Watch How you Deduct Yourself!

Flirtatious: "So now if you actually got a refund? Wouldn't you like to buy something nice for ME?"

Real Mood: Luxuriant

Prediction:  We still won't be able to summer in Bora Bora.

We went to our tax guy today.  It's a little early for us.  We were concerned. We had some things we didn't understand.  That usually means life on saltines and peanut butter for six months.

When we left our tax guys office...with unfinished returns?

"Paul, we're going to get nailed."

"Yeah, I've got that same feeling. Who'd we tick off anyway."

Sure enough, several hours of number crunching and he calls.

"Well, you PAY ME this much, so that I can tell you to PAY the Feds, THIS MUCH! But you will get a little "itty bitty check" from the state?"

"Alas and Alack! Woe is us? Why? Why? Why?"

I'm glad Peggy was on the phone. Would it be sexist to say that WOMEN, in general, are quicker to express their pain and suffering?

I can only tell you it works. Despite all our efforts at emancipation?  MEN, in general, COWER at the sight of a woman in distress.

I remember being stuck in Manhattan, Kansas with a thrown rod. It went right through the engine block. It was a  Friday night. My wife at the time, and myself, and the volkswagen squareback,  had just been towed a hundred miles to the dealer.

Well it turns out there's a big convention in town? There are NO hotel rooms. And the dealer? 

"Sorry sir, we're shuting down for the night.  We won't be able to even look at your car until Monday."

"But there are no hotel rooms?"

"You're welcome to sleep in your sleeping bags by the railroad tracks behind the garage? That's the best I can offer right now."

Instinctively I walk back to the car and tell my companion, "looks like we're going to be sleeping on that ichy dry grass back there for at least three nights. And it's right next to an active rail line. "

I might have thrown in a few foot stomps and "HARUMPHS" to spice it up a little bit.

So come on men! What happens next?

"LIKE HECK, WE ARE!"

She crys! She yells! She curses mildly! She turns this into a MIDDLE AMERICAN TRAGEDY of monumental proportions.

Well, you know all those mechanics have significant others. They've been there.

"Well calm down, maam. I'll go talk to my managers and see what we can do."

We did have to spend one night by the railroad track? (it was a mild summer night)  But they brought three mechanics in on O.T. Saturday. We were out of Manhattan by noon.

So anyway when we got the tax guy call tonight?  Peggy wasn't the least bit shy about reacting to what she was hearing.  And let's face it. This guy has a wife. We know that because he talked about her when he was fiddling with his calculator.

He didn't say anything out loud, but I swear I could feel his tension and I didn't even have the receiver?

I knew our guy was going to re-check his numbers. And sure enough? He calls back.

"Good News. I forgot to check a box, and now you can PAY me to  tell you....ready?"

"Uh, huh?"

"You're getting THIS much BACK from the Feds and THIS much BACK from the State."

Yee! Hah! Practical Sexism rides again!

"And listen to this. That means one less form, so NOW you ONLY have to pay me THIS much!"

It's enough to make a grown man cry. But, hey, why? I got a partner who can handle that a lot better than I can. 

At least in time of AUTO CRISES, or IRS entanglements? Viva le difference!!!

"Now Paul, here's HOW we're going to SPEND that money!"

Hmmm!

I THINK I'VE CONVINCED HER TO CARVE OUT ONE  PERCENT OF THE REFUND FOR REFRESHMENTS AT THE BIG ANNIVERSARY PARTY. YOU REMEMBER THE END OF APRIL CELEBRATION OF THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings? I'M GOING TO KEEP WORKING ON HER. BUT IT COULD BE A CASE OF BYOL. (bring your own lemondade) WE'LL STILL HAVE FUN.

good luck with your tax guy

Caution: Converging Traffic

Flirtatious: Did I tell you I was a CJ?

Real Mood: Digitized and Pixelated

Prediction: At this pace, by 2020, twenty one year olds will no longer be able to communicate with 60 year olds in any fashion.

I'm going to briefly start this off with one of those free wheeling connecting jaunts. I may have even BLOGGED in the past about my High School and College buddy, the late George Dehlmar. George was an insider in the 60's and 70's SURFER generation. And he had this incredible capacity to create language within his dicipline, and in his life in general.

[I don't know why? But the one phrase that sticks in my mind?    "I'm gonna sound out this chick." Translation: "She's cute. I'm going to go over there and see If I can engage her in a conversation. If we have anything in common, I'm going to ask her out."]

So, since we are talking about surfers and language creation? I think of the Beach Boys.  Arn't they the ones that sing, "Help Me Rhonda?"

The right answer is yes.

Well Rhonda is my stepdaughter's name. And I think Rhonda is my only reliable link to catching up with the constant bombardment of digital "new-babble." The IT freaks are putting the surfers to shame.

Rhonda, and her husband Mark, have a TIVO, a PC, a Mac, an Ipod, and some phone that probably does heart surgery.

"Do you have a PDA Rhonda?"

And that's just at home. She's an accountant with an HMO, so with all the money we shell out for HEALTH CARE? I'm thinkin' she's loaded down with toys there, too. And she loves to play with them.

Getting the hardware names down is tough enough! But now some new software surfaces every five minutes. New Acronyms are popping up like acne.

Just the fact that I'm here "BLOGGING" is a testament to my justified rambling. Students who've been reading mine, and writing their own, are often unware "BLOG" is short for "WEBLOG." And you know what? There is probably no reason to catch up on that one.  In a few weeks we'll be calling it something else. 

I've decided that unless I decide to compete in some "Trivia Bowl" for big money? I'm never going to try and play catchup.

[Sidebar: When I retired from reporting and started teaching?  I kept hearing faculty converations about the super POWER POINT presentations just given on "Brain Wave Conversions," and "Situational Ethics."

Intimidated, I go get the CD (What does that stand for anyway? Does anybody remember? It was always confusing to me because CD's became popular at the same time I contracted Cervical Disc Disease.)

So I carefully train myself at home and put together what I think is a pretty snappy POWER POINT lecture on, oh let's say, "CIRCUMLOCUTION." I practice the thing a "gigabyte" number of times at home.  Peggy is getting bored, but me and my laptop are blowing my bathroom mirror away.

So I head down to school and walk right into my "SMART CLASSROOM!" I plug ol' "Mr. Laptop" into one of the "UB something" gizmos. I get ready to "WOW" the next generation of great thinkers.  I push the power button. Something pops up on the screen. Then the screen flickers. Then the "Smart Classroom" gets DUMB! Then the laptop starts WHINING! Then the laptop stops! Then the laptop loses all it's power. And, I discover later, Mr. Laptop acquires a severe case of Alzheimers Disease.  

"And that class, is what we mean when we say CIRCUMLOCUTION!"

Confession? Power Point? Know how to do one! Won't! And guess what? Nobody else is doing them anymore, either. I'm sure just knowing the meaning of Power Point will get me a  'C' in an IT history course.]

So do you know about CONVERGENCE? I think CONVERGENCE is the short form of a shared frustration phrase that goes like this: "CAN ANYBODY TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"

If you haven't been invited to one of the "FREE CONVERGENCE SEMINARS", Steak Included? Let me catch you up.

Imagine a point of infinity. All forms of media are lined up at this starting line.  They are going to race for that infinity point.

At an early time the only competitors on that starting line? I'm thinking town criers, and gossips. The gap between them is probably a three degree arc.

You don't want me to go rambling on through media history to get you up to date.  Let's shorten  "IT BABBLE 101" by just giving you a partial rundown of the contestants in this race to infinity:

LANE 1: Radio (AM,FM,Cable,Satellite,Website.)

LANE 2: Television ( VHF, UHF, Cable, Satellite, HDTV, Analog, Digital, Websites on the Web, Websites on TV, Satellite live camera reports on TV.)    

LANE 3: Newspapers (Newspapers on line, Newpapers on TV, Newspaper Websites, TV reporters on Newspaper Websites, Newspaper Podcasts.)

LANE 4: Phones. (Old fashioned land line. Cell Phones, Cell phones linked to the Internet, Cell Phones that share pictures, Cell Phones the show movies (including  porn), Cell Phones tied to TV, Cell Phones that control TIVO, Cell Phones that are Computers, Cell Phones that Think and Talk and someday will probably Walk.

That should be enough to give you the idea.

RUNNERS? ON YOUR MARK! SET! KABOOM!

They are going to be cookin'. This is no mere "Medal Around the Neck" thing out there in infinity. No! This is a race for the almighty ADVERTISING DOLLAR. GO! GO! GO!

Speaking for most of us in a so-so economy, "MAY THE CHEAPEST TECHNOLOGY WIN!"

So what tips me in this direction today?

I set up a Broadcast Journalism TV tour to a place called "Mania TV." By "PLACE" I mean a very large studio inside an old warehouse building.

Inside the studio there are about five good sized sets. There are three old school busses that have been converted into control rooms and offices. There are computers everywhere. There are five small cameras ready to go live at any minute.

We get a tour from one of my students interning there. Her name in Andrea (ahn DREY uh). [I add the pronunciation instructions because I keep struggling with it. I've had at least fifteen "Andreas" in classes over the past three years. They all want it pronounced differently. And ladies I'm trying my best.]

Anyway Andrea explains they are similar to MTV. They are on 24-7 and they show music videos.

She points to a gathering of well made-up characters about 50 yards away.

"That's the CJ lounge. And that's all our afternoon CJs you see sitting there."

"What does a CJ do?"

"Oh, introduces the videos!"

"Well Where do I find it on my remote? Do I need to call my cable guy?"

"You can, but it won't do you any good!"

"Why?"

"We're not on TV. We're on the Web. Just google "maniatv.com."

"Ah, what a fascinating revelation?"

A student sidles up to me and whispers demandingly, "PAUL, ASK HER WHAT CJ STANDS FOR."

"Oh (ahn DREY uh), what's CJ short for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. You get used to it so quickly. CYBER JOCKEY."

This isn't an ad for ManiaTV. But at least as I watched on their program monitor? It was refreshing to listen to a host more interested in the music, than when "happy hour" starts at BILLY BOBS."

MAYBE I CAN GET A LITTLE MEDIA COVERAGE FROM MANIATV FOR THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. A LITTLE BIT OF FREE PUBLICITY CAN GO A LONG WAY.

Anybody tells you who is going to win this race to INFINITY? Call 911.  While you're doing that?  I'm calling Rhonda, "help me Rhonda, Help, Help Me Rhonda!"

 

Donna

Flirtatious: "Who is the HOT CHICK?"

Real Mood: Effusive

I have a niece, and her name is Donna.  That's her up there on a visit with us in January. She might consider this an insult? As an adult I've always thought of Donna as a "Newer" and "Improved" Vanna White.

[I actually spent a couple of days with Vanna about ten years ago doing some feature stories. No offense Vanna, but Donna IS newer and improved.]

I can just barely count all my nieces and nephews on both hands. I love them all.

But Donna gets the nod right now. Donna, THE ALPHA FEMALE.

While the shortest among her sisters and brother?  She is clearly dominant. She is the oldest, and wisest. She doesn't have to say, "AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!" It's just accepted.

Observing from what I'd call an UNCLEY DISTANCE, it's always been clear. Don't do anything without CHECKING with Donna. And I think that's been true since toddlerhood. She's always had a spirit that rises above the crowd.

[I think Theda and Jerry wish they'd consulted with Donna before landing that plane in the middle of a New Mexico forest when Donna, I think, was less than a year old? I hate to think what Donna would have to say, even today, about the plan to feed her wild goat milk!]

I often talk to my students about working a room. If a camera or microphone opens up? Come alive!

Donna could be the poster child for that advice, but she doesn't wait for the cameras and microphones. What a delight it must be to be in her classroom.

[She's an elementary school teacher raising three beautiful, bright, unique and talented daugthers of her own.]

It's hard to miss Donna's leadership qualities. Even decisive Football Coach husband Matt clearly falls in line when Donna gets her mind made up.

[Some would call it a stubborn streak she inherits from her mother. I prefer to call it Donna's own special form of leadership.]

You never wonder what Donna is thinking. Donna TELLS you what she's thinking. Typically her declarations come with this overwhelming, high, positive energy. But just a caution!

DON'T MESS WITH DONNA if you accidentally push her button. She can also be the poster child for IN YOUR FACE.

Now I know that 'cause in a memorial service for my mother?  I impromtu coerce Donna, her sisters Dale and Deb, and cousin Cydney to join me in singing "Goodnight Irene!" It was one of my mother's favorite melodies. And since my mother's name is Pauline? I have us toss in the name change, too! 

I still have scars from Donna's delayed reaction, " I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE US DO THAT!"

It wasn't a pretty moment.

I'm sorry Donna. I just got carried away. I need to apologize for singing at your wedding, too. You were very kind and complimentary about the performance. But in retrospect?  I hate singing with organs.  It's impossible to find the melody. I'm sure I was tossing in flats and sharps that didn't belong.

At least in my case?  I think "The Lords Prayer" is meant to be READ not SUNG.

I'm introducing you all to my niece Donna right now for a reason. She is battling the dread of every woman, breast cancer. She has bravely and fiercely taken her battle public from day one.  She has amassed an army of support. But in this battle? No army can be too big.

Please take a second and appreciate that big smile you see up there. She'll sense you're thinking about her.

Of course, I'm also writing this hoping she'll read it and know for SURE, I'm thinking about her.

We love you Donna!

Follow the Water

Flirtatious: "Shhh! I trapped myself a Preble's Jumping Mouse. Wanna see it?"

Real Mood: Moist

Prediction: The endangered Boreal Toad will squeak again.

I took my Broadcast Journalism class on a bizarre journey today. We visited a section of a 70 plus mile long recreation trail tied to an agricultural canal.  Journalists in search of good pithy stories are often told to , "follow the money." Well out here in the West the same result can be had by "following the water."

The section of the canal we amble trickles along a community that hosts acreage and homes belonging to the likes of NFL hall of famer John Elway, and his former Bronco Boss Pat Bowlen. [I just picked the most visible, not the wealthiest residents by a far piece.]

The waters in this canal also blend with wells to fill ponds and raparian retreats for the most exclusive prep school in the market.

A young woman, decked out in her show attire, rides by on a rather impressive prancing stallion. Astride one horse, she is leading another steed through a gentle cantor.  One student notes, "I guess it's not enough to have just one!"

We walk within three feet of a pair of geese. Any where else on the planet a pair of geese would be high tailing it in the "get away from humans" direction with even a TEN foot seperation. [Even when they are hobbled by molting.] 

Clearly these geese are residents. They just twist their haughty heads in our direction seeming to say, "move along."

And so we do.

Any homes we pass are at least an acre away, and about that large. Most of them could easily support my extended family, yours and any others who might be joining us this evening. [And all our horses.] Sour grapes? Sounds like it, doesn't it?

It will now be tough to convince you otherwise, but let me try. My mission is not to instill collosal envy. It is not to comment on any strata of society. It is just to point out that when something is scarce? To own that something is wealth. Wealth is power.  And where there is wealth and power, there are usually some pretty good stories.

This metro area's most exclusive areas just happen to be along rivers, creeks and canals.  These rivers, creeks and canals just happen to run through the most exclusive golf clubs, the uppity cemeteries, the gated communities, and oh yeah, a few farms.

Here's an interesting story in itself. The water authority here says this canal is not a very efficient way to deliver water.  Too much water is lost through soil seepage and evaporation? So they are going to cut the thing in half? Would it be the half with the multi-million dollar homes, the exclusive golf course, the prep school, the farmer with three planes and a hangar behind his farm house? 

No, those parts of the canal seem to be working just fine.

The parts they'll be shutting off roam through middle and lower middle class neighborhoods, small public golf courses, through a senior citizen complex, behind a huge working class apartment complex.

I know. It all sounds acidic and resentful.  But it's just the reality. Communities with money and special assessments have taken care of their part of the canal. Jurisdictions begging for tax support from little guys just do what they can. And that's just not enough.

The demand for that seeping and evaporating wet gold is calling.  There are new communities being built with shallow aquifers. They want some of that water.

Developers and builders are passing along new tap fees to pay for that water.

There are Spring and Summer rafting enthusiasts clamoring for that water.

Summer boating and fishing enthusiasts don't want their reservoirs drained by August.

There are ski areas that want some of that water for snowmaking. In that vein there are forces calling for and against cloud seeding. More snow here now? More water downstream later. But in the right places?

Environmentalists are demanding stream flows that will protect endangered fish.

A reservoir that hosts a breeding pair of Bald Eagles by law gets it's portion no matter what.

Then there is this crazy natural irony. This state feeds mountain snowmelt to 17 states and gets virtually none in return. Follow the Colorado, the Rio Grande, The Platte and The Arkansas.

[The North Platte River loops down from Wyoming into Colorado for about five miles. Of course it reconnects with the South Platte when it gets to Nebraska.]  

Yet this state has water compacts with most of those states guaranteeing them a percentage of our production.

[Drought years are not good years for interstate cooperation in the West.]

Here's some opinon. My position is a good journalist is always conflicted. She's always redirected by new information. He often discovers a story with one point of view? But the more she learns from probing the issues, the harder it is tip the scales one way or the other.

So you know what? At this point I'm pretty impressed these high rollers along the canal have been able to hang on to their measure of nature's gift. And what I'm really hoping is that my student friends get the metaphor.

Want News? Follow the water!

[DID YOU KNOW THE ORIGINAL 19TH CENTURY PLAN WAS THE MAKE THIS CANAL NAVIGABLE ALL THE WAY TO THE MISSOURI RIVER?]

[ALONG ONE OF THESE WATERSHEDS? FARMERS AREN'T BEING ALLOWED TO PLOW OR DEVELOP LARGE PARTS OF THEIR LAND BECAUSE THIS PARTICULAR CREEK IS HOME TO THE ENDANGERED PREBLE'S JUMPING MOUSE? THE GUY WHO DID THE RESEARCH ON THIS? HE'S NOW SAYING HE MIGHT BE MISTAKEN. MAYBE THIS MOUSE ISN'T ENDANGERED AFTER ALL.]

PRETTY EXCITING STUFF, EH? WELL IT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT WE'LL PUT OUT THERE IN THE DIGITAL ETHER ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF "PMM." GET YOUR CAMERAS AND TAPE RECORDERS OILED. YOU'RE GOING TO NEED THEM.

If you say I'm "all wet?" You're just showing your age.  

The Painful Truth

Flirtatious: "Now this might hurt just a little bit, okay?"

Real Mood: Unburdened

Prediction: Someday they'll learn to check prostate glands with digital cameras.

No need to rush to the pinnacle of this roller coaster ride to the first anniversary. There'll be nothing terribly high minded in this entry.  In fact I'm going to dwell on a subject that some may find offensive.  So I'm taking off the PG-13 gloves as a warning.  Although it's my intention to hide any potentially distasteful elements in "double and triple entendre?" In case I slip? BE FOREWARNED.

In truth the subject matter will be so far removed from the experience level of anyone under 18? They'll leave of ennui.

So this past week I get a reminder note from my eye doctor that it's time for a checkup. So? You need to know my eye doctor's name is Dr. _______, Dr. Sharon ________. Well?  So I also get a reminder note from my dentist that it's time for a check up and a cleaning. Big deal? Well you need to know that my dentist's name is Dr.___________, Dr. Angela _________.  So?

We're not there yet. It's not until September, but when I get my annual physical?  I'll be going to my primary care physician Dr. ________, Dr. Sherrie ______________. Coincidence? Nope! It's street education I've decided to share, with men mostly, although women will likely get a giggle out of it.

I grew up in a male dominant age "proud as punch" of our testosterone.  When I was old enough to make my own choice?

I regularly refused novacaine whilst my MALE dentist attacked my dentine.

I recall falling in a pickup basketball game at the Fire Department? A MALE emergency Doctor is chewing me out when I hobble in to his center with what he termed, "the worst ankle sprain he'd ever seen."  I'm "tough guy"laughing.

I didn't even go to the doctor after the touch football game in Bell Park.  I catch a winning touchdown pass in the end zone. I run head on into a parking sign pole. I'm renderered unconscious, and do a snake wrap down to the ground. I wake up a few minutes later and just shake it off. No big deal.  Who needs to go to the doctor. [I hung on to the ball the whole time.]

My senior year in high school? I was going to play right offensive tackle in a game the day after fracturing my elbow in practice. The coachwould've let me. 

"Put a sponge on it and get back in there Reinertson!"

But my parents didn't like the fact I couldn't bend my arm. I was never tougher than EITHER of THEM.

One of these early doctors says to me, "you know you have a really high pain threshold!"

"Yeah, I guess I do, don't I? Heh, Heh!"

So I hang out with this super macho ego for a few decades. Going to doctors and letting dentists put novacaine or zylocaine in your gums is for sissys.

Move ahead to my late 30's. I'm jogging three or four miles four days a week whilst smoking a pack of Marlboros a day.

[ I'll pause here to tell a story you might think funny. Harry Smith, currently hanging out with the girls on CBS's morning show, lives in my neighborhood.  We'd worked together at a radio station in town. So I'm doing my jog through the park one day, and Harry comes running up behind me and recognizes my lumbering gate.  (He is in training to run a marathon at the time.)

"Hey Reinertson, join me," he says. So we're a couple of strides on our way to Duck Lake and he says, " Did you see that guy back by the MLK statue? He was smoking a cigarette while he was jogging! Can you believe that?"

I had just put mine out. There are a few people who read this who are close to Harry. I wonder if they'll tell him. Ah, he won't care.]

Anyway, I don't know what led to what I'm about to tell you. But men! From this point on take heed!  

A HIGH PAIN THRESHOLD DOES NOT LAST FOREVER!

One night after one of those smokey jogs? I'm out of the shower, lying in bed, and suffering a pain I'd rank up there with childbirth. I know I have no right to do that, but it certainly seemed similar.  The FOCAL point was in the same general area. I have an infected dilated blood vein in the anal region.

"Huh?"

"Send the kids from the room!"

"Coast is clear!"

"I'VE GOT A FLAMING INFECTED HERMORHOID!"

Now this is no joke. This thing is so painful I'm tearfully BEGGING my ex-wife and stepsons to take me to the emergency room. Without shame, in my skivvies,  I am crawling on my hands and knees, onto the front porch, down the steps, and into the van.

My loved ones all this time are doing their best not to enjoy the humor of the event. Get to the emergency waiting room? Where doyou think INFECTED HEMORHOID fits on the triage scale?

So I finally, with tears in my eyes, get into a private room and this guy says, " I'll have to see what we have here!" 

"Eh?"

And I swear to God or any other diety this is EXACTLY what he said!

"I just want you to know that this is just as embarrassing for me as it is for you!"

What the _________? Come on ladies you can side with me on this one. About the time you're trying to push a bowling ball through a garden hose? Embarrassed? Wouldn't you have attacked with impunity the guy who uttered those words?

That day I became a changed man. Pain threshold be damned. Ladies I'm with you.. If it hurts, seek relief. And.....I quickly discovered, seek that relief from someone who will at least pretend to sympathize with you.  No more MR. TOUGH GUY. It's time for the gentle sympathy and touch of a woman.

I'll admit this first time I'm up for the ANNUAL PHYSICAL thing? I am a tad uneasy when my then Significant Other says, "Just go to my doctor!"

But you know what? That Doctor never did say she was embarrassed, and if I complained of some ailment? She'd say things like, "Oh, that has to really hurt. Let's see if we can't find something to ease the pain."

Oh, I've been forced to go to some Male specialists along the way, but given a choice? I want my doctor's given names to be Sharon, or Angela or Sherrie.

Sharon: "Paul I'm just going to put some soothing solution in there. I'm going to have to gently touch your iris. You let me know if it hurts the least bit, will you?"

"Uh, huh....!"

Angela: "Paul. I'm sorry you've been having trouble with that nasty old molar. Let me tone it down with this pain killer so we can get in there and take a look at it. Okay?"

"Yes, maam...!"

Sherrie: "Has it already been a year.  Boy you look great. Have you lost some weight?"

"Uh, huh....!"

Sherrie: "Well lets take a look. Okay, cough for me."

"Cough, Cough."

Sherrie: " Now bend over."

"Okay....! OOOh! That's it?"

Sherrie: "Looks good. See you next year."

Alright men, here it is. Play it tough all you want. But the time will come when you should lock THIS in your brain.

DIGITAL CIRCUMFERENCE!

"Huh?"

Think about it! DIGITAL CIRCUMFERENCE!

 AS WE ,"CLICK, CLICK, CLICK," CLIMB THE THE ROLLER COASTER RAIL TO THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings, I VOW TO KEEP ALL FUTURE TOPICS ABOVE THE WAIST. WHEN WE GET TO OUR DESTINATION THIS TWISTED DETOUR WILL BE JUST A MEMORY.

subliminal memory message: manicures are okay, pedicures are incredible, and don't forget digital circumference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Truth Be Danged!

Flirtatious: "That little wrinkle on your cheek is so cute!"

Real Mood: Exposed

Prediction: Terry Bradshaw will not get an Oscar for his role in "Failure to Launch."

Mirrors: They're all over the place. And they're weird. They don't let you lie! They make you strip naked and face the truth? A truth that ain't always so pretty, if you know what I mean?

We go to see "Man of La Mancha" a few days ago. [Why is it Dinner Theatres feel no obligation to feed your stomach as well as they claim to feed your imagination.]

Anyway, Old Don Quiquote is out there on stage defending the lovely Dulcinea. Without a mirror he can go right on pretending to be brave Knight, she a Lady. Costumes and makeup mask the mirror. They mask the truth. Wasn't she just a strumpet a few minutes ago?  I remember him as being a doughty old man. The tricks of theatre allow them and us to elevate their stations in life.

You know we're told theatre puts a "mirror up to life."  But how can that be when you we're asked to "suspend our disbelief"? How can that be when we're told as actors we must be bigger than life?

The mirrors of theatre are carnival mirrors.  They distort and contort reality.  And you know I kind of like it that way? I can get all true life reflection I want with the bathroom mirror every morning. If I go to a live or movie theatre? I'm lookin' for a little distortion. The older I get? The more distortion I want!

But lately at the movies, I've been getting cheated.

Familiar with the Robert Anderson play, "You know I can't hear you when the water's running?"

If not, it is a set of four one act plays, the name sake of which is about a debate between a playwright and a producer over whether or not they can find an aging actor to deliver the line, "you know I can't hear you when the water's running!"

The complication is this. The playwright wants authenticity. He wants the actor to come on stage from an imagined bathroom. He'll look at his wife and say, "you know I can't hear you when the waters running!"  Wearing a towel? No! Well then, at least backing on to stage? No! Full frontal? Yep!  Thank goodness this was all left to our imagination.

[I worked backstage on this production in summer stock. The aging actor was being played by Joe Flynn, aka Captain Binghamton of McHale's Navy. Nothing personal Joe, rest your soul, I'm so glad it was just imagined.]

I'll be honest. A little nudity in theatre and the cinema doesn't have me scrambling for my blindfold.  I can still remember the adolescent thrill of sneaking into the "Alcazar Theatre" to see "And God Created Women." It starred Bridgette Bardot and not much else. For most males my age it was the first glimpse of a naked woman we'd seen, save a peek at National Geographic. But what we didn't know? This was idealized, distorted nudity. It was not a real mirror.

[I saw a current picture of Bridgette shortly before she died. Not pretty. I'll try to remember her from the movie.]

I was around for one of the first productions of "Hair." Young, well sculpted, well made up bodies? Distortion!

[ I wasn't that happy when a male in a jock strap swinging on a rope flew right over my head.]

In '97 women in general got "treated" to "The Full Monty." Didn't see it myself. But the female reviews I heard focused more on the humor than the "beef cake." No distortion.

This isn't going to make a lot of sense, but what got me off on this tangent was watching TV today. They are talking about UCLA making it to the final four for the first time in a "billion" years.

[When I  was in college UCLA was always in the final four.]

Anyway the cameras do a cutaway to show the grinning face of Bill Walton, the last UCLA Center to be in the Final Four. He is actually younger than me. He is sporting these massive jowls, and looks like spittle is about to run down his cheeks. No makeup! No distortion! A real mirror.

So I'm thinking basketball. I'm thinking the Lakers and Jack Nicholson and his courtside seat. Jack Nicholson, who starred in "Something's Got To give" with Diane Keaton. We see Diane without much distortion.  And then we see Jack's 60 plus year old derriere. NO distortion! Just a mirror. 

[I hope the makeup people weren't up for an Oscar.]

So we're thinking "they gone about as 'fer as they can go."

Basketball to football. Pittsburgh Steelers, Superbowl. Former Steeler Q.B. Terry Bradshaw. Early on he is married to a Miss Teenage  America, follows that up with a stint with Ice Skating Diva Jo Jo Starbuck. Stud? Right?

So forty years and 60 pounds later we put him in a movie. [Failure to Launch] And what do we ask him to do? "Full frontal and then turn around and show my fat _____? Sure I can do that. Can I have a big fish tank in this room and call it my Naked Room?  No I don't need any makeup."

Yes you do, Terry! For the sake of all your contemporaries, YES YOU DO!

SO THIS BEGINS THE COUNTDOWN TO THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. LET'S FACE IT! IT CAN ONLY GO UP HILL FROM HERE! FIVE MORE WEEKS! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW! THE ROLLER COASTER IS STARTING IT'S ASCENT.

I do like the idea of my own naked room, but I don't want anybody to know about it.  And I don't want any fish staring at me.

What's all the Flap?

Flirtatious: "You might be the hottest lookin' Sandhill Crane I've seen around these parts."

Real Mood: Refreshed

Prediction: There will be Sandhill Cranes at the Monte Vista National Wildlife Reserve on The Ides of March 2010. Etu Brute!

There are places on this planet that envelope me. I suspect there are different places for different faces. But I know few people who've bothered to stop driving in this valley, that don't share the awe. I'm talking about Colorado's San Luis Valley.

It's a place where Shirley MacLaine finds a connection to other levels of consciousness.  It's a place where the Forbes fortune's development scheme seems stymied by a special spirit. It's a welcoming spirit, but comes with a warning.

WARNING: Enjoy your stay. Leave your ambitions at home. Make no plans to alter this place. The people here may seem poor, but they are rich in spirit and tradition. If this place doesn't seem like HOME to you AS IT IS? Then in the words of Tracy Uhlman? "GO HOME! GO HOME!" 

This place, bigger than Connecticut, has enticed development from centuries of generations. Development has always been the loser.  It's hosted Ute Indians, Spanish Explorers, Mormon Pioneers, Miners, Mountain Men, Farmers, Ranchers, and Malcom Forbes.

But when you stand in the middle of this place, it's the PLACE that matters. The people who survive here seem to accept and defend that truth.

I still very clearly remember one of the first people I met in this place back in the 70's.  He owned and ran a gas station in San Luis, Colorado's oldest town. He ran that station the same way his father ran it in the 40's.  He takes me into a back room at the gas station. There among old gaskets and greasy fuel pumps, he picks up a newspaper article from a New York newspaper.

In that paper he points to a picture of an "ALL GIRL BAND." He points to this gorgeous trombone player sitting in the middle of the band?

"That's my daughter!"

We are interrupted by three men easily in their 80's. They are right out of the Milagro Bean Field Wars. ( I'm not big on telling people what to do. But you should read the Milagro Bean Field Wars if you haven't. It's good for the soul.)

For those of you who've read the book? This man who owns and runs the gas station goes by the name of Joe Mondragon.

(Joe is the chief protaganist in thenovel.)

Well these old guys, short on teeth, but sharp of wit want some chewing tabacco, a beer and my host's ear. You figure all this out through their body language, 'cause if they knew any English? They were clearly going to keep me from knowing it.

You know we take all this new pride in our abilities to multi-task? It's nothing compared to Joe Mondragon. While he's telling me his daughter's life story, he is jumping in and out of English, Spanish and Spanglish with the "elder" gang. He is watching the pump to make sure he can get back out front and stop it before it gets over ten dollars. And he never stops tinkering with this old fuel pump, even as he is pouring me a cup of coffee into an old stained but washed out paper cup.

I'm guessing? But I think whenever Joe wants a break? He just walks outside and stands there in the middle of the valley. 

"Aw! That's better. Back to the fuel pump. Que tal Viejo?"

It's enough to stand alone in a field and be surrounded by 14 thousand foot high mountains.  It's enough to stand and gawk in awe at the Great Sand Dunes. That happens even following a scientific explanation of why they exist.

Standing out here is a little like taking a scrub brush to your brain, getting all the old dead skin off, paving the way for your soul to get out and get some exercise.

I've got a pretty good sized telephoto lens on my camera, but I never do get kissin' close to these Sandhill Cranes? About a 100 thousand of them visit here for less than a month twice a year. I'm pretty sure they've come here for some rejuvenation, just like me. (They need it because they're going to spend the rest of the Spring and Summer in Nebraska.) (Bad Colorado Joke!)

It's odd that when I walk out into a field trying to get a really good closeup of one? It knows just how close to let me get before it moves on. It moves on at a slightly faster pace than mine. It came here for rejuvenation, not exposure.

I can remember telling friends decades ago, "go see the San Luis Valley before its ruined by development."

Was I naive? There are just places on this planet that say, "don't mess with me! You're welcome to visit, but don't MESS with me."

It comes as no surprise to me that most of the people who live in this place trace their roots back five and six generations. I'm expecting to drive into that gas station in San Luis?  And who is going to wait on me?

"Name's Joe Mondragon. Mi madre used to play trombone in an ALL GIRLS BAND in New York. Want to see her pictura?"

I'm sure you've got a place like this of your own.  If not, go find one.

All our brains need a good scrubbing once in a while.  

I'm still mad at Robert Redford for turning Joe Mondragon into a crusading environmentalist in the "Milagro Beanfield Wars" movie? My Joe Mondragon is just a guy who likes to say, "DON'T MESS WITH ME!"

They must not have any brain scrubbers in Sundance.

Blah, blah, Spring Break, Blah

I't Spring break and so anything that shows up here over the next week will be incidental but probably pretty inspirational, too! It will take some hot stuff in my brain to motivate me.  Have a nice week everybody...

and when we all get back?  IT WILL BE TIME FOR THE BIG PUSH...TOWARD THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings.  THE POT IS BOILING!

While we're on the Subject

Flirtatious: "Want to sit here with me and watch snow melt?"

Real Mood: Incestuously Intrigued

Prediction: There will not be another snowstorm in Santa Cruz, California the rest of 2006. 

So I get back on line this weekend and get an e-mail from former student Kimmy Hidalgo. Kimmy is looking for a letter of recommendation for a summer internship. So?

Well then I get an e-mail from my sister Brenda telling me my nephew Matt,  and his wife Michele, are seeing how long they can keep a SNOWBALL alive in the SUN in Santa Cruz, California (beach town).  It's held up for two days now, and they think it may go three. Other than the fact it never snows in Santa Cruz? So?

Okay, try and stay with me on this one and see if you're mind can't be modestly blown.  Kimmy grew up in Santa Cruz. In fact she did a demonstration in one of my classes on skim boarding (essentially surfing backwards).

Kimmy knows this, by the way, but in case the rest of you aren't up to snuff? There is no surf (except at WaterWorld) in Colorado.  

My family had some close friends who ran the only hamburger stand on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.  I'm not sure how long ago that was? (I remember the burgers as just being okay. They were a little rare for my taste.)

Matt's wife Michele also grew up in Santa Cruz and she may remember the burger joint. I'm sure her folks do. I doubt it's still there. Michele is probably more than ten years older than Kimmy, so they probably don't know each other, but you never know?

Now I have another former student, Melany Fehrenbach, an anchor on the weekly TV show students produce on campus. Well, Melany's MOTHER grew up in Santa Cruz.

Don't know if Kimmy, Michele and Melany's Mom could ever make a connection, or would even want to, but it tickles my fancy. Santa Cruz didn't used to be a very big town!

I'm not done yet.

Melany was born and partially raised in Ness City, Kansas.

Now my mother's sister's family, the Woolens, including cousin Sheila? Well, they partially grew up in  Scott City, Kansas.

[On a side note my Weblog friend sighlemacaba from Yonkers, New York? Her name is Sheila.]

Scott City, Kansas is just a watermelon's toss from Ness City. So ?

Well Sheila, my counsin, dates and later marrys a guy named Larry Miller. I think Larry grew up in Ness City. I know he went on to be the  High Jump champion in Kansas (sorry Larry I can't remember at what level).

[Cousin Bill Woolen writes to let me know Larry, just 5' 7" in length at the time, impressively high jumped 6' 4". And the Fosberry Flop hadn't even been invented at that time.  I say, at that time, because Larry is my age. I'm guessing he's no more than 5' 6" long by now.] 

I also know that after college Larry and Sheila return to Ness City where Larry teaches at the high school? He also coaches track and football I think?

Anyway, Melany checks for me?

Larry had at LEAST been Melany's DAD's teacher, and probably his football coach.

Melany's twin brother Matt is a pretty big guy,  so I'm just jumping to conclusions that DAD had been out there on the gridiron.

Sometimes in that part of the country wheat harvest interferes with football practice.  

So my sister Brenda's e-mail suggests I might want to do a BLOG entry on SNOWBALLS in Santa Cruz?

Well there wasn't a SNOWBALL's chance in DEATH VALLEY I was going to let all this go by.

And you wonder why I think somehow every thing is somehow connected?  

Nephew Matt, (no known relationship to Melany's twin brother Matt) by the way, is an attorney into genealogy. There might be something here he can play with on one of those cold snowy winter nights in Santa Cruz, instead of fiddling with his briefs.

THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE TOPICS I COULD HAVE SAVED FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. BUT WHAT I HAVE IN MIND WILL BURY THIS SNOW JOB.  YOU'D BETTER BE THERE...APRIL 28TH. DON'T FLAKE OUT ON ME.

[Make sure you read the comment below from sighlemacaba.]

Let Up On The Gas

Flirtatous: "You know I don't like broccoli either?"

Real Mood: Portentous

Prediction: Someone will find a way to put broccoli in a pill form.

I am a firm believer in the notion that everything is somehow CONNECTED.

You may remember the PBS show CONNECTIONS? Creator and host James Burke takes any two historical inventions? Then he demonstrates how they find a CONNECTION in an electric pencil sharpener?

Well I see theory become reality today. Hang on.

It's always a delight to see the jaws of jaundiced 21 year olds drop. 

I take my Broadcast Journalism Television Students on a lot of "field trips." I do this to illustrate to them that since everything is somehow connected? Then anything you see or hear is fair game for the story you're about to tell.

Today we head out to see my friend KMGH TV helicopter pilot Rich Westra. As my cynical gang stares inside the two million dollar TV toy? That nips away at the cynicism. But when Rich starts his speech on what "This Baby" can do? That's when the mandibles become detached.

Rich has been doin' this for 25 years. A few more years than that takes me back to my first close encounter with a helicopter.

With help from my close friend Nancy, I'm picking up my car from an empty parking lot on Beach Blvd in Orange County.

Nancy picks me up at Los Angeles International Airport as I depart a flight that's just been in an emergency landing.

I'm coming from a convention in Cincinnati. You hear a little KAH KLUNK just as we lift off the runway there.

[Rich always does this dramatic demonstration of how much safer a chopper is compared to a jet because it can auto rotate.] 

I can see and hear the rush of emotion in the 13 year old girl sitting next to me. I can tell it's her first flight.

"Nothing to worry about. Just a premature jump on bringing up the landing gear."

"Really?"

"Uh, huh!"

"Thanks!"

Somewhere over Kansas the pilot makes a liar out of me. Seems we blow a few tires when we take off from the Cincinatti Airport?

[which is actually in Kentucky in case you didn't know.]

Well we all start drinking. That might be because the drinks are now on the house. All of us, save the 13 year girl sitting next to me. That would be illegal.

[ Strange that we would start drinking heavily over Kansas which has a law that says you cannot drink on any form of public conveyance. Verne Miller, the Kansas Attorney General, actually tries to arrest people on trains, busses and planes as they  transvere his state.  I guess we're lucky.]

This is the 13 year old girl who now informs me she is the niece of baseball's "Hall of Fameless" Pete Rose. Shortly thereafter I'm told by the flight attendant (called STEWARDESS in those days) that Pete Rose's sister's progeny is now MY responsibility. What are the ODDS? I drink to that!

Somehow we get down okay and clap for the brave pilot. (just like the movies.) 

Meantime back at the empty parking lot at midnight I'm tossing my bags in the trunk. I can faintly hear the WHOP, WHOP, WHOP of rotor blades but don't think much about it.

ALRIGHT, OKAY, HERE COMES CHAPTER DEUX...My internet service took a break and so? So did I.

Okay, where were we?

I crank the ignition, and don't fasten my seat belt.  It's not the law yet, just a suggestion. I gently meander my way out on to the road and head South.

[Why in most of Southern California is the Pacific Ocean always to the South?]

Time alone does not ameliorate the affects of innebriation. But let me suggest two events that will bring instant sobriety and end all threat of a lingering hangover.

Having a LIGHT from heaven shine on your face after midnight on Beach Boulevard is a pretty good starter. Since I appear to be the only oxygen breathing entity in sight? This light is  clearly meant for "moi."

Top that off with the light speaking to you as you mosey down the highway?

And the Rotor Blade GOD SPAKE from on high,  " PULL TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. PULL TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD NOW."

I can now touch my nose and walk a straight line all the way back to LAX.

This Rotor Blade diety is clearly only interested in handing down ONE COMMANDMENT.

Seems they think I've buglarized this office I work in, dumped the goodies in the trunk, and am now headed to find my fence.

That's enough of that story except to say it gets me to thinking about all the BIG BROTHER FICTION we are reading. To experience it first hand is, as I say, SOBERING.

Fortunately tight budgets have kept every public jurisdiction from "poppin'" for one of these ROTOR-GODS.

Many years hence I find myself up cruising around with Rich Westra hypothetically chatting through the head sets.

"You know Rich it's a little scary about how much THEY know about us. Satellites can pinpoint our location within a block, PhotoRadar can ticket us with no chance to argue."

"Yeah, I guess that's right."

"They have these digital cameras at every major intersection now?Anyone with a computer can access a data base that can tell them where I had breakfast this morning."

"Yeah. Hang on just a second. We got something coming up in the monitor."

What comes up in the monitor is a couple, in a miraculously contorted interface, performing the act of procreation, on top of a very large boulder. We can see this on a monitor from more than a mile away.  This is not Paris Hilton asking for a closeup.

"Okay, what were you sayin' Paul?"

"Nothin'!" 

Well, here we are, back at the HANGAR. I'm just glad these invasions of our privacy have gone just about as far as they can go.

Rich is talking to the class about his other enterprise. He now has a helicopter equipped to save Natural Gas companies at least millions of dollars. It can detect gas leaks.

"How, with a photographer's 20 thousand dollar camera?"

"Nope!"

"With the super expensive attached FLIR camera that can pick out your shirt label from a mile away?"

"Nuh uh!?""

"How then?"

"Remember the guy up in Canada who invented Lasik Eye Surgery? Seems he's had some time on his hands driving back forth to the bank. He's developed a laser technology that can detect pipeline gas leaks."

"What kind of gas Rich?"

"Methane."

"Now isn't Methane the gas we........?"

"Yeah, this baby can pick out one part per million. Two parts per million exist naturally in the atmosphere."

"So you're telling me....If I uh.....sitting in my car....standing in a crowded elevator not yet singled out...and you fly overhead with this thing?"

"Uh, huh!"

"And if I've had broccoli for dinner and I'm at the opera about to shake the hand of the Governor.....?"

"Yes sir!"

"And if I'm on Continental Flight 833 departed from Cincinatti headed for Los Angeles, still trying to digest the cheese and bean omelette I got at the airport concession stand, sitting next to Pete Rose's Niece? And now I've been drinking heavily because I've just been told this might be my last flight, and you happen to rotor by?"

" I'm 'fraid so."

Do I owe PETE ROSE an apology?

"Hey Pete, let's cut the deck for it, Ace high!"

"Cut what?"

THAT'S JUST ONE MORE TOPIC WE'LL NOT EXPLORE ON  THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. APRIL 28th. I'M TAKING REQUESTS. I WONDER WHAT PETE ROSE'S NIECE IS DOING TODAY? SHE'S NO LONGER 13. I CAN TELL YOU THAT!

Some Seasons are Silly

Flirtatious: You're flippin' wacky! Know that?

Real Mood: Simply out of my Gordian mind.

Prediciton: Some sense of sanguine sanity will some day surface.

 

Even before she gets her first novel published, Elena Brown is my favorite writer. She can get to the core of something faster than a Meer Cat. I ask her for a topic? Does she hestitate? Does she cogitate? Uh!Uh! "Do Discursive," says she. "Discursive it is," says he.

[Discursive: basically a non-academic essay randomly jumping from topic to topic.]  [Yeee!Haaah!]

I asked some students to make a frame with their hands in front of their eyes. "Take a mental picture of  that frame," says I.  "Now, sans punctuation and other handcuffs, write like mad men and women describing your vision."

I don't ever ask a student to do something I wouldn't do.

I dedicate this to Elena.

White saline plastic spray bottle like a slick ICBM has a shadow below its nose cone that drops down like a lobster bib which says noon making one wonder what time it is in Dubais where even this time of year you fry when noon is nigh to the bottle I see a staple which reminds me of maple my favorite cereal flavor unless it's oatmeal but I digress as I look for focus in this mess by this stack of cds inside plastic that say saturn and its rings and other pretty things that are up in the sky but not right now before my eye thats where in the frame the rings are by a box of tissues with one lone vanilla ice cream holding cone standing up like an old person at attention having one flap catch the light that breaks the night sending out its dissention above the box with flowered images on baby blue so pretty when you think what the contents are there to do for you one angled corner diffused by a golden glass that softens background and  mood with loops and shadows and scratches and a canoe sitting on a brown lake moving two and too fast for the garter snakesssss reflecting from wood their shadows as they should I guess is that a penny i see on yellow horror product of tree hugger sensitivity and a pen that is in long round form it too  a missle but from a submarine aimed at a queen who is maybe mean the staple attached to the stapler that now seems like a walrus head with its tail tucked underneath and headed in reverse and the head of which has holes more like an orca or a punctured garden hose a shadow underneath its bottom what's holding it up could be a sea turtle were it the sea but with this brown wood that resembles a rotting pond shows a little square pad that is all alone. I'm sure there is some part of DISCURSIVE thats elusive here but WHAT FUN! TRY IT SOMETIME!  Ever so often you hit a rhyme.

THAT'S JUST A SAMPLE OF WHAT YOU MIGHT READ AS I PLANT THE SEED FOR  remember THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. WHAT OTHER SEEMINGLY SENSELESS  RESULT  [EDITOR'S INSTRUCTIONS: show subliminal length shot of page on calendar with bold PMM  letters held up on cork board with a stick pen that looks like an ICBM] MIGHT YOU MISS IF YOU ARN'T HERE APRIL 28TH. [EDITOR'S INSTRUCTIONS: pre-production animation of pumping heart with the numbers 2 and 8 swelling and shrinking with the pumping heart.] DON'T BREAK MY HEART! BE THERE!

Not a drop, I swear to it1

""Countin' Em Down"

Flirtatious: "Seen my new Belly Board?

Real Mood: Beachy

Prediction: You won't believe what time it is? Or maybe you will!

Forty Three (43) more days to go. Stock up on hot dogs and marshmellows but don't light the fire yet. These PMM first anniversaries have a way of sneaking up on you.

"I would like to thank THE ACADEMY blah, blah, blah and blah blah."

"Get the the hook, quick! I think she's sober."

"Rumor has it John Daily will be changing his name to John Monthly."

"Cut the vanity Lauren Bacall. Get some glasses. "

Folks this is not MOTHER'S day. Give DAD a little credit, will you?

I feel so exposed and ashamed.  You now know I watched some of it.

"I think you should wear the 'Polka Dot Bikini' and your "Thongs" (aka flip flops). Really! That's what we called em! Ask your DAD."

IT'S GETTING CLOSE. YOU WON'T BELIEVE HOW CLOSE IT'S GETTING! (probably 'cause I lied to you once or twice or more about how close it was getting.) DON'T BE THE ONLY ONE ON THE SAND TO SAY, " I couldn't make it."

''SET COMING! SURF'S UP!"

Ask your Dad.

Just Can't Be!

Flirtatious: "I could rub your shoulders, or I could introduce you to BACKWASH."

Real Mood: Intractable

Prediction: A bottle of Merlot will disappear.

I don't know how good this is going to be. I'd just written about a thousand words? I was getting ready to save? I don't know what I pushed,  but it's all gone. Oh, what a sinking feeling. I am bemoaning my fate to Peggy? She simply says, "there's some merlot in the cereal cupboard."

I'll try not to drink the whole bottle.

Photographer Jim Weis and myself spent a good portion of the 90's at the local airport.  We were so journalistically attached to the place that we would quite often begin and end our days on runways. There were weeks at a time when neither of us saw the insides of a newsroom.

Why?  Well in the mid-90's Denver International Airport was a journalist's magnet.  It was the largest and most expensive public works project in the country at the time. Don't hold me to these numbers, but I think there were seventeen thousand people working on it at one point.

Anyway it was some huge number. And it certainly generated some hot stories.  Let's see? It's too far from town, construction fatalities, cost overuns in the billions, bond ratings drop, Continental pulls out, United moves in, a baggage system won't  work, a train system breaks down, fiberoptic system keeps setting off alarms, noise complaints, porta pottie fires, bond ratings dive again, cracks in the runways, cracks in the tarmac, the parking garage will crash, how to get rid of antelope, art program gets panned, fountain over train system leaks.

I wish I'd had a microscope franchise at the time. Everyone owned one and had it aimed at DIA. We, reporters and photographers, spent a lot of time chasing our tails. If the National Enquirer was reporting there were Zombies living in the airport tunnels? We had to go check that out. 

I loved the report that the tower was leaning 7 degrees off plumb.  Wouldn't we notice?  I still have students come up to me and tell me about all the secret tunnels where bodies are buried, and seditious acts are taking place. I shouldn't even tell you this.  I've been in those secret tunnels.  They're pretty boring! 

The problem from my perspective is all this hot  and not so hot news kept us from focusing on some of the superlatives  and fun stories at this BIG FLYING PLACE. So Class!

With help from the airport's Chuck Cannon and Viviana Paz I'm going to tell you all about the other DIA.

So Elisa and Heather join me on a tour.  We are not headed for the terminal.  We are going to drive around the perimeter. This is where you can really get a feel for what 53 square miles look like. It's how you actually convince someone this IS the largest land mass airport in the world. Riyadh challenges that? But no other airport wants to fight.

Well Heather and Elisa, there is one urban myth out here I like to keep alive. It's that one salesman got the sales commission on all the fencing at the world's largest land mass airport. The figure I hear bounced around is 10 million dollars.  It's probably not true.  But when I'm driving by one of those 10 thousand square foot homes on a golf course?  Someone in the car says, "who lives in those places, anyway?"    My glib, quick response is, "the guy who sold all the fencing to DIA, for one."

Now Elisa from out here you get a good look at that tower that's supposed to be leaning 7 degrees. It may have been somebody in Amsterdam that started that rumor.  You see DIA claims to have the highest tower in the world.  By tape measure Amsterdam's is a few feet longer, but DIA argues that since Amsterdam is below sea level?  This stuff can get a little petty at times.

But Heather, the fencing doesn't encompass the entire airport property. People are often surprised to discover the airport is actually in the agriculture business.  It has a number of tenant farmers who pass on a real healthy commission to the airport.  I don't think DIA's take has ever gone under a million.

Wake up Elisa! Take a look at those wheat fields and you notice they are sprinkled with oil and gas rigs. That's right!  The airport is also in the fossil fuel depletion business.  I'm just guessing now. I'll bet the fuel receipts are topping the cereal franchise.  I can't remember which of those two airport enterprises is supposed to be unique in the world. Take your pick.

Oddly you guys, the oil and gas enterprise offers up a unique economic enigma. If fuel prices are low, airline costs are low, and business is good.  DIA makes a bundle.

Conversely if fuel prices go up? Airline costs skyrocket. Business is  bad.  Buuuut, when those fuel prices go up? DIA still makes a bundle. I'm curious to know if anyone was clever enough to actually plan on that hedge against deflation.

Elisa your mother worked out here. She's heard these stories. From the very moment the first back hoe broke ground at DIA,  rumors surfaced on WHOOOOO was buried on this sacred ground. At one point there was concern it might encompass a Native American Burial Ground.  According to a least one Native American report, the plains indians didn't bury their dead. They burnt them above ground.

But catch this ladies. Heavy equipment did unearth some fossils.  My DIA friend Dan Melfi made Jim Weis and me believers by showing us the remains of a fossil bed at a somewhat secret location at the airport.  I say somewhat because I'm sharing this site with the two of you. Don't tell!  And Dan, if your listening, it looks like the fossils are pretty well depleted. I think the secret is out!  

When the airport was built so far away from town, there were many complaints. One bank of those complaints was DIA didn't offer any place like Stapleton where you could just sit under the runways and watch planes land and take off. ( There is really a very serious percentage of the population that's in to that?  No Kiddin'!)

Well let me blow away another myth.  Yeah there are at least two such places at this big ol' honkin' airport where you can do that.   But I'm not telling.  Neither are Elisa or Heather.

I overheard them talking about bringing their dates out here. They would just as soon you weren't anywhere near the place.

"I want to introduce you guys (Elisa and Heather) to a physical phenomenon that takes place when large jets land. Just stand here. Don't get impatient. This will take about 30 seconds."

30 seconds later?

"OOOhh"

"Wow!"

"Cool!"

"Weird!"

This eerie sound and sensation envelops you. I think it's called backwash by pilots, but I think physicists have another name for it.  You have to get out of your car to experience it.

AND YOU'LL NEED TO GET OUT OF YOUR CAR TO TRULY APPRECIATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. IT'S GOING TO KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT WILL DO TO YOUR FEET. PLAN A PMM PARTY...JUST A MONTH AND A HALF TO GO.

i drank the whole bottle

"INFRA WHAT?"

Flirtatious: "That's a pretty cute construction trailer you got there!"

Real Mood: Self Servingly Amused

Prediction: "There will be a new,  almost secret, 28 million gallon water reservoir in town in 2007."

A person can't preach "write every day" if that person ain't writin' every day. So let's just see where this goes.  I've had a pretty interesting week with my TV journalism class.

On Tuesday I take seven of them to what appears to be a raised soccer field. I know better. This is my chance to point out that there is always more to a story than what's on the surface.

See, under that soccer field? There are two huge treated water reservoirs. Had I had more time I might have been able to finagle some access to them. 

I've done stories on them, and they are eye boggling.  With lights shining on their surface they look like huge Roman baths,  sans all the art work. 

It's strange that there are a slew of these reservoirs in our neighborhoods that go undetected. 

And that may have been the case in this situation. Often things people tell you go unrepsonded to because those things are invisible. A normal level of skepticism says, "yeah, right! I gotta get to work!"

That may have been the case in this situation had I not done some snooping around.  I lead my potential skeptics right into the middle of a construction site.  There in front of us?  Heavy equipment is knocking down concrete walls of this very large basin.  I take one look and say to myself, "my credibility is home free on this one."

They are in the process of rebuilding a third reservoir. There the  THING is without water. One of the better reactions I've had on one of these little discovery missions comes from Al Cardenas.

Al is a police officer who used to work in the city dispatch center. The dispatch center sits right next to what Al always assumed was just a soccer field. 

Peripherally I see Al's Jaw drop.

"But what used to be here?  I know something was here."

I think it was just some sort of soft macadam surface roof next to the soccer field. Without a briefing there was no way for Al to know there was 28 million gallons of water down there.  And another 40 million gallons underneath the soccer field?

To me it's fascinating stuff.  But try to sell anything that says "infrastructure" to a producer or news director?  You gotta be good and lucky to pull that off.

In case anyone reading this is ever in that situation? Talk about the force of water, the dramatic sound it makes as it cascades down the path of gravity. Remind them of the passifying effect of negative ions that pop up from the rushing nectar of life.

None of that may work.  If it doesn't? Tell them about the Metro State Journalism class confrontation with the construction site boss.

"Do you have permission to be on this property?"

"Hi! I'm an instructor at Metro State and just wanted to have my students get a sense of these underground reservoirs."

"Well you can't be here.  You don't have any hardhats. You didn't check in at the trailer."

Now if I'd of thought you were headed my way with your camera?

"What do you mean I can't be here.  I'm a taxpayer and this is Public Property! I'm gonna call the MEDIA!"

But I'd only be doing that so you could get your infrastructure story on the air.  Since I was pretty sure you weren't coming?

"Sorry, we just stumbled on to it. We were just getting ready to leave when you walked up?"

"Okay, then!"

"Say, how many gallons of water this thing hold."

"28 million!"

"Wow class! For once I didn't exaggerate."

"Well you can't stay here!"

"Oh, I know. How much water you got under those soccer fields?"

"40 thousand gallons. Now you need to leave."

"Absolutely! Can I get your card in case I have any more questions?"

"Uh, yeah! Here! Next time check in at the trailer."

"Absolutely will."

Walking away I suggest to class?

" I just got the story while no one was looking!"

What I wish I'd said?

"In this business you quite often get more information with HONEY than JALAPENO."

I hope some Greek or Shakespeare didn't say that first.

Today I took two students out to look at some airport INFRASTRUCTURE. Tommorrow I'll share some of that excitement with you.

That gives you something to look forward to while you ANTICIPATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. IT'S NOT THAT FAR AWAY NOW! IT HAPPENS SHORTLY AFTER INCOME TAX DAY. FILE ELECTRONICALLY AND YOU'LL HAVE THAT REFUND MONEY IN TIME FOR THE CELEBRATION.