He was just some dopey kid who lived in the house across the street and one house over from the house where I grew up in Omaha. I don’t even remember his name. On one of those countless golden afternoons of my childhood, I think I was seven, this kid took it upon himself to terrorize every other small kid on the street by turning on his front garden hose and spraying unsuspecting kids as they came around the corner onto our street. Read More...

I think it is important to know who your heroes are. Here is a collection of portraits of people who have influenced me, inspired me, humbled me and helped me become the person I am today. They are just all around awesome. The curious thing, of course, is that I have not met any of them personally. I only know them through the power of their creative output. It is so important to do creative work in your life. I’ll periodically add more as I think of them. See how many you recognize on sight before you click them to link to Wikipedia articles. Read More...

Okay, just a little fluff today (now updated with links). Maybe you’ve seen these, or maybe I can introduce you to something new. All I can say is that I know for a fact that I’ve seen each of these films at least ten times and I could watch any of them again tonight. They are awesome! I’m not saying all of these are GREAT films. I’m just saying I have an affection for them. Forgive the quality of these screenshots, they were all hastily grabbed from YouTube. In no particular order.... Read More...

Many years ago I was on a San Francisco city bus, called the MUNI system, and it was very late at night.

It won’t surprise any of my readers from San Francisco that, before too long, a completely crazy person boarded the bus and sat right next to me.

He opened a newspaper and proceeded to quickly flip through the pages. When he came to the end, he threw the paper down on the floor of the bus in disgust and shouted with paranoid certainty, “Lies, all lies!”

I turned to him and said, “Oh, that would be a good thing.”

(I’m telling you, you haven’t lived until you get a look from a crazy person when they think they have just encountered someone crazier than they are.)

I continued,” You see, if it really was all lies in the paper, then you could read it reliably by simply believing the opposite of whatever it said. But here is the real frightening idea: Every newspaper prints exactly 50% lies and 50% truth. Now when you read a newspaper you can never know which is which and you will not know what to believe.”

This new idea so clearly disturbed the man that it actually made him get up and change seats further from me.

Yup. Just performing my public service by further frightening the already frightened.

Sometimes I think about the things that I haven't done in life, basic things. Things that it seems should have happened by now but for some reason hasn't.

1. Hosted a party at my house in Junior high or High School (parents wouldn't allow it)
2. Been a member of a wedding party or been a best man.
3. Bought a house
4. Skydived
5. Fallen in love at first sight (and having it reciprocated)
6. Gone on a crazy cross country hippy road trip with my friends after college (all of my friends went and got jobs, the great bores)
7. Visited anywhere in New England
8. Ridden a horse and had it do what I wanted it to do.
9. Understood America's obsession with professional sports
10. Read a Shakespeare Play
11. Had any kind of retail job. (thank goodness!)
12. Gone skiing
13. Seen Tom Petty in a live concert

On the other hand, there are some other things I have done that never occured to me to do, until the experience was upon me...

1. Gone on a cross country drive with a friend and videotaped the entire round-trip from the dashboard for the sole purpose of watching it play back at a high rate of speed later.
2. Sang Disney's "Be Our Guest" to a packed wedding reception in Japan to hundreds of people who couldn't understand a word I was singing.
3. Directed a 4th grade class in Golden Gate Park in how to build a living model of the solar system when each student was assigned to be a particular moon or planet and told how to move relative to each other.
4. Gone on a tour of several elementary schools in rural Kansas with a small black and white Macintosh, telling anyone who would listen, in 1987, how computers were about to fundamentally change our society.
5. Actually saved a guy with the Heimlich maneuver when he stumbled up to me in an Arby's parking lot.
6. Fathered two amazing children.
7. Shared every aspect of my cancer diagnosis with the world at large, through this blog and Facebook, without holding anything back.
8. Taught myself to swim.

So I guess all I'm saying here is that there are things we expect from life that never arrive, and there are plenty of surprises that we can never anticipate. This is Depot Dad saying here's hoping you notice the surprises the day has in store for you.

Today we set the Way-Back machine to February 1985. Long before Depot Dad was Depot Dad, he was Depot Resident Assistant at the Kansas City Art Institute dormitory. That’s right, workin’ for the man, all for the benefit of a slightly larger room, no pay, and all the responsibility of having to keep twenty-two 18 and 19 year olds from destroying the building from within.

One of the resident students at the time was a character named Darrell. Now Darrell fashioned himself as something of a modern day Edgar Allen Poe. And frankly, he pulled it off. I’ll be darned if I didn’t imagine bats swirling around his head every time he passed by. He was generally private, but also disarmingly funny. And we had formed the beginnings of a nice friendship that year.

But on this day in February, Darrell came to my room looking particularly disturbed.

“Jim,” he said in his droll monotone voice,”Will you please come to my room? I want to make sure.....I’m not going crazy.”

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Umm.....

My friend Lori just delivered this to me. I haven’t seen it before tonight. It was at a party on a hot evening in summer of 1985. I’m simply including it here for your amusement and my 80s hair shame.

Some people sing in the shower. Some people whistle while they work. But for Depot Dad, my stage of choice is the front seat of my car.

Hey, as a self employed consultant, I spend plenty of time in the driver’s seat getting from appointment to appointment. And I have found that during these respites between serious brain work, I’m not inclined to listen to French Lessons, or the audio book version of The Brothers Karamazov. Oh no. After I slide behind the wheel, it’s show time, baby.

And for a few select songs (see below) that seem to hold me captive, I completely surrender to the groove, dancing and playing faux piano on my dashboard. Now unlike Susan Boyle, people within earshot of me are not likely to be standing and clapping. That’s why I was so happy to buy a car recently with tinted windows. So now, when I shift from Park to Drive, I can indulge in the most unrestrained arm flailing and head swinging.

And this seems to be the only place I really let myself go. So unless you are riding shotgun in the Depot Dadmobile, or there are suddenly plans for an all new T.V. show called “My Car’s Got Talent” no one is likely to be subjected to my private performances. Or so I thought.

This morning, during a particularly passionate and rocking chorus of Petty’s “American Girl” I was stopped at a stop light and I belted out the melodic high point of the song fully accompanied by epileptic body movements...

“God it’s so painful......when something that’s so close.......is still so far out of reeeeeaaaaaaccchhhhh!”

I opened my eyes and looked to my left to see a car with three gorgeous women laughing their asses off at me.
NOTE TO SELF: Tinted windows are of no use when you drive with the windows down.

So now I ask you, where do you give your best performances? And what is your preferred material? For the record, I have to sing out loud to these songs...

American Girl : Tom Petty
The Waiting: Tom Petty
Brand New Cadillac: The Clash
Waiting on a Friend : Rolling Stones
Beast of Burden: Rolling Stones
Sultans of Swing: Dire Straits
Wild West End: Dire Straits

I’m a computer guy. And I am constantly involved in keeping up with the latest news and trends in technology. I admit it, I love the feeling of being on the bleeding edge of discoveries and products that other people haven’t learned about yet. But it seems that in so many other parts of my life, I am WAY behind the curve. Here are some things I learned WAY after, I suspect, other people discovered it.

Learned to swim: 22 years old

Got my first driver’s license: 17 years old

Saw the ocean for the first time: 21 years old

Discovered why breakfast diners have bottles of hot sauce on the tables: 30 years old

Watched Singing In the Rain (and loved it by the way): 38 years old

Learned to ride a two wheeler bike: 7 years old

First Travelled abroad: 30 years old

Learned that the phrase “For all intents and purposes” is not actually “for all intensive purposes.”: 25 years old

Had my first lamb chop (oh God, how I wish I had discovered this earlier): 29 years old

Read Shakespeare: Okay, this hasn’t happened yet, but it is something I want to do this year. 44 years old

And what other things are ahead of me? Plenty of surprises, no doubt. I mean, it isn’t really possible to list things that you don’t know yet, right? But there are a few things I am aware of that are still in my future. Like: watching Its a Wonderful Life, understanding how escrow in real estate works, and learning how to properly fold clothes.

So if you are in your twenties or thirties, hell if you are any age, I’m just here to remind you that you don’t know it all. There are still meaningful discoveries ahead of you. Or then again, maybe everyone else has already done everything and I’m still just trying to catch up! Hey, wait up! I’m coming. I’m coming.

A few days ago I had an extraordinary dream. I don’t usually remember my dreams, or when I do, I remember them as a mishmash of images and emotions. But every now and then, I have dreams that are continuous in their narrative flow. And that was the case with this particular dream. I also recall it as one of the longest dreams I’ve had, though the passage of time is tricky to measure with dreams. Sometimes scenes segue directly into each other, and the dreamer is left with only the feeling of the amount of time that has passed between them.

I’ll also say that this dream was filled with compelling imagery. And in recounting it here, it is impossible to convey the emotions that the scenes evoked in me. Dreams can fill a person with overwhelming feelings of profundity and yet a mere two days later it can be hard to recall what all the fuss was about. Such was the case here. Read More...

Well, the beat goes on. I just wanted to document these last remaining items in the ongoing story of Depot Dad vs. the DMV.

When I returned to the DMV, after clearing my Arizona driving record, I was asked to take a written test. This has never happened to me before and I wasn’t prepared for it. But I stood at the testing table and answered as best as I could. I felt pretty confident about all of the questions except one. It asked, “When you are convicted of a DUI, what sentence are you likely to receive? A. $500 fine B. 6 month suspension of license C. 12 month suspension of license.” I thought about it for a minute. “This is a ridiculous question! It has nothing to do with driving competency. It is only testing me on my familiarity with public policy. How in the hell should I know? I made a guess (C.) and turned in my test.

And, of course, this is the one question I got wrong. The woman reviewing the answers said, “Don’t feel bad. You probably aren’t a drinker.”
“Well, no. I’m not. At least when I know I’ll be driving! What a stupid question.” (The correct answer was B. by the way)
“Well, she answered, it is the reason I take a bike to work.”
What? Are you telling me you got a DUI conviction?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Let me get this straight. I can’t renew a driver’s license because of a twenty year old jaywalking ticket, but the DMV will let someone with an active DUI conviction correct the driving tests.
“Yes.” She said.

I had already mentioned in my last post on this matter that I got my insurance policy paperwork in the mail even before the company knew I had a valid license. Well the laughs kept coming the following day when I received a packet in the mail from the insurance company begging me to come back to them as a customer. Clearly the sales department was not talking to the marketing department. The packet contained all sorts of deals for reduced rates on my policy IF I returned to them. I did not fail to note that I received NONE of these deals when I renewed my policy over the phone the previous week!

So now I sit with an important question....

Should I stir the pot and call the insurance company and ask for these discounts? They are not trivial. And if they refuse (because I have already returned as a customer) I would be sorely tempted to cancel my policy just so I can call up the next day and reissue it with the discounts.

Of course, the ENTIRE story here began when my policy waned and I would be tempting the same fate if I cancelled my policy for 24 hours. What do you think? Aren’t you just as curious as I am to see just how ridiculous this story can get?

Whenever I am near a professional photographer’s strobe lights when they go off, I feel an electrical charge rush up my spine to the base of my skull. Sometimes the feeling is quite painful. I have never had this sensation corroborated by anyone else.

You can amuse your child for 25 seconds by filling a bowl with water and sprinkling in black pepper. Place a single drop of dishwashing detergent in the water to watch the pepper flee to the edges of the bowl as if in fear.

In France, I am told, there is an expression that goes, “half your age plus seven.” It is used as a formula for determining if the person you are dating (if you are the older party) is too young or of a socially acceptable age.

In case you didn’t already realize, I’ve been enjoying reading quotes and aphorisms this week. Here is another one I liked...
“Christian morality prefers remorse to precede lust, and then lust not to follow.”
-Karl Kraus

I had a client in tears today because of a failed hard drive and no backup. Do you have a recent backup?

I’ll warn you right now. The title of this blog post makes more sense than what follows.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, this is the conclusion (fingers crossed) to the nameless blog post from two days ago. And you can choose to read that first post or not. Actually, I doubt anything you do could help make this story make more sense. In fact, I might recommend reading that post backwards and you might actually be better off.

You see, I just wasn’t content to wait until the AZ court house assistant came back from vacation to investigate, and hopefully clear, my outstanding citation from long ago. I called the AZ courthouse this morning to see if anything had been done yet. Read More...

I don’t really expect anyone to actually read all of this. But if you have a strong constitution and appreciate Catch 22 types of situations, read on.

1. Last July: I get my first ever moving violation for making an illegal right turn from a lane that required all traffic pass straight through the intersection. That’s right! I have had a perfect driving record for my entire life until last July.

2. Several weeks later, I get a bill in the mail for the ticket. $75. I promptly forget about it.

3. A few weeks later I get a notice.
"Oh crap! That's right, I never paid that."
Now that I have missed the payment deadline, I have to go to traffic court and tell the judge why I didn't pay it, and then, um...pay it. $212. Court date is set for Sept 3rd.

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Personally, I find using a blog to espouse political musings somewhat vulgar, and I don’t plan on doing much of it here at Depot Dad. But then again, when did the risk of appearing vulgar ever stop me?

- - - - -

Even though Obama may have used the machinery of the Democratic party to get elected, I have this gut feeling the guy is actually a closet centrist. His messages are just so darn practical, inclusive, and free from typical leftist dogma. I think he is inspiring too, a wonderful blend of big dreams and feet on the ground. Is this guy for real? I feel like I'm waking from a nightmare, to the smell of coffee and a new day. I'm honestly moved to see so many other people who seem to feel the same way.

I'm not a very politically motivated person, but I have to say that this is the first president that has inspired me to ask, what can I do? Amazing.

Of course, I remember Bush's first campaign, where he sold himself as a very moderate Republican, but then after three months of Bush in office it was like the whole country had to learn to goose-step.

Personally, I’m very interested in seeing the consequences of Obama’s proposed Keynesian spending plan for stimulating the economy. Keynesian ideas have been so dismissed and ridiculed for the past thirty years or so that I’m fascinated to see if there is any life left in this approach. Personally, I believe it is the right answer for our times.

So we will see, we will see. But I’ll tell you this, I am hopeful.

. . . . . . . . . .

Well, as the title says, this is part 2 to my story. Go read part 1 first.

This is also, perhaps, the not very interesting conclusion to my story. You see, I sat there for several minutes contemplating the roll of money. I wondered, how much could be removed without looking like any had been removed? Three hundred? Five hundred?

But it didn’t matter because after about four minutes, I simply picked up the money that I was due, and walked out of the house. I didn’t even bother to check in with the crazy guy. I just left.

And I don’t know what difference it would have made anyway. Its not like that much money was going to put us on easy street. I don’t even remember what the rest of the week looked like. No doubt we did as we always had done. We struggled through until the next pay day. And at least I walked away with my integrity intact and knowing that I did the right thing.

I’ll never know where the guy got his money, or how he went on to spend it. And I guess I don’t care. I got a good story out of it and that might be enough.

Not long after starting my Apple consulting business, I got a call from a part time bookkeeper who worked with one of my clients. It turned out that she had a client of her own who was frustrated with his PC and had just purchased a Mac.

“I’ve seen you work with Martin,” she said,” and you definitely know your stuff. And frankly, there aren’t very many people who know Mac. So I was wondering if you would be willing to help this client of mine out.”

Seeing as that I was still just getting started with my business, I said yes to everyone. I got the address and an appointment was made. Read More...

I was going to start this blog post with a big list of complaints. Mostly about the effects of radiation treatment and how it gives me nausea, fatigue, oh, and insomnia. What a combo! It also hurts like the worst sunburn I’ve ever had.

Well, like I said, I came here intending to go on about it, but I’ve already bored myself to death with my bitching, and it hardly seems fair to bore my readers as well.

So all I’ve got today are some odds and ends... Read More...

I’m 43 years old and I’m amazed at how stupid I still am.

Several people responded to my pop quiz about Depot Dad. Some of the entries came in via comments, others through email. Lets see how they did....
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Though I’ve only been blogging for four months, some of the emails I’ve received have displayed pretty acute powers of observation when it comes to Depot Dad’s personality. Maybe I’m revealing more between the lines than I realize. Not only that, but this blog has also recently reached several people from my distant, long ago past, in that mythical, mysterious land called Omaha. Maybe they have an unfair advantage when it comes to knowing me. But that would only be if I hadn’t changed much since I was sixteen.

So I ask you. How well do you know Depot Dad?

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Friends Kevin, Amy, Dan, Paige, myself and Phill: Kansas City, 1984

I was eighteen years old, a freshman at the Kansas City Art Institute, and working on my latest assignment, when a quirky, mercurial, fellow student approached me and started talking about r.e.m, elvis costello, jasper johns, robert rauschenberg, and an old animated short film called Thank You Mask Man. And I remember him doing this, somehow, without needing to draw a second breath.

Now at the time, I was naive, idealistic, and ignorant in the ways of the larger world (um, very much like I am now....er, topic for another day). But in spite of those traits, this student, Dan, kept wanting to hang around with me. It wasn’t long before the feeling was mutual.

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Just in case anyone started thinking I knew what I was doing around here, I thought I would share a few of the less than stellar ideas which, at one time or another, I once held. I won’t say exactly when I had these ideas. Some are from long ago and some are too recent to admit.

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I can’t tell you why, but for as long as I can remember, I had always been afraid of water. My mother once sent me to swimming lessons at the local pool when I was six and I nearly had a heart attack from fright. I went to four lessons and never went back.

A few summers later, when I turned nine, my siblings and I visited our father who was then living in Minnesota. We had not seen him in several years. On one particular day there, my dad and I went to the pool at his apartment complex. He dove off the diving board and called for me to come join him. I timidly sat on the stairs leading into the water. When I told him I was scared, he let loose a string of insults and shaming remarks. He said all nine year old boys should be able to swim. But I didn’t go in and my father remained silent for the rest of the day.

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One day when I was 9 years old in Omaha, I was playing in the backyard with my friends Marty and Danny (Don’t worry, there is a point to this story....I think) Anyway, we decided that we were going to play Cavemen and the Dinosaur. Danny and I were the cave men, and Marty was the killer pterodactyl. “I’m going to climb up on the clothes line post to be my perch,” Marty said.

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