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Sitting on the side of the highway with my windows rolled down it occurred to me how disconnected from nature I am. From my leather seat I could hear the singing of bugs in the distant brush and wondered for an instant what else existed out there. My kids were at a dude ranch two hours away, communing with nature in a way I haven’t in decades. Here I was, on the side of a road only interacting with nature by accident.

From time to time people ask me what I do when I’m in AZ, and everything I say pertains to man made things. There were the two times I visited the Grand Canyon, but beyond that I’ve remained disconnected from the natural world. This is in part, why I’m quick to say there is nothing to do in AZ. I fear my city nature stirs deep inside and walls me off from any thoughts of enjoying what nature set in front of me. I didn’t even realize AZ had lakes until a few months ago. I still haven’t efforted to see one.

The bottom line is I spend most of my life interacting with man’s technology and by that interaction I slip further away from linkages to the natural world. There must be a balance in order to achieve spiritual understanding. Though it is far too early for new year resolutions, it is long past due to resolve to make those deeper connections and live a more grounded life.

With final practices coming up on Friday, I’ve already moved ahead in my mind to the next sport–Soccer. I’m only head coach of the 4-5 team, and assisting with the others. This ought to give me the needed break to clear my headspace and start developing a legitimate plan for coaching kids to success. I recognized last year that my weaknesses in coaching are in instilling discipline and confidence.

For the next season I don’t think I’ll even have kids deal with a ball until the second week. I want them out there moving, running, exercising, and learning about working with each other. The ball and subsequent ball skills will come later. Maybe I’ll have an extension of what I’m doing with the teams for this last practice–an incentive based practice system where kids are moved to challenge each other to prove who is the best at skills.

Either way, I recognize that coaching is now an integral part of my life and identity. There are kids in this town who only call me coach. Odd, but acceptable behavior. Whats more, I think I like it.

My 7 yr old noticed me staring at the exposed beams of an old lodge and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was trying to figure out how the thing was built so I could replicate it when the time comes. He thought about that for a second and exclaimed, “So that’s why you watch Treehouse Masters!”

Nearing the end of my indoor improvement projects, I’m turning a portion of my thinking towards the outdoor projects. Articles like this have inspired me to finally set a budget, dig out my old books, and get started on some outdoor projects while the getting’s good. I recognize that it is crazy hot here in AZ, but because we are at the tail end of the summer buying season, there is no better time to purchase the things I need to make my backyard a useful and fun environment.

So, what does it take to make a backyard worthwhile in AZ? A pool, of course. In the absence of that, you’ll need grass (check!), a ball hoop of some sort (check!), good shade trees (check!), lots of seating (…not check), A grill Station (poorly done, so I must redo), and a fun area like a treehouse would be great. That last bit is the focus of the summer plan. I have additional plans to add gardening and clear out old foliage to give me the groundspace to do stuff. I also don’t have a tremendous amount of time before I need to dive headlong into my work life. So, I think I’ll start with cleaning up the backyard, pricing out the treehouse, and then put together a plan for the boys and I to build it before the fam arrives for whatever holiday we decide to hold here this year…

 

I used to want a harem. I wanted to have dozens of women who wanted to please no one but me. I was 12 at the time and starting to recognize my attraction to women and I figured that having more of them was smart, you know, in case I got bored. I’m a single child and I wasn’t about to share. Besides, who wants a woman that someone else has touched? I certainly didn’t. Fortunately, I turned 14 and realized I’d spent 24 months living in a media-inspired delusion.

Wanna hear something sad? Most of the world never woke up from that dream.

I can spend two years typing non-stop and not even scrape the surface of the ways we objectify women. From foot binding to modern advertising, most of what we do and see is directed at a patriarchy and reinforces the idea that women are to be lauded and hoarded while men are to be defined by the women they get. Because of this international ideology that is more often than not rooted in religion (See: Bible, Qur’an, etc..), we get situations where birth control law is determined by men, what women can and cannot wear is determined by men, and in many countries, who a woman can marry is determined by men.

The men are therefore treated like the rulers while the women are treated like the currency by which the men prove their rule. This isn’t the way it should be for any of us.

I have a constant need to have TV around as background noise. It is as though the silence of life frightens me so much that I refuse to accept it. Or, it could be as simple as a comfortable distraction from the boredom of daily life–something that doesn’t require a terrible amount of thought or dedication. This is the joy of TV. All I need to do is turn on the TV at a certain hour and enjoyment unfolds before my eyes. In truth, I don’t even need a certain hour these days. The ‘net and even the stations themselves are teeming with options to enjoy their shows on my schedule.

Suddenly its like I’m living in Wall-E’s world.

During this, the tail end of my vacation, I’ve been drawn far away from the basic wants and needs that powered me through the workdays. Getting so far away reminds me of what life is like when you are not there and how easy it is to get lost in work and how easy it is to get lost in that life outside of work. Today my mom asked me how I can deal with the boys each day without having them go to some sort of day camp. I remarked that we rarely worry about what to do anymore. Sure, there are the fights and blow ups and normal kid stuff, but it is usually close to three before we rise our heads and realize we’ve talked and played the day away. We watch TV, play games, and enjoy ourselves.

I’m full on rambling now. That means it is high time to revert to morning postings.

I tried to find the post from a year ago where my dog was peeing on the carpet and I, starved for solutions, asked the web for answers. I got none. I’m trying again. The new monsoon season brought a new round of peeing on the carpet. Our dearest d-o-g has opted out of going outside, preferring to make my carpet his bitch. There are a few ways we can go about solving this. The most obvious is to rid ourselves of the canine infestation and thus the canine urinary elimination situation. However, the kids love the dog. I still consider him…family…

So I’m back at one. I have a dog who likes to soil my carpet and make my house stink of urine. I have a family that deserves better. What to do? Some of my plans for tomorrow include spraying the carpets with a lemon juice-based solution meant to keep the dog at bay, or at least unwilling to soil.

If anyone else has ides, I’m listening.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. 24-21 loss in the 8-9 bball game taught me a valuable lesson: having more players is not a good thing. Our 3 wins came in games where we had a 9-10 player rotation where players could get comfortable with each other and get longer stretches on the court. Two of the 3 losses were in games where that wasn’t the case. Today’s loss was due to fairly obvious reasons. There was a 4 minute stretch early in the first quarter where we had 5 kids on the court that didn’t know how or care to play together as a unit. That unit turned a 4 point lead into 8 point deficit. The fact is, I should have called a timeout and threw in some other kids to help, but I didn’t. Coaching 101, man. That’s something I will work on.

This might as well be called the LeBron blog.

Once again I was surprised by LeBron James. He decided to forego the glitz and glamour of South Beach to return to Ohio where he was born and raised. James abandoned the Heat, leaving them with two more championships and a whole lot of great memories. He eschewed the chances for another Big 3 run in order to return to his familial roots in Cleveland. I couldn’t be happier for the dude. It seems now that things lined up for him just right. He is the returning leader of a rising franchise, he instantly redeemed himself to the media and the petulant fans who hated that he’d made the smart choice to leave in the first place, and along with Nike’s own Johnny Manziel, he’s brought the flash to Cleveland.

The Manziel connection is interesting and needs to be explored further. With James seeing himself as a mentor, it is interesting to note that Manziel, who is desperately in need of a mentor, and James are close friends. This return feels less orchestrated and conspiratorial than that, but the stars are aligned for Ohio to rise in two sports.

I was touched by LeBron’s letter to the fans. He gets it. He sees that this is about more than basketball. It is about friendships and challenges and doing right by the people who raised you. I still don’t think Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavs gets it. I still feel he is a guy who saw his golden goose fly away and now is smug about having that goose back. Still, that doesn’t even matter. LeBron isn’t going back for him. He’s going back for his legacy, for his fans, for the kids he supports through his charities.

He’s going back to put Cleveland on the map.

After my incident in Walmart I really started thinking about what was going on in that man’s head. It is clear to me that his behavior was meant to intimidate. I stepped back, read some articles, and thought a little more about what that was about and why. Intimidation is not the whole story, though it is the primary symptom of a much deeper affliction: Change.

Political humorist Daniel Kurtzman quipped, ‘I’ll keep my guns, my freedom, my money. You can keep the change.’ This slogan followed the first election and carried into the second where the divide was defined by the right as choosing Guns, God, and Life or choosing Obama. Obviously this vitriolic style of campaigning didn’t get the job done, but it did offer an avenue of expression for those who felt like they were losing control–one that has been around for a long time.

Even back in the time before guns, those who felt like they were not in control of their destiny as much as they wanted to be. At one point people carried swords around to inflate their power and remind others that they deserved notice and respect. More recently the item of intimidation was the Truck and even more recently, the Hummer. The gun is not a new tool, but it is gaining more attention because guns are being used legally and being used by a population that historically hasn’t felt the need to remind us of their power.

I grew up in a city where I knew more than a few people who walked around with a piece. Most of the guns were illegal and being carried by people who had no business carrying them. When the guns were used, be it in schools or on the streets, it was hardly national news. Someone threatened to bring an AK-47 to my Jr. High. Someone else fired shots at my high school. Neither of these incidents received a shred of press. The people who carried felt they had a need to carry. They didn’t feel they had a right or a responsibility to do it as so many of the gun toters do today. The need was born of self defense. In many ways I feel this holds true for the modern gun carrier–though what they are defending against is more nebulous than the street kid worrying that someone is going to snatch his shoes off his feet and beat him to death if he tries to fight back.

That kid needs a gun. Nobody needs to carry a rifle into Target.

I’m struck by Iphone’s new ‘You’re more powerful than you think’ campaign. The idea resonates with this current crisis of courage experienced by these ‘toters. If there is anything they need fear it is those who are controlling them and using them to gain political strength in order to better the positions of groups and individuals who are certainly not them. We are each more powerful than we think–personally, politically, spiritually. But of course we should remember what Uncle Ben told us all:

With great power comes great responsibility.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Note to those who watch infomercials: If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

 

Physics can teach us a lot about the creative process.

Today at the Arizona Science Center I was enjoying the Planetarium show when the narrator began to riff about the interplay between potential and kinetic energy. It left me thinking about writing and the relationship between potential creativity and kinetic creativity.

Potential energy is all of the stored energy an object has as a result of its position in space. In terms of creativity this relates to all of the ideas we store up in our minds with the thought to write them down and turn them into something. They are potential in the sense that they represent all of our pent up creativity in relation to the ability to release that creativity in some form.

Kinetic energy is the energy of motion–the energy of doing. In physics potential energy can become kinetic energy. For example, if you drop a stuffed animal off a roof the potential energy in the stuffed animal converts to kinetic energy. The same applies if you drop a truck off a roof. The same also applies to writing. Your potential creativity–the stuff locked away in your soul–becomes kinetic creativity when you sit down and do something creative like writing.

Here is where it gets interesting.

Because of the transfer of creativity from potential to kinetic, you no longer have that potential creativity you once did. It is used up and something must be done to put you back in a position to be creative. You have to be displaced from this wasted state to a position where you can use your potential creativity to generate actual creative work.

There’s more to this. Hell, I think there is a book here. If one of y’all write it first I am suing.

Again I find myself posting deep into the evening. The culprit this time is Minecraft and a surprising desire to be a kid again. Most of that comes from spending all of my time around these three boys of mine. They know how to have a good time, and I like that about them. I only have a few weeks left of this constant exposure/enjoyment. It is a strange feeling. I’m looking forward to the challenge of a new semester, but I am also enjoying the moments I have right now to be a dad and to fall into the routine of parenthood. A lot will be changing this year. I have a boy moving into kindergarden, which puts all three in school. A new era. A new set of challenges. Everything a dad could ask for.

Some Thoughts:

1. I can’t go to sleep without saying something about Brazil. I feel terrible for the team. 7-1 in your own house after the country poured so much heart, money, and even lives into this opportunity. What a mess.