Finally, a real vacation

So, I'm heading out tomorrow to fly to Miami for a seven-day Caribbean Cruise leaving Sunday. I've had an impossibly busy last 3 months dispensing justice to those least desiring it, so I'm counting down the minutes until my relaxing 10-day weekend starts.

At least I hope it's relaxing. I return from almost every single vacation more exhausted than when I left. One of my personality flaws is an unrealistic expectation of the number of things I can accomplish in a given time, so I tend to overbook every minute of my life. This is why I don't blog more often. And also why I forgot to call you back last night.

Anyway, my wife and I are vowing not to do that this time (Except in San Juan, where there's just too much we want to see to fit in the 8 hours we are there. You don't expect me to stop overcommitting cold turkey, right?). Instead, I'm hoping to sit in the sun and stare blankly into the sun for 7 straight days, taking the occasional crumpet or fruit-influenced drink that the poolside attendants bring my way.

Every day when you cruise you get a list of activities for the next day, which all sound fabulously entertaining on paper. Half of the time these things are great, but the other half, the champagne art auction is usually low on champagne and high on high pressure sales pitches for bad art; the trivia is filled with loud talkers and questions about obscure 1940s cinema; and the production shows are less entertaining than the karaoke in the back lounge.

I love crusing, but unless you are going for a non-stop party (which is in fact a very good reason to cruise), the endless supply of available activities can defeat the purpose of getting away from an overburdened life. I'm not going to let that happen this time. I'm going to sleep in, sit on my private balcony, eat well, and maybe sing some Elvis if there's the usual nightly karaoke.

I can't wait. I'll tell you all about it when I come back.

If I come back.

3 Perspectives on Election Night

I like to flip between the three cable news channels when I watch election coverage. It's like traveling between three different dimensions without leaving your couch. Here's a recap of last night:

CNN: We welcome you to our live election coverage! We're bringing you analysis from a variety of perspectives tonight. In fact, we have so many analysts on our panel that our news desk is in the shape of an "L" just to fit them all! That's right, we have more commentators working tonight than you can actually see on your tv! We thought this was a good idea for some reason! Anyway, our panel includes: Donna Brazile, from the African-America perspective; Alex Castellanos from the Latin American conservative perspecitve; James Carville the crazy liberal cajun that we've just let out of his cage; Bill Bennet, the grumpy old conservative...

MSNBC: We welcome you to tonight's funeral. We had fun while our party lasted. Stay with us over the next five hours as we try to explain why America has lost its collective mind.

Fox News: We welcome you to tonight's HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is going to be GREAT!

CNN: We also have Gloria Berger, from the white feminist perspective; Anderson Cooper, our intellectual skeptic, Donald Martin, from the male African American perspective...

MSNBC: Breaking news: it's just been announced that the Republicans have won the House. Just as tragically, beloved Senator Russ Feingold has lost in Wisconsin. How did Wisconsin vote out Russ Feingold? This was RUSS FEINGOLD? What is wrong with you, Wisconsin? You've just voted out the best Senator of all time. Please turn the channel, we don't even want to talk to you.

Fox News: (News anchor #1) So it looks like the Republicans will take control of the House, but not the Senate. But we have the House, and home is where the heart is!

(News anchor #2) What is this Senate thing of which you speak? Don't you know the Republicans just won the House? Let's take a look at how Martha Roby won Alabama District 2, and then we'll proceed through the alphabet with an in-depth look at each of the 240 House races the Republicans have won so far. Meanwhile, in an effort to live up to our "fair and balanced" motto, we'll go live to every single victory speech by a Republican winner tonight.

MSNBC: You know, Russ Feingold truly lived up to his name. He really was as fine as gold. We're so bummed about him losing, that we're going to go live to the concession speech of Delaware witch-turned-losing Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell, just to cheer us up. Even though this has no news value whatsoever, she might say something dumb that we can laugh at. It's what Russ Feingold would have wanted.

CNN: And to the right, outside of your view, we have Wolf Blitzer, who will break in at inopportune moments and give you meaningless exit poll results, such as "56 percent of women wearing green preferred that their candidate wear sandals while on vacation, while 42 percent preferred loafers. But this was true only among independents and women named Jane."

MSNBC: We're now joined by GOP minority whip Eric Cantor. We're not sure why he agreed to this, but we will make him regret it. Mr. Cantor, will you admit tonight that all of your campaign promises were lies or will you lie again and deny it? Isn't it true that you've spent the last two years opposing Obama, but you have no actual ideas of your own? And what was so bad about Russ Feingold?

CNN: And on the "L" portion of our state, we have several other analysts from any other demographic group you can possibly imagine. This is to ensure that whenever we finally get around to finishing our introductions and start our analysis, we can be sure that (with this many people) someone will soon change whatever subject will be brought up, so we never have to come up with anything insightful!

Fox: And in Connecticut House District 13 the Republican managed to win by... wait, we now are joined by GOP minority whip Eric Cantor. Eric, would you say that the Democrats are incompetent and lazy or that they just hate America?

MSNBC: Stay tuned, everyone. We have two more concession speeches of losing Republican candidates to bring you, once we can actually find two more Republicans who lost tonight. There are also still three close Senate races we're keeping an eye on, but we aren't going to tell you which ones or what the vote total is, because then you might change the channel, and we didn't have that many viewers to begin with. We're sure you'd rather hear our overblown opinions than actual election results anyway.

CNN: (Gloria Berger speaking) So, what to make of tonight's events? Donna, do you see tonight's vote as a repudiation of democratic policies or merely as a sign of voter frustration with the economy?

(Donna Brazille): Well, I think that the key to understanding what happened tonight is...(loud music interrupts, and a voice speaks: WE INTERRUPT TO TAKE YOU BACK TO WOLF BLITZER IN FRONT OF OUR GIANT SCREEN OF DOOM WITH THE LATEST EXIT POLLING. WOLF?)

(Wolf Blizter): I have new exit poll results from Canada, which didn't actually vote tonight, but is a lovely place nonetheless. We found that 41 percent of Canadians prefer bacon, but only 38 percent would eat it on a chicken sandwich. But in Toronto, these numbers are reversed.

Fox: We are now joined by Fox News analyst Greta Van Sustern, here to revel in the glory of taking control of the House, which everyone knows is the only legislative body that matters. Greta, do you think tonight's vote reveals that America has finally come to its senses?

(Greta): Well, the first thing I noticed was that Russ Feingold lost his Senate seat in Wisconsin. Which is good, because there isn't a redeeming thing about that guy.

CNN: BREAKING NEWS: exit polling finds that 82 percent of Americans are just thankful to finally have a break from politics, regardless of the ultimate outcome of this election. And the other 18 percent of Americans are sitting on this panel.

Birthday blog

It's a day of milestones for both the blog and myself. One of us just turned 33-years old, and the other 6 months, but I'll let you guess which is which.

I decided to start doing this blog last spring because I felt like life was missing something-- that somehow I was supposed to be doing more with my life than what I was. As another year of my life has passed, I again start to think about how what I want life to look like this time next year.

The two-part answer I invariably come to is simple: rich and well rested!

But neither of those is likely to happen.

So I'll settle for 10 other things instead:

1) I want to wake up in the morning and see the purpose of my day;

2) I want to look forward to daily interactions with those I love;

3) I want to feel God's presence and direction in my life;

4) I want to go to sleep at night without fear of how I'll pay the bills in the morning;

5) I want to look forward to my next adventure;

6) I want to gain more than 9 followers of this blog;

7) I want to be proud of what I did yesterday instead of stressed about all I'll have to finish before tomorrow;

8) I want to reach the point in life where I celebrate my own accomplishments instead of those of my favorite football team;

9) Also, I want to celebrate those of my favorite football team;

10) I want the world to be a better place because I existed in it.

That's what I want for next year.

Right now, I just want some ice cream.

ps: I'll be back November 3 with post-election thoughts. Thanks for reading, everyone.

Please hurry, November 3rd

Sometimes I wish I'd stuck with my original plan to go into political science just so I could replace all those ridiculous political ads with something halfway decent.

Ninety-eight percent of tv ads insult our intelligence and, most puzzlingly, seem designed to appeal to those who've already decided to vote for the advertising candidate anyway. For example, if you're a Republican politician and your ad says your opponent is a "crazy wack-job, communist liberal JUST LIKE NANCY PELOSI," well, anyone who that ad appeals to was going to vote for the Republican in the race anyway. And if you're a Democrat and you ad says your opponent only cares about rich people and/or the oil business, you're only attracting people who feel antagonistic toward those groups-- in other words, people who were going to vote for whoever had the "D" beside their name. But almost every ad see (from either party) plays on some variation of a theme like this. Why do ads never seem aimed to attract political independents, the people whose vote an ad could possibly influence? I get that firing up your base is part of the deal, but must every election be promoted as the final battle of good versus evil?

I don't think so.

We have on other troubling aspect of campaigning in Tennessee. Political ads here seem to be a contest of who can appear to be the biggest redneck. One prominent gubernatorial candidate built a whole campaign on the fact he wears cowboy boots. Another guy appears on a tractor in every ad and uses the phrase "Plow Washington" as his campaign slogan. (Never mind the fact that he's a Democrat whose party is in power has presumably done whatever it is that he thinks needs to be plowed). Our likely next governor has an ad in which a thickly accented guy speaks in incomplete sentences (which is just as well because half of his words are incomprehensible anyway) to describe how this candidate helped get a construction project started on his behalf. And these ads are still better than his opponent's.

I love politics, and even I'm sick of these ads. I can't imagine how fatigued the average person out there is.

I voted earlier today (highlight: A 90-ish year-old woman tried to show up after the polls had closed and was turned away. In response she yelled: "Those Damn Republicans!" and walked away). I just wish voting early came with the added benefit of opting out of heaing political ads for the next 5 days.

That would be a change I could believe in.

No Loitering

The last refuge for the weary in downtown Nashville is gone.

I'm speaking, of course, of the exquisite downtown library, which still exists, but will no longer welcome me if I'm not sufficiently productive while there.

For the past three years, the library has been my sanctuary of idleness, the place I could go to let my mind wander unproductively for 45 minutes in the middle of a stressful work day.

But sadly, those days are gone. Last week, I noticed a sign by the front door that read: "No eating, drinking, smoking or loitering."

I understand, and generally obey, the first three. The fourth is a genuine source of bafflement. No loitering? At the library? Why not?

Isn't that like a "no loitering" sign at a public park?

Why, exactly, can't I loiter at a public space funded by my tax dollars? Who is the victim if I choose to sit aimlessly in a library chair for half an hour? Why am I allowed to to go inside the library and take things for free, but not to go in and do nothing?

The policy isn't just senseless, it leaves open an endlessly perplexing list of ambiguities. For example, what level of productivity must I achieve to be in compliance with library policy? If I can't just idly stare out the library window, what if I stare out the window but have a book in front of me? Must the book be open? What if I'm not actually reading it? If I was actively reading it, how long of a break from it can I take without facing the wrath of those notorious library security goons? And if they are serious about this "no loitering" thing, why did they buy all those comfy leather chairs?

With all these gray areas, I'm not sure how they actually enforce this rule. But at least it isn't self-contradictory, like one of the others. As I mentioned, the sign by the front (and only) entrance also prohibits food. But the library's second floor, which cannot be reached without walking past through that front door, contains an outdoor square with a sign reading: "Enjoy our outdoor courtyard: a perfect place to read, relax or enjoy your lunch!"

Ok, but how do you get your lunch to the courtyard? And when does relaxing become loitering?

One day I'm going to find a librarian and ask these questions. I'm pretty sure the librarian will think I'm crazy. And then the librarian will ask me to either find something more productive to do with my time or get out of the library.

On Katy Perry's Date with Elmo

I heard a week's worth of outrage over Katy Perry's censored Sesame Street appearance before I finally got around to watching it.

I usually avoid stuff like this. No matter what I decide about a controversial issue, I'm going to be end up agitated with those whose opinions differ. Even if my decison is to be undecided, I get annoyed that those who've oversimplied the issue enough to have a firm opinion.

That's the curse of being an attorney. That's just the way we get trained to think. It's great for oral arguments, but terrible for one's social life. You end up thinking most everyone you know is an idiot, including yourself. Especially yourself. Because you have an acute realization of all the thing you do that don't make any sense. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

Anyway, I didn't care enough about the Sesame Street controversy to torture myself with the knowledge of which opinion about it was unreasonable. I've never really like Katy Perry, I don't watch Sesame Street and don't have kids who might, and the ultimate solution seemed like a fair compromise (the skit would not air on tv, but would remain on the internet for anyone interested to watch). So whether or not her dress was too short for a skit she did with Elmo was not among the most 5,000 important issues in my life. I managed to stay blissfully ignorant about the issue until I heard the skit involved a parody of the one Katy Perry song I actually like ("Hot N Cold"), and then curiosity finally got the best of me.

So I watched it yesterday. Two things from the video stick with me. First, and most importantly, I can't get that silly song out of my head.
(You're hot and you're cold,
you're yes and you're no,
you're in and you're out,
You're up and you're down...)

I've been humming it for two straight days. Pretty soon someone is going to kill me. And I wouldn't blame them, or even necessarily mind. At least if I'm dead I'll get that song out of my head.

The other thing: there's no definite standard by which to judge whether someone's dress is too risque for a given occasion. It's in the eye of the beholder, and this one seems somewhere near the borderline to me, though had a less controversial musician appeared in the exact same dress I kind of doubt anyone would have even noticed. Unless it was a Jonas brother.

But I keep coming back to these two questions:

(1)Is there a single child out there of Sesame Street-watching age who would have seen this video, which was filled with bright costumes, revolving colorful backdrops, a catchy song and a bright red puppet, and noticed that the woman in it should have been wearing a few inches of more fabric?;

(2) And do the objecting adults really think their five-year old child is as obsessed with cleavage as they are?;

Random Thoughts

I would get on facebook twice as often if I didn't feel the need to come up with new status updates all the time.

In the Tennessee governor's race, the Democrat is trying to convince everyone he thinks just like a Republican, and the Republican is trying to convince people he's not really one of those Republicans. So, as a political independent, who do I vote for?

Speaking of which, I followed the 2008 election closely, but I can't build much enthusiasm for the election this November. Politicians are worse than lawyers, and I should know...

In 2010, my favorite college football team won the national title for the first time in 18 years, co-favorite NFL team won the Super Bowl for the first time ever, co-favorite hockey team made the Stanley Cup Finals, and favorite baseball team is going to playoffs for the first time in 15 years. Did I make a deal with the devil in my sleep without realizing it?

I was flipping channels this morning, and I heard Pat Robertson say that the U.S. would feel God's wrath if we negotiated a settlement between Israel and Palestine. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that Robertson's program is still on the air, or that people still watch it.

I'd always heard that the Lord of the Rings books were a Christian allegory. I understand that comparision in some respects, but now that I'm reading them, they are really about World War II, right?

Don't get me wrong, I think the Islamic Center near Ground Zero is in poor taste. But I don't see how you can oppose their right to put one there unless you'd also oppose a church near an abortion clinic.

If I got to choose my own hours (and had to work an 8-hour day), I'd pick 10-6. No one ever accomplishes anything before 10 anyway, and it's not like there's anything happening between 5 and 6. Whoever decided on 8-5 is an idiot.

Is it just me, or is August always mind-numingly boring, but September always filled with more stuff than one could possibly fit in? Surely someone can fix this...

I've had pre-existing, out-of-town, non-holiday related plans on Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day this year. I don't get Columbus Day off. But no one on Earth (who hasn't served in the military) is going to be happier about Veteran's Day than I am this year...

I will spend far more time trying to re-adjust, blow on, or put a voodoo spell the batteries in my faulty remote than it would take to walk to the kitchen and get some new ones. There's something wrong with me...

12 crazy days

Friday, August 27:

So, I'm leaving for a conference in San Diego today, as a last-minute substitute for another attorney in my office who can't make it. My flight leaves at 5, but my ride to the airport needs to pick me up at 2:45. Before I go, I have a zillion and two things to do. Two things absolutely have to get filed before I leave the office for a week or an inmate might go free. The Zillion other things each only take about 5 minutes each, but I just don't have 5 zillion minutes today.

At one o'clock, I remember its also the last day to register for Spanish classes for the fall and add that to the list. I manage to get the paperwork done and wrap up pretty much everything else by 2 and I'm suddenly feeling quite good about how I managed to pull all this off. Then at 2:30 my boss-- who knows I'm leaving today-- walks in and dumps about 30 new cases on me that need immediate attention. My secretary, who was surely looking forward to a working vacation of her own while I was gone, is not going to be happy when I tell her about this. I break the news, her what to do, apologize profusely and get out of the office by 3, at which point I again profusely apologize to the ride who's been waiting, somewhat patiently but perhaps somewhat annoyed, in front of my building for way too long.

I catch my flight, and after a seemingly endless layover in the Nation's Least Comfortable and Most Poorly Designed Airport (Houston, if by any small chance you didn't catch the reference), arrive in San Diego.


Saturday, August 28:
We have seriously overbooked our trip. I knew that coming in, but knowing it and actually doing it are just two different things. So, after staying up past two a.m. chatting with old friends in San Diego, we leave later that morning to take a 2-hour trip to LA to see my sister, who has a day full of activities planned. Great, fun, exhausting day, capped with a dinner of lightly seared ahi tuna. But I'm starting to feel a little funny by the end of it...

Sunday Morning, August 29:
Please don't throw up, please don't throw up, please don't throw up...

It's 4 a.m. and my stomach is on fire. I'm hoping I can ride it out, because I hate throwing up. Just hate it. Everyone has their weird little things that they go to illogical lengths to avoid. Mine is throwing up. It grosses me out beyond what I can quickly (or politely) explain. Thankfully, I only throw up about once every 8 years. So now, I should be good for the next 24. Not a good night.

Sunday Afternoon:
I already have plans to meet up with practically everyone I know on the West Coast on Sunday at the San Diego Zoo. So there's no backing out, even if I feel like crap. I make it through. It's a great zoo, but I would have enjoyed it more if my stomach weren't in roughly the same shape as the Gulf of Mexico was a few months ago after the oil spill.

Monday:
Feeling better, I enjoy an afternoon in Old Town San Diego. Accidentally walking past a house reputed to be America's most haunted, I get a sudden headache and my watch inexplicably stops. I had to try it again to see if it was a fluke. The next time, I get the same headache but no watch stoppage. Weird. I waiver between thinking deeply of the implications of this once-in-a-lifetime paranormal phenomenon, or just getting a margarita. I quickly choose the later option (out of view of the creepy house, of course). It was the right decision.

Tuesday:
The conference that was the nominal purpose of my trip begins. Perhaps thanks in part to walking past the creep house, I'm feeling considerably worse than yesterday. So no fish tacos for me today. After dropping Liz off at the airport, I take a quick nap, buy all the Gatorade and diet sprite in sight, and make it through an afternoon and evening of conference stuff and go to bed, hoping for a better tomorrow. Which will hopefully include fish tacos.

Wednesday:
8:30-10 Conference. How am I not feeling any better by now?
10:03 Gatorade
10:03-2 nap. How am I still not feeling any better?
2-5 Conference, followed by a Gatorade.
5-8 nap. How am I still feeling this badly?
8 quick, small dinner (still not chancing the fish tacos), followed by hot tub and another early bedtime. How am I not feeling any better? And how am I going to get fish tacos?

Thursday:
I'm getting fish tacos today, no matter what. So I did, even though I still didn't feel like solid food. They tasted great, and almost immediately thereafter, I felt completely fine. I guess I should have tried that sooner. Good stuff.

Friday:
The conference ends, and I race to the airport to make my 1:00 p.m. flight. I connect through Detroit, which has a surprisingly nice airport that even includes a wine bar (I didn't partake, but it's still cool that they have it) and a sports bar where I watch a guy from Connecticut pick-up a gal local gal headed out somewhere or another. I'm not quite sure how that's going to work, but more power to them. Perhaps they can have their next date at the airport wine bar when their relationship progresses.

I catch my flight and finally arrive in Nashville at 11, where Liz picks me up and takes me home. At which point I have to start packing again.

Saturday:
We had decided to leave Nashville for Indianapolis at 11, going to a friend's wedding weekend. But Saturday morning as we were packing, we found out that Indiana is on Eastern time, which means we actually needed to leave an hour sooner. This made for a suddenly rushed trip, but I don't want to talk about that. Here's what I want to talk about: why is Indiana on Eastern time? Who decided to put the proto-typical Midwestern state in the Eastern Time Zone? Can Congress look into this? Does Indiana realize that there are other time zones available? Are they just trying to mess with people? I need answers.

Anyway, we get to Indy, check into our hotel, and almost immediately leave for a rehearsal dinner an hour away at an Indiana farm. I don't have time to explain.

Sunday:
Leave for the wedding at 11:30 a.m.. The wedding, in a cornfield, was the best wedding in a cornfield that I've ever attended. And I'm not just saying that.

In an unusual twist, the rural version of the reception (think barbecue, corn on the cobb and lemonade) ends at 3:30. Later, a second reception, both more urban and more urbane, starts at 7, back in Indy, with dinner, dancing, fancy dessert and every other good thing that comes with a nice wedding. It was a quick turnaround, but it was fun, once we overcame the exhaustion.

Monday (Labor Day):
I somehow manage to wake up with a sinus infection, but once again, the show must go on. We have plans to meet yet another friend for brunch, drop off a fellow wedding guest and close friend at the airport, and head for Nashville. After an hour-long traffic jam caused by a horrific accident in Louisville and multiple stops for caffeine, we finally make it home at 6. I have a fantasy football draft at 8, after which I crawl in my bed and die. Until tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 7:
Needless to say, I was not at work on time. But it's good to be home.

The blog will return on or about September 7

Leaving tomorrow on a last-minute one-week to trip to San Diego for work. I'll then be home for about 8 hours before leaving for Indianapolis for a wedding. I'll be back, perfectly exhausted, on Labor Day.

Because I just found out 2 weeks ago that I would be SD all next week, I hadn't planned ahead at work to get everything that needed to be done within the next month finished by tomorrow. And as often happens in these situations, I already had non-cancelable plans lined up for every night this week. So life has been more than a little crazy.

Late August/early September always ends up being like this for me. I'll be back after Labor Day to tell you all about it.

Blogging the Debate

So, I haven't been posting much lately. There are a million culprits- a busy work schedule, too many demands on my free time afterwards, and just not much to say- among them. But election day in Tennessee is tomorrow, and I can't let this slip by without blogging the televised debate between the four candidates last week. There are 3 Republicans and one Democrat who are serious contenders in the race.

Below is the paraphrased version of the debate I just watched:

Hosts: "We are excited to have this debate between the 4 gubernatorial candidates here at Belmont University tonight. But mostly, we are excited to have an excuse to use the word "gubernatorial." Just to remind you, half of the questions we will use will come from crazy people who wrote in online, and the other half we will ask ourselves. But you get to try to decide which is which, and it will be startlingly difficult to tell. Also, there was a Presidential debate here 2years ago, and that was much more important than what you are about to watch. Just so you know.

"Anyway, let's introduce the candidates:

"First we have the crazy bald guy with anger management issues, Republican Zach Wamp. Then we have well-monied Republican who won't break a sweat in this debate because he's going to win anyway, Bill Haslam. Third, the token Democrat, Mike McWherter, who is old beyond his years and may or may not be asleep. Finally, we have Ron Ramsey (R) who has made the fact that he wears boots his central message so far in this campaign. Let's begin:"

First Question: How, specifically, would you reduce state spending?

Wamp (R): Thanks for asking the question. We need to tighten our belt, starting next January. Thanks again for the question.

Haslam: We need to make a lot of small cuts to our spending.

McWherter: The last governor made it work, so will I.

Ramsey: No one has given any specifics, so I guess I'm the only one who has a plan. But I'm not going to tell you my plan. You'll have to vote me into office and then wait and see. (HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!)

Next Question: The U.S. is a union of immigrants. Do you see Tennessee taking a similar stance on immigration as Arizona?

Haslam: The U.S. has a problem with immigration. I'm not going to answer the question with any specifics, because if I do, people might not vote for me, and I'm the front-runner so there's no point in pissing anyone off.

McWherter: My turn? Really? Didn't I just answer a question five minutes ago? Well, um, it's the federal government's problem, not mine.

Ramsey: This is where I differ from the other candidates. I also think illegal immigration is a problem. Also, if we shoot the illegal immigrants, they will die a cold, scary death, and aftewards we will spit on their graves.! (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) Also, I like to wear boots.

Wamp: Arizona has done the right thing. I would move there if they would vote for me to be their governor. And if they won't, I will crush them.

Question 3: What's your education plan?

McWheter: I've really got nothing. Whatever our last governor did seems to be working, so let's stick with that. And then I'd like a nap.

Ramsey: Let's take the money away from the poor schools and give them to the rich ones, so that we can take our nation back.

Wamp: I don't have any ideas, so I'm going to look really intently into the camera. If you don't vote for me, I will kill you.

Haslam: I have a four-point plan that says absolutely nothing. Which is fine, because I'm going to win anyway.

Question 4: How would you help small businesses?

Ramsey: I'm the only one up here that has ever run a small business. But I would do absolutely nothing to help you.

Haslam: I love small businesses.

McWherter: Thank you for your question. We give lots of tax breaks. I want to give you one as well. But you have to promise to vote for me first.

Wamp: I love small business too. Also, I'm going to ramble incohertently for a while to fill out my alloted time because I have nothing else to say. Except that I will kick your ass if you don't vote for me.

Question 4: Should evolution be taught in school?

McWherter: Our public schools should blend science and religion. First Amendment be damned. As "long as we're responsible with it." No, I have no idea what that means. But it's past my bedtime, so what do you expect?

Ramsey: Jesus is my co-pilot. We need to teach God in our public schools. It is the government's job to convert your kids to the government's favored religious views. Also, I believe in a small government that doesn't interfere with our daily life.

Wamp: We need to make Bible reading mandatory. Every piece of non-biblical "science" needs to be counter acted by equal doses of Old Time Religion.

Haslam: I'm sorry, but the rest of you are crazy.

Question 5: Should Muslims be allowed to exist?

Ramsey: Put them on their flying carpets and send them back where they came from. Give 'em the boot! (I'm wearing boots. You see what I did there?)

Halsam: Why would I answer a question like this? As long as I don't say anthing offensive, I'm going to win!

McWherter: Did someone say something about a nap? A nice comfy carpet sounds good right about now-- it's almost 9!

Wamp: No.

Final Question: How do you feel about the environment?

Ramsey: Screw it. Hahahahahahah!

Wamp: I know a lot about the environment. Also, I'm getting really angry by engaging in this debate. Would anyone like to fight?

Halsam: Yes.

McWherter: Can I answer this tomorrow? I'm tired. I like what the last governor did about the environment. If you loved him, you'll be somewhat fond of me. Also, did you notice that I'm the only candidate wearing a blue dress shirt? Democrat. Wearing blue. You see what I did there?

Closing Statement:

Ramsey: I wear boots. The country is in "aheckuva shape." Vote for me. I'm God's favorite. Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Wamp: God wants me to win. God told me I'm going to win. And if I don't, God will kick your ass.

McWheter: Wha? I thought the questions were over. You just interrupted a really good dream. I dreamed that people voted for me, because the last governor was pretty good and I'll do whatever he did.

Halsam: Listen, every other candidate up here is certifiably insane. I haven't said a lot in this debate, but please know that I'm at least sane enough to realize that I really don't need to. Because these other three guys are nuts. I'm embarrassed to be sharing a stage with them.

My next governor?

If only I had known about this guy before I voted!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rykcxc5dIts

This might be the funniest thing ever

http://jezebel.com/5582562/clueless-secretary-makes-for-hilarious-office-email-thread



Check it out. Blogger has been weird about posting links lately, but if you click on the blog title, it will direct you.

Greatest Hits

A lot has happened in the last couple of days, but most of it I've blogged about already. Weeks ago.

You may recall me devoting a couple of posts after the flood to explaining the wonders of the FEMA's operational methods, which include many well-thought out ideas such as refusing to tell disaster victims which losses are eligible for reimbursement and which ones aren't as well as a dogmatic insistence on communicating with me in Spanish.

Last week, I got an unsolicited actual phone call from a FEMA agent, who very nicely let me know (in English, surprisingly) that my appeal had been denied. The very polite woman even went so far as to agree with me that the agency should probably itemize their award letters to inform victims as to how they arrive at their award numbers, so people aren't forced to appeal just to get an explanation of their benefits. She apologized profusely that the agency couldn't do anything to help and wished me good luck in our recovery. Two days later we got an electronic deposit from FEMA for $700.

We got a letter in the mail yesterday stating (in both English and Spanish) that our appeal was granted in the amount of $692.94, with no further explanation. Sadly, this will conclude our FEMA experience.

You might also recall my posting about the bizarre characters at my local gym. I forgot to include Old Guy With Whooping Cough as one the recurring characters in that story. I would explain him in detail, but the title pretty much tells it all, except for the fact that he absolutely refuses to cover his mouth and generally manages to find a treadmill right next to mine.

Anyway, I really wish I would have waited on that post, because more stuff keeps happening. Last night, the only two people there were me and Mohawk Trainer Guy, who was wearing his trademark flip-flops. Perhaps not coincidentally, we were working out on polar opposite ends of the gym. But he was nice enough to leave, for the duration of his workout, a full water bottle on a machine next to me that I would have otherwise used. I guess he wanted to me to have it nearby just in case I got lonely. Or thirsty. And that wasn't nearly as bad as Air Guitar Guy, who last week stored his iphone on a piece of equipment he wasn't using and then used the phone to check his email after every single set of his 45-minute workout.

I'm assuming he was waiting to hear back from FEMA.

Overheard on 5th Avenue downtown...

First Woman: It's just stupid. It's just plain stupid.

Second Woman: It is duummmmmmmmmmbbbbbb.

FW: It's just plain stupid. (pause) I don't know what they doing, but it's stupid. Why do they wanna be so stupid?

SW: Well, I think it's stupid.

FW: It's just stupid. (long pause) Stupid. Stupid.

SW: I agree. Stupid.

I wish I knew what they were talking about. But it was probably something stupid.

The Return of the Pool...

Life often develops into patterns that keep repeating. It's happening again now.

In the worst possible way.

My first real blog post was about how my evil neighbor had an above ground pool they never cleaned, the ear-splittingly loud frogs that it attracted, and the desperate lengths to which I had to resort to rid myself of the problem. Finally.

Until this week.

You see, the Health Department might have made my neighbor get rid of their old disgustingly brown pool, but they didn't tell her she couldn't get a new, slightly larger one to replace it! So that is exactly what she did while I was out of town last week (hardly a coincidence, I'm sure).

I came home to a new above-ground pool in my neighbor's back yard that's of such high quality that it's not only been patched once already in its 3 days of existence, the patch itself has subsequently been patched with duct tape. At this rate, it's only a matter of time until she ends up patching the duct tape with bubble gum.

Yes, for some reason, after failing to take care of her pool for the past 2 years, to the point where the Health Department, on its fourth visit, made her take action, my neighbor decided it would be a good idea to get a new one almost immediately thereafter.

There is no possible explanation for this other than that she is just trying to spite me. She can't possibly think this pool experiment is going to work out better than the last one. This is like watching your friend leave an abusive relationship only to immediately start dating a guy named "Ox." It's just not going to end well, every else in the world knows it, but there's just nothing you can do.

Oh well. I enjoyed those three months of sleep.

There is one silver lining, though: in an apparent effort to "class up" the pool, she has this time installed a tiki torch at each corner. So at least this summer, when the pool inevitably turns brown and the frogs come back, I can creatively use those same torches to solve the problem.

Wait, did I say that out loud?

The day after...

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I like the 4th of July not purely out of patriotic spirit (the calendar date of July 4 is actually rather meaningless in our country's history anyway. Had we lost the Revolutionary War that followed, the signing of Declaration of Independence on that date wouldn't have mattered), but because unlike every other warm-weather holiday, more often that not, it doesn't fall on a Monday.

I don't understand America's fascination with Monday holidays. I enjoy three day weekends, but wouldn't it make much more sense if the holiday celebration was followed by two days off rather than saving the holiday for the last day of the weekend? Wouldn't Memorial Day cookouts be more festive if everyone didn't have to be at work the next morning?

I don't get it. If we are going to artificially move holidays around to make for 3-day weekends, it would make more sense to move the holidays to Fridays.

But no one asked me.

Anyway, I enjoy July 4 because generally one can enjoy the festivities without having a return to work in the morning lingering in the back of one's head. But now the holiday has come and gone and now everyone goes back to work and starts counting down the hot summer days until another 3-day weekend in 2 months (Who was it that decided it is acceptable to go 2 months in the summer without a holiday?).

I have a whole lot of stories to share from the past week or two, but I hope you'll forgive me, I just want to squeeze in one more lazy afternoon before I get to all that. So faced with the choice of serious blogging right now or going for ice cream, well, let's just say I'll see you tomorrow...

99 Degrees

Summer officially started yesterday, and I'm sick of it already.

The blog title above doubles as today's forecast. And yesterday's forecast. And tomorrow's and probably every day after that, unless we finally break the triple digit mark we've been lingering just under. It's hot outside. While I was sleeping one day last month, someone apparently moved Nashville to the surface of the sun.

I'm a wimp when it comes to any temperature lower than 61 or higher than 79, but by any measure, summer heat is a bigger nuisance than winter cold. Walking through the cold in the morning is miserable, but once you get to the office and turn the heater on, you can pretty much go about your day as normal. Ten minutes later, the fact that you were cold earlier in the day is long forgotten.

Not so in summer. Once you sweat through your clothes on the morning walk, you're stuck with that sticky feeling all day, counting the hours until the next available shower. And it gets progressively worse with each trip outside the office all day, until you actively fear the impact getting on an elevator containing anyone else might have on your professional reputation. Also, it's easy to dress for winter, as one can always add extra layers. But employers, and the general public, tend to look at you disapprovingly if you do the inverse in summer. You just can't go to work in your underpants.

Trust me. I've tried.

But I was definitely not working in my underpants yesterday. I only have to appear in court once every two or three months, but yesterday, on the hottest day of the year, I had to be at the federal courthouse at 1:20 in the afternoon. As fate would have it, the federal courthouse is located half a mile on the exact opposite side of downtown from my office, which happens to be half a mile in the opposite direction from my parking lot. So faced with the options of walking half a mile to drive to court, or just walking half a mile to court, I doused myself with water(in part to clear a stain from a morning iced coffee, and in part to avoid spontaneous combustion) and starting walking toward the courthouse, sporting a full sweat-covered suit.

As I walked, snappily dressed, through the shadeless, heat-absorbing asphalt valley that is downtown Nashville, more than one homeless fellow approached me with the initial aim of requesting financial assistance, only to turn away when they got close enough to get a whiff of me and decide that whatever might be in my wallet wasn't worth having to stand close enough to me to ask for it. And truthfully, I can't say that I blame them.

I finally made it there and made a somewhat futile attempt to refresh myself. After 2hours of court (which tends to leave me tired, sweaty and thirsty by itself), I had to walk back. Since I was excused from the office for the day because of court anyway, my plan was to walk to the car and go home directly after court.

I couldn't make it. I changed plans midstream and actually chose to voluntarily go back to work for 2 hours just to get a break from the heat and finish that diet coke I had started earlier in the day that sat in the refrigerator. Drenched, I managed to make it back to the office and then come up with a clever excuse to wait on the next elevator to my office rather than step into the crowded one waiting as I entered the building.

I survived. But when it's so hot I'd rather be working than walking towards the car that will take me home, it's just too hot.

And it isn't getting better anytime soon.

Random Thoughts

Yesterday I was driving and saw a truck in front of me with a bumper sticker that read "HO HATER." What trail of decisions does one have to make to reach a point where one thinks this a good idea? And where do you buy one of those stickers, anyway?

If a woman ever climbs in that truck, shouldn't she immediately be shot?

Why are people sometimes disgusted, but never "gusted?" Also, people are often overwhelmed, but never just plain old "whelmed." I don't get it.

I just read where an Ohio church's 65-foot outdoor statue of Jesus was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. If only the church instead had had the foresight to build a statue of a giant bush, which would not have been consumed...

Seriously though, this statue apparently cost $200,000 to construct, and will now cost about $300,000 to replace. Isn't there some charitable use for that money that would glorify God more than the construction of a giant graven image?

If curiosity killed the cat, why do we still have them?

Do you think the place that sold the "HO HATER" bumper sticker also sold one that said "HO LOVER"? Is there an ongoing debate somewhere over the true value of "Ho's"?

Closing with a story:

Two days ago, I went to the post office to mail my dad what was obviously a Father's Day card. I had this conversation with the clerk:

Me: I need postage for this.

Her: Let's see... I can ensure a tomorrow delivery for $19, but it will probably arrive tomorrow anyway.

Me: There's no rush, I just need to get it there.

Her: The $19 delivery also comes with $100 of insurance.

Me: No thank you.

Her: Would you like insurance?

Me: No, I don't need insurance, I just need to mail this regular first-class mail.

Her: For $12, I can give you a tracking number to ensure delivery.

Me: This is just a card. I just need to mail it.

Her: No tracking? No insurance? No guaranteed delivery?

Me: Just need to mail it.

Her: That will be $1.56.

Can she really be having this conversation with every single customer? No wonder there's always a line at the post office.

The whole conversation left me disgusted, even though I was perfectly gusted when I arrived.

Life and the "Contra" Secret Code

A friend of mine just sent me a link to a story about a cool trick temporarily available on the "Newsweek" internet site. If you type in a portion of the secret code for the old Nintendo game "Contra" (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right B, A, select, start), then the front page switches to in-depth coverage of a fictional zombie attack.

I haven't tried it yet, but it sure sounds fun. The forwarded article also mentioned that the Contra secret code trick has been fairly regularly used in similar tricks since the creation of the internet. In fact, that's why the article caught my attention. I love the fact that a secret code for a semi-obscure game on an out-dated video system remains in popular consciousness 20 years later. Among those of us in the original Nintendo generation, I think this tells us something about ourselves. I used to think this particular brand of nostalgia was just a rite of generational passage, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's actually something much more.

First, just a quick note about the video game. I've never been a video game junkie, but I did own a used copy of "Contra," and a friend once shared its secret code with me (if you entered the code at the start of the game, your character got 30 lives instead of the usual 3, making successful completion of the game almost assured).

The game (which consisted of people shooting at you as you navigated as series of obstacle courses in the effort to purse some noble but vague cause) was so difficult that without the secret code, almost no one could complete it.

Which is why whoever programmed the secret code to enable 30 lives scheme was a genius. Had the code allowed for 300 lives, it would have been so easy as to be a pointless achievement. But most the great majority of players, 30 lives allowed for just enough of a challenge to be compelling, but enough margin of error to ensure they rarely failed. It was a still a challenging pursuit, but is was almost guaranteed to end in success.

Isn't that what we all want in life?

Wouldn't it be great if that code worked not only for a video game, but for everything? Imagine if you could just punch in a code and get 30 shots at whatever opportunity you had upcoming. I might blow one job interview, but I'm pretty sure I could make a good impression once in 30 tries. I might have said something regrettable in an argument last week, but if I got to do it over 29 more times, I would have phrased my thoughts more eloquently. I could have done the right thing instead of the wrong; been the hero instead of the goat; minded my own business when I interloped; helped someone instead of acting selfishly. And I certainly wouldn't have wasted money on that seemingly cool gadget I saw on that infomercial.

Here's the thing: people don't regret failing to do the things that never seemed realistic anyway. People regret the opportunities that just slipped by, the chances they should have taken, but didn't, the one bad decision that started an avalanche of unintended consequences. If we all had 29 do-overs, that would never be an issue. The dreams just out of our reach would be just inside them. I think that's part of the reason widespread nostalgia for this video game still exists 20 years later. We all identify with the promise that code represented.

Most of us would love a long line of do-overs. And the compelling thing is that life would still seem somewhat challenging, even if we had them. There are some things I could never pull off (winning an Olympic medal, being the life of the party, politely eating pasta) no matter how many attempts you gave me. So 30 chances wouldn't turn us into superheros who lived boring lives because we were incapable of being challenged. It would just let us accomplish everything within our abilities, and generally with the peace of mind to know we had a few chances left to spare along the way. It sounds lovely.

I know there's a reason God doesn't want us to live like that. We'd all be overly pleased with ourselves, and we'd never have the chance to grow by learning from a meaningful failure.

But I'd sure like another shot at that case I lost in January. There's no way I'd lose it 29 more times.

Gym People

Some places just bring out the worst in people. But nowhere does this phenomenon occur quite to same degree as at the gym.

We have quite a cast of characters at ours. The most prominent example is Mohawk Trainer Guy. He's a short, stocky Asian guy (with Mohawk) who is almost always there, wearing his trademark jeans and flip-flops. Without fail, he is accompanied by a (different) slim female protege who he somehow conned into paying him for a personal training session. Best I can tell, the sessions consist of two elements: (1) Mohawk Trainer Guy trying to make trainee laugh during the middle of exercise in the hope of getting her number later; and (2) Mohawk Trainer allowing trainee the privilege of watching him work out alongside her in a cartoonishly exaggerated, grunt-filled manner, in the hope of getting her number later. One time, I saw him, trainee in tow, doing "sprints" back and forth across a 10-foot wide corner of the gym for an extended period of time, grunting for all he was worth all the while. The trainee, no doubt paying good money for this endeavor, looked as if she was strongly considering bolting for the door. Strangely, I never see him with the same trainee more than once.

He's relatively harmless (unless you're the trainee), but the constant grunting gets annoying. But his grunting has nothing on that of Air Guitar Guy. The first time I saw AGG, he was strumming (and singing) along to a Jimi Hendrix song on the gym radio, which seemed somewhat understandable. He was very nice and chatted me up in between riffs, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, at least until he started doing the exact same musical routine to he next song, which was something along the lines of "Love Life Us Up Where We Belong." I see him often, and he always spends more time pretending to be a musician and trying to make friends than he does working out. Although, to be fair, when he does work out, he grunts loudly enough to make up for his lack of activity otherwise. He is a 120-pound weakling, but his lungs are strong, that I know.

I can laugh at both of these guys. But what is not remotely funny, and shouldn't even be legal, is High Shorts Guy. HSG is a middle aged light-skinned man who insists on wearing shorts that barely cover his posterior. He wears the same set of skin tight floss-length shorts for every workout, which inevitably includes lunges, leg lifts, or some similar cringing-inducing skin-exposing exercise, invariably performed directly in front of me. I think he gets some bizarre sexual satisfaction from it. It's either that or he's hoping people will eventually give him money to buy new pants. There can't be any other explanation. There just can't.

Here's my point: why do people lose all semblance of common sense and social etiquette the minute they walk through the front door of a gym? I doubt High Shorts Guy goes to work wearing a tank top every day. Air Guitar Guy can't possibly strum to his car radio nonstop while he is driving. If Mohawk Trainer Guy worked at Subway, I can't believe he'd insist that customers watch him make his own sandwich as he was making theirs, nor would he grunt when he reached for the olives.

But there's something about walking into a gym that makes people lose their minds. Every gym has at least one Cell Phone Work Out Guy, who doubly annoys by both exposing you to his lame conversation (that could totally have waited half an hour until the workout was done) and by needlessly taking up valuable workout equipment as he does. Every gym has a Way Too Comfortable Naked Old Person, who lounges around the locker room in the buff as though it were the tea parlor of a nudist colony.

It's as though some people walk into a gym for a brief escape from every day life and think that concept includes the right to escape from all sense of social normalcy. Other people walk in for a work out, and just tune out the rest of the world.

I had an encounter with one of these Oblivious Guys last week.

I was doing some shoulder lifts in front of a rack of dumbbells (by which I mean weights, not the crew I've already described). There are 8 dumbbells on this rack, which is surrounded by a large, open floor, presumably so that eight people can use this weight set simultaneously. But not if Oblivious Guy has anything to say about it.

In between sets, I walked over to get some water, and I hadn't yet moved two feet in that direction before some dude takes the exact spot where I was standing, the exact dumbbell I was using, and throws his towel over the the entire front half of the weight rack, rendering half of the 8 weights on it inaccessible.

Post-hydration, I walk back over to the weight rack. Oblivious Guy has finished his set, but he's now leaning, arms spread eagle, over an entire side of 4 x 4 weight rack, with his towel draped over the other side. The combined effect shuts out about 6 of the 8 dumbbells from use. I stand behind him and wait a good 2-3 minutes, but nothing happens. He notices me waiting but does not move or acknowledge my presence. He just leans on the rack.

Finally, I just walk around to the other side of the rack, deftly avoid the hanging towel, and grab dumbbell near the bottom that's 10 pounds too heavy for me. I step a few feet to the side and start an abbreviated set. Meanwhile, Oblivious Guy stops resting on the rack and walks around to the side I'm standing on so he can lean against the rack from that direction. Shortly thereafter, he, for no apparent reason, takes two steps in my direction, almost bumping into me as I finish my set just in time to step around him.

I put my weight back on the rack, and he grabs it and starts a set of the exact same exercise I was doing. His towel, of course, remains draped over the entire rack.

I manage to re-grab my original weight from the front side, and finish my workout shortly before Oblivious Guy (who now has a stack of 4 differing weights sitting uselessly at this feet) grabs it, and adds it to his collection, only to resume leaning against the weight rack. Long after I left that section of the gym, I looked over and noticed that he kept his towel draped over the rack, and all five weights at his feet, only using one, until his workout was complete.

Oblivious Guy couldn't have done better if he were actively trying to antagonize me, but I really don't think he noticed me at all. He showed no signs of ill-will, never changed expression or even acknowledged my existence the entire episode. He was just working out and nothing, or no one, else mattered. In Gym World, people do that. It was as though I was completely invisible; my existence wholly unremarkable and not worthy of the slightest notice.

I bet that never happens to High Shorts Guy.

Sports Make Me Feel Old

The last of my childhood heroes said good-bye last week.

Ken Griffey Junior was my hero, and not just in a sports worship kind of way. He was the only historically dominant hitter of the past 20 years never associated with steroids. His refusal to jump in the same moral sewer with those he competed against (Bonds, Sosa, McGuire) is the reason he finished his career number 5 on the all-time home run list rather than number one. He chose integrity over the drugs that could have kept him healthier (in the short term) and added a few years to his career. The world needs more people like that.

His retirement last week, at age 40, has made me reflect. It also made me feel old. Most of the consequences of aging I was prepared for. I knew that a day would come when my joints would ache some days for no apparent reason, that I'd start to get fat if I ate everything in sight, and that I'd find today's chart-topping music extraordinarily dumb. What no one ever told me is that someday I would lose my childhood heroes, and no one would replace them.

One of the fun things about being a baseball fan was checking the box scores every morning to see if my guy hit a home run. That part of the game is dead to me now; I still love my team, but there's no individual on it who is anything more to me than a baseball player who happens to play for my team.

This has now happened to me in every single sport. I lost Dan Marino in football, and it's never been the same. It was exciting again when my old college pal Shaun Alexander was dominating the league, but now he's out of the league too. We graduated together at Alabama and shared some great conversations along the way. And he's now too old to play. So what does that say about me?

I've now lost, to at least some degree, a reason to care in almost every single sport. For different reasons, I identified with both Andre Agassi and his wife Steffi Graf, but since they've retired I can't maintain an interest in tennis. Evander Holyfied has been too old to be a serious boxer for a decade, and no one else has summoned my interest. The basketball player I most modelled my game after, Allen Iverson, retired this year as well.

Of course, I knew the day for all these things would come, but I somehow expected that when one favorite player left, another would be there to pick up my rooting interest. It worked that way, to some degree, when I was a kid. Before I was an adult, it wasn't that hard to find people to model myself after. No one ever told me it no longer works that way once you have an office job. I'll never again have cause or opportunity to dream of being The Next Ken Griffey Junior, or anyone else. I'm now past the age where my favorite player can double as a role model. There may be other players I admire for various reasons, but it will never quite be the same.

Soon, I'll be reduced to rooting for the few remaining players roughly my age, as some lame attempt to squeeze out the last remnants of my youth by proxy.
After that, I'm not sure what happens.

I just know I'm not prepared for it.



post script:

The aging phenomenon is, I think, one reason why college sports loyalties never die. There's a link between you, your favorite school, and everyone else who chooses to go there, that never goes away. Our colleges don't change very much, even after we leave, and we take comfort in thinking that whatever attracted us to our school of choice attracted its current players too. So we can continue seeing ourselves in these athletes, giving us a personal link that eventually goes away at the professional level.

While pro sports eventually make us feel old, college sports do the opposite. It's a much more uplifting story. If only football season would hurry up and get here...

Mixed Blessing

Some people don't mind getting sick. It's a built-in excuse to take it easy for a few days. Most people who know me well (and know that I generally welcome any excuse to be inactive I can find) might assume I'm one of those people. I used to be.

But now, I absolutely hate being sick. It's partly because I don't get sick unless I get some monster illness that I won't be rid of for weeks, it's partly because I tend to live my life behind schedule anyway, so there's no time built in for six days in bed, but it's mostly because I just hate the feeling of missing out on life. But that's also the one silver lining to it: I never appreciate life more than when I don't feel well enough to live it.

As I mentioned in another post, I've had a stomach virus for 6 days that has left me weak, dehydrated and on all-liquid diet since Monday. It's finally going away. But I noticed something last night. At the end of the usual Saturday night, I start to think about, sometimes dread, the workday challenges that will face me after one more day off. Last night, 5 days into a life-sucking stomach virus, I noticed that I wasn't praying God would take that laundry list away. I was just asking to get well so I could face it.

I find myself doing this most everytime I've been ill for a few days. Those administrative tasks around the house and difficult calls at work suddenly don't seem so bad when compared to the prospect of shuffling around like a zombie for a 7th consecutive day. I'll take my problems if I can just feel alive enough to face them.

Yesterday, I was thinking of all those things I normally take for granted but haven't been able to do in the last week (like consume food in non-liquid form, go the gym, go out for coffee, have a glass of wine, or a trip to the bookstore).
The one good thing about being sick this long is that it re-focuses your priorities. And you never have quite the same zest for life as when every bite of solid food is a cause for celebration...

Running in Circles and a Programming Note

Just got back from a 5-day vacation on the beach, rested and refreshed, to immediately get an evil stomach virus that will wipe out all the refreshment and mental peace the vacation provided. Isn't life funny that way?

We spent so much time running in circles. Take my last month: to counteract the toll of a stressful period of daily life (the annual spring heavy workload and the stress of the flood), I took a carefree, hedonistically sleepless vacation filled with great times, great food and great friends. It was exactly what I needed to life my spirits enough to face the burdens in front of me anew. But the price paid for that was a compromised immune system, which led to decline in productivity upon my return to work. And by the time I'm healthy enough to tackle it, things will have piled up so much that I'll soon feel just as stressed and overburdened as I did when I first decided I needed that vacation. So I'll plan another one down the road, and the cycle will repeat. I almost always get sick during or immediately upon a return from a vacation, even the low-key relaxing ones.

I'm not saying vacations are pointless. I think the memory of recent good times helps one get through the harder ones. But these cycles just go to show there's a yin for every yang. The mind needs an occasional break in routine to keep my sanity, but the body craves normalcy. Just as my body sometimes needs to skip church on a given Sunday to ensure a restful day, but I feel my spirit suffering for the next week when I do. Everything in life is a trade-off. If you do one thing, you are, by definition, missing out on something else.

Anyway, I haven't gotten to post much lately, but assuming my recovery from this Stomach Death Curse of Doom doesn't take too long, I should be back in the swing of things relatively soon. Hopefully by the weekend at least.

I'll see you then.

Moral Dilemma

I'm often torn between my desire for peace, harmony and forgiveness and my desire to make the world a better place by pointing out the shortcomings of others.

Take St. Louis (And I would gladly give it you). The city has some wonderful qualities (great architecture, wonderfully distinctive neighborhoods, and a whole lot of free attractions), but its citizens are widely regarded as the most parochial in the nation. No matter how old you are, it's a regular occurance to be asked where you went to high school, and if the answer is not somewhere in the St. Louis area, you will be immediately dismissed. This happened to me about once a week when we lived there.

Depite our "outsider" status, we were there for 2 years and I thought we made some strong friendships in that time. But, living up to the parochial stereotype, everyone we know there seemed to forget us the minute we left town.

It actually started even before we left. On our moving day, we were confident we had a team of volunteers from our church to help. Instead, precisely one couple and one close friend managed to show. Even our pastors stood us up. One pastor had promised to show up and help, and the other told us he had a slight conflict, but would be there late. We never heard from either of them. And we've hardly heard from anyone since.

This was particularly startling when the flood waters hit. I had several concerned messages from people at the church we left in Alabama 5 years ago, and our current church in Nashville has been terrifically supportive. But not a single word from St. Louis. Even among our dozens of facebook friends.

Our old church has an internet message board where people regularly post prayer requests and make small talk. Prayer requests are posted there all the time. There's no mention of us, or even Nashville, anywhere on it.

I still have a user account on that forum. I can't tell you how badly I want to start a thread on it saying:

"Not that anyone asked, but we're doing just fine thank you. But if you aren't too busy in your own self-absorption, maybe you could throw a prayer or two towards Nashville, because it appears that one here has thought of that. And by the way, how self-absorbed can you people possibly be?"

I would say it nicer than that, but you get the point. It would make me feel a little bit better. But I also know I'll regret it if I do.

Still, the city of St. Louis has a reputation for insularity and indifference toward the rest of the world. That's never going to change unless someone challenges the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy that so many people there have. It's really not about me. I want people there to overcome their regional myopia that represents the city's biggest downfall. But doing so will doubtlessly enrage a lot of folks, and fray any remaining bit of goodwill from the people there that I still care about.

So, do I outrage people to help them, or just leave it be?

Life as a Sports Fan

I know it's unwise to place my happiness, for any periord of time, at the mercy of a group of distant strangers. I just can't stop myself from doing it.

I'm talking about being a sports fan. There's no logical reason why the athletic performance of a group of celebrities in a distant (or even local) city should have any affect on my mood. If they should happen to win, it wasn't because I did anything to cause it. I don't make any extra money or gain fame or popularity because my team wins. My team winning doesn't magically take away work assignments or the need to cut the grass. It doesn't in any material way give me a better life if my team wins, or hinder my life if my team loses. So why do I care so much?

Some people cite some vague notion of civic pride, but I don't buy it. It makes sense in a few cases (rooting for the Saints is an approriate metaphor for rooting for the comeback of the city of New Orleans), but this kind of parallel is the exception, not the rule. Besides, I know tons of Atlanta Braves baseball fans scattered throughout the South who hate the City of Atlanta with a passion.

Don't get me wrong. I can explain rationally why I like to watch sports in general. In just about every field of life, I enjoy watching people do things that I wish I could perform but can't. I like the drama and inherent storylines that come along with competition. But I don't know why I can't watch sports they same way I watch a sitcom, where I'm entertained by the spectacle, but my life doesn't hang on the outcome. I don't know why I let sports ruin my day.

The other day, after my beloved Cincinnati Reds (who I adopted as my team many years ago team for no apparent reason) blew a 6-run 9th inning lead, I was surprised to remember about 30 minutes into my moping that this turn of events wasn't actually my fault. And that actually helped.

Maybe my fandom represents some improbable dream that I couldn't fulfill on my own that I'm trying to achieve through proxy. Maybe it's a way to add meaning to my life by creating a personal connection to each game, or a way to fool myself into getting excited something to help pass the time.

I think it's something a little deeper, though. I think, after a certain amount of time, your team's logo becomes interwoven in your soul and becomes a part of who you are. Your choice of team says something about you. Your collection of favorite teams, college and pro, reveals a fair amount about your personality.

I know a couple of Republicans who root for the Yankees and Cowboys because they appreciate that the owners of those teams worked hard to build the structural advantages that they enjoy. Other people enjoy rooting for underdogs or teams with tradition or flashy colors. The person who roots for the most geographically proximate teams from their childhood in every sport probably still lives near where they grew up. A person who grew up rooting for teams from across the nation probably does not. The person who doesn't care about sports likely hates competition and just wants everyone to get along.

Of course, I didn't think about what type of political statements I was making when I was picking favorite teams at age 7. At that point, I just wanted to follow sports and realized that the entry fee into fandom was picking a team with which to align my emotions. But one's personality has something to do with which allegiances grow stronger and which ones fade over time.

Mine keep growing stronger. I'm actually in the midst of the sports year of a lifetime. My undergrad alma mater Alabama won the national title in January, and my near-hometown New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl in February. Both events provided a few days of glee, but months later, those outcomes no longer turn grey skies blue. As I write this, my Reds are in first place and my childhood favorite hockey team is in the NHL Finals. It's been an entertaining run, but it hasn't made my problems going away. The joy of a win is fleeting and never as gratifying as a loss is devastating.

I know this. But I'm still going to watch the next game.

It's just part of who I am.

A Million Bizzare Moments

We were in the mood for a bookstore tonight and our local Barnes & Noble is still closed, so we were stuck going to Books-A-Million. After a couple hours there, I'm not sure if I should swear it off forever or spend the entire day there again tomorrow and every day thereafter.

It started ominously when Liz and I walked to the front door and noticed a rather unlikely pair consisting of a moderately hippyish-looking young woman and conservatively dressed elderly woman deep in conversation on the bookstore's outdoor patio. We arrived just in time to hear:

Hippy: I love everybody. I don't even know you, and I love you already.
Old Woman: (in thick Southern drawl) Well, the Bible says you have to love people and...

I wasn't quite sure who was trying to convert whom (or to what), but we walked in nonetheless, grateful in the knowledge that love was flowing on the patio. Twenty minutes later, as we sat drinking our coffees, hippy girl walks by.

"You guys have matching shirts! That's so cute!"
"Yeah, we noticed that we both had on green shirts as we were leaving," I said. "It's just a coincidence."
"You mean you didn't do it on purpose?" she said with a dejected look on her face roughly akin to what one would expect had she just watched her only child attacked by rabid porcupines.
"Nope, just a coincidence."
"Well, I think it's great," she said, somewhat illogically. "I think it's just great."

The moment we ceased talking about how awkward the interruption was, she was back.

"Did you know your purse is green too?" she asked Liz.
"Yes, I know what color my purse is."
"Well, I think it's great. (after a beat) How are you guys?"

We said we were fine, as she lingered by our table and considered pulling up the extra chair that unfortunately sat empty at our table. As she cast a few furtive glances into her gargantuan purse that appeared to contain enough published material to make her presence in a bookstore wildly unnecessary, I was expecting her to ask whether we had found Jesus or perhaps some more obscure deity. Instead, she asked us what time it was.

"7:20 already? Wow, umm... are you sure? How can it be....oh wow," she said in considerable dismay, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the March Hare. This news seemed to alarm her even more than hearing that we hadn't intentionally matched our shirts. Though I can't imagine why; she clearly had no where else to be.

She continued:

"Is it hot out there? I hate it when it's hot outside. I have all this extra padding (pointing to her ample midsection). I just hate it when...

I tuned her out and resumed reading my book as she rambled on aimlessly. After about 5 painfully long minutes, another target mercifully walked through the door.

"How tall are you?" she asked, to which he thoughtfully replied, "How short are you?"

Clearly, she had met her match. The two continued in conversation.

Roughly five minutes later uproarious laughter broke out at the table next to us. The subject of this merriment was a 5-second clip of video being replayed endlessly by a group of three people bearing the unmistakable look of those who don't make it out much. The audio content of the video, which I never had the pleasure of viewing, consisted of 3 high-pitched "eeks." "Eek, eek, eek," it went, and the laughter, inexplicably followed. For the next 5 minutes. As the laughter and "eeks" continued, I spent considerable energy, failing miserably, in an attempt to come up with any possible visual image that might accompany this rather annoying sound that would account for any humor whatsoever.

Meanwhile, another woman who had been on her cell phone since the moment she walked in the store, began laughing hysterically while speaking on her cell phone.

"Gee, why aren't we having a better time?" I asked to Liz.

We decided that a number of people in the area must have living rooms bearing a striking resemblance to this Books-A-Million, accounting for the overly familiar behavior inside. As we came to this conclusion, yet another woman walked in, and noticing another customer dressed in her work uniform, yelled a series of questions across the store to this perfect stranger concerning the details of her job, including her salary and hours.

In the midst of the noise, the man who had been accosted by the hippy broke away from her to order coffee.

"Would you like a snack as well," asked the clerk.
"Well I would like one," said the man, but are you asking if I want to actually buy it? Cause that's a different story. Just so we're straight.

As this unlikely semantics debate continued, the hippy walked back into the store from the patio, enthusiastically accompanied by a similarly overweight man wearing a t-shirt that cleverly bore the imprint of a tuxedo on its front side.

I thought that was just great. If only she would have had one to match.

Why Work Days Shouldn't Begin Until Noon

Yesterday, I had one of those frazzled Monday mornings where I got up in plenty of time but everything went wrong and I ended up being late for work. In the midst of the chaos, I even forgot to shave, so I was not only late, I looked like a terrorist to boot. The whole episode knocked my day hopelessly off course and I never really recovered.

So in an effort to prevent a repeat of something like that today, I decided that I would start getting ready for work at 7:30 rather than my usual 8. (I need to leave by 8:40 to get the office by 9). Here's how it went:

6:20: Liz wakes up to the alarm (going off for the 3rd or 4th time) and exclaims how horrifically late she is.

6:25: Same.

6:34: See above.

6:40: Wake up, make coffee and deliver to Liz (who has impressively recouped about 30 minutes of morning prep time) on her way out the door 10 minutes later. Do a brief Internet search while drinking coffee.

7:30: Turn on water to take shower, but remember that I forgot to eat breakfast. Crap. This is not starting off well.

7:40: Quick breakfast complete, I turn on the water to take a shower. But my towel and change of clothes are upstairs, so I walk up to get them. Forget to put contacts in while I'm up there. Vision-optional shower begins, back downstairs, 5 minutes later.

7:55: Forget whether or not I've already washed my hair and decide to do it again just to be safe.

8:00: Get out of shower, put on pants and only matching pair of socks, and immediately step into a giant pool of showerside water, which I didn't see without my contacts.

8:02: How does one quickly dry a sock when one's dryer has just been destroyed in a flood? Hmm...

8:05: Microwave sock. Successfully.

8:07: Put in contacts and dress shirt and return downstairs.

8:10: Cat needs water.

8:12: Remember that I forgot to shave yesterday and, vowing not to repeat the mistake, go back upstairs to shave.

8:14: Remember that I left razor and shaving foam in downstairs bathroom, walk back downstairs to shave.

8:20: Shave complete, I remember that garbage pick-up is Tuesday and ours is overflowing. Walk to back door to take out trash. Remember that dress shoes are in my car, which is parked out front. Search unsuccessfully for downstairs shoes and return upstairs to grab a pair.

8:24: Our back door deadbolt can only be unlocked (from either side) with a house key. I have no idea where those are.

8:27: Key found, I unlock back door and take out the trash, hoping no one sees me rocking the dress shirt, slacks and slippers look.

8:31: Bathroom.

8:33: Vitamin.

8:35: Remember that I've only halfway packed my lunch. Frantically search for easily prepped food, as I need to leave in 5 minutes.

8:40: Lunch packed, and I'm ready to go, just in time to get to the office by 9. But I forgot to pack gym clothes. Run upstairs.

8:43: Remember that I packed gym clothes yesterday but decided not to go, so I still have everything I need in the car. Back downstairs.

8:45: Except the shoes I took out to wear to Target. Back upstairs.

8:47: About to walk out the door again, but really thirsty after all this activity, so I go to the kitchen to grab a bottled water. And that library book I was going to finish at lunch.

8:51: Finally leave the house for good, but notice a beer can a cigarette pack someone has thrown on my front yard, which I deposit in the trash bin.

8:53: Leave for work and realize there's only a 50 percent chance I have enough gas to make it to the office. Inexplicably, I decide I'm feeling lucky and take my chances.

9:05: Miraculously sputter in to my office parking lot, which of course, is completely full for the first time in recorded history. Finally manage to wedge into a small crevice and get to the office by 9:15 after the 10-minute uphill walk.

5:15: Stop by the gym after work and stopping at first available gas station. Find gym shorts, socks and shoes in the back seat, but an exhaustive search reveals no t-shirt. Which is curious, because not only do I remember packing one yesterday, I received an additional free t-shirt Saturday while volunteering that I'm positive should be in there. But it isn't.

5:31: After surveying the contents of my car and considering a workout in button-down dress shirt, rain coat or just topless, I decide to walk over to next door wine store instead.

I'd say I deserved it.

Tuesdays with FEMA

We just got our FEMA award letter and I'm more mystified than ever.

If you read any of my prior posts (and if you didn't, we need to have a talk), you may recall that I've previously complained about the refusal of three different FEMA workers to tell me what exactly I needed to do to qualify for assistance, and what items would be covered, at what rate, if I did. In another post, I questioned the necessity of FEMA sending me a supplemental Spanish copy of each of the 29,516 (give or take) documents it has mailed me thus far, given that I've conducted all of my considerable business with the agency entirely in English.

These petty annoyances could have at least conceivably been attributed to bureaucratic inefficiency. But after receiving my assistance letter, I'm convinced that FEMA isn't actually a government agency at all, but a cover for a hidden camera reality show that's secretly recording the frustrated exasperation through which it puts its applicants. I'm just hoping the payoff for the unknowing contestants prove worth it in the end.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad that a pool of our tax money goes to this sort of thing, and I'm thankful that we were lucky enough to receive even a small measure of assistance from it, even if it means subjecting ourselves to a comedy of errors and the snickers of a studio audience that must be watching this process unfold in parts unknown. I just wish FEMA would put as much effort into assisting people as it does into stupefying them.

We got a letter listing a dollar amount of our assistance, $754.04 (with copies in both English and Spanish, as one might have come to expect at this point). I'm happy for the help, even if it was less of a return than FEMA had led me to believe we might be getting. The inscrutably weird part was that the letter contains no explanation of where how the agency arrived at this precise amount (clearly, $754.05 would have been excessive!), which of our damages were covered and which ones were not, or why the award check didn't fully cover the things FEMA claimed it would. Curiously evasive throughout the whole process, FEMA did, after a whole lot of arm-twisting, begrudgingly reveal to us was that our replacement hot water heater and the wet vac we bought to clean up would be reimbursed. Instead, what we got would have almost paid for the new hot water heater, had we taken the damaged one to a plumbing junkyard and sold it for its parts at a premium rate, and then found a couple of twenties laying beside the road on the way home, while driving a car someone else filled with gas.

And we're left to wonder what became of all our other damaged items. Did FEMA forget to include them, were they not part of the reimbursement program after all, or due to budget limitations, did they just pay us pennies on the dollar for everything, water heater included? Is there any logical reason why FEMA doesn't want me to know this?

Conveniently, there is a fax number listed as to where to direct an appeal (I'm surprised they don't make applicants guess at the fax number as well), but, of course, FEMA provides no information as to what specifically, one might be appealing. If FEMA's letter had told me what items qualify for reimbursement and what doesn't, and what how much I get for each, I would just go about life, happily free from its enigmatic benevolency. As it is, I have no way of knowing whether FEMA shorted me or not. The decision letter contains no information other than: "here's what you get" with a dollar amount filled in, as if it were a number picked from a powerball tank. Which in fact, for all I know, IS how they do it.

I was so perplexed by the letter, that I actually read the Spanish version to see if it made any more sense, hopeful that at the very least, I might reference some obscure reality show on Telemundo recording this whole thing. But to no avail.

Make no mistake, I'm not complaining about not getting enough money to cover our damages; I didn't expect to. I don't want a cent more than to what we're entitled under the federal guidelines that cover these situations. I just wish FEMA weren't so careful about concealing what those guidelines actually are.

I have no idea whether we got the right amount or not. Nobody else does either. So I feel like I might as well appeal, just in case. But I have a sinking feeling that when I do, they are going to take away some of my award (without explanation, of course) just to provide a plot for next week's episode.

70 Percent of a Blog Post

Nashville's mayor has just announced that, due to increasing water supplies, citizens can now return to 70 percent of water consumption that they maintained before the flood. This is great news! But for the non-mathematically inclined, it's also a nightmare.

For starters, who remembers how much water they used 2 weeks ago? And even if one does, how does one go about calculating something like this? Does anyone have an intuitive sense of what 70 percent of anything is? If so, can I borrow it? The prior edict, 50 percent, was easy. You just shower every other day, flush the toilet every other time and alternate hand sanitizer with soap and water. 70 percent is much harder. Do my former 12-minute showers now beome 8.4-minute showers? If so, how do I go about picking which 30 percent of myself not to wash on a given day? Instead of putting a stopwatch in the bathroom, can I just shower 7 days out of ten instead? If so, can I go ahead and shower for the first 7 days and hope the conservation order is over by then?

Whatever the answer, at least showering is a once-a-day activity that's easy to keep tabs on. I'm going to need to put a chart beside the toilet and sink to map out 70% of my prior usage of those (3 out of 10 times, I guess I just have to hold it).

Other mathematical mysteries arise: Can I wash 70 percent of my clothes, or should I just re-wear the same clothes 30 percent more often than I normally would? When I'm ready to do laundry, should I leave 3 out of 10 items in the dirty pile, given that different size of each item might screw up the math, or should I just wash 70 percent of each and every garment to ensure mathematical certainty? If I'm washing 70 percent of my car, can I round up to 75 so I clean 3 of my tires, or must I round down to 50 and clean only 2?

Mysteries abound. And don't even get me started on the dishes, which can now get 70 percent of a rinse before going in the dishwasher. Or maybe they get a full rinse and only 70 percent of a wash cycle. Or mabye its both. I'm not sure how the math works.

I would take the time to figure it out, but I'm 70 percent sure I should get back to work...

Tax Dollars at Work

The majority of the time politicians rant about cutting "government waste," they are just using that line as a politically convenient cover to justify whatever new tax cut or spending proposal they like to promise in election years, without having to list any specific resulting sacrifice the new policy would require.

But in this case, they just might have a point.

When I called FEMA, I was almost immediately prompted to press 1 for English or 2 para Espanol. (For the record, I'm not among those who mind having to do this. I have a law degree and I still can't understand much of the bureaucratic double-speak that often accompanies federal forms and applications. If English is not your original language, then you don't even have a chance.)

So after patiently pressing the English option, I, as you might have expected, conducted my phone application entirely in English. When a FEMA inspector called me, we spoke in English to schedule the interview. When the inspector came to my house, I recounted our losses to her in English. When I called FEMA back with a follow-up question, I again asked all my questions in English (although judging from the responsiveness of the operator taking the call, I would have done just as well to have spoken in Swahili.) In short, I have never conducted any business with the federal government in any other language. It so happens that I've been taking Spanish classes up until this term, but there's no way FEMA should know this.

Since that call, I get daily a new packet of roughly 28,000 pages worth of information from FEMA. It would be 14,000 pages, but for no apparent reason, there is a duplicate Spanish version of every single page in the packet. Just the postage alone on this second set of documents must cost thousands. FEMA knows I don't need this. They even sent me a completed (English) copy of my application along with the Spanish documents that my application itself proves I don't need. Apparently they just think I need to see what all the same forms would have looked like if I had happened to have been from Argentina.

Let me repeat that I'm glad these documents exist in languages other than English. No one should lose out on the benefits to which they are entitled because they use the wrong preposition, or take too literally the question asking for an applicant's "gross income." But does FEMA really need to send copies of every single document in multiple languages to every single applicant? Is it really that hard to just ask the applicant what language they prefer? Or, given that I pressed the "English" option at the start of the process, couldn't the operator just note that on my file and proceed accordingly?

This seems incredibly simple. But since it isn't happening, there are only two explanations. Perhaps FEMA is wasting a whole lot of disaster relief money on the printing and mailing thousands of pages of documents to people that FEMA knows can't comprehend them.

This would be stunningly incompetent, even for a government that allows companies to drill for oil directly offshore even when they have no contingency plan if that oil should happen to spill. So perhaps the true explanation is that FEMA somehow knows that I didn't re-up for summer Spanish classes and now they are trying to make me feel guilty. "See here," FEMA seems to be telling me, "if you took one more semester of Spanish perhaps you could get FEMA relief in TWO languages when the next tragedy occurs!" Of course, they seem to be telling me the same thing in Spanish. (!Mira!, !Si tengas un semestre mas de espanol, puedes obtener dinero de FEMA en DOS linguas cuando el proximo desastre ocurre!)

Or perhaps FEMA knows that I don't have the energy to take formal classes due to the flood recovery efforts and just wants to help me bide the time until I get back on my feet with some free Spanish reading material. This would be a more charitable explanation, but I'm still a bit creeped out by the whole episode, I must say.

"Why would the government care if I take Spanish classes?" you might ask. But since you haven't, I'm just going to go on to my main point. There will be tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of FEMA applicants, just in Tennessee, just for this particular disaster. If each person needlessly gets thousands pages of documents that FEMA knows they can't read, that adds up to a whole lot of wasted trees and a whole lot of money that could more appropriately go toward FEMA's intended purpose.

Which is, of course, figuring out how to fit a French copy of all these documents in the packet as well.

Truth Stranger than Fiction

Let me get this straight:

there was a localized environmental disaster caused by pollutants in the water;

there are no easy answers to fix it;

so the best idea anyone comes up with is to put a giant dome over the affected area to seal it off from the rest of the world.

This is what's happening on the Gulf Coast. It's also the plot of The Simpsons movie. I wonder if this is where BP came up with the idea...

My Surreal Chat with FEMA

Setting: After inspecting our house for damage, a FEMA inspector couldn't answer one of our questions and referred us to the 1-800 number for assistance. The conversation:

Me: I'm calling because the inspector at our house the other couldn't answer this question but told me that you could. I was wondering if it was mandatory that I file a claim with my insurance company...

Operator: (Interrupting) Yes, definitely.

Me: You see, I don't have flood insurance so it isn't going to be covered anyway. I've already provided a copy of my policy where it shows that. And that last time I filed a claim, my insurance company dropped me, and I had to look for three days to find new coverage, and there's only one company who would even write that policy. If I file another claim, I may lose the ability to have insurance altogether. So, given all that, since the claim is going to be denied anyway, I was wondering if I still had to file it.

Him: What you need to do is call the National Flood Insurance Commission, and they can answer your question. But if it were me, I'd definitely go ahead and file that insurance claim. Would you like the number for the Flood Insurance Commission?

Me: I don't think you are understanding my question. I'm not asking about obtaining insurance, I'm asking if I still have to file a claim with my liability carrier to be eligible for FEMA assistance if I don't have flood insurance.

Him: Yes, I understand. You should call your insurance company and they can answer your question, or I can give you the 1-800 number to the National Flood Insurance Commission and they should be able to help you.

Me: Ok, but an outside organization is not going to be able to tell me what FEMA's own requirements are. I'm asking if you are going to deny my FEMA application if I don't file an insurance claim.

Him: Right...(stuttering) Look, an inspector has already come out to your house. (Editor's Note: So what?) We can't make you file an insurance claim but if it were me, that's what I would do, even though I understand why you don't want to.

Me: But is it required in order for me to receive FEMA assistance that my file actually show a denied insurance claim, or is it enough to just show you that my policy doesn't cover flood damage?

Him: Well, we recommend that everyone file an insurance claim. (after a beat) What you should do is just wait a few days and you'll see what assistance you will be receiving.

Me: But my application won't be automatically denied because I haven't filed an insurance claim?

Him: (stammering) Well, umm, hmm, I can't tell you whether that's required or not. What you need to do is talk to your insurance company and see if anything is going to be covered. But an inspector has already come to your house.

Me: Ok, do I actually have to file a claim, or is it enough if I just call and ask if I have flood coverage?

Him: Well, there's no requirement- your file does not indicate that any further action needs to be taken. I don't see where you have to do anything, I'm just telling you what I would do. But you should have your notification as to what assistance you are getting within the next couple of days. An inspector has already come to your house.

Me: Ok, thank you.

Him: Now, would you like that number for the National Flood Insurance Commission?

I wish I were making this up.