Training wheels

A long time ago, on a bike far, far away, I was in shape.

Pause for laughter to stop.

No really. I used to live at the beach - I mean at the beach - in Santa Monica.

I was bike path adjacent.

I'd ride my bike far and often, sometimes down to Redondo Beach, sometimes up to Malibu.

It wasn't hard to get motivated riding along side the edge of the continent, listening to the waves crashing into the shore. And bikes crashing into pedestrians.

But since I moved away from Santa Monica (don't get me started), I've been somewhat undisciplined about keeping up my biking regimen.

That fact catches up with me every year as I get ready to go for our annual trip to Coronado. We always bring our bikes and ride around the island almost every day. In order to do that, I begin training for it about three weeks before our trip.

I always make sure I have the things I'll need to make the ride more enjoyable and worry free. Helmet. Water bottle. Bike lock.

And this little accessory. Fortunately it has its own wheels so I can take it along for the ride.

We interrupt this program

It's the grand experiment we try every year. This time, August drew the short straw.

For the next 31 days, we will be a television-free household. Well, technically the next 29 days since I did watch True Blood, Mad Men and Entourage last night. But what self-respecting month starts on Sunday anyway?

So starting today, we're going on hiatus until September.

I'll admit the fact that most of the network shows are in reruns for the summer makes it a lot easier. And because all the cable shows I watch are being TIVO'd, my sense of entertainment loss is somewhat lessened. But the important thing is the example we're setting for the kids.

Yeah, that's it.

We're teaching them that there's more to life than the Disney Channel (for my friends who work at Disney, that's just what we're telling them).

We're teaching them that sometimes sacrifice, carefully measured sacrifice, sacrifice that comes with an end date can be beneficial.

Then there's all that uninterrupted quality time we're going to be spending with each other. Time for sharing. For learning. For finding out the details of each others day. Time to ask the questions and say the things we can't because the TV is always on and....

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHERE DID I HIDE THE REMOTE!!!

The age old question

I've been accused of a lot of things, but being an optimist isn't one of them. And yet, for reasons unknown to me, that's what I've been feeling like lately.

If you read a newspaper (old school) or listen to the news, all signs point towards pessimism, skepticism and cynicism (they were having a sale on "ism" so I picked up a few).

But this time I'm choosing to ignore the signs.

I get this feeling so rarely, at first I thought it was just gas. But then I noticed a few uncharacteristic signs, subtle though they were.

My outlook is a little cheerier. I'm smiling a little more often. I'm not dwelling on wrongs and injustices of the past. I'm enthusiastic about what the future holds.

And while I'm not singing Put On A Happy Face, Don' Worry Be Happy or Zippity Do Da - yet - people have noticed the change.

They say things like, "What's gotten into you?" and "I hardly recognized you with that smile on your face." I think I can explain the reason for all this positivity.

I got paid. A check in the mail. A big one. One I'd been waiting for. And as any freelancer will tell you, nothing puts a smile on your face and a skip in your step like getting paid.

Any freelancer will also tell you that the money was spent long before it ever got here. But the point is it got here. Christmas in July.

I know this will sound like a pessimistic thing to say, but I don't expect this optimistic feeling to last. In fact, it already started to subside after I deposited the check today. The reason is because I realized that, while a big number with plenty of zeros, it didn't come close to covering the amount I was into Balance Plus for.

I will say it was nice while it lasted.

So as I descend back into my pessimism, and endure the endless wait for other checks for the invoices gathering dust in my accounts receivable folder, I ponder the picture here and ask, as only a pessimist can be relied upon to do, the age old question.

Who the hell drinks water out of a glass anymore?

We have Contact

The image many people have of John Hurt is of him thrashing around on the dining table of the space ship Nostromo with an alien bursting out of his chest.

Or maybe it's his grotesquely disfigured form in The Elephant Man, as he proclaims to Anthony Hopkins he is not an animal, he's a human being.

Younger moviegoers might know him as Mr. Olivander from the Harry Potter movies - including the next two of them.

But his one performance I think I enjoy most is one most people didn't see. His role as eccentric, reclusive, terminally ill billionaire industrialist S.R. Hadden in the Robert Zemeckis film Contact.

With a keen interest in space and extra-terrestrials, his character is compelling, creepy and brilliant all at the same time (not unlike a few creative directors I know).

I quote the line at the end of this scene all the time. Scares the hell out of my kids.

The new post is here! The new post is here!

Blogs are like Rosie O'Donnell at Hometown Buffet. They're never quite finished.

When I started this one, I could hardly wait to excitedly tell all my friends about it. Naturally it was my hope - dare I say expectation - they'd drop whatever insignificant thing they were doing at that particular moment and read it.

And really, why wouldn't they? I'd do it for them. But the painful truth is I've always been more of a giver and the better friend in these relationships.

I might be getting off topic here.

Could it be that blogging is now the tech equivalent of home movies? Is it possible no one really wants to read each and every post I publish? Can the technique of asking a question to get the reader more involved ever be overused?

Friends and family all try to be nice and cushion the brush-off with something polite like, "Cool. I'll take a look at it later."

It's completely understandable.

First of all, there's only so much time in the day to be reading blogs. And while at last count there were over a bazillion blogs, only a few are really saying anything worth reading.

I think that problem could be solved if it weren't so easy to start a blog.

As it is now anybody with a keyboard, an internet connection and a bad idea can have a blog up and running in minutes. It needs to be harder than that. If it were, we could thin the herd and only people who really had something to say would be blogging. We'd have a lot fewer people posting family pics and talking about what they had for breakfast and why they liked it.

After all that's what Facebook is for.

Then there's choosing a subject matter. Many blogs have a theme appealing to particular interests. Which is fine, except that kind of segmentation narrows the already over-estimated audience too much (Can you tell I'm in advertising?). I've managed to avoid that pitfall by taking a completely random approach to the subjects I post about.

Much in the same way I do with my career. Or paying my bills.

Another important thing is to have someone read over your post before you publish, for typos and to make sure it makes sense and says what you want it to say. In fact I just asked my wife to have a look at this post.

She said, "Cool. I'll take a look at it later."

Dreaming at midnight

Sadly there's no shortage of things in the course of a day that make me feel stupid. I don't usually seek these things out, because, you know, who wants to feel stupid? Maybe stupid people. But they're too stupid to know they're feeling that way.

I'm way off topic here.

Anyway, I went with my friend, my son and his friend to the midnight show of Inception last night. And guess how I felt after seeing it? Two words: stu pid.

I'll admit no one forced me to be one of the first to see it. I signed up for it - volunteered like it was the Midnight Mission on Christmas Eve.

All the telltale signs of seeing a midnight show were evident. The late dinner. The waiting (and waiting) in line. The run for the seats. The new trailers. Then, finally, the movie.

I don't want to say too much in case you haven't seen it yet (a good chance since it just came out today). You already know from the trailer it's about dreams within dreams within dreams. It plays hide-and-seek with you between what's a dream and what's real - as if I didn't have enough trouble telling them apart already.

It's visually stunning in many parts, but if my life depended on it I couldn't exactly tell you what was happening at any given point.

Maybe I'll see it again to figure it out.

Meanwhile, at the risk of Leonardo Di Caprio stealing my innermost thoughts, I'm taking a nap.

Out of context

This is how the double take happened.

Today I was sitting in Noah's Bagels, catching up with my friend Mardel who I haven't seen in a long while. Well into our third hour yammering away, in walks this attractive brunette with her boyfriend.

I glance over. She stops. Her eyes widen. She gives me a smile. I return the smile as I turn back to my friend, immediately realizing there's only one possible way to read the situation: clearly she's just with this guy for cover, and she actually goes for older, overweight, married, Jewish men with gray hair and kids.

Before I even complete the turn back to my friend, it dawns on me I know her and my head spins back over to look at her again. Hence the double take. Turns out she's my favorite barista at the Starbuck's where I do much of my freelance work (my branch office). I see her every time I'm there, and we usually talk a bit before we both get back to work.

Even though this is someone I know, someone I like, someone I see often, it took me a moment to recognize her. It was surprising to see her out of context.

After a while, I realized the context she was out of was mine, not hers. She was just as surprised to see me.

Maybe because I'm an only child, and the world does in fact revolve around me, I never think about the people I talk to in the course of a day having real lives beyond the circumstances I encounter them in. Which of course they all do.

Growing up in L.A., over the years I've seen many celebrities, people I went to high school with, ex-girlfriends and neighbors out of context.

It's always surprising. And it's usually fun.

If you run into me somewhere unexpected, don't worry. I'll be easy to recognize. I'll be the one in black.

Try not to look so surprised.