BTR/ATR: Before/After The Rona

Corona virus...there is a decidedly distinct time schism that will now mark an era in our lives. What was life like before the rona...what will life be like after the rona?

It's a pause button for some of us, with the underlying buzz of normalcy still pulsing through erratically, like a slightly unwelcome guest. Perspectives are being hewn differently in our alone-ness.

BTR Kate and I made time for ourselves when we could. Now we have more time to give but I fear the virus vectors that we could ply upon one another. Can't wait for ATR.

BTR I looked forward to seeing my parents when they got home from the Philippines. Now I talk more regularly on the phone with them. I want to hug them so bad...ATR.

Once a week BTR I played music with my mates and that will happen again ATR. Now I'm just playing alone and finding solace there. Solace BTR and ATR.

Almost a decade later

It's been almost 10 years since I wrote here. As is the case when time passes, much has happened.

I feel a bit awkward writing again, as most of my writing is business oriented, and not so refined. Not that this is refined, but I never know exactly who my audience is, but then I always know the audience is me.

It's the eve of the first day of our new work reality and the end of the first week when we realized just how serious this pandemic is. So there's lots to write about, both looking forward and looking back.

Back to school night

Or should I say back to blogging night. Two months since our pick-up game under the lights of Blair HS, and another one just two weeks away.

I guess I haven't felt the need to write much lately. But in keeping with my propensity to forget the life that passes by like shooting rapids, I should jot down a few of the highlights (not too many lowlights) of the past coupla months.

On the weekend that I left the soccer field that night (or pitch, as we call it due to the need to provide the affectations of World Cup parlance once every 4 years), I started digging in the yard. Flattening a mound, shall we say. When we moved into this ever-changing house 11 (!) years ago, the interior was acceptably appointed but the exterior needed lots of work, and work we have done. The back patio has been a mosquito infested bog with backsloping concrete into an areaway that we never use anymore and tends to flood in heavy rains. A large raised garden surrounded by dry laid stone was smack in the middle of the concrete patio slab, someone's idea of bringing landscape and hardscape together in a most clumsy manner, as the negotiations required to get to the grill involved stumbling down 2 oddly placed steps and avoiding the stones. So that Sunday I started moving stones and dirt, making sense of the yard that had been a cluttered mess.

Six weeks later we had a party upon which many of our friends ate and drank merrily on or near six tons of bluestone dust, 400 square feet of flagstone, 2 glass block window panels, low voltage lighting, a buried areaway, and a revamped subgrade drainage system from the roof. We did it ourselves, and much credit needs to go to the patient family, who put up with the mess for a good chunk of the summer. Pictures in a future post, since I'm lazy right now. We worked morning and evening, weekend days and whenever we could squeeze it in. Throw in a family vacation to the Outer Banks, as is our routine, and various other things that I forgot since that's what I tend to do, and it was a great, no, actually a GREAT summer.

What else...turned the corner on playing the guitar, thanks to my partner/teacher/high school kid named Adam who happens to live in this house...got in some miles, but not a lot, due to the patio work, but definitely benefitted from the cross-training effect...went to another family reunion at Deep Creek Lake after a day and night at Lake Holiday with friends, in which my friend Mike LOST HIS WEDDING RING IN THE LAKE but then IN AN IMPROBABLE TURN OF EVENTS HE FOUND IT ON THE SANDY LAKE FLOOR because that's just the way life has been treating us...set up the 'cross rig with Campy 1 x 10 (sooooonice)...watched the cats slack off in the rodent killing department...participated in an impromptu IPA tasting session with our neighbors...figured out how else I'm going to tear apart the house this fall to "improve our quality of life"...lost about 5 lbs. per month since June in my effort to get down to a manageable weight so that I can stop getting dropped on hills slightly bigger than speed bumps...and changed the way I eat, what I eat, and how much I eat, which means that I will need to refresh the old wardrobe soon, which is money I'm happy to spend...and got to see lots of my friends at Susanna's Back to School Night tonight. Don't ask me what I learned about their curriculum. I think it was something along the lines of homework blah blah blah deadlines blah blah blah due dates blah blah blah [euphemisms endemic in school chatter] blah blah blah. It was all very nice to hear, but I was more jazzed by seeing all of MY friends, who(m?) I see every year at this function.

And of course, the patio isn't done yet, but it's SUBSTANTIALLY COMPLETE.

A bit of footie

Last time I played competitive soccer was back in '58, when I was a wee college lad on the intramural pitch. Couldn't quite make it to the college show, as they say, nor was it even an option. Soccer was a a game to dabble in, and now that I understand it better I wish I did more than dip my toe in.

So now, by word of mouth, I got to play with 29 other like-minded old geezers on a lit high school field, in the humidity of the post earthquake DC suburbs. Only some of them did play high school and college ball, and those of us who didn't were only saved by the fact that we're all in poor soccer shape, which makes it easy to hide the poor skills because no one can finish plays the way we once did or like to think that we can. If only...

A couple of pulled hamstrings and tweaked knees tonight, but not as bad as the dude who tore his ACL last time they did this. I'm feeling pretty good right now, but I'll be thinking differently in the AM.

So in about a month we'll do it again, before the maelstrom of the fall routine sets in. I can't wait.

Stan the man

Didn't know you too well.

Seems like you lived a full 48.

Your knives were things of beauty. Shiny, sharp, wood grips that showed the beauty of the grain.

On that one ride, I was singing Story Of My Life in my head; I pulled up to you and you were actually humming THE SAME SONG. From now on you will be in my head when Social D comes on the radio.

Snuffed out, just like that. One too many beers? Texting while driving? Driving while talking? We'll never know. You were doing everything right on the bike, on the road, right place, right time.

Only not at that moment.

Requiescat in pace.

Some fine pitchin'

In no particular order, in the last few weeks since I have chosen to jot down thoughts I have gone to Akron to visit my sister and her family, checked out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, fixed their fence, ate a Primanti Brothers Cap and Provie sandwich in Pittsburgh, visited my grandmother's grave in Braddock, hung out with my cousin from Brooklyn, her family, and 3 of their friends, hosted 3 dinner parties with some friends, saw Neil Young at DAR, saw the doctor who told me I needed to "make some changes", rode my bike a few times, watched Susanna score a goal in her last game in the Takoma Park rec league (now she's joining the Catholic Church of soccer leagues), watched the building that I have been working on for the last 4 years grow another story (roof slab to be poured this week!), made an unfortunate staff change at work, celebrated the graduation of our neighbor's son who looks like the Flying Tomato, almost went to Miami for the AIA Convention, and saw Steven Strasburg (live) make his auspicious debut as a Washington National.

I think it's safe to say that he'll have a slightly better baseball career than I ever had.

Eureka...sort of

So I'm taking a shower in my "substantially complete" bathroom on Saturday before the 2nd of two parties this weekend when it hit me.

Ever since I started working in the field of architecture, I've collected bits of paper filled with data, sketches, all sorts of information that was immediately important at a particular moment in that slice of my career. I've collected it in 3 ring binders, file folders, magazine holders, piles...then the internet happened and I've got a digital version of this pile of bric-a-brac that we all recognize as the unorganized "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" bar. My own memory serves as the organizational traffic cop that determines to which projects these bits of information are connected.

The beauty of the field I work in is the relentless accumulation of knowledge based on practical problem-solving, puzzle resolution, iterative design flow, and plain old curiosity. The problem has always been to compile it all into a searchable, accessible reservoir of information that isn't a pile of useless paper or an unnavigable sea of web addresses.

I think I'm onto something. I'll just organize this "data" into some sort of "base". Oh yeah. That's been done. So instead I can just scan everything and have electronic versions of paper cluttering up various drives. Or I can organize my favorites bar. Stop laughing.

So I took a little bit of that and a little bit of this and created this:

The Elusive Binder

I figure I've been blogging for some time now and the format lends itself to a flexible, expandable, searchable, editable document that I can access from anywhere. I can even add anecdotal comments that will trigger synapses that will open up memory currents that will feed my creative lobe so that both of you can read more utter scintillation on this blog. My favorites bar can shrink and be filled with more important things like how to pitch a tent made of ham or quick access to the activities of Chad Vader, day shift manager.

Like all of my compulsive organizational tendencies, I wonder how long this will last. Two blogs. Wow, that's livin'.