The revolution will be televised: A teaching moment.

As a parent I view the modern era of hyper-connection as an infinite opportunity for teaching moments. My children humor my pursuit, bless them. I do worry that they perceive their father’s aspirations as random outbursts of unconnected insights, barely distinguishable from the indecipherable utterings in Ezekiel’s visions, and vested with much less authority. Yet, I persist.

On a recent Saturday I became a taxi driver for my oldest son, and drove him home from the gym. Something by Gil-Scott Heron came up on the bop jazz channel on the car’s satellite radio. Heron’s rebellious expressions made him famous, but today the radio played themes of love. It was one of Heron’s earlier and milder pieces.

The jockeys experiment on this channel on the weekends, taking the music to the edges, though this hardly qualified as an edge. Though Heron is not regarded as a jazz pioneer in most circles, the beat poets influenced him, and he borrowed many of their rebellious forms for individualized expressions.

My son stared out the window, rendered silent by one of those adolescent moods in which sentences never exceed three words. Sometimes the mood can last for months.

Looking for an opening, I faked surprise. “Well, look at that.” I said with an upbeat tone, “It is Gil Scott-Heron.” This registered nothing from the passenger seat, not even a curious question, such as “Who is Gil Scott-Heron?” Was my son listening or descending into a month-long silence? He remained motionless.

A father has to be intellectual resourceful at these moments. I gambled, and issued an overstatement that I hoped might catch his attention. “Some people regard Gil Scott-Heron as the father of Hip-Hop and Rap.” If my son was at all paying attention, he would regard this sentence as a stretch, at best. The present song more closely resembled a male rendition of something acceptable to Ella Fiztgerald. Nothing about this love song would suggest such a radical interpretation. Still, the music contained enough rhythm to be catchy. My son stirred, and I sensed he was listening to me.

If the hook was in, then perhaps he would take the bait. “His most famous song was something called ‘The revolution will not be televised.’ Have you ever heard of that?”

“No.” My son shifted his weight while answering. Maybe I had him. This is what passes for a teaching moment in the suburbs.

“I will play it for you when we get home.” I promised, “You might like it.” No sound came from son, and we drove on.

Popping it at the Wisconsin Marathon

What would be the point of being human on this little earth unless we aspired to reach audacious goals from time to time? Of course, reaching for something far and high contains its risks. Sometimes the aspirations will not be realized.

I ran my second marathon on the morning of May 4th. It was the Wisconsin Marathon in Kenosha – official slogan: “The World’s Cheesiest Marathon.” The token meal at the end of the race includes beers and bratwurst. The race has a nice playful atmosphere. My first race had been the Chicago Marathon seven months earlier. Wisconsin had just under 3,400 participants. Chicago had just over 30,000. Both were a big party, but at a different scale. I liked them both.

I had been optimistic about this race and had compiled a special list of upbeat favorites designed to make the run more enjoyable by quickening the pace. The songs started with “Linus and Lucy” by Vince Guaraldi. I crossed mile 25 as the iPod played the last song in the compilation. It was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” It made me smile. Though I did not need to quicken my pace at that point, I was rather content with the outcome, despite not realizing most of the goals. At least I had made a good spirited attempt trying.

There were six goals for this marathon, listed below in order of importance. These were:
1. Don’t die.
2. Finish.
3. Don’t throw up.
4. Beat the time from the Chicago Marathon (i.e., faster than 3:40:19).
5. Don’t walk (except for water).
6. Qualify for the Boston Marathon (i.e., faster than 3:30).

As it turned out, I only achieved two of these goals. You can probably figure out which two (Obviously, this post is not written from the grave). But focusing solely on the outcome does not really tell the story of how the goals came to be unrealized just after Mile 24. That is an amusing story worth telling.

My First Marathon

Somebody told me that after finishing my first marathon I would feel invincible. I didn’t, not on any mental level. I felt exhausted beyond fatigue, light-headed and delirious, and disoriented. A runners high never materialized, so there was no feeling of elation.  Same issues in the physical realm, as my body also did not feel invincible. My legs were rubber. The calves were tightening. I crossed the finished line and immediately began worrying about preventing nausea from turning into throwing up.

Walking did not come easily. The legs were no longer following mental commands. Adjusting my weight to the outside of my feet, I weakly stepped forward, and began to focus on finding electrolytes and a banana, following a few people in front of me. Experience had taught that these foods prevented throwing up and fainting, even in the absence of hunger.

Someone put medals around runner’s necks, like Princess Leia at the end of the first Star Wars movie. So I got in line, bowed, and received one. I could barely hear the person say congratulations, another sign of the need to return to mental equilibrium. Another person put a covering on the runners to keep them warm, which I accepted passively, like a child weakened by a fever. I had seen these quasi-metallic capes in half-marathons, and knew they worked well. I hope I said thank you, but looking back on it, I cannot recall through the mental fog and haze.

(The covering is in the picture below.)

Cape and medal made everyone look like royalty. Actually, in my disorientation everyone looked like surreal royalty – not Salvador Dali surreal, but much closer to the surreal mix after oral surgery and an ophthalmologist visit. Dentist laughing gas gives that disorienting feel, except the pain did not go away after the race. Ophthalmologists put things in the eye and that distorts the way light enters. Any light color shined, and the reflective metals seemed otherworldly. The reflection off the jackets took on a sheer similar to the shine of the aliens in the movie Cocoon.

I followed the other alien royalty runners, walking forward as a strategy to not faint. Thousands of bananas sat on a table to the right. They glowed in the light, looking like suitable alien food. Someone put items in a bag. Polite aides directed runners forward. I walked and peeled the banana. Equilibrium returned soon, and I headed to pick up my gear so I could get over to the bean, where my family waited. (For those unfamiliar with Millennium Park in Chicago, the “bean” is the big mirrored sculpture pictured behind my kids. It was not far from the end of the race in Grant Park, and made for a central place to meet up.)

If you had asked me a few years ago I would have said that I could not run a marathon. The physical demands appeared out of reach. The Chicago Marathon is considered an easy marathon due to its flat course, but the physical demands lived up to the billing. Twenty six miles is still quite far, too far for even a casual athlete.

Still, middle age hit, and the bucket list seemed to loom more central in my mind, and I started experimenting with novel activities, like training for a marathon and writing a book. I did the necessary training. Nine months of training after a half-marathon last fall reshaped my body. Including the training for the half-marathon, then it was eighteen months of training to get beyond a ten kilometer run to a marathon.

This was the most physically demanding athletic activity I have ever done. I can recall soccer games in high school that went into overtime, but these rubber legs were more rubbery than they were in youth. Hiking to the top of Half Dome from Yosemite Valley and coming back in the same day also produced rubber legs, but the experience was so exhilarating I did not notice, and, again, I did that demanding hike when I was half my present age. Climbing up and down Mount Merapi, a live volcano on the island of Java, did make me throw up, but seeing smoke from the cone at sunrise in fifty mile an hour winds also was the most thrilling moment I have ever experienced. Every prior moment of physical exhaustion came with a quid pro quo.

This was different. This involved discipline and persistence in training, and endurance in execution. The last few miles involved a test of character. I was trying to prove something to myself. Just don’t ask me what. I am still trying to sort it out.

While we are on the topic, I could say this: I am most proud that, despite the rubber legs and fatigue and disorientation, I never walked. I never gave in.

Here is something else I learned: I could not do this alone. Many people helped along the way, and I am very grateful. Jen Brown stands out most of all. She provided constant advice and encouragement, going all the way back to the first half-marathons. She also ultimately provided the key ingredient for the marathon, electrolyte pills from the brand, Nuun, which solved my issue. I call her coach, and she deserves the label.

Other key advice and encouragement came from a couple other accomplished marathoners, Sarit Markovich and David Spak, as well as the runners in the school bus gang, Christina Cripe, Jen Lawless, and Annie Kay Taylor. Thanks to all!

The crowds were great, cheerful and positive and loud. Special thanks to David and Nami, and Phil and Yael for coming out to watch too. (Phil took the picture of me in the race, shown at the top of the blog).

Last and most important, I must thank my family, my wife and kids, and our nanny, Barbara. They played along, let me run, asked about my progress, and left my special foods for me in the fridge. They also made fun of me when I threw up during practice runs at longer distances (due to electrolyte imbalances), which added the right amount of levity to it all. Best of all, they came out for the race, situating themselves at the halfway mark. That earned them a sweaty hug, which nobody seemed to appreciate. It gave me a lift, and I could not ask for better.

Only one more detail and this post is done. My time was 3:40:19, not too shabby for a middle-aged first timer, and good enough for the bucket list.

I have missed ice cream these last few weeks. It is time for a sundae.

Whitewater, Wimax, and the Milky Way.

Our solar system inhabits an anonymous nub in one of the swirling fingers of the Milky Way. Suburban life renders the neighborhood invisible from the earth’s surface, collateral damage from too much light. Before a dam turned it into a reservoir, the Stanislaus River wandered through the foothills of the Sierras, far from such interference. Lying in a sleeping bag next to that river I first saw the Milky Way as a young teenager. It appeared as a faint background to the brightest stars, as if a spectral highlighter painted the fuzzy line.

I was in that sleeping bag during a whitewater river raft trip, halfway down the Stanislaus. My father had arranged for the trip. Partly as an act of homage to him, and partly to check an item off the bucket list, this August I arranged for two days of white water rafting for my family on the Southern Fork of the American River. I also hoped to show my children the Milky Way.

This post summarizes my family’s summer vacation. Similar to prior posts about summer vacations (e.g., here and here and here), it tells a number of shaggy dog stories about the role of IT – specifically, about choosing the campsite, traveling on the road, and making conversation in a boat. In brief, the post uses my family’s vacation to illustrate the role of information technology in daily life. I hope these stories resonate with you, and I hope you find them entertaining.

A chipped tooth off the old block

It was one of those phone calls every parent dreads. It came from the grade school. My eight year old son was hurt. Tripped and fell on the playground, banged his head against a pole, and chipped his front teeth. Not one tooth. Both.

The phone call came as I was just about to go into a seminar by one of my colleagues. Needless to say, I did not go. Normally I play the role of taxi driver with my children, schlepping them from one activity to another. I played that role again, and this time I threw in a little ambulance driver.

In person it was better than it seemed on the phone. My son had left the nurse’s office by the time I got to school. He had rejoined his second-grade class. It could not hurt too much, if he had rejoined his class, I concluded. Then he showed me his teeth, and told me he did not want to talk. It seems he had not entirely come to terms with less of each tooth, but the urge to participate with his class won out. No law says that an eight year old has to stay in the grade-school nurse’s office until the parent arrives, after all.

The dentist said it was a remarkable chip, and dentists see this sort of thing frequently.  She had never seen one so perfectly symmetrical. She looked several times just to be sure it was symmetrical. No bloody nose. No scrape on the chin. A perfectly symmetrical chip of the two front teeth. My son had to hit the pole just right, she concluded. (See the picture and try not to squirm).

Modern dentistry is amazing. An instant x-ray found no internal damage. The dentist finished up her last case and came back to us, just fitting in our little emergency. New materials. New methods for construction. Just a half hour later and my son had two new chip-less front teeth. (See picture).

Adults say encouraging things to eight year old boys. The dentist, the staff, and I repeatedly called him brave. Most of the time this sort of chatter is unconvincing, more hope than actuality. Even when all the evidence in front of us suggests the contrary, we want the boy to be brave, to act brave, or to even fake it just for a brief moment.

But the evidence did suggest it. He did deserve the praise. He did not shed a tear in the dentist’s office through the ENTIRE procedure. Is this my eight year old son? Not a tear.  Who is this child? I did not recognize him.

And then it happened. The dentist was done, and declared that he could not eat carrots or salami sticks or crackers or apples or anything hard for two weeks. That one got the eyes all teary.  Just goes to show that a chipped tooth does not hurt at all unless it gets to the stomach.

When we got home he looked in the mirror and smiled. He went away and came back to the mirror several times. Tried the mirror in the hallway, then the one in the bathroom.

My son got to have any (soft) dinner he wanted. He asked for noodles from a local Italian place. He loves their linguine with garlic and olive oil. He had seconds.

I offered him a Sundae, which is a special treat for a week night, and appropriate in light of the circumstances. The trauma of chipped teeth seemed to call for vanilla ice cream with strawberries and bananas and whipped cream and a cherry on top.

He said maybe tomorrow. Poor boy. Filled up on too many noodles. He has had a rough day.

A father’s wish on your Bat Mitzvah

My dear Rebecca,

Soon you will become focused on the urgent distractions of teenage life, not to mention imminent partying and dancing. Before that happens I would like to steal five minutes and make a wish for your future.

You were born with extraordinary gifts of character. You are responsible to a fault, a tad too literal for your own good, and you possess a natural tendency to aspire to do more than necessary. It was no surprise to your mother and I that you performed beautifully today at your Bat Mitzvah. We are very proud of you.

I sometimes joke that you are a very low-maintenance child. I may regret saying this at some point, but I would like to give you permission to stop being low-maintenance – at least for a little while. It is time for you to lose some of your innocence and grow beyond mere instinct.

Think of it this way. You already possess a keen ear for honesty and graciousness. Without much effort those traits will blossom as you grow up, turning you into a responsible and conscientious adult. Experience can help you bloom further, developing other traits you also possess, such as patience and generosity.

Consider patience. You have been endowed with an abundance of it. It enables you to step back from impulse, to reflect thoughtfully, or look beyond the merely ephemeral. However, it also has a downside. Patience fosters endless waiting if it lacks a well-specified aim and if it goes adrift.

As an adult you will face decisions that will try your patience. This is particularly so with choices over whether to give up or stay the course. These can be the most difficult in an adult life. So here is my first wish for you: to learn to refine your patience with your gifts for honesty and grace.

Now consider generosity. While you already are kind, generosity goes further. It is the foundation for the grandest form of human charity, whether it is writ in a large selfless gift or a small nurturing gesture of love.

As an adult you will see the fruits and failures of your generosity, how generosity leads to great achievements and disappointments. So my second wish for you is this: to learn to become aware of the fear of disappointment, to learn how not to make it central to your actions. Give to those around you in the most graceful way possible, with warmth, without expectation, and honestly.

Here is what I am trying say. Patience and generosity together, offered honestly and graciously, enable partnership and love, and many of the mature behaviors of grownup life. But these character traits do not arise by themselves. They develop during experiences, and most such experiences fall outside the routine. Some can be painful. I wish that you will have the courage to face these experiences as an inexorable part of growing up, and learn from them.

I have one more wish, and it starts with the hope that you do not take this advice too literally. This is just advice, not a rule. If you come up with a thoughtful answer to life’s riddles in your own unique voice, then it is your prerogative to use your gifts as you wish. So this is my last wish: whether or not you give these words any more than fifteen seconds of thought, please take a moment and share your thoughts with your mother and me. We would like to know your thoughts as you grow. I hope we can have a conversation.

And with that, it is time to party. Let’s start the party with a toast to life. L’chiam.

My Body as Battleground for Mankind’s War with Bacteria

Long before the fish left the sea for land, there was conflict between complex and single-cell organisms. The conflict persisted in spite of a great deal of evolution by both, and in spite of the creation of numerous arrangements which allowed these very different forms of life to cooperate from time to time.

Mankind altered the relationship irreversibly over a half century ago. The large scale production and mass distribution of Penicillin ushered in the change. Ever since then, the bacteria have been evolving immunities to commonly used antibiotics, and mankind has been inventing new antibiotics for the Darwinian-surviving bacteria.

Last week I got a first hand look at the conflict. Some antibiotic-immune bacteria, which I will affectionately call Darwinian survivors, ran roughshod over my home turf. In short, I had a case of Sepsis, and it was the most intense illness I have ever experienced.

My brief and intense suffering has a public-service message embedded in it:  If a doctor ever enumerates a set of symptoms that merit “aggressive treatment,” please pay attention. When the symptoms arise, muster whatever energy you have left, and — pronto, rapido, snell, sans tarder — check yourself into an emergency room ASAP.

My experience can illustrate that lesson. I apologize that this account is a bit long. Writing this is not entirely for public service. I have another goal. I am trying to come to grips with what happened and make sense of it. Writing brings closure after traumatic events, so this is therapeutic too.

(Also, apologies to all medical professions if I get some of the medicine wrong in the account below. Just email me. Thanks.)

A Bar-Mitzvah, adulthood, and the big puzzle

Dear Noah,

Like all teenagers, soon you will conclude that your father resembles Darth Vader. Fortunately, this has not happened yet. Since I do not expect to have your attention for much longer I would like to take five minutes to say a few things.

For the Bar Mitzvah you had to learn to lead a service. You have done exceedingly well. It is quite an achievement, and I am proud of you.

What did mastering all material for the Bar Mitzvah teach you? I would claim it introduced you to life’s biggest puzzles.

You may not see that yet. Right now you can see what you just did. The Bar Mitzvah required *study* and *organization* and *perseverance*.

Look, there is good news right in that experience. It provides you a handle for adulthood. Many of life’s challenges require a bit of study, a tad of organization, and a dose of perseverance. In other words, once you can handle the responsibilities behind a Bar Mitzvah, then you are ready to handle many of life’s challenges like a mature adult. That is no small thing.

I wish that was it, but there is a catch. With this handle comes adulthood’s big puzzle.