A Day in the Life of Chaos

Palace Corbelli Classroom Obsolescence is a part of everything.  We see it every day.  Devices we once couldn ’ t live without now no longer serve a purpose.  It could be a record player, the cassette tape or the rotary phone.  We are now even witnessing the demise of the fixed phone for that matter.  Every generation has them and are defined by them.  For my father it might have been the milk man, my grandmother the streetcar or the horse.  Some objects seem to even have programmed obsolescence like the home computer.  The saddest obsolescence of all is when it is our very self that has lost its need.  Time carries away all things but for a shining moment in our own existence in our minds, we exist.  We live, we love and we thrive.  At least those willing to breath, willing to dream willing to love, willing to give will leave the world with a smile on our face. Christian Tanzer and Joe Funk I lived in Vienna the winter of 1987 and spring of 1988. I attended an American program

There is a small liberal arts university in Salem Oregon named Willamette.  It was the first major step in my process of breaking away from my parents and becoming my own man.  While I only spent my freshman and my senior year there I look back now at Willamette with great fondness.  My classes were small and personal.  My professors cared deeply about what they taught and the environment was one of intellectual growth.  Willamette is a little treasure built around a winding creek that flows through the campus.  It is an oasis of old trees, brick buildings and Oregon history nestled in the shadow of the Oregon State Capitol.  I studied history and politics.  I worked for a State Senator in the capitol writing letters to consituents and researching policy.  Most importantly, Willamette was a university that pushed its students to write.  Somewhere in the endless term papers and essays I learned that writing was the most important skill I would ever have. In the midst of my four ye

I guess when the economy is in the toilet and so many American's are suffering it is easy to lose sight of success.  Of course success has many variations and it is difficult, perhaps nearly impossible to quantify.  There is personal success, familial success, emotional success, success in quality of life.  For most, the word success reflects monetary success. One of the reasons it is so hard to raise taxes on the rich in America is that aside from the fact that the control the levers of power, many Americans cling to the thought that someday they might be among them and wouldn't that be cutting our own throat? I decided long ago that I will never leave the 99 percent.  I don't have a business mind and I am afraid to take too many risks.  Aside from a winning lottery ticket, I will never join the ranks of the one percent.  I am a realist and to even contemplate such a monetary advance is akin to looking at your child play pee wee sports and think that some day they will

How unique are we?  I ask myself this question often.  It is said with certainty that history repeats itself.  Isn't it just as likely that people repeat themselves? Everyone likes to think that they are different, in some way special inside.  To think that somehow in the formula that makes us who we are there is a unique ingredient, a secret recipe.  Perhaps there is, I still want to think so however, I am always amazed at how unoriginal I am.  Sometimes I think of an idea and will do what I couldn't fifteen years ago, search the internet.  Almost always I will find someone that had a similar idea or an equal thought.  Sure there are variances but at the core it's the same. Perhaps it is the death of Steve Jobs that has me thinking about things.  He was truly an exception.  People like him are few and far between as their minds expand conceptually to areas where no one has been before.  They walk in a different world almost as if their genius lifts them above the sea o

I stopped enjoying traveling for work a long time ago.   In retrospect, how can anyone top flying in a Vietnam era helicopter with the door open watching parrots fly over the South American jungle? To those that are set in their daily routines the idea of going someplace and getting paid for it is enticing.  It is a chance to stay in nice hotels and visit different places all on the dime of another.  I suppose it was once that way for myself but now it feels like a dreadful chore I can't wait to get over.   There is a difference between traveling when you can be yourself, free to go when and where you want and the cold realities of business travel.  Traveling as part of a job leaves little time for personal pleasures and has a goal of simply accomplishing a task.  There is also a great difference between traveling with a friend or a lover with whom you can share a memory and traveling by yourself.   For me, solitary travel when you are not destined to meet a friend on the other end