All Used Up

When people of European descent first came into the desert southwest in significant numbers, they noticed the ruins of a civilization that had found a way to thrive in the harsh desert conditions.  When they asked the local Native American tribes in the region about the people who created those ruins their response was, ‘they are hohokam.’

Hohokam is an Akimel O'odham word that means ‘all used up’ and it is now the name for this culture.

It is no secret that I hold a bit of disdain when it comes to Arizona’s recent population influx.  I have said on multiple occasions that the worst thing that has happened to Arizona was the invention of air conditioning.  Freon was invented in 1928.  In the 60 years prior to this date, from the beginning of census data in Arizona, the population increased a little over 400,000 people.  In the 60 years following the invention of Freon Arizona’s population had increased by over 3 million people.  In the thirty plus years since I was born my home state has gained almost 4 million people.

Now I realize that it is would be hypocritical of me to be against people moving to Arizona from elsewhere. My family, on both sides, did not move here until the 1940s and even though I am second generation Arizonan, we are still relatively new to the area.  The thing is, even though there are people who have been here longer, there aren’t too many Arizonans that can claim what I just did.  In fact, when a college professor asked a class about 70 students if they were born in Arizona only four of us raised our hand . . . He was surprised that many people raised their hand.

I am not irritated that people are moving here as much as I am irritated that a lot of the people who are moving here either aren’t aware, or don’t care that they are moving to a desert.  And I believe that is mainly the fault of air conditioning. At some point I had heard that there are companies out there that have parking garages for their employees that are air conditioned.  If this is true, that would mean that in the dead heat of summer people could wake up in their air conditioned house, walk into their air conditioned garage, get into their air conditioned car, drive to their company’s air conditioned parking garage, walk into the air conditioned elevator to go work in their air conditioned office and never feel just how bloody hot it is out there. When it doesn’t feel like you live in a desert, you start to believe that you don’t live in a desert.

There are a lot of wonderful reasons to live in the desert southwest, but there are also limitations to living in here. Pretending that those limitations don’t exist doesn’t mean that they will go away.  The fact of the matter is deserts get less than 16 inches of water in a year.  I understand that the place you moved from had lots of green grass, tall green trees and water around, but we don’t have enough water here for everyone that moves here to recreate their old surroundings.

All I ask is that you not only enjoy the good and beautiful things that come from living here, but also respect the limitations that come from living here.  Do you really need a full green lawn in your front and back yards?  Do we really need another golf course?  Do you really need a swimming pool? Do we really need one of the largest fountains in the world?  What can you personally do to limit the amount of water you use so that other people who wish to move to our state can enjoy the beauty of the desert southwest and still have enough water?

I worry about the consequences of continuing to live our lives like we are not dealing with limited resources here.  In a thousand years will the next great immigration come to the desert southwest and see the ruins of Phoenix and Tucson and ask the locals about the people who built these sites, only to have them reply, ‘they are all used up.’

Until next we meet.

God Save the King of New Orleans!

My cousin turns 40 this year on Fat Tuesday.  She realized that this was going to happen a few years back and decided that it must be a sign that she should celebrate her birthday in New Orleans . . . so tomorrow I will begin my first-ever trek to NOLA to experience Mardi Gras and celebrate the birth of my cousin! 

We have already established that I am a big fan of making lists when it comes to music.  I don’t need much of a reason to make such a list and a 3-hour flight seems like a great reason to make a playlist for my adventure. So in honor of my trip to New Orleans, I present my New Orleans mix:

1. Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) – Concrete Blonde:  It seems only fitting that I should start of the playlist with a band that my birthday cousin turned me onto. It is a song about picking yourself up after a bad experience that suggests if ‘you have the ways and means to New Orleans’ then you have an excellent location to stretch your legs and ponder how you are going to start creating some better times.

2. Mr. Bojangles – The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band:  This song was an obvious choice and the only decision was which version to use since everyone and their brother has covered this song. Heck even my friend Andy Hersey does a version of this song at his live shows.  I took the easy route and choose the one that most people think of when they hear it.  When I was in 4^th and 5^th grade, my teacher would do music time almost every day and she would get her guitar out and play songs from the 60s and 70s.  This was one of the songs I remember her playing and every time I hear this song I think about her.  I used to get so sad when the dog ‘up and died’. Hopefully I will not spend time in the drunk tank in New Orleans and get the opportunity to meet a ‘Mr. Bojangles’ type.

3. King of New Orleans – Better than Ezra.  When ever I think about Better than Ezra I can’t help but think of Norm MacDonald. During my visit I may just declare that Cat Stevens was the greatest singer in honor of this song and see if anyone gets it.

4. Lucky – Seven Mary Three:  I have no doubt this will be an adventure full of happy times,  but a playlist that only plays happy music gets old fast. I imagine New Orleans during Mardi Gras to be like Vegas and I imagine that like Vegas, I will only really be able to appreciate it for about three days before the ‘French Quarter high’ will ‘get old real quick’.

5. Give ‘em Hell Kid – My Chemical Romance:  Really there is not much to say about this song.  I just get a kick out of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and this song makes me want to give them some more sugar and a couple energy drinks and see what they create.

6. Magnolia Soul – Ozomatli:  ‘Let the good times role and the sad times go.’  I have a feeling this song is going to be my theme song over there – enough said.

7. Ramblin’ Man – Allman Brothers:  I don’t imagine it is any surprise that a ramblin’ man would find themselves in New Orleans at some point in their journey.

8. Walking to New Orleans – Fats Domino:  I suppose a New Orleans mix wouldn’t be complete without a native son.

9. Miami – Counting Crows: And most playlists of mine are not complete without a Counting Crows song.  Although its title is a city in another state, the song is about how every chapter in life has to come to a close and knowing when it is time to move on to a new adventure.  Adam knows his time in Miami is coming to a close and decides that perhaps the best place to start the new chapter is in New Orleans

10. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand – Primitive Radio Gods:  I hope my plane doesn’t have to land on Bourbon Street.

11. The City of New Orleans – Arlo Guthrie: I know this song isn’t technically about New Orleans, but it is a song about a train that travels to New Orleans – I think that fits.  In previous musings (although nothing on this blog), I have discussed an anecdote of how there were a handful of songs that I thought my dad wrote because growing up I had only heard them when my when sang them – this is one of those songs.

12. Mr. Tambourine Man – Bob Dylan: Although he does not ever mention New Orleans in the song, Dylan was inspired by Mardi Gras when he started the song and the imagery of the song sets the mood of how I imagine the days over there to be.

13. House of the Rising Sun – The Animals:  I figure since I started this mix with a song that reminds me of my cousin, it is only fitting that I end the mix with another one.  This song brings me back to high school down in my grandma’s basement rifling through her music collection for songs to add to my ever-growing collection of mix-tapes.  Although a co-worker of mine sang this at karaoke at the end of an out-of-town field project and now this song reminds me of the events that took place on that crazy night as well . . . but that is a story for another time.  Either way it is a fitting song to conclude this playlist and blog.

Until next we meet.

My HOBY Story

This week the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership organization (HOBY) is partaking in a social media blitz to raise awareness for the organization in an effort to recruit more sophomores to attend one of their annual summits.  They asked everyone involved with HOBY to change their profile photos to something HOBY related for the next few days and yesterday they asked people to change there status to indicate the impact HOBY has had in your life and encourage people to ask you about HOBY.  Today they asked us to tell our personal HOBY Story and I thought this would be an appropriate blog for the week.

First let me set the stage.  The year was 1994.  My sophomore year had just ended and summer had just begun.  August and Everything After, Candlebox and Siamese Dream were enjoying a healthy rotation in my tape deck (It would be another year and a half before I graduated to the latest craze – the compact disc).  And I still naively believed that my first high school crush may reciprocate the same feelings.

I lived in rural Arizona so the idea of summer wasn’t really exciting.  We had to drive about 30 miles to do anything remotely entertaining; without a license summers only meant that there was more time to work and do chores.  But I was excited for this summer.  I had been chosen to attend a youth leadership conference in the big city of Phoenix (I made no distinction between Tempe, Mesa, etc. – it was all Phoenix to this country boy).  I would be staying on my own in the dorms of a University like a regular college student.  It was a big deal.

But I was also very nervous too.  See I wasn’t really selected to attend the seminar; I was the alternate (back then only one student could go from each school).  However, the person who was selected from my school had a rodeo thing she had to attend – so I got the nod.  I have struggled with self-esteem issues all of my life and remember being surprised that I was even selected as an alternate.  I was about to go to a leadership conference and be surrounded by students that actually belonged there – I was incredibly intimidated.

The thing is . . . no one knew that.  It took me awhile to figure this out, but the thing I like the most about HOBY is no one knows you from Adam.  If by chance you do have more than one person from your school, you are purposefully placed in different groups and your interaction with each other is limited.  At a time when you are desperately looking for your identity, searching for the person you truly are, HOBY creates an environment free of the preconceptions that are all around you back at home and school. You can explore the person you are truly supposed to be without worrying that it might not be what people think that you should be.

I don't remember many details about that weekend, but I do remember it was a huge eye-opener.  The biggest thing that I remember was the general feeling that I wasn't alone.  On the contrary, I was surrounded by young adults, just like me, who wanted to succeed in life. They wanted to learn how everything works and they weren't happy with a lot of the things that were happening around them.  Not only that, but most of them were so much more active than I was.  They were doing things I never would have dreamed I could have been doing at the time.  All of these positive stories were out there, but I was only hearing about the bad things that were happening in the world.  

The concept of the ripple effect really stuck with me.  One person really can make a difference.  I saw proof of that all around me that weekend.  Everyone has a ripple.  The choice was mine.  What kind of ripple was I going to have? 

But more than that, it was fun!  I wanted to go back.  I wanted to recapture the experience of that weekend.  So I did.  I went back in '95 and '96 as a Staff Assistant.  We worked behind the scenes mainly.  We served the meals, met with the panels, made supply runs; basically a lot of gopher work.  But it was fun work.  And I was reminded how that weekend influenced me as I watched it influence the current ambassadors (this is what HOBY calls the students). 

Then I got busy with ‘life’ and lost touch with HOBY.  I went to college and graduated with excellent grades.  I found a good job making a decent living doing something that I truly enjoyed.  But I had lost touch with a part of me. I truly did change that weekend . . . it was no longer good enough for me to be successful.

To go along with the concept of the ripple effect, one of the things HOBY tries to empress upon you is the idea that a lot of people have paved the way for you to be the success that you are.  Your parents, teachers, friends and other members of your community have invested a lot of time in you to guide you toward becoming the leader you are today.  Therefore, you owe it to the people who have paved the way for you to use that success to make a positive difference you your community (locally and/or globally).

Up to that point in my life, I had failed all of those people.  Yes, I was successful, but I was neglecting a part of me that I had almost forgotten was there.  I had to start giving back again.  I had to start making a positive difference in my community.

When I started thinking about organizations I could join to work toward that goal, I thought, ‘what better organization to volunteer for than the one that solidified my desire to change the world for the better?!’ I looked up HOBY Arizona in 2005 and was fortunate enough to be a facilitator in 2006 . . . and just like that, the passion that had all but faded was rekindled and I was ready to take on the world again!

Since then I have taken on several different roles with HOBY Arizona from recruitment, to programs, to co-chair of one of the summits.  I’ve even branched out to summits in other states and HOBY’s World Leadership Congress.  I think it would be truly Outstanding to be able to say that I have volunteered at a summit in every state. Currently I am on the board; serving the function of alumni relations . . . and it fits me like a glove!  Because I truly believe that tomorrow’s young leaders can, and will, make a difference in the world today and I want to help them every step of the way.

Please feel free to ask me how you can help with HOBY’s mission inspire and develop our global community of youth and volunteers to a life dedicated to leadership, service and innovation.

Until next we meet.

Why does House's patients have to almost die before he figures out what's wrong?

No beer for two weeks – doctor’s orders.  I went in for a physical the other day (because that is what you are supposed to do when you keep getting older) and had some blood drawn for a battery of tests to see if I am fit to continue the life I have been allotted. They said they would send me the results in the mail if everything was on the up and up or give me a call if the doctor saw something he didn’t like . . . I got the call on Wednesday. Among a few other items, apparently my liver tests ran a bit on the high side and the doctor wants me to cut out alcohol for two weeks and take the test again.

This is no big deal, I took a year off of alcohol a few years back as one of my goals – two weeks will be a cinch.

More than anything, this is a relief. Now there is physical evidence that something is going on with me.  It is real.  I am not a hypochondriac. The fact that it has gotten harder to get up in the mornings over the last three years may not just be in my head. The tickle in my throat that never goes away is not in my head (we have proven that at an earlier doctor visit).  Something is wrong with me.

What?

That is for the doctors to figure out, right? They are the professionals. The little experience I have had with modern medicine has led me to the conclusion that there is one fatal flaw:  The knee-jerk reaction to treat all of your symptoms as individual, isolated occurrences.

My voice box is red and irritated – it is acid reflux and I need to take prilosec otc.  That didn’t fix it – I just need to take more.  That didn’t fix it – I need to go see a gastroenterologist to get a better look at my esophagus.

I get a small rash on the inside of my wrists every once and awhile – It is most likely eczema from dry skin and I should use more lotion.

I break two bones in three months that take a little longer than normal to fully heal – The x-rays don’t indicate an issue with bone density so it is likely just an unfortunate coincidence.

I feel like I have been more tired lately – No real recommendations here, maybe I should get more sleep.

So how do you get your doctors to take a more holistic approach to what is going on with you and not just treat the symptom?  Identify more symptoms.  And that is what these lab results just did.  Now I have three or four more issues that need to be addressed, one of which suggests that I may be fighting off an allergy (DING, DING, DING!).  The more symptoms get put on the board, the more likely they are to figure out what is going on, right?  I’ve watched House.

So yes, the questions these tests bring up make me a little nervous and I am going to miss my Friday happy hour the next couple of weeks.  But mostly it has made me feel a whole lot better because it is not in my head and I am one step closer to figuring out what it is and hopefully fixing it.

Now hopefully they figure it out before I get the Gout or have to borrow a piece of a friend’s liver.

Until next we meet.

Top 10 voices I would marry

It is no secret that I have a soft spot for the female voice, especially while singing. There aren’t too many things in the world more beautiful than the female voice.  It is soothing, powerful, sorrowful, meek and thought-provoking all at once.  On more than one occasion I have been quoted saying something along the lines of, ‘I would marry her voice if I could.’

Now I will be the first to say that list blogs are incredibly over played.  But I love to make Top 5 or Top 10 lists when it comes to music.  Maybe I watched this movie one to many times.  I promise I will spare you from the ‘Top 17 things men wish women knew that men didn’t know about what women really know’ list blogs here.  But I just can’t help it when it comes to music.

I like a classically trained voice as much as the next guy. But they all tend to sound the same and you couldn’t pick them out of a line-up if you tried. What makes a voice beautiful (like what makes a person beautiful) is the differences – their personality. So here it is, the Top 10 voices that I would marry, if I could:

10. Leona Naess – I got suckered into a subscription to a music magazine my first year of college because I have issues saying no to salesmen.  I really didn’t get a whole lot out of that subscription–because I don’t really read–but it was worth it if only for the fact that it introduced me to the music of Leona. Her voice is about as innocent and sweet as it gets.  Her first album introduced me to this song and New York Baby.  It is still my favorite album of hers, but any of her albums are great to listen to in the background to add a bit of happy to an otherwise melancholy day.

 9. Katie Haverly – Katie graduated from the same college as I did; I think it was even the same year. I got to see her perform twice, once in a dorm and the other time at a Bookman’s. Her honesty was striking and her voice seemed to move effortlessly from low sullen tones to high ethereal tones.  I found out she moved to New York and produced a pretty decent musical career for herself that included a couple new albums.  And the best part of this blog, is I just found out that she is hanging out in my town for the time being and I might actually get to see her live again!

8. Sarah McLachlan – I don’t know if anyone puts as much heart into their songs as Sarah does.  Her voice is soothing and comforting and somehow manages to breathe a hint of sadness with it even in her happiest songs.  Fumbling Toward Ecstasy and Surfacing defined my first two years of college.  Possession is kind of like another band’stake on stalking; you know the concept is wrong, but when she sings about it somehow it becomes innocent and misinterpreted as a love song.  But as someone branching out for the first time and trying to define the person he was going to be, this song found itself on repeat quite often back then.

7. Dido – Long before a certain actress was flooding the industry with predictable romantic comedies she costarred in a short-lived television series about aliens living among us.  I really liked that show; it showed a lot of promise, as far as plots go, and had the makings to tell a really good story.  But the biggest reason I like that show was it introduced the world to Dido. I remember when I first heard the theme song – what a powerful song and powerful voice!  It is steady and determined; building slowly yet powerfully just in time to bring it back down and hook you . . . I listened to that song a lot on repeat back when it came out.

6. Jewel – There is a good argument that Jewel Kilcher was the start of my obsession with the female voice.  I was pretty positive that I would meet her one day and she would realize how awesome I was and we would get married and live happily ever after. That first song/video was so powerful, thought provoking . . . and basically beautiful! And then Foolish Games came out – my heart still breaks every time I hear that song.  Her effortless voice is the perfect compliment to the poetry that comes out of her pen.  I also really like her overlying theme of, ‘Yes, I am small and rather insignificant when it comesdown to it, but I can and will make a difference in this world and don’t you dare get in my way when I do it.’

5. A Fine Frenzy – There are very few people who have written a song that makes you feel the raw emotion of the protagonist of a song like Alison Sudol was able to do with her first single.  Her voice comes across so fragile and broken; you can’t help but feel for her and the inevitable loss.  One Cell in the Sea is filled with song after song that fills the listener with empathy for the good and bad times.  Her second album is much more upbeat, but the raw emotion in her voice is the same.

4. Fiona Apple – This is another instance where her first single just knocked me out of the water.  I read an article once (maybe from Spin) that said she set out to be a songwriter because she didn’t think that anyone would appreciate her lower octave voice.  But it is so deep and moody and sullen, how could anyone not appreciate the mood she sets with her songs?  Her voice is the perfect compliment to the lyrics and poetry that she creates.  Tidal creates a world of mood and emotion that grabs the hardest of hearts and shakes it to its core.

 3. KaseyChambers – I said before that there are few songs that evoke the raw emotion of the singer in the listener; Kasey takes the cake in this department.  I’ll never forget the first time I heard the title track from her first album.  I was fresh out of college working on a project in Bisbee, AZ. We were unwinding at the end of the day out in the field with an adult beverage or two at a local bar when I was suddenly aware of the song playing in the background.  Her voice was amazing; so sad and sincere.  Her heart was bleeding out of the speaker through her voice.  Armed with only the impression of her voice singing the few lines that I could remember, I got back to my home at the end of the week and searched for the song on the internet (this was well before smart phones).  Fortunately I found out who sang the song and bought the album the next day.  It has since made its way to the top 10 albums I have listen to the most (but that is another list).

 2. HeatherNova – It may be because the first album that introduced me to Heather was titled Siren, but her voice is what I imagine those mythical creatures would sound like if they existed. I found that album in college (circa 1998) at a local record store that I spent a lot of time at in those days.  In those days, I would buy an album just because of the name of the band/album or the cover of the album.  The cover of the album was striking, but it was her voice that hooked me.  It is otherworldly and so seductive; I’m pretty sure I would have wrecked my ship on the rocks if I heard her voice singing back in the olden days and loved every minute of it.

1. Kacy Crowley – I stumbled upon Kacy at about the same time I found Heather Nova at the same record store. Her debut album was very decent but it didn’t make as big an impression as Siren did.  Don’t get me wrong I loved her voice and songs like Rebellious, Scars, and Bottlecap all had hints of brilliance, but the rest of the album was hit and miss.  But the albums she has put out since are amazing.  She has a hint of raspiness that give her honest and heart-felt lyrics a since of reality.

Until next we meet.

You can't say that on the internet!

There has been a lot of buzz over the last week, especially today, about a couple of bills that were floating around our national legislature.  I say ‘were’ because it looks like they may not be there much longer, at least in their current versions. 

I really don’t like getting into a political discussion so I promise not to make blogs like this a regular occurrence.

While I am thoroughly impressed with everyone’s stance to keep Congress from passing a law that has the potential to take away some of the freedoms that we enjoy today, it also irritates me a little. One of our presidents was once quoted as saying, ‘A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.’

How many of you who oppose these bills couldn’t see this coming when we started to asked our government to take care of our health, or to take care of our citizens in need of help?!  It is a slippery slope when we ask our government to take care of one part of our lives.

I imagine I could get more than a few hate messages for my previous statement if more than two people actually read this, so let me qualify that last thought by saying I am not the most unkind or uncaring person on the planet. We most certainly should work toward a society where we all can afford to be healthy.  And we definitely should reach out and help the members of our society who have fallen on hard times.

All I am saying is a society that relies on its government for its altruism and compassion has lost its humanity.  Maybe instead of asking our government to take $5 or $50 or $500 or $5,000 out of our pockets to make sure everyone can be healthy, we give it willingly to an organization that will do the same thing more efficiently, or better yet, give it to the person in need directly?

I just worry about the next time the government tries to take away or limit one of our freedoms . . . maybe that time it won’t be in the best interest of major websites to formally oppose the bill.  Will you notice it then?

Until next we meet.

Be Kind to Your Knees

Yesterday morning marked my third class of bootcamp to get my lazy butt back in shape after a year of nursing broken bones and sprained ankles, because who didn’t have a new year’s resolution that included getting in shape?! 

I’m hiking again and exercising again and it feels great to be out and about again.  And my knee is handling it like a champ . . . the rest of my out-of-shape body is not enjoying the process, but my knee has been great.  That is until yesterday’s bootcamp.  There were two differences between the previous two bootcamps and yesterday’s foray to a better me.  Those differences were the time of day . . . and about 30 degrees.

It was just shy of freezing when I braved the elements with the intention of creating a smaller version of myself . . . it became clear within the first few steps of the warm up lap to the big tree and back that my knee no longer appreciated the cold weather as much as I do. I survived it, no worse for wear (Well, maybe a little – but no worse than the previous classes), but every lunge and squat after the warm-up lap was met with my knee asking the question, ‘is this really such a good idea?’

That is a shame.  The cold morning long runs, before most people were awake, were one of the best parts of the training I did for a few races a few years back.  I’m not going to pretend that the first part of the run didn’t suck.  Bundling up in a ridiculous amount of layers and psyching yourself up to leave your nice warm house wasn’t always the easiest thing to do.  But once you got your first couple miles done, shed a layer or two and warmed up, nothing beat the feeling of freezing air entering your overheated lungs.  Fresh . . . crisp . . . beautiful!

I miss this guy!

 

Now it looks like that feeling may be a thing of the past.

Shortly after I graduated high school a song became pretty popular. It took the speech a person gave at a graduation and put it to music.  While the main issue this person wanted to get across to his audience was another subject, one of the lines was, ‘be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they are gone.’

When that song came along, I liked to believe that I really heard what the person was saying; that I was wise beyond my years and somehow had it all figured out a little more than most of my peers.  Perhaps we all felt that way. All I know, is the older I get, the more I realize that this person’s words, for the most part, just bounced off of my head like most of the advice I was given when I was younger . . . I could have been a lot kinder to my knees.

I guess that no matter how much you try to learn from the mistakes of others, most of the lessons you learn won’t fully be understood until you make the mistake yourself.  All I know is I really do miss my knee and the possibility that I may never experience a 7-mile run in the freezing cold to watch the sun slowly poke over the horizon kind of makes me sad.

Be kind to your knees everyone!

Until next we meet.