It's a cliche when someone announces leaving a job in order to spend more time with his or her family.  Today I heard about someone who did that and, after a year, is now overwhelmed with family-oriented volunteer activities and needs to pull back from them.  So the question is, how do you spend more time with your family when you're already spending more time with your family?

When the father of the American Idol winner is younger than you.  Five years younger.

An article in today's New York Times talks about the old PEPPER & POTTER sign in Brooklyn near the base of the Manhattan Bridge: A Car Dealership Defined by Big Dreams and Bigger Letters.

My aunt and uncle have lived a couple of blocks away from that sign for more than 35 years and when we were kids we would frequently pass it on the way home from visiting them.  We'd whisper "Pepper" and scream "Potter".  It's funny to finally learn the story behind what we always considered to be a private family joke.

1. No phone, no computer
2. Phone, no computer
3. Phone, access to someone else's computer

Anything where I bring along a computer is just a trip.

A collection of thoughts from my trip to NYC with #1 and #2:

• I've become a delicate hothouse flower. I can't abide the concurrence of heat and humidity any more. Not that he natives do much better; those who can afford to surround themselves with air conditioning, and those who cannot suffer languidly. Plus it's strange to be in a place where you actually need to carry an umbrella; I'm not sure if it's because of the summer thunderstorms here or because you can (and must) get places on foot.
• Dial-up Internet connectivity is painful, esp. when relegated to a staticky phone line that tends to very low speed connections that hang or drop (five times while I've been typing this). At one point the connection software reported a line speed of "-0(9.05" Kbps. I've spent some time trying to locate the cause (which happens with voice calls as well) to no avail.
• Connecting with old friends from high school. Today, lunch with R and coffee with A. People my age in traditionally high-powered NY jobs seem to view this stage of their career as the "swing for the fences" period, the chance to really make it big before they hit fifty and their career trajectories level off or trend down. There doesn't seem to be any gap being striving to get to the next milestone and wondering where all the time went. Kind of how I thought I'd be able to enjoy a few years between the end of pimples and the beginning of baldness.
• Minor league baseball: New Jersey Cardinals versus the Brooklyn Cyclones at Coney Island. It seemed like a nice park, to the extent that I could tell through the rain. And while the tickets are cheaper than in the bigs, the food and trinkets are just as overpriced. I withheld my usual restraint for the opportunity to emblazon the word "Brooklyn" across my entire family's wardrobe. And the coup de grace: Brooklyn license plate frames to go with my personalized license plate.
• A kosher deli a ten-minute walk from my mother's house that's better than anything within 1500 miles of my own; which means the opportunity to smuggle pounds of chopped liver home as a love offering, if my arteries can withstand the corned beef assault.
• Subway: MetroCards killed the token star. A week's worth of unlimited use: $24. Catching up on one's reading: Priceless.
• Auto navigation systems are counterproductive in New York, since they're not programmed to recommend the streets that the natives know to take. To the contrary, they tend to send you on the most clogged arterials because of their strictly theoretical maximum speed.
• 53 hours and counting without having checked work email. The modern definition of vacation. A total vacation would be completely email and IM free.

"An ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. Repo Man spends his life getting into tense situations." -- Repo Man

I'm not one of those people who can be devil-may-care about plans.

This morning I was booked on a 6:45 AM flight.  I set my alarm for 4:30 AM, thinking that I'd leave the house at 5:00 and be at the airport by 5:30.  Unfortunately I overslept and didn't get out of bed until my wife nudged me at 5:10.  I scrambled like crazy but didn't get out of the house until nearly 5:30 and even driving a little faster than usual didn't get to the airport until nearly 6:00.

Despite a mishap with my electronic check-in and a long security line, I was at the gate by 6:30 and made the flight.  And it was probably the most missable flight I've ever taken:  I was making a day trip to California for a specific meeting that I could have attended via videoconference in a pinch.

The question is whether I can allocate less travel time for these trips, knowing that there's a greater risk I'll miss the flight, or whether I'd rather spend the extra time and not have the stress of hurrying and worrying.  In my case I'd still sacrifice the time to avoid the stress.

Late this afternoon I'm sitting at my local library trying to get some work done.  The good things about being at the library are the lack of interruptions and the free (albeit slow) WiFi.

On the other hand, this is one of the noisiest places I've been in a while.  Cell phones ringing constantly, and each time a person scrambling frantically to silence it as if someone had tossed a live grenade at them.  ("Hey!  I didn't know this thing could make a noise.")  Even sitting at a table with a sign that says "Quiet Study Area", I'm next to people who are talking to each other.  There are three tables in this area, and the two outer ones have this sign, which apparently means that you can make as much noise as you want at the one in the middle.  And that table seems to be preferred by pairs of people practicing a foreign language with the most horrendous American accents you can imagine.

What happened to the good old days when libraries were patrolled by cranky geezers sporting either hair in a bun or a pocket protector, as gender appropriate, shushing people's faintest utterances?  The modern librarian has become a tech support person.  It is left to me to first glare, then point at the "quiet" sign, and finally get up and ask people to be quiet.

I flew in and out of San Jose Airport (now officially "Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport") last week and remembered how much I enjoy that airport, particularly when travelling on Alaska Airlines.  Despite the constant construction in and around the airport, it still feels like a small municipal airport:  Everything on one level, walking across the tarmac to board your flight, boarding and exiting the plane through the rear door, and all of this without having to fly in a puddle jumper.  I still remember my regular flights down there six or seven years ago, when the car rental lots were right in front of Terminal C; alas, you now have to take a shuttle bus to get your car.

On the flight home I had a window seat on the right (east) side of the plane on one of the rare sunny February days in the sPacific Northwet.  I spent fifteen minutes staring out the window as the Mt. Rainier held court, Mt. St. Helens kneeling in recognition of its majesty.

Today I bought a copy of People magazine for the first time in over five years.

To some people that might not seem like a long time, but for years People was a standard part of my travel regimen.  After checking in for a flight, my first order of business was to head to the newstand to purchase a New York Times and a People; kind of like a meal of oatmeal and cotton candy.  And it made a fine spousal gift upon the return home.  In the interim I've been forced to settle for the poor imitation that is Us Magazine.

Why the boycott?  And why the end?  The boycott began when AOL acquired Time Warner.  At the time I was directly involved in work-related acrimony with AOL (go here for a first person account) and didn't want to support a company that was, as I was fond of putting it, "taking food out of my children's mouths."  I wasn't prepared to forego all Time Warner products, but I wanted to make a gesture that would feel like a sacrifice and channel my indignance.  So People and CNN had to go, replaced by inferior substitutes.

With the passage of time (no pun intended) has come the recognition that the AOL-Time Warner merger was by most accounts a failure and that the old Time Warner crew is now largely in charge.  While AOL is still a business competitor, they're not longer our biggest threat.  And there are simply more important things to worry about.

If nothing else, it will make my wife happy.

Tonight I went bowling as part of a father-son event and bowled my best and third best games ever.  At 185 and 160, not much of an achievement in objective terms, but it still felt good.

The 160 was the first game, followed by just barely breaking 100 in the second.  After opening the third game with two open frames, I got a beer and after a couple of sips had just the right beer equilibrium.  I finished the last eight frames with only strikes and spares, leading to the 185.  The streak continued for two more frames in the fourth game, which ended in the 130's even though I petered out at the end.

While the beer equilibrium was part of it, it had nothing to do with the first game.  More likely it was finding a 12 lb. ball with big enough finger holes.  Thanks in part to a middle finger knuckle that's enlarged from an old softball injury, I usually have to use a 14 lb. ball for my fingers to fit.  That weight is too heavy for me to control and gives me a sore forearm by the second game.  But tonight I bowled four games and my arm feels fine.

After the third game I momentarily considered offering to buy the ball from the alley, but for once every year or two it's not worth it.  Plus then I'd actually have to learn how to bowl properly, with the wrist flick and the spin thing.

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Talking tonight about the currently on-hiatus Boat Street Cafe made me nostalgic for the days when it was open and we still lived within walking distance for weekend brunch.  It reminded me of some of my favorite dishes that are no longer available, either because the restaurant no longer exists or because they took it off the menu.  A few that come to mind quickly:

• The Nicoise Salad at the Boat Street Cafe.  Yes, their chicken sandwiches and berry cobbler were great too, but I've never had a salad stood up to this one.
• The Korean-style ribs and double chocolate creme brulee at the late Ventana in Fremont.
• The spicy baby back ribs at El Camino, also in Fremont.
• The pan-fried chicken, pork chops, and chocolate pudding at the Beeliner Diner (now the Jitterbug).
• and going back decades, the ginger chicken and sesame noodles at Hwa Yuan Szechuan Inn, 40 East Broadway, New York.

Moral of the story:  It's OK to order the same thing every time because you never know when it will be your last.

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If I were to list my New Year's resolutions, they'd be more or less the same as they've been for years:

• Exercise regularly
• Floss regularly
• Get to bed earlier

If I were to add a new one, it would be:

• When eating or drinking unhealthily, get the really good stuff.  Even if it means having less.  Foie gras, not Big Mac.  Valrhona, not Hershey.  Thomas Kemper, not Pabst.

One of the things I inherited from my father is a culturally-inappropriate love of bacon.  In his case, he was raised in a kosher home and didn't even taste bacon until he joined the army at age 18.  Generally army food isn't something one raves about, but apparently his first taste of bacon was something of, ahem, a religious experience.

Later in life he was afflicted with high blood pressure and heart disease, so ironically his ability to eat bacon was curtailed.  He'd have it once or twice a year, and due to this infrequency would always get the best.

Recently a house guest purchased some nitrate-free, turkey bacon and left it behind in our fridge.  Not one to pass up bacon, even simulated bacon, I decided to cook it up and try it.

Notes from the experience:  Fake bacon doesn't smell anything like real bacon when it's cooking.  If you love bacon, the smell of it cooking is part of the experience.  Fake bacon's smell requires you to turn on an exhaust fan or open a window.  Fake bacon doesn't have the texture of real bacon when it's cooked; its texture is somewhere between jerky and cardboard.  And while real bacon has a smoky, meaty flavor, fake bacon tastes like salt with a hint of liquid smoke.

After a couple of pieces I decided that the fake bacon would be suitable only for BLTs.  And it almost was, as long as I overweighted the L and the T.

Moral of the story:  Listen to your father.  At least about pork products.

Final thought:  What would you call a bacon lover who travels through Muslim countries and tries to win the populace over to the joys of bacon?  Johnny Baconbit?

In less than an hour the local supermarkets shut down for 36 hours, their longest closure of the year.

Accustomed as I am to 24x7 supermarket hours, I get into a bit of a frenzy every year over this closure and prepare for it as if an earthquake is coming.  I think some of it is a result of one Christmas around 15 years ago when I flew back to Seattle on Christmas day and came home to an empty refrigerator.  I spent a couple of hours with some hungry friends trying to find an open restaurant that didn't have a long wait.

Today was pretty typical:  I made a trip in the morning to stock up on staples and then a second trip in the afternoon to pick up the things I forgot in the morning.

I'll be relieved when 6 AM Sunday arrives.

Even though I'm grumpy about the short days at this time of year, it's always better to be on the upside of the solstice.  Put another way, I'm less bugged by the shortness of the days than by the shortening of the days.  Now I can look forward to six months of increasing daylight.