Month: February 2010


  • DAT WHO!

    The Daily News

    1   Dat's right!

    2   I've seldom been so happy about being wrong!

    3   On Friday, I predicted a blowout by the Colts in the Super Bowl.

    4    My heart, as the rest of America's heart, was with New Orleans, all things considered.

    5   That city has been through more than any of us can really ever imagine in the past few years.

    6   I have a VERY logical and precise mind, however. I'm right in predictions a LOT more than I am wrong, and I base most of my logic on common sense.

    7   My Mom always said that there is nothing common about common sense, so I recklessly predicted that the Colts would win by a huge margin, based on common sense.

    8   Ah, the uncommon! How we cherish it, how we hold it fast to our idiotic hearts!

    9   This was one time that I was glad to see meself proven wrong. I WANTED New Orleans to win, but looked logically at the two teams and saw a blowout. This was based on my knowledge of Peyton Manning, and his work ethic, as well as his intelligence as a wise and crafty quarterback.

    10  I'm glad to see that my good streak of predictions always has a bit of doubt, which is the stuff of life.

    11  My Dad and I have always shared a love of football, and we both agreed that the game would probably be a blowout, but that we also both wished the Saints would go against all logic and prove the rest of the world, including me and my Dad wrong.

    12  And darned if they didn't show us that anything is possible in this crazuh world!

    13  I loved it, all the way.

    14  There were some questionable moments.

    15   The commercials, for example, were abysmal! I counted FOUR commercials that sported out-of-shape people showing off their horrible bodies, two of which had back-to-back commercials with flabby people in their undies.

    16   Ew. Flabby people, all over the place. It was Hell on Earth, lemme tellya!

    17   Worst series of Super Bowl commercials ever.

    18   And halftime with The Who:  My Dad put it best when he said this: "I would rather have seen a magician."

    19   I laughed, because The Who were absolutely horrible, one of the all-time worst performances by them.

    20   My Dad then chimed in, "Because a magician could have made these guys disappear."

    21   Haha!

    22   Omg. Roger Daltrey came out wearing reading glasses, and Pete Townshend wore a Santana bandana under a fedora. He looked like a guy who had a walk-on in a Godfather movie years ago and never recovered from the role.

    23   Daltrey's voice has lost the entire top end that made The Who one of the most eminent bands in rock history, but really? They looked like drooling lepers. I believe it was Zack Starkey doing the drumming for them, the son of Ringo Starr of the Beatles.

    24   He looked like an near-sighted ostrich looking for sand.

    25   So bad, even though the tech rocked.

    26   "Back in the Day, The Who tore it up. But Daltrey's voice, one of the most powerful in the history of rock, lost it on the top end. Townshend, once the crown prince of flailing rock and cut-edge music and lyrics, looked puffy and abandoned. The harmonies came this short of smashing glass. I thought the teevee was going to implode.

    27   Ah, yeesh. My Dad thought they should have at least put the chick in the bathtub (from one of the "better" commercials) out on stage. It was THAT bad.

    28   The GAME, on the other hand, took off in the second half, when my Dad PREDICTED the onside kick, which had NEVER been done in the history of the Super Bowl!

    29  Well, if you are a true football fan, you would KNOW that the onside kick turned the entire game around. It put a sense of doubt in the heads of the entire Colts' bench, and totally pumped the Saints. THAT was the key moment, and it was the PSYCHOLOGICAL edge that the Saints needed.

    30  Such is life.

    31  Welp, to a houseload of Niner fans, it brought back amazing memories of their first Super Bowl victory, and there was vicarious celebrations at me Dad's house.

    32  AnywayZ, great night, great fun, and a terrific end to the NFL season. Perfect right before Valentine's and Mardi Gras!

    33  To the people of Nahlinzzzz: Live it, love it.

    34   That's life.

    35   You do that too. Make someone's day, willya?  I mean that! Make someone happy, and you'll be happy too!  = )   <----sideways smiley dude who is WAY sincere

    36   Have a great Monday everybody.

    37   Live life.

    38   Love life.

    39   Peace.

    ~H~


    www.xanga.com/bharrington


  •   









    The Daily News

    1   Okay, so thanks. TODAY is Frideeeeeeeeee!

    2   Our week was so weird that I thought yesterday was Frideeeeeeeeee.

    3   Well, clearly I wuz wrong.

    4   So...TODAY is Frideeeeeeeeeee.

    5   Ah, it's coo!  <cute way of saying, "cool".>

    6   I did shot clock for our girls' BB game last night, and it was always a pleasure. Out team has one of their best players down with an injury, a senior. They played Piedmont last night, and scored 29 points in the FIRST period! The ref came over to the table and said, "Girls' basketball? 29 points in the first?" I gave him a bit of a wink and a nod. It was far and away the best first period of these guys' year. But still, they were ON, and powerfully fast and amazing as always.

    7   They slowed it down in the second half, but still ran away with a decisive victory, and I again am enthralled with the team I've followed for my third straight year at the table.

    8   Last year, when they made state playoffs, I attended the games just to support this amazing team. I couldn't do the shot clock, which was annoying bc I thought I could do a better job than those guys they hired, but rules is rules.

    9    Last night I worked the clock with me good friend and confidant John Blair, who along with me, is the "A" team for our team.

    10   Both John and myself are huge fans of the sport of basketball (although strangely I am not an avid Warriors' fan), so being the best at doing the clocks is a fun thing, however trivial it may seem to others.

    11   The fact is, ladies and gents, that I now work at Evergreen Valley High School, and I am liking it more and more not each year, but each minute.

    12   The girls fell behind for a brief stint, but rallied back and managed to slip by a very good Piedmont team.

    13    I KNOW, I KNOW, I sound like a thousand parents, or like a billion blogs. My only saving grace is that I personally feel that the DN is STILL the world's first blog. I began doing this in 1996 with the first DN, and if you are any sorta DN fan, you realize was a few years ahead of the great "blog" deluge. I'll say no more on that one.

    14   But truly. But I digress. Back to the team:

    15   I love being a significant part of that team, because they have SO much heart, and many of them are seniors. So I'm going to enjoy the rest of their season.

    16   Moving on, Part the First: I went for pho with me old friend and confidant Sparky yesterday, and we finally planned on working on some of the music and songs I've been writing for the past few months. Sparks wants to take the songs I've been writing and putting them on a CD, and adding any musicians we can bring in to make the songs fun!

    17   It's small time, and I realize that this isn't really to become famous or anything, but just a great music/art thing that we both want to do, just for fun!

    18  We talked about technical things, and things we would need to put it all together, and I'm hoping it will all work. I had been writing several songs a few months ago, but life crashed in like an ocean wave, erasing a lot of the tunes and melodies I had been working on. Some of you have heard a few of the tunes, albeit raw, but we both have vision of making an album, just to see if we could do it.

    19  So to Sparks, thanks man. Fun day, to be sure.

    20  I'm caught up on much of my grading, and after this week I have another week off to experiment and create some amazing songs.

    21   Right now we are thinking of what might be added instrumentally to each tune, and seeing if we could arrange bringing in different instruments, sound effects, and musicians to arrange and harmonize with the music.

    22  It will take a LOT of work, and a LOT of fun, but many of the songs already sound fun to play around with, so why not?

    23  Sparky has already built some fun recording cords on a cool budget, so the creation is going along in the same mode as any Show we've ever conceived.

    24  It may work, and it may not, but right now, we're having a ball re-connecting and planning a strategy, the same way we have always planned for other creative endeavors.

    25  So wish me luck.

    26  The CD will be called simply Old Hat, and will include around 12 songs.

    27  Some of you have already heard a few, and the reviews have been genuinely positive.

    28  AnywayZ, that's where I'm headed. Where WE'RE headed.

    29  As much as I cherish the past, I honestly have always lived with this credo: Let's live for the memories that lie in store.

    30  Love is ongoing.

    31  I love you all.

    32  Moving on, Part the Second: About the Monk song, above, the day before yesterday I parked in the parking lot near our theater. I was late, and had to pick up my CAHSEE tests in a room in that building, so it was easier to jump and get the materials, etc.

    33  Standing outside like a sentinel at a speakeasy was the immortal Steve Barnhill, who informed me that the parking lot was the exclusive parking spot for Performing Arts people, and that I must move my vehicle.

    34  I gave a look that could freeze stone, and then smiled. Barnhill then started telling me that I should have the song In Walked Bud by Thelonius Monk as an underscore for my life. It's this song that is about all these musicians playing, when in walks some cat named Bud, and then the entire room rocks.

    35  Although I have listened to some Monk, I amazingly had never heard that song, nor of that song in my entire life. I laughed at the concept and moved on.

    36  This morning, I went on the New Facebook Order and after orienting myself, goofed on people's stata (haha, is that the plural of "status"?), and scrolled down. I had missed a million postings because of the basketball game, so it was nice to smile and enjoy goofing on Facebook.

    37  Suddenly I came upon a post by me old friend and confidant Matt De Leon, far and away the best singer in the history of YB, and a gent to boot. Matt had posted a you tube of...In Walked Bud! Haha, just another in a list of coincidences that laid end-to-end, could very well disappear into space!  Of course I LOVED it, just because of the coincidence. It was also the first time ever listening to the tune! Cool, daddyo!

    38  Moving on, Part the Third: Enjoy the weekend. Joe Montana is rooting for the Saints, but my feeling is: blowout. Peyton Manning is going to pick New Orleans to pieces. I'll silently root for the Saints too, but I see a blowout on the horizon. 38-21? That'll be my call.

    39  So we'll all have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I'm going to practice, and practice, and practice my music. I want to make a CD, and I want to make the best one ever!

    40   Love you all.

    41   Have an amazing weekend!

    42   Peace.

      



    ~H~



    www.xanga.com





















  •  

    DAT WHO!

    a DAT WHO!

     

    ~H~

    a cool guy 1

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

     

     

     

  • The Daily News

    1  I'm thoroughly convinced that gremlins exist, and that they take stuff and hide it on us on a daily basis.

    2  Yesterday morning I looked around for the notes I took on how to administer the CAHSEE test, the California High School Exit Examination. I thought I had put all the notes on this small piece of paper, but that it was in a binder. During the testing, I kept looking for the binder but couldn't find it anywhere.

    3  As soon as the test was completed I found the binder, but by then I succeeded in screwing up in at least three different places. None of it interrupted the test itself, just roll sheets and things.

    4  Incidentally, when I DID find the binder, the notes weren't in there anyway.

    5  They were on the back of an ORANGE piece of paper that was next to my right index finger for the past two days, about a millimeter away the entire time I proctored.

    6  Ah, ya gotta love it.

    7   Moving on, Part 1: I got to sleep last night at around 10, and then awakened at 3 a.m. as per usual, and had trouble falling back to sleep. Fortunately, when I did get back to sleep, my dog Phoebe didn't wake me up at her usual 4:20 a.m.

    8   She is a creature of habit, and LOVES barking in this high-twanged pitch every morning at 4:20.

    9   I've sort of been thinking of naming her "4:20" because of that.

    10  What.

    11  OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhIdidntknowthat.

    12  M'bad.

    13  AnywayZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz...

    14  In the course of events that followed yesterday, we had weird schedules, but I still have this amazingly wonderful prep period right before lunch, and just works out that I get a lengthy lunch period each day.

    15  Yesterday I didn't leave campus, so had a lotta time to grade papers, take care of business, and all sorts of other officious stuff.

    16  So I took a nap instead.

    17  Yep. Right smack in the middle of the day, like the Italians.


    18  Best thing I've done in quite some time! I awakened with the bell signaling the start of my sixth-period English 1A class. I have never BEEN that alert midday, and we had a blast playing Pictionary and doing skits with vocabulary.

    19  I don't want to get in the habit of sleeping on the job midday, but yesterday was like, yeah!

    20  Being absolutely rested at 2 p.m. made me want to run to the gym and swim 20000 laps!

    21  I didn't, but sure FELT like it. I was a pistol!

    22  Moving on, Part the Second:  Speaking of which, the other day, some gremlin stole my belt. Somebody told me I should always have a couple of belts at work, but I never listened. <groan>

    23  This was horrifying, because the only belt I had left was one that didn't fit me, and had no chance of fitting me three months ago. I moaned and groaned, but went ahead and put it on.

    24  To my amazement, it fit with room to spare!  I hadn't really been paying attention to the fact that while working out, I might lose weight. I was more interested in how my body was reacting and how the muscles seem to want workouts now.

    25  Turns out I have gone down two sizes since November. My goal was four in six months, or a loss of 40 pounds, which seemed at the time huge, and now seems within reach.

    26  I did stop swimming for a while, and switched to using the elliptical, but it was a reasonably easy switch. The reason I stopped the swimming was 'cuz the only hair I have kept turning red! I had to color my hair and use creme rinses to get it back to normal.

    27  I know, I know! Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!

    28  Not really. I've often said that at my age, I no longer want to look good; I just want to avoid looking bad.

    29  AnywayZ, the second I got home with an entire day spent in a much smaller belt, I saw my other belt sitting on the end table of my couch. The house was pretty clean, but somehow in the rushing about trying to get dressed, something took it and hid it on me, I swear to you.

    30  Nah, I really don't believe in gremlins and all, but still...stuff always seems NOT to be there when I'm in a rush, and I've almost learned to relax my shoulders about all of it, knowing full well that as soon as something is done, whatever I needed will surface almost immediately.

    31  So it's Thursday already.

    32  In one week, we get another week off. I'm telling you. When we returned from Christmas, we prepared for finals, then HAD finals, which had three minimum days, followed by a weekend with two days off, and a return on a minimum day. We had a reasonably normal week, and then this week, which had two days of 35-minute classes. I'm trying to get Romeo and Juliet going, but it seems that we need a good, solid month of normal schedules to really get that one rolling.

    33  Ah, well. I'm teaching all these Greek word roots right now, so the students are enjoying learning about phobias and things. The lessons have been really fun and cartoony, so at least we're enjoying the ride.

    34  That's about it here on the home front. Nothing sensational, but then no news is always good news.

    35  Hope you enjoy your day. We have a Super Bowl weekend coming up, so get a helmet.

    36  That's it.

    37  Keep fighting. If I can do it, you can do it.

    38  Peace.

    ~H~

     

    www.xanga.com/bharrington


     

     

     

     

     


  • a tech mirror ball
    "We just pass the time in our hotel rooms,and wander 'round backstage,
    til' those lights come up and we hear that crowd
    and we remember why we came."
    -Jackson Browne, The Load-out
     

    The Daily News

    1   This one goes out to my tech crews throughout it all. You know you guys are the champs.

    2   It is from this amazing book called Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison.

    3   The backstory is that Robison lived with Asperger's his entire life, and eventually learned to live with this situation, despite a dysfunctional family and his own inability to think he could do things well.

    4    Well, he soon began studying, learning, playing with technical things, and eventually learned SO much about technical things, particularly sound and lights for rock bands, that he became a lighting/sound designer for KISS.

    5    Here is an excerpt of one of his finest moments. He did the entire lighting design for a KISS concert, and reported pretty much exactly what light design/execution is.

    6    Here is the excerpt. I send this out to all my techies over the years. Without you, those shows would never have been anywhere near as memorable. Here's to long Saturdays designing and enjoying. Hope you guys get a chance to check this one out. Here it is; it's long, but wonderful!

    7    Enjoy!



       Becoming the brain of the lighting system takes intense focus and concentration. It's easy to say, "Push the button and the lights come on. But the reality is much more complex. The lights need to be brought up gently to keep them from burning out. To turn up all the lights, you must do a dance over the keyboard, bringing up first one, then another, because if you move too fast you could overload the system, and blow a breaker, and you'd be left with nothing at all. Darkness. Your worst nightmare in the middle of a show. Darkness is when they riot, and you must never, never let that happen. You must develop a sixth sense for your system, to feel how it's doing, to be really great.

        And now you're doing it. Cones of colored light are reaching down from the ceiling to the stage, washing over the scenery. The cones are moving and changing as you switch from light to light in a constant dance that follows the music. Fog machines behind the stage are generating clouds, and your lights are making patterns in the mist.

        The faces of the crowd are visible, and they're all staring at the stage. There is action up there, and it's loud. And you'e like the Wizard of Oz. You're right there in the open, and no one sees you.

         You feel a chill as the lights change in response to your commands. You've brought a million watts of lighting to life by leaning forward and moving two fingers. Just a gentle push and you've moved enough power to light the whole neighborhood. For now, all of your mental energy is focused on that lighting system. Once the show has started, there is no time for daydreaming. You know the color and focus and aiming point of every one of the three hundred lights that hang from your truss. Now you concentrate and pick out each one, one at a time, and you make small adjustments as you scan them.

        Now that you're working, your concentration is so intense that you don't even hear the show.You don't see the crowd. Instead, you're seeing each of those hundreds of lights as individuals, and it's all you can do to keep them following the music. It's just like playing a huge musical instrument, and your hands never stop moving on the dimmers.

        If you had been backstage, near the electrical panels, you'd have heard the hum as the power surge hit the panel when the lights came up. Fifty feet above the floor, three hundred lights came on and a wave of heat rolled off them like someone just opened the door to a furnace.
     
        When the show started, everything happened at once. The lights came up, the cannons fired, and the band started playing. From up high in the back of the hall, the follow spots--ten-foot long spotlights with powerful xenon lamps--came on and picked out the musicians with long fingers of white light. Next to you, the sound engineer watches his meters as they turn from green to red. The fire chief holds up his sound pressure meter and frowns and waves it in front of the road manager. It's too loud to talk. It shows 124 decibels, about the level of jets taking off the Detroit airport. It's too loud to be legal, but now one hears the chief. The crowd roars and the music gets even louder.

       And it's never enough. You can always have brighter lights, bigger amplifiers. These are machines that run at 100 per cent, every show. One million watts of power, right there under you finger.

       There's nothing like it in the world.

    8   This is a shout out to all my techies. Stand and take a bow.

    9   You know you guys are the champs.

    10  That's it. You guys all deserve it.

    11   Peace.

    ~H~




    www.xanga.com/bharrington



















  • The Daily News

    1  Two things happened yesterday worthy of repeating.

    2  The first happened during my second period class.

    3   Listen:

    4   I had my students studying Greek roots of words, and sitting at their desks working on sentences.

    5   I advanced to my desk to grade some papers.

    6   A bit of a noise hit the room, and I always love that, because it is times like that I put on my listening radar.

    7   The students talked about this and that, while I decided to grade papers and basically to eavesdrop.

    8   Suddenly, I heard a student say, "I LOVE reading!"

    9    I tried to maintain my composure, but simply couldn't .

    10  I instantly went online and threw that out there on Facebook.

    11  Later in the day, I loved that my student loved reading, and shared it with whatever the Facebook world is.

    12  I got back a few comments and appreciation from some of me old mates, all of whom like to see that there's still hope for mankind. Quite a refreshing thing for all of us to hear first thing in the morning.

    13  Normally, I don't spend a lot of the day on Facebook, since I have to lecture, grade papers, daydream, etc. But if I have a small window of time, I'll throw something out there just for ducks.

    14   I continued with my day, lecturing, swirling, laughing, and always enjoying the students at the Chill. When my prep period rolled around, I decided to get outside, too nice a day plus my prep runs right into lunch, giving me a nice long break right in the middle of the day.

    15   I went out to the T000000NDRA and tried to find a little metal bookmark that fell out of this terrific book I've been reading when I work out on the elliptical.

    16   Did you ever go out to your car and realize that you have not really kept after it in a while?

    17   I looked at the T000000NDRA and found old straw wrappers, rocks and pebbles, receipts, a thin layer of dust, and all sorts of other flim and flam. It hadn't reached disgusting quite yet, but really!

    18   So I brought everything I use to clean my  classroom out to the trusty ol' T000000NDRA, and spent my entire prep period cleaning it all up, freshening it with air fresheners, leaving all the windows down, and taking it for a rapid spin.

    19   Your ride always seems slicker, cleaner, and faster when clean. I figured some of the scratches and knicks were memories, so those didn't bother me too much, but by the end of lunch, she shone pretty nicely, at least on the inside.

    20   I later tried getting her washed, but when I got to the Shell station over on Capitol, three cars pulled in right before me, just like some ordered cartoon.

    21   Clouds gathered as well, so the outside would have to stay a bit weathered, but real.

    22   Ah, vell. At least it was nice on the inside!

    23   Not that important, I imagine.

    24   AnywayZ, I felt nice that I had taken the time to clean and shine the insides of the T000000NDRA, 'cuz it's much more fun to cruise. I looked out towards the Santa Cruz mountains and thought of flying up there after school.

    25   Eventually, the bell rang, and I scurried to my room with towels, soap, water, and moist towelettes, and then got back to my lessons. I totally thought that as soon as the final bell rang, that I'd take off to the mountains, just to get away, the way I do.

    26   When seventh period rolled around, I looked forward to it. Right as the students entered, I overheard a second comment, the second thing I mentioned earlier that is worthy of repeating.

    27   When students enter a class, it is one of the best moments to an experienced teacher. Random comments occur, there is usually a lot of joy among friends, and kids all shout out random things before the bell rings to start the period.

    28    I actually overheard a kid say this:  "I always thought Farrah Fawcett was an actual faucet."

    29    I looked over my glasses to see if this guy was joking, but he was completely sincere. I jumped on my computer instantly to share that tidbit with the world. Unfortunately, Facebook was down, so I had to wait a bit.

    30   The contrast with the student in the morning said just about everything you would need to say about education, and perhaps, growing older gracefully.

    31    It was a great moment, because it sort of bookended a rather pleasant day.

    32    When school was out, I looked at the sky and decided it was a bit too dark and cloudy to head to the Santa Cruz Mountains, so I called my daughter Nicole to see if she would like to work out.

    33    Turned out that BOTH Nicole and Caitlin wanted to work out, so I hurried home, got a phone call from a friend who said, "Dude. Have you seen the sky in the West? Beautiful sunset. We oughta go to Santa Cruz!"

    34    Haha, ain't that just how it works? I told her thanks, but I was headed for the gym.

    35    All three of us piled into the shiny new T000000NDRA. I turned the key, and it lit up and then everything went dead. I tried a second time, and she roared like a lion! We flew to the gym in my Disney ride, and had us a grand workout.

    36   The book I was reading had a passage in it by a lighting designer for KISS, which I'll probably share with you tomorrow. It made the workout seem like five minutes. All my muscles started twitching, and I felt my entire body come alive, which happens on certain gym days. It felt great!

    37   When we got out, the night was cool but balmy, the T000000NDRA stood under a tree right near an open baseball field, and it was all quite peaceful. Nice night.

    38    I turned the key.

    39    Blackness.

    40    I tried again.

    41    Blackness.

    42    The T000000NDRA was dead.

    43    Fortunately, my daughters decided to take care of the situation. Caitlin is a take-charge sort, and said, "Give me your Triple A card; I'll handle this!" Haha, I was only happy to. When she called, I looked in the basketball courts at the gym. I always like to measure up the skills of the guys on the court, and figured I could have outplayed half the guys there.

    44   Fortunately for my ankles, I had a car down.

    45   It seemed like forever before the guy got there. None of us had brought cell phones, so it was pretty nerve-wracking. Fortunately Helene showed up with my cell, and took Nicole home. Caitlin and I stayed 'til what seemed midnight. The guy finally arrived, and had all sorts of issues with wires and plugs, but eventually, we got home.

    46   All that in one day. Right now my battery is sitting without tie-downs, the ground wire is connected randomly, and there is still corrosion on the battery clamps, but theT000000NDRA is all polished and ready to ride. It was just such an ORDEAL.

    47   The entire time I thought, "What if this had happened in the rain? What if this had happened in the middle of the freeway?" And on and on. I have learned to count my blessings, more and more, every single day, and in every single way.

    48   Do that at some point this fine morning.

    49   Take a moment to count your blessings. ////////////// I did, and just shared it.
     
    50   Have a lovely day.

    50   Peace.

    ~H~

     






     
     
     
     

     



  •  
    There are places I remember...


    all my life...
    The Daily News

    1   So...I visited my Dad yesterday, and he related this extremely short and quite philosophical anecdote:
     
    2    A young girl and her Dad boarded an airplane for a routine trip one day. They buckled in, and were ready to take off, when the little girl  nervously looked to her Dad and said, "My hands are cold, and nobody loves me!"

    3    Her Dad thought for a second, then turned to his beautiful daughter and said, "Sit on your hands, and God loves you."

    4    Sweet.

    5    That's my Dad, in a nutshell. He is always one who could say amazing things in few words.

    6     If I may remind, last May, after my Mom passed away, we had all the usual stresses not only of dealing with our own means of all that comes with losing a parent, spiritual guide, and darned good dancer, but with arranging flowers, preparing for the celebration at our house, and sharing memories with friends, food, and prayers for Mom.

    7    At one point, I called my Dad on the phone and asked what he wanted printed on the sash you put on flowers at a celebration of someone's life, in this case, the woman he adored and cherished from the moment he had met her.

    8    His response, with no hesitation:  "I still do."

    9    I stood for a second holding the receiver in my hand, and smiled.

    10  How do you smile at something as tragic as the loss of a parent, or in this instant, of a lifelong soulmate?

    11  Dad let all of us know. That's him. Succinct, intelligent, and a master poet.

    12  His bone cancer has started to cause pain, which isn't fun, but which he seems again to keep as real, and as a testament as to why I have always wished I were half the man he is.

    13   He's my Dad, and I love him. GREAT afternoon, despite all, and I came home refreshed and refurbished.

    14   Whew.

    15   Moving on, Part 1:  To the many more, I wish to thank you for understanding all of my moodiness, goofiness, smiles, anger, misgivings, and misunderstandings in the past few weeks. It has been a tremendously tough time, but a spiritual climb that keeps teaching me to live life, and to love life, and to thank all my friends and family for putting up with my goofiness and seeming emotion-packed stints.

    16   I love all of you, and thank you for understanding. It's been an amazing year in so many ways, and yet the emotions have run extreme ever since May, when we lost Mom.

    17   The nice thing about all of this is that I can look back and realize how truly blessed I have been my entire life. My parents are to be praised for having been so supportive, funny, graceful, and always there for our entire family. Having both gone through several years of hospitals, procedures, sufferings, and yet watching them remain strong, funny, intelligent, and always supportive has been a true rollercoaster, but one that has brought myself and my family tremendous moments of appreciation and joy in so many ways.

    18   Anyway, it was a wonderful day spent with Dad, and as we move into the new year, I hope to have many more.

    19    Moving on, Part the Second: I think one of the saddest moments of yesterday is my Dad telling me he is not renewing his season tickets to the 49ers next year. He is a lifelong season ticket holder, and had gone to games for years before my Mom became paralyzed and sick. After her passing in May, I was able to go to a coupla Niner games with him, and LOVED it.

    20   When I was a wee lad, I used to accompany him to games every Sunday the Niners were in town. I later went on to work as a vendor at Niner games, Giants' games, A's' games, Raiders' games, Cal games, Stanford games, and nearly any other venue you could name. My main jobs were at Niners and Giants, one of the most incredible jobs one could have as a young person.

    21    Perhaps my greatest vending moment came when I worked the immortal Niners/Cowboys game that featured "The Catch",  which subsequently put the Niners into the Super Bowl for the very first time.

    22    I had sold a LOT of beer at that event, and with two minutes left, worked my way over to section 43, where my Mom and Dad, along with their friends from their younger days all sat, people from my childhood neighborhood all huddled together nervously watching as the Niners came back and won a game that perhaps they shouldn't have. The Niners were trailing 27-21 with 58 seconds left in the game, and were driving on a third down and long.

    23    What football fan could ever forget Joe Montana rolling right, seemingly in trouble, and throwing an almost uncatchable ball to the soaring Dwight Clark, whose fingertips pulled the ball down in the end zone for an amazing comeback with 51 seconds left on the clock?  I even remember the name of the play, "Sprint Right Option". When Clark pulled that ball down, we screamed, cheered, whooped it up, but within seconds we also realized there was still a lot of time left on the clock.

    24   I remember distinctly being worried that Dallas would mount a last-minute comeback, which they did. They got the ball all the way up to the 50-yard line on a long pass from Dallas' Danny White to wide receiver Drew Pearson. The Niner's Eric Wright reached out and horse-collared Pearson, saving us from a Dallas touchdown.

     25  On the very next play Lawrence Pillers stripped the ball from Dallas' QB Danny White, and the Niners pounced on it, securing their ticket to their first Super Bowl, and their place in football folklore. Mom, Dad, their best friends, their best friends' kids, and myself screamed, hugged, laughed, and high-fived into the night.

    26   We still talk about it, to this day. Dad's seats became golden, right on the 40-yard line during the golden age of the 49ers. When he told me he wasn't getting tickets next year, my heart dropped. He can't make it up his porch anymore without having trouble breathing, so the walk to his seats seems out of the question now.

    27   That one hurt. I'm thinking of talking to my sisters about paying for the tickets and sharing them, just so we could keep a tradition in the family that has been going on since I was born.

    28    Whew.

    29    Moving on, Part the Third: Had a great weekend, really. On Saturday I went to Public Storage and cleaned out a buncha old stuff, including hundreds of pictures of old shows and other YB memorabilia. When I first hopped over to EV, I had to get my classroom stuff and theatre stuff out of YB within days, so I rented this Public Storage unit, and have had it for several years. I never wanted to go in there, because I had many of the programs from the Shows, several things that were out on stage, and a tons of videos, pictures, cards, letters, and wall plaques that were just too painful to look at, given all that has gone on.

    30   Ironically, nobody was around to go in there with me, so it was a little tough getting over there, but I wanted to get that stuff out before the first of the month.

    31   Turned out that doing that by myself was rather cathartic.The sun shone brightly on Saturday, and I found myself once again on Tully Road, bumper to bumper, and doing a classic Drama Workshop "tech". It felt exactly the same, only I was moving things I could use  into a storage room on the first floor of my building at EV.

    32    Fortunately for me, me new friend and confidant Rafa, our head custodian, was there and willing to let me in. I spent the entire morning and afternoon alone and enjoying the life I had left, as well as symbolically leaving my old life behind and putting a flag into the grounds of the Chill-on-the-Hill.

    33   It was nice finally moving completely in. It was sort of like finally putting the past behind and loving the present, and REALLY appreciating my new digs, even though I've already been there for four years. I had always delayed moving all that stuff, and now I bring the past into the present, but with a real focus on the future.

    34   Emotional? Perhaps. It's been an emotional year, what with so many people falling sick, and having to worry about so many critical things. Saturday was a bit of a catharsis, where I was able to put the past finally to bed, and to dream of what new memories and challenges I will face with my students, with my Dad, with my family, and with my life.

    35    I came away with a wonderful feeling of acceptance, and with still more excitement for my future at EV. It is nice to know that any time I wish, I could go downstairs and use some of the drama flats, and many of the techniques I developed at YB. There is a sort of spiritual constant, and now a wonderful connection between the two places. Life isn't always a moving on; it's often a spiritual connection between past, present, and future. I love my present, look forward to my future, but will always carry the real people and things with me through life.

    36    All these places have their moments.
     
    37    I love you all, everything.

    38    Live life.

    39    Love life.

    40    Peace.

    ~H~

     






bharrington

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