Thursday, March 31, 2011

Shakedown

Yesterday was the shakedown day for my beloved 32 year old piece of crap car. Typically the way these things work is I spend a bunch of time rolling around on the dirty garage floor only fixing things that were sorta broken, only to make whatever it is worse than is was at the start. That's not really true, but it feels that way sometimes. Welcome to Bill's garage! Our motto: If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!

Not this time. Everything works that worked before and the brakes are now better than I ever remember them being. I have been driving this car since 1990 and the brakes have never been great. As I mentioned, I replaced some components, and voila!

The stuff that was broken, like the A/C and heat, cruise control and driver side door lock, is still broken. I keep hoping for some self-healing. No dice.

Stephen King's book Christine is about a 1959 Plymouth Fury that takes possession of it's owners' souls and kills anyone it sees fit to kill. It is clearly meant to be a cautionary tale about not putting too much value into something that is in the end not worth the effort and time you are putting into it. Or, maybe it's an allegory of loving someone or something too much. So much so that you overlook its dreadful and fatal flaws and get sucked into its vortex of evil. Maybe that's what some people get out of it. Not me. Christine could heal herself. After a night of killing and crushing, a girl gets some scratches and dings. No problem for Christine. She just shakes it off and poof, she's ready to kill again. could I deal with a killer car that fixed itself without my intervention? Yes. Killing is wrong, but I hate rolling around on the garage floor.

Well, Bill, you can't fix a car just by rolling on the garage floor, you say. Too right, my friend... It's a phrase, a metaphor if you will. Look it up. Now, back to the car.

I can fix all of it, but it will require removing the dashboard. If I am going to do that, I need to rewire everything in there, replace a bunch of stuff and swear a lot. It will be easier to take out the dash if I take out the seats. If I take out the seats, I might as well restore the plastic seat frames. Since in this scenario the seats are out, I should just pull out the carpet, put in some heat and sound insulation, wire up a new sound system put in new carpet (the right way this time, Dad!), reinstall the seats, do the work in the dash and before you know it, Chelsea Clinton is president and I am a grand high wizard in AARP and the people from Visa are sending people over to meet me with knives in their hands.

Old car owners know the danger of "while I'm at it" syndrome. They go to change a fuse and the next thing you know, the body is off the frame, the wife has to park in the street and Junior's college fund just got appropriated to car. That's okay. He probably wasn't going to college anyway.

I am so ready to tear into the car now. I am in a mental place where not driving for a couple years and spending money that doesn't really exist in the stricktest and shedding much blood, sweat and tears to redo the car. But, I am not in a physical space. I don't have a clean dry garage. If I were to start on the car, I would have a non-functioning car in pieces in a garage that is non-functioning and in pieces. Now, back to the car.

It was a nice short cruise. I find a nice short, successful cruise is just the thing to stave off "while I'm at it" syndrome. I would much rather drive than wrench. I hope spring comes- and soon. I have been real bored lately. It might be nice to feel a wrench in my hand.
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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Spring? Death!

Oh, the things I learn rolling around in the dirty garage. Today was too nice not to take some time to service my Corvette in anticipation of the summer driving season. At the end of last season, the brake master cylinder crapped out, leaving the car with no brakes. I had just had the rear brakes completely redone and the fact that something on the car worked as it should made some related components fail.

Sounds funny, but it happens all the time. Change a belt and the water pump fails, put in a new battery and the alternator goes bad. I have suffered at the hands of the gods of automotive irony far too often to disavow my belief in them. They exist. I promise you.

Out with the sludgy black oil from last season, in with the new clean stuff. New master cylinder and partial bleeding of that system (I need help to finish). The grease zircs are greased and the fluids are all checked and topped off.

And yet spring is nowhere to be found. It is going to snow on Friday, (according to the weather people who are unimpeachable with respect to their job performance), so I'm sorta proverbially all dressed up with no place to go. I guess the thing to focus on is that when I have somewhere to go, I am ready.

Even though it has remained stubbornly cold, it has been amazingly beautiful with sun and clear blue skies. If it isn't perfect to be in it is at least perfect to look at. Sometimes halfway perfect is perfect enough.
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In this blog a couple weeks ago, I ruminated on car magazines. It was a really boring blentry, hence its title "Really Boring Blentry." In that blentry, I sorta chastised on David E. Davis Jr. for being pompous and patrician though undeniably knowledgeable. I railed against him for bitching about being old and dying of cancer.

He died, Saturday. Technically not from cancer, but from complications from surgery to treat the cancer. We all know the real reason he died, though. It is so obvious that it doesn't really even need to be said. But, I will say it anyway. I killed him. I killed him with my blog.

D.E.D. was an amazing editor and a very talented writer in his own right. Near the end of his life, he was bored and googled himself and found my blog, because I mentioned him by name. He saw my misuse of commas, overwrought phraseology, problems with subject/verb agreement and just lost the will to live.

I am sorry Mr. Davis that I killed you. I shall now borrow your sign-off unapologetically as it is indeed your legacy as I see it. Whiskey! Freedom!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

How Come?/The Dog Days!

With All Apologies to Mr. Seinfeld

How come I never have to wait for the commercial to load when I go to watch something on the interwebs? Advertisements come through perfectly fluid, yet as soon as the time comes to actually watch the content I went to watch it gets all jagged and constantly buffers. I am trying to watch puppies on a slide! It doesn't have the same effect if it constantly stops and buffers.
Never once have I waited for a commercial to load. I'm just saying.

And what is it with these websites that without warning blast some sound effect that sounds for all the world like a guillotine blade falling to the background of a violent thunderstorm? Who designed this page, Jerry Brukheimer? The startling sound effect always gives way to an ad that you didn't load. Now you have to find the little 'skip' button that they have buried to get it to shut off.
Shhhhh! My wife is taking a nap and I don't need her to know I am looking at the 'Used Car Auto Mall' website again! I promised her I would stop!
This kind of thing only happens after I have had my speakers on full volume, trying to hear content on another page that was poorly recorded.

On an unrelated topic, I think small creatures- maybe Fraggles- are building whole communities in my mouth at night when I am trying to sleep. My gosh! I have not had dry mouth like this since... well, never mind. Suffice it to say, it's been a long while. It is like the Sahara in there. I bring a 16 ounce glass and a small pitcher of water to bed and if I drank it all like I want to, I'd be up all night drinking and peeing. What a hassle.

Which makes me wonder if gingivitis is actually, I don't know, sentient. Do they feel despair and agony when, after working so hard to build a place to live and work and good schools to send their kids to, another flood washes it all away.

What of the twice daily brushing? Is that like earthquakes to them? Spicy food a raging inferno? I wonder if mouthwash is their acid rain. You would think they would just stop rebuilding there and move into a redneck's mouth, or maybe someone from Britain. The food there is inoffensive and I hear there is only one dentist on the whole of the island. Sounds like a good place to live.

Speaking of dogs. Yesterday I was going out to hunt and gather us up some dinner when two familiar dogs came running up to me. They are both pit bulls, but friendly as the day is long. I asked how they got out of their fenced back yard and took them back to their yard three houses up.

I was in the car and pulling away when I realized... wrong dogs. Those dogs belong on the other street and I know them because we pass them on our daily walk. And I don't know if they are friendly or not, at least I didn't before now. a rare moment of good luck there old bean. So I sat in the car stupidly thinking about whether these dogs were those dogs or the other dogs. You can see how I might be confused.

I did the only thing I could think to do. I got my wife.

I paraded her over to the house where I may have wrongfully imprisoned the dogs.
"Are these, these dogs or the ones from the other street?"
"Read the tags! (you idiot was implied)"
If it had been that easy I would have done it myself, but they simply wouldn't sit still. There was no tag reading to be done.

I realized that these dogs were actually those dogs when these dogs began to bark from the house upon seeing those dogs in their back yard. Simple. So, I loosed those dogs and began corralling them up the street to bring them home. Imagine the surprise of the owner of the house upon finding two not her dogs in the yard. I imagine the not her dogs would be just as confused. Anyway, I had just gotten back from my walk, and now I was taking the last 1/3 of it again. Yippee!

Meanwhile, somewhere, my dinner was getting cold.

There was a young pedestrian with whom I had exchanged pleasantries before all this happened. And now he sees me with two loose pit bulls that are jumping and playing and only kinda following my pooches and claps and beseeches to follow me. A shepherd I am not. The younger and more adventurous male went tearing off toward this young man who might have wet himself. I hollered "It's ok- they won't hurt you" from my vantage point a full 50 years away. I said this as if I actually knew. The girl puppy stayed right by me, looking up occasionally as it to say... I told him it was time to go home.

Long story short, I managed to get her home. The other, the male of course, took off chasing cars down a busy rush hour street. I informed the owners, who were out back enjoying their afternoon marijuana cigarette, (I believe the kids call it a 'joint') as I rounded the corner with their dog.

I actually laughed in their mad dash to stash the stash and I said something to the effect of "It's cool, homey- I'm chill" but I think it came off way whiter and less genuine. I managed to not get shot. This is not the place to just wander into people's back yards. And I had on shades, a striped coat, striped pants and look for all the world like I could be a cop, especially in the paranoid mind.

They were surprised I had the dog!How they were in the yard where the dogs were supposed to be (but were not) and didn't know the dogs were gone is totally beyond me. Oh, right. The pot.

So that situation diffused, (they were very thankful by the way for my efforts as they were getting into the car to go chase the other dog), I went to get dinner. Long story short on that, they did away with their "pickup only" parking spaces and I had to park miles from the door. I should have just walked from the house.

That pretty much ends my tale of woe from the day.

Monday, March 28, 2011

On Parenthood

Amy and Adam had their baby this morning. I called it right on Friday night when we saw them. I called it right again Saturday when I told Em's Mom it would be within 48 hours, even though she was 2 weeks from her due date and this was her first. I told Adam it was a boy. It was.

I am the baby whisperer, apparently.

Chandra and Jason also announced their great expectation this weekend and we are of course all excited. We are excited because they are excited. It makes us happy to see people happy. This is what makes us good people.

And then there is us. That's right, the last childless couple we know. Literally. Well, literally at all; Em has an aunt and uncle that don't have kids. My sister doesn't have kids, Dave and Greg don't have kids, Doug and Elizabeth don't either. So I guess I should amend that to say we are the last married, heterosexual couple in our immediate circle who don't have kids. Literally.

I am sure now you are expecting some circumspection on how it's lonely out here and my life is incomplete and I have been a fool and I need to put a baby in my wife as soon as possible for I have seen the error of my ways.

Nope. Sorry.

All my friends who have kids are truly excellent parents. They are devoted to parenting. They plan their schedules around kids, they employ full scale logistical management techniques to make sure someone is at Johnny's play while someone else gets Suzy to the soccer game. They make sure the kids do their homework, the tell them they love them and the kids are happy and healthy and will grow into productive members of society who will save the world!

I hang around with some pretty awesome people! Amy and Adam and Chandra and Jason will no doubt carry on the tradition. They really want this.

Turns out, they're all better than me. I think I have sufficiently demonstrated my love for words. Have I told you my favorites? They are in no specific order; I, me and mine.

Goals begin with visions and visions start off as dreams. Dreams are unfiltered representations of your thoughts and desires (if you are a Jungian, anyway). The only dreams I have of kids playing in the yard usually end with me brandishing a shotgun and muttering something about "dern kids!"

I am really comfortable with this. I just wish other people would understand.

I feel badly for my parents that they will likely never be grandparents. Not that they have ever put the guilt on me, because they haven't. I still feel like I am depriving them. But that's a pretty piss poor reason to have a kid.Outside of that I wish people would stop thinking of me a irregular or selfish or petty or shallow or whatever missive they wish to apply to me. Live and let live. You do your thing, I'll do mine.

Besides, I'm pretty committed to your kids. I go to their plays and clap. I buy their cookies and candies and other sundry overpriced things that I don't need or want so they can go play their instrument in front of a crowd of adoring parents in another state. I go to their baseball games and swim meets and choir concerts and cheer them on as if they are my own. At graduation time, I give them money I can't afford to give and come up with some kind words of wisdom to send them off into the great wide world. And when they go there, I keep up with them and visit them make sure they know I am here for them... unless they need money.

In that sense, I have dozens of kids. I have graduated still dozens more! It's actually a pretty good system. It's just that none of them come home with me at night and I don't have to pay for college and/or bail. It's part-time parenting, and I am ideally suited to it. It would be unfair to be a part-time parent to my own kids, but it's pretty darn convenient to have me around if you have kids.

What have we learned today? Nothing, other than congratulations to my wonderful friends Amy and Adam on their new gift and to Chandra and Jason for the one on the way. I can't wait to help you raise your kids!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Man Who Sold the World

Sale'n, Take Me Away To Where I'm Goin'

I got my first sale. It's eensie weensie teensie, but it is my first and it excites me. I suppose I feel a little like a young betrothed woman when she looks at her little chip of a diamond ring... it may be small but it's all hers and it means a lot.

For me, it means some people have to eat their words and others are, slightly at least, vindicated. Again, it isn't anything too exciting, so it would be to certain peril to call my transition a success. But today I feel I am on the right track. By my calculations, my commission for this account will total $490.00. Not a princely sum to be sure. And, it will be paid in dribbs and drabs over the next year. As far as waves go, this one is not tidal.

For some reason, it doesn't matter to me. I made a sale. There will be more.

The Blah Blah Blog

Alright, another blog is the last thing you need to read and the last thing I can commit the time to writing. But Em and I had floated the idea of the Blah Blah Blog, a he-said, she-said entry about fun little things that have happened to us and what we learned. I do not profess to being any sort of relationship expert but the fact that she has put up with me and I with she (not correct gramatically, but cute) for as long as we have counts for something.

No one really responded and it sort of died. It probably died more because of our lack of time, new jobs and the like.

It came up the other night after dinner. There were a lot of dishes. Em took a stack from the table to the kitchen. I removed the rest of the non-dish items from the table (un-set it as it were) and briefly left the area. I believe I was changing the channel from the news to Wheel of Torture; because if Em hears the beginning drum beats to Inside Edition she starts yelling about turning that crap off. I race to the remote each night to avoid this eventuality.

Of course, the lights and sounds of Wheel are enough to entrance my simple bird-like man mind and I stood, momentarily transfixed at the bounty of visual and auditory input before me blazing out of my ultra bright and clear 1080p HD TV into my darkened room.

From my left ear, I hear a sigh. A big one. A resigned, big, sigh. This is never good.

"How may I help you, dear?" I say in a sing-song voice at her side again in the kitchen.
"I can do the dishes, but it is nice if you just help me out a little bit," she says, waving at the stack of dishes before her, "You can at least rinse the dishes like I have asked you to do so many times!"

Reflexively I was about to defend myself, for like a well beaten dog, I know to rinse the dishes or suffer the wrath. In fact, I have been faithfully rinsing dishes for quite some time now and yet I still have the reputation for not.

And then I remembered. SHE BROUGHT IN THE DISHES! I UNSET THE TABLE!

This is tantamount to having your finger on the nuclear button. What to do? What to do? If I take the opportunity before me, juicy as it seems, I set off a chain of events that leads to Mutually Assured Destruction With Intent For Everlasting Enmity (MADWIFEE). Nobody wants that. Especially since my good friends and coping mechanisms Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Jose Cuervo and Mark Maker aren't in the house during Lent.

My little man mind shifted down to DEFCON 3 as I weighed my options.

Quietly, without making eye contact I said in a soft, pitiful voice, "Is now a good time to remind you that you brought these dishes in my dear, and that I, your loving husband unset the table and then vanquished the dreaded trash television show you hate so much?"

It worked. She laughed as she realized it was all too true. "Well that shouldn't matter!" she said jocularly while my sympathetic nervous system forestalled the countdown to stroke.

An old coworker of mine once said love is defined by knowing which buttons to push, and then not pushing them. I suppose that concept rang around my empty head a little while I decided the best way forward.

And so the doomsday clock reset, I poured my wife a glass of wine and retreated to the drawing room to watch Vanna White make millions for no discernible reason whatsoever. And getting off topic somewhat; Vanna dresses up like it's the Academy Awards every day of her life. I wonder why she doesn't show up to the red carpet in jeans and a hoody. Now that would be fashion!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Effluvium/Alluvium/Fulminate

Dear friend, Heather, sent me a Facebook message after one post about words we never use but should... or maybe it was about words I made up, but those two things aren't mutually exclusive, so let's go with it.

It says, in short; Please accept the challenge of inserting the word effluvium into your blog. She was kind enough to provide a definition as well.

Effluvium, n. a slight or invisible exhalation or vapor, esp. one that is disagreeable or noxious. Adv. form effluvial.

Challenge accepted. Here goes.

This morning, my breath was so bad you could see it like so much effluvium trailing from my mouth!

Man, that guy can make a car effluvial in mere minutes!


Great word. Sounds a lot like what it is. Very Latin. And it's easy to mix up with alluvium/alluvial which refer to non-compacted loose earth or various consistency and makeup. I suppose however you could adapt that to scatology and say you had an alluvial bowel movement containing toxic effluvia.

Which brings us to the next word that Dave and I have been trying to resurrect for some time, which is fulminate. This word means variously a primary explosive compound, or a vociferous protest. Both work on so many levels for us since we generally use the adjective form (fulminant) in a scatological sense. Interesting fact that the last form, fulminant, which is indeed a word is no recognized by the blog publishing site's dictionary. But that is a rant for another day. In fact, thanks to bathroom humor, the last bastion of the hack comic, you can make the following sentence incorporating all three words.

"Sorry about your bathroom. Those tacos went totally bad on me which caused some fulminant alluvium and not a little bit of effluvia . I hope you have insurance"

You'll likely notice I didn't really use any of those words correctly in the strictest sense, but they are so aptly descriptive of the intended message that I believe that can be forgiven.

So, I will end there with the reminder that not only did I use the word, I used all it's forms, applied it to daily life and made it a little funny.

Challenge Won. Sorry it took so long, Heather... I kept forgetting.

If you would like to see a word that is little known or used reintroduced, drop me a line. I would be happy to work it in.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Saturday Night's Alright...

Saturday at the Expo

We went to the Old House Expo on Saturday specifically to talk to a man mamed Kevin who is on the HPC with Emily. Among other amazing things, Kevin restores wood windows in old houses like ours. You may recall my lament last fall about how I spent a lot time on doing this for one window (out of a bazillion) and I was disappointed with the overall results.

Well, Kevin was a wealth of knowledge, gave me good pointers and some confidence to try again. For my part, I selflessly offered my own home as a learning laboratory; If anyone wants him to physically demonstrate the process, and they want to practice hands-on, they can come to my house. I will provide the beverages and the sandwiches.

We ran into a friend of mine who is a social worker in Muskegon. We met while I was working for Barnes and Noble and hadn't seen each other in almost three years. It was fun. We of course made all sorts of promises to get together and have dinner and drinks. I hope we do.

I also got to meet Tom Logan who is the author of a great book about Heritage Hill here in Grand Rapids called 'Almost Lost'. I bought it for Em some years back and she subsequently met him in his home, which was designed by an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright and is indeed kitty corner from our only FLW home, the Meyer May House.

Afterward, we decided to take advantage of the brisk but gorgeous Saturday and walked a fair bit to have a taco lunch and a stroll. It was a nice time to be sure.

Saturday In the Garage


Not being able to resist temptation, I spent a spare hour or so messing with the Corvette on Saturday. I am pleased that it staved off infestation by rodentia for another storage season and it started right up on about the third crank after not being started all winter.

Unfortunately, that model didn't come with the self-healing brakes, so I still need to replace the master cylinder and booster and do all the fluid maintenance and it should be good to go for another summer of ice cream runs.

From Grease Monkey to Symphony

Life is a dichotomy. After tooling around with the 'Vette, I took a shower to clean off the smell of unburnt hydrocarbons and we met Chandra and Jason for the G.R. Symphony. They were featuring Leahy, a large family from British Columbia of Irish descent. It was a Celtic show and I was not terribly excited to go.

It was fantastic. I have not the words to describe the concentrated talent of this gene pool. I don't know what they gave up to be this musical, maybe they can't read or write, or maybe they have gills or something and can't be out of water for more than an hour (that explains the long interval). But who cares? These people, even the children were phenomenal! There was one kid who wasn't even old enough to walk doing the full Bojangles! My adorable meeter has been broken since I decided to be a cynic rather than a human and it was still the cutest thing I had ever seen.

On the technical side, they all played all the instruments. One even played a full fiddle solo... with the fiddle upside down! And this was no Hot Crossed Buns, this was a full solo with 64th notes and all. The Single most impressive thing to me, though, was the front man. At one point, he was fiddling so fast his fingers were blurry. Blurry! To the naked eye. And as this is happening, he is moving his bow so fast and then... wait for it, he begins to pluck the frets (the fingerboard) with some fingers while using other fingers conventionally to so his bow could make notes and he was plucking and playing at the SAME TIME!

Words can't describe what a feat this is. Go look them up online. It was a great time. Afterward, we went out. That's right. Put us all together and we are something like 110 years old and we stayed out until almost 1 a.m. Isn't there a law? Oh well, it was a great show and a great night with great friends.

Truck You

It has been decided. We will wait until October (Ford Truck Month, incidentally) when Emily's lease is up and then I will get a truck. This will allow us to keep Grandma Marjorie Rubenstein for a couple more years. I mention this only so it is in writing as a matter of public record. You've read it... you can't unread it.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Running on Empty, or the Amazing Regenerative Fuel Producing Whizbang Automobile!

The Grandma That Keeps on Giving

I have already written how my car, Grand Ma Marjorie Rubenstein, is invisible, (see "Wonder Woman's Used Car Emporium and Lasso Repair"), but as it gets older I keep learning about new wonderful features. It truly is the car that keeps on giving.

Now she is able to refuel on the go! Explain! You demand. Well, don't be pushy I'm getting to it. The last two tanks I have filled up with gas (or maybe it's black truffle oil since it costs so goddamn much), and upon leaving the station, the fuel gauge shows no movement. I am sure I filled up the car. My credit card was accepted (for now), my hands smell like gas, I even dribbled a little on my shoe when I pulled the nozzle out, which in this case is not a euphemism for old age.

So why is my needle stuck down there near empty where it was five minutes and nearly $60.00 ago?

As I drive, a wondrous thing happens. The car begins to fill up. That's right, the needle slowly rises a little at a time. This makes my trip computer prone to fits though as the entire time it is doing this, it is assuming I am actually gaining gallons while driving. As a consequence, after my 200 mile sales call day yesterday I had used -11.3 gallons and achieved 9,999 miles per gallon.

I drove past Priusses (or whatever the plural of that mess would be... Prius', Prius-es, Prissy holier than thou jerk going 12 in the left lane-ses?) with a smug sense of satisfaction that while they were achieving a noteworthy 50 miles per gallon, I was achieving 10,000 and that was only because the numbers ran out on my screen. It could have been much more. Furthermore, I was achieving this feat in my heavy, V8 powered, leather lined, trunk filled with 200 pounds of promotional material car, while they suffered in their little ersatz spaceship.

By the end of the day I had gained 3/4 of a tank and used only 1/4, which means at 20 gallons, I made 10 gallons of gas in 200 miles. Somebody call NASA! I solved global warming and the gas shortage!

I bet people will want to steal my car now since it can do all these wonderful things, but you must remember it has the best security system money can't buy. It's invisible.

Spring Tease/Spring Freeze

We are in that time in Michigan where the weather report is so implausible that it almost seems the weather man or woman or both are putting you on. Yesterday it was pushing 70 degrees in some spots. It was truly glorious. The crocus are in full, unadulterated bloom. They are in for a surprise. Today it will be 43 if we are lucky. It seems the gulf breezes from the south and the arctic express from the north are still duking it out for supremacy in the hotly contested month of March.

Next week looks like it belongs to the Arctic with the slow arm wrestle being won by the steely northern competitor and a return of late winter weather. It's all fine and good and relatively benign as we know the southern breeze and the angle to the sun will eventually win out and summer will come. Before that however, the northern freight train will tangle with the southern gales and create tornadoes and wind damage and death and destruction.

Thunderstorms here in the midwest are a thing to see. I don't know how many readers I have outside this area of the country but I assure you there is nothing more wonderful and beautiful and frightening and terrible as a well built thunderstorm. They seem to hover only feet off the ground and in a really good one, you can feel the hairs on your body stand up before a big burst of lightening.

Those bursts are sometimes streaks that run across the sky like maniacal jagged fingers for miles and miles, seemingly without end. Or, they can be blinding flashes that seem to originate from nowhere and retreat just the same - your mind comprehending the event only in the past.
A really good storm has a mix of these.

We get pretty good at figuring out thunder, too... Emily and I will see a flash and wait... wait... wait and say "boom" when we think it is going to happen. We're usually pretty close. Sometimes, thunder isn't a boom but is instead the sound of a huge empty freight train coming to a stop from a slow roll, its cars crashing into each other progressively. If you haven't heard this phenomenon I recommend you either go to a train yard and wait for it, or stand outside until May. Either way, you'll get the sensation.

Weather is amazing here in the late spring and early summer. It is a mix of things that surprises even those in the know. I for one can't wait as the sheer terror and fury of the bipolar weather gods is surely more interesting than the monotony of the winter snows. Bring on the summer!

To Vette, or not to Vette

For the first time in many years, I am seriously thinking about not even bothering with the Corvette this summer. It needs too much work, drinks too much gas, monopolizes too much time and costs too much money.

It is hard to justify hobbies when I have windows that need to be rebuilt and painted and a garage that needs to be removed and rebuilt. It is just a time robber that I don't need.

Just putting that out there.

Old House Expo

We are going tomorrow to the old house expo where I can learn how much time and money I need to devote to my old house. I have a feeling the answer to both is a fairly nebulous "a lot."
Wish me luck. I will likely come back very depressed.

Celtic Family

Hot off the heals of the popular Celtic Woman concert series which brought senior citizens out after dark in droves for the first time in many years, is Celtic Family. Yay. We're going tomorrow night. Yay.

A whole Saturday planned from the time I get up, until the time I go to bed. Yay. Somebody pinch me.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Wednesday Afternoon Lull

Where's My Check?

The mail is late today. That must mean I am expecting money. I don't know what money, but it must be a lot because it is 3:06pm and the mail has not yet arrived. Only an hour ago I was only interested in the mail in the normal sense of things. Just another part of the day. But now, I await it with breathless anticipation, for surely since it is almost two hours late there must be a check of magnificent proportions in it!

Business Cards

Are still not here and I have a networking event to go to tonight, plus I had a grand scheme of places to go and call on today. Well, I did some of that because I had prepared presentation material that included my information, so I figured the card was superfluous. But tonight, I will have nothing but some ill-printed proofs to hand out to prospective clients and/or new best friends! What a deficiency! Oh well, I paid $30.00 to go to this thing, so I'm going. Too bad I can't have cocktails...

Gave it Away? No, It's Just Been Lent!

Because I quit drinking for Lent. It has been a week. There is much to report. I have lost two pounds, slept better and woken up more easily. I have saved many dollars and in general feel pretty good!

Why did I give up drinking for Lent? Because that's the only thing I could think to give up that would require persistence and sacrifice. I don't do a lot of leisure type things. I certainly can't give up watching T.V. What of all the crap? Where will it go without mine eyes to see it? I can't take that risk.

So, back to drinking. The focus of Lent is supposed to be the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity in the days up to and including his crucifixion. Now, I don't proselytize on my blog and I am not about to start, but even if you are not a Christian, abstaining from something you like for a bit can really teach you about yourself.

For my part, I am demonstrating the commitment and taking my notes along the way. Who knows? At the end of this maybe I'll have some real insights about myself that I didn't know before.

All Sorts of Pussy Cats

I am typing this as two cats snore away in a dueling fashion, one on my lap, the other over my shoulder. I am allowing this because any time the two are in the same room and not killing each other is a small victory.

It is funny though how they sit and nap and snore. They are like people, only when they sleep they remain cute and when they snore it's adorable. Any my cats don't fart... at least not much. No human among us can boast these qualities while sleeping. Let's face it, it is an unattractive time for most people. Unless you're into the dried drool string in the corner of a wide open mouth, or bed head, in which case I think you are nuts.

I am dressed for this event tonight because before I didn't have business cards today I had grand plans to be on the road all day until the event. I was prepared as such. This afternoon lull is unplanned and only means tomorrow is going be be worse. But the reason I bring that up is that I have been trying in vain to keep these stupid cats off me because I am dressed.

I lost the battle and the war and the end result is what I have now. Two cats snoring in dueling fashion and shedding all over my nice clothes.

That Ain't My Truck

I have happily bored you with my truck fantasies over the last month or so. I found one that is good... really good, but older than I would like. The price is right and the maintenance history is amazingly good. I would be confident in this truck.

But, it is not to be. Cash poor having just changed jobs and paying off Em's student loan, I will have to be content driving my perfectly fine car. I have to remind myself that dreams have their time and place and one should proceed carefully if one does not want their dream to become a nightmare.

I also have to remind myself, when I am feeling overworked and under payed that I am lucky beyond measure to live the life I do and I shouldn't want anything. It diminishes the worth of what I have now.

What have we learned? After all that crap I still want a truck.

So, We're Going to Savannah

Leaving on a Jet Plane

One of the flowers girls at our wedding (there were two and they are sisters) not only turned 18 a month or two back, but now she is having the audacity to shove my age in my face by graduating from high school. The nerve!

An eon ago, Em said she wanted to go to Savannah (where Em went to school, where she lived when we met, where I used to 'Spring Break' and we lived for a spell after we were married) since we hadn't been back since we left. That was apparently eight years ago. I refuse to wrap my head around that number as it means I was in my late twenties then, and am now knocking on my late thirties. Forty, gulp, can't be far around the corner should the good Lord see fit to allow me to be here.

I said sure. An eon ago. Before I changed jobs and missed a couple paychecks and got the car registration renewals and paid the taxes. And when it came back up for real the other night, she was not happy that I planned to back out. I didn't ask her not to go, (I have learned things in my nearly eleven years as a married man- most of those within the last six), I know better.

She originally didn't want to fly. I didn't want to drive. Neither one of us levitates, apparates or owns a transporter, time machine or other such device and the corner store is fresh out of flue powder (too many Harry Potter references?). We were at an impasse. Literally and literally.

I told her I cannot take a week off in late May and another off in mid-June and I will not miss workcamp with 'my' kids. Also, it sucks to burn both weeks of vacation within a month from each other and then have to go a long far stretch before you get to go on vacation again. I did it last year and by the end of the year I had had it so much I quit. We don't want that to happen again now do we?

So we compromised. By which I mean we both ended up happy because I gave in. Em proposed a weekend hop, on a plane rather than the eighteen hour slog of a drive down I75. I will only miss one day of work, which I can deal with (they won't even know I am gone) and we will get to go spend a little time in the great (to visit) city of Savannah in the beautiful (blisteringly hot) month of May. A flurry of activity and some quick planning later we had our plane tickets, rent-a-wreck and a place to stay. All for the reasonable sum of everything I had saved up for a down payment on a pickup truck.

So, joy incurred are plans deferred. I am happy we are going. It has been too long. I miss the city and our friends there. It was the first place we had a joint life, Em and I. When we moved there, away from my friends and baggage in Detroit to a place where she was comfortable and had some established roots we were able to really be an 'us' instead of a she and he.

I would never want to live in Savannah again. Too much humidity and pollen and a full 110 years after the invention of the automobile those people still don't seem to get how to operate it. But I am glad we are going for a visit. If only now I can transport myself back to my late twenties...

Fear of Flying

I used to love flying. Now I only fly when there is absolutely no other way. And believe me, could I afford the time, I would drive everywhere. I love to drive. I am a good driver. I have driving stamina. I can go for miles and hours that would hasten most people to the grave.

Flying has become such a joke. You have to assume a delay, big or small on at least one leg of your trip. Since we are flying on DELTA (which curiously stands for Don't Ever Leave the Airport) we will be transferring planes in Atlanta. Yes, the ubiquitous Atlanta. It is said that great rewards are there for those that make it into heaven, and those who go to hell still have to change planes in Atlanta. Twice.

You have to get to the airport early, strip to a level of nakedity that approaches and then surpasses embarrassment, then go through a scanner which as far as I can tell has the sole purpose of logging a picture of your penis into a database for later study, then sit and wait and pay $14.00 for a Cinnabon and a burnt cup of Seattle's Best coffee. Thank God they are sending out their best, because anything less would be impotable.

At the end of this is the reward of being crammed into a tube with hundreds of other people, many of whom are about to or have just given birth. Those that haven't probably have cholera and/or ebola or a preexisting heart condition triggered to go off at precisely 28,000 feet. You laugh, but I have been on a plane where a passenger died. Not cool having to reach over a blanketed corpse to get your carry-on.

I am a fat man and a twenty-two inch wide seat is like a torture device. Plus it is hard and has bulges in all the wrong places. Big bulges. Big, bad, painful bulges. All for the bargain basement price of all the money I had saved up for a pickup truck. The one big windows, lots of space and soft, comfy, heated, leather seats with bulges in all the right places.

I digress (eventually and temporarily). Flying is the issue here. We can put a man on the moon but can't comfortably fling people through the sky? You have a scanner that can show you all the intimate details of my penis, but I still have to take off my belt and shoes?

I am going to stuff a banana down my pants and walk through with a big ass smile on my face. And when they frisk me, I'm just gonna laugh and answer, "no, I'm just happy to see you."

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Thunderbolt

I had something really good. A truly Grandiose Rumination, replete with Minutiae and I decided to dink around Facebook for one second longer than my memory allowed and now I have forgotten. So, I retraced my steps to try to figure out what it was. Then I got distracted, checked my e-mail, watched a video of troops coming home and surprising their kids, had a good cry and here we are. Back to no ideaville.

But now it pops into memory.

I had a friend in high school. It was high school love at first sight. I was literally emboldened the first time I saw her. She was a year behind me, a Freshman, dating a senior. So clearly she was precocious. I like that in a girl. The first day I saw her, holding hands with her boyfriend, I walked up, pried their hands apart, took hers in mine, looked her in the eye and said, "You will be mine. You may as well say your goodbyes to this guy now. It won't be long," or words to that effect.

If I were Sicilian, they would have said I had been hit by "The Thunderbolt", described as a rapturous and uncontrollable desire to be with someone upon first glance alone.

It turns out, Thunderbolt went to my church and she started coming to youth group after our encounter. Coincidence? Probably because she never showed much interest in me. We became very close friends. We hung out a lot, even went out to movies and dinner, just we two, but we weren't dating. That's what she said.

So, I employed a move that I would use again a year later under a different circumstance with a different girl; a story which I will reserve to a later blentry... I started taking her best friend out.

O.K., I know what you are thinking, about how awful it is to use someone like that, but I really liked the friend. She was a nice girl and we had fun so I wasn't using her. I certainly wasn't struck dumb each time she walked in the room or anything, but I liked her. The fact that their houses were kitty-corner to each other and Thunderbolt could see me picking up her best friend to go out on a summer night in my shiny navy blue Mustang had nothing to do with the strategy. I insist.

It wasn't until more than a full year after I began making inroads that she decided it would be okay to date me. I was elated except for I had just happened into a relationship with a girl whose last name I didn't know.

We were on a bus trip to Stratford, Ontario to see either Romeo and Juliette or Richard III, I forget which for I went twice to the Shakespeare festival that year. My friend Sam had a girlfriend who was kind of cute. Long story short, by the end of the day Sam was not my friend and I had gained a girlfriend.

I didn't know until a day later that she was 'that' girl. A girl of some ill repute. Certainly not fitting of my high station regardless of whether her reputation was well earned or ill bestowed. Thunderbolt knew this. She watched the drama play out on a bus in front of an all too willing to watch audience. If we indeed went to see Richard III that day, the bus drama was certainly better than that which the Bard provided us (I don't like the play).

Thunderbolt indeed stopped playing hard to get and actually went on the offensive. I think I have given you, dear reader an unvarnished view of my lack of scruples and so the 'other' girl had to go. Couldn't I just be straight with her? Let's imagine that conversation, shall we?

"Hey, I like you, but I found out you're the one with the reputation (and the alliterative nickname to go with it) for being a lusty strumpet (sticking with the Shakespeare) and I am still Catholic at this point in my life and therefore chaste, at least for another couple years and so I don't think it's gonna work out. I mean, I know I literally stole you from my former friend in front of 70 people in a big shiny metal box rolling down the highway like some sort of deranged Agatha Christie plot, but only 4 short days later, I am done with you."

That wouldn't do. The conversation went like this instead:

"My grades are suffering (they were not, I had just received an academic honor award) and my parents were shocked and appalled that in this time of academic crisis I would choose to divide my focus between school and you, dear one. So, while it pains me ever so much to say it, I must go. Be free, and know, I'll love you until you turn the corner of this hallway and leave my life, forever."

Thunderbolt and I immediately took up. Immediately. Like, five minutes later.

It was the greatest 30 days of my life. She dumped me over the phone while trying to make plans one night. I took it hard, but in those days, I had a lot of guy friends and a reserve stock of girlfriends, so I bounced back pretty quick.

We remained friends. For years we were very close. I never stopped loving her. I really did love her. Even looking back my feelings were genuinely strong and real for her. Eventually, they just became a part of our dynamic, which is to say didn't factor in too strongly. It was there, but is was not there.

Sure, I visited her in college while I was dating someone and she was dating someone and it didn't seem to matter that weekend. Sure, there was more than one weekend like that. And sure, maybe we made out several times while her boyfriend was in the very next room and my friends were running blocker for me. There was no decorum. There were only hormones.

It occurs to me as I write this, I actually took her as my date to my Friends Regina and Matt's wedding! And I had a girlfriend at the time. What a slug. Since we are on a tangent, let me take this time to tell you that Thunderbolt dated a fraternity brother who was in the same house as my very dear friend Dave (whom I reference often). When Dave and I met many years later when he and my other very dear friend, Greg began a relationship, we found out we were in the same room at the same time at the same party and watched the same couch catch fire and be pushed out the same window. It was then I made my exit not wanting to be arrested that night. The rest of the story, known to me only through lore is hilarious. That was nearly a decade before Dave and I would "meet" for the first time.

Back to the main story. I took it hard for a long time that Thunderbolt rebuffed my many and varied advances. Truthfully, not a lot of girls did. But she did and that never sat well with me back then.

The last time I saw her was a week before my house burnt down which would have made it October 1997. She was with a new boy, I was with the same girl. We had a very tense dinner and a party afterward. It was a great Halloween party. Not because it was a great party, but because it generated a lot of stories and was a harbinger of the big fire that would happen only a week later. She left in the morning with her entourage and her iguana while I was still in a stupor from the night's events and I never saw her again.

Today is her birthday. The Ides of March. A day to beware (see now the integral nature of Shakespeare in this blentry?). I went to her Facebook page to wish her happy birthday whereupon stumbled I some photos of she and her husband (my attempt at iambic pentameter).

HE LOOKS JUST LIKE ME! Bald, heavy, goatee... Seriously, we could be twins! So, all these years later at least I can assume it wasn't my physical visage she found unattractive. Which means she probably viewed me for something else entirely; a stupid oversexed boy with no discernible character not worth the time or effort it would take to make me a solid citizen in her world.

I can accept that.

Besides, it looks like things worked out really well for both of us. If you read this, Thunderbolt (and I really hope you don't because unlike Ms. Christie, I have left not just a trail of bread crumbs, but large neon signs pointing to your true identity and I don't want that to offend you), happy birthday. You are a very fond memory and our story is a very good story.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Monday Morning Miscellany

Lightning Round:

This time change is sorta like going to the gym... you don't feel it until the second day.
Going to see Celtic Family this weekend (sarcastic yay).
Going with good friends (real yay).
Bought grill cover... can spring be far behind?
Grill cover bought with Christmas gift card... Winter isn't done with us yet.
Should I even bother to take the Corvette out of storage with gas costing what it costs?
That episode of Parenthood from the DVR last night was all angry and yelly. Don't watch that right before bed, again.
I am conducting a meeting today with old colleagues... will they give me respect?
Ugh, I miss the company gas card. $59.00 just to put gas in the car.

Notes to self:

Apply for gas card today so this isn't all coming out of your pocket.
Don't speed, you aren't running late and cops want to ticket you and gas is expensive.
Write congressman about DST revocation, gas prices... pepper in 'your mamma' references.


The Rest of the Story:

Atticus is an odd fellow. For those of you not familiar with Atticus, he is our foundling cat we took in last summer. Atticus likes to stick his muzzle into my ear and purr. He likes to reach out with his paw and touch my face while looking at me and "talking" (by either the standard meow or a number of other grunts and whines he makes). But yesterday took the cake.

I was snacking on cheese and crackers when I realized he was sitting over my shoulder, his head as close to mine as could be, staring so intently at that cheese that even the cheese was uncomfortable. I can't explain it adequately... Em was here. She can attest. It was really creepy. It was like the way a serial killer stalks his prey (I presume), slowly, methodically.

Emily admitted that he creeps her out sometimes because he is so stealth. I wish he would be more stealth this morning considering he is all over me while I try to write this. Ugh, he's crawling in my ear hole again!

Going Going... Gone!:

I get the privilege of serving as auctioneer for the second time at the semi-annual youth auction at my church. I either did a cromulent job two years ago, or like then, they couldn't find anyone else. The auction is coming up the week after next. I am very excited. They give me a gavel and a podium and placement on center stage in the church hall and thousands of people (ok, so it's a hundred) sit in awe of my auctioneering skills. I am really quite good at it, peppering in jokes and poking people with verbal sticks if I see they are the slightest bit competitive.

This year, the lovely Kim Hamilton, the lady responsible for dragging me into this whole youth worker thing in the first place, will be my lovely assistant. I am looking forward to this as she will surely be better to look at than Mike DeCou, my last assistant. I love you, Mike, but women are pretty. I need a Yin to my Yang.

But the lots themselves are the stars of the show. I am awed every year of the generosity of the church family. The things they donate are real like, use of vacation homes, awesome college football tickets, hunting trips, and all sorts of other very desirable things. The proceeds go toward helping to fund our youth trips and other assorted budget items.

We turn that money, which came from generosity, back into generous works. I hope maybe it is like a tsunami of good that keeps pushing forward and reaches a maximal number of people. We could use some good in the world.

Finally:

I would be so lost without coffee. That is all.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Time Keeps Flowing Like a River

Time. Quantified time is an invention of humankind. Time certainly exists relative to the workings of the universe,(its birth, expansion, cooling and presumably one day in the future, zenith, recession and collapse). That last part sounds a lot like our economy, but I already got political in my last blentry which I promised not to do, so we aren't going there again.

No, I want to talk about something that affects many more people in a direct way than the economy. That is the biannual micromanaging of the clock that is Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time.

I hear tell that back in the day, Daylight Saving Time was an economic necessity brought about by our largely agrarian society. A great deal of our country's economy was linked to farming, so much so that it became necessary to adjust the time to shift seasonally to favor the farmers.

Apparently cows can tell time. Perhaps there was some bovine union who had work rules forbidding cows to give milk before 5 a.m. and instead of fighting about it, management just moved 5 a.m.

Stranger things have happened.

I don't know why there is a twice yearly time change. I don't feel like researching it. If you want to know, I challenge you to look it up. I appreciate a report back, as my ruminations are supposed to be rooted in minutiae, not just pulled from the firmament.

Regardless of the reason, I don't like it.

I sit here in my front room at 7:45 a.m. on March the 11th and it is for all intents and purposed full daylight outside. Next week at this time, were we not to manipulate the time, my weather man (that guy knows everything except the stupid weather) tells me that we would achieve this same level of brightness 6 minutes earlier, at 7:39 a.m. I submit to you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, it is rather nice!

I like to get up at 7. I usually get up before, but 7 is my goal. Come next week, it will be full bright at 6:30 in the morning, and that means before too long the birds will start chirping at 5:30 in the morning and my summer of sleeplessness will begin!

I love summer. I crave summer. Summer is my destiny. I am not wishing away any aspect of summer but for the needless time change that simply makes no sense! The sun comes up, the sun goes down and in between we have adapted a way to live in all conditions on a daily rotating basis. We have electric lights, we have window shades. Both of these were not only invented a long time a go, but have achieved a certain level of perfection! They don't react to time... they react to condition.

Here is a conversation that has never, ever, never-ever happened:

"Jeez, it's bright in here... I'm gonna close the shades."
"But honey, it's only 2:15... the shades don't work until 3:45!"
"Won't somebody please manipulate the clock so my shades will work at the right time?!?"

I for one repeat my twice-yearly sentiment. Either leave it sprung forward or leave it fell back because I am sick to death of the time change! The sun comes up, the sun goes down, the earth like the wheel of fortune spins round and round and there is nothing you can do about it! (Ok, so I cribbed from like 12 poems, 16 songs and a movie for that last bit- but hey, nothing is original anymore).

Please, leave my clocks alone! Even they don't know when to change anymore since Congress, or the Time Bandits or whomever is in charge of these things keep changing it.

If we are going to micro-manage, we need to change the calendar, too because that big-ass Indonesian earthquake that set off the tsunami also actually shifted our orbit, lengthening our solar year by 1/8 of a day. so we really need to change leap year to one and a half extra days every six years. Won't that be a larf.

"Johnny, if you love me, you'll meet me at the top of the Empire State Building on February 29th and-a-half at the second 11:59 am!"

Of course, there was a terrible earthquake last night in Japan, so either that set things right, or made them worse. We'll have to see. Those guys at NASA don't have a lot to do these days with their shuttle program winding down; maybe we can get them on the case.

And what of the calendar itself? There are a lot of whackjobs out there that think the world is going to end in 2012 because the Mayan calendar stops. Ok, time for a little historical perspective here.

The Mayan calendar probably stops abruptly for one of three reasons. Either the guy writing it finally threw down his pencil and said "enough" because his carpel tunnel was killing him, or the Mayan Congress kept wanting to change things, ("Pete, back to the drawing board, they want to add something called 'leap year'), or most likely, a marauding Spaniard sneaked up behind him and sliced his neck open before he could get done.

The point is, that man has not the power to control or even contain time, even though time in the linear sense; time the way we have tried to make time, does not exist.

I say, let's give up. The sun comes up, the sun goes down and we should focus not on controlling every minute in between, but enjoying it and making it worthwhile.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

These Things I Believe

This is a repost from an essay (rant) I wrote in response to a Facebook thread regarding principally the suspension of collective bargaining rights in the state of Wisconsin for municipal and state employees:
_______________________________________________________________
And the inexorable compulsion to fight this argument against my better judgement takes hold:

It is not fair that now in our history we are paying for the sins of those who came before. Those sins are sins of poor legislation and financial malfeasance. They are sins of denial and sins of selfishness.
It is not right that because of laws that were passed by people in power a long time ago, back room deals that took root out of the light of legislative checks and balances, and other poorly judged and entirely misguided attempts at governance that we, the people are now forced to bear this terrible burden.
And yet, here we are. This is not the fault of any one group. This is not, as Fox News would have it the result of failed liberal policies, nor is it is the fault of MSNBC branded conservative overreaching. The fault lies with this electorate and all the electorates that have come before. Finally, it is ultimately we the people who put them in office who are at fault.
This is a representative democracy. It is an imperfect system in that it requires its citizens to have a vested interest in the operation of all levels of government. Because it is we the people who are being represented. Yet, few legislators are recalled for not representing their constituents, because too often their constituents are ignorant to the machinations of government. Few people even know who their representatives are. Many say they don't care. Many act as if they don't care until things get like they are today.
I submit that the people who are so mad about losing collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and Michigan should have been mad long, long ago when so much of their money was being taken for the operation of a failed government. After all, we don't need to make as much if we keep more of it.
This situation in Wisconsin is not because the state is cold, heartless, unfeeling and evil. There is just no money to pay. There hasn't been money in a long time. And the reason why it is only now coming to a head is principally because government serves itself at a high level of dysfunction. One needs to get re-elected to stay in power. One cannot get re-elected if one supports unpopular policies. Policies based on financial austerity are never popular.
But now, the elected officials are doing what they said they would do. they are being unpopular. They were put in office by the agreed upon system and are now representing what they feel is the voice of the populous which is saying, "enough!"
I believe if the factions were to stop and think, they would realize that no one is trying to be unfair, or unjust. One point of view, (my point of view), is that we must now fix these gross financial missteps at the Federal, State and Local levels in order to move forward again one day as a country. We must now invest in our present so we have a future! We will accomplish nothing by passing more and more debt, more and more responsibility to the next generations. We will only make it worse down the road. If our finances are unsustainable now, how will they look after many more years of the same policies?
I liken our financial crisis to global warming. The time for talk is over. The time for action is nigh. It is indeed an inconvenient truth that we all must share in the sacrifice that is needed to save the planet; and to save ourselves.
Shared sacrifice is a central tenet of liberty. The Declaration of Independence beseeched our colonial overlords that we should be given the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Nowhere are we guaranteed (in fact, no one even asked for) collective bargaining rights, we are not guaranteed unlimited wealth, we are not guaranteed the blessing of an easy life or life long care by a the entity of government!
Regardless of what side of the aisle on which you sit, you must come to the agreement that government has failed us. All of us.
And it is the great "us" who shall now have to fix it. For it is simply fact that you cannot pay what you do not make at the individual level or any other. It is very simple. Government has been out of money for a long time, in spite of the fact that you have been giving a good fair bit of your money to them. It has to stop. We have to stop!
I will make less money. You will make less money. You will pay more for pills from Aspirin to Zoloft. You will pay more for milk, and more for gas and more for all the rest of the things you use because there are more consumers in this world now than ever before and nothing more to consume.
If we want to continue to have the best lifestyle on the face of the planet, (I here take the time to remind the reader that even the poorest American is incomprehensibly better-off than his poor brethren in any other country), we must be ready to jump off the cliff. The special interests need to become our special interests and the lobbyists need to stop shouting down the voice of the people.
There should be but one union. The union of American citizens and our rights therein. If you want to assert yourself, by all means! But please ask yourself; is this good for me, or good for us?
We the people should demand the dissolution of the IRS and its subsidies. In its place, we should fight for a flat tax at a sustainable rate that will provide for the defense of our freedom and liberty, will provide aid to emerging economies in the name of human rights and equality, will create and maintain infrastructure and law enforcement and support a world-beating public education option.
We the people should demand the dissolution of failed social programs that cost too much money and do too little good. In their place, we the people should want to see faith and community based outreach plans that target funding and people where they will be most affective in a way they will be most affective for that community.
Corporations should be put in a position to help fund these programs by being given preferential consideration for government contracts and business tax credits. Individuals should be compelled to devote some of their time to the operation and success of these programs because their lives will only be made better with low crime, homelessness and poverty.
We should demand an end to the catastrophically expensive an ineffective drug war, placing focus and funds instead on education and prevention.
We should absolutely dissolve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Instead, pay out each person retiring after 2015 50% of the money they have put in to the system (adjusted for inflation) and adjust the personal and corporate flat tax rate to pay for existing retirees in the system, lowering that rate through participant attrition. Medicare and Medicaid should be administered through private insurance companies using market strictures to guide the programs. It is not my destiny and it should not be my expectation to be cared for by my government- unless I was a soldier. If I was a soldier at any time, all my care for all my life, should be covered 100% with no limit. My family should receive that care, too. The best care. they pay for that care by mortgaging their lives.
If you want to call me cold, call me heartless or call me ignorant, please do. If you want to say that I am insane or idiotic for wanting to be be allowed the chance to grow or to whither on the vine based upon my own merits or failures rather than to be cultivated to a specific specification by an omnipresent force from birth to death, than say it.
We cannot be paid what there is no money to pay. We cannot expect our collective will to change anything unless we ourselves are willing to change. It is no longer about fair or taking it personally. It is only about surviving fixing what is broken.
It will hurt.
Are you ready?

Really Boring Blentry

Wait... What Day Is Today?

Hello Monday! And goodbye. What is it, Thursday already? Wow, I have been really falling off the consistency of my blogging. Sorry, it isn't for wont of writing, I just haven't had the time to devote. New job blah blah blah.

I am feeling very good these days. Not like everything is perfect, mind you, but that everything is going in the right direction. Of course, there is not a lot of "everything" going on as yet. I am still in the planning phases and organizing my world as such.

Today I am accidentally going on my first sales call, though. This is why I say things seem to be sort of progressing from an unknown source of kismet. Getting sit-down appointments is hard in sales. I have a few back doors I can use, but mostly it will be a lot of failing before a small amount of success. It is my least favorite fact. But it is a fact. I don't intend to bore, but I have a few pretty good leads already that will hopefully lead to some immediate success.

Enough about that. Wish me luck, though.

Page Two

I was so happy to come home to two car mags. I love my car mags. Sure you can get content galore online, and with readers and tablets you can even get that content in a suitably portable and convenient fashion. But what you miss is the sensation of the glossy pages, the depth of the color of the photography, the layout, the smell... the subscription cards falling out every other page!

I subscribe to four, which may be excessive. I will cull the herd eventually as one will inevitably stop capturing my interest for one reason or another. The two I got this week in the mail used to be the upstarts - the second tier if you will. I speak of Motor Trend and Automobile.

Motor Trend was so cheesy and so poorly laid out it looked like a high school newspaper in a district with far too much money. All it was was a lot of "stuff" everywhere, it was an assault on the eyes. When I began reading it, the Editor in Chief had a very juvenile bent and I as a juvenile was looking for something a bit more sophisticated. There was very little to be learned here and from an engineering or social perspective it was simply not worth the paper it was printed on.

Enter Automobile which began auspiciously headed by the much vaunted David E. Davis, who after being kicked to the curb from Car and Driver for being willful (irrelevant) and difficult (irrelevant), started up his own magazine. I dislike him intensely. In my opinion he is the very definition of a name-dropping self-aggrandizing bloviator who loves to flaunt his wealth and status to the common man. Just because you were with or met famous people does not a good story make. Automobile Magazine was every bit a journal extolling those virtues. It was dry, lacking any editorial expression and simply boring.

My how times have changed. Road and Track was always the thinking man's magazine. A magazine for engineers and people who got the inside line on things. Not mere enthusiasts. It was the magazine for people who genuinely were interested in the science and physics of all things internal combustion. Car and Driver was the Playboy of the car magazine world, witty, irreverent, well put out and exceedingly entertaining.

Motor Trend has grown up and produces a grand product that is wall-to-wall cars, great pictures, and only a minimum of commentary. It is the most dense and right now my favorite. Road and Track and Automobile should merge and I would like the finished product, but alone they are each a bit staid, a bit boring and a bit short on content. I will never leave Road and Track only because of Peter Egan, about whom I previously wrote a couple months back. His features are nothing short of breathtaking and his monthly piece is always fulfilling. If Egan moved to Motor Trend, I'd drop R&T like a bad habit.

Car and Driver has degenerated. Its editorial content is no longer as strong. Its writing is downright hackneyed compared to just five and ten years ago. They have lost their voice and the greatest indication of this is inviting David E. Davis (the same) back on to staff. Now he's in his 80's, and dying of cancer. His bloviations are not mere recalls of dashing adventures told in a droll fashion, they are just rants of an old dying man. There is a reason why Eskimos put themselves adrift on ice floes, and why no one in history has enjoyed the Tolstoy work, "The Death of Ivan Illitch". After a point, nobody cares.

Which brings me back to this blog! Nobody cares! About this topic anyway. So I have just put 38 minutes into something that is simply a grandiose rumination rooted in minutiae (what was that about self-aggrandizing?) . Perhaps I should have told you about the time I came across Eric Braden (Victor from The Young and the Restless) on Mackinac Island...

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sunday Sunday

Old Gray Mare

I always wanted to be a silver fox, but instead I am turning into an old gray wolf. I am going bowling tonight with the high school youth. Fun! Yes, but unfortunately, I can't simply go bowling. I have to dig out braces for my wrist and elbow, make sure I put medical tape in my ball bag to tape up the knuckle on my middle finger (because if I don't It will swell up to the size of a peach and I won't be able to bend it for weeks), and stretch for an hour so I don't hurt myself. I can't even swing my 16 pound ball... not because I am weak, but because I pay for it in swollen joints and severe pain for too long afterward. At least I have comfortable bowling shoes.

Things I Do When Em Is Gone

Emily is in Nashville, so for this weekend I have been just me. When Em is gone, I indulge by watching movies that she would not like. So far, this weekend these have included Casino, Jaws and Hard Candy. She likes The Sting, but I watched that, too. My DVD player is down, so I am at the mercy of On Demand.

I also listen to music too loud on the stereo. This never flies when she's here because hearing loss is one of the causes she fights to prevent. The cats hate it. They don't understand the noise and where it's coming from. They really don't understand why daddy is screaming in multiple pitches with a certain amount of vehemence along to the noise.

Then I eat too much. Bad things, man. Bad things. Italian sausages covered with cheese sleeved in hoagy rolls, bacon with eggs cooked in the grease, etc. etc.

In the grand scheme, these are pretty minor indulgences, but they get me by. Sometimes we need to explore the dark side - even if our dark sides are more like dusk sides, or maybe simply cloudy days.

Week Two Is Coming Up

Week one went really well. I like the people I met and who I will be working with. Next week is my week back at the old company for "training". This makes me a little anxious because of all the politics involved. I can't expect any different. My leaving there initially is sort of like saying I want to leave the family by way of taking out a full page article in the Sunday paper. It did not go over well and I expect there will be fallout.

Actually there already has been, but I have managed to side step it. I will keep trying to do so. Mostly it will take a little strength on my part to keep my mouth shut and keep my head down.
I look forward to being able to alight here on the west side and sort of get out of the hornets' nest of the east side.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Awwwwwwww, Nuts!

It is said that men cannot know the trauma and pain of childbirth. I agree that ipso facto that is indeed true being that we simply aren't built for that particular function. But it occurred to me due to certain events last night that women cannot possibly understand the trauma and pain of a good nut shot.

What brought this to the fore, Bill, you ask? I am glad you did because it happens to the subject of this blentry. You are so smart, dear reader! Right before bed, Em was trying to move her suitcase and kick an area rug by our bed into place at the same time while wearing backless slippers that were not cooperating. She was having a real time of it. I was carrying a dish full of fresh water for the kitty and Em wasn't doing an especially good job of telling me how I could help by way of using any language that I, (or any other human male I suspect), understood; I was essentially powerless to help.

While I was standing there dumbly watching her struggle, she was shaking the offending slipper off her right foot. It was a thousand to one shot at the buzzer from the half-court and she nailed it. And by nailed it, I mean nailed it. I got a glancing blow right in 'lefty' by the reinforced tip of a barely subsonic slipper. There's a real cheap joke there that for the sake of my younger readers, my smarter more savvy readers and my mother, (who belongs in the aforementioned groups, but alas is principally my mother), I will allow it to remain unwritten. If you would like me to send it to you privately, let me know. I'm sure you can figure it out. I was forced to be stoic as I was carrying the bowl of water and launching that across the room would only have made things worse.

But the pain needed to go somewhere. Since dancing the nut shot jig was out of the question, and I have never been one to not make things worse; I curtly exclaimed a few choice words in a staccato tone that indicated what Emily could do with her carpet and her slipper. She was apologizing even as I was cursing the pain, the slipper and the dumb luck of it all.

It was tense for a few moments and I wish I could take back the words I said. But this morning I got to thinking that it would be to the peril of a father in the delivery room to take heed to anything the birthing mother was saying. It must be excused due to the traumatic pain. Last night, I generally lacked the ability to think my way through this enough to try to explain it to Em and so we went to bed in a bit of a huff.

She apologized again this morning on her way to Nashville for the week and it was amazing how the pain came right back as soon as she did. It really is a terrible, traumatic sort of pain. And while a woman may give birth prodigiously in her life, (the more she does the higher the likelihood that she will have a T.V. show), I bet most men get waaaaay more nut shots in the course of a life than most women will have children. I mean, I certainly wasn't looking for a nut shot last night, but it found me. I don't know too many women who have found themselves suddenly in labor without knowledge aforethought, (although if she does, she has a high likelihood of being on a T.V. show being poorly and melodramatically reenacted by an only slightly more attractive person than herself with some sort of poorly written melodramatic voice over).

A nut shot can be, and often is, delivered to innocent bystanders. It is indeed among the plagues of humanity... or male humanity anyhow. I hope to be forgiven for my mouth and my knee-jerk reaction last night, Em. It was as beyond my ability to control as it was yours to turn back time and wish the whole thing away.