ruminations about significant others

If you are a hopeless romantic, you might wannna stop reading right. About. Now.

Today at the theater I saw Revolutionary Road. It tells many truths about marriage, mates, Life, hope, the dreams we have and those dream's ultimate demise.

I got home and while I grilled wings, The Namesake happened to be on cable. It's a movie that tells even greater truths than the great truths I saw earlier on the big screen.

Marry a bipolar. A wo/man who's a freak in private but a school marm in public.

Marriage For Life is a ridiculously absurd idea. Whoever came up with it was insane.

Marriage not only limits your activities but with whom you engage in those activities.

"Working on your marriage" is as silly a collection of words as "george w. bush will be a semi-adequate C-average president." Get real. Work on a marriage? Please.

I reluctantly say I believe in arranged marriages.

zoo

Other than being surrounded by a bunch of backward, unthinking Republicans who are on the wrong side of history, there's not much to brag about where I live. But at least it has a zoo. It may not be exactly world-class like I hear San Diego's is, but I'd rate it very good. It's better than the one in Dallas, I'll say that.

First time I went was probably in 1983 when I moved here and played the role of tourist for the first few days. Frankly, I wasn't impressed. I went to our zoo again in the Fall of 2007 and man... it was a different place. They'd done a lot of work. A lot. Check it out...

banshee

There is a clique of 4 banshees where I work. From my perspective, they have in common:

- not perfect but "okay" at what they do;
- hate my guts;
- I've never done anything to any one of them.

Except one time, not too long ago, I made the HUGE mistake of calling one of them by their given name as it appears in the employee list. I forgot that she hates her name. Hates it. Don't ask me why. When I did, Banshee1 went stupid childish.

WHY DID YOU CALL ME BY MY NAME???!! YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING. GET OUTTA MY FACE!

I'm sorry. I called you by your name. I wasn't thinking. I called you by your name as listed in your employee profile.

"Well you don't have the privilege of talking to me again until I give you permission." (pretty much exactly what she said)

Uh... okay. Hope I live that long.

The Nephew®, 22 year old college student, tells me stuff like this about the idiots he schools with. Thing is, the folks I work with are supposedly "adults." Nephew schools with CHILDREN fresh out of highschool.

The Banshees crack me up. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but what fun, what idiocy, we all have to deal with when we deal with dumbass workmates.

What did the comic say? That if 10 people hated you it, it's your job to get 2 other haters by the end of Summer? Can't say if I believe that, necessarily, but I understand were dude was coming from. There's little--for me, NO--need to please banshees.

Give 'em the middle finger. I'm better than them. Yeah, I said it. As a human being, I'm better than the banshees.

Why I smile whenever they are around.

White House

Guess what, on-the-wrong-side-of-history my fellow Oklahomans....

President Obama--don't you just love that name?--a Negro, a Colored man a, let's get real, a n*****, his n*****wife, and their 2 little n***** girls live there now. How does that feel?

Get used to it.

Oh... by the way... the White House was recently rated as worth more than $300 mil.

Oh my! Yeah, I know... I know...

What is this world coming to?

convo with Big John - Part 2

So I went out to the empty parking lot and got back in my car. Ten minutes later I was I was a few blocks from my destination and found myself in a traffic jam where none should have been. Yeah, it was just after 8am on a bright Friday morning, but there were three lanes headed south.

"Why is the inside lane so backed up?" I wondered. "Must've been an accident or something." I told you I was an idiot. It wasn't long before I figured out what was going on.

A-type driver as I am, I shot into one of the two open lanes to the left and buzzed up ahead. Reality began to dawn. I parked across the street from my destination, dodged morning rush hour traffic down Lincoln, and saw a marvelous sight. Something I'm likely to ever see again.

I told Big John about the hip hoppers with jeans hanging off their butt, old people in wheelchairs. Preppy types handling business on cell phones, middle-agers. No pushing, no shoving, nobody cutting in line. Everyone quietly moving w/ the flow, reading their book, or making a brand new friend." It was a sight to see for a first-time voter. America at its very best.

That end of the line was way, I mean waaay, out into the parking lot when I got there at 8:45. Understand? It was a long... freaking... line. It snaked all over a parking lot the size of 2 football fields.

"I'm gonna be here a while," so I had a choice to make. Stay or go.

I stepped to the end of the line. I had seen news reports from places all over the country of early voters waiting for hours for the privilege of doing their duty, and I would not miss my chance to do the same.

......... to be continued.

Wendy And Lucy

Amateur-burgeoning-on-becoming stellar film critic as I am, I'm a subscriber to a critic's... I dunno... thing. Without fail, early every Friday morning ol' boy personally emails me w/ his views of the weekend's new releases.

His critique of Wendy And Lucy makes the movie sound pretty good. Sounds like my kind of movie. Wendy sounds a lot like me which ain't necessarily all bad. After I see it, I'll tell you what I think.

Unless you see it before me. Which you can then tell me what you think.

family

For the past few years, my dear sister Debbie G has been kicking it, off and on, with one fella named Tony A (not in the pic at the right). Every time I go back home, he's there. It's cool with me.

I'm home 2, 3 times a year for only a couple days at a time. Not often. But as far as I can tell, Tony A is okay. My gift of reading people has rarely failed, and although we all have our dark side and I can't say for sure, all I've ever felt was that he is, maybe not perfect, but a solid individual. And he loves my sister to death.

Tony A and me have always been cool. He's funny, humble, generous w/ his time every time I've ever seen. A down to earth dude from Louisiana who might have been a Jones in another life. Ask me and I'd tell you my sister is lucky to have him. Yet, one of the last things he said to me past November was that he's glad whenever I'm around because I take off some of the heat my sister puts on him.

Tangent/

Here are fundamental truths about the women in my clan... females I've known for more than half a century. Brace yourself.

1. I love 'em all dearly. That's a given but I had to say it.

2. I will kill for every one of 'em. Yeah, I said it. I meant it. Kill. DO NOT MESS WITH A SINGLE ONE AND LET ME FIND OUT.

3. Count yourself lucky that you will prolly never tangle with any of them.

4. None of 'em, not even head lionesses Ruth & Frances, scare me. They have my full respect--yeah, I genuflect when they're around--but they don't scare me. I mean, not really.

5. A mad... I mean... a very angry, a VERY angry tiger lives just below each of their skins. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I have NO explanation. Ask them! Just know: if you ever find yourself around them, don't make no sudden moves. And don't say nothing stupid. They don't play. Not nare one of 'em.

6. ... and this is the weird thing... I will never, ever understand why a man would put up with this type of woman. I wouldn't bother, myself. I like easy. Why, why... knock yourself on the head?

/Tangent

While I'll never say Debbie G and Tony A's relationship was/is/will ever be blessed by the gods, one thing I'll say for dang-sure is: Tony A can cook. Period.

Hold that thought.

---

When I go home the few times that I do, it never fails that, for whatever reason, more than one of my blood relatives... people born to the same mother and father as me, living 10 minutes away... refuse to join us in the talk; the hoola hoop in the back yard; the sitting around; the bar-b-q; the watching/arguing about the movie we all just saw on Debbie G's humongous big-screen.

I might be there for three, four days... sometimes a day and a half... and I never see these BLOOD relatives. Not once. You call them, leave messages, and I may as well be a lousy tele-marketer who needs to be ignored. Which is cool. I've found peace with it. But...

... in a recent dialog, the question was: Is Tony A from Louisiana "family"?

It was a damn fine question.

I say yes, he is.

Which leads to another question: What *is* family? I have my particular thoughts on that, too.

Yours?

happiness is contagious

Interesting article in the LA Times a few weeks back. A quote:

In a study published online today in the British Medical Journal, scientists from Harvard University and UC San Diego showed that happiness spreads readily through social networks of family members, friends and neighbors.

Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself, the study found. A happy friend of a friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor’s sister’s friend can give you a 5.6% boost.

“Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on actions and choices of other people, many of which you don’t even know,” said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and medical
sociologist at Harvard who co-wrote the study.

The research is part of a growing trend to measure well-being as a crucial component of public health.
Scientists have documented that people who describe themselves as happy are likely to live longer, even if they have a chronic illness.

I always thought happiness was a choice. The article's implication is that maybe I was wrong. Happiness depends to some extent on who you hang around. Or even who your friends hang around. Happiness is like a virus. If this finding is true, happiness is contagious. I bet depression probably is, too.

Hang around happy and positive people? Get happy and positive.

Hang around depressed and negative people? Well... you know.

Choose.

wall of windows

There is a place. A night spot, on the beach high above the water. I've seen it in my dreams. The wall of glass faces west toward the sun's setting glow. As seagulls fly in cryptic circles, the warm ocean silently pounds far below. It's a late Friday afternoon at the End of a long hectic week. It's time to exhale.

Smooth and sexy jazz plays as we walk in at the end of a long week. We are greeted by one who knows us by name. We've been here before.

"It's good to see you again," he says, calling us by name. "It's been a couple of weeks. Let me show you to your table."

Her flimsy black mini-dress fits her body to a 'T.' A wave of silence grows in the place with each of her steps. Her face, her lips, her hair, her hips... wrapped in a complimentary dress... ends idle chat as we pass. Men turn to take in the spectacular view.

He moves with her, noticing while not noticing... a lion in his prime with his mate.

As they reach their table by the wall of windows, Gerald, our host, adjusts her chair.

.... to be continued...

convo with Big John - Part 1

It took me a full half-century. More than many have been alive. Fifty years. But on Friday, Nov 31, 2008, I finally got around to doing what men have been fighting and dying for on foreign battlefields for a century; folks with skin like me who had been lynched for; had their homes burned for, lost their jobs for; died for.

I voted.

Today, I happily remembered that day. On the way out of the building, Big John holla'd "Todd!"

A step and a half later, I recognized what I'd heard, did a one-eighty, and went back in. John (building security) is one cool laid back dude. I hadn't seen him in a while. Gave the Man a fist-pump. It was good to see him. Been a while.

"Happy New Year," Big John said.

"Has it been that long?"

Yep.

So, I raised my left arm showing the bright blue "OBAMA Yes We Can" rubber bracelet that's been proudly on the wrist since I got it about a week before The Vote®.

I said, "Been some changes since we lasted talked last year, my Man!"

I told him about the day last year when I went to vote.

I didn't tell him what happened when Iwent to my precinct... walking-distance from my apartment, dressed to stand in the cold with all the long line of others who I expected to see standing in the cold.

Didn't tell him about how nobody was there but me. How the black grandmotherly type woman who, all alone, was making coffee in a massive kitchen, said "no, baby. If you want to vote today, you have to go to the Voting Board."

Idiot me. I am an effing idiot.

.... to be continued....

Frost/Nixon

In the summer of 1974 I was 17 and pretty much a nerd, as I view me back then. I wasn't free to do what I wanted like most 17yr-olds were, but nobody made me sit in my Elm Grove apartment and watch some dude named John Dean talk about some obscure place called "Watergate," either. The 9-foot deep pool with the high dive at Elm Grove Park beckoned, but silly me resisted its call more than once. I'm sitting... watching... John Dean, Haldeman, and Erhlichman... because I wanted to. I loved it.

I spent many long afternoons watching dudes with German names sitting behind desks under bright lights and in front of cameras.... answering searing questions posed by seemingly unhappy men. Why I did, I cannot say. Not even now. I must not be your average Negro.
======================

For me, there were two scenes in Frost/Nixon that respected me as a movie viewer. Ron Howard tends to respect the viewers of his films that way. Not all movie viewers are as bright as they should be. That said, the former Opie understands that not all need to have things spelled out. He figures that some are just as smart as him. Some are.

There are two scenes.

A door is closing. You see as a man begins to smile. The door closes.

There's a late-night phone call. It does not necessarily portray actual events. While not telling the literal truth about what happened, it doesn't lie about him, either.

A dichotomy like that is hard to pull off accurately. Howard does it in Frost/Nixon. He tells a lie while telling a truth. Hard to do. Never seen it before.

Two scenes.

I give it a 9 point 5.

Other than the pointless candy Caroline (and she was fine to look at), I saw no flaws.

Regular Americans shouldn't bother. Go see Slumdog.

spend it

On Nov 4, 2004, the newly re-elected president said : "Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.... there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress."

He then went about wrecking the economy as it's not been wrecked for 80 yrs, continuing to lead the Nation down the dark hole of Iraq, spying against regular Americans' (specifically journalist's) emails, phone calls, and IMs; destroying American moral authority abroad by torturing "enemy combatants" and holding hundreds of others w/out charge or trial at a military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba... among other evils... leaving the country much worse off than he found it.

==================

Juxtapose that recent reality against today's economic news:

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., and Sprint, the country's third-largest wireless provider, said they each will slash 8,000 jobs.

Home Depot Inc., the biggest home improvement retailer in the U.S., will cut 7,000 jobs.

General Motors will cut 2,000 jobs at plants in Michigan and Ohio.
Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of mining and construction equipment, is cutting 20,000 job cuts by the end of March.

Dallas-based Texas Instruments will cut 3,400 jobs due to slumping demand, 12 percent of its work force.

Even one of Vice President cheney's favored companies--Halliburton, a company that's turned out to be quite a nice windfall for former vice president cheney--announced it will eliminate jobs in markets particularly hard hit by the recession, though, like its ultra-secretive benefactor, didn't specific provide details.

Halliburton's larger rival Schlumberger Ltd. will cut up to 5,000 jobs worldwide in the first half of 2009 and consider further reductions this spring.

Microsoft is slashing up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months.

Intel Corp. is cutting up to 6,000.

United Airlines parent UAL Corp. will rid of 1,000 jobs, on top of 1,500 axed late last year.

"And there's no end in sight. In a survey by the National Association for Business Economics, 39 percent of forecasters predicted job reductions through attrition or "significant" layoffs over the next six months, up from 32 percent in the previous survey in October. Around 45 percent in the current survey anticipated no change in hiring plans. About 17 percent thought hiring would increase."

==================

In response to this impending economic catastrophe 8 years in the making while the previous Administration took the day off, the Obama Administration proposes an $825 million stimulus package, 33% of which--tax cuts--is meant to appease the losers of the recent November election. The Losers. The republicans.

==================

Their response? What does the losing minority party say?

Here's one of the problems the foremost loser--LOSER--of the recent presidential elections has against the stimulus package:

"Some of the stimulus in this package is excellent. Some of it, frankly, has nothing to do — out of those projects and others that you just mentioned — 6 billion for broadband Internet access. That will take years." -- Source

Funny. During the campaign, admitted Internet-illiterate McCain said:

"... through access to high-speed Internet services that facilitate interstate commerce, drive innovation, and promote educational achievements, there is the potential to change lives. These kinds of transformations of our way of life require the infrastructure of modern communication... this country has a long history of ensuring that rural areas have the same access to communication technology as other places."

Campaigner McCain for Internet infrastructure; loser McCain now against Internet infrastructure. Flip-floppers without the guts to stand for what they believe always lose. They should. What suggestions does he have for solving the problem? None. Ask the hannitys and the limbaughs and all the other Obama bashers for solutions out of the mess created over the last 8 years and you'll hear the chirping of crickets.

==================

Bottom line: President Obama WON! After earning 57% of the popular vote (not 50.5% as it was for bush) and crushing his lackluster opponent in the electoral vote, the President should stop kowtowing to the losers and begin to spend political capital like the former president never had. America voted for him because they liked and trusted his views more than the other guy's.

Stop jaw-jacking with the losers. Let's go! Let's get this done. Let's start digging out of the ditch the former Inepts left us in and return America to its greatness.

And let the losers get nice and comfy, gnashing their teeth outside the walls of the Great City... where they belong.

where the light is

One night, a passerby came upon a drunk crawling in the gutter on his hands and knees underneath a streetlight. When the passerby asked what he was doing, the drunk said he was looking for his car keys.

The passerby offered to help in the search, but first asked if it was here that the drunk thought he'd lost his keys. The drunk replied no, that he didn't think he lost them here.

"They're down there," the drunk said, pointing down the dark street in the direction of the bar he'd just left.

"Then why are you searching here?!!" the stranger asked, flabbergasted.

"Because this is where the light is."

spaghetti

I have at least one brother. My mother had three boys but it's funny: who you deem Family isn't always automatic.

I never laid eyes on him till I was way into my second decade of life. He'd married my big sister when she was 19. Or maybe she was 20. Maybe 21, I don't remember. More than 30-something years ago. My favorite sister got lucky. Struck gold, you ask me. The gods smiled on her for once in her life. Henry T is one in a million and that ratio may be far too liberal.

I love Henry. I tell him that every time I see him or talk to him. Every time. I'm not the only one of my clan who does. One of my great wishes in life is to spend as much time around him as I can. He's got a lot to offer, stuff that will die with him, I'm afraid. He's the greatest human being I've ever met who doesn't share my last name... by far. I could talk about him for days. For this post, I'll say: dude's a tremendous cook.

Hold that thought.
----------------------------------------------------------

I like spaghetti. And...

The Nephew® and I talk to all the time, a miniature Henry T in many ways. Nephew, in one of our marathon convos, once said Uncle Henry has a serious spaghetti recipe. Oh really? Who knew. *shrug*

Henry's cooking skill is legendary among the fam. He's never boasted about it, but put him in a kitchen and the result--no matter the meal--is never less than closed mouths, lack of talk, and "hmmmmm's" all around. Dude can cook, I already knew.

Hold that thought.
----------------------------------------------------------

So I asked him for his spaghetti meat sauce recipe, almost knowing what he'd say. Dude is ultra-protective of the recipes he's going to die with. Just chop us this and add a little that. Whatever, dude.

But I did what little he said... w/ my own touches... and

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

My first time out, I'd made spaghetti that was fit to eat.

Cooking. Maybe it's in my blood.

body or engine

My first father-in-law stopped talking to me nearly twenty years ago when I stopped looking at the world from his point of view. God was there with him, so when I left him, I left God too. Or so he thinks.

But one thing he said is true:

Son-in-law, when buying a car, look for one of two things: a good body or a good engine.

Time and experience has proved he had a point.

something in the air?

A person I thought was one of my best friends all of a sudden stopped talking. Stopped cold without explanation. Quit responding to IMs, emails, phone calls. Strange.


The other day, a former workmate seemed kinda down. I asked and he wrote: "I just realized some people aint worth being treated like people so I been weeding out the bad ones in my life trying to surround myself more like minded people."

Hold that thought.

Around 99, maybe 2000, I first thought about starting a blog. I was surfing the net last spring when I found and bookmarked a blog starter site and then promptly forgot about it. Until yesterday morning.

I spent the better part of a cold and cloudy Saturday starting my own blog. By chance, one of the first blogs I stumble on is one where the author had just been betrayed by someone they had long counted as a genuine friend. Has there been an Invasion of Fake Friend Body Snatchers?

Of course not. Over the years, technology may have changed how things are done, but across a range of behaviors, people act in 2008 like they did 5,000 years ago. Some people are real and honorable and open and honest; most aren't. Good, honorable, open and honest people are not all that common.

After he'd experienced similar events one too many times last year, The Nephew® thought it might be best to create a façade, a mask he could put on at will when first getting to know someone, and take it off only when he felt he could trust the person he was with. I understood but no, that's a bad idea.

Certain facts became evident:
1) high-quality people are rare;
2) it's best to be real, honorable, honest and truthful so that when you meet the rare like-minded person, you'll recognize each other.
3) It's gonna take some luck, but being true to yourself is the only way to live
4) Lying to other people only means that you're constantly lying to yourself.

One day last year on Face The Nation, Bob Schieffer talked about keys and locks. How people are lucky if they find that special relationship or that special job that fits them. Friends are like that, too. Either you click like a lock and key, or you don't. Time will tell.

Bottom line: if a friendship over anything less than murder, robbery, extreme mental, physical or whatever abuse, it was not a friendship and they were not a friend. Their departure from your life was just a matter of time. Good that it happened sooner rather than later when you'd have paid an even higher price.

royal purple, baggy jeans

I heard once that you should not love your job. The reason why did not follow the warning. Maybe it's because you should not love material, carnal things? Or maybe because you can lose it? Or maybe because it can be taken from you? I dunno. Why you should not love your job wasn't explained.

So, I don't love my job. I like it an awful lot, though. An awful lot. I'm one of the few I know who actually looks forward to Monday morning. What I do for a living leaves me with a feeling of great satisfaction.

There's a good thing about where I work: there's a lot of young people there.

There's also a sometimes hella frustrating thing about where I work: I work w/ a lot of young people.

It was maybe 3 yrs ago when someone, just back from Mardi Gras, came to work with a necklace of big ol' bangly, royal purple beads. They were mine, if I wanted them. Of course I did and put them on! I wore them with pride for the next two days, too.

Not long after I first put them on, one of the aforementioned young people, seeing what he had seen, came up, laughing. Poking fun. To his point of view, I was a sissy. Or worse. What on earth would compel a "real" man to sport such jewelry? I laughed along with him, looking at me from his point of view. But I did not remove the royally, purply, bangly, beads. They fit me just fine.

As he began to leave, I wondered if he might amuse me:

"Say, Alexander (not his real name), answer me something. What can you tell me anything about the history of the color of these bangly beads? And can you tell me anything about the origin of how you wear your jeans?"

See, the young man wears his jeans so low--more than half off his butt--that he not only has to walk as if he is cursed with a physical deformity, but he has to yank 'em up every third step he takes less they fall completely to the floor. Of course, there's nothing wrong with wearing your jeans that way if that's how you want to spend your day, I'm just sayin'. I may not be a "real man," but at least my jeans fit!

I digress...

The 19yr-old had no answer then, and has never returned with one.

Royal purple. Baggy jeans.

Miracle or Hero on the Hudson?

Competent people impress more than any other sort of person. Regardless of their profession, if they do it well; if they have a command of their work, take pride in what they do, take their job and jerk it by the collar... they inspire me. I look at them in awe, really. I watch them like I watch very few.

It's interesting, perhaps prophetic of days to come, that at the very moment in time that a person universally described as arrogant and totally inept is disappearing from worldview, a splendidly competent airline pilot appeared on the world stage by a quirk of sheer fate not of his making.

Let the record show that Captain Chelsey B. "Sully" Sullenberger III is supremely competent and is a credit to his profession. He honored his training by what he did one bone-cold Thursday afternoon in Manhattan. He is maybe one of the most over-qualified people on earth. He takes his job seriously.

On that day, he held the lives of 154 other people in his hands, and because of the multiple split-second decisions he made, everyone got out alive. Every one. He did not fail them. Because of his mastery of what he does for a living, fathers and mothers and sons and daughters went home ship shape. All good.

Since the news of that event hit the Internet, the words miracle and hero have been thrown around. Was what Captain Sullenberger did a miracle? Is he a hero?

Miracle? No. Miracles involve the active hand of God, and I highly doubt god's intervention in any single human affair for at least the past 2000 years.

On that cold day in Manhattan, if God wasn't preoccupied, let's say, in the bathroom at the time... if that deity happened to be aware of what was happening to Flight 1549 out of all the hundreds of other planes in the air at that particular moment, I can guarantee he would have done what he always does whenever humans face impending catastrophe: he would sit and watch. He would wait and see what would happen. Wait to see how humans would work it out, if they could.

Well then. That settled, is the good Captain a bona fide, real-life hero?

One definition: a person who is regarded as a model or ideal. Another: one who does what needs to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. A third, by a young man who's passed on: "heroes in ancient times were the link between man and perfect beings, the gods. Today, they are the link between man as he is and man as he could be."

By these and nearly any definition, Captain Sullenberger is a hero. Pilots all over the world who heard the tale raised their heads in pride when they heard the news. He is the model pilot, a shining example of what all pilots hope they'd do in the same position. By doing what he did, he honored them all. None can ask more of a human than what Cpt Sullenberger did when the moment-of-truth came. He is a pilot's pilot.

Google the story and you'll find: he did exactly what he should have done... by the book, down the line. He acted as perfectly as a human being can, step by step by step. With more than 150 lives on the edge of the abyss, he made the absolutely correct decision, time after time after time in rapid succession in a less than 5 minutes with no chance for a do-over. And after having done the impossible, he TWICE walked the aisle of the sinking plane to make certain that all had made it out alive.

Miracle? No. God was not involved. Hero? No question.

The obvious though untold story is that a lot of boring work went into shaping Capt Sully into the pilot he became. Hours of study and practice; showing up for work everyday. He did the groundwork, then as he did his job all those thousands of hours, he learned from his mistakes. He made them, I'm sure, but he showed up for work and learned. And when the time came, he was ready.

What a way to start the new Era of competence and accountability. Whatever we do for a living, whatever work defines us, in 2009 we're all faced w/ the challenge of rising up, following Capt Sullenberger's example, and being the best we can be.