In Another life

As if in another life, almost another world, and certainly when I was a much different man, I wore many different hats. They have been ball caps, hard hats and hats that weren’t hats, like suit jackets and ties. Each has been a composition of time, place, circumstance and opportunity and each has formed who I am today. And, today, one of those lives has decided to make a reappearance. It was a “white-collar” time, a time when I moved, not exactly comfortably, in and among the Silicon Valley brain trust, the engineers, primarily, who would drive innovation and determine future production.

 

I wasn’t part of it “at the beginning,” not of Silicon Valley proper, but I do remember when the Santa Clara Valley became Silicon Valley. It was in the 70s, I was still a kid. My dad, a Ph.D. chemist by trade, worked for SRI International (formerly, the Stanford Research Institute). He had contacts and friends who were very much involved, in some way, in the semiconductor industry. While chemists are certainly employed by these companies, they are mostly after the engineers. One of those contacts at some time in the 70s asked my dad if he could solve a problem – a chemistry problem – that was within his realm of expertise.

 

It was not for a semiconductor, exactly, but rather for a means of handling their semiconductors. They were called “beam-lead diodes” and were made from the far more expensive semiconducting compound of GaAs (gallium-arsenide) because silicon would not operate effectively at the microwave frequencies required for the military applications these diodes were needed for. (I know I am getting into the technical weeds here, but bear with me). The name of the diode, “beam-lead,” is an appropriate description of their tiny leads; they look like beams protruding off of the diode. These tiny diodes are fragile enough, their even tinier “beams,” so easily knocked off, are even more-so. One broken lead renders the entire device worthless. At about $1,000 per diode, so small they are hard to see without magnification, every damaged beam was a lot of money.

 

The way they came up with handling them was to use a rubber-like “gel,” a silicone (not silicon, that is something entirely different) applied to a two-inch square glass slide that the diodes would “stick” to, but still release from with a dab of alcohol. It seemed to work, when it worked. The problem was that they could not get the gel to cure consistently. It is a two-part resin and when applied that thin, it is difficult to get the curing agent to react properly. Someone from either Hewlett-Packard or Raytheon (I don’t remember who was first) asked for help and my dad solved the problem. Then, since they had no desire to be in the chip handling business in the first place, they asked if he would just make these damned things for them. After crunching the numbers, my dad and mom saw it would be a profitable part-time endeavor. “Beam-Pak” was born – in our garage. And our kitchen. And our family room.

 

This is where I am going to fast-forward – a lot. I don’t remember exactly when the first Beam-Paks went out the door, although I do, very distinctly, remember the first Beam-Paks going out the door. Eventually, though experimentation, the “gel” in the Beam-Pak found its way into other applications and, as the market grew to more than just beam-lead diode manufacturers, the name was changed to “Gel-Pak.” While our market was still primarily high-value GaAs semiconductors – FETs (field-effect transistors) and MMICs (monolithic microwave integrated circuits) – the business outgrew our garage and our home. Over the years, the business moved to larger and larger facilities in Mountain View and Sunnyvale, employed more than 20 full-time employees and employed several family members, myself included - two or three different times.

 

At one point, my dad was faced with not so much a chemistry problem, but an engineering one, a physics one. It had to do with automation. While Gel-Paks did an outstanding job holding these fragile, high-value chips in place during handling and transport, they still had to be manually transferred out of the package to wherever they needed to be. Automation used vacuum wands to handle chips, and a vacuum is not enough to break the surface tension formed between the bottom of the chip and the gel. Between my dad and his partner at the time, they came up with, and patented, a unique way to temporarily break that surface tension when needed, on demand. The new system was called “Vacuum-Release” because a vacuum drawn under the gel would pull it away into recesses that would allow the chip to only be in contact with bumps of gel, not the entire surface. And it was reversible, when the vacuum is released, the gel becomes flat again.

 

Armed with this new technology, Gel-Pak (eventually incorporated as Vichem Corp, still family owned) was able to sell the advantage of complete safety during shipping and handling along with ease of removal for automated assembly. It was the best of both worlds. However, because our product was considerably more expensive than the competition, we were still limited to only very expensive chips and, at the time, that meant not silicon, but GaAs. However, in the late 80s, Intel was getting ready to introduce its new processor, the i486. I ran into an Intel engineer at a trade show (probably Semicon West) and found that, in the early production, these chips had very low wafer yields and were being packed and transported prior to assembly. And that was a problem. This was damaging what was left of their already low yields.

 

Our containers would have solved the problem, but their chips were too big and our packs were too small. We got busy and came up with a larger format VR package that would accommodate their processors and, sometime thereafter, Intel became our largest customer. We might have been selling packages for silicon chips before (and we had a variety of other applications, too), but this time it was big, literally and figuratively. We continued to grow, continued to explore new markets, continued to adapt and develop our technology for new applications and, no matter what the economy was doing, we remained very profitable.

 

Eventually, a combination of personal issues in my life, corporate changes in the company and a bunch of other bullshit – some of it my doing, some not – led me to depart the company for the last time. My title when I left was “marketing manager,” but I did a lot of everything. I, still, have seriously mixed feelings about it all. A couple of years later, my dad sold the company, consulted for it for another year, and retired. It’s still around, still making the same products we developed. I don’t know if it still seeks the opportunities the way we did, I don’t even know if that world still exists. That time in Silicon Valley was heady; it was fast, new things were happening all the time. It was a full-time job just keeping up with what was going on, staying ahead of the curve… finding out what the Intels needed before they knew they needed it.

 

So, what brought all this back? Well, in the news recently, Google unveiled its new quantum chip, “Willow.” I don’t pretend to understand what all it means other than to understand that quantum computers are the next big thing, and this is a step towards that. In stories about it, there is a photo of this new chip, on a gloved hand. Between that chip and that hand is a Gel-Pak VR tray. It is exactly the same thing I used to show to potential customers back in the late 80s and early 90s. It is still doing what it was designed to do – protecting a high-value, fragile chip while still allowing it to be released from its captive state on demand with a simple vacuum. The technology is no longer protected by its patent, but it is the same patented technology developed all those years ago. 

***Correction: Beam-lead diodes were actually fabricated from silicon, not GaAs. They were still fragile and expensive, but not GaAs. Fets and MMICs were GaAs. Some other small details are also subject to minor errors due to my aging memory.

 

every.single.fucking.day

Twenty years ago today I “celebrated” my 42^nd trip around the sun. Why the scare quotes? There are two reasons, really. The first is simple history. My birthdays have never been all that – ever. Where I once had expectations for actual celebration, I no longer do and, ironically enough, I prefer it that way. I have come to see these things as more pomp than circumstance, more superficial than real. The same can be said of most socially created days of recognition, but this day 20 years ago was particularly bad. This day twenty years ago warrants the ”scare” in the scare quotes.

 

I don’t remember it in any specifics, but I do remember that part of my life – and there really weren’t any good days. Beyond being alive and not incarcerated, life pretty much sucked. I was at the end of a five-year downward spiral that began 25-30 years earlier. The end of the end had already come and gone; I was at the beginning of the beginning – again. I went from a near-death, self-inflicted wreck in 2000, to incarceration in 2002, to a six-month in-patient addiction recovery program in March of 2003 to getting my shit together and going back to school in the fall of 2003 to relapsing at the end of 2003 to violating probation and picking up a new charge in April of 2004 to two more incarcerations in the fall of 2004, finally getting released some time in late September or early October with about 60 days sober (or clean, if that matters to you). That’s a really long sentence and it reflects how long that last year and a half felt – the world’s slowest roller coaster. 

 

By this time in 2004, with about four months sober, it was worse than it was the first time. I was, this time, on my own. I did not have the structure or the community of a “recovery home.” I did not have the faith or trust of my family. I did not have a job, and I felt as though I flushed what was a shitload of promise in going back to school right down the toilette. I was miserable, but I knew that if I gave probation one dirty test, I could multiply that misery exponentially – the next step was not jail again, it was state prison. And here it was, my fucking birthday. Yet another shitty one.

 

I almost said “Fuck this!” on Thanksgiving (another socially constructed superficial celebration) just a couple of weeks prior. I would again on New Years eve. But I managed to stay sober and stay out of prison, and, with the help of a school counselor, I found a path back into school. In January 2005 I went back with a plan to transfer to California State University, Sacramento in the fall. Things started to get better. I started to succeed. I was getting good grades again. I was enjoying the fruits of my labor, and those fruits were not monetary. One day, I realized that it had been some time, several days at least, that I was not angry. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. I spent most of every day for I could not remember how long being pissed off about everything. Being angry all the time is fucking exhausting. 

 

What I was experiencing was a taste of freedom. It was not a permanent state, but it did grow. The days, weeks and months went by. Birthdays came and went. Some were better than others, one (my 48^th), in particular, was actually kind of cool, but mostly they were just another day. Today, my 62^nd, is that – just another day. It has been 20 years since I literally started my life over again, since I literally rose from the ashes. I didn’t do it alone, I had a lot of help along the way from friends, family and two different 12-step fellowships, but the simple truth – for all of us phoenix’s – is that without the effort we put into our own lives, our own resurrections, it will not happen. 

At 42 years-old, there was no light; I moved forward anyway – on faith, because there was nothing for me in the rearview but more bad. I could not, in a million years, have predicted where my life would take me. While I do, sincerely, appreciate the well-wishes that inevitably come to me on this day every year, I don’t need a bunch of minions celebrating the day of my birth – I celebrate life every.single.fucking.day.

 

 

Home Again - Redux

 

My hometown high school in Los Altos was part of a three-school district called the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District. The fist school opened in 1902 but moved to Castro Street in downtown Mountain View in 1924. The next one was opened in Los Altos on Almond Ave. in 1954. Finally, in 1961, Awalt High School opened on the Mountain View-Los Altos border near Grant Rd. The mascots were, respectively, the Eagles, the Knights and the Spartans.

 

The last graduating classes for the Mountain View Eagles, the Los Altos Knights and the Awalt Spartans was 1981. The district decided to close one of the schools and it was decided that it would be the oldest (and probably most valuable real estate asset), Mountain View High School. Beginning with the 81/82 school year, Awalt would become Mountain View High School, but not the Eagles - it would keep the Spartan. And while Los Altos HS would keep its name, the Eagles would fly there. The respective school colors would follow the mascots; Awalt-turned-Mountain View would remain the same, Los Altos would get the colors of the Eagle from old MVHS.

 

I graduated from LAHS in 1981 - the last of the LAHS Knights. That was the end of a 27-year reign of the Knights. It probably isn't a big deal to anyone in Los Altos or Mountain View today. In fact, where Mountain View High School once stood, all that is left is a park called "Eagle Park" where the football field once was. The rest is all gone. But it all happened 43+ years ago. Although the initial transition was huge, the majority of these schools' histories are from then to now - by a lot. And, it goes without saying to anyone who came from a Silicon Valley small town from before it was Silicon Valley, everything has changed. Everything.

 

Almost 15 years ago, I started a group on Facebook called "Los Altos High School Knights" dedicated to LAHS alumni from that era. In it we reminisce about our time in high school, the time we spent in a town that barely resembles what it is today, and we try to keep alive and appreciate the idyllic place and time we grew up in. For better and for worse, the world is not like it was 50 years ago. Yes, there have been major improvements in countless areas, but along the way we have lost so much. And some of what we have lost is an innocence that made growing up, somehow, much more authentic.

 

My parents still live in the same house I grew up in. I go back a handful of times every year to visit for various different occasions. I went yesterday for Thanksgiving. The following is what I posted in our group. To say it resonated would be a huge understatement. It blew up.

 

Home again

 

I am currently sitting on the front porch at my parents house, the same house I lived in all the years I attended Santa Rita, Egan and LAHS. It has changed over the years, the neighborhood has, too. But, overall, both are similar enough to be recognizable. A time traveler dropped here from 1970 would know this place.

 

I drove here, for Thanksgiving, from Sacramento earlier this afternoon. I’ll be returning tonight. I came straight here, off Bayshore, down Old Middlefield, San Antonio… and here. Some of what I passed looks eerily the same, much more isn’t remotely so. And I know what most of the rest of Los Altos looks like. I’ve been, it’s not likely to have changed back.

 

I have no plans to drive down any memory lanes. There are precious few memories left standing. I come here four or five times per year, but of late, it’s been only here. What was Los Altos still lives, but not in a physical space. It lives with me and with y’all. Sadly, when we are gone, all that will be left are these archives - our pictures, our words and our memories enshrined in binary bits on some server somewhere.

 

It was a good place to be a kid. Maybe it still is, but not in the same way. The world has moved beyond such simple pleasures. I am quite sure we are not the first nor will we be the last to reflect on the passing of our childhood fixtures - these are not new revelations.

Still, I am profoundly thankful to have had what I consider to be an idyllic youth, even if I did not recognize it at the time. I am prouder today than I ever was then to be a Knight. And, appropriately, this is Thanksgiving.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, Knights.

Semester's End... Again

Getting a spike in student emails at the end of the semester, right when the "big things" are coming due, is nothing new. It happens every semester and the variety and creativity of the excuses never ceases to amaze me. And I am not here to judge the validity or legitimacy of them. I actually do not care - produce the documentation necessary, as required by the university, and it is an "excused absence." Done. I don't give two shits if it is the third time your grandmother died this term.

However, an excused absence does not excuse a student from completing the required work. I think most of them understand that and that - excused and legitimate or not - they are just looking for more time, but there is a trend I'm starting to notice that indicates perhaps a new level of coddling is happening somewhere before they get to me. Some of these students seem to believe that if they have an "excuse" of significant magnitude, that is disruptive enough in their personal lives, that it not only excuses their absence (I almost never "take roll" anyway), but it also excuses them from doing whatever project was assigned to them when their lives were disrupted.

I am not sure what they expect. Am I supposed to just remove that project and the associated points from the total and calculate their grade on what they did do? Do I take their average of what they did do, insert that in the grade space for that project and then calculate their grade? Am I expected to recognize - and award credit for potential? Does "deserving grace" equal merit as shown by performance? And how is that going to be received by the rest of the class - you know, the ones who did do the work?

 

 ID 5291693 | School © Jimmy Lopes | Dreamstime.com

In every case, when I receive these emails of personal hardship, my response is empathetic (been there), but also pragmatic. I can both understand and explain that there is no way to award credit for work that was not done - excused or not, legitimate or not, documented or not, whether I believe it or not. None of that matters and at this very moment, there are exactly six days left of the regular semester before finals week begins. Time is also a factor. I get the feeling that there are students who were counting on their excused absence also excusing them from the work. This is not exactly new, but it is much, much more prevalent.

I don't know where this is happening, but somewhere they are learning this works. I hope it's not happening in college classes, but I'd bet there are some overly sympathetic professors who do give grades, that were not earned, because of circumstances beyond a student's control. But my students are mostly freshmen and sophomores - they are not learning this in college. It’s coming with them, from high school, from middle school - but ultimately, it's coming from their parents.

Stop it.

Constitutional Crisis?

I have remained silent on all my anti-social media platforms. As much as I have wanted to respond, correct, engage and persuade, I have resisted. In private, with friends, (real friends), family, associates and a few others, I have had “those” conversations and in those cases, while they have been cordial and respectful, they have also been unproductive. I have not convinced anyone of anything. I cannot compete against the machine that has created the polarization we are seeing today. It is the worst I have ever seen in my life, and of that, about five decades of political awareness. The results of it manifested once again last night.

 

This nation is a petri dish. It has been from its constitutional beginning (which was 1787, not what is, sadly, commonly believed to be 1776) when we became the United States of America. Prior to that, we were an unworkable, loose confederation of states; it was not working and our founding fathers, through a lot of debate and compromise formulated the government we have today. It is not perfect, and they all knew it, but they were confident that, because built into that Constitution is a means of amending it, we, the people, could and would adapt it. And we have, through much debate and compromise – and one terrible war.

 

Our grand experiment in self-rule is unlike any other in the world, before or since. It is precarious, always on the edge. It depends on us and our faith in those founding documents, our founders’ vision, and each other. It has been tested, many times. So far, our Constitution has proven stronger than any one person, party or outside influence. We have grown, not because of some piece of paper, but because of that faith in each other, into the strongest nation in the world. We have made mistakes, we have done some bad things, but we have also done immense good and made vast improvements. We have taken far more steps forward then we have taken steps back. 

 

We are at yet another crossroads, another constitutional test. There are forces at work – people – who see our constitutional protections as a barrier to whatever it is they see as “American.” It is almost laughable. The core of what is American is the Constitution and what it contains. However, if enough people lose faith in it, if enough people agree that certain elements of it are “in the way,” then they will no longer matter. The Constitution itself will no longer matter. 

 

In every constitutional crisis over the past 237 years – including that very first Constitutional Convention that formed the government we now have – it was the Constitution that prevailed. From the Civil War to the Great Depression, WWII, McCarthyism, civil rights, equal rights, Watergate and others – all of them presented serious challenges to the very fabric of our nation and, ultimately, we, the people said, “no, the experiment does not end here.” It has often come with great pain and angst, but in the end, our flag was still there.

 It is no secret that, for reasons that I will not elaborate on here, I am no fan of Donald Trump. But he was just elected be President of the United States, again. The people, enough of them, have spoken. We can talk about (and should) the liabilities of the Electoral College system, but that would take an amendment to the Constitution. The election was by the book, it was constitutional, he will be our president. The experiment, however, does not end there. Trump has made a variety of statements, some vague policy positions that I assume appeal to a large number of people, and that’s fair enough, but he has also spoken about doing a number of things that are absolutely unconstitutional. Prosecuting and jailing his opponents, shutting down media and free speech, using the US military on our own soil against citizens are just a few of his “musings” on the campaign trail.

 

Maybe this was just campaign bluster, the “bravado” that seems to appeal to a certain segment of his followers. Let’s hope that is all it is. If so, there might not be any crisis, just a lot of handwringing from the left when what they believe to be overly conservative policies are enacted into law. But that is how democracy works. Those policies, too, will be tested and if they prove unsuccessful, the Democrats will have the opportunity to put the brakes on them at the midterms. Whether people believe Trump crossed the line of Presidential privilege or not or whether they believe he acted unconstitutionally or not in his last administration is not the same as whether people believe the president is allowed to act unconstitutionally. If they do, enough of them, then we are in deep trouble.

 

My other hope is that the teamsmanship, the side-taking, taunting, the denigrating, the questioning of who is or what it is to be “American” will stop. The only team is Team USA and there is only one flag. All of our policies belong to the will of the people. We will get shit we don’t like sometimes. We will get shit we do sometimes. Ideally, we will get compromise where we get some of what we want, but not all. When government works best – check that – when government works, that’s how it works. 

 

I still have faith in our Constitution. I still have faith in the common sense of the vast majority of the people who are not on the extremes, despite what the echo-chamber tells each side about “the other side.” The fact is that most of y’all are a lot like y’all. If you would just talk to each other and stop talking at each other, you might find that the extremes are lying to you, manipulating you, and it is hurting this country. 

 

I know I’m going to get a lot of “what aboutism” in response. Save it. There is plenty of blame to go around. We have had enough of that. How about looking for consensus, for solutions, for places where we do agree and can get behind. Maybe we can start with the Constitution. It needs us. Indeed, it only has us. It always has had only us.

Dos Equis

Twenty years ago today, I would be turning myself in to the Nevada County Wayne Brown Correctional Facility for the last time. It was not the last time I would be incarcerated. After my 60 day sentence for a violation of probation (of which I served my customary two-thirds time of 40 days), I still had to report to another county jail for a 90 day sentence on the charge that got me violated in Nevada County. Fortunately, due to jail over-crowding in Calaveras County, that sentence was reduced to just eight days. All those days and every other day I served in jail was a direct result of my use of drugs and alcohol. I didn’t get in trouble every time I used, but every time I got in trouble, drugs and alcohol were involved.

On this day, 20 years ago, I did not drink, and I did not use any drugs. It was not my intention. I planned on having this one last day of “getting high” before reporting to jail. However, it didn’t work out that way. I did plan to get sober from the next day forward – I had about nine months of sobriety (or clean-time, depending on which 12-step program one is aligned with) that ended in December of 2003 – and it worked. But for whatever reason, I felt I had regained the ability to “control” my drug and alcohol use. I was wrong and found – quickly – that control was not within my grasp. I needed to be separated from that “life," and, while I did not look forward to being locked up, I knew it was an opportunity.

By the time I was released from Calaveras County, I was about 60 days sober. I felt like my life had passed me by. During those nine months of sobriety, I went back to school and excelled like never before, attaining my first ever 4.0 GPA semester. However, I was in full relapse during my third semester, was arrested for my violating charge midway through it and my grades suffered accordingly. I was released after the fall 2004 semester was already underway – I could not return to school until the following spring, and I wasn’t even sure I could do that. I tried to find a job, but even that, something that was never a problem for me in the past, proved to be impossible. Without the financial support of family, I would have been homeless. I felt utterly useless, and just being “sober” didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment, especially since most of it was by force.

But, in retrospect, it was. It was because, unlike the first time when I was living in a “therapeutic environment” (i.e., a recovery home) for the first six months, I had to really want it. I did, but only because I felt I had no other choice. All my grand plans had failed me. I learned from those nine months that I could do things. The problem was that I was not back at ground zero – I was less than that. It was hard to stay the course, not throw up my arms and say, “fuck this!” I almost did, a couple of times. I managed through the holidays, pissed off most of the time, and by January, with nowhere left to turn, I returned to school. I didn’t really know where it would lead me, but it was something. With a lot of help from a counselor at American River College in Sacramento, I was able to put together a plan that would have me transferring to California State University, Sacramento after just one more semester.

I didn’t have enough college credits from just my three recent semesters at ARC, but over many years dating back to the early 80s, my forays into higher education did leave me with a variety of college credits – many were with lousy grades, but they counted. Many did not, but, combined with that one last semester at ARC, I had enough to transfer. However, while a path was before me, I still had to decide where it would lead. There were several options, but among the classes I took during that first nine months was an English writing honors class. That I even qualified, based on an assessment test I had to take, surprised the hell out of me – English was not my best subject – far from it. But, with some encouragement – and goading – I took it. It was amazing and the professor, recognizing some talent (I guess) and some deficiencies in mechanics, nurtured both. I aced the class and rediscovered a love for writing that I once resented.

My counselor suggested an English major, which I rejected. His second suggestion, however, immediately resonated with me. Journalism was also an early love. I remember with a great deal of fondness my days as a paperboy, reading my papers as I was folding them, preparing them for delivery. Journalism it was. The spring 2005 semester at ARC was a resounding success and the that fall would see my return to a four-year university after a 20-year hiatus (I dropped out of San Diego State University in 1985 with a 0.7 GPA). More importantly, at some point in the beginning of 2005, I lost the desire to say, “fuck this!” I found that continuing sobriety was, once again, working for me. And, one day, quite unexpectedly, I realized that it had been some days since I was angry about anything.

Since then, I have only been away from an academic institution for just one semester. I completed my BA in the winter of 2007 and took the spring 2008 semester off, working as a print journalist for a local newspaper. In the fall of 2008, I returned to Sac State to enter their MA program in communication studies, earning a Master of Arts degree  there. I then moved to Baton Rouge to enter the communication studies PhD program at Louisiana State University. Throughout my graduate career at both Sac State and LSU, I also taught undergraduates. While I did manage to advance to PhD candidacy at LSU, I finished there as “ABD” (all but dissertation), falling short of the PhD and coming away with another master’s degree. While that does represent a failure, it was not a decision I made lightly – and it is one I can live with.

Today, I am entering my tenth-year teaching at CSUS. I will be retiring from the job that holds the record for the longest I ever been in the same job, with the same employer and in the same career. That light that was so dim 20 years ago has been a beacon for many years now. But it is not the same as it was at five years, at 10 years or even at 15 years. I have read accounts of others who have traveled this path – often those who were already celebrities, those whose fame has enabled them to gain the access to sell their stories with greater ease. Too often, in what is, comparably, early sobriety, they simply don’t know what they don’t know. I know I didn’t. And, sadly, too often, they fall. Matthew Perry spoke glowingly about how profound his new-found sobriety was, he knew so much. Now he is dead. He didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Here's a little secret. I still don’t know - a lot. Those who have been doing this for 25 years, for 30 years, for 35 years and more – they know more. I still listen to what they have to say. It could just save my life.

Real Journalism

I've been staying out of it. It's futile, it's frustrating and, as much as I love a good argument, they are too few and way too far in between on Fakebook and in social media in general. I've tried, I've failed. However, I will offer this:

I rarely ever watch FOX News. Hold on, let me stop you right there. I also rarely ever watch MSNBC or CNN. That does not mean I think they are equal, equally evil, equally fair and balanced or equally unfair and unbalanced - I never said any of that. I just said I rarely ever watch them. Why? So glad you asked; that is, in fact, the right question. Because I already know what they're going to say - all of them. And... so do you. Watching that swill - to either be confirmed or enraged - doesn't entertain me. I will check them all out, briefly, when really big shit hits the fan, just to see if I'm still right - and I always am. I always know exactly what they are going to say.

I get my news the old-fashioned way - from newspapers. A lot of people seem to be confused about the role of newspapers, and it is somewhat understandable as those same three cable outlets have seriously blurred the line between news and opinion/editorial. They are both part of news organizations, but they are separate and distinct operations, and, for legit newspapers, they have completely different personnel and facilities. Who is legit? Some of you aren’t going to like it, but The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are all legit. Most major market newspapers as well as many local newspapers are, too.

Straight news - page one of the newspaper (when opinion appears there, it is rare and clearly identified as such) - is just the facts, the five Ws and the H - "who, what, why, where, when and how." They are written in the "inverted pyramid" style, which means the most important facts are up front and the importance continues in descending order such that if one reads the first two or three grafs (journalist talk for "paragraph"), one can skim the tops of the stories and have the gist. While there are some editorial decisions that go into news stories - they are written by real people, after all - we, real, trained-in-the-art journalists, try real hard to present just the facts as efficiently as possible, using as few words as possible. The headline and where they are placed in the physical paper (or even if they are placed) are editorial decisions not usually made by the writer.

All news organizations also have editorial departments that do have an ideological identity. They can be labeled conservative or liberal. And... there is nothing wrong with that. That is truly what freedom of the press is all about. The ability to freely criticize our government through two of the First Amendment's provisions - freedom of the press and freedom of speech - is uniquely American. Criticizing OUR government and its elected officials is not un-American. You are if you tell people who do to "get out."

So, FOX is Red, MSNBC and CNN are Blue - no one can really argue with that (I know, some do…), but there seems to be precious little news. The NYT and WaPo are Blue and the WSJ is Red, but each paper has a distinct and distinctly separate news department. And they produce news stories. I know many who would argue with that. They are wrong and simply comparing the news stories produced accounting for the same events from the different publications will easily verify that. The problem is that too many have already deferred to the cable news model, applied that to the one that actually works and made up their minds. That, and it seems no one really reads anymore.

When it comes to editorial content, I can count on the WSJ to express a conservative view, but even though it is owned by the same guy who owns FOX News, I do not know what they are going to say – that’s why I read it. The same goes for other legitimate newspapers. Today, the Ed Board for the WSJ commented ("Ed Board" editorials express the collective editorial voice of a newspaper) on the recent report of the positive economic indicators and what they mean. While I expected them to present them in a less positive light for this administration than it would for a Republican one (they did), they also have a reputation to maintain. That means they will not take liberties with the truth. The same goes for the NYT and the WaPo. I get not balanced, but I do get fair. And I read them all. The opinion sections also contain Op-Eds and other opinion from individuals who write for these publications or are invited to contribute. Often, “red” papers will offer “blue” opinions and “blue” papers will offer “red” opinions in their efforts to be fair.

They aren’t the only newspapers I read; in this “age of information,” getting newspapers delivered to my inbox is quick and easy. I get my local news from my local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, and from local TV news — which, remarkably, reports news. It’s not at all in depth, but if I want a 20-minute digest of what went on locally, the Five O’clock News fills a need. The point is that social media doesn’t do a thing for me. At best, it will direct me to something I might not otherwise have heard about, yet, but if it is of interest, I’ll seek out information elsewhere — from a legitimate news source. Journalism, real journalism, still matters — more now than ever.

The "Distant" Past

 Some perspective:

Time is a funny thing. When we look at big chunks of time, like decades, we tend to place it against our own personal histories to contextualize it, to make sense of it. But if that time frame is shifted just a step back, it is almost inconceivable. Try this on for size...

I graduated high school in 1981 - just 43 years ago, almost to the day. However, to even "remember" 1981, one would have to have been born around five years earlier - so, about 1976, our nation's bicentennial, coincidentally. I remember it well. That was all in the 40-45 year time frame ago. Many living today remember those days, it was "not so long ago." Of course, for many more, it was ancient history - the veritable stone-age. There were no personal computers, no internet, no cell-phones, no Fakebook, no electric cars, no streaming, etc. It was a time that only lives in history.

 

For those of us in 1981, walking across that stage, we were all born in the early 60s. But the graduating class 40 years before ours was... the class of 1941. They were graduating right smack-dab in the middle of WWII. Living in those times, for us walking that stage in 1981, was inconceivable. Those days lived only in history books and through the stories of not our parents - they were, for the most part, too young to remember

Why is this important? Because history books don't tell stories - we do. If our kids "don't understand us," it's not their fault, it's ours. It is our job to tell our stories of what the world was like, the good, the bad and the ugly - to reveal what worked, what didn't and why. Various versions of the quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," attributed to George Santayana in 1905, have been repackaged by many, including Winston Churchill, who said in a speech during WWII, "Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." That past is revealed through art, through stories, through our elders, by those who were there.

If our kids "don't understand," maybe it's because we aren't telling our stories anymore. Maybe it's because we are too busy passing judgement on who they are to spend any effort explaining who we are - who we were. Because, for them, 1981 was just as ancient as 1941 was to us.

Finding Peace

There are a lot of things in life that used to really irritate me. They were typically things I did not understand and I would conflate that misunderstanding with some kind of a negative effect on my life. In most cases, that is not so. There are other things that irritate me that do constitute a negative effect on my life - at least tangentially. But is that irritation due to their mere existence, or of their being brought to my attention? A good argument can be made for the latter, although the existence of many of those things should irritate everyone.

If someone buys - and drives - an ugly car, like the new Tesla truck, I do not have to find it visually appealing. I do not have to understand why others might. I do not have to understand how anyone could justify buying one... I do not have to "get it." It's none of my business. The same goes for an infinite number of other personal choices ranging from dress, to music, to sexual orientation to gender preference - it does not affect me and why I would care in the least makes no sense. Yet, some of those issues (some, we all have our "some" - I don't get Priuses, but that's just me), used to irritate me. In the past, they irked me to the point I'd be compelled to make commentary about it on social media. I'd get community support validating my position, helping me believe that mine was the right side of decorum, the other side would fade into historical ambivalence.

But it didn't matter. None of those things (not mine, not yours) directly affect my life. They are simply the choices others' are making about their lives, living in a free country. However, there are other things that do affect us and should elicit some type of response, even if it's just a mental note of what to do at the ballot box. No one likes our tax-dollars wasted. No one likes politicians skimming off the top. No one likes the powerful subjugating the powerless. These things affect us all. Personally, as a state employee, I am sensitive to the stereotype of the state employee being paid for a 40 hour work week when they actually put in far less. The reality is that the vast majority put in an honest work week for an honest week's pay. But there are those few who do not, sometime flaunting it publicly, perpetuating the stereotype.

And, of course, there are gray areas. Not in terms of personal gray areas - we are all pretty sure what are public matters that affect us all and what are not - the grayness comes into play in the areas I believe are personal choices that have no affect on me versus the same ones you think are public and a direct affront to you. I cannot resolve this. I can say this, however: My list of things that affront me is considerably shorter than it once was. Considerably. As a result, my life is more peaceful, more serene and brighter. I have also, almost as a side-effect, gained a greater degree of empathy. I wasn't looking for that, but it's not a bad thing. I also wasn't looking to pare down my list, I was simply looking for peace - this was one way in which I have found it.

#ride

Bringing the World Closer

I don't "rank" my friends. I do not have a best, a second best, third best, etc. friend nor do I have any "BFFs" (and, in the words of my dearly departed little brother, "forever is a long-ass time"). Even if I did, I would avoid such labels. Every relationship - friendship or otherwise - is unique. Each has its own combination of characteristics that makes it the only one like it in the history of forever (and, again, that's a long-ass time).

However, there are certain characteristics that can be used to make broad categories. But even the word "friend" is not so concrete. Some people view every single one of their Fakebook friends as an actual friend. I am not here to argue that they are or are not (I don't care, have 5,000 friends, it's your life), but I can say with certainty that all of my 2,000+ Fakebook "friends" are not real friends. In fact, most are not (if you have to ask, you already know the answer).

Further, among them, there are those who are friends, but friends who, if I had some particular urgency, I could count on them to be conveniently unavailable. There are others who I know will drop everything if I needed them. That does not make one group "better" friends than the other, but there is a qualifiable difference in those relationships. In fairness, I am, to others, both. I will drop everything for some and would not for others. Does reciprocity play a role? I'd be lying if I said it didn't, but it's not everything. I'd be there for some who I know would not be for me; I don't know why.

It seems that certain aspects of human interaction, and human connection, and human relations, and relationships, have been diluted with the advent of social media. We are - in what amounts to a nanosecond compared to the whole of human history - all of a sudden provided with the tools to connect with everyone, everywhere, all the time. Not every connection is equal, not all are special, not all need to be "nurtured" and, certainly, not all need to be cherished. And all those "social media influencers" who are "interacting" with you do not have a relationship with you - you are their markets.

This hyper-connectivity is not sustainable. The cracks are already showing, the bottom will, eventually, fall out. Only AI can maintain the number of relationships that the "age of information" has made possible. Those who try to keep up will spend all their time doing only that - they will always be left trying to catch their breath. I was onboard with all of it once, I thought it was cool, it would make the world a better place and bring us all closer. But all of it, even something as innocuous as text messages, has left me rethinking what all this "bringing the world closer" has really done.

Exactly the opposite.

Eighteen Years of Perspectives, Purpose & Opinion

In the fall of 2005, I was a junior at California State University, Sacramento. I was also 42 years-old and just one-year sober. My life up to that point was full of twists and turns, starts and stops, life and death, but at the time, I was full of hope - and I was excited. I was finally good at something; my mind was clear, and I was moving towards a goal I thought was forever beyond my reach. I entered with a hybrid dual major of political science-journalism, but my focus was journalism. Thanks to an English writing general education course and one magical professor, I discovered while in community college (and one failed attempt at sobriety) that I could write.

That failed attempt at sobriety turned out to be serendipitous as it changed not only my academic trajectory, but also my entire career path. However, that is a different story for another time. This is the story of The 25 Year Plan – the story of the blog that is now more than 18 years-old and holds more than 650 separate entries. One of those entries, early on, explains where the name came from, but there is no need to dig for it, I will recount it here. It is a short story.

When I went to San Diego State University back in the early 80s (when I was of “college age”), there was a euphemism for students who would take longer than the typical fours years to complete a college education. Today, a fifth year (or more) senior is called a “super-senior,” but back then, when asked about one’s projected graduation date, a response from one of “those” students might be, “I’m on the five-year plan.” It was as common as “super-senior” is today. In fact, the problem of students not graduating in four years is one that has been recognized by many universities, and measures to mitigate the problem are equally common. Because I would be much closer to 25 years from high school to college graduation, I decided that my plan would be called, über-euphemistically, “the 25-year plan.” When it came time to name my blog, it seemed obvious.

That explains the name, but not how it came into existence. Blogging 20 years ago is not what it is now. Today, virtually anything is and can be called a “blog,” and virtually anyone who publishes anything on the web can be called a “blogger.” Technically, a Facebook post is a blog post. The term comes from the words “web log,” and, at their inception, these online logs were primarily written and much longer than a Facebook status update. Indeed, Facebook was just in its infancy at the time, not yet available to the masses. Myspace was the de facto social media platform. One of the main blogging platforms was called “Blogger,” (purchased by Google in 2003) and it was free, robust and it was just beginning to expand beyond simple text-based posting.

But in December of 2005, I wasn’t looking for any of that. There were no real smart phones (no iPhones, I don’t even know if I had a Blackberry yet), social media was only Myspace and the internet was still painfully slow. I was looking at a five-week winter break and I was not exactly looking forward to it. I was on fire; I had one of the best semesters ever in school (3.94 GPA) and I was leery of too much free time. Two years early that free time, in part, derailed me, ending nine months of sobriety. One of my journalism professors was (still is) a prolific writer and used this new(ish) blogging platform to publish stuff he wrote for himself. He suggested opening an account and using it to “keep your writing fresh” over the winter break.

I took that advice and never looked back. Eventually I attracted other bloggers who read my posts regularly and I became a frequent visitor to their blogs. The community I ended up building (which sounds more purposeful than it was – it was much more organic than it was my doing) was robust, and deep, and anything but superficial. Unlike Facebook, or Myspace at the time, the things we wrote about, most of the time, had substance, they had texture – we pushed each other and learned from each other. The comments were, sometimes, mini blog posts all their own. In the early years, I wrote and posted several times per week. I wrote for the sake of writing. And, while not all of it was good (despite the overall positive feedback), much of it still holds “ah-ha” moments when I reread it all these years later.

As the internet matured and as social media like Twitter (now X) and Facebook took off, blogging, at least as it originally was, has fallen off. However, other writing platforms with a quasi-professional angle are beginning to emerge. I am present on one, The Medium and there is also Substack, and others. That community I built on Blogger is long gone, although a few of those I engaged with are my “friends” on other platforms. My writing for The 25 Year Plan has slowed to a mere trickle, my readership, while never very big, is almost nonexistent now.  However, every now and then, I will break out this old-school keyboard with the purpose of writing for the sake of writing.

And if no one reads it, that’s okay.

Celebration of life

Yesterday we celebrated my little brother's life. It wasn't a "memorial service," it wasn't a "funeral," and "celebration of life," like it is used so much, in this case, was not a euphemism. It was exactly that - a celebration. But there were some other things it was not, and should not be confused with. It was not a party. It was not anything anyone was exactly looking forward to. It was not intended to provide any kind of closure, but it probably did do that for some. The word, "celebration," has many connotations, but in this case, we did celebrate.

There were a few tears, but more laughs. There were lots of stories, most I've heard, but a few I
have not, and some managed to surprise me. It was an occasion that was as unique as the person it honored. It kind of had to be. Anyone who knew Dave, knows me and my father, likely was not surprised by the nature of the occasion. Many learned a lot about who he was from a much more intimate perspective - that was by design, but regarding what was included, and, more specifically, what was not, no one should have been at all surprised.

We are not religious people. Not remotely. Speaking for myself, it goes well beyond that, but let's just say the apple, in that respect, did not fall far from the tree. My point here is not a treatise into pro or anti religion. I don't care what anyone believes so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. Period. My brother's service did not have any trappings of any religion - it wasn't "non-denominational" or "multi-denomination" or even "all-inclusive" in that all beliefs were somehow written in. None were. No, they were not denounced, either. It wasn't an "atheistic" celebration, it was just a celebration that did not "go there." Not there, and not over there, either. All of "all that," all of it, was left out. In fact, it was never let in to be left out.

And it didn't need to be there. It was perfect just the way it was. We celebrated my brother and his life, and it was him - only him - that was the focus of our attention. Beliefs or lack thereof were never mentioned, never part of it, never necessary, never given a thought... never missed. And when it's my time, those in charge of whatever y'all decide to do, here are my official wishes: First, I officially don't care, I'll be dead. Second, if you do do something, do it just like David's was yesterday; I'll be cool with it.

David Craig Althouse

David Craig Althouse was born on November 17, 1964, at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City and passed quietly in his sleep at Sonora Community Hospital on December 26, 2023. He grew up in Los Altos, CA and spent the final 20+ years of his life living unencumbered by the trappings of the modern world on the shores of Lake Tulloch in Copperopolis, CA.

 

At just 59 years old, David lived a storied life. While still just 17 years old, he secured a job on the Mississippi River working the river barges up and down the river. Although he suffered an injury that resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee, it did not slow him down. He was most at home near a body of water, on a boat and, often, with a fishing pole in his hand.

 

His passion for critters was also well known. While he had many dogs over his life, he also cared for various other exotic animals and it was not uncommon to see him with a python draped around his neck, or, when he was a boy, a blue belly or alligator lizard he found in the neighborhood or at Adobe Creek, tucked away in his pocket.

 

David, in a bygone time, would have been a true frontiersman, a trailblazer, an explorer, a discoverer and an inventor. He would make use of anything, repurpose everything; nothing, and, perhaps most importantly, no one was worthless to him. For those he loved and cared for, his loyalty was unmatched, and he was generous to a fault.

 

He loved the Grateful Dead, Mardi Gras and, in addition to his time working on the Mississippi River, spent much of his time in Louisiana and Mississippi on the Gulf Coast – fishing, crabbing, and exploring.

David is survived by a large loving family, including his parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, neighbors, many pets over the years, and most recently by his beloved rescue dog, Benji.

 

A celebration of life will be held in the Garden House at Shoup Park in Los Altos on January 27, 2024 at 4:30 p.m. – all are welcome. In lieu of flowers, David would appreciate that donations at a local animal rescue of your choice are made in his honor.