November 05, 2009
City Mouse, Country Mouse
I am at a point on the timeline of my life in which I have experienced nearly equal parts of being a city dweller and a resident of less populated areas. I was born in Chicago to parents native of it, and by way of “white flight” and ostensibly better schools, raised just a few miles up the shore.
I know from history that in previous generations it was simpler to see the difference between many of Chicago's classic ethnic neighborhoods. Gentrification has made those boundaries much less obtrusive today. Still, in most of the major metropolitan areas of America, short distances of a mile or two can represent worlds of difference. An observant visitor or any realtor worth their salt can still see this, albeit increasingly along socio-economic lines as the cultural ones are being homogenized.
While my upbringing was not technically urban, my specific neighborhood and its proximity to the city provided an experience much more so than the typical concept of suburban life (e.g. Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, etc.). Urban-like diversity was apparent in my high school's student body as well as in real estate, with homes separated by a short physical distance often having disparity of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in value.
We didn't have near as much in the way of direct supervision growing up, much less formal play dates or groups. The bicycle was the ultimate instrument of independence, shrinking my microcosm to any limit that could accommodate being back before the streetlights came on. After outgrowing that rule the bike continued to provide essential transportation since I was not one of the fortunate teens who was either provided or could afford an automobile. I miss those days and have concern that my son may not be afforded the local geography and relatively safe traffic needed for youthful neighborhood bike adventures.
I am often amused by the thought of how distances seemed so much greater in my days as a city mouse. When my eldest brother left the nest I was about eight or nine years old, and the anticipation of the 20-mile drive to go visit him in his new digs was quite titillating - one might have thought I was going on my first plane trip. To not spend the night at his place required a round trip that was practically a pioneer wagon voyage by my excitable pre-adolescent perceptions.
In contrast, the sparser population centers of my past two decades of residency have alternated between the in-town life of a couple of southern micropoli and more rural digs not far from such. By and large I have enjoyed the change, at least enough to give my old northern stomping grounds the status of “nice place to visit - wouldn't want to live there.” But now in the wide open spaces of Georgia I have friends that live 20 or more miles away. Of course the lightly traveled two-lane highways here probably require a third less travel time from the “surface street” routes of the cities and suburbs (a standing joke in Chicagoland is that it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere – in good traffic).
As to the aforementioned timeline, like anyone I hope that it includes many more decades of healthy and happy existence. And while the cultural draws of a city will always be worth the occasional long drive, I lean toward increasing my distance from the magnetic convenience of the modern business district. Years ago I moved from the Bay Area of California to the bucolic (if culturally stunted) environs of northwestern Georgia. After a few years of settling in I began a subscription to Organic Gardening magazine, which guided me in maintaining a small plot of veggies and flowers for two years running before letting expense and laziness become excuses not to.
I want to get back to things like that in the worst way. I confess to the possibility that this is just a pipe dream (my consolation being that currently I am minutes from a symphony and great Thai food). My desire to eschew city life is coupled with a perception that American society has changed too much from the quasi-urban neighborhood of my youth. Sidewalks are rare, old growth trees even more so, and these are superficial things to the real concern that modern parents have of leaving their child unwatched.
I suppose there is irony in having the most desirable areas of rural America gentrified into hobby farms and estates of various rustic-looking excess. I confess that I dream of having a few hundred topographically diverse acres on which to develop a mountain bike park. It would be naturally sustainable of course – no need to remove thousands of trees and install expensive turf that requires bajillions of gallons of water and tons of chemical fertilizers that inundate the aquifer. I guess I could settle for being a thousand feet from my nearest neighbors (none of whom require any sort of gas-powered lawn maintenance equipment), an effective composting system and enough summer sunlight for a salsa garden.
Labels: Chicago, irony, me, the past, The South, US Geography for $1200 Alex
September 05, 2009
Not a city in China*
Federal minimum wage for most workers went up to $7.25 per hour on July 24 (the last of a series of increases over the past three years). But workers who receive more than $30 per month in tips have a different minimum - just $2.13 per hour, a wage that hasn’t been increased in EIGHTEEN YEARS ! !Tipped workers did have their minimum wage linked to the standard minimum until Congress axed that requirement in 1996. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has now introduced H.R. 2570, the Working for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services (WAGES - gotta love those congressional acronyms) Act, which would set the minimum wage for tipped workers at 70% of the standard minimum wage (or $5.08 per hour). This would end the absurd situation tipped workers are in today where an increase in the minimum wage doesn’t result in an increase in their minimum wage. Many servers must also tip share with bartenders and table bussers, so when they don't get a good tip (or on occasion none at all) it ends up costing them money to work because they are required by the IRS to claim 11 percent of their sales as tipped income.
Friendly reminder: if you can't afford to tip your server at least 15-20 percent (for good service, of course), then you can't afford to eat out.
* Tipping
.
Labels: me, money, politix, work
June 04, 2009
Calling it
.
Sadness with a touch of sweetness. My dad was released from the prison of infirm old age last night. Too soon but still just too damn slow. His decline was more stark than my mom’s, whose prognosis can only be brought to the fuzzy outlook for all Alzheimer’s patients – “We just don’t know.”
At least we knew something of what was in store for mom, and the hope that dad could enjoy his twilight years despite her condition went gradually from bright to dim. He was so happy after they sold the house and moved to the assisted care apartment. It wasn’t his dream of independent living in Tennessee, but considering mom’s condition it was a pretty good deal. He could still drive, still go to a game or get her out to family gatherings on his own (the photo, from Christmas ’05, was the last time I saw them out together).
There are possibly several reasons for his decline. The obvious physical ones of type II diabetes, two falls that fractured a hip and then an arm, and a small stroke each took a toll for certain. But what of the emotional stress from seeing his life partner descend into a mental fog which necessitated them living separate lives while still married? She was the proverbial mother hen over their seven offspring, he the tried and true breadwinner who was comfortable not having much to say about the raising.
The staff at their facility said that a spot was available for mom in the Alzheimer’s care ward, which is for advanced cases. While she was not considered to be in the advanced stage, they recommended the move based mostly on what they said were rare openings. I’m not sure how the rest of my family feels about this, and I don’t recall the entire situation to a ‘T’, but in retrospect this strikes me as convenient for the staff and not very beneficial for my folks. There were other situations that held a similar stink (I’ll spare the details here), but this may have been the watershed event of my parents golden years, putting a tarnish to them from which my dad, as the only one who might have successfully pressed on, ultimately wasn’t able to.
In my highly subjective and inexpert opinion, my mom’s existence, basically unchanged in any positive way for more than a year now, seems cruel and pointless. My first visit after she moved to the ward left me nearly as shocked as I’ve ever been by anything. Seeing her condition and that of the other residents there was heartbreaking – small wonder that mom had declined so rapidly (again, inexpert opinion). So do I hope against hope that Alzheimer's sufferers, if not physically in pain, are given a weirdly blissful way to go with their inability to acknowledge what is going on? It's got to beat terminal cancer or ALS, where the sound mind wrestles the emotions that must come with seeing and feeling the hourglass empty.
I might say I'm at the end of my rope with the societal mores of end-of-life care, but the metaphor seems grossly unfair to my parents and, more importantly, my two sisters aka The Troopers. Not that they disagree, and not that they wouldn't have risen to the challenge as admirably and with as much fortitude as they have. I know that the “caregiver by geographic default” factor has exasperated them at times. I say this because I know it has left this apple feeling a bit helpless in his settling spot so far from the tree.
Such irony there is in a convicted murderer being executed and at last getting released from prison. Out of love we afford the mercy killing of our pets when they have reached the point where misery trumps living another day. But with our own species, society doesn’t take kindly to enacting the suffix “–icide” in any way shape or form when it comes to mercy. Send young people off to pointless death in combat (wrap it up in the flag and call it the cost of freedom), but By God Don’t Allow A Fellow Human To Pass From This Plane With Any Push Outside His Divine Hand.
I stand disgusted, dispirited and disappointed, and if I stand in small company, looked upon askance by “civilized” and “spiritual” beings, then so be it. I’m here to call BULLSHIT on the whole affair of “natural death” and say let this essay serve at least as a temporary living will that if I ever get to such a condition of inviability, my closest kin are hereby directed to procure the most efficient legal means (or not legal if they must and can without retribution) to expedite my demise.
Sadness with a touch of sweetness, and a good measure of bitter it turns out.
Sadness with a touch of sweetness. My dad was released from the prison of infirm old age last night. Too soon but still just too damn slow. His decline was more stark than my mom’s, whose prognosis can only be brought to the fuzzy outlook for all Alzheimer’s patients – “We just don’t know.”
At least we knew something of what was in store for mom, and the hope that dad could enjoy his twilight years despite her condition went gradually from bright to dim. He was so happy after they sold the house and moved to the assisted care apartment. It wasn’t his dream of independent living in Tennessee, but considering mom’s condition it was a pretty good deal. He could still drive, still go to a game or get her out to family gatherings on his own (the photo, from Christmas ’05, was the last time I saw them out together).
There are possibly several reasons for his decline. The obvious physical ones of type II diabetes, two falls that fractured a hip and then an arm, and a small stroke each took a toll for certain. But what of the emotional stress from seeing his life partner descend into a mental fog which necessitated them living separate lives while still married? She was the proverbial mother hen over their seven offspring, he the tried and true breadwinner who was comfortable not having much to say about the raising.
The staff at their facility said that a spot was available for mom in the Alzheimer’s care ward, which is for advanced cases. While she was not considered to be in the advanced stage, they recommended the move based mostly on what they said were rare openings. I’m not sure how the rest of my family feels about this, and I don’t recall the entire situation to a ‘T’, but in retrospect this strikes me as convenient for the staff and not very beneficial for my folks. There were other situations that held a similar stink (I’ll spare the details here), but this may have been the watershed event of my parents golden years, putting a tarnish to them from which my dad, as the only one who might have successfully pressed on, ultimately wasn’t able to.
In my highly subjective and inexpert opinion, my mom’s existence, basically unchanged in any positive way for more than a year now, seems cruel and pointless. My first visit after she moved to the ward left me nearly as shocked as I’ve ever been by anything. Seeing her condition and that of the other residents there was heartbreaking – small wonder that mom had declined so rapidly (again, inexpert opinion). So do I hope against hope that Alzheimer's sufferers, if not physically in pain, are given a weirdly blissful way to go with their inability to acknowledge what is going on? It's got to beat terminal cancer or ALS, where the sound mind wrestles the emotions that must come with seeing and feeling the hourglass empty.
I might say I'm at the end of my rope with the societal mores of end-of-life care, but the metaphor seems grossly unfair to my parents and, more importantly, my two sisters aka The Troopers. Not that they disagree, and not that they wouldn't have risen to the challenge as admirably and with as much fortitude as they have. I know that the “caregiver by geographic default” factor has exasperated them at times. I say this because I know it has left this apple feeling a bit helpless in his settling spot so far from the tree.
Such irony there is in a convicted murderer being executed and at last getting released from prison. Out of love we afford the mercy killing of our pets when they have reached the point where misery trumps living another day. But with our own species, society doesn’t take kindly to enacting the suffix “–icide” in any way shape or form when it comes to mercy. Send young people off to pointless death in combat (wrap it up in the flag and call it the cost of freedom), but By God Don’t Allow A Fellow Human To Pass From This Plane With Any Push Outside His Divine Hand.
I stand disgusted, dispirited and disappointed, and if I stand in small company, looked upon askance by “civilized” and “spiritual” beings, then so be it. I’m here to call BULLSHIT on the whole affair of “natural death” and say let this essay serve at least as a temporary living will that if I ever get to such a condition of inviability, my closest kin are hereby directed to procure the most efficient legal means (or not legal if they must and can without retribution) to expedite my demise.
Sadness with a touch of sweetness, and a good measure of bitter it turns out.
Labels: death, family, me, rants
March 14, 2009
Deep down inside
.
Through the years I’ve held enough sweaty jobs and taken up enough interests to be considered a man’s man. From being paid for delivering mail and welding steel to acquiring basic knowledge of auto and home maintenance and taking four-night backpacking treks, you could say I’m comfortable in my masculinity. But I’m not averse to busting through the male “I am a rock” stereotype - there are at least a few things that can get me feeling a little fahrklempt.
The sure bets are probably quite common to most people, yea even the most grizzled boilermaker. Things for which I can regularly lose it include kids with cancer or a flag-draped casket, especially at the point when the honor guard hands the impeccably folded flag to the widow or mother. Lower on the emotional intensity list might be an animal in pain (dogs are a personal hook) or perhaps a homeless person walking into a howling January wind. The feeling of senselessness slams against the impulse to avoid tears, and whether I’ll end up drying an eye or not is a toss-up.
Being subject to these feelings that make for a welling up or a full sob does not usually trouble me, though I admit to suppressing it in public like most men do. This may not be so much to save face as it is to prevent embarrassing others. The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti aptly described this in one of his poems, where bystanders viewed the victim of an auto accident with “throats as tight as tourniquets.”
These things put our emotional strength to the test, often transcending us from sorrow into anger when considerations about the possible circumstances are put in the mix. For those of spiritual inclination the question “why?” can crop up, with reactions and rationalizations as varied as the people who ask. A serious pursuit of any of those whys goes beyond the scope I’ve intended here.
So now consider the purpose of sorrow as a cleansing agent. I have to admit that a good cry really feels “good” in the sense that letting it all out is often a very necessary release to maintain sanity. I think of it along the lines of “I can see clearly now the rain is gone.”
Crying can also provide a preparation of sorts. In the loss of my sister to cancer the tears came but twice – at news of her diagnosis and again at her death. The six weeks from one to the other, while obviously not “enough,” still afforded a mental preparation that expedited me through the familiar seven stages of grief, ending with acceptance.
And while some may find it odd or inappropriate, the grief was even more intense at the passing of my dog of 17 years. I’m certain this was because I saw him frequently every single day leading up to the (long procrastinated) appointed time. Each of those days I would take time to lie next to him, and invariably I would sob.
With the likelihood that there are not many years left until my aging parents pass on, I wonder what the experience will bring. At this point I suppose if my folks pass peacefully I might feel emotionally unencumbered by sorrow, knowing they lived a full life. But there’s no guarantee of the absence of waterworks. And even in the simplicity of one’s final day, evoked by the words of one of my favorite blues songs, I can find reason to both smile and sob:
Through the years I’ve held enough sweaty jobs and taken up enough interests to be considered a man’s man. From being paid for delivering mail and welding steel to acquiring basic knowledge of auto and home maintenance and taking four-night backpacking treks, you could say I’m comfortable in my masculinity. But I’m not averse to busting through the male “I am a rock” stereotype - there are at least a few things that can get me feeling a little fahrklempt.
The sure bets are probably quite common to most people, yea even the most grizzled boilermaker. Things for which I can regularly lose it include kids with cancer or a flag-draped casket, especially at the point when the honor guard hands the impeccably folded flag to the widow or mother. Lower on the emotional intensity list might be an animal in pain (dogs are a personal hook) or perhaps a homeless person walking into a howling January wind. The feeling of senselessness slams against the impulse to avoid tears, and whether I’ll end up drying an eye or not is a toss-up.
Being subject to these feelings that make for a welling up or a full sob does not usually trouble me, though I admit to suppressing it in public like most men do. This may not be so much to save face as it is to prevent embarrassing others. The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti aptly described this in one of his poems, where bystanders viewed the victim of an auto accident with “throats as tight as tourniquets.”
These things put our emotional strength to the test, often transcending us from sorrow into anger when considerations about the possible circumstances are put in the mix. For those of spiritual inclination the question “why?” can crop up, with reactions and rationalizations as varied as the people who ask. A serious pursuit of any of those whys goes beyond the scope I’ve intended here.
So now consider the purpose of sorrow as a cleansing agent. I have to admit that a good cry really feels “good” in the sense that letting it all out is often a very necessary release to maintain sanity. I think of it along the lines of “I can see clearly now the rain is gone.”
Crying can also provide a preparation of sorts. In the loss of my sister to cancer the tears came but twice – at news of her diagnosis and again at her death. The six weeks from one to the other, while obviously not “enough,” still afforded a mental preparation that expedited me through the familiar seven stages of grief, ending with acceptance.
And while some may find it odd or inappropriate, the grief was even more intense at the passing of my dog of 17 years. I’m certain this was because I saw him frequently every single day leading up to the (long procrastinated) appointed time. Each of those days I would take time to lie next to him, and invariably I would sob.
With the likelihood that there are not many years left until my aging parents pass on, I wonder what the experience will bring. At this point I suppose if my folks pass peacefully I might feel emotionally unencumbered by sorrow, knowing they lived a full life. But there’s no guarantee of the absence of waterworks. And even in the simplicity of one’s final day, evoked by the words of one of my favorite blues songs, I can find reason to both smile and sob:
See here how everything lead up to this day
And it’s just like any other day that’s ever been
Sun going up and then
The sun it going down
Shine through my window
And my friends they come around
And it’s just like any other day that’s ever been
Sun going up and then
The sun it going down
Shine through my window
And my friends they come around
February 25, 2009
The Monthly Max - Second Anniversary edition
.
Any parent knows that you truly don't realize the full impact of the idiomatic phrase "time flies" until you have your kid(s). But alongside the exasperation that accompanies the flying calendar sheets comes the sheer joy, wonder and humor of taking this new journey with your little being.
Simply stated - I love being your dad, Max.
Any parent knows that you truly don't realize the full impact of the idiomatic phrase "time flies" until you have your kid(s). But alongside the exasperation that accompanies the flying calendar sheets comes the sheer joy, wonder and humor of taking this new journey with your little being.
Simply stated - I love being your dad, Max.
Labels: Cubs, Max, me, photography, video
October 06, 2008
i can has man skilz
.
According to the editors at Popular Mechanics, you just ain't a completely competent man until you can perform the following 80 "essential skills," plus own the 20 tools listed. A hat tip to Grapes for the link and the following format - bold items add to my manliness, whilst asterisk-ed* items are WTF? for either I don't know what the hell this is or I can't possibly see this as essential (some qualify for all three designations). Additional snarkiness appears in fuschia.
43. Treat frostbite
44. Treat a burn
45. Help a seizure victim
46. Treat a snakebite
47. Remove a tick
60. Floods
61. Tornados
62. Cold
63. Heat
64. Lightning
I am surprised by the number of things that the editors considered essential to manhood. To choose the most ridiculous one would be hard, but I'd say that car waxing, meter reading, bush pruning, flag folding, mountain biking, football spiraling, whittling and all the ones listed under "technology" suffice for the definition.
In the comments section of the article were a few good suggested replacements such as knowing how to swim and how to use map and compass, though that is fast becoming obsolete in the satellite age.
According to the editors at Popular Mechanics, you just ain't a completely competent man until you can perform the following 80 "essential skills," plus own the 20 tools listed. A hat tip to Grapes for the link and the following format - bold items add to my manliness, whilst asterisk-ed* items are WTF? for either I don't know what the hell this is or I can't possibly see this as essential (some qualify for all three designations). Additional snarkiness appears in fuschia.
Automotive
1. Handle a blowout
2. Drive in snow
3. Check trouble codes
4. Replace fan belt
5. Wax a car * ???
6. Conquer an off-road obstacle * would temporarily disabling it count?
7. Use a stick welder *
8. Hitch up a trailer
9. Jump start a car
Handling Emergencies
10. Perform the Heimlich
11. Reverse hypothermia
12. Perform hands-only CPR I'm pretty good with my feet also
13. Escape a sinking car
Home
14. Carve a turkey * I suck at this
15. Use a sewing machine * I did take sewing in Jr. High
16. Put out a fire
17. Home brew beer * I'd love to learn, but essential?
18. Remove bloodstains from fabric * Bleach, right? Besides, blood is manly!
19. Move heavy stuff
20. Grow food
21. Read an electric meter *
22. Shovel the right way * ??? Shovel what?
23. Solder wire
24. Tape drywall *
25. Split firewood
26. Replace a faucet washer
27. Mix concrete * Aren’t instructions on the bag?
28. Paint a straight line *
29. Use a French knife * Qu'est-ce que c'est?
30. Prune bushes and small trees * Get real!
31. Iron a shirt
32. Fix a toilet tank flapper
33. Change a single-pole switch
34. Fell a tree
35. Replace a broken windowpane
36. Set up a ladder, safely But it's much more manly to do it dangerously
37. Fix a faucet cartridge * I don't know what this is
38. Sweat copper tubing No sweat
39. Change a diaper Yeah, baby!
40. Grill with charcoal It's not grilling if you don't!
41. Sew a button on a shirt In a half-assed sort of way, yeah
42. Fold a flag*
43. Treat frostbite
44. Treat a burn
45. Help a seizure victim
46. Treat a snakebite
47. Remove a tick
Military Know-How
48. Shine shoes
49. Make a drum-tight bed * Not me, no siree
50. Drop and give the perfect pushup * Just one? Sure!
Outdoors
51. Run rapids in a canoe*
52. Hang food in the wild
53. Skipper a boat Though I'd much rather Gilligan
54. Shoot straight* I'm pretty honest most of the time, though
55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike * Fun, but essential?
56. Escape a rip current Got me here
Primitive Skills
57. Build a fire in the wilderness
58. Build a shelter
59. Find potable water
Surviving Extremes
I'm going to claim these on the grounds that success is a combination of preparedness and common sense60. Floods
61. Tornados
62. Cold
63. Heat
64. Lightning
Teach Your Kids
65. Cast a line
66. Lend a hand * ?
67. Change a tire
68. Throw a spiral * I mean really...
69. Fly a stunt kite * See above
70. Drive a stick shift
71. Parallel park
72. Tie a bowline
73. Tie a necktie
74. Whittle * Again, really?
75. Ride a bike
Technology
76. Install a graphics card *
77. Take the perfect portrait *
78. Calibrate HDTV settings *
79. Shoot a home movie *
80. Ditch your hard drive * ???
Master Key Workshop Tools
81. Drill driver
82. Grease gun
83. Coolant hydrometer
84. Socket wrench
85. Test light
86. Brick trowel*
87. Framing hammer
88. Wood chisel
89. Spade bit* Is this a shovel (and is there a right way to use it)?
90. Circular saw
91. Sledge hammer
92. Hacksaw
93. Torque wrench * Aw, just fudge it (snap)!
94. Air wrench Which would also require a compressor
95. Infrared thermometer *
96. Sand blaster *
97. Crosscut saw *
98. Hand plane * File the last four under "gimme a break"
99. Multimeter
100. Feeler gauges *
I am surprised by the number of things that the editors considered essential to manhood. To choose the most ridiculous one would be hard, but I'd say that car waxing, meter reading, bush pruning, flag folding, mountain biking, football spiraling, whittling and all the ones listed under "technology" suffice for the definition.
In the comments section of the article were a few good suggested replacements such as knowing how to swim and how to use map and compass, though that is fast becoming obsolete in the satellite age.
Labels: life, me, vital statistics
September 11, 2008
Shanana-na, shanana-na-na (BAH-OOH)
.
Financial times being what they are, I started a new career this week. Albeit part-time, the job seems to fill the last piece of career pie with respect to the types of employers I’ve had.
Let’s see if I can remember every ingredient chronologically. If you count lemonade stand, then that’s the first incarnation of Me, Myself & I, Inc., where a number of different hats have been worn over the years. But my first gainful employment was as a paperboy, starting as a rookie afternoon carrier packing about 30-40 copies of the now defunct Chicago Daily News into a canvas bag attached to the front of my Schwinn Sting-Ray. Over time I matured into a salty morning route veteran who whisked out a couple hundred Tribunes and Sun-Timeses (and a few WSJs on the tonier side of my route) via large wagon-wheeled carts, “chauffeured” van or car and even dogsled. Yes, dogsled – definitely a highlight of my as yet unpublished, much less written, memoirs.
Next I was a peon at a country club, specifically a caddy. This was a pretty dang good paying job for a high school kid, and can best be described by saying you should watch the movie Caddyshack (perhaps again), which was released at the height of my looping career with much fanfare amongst my colleagues. Brian Doyle Murray wrote the script based on his experiences caddying at a club just up the road from where I worked, and Bill Murray played at our club on a few occasions. The film is of course exaggerated for comedic effect but the basic elements are spot on. The job was great fun, and had a social subculture all its own with just the right amount of teenage shenanigans and debauchery to provide some hard-learned lessons and lasting memories.
For two summers in college I worked for the United States Postal Service as a “casual” mail carrier. Casuals would start about 10 a.m., taking over for the regular full-timers (which included my dad) who came in at six and cased up the mail going out on their route for the day. A lot of them liked burning up their vacation time with half days like that. I loved it because you worked on your own, got to be outside at different locations almost every day and meet different people, most of whom enjoyed seeing the mail arrive. I suppose if I had to do it year-round, like my dad who endured 37 northern Illinois winters of it, I would not have been as enthusiastic.
Another interesting summer job I held was as the overnight dinghy boy/watchman at a harbor on Lake Michigan. Most of the time I could sleep but occasionally had to ferry drunken fornicators back from their yachts at some ungodly hour. Couldn’t just wait till morning, eh? Well no, she has to get back before her husband wakes up. Your secret’s safe with me, pal, and even safer with that fin tip, wink wink. Each morning I had to haul a pack of burly dudes who worked from a barge at the mouth of the harbor. At sunrise they’d pile into the little 12-foot dinghy, causing displacement to the gunwales so that I sweated every turn of the outboard rudder. As a solo occupant I would have a blast cruising around the harbor doing donuts and chasing ducks (yes, I am ashamed of that) and a few times I motored out to open lake in the still of the night to have a smoke and watch the city lights in the southern distance.
My next job came after moving to California, where my brother had been living for a few years. We became roommates - I provided a reason for him to move out from a relationship that had run its course and he provided me with a job at the roofing company he worked for. This was real labor, especially working as a tear-off peon on the hot tar crew. Although I toughed it out for about a year and a half, I had no stomach for showing the initiative to move up into comfier and higher-paying ranks like where my bro was as a skilled roofer installing cedar shakes (the official roof of California). Class establishment that it was, the company ended up laying me off just before Christmas bonuses were to go out.
After some time suckling on the state teet I procured a job at a startup courier delivery company that covered the entire Bay Area. They normally didn’t hire anyone who hadn’t lived in the area for at least five years, but I am a map freak and so was able to prove my navigational prowess to get hired on. I started out as a shuttle driver, which doesn’t deliver on a route but runs between drop boxes all up the Peninsula from Santa Clara to the city (despite San Jose having long since passed San Francisco in population, the latter will always be “the city” of the Bay Area). This job was so simple and required no personal contact other than the radio dispatcher, so I frequently got stoned to the bejeezus (one of the dispatchers was my dealer), captaining my own little starship Enterprise up and down the 101. I gave up that on-the-job habit when I became a route driver, though. There was a bit more paper work and customer service involved - didn’t figure being spacey, scary red-eyed dude was so cool going in and out of all those Silicon Valley offices.
The courier job ended with my exodus from the Golden State. A brief sojourn in New Mexico had me working as a carpenter’s helper before moving on to Georgia, a place I vaguely recalled from traveling through to Florida on a couple of family trips as being hot, green and hilly. Georgia was a place that my formerly long-haired self had never considered to be a viable place to reside, but here I have now been for nearly half of my life.
My first job here was also my first foray into the retail world - a brief stint as a K-Mart cashier. It was also my first major foray into the world of southern accents, to which my attunement was directly proportional to the amount of teeth in the mouth speaking to me. At this time in my life I had, to make a long story short, renounced Christmas (still not gaga over it), and so I had the opportunity to work at the closed store on Christmas Day with a couple of other fellows straightening up and getting rid of all the X-mas displays and décor. The manager let us in and said he’d be back in a few hours, and while we performed our assigned duties we also enjoyed a boom box loudness contest and some BMX racing. Who knew rubber skid marks were such a bitch to get off linoleum?
As even Rain Man knows, K-Mart sucks, so when I heard that the Red Lobster in town was hiring wait staff trainees I made that my next pursuit of a living wage. Here another Hollywood product, Waiting, serves as a fairly accurate, if only humorously mediocre, portrayal of the waiting scene, right down to the busboys sucking all the nitrous oxide out of the whipped cream canisters. The money was decent, but in that podunk micropolis there were too many cases of the “redneck tip,” whereby leaving a dollar per person at the table was deemed generous, never mind that you politely ran all-you-can-eat shrimp and light beer to these cretins for an hour and the checks for the two couples well exceeded $100. The camaraderie at RL was great – we cut up like crazy and made up silly, Weird Al-type songs about the restaurant business. My faves: one to the tune of Sade’s Smooth Operator titled “Ooh I’m Your Waiter,” and “Fry Guy,” fashioned after Mary Wells’ 1964 Motown hit. Once a month we were required to come in at 9 a.m. on Saturday for a wait staff meeting, only getting paid our paltry sub-minimum wage for the time. We often showed up in bathrobes and pajamas in protest, and then would commandeer the kitchen after the meeting for gourmet breakfast preparation by one of our colleagues who was a Le Cordon Bleu dropout. I worked this job for a few years before deciding to head into my next incarnation of self-employment.
My house painting concern was mostly just two guys and some ladders, brushes, drop cloths and other “accoutrements decoratif” packed into a 1978 Dodge pickup, a vehicle so wide that cell phone service varied between the driver’s and passenger’s sides. Things started out pretty well for two reasons. First, my partner and I had a good connection with a local contractor who fed us a lot of jobs. Second, we started up in spring just as the outdoor painting season gets into gear. Add to it our bachelor status and the modest income was plenty on which to enjoy life. So things hummed along for a while - we even survived the first winter slow season - but the following year our contractor wasn’t in need of near as much decorating work. We were also pretty clueless about self-employed income taxes and ended up going in the hole to the IRS for a few grand. The final straw was seeing that outside our original friendly contractor, two yankees weren’t particularly welcome in the old boy network of the construction trades. My partner bugged out first, and I followed a few months later to the same place he went.
That place was a very small art foundry, and the steady paycheck was welcome mainly for my new status as husband and provider while Jen was in school. The product was handcrafted bronze sculpture, mostly working editions of several hundred to a couple thousand but occasionally doing some custom work. It was neat stuff except that the metalworking aspect of it turned your hands green from the copper. I don’t imagine it was great for the lungs, either. It is still the only practical application of my “college education” as an art major. I started as an entry level metal finisher and worked my way up to management, which at a firm this small meant I had to do my job and keep an eye on everyone else. That job was primarily TIG welding, a very marketable skill, and after seven years of basically stagnant pay with bronze I left to take on work in steel fabrication for heavy equipment.
This medium-sized company was Japanese owned, which provided some interesting perspective into the differences between East and West in both industrial and corporate endeavors. Part of the production system required specific adherence to puzzling rules, such as only transporting certain parts on a cart of a certain color. This may have had more poignant management usefulness on the day shift, but I worked the much more lackadaisical night shift, where “dishonor” was much more frequent.
Jen graduated and began teaching at a school fifty miles away, so we decided to move to a rural area about 20 miles on the other side of her work, not far from her old stomping grounds near Chattanooga. In fact we rented a house from an old family friend, a place we loved and would have bought if he’d been inclined to sell. It is set in the middle of a few acres, and you couldn’t see a neighbor’s house when the leaves were full in summer. I looked for work other than welding because I was getting kind of burnt out with my fish-out-of-water status of being an erudite blue-collar worker.
Alas I was destined once again to eat my yogurt and read my Vanity Fair in the corner while all the cool kids smoked their menthols and talked about NASCAR. The new job, boiler tube fabrication, had me starting just above entry level until I earned my ASME certification, at which point my pay greatly increased. This kept me going for a few years, even in the face of some pretty shitty corporate actions, like having to work on New Year’s Day (but then not the following weekend, which would have been preferred), and the enforcement of petty rules that made the Japanese look mellow. I stayed in good graces with the owner, a fellow yankee, and actually took on my department’s foreman position. But once again the good old boys did me in by choosing to stand by and watch me fail rather than lend a hand of expertise to benefit me and the company. I gladly went back to minding my own business under a welding hood after fourteen months of being chief. Still, after five years my attitude had slipped enough to get me on the short list for the next round of layoffs, and when the time came for the ax to fall I put my head on the block without much regret.
After a period of unemployment I came across an ad in the local county rag that said they were looking for reporters, experience not necessary. I sent off a “what the hell” letter with some writing samples and forgot about it. About a month later the publisher calls me in for an interview, gives me a hokey AP writing and grammar test and shoots the shit about politics with me for about half an hour. After he hired me he showed me some of the other applications and we had a good laugh with a few. Seems several others also had a “what the hell” inclination but also the education to go with it. My pay would be about forty percent less than a certified welder, but my happiness would increase five fold.
It didn’t take any fancy book learnin’ to do the job, just some good social skills, an inquiring mind and a flair for writing stuff that could keep the average eighth-grader interested. I took on feature (aka fluff) stories, covered the business community (aka free advertising) and government (aka BS). In the 3-plus years I worked for this company that owned a dozen or so small papers, I interviewed people from a sixth grade history essay winner to the governor, earning three state press association awards along the way. It currently qualifies as the best job I’ve ever had (paid job, that is – nothing beats stay-at-home daddy).
So, at last we come to the new one, which, while I am quite appreciative for it in these times of increased unemployment, I don’t think it stands a chance of winning the title I just gave my last job. But now, after forays into small, medium and sort of large companies of every stripe, I enter the world of the humongous multinational corporation. Evenings and weekends I will be the cookie man, aka merchandising rep for Nabisco, owned by Kraft, which employs more than 98,000 people in 70 countries. I’ll count ‘em, order ‘em and stack ‘em at various grocers in the area, humming a tune that only a tiny cog in the corporate wheel can:
.
Financial times being what they are, I started a new career this week. Albeit part-time, the job seems to fill the last piece of career pie with respect to the types of employers I’ve had.
Let’s see if I can remember every ingredient chronologically. If you count lemonade stand, then that’s the first incarnation of Me, Myself & I, Inc., where a number of different hats have been worn over the years. But my first gainful employment was as a paperboy, starting as a rookie afternoon carrier packing about 30-40 copies of the now defunct Chicago Daily News into a canvas bag attached to the front of my Schwinn Sting-Ray. Over time I matured into a salty morning route veteran who whisked out a couple hundred Tribunes and Sun-Timeses (and a few WSJs on the tonier side of my route) via large wagon-wheeled carts, “chauffeured” van or car and even dogsled. Yes, dogsled – definitely a highlight of my as yet unpublished, much less written, memoirs.
Next I was a peon at a country club, specifically a caddy. This was a pretty dang good paying job for a high school kid, and can best be described by saying you should watch the movie Caddyshack (perhaps again), which was released at the height of my looping career with much fanfare amongst my colleagues. Brian Doyle Murray wrote the script based on his experiences caddying at a club just up the road from where I worked, and Bill Murray played at our club on a few occasions. The film is of course exaggerated for comedic effect but the basic elements are spot on. The job was great fun, and had a social subculture all its own with just the right amount of teenage shenanigans and debauchery to provide some hard-learned lessons and lasting memories.
For two summers in college I worked for the United States Postal Service as a “casual” mail carrier. Casuals would start about 10 a.m., taking over for the regular full-timers (which included my dad) who came in at six and cased up the mail going out on their route for the day. A lot of them liked burning up their vacation time with half days like that. I loved it because you worked on your own, got to be outside at different locations almost every day and meet different people, most of whom enjoyed seeing the mail arrive. I suppose if I had to do it year-round, like my dad who endured 37 northern Illinois winters of it, I would not have been as enthusiastic.
Another interesting summer job I held was as the overnight dinghy boy/watchman at a harbor on Lake Michigan. Most of the time I could sleep but occasionally had to ferry drunken fornicators back from their yachts at some ungodly hour. Couldn’t just wait till morning, eh? Well no, she has to get back before her husband wakes up. Your secret’s safe with me, pal, and even safer with that fin tip, wink wink. Each morning I had to haul a pack of burly dudes who worked from a barge at the mouth of the harbor. At sunrise they’d pile into the little 12-foot dinghy, causing displacement to the gunwales so that I sweated every turn of the outboard rudder. As a solo occupant I would have a blast cruising around the harbor doing donuts and chasing ducks (yes, I am ashamed of that) and a few times I motored out to open lake in the still of the night to have a smoke and watch the city lights in the southern distance.
My next job came after moving to California, where my brother had been living for a few years. We became roommates - I provided a reason for him to move out from a relationship that had run its course and he provided me with a job at the roofing company he worked for. This was real labor, especially working as a tear-off peon on the hot tar crew. Although I toughed it out for about a year and a half, I had no stomach for showing the initiative to move up into comfier and higher-paying ranks like where my bro was as a skilled roofer installing cedar shakes (the official roof of California). Class establishment that it was, the company ended up laying me off just before Christmas bonuses were to go out.
After some time suckling on the state teet I procured a job at a startup courier delivery company that covered the entire Bay Area. They normally didn’t hire anyone who hadn’t lived in the area for at least five years, but I am a map freak and so was able to prove my navigational prowess to get hired on. I started out as a shuttle driver, which doesn’t deliver on a route but runs between drop boxes all up the Peninsula from Santa Clara to the city (despite San Jose having long since passed San Francisco in population, the latter will always be “the city” of the Bay Area). This job was so simple and required no personal contact other than the radio dispatcher, so I frequently got stoned to the bejeezus (one of the dispatchers was my dealer), captaining my own little starship Enterprise up and down the 101. I gave up that on-the-job habit when I became a route driver, though. There was a bit more paper work and customer service involved - didn’t figure being spacey, scary red-eyed dude was so cool going in and out of all those Silicon Valley offices.
The courier job ended with my exodus from the Golden State. A brief sojourn in New Mexico had me working as a carpenter’s helper before moving on to Georgia, a place I vaguely recalled from traveling through to Florida on a couple of family trips as being hot, green and hilly. Georgia was a place that my formerly long-haired self had never considered to be a viable place to reside, but here I have now been for nearly half of my life.
My first job here was also my first foray into the retail world - a brief stint as a K-Mart cashier. It was also my first major foray into the world of southern accents, to which my attunement was directly proportional to the amount of teeth in the mouth speaking to me. At this time in my life I had, to make a long story short, renounced Christmas (still not gaga over it), and so I had the opportunity to work at the closed store on Christmas Day with a couple of other fellows straightening up and getting rid of all the X-mas displays and décor. The manager let us in and said he’d be back in a few hours, and while we performed our assigned duties we also enjoyed a boom box loudness contest and some BMX racing. Who knew rubber skid marks were such a bitch to get off linoleum?
As even Rain Man knows, K-Mart sucks, so when I heard that the Red Lobster in town was hiring wait staff trainees I made that my next pursuit of a living wage. Here another Hollywood product, Waiting, serves as a fairly accurate, if only humorously mediocre, portrayal of the waiting scene, right down to the busboys sucking all the nitrous oxide out of the whipped cream canisters. The money was decent, but in that podunk micropolis there were too many cases of the “redneck tip,” whereby leaving a dollar per person at the table was deemed generous, never mind that you politely ran all-you-can-eat shrimp and light beer to these cretins for an hour and the checks for the two couples well exceeded $100. The camaraderie at RL was great – we cut up like crazy and made up silly, Weird Al-type songs about the restaurant business. My faves: one to the tune of Sade’s Smooth Operator titled “Ooh I’m Your Waiter,” and “Fry Guy,” fashioned after Mary Wells’ 1964 Motown hit. Once a month we were required to come in at 9 a.m. on Saturday for a wait staff meeting, only getting paid our paltry sub-minimum wage for the time. We often showed up in bathrobes and pajamas in protest, and then would commandeer the kitchen after the meeting for gourmet breakfast preparation by one of our colleagues who was a Le Cordon Bleu dropout. I worked this job for a few years before deciding to head into my next incarnation of self-employment.
My house painting concern was mostly just two guys and some ladders, brushes, drop cloths and other “accoutrements decoratif” packed into a 1978 Dodge pickup, a vehicle so wide that cell phone service varied between the driver’s and passenger’s sides. Things started out pretty well for two reasons. First, my partner and I had a good connection with a local contractor who fed us a lot of jobs. Second, we started up in spring just as the outdoor painting season gets into gear. Add to it our bachelor status and the modest income was plenty on which to enjoy life. So things hummed along for a while - we even survived the first winter slow season - but the following year our contractor wasn’t in need of near as much decorating work. We were also pretty clueless about self-employed income taxes and ended up going in the hole to the IRS for a few grand. The final straw was seeing that outside our original friendly contractor, two yankees weren’t particularly welcome in the old boy network of the construction trades. My partner bugged out first, and I followed a few months later to the same place he went.
That place was a very small art foundry, and the steady paycheck was welcome mainly for my new status as husband and provider while Jen was in school. The product was handcrafted bronze sculpture, mostly working editions of several hundred to a couple thousand but occasionally doing some custom work. It was neat stuff except that the metalworking aspect of it turned your hands green from the copper. I don’t imagine it was great for the lungs, either. It is still the only practical application of my “college education” as an art major. I started as an entry level metal finisher and worked my way up to management, which at a firm this small meant I had to do my job and keep an eye on everyone else. That job was primarily TIG welding, a very marketable skill, and after seven years of basically stagnant pay with bronze I left to take on work in steel fabrication for heavy equipment.
This medium-sized company was Japanese owned, which provided some interesting perspective into the differences between East and West in both industrial and corporate endeavors. Part of the production system required specific adherence to puzzling rules, such as only transporting certain parts on a cart of a certain color. This may have had more poignant management usefulness on the day shift, but I worked the much more lackadaisical night shift, where “dishonor” was much more frequent.
Jen graduated and began teaching at a school fifty miles away, so we decided to move to a rural area about 20 miles on the other side of her work, not far from her old stomping grounds near Chattanooga. In fact we rented a house from an old family friend, a place we loved and would have bought if he’d been inclined to sell. It is set in the middle of a few acres, and you couldn’t see a neighbor’s house when the leaves were full in summer. I looked for work other than welding because I was getting kind of burnt out with my fish-out-of-water status of being an erudite blue-collar worker.
Alas I was destined once again to eat my yogurt and read my Vanity Fair in the corner while all the cool kids smoked their menthols and talked about NASCAR. The new job, boiler tube fabrication, had me starting just above entry level until I earned my ASME certification, at which point my pay greatly increased. This kept me going for a few years, even in the face of some pretty shitty corporate actions, like having to work on New Year’s Day (but then not the following weekend, which would have been preferred), and the enforcement of petty rules that made the Japanese look mellow. I stayed in good graces with the owner, a fellow yankee, and actually took on my department’s foreman position. But once again the good old boys did me in by choosing to stand by and watch me fail rather than lend a hand of expertise to benefit me and the company. I gladly went back to minding my own business under a welding hood after fourteen months of being chief. Still, after five years my attitude had slipped enough to get me on the short list for the next round of layoffs, and when the time came for the ax to fall I put my head on the block without much regret.
After a period of unemployment I came across an ad in the local county rag that said they were looking for reporters, experience not necessary. I sent off a “what the hell” letter with some writing samples and forgot about it. About a month later the publisher calls me in for an interview, gives me a hokey AP writing and grammar test and shoots the shit about politics with me for about half an hour. After he hired me he showed me some of the other applications and we had a good laugh with a few. Seems several others also had a “what the hell” inclination but also the education to go with it. My pay would be about forty percent less than a certified welder, but my happiness would increase five fold.
It didn’t take any fancy book learnin’ to do the job, just some good social skills, an inquiring mind and a flair for writing stuff that could keep the average eighth-grader interested. I took on feature (aka fluff) stories, covered the business community (aka free advertising) and government (aka BS). In the 3-plus years I worked for this company that owned a dozen or so small papers, I interviewed people from a sixth grade history essay winner to the governor, earning three state press association awards along the way. It currently qualifies as the best job I’ve ever had (paid job, that is – nothing beats stay-at-home daddy).
So, at last we come to the new one, which, while I am quite appreciative for it in these times of increased unemployment, I don’t think it stands a chance of winning the title I just gave my last job. But now, after forays into small, medium and sort of large companies of every stripe, I enter the world of the humongous multinational corporation. Evenings and weekends I will be the cookie man, aka merchandising rep for Nabisco, owned by Kraft, which employs more than 98,000 people in 70 countries. I’ll count ‘em, order ‘em and stack ‘em at various grocers in the area, humming a tune that only a tiny cog in the corporate wheel can:
.
Labels: jobs, life, me, the past, work
September 03, 2008
In my time of dying
.
My sister e-mailed me the other day to inform me that one of our uncles had died. He passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was my dad’s sister’s husband. They lived in a nearby suburb and I remember many holidays spent visiting them or vice-versa. Although we were not very close, I remember him well as a very kind man with a good humor about him. He was 84, just a couple of years older than my dad, and so his death is yet another signal that I should be prepared for my parents to go at anytime. That will be sad but I don’t expect it will be very hard, especially in the case of my Alzheimer’s-ravaged mom.
My sister e-mailed me the other day to inform me that one of our uncles had died. He passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was my dad’s sister’s husband. They lived in a nearby suburb and I remember many holidays spent visiting them or vice-versa. Although we were not very close, I remember him well as a very kind man with a good humor about him. He was 84, just a couple of years older than my dad, and so his death is yet another signal that I should be prepared for my parents to go at anytime. That will be sad but I don’t expect it will be very hard, especially in the case of my Alzheimer’s-ravaged mom.
Relationships with my extended family have been fairly tepid if not totally non-existent. Some aunts, uncles and cousins I have not seen since I was a child and would not recognize them on the street, while some others I may get to visit on trips back to the stomping grounds if time permits, though it usually does not.
.
Labels: death, family, life, me
August 25, 2008
My Back Pages
.
The erudite D-Cup (of Politits fame and surely someday fortune) has posted photos of the various pockets of literature stacked about her abode, and encouraged her blog pals to do likewise.
Here is O'Tim's Abridged Office Version (turned aside for quick reference):
The professional section, including the AP Stylebook, which I swear is compiled by a roundtable of crusty, cob-webbed codgers who get their jollies from implementing arbitrary rules of composition on tenderfooted reporters. I need an upgrade on the Writer's Handbook, and may splurge on the audiobook version of Strunk & White's Elements of Style, as read by John Houseman.
The politics and religion section, together but duly separated.
The National Geographic coffee table section (sans coffee table)
The leisure section, which includes a smidgen of published work by yours truly.
Lastly but not leastly the topo atlas, chord & tablature, kick-ass cartoon, manly catalog, humorous best-selling political satire, favorite authors, self-help and miscellaneous section (I never did finish that one below Marley & Me)
.
The erudite D-Cup (of Politits fame and surely someday fortune) has posted photos of the various pockets of literature stacked about her abode, and encouraged her blog pals to do likewise.
Here is O'Tim's Abridged Office Version (turned aside for quick reference):
The professional section, including the AP Stylebook, which I swear is compiled by a roundtable of crusty, cob-webbed codgers who get their jollies from implementing arbitrary rules of composition on tenderfooted reporters. I need an upgrade on the Writer's Handbook, and may splurge on the audiobook version of Strunk & White's Elements of Style, as read by John Houseman.
The politics and religion section, together but duly separated.
The National Geographic coffee table section (sans coffee table)
The leisure section, which includes a smidgen of published work by yours truly.
Lastly but not leastly the topo atlas, chord & tablature, kick-ass cartoon, manly catalog, humorous best-selling political satire, favorite authors, self-help and miscellaneous section (I never did finish that one below Marley & Me)
.
April 01, 2008
April Fool's: multiple choice
.
One of the following is no joke:
A. I have been selected for jury duty on a murder trial in which we must be sequestered, possibly for up to six weeks.
B. One week after being notified of my two awards in journalism, the company announced it is eliminating my part-time position.
C. On an educated hunch, our exterminator checked some of the joists beneath our house and found termite activity that will likely cost more than $12,000 to repair.
D. My college girlfriend did not have an abortion but instead gave up our love child for adoption. I found this out when my 22-year-old daughter called me yesterday.
E. After tests and x-rays my doctor informed me that a congenital defect will cause me to need both my hips replaced within a year. Estimated cost: $60,000.
You may ask why all the potential bummers. Well, I didn't think it would be fair to inject some possible sunshine and get your hopes up. Anyway, here is a clue: the truth is not as bad as it may seem.
.
One of the following is no joke:
A. I have been selected for jury duty on a murder trial in which we must be sequestered, possibly for up to six weeks.
B. One week after being notified of my two awards in journalism, the company announced it is eliminating my part-time position.
C. On an educated hunch, our exterminator checked some of the joists beneath our house and found termite activity that will likely cost more than $12,000 to repair.
D. My college girlfriend did not have an abortion but instead gave up our love child for adoption. I found this out when my 22-year-old daughter called me yesterday.
E. After tests and x-rays my doctor informed me that a congenital defect will cause me to need both my hips replaced within a year. Estimated cost: $60,000.
You may ask why all the potential bummers. Well, I didn't think it would be fair to inject some possible sunshine and get your hopes up. Anyway, here is a clue: the truth is not as bad as it may seem.
.
Labels: me
March 23, 2008
The blackjack meme
.
Inspired by Miz UV and Sour Grapes:
O' Tim answers twenty-one questions
Lake Tahoe ? And that I won money at blackjack? And that I got to see Carlos Santana?
Inspired by Miz UV and Sour Grapes:
O' Tim answers twenty-one questions
1. What was the last blog you left a comment on?
Miz UV’s
2. Favorite black and white movie?
Dr. Strangelove
3. What’s in your freezer right now?
Oh man: frozen veggies & fruit, veggie burgers, veggie chicken nuggets, waffles, lasagna, spinach & feta ravioli, two beer glasses, Stouffer’s alfredo stir-fry stuff, ice, and two really old popsicles
4. How many pillows do you have on your bed?
Five. The extras work great for blocking out the sun on those days I sleep until
5. Do you regularly share your bed with anyone?
Else? No.
6. Do you sleep in Pajamas, undies, nude, or other?
Undies – I toss a lot so tops are uncomfortable
7. If you won $50,000, what would you do with it?
Upgrade one of our vehicles, get new flooring, carpet, some (baby) furniture, new deck, hot tub and save the $15,000 that’s left. Or forego most of that and look for a new house because it is a buyer’s market right now.
8. Something nice you did for someone today?
I let my wife go back to bed this morning to sleep off a bad headache.
9. Something bad you did to someone today?
Said that MIL’s boyfriend’s Jell-O salad looked like it had worms in it because of the thin slices of orange peel (it was really tasty and I said so later).
10. Hardest class you took in school?
Junior year algebra
11. Ever been in a car accident?
Yes – I was in junior high and mom was taking us to school on a snowy morning. A woman with her kids ran a stop sign and smacked us really hard, and she died at the scene.
12. What is one food you won’t eat?
Liver or kidney (organs in general, I suppose)
13. Why?
Because they filter crap from the blood
14. Would you ever eat dog meat?
Not if I could help it
15. What is something as a child you wanted to grow up to become, but didn’t?
A baseball player
16. Name one place in the
17. Name one place outside the
Any place in the European
18. Favorite smells?
Eucalyptus, patchouli, skunk (just a whiff from a distance), grilled steak, fresh gasoline, orange, the upper palate of a good porter, the loamy earth of a hemlock forest, the air above a mountain stream, campfires and (inspired by Sour Grapes) a baby’s head.
19. If you could pick any game show to compete on, which would it be?
Jeopardy or One vs. 100 because it seems really easy.
20. Where did you go on your last real vacation and who did you go with?
21. Your best birthday was for which age?
I'm passing this meme along to the following four:
1. Whomever
2. Wherever
3. Whenever
4. Forever!
hee-hee
.
Labels: fun facts, life, me, memes
March 22, 2008
Mixed feelings
.
After being skunked in last year's competition, I was happy to hear of my being bestowed with two Georgia Press Association Awards this year. For our division (like 'Q' or something way down the alphabet for tiny twice-weeklies) I received third place for feature writing, which I consider my strong suit, and first place for investigative reporting, by which I was pleasantly surprised but also feel a bit awkward - more on that in a minute.
First, a small paper doesn't usually have the kind of budget to pay its reporters for long hours on a deep story, but I had the responsibility for covering one subject that was major news in our area for months (and still has a way to go toward resolution and possible closure, if at all). The story, and I hate using that term for someone's real life tragedy, is about a local 911 dispatcher who disappeared and how her cop husband (soon to be ex) became the prime suspect. He was indeed recently charged with her murder despite authorities not having found her body. Lots of intrigue, including another cop buddy charged with lying to authorities and hacking into the woman's computer, and the hubby losing his job after they found C-4 explosive in his work locker. I wrote several articles throughout the months following her disappearance on search efforts, family and friends holding community vigils, and a renowned forensic psychologist who analyzed a very unsettling television interview that the husband gave. The case drew national attention for a while and I appeared (or my voice did) on both CNN's Nancy Grace Show and Fox's On The Record with Greta Van Susteren. Heady times for an ex-welder who had tossed his hat into the journalism game a mere two years prior.
But the accolade comes bittersweetly, and even more so with the fact that I was informed of my achievement one year to the day that the missing and likely murdered woman was last seen by her family. It has been the most difficult assignment in my short career to talk, on several occasions, with members of that grieving family, and frankly it's been impossible to remain neutral in the face of such grief coupled with much strong circumstantial evidence against the husband. I do not aspire to be an investigative reporter - I only submitted the three articles required for the competition because they were eligible and I had worked hard on them. Congratulations seem a bit off-kilter in the light of what the woman's family is going through. It was especially poignant that my own sister passed away rather suddenly during the peak of all this, because I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go see her one last time. This family that I came to know, and the community she lived and worked in, didn't get that chance. And by all accounts their daughter, sister, aunt and friend was a wonderful, kind and caring person that certainly deserved better than being rubbed out and discarded in some unorthodox, anonymous grave. I will hang the plaque on my wall like it is designed to be - a recognition. But it will also act as another reminder of just how fleeting life can be in this all-too-often mean and cold world, one that I cannot say as a reporter that I am glad to be a part of.
.
After being skunked in last year's competition, I was happy to hear of my being bestowed with two Georgia Press Association Awards this year. For our division (like 'Q' or something way down the alphabet for tiny twice-weeklies) I received third place for feature writing, which I consider my strong suit, and first place for investigative reporting, by which I was pleasantly surprised but also feel a bit awkward - more on that in a minute.
First, a small paper doesn't usually have the kind of budget to pay its reporters for long hours on a deep story, but I had the responsibility for covering one subject that was major news in our area for months (and still has a way to go toward resolution and possible closure, if at all). The story, and I hate using that term for someone's real life tragedy, is about a local 911 dispatcher who disappeared and how her cop husband (soon to be ex) became the prime suspect. He was indeed recently charged with her murder despite authorities not having found her body. Lots of intrigue, including another cop buddy charged with lying to authorities and hacking into the woman's computer, and the hubby losing his job after they found C-4 explosive in his work locker. I wrote several articles throughout the months following her disappearance on search efforts, family and friends holding community vigils, and a renowned forensic psychologist who analyzed a very unsettling television interview that the husband gave. The case drew national attention for a while and I appeared (or my voice did) on both CNN's Nancy Grace Show and Fox's On The Record with Greta Van Susteren. Heady times for an ex-welder who had tossed his hat into the journalism game a mere two years prior.
But the accolade comes bittersweetly, and even more so with the fact that I was informed of my achievement one year to the day that the missing and likely murdered woman was last seen by her family. It has been the most difficult assignment in my short career to talk, on several occasions, with members of that grieving family, and frankly it's been impossible to remain neutral in the face of such grief coupled with much strong circumstantial evidence against the husband. I do not aspire to be an investigative reporter - I only submitted the three articles required for the competition because they were eligible and I had worked hard on them. Congratulations seem a bit off-kilter in the light of what the woman's family is going through. It was especially poignant that my own sister passed away rather suddenly during the peak of all this, because I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go see her one last time. This family that I came to know, and the community she lived and worked in, didn't get that chance. And by all accounts their daughter, sister, aunt and friend was a wonderful, kind and caring person that certainly deserved better than being rubbed out and discarded in some unorthodox, anonymous grave. I will hang the plaque on my wall like it is designed to be - a recognition. But it will also act as another reminder of just how fleeting life can be in this all-too-often mean and cold world, one that I cannot say as a reporter that I am glad to be a part of.
.
Labels: death, journalism, me, writing
November 29, 2007
The final cut - perhaps
.
Proof that I smile!
Jen says I would look better having short hair with the new beardification. If I go that route I'm thinking even shorter than in this pic from late April, about the last time I got a cut. But I dunno.
Thoughts?
.
Proof that I smile!
Jen says I would look better having short hair with the new beardification. If I go that route I'm thinking even shorter than in this pic from late April, about the last time I got a cut. But I dunno.
Thoughts?
.
November 25, 2007
Fun with facial hair
.
I have sported facial hair of one style or another for close to half my years. The predominant sculpting has been a Van Dyke. There is debate about the difference between a Van Dyke and a goatee, and aside from the standard definition, most of us FH afficiandos would concur that the former is a fuller variation of the diminutive latter, a sort of combo ‘stache-chin beard à la:
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, 17th century Flemish painter and source of the nomenclature,
Reverend Jim Ignatowski,
Satan.
There seems to be some debate about whether or not the mustache is connected to the beard in the Van Dyke, but to me that is just wasteful discourse in the light of more important matters at hand. On the other jaw a goatee, as noted, is just the whiskers on the chinny chin-chin, again displayed by real and fictional dudes alike, such as:
Norville “Shaggy” Rogers,
Maynard G. Krebs,
Dizzy Gillespie and of course,
Uncle Sam
Again, time-wasting hair-splitters would whine endlessly about the distinction between a goatee and a soul patch, a debate for which I have little tolerance. I mean really, who is going to save your soul patch when we all know goatees go to hell? And with puns like that I probably deserve to be down there holding the door for you when you arrive.
In the midst of the usual Googling that accompanies any good blog post one can be confident to yield a result that will freak one out. This time it’s HERE. It seems some people are into collecting beards, and I now realize that I’ve been a bit careless on those early morning bike rides through the woods during turkey season.
In “A Brief History of the Goatee” John Sulak dug up some interesting factoids:
In America the goatee disappeared for twentysome years from the late 1960s through the punk, disco and new wave ages. “Only a person who was completely cut off from popular culture would grow such a beard,” Mr. Sulak wrote in 1996, about the time that goatees were experiencing a resurgence.
And so we come around the circle back to me. I’ve worn a Van Dyke for at least 10 years now, and for the past several weeks I’ve been pausing before various mirrors and thinking that I’m not a Major League baseball player, I’m not into Civil War re-enactment and I just sold my pickup, so perhaps it’s time for a change.
When facial hair reconstruction is undertaken, no man can resist the frolic of the incremental removal. In my last adjustment from full beard to Van Dyke I sported some killer mutton chops for about three weeks. With a bit of pomade to slick back medium-long hair, I took great delight in my menacing look. This time around, thinking as a blogger I say, “Why should Jefe have all the fun?” So with that in mind I figure on starting a new trend (see Rich Cohen‘s interesting and hilarious experiment at VF.com), and thereby submit to you without further ado:
Der Fuhrer’s Imperial Keel Boat
I figure a few days will be good to drive the wife batshit. Just kidding - she got the best of me by not even noticing it at first, and now it’s already been reduced to a chin style that can best be described as “The C. Everett Koop.” Of course I’m weirding out a bit on the bare lip sensation, testing it out on spouse lips, baby cheeks and doggie ears. This style will likely be reduced to a “Soul Strip,” that is, a removal of the bow and stern of the aforementioned watercraft. You know I’ll keep you posted.
.
I have sported facial hair of one style or another for close to half my years. The predominant sculpting has been a Van Dyke. There is debate about the difference between a Van Dyke and a goatee, and aside from the standard definition, most of us FH afficiandos would concur that the former is a fuller variation of the diminutive latter, a sort of combo ‘stache-chin beard à la:
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, 17th century Flemish painter and source of the nomenclature,
Reverend Jim Ignatowski,
Satan.There seems to be some debate about whether or not the mustache is connected to the beard in the Van Dyke, but to me that is just wasteful discourse in the light of more important matters at hand. On the other jaw a goatee, as noted, is just the whiskers on the chinny chin-chin, again displayed by real and fictional dudes alike, such as:
Norville “Shaggy” Rogers,
Maynard G. Krebs,
Dizzy Gillespie and of course,
Uncle SamAgain, time-wasting hair-splitters would whine endlessly about the distinction between a goatee and a soul patch, a debate for which I have little tolerance. I mean really, who is going to save your soul patch when we all know goatees go to hell? And with puns like that I probably deserve to be down there holding the door for you when you arrive.
In the midst of the usual Googling that accompanies any good blog post one can be confident to yield a result that will freak one out. This time it’s HERE. It seems some people are into collecting beards, and I now realize that I’ve been a bit careless on those early morning bike rides through the woods during turkey season.
In “A Brief History of the Goatee” John Sulak dug up some interesting factoids:
• The first goatee may have been worn by Satan. The devil's image is based on Pan, the ancient Greek half-man, half-goat deity. When early Christians began abolishing pagan religions and their gods, they needed someone to play the heavy. They chose Pan, a lover of music, dancing and sex. His flute was replaced by a pitchfork and he was transformed from the god of woods and pastures to the ruler of hell.
• During the last days of the French Empire in the mid-19th century, the “imperial” was worn by Napoleon III. Wax or pomade was used to bring chin whiskers to a sharp point.
• In America, imperials became popular with officers on both sides of the Civil War. The look remained in vogue after the war, thanks in part to Buffalo Bill Cody, who toured the country with his Wild West Show.
• In late 19th-century Paris, poets, painters, intellectuals and dropouts — collectively known as bohemians — lived together in poverty and rebellion. For them, the goatee was a symbol of their free-spirited nature.
• By the 1940s, America had its own bohemians, but trendy haircuts weren't their thing. After World War II, the stereotypical “beatnik” look — goatee and black beret — was copied from jazz musicians of the time.
In America the goatee disappeared for twentysome years from the late 1960s through the punk, disco and new wave ages. “Only a person who was completely cut off from popular culture would grow such a beard,” Mr. Sulak wrote in 1996, about the time that goatees were experiencing a resurgence.
And so we come around the circle back to me. I’ve worn a Van Dyke for at least 10 years now, and for the past several weeks I’ve been pausing before various mirrors and thinking that I’m not a Major League baseball player, I’m not into Civil War re-enactment and I just sold my pickup, so perhaps it’s time for a change.
When facial hair reconstruction is undertaken, no man can resist the frolic of the incremental removal. In my last adjustment from full beard to Van Dyke I sported some killer mutton chops for about three weeks. With a bit of pomade to slick back medium-long hair, I took great delight in my menacing look. This time around, thinking as a blogger I say, “Why should Jefe have all the fun?” So with that in mind I figure on starting a new trend (see Rich Cohen‘s interesting and hilarious experiment at VF.com), and thereby submit to you without further ado:
Der Fuhrer’s Imperial Keel BoatI figure a few days will be good to drive the wife batshit. Just kidding - she got the best of me by not even noticing it at first, and now it’s already been reduced to a chin style that can best be described as “The C. Everett Koop.” Of course I’m weirding out a bit on the bare lip sensation, testing it out on spouse lips, baby cheeks and doggie ears. This style will likely be reduced to a “Soul Strip,” that is, a removal of the bow and stern of the aforementioned watercraft. You know I’ll keep you posted.
.
Labels: comedy, frolic, fun, me, Nothing about Yoko
November 15, 2007
So long, old friend
.
Since we acquired a more suitable car for baby transport and need neither three vehicles nor three insurance payments, I'm letting go of my beloved pickup after more than five years and 80,000 miles. It's been a great tool for the obvious things that a pickup is good for, and in some ways a source of bemusement for local 4WD fans who spied the Dirt Rag and purple dancing bear stickers affixed to it.
I've driven this truck to Chicago in January (a trip where the snowy weather was in Kentucky, go figure) and to the mountains of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee nearly as many weekends as not. It's been four-wheeling through snowy Michigan cornfields and tire-deep mud on Lookout Mountain.
I will miss it, but I will see it around as I sold it to a fellow just a few doors down the road. Part of the transaction includes his expert masonry skills to help me build a retaining wall behind a patio I installed this summer. I do love the barter, and I take comfort in knowing an honest working man will have a reliable new friend.
I hope to have another truck someday, but for now I'll have to suffer looking slightly more distinguished, and possibly Republican, in my four door Buick. I can usually assuage my middle-aged inferiority complex by cranking the subwoofer, opening the sunroof and hammering down on the supercharged engine that mocks most big boy trucks. I'm still up in the air as to whether putting a "Kucinich 2008" sticker on it will have the desired effect - one that does not involve vandalism.
Since we acquired a more suitable car for baby transport and need neither three vehicles nor three insurance payments, I'm letting go of my beloved pickup after more than five years and 80,000 miles. It's been a great tool for the obvious things that a pickup is good for, and in some ways a source of bemusement for local 4WD fans who spied the Dirt Rag and purple dancing bear stickers affixed to it.
I've driven this truck to Chicago in January (a trip where the snowy weather was in Kentucky, go figure) and to the mountains of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee nearly as many weekends as not. It's been four-wheeling through snowy Michigan cornfields and tire-deep mud on Lookout Mountain.
I will miss it, but I will see it around as I sold it to a fellow just a few doors down the road. Part of the transaction includes his expert masonry skills to help me build a retaining wall behind a patio I installed this summer. I do love the barter, and I take comfort in knowing an honest working man will have a reliable new friend.
I hope to have another truck someday, but for now I'll have to suffer looking slightly more distinguished, and possibly Republican, in my four door Buick. I can usually assuage my middle-aged inferiority complex by cranking the subwoofer, opening the sunroof and hammering down on the supercharged engine that mocks most big boy trucks. I'm still up in the air as to whether putting a "Kucinich 2008" sticker on it will have the desired effect - one that does not involve vandalism.
November 09, 2007
10 Random Things
.
Mathman has tag-ed me.
1.0 Random Things About Me:
0.1 - I am fascinated by the "celebrities die in threes" thing.
0.2 - I restrung my guitar but broke the #6 E, so I salvaged the very dull old one and it sounded funny with the crispy new ones. All is well now except for having a pack of five strings.
0.3 - I dreamed about strangling W last night.
0.4 - Max giggled a lot today and it made me very happy.
0.5 - I wonder about what to do with all my cassette tapes.
0.6 - I don't worry about financial security but sometimes I feel that I should.
0.7 - I can't remember the last time I rode my mountain bike, or where I rode. That bums me out.
0.8 - I saw an old friend today and we're going to go mountain biking on Sunday. That makes me happy.
0.9 - I hate that W is a mountain biker.
1.0 - I am addicted to cheese
Normally I'm not a tag-er but I'm in the mood to find out things about: Cheezy , JennyJinx , Joe the Troll and my Bunches
.
Mathman has tag-ed me.
1.0 Random Things About Me:
0.1 - I am fascinated by the "celebrities die in threes" thing.
0.2 - I restrung my guitar but broke the #6 E, so I salvaged the very dull old one and it sounded funny with the crispy new ones. All is well now except for having a pack of five strings.
0.3 - I dreamed about strangling W last night.
0.4 - Max giggled a lot today and it made me very happy.
0.5 - I wonder about what to do with all my cassette tapes.
0.6 - I don't worry about financial security but sometimes I feel that I should.
0.7 - I can't remember the last time I rode my mountain bike, or where I rode. That bums me out.
0.8 - I saw an old friend today and we're going to go mountain biking on Sunday. That makes me happy.
0.9 - I hate that W is a mountain biker.
1.0 - I am addicted to cheese
Normally I'm not a tag-er but I'm in the mood to find out things about: Cheezy , JennyJinx , Joe the Troll and my Bunches
.
Labels: facts, fun, fun facts, guitar, me, memes, random
September 27, 2007
What does this mean?
September 20, 2007
The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything
.
Today’s episode of MTIH is brought to you by the number 42, which among other important things happens to be the number of years I have completed upon this earth as of 4:05 a.m. Chicago time today. What will today hold in store? Probably not the same fate as my so-designated "Rolling Rock" birthday nine years ago, wherein I attempted to imbibe the contents of as many as possible of the fabled “33” green bottles from Old Latrobe. That was a night to forget, and thankfully beyond knowing that fact, it is.
No, today will be spent with the boy doing all the important things we do between infant and middle-aged father. I would have to say my life’s chief goal in general terms is to live long enough for Max to make it to this age, if for no other reason than to compare notes and likely have him show me the several roads not taken that might’ve made my life a bit more satisfying in my first 4.2 decades. It is my rock-solid belief that anyone who claims to have no regrets in life is telling a bald-faced lie. Perhaps I should rephrase that – anyone who says that if they could do it all over again they wouldn’t change a thing is seriously deluded (never mind the fact that the opportunity for one to do so does not exist).
At this point the two strangest things that stand out in unison of sorts are that I do not feel 42 emotionally and that at the age I do feel (for simplicity’s sake let’s just invert the number) I looked at 42-year-olds as being some seriously old fuckers for sure. Maturity for me has come slow, and as my beloved spouse can affirm is still very much a work in progress. Ironically that has a sort comforting youthful aspect to it, which is more often than not just an excuse to misbehave I suppose. My cosmic recipe at this point is an addiction to fun and excitement mixed with an aversion to the mundane “hafta-dos.” Sprinkle in a spicy case of procrastination and you have a life full of mediocre accomplishments, anger, frustration and a mess of really great memories, I’d guess much like any man who lives in quiet desperation.
But don’t get the impression that I am unhappy, in fact far from it. Yearning to be happier, certainly, but even in that I am daily learning more patience, moderation and wisdom, the lessons of which seem to come in a concentrated form from the midst of my son’s smiles and giggles.
Enough public display of introspection, onto the celebration! A few fun facts about
42 has some interesting parallels between Judaism, Christianity and Paganism:
Despite that last bit of superstition, my advice to myself today is
DON’T PANIC
Today’s episode of MTIH is brought to you by the number 42, which among other important things happens to be the number of years I have completed upon this earth as of 4:05 a.m. Chicago time today. What will today hold in store? Probably not the same fate as my so-designated "Rolling Rock" birthday nine years ago, wherein I attempted to imbibe the contents of as many as possible of the fabled “33” green bottles from Old Latrobe. That was a night to forget, and thankfully beyond knowing that fact, it is.
No, today will be spent with the boy doing all the important things we do between infant and middle-aged father. I would have to say my life’s chief goal in general terms is to live long enough for Max to make it to this age, if for no other reason than to compare notes and likely have him show me the several roads not taken that might’ve made my life a bit more satisfying in my first 4.2 decades. It is my rock-solid belief that anyone who claims to have no regrets in life is telling a bald-faced lie. Perhaps I should rephrase that – anyone who says that if they could do it all over again they wouldn’t change a thing is seriously deluded (never mind the fact that the opportunity for one to do so does not exist).
At this point the two strangest things that stand out in unison of sorts are that I do not feel 42 emotionally and that at the age I do feel (for simplicity’s sake let’s just invert the number) I looked at 42-year-olds as being some seriously old fuckers for sure. Maturity for me has come slow, and as my beloved spouse can affirm is still very much a work in progress. Ironically that has a sort comforting youthful aspect to it, which is more often than not just an excuse to misbehave I suppose. My cosmic recipe at this point is an addiction to fun and excitement mixed with an aversion to the mundane “hafta-dos.” Sprinkle in a spicy case of procrastination and you have a life full of mediocre accomplishments, anger, frustration and a mess of really great memories, I’d guess much like any man who lives in quiet desperation.
But don’t get the impression that I am unhappy, in fact far from it. Yearning to be happier, certainly, but even in that I am daily learning more patience, moderation and wisdom, the lessons of which seem to come in a concentrated form from the midst of my son’s smiles and giggles.
Enough public display of introspection, onto the celebration! A few fun facts about
It is the atomic number of molybdenum, which is an element of high end steel alloys used for things such as mountain bikes.
It is the number of teeth dogs have, so there are 84 of those in our house.
The eight digits of pi beginning from 242,422 places after the decimal point are 42424242.
The song So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, (from the original score of the film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) was one of 42 possible nominees in the 78th Annual Academy Awards for Best Song.
42 is one of “The Numbers” on the television show Lost, along with 4, 8, 15, 16 and 23
42 is the jersey number of Jackie Robinson, and when New York Yankee Mariano Rivera retires it will become the first and only number retired by all Major League Baseball teams.
42 is the number of laws of cricket.
In the ASCII character code 42 represents the asterisk* character.
*A handy indicator to have when discussing the Ultimate Answer.
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland has 42 illustrations. In Chapter XII, the king explains “the oldest rule in the book”: “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”
42 has some interesting parallels between Judaism, Christianity and Paganism:
It is the number of generations in the Gospel of Matthew’s version of the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth.
It is the number of months the Beast will hold dominion over the Earth according to Revelation 13:5.
It is the number of youths which are mauled by bears that God sends upon them for mocking Elisha’s baldness 2 Kings 2:23 (Their God is an awesome God!)
It is the number of principles of Ma'at, the ancient Egyptian personification of physical and moral law, order, and truth.
It is the number of the “Forty-Two Lettered Name” ascribed to God in the Babylonian Talmud. A 3rd century source in the Talmud stated “The Forty-Two Lettered Name is entrusted only to him who is pious, meek, middle-aged, free from bad temper, sober, and not insistent on his rights.” (Well, one out of six is...pretty shitty)
In Japanese, 4 (shi) and 2 (ni) are together pronounced like “going to death.” Because of that they considered it a disastrous number. This happens in Hong Kong too, as 42 sounds like “easy death” in Cantonese.
Despite that last bit of superstition, my advice to myself today is
DON’T PANIC
Labels: Damn I'm OLD, fun facts, life, me, religion, superstition, Time
August 17, 2007
Mr. Mom, vol. 1
.
Fear not dear readers, this will be an infrequent series.
As my first week of daddy day care comes to a close, I ruminate upon the experience with eyes and ears wide open. Wouldn’t you know it, Max just started cutting his first two little teeth, and to say it’s changing his sleeping/eating pattern, not to mention his disposition in general, would be an understatement. He’s still the lovable, adorable little sunshine boy, but man if the clouds don’t sometimes move in like thunderheads over a western mountain ridge. And from what I’ve heard and read, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Still, we have a huge time every day. We’re working on solid foods and practicing with the sippy cup, and I have just about mastered both. Meanwhile Max has got holding and putting the cup to his mouth down pretty well but has yet to learn the concept of tilting the head back to facilitate drinkage. He is very curious about what the gr’ups are eating and drinking.
I expect he will be crawling before long, and when that time comes it’s literally “Katy bar the door!” We have many of the child-proofing accoutrements like cabinet stoppers and outlet covers left over from the folks who previously owned the house. We definitely need one of the super boffo top-of-the-stairs gates as it would be a treacherous tumble from the hall to the front door. What else? I’m curious how his ambulation will affect the dogs, who have been pretty stand-offish toward the little guy. Of course the 16-year old male is nearly blind and deaf, so he may just think we’ve got another pal for him to lick and sniff. And depending on baby's bath schedule and/or diaper contents, what a gustatory and olfactory delight that could be! But I’m not so sure about the usually needy baby girl, whose horrible love mileage often causes her to be incapable of getting close enough to you. We surmise that she thinks she is a cat. She has sneaked a precious lick or two of the boy's toes and has even tolerated a few posed pettings, so maybe she’s mellowing in her older age, though it could be a ruse for special treats since she is on a diet (sneaky little bitch).
Have I bored you to beers yet? There is a reason for my droning post – I’ve got a deadline! More on that later...
Fear not dear readers, this will be an infrequent series.
As my first week of daddy day care comes to a close, I ruminate upon the experience with eyes and ears wide open. Wouldn’t you know it, Max just started cutting his first two little teeth, and to say it’s changing his sleeping/eating pattern, not to mention his disposition in general, would be an understatement. He’s still the lovable, adorable little sunshine boy, but man if the clouds don’t sometimes move in like thunderheads over a western mountain ridge. And from what I’ve heard and read, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Still, we have a huge time every day. We’re working on solid foods and practicing with the sippy cup, and I have just about mastered both. Meanwhile Max has got holding and putting the cup to his mouth down pretty well but has yet to learn the concept of tilting the head back to facilitate drinkage. He is very curious about what the gr’ups are eating and drinking.
I expect he will be crawling before long, and when that time comes it’s literally “Katy bar the door!” We have many of the child-proofing accoutrements like cabinet stoppers and outlet covers left over from the folks who previously owned the house. We definitely need one of the super boffo top-of-the-stairs gates as it would be a treacherous tumble from the hall to the front door. What else? I’m curious how his ambulation will affect the dogs, who have been pretty stand-offish toward the little guy. Of course the 16-year old male is nearly blind and deaf, so he may just think we’ve got another pal for him to lick and sniff. And depending on baby's bath schedule and/or diaper contents, what a gustatory and olfactory delight that could be! But I’m not so sure about the usually needy baby girl, whose horrible love mileage often causes her to be incapable of getting close enough to you. We surmise that she thinks she is a cat. She has sneaked a precious lick or two of the boy's toes and has even tolerated a few posed pettings, so maybe she’s mellowing in her older age, though it could be a ruse for special treats since she is on a diet (sneaky little bitch).
Have I bored you to beers yet? There is a reason for my droning post – I’ve got a deadline! More on that later...
Labels: doggies, Max, me, parenthood
June 11, 2007
Boy the way Glen Miller played...
.
No, not that far back. Miz D-Cup offered up a general music meme to her readers, and after mulling it over I've decided I'm game.
The thing:
1. Go to http://www.popculturemadness.com/Music/
2. Down the left column pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic/enraged over the songs of the year
4. Write something about how the songs affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends (And because I suck at picking five people, regular readers/commenters - You're IT! And you know who you are.)
I turned 18 in 1983. The prime of my dazed & confused years was laid out before me. Preparing for college 150 miles from home – damn right I’ll sign those loan papers, which was a decision that would haunt me well into the next decade. Like those who would proclaim freedom isn’t free, you have to ask the question, “Is what we’re doing worth the cost?” For the education I pursued and the good it did me, in my opinion the answer is the same.
But I digress, because I didn’t give a shit about things of that nature (things that weren't me) when I was 18. So the summer was complete and I was a couple weeks into my freshman year on my birthday. Musically I was seeking to stretch my legs and feel what others were into beyond the rather cramped diet of my high school chums. I didn’t have any close friends nor many acquaintances who shared my fancy for British art rock and the deeper cuts of the Beatles, Stones and Hendrix. The going thing then was either hair metal or unmitigated cheese.
So while I may not have sucked the marrow of life from college, my life at college provided me with awakenings that served up several of my passions still in force. My toddling about in the realm of jazz fusion hit its adolescence with the music major people I hung with. My reluctant foray into pop music came by way of something I had put off in high school – the need to get laid. Yes, a relative late bloomer was I, but oh how pretty and prolific were those petunias when the spring did um, arrive. So the parties, at least the ones with the horny women, required listening to stuff I had not explored, and ohmigod, DANCING.
As it turns out this freshmen discovered nothing new - that dancing in concert with sundry libations make a fine prelude for the romantic vibrations. One of the worst songs of all time, Phil Collins’ Against All Odds, happened to be pretty much the secret password for “Take me upstairs." Irony aside, I think it may have been because fucking is incomparably superior to listening to Phil Collins. And while I still cannot happily listen to much of what the hot sorority bitches loved like Wham! or Culture Club, there was some dance and particularly new wave stuff that has either stuck with me or been rekindled by nostalgia to become favorites for today. Songs like the Modern English now-mega-retro hit I Melt With You, or Love My Way by Psychedelic Furs now have a distinct appeal.
It seems as if there were other things to pursue besides females given to expedited sexual surrender, but as far as my experience with the pop music of the day was concerned, that was the sole reason for enduring most of it. Here’s a rundown of the pop hits of 1983 that caught my eye:
And what retrospective would be complete without Deaths and Events?
No, not that far back. Miz D-Cup offered up a general music meme to her readers, and after mulling it over I've decided I'm game.
The thing:
1. Go to http://www.popculturemadness.com/Music/
2. Down the left column pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic/enraged over the songs of the year
4. Write something about how the songs affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends (And because I suck at picking five people, regular readers/commenters - You're IT! And you know who you are.)
I turned 18 in 1983. The prime of my dazed & confused years was laid out before me. Preparing for college 150 miles from home – damn right I’ll sign those loan papers, which was a decision that would haunt me well into the next decade. Like those who would proclaim freedom isn’t free, you have to ask the question, “Is what we’re doing worth the cost?” For the education I pursued and the good it did me, in my opinion the answer is the same.
But I digress, because I didn’t give a shit about things of that nature (things that weren't me) when I was 18. So the summer was complete and I was a couple weeks into my freshman year on my birthday. Musically I was seeking to stretch my legs and feel what others were into beyond the rather cramped diet of my high school chums. I didn’t have any close friends nor many acquaintances who shared my fancy for British art rock and the deeper cuts of the Beatles, Stones and Hendrix. The going thing then was either hair metal or unmitigated cheese.
So while I may not have sucked the marrow of life from college, my life at college provided me with awakenings that served up several of my passions still in force. My toddling about in the realm of jazz fusion hit its adolescence with the music major people I hung with. My reluctant foray into pop music came by way of something I had put off in high school – the need to get laid. Yes, a relative late bloomer was I, but oh how pretty and prolific were those petunias when the spring did um, arrive. So the parties, at least the ones with the horny women, required listening to stuff I had not explored, and ohmigod, DANCING.
As it turns out this freshmen discovered nothing new - that dancing in concert with sundry libations make a fine prelude for the romantic vibrations. One of the worst songs of all time, Phil Collins’ Against All Odds, happened to be pretty much the secret password for “Take me upstairs." Irony aside, I think it may have been because fucking is incomparably superior to listening to Phil Collins. And while I still cannot happily listen to much of what the hot sorority bitches loved like Wham! or Culture Club, there was some dance and particularly new wave stuff that has either stuck with me or been rekindled by nostalgia to become favorites for today. Songs like the Modern English now-mega-retro hit I Melt With You, or Love My Way by Psychedelic Furs now have a distinct appeal.
It seems as if there were other things to pursue besides females given to expedited sexual surrender, but as far as my experience with the pop music of the day was concerned, that was the sole reason for enduring most of it. Here’s a rundown of the pop hits of 1983 that caught my eye:
Music by some of my favorite groups that I was glad to see on the charts
Shock The Monkey - Peter Gabriel
New Year's Day - U2
Burning Down The House - Talking Heads
Stray Cat Strut - Stray Cats
Radio Free Europe - R.E.M.
Music of some of my favorite groups that I was glad to see on the charts even if the song was shitty
Rock The Casbah - The Clash
Bang The Drum All Day - Todd Rundgren
Let's Dance - David Bowie
Music that I didn’t really like/pay attention to that gets listening time now.
Down Under - Men At Work
One Thing Leads To Another - the Fixx
Music that’s hard to get out of my head
Every Breath You Take - Police
Rockit - Herbie Hancock
She Works Hard For The Money - Donna Summer
She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby
Electric Avenue - Eddie Grant
Music that made me realize ZZ Top had totally sold out
Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
And what retrospective would be complete without Deaths and Events?
1983 DEATHS:
Karen Carpenter, Tennessee Williams, Gloria Swanson, Chris Wood (flutist from Traffic), David Niven, George S. “Papa Bear” Halas, Slim Pickens, Dennis Wilson
1983 EVENTS:
- Lotus 1-2-3 is released for IBM-PC compatible computers
- Iran opens an invasion in the southeast of Iraq
- M*A*S*H ends after 11 years and 251 episodes
- Return of the Jedi
- McDonald's introduces the McNugget
Labels: me, music, Nothing about Yoko
