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Annual Birthday Reflection, Part XLVI

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By the time I posted this, I had clicked over the commemoration of yet one more successful orbit ’round this pale blue marble. And in the six months since my last posting, much has happened and much has been learned. Thus I offer my usual annual birthday reflection, all ~4000 words of it this year. (Buckle up and grab a cup of coffee; you’ll be here a hot second.)

My big take-away: Time is short. Be bold. And also, be grateful for a fruitful year of peace and prosperity.

I’ve grown to appreciate the specific timing of my birthday because it inaugurates a recurring period of generalized joy and contentment. From my birthday to Epiphany, we see a bunch of things unfold:

  • 9/15 to 10/31 — the magic of late summer and its gradual yield to the first hints of winter as exemplified by Halloween and All Saints Day
  • 11/1 to Thanksgiving — autumn gives way to winter and the joys of the harvest; for writers, it’s National Novel Writing Month
  • Thanksgiving to Christmas — the magical holiday time, largely consumed by Advent
  • Christmas to New Year’s Day — a floating time between holidays; the flowering of the liturgical Christmas season
  • New Year’s Day to Epiphany — the slow secular wind-down of holidays during the height of the liturgical Christmas season, which then yields to the dark heart of winter and the long slog until Memorial Day

This four-month cycle rinses and repeats each year. It’s my happy time. But there’s a kicker. Each repetition adds a year to the calendar. And it subtracts a year from the unknown pool of years we have ahead of us.

I’ve been guilty of being a bit cavalier with aging. Even when I knew better, I still behaved as if I were invulnerable to the slings and arrows of Father Time. I see this complacency in myself, in the maybe-I’ll-get-to-it-tomorrow approach to the work to remain healthy and vibrant, and I see it in my family’s shifting hairlines. My grandmother is 89. She will turn 90 in May. I remember when she turned 50. For that matter, I remember when my mother turned 30. It seems like yesterday, but also a lifetime ago, when summer peaked at the joint celebration of my mother and my grandfather’s birthday in mid-August. But he died in 2005, and with him, a lot of the traditions that grounded my childhood departed with him.

I was too slow to replace those traditions with ones that felt natural, like an evolution rather than a sad foray into nostalgia. But I’m working on it.

Earlier this year I spontaneously quit picking my fingernails despite having done so all my life. Why did I stop? I have no idea; I was surprised one day to discover that I needed to trim my nails to remove my contacts. Similarly, although I had vague aspirations to start daily journaling for many years, this year I just started. And I’ve kept at it. And I realize that one benefit of logging the little things in my journal is that one day, hopefully far in the future, I won’t have to rely on memory to recall the happy times of my past. Instead, I can read my own reports.

My grandmother never seemed old to me, until just this year. And my mother is approaching 70. Which — wow. It’s not that it’s old, as much is that these numbers seemed to sneak out of nowhere. I don’t feel old, but I’m aware that I’m approaching the point where even if I live to be as old as Queen Elizabeth II, of happy memory, then I’m still sitting at the half-way point between birth and death. 

Have I made the best of it? That’s the question that keeps me up at night.

Updates, in no particular order:

The Daily Grind

The sign outside the office.

Work is — well, work. My primary client remains a direct-sales jewelry company, although I’m expanding my portfolio there to include corporate compliance in addition to strategic revenue analytics. I’ll be very soon hiring subcontractors for this stuff, but the journey to approval with them has taken a while. In addition, I’m back to doing some curriculum work for a university in the Mountain West, mostly QA on courses developed for virtual programs in healthcare quality and analytics.

I have been consistently pulling in five figures of revenue per month. That’s nice. But what’s nicer is that I’m being challenged, as an independent consultant, to expand my skillset in new and exciting ways. For example, I developed the financial modeling for a major field sales incentive that had a greater-than-8x multiplier on revenue relative to total program costs. Then I created the measurement framework for the program and audited post-program compliance.

I’ve functioned like an informal CIO for this jewelry company: In addition to my analytics SOW, I’ve performed a mix of in-person tech support and strategic IT and data-governance consulting. Plus, as of last month, I own the corporate email systems. So it’s a lot, but it’s a good client with good people, and I’m learning a lot about an interesting industry.

On a different front — today marks the one-year anniversary of Allison and I signing the commercial lease for our office building. When we took it over, it needed work. Investment. We put in the dollars and the sweat equity, and now our 3,000 square feet of floor space houses a dojo, a business consultancy, a small press, and a general events center. It’s a space that welcomes many people each week. I’m proud of what we’ve built, and I’m grateful to have a kick-ass partner in this endeavor.

Lakeshore Literary Shenanigans

Lakeshore Literary is evolving rapidly. We are in the reading window for Issue 3 of The Lakeshore Review and we’re in final production for the print versions of issues 1 and 2. I just wrapped up production of Surface Reflections, the inaugural volume of our house fiction anthology. I’m publishing What I Can Do, the memoir of Mary K., the founder of Kid’s Food Basket.

The bookstore is getting finalized. I had a great intern for much of the first half of the year, in the form of Faith from Ferris State University. I have started the process of standing up a non-profit entity, the Lakeshore Literary Foundation; the state paperwork is done and now I have to process the federal filing.

I’m hosting a launch party for the first two issues of the journal, plus the anthology, in late October. Should be a good time. We’re also sponsoring a writers’ Halloween party on the 31st of October, to coincide with the start of National Novel Writing Month. I’m one of the two municipal liaisons for NaNoWriMo for our region (Kent, Ottawa, and Ionia counties) this year, with my friend Mel, so November will certainly be busy.

The Long March to Cupertino

In news sure to delight the shriveled cockles of my friend Roux’s heart, I have been progressing more and more into an Apple-first tech ecosystem. I use an iPhone and an Apple Watch. I have an iPad Air and an M1 Macbook Air. At home, I have an M1 Mac Mini and in the office, a new iMac. I’ve given careful, covetous glances toward the Mac Studio.

What enabled this transition, oddly enough, was a mix of Windows-Mac software parity; the deep integration of iOS, macOS, and watchOS; and (most significantly) my move away from Microsoft services in the form of OneDrive and OneNote. I now rely on a Synology NAS for my file syncing (it has Mac and Windows desktop apps) and a Gitlab repository of Markdown files to replace OneNote.

The sticking point? I still enjoy a few games that are Windows-only. And the deeper integration between Windows and Android, approaching the level of iOS/macOS integration, is a new development that’s pausing a full transition. So I’m in the odd position of running Windows at home (on a brand-new Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio docked into a 4K monitor), running macOS at work, using an Android phone for work, and an iPhone for personal stuff. So there’s still some sorting to be done.

Yet for a guy who a few years ago thought Apple = Satan, it’s been quite a journey.

(And have you seen the new Apple Watch Ultra? Be still, this scuba diver’s heart.)

Hiiiii-ya!

I pity da foo’.

In mid-August I was awarded the rank of shodan (first-degree black belt) in Uechi-ryu karate, at Fourth Form Martial Arts Center in Wyoming, Mich. Four of us were promoted that day; I was the only shodan and we had one promotion each to 3rd, 4th, and 5th degree.

My board, led by Sensei Chris, was comprised of three 6th degree black belts, a 4th degree, a 2nd degree, and a 1st degree. The pre-test was witnessed by Sensei Don, who is expected to earn his 9th degree later this year, in Okinawa.

I started karate at East West Karate in early 2007. I studied there through mid 2008, until I had a significant disagreement with the owner’s wife. In 2021, I started again, encouraged by my friend (and now business partner) Allison. So throughout 2021, under Sensei Chris’s leadership during a time of pandemic-related closures, we had weekly classes at a little gym in Dorr, Michigan. When we opened The L&G Center a year ago, Fourth Form launched. 

Allison inherited some of the equipment and many of the students from East West. Indeed, when I came back in early 2021, I recognized every single face in the karate class. The folks in our dojo have known each other for a long time and support each other. I felt that very strongly, with not only Sensei Chris, but also with Muhamet, Michelle, Allison, Tom, and MIke, who teach the regular classes.

I’m enjoying the opportunity that shodan provides. I can test for nidan — second degree — in one year. All I need to know is my new kata, seiryu, and the “new 10 point” kumite. The rest is pure refinement, which is freeing in its way.

I’d eventually like to teach, and I think Sensei Chris is preparing me with a theoretical framework for the why-and-how that I can communicate to the more conceptually minded students who come through after me. It’s a challenge that I eagerly accept.

Feline Overlords: Or, The Continuing Adventures of the Twin Teenaged Tangerine Terrors

Murphy and Fiona d’Cat, resident overlords.

It occurred to me a few months ago that Murphy d’Cat and Fiona d’Cat, the resident overlords here, are senior citizens. They were born in early 2009, which makes them nearly 14 years old. And you’d be hard-pressed to tell; they still scamper about as if they were three-year-olds, although lately I’ve taken to calling Murphy “Old Man Crabbypants” given his penchant for shepherding me to and from bed each morning and evening to the accompaniment of the songs of his people.

All things considered, these littermates have been a delight. No real adverse behavioral problems and excellent heath. Although, this summer I took them in for their triannual vet visit (for vaccinations; isn’t it odd how anti-vaxxers never give their pets “medical freedom?”) and a week later, poor lil Murph got really sick. Sick enough that I had to take him to the Animal Emergency Hospital. Of which, they’re a great institution that I highly recommend but you better have a fat wallet if the worst should happen — emergency veterinary care isn’t a low-budget endeavor.

Long story short, Murphy had an ingrown dew claw that got infected and his vet missed it on a routine physical inspection just one week prior.  AEH trimmed the claw, gave him some antibiotics, and sent him home at 2 a.m. He recovered just fine, but then a week later started limping. I decided to transfer his care from the “old” vet to the Feline Wellness Center, and Dr. Jen diagnosed him by emailed photos and didn’t even charge me for it. (Grains of litter had attached to the scab from where the claw had grown into his skin, so simply removing what looked like a giant wart provided instant relief).

Of course, the FWC transfer was not an accident, for I recently started volunteering at a no-kill cat rescue and placement center, for which Dr. Jen is the founder and medical director.

Feline Overlords II: Forty of the Little Buggers

Isa (sweet blind ginger) and Mayhem (naughty Siamese), at Big Sids.

In July I enjoyed my first orientation shift at Crash’s Landing and Big Sid’s Sanctuary, after years of prodding by my friend Brittany to take the plunge. These sister shelters manage two different cat populations. Crash’s Landing acts like a traditional cat adoption agency. The shelter only accepts strays and ferals — no owner surrenders — and after they’re medically cleared and judged to be eligible for placement, they go to Crash’s. The facility itself is a free-range affair; the only cages (or “catios”) are for new cats who are too scared to integrate with the other cats at first, and even then the doors usually remain open. 

The other side of the building is Big Sid’s Sanctuary. A majority of the cats are “Sid’s Kids,” and they’re there because they’re either permanent residents (unadoptable to normal families for some reason) or because they’re positive for FIV or FeLV or both.

Most of my cleaning shifts are on the Sid’s side, which is fine because all my favorite cats are there. I sponsor (i.e., pay a monthly donation in the name of a resident cat) two of the beasts, Isa and One-Eyed Jack. Isa is a tiny ginger senior kitty. She is super affectionate and downright fearless; she was found holding her own in the wild and adapted perfectly to life at the shelter. She is also totally blind, and seeing her resilience sometimes puts me to shame. So I trade with her — her inspiration for my cuddles. Judging by the ridiculously loud purring, she seems amenable to this arrangement. One-Eyed Jack, however, is a new resident. He has one eye (duh) and is still quite timid. He is at the opposite end of the fear spectrum from Isa. He let me touch him once, but the one time I was asked to brush him, I ended up bleeding.

I enjoy volunteering here so much that I’ve picked up more substitute shifts than I’ve had assigned shifts, and I’ve joined the adoptions team, helping visitors at semimonthly meet-and-greets to see whether one of the cats might be a good fit for their households.

Given the horror stories of some of these cats — tales of abuse and neglect that would make the very stones weep — I feel some small need to help atone for my fellow humans, some of whom are quite obviously fucking assholes. Plus, cuddles. Except when DMC bites you in the neck while you pet him, and then he has to go into bite quarantine, but that’s a story for a different day.

A Hell of a Drug

The biggest health news of the year is that a whole lot of stuff I’ve written about over the last several years came into crystal-clear focus with a single test my primary-care physician declined to order.

Readers of this blog with a good memory will surely recall me making comments about kinda-sorta struggles with something Covid related, plus yo-yo weight, plus a sense of malaise that dates back to probably late 2016 or early 2017.

When I established a new PCP relationship in mid 2020, I raised the normal conversations about my health history, goals, and family curses. And for the most part, I’m in great health, apart from the family history of hypertension and hypothyroid disorder (the latter of which does not affect me). Yet I had asked my new doctor for a specific test but she refused to order it because she was concerned about the implications for my blood pressure. 

I therefore let it go. I wish I hadn’t.

Not long after 2022 started, I lost a ton of energy. Much of it was mental: Concentration became excruciatingly hard and I lost a lot of physical stamina. It got to the point where I’d feel a brain cloud descend and I knew I had like 30 to 60 seconds before my ability to really think and concentrate would be gone for the rest of the day. So I’d routinely bow out of karate classes, often enough that there was real question about whether I was going to be ready for the August test.

Then in early June, frustrated with how little oomph I had, I ordered a testosterone spit test from Everlywell, through Amazon. And it came back with a troubling result: My free T levels were closer to zero than the lower end of the reference range!

I ended up working with a men’s endocrinology clinic in Florida. My assigned doctor there ordered a physical and lab work, then we had a 30-minute virtual visit. He prescribed testosterone, which I inject twice weekly, and a daily gonadorelin acetate nasal spray to preserve fertility and testicular function/volume. 

The TL;DR? Holy fucking shit, T is no joke. 

I felt a “power surge” 30 minutes after my very first injection — there’s no better way to say it. I waited 10 minutes after that injection to watch for potential anaphylaxis, and then I made breakfast. And while scrambling my eggs (hahahaha) I experienced a brief whole-body sensation like touching a live but weak electrical current.

Six weeks later, all the little things that had bedeviled me for years had mostly vanished. No more brain fog. No more lack of energy. Better sleep. Vastly better stamina. And, obviously, Mr. Happy down there was suddenly happy again, as if he remembered what being 15 felt like.

A big chunk of men over 40 experience depressed testosterone levels. This is an eminently treatable condition, but most guys don’t talk about it. And I get it. But I’m talking about it because the improvements to my life after beginning testosterone replacement therapy are so significant. There’s no shame in having low T levels; there’s plenty of shame in lacking the balls — so to speak — to fix the problem and live a manifestly better life.

Coolant, Coolant, Everywhere

In 2016 I purchased a 2013 Chevy Cruze. And in fairness, although I’m not a huge fan of sedans, the Cruze has been good to me. But the ol’ girl’s getting older and so twice in the last two weeks, I’ve needed to drop the beast off at a repair facility to address coolant leaks. 

The first leak has persisted a while; a hose connecting the coolant reservoir to the lower engine bloc has been weepy for like a year. The second leak, just this week, was “fun” in the most unexpected sense of the term. Suddenly a gusher of white smoke erupted from under the hood. A hose assembly had cracked and spayed coolant all over the manifold. Chaos! Disaster!

Everything got cleaned up and fixed, but at $2,100 invested so far, I’m hoping there’s not a third leak in my immediate future.

A Grave Undertaking

What better way to celebrate being half-way to 92 than by purchasing your final resting place? One day in July my mother texted me asking if I was busy. She doesn’t often do that, so I called her. Turned out, she heard there was a “special” running on graves at Catholic Cemeteries and wanted to know if I was interested.

It hadn’t been much on my mind, but I figured, why not? So we toured Holy Cross Cemetery in Grand Rapids. There’s an area near the back, adjacent to a new and mostly unused portion of the cemetery, that had plenty of availability. And, oddly enough, we looked around and saw dozens and dozens of people and families we recognized. It was as if the old Polish Catholics from the Upper West Side all chose to cluster in this one area of Holy Cross. 

We bought adjoining plots. The cemetery borders West Catholic High School — the same institution whence I matriculated in 1994. And standing literally atop my plot (you pick them out before you buy them), I stared at the high school and said, “You know, 30 years ago, I was inside of those windows, looking out.” It would never have occurred to me, as a high-school student, to even consider that I might die, and if I did, where my corpse would repose. 

It turns out, not far outside the windows of the south wing of the school.

It also turns out that standing atop your own grave is both deeply calming and deeply creepy.

Familial Perambulations

Starting last month, inspired by my brother’s long period off work recovering from shoulder surgery, he and my mother and I started walking on Wednesday evenings along the Kent Trails near Millennium Park. We’re starting at Secchia Meadows and doing two-to-three-mile circuits. It’s been a fun time to enough the fresh air, chat a bit, and chalk up some walkin’ miles.

My brother ended up hoofing up to 10 miles per day on his medical leave; he lost more than 50 pounds in just a few months. He re-caught the hiking bug; we’ve been talking about a weekend excursion, and also about starting a hike of the entire North Country National Scenic Trail in the state of Michigan — more than 1,100 miles from Ohio to Wisconsin. He planned the entire Michigan hike in a detailed spreadsheet, which is impressive work.

Domicile Disruptions

I moved into “The Fortress” in early December, 2010. I didn’t plan on staying long. But the landlord at the time, Rod, was a charming fellow whom I still account as a friend, and the rents were astonishingly reasonable.

A dozen years later, the guy to whom Rod sold the house in late 2018 is now listing it again. I’ll refrain from commenting on all of this, but it does prompt me to think about alternative homefronts. I have time to make a decision, but the thought of buying a plot of land and then slowly improving it sounds really appealing.

A Man of Letters

Wahl-Eversharp combo, ca. 1917-1919.

I’ve become something of a pen snob. And by “pen snob” I mean that I have become an aficionado of fine fountain pens and premium inks. My friend Dawn and I exchange handwritten letters showcasing our favorite pens and inks; the fact that Dawn lives in Melbourne, Vic., makes the passage of paper all the more fun. I recently won an eBay auction for a Wahl-Eversharp pen-and-pencil combo; the design dates the instruments from the period 1917 to 1919, and the pen had been lovingly restored. It writes beautifully (if a bit wet) with my Iroshizuku Asa-Gao (purplish blue) ink. And the pencil still, uh, pencils.

Did I mention I bought a ticket to the Detroit Pen Show in late October?

Smith-Corona Sterling, ca. 1946.

In the last few months I’ve also acquired a lovely, excellent-condition Smith-Corona Sterling manual typewriter, with the original travel case and a fresh ribbon and even the original instruction manual. I used it to type a letter to my aunt Mary. She and I used to trade letters when I was a kid and she lived in Oregon. The typewriter dates to 1946, according to the serial number (it’s the 4A series). 

I think I’m going to make a habit of using the postal service to communicate. The process of writing longhand or by typewriter forces oneself to be clear, concise, and thoughtful in a way that text messaging or emails don’t demand. It stretches one’s thinking in salutary ways, plus it communicates a sense that “you are important enough to justify this extra effort.”

So if you’d like to become a USPS pen pal, send me your address.

And with that — ciao!

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Turning 40: A Reflection

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I’m told that 40 is the new 30. I hope not; my 30s — particularly the first half of that decade — weren’t all that enjoyable. If my 40s are like my late 30s, though, then bring it on!

Some background: Heretofore, birthdays (especially those evenly divisible by 5) have been a real disappointment. After 21, birthdays don’t matter much. I think I didn’t pay a lot of attention to 25. However, 30 was well-nigh traumatic; the only saving grace was that just two days after, I stepped on a plane to San Diego for my first-ever conference speaking gig. That trip was magical, offering a distraction from pointless introspection. Worse was 35; at that point, you’re half-way to 70 and the phrase “middle aged” starts to crop up. You’re less culturally aligned with your younger friends, but (at least for me) not really settled into a long-term life trajectory. It’s an awkward period, especially if you’re not ensnared in the domestic bliss of spouse and children and white picket fences and minivans. You don’t necessarily fit anywhere. You’re too old to say within the immediate-post-college crowd; you’re too young to spend afternoons on the golf course reminiscing about the Viet Cong. You’re too old to shop at Abercrombie & Fitch; you’re too young to shop at J.C. Penney. You just kinda exist in a grey zone.

But 40? Bah. Just another day.

My thinking about aging has simmered down the last few years. A big part of this serenity relates to the dawning self-awareness that with age comes experience, and that experience brings real benefits. Nowhere does that perspective shine more strongly than at work, where the 20-something fresh-outta-college people we often hire seem to be distracted by irrelevancies. I hear the things that cause them so much angst and say to myself, “Self, that’s a whole lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” In other words: Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, threw the T-shirt in the trash. They spend a lot of time worrying about things that don’t matter. Then again, at that age, I did, too. It’s liberating being on the other side of that divide.

The last few years, with my promotion into management and arrival on various boards of directors and running a small business on the side, have engendered experiences an order of magnitude removed from worrying about who said what on Facebook and which party to attend on the coming weekend. Plus, a solid mid-career professional existence provides means and assets that remain out the reach of younger adults. The stakes are different, so the betting strategy adjusts accordingly.

I am aware, as I occasionally peruse this blog’s archives (I’ve been writing at A Mild Voice of Reason since I was 29!), that at times I’ve raged about getting older or about finding purpose in ways that are, in retrospect, incredibly whiny. Those posts provide milestones along my evolution from pseudo-sophisticated 20-something to a calmer, more focused 40-year-old. And I’m OK with that. I think at some point, you have to stop looking at life as something to be manicured and just live it.

I’m actually pretty happy with my life now. The basics are so well established that I don’t think about them — I don’t worry about covering the rent, I drive a newish car, all the things that should be insured are fully covered, I have a healthy retirement account going, the cats never run out of food — thus freeing more time to focus on other things of greater substance. Like Caffeinated Press. Or my personal writing. Or NAHQ. Or my career at Priority Health. Or the podcast. Or my outdoor hobbies.

But getting there wasn’t always easy, and the barriers were pretty much all of my own making. I wasted that critical 16-to-21 period by making bad choice after bad choice; it was really only the disapprobation of my grandfather (I can’t believe it’s been 11 years ago, this week, that he passed away) that nudged me off a self-destructive path. My family teed me up perfectly for a life of high success. If I’ve managed to achieve middling success, it’s because I pissed away the advantages they bequeathed to me but managed to get lucky with a partial recovery.

My 20s weren’t solid. I was a long-term student. I had a decent job, but didn’t really focus on it. I spent a lot of time in coffee shops, plotting big things that never came to fruition because if I actually tried to execute, but failed, then I’d deal a fatal wound to my own personal mythos of smug omnipotence.

My early 30s were the worst. They started off well enough, with a newfound appreciation for fitness and a devotion to exercise and martial arts. But then I got sick. And made more self-defeating choices, to boot. It wasn’t until five or six years ago that I really re-founded myself, mostly by recognizing that aspiration is nice but it doesn’t pay the bills. And, gee, you really do have to pay the bills. A certain shame at not really being a grown-up offers a powerful, if unplanned, motivation to clean up one’s act.

Many years ago I started a running goal list. Some of those goals, I’ve written about; others, not so much. That list sits in one of my OneNote notebooks, so I can see how it’s changed over the years. Some items that seemed so important six years ago now amuse me. Some current items would have never struck me as being important in those days. Other items have been checked off as successes. Still others remain, their staying power helping me to recognize what’s constant and giving me a focus for my future efforts.

I’ve learned that being busy matters, but only if you’re occupied with meaningful work. I’ve learned that obsessing about love and lust is a sure-fire tell that you haven’t yet learned to love yourself, and that when you finally do love yourself for who you are, the Captain Ahab pursuit of romance seems silly. And at some point, you have to welcome the occasional failure as an opportunity to thrive, and as an object lesson in (finally) overcoming imposter syndrome and all the painfully awkward justifications that prop it up.

Today, I turn 40. And you know what? It’s just another day. What matters isn’t the number, but what you do with the hours allotted to you.

Make yours count.

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Annual Birthday Reflection, Vol. XXXIX

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In the wee hours of Saturday, the 12th of September, my cousin Nicole delivered a healthy, happy baby girl. Emma is adorable; Facebook proves it. Emma’s arrival, just three scant days before my 39th birthday, is worth a moment’s reflection.

Let’s begin with today. I got up a bit before 7 a.m. and put my pants on, one leg at a time, as per usual. I expended considerable quality time rubbing the soft underbellies of both Murphy and Fiona before trudging to the office. The day was filled with sundry tasks, broken up by a birthday-driven Fancy Carrot Cake Showdown for which Brittany and Luke each brought — you guessed it — a fancy carrot cake into the office. (Both were tasty.) I left right around 5 p.m. and drove to my mom’s house, where I got a card and a mini cheesecake and the chance to visit with Gunner the Mighty German Shepherd. Then, off to the Caffeinated Press office until around 10 p.m., putting the finishing touches on the 2015 ArtPrize anthology sponsored by the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters and the Cascade Writers’ Group (we’re publishing their edited work). And now, one Lean Cuisine and one glass of diet Coke later, here I sit, in my home office, blogging merrily.

Fancy Carrot Cake Showdown
Fancy Carrot Cake Showdown

Throughout this pleasant but fairly unremarkable day, my mind wandered to thoughts about how my thinking has evolved over the last year. The biggest “surprise” was how much my priorities have pivoted toward two themes: Mastering the Basics, and Cultivating Excellence.

Mastering the Basics

This will sound bad, but hey — I’m a single male. So here goes.

You know when you’re “younger” and certain chore-like subjects don’t seem as pressing? Well, now they matter. Stuff like monitoring my 403(b) account, ensuring full and appropriate life/health/auto/renters insurance, paying bills on time, keeping the bedding clean, paying down the student loans, disinfecting the bathroom, etc. Routine activities, but part and parcel of life’s delayed-gratification busywork. Maybe the married-with-children thing forces a degree of discipline early, but for me and for friends similarly situated, we’ve been able to skate by without having to be excessively disciplined. But now that discipline is starting to assert itself naturally.

The joke with a subset of my friends is that “#Adulting is Hard,” but there’s an element of truth to the claim. Like transitioning from the Grasshopper into the Ant.

Cultivating Excellence

When I think about my top priorities for the next year, they’re not “fun” in any meaningful sense, but in an odd sort of way, I’m eager to attack them. The biggies are a counterassault in the Battle of the Bulge, returning to school for a master’s degree and publishing a novel with a press other than my own. Secondarily, it’s master-diver certification and an overseas trip.

I think it’s important to be excellent at something, or several things. I’m a fan of the Jack of All Trades approach to expertise, but even Jack can become an exemplar of excellence in a few specific areas. Genial generalists are nice people, but excellence is a survival strategy.

A decade ago, I fancied keeping my options open. Now, I realize that excellence opens doors that lead to even more options. A decade ago, I obsessed over dating, video games and running. Now, I have no time for games, no burning desire to dive into the dating pool and no luxury to just lace up and head out. A decade ago, I had a job. Now, I have two separate careers.

* * *

So now the clock will tick over another day, just as today has ticked another tock on life’s odometer. I’m neither happy nor sad about another birthday. All I know is, time’s a-wastin’, and much remains to be done.

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Birthday Retrospective, Part XXXVIII

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On Monday I transitioned from a defensible “mid thirties” to unambiguously “late thirties.” I’m more sanguine about the prospect than I might have been a few years ago. Let’s explore why.
First, the last year has been ridiculously busy. I can’t ever recall being this consistently overwhelmed with stuff to do. It started late last October, continued through National Novel Writing Month, persisted through the December holidays and never slowed down. I don’t get days off or weekends off anymore. Yet the stress from doing all that extra stuff is counterbalanced by a sense of mission and progress that’s refreshing. It’s a good kind of busy, for the most part. There’s a method to the madness.
Second, I’m in better physical shape today than I was a decade ago. When I turned 28, I was morbidly obese and on track for a cornucopia of early-onset chronic diseases. Although my calendar’s insanity lately has meant that my waistline has increased a wee bit, I’m healthier today than a decade ago. And that’s a good thing.
Third, my attitude on life has significantly changed. The “been there, done that” sense of serenity about life’s little problems means that the level of daily drama I allow myself to endure has plummeted. The long view makes more sense now than it did several years ago, and the existential stress about aging has given way to recognizing that in the long corridor of life, some doors open, some close — and some open or closed based on the lock status of yet other doors. The path to joy reveals itself in the knowledge that it’s OK if Circumstance bolts some doors, provided you tread boldly across the threshold of newly unbolted doors.
Every year over the eight or so years I’ve run this blog, I’ve written a birthday retrospective. As I look back at prior stories, I’m struck by how adolescent some of them are. When you have the privilege of free time to luxuriate in faux-sophisticated existential angst, I suppose it’s no surprise that faux-sophisticated existential angst should appear on blog posts. When you get to the point when you’re working 14-hour days doing Grown Up work and concede you can’t keep up with everything, then those little luxuries vanish. And when they vanish, so also does the mindset that underlay them.
My 37th year was marked by progress that prompts stretch goals for even more progress:

  • I accepted a promotion at work, leaving me with a nice raise and six FTE — as well as a lot of opportunity to grow our team’s portfolio. The next challenge is to make ourselves indispensable to senior leadership.
  • I wrote a novel. The next challenge is to finish the editing and shop it for publication.
  • I bought my dive gear and got back in the water. The next challenge is to earn master diver certification.
  • I started, with a group of friends, a publishing house. The next challenge is to bring it to profitability.
  • I attended the Michigan Republican county and state conventions as a delegate. The next challenge is to continue to grow with local political leaders.
  • I became president-elect of the Michigan Association for Healthcare Quality, with responsibility for executing next week’s 1.5-day state educational conference in Traverse City. The next challenge is to pull off a more significant conference next October in Grand Rapids.
  • I attended various Las Vegas events with other podcasters. The next challenge is to keep those relationships healthy and enduring.

The world is awash in oysters ready to be cracked, but the full flowering of success comes when people realize that the possibilities that seemed so important in their youth aren’t the things that are important later in life.

Personal

Annual Birthday Reflection, 2012 Edition

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So. Yesterday marked the beginning of year No. 36. All things considered, No. 35 was refreshingly solid:

  • Nothing bad happened.
  • I experienced some lovely travel events, including vacation trips to Las Vegas and Windsor, Ont., and a business trip to San Diego.
  • I’m in (slightly) better physical shape than I was a year ago.
  • I earned my Technician license for amateur radio, which was a bucket-list item.
  • I’ve replaced most of my “lost” outdoors equipment, including hiking gear, and acquired and actually used a new kayak.
  • Tony and I have done a pretty good job keeping current on our podcasts.
  • I competed in the 2011 National Novel Writing Month and learned a bit of humility in the process.
  • I finally finished building out my home office and fully stocking my home-based “vice station” of spirits, liqueurs and cigars.
  • Gillikin Consulting has seen real profitability for the first time since 2008.
  • My circle of friends grew substantially through the WriteOn! group and our monthly cigar-and-cocktail evenings.

The observance of my birth went off without any unwelcome drama. Ronda very kindly got me a T-shirt and a scrumptious birthday cake on Friday. I got cards from my mom and grandmother. Tony, Jen, Jon and Emilie spent the weekend in Grand Rapids; at considerable expense to themselves, we had dinner yesterday at Judson’s Steakhouse then spent a fair amount of time imbibing at Cygnus27. Then back to Cygnus27 this morning for a champagne brunch. Yummy. And they got me two bottles — one of a tasty, tasty single-malt Scotch and one of a smooth bourbon.

I’ve drawn two major life lessons in the last 12 months.

First, I handle stress best when most things are moving smoothly along several different dimensions. Probably this reflects my own natural way of approximating Maslow’s Hierarchy. Those dimensions include:

  • Living in a place that you’d be happy to welcome guests into.
  • Being reliably mobile.
  • Looking and feeling healthy.
  • Having enough disposable income that you can handle sudden problems or unexpected opportunities without sweating the bank account.
  • Pursuing meaningful life goals and being able to demonstrate excellence in a self-defined niche.

When any of those broad categories fall short, I tend to obsess over them and then other things begin to destabilize, like the roving finger in the proverbial dike.  So paying attention to how things are going and being more proactive at life planning helps keep the Ship of State on course.

Second, I’m just beginning to sense the attitudinal benefits attendant to growing older. I used to genuinely fear aging; now, I’m more stoic about it and more welcoming of the experiences that influence thought patterns — not a bad trade for the occasional grey hair. I think the tipping point was noticing how my approach to problems has shifted. I’m more often approaching them with a patient “been there, done that, no big deal” mindset that reduces the drama. If some of the uncertainty at the hospital had played out a few years ago instead of now, for example, I’m pretty sure I would have responded more aggressively and, thereby, shot myself in the foot.

Put differently: More and more of the knowledge I’ve had in my head is becoming internalized in my heart. Many of the lessons I knew in an academic sense have become more “real” because I’ve accumulated enough experiences to move from knowledge to wisdom. As we remember from Gillikinism #44: “Experience puts meat on the bones of theory.”

All that having been said, I guess I’m OK being 36. Not that I have much choice. But I see more clearly now than I used to that the decisions I make today and tomorrow will decide whether next year’s birthday blog post will be positive, negative or neutral.

Personal, Philosophy, Vices

Annual Birthday Reflection, version 35.0

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On account of my Vegas vacation, I was unable to perform my annual birthday blog post, a tradition extending back to 2006. But let not your hearts be troubled: Here’s the post, albeit delayed a bit. Forgive me; I’m old.

  1. Never assume you’re sitting pretty, particularly in politically charged environments. At the hospital, for example, my comfortable pseudo-leadership of my team underwent a full-frontal assault for no other reason than the org chart changed. Play the long game and avoid making strategic errors over tactical challenges. At the same time, although capitalizing on uncertainty has its benefits, it comes with a downside: As soon as someone doesn’t like the fact you’re filling a role unofficially, it becomes a crisis of epic proportions. Once the foot is in the door, cultivate certainty and reduce ambiguity in your work and in your relationships with others.
  2. This marks the fifth consecutive year I’ve celebrated a birthday at a different domicile. This year, the apartment/house downtown. Last year, the house on the upper west side. The year before, the apartment in Standale. The year before that, the condo in Walker. And before then? The apartment in Kentwood. I’ve been more transient than I’ve realized.
  3. Goal setting is great. Revising your goals is great. Revising your goals to kick the deadlines back six months, year after year … not so great. Do, or don’t do.
  4. Apparently my cousin did a full-on Ironman triathlon last week. Wow. She impresses me. I am going to try to psych myself into performing at her level. I’ve had good luck, pre-Vegas, at slimming down. A winter of training and dieting will put me in fighting form for the spring. Fifth Third Riverbank Run, anyone? I’ll be damned if I’ve peaked physically in my early 30s. I want to be that old guy in the gym who still runs 50 miles a week well into his 80s.
  5. I’m growing in the opinion that the ping of self-worth you get in the moment when you take care of someone else isn’t worth the long-term price. Know when to cut losses and attack a problem from a different angle.
  6. Solving problems when they arise usually works better than sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away.
  7. My disposition continues to move away from acquiring material things and toward acquiring a rich diversity of experiences.
  8. It seems of late that people are flaking out more often — family, friends, co-workers. The real question is how to deal with it. Do you accept the inconsistency to maintain the relationship and pretend it’s not an issue, or do you sever the relationship and focus on building social roots elsewhere? Not an easy question.
  9. I’ve started smoking three to five cigars per week, as well as enjoying adult cocktails (not to the point of intoxication!) more frequently. Usually while reading the news and commentary of the day. The practice marks a successful way of unwinding — of creating a wall of separation between “work time” and “personal time.” A salutary habit, even if I get grief for the alcohol and tobacco by various do-gooders in my life.

My 34th year, all told, wasn’t bad. Things went reasonably well at the hospital, I had my best year yet as a freelancer, I moved into a comfortable downtown apartment, I’ve slimmed down and am more fit than a year ago, and my finances have stabilized in the green. I went to Vegas twice and Miami Beach once. These are all good things — perhaps a platform to grow upon in the year to come.

Personal, Vices

Jason’s Vegas Vacation: A Recap

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What better way to celebrate being closer to age 70 than to one’s birth, than to celebrate in style in The Happiest Place on Earth? Last week, to honor All Things Gillikin ™, Tony and I — with his wife’s forbearance — went to Las Vegas on a terrific offer from the Wynn. Herewith a recapitulation of the festivities.

Monday

I arrived in Lansing at 4 p.m. Tony drove us to Detroit Metro; we hopped a non-stop flight on Spirit Airlines from DTW to LAS at 9 p.m. Before departure, I received gifts including a grab-bag of travel goodies from Tony’s parents. When we hit Detroit, Tony bought us each a scratch-off lottery ticket. My ticket won: A sign of things to come. After grabbing some delicious food at Earl of Sandwich, we hopped aboard and enjoyed several mini-bottles of Johnnie Walker Black on the flight.

Once in Vegas, we caught a shuttle to the Flamingo, where Tony got us one comped night. After a free and unrequested upgrade to a Go! Room, we hoofed it to Bally’s for a bit of video poker, then to Cosmopolitan for a slice of “hidden pizza” — “hidden,” because the tiny little pizza joint isn’t on any resort map and resides at the end of an out-of-the-way, nondescript corridor. The pizza was pretty good, but the customers behind us appeared to be intoxicated Jersey Shore cast party rejects, so we bailed after plowing through our slices. We returned to the Flamingo and went to sleep.

Tuesday

After making Tony über-crabby (I dared to turn on a light in the room before noon), we checked out of the Flamingo, stored our bags with the bell desk then walked back to Cosmopolitan for brunch at Wicked Spoon buffet. From there, we ambled to Mandalay Bay for cigars at the Davidoff store, then we took the Las Vegas Monorail back to Bally’s. Our destination was Book & Stage, a sports bar in the Cosmo.

Book & Stage was a treat: The drinks were all comped as long as we played video poker. And it wasn’t well-drink crap, either — we pushed their mixology to a significant degree, including Scotch cocktails, top-shelf rum and vodka. Hats off to Cori and Danny, our bartenders, who made the gaming experience there as pleasant as it was “lubricating.” As I recall, I broke even during game play, but if we had ordered drinks like what we had enjoyed for free, our tab would have been north of $150.

After retrieving our bags from Flamingo, we caught a cab to Wynn. We had a kick-ass offer from Wynn: Three free nights, $200/night in food and beverage credit and $1,000 in free slot play. Yes. You read that correctly. Plus, we had a parlor suite in the Wynn Tower Suites (almost 1,300 square feet, with an average daily room rate of $1,216) — a hotel inside a hotel, with its own private café, elevator banks, pool, exterior entrance, concierge and reception desk. Oh, and its own private entrance to high-stakes Baccarat. We were in the part of Vegas normally reserved to the ultra-high-roller set, and it showed. I couldn’t complain about the service of Wynn employees if you paid me to nit-pick details.

Dinner that night came courtesy of Sinatra at Encore — a high-end steakhouse with a Frank Sinatra (duh) theme. With gratuity, the meal was roughly $250 for the two of us. My fillet was seared to perfection; our server, Robert, delivered impeccable service; and our table near the windows overlooking the outdoor gardens would have been the height of romance had my dining companion not been Tony.

Our gullets having been satiated, we meandered over to the Wynn casino floor. Lori at the Red Card kiosk very pleasantly and transparently authorized $1,000 in slot credit on my player’s card — no hassle, no “really? what’s your confirmation number and give me a notarized copy of your birth certificate” nonsense. I played through the $1,000 on 50-cent triple play bonus poker (i.e., $7.50 per hand). Came out in good shape; after I played through the slot credit, I cashed out for $1,220, which I split with Tony as per our agreement. Hitting a straight flush on all three lines helped, as well as hitting a pair of quads. And the kicker? As we were gambling, a Wynn casino attendant stopped by and gave me an extra $10 in free slot play “just to say thanks for visiting us today.” We continued to gamble … I think we ran through roughly $6,000 after the free play and I ended up being “up” even factoring out the free play. Not bad for a night’s work.

Wednesday

Wednesday was Downtown Day. After chasing the comp at Wynn (and note to self: never remind Tony that I charged him $25 to play $1 triple-play video poker to get him the points to get free buffet — chasing the comp cost us about $10 more than cost of the meal tickets) we enjoyed Wynn buffet. From there, we went to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace and bought cigars at the Casa Fuente store — mine was a buttery, rich Fuente Fuente Opus X.

Much of Wednesday was spent at Caesar’s. We gambled on Tony’s players’ card to get him back to Platinum with the Total Rewards program. I lost $110; he lost $400 — but for him, it was the principle of the thing.

We stopped at a bar on the way back and had a couple of flavored martinis. Dinner was at Switch — a steakhouse at Encore that had great food, excellent wine and every so often, the decor changes. The ceiling and several wall panels rotate and fold so that the appearance of the restaurant changes. The lights switch color and intensity and the music modulates to match. Quite pretty. Costed about $250.

From Switch, we caught a cab to Golden Nugget. I had never been downtown before, so we walked through the Fremont Street Experience and all the casinos contained therein. Downtown is “old school” Las Vegas — some slot machines still have slots for nickels and pay out in nickels (grab a bucket!). The Fremont Street Experience itself is a covered walkway with LED lights on the roof that display light shows. The theme this year is the 1980s, so we got to see shows blaring to anthems from Queen, KISS, etc. I enjoyed my Fuente Fuente Opus X as we rotated around casinos, playing slots here and there and otherwise just watching. We spent an hour or so playing craps and table games at (I think) Four Queens and ended up the evening playing slots at El Cortez before catching a taxi back to Wynn, although we did put in a brief appearance at Insert Coins, a bar/club with vintage video games everywhere. Before we left downtown, we tried the zip line: You get harnessed up at five stories above the merriment on Fremont Street, then shoot down a quarter-mile-long cable to the other end of the district. Quite fun.

Thursday

Happy Birthday to Me. We enjoyed breakfast at Bellagio’s buffet, then walked through several different casinos playing penny slots until we ended up at Bally’s to play one verrrrrry slow five-game round of keno (I actually broke even, go figure) and then video poker. Our favorite cocktail waitress, Diane, was working and ensured that our Bacardi-and-diets flowed swiftly and stiffly. Visits to Diane have become something of a habit; she is a cocktail waitress at Bally’s who impressed us by remembering us from between visits a few years ago. She’s turned into our “Vegas friend” and we congratulate her on her recent marriage.

After gambling a good long while, we returned to Wynn, napped a bit, then hoofed to SW Steakhouse for a $350 dinner. We began with cocktails: Tony bought us each a snifter of Johnnie Walker Blue (best $100 he spent the whole trip) then we sat down for dinner. We both had fillets, with shared gourmet mac-and-cheese and scalloped potatoes. Plus a tasty dessert and a half-bottle of really nice pinot.

Our plan for the night was to visit Imperial Palace for karaoke, a Jason and Tony tradition. However, we first walked down to Riviera (we think it’s on the short list for the next casino closure) and over to “Slots o’ Fun” and Circus Circus before walking back. After a detour into Walgreen’s for water, we hoofed it into the scary no-man’s land of failed casinos down Convention Center Drive, including the former Greek Isles Casino (which was the former Debbie Reynolds Casino, of all things). There were maybe two dozen slot machines in there, plus cockroaches all along the sidewalk out front. If ever a casino had a buffet that served “some of the yeller” — this is it.

But instead of heading to the I.P., we called it a night early.

Friday

After a luxurious morning — including a relaxing soak in the whirlpool bath — we walked to The Mirage for breakfast buffet, then to Paris Las Vegas for souvenirs for our peeps in da Michigan hood. We returned to the Wynn, checked out, and waited for our shuttle bus. Wynn offered to send a car for us, but I figured we had already paid for the shuttle. This calculation proved regrettable: The shuttle was almost 45 minutes late, and would have dropped us off at McCarran with far less lead time than we would have preferred. So, we got off the shuttle at Palazzo and caught a cab to the airport (courtesy of a driver whose conversation was as fast and as disjointed as a chipmunk on amphetamines). We got on, caught our flight out, and life was good. We connected through O’Hare, but we ended up saying on the same plane, with the same punchy flight attendants, for the Detroit leg.

Our ride from DTW back to Lansing was uneventful; I played some of the Rush 24×7 podcast for us. My drive back to Grand Rapids was quiet and peaceful. I got home and crashed around 4 a.m.

… and thus, All Things Gillikin came to an end. And all told, after all the cigars and gambling and drinking and fine dining, I came home only $200 lighter than when I left. Not bad. Not bad, at all — and perhaps a harbinger of good things to come for the second half of my useful life.

Personal, Vices

Jason's Vegas Vacation: A Recap

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What better way to celebrate being closer to age 70 than to one’s birth, than to celebrate in style in The Happiest Place on Earth? Last week, to honor All Things Gillikin ™, Tony and I — with his wife’s forbearance — went to Las Vegas on a terrific offer from the Wynn. Herewith a recapitulation of the festivities.
Monday
I arrived in Lansing at 4 p.m. Tony drove us to Detroit Metro; we hopped a non-stop flight on Spirit Airlines from DTW to LAS at 9 p.m. Before departure, I received gifts including a grab-bag of travel goodies from Tony’s parents. When we hit Detroit, Tony bought us each a scratch-off lottery ticket. My ticket won: A sign of things to come. After grabbing some delicious food at Earl of Sandwich, we hopped aboard and enjoyed several mini-bottles of Johnnie Walker Black on the flight.
Once in Vegas, we caught a shuttle to the Flamingo, where Tony got us one comped night. After a free and unrequested upgrade to a Go! Room, we hoofed it to Bally’s for a bit of video poker, then to Cosmopolitan for a slice of “hidden pizza” — “hidden,” because the tiny little pizza joint isn’t on any resort map and resides at the end of an out-of-the-way, nondescript corridor. The pizza was pretty good, but the customers behind us appeared to be intoxicated Jersey Shore cast party rejects, so we bailed after plowing through our slices. We returned to the Flamingo and went to sleep.
Tuesday
After making Tony über-crabby (I dared to turn on a light in the room before noon), we checked out of the Flamingo, stored our bags with the bell desk then walked back to Cosmopolitan for brunch at Wicked Spoon buffet. From there, we ambled to Mandalay Bay for cigars at the Davidoff store, then we took the Las Vegas Monorail back to Bally’s. Our destination was Book & Stage, a sports bar in the Cosmo.
Book & Stage was a treat: The drinks were all comped as long as we played video poker. And it wasn’t well-drink crap, either — we pushed their mixology to a significant degree, including Scotch cocktails, top-shelf rum and vodka. Hats off to Cori and Danny, our bartenders, who made the gaming experience there as pleasant as it was “lubricating.” As I recall, I broke even during game play, but if we had ordered drinks like what we had enjoyed for free, our tab would have been north of $150.
After retrieving our bags from Flamingo, we caught a cab to Wynn. We had a kick-ass offer from Wynn: Three free nights, $200/night in food and beverage credit and $1,000 in free slot play. Yes. You read that correctly. Plus, we had a parlor suite in the Wynn Tower Suites (almost 1,300 square feet, with an average daily room rate of $1,216) — a hotel inside a hotel, with its own private café, elevator banks, pool, exterior entrance, concierge and reception desk. Oh, and its own private entrance to high-stakes Baccarat. We were in the part of Vegas normally reserved to the ultra-high-roller set, and it showed. I couldn’t complain about the service of Wynn employees if you paid me to nit-pick details.
Dinner that night came courtesy of Sinatra at Encore — a high-end steakhouse with a Frank Sinatra (duh) theme. With gratuity, the meal was roughly $250 for the two of us. My fillet was seared to perfection; our server, Robert, delivered impeccable service; and our table near the windows overlooking the outdoor gardens would have been the height of romance had my dining companion not been Tony.
Our gullets having been satiated, we meandered over to the Wynn casino floor. Lori at the Red Card kiosk very pleasantly and transparently authorized $1,000 in slot credit on my player’s card — no hassle, no “really? what’s your confirmation number and give me a notarized copy of your birth certificate” nonsense. I played through the $1,000 on 50-cent triple play bonus poker (i.e., $7.50 per hand). Came out in good shape; after I played through the slot credit, I cashed out for $1,220, which I split with Tony as per our agreement. Hitting a straight flush on all three lines helped, as well as hitting a pair of quads. And the kicker? As we were gambling, a Wynn casino attendant stopped by and gave me an extra $10 in free slot play “just to say thanks for visiting us today.” We continued to gamble … I think we ran through roughly $6,000 after the free play and I ended up being “up” even factoring out the free play. Not bad for a night’s work.
Wednesday
Wednesday was Downtown Day. After chasing the comp at Wynn (and note to self: never remind Tony that I charged him $25 to play $1 triple-play video poker to get him the points to get free buffet — chasing the comp cost us about $10 more than cost of the meal tickets) we enjoyed Wynn buffet. From there, we went to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace and bought cigars at the Casa Fuente store — mine was a buttery, rich Fuente Fuente Opus X.
Much of Wednesday was spent at Caesar’s. We gambled on Tony’s players’ card to get him back to Platinum with the Total Rewards program. I lost $110; he lost $400 — but for him, it was the principle of the thing.
We stopped at a bar on the way back and had a couple of flavored martinis. Dinner was at Switch — a steakhouse at Encore that had great food, excellent wine and every so often, the decor changes. The ceiling and several wall panels rotate and fold so that the appearance of the restaurant changes. The lights switch color and intensity and the music modulates to match. Quite pretty. Costed about $250.
From Switch, we caught a cab to Golden Nugget. I had never been downtown before, so we walked through the Fremont Street Experience and all the casinos contained therein. Downtown is “old school” Las Vegas — some slot machines still have slots for nickels and pay out in nickels (grab a bucket!). The Fremont Street Experience itself is a covered walkway with LED lights on the roof that display light shows. The theme this year is the 1980s, so we got to see shows blaring to anthems from Queen, KISS, etc. I enjoyed my Fuente Fuente Opus X as we rotated around casinos, playing slots here and there and otherwise just watching. We spent an hour or so playing craps and table games at (I think) Four Queens and ended up the evening playing slots at El Cortez before catching a taxi back to Wynn, although we did put in a brief appearance at Insert Coins, a bar/club with vintage video games everywhere. Before we left downtown, we tried the zip line: You get harnessed up at five stories above the merriment on Fremont Street, then shoot down a quarter-mile-long cable to the other end of the district. Quite fun.
Thursday
Happy Birthday to Me. We enjoyed breakfast at Bellagio’s buffet, then walked through several different casinos playing penny slots until we ended up at Bally’s to play one verrrrrry slow five-game round of keno (I actually broke even, go figure) and then video poker. Our favorite cocktail waitress, Diane, was working and ensured that our Bacardi-and-diets flowed swiftly and stiffly. Visits to Diane have become something of a habit; she is a cocktail waitress at Bally’s who impressed us by remembering us from between visits a few years ago. She’s turned into our “Vegas friend” and we congratulate her on her recent marriage.
After gambling a good long while, we returned to Wynn, napped a bit, then hoofed to SW Steakhouse for a $350 dinner. We began with cocktails: Tony bought us each a snifter of Johnnie Walker Blue (best $100 he spent the whole trip) then we sat down for dinner. We both had fillets, with shared gourmet mac-and-cheese and scalloped potatoes. Plus a tasty dessert and a half-bottle of really nice pinot.
Our plan for the night was to visit Imperial Palace for karaoke, a Jason and Tony tradition. However, we first walked down to Riviera (we think it’s on the short list for the next casino closure) and over to “Slots o’ Fun” and Circus Circus before walking back. After a detour into Walgreen’s for water, we hoofed it into the scary no-man’s land of failed casinos down Convention Center Drive, including the former Greek Isles Casino (which was the former Debbie Reynolds Casino, of all things). There were maybe two dozen slot machines in there, plus cockroaches all along the sidewalk out front. If ever a casino had a buffet that served “some of the yeller” — this is it.
But instead of heading to the I.P., we called it a night early.
Friday
After a luxurious morning — including a relaxing soak in the whirlpool bath — we walked to The Mirage for breakfast buffet, then to Paris Las Vegas for souvenirs for our peeps in da Michigan hood. We returned to the Wynn, checked out, and waited for our shuttle bus. Wynn offered to send a car for us, but I figured we had already paid for the shuttle. This calculation proved regrettable: The shuttle was almost 45 minutes late, and would have dropped us off at McCarran with far less lead time than we would have preferred. So, we got off the shuttle at Palazzo and caught a cab to the airport (courtesy of a driver whose conversation was as fast and as disjointed as a chipmunk on amphetamines). We got on, caught our flight out, and life was good. We connected through O’Hare, but we ended up saying on the same plane, with the same punchy flight attendants, for the Detroit leg.
Our ride from DTW back to Lansing was uneventful; I played some of the Rush 24×7 podcast for us. My drive back to Grand Rapids was quiet and peaceful. I got home and crashed around 4 a.m.
… and thus, All Things Gillikin came to an end. And all told, after all the cigars and gambling and drinking and fine dining, I came home only $200 lighter than when I left. Not bad. Not bad, at all — and perhaps a harbinger of good things to come for the second half of my useful life.

Personal

Obligatory (Belated) Birthday Reflection

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Wednesday last, I turned the big three-four. As has been my habit since launching A Mild Voice of Reason in February 2006, I post an annual reflection on the year gone and the year ahead. Herewith some points of interest.

  • The last year has been much like the Catholic observance of Advent: A time of watching, waiting and purification; a period of excitement for something not-yet-come. Like most Catholics, I’ve chosen to pass the hours idly than to focus on the pending joy, but still — the last year has seen a deepening of understanding about friends, family, life, the universe and everything. Remaining optimistic when the world nudges you toward cynicism requires a high degree of focus and good cheer.
  • You never really appreciate how few people have your back, until your expectations diverge in the midst of conflict. At this point in my life, the number of people I trust implicitly — that is, the folks I think I could call at 3 a.m. with an emergency and expect a swift and non-grudging response — has declined to an all-time low. But that’s OK. I don’t mind fair-weather friends (or family) as long as I know I have a circle I can rely on no matter how violent the storm may grow.
  • Dreams, once dreamt, become the soul’s chief prosecutor.
  • I’m less optimistic about human nature than I used to be, but I think I’ve done a decent job of avoiding being bitter about it. Part of it may be that my patience has increased. Spending more time walking around instead of driving made me witness people in a different way, so my typical “elitist, materialist” demeanor has faced a major gut-check. This is for the good.

All for this year. I will continue to watch, and wait.