Andrea James | Writings, cont'd.

A new twist on the bucket list

Andrea James — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:22:44 +0000

Do you have a bucket list? That is, a list of things you’d like to accomplish before you kick the bucket?

I never created one for myself — the truth is, my reverse-bucket-list is a lot more spectacular than any list I would’ve come up with 10 years ago. A reverse-bucket-list names what you’ve already experienced or accomplished. (If you’re curious, my list is here.)

It’s a fun list. And I imagine many people reading this blog would list incredible things about themselves. Things that I’d love to hear you tell me about over a drink or coffee. Experiences made possible by expanded opportunities for women and minorities and commoditized air travel, things that folks born two generations ago might not have imagined. (My father, born in 1921, did see much of the world during World War II, though it was via Navy submarine and it wasn’t a pleasure trip. My mother barely left the tri-state area.)

The next step, my goal for 2012, is not to necessarily to have more adventures. (Though, I’d rarely turn one down.) The next step is to foster something that a fast-paced lifestyle, born out in a digital age, has made scarce: Community.

Rather than using my spare resources (ie: money and time) to stack up concert tickets and passport stamps and fitness goals like poker chips, my goal is to strive for more in-person connection. To savor face-to-face conversations and tactile shared experiences.

I think we could all use a little more community.

Wishing you many blessings in 2012.

— ### —

If you liked this post, you might like:

We love consistency but need change: Voila, the seasons
Simplicity gains momentum, but at what cost?
Simple life lessons: Following a leadership pattern
Five ways to lead a more analytic life
An illustration: Smart phone goes here
Politics is just politics, not citizenship nor community
Have you thought about death today?
A paradox of modern life: Comfort is a noose
How to become a runner (inspiration for everyone)
Why the passage of time confounds us
Gracefully surrendering the things of youth
When the world underestimates you, keep showing up

Got my new (ugly) running shoes on

Andrea James — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:55:51 +0000

I finally did it.

I bought some five-finger minimalist running shoes. My goodness they are ugly.

Looking down at my new Vibram five-finger running shoes.

Have you ever seen anyone wearing these? It’s a startling realization when you do.

A family member of mine wore them all around Ireland on my recent vacation. Every time I saw his feet poking out from beneath his jeans, I nearly screamed of fright.

Ack! Gorilla feet! It’s just not right, people!

He told me that he loved being able to feel the different textures of the ground as he walked. He was a tourist down to his toes. That’s the first thing that piqued my interest.

And while I wish I could say that ligament health or some technical reason was my final impetus for buying my own five-fingers, the truth is that my favorite method of exercise is running, I travel a lot for work and my bulky Nike sneakers took up too much room in my carry-on suitcase.

My five-fingers came from REI’s Seattle flagship store. The sales staff there knew more about five-fingers than I knew could be known, and helped me to pick out a suitable set.

When I lived down south, I used to run barefoot along the Perdido nature preserve on the Gulf Coast. Those runs were some of the most liberating of my life. Imagine turquoise waves, a white sand beach, Alabama-blue skies, a swamp off to the left with alligators, an oil rig in the distance and virtually zero people.

I’ve captured some of that feeling again. Running with five-fingers is almost like running barefoot on soft sand.

Somewhere along the line, I had become convinced that “ample support” was the most important thing in a running shoe. And, I now believe that is not true.

I never realized how much that big chunk of rubber around my heel — the more the better, I used to think — got in my way. Traditional running sneakers treat your feet and ankles as delicate baby birds, unable to support your body without a protective nest.

But my new shoes have liberated my feet from the sneaker-man, who was keeping them down. My five-fingers have turned my rough and painful slogs up Seattle’s steep hills into a more graceful prance. I feel lighter, bounding upward like a gazelle.

At first, the most difficult thing was remembering to ball-strike with your foot, rather than heel strike. And my lower legs were more tired at first as I built up those muscles. But once I got past that, my endurance spiked.

All that said, I have no illusions about how stylish or bad-ass I look in my new shoes. I’m feelin’ so fly like a G-6, but I don’t look it. As one friend put it, “I would not call these fashion forward.” Another girlfriend has told me, “Eek. I can’t endorse this.”

Which leads me to the final unintended benefit:

I know they look silly. So when other people are around, I run faster.

—###—

Learn more:

Harvard’s page on barefoot running
The Once and Future Way to Run (NYTimes)
For Beginner Runners, Advice Can Be a Hurdle (NYTimes)
How to get started (Vibram’s FAQ page)

We love consistency but need change: Voila, the seasons

Andrea James — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:30:24 +0000

My old alarm clock went off this morning before my mobile phone did. That’s odd, I thought as I scrambled over to shut the thing up.

The dumb alarm clock — as in, not smart like my phone — is the backup alarm, the one that will faithfully and annoyingly beep at me at 3:30 a.m. no matter what, and has zero risk of downloading a faulty software upgrade at midnight.

Why didn’t my mobile phone wake me first, as it was programmed to? And then I realized: It’s an hour earlier than I thought. My mobile phone knew that today was time change day. And so did all of my laptops.

I was left to marvel at two things.

1) My time-keeping technology can be broken down into smart and dumb depending upon whether they know to adjust the time. (Darn you microwave!)

2) Does it amaze you that nearly all of American society adjusts the time by one hour twice per year? And the fact that a couple of states have chosen to opt out makes it even more hilarious.

Can you imagine how this would appear to an outsider? Humans are such kooks.

It’s kind of whimsical though — so much of America has been homogenized for maximum efficiency. This is a ridiculous tradition that continues because we lack the ability to fight the inertia to change it.

Season changes are delightful. The time change is silly, but somewhat delightful in its whimsy — an aberration more reliable than a snow day. They remind me of this passage from C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters.”

Here, one of the devil’s minions is educating a junior minion about human kind. Their purpose is to destroy joy and promote anguish, but to do so, the junior minion must first understand how humans are created. In the context of this book, “the Enemy” is God.

The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart — an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship. The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable. But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end it itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.

. . . If we neglect our duty, men will not be only contented but transported by the mixed novelty and familiarity of snowdrops this January, sunrise this morning, plum pudding this Christmas. Children, until we have taught them better, will be perfectly happy with a seasonal round of games in which conkers succeed hopscotch as regularly as autumn follows summer.

May we never get so tired of life that the seasonal changes fail to delight us.

(This post is filled with photos taken by me in the past month in Seattle and its environs. Click any photo to see a larger version.)

—- ### —

If you liked this post, you might like:

Why the passage of time confounds us
Happy Solstice! (Learn a new word, and thoughts on relativity)
Have you thought about death today?
Gratitude for bees
A gift to humanity (Steve Jobs, 1955-2011)
An illustration: Smart phone goes here
Simple life lessons: Following a leadership pattern
Simplicity gains momentum, but at what cost?
Nothing to see here, for Seattleites only
A paradox of modern life: Comfort is a noose
How to become a runner (inspiration for everyone)
A Seattle transplant reminisces about swimming pools
There’s no such thing as paradise on Earth
Pop the cork, spritz the pricey perfume, today is special
Down with gravity; Up with entropy!
Big wheels keep on turning
A layman’s poem with a simple message

Lucky seven billion — now what?

Andrea James — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:48:07 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, the United Nations is saying that the world population will reach 7 billion today.

Happy Halloween?

Of course, the number and date are symbolic rough estimates, since there’s no way to count everyone on the planet down to the person. The UN is using the figure to create a news event, or call to action, for fighting global injustices. (More.)

I’m wondering, what the heck are the rest of us supposed to do with this information? Worry? Duly note it?

Tuck it away for sarcasm purposes later?

“Seven billion people on the planet and I’m the one who (insert unique problem and eye roll here.)”

(Whatever you do, from this day forward, do not get caught saying “six billion people” — you will look woefully behind the times.)

Does population matter? Is the Earth over populated? How would you even talk about such a thing from a religious world view?

Population is the unspeakable missing factor in a lot of dinner party discussion topics — the consumption society, rising global living standards, immigration, the state of U.S. education, anthropomorphic climate change, agricultural progress and food shortages, liberal versus conservative world views. (What’s that? You stick to sports and movies? Need to try that!)

Maybe polite company could discuss population growth, but who wants to be the first to go all Ebenezer Scrooge on the party, talking about decreasing the surplus population? The closest thing I ever hear to the “too many people” assertion is usually regarding California highway traffic.

Population discussions are uncomfortable. They go straight to the heart of the debate over individual versus collective freedom.

If “7 billion” as a news topic makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone.

Bill Gates intellectually struggled with the idea of overpopulation in relation to the work of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which promotes programs that improve health care and lengthen life. He knew that improving health was good on an individual level, but what about on a collective, global level? Gates has said that he was relieved to learn that better health leads to economic improvement, which eventually leads to lower natural birth rates.

“I believe it is in the rich world’s enlightened self-interest to continue investing in foreign aid. If societies can’t provide for people’s basic health, if they can’t feed and educate people, then their populations and problems will grow and the world will be a less stable place,” Gates said in his 2011 annual letter. “. . . The second great benefit of vaccination is that as the childhood death rate is reduced, within 10 to 20 years this reduction is strongly associated with families choosing to have fewer children. While it might seem logical that saving children’s lives will cause overpopulation, the opposite is true. I mention this amazing connection often, since I remember how I had to hear it multiple times before the full implications of it became clear. It is the reason why childhood health issues are key to so many other issues, including having resources for education, providing enough jobs, and not destroying the environment. Only when Melinda and I understood this connection did we make the full commitment to health issues, especially vaccination.”

He’s definitely treading on some controversial territory there, but I believe he presents his arguments in a scientifically compassionate way.

American author Jonathan Franzen addresses the topic of population control in his hit novel, “Freedom.” Two of the main characters — portrayed as liberals harboring excessive guilt over their own existence — adopt human population control as one of their secret pet causes, and find themselves slipping down a rabbit hole of ever-more absurd theories and slogans. Those bits make up some of the most awkward and infuriating sections of the book — if it was the author’s intent to make the reader gnash one’s teeth, he achieved it.

I’ll conclude this blog post the way many debates end in Paris: With the existential question about why we’re even debating it in the first place.

From Adam Gopnik’s, ever-quotable, “Paris to the Moon”:

In Paris explanations come in a predictable sequence, no matter what is being explained. First comes the explantion in terms of the unique romantic individual, then the explation in terms of ideological absolutes, and then the explanation in terms of the futulity of all explanation.

Population talk falls within all three paradigms.

Don’t just be one of the crowd, please feel free to share your thoughts.

— ### —

Other posts:
Simplicity gains momentum, but at what cost?
Economics should be taught in schools. Period.
A gift to humanity (Steve Jobs, 1955-2011)
Simple life lessons: Following a leadership pattern
Five ways to lead a more analytic life
Have you thought about death today?
A paradox of modern life: Comfort is a noose
The world economy in 10 seconds
The world didn’t end. What did you learn?
Don’t be paralyzed by imperfection
Stop feeling so guilty
Thoughts to live by
There’s no such thing as paradise on Earth
Gracefully surrendering the things of youth
A layman’s poem with a simple message

Rose Egge, 25, reports her tumor is gone

Andrea James — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:35:15 +0000

Rose Egge was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year at age 25. She has given so much of herself through her writing in her blog at Komo News.

(Rose was an intern for a brief time when I was a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.)

Today, she has an update that is sure to uplift anyone who reads it.

Joy. All I feel is pure joy.

Because I no longer have a tumor.

I want to shout it out and tell the whole world: “I don’t have a tumor anymore!”

…

I have never felt such relief, elation, or peace in my entire life.

…

In appreciation of this gift I’ve been given, I spend the rest of my days kissing my boyfriend, hugging my parents, toasting champagne with my friends, snuggling my Gato, writing beautiful words and dancing until I can’t move any more.

Economics should be taught in schools. Period.

Andrea James — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:28:05 +0000

My initial reaction to the #OccupyWallStreet protests is this: Our public schools are failing many of our kids.

This is not new and I’m not the first to say it. People know that to compete in a global, information-based and technological economy, education is more important than ever. Our nation has a huge mismatch of available labor skills and needed labor skills.

When I hear some of the protesters speak, I feel they don’t have the full set of tools — the language, even — to express themselves. They don’t know how the system works. And it’s ridiculous that they don’t, because the capital markets are ruled by some basic concepts that are not that difficult to teach.

(Here’s a start: The economic collapse of 2008 and 2009, from which we’re still reeling, was caused by too much debt. Did Wall Street play a major role in buying and selling that debt? Sure thing. Did consumer banks and mortgage lenders make loans to people who shouldn’t have gotten them? Yes. Could they have done it without borrowers? Nope. Would they have done it without government tax incentives and policies that promoted home-ownership, which guided capital to flow into mortgage debt, versus other types? Probably not. Read Michael Lewis’s The Big Short to learn more.)

It’s ridiculous that kids memorize the dates that Confucius lived but don’t learn a thing about consumer credit or compound interest.

One colleague recently told me that his grade school taught him weaving and knots. He didn’t learn the concept of supply and demand until after college. (What economy was he being prepared for?)

When I was in grade school, I learned the difference between a mitochondria and a ribosome. I couldn’t have told you one thing about debt or equity, a bond or a stock.

Don’t get me wrong — I love science, I love art, I love that my public school exposed me to Toni Morrison and Chaucer — I think these things are important, but there’s got to be a way to fit economics in.

Economics is the study of incentives, of money supply and flow, of consumption, of economies.

This economics stuff matters. Even if the Wall Street protesters don’t fully understand the system, they know it affects them. Because it does.

Business makes the world go around. And it can be richly taught. I took my first macro-economics as an honors colloquium, 15 students in an intimate group with a real economist. But the fun came in micro-economics. I had a high-energy professor — we did exercises on buying and selling, we were all to be “goods” in the market selling our labor, we played games that illustrated incentives. I never looked at a consumer product price tag in the same way again.

Earlier this year, I guest-lectured on business journalism 101 at a local university. The college kids, who are self described non-math types, got a lot out of it. For many, it was their first exposure to anything financial.

One student approached me after my talk and said, “When my boss cut back my hours at the coffee shop, he said that coffee bean costs were rising. I was like, ‘What does that have to do with me?’ I feel like I understand that now.”

Bingo! I’m sorry her hours were cut, I’m thrilled that she better understands how a drought in South America affects her personally. She figured it out after just 20 minutes of learning the principles of an income statement.

This isn’t a post that’s meant to blame or shame. I just think we should arm kids with the tools they need.

Financial literacy is an important tool.

For some great commentary on public education, check out this interview with the late Steve Jobs.

— ### —

If you liked this post, you might like:

Simplicity gains momentum, but at what cost?
Finding “meaning” in the for-profit realm
Simple life lessons: Following a leadership pattern
The world didn’t end. What did you learn?
Maybe you are good at math and never knew it
Are you secretly good at math? Five more clues
A tribute to biology, which bugs me
Five ways to lead a more analytic life
Politics is just politics, not citizenship nor community
A paradox of modern life: Comfort is a noose
The world economy in 10 seconds
Why the passage of time confounds us
Applying Wall Street logic to your life
Are universities the next bubble to burst?
Don’t be paralyzed by imperfection
Halls of Congress <= Halls of Hogwarts
Maximize the moment. And jump.

Simplicity gains momentum, but at what cost?

Andrea James — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:13:50 +0000

Simplicity is all the rage right now. And in so many walks of life, too.

Do you ever wonder why? Why do we want to pare down, cut back, sift out, and reduce to the essentials?

The world is no more complex than it’s ever been. The difference is that, thanks to the information revolution, we see the complexity now.

The popularity of simplicity as a life priority is a pushing back against the abundance of information, of pressure and of stuff that is foisted upon us without our permission.

Simplicity is cheaper, less risky and many times, safer. The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 can be boiled down as being caused by Too Much.

Too much borrowing. Too much risk. Too much house. Too much commute. Too much mortgage. Too much debt. Too much stuff.

But the metaphor extends.

Medicine: One of the worst diseases that we can’t seem to lick, cancer, is a disease of too much cell growth, rather than an illness where something lacks.

From Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of All Maladies,”

We tend to think of cancer as a “modern” illness because its metaphors are so modern. It is a disease of overproduction, of fulminant growth – growth unstoppable, growth tipped into the abyss of no control . . . If consumption once killed its victims by pathological evisceration (the tuberculosis bacillus gradually hollows out the lung), then cancer asphyxiates us by filling bodies with too many cells; it is consumption in its alternate meaning — the pathology of excess.

Writing & self-expression: Twitter limits our words to 140 characters, giving us permission to be brief. Information flows through Twitter like molecules through water, shifting, fluid and flowing.

The messages are simple, though they themselves are great in number, thus creating a complex system of simple parts. I treat Twitter like water, diving in, soaking it up and getting out as soon as the simplicity starts to feel complex.

Because our thoughts are easier-than-ever to share, they are abundant, and the backlash is the pressure to make each word count.

Food: Cooking trends favor fewer ingredients, letting natural flavors stand alone, rather than complicated processes and mixes.

What’s the opposite of simple food? From Adam Gopnik’s “Paris to the Moon”

The recipe is for a timbale des homards. You take three lobsters, season them with salt and pepper and a little curry, saute them in a light mirepoix – a mixture of chopped onions and carrots – and then simmer them with cognac, port, double cream, and fish stock for twenty minutes. Then you take out the lobsters and, keeeping them warm, reduce the cooking liquid and add two egg yolks and 150 grams of sweet butter.

Definitely too much.

Technology: For years, technology advanced by getting more complicated. But end-users don’t care for more buttons, more options, more menus and more screens. As complicated as the behind-the-scenes programming and hardware may be, the end result should be simple.

This was part of the genius of Apple’s products. Do you remember that relief you felt when you first learned that the iPod didn’t come with a thick instruction manual?

Garmin even recently came out with an advanced GPS running watch that was simpler than prior versions.

Research: A national intelligence leader said recently that the most important commodity in Washington is not information, it’s time.

Synthesizing information — telling us not just what and who, but why and how — is more valuable than a deluge of data.

Another story: In college, I took a fascinating course that combined teachings on philosophy with artificial intelligence. One overnight assignment was to write a paper about brain synapses and the challenges of replicating brain function using computer processors.

At that time, I was learning to appreciate the genius of brevity. I submitted a four-page report.

I got it back. ”D”

Horrified. The professor, visiting from Oxford, explained that my paper was too short. “You’re an American. It’s not your fault you can’t write,” he said sympathetically.

All of the other students in the honors colloquium had submitted 16-and 20-page papers. (Bachelors of the arts types = show offs.)

He let me rewrite. And so, I embellished. If a point could be made in one sentence, I took five. I turned four pages into 12 – four pages of solid information and eight pages of, well, bullshit. It was now an “A” paper.

Today, I think that a situation like that would play out dramatically differently.

Today, everyone wants the executive summary.

Conclusion:

I’m still figuring out where I shake out on the simplicity continuum.

In politics, the dedication to simplicity of message – talking points – ends up eliminating nuance. And life has more gray that many of us want to tolerate, but that doesn’t mean there’s no value in exploring it. Truth rests in nuance. The truth is below the headline.

So much of the backlash against faith, and maybe even God, comes from simple interpretations of the Bible, black-and-white rules that leave whole groups of people feeling excluded. Even in the faith community itself, I see a lot of disagreement that can be boiled down to arguments of simplicity versus complexity. (Theme alert: I just took a complex issue: interpretations of faith, and boiled it down to A versus B. Like that?) I tend to think that matters of faith and God are more complex than simple.

At the opposite end, I find it inherently satisfying to boil things down to the essentials. So far as the trend toward simplicity eliminates bullshit and bureaucracy, I’m for it.

And on a personal level, I’ve found that by cutting out what I don’t need, my life is more open to the people and relationships that I do.

Wisdom is often simple. Perhaps simplicity is at its best when it enhances knowledge and wisdom, and at its worst when it dumbs down and obscures.

As English Franciscan philosopher William Ockham put it, sometimes simplest is best.

I apologize for a complex post on simplicity — a complex topic, no? — and I welcome your thoughts!

— ### —

If you liked this post, you might like:

A gift to humanity (Steve Jobs, 1955-2011)
Simple life lessons: Following a leadership pattern
A tribute to biology, which bugs me
Five ways to lead a more analytic life
The double workday, makers and managers
Politics is just politics, not citizenship nor community
Have you thought about death today?
A paradox of modern life: Comfort is a noose
Why the passage of time confounds us
Don’t be paralyzed by imperfection
Lent: It’s not about what you give up, but what you gain
Finding “meaning” in the for-profit realm
Vociferation of meaningless numbers and praise of the obvious
Thoughts to live by
Improve your writing in three steps: Cut, cut cut
Down with gravity; Up with entropy!
A layman’s poem with a simple message
A love message

Play to win: Airport security tips down to a science

Andrea James — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:50:32 +0000

Business travel is both exhausting and exciting. I love arriving at a new destination and switching “on.” But getting there? Oy.

Like most things, you get better with practice.

Here is my system for getting through airport security as quickly and as least-disgustingly as possible.

This assumes a full-sized carry on suitcase and a laptop or tablet bag.

-3.) Before you go: Wear as few metal accessories as possible. FYI: Five or more bobby pins in your hair will set off the detector. No water bottles.

-2.) In the security line, get your ID and boarding pass ready. Turn your ID and boarding pass all the same way so that it faces the TSA agent. Plop both onto his podium. Wait patiently while the agent makes incantations with a marker and a magic flashlight. If you’re using your cell phone to check in with the infra-red scanner, be ready with self-effacing apologetic jokes about the wonders of technology. You’ll need to appease those behind you in the line, as it will take about 17 scans and lots of nervous laughter before it works.

-1.) Make faces at the agent that match your ID photo. Hopefully, you’re not scowling on your license. After the first TSA agent has scanned your ID and graffitied your boarding pass, put both of those away so you don’t have to worry about them.

0) Mentally prepare for the next step. This is a contest with the universe that you intend to win. No second must be wasted! Don’t move frantically through these next steps. Move methodically. You don’t need to make a show of going fast to benefit the person behind you. Who cares what he thinks? Little does he know, you’ve got a system. (Corollary: If the person behind you at all huffs or acts impatient, you now have my permission to switch to tortoise mode, the more comically exaggerated the better. Been there, done that and wished the guy a nice flight after TSA held him back for his improperly placed liquids. Shoulda slowed down and got it right the first time, buddy.)

1.) When you are within grabbing distance of the gray bins, pick up three. Or if you feel like people are crowding you, grab five and just leave the last two empty. It will give you space to work. Announce knowingly to no one in particular, “I need lots of bins.”

Lay out all three bins. Make a big determined show of having a system so that everyone around you leaves you alone. You’re not here to make friends.

Leave the first bin empty for now. That’s your strategic bin.

2.) Place your laptop or tablet bag between bins two and three. Extract your laptop or tablet and put it in bin two.

3.) Heft your suitcase up onto the metal table and put it behind the third bin, with the zippers facing you. Using two hands, unzip both ways. Extract your liquids baggie and place it in the third bin. Re-zip the suitcase. Use both hands like the ambidextrous champ that you are.

4.) Now your public disrobing begins. (KEEP your shoes on! Don’t get ahead of me! The less time you stand there in your stocking feet on the dirty floor, the better!) Begin to remove your accessories — watch, belt, wedding ring — as you push your bins toward the scanner. Put the accessories in the first bin or in a round dish.

5.) Take off your jacket. Throw it over your laptop, which is the second bin. Loosen your shoes. Better yet, wear slip-ons.

6.) Once you’re nearly to the metal detector, pop off your shoes and put them in the first bin, next to your accessories.

7.) Push all of your bins and your bags onto the conveyor belt. Once your suitcase (the caboose in your train) is on the conveyor belt, turn to the front. Make eye contact with the TSA agent. He’ll wave you through the metal detector. Walk through seamlessly, head high, like the obedient upstanding flyer you are. After your beepless pass-through, smile at the TSA agent and thank him. (It’s a thankless job.)

8.) Time to reclaim your belongings and dignity. Grab your shoes out of the first bin. They will come through quickly because scanning them only takes a second. Put on your shoes. Put on your watch. Put on your wedding ring.

9.) Your jacket and laptop will emerge next in bin number two. At this point, the TSA agent will be looking at your suitcase through an x-ray machine, zip-zipping it back and forth, trying to ensure that your curling iron is not a bomb. That delay will give you time to put on your jacket and put your laptop away. Then, sling the laptop bag over your shoulder.

10.) Your liquids will emerge next in the third bin. Grab them with your left hand.

11.) Finally, your suitcase emerges. Grab that with your right hand. Make your way to one of the tables. (Most airports have those now, for convenience. It took them long enough!) Put your liquids away.

12.) Cell phone? Check.
Wedding ring? Check.
Laptop? Check.
Wallet? Check.
Carry-on? Check.
Jacket? Check.
Shoes tied, buckled, zipped? Check.
ID? Check.
Zipper on your fly? Never hurts to check.
Boarding pass? Crap, where is that again? Check.

Quick area scan – anything yours on the ground? The table?

Congratulations. You’re off to Hudson News and then onto your gate!

Your tips and stories are MORE than welcome!
— ### —

A gift to humanity

Andrea James — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:38:45 +0000

I believe that great people are God’s gift to us.

Every once in a while, people come along who advance our understanding of math, science and technology. Great minds whose genius changes our lives for the better.

Sir Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein. Bill Gates.

Steve Jobs.

Jobs died today. A bright light has gone out.

And people are mourning en masse. That’s how you know he was special, a gift to humanity. And you know what? That’s beautiful.

We mourn when we lose public figures. They are a part of us. And no less so was Steve Jobs.

He made the most of his time here on earth. His contributions changed how we live.

I love that people are putting flowers at Apple headquarters.

Thank you, Steve.

— ### —

Previous related post:

Have you thought about death today?

You know you’re part of the digital revolution when . . .

Andrea James — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:29:52 +0000

. . . Apple speaks, and it suddenly becomes OK to stop working and pay attention.

Engadget live blog
New York Times live blog