random comments

This post is slightly longer than normal because it is a collection of random experiences over the past 4 days.



Pushing Buttons
Last week, I decided to go to the gym on my own, no personal trainer involved. When I got there, I realized that I was way too tired to try to figure out how to use one of the fancy contraptions, so I just ran the bicycle. I'm going to Sports Club LA in DC, and it's one of these high-fangled clubs with a bunch of gadgets on the machines. While riding, I learned of all cable channels available, how to adjust the sound, and became curious what else was available. I noticed in the bottom left corner a music note. I pressed it. What looked like a radio tuner appeared. Cool! But my eardrums nearly exploded as nothing but static feedback filled my ears, through my super fancy Shure earbuds (a present for my birthday). I tried changing the channel no luck. I made a mental note to ask the trainer in two days.


Two days later, I was asked the trainer how to use the radio feature on the bikes. "What radio feature," she replied. Later, I showed her the feature and sure enough, it didn't work. Turns out it was a feature that they decided not to turn on at the club. What?!? Who doesn't like to listen to music while working out? Oh well. My trainer asked during cool down, "Were you the type of kid that liked pressing buttons?" I smiled.


Now today, I was trying to coordinate a meeting using a remote secure log into my email. As I was filing my response to the appropriate folder, I realized the folder should be renamed. So, I found the feature that renames folders. Wouldn't you know it, when the rename occurred, all of the sub-folders disappeared. Damn you incessant need to press buttons! I called the IT Helpdesk and their first reaction was to say, "are you sure that is even possible to rename a folder in that program?"



Case of the Possibly Cheating Girlfriend
On Friday, I went to a Smithsonian museum to listen to an art lecture. It was fascinating to listen to these art critics talk about this painter, and all of the things that his art was meant to represent. How "obviously" he meant the strokes of his brush to lead the eyes around the painting in one particular path along the painting. And how his "anti-idealist" (my favorite term from the week) framework evolved from his days of being a communist. To get to this inspiring lecture, I took the train, where I met someone who looked quite agitated (not in a schizo kind of way, just something is weighing heavy on his mind kind of way).

After waiting for 5 minutes, he asked me if he could ask my opinion about a photo. He said it was a picture that a friend of his had taken of his girlfriend. His "friend" was claiming that the gf had been flirting and had taken the picture as proof. He wanted my opinion. I asked a few questions (of course!), how long had he and his girl been together; who this "friend" is, and is the gf aware that this person is a "friend" of his. He looked at me a few times, hesitated and then showed me the camera phone picture. I looked at it. It was a close up of a girl's behind taken close up. When I saw it, it reminded me that I needed to go to the gym.

I looked at him and said, "this picture is inconclusive. There's no way to prove based on this evidence that your girlfriend was flirting." "How," he responded, "could he have taken this picture without her knowledge." "Easy," I responded and pulled out my camera. I fake snapped 2 pictures of him at waist level and said "if you were turned around, there's no way you would have known that I had just taken 2 photos." He sighed a bit of relief and said, "You just saved my weekend. I was going to have to beat someone's ass." He paused, "Yea, he's just a hater anyway. He just wants to get at her." Since I was already in the man's business, I suggested that he just ask his girlfriend if she had run into anyone that day that was memorable. He said, instead that he'd like to hold this photo as future evidence, just in case. Well, at least he won't do anything stupid this weekend.

Book Club
I returned to DC early on Sunday because I had invited the Cornell Book Club of DC to my apartment lounge for their monthly book club meeting. We had read Toni Morrison's "A Mercy" for this month. Turns out -- I enjoyed this book club group. Unlike the art aficionados, they weren't attempting to read too much into the book. They acknowledged that often as readers, we may try to add a lot more meaning to a work than the artist / author intended. We laughed, some of us concluded the book sucked because it seemed to "try too hard to be deep." Toni Morrison seemed to have attempted to throw in every stereotypical category into the book: abused child, discriminated "free colored," orphaned child, abandoned daughter, and on and on. The work was "episodic" like many of her stories have been. But ultimately, was just a short read that left ya hanging. Nonetheless, we managed to parallel the "lessons" from the story to the broader global context of disadvantage as well as incorporate a discussion on whether forced integration policies at Cornell worked. All in all, great group of people -- I wish that I would have the opportunity to have more book clubs with them!

Hugs From a Friend

Kisha, a friend of Chris, who I am stealing as a friend for myself ;), helped plan the Hood Cinema Presents event at my house this weekend. When asked what I most wanted, besides Reese's peanut butter cups, I told her lots of hugs. I just wanted hugs because living in LA, one sometimes feel like the characters in the movie Crash. You spend so much time isolated in your car, in your head, in your office, in your cubicle -- that you want to crash into someone just to FEEL something. Instead of being dramatic, a nice hug as a reminder that people in my world care, was a nice thing to have. And like all hugs from Kisha it made me giggle. And it made me feel better. And the fact that I was able to also watch her learn the art of being evil while playing Killer Bunnies, made the hug all the more special!



I have a "thing" for people from Austin

I might have a new "thing." For a long time, I had a "thing" for latino men that I suspect it has a lot to do with growing up in San Diego. More recently, it seems that I have been finding men who hail from Austin, TX as attractive. For instance, while waiting for my plane at IAD I ran into someone who works for a pharmaceutical company in Carlsbad as a trainer, who's from Austin. We spoke about his life as a trainer, what it's like to travel so much of the time, and how he handles all of the TSA rules. During that conversation, we had an exchange about a pet peeve of dealing with airport security.


While I had been standing in line earlier, there was a woman who obviously was used to other people doing things on her behalf. As she walked up to the x-ray machine, she left her bag behind (as though one of us in line were going to make sure that her bag went through security clearance). TSA yelled, "whose bag is this?" And annoyed, she turned around, looked at us and said with a huff, "It's mine." And she strolled back to get it. Holding up the rest of us, she opened her bag on the silver tray and started to look at the contents just as if she had never seen what was packed inside before. Softsoap > 3 oz, Bath & Body spray > 3 oz, lotion bottle > 3 oz. I could tell this woman was going to be an issue. By this point, her bag should have rolled through the x-ray and TSA was starting to wonder what was the hold-up. One of the guards came around saw her looking at a bottle and told her, "I can tell you right now that that bottle is too large. [Full Stop] You are not going to be able to bring that bottle as a carry-on. [Full Stop] You will have two choices: throw the bottle away or go back and check your bag. [Full Stop]" The woman looked at him and said, "But it's my hand soap, and I want to bring my hand soap with me." The guard repeated the earlier expression, while the woman began to fish for other items. The guard began to repeat the earlier expression, replacing "bottle" with "lotion bottle." People behind me began to sigh. Someone further back asked if they were going to be able to make it to their plane on time. To say the least, the natives were getting restless.


Now, at this point in the story, the dude from Austin and I agreed, had the person been a foreigner... patience and explanation would have been at hand. Had the person had been an elderly person, we would have even stepped up to assist. But in this particular case, the woman looked to be in her early 40s, she was well-dressed, and spoke impeccable English. Even if this was her first trip to an airport, ever, I was no longer able to give her a "pass" because every few feet there was a sign that said "Remember 3-1-1" and then rambled off the TSA security procedures. Plus, a flat screen television every 15 feet was repeating the TSA rules for what could be included in carry-on luggage, in a 2.5 minute loop. And moreover, a large woman was yelling at people to take off their shoes and reminding us that we needed to put our 3-oz bottles in a plastic baggy. And given that we had all just stood in this line for more than 15 minutes, I could no longer excuse this woman for waiting until her bag was on the rollers of the x-ray machine to start thinking about whether she should reconsider some of her hand soaps.


Eventually, she was pulled out of line. And for the fact that she was so haughty to the TSA officials, I hope they gave her the "special' inspection in a back room later, just for wasting the rest of our time. What I liked about the person from Austin, was we were able to relate immediately and swap stories like this and have a good laugh. I liked his styl-o: a suave hat cocked slightly to the side, clean jeans and a nice shirt. A little hair on his face for obvious style points only. And his real easy way with relating to people.

Plus, I hear Austin has an awesome music festival that comes around each year. Maybe I can re-acquaint myself to someone from high school to squat there one summer. Harmony? Need a baby sitter? ;-)