Author: Matthew Groff

  • ODDS and ENDS – England v Scotland, REI, and Father’s Day

    I have no one to talk to about this, which makes me think I am the only American watching EURO 2021. I know that’s not true as the matches are on ESPN, but still… No one to talk to about it. Today, England is playing against Scotland which has all kinds of implications for this group. If England wins, they pretty much are guaranteed to move on to the knockout round. While Scotland, at the bottom of the group, has to win to stay alive. Then there is all of that history between the two nations, and I am sure that some idiot out there has all of his BRAVEHEART memes rip roaring to go.

    On Saturday, I will head to REI to see if their 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed Policy is for real when it comes to hiking boots worn once. I am fully aware that I was upsold on some boots over Memorial Day, but they are just a half size too small. I can feel my toes rubbing against the top of the boots. I know it’s not an end of the world problem, but I think if I were to hike longer than an hour, then I would have a real issue. Anyway, to find this out, I had to ware them, so, let’s see what they do. Balls in your court REI!

    Speaking of which, at least REI that is, I’m also going to pick up a day-backpack while I’m at the store tomorrow. Yup I’m buying more gear as a Father’s Day gift to myself. As with my wife’s birthday, in which I played no part in planning, so that she could have exactly what she wanted, I have also been granted this gift. So, I’m getting a daypack, and on Sunday, the whole family is going out for a hike in the woods. If you would have asked me a year ago what I wanted to do on Father’s Day, I would have told you sleep, and sleep late. Now, I want to get up early and sweat in the woods. It’s been a strange year.

  • Summer Grocery Shopping

    The school year is coming to a close here in NYC. As of this moment we only have 6 days left of remote school, and we all can’t wait for it to be over. Come September, the kid will be back in class, like a normal elementary schooler, and there will be so much joy and excitement for that occasion, it already feels like it’s going to be Christmas Morning on that first day of school.

    In the meantime, it’s still the Dad/Daughter Experience for the Summer.

    Yesterday, as we got out of class early, I had to go shopping at Trader Joe’s. I didn’t see any reason why the kid couldn’t come with me, as the store is allowing people to shop together again. If nothing else, it would kill an hour of the day, which was better than her watching TV.

    Getting there did mean a subway ride, which is slowly beginning to feel normal to me again. For the kid, mass transit is still an adventure, and now it’s more exciting as she can read, and loves checking out all the ads on the train. Stepping down into one station, and then appearing out of another, is like magic as you get transported to a whole new world; Like the Upper West Side. Once in the store, she was a good kid, and is now big enough to push the cart for me, unassisted, so she was really helping out, and not fake praise helping out.

    As we walked to the subway station to go back to Harlem, the kid was excited about the ice cream we had bought, and I wondered how much of this she would remember later in life. I have foggy relocations of going grocery shopping with my mother during summer vacation when I was my kids age, and at the time it was just a thing we did, but now it has taken on more of a melancholy reminiscence. A very important mundane experience that I value more today.

  • Personal Review: “Foster” by Bryan Washington

    (The short story “Foster,” by Bryan Washington, was featured in the June 14th, 2021 issue of The New Yorker.)

    I am always amazed by writers who use so few words to explain something, like the setting, and instantly I know specifically where they’re talking about. It’s like a magician making a large object emerge from a very small space; how did they pack all of that in there? Bryan Washington did that with his short story “Foster.” Washington dropped the word, “Montrose” in the second section of the story, and half way through the first page, I knew I was in Houston; along with the urban sprawl, sticky humidity, and vibrations of that city. This writer has skills in his word use.  

    “Foster” is a story about two estranged brother, one who leaves a cat with the other. The brother who takes the cat, lives alone in his apartment though his boyfriend, Owen, asks about moving in together. The story is told in short sections, which keeps the story moving at a fast clip. A co-worker at a university is introduced, the cat gets sick, and reflections on the past are brought up. There are thoughts about life with the estranged brother, and a slight mystery resolved about where the cat’s name comes from – All leading to a satisfying, though predictable, conclusion.

    I enjoyed this story. I liked the narrator, and wanted to learn more about him, especially his relationship with Owen, and their creation of a, I want to say, unit, as family isn’t quite right. The way Bryan Washington brought in these pieces, to make a mosaic of the narrator’s life, showing how connections sometimes happen and are thrust on the narrator, but still have value and meaning to him, was engrossing. As I thought about all of these pieces, I began to see the underling structure of the story, A+B=C. That’s not a knock against the writer, but to me shows someone knows how to craft a story.

    Like a good magician, Washington’s “Foster” is a story with a lot of sleight of hand happening. You’ll enjoy the trick while also knowing how it was done.

  • Cyber Attacks are the New Privateers

    I am sure that you have seen in the news, if not been personally affected by the recent cyber-attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and the JBS Meat plants. Biden is in Europe getting our allies’ support in confronting Putin over this, as most of the hackers are based in Russia, if not Russian. Cyber-attacks, or ransomware, has been going on for a while. I think Gray’s Anatomy did an episode on it, and the company my brother used to work for got hacked, and ransomed. I don’t think its hyperbole when the Director of the FBI and CIA say that these hacks are a national threat to our security and economy.

    But when people, especially politicians, say that the world has never seen attacks on nations like this before; I disagree.

    What I think of is the Age of Privateers, or as it is also known, The Age of Pirates, which roughly was about 1600 to the 1856, when the Declaration of Paris outlawed the practice of privateering. In case you don’t know, a privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war (Thank you, Wikipedia). In practice, it was legalized piracy, provided that the pirates didn’t attack the government that legalized them. Privateering was meant to disrupt trade routes and economically hurt a nation. If you hurt your enemy in the wallet, and make the delivery of good difficult, then you have a leg up on them in war.

    That’s what I see nations, like Russia, doing today, allowing pirates to have safe havens in their borders to wreak havoc, as long as those pirates go after Russia’s enemies. The hackers are taking money from local governments and business, and also showing the weaknesses in America’s cyber infrastructure.

    What I am waiting to see is if; one, world nations sign a new Declaration of Paris that outlaws giving safe harbor to cyber criminals, or two, cyber criminals turn on their host nations, just like the privateers did. There is a reason why privateers become pirates – if you are willing to steal from one country, you can steal from all of them.

  • Cleaning Lesson

    We did a big clean this weekend. We cleaned the apartment; every room except the study. My task was to clean the bathroom and the kitchen. My wife took on the role of cleaning our daughter’s room.

    We always debate cleaning the kid’s room. Such as, should we do it and get it in a proper order, or should we take the time to show the kid how to clean her room, then have her do it. Now, she is six, so there is a limit of organizational skill that she has, so we can only expect so much. What we have continued to choose to do is give her room a big clean every month, and then the rest of the time, ask the kid to clean it knowing that she is just shoving things under her bed.

    Now, we have a small apartment, and I think most of you know that, so there is only so much room for so much stuff. If something comes into the apartment, then something has to move out. This is especially true for the kid. We know that starting with October, she will start acquiring things; Halloween things, Thanksgiving things, Christmas things, and then birthday things. And all of these things need to have a place in her room. It’s purge and replace.

    The lesson here is that we need to live with less things. That is what we need to teach the kid, right? Or is the lesson that everything should have a place to live? Or is the lesson we need a bigger place to live?

    Either way, apartment is clean. Well, except for the study.