Not so Trival Tuesday: sending signals

Mike and I did a job for a new customer this morning. It was a tricky one, but all went well and we were "in and out" by lunchtime. This was one of those rare customers who likes to watch but doesn't like to interfere. He's a big NASCAR fan, and so is Mike, so there was quite a bit of friendly banter--just short of the "less talk and more action" point. This customer, Jack's his name, offered us coffee and food, even beer. We gratefully drank his coffee. Jack is also one of those exceedingly rare customers who smokes inside his own home. I'm so used to stepping outside to take a cigarette break, that it felt very strange to light up indoors. (I don't really miss it anymore, though it was annoying at first when the restaurants had to ban smoking.)

As I said, the job went very well. Mike and I work well together, and there were no glitches or product defects. This was our very first job for T. McKenna Plumbing, Inc.--so the fact that it went more than OK was wonderful. The real treat came while we were packing up. I noticed that Jack was on the phone. Then I realized he was calling our new employer. (This almost never happens, except in the case of unresolvable problems.) Jack made his call in front of us, without fanfare, but in such a way that we couldn't help but overhear. He was calling to say what a fine job we had done, and to compliment our employer and us. He also mentioned several times how nice the job turned out: it was a specialty, all-custom shower door in gleaming bright brass. Any tiny error would have been glaring.

I've had compliments before, even received some very nice tips. Every now and then, a customer will send a note to the office expressing his pleasure. Anyone in any service industry knows how much we treasure these beyond-price rewards. This was, however, the first time I'd ever actually been privy to a customer's "I'm so happy" telephone call. What a great feeling!

This got us talking. Jack was well aware of the effect his call had on Mike and me. We are all familiar with the opposite phenomenon. A displeased customer makes no bones about his feelings. You can be sure his displeasure will be aired, one way or another. It's all part of the squeaky wheel syndrome, and the fact that it's much easier to be negative than positive in life. How often have you seen signs planted in someone's yard protesting this or that, with the big red circle-slash over the disliked event? It takes someone with self-confidence, awareness, and empathy to offer up unsolicited positive feedback. Of course, the very rarity of compliments in everyday life also reinforces their value to us all. If everybody was thoughtful and nice, would we even notice?

Wrapping this thought up--think about this for a moment: how do you say nice things to other drivers? We have all sorts of gestures for various road infractions. The most popular, of course, is the flipping of the bird. Translate as appropriate to the offense. We can say "what the heck?!!?" by flaring both hands in the air. Several other more specific gestures are available, depending on the occasion. Anyone who drives busy roads has seen them all, and even sent some out to other drivers, I'm sure. On the other hand, unless you want to wave someone ahead ("you go first" or the like), we lack the means to communicate friendly or helpful thoughts car-to-car.

How would you tell another driver he has a headlight out? Or that his left turn-signal isn't working? Can you think of a way to say "nice car!" with your hands? Maybe a thumbs-up would do it, though I doubt the recipient would be sure of your intent. I once spent nearly ten miles trying to communicate this thought with another motorist: "all your personal belongings are flying out of your boat and landing in the road." It wasn't until we pulled alongside him, and my son rolled down the window to yell across to him, that we finally gave him the news he really needed to have. I still laugh about that one; I'm sure it wasn't the least bit funny to him! He probably thought I was trying to get by his truck and boat--that I was in some big hurry and wanted him to move over--right up until he finally got the message.

Years ago, some enterprising entrepreneur came up with what probably seemed to be a very good idea. He or she devised a simple system of signs with messages for other drivers. It was a cute little flip-chart on a stick, with various printed blurbs: "you're hot!" or "nice car!" or "wanna race?". Stuff like that. I thought it was a great idea at the time; but I never bought one. I doubt I ever saw one for sale. Those are probably worth a few bucks now. I'm sure you can't buy them new. I think most people are happy with the current system. You always have that one particular finger handy, whenever you need to tell another motorist he's "number one." And it's free, too. Maybe someday someone will conceive a brilliant solution to this whole communication breakdown. (My youngest says we should all have electronic signs in the back window that would display assorted messages--a cool idea, but expensive and unwieldy, IMO.) Until such time, I'll continue to work on the hand signal for "your back tire is almost flat, have a nice day!" How does that one go, again?

By the way, Happy Valentine's Day!

Offering some lame excuses...

I'll admit freely: I've been a bad blogger. And this isn't my first offense, either. This is my space (well, not "MySpace" or however that one looks), and I'm the one who set the standards to which I had hoped to adhere. (Yikes!) I started this personal blog with good intentions, and lots of ambition. I still have good intentions, but the ambition's been hibernating lately, I swear. So I'm dissappointing myself; I am my own harshest critic, I suppose. But I haven't been posting much lately. No Tuesday Trivia, no Friday Song, or even Monday Musings (which I was never very loyal to in the first place). Sorry to me.

We've had a strange winter here. That's my excuse. My whole system is discombobulated. It's been warm, the grass has been growing, then it got cold, then warm again, then bitter and icy. Sheesh. Welcome to New York. My old job is ending, a new one beginning. Another excuse. Birthdays, Christmas, unexpected trips to plan...more excuses. Maybe I have nothing to say. (That'll be the day!) Maybe I have too much to say, and simply can't make up my mind. That's more likely. Life is mostly good here in Upstate NY, though. I can't complain, and nobody will listen anyway. So here I am, doing my pennance by keyboard. Exercising my fingers. I promise to do better. I really do. Next time.

I'll see you here then. Thanks for listening. Have a nice day. Please come again. Your call is important to us: please continue to hold. We're from the government, and we're here to help. Oh, nevermind! Do come back, and bring a friend. (Who was that masked man, anyway??)

Tuesday Trivia meets the Friday Song

Sometimes when you miss a deadline, you have to crunch your assignments together. You might call it cheating; but the results can be interesting. Returning readers know that my regular Tuesday Trivia posting is missing in action. However, it's already Saturday night here, so my Friday Song write-up is also late. I had to ask myself: should I trivialize the Friday Song? Or, should I set the trivia to music? Easy choice, obviously. Let's talk about more than one song, then. I'm sure that will turn out trivially. (Is that even a word? Trivially? I'm not sure.)

Country music has taken an interesting turn in the last few weeks. Well, maybe it's been longer than that. As usual, we have to point first blame in the direction of my favorite groundbreaker, Gretchen Wilson. You know Gretchen; she's the one who made it cool to be trailer-trash. Rich trailer trash, now. She's also the same artist who followed up Redneck Woman with When I Think About Cheatin'. The second song was actually about deciding against cheating, but Gretchen started something none-the-less. There was a time when every country singer sang about cheating, but things got all military and patriotic there for a while and pushed the whole subject aside. Not for long, though. A whole slew of artists have returned to the fold; and they're talkin' about cheatin' again.

Time was, all the cheating songs dwelled on sadness and broken hearts. Times have changed. The focus has shifted to what I'll call "she'll be just fine without that jerk" compositions. I've even written here in the past about one or two of these. George Straight's brilliant She Let Herself Go (currently number 3 on the charts) comes to mind. Canada's sweetheart, Terri Clark, was Mad for Awhile; but things got worse from there. Clark's latest release tells the story of a young mom who's bum of a partner walks away. She Didn't Have Time, with the help of a well-crafted video, shows us good things happen to she who waits. This song's single mom struggles to raise her very young daughter alone, through ballet class and tee-ball, while working full-time. Only a flat tire and luck finally hooks mom up with a studly guy to brighten her world. I wasn't worried, though; I knew the mom would triumph in the end.

That's the new trend, and it's definitely a positive one. For years we heard about scummy men who left their women lost and alone. We even heard about heartless women who left their men behind. (The guys always wanted the walk-away girls to come back. The reverse was rarely true.) That just ain't the way things work no more! Now the lovely songstress, Sara Evans, has joined the party. Evans, happily married and mother of three, has released a powerful single called (surprise!) Cheatin'. The refrain says it all: "You should have thought about that, when you were Cheatin'."

Her companion video clarifies any misconceptions we might have had about the dirtbag ex-husband described in the lyrics. He's a dirtbag, and he got what he deserved! More to the point, story-wise, the woman got the best end of the deal. She's driving his slick pick-up truck, living in his house, and generally lovin' life. He, meanwhile, is driving a clunker, living in a rented trailer, and eating pork and beans. Dirtbag. You have to see the video to enjoy this guy-basher. I'm a guy; and I'm man enough to enjoy it, I think.

Two other artists' current releases deserve mention here, as well. Miranda Lambert's hot new Kerosene reveals a lot of bitterness, but hints at better days ahead. (This one will probably get more discussion as a full-fledged Friday Song.) Nashville newcomer, Danielle Peck, offers up (Jesus Loves You) I Don't. You don't have to be a musical genius to figure out the message in that one. I Don't doesn't clearly say the girl gets the best of the break-up; but she certainly knows her mind. And she's not taking his calls, either, I'll bet!

You might think I'm being sarcastic here, but I assure I'm not. Lots of guys really are scumbags, and lots of women end up as single moms. That's reality, every day of the week. It's not funny, and there's enough pain to go around for everyone involved. (Yeah, I'm speaking from experience here.) The guys have had their say in the past, over and over again. So I'm happy to see the perspective shift to "her side." I think it's best for all concerned when things work out well for women who've suffered bad relationships. When there are kids involved, especially little kids, it becomes even more important. And, finally, like anything else involving important life issues, it's good to talk about it. That's one of the beautiful things about popular music: we listen, we consider, and then we talk about the message. That's a win-win, in my book.

[Artists' links, and some source material, courtesy of CMT.com.]

Tuesday, er, Thursday Trivia: assorted!

If only there were thirty-six hours in a day! Or, is that "my, how time flies"? Good thing no one is paying me for these posts. I'd have been fired by now. But I have been busy. Give me that much credit, anyway. As you can see by the lead-in post which I've 'stickied' to the top of this page, I've been dabbling in book selling at Amazon.com. It's not difficult, but there is so-o-o much to learn, unless one wishes to operate in ignorance (not advisable as a sound business model). Then there's that whole get-up-and-go-to-work-every-day thing. Yeah, it's a drag (sometimes), but the daily grind keeps my creditors happy. Excuses, excuses... Tonight's column is actually dedicated in the fashion of syndicated columnist Sydney Harris' Things I learned while looking up other things, which he published about once a week years ago. I always liked that title, and used to read those articles religiously. (I'm not certain, but I think Mr. Harris has gone on to his deserved reward. I could look it up...)

Now, then, I'll mention three interesting things I learned while perusing this month's Discover magazine (which I'm pretty sure is a primary source for Jeopardy questions each month). I discovered this magazine originally at my chiropractor's office; it was good reading while waiting for my turn. The articles are short but very well written and cover a broad range of topics under the heading of Science. Here are three snapshots from this month:

Astrophysicists have detected information from a star (or quasar, maybe) which dates back to the supposed beginning of the universe. They place its age at about three and a half billion years (less than our planet), but its light began the journey to here ten billion years ago. In other words, this stellar object is roughly ten billion light years from Earth. That is, to me at least, an incomprehensible number. Even using the fictional 'warp speeds' used to drive the plots of Star Trek, no one can imagine ever traversing distances that outrageous. If you had some really good pot, maybe you could make some sense of it, but I doubt it.

Dolphins have really bad dandruff! According to an article discussing the incredible speeds that these mammals can reach, dolphins shed their entire outer layer of skin at the rate of once every two hours. Marine biologists believe that all that skin-flaking serves an important purpose for the porpoises (ouch!). Studies using fluid-dynamics test methods (using glitter to represent dolphin-dandruff) appear to demonstrate an advantage: the flakes change typical drag-inducing patterns of turbulence somehow, reducing the drag. Scientists have pondered dolphins' apparently inexplicable swimming speeds (they can sprint at nearly twenty-five knots!) for most of the past hundred years. How cool is it that dandruff may be an important component of the answer? This could be huge for NASCAR--how about glitter-covered racecars? Hey, it could work!

Last for tonight, there was an intriguing new investigation into an old topic: did the Spanish conquerors in the New World really wipe out millions of Aztec natives? When Hernando Cortés and his band of military adventurers first reached what is now Mexico, they entered a land populated by at least twenty million natives. In the decades following their invasion, that number was reduced to about two million. Guns and steel only account for a fraction of those horrific losses; the rest have traditionally been attributed to disease, especially smallpox, thought to have been introduced to the defenseless natives by the invading Spanish.

However, new translations of well-regarded historical documents from that period tell a different story. King Phillip II had sent a Surgeon General of sorts to the New World, a man with impeccable credentials (for that era). The doctor interviewed hundreds of victims and performed dozens of autopsies. He diligently recorded his observations in Latin, but those extensive records remained lost from modern awareness for over four hundred years. Brought to the light of contemporary review, and subjected to new scrutiny, those descriptions don't support the smallpox hypothesis. So what was the disease which (apparently) decimated the Aztecs? Hemorrhagic fever--like Ebola and Hantavirus, which is spread by rodents (not Spaniards). Enlightening, and scary. There is neither cure nor treatment for this sort of plague, not then and not now.

Friday Song Revisited: Carrie's on top!

Earlier this week, radio trade numbers showed an amazing accomplishment for our latest American Idol, Carrie Underwood. Her double-platinum debut CD, Some Hearts, has now broken all sales records for winners of this popular star-making show. The best part Carrie's success is that she did it her way, based on her own strengths. Here's what I wrote about her breakout single, Jesus Take the Wheel, last month:

A few days ago, Larry King asked Carrie Underwood where she got her big break. I'm pretty sure she mentioned the thirty-million-plus audience who saw her win American Idol somewhere in her answer. Kelly Clarkson has ridden her first place to huge success; and country singer/ex-Marine Josh Gracin (fourth-place winner) is now an established chart-topper. I can't vouch for Rubin and Clay (who basically tied the year they won), but if you win the Idol competition you have at least an excellent shot at stardom.

The difference with Carrie U. is that she is doing it her way. Her first big single is driving up the charts now, and it's a surprising winner. Idol fans expect a lot of Whitney Houston from their darlings. They'll have a long wait from Underwood. Her idol, vocally, is obviously Martina McBride. And Martina is all Country. Based on Carrie's first release, she's all Country, too. The big guns behind the Idol machine may be a bit miffed, but music is music in the end. And a gold record is the same color in all formats.

Underwood's single, Jesus Take the Wheel, rolls right down the middle of the Country road (if you'll pardon the obvious metaphor). Strict three-verse structure, strong hook, and soothing chords run the show. Lyrically, this song rings a strong Christian ballad bell. Wheel is an inspirational story about a young, single Mom whose car (and life) is out of control. (Read the title again now.) Underwood, however, takes these staid standards and loads in her stunning vocal power. You don't have to be a Sunday-steady or a Country die-hard to love this record. You will fall in love with Carrie, though, if you listen for just a couple refrains. She is the real deal, regardless of where her big break came from.

Jesus Take the Wheel will do well despite its potentially narrow audience. The enormous exposure provided by the glittering American Idol stage makes Carrie Underwood's name familiar and opens all the right doors. The rest is up to Ms. Underwood. She is young, strong, appealing, and oh-so talented. No reason for comparisons of Carrie to Martina to be embarrassing to Ms. McBride at all. Carrie may not be exactly what Idol had in its pop-oriented mind, but I believe that she will do them proud. She'll do it her way, and you will like it, even if you don't like American Idol. Carrie can take that to the bank.