My Coffee with Steve Wozniak

On my way back to Portland from Salt Lake City, I ran into Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer. For those hardcore Apple fans out there, this is a big deal.

We chatted for awhile because I invited him to coffee. We went to Starbucks, and talked technology for about an hour. It was the geekiest time I had, and I mean that in the best possible way. I had a bit of a hard time following him, partly because he was talking over my head, and partly because I kept chanting in my head, "I'm talking to Steve Wozniak! I'm talking to Steve Wozniak!"

Steve (can I refer to him by his first name now?) was a friendly, animated guy with lots to say about what he has done and what he is doing. He works with a company called Fusion IO, as well as participating in a Segway Polo Team, and he prints his own money (!). He took out a pad of two-dollar bills, uncut, and told me he sells them for $5. I wanted to ask further, but I was afraid that I'd get involved in a counterfeiting sting operation. He talked briefly of Steve Jobs and his pot-smoking days at Reed College. I thought about asking about how Jobs screwed him out of the Atari Breakout money that could have cost Apple an early partnership with Intel, but I decided against it. Steve Jobs is quietly recovering with a new liver, and I'd hate to jinx the man.

We had a nice, uninterrupted conversation until some little kid asked, "Were you on Dancing with the Stars?" Steve said that he was, and the mom took a picture. After that, many others came up to have their picture taken with the guy from Dancing with the Stars. This barrage of fans stopped the nice flow of our conversation. Stupid fans... At least I knew that he was the Apple cofounder. (All fans think that they, and they alone, are the special fans unlike the others!)

This was one of the best experiences I've had in some time. It sure beat my playing around on my iPhone. Rather, I went right to the source!


Steve had on this strange watch with tiny hourglasses. I should have asked him about it.

Mr. Miyagi's Geography Lesson

When I first saw The Karate Kid when I was 15 years old, I learned two valuable lessons. The first is that after only a few karate lessons under the guise of slavework, I, too, could take down the meanest, toughest, and blondest karate champ of the city; I only have to believe in myself and in the crane technique. The second thing that I learned is where the island of Okinawa is. Here is the clip of that lesson:

Questioning a Woman's Place

Here's a lesson plan I created for a technology conference in December. It is one of my better efforts, I think. This Power Point will take students through examining roles of women in the media and around the world.

The "Onslaught" commercial alone is worth a viewing.

Mr. T, Madrid, and Me

I began the morning watching an episode of The A-Team dubbed in Spanish. Either my Spanish is better than I thought or the storylines for this show are thread-bare, but I understood the show. The voice dubbing Mr. T sounded like a monster from Clash of the Titans. Perhaps the Spaniards need some help with their stereotypes of American Blacks.

In the episode, Murdoch was injured, and the rest of the team tried to obtain medical supplies in the most complicated way possible. Interspersed were flashbacks to the good times the gang had with crazy-ole Murdoch. At the end, there was a montage of scenes of the guy-crushing between B.A. and Murdoch with a synthesizer-heavy ballad about being best friends.

If this is the start of our vacation in Spain, how can it get any better?

Skateboarding to Alsace

We're in Strasbourg again after our Dublin trip was canceled. I'm waiting for Kristie outside the statue tunnel watching skateboarders. They certainly are tenacious with their practice. Falling after each attempt, thy try again. When they make that triple ollie (I don't even know what this is), they work hard to hide that smile of accomplishment.

Some of the guys are just too old to spend their Saturday doing this. I believe that if you are still riding a skateboard in your late twenties, you need to examine your life.

Two young men sit down, light cigarettes, and proudly show each other scars. Two more play Twister on the painted concrete game board (that really seems out of place). The rest skate and ollie their way past hordes of tourists trying to cross the bridge o Petite Francaise.

Amsterdam's Coffee Shop

We went to a coffee shop in Amsterdam with some friends from Korea. I was curious to see how those drug houses work, and it was much different than I imagined it would be. We ordered at the bar (I had water, Kristie had cappucinno, just in case you wondered), and ther six of us went upstairs to watch. There were menus around tempting customers with hash or weed with strange names of flavors (Bubble Gum Weed wouldn't sound appealling to me even if I did smoke). We sat and talked, while the guy at the bar bought two mushrooms neatly packaged as casually as one would buy a cheeseburger.

There was no Pink Floyd or Led Zepplin or any other drug-addled rock music coming from the sound system. Rather, "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin serenated the customers, hardly the trippy music one would think would be played. I told this to Carl, and he replied, "I know, but to be honest, I kind of like it." He was high at the time.

Perhaps we should have smoked a joint for true understanding, much like my theory that Pink Floyd's The Wall move would be clearer if I watched it stoned. As Aretha sings, "I'm riding in a freeway of love in a pink cadillac." Maybe she is onto something there.

Please tell me that this song playing is not the Pointer Sisters...

Caught Shoplifting at the Wal-Mart

Of all the places to practice my sleight-of-hand movements, Wal-Mart would not be on the top of my list. I’ve resisted the temptation at the Apple Store, Toys-R-Us, and Old Navy. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m good enough to steal if I really wanted to. Card tricks and larceny are close cousins because they both involve misdirection (I’ll leave out the details of the time my brother David and I were caught stealing Star Wars guys at Zayre, the offense that had my mother forcing us on our knees reciting Hail Marys and Our Fathers to avoid eternal damnation). No criminal behavior for me, and I limited my powers to actions that end with the phrase, “Is this your card?” So to be accused of a crime I didn’t commit chaps me.

Kristie and I have been riding around on our bikes. Wiesbaden is a great biking city, and we are learning our way around. However, we do not have a bike lock here because our house shipment still has not arrived. We decided to go to the German Wal-Mart to buy one. Kristie stayed outside with the bikes and I went in. While in the bike aisle, I bought a front light for Kristie’s bike, as it is the law here to have a light on both sides of the bike. The very unhappy cashier checked me out and handed me my goods (I remember the clerks in the stateside Wal-Marts to be a bit more chipper). I asked her if she had scissors to cut the binding on the lock so we can use it. She looked at me strangely, and said no. I said goodbye in german (one of the ten phrases I know), and put them in my backpack and left. Outside, we locked the bikes and went back inside so Kristie could see what it looks like in the store. She bought a few things, and we checked out again, this time to a different clerk. As we left the checkstand, Kristie set off the alarm. Our clerk made Kristie remove the bag and go through again, and realized it was something in the bag. We removed the light and receipt, and showed her. She looked skeptical. She called the first clerk on the phone (her name was on the receipt) and asked, what I can assume to be something like:

“Did you sell this guy a bike light?”
“Who?”
“Him. This guy in tight bike shorts and helmet hair.” (At this point, I waved to her sitting three aisles away. Surely my cheesy grin would resurrect her memory.)
“No!”
“OK, thanks for your help. He is a filthy American thief.”

Our clerk turns to me, takes the light and receipt, and calls the manager. She has us wait to the side. The manager comes and those two get in a rapid discussion of my crime. I am helpless. He says that he doesn’t speak much english, so we go to another person. They talk and decide that we are free to go. I was angry, and wanted to lodge a complaint about the rudeness of that woman. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the german word for 1.) Rudeness 2.) Complaint 3.) Lodge. The best I could do is say, “Das voman ist bad” (using my heavily stereotyped accent). He said, “Yes, she is stressed.”

I realize right now that bad in german means water or pool. Hardly the insult that I was looking for.

Lon's Pointy Hat

Lan is our next tour guide on the boat itself. We paid $45, and it seems like he purchased a guide for each strip of land in the Mekong Delta. She has one of those pointed bamboo hats that we always see in the explosion scenes in Good Morning, Vietnam-type movies worn by crouching rice field workers. She smiles a lot and her eyes turn upward at the outer corners. She’d look nefarious if she didn’t look so happy. Her English is rough, but she tries to communicate. She repeats herself often. Not like our grandmothers do by telling the same story about the Depression or what it was like to wear knickers in the winter. Rather, Lon punctuates her sentences by repeating the phrase she ended with. When we were starting our journey, she reviewed the itinerary. She said, “Here we will visit a coconut candy factory. A coconut candy factory. Then, we will go to the south to have a traditional meal. A traditional meal.” She is one of those guides that feels she must earn her keep by a constant volley of words. Of words. As if she is the Charles Dickens of the Southeast Asian tourism world, getting paid Vietnam dong per spoken word.

Nietzsche
Lon tells me about the local people in their fishing boats as we pass by. I’m not understanding it all, but I dutifully nod and smile, resentful of Kristie’s freedom to look at whatever she wants. She tells me about the local people on the island and their crops. She said something that sounded a lot like, “The local people look like Nietzsche. Look like Nietzsche. You know Nietzsche?” Now, I know this isn’t what she said, so before I launched into a philosophical discussion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, I simply said no.

Rolling Down Your Sleeves and Working
On our canoe-like boat trip through a canal that splits one of the islands, our other guide pointed out the gloves on the boat drivers’ arms. These gloves cover fingertips to biceps, something Batman would wear. They do this, he said, to avoid getting a tan. They want to look white. I told him that white people want to look darker, so they tan. He said both want the same thing. For the Vietnamese, dark skins equates to hard, outdoor labor and a lower social status. The gloves help keep the skin underneath white, so they can go out, take off the gloves, and hide what they do for a living. White Americans want to portray the image of a life sitting on a beach, rather than the whiter-than-Dilbert alabaster that comes from working in an office. Their bronzed bodies show that they live a life of Riley. Color, he said, puts one’s status in society out for all to see.

We wear our social status on our literal sleeves, I guess.

Nine Words That Almost Rhyme with Korea

9. Diarrhea

8. Careen

7. Farina

6. Corey Hart

5. Creamier

4. Greener

3. Cornea

2. Corina

1. Coia

Airborne

There's a new product on the market designed to treat colds at their outset. Airborne is a mix of Echinacea along with an ungodly dosage of vitamin C, zinc, and others that would make the patron of health-food stores smile with smugness. This is put into a horse pill laced with baking soda. Put this concoction in a cup of water and it fizzes until dissolved. The instructions say to drink it either at the start of a cold, or before entering a potentially germ-filled area like airline flights. Airborne will supposedly assist our bodies to fight off sickness better with a tangy-orange flavor.

I saw the cartoony package about a year ago and scoffed. Yes, a full-fledged scoff. Its tagline is “Created by a classroom teacher.” Oh, so it must be good.

Two weeks ago, I sat at a particularly dull table at a back-to-school potluck listening to other teachers praise Airborne’s merits. Each one had a Touched-by-an-Airborne-Angel story. One the true believers prefaced his account by telling me that Airborne was created by a classroom teacher. He recounted the same story I read on the package itself. Some elementary school teacher was tired of getting sick in school, so she spent five years making the perfect mixture of herbs and spices, Colonel Sanders style, I guess. As I excused myself to get another helping of emaciated chicken wings, I wondered when the teacher-scientist-herbalist found time to write lesson plans. I don’t have time to take my dog Aslan for a walk during the school year, let alone conduct Linus Pauling research in my basement.

After this conversation, I got sick. I was at school talking to a friend about my coming cold, and another teacher told me about Airborne. “It was created by a teacher, you know.” A few days late, another teacher heard my husky, flemmy voice and suggested Airborne. “It was created by a teacher who was tired of getting sick.” She searched her bag to get me a magic pill, but her cup runneth empty.

I decided to try it for myself. I bought a roll of ten for almost $6.00, and plopped my first into a cup of cold fountain water that hinted of iced tea. It was fun to watch the fizz, and it tasted pretty good. That was last week. I’m still sniffling.

Since when is “created by a teacher” an endorsement for the success of a drug? Does the FDA have a series of tests that it uses based on careers? This new pill for glaucoma is created by a freelance graphic artist who was tired of being blind. This is putting teachers on the same medical prowess as those 4 out of 5 dentists who choose Trident.

On the homepage for the product’s website, Kevin Costner gives a glowing report on how he “never goes on a movie set without it.” My first thought is that the statement is a bit misleading, since he hasn’t been on too many movie sets lately. The web site also has a litany of publications where the product was mentioned. One of those magazines is The National Enquirer. Go see for yourself. www.airbornehealth.com. Using a magazine that cries Bigfoot and Batboy in alternating issues makes your product suspect.

It must work, though. After all, it fizzes.

Right on, Mickey Mantle!

I left the luggage carousel and called for a van, as instructed. I got in the van and waited for other passengers. Joe, the driver, asked if I was going to that “tea-cha confrence” in Nashua. I told him that I was, and then he felt free to explain to me, in great detail, his military experience. He was trying my I’ve-been-on-a-plane-all-day patience, but he was friendly, and I was trying to be, too.

Soon, another passenger arrived. I knew that she was a teacher immediately because she had That Look. In fact, I told her that after we introduced ourselves, but I think she took it as an insult. Maybe it was. As we changed information on our duty assignments (she’s in Japan), I noticed her fondness for the phrase, “Right on!” with that annoying emphasis and tonal shift on the second word. This type of speaking is usually reserved for adult hippies or youth pastors with goatees trying hard to "be relevant" to today's teens. She used it fluently on details that I thought did not necessitate such urgency.

Me: “I’m from Osan, Korea.
Her: “Right on! Do you like it?”
Me: “It’s alright for a first assignment.”
Her: “Right on!”
Me: “I’ve been to Tokyo last year, and I loved it.”
Her: “Right on!”

On the way to the hotel, we passed a Boston Red Sox sign. Joe the Cabbie told us about the Red Sox-Yankees feud. He told us about a boyhood fantasy that he had (I was getting nervous at this time in the story) that involved watching Mickey Mantle running for a fly ball and then Joe the Boy shooting him in the head. He laughed, and I shuddered and wondered where his middle school guidance counselor was during this time in his life. He laughed at his own story; she said, “Wow! Rock on!” Similar to her early phrase, the syllabic emphasis rested comfortably on only the first word. I was confused as to why this story needed the “Rock on” versus the standard “Right on.” Why was Mickey Mantle’s homicide a “Rock” while my current living situation merely a “Right”? What were her categories for distinction?

The remainder of the taxi ride was silent, while we all continued to think about Mickey Mantle’s demise. I think I saw Joe smirking throughout the ride.

Worth Learning

“Thanks, Dan, for showing me some things. No one has ever really taken the time to teach me anything really worth learning.” Carter in In Good Company

What are the things that are worth learning?
I have a list that hasn’t been created yet
One is that a love of a woman will change you
For the better, of course
Treating her well will comeback back to you manifold
Like compounding interest on your money
Perhaps that’s not a good example,
seeing how interest rates are so bad right now

A dog will bring you joy and smiles and frustration
You’ll miss that creature when you are away on trips
And you find comfort in thinking that she misses you, too

Asking questions to others about them will make them like you more
And perhaps you’ll like them better, too

No one likes a talker
Or a show-off
Or a miser
Or a sarcastic tone
Or an airplane-seat hog
Saying “please” and “thank you” will get you what you want
I’ve read How to Win Friends and Influence People
(Not really)

We need to strive to be good
To be better than we are today
Whatever that looks like is up to you, I suppose

Spiky hair, tattoos, and tongue rings are symbols of vanity

Find something to know something about
The more you know about something, the more you remember
Whether it’s scuba, golf, pipes, or comics

Ignore the advice that you should live like today is your last day
On earth
If it was, I’d be depressed

Don’t underestimate the power of a good cup of coffee
On the patio
With a friend

No one cares about your car

Watch for characters to be redeemed in movies
It’s one of my favorite themes
A regular Joe becomes quietly great
In 97 minutes
the time it takes to devour a bucket of popcorn
That could be you

Snapping gum in public is as annoying
as crying babies
and wailing cell phones
I guess because saliva is involved

Listen to Wilco when you can

The knowledge that you are insignificant to this universe
Is beautiful and freeing
And, ironically, makes me feel more significant

Even the insincere like sincere people

We all are replaceable at work
The firefighter, the stock analysis, the teacher, the dishwasher
this knowledge reduces our stress
and removes that proud attitude
Backwards logic is still logic

Everyone likes to watch card tricks
Learning a few will break the ice with people

Reading makes you smarter
Walk a few moons in the moccasins of
Huck Finn
Atticus Finch
Tom Joad
They will school you in a thing or two

Being jealous of the power or possessions of others
Gets you nowhere but unhappy

Love the city you live in
Or move
Same with your job
And friends
And choice of ice cream
And restaurants
And personality

Never criticize the one who irons your clothes

Be cautious about reading self-help books
Especially those in poetry formats
Poets can be pompous, you know

Our Quiz Show Experience

If it is true that we all have 15 minutes of fame, I hope that appearences on Korean TV do not count.

We didn't do so well, let me start with that. We got there, signed in, went to make-up, lunch, then sat in a briefing on the rules. We went to the studio. Kristie and I were up to play another pair, and the winner would go on to play last week's champions.

We did well in the first round. Kristie was excellent in the 80's movies department, answering the following movie titles: Die Hard, The Breakfast Club, The Terminator, Aliens, and even Once Upon a Time in America. We felt good. We felt smart. We felt cocky. Then the game against the champions from last week...

I'm a dumb man. It seems obvious that I do not know who Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz is, or where Venezela is, or anything about any greek myths ever. We were slaughtered. Humiliated on national television. The only saving grace was that nobody watches this show. I'll tape the show and send it along to friends after the airing on Friday (appropriately, it airs on April Fools Day). Actually, if I am edited to look even dumber than I felt, the program will never reach the borders of the United States.

I may be exaggerating a bit. Kristie and I had a really fun time on the show, and we met some nice folks. We all thought that being on a Korean tv show was pretty funny. It is, isn't it?


This is taken on the bus ride home. Notice the defeat written on our faces.

I will never appear on another quiz show as long as I live. Or, at least, as long as I'm living in Korea. When we get to Italy, perhaps I'll give it another try.

Life Sentence

While I'm at it, why is it that every time I go to the movies here, there is a drunk guy sitting nearby talking too loudly to his date who I'm sure doesn't want to be there with him but went anyway because it was a situation in which she needn't make idle chatter but instead can think of ways to breakup with him but doesn't quite know how because Osan is so small that she knows that she will see him everywhere and that would be uncomfortable so she agrees to go to the movies to escape her humdrum world at least for 90 minutes of peace and quiet only to have him blathering on about God-knows-what too loudly that she'd want to slink away to the concession stand and bury her head in a pile of freshly-popped popcorn and drizzle herself with butter in order to feel better about a life that is not as good as she thought it would be when she was a teenager considering the Air Force as a career, a career that the recruiting commercials lied to her about since there is not upside-down flying pilots in her life, but rather there is just this guy, this annoying fellow who seems to think that Friday Happy Hour is the highlight of his week because the club serves one-dollar drinks and the waitress there is cute and he thinks she likes him and that his girlfriend doesn't know, but she knows more than she lets on and she thinks about this listening to his beer breath talk about ridiculous comments in the opening credits, she thinks of these things and more and she feels sorry for herself, for him, and for her parents who are telling their friends how proud they are of her daughter who was able to leave the small town and see the world, but the only world that she is seeing is the 27 square miles of Osan Air Base, and more specifically her dorm room which is 10 meters squared and she shares that with a roommate who snores yet she ignores this as well and feels a wave a sadness when she thinks of her mother crying when she left last summer mainly because she lives another life today inside of a movie theater?

Seat 14J to Seoul, Korea

I’m in seat 14J in Business Class behind a set of rambunctious twins around five. Why are they up here? They belong in Economy torturing those saps back there. Perhaps a more fitting question is why am I up here? Not in Business Class in front of the behind-the-curtain seats(mileage upgrade), but why am I am a plane going to Korea, a country of which I know nothing? I’m leaving a group of friends that I greatly enjoy, a city that has become my home over the past 13 years, a teaching position that I felt I was really growing into, not to mention leaving my wife behind for three months. Kristie and I talk about how these last couple of years have been our happiest days; we are contented by our current life, not grumbling about needed a change from work, the weather, or people. So I’ll ask once again, why am I sitting in 14J next to Alfred the German software company vice president filling out custom forms watching the brats throw the United Comfort Pack around in their overstuffed chairs?

I don’t know.

At times, I’m a hypocrite. I like to think that I one of those adventurous types, wanting to travel and see and experience. That’s what I tell my Rhode Island people back there. I left Rhode Island when I was 17 to join the Air Force. I never thought that I was an adventurous before that, I just wanted to do something cool. As I told many times since, that plane trip to San Antonio, Texas, began an altered course for my life. It was a trajectory that took me far away from the ordinary. Let me go back to my blatant hypocrisy: I am pretty ordinary. I like being a home with Kristie and I shy away from major disruptions in my routine. As Kristie or other close friends can attest, I become out-of-sorts during major moves, decisions, or even projects around the house. I’m afraid of all the aspects that can go wrong. Even as I type, I fear the problems in getting a house in Korea, Kristie not being able to rent out our own house, Aslan being able to get enough exercise, etc.

I think the reason I like the unknown future is because I’m uncertain and afraid of it. It’s a titillating feeling that could be psychopathically deviant if it were applied to other areas of life. The uncertainty is alluring to me. The fact that I don’t know anything about the country in which I’m going to live for two years, or whether I’ll enjoy the new school, or if I’ll make some good friends makes this one of those trajectory points. I’m not sure what my opinion of Korea will be in two years, but I’m quite certain that the path of our lives will be altered some. A slight angle at the point of trajectory will, of course, grow into a larger angle as the line lengthens. If this were Math class, a diagram would help.

The brats are watching Garfield: The Movie. I even dislike their movie choice. Enough of that. The flight attendant brought a dish of warm nuts and a glass of Merlot, the humble offerings of a new trajectory.