Supafly.com

I’m trying to get rid of as many things as possible because I’m unnerved about the number of “baby boxes” that are shipped to my house everyday. Candyce and I made a pact that we wouldn’t purchase anything unnecessary for our newborn, so I trust that these boxes contain only the essentials. But those essentials are adding up fast.

Since I cannot stand clutter, I’ve spent the last three days exploring my house with hopes of finding unnecessary possessions. If this new stuff has to stay, then this old stuff has gotta go!

I’ve already eliminated 99% of my “nostalgic stuff” from my home shortly after I got married. That means I trashed at least 150 pounds of stuff from The Real World, college, Boy Scouts, high school, and various art classes. These all were fished out of the boxes marked “keepsakes” that I dragged from house to house. I could not have been happier than the day I dragged my black trash barrel to the curb because I knew that once the trash truck flipped that barrel upside down, there was no turning back.

So honestly, there wasn’t much left to throw away. That is until I decided to see what was inside a footlocker my dad gave me two months ago from his years in the Navy. For the record, my dad brings stuff from his house in Georgia every time he comes out Arizona. My guess is that Mom wouldn’t let him throw the stuff away and muscled him into bringing it out to me. So as their house became more simple, mine became more cluttered.

Junk in the Trunk

I popped the latches open and then lifted the lid and got a waft of crypt-like air from Mom and Dad’s basement. I lifted away the layers of old T-shirts, yearbooks, photo album, CD cases, and letters from girls.

Over the next two hours, I held each item and tried to remember the moment in my life when that item meant a lot to me. Once the nostalgia evaporated away, I ceremoniously dropped each item into the metal trash can. That includes about 75 CDs.

I mean really, what do you do with old CDs? I converted most of my music to MP3s two years ago, and do you know what? I haven’t touched those MP3s since. It seems like too much of a hassle to go digging for them on my hard drive. All the music I could ever need is on Rhapsody.

I decided to sell those grunge/alternative CDs to a trendy music store in my neighborhood. He slid the stack back across the counter and flatly stated: “I can’t do anything with these.” I ended up donating them to a music store on 7th Avenue downtown because the store was cool (think High Fidelity) and I knew they needed a lot of help to keep their doors open. So here I am on my second round of music, and I didn’t even bother ripping them onto my hard drive. I just threw them away.

Welcome Freshman

The last two items in the footlocker were two yearbooks from a huge part of my life:

1. Young Harris College 1996-1997
2. Georgia Tech 1997-1998

Young Harris College had a fantastic program that allowed local high school students to attend classes like college kids. This was a big deal to me because I had too much ambition to sit around my senior year and pretend to be king. In a lot of ways, YHC was the high school that I always wanted.

First of all, I couldn’t believe that these things are 10 and 11 years old. A lot can happen in eleven years. A couple weeks ago I hosted a week at Camp Covecrest for teenagers who were toddlers at the time that yearbook was printed. That blew my mind.

I eagerly flipped through the pages of both yearbooks and saw the names and faces of classmates I’d forgotten about. This made me happy. So I went on Facebook to look up some of my favorite people and see what they are up to. I could not find anyone! What’s the deal here?

Everyone in those yearbooks are around age 30 now, and maybe they don’t waste their time with social networks. Who knows? I’m concerned that this is becoming a trend in my life. Nobody from The Real World New Orleans cast showed up for The Real World 20th Anniversary earlier this year. It was just me representing the seven of us. It seems like everyone I met between ages 18 and 21 have disappeared from the face of the earth. I care about these people and it would be nice to know how they are doing. (So if you are reading this and you were in one of those yearbooks, send me an email!)

So now my teens and twenties are reduced to a cardboard box just large enough to hold a pair of Dr. Martens.

I am so tired of traveling. I’ve spent most of July in some other town that is not my own. Yesterday I spent six hours in the airport in Springfield, Missouri. The goal was to get on an early flight so I could get home to go on a date with Candyce. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

I spent most of the day taking naps in the vacant airport chapel. I didn’t see this as irreverent because it was hardly a chapel. It looked like an airport lounge and not at all like a chapel. I understand that you have to create a semi-sacred space that will please a variety of religions, but the “spiritual icon” that was fixed on the wall was ridiculous. I am sure it’s considered a “modern sculpture” by the artist, but to me it looked like the skeleton of a model pirate ship wrapped with clear plastic…and then splattered with paint. It was one of the most visually displeasing things I’ve seen in years. It hardly inspired prayer or wonder. I imagine the Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists who frequent the chapel would’ve been content with photo of the Grand Canyon.

While at the conference, I spoke to a group of 1000 young men for an hour. Years ago when I first began traveling and speaking at events, I don’t think I understood what an awesome privilege it is to speak to a group like that. Because in a few short years, these guys will be off to college. And eventually they will become husbands and fathers. Members of society, leaders in their community. Coaches in little league baseball. That just blows my mind.

I’m cheering for and Matt Maher and New Kids on the Block to hit #1 on their respective charts at the same time. (That is, Christian and Pop.) I have allegiance for the Kids and the Matt because I count (t)him all as friends. Or to paraphrase Juno McGuff, I enjoying being a piece of furniture in their weird lives. Let me explain…

Matt Maher, My Homie

Matt and I shared a house for six big years. We hosted a lot of parties and solved a lot of the worlds problems in long conversations into the wee hours of the morning. I had just gotten off the show and was traveling around the country. He was recording his first album….then his second…then his third. Every demo was cut in my house. I didn’t have a need for an iPod or a radio because there was always beautiful music playing when I got home. In short, we had a good time.

Now he’s touring, selling lots of CDs…sharing his music with the world. I’ve known how talented he was and soon this day would come. Now Matt is #2 on the Christian music charts. The songs he wrote in my house are now playing on XM radio in my living room. How cool is that?

He even has cool publicity photos. I haven’t had those since 2001.

Just when I though Matt couldn’t get any cooler, a friend emailed this photo to me. Yes, that is an astronaut in outer space. That is planet earth you see through the window. And do you notice what he’s holding?

I guess Matt Maher has some fans in high places. The only thing that bothers me is that he’s not holding the CD that I art directed a few years ago: Welcome to Life.

NKOTB Baby!!

My connection with the New Kids on the Block goes back to my pre-teen years in the early 1990s. My two older sisters were obsessed with NKOTB like most teen girls at the time. Our house was plastered with NKOTB posters, magazine pinups, and most household cleaning chores were narrated by “You’ve Got the Right Stuff” and later “Step by Step”. Those are good memories.

Unfortunately, NKOTB’s fame was promptly executed by jealous newcomers to the music world, testosterone heavy bands whom we’ve since forgotten. I was twelve-year-old at the time, and therefore too insecure to be a fan of a group of guys who sang songs, but at the same time I was sad that my sisters would not be able to enjoy their tapes anymore because their friends followed the crowd and decided that the New Kids weren’t cool anymore.

My first two years of college were magical largely because I wore a size small New Kids on the Block T-shirt. I thought it was a funny shirt that would entertain my friends. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the attention I would get from the ladies. With one glance of my shirt, her ambitious student demeanor would melt and she was reminded of a kinder, gentler time in their life. And then, she’d flirt with me. (It’s okay if you don’t believe me. You weren’t there. I loved that shirt.) What I am getting at here is that the New Kids only gave me good memories.

Now skip forward a year. It was late 2000 and I was fresh off of The Real World and was invited to be a celebrity judge on Say What Karaoke (RIP) which filmed in Las Vegas. The host of Say What was Joe McIntyre, the youngest kid in the NKOTB and therefore the most popular with the ladies. When he wasn’t hosting the show, he was relaunching his music career as a solo artist as was fellow New Kid Jordan Knight. In all of the confusion-inducing frenzy around boy bands like Nsync and Backstreet Boys in the late 1990s, it seemed plausible that the “first boy band” could get a second chance at the charts. Joe and Jordan did pretty well that year.

The day before we filmed the show, Joe borrowed my electric razor. We visited for an hour in my hotel room at the Luxor. Then a year later, we reconnected at the MTV 20th Anniversary party. He’s a genuine guy and I enjoyed spending time with him. I doubt that Joe would remember me today, but I enjoyed the opportunity to meet the grown-up version of a kid who was a regular fixture from my childhood. I knew I wanted him to succeed.

So I was excited by the bizarre news earlier this month that the New Kids on the Block had a new single out called “Summertime.” I went on VH1.com and watched the video, which–ironically–looks a lot like a Biggie or Puffy video from the late 1990s. And the song was a pretty darn good. It’s not song-writing genius, but it’s a catchy pop song.

I’m just savoring the randomness of this year of my life. I’m married…and will soon be a dad. And The New Kids on the Block might be #1 on the pop charts. And yesterday I found out that Beverly Hills 90210 is coming back.

Georgia Tech recently had a creative campaign to get young alumni involved. If you raised $1000 for the school, you could repel down the side of a skyscraper in Midtown Atlanta. Stephen sent me photos of his adventure…

Stephen snaps a photo in the mirrored glass.

Soon this will be a business office. Until then, it’s time to have some fun.

Another nice self portrait.

From the Top: The Coca-Cola building stands tall in the distance. The church-like steeple near its base is the Tech Tower. The stadium is where we went to football games. The brick buildings near the interstate are where I lived my freshman year at Georgia Tech.

Here we go!

Later it’s Buzz’s turn

Leg #1: Phoenix >> Chicago >> Pittsburgh >> Steubenville>
Leg #2: Steubenville >> Pittsburgh >> Charlotte >> Phoenix >> San Diego
Leg #3: San Diego >> almost Huntsville then Knoxville >> Atlanta >> TigerLeg #4: Tiger >> Atlanta >> Fort Meyers >> Ave Maria
Leg #5: Ave Maria >> Fort Meyers >> Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta >> Phoenix

Lessons of Love, by Way of Economics

First, the good news. I bought the New York Times in the airport and found a great article by Ben Stein: Lessons of Love, by Way of Economics. You should read the whole article, but here are my favorite excerpts:

In general, and with rare exceptions, the returns in love situations are roughly proportional to the amount of time and devotion invested. The amount of love you get from an investment in love is correlated, if only roughly, to the amount of yourself you invest in the relationship. If you invest caring, patience and unselfishness, you get those things back. (This assumes, of course, that you are having a relationship with someone who loves you, and not a one-sided love affair with someone who isn’t interested.)

Long-term investment pays off. The impatient day player will fare poorly without inside information or market-controlling power. He or she will have a few good days but years of agony in the world of love. To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.

The Revolt at Terminal B -or- Delta Sucks

I had a two-hour layover in Atlanta on my way to Phoenix. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30 PM, and since the thunderstorms had long since blown over, I was confident we would leave on time. I had no idea how many things would go wrong over the next 24 hours.

Since reading about boring travel drama is, well, boring, I’ll get to the point: they delayed our flight every half hour until we were finally able to board four hours later. I was snuggled into my seat preparing to sleep on the long flight to the west coast when the captain came on the speaker: “I’m sorry folks. This flight has been canceled. We’ve tried hard to get a flight attendant, but we are one short and we can’t make the flight. But there will be a gate agent waiting for you outside to help you rebook your ticket.” All 150 people stomped out of the plane and reluctantly formed a line. It was already 11:00 pm.

I got on the phone and called Delta because I figured it would be quicker. After a quick conversation with the man on the phone, he put me on hold. An hour and nineteen minutes later, I hung up the phone because my face was getting hot and I was losing my mind. During that time, only three people had actually gone up to the counter and walked away with a ticket. That’s 30 minutes per person. At that rate, it would take 75 hours to rebook everyone in line. That is almost three days.

Things got more miserable when I learned from the three people who actually got their ticket that they would not leave Atlanta until after 3pm the next day and that Delta couldn’t find any more hotel rooms. (Are you serious? They could only find three hotel rooms in the city of Atlanta?) Lets say we got lucky and were magically issued tickets for the next day. What were we supposed to do for the next 15 hours?

Even with this bad news, I felt fortunate because from what I could see, our line was the shortest line in the whole terminal. There were at least 300 people in the line three gates down. The place was starting to look more like a refugee camp. People were getting angry, yelling and slamming their fists on the counter. Throwin stuff.

At this point I realized something had to change. These things turn nasty real fast. I cornered a Delta employee and tried to explain the situation:

“I understand it’s been a difficult weekend for you all. The thunderstorms have caused a lot of difficulties that are beyond your control. I have no doubt that everyone here is working hard. But I don’t think your supervisors understand how bad the situation has become. We’ve been told there are no hotel rooms and no cars to rent. But there are elderly people here and mothers with small babies. None of us are able to get our luggage. All the restaurants and stores are closed and there is nothing to eat. I think if your supervisors understood how hostile it’s become here, they would send more employees to help.”

She gave me a blank stare and then barked at me: “Look around, you’re not the only one who’s upset.” Apparently something was lost in translation. I tried with two more employees. Nothing.

I called Stephen and told him there was about to be a riot if something didn’t change. I told him to call the local news and explain our story. He called three stations, and each said they already had people at the airport. I’m sure if I walked past security and to the front of the airport, I would’ve been on the news to explain the chaos on the other side. But selfishly, I wanted to get my ticket and get back to Candyce.

I ditched my place in the front half of the line after I got word that another line was moving faster on the far end of the airport. Really, what did I have to lose? There was no way I’d get a ticket if I stayed there.

Indeed, the other line was moving faster. I was the last person in my line to get a confirmed seat on a flight the next day at 6:30 PM, for a grand 24-hour delay. My celebration was short lived because once I had a boarding pass in my hand, they closed all lines and the employees went home.

There were no airline officials left in the terminal except two police officers sent in to keep order. Six hours before, we were dignified business travelers. Now we were treated like hoodlums. It was humiliating.

Survivorman

I rode the escalator down to the airport train with hopes of finding a less populous terminal to sleep in. I was too tired to walk. I just stood there, slowly descending down the stainless steel tunnel. Once at the bottom, I was alone at the airport train station. On the airport speakers played “Take My Breath Away” from the movie Top Gun. The train never came. I walked to Terminal C.

It’s important in situations like that to keep things normal. Try to make yourself at home. I walked into the bathroom to wash my face and wipe down my teeth with a paper towel. I looked at my face in the mirror and noticed the man next to me with a disgusting wound on his forearm. He dipped his soiled bandages into soapy water, then ringing it out as well as he could with the injury. My heart broke for this guy. “It looks like you’ve had a bad day. Can I help you with that?”

He explained that he was a welder by profession, and he had a chunk of metal removed from his arm earlier that day. His clean bandages and medicine were in his luggage which was nowhere to be found. He figured he would be just fine. He thanked me for the concern and he told me goodnight.

If you watch Survivorman, you know that it is impossible to sleep in the wilderness if you do not feel secure. It’s easier to sleep at the base of a tree than it is to sleep twenty feet away because your back is protected. After trying to sleep on a couple benches, I applied my survival knowledge and snuggled into a corner next to a the ticket counter. I was out in five minutes.

I woke up twice in the morning. The morning sun burned through the windows and lit up silhouettes of busy travelers walking confidently to catch flights. These were obviously new people. Each time I looked around and found new people asleep on the benches around me. My back hurt.

Into the City

I got up at 8 am road Marta into the city. I was starting to get depressed in the cage of the airport. Stephen picked me up at the station and few minutes later we were having breakfast at the Riah’s Bluebird, a cozy cafe off of Memorial Drive. I figured it was a new day and I needed to be alert, so I chugged a few cups of coffee after breakfast while we talked about the night before.

What I came to is this: that was just a really poorly managed situation. These are the kind of situations an airline is supposed to anticipate in advance so that when they come, you don’t enrage your customers by stealing away their dignity. I imagine that our story will get to a senior at the airline and many people will be fired. What bothers me most is that the solution was not far away. Delta is one of the largest employers in the city of Atlanta; it would not have been hard to call a couple dozen employees at 9PM the night before when it became clear that the situation was already out of control. But they didn’t, and because of that, there was chaos.

I was done complaining and asked Stephen to drive me around East Atlanta and Cabbagetown and show me what was new. I am in awe of how much those parts of town have cleaned up in the past ten years.

Back in 1998, I was a design intern at a web agency in a cool loft in between Little Five Points and Virginia Highlands. We were all hipsters who wanted to know about the next big thing online and around the city. I’ll never forget the day that James suggested we check out East Atlanta. (Isn’t that where people die?)

That night we went to an awesome pasta place and had a great time. We didn’t talk about it the next day. We never went back. None of us wanted to admit we were afraid of the hipster frontier.

Here we are, ten years later, and it’s become a great place to live, work, and play. Just look at the development called Glenwood Park just south of I-20:

Back in Phoenix

I got back into town yesterday. I was lucky to get on that flight because they put me on a plane that was supposed to take of today. (That would make a 48-hour delay with no hotel, no food voucher, no rental car.) I pleaded with the guy at the counter and he worked something out for me. Now I am back in my beautiful home with my beautiful wife. Soon we will have a baby. I’m probably not going to get on an airplane for the rest of this year.