smokerblog

Adoption: Phase Three

Home study is complete. That was much less painful than we thought it would be. Paperwork must be processed by INS, then it goes to the Chinese Embassy and on to China. All we have to do now is wait. Which, by the way, here is what we're waiting for:

That's why this is the hard part.

Halfway Useful

Tony Blair: also not quite ignored, but not tremendously heeded. And poor Oates. That was a cheap shot.

(via My $0.02)

Surveys Are Our Friends

Movies of the Dead

This weekend, our friend George was having fun listing some of the movies directed by George Romero:

• Land of the Dead
• Night of the Living Dead
• Dawn of the Dead
• Day of the Dead

Trying to remember Sam Raimi's name, I came up with a couple more:

• The Evil Dead
• The Quick and the Dead

And then there was the recent horror/comedy:

• Shaun of the Dead

So of course, this got me thinking of other "dead" movies:

• Dead Man
• Dead Man Walking
• Dead Calm
• Dead Presidents
• Dead Poets Society
• Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Just two more:

• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
• Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (give it a name)

Did I miss any?

Adoption - Phase Two

I had planned on talking about the home study portion of the adoption process as a distinct phase, but things have been moving so quickly that the phases have kind of blended together.

The day after we finished our paperwork (aka, Phase One), We met for the first time with the social worker. A few days later she came to our house for the dreaded home visit. The worst part of the home study is the fear that some flaw of character will be exposed, that the house will be too dirty, the dogs willl misbehave, that some reason for denying the application will arise.

I'm not wanting to jinx the process, but it seems to be going smoothly so far. Our meetings with the social worker were pleasant, if somewhat uncomfortable. It's hard to tell your life story in under an hour, but we got through it okay.

We meet again with the social worker on Friday to asnwer some questions, then will meet one more time after that to review the home study and resolve any lingering questions. At that point, Phase Two will be complete and Phase Three (the wait) will begin. We have slowly begun to realize that this will be the longest, most difficult phase. Once the home study is complete, INS has to process our application. After that, it gets translated and sent to the Chinese^* government for approval. These things will not happen overnight.

At this point, we're just thankful that we didn't choose to adopt a child from Romania, where the government, in a well-meaning but overzealous law, has suspended foreign adoptions.

15 Years for John Rigas

This past weekend my dad asked my opinion of the sentencing for hometown hero villian, John Rigas and his son Timothy. Not having yet read Donald Gilliland's excellent summary of the case, I mostly averred. So tonight I read Donald's report, formed an opinion, then switched on the Nightly Business report to find that the judge had nailed it.

Now, John Rigas is a doddering, 80-yr-old man, who by almost all accounts is the sweetest, kindest guy you could hope to meet, plus, he has bladder cancer and the likelihood that he will die behind bars is high. So does any of this mean he should get a more lenient sentence? The judge apparently thinks so, but only by a token amount. His son, Timothy convicted of the same charges received a 20 year sentence.

Sympathy for Rigas' health situation notwithstanding, the numbers are compelling: $50 million in cash advances, $1.6 billion in securities, and$252 million to repay margin loans were provided by Adelphia to the Rigases. Using some of that money, the Rigases purchased (out of thin air, Enron-style) $822 million in Adelphia stocks and bonds. If anything, 15 and 20 years may be too lenient.

But the story here has less to do with punishing the Rigases and more to do with setting up some benchmarks to go after the next corporate criminals, Ebbers, Kozlowski, Skilling, and Lay. The Enron executives are in for a particularly rough time (if convicted). While Lay and Skilling quietly cashed in their chips while Enron began crumbling down around them, the Rigases clung to their company, behaving as if they were doing nothing wrong (although they clearly knew better). Unlike John Rigas, who abused the wealth of the company he had built, Skilling and Lay built a company designed from the very beginning to profit from the gray areas and loopholes (to put it kindly) in the legal and regulatory landscape.

Of course, there is a larger problem that needs to be addressed, but sending a message to corporate crooks is a good start.

Jazz Fest Diary, Days Eight & Nine

Day Eight

• Jacob Anderskov Trio
• Bob Sneider Trio Jam Session

I missed the early shows because I had to pick Kari up from the airport, and by the time I got downtown at around 9PM, there was no parking to be found. This was bewildering to me as it was raining cats and dogs, but it was definitely a good sign for the jazz festival. I was told later that the Eastman Theater was packed for the Madeleine Peyroux/Chris Botti show.

After trudging through the rain from my half-mile-away parking space, I met up with Seth and we headed over to Montage to get a seat and eat some wings before the Jacob Anderskov Trio came onstage. Maybe the rain had soured my mood, or maybe my attention was starting to flag after a week full of jazz, but I couldn't stick with Anderskov through a full set. This is not meant as a pejorative, but his music was just too "experimental" to me. There was nothing I could latch on to in the free-ranging improvisations and continuously shifting rhythm.

So we took off, which was fine by me, since it gave me a chance to get to the Crowne Plaza in time to get a seat at the bar for the nightly jam session. As an aside, I can't emphasize enough the importance of actually getting a seat in any of the venues. Almost every show I attended was standing-room-only and the nightly jam session was no exception. The place was regularly packed with those waiting to see which of the day's performers will show up to sit in with the band. Meanwhile, this anticipation is fed by the regular stream of hopeful musicians lurking about with their instruments hoping to get a chance to play.

Day Nine

• John Scofield Band
• Lumiere
• Dave Pietro & Banda Brazil
• Derek Trucks Band
• Bob Sneider Trio Jam Session

Even though I got in line almost forty minutes early, I was forced to sit in the very back row of Kilbourn Hall. No matter. John Scofield rocked the house with tunes old and new. With just bass and drums backing him up, Scofield was best when he got just a touch funky, although his rendition of Ray Charles' "You Don't Know Me" was truly beautiful. Although he played a fairly short set, I didn't really mind; the seats in the otherwise lavishly furnished Kilbourn Hall were apparently designed for a Depression-era public. I had to seat myself one cheek at a time as the armrests didn't provide enough clearance for my not-really-all-that-ample hips. An aisle seat is really only a minor improvement.

I stretched my legs by heading over to the outdoor stage on Gibbs St., where the French-bistro ambiance provided by Lumière was betrayed by the pulled pork BBQ sandwich I consumed (only one sloppy drip landed on my linen trousers, a clear indication that I did not apply enough BBQ sauce). After admiring the bass, gypsy guitar, and accordion (a well-played accordion is beautiful, a poorly-played accordion is obnoxious) of the locally-based group, I sauntered over to the festival tent trying to beat the crowd to the 8:30 show.

On occasion a front man is overshadowed by his backup band. At first, I thought that this was the case with Dave Pietro and Banda Brazil. I felt that the band was stifled by Pietro's somewhat stiff playing, only displaying some fine prowess during the solos. But then in the middle of one of his solos, Pietro seemed to loosen up, finally settling into the backup band's groove. Just as things started swinging, I took off to continue my final night's whirlwind tour over on the second free outdoor stage.

Bypassing the crowd lingering around Lumière's stage, I cut down Chesnut and landed smack in the middle of the crowd gathering for Derek Trucks. And this was one of the most interesting sights of the festival. All week, I had taken note of the jazz fan uniform. Yes, there was the occasional Primus t-shirt or bowling shirt among the crowd, but for the most part, jazz concert-goers prefer an ensemble of polo shirt or floral Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and boat shoes with occasional addition of a baseball cap, panama hat, straw porkpie, or backwards-facing "beret" (more accurately known as a touring or driver's cap).

Other regular festival-goers easily identified by attire (and the ubiquitous jazz pass badge dangling from their necks) were spread around the edges of the crowd, the core of which consisted mainly of typically funky (in terms of dress and odor), ragtag, and relaxed jam band fans. Trucks' other gig is playing slide guitar for the Allman Brothers and his more regular fans turned out in force for the free weekend show. So I dove deep into the crowd, tropical shirt and all, and had a blast bouncing to the band's bluesy rhythm. At one point, Trucks tipped his hat to the jazz fans with a smoking rendition of "My Favorite Things," then it was right back to the funky, pulsing, blues.

As much fun as Trucks was, I figured that I should finish the week at the jam session, so I split early hoping to get a good seat at the Crowne Plaza. It must be becoming clear that the Jazz Fest is really just a search for good seats from venue to venue, but alas, I was too late. I arrived while the band was in their first song, and there were no seats to be had. But I made do, finding a good place to stand and soaking up the last few notes of the festival.

The highlight of the session occurred before any other guests had been called up on stage. Playing one of his favorite Kenny Dorham tunes, "Asiatic Rays," the band offered a tribute to their friend and local jazz musician Bob Stata, who passed away last Tuesday.

I can't think of a more touching way to end the week.

Baseball Fashion

I just ran across a King Kaufman article in which he explains why he's rooting for Nebraska in this year's College World Series. Turns out, it's the socks.

In the piece, Kaufman briefly traces the history of the stirrup sock and bemoans its recent decline (although ESPN seems to have detected a renaissance). The Nebraska uniform doesn't even feature the stirrup socks, just the horizontal stripes reminiscent of earlier stirrup socks. King's reaching a bit here, I think.

But hey, I share his enthusiasm. When I was 11, I had the meanest, tightest stirrup socks in Little League. I was a string bean of a kid, so I had pants that fit would my waist but came down just below my knees. Then, taking the largest pair of stirrup socks I could find, I'd crank them up as high on my leg as they would go, Willie-Stargell-style.

So just for fun, here's a gallery depicting just a glimpse of the wide variety of stirrup socks through baseball history. Rolling your mouse over each image will reveal the player's name (see if you can guess who's who, first).

Jazz Fest Diary, Day Seven

Took the night off again. Installed software. Paid bills.

Jazz Fest Diary, Day Six

Day Six

• Karl-Martin Almqvist
• Shuffle Demons
• Lew Tabackin Trio

Tonight's shows cleared up a few things about the Jazz festival that had been lingering in the back of my mind. I had been pondering what makes one performance better than another. After five days of the festival I feel like I'm running out of superlatives to use when describing the acts I've seen; It's getting crowded on those top couple of rungs. Also, I notice that I tend to prefer the harder-edged performances over the more straightforward ones, which leaves me thinking that I'm somehow missing some nuance in the quieter music.

This feeling nagged at me as I stood listening to Karl-Martin Almqvist and his quartet. Here was a solid band, playing straight-ahead Coltrane-flavored jazz, and while they were certainly no slouches, the music just didn't grab me. All the ingredients seemed to be there, but I couldn't help feeling that there was just something missing.

Moving to the festival tent to hear the Shuffle Demons, I discovered one of the necessary ingredients. This was the ingredient missing from the Pete Carney/Orange Alert performance the other night: fun. Here was a band who entered by walking through the crowd playing a funky saxophone riff wearing suits that looked as if they had been designed by Keith Haring while being held at gunpoint and whose original tunes include "Puker," "Funkin' Pumpkin'," and "Get Out of My House, Roach." The music wasn't sophisticated, but it was fun. Seth and I barely tore ourselves away just before the end of the set to head on over to the Montage to see the Lew Tabackin Trio.

And good thing we did. We got there in time to grab a couple of the last remaining seats and settled in to hear some of the sweetest, most sincere music of the festival. It was here that I discovered the ingredient missing from the Almqvist performance: passion. Boris Kozlov on bass and Mark Taylor on drums were not overly flashy. They were certainly accomplished and more mature and subtle than most. And Tabackin, especially on flute, was the most soulful, sensitive musician I have seen so far at this festival.

Book Meme

Mike over at 10,000 Birds tagged me with this meme, so here goes:

Total number of books I own/owned:
Sheesh! Who knows? Currently, my best guess is something between 500 and 1,000. Counting previously owned books? Probably closer to 2000. But those are just wild guesses.

Five books that had a big influence on me:

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
I could gush and gush about this book, buying remaindered copies and foisting it upon all my friends and family, but I fully recognize that some people just don't get it, in a not-their-cup-of-tea kind of way. Some critics bemoan Wallace's linguistic high-jinks as smarty-pant showiness, but for those (like me) with whom his style just "clicks," this book is a truly original and insightful look at life in a society (ours) that worships entertainment and favors distraction over connection. Wallace's view is bleak, but not without hope. Every character in this book, no matter how messed-up or loathsome, is treated with respect and humanity; there are no traditional heroes or villians. More than any other book I've read, this one most faithfully reflects actual real-life life.

Tidewater Tales, John Barth
This book doesn't make my top five list of books, but it makes this list because it re-introduced me to the world of fiction and, and more specifically, contemporary fiction. After a dismal year of grad school and while in Germany with a group of students (a large percentage of books listed above are books purchased for school), hearing passages read from this book was like a breath of fresh air. There were about a half-dozen of us sitting around in some park, drinking our hefeweissen, mesmerized by Barth's daring imagination and impish tone. Okay, so maybe it was just the hefeweissen, but I bought the book after returning to the States and I've been reading fiction ever since.

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Okay, okay, so yes, it's another book of "post-modern" fiction. But where much contemporary fiction often gets labeled as cold, unfeeling playgrounds for literary pyrotechnics and nothing more (attacks which are unfounded, more often than not), no such criticism could be leveled at this book. Literary pyrotechnics? Yes, this book has no real plot. But cold or unfeeling? Heck no. Calvino explores the habits of storytelling and the quirks of memory as a source for boundless imagination and beauty. It makes me want to learn Italian, just so I can read this book in its original language.

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
Hey, here's a non-fiction book. Orwell's memoir of and commentary on the Spanish Civil War details the process of Orwell's disillusionment with the political left. It simultaneously exposes the naiveté of idealism, while arguing for the necessity of conviction. Orwell, whose sensibilities were shaped by his experiences in Spain, remained a staunch socialist throughout his life, but was also a vehement anti-Stalinsist (as anyone who reads Animal Farm can clearly see). More than most, this book brings home the sheer futility of war and the inherent dangers of revolutionary fervor.

Asimov on Astronomy, Isaac Asimov
This is not the definitive book on astronomy and is certainly out-of-date by now, but this book did for me (at a much more tender age than most) what Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time did for millions of other latent astronomy and physics geeks. In the insanely prolific Asimov's insanely lucid prose, it opened my eyes to the mind-boggling vastness of the universe and poked insistently at my curious nature in all the right ways.

Last book I bought:
Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook, Shel Silverstein
Ted told me about this book of wacky poetry and I had to buy it in preparation for Ben's arrival. Although...we think we'll leave it on the shelf until he learns a little English first. Here's an example:

Runny's Hew Nobby:
Runny Babbit knearned to lit,
And made a swat and heater,
And now he sadly will admit
He bight have done it metter.

Last book I read for the first time:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
This one I've already talked about.

Five other bloggers to tag with this meme:
Not wanting to impose, but getting tagged is kind of fun, plus this bunch ought to yield a broad range of results. So, y'all are it:

Hillary at Antidisingenuousmentarianism
Mike at Off on a Tangent
Harm at Ne Quid Nimis
Matt at Annular Systems
Linda at Junk Store Cowgirl

(if IJ shows up on more than two of these lists, you'll know that there's a conspiracy afoot).

Jazz Fest Diary, Day Five

Took the night off. Watched "West Wing" reruns.

Jazz Fest Diary, Day Four

Day Four

• The Bad Plus
• Orange Alert/Pete Carney
• Alex Torres y Su Orquestra

So all day, WGMC had been warning those who wanted to see The Bad Plus, to get in line early. I passed the warning on to Seth and Ted (who was driving up from PA to see the show), then scrambled around to get in line early. And even thought there were still a handful of empty seats (like, maybe five), getting in line early paid off with some seats in which we could stretch our legs as we settled in for the show.

And what a show! Jeff Spevak conjures up a pretty hilarious image in his review of the show:

If the Rochester International Jazz Festival continues to book acts like the Bad Plus, an appropriate new logo might depict Chuck Mangione running out of a theater with his head on fire.

Right from the get-go, Dave King was going bananas on the drums with bassist Reid Anderson providing a solid foundation and pianist Ethan Iverson amply filling the sonic space between the two. The set was made up almost entirely of new compositions that seem to be spinning off into even more exciting, experimental territory than what exists on their previous recordings. I was wondering when they would get to one of their famous (or infamous) covers of popular songs. It came near the very end of the set when some manic interplay slowly resolved into the triumphant chorus of Queen's "We Are The Champions." They get no argument from me.

Heads still buzzing, we made our way over to Milestones to catch the end of the set by the band led by Chicago saxophonist and turn-table-spinner Pete Carney, which is listed in the RIJF guidebook as "Orange Alert," although it's still unclear to me whether that's the band's name or just the name of Carney's debut recording. Anyway, our take was, either pick the saxophone or the turn-table, don't try to do both. The band was playing some pretty solid, straight-up funk with splashes of jazz and hip-hop thrown in, which after The Bad Plus, seemed just a tad too pedestrian to us.

So, after grabbing dinner at Golden Port Dim Sum and bidding farewell to Ted for the evening, I headed over to the festival tent to hear Alex Torres y Su Orquestra. If smoking-hot salsa and merengue is your thing, these guys are something to behold. Explosively entertaining, they play with as much energy as anything else you're likely to see at the RIJF. But maybe I was starting to get jazzed out after four straight days, but I could only stay for a few songs before hitting the road and ultimately my bed.

Jazz Fest Diary, Day Three

Day Three

• David Weiss Sextet
• Dov Hammer
• Willem Breuker Kollektief

Just back from the Sunday night shows and all I can muster by way of summary is, "Holy crap!"

Tonight was the night I didn't care so much about. No "must-sees" on my list, I was open to anything, and, man, did we stumble into it.

Just this afternoon (yesterday afternoon actually, it's now after midnight) I figured out that David Weiss of the David Weiss Sextet also played in last night's Night of the Cookers. So Seth (who's getting lots of links from me this week) and I decided to check out his group at the recently-back-in-business Montage Grill (although their website doesn't seem to be open for business yet). And lucky for us, Craig Handy (playing alto sax tonight) and bassist Dwayne Burno were also doing double duty as part of the sextet. The group played a set of Weiss compositions, which combined with Handy's formidable presence, made for a truly enjoyable performance.

After feasting our ears on Weiss' old-school jazz, Seth and I ventured back toward Gibbs St. to grab a bite to eat and to also check out a couple of Dov Hammer tunes at the free stage. Hammer, along with a couple buddies, cranked out some decent harmonica/guitar/slide-guitar blues for the people. But Seth and I were in search of more jazzy fare. So by 8:15, despite the sweltering weather conditions, we started waiting in line to catch Paradigm Shift in the big tent, but we were turned away due to the tent already being filled to capacity.

And again, how lucky for us. This allowed us to grab some prime seating at Milestones for the Willem Breuker Kollektif. About whom, all I can say is, again, "Holy crap!" They were truly amazing. Take one part George Clinton, one part circus music, one part Coltrane, one part...forget it. Here's a better description than what I can come up with:

The Kollektief's approach combines jazz and 'serious' (i.e. classical) music with many popular genres, from marching band and circus music to latin dance steps and music for film and theatre. The result is both humorous and surprising, full of false stops and starts, clean breaks, sudden shifts in musical mood, and above all, a fine sense of irony. At any given moment, the Kollektief can be churning out hot jazz, European Style, and the next moment they're tearing through a classical repertory with all the irreverence of Spike Jones.

A jazz version of Spike Jones. There. That's an excellent six-word summary. This is a band that can have an audience laughing and crying almost at will. Truly a complex and remarkable group.

Jazz Fest Diary, Days One & Two

Day One

• Sex Mob
• Sonny Rollins
• Bob Sneider Trio Jam Seesion

After reading the New Yorker profile of Sonny Rollins (only an interview with Stanley Crouch is available online) I expected one of two Sonny Rollinses to show up: either the timid, calypso-playing, keep-the-people-happy Sonny Rollins or the come-hell-or-high-water, blow-the-doors-off-the-joint Sonny Rollins.

Thank goodness Rollins #2 showed up. His first solo must have lasted twenty minutes. There can be very few musicians capable of playing with such vigor after spending more than five decades in the business. He lived up to best of my expectations.

So that's the strange thing about expectations. As amazing as Rollins was, I came away from the Sex Mob show exhilarated, which I chalk up partially to the more intimate venue, but mostly to my lower expectations. I had heard a Sex Mob track on internet radio a couple of years ago called "Not Bolweevil," which was fun enough, but is totally unrepresentative of the energetic, grooving, funkified jazz that is the Sex Mob's staple.

So then Bob Sneider's jam session was also amazing per usual, although I was disappointed that Rollins didn't show up to sit in with the band (a long shot, I know).

Day Two

• Steve Turre Quartet
• Josh Irving Quartet
• Night of the Cookers

With no "must-sees" on my list for Saturday night, I took a chance on the Steve Turre Quartet. And I'm glad I did. I'm not normally a big fan of the trombone as a jazz instrument but Turre has made me reconsider. Also, his rhythm section was terrific, particularly the piano player (I coudn't catch his name) who absolutely smoked through a solo on a cuban-flavored number late in the set. But then Turre blew the crowd away by playing on his collection of seashells to close out the set. I know, it sounds a little Zamfir-like or something, but honestly, he was jamming on those shells.

With a light rain falling, Seth and I bypassed the outdooor venue in favor of Josh Irving in the big tent. Unfortunately, as great as he and his band sounded, it was just too hot in the tent to stay through more than a couple of tunes before we evacuted in favor of the cooler climes of the line waiting for the 10PM show of Night of the Cookers.

The band Night of the Cookers takes its name from the legendary album Night of the Cookers, which featured Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan in some epic horn-dueling. Two of that original cast anchored this incarnation, James Spaulding on alto sax and Pete La Roca on drums. They were joined by Jeremy Pelt and David Weiss on trumpet, tenor saxophonist Craig Handy, piano-player Harold Mabern, and bassist Dwayne Burno. And despite some issues with the sound system, yes, they were cooking.

Blame It All on Ludwig Van

More historical revisionism: here's a guy, clearly stuck in the past, who claims that Beethoven was bad for classical music.

Beethoven apparently twisted the true goal of music from a quest for "the mysterious connection between music and mathematics" into the "narcissistic focus on the composer himself and his own tortured soul."

This was a ghastly inversion that led slowly but inevitably to the awful atonal music of Schoenberg and Webern. In other words, almost everything that went wrong with music in the 19th and 20th centuries is ultimately Beethoven's fault. Poor old Schoenberg was simply taking Beethoven's original mistake to its ultimate, monstrous logical conclusion.

Poor, poor Schoenberg. If it weren't for Beethoven, maybe Vivaldi would have been his inspiration. That would have been so much better.

A-One, A-Two, A-One-Two-Three...

The Rochester International Jazz Fest begins tomorrow. Right now, I have dreams of going every single night and seeing every act possible, but I know from experience that life will intrude and I will inevitably miss out on something. Last year it was Eric Alexander. The year before that, it was Chris Potter.

But then, there is the fun of discovering an unknown, like last year's Jonas Kullhammar Quartet. The year before, I discovered (not exactly an unknown, but new-ish to me) Medeski, Martin, and Wood (oo! free show in Buffalo this month!).

So tomorrow? I don't know. My buddy Seth and I have tickets to see Sonny Rollins, but other than that, there are a lot of shows we may want to see: Bill Frisell, Yggdrasil, Sex Mob, Hilton Ruiz Trio. And oh yeah, I will definitely want go see Bob Sneider's jam session afterwards. It's just a matter of how quickly we can get there to find seats.

Copernicanism Is the Root of All Evil

I know I'm probably just feeding the trolls, but after yesterday's post, I couldn't resist linking to this culture warrior.

Among the many secrets revealed: The Size and Structure of the Universe According to the Bible and Non-Theoretical(?!) Science.

Also: Mathematics and Science have been the Devil’s playground at least since Pythagoras!

This guy must buy his scare quotes in bulk.

Books Make Great Kindling

Does it make me a pinko commie to think that selecting the ten most harmful books of the past two centuries smacks of totalitarian reactionism? Maybe it just makes me a secular humanist (almost as bad) or cultural relativist (maybe worse).

And note: these books aren't deceitful or sickening or even dangerous, they are harmful.

Augh! Chairman Mao is eating my brain!

Okay Then

So I was skimming through a Wired article on some Caltech guys having Rubik's Cube speed-solving competitions and thought (with just a touch of old-skool geek pride): "Meh, 2:41.54? Back in the day, my best times hovered around 2:30."

Then I saw that these guys were working blindfolded.

Broadband in the Boonies

Kottke is soliciting recommendations on how to obtain high-speed internet access from a rural location, i.e., a place with no cable or dsl option. There's at least one person (actually, two) I know who could benefit from all the good advice he's getting.