Dr. King is crying.

I read a story this morning that made me angry, then it made me scared and now it just makes me sad. There was a young boy in Florida who was attacked on a school bus by three older boys. The news is saying that this was a “retaliation” attack for the George Zimmerman verdict. What happened to Trayvon Martin was a tragedy; it could have been completely avoided if the one holding the gun had called the police instead of going out on, what amounted to, a vigilante raid of the unknown young man in his neighborhood. Thanks  to one idiots actions, we were subject to Rev Sharpton and Jesse Jackson calling for the white man’s head on a platter, how there should be justice for Trayvon, etc, etc. I totally agree with them on this, the shooting and death of this young man was a tragedy. The only question I have for Rev. Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, where were you when this young white man was brutally attacked by the 3 older black kids on the school bus? You were quiet, that’s where.

From what I remember of the history of Dr.King, who Rev. Sharpton and Jesse Jackson rode his coattails to get to where they are at now. Dr. King was all about peace and safety for all people, all children, regardless of color, regardless of social class, regardless of where you came from or where you’re going. His hopes were that one day people of all colors would be able to live in harmony. Rev. Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been living to make a name for themselves in D.C. by creating and perpetuating controversy between the races. If you were truly living by the beliefs of Dr. King you’d be just as outraged and disgusted by this revenge attack as you were of the Zimmerman/Martin attack. If you could stop being a common political media whore for a few moments, you’d see that being one sided will never get this country back on track to starting to heal the rift that is very obvious in today’s society.

I’m at a crossroads in my life. Our marriage is great, the kids are good, but I've coming to an intersection of what do I want to pursue in my career? I have been accepted into two very interesting programs of study this past Summer, one is Radiation Therapist and the other is Electrical Engineering. Originally I was working my way towards a degree in Nursing with an advanced degree in Nurse Anesthetist, being able to administer anesthesia to patients on an out patient or labor and delivery basis. I've had a long conversation with my wife, who as you all may know is a very good nurse, and she let me know that the future of health care is looking pretty rough. Most of her concerns stem from the cyclical nature of how hospitals operate, where they cull the older, more experienced nurses who are making a very comfortable living, and bring in the less experienced, fresh nurses from schools. This kind of turnover is good for the hospitals, but not so good for the nurses. With this kind of culling, the hospitals can start to impose their new ways of doing things which, again is good for the hospital, but not so much for the nurses or even the patients who are under the care of the new nurses. The culling will also create serious issues between the veterans and the rookies in the nursing profession. The other major drawback is that I would have to quit my current job, which isn't all that rewarding most of the time, but it does pay the bills and it keeps a roof over our heads, food on the table and my car payments paid.

That said, I've been looking at the alternatives, first is a position still in the health profession. Radiation Therapist, this is one that intrigues me because it’s based in both biology and physics. Radiation therapists administer, sometimes known as Dosimeterists, the radiation to cancer patients as needed. This would be a rewarding career in that I would be working with patients who needed me, while getting my physics fix in on the side. The major drawback to this though is that I would, like the nursing school, have to quit my job and like above, house, car, food, etc… would be stretched as I went through the 2-3 year program. I wouldn't be able to sit around and not work because I couldn't do that to Mie, MG or MB, I realize that school would become my full time job, but I still need to bring in close to what I’m making now in a more limited capacity. That’s just not a reality at this point in time.

The other road of the intersection is going to Arizona State U. online to their Electrical Engineering degree program. Because this is online, I would be able to keep my current job and go through the schooling from my desk. Although the thought of building electronics sounds interesting to me, mostly because my uncle use to work for IBM in their robotics division, but also because Electricity scares me a little. Yeah, I know that’s kind of counter-intuitive, but I've learned that the best way to face your fear is to learn more about it. Kind of like ‘Know thine enemy’ sort of thing. Needless to say this degree wouldn't be as “rewarding” as say nursing or being a radiation therapist, it would be a good career to advance from where I’m currently at. 

My mind and my heart are at odds with this, my mind tells me logically go with the Electrical Engineering, it’s in a field I already work in and the EE degree would only help me to advance further into the ranks of where I’m at. My heart tells me to go with the Radiation Therapists training, even though it would potentially causes is to go into the poor house and lose our current residence. But then my gut gets in there and throws a monkey wrench into my thinking with telling me that I should still pursue becoming a nurse, then onto a nurse anesthetist. I was thinking that feeling was residual from the past four years towards one definite goal. I hope that these crossroads give me a clear sign as to what it is that I’m meant to do, standing here at the fork in the road is going to get me run over by the garbage truck driven by time.

Dear 16 year old self

Dear 16 year old me,
Don't worry, you'll become something, you'll do something with yourself. Slow Down, you don't need to rush to grow up, be a kid for a little while longer.

Your world is going to become increasingly harder in the next couple of years. Don't pass up any opportunity to tell your parents that you love them, never leave home without letting them know just how much you appreciate them. You won't have them much longer, you need to spend what time you can with them and let them know that you will be ok because they've given you and your brother and sister the tools to do well in life, you just want to spend quality time with them.

Don't be a dick in school, you've spent the last 18 years telling your daughter that there are two roads that she can go down, the easy one where you can do all the work and go through the schooling and get the good paying job after college, or you can dick off and struggle.
Guess which one you decided to choose, don't do it, stay in school. You are good enough, you do deserve the good things in life, you can do it because you are stronger than you think you are. Stop torturing yourself, and for god sake stop giving your teachers grief. You can thank Mr. Garcia now for putting up with your crap and not strangling you within an inch of your life. He and your Dad were both right. You know what I'm talking about, no need to go any further into that conversation.
High school is NOT the best years of your life.

All those girls that you have a crush on who don't know you're alive, forget them, they aren't worth it. Stop being so narrow sighted, broaden your vision and you will see the girls who matter and who are willing to give you a chance. The girls you are going after will all end up addicted to something, whether it's alcohol, drugs or plastic surgery. The ones around you grow into beautiful women.

You're going to lose a daughter, it's going to be one of the hardest things in your life. The 10 years after high school are going to be the hardest experiences that you've ever had to deal with in your young life, you're going to struggle, you're going to fight, but you're going to claw your way through it because you are a fighter, and you are strong. You'll be rewarded with 3 marriages and have to deal with the failure with 2 divorces, but the best things that have ever come into your life will come out of these trials.

You'll be gifted with a beautiful, intelligent, damn hard headed daughter who is going to take the world by storm. Just remember to agree with her mom on the name, and then when she's doped up on the post birth drugs, you can give your daughter her true name. You'll have to wait, but eventually you will also be gifted with a wife who loves you, and who believes in you with all that she is. She's going to give you a beautiful baby boy. You're going to go back and forth over his name, but the right name will come in time.

 Dear 16 year old self, please take these next words to heart: GOOGLE, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cisco, anything internet.

 Be a good person, don't try to impress anyone else, live the way that you know is right. Follow the truth of "To Thy own self be true" and you'll do good.

 Love,
Your 41 year old self.

Low and Behold

The prodigal son returns. I've come realize that Facebook is the devil. It allows people who usually can't get people to notice them outside of their normal every day lives to seemingly become "interesting". It's been linked by psychological studies to increased narcissism. I mean, really, do I care what you had for lunch and with whom? No not really. Do I care that the same girl dumped your for the nth time this month? No. Do I care that you're out getting your duck face on while getting groped by a multitude of meat heads at a local bar? Well... ok, no not at all. This induced narcissism has permeated our media like a plague, it's every where you look now. On TV we're inundated with "Reality TV". There's nothing real about this. What happened to the good sit com or the non-reality drama? Why is it that a 16 year old pregnant high school girl is given more press than the teen age girl who has trained her whole life in pursuit of the perfect score at the Olympics? Why do we have meat heads who have the vocabulary of a fifth grader given a show when we have people in other countries fighting for the common man's right to vote? What the hell is a Snookie or a Honey Boo Boo? These are all fails our society is going to pay for when the generation growing up sees that, if they do stupid shit, they can get on TV for their fifteen minutes of fame and then feel entitled to getting money for doing absolutely, nothing. I'm already seeing this entitled mentality in today's younger crowd. Give me an XBOX, because I go to school. WHAT? So did I, you know what I got? I got to go another day without having a boot firmly planted into my ass for missing class. Give me money to go hang out with my friends? Really? And besides sitting on my couch, eating my food with your dirty ass feet up on the arm of the chair, what did you do to earn this money? I've been working since I was thirteen years old, that's when I could get a paper route and I worked my ass off seven days a week for two hours a day pedaling my bike and about 100 lbs of paper up the steepest hill in the area to earn $70 a month. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and pride in my ability to earn money. Mom, I need the newest, name brand clothes to fit in at school. No kidding, how about you get 3 pairs of pants and a couple of shirts and be happy with it, because well, that's what you've earned with your C's and D's in class. If you don't like it, I have three words for you GET. OVER. IT. I've since stopped using Facebook, Tweeter, Tumblr and most of the other "social" media outlets, except this one because I need an outlet. Not one where I put stuff up to get a friend to tell me "You're so great, keep your head up", just one that I can come onto and vent to get it out of my system and let it be.

Pepper spray and UCD

I have one thing to say about the students who were pepper sprayed on the UCD Campus. You're a DUMB ASS!

What we were privileged to see on the 11 o'clock news was only 5 seconds of the whole picture. And the totally unbiased media won't show you the events leading up to the 5 second clip. Basically what happened is the police arrested a couple of the protesters for vandalism and trying to incite a riot. They left the rest of the protesters who were being sheep and following what one very boisterous person was telling them to do. They followed the police to where they were "staging" those arrested until a police vehicle could come and pick them up, book them and probably release them. The police did the absolutely right thing by trying to remove the ones causing trouble away from the ones who were peacefully protesting. The sheep in them decided to go protest where the trouble makers were being held.

They not only decided to follow the police to where the trouble makers were being held, they decided to surround the police to keep them from taking the trouble makers away. That folks is considered obstruction of justice, and if the police officers on the scene feel that they are in danger, that's threatening an officer. The officers went to the young lemmings who were blocking their vehicles and tried to convince these young lemmings that they should allow for the vehicle to come in and let them do their job, or they would have to take the appropriate actions so that they could do their jobs. These young sheep, decided that the "pigs" were obviously kidding about taking the appropriate actions and decided to stay and obstruct the officers from doing their jobs. The police attempted, for what was approximately 45 minutes, possibly longer, to convince these young sheep/lemmings to move long enough to allow them to bring the vehicle in to do their job. These young sheep/lemmings decided to make jokes instead, and laugh at the officer's attempts to get them to comply. The officers even went so far to warn the young sheep/lemmings/dumb asses that they would resort to using pepper spray on those who were blocking them in.

At this point, the police who were on the scene were being surrounded by the protesters who were being egged on by an anonymous voice off to the side. The scariest thing was that whatever this voice said, it was immediately chanted by the mindless masses who were surrounding the police officers.

After what seems like 5 attempts to persuade these young sheep/lemmings/dumb asses to move and allow the police to do their job, or to get pepper sprayed. The police, get this, used the pepper spray on the 15-20 young sheep/lemmings/dumb asses who were on the path that the police vehicle was trying to come in on. That's it... The police didn't go wild and start spraying everyone in site like the media is leading the general public of sheep to believe. Just the ones who were blocking the vehicle and refusing to move.

Now, to me, that's like throwing a rock at a police officer and crying foul when they arrest me for assault or tripping one while they are chasing after a robber, then cuffing me for obstruction/assault. I know that these don't compare to the crimes that were committed by the young sheep/lemmings/dumb asses at UCDavis, but it's the same principle.

Davis is one of the top schools in the state and the Nation. This school has been known for creating free thinkers, leaders of industry and environmental issues. All I saw were lemmings, mindless drones doing what an anonymous voice was telling them to do. This is a far cry from their grandparents at the campuses of the 1960's. With the world of easily posted videos and the smaller hand held video cameras, I think that it's getting to the point where media should be held accountable for the snippets and the parts taken out of context, if they're not going to show the whole story.

Please young lemming dumb asses, please I implore you, start acting more like free thinkers than the sheep that you were that day.

Ok

So this day started off fairly well. I came in, checked my stuff, everything looked good, so I went to breakfast.
Low and behold I found out that the stuff that ran didn't finish completely or at all, hence the error alerts that were set up didn't run at all. Fantastic. I go back to the group that I've been working with and tell them. They're understandably concerned. I get off the phone and get back to fixing the issue. I get a phone call about 15 minutes later from their boss, who just so happens to be my interim boss, and proceed to get a serious ass chewing. I listen to what he's saying, being quiet to let him finish his thoughts which seems to piss him off even more. I don't understand this, I've always been raised to let someone finish before you rebut what they say. Apparently he's use to people disputing with him while he's talking and my letting him finish his thoughts must have been an insult to him. He finished and all I said was "Ok" then hung up.

Now there's one thing that I've learned over the years with regards to I.T. folks, management in particular. When they are that angry, justified or not, they aren't hearing what you're telling them, so it's pointless to argue with them. This might come across as apathetic, or what have you, but I really don't have time to play this game with them. I'm willing to play "Hide and go fuck yourself" but not the I can Yell Louder Than You Can To Get My Point Across game. The thing that really stinks about this? I turned down a job with a better company, better benefits, a larger team to help me out, and at literally twice what I make... just at the beginning of this week.

The reason for declining wasn't because I love my JOB or what have you, it's because I made a promise to MG to keep her in the school she started with the friends that she's made and most importantly I love HER

UGH!!

I don't know why I do this to myself. I go into work and expect to have a great day, every day. It seems that the rest of the world is with me, they want me to have a phenomenal day too, then I walk through the doors of work and the first person I see is my "Manager"... I use that term loosely. I see him once a month if that, I don't even think that he knows my name, I'm sure that he thinks that my name is "Hey... um... Could you do this for me". When walking into the building this morning I saw him up on top of the stairs above the door that I have to go into to get to my hole. He looks down and I can see the disdain on his face. Wow... really? I realize that this isn't your life's choice of what you wanted to do, but damn. Don't look at me if you feel that way. I have a strange ability to read people, and I'm fairly good at it. There's the "friend" who is ashamed to be near us, why? Probably feels like she shouldn't be talking crap. There's the friend who also shows disdain for us, arms folded and looking me up and down like I'm not worthy of being in his presence. I'm not the one who, again, isn't living the life that I wanted, go to school and do something about it. There's the friend who has to be liked by everyone, but talks trash and tries to over compensate for it. It's easy, just stop talking trash.

My supervisor is out this week, he and the "senior" janitor are out in Vegas and we all know that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I've been left to basically my own devices, the acting supervisor is pretty much keeping to himself seeing that his mom is elderly and sick. I can't blame him either. If I was in the same situation, I'd have spent as much time with my mom before she passed. I have Mie and MG though, so they make my day all worth while. I love them both beyond words, now if I can just get out of here unscathed today, back out into the world that wants me to have a phenomenal day and get back into that mind set, I'll be all the better for it.

Oh, Also taking Chemistry this semester. They are proving more that everything is made up of energy. Is there any truth to the "Laws of Attraction"?

Development Summary

When I started this class, I wasn’t sure what it was that I was going to learn. I was surprised to learn that how I was raising my daughter was how the experts suggested. I took what my parents taught me and applied it, I’m not sure if they read any books by the experts beside maybe Dr. Spock, but I feel that they did everything just the right way. They passed on their knowledge to their kids, adopted and birthed kids alike. I like to think that they helped raise more than just their three kids and the six grandchildren that we gave them.

This personal profile project helped me to fully realize that we didn’t have a whole lot of material possessions growing up, but what our parents gave us was worth much more than anything that they could have bought for us. For them to take their young family of my parents and my sister, and move to California where they didn’t have any relatives or friends was a huge leap of faith. To make it work out here on their salaries was an act of sheer will on both of their parts. They saw that they wanted a better life for their family and they were going to do what ever it took to get to that Promised Land. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said “I’ve seen the promise land, though I may not get there with you…” That’s was my parents philosophy without even really knowing it. They worked hard all of their adult lives so that their children could have a better life than what they had. That drive is very much evident in each of their kids lives today, we all want our own kids to do better than what we currently have.

I’m glad that my parents instilled trust, autonomy, initiative and industry in my siblings and myself. We have been able to establish our own identities through adolescence and intimacy as young adults. As we move into Middle Adulthood, I’m noticing that we are becoming satisfied with where we are in our lives and our ability to provide the same good traits of the Erickson Development model as our parents were able to instill in us.

With this model and the Piaget model to learn from, I’m almost looking forward to moving into the Older Adult phase, sitting back as I retire on the beach of Tahiti drinking my Mai Tai after a long day of scuba diving and reviewing my accomplishments that led to my being able to live the way that I’m living. I’ll be a large part of my grandchildren’s lives, just like my mom was a large part of her grandchildren’s lives.

Puberty and High School

I've been taking a class at the local Community College and have to write a paper, this is what I have so far.

Puberty was rather unkind to me, I got the really cool cracking voice, acne and glasses as my eyes went through their own turmoil. I was stuck between maturing and still being the geeky kid for most of my high school career. To add insult to injury, my parents thought that this would be a great time to get braces. I now understand that the delay in orthodontics was mainly due to the lack of insurance, but at the time I just thought that my parents didn’t want me to be dabbling in teen age sex. All of my friends around me were getting their physiques and were having girls chase them. I was always the odd one out.

During school I loved the sciences, I had great teachers who taught because they wanted to be there, not because they haven’t been able to write the next great American classic novel. I thought that I had a better connection to the adults in my life than I did with my peers. The person who had the largest impact in my life was my dad. He taught me how to be a man, camping, working with my hands and how to be respectful of women. “Treat them as you would want your mother treated”, that has stuck with me all these years.

My grand plans for after school was to travel the country. Through out high school, I had a map of the United States with little pins in it marking places that I was going to visit starting the summer of graduation. I had saved most of my money from my jobs that I had since I was thirteen. All of my plans changed the day of November eighth nineteen eighty-eight. That was the day I was called to the principal’s office. When I got there, one of my neighbors was there to tell me that my dad had suffered a massive heart attack and didn’t survive. It was a very rough rest of my senior year, all of my savings went to my mom to pay for the mortgage on the house because growing up, I learned that family came before self. I left the map on my wall though to remind me that I can still go on my trip, it will just be postponed for a little while.

The night my dad died, I realized just how many people he touched, and just how many people I considered friends. Most of my senior class showed up to console me and pay condolences to my family. Our tiny house was packed with kids and adults alike, family, friends, co-workers, bosses, teachers and pastors. I wanted to be alone, but they knew that would probably be a bad idea. They stayed with us all night to make sure that we were going to be alright. It was probably the longest night of my life.

I went back to school the next day so that I could give my mind something to do. I didn’t have a tenth grade homeroom, I didn’t have homeroom throughout high school, but my first period teacher tried to tell me that I should go home, but I told her that I needed the mental stimulation more than being out of school. We had a Mexican stand off, she wasn’t going to teach until I went home, and I wasn’t leaving. She did ask me to stay after class. She told me that I was the most hard-headed, stubborn, mentally strong child that she had dealt with in a long time and then told me that her and the other teachers were praying for our family.

I’m not to sure how much culture came into play during this time in my life, we lived in a very racially and culturally diverse area. There was a large influx of Vietnamese and Hispanic families. Most of the kids I grew up with were African-American, Chinese, Hispanic or Caucasian. The one thing that my parents did teach was to celebrate the diversity, that’s what made the spice of life.

The group of friends that I had and hung out with on a daily basis was the kids I grew up with. Some new ones who had moved into our school, but all welcome. We were lovingly called the "Odd Squad" we were made up of the Jocks, the “Stoners”, the smart kids, the dorks, the geeks and then there was me. I was told that it was hard to classify me, I told them that was because I was me, I didn’t want to try being anyone else.

Joe

So have you ever wondered where some singers come up with their lyrics? I'm listening to the Bob and Tom show via the web, they have a gentleman who has been a drummer and co-song writer for a number of years, having played with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Ted Nuggent, Peter Frampton, Don Henley, The Eagles, Phil Collins, and Joe Walsh just to name a few.

This is where it leads me to wondering where lyrics come from, specifically Joe Walsh and the song Life's Been Good to Me So Far, "I live in hotels, tear out the walls"... This really never made sense to me besides maybe the typical rock star behavior of punching holes in walls. No, Joe would bring in a chainsaw and literally cut out walls between hotel rooms with the chainsaw so that he could have more room.

Must be fun having that kind of money to have your accountants pay for it all.

Nothing really

It's been an interesting 3 months, we've had floors put into the house, we've celebrated 2 years together, we've celebrated our birthdays, the seasons have changed and we're starting to get into the Summer. I have gone from waking up and leaving when it's pitch black and getting home when it's almost as dark, to leaving when there's enough light that I don't kill myself walking down the porch steps and I get home when there's still enough light to do yard work.

That's something that I never thought that I'd like doing when I was a kid, yard work. It's not that I didn't like being outside, it was almost impossible to get me either out of the pool or find me when my friends weren't off on vacation somewhere exotic like Yuma AZ. This was of course before I got hooked on video games or later in life, girls.

This Summer I get to watch 2 of my nieces graduate (hopefully if it doesn't rain), while my oldest niece gets married. That's a very touchy subject within my family, the marriage, not the graduations. Darth Older Brother feels that she's making a mistake which will lead to her ruining her life, I had to remind him that even though we have the experience on our side, she's still a teen (19) and I also reminded him about being a teen and our parents trying to tell us that something we were about to embark on would be a mistake, but we didn't listen, we knew what we were doing and that we were right only to find out that experience is the best teacher. MN (Married Niece) is in that position right now, right or wrong, she's made her decision to marry a nice kid who is in the Navy fresh out of boot camp and in Nuke school. I made the suggestion that they wait until he's out of school and the Navy before getting married so that he can do his Navy stuff without guilt, as I'm sure did her mom, dad, and younger sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles on her dad's side, friends and probably other assorted strangers who were on the fringe of the conversation, she wasn't having any of that. She's chosen to take a difficult path in life, her husband is planning on making sure that she continues and completes school to get her degrees, now if she'll just listen to him. :) 

One thing that almost everyone probably forgot to ask was one question, is this a head, heart or gut decision. It was a gut decision, with that there is only one thing to do, love her and her new husband, wish them well and be there for when she has questions.

Now that the easy part is over, the I Do's have been said, now comes the hard part, Life. She's hard headed enough to survive out there, they seem to be commited enough to each other to stick it out. Hopefully she'll make friends before he goes out to the fleet for the 1 1/2 years on a carrier and the additional 6 months on tours in either WestPac or EastAtl depending on where he's stationed.

The one thing that can be done and should be done is that her parents should take solice in the thought that they, like our parents, have given the tools to survive, thrive and prosper.

Old me

I had an assignment for class which was for me to describe a significant event in my life.

Here is what I came up with:

The Day the Old Me Died

We had spent the last 8 months going to Stanford University hospital, to see the specialist that my wife needed. After what had happened 2 years prior, we were both more than willing to make the almost weekly trips there. We were both fresh into our 20’s.

It was on a visit to see the specialist on the 8th month that we received the news, the baby might be in trouble, all I could think was not again, I couldn’t go through all of that again, I couldn’t sit by helplessly while we lost another baby so close to full term. We lost Samantha on the 9th month, what they called a still birth. We sat in the labor room for over 36 hours, listening to her heartbeat slow, then eventually stop within the first hour. My wife’s diabetes kept the doctors from performing a Cesarean section on her to save our little girl. Helpless, that’s the only way to describe how I felt that entire time.

This was our second chance to start a family, we were so close and that awful night 2 years prior came rushing back all at once. My mind went numb as the doctors at the Stanford hospital rushed her into an emergency labor ward. They had the ultrasound technician there in the room every hour, to make sure that there was movement, and a nurse to check the baby’s and my wife’s vital signs.

The doctor came in and reassured us that everything that could be done, was being done. We would get the best care in the entire Bay Area and we would be bringing our baby home. They must have said that a few times, but I never really understood what they were saying at the time. My mind playing over and over again the events of Samantha’s delivery, praying that I wouldn’t have to go through that all over again.

The time that it took to go from the day’s scheduled appointment to the doctors giving us the news to my wife being admitted felt like it took a lifetime, but the time was actually less than an hour and it was still in the early afternoon, just the beginning of our long night. We looked at each

other and both started to cry, we were both a couple of kids who were looking at dealing with a very unpleasant event that no parent should have to deal with, for a second time in the same number of years.

As the afternoon slowly turned into evening, we were visited by the doctors and nurses in what would soon turn into a parade of optimism. With the ultrasounds starting to show promise, and the baby’s heart beat continuing to beat strong, our emotions and hopes started to rise. The parade continued on through the night, and around 4 o’clock in the morning I realized that the doctor that admitted my wife, had been there to check on us the entire night, he told us he wasn’t going to go home until our baby was born and in our arms.

I stayed next to my wife the entire time, My brother-in-law showed up and told me that I looked like junk. Then my wife told me that I should go get something to eat in the cafeteria, just to get out of the room and stretch my legs. I protested, I didn’t want to miss anything or go any where. The more I protested, the more she insisted until I finally relented. I stood and I could tell that my body was sore from atrophy, but my mind was still numb.

As I walked out of the maternity ward, I noticed a yellow line painted on the floor. I followed the line, whether out of boredom or out of sleep deprivation. I followed it down the long hallway, to an elevator, down 2 floors and then back out into the hallway. I followed that line for almost 10 minutes and realized that I was in the basement of the hospital. I turned around and noticed a robot coming towards me, following the yellow line. That was me too, a robot on auto pilot following a yellow line painted on the floor.

I had to get some food and try to get myself back. I stood to the side and let the robot pass, then followed the yellow line back up out of the basement to the main floor. I wandered around the main floor until I finally followed my nose to the cafeteria. I ordered a sandwich and something that looked like a pudding, found a table away from other people so that I could try to clear my head a little. I failed miserably, I didn’t see the neurosurgeons on the other side of a low wall, they were deep in conversation about the infected brain that they had just operated on. The pudding suddenly took on a rather unappetizing pall. My brother-in-law saved me from having to listen to the rest of the conversation.

He came into tell me that my wife was going into “hard labor” and that I had better get back up to her room. I don’t think that I touched the ground at all the entire time as I made my way back up the 2 floors to the maternity ward. As I entered my wife’s

room, it seemed that every nurse and every doctor in the ward was in her room. My heart skipped a beat, but I was whisked to the bed side and was told to help with the birth.

It took a little over an hour, but our daughter was born, we started to cry again, but this time we were crying because our daughter was born. She was alive and crying, that was the most beautiful sound that I had ever heard. She was born with a few problems, and was taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, but we were able to bring her home after a weeks stay.

My marriage to my daughter’s mom didn’t last, but we did create one of the most beautiful things in our lives. Our daughter stays with me, she’s a teenager now, and I couldn’t imagine life without her. She was there the night the Old me died, and was replaced with something better.

I'm Lazy

I was talking to a friend of mine from Chicago, he and I use to work together and we got to talking about the company we worked for. Apparently my ex-boss told him on more than one occasion that I was the laziest person she's worked with. A little taken aback, I asked him if she explained how she came to this conclusion. This is when it got a little interesting.

We would have a weekly conference call with all of the call centers across the country, Medford OR, Tulsa OK, Cedar Rapids IA, Madison and Waukesha WI, Knoxville TN, and Chicago IL. We would get on the phone and talk about anything that would directly affect the group that I worked in, most of the time it was no. So apparently that meant that I wasn't doing anything during my tenure at the company. Never mind that I was working with 3 other people from my call center, Medford OR, to create a model for the I.T. department which would aleviate 1 person carrying a pager for 5 years solid without relief (that would be me). We introduced a new model where we went from having 1 person who knew how to do a job to 1 primary person and 2 alternates who could do the job. This allowed for each person in the I.T. department to be able to take a vacation without worrying about their systems back in the call center. This model is still successfully in use today at the company in the other call centers, some 4 years after I left.

I guess I'm lazy because I had 1 person named Jerry who was afraid I could do his job better than he could (which I was very much able to do, even his manager said this) and I would make him obsolete, a scary prospect for a man in his 60's in an economically depressed area. I recognized that fact and would help him where I could, but he in turn would call my ex-boss and tell her all the projects that he had and she would in turn call me and ask why I didn't know about these projects? I let her know that, even when I would sit with Jerry for the 1/2 hour in the morning letting him know about all of the stuff that I was working on that would affect his systems, he wouldn't respond in kind, instead he called her to give updates. She didn't take the time to contact his boss and find out that Jerry was screwing things up and he was trying to make himself look better to management outside of his department. Go figure...

I'm apparently also lazy because when asked to write programs, I would, then submit them to the senior programmer out in Chicago, who would give them to my ex-boss and neglect to tell her that I wrote them. Vince is a good guy, but very aloof, when asked he would eventually admit that I wrote them, but ex-boss never asked, she just assumed that they came from Vince and I was slacking.

On top of every thing else, we had meetings... every day... at least 5 - 1 hour meetings. So I'd be away from my desk or on the phone with Chicago or a Vendor for that 5 hours a day, most of these meetings were just rehashed garbage from the previous meetings. We would have pre-meeting meetings to discuss what would be discussed in the "meeting", then we would have the "meeting", then we would get together to discuss what was discussed in the "meeting". Most of the time, I would be involved with the conference call meetings, and doing work that I could to catch up from the face-to-face meetings. I was also helping the other call centers implement software that was what they call "beta" (basically software that was tested in vendor labs, but not out in the real world. Management apparently thought that it would be a good idea to buy this software at a lower price and then double the price of the implementation by throwing all their resources at it to get it to work, only to abandon the project all together about 6 months after the implementation)

And on top of having at least 7 major projects going, I also found time to lead a 2 day training class every 5 weeks for the new customer service reps, introducing the tech team, teaching them how to use the technologies we provided them and when to call the help desk to open tickets. Plus walking through the call center daily to make sure there was no trouble out on the floor.

I have to admit though, when I got 1 bad yearly review after 3 years of stellar reviews, I asked "Why?" and the only answer that the ex-boss could give me was "because someone has to get it" Excuse me? This is the woman who I literally had seen in person, face to face maybe a total of 5 hours. She would come out to my call center, but she would take off with her friends and the 2 guys she was seeing from my call center and use the trip out to Medford as a vacation, just stopping long enough to do a quick walk through of the center. This review would not stand, I contacted HR in the call center, but guess what? The HR manager was ex-bosses good friend, so ex-boss was defended and later called to tell her about my confidental conversation with the local HR manager. Good thing I have friends in higher places than ex-boss or HR manager.... needless to say, after I complained and some amount of time and enough rope, these 2 hung themselves and were told that it might be in their best interest to find other employment.

I was told I'm lazy... I don't really see it. :)

Going Home again

I went home this past weekend. Well not home to where I currently live, but home to where I grew up. I wasn't alone this time, I took Mie with me, I showed her my little piece of history. The house that I grew up in, the street where we played, fought, partied and struggled with loss. It's changed dramatically, the street which seemed like my whole world as I was growing up, the area which was my own little micro universe, vast and expansive when I was single digits in age running around bare chested with my barefeet, now seemed so small and almost confining. Since leaving there I've lived in 3 different states, two on either end of California, the other in the central states area only to eventually move back to my home state. 

I showed her the schools which were huge when I was going to them, now they are so tiny. Places that I hung out at with friends in middle and high school are now gone, the local pizza parlor where we would go every Wednesday night for their all you can eat pizza or to see or be seen by that special person who stirred those strange feelings for the first time in our young hearts or a little lower, the Rexall drug store where we would go to get the 5 cent candies, the local liquor store where we would play the cutting edge video games like Galaga and Zaxon or Centipede as they had just come out, even the place with the best breakfasts and burgers in the world. The places where we grew up knowing in our own little microcosm, gone... lost to the housing jungle where 72 houses were put on less than 5 acres of memories. To say the least, that was heart breaking.

I even took her to the hill where it seemed like most of my friends stole their first kiss while looking out over the lights of the valley. All of this brought back a flood of memories, including the first day that I walked MG to the same kindergarten classroom that I attended, my teacher, Mrs Carter long since retired, but my first day of school still fresh in my mind.

I had fun showing Mie around, pointing out things that I thought were important and some of the fun little memories associated with each place.

Blissfully ignorant

I like to think sometimes, that there really isn't anything outside of my subjective reality. Without getting too freakishly deep into quantum physics and all the other psycho babble that's out there, I like to be blissfully ignorant at times.

I like Thanksgiving Turkey, I don't need to know how we get said turkey, per se, I just want to eat one. I have a friend who works for Jeannie-O Turkey herders out in Minnesota. He thought that it would be both beneficial and educational to give us a virtual tour of the farms out there. From the hatchlings all the way out to the slaughterhouse, and the V shaped knives that remove the turkey's head from the neck. Do I need to know this information? No I don't. Do I need to be educated on the ways of the Turkey? Absolutely not. Do I want to remain blissfully ignorant on the life of a turkey? A very resounding yes.

I know that there are people out there who are very much dead set against eating one of God's creatures, and we should all just go without this barbarous tradition, but I have to say just one thing, Not eating meat is a choice, eating meat is an instinct.

Question

So I was thinking, Catholics believe in heaven, but they don't believe in past lives. So if when you die and go to heaven, do they consider this life a past life? If so, does that mean that this life doesn't exist?

I'm willing to listen to points of view.

Joyous Reunion

This morning is a little slow, I couldn't sleep so I came into work a LOT early. I was trying to figure out what it was. It's the season. I've always really liked the beginning of the Holiday season, the costumes of Halloween, with the little kids coming up and trying to say Trick or Treat as their first real sentence, and the turning of the trees through their fall colors.

I remember the big pot of "home made" chili and corn bread before going out trick or treating, I also remember really wanting to be a robot one year because I saw this really cool costume at the store, but ending up with a box with a bunch of buttons penciled on the front, holes cut in the top and sides for my head and arms, my uncle giving me some dryer hose to go over my arms, smaller boxes to go over my shoes and an aluminum foil helmet. POOF! I was a robot. Or the torn up jeans and shirt and a whole body of green body paint to make a 2nd grade Incredible"ly small" Hulk.

I also remember my parents walking around with us, holding hands and exuding love, even though they never really had a whole lot, they had each other, and that was enough to get through.

One of the great things about having kids is that you get to relive all of the great memories from your childhood.

The other thing that I realized this morning is that this is the 9th anniversary of our Mom passing away. Some people would be sad that they lost their mom, but for us, it was a joyous reunion for our mom and dad. We wept, of course, but we also realized that she was much happier now that our parents were together again.

Love you mom, see you in about 50 years...

Death and disassociative writing

Monday night I got a terrible shock, it was one of my best friends birthday. He's only about 6 months older than I am, but that's not the shocker. One of the guys that we went to high school with had died suddenly due to a heart attack or something. I'm not sure, I was getting the information 2nd hand.

Here is a guy who almost always seemed to be in good health in most respects. Dead of a heart attack at 36. My friend the Plumper, had known Rich fairly well because he had been dating Plumpers little sister for a while.

Death has a funny way of rearing it's ugly little head now and again to remind me that, yes, I am still alive, but am I living? I tend to not dwell on death too awfully long, but more on things that I could be doing to be living. I could tell people that I love that I love them. I never miss a chance to tell MG that I love her, if I don't tell her in the morning when I wake her up to let her know that I'm leaving and that I love her, than at night just before she goes to bed. I've been trying to tell Mie more on a regular basis, and to tell her how much I really appreciate her. Sometimes I think that she just thinks that I'm being goofy, but I do.

Then there are the times when I'm being too serious, life is too vibrant to walk around being serious, especially with floppy eared hats. Mie has pictures to prove that point. :)

I've done some things in life that I had on my to do list. Things like playing with a Bengal Tiger cub, take flying lessons, go back to school, raise a child who would make my parents proud to have as their smart assed teen granddaughter. Some I've done more than once, like owning a classic Mustang, and some I don't think will come to fruition within my life time like living in a nice little subdivision in Serenity Lake with a nice little view over looking the Earth. Flying a Hillard's Flying platform would have been fun too, but not going to happen in the next 3 years, maybe after that though.

I have stories to write, a daughter to walk down the aisle after I watch her graduate from a prestiges school with a degree in something that she loves to do. I have grand babies to hold and a son-in-law to get use to. I still have a lot to do here, so I'm not any where near finished here.
I say that more for the fact that I don't get into that mindset of "Oh crap" and just get back to the business of living a happy fulfilled life.

So excuse me, but I've got things that I need to be doing, instead of sitting here in front of a computer monitor. I like you all, but I've got to go live.

Family Pride

I received a call today from an Officer JT Freeze from the Arizona Highway Patrol. He's calling about my brother, wanting to ask questions, not for the purpose of finding him or his being in trouble, but because he's applied for, tested through, and has been accepted (tentatively) into the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and the answers I give will help determine if he'll be fully accepted. I had to fight against telling the officer that my brother use to run naked through laundry mats with gerbils taped to his thighs, or that he had an affinity for plywood, or some other wild story as a joke. This is a person who has been chasing the dream of being an officer for a little over 20 years, since being in his late teens, early 20's and it looks to be finally coming true for him.

Officer Freeze asked me a question about what advice I would give my brother when he gets this job. My response: "Just keep doing what you're doing". Officer Freeze told me that when he interviewed our sister, he asked her that question, and she gave almost the same exact answer, word for word. Plus she added "... and keep your head down" :)

I don't think that I've ever said this to him or my sister, but I'm proud of them, both. He has been chasing his dream after 20 years without wavering. He has made some detours along the way, but he's always had the vision of what he wanted to do. He's built himself up to a point that he went through the Coca-Cola company starting as a "Merchandiser" and worked his way up to a manager within the company coordinating drivers for the entire Phoenix area. He's ran businesses for some and owned businesses of his own, and all the while being a great father, being the father that our parents would be proud to have raising their grand babies. Now is his time to fulfill his dreams.

It goes the same for my sister, except in a slightly different way. To be completely honest, I don't remember what it was that she wanted to be when she grew up, but she's a loving mother and wife to her family. They get her all when she's awake, this is a woman who is extremely strong mentally, emotionally, and physically, me being 6'1" and 230lbs, I'm still afraid of her 5' nothing and maybe 120lbs sopping wet while holding bricks in both hands.

She has the tenacity to do pretty much anything or to become what ever it was that her heart desires, and she's done that by being a phenomenal mom and wife. Her daughters are all great people, who are also smarter than we were at their age, and when they make relatively stupid mistakes, she doesn't get truly mad, she just says to them "It's a good thing you're pretty" all the while being someone that our parents would beam about with pride.

Our parents are both gone and I know that there have been times when we had questions for them about being a parent, and not having them physically there, we have had to figure things out, but I think that our parents gave us the tools we needed to be the people that we are,and needed to be, which includes creating a strong cohesion within our family, no matter the distance between us or the length of time it's been since we've seen each other or have spoken on the phone. That is my family unit, it maybe small and at times it maybe broken, but it's mine and I'm proud to lay claim to it.

I'm Proud of my Brother for his unwavering focus to follow his dreams, and I'm proud of my sister for making the life choices that she wanted to make to raise their girls and to make their family stronger. We aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, we're not world famous, what we are is liked by those who meet us, and loved by those who we let get to know us... I'm proud of us...

Drinks

I have this affinity for finding fun and exciting things to eat or drink, you know, Buffalo, Bison, Ostrich, Bear, elk, cat(don't ask, it was a Chinese food restaurant that is now closed, but it does taste like chicken). Things that you don't see at the usual grocery marts. And there's a place around the corner from where I work, which at one time was a rather large regional "Italian Deli" chain, called Corti Bros. They have a great selection of exotic foods and drinks in there, some of stuff in there I haven't even heard of, or I have only heard as rumors.

I found such a drink this afternoon. When I was growing up and Little Big Sis and Darth Older Brother and I would be acting up, our parents would ask us if we had been drinking the Kickapoo Joy Juice... I thought that it was just a funny saying, not so much any more. This afternoon, I have found a bottle of said Joy Juice so I had to buy it, guess what? It tastes just like Mt Dew, but made with pure cane sugar. So now when someone asks if I'm all hopped up on Kickapoo Joy Juice, I can say AB-solutely.

I also found a drink called Moxie, I'm not sure what it's suppose to taste like, but it was good, and it wasn't carbonated. I've noticed that there is something lost in Fructose Corn Syrup, it just doesn't taste as good as pure cane sugar.

I did however find something that tastes surprisingly like honey, it's Agave Nectar... yes, that's right, the same Agave that Te-kill-ya is made from, it's sweet like honey. I was told about it from a friend at work, apparently there's a Te-kill-ya bar here in Cowtown where I work and they make an Agave Nectar Margarita. Always the curious kid that I am, I had to search out this Nectar and give it a try. After searching the interweb thingy for a recipe for Agave Nectar Margarita's, I found one which looked like it was easy enough that my pea sized, swiss cheese brain could remember. I got the ingredients and made a Margarita...

The thing was pretty good, and about 10 minutes later, I was stumbling. I already know that I'm a relative light weight, I can only do 12 shots of tequila before I get a decent buzz going. So I had to make one when Mie was home and not on-call. So I did, and I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one who got knocked on their butt. If you like Margarita's, I'd like to offer up this recipe for you, enjoy:

1 oz, Partida Agave Nectar
(I was told by a friend who tried at least 4 different brands that this was the best one)

1 oz, filtered water

1 fresh squeezed lime

1.5 - 2 oz 100% Blue agave Tequila
(I used the Cabo Wabo Anejo, expensive, but worth it)

Shake and serve over ice, do not use salt, that's only used to kill the taste of bad tequila, in my humble opinion...