Why would I see Garth Brooks in Vegas?

Pretty good seats.

Looking back on the memory of last weekend, I'd have to say yee haw! My younger sister turned a certain age, and she wanted to do it Vegas. I have always been supportive of her, so my wife and I decided to go--as a selfless act of kindness, of course. Lucky for me I am so kind and selfless. I made a nice chunk of change at the craps table the first night we landed (thank you, Becca "the Bank" or "Money" Zumbiel, whichever you prefer). The next night, I ate a good meal with good company while sitting a table away from a celebrity whose career I respect (Rob Lowe of Tommy Boy, Wayne's World, West Wing, Parks and Rec). Yes, he is shorter in person. Those events were unexpected, but the best event of of the trip was planned: seeing the Garth Brooks show.

Garth Brooks in Vegas

The show was not at all what I expected. I thought we would sit in the back of the theater and hear him and his band play his biggest hits; then we would ride home, hoarse from singing along. I learned that instead of the back row, my sister had scored tickets in the fifth row, which was an entire story closer than I thought we would be. The show opened with a fifty year old white guy in a T-shirt, loose jeans, and non-Cowboy boots walking out on stage. A baseball cap instead of a cowboy hat sat upon his balding head. He didn't strut or have the slim figure that we remember from his album covers. The word "doughy" came to mind. He could have been mistaken for a roadie if there had been more equipment than a guitar, a stool, and a couple bottles of water on the stage.

He said hello and then explained that we are going to be taken on a tour of his musical influences. For the next hour and a half, he covered his history of musical appreciation, decade by decade, through anecdotes of his family life, a continuous line of jokes, and covers of his favorite artists' songs. When he sang, just him and his guitar, he would assume an awkward pigeon-toed posture, one that I associate with Dave Matthews, where the only graceful parts of his body appear to be his hands and his powerful voice. He sounded as good as ever--actually, he sounded better than I'd ever heard him because there was nothing but his guitar and his voice. Hearing such a strong and confident voice emanating from such an unassuming body was a little surprising.

As he explained his way through the 60's, 70's, and 80's, he played a few of his own songs, but mostly he covered his influences, some of which were too country for me to have heard, like Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Keith Whitley. He also covered some more mainstream ones like "Mrs. Robinson", "Sweet Baby James", "American Pie", and "Sitting by the Dock of the Bay". I'd take a CD of just him covering other songs (which to be fair, a few of his hits are). He told stories of when he met one his idols, James Taylor, and how he came to cover Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" for the movie Hope Floats.

His wife, Trisha Yearwood, another huge country name, joined him on the stage, which was a big treat for my older sister. They sang a few songs before he got to the 90's when he really got down to playing his own music. Of course, he didn't have time to play enough for the crowd, but he encored with "The Dance", "Piano Man", and "Friends in Low Places". My only complaint is that we didn't get to hear a single song in its entirety, but the show may have lasted forever if that had happened. Plus, he mentioned that once his oldest left for college, he may be starting a tour again, which I would happily pay to see.

The Appeal of Country Music

I have to admit that I understand why people don't understand or appreciate country music. I used to sort of hate it myself. I still wouldn't call myself a true country music listener, and I'm certain any cowboy would call me a city slicker. I also understand that some would consider Garth a little too close to pop to call him country. For me, Garth helped bridge the gap between palatable pop and the more country music of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. By listening to some older stuff, a person learns that country has a certain appeal, which I will get to in a bit. I also get that recent country can be cloying. Like hip hop, it has strayed a bit from its roots of singing about hard times and hard love (though the self-aggrandizement can sometimes be funny--"Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy"). Even some of Garth's stuff wanders into saccharine. So yes, I understand that it can sometimes be hard for a person to stomach country as a genre.

However, country thrives on simple story telling that I enjoy. My favorite songs of Garth's have obvious stories that are the backdrop of universal themes--well, usually, it's the theme of love or loss or love lost, but these are concepts we all understand to the core. The story is always easy to grasp, which is difficult to accomplish in three minutes. Look at how much time you've already wasted reading to this point in this post. Even though Garth didn't write a lot of his stuff, his song writers embrace succinct country story telling.

Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots
And ruined your black tie affair.
The last one to know, the last one to show,
I was the last one you thought you'd see there.

This first verse from "Friends in Low Places" paints a quick picture: people from different backgrounds, the singer is "low class", the setting is a fancy dinner, the singer is beyond fashionably late, and he's crashing. Not a bad set up for some drama in under forty words. I'm a bit jealous. And it rhymes!

Every light is burnin' in a house across town.
She's pacin' by the telephone in her faded flannel gown.
Askin' for a miracle, hopin' she's not right
Prayin' it's the weather that's kept him out all night.


She's waitin' by the window when he pulls into the drive.
She rushes out to hold him, thankful he's a live.
But on the wind and rain, a strange new perfume blows.
And the lightin' flashes in her eyes, and he knows that she knows.


She runs back down the hallway to the bedroom door.
She reaches for a pistol kept in the dresser drawer.
Tells the lady in the mirror he won't do this again.
Cause tonight will be the last time she'll wonder where's he been.

These verses from "The Thunder Rolls" again quickly paint a picture, clue the listener into the mixed emotions the woman is feeling, portend that country theme of broken hearts, and then unfurl the drama without directly saying, "she shot him". Garth actually co-wrote this one. And it rhymes, again!

Granted not all country music paints these simple stories and country doesn't have a monopoly on good story telling in its songs. Remember "Regulators"? Eminem can also tell a mean story in his own misogynistic way ("Lose Yourself"). I'm sure you can think of many a song that tells a tight story.

The other appealing aspect of country is the nostalgia it elicits. I imagine that most people who like Garth think of some past love interest when they hear "The Dance"; I also have the same thing when I hear "Callin' Baton Rouge". I don't yearn for those people, but I am reminded of those times when emotion was high because of life's simplicity. Of course, country is not the only genre that elicits nostalgia, but its themes are universal and its stories are right on the surface, making it easy to access those memories of times past. Even if you don't love country, you don't have to wear a Stetson to understand the pictures it paints.

My Western Roots

Most people seemed surprised when they heard I was going to see Garth, and each time I was a little surprised that they were surprised. Yes, I'm a bit of a city slicker, having lived in San Jose, Seoul, London, San Diego, and Boston. I really do like my cities and the anonymity they provide when walking their streets.

On the other hand, I lived the first six years of my life in a small town in Colorado. During every summer of my childhood, I spent at least a week of it in Nebraska, where we would see a cowboy show and drive through the arid, yucca-filled landscape that nurtured the myth of the West. My aunt raises cattle and takes a leg of the Pony Express ride every year. I think my dad likes Westerns more than sports, and I've learned to really love the genre as well. My dad's dad was born in Kansas, where names like Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Wyatt Earp spent some time. I grew up playing with toy guns, wishing I had cowboy boots, and trying unsuccessfully to lasso stuff. I also spent a lot of time where my mother grew up, at another icon of the West: the farmstead. My mom also rode horses, which she still does with my aunt today at the age of . . . well, I wouldn't tell the whole world that. Wouldn't be polite, would it, ma'am? Indiana isn't exactly the Wild West, but the land is flat, the sky is big, and the town where my mom spent her youth makes Deadwood look like a metropolis.

Though my parents didn't listen to a lot of country music, my sisters did, perhaps because they identified more with what the romance of the West than I did. Among their Wilson Phillips and Sinead O'Connor tapes were sprinkled Randy Travis, Garth Brooks, and Reba McEntire. Though I never bothered to listen to the tapes, I couldn't escape the country stations when riding in the car with them and later with my younger sister. I couldn't understand why they liked it so much when I was a teen, much like I didn't understand my dad's draw to Westerns. But I get it now.

In high school, I wrote an essay about the myth of the West and how it was built. It occurred to me only recently that perhaps I was drawn to such a report topic because of my familiarity with it. Similarly, perhaps I chose a summer project on a Native American reservation because I had grown up playing cowboys and Indians. So even though I apparently hide it well/completely, I can't deny my country roots and how they have shaped me. I am told I have a strong moral code. I am told I am independent and sometimes polite. I have seen a horse in person and a cow made out of butter. I'm no cowboy, but I spent a good portion of my childhood where they used to roam. So, as a sort-of country kid who grew up in cities, it seems natural that I would want to see Garth Brooks in Vegas.

Why Crooks Be Caught Yo, Part 2?

We now conclude my second grade tome of 8 pages. For a brief recap of the first half of the story, click here. (This is actually the entire first half plus my attempt at writing funny commentary, so it's not that brief.)

When we last left, Peter had earned fame and "can-" by saving the day. It was a hell of a cliff hanger.

Page 5 (Click to enlarge)

It turns out that Peter went trick-or-treating and got lots of candy--not lots of canopies or canapes or canballies (<-- not a real word, but I bet you were thinking of looking it up). The story resumes with the author again demonstrating his prophetic insight by addressing the theme of bullies. Who knew this would be a major social issue in the second decade of the twenty-first century? Well, it appears that I did. The author also demonstrates how to deal with bullies, providing children everywhere a role model for standing up to the people who seek to oppress: run to a building with a phone. Sure, the author missed the fact that nobody would need a land line any more, but only so much fortune telling ability can be contained in a single second grader. Orwell didn't get it all right either.

Page 6 (Click to enlarge)

On this page, the author's inexperience again shows. Keeper of the house? Do you think you're Shakespeare? So pretentious. Just say "housekeeper" or "home owner" or "dweller of the abode". Then the author writes, "Good I need to," ending a pointless sentence in a preposition. Learn to edit, second grade, Andrew. The author also omits a word in the sentence, "Now people were inviting to spend the night." Sloppy. So sloppy. The author also fails to veil the events that he pulled directly from his life. It's so obvious that "His dad and mom thought they had the best son" is simply a mere statement of fact from his own life that I am guessing remains true today. So Mom, if you're reading this--I'm actually sure my mom is not reading this. She has better things to do.

Page 7 (Click to enlarge)

Here, the author is really trying to engage the audience by directly asking them questions? Apparently, the author thinks that adding a question mark to the ends of sentences is all that it takes to make a query? To be honest, all I can think when reading the first half of this page is that this is horrible--like Dan Brown horrible, but not quite that horrendously offensive to any unpublished writer or reader with a brain (too harsh?). The first four complete sentences are laughably bad though.

But let's delve into what the author was trying to say with the story line. He was at a friend's house, which simultaneously represents him being truly accepted and being in a foreign place. This house is being robbed, which obviously means the protagonist cannot escape his past and his destiny of being a bad ass hero. The entire house is sleeping, referring to society's complacency and failure to realize the true suffering in the world. Pretty heady stuff.

The robber had a gun, and this is obviously an attempt by the author to use the literary technique called Checkov's gun, which says that if you show a gun in the first act, it must go off by the third act. Of course, since the author is introducing it when the story is almost over, it's hard to believe that he knows what he's doing. And we'll see if it goes off.

Page 8 (Click to enlarge)

Ah yes, we finally learn that critical point of the story that Peter's friend is named Jack. I also have to be honest that the ending left me wanting a little more--a lot more, actually. It's almost as if the writer decided eight action packed pages was all that any well-educated audience could handle. Or maybe the kid's hand was cramping from writing so much. Either way, everything seems to end in a hurry. What happens with his relationship with his friends and parents? How does his early childhood fame affect the rest of his life? Does he turn to drugs? Does he treat other people as if they are not his equals? Does he continue to strike fear into the hearts of would-be criminals and dress up in spandex to scare them? Does he inspire a social movement to be awesome? What the hell happened to the gun?

If you stuck with reading the entirety of this Tolstoy-length story by a second grader, I apologize for the lackluster conclusion. But just to show you how much I have improved as a writer since 1987, I will end with some pithy commentary on . . .

THE END

Why are thieves so inconsiderate?

Thieves are so rude! And kind of incompetent.

I arrived at my car this morning, in the basement level of my parking garage, to find that a third person wanted to steal the $100 stereo from this particular 1998 Honda Civic. Yes, this is the third time somebody has broken into this car to steal the stereo. Unlike the first two thieves, this person succeeded only in offending me by failing to actually remove the stereo from the car. But mostly I was offended by the many inconsiderate and thoughtless acts of the thief, which I shall enumerate here.

1. The thief could not remove the stereo yet took the face plate. Thief, I understand that you were frustrated because you realized you are incompetent at your (hopefully) second career choice as a robber. However, I'm not sure what you are going to do with a face plate and no stereo. Just wipe it down for fingerprints and leave it for the proper owner to use next time.

2. I am now stuck with a useless electronic device. That means I have to make a special trip to dispose of it, and that takes gas. Thief, you are ruining the environment twice over.

3. The thief stole my registration. Please tell me what he or she is going to do with that. Now, I have to deal with the DMV, which we all know is like dealing with somebody who is super excited to see you--except the opposite.

4. Though the thief was in the trunk, he or she did not take the stuff I had in there for Goodwill. How do I know the thief was in the trunk? There was a pleasant fruity aroma in the trunk from either cologne/perfume or gum that also permeated the car. I watched the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes the night before, so my powers of deduction were primed. Unfortunately, the thief did not want the giant bag of stuff destined for Goodwill that was sitting there in the trunk. At least save me a trip!

5. The thief tried to destroy the air vents, which makes the car look kind of crummy. What am I supposed to say when a passenger gets in, wades around the piles of trash, tries to ignore the thick layer of dust, and then notices that the vents have been hacked to smithereens?

6. The thief reoriented the stereo to the point that the proper tools cannot remove it. As I was trying to get the rest of the device out of the car, all the time worrying that somebody would pass by and mistake me as the thief, I only managed to lodge the stereo further into the dash. You may think that I can now understand how the thief had such a difficult time, and you're sort of right. But I am confident that my inability to pull the stereo from the car is directly because of the thief's wrecking ball approach--well, sort of confident.

7. The thief netted a haul of one working auxiliary cord, one broken auxiliary cord (sucker!), one scratched Live Throwing Copper CD (try selling that), a gate clicker (come back any time, you moron), a parking pass (bring your car), an unusable face plate (which may cost some money to replace), my ability to listen to music (this is the only thing that actually sucks) and my faith in an entire occupation (I apologize to all of you competent thieves out there). All of these are gone.

8. Oh yeah, the thief tried to steal something from me.

On the plus side, the thief left all my windows intact, which may mean I left the door unlocked. So, I'm going to give myself credit for that one. This thief also only took one CD instead of an entire book of them like the last one. Yeah, the last one was an idiot, too. You sure as hell weren't going to be selling CDs for a lot of money five years ago. The other nice thing is the pleasant aroma I mentioned. The car has never smelled better.

Given the frequency with which the bottom-of-the-line stereo is taken from my car, I have decided that once I can remove the current remnant, I will fill the hole with a Sony Walkman from 1988. I am hoping this will alert thieves to the fact that the music playing device is worth nothing. Of course, kids probably haven't seen a Walkman and may think it's the newest device. Guess I'll just have to buy another crappy stereo.

But first I'll have to figure out how to get the rest of this one out. Anybody have a crow bar I can borrow?

Why are Crooks Caught, part 1?

Alliteration as a second grader? A sign of genius or of Dr. Seuss's influence?

As promised to the two of you who took my birthday quiz last week, here is a literary analysis of a story I wrote in 2nd grade. It's called Crooks Are Caught, and you will notice a few things right off the bat. First of all, my handwriting was actually better back then. Second, my drawing abilities were not. They were about the same as they are now. Third, my writing skills have improved as much as my drawing skills. I wouldn't call this high literature, but some may say, "What is the step above high literature? Because this story above that step." Who am I to call people liars? Especially if that people is me. Don't worry if you find it hard to follow. Faulkner was also hard to follow sometimes.

Page 1 (Click to enlarge)

First of all, let's not confuse the author's life experiences with the narrator's voice. Obviously, the author took great pains to research this character and was invited to plenty of birthday parties and stupid trick-or-treating. Birthday parties are lame, anyways! Who cares about birthday parties?! Second, note how the reader immediately knows what time of the year it is without the author writing, "It's October." The first line really illustrates the authors potential, even if this subtle technique disappears for the rest of the story. Third, the author immediately sets up the universal themes of isolation and the desire to be accepted--as well as Halloween and birthdays. The author obliquely shows the reader that the protagonist is lonely and wishes only for companionship from a loyal friend who accepts him for who he is and will join him in his imaginary adventures across time and landscapes beyond the reality that fetters all mankind. I think all of this is pretty obvious from the well crafted sentence "And nobody would play with him." The simplicity of the sentence is reminiscent of Hemingway.

Page 2 (Click to enlarge)

Uh, here the author is filling the reader in on important details of the protagonist's life. One may consider the methods rather . . . bad. Some may even call them elementary, but what is one to expect from a second grader? On the other hand, this page gives the audience a taste of the action that is sure to hold their attention for the rest of the book. Notice how the author paints the scene with verbs: jumped, ran, ran, tiptoed, got. The author's grasp of the English language is quite evident. Perhaps even Nabakovian. I think it is also important to note the names of the protagonist's parents: Bill and Linda. Obviously, this is shorthand for Bill and Melinda Gates, who would eventually become one of the world's richest and most influential couples. I have to admit that I am unsure why the author chose to reveal such prophetic insight at this point in the story. I suppose if I were a smarter, better educated literary analyst, I may have a chance at understanding the author's obviously deeply thought out agenda. Alas, I am dumb and have not had enough years of school.

Page 3 (Click to enlarge)

I have to admit the illustrator of this page is very bad. The "dog", which is a term I use loosely to describe the abomination that the illustrator has assembled before our eyes, is a two legged beast without a muzzle. We can only guess at what it is because the "artist" has written "Arf!!!" in a dialogue bubble above it. In addition, this drawing simply shows the protagonist touching the crook's butt. Even the drawing of the door kind of sucks.

On the other hand, page 3 is where the author really starts to comment on society, pretty much like Chaucer did. The only way Peter can prevent the crook from using violence is to employ the very threat of violence that the crook was going to use. This action forces the reader to ponder the question, "Is Peter any better than the man who was trying to rob him?" The answer comes when Peter calls the "polices". That's right, he didn't just call the singular police, he called all the polices. Peter chooses society's standards of justice instead of employing vigilante justice. Is this a ploy to be accepted or does he truly believe that his peers' norms are the rules he must live by? Heavy stuff. It is also important to note that the crook is never given a name. Perhaps this is the author's way of making the crook a metaphor for all the faceless and nameless violence that society has come to accept as a fact of life. Or the author might simply be a lazy second grader.

Page 4 (Click to enlarge)

The author gets a little sloppy here. What is trick-or-tre-ating? And they were "inviting him to their house to play"? Do they all live in the same house? Hey, kid! "Alot" is not a word. Horrible grammar. As bad as e e cummings. On this page, the author reveals the selfless nature of the protagonist. He becomes popular but shares his awesomeness with all by making sure they go trick-or-treating together. I know of no less selfish act. Yes, that sentence is slightly confusing. Additionally, the author brings the fulfillment of the protagonist's dreams too early in the story. This is either bad writing or precocious writing. Early success in a story is often foreboding, indicating a fall of some kind in later pages. What is better than seeing a hero rise? Seeing his monumental collapse. Better than collapse? Witnessing redemption. The question is whether or not the author knew this as a second grader. Will Peter keep rising upon the airs of his ego until the glow of fame melts his wings? Or will the story continue as is, demonstrating that the author is a second grader lacking the life experience necessary to weave a proper tale of hubris and redemption? 


These questions will be answered next week. This is exactly half way into the story. The author also had the foresight to build in a cliff hanger at this point, for when the book was eventually adapted for a six part miniseries. He even left the last word on the page split. What could kids who are going trick-or-treating get that starts with "can-"? Is it a lot of cannolis? A lot of cannabis? A lot of candelabras? Tune in next week to find out.

Why can't I stop listening to "We're Not Young"?

I'm not young.

I recently posted about the song "We Are Young" by FUN. featuring Janelle Monae and explained how the nostalgic but hopeful sentiment of the song was infectious. Recently, a parody of the song called "We're Not Young" went viral. (Thanks, Jackie for providing the blog fodder, or blodder.) The ditty distills the hopelessness and anxiety of my generation into four minutes. The clever lyrics are a laundry list of daily endeavors that we undertake to avoid the boredom that engulfs some of us in our 30s, when we find ourselves at the end of the life path that society has mapped out for us and realize that the rest is up to us. It can be a scary time, but it can be pretty exciting as well.

The song elicits two consecutive emotions. The first is levity as you listen and say, "Hey, that's me! Ha ha!" The second is depression as you listen and say, "Hey, that's me! Wah wah!" I've written out the lyrics below and compared my life to it. You can do the same, if you want to be sad.

Give me a second, I . . . I don't have time, it's getting late (I think I've been out past midnight maybe once in the last year)

My friends are all parents now, dinner parties with cheese plates (The first part is true, though my friends who are into cheese plates do not have kids.)

My girlfriend, she is waiting for me to buy a diamond ring / Been together eight years now, feel like I'm settling (None of this is true for me, but perhaps that's because my girl preferred seeing rocks to getting a rock)

You know that college was ten years ago (True next month)

I know you're trying to forget (Already have)

Depression and anxiety / Has come on strong since 33 / Made it hard not crack (If this blog becomes a downer in a year, you'll know if this is true--or maybe it's already on its way)

So if by the time I'm 40 and I'm still a waiter here / I'm killing myself tonight (You could have replaced 40 with 32 and "waiter" with "grad student" and it may have been me)

Tonight we're not young (Well, not as young)

We're all somewhere in our 30s (Yep)

Done nothing worthy (Sorry to say that grad school often feels like that)

This ain't fun (At the very least, it's different)

Tonight we're not young (We could be older)

I guess I'll learn Photoshop, maybe I'll sell pot, start a blog (I've done two out of three--the legal ones)

Now I know that I'm fat / Shut up about that (My new job has me headed this way)

I guess I'll do elliptical, maybe I can finally do that yoga class (Oooh, elliptical sounds much easier on my knees)

But I probably won't / HDTV (TV!)

Gonna stay at home and watch Modern Family (Used to do that, but now there is better stuff on)

Tonight, we're not young (Dang, I do need to go to bed)

Gonna get our shit together (Maybe, but what is "together") / Be less distracted (huh?) /

Words with Friends (Definitely--or any other Game with Friends)

Tonight, we're not young (OK, when you repeat it this many times, it's hard not to believe)

It's time to get my prostate checked / I'm a nervous wreck / That's not all (Uh, I don't think this an appropriate topic for my blog)

Apply to grad school tonight (I learned that lesson in my 20s)

Yoga teacher training tonight / Real estate test tonight / Improv class tonight (Not quite into any of these yet, but I know people who have gone these routes)

Might have a drinking problem (Where's my scotch?)

I got a DUI / So will someone come and drive me home tonight (Nah)

I need health insurance (Not quite true since I'll be doing my fourth health care insurance change in one year when June rolls around)

I let the dental slide (Not quite though the teeth are definitely on the down slope)

And I'm really gonna start that blog tonight (What do you think I'm doing?)

Tonight, we are scared so let's . . . oh my god (I have to admit there were times when I was really scared during the past year--the real world blows)

Tonight, we're not young (I feel like I'm 60)

We've accomplished nothing (I have to admit there were times when I felt exactly this during the last year--grad school blew)

I have no money / Where's my gun (Yep, but that may be because I buy too many apps, chais, and Scotch.)

So if by the time I'm 40 and I'm still a waiter here / Oh please God I don't want to even imagine it / Tonight

If you're in the wah wah phase of emotional response, read on. Like most comedy, the song is funny because it's partly true. Ours is a generation of advanced degrees and delayed family starts, making our 30s the new what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-now-that-I-am-out-of-college phase--or an early midlife crisis without the money and kids. (This is especially true if you spent the majority of your 20s in grad school.) Both stages of life force the question of "What's next, now that I've successfully met society's expectations?"

For many of us, the answer is "Start a family", and many of my friends have successfully (congrats!) done that. They seem to be deeply in love with and happily consumed by their ever changing children, and I am truly happy for each of them and wish them more nights of sleep than they are probably getting. I have always assumed that being a parent provides a higher purpose in life, a reason for doing the job you may not quite love or putting off writing that novel--or maybe that's just growing up. However, I am unready to relinquish the freedom that allows me to selfishly indulge in my hobbies like jogging, blogging, and reading quietly on the beach. If you've met my wife, you know she is a career woman, and I can tell you that she has not been happier in a job since I've met her. So, I'm not just being a typical guy who is putting off becoming a dad so I can spend more time hanging with the guys. In short, kids are a little ways off, which means the question of "What's next?" remains unanswered. (I apologize to any potential grandmas who may be reading this.)

I also thought that getting the right job and making a little more money may solve all my problems. Though I really enjoy my new job, it doesn't bring as much fulfillment as I thought it would. I like honing my skills and learning new things daily in an environment where I am not 100% sure what each day will bring. I could probably bury myself in work and feel completely fine with that, and the extra money provides a little bit more freedom as well. But for some reason, "We're Not Young" still rings true--perhaps even more true than it would have three months ago, when I had a goal of obtaining a new job. But I have what I've wanted for the last four years and now I have to figure out what's next. Of course, I'll be working hard, but I would be doing that regardless of where I work. I've set personal goals, such as running faster and reading more, and I've found some satisfaction in working towards those goals. But the song still strikes a chord with me.

The conclusion I have come to is that I am always looking forward, hesitant to accept the present or acknowledge that what I have done in the past is worth acknowledging. I've always downplayed my past achievements because they have come with what seems like little sacrifice. Or perhaps I feel like I sacrificed too much and regret that. Either way, my past is my past, and it's made me who I am today, and I am realizing that I am really good with that fact. I have to modestly say that I think I'm a pretty awesome person. I'm reasonably intelligent, hard working, funny, conscientious, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly--now I'm just reciting the Boy Scout Law because I'm lazy.

And as a group, we thirty-somethings can look back and realize that we've accomplished much. We've earned advanced degrees. We've started families that will make us proud and drive us crazy. We've gotten new jobs, sometimes two or three. We've read and learned and had tiny epiphanies. We've sent pieces of ourselves out into the world in the forms of writing and art and hard work. But most importantly, we've made friends, been there for each other, and shared some special moments. We may play Words with Friends, watch Modern Family, and suffer from insomnia, but there are plenty of new experiences ahead, new people to meet, and memorable times to be had. Sure, some of those times will involve a prostate check (or other unpleasant medical experiences), drinking (maybe some that will result in days of required recovery), and being scared (of more things than we can really imagine). It will all certainly be different, but plenty of it will be worth remembering. The song is right that we're not young--but we are still far from being old.

Why is prepackaged food the best?

Figure 1. Surprisingly to me, tracking what I was eating actually changed my eating habits.

The general consensus on prepackaged, processed food is that it is bad, bad, bad for you. I am going to give you an example of why it is good, good, good for you--well, me. As I mentioned in my last post, which some of you liked and some of you really, really liked, I have departed the lab and am now confined to a chair for most of the day. Sitting for long hours requires a break, and where is more appropriate to take a break than the break room? Unfortunately, that room is stocked with different foods from Costco. The ploy is genius. Work hard, take a break, eat food, get fat, grow large, increase immobility, stay in chair longer, work more. That may have happened if leaving the lab hadn't left a void in my life. I am talking about the main purpose of my last decade at the bench: collecting data--well, that and avoiding collecting data. Sitting all day and reading about nutrition inspired me to start tracking what I was putting into my body for the first time in my life. At the end, I realized that it seems much more efficient to diet than to exercise.

Calories In

People count calories when trying to lose weight, and I used to wonder how they do that. I still wonder a little because understanding how many calories are in the hodge podge of items I eat at lunch and dinner is difficult to calculate. I can't measure anything by eye and the imprecision drives the scientist in me nuts. And nuts are high in fat. Some of you are thinking, duh, which is fair. I'm a novice to calorie counting, so I'm way behind people like my sister who know all the current nutrition trends and can estimate the grams of monounsaturated fat in a meal with 17 ingredients if she knows what kind of oils were used to prepare the meal. The advantage of prepackaged foods is that it's incredibly easy to precisely quantify what I am putting into my body, at least snack-wise. It's a fun little science experiment (albeit with no controls, a low n, and a biased experimenter), and I was surprised at the results.

Here's a list of the foods that I have inhaled at some point since I started keeping track:

Nutrigrain breakfast bar

Quaker oatmeal bar

Kudos bar with some sort of candy

Tiger's milk bar

Trio bar

Beef Jerky single serving package

Tropicana orange juice

Activa yogurt

There were plenty of other options, but I started with these.

My focus has been on five main categories (though I have data for many more, like vitamins). I have been trying to minimize calories, total fat, and sodium while maximizing protein and fiber. Most of the above products are fine in the sodium category, except one. That's right, don't eat beef jerky everyday because each package has one third of your recommended daily intake (RDI). I knew it was salty, but damn. Say hello to hypertension. But also say hello to muscles like a major league slugger because you also get a third of your protein.

I like salt literally more than anybody I know, but even the amount in beef jerky seemed like too much. I wanted to maintain the protein but decrease the sodium, so I switched to having Trio bars (starting on Day 2), which are packed full of nuts. They don't have quite as much protein as straight up meat, but they have a fair amount, plus way more fiber--and that comes with less than one twelfth of the salt in beef jerky. What a great deal! Such a great deal that I was eating two a day. But two Trio bars equal one half of your RDI of fat and almost 25% of your total calories. Oh, that's why they tasted so delicious.

I stopped eating Trio bars and stuck to a Tigers Milk bar, which comes in three flavors. The one I eat is called "protein rich", which means that it has six grams of protein instead of five like the other flavors. So rich with protein! I also ate fewer items and not because was busier. I just stopped grabbing two of everything when I was in the break room. Weird how that works. Here's where the numbers were on Wednesday (see also Fig. 1).

Calories: High 49% Wednesday 27%

Total Fat: High 66% Wednesday 20%

Sodium: High 51% Wednesday 10%

Protein: High 64% Wednesday 32%

Fiber: High 52% Wednesday 20%

So, I'm a little deficient in the protein and fiber categories, which I fix by chowing down on more salad, fruits, and protein at my work-provided lunch. Of course, then I eat as many cookies as I can find when I get home from work just because I can.

I started by saying that prepackaged food is awesome, and it is if you don't care about keeping track of the big meals like lunch and dinner. How many calories can be in those anyways? The majority of your RDI? Whatever. The interesting thing is that keeping track actually influenced what I've been eating, which I didn't really expect. True, it's probably not the eating of the prepackaged food that changed my diet but tracking my intake that made the difference. However, keeping tabs is much easier if it's written right on the food--or at least the environmentally unfriendly plastic that encases it. It's also easier to keep track of your carbon footprint.

Calories Out

Caloric intake is only half of the equation. The energy you spend also factors into the equation. Or does it? This article from Slate summarizes some findings that say diet may be more important than exercise when it comes to weight loss. When you look at the numbers, this makes perfect sense. I've calculated how many calories I burn running a mile using this handy calorie calculator. Basically, a person of my weight burns around 120 calories per mile run, at a pace between six and ten minutes per mile. So, ten minutes equals 120 calories gained. I can eat a Nutrigrain bar in 10 seconds. Eating is just way more efficient than exercise. I can negate an entire ten minutes of running with ten seconds of eating. So it's easy to see why gaining weight is way easier than losing it. Of course, eating brings pleasure whereas running brings gasping for air--at least when I run. So it's much harder to cut the eating than to add the running.

This little prepackaged food experiment has revealed to me that the diet part of the diet and exercise equation is more important to watch if a person is trying to change his or her weight. Exercise is for the birds! (Or anybody who is trying to maintain decent cardio fitness, which should be everybody, of course.) All this sitting and writing has made me hungry. Time for a cookie! I hope I can get the package open.

Why is working in an office different than working in a lab?

New job, new shoes.

I've survived two weeks in my first full-time office job since 1999, which makes it my second cubicle job ever. Every other gig has involved mixing solutions, magnifying specimens, and moving microliters of liquid from one tube to another. The first two weeks have exposed a few differences between the world of tubes and the world of cubes.

Sitting

I now know why America should be worried about our sedentary jobs. In a lab, I was forced to walk a mile or two during the course of the day because equipment was spread throughout the building. I quantified it for awhile using a pedometer, but I didn't write the data down in my notebook. Typical. Just kidding, old bosses! I wrote everything down--somewhere--but probably illegibly. In my office job, I can literally work all day without walking over 200 steps between entering the office in the morning to leaving it at night. The day requires me to walk into the office, walk to and from a meeting, walk to and from the lunch room for lunch, and then walk out of building. Maybe throw in a bathroom break, but given that I am sitting so much, I could probably get away without that. Now, let's compare that to my bathroom patterns in a lab. Or not.

At the office, I force myself to take a quick walk every day, which means I amble along a street lined by one-story office parks that are full of glass and cement. Compare that to my last two jobs where I could jog around a tree-laden college campus or through a world renowned state park. You may be thinking, "Yep, the grass is always greener . . ." However, there is no grass where I currently work; so the saying would go, "There is grass on the other side." I miss those days when there was grass.

The one positive that has come from sitting so much is that I think I understand my dad a little better. He would run 20 miles a week when he was working office jobs, which I didn't comprehend because I hated running. I couldn't figure out why people would want to run more than the length of a soccer field. I now realize that I've taken for granted all of the walking my lab jobs have required. After a day of sitting at a desk, I need to move my legs. I still can't say I love to run, but I am starting to see why my dad ran so much. Maybe someday I will be as fast as him, and run a 10K at a seven minute-mile pace, which he did in his 50s. Then again, I am genetically predisposed to being a sprinter so maybe not.

Appearances

There is a slight difference between the wardrobe requirements for a human in an office and a grad student in a lab, but there are other appearance-related issues as well. Let's start with the clothes though. As many of you know, you can wear pretty much anything to lab, especially if you are in the right county. Lab safety requirements and their enforcement vary, so at Stanford, I wore flip-flops, shorts, and T-shirts on a daily basis. My friend took it step further and often wore clothes with holes in them. You know who you are. In San Diego, I was forced to wear close-toed shoes and pants, which was a real drag. My wide feet and chicken legs are my best assets. When I switched to an office job, I had to buy a new wardrobe, which meant shirts with more than three buttons, pants that post-dated college, socks that weren't all identical (so I wouldn't have to match them after washing--duh), undershirts without holes, shoes that had most of their soles left, and underwear that--hey, mind your own business. Then I had to figure out how to wear these things. I'm still not sure how to tuck in my shirt properly. And I think my pants hang on me in a weird way because my butt is flatter than my back. And I am considering buying those things that old guys wear to hold up their socks and tucking my shirt into my underwear and doing all those other sexy things I never understood.

Beyond the wardrobe, I am forced to do two other things that I didn't do in a lab: shave regularly and look busy. I probably shaved two or three times per week when working in a lab because . . . well, because I don't think anybody cared. Or at least I didn't care enough to see if anybody cared. Add the fact that I don't grow a 5 o' clock shadow because I am not a barbarian (or manly?) and there just wasn't much need to shave. Oh and I was super busy thinking about science. Except that I wasn't.

In lab, I could kill an hour or more surfing the Internet. I would say that I was abnormally lazy, but I am pretty sure everybody did this--for at least an hour. Back me up, science friends. There are many reasons surfing the web in lab is so commonplace. First of all, everybody else is doing it--but I guess that's the chicken and the egg problem. Second, you're usually in a space where only one or two people can see what you're doing on your screen, so there's no public shame involved. Finally, you're going to be in lab for another nine to eleven hours, so what's an hour or two on the web? On the plus side, it leads to a lot of smart people from different backgrounds being overly informed about the rest of the world, which is kind of awesome. Or it lead to a lot of poor people looking at retail items they can't afford.

In my office, I work in an open space. I don't even have a cubicle, so I have zero privacy. My back is to the rest of the office so anybody walking by can see my screens. I make sure I have some work on at least one screen. If I'm chatting, I tuck the box into the corner so it's slightly less obvious that I'm not working. I'm probably not being as sneaky as I think am, but I have eliminated almost all ESPN and Facebook at work (except on my phone if I'm bored-shhhhh). These sites used to easily suck an hour or two out of my days in lab, especially during college football season, and now I rarely visit them. The result of looking busy is that I am a less informed person about the world of sports and the lives of my friends. Sorry, friends. I do care that you posted some song lyrics and--ah, let's face it, most of my news feed is from pages I "liked".

People

This is the "I have no friends yet" section. Seriously though, the people were the most important, yet least appreciated aspect of lab life that I have noticed. I am still surrounded by scientists in my new job, so we can remove that variable from this experiment. However, they are a bit older than me, have teenagers, and have different goals than me. For them, this is a job. For me, this feels like a huge opportunity. In my immediate vicinity, they are all scientists who read and summarize papers, whereas I am the only one now who is shaping those summaries into client-friendly sentences. Most of them are gone by 5:30, whereas I stick around until 6:00 and still feel like I'm leaving too early. Not a lot of sports fans, possibly because it's an international group--or maybe because it's a group of scientists. Bottom line is that there are a lot of demographic differences between the group and me, and I'm not seeing many potential drinking buddies.

In a lab, you are in a group of self-selected, super smart, underpaid people who work long hours and gripe about their projects, their boss, their careers, and their own quirky issues. They are people who understand exactly what you are going through because they are going through the same psychologically grueling process. I was lucky because I made some good friends, but I was beyond lucky because, at each of my major lab stops, I found a person or two who I still really like, even without our continued shared experiences at the bench. I found a few really good friends who made the workplace feel less like work.

Leaving the lab means I'll miss those random chats that happened during the day while sitting at the scope next to somebody or peering under bottle-laden shelves. No more late night talks or pulling plates for somebody on the weekend, those moments that made you realize you were in it together with somebody. No more random and sometimes heated conversations about sports or international politics or a policeman's responsibility when using lethal force. No more distracting talks about personality types, where to get a less cheap-looking but still cheap haircut, or the worst part about throwing up. Those great friends who accepted all the anger and wackiness that come with me are the people who make my new workplace hard to appreciate.

I'm pretty sure I don't miss lab, but once in awhile, I do really miss the people who were in it with me and the simple and free life that it allowed. So when my butt outgrows my fancy new clothes, I'll think back to a time when I was unhappy with where I was in life but happy that there were great people right there with me.