Occupy Wall Street, the 1%, and the Lucky Coin.

   Income equality has been getting a lot of attention these last few months - so much so that's it's certainly going to play a big role in 2012 Presidential election.  Most people you run across have an instinctively emotional reaction to the issue ( "Wall Street Pigs!" / "Dirty Hippies!" ) which is often shaped in large part by their political leanings and personal history.  However, I don't think you can really get to the bottom of this issue, or decide what actions ( if any ) need to be taken unless you consider the roll luck plays in all of this.

Personally, I don't have a problem with income inequality per se.  I like living a relatively free society ( "relatively" is an important qualifier here, because I'm certainly not an anarchist or a Ron Paul-esque uber-Libertarian ), and in any free society you are going to have winners are losers.  Left completely to their own devices, some people will succeed and some people will fail, and ultimately that leads to "haves" and "have nots".

However, while I certainly recognize that life is inherently unfair ( and never can be made completely fair ), I do believe in fairness.  While I know that the playing field of life will never be completely level, I feel like society should take steps to make the playing field more level, which in turn would lower the degree of income inequality. #


( #: I could probably write an entire book about the steps I think society should take to make the playing field more level, but because I don't want to distract from the main point of this post, I'll just list two examples below:


1) The estate tax ( Or as conservatives like to call it, "The Death Tax" ) needs to stay, and if anything, needs to be at a higher rate.  While I do believe well-off parents should have the right to give their kids the benefit of their wealth, I feel this needs to be tempered a bit for the sake of fairness.  If a person becomes wealthy simply because of accident of birth rather than his/her own efforts, I don't think it's too much for society to ask that person to give at least half of his/her inheritance back to society so the money can be used to help the less fortunate.  Bill Gates kids are always going to have an unfair advantage over kids who grow up in poor families.  We certainly shouldn't be changing the tax code to give the Gates kids an even larger advantage ( and for whatever it's worth, Bill Gates agrees ( See the 2:30 mark of this video ) ).


2) Public school funding should be made more equitable.  In the USA, public school funding comes largely from local property taxes.  This means that kids who are already lucky enough to grow up in wealthy suburbs with high property taxes, also get the benefit of very well-funded public schools.  It's just not right that kids with well-off parents get to go to public schools with the best teachers ( If you were a talented and in-demand teacher, and suburban schools were paying $20,000 more a year than schools in poor inner-city areas, where would you choose to teach? ) and the latest high-tech equipment, while kids in poor areas go to schools with 40 year-old textbooks.  I know that it's unlikely that public school funding will ever change in my lifetime, but I really believe that funding for public education should come entirely from federal taxes and the money should be distributed such that every child in an American public school gets roughly the same quality of teachers, textbooks, and equipment.  I should also note that I'm saying this as a parent of two school-aged kids who lives in an area with extremely high property taxes.  I know a more equitable public school funding system would result in less public school funding going to my own kids, but I really think the USA needs more fairness in public education.  My kids don't need a fancy video board in their classrooms if that means poor kids need to use obsolete textbooks.  Heck, I don't even think half of these fancy new educational tools are needed for a better education.  We just had a basic blackboard and #2 pencils in our classrooms when I was a kid, and I turned out fine. )


Of course, conservatives will argue that any attempt to "redistribute wealth" via more equitable taxes or public funding reeks of "Socialism" ( See "Plumber, Joe" ).  Conservatives will make passionate arguments based on fairness ( but they'll make a very different kind of fairness argument than the one I'm making ).  They'll argue that any system that distributes money from people who work hard to people who don't work hard is inherently unfair.

Of course, therein lies the crux of the issue.  Therein lies the argument that often begins ... "Why should I give my hard-earned money to ...".

The truth is, a lot of conservative folks believe that there is a nearly linear relationship between hard work and success.  They feel that the rich have earned every cent they've made, and that it is unfair to distribute money from the hard-working rich to the lazy poor.

OK, to be fair, most conservative don't hold views quite that extreme, but there is certainly an undercurrent of that feeling behind all conservative ideas about tax policy.  There is certainly a belief that rich people have earned their wealth and deserve to keep their wealth.  I'm certainly not going to try and refute that the vast majority of rich people have worked extremely hard to accumulate their wealth.  Most rich people do work really hard.  However, I think a lot of conservatives make the following incorrect logical inference:

Most people who are wealthy have worked very hard.
Therefore ...
Most people who are not wealthy, did not work hard.

The conclusion above simply isn't true, because it fails to take basic probability ( what some might call "luck" ) into account.

Let's say you had 1024 coins, and decided to play the following game with them:

1) You start by flipping all 1024 coins and discarding all coins that do not land on heads.
2) In each subsequent round of the game, you flip all of the coins that are left, and discard all coins that do not land on heads.
3) You play until just one coin is left ( if all coins are eliminated in a round,  you should play the round over ), and the coin that is left is declared the winner.

On average, you'll be left with one coin after playing 10 rounds of this game.  I think most people would recognize that there was nothing special about the winning coin that made it come up heads 10 times in a row.  I think most people would recognize that if you played the same game again, the "lucky" coin that won the last game would have a 50% chance of being eliminated in the first round of the next game.  The lucky coin didn't win the game because it had some special ability to come up heads.  The lucky coin didn't win because it somehow deserved to win.  The lucky coin won because in a probabilistic sense, one of those 1024 coins had to win.

However, as much as people are willing to accept the influence of random chance when it comes to coins, we tend not to consider the influence of randomness in the lives of people.  I'm sure we've all watched those CNBC biographies of successful people from time, and the narrative is almost always the same.  The subject of these biographies is always ambitious, persistent, and hard-working, and we are presented with a series of events in the person's life which lead to the person's success.  Along the way, the subjects of these biographies need to make some critical decisions, and the subject becomes successful because he or she almost always makes the right decision.  After watching these biographies, you left are with the impression that successful people are successful because they are smart enough to make the right choices in their lives.  However, from a pure probability standpoint, it is more accurate to say that successful people made they right choices because they are the people that ultimately became successful.

In other words, exceptionally successful people are not successful because they have some extraordinary ability to always make the right decision.  In any group of exceptionally successful people, you'll find that all the people in that group made the right choices necessary to become successful, because if they had not made the right choices, they wouldn't be in that group of successful people.  The exceptionally successful people in the world are essentially lucky coins.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that hard work and talent don't matter at all.  I actually think they matter a lot.  Not everybody can become a self-made billionaire, and the people who achieve that level of successful are almost all extremely hard-working and talented.  I firmly believe that there is a positive correlation between hard work and success, as well as a positive correlation between talent and success.  I'm quite sure that the average person who makes $200,000 a year is more hard-working and talented than the average person who makes $50,000.  I'm sure that the average billionaire who makes $200,000,000 a year is more hard-working and talented than the average person who makes $200,000 a year.  However, the person who makes $200,000 a year isn't 4 times as hard-working and talented as the person who makes $50,000.  The billionaire who makes $200,000,000 a year certainly isn't 1000 times as hard-working and talented as the person making $200,000 a year.  Even the most extraordinarily talented people need some degree of luck to achieve extraordinary success.  Somebody like Steve Jobs was almost certainly a one in million talent and visionary, and he probably would have been a success even if he had been relatively unlucky in business.

However ...

What if Steve Jobs had been raised by his biological parents rather than the adoptive parents who helped mold him into the person he would become?

What if he had not been adopted by parents who lived in area full of high-tech companies ( Including
Hewlett-Packard, where Steve attended after school lectures and took a summer job. )?

What if Steve adoptive father hadn't work on electronics with him in the family garage?

What is Steve's adoptive family didn't have a garage?

What if Steve Jobs had never met Steve Wozniak?

What if Xerox had realized how valuable their mouse/GUI system was before sharing it with Jobs?

What if Ross Perot had not decided to invest in NeXT when the company was running out of money?

What if Apple hadn't decided to invite Jobs back to the company in 1997?

There may have been 100 people out there with the talent and vision equal to Steve Jobs, and I would bet that almost all of them achieved a large measure of success in their lives.  However, a few them were probably ruined by a few unlucky breaks early in life, and most of the 100 probably "only" become millionaires rather than billionaires.

I firmly believe that I live in the greatest country in the world, and I love that my country affords each person the opportunity to be a great success.  However, that opportunity clearly isn't distributed equally, and random chance can certainly play a role in who fails and who succeeds.  I believe in the American Dream, and I certainly don't want to take that dream away from those who have achieved it.
However, it makes me angry when people suggest that the wealthy pay too much in taxes already.  The wealthy are generally very talented and hard working, but they are also generally quite fortunate, and I certainly don't think it's unfair to ask them to share more of that wealth with those who are less fortunate ( Oh, and don't get me stared on all that Laffer Curve nonsense, or we'll be here all day! ).  The bottom line is that the wealthy have attained wealth that is far out of proportion with their level of hard work and talent.  It's time that those "lucky coins" share a few coins of their own.

Rich

How the Jets Stole Christmas

My immediate reaction to yesterday's Jets debacle was the "The Jets stole Christmas", which led me to fire off the tweet below:

And what happened then...? Well ... in Jets-ville they say, that Mark Sanchez fumbled the football away.#JetsStoleChristmas

There was a time in my life when I would have spent hours fleshing this Grinch/Jets idea into a full-fledged parody poem.  However, those days are gone - my two little guys keep me far too busy.  However, that doesn't mean I can't write a stanza or two ...

Every Jets fans in Jets-ville liked winning a lot ...
But it seems like the Jets,
Who played games in Jets-ville,
Did NOT!


The Jets played like crap!  The whole football season!
Why did they suck?  No one quite knows the reason.
It could be because their O-line wasn't right.
It could be be because their OC wasn't bright.
But I think the most likely reason of all
may have been their QB turning over the ball.

Merry Christmas all!

Rich

P.S. Go Knicks!!!!

Best ... Santa Photo .. Ever!

Yeah, I know it's a bit of a cheat to post a photo on November 30th, just to make sure I don't go a month without a blog post - but hey, that's one great photo.

Scary Snow

  It started to snow this morning.  It started to snow REALLY HARD, with flakes the size of quarters.  It 's just above freezing outside, so the snow is an extremely wet and heavy snow.

   Heavy snow has its good points ( It packs well for snowballs and snowmen! ) and bad points ( It breaks your back when you shovel it. ), but today it's simply dangerous.  Well, I don't know if the snow itself is dangerous, but the trees being covered with it certainly are.

  Most snowstorms arrive when the trees are already bare of leaves.  However, today is only October 29th.  While some leaves have certainly fallen already this Fall, the vast majority of leaves are still on the trees, and about half of those leaves are still green.  These leaves are collecting a huge amount of wet snow, so the branches are bearing far more weigh than they normally would in a snow storm.  You can imagine what that might lead to, but seeing it for yourself can be really scaring, especially if you happen to the close to the trees.

  As soon as it started to snow this morning, the boys were itching to get outside.  However, the last thing I wanted was for them to get soaked in all that wet snow and slush, so I convinced them to stay inside for a while.  However, as it became clear that the snow was sticking and there wasn't much slush, I decided to cede to Peter's request to go outside.  I let him go out in our backyard, while I watched from the glass sliding door that connects our kitchen to our deck ( Michael was still inside, and I wasn't actually looking forward to going outside in this weather ).  As I watched Peter play outside, I began to notice all the snow on the branches.  I also noticed a fairly large branch on the ground in our neighbor's backyard.   I called out to Peter and asked him to come back to the deck.  When he got to the deck, I told him that he was only allowed to play in the part of the yard that was not under the trees.

  A minute or so after that, the first branch came down in our yard.  There was a large cracking sound, and it looked like there was a small avalanche happening in the trees in the back our yard and a relatively small branch hit the ground.  A few minutes later, I head another large crack but I didn't see a branch ( I later noticed a second branch on the ground in our neighbor's yard. ).  While Peter was safe in the treeless part of the yard, I was still relieved when he came in a few minutes later.

  However, as soon as Peter got inside, Michael decided that he wanted to play in the snow.  I decide to let Michael out, but before I sent him outside, I sat him down and set very script parameters for where he could go in the yard.  He would need to stay in one small treeless corner of the yard, and he would have to stay in my sight at all times.

While Michael was having fun, the branches continued to crack.

Crack! A branch fell  in the back left corner of the backyard.
Crack! A branch fell in the right side of the backyard.

Crack! Crack! Crack!  I could hear branches falling all over the neighborhood.

CRACK!  This last crack sounded like a gunshot.  I watched as a HUGE branch fell to the ground in middle of the backyard ( The thing is about 12 feet long and 10 feet wide.  Perhaps I'll post a photo later, but Ruth is out and has our camera with her ).  About a split second after that thing hit the ground, I called out "Michael! Inside Now!"

Anyway, the boys are now both safe inside, as I sit here thinking about how I'm going to manage to dispose of these 4 ( and counting! ) branches in the backyard.

Rich

Sports just saved me $177

Being a sports fan just saved my family $177 bucks, and possibly a lot more.

This morning, our credit card company called to ask us if we had just made a $177 dollar purchase for a World of Warcraft subscription.  We certainly hadn't, so we got our $177 refunded and our credit card number changed.

While we were happy to get the call, I was a bit surprised that a credit card company would even check up on a purchase of only $177.  After all, that's not a huge amount of money, so the purchase was clearly flagged because it was considered  to be an usual purchase for our family. 

That got me thinking about how lucky we were that I don't play games like World of Warcraft.  After all, I kinda fit the profile.  I'm a male computer programmer, and I played Dungeons and Dragons in high school.  I'm good at Math and Physics, studied engineering in college, and didn't even kiss a girl until I was 21. Heck, I bet 90% of guys with that background have made credit card purchases for various types of sword-n-sorcery type games, books, and movies.  If I had been making those kind of purchases regularly, I don't think a $177 credit card charge for World of Warcraft would have raised any eyebrows.

However, I don't purchase that type of stuff, because I'm a huge sports fan, and most of my leisure time is dominated by sports.  If it wasn't for my love of the Mets, Jets, and Knicks, I'd probably be a World of Warcraft player, and I'd be at least $177 poorer right now.

I guess, I also have my kids to thank.  I used to buy lots of video games ( mostly sports video games, but still video games nonetheless ), and if I was still buying video games I guess the World of Warcraft purchase wouldn't have seemed too unusual.  However, I pretty much stopped playing video games after my kids were born.

Anyway, it a scary world out there, and it tends to bite you on the ass more often than not.  It's just nice when you are lucky enough to dodge a bullet every once in a while.

Rich

The Evidence

So, as promised, I did it.  I went to the the most evil place on earth.  As you can see, I wasn't happy about it.

Well, at least the boys seemed happy ( even Michael the Mets fan.  He hasn't learned to really hate the Yankees yet - the little guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body ).

As you can see below, Peter was especially happy.

If you zoom in on the picture below, you'll see that I was actually smiling ( That's because we were leaving. ).

Rich

Mommy protects her baby

Me ( to my wife ):  I went downstairs earlier tonight and found Michael doing bench presses on the weight set.  He was bench pressing 5 plates!  I don't think you could lift 5 plates.  I think your little baby has already gotten stronger than you.

My Wife: We are NOT going to let him play football!

Bad Tiger

Tiger Woods used to be the most famous athlete in the world, but since then, he's committed the biggest crime a public figure can commit.

He's become boring.

Let's face it, all these 37th place finishes and all these petulant, defiant, and yet somehow bland press conferences have been really boring.

I guess he could get exciting again if he actually started to win, but since that's probably not going to happen anytime soon, I suggest the following ....

Tiger needs to turn into Bad Tiger.

- Bad Tiger would wear a sinister looking beard at all times.  I see he's actually started to grow one, so he's well on his way.  However, the beard has got to get a lot more sinister.  I'm talking about the "evil twin" style beard they used on Knight Rider and the original Star Trek series.

- Bad Tiger would wear black at all times.

- Bad Tiger would never smile, except for the few seconds before erupting into a sinister laugh.

- Bad Tiger would be rude to all golf fans.  He would insult them during tournaments, revel in their boos, and would never sign autographs ( Except at events where fans were forced to cough up lots of cash ).

- Bad Tiger would never been seen off the golf course without at least two bimbos on his arms.

- Bad Tiger would neglect to pay his child support.

- Bad Tiger would refer to his ex-wife as a gold-digger and a ho.

- To make up for all the endorsement contracts he's lost lately, Bad Tiger would endorse products like porn sites, condoms, and AshleyMasidon.com. 

- Bad Tiger would relentlessly hit on his fellow golfers' wifes and girlfriends, and whenever possible, their daughters.  He would also brag continually about his conquests.

- To finally push things over the top, Bad Tiger would go all Clubber Lang in a press conference with Phil Michelson.  Bad Tiger would leer at Phil's cancer striken wife Amy and say "Hey woman!  Bring your pretty little self over to my mansion tonight, and I'll show you a real man!.".

C'mon, who wouldn't love that?  What golf really needs to get its mojo back is a pure unadulterated villain ( Actually, considering how much he's cheated on his wife, maybe we should refer to Tiger as "adulterated" ).  C'mon Bad Tiger, fill that void!

Rich

The Flag Man

Two weeks ago ( June 24, 2011 ), I was in Saratoga Springs, NY with my family for my cousin's wedding.  There were a few hours between the wedding at the church and the reception, so we headed back to our hotel room to relax for a bit.  While I was in the hotel room, I decided to use Google Street View to see what the reception location would look like as I drove up to it.  Peter was watching me do this, and he surprised me by asking "Why does the man have a flag".  I had no idea what he was talking about, but he asked again and pointed to the Google Street View man in the bottom right corner of the screen, and sure enough, he was holding a little flag ( Well, as best as he could "hold" something without arms ).  I took a closer look and noticed that he was holding a rainbow flag.  Actually, I was pretty sure it was a Gay Pride flag.  I guess it was all well and fine that the Google Street View man was showing gay pride, but why was he doing it that day of all days?

I did a little googling, and this link answered my question.

Apparently, the Google Street View man was celebrating the first day of legal gay marriage in New York State.  Pretty cool easter egg.  I guess I was lucky to be checking Google Street view in New York that day, because the street view guy only had the flag in locations in New York State.

Rich

It had to happen

Hey, a video!

Not much to say here, I'll let the vid speak for itself.



Rich

110 degrees Fahrenheit

Yesterday, the official high temperature was 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Edison New Jersey.  It got up to 108 in Newark New Jersey ( the closest relatively large city to our home in Edison ) and 104 in New York City ( where I work ).  I never recalled being in weather hotter than 103 degrees before ( It turns out NYC did hit 104 degrees when I was 7, so I guess I had been in weather that hot, and it might have been hotter than 104 when I was hiking down the Grand Canyon in the Summer of 1985 with my Dad and brother ( We had to turn back less than halfway down because my brother ( who was 12 at the time ) started to turn purple from the heat. ) ), so I actually stepped out of my office building for a few minutes when I noticed that the NYC temperature had hit 104.  I also occurred to me that NYC had hit the 40 Celsius mark, which is probably a lot more significant that 100 Fahrenheit in the rest of the world. 


That got me thinking a bit about the relative merits of Fahrenheit and Celsius, and I've decided that when it comes to describing weather here on planet Earth, Fahrenheit is the far superior unit of temperature.


Now, before you pigeon-hole as an "ignorant American who won't accept the metric systems", give me a few moments to explain myself.


I've got nothing against the metric system.  I spent my entire academic career studying science and engineering, and I wouldn't think of using anything other than metric units to do science.  In fact, if I could snap my fingers right now and force the USA accept meters, liters, and grams, I'd do it in an instant ( Also, as long as I had those magical finger snapping powers, I'd also force the English-speaking world outside the USA to spell "liter" and "meter" the way they are pronounced.  I mean really, "metre"?  C'mon UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - you should know better than that. ).  However, when it comes to describing weather, I think the USA may be the only nation that still does things the right way.


Let's face it, unlike meters, liters, and grams ( I just misspelled "grams" as "grahams" for the second time in this post.  I must be getting hungry. ), scientist don't really use Celsius.  No scientist or engineer would ever use Celsius when working with an equation like "PV = nRT" ( unless that scientist really got a kick out of adding 273.15 ).  Kelvin is the temperature scale used for science, not Celsius.  Sure, Celsius units are the same size as Kelvin units, and it's easier to convert from Celsius to Kelvin than from Fahrenheit to Kelvin, but in the end, neither Celsius or Fahrenheit work for science unless you do some conversions.


So, with that in mind, why is Celsius any better than Fahrenheit when it comes to describing weather?  Gee, I guess it's nice that the freezing point of water in Celsius is 0, and the boiling point of water in Celsius is 100.  But guess what ...


I'm not a fuckin' glass of water.


When it comes to describing the weather that any person might experience, 100 degrees Celsius is pretty much irrelevant.  100 degrees Fahrenheit, on the other hand, is pretty damned special, and I like it when special values are nice round numbers like 100.  I also like it when things are scaled from 0 to 100.  I guess that's why the inventor of Celsius used a scale from 0 to 100 to describe the freezing and boiling of water.
However, as I mentioned above, people are not water, and using the freezing and boiling point of water to scale your temperature systems seems rather arbitrary anyway.  Why water? Why not use the freezing and boiling point of iron?  Why not create a scale where the burning point of paper is set at 100 degrees and call those units Bradburys?  Heck, this 0 to 100 thing doesn't even really work for water if you are not at sea level.


On the other hand, when it comes to describing the weather in a good portion of the world, the 0 to 100 scale  in Fahrenheit almost perfectly describes the expected range of temperatures you might experience over your lifetime.  At the latitude I live at ( and lots of major cities in the world are close to that latitude ), the temperature rarely gets above 100 Fahrenheit or below 0 Fahrenheit.  The temperature only goes out of that range about once a decade, and when it does, it barely goes out of that range.  I kinda like living in a 0-100 weather world, and I kinda feel bad for those who live in a world where the weather "ceiling" is only 40 and the weather "floor" is way below zero.

In any case, I guess it all depends on where you live and what you are used to, but for my little corner of the world, Fahrenheit is just right.

Rich

"It used to hurt til Tuesday. Now it hurts til Friday."

Eventually, I will write a "Why I Run ( Part 2 )" followup up to my "Why I Run ( Part 1 )" blog entry, but for now, you can consider this short post to kinda be a "Why I Run ( Part 1.5 )".

Sometime in the late 1980's there was a television commercial for Sports Illustrated which featured aging future-Hall-of-Fame wide receiver Steve Largent.  The commercial shows a worn-down Largent going through a tough practice.  In a voice-over, we hear Largent say ...

"It used to hurt til Tuesday.  Now it hurts til Friday"

While I though this was a pretty cool commercial as a teenager ( Note for non-football fans: The NFL plays its games once a week on Sundays.  Largent was talking about how long it took his body to recover from the pounding he would take in the game each Sunday. ), it resonates even more with me now that I'm far older than Largent was when he shot that ad.

Now, I'm certainly not being hit by 240 pound linebackers and 220 pound safeties each Sunday, but I did have a rather intense run on the treadmill on Sunday, and I find that I'm still a bit sore today.  Thankfully, I'm nowhere near as sore as I was on Monday morning, when I experienced a good deal of pain in the underside of my right heal when I took my first first few steps of the morning ( which basically means I've got a bit of plantar fasciitis in my right foot. ).  Things have gotten a little better each day, and I should be just about recovered for my next intense run on Thursday night.

Still, as much as I'd like to be able to deny it, I'm forced to admit that Father Time is catching up with me.  There are a lot of reason why I run, but the biggest reason why I run these days is probably DENIAL.

If I can run miles at a time far faster than I possibly could as a 21-year-old ( which I can ), I can fool myself into believing that I'm in better shape now at 41 than I was at 21.  However, that's just a big lie I like to tell myself to stave off my fear of the reaper.  Sure, I'm in much better cardio-vascular shape now than I was as an asthma-afflicted younger man, but if my heart and lungs had allowed me to run several miles at a rapid clip back when I was 21, I'm sure I would have woken up the next morning without any muscle pain at all.  Heck, when I first started running on a treadmill at 31, I never felt any pain after a run.  As much as my brain might like to deny it, my muscles don't lie - I'm getting old.

However, I guess that's not the worst thing in the world.  Age has brought me a wonderful wife and two wonderful kids, and I certainly wouldn't trade them for a chance to be 21 again.  I guess we all get old, but even if your whole body is sore, every day you get to spend with your loved ones on this earth is a gift.  I might complain a bit, but I'm certainly appreciate that gift every day.

Rich

4th of July

I miss the good old days.

And by "good old days", I mean the good old days of 4th of July celebrations.  Sure, I guess it's a good thing that most places have cracked down on illegal fireworks.  Sure, it's certainly a good thing that people aren't blowing off their fingers anymore.

... but still ....

I can't help but miss what Independence Days were like back when I was growing up on 96th Place in the Ozone Park neighborhood of New York City.  That scene had to be seen ( and smelt and heard ) to be believed.  Of course, I've never been on an 18th Century battlefield, but I've got to image that those battlefields sounded and smelt a lot like the way 96th Place smelt and sounded every July 4th in the 1970's.

All day long from about 11 AM to 1 AM you'd hear a plethora of illegal fireworks blowing up.  Smoke would hang in the air like a thick fog, and there was a distinct smell of sulfur in the air.  Most people on the block didn't travel on that day, because they were afraid they might come home to find their house burnt down due to an errant firework.  So, because we were all going to be home all day anyway, it didn't make much sense to sit around and gripe about the sound and the smoke.  Instead, we all joined in on the fun.

It seemed like every Dad on the block ( including mine ) got his hands on every kind of illegal firework imaginable.  They would set them off all day in the street as the kids watched, and there's really nothing that makes a young boy happier than watching stuff blow up.  I still remember the year my dad got his hands on some blockbusters (a blockbuster is a quarter stick of dynamite ).  He lit one and placed it under a 3-foot tall steel garbage can, and I swear that the garbage can must have launched about 20 feet into the air.  As stupid as this may sound, I still consider that moment to be one of the highlights of my childhood.

Now, my parents were wise enough to keep fireworks out of my hands, but plenty of  parents on the block were more than willing to let their kids join in on the "fun".  I don't remember any kids handling the big stuff, but kids can still do a lot of damage with fire-crackers and bottle rockets.  Especially those kids who thought it was fun to throw lit firecrackers.  Especially those kids who thought it was a blast ( pun intended ) to shoot bottle rockets horizontally along the ground.  I was never unlucky enough to be hit by one of these low-flying missiles, but I distinctly remember a few whizzing right past my feet ( The same kids who though it was fun to launch those things horizontally thought it was hilarious to aim them at people. ).

As crazy as all that was, I think it all pales in comparison to the insanity of what people did with roman candles.  A roman candle is basically a small mortar you can hold in your hand.  Now, it's not really a good ideal to hold a lit firework with enough explosive power to launch 10 fireballs into the air, but people certainly did.  My Dad used to hold a roman candle up in the air like he was the Statue of Liberty.  I still remember those green and red fiireballs launching out of that roman candle in his hand.

Certainly not wise ....

Certainly not safe ...

... but it was freakin' cool!

Yeah, not wise, not safe, but COOL!

Happy July 4th folks!  I have no choice but to live the safe and secure life of a suburban Dad these days, but if you have an opportunity to, please blow something up for me today!

Rich

A different kind of happiness

And so it begins ...

We finally broke down and got our kids a Wii on Monday.  They've played with it all night for the past three nights.  We'll still not sure if we've made the right decisions.

( Note I wrote most of this post on June 15th ( a few days after Peter's birthday on June 12th), so "Monday" in the paragraph above refers to June 13th.   However, I've been too busy to work on this post since then, so this entry is being posted about 2 weeks after that. )

Considering all the time I spent playing video games as a kid, I'm probably the last person who should claim to have the moral authority to forbid his kids from playing videos games.  I barely have a leg to stand on with the "playing video games will lead to bad grades" argument.  After all, I did fine in school despite all the video games.  However, I also happened to be blessed ( cursed? ) with a natural self-discipline which led me to do things like rip up pictures I drew for kindergarten homework when I thought I hadn't done a good enough job.

My kids don't quite have the same level of focus on their schoolwork.  Sure, Michael is blessed with a brain that has made school really easy for him, and Peter has a natural curiosity that will serve him very well  ( He asks questions that his older brother would never think to ask. ).  However, they both get distracted very easily, and they still have a lot of trouble doing their homework unless you sit with them and make sure they stay at the table.

So, I'm worried that this Wii will be a big distraction, but ...

1) Summer vacation is about to start ( June 15 was the last day of school before vacation ).

2) I've rationalized that we can use the Wii as a motivating tool ( "You've can't play with the Wii until you finish your homework"; "You can't play with the Wii until you practice Piano ( they start lessons this week )"; "You can't play with the Wii until you read for a while"; etc. )

3) It was Peter's birthday, and Peter asked for the Wii in the sweetest way.

Peter turned 6 on June 12th.  He had a really happy day, but at the end of the day he asked if we could get him the game "Just Dance 2".  "Just Dance 2" is a Wii game, and for the last few months, Peter has been dancing to "Just Dance 2" videos on YouTube.  A few months ago, we was introduced to the game when he spent the evening at a "Parent's night out" event at his day-care center ( Peter was in half-day kindergarten this year ( Because our big prick of a Governor Chris Christie cut public education funding so much ( while giving big tax breaks to rich folks ) that public schools had to lay-off lots of teachers. ( Michael had full day kindergarten last year before a bunch of brain-dead New Jersey swing voters elected a right wing Republican governor in a state that usually elects Democrats ( Christie's approval rating is now polling at under 50% percent, because apparently a lot of the bozos who voted for him are now shocked and dismayed that a right-wing Republican governor is actually implement right-wing Republican policies in the state. ).).  So, because there was no full-day kindergarten, Peter had to go to a day care center  for half the school-day. About 3 times a year, the day care center has a "Parent's Night Out" promotion, when they'll take care of the kids so the parents can actually go out on a date. ).  As you may already know, Peter loves to dance, and from that point on, all he's wanted to do is play "Just Dance 2".  However, I still wasn't sure if we should get the kids a non-educational video game system ( They've had a few educational systems, but they've kinda outgrown those ), and for the last few months he's seemed content enough to dance along to YouTube videos.

However, on the night of his birthday, he asked the following question is a very sweet and gentle way.

"Could I play "Just Dance 2" for real someday?".  When I asked him if he could "play" "Just Dance 2" on YouTube, he got a really sad look on his face, and asked again if he could play it "for real".  He didn't pout, he didn't scream, he didn't make demands of us - he just kinda sat there on the couch in silence looking rather sad.  My wife and I huddled up for a moment, and decided the time has come to get our kids a Wii.

OK, I now what some of you folks are thinking ....

"Man, Peter played you guys like a fiddle.  He must have known you guys couldn't resist his little sad face on his birthday."

I know I'm obviously biased about this, but you've got to believe me that it wasn't like that as all.  I know things will inevitably change when they get older, but right now I don't think my kids have a devious bone in their bodies.  Peter was genuinely sad on what to that point has been a really happy day.  I don't think I'd every seen Peter as happy as he'd been at his Chuck E' Cheese birthday party that day ( see photo below ) , and it filled me with as much joy as I'd ever felt.

( Click to enlarge to see full-screen happiness )

And that brings us to the title of this blog post.  The joy a parent gets from his kid's happiness is truly "a different kind of happiness."

Now, I'm going to try my best not to annoy of you folks out there who don't have kids.  I'm sure you've all gotten sick to your stomach at times when you've heard gushing parents says things like "Until you've had kids, you'll never understand what love is" and "There's nothing like the love a parent feels for a child".  I really  don't want to sound like one of *those* parents who are so full of themselves and the parenting experience, but ...

... there really is something different about the happiness you feel as a parent when your child is happy.  I'm not even going to try to explain it, because words just can't describe it.  It's just different - wonderful and different.

  In addition to that "different" kind of happiness, most parents are lucky enough to also experience feelings of pride on occasion.  I was really proud of Michael recently, but perhaps not for a reason you might have guessed.  Sure, parents always feels some pride when their kids accomplish something great, but the pride I felt can best be understood by reading the paragraphs below from this fine article:

"

Here’s the thing. I want my kids to be successful, sure. But more than anything I want them to be soulful and moral. Yes, I would like to see them prosper, afford nice things, and earn the admiration of their peers. But damn it, if money and status become more important to them than being ethical, altruistic, and giving then I have utterly failed as a parent.

My friend Dennis Prager, the radio host and author, tells a story of a woman who bragged to him that her children were top doctors and lawyers. He asked her, “Are they good people?” “Why of course,” she responded. And then his clincher. “Then why didn’t you tell me that first?”

I am proud when my kids show me a good report card. But I receive real joy when people who have met them tell me how respectful and warm they are.

"

For the first 6 years of his life, Peter slept in the same room as his Mom.  He was too scared too sleep alone, , and he's been sleeping right next to his Mom for years.  Of course, as sweet as it was that Peter wanted to sleep next to his Mommy each night ( it always warmed my heart to see him cuddled up next to her ), we knew this couldn't last forever.  Ruth and I convinced him that he should try sleeping in his own room "like a big boy" when he turned 6 years old. We knew it might be hard for him, but we let him know about a month ahead of time that June 12th would be his first night sleeping in his room by himself.

Well, the big night came, and when we took Peter to his room, we found that two of Michael's favorite stuffed animals were in Peter's room.   Michael told us that the stuffed animals had "retired" from his room and that Peter could now have them for his room.  He also told Peter that he could rename the stuffed animals if he'd like.

Michael's done some pretty amazing thing so far when it comes to math and science, but I don't think I was ever as proud of Michael as I was on that night.

They make me proud and they make me happy.  I feel so blessed to be a father.  There's really nothing else like that "different kind of happiness".

Rich

Michael's Mother's Day Essay

The boys had lots of gifts for Mom today, including the following essay Michael wrote in school:

My Mom
by Michael


My Mom's name is Ruth.  She is special because she loves me.  She has pretty eyes.  I like when my Mom tells me jokes.  I think she's the best at reading.  My Mom is super smart!  She even knows how to bake.  I love when my Mom and I read.  I'd like to tell my Mom that I want her to start allowance.


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Oh really, Ralph?

In an article titled "Why Obama Gets Four More Years in White House", Ralph Nader wrote the following:

"Nor does a third party or independent candidacy pose a threat, given the winner-take-all, two-party system."


Oh really, Ralph?


So, you're telling me that it was just my imagination when a certain liberal icon ran for President as a third party candidate in 2000, cost Al Gore Florida, and gave us 8 years of George W. Bush?


So, you're telling me that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were just my imagination?


I guess I was just imagining things when George W. Bush's completely irresponsible tax cuts and his wars created so much government debt that my great grandkids will still be paying it off.


I guess I was just imagining things when the anti-regulation policies of Bush led to the the United States greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.


I guess I was just imagining things when the huge national debt created by the George W. Bush's policies gave the Republican right-wing the idea to create the anti-debt Tea Party movement ( which has somehow convinced half the nation that the national debt is the fault of the Democrats ).


I guess I was just imagining things when Tea Party endorsed politicians responded to the debt by cutting social programs that liberals spent their lives fighting for ( While refusing the raise taxes or our cut Defense spending, despite that fact that the low taxes and Defense spending led to most of the national debt ) and  stripping public unions of their collective bargaining rights.


I guess I was just imagining imagine things when New Jersey governor ( and Tea Party favorite ) Chris Christie used the anti-debt issue as an excuse to cut public school funding so much ( while giving tax breaks to millionaires ) that my youngest son Peter was denied full-day Kindergarten.


I guess I was just imagining things when George W. Bush added John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court - a pair of relatively young ultra-conservatives who will influence the Court for at least the next 30 years.


I guess I just imagined the Roberts and Alito were part of the majority in  the 5-4 "Citizens United v Federal Election Commission" decision, which gave corporations the power spend as much money as they wanted to influence elections.


I guess I was just imagining the large number of 5-4 pro-business decisions made by the Supreme Court over the last few years ( There was another 5-4 decision of this sort today. ).  I guess was just imagining that these Supreme Courts decisions are destroying all the consumer protections you've fought so hard for over the years.


I guess I was just imagining how the Bush Deficits led to budgets cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, undermining lots of the environmental protections you've spent your career fighting for.


I guess I was just imagining how a certain liberal icon tarnished his legacy so much that the Simpsons made fun of him ( Wish I could find the clip ) by having him attend a meeting of the Springfield Republicans ( When this liberal icon offer a suggestion to help the Republicans, Mr. Burns tell him "Haven't you done enough already?" ).


I guess I was just imagining that a certain liberal icon screwed the country for the next 50 years by running for President as a third party candidate in 2000, and then had the balls to suggest 11 years later that third party candidates have no impact on Presidential elections.


Oh really, Ralph?!?


Rich


P.S. Yes, I'm still a little bit bitter.

Obama must be jizzing in his pants

Obama must be jizzing in his pants about Donald Trump.

( If you've been living under a rock, or are not from the USA, or are reading this years later when Obama will be remembered as the 44th President of the United States and Trump won't be remembered at all, let me give a brief summary of what is going on: Billionaire and shameless self-promoter Donald Trump has decided that he wants to run for President in 2012 ( or least wants to make people think he's running for President in order to get more attention for his TV show ).  In order to attract Republican voters, he is now publicly taking positions that are 180 degrees removed from positions he publicly took just a few years ago.  In the past he'd voiced his support for gay rights, abortion rights, and advocated a 14.25% wealth tax on all Americans with a net worth of more than 10 million dollars.  He now claims to be against raising any taxes, against gay rights, against abortion rights, and most significantly, has taken up the widely discredited "birther" cause which maintains that President Obama was not born in the United States.  As crazy as this all might sound, this strategy has been working for Trump.  He is now leading all other potential Republican candidates in polls of likely Republican voters. )

Even before Trump emerged on the scene, things were looking pretty good for Obama in 2012.  Sure, the economy is still rather stagnant ( Though it is doing MUCH better than it was when Obama took over in January of 2009.  Back then, the US economy was in a deep recession and on the brink of a depression.  Now the economy is on a streak of 13 months of positive growth. ) and the Republicans gave the Democrats a "shellacking" ( as Obama called it ) in the 2010 midterm elections, but the 2012 Republican Presidential field was full of candidates who stood no chance of winning a national election.  The Tea Party movement was forcing otherwise semi-reasonable Republicans ( None of the Republicans seem reasonable to me, but at least some of them could seem reasonable to most Americans ) to take positions so far to the right that they were all ruining their chances to gain the support of the moderate "swing voters" that often decide Presidential elections.  To make matters worse, the only well-known semi-moderate Republican ( Mitt Romney ) has zero chance of winning the Republican primaries, because he signed a health care bill as governor of Massachusetts that could virtually be the twin brother of the Obama health care bill that all Republican primary voters hate.

Yeah, so things were looking pretty good for Obama, but Donald Trumps takes things to a whole other level.

For as long as I can remember, Republican Presidential candidates have had to play a game in which they speak in a kind of code in order placate the far-Right base of Republican voters ( in other words, the voters they would have to win over to win the Republican primaries ), while not offending moderate voters ( The voters needed to win the general election for President ).  For example, when asked in a 2004 Presidential debate about what kind of Supreme Court Justice he would pick, George W. Bush said he wouldn't pick a justice who would agree with decision in the Dred Scott case.  This baffled many people ( including me ), because the Dred Scott case was an 1857 decision which affirmed that slaves remained the property of their owners, even if they were taken to places where slavery was illegal.  Most people couldn't imagine how a potential justice's  view of an 1857 pro-slavery Supreme Court decision ( Obviously, any justice today would be against the decision ) would have any relevance today.  However, I later found out that in Christian Right circles, "Dred Scott" is code for "Roe vs. Wade" ( the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the USA ).  So, Bush was using the "Dred Scott" code word to make it clear to the Christian Right that he would appoint a Supreme Court justice that was strongly anti-abortion ( which he did twice during his second term ), while trying not offend pro-abortion moderates.

These Republican secret codes have become even more prevalent during the Obama administration.  Republican politicians are acutely aware that a significant percentage of white Repblican voters have racist views about President Obama.  Republicans candidates want to motivate these racists voters to go out and vote for them, but they clearly need to be very careful about how they appeal to these voters.  Not only do they have to be careful not to offend moderates, but they also have to be careful not to offend the racist voters themselves.  Let's face it, most people don't want to think of themselves as being racist, so most people with racially motivated negative views about President Obama have found ways to rationalize that their negative views are not racially motivated.  For example, I know somebody ( We'll call him "Joe" ), who voted for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole in 1996, but voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008.  Anyone who understand politics at all ( and Joe does ) can see that John McCain has basically the same political philosophy as Bob Dole ( Both are Center Right, though I would say that John McCain campaigned far further to the right than Bob Dole.  Bob Dole never called the progressive tax system "socialist" as John McCain did during the 2008 campaign  ), and Barack Obama has basically the same political philosophy as Bill Clinton ( Center Left.  I think both their campaigns were equally positioned to the Left, and as a frustrated liberal I can state definitively that Bill Clinton governed further to the Left than Barack Obama has so far. ).  So, with all that in mind, you would expect a supporter of Bill Clinton in 1996 to be a supporter of Barack Obama in 2008.  Instead, Joe voted for McCain, and now trashes President Obama every chance he gets.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that every white person who opposes President Obama does so for racial reasons, but there are a lot of "Joes" out there, and Republican politicians know this.

So, because even the most right-wing Republicans can't get away with saying they don't like President Obama because he's black, they find other ways to imply that he's not a Real American ( in other words, not a white Christian ).  This is where we get all this "birther" ( The claim that Obama was actually born in Kenya, and back in 1961, his mother, the State of Hawaii ( Which has the official documents that prove he was born in Hawaii ) two different Hawaii newspapers ( which printed birth announcements of Obama's birth back in 1961 ) conspired to fake that he was born in the USA so that he could one day become President. ) and "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense from.  However, most mainstream Republican can't even get away with talking about the birther stuff or the Muslim stuff directly.  Instead, they need to speak in code again.  When asked if they believe if Obama was born in the USA or if he is a Muslim, just about all the potential Republican Presidential candidates say stuff like "I take President's Obama's word for it that he was born in the USA" or "I take Presidents Obama's word for it that he's a Christian".  In other words, they are telling the far-Right base of the Republican party "Look, for the sake of keeping the liberal mainstream media from tearing me apart, I've got to pretend I believe that President Obama is a Christian who was born in the USA - but you and I both know that he's really a foreign Muslim socialist who wants to turn the good old USA into a Muslim caliphate.".

Trump however, isn't playing that secret code game.  He's come right out and said he doesn't believe the Obama was born in the USA.  He's even claimed that his investigators in Hawaii have uncovered evidence ( none of which he's released to the public ) that Obama wasn't born there.  Instead of hiding the crazy aspects of the Republican party that could scare away moderate voters, he's letting it all hang out.  Sorry to use a second crude analogy in this post, but the emergence of Trump really does makes it seem like the Republicans are walking around with their dick hanging out.

,,, and Obama has got to be loving this.

What's worse for Republicans is that because Trump's now leading in the polls, lots of the other Republican candidates might decide to follow Trumps lead.  It things keep going the way they're going, it will eventually get to the point that where the Republican's will nominate a Presidential candidate who is completely unelectable in the general election.

Of course, I don't think the Republican's will really nominate Trump.  In fact, fact I don't even think Trump really intends to run for President.  I think this is all just a big publicity stunt to feed his ego and put more money in his pocket.

However, a guy can dream, can't he?

Rich

Frosty the Snowman is Jesus.

Maybe I'm being a wee bit sacrilegious, and I'm probably not the first person to notice this, but I've come to the conclusion that the story of Frosty the Snowman is basically the story of Jesus Christ.  How so?  Well, consider the following parallels between the biblical account of Jesus Christ, and the story of Frosty the Snowman from the song and the classic TV special.

Jesus: Was born on Christmas.

Frosty: Was made with "Christmas snow" ( snow that fell on Christmas Day - so Frosty was also essentially born on Christmas. ).

Jesus: Sacrificed himself to pay for man's sins by letting the his enemies capture him in a garden ( Gethsemane ).  His enemies ultimately condemned him to death and killed him.

Frosty: Selflessly put his own life in danger by carrying a freezing little girl into a warm indoor garden ( a greenhouse ).  His enemy ( the magician ) was able to trap him in the greenhouse and Frosty died via melting.

Jesus: Was raised from the dead by God, who is a powerful, fatherly ( "God the Father ), eternal, omniscient figure, who judges people on whether they've been bad or good.

Frosty: Was raised from the dead by Santa,who is a powerful, fatherly ( "Father Christmas" ), eternal ( never seems to age ), omniscient ( "He sees you when you're sleeping.  He knows when you're awake" ), and judges people on whether they've been bad or good ( "He's making a list and checking it twice - gonna find out who's naughty or nice."; "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake" ).

Jesus: Shortly after rising from the dead, he ascended up into Heaven ( where the powerful, omniscient figure ( God ) lives ). 

Frosty: Shortly after being raised from the dead, he headed back "up" to the North Pole ( where the powerful, omniscient figure ( Santa ) lives).

Jesus: Predicted he would come again someday ( The Second Coming ).

Frosty: "He waved goodbye saying 'Don't you cry.  I'll be back again someday'."

Well, it looks like I've set my personal record for "Most Random Post Ever".

Rich

I'd rather be hated than misunderstood

I'd rather be hated than misunderstood.

I was reflecting a bit while reading the book "Being Wrong", and I decided that the statement above defines me.

That's it.  I'm tempted to give a bunch of examples ( because I very much do want to be understood ),  but I'm pressed for time, so that will have to do.

Rich

P.S. "Pressed for time" really means "It's about 9:45 PM on March 31st, and I don't want to have my first empty month in my blog archives".

P.P.S Sorry to keep anyone hanging regarding Part 2 of "Why I Run".  I've been quite busy lately, but I'll get to Part 2 eventually.

Why I Run ( Part 1 )

I sit on the edge of my bed with a weight wrapped around my right ankle.  I slowly extend the lower portion of my right leg until it is completely parallel to the floor, and then slowly lower this part of the leg back down until my right heel is about an inch from the side of of the bed.  I do this over and over again, and as I do this, my right knee makes a sound very much like the sound of crinkling bubble-wrap.  Eventually pressure starts to build up in the knee.  The bubble-wrap sound slowly fades away, and after a few silent extensions of the leg, the knee makes a huge CRACK sound when I extend the leg.

However, as bad as this all might sound, this really isn't a problem.

The problem is ...

... my right knee is my good knee!

So yeah, my knees give me trouble sometimes.  While some of these problems are the unavoidable consequence of being 41, a good deal of the problems I have with my knees can be directly attributed to my running regimen. Of course. most people who hear about my cracking knees ( or literally hear my cracking knees ) don't give me much sympathy.  They'll look at me in a bemused sort of way, and say things to me that often include words like "swimming", "biking", and "elliptical machine".  Let's face it - there are certainly lots of ways to do cardio that don't involve the wear and tear that running put on my knees.  So, considering all this, I guess the natural question I should be asking myself is ...

Why do I run?

Well, it might take a while to give a comprehensive answer to that question, so let me start by explaining why I even started to run in the first place.  My current love of running can all be traced back to one thing, and that thing is ...

Basketball


  If you've known for me a while or have read most of my previous posts, you probably already know that I had rather severe asthma as a child.  Back then, running long distances was the furthest thing from my mind.  Back then, I would have had an asthma attack if I tried to run the length of a city block.

All that started to change when my Dad built a basketball hoop in my backyard when I was about 12 ( BTW, when I wrote "built", I really did mean "built" rather than "installed".  I installed a basketball hoop for my kids last spring; my dad actually built a hoop for my brother and me.  One day, when walking home from the train station after work, he noticed an old basketball hoop ( just the metal part the ball goes through - there wasn't any backboard ) that had been left out in somebody's trash.  He decided to take the discarded hoop home and mount it on the garage in our backyard.   He took some leftover pieces from a metallic shelving system ( he had installed metalic shelves in our basement years earlier ) and basically built what looked like a 4 foot high by 3 foot wide metallic bookcase ( 1 foot deep ) with shelves 1 foot, 2 feet, and 3 feet off the ground.  He then attached a piece of plywood ( a piece about the sized of an NBA backboard - he painted the piece white )  to the front of this "bookshelf".  He attached the hoop to the backboard/bookshelf structure, and then attached the entire thing to the garage ( Actually, he may have attached the "bookshelf" to the garage first, and then attached the plywood/hoop, but you get the idea.  The entire hoop/backboard combo was completely homemade from discarded/spare parts. ).  I'll have to remind myself to thank my Dad the next time I talk to him.  That hoop gave me lots of enjoyment over the years, and the skills I eventually gained gave me an athletic confidence that will endure for the rest of my life.).  At the time my upper body was so weak that I couldn't reach the basket on a 15-foot shot unless I produced momentum by starting the shot between my  legs and moving the ball rapidly from between my legs to a foot above my shoulders before releasing the ball ( kinda like the classic underhanded shot a little kid might shoot, except that I would release the ball like a regular shot with one hand behind the ball ( rather than one hand on each side of the ball )).  However I quickly gained both strength and accuracy, and soon I found myself spending most of my free daylight hours shooting hoops.

  As I entered my teen years I really didn't have the endurance ( or the confidence ) to start playing basketball games against other teens ( and young adults ) in the local parks, but I had already started a training regimen that would build the foundation of my game.  I would take various mid-range shots from all over my backyard ( The deepest shots I could take from my backyard were from about 15 feet away.  There was a fence 7 feet to the right of the basket, so I really couldn't take any deep shots from the right side of the basket.  There was more room on the left side of the yard, but I had to contend with a garden that started at the left boarder of the garage and extended about 6 feet into the "court" ( There was a raised 2-inch concrete boarder around the entire garden, and a similar boarder about 3 feet from the right fence that extended about 3 feet into the "court".  I can't tell you how many ankles I twisted landing on those concrete boarders.  Those things are one of the reasons why I have a comically limited side-to-side range of motion in my ankles these days. ), as well as a peach tree in the garden and a clothesline on the far left side of our yard.  If I wanted to take a shot deeper than 15 feet, I needed to step into a narrow driveway between our house and our neighbor's house ( My aunts lived next door, which was a good thing for me.  I don't think that most people not related to me would have put up with the basketball noise all day ( not to mention the thousands of times I needed to go into their yard when the ball would go over the fence ))), and sprint toward the basket as soon as I released those mid-range shots.  Whether the shot went in or not I would jump in the air to catch ball as it came off ( or through ) the rim and put up a layup before I landed.  Doing this over and over again did 4 things for me:

1) It improved my mid-range shot.
2) It improved my leaping ability .
3) It gave me the ability to make off-balance layups with either hand from any spot near the basket.
4) It improved my endurance.

Yes "endurance".  That 9-letter word is really the whole point of all the rambling tangent-laden paragraphs above.  Basketball gave me endurance and help me overcome my childhood asthma.  Basketball is the reason why I ultimately had the ability to run regularly.

However, having the ability and the inclination to do something are two different things.  Despite that fact that I had mostly overcame my asthma ( pet allergies can still give me asthma attacks ) and had better-than average endurance, I never really had much of a desire to get my cardio exercise by running.  I figured jogging would be bad for my knees, and I was quite wary about my knees, especially considering they started making all sorts of weird cracking sounds by the time I was 16.

So, I really didn't do any kind of distance running until I was 31 ( I started my running regimen 10 years ago in  February of 2001 ), when basketball had an impact on my fitness again.  At the time, I was playing on the company basketball team.  I'd been playing on the team for 5 years ( I was actually one of the founding members of the company team.  If the company team had existed a few years earlier,I certainly would have joined the team at the age of 23 rather than 26.  I can't really take much credit for founding the team - the idea came from a guy I was supervising.  He was fresh out of college and asked me if our company had a basketball team.  When I told him we didn't have a team, he actually had the gumption to ask HR if the company could sponsor a team ( pay for league entry fees, uniforms, etc. ).  The next thing you know, management said "yes" to the request and we had a company basketball team. ), and while I was still enjoying the games ( we played 30 - 40 games a year ), I was starting to feel my age for the first time.

You see, jumping had always been a big part of my game.  Of course jumping is a big part of basketball in general, but I relied on my jumping ability a lot more than the average player.  The biggest weakness in my basketball game is my dribbling ability.  I'm not a bad dribbler these days ( I knew enough about the finer points of dribbling to teach Michael how to do it well ), but I've never really had quick hands, and dribbling wasn't a big part of the foundation of my game.  As I mentioned above, I taught myself to play the game with a regimen that involved a lot of shooting and jumping, but not much dribbling.  So, when I eventually gained the confidence to play games at the park,  I found that I didn't have much of an ability to dribble around people to get close enough to the basket to make all those off-balance layups I had practiced.  However, I found that I could jump around people.  I know that "jump around people" might seem like an odd term, so I'll offer the following example:

Often when I was driving towards the basket and  found a defender between me and the basket, I would leap directory towards the left or right shoulder of the defender.  I would then twist my body 90 degrees in the air ( so that my back was facing the defender ( so the defender couldn't really get his hands on the ball without reaching around me and fouling me ) and arch my back to avoid contact with the defender.  Once I got past the defender, I would twist my body 90 degrees back to its original orientation, and then put up a layup before I landed.

A basketball move like the one above ( plus many others where I would just jump into traffic and contort my body until I found space to put up a shot ) works fine if you can stay in the air long enough to pull it off.  I could easily stay in the air long enough when I was 21, but by the time I was 31, it was getting a little bit tougher.  I wasn't as if I was out of shape or anything, but very few people have as springy legs in their early 30's as they did in their early 20's.  So yeah, losing leaping ability as you age is a fact of life, but it was a fact I was having a hard time dealing with.  I constantly found my basketball brain writing checks that my body couldn't cash.  I would leap into the air with a plan of action, and found that I was landing before I could execute that plan.  I was only landing a split second earlier than I was in the past.  Most people probably wouldn't have even noticed, but I noticed, and knew I was going to have to adjust my game to adjust to this new reality.

So, I decided I needed to improve my endurance.  I knew I wasn't as quick and as fast as I was in my younger days.  I knew I could no longer outrun a lot of the younger guys at the beginning of games.  However, if I had better endurance than those younger guys, I might be able to outrun them at the end of games - when lots of games are won and lost.  Thus, I resolved to dramatically improve my endurance.  There were two treadmills in the fitness room of the apartment complex my wife and I were living in at the time.  I tried the treadmills out, set a few goals for myself, and the rest as they say, is history.

Still, why treadmills rather than exercise bikes, stair-masters, rowing machines, or elliptical machines?  Well, to lean that, you'll need to read Part 2.

Rich