The new year generally doesn’t mean all that much for me. I tend to make resolutions with very little, if any, intention of achieving them. They tend to be the same also: eat better, spend less, exercise more. Pretty standard stuff. But this year, I do feel a sort of Control-Z-ness to the passing of December 31 to January 1, 2011. I have a sense that maybe this is a new beginning. It’s true to all those zen enough to live in the moment, to be always present, to achieve true mindfulness, that each moment is a new beginning. The past is gone. The future is just an idea. But now, now is the beginning of everything to come.

I’m excited for everything to come. I’ve felt bored recently, with work and whatnot, but realize that boredom is not the fault of any external factors (work, etc.) but of my own approach to it all. My mind is deft and just plain silly enough that I can generally be rather entertained in a white room with but a white chair. I rarely expect to be entertained by outside sources, which tend to fail me anyway, or at least, leave me wanting so much more. To be engaged my brain needs to be engaged and it is not engaged when I’m being entertained – especially if both sound and vision are provided. This leaves my brain in an idle and merely accepting place. It’s a one-way street, and a one-sided relationship. They communicate and I listen. My brain doesn’t much like this. It gets bored.

So I’m grabbing the reins here in 2011 a bit more and seeking to un-bore myself. I want to stretch out into areas I’ve yet to go – business-wise, artistically, personally. I want to be challenged and I want to fail. I always figure that if you try and fail, it’s only a half-failure, but if you don’t try (when you most certainly should or could), then you’ve truly failed. I tend to push my ideas out into the world, but have them on a short leash. Allow some to see and hear but for the most part keep them a bit veiled, even hidden. But I resolve in 2011 to push them out further and to fail as publicly as needed. Failure doesn’t hurt; but avoiding failure will kill you in the end – slowly and sadly.

Led by the Leslie Frazier and the young Joe Webb, surrounded by Adrian Peterson, Sydney Rice, Percy Harvin, Toby?, and all the rest? Might. Definitely might.

A great article on wealth and income inequality that not only explains it well but gets to exactly what pisses me off so much can be found here. I don’t have a problem with income inequality in that some people do and deserve to make more than others. Some jobs, for whatever reason, make pay better. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs earned their money. They made our world a better (okay some might disagree and I would some days) place to live. They’ve given us the ability to do things we would hardly have dreamed of 50 years ago.

I’m never one to care that Angelina Jolie or Tiger Woods make millions, because, for the most part, they are paid for what they earn – or the amount of money they bring to their movies or sport. Doctors, lawyers, top-level CEO’s all DO something. The financial sector, however, does nothing, but some sort of sleight of hand. They move this about and that about and “create” wealth. But how can we “create” wealth without creating something or doing something? It has the smell of money being printed without reason. And this is the sector that has seen obscene wealth increases in the last 20-30 years. It’s depressing. What I want is for you to create something. DO something! Something with meaning – far beyond Wall Street. Something beyond risky trades with other people’s money. I don’t mean regular investments and trust guys. I can’t imagine how they explain to their children why they are so wealthy.

Hello to All!

Well, here it is again. Another year has passed and my yearly and beloved Christmas letter is at-hand! I hope this finds you all blessed by the gods you love the most and more importantly the gods who love you the most!  We’ve had one heck of a year here at the Soiseth Ranch!

Olivia (6) started school at La Etoile du Nord (no idea what that means), the French immersion school here in St. Paul, and was immediately propelled to the front of her class (she sits right near the door). She’s learning math, science, civics and all the rest – and all teaching is in French! We’re not sure what she’ll learn in English, but we hope that the French are the nice ones and not the ones who hate the English for that class. We’re pretty certain she’s doing great! But are struggling reading to her and helping her with any homework as we don’t have any idea what in Gay Paris any of it means!

She still struggles, as does her little brother Ben (3), with simple English phrases like “Eat what’s on your plate”, “Clean your room”, “Stop hitting”, “Stop biting”, “Stop stabbing” and “For the love of God, Kid, Think!!” They’re simple phrases so we’re certain both will soon cotton to them and stop killing one another slowly, with their hands, toys, lamps, sculpture and, well, anything else in our lovely and warm home her on good old Como Place.

Ben is doing great also. He’s in pre-school at North Como Pre-School, which is housed in North Como Presbyterian Church, and while we’re both worried he’ll be brainwashed by all the hooky religion business, we’re also hoping some of that old fire and brimstone, you’ll burn in hell, Old Testament bible will rub off on him. “The kid’s got spunk” is what we like to say. That, and “Ritalin’s not too far away”, we figure. We had a teacher conference recently (imagine that! Teacher conference for a three-year-old!) and the teacher, Miss Lisa, held our hands and told us just how much she appreciated all we did and that she was thinking about us pretty much every hour he wasn’t in school. She said she spent that time focused on him! He’s getting extra special attention! The best and brightest always do! She wept a bit and led us to the door. It was quite a meeting. Sad news: Miss Lisa recently had to quit to “explore other opportunities”. We wish her well in the new year!

Jana’s wonderful as well. She’s gotten sooo good at pointing out when I forget what she tells me! And although her uncle, Denny, pointed out that she might be doing that even when she never said a thing to slowly break me down and eventually play me like a marionette to do her bidding until the day I die, I’m pretty sure that’s not true! Or, at least, Jana told me that I forgot that he said, “Just kidding!”  right after that. He probably did. I probably forgot.

Me? Oh, who cares? Okay, I still love Budweiser as much as anything else and my Man Cave is really coming along! I pretty much spend every waking hour that I’m not at work down here! Sure, I can hear the screaming and fighting upstairs, the dishes crashing and the feet stomping, the fire detector going off and that hiss of the extinguisher, but if I crank up my tunes, it all goes away! So, I’ll crank it up, crack open another Bud and toast all of you – those I love the most – more even than all my Facebook friends, all 187 of whom I truly adore. Here’s my toast: May the new year bring more of the same!

Merry Christmas!

 

Holy guacamone, eno returns, as good, better, always better, than before. Everything he does, did, will do, outdoes the last. I just thought “This” was the greatest eno song since that “Here He Comes” – again upon return. God, man. Here he is. Best.

Small Craft on a Milk Sea

Deconstructing our old kitchen to make for new, we found in the wall of our 1911 home, a Friday, July 7, 1911 St. Paul Daily News couple of spreads, crinkled and desiccated over time, yellowed, but we could nab some cool shit…check this out…

When I was a kid, pretty much the entire Aquatennial Celebration – milk carton boat races, sandcastle contest, hydroplane races! – all took place on Lake Calhoun and I happened to live right on top of it. Fucking A! That was choice!! Fucking hydroplanes! I saw one crash – flip over and over and over and stop miraculously just short of the east shore filled with people standing around and watching. The world descended upon our front yard for two weeks every year – vendors, gawkers, airplanes dragging banners shouting “It’s the real thing!”

But hydroplanes. I so wanted a hydroplane. And there was one – just for me – I saw at the boat show – on which I fixated for years. The Bumble Bee.

bee.