Ken vs. the City

Sisters graduated: 1
Family seen: 4

Old friends met: 15
Old friends missed: 10
New friends made: 6

Notable events:
seeing my sister graduate, walking barefoot on the lawn, running in the morning and smelling nature, seeing 2 Wisconsin Air National Guard F-16s take off from the Dane County Airport, going to Woodlands Church on Sunday, driving to Milwaukee to see old friends

Food items consumed:
1 grilled bratwurst; 1 home made pretzel; 2 ButterBurgers & 1 frozen custard from Culver’s; 2 glasses of Leinenkugel’s; 1 glass of Spotted Cow; 1 beer-battered walleye sandwich; 1 Honey BBQ Burger from Buffalo Wild Wings; 1 small piece of grilled sirloin; 1 bottle of Point Vanilla Cream soda; 1 small portion of Waldorf salad

Cities visited;
Plover, Stevens Point, Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac

Funny YouTube videos discovered:

I went running this morning on the Brooklyn Bridge, something I should do more often. This morning I found cops climbing all over one of the towers.

It was part of a training exercise for the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit. In this scenario, some crazy person had climbed to the top of the tower with the intending to jump. In this instance, the “crazy person” was one of the ESU trainees.

I spoke with an Officer Castro, one of the NYPD officers who joined the ESU for this exercise. He said that suicidal people climb on bridges in New York all the time. And while they seldom ever actually jump, every time it happens it holds up traffic and endangers the lives of the police officers who have to go up there and get them. He mentioned an incident last year where a guy they nicknamed the “spider-man” climbed up on top of one of the bridge’s main cables, and every time the officers got close to him, he would jump through the air to a different cable.

During a real incident, the ESU would try to talk to the “crazy person” to calm them down. Since I wasn’t up there on top of the tower, I don’t know if that was part of the training exercise or not. But they strapped the “crazy person” tightly into a sort of back board/sarcophagus thing. Another officer was strapped to a harness facing him, presumably to talk to him and keep him calm on the way down, and to keep the whole arrangement from swinging too much during the descent.

They made their way down, lowered down the middle of the tower by a climbing rope played out by officers on the top. As they were descending, a lot of people stopped to take pictures. When they reached the deck of the bridge, they were greeted with applause.

I apologize for the lack of pictures. Since I was running, I had no camera with me.

I’m a firm believer in the assumption that people are “innocent until proven guilty.” I think it’s better to let a guilty man go free than to let an innocent man be condemned. I also believe that true justice is God’s alone. Maybe that’s why I always feel more compassion for the accused than I do for the victim.

There was one instance back home in Wisconsin where I was called in for jury duty. (Jury duty is probably one of the greatest tests of impartiality, logical thinking, and pure gut instinct an American can experience.) A fellow I went to high school with had been accused of sexual assault and serving alcohol to a minor. We also went to the same college, but this man was not my friend. I didn’t know him and had no contact with him whatsoever, so I could have been impartial if I wanted to. I had no idea if he was innocent or not, nor did I have a preconceived inkling towards one decision or the other.

But as I saw him sitting there next to his attorney on the bench, the only thing I could think about was the pressure he must be under and the despair he must be feeling, especially if he was innocent. So when the judge asked me if I could render an impartial decision, I said “no sir, I cannot.”

I heard later that the guy had been acquitted. And when I saw him later on at my five year high school reunion, he surprised me by walking up to me, throwing his arms around me, and giving me one of the heartiest thank-you’s I have ever received. And by his response I could tell that his days under the guillotine had been some of the darkest of his life.

My friend Brent at the e8s blog gives his thoughts on the whole Ted Haggard thing.

I’m upset that Haggard’s lack of transparency reinforces the prejudicial idea that all Christians are repressed individuals preaching a suffocating morality that goes against the free yearning of human nature.

I’m worried that the whole situation will make people more closed to the idea that Christ’s self-sacrifice liberates you by restoring your desires so they can be fulfilled in the deepest way, while moral liberalism simply enslaves you to your bodily deprivations, leaving you empty and unsatisfied.

I got to attend by first real live press event on Monday at the opening of Google’s new New York office. Google’s New York advertising sales and software engineering divisions are now in the same place. The briefing focused mostly on the software development side of things. Did you know Google Maps was developed right here in New York? Pretty cool. I got to ride the elevator with a couple of folks from Bloomberg Media and made an idiot of myself when I though one of them said they were from “Bluebird” Media.

I love tech, and the entire briefing was right up my alley. I only got a small news brief out of press event though, since I was looking more for a story on online advertising.

After statements by Craig Nevill-Manning, Google’s New York engineering director and Tim Armstrong, Google’s VP of advertising sales, they opened the floor for questions. Since I wanted to find out more about the online advertising components being developed in the new office, I nervously raised my hand just like I’ve seen members of the press do on TV. And just like on TV, I received a vague response that didn’t answer my question. It was all very exhilirating.

Then we got a brief tour of the facility. Google really knows how to treat their employees. Those software engineers are pampered. The space is wide open, with plenty of sunlight streaming in from lots of wide windows. Even the cubicals seemed to facilitate play as they were business. There’s a large kitchen area, a game room complete with a PS2 and Guitar Heroes, and an abundant supply of Razor scooters to get from place to place faster. “We find it’s more efficient,” said Craig. It’s not too late to change careers yet, is it?

After that we all congregated back in the briefing area where there were six kiosks and six developers to demonstrate some of the porjects being developed in the New York office: Google Maps, Google Finance, Google Checkout, and Google Notebook. I met the guy who crammed financial data feeds, based on technology from the 70’s, into the graphs in Google Finance. I was also really turned on to Google Notebook and immediately started using it when I got back to the office. It’s awesome when used with the corresponding Firefox extension.

On the way back to work I talked with Federated Media’s director of author services. He gave me some great journalistic advice.

There are swell folks at press events. I hope I can attend more of them in the future. Maybe I can get some good stories too.

I woke up early this morning in time to see Charlie Rose’s interview with Harvey Weinstein, film maker and co-founder of Miramax, live at the MIXX conference. Hooray for press credentials!

I know of Charlie mainly by reputation. I’ve only watched a couple of his interviews on PBS. I saw his interview with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Melinda Gates a few months ago, and I watched his interview with Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf last night. I’m still learning the art of the interview as I go, and it was interesting to see how an old veteran like Rose operated. I wanted to see what the man was like in-person.

He used no notes, but it was also obvious that he had done a lot of research beforehand. I have no idea how Charlie kept the questions he wanted to ask, as well as all the facts he had to remember straight. But he did it, and the interview seemed professional, but also light and effortless.

He rarely asked a question that could be answered by a “yes” or “no” answer. One of the first lessons I learned through experience was that “yes” or “no” questions rarely yield a useable or interesting answer.

He never backtracked. Each question was presented forcefully, but not harshly. It was all very professional. There was never any point at which I thought Charlie felt apologetic about asking something deeply personal.

He used flattery. Charlie constantly mentioned to Harvey how powerful, influential, and creative he was. Consequently, Harvey was not stingy with his answers.

He used exposition. Charlie constantly paused to expound on some fact or another in order to clarify a question, put it into context, or present information for the audience that they probably didn’t have.

He wasn’t afraid to interrupt. There were frequent times where Charlie would interrupt Harvey’s answer in order to clarify some part of it, or ask another question that built off of the answer.

He used questions that weren’t questions like “Why don’t you talk about…” or “Tell us about…” I’ve been on the fence about these sorts of questions, because I’ve been afraid that they would be too open-ended. Charlie almost always asked these sorts of questions in conjunction with exposition.

He enunciated well and expressed genuine interest in Harvey’s answers. This should be obvious, but I sometimes find myself asking questions of people mechanically, especially when I have three interviews in a row in a span of a few hours. It’s hard to stay curious and genuinely interested when you’re worried about a looming deadline.

Until September 11, 2001, there were two great pylons that held up the sky in downtown Manhattan. They formed a gateway of commerce. A symbol of economic might and financial power. To some they represented global economic unity and freedom. But to others they represented global economic domination. To me they were something that was just always there.

At 10:00AM Central Standard Time, I was set to read the top news stories on WWSP 90fm radio in Central Wisconsin. The first story: about 15 minutes ago, a plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. At first I thought some pilot had simply drifted off-course and crashed his Cessna into the building. I knew that in 1945 a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building. I also knew that the World Trade Center towers were engineered to withstand an impact from a Boeing 707 or a DC-8, the largest aircraft in service in the late 60’s. I was astonished as I read the report that the plane that struck the North Tower was a commercial airliner, and not a small private plane. During those brief moments, the reports coming off the newswire were confused. Most said it was an accident. Terrorism was the farthest thing from my mind.

About three minutes later, another plane struck the South Tower. And everyone knew that this was definitely not an accident. The news coming in off the wire now included claims of responsibility by little terrorist groups no one had ever heard of. I read them all in a state of quiet distress. I have always been an outsider in New York. My family is from there, and we visited just about every summer. I was a timid boy, and never got to know the mass transit system, but wherever I was in Manhattan, I knew I could always look up and see the World Trade Center towers, and they would point me in the right direction. They were strong and made of steel. They had withstood the impacts of two incredibly large airliners. They were still on fire, but steel is fire proof, right?

I didn’t read anymore news. I hadn’t counted on the burning jet fuel that drove temperatures up to 1500 degrees, and sparked other fires that burned even hotter. Temperatures like that were incomprehensible. No wood fire I had ever built could even approach that. And after more than an hour, even mighty steel bows to the power of fire. As I watched on live TV, first one pylon fell, and then the other. I remained glued to the TV for the rest of the week. I wanted to know what was going on, but mostly it was just because one of the solid things I knew, one of the only places in Manhattan that I was familiar with, was gone forever.

CNN’s 9/11 timeline

Yestarday I was riding the subway uptown to a friend’s house, listening to some random stuff on my iPod, when a whole bunch of kids got on the train with me. They were laughing, talking, and having a good time when they asked another guy, who was also listening to an iPod, what he was listening to.

“Snoop Dog,” said the guy, and all the kids said, “Yeah,” and gave him a high five. They seemed very sociable, and to have no problem breaching the personal non-interaction force field generated by all iPods.

I shrank away into a corner. I knew that if I made eye contact, they would ask me next what I was listening to. 8-year-old punk rock and obscure indy folk, rock, and electronic tunes are not something I wanted to take the time to explain.

Still, they were talkative and friendly. I couldn’t help but look up and smile. Eventually the question came: “Hey, man. What you listenin to?”

“Uh, punk rock,” I said, hoping that would be a satisfactory answer.

The kid who asked me just wrinkled his nose. “Punk rock? Yo, you got any rap on there?”

I shook my head, “No.”

“Let me listen,” said another. At this point I gave up trying to be antisocial, gave them my earbuds and let them listen. “What else you got on there.”

I keep my iPod clipped to my pocket under my jacket. I took it out and the kid who was listening began to flip through it. “Yo, you gotta hear this.”

I chuckled a little while they passed the earbuds around. Eventually the train came to my stop and I had to leave them, but it was a fun experience. It also showed me that I really tend to isolate myself from other people. If I can’t be friendly and open with strangers, how can I ever hope to make new friends. I felt like I had been growing hard towards others.

I suppose I’ve always had a tendency to isolate myself. It might be because I get caught up in an idea, or a project. Maybe I’m just sulking a little bit for some reason. Whatever the cause, it’s not a good thing. It makes me irritable and snippy towards anyone who wants to talk to me when I’m trying to be alone. It’s a very selfish way of thinking, and gets in the way of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

I left my iPod at home when I went out jogging this morning. I said hello to a businessman, gave a young girl directions to the M15 bus, and helped a hispanic man find the immigration office. No more forcefields for me. At least for a little while.

I spent the weekend at home in Stevens Point Wisconsin, visiting folks I haven’t seen in a long time, and staying with family. It was good to see my dad, who seems to be better than I have seen him. He’s also lost a lot of weight. Probably from the medication he’s on.

I enjoyed a nice thatnksgiving dinner with my folks, and some family friends. And I also got to see Harry Potter on the big screen with my sister and her fiance. I like that movie. It’s no cinematic masterpiece, but it was good entertainment, especially for the low low price of $8.75.

I got to play Settlers of Catan with my friend Dave of Get out of the Boat. “Settlers” is also called “Settlers of Satan” by some folks I know. Settlers is a wicked fun board game ( I highly recommend it). There’s also a “Christian” knock-off called Settlers of Canaan that’s played the same way. Of course, it’s designed by the same guy, so I don’t know if it can really be considered a “knockoff.” Also fun. I soundly trounced everybody.

I wanted to play some poker with some of my buddies, but my friend Mike, who would’ve hosted the poker night, had a baby on Thanksgiving morning. If you follow the link, beware of textured backgrounds and cutesy baby pictures. I stopped by to see Mike and I got to hold the baby, Evan, who was only two days old.

I never drank beer before coming to New York, and having missed out on the brew-ha-ha that is Wisconsin, one of the things I set out to do in Stevens Point was to drink a bottle of Point Special ($1.75). I’m not sorry I missed the whole bar culture, and I’m not a beer connoisseur, but I thought it was quite tasty. A friend that I’ve met, also from Wisconsin, recommended I try Leinenkugels, which is made in Chippewa Falls, but I didn’t really go out of my way to look for beer.

I also got to talk philosophy with my friend Brent of the 8star blog, ate a cheese bagel, drove a car (and parked!), watched cable TV, and, with nary a Starbucks in sight, started re-writing a novel idea I’ve been tossing around in my head for at least two years (not like that blathering I’m writing for Nano).

I also got to attent my old church, which is packed with so many memories it still feels like home. They added a new chapel onto the building right afetr I left, and now have some wierd sort of triple preaching setup with three services, all staggered 15min apart from one another. I don’t know how those pastors do it. Anyway, I also found out the sermons are available as mp3s on the web site. Cool beans.

I left on Monday afternoon. I visited my old university to see the new Fine Arts building, and say hello to some of the faculty earlier in the day, and then through the wonders of modern aviation I found myself riding the subway back in ol’ NYC at around midnight. I would’ve been home at a reasonable hour, but ol’ NYC has an ol’ transportation system thet left me waiting about an hour for the train.

I went and saw the One Man Star Wars Trilogy yesterday, and it was a hoot. It’s one guy performing the whole trilogy (eps. 4, 5, 6) in a little over 60 minutes. It was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen so far. It’s playing at The Lamb’s Theater just off of Times Square, and I highly recommend it to anyone. Apparently the show was playing in Wausau in July, and will be in Green Bay in April and June 2006. One prereq. I might mention though. You probably should have seen the original Star Wars Trilogy already, or you might get a little lost. However, seeing a guy spazzing out with a pretend lightsaber should be funny to anyone.

I went hiking all day yesterday with some friends in a place called Cold Spring, which is about an hour from the city by train. The previous day’s rain left some spectacular waterfalls.

I missed the main group, so I had time to grab some breakfast, read a little bit (just stared reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis in preparation for the movie) and took the train from Grand Central Terminal alone, but I met up with another guy who also missed the first train. We walked along the train track a couple of miles to the hiking trail at Breakneck Point. I scaled several rocky slopes where small rivulets of water cascaded down the sides, making each hand and foothold a treacherous gamble.

We went quickly, hoping to catch up with our friends, who had an hour’s head start. We stayed in the same trail network, but didn’t follow the same path they had. The two of us hiked over the rocky peaks until we met an experienced hiker who, unlike us, was responsible and brought a map. We had been going for about three hours without meeting our friends, and were ready for a rest, so we found the way back to town from him.

We backtracked a little ways until we hit another trail which we followed back down to the highway. The second trail had some incredible sights, including some waterfalls, a rivver, swollen by the rain, and some old mining ruins. Next time I go there, I want to check out more of the mining ruins. I talked to another guy who said there was an old two-story carriage house farther up the trail.

Any way, we went back to town where we met up with the rest of our group, had some chow, and took the train back. It only cost ten bucks to get up there. I’ll have to go again. Last night I slept like a rock.