Author Archives: Admin

clothes sorting

So, inspired by my recent post on ensembles I decided to clean out of my closet and dresser.

I’ve lost a bit of weight and I have to supplement my clothes to tide me over till I reach what I think is going to be my stable and sustainable weight for the next few decades.

Before I spend any money on new clothes I realized that I needed to make an assessment of what I need and what I had.  I also needed to get rid of what was worn out or no longer fit.  So I cleared out my closet and my dresser and piled everything on the bed and started sorting things into piles.

In some ways it feels like I’m moving.  I suppose I am in a way.  I’m moving away from the person that I was and moving to the person that I want to be.  Just as in any move some old things have to stay behind and some new things have to be acquired.

The old stuff that isn’t too badly worn is going to charity and the rest will go into the waste bin.

Some things are easy.  Winter clothes can be bulky and oversized so they’re not hard to sort and it’s time they went into storage anyways.

Suits and sports coats.  They fit remarkably well but need a good cleaning and pressing and maybe an alteration here and there.

Shirts.  My old office clothes.  Some frayed and worn out, some oversized.  A few still useful.

Pants.  I didn’t realize how large I got.  A couple of size 46 pants.  I’m tempted to keep a pair to compare my old waist size to my new but that’s so cliche.

t-shirts.  Most of these I keep.  They’re such handy clothes.

socks.  I have way too many and most of my time is spent sorting them.  I look at two nearly identical ones and try to determine if they’re both navy blue or black.  Most of my white tube socks end up in the charity pile.

handkerchiefs.  How did I end up with so many?

Some things still have stickers and tags on them.  Most of them gifts I would guess as some of them I would never wear.

I’ve filled two giant trash bags full of charity clothes and another bag for the garbage.  My closet seems empty now but I have a good idea of what I need to buy.

I feel good about this in different ways.  I’ve cleared out some of the clutter in my living space and made room for the new.  More importantly I’ve made a clean break with the old me.  Those old oversized clothes were a sort of safety line to my old self.  As long as they existed I could lean on them; see them as a place to retreat to, even if just unconsciously.  By doing this I commit myself to a new life and don’t have any choice but to move forward.

Sales in the international arena

I originally wanted to call this post “Building your future on BRICs” but that would give you a false impression about sales to international clients.  No doubt that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries are important players in the world economy but they are not the only people out there that look for high quality goods and services from American companies.

In the modern world we have to realize the importance of offshore clients.  No matter what your field is, there is now and in the future there will be an increasing number of clients hailing from offshore locations that want to do business with you and you better be ready to handle that.

The company that I work for relies mainly on offshore contracts for the majority of its contracts.  We have developed a very good website that draws attention from all over the globe and this has led to me having to understand and deal with clients of all sorts of backgrounds.

Having had to deal with folks from all sorts of cultures has taught me a few lessons in sales that really should apply to selling to any client.

1.  Check your prejudices at the door.  If you have problems with other people’s race, religion, or anything else about them, then sales is not the field for you.  Having been on the receiving end of a salesperson who seemed to have a problem with my race I can tell you that even if they don’t say anything overt that the attitude does transmit itself to the client.  From a pragmatic point of view you are not only giving bad service to the client but to your employer as well.

2. Treat people with the respect that they deserve.  If they have a PhD or have some other sort of title then treat them with the respect that it merits.  These are fellow professionals making a serious inquiry.  Act accordingly.

3.  Disregard the faulty syntax.  So they may not know a particular word in English or their grammar may not be so great.  So what?  Who learned a foreign language and tried to communicate using it?  not you.

4.  Don’t fake it.  I had a colleague who would try to greet foreign clients in their own language by googling appropriate greetings.  Mixed results at best.  If you don’t know then don’t try it.  You will look foolish or you may even end up offending them.

5.  Somewhat related to the last point, what do you do when you get an inquiry in a foreign language that you don’t understand?  Answer back in English.  Again you don’t speak their language.  You could try online translators and risk making errors or hiring foreign language specialists to translate responses although that gets expensive.  Ultimately I think your best will be to answer back in your own tongue.  If the company gets enough business in that language then maybe they might want to consider hiring a foreign speaker to handle sales for that market.

6.  Keep away from all politics or anything that is not related to the business at hand.  You’re not the State Department and you’re not here to sell politics or your personal opinions.  You’re here to do a deal.  If they’re the ones persisting in trying to bring it up then deflect the subject back to business.  That’s all that both sides should be focused on.

Basically it all comes down to respect.  Not only is it polite manners but it helps to bring across the idea that despite any differences in distance or culture that you are truly interested in helping the client achieve his goals.

 

 

 

techno orthodox or reformed?

I have friends who swear by a particular brand of computer or who won’t consider crossing over to another online search engine.  They stick to their preferences with an almost religious fervor.

Although I’ve never seen it degenerate into physical altercations I have seen people raise their voices at each other over such differences of opinion.  Just more proof that people don’t need any reason to feud.

I think humans like to have some level of conformity.  Part of the human paradox I suppose.  I know we say all the right things about individuality and ‘doing your own thing’ but we like to know that everyone else is doing the same thing and whatever their neighbor owns is similar to what we own.

It’ funny.  Once upon a time one of the techno giants that we all know, and some of us love, once talked about setting people free and letting them do their own thing.  Yet they’re one of the driving forces behind standardization.  They were once the scrappy non-conformists brimming over with idealism and ‘new’ ideas.  Now they’re ‘the man’.

I suppose I have my likes and dislikes in computers, programs, websites and so forth.  But I don’t fully close my eyes to the realities of life and to the benefits that might be found in trying another way.

Back in college I used Macs to write up my reports and I did all my work on Macs.  Why?  Cause that’s what they had.  When I left school my first computer was an HP PC desktop.  Why?  Cause it was cheap, had a giant library of software titles.

I live on Microsoft Outlook at work.  I could not do my job without it nor without other Microsoft products such as Word and PowerPoint.  But then I also use Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop as well.  Mozilla Firefox is my browser and AVG is my anti-virus program.

I use a Dell desktop, a Lenovo Laptop and a Samsung tablet and phone.  But for printing I turn to an HP printer and I have a Western Digital hard drive to back up my work.

Why?  Well, because all of these work and they work well in their own functions.  Today they do the work just fine for me and I’m satisfied with the results but maybe tomorrow someone else will come up with something better and I will probably switch.

Diversity means that these companies can work on what they do best and turn out a better product for the customers.  Diversity also means competition and that drives each company to constantly try to top one another.

Don’t be satisfied with just one answer.  Keep your mind open to all possibilities.

Good Sunday mornings

Life gets annoying, hectic, even overwhelming at times.  You’ve got to have one day of rest or even just part of one day that nothing may intrude upon.  You do what you want and at your own pace.  You have no job appointments to get to and no critical duties to fulfill.

Sunday mornings.

It has always been my time for this.  Something about Sundays has always evoked lazy restful feelings within me.  Feelings of domesticity and getting done those things round the house that need doing but that don’t have to be done in a rush or tearing hurry.

Sleep.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a fan of sleeping.  I specially adore it when I’ve had a long day and I literally come home from some evening job function and undress and crawl into bed and fall asleep right away.  But spending 10 to 12 hour sleeping?  Not for me.  Five to six hours is my typical amount of sleep.  Eight hours would be a guilty pleasure.  Lying in bed all that time has no appeal for me.  Besides which I want to get things done in the morning.  Even if it is my day to be lazy I feel I need to get on with “being lazy”.

A run. unimaginable five years ago.  Now it’s just routine.  I feel more relaxed after a run.  Weekends are my challenge time.  So either on Saturday or Sunday I take an extra long run or try to better my time on my regular runs.  I usually do this on Saturday’s to keep my Sundays as lazy as possible.

The paper.  A real life paper.  Not just a digital edition.  Something with heft to it.  With ads for things that  I will never buy.  Long articles that I can think about and chew over in my mind.  Sports scores for sports I don’t care about.  Comics and crossword puzzles to fill out and erase when I get words wrong.

Breakfast.  I’ve done brunch in the past but I’m not too big a fan of it.  Brunch seems too fussy.

A real breakfast that isn’t calorie counted and nutritionally balanced and portion controlled.  Something home-made with eggs and random spices.  Pancakes or waffles?  Maybe but doubtful.  Even on Sundays my diet conscience nags at me about too many carbs and refined flour.

If the timing is right I may sometimes venture out to some small breakfast place to read the paper while I linger over a plate and a cup of tea for too long.  Maybe do some people watching as they come in and go out.  Watch the sun rise.

The weekly maintenance.  Floors to mop, light bulbs to replace, vacuuming.  Generally just keeping the household running for another week.  But none of it done in a hurry.  All at a relaxed pace.

Bills to pay and finances to go over.  Just out of tradition ever since college I’ve done this on Sundays at the breakfast table.  I write out, seal, and stamp the envelopes and head to the post office with the mail.

Noon, or noonish thereabouts.  The morning’s gone and the long Sunday afternoon begins.  Some time around this thoughts of Monday morning creep into my head.  The cycle begins again but I’m recharged and ready to face it again.

run angry

Well I don’t necessarily mean angry but sometimes you get those days when your personal life or home life is just getting to you or maybe work is being particularly challenging.

I just had it.  My mood was just at that point.  My blood was up and cold weather or not I had to get out on the road.  No warm up or stretch or slowly building up speed, just run.

My feet pounding the pavement hard.  My fists practically punching the air as I strode harder and harder.  Glancing left and right at a red light.  Good.  No traffic.  I wasn’t planning to stop anyways.

Lengthening my stride as much as my short legs can.  I reach the park.  The trail leading to the park is flooded over.  I grab the railing and vault it.  Haven’t done that in decades but I can’t stop now.  Slipping on the mud a bit.  Shaking it off like a dog.  Need to keep going.

No one’s out today.  I cruise straight through like a missile.  Reach the other side and there’s solid traffic.  No chance to get across.  I run alongside till the traffic abates and get to the median.  More traffic so I hop and run on the median till I get my chance.

More than halfway done and not a twinge of fatigue even though I’m still going all out.  A little old lady walking along in the distance.  I will soon pass her but the sidewalk is narrow.  I look farther down at the oncoming traffic.  I’m going to run round her using the street.

My eyes estimate the traffic’s distance and speed and my body’s senses give me an estimate of my speed.  A quick mental calculation gives me the probability of pulling this off.  Everyone can do this.  It’s instinctual.  You do it every time you catch a ball.  I lunge sideways and run round her and then leap back onto the sidewalk never breaking stride.

A major intersection.  I glance at all the traffic lights I can see.  Run to the median and have to wait for crossing traffic.  I pause and flex my knees.  They’re stiff and ache a bit.  I keep going after the last car passes.

The last stretch.  Finish strong.  Stretch out those steps as far as possible.  Almost slide into the front door.

Now the sweat pours off me.  My eyes red rimmed from the salty sweat in them.  I don’t think I have a spare ounce of water in my entire body.

Shower off in ice-cold water.  I don’t even remember what upset me.

The Wind Rises – Movie review

Standard spoiler alert here.  This post will go into details about the movie “The Wind Rises“.  If you don’t want to know what happens in this movie you better stop reading now.

This is the last movie from world-renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki.  I first discovered Miyazaki in college in 1989 when a friend shared his bootleg copy of “The Castle of Cagliostro“.  Since that time I have marveled at how well he can draw out even the most minute details in nature and highlight them in a media that is too often derided as childish and sloppy.

For those that don’t know, anime is far removed from the Saturday morning cartoons that you and I grew up on.  The subjects and story lines are far more complex and the intention is to make a live action movie without relying on actual live action.

Miyazaki himself stated that since this was going to be the last film that he directed that he wanted to tackle a story line that would include some of his long time interests.    He chose to do a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the chief designer of the famous Japanese A6M Zero fighter.  Miyazaki’s interest in flight may derive in part due to his family’s involvement in producing aircraft parts for the Zero during the war.  He has incorporated many flight related themes into his previous works (Most significantly in Porco Rosso and Castle in the Sky) so it is not a huge surprise that he would tackle this subject.

The story title comes from a French poem by Paul Valery (Le vent se lève ! … Il faut tenter de vivre or The wind is rising… we must try to live).  This can be interpreted in several ways.  It could be taken as life advice to seize life for what it’s worth and live it no matter what the circumstances.  It could also be flight advice.  In the early days of flight pilots would prefer to have some wind to assist their aircraft into the air.  Lastly and less probable the wind may refer to the fact that the Japanese term ‘kamikaze‘ refers to the divine wind and that the Zero was the aircraft mainly associated with this tactic.

The story follows Jiro as a child and his ambitions to design planes.  He reads western flight magazines and becomes obsessed with the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni, who at the time was the best aircraft designer in the world.  One night he seems to share a dream with Caproni and Caproni encourages Jiro to follow his passion.  The next morning when he wakes he tells his mother that he will design planes.

The movie fast forwards to 1923. Jiro is going off to college.  On the train to Tokyo he meets a young girl and they start to connect when suddenly the whole world seems to ripple.  A massive earthquake has struck the area and  Tokyo is devastated.  Jiro shepherds the girl and her nanny to her home but before she learns his name he runs off to help fight the fires breaking out in the city.

The 1923 earthquake is a defining moment in modern Japanese history.  Something akin to 9-11 in our country.  You can see a distinct difference in attitudes before and after the event.

Tokyo is razed by the ensuing fires and the government begins rebuilding the city along more modern western lines.  It also uses the event to erase the last vestiges of the old traditional forms of government and a new militaristic government begins to exercise more power over the nation and reshape it to their views.

Jiro returns to the girl’s home but finds it has burned to the ground and there is no sign of her.  He returns to the university to continue his studies.  He pores over books from America and Germany and develops an almost instinctive feel for aircraft design that his fellow engineers lack.

He graduates in 1929 and begins to look for a job but the country is wracked by the great depression.  Although he is bursting with good ideas, nobody has the money to implement them.  He eventually lands a job with Mitsubishi but is disappointed to see that while the rest of the world is building planes from metal, that the best Japanese designs are still made from wood and canvas.

Mitsubishi is forced to take on government fighter contracts to survive.  Their first effort is a failure.  This leads the company to send Jiro and some other engineers to Germany to learn from Hugo Junkers about modern aircraft design.  The team is astonished at the advancements in aircraft design and Jiro’s friends despair that they may never catch up but Jiro has faith that they will not only catch up but surpass them.  That night he and a friend take a walk.  They come across a young boy being chased by secret policemen.  They have unknowingly come across the beginnings of the holocaust.  This triggers another dream for Jiro.

He meets Caproni again.  They fly in his last design.  Caproni declares that he is retiring.  His time has passed and now it is Jiro’s time.  But he warns Jiro that greatness comes at a cost.  He may design great planes but inevitably they will be used for war.  Jiro has to decide if he is willing to bear that cost and the responsibility for designing something that will be used to kill people.  Jiro declares that he just wants to create beautiful planes and decides that he is willing to embrace greatness.

He returns home and is made chief designer for a new navy fighter.  He puts in all the lessons he has learned from his trip abroad but the design crashes.  Jiro becomes depressed by the failure.  He takes a month long vacation at a mountain hotel.

While there he runs into the girl from the earthquake.  Her name is Naoko and she has been searching for Jiro since that day.  They soon fall in love.  In the meantime he runs into a German man who is critical of Hitler and his policies and warns that any future war will result in the destruction of Germany and Japan.

The vacation ends and Jiro asks to marry Naoko but she confesses that she is afflicted with tuberculosis and won’t marry him until she feels better.

Now engaged, Jiro returns to work feeling invigorated and with new ideas.  He starts to work again but suddenly has to flee.  The secret police are after him for his contact with the strange German man.

He hides out at his boss’ house and continues work on the plane design until he receives a telegram from Naoko’s father that she has had a lung infection.  He rushes to her side and they decide that they can’t wait to be married.  They must seize what life has given them and be happy.

They return to live with his boss and work on the new plane.  Naoko’s health deteriorates slowly but she bravely continues to support her husband’s work.  The day of the first test flight arrives.  Jiro goes off to work.  Naoko declares that she feels better and goes off for a walk.  The boss’ wife finds that Naoko has actually left for good.  She leaves three letters explaining her decision.  She wants to spare her husband the pain of her final days.

At work the new plane takes off and is a success.  It is the A5M the direct forerunner of the Zero fighter.  As everyone congratulates Jiro he feels a gust of wind and he knows that his wife has passed away.

The story moves forward to 1945.  Overhead giant American bombers are laying waste to Japan.  The factory has been obliterated and all Jiro can do is look on helplessly.  He slips into a dream again and meets Caproni for the last time.

Caproni asks him how he feels now that his dreams have been realized and Jiro reflects that he succeeded in making beautiful planes despite the costs.  He sees Naoko in the dream and she promises that she is waiting for him.

The film encapsulates many themes in Miyazaki’s works over time.  Not only the flying motif but elements of magic, of living life just for the joy of living, and his disdain for war.  Some might argue that a movie about designing a war plane glorifies war but in fact it is seen as doing the opposite.

For me personally, the film touched a chord from my childhood.  I was also fascinated by aircraft as a child and spent hours reading technical specifications and looking at pictures and doodling designs for wings and other parts.  Alas I was never able to make a go of it but still I do understand the passion to make something beautiful.

 

 

Decision trees in our lives

I was going through my newsfeed the other day and a link came up for Huffpost live.  It was a discussion with Crispin Glover on the message that media puts out in some movies.

Interview

First of all I never realized that Crispin Glover was that deep a thinker honestly.  He’s apparently quite perceptive and insightful.  This discussion got me thinking on a different tack about how decisions affect our lives.

(by the way, this is one of the reasons that I love cinema.  You can derive so many themes, ideas, and visions from a movie that it’s astonishing)

In the above movie that Glover references (“Back to the future”) his character, George, makes a bad decision at a young age that affects the rest of his life.  He has been making bad decisions based on fear all of his life but this one really affect him and his future wife.

Basically he allows his future wife to be raped by the neighborhood bully.  This event victimizes both of them and they live in a spiral of hopelessness and shame leading them downwards on a dark path of despair. George takes a menial job and allows his tormentor to continue to harass him.  George and his wife end up trapped living a life that is neither satisfactory nor fulfilling.

George’s son goes back in time and intervenes causing George to make the right decision and this in turn affects the rest of his life.

When the son returns to the altered future he finds that his parents have been emboldened by the correct choice that George made and their life is a success in every way.  The same two people, the same town, but totally altered by one seemingly tiny change in the past.

Plugging all this back into the real world, how have the decisions in our past affected our current life situation?  You make that initial bad decision back in kindergarten and twenty years later you’re working in McDonald’s rather than going to Harvard.

A gross overstatement to be sure but I don’t think that the average young person gives enough weight to these seemingly innocuous life choices.  Go out and party on a Friday night or study, burn through your weekly paycheck or save it, stand up for yourself or let someone else walk over you.

One or two decisions you can probably bounce back from.  But it’s when you make bad decision after bad decision and they pile up on you and suddenly you find that your options aren’t that open anymore.  Suddenly you no longer have a good or bad option, suddenly it’s bad option or even worse option.  What’s more, the more you make these bad decisions the more you become accustomed to the penalties attached to them and even grow to expect them as a part of your daily life.

How do we break this downward trend?  Is it even breakable?

Well yes of course it is.  We can hope for an outside agency to intervene (like someone with a time machine or a crazy millionaire philanthropist willing to invest in you) but that rarely happens.

Most of the time it’s going to happen by making a hard “right” choice some time and following it up with even more hard “right” choices until you climb back to where you want to be in your life.

That’s what makes these early choices on your decision tree so vitally important.  Once you bend that stalk in the wrong direction it takes a mighty effort to turn it back the way it should be going.

The narrative version of life

Recently someone in one of my Facebook groups posted up a funny little graphic that asked in part “what if we were all characters in a book”

That got me thinking, what if we looked at the problems, goals, and challenges in our lives as if we were writing them for a novel?  Could it help some people to think about these aspects of their lives in different ways?

So if you have a problem with a person in your life you write a little scene describing the problem, the other person, the way that you feel.  Your describe how your character might deal with the problem.

You set up a scene in which both characters come together and have a dialogue to resolve the problem or maybe the problem doesn’t get resolved.  See where the story takes you.

Then comes the important part.  You sit back and re-read the little story you just wrote and really analyze it.  Would you really say this?  Would the other character really do that?  Why does your character do what they do?  What’s their motivation?  Does the re-reading of the scene give you a different perspective on the issue?  Does it reinforce your beliefs?  Do you now have some insight into the other person’s point of view?

All of us can sometimes get so wrapped up in the moment that we lose perspective.  It’s human nature and it has its uses.  This type of dedication and focus helps us ignore the distractions of life and really devote our efforts to one thing.  In this way it helps us get to the next level.

But sometimes factors outside of your immediate attention are taking place and you can’t notice them if you’re inside the action.  Sometimes it takes an outside eye (whether it’s your eye or someone else’s eye) to really see what is going on.

Whether you take this particular approach or not, sometimes it helps to detach yourself from the situation and look at it as if you were an unconcerned spectator. You might spot things that you would otherwise miss while you’re in the moment.

ensembles

Last month I was invited to an art exhibition by an acquaintance.  One of those evening events at a gallery where some DJ plays, drinks are served, and new art gets it’s debut showing.  Some of these are quite formal and some aren’t.  This was one of the latter.  My friend that invited me said to come along but “try not to dress so old”.

Which made me think.

I went through my wardrobe and started really looking at it.  Since I had begun working from home, about four years ago, I had pretty much given up on fashion.  Back in the 90s I had kept up on these things but back then I tended to go out a lot and for some reason it was important to be up to date and in sync with everyone else.  When I started to get more serious about work I kind of forgot all about these things.  Then I started working from home and I just opted to do the basics.

For the most part I’m part of the blue jeans and t-shirt crowd now.  Most of my other clothes are really just office wear from the days I used to go into work.  What’s worse is that as I was fatter then, most of the clothes I have from that era are becoming unmanageably loose and baggy.  An odd problem to have.  I really don’t have anything that would be “fashionable” or that fits for matter.  So off I go to buy clothes.

The local mall.  I try to stay away from here as much as possible.  It’s a place for teenagers and for those that love shopping.  Neither describes me.  I initially go with my instincts.  The big department stores.  I enter an old reliable store that I’ve been going to for ages.  Off to one corner is the men’s department.  Already I see a bad omen.  A white-haired old fellow buying a shirt that looks like something that I would buy.  Starting to think that my friend was right.

I head out into the mall.  I don’t normally pay attention to any of the small stores in here.  I have a sort of mental filter that allows me to ignore all of these and lets me traverse the mall without paying any mind to these.  This time however these are exactly what I need to look at right now so down come the filters and I start looking back and forth.

I go into one.  It’s filled to bursting with teenagers and twentysomethings, the lighting is dim and they’re playing loud music in the background. More of a party than anything else.   Not good, so I back out.

I pass another store whose CEO declared that he was only going to sell to really skinny people so I don’t even bother going in.

Keep wandering through the mall, looking left and right.  Dodging round large clusters of people ambling along at a slow pace.  One thing I do like about malls is the chance to dodge and weave around traffic.  It’s somewhat of a challenge to get around these big slow-moving formations that would keep you from getting to where you want to go.  so I zip in and around looking for the tiniest passageway that I can find to get around people.

But then I remember that the point here is to look so I slow my pace down appropriately.  Do people really do this for fun?

I wander into another store.  Looking at the clothes I get a bad feeling already.  I spot one of the sales clerks at a distance and he spots me.  I move my hands down my broad form and ask a question “Hmmmm???” and then look up at him.  He frowns, shakes his head and replies “hmmmm…”  I shrug and thank him “hmmm” and go back into the mall.

Obviously the boutique stores are going to be of no help to me.  I continue on and go into another department store.  The men’s department is on the second floor.  I’m amazed to see just as many women shopping here as there are men.

They have a better selection of casual wear and it seems to be for the younger set so I’m hopeful.  I look over the first rack of pants I find.  I look at the price tag.  My eyes must be going so I blink hard and re-read the price.  Again something must be wrong.  Maybe I need new glasses more than I need new clothes.  So I take them off and read the price a third time but it was right.  $125 for one pair of pants.

Now I remember that these types of clothes were ridiculously overpriced back in the 90s too.  I try to think of what I have spent $125 on recently.  A cut glass and hand decorated vase for a Christmas gift. I got a massage at a world-class spa last year that was around that price.  One of the tires on my car is worth about that much and that will last me about 40,000 miles.  Yet they want me to spend that much on a piece of cloth that will probably be out of style next month?

I return to the first department store.  I pick out something similar to my office wear but in a smaller size.  I also only buy one set of new clothes.  I will probably be dropping down another size or two by the end of the year (at least I hope so) so there is no point in buying more right now.  I will come back later after I’ve had the chance to better appraise the situation.

As for the art exhibition?  I ended up not going and went to see a play instead but it was a worthwhile exercise anyways.

going home

Last December the 20th anniversary of my college graduation came and went.  I was overburdened with work and family obligations so I didn’t really pay it any mind.

My dad was feeling somewhat claustrophobic these past few weeks.  He is particularly susceptible to the cold and he hadn’t dared show his face outside.  So since the weather had warmed up and I had a somewhat free weekend we decided to take a day and roam round the campus on a Saturday.

I’ve been back several times before of course but the changes always amaze me each time I go.

The first obvious change is in the trip there.  Houston Sprawl.  In all directions.  More strip malls, more subdivisions, more car lots, just more of everything.  For all intents and purposes Katy is now part of Houston proper just as Bellaire and several other smaller cities were engulfed decades ago.  You can’t tell where one starts and the other stops.  Beyond it the sprawl continues West at a furious pace.

We reach the village of Brookshire on I-10.  No doubt in a generation this too will be part of Houston.  For now it’s still somewhat isolated.  I take what for me was my little secret shortcut to College Station; FM 359.  A short two lane road connecting Brookshire to Hempstead.  After falling prey to a speed trap in Prairie View in my freshman year of college I vowed to never again feed the system and found this little road to bypass it and all the sprawl in Northwest Houston.

Of course my secret shortcut is now well-known.  A convoy of vehicles ahead and behind me.  Swarms of bikes on the road shoulders with people biking all the way out here from the city.

At one time this was just pristine prairie with the odd cow or horse to break up the monotony.  Now it’s dotted with tiny farmsteads and weekend houses for urbanites to getaway from city life.  Some build lavish homes, others live in squalid trailers and have junked cars in the front lawn.  Somewhat ruins the pristine beauty of the road for me.

I don’t even see Hempstead.  The new bypass goes round and continues on.

Another big change.  A new proposed landfill to service Houston.  The locals are fighting tooth and nail against it but it seems to be a lost cause.  Shame.

I pass Navasota in minutes and approach the outskirts of College Station.  The very first sight of it as always is the giant water tower that can be seen miles away.  Just the sight of it gladdens the heart.  Some things never change.  Some do.

College Station fits the definition of an exburb perfectly.  If you had fallen asleep in west Houston and just woken up you would swear that you’d never left the city.  What was once a two lane road running alongside the railroad tracks is now a divided 4 lane freeway with frontage roads.

Huge billboards advertise land for sale, new subdivisions starting in the 200s.  Woods, farmland, and open prairie are now subdivisions, man-made lakes and strip malls.  New big hospitals are building next to the highway.  Every imaginable chain restaurant or store can be found here.

We skirt round the campus before plunging in.  The west campus on the other side of the railroad has blossomed with new construction.  All sorts of research labs, state agencies associated with the University and class buildings now dot the landscape and there is still yet more room to grow.  The George Bush library is packed with tourists and visitors so we decide to skip it.  On the north side is the new crown jewel of the University.  The new Mays business college.  My dad asks me why I don’t go back and get my MBA from A&M.  I ask him if he has eighty thousand dollars lying around doing nothing.

We park at the visitor’s garage next to Kyle field.  The rebuild of the stadium is well underway.  I can’t believe that they’re spending 450 million on this.  But then the whole campus seems to be in a building craze.  They have to be with over 55 thousand students.  Far larger than the 40 thousand of my day.

Some of the old dorms and buildings are gone.  Sad.  But the room is needed to keep up.  The heart of the University is still intact though.  I see many of my old buildings still standing.  Old Halbouty hall, the geology building, decorated with trilobites.  The old chemistry building with weird astrological symbols along the roof line.

We take a break inside Evans Library.  Expanded and modernized.  The old microfiche and microfilm stacks are gone.  Everything is digital now.

The commons dorms where I spent my first year.  Four impersonal concrete bunkers but somehow they seem quaint now.

The corps of cadets.  Some in uniform, some not.  All distinctive due to their crew cuts.

Such a rush of memories coming at me from all sides.  I don’t know if it’s the same for alumni from other schools (although at A&M we don’t have alumni, we have former students).  I’ve seen people from other schools describe their college life in fairly plain terms.  They go to nondescript schools and take generic classes.  But I’ve yet to meet an Aggie that describes their school life in less than glowing terms.  It’s hard to explain to outsiders but it’s a feeling of being bonded to the school.  Maybe it’s the remoteness of the town (at least it used to be remote), maybe it’s the feeling that the school genuinely seems to be interested in your future.

Whatever the case may be, It’s no wonder that we call school visits, “going home”.