I’ve been having a hard time of late getting time to write; August was a whirlwind of weddings, trips, and the MS 150 Charity Ride. It seemed like September would go a bit easier on us, but we’ve managed to maintain the same level of insanity around the house this month as well.

Football has been occupying quite a bit of time, as it always does. One of us - usually both of us - is down at the field with Alex Monday through Friday from 6pm to almost 8pm each night. Friday nights we have an hour worth of piano and drum lessons, which takes us to the four or so hours we spend at the football field each Saturday for the two games (varsity and junior varsity) that our B-Team boys play in.

Since Alex has the primo camera - Canon EOS 20D - I’ve started taking pictures of the games and posting them online at Jason-Schmidt.SmugMug.com. It’s been fun, but it definitely is quite a bit of work. Each gameday I take somewhere around 1,500 pictures which I then pull into Aperture and cull down to 200 or so pictures that get posted to the web.

I get lots of compliments on these pictures, but honestly it’s not been that hard. It’s mostly been point and shoot….then crop. I don’t do any color correction or any special adjustments on the computer. Primarily becuase I really wouldn’t have any idea as to what I was doing. Maybe someday I’ll actualy figure it out - or, more likely, I’ll wait until my dad teaches Alex then have him show me.

The other self-appointed task I’ve taken on is to get the game video online for the boys to watch. Vimeo is a free site that gives you 500MB of video upload weekly. I’ve managed to put together a little workflow that enables me to take the video, rip it to mp4 via Handbrake on the macintosh, then upload to vimeo so people can watch it in flash video. Those videos are available here.

Football finishes up in mid-October. I’m wondering what I’ll do with my newly found freetime…of course, something will probably expand to fill it.

It’s taken a few weeks to get to the point that I could write about Dave and Lindsey’s wedding. I tried a few times, but the words….well, the words wouldn’t quite come. The few times they did; well, it didn’t seem to make much sense.

I tend to take everything very much to heart, and this wedding was no exception. This was the third time I was asked to be the best man. Each and every time it’s been humbling, even - maybe especially - for a sarcastic smart-ass like myself.

Dave and Lindsey….well, their wedding was no exception. As I did the last two times, I started my pre-wedding jitters about two months before the big day. There was the background concern - “don’t make an ass out of yourself” at a general level - and the very specific best man toast concern, namely “make sure you say something relevant that doesn’t piss anyone off and that doesn’t make you sound like a complete and utter jackass”.

That second part was the more difficult bit; it’s hard to distill 20 years of friendship down into a 10 minute speech. It’s difficult to translate the emotions you feel about, with, and for two people down into words. And it probably goes without saying that it’s extremely daunting to do this in front of a large group of people that have known you since you were a snotty teenager.

I tend to obsess - sometimes this is a good thing, but mostly it’s not. During the two weeks leading up to the wedding I must have recited my toast dozens of times. I toasted Dave and Lindsey in the shower; I toasted them to my dog when I had her outside; the cats were obliged to listen to me while I cleaned their litter; I toasted to their health in the computer room at work. People glanced at me as if I were insane when I was driving - not for the normal reasons, but because I was babbling through my toast while anxiously glancing at the clock to get my timing down.

It all paid off. When I finally had the microphone in my hand everything fell right into place. Every now and then you reach a point in your life where everything is just right. I experienced this at the Cleveland Clinic with Dave and Lindsey last year, and I experienced it with the two of them at their wedding reception. For ten minutes or so I was able to stand up in front of everyone and show them exactly what Dave and Lindsey mean to me…and why.

Dave, Lindsey….love you both.

As anyone who knows me - a group which includes a vast majority of the groom’s family - I’m very seldom at a loss for something to say. I’ve never been to shy to share an opinion or tell a story. This time though….well, there are so many things that I can say about Dave - and you too Lindsey - that it’s been difficult to focus.

Dave is one of my oldest and closest friends, but that really doesn’t do him justice. I normally tell people that he’s the slightly older, furrier brother that I never had. We’ve skipped class together, we’ve been pulled over by the police together, we’ve been in a car accident together, we’ve driven to Georgia and Virginia together. We’ve spent hours upon hours complaining and arguing about local sports teams together. My children have all grown up around Dave, and my youngest knows him as “Uncle Dave” - now, I know that isn’t as impressive here since there are probably quite a few people that call him “Uncle Dave” present, but in my family it’s a bit more impressive. My parents, sisters, aunts, uncles and even my late grandpartnes all prefer Dave’s company to mine. In fact, the question asked most often at any family gathering is normally “where’s Dave?”

I can’t talk about Dave without saying something about his wonderful family. Growing up, I was always welcome at this house; if I was hungry I was fed, if I needed a place to sleep I was pointed to a bed, and if I wanted to spend a holiday weekend painting the floors of Interlock, well I could do that too! And they even paid me for it! And you know what? If my hair was a bit on the long side for prevailing social and cultural norms, well the Erstes would gently suggest that I get a hair cut. Many, many, times.

To me, one of the truest signs of friendship is being apart for years or decades…but then picking up right where one left off. It’s always been like that with the Erstes, right up to and including today.

Now Lindsey…well, let me tell you a few things about Lindsey. The first time Dave brought Lindsey over to my house - and boy was he excited, having a real girl with him and all - anyways, the first time he brought Lindsey over she showed up in a dark outfit. Now, wearing dark outfits is something we tend not to do in our house, because we have this 70 pound bundle of hair, drool, and energy we call Lily. Lily likes to be loved; so much, that every time someone comes over she drops into what we call the “happy sausage” dance where she hops around and jumps up and down and gets hair and drool all over whoever is unlucky enough to be her target.

Now, I don’t know much about women - a fact many of you can attest to - but one thing I do know is that most girls don’t like to be covered in dog hair and spit. But a funny thing happened as I moved to grab Lily at the door - before I could get there, Lindsey was down on one knee petting the dog and scratching her ears. The evening finished up with the dog on her back on the couch with Lindsey rubbing her belly. Lindsey is fun-loving and sincere; a little bit of dog hair is no big deal to her.

Lindsey is tough as well. Every year Dave, Todd, and I ride the Pedal to the Point. Every year we ask people to ride with us - surprisingly, most decline that offer; perhaps it’s due to the fact that most people don’t find the idea of riding 150 miles to be anything remotely close to fun. We have friends - grown men - who avoid us between May and September just to make sure they don’t get roped into riding. But Lindsey….well, when we asked, Lindsey said yes.

I can honestly say that the 2007 MS 150 was the worst ride I have ever been on; it was cold and raining on the second day. It was so bad that they closed the course. Lindsey….well, she kept right on riding with us without complaint. She kept riding as others dropped out and stopped. She probably wanted to kill us - in fact, I believe she looked over at Dave and I at the Lorain JVS on the second day and told us as much - but she never complained. So be warned - there is steel and grit in this new Mrs. Erste.

I want to finish out by telling you a brief story of Dave and Lindsey, a story that means quite a bit to me.

This story starts way back in High School, back in Mr. Grescovich’s Mass Media class. For those of you who didn’t go to Walsh - and it looks like that’s a smaller number than one would think - Mr. G’s classroom walls were decorated with all sorts of pithy sayings. One of the sayings read “When a friend asks, there is no tomorrow”.

Dave and I seized on that one and made it our own - in our little world, we would ask each other “hey, is there a tomorrow”, with the correct answer being “no”. It was a joke on one level, but there was substance behind that joke. When you need him there is no tomorrow with Dave. He’s there if you need him, and if you need him he is going to try his hardest to do what needs to be done. That saying - it’s a fairly strong statement as to what our friendship is about.

Most of the time up at the Clinic is a big blur for me, but I will always remember being in the room with Dave and Lindsey at one point. With a heartwrenching look of love in her eyes, Lindsey held Dave’s left hand and told him I was there while I held Dave’s right hand - in a masculine, platonic sort of way, mind you - and told him that there was no tomorrow. I can’t explain why, but I can tell you that for a brief moment then everything was right with the world. A week later, when Dave was back up and alert, I sat in a different room with the two of them, and saw the same look in Dave’s eyes. When I went home from the hospital that night I told Beth that we’d be going to a wedding.

Some time ago I read a quote that stated: “Don’t marry the person you can live with, marry the person you can’t live without”. From my perspective, you have both accomplished this goal today.

Dave, you are my brother and you have always been and will always be part of my family. Let me remind you that the most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman’s heart.

Lindsey, it feels like I’ve known you forever. You’re truly a wonderful person, and on this, your wedding day, as you sit there looking so beautiful I just ask that you continue to do what you have done so well, and that is to take care of my friend. For we both know what a special person he is.

And to both of you, let me just remind you that in love, as in friendship, there is no tomorrow.

Please join me in raising a toast to Mr. and Mrs. L. David Erste.

Over on the left we have a shot of Todd at lunch during the MS150 this year. See how happy Todd looks? That’s about how well the ride went for us this year. Oh, we both finished the century (which was our plan from the start), but it was much more painful than either of us thought it was going to be.

From the start, this year didn’t seem like it was going to be a good year. Dave and Lindsey are getting married in less than two weeks. so they were unable to ride. James bailed on us after telling us he was going to ride up at the Cleveland Clinic during Dave’s hospital stay. It was more of a “stealth bail” since I never actually had a conversation with him about it….it was marked more by a deafening silence coming from his corner of the Internet in the weeks leading up to the ride.  Todd rode James a bit at Dave’s bachelor party about it, but I pretty much stayed out of that since I was still a bit pissed off and didn’t want to deal with it.

I know, I know. You all told me that I was being foolish with my thoughts that he would ride….and I told you that this time was different. I’m here to state plainly that I’m a dumbass. I admit it. Next time I fall for the “I’m going to ride” gambit just point me back here.

So this year Team Psychotic Pineapples was down to two members; well, technically one member, since I don’t think that they ever managed to get Todd attached to the team correctly. In fact, the entire organization of the event seemed off this year for some reason - I don’t know if the downturn in the economy is causing the problem or if it’s deeper than that, but the level of support and communication from the local chapter was fairly bad this year.

Once we were on the road things didn’t get any better - I had problems with my front tire for about 20-30 miles in the middle of the ride that slowed me to a crawl and had me carrying the bike for a mile. I’d probably still be carrying the bike if it wasn’t for a pair of riders from Costa Rica who stopped and helped me reseat the tire (a feat which the wrench at the previous rest stop had failed at for some reason) and got me on my way. That was - by the way - the bright part of the day, and one of the few moments I was praising my fellow riders rather than muttering about them under my breath.

Todd didn’t have the wheel troubles I did, but he ran into the same issues I was having with the bike traffic. Now, I’m firmly for cyclists rights, christ I even have the “Share the Road” license plate on the Wrangler. I take time to educate friends and family how to handle themselves around cyclists when the topic comes up. That being said, there were people on the road with Todd and I on Saturday that should not have been there. I know - they’re doing this all for charity, and I admire them for that. Unfortunately, when a bunch of unexperienced cyclists decide to ride 4 or 5 abreast down a 55 mph state route, the danger level they pose to themselves, other riders, and the drivers is ridiculously high. And as someone who rides on the roads on a regular basis, I have to add that riding like a dipshit goes a long way towards making motorists hate all cyclists.

It wasn’t all bad - I’m nearing my goal of $1,000 raised for MS, which is the reason why we do this. I got to spent time with Todd which is always entertaining, and I managed to nail a 100 mile ride (well, it was technically 99 riding and 1 walking, but I would argue that it’s harder to walk than ride so it’s even more impressive) for only the second time in my riding career.

That being said, we’re seriously talking about doing things differently next year; I don’t think any of us want to give this up, but I think we are going to evaluate ways to make it a bit easier from both a logistical and a mental health perspective.

As I write this Todd has a robot called da Vinci somewhere in the area of his mitral valve….if all goes as planned, his mitral valve should be all fixed up mkaing him as good as new (well, as good as Durfee can be - I’ll leave the actual judgement on that score to Heather) within the next few hours.

This heart stuff is beginning to get old. First, we have Dave dropping at work with a cardiac arrest, and now we have Durfee - probably one of the most active and healthy people I know - having to go in and get a mitral valve repaired.

Sure, I had a cardiac workup a few years ago - but fellas, that’s only because I was getting weird muscle pains from riding the bike in a weird posture! OK, there was probably a whole stress component from my last job as well (Beth would probably argue that this was the bulk of the issue), but for the most part it was all my horrible posture on the bike.

The scary bit is that we are all having these issues in our mid-thirties. Makes you wonder if there was something in the water out at old Walsh Jesuit High School, no? Makes my cringe in horror when I think about what’s going to happen to us all 20 years from now.

Todd has approached this whole oredeal rather well. Personally, I would have been completely cranked around the bend knowing that I had to have someone operate on my heart. This is based on experience - I was a nervous wreck when I was having the aforementioned chest pains.

Not Durfee, though. He’s been completely low key and matter-of-fact about it. It’s the same sort of approach Sean used to take, namely, “worry about the shit you can do something about”. It’s been a bit of an inspiration to say the least. Of course, I won’t be telling him that….we’re guys, after all. We don’t do that sort of thing.

More to follow once I talk to Mr. Durfee post-op.

For some reason my friend James seems to attract people that have widely divergent views from his views. This isn’t necessairly a bad thing - I think that a diversity in opinion is a key to success from the micro to the macro level. A healthy discussion with a goal of finding common ground and resolving differences is great; ranting from a soapbox and running roughshod over somone is useless.

Somehow I always manage to have some involvment in these discussions. I’m not complaining - I try and treat these as an opportunity to learn more and find better ways of communicating. On the down side, I tend to get heavily wrapped up in these discussions. This stems from the fact that I am extremely goal-orientated; I want to put the final checkmark next to the box that tells me I’m done with the task at hand and move on. Of course, life doesn’t really work like that. Which I am reminded of again and again.

Recently, I’ve been enjoying an email exchange with what I would classify as an fairly right-wing conservative that used to be one of James’ neighbors. It’s been an interesting exchange, and I’ve learned a few things in the half-dozen or so emails that have been exchanged.

At some point in the future I want to clean up and post the meat of not only this discussion, but with some of the other discussions that have taken place over the last six months. As I mentioned, James has interesting friends; this includes an evolution denier and a man who has an amazingly narcissitic view of God, salvation, and the ultimate truth in the Universe. The later person is also a medical doctor who seems to harbor the belief that spinal and cranial manipulation can solve ills of the body. He also has discussed “spiritual” and holistic healing. Like I said, it’s interesting stuff. More on all that later.

Right now I wanted to provide a quick summary of the process I go through when evaluating claims and evidence. This is by no means complete - it’s a reformatted version of a quick note I sent out the other day in a discussion regarding the importance of evaluating sources.

I hardly ever watch mainstream news - at lunch the other day the #1 story over the TV in the bar was about Jenna Bush’s wedding. Bully for her, I really don’t give a shit though, especially when the Fed is once again adjusting the interest rate…..which only merits about a 12 second sound bite.

I try to check several sites, getting as close to the primary source as possible. Sites that have proved themselves as being reasonably unbiased and accurate don’t get a free pass, but they get a higher inital value than some guy writing a blog out in Hoboken (or here in Ohio for that matter).

I’m more interested in hard facts than I am in anecdotal evidence, because it’s easy to form an emotional connection to one side of what I’m looking into. I try to avoid sites with a hard bias - be that right or left - because in many cases these sites filter everything through an ideological filter that (either intentionally or not) causes them to omit or gloss over facts (best case) or actively distort facts (worst case).

I prefer news reports over opinion pieces - not to say that the former aren’t biased, but they usually are easier to digest and analyze. I also try and figure out what vested interest the author has in the outcome - for instance, I probably would regard a report on Cigarettes/Cancer from Phillip Morris or the Coalition for Smoking Cesation with a bit more skepticism than I would a peer reviewed report in JAMA.

The use of Logical Fallacies (either intentionally or unintentionally) should throw up a red flag. We all can fall into this trap when we start to get emotionally involved in an issue; however, there are many people who use these fallacies to gain headway in an argument. Knowing them, and more importantly being able to recognize them in action, is key. Fortunately, there are many resources available for the skeptically minded - from Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, to Dr. Steven Novella’s excellent paper on fallacies, and finally to the appropriately named www.logicalfallacies.info site.

Other reference sites are good for specialized research - Snopes.com is great for Urban Myths and Legends; many universities have extensive collections of documents online; and Google Books provides you the ability to search an extensive library of books online. I tend to use Wikipedia in a more skeptical mode than most. That is, I will always try and get a second source on any fact that is crucial to my argument or my understanding of an argument.

Finally, writing things down does an amazing job of clarifying things for me. Of course, this is easy to do in an email; much harder to do when you’re having a discussion in person or over the phone.

There you have it. Not very pretty, but it works for me.