turn up my monitor

Yesterday I once again came back to a blog entry that was forwarded to me by a friend last year. At work we were talking about some movement in positions at - one is promoted, another steps up to fill that vacancy - and I realized that once again, How to Play in Someone Else's Band became a nice touchstone. I always appreciated that the lesson runs both ways if you think of the statuses of both leader and the member alike. What brought it up was my recommendation that the one filling the vacancy is now in a position of leadership, not just rocking the bass, and needs to change, for lack of
a better work, appearances. I've often thought about the discussion about how the worker becomes the manager, or how the businessman becomes the enforcer (Joe Kennedy?), and our misguided interpretation of both sides of the equation. The fact of the matter is that regardless of how you work or behave when you are in the band is always going to be different than when you lead the band - and noone should expect anything different: you shouldn't be chastised for becoming more directive and controlling in nature when you take charge. But, with that acquittal of change, you can't not change - I consider it a necessity. Government/military-related work is driven by a 7:30a to 4:30p workday with a good bit of flexibility included. In this area traffic can dictate how painful your day is based on when you drive in and out of the city. Lots of the bandmembers work a 7a-3:30p (or 6:30a-3p) schedule in order to avoid the brunt of hellish traffic: perfectly acceptable in the band. One you become a manager/leader you need to change that frame and move to a more "present" 7a-5p workday - you need to be here earlyish and leave later. Trust me, nothing massively important, or on a deadline, ever happens before 3p in government work. Taking the position includes changing your workday to align with all of the other bandmembers who will still get the benefit of early arrivals and early departures. Leading, and the monetary bonus, is what you've taken on by accepting the job. (Of course, I've always advocated to new bandmembers that being here until 5p is always better; if you can never be found post-3pm it will show in reviews and critiques, fair or not.)

Hey, we got married ten days ago, in case you didn't know. We had a hearty crew of 17 join us for the ceremony and reception in Stowe - hard to imagine a better mix of people. For those that made it, thanks; for those that couldn't, we thought of you and wished you could have been there.

I'd like to get into some music, but since one reader is nitpicky about that I'll hold off until the next entry.

sunny day

Weddings are stressful, I guess. The formality involved in vows can be overbearing and I've often thought (thought, not married!) that something to lighten the mood would go a long way. Since I don't have much to say today, and it's been a week of heavy thoughts, I'll just pass along this fantastic wedding - and its video. Very few things make me smile outright; this is one of them.

with this ring I

I was sitting in the courtyard finishing up my Sunday NYTimes assignment and found myself stumbling through the wedding announcements. What a goldmine of entertainment to get me through the early Arlington evening. I’ve marked up way more than I can possibly retype (and retype I will…) so I’ll stick to the best of the weds. (I consider all names and events to be public record. It’s in the NYTimes – sorry if anyone finds their name within.) All wedding text is copyright of the New Yorks Times...I guess.

His mother is a director of 3 Stars Cinema, a Jewish film series in Dallas, and was also a producer of “Salsa Caliente,” a 2001 documentary film about Latin dance aficionados.

Nothing says Jewish film cinema like “Salsa Caliente”. I’m so confused by how this actually imparts any additional information that a guy in Arlington, Va, needs to have about the blissfully wedded couple…Salsa Caliente? Was that an opening night entry in the Jewish film series or something that played at one of the indie theaters off the main Dallas drag?

Mr. Wilkie’s great-great grandfather Thomas Fortune Ryan was a financier and philanthropist, whose business interests included tobacco, New York City streetcars and subways and diamonds in the Congo.

Those interests sound much better within this context, “Todd’s favorite Friday night activities included tobacco, New York city streetcars and subways and diamonds in the Congo.” Note that it’s not diamonds FROM the Congo but diamonds IN the Congo. The great-great grandfather could have been interested in tall, lanky redheads, Kool menthols, and single malt Whisky...but I don’t need to know about it.

Now, one of my favorites. Imagine we’ve already read the basics of the couple and their families: he went to school, she went to school, the parents are blah blah blah. Suddenly we get these dramatic community theater interpretations included in the wedding announcement:

The bridegroom’s previous marriage ended in divorce.

The couple were introduced in November 2004 by Lisa Elson, the wife of the bridegroom’s best friend. She was receiving physical therapy from Ms. Stodola [the bride] at the Nicholas Institute.

Ms. Elson, confident that the couple’s engaging personalities and mutual love of skiing would be the basis for a strong relationship, suggested a blind date. But Ms. Stodola wasn’t keen on the idea.

“I actually didn’t want to date him,” she said. “It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with him, but I would have rather met someone on my own than to be introduced.”

But the couple hit it off, and two weeks after their first date, they ventured off to Alta, Utah, for a weekend of skiing.

“Lisa had said that Andrew was an amazing skier who loved the outdoors,” Ms. Stodola said, “and I thought to myself, ‘He can’t possibly be a better skier than me.’ I was a ski-racer in high school and in better shape, and he grew up in New York.”

She was wrong.

“I soon found out that he was so much better than me,” she said. “I was shocked.”

Mr. Kramer [the bridegroom] said he had taken her skiing to prove himself to her. From then on, he added, they were “in perfect sync,” on and off the slopes.

First of all, how did Lisa Elson work her way into the announcement? The wife of the bridegroom’s best friend? The equivalent of that person in my relationship with X would be…someone I don’t even freaking know. I’m glad to see that Ms. Stodola is impressed by skiing…if only the first intro had been, “I met Bode Miller yesterday and he wants to make out with you," we all could have saved the cost of a trip to Alta, Utah, for an apparently out-of-shape and no doubt skiing-ability lying fool. Clearly Ms. Stodola wasn't impressed with Mr. Out-of-Shape.

And my favorite motherly smackdown…

The bride graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse, where she met the bridegroom and where each received a law degree, he cum laude.

I SO want to have dinner with dear mother.

There is also a very interesting timbre to the announcements and I’m not sure where it originates. As an example I’ll use the Eleven:

“X, daughter of Adam and Eve, was married to…”

or

“X and T were married…”

I sense a serious difference of opinion on the side of the parents of the bride.

Geez.

T.