Happy Biscuit Day

Aloha -

Hope the 40th in Hawaii is a joyous one, just beware that depending where you are on the island “9 miles south” can get you into a lot of trouble.

We have successfully completed our move. Life seems like it will be much quieter “across the street”. Looking forward to everyone’s visit in the fall.

Yak

Yaks in the Forest

Now that I am sitting in the office I can look at the Calendar. The “Run in the Forest” is Saturday September 22nd at 8AM. This is a 5k/10k run and or walk. Biscuit and Joshua and I have run (that is a very generous term) the 5K for the past few years. Kirsten and James as well as Fenway walk the 5K. All are invited (families included) for the weekend of 21,22,23. We have and will make space in our new abode (with a loft and yard) for all. Kirsten will walk with any spouses and small children who would like to walk. We will lope (stampede, yak… what is the appropriate term here) with, near, in the vicinity of those that wish to run.

We will plan a nice 40s themed dinner either on the night of the 21st or 22nd – depending on when we can have everyone here. There is a pancake breakfast following the run and other available activities for the weekend. We might have a home football game, there is a fundraising walk at our local Organic farm (OK Earthbound Farms – pretty big organic group, but its farmstand is nearby and its owners are school parents) there is always the aquarium, there is sitting by the fire with a bottle of scotch and telling stories…

Anyway – if you and your families can do it we would love to make a weekend out of it.

Yak

MJ Crossing 40

I figured I’d better get my “40″ post in before Shawn’s birthday rolls around next month.  As it turns out, 40 was a moment of pretty big changes for me.  Let’s see…

• I quit my job.  Of course I work as a freelancer so this is sort of different, but I did have to break a contract.  It’s turned out to be a great move though.  Don’t regret it a bit.  Though I am starting to miss earning money…
• Maiken and I came a hair’s breadth from making a really major change, which was moving to Oregon.  We had even located a family who wanted to rent our Pasadena house for a year.  The family backed out when they discovered how bad Pasadena’s schools are (made me want to give Howard Jarvis a swift kick to the nuts, even though he’s dead), and Maiken kinda changed her mind too.  So we’re still in Pasadena.
• I took on some pro bono work.  Now I get why people do this.  Expectations are really low, and people are grateful for whatever they get.  Both happen to be in the education area – I’m helping a group of geophysics students at USC design three different “serious games,” and in a couple weeks I’ll be sitting down and intensely planning a games education curriculum with Lane Community College up in Oregon.  
• I fell down the stairs.  There were actually a lot of mitigating circumstances, such as:
  • it was dark
  • it was the spiral stairs
  • I had objects in both hands
  • I was wearing nylon socks

but the fact remains, to celebrate my 40th birthday, I fell down the stairs.  Nothing quite like Matt’s story, but nonetheless apt.  And as a friend said “well, at least you didn’t break your hip.” 

A few weeks past 40, and things are kind of settling down.  I have several new jobs, Lily has just been admitted at long last to a private school that we really like (and which was her first choice), and after deciding not to move to Oregon, we’ve managed to rent out the house up there basically solid for the entire summer, which helps to fill the income gap.   

Insofar as 40 has made me reflective, I think I’ve actually had a hell of a great 40 years.  Very few regrets.  Without doubt, the best decision I made during that period was the decision to go to Oxy.  As Ron can attest, it was a step well outside my comfort zone in 1985, but established a precedent which has served me very well in life.  And also introduced me to some remarkable people that I’m always pleased to call my friends. 

Probably the consideration of moving back to my home town had more influence on making me reflective than the 40 milestone… and it brought me back to a poem that I read, probably in high school, that I’ll leave you with:  

ITHAKA
by Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933) 

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-
don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you. 

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when, 
with what pleasure, what joy, 
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; 
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations 
to buy fine things, 
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind- 
as many sensual perfumes as you can; 
and may you visit many Egyptian cities 
to learn and go on learning from their scholars. 

Keep Ithaka always in your mind. 
Arriving there is what you’re destined for. 
But don’t hurry the journey at all. 
Better if it lasts for years, 
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, 
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. 
Without her you wouldn’t have set out. 
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.  

Your Yak is Weak

If you have not seen this Vitamin Water commercial you need to… Still trying to learn how to say “Your Yak is Weak” in Tibetan… culd come in handy at the Run in the Forest in September (on Yom Kippur).

We are moving to a house on campus in 2 weeks – all contact info remains the same.

Yakking@home

If anyone is doing the folding@home thing on their computer, I’ve made a team for The Yaks. The team number is 70980.

I’ve got a pretty good total going, courtesy of my PS3 .

Yak Foundation Crosses $20K

Another good quarter for the Yak Foundation.

– Market value change: $515
– Income: $106
– Fees: $141

Net change for the quarter: $480

Balance as of 3/31/07: $20,215

I think someone brought this up before, but sooner or later we should start making some distributions. What do you guys think about targeting one distribution during the current quarter (ending June 30)? Maybe just a couple hundred bucks, to get our feet wet? Should the first donation be to Oxy?

Crossing the Threshhold

Well I am now “on the other side of 40″ and especially compared to Matt’s experience it has been pretty smooth sailing. Just returned from 10 days of Vacation with the family on Kauai with no internet access. What a blessing! I was able to check my email (and remove about 100 messages) only once. I just spent time with Kirsten and the boys. James caught a big fish on our deep sea fishing trip (if I can figure out Flikr tonight I will post a photo or two) and the first day back at the desk is “not that bad” even though we have two academic dishonesty cases working their way through my office.

I have my March Madness picks set up, though if any of you are involved in a pool I am happy to join. Hoping to continue on.

Peace to all

RP

Fun Times…

I checked the blog tonight in preparation and anticipation of posting a rant entitled ‘XL is Hell’.  I find the topic is already open, and so I will use this forum and the audience I respect so deeply, but I will temper things a little and try to be, well, I little more myself.

 

In a nutshell the first month of my 41^st year has been brutal.  January 7, 3-days after my birthday I collected my first moving violation in 17 years.  It turned out to be an innocuous ‘fix it’ ticket for a burnt out taillight, but it was a portent of things to come and a commentary on my aging vehicle.

 

The family was good.  Laura and the boys back into their routines after the holidays.  The glaring issue was the potentially 5-figure remodel of our master bath, brought on by what appears to be a construction defect.  The whole thing will likely end up in court at some point.  For now we are engaged in a power struggle with the contractor over scheduling a rising costs.  A big headache, as Laura deals with them directly and I mostly rely on the phone.

 

Anyway while that was percolating we took the boys to a classmate’s birthday party at the Charles Schultz Memorial Ice Rink.  Largely due to my ineptitude, I despise ice-skating, but when you have twins both parents have to lace ‘em up.  With about 30 minutes of ice time left, some young hooligan spooked my partner Connor.  He shied back.  I leaned back.  Leaning back is a direct affront to the ice gods, and gravity.  I went down hard, but managed, like a good Dad, to ensure Connor fell on me.  He was fine and went on to enjoy cake and ice cream.  I headed to the Petaluma Valley Hospital ER, for X-rays and a cast/splint for my broken left hand.

 

The morning before the party I had decided to deal with the pesky traffic ticket.  I bought new bulbs from NAPA Auto, plugged in the fresh light and headed for the police station.  I proudly flicked on the light for the nice officer, but alas, NAPA had sold me the wrong bulb, and my whole rear assembly shorted out.  Which is why, in a round about way (long and unnecessary explanation omitted), I found myself driving my sister’s Honda Civic home on Thursday Feb. 1.  I felt pretty good despite a long day at the office, yet I by driving I was missing my normal 45 minute nap on the bus.  My body was angered by this, and decided that a few seconds of snoozing at 55mph wouldn’t kill me.  It didn’t kill me, but it was a near thing.  Thanks to the Civic’s airbags, a safety feature my regular ride lacks, I walked away from the accident with a bruised sternum (the ER staff remembered me).  The car was totaled as was about 25 feet of quality State of California guardrail.

 So you can see why being 40 has been hell for me. Still this is just the first month. Something worse could happen.  But probably some power in the universe is telling me something.   Like: Maintain your 15-year old commute scoot better!  Or Learn to ice skate, Fool!  Or, as I ironically post this at 130am, GET SOME MORE F***ING SLEEP!

Feeling 40…. my take

First an update on the Joshua New Year’s Eve mission. Success with the midnight kiss (on the cheek) of his girlfriend. He has moved away from the shy stage of talking about her and even told her mom this morning at breakfast that he was only going to the dance tonight if she was going as well. Kirsten commented “because he doesn’t like to dance with anyone else but Molly” to which Josh chimed in, “No, because I like Molly”. All in front of Molly’s mom.

I should insert a side note, Molly’s dad is a teacher here too, they live on campus and we have had breakfast with them just about every morning for 8 years. In some ways this is like Joshua dating his sister…. OK boarding school life IS weird.

On feeling 40 – just writing those last two paragraphs about the love life of my son makes me feel very old. I, personally, have been going through the winter blahs, my job is no fun, how can I be the Dean when my kids are students at the HS etc. stuff for the past few days/weeks and really feeling quite crappy about it all. I am working on getting over that now. We will see what the next weeks bring. Too many 20 hour days coupled with being sick
Plans on 40… well we (the family) are headed to Kauai on March 1st for 10 days (my 40th on the 7th) for some relaxation. The only other – is this midlife – thing I have planned is to head to Vegas for my Fantasy baseball draft on Final 4 weekend (about half of our 12 year running league will be there, meeting a few guys in person for the first time) -

OK a little tangent on Fantasy Sports – I love the fact that there is a group of guys in this league (they were a failing league with 4 members, us a failing league with 6 – who were matched together by ESPN 12 years ago) who I feel I know really well (they are in the Paper industry in Wisconsin and Minnesota) but have never met face to face (or spoken to other than daily bulletin board blabber. Gotta love how this elaborate set of tubes (the internet) works.

Looking forward to Yaks in the Forest in the fall… 5K or 10K? I will be acting head of school at that time so you will get to run (jog, walk, stumble) with the power.

Lee update – saw him on the golf course last week – our night out for a few pints and catching up fell through as I was down with the flu last weekend. We are meeting up when he is back in town in late March.

In re-reading this I love the way I moved away from the original question/premise – thoughts on turning 40. In short – some days I am fine with it, on others…. not. But I am OK with that.

Ron

Feeling 40…

Just wondering how you guys are feeling since we all should be hitting 40 some time this year.

Better?

Worse?

Mixed Bag?

How odd is it to be out of touch with the youth? Or are you? (Biscuit?)

Looking forward to some interesting thoughts in the comments thread…

-MJ