There's magic in the night

Like the one you knew before
calling me back once again
-- Screaming Trees

I hate cancer.

My beloved Dalmatian, Minnie, died last Friday. She had a brain tumor, inoperable brain cancer.

In a period of about 2 months, she went from perfectly normal… to dead.

In an eerily reminiscent state, the drugs she took made her stomach terribly upset, and almost killed her. Sound familiar?

The last week or so, she wasn't really able to walk. Her right side paws would collapse under her. She was scared of the stairs, and would walk in circles -- to the left -- if we didn't call her. I clapped to get her attention and keep her in a straight line.

But she still wagged when she saw me. She was lying on her bed, mostly unable to move, but she wagged her tail when I came home.

I don't know what would be more tragic: Her wagging, or her not wagging.

She made a great showing at SL's birthday party -- she walked well, stole food, kissed people, and was generally similar to the Minnie I had known for years.

That was her last, final performance.

We put her to sleep, to ease her pain. The last two days I spent lying in our bed, with Minnie lying next to me. She could stretch ut that way, and was warm. She loved being cuddled. If I moved away, she would open her eyes and look at me. I didn't stay away much.

She was lying across my lap, in that same bed, as she breathed her last breath. I was talking to her, telling her we loved her, and that her brother would be ok, and that we'd miss her.

Sound familiar?

I hate cancer.

She finally looked at me in love,
and she was gone.
--Crosby, Stills, and Nash

At the end, I felt a presence I knew well. I felt a calm, welcoming spirit come for Minnie.

I believe Flanny and JR came back, to help Minnie move on.

Once there was a darkness,
deep and endless night.
You gave me everything you had,
you gave me light.
--Sarah McLachlan

Our brown dog is pretty tweaked. He can't figure out where Minnie went. And he's afraid that SL or I will be gone next.

He's always been a herder, but now he's nearly frenetic about it, running back and forth between us on rapid patrol.

We are trying to tell him we love him, and he's safe, but he's right, the pack has changed, and nobody told him how, or why. I can't explain it to him, but I like it that he's much more cuddly.

I just wish it were for a less tragic reason.

One more chance to make it real,
to trade in these wings for some wheels
-- Bruce Springsteen

There are two kinds of motorcyclists, the saying goes.

You are a motorcyclist that has either gone down, or is going down.

For those of you who don't pay attention to such motorcycle cultural icons like "Sons of Anarchy" or the like, to put a bike down is to crash.

Not the same as putting a dog down.

Thus, the saying indicates that all motorcyclists either have crashed, or are going to crash in the future, probably soon.

I was proud to be solidly in the second category -- the "will go down" camp. As always, I overestimated my control of my environment. This is a bad habit on a motorcycle.

Because you are only partly in control.

Last weekend, I joined the first category -- I put my bike down. I crashed the Saxon, which is rich with irony -- it didn't break down, I broke it. Seems fitting somehow.

I was coming down a freeway offramp, into a left turn. As I came down the ramp, my instincts started screaming "Danger!" I didn't know what was wrong, and so I ignored them.

Pesky instincts.

As I turned left off of the ramp, the front corner of the frame dug into the pavement.

If the front of a bike is pulled down (and, by extension, back), the back of the bike has to come up to balance the movement. Pesky physics.

So, in this case, my rear wheel left the pavement, and I went sliding across the road into the curb. I've never seen my riding partner move faster than as he was sprinting across the road to get to me.

Rather warming, actually.

I was wearing a helmet (of course!!!), a heavy leather jacket with armor, motorcycle boots, and kevlar pants.

Wear your gear, boys and girls. Don't be a dummy.

My jacket is scratched up. My helmet doesn't seem to have a mark on it. My pants were a bit scraped, but not too badly. My boots are reasonably worked.

But I'm totally fine. I have a bruise on my knee, and I wrenched my shoulder trying to pull the bike off of me, but I'm fine.

And amazingly lucky.

I called SL, and started the conversation with "I'm totally fine." My mother taught me that -- always open with the fact that I'm fine.

It didn't appear to work for SL. She screamed -- literally -- asking what happened. She was with my riding partner's wife. The wife screamed. I heard all this over the phone, from the cab of the flatbed towing the bike home.

Suddenly I was running a haunted house, in November. Like wearing white after Labor Day, it's just not done.

I scratched up the bike, and broke one of the welds holding the frame together. The bike is totally rideable, except that the shift linkage is a bit bent.

I went on the ride to clear my head, to spend some time alone with my sadness from Minnie and my overwhelming hatred of cancer.

My pal went with me, to keep me company -- and, I suspect, to keep an eye on me. (Although he never said so…).

I cleared my mind, I guess… by being an idiot and ignoring my instincts. Both SL and JR always told me to trust my gut, that I had good instincts that would not lead me astray. In a matter of months, I have talked myself into a job (even though everything in my body told me no) and into crashing a bike that I love.

They were right. I need to pay better attention.

Really, I'm fine. Thanks for asking.

Smoke from the chimneys
meets its maker in the sky
-- Indigo Girls

If you ever have to handle what they lovingly call "remains" of a person or a pet, let me warn you about one thing.

You are used to postural muscles. You don't expect the head to flap around like a weight on the end of a rope.

But bodies don't have postural muscles.

Just breathe in, let the horror pass, and then kiss whoever you lost.

Give me a sense of wonder
--Iron Maiden

I'm writing this on a plane, what a shock. The man next to me has a sheaf of papers (from a Holiday Inn, I think) with a series of lines written on it. Each line is a date, a symbol, a time, and a 6 letter string.

Hmm.

This guy has a list of dates, plane types, and tail numbers.

I really want my plane to land, and to get away from him. I'm sure it's fine… but I've never seen the like.

You've got it all in the palm of your hand,
but your hand's wet with sweat.
-- Styx

I saw a great movie last weekend, Pirate Radio (was released in some parts of the world as "The Boat the Rocked").

Go see it.

It's a love story to music and to the people who built the rock and roll culture. It was a love song to everything I love. I almost wanted to cry.

I so much wanted that to be my story, but it wasn't. I failed in my quest. But, like the Knights of Yore, I have not given up on my belief in the mystic.

Go see the movie, and be grateful to those who went before, and who create the art that lights our hearts, and our radios, and our skies.

Fail to see the anguish in my eyes
--- Marilyn Manson

For many years, I heard music all the time. I walked through a world full of art. No matter where I was, the music was with me, like a lover.

I was never alone, because Mary-Chapin, Bruce, Hilary, Bob, Johnny, or hundreds of other artists were always with me.

I used to sing along to the music that filled my head, all the time. This normally just led to odd looks from those around me -- so I tried to learn to sing to myself.

But sometimes it affected those around me.

I was driving home with the Lovely Italian in one of our early dates, and I forgot to sing to myself. I sung the line "I don't believe Elvis is dead" to myself. She looked at me oddly, and I realized I'd been out loud again. She asked me "really, you don't? What do you think happened to him", clearly trying her best to take me seriously… or to decide whether I needed immediate help. I laughed and explained it to her. Whew!

In a worse example, I sang The Goo Goo Dolls' lyric "Do you wanna get married" when I was in a car with JR. She also didn't realize it was a lyric, and said, excitedly "really??" I laughed, and told her it was a lyric. She laughed too, but with a sadness that I didn't appreciate enough at the time.

She died wanting me to marry her.

I'm sorry JR, and I'm sorry I misled you.

The saddest thing in the world is not losing someone, it's losing someone and knowing you were wrong.

But wherever I have gone
I was sure to find myself there
--Social Distortion

I've been doing some technology work over the past few weeks. I've been doing a bunch of wireframes -- Basalmiq rules, seriously -- and writing some code -- Ruby reminds me of LISP, which makes me somewhat homesick for Princeton, and especially the Princeton Deli on Nassau street.

But only somewhat homesick -- Princeton is cold, boring, and … did I mention cold?

I also decided to go back to my roots and take apart an old Mac to fix it. It has a broken hard drive, but otherwise was fine.

Did you know my first job was to run wires for a computer company in Arkansas? Early networking. And I also assembled PCs -- you remember, when 8086-based PCs were expensive and rare? I remember assembling my first 80186 machine, which had an entire megabyte of RAM… although you could not address upwards of 640k, so you stuck a RAM disk in the remainder.

Ahh, the old days.

Anyway, I disassembled this iMac to pull the drive out. Good news, bad news story.

Good news? I removed the drive and ordered a replacement.

Bad news? I broke at least one other component, and likely rendered the system useless. A very expensive paperweight… that wouldn't be a very good paperweight, actually.

But, at least I get to feel technical again. It's nice to do something, rather than talk about doing something.

It's amazing how much I have forgotten, but I'm clearing the low hurdles one by one, making myself comfortable, and readying myself for the next set, of big, scary jumps.

Like working my way up to the 10 meter board. Step by step, facing my inadequacies. I can do this. Really.

For a lead role in a cage
-- Pink Floyd

I took the AirBART today from Oakland Airport to the BART The AirBART is a bus that takes you from the Oakland airport to the closest BART station, which is less than a mile away. The flight from Burbank to Oakland was 50 minutes . I measured the time from when I got in line for the AirBART until it got me to the BART station. It was 35 minutes. More than half as long as to fly 400 miles.

Efficiency at its finest.

A bottle of red, a bottle of white,
Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight
I'll meet you anytime you want
-- Billy Joel

If it's dark outside or light

If you love me
won't you let me know?
--Coldplay

I was driving up the 101 the other day, in the Silicon Valley, and I came upon (and passed) a large city bus. The bus was packed with people, each looking out the window, or reading a magazine, but, apparently, never looking at each other.

This is, of course, the rule -- on a bus, you can't peer around at your fellow travelers. Unless you are traveling with them.

Or if you are a creep.

But I digress.

I noticed this bus, grimy, with oil stains on the engine cover, and dirt marks on the sides of the bus from where the wheels threw road mess up.

I noticed this bus -- in passing, as I passed it -- because the bus destination sign was prescient.

The destination signs on buses -- out here, at least -- is an LED sign that spells out the line, sometimes the line number, and often other information.

This bus' destination sign reflected a sublime, Manichean truth.

The bus' destination was "NOT".

So true.

// Side note: I have to specify where I am on the 101 these days, since I could be on the traffic-clogged 101 through the San Fernando Valley in LA, or the almost-equally-clogged 101 through the Silicon Valley.

And I have to specify which "valley" as well, since the referent changes if you are in SoCal or NorCal. I'll try to remember that. //

Somewhere 'round
mile marker 112,
Papa started humming the funk
-- Marc Broussard

I have been spending a roughly typical amount of time on the road. Well, less than in my previous short, happy life, but a reasonable amount, nonetheless.

// Side note: Yes, that was a Hemingway reference. Yes, I thought about rewriting the sentence to have only 5 words, and none longer than two syllables. But then I wouldn't have been able to use the word "syllable", and what fun would that have been? //

I am, however, in a far better mental space than my not-so-recent travel travail. As a result, I'm noticing more of the irony that used to amuse me about being away from home.

Have you ever been on a Southwest flight? I spend a fair amount of time in the Silicon Valley (see story, above, for those of you skipping around). I live close to the Burbank airport, and it's a quick jaunt to San Jose from Burbank. And the jaunt is best done on Southwest.

Southwest has all kinds of funny policies, including the seat number thing that apparently nobody can figure out. It's like forgetting your raincoat at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening -- immediately flags you as a flight-virgin. Folks, match number on ticket to number on pole. Not rocket science. But you have to figure that any system that seems incomprehensible to so many travelers is probably designed wrong.

But that's not my point. Actually, I want to talk about the people who pretend not to understand, but clearly do understand. They cluster around the front of the boarding line. When they first get there, they give a token look of "confusion" -- in case anyone is following their trek -- and then settle down to enter the plane first, before anyone else. On my last flight, one of these reverse-lemmings actually pushed one of the people getting on because they needed extra time.

I thought about punching him, but the flight attendant did a good job of freezing the idiot in his place.

You see other behaviors from the genus Tool. They do stuff like throw their coats onto seats from rows away to save the seat. Or put their bags in the overhead bin, lay their coat out flat, and then close the bin so nobody else can put stuff in there.

It's hilarious to watch. Totally jerkish behavior, on a flight that is going to be 40 minutes long.

What always surprises me is who makes up Genus Tool. It's always middle aged guys in khaki pants and shirts with some technology logo on the pocket. It's not the teenaged emo kids, nor even the so-cool-it-hurts twentysomethings with the soul patch and plaid shirts.

Nope, it's the great spread of middle age.

Sigh, and shortly, I join that segment of the populace.

Regardless, I wonder. Is it the khakis that make them Tools? Perhaps a bad belt? Or is it sampling bias -- the odds of running into some annoying computer support person on the LA to SJ flight is so high that you oversample men onto Tool?

Such things keep me up nights. How about you?

When I was down,
I was your clown.
--Elton John

I was sitting in a hotel in London a couple of weeks ago, having dinner in the hotel restaurant. Nothing special, but reasonably nice. I was the first one in -- I'm always eating with the blue-haired crowd, early, but apparently no blue-hairs in South Ken that night, so I was alone.

Until three men came in. Two were Asian, clearly business executives. The third was Italian, clearly a marketing type; was unclear how smart he was.

Which strikes a chord of remembrance. But whatever.

The three were talking about a particular financial transaction -- a collateralized debt sale, if you care. The Italian was trying to convince the Asians to invest in creating a fund to get the securities, so they could then resell tranches of the securities. Was quite interesting to hear how they planned to divide the tranches. Such deals should be quite secret -- you are talking about trading strategies, and the margins you think you can get.

If it were me, I'd be speaking in a low voice, paying attention to others nearby.

The Italian had no such compunction. He was practically screaming. At first it was funny, so I (obviously) took out my notepad, a pen, and started taking notes. I was overacting like Jon Gruden commenting on a football game.

The Asians noticed, and got a bit squirrelly, pointing me out to the Screamer. He looked at me, and gave a lovely sniff of disdain, and went back to his chattering.

I couldn't help it -- I started laughing. I understood his point -- I had dirty hair, a couple of days of beard, and was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

The lack of ability to see beneath the surface also struck a chord. But, again, never mind.

The best part? He got the math wrong. He was explaining how the returns would be great, but he got the math wrong. I managed not to go up to the table and correct him. But it was a challenge.

Again, a chord.

No amount of elan can overcome a machine gun.
--paraphrased from War Made New

I was on a flight back from New York last week. Jet Blue is awesome, and, again, flies into and out of Burbank. Great for me.

I was sitting there, in my aisle seat halfway back the plane, minding my own business, watching a little TV, reading my Kindle, making some notes, generally being boring and nondescript.

About an hour outside of Burbank I felt a tap on my shoulder, from across the aisle. A woman was looking at me, slightly flustered.

I took off my headset and said hi -- I expected her to say she'd dropped her pen and it had rolled under my seat, or that her cat had escaped its carry-on purse and was climbing my leg, or some such thing.

Instead, she said "You're Douglas Merrill, aren't you?"

My first reaction was to think "how bizarre, she read my boarding pass". My second reaction was to wonder why she would have done so. And to get creeped out.

But I try to be charming.

// Ok, that's enough laughing from you. I said I try. That's true. Now be quiet. //

She went on to tell me that she recognized me from the cover of some technology magazine I was on. I think the issue came out more than a year ago.

I barely remember the article, why did she?

Anyway, I told that, yes, that was me. And thanked her for reading the article. And went back to ostentatiously making notes on a deck. She seemed content with our brief chat.

Tell me, dear OtherEnders, how should I have felt?

// Side note: The ads on Pandora are amazingly annoying. And so totally untargetted that they can't possibly have any reasonable CPM. I can't even remember the subject of the last annoying ad that just played. Ads only work if people pay attention. And generally, ads work better if the people have some connection to the ad, in the moment. That's why search advertising works so well. Sigh. //

Back to Genus Tool. The Oakland airport -- or maybe it's San Jose, I can't remember -- has tables with plugs so you can charge your laptop or whatever. While waiting for my last flight home, I had a very dead laptop and phone, so I went looking for a plug.

There were plenty of plugs, but a card-carrying member of Genus Tool had spread his laptop and papers out, covering the entire table. As I walked up to find a spot to rest my laptop (I carry a Macbook Air, it's small). He actually hunched down and spread his arms out over his papers, like a gorilla defending its feeding ground.

I was tired, and had a headache. So I didn't laugh, which would have been the right answer.

No, I said something like "Really, Spanky? That's your best idea?" and proceeded to set my laptop on top of the most distal of his paper piles.

He didn't say anything to me until I left to board my plane.

Does that make me the silverback of this tribe? Or just a soon-to-be-card-carrying Tool myself?

And if the answer is no,
Can I change your mind?
--The Killers.

My book is done, and you can buy it on Amazon now. You can find it by doing a search for my name. The marketing materials are basically done, and we are figuring out publicity and the like now. The publicity will include interviews, articles, and, naturally, tweets and blogs.

I won't use this blog for it, but I'll let you know where I craft that prose.

The book is about organizing your life to reduce your stress. It's about psychology and technology and society. It talks about how you process information and why you aren't as good at it as you think.

I wrote it along with Jim Martin, a most excellent coauthor if there ever was one.

I'm really proud of it. I think it's useful. I think it's funny. According to my pal Q, I quoted too much Coldplay in my lyrics. That might be true, I don't recall.

Mostly I think it's a great survey of who we are, how we got here, and what today's tools can do to undo … well, to undo what those same tools have done to you.

I hope you will tell me what you think, let me know if it's helpful, and decide if I quoted Coldplay too often.

It hits the streets in March of next year. The publicity will start a bit before then, although SL hasn't told me exactly when it begins. I'm sure it's on my calendar, ironically enough.

The only freedom that man really wants
is the freedom to be comfortable
-- paraphrased from Sons of Anarchy

I rode my Saxon to Vegas a few weeks ago, with my friend Johnny. I might have written about that already. Can't remember.

The ride there was lovely. Sunny, mid-90s, not enough traffic to worry about, just wide open expanses of desert being eaten up minute by minute.

I was listening to my iPod while I rode. Yes, I know that's a bad idea, but riding with music is spectacular. The bike makes you feel free and untied from the cares of the normal, caged world. The music, as long as you pick it correctly, adds to the experience, amplifying it, if you will let me make a bad pun.

It's kind of like going to a laser light show at a planetarium -- remember, you like the PlaneTARium -- watching the blinky lights while listening to Pink Floyd. The whole is far more than the sum of its parts.

I built a play list for the ride -- I think there were something like 4 days of music on the list. Perhaps I went a bit overboard. I had the tunes on shuffle, listening to random song after random song.

But I noticed something, as I sang along.

Almost all the songs I paid attention to, in between the air, the wheels, and the road, were about death.

Do you think that's sampling bias, as well?

You know it's a fool
that plays it cool.
--Beatles

One of my friends, over dinner the other night, asked me what Jeanne was really like.

I was pulled up short. I think I've been talking about her death, and what I did well, and badly, while she was ill.

But there was so much more to her, and to us, than that.

Perhaps I should write about that. Write about her. Not her as sick patient, but her as crafty-but-unable-to-finish. Or her as "I can't remember that, write it on this napkin". Or her as "What should I do?", "say thank you." "oh."

I'm sorry, dear OtherEnders, if I have failed to do so.

Your mind tricked you
to feel the pain,
of someone else
leaving the game.
--Queensryche

My beloved Dalmatian, Minnie, has a brain tumor. It's probably lymphoma, which is probably untreatable. We are trying various drugs to see if anything takes effect. Some have shown a little improvement.

But not very much. If you follow me on Twitter, you've seen loads of tweets about the diagnosis and treatment. I'm trying to maintain a sense of humor, or painful irony perhaps, about picking up medicines at Walgreen's for Minnie Merrill, because some of the drugs are really people drugs, not dog drugs, and making up a social security number since they require one before they'll give me the drug.

It's terribly sad to watch her. She doesn't understand, and she's scared, and I can't make it better.

Sometimes, when she's lying on her bed, not sleeping, but not able to get up and walk, she gets a look in her eye that I recognize.

It was the look Jeanne used to have when she had nothing to distract her from the pain, the humiliation, the fear, the sadness.

And I couldn't help Jeanne either.

I thought that second chances were possible. Maybe I'm wrong.

What would you change if you could?

What would you change if you could?

I was sitting in my house the other night, looking out the kitchen window into the darkness. In front of me is the hedge of ficus trees. Beyond that, the street, with intermittent traffic buzzing by, on their way to Hollywood for the sin and scandal, or the Valley to shop or to hide.

I often wonder where cars are going, even when I'm in one. Don't you?

I did my best
it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel
so I tried to touch
--Leonard Cohen

I know I wrote about traffic last posting, so I won't go into it again. Rather, hear the murmur of sound in the background, and let it give rise to the noise in the foreground.

As I sat there, I noticed an abnormally large fly buzzing about. Seeing such flies makes me wonder what's in the water around here to yield such huge insects. But let's ignore that for now.

The fly was buzzing around the window I was looking through, and the noise was bugging me.

Yes, the pun was intended.

Reflecting for a moment on being the top of the food chain, I decided to kill the fly. I gave myself a moment to bask in the thrill of the decision, flying in the face of my humanity.

Yes, that one was intended too.

Fail to see the tragic.
Turn it into magic
--Marilyn Manson

There was a flyswatter lying on the counter next to me, cleverly masquerading as a Pottery Barn catalog. I rolled up the magazine, and went to town swatting the fly.

Needless to say, I missed it. Several times.

But then the fly outsmarted itself. It flew down to the lower corner of the window, directly behind a pill bottle that was left there for no apparent reason.

I grabbed the pill bottle and pushed it back to the glass, crushing the fly behind it. Voila, no more foreground buzzing, back to reveling in the background noise from the street.

Sometimes you have to use the weapons that lie scattered around you.

Me and the royal denizens
got damn good reasons for our sins
--Mary Gauthier

I've been reading a lot since exiting stage left. Some good books -- I'm currently focused on the Ascent of Money -- but loads and loads of garbage -- fantasy, science fiction, war novels, general dreck. It appears there are trends, or fads, in books as well as in fashion, etc.

The current fad is books about vampires. With a close second place given to books about magical detectives. Generally very strange, and, unfortunately, not very good.

A really good marker of whether your book stinks? If you find yourself using bizarre (or made-up, or italicized) words in some created language, and defining the words in the next sub-clause.

For example, "You don't want an undead to have access to the Monnowtizer, the weapon the gods made to kill undead. And even worse is to walk in on a BloggyWhackp, the race of armored dwarves known for carrying magically spelled pill bottles."

Really, if you are making up words, and defining them in such a hacked way, go write fairy tales. Or mark your books as "cheesy", in which case I won't clutter my Kindle or my mind with them.

Thankyouverymuch.

In her hand when she died
was a note that cried
"Fare thee well,
Tecumseh valley"
-nanci griffith, originally by Townes van zandt

I'm writing this while watching "Elton John: Me, myself, and I" in the background. Jeanne was a huge Elton John fan. She'd have loved this show. To large extent, this show is a biopic of Elton John making fun of himself.

Part of his life was intertwined with the life, and death, of Ryan White. The images from White’s death, in Indiana, are filled with women with that fluffy hairstyle that women wore in the 80s. I have a picture of Jeanne with that hair, in Indiana. Why did anyone wear that hairstyle? It's horrible.

Now that I say that it is horrible, it’s going to turn out that I had the same haircut at some point. Thanks for playing.

The ending credits of the TV show are clips from a live stage show Elton John did in Las Vegas, called the Red Piano or something. I saw that show with Jeanne. She loved it.

I ended up buying 3 or 4 sets of tickets to the show. Yes, we only went once.

When Jeanne and I planned to go to the show in Vegas, I was in the middle of my scut work for the Google IPO. But for a variety of reasons, we didn't exactly know when the issue would go out, and what trips or meetings or general scut would be required of me.

So, I'd buy a pair of tickets for the show on, say, a Friday, and then I'd learn that I needed to be at meeting X, and so couldn't make the flight, or whatever. We missed the show, over and over again. It became almost a joke, although Jeanne really wanted to see it.

Finally, we made the show. I can't remember, now, if we went before the IPO, or after, or in the middle. We got good seats, on the right side, near the front. His piano was on the left side. She was giddy through the show, singing along at the top of her lungs. At the end of the show, if I recall correctly, various people from the crowd went up on the stage to dance or generally make themselves look foolish.

Jeanne didn't go up. She was too embarrassed. She'd have been prettier and more graceful than anyone else on stage, in her silly 4 inch heels, but she couldn't make herself go up. Then, just as everyone got moved off the stage, she worked up her courage to go up.

Too late.

Sometimes you have to use the weapons scattered around you. Those heels were definitely a weapon. And I wish she hadn't been ashamed to use them.

I have the skill
I have the will
To breathe you in
While I can
-Sick Puppies

Now, to be filed under "creepy", I was watching a horror movie called "Henry, portrait of a serial killer" last night. It's absolutely terrifying, even to me. Very disturbing, shot in this slightly faded looking film, that feels ever-so-slightly out of focus. Kind of like what your family's home movies of that trip to Mount Petit Jean in the summer. Only instead of being about how you can't really dive well, "Henry" is about... well, a serial killer.

There is a female character. She's the sister of the journeyman killer. She's sort-of the love interest, although the movie doesn't end well for her.

She looks exactly like Jeanne. Well, not exactly, the character in the movie has a bit rounder face, but, regardless, the actress looks closely enough that it distracted me from the movie. Which wasn't a bad thing, now that I think about it.

The end of the movie has a good lesson: Buy bigger luggage. Really, you don't want to know what I mean by that.

On a more cheerful note, don't you think that SL looks like Heather Graham? Of course, SL is about 4 inches shorter. Don't forget to remind her of that. She loves being reminded she's short.

Like every generation yields
A newborn hope
Unjaded by their years
-Sarah McLachlan

I leave tomorrow morning to ride my motorcycle to Vegas. I'm going up with a friend. Riding my Saxon. The motorcycle that left me stranded on Ventura Boulevard. The bike that nearly got me killed on the 101.

Yup, I'm riding into the desert on a death trap.

I wonder if this is a good decision?

Control yourself.
Take only what you need from it
-- MGMT

It’s been a red letter week for the US judiciary. Apparently, in the US, being innocent doesn’t prevent you getting executed.

In the last several years, there has been a lot of interest in proving the innocence of people on death row, using DNA or other new techniques.

Apparently, it turns out, however, that you aren’t guaranteed to be able to prove your innocence using DNA evidence, even when it’s potentially available.

That’s bad enough. But worse?

How about a case where we know the prisoner is innocent, but has exhausted normal appeals.

As it turns out, here in the land of milk and honey, apparently the truth will not set you free.

Unless you mean free from this mortal coil.

Yes, indeed, a great week for US jurisprudence.

We all fall in love
Sometimes
--Elton John

It has also been another proud week of health care debate. I don’t even know where to start with this one.

Shall we start with the people talking about how illegal aliens have health care coverage, and that this is bad somehow.

Leaving aside the morality of that particular position, I think that most undocumented workers get their primary health care from public hospital emergency rooms.

How about the Medicare recipient who went to town – in a town hall, no less – on how the government shouldn’t have a public option for health care.

Hmm, hypocrisy cleanup on Aisle 1, please.

I don’t even know where to begin. But I know how to end.

You might ask what it takes to remember

When you know that you’ve seen it before
-- Jackson Browne

If you see a bike and rider stranded on the side of I-15, slow down and see if I need a ride. Or send a taxi. Either way.

Yes, really, it’s Douglas

She got shot down in the road.

She looked up before she went,

Said, this isn’t really what I meant.

And the daily news said, two with one stone.
--Sheryl Crow

I had a complete parental moment tonight. I had taken the dogs on a field trip to their favorite holy ground – In ‘N Out Burgers. After paying homage to the great fast food gods in the sky – or in the drive-thru, anyway – we had gone back home. I pulled our SUV (hybrid, of course) into the driveway, but not into the garage.

Long story, you can ask me why I didn’t park in the garage later. No, it’s not later yet.

Anyway, the street I live on is fairly busy, and my driveway opens right onto the street. Thus, traffic is a fact of life. Since I hadn’t pulled into the garage, the car was right next to the street, and, by extension, right next to the traffic.

I opened the door to get the dogs out. Normally, they are good at waiting their turn, and I can easily get each out individually, and keep them away from the traffic.

Not this time.

Both my Dalmatian and the Brown Dog decided they wanted to be first out. I managed to grab the Brown Dog and get him headed into the house – he’s pretty smart that way. The Dalmatian? She’s an escape artist. She jumps out of the car at the same time as the Brown Dog, but lands wrong on the driveway and falls toward the traffic.

I dive out to grab her and pull her back in. Now, really, she’s 10 feet from the side of the road and there aren’t any cars at the moment. But my head didn’t see it that way.

Revolutionaries wait

for my head on a silver plate.

Just a puppet on a lonely string.

Oh, who would ever want to be king?
--Coldplay

I thought she was about to get squished. I grabbed her and hauled her into the car with all my strength – and I’m much stronger than a 45-pound Dalmatian. As I pulled her, she ducked her head and cowered. She was fine before my gymnastics. She was fine afterwards, but scared that she was in trouble – she hates being in trouble.

All day long, she fills me up with dogma.

She's all magazines and Benzedrine and vodka
--Sheryl Crow

I got her inside, and then proceeded to yell at both dogs. Neither dog understood what was wrong, but bore the yelling stoically. Or at least without talking back.

Those of you playing the home game probably noticed that dogs can’t talk, and thus can’t talk back. But go back to your Sudoku, I’m busy here.

I was totally angry – about nothing. It took me a minute to realize that I was terrified that something was going to happen to Minnie, and that I couldn’t prevent it, and that I’d gotten lucky this time. But what about next time.

A total parental moment.

Going where nobody says hello,

they don't talk to anybody they don't know.

You'll wind up in some factory
that's full time filth 
and nowhere left to go.

Walk home to an empty house, 

sit around all by yourself.

I know it might sound strange, but I believe

You'll be coming back before too long
--REM

My book is finally done. It’s in the production process now. I have no idea, really, what that process is, or does, but, regardless, the book is in said process.

Apparently you can preorder it on Amazon now. It hits the bookstores – on a shelf near you! – in March of next year. We are just doing final stuff – the cover art, the stuff on the back of the book, etc – but it’s done. A year of my life, captured in black-and-white on acid-free paper.

Ironic, a bit, since I am rarely acid-free myself. And I rarely see the world in black-and-white.

As an aside, I still believe in health care reform. And I did the last time around as well. I have no idea why that’s relevant at the moment, but I’m writing it, so you are stuck with my creative muse. Deal with it.

Back to my story.

I’m not the first person to write a book. In fact, there’s a well-known book by a well-known author in an area of interest of mine. No, I am not even going to use initials here.

A colleague of mine and I had a running joke about this book by this other person. In each and every opportunity, the author would find some way to work a mention of his book into the conversation. Even if it felt forced, and hacked, you knew he was going to plug his book somehow.

We called him “Buy My Book”, instead of by his name.

Naturally, I am becoming “Douglas [buy-my-book] Merrill”. I promise, the book is good. It’s funny, and clever, and has song lyrics, and makes sense.

The book is about personal organization – what makes you stressed, and how a set of tools can help you get unstressed. (I don’t think unstressed is a word, however). I talk about the psychology of organization, and how history plays into our day-to-day challenges, and suggest some ways to reduce your stress.

Several people have read it, and nobody has asked for a refund yet. So, feel free to order a copy. Once we have the cover art done, anyway.

And, yes, I’m going to talk more about the book over the next several posts, and, yes, we are going to have a site devoted to the book. Stay tuned.

Did you envy all the dancers

Who knew all the moves?
--Crosby, Stills, and Nash

I was involved in Google’s IPO, many years ago. There was a small team of us who did loads of paperwork, busy work, and general scut work. The three of us who were on that team spent an inordinate amount of time together.

One of my fellow scut-tees went on vacation to France right after the event. He bought me a bottle of wine that needed to sit for at least 5 years.

He gave it to me, and Jeanne grabbed a yellow sticky. She wrote, “Hold until June, 2009” on the sticky, and put it on the label. She underlined the date, in case it wasn’t obvious.

I was sorting through wine in my closet a couple of weeks ago, and I came across the missive from Jeanne. Or from the ghost of Jeanne-past, actually.

Seeing her handwriting pulled me up short. I can remember the smile on her face when she wrote it. I can remember that she wanted to drink it with me on a picnic somewhere. I can remember how proud she was of me, even though there was no reason for it.

I sat on my kitchen floor and cried.

Another day, another kick in the stomach.

Give my gun away, 

Is that alright?

If you don’t shoot it,

How am I supposed to hold it?
-Damien Rice

I asked SL what she thought I should do with the wine. She asked me what the possibilities were.

I told her I could drink it alone while SL is on vacation. I could drink it with SL, on a picnic somewhere. I could drink it with some friends of Jeanne’s… if I could find any. Or I could drink it with friends of mine, who wouldn’t mind if my eyes watered a little.

SL thought that I should definitely not drink it alone.

SL and I took it to a dinner at The Surgeon’s and The Lawyer’s. They were very gracious about my periodically drifting off from the conversation. I talked to Jeanne a bit, and asked her if she liked the wine.

Not surprisingly, JR didn’t answer, but I think she’d have liked it, and would have wanted to hold my hand while drinking it.

So I held hers. Thanks for the wine. Thanks for the note, Jeanne.

Thanks, SL, The Surgeon, and The Lawyer, for letting me cry over a very good bottle of Bordeaux.

The bottle, empty, now sits above my desk. Where it will gather dust, unlike my memories.

Got a strangely calm voice on the other line

Sneaky little priest trying to reach out to swine

He said, "Hello my name is Father Tim

Seems to me your zeal for this life

Has been wearing a little thin"
--Sheryl Crow

I can’t believe I’ve ever quoted one artist this many times in one post. It’s possible that I was listening to a Sheryl Crow album in the car. I don’t remember, but it’s odd that so many lyrics from one artist come to my mind while I’m writing.

I’ve spent a lot of the last few weeks making jokes about security. I made some on the stage of a talk I gave at a conference about security – nothing like making fun of your audience.

Other times, I’ve made security jokes to myself in lines. Now that I think of it, talking to myself and grinning probably made me more interesting to the security folks. But never mind that.

There were 4 police officers at a checkpoint outside of LAX, making drivers stop as they come into the departures part of the airport. Four. That’s more than a normal traffic stop. That’s a lot. The best part? Three of the four were off to one side laughing, and the fourth didn’t look at, or examine, or generally show any interest in the cars that desultorily stopped at the check point.

What security is that providing? I don’t know. And I don’t feel safer.

At one of the conferences where I gave that speech, they wouldn’t let me have a wireless microphone, because the conference attendees would block the RF of the microphone.

I hadn’t thought of that.

I laughed, and then did my best Dean Martin impression with a wired hand microphone.

That security, although hilarious, I understood. I like security, when it makes sense.

Unlike, say, the officers outside of LAX. Or this airport wireless that keeps asking me to agree to the Terms and Conditions… over and over again.

I threw the last punch too hard
--Elton John

I have mixed feelings about being kicked in the stomach over and over again. On the one hand, I’d love not to feel the kicks, the pains, the bruises. On the other hand, I never want to even remotely forget her.

All in all, the pain seems worth it. The bottles and cards, they will fade. The songs, they will go out of style and be reduced to the late-night AM stations.

But the limned image of her in my mind, that remains.

SL is in France. She doesn’t speak French. Maybe one of you could help her get a taxi to where she’s going? I’d appreciate it, and I’ll reciprocate with a witty security joke, and try not to push my book at the same time.

Peace.

Your readers are waiting

Hello again my Otherenders. Hope the summer has been treating you well.

I’m sitting outside at my house, with music playing behind me, sun on my arms and legs (I’m wearing a hat), and it’s already in the 80s. Pretty darn good start to a day.

However, I’ve got a conundrum – I want coffee. I made a pot, although my coffee is so weak SL calls it dirty water. I was getting ready to pour coffee into my favorite mug – which commemorates something we did at Google, but, more importantly, is huge. Huge == “more coffee, fewer trips”. A nice optimization for me.

However, my coffee mug was nowhere to be seen. MIA, I guess. Having an out-of-cabinet experience. Gone fishin’

Anyway, it’s not here. So I try to find the next largest mug, and, as often happens to me, am confronted by a math problem. I have a cartoon mug that is pretty wide, and normal height.

I’m halfway to deciding that I want to use this cartoon cup when I notice a mug behind it that is a little taller, and wider at the top. With a wider and higher top, this cup has greater volume. Unfortunately, life’s not that easy.

The mug’s sides are not straight. Rather they are a curved shape that starts at a smaller base, and gradually gets wider, ultimately ending with a cup mouth that is far bigger than the base, and larger than my cartoon mug.

The curve making up the side of the mug isn’t even – it curves more as it gets closer to the lip of the mug. In other words, the radius of the cup changes from base to cup, but it begins to change more quickly as you get closer to top. For those of you who like math, the second derivative is increasing as the curve varies from base to top.

Now, my conundrum. Which mug holds more coffee? In the cartoon (simple) case, I can compute volume with the standard volume of a cylinder (2* pi * radius * height). However, if the radius isn’t the same across the entire cylinder, that formula won’t work.

There are optimizations of volume computations. For example, there is a clear way to compute the volume of a funnel, in both radians and more traditional measures. However, by their very nature, funnels grow from base to lip evenly. The radius doesn’t grow more quickly near the lip. The second derivative of a funnel is zero.

I assume there’s a way to compute the volume of my Capitol coffee mug. If you could measure the radius at each point, you could just sum each measure. Basically, cut the cup into a very large number of horizontal slices and compute the area of each. Which is something like taking the Integral of the area of each circle, from height = base to height = lip, for those of you who like the math game.

But there are many a slip twixt cup and lip, and here’s another. I can’t figure out how to predict the radius of my cup at any given point. I don’t recognize the function that would predict the radius – If I did, I could simply rotate that function around the y-axis (using another nice bit of calculus), but I don’t.

I could measure the cup, but I don’t have a soft measuring tape nearby.

Thus, I don’t know if my Capitol mug is larger than my cartoon mug. Very troubling.

In case you’re interested, I took the cartoon cup. Better memories. And drank it all dry, so I’m headed back to the pot for more caffeine (in an easy to swallow tablet).

While I’m gone…

<6>
--Boston

By the way, SL points out the obvious. Fill one with water and pour the water into the other to see which holds more.

I didn’t think of that. There’s meaning there, I’m sure.

I don't want anything more
Than to see your face when you open the door
You’ll make me beans on toast and a nice cup of tea
And we'll get Chinese and watch TV
- Lily Allen

Picture a small town in the north part of Massachusetts in the very end of the 1600s. The relationships between the settlers and the Native American tribes had begun to fray across a variety of tribes. Raids from one party to the other are not uncommon.

Not the story you remember from Thanksgiving.

A 45 year-old man named Thomas Dustin and his wife Hannah had a lovely family of 13 children. (Yes, I know, puts the Octo-mom to shame). On this early spring day, a Native American raiding party came to attack the Dustin’s farm.

Thomas Dustin, who was working the fields, ran back to his house to warn his wife and get them all to flee. However, the 13th child, Martha, was just a few days old. Hannah did not believe it was safe to move her.

Hannah and Martha could not flee the coming attack, but the other 12 children could, with the help of an adult.

Hannah urged Thomas to take the rest of the children and get them to safety.

In some nice Hollywood movie, the father would say “No, I’m not leaving you!” and somehow she’d get the energy to escape with her family.

This isn’t Hollywood. Hannah convinced Thomas to flee. Leaving her was likely to sentence her to death. And the baby as well. But Hannah convinced Thomas to go.

A few minutes later, the Native Americans captured both Hannah and Martha.

The Native Americas killed Martha by striking her head into a tree. Hannah escaped from slavery a few weeks later.

Would you be able to make Hannah’s choice? Or Thomas’?

I don’t know what I would do..

God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
Because then you might know what it’s like to have to choose.
--Everlast

I just finished the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It’s a good read, with lots of interesting pieces of data. I love bits and bobs of data. I like the book even more because it isn’t a screed, it doesn’t preach that there is one, and only one, appropriate food system, connecting plants through animals to us.

He does, however, point out the stupidity of the phrase “food system”. I have to agree.

Some of his statistics are terrifying, and surprised me. My personal favorites relate to additional calories we consume above the long-run average in the past few decades. The extra calories, perhaps as few as 500, created a pandemic of obesity which, in turn, forces additional cost and pressure into the health care system. And the extra calories tend to hit hardest the poorest of us all, who may also not have great health care access.

I was also blown away by his measurements of the number of calories –especially calories derived from petrochemicals – required to grow a calorie of food.

However, the best line in the book, in my opinion, relates to new methods of growing corn, which is the base food for all the rest of the system (more or less). Natural corn – the stuff that nature built without (much) help from us requires a certain amount of space between plants to ensure growth and pollination. However, a few years ago, the corn industry started to focus on increasing the yield of corn for each acre of soil. The higher the yield, the more corn to get sold, or turned into high fructose corn syrup, or ethanol additives, and so forth.

To radically increase yield, agribusiness companies found ways to create specialized hybrids that could thrive very close to their brethren, and all plants would produce relatively similar product at the same time. And then die, falling into a mass grave, for future tilling.

This hybrid corn product generates equality – truly, all pigs are equal, and none are more equal than others.

Socialist paradise is a field of F1 corn
--Michael Pollan

SL and I flew up to the Bay Area last week. For a variety of not-too-interesting reasons, we were carrying life vests and a wakeboarding rope-and-handle in our carry on bags.

Now, if you were a security screener, and you saw a 40 foot coil of polypropylene cord, attached to some high-density piece of material, what would you think? Would you recognize it as a wakeboard rope and handle? I doubt it.

Would you wonder if, say, this was something dangerous that could burn, explode, something? If you so wondered, you might pull the bag aside and have it checked. That would seem prudent, in a land where I can’t carry 4 ounces of hand sanitizer for fear of a punk planet.

Guess what happened going through security.

Nothing.

Have a safe flight, SL, and let’s hope you aren’t one of the bad guys, because the screeners won’t be able to tell if you are.

Yes I'm waiting by the phone

I'm waiting for you to call me up and tell me I'm not alone

Cause I want somebody to shove

I need somebody to shove

I want somebody to shove me
-- Soul Asylum

3 years older, no wiser

The smell of hospitals
in winter.
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters,
but no pearls.
--Counting Crows

It's been another year, Jeanne. I dreamed about you the other night. It was nice to see you again.

Jeanne Michele Russell, April 27, 1961 to June 23, 2006.

More than this

Wake up in the morning,
See your sunrise.
Does it go down?
--Fleetwood Mac

Hello again, my OtherEnders. For those of you playing along more regularly, guess where I am?

Yes, I'm on an airplane.

I'm headed North, to Alaska. My journey today is a voyage of discovery. Discovering history, bears, and trains. To find, and to lose, a childhood and a set of dreams. Seeking the boogeyman, and angels. And people, some good, some bad.

And some without teeth.

I'm also in search of some good weather -- ironically, the weather in Fairbanks when we land will be nicer than the weather in LA when we left. Yup, I'm going to *ALASKA* to find sun.

SL is asleep, as always, curled up entirely in her seat, with an eyeshade on. It's cold on the plane, and there are no blankets -- because "they took them out, after the flu, you know, and haven't given them back yet" according to the flight attendant -- so she's shivering lightly. Her blonde hair is pulled up in a bun, as is her wont, but a few tendrils curl around her mouth, as if she is tasting them. She's not sleeping well.

I've done more traveling after finishing my bit part in the Night of the Long Knives than I did during it. But most of this travel has been for fun, and much of it has involved motorcycles. And, so far, nothing has required my passport, although that will change soon.

He's a sensitive type.
His intentions are clear,
he wants to be well liked.
--Counting Crows

I know I wrote about my trip to San Diego. I can't remember what else, if anything, I've written about, so let's have a brief trip down memory lane.

I love deserts, and there are some lovely ones near LA, so we've made a few motorcycle trips out.

We rode to Death Valley. It was 102 degrees when we got there, and 60 when we left 2 days later. The wind on the way home was so strong that I had the motorcycle in a lean to the right the entire trip. I tucked the bike in next to 18 wheelers when I could do so safely, since they blocked the brutal winds for a bit. When we got home, my right shoulder hurt from maintaining the lean.

Being in Death Valley was really fun. I'd never been there, so it was all new to me. We did some sightseeing, including going to a ghost town. The people left the town less than 100 years ago, and yet the entire place was destroyed, roofs caved in, walls collapsed. The entire place was pulling an excellent Ozymandius imitation.

The next week, we rode to Joshua Tree. I think I've written about that trip. We stayed in a little 2 room hotel at the north Gate of the Park. The little city that guards the gate looks like every dive town I know, with tattoo parlors, gun shops, teeny grocery stores that sell more MadDog 20/20 than juice, and people who, mostly, don't meet your eyes. They are hiding from something, running from something, sometimes themselves.

And the ones who look at you are predators. There is a lot of prey that finds itself in towns like that.

Joshua Tree National Park is fabulous. The top half is a high desert covered with thousands of Joshua trees, as far as you can see, and rock formations erupting from the earth in "unnatural" ways. The bottom half is a lower desert, with warmer temperatures, and desert rock mountains.

And JR, but that's a different story.

We spent a couple of days in the Park, saw loads of pretty things, and said hello to JR. Then we rode back. And the wind picked up again.

Aargh.

Clearly a case for
corn flakes and classics
--Elton John

Do you remember those things you used to be able to buy from that electronics store -- I think it was Staples -- the "easy" button? It was a battery powered big red button -- looking all the world like the emergency shut down button on every piece of electronics -- and when you pushed it, it yelled "That was easy!"

It's fun for the first few times, and then it becomes annoying. When others around you find it annoying, it gets fun again for a few times.

But after that it's just annoying. Plus I often had bruises on my arm where someone nearby (and annoyed), punched me in the upper arm. I bruise easily, poor me.

Anyway, wouldn't it be fun if you could program the thing to play some MP3 sound? No, I don't mean a song, I mean someone's recorded voice saying "That was stupid!" or "You're funny looking!" or "Stop punching my arm!"

If I were a better electrician/circuit board handyman, I could make it do so. But I don't know how to modify the button. And it's easier to program it as a little computer application.

Tragic, isn't it, the death of the physical.

We are fools to have won
--Dire Straits

The lady behind me on the plane is cleaning her hands with those towelettes ... compulsively. I wouldn't care except for the fact that they stink. And she's reading "Jesus Object Lessons".

Apparently, Christ didn't use proper punctuation.

And I wonder what object lessons might be applied? Avoid cruciate experiences? Don't play with nails? Be nice to fallen women?

Somewhere, my soul is being covered in kindling. I guess that's okay, as long as one knows it.

Make each impression
a little bit stronger
--Rush

My book is done. My coauthor (Jim) and I shipped it off to "production" this week. It hits the street in March of 2010.

It's very cool, well written (if I say so myself), and filled with song lyrics.

I'm going to start describing it, sharing bits and pieces, and starting a discussion about the content soon. Please watch this space! I'm very excited for people to begin reading the work. Coming soon to a bookstore near you (and Amazon, naturally).

There's something about the
Southland in the springtime
-- Indigo Girls

I got to hang out at the start of the LA Marathon a couple of weeks ago. My friend, The Surgeon, was running in the race, despite not having trained for it.

I spent the start of the race standing right under the starter's flag. (Thanks Russ!) The start was amazing. I've never seen the like -- it was a sea of humanity, breaking over the rocks of the streets of downtown Los Angeles. As I stood there, the runners flowed by me, starting the run. It took more than 20 minutes for all the runners to pass. I started taking pictures on my phone of the start, but found myself overwhelmed with the weight of the mass of humanity running.

It felt like an evening that you spend on an open sea shore, listening to the waves break, over and over again, on the rocks just up the coast from you. It's a profound feeling, making you feel smaller, less central, less relevant.

I'm pretty sure that it's good for me to feel that way sometimes. Not because I pretend to be especially central to anything of note. Rather, because feeling smaller makes my problems seem proportionally smaller, less central, less relevant.

SL, The Lawyer, and I sat on some company's sign, out in front of a building, directly next to the finish line. We watched the wheelchair entrants pass, and cheered until our voices were hoarse. We watched students running to raise funds for their schools finish. We watched people cry as they passed the finish line, and others yell for joy. We watched one man cross the finish line who had leg cramps that were so intense that he could only move two steps, and then had to pause, take another two, and so forth.

The determination of that sea of humanity also reminds me of the sea shore.

And yes, The Surgeon finished, and barely looked winded.

I got some money
I saved
Enough to get underway
--Melissa Etheridge

I have decided to stop watching CNN.

Conway, where I grew up, had cable television relatively early -- for example, I remember the day when MTV came on, and yes, I saw the Buggles video... although I didn't like it.

I recall CNN coming together, and the controversies about CNN reporters getting access to the White House press room, and how the traditional media all said that there was no way a 24 hour news network could survive.

And yet it did, producing amazing journalists (Christiane Amanpour, anyone?), and great in depth coverage (the puppet opera, generally known as the impeachment trial).

I remember when CNN2 hit the airways. I loved the format of a 30 minute top news summary, with some random stuff mixed in, like a few minutes of entertainment news. Of course, the marketing people ultimately got the lame "CNN2" name rebranded as "Headline News".

And somewhere along the line, journalism as a profession died. Or, if not dead, at least entered a semi-vegetative state.

CNN spent 2 hours each night for an entire week recently interviewing the top several American Idol contestants.

I have nothing against AI, and think it's great to see people chasing their dreams. But there were two American journalists on trial in North Korea at the time. They were convicted of espionage. Perhaps that would be a more important story?

At some point, CNN became Bread and Circus. No, not the organic store that you find in the Boston area (thanks John!). Nope, think Romanic history. When did we decide that news isn't worth the airtime?

OK, if CNN has become fluff weekly, then surely there is somewhere else to turn? Well, there's always FOX News... but I think I do prefer my news fair, and balanced, for real.

LA is the land of the world's worst local news coverage, and I'm not compelled by the half-hour national news shows.

I listen to NPR in the afternoons, giving me my longer interpretive news stories, but it's not news, exactly. And I haven't yet figured out the radio equivalent of TiVo, and am not necessarily in my car at that particular time period.

OK, I'm overstating here -- I mostly listen to NPR via their RSS feed to Google Reader, but, still, it's not ideal for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I read faster than I listen.

OK, now, somewhere out there Q is hopping up and down, screaming "what about newspapers and magazines?!?!"

He's saying that, of course, because he is the last gasp of literate reporting in a particular well regarded news magazine. He certainly represents an overwhelming majority of the human-computational-capacity of that magazine... and a measurable component of the same measure for all news magazines. But that's irrelevant right now.

So, let's read newspapers, shall we? I'm not smart enough to read the New York Times, although the coverage is pretty terrific. The LA Times has good articles as well (and, no, not only on acting).

Have you read the SF Chronicle lately? Yeah, me neither. Have you seen any great reporters getting raises lately? Yeah, me neither. One of the best newspaper journalists I have ever known isn't writing for the paper anymore (he's editing the web version, so it's close, but I'm trying to make a point here!)

This is home
--Sheryl Crow

I get much of my news from bloggers these days. In other words, I'm reading news "analysis" from people who know no more about journalism than... well ... me. You are, after all, reading my blog, yes?

And, no, I don't intend to begin telling the news. I'm more of a People's Historian than a journalist.

I've given loads of talks in my time about the incredible advantages of the democratization of information, about how important it is that everyone can tell their stories, and how the only difference between a revolution and civil war is who won (since history is written by the winners).

I think that is all true. I want to hear authentic voices on stories, especially stories about things with which I share no context. I want to hear the voices of people who aren't like me, especially those who wouldn't like me.

I love freedom of speech. (Let's have a golf clap for the folks who crafted the bill of rights, please).

The legend grows
About how you got lost
but you made your way back home
--The Killers

// Sidenote: And while I'm on the topic, did I really hear a constitutional lawyer, on CNN, advocating prior restraint to prevent "lone wolf" attacks like that piece of violence done at the Holocaust Museum last week?

Wow, I must be losing touch. Seriously? Stop them from talking because we don't like what they say?

I despise white supremacists. I think the folks that deny the Holocaust should get off the rock. I don't believe that Jesus cares about your sex life or your marriage.

And I'd give every bit of me to ensure that those cretins can talk.

Prior restraint? Wow. I don't want to be restrained next. //

The problem with the democratization of information is that most people can't write. And many can't think.

Apropos of nothing at all, when did Ashton Kutcher become the voice of reason and forethought about social media? (Extra points for anyone who follows this joke).

In the cacophony of citizen reporters -- like me -- how do you find the pearls, the things that will make you better, smarter, more rounded? Where does Watergate get reported, and does anyone listen? Who points out that "airport security" is an oxymoron? Who writes some thought-provoking piece about the total energy expended making a hybrid car like mine? Who is speaking truth to power?

And who tells us that the wolf is, indeed, at the door?

In a world of ubiquitous "news", I fear the profession of journalism will become less a community of practice, and more a commons. With the tragedy being the likely reduction of economic value of professional journalism, playing out in salary reductions and layoffs of great journalists. I think being a journalist is a hard life -- if it doesn't pay, or if we don't have desks for them, will they write anyway? Or will they all become PR people at some major company?

I want everyone to write, to sing, to shout, to celebrate, to damn, to love, to mourn. I want everyone to do so publicly, or privately. I want them to share, or not. I want to live in a world filled with disparate voices.

And I want to be able to have a cup of coffee at Blue Jam on Melrose, reading a newspaper that helps me make sense of the Symphony of Humanity.

I want professional journalism: Not the CNN of today, but the CNN2 of yesterday.

With comics, of course.

Please leave the business section in the taxi so I can read it. And extra thanks for circling the good articles.

// Side note, 2: To all the physicists out there, a question. Does a Faraday cage cast an EMF shadow in the same way a lightning rod casts a lightning shadow? Thanks. //