Fairly Odd Parents-Past, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 08.06.2006

With little provocation, The Wanderlust wisks me away to polluted but exotic places. As I walked out of my office building the other day I was suddenly hit by a faintly sweet and very nostalgic odor. What was that? Instantly I was transported to a mild and endearing part of my childhood. I stopped and tried to retrieve the memory of that smell. Just as suddenly I began to laugh. Of course! A hot and humid day, the air was a tinge of moist brown. It was smog, that ozone groundcover that reunited me with my past. Growing up...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Medicinal Properties / 03.06.2006

First impressions are important. I discovered this copy of Ferrets magazine in my doctor's waiting room. A visit with a new doctor always brings some hesitation. It's like a first date. Will you like him/her? Will he be kind and gentle? Will he be on time? You are primed for qualitative first impressions on this your first date --I mean your first appointment. As I sat in my new doctor's waiting room I looked around. Value judgements start at the front door. A doctor's outer office is a guide to his inner and innate medical practice. Is it contemporary and au courant...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 28.05.2006

I had always been a very good boy. I've been doing some spring cleaning. My home office is a mess. And after hours of sorting, filing, and tossing my desk is now pristine again. But much still needs to be done before this job is complete. On the floor lay boxes my wife has filled over the years with my "stuff." There is so much stuff it's hard not to be overwhelmed. The first box seems to be laden with things from the 2003 period of my life. You know how it is. Every night you come home and empty your...

News Outta My Control / 21.05.2006

This illustration for a Washington Post article on social networking conveyed a very different story from the one it was supposed to illustrate. I'm a visual person and have found my niche in life as a visual communicator. A picture can illuminate and extend the meaning of my words. Image and text are powerful partners. This morning as I was reading the Sunday Washington Post I was thumbing through the Business section looking at pictures. Along with headlines, this is how I scan the paper every day, using the hierarchy of information to help me decide which articles are important to...

Professional Auteurism / 14.05.2006

Sometimes silence is golden. Click the image above to start. (Quicktime, 7.6 MB) I enjoy watching TV with the sound muted. It gives inane programming new meaning. Media moguls take note: it often improves my television watching experience. Programs I would never watch become MUST SEE TV. Take this bit I recently Tivo'ed. When I turned on the TV the volume had been turned off. I just stared at these boys with no context for their visual cues. And without it I was mesmerized. In fact, I kept replaying this clip without any sound. To this day I have not...

Professional Auteurism / 07.05.2006

Separated at birth: the real thing with his dopplegänger. At the conclusion of my two day meeting in NYC I shed my business attire and re-entered my normal world. Donning my casual uniform, jeans and my red baseball cap (the G on its front stood for Gates not The Gap of course), I checked out of my hotel and grabbed a cab to Penn Station. While I generally ride coach, I like to wait for my train in first class style. Usually I can sneak into the Acela's premiere lounge for a nice seat while my train advances to the...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 23.04.2006

Old Sprint Phone

You've been a good phone. But it was time for an upgrade.

We have a whiteboard in our kitchen with lists of To-Do's for both my wife and me. As we complete a task we ceremoniously erase the entry and give each other a high five for a job well done. It doesn't happen often so we make a point of celebrating. The items that make these lists are the ones that never seem to get done: hence the introduction of the whiteboard to elevate their status and to keep us from forgetting.

High on my list: call Sprint to renegotiate our cell phone contract. It's not a pleasant chore but one I am good at. I've devised a list of strategies for getting the most from my cell company and I rely on them when my contract is ready to be renewed.


1. When you want anything of importance from your cell phone company call their rentention department. The cell phone industry is highly competitive and margins are tight. They want to keep your business.

You might remember my major discovery back at the turn of the century: when you want anything of importance from your cell phone company, call Retention. They have all the power. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste your time talking with anyone else. They do not have the ultra secret codes to get you what you want.

It was definitely time to renegotiate. Our calling plans were from the Mobile Phone Jurassic period. We had two separate accounts with more minutes than we could ever use (let it be known we do not live with our phones permanently affixed to our ears). We were paying way too much and our phones were old. Coworkers and friends would often stifle their surprise to see my quant little black and white screen. "What?! You can't download In-A-Gadda-De-Vida as a ringtone??"

I've had this task on the whiteboard for six months. But I was waiting for THE phone to come out. I didn't know what that phone was but I scoured the gadget Web sites weekly to find it. I thought about a Treo. But, quite honestly, I had no desire to be connected 24/7. I wanted a phone that got good reviews for quality and battery life, something that was small, and something that might make my transition into the future more graceful.

When we were in Puerto Rico, my old phone worked for one call and then went on an eternal search for a connection. Nada para el resto del viaje. Nothing for the rest of the trip.

It was time.

Commuting with Nature / 20.04.2006

Sometimes a morning commute is just a morning commute. But on special days the egalitarian nature of mass transit puts you front and center --right in front with those "special people" making the news. This morning I saw John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, on the subway. Washington is like Hollywood. You never know who you're going to run into. And when you do nonchalance is required. No fawning or whispering is allowed. You know them but you must never acknowledge them, not until the celeb or politico is out of sight. If you disagree with...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 16.04.2006

The view from our hotel

The reward at the end of the day: the view from our hotel (and not a slice of beef jerky in sight).

Note to myself: Next time we decide to take a family vacation on the first day of Spring Break, arrive at the airport the day before. Last Sunday my family and I flew to Puerto Rico. My eldest daughter's class was going on a "field trip" to La Parguera and the Bioluminescent Bay in the southwest corner of the island to study with an oceanographer (we never took field trips like this when I was in the 4th grade). And the rest of the family was going along for the ride.

As always I was the consummate air traveler (if not a bit naive --ok, clueless). I was able to get the four of us out of the house at 5:45 am to arrive at the airport with the requisite two hour window before our 8:30 am flight. We usually avoid travel during holidays so we were dumbfounded when we took the escalator up to the checkout level only to join about 10,000 like-minded travelers (I kid you not). It was wall-to-wall people inching and snaking their way to check in their baggage.

Commuting with Nature / 05.04.2006

The DC Metro Finds New Revenue in a Tunnel. Click the image above to start. (Quicktime, 2.1 MB) Washington's subway system is slowly falling apart. After 30 years the Metro is showing its age. The system needs a huge overhaul. But with no extra cash that's becoming harder to accomplish. I’m already paying $6 a day to ride the subway back and forth to work. My commutes are overcrowded and prone to frequent technical breakdowns. Without additional support I will soon be paying more --a lot more. For years the Metro rejected any thought of allowing commercial ads for...