in the realm of the fictionman

...Pain in the ... --Oh, and Tagged.

So Monday I sanded the floor in Kayla's room. Took it down good. Now it's all smooth and ready for the filler stuff Amy has for filling in the cracks and gaps between floor boards.

In the process, I messed up my back a bit. Actually I aggravated a muscle along my spine. It's swollen up and squishing the nerve for my right leg where the nerve comes out the spine. The result is extremely painful. And spasmatic, which is always fun.

So for Tuesday and most of Wednesday I was incapable of sitting at all. I could stand, and there were one or two laying down positions. Those were my only choices. Fortunately, I know a very good chiropractor who makes housecalls for me... :-) Thank you, Dr. Matt!

But I'm still recovering. Getting up or down out of a chair hurts. I can only barely get my shoes on by myself. Sitting in the car hurts. Wrong moves hurt.

But it doesn't hurt my back. Oh, no, my back feels just fine. I feel it in my hip and leg, which is irritating as all hell. I do something wrong and don't have any good way to know what I did.

Perfect example: Last night I woke up at about 3:30. I couldn't find a position I could put my leg in that it didn't hurt. It wasn't a matter of figuring out where to put my leg. It was about figuring out the tiniest change in hip position. I never did get it figured out.

So I got up, took more aspirin, and played a computer game while it kicked in enough to finally fall back asleep for another hour. It was just incredibly frustrating, and I'm not sure if I just want to go crash, or if I'm dreading going through it all over again.

Ah, but a couple more weeks and I should be fine... Heh.

--In other news...
Amy tagged me for one of her meme things:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people.

So, here goes:
The book is Japanese Swordsmanship: Technique And Practice
by Donn F. Draeger.

The photographic sequence beginning below shows the necessary steps followed by swordsmen for the care and maintenance of the sword in connection with use (training) and viewing (inspection) by self or other. This method is also a good one regadless of whether or not you have used the sword for training, especially in localities where the humidity is high or rain is frequent, in which case the method should be used on a weekly basis. The five phases of procedure are listed below.

Now, given that I can't come up with three bloggers to tag back, I'm skipping that part.

Now it's time to tuck in a little boy. G'night!

Of Kids, Carnies, and Duct Tape

This was an interesting week. We had an old camper at the store. It wasn't worth much, but it did still work (for what it was). It was the same type as we had when I was a kid.

There was a 14 year old boy in with his Grandpa on Wednesday. The kid saw it and loved it. Had to have it. So Grandpa bought it for him, and the kid will be mowing Grandpa's lawn to pay it back. Just the right kind of story. That felt cool.

Thursday, late in the day, a couple of guys come in. They're dressed in clothes so ragged they barely stay on. They've got about one mouth full of brown and crooked teeth between the two of them. I figure most sales people would've blown them off pretty quick. They ask about used trailers.

I end up selling them two that we had taken in on trade. They haven't been inspected yet, nothing fixed, totally as-is. They're more than fine with that. Turns out they make pretty good money fixing carnival rides. They need the trailers to live in, and a couple thousand cash for a trailer is nothing. They can fix anything that's wrong, as long as the A/C works.

Today on the way home, listening to a comedy public radio show, there's a mock commercial for duct tape:

...Because often enough the quick fix is all you need to keep something going until you can learn to live without it. This segment brought to you by duct tape--just about the only thing that really works sometimes.

An Ominous First Day

Summer began with thunderstorms. This is the sky that heralded it yesterday morning as I got to work:

Goals, Lack Thereof, and Failure.

Looking back, I've never really had goals, and as such, never really accomplished much. About the only proper goal I've wver worked with was finishing the first draft on a book. That I even set a deadline for. That I accomplished.

But that's about it, though. I went to college with no plans, no goals, and didn't finish. I joined the Army, knowing I needed change. But still I had no direction, no path, and I didn't stay with it. Then I went from temp job to temp job. No plan, no goal, no future.

Now, I find myself suffering for that lack of planning in my life. I started at the dealership but I didn't map out where I wanted to be. With no stated goal, no destination to reach, I stagnated. I didn't push myself. Not to learn, not to excel.

Now that I'm finally realizing all this it's too late. We can't afford it any more. I didn't make enough over the winter to keep up, an by the time I am making enough to get ahead it'll already be too late. Unless I can really push myself. But basically I failed. I can accept that, I think. I failed Amy, and that part hurts.

So now I have to get a job. I know the amount I need to make to make ends meet and pay off the little bit of accumulated debt. It's at the upper end of Admin pay. Difficult to find, but possible.

Now it's going to be Amy's turn, although I doubt she'll be happy about that. I should be able to get another office job. But I'm not qualified for any office job that'll go anywhere in the long run. The best case scenario keeps us out of debt, and keeps up with cost of living. Saving for retirement? Saving for the kids college? No, that part'll have to come from Amy's jewelry. Nope. The only things I've ever been good at I can't get paid to do.

I had my chance to build the future I wanted them to have. I know where I could be with RV sales. I've seen it, but too late. I could have been making twice what I've ever made before by now. But I squandered it. I threw it away by taking the opportunity for granted.

"I just need to get through the learning curve," I told myself (and Amy). But that wasn't the truth. I needed to work through the learning curve, not just let it happen. It isn't something that was just going to come with time. I had to work for it. In the last couple of months I've seen the kind of improvement and progress I should have seen last fall. I've seen where I could be next spring, but unless I can do it right now, we won't make it long enough to get there.

So that's it. That's what's been eating me up inside all day. Early in the morning I looked at my progress so far, and projected where it was taking me. All I can do now is learn from it, and make some changes. Unfortunately, I've already too often said I'd change. I'm not sure even I believe it any more.

There. I've said it. I guess tomorrow decides everything. Either I'll commit to making a drastic change in my life, or nothing will change. I guess we'll see.

Like So Many Other Things...

...I keep meaning to blog.

I even have web pages open in Opera (thankfully one can have many pages up at once with Opera...) that I intend on posting commentary about.

But by the time I've got the right kind of free moment--not enough brain left.

The points in my day when I have both time and sufficient brain? Those moments I use in other ways. If Amy's gone to bed and Kayla's working on drifting off on my arm I have one hand free for the mouse. Not good enough for blogging. If I have any brain left in me, then I watch online sales training videos. If I don't have enough brain for that then it's Spider Solitare. Which I play far too much of, I know.

But, see, most nights there's anywhere from one to two hours of Kayla not quite drifting off to sleep. Some of that time is her being fairly unhappy. Sometimes she's crying because she's hungry, but she gets too upset about it to take a bottle. So then I have to calm her down enough to drink. Then, after a mix of that and burping her and pacifiering her...Then she'll drift off.

It seems like she needs a good five, sometimes ten minutes of that before she's out enough to transfer into her bed. Most nights that happens somewhere between 11 and midnight. 11:45 seems to be a very common time, give or take five minutes. At that point I'm just not up to being up later than necessary.

Now, tonight Kayla fell asleep early. Early as in before Jareth did, so about 9-9:15. So Amy just finished up pumping (since that final breastfeeding got skipped) and I suspect we'll be calling it a night any minute now.

So that's all for tonight.

The Freedom Itch

The dealership sponsors a camping club. Their first trip of this season was Memorial Day weekend. So I borrowed a used motor home from stock and we went. Amy got to get back into a motor home not too dissimilar from what we had back then. Jareth got to experience camping--which he loved totally. Kayla got a lot of outside fresh air, which she seemed to like.

A good time all around, but there was some sadness to it. It was great fun and very relaxing. The stress went away, but it was back before we had finished unpacking when we got home. It also reminded us how much we miss it.

There's a feeling of freedom about a motor home. You can just decide to go somewhere...and go. There's no hooking up a trailer, there's no setting up a camper when you get there. You don't end up driving to get to a destination. The vacation, the journey, starts as soon as you leave the driveway.

We want to keep camping with that group. We want to do some of our own trips. And we don't want to have to borrow something to do it. So now we're shopping for a class C motor home of our own. We've got it partly narrowed down to brands we do and don't like, based partly on the height from the floor up to the bed over the cab. That's going to be Jareth's bed, and he has to be able to get up and down on his own. There's about a full foot of difference from brand to brand.

We pretty much know what we need in a floorplan. We still need to know what kind of budget we're really looking at, which I think I can have figured out by next week. Then it's just a matter of finding one. The owner at the dealership is in a group of 20 dealers that get together and compare notes. They're from all over the country so that they're never in competition with each other, and can help each other out. Once we know what we're looking for, he'll contact those other dealers and see if any of them have one. He'll get them from the other dealer, probably at cost plus any involved freight, then I pay something along the lines of that new cost plus probably about $500. Now that's an employee discount. :-)

Firewalk and Some Updating

So I'm signed up for a Firewalk coming up June 16th at the Dome Center near Rockford. I've still got to arrange the day off, and I really don't want to tell my boss that I need to day off to walk on fire. There are some discussions I don't want to have with him. We'll see if I can keep it vague enough.

Amy had wanted to do it, too, but I don't think the logistics will work, what with breastfeeding and all. When we first heard about it at the Winter Solstice drum circle we went to, I told the organizer (and my Dad, who will also attend, but might not walk) that I definitely wanted to do it. Apparently Amy said at the time that she did, as well, and somehow I missed it. I think she's upset with me for starting to plan it without her. We'll have more time to discuss it later, after work.

I'm getting better at the whole sales thing, but traffic has slowed down some. I am, however, starting to get about double the commissions, partly by getting better at selling warranties with RVs.

Kayla is hitting the interactive stage. We can smile at her and get her to smile back. She has just hit that point where she'll smile at peek-a-boo. I can't wait to hear her start laughing!

This, That, Some Other Stuff

We hosted the local drum circle Saturday night. It was a lot of fun. Dad came over to join in, and Mom took advantage of the opportunity to visit with her new granddaughter some more. Win-win. :-)

It was also a handy excuse to get the place cleaned up for Jareth's birthday party next week. Three already. Where does the time go? I'm certainly not sleeping it all away...

The training stuff at work is already paying off. I sold two on saturday (even if one was just a cargo trailer I'll only get about $25 for selling...) making it three for the week. One of the ones on Saturday I did very well on.

Part of what I find amusing about it is the units involved for the week, not counting the cargo trailer. The other two were both used pop-ups, a 2000 and an '01. Both the same brand and model, both taken in as trades. The Saturday one I took in back in December for a hard-sided travel trailer. I got to make a little more on that trailer because I sold an extended warranty with it. There was also an extended warranty sale with the pop-up sale, which is where some of the money came from. Interesting that the two warranties I've sold have been on units linked together like that. That and it's always fun to sell the same floorplan twice in a row. We still have a new one in that same model, although there are slight changes in the floorplan.

So that's the five minute update.

Unexpected and Heart-Stopping Side Effects of Weight Loss

A couple of weeks ago I weighed in at 146 pounds. I was 195 or so at my heaviest, which I thik was about a year into working at Sara Lee. (Some of that I blame on my discovery of their powdered hot cappuccino. A lot changed once I saw the nutritionals...)

I feel better, I look better. It hasn't happened through anything dramatic. I smallerfied portion sizes to eat until I wasn't hungry, instead of eating until full. I cut down on soda and started drinking more water. I ate less dessert and became more mindful of comfort food. Basic good lifestyle stuff.

And then yesterday I mowed the lawn. Jareth followed me around with his toy mower, which he still insists is the vacuum. If I'd thought about it, I'd have had Amy get a picture of it. It would have been a cute picture.

Actually, we did a decent amount of yard work, but it was mowing the lawn that was nearly so horrible.

I put the lawnmower back in the garage, did some other tidying up, and noticed that my wedding band was gone. It was one of those heart-stopping moments.

We have matching wedding bands, just different sizes. There's a huge amount of meaning for us to them being a matched set. Even if I had the ring replaced, they wouldn't be matching ever again. That magic would be broken forever.

Amy and I walked through the whole yard. I raked the whole back yard, hoping to turn it up. I had done the back last, so that seemed a good place to start. Eventually it got dark and I found myself crawling through the yard, flashlight in one hand and raking the grass with the fingers on the other hand.

I eventually found it settled into the grass, and it went back on that finger with an urgency Gollum would have related to.

One of those About Me posts

These questions were answered on a friends LiveJournal. I pressed for the story to one answer, so I figured I'd answer them myself...

1. Who was your first love?
   Amy, my wife.
2. Who was your first kiss and when?
   Amy again. We met during the summer after my Junior year of high school and started dating after that. I think the first kiss was on her driveway.
3. Who was your first prom date?
   I didn't do prom. I did go to homecoming (the year after I graduated, natch) with a friend named Jessica because she asked.
4. Who was your first roommate?
   For some reason the name Mike comes to mind. I had roommates for about half of college.
5. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time?
   Peach schnaps and Mountain Dew.
6. (missing...)
7. What was your first job?
   Running a drill press at a neighborhood printer. That didn't last for long, and then I bussed tables at Hackney's in Lake Zurich.
8. What was your first car?
   The first one I drove was a green (1982/4?) Mazda GLC sedan. The first one I owned was a gold (1986??)Mazda coupe, which I bought from my parents some point during or immediately after college.
9. When did you go to your first funeral?
   That was probably Mary Anne, a great aunt (or some combination of grands and greats). Junior High or so?
10. How old were you when you first moved away from your hometown?
    College doesn't really count because I came back for summers. I didn't really leave the area until '93 for the Army for four months. Then there was the motorhome in '98/99.
11. Who was your first grade teacher?
    Don't remember at all. The first teacher's name I can remember was Mrs. Loving, 4th grade.
12. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
    Disney in Florida, (Junior High or so?)
13. Where did you go for your first date and who was it with?
    It was with Amy. Her mom didn't really let us go anywhere much. She did take me to one of her school dances (called socials).
14. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
    4th grade or so? Often it was with Forrest, one of the neighborhood friends.
15. Who was your first Best Friend and are you still friends with them?
    The first one was Adam. We moved out of that house to a different neighborhood around second grade. We didn't see each other again until high school. He was in that most popular group, and didn't really ever seem to notice me. At our ten-year reunion he made a big deal out of seeking me out, which was very cool.
16. Who was the first person to send you flowers, or who was the first person that you sent flowers to?
    I don't think I've ever sent any. First ones sent might have been co-workers at Sara Lee after my knee surgery.
17. Where did you live the first time you moved out of your parents house?
    I moved into an appartment in Melrose Park with Amy.
18. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day?
    Amy
19. Whose wedding were you in the first time you were a bridesmaid or a groomsmen?
    The only wedding I've participated in was my own.
20. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
    1 - go to the bathroom. 2 - start coffee.
21. What was the first concert you ever went to?
    White Snake, with my friend Marty. Early high school or so.
22. What was your first major surgery?
    There was some kind of hernia repair when I was very little. I only remember it happened because of the scar.
23. First tattoo or piercing?
    One earring, while living in the motorhome, so 1999.
24. First celebrity sighting?
    Amy and I went to a sci-fi convention called Visions while dating the first time. I don't recall who was there. Probably somebody from Dr. Who.
25. First celebrity crush/obsession?
    Can't think of one. First celebrity hero figure was Carl Sagan.

I am a cuddler. - True
I am a morning person. - False
I am an only child. - False
I am currently in my pajamas. - False
I am currently pregnant. - False, although Amy is
I am currently single. - False
I am currently suffering from a broken heart. - False
I am left handed. - False
I am married. - True
I am addicted to my LiveJournal/blog. - False
I am online 24/7, even as an away message. - False
I am a little shy around the opposite gender at first. - False
I bite my nails. - True
I can be paranoid at times. - Falst
I don't like anyone. - False
I enjoy country music. - False
I enjoy jazz music. - False
I enjoy smoothies. - Not really.
I enjoy talking on the phone. - False
I have a car. - True
I have a cell phone. - True
I have/had a hard time paying attention at school. - False
I have a hidden talent. - True
I have a lot to learn. - True
I have a pet. - True
I have a tendency to fall for the "wrong" guy/girl. - False
I have all my grandparents. - False
I have at least one brother. - False
I have been to another country. - True, if Canada counts. :-)
I have been told that I am smart. - True
I have been told that I have an unusual sense of humor. - Very true
I have or have had broken a bone. - True
I have Caller I.D. on my phone. - True for the cellphone, false otherwise.
I have bathed someone. - True
I have changed a diaper. - True
I have changed a lot over the past year. - True
I have done something illegal. - True
I have friends who have never seen my natural hair color. - False, never dyed it.
I have had major/minor surgery. - True
I have killed another person. - False
I have had my hair cut within the last week. - Yesterday, actually.
I have mood swings. - True
I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. - Mostly false.
I have rejected someone before. - True
I have seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy. - True
I have seen the television show The O.C. - False
I like Shakespeare. - False
I like the taste of blood. - False
I love to cook. - Love - false, like - true
I like to sing. - True, but only in private
I love Michael Jackson. - False
I love sleeping. - True
I love to play computer games. - Too true
I love to shop. - False
I miss someone right now. - False
I own 100 CDs or more. - maybe true
I own and use a library card. - False
I read books for pleasure in my spare time. - True
I sleep a lot during the day. - False
I strongly dislike math - False
I was born in a country other than the US. - False
I will try almost anything once. - True
I work at a job that I enjoy. - True
I would classify myself as ghetto. - False
I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free. - False
I am currently wearing socks. - True
I am tired. - True
I love to paint/draw/sketch/sculpt. - False
I have had/have a broken heart. - True
I have a screen name. - True

Yikes!

It's 12 below outside! That's not including wind chill.

I'm thinking slow day at the store today. On the other hand, anyone that comes out in below zero weather to look at something is probably serious, eh? :-)

Quick Update

So there's a show starting today. The Chicagoland Outdoors Show. It's part boat show, part RV show, and part... you know, outdoorsy stuff. Hunting, fishing, camping, hiking... all that good stuff.

So I'll be there for a fair chunk of it. The dealership has a smallish space there, with sort of a sampling of our stock. I'll be curious to see how it goes. Oh, I could rant plenty, but I'm keeping less details about work on the blog these days. 'Sides, this here space oughta be more about me an' my life than where I'm workin' at, eh? (No, not quite sure where that came from. I'm still early into my coffee this morning.)

But today I'm off and home. Jareth and I have a cooking class this morning. Last week we made hot chocolate mix from scratch. That and some kind of marshmallow-coated popcorn stuff. Mind you, Jareth had no interest in drinking the hot chocolate, while other kids chugged it all down. No, my little kid finds the alternate use for it--dipping said marshmallow-coated popcorn into.

He was also the best-behaved kid there. I was the only dad present. Apparently for the history of that particular class there has always been one, and only one, father enrolled. Otherwise its an odd assortment of housewives. I can get along with them just fine, but I don't know that I'd fit in their Pampered Chef Party lives.

Eventually the jar of marshmallow fluff came out. One kid recognized it immediately, to which the mother said, "Oh, yes, we know what that is, don't we?" She seemed surprised that I didn't have that one stocked in the kitchen at home.

I mentioned Jareth was the well behaved one, right? Ah, yes, good. Great big bag of pre-packaged pre-popped popcorn comes out as an ingredient. It hadn't actually touched the table before one kid stuck a hand in and pulled out as big a fistful as he could get. That entire fistfull all got stuffed into his mouth at once. Jareth, on the other hand, never reached into anything without permission. When a mom set some popcorn on the table in front of him he said thank you. He then proceeded to eat it one piece at a time. Oh, he was also the cleanest one. No marshmallow fluff in that boy's hair...

So we'll see how today goes. Then I'll be home spending time with Amy, since there will be precious little of that until next week. Friday I'll be home at the regular time. Saturday morning we have another ultrasound. Other than that, I'll be away until 11 or midnight or so each night. That might mean not a lot of blogging until afterwards. You never know.

Worth A Try?

Well, I've turned comments back on. Nobody generally links to me other than Amy, so Trackbacks aren't a priority to turn back on...

If I suddenly develop a fan base (yeah, right), I'll make sure Trackbacks are workin', oh ya... :-)

Catching Up a Little

Our Winter Solstice was a happy one. We gave Jareth an Imaginarium train set compatible with the Thomas train sets he's played with at a couple other places.

He loves it. He fairly quickly figured out how to put the tracks together (figuring out taking them apart was all but instant). Definitely his favorite toy now.

That night we went to a Solstice ritual at a friend's Unitarian Universalist church. It was more Wiccan than our particular flavors of pagan. Interesting, but not my thing, nor Amy's.

---

Friday I sold a motor home to a couple who saw it on the Internet, called to ask some questions, and then raced out from Iowa to buy it and drive it home. While I was driving home afterwards I was on one hand happy about the sale, disappointed at having to split the commission with the other salesman (we split all the sales that come in from the Internet, which is fair in the end), and also sad for the other people I'd have to tell it wasn't available any more.

We had lowered the price on that one, and were getting a lot of people coming in to see it. One group was four guys who were going to take it to Alaska on a hunting trip. There were people excited about owning it. The lesson is that if they want something, they need to make a commitment and put down a deposit to hold it.

I just found my reaction interesting. I get excited for my customers. While I don't want to lose that, I think I'll need to develop at least a little bit more objectivity so I don't end up jaded in the long run.

---

Last night we went to Uncle Bill's house for a Christmas Eve dinner. Lindsay brought her boyfriend Scott, and we all had a good time. We had in advance set some precedent that people could give Jareth one gift if they wanted, knowing that some people would just about insist.

Of course he got one present from everyone, so it was still a pile that intimidated him a little at first. *shrug*

Today we're headed over to my folks' house for another dinner. I'm letting Amy sleep in until Jareth wakes up. He had a very long day yesterday with no nap, and won't get a nap today, either. All things considered, he was very well behaved yesterday. But I don't want to wake him up earlier than I have to. The more rest he gets before starting today, the longer his behavior will last through the day...

But that's enough catching up for now. I have an omelete to prepare. :-)

Spam

Just a quick note that until I find a way to cut down on comment and trackback spam I've turned them both off. They just won't work. I'll try bringing comments back in a week or so and see what happens.

Winter is Coming

Another way I can tell the days are getting shorter:

This morning I took a moment to revel in the bright full moon before the sun came up.

On the way home, after the sun had set, I paused at a red light to admire the same full moon over the other horizon.

This morning at work the day started off gray and rainy. Everything was quiet--no customers. A couple of people expressed some disappointment about that. The rain stopped and a couple of customers came in. At one point we turned to see who was next. There, on the counter, stood a large praying mantis looking around calmly. Nobody had seen it come in. The man standing at the counter, just inside the door, not two feet from it, hadn't noticed it.

I pointed out that in several cultures they were considered good luck. We offered it some paper to step on and it obliged, and we set it out on the grass out front.

The day ended up being a busy one, with a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Winter is coming, but I have a feeling it's all going to turn out.

Time Flies...

Haven't been blogging much lately. Free time has been mostly just going away. I've been spending too much of it playing Command and Conquer: Generals. It exactly the kind of strategy game I would have loved to have in college. The gang and I would have loved it. Of course, the competition among us would have been brutal, but very fun.

It's a war strategy game that takes about an hour and a half at a time, except for the occasion very hard battles that take two hours or a little more. Or the too hard ones, that take about ten minutes to lose. :-)

I think I need to stop playing it for a while. Tonight was one of those nights I could have gotten some brownie points for geting some stuff done around the house while Amy was at class. I spent about half the time playing with Jareth--and feeding him apples :-) --and half of it playing. I got about nothing done...

But she's due home in 15 minutes or so, and its time to tuck Jareth in. If she's running late I'll have some time to roast coffee.

[9:41--She came in while I was still cleaning after Jareth. Now she's checking her email. Coffee another time...]

Ups and Downs

This weekend was my Boy Scout troop's 50th anniversary. They did a reunion kind of thing. There were activities spanning pretty much the whole weekend.

We went Friday night. There was a bonfire and snacks gathering, and also a star party where a bunch of local astronomers brought their telescopes to let people check out the sky. They were very enthusiastic about it, which was fun.

One friend from the troop showed up, along with his girlfriend and his parents. I hadn't seen him since my wedding, and I hadn't seen his parents since some time in high school. He looks like he's doing okay, although I think there's still something missing in his life. I'm not sure if he knows what that is or not.

He mentioned having read my blog. Hi!

Otherwise, I was disappointed in the turnout. There was another friend who couldn't make it, but is going to be in town for a few days this week, and maybe I'll see him for an evening.

---

Yesterday we did a family picnic in the back yard. As I was cleaning up and setting up in back, thunder grew more and more ominous. Dad had mentioned the day before that there wasn't supposed to be rain.

Now, we have a nice, covered patio out back, but dinner plans involved the grill. I didn't want to have to worry about grilling in the rain. So I walked out back and looked up at the heavy clouds. "Hey," I asked, "if you're gonna rain, could you please do it quick and get it over with? I'm having people over."

It was about fifteen minutes later that the downpour started. It lasted maybe half an hour and was done a little bit before everyone showed up. There was some light rain about halfway through dinner or so, but we were done cooking by then so no one minded.

Lindsay brought her new boyfriend, Scott, and we finally got to meet him. He's cool, so I didn't have to do the scary-older-brother thing.

But just before everyone showed up the plumbing stopped up. The main drain pipe in the front yard has a chunk of broken pipe, so roots clog it up. We had it rodded out mid-August, and they warned us we'd have problems again until we get it fixed. They're coming out this morning to get it opened up again and to schedule the actual repair. Sigh.

You win some, you lose some, right? Eh, it's all good.

The Hair Post II

A picture Amy took about three hours ago:

:-)

The Hair Post

Wednesday and all this week no going in to an office to work.

Friday I might actually go back to the prior job for a day of database work for them. It depends on how scheduling works out. There's still a lot I need to do this week.

Today is meeting a friend for lunch and then assorted shopping and swinging by a clinic to get Amy set up with Medicaid (KidCare) coverage for the pregnancy.

I need clothes (khaki Dockers and some polo/golf shirts to wear until I get the official dealership ones), I'm cutting my hair, and I'm getting a cell phone.

The last two feel really weird. We had a cell phone in the motorhome, and both of us were happy to be done with it. But, it really does make sense to have one. It just won't be turned on and answered 24/7.

And then there's the haircut. In August, 93 I had the last Army buzz cut. After that I just needed hair, so I let it grow long. Two-thirds of the way down my back or so by the time I eventually cut it in December, '99. At the time I did it for two reasons. First, it was becoming a hassle. I was shedding long hairs everywhere. In the car I'd go to tilt my head forward but the ponytail would be caught between the seat and my back. Second, I had just gotten my first ever "permanent," real job. I thought that maybe it was time for change.

Within 6 months I'd regretted cutting it, and let it grow out again. It's not quite as long as it was back in '99, but it's getting there. Some of the same hassle is back. The other part that annoys me is because my hair is so fine there's always shorter strands that end up in my eyes, and loose it does tend to blow everywhere.

On one hand, I like my long hair. It is a part of who I am and who I've been. There's something primal and free about it. But it's not a major part of who I am, and cutting it doesn't really change who I am. I'm starting a major change with this new job. Eventually I want to be chartering boats on the Atlantic, and I don't picture myself with this long hair blowing in the ocean wind.

But I've had long hair so long I have a hard time picturing myself any other way. I'll be bringing Amy along to help me decide on the new look. She says she liked it when I cut it last, but I don't remember what that looked like. We'll bring the digital camera along so I can get a picture up afterwards. Unless I hate it. :-)

3 Personal Calls at Work...

At work they've got a few of us logging all the outbound calls we make so they can understand the call stats better. That includes the personal calls. They aren't saying we can't make them, but they want an idea how many of the calls being made are being made for what reasons.

Basically, there are a number of calls being made that aren't being documented in the database. Some of them are cases where the call gets cut off and we call them back right away. Sometimes I've been documenting the second half as a second call, sometimes not. A number of them are when we have to call all over the place to find a service company for a customer.

I think the record was 20+ such calls for one customer. The customer was a judge in NY, and a particular ass-pain. We called nearly every service company in a ten-mile range of him at least. We talked to pool repair companies, and as soon as they heard who the customer was, several of them immediately said "We don't service pools" and politely ended the call. That oughta tell you something about him. He is in fact the individual leader in documented calls. He and his wife are a whole blog in and of themselves...

--So yesterday there were three outbound calls on my log. Two were to a temp agency returning calls about three positions I probably don't want. I'll talk about those later. They weren't as interesting after the third call. Amy's pregnant.

Rained In

So over the weekend I didn't ask for specific weather. For Jareth's birthday I asked for no rain (and it didn't rain despite the forecast for it). For Bubblefest I asked for no rain during Bubblefest (and it didn't rain until we left).

So, left to itself, it rained yesterday. Jareth wasn't feeling good. It was hot and humid, making him feel worse. The constant snaps and cracks had him on edge and basically in my arms all day. Then there was the rain.

In the end, we decided that while there might still have been fireworks, they'd be buggy and involve sitting in wet, soggy ground. So we stayed in and watched Independence Day (ID4) on [gasp] VHS.

Updates?

So the Spam 'bots are back. 200+ comments linking to...enhancement products.

This provided the opportunity to figure out how to edit the database directly.

Ah, there's the browsable list. Sort by comment author, check them all, delete. About five minutes total.

Now the slightly shortened post:

With Tuesday the Summer Solstice, and a low full moon last night, Lissa threw a picnic in St. Charles. There were a dozen or fifteen or so in attendance. Perfect weather and a good time. A late night we wouldn't have minded being later. The moon didn't come up until we were home.

Work is odd this week. For starters there's the new 9-6 hours, which I don't like. Monday they need me 7-4. Crappy early morning, but at least bonus time with Amy and Jareth when I get home. [note to self: Don't make plans for Monday!]

I'm also spending much of this week working on the database at work. Maybe as many as 11% of the records in it are duplicate listings. There's one caller with six separate records. Each of those has 1-5 calls in it. Yeah, try to figure that out on the fly while he's on the phone and you're trying to make sense of what's been said so far...

There's also a couple projects I'm doing because I'm the only one who knows Access. I can create a hundred new customers in under an hour, instead of spending all day data-entering them.

So last night was very cool. Tonight we're doing dinner at Lindsay's new apartment, since Amy didn't get to see it during move-in. Saturday is the next Shadowrun session, which I'm looking forward to. Sunday we build the free swingset/slide we got free on Tuesday.

The custom coach company has a couple other prospects they're interviewing, and are waiting to see how those do before taking more.

So that's the update for now. I have a stack of articles and notes for things I'm planning on commenting on, including the Kane County Forest Preserve and universal access to broadband, among a couple others I don't remember off the top of my head.

Hey, regular updates for a while? ...Could happen. <shrug>

Boom, boom, boom...

So yesterday I went to a Pow Wow at Aurora University. It was at the same time an exhibit of Native American drumming and dancign, and a craft fest for a mix of hand-made and mass-made trinkets. Some trinkets were very cool. Others were made in China and the things you expect to see everywhere jewelry is sold.

A couple of vendors were selling jewelry made of animal claws. One particular bear claw necklace caught my eye. It's now part of my hat. The one in the picture up top.

In Canada I found a white loon feather that I stuck in the band around the hat. Now there's a claw from a bear on it as well. I was reluctant at first, wondering if it was too much. Lissa (a friend who was also there) agreed that it was cool, so that cinched it. It needs a few stitches to get it permanently in place. Once that's done I'll have Amy get me a picture to post. Shouldn't be too hard to arrange...

In other news, I had one of those odd celebrity moments today at the grocery store. I went by myself while Jareth was napping and Amy was doing more of the not-feeling-good thing she's been working on lately.

Two of the register girls recognized me. "Where's that cute son of yours?" one of them asked. Yes, they recognized me because they adore my son, who I haven't brought in in quite a while. But he goes with Amy, so he's seen there often enough. Still, I wasn't expecting to be recognized as his father.

I came home and jokingly asked Amy what she's been telling them about me. On the other hand, she doesn't have to worry about me flirting there...

They all know I'm married... :-)

There's always a complication

I've been a bit slow in posting this month. I've been distracted by things. Work, vacation, the ShadowRun game that started on Saturday, a little bit of job hunting... The usual, I guess.

Quite a few lunch breaks have gone into prepping for the Shadowrun game. I'm the GM, and I tend to take that pretty seriously. Sometimes I get damn near professional about it. I have high expectations of myself, partly because I've done it for so long. In the first session of the game I had to get five players and their characters to get along and get a job done together. It had to be challenging enough to be engaging, but still easy enough that it wouldn't require them to truly depend on each other for their lives.

Often GMs will make the first mission something of a cake walk, a low-planning raid so that the characters can meet each other and see what each other can do. First-time players get to find out what their characters can do. That works, but the rest of the game depends on the players agreeing that they're going to become a team, whether there's a reason for the characters to group up or not.

I'm hoping that there's stuff in this first plot to bring them together as a team. They (eventually) came up with a plan, and pulled it off flawlessly. Basically everyone had a part to play. Of course, they're not as done as they think they are, and hopefully at the end the characters will feel drawn together as a team, so the players don't have to do it artificially.

But, it's time to go to work, so gotta end here...

We're Ba-aack....

Well, we're back. We got back about dinnertime last night, and then there was chaos and unpacking until bedtime.

Jareth was good while we were away and he was staying with my parents. He was upset when they left (they were waiting at our house when we got back, saving us a trip to go get him). He and they had so much fun...

The vacation was good. Some things went very well, a couple things were disappointing. But we're back.

Details later. I have to get ready for work and go. Tonight I have some jobs I need to apply for. If I get a chance I'll post more afterwards. Amy took scads of pictures. She'll probably post before I do... :-)

Vacation!

No posts for a few days. Will be in Florida.

Too simple? Heh.

Our anniversary is coming up. To celebrate, we're leaving Jareth with his grandparents and we're flying to Florida where it'll be highs in the 80s and lows in the 70s.

We have a flight out of O'hare around dinner time, which means getting there about 3:00. Which means leaving work today at 1:00.

We get back to O'hare about dinner time Monday. And in between? Sun, ocean front hotel room, big time relaxing.

Stress to bye-bye, at least for a while.

We're not taking the laptop with. We toyed with the idea briefly, but it wouldn't be a vacation as much, so home it stays.

I 'spect I'll have stuff to blog when I get back...

The Help Desk Stumped? and Mothers' Day Plans

First Amy fixes my computer so I can send e-mail. Now, there's some server thing screwed up that's preventing her from signing in to Moveable Type for her blog. So that's why no posts there the last couple of days.

In a little bit we're packing a cooler and taking Jareth to a park for a picnic. This morning Amy got French Toast breakfast in bed. Jareth went in there first, and then I brougth in breakfast. He sat between us mooching off both of us. Then we all sat on the bed for more than an hour hanging out and playing. Jareth mostly played with a bunch of bead necklaces inherited from Grandma Howard. Amy played with her camera taking pictures and videos... :-)

She got an extra battery for said camera as part one of the Mothers' Day gifts. Part two is waiting up on the kitchen table for her. She's just uploaded the videos from camera to computer and is laughing over at her computer watching them now. When she's done with that I'll probably drag her upstairs. Jareth's pretty quiet up there... Hurm. That could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Hair

I had a dream last night (not long ago, actually) that I got my hair cut. It fell to the bottom of my neck. I immediately regretted it. Amy wanted me to go back and get it cut shorter, which would probably have looked better.

At the moment, my hair falls to about the bottom of my shoulder blades. After the Army stint in '93 I needed hair. So I let it grow. In December of '99 I got hired at Sara Lee. My hair was long enough that even in a ponytail it would get caught between me and the car seat, so I'd find myself having to lean forward if I needed to tilt my head forward at all. Between that and the new job I (mostly that it was getting hard to manage more than the job) I decided to cut it.

More than a few times afterwards I wished I hadn't, or that I'd only trimmed it shorter. I like the length it's at now, but this isn't the first time I've dreamed about cutting it. Usually it's more nightmare than dream, but there's still a message there either way. Something to think about.

Here's what my hair looked like in May of '98 at the Naperville Civil War Reenactment:

Tears and Keep Your Fork

Yesterday was the memorial service for Grandma at her church. It was a nice observance. It wasn't a funeral, really. It was a goodbye.

My mom and dad both spoke. Dad had put together what he wanted to say. Typed it out. He learned too late he should have printed it larger. He could barely read it once he was up there. Dad tends to be pretty reserved--almost stoic at times. It's a family trait that neither started nor stopped with him.

As it was he barely got through it, but he did. It was one of the more emotionally charged things I've seen, and it made it all the more poignant.

Afterwards, we all gathered, and he was still crying. I'd never seen him cry before. He stood and wiped at his eyes without apologizing while people were talking around and with him. He looked as though he had realized he was allowed to cry, that it was acceptable, which of course it was. I'm glad I got to see that side of him. He handled it with dignity. I don't know if I would have been able to do that.

The other bit that's going to stick with me was a story entitled, "Keep you fork."

The story is about an old woman planning her end. She's going over what she wants, and explains to the pastor that she wanted to be buried with a fork in her hand.

Huh?

So she explained that every Sunday the congregation would gather for food after church. And every Sunday, towards the end, before dessert came out, someone would lean over and whisper, "keep your fork." And the dessert was what she always enjoyed best. It was inevitably something rich and yummy.

And that was the point. It's not the end. There's more. There's always more, and it just gets better. The best, in fact, is yet to come.

Keep your fork.

Best. Cat Toy. Ever.

The company Mom was temping at is changing their name, so they're getting rid of a bunch of logoed promotional stuff. Last time we were over there for dinner we came home with a pair of pens that are also laser pointers. I'll probably never write with it, but...

Now, Nora sees the brilliant red spot and just looks at it skeptically. She knows there's something suspicious about it. Cinder, on the other hand, can't help herself.

I can get her chasing it in circles until she gets so dizzy she falls down.

Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Up the stairs. Down the stairs...

The fun doesn't stop. One of the funniest things in life has to be watching a cat just fall over because she can't walk straight.

(Oh, it's also cute to watch Jareth try to grab that red thing with his little fingers...)

not your ordinary Hum Drum

Last night was the first session of the drum circle. There were six of us, which turned out to be a good number.

So of course, I get to Lyssa's house, and one of the first things she says is "Oh, just so you know, I hate you now." She's seen the picture on this here web page... A little bit jealous (you have to picture it with that holding-finger-and-thumb-slightly-apart gesture...). Thanks once more to Amy for the help getting it put up. I again gave Dad credit for the picture itself.

Then there was dinner, which centered around a fabulous apple-and-leek-and-a-couple-other-yummy-things soup. Some nutmeg cut the sweetness a little and added a good hint of earthy that rounded it out very well. So Lyssa gets credit for that and for hosting such a weird bunch.

There were a variety of drums and related instruments. A couple of cool rattles, and a frog. The frog was wood, with a stick to run along ridges on its spine. It made a very good frog croak, and when it was used really contributed.

I had a great time. As dinner wound down Sam picked up one drum and started a slow, soft beat that started as just a background to the conversations. And then, almost suddenly, we all just joined in. Nobody said, hey let's get started. Someone joined Sam, and in under a minute we all had. That first song went for probably 15 minutes or so, although from the time we started I never once wondered what time it was. I didn't care.

At first my drum seemed small and simple--almost a beginner's drum. But no. He has a voice. Sometimes it's a quiet voice, and yet he can speak up and sing. I got compliments on him and he and I got to know each other.

I also got to allay some of my fears of having difficulty with rhythm. I think I did rather well, actually. I did good accompaniment with mine. At one point I was given one of the bigger ones to set the rhythm for the rest. It was a different experience focusing on keeping one rhythm without following the others...letting them follow me.

I'm very much looking forward to the next one. Today, however I have to work. Making up hours staying home letting Amy rest and sleep. So it'll be six hours, which is at least a shorter day. There will be a few of us in working on some outbound-call projects.

Work is pretty much requiring one Saturday a month for a month or two. We get lists of customers who have appliances affected by the recall. Sometimes a distributor will give us a list of contractors they've sold parts to. We contact the contractors and they give us lists of homeowners. So now there's a long list of calls to make that we've been falling further and further behind on. But that's for another time...

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

So I end one project, and that should give me more time, right? Oh, wait, I dropped the project I wasn't spending enough time on...

So right now the project taking up most of my free time lunch breaks is a battle simulator I'm developing. Okay, calculator would be a better word than simulator. It's mainly a roleplaying tool. Characters in the games I run sometimes end up in large battles. The players want to know how the battles are going, what the results are, and want to feel that their actions directly affect the outcome. Can their actions or participation reduce casualties on their side, for example?

So I'm learning still more about functions in Excel I didn't know were there. I'm writing formulas that wrap the screen four and five times. Then I'll be coding macros to automate copying and pasting calculated and random results around.

The end result will allow me to pretty quickly create armies, pit them against each other, and have forty or fifty thousand individual warriors battling each other. I'll be able to tell you at the end of the battle how any individual fared. I won't be able to tell you which enemy combatants any one fighter encountered specifically, it won't be able to keep a history of that, but it will be able to keep track of damage taken, arrows used up, and all that. I'll be able to tell you how many are how badly wounded afterwards, how much armor needs to be repaired, all that.

I've been doing a lot of winging that in the past, and I've been unhappy with the results. It also takes up more play time than I want it to, slowing the pace of the game. This will do so much more in less time. Best of both worlds.

I'm through the hardest part of it, I think, although there's one bit that suddenly stopped working. I'll have to figure out what I broke so I can fix it. And I'm trying to figure out how to reduce the number of calculations. At the moment it's something like 50 columns wide, with about half of those columns calculating something in each row. I'm wondering how slow it'll get when there's thousands and thousands of those rows (Excel is limited to about 65,000 rows, but that still allows a pretty big battle!)...

While the Mommy's Away...

Amy is off at a meetup group tonight. Other mom(s) at a coffeeshop. A chance to get out of the house, sans kids, and talk with other grownups for a while.

I certainly won't begrudge her that.

It also means Guy Time for Jareth and I. I've got the family room opened up more than normal and he's mostly distracting himself running around. He also got a haircut today. Knowing Amy, there'll be a picture on her blog soon... :-)

Tonight also gets to be a chance to get a couple of things done. There are some on-line things I've been meaning to catch up on, and I need to do some reviewing of the ol' resume.

I've got an agency setting up a phone interview for me. Don't know about the job, but it's a new office in Elgin, which is just barely two towns away. Much better commute, for one thing. The job might also come with some good lesson opportunities.

You see, the longer-term jobs (as opposed to the brief temp stints of my past) have all come with some lesson learned.

At Sara Lee it was (among others) becoming a team player. Learning how to step forward and do things that needed to get done to make a difference. If I saw mistakes, I learned to take the initiative and address them.

At the current one it's partly learning to pick my battles. I keep seeing things that need fixing or addressing. Most of them are the kinds of problems that compound themselves when they're not addressed. Someone making a mistake in how they document something in the database just gets worse until it's corrected.

But nobody ever very specifically asked me to become the database cop. At Sara Lee people (mostly) valued me being the logo cop keeping everyone from screwing up trademarks and looking stupid before clients.

But now it's not my place to correct things, and the three times I've addressed problems I've had someone come back and complain at/about me.

Part of it is the climate. We're separated into two groups, upstairs and downstairs. I'm in the upstairs group which is very equality-based. We all correct each other when we overhear things, we ask each other questions when we're not sure of something. The supervisor is much more the team leader than the "boss" type.

Downstairs is very, very different. The supervisor downstairs is used to an aggressive call center environment, where the boss commands, and if you have to think you better ask first. So they are extremely hierarchical. They take anything coming from me and not him as me overstepping some unwritten authority level.

And if he doesn't happen to agree about a problem (meaning if it doesn't affect him or his team's measured productivity goals), he won't address it. So now I'm learning how to mentally step back and say, "not my job..." and shrug it off.

One down, a bazillion to go...

Time has this way of going by. I'm behind on more than one project. So it's not just blog updates that haven't happened. On the other hand, yesterday was a good day for productivity. Amy did help with rebuilding the kitchen table. The legs for it are two...planks forming Ts. The hardware holding them together was a bit inadequate, and they were coming apart. I wasn't sure how long until it might just collapse on us.

But now there's proper hardware holding it all together. It doesn't wobble anymore either. This is a good thing. It's been a project we've been waiting on for several weeks now. Done. Check.

I also started working on an Excel project I've been mulling over. It's for creating units of warriors and calculating battle results for roleplaying. It's going to be a huge project, but I think I can make it do everything I want it to.

I just don't know if I'll have it remotely ready in time to use. The campaign I'm running for Amy could really use it, but I'm not going to make her wait inordinantly long while I'm developing it. If it's not ready by next weekend then it'll become a lower-priority project, and I'll just use it whenever it is ready.

We'll see how much I can get done during lunch breaks next week. After that I won't be able to donate all my lunch breaks to it. I have far too many other things I want to use that time for. Writing is supposed to be one of those things, too...

Social Night

I joined a pagan networking group at meetup.com. They were meeting last night at a Panera Bread about two towns over from where I'm working. So I said I'd be there.

I stayed a little late at work, reading. I didn't want to spend almost two hours at a Panera Bread reading. I ended up there an hour early, which gave me time to eat before they all arrived. Amy's first try at a meetup group didn't quite work out--she was the only one that showed. I wasn't sure what to expect.

They have free WiFi there, and a man I think was the manager was spending some of this time sitting at a table with a laptop and some paperwork. A woman came in and was asking directions at the counter for a place nobody seemed sure where it was.

Well, I was there to be social, and get better at just talking to strangers... I got up and asked said manager if I could bother him just a moment. I explained the woman's plight and asked if he could pull up a map for it. Thus armed with proper directions, I was able to help her get where she needed to go. Another guy there had thought he knew where she needed to be, so between the two of us she got what she needed and drove off into the night.

And there was the rather odd woman who approached me and started trying to explain how the Ancient Mystical Rosicrurian Order of something or other had all the answers... and had had such an astounding impact in her life... and that I should find out all about it... and that it traced its roots back to ancient Egypt... which made it really old and esoteric and all that. Oh, and they have the country's biggest Egypt museum out in California.

Um, yeah. She wasn't big on punctuation when she spoke, and yet she seemed to have difficulty expressing even simple things in words. She carried two canes which she used in the same hand. Her back was all hunched over so she had to turn her head sideways to look up at all. All in all a rather odd animal, and I think there's an answer or two she's still missing.

She ended up sitting with three or four other people throughout the night before I lost track of her.

But then a group of five or six showed up, and one greeted the other by a name I recognized. Ah, there they were. It ended up being 20 of us. Eight men total, which is about the ratio I expected, I think.

I'm still digesting it, but it was a very good time, and I'll definitely go to the next one. I'm also running out of time before work, so anything else will have to come later.

New Experiences

I threw my back out today. I've never experienced that before. Interesting experience.

I was standing and I bent down to pick up something for Jareth and the next thing I knew I was on my knees and I couldn't get up. It took almost fifteen minutes to get over to and up onto the couch. I can get up and walk around now, I just can't lift anything or bend over. We'll see how getting out of bed goes in the morning.

Of course, now I'm curious just what happened. What kind of thing is it to throw out one's back? Is it a muscle strain? Is it a disk or vertebra slipping out of alignment? What's the deal?

My best friend (the Best Man at my wedding), AKA Dr. Matt, happens to be a chiropractor, so I guess I know who to ask.

So if you'll excuse me, I have an email to write!

Today I started work an hour early. We get today as a paid vacation day, but they needed people to man the phones. It means getting paid for extra hours, so I was one of the volunteers.

Normally the alarm goes off at 5, and I leave at 7:00. Today meant arriving at 7, which meant leaving at 6:15. At first I had changed the alarm to 4:30, hoping to have a closer-to-normal morning. Then at 4:30 I changed my mind and set it back to 5:00.

But something went awry, and at 5:45 I woke up from a dream where Amy was telling me to get up. She was of course soundly asleep. So I saw the clock and woke up more suddenly than I normally do, thanking my subconscious for not letting me end up late.

The morning was anything but normal, obviously.

I arrived with ten minutes to spare.

I was the second of us to get there, and found Juan sitting in the dark waiting for his computer to boot up. One little under-cabinet flourescent was his only light.

This was not gonna do. So he and I started our quest for The Light.

We found the circuit breaker panel of lighting switches. Trial and error prevailed.

It turned out there were more of us than necessary, so I got to be one of the ones to leave early. I even did the responsible thing and asked how to handle the hours, since timesheets were already in for the week. Joe had forgotten about that. "Merry Christmas," he said, "I'll take care of it."

Extra time to play with Jareth? Okay!

Ahh.... but tonight he's staying with Mom & Dad. They offered out of the blue to babysit overnight so we can have some grownup time. We've got more than a half-gallon of apple pie* to drink... Yes, adult time indeed! :-)

* The recipe to which I may post if I get enough comments asking about it...

Holiday Madness

Well, I've sent a couple emails to people, but to the rest of you, I hope your holiday was everything you wanted it to be.

I don't know how we're going to celebrate next year, or even what we'll celebrate. But it's not like we really celebrate Christmas. I'm not sure I know anyone who does.

Oh, sure, there's that holiday called Christmas where everyone decorates and spends too much giving gifts. But is it really a Christian holiday for anyone? I don't think I know anybody who's doing anything to celebrate Christ.

So what are we celebrating? Amy and I, at least, have always celebrated the holiday we were brought up with. But it's not like it has any real meaning to us, other than Family. Somehow the capitalization seems appropriate.

Christmas eve we get together at Uncle Bill's in Gurnee. It's a bit of a drive, but generally fun. The gift opening was pure chaos. It was the first time I can recall being surrounded by people opening presents and thought to myself, I never want to do this again.

Jareth was cranky because he was very over-tired and very over-stimulated. In the past, it has been a small enough group that people took turns opening gifts, and we all got to watch everyone open. This year was the same size, but nobody waited. I didn't get to see anyone open anything except Jareth. I mostly don't know what people got.

I wasn't even able to keep track of who Jareth got what from. Tags vanished. Paper that had been written on was taken and shredded by the other kid present. And then cleanup happened before opening was finished, and all the paper was poof gone. Mom and I had to go through the bag of paper shreds to make sure none of his toys had gotten scooped up in the process.

And people gave Jareth too much stuff. Most of it was good stuff, but there was too much. It was like everyone gave him two things when one would have been better. He was overwhelmed by it all, and that just compounded his crankiness.

Christmas morning was home, and less chaotic. This time it was mostly too many things that were wrapped individually. One favorite toy was a phone Amy found. He has been holding things to his face like a phone and saying hello? and talking as if he had a phone. Now he does. When he presses the buttons it rings and then beeps and records for eight seconds. There's a button to play it back with. Lots of entertainment for him and us all.

Then we ran seriously late for dinner at Mom and Dad's. Amy's sister Jenna and uncle Steve were there, and both were better behaved this year than others. More rounds of cool gifts, but again it was a little too much. Favorite Jareth toy of that round seems to be a Little People fire engine.

I know that next year we want to be different, we're just not sure how. But for now I need to go see what the little guy is up to in the living room unsupervised. So that's enough rant for now. Maybe later I'll post about what I'd prefer in a holiday...

Wal-Mart and Decorating. And Wal-Mart.

Today we decorated. Amy's post includes a picture of the tree. There was also the outside decorating. There's a little tree at the corner of the house that's about...well, about the size of the one inside, actually. That one gets some lights (although it needs another strand) and we run icicle lights along the gutter over the kitchen.

Of course, the gutters didn't get cleaned out back when they should have. You know, back in spring and summer and fall... So I did that while I was at it. At least when the leaves and dirt are all frozen together it's easier to just scoop out.

This year also included one of last year's traditions: going to Wal-Mart. Last year I'm pretty sure there was something I needed to run out for. This year we replaced our tree lights with white ones. That got actually decided early this afternoon when we started, once I'd brought everthing in from the garage and we'd opened most of it up.

Now, it turned out that five strands of lights wasn't enough for the tree. So back to Wal-Mart for two more. Check.

Then we remembered that the two strands of cool garland we'd had last year was way not enough. Back in the car. Yep. Another trip to Wal-Mart. I bought out their stock of that particular garland. We'll need one more strand next year, maybe two.

There were a couple of observations made. One was that it just seems weird seeing someone driving a (what, $80,000?) BMW convertible to shop at Wal-Mart. Another was that Wal-Mart really doesn't seem to attract the deep end of the gene pool.

Now, on one hand, I hate Wal-Mart. I heard one statistic that 70% of everything there was made in China. I think that might be about right. I don't like that. I don't like them as a company. Yet I shop there. Why? Price. That and... well... okay, so it's basically just price. But when the same box of cereal is $4.80 at Jewel and $3.something at Wal-Mart... Hey, it adds up.

But we're basically decorated. A couple of years ago we basically never got around to it. Jareth looked at it all with that just-right sense of wonder. Worth doing just for that if nothing else. Now we just need to decide what to teach him about the holiday...

Hunting the Elusive Job

Today I got to sleep in by an hour. I took the day off for a job interview.

It started with a bit of a curve ball. They were looking for a slightly different role than they had originally posted the job listing for.

See, the job I'd been told I was interviewing for was administrative support for their sales department.

What they're actually looking for is someone who can be about 50-60% admin support and scheduling for their service department, 5-10% software help desk support, and the rest setting up a marketing plan.

They've never really marketed before. They've decided it's about time they did. Now, I'm pretty sure they aren't looking for someone with a marketing degree. They're not looking for that kind of depth yet. That kind of person would cost them about twice as much, and that somone in the 60-80k range isn't all that likely to also want to spend half their time dispatching servicemen...

It's a small company (about 50 total) compared to Sara Lee. I think I like that idea. They're big enough to be taken seriously, but still basically a family business. I interviewed with the owner's daughter and their ninth employee. The owner himself was originally slated to be there, but something came up.

I think there's a lot of potential there. Some of it will come down to what kind of pay can get negotiated. I think I'll suggest the pay get upped from what had been implied for the original position, with a bonus of some kind contingent on the performance of any marketing initiatives.

We'll see. Maybe they'll find someone else. I'm also waiting/hoping to hear about an interview at the company my Mom recently got hired at. Coincidentally, the agency setting that up for me is the same agency that got Mom in there (although it was a different branch office). They're looking for executive admins, and the pay is 20-30% better than what I'd been getting at Sara Lee. Nice raise if I get it... Again, we'll see.

Unappreciated Beauty

Driving to work today was one of those spiritual events. The snow on the trees was just that beautiful. It helps that a fair amount of my commute is forested roads.

It was the kind of snow that clings to any surface. The sides of light poles, signs, and every branch of every tree. It almost looked sprayed on it was so total. Especially at the beginning it was still fresh before the plows start throwing gray all over the place. The sun was out and the sky was clear and everything was crisp and white with pristine snow.

It was one of those magic moments when it's good to be alive. And I could tell that most drivers were oblivious to the beauty part. They only noticed the slippery, the wet, the cold. How sad it is. We are so pressed for time that we lose now. Kids don't see the world around them, they're all watching DVDs in minivans.

All the more reason to love that Jareth is quiet in the car. Not a happy-he's-not-making-noise thing, but so cool that he's entranced looking out the widow. I only hope he never loses that.

Sunday Dinner Learnings

My dad rarely remembers his dreams. This got mentioned at dinner Sunday because he had one he remembered. This is a rare enough even that it warranted tale-telling. Admittedly, it was one of those dreams that warranted telling...

But I hadn't know that he didn't usually remember them.

What makes it interesting to me is that I rarely remember mine, either. Maybe once every other week or so I'll wake up remembering the dream, but usually it's limited to remembering what I dreamed about, not what happened. The once I really remember are more infrequent.

So now I wonder. Is it a guy thing, or is it a passed trait?

Something to think about either way.

It also reminds me of a coming rant. Maybe I'll hand write it during lunch and post it tonight or tomorrow morning.

Infrequent Updates, Work, and PETA

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth.

I have, however, been busy with the kinds of things that don't make for good blogging. Okay, I've been busy working. There hasn't been a lot of news I've heard that garnered the "Oh, I so have to blog that" response.

Work is... well, it is. It pays and doesn't suck. There's this wide gray area between good and suck. It's hard to measure. This job has a lot of aggravations, but it's still in that gray area, so it's tolerable.

I've had a second belligerant caller, and one guy who said he couldn't afford to wait ten weeks for the good gas valves. So he'll probably sell the defective, potentially dangerous ones to his customers before then. There's a caring guy for you. I noted what he said in his call record. If someone gets hurt it's on him.

I nearly had to blog an article about PETA protesting fishing as cruel. Um... yeah.

Now, don't get me wrong, I support compassion to animals, and disapprove of cruelty to them. But is it up to me to decide what experiences those animals need? No. In my belief system they chose that life and the experiences that come with it. They need those experiences to grow. In later lives they may be the people that campaign for animal and human rights. Maybe the people working with those animals need to see certain things to grow themselves.

On top of that, I have never been to any of those commercial food farms. I don't know first hand what conditions they live in, and I tend to doubt at least some of the alarmist claims. PETA in particular doesn't bear a lot of credibility with me.

Yes, I'm a pagan who eats meat. I have a leather jacket. And a suede coat. And leather boots. I have some vague ideas about just how many other things are made from animal products. I appreciate and am thankful for the things we get from animals. I believe that how we treat the world is how we treat ourselves. Some of that is the pantheist in me. We shape our own future by how we treat the world around us. There is good and there is bad. But you can't really appreciate one without the other. There has to be balance.

I'm reminded of a shirt I've seen.

People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

Spammage

134 posts.
297 comments.

There were about 20 comments yesterday.

Comments are closed for a couple of days. I guess I'll be moving to WordPress whether I felt ready or not. It'll have to wait until Amy can help me.

In the mean time, thank your fellow citizens. You know, the viagra-pusing online gamblers who are about to vote tomorrow...

Car stuff

The new ignition assembly arrived Friday. It's now put in, so the car is back to theft-proof status.

Now I just need to cut the old assembly apart to get the key end out of it. Hopefully with both key pieces I can have a duplicate made. I need a way to open the doors if the battery dies or if the little remote opener dies.

New locks are gonna run something like $900. The only other option would be having a locksmith re-key the locks, which probably won't be very cheap, either.

At least at this point it doesn't matter what kind of damage I do to the old ignition assembly.

Today (as in about 45 minutes from now) we're taking Jareth (in lion costume) to Mom & Dad's. They're neighborhood is having a costume parade, and they want to take part and show off their grandson. On one hand we can't blame them. But next year it's our holiday. We didn't even decorate this year. Partly because we weren't going to be here. We did carve pumpkins, and this morning Jareth was able to correctly identify the nose on the one we made for him. I asked where the nose was, and he pointed right to it. Then, of course, he pointed to his own.

Next year he'll be old enough to walk the neighborhood. I don't intend to miss out on that!

...Tired.

It feels like I blinked and three or four days went by. When I was working at Sara Lee I had time for other stuff.

But now it feels like I get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to bed.

We do end up having about two hours or so each evening, but that's not much. We're watching reruns of Roswell at one hour a day.

I start work at 8 vs 8:30, so that eats up another half hour that I used to have. And I'm jogging and doing a little bit of exercise each morning, so that eats up some more. I used to have more time in the mornings, but I don't think I'm willing to get up at 4:30 instead of 5 to get that half hour back.

And try as I might, I'm not doing a very good job of going to bed by 10 like I need to. I keep wanting the time to do stuff. I've got to get better about that, because the half hour or hour a night of not-enough-sleep adds up over the week. And then I lose the time I spend making up for it. And waking up that tired makes everything take longer.

So that's why I'm getting sometimes delayed in posting. And that's part of why I haven't posted to To Our Childrens Children in more than a month.

But for now I need to go do dishes. Then we're going out to the local thrift store. Then it's pumpkin carving. Then...we'll see what happens then.

Wishful Thinking?

Last night I was a bit not there when I went to sleep.

I asked Amy what time she had her alarm set for (which I do every Friday night), and I set my own alarm later than normal but still an hour later than normal (6:00 vs 5:00). Nothing in my mind questioned the short work week. I really thought at that moment that it was Friday night.

So at about quarter to 5 this morning I happen to wake up. I look at the clock, then I remember that today's a work day. Crisis averted.

At least I don't have to rush through the morning.

Mewey Mornings

There's a little gray kitten in my lap and crawling around on me. She was mewing away in the bathroom. She knew I was out here, and she was alone.

Amy posted about it Sunday.

Her name is Cinder, which comes from a Bad Examples song. It starts:

Cinder gray and
Salamander green

The song was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about her particular shade of gray and "What's the first thing that comes to mind with gray?"

My Quick Shtick post is up for the day. I've washed my hair. I still need to feed G'Quan, make lunch, get dressed, and go to work. I've got about half an hour.

Yesterday we got another eight or nine for the call center. So now we're pretty close to the full eighteen we're expecting. If it's the same people they were expecting (according to the phone list that went around Friday), it'll be ten men and eight women, which is more male-heavy than I expected. Maybe it's just because of the so heavily unbalanced ratios I'm used to. Hey, at this point I have seniority over half of them. At least most of the new ones went downstairs, so I won't be fielding questions from all of them. It looks like just the three I've already been helping plus maybe two (maybe three) new ones.

Enough for now. Got stuff to do, places to go, an' all that...

Damned Anti-Theft Systems

My car is hard to steal.

I've been trying, really I have. But still no luck.

- Bypass the ignition to start the engine.

Check

- Bypass the transmission lockout that prevents shifting out of park unless the key turns.

Check

And then there's the steering column lock. As far as I can tell (until the repair manual shows up) that one's a physical hardware lock, not a switch I can bypass.

So I can start it. I can put it in gear.

I just can't steer.

Well, that's a pain in the ass.

Amy's going to be ticked. I assured her she could have her car back tomorrow.

On the up side, work went well. I started taking live calls. So far it's still pretty slow. They aren't expecting call volume to really take off until early next week.

On one hand, the low-pressure start is comforting. On the other hand, I need to be pushing myself. All things in time--including, perhaps, ignition...

Partial success

So my therapist and I discuss ways to make my job search more productive, and the next day I get a job. It's temporary, but it actually pays better than my last one by about 50 cents an hour. Of course, it's without benefits, so we're not better off, per se, but better off than we are on unemployment by a bunch.

I start today, in fact. Boom. The company does something with environmental controls, and has a product recall situation. They need people to man phones for it (customer service) for up to 18 months. Call volume will probably start higher and taper off, so they won't need the whole team the whole time. So there's no official prediction on duration for me. That's about all I know about it so far.

Film at 11. More details later.

Then tonight I can patch the car up at least enough to drive it, all the parts put back on. I can leave the ignition bypassed. Amy has the repair book on order (under $20 with shipping, vs the $40+ regular price. I do like Amazon's used book section!). It should arrive in a few days. Hopefully that'll tell me how to get the damn thing apart.

Ah, starting a new job on a new moon. How wonderfully apt. Well, a new adventure around every corner (watch your step).

Overwhelmed, More Testing, and Growing

I've been feeling overwhelmed the last few days. That Business In Piralle (formerly The Reltice Emerald) needs what will amount to a near total rewrite. I need to re-storyboard it (essentially outlining it), which is just about back to square one. It'll be a better book for it. I'll still have the sense of accomplishment that came with finishing the first version rough draft, but my initial plans of having it ready to submit to publishers/agents by year's end now seem...remote at best.

I'm estimating there were maybe 300 hours put into the first one. That, plus revision time, doesn't seem feasible in three months. Between job hunting and being helpful around the house there just aren't that many hours available in the week.

In other news, on Monday I tested at another agency. They're working on a decent lead for me, if it pans out. I took the same test for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. All three took me about twenty minutes total. I also tested in Access. I guess I know it, too:

Basic Score Percentage	100
Intermediate Score Percentage	91
Advanced Score Percentage	100

I might set up that test at one of the other agencies and see if I can get Microsoft certified in it. I did that for Word/Excel/PowerPoint no problem. It was free. How could I pass that up? Doing it for Access just seems to make sense.

In other other news, this morning marked three weeks of jogging every morning. It's been the same block (about a third of a mile) every time. One more week and I'll switch to a block down the road, which should push it to half a mile. It's not much, but at least I've done it every single morning. And it is getting a little easier each week. Seeing progress from it feels good. I'll be adding more things like that, too. By the end of the year I want to look back and see a year unlike any other (and not just because of the job transitions, thank you).

Maybe even the year I turned my life around.

Behold!

There are little icons on the left, now. No big deal, I know, but something I'd been planning on doing for some time now.

The pentacle image comes from this site. Check them out, they have some very cool images.

Ahoy! Thar be Blogs Ahead!

Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

We'll be havin' me parents o'er fer movies. An' drinkin, aye! Rum for ever'one!

Aye, but what is it, ye be askin'?

Arrrr, I'll be tellin' ye. Today be a day fer not takin' life so serious like, an' fer rememb'rin' that we've all got some scoundrel in us.

Of course, it seems there's little booty to be had 'round 'ere. Y'see, tain't legal to be sellin' liquor before noon on Sundays. Fortunately, we've already put in supplies at port prior.

An' the local Blockbuster, ye ask? Naught. Four pages o' movies on a list, you sees, an' they ain't have but a one. Nay, not a one, save fer the two I've already plundered afore.

So we'll be makin' do wit' what's we got.

So arrr.... Drink up ye lads 'n' lassies. Fer there be celebratin' to do!

Three-Blog Day

Yesterday was a three-blog day. I have less grandiose plans for today...

• Clean iguana cage.
• Snuggle Jareth.
• Play with Jareth.
• Play with Amy.

Encounter In The Garage

I wish I had my Dad's cool digital camera.

You see, 3:00 or so lately has been the time slot for Jareth's two-hour nap. These last few days I've been taking that time for organizing the garage, which needs it beyond desperately.

So there I am, checking boxes, starting to label what's what. Empty boxes, of which we have a museum-grade collection (packrat, you say? No--the Dragon's hoard...), get tossed for the moment on the empty box pile in the corner.

I grab one set of nested boxes. I see bubble wrap, and, oh, there's a glass vase of some kind in there. So I pull the box to a flat surface to see what else it might have.

Something brown moved. So I moved it to the driveway, realizing I have found a mouse. One by one I start pulling strips of bubble wrap out.

And then there are eyes looking up at me. A pair of beady little eyes in a brown mousy face. Aha. There you are. Come on out, friend. I don't want to hurt you, I just don't want you living in my garage, 'kay?

He scurries away. I watch him as he skitters under my car and keeps going, losing himself in the grass. Away safe, I tell myself.

And then I see it. Tiny. Cute. Did I mention tiny? A body no longer than a quarter's diameter. Teeny little legs twitching. Eyes that aren't even open yet. Still that young. A baby mouse. And it's alive. Crap. Now what?

I take the wooden shims I'd recently unearthed, and gently scoop the feller out, setting him at the edge of the weeds along side the garage. I can't just leave the box out. It'll rain if I do that.

And then the quandry deepens anew. There are four of them. Cute, helpless, squeaking.

We have saved hundreds of metal baby-formula cans. No, I don't really know why. I take the loose bedding from the box and pour it gently into the can, before using the aforementioned shims to scoop the other siblings into the can. I can only hope that it gives them enough shelter. Or, I hope that mommymouse comes back and leads them elsewhere. Hopefully not back inside the garage.

Unforunately, I have this dreadful feeling that mommymouse won't come back. That's what they always said as a kid, that animals didn't come back for their young if they smelled people. Maybe that's only birds. Either way, I'll check up on them later.

I hope they'll be okay. If not, I'll say goodbye and wish them well on the rest of their journey...

Where Are They Now?

I lost contact with a long-time friend back in the mid-90s. His name is Dennis, and we were friends since late grade school or junior high. His house was one driveway down from one of the school bus stops. He went off to the Army after high school, and we started growing apart. Then, around '94 or so, he didn't return a phone call, and never called back. I left him a message on his birthday, but nothing.

At the time I didn't think too much of it. I lost quite a few friends after college. I treated most of them very poorly, and if I were most of them I probably wouldn't have called me back. I'm not the same person any more.

But sometimes the universe has a way of bringing people back together. It was actually through Dennis that Amy learned about my little stint in the Army, and that's what got us back together. Now, things have potentially circled back. I was browsing through the recommendations at Amazon, looking over items it recommended for me based on things on my wish list and things I've told it I own.

Well, Dennis has self-published his first couple of novels. Amazon recommended one to me because most people who bought it also bought a lot of Tom Clancy. (There's a lot of Tom Clancy either in my collection or on my wish list. His OpCenter series I don't care for, but I'll read everything else of his.)

So today I'll be thinking over whether to contact him or not. He's back in Lake Zurich (other end of town, this time), and married. Maybe I'll e-mail him. Maybe not. I'll have to figure out what I'd say. We'll see. I have thirteen open windows of job listings to apply for, a grocery run to make, and a to-do list to boot.

Happy Birthday to me!

Today I turned 33. As Amy put it, it was a birthday not spent at work.

I enjoyed it. I slacked off. I played with Jareth. I played computer games. I did preparation for the role playing game that started up yesterday with Matt.

She was working, so we planned to meet at a local Bennigans. We had a coupon (which, incidentally, we forgot to use. Doh!).

I went ahead and dressed up for date night, and I dressed up Jareth as well. It got the beaming smile I intended…

So now she's up in bed, and it's my time to wind down. I way over ate at dinner, and I still feel very full. I might have to wait longer than intended before I can go to sleep tonight.

Tomorrow I have things to do and follow up on. Thrill.

But that's not until tomorrow. For tonight, I'm going to continue living in the moment. It's Tuesday. That means it's garbage night.

Okay, enough blogging…

Weekend!

Ahh... Saturday.

For a change we aren't sleeping in entirely. Well, it's a change for Amy. I've been tending to be up by 7 or 8 on Saturdays anyway. But she'll be up by 8:30.

Well, I'm headed back in to wake her up at 8:30, which if nothing else means she'll be out of bed by 9:00.

Once I've confirmed she's awake and stirring, I'll be cooking breakfast. Crepes today, with applesauce and brown sugar. I've got the ingredients all set up, ready to go. And there's coffee ready for her, too.

She needs to rest up and recover from Week 1, but she also needs to keep getting up in the mornings to keep the rhythm. So I'm helping her.

As for me, I'm still adjusting. I'm sure I'll get it all down pat—and boom, land a job, right?

My mornings still haven't settled into regular patterns yet. But I am at least managing to spend at least some of each day getting stuff done, so I don't feel like a failure as a house-husband, stay-at-home dad. I wish I was doing better at finding a job.

Monday I apply for my first unemployment check. There's three more weeks of Amy's paychecks. After that?

I have faith that it'll work out, I just don't know how yet. There will be a new moon before Amy's job ends. Good time for changes. We'll see.

It's all good.

More Stuff

Well, today was more productive than yesterday. There were things I wanted to get done but didn't, but I did hit the biggies.

I made quite an improvement in the yard, which was one of the things Amy dared challenged me to accomplish. Lawn mowed, weed-wackered, partly edged out. I hacked down the trees that were growing where there weren't supposed to be trees (oh, like the flower beds right along the house, and the gap between the garage and the neighbor's fence...).

I ran some light errands, one of which needs to be completed later in the week (ideally tomorrow).

Jareth was very cute, and has been sleeping for an hour or so now. Amy is now in wind-down mode before bed. I'll follow an hour later.

We talk. Most of the time that's a very good thing. It's not so much a good thing when we're supposed to be falling asleep. So we tend to take turns. Normally that's not a problem. Normally she's up a few hours past me anyway. But these few weeks are anything but normal. So she goes to bed between 10 and 11. It feels weird being up past her. A lot feels weird right now.

Change. It's all good, right? :-)

Stuff

Well, my first day as the at-home husband went okay. I did manage to get some stuff done. Not as much as I had intended, but it was a decent getting-accustomed-with-it day.

I'm hoping for better today.

Jareth learned recently that he can play peek-a-boo too. We've been doing it with him, but he's learned that he can hide, and come out, and we'll say "boo!" when he does. He'll bring his blanket to hide his face, and yesterday he stood so that he could hide behind my computer monitor and peek out from behind it for the boo part.

That may change the kinds of productivity that can happen sitting at the computers when he's down here. His play corral is between our computers, so when Amy is back staying home she's going to get to play that same game at her computer...

Saved by the...?

Well, the panic has been delayed a few weeks. Pat at Salem Services, the agency that got me my last job, found one for Amy. It's a four-week temp job. The client is looking for someone who knows HTML. While that's not me, Amy knows the basics. We're not sure what the job entails, but it pays well for a temp assignment.

And it's four weeks for me to keep searching. Which is good, because so far the searching has been going slowly. In truth, Amy has been applying herself to it quite a bit more than I have. I am actually rather looking forward to some time of her working. Part of me feels bad for admitting it, and part of me feels even worse that she has to do it. I really hope she enjoys it.

Okay, there is this tiny part that wants her to hate it, to remind her that despite her own complaints about being stuck at home, that she hasn't had it all bad. But that really is just a tiny part.

It's also going to be interesting being the stay-home dad for a few weeks by my self. It'll give me a much better insight into what her days have been like. I'm suspecting that the month of role-reversal will actually do us both a world of good for understanding and appreciating the other's day. I'm sure it'll be, if nothing else, a learning experience for me.

Wish me luck? :-)

Um. Oh.

I left a message with our insurance company. Some things have changed, and I wanted our agent to come talk it over with us. He was really cool about that.

But I got a call from one of his partners. It turns out that our agent...

Well...

Um...

Died. About two weeks ago. He fought cancer for eight months. He didn't win.

We liked him. He was cool.

/sigh.

Check, check, crap—lots still to check off...

So I've put together a birthday list for passing around to family and such. There's one to-do list item down.

Another round of resume revision is nearly finished, and that'll help. Part of the serverance package included some services though a career management company. They made some suggestions, which I'm taking further. I'm making additions to their work and sending it back to them. Then I can update my online resumes to match.

Not feeling well, Amy and I are sick with something. I seem to be fighting it better than she is, but I'm still feeling...weathered.

Amy offered to let me do Jareth's night-time bottle, which is very cool. Now I get some specific snuggling bonding time, rather than all the nurturing coming from Mommy. I would never have asked her, because I know how deeply she cherishes every moment of that. But (after some apparently prodding from her therapist) she offered it up. I think I've managed to tell her how cool I think that is.

So, anyway, the last couple of days have not been terribly productive. I'm already coming up on the end of my productivity for today. We're taping the Olympic Gymnastics, so I suspect we'll curl up on the couch and watch more soon.

No, that'd be too easy...

Every day Mommy makes a pair of sandwiches, or something similar for lunch. One for her, and one cut up into bites for Jareth. His lunch happens sitting on her lap, and they eat together.

Today Amy is napping. I made the sandwich, grabbed a can of Mandarin Oranges, and we sat down at my computer for lunchtime.

Maybe he's just tired. It looked like he took a nap, but maybe not.

But it seems he'll only eat lunch for Mommy. I know it's not the sandwich—I've made the sandwiches for them before. But curled up with Mommy is just cooler.

I did get the opportunity to think back to the last time I can remember having him on my lap at my computer, singing to him with the MP3 running. Back when my desk was where Amy's is now. Back when he was getting bottles only. I think he was about six or nine months at the time. The favorite song of the time even came in the rotation, and I sang it to him. Well, I tried to. It's one thing when he's looking up at you, around a bottle or not. It's not the same when halfway through the song he starts squirming because what he really wants is to play on the floor.

Oh, well. It's almost time to wake Mommy up anyway.

I Need to What?

Iguanas are strange critters.

Once or twice a year female iguanas develop eggs—in batches of about 20, each about the size of a large grape. First the yolks develop, and then if she thinks she'll get a chance to lay them they'll develop shells. If she's too stressed, and can't find a place to lay them, she'll reabsorb the yolks instead of letting shells develop.

So, G'Quan the iguana is gravid (in other words, with eggs). She has been for some time, so shells might be developing already.

"Next time, when it looks like she's just starting, you'll want to stress her out so she can just reabsorb them."

Yes, that's right. My pet iguana's life is just too cozy and easy. The vet told me to stress her out some.

Now there's one you don't hear every day...

Plans and stuff

Well, today is an early morning for a Saturday. We're picking up Lindsay on our way to Milwaukee for the Quest For Immortality exhibit at the
Milwaukee Public Museum (the exibit only runs until August 8th, so the exhibit link might break after that).

They have an Imax film about it to.

Amy got recommendations from a friend about where to stop for breakfast before the exhibit.

We'll probably be back in town around dinner. Mom and Dad are babysitting, which they'll enjoy.

Oh, and in other news, the severance package was put together and signed by HR on Monday.

I'm still in touch with Rita, who sat next to me. I've been hearing the odd tidbit through her. At least one person has come through hoping to find my rolodex. I kept all that in Outlook, which suddenly no one has access to.

Mwahahhaha... [insert ominous organ music here]

Oh, sorry.

Anyway—have to get ready to go.

Irony

So also today I got an envelope in the mail. The envelope was marked with an eagle logo, and two phrases:

• "You play an important part"
• "IMPORTANT AWARD MATERIALS ENCLOSED"

The letter inside?

Dear Awardee,

Congratulations on your anniversary with Saralee Coffee and Tea.

For your convenience, an Award Order Form has been included in this packet...

This would be the order form for the gift for my five year anniversary, which wouldn't have been until December 6th.

Not even a form letter, mind you. The whole packet is pregenerated and generic.

Not only that, but the third-party company that manages it didn't even spell the company name right.

<Sigh>

Aha!

Sometimes the easy answer is the best one.

Quick Shtick is up now. Problem solved.

I left the ball in Amy's court, of course, but that's how it goes...and I didn't leave her any huge dilemma.

Now I can get ready for work. Goody.

Coffee for Writer's Block?

Maybe I'm just not awake enough this morning. Maybe the caffeine level is still below some important threshold.

But for the moment I'm stumped.

It's Quick Shtick. I'm stumbling over what's next. It's my turn, and I need to have it up before breakfast. Unlike Something*Positive (and probably other web comics, but S*P is the only one I read right now) I can't get away with just posting filler.

Those who follow our story will understand this better than the rest. Lynna was anxious to talk to Agmar, but we (as readers and writers both) don't kwow what about. Now her father is walking in on them, actually hoping to interrupt.

But I don't know what they're talking about. And I'm having trouble coming up with something.

Argh!

So off I go. Some random web pages... Inspiration is lurking around here somewhere, I just need to scare it out of hiding—without making too much noise, Matt is still sleeping on the hide-a-bed upstairs.

Here, coffee coffee coffee...

Better...

Well, she's got it fixed. Still no idea what went wrong.

One of my projects is getting up on time, rather than hitting snooze or just resetting the alarm and going back to bed. I want more time in the morning.

So, while I have a little time this morning, I'm not awake enough yet. Coffee's going, that'll help some. I'm also working on incorporating a little exercise into each morning. That will end up leading me to having both time and some energy in the morning. But I'm not there yet.

Anyway, as Amy asked her readers, if you see something that looks messed up (on either site), please let us know.

Thanks.

Technical difficulties

Yeah. I know. Site problems. We noticed them today. Apparently they've been there a while, but suddenly got worse.

Now it's a problem.

Amy's all frustrated trying to fix it. Thank you, Love.

Hopefully better soon. Then I think she has to fix her own, which is at least less screwed up.

Don't know yet what happened.

Update later (film at 11?)

Look!

Credit goes to Amy for the new look. We had both had pretty much the same idea when we first saw the picture. So she spent most of today making that idea happen. Dad gets the credit for the picture.

I think it turned out very cool.

Next it's up to me to (further) tweak the style sheet (fonts and such).

Thanks again, Love!

Back

I'm back. I'm wiped. I may have the flu.

I got back at something like 2am last night.

It was an amazing vacation, but a crappy fishing trip.

I did keep a journal. I'll post that later. Probably starting tomorrow, depending on if I get up in the morning with any time before work.

I may be napping soon.

Oh, Canada!

Short on time, so quick and to the point.

Tonight I'm headed over to Dad's. About quarter to morning tomorrow we head off.

I'll be home for a couple/few hours tonight, which will be spent doing two things:

• Packing
• Last moments with Amy for a week plus

It won't be spent blogging. Sorry.

I am bringing a notebook to hand-write stuff. I'll post that when I get back.

Have a good week, I'll be back some point on the 27th.

Bye!

Brian, the fictionman

Cleveland

Actually, it was a very productive trip. I got home about 7:00. Amy took off for therapy. Her appointment actually ends right about now, so she'll probably be back in half an hour.

I've been prepping for Canada.

My contacts are a bit dried out from the airplane air. I'm tired. I'm going to rinse my eyes and just chill until she gets home.

6:15 AM, 303 Taxi (Handwritten)

(Hand written this morning...)

The probably Russian cab driver was fifteen minutes early, which is good because I woul dhave set the pickup time at 5:30 to be safe (rather than 6:15). Last time I flew was '93—just not the same now, eh?

But he drives like a taxi driver.

Breathe. Flow. Be.

I haven't had any coffee.

He turned on an oldies station (97.1 The Drive) and it just felt appropriate. Ride, Captain ride... Not my first choice, but I do have that one on a button in my own car. He asked if I minded, I said no.

What I didn't say was, "Anything that helps you get me there on time is good." I get like that when I'm worried about being late sometimes. You should see me on the way to a movie...

(My writing in a swerving cab is not good)

Cleveland.

More on that later.

Tracking the List

At this point I don't know if I'll have time to post interesting things. So instead you get to keep up to date on what I still need to get done. Just in case you care.

I'll probably take this post and edit it as the days go by, in which case I'll probably update the date each time.

(in other news, we finished the current Quick Schtick Writing story.)

So: The Great List of Things Brian Needs to do Before Going to Canada:

• Get oil change and car checkup
• Power sand the floor in Jareth's new room
• Thank you letters for Jareth's birthday (should have been done weeks ago!)
• laundry (Thank you Amy!)
• Finish up projects at work
• About ten more manuscript pages! (and then the rough draft is done)
• Mail finished rough draft to Dr. Matt, who is one of the few who get to read it in advance (and critique)
• Enter receipts into checkbook and pay bills
• Pre-arrange timecard crap with Payroll (have I mentioned I hate punching a clock?) - (Time card day is my first day back. I can do this then. :-)
• Show Amy everything she needs to know about feeding G'Quan (iguana)
• clean iguana cage
• 6/12/04: Dinner with Jenna (sister-in-law)
• (before that: help Amy come up with a good gift idea, since Jenna's birthday was the 6th)
• 6/14/04: planning meeting over dinner with the rest of the Canada group - Cancelled
• 6/15/04: morning optometrist appointment (contact lenses follow-up)
• 6/16/04: Day trip flight to Cleveland to tour new warehouse and print facility
• find recipes for meal suggestion (since Dad and I will be responsible for at least one dinner there)
• Pack

So much to do!

The list of Things Brian Needs to do Before Going to Canada:

• Get oil change and car checkup
• Thank you letters for Jareth's birthday (should have been done weeks ago!)
• laundry
• Finish up projects at work
• About ten more manuscript pages! (and then the rough draft is done)
• Mail finished rough draft to Dr. Matt, who is one of the few who get to read it in advance (and critique)
• Enter receipts into checkbook and pay bills
• Pre-arrange timecard crap with Payroll (have I mentioned I hate punching a clock?)
• Show Amy everything she needs to know about feeding G'Quan (iguana)
• 6/12/04: Dinner with Jenna (sister-in-law)
• (before that: help Amy come up with a good gift idea, since Jenna's birthday was the 6th)
• 6/14/04: planning meeting over dinner with the rest of the Canada group
• 6/15/04: morning optometrist appointment (contact lenses follow-up)
• 6/16/04: Day trip flight to Cleveland to tour new warehouse and print facility
• find recipes for meal suggestion (since Dad and I will be responsible for at least one dinner there)
• Pack

There's more. As the days go on I can mark off the finished items, and add in the new ones.

It's all clear to me now...

Optometry. Good thing.

As in I have contact lenses now. Ones that even have the right prescription, which my glasses have not had in quite some time.

Getting new lenses is always a fun thing. The world takes on that almost unreal feeling clarity and sharpness. So I had a good day, for the most part.

There was one side effect I wasn't expecting. I've had glasses so long I'd forgotten what it was like to have peripheral vision. I almost got dizzy walking down a couple of hallways today, because there were side walls that moved as I walked. Not just blurs that were either moving blurs or stationary blurs.

The world is once again made of individual objects.

Like little boys that don't let their daddies type... :-) Sorry, if there was more I was gonna say, it's gonna have to wait.

Donate to the Laptop Fund!

Well, there's now a way to give me money via PayPal.

Why would you want to do so?

Well, for one, I need a laptop. I've got projects in the works, and a laptop would make things quite easier.

The biggie? Fiction. As in book writing. It's what I want to do, it's what I'm doing. If I can make a little money doing it, then maybe I can quit the corporate work junk and write full time.

Mid June Dad and I are going to Canada for a week. Before then, I'll have the complete rough draft of The Reltice Emerald, which I don't think I've said anything about before. Now's not the time to get into details. But the complete rough draft is pretty close to done.

When I get back from Canada, I can start revisions fresh. I'm expecting to have the final in the mail to agents and publishers no later than Christmas, although I'm expecting it might happen before Thanksgiving. Having a laptop to work on would make the entire process quite a bit easier.

I'll even make a couple offers:

I'll publicly thank anyone who donates, if you like.

Whoever gives the highest donation before I mail the final out gets a signed copy out of the first run.

If you read books, think of your donation as an investment. :-)

Hey, I gotta promote myself, right?

Well, company should be nealy here. I'll post progress reports, and maybe a teaser or two, as time goes on.

Sad Fact

In September, 2000 I got the first birthday card signed by people I worked with. I'd been there almost but not quite a year at the time. I've had the card pinned up on my cube wall ever since. Until Thursday. I took it down because it had turned into a depressing thing.

The card featured a drawn crowd on the front, one of those 'from all of us' cards. The department had written in names for just about everyone in the department, each person in the crowd representing someone in the department. It was cool, and it meant a lot to me.

At the time, there were 23 people around to sign it.

Note quite four years have passed. I'm still there.

Of those 23, only 7 are left.

But how long is that in I.T. time?

On February 13th everyone at the office got the following e-mail, which I think I posted about at the time:

——-Original Message——- From: [I.T. Manager] Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 8:21 AM Subject: WebSense

Next week, Information Technology will implement a new internet monitoring and blocking tool called WebSense. This tool will prevent access to certain web pages based on the content of those pages. The type of content being blocked is prescribed to us by [parent company] Corporate, and should not impact our user community. The types of content we will be blocking will be adult, nudity, sex, abused drugs, MP3's, gambling, games, web chat, racism and hate, to name just a few, and all are considered to be outside the scope of what we, as employees of [parent company], would need to access in the course of conducting our day to day business.

Additionally, all internet use, both actual and attempted, is recorded and categorized in the system by time, user id and machine name.

If you attempt to go to a web site that is being blocked by WebSense, you will receive a message page stating "Access to this web page is restricted at this time." This page also describes how to report a web site that is being blocked inappropriately so it can be removed from the block list.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Today, we got the following e-mail:

——-Original Message——- From: Software Administrator Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 11:12 AM Subject: WebSense

Tomorrow, Information Technology will implement a new internet monitoring and blocking tool called WebSense. This tool will prevent access to certain web pages based on the content of those pages. The type of content being blocked is prescribed to us by [parent company] Corporate, and should not impact our user community. The types of content we will be blocking will be adult, nudity, sex, abused drugs, MP3's, gambling, games, web chat, racism and hate, to name just a few, and all are considered to be outside the scope of what we, as employees of [parent company], would need to access in the course of conducting our day to day business.

Additionally, all internet use, both actual and attempted, is recorded and categorized in the system by time, user id and machine name.

If you attempt to go to a web site that is being blocked by WebSense, you will receive a message page stating "Access to this web page is restricted at this time." This page also describes how to report a web site that is being blocked inappropriately so it can be removed from the block list. Click on the "More Information" link for instructions.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

The next time I have a problem and they say it'll be fixed by "next week" I know to be worried, right?

Paint Fyooms

As Amy mentioned in her blog, we painted primer stuff last night. The fumes rose and collected at the ceiling. I spent most of my time on a step stool painting...dunn-dunnn-da...the ceiling.

Then I went driving. I was high, I really was. I realized that in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I got lost in Wal-Mart. I had to keep following around the edge to find the registers. I couldn't find anyone to ask directions. I'm not sure how they would have reacted if I'd found anyone.

It was an interesting trip. I considered coming home and blogging it then, because there were cool observations I wanted to share. I didn't get around to it, though, so they're lost. Probably forever. Oh well, <shrug>.

Whew part II

Still rebuilding from the Moveable Type transition. The Moon Phases bit is back now. I'm slowly getting to understand MT templates.

Petty and Stupid

Driving home yesterday. Obeyed the school zone speed limit, there were definitely kids about. Full and complete stop at the stop sign. Notice the police officer behind me (his stop wasn't as full and complete). Accelerate to 25 where the school zone ends. Get pulled over.

I got a ticket for not having the front license plate on.

I sat there while he was writing it up, after he'd told me, and I couldn't think anything other than how collassally stupid it was. I so wanted to say something, about how there had to be better things for him to be enforcing just then. I know all too well that there are plenty of kids doing 40-50 at that stretch of road later in the day.

But no, he had been bored, and wanted something to do. So I'm paying $75 to indulge his lack of anything more interesting to do. I understand why so many people resent the police. I try not to have that feeling myself, but my hands were shaking while I sat there. Uncontrollable stress/fear response. It's just too ingrained. Pavlov was a bastard. And while in general I do respect them, it's the bad apple syndrome. I really do understand why police are viewed the way they are. Unfortunately, as a collective group, the bring it upon themselves. Case in point.

Whew

Well, I got my blogroll up. That's a start. I miss the template preview ability from Blogger. Maybe there's an easy way to do that with MT. I'll find out eventually...

Pardon the dust

Thanks to Amy for getting me moved to Movable Type. The appearance will get less boring over time. Lots of flexibility, a little bit to learn.

But today is neighborhood garage sale day. More stuff! Uh oh...

Is That A...

Poor Nora is frustrated this morning. The gray mouse she found stopped playing with her. Once I realized that that particular gray mouse toy had legs and whiskers, I knew that it had to go. The mouse was still limp, so probably fairly recently dead. I placed the body near our garage, so that nature can do its thing.

The circle of life continues...

Breakfast update

So I got to the kitchen to pick out ingredients. I saw mushrooms first, and thought that those would go better in an omelet. Since I just a few days ago read an article Amy found me about omelet technique, I decided to give it a try.

Definite success. Not perfect, but the best yet. Omelets have been a weak point for my breakfast repertoir. One or two more for practice and I think I'll have it down. That'll feel good. After that, I just need a little improvement on French Toast, and I'll have a good range of breakfast skills.

One of the fatherhood things I'm really looking forward to is waking Jareth up early, and having him help me make breakfast for Mommy, and then we can bring her breakfast in bed. Him helping will add an extra specialness.

In other news, the work crew showed up just as I was finishing prepping breakfast (about 8:30). They're hoping to be done in another hour or so (noonish), which will be good. They're cutting pipe now, so no water usage for a bit yet.

Them being here led me to realize that I wasn't sure how to act in one regard. I felt like I should be offering them coffee, or something. You know, to be a good host. I wasn't sure if any of them that stayed to dig spoke English or not. The supervisor went to do some of the more skilled work at another job site they've been working on for days and days now. A bigger problem than ours, involving 70-some-odd feet of collapsed sewer pipe.

In the end, I brought them out a pitcher of ice water and some plastic cups, which got me a few sincere thanks. It looks like they can all handle at least the basics, which makes me feel more comfortable about having them here. So I did a nice thing, and it was appreciated. That works for me.

Plumbers... 

There are two kinds of plumbing problems. There's the easy kind, and the tear-up-the-front-yard kind.

We don't have the easy kind.

So I'm not working today. I've got some things sortof queued up to blog, so maybe I'll get one or two up today. We'll see.

A Day In The Life

I just realized it's been close to a week since I posted. I want to do better than that, and sometimes I just find myself wondering what happened.

So, in looking at my typical day, here's what I have:

The alarm starts at 5am, and my battle with the snooze alarm begins. Overall I still don't know if it's a battle I'm winning or not. Sometime usually between 6 and 6:30 I end up out of bed.

I start coffee, grab breakfast, and head downstairs. While I eat breakfast I read and post on To Our Children's Children and Quick Shtick Writing. These I manage to do each morning, although sometimes the weekends get messed up. That's different.

So then there's the getting ready for work, making a lunch to bring, and feeding G'Quan the giant green iguana. If there's any time left before I leave (sometimes yes, sometimes no), I read Amy's blog, and then maybe even some time to skip around through the blogroll. And then I sneak upstairs, trying to make as little noise as possible, and yet always making too much noise. I get dressed in clothes I've generally picked out the night before, which I do so I don't have to turn on a light while Amy's sleeping. A kiss goodbye, and in the car I go.

7:30/7:45 to 8:30 is commuting. Lunch is 11:30–12:30, during which I work on the book I'm writing. End of the work day at 5 means home at 6.

Maybe half the time Jareth is either playing or napping in the living room when I get home. Try as I might, I can't seem to come in without waking him or otherwise alerting him. Other days he's downstairs sleeping on or climbing on Amy at her computer. When I get to, I try to give her a hug and kiss and Hi honey I'm home first, because I know she's been eagerly awaiting my return. Sometimes Jareth sees me first, and he'll cry if I don't go over and grab him up. He misses his daddy, too.

Some days I cook, some days Amy cooks. Some days Jareth has already been changed and fed, some days I do it when I get home. Most of the time I'll get to read Amy's paragraph on Quick Shtick on her computer quickly while Jareth is eating.

Jareth isn't the best cooperator at dinner, so sometimes I come home in the middle of feeding and interrupt an already frustrated Amy. Sometimes I get to come to her rescue, sometimes I'm just one more thing making it worse. I never know in advance.

During dinner will be some "So, what should we do tonight" discussion. If neither of us has a strong preference, we can spend a fair amount of time hemming and hawing (which is a wierd phrase, especially now seeing it written) about it. But we'll find something to do, and that will take us to 10pm. Then I change his diapers into bedtime mode (there's an extra snap in liner to help them hold more and wick it further away from him overnight), and then we put him to bed. Mommy tucks him in and I wind the bear carousel thing over his bed.

Then there's brushing the teeth before I end up in bed around 10:30 or so.

Poof, there's the day. There are some days where I get up closer to on time, and have some morning. Mornings are my time, when I get them. Some days, like today, I have time (and am just barely awake enough) to post something. Other days, even when I have technically enough time, I can't get the wheels turning fast enough. Even now I haven't had enough coffee to do much. As a result, most of what I get written in the morning isn't as good as it should be. Amy gives me a hard time about typos I make, and in some cases completely miss important details, because I'm just not here yet.

Today is one of those mornings where my typing accuracy is pretty bad, because I keep missing letters. If I were any more tired I might miss the keyboard. Coffee. Needless to say I don't do any book writing in the mornings. I turn on plenty of light, because light is what gets my brain to realize that it's daytime. If Amy comes down for anything, she'll complain about all the light.

Later I can post about the weekends, which are totally different, and yet not. For today I'm now ten minutes behind schedule, and I can't afford to blow off the shower today like I did yesterday (partly because I did blow it off yesterday).

Gotta go, bye. Drive safe, have a good day.

Chair Shopping

Well, I can't fix Amy's chair, so we need to go get her a new one. There are a couple of places for used office furniture, but they're not open long. So we're just about ready to go.

Staying up 'til 3:00 last night wasn't technically the smartest thing to do, but the game was fun.

Chair shopping isn't easy. They never seem quite right. At least the weather is nice.

<-- Moon Phases

I've added the moon phases bit on the left. Thanks to Demi for finding it first. I'd seen one somewhere else and wanted to set one up, but hadn't gone through the effort of looking for one yet. Ask and ye shall receive, eh?

I actually added it last night, but needed to fix it, which (despite appearances to the contrary) it still isn't. By default it shows up at the left edge of the sidebar, which looked goofy. Aligning it right (the table it comes bundled in) made the archives section show up between it and the left edge of the sidebar. Amy and I tried to fix it, but in the end couldn't come up with better than putting in linebreaks to push the archives down enough. If anyone has any good suggestions, we'd both like to know at this point.

Death, Taxes, Reorganization.

This morning on the way to work I was listening to a debate about food stamps. In at least one state, they're making it so food stamps can't be used to buy junk food. The immediate response from one caller was: what right does the government have to look in our shopping cart?

Easy answer there: Because they're buying. If you're getting food stamps, it's because you can't feed yourself (and more to the point your children) yourself. Anyone helping you support your children has a right to care for their health. There are kids out there only getting one meal a day. If I'm the one buying that one meal, I'd really rather it wasn't chips and soda. But that's not the main issue for today. I just wanted to touch on it quickly. If people want an in depth article on it, let me know (comments, perhaps), and I'll dedicate a post to it.

On the ride home was the second side-issue for today: Spain. Not that their situation doesn't warrant top line attention, but there's plenty of places to read about it, and I can't claim to be an expert. The quick summary for the cave-dwellers: The public in Spain was perhaps less enthusiastic about supporting the US than their government was. They get hit by a big attack from Binny and his Al Qaeda buddies four days before their national elections. Still reeling, they went to their polling places a couple beans short. Some blaming the government's support for the whole war-on-terror thing, they elected the side least likely to incur terrorist wrath. Say hello to socialism. No, really. Democracy: 0. Socialist regimism: 1. How many votes would Bush get if there was another 9-11 around Halloween? But that's also not the main topic for today.

Death, Taxes, Reorganization. The three things in life you can be certain of.

The corporate structure at work has always been a little weird. Not weird in that, hey, that's different kind of way, but weird in the hey, that's kinda stupid kind of way.

For the whole beverage part of the corporation there are three separate divisions: Foodservice, Retail, and a third one that just deals with a specific liquid coffee system. No good reason for it.

So today they announced the reorganization. The three shall be one. Three marketing departments become one bigger department. Three sales organizations will become—well, we're not entirely certain about that yet. They had already combined some of the service and supply chain parts. Now everything else merges together.

It really does make sense. It should have happened years ago. And yet, the number of people actually excited about it could probably carpool together. They wouldn't need a really big car, either. Because the unspoken understanding is that when you combine organizations, you find "redundancies." Not so drastically with marketing people, so the direct impact of that right around me will be small. Mostly it means changing what people do. But other departments will get smaller.

In January, we'll be moving to a new headquarters, which is a very good thing. It also means that the new organization can all be under one roof. Also good. But the time between now and then will be awkward for everyone involved. It'll be a time of uncertainty, and uncertainty scares people. Especially in the corporate world. Especially in a job market and economy like now. Especially in a company where the morale has been visibly lower each year for about three years now. Especially in a company where people watched a woman seven months pregnant get laid off becuase it was a "good business decision." At the time we had to lose 7% of the headcount. I'll get into that in more detail another time. That post has been brewing in my head for a long time now. It's almost done percolating.

Today was a hastily called meeting to talk about it, a.k.a., damage control. A man who has been indirectly demoted trying to get us to see it as a good opportunity.
"To work with new people."
"To learn about other parts of the Company."
And more. Um, yeah. I've got some spare enthusiasm around here somewhere. Where did I put that, again?

Reducing headcount "is not the motivation here." just a handy side-effect
He even went on to say that for Marketing People, Career-focused people, it's just an opportunity. Yes, new positions will open up. There will be opportunities to advance, to climb the ladder, for those who can grip it hard enough to hang on.

And that, finally, leads me to the point. I work in a company that has admitted indirectly that nobody gets raises. If you want more money, get promoted. But they also vigorously refuse to open new positions or headcount slots. Without open positions, you can't move up, can ya? You can't move up unless someone above you moves up, or out. So someone quits or gets canned, and you jump into their job before anyone else can.

It's musical chairs. The music starts, you walk the circle, and when the music stops everyone scrambles for better chairs. But there's always someone left standing.

But if you want to promote someone, or you want to fire someone, but don't have the right excuse, what do you do?

You reorganize, that's what you do. Now you can look at each person, and if you don't like what they're doing, you can can their sorry asses and you don't have to call it firing them. They just don't fit the new structure. Sorry, sucks to be you. And if you need to save money, you can "streamline." But that's not laying people off. No, we aren't interested in laying anyone off. But reducing headcount helps us make our numbers for the year, and senior management gets a bonus if they make their numbers. How they make those numbers appears irrelevant.

I've been here four years. In that time we've had four major reorganizations, each similar in scope to this one in one way or another. I don't doubt that it'll happen again after January. Next year I get the coveted third week of vacation. I wonder if it'll be a "good business decision" to "streamline" me at that point. One can't help but wonder.

It'll be interesting to see what my job is next year.

The IT Panic

I got to work today, and got about twenty minutes of work done before the grumbling started.

It started with voices in ever direction asking, "Hey, what's going on?!?"

First e-mail crashed.

Then the Internet was gone.

Then PCs started locking up randomly.

Then the network drives were inaccessible.

Then IT started telling secretaries to shut computers down, "quickly."

There's something morbidly amusing about seeing IT staff running around cursing in near-panic.

"Infected." Enough to make one secretary feel the need to wash her hands.

By 11:00, I got IT to admit they still didn't know the extent of the problem. At that point, repairs hadn't yet begun. So they'll lock out all the computers from the network. Then they'll run around to each and every PC and clean it before it can be readmitted to the network. The last two times took several hours just for that part. There will be no computer usage for the rest of the day. I've been home since about noon.

Good day to play with Jareth and rearrange the living room.

Is There an Exorcist in the House?

We have a little fridge downstairs for drinks and iguana food. It's easier than running up and down the stairs, and it frees up space in the kitchen fridge for, well, food.

But twice a year or so it gets...over-excited? It'll be working fine for months and months, and then something happens. Maybe the spirits of the house think the spirits in the fridge should be served colder. Maybe the thing is possessed. Maybe the knob gets bumped. But it suddenly freezes everything. It doesn't have a freezer compartment, officially.

But some mornings I go in there for iguana food—and there's this mess everywhere. Frozen vegetables, sticky mess all over. Usually it's glass-bottle-failure. This time it was a bunch of glass pieces held together by a label and partially surrounding a big chunk of white zinfandel. Anybody want a piece of wine? There was also one pop can that suffered containment breech, with two others that were nearing critical mass...

Apparently, wine freezes before beer. There's probably some good science in there. At bartending school we were warned about how dangerous a frozen champagne bomb bottle could be.

Another learning is that frozen carrots don't grate well.

So we'll be buying a thermometer we can put in there to monitor temperatures for a while. We'll find the right spot on the knob, and mark it. If we have another problem after that, I think it'll be exorcism time.

A Little Bit About Me

I have a son. He's about seven months old, born May 6th. He is one of many things that have changed my life in profound ways. His name is Jareth, and I hope the world is ready for him.

I'm married, I'm a father. I've lived in a motorhome wandering the country. There was a brief stint in the Army. I've worked in a wide range of companies, large and small.

I work in Marketing, so I get to read all sorts of things that are deeply evil, but technically good business. Fortunately, I'm not having to be involved directly in the worst of them. But I work with coffee, so there is an up side.

I'm a writer, making good progress on book number one.

I've been alternately hurling and gathering opinions and ideas on the Internet since 1989, when I treated people without the respect they deserved before ending up taking a good, hard look at myself. There are a number of people I deeply respect who probably want nothing to do with me. I'm sure any real animosity is in truth long faded, but at this point we've all grown apart, and I have little left in common with them. But I do still check up on them from time to time. That's one nice thing about the Internet. Many of them have been active (more so than I) for just as long. Ah, sometimes Google is indeed my friend.

So, excuse me if I ramble from time to time. I'll offer some stories, some truth, some fiction. But I've promised myself to stay honest. If we can't be honest with ourselves, what's the point?

Welcome

Well, here's mine. You show my yours an' I'll show you mine?
I've been mulling the idea over for a while now. But everybody's doing it...
But I think it's finally time. If Jimmy and his friends started a blog, would you?

So who am I and why do you care? I can't answer the second for you, but I'll try and drop in answers to the first as we go. Life is a journey, thanks for coming with.

Brian, the fictionman