busy the last two days running some random errands.  A few of them have prompted some thought.

1.  The only thing better than Altoids are Altoids covered in dark chocolate.  Mmmm.

2.  As I sit in the coffee shop organizing my notes, I’ve been observing a quartet of 16-year-olds, giddy from caffeine, talking about their love lives and calling people they “like” for heart-to-hearts about whether “the feeling is mutual.”  It’s been funny to watch, in a warm-fuzzy kind of way. 

3.  Went to the eye doctor yesterday for my annual exam and to order a new supply of contact lenses.  I really like this guy — he has a very easy demeanor (we spent half our time telling jokes) and is good on the “little things” like washing his hands before touching my eyes.  Anyway, my vision insurance plan is now requiring a new set of tests, including digital imaging of the back of both eyes, so the good doctor performed the tests and reviewed his findings with me.  One thing that was reassuring was that my eyes have excellent vascular health — he said that the early negative effects of hypertension and high cholesterol can often be seen in these types of tests.  His review makes me a bit more confident that the dietary excesses of most of my 20s might not haunt me as severely as I age, as I had expected.

A friend directed me to a site that, after you answer 8,234,247,896,240 questions, gives you a few sentences that allegedly describe your personality to a T.  My response was as follows:

You are a skywalker. You love adventure, both intellectual and physical. And you greet new challenges with passion and bravery.

When you get interested in a project, you can become extremely focused on it, sometimes to the exclusion of all around you. You complete it carefully and thoroughly, often with great originality.

And because you have a lot of energy and tend to be enthusiastic about your ideas, inventions, and projects, you can be very persuasive.

You tend to like to collect things, experiences or ideas. And you are eager to make an impact on those around you, as well as the wider world.

Although you enjoy people and can be charming and humorous, you are not very interested in routine social engagements or boring people. You are comfortable being by yourself, pursuing your own interests.

People probably call you a non-conformist, an original. You like to have good conversations on important topics. People tend to admire you for your innovativeness. You make an exciting, though at times distant, companion.

Actually, this does seem to be dead-on.  But these online personality tests remind me of the mediums who allegedly tell people what the dead are whispering; if we want to believe it, the actual words are vague enough that we can encode whatever meaning we wish into the language we encounter.

Still, though.  Fun stuff.

Goodness — has it really been a month and a half since the last update?  Herewith some more updates and observations.

1.  Work has been … work.  Not too bad; it’s helpful having more people in my area to share the workload.  Yet the tasks and the environment haven’t changed much in the last six weeks.

2.  It was a great honor to serve as the cathedral sacristan for four ordinations in my diocese two weeks ago.  Three priests and one transitional deacon were ordained at St. Andrew’s Cathedral by Bishop Walter Hurley; two of the new priests were gentlemen I lived with briefly a few years ago, at Christopher House, before they went into major seminary.  Getting caught up with them, and participating in their Mass of Ordination, was a real treat.

3.  I managed to eek out a narrow victory in my campaign for Great Lakes Senate, in the United States Government Simulation.  I had been appointed to the seat (which covers Michigan and Wisconsin), and had to stand for general election at the last cycle.  I beat a Michigan Congressman who was the sitting DNC chairman, despite an almost $3M funding disadvantage.  Hooray for me!  The only down side is that the seat is up in normal rotation in the NEXT cycle, in two months.  Ugh.  With hobbies like this …

4.  Karate training has been progressing well.  I’ve started free-form sparring practice, and the effort has reminded me of just how much more work I need to do!  On the bright side, I’m told that I’m quite aggressive in the ring (perhaps too much so), but I also know that I’m starting from “ground zero” and have a long way to go before I’d be a formidable opponent. 🙂  Last week, I earned my third stripe, and should test for orange belt in August.

5.  I’ve started prison ministry through the Diocese of Grand Rapids and the Michigan Department of Corrections.  I went to an orientation session last Thursday at a minimum-security facility the area.  The prison chaplain gave me the grand tour of the facility, including walk-throughs of the rec areas, the main yard, and one of the housing units.  I was surprised at the lack of bars (the inmates dwell in open-air cubicles), and at how beautiful the grounds were.  The inmates can participate in a horticulture program, so they take great pride in their vegetable and flower gardens.  This should be an interesting experience — as part of the orientation, I spent about 20 minutes one-on-one with one of the inmates who has been active in the Catholic ministry group.  Lots of potential there, and the prison is a good one, both in terms of its security level (the inmates have an “out date,” which means they have incentive for good behavior), and in the administration’s support for religious programming.  Still, it’s a little funny to walk around in the middle of hundreds of inmates in their jumpsuits, with little more than an alarm pack clipped to my belt.

6.  Speaking of criminals … over the last few weeks, I’ve taken to walking to work.  It’s a 7.25-mile trip, one way, down Division Avenue, that includes some parts of Grand Rapids that could charitably be referred to as “disadvantaged,” including the Burton Heights and Heartside neighborhoods.  Three times I made the trek, and faced nothing more unusual than a homeless guy asking me for 75 cents.  The third trip back, however, was a bit different; construction on Division forced me to reroute down a side street, even as a pedestrian.  This street — Corinne — is apparently home to drug dealers, pimps, and gang bangers, and they were out in force as I strolled down their sidewalk.  There I was, dressed in “hospital business casual,” walking alone down an inner-city street, knowing darn well that everyone was looking at me without really looking at me.  Until, that is, one banger standing lookout next to a parked white Escalade made a show of waving to me and, in an oh-so-polite way, shouting: “Hey, I hope you have a nice day, officer.”  So I smiled, waved, and kept on walking.  After all, they’re not gonna mug a cop, right?  But that notwithstanding, actually walking through those neighborhoods provided an interesting perspective on urban poverty that you don’t get by driving in the area (not to imply, of course, that I “understand” poverty for merely having walked down a sidewalk).

Other than that … eh, more of the same.

I’ve decided on the perfect cash-out-young retirement plan:  Custom-build a live-aboard sail boat and circumnaviate the world.

No worries.  No agendas.  No missed connecting flights.  Want to lay at anchor in the Carribbean for a week?  No problem.

Apart from the threat of pirates and the occasional stormy sea, a self-sufficient existence upon the ocean sounds absolutely heavenly.  Nothing but travel and exploration, without major hassle.

I’ve been doing less blogging lately, mostly because my evenings are increasingly filled with activities that preclude a visit to Kava House for coffee and writing.  Herewith a summary of recent events and observations, dutifully chronicled for the benefit of posterity:

1. Holy Week went well.  I ended up serving as parochial master of ceremonies for the Triduum and the Easter Vigil, which was interesting.  Doing double-duty as MC and as sacristan meant more work than usual, but it went well.  On the bright side, the diocesan MC liturgies I’ve been doing lately have been well-received by Bishop Hurley; he was quite complimentary the last time I asked him for feedback on the flow of the confirmation Mass.
2. I continue to develop as a karateka.  Yesterday, I achieved the next monthly promotion (yellow belt, two orange stripes), the test for which was kanshiwa kata.  As part of the process, I had to read Zen in the Martial Arts, which — although a short read — was really quite interesting.  Zen has some fascinating parallels to aspects of the contemplative spirituality of medieval Catholicism (especially related to the Catholic practice of “spiritual indifference”), so drawing the connections has made for a more pleasant exploration of the non-physical aspects of Japanese martial arts.
3. Tony has hung a shingle as a solo practitioner of law.  I’m quite proud of his efforts, despite his iron-willed determination to take care of stationery as a top priority, business plan be damned.  Luckily he has Emilie to crack the whip, although I’ve managed to end up as his web developer.
4. Poor Rick has had some ongoing automotive tribulations.  His 1991 Grand Prix finally gave up the ghost, so he replaced it with a 2000 Focus, which promptly developed coolant-system problems.  So I’ve been ferrying him about recently.
5. I haven’t spoken to Duane recently, which is a shame.  I need to call him — something I haven’t done since his birthday.  Perhaps I need to take a short trip to San Francisco to visit.
6. Went to see Grindhouse on Friday with Stacie.  Pleasant way to pass the evening.  It’s rare to go out with friends when neither wants or needs the other to do anything other than to enjoy the other’s company.
7. My little nephew Kyler is simply adorable.  He’s now 28 months old.  When I walked into my mom’s kitchen on Easter, he came toddling up to me saying “Uncle Jay!” (prompted, no doubt, by his mother or father), and gave me a kiss on the nose.  Too cute.
8. Shannon created a MySpace page for her dog.  (Enough said.)
9. I’m going to deliver a presentation at the Cerner Regional User Group in early May, in Milwaukee.  I’m planning a brief discussion on extracting information for business analysis from Cerner and interfaced environments, followed by a roundtable with other analysts for improving the process.  Should be interesting.  (“Cerner” is the comprehensive clinical documentation environment for hospitals, a product of Cerner Corp.)
10. Briefly Noted is progressing well.  I did most of the corporate-development work last summer, but stalled along the way.  I’m now mostly done with my business plan, much to Emilie’s apparent satisfaction, and the greater part of the Web site has been finished.  Still have some financial modeling to perform, but it’s going well enough.  I even can accept payment for subscriptions.  Only a few dozen of hours of work before everything is complete.  What happens after that, though, is terrifying — either it will fail miserably, which means my scope of options has narrowed significantly, or it will be wildly successful, which brings its own challenges.
11. Now that warmer weather is returning to West Michigan, the young couples are out in full flower.  It’s a wee bit depressing to be single in such times, but it is what it is; I am reaping the rewards of what I had sown in my early twenties — which is absolutely nothing.  So I’m not feeling like a victim about it, although I’m again motivated to change it.  I had put out an ad on Craigslist which garnered quite a bit of enthusiastic response, but it tended to be in the form of “wow, what a cool post” by those who either aren’t looking or who fall far outside of what I’m seeking.  Still, the support is certainly welcome, even if my social calendar is still covered in cobwebs.
12. Every week, I visit patients in the hospital as a lay Catholic pastoral-care volunteer.  It’s a deeply moving ministry in many ways, especially on days like one last week when I had two patients in the pediatric ICU, including a motor-vehicle trauma case with uncertain prognosis.  Providing spiritual care to the sick and suffering isn’t easy for me, but I hope and pray that I can bring some comfort and hope to the patients I visit.
13. I’m told Pumpkinhead was inquiring of me to Emilie.  Perhaps he could be bothered to contact me directly?
14. I’m planning to build a shelving unit for Rick today.  Just waiting for him to roll his lethargic posterior out of bed (hopefully before noon) to set up the time for me to visit and spec out what we need to buy from Home Depot.
15. I’m not sure why this is the case, but the behavioral pattern of drivers on I-96 between Grand Rapids and Lansing is significantly different from those on US-131 between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.  On 96, people actively get out of the way of faster-moving traffic and actually care about maintaining a constant flow on the expressway.  On 131, people plop themsevles wherever they wish to drive and pay not a whit of attention to those around them.  Strange.
16. I’ve gotten back into online political simulations.  I swear, it’s like being on crack.  I’m now in United States Government Simulation; I started as a member of the House (eventually becoming a committee chairman and chief deputy majority whip) before retiring and then being appointed to fill a Senate vacancy.  It’s interesting to see the political dynamic at work in these groups.  One of the reasons I left “active duty” as a House member was (in addition to spending time on Briefly Noted) because I lost a House leadership election that should have been a no-brainer; I was serving as acting majority whip because the actual whip went AWOL before the session ended.  After the sim elections, she came back and declared for majority leader.  As did I.  In the real world, she would never have stood a chance, but she ended up eeking out a plurality in a four-way race.  I attribute this (to Melissa’s credit) to the fact that she’s a Grand Mistress of retail politics.  She works the people behind the scenes and secures allies on the basis of personal loyalty, or at least familiarity.  I don’t do that; I’m a technocrat at heart.  So I always win the arguments but lose the elections.  But, of course, this phenomenon has implications for real-life politics, too.  The winner isn’t necessarily the person with the best ideas or strongest arguments — it’s the person who is the most people-savvy.  Perhaps this is good for democracy, or perhaps it’s the reason I want to be the Philosopher-King of the United States.  Either way, it’s a useful illustration of why things happen in Washington or Lansing in the way that they do.
17. My experience in USGS prompted a conversation with Stacie about the ways young Republicans differ from old Republicans.  I’ve been seeing the youths of the GOP become much more consistently pro-gay, pro-fiscal-conservatism, pro-environment.  The “South Park Republican” theory advocated by Brian Anderson in South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias seems to have a grain of truth to it.  In USGS, for example, almost none of the Republicans, including the conservative ones, are in favor of defense-of-marriage proposals or “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies.  Of course, the overwhelming majority of players are in high school or completing their undergraduate studies.  So the population is skewed a bit.
18. Speaking of young people … it seems like every other male younger than 21 that I see lately appears to be gay.  The mall, the coffee shop, wherever — gay.  Either my spidey-sense is on the fritz, or I’m turning into a curmudgeon.  Or perhaps both, alas.  Or perhaps younger people are more comfortable at resting on a continuum of sexual identity instead of at its poles.
19. Real-life domestic politics bores me to tears.  It’s like watching a car crash — you know what’s gonna happen, and you know it ain’t gonna be pretty.  Irrational partisanship from the Democrats (Pelosi in the Middle East?  Good grief!) and borderline incompetence from the guy for whom I twice voted to send to the White House.  The ancient Greek tragedians coudn’t have written a more depressing narrative, nor could even the Ameriad encapsulate the insanity of it all.
20. I am a frequent attendee at the gym.  What has proven mildly — very mildly — interesting is the way that old guys with subprime bodies strut nude in the locker room showing their inadequacy to their fellow males, while the young, buff athletes seem to be modest to the point of prudishness.  I personally don’t care much about who else is in the gym (except when I’m running and the volleyball players are on the basketball court!), but the sociology of it leaves me scratching my head.  Maybe I just don’t get it, but it seems like the pudgy elderly guys should be wearing the towels and the jocks should be doing the strutting.  Eh.

Enough for now.  In fact, probably too much for now. Time for more diet Coke.

A letter arrived yesterday; I didn’t recognize it for what it was, so I didn’t open it until this morning.  I didn’t expect to receive it at all, to be honest.  Its body consisted of a single sentence — a sentence that hit with almost physical intensity, and its effect downgraded my mood from “introspective” to “bitter.”

The subject-matter is not relevant.  Let it suffice that for many years, I had defined myself in part by an assumption that was given the lie by this single-sentence missive.  In fact, a large part of my psychological self-defense strategy rested on believing in this happy and convenient assumption, which has now passed into the realm of unhappy myth.

I’m not sure what I think about this just yet.  Over the last year or so, I began — quite by accident — to separate my long-term goals into several non-overlapping channels.  My letter closes one set of doors, but perhaps it frees me to more aggressively pursue another path. 

T. H. Huxley once said that logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.  The downside to being a child who was continually reassured of his smartness is that I tend to think that everything will work out in the end, consequences be damned.  So I’ve done things over the years that have been counterproductive or even illogical, but I actively ignored the risk on the theory that “I’m me, therefore I’m immune to bad results.” 

Of course, any nitwit can see the irrationality and irresponsibility of such an approach to life.  Heck, even I can.  Yet human-development scientists tell us that the essence of who we are is defined by the time we turn 5.  It’s sometimes easier to think we’ve escaped our limitations than to admit that overcoming them may require more effort than we’re willing to expend, especially when those limitations are rooted in a core personality that has been fixed for so long.

I’ve spent the last few weeks doing some different things.  Mostly business development for the corporation I’ve started (and many thanks to Tony for the “legal reference,” Emilie for the marketing help, Duane and Rick for the conceptual help, and Stacie for the encouragement), but also redoubling my efforts at the gym.  This is a change for the good.

Every action has a consequence.  Major actions usually have major consequences.  In a flash, my worldview underwent a not-insignificant paradigm shift.  Although I’m still a bit unsettled, I’m sure there’s opportunity to exploit.

But still … every now and then, even this fool gets startled by his own scarecrows.

I love the folks at Despair, Inc. — I enjoy the cynical way they make hand-over-fist profit by mocking the motivation industry, and I giggle with delight at the parody aphorisms in the company’s “Demotivator” series of posters.

Part of the fun of Despair’s product line is that it is much closer to reality than the usual touchy-feely stock art on corporate conference-room walls.  A few years ago, for example, I purchased for the Herald’s conference room a large poster titled Meeings with the tag line: “None of us is as dumb as all of us.”  Hooray for truth in advertising! 

Yet as I survey the people I encounter at work and in my personal life, I can’t help but be struck by the “small thinking” that predominates.  It’s one thing to think big but — for whatever reason — never achieve, or try to achieve, one’s dreams.  It’s another thing altogether to have dreams and goals that are so depressingly mundane.

Case in point:  As I continue my futile search for Miss Right, I’ve made a point of assessing two characteristics — health and adventure — during the “get to know you” phase.  And apart from the wide latitude women seem to interpret in the concept of physical health, up to and including morbid obesity (I kid you not), I remain mildly astonished at how low most set the bar on what constitutes “adventure.”  I even had one person assure me that she had a strong spirit of adventure and as proof told me about the time she spontaneously drove from Grand Rapids to Detroit to buy … get ready … Krispy Kreme donuts.

Mmmkay.

I don’t advocate for wild-eyed dreams that have no hope of realization.  I don’t expect people to be thrill-junkies intent on pushing their physical and mental limits.  But, my goodness.  It seems so many people are quite content not just to settle for mediocrity, but to aim for it as a goal.

Depressing.  Good thing I had an extra shot of expresso put into my white-chocolate mocha today.

My goodness, it’s been a while since I’ve last updated.  So here goes …

1.  As of this posting, I’ve intercepted 2,346 spam messages.

2.  I’ve had an interesting few weeks switching operating systems on my main desktop computer.  I moved from Windows Vista RC1, which was expiring, to openSuSE 10.2 (Linux).  Which was great — the “start menu” equivalent in KDE is outstanding.  And were it not that I tried too hard to get a 3D desktop going (Beryl or Compiz; neither quite worked right with either of my video cards, an nVidia FX5500 or an ATI Raedon X1300), I might have stuck with openSuSE for the long haul.  But darn if Glx is buggy.  So I thought I’d see what’s new in Kubuntu 6.10 — but more of the same, sans SuSE GUI enhancements.  So after multiple clean installs, I became sufficiently frustrated that I went out and purchased Vista (home premium) AND Office 2007 (standard).  And I’m quite satisfied with the result.

3.  I did pass my yellow-belt test last month, and successfully tested for my first orange stripe today.  I’m now working on mastering Kanshiwa kata, and remembering to breathe.  And watching my flaring elbows.  And my stray rear foot.  And walking backward in Sanchin.  And walking forward in Sanchin.  And ….

4.  I returned to the wild, crazy world of online political simulations again.  What can I say; it’s a hobby.  I’m now focusing on United States Government Simulation (http://worldsimulations.com/USGS/index.php), which has a great GOP team and an interesting setup that includes a bicameral Congress, a UN, a dozen or so state regions, a healthy press, and an active out-of-character discussion forum.  I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the overall tenor of debate and general lack of parliamentary foolishness.

5.  I have the distinct honor of visiting a podiatrist next week.  I apparently crushed a nerve in my right foot, leaving the outer side and heel mostly (and persistently) numb.  Woo hoo.  On the bright side, if my doctor is right in his belief, then this is a minor irritation that will, over a few months, correct itself.

6.  My mother has been learning the fine art of computing via a DSL line and wireless laptop.  And she’s not doing too bad, now that she’s free of the shackles of dial-up.

All for now.