Today, I am grateful for music. It just makes life better. And the quality of music seems (to me) like it’s gotten better; or I suppose I should say maybe that my access to good music has gotten better in that time frame.

I recall in the 80s and early 90s when I bailed on pop radio because I thought everything was so awful. And I’m not exactly a man of discerning tastes. But, even for me, the hodgepodge of bubble gum metal, boy bands, and ballads was intolerable. I retreated to classic rock and enjoyed it well enough. I had friends who were into harder metal. I didn’t hate the stuff, but never really got into bands like Megadeath or Metallica, let alone stuff like Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, or Slayer. Nirvana came along with “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and while I wasn’t a huge fan of grunge, I was definitely thankful they shook things up in the radio world a bit. In the wake of grunge, some neo-punk bands like Green Day and Blink-182 got air play and caught my attention. Turns out, punk gave me the aggression of metal but with a stripped-down nimbleness that I liked better than the more cumbersome metal.

Nowadays, radio is not nearly the bottleneck it was for someone like me back in the 80s. True music enthusiasts always found the good music. I appreciated music, but wasn’t that active in looking for it. With sites like Pandora serving up a wider variety of music and like iTunes, allowing you to buy individual songs at a fairly nominal price, you’re not in for the major commitment of spending $10 – $15 on an album. Now, I have easy access to the 50s music my Dad schooled me in; the guilty pleasure of a few Neil Diamond songs hardwired into my brain by being on a loop in my house as a kid; the Johnny Cash songs I’ve discovered I love; Rage Against the Machine songs I would have wrongly thought were too heavy; the occasional really catchy techno song; Me First and the Gimmee Gimmes who put a speed/punk spin on old classics and pop tunes; and Jonathan Coulton, Internet troubadour among a lot, lot more.

So, hooray music!

Leading up to Thanksgiving and in recognition of the tendency to find the negative a more interesting topic of discussion, I’m trying to give some thought to some of the things for which I’m grateful on a daily basis.

I missed posting yesterday when I ran in a half-marathon. I’m grateful for the people who set up such a great event, for the nearly universally friendly people who participate in such events, and for the mental zone you get in where your legs feel good and the miles melt away.

And, for today, I’ll go to the cliche, but no less important, gratitude for a good family. Among other things, I had parents who provided for me, made sure I had a solid education, and did the hard, sometimes unrewarding things it takes to raise a fairly sizable family. And, I have a wife who puts up with my decidedly unromantic nature, apparently seeing other qualities in me. Finally, I have kids who I can say, with an utter lack of bias, are the smartest, cutest, funniest kids in the world who are very perceptive inasmuch as they (for now) think I’m pretty much the coolest person around.

Not that anyone asked, but a good friend took some family pictures for us, and here is one of them:

Today we had to put Keesha to sleep. It’s been close to five years since I last had to write one of these posts. In fact, the first ode to a dog who had passed, Shady, was the subject of my first blog post here.

Keesha was 14 years old. Amy adopted her from a shelter in Bloomington, days – maybe hours – away from being put down. She was only about a year old and as sweet as can be, but I believe she had been adopted by a family and didn’t work with them. In any event, the shelter was simply out of room. When Amy adopted her, she was skinny and shy. Mealtime with Brooksey presented some challenges because Keesha, having lived on the mean streets of Bloomington, gulped down food as fast as she could eat it and wasn’t inclined to share. Once she figured out that food would be steady, she settled down and let Brooksey have her share. (Not to say that Brooksey didn’t get nudged out of the way from time-to-time when there were tasty things in the dog bowls.) She quickly put on weight as well. In fact, she put on so much weight at one point that my buddy declared, “she’s an ottoman!”

About the only negative effect that hung on from her time as a stray (and this could have just been part of her nature) was her fear of thunderstorms. Back when she could get up into the bed, you were apt to wake up wearing Keesha as a hat when storms were rolling through.

She was generally the alpha dog, but not terribly assertive. She’d tolerate a certain amount of crap from overbearing puppies, but eventually she’d snarl them into place if they got too rambunctious. Brooksey and Shady never much challenged her. In fact, the only time there was an altercation between Brooksey and Keesha, Brooksey won decisively. It was my fault; I was on the couch eating some leftover Thanksgiving turkey out of a doggie bag. Shady was standing near me, hoping for some. Keesha edged closer, causing Shady to give a little puppy snarl. The ridiculousness of puppy Shady challenging Keesha with her tiny little snarl made me laugh. But that stopped pretty quickly as Keesha made some sort of move toward me (nothing aggressive – she was just trying to get some turkey), Brooksey came flying out of nowhere and latched on to Keesha’s neck (quite literally scaring the poop out of Keesha.) We think Brooksey thought Keesha was going to hurt me.

But, Keesha had the sweetest disposition. A stranger was just an opportunity for love. “Nobody loves love as Keesha loves love.” Her ears would go back on her head, her tail would wag hopefully, and she was just about impossible not to pet. She also had a great yowl – often heard when demanding her other great love: puppy treats. At the end, when she stopped wanting puppy treats, we knew something was desperately wrong.

Keesha had endured many health challenges over the years. At the end, she was blind, she had been diabetic and getting insulin shots twice per day for the past seven years, she survived a stroke two years ago, she had degenerative neuropathy (a doggie MS), and she had a mighty hump caused by a fatty tumor. For all of that, she still seemed to love life; happily demanding her puppy treat every day. As an old dog, she even learned a new trick a year or two ago. While staying at Amy’s mom’s house, Keesha learned that if she went outside there, she’d get a treat. So, she tried to parlay this into more treats at home – she’d ask to go out, step outside, then want to come right back in and get her treat. As I said, though, recently she did not take any joy even in that. And so, Amy and I had to make the decision to put her down. That was tough. Even tougher for the kids. Cole wasn’t old enough to know what was happening with Shady, and Harper hadn’t even been born. (In fact, Amy let me know she was pregnant with Harper the evening after we put Shady to sleep.) Needless to say, when we explained what was happening and let them say their goodbyes, Cole and Harper were very sad. I think they’re coming to terms with it, but it is a very sad thing when your dog dies, especially if you feel the duty to affirmatively act to end their suffering.

Some other Keesha memories, in no particular order:

Apparently she climbed up to the top of the back of a couch up against a wall in Amy’s apartment in Monticello. It didn’t seem to dawn on her until half way across that it was, in Amy’s words describing Keesha’s thought process, “NARROW!”

We loved playing a game where Amy and I would stand a ways apart in the yard and call for Keesha. She would cheerfully come barreling (and there is no other way to describe her running other than ‘barreling’) toward the person calling her and get some love. Then the other person would call for her, and she’d happily barrel back. Rinse. Repeat.

Her hair would shed outrageously. Twice per year she’d blow her coat. And, when she did, she smelled oddly good.

Her hair was made for cooler climates. We used to joke that the happiest time in her life was when our furnace went out for a few days in the dead of winter. Finally, the house was being kept at a reasonable temperature and everybody wanted to snuggle up to her.

When we first moved into our house in Monticello, I loved watching Keesha and Brooksey tearing around excited about all the new space after having been apartment dwellers for so long. At some point while moving in, I saw Keesha eating a treat and didn’t think much of it, figuring Amy had given her a treat. Then about 10 minutes later, I saw her eating another one. Turns out she had found a tub with treats in it, and was just helping herself to them one-by-one. There was a similar type incident when she was down in Bloomington, involving a Taco Bell burrito. Rather than just wolf it down on the spot, she was caught slinking away to another room, holding the burrito gently in her mouth.

For some reason, I felt compelled to sing songs to Keesha. Among others, there was “Oh Keesha, you came and you saw and you found me, now I’m giving you love oh Keesha.” (sung to the tune of “Mandy.”) And there was “Down on Keester Island” (sung to the tune of “Thunder Island.”) And, for whatever reason, I liked to greet her by saying “Kuh-kuh-kuh-Keesha!”

I think she hung on so long because she dearly loved her people; and certainly we worked so hard on her health for so long because we loved her. But, at the end, we all wear out one way or another and Keesha was finally at the end. She was a very good dog. Rest now Keesha. We miss you.

Today marks 10 years since I began working as a lawyer in Lafayette at the firm that is now called Hoffman, Luhman & Masson. Proving that I am not really all that clever, I started work on Columbus Day, 1999 thereby skipping a paid state holiday I would have enjoyed had I stayed on with Legislative Services.

I decided on the career change because I was chasing a girl, and I wanted to try my hand at private practice. Both worked out far better than I deserved. The girl is now my lovely wife, Amy, who was, at the time, teaching in Monticello. And the law firm I landed with was a well-respected, small firm in Lafayette that treated me very well from the start. I have to chalk up my choice in firms to dumb luck. They were the ones who had a job to offer at the time. Not too long after I got to Lafayette, I noticed an ad out for a particular attorney working out of Delphi. And, not too long after that, that particular attorney was getting disbarred. I could very easily have wound up in a situation like that.

There has been a nice balance in what I have been able to do as a private practitioner. The collections work isn’t exactly intellectually stimulating, but it’s steady and pays the bills. It allows me to get into court frequently, practice some basic skills in a low stakes setting, and get to know the courts. And, the odd thing is, I seem to enjoy it more than most. The government work – in particular, my work defending the Sheriff’s Department – has provided me with more complex cases where I get to stretch a little. And, fortunately, the people I am defending in these cases have been good people doing their best. Even if they get in tough situations, that makes my job easier. The insurance defense cases – typically personal injury, automobile accidents – are a middle ground between the routine collections and the government work which, at times, can be fairly described as “mystery law.”

My personal life has changed dramatically over the past decade. Basically, I became an adult while I wasn’t looking. I got married, bought a house, became a small business owner, and had a couple of kids. If those things don’t have a maturing influence on you, I suspect nothing will. It’s been a good ten years. Hopefully the next ten will be as well.

It’s been a rough month for Richmond kids I went to school with. Today, I found out that Cari (Spitz) Ashford, a 1991 graduate of RHS, died of cancer this past Tuesday. This comes on the heels of the death of Tony Feller (RHS Class of ’90) about eight days earlier.

Again, Cari wasn’t someone with whom I was close. I hadn’t spoken with her for about 15 years. Mostly I remember her as a sweet girl from high school I worked with on the high school paper and took to a dance once. But, even as distant as these two are from my current circle of acquaintances, their deaths in rapid succession have the power to make me angry. Both were fine people with a lot to offer the world. Times like these, I tend to think that there seem to be a lot of people without so much to offer who are in fine health. So, alert the media: “Life is not fair.”

My temper has cooled about that fact, but it’s not entirely gone. I remember when I was 19, a friend of my sister died in a motorcycle accident. I remember seething when I came across this one real piece of shit guy who worked with me in the warehouse that summer. It seemed abominable to me that this guy was drawing breath while my friend was being buried at age 21 or 22. Age has a way of numbing you to life’s inequities.

Just one more reminder to hug my family and recall that, such problems as I may have are pretty insignificant. Rest in peace, Cari, and strength to your family.

So, me and T and a pile of our class mates from the old drop out factory had our 20 year reunion this weekend. It was an excellent night in Richmond — for most of us, anyway. I didn’t see it, but rumor has it that there was a fight requiring the ejection of a couple of attendees. I was sort of hoping to hear a story of an old grudge being settled — something that had festered for the past two decades. But, no such luck. It was apparently just a case of drunken domestic violence. A guy who had been drinking way too much over the past couple of days reportedly had his wife in a headlock on the dance floor. That’s no fun for anybody.

While that might fit the stereotypes of a Richmond reunion, not too much else did. A buddy of mine laughed about how a gay man, a Muslim woman, and an Asian woman were sharing a hotel room. They attended and were central players at the reunion. Someone’s spouse (not an RHS graduate) commented on the diversity of the group – in particular, the socioeconomic range was wide. And that was probably one of the more valuable lessons from my days in high school. Everybody from Richmond went to the same high school. This isn’t too say that we were one happy melting pot. But the exposure to people from a wide range of incomes and ethnicities is a helpful thing.

Diversity in apparent ages was an amusing thing to observe. Despite having graduated at the same time, people were all over the map in terms of how much they looked like they had aged. (Of course, *I* looked youthful and still like a young man!)

For my part, I apparently spend a lot of time online. (This probably is no surprise to anyone reading hear.) It gave me a great leg up at the reunion. With a lot of people, it just felt like I was continuing a conversation we had been having for a long time — as opposed to what it felt like at the 10 year reunion where we all might as well have been dropped from outer space to see each other again: “Hi, how are you? Are you married? Have kids? What do you do for a living? Cool. See you in 10 years.” With the “ambient intimacy” created by Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the Internet, with a lot of folks, it was asking about a recent vacation I knew about or for more details about the little things that we’d casually been talking about online. Obviously I think there is real value to the social media and it’s not *just* learning what folks had for breakfast.

Anyway, maybe I’ll have more musings later. For now, it’s back to work and back to reality.

Just another open thread to tell everyone I’m still idling in South Dakota. This is a fine place for vacationing, particularly with young kids.

My buddy has a fishing boat, so a couple of days ago, we took the kids fishing. One of the great bare spots in my education is on the subject of fishing. So, my friend did a heroic job of trying to fill in some of the gaps. Basically, he had to teach me and both of my kids how to fish. Later on, the kids skipped the cleaning but I got to learn how to do it. To borrow a phrase from my buddy’s father-in-law, when I got done with the fish, it looked like the work had been done by a bear cub with boxing gloves. They fried up nicely, however.

On July 3, we went to the Mount Rushmore fireworks display. That was a great time, though the actual fireworks were obscured by a fog that set in around dusk. I even got interviewed by a local news affiliates trying to get a story about folks being disappointed about the display. I don’t think I made the cut, but I said that, sure, it would have been nicer to have a better view of the fireworks, but it didn’t really diminish from the reason we were out there – to celebrate our country with friends and family.

There was a lot of effort involved though! My buddy and I dropped off the wives, kids, and a lot of the gear at the entrance, then we found parking about 2.5 – 3 miles away and lugged a cooler and lawn chairs all the way back up hill. Then, at the end of the night, we had to carry the stuff back along with 2 kids sleeping in strollers and the 2 boys half-walking, half riding on shoulders back. This was Cole and Harper’s first fireworks display. Probably best we didn’t have a full view since that would be an awfully high bar to beat.

On the Fourth, we spent a lot of the day in downtown Rapid City looking at the statues of the Presidents:

Then we finished up the day with some low rent fireworks at home that the kids absolutely loved.

And yesterday, we took a hike around Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park then drove down to Wind Cave National Park and took a tour. Today, we’re taking it kind of easy — might get out fishing again — and then heading back toward Indiana tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to hit Wall Drug and the Corn Palace on the way back. The logistics of coming out didn’t really permit seeing them since we passed them in the dead of the night.

So far this has been a pretty phenomenal vacation. We owe a lot of that to our friends who have been hosting us for an extended period. Aside from all the great stuff we’ve done, the days have been book ended by great breakfasts and evenings spent on the deck drinking beer as the sun goes down — often under the guise of “tending to the smoker” as it smokes up some rainbow trout. Smoked trout and beer is a new favorite combination of mine.