"PLING,PLING!"

So I'm out on another bike ride today. I run out of juice both literally and physiologically. Peggy generously takes my cell phone call and comes and picks me up. But that's not the story.  At least, that's not my story.

So I'm clipping along, at mile 12 I think? Off in the distance I hear this strange sound, "pling, pling?"

"What an odd bird expression," I"m thinking.  It doesn't really sound like a mating call, or a danger signal.  And I can't connect it to any native bird I know.

I've heard all the vocal expressions of domesticated beasts in the region, including a Yak. This sound does not match up in that arena either. 

I'm afraid the distraction of the sound,  and a short term deficit in lactic acid,  has me wobbling on the path. And then I hear it again.

"Pling, Pling!"

Many of you probably knew this? I didn't! The little bell attached to the handle bar? The one you manually activate with your thumb? It's back.

Since the bell, may I call it a bellETTE, has no human tonality?  I can't really get upset with it.  But immediately following its' "PLING, PLING?"

"Hey! Look out! On your left BUDDY."

The tone is very mean.  This man is quite lucky he is dealing with the "Kinder, Gentler" me. The one who replaces "ON YOUR LEFT" with "Good Morning!" 

By appearance he is easily older than me.  And had I not "Hit the Wall?"  I'd have been "ON YOUR LEFT"ing him.

But isn't it interesting the little bell is back.

We get home? Pull into the garage? Haul my bike out of the back? And as I'm limping towards the stairs going up to the laundry room? I look over towards Peggy's bike?  SHE has one!

I'm going to find out where that guy lives? Then I'm going to go "PLING, PLING" outside his bedroom window at 4 in the morning.

No, that would be mean!

Water BLOGGED

Not every day can make sense.

You know the feeling you get when you've been in an ocean, or lake, or swimming pool?

Well, not that one really.  I mean the feeling you get on a warm day after you get out of one of those bodies of water?

Well, not that one really. I mean the one where you lie down on the sand or towel or concrete and let the sun dry you off?

Well, not exactly that one. I'm talking about where you are lying there for a few minutes with the solar rays freeing up those endorphins?  You know how you get this miraculous sense of well being?

Well I reached that STATE OF EUPHORIA today.  But you know what I was doing before I was overcome by it?

I was grocery shopping.  Honest! I will not forget this day.  

Ancient Water Torture

I have discovered a NEW TRUTH! Buddhists invented the toilet, not John Crapper.  How do I come to that conclusion?

When reassembling a toilet tank, one must follow THE WAY. The tank must be perfectly balanced, Yin and Yang! Why?

Because if the vessel is not perfectly balanced?  It leaks! 

And if the toilet leaks? So then does one's brain and soul, and very being.

Right Buddha?

Thought for the day: Dignity has no master, no price.

Room for All of Us!

Went on a twenty mile cycle ride today. (gettin' there!)

So! Some thoughts while two wheeling. Bike trail ettiquette has certainly improved overall since I last pedaled regularly. I remember doing stories in the mid-90's where cyclists and joggers were having territorial wars. Those wars got quite violent at times. And then, before every town of ten built a half pipe, roller bladers and skateboarders entered the formula.

I suppose it's true of almost any athletic endeavor, but it's clearly evident in cycling, jogging and skateboarding.  These exertions dramatically excite the glands that produce testosterone.  How do I know? At times I've had Walter Mitty visions of violently shoving any one of them to the ground as they entered my space. To this day I coil my fist when I hear some grim faced cyclist approach me with a discourteous scream,  "ON YOUR LEFT!"

"How'd you like a RIGHT cross on your LEFT pal."

There is still some of that out there, but I'm seeing and hearing civility on the trail these days.  I have taken on the practice of a gentleman who passed me on a bike path recently.  I was walking, he was riding.  As he approached about 20 feet behind me? With a smile in his voice he projects the following: "Good Morning!"

I have no innate instinct to punch a guy who enters my space with, "Good Morning." In fact I am more than willing to adjust my line to the right so that he might cycle by.

I have some other thoughts...but duty calls....and I'll return.

Before I forget:

Ann Coulter? Just cause Bill turned down your advances doesn't make him "a you know what!"

Bill? Just cause Ann turned down your advances doesn't make her a you know what!"

I just finished fixing a toilet. That always brings the worst out in me.

Why do we wear helmuts on bike paths?

Bike path construction is creating new wetlands.  Watch for new species to evolve along bike paths. Be careful with whats in the jar your kid brought home from the bike path.

 

Be The Ball

Since Peggy has been dragging me out to play tennis every day? I got to thinkin'. That I'm thinking? ..... not always a good idea when I'm actually supposed to be playing the game.

So we were watching Wimbledon and a few things occur to me. Unless these professionals are doing a TV ad or just want to show off? You never see them pick up their own balls. And so how did they handle that issue before they got ranked high enough to have acne encrusted humanoids shag balls for them?

As a youth I had no problem really bending over at the waist and hoisting this near weightless sphere upward. But returning to the game on the north end of mid-life crisis years? I don't want to do that anymore. ( I might be better off today had I bent at the knees with my back straight all those years. Even if it was a tennis ball.)

So Peggy has a bunch of tennis magazines lying all around the house. They are full of little illustrated instructions on "HOW TO SERVE LIKE ANDY RODDICK," "LEARN TOP SPIN FROM THE MASTER, ROGER FEDERER," "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH."

But nowhere, in any of these magazines, will you see instruction on how to pick up the ball!

Get lessons from a pro? Is he or she going to teach you how to pick up the ball? I don't think so.

Now you can sit around a tennis club and watch the hot shots bring those balls from surface to waist? But don't even bother asking them to show you how they do it.

SO HERE I AM TO THE RESCUE.

FIRST: (figure 1) find the ball!.

SECOND: (figure 2) find your right tennis shoe WITHOUT the endorsement initials on the side.

THIRD: (figure 3) place the outside edge of your BLAND tennis shoe on the left side of the ball.

FOURTH: (figure 4) gently bring the tip of your racket to the right side of the ball and press that ball up against  your BORING tennis shoe.

FIFTH: (figure 5) in this next critical moment, with balletic precision, you must raise the WORN OUT TENNIS SHOE, the BALL and the RACKET,  UPWARD! All at the same time.

WARNING: (figure 6) The natural tendency at this juncture will be to just reach across your body with your free hand and grab the ball, right? That's a good way to hurt yourself, and it really looks stupid. Thereby drawing attention to your UNENDORSED shoes.

SIXTH: (figure 7) So the real trick, I just recently learned? When the ball gets about a foot in the air? Bring your racket down on the ball and bounce it like a basketball. Then when it gets waist high? Just let it gently light in the palm of your hand. (figure 8)

ANOTHER WARNING: (figure 9)  If you've had recent HIP REPLACEMENT SURGERY? FORGET IT!

(If you have grandchildren between the ages of 8 and 11? There is a narrow window where you may be able to convince them shagging balls is FUN! How long were you able to persuade them lawn mowing was FUN?)

Have you noticed (figure 10) how, when the pros get sweaty?

They just give this little gesture (figure 11) like you see at an art or cattle auction? (figure 12)

And out of nowhere (figure 13) one of these humanoids shows up with a towel?

Well, that's not going to happen on your court.

So to make ourselves feel special? Peggy and I have come with little nods to each other? And yeah, a towel shows up:

(figure 14)

The same towel.

(figure 15)

Oh, by the way! Reverse everything if you are LEFT HANDED. God help you if you are ambidextrious.

I need to get serious for just a second. My cyber friend "sighlemaccaba" from Yonkers is having surgery to get some cancer out of her pancreas. They found it early....but she could sure use some good Karma coming her way. And pass on some good thoughts for my niece Donna while you're at it. She's still "sparring" with breast cancer.

"A Leg Up!"

This picture is about two months old. I just love it.  I'm not sure what it says. I think it has been my arrogance that's held me back from sharing it. I wanted to be able to accompany it with some profound insight.

"I took the picture. I own it. I alone see it's one and true meaning."

As I've aged I've gotten slower at many things, like "wising up!"

It's just an image, and you get to own it too if you like. I'm just going to stare at it right now and give you some honest impressions. If the fancy strikes you, I'd love to read how it impacts you.

I see this special time in a child's life. Look at the intense wonder in her eyes. She wants to explore, but not without that powerful leg she's come to trust.  She is so focused. Strands of hair cover parts of her eye, but not her vision.  There might be a day when she'll self consciously and perpetually be pushing those locks back into place. But not now.

I love the spacing of her fingers and thumb. They are open, accepting, trusting.  I fear in a similar state of awe? Mine would be tight together, grabbing, twisting.

That expression, those eyes, those rosy cheeks define twinkle.  It's as if she sees something the rest of us are totally missing. It's an expression we could sure use in the Middle East, and Korea, and Java and Rwanda and Mexico and Washington D.C. right now.

Well that's what I see!

If the kid is just a little brat? I don't want to know about it, thank you!

Summertime, and the livin' is easy....

I can clearly recall the summers of my teens. I usually had a job, but there was always plenty of down time.  It was a time to creatively get into things, most of them physical. For instance, my generation in California invented the skateboard.

This was ages before you had to take out a loan to buy one at the Skateboard store. We just got some scrap two by fours and stole some wheels off our sister's roller skates when they weren't looking.

We all have scars to prove it. We had no knee pads or helmets. And the early skate boards had no turning mechanism. One of the more effective ways to stop in those early days was to just dive on the grass next to you when you came to a curb. If a car mangled your skateboard? You just started looking for your sister's other skate.

We used to race in our bare feet around the Pine Street city block we lived on. We deliberately added an alley link so we could build up callouses. We had chalk marks for all sorts of distances that nobody races anymore.  We set out the different distances so each of use could win at one length or another.

Once, we got on a unicycle kick. Since I owned the unicyle I was really the only one to master it. It took me about a month to get the balance down, and then I was "hell" on wheels.

Not everything we did was physical.  Art Eshelby had an actual LP record player. And on the shelf was an album by the Mills Brothers.  We sat around that record player for days memorizing all their music in a sing along. We may very well have been inventing karaoke. "Up the lazy river, by the old mill run, the lazy, lazy river in the mid-day sun...."

I guess the really nice thing about those summers was the pressure was off.  We only had to BE. No one was messing with our spirits. No one was telling us which way to go. And we just jumped in and let things happen. 

I bring this up because life has come full circle.  I'm off this summer. Peggy and I are following our whims. For instance?

Wimbledon comes along.  We watch one match and then go out and play tennis every day of its run.  I even got some of my strokes back. Peggy plays regularly year round, but putting up with me figuring it out again? That's been a challenge.

We're watching the Tour du France the other day? And so I go to the garage and pull down my bike? It had been up there for ten years while I waited for the discs inmy neck to fuse.

Well I had to go spend 20 bucks on a pump? But I'm back in business. I went on a ten mile ride...and I know that's nothing these days. But it's something if you haven't done it for a decade. And that would be a decade where you'd added 40 pounds to your frame.

A couple of weeks ago we're cruising through a Border's Book Store and I see a title on Meditation. It's something I had sort of gotten into in my mid-20's when I was trying to quit smoking.  It didn't really work for the smoking, but I got rid of whole bunch of other bad habits.

Anyway, I say to myself, "I got time. Why not?"

I won't try to sell anybody else on it, but man has it been fun. I can actually sort of get into that lotus position? And it took a while? But yeah, I can see my breath now.

But what's really cool? I'm out on this three mile hike that twists and turns on a constant grade. So to amuse myself today? I pick out a Black Eyed Susan on a tall stalk, about 100 yards ahead of me. It is slightly around a curve on a five percent grade? I close my eyes and visualize it? And I keep my eyes closed? I stay focused? I walk right to it. Wow!

I've always been amazed at all the things Jefferson and Franklin crammed into their lives? They must have had some great summers.

BoMbS BuRsTinG in ERROR

"I'd like to thank the academy, my parents, my friends, my children, my lovely wife, and of course, most of all....North Korea's Kim Jong Il."

"Huh?"

Today, stars are being born. ****Media Stars****

When Kim shot off his bottle rockets today? He ensured success for a host of new writers, producers, anchors and reporters.

Why? Because it is a HOLIDAY!  And it's not in the middle of a major RATING'S period.

There are not enough private jets on the planet to get all those journalists back to their newsrooms and studios.

Elizabeth Vargas isn't about to give up that Irish-Puerto Rican family picnic. Not the way she's been treated.

Charlie Gibson is probably still asleep.

Anderson Cooper has been told he shows up at the Estate today or he'll be dis-inherited.

And so it goes across the country.  This is that fantasy day all neophytes tuck in the back of their brains. It's a dirty job, but, hey! Somebody's got to do it.

There are freelancers who've been sitting around in Seoul for five years waiting for this day.

'THIS IS MY BIG CHANCE!" 

"Say, you guys need a hand on that Rocket thing?"

And, OH MY! The new pool of experts we'll see surface. I'm envisioning thousands of academics reworking their Curriculum Vitae to highlight the course they took in 1950 on Korean Pennisula Politics.

One of my bits of advice I pass on to students in class...is to memorize the phrase, "Can I Help?"

Sing it out my friends! Sing it loud! Sing it Clear! Take a good Deep Thorasic Breath and LET 'ER RIP!

"CAN I HELP...PLEASE CAN I HELP?"

You might as well. Believe me it's going to work for somebody.

But don't forget to pause and thank Kim Jong Il....and oh, yeah...THE AMERICAN FLAG.

"Quit Doggin' it!"

Digital photography has opened my eyes. As long as the camera is functioning? You can take as many pictures as your little index finger desires.  So?

Well when you get back home and you take time to look at all the pixels? You find out you have a shooting "theme" and didn't even know it. In fact you have a whole bunch of themes you didn't know about.  And you've captured eye blinks of life that would typically pass you and everyone else by.

I've been with TV photographers when they've captured what they call TV moments. Nobody plans them. 

I was with Jim Weis when he got set up on his tripod in a wildlife area.  He knew there was a coyote nearby and was hopeful it would walk through his frame. Instead? The coyote leapt through his frame in a dramatic arc landing on top a prarie dog. Wow!

I was with Dan Dwyer when he set up on asphalt on top of Berthoud Pass. We were trying to demonstrate gravity's force on melting snowpack? Well he got focused on a pop can about 100 yards up hill? He's thinking some wind will come along and the can will roll towards the lens a little bit?

Well, it did. It rolled the whole one hundred yards down the hill stopping only after slaming right into the lens. The NAT sound that went along with it was incredible.

I was with Carl Filoreto once at a Water Board conservation news conference. They were expecting a long, dry, hot summer. So about 20 employees are holding up this 50 foot long banner? Begging the world to save water?  They are about two minutes into the news conference?  The sky unloads. All these stubborn employees hold their marks as their news conference coifs go south.

But the best part of the day? The TV moment? All the "Conserve Water Now" letters?  They just drip right off the banner, camera rolling.

Well now I know you don't need to be rolling. Have your digitizer ready, and capture those moments in fractions of seconds.

I'll revisit this revelation with other themes. But today it's dogs.  I had no idea they could be so interesting. But more importantly they may be just the curricular break through I've been looking for.

I suppose it's a cliche to say, "No two dogs are alike!"

I like to instruct broadcast journalism students in the importance of being themselves.  I tell them they don't need to listen to the dissonant choir that says, " to REPORT or ANCHOR you need to be a type 'A' personality.  It's just not true. But there is a must!

When a microphone opens or a camera light comes on? YOU COME ALIVE.

"GIVE US AN EXAMPLE," they scream.

Well now I can scream out a response.

"BE MORE DOG LIKE!"

"Why?"

"They just keep at it.  When there is work to do, they are buckets of energy. If there is a task underway? They don't quit until it's done. They know how to WORK a room. Lights and cameras are magnets to dogs. They are expressive, eagar to communicate, convinced they have a story to tell and it's a better story than any other dog's in the pound."

Give you an example of  COME ALIVE? Be a DOG! And when the job it done? Go have some fun.

(See anybody you know in the pictures?)