I got one . . . and NOW I get it

Beware the dangerous fruit

Sitting in the darkness, a little glow was coming from my fingertips.

I was waiting for The Dark Knight to start, and my iPhone was vibrating. It was an email from Ruby updating me on the press coverage of Louis’ passing. I started to giggle.

Now there is nothing at all amusing about losing a pet, even when his passing is making the news. I was giggling because I was sitting in a movie theatre in this backwater we call home and I was getting email from Palm Springs.

Those of you (Jenna) who have been carrying a convergent device for years may be giggling too, at my oh-so-come-lately glee. But still, I find it all amazing. I am checking email in the car, walking the dogs and at the grocery store. I was watching a Tigers game and IM-ing my nephew, I even snuck a read of the NYTimes in the Egg Building at the Lenawee County Fair. This is funny, in an addictive kind of way.

Yes it’s true. I have in my hands what some refer to as a “crackberry”. Well, not a true crackberry, that’s reserved for the original convergent device. The little piece of technology that as of April of 2008 had 14 million subscribers. The device that made “crackberry” the 2006 Webster’s word of the year. My second hand iPhone is, like me, a late comer to this technology, but we still have a lot of fun.

And Apple just introduced a lot of applications to add to the iPhone, really fun ones. Besides the direct link to the beloved NYTimes, I also added Pandora, a sorta custom music app that like TVO suggests content you might like. Marcy Wohlstadter suggested I also try Shazam and Midomi. These blew my mind, and not only because they were free. Shazam will identify music that you hold your phone up to and Midomi lets you sing a few bars of the song for identification. I can’t wait show these to my brother or to try this one out on a bunch of beer sodden friends at Cubs.

It’s a good thing I have all these toys on my phone because I hardly ever use it as a phone. I have yet to receive a call.

Someone, call me, please!

- - David

Comments update:

For some unknown reason, on the Apple version of this blog,
Safari users are unable to make or even view comments on this blog.
Firefox works fine. Will someone PLEASE EXPLAIN?

update update:
"I wanted to post comments too but i couldn't in firefox or internet explorer.
I wanted to tell jenna I'm a blackberry addict too now.
I'll let you know if I figure out the problem.
Glad to see you heart your iPhone. :)"
- - - Vegas St. Eph

(m)iPhone

The kids don’t have to be ashamed of this uncle anymore

Six weeks and four days ago we were at my nephews graduation. We were in a huge outdoor amphitheater with a thousand others waiting for my red robed smarty-pants nephew to make his entrance. I suggested to my niece, Ali-Baba, that we text her brother to find out which aisle he was going to use to enter. When I took out my cell phone, she laughed at me.

“OhMyGawd,” she giggled, “My mom had that phone like, THREE phones ago!!!”, amazed at how far behind the pack a person could lag.

I was a little hurt, “What? It does texting!” I offered. But by the time I finally was able to call up the text screen on my piece of Smithsonian Institute technology, and Ali saw the screen, she only laughed harder. By that time she had clicked open her own cell phone, slid open a tiny QWERTY keyboard and was using two thumbs to type cryptograms to her brother.

She laughed in the face of her beloved uncle, her designated spiritual advisor, the one who let her drive his car to confirmation rehearsal, the uncle who is willing to stand between her and an oncoming water balloon . . . me!

“It’s okay, honey.” comforted Brian, “You can have my iPhone after I get the new 3G.”

So my dear Alison, it has come to pass. Today I will be carrying a piece of 2007 electronics.

True, it’s secondhand, outdated, and the GPS isn’t state of the art. But at least you, (and probably others), won’t be AS ashamed of me as you were.

And next time you see me I can show you all 5,000 of my photos that I now carry around in my pocket, have you read this blog, and then make you listen to MY MP3s in the car. 

Want to hear some polka music?

- - - David

Mystery Date

St. Mary Magdalene, end of the 14th cent.(?), SS. Johns church, Toruń
Wikimedia Commons

Today is a day of great mystery, in more ways than one.

In the the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches July 22nd is the feast day of Mary of Magdala. Debates rage, as debates do, as to who the woman really is. Opinions range from penitent prostitute to the wife and mother of Jesus’ children. Did she wash feet or write gospel? Did the vatican make the woman a saint to deflate a woman’s importance in the founding of the faith. Is their Saint Mary Magdalene a condensed version of many women or an attempt to diffuse the power of Sophian Gnosticism?

I just love mysterious woman and Vatican conspiracy theories.

Today is also the day I mark the birth of another woman of mystery. The vixen has eluded all attempts to verify this assumption of mine, she will neither confirm nor deny. It’s not like I am asking her how old she is, though that she would probably tell me. Is it a fear of Surprise Parties? A hatred of balloons or cake? Maybe is it a saintly sense of self-effacing modesty? I don’t know.

With no implied connection between the former and the latter, today is the day I have designated as a celebration of the latters birth.

So I am sending out a big “Stolat” to her.

Can you guess who she is?
I bet you can, just don’t do it here.

But please join me in wishing she-who-must-not-be-named a happy day.

- - - David

Happy Trails, Louie

photo: LaCoppola+Meier

There once was a Chihuahua name Louis L’Amour.

He did not merely possess that jene sais quoi eminence of the breed, he defined it.

We met, years ago, when he lived on a park like street in Seattle and managed the infamous store called the Pinto Pony. He was the constant companion, body guard, and carry-on of our near and dear duo, Ruby and Calyn. For the past 8 years he has run that corral of a resort in Palm Springs, California, The Coral Sands.

Louis ruled all that he surveyed. He alpha’ed Sophie, of course, though he only came up to her wrist, but even Aniol, tough NYC grrl, gave him his due. This power did not corrupt him, he wore it like a ten gallon Stetson. He was a chivalrous defender of those he loved, but he magnanimously accepted adoration from all.

On Sunday morning, we were informed by a weeping angel that Louie had left us. He was gone in a flash, as if not to trouble us with long goodbyes. I wouldn’t have minded, Louie, not for a second.

With tears in our eyes and an ache in our hearts, we wish this legend Happy Trails . . . until we meet again.

- - - David

Ruby's tribute, "Adieu My Captain, Farewell My Love",

say's it all. Link to it here.

. . . and here's a very sweet one from Rebecca.

Memories, coming and going

Every time we visit the Matka Ginka in Clinton Township, north of Detroit, I try to gather up some old photographs she has in drawers, deteriorating albums and in dusty stacks on the bottom shelves of tables. Few snaps are labeled. When I ask my mom for the details she doesn’t always have them.

I bring the pictures home and, one by one, scan them into the computer. My OCD insists I label and date them, now, can’t wait. With the scanner has going morning to night for the last few days, I needed facts. My lofty plans for getting my mom to Adrian for a few days of light interrogation never materialize so I call her often for information. Like, “Mom, when was you mom’s mom born?” or “When did dad go when he was in the army?”

Somedays she can’t think of names or dates, and somedays she remembers what she ate on the train when she went snuck off to visit my dad at an army camp in North Carolina. Yesterday she couldn’t remember what countries my dad toured in Europe, but she did remember his Army Serial number (36584747) along with both her brothers'.

She remembers the street numbers of all the houses she’s lived in, but the dates are fading. More obscure details change a bit from time to time, sometimes during the conversation, but the stories don’t. She can tell me about some slight an aunt disrespected her with in the 50’s or what my dad said to her at my sister’s wedding in 1986. Ginka may be 84, and she might not remember everything, but she is full of some fantastic tales. So this is what we talk about. And though I do hear a lot of repeats, occasionally I get a new one.

I was on the phone with her yesterday asking about my dad’s WW2 experience, I had the photo of my dad in front of an army barrack (top) on my computer screen. She thought it might be Camp Butner, or that it could be “in that state that’s just below Seattle?” When I zoomed in on a sign on the barracks, HQ HQ DET 303rd MED, I asked what it meant. “303rd Medical Battalion, he was always in that unit” I googled, as usual I was led to Wikipedia, I read her the Lightning Divisions movements during the war in Europe, they were intense. “Oh my god, that’s what he was doing!” she said, “No wonder he never wrote, and that’s why I broke up, I didn’t know, I was a fool!”

My dad’s unit sailed to England, then landed in France on November 22, 1944 and crossed into Belgium and then Germany. There was heavy fighting against the Nazis through the winter, taking bridges, saving dams and on VE Day, May 7th, 1945 they were stationed near Marburg. After that he was mainly in Germany, and France. (that’s Mickey at an army club on the beach in Nice.)

So my dad didn’t write, and my mom didn’t like that. My mom broke off their romance, which had started in High School, and then she married another man. His name was Gerald R., he went to school with my parents, he was the best man at my uncle Larry’s wedding, he was fun. So, my mom married him. But the man never touched her in the years they were married. My mom dressed like a babe, but was a sheltered Polish-Catholic girl. He didn’t make a move, she told no one, for years. One night her brothers came over with a truck when Gerry wasn’t home, they took the furniture and moved her out, back in with my grandparents on Mitchell Street in Detroit. Scandal. The wedding photos were destroyed. 4-1/2 years after the wedding, Divorce.

My dad’s unit stayed in Europe until 1946, and sometime after that he went into the reserves. He was reactivated and was sent to train men for the Korean Conflict. When my dad got out of the army, he and my mom still had mutual friends, who all gathered at my mom’s parents’ house. My dad was practically family. Love conquered all and he and Ginka eventually got back together. And although it got them both kicked out of the Catholic Church, in April of 1952, they got married. My mom’s stories are gold to me, so I listen to them for hours. In the end I just guess the dates the best I can.

I didn’t find out about Gerry until I asked my mom if I could go on the Seminary tour when I was 12 and getting ready for High School. She told me why she thought I could never be a priest, in the eyes of the vatican I was a bastardo. (Explains a lot, doesn’t it.)

There are a few old photos my mom must have gotten from relatives, because my mom almost never labels them. Some have names and dates penciled in cursive on the back. I actually came across a BABY picture of my father, something I never knew existed.

“Who’s this?” I wondered, flipped it over and there was his name, penciled, in cursive. I thanked the gods I found it, I said a little prayer for whoever it was that wrote his name on the back.

May I suggest to all of you that you get your pencils out right away and start labeling your old photos while you still remember. Someday some distant future relative might say a little thank you prayer that helps get you out of limbo and into heaven.

- - - David

I have started posting old photos on another Mac site.
If anyone cares to look, you can find them at http://gallery.me.com/brockowskiofmichigan#gallery

I'll Wait, Thanks

An email from Apple: “We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped."
"Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.”
I’ve looked at that cloud from both sides now."

The email from Apple says that the new apps are up and running. Their website says MobileMe is just the greatest and “you first need to configure any computer, iPhone, or iPod touch you use.” Then it tried to seduce me to take the next step “For easy-to-follow instructions.”Did I hear someone just say “Really?”

I was tempted to link to the upgrade, but that little voice stopped me. Wait a little while, see what happens when everyone that got the email tries to upgrade at the same time. It will all be waiting for you tomorrow.I know, seems like old age is taking it’s toll on my optimism. And I don’t have a high opinion of pessimism, but . . .That’s what the discussion boards are for, I’ll let a few strangers jump off the cliff first and see how they land.
Comments will hopefully be up and running on iWeb before long, or they won’t. Wait and see. Until then we'll always have blogger

- - - David

No Comments

Hear, speak, see no evil at Toshogu, Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan,
from Wikimedia Commons

This is to inform you that it is another worm in the APPLE, not your moderator, that has disabled the comments on our iWeb blog.

Some say it’s that new iPhone 3G. Others opine that it’s the millions of existing iPhone geeks trying to rev up their toys all at the same time and the same day, unable to wait for the inevitable bugs to surface, (Brian?), that caused the system crash. Or could it be the launch of the new application that Apple tried to introduce at the very same moment they started selling the new iPhone AND offering the endless upgrades?

If you’ve actually tried to post a comment, I know someone just must have, you probably received a strange advert for MobileMe, Apple’s new application that will allow us Mac users to do some fabulous new tricks, I’m sure, once they find out where it went and figure out how to make it work.

I have a feeling MobileMe is a little shy and it’s hiding out on my website. In any case I think I’ll be waiting awhile before I try and update anything on my computer this time. I still remember not being able to blog for six weeks last time they “improved” my system.

Since last time I checked, Apple still wasn’t commenting, I will sit back, study and let the moment wash over me. What can I learn from this latest Monkey Wrench? Is the cosmos trying to teach me a lesson? Is it wise to try and do everything at once? What exactly does the expression “Pace yourself” refer to? Are the best laid plans not always the best laid plans? Should we even bother to make a plan. Or does this remind me of what I learned while trying to put together an IKEA kitchen, to make sure step one is done before moving on to step two, AND three.

It is the sure footed tortoise that won the race, not the fleet footed hare. And I am a firm follower of our Lady of de Lay.


In the meanwhile, this blogger site, where I copy and paste all our blog entries for those computers that prefer not to crash and burn when Apple has these little glitches, is still allowing comments, for now.

So hear, speak and say all the evil you want, here.

I’ll be waiting.

- - - David

The Internet Shall Lead Them

Facebook allows same sex marriage,
no Supreme Court ruling necessary

I now have a facebook account. Brian joined for business, I joined for fun. I have found most of our nieces and nephews and a few friends there, but that’s not the best part.

“You need to get on facebook so I can list you as my partner” Brian yelled from the other room. As usual he was sitting on the sofa with his laptop. He was working on his facebook profile and was tinkering with the particulars. Brian joined facebook because his friendly ex-co-workers had started a Subimo Alumni Association, and because all the gainfully employed are doing it now. So, as I always do in life, I did as I was told, and I joined up, it took seconds.

“They’ll let me add you, but only as a boy friend” he continued from the sofa.

“See if they’ll let us get married.” I suggested.

And they did. All I needed to do was verify it, vis email, a few seconds later. That’s when I got the message pictured at the top of this page. I like how they soften the blow of “You have no more relationship requests” with the little heart. We accept the things we cannot change.


Michigan may have turned out the vote to ban any form of same sex partnering, but on facebook we can live our lives as god intended, together and married.

And there’s more fun and enlightenment to be found on the internet.

When California ruled in May that the ban on non-man+woman marriage was unconstitutional, I immediately contacted our friend Ruby Montana who runs the Coral Sands Resort in Palm Springs, and is truly one of the most spiritual people I know. We discussed the need to get a wedding package up and running for the resort. “Oppressed lovers are going to be flocking to you by the planes full,” I predicted. I even suggested she convert a side room of her living quarters into a chapel.

“Put it on my blog, would you darlin’? (Ruby calls me, and many others, “Darlin’”)

And, again, I did as I was told, writing under my nom de blog in California, Barbie. (it’s a long story) Read A Modest Proposal here.

Well Ruby, a visionary who would never think of using the word “modest”, had a few ideas of her own. The chapel should be opened 24 hours, have a mojito-bar for toasting and we would both take turns blessing the happy couples. She knows I have harbored spiritual tendencies since I was a catholic grade school altar boy, I was hooked. I now had a career goal AND a retirement plan.

I had heard of the Universal Life Church, founded in 1959 on the premise that faith was purely individual, and whoever wanted to be a minister should be able to become one. No offense to religion of any kind, but this in My Kind of congregation. I googled, I linked, and in a few keystrokes, I was a Reverend. Within a few days I had gold seal documentation, I was certified. Once I get a license, I can marry and bury whoever should ask. Keep me in mind for your non-segregational-congregational needs. The ceremonial calendar is surely going to start filling up, well, so far it’s pretty open.


Yesterday it was announced on both the Coral Sand’s site, and on the Northern California sister blog, that Ruby had finally joined the fold and is now an official Reverend. Her first act was to baptize anyone not quick enough to flee into her new Church, including her 20-something chihuahua, Louie L'Amour.

Now that’s the spirit.

- - - David

And for our San Francisco Finale, a Parade

By Sunday morning, June 29th, we knew that Brian was headed to Australia that night, and that I was flying home solo. Brian had one more conference call at 6 AM, then we read the Sunday papers and drank a lot of the hotel’s free coffee. Fully caffeinated, we poked around for a place to eat breakfast. The hotel’s restaurant didn’t do it for us, the line at Dottie’s was too long, as were all the lines at all the restaurants. We were still a little full from Saturday night’s return visit to Zuni, so we skipped breakfast and headed to Market Street. (Then went to a terribly posh and semi-extravagant dinner at Asia de Cuba that night.)

It was, of course, time for 2008 San Francisco’s Pride Parade. (official title: the 2008 San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration Parade) The title alone should give you an idea of the size, scope, length, and the multitudes and politics involved, (e.g. from my count there were 17 grand marshals). The parade has been an annual event since 1970, the year after Stonewall, and it probably runs about as smoothly as it did then. But it is a lot of fun.There were reportedly over 200 contingents in the parade. If you’ve never been to a Pride parade, it always begins with Dykes on Bykes. Now I’ve seen these grrls in New York, and we had a posse in Seattle, but this group blew them all away and could have been a parade all by themselves. This year, thanks to the California Supreme Court ruling, there were a few bykers dressed in full bridal drag. The noise is fantastic, the bykes are amazing and the ladies do their very best to make everyone revved up for the parade. It worked on us.

After the motorcycles there was the first of a few too many long pauses. I wouldn’t want the job of organizing all of the organizations involved in the contingency, but I wish that someone would do it just a little better. The parade started in dribs and then drabs and I couldn’t help feeling like I was being teased. Finally another group appeared, then a pause, then another group, another longer lull and then, finally everyone started to arrive en masse not just en mess.

But every group that did arrive got cheers and applause from the mixed crowds massed on the curb. There were cheer squads and marching bands. There were community groups and community leaders. There were even corporate floats from Google and Levi’s and Kaiser Permanente and even Macy’s. We saw the team of attorneys who took the cases to court that led to the Supreme Court decision that allows same sex couples to legally wed in California, when the last time YOU heard applause for a group of lawyers?

There was a lot of happiness and there were the contingents that we cheered, even though they made us a little weepy. The kids proudly marching with their two moms or two dads were always worthy of damp eyed encouragement, as were elder members of the community, some in chairs, some on buses, some slowly walking the long route on elder legs. All the broadly smiling couples carrying signs reading “just engaged”, “just married”, or “finally legal after 30 years”, got their share of whoops, roars and acclamation. But the group that always gets to me, even when that group is small and brave is PFLAG, the parents, family and friends group. These people always make me choke up and yell the loudest. And this group was the biggest, proudest loudest happiest group of friends I’d ever seen since they started marching in 1972.

PFLAG on parade. The organization is currently involved in the Straight for Equality,
a national outreach and education project
You gotta love ‘em

Not to say the parade is all politics, causes, and emotional outbursts. Far from it. This group is known for their wicked sense of humor and general audaciousness, right? Well we had plenty of that. Starting out with the mistress of impudent charm and sassy class, the imp with the heart of gold, Cyndi Lauper, one of his year’s Celebrity Grand Marshals, (along with Margaret Cho and Charo!)

Ms. Lauper rode in a vintage red Cadillac convertible and sported a black bustier modestly covered in a white leather suit. She sported a sequined Vegas-ian headpiece and a beaming smile, which only dimmed a little while being interviewed by the bothersome reporter who kept blocking our view.

Fun Facts: Although a known member of the other team, Ms. Lauper fully supports the community, including her gay sister, for who she wrote “True Colors”.

We also had dancers, and singers and rappers and gay and lesbian American Stratfordshire Terriers, (just don’t call them Pit Bulls!). And, thankfully, there were the cheerfully over the top groups like the Barbie Bridal Support Group and the Radical Faeries, who would always always win the best dressed contest, if only there were one.

For the little boy in me who learned to be ashamed of himself at a very young age, thanks to the lessons I quietly learned from my church, my television, my peers and even from my unknowing family, it was a good day. For the adult who is still a little too afraid to hold hands with Brian on the streets of Michigan or even consider doing what just a few too many hetero couples do in public, let alone on my television screen, I was very happy to be able to be part of the parade, even if I was just cheering from the sidewalk.

And isn’t that what Pride is all about.

- - - David

This bring our Tales of San Francisco to it’s inevitable and long awaited conclusion.
If you haven’t had enough, and I doubt that you haven’t, feel free to peruse our photo album
San Francisco 2008,
by clicking here of on the top of any page on our iWeb site.

Part Three: Our Saturday in San Francisco

Brian on BART, not heeding the warnings of Petula Clark
"Don't sleep on the subway, Darling!"

The walk to the station was easy, the ticketing machines were a little more of a challenge. Luckily Brian had experience with the things and rather than figuring out the fare, just pulled out a twenty and bought me a ticket. “The train will know, and we’ll keep the change.” How magnanimous.

It’s an easy ride under the water of the Bay, through Oakland and Berkeley and onto El Cerito Plaza, where our host, Rebecca and her lovely driver/friend greet us as soon as we get off the train. A five block drive to The Rockway Institute, where Rebecca resides with her housemate, “the Fabulous Laurie Weed, on a lovely tree lined street.

“There’s a drought” Rebecca warns, before I notice her front lawn was a looking a tad thirsty. Yet her neighbor’s lawn was as emerald green as the Centre Court at Wimbledon. I later learned from a fellow guest that the industrious neighbor had laid down synthetic turf, going the extra step of designing a little lift up patch for the water line access. No need to worry about mowing or watering! Rebecca, take note.

In the back of the house, past the steroidal jade trees, waited a verdant garden, a terraced hill side laden with bounty, anchored by an enormous tree. California at it’s finest, and it smelled incredible, too, or was that the food table?

I would like to say that my failure to get any decent photos of the gardens at the institute were totally intentional. I admit it is a blatant attempt on my part to get invited back as soon as possible to remedy the situation. Hopefully it will work. Faithful blog readers will be rewarded, as will the photographer.

We met some wonderful people at the Garden Party. I was expecting to meet Laurie, Rebeca’s housemate, but what I wasn’t expecting was that Laurie was the one, the only, Fabulous Laurie Weed.

I never made the connection. I know of Laurie Weed through Rebecca’s blog as well as Ruby Montana’s, Laurie is the consumate traveller, writer and, why yes, a web blogger too. Her writing puts mine to shame, of course, so should you decide to jump ship and head over to this award winning woman’s, I won’t blame you. I may not forgive you, but I won’t blame you.

The crowd was fun, smart, cute, and yes, well fed. Being foreign visitors, we weren’t expected to bring any home made wonders, so we were off the hook with a handful of sunflowers and a bottle of wine. Life is good in this land.

We had plenty of food, birthday cake, and just a little wine, beer and something called Pirate Port, and lasted well past dark, which I believe is pretty late for a garden party. The locals accused the weather of being nippy and lit a bon fire. Brian and I, acclimated to our wintry clime, reclined in our resort wear.

A fine time was had, and it was written about too. By one of the hosts. I attach here for your pleasure a link to the work of the great word smithee, Rebecca Chekouras, from her blog.

To view the original blog, in context, click here.

you won't regret it.

- - - David