Forty One

Had a really good birthday yesterday. Kim & Kaley make a celebration from what would otherwise be just another day. I want to play it down, but Kaley is always ecstatic over it. She's talked about my birthday for a few weeks. There is no convincing her that it's no big deal. They searched high and low for flip flops. My last pair lasted me a few years until I lost them a month or two ago. I was surfing and left them on the beach. Actually, that pair was Kim's. I lost my pair at a Christmas Grinch party a couple years ago.

Went to Starbucks this morning. I brought a few books on woodworking. Didn't read a page.

This one charged elderly gentleman talked my ear off about: the military, education, NASA beaucracy, IBM business practices, business corruption, McCain, Obama, UBS & Phil Gramm, history in the 1600s, the physics of bullets, law, artificial intelligence, configuration management, virtual reality in Los Alamos, Silicon Graphics, Challenger and Columbia accidents, Emotionally Disturbed students... All that over the screams of the mocha machine and the chattering. Quite tiring!

On the way out the door, saw an old face. Kyle, husband of the sugar sweet barista Haley, was back from Hawaii, North Shore Oahu, on a visit "to the mainland". He fell into being an "apprentice" for fine woodworking. I was overly excited to get the chance to talk about woodworking. They take local woods and cure them and build furniture. He's a surfer as well. I've surfed there. Talked about the breaks: chuns, haleva(sp?), sunset... We both agreed that our favorite surfing days were here in the Gulf. And both agreed that you can't convince anybody that there is ever anything worth surfing here - and there's no use trying. We were laughing and we understood each other. Rare!

Convincing seems to cage. You have to meet people who have stumbled on the same ground. You can't get them there. You can't keep them there.

The Gulf is finicky. The jewels she offers are far and few in between. I can't even say they are worth the patience. But I can say, some of the best days I've had were out there. On those days I genuinely felt sorry for the world. It felt unfair. In return, I have always tried to capture moments like that and share them as if the world were actually listening. Funny!

There is freedom in truth. You feel like you are getting away with something... even after all the work. I'm sure the guy who spooned his way out of Alcatraz never felt he earned his way... he probably felt lucky.