Evolving at the Speed of Life

Euphoria & Tragedy in the Bluegrass State

I watched the pre-Derby show on NBC today.  Stories were told of triumphs of the human spirit and of the love of horses.  As the race started I was cheering on Big Brown.  Mostly because he was the oddest combination of favorite (5-2 odds) and underdog (20th pole position).  And because his owner, Rick Dutrow, Jr. had overcome tremendous personal odds to earn his place at Churchill Downs.  And because the jockey, Kent Desormeaux, was on his way to a third win at the Ketucky Derby with his physically challenged son watching for the first time. 
As the race started I realized I had never sat down and actually watched the horses run.  The physical pressure put on the animals is so disturbing.  Pounding, panting and sweating, the jockeys maneuver he horses around a mile of track.  Some find it a beautiful sport...I had to turn away.  With good reason, it turns out.
Big Brown won by 5-1/2 lengths.  A decisive victory.  Eight Belles came in second.  And as she galloped to a stop she broke both front ankles and had to be euthanized on the track.  Where is the sport in that?

Regrouping in Paradise

I'm on the verge of making some changes.  Truth be told, change is not my best event.  I haven't done it all that well in the past.  Lots of anxiety and high drama usually go hand in hand with disrupting my status quo.  But...I'm determined to break the pattern and have "excused myself" from real life to enjoy two weeks at the beach.  East Hampton to be exact.  And trust me when I say there is  virtually no place on earth more removed from reality than this place.

I wonder what the colonists had in mind when they purchased land from the Montauk Indians in 1648.  My guess is they were thinking more about creating a renewable food supply...as in "let's grow corn here".  Not "Hey, this would be a great place for over-indulged city folk with too much time and money to come hang out."  Silly colonists.

East Hampton is like no place else.  For starters, the town beach...Main Beach...is on the list of best beaches in the country every year.  This year it ranked 7th.  Interestingly this east end of Long Island has two beaches on that list; the other is Coopers Beach in Southampton.  Main Beach has something for everyone.  Of particular interest to me are the snack bar and the restrooms.  This in itself makes for a best beach in my opinion. 

Beyond the beaches, East Hampton has it all...fabulous, excessive wealth (my rented house, which we've named "The Crapshack", is on the flight path to the private airfield), a struggling middle class and year round residents who live below the poverty line.  The people who live here have to drive 45 minutes to a Costco, but if they are so inclinced they can buy everything they need at Citarella on Main Street for a fee.  There are spectacular estates with elaborate gardens, and illegal day laborers lined up near the railroad station in the hopes of picking up a job.  Bentleys, BMWs and Bugatis sit in traffic alongside pickup trucks. 

Yes, this is exactly the spot for a reality check.

An Inconvenient Customer

I own a ceiling fan.  It's in my bedroom (bad Feng Shui) but it's not too bad looking.  Clean lines.  None of that curly metal stuff on the fan blades.  The only problem with it is the light.  When I bought the fan...a Hunter Tribeca fan...they didn't yet make a light specifically for the model.  So I bought something that didn't really work aesthetically, and didn't really light the room very well.  But we do the best with what's available, and I've been living with this thing for several years.
Every once in a while I'll check online or in some random retail store to see if they have anything better.  On February 1st I wandered into Superior Light & Fan on East 16th Street.  A light for my fan had been just introduced.  Very exciting!  I left the store having paid in full and expecting that the item would be delivered to my home as agreed.
On March 1st, still no sign of the package.  I went back to the store and spoke to the owner, who assured me he was going to check into it.  Several more trips to the store, encounters with rude clerks, several e-mails and phone calls later and I still don't have my light.  So yesterday, much to the horror of my co-workers, I had a melt down on the phone.  Still unable to reach the owner, and still having to deal with the idiot clerk, I had reached my limit.
I called American Express to get the charge reversed.  Then I called the store and left a message on a voice mail that they had a hour to call me back.  When no call came I wrote a letter to the managing Vice President of Hunter Ceiling Fan, copying the owner of the store, telling him that their retail partner is an abomination.  That they should be embarassed to have them represent a respected brand like Hunter.  I also went online and sent one of the "Contact Us" forms off of the Hunter web site. 
This morning I got a call and an e-mail from a lovely woman at Hunter Ceiling Fan.  She took the information on the product I had ordered and shipped it out to me today.  It was incredibly nice of her and spoke clearly to the company's heritage of customer service.  I am impressed, but having said that...
WHY do I have to get myself twisted like a pretzel to get a retail store to treat me, a customer. with some respect?  Quite frankly, Superior Light & Fan is a bit of a shithole and they should have been thrilled that I even walked in given the way they keep the place.  But once they charged my credit card, Superior Light & Fan had an obligation to either deliver the order in a timely manner or refund my money.  Either way would have been fine, but it galls me that they had no regard at all for me, my time or my money.   
What's even more disturbing is that this is not an isolated incident.  This seems to be de rigueur these days.  I just can't deal with it anymore.  From here on out I'm on a personal crusade to bring back manners and customer service.  I believe there's a market for it.  Progress reports to come...

Newt and the Hypocritical Oath

Trent Lott.  Ken Starr.  Rudy Giuliani.    A few boldface names who fueled the press and called for President Clinton's impeachment in the late '90s.  All flawed in some way that disqualified them to pass judgment on anyone.  But my favorite by far is Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker aggressively led the charge.  And now, as all the contenders line up to run for office in 2008, he admits to having an extramarital affair at the same time he was publicly calling for Clinton's head  How ironic is that?  He was cheating on his second wife with a Congressional aide 20 years younger.  (For the record, Monica was 27 years younger than Clinton.)  This after he asked his first wife, Jackie, for a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery.  So much for family values.

And yet, he remains popular with the conservative set.  Jerry Falwell has actually praised Gingrich for his candor.   And if you think this won't impact the run for the oval office, guess again.  There is a subtle Newt Movement in the works.  Google, ever the non-partisan resource, serves up search results for Gingrich's site alongside the articles that have appeared over the past few days letting us all know that he has "moral failings."  Interestingly, none of that "moral failings" nonsense is in the "Recent News" section of his site, although there are articles that ran on the same dates where he is quoted on the issues.

Listen, who am I to judge?  We all have our own baggage and none of us are above reproach.  We all have skeletons in our closet.  Having said that, I'm pretty careful not to throw stones that can easily be picked up and thrown back at me.

Darwin on Natural Selection

A friend of mine has been going through a particularly bad time over the past several years.  This friend had been a single point of focus in a lawsuit, while the many, many people who were originally involved in (READ:  took credit for) the issue being scrutinized evaded prosecution.  (The government has a way of enticing you to save your soul.  Perhaps a topic for a later post to be titled "Accountability:  Is It In You?")  But in my opinion one of the most difficult aspects had to have been the isolation as friends were unable to speak to each other for the duration on "advice from counsel". 

This past weekend there was a celebration to say goodbye to the past and welcome the next chapter.  It was difficult for some to travel at the last minute, but they were clearly there in spirit.  And many of those who had been warned away over the past several years took great effort to be there.  In fact, they had always been there.  But this particular night they got to throw their arms around each other and embrace the future.  It was a truly joyful occasion.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.  Back when this all started we were blazing trails and executing a vision.  There was no roadmap.  Nothing that had gone before showed us the way.  While it opened the door for tremendous creativity, it also allowed outsiders to criticize.  Even prosecute.  But while the past few years have been difficult for all concerned I have to believe there is a reward at the end of this particular road.  Specifically ... clarity.  Darwin is credited (and  reviled) for his theory of natural selection.  In the context of recent events and the people involved, and with regard to the idea that nature is constantly improving on it's previous iteration, this wisdom is particularly appropriate. 

Driving Change

  Yesterday I bought a new car. After years of driving a gas-guzzling, environment polluting, soccer mom SUV my lease was up. Truthfully, I was about to sign on for another 3 year stint ruining the planet. Instead I did some homework and, frankly, I was astonished. Gas consumption is the concern for most people, which is not surprising given that it affects their pocketbooks. But when you really start to look at the emissions it will freak you out! Greenhouse gas emission ratings show the annual amount of greenhouse gases emitted by a particular vehicle in relation to the lowest and highest amounts emitted by other vehicles. My old car, the Volvo XC90, has a rating of 9.3. The Jeep Wrangler, which is what I was planning to buy, is rated 10.2. The Toyota Prius is rated 3.4!

Oil consumption is also staggering. The Prius consumes about 6.2 barrels a year, while the Volvo consumes 18 and the Jeep 20. The Prius rating on minimizing air polution is 8 out of 10 (which is the highest rating I've seen on the site) versus 6 for both the Volvo and the Jeep. Anyway, as you can see by the photo I've made my decision.

The bonus? This is one smart car! It has bluetooth wireless so I can talk on my phone hands free. It has a plug in for my iPod and it has navigation that talks to you. And everything is workable from the steering wheel.

If you want more information you should visit http://www.fueleconomy.gov/. It's really fascinating.