Courier Journal - Fall 2023

I know three people who died of heart attacks in my time as a software analyst/engineer. Some of them younger and in better health than me. So when I had a heart attack this past January, still unemployed from my IT career, I decided to find something that I enjoy to do that ... well ... won't kill me. One of the joys of my life is driving around Vermont. So I became a courier and now I drive all over VT and get paid for it. I don't get paid a lot, less than half my old salary. You could say I am working for benefits and winding down to my retirement. I am enjoying it.

After a regiment of training and tests, I started off delivering, solo, in the towns of Charlotte, Vergennes, North Ferrisburg and Shelburne, and occasionally in Panton and New Haven. These are all beautiful towns that hug Lake Champlain south of Burlington along routes 7 and 23. These are truly stunning places. 

Here is an example of a driveway I had back down in my truck.  It is not the most difficult one I've had to do either. 

I believe I was at the foot of Mount Philo in North Ferrisburg when I took this.  That is Mt. Mansfield, VT's largest mountain, in the distance. 

This is the Otter Creek taken from MacDonough Park in Vergennes (the smallest city in the US).

Taken from a covered bridge in Charlotte, VT (I believe):

This horse farm is in Shelburne. 

I believe this is West Charlotte.

I don't take pictures while I am driving. I have to pull over or sometimes, I am delivering something and I see something picturesque while I am at a stop ... I pull out my phone and snap it. I was planning on taking a picture of something beautiful everyday, but that is difficult when weather is bad.  Also, something else happened.

This is a long route which means a very long day. On some days, I was in at 6:30am and out at 7:30pm, not getting home until after 8pm while my son was going to bed. I was exhausted and made mistakes because of it.  I told my boss that I thought this route was a young man's route and I didn't think I could take it. He understood and we worked it out that I am a part timer now. This is actually great for me, because I get home in the afternoon now and can usually catch my son's bus. I keep my full benefits as well.

Now I am driving the Burlington priority route. I still really enjoy this, although it is less pretty, this is a really great city. I deliver priority packages all morning to the College, Church Cherry and Main Street area. I get a few non-priority packages in the afternoon and then I head home. I deliver blood to the Red Cross, drug and vaccines to pharmacies etc. It is a good living. 

I try to time it so that I am around Church Street for my break. So I can go to Muddy Waters for some chili and coffee or one of the other funky cafes. I am getting to know the business people on my route, some of whom I see everyday. While some of the drivers who deliver to Burlington seem to be burnt out on my place, I seem to love it more everyday, warts and all. Hopefully that doesn't change. 

I do have a suggestion for you if you want to make things easier for your delivery person. Make sure the number of your house is visible. If you are rural, try to put your number on the road somewhere. I waste a lot of time trying to find the correct house. It is not always obvious. On the days I do work late, finding a house in the dark is very challenging ... especially if the number on a brown house are also brown or just not posted. Make it obvious and easy to find and read. Safety is something to which we all contribute.

A Widow for One Year

When I pick up a John Irving novel, I expect a certain level of wittiness, maybe a small dose of silliness, some odd characters and maybe a dancing bear or two. I get none of that in A Widow for One Year, his ninth novel. My expectations aside, I should be able to enjoy one of his books that doesn't rely on these hooks. I understand a writer wanting to something new. If I had to characterize this book in his canon of work, I'd put in the category of experiment that failed, like his A Son of the Circus, which was published a novel before this one. 

One of the themes of the book is grief and how different people deal with it. Two of the main characters, Ted and Marion are the parents of two teenage boys whom they see die in a brutal car accident. Ted reacts to the grief by womanizing. Marion does so by bottling it up and eventually running away. She also seduces Ted's teenage writing assistant, Eddie. Ted and Marion also have another child Ruth who is four when Marion leaves the family in 1958. The rest of the book, takes place in the 1990's with middle-aged Ruth and Eddie still dealing with how Ted and Marion's destructive behavior affected their life. Ted and Marion's grief had infected another generation. Marion explains that "grief is contagious." 

Another theme of the book is whether a writer needs to experience what they write about or is their imagination all they need to rely upon. Every major character in this book is a writer (Ted, Marion, Eddie and Ruth) which gets tiresome. In one of Ruth's books she refers to one of her characters as "a widow for one year" and an angry reader complains that one is a widow for the rest of your life implying that Ruth is an imposter and doesn't know what she is writing about. 

I find this part of the book interesting because there is always a lot of Irving's life in his books. He wrestled at Phillips-Exeter as a kid and this appears in his novels a lot. They often are based in New England (he was born in New Hampshire and is now a Vermonter) or in Canada, partially, in which he also lives. The only Irving book I can recall that did not have a lot of his life in it, was A Son of the Circus, which was a crime novel set in Dubai and it was a disaster of a book. Perhaps A Widow for One Year was written in response to the criticism of that book. 

My attraction to Irving novels is usually the characters. I love Garp, Owen Meaney, Homer Wells and the kids growing up at The Hotel New Hampshire. This is a 500+ page book that mostly documents the sex life of a small group of self-obsessed individuals. When you have the ability to create a character like Garp and his mom, why create these tiresome people? Two thirds of the way into the book, the character Ruth takes a trip to Europe. I don't know why these 100 pages are even in this book. The end could have been rewritten without these pages entirely. When I got to this point, I wanted the book to end. If I didn't have a commitment to finish a book after I started one, I wouldn't have gotten through this one.  

Jon Lester's Eulogy (the cat, not the ball player)

In my house, when a baseball player wins the World Series for both the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, you get a pet named after you. I am talking about Jon Lester, the pitcher who won the Series with the 2007 and 2013 Red Sox and the 2016 Cubs. Our cat Jon Lester was named after him. This is the cat's eulogy not the pitcher. I understand that the pitcher is doing fine and living out his retirement in the state of Georgia hunting, drinking a lot of wine and writing, last I heard.

When you live in a rural setting, you really need a cat. Mice do find a way into your home. Our cat Mavis kept them away. She wasn't a very good cat. She is probably the only pet I've ever had that I did not bond with. She wasn't friendly, she seemed to hate humans but loved our dogs. She would duck when we went to pet her but she would run up to our dogs and rub them. She would disappear for days, even weeks. We only deduced that she was dead when she failed to return, when mice started showing up and she wasn't eating her food. I didn't write her a eulogy. 

We replaced her with Jasper who was a truly awesome cat but we only had him for a couple of months. He was hit by a car in front of our house. I had to pick up his near dead body off the road with blood shooting out of him. It was one of the worse things I ever had to do. 

We had Wrigley for only a couple of months as well. We didn't let her outside because I didn't want to go through that again. She was a timid sweet animal. She got outside once and while my dog Hazel was home alone. When I got home with my other dog Woodrow. I let him outside to be with Hazel. A few minutes later, I looked out the back window and I saw them playing tug of war with something. This is one of my more awful images I have in my brain. 

2016 was very bad year for us. Our dog Max died, we had a drought here causing us to go without water for a few weeks and Trump got elected. If it wasn't for the Cubs winning the World Series, it would have been our worst year together as a couple. The other great thing that happened that year we adopted (Jon) Lester from the Addison County animal shelter.

We needed a tough cat that would stand his ground against Hazel who was kinda a bitch. He was a barn cat. The people who brought him into the shelter had too many cats in their barn. He ended up being the perfect cat. Gorgeous as well! 

Hazel was afraid of him. He swiped at her whenever she walked by which was perfect. He was a great mouser. He cuddled with me almost every night, sometimes on my shoulder, my chest, sometimes at my feet. He even played fetch. If you crinkled a ball of paper and threw it, he'd run and catch it then put it back in your hand. I still haven't had a dog that would play fetch but I've had two cats that have. Go figure! I was convince he was smarter than my dogs. If his water bowl was empty, he'd stand on the side of it and meow. My dogs, and even some humans I know, don't communicate that well.

It was early in the summer this year that he got out. He occasionally did this, but always came back right away. This time he did not. I put his food out for him. Something was eating it, but I had no proof it was him. So I set my wilderness camera up to verify it was him. I moved it closer and closer to the house until it was on the front porch. This is a video of him on June 4th. 

I borrowed a trap from one of my neighbors and the first night I had it out there, I caught him but because I didn't set the trap correctly, he backed his way out. Here is the video of that feat:

The panel behind him wasn't set properly so I am guess that he just continued to backed out of the trap. He was too smart for his own good. He appeared on my video for about month after that. He never got caught again. Then he stopped showing up around mid-July.

We assume he passed away somehow. Either a car, a fisher or a coyote got him. Maybe someone took him in. I only hope. I still look for him when I go out in the yard. I miss him very much. 

My Fragile Faith in Humanity / The Plague

I live with a fragile faith in humanity. I waiver, sometimes within moments, between being an all out humanist believing in humanity's unadulterated ability to overcome all to an occasional belief that humanity is a virus upon this planet. It is not an easy way to live, but I have growth to be accustomed to this dichotomy. I have adapted and it has become the norm for me. 

I go about my life like anyone else. I drive along picturesque, pastoral rural Vermont. I look upon the windmills on Georgia mountain and their awesome turning. I think of progress. I think to myself, "How wonderful we are leaning to live in harmony with our environment!" and then drive on and come across someone with a chorus of plastic blowup Walmart crap cluttering their lawn. It could be Christmas, there could be blinking lights with Santa, elves and reindeers. It is at this point when I change over to my other self. We are fucking doomed. I am in constant battle with myself. 

I just finished rereading Albert Camus' The Plague. It is a perfect book to read coming out of the pandemic. It is bubonic plague in the book but symbolically it is a different plague he is writing about. It is a plague of bad ideas. It is written shortly after World War II and it take place in his native Algiers in a small city called Oran in 1947. The world was fighting a plague of isms in mid-20th century: communism, socialism, capitalism and fascism. 

This is a philosophical novel so the journey is a personal one, one of thought and self reflection. Like most books of this nature it's soul, it's place where it sets the reader straight, it's denouement, if you will occurs towards the end of the book when the character Tarrou finally tells the main character Dr. Rieux what is on his mind. 

"... this epidemic has taught me nothing new, except that I must fight it at your side. I know positively ---- yes, Rieux, I can say I know the world inside out, as you may see --- that each of us has the plague within him; no one , no one on earth is free from it."

Life is a battle of internal dialogue in a search what is right and what is wrong. For me, the wind mills are right and a sign of progress, but the plastic blinking Santa on some idiot's lawn ... that is clearly wrong. All I can think is "What the fuck?!"  Plastic comes from oil. Roughly13.9 million acres, globally, are being used for oil production on this planet. All that habitat being destroyed so that blinking Santa can exist. Why is anyone buying this shit? If you bought it used or a long time ago, you don't have to use. You don't have to waste the electricity using it! I have to control myself not to pull the car over, in the dark, sneak their lawn and destroy this shit. I think of this each time I see one of these. My faith is fragile, but calmer minds do prevail in the end. 

The character Tarrou smiles a lot. He doesn't show his internal struggles. This is not true for me. My internal struggles are obvious. I bitch a lot, sometimes loudly. Here I go again, our plagues here in the early 21st century are different. We have global warming and the destruction of bio-diversity and it is capitalism that is bringing it on. The other isms are mostly gone but capitalism is alive and well and eating our planet, much like Galactus in Marvel Comics. Each time you buy some plastic crap, something you really don't need, you taking a bite, your bite, out of her. Capitalism is our plague. 

Camus' narrator says this early in the novel:

"In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves, in other words they were humanists; they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure, therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanist first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and through that everything still was possible for them which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.

Camus is considered an existentialist, which is perfect for humanity's current predicament. We fight for our literal existence. But he didn't care for this term. He considered himself an absurdist, our search for meaning leads us into conflict with the world. This is me. Recently, I was having breakfast with some acquaintances and a young mother mentioned that she wanted to have five more children. I was screaming inside. I don't know why, but the pestilence of the plague is not obvious to everyone, even smart people. Denial is a lot easier than confronting reality. 

Let us not forget to be modest. 

 

Try That in a Small Town

I have started going to a commercial gym lately. My time at the Cardiac Rehab gym, where they connected electrodes to my chest as I exercised, has expired. I will miss the crowd there. I signed up for Planet Fitness which is incredibly inexpensive and has all the machine I need to continue my progress. The contrast between the two places is striking. I was one of the youngest people at the Rehab gym, the employees were all healthcare professionals and the exercise equipment looked out onto the Adirondack Mountains. I could let my mind wander pondering the natural beauty. It was nice. Planet Fitness seems to be run by teenagers, I am the one of the oldest members, it seems, and the workout machines all faces televisions, not mountains. All the ellipticals, treadmills and stationary bikes face a line of  sixteen televisions.  All tuned to either ESPN, CNN, CBS, Discovery or Fox News among others. You can't get away from it. Closing your eyes is the only way to get away from the tyranny of the television.

This change is both good and bad. It is bad because I miss my lovely workout view of the Adirondacks. It is good because now I can see all the awful things that Fox News is saying about me.  As a liberal I have always found Fox News entertaining because it always implies that liberals walk lock step together on everything. It is my experience that if I get ten liberals together, I am going to have ten different opposing opinions with lots of nuance. Arguments will ensue about the silliest minutiae. The only thing those ten people would agree about Jason Aldean's song "Try That in a Small Town," is that it is really awful song. It being a racist song, that would be debatable. If "libs" are saying this, like Fox is saying, I can guarantee it is not all of them. Most of them have better things to ponder. 

Last Friday, I saw this on the Fox News banner: "Libs are saying that Aldean song is racist." Something close to that. I was on the treadmill for a half hour and they talked about it the entire time. I did another 15 minutes on the stationary bike and they were still on this. I didn't realize that I was suppose dislike this song, until Fox brought it up. I never even heard of the song or the musician until I saw this. I went back to the gym again after the weekend and they were still talking about it. The volume was muted so I don't know what they were saying but the banner was more of the same. You think they would have something more important to talk about ... like, say, a war in Europe etc. After all, they still claim to be a news network, even though most of us know that they aren't. 

Most of the people I know that I would consider liberal don't listen to country music, particularly those that live in the city. Who can blame them with country music bashing the city like it does? That is all this song by Aldean is. "Try That in a Small Town" is a just latest in country music attack on city folks.  Country life = good, city life =bad is a country music trope that goes way back as far back as Hank Williams, probably even further. If country musicians want city folks to stop being so negative about country music, they might want to start by not being such dicks about the city. 

Here are the lyrics of the song if you haven't heard it yet:

Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like

Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough

Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town

Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck

Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town

Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town

Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town

Try that in a small town
Ooh-ooh
Try that in a small town

Like most bad writing, it over-simplifies. Hate is like that. Emotional in content, self-righteous in nature. I've lived in the big city (Boston) and I've lived in small towns. The town I live in now has roughly 2,000 residence, which is, by the way, much smaller than Aldean's home town of Macon, Georgia. I don't find people that different as individuals here than in Boston. The big difference is the number of people. Here in rural Vermont, we have a lot of room, fresh air and privacy. When you have the density of humans that a lot of our cities have, all of that is difficult to find. That affects a person. But I've had great neighbors in Boston just like I have them here. I know I am a better neighbor here than I used to be when I lived in Boston. This is mostly because the quality of life is higher and this has allowed me to be a better person in general. Traffic in Boston, alone, is a bad enough experience to change a person's outlook. Vermont, indeed, has made me a better person, but no traffic, more quiet alone time and cheap/free parking, had a lot to do with it. 

Unless you think that being anti-urban, by caveat, also means it is racist, then this song is not racist. It is simplistic, kinda idiotic and mostly just shit ... but racist, I don't think so. I've grown to like country music, some country music. This wasn't always the case. I grow tired of rock n' roll lyric being opaque and not very well written. The straight forwardness of a good country song is appealing and refreshing. Like rock, rap and jazz, most of country music is bad. But country also has its geniuses. Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl" is a masterpiece and Towne Van Zandt and Steve Earl are better song writers than most rock musicians which now leans towards tight assed and self-righteous. You don't have to find subtext to find racism in a country song because they are so direct, there is usually no subtext. But isn't being anti-urban enough to alarm you? Aldean's song is saying that if you live in the city, you suck or at least you are complicit. Also, you try that here, we'll kill you. This song praises vigilantism. That is alarming enough for me. You don't have add racism to make me concerned. 

I wrote most of this before I ever watched the video.

I admit the lyrics coupled with the imagery makes the song a lot more disturbing. It is clearly a right wing call for arms. Yes, disturbing. Racist, I still don't see it. I see a lot of referencing to racist "dog whistles" in internet chatter but I don't see it. I could be wrong. 

How To Defeat Trite Man

Nothing is so inane as small talk. On some level small talk is necessary. When I meet a co-worker, in the elevator perhaps, that I know nothing about and I don't feel like learning anymore, a nice quick conversation about the weather can come in handy. Sometimes I am just not in the mood, whether it is a lack of coffee on that particular morning or as a result of my anti-social tendencies. Weather, sports, keep it light, keep it quick, move on.

Trite Man over does it. Trite Man lives in a perpetual state of small talk. He lives and breathes it. Don't let him pull you in. I have been attending a rehab gym for my post-heart attack recovery and Trite Man has been attending the gym on the same days as me.  It is unbearable to hear. I have been blowing out my ear drum via earbuds just to drown him out. I took a short movie of his "performance" so that I could post it here but I decided not to post it. That was probably a good idea, so this clip from Star Trek: The Next Generation will suffice. 

Data is an android testing a new small talk sub-routine, so he has an excuse, but the other character is a perfect portrayal of Trite Man. He is terrifying. If Trite Man pulls you in, it can be very hard to escape. If you get stuck in a room with two of these fuckers, they can truly drive you to insanity. No shit, complete insanity. 

Think of Trite Man as a super villain, everyone of them has their weakness. The only way to defeat Trite Man is by ignoring him. He feeds on inane content and empty gestures. Answer him with one word answers or simply pretend you don't hear him. Put your headphones in your ears regardless if there is music playing. Starve the beast. It doesn't matter if he is dispensing folk wisdom or repeating something "witty" his aunt Tilly always says. Just say "Nope" no matter what he says, no explanation, this will diminish his power greatly. 

This can get difficult if he says something that you disagree with greatly. This almost happened to me the other day. I went to the urinal in the locker room and I had left my phone and headphones on the bench. Trite Man entered and said aloud, "oh no, someone forgot their stuff." I yelled back from the other room, "no, those are mine" Oh no, I had engaged him, how do I get out of this?  "Oh good," he said, "you can't be too safe these days." The giant sucking sound was pulling me in. I so wanted to tell him, "No, the world is a much safer place these days." This trite nonsense about the past being idyllic and safer than now is everywhere. Trite Man loves misinformation. I had data and historical analysis in my corner but he had fear and a popular saying in his. Surely I could convince him that he is wrong. But I did the right thing, I didn't engage. I walked away. 

Please help me in defeating Trite Man. Ignore him. It is the only way he'll stop. 

I Speak for the Trees

I've had this discussion many time:

Friend: "You're an Atheist, you don't understand what 'sacred' means."

Me: "But I do, every tree I see is sacred."

Like the Lorax, I speak for the trees. Sacredness is readily available, not in an old and tired symbol from the Bronze Age, but right here in front of us. Life giving, carbon sucking trees. I don't hug trees, not at least until I get to know them. Even then, only after I have their permission.

But seriously, I am not the only person of this ilk. The idea of trees being sacred goes way back to Egyptian, Asyrian and Norse Mythology as well as Celtic, Germanic and Hungarian folklore predating many of our major religions. But I don't get my inspiration from these sources. Mine comes from personal experience. I grew up in a miserable town where they hated trees. Trees were hard to find and were talked about as if they were a nuisance. 

Dramatization from my youth:

Neighbor 1: Whatcha doing his weekend?

Neighbor 2: Removing that darn tree in my yard. I'm sick of it cracking the pavement and having to pick up those damn leaves?

Neighbor 1: You smell that? The stink in this city is getting worse all the time 

Neighbor 2: And hot as hell as well.

It didn't occurs to them that their hatred of trees, the stink and outrageous heat in the city were related. Luckily, I spent most of my summers of my youth in southern Rhode Island on the bank of a river not too far from the Atlantic. I got to know plenty of trees. I climbed a tiny oak to get away onto the roof of our family cabin to be alone, another two older oaks held my hammock where I escaped into books or several moored my boat as I adventured onto land. Trees were great hiding places, behind or among the branches. I can't imagine a childhood without them. If I believed in magic, it manifest itself as a tree. 

I look to literature for the spiritual. For the scientific minded, spiritual is just a word we use to describe the flush of emotions (aka chemicals reacting) that happen when something spectacular happens, when a connection is made. In this particular case, in a book. Trees as a symbol are all over literature. You can start with the Old Testament, Adam and Eve chomping at the Tree of Knowledge. I think more of contemporary references like Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, Herman Hesse's Trees and Siddhartha, W.B. Yeats or the marvelous ents in Tolkien' trilogy The Lord of the Rings whose slow and persistent power help usher in the age of humanity ... and of course, Dr. Seuss. 

Usually, a tree is a symbol of growth but not always. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee has the two children, Scout and Jem, use a tree as a conduit for communication with Boo Radley, the local recluse and scapegoat. They put mutual gifts in a knothole, but when the hole is cemented shut it quickly becomes a symbol of intolerance and injustice which is the greater theme of this masterpiece. 

I just finished reading Betty Smith's classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The tree in the title is called a tree of heaven, really, that is actually the species name. It is an invasive species originally from China which is apropos for immigrant laden Brooklyn. Anyone that grew up in the Northeast US would recognize it. Check out this factsheet: Tree of Heaven. Nothing kills this thing which it why it grows so well in cities. Not only is it a symbol of growth but it is one of resilience and strength. It is probably the only symbol in the book. It grows through cement. The narrator is third person omniscient so we get to hear, Francie Nolan, the main character's thoughts on the tree. It "likes" the poor which describes her family and everyone she knows. Something is radical about this tree. Its leaves make "fugitive patterns" on her white pillow case. Francie says this about the tree after someone calls it a "homely thing:" 

"If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful, but because there are so many, you just can't see how beautiful it really is."

This is a coming of age novel but it is unlike the many that come before it that it is often compared to. Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. It takes place in the gritty world of Brooklyn in the 1910's. This is a world of spousal abuse, alcohol overdoses, pedophile doctors, foot-fetish dentists and animal abuse. This is a not a pretty world Smith is painting. To make it even worse, their neighbors are mean. Poverty means you are cold and hungry and sometimes you have to do things you regrets to survive. Like the tree, you adapt. 

Chapter Ten is the last mention of the tree until the very end of the book, 46 chapters and over 300 pages later.  Spoiler: on the last page of the book she tells us that the tree was cut down because it was causing problems with the clothes lines, but a new tree is growing. Another generation gives us hope. They survive however stupid our priorities are. 

Before I end this, let me introduce you some trees in my yard. First off, we have the Big Ass Sugar Maple. I took a picture of this tree everyday for a year and made a movie out of it:

These two were transplanted from my backyard to the front where I am trying to create a forest to replace my lawn. As you can see, the one in the front is not doing so well and may not make it. But the other one was like this for at least a couple of years before it finally caught on so I am waiting for this baby to shine. 

One of these from the backyard is next to be transplanted:

And here is what the yard looks like in the winter:

Just lovely. I love these trees. 

MLB 2023 - New Rules

A lot of new rules will be instituted for this year's baseball season. They are designed to speed up the game and give it more action. Some of them seem small but they may have bigger impact on the game than would seem. 

It is going to be a learning experience, not just for the players and the fans, but the umpires as well.  In addition to new rules, Major League Baseball has ten rookie umpires being promoted from the minors this year. The new rules have been used in the minor leagues already so this is a good thing. These young umpires already have experience with them. But they are still rookies and will probably make rookie mistakes. They were promoted because ten umpires have retired, including four crew chiefs. So that is 250 years of experience being replaced by zero years. Expects some fuck ups. 

In addition to on-field rules, we have a big change to schedules. The 2023 season introduces the balanced schedule. This means that every team will play every other team in the league, the first time this has happened since the two leagues merged in 1903. Each team will play their four division opponents 14 times instead of 19. They will play six games against teams in their own league, American and National leagues; one series at home and one away. Then play three games at each team in their opposing league, Interleague Play, alternating home and away each year. This means there is almost no difference between the two leagues now that the National League uses the Designated Hitter (DH), instituted last year. It seems the beauty of the World Series is more and more diminished each year. 

Here are the on field rule changes:

Pitch Clock

New Rule: The rule states that a pitcher must begin his motion before the expiration of the 15 second timer or 20 seconds with at least one runner on base. The pitcher can step off the rubber twice per batter, aka a disengagement, which resets the clock. If they go over the time, the batter gets a ball. If they step off the rubber a third time, it is considered a balk. The batter has to be in the batter's box with at least 8 seconds left on the clock. If they don't, they get a strike. They have one time out per at bat.

I'm looking forward to the first time ever, a batter gets struck out when the pitcher has only thrown two pitches. 

One of the conceits of baseball is that it has never had a clock like other sports. That era is over. The sport may be too slow for a younger crowd. This rule is a compressor ... to rid the game of all its down time. The average length of each game in the 2022 regular season was three hours and three minutes. The average Spring Training game this year was two hours and 38 minutes. Over 20 minutes have been shaved off.  

Since the pitchers are allowed two disengagements per batter, there should be more base stealing. A disengagement could be stepping off the pitching rubber or throwing to a base that has a runner on it.  In 2022, Jon Berti of the Marlins had the most stolen bases of the season with 41. This is not a lot. In 1986, Vince Coleman of the Cardinals had 107. I don't know if the new rule will put us back in that range, but it would be nice. Steals are a lot of fun. So far, teams seem to be running more. In two games, the Baltimore Orioles have stolen ten bases. 

Roger Clemens said he was wondering about leg strength. Those pitchers with the strongest legs will be able to recover the quickest. I hadn't thought of the clock causing more fatigue. We'll see. 

Larger Bases

New Rule: The actual size of first, second and third base are increasing from 15 inches to 18.  This decreases the distance between these bases by 4.5 inches. Home plate stays the same size so the distance between home and first/third is only reduced by 3 inches. 

Alex Cora calls them pizza boxes. This rule change was done to decrease the number of injuries from player colliding on the base path, but it should increase the amount of hits and stolen base attempts. A larger target to tag, with a slide or not, should mean more base running therefore more action. This should make the game much more interesting because the only thing that players on this level seem to be bad at is base running.  A lot of interesting scenarios should come from this. 

Stolen bases in Spring Training this year increased to 792. This is 492 more than last year. The larger bases and the clock had a lot to do with this. I love it. 

Defensive Shifts

New Rule: There must be four defensive players on the infield when the pitcher is on the rubber. There must be two players on the left of the second base and two on the right.

In recent years, this has been a real issue. Advanced stats are so good that teams can tell where a batter is going to hit, most of the time. Using this data, they have been able to design their defense around these stats. This has kept the action to a bare minimum making it a game of balls, strikes and homeruns. Batters have been trying to hit the ball out of the park because getting a single is so difficult. This change should increase the amount of singles, doubles and triples and decrease the homeruns. 

It should also make keeping track in your score book at home a lot more easier as well.

Position Players Being Used as Pitchers

New Rule: The position player can pitch but only under one of these three conditions: 1) if you are leading by ten or more runs and it is the ninth inning, 2) if you are losing by eight runs at any time or 3) the game is in extra innings

This shouldn't affect game play much. Teams have been putting position players on the mound too much lately. They do this to save their bullpen for another day that is more competitive. This can cause injuries due to players not being stretched out enough to be a pitcher. No big deal here. I don't think there were any rules about this in the past. 

So far the game play has been great. A few missteps have occurred but nothing worth complaining about. Play ball! 

My By Pass

Dear Blogosphere, 

For those of you who are worried about me because I haven't blogged in a few weeks ... and my last entry was about my heart attack and upcoming by pass ... ta-da ... I survived. Worry no more. 

My surgery was delayed about a week, rescheduled three times, but it eventually happened. The first two delays were because my blood being too thin for surgery. The last time it was delayed, one day more, due to another patient whose needs were more urgent than mine. I was bumped. I was in the hospital for 13 days waiting. It was like being in a hotel, if the staff came into your room several times a day to stab you. That is what it felt like. They drew my blood everyday. I had an IV attached to a pole and I took it with me around the room as well as when I walked laps with around the ward. I had an awful view from my room so I enjoyed walking down the hall to see the outside world. I am grateful for internet connection because the television was pretty bad; why watch a movie if every tenth word is bleeped and ever ten minutes it is interrupted with a commercial? I made best of the situation with Hulu and HBO-Max on my IPad. I even got in a Zoom job interview.

Not being a people-person, I am more inclined to complain about a group of people than not. That being said, I can't really find anything to complain about the nurses. They poked me with their IVs, shots, woke me to give me drugs etc. They did all this while being very professional and quite pleasant. There were a couple of annoying incidences, but nothing worth repeating. I tried to remember all their names but there were so many of them and they all wore masks, so this was difficult.

I was shaved the night before the surgery  ... my chest because it was opened to get to the heart, my legs for the veins they were going to take from them and my beard for the anesthesia. This is the first time I have been without a beard in over 30 years. They had already shaved me once before so there was only a week and a half of growth to deal with. The first time, it took about two hours. I am a hairy guy. I also had to wash my entire body with some some sterile pads and clean my nostrils with a Q-tip to make sure I didn't have the MRSA virus present. This was the 24th of January. I slept well and awoke the next morning to find a bunch of nurses in my room, doing what nurses do. My wife showed up shortly after. I was heading to surgery. 

During a coronary artery bypass surgery, the surgeon removes a piece of blood vessel from the patient's leg, chest, arm, or belly. In my case it was both my legs. They had problems finding a good vessel in one of my legs so they had to take one from my arm. Then the surgeon uses that piece of blood vessel (called a "graft") to reroute blood around the blocked artery. The surgery is called "bypass surgery" because it bypasses the blockage. This surgery has a 1% fatality rate and a 1% chance of causing a stroke in the patient. These numbers scared me, one in a hundred is too high when I could easily be that one. But that 1% is usually someone very old and sickly and I was the second youngest patient in the cardiology ward and still reasonably healthy. So I felt good about it. This didn't stop me thinking about my death and how I'd be leaving my wife and son. There must have been about 20 people in the Operating Room buzzing around me. So much activity prevented me from thinking about it too much. They scooped me onto a metal table and connected me to the machines. I was asleep shortly thereafter.

I awoke at about three the next morning in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). I was on a lot of drugs, but still in some pain. I could feel a stinging pain in the incisions in my legs, arm and chest. I had a tube in my chest as well, a catheter and two IVs in my arm. It was pretty awful. I am amazed that by 6AM I was able to stand up (with nursing assistance) and walked a step over to a recliner that was next to the bed. By early afternoon I was out of the ICU and in a regular room. This was amazing because I remember back in the 1980's when my father had his first bypass, he was in very rough shape for a few days. The progress they've made is stunning.  

One of things that changed is that they wake the patient as soon as possible now. They find that the healing is quicker when you are awake. Also, the incisions in the arms and legs are much smaller than they used to be. One of the nurses told me that patients used to complain that most of the post-surgery pain was coming from the arms not the chest. It may be because the surface area is much smaller in the arms and legs than on the chest. Also, the arms and legs are used much more than the chest. So they make very small incisions now in the extremities because the large incisions are just not needed and patients are more comfortable. I have not researched any of this information. This is all from the many conversations I have had with many of the medical professionals that came into my room.

The stay in the hospital, post-surgery, was surprisingly not that long. I spent more time pre-surgery than post. I had surgery on Wednesday and I was home by Sunday. I was walking around the ward again alone just a couple days after surgery. The hospital food was surprisingly pretty good. I learned, after being there for almost three weeks, what to avoid on the menu. When I ordered, the person on the phone would tell me if I was over my carb or sugar limit for the meal. This was good practice for my new life. My post-heart attack life means keeping close track of calories, carbs and sugar. I have an app on my phone that tells me when I am over or approaching my limit.  

We had a long list of things to go over to get out of the hospital. I was not allowed to lift anything over a ten pounds for a month. That is about the weight of a gallon of milk. I am also not allowed to sit in the front seat of the car when I travel. Of course, this means no driving.  These rules are because my chest is not completely healed. I also had a pile of meds that have to take for a variety of reasons. I have to walk  for five minutes several times a day which is very tedious when you can't leave the house. My yard, driveway and road are very icy/snowy and it's 13 degrees today ... hence, I don't leave the house. 

I guess if you have a heart attack in Vermont, January is the best month because there isn't a lot you can do here anyway this time of year. It has been a month since the surgery. I've been outside the house only a few times, mostly for doctor's appointments. I've taken walks to the front yard to meet the boy at the bus stop. I've walked to the compost bin and the wilderness camera on my land. My big trip this past weekend was to our town's annual Winter Fest where I enjoyed some good company and the chili cook off.  I'm hoping by the Spring I will be running again and most of this is behind me. 

My Heart Attack

I have not been blogging a lot lately. It is an awful twist of fate and irony that my motivation for writing is directly proportional to how busy or stressed I am. If I am busy or stressed, I am full of ideas, I want to write. I was laid off from my Software Engineer position (that I held for 14.5 years) last July. You think I'd be spending a lot of time blogging, because I don't have a lot else to do, but this just isn't the case. I have about twenty post started but each time I look at them with intention of working on them, I just can't do it. No motivation. When I look at my blog and I see years when I posted about 40 different entries, these are also the periods in my life when I am the most busy or stressed. Such is life. 

Wednesday 1/11/23 started like any other. I got up with the boy, got his snack box ready and walked with him out to the bus. I returned to the warmth of the house, I made coffees, read email, looked at jobs on LinkedIn and listened to my morning podcasts. I ate an egg sandwich for breakfast, fed the dogs and then did some yoga on the Wii. Nothing out of the ordinary. At around noon, I noticed I had a dull pain along the length of my left arm that went across the top of my chest down to the top of my right shoulder. It was an odd pain. I have a lot of muscle pain, always have, but this felt different, like nothing I had ever felt before. I walked into the living room and laid down. I tried to sleep it off which I had zero success of doing. The pain wasn't that strong and never was, just very uncomfortable. I also had a lot of coffee at this point so I couldn't relax much either. 

I started to worry that this might be a heart attack. I remembered a conversation I had with my doctor when he told me that in addition to the pain, heart attacks usually come with shortness of breath. Since I didn't have that, I waited ... but not very long. I called my doctor to discuss. He said "oh oh."  He suggested I get to the emergency room, not to drive, but have someone bring me. If I didn't have someone to bring me, call 911.  I then called my wife to see how close she was to the house. She was about 35 minutes away in Burlington. I called 911. I texted her and she left to meet me at the hospital.

Fairfax rescue was conferenced into my call almost immediately. This is my first experience with 911. I am impressed. I waited about 15 minutes for the ambulance to show up. I live on a dirt road, a town away. This was quite fast. I tried to occupy my time to manage the freak out. Nothing much worked. I put the dogs outside, I grabbed my phone and Kindle, put them in my jacket and sat at the puzzle table looking down the driveway. Doing the jigsaw puzzle was a Herculean task at this point. I didn't get a single piece. 

When the ambulance arrived, they tried to back down the driveway. It has been unseasonably warm lately so when they went into the mud (aka my lawn), I feared they would get stuck and I'd have to wait for another ambulance or a tow truck. But she, the driver, pulled herself out just fine. Four EMTs got me quickly in the ambulance, attached to IVs and EKG machine.  I looked like a borg and still do. Here is a picture of what I look like:

They asked me a ton of questions about my health history. I didn't realize at the time but I'd be answering these same questions, in different forms, for the next week to about twenty different people. 

Other than the bump we hit, that sent everyone off the ground, the ambulance drive was uneventful and I thank all the drivers that pulled over for us. Also, of course, to the EMT crew as well. I felt so much better once they gave me nitroglycerin tablets and felt in the care of true professionals. 

Since that day, I have been in the hospital, pain free five days now. I have a lovely private room at UVM medical, the staff here is amazing. I had a mild heart attack. They did some diagnostics hoping that they would be able to repair the problem with some stents. Unfortunately, there is too much blockage. Perhaps the mild heart attack saved my life because they never would have noticed the blockage without it. I have been in the hospital and I will be here quite a bit more until my bypass on the 20th. Wish me luck. I feel confident in my full recovery.