It's you... Not Me

You know you're tired and/or craving coffee when Late on a time card you are auditing looks like Latte.

and you are on a small plane SHUT UP! This is literally the first time I have been so annoyed with someone on a plane that I almost asked them to quiet down. There was a guy next to a woman in row 2 (seats D and F) on flight 4027 from Charlotte, NC to Milwaukee, WI who yapped his mouth so damn loud the whole flight I thought I was going to go crazy (I'm the same person who persevered through an eight hour flight with a crying kid a few rows in front of me - and I wasn't nearly as annoyed as I was tonight). It isn't so much what he talked about (although I hope to god he and the woman next to him were drunk - otherwise they were idiots), it is the fact that it was loud enough to disturb me from being able to read (nothing intellectual, mind you, so it should have been easy for me to ignore the guy). I'm so glad I downloaded a few video podcasts at the hotel before leaving (thank you Alex and Kevin)... The moral of the story, if you have never learned to use your inside voice, the time to do so is before you board a plane filled with people who may not want to listen to your dialogue (and are praying the whole time that you go mute).

I finally understand why I'm on God's green earth:

link to comic
Thank you, Scott, for making things clear to me.

I came across a podcast (rather, a group of podcasts) called indiefeed podcasts and started downloading a bunch of back "episodes." Everything from their R & B to Rock to Trance has been awesome. I've found more new, fresh music in the past few days than I have in years of listening to music. I highly, highly recommend taking a peek (you can subscribe via iTunes or likely some other favorite podcast software).

Steph and I went to Brookfield and Mayfair (Mall) today to do some random shopping. Comments that come to mind which could have become dissertations on their own:
• Steph drives really fast (in the S4). She took the cake, though, not getting a speeding ticket doing 85 just south of the Moorland Rd. exit on I-43. I gently patted the radar sys I have in the car and smiled. Scared the crap out of both of us when it went off, though.
• V. Richards (horrible website) is still the best specialty grocery store I've ever been to. I highly recommend shopping there if a) it matters to you and b) if you don't mind spending a little extra on some very high quality and specialty food products.
• Far too many people are wearing North Face jackets, etc. these days. I hate common clothes and if it weren't for the fact that I love my jacket, I'd give it away and buy something that no one wants or would be able to find.
• Anyone who waits almost three hours for a table at PF Changs puts far too much value in good, but still chain style wanna' be/kinda' Chinese food. At least when the gentleman in front of me was told the same thing as I (how long to seat 2?, let me see... hmm. about 7:45 (it was 5 pm)), he laughed at the hostess and walked out and said, "the food isn't that good." I agree. I like PF Changs because they have a few dishes that they do well, but anything over an hour's wait for something that is not unique is crazy. Go home and learn to cook!
• Employees of retail stores, please read these very simple directions: if someone calls your store and asks if you have product xyz in stock (and is specific) if you don't know, DON'T SAY YES. This is the second time I have driven over an hour to a store after calling to verify they had something in stock only to find that they don't and didn't when I called. From now on, I'm getting the name of the person I talk to and am going to humiliate them when I find out they lied to me.
My sis went to the Apple Store at Mayfair this morning to have her PowerBook fixed and I had her ask while she was there whether or not they had the new Core 2 Duo 17" MacBook Pros in stock. I specifically said, the NEW ONES, not the "old" ones - i.e. the Core 2 Duo's that you've been waiting for since they were announced. She even called me with the sales guy standing next to her while she repeated my question. I reiterated that it needed to be the Core 2 Duo model. He said yes - both - the glossy or matte screens. I made the trip. They didn't have it. Sorry to the girl I swore in front of, but it pissed me off. It was the main reason I decided to make the trip. I can't imagine how many other people wasted time in their day only to have the same thing happen - not necessarily at the Apple Store, but elsewhere and anywhere.

It was an otherwise wonderful day. I even enjoyed myself despite the droves of people by which we were surrounded. Good day...

I really thought I would spend more time writing about my experiences in Germany over the last two weeks. I sit in my pajamas on the day before we leave to go home and think, "what the hell has gone on while I was here? And why didn't I have more to say?" I think part of the problem is that writing things such that they might interest others is difficult. When people ask why I post some of my thoughts to the net, I usually respond that I do it because I like writing and it's for no one other than me. That I get other people interested in what I have to say is simply a nice side effect. The problem is that deep down, whenever I sit down to write something, I'm really concerned it will come across the way I mean it and will show some small amount of creativity. At the same time, while I sit here thinking about the lost time / wasted time of not blogging, I realize, this trip is really no different than my normal life - full and complicated. Each day here built upon the day before. I'll give you an example:
Every time we arrive back [home] in Germany, we go through the process of decompression: unpack our bags, get something to eat, shower (perhaps), chat a bit and eventually say how tired we are and head to bed. (By that time, Steph and I have often been up for the better part of the last 36 hrs. She sleeps better than I do while traveling, but then again, I sleep less actual hours than she does normally.) The next two days are usually chock full of quick trips to the markets and/or making phone calls and getting ourselves arranged. This time, because Kseni had been in Delavan for a visit up until a few days before we flew to Germany, we already had made plans to see a few friends through her. At some point, Steph and I go our separate ways, seeing different groups of friends with whom we still maintain contact. As the years have gone by, I have less of an impulse to do any sort of shopping - i.e. looking for schnick schnack that we can't get in the States (I, decidedly, have enough crap at home ;)) So, Steph usually takes the opportunity to shop with her friends and sister (if she's in Hamburg/Kaltenkirchen at the same time). Each day after the first few, though, is simply another day. The plans evolve and change as the time progresses. There really is nothing special per se about our travels. It is what it is - and we forget all too often how very, very luck we are to be able to travel like we do. I still haven't gotten pictures from Prague up in a post - one of the highlights of this trip. I probably experienced more in the three days I spent in Prague than the other ten days here in Hamburg/Kaltenkirchen. This is not to say I was bored, but just that being here is much like being at home, with the exception of me not working all day.
I think the best and most interesting way I can talk and write about this trip, though, has to do with photos. I'm glad, nay... ecstatic, that we actually took a ton of pictures this trip. Last night I tested an Aperture (Apple Photo management program) Export plugin for flickr.com. Originally, I wanted to re-set up my own image gallery because I simply don't like relying on others, but the fact is that flickr has one of the easiest and most convenient user interfaces that I couldn't imagine puting in the work trying to somehow recreate that.
For now, I have pics up of LawDad's 60th birthday (only a few so far) and will be slowly loading other photos (after removing some of the fuzzy ones). You can take a peek at http://flickr.com/photos/stevenfettig/

Not that I'm against fads altogether - I've partaken in my share of them - but this is one I can agree to disagree with. After passing the 10 mile mark since starting my {tri}training all over again, I came across the following article in the Wall Street Journal Online: Baring Their Soles: Pain Doesn't Defeat Unshod Marathoners (you must pay to read) and laughed when I finished reading it.

The gist of the story is that a number of hard core marathoners are shunning their shoes and running barefoot because they believe it is better for them and will improve their running times. The argument is that shoes may be the cause of weakening of foot muscles and (potentially) long term injuries (only one is cited: plantar fasciitis). I have seen this type of argument used before - in particular with weightlifting and the use of a weight belt. People do, indeed, overuse support belts, etc. to the point where never really "teach" their supporting muscles how to deal with the stress of a given activity or workout. (If you've ever been consistent with any type of sports activity and gone for a long period of time before starting again, you'll notice that it's all the muscles you didn't know you had that cause the pain and not necessarily the larger muscle groups. While not a scientific statement by any stretch of the imagination, this is a possible example of what I am referring to above.)
Having sold shoes for a good number of my teen years, though, I don't buy the argument that some of the runners are using for going barefoot - i.e. that shoes cause more damage than provide protection. I don't have anything against anyone who wants to try to learn to run barefoot, but I do think it is a stretch to make the statement that we would be better off running barefoot.

"A lot of this shoe support stuff just makes your foot lazy and puts your foot muscles to sleep," says Dr. Irene Davis, a biomechanics researcher and director of the University of Delaware's Running Injury Clinic.

The issue of mechanics is mentioned a few times and I don't necessarily agree with that side of argument either. If people are taking the time to find a pair of shoes that fits their running style, weight and training style/plan, it is hard to believe that they will cause themselves harm over the long term. Like tools in a workshop, the right tool for the job is essential.
If you took a softie like me and pushed me out onto the streets to run barefoot, I'd never run again. Having burned the hell out of my foot once with a cigarette butt, I am well aware of the risks involved in going barefoot (something I do often at home and in areas that permit) and prefer to keep something between my feet and the ground.

I tested the theory that less is more at a time I had been running regularly by buying a pair of the Nike Frees (also mentioned in the article as an example of a shoe or slipper designed to help people wishing to eventually go barefoot).

I was not happy when I returned home. Firstly, the run I went on was on solid concrete and a distance that simply was too far to go the first time out in a pair of shoes like those. Secondly, my knees ached for hours and my back was sore the next day. Perhaps my experience was the extreme, but I learned an important lesson: use the right tool for the job (say it ten times). I was neither ready for the distance I went in those shoes, nor did I pay attention to the way I ran so as to minimize any damage I did to myself. I can only imagine the following happening to me:

Paul Keeley, a U.S. Marine at the South Carolina Military School, wants to run the Boston Marathon unshod next year. Last summer, he began training by pounding the streets of Charleston, S.C., in combat boots, hoping to nurture some preliminary calluses. He took off the boots this fall but soon landed on a surgeon's table for an abscess in his middle toe that required draining. Mr. Keeley, 18, says his calluses had hardened so well that he felt no pain when a pine needle or some other sharp object penetrated his skin and worked its way to the bone. He says he's still on track with his barefoot-in-Boston plan.

While not completely against this latest fad, I would personally caution anyone thinking that running barefoot makes you a better person. I can see doing it when the timing is right and the environment sensible (try running barefoot in the middle of winter in Wisconsin). The article ends with a quote with which I could not agree more:

Not all runners are barefoot believers. "I'm sticking to my Asics Tigers," says Neil Murphy, a New York attorney who tried running without shoes through the streets of Brooklyn earlier this year after a friend recommended it. A barrage of nicks, cuts and bruises led him to declare recently, "Humans are too far up the evolutionary chain to be trying this kind of stuff."

via Baring Their Soles: Pain Doesn't Defeat Unshod Marathoners - WSJ.com

It's always good to be where people want to be and simply know another successful year has past. For those who may not have been so fortunate, here's to wishing you a successful and enjoyable 2007!

Steph and I live in the (relative) country-lands of Wisconsin and have found that the hardest part for us about living so far from any big city is the lack of access to not only good food, but the really good food. For the second time, last night, Steph and I went to Cafe Calamari for dinner. One of our favorite things to do in the days when we lived in Germany was go out to eat. Steph is a fantastic cook and surprises me with what she comes up with time and time again, but it is nice, for her sake, to be able to enjoy a dinner together without her having to do all of the work. (The closest I get to cooking is to prepare something out of a box or can or two kinds of meats: steak or tuna. The problem is that a) Steph doesn't care too much for steak like I enjoy it and b) the way I prepare tuna is far to raw for her - e.g. ahi tuna.) Since living in the States - which has been a long time now - we really have been out of luck in finding places that are consistently good for our tastes. Often, we end up with the bland Americanized version of whatever ethnic food we are eating, or it is plain American diner style food that leaves much to be desired. Until now, the only place we have eaten at where we left thinking, now that's food... are in places like Chicago, Milwaukee or vacation destinations we've visited. Now we have found one fifteen minutes from home.
The wait staff at Cafe Calamari is great. They are attentive, but not too over the top. Both the waitress we had two weeks ago and the waiter from last night were very helpful in choosing the main course and drinks (wine for me). I had a McManis Syrah with my dinner both times. The opportunity to come across good wines has been very limited, so usually, I am trying something I've never had before. (And because Steph is usually the one driving she doesn't have anything other than Coke, etc.) The meals are served in four course segments, assuming you order an appetizer. This is where I really like the style of Cafe Calamari; I've been at other multi-course restaurants before and the method of ordering is always different, but more often than not, you feel like you are being rushed to choose, or the exact opposite, they don't care at all. This is one of the areas where the wait staff seems to excel; reading your body language and paying attention to what you've said. As far as the food and presentation goes, they are also top notch. I have been to much fancier places where the presentation takes the form of true art (main courses on plates the size of small tables, etc.), but I liked the mix of presentation and low key "here it is." I am sure someone could find something to criticize, but in my opinion, if they did it any differently, it wouldn't fit the atmosphere of the restaurant. Thus far, we've tried the baked muscles, baked clam half shells and bruschetta and calamari. For the main course, we've had an ahi tuna special, tortellini and a fettuccini dish. Everything was absolutely and perfectly fresh. The seafood related items were amazingly fresh. I have, in all honesty, never had better tasting, fresh tasting clam or muscle type (mollusk based) dishes anywhere in the Midwest. There is almost always a hint of that "fishy" taste, which I don't find overly bothersome, but with their dishes, it was non-existent. Perfect. The main courses were the same. Fresh. The mixture of side dishes also perfectly complimented each main course. At this point, there is really nothing more to say. Cafe Calamari has achieved what you would hope every restaurant of that nature is capable of: combine a pleasant atmosphere with attentive wait staff and fantastic food. They have definitely made the grade and I would highly recommend anyone visit who has the chance.

* (Your meal will be around $50-60/person with tip, assuming drinks and appetizers are ordered.)

Technorati Tags: food, restaurants

Finally, after two weeks of enduring Piri's impact on our sleep patterns, I crashed yesterday - twice. (I know, I haven't written yet about Piri, the new addition to the S & S Fettig family. It's coming.) I got up around 4:30 am (again) to let her out. She starts whining when she needs to go outside, which is a good thing. At least she has decided that it's not worth peeing (& tc.) in the cage - that would be a mess - so, we do our best to make sure we get up in a relatively short amount of time after she starts whining.
I went through the routine:
...open the cage, pick her up...
...trip over the stool used for Pete to get in bed...
...almost lose grip of Piri...
...move towards the bedroom foyer door...
...shuffle downstairs wondering whether I should feed her to the Coyotes...
...she licks my face and whimpers a few times...
...I remember why the Coyotes haven't gotten Rottie pup...
...turn on the outside lights, hope it isn't too cold (still in shorts and a t-shirt) and go outside...
...let her do her thing...
...(remember to) praise her...
...bring her in and fumble my way back upstairs to the kitchen...
...feed her...
...(remember to) praise her again...
...eat myself...
...put her back in the cage...
...get ready for work...
Except this time, I finished in the bathroom and decided to lay back in bed for a few minutes. Nothingness... I wake up suddenly, Steph's not there, the dogs aren't there and it is very light out. What the hell happened???
I look over to the clock. 8:15
Nice... You just slept from 5:45 until 8:15. That's almost three hours more than you've gotten on any day in two weeks. Nice...
Work ended up being a slow day. I had a lot of running around to do and because I didn't load up on my normal coffee concoctions, I was a bit slow. I had enough and was able to scoot out of the office at 4 pm and head home. I figured, great... it's warm out, I'll sit outside with Steph and her mom and can enjoy the rest of the evening.
I got home and felt the call of sleep all of a sudden. Even after having a huge bottle of Coke, I couldn't keep anything straight while I worked on my laptop. So, I decided to lay down. Nothingness...
Anyway, you get the idea. In a matter of one day, I was almost able to play catch-up on the sleep I've lost due to Piri in the past two weeks (I know, catching up on sleep doesn't work, but trust me, sleeping more than normal on any given day helps).
She's turning out to be an amazing pup (very intelligent, very quick to learn, but very dominant - she'll definitely be a handful), but she has gotten the better of me and my much needed sleep. It's been two weeks since I was able to concentrate on Aristotle and I think with yesterday's game of checking my eyelids for leaks, I'm ready to read and write again.

Technorati Tags: puppy, rottie, sleep

I just picked up Dan Brown's Angels and Demons off MobiPocket and started reading the text of Langdon's voice; and in my mind, as I was redrawing the images of the second opening scene, I saw the face of Tom Hanks. thank God he really did fit the part (in my opinion) - otherwise this might be upsetting.

...How to Become Less Effective (at Everything)...
How's that for a snazzy title?

In sitting in our office at home, taking time to continue reading The Fabric of Reality (by David Deutsch), it occurs to me (so often, when I have the time and chance to expand my horizons through reading) how absolutely and utterly lucky I am to have not only grown up in a free society, but also the family I was born into. Now that's what I call a pregnant sentence.
Seriously. Do you ever sit back and think about how lucky you are? I'm guessing that if you're reading this, you have an abundance of free time on your hands (otherwise, I'd have to ask... what prompted you to read this?) and are lucky enough to have access to the internet. Those to items in it of themselves are cause for the happy realization that you have it pretty good. They say a lot about your [likely] situation and what an amazing time we live in.
Two hundred years ago, even if I had some amount of wealth and spare time, I wouldn't have had the access to the sheer abundance of information I do today. Between the thousands, if not millions, of newspapers I can access in the palm of my hands (ahem... PDA phones/iPhone) and cheap access to free thought (ahem... amazon.com), I am far closer and more intimately involved with knowledge than I could have been then.
I'm not a gambling man, but that's what I call luck of the draw.

Technorati Tags: internet, life, prosperity, knowledge, technology

Usually, when the concept of good comes up in my mind, I immediately gravitate towards my first encounter with Plato's Good in the Parmenides. At times, I think about how difficult and convoluted our discussion of good becomes when we are attempting to be philosophical. Everyone knows what good is... and dammit! There's no need for philosophy spending time just to confuse people as to what they know they mean when they describe something as being 'good.' Right?
Now I'm not so sure (at least, tonight I'm not).
I was lamenting to my dad the other day how so many people take their lives and make such obvious mistakes, only to later complain that they haven't gotten any further today than they were yesterday (or yesteryear). The mistakes are obvious to me and obvious to others, but not obvious to the person who is making them.
It seems that the same thing happens with the good things in life. You live a good life, you are surrounded by good things, and nothing is standing in your way of continuing to experience good things; except you don't see it that way.
Things are bad. Things suck. Things haven't gone the way you planned.
And that seems to be the crux; things haven't gone the way you planned. Does that mean they've necessarily gone poorly and are thus, devoid of the good? To me, no. To you, yes. Amazing.
I find people's insistence on things going their way being the path to good frustrating. Not to say my life is perfect and I'm not misguided from time to time, but I'll speak anecdotally.
I have been working as a manager (of different sorts) for over eight years. That means that not only am I responsible for the tasks assigned to me, but also for making sure those who work for me are also fulfilling theirs. In other words, it is not only that my day runs smoothly that I need to think about, but also that those who depend on me for guidance are guided towards the path to successfully achieving their duties. Rare is a day that I walk into the office in the morning and walk out in the evening with more than one item on my never ending to-do list finished. I only can guess what will actually happen to me during the course the ten hours I find myself at work. Inevitably, something comes up that needs immediate attention. It is always something that I didn't plan for and will take more than a few short moments to handle. By the time two or three of those somethings happen, I find the clock nearing 3 or 4 in the afternoon, with little time left to get into anything significant. So, by the time I leave, if I have accomplished one thing on the list, I am lucky.
Nothing happens as planned and as long as I didn't cause any more catastrophes to happen, I feel like the day went well. I'm usually exhausted, but I can leave the office knowing that all is good and we'll start tomorrow hoping for a bit more success and, perhaps, less interruption. They never do.
Things rarely go as planned. Yet, I consider most of my days to have been good ones.
I understand why philosophy wants treatises on the good. We want a roadmap to defining whether or not the things you encounter and the life you are living is good. We want to know when to smile. (O-o kaaayyy... 3, 2, 1... SMILE!)
Unfortunately, good seems to be so very dependent upon your ability to see it. If you don't want to accept that you've got it good, then there's no use in reading the treatise because you'll think the author is talking about something other than what you know and experience.
Every language of which I have a coarse understanding has a translation for seeing the world through rose colored glasses (or lenses). It appears to me that noticing the good is subject to the very same thing. Some see the good and some don't - whether or not they're wearing glasses - of any tint.
My heart goes out to those that don't... because they won't... and not because it doesn't exist.

Technorati Tags: good, life

It's not so much that I can't keep my mouth shut. If I hold onto the seat of my chair and bite down, I can. But, when I hear something that patently ignores how good life is, my jaw loosens and the torrent of thoughts escape. Life's pretty damn good and I like insisting on it. My own physical strength can't seem to overcome the need to say so. (Even if, I admit, it should.)
I'll try a new technique, though. Maybe by opening my eyes wider, my mouth will stay shut-er. The eyes are a window to your soul, after all, and perhaps the torrent can flow from them instead.

Technorati Tags: marriage, thoughts, relationships

I was talking to Ebi (my former German professor at Hillsdale College) during my visit last week and mentioned to him that I like to write and was hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would grow into something where I'd write and others would read. Perhaps some of them would even pay for it. It's a dream of all dreams because with what little writing I do, I know how difficult it is to not only hold someone's attention, but write a coherent story. It is easy to do the typical blog meandering that most writing exhibits these days, but it is difficult to come up with a story that flows and yet dips and bobs enough to keep the reader's interest. He made a statement that fell upon me with all the weight of a gigantic boulder, “you can't just write about your life, you have to be able to actually write a story... There's a difference.”
Think about that. I sometimes treat good writing as if it were a diary. Take WWdN: In Exile and dooce. I look forward to reading the latest postings because they almost always make me laugh. Both Wil and Heather talk about benign, some might say, boring, things. But, I hang on their words. Wil's description of his son mocking the death of a bottle of soda and Heather's writing about her daughter's blunt and inappropriate statements make me laugh. I can see the motions, I can hear the sounds, and I can fully imagine what is taking place when they describe a given event. I doubt everyone walks away from their writing with the same feeling, but I do, and that's the way I want to write. I want to write stories about life and the catch is this: I want to write them in such a way that others might be interested to continue reading...
Ebi's right. That's quite difficult.

After realizing I'm making myself schizo, I'll no longer be posting to this site. I like the URL a lot, but not enough to keep dividing up what I write. Originally, back in the late 90's, I posted everything to stevenfettig.com, in one form or another. I don't remember when I tried to split off my personalities, but it was sometime after 2000. I think part of it was related to the idea that I could “hide” content from the main site where name recognition could get me in trouble if I said something wrong. The fact is, with any checking, you can find anything I've signed my name to on the web, so there's really no point in worrying about this unless I post truly anonymously. I don't do that, so in cases where I think I'll get myself in trouble, I simply keep my mouth shut.
I'll slowly begin importing all of the content from this site over to stevenfettig.com/mythoughts/. Until that is completely finished (and it may never be), I won't remove this site.
Bye.