Steer clear of the salvo

OK, I have just stirred the pot, which goes against every fiber of my being.

A few months back, the disparate groups of women at my rowing club voted to merge together into one big group (that's a gross oversimplification of a very drama-filled story, but it will suffice for this explanation) under one coach. The rationale was that it would better develop new, novice rowers and make them feel as though we were one, big, happy family. Previously, each crew, or boat, managed itself, and the crews didn't much mix.

But one of the women's crews at my rowing club, which I will call Boat A, owns its own boat (i.e., does not have to share equipment with the rest of the club). When it came time to merge, Boat A decided not to participate in it, keeping themselves off to the side -- but keeping their membership current in case they need substitute rowers or to borrow equipment for some reason -- while the rest of us feel our way around in the Brave New World.

In a nutshell, that is the history of their club membership and participation in group activities, a microcosm of how they always have dealt with the rest of the club.

I will be the first to point out that it greatly has worked to their advantage: They almost always row with the same lineup of women, never having to deal with rotating lineups or widely varying skill levels; they aren't bothered by rowers who no-show to practice; and they never have to worry about not having a boat available to take out, since they own their own. As a result, they are the fastest, most efficient women's crew in the club. They even recently won a national championship in a masters rowing division.

However, over the years, they have continually been confronted with criticism that they are elitist and not team players, refusing to incubate new members by allowing them into their lineup until they deem them fit or worthy enough. They have instead preferred to hand-pick their members. But how can the club grow when new, novice members aren't made to feel like they fit in?

(Long aside: In a past posting, I have compared them vs. my crew, "Boat B," with the pros and cons of a dictatorship vs. a pure democracy. Our operations are polar opposites. They run their ship with perfectionism and strict efficiency, and there is accountability for slip-ups [they have been known to kick rowers out of their boat for repeated tardiness]. A couple of their rowers make all of the decisions, settle all differences and take care of all problems, and the rest just nod, show up and row, with no baggage or responsibility -- which is how they like it. Among themselves, they rarely have differences to settle. My boat, on the other hand, historically has been bogged down by tardiness, second-guessing and clouds of indecision, because each individual rower has an equal say -- sometimes a long one at that. But we like to operate under the assumptions that [1] we're all adults and can hold ourselves accountable [often that's true, sometimes we frustratingly manage to disprove that] and that [2] everyone's opinion does matter -- but that's how we like it.)

I must point out here that Boat A always has been very defensive about their positions, and they have two to three very opinionated, type-A personalities who tend to dominate most meetings (the aforementioned women who make all of the decisions). Thus, they are very aggressive in their interpersonal dealings and tend to get what they want, because many of the rest of us are not as confrontational and most of the time just don't want to get into it with them. (There are stories here regarding this, one involving me, in a very, very rare instance of losing my composure, having a freakout directed straight to them, but that's for another day.)

There have been a few instances this year when Boat A has asked to borrow either equipment or rowers from the rest of the women's program. But I and several other, more vocal, club members have fought to keep Boat A separate from the women's crews that merged. My feeling is that they made their bed, now they must lie in it. I may be the one not being a team player here, but I firmly think it's not fair they sit out on the merge yet want to play in our sandbox at their convenience.

Today, Boat A asked that the boat they row/own be included in an online database of club boats. The club's online database also functions as a calendar for reserving boats, oars, launches and rowing machines for use. Boat A's argument is that it will allow other crews to know when they're practicing and when they're out on the water.

I replied to the e-mail request, sent to Boat A and much of the club's management, by saying I didn't think Boat A's boat should be included in the online database. I said the database is for reserving club equipment, and their boat is privately-owned and thus not available to reserve by club members. There is a log book in the boathouse in which crews are supposed to document "time in" and "time out," for safety purposes, so that others know who is out on the water when. I said that should suffice for Boat A's concern about letting others know when they're on the water.

Speaking of the logbook, I've also taken to calling our boat "ORC [Orlando Rowing Club] A" when logging us in and out each time we row. As Boat B's captain, I'm the person who is responsible for this duty, and for years, I'd been logging us as "ORC B." But with Boat A's decision not to participate in the merge -- which is what the club's women's program voted to do -- I no longer feel as though they're part of the "official" program but more of a separate club that happens to share our boathouse.

I haven't gotten a response yet from anyone in their boat about the e-mail. It's been unusually quiet. They are typically one of the first to shoot back a retort.

As most people are, it's easier for me to be confrontational when I'm hiding behind a keyboard. But I still believe I said the right thing. Ask me again in another day or so.

Current mood: Hungry

The Great Iraq Swindle

My blood boils over what my own government has wrought. This insanity must end. Whatever happened to integrity, honesty, patriotism (not to be confused with jingoism) and concern for your fellow countrymen? Are those basic values no longer based in reality, just a pollyanna pipe dream? I'd always counted myself blessed to have been born in this country. This administration has, for the first time, made me question that belief.

Bechtel was given $50 million to build the [Basra children's] hospital -- but a year later, with the price tag soaring to $169 million, the company was pulled off the project without a single bed being ready for use. The government was unfazed: Bechtel, explained USAID spokesman David Snider, was "under a 'term contract,' which means their job is over when their money ends."

Their job is over when their money ends. When I call Snider to clarify this amazing statement, he declines to discuss the matter further. But if you look over the history of the Iraqi reconstruction ­effort, you will find versions of this excuse every­where. When [contractor] Custer Battles was caught delivering broken trucks to the Army, a military official says the company told him, "We were only told we had to deliver the trucks. The contract doesn't say they had to work."

Such excuses speak to a monstrous vacuum of patriotism; it would be hard to imagine contractors being so blithely disinterested in results during World War II, where every wasted dollar might mean another American boy dead from gangrene in the Ardennes. But the rampant waste of money and resources also suggests a widespread contempt for the ostensible "purpose" of our presence in Iraq. Asked to cast a vote for the war effort, contractors responded by swiping everything they could get their hands on -- and the administration's acquiescence in their thievery suggests that it, too, saw making a buck as the true mission of the war. Two witnesses scheduled to testify before Congress against Custer Battles ultimately declined not only because they had received death threats but because they, too, were contractors and feared that they would be shut out of future government deals. To repeat: Witnesses were afraid to testify in an effort to ­recover government funds because they feared reprisal from the government.

Read the full story here.

Current mood: Helpless

Argh

The dirt-cheap plane ticket to Chattanooga I was going to book when I got into work this afternoon -- $49 one way -- doubled in price as I slept this morning!

Current mood: Annoyed
Current music: Troubled Mind / Everything But the Girl

Jean-Luc, 1994-2007

From Critters

I am in grief. My boy passed away this morning. But I take solace in the fact that he wasn't expected to survive much into 2007, yet he blessed me for this long. He was a fighter. Thank you, Jean-Luc, for your companionship and love. He was as good as they come.

Current mood: Sad

Jean-Luc update

He improved a little a couple of days ago after I started giving him fluids every day instead of every other. But he has started to go downhill again. After cruising online for more information on his condition, I found this. Monday morning can't get here quick enough.

Why do these medical emergencies always arise during a weekend -- Saturday, even?

Current mood: Worried

Fun with the Labelmaker2600

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2588093

Robot Chicken is brilliant

Thank you for the laugh, Uptown5:



Current mood: Silly

THIS RULES ALL

Created by my buddy D. via Labelmaker2600.com (can you figure out the significance of the "CX" model number?):



Current mood: Amused
Current music: Atom Dream / William Orbit

Jean-Luc

He's my first, oldest cat. I got him in early 1994. I'd graduated college in fall of 1993 and left my parents' nest for the first time, moving into an apartment on the east side of town. One of my best friends in high school was moving back here from Texas, so we decided to become roommates. (As you might imagine, that turned out to be a mistake and the nail in the coffin for our friendship, but that's another story.) Anyway, soon after we moved in together, one of her sister's two cats had four kittens, and they needed homes. My boyfriend at the time adopted one, his mom took another, the sister kept one and I adopted the fourth and named him Jean-Luc after oh captain my captain, Jean-Luc Picard.

He was such a tiny, frightened thing when I brought him home, barely weaned from his mom. He hid under a dresser in my bedroom for almost two days. I would kneel down on all fours and try to coax him to come out, but all I could see in the darkness were two gigantic, shiny eyes looking back at me. Soon, he worked up the courage to venture out from underneath the dresser and scurry under some chairs. And within a day, he was scampering around the bedroom, chasing anything that moved and using his claws and scrawny arms to pull himself like Spider-Man up the side of my comforter onto the bed from the floor.

When the roommate and I parted ways about a year later, I moved into a very cheap, one-bedroom apartment downtown that unfortunately didn't allow pets. My BF at the time was gracious enough to take Jean-Luc, reuniting him with his sibling. As it turned out, I ended up taking in another old, sickly, partially lame charity case that hung out in the parking lot of my apartment building anyway. I somehow managed to hide my growing menagerie -- the sickly cat, a bird and a rabbit -- from the landlord.

The BF kept Jean-Luc and took great care of him for many, many years, and he has lived a long and happy life, growing up with his sister and two dogs.

A year ago, Jean-Luc became very, very ill. A vet diagnosed him with chronic renal failure, which I have dealt with in subsequent cats I've owned. CRF is just a fancy term for kidney failure of unknown cause, and there's no cure short of a kidney transplant, which, unlike humans, is rarely an option for a pet. (A quick Google search reveals that the University of Florida performs them at a teaching vet hospital, but they are not accepting any more patients. Grr.) There is a treatment that will slow the progression and give the animal more time, but it's not a cure.

The now former BF-turned-good-friend spent hundreds and hundreds at the vet and could no longer afford the bills, so I agreed to take Jean-Luc back. He's been with me since, and about every other day, I poke Jean-Luc with a needle and inject him with IV fluids. The supplies had been a not-so-insignificant expense until I found an online resource for ordering the supplies that is a fraction of the cost the vet had been charging me. (Frustratingly, you need a prescription here in the States to buy the IV fluids and needles, for which I had to ask my reluctant vet, but all of the supplies are freely purchasable -- and cheaper -- over-the-counter in Canada. Way to go, Big Pharma.)

Jean-Luc has lived far longer than his initial prognosis indicated. I've repeatedly said I want to keep him with me as long as he isn't aware of his illness but not to let him suffer when he goes into decline. He has been a doll with the injections, sometimes purring through them because he craves the attention. He is a wonderful, loving cat.

He had been pretty much asymptomatic until a few days ago. Today, looks terrible. I don't know how long I can let him feel this way. I know Jean-Luc's string of good luck will come to an end soon.

I am dreading The Day. The Day you know must happen at some point. The Day you push into the back of your mind when you bring home a pet. The Day you try not to dwell on, but as the pet gets older, haunts you more and more frequently. The Day you take your little buddy to the vet and return alone. My stomach is in knots. But I am so grateful and happy for the last 11 months of joy and companionship he's given me. Each day has been a gift.

Current mood: Sad

Welcome to 2007, one in a series

Taken with my spiffy new low-end MacBook, which has a built-in camera (and mic) above the screen!

Early review: I'm used to the sturdy, strong feel of my good ol' trusty 12-inch titanium PowerBook, which is deceptively hefty. So, I have to say that the white, plastic keys of the MacBook feel a little flimsy. They feel and sound like Scrabble tiles under my fingers as I type. That said, this MacBook's screen seems much larger than the meager 1-inch upgrade from the PowerBook; maybe it's the wider, cinema-style display. It's also more vibrant and smoother-looking. Obviously, the MacBook is lighter and much faster than the PowerBook, and I've run multiple large programs at once with no problems.

Now, the long process of setting preferences and moving stuff over from the old computers begins.

I'd like to find a good home for my old bubble iMac. There's nothing wrong with it and runs great. I'd just hate to see a perfectly good Mac go unused, sitting in a corner on the floor collecting dust, and I'd love for someone else to get as much benefit and enjoyment from it as I did. So if you know of anyone who might be interested in purchasing a used but in-perfect-working-order flat-panel Mac, let me know.

Current mood: Giddy

Look, up in the sky...

Double dose of astronomy goodness: A meteor shower and lunar eclipse in one month. According to the time chart, I'll be arriving at Lake Fairview to row right when the lunar eclipse begins. Should be a stunningly gorgeous morning. Pray for clear skies.

Current mood: Hot

To catch a reporter

Undercover Dateline NBC mole flees after being publicly outed at hacker convention (all kinds of video available at YouTube)

Current music: Extreme Ways / Moby (sorry, just saw The Bourne Ultimatum)
Current mood: Hungry

Thought bubbles

Recently, I've had no less than two people express their anger to me over the approval of the city's new downtown arena/performing-arts deal.

I just don't see it. I just can't figure out how it could be a bad thing.

Yes, I will fully accept that the price tag -- more than one beeeellion dollars -- is jaw-dropping. And wouldn't that kind of money be better spent bolstering law enforcement, fixing roads and feeding the homeless (oh wait -- in this city, we arrest people who try to do that)?

However, the flip side is that, as the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. And, obviously, this is a long-term investment for the city. A bigger, fancy arena will attract bigger, better tours. Complain that decent musical acts always go to Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville but never come here? Well, that will never change if we stick with what we have now: a mediocre arena and a Bob Carr so old, it has barely changed since I moved here in the early 1980s.

By the way, all three of those cities have major sports teams. I'm not a sports fan. I want to be up front with that. But if our city ever wants to rise above its cowtown-pretending-to-be-a-city reputation, it has to invest in its major-sports team, whether it be good or bad. Having a major-sport team raises a city's profile on the national stage, thereby attracting business (read: money), providing free advertising for the city and creating jobs (that may or may not be low-wage, but that's the nature of a tourist town).

Had we caved to the tourism-industry moguls who demanded the new arena be built on I-Drive, that would have furthered the city's image of perpetually living in the shadow of Daddy Disney. During the county-commission meeting in which the plan was approved, the Orange County Convention Center's biggest client threatened the commission with a vow to take his business elsewhere unless the new arena were built on I-Drive.

That threat rankles me, and I'm glad our city finally had the guts to stand up to the demands of the tourism industry for once. The city just spent a billion dollars renovating and adding to the convention center. How much more do they want?

Half the cost of the arena/performing-arts plan will be funded by taxing tourists more. Believe me, they don't need the arena or the money. With the pound worth twice as much as the dollar and the euro worth about 40 cents more, I'm sure European tourists will still consider coming here a steal compared with 'holidaying' in Europe.

The biggest plus I see in all this: another reason to bring light rail back to the table. Remember the debate that raged several years ago between the city, county and tourist industry over whether to invest in light rail and where the stops would be? Yeah, special interests managed to kill that one on the vine. Decent public transportation for the city's residents down the tubes. But with a new arena and performing-arts center, you could argue that the influx of pedestrian and car traffic downtown would create a need for a metro that could bring people to and from games and concerts. Heck, who wouldn't take it over trying to park downtown?

As for the argument that the money the city will spend on the arena/performing-arts center plan would be better served fighting crime and repairing infrastructure, I think that could be said about any huge governmental expense. In a city this size, there's never enough law enforcement or road repair. But perhaps with the potential for revenue and the creation of a need for decent mass transit, the problem will be a part of the solution.

Current mood: Spent
Current music: Chains / The Wolfgang Press

OMG!

One of the best things about working with a group of cynical, thirtysomething journalists is that many of them are chock-full of pop culture. Today's blast from the past came when I failed to wear my Fraggle Rock silkscreen baby-T to work, which is my standard Saturday-afternoon uniform. After a discussion of Doozers ensued, a co-worker piped in, "Do you remember this show called 'Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas'?" I had totally forgotten about that Jim Henson show!

Current mood: Wired
Current music: Time to Dream / Fortran 5