A tisket, a multi-tasket

So I stumble in to work about 20 minutes ahead of normal. I fire up my computer and grab a Diet Coke for its caffeine effect – you absolutely need to be awake for critical times like this.

I hunt for the Internet site, find it … and then I wait. There’s a lot at stake in the minutes ahead.  The pressure is on.  I must do this and do it right, or things could go badly at home.

Before I continue, let me say that what follows is a lesson in multi-tasking. We’ve talked about multi-tasking at my office a lot – whether it’s a more efficient way to manage your workload.  And I’m a fan.  I do it daily.  Sometimes I’m really good at it.  And sometimes … not.

So the computer is primed.  I’m now alert. The clock ticks down to 9 a.m. – the crucial deadline. I briefly feel guilty about doing something personal on company time, but I shove that aside.  I need clarity of thought now; the weight of corporate doubt can come later.

My job: get U-2 tickets for son Zach. 

For those who don’t know, U-2 is a little known scratch band from Dublin, I think. Some guy named Bilbo … maybe it’s Bono … leads the vocals.

Anyway, U-2 is a big deal in Zach’s world.  U-2 will be appearing in Raleigh, N.C., near a friend of Zach’s as part of the band’s U.S. tour.  He and a buddy plan to trek there, meet up with the friend and a friend of the friend, and see the show.

But tickets are extremely hard to get – amazing, for a scratch band.  The general admission tickets – the cheapest -- sell out within seconds.  Zach and friends are paying for these, so cheapest is good.

I volunteered to secure the tickets because all four attendees were going to be in class at the stroke of 9 a.m.  (Somehow their being in class was more important than my doing my normal work at the office. My choice.)

The night before, Zach made sure I did a dry run on Ticketmaster.  He carefully guided me through the links to click on, the alerts to watch for.   “No problem,” I said confidently. “I’ll get ‘em.  They’re halfway here already.”

So the seconds slip by … 8:59:57, 8:59:58, 8:59:59 …

9:00:00.  The game is on!!

Now, keep in mind that in this split second, there are thousands upon thousands of others across the country doing the exact same thing, racing to get in line, hoping their fingers are fast enough, hoping they don’t panic under the pressure of too much demand vs. too little supply.  (Yes, in those first few seconds, a supply-demand curve popped in my head … jeez.)

I carefully put in “4” for quantity, then “$55.00” for my preferred ticket price.  I clicked  “General Admission Field” for section and “GA Standing” for location.  Just like Zach coached me to do.

Then I clicked the big orange button – “FIND TICKETS” -- surely the gateway to success, the portal that would secure my rep as a “can-do” dad.  “Tickets, just around the corner,” I thought.

Ooops, nope … not quite. Up popped the Security Check window.  Here you must type in, exactly, the two words scrawled in some bizarre bit of script above the window so Ticketmaster knows you’re not a computer tricking the system. 

How these words come to be is worth a whole other post – “s1 jacobite,” “14 nickels,” “drudges 1:17@,” “Noranda lagoons.”  Fascinating.

Oh, and if you want a real trip, click on the option for those who are “vision impaired.”  You’ll hear a very scary rumble of electronic voices mashed together into a low, metallic drone, and every couple of seconds, out will pop an eerie male or female voice saying “five” or “two” or “six” – the numbers you fill in instead of the weird words.  

Spooky. Don’t do this at night.

But I digress.  So I put in my two words – “sledded highest” (hmm … I like that).  Then I clicked  “CONTINUE.”   And immediately it said, “Searching ….”

“You have 3 minutes left in your search,” it told me. 

Well, that’s not bad, I thought.  I’ll have tickets in about 3 minutes.

“You have 5 minutes left in your search,” it now said.

Huh?  It’s going up.  It should be going down.  I felt the first wisp of panic.

“You have 9 minutes left in your search.”

Now I’m agitated.  I thought this would be a slam dunk.  A few minutes of computer time, pass along credit card info, print the tickets, then done.

You see, I now faced another problem: The low growl of my work was beginning to grow louder – the phone was ringing, emails were coming in, co-workers had questions.

“You have 4 minutes left in your search.”

I relaxed some. It was moving in the right direction.  I began to flick from the Ticketmaster site to my email.  I checked my voicemail.  I scanned the headlines on my Wall Street Journal.

Then a new Ticketmaster window popped up: “Sorry, no exact matches were found, but other tickets may still be available.”

“Shoot!!”  I said loudly, now truly frustrated.  (No, I didn’t say “shoot” exactly, but this is a family-friendly blog.)

Well, let’s try again, I told myself.  Surely I haven’t failed yet – one shot and out.  No, I told myself,  “Keep an even keel … steady as she goes … plow on.”  I was really mixing metaphors now.

So I quickly went through the same steps.  This time it was only a two-minute wait.

“Sorry, no exact matches …”

I tried again … only a one-minute wait. 

“Sorry, no exact matches …”

In full panic now, I called wife Cindy who was busy at her own job.  “Whadda-whadda I do?!” 

“I don’t know,” she replied coolly, clearly not wanting to get caught up in my plight. “Text Zach … see what he says.”

“Oh my God,” I thought.  I am the world’s slowest texter. I blame my phone, a Razer.  But that, too, is another story.

So here I am … the phone is ringing, emails continue to come in, I’m seeing my life as a “can-do dad” pass before me, and now I have to urgently text Zach using a technique that, to me, is as fast as scratching hieroglyphics on a crusty cave wall. 

Slowly, painfully, I compose the message:  “ive … tried … get-ting … ga … seats … since … 9. … no … luck. … want … to … upgrade?”

In mere seconds – jeez -- Zach texts back. I could feel the panic between his words. “They’re out? Try getting 30 dollar seats.”

Huh?  There are no $30 seats.  But I don’t have time to text Zach a reply.

Instead I had a notion, in hindsight, totally irrational:  What if the whole Ticketmaster site was screwed up?  Maybe I should test it, I thought.  So I went back to the first page and I clicked “Best available,” meaning give me the best available tickets.  You know, just to make sure the site was working okay.  If it was, tickets surely would pop through.

I clicked “FIND TICKETS,” did the super-secret handshake-write-in-the-words thing, clicked “CONTINUE,” and off went Ticketmaster to find tickets.

By this time, I’m totally immersed in my job.  I’m taking calls, opening and replying to some emails, looking over my to-do list … though knowing, faintly in the back of my head, that I’m still needing U-2 GA tickets ASAP.

Then, good news!!  Ticketmaster tells me it’s found my tickets!  Ha!  Success!!

I quickly fill in my credit card info, fearing the all-powerful T-Master is going to snatch away my opportunity.  I click to do the transaction. Done!!

Relieved, I text Zach: “Got … them! … Got … ga. … We’re … good.”

Again, within seconds, Zach texts back:  “You got 4 ga??  You’re awesome!! Thank you!”

He adds: “My sociology teacher got a ‘flat tire’ and couldn’t come so I’m sitting in the library reading a random book.”

Briefly I realize he could have done this troubled transaction himself, but no worries.  It’s done. I “got 4 ga!”   Man, am I cool.  I’m awesome.

I return to my work and at some point print out the confirmation receipt and the four tickets.

I grab them from the printer and settle back in my chair, scanning the receipt. I figure the total charge would be $300 or so -- $55 x 4 plus the various irritating fees that Ticketmaster includes.  I search for the total …

“$1,098.30.”

Huh?  

I look again.  Tickets, “$250.00 x 4.”  Convenience Charge, “22.95 x 4.”  Delivery fee, “$2.50.”  Order processing fee, “$4.00.”

“Total charges: $1,098.30.”

My stomach sinks … no, it plunges -- like riding Disney World’s Tower of Terror 10 times but all at once.  My vision blurs.  I no longer hear the phone.

I then burp out a laugh … a nervous laugh.   The way I laughed once after I wrote a front-page headline for the newspaper touting how a well-known priest’s kindness was “… Only Matched By His Selfishness.”  (It was supposed to be, “Selflessness.” This I feebly told my boss when he pointed out my error, just after he picked up the phone and firmly said, “Stop the presses.”)

It was so silly it was kind of funny. 

So yes, I had selected “best available,” and now I was the owner of four primo tickets for U-2. “Section 23, Row S, Seats 9-12,” to be exact.  The prospect of Zach and crew wanting these tickets?  Zip, nada, nope.

I decided not to tell Cindy or Zach until the end of the day.  I needed time to digest what I’d done.  I won’t bore you with how those conversations ended up. They did go well, though. 

Needless to say, I’m seeking a buyer for the four tickets.  I hear Bilbo’s a pretty good singer, so I’m hopeful. Meantime, Zach and friends are going to search Craigslist for GA tickets.

And I’ve learned a lesson about multi-tasking. 

It’s the damn text messaging that did me in. 

Struggle is perfect

I am a river,  forever changing.

Struggle is perfect.  All that is here is for good.

- Adrienne Young, "Room to Grow."

I remember getting the news. I was at my computer at work, and Cindy called. Bruce, a good friend, just learned he had a rare form of cancer. So rare that only a half dozen on the planet had battled it. And the survival rate?  

Well, not so good.

I teared up. Not a break-down sob kind of cry. But a few tears of anger, really. It's a cliche that only the good die young. But there's truth there. I remember thinking, as I got the news, that it just wasn't fair. Not Bruce.

You see, Bruce is the kind of father to his children that all fathers should be -- loving, loyal, a mentor.  And he's the ultimate husband to his wife, Sue. Underlying both roles is his faith, which is, indeed, solid like the biblical Peter the Rock. 

He's one of those quiet Nebraskans, raised on a farm, who knows how the basics of the world need to work for society to be fair, just and, well, a darn good place within which to live.

Oh ... he's also a real nice guy.

So how come a young (52 years old) highly conditioned (bike rider) Hallmark guy has to face literally the struggle of his life ... confront an extreme form of leukemia that baffled, at least for a short bit, even those at the University of Kansas Med Center? 

I certainly don't know.  But I think folk singer Adrienne Young has it right. The struggles of life aren't to be ignored, or wished away. In Bruce's case, that would have meant certain death. 

No, such struggles are to be confronted, challenged, even embraced. 

Easy for me to say, I know.  Bruce's journey through chemo, radiation treatments, stem cell exchanges, intense and boring isolation from work, friends and even family while his immune system recovered, was a struggle that I can only imagine.  

For the good?  Hmm ... I don't know.  Bruce must decide that ... and perhaps he has.

I know what it has done, though.  It's brought Bruce even closer to his God.  You could see it in his blog comments as he went through treatment.  You could see the lessons he'd learned over his years of study and introspection, and see how they were tightly focused and applied to this situation, at this time.

Listen to Bruce ... it's Jan. 4th, a Sunday.  Bruce is back home, though isolated, following a successful stem cell exchange.

"All is good here in recovery land. I am growing stronger and slowly building endurance. Most days, I ride our stationary bike, lift some weights and stretch. With the nice weather my wife and I have been outside walking. But, it is frustrating. The more I do, the more I want to do and the more I realize that I cannot do.

"As much as I try, my recovery will not be on my terms, but rather it will be on God’s terms. It will not occur on my time table, but on God’s time table. Does this mean that I quit working out, quit riding the bike or walking? Of course not. It means that I need to humble myself and celebrate what I can do instead of frustrating myself with what I cannot do."

Personally I think it’s during intense struggle that you're often closest to your deity, whoever or whatever that is. Because it's then that you find clarity -- realize your limits, your strengths, and what's most important in life. You find Truth, with a capital "T."

There's a lot of Truth in Bruce's blog. 

A couple of weeks ago, we joined Bruce and Sue and some other friends around their dinner table.  It was Bruce's birthday. Bruce is now, according to the doctors, cancer-free.  "We have a cure," was the text message from Sue when they got the good news from doctors.  

There was some wine, really good pork chops that Bruce cooked outside, Sue's potatoes, plus a birthday cake. All normal stuff, really. And there was much story- swapping about our kids' antics and other slices of life. 

But the night was different ... more finely tuned.  A night of celebration and relief, sure, but also of knowledge gained by all around the table who had watched Bruce and his family endure an incredible six-month test.  

The struggle?  Pretty much over.

Perfect. 

Cat and rabbit

Okay, so tonight I come home, tired of the grind.  And there, outside Dick's house, is White Cat. 

Only this time, White Cat has the ultimate, nonchalant look of "I'm cool but you're not."

Because there, at White Cat's feet, sits a baby rabbit.  Scared.  Trembling.  And White Cat seems to care less about its suffering.

Until I walk up to W.C., and suddenly the mood changes.   White Cat crouches, yet seems hesitant to move ... to yield the poor bunny to me.   White Cat typically would run away when I drew this close.  But not now, with a young rabbit at stake. 

I left the two.  "Nature takes its course," I counseled myself.

And yet the satisfied look of White Cat, juxtaposed against the innocence of a trembling young rabbit, confirmed to me that White Cat represents the most base law of living ... the strongest survive.

I've been tempted to let the dogs loose on White Cat.  But you should never stoop to the level of your adversaries.  

Then again, I'm not sure the dogs are up to it.