Random Walk

We had a “do” the other night to attend, so I dusted off the blazer and dress slacks, and rooted around in the sock drawer for something other than white cotton. Just before I belted out some sarcastic remark about the laundry service in Random Manor – because chicks dig a winning sense of humor, you know – I found an old pair of black dress socks that I hadn’t worn in years.

Not just any pair of black dress socks, but dress hosiery, mind you. The kind that came with little form-fitting bits of tissue stuffed in each sock when purchased, so that they crinkled delightfully in the bag. Decorated with little teddy bears holding a martini glass up the side. Cost nine dollars at the rhymes-with-their-prices-don’t-go-low store. Nine dollars. One pair. $4.50 per sock.

Pulling them out of the drawer, I got a familiar sinking feeling in my heart. You wouldn’t think a pair of socks could be particularly evocative – although for $9 you’d expect them to do something special – but this particular pair recalls a tumultuous time in the Random Family. A time when priorities went askew for awhile, but fortunately landed back in their places, a little battered and bruised, but still operable. Nine dollar socks made sense during this time, which should have been the revelation we needed to set things right, but it took us a couple more years of blundering to get to that place.

So I put them on with just a tinge of apprehension. In Hollywood, the strings would have begun to play swirling sounds and the FX boys would begin earning their paycheck, but in my closet, all was still.

Until the Random Wife shouted up the stairs, “Are you going to knit some socks, or just wear them?”

I shoved those nine dollar socks into a more sensibly-priced pair of loafers bought shortly after those priorities returned home, and shuffled off.

With all the extreme weather in the midwest of late, the media are dutifully reporting the work of volunteers to fill sandbags and place them on the various levees and riverbanks to hold the river back, and the obvious question finally dawned on me: what happens to the sandbags after the danger is past? Put another way, why don't they just leave the sandbags there for the next time? Aesthetics?

Update (6/18/2008): I continued to do some digging after asking what may have seemed like a rhetorical question, and ran across a PowerPoint presentation from Dr. James Blatz of the University of Manitoba, a professor in their civil engineering department. The presentation mentioned the importance of timing around sandbag placement AND removal, but without any printed elaboration. Dr. Blatz was kind enough to respond to my query, as follows:

...The point of the importance of removing them is not obvious in my presentation as you have noted since there is some discussion I add around that point. The comment is actually specific to the area I discuss in the presentation (in around the Winnipeg region) where the dike corridors are right at the top of marginally stable riverbanks. The Red River cuts through a weak lacustrine clay layer and placing the large surcharges of sandbags on the tops of the banks can actually cause them to fail and take the bags with them thereby destroying the flood protection level. So part of the issue with timing is waiting for the river to rise enough such that the flood water acts as a lateral hydrostatic force on the riverbank allowing the added surcharge to be placed safely (the sandbag dike) and then when the water recedes below the sandbag level after the flood you need to remove the surcharge quickly or if the water drops too far, reducing the lateral hydrostatic force, the sandbags can cause the banks to fail. This is particularly a problem along the Red River since the dike corridor is relatively narrow since people build their homes close to the river. If you had the dike corridor quite a way from the natural riverbank edge this would not be a concern and you could leave them up as long as you like. However, the sandbag materials are usually very cheap (end run materials) and are not protected against UV degradation (with carbon black or another admixture that would increase the cost significantly) since they are generally only to be used for short term applications and as such after a few years exposure to UV the dike would be highly impacted and the integrity would likely not be safe for resisting flood waters. You would see many ruptured bags along the surface and sand running out and so on....

Thanks to Dr. Blatz for taking his valuable time to deal with such a trivial subject for a layperson. We now return you to your regular randomness.

There's a lot going on around here at Random Manor worth reporting, but this news story vaulted to the top of the list:

A 27-year-old Houston man died early today after his pickup truck slammed so hard into a Katy Freeway overpass railing that he was ejected through the closed driver's window and fell about 40 feet to the ground, police said.

The accident occurred at 2:10 a.m. and the driver, whose name was not released, died at the scene.

Police said the man was not wearing his seat belt when the crash occurred.

Witnesses told accident investigators the man was westbound on Interstate 10 and seemed to be trying to exit at Antoine when he lost control of the 2001 Chevrolet quad-cab truck and it spun into the railing.

Investigators said they found crack cocaine in the pickup.


The Random Kids are at an age where we as parents are making that transition from benevolent dictators to trusted advisors. So while I'm sure there is a lot of pain and sorrow behind this sad ending, I will confess to being glad so many "teachable moments" are in there as well.

Back when I was probably 14 or 15, a cousin of mine broke his leg in a mishap that occurred rather late one Friday night. A day or two later, as the dinner dishes were being cleared away, I said something to the effect of, "That was sure crummy luck," to my father. Rather than the distracted "Mmmm-hmmm" of assent I was expecting, he put down his newspaper, fixed me with a serious stare, and said, "Random Son, I think you will find that luck tends to degrade rather dramatically after midnight. Tell me, what good things do you suppose might have been likely to happen to him at that hour?"

As I had been more or less perennially lobbying for increased laxity around my parents' draconian curfew policies¹, I stammered a bit, looked around for help, and settled for, "Uh, I don't know?"

He returned to his paper. "Exactly."

2:10 AM.

Not wearing his seatbelt.

Drugs in the car.

Mark Twain had it right. My father was an idiot at 14, but looked pretty darn smart at 21.

And twenty-five years later, the man is a freaking genius.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.


¹ A memorable highlight: one evening, my father looked at his watch in response to my "Is it OK if I go to the Random High School Kids' Semi-Cool Hangout Establishment?" query and said, "It's 9:45 now, so... sure, just be back by 10:30."

Over the last five years, three of which I've chronicled (occasionally) here, a lot has changed at Random Manor. New job, new church, and plenty of new challenges to go along with the normal stuff of life. Over those five years, however, we've been comfortably insulated from happenings in Iraq and Afghanistan, such that we've been able to focus on our own lives, which at best is a shameful, selfish gift we cannot adequately repay.

To those of us dwelling in such insulated detachment, Iraq has devolved to little more than an item on an electoral shopping list, a campaign issue. If you've been there alongside me, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, I suggest reading "Final Salute," a Pulitzer-winning feature by Jim Sheeler. Why it took me more than two years to discover this bit of writing is perplexing, but I promise it will move you to your core. Mr. Sheeler has assembled the expanded reportage that led to the original story into a full-length book, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives, which I have ordered.

Before reading this story, I'd been pondering a sort of litmus test to which all congressional and presidential candidates would be subjected where war is concerned, but now am thinking it should be applied to all of us, and I've amended it slightly. It's a simple test, really:

If you wish to publicly declare your point of view on the (insert name of conflict here), and have not yourself served in this or a prior conflict, please identify the direct relative -- parent, sibling, child, grandchild -- of yours who is serving in the conflict.

If you have no such relative engaged in the conflict, please identify the veterans' support function at which you volunteer.

If you do not meet either of these criteria, please remain silent.

There's probably a larger "boiling frog" point to be made about the nature of slowly creeping trends here, but I was reading some trivial news item on line recently and did a double-take when the subject of the article, someone I had never heard of, was described as a "star." I don't care so much about the devaluation of the word as I do about the accuracy of the term.

So from now on, all you celebrity gushers and jock-sniffers, please be advised that the following standards must be met for you to describe a person as a "star:"

1. I have to have heard of them. Not you. Not Oprah. Me. If I haven't heard of them, they aren't a star. It's simple, really, and I'm a bit annoyed that I need to remind you of this.
2. They have to have done something I like. Everyone's tastes are different, but mine are correct. Sure, this is going to thin the herd of rap stars, boy band stars, and New York Yankee or Met stars, but it's for the best.
3. They have to have done something I like more than once. Thus eliminating all of those one-hit wonders from consideration, although I'm willing to grant an exception to The Knack, because, well, see #2.

Thank you for your cooperation. I believe we will all benefit from this new policy.

Enjoy my tribute to the late, great, PM Magazine, the syndicated local semi-news program that ran during the ‘80s. It was the TV equivalent of Bugles – light, airy, a vaguely adequate taste, but something you’d ditch as soon as anything better was available.

• Whenever I visit one of my favorite blogs hosted by Google/Blogger, I think it would be much cooler if the domain were BlobSpot.com.
• It’s been a breezy spring, and ever since the MS 150, the wind has been mocking us; 10 straight days of wind out of the southeast.
• One of our pastors was praising FamilyLife’s “Weekend to Remember” to encourage married members of our Sunday School class to attend. He turned to his wife and said, “We had an amazing time when we went.” She paused and said, “Did we?” We decided to go anyway, and were very much blessed by it.
• During our “Date Night,” we made a pilgrimage to a local theater to see Ben Stein’s “Expelled.” Well, one of us saw it, the other got some well-deserved nap time. Among the many descriptions the film will receive, “fast-paced romp” isn’t one of them, but it is certainly every bit as even-handed as any of Michael Moore’s mocumentaries, to which it will no doubt be compared. Which is of course to say it isn’t very even-handed at all, but anything that makes Richard Dawkins look like the self-involved twit that he is gets a passing grade with me. I am optimistic that one day the many administrators and intellectuals responsible for the incredible crackdown on the supposedly sacred notion of academic freedom will one day be embarrassed by the evolution of our understanding.

The past couple of weeks have been one of those seasons where things would have to improve dramatically to be termed dismal. In my old age, I’m able to keep my chin up and view events with at least a little perspective, appreciating that the truly important matters are in the right place and right hands, but the waxy build-up of the daily grind can still drag you down sometimes.

Then you have a weekend like the one just past, when the Random Family, plus the Random Grandparents, tackled the annual MS 150 bike tour from Houston to Austin to raise funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

"...winds out of the north and northwest at 10 to 20 mph..."

For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of the sovereign nation of Texas, and in particular, the route between Houston and Austin, that relatively insignificant phrase in the agate type of our local forecast was not welcome news. Not to be melodramatic, but fighting headwinds for two days was probably an appropriate reminder of why we were riding in the first place.

And ride to Austin we did! In a fit of optimism, the Random Family opted for the long route on Saturday, clocking 104.5 miles from our house to La Grange, achieving our first "family century." The Random Grandparents opted for the shorter launch point from Waller, and cranked out 75 miles in fine style. To give you a sense of how much a difference the wind made, the marshals were obliged to keep the course open until 8:00 in the evening, when total darkness sets in, as opposed to the normal closure at 6:00. It was a long, long day.

Day 2 dawned bright, cold, and... still? Leaving from La Grange, we were fortunate to tuck about 15-20 miles under our belt before the winds picked up again, and that helped us all achieve our goal of riding (upright, tall in the saddle, pick your metaphor, we were too tired to choose) down Congress to the finish line.

I always try to ask myself the “why” question when it comes to the serious decisions and issues. I want to be sure of my path, but also of my motivation. We have friends who are fighting MS, and from them we know the money raised really does make a difference. But I’m also honest enough to know I also seek that sense of accomplishment that one gets when a tough goal is achieved.

But straining into a stiff headwind, yet looking from side to side at what God can do with 72 degrees and a hillside of wildflowers, and dreaming of quitting to go sit in a seat with an actual cushion while remembering there are a lot of people hoping and praying that we would go the distance, that’s really the answer. If God is in the details, then He is in the paradoxes and the struggles as much as the joys. I’ve had better weeks, but few better weekends.