Category: grindstone

All about breadwinning.

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wash for show


Made good on my promise and stayed home from work today. Too bad, though, that it did not excuse me from working. In fact, I busted my butt today at home working on material for the presentation I’m giving Thursday in Germany. It’s coming together, but it’s still in the “gathering content: ugly” phase, and I have all the “content defined: window-dress” work ahead of me. I’m not too worried, as I have tonight and the plane trip over, plus about 24hrs on the ground in Germany prior to the actual meeting. I also found time to mow the lawn, something I had to do prior to leaving unless I wanted to come home to the Serengeti. And, once again, lawn mowing becomes blog fodder – although this time for a slightly different reason.

As I pushed the lawn mower around the grass, cutting in vain a living growing organism which would just grow right back again, I couldn’t help but notice the activity across the street from me. My neighbor, whom I’d never really noticed before, was out washing her car. My neighbor, whom I’d never seen before, was wearing tight black pants, a pink shirt, and had her long blonde hair up tied up. My neighbor, whom I’d never seen before, was reaching and bending and stretching in all the ways that one would reach, bend, and stretch while washing a car. Now, I set the scene like that because I wanted to acknowledge the fact that, yes, I noticed. What red-blooded male wouldn’t. I mean, my neighbor (whom I’d never seen before) seemed to be in her thirties, and quite well-maintained physically. So yeah, I noticed. But, I didn’t ogle. Well, until… that is… until…

While I was first noticing my neighbor, I very distinctly saw my neighbor notice she was being noticed. In fact, several times, when I made a neighbor-facing pass across the turf, I caught her watching me to see if I was watching her. Now, who was really watching who is hard to say, but I got the feeling that I was not being watched because I was watching, I was being watched to see if I was watching. What I mean was, this wasn’t a woman casting nervous glances over her shoulder to see if the masher across the street was mentally undressing her, this was a woman who was stretching and bending and reaching and knowing she was watched. Again, I have no real proof, but check out this.

As I once again turned to cut a swath that cast my eyes in her direction, she offered a short wave and a smile – a gesture which I returned, all neighborly-like. Then, much to my surprise, she walked away from drying her car. She walked up into her front lawn, where the sprinklers were sprinkling. She stood there, in the sprinklers, and began to untie her hair. Once her hair was down she shook it out, first side-to-side and then up-and-down in some slow-motion head-banging action. As she tossed her hair around, she held her hands out to gather the spray she stood in. She took her hands and proceeded to wipe her face and hair. All the while, I was trying not to fix my gaze on this display.

I’ll admit, it was hard. Here was a scene right out of a movie, here was a my neighbor standing in her sprinklers tossing her hair around. What’s more, she waved to me again; in the middle of all the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue posing. That wave sealed it for me: she was putting on a show, for my benefit. I was even more convinced as she began to set about seemingly pointless yardwork which required her to do yoga-like feats of bending and squatting and stretching. Yes, my friends, this was a peacock’s plume, a lizard’s throat-thing, a cricket’s call… I was being courted from afar.

Now, this doesn’t just happen to me. I mean, I’m not exactly the picture of a hot young Latino gardener. I admit, my voluminous t-shirt could’ve adequately hidden my gut. Plus, we were at that special distance where you can’t quite make out the definition on someone’s face, and I had a blue bandanna tied around my head (hiding my growing baldness). Furthermore, I don’t think you could see the yellow armpit stains from that distance, especially as they were obscured by my mowing posture. So, perhaps, just perhaps – she mistook me for a strapping young buck out displaying his ability to work. Either that, or it’s one of two things: I gravely misinterpreted the situation or she’s seen me around and has had enough time to fall madly and secretly in love with me.

In the end, I chose not to mate with the female. I mean, the circuits in my male brain which were programmed when my ancestors still lived in caves and wore animal furs were all lit-up and green for “go.” But, the more refined gentleman in me decided to pass on this opportunity. Good to know I still got it, though.

Well, it’s 10:30pm and my workday is over. 7am to now, working pretty much solid but for a few short meetings, a lawn-mowing, about an hour-and-a-half of play-time with Keaton, and some quick meals. I figure it was well over a 12hr day, and I’m tired for it. Yet, still I have to pack, which I’ll likely put off until tomorrow morning… and still have plenty of work to keep me busy on the plane…

Until Germany then, gutenacht.

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on the eve of travel


Sunday night and I’m supposed to be headed downtown to see a sweet concert we’d all been looking forward too. But, alas, the sweet concert got canceled. Needless to say, we were all (those of us who’d scored tickets to the sold out show) quite bummed. However, I can’t help but think this is an example of divine intervention. See, I leave for Germany on Tuesday. Flying out for a breakneck four-day trip where two of the days will be spent traveling. Back into the heart of Bavaria for handcrafted beers and wonderful sausages.

But, as fun as it sounds – I am going for a reason: work. And, this time, that means I’ll need to give a presentation to a customer while there. Being that I’m presenting a world away in just a few days, you’d think I’d have some content written, reviewed, and practiced. Truth is, I haven’t done slide-one. I knew this coming off Friday, and kept telling myself I’d have to knuckle-down and do some work over the weekend, but I very knowingly ate up all my weekend time doing all things not-work instead. So, when the show was canceled, it was like God giving me my work time. Now, I can solve my problem of having to have 90% material sent out before my 7am PST meeting tomorrow. Thanks Lord, now I can work ’til midnight.

It’s OK though, because I’ve already decided that work owes me tomorrow. Not just me, but my family too. Yep, work owes me some time with them, since work’s taking it away with travel quite a bit lately. So, I’m calling in my debt, and work’s gonna make good. More specifically, I’m taking the day “off” tomorrow. Sure, I don’t really mean taking a vacation day – but I do mean a nice “phoning it in” day spent working from the couch with a bluetooth headset. It’ll be good for me before I go, spend a day with Sharaun and Keaton – even though I’ll likely be distracted – should be worth it.

I did some things today, so it was OK. First, I shaved off my beard. Completely shaved off my beard, gone. I saw two people who I’d just seen the other day (when I was still bearded), and they didn’t even notice. Not that I did it (or didn’t do it) to get a reaction, just that it obviously meant more to me than it did anyone else. When it was gone, I actually regretted it – my face looked young and fat and the faux-chinline the hair give me was gone. Now though, I’m already used to it. So much for my fantasy of having a bushy beard at the Arcade Fire show (which, come to think of it, was a pretty odd fantasy). Also today, I planted some fruit trees. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, and I ended up putting in a plum, apricot, and orange. With the dirt like it is here, just digging the holes to plant trees is a workout – pummeling rocks with the breaker-bar and whatnot. I also watered the garden, which is doing quite well. Here, some pictures:

Before I go, I’ll drop a link to Keaton’s gallery, which I’ve updated for the first time in a while Enjoy some new images here.

Goodnight.

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leaving the blog to rot


Oregon. We took wing and arrived in the dreary rainy state on Friday evening, deciding to come up and spend the weekend with my family – as I had to work at the local office here today and tomorrow. And it is good. My folks get to hang out with Keaton – which is good for her (plus I think the enjoy it too). Anyway, we’re here and I’m writing on a weekend after a solid week of leaving the blog to rot.

It was work. I’ll say that up front: it was work. Work made the blog go untouched, work stole my brain during the day, monopolized my thoughts. It was another week trudging around in circles along my little depressed path, round and round around the millstone, behind the guy in front of me and in front of the guy behind me. I wanted to write, did write, but never finished or didn’t have my heart in it so… it rots.

Before I left, as part of my “doin’ stuff I have to do before I go” stuff, I mowed the lawn. I love mowing the lawn, and I hate mowing the lawn. The part of me which is incredibly lazy (which I figure is a about a 230lbs part) dreads it. The part of me which enjoys hard work and likes exercise (which I figure is about 15lbs of me, consisting entirely of my wang and babybeans) enjoys it. But, I did it anyway, and got to listen to some good stuff on the iPod while I did. Plus, I’ll be please as punch when we roll up Tuesday night and the headlights cast their beams over the neatly shorn grass. Yeah, the fruits of my labor.

Speaking of fruits – and vegetables, but I’ll get to them later – I’m planning on digging some holes in my backyard and putting in some fruit trees this next week. I’m thinking some kinda citrus, likely tangerine, apple, and maybe a plum (I think I like plums). I told Sharaun that, if we ever got stranded at our house – for instance, if all the earth surrounding our horse dropped into a sea of molten lava, and we were to live alone on our little island of land amidst the burning sea of liquid rock – I want us to be able to survive by eating the bounty of our small .24 acre lot. So, with the veggies I’m already trying to grow, and the fruit trees I plan on trying to grow – we should be close. Now I only have to cordon of some yard for livestock… and dig a well… and, and… eh… whatever. Oh, and, speaking of vegetables – everything I planted, aside from the peppers, is now growing. Maybe peppers take longer to sprout or something… which I find odd, as they are buried the shallowest (the least deep?).

Before I go, I thought I’d share some comments from Stephen King on the last blog I bothered to write. Mr. Horror talks about violent writing and the link to real-life violence. See, even Stephen King says I’m probably not going to kill anyone.

Goodnight.

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never a good idea


Sunday afternoon and I’ve eschewed a hundred things so I can sit on the couch in the sunshine. I’m not feeling quite 100%, my sinuses really acting up – so badly that I’m thinking my sinus infection of a few weeks back may not have been completely quelled by my round of antibiotics. All through my open windows I hear the sound of a neighborhood mowing, that doppler-effect sound of each pass up and down their lawns as they make something of their Sunday time and I nothing of mine.

The multiple mowers, and high-seventies temperatures, though, make it a done-deal, summertime is on its way… slowly but surely we’ll get there again. Had a good weekend though, despite the congestion. Spent all Saturday with Keaton while Sharaun went snowboarding, it was really nice. We walked down to a local park, met up with some friends, ate fried chicken, tossed the frisbee, and played around in the grass (pictures coming soon). That evening we headed out to Ben’s birthday party, where I drank some beer and smoked some Djarums. Man those Djarums are just never a good idea.

We ate dinner with friends Sunday night, one of my favorite things we do regularly. Even with Keaton, we swap dinners with friends on average three times I week, I’d guess. Most of our friends on this rotation are the kind of friends whose places I feel completely comfortable at. The kind of friends where, if I fall asleep on their sofa and snore while taking an unplanned nap, it’d be nothing out of the ordinary. We’re lucky to have friends like that, I think… We’ve been able to cultivate a nice little network of good peoples. OK, enough of the sappy shit.

The news said the temperatures this weekend reached eighty degrees. I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that we had some amazing weather. It’s the kind of weather that makes me think about camping. In fact, this weekend would have been prime for it, if the weather up in the hills was anywhere near as warm as it was here (which I’m sure it wasn’t).

Thing is, I’m looking at needing some kind of family getaway vacation thing sometime soon here… as work has really been weighing on me the past couple weeks. Problem is, I don’t think anything is going to change in the next few weeks. Not even the prospect of making my more-than-a-year since return to China and Taiwan seems like a decent break. But I need one, oh I need one.

I hesitate to publish this, but there’s nothing else and it’s words. Goodnight.

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lock my tear-drenched heart away inside a steel box


A hodge-podge of stuff today. I almost didn’t write, started falling asleep watching that Discovery channel “The Tomb of Jesus” documentary (not because it was boring, but because I was all alone and reclined on the couch). But, then Sharaun got back from the gym and I got up and forced myself to do the dishes and I got a second wind. So here I am then, let’s go. Oh, before we start, I updated Keaton’s gallery – check it out.

My throat is sore and raw, and I have a raspy cough. I know that it’s not sick though, it’s allergies, and it sucks. When I was a kid, I had asthma and allergies. Asthma bad enough that I remember gaspingly wheezing for air in the back seat as my parents drove me to the emergency room, and allerigies bad enough that my parents had to take me in each week to get a shot in the arm.

As I got older, both the asthma and allergies waned in strength, and by the time I was a teenager in Florida – I was pretty much allergy-free. At the time, I thought it was just the natural “growing out of it” that many allergists will advise you is probable as you age. Now, however, after my return to California, and my allergies’ return to me – I’m beginning to think it’s more likely I “geographied” out of my allergies than I did grew out of them. For now, friends, they are back with a vengeance. A mere seven years back in California and they plague me come Springtime. What do you know, another tick in the “pro” column for the good ol’ South.

Straightening the other day after bending down to retrieve a little toy monkey for Keaton, I smacked the top of my head on the underside of the little niche where our TV lives. Man it hurt. I immediately put Keaton down and grabbed my poor skull, considering, as all men do when in severe pain, what the best curses would be to communicate my feelings, and in which direction and how hard to throw the little plastic monkey that was responsible. In the end, I just groaned and squeezed the monkey tight – not wanting to go all Hulk out-of-control with Keaton watching. My head was bruised, and my teeth hurt from clacking together, but I lived. I did, however, somehow end up with a smallish pimple-like thing right where I bumped my noggin. I find this painful, disgusting, and embarrassing. Who gets a zit on the very crown of their dome? Right there where I’m my baldest, right there in plain view, dead-smack on the perihelion of my melon.

I think I need to change my strategy at work a bit, need to add a little more “dick” to how I manage. I say this because I think it’s a semi-fault of mine to be a little too friendly and kind, and I’ve found that lately those traits have been getting in the way (somewhat) of the “hardness” with which I want to communicate some things. I don’t want to be a jerk boss, no, I’d always like to be the nice boss – but I think I need to flex some muscle, bring some thunder, in order to shed that schoolboy image of someone who can’t get all iron-fisted when the need arises. Yes, I think this is something I’ll have to do. Learn to be brusque, learn to be curt, firm, and more unwavering in the face of strong emotion. What I’m saying is, I have to learn to lock my tear-drenched heart away inside a steel box when necessary. Come then, the new age of me – the dick.

Goodnight.

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reevaluating invincibility


Tuesday evening and Sharaun’s at a volleyball game. I put Keaton down to bed about 15min ago, and am now enjoying some Malajube whilst writing up tonight’s blog.

Before tonight, I was off to a slow start on Kerouac’s On The Road. The long introduction was interesting, but stole some of the immediate thunder I had expected. But, oh man, once I got into the book proper I was spellbound. Kerouac’s writing seems just barely strung-together enough to tell a story, like it was written in some mad fit (I know, it was) as if he was afraid it all had to come out at once or else be lost (I know, he did); but at the same time it’s so beautifully detailed and descriptive that I’m almost there with him, belting back whiskey on a flatbed racing across the west. I’m only six chapters in but I can barely put the thing down. I can’t wait until he gets to San Francisco. That said, then, I’ll go ahead and write this up snap-quick so I can get to reading, maybe get my voracious on. Here we go.

I think it’s time for me to reevaluate my invincibility. Over the past couple years, the number of times my body has succumbed to sickness or ailment has risen sharply. I used to be untouchable, completely impenetrable to disease. Recently, though, I’ve had to take a day off work here, another there, and have lost a few good weekend days to sleeping and sniffling. Is this what happens when you get old? Instead of ignoring the signals my body gives me, should I now pay attention to them and react accordingly? What crap. When did I become weak? This morning, I woke up with a sore shoulder, apparently my body didn’t like the way I slept on it, it ailed me all day, pins and needles. I remember when I could sleep in the reclined front seat of a Nissan Sentra and wakeup no worse for wear. Then, my mouse-hand has been protesting some movements lately, almost like the years of totally un-ergonomic use I’ve forced it to endure are coming to bear. Sometimes, I even get heartburn after eating a burrito (extra large, extra-extra spicy, please). What’s worse, I get super sleepy around 4pm every day. Oh Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?

A thought occurred to me the other day whilst pondering some work stuffs. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “good old boy” used in reference to the way some organizations are run. Usually what’s meant by this is that a small network of back-slappin’ buddies run the company, promoting and demoting according to how well others fit into their “good ol’ boy” mold. So that regular Joes sometimes feel like their chances of being favored or given the big job or being promoted are hindered because they didn’t go duck hunting with the clique on the weekend, or some other such nonsense. Anyway, what I was thinking was, that this whole notion of a “good old boy network” probably isn’t that wrong, and furthermore shouldn’t be that surprising.

Dealing with people is tough, there are so many assholes, so many who are ungrateful, so many who are under-appreciative and over-demanding, so many who are abrasive, impossible to relate to, unpredictable, unprofessional, abstract, difficult. The old adage rings true, you know, “birds of a feather…” I wonder, though, if this “flock together” pack-mentality may be the subconscious (and sometimes all-too conscious) reason behind the classic “good ol’ boy network?” By surrounding yourself with an army of like-yous, you have to deal with a lot less. You know a lot better where the lines are, know what’ll motivate and what’ll correct. It makes me think, however, that the school of “relationship based management” may have hit on something. Developing relationships with the people you work with and who work for you is probably a good way to avoid the “easy out” tendency to populate the ranks with you-clones. Whatever, all I was trying to say is that maybe those folks who look at the good ol’ boy network with envy are just the square pegs…

It’s been well-established now that I love ARGs (Alternate Reality Games). I think my first real experience with the genre was the with the whole Lost Experience thing, which seems late when you consider the “I Love Bees” stuff and many of the other “armchair treasure hunts” which have gone on, but arguably I was smitten all the way back when the Smashing Pumpkins did something very similar with their album Machina, and I was way into that. I also got into the whole Lonelygirl15 thing for much of the same reasons. The idea that you can participate with others in a real-life Hardy Boys type mystery adventure is awesome to me. So, when I found out that the Nine Inch Nails, a collective of whom I’ve been a casual fan since high school, are slowly “leaking” tracks from the new album “Year Zero” as part of a viral marketing slash ARG thing, I was thrilled. Not only do I get awesome tunes, I get to follow a neat post-apocalyptic storyline to boot.

Goodnight.

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life been good


I had a small epiphany today. I was walking across the tarmac at the jet center, the black asphalt was shiny with rain, reflecting the milky-white light of the clouds above. I was wearing khakis and a tucked-in corporate logo’d polo, and I was carrying my laptop in a black bag. I had just come from a sushi lunch with some customers (they picked up the bill), and was about to board the corporate jet for a quick flight home, where I’d greet my wife and daughter with kisses The epiphany? This: I’m doing pretty well; things are going pretty good. I never really imagined myself being where I am and doing what I’m doing, but I find I like it. Long tarmac walks to the corporate jet are good for reinforcing “arrival.” Blah blah I’m awesome toot-toot.

From yesterday, never posted:

I’m tired, Sharaun pulled me out the door right when I got home from a workday that started early to begin with, no time to decompress. But it was good, visited our friends and their new baby boy, brought them some food. Swung by Target to return a crappy coffee maker we bought, then came home and put Keaton to bed. For dinner, I microwaved two potatoes. I covered them with butter and sour cream and all sorts of yummy stuff and then smashed them up and ate them. I’m going to a customer tomorrow, so I need to shave tonight, tidy up the beard. I want to do it tonight to give my pussy-ass skin some time to get over it’s extreme razor sensitivity. I fly out at 6:45am, meaning I have to leave at the buttcrack. Back again around 4pm, a man on the go.

Today I freaked out a little because it looks like my ISP is on to me. Not only did they block the port I’ve been forever using for BitTorrent traffic, but they also seemingly shut down my transfers – a feat that’s seemingly based on traffic analysis. So, I had to resort to encrypting all outgoing BitTorrent traffic to bypass the suspected filtering, and switch to rotating, random ports. It kinda freaks me out, but I’m hoping my shutdown wasn’t a singled-out user thing and more like a broad BitTorrent policy change at my ISP. Not a big deal though, as with encryption and random ports I’m back in business with little to no impact in speed.

Off to read, just figured I’d push this anyway… despite it being sub-par. Goodnight.