Musings on topics of small or large importance. Especially partial to subjects that include baby boomers, public figures, friends, Corporate America, the Denver Broncos, NASCAR, my previous home towns of New York City and Columbia (Maryland), stupidity (mine and others'), diets and health and who knows what else!

Sunday, May 28, 2006

United 93 -- The Nightmare, The Heroes, The Movie

I knew I had to see "United 93." I was living and working in New York City when our country's soul got punched in the gut on 9/11. (No year is necessary -- we all know.) Despite living in the West all but the last 18 years of my life and considering myself a blood-deep Westerner, on 9/11 and in the three or so months following, my bond with "the City" got permanently deeper and stronger. We all felt the same grim connection with Washington, D.C. -- a good friend of mine worked in the Pentagon at the time and had run out into the parking lot when the plane hit -- and with Pennsylvania.

Knowing what "United 93" was, I had to go when I was in a quiet, strong and centered enough mood to handle it. Today, I decided, was the day. Well, technically yesterday, since it's after midnight. No "DaVinci Code" or "X-Men" for me. The film has left a few more theaters each week since its release, replaced by the real or hoped-for blockbusters du jour. I had to drive 30 miles to see it the one time today that the theater showed it, 9:00 p.m.

I got there early and when I entered the room, theater 14, it was empty. I chose a prime seat in the center and sat quietly. I felt like I was waiting for a funeral to begin.

The room started to fill and I was surprised at how many young couples came. I wouldn't think of "United 93" as much of a date movie. Everyone was quiet, almost reverent, until a pack of about a dozen youngsters came. Well, older teens or younger 20's ages. They were laughing and teasing and boistrous. One girl in particular had an especially annoying nervous giggle, which seemed incessant. I found myself tensing up and wanted to stand, turn around and yell, "Shut the fuck up! Don't you know what kind of movie this is going to be?!" But I didn't. I just sat tensely, very irritated. They carried on throughout the previews and I was getting pissed. But then "United 93" started, and to their credit, I never heard another peep out of them.

The movie affected everyone in the theater, certainly including me. I sat there with my body tense and wanting to back away, just like I feel in the dentist's chair, and I kept having to tell myself to relax, just like I do in the dentist's chair, and it didn't help, just like it doesn't in the dentist's chair.

Sniffles could be heard as soon as the real-life television footage of the second plane hitting the north tower (or was it the south?) came on as the air traffic controllers in the movie watched, frozen with their mouths open in disbelief. It's controversial whether real footage of that horrific event should have been used in a commercial movie, but this felt very much like a sensitive depiction of what happened that day and the real footage seemed totally appropriate to me. Since I'd been watching the Today show that morning on the NBC station in Manhattan when local broadcaster Jane Hansen broke in with the news, I saw that second plane hit "live" and when it came on in the movie, my heart pounded, my breath drew in and my eyes let go of the tears I didn't know were there. Not one soul in the theater moved a muscle.

I'd heard that "United 93" wasn't exploitative, and I agree. Writer/director Paul Greengrass' understated tone made it much more dramatic for real than movies that try to make the drama more dramatic with over-the-top dialog or hit-you-over-the-head music. The people on the plane in the movie were the people who were on the real fated plane, played by professional but not particularly recognizable actors (which would have been too distracting -- good move!) and they were wearing approximately what the real people were wearing and doing approximately what the real people did as far as they could determine after speaking with surviving family members. That is admirable and will make this movie endure and be meaningful for a long time.

It surprised me that so much of the movie centered on the air traffic controllers in several states and the military, what they knew when, how they found out, how confusing it all was with little or conflicting information and what they tried to do about it. It made for a much more interesting and palatable film rather than staying in the plane the whole time. In the credits (which people actually stayed for afterward), several of those air and military officials played themselves -- very impressive.

The terrorists in the movie were depicted not exactly sympathetically but relatively humanely, especially the leader. This very serious man was shown praying and calling someone to say he loved them just before he boarded the plane. He was clearly following his convictions, as have hundreds of instigators and leaders of brutal wars for centuries.

We all know how it ends so I won't give anything away by saying that the movie goes to black before the plane slams into the ground. The words across the screen afterward tell some interesting facts, the saddest being that the military folks responsible for sending the fighter jets to intercept the planes didn't find out that United's flight 93 had been hijacked until four minutes after it crashed. My God.

I cried what Oprah Winfrey calls the ugly cry for several minutes. Not a sob or a weep but a silent, streaming-tears cry. And I wasn't alone. I think that's why so many people stayed to watch the credits, because they didn't want to walk out yet. It was a disturbing film, difficult to watch but riveting and fascinating. I watched most of it with my gut churning. But I'm glad I saw it and if you're brave enough, I recommend that you go see it too.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

McGreevey Comes Out Again

I recently indulged in my favorite guilty pleasure: BookExpo America. This year it was in Washington, D.C.

It's three days of book-lover's heaven, intellectual (or not) decadence, gluttony for the imagination. It's every publisher imaginable showing off their books -- their best sellers, their dogs, their upcoming catalog of hopefuls -- to booksellers. And checking out their competition.

It's 3 days of authors signing their books, including the biggest ones on the best seller lists and prepublication copies from authors we all know (the most precious of all). Attendees stand in long lines to meet the authors and load up on books. Some seem to spend all day in author lines. As a book lover, I revel in the atmosphere where practically everyone is so weighed down with books that they can hardly walk. No wheelies are allowed unless there's a medical reason to have one, and those folks have colored wristbands to identify them. So whatever you can lug or stash somewhere, you can have. BookExpo has a huge shipping room where attendees can get a book box (at a ripoff price of $25 a box -- whew!), mark it with their names, leave it in the room on a long table with hundreds of other boxes and fill it up as they gather their books. The honor system seems to work pretty well, as the boxes and their contents can be accessed by anyone. I stood in line to ship back my one paltry box (which held probably 20 books), following a bookseller who was shipping back six. And she's a bookseller!

The author autographing is definitely a highlight. Over the years, I've met many of my heroes: Vince Flynn, Jeffery Deaver, Scott Turow, Lisa Scottoline, Lee Child, Linda Fairstein, Michael Connelly, Dominick Dunne, Scott Adams, Cathy Guisewite, and probably my favorite ever, Edna Buchanan. Well, actually Terry Anderson (the journalist held hostage for seven long years in Beirut) is probably my favorite author to meet. Shortly after he was released, he was at BookExpo signing a little excerpt booklet (which they give out if the full book isn't ready). The line to get it and meet him was one of the longest that year. He was so gracious and humble -- I was blown away at how concerned he was about the people he was meeting after everything he'd been through. I was deeply disappointed not to get the whole book then. I did buy it when it came out (in hardback too, which I try to avoid) and it was one of the most memorable books I've ever read. What a man. But I digress....

This year, one of the authors was Jim McGreevey, signing "The Confession," his book about his life in politics and as a very closeted gay man, at least until he very publicly resigned as governor of my current home state, New Jersey. Although it made national news, I thought it was more of a local story so I figured his line would be short.

Hardly! McGreevey's line stretched way long.

I was near the front and was delighted to see the ex-guv looking quite bright-mooded and healthy. He was gracious, gave plenty of time to each person and didn't seem horrified or humiliated to be there. I was disappointed as hell to just get an excerpt of the book instead of the whole thing -- it won't be published until September. McGreevey said, as if he was joking but he probably wasn't, that it's in its 9th draft.

Josh Margolin, the reporter from the Star-Ledger who covered McGreevey during his governorship, was there with a photographer. The highly energized Margolin scribbled as his photographer snapped (the pictures, not psychologically). His May 21 article delves extensively into McGreevey's book preview. Margolin covers politics so he is much more interested in the political scene from an insider's point of view than I am. I just want the juicy details of the scandal. Well, that's not totally true. I also want to know what led up to it and how he felt and what he thought about it leading up to it and since his resignation. (Hey, I got my degree in psychology, not political science.)

I asked McGreevey -- in my usual tactful way -- if in the book he told the truth and went into the real issues or if it was just a surface story. He said he definitely told the truth. Great! Then I can't wait to read it. I may read all of it, including about the crazy and dirty New Jersey politics, and not just the juicy personal parts. Every state thinks their politics are unique. I don't know that New Jersey is stranger than anywhere else -- I lived in Arizona during the Meacham years; now THAT was strange! But, back to McGreevey: I was glad to see him coming out again. Whatever I think of his politics, as a human being, I had empathy for him and his fear of being exposed as a gay man and possibly losing it all. I think he gained it all when he had to come out -- I'm sure he feels much more free and authentic than when he had to hide who he was, what he did and how he felt. I want to read his book -- I will probably even buy it in hard cover -- but I wonder if his story is finished yet. I'd like to see his second autobiography in 30 more years.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Back Up Your Hard Drive -- Don't Do as I Do, Do as I Say!

I'm a (semi) techie. I write about information technology. My life revolves around technology. When I travel, my various chargers take up more room than my clothes. Well, certainly than my shoes. We write about data storage and the importance of keeping data secure. And of keeping data, period.

I recently read a good article about backing up data based on the disastrous experience of a tech site columnist. "Back up your data," he advised. Strongly. Good idea, I thought. Did nothing.

So...here I was on St. Patrick's Day eve and my trusty Dell laptop, only two years old, was acting up. Just not responding right. You know, when you live with something every day you *know* when something isn't right. The bond between you and that inanimate object (inanimate? I never think of them as not living) is so strong that any little quiver is significant. Long before any symptoms, as such, show up, you know.

Well, my Dell quivered. I don't worry much about Dells. I've owned probably half a dozen of them and won't buy any other brand of PC. They're not moody. They're able to withstand a decent amount of dropping, jostling, shaking and food invasion. That's why I buy them, among other reasons. So I wasn't overly alarmed.

I rebooted while in the middle of a good chat with someone because it was acting sluggish and I figured two minutes later I'd be chatting with my friend at my usual furious pace.

Wrong-o!

To make a long, painful story short, that was it. I couldn't get past the beautiful blue ("crystal") background pattern on my screen. No access to programs, documents, settings, etc. This couldn't happen to my laptop that my company owns and supports, where they would take it away and bring it back all better. No...this happened to my personal PC, which had all kinds of things on it that are not backed up on our servers at work and that were not duplicated or retrievable from anywhere else.

I (fortunately) paid for Dell's "Gold" service when I ordered my Dell, which meant I could get a live human being on the phone -- at no charge to me -- who would stick with me until the problem is solved. And they're U.S.-based, a rarity these days in tech support.

The diagnosis, after probably two hours of trying everything, was that my partition had crashed. This is like when my trusty (really!) auto mechanic tells me that the solenoid is bad. I don't know what that means but I know it's not good. Well, I was told that I'd have to reinstall the operating system, which meant wiping out whatever was on the hard drive. All my data would be gone!

To make another long story short, I looked into several data recovery services and was given prices from $350 to $2,700. For the same thing. Ugh! How many times have I focused on what's bad about my life and then it's struck me that if we all threw our problems in a huge pile, I'd fight like crazy to get my own back versus anyone else's? All I wanted was "mine back."

Thank God I have a friend who's a true techie, and he has a friend who's techier than he is, and that friend took away my ailing laptop and came back with my critical data on five CDs. I didn't get all of it back, some was just gone (all of my music but it's on my MP3 player, also a Dell, so I could get it back onto my laptop after the OS had been reinstalled...and my saved AOL mail, which, unfortunately, had a lot of phone numbers and other info embedded in it). But pictures, Quicken data, tax data, etc., were all on those precious disks, so I could reinstall and not be totally screwed.

I'm still not "back" totally, but I'm getting there. Lesson learned: back up my hard drive!! So now I have critical data on CDs and thumb drives and intend to buy an external hard drive for backup. Yep, I'm gonna do that. Any day now. Sure.