Category: grindstone

All about breadwinning.

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clouds and clouds of white smoke pour from your fingertips

Amaze your friends!
So sorry guys, I’ve been off on a tangent lately and writing about religion a bit. I hope this hasn’t turned away the God-phobic of my readership, but I can promise you a Lord-free entry today. Stick with me, I’m going all one-track on ya, I promise. Oh, and… I’m still writing… which makes me happy.

You know, when this baby comes, I’m taking time off. No, refining that, I’m taking a state-paid “leave of absence.” That’s right, an extended vacation. Sure, it’s at less than half my pay… but it’s some awesome time I’ll get to spend with Sharaun and our daughter. It seems so far off now, February… but I know it’ll be on me in an instant. It will no doubt seem even speedier with all the travel we have planned for December; the month will be a blur – with not a single week at home the entire thirty-one days. For me, the 1st week spent in India, then directly to Oregon for my birthday with the folks. Then the very next weekend we’re off to Florida for Christmas with her family, only to return a few days before 2006. A short two months after that, and we’re parents. Honestly, I still can’t believe it. I think about it and just can’t comprehend it; the change coming, the new stuff. I guess I really won’t be able to “understand” it until we live through it. Maybe then I’ll know a little better what to expect when number two comes around. We’ll see.

I’ll talk about work a little bit now.

I want to share with you what I think is one huge aspect of my path to success, at least at work. You ready? This is some serious tactical information I’m about to give away. Here it is: be a data hog. Horde, packrat (as a verb), stash things away for future reference. I am convinced that “knowledge” as we normally think of it is about a 50/50 mix of wisdom and resources. What I mean by that is, you have to have some “wisdom,” or common sense, acumen, not-dumbassness, whatever you wanna call it, to even begin to execute. If you’re a drooling retard who consistently makes piss-poor decisions, you’re not gonna succeed even if you save the entire internet to your cellphone for handy reference. But, if you’ve got that basic ability to think… you’re halfway to being perceived as a genius. The other half is simple: store what you can in your brain, but, even more important, keep everything on-hand for quick consultation. When I say everything, I mean everything from a documented history of the past, to reference materials, to a well-maintained a personal network of other “smart” people. It’s that simple folks. What you’ll realize is, people respect someone who can react knowledgeably nearly as much as the do someone who’s truly knowledgeable – if the results are the same. So, strive to know where knowledge is – even if it’s not in your own head.

I’ll talk about magic a little bit now.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with magic. My brother and I used to put on magic shows in our garage, performing tricks I’d learned from the many books I had, most of them bought at garage sales or used book outlets, written for children decades before my time, and given to me as well-read, coverless, dog-eared gifts. My favorite place at Disneyland was the magic store on Main Street, where I bought my first tube of “Mystic Smoke.” For my 5th grade birthday party, my parents hired a magician who came and entertained my friends and I; I was never happier. By the time I was twelve years old, I knew how to “blow eggs” and stuff them with confetti, pour milk into a rolled newspaper, and pull a card off the bottom of a deck.

Back then, there was one of those costume/magic stores about an hour from our house – in the city where my mom grew up. I would was thrilled every time we had the chance to be in town, and would beg my dad to make a stop. I remember the place having all sorts of expensive masks hanging on the wall, and racks of costumes. What I was interested in though, was under the glass display case and in on display shelves behind it: the magic tricks. The man behind the counter would demonstrate the newest tricks; a knot that seemed to pass through a wooden block, sticks that changed color when you said the magic word, all the latest and greatest. I used to save up my allowance, adding a new trick to my canon with each visit. When we moved to Florida, my obsession waned, but didn’t fade. After all, middle-school makes it hard to concentrate on the latest sleight-of-hand illusion when girls all around you are sprouting boobs and wearing Malibu Musk.

As a surprise one year, my folks got the family tickets to see David Copperfield at the local performing arts place. As a kid, Copperfield was my favorite magician, his illusions seemed amazing, and I was thrilled to see him perform live. As I grew up, however, I learned to resent him. His tricks were so grandiose and his stage presence was repulsive, he was all that was wrong with modern magic. Anyway, even a trip to see Copperfield in person wasn’t enough. Soon enough, I found other things to care about, and my thumb-tip and secret-pocket handkerchief went into a box with my other tricks and up into the closet. I still got my Abbotts catalogs throughout highschool, but I usually only like it for the smell of paper and the kitschy illustrations. In college, I saw David Blaine’s Street Magic, which stirred the love deep within me again and sent me running to the local store for a Svengali deck, Scotch & Soda, and all the staples of Blaine-style closeup magic. After college, I bought some books on “true” card magic, or card manipulation… but could never master the moves.

Yeah, that ended up being boring and void of any meaningful point – but I’m unwilling to delete all that writing. Live with it.

Dishes are washed and put up, Sharaun’s asleep on the couch, the cat’s got food, and now the evening’s chores are done and there’s nothing left to do but sleep. Did I tell you we bought some furniture? Wait, who is “you?” Anyway… we bought some furniture for the front room. We’re dropping dough like live-in girlfriends drop marriage hints… hemorrhaging money, as I like to say. The big outpouring to get the place worthy of our new family member. We’ll be ready for you, Lil’ Chino, we’ll be ready.

Love ya, goodnight.

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where are the teeth?

Bless y'allz.
This weekend it felt like I had so much “binned” for today’s entry, I slacked in thinking up topics today. Then, when I logged in to check my almost-finished post – it was only a few topic-sentences and one fully-formed paragraph. Well, so much for not having to write tonight, to the keyboard the fingers fly. Lotta God-talk today, so my heathen brothers will simply have to bear with me.

First things first, thanks to those of you who started populating the sounds familiar Frappr page, it’s a good start (although, as of last night, Frappr’s little pushpins were noticeably absent). If you missed the link yesterday, I’ll be putting it in each entry this week to give you plenty of chances to add yourself to the roll. Hit it now! Be there or be somewhere else.

By luck the other day, I caught a preview for a two-part show on the History Channel called The Crusades: The Crescent and the Cross. I set the TiVo with anticipation, as the preview made the program look amazing… a mix of historical storytelling and live-action reenactment. I watched the first two-hour installment tonight and am happy to say it was excellent. A little reminder of the brutality that was the Christian vs. Islam battle of the initial crusade. The history of religion is simply fascinating to me – as are the concepts of religion and faith in general. Anyway, if you get a chance and there’s an encore presentation or something, I highly recommend the show. Whether or not you claim a God, it’s chock-full of world-altering history that provides the setup for so much of the modern global stage – you’re bound to appreciate it. One day, when I have tons of spare money and gobs of spare time, I’d like to take some college-level theology/religious-history classes… maybe this is worth another paragraph…

Sharaun got a bit peeved with me this Sunday on the way to church, as I freely offered my opinion that I thought the pre-service “classes” we attend were of little value. To me, the classes are all the same – always the basics, perennially for the noobs. “God is love,” the Sermon on the Mount, the death, burial, and resurrection; Christianity’s Dick and Jane, the ABCs of faith. Over and over and over, the same simple stories are told, the same banal comments are made, a mass-hypnotized crowd nods in unison to tired themes taken out and trotted around since Reformation Day One. OK sure, so you have to properly indoctrinate the fresh blood… give them them sacred precepts, the bare-bones tenets; fine. But, what got under Sharaun’s skin was my comment, “Where are the teeth?” Where’s the real history, the interesting stuff: the politics, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnosticism, the scholarly review? How many times have you sat through a Sunday School lesson on the Prodigal Son? Tired of it? Know it? Me too. Let’s have a series of lessons on the defining years of Christianity, the first-thousand years AD, the ecumenical councils, the canonization of the Bible. Let’s get into the grey areas, let’s air the dirty laundry, let’s talk about all the stuff we’re afraid to talk about, the hard-to-reconcile, the obviously exaggerated; yeah, all that.

Why do modern Protestant faiths ignore the roads that birthed them? I can somewhat understand the focus: evangelize; win souls; spread the Gospel. After all, those who most need salvation are those least likely to care how 1st Peter came to be in the New Testament and more likely to care that their new God will take care of them in rough times. The problem here is that you end up with an army of blind followers… a mass of believers hooked only on the charisma of Christ, the hope of forgiveness, the promise of something better than today. Is this wrong? I have no idea… maybe not – but I can see how it could be dangerous. Simply flipping the faith switch, just believing – exactly the scenario Bible-toting Christians pray upon non-believers – could be cause for concern. Think about it: this “God,” this supreme being beyond all human comprehension – He will feed your hungry children, forgive you your deepest trespasses, provide for your every need; but what do you really know about Him? Would you die for Him? How about kill for Him? What does it even mean, where does what you hold dear really come from?

Wait.. what’s that? You’re tired of this crap, I’m not making sense anymore? You say that, instead of this junk, you wanna know what the hottest tracks have been in my personal rotation last week? OK, here’s a quick snapshot (more details in my ‘scrob link in the sidebar) of what I’ve been swaying my head and slapping my thigh to (all with linky goodness for the curious):

Arctic Monkeys – A Certain Romance
The Joggers – Night of the Horsepills (sadly linkless)
The Strokes – You Only Live Once
Rogue Wave – 10:1
The North American Halloween Prevention Initiative – Do They Know It’s Halloween? (wait for it to load, or grab it impatiently with this nifty Firefox extension)

Ummm… OK, I have nothing more to write (actually, I do, and did, but once again “binned” it for tomorrow). Goodnight.

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that stupid 9/11 fee

Energize.
Wow, can’t believe I’m actually coming back to this. I gave up on doing an entry tonight, after several longish staring-sessions with no words. And, since I was nodding off to sleep while dicking around the web… I decided to pack it in and call it a night. Turns out I walked around the house, switched off some lights, and got some inspiration. People read this right? Tell me people read this. Somewhere, there must be someone who notices when I miss two days in a row. If it wasn’t for you, you imagined daily readers, I dunno what I’d do. On to the waste of typing.

Every day before I leave for lunch, or start thinking about leaving for lunch, I do a quick calendar-check on my afternoon, just to see what lies ahead. Tuesday, I noticed that I had a 3-5pm appointment to switch from DSL to cable internet. Noting that I didn’t have anything from 1-3pm, I decided it was a good day to phone it in and play hooky for the afternoon. I used the extra time to make massive progress on the cleaning out of the eventual nursery room for Lil’ Chino. Stopped by the store, bought several of those big tupperware storage things, and headed home to consolidate and pack away – the 1st phase of transformation from guest/junk room to nursery. Moved most of the stuff into the garage, filling up a new shelf I hung a few weeks ago. As I began to neatly pack things away, I realized that we have a lot more storage here than I normally think we do. I mean, we packed nearly this same amount of material into a little apartment for years – so it stands to reason we’ve got much more room here. And we do; we’re just using the space wastefully right now. As Lil’ Chino pushes the junk out of the junk room, however, we’ll get more optimized. Wow, what on Earth am I writing about?

For the past couple nights I’ve had the strangest dream, two nights in a row now. I’m at home getting ready for work in the morning, and have to take some extra stuff in with me. Rather than pack it up and bring take it in with me though, I instead pull out this little gun-looking device. I then proceed to point the fun thing at whatever it is that I’m wanting to bring along with me. A thin red line, much like what you see on those UPC reader guns, comes out and I move it back and forth over the item. By doing this, I’m able to just think of where I want the item to go and it disappears from in front of me and is magically transported there. In my dream, I go around sending all sorts of stuff to all sorts of places, and showing off my teleportation thingy to everyone I see. As cool as it sounds, no one is really that impressed or surprised by the little gadget – despite my efforts to sell them on it’s coolness. As much as I expect people to be as excited as I am over this miracle gizmo, no one is and I’m frustrated by it. Who knows… what a strange dream.

The brake light on the Ford has taken to turning on randomly again, I have no idea what that’s about. Maybe it’s low on fluid, or maybe it’s part of the great electric haywire that is the Ford. Move the seat too far back, and you blow a 30A fuse rendering all electronic window/door/seat control useless; press play on the stereo and it mysteriously “reboots” (I didn’t even know car radios could reboot). Anyway, it was raining this morning and I was watching that little red light flicker on and off: BRAKE… BRAKE… BRAKE. Then, the low fuel light decided to get in on the dance: “CHECK GAUGE” lighting up when I took any incline. I was hypnotized by them. The rain fell outside and I listened to the new Broken Social Scene as the dashboard came alive. No idea why I wrote about that, but I took a note about it when I got to work this morning – so it was somehow significant to me.

Sharaun and I worked on the music for the Halloween party tonight, lining up folders of illicitly-gained MP3s for the occasion. Oh yeah, I haven’t really mentioned it as yet – but our 3rd annual Halloween party is this Friday (tomorrow, as you read this). Last year’s was such a success that I got a keg and a half for this one. Anyway, I always like assembling playlists. We worked on putting together two different tune-queues, each with different goals. Sharaun’s goal is to encourage dancing in the living room, and of course maintain the dancing once it’s broken out. Her list is heavy with body-moving classics and high energy favorites. My list is for the garage, where the keg is, and where there won’t likely be dancing. My list is full of music that encourages talking, stuff that’s good for the background; enjoyable, recognizable, but ultimately enjoyable white noise. Heavy with my favorite tracks of the year, it’s a more rock-based mix. Anyway, we’re both excited about the party. Keep your eyes peeled for pictures of the event post-weekend.

Bought our tickets to fly back to Florida for Christmas, cost us $20 after taxes and that stupid 9/11 fee. Hooray for skymiles. Looking forward to a travel-crammed December, with India and Florida and back from each as well. I feel like I traveled more this year than ever before, and that’s completely warranted too – because I totally traveled this year more than ever before. I bet, if I went back and did some research, that I was on a plane at least one time each month.

Me me me… can’t I write about something other than me?

No? OK then, goodnight.

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wall to wall

Up against it.
A solid week of writing! Break out the bubbly, it’s on again!

This morning kinda blew. After checking the weather forecast, I donned shorts instead of jeans because it was gonna be in the high 70s in the afternoon. I normally don’t care if it’s in the low 50s when I go to work, I’m only exposed to the elements on the short walk from my truck to the building, and being a tad cold for thirty seconds is much better to me than being hot all afternoon. Anyway, I coupled a Hawaiian shirt with the shorts, not because of the high 70s, but just because it was the best my clean shirts had to offer (still haven’t done the post-Shanghai wash). So, when I went outside and passed the morning couples out for a walk and kids at the bus stop all bundled up for winter with coats and long pants, I began to feel pretty stupid about my dress. When something gets a toehold in my self-conscienceness like that, it’s pretty tough to ignore. I seriously considered flipping a U and heading back home to change into jeans and a polo – but didn’t. That, and traffic was crappy, and I forgot to put some lotion on that little patch of dry skin at the bottom of my hairline on the back of my neck.

At work we use Netmeeting a lot to collaborate for “virtual” phone-conference meetings. If you’ve never used it, it’s just a way to share your PC with others – so they can see whatever you see, good for sharing presentations or whatever. But, sharing your entire desktop comes with problems, as everyone viewing your PC sees whatever comes across on your PC. As a prank, sometimes I’ll send random instant messages to my friends just to see if I can catch them while they’re sharing or presenting. Imagine, a little popup window saying “You suck” for all to see as you’re making your big presentation. Today I went Netmeeting fishing with Pat, sending him the rather innocent message “suck it.” I didn’t catch him sharing, but I did start a pretty funny dialog where we each tried to come up with the best one-liners for Netmeeting fishing. Some of the better ones:

“You were so wasted last night.”
“I tested positive for herpes.”
“I can’t believe you’re gay.”
“Missed you at AA.”
“No, I’m not interested in buying GHB.”
“You left your thong.”
“That condom broke!”
“Stop sending me kiddie porn.”
“What’d you do with her body?”
“HR and security are looking for you.”
“How’s the diarrhea?”
“Your mom says ‘hi.'”
“Wow, I’ll bring my spare boxers right over.”

I’ve been listening to the new Wolf Parade record forever now, and am pretty sure of its spot in the eventual “best of” list for 2005 – unless something much sweeter comes along in the month or two left. Lately though, I’ve been rehashing some older gems, cutting the the bumps of bleeding-edge indie with some of the classics I’ve enjoyed for years. Listened to some vintage Stones the other night, some Dark Side of the Moon, y’know – the timeless stuff. But, if these new Strokes cuts keep leaking at the pace they have been, the whole album will be online sooner or later – and maybe then I can use it to wean me off mama Wolf. Man, what a waste of a paragraph – my apologies.

Sharaun and I went on a nice little “date” tonight, dinner and furniture shopping. We were looking for something to fill out the big empty living room where only the Pac Man machine lives currently. As much as I, for some reason, hate them, we’re looking to get a sleeper-sofa for that room – now that the “spare” room is gonna belong to Lil’ Chino. It’s funny, we’ll only be three people, and one of those just a tiny little thing, but for some reason we’re both already thinking about outgrowing the house. Now, that’s a spoiled American thing if there ever was one… this little house could comfortably accommodate several people. Families of five used to live in one-room cabins no bigger than our garage in the pioneer days, tsk tsk… so spoiled. Hey bearded dude living in that cardboard box, you can have this huge house – we don’t have a dedicated room for guests anymore so we can’t use it. Sometimes I make me sick.

Ignore the entry below this in regards to the actual flow of time, I had to stick the “best of” thing somewhere. Have a good weekend folks, I’m out.

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compliance

Tracks of testosterone.
Evenin’ folks. Not much going down, not much at all.

This week work is picking up again, and I’m actually liking it. I mentioned that the aimlessness I’ve been experiencing there has contributed to my recent slump, so having some stuff to track down and deadlines to meet is actually making things more enjoyable. I get to a certain point were I’m a well-oiled machine, going through motions I’ve memorized, executing at 100%-plus and not missing a beat – I like that feeling. I guess I can’t really slump forever anyway, it’s not good for a body. A body needs to feel useful, wants to feel needed, enjoys some recognition. It’s time I get back in the game.

They’re building a mall over by my house, and the construction site is right on my way to and from work. Every day I pass that place, and let me tell you this is a major operation. Trenches wide enough and deep enough that dump trucks drive down into them and disappear below the ground; massive earthmoving machinery pushing tons of dirt and rock around with ease, hydraulics in full effect. Let me tell you, I am absolutely fascinated with large machinery and the process of “creating” something where there was nothing before. I nearly crash the truck every day craning my neck to watch the multi-yard buckets scoop up dirt and move it around… I don’t know why I like it so much. I swear I could sit across the street and just watch them do their massive dance all day. I remember when I was a kid watching a show on TV about the biggest earth-moving machine ever (at the time), just the treads were several stories tall. I guess that’s why little boys get yellow dumptrucks with knobby plastic tires and little girls get pink convertibles their Barbies can drive around in. Male vs. female, who knows.

Turns out the motor I got to replace the flying crank ghost’s burned-out one is just too RPMey for the application. I knew when I bought it that it was designed to operate at 160RPM at 12V, but early tests at 3.3V showed a promising reduction in RPM – something that would work for the ghost. I did my best to see if the torque at 3.3V was significantly less, but the “pinch the turny thing and see how hard it is to stop” method isn’t terribly accurate. Turns out that the thing just doesn’t have enough oomph at 3.3V to pull the ghost’s head (her heaviest part) up once it gets down. For kicks, I gave it 5V and it could operate the ghost no problem – although she was now a flying crack ghost, as in crackhead, because she shook and jittered and about pulled herself apart as she was jerked around at breakneck speed. If there’s anything good about redoing the whole thing, it’s that I was able to make significant improvements to the ceiling-mounting system I’ve been using for the past two years… but it’s small consolation since she’s still just hanging there being boring and static.

Did some work adding some links to the header at the top (one currently not implemented), bulked up the “links” thing on the sidebar, and did some general stylesheet cleanup. Stylesheet’s still a mess, but at least it’s better than before. All that work and nothing to show for it but three little color-changing links – not much reward I tell ya.

Gotta take the trash out. Goodnight faithful, see you tomorrow.

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where the grass is greener

Sister Ima Hypocrite
I love the USA, and I love my USA friends. From the moment I got home, I was able to hang out with my friends. All of my friends are good people who I enjoy spending time with. Remember when I mentioned that Sharaun and I broke down and finally put some color on our walls? We never quite finished – and we’ve been living in a half-painted room for months. Well… Saturday morning, Pat and Cynthia showed up for the regular watching-football-all-Saturday regiment – but this time they brought along the tools for painting. Cynthia immediately set about prepping for painting and motivating Sharaun to do the same. Then Erik and Kristi came over to help with the Halloween setup. How awesome is that?

I think I’ve ID’d at least part of the cause of my recent work-slump. It seems I’ve just lost interest in what’s going on, lost that “fire” that was driving me a few months back. Part of it is due to the big worker-bee-to-manager transition, I know that. The model of my tasks has changed so much that I can’t help but feel somewhat “lost” or aimless with respect to how I’m doing things now. But, that’s not really it. What’s really got me dragging at work is how extremely great things are going at not-work.

I mean… In comparison to my personal life right now, work is bland and stupid-boring. I thought about it this morning while talking to Wes at work – I feel like, right now, things in my life are arguably the best they’ve ever been. Sharaun and I are enjoying the pregnancy so much, the excitement over Lil Chino’s February arrival cresting so that at times it makes some nights like a near-sleepless Christmas Eve; we’re safe and happy and comfortable all-around, even working on getting nagging little “nesting” type tasks taken care of before she arrives: painting and furnishing rooms long stark and empty, finishing the backyard, shopping for cribs – things I never thought could be so fulfilling. Just looking at the miniature pink one-piece outfits in the baby-store makes me a bit giddy – you’re gonna be able to fit in that? Nothing’s broke, nothing’s wrong, nothing’s pressing, nothing’s weighing on my mind.

And that, my friends, is my theory regarding why I currently care a little less about work than I used to. Sure, somewhere in me I realize that the means work provide me enables a lot of that happiness – and I’m not eschewing that – it’s just, I can get along at work without making it an 18hr/day thing like it was back in the last peak. Right now, I’ve got down time and I’m gonna enjoy it. Call me slacker, if the shoe fits.

Now, fate will probably make me get hit by a bus or go bankrupt for saying all that – just to show me that life can’t be all ups with no downs, but I’m not too worried about jinxing the whole deal. That’s right, I flaunt my happiness in fate’s face… right were he can smell it but not grab it, like that dog on a rope from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons – I know right where that line is. I’m not afraid to say things are going good, because I know for certain that there’ll be times where they are once again not so rosy – it’s just the way things go. So, why not relish a little in the sunny spots? Linger, hang out and enjoy it without reservation – I know I will. That’s just how I roll.

Yay God! Let’s go.

I don’t know what it is, and this may sound silly… but more and more lately the concept of religion being practiced in a way that would most closely relate to modern Catholicism has been appealing to me. I feel like where I am, spiritually, is beginning to align less with the charismatic Reformation-based practices, and more with the interesting mix of longstanding tradition and somewhat more liberal interpretation that comes with modern Catholicism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really looking to “convert;” my heart’s not really signed-up anywhere anyway. I could honestly care less where I choose to go, maybe even if I go… I haven’t fully fleshed that out yet. I guess what I’m saying is, by non-denominational loosely Protestant standards, I’m guess I’m becoming a “watered-down” Christian. Or, I’ve always been one – and I’m just now OK with saying it.

I’m believing less and less by the letter, and more and more by what’s in my chest. I want to acknowledge something, but I don’t know what it is – and I’m OK with leaving it at that. Maybe it’s nothing; a yen for spirit that’s hard-coded into human DNA, who knows. But whatever it is, and however you get it – be it climbing mountains or handling serpents, there’s no denying it’s there. Plus, I enjoy acknowledging it. Maybe it’s the kindred feeling I get to the whole history of humanity acknowledging something similar – an entire race searching for something greater than themselves. I don’t want to say I believe things I know I don’t believe anymore – there’s no point. Oh sure, I can still go to a church that believes those things, but I’m not gonna front anymore. You can deal with this “faith issue” however you’d like – I’m comfortable with it and that’s all that matters.

So what, become a Unitarian – get the best off all worlds. Sure, whatever, like I said I don’t think I really care. I like the virtues that religion attempts to uphold. Yeah, I know, you can be super-virtuous without religion, don’t forget I was once the antagonistic agnostic as well so I have all the secular arguments before I put down the outlandish non-secular ones.

Oh crap, got interrupted while writing and lost all drive to continue with this same-old-same-old. It’s OK, my God-talk is largely circular anyway, so I’m sure I’ll come back to it eventually. Heathens, you may resume reading now.

So… to close out today’s entry I’ll leave you with some pictures of Halloween progress (credit due to the More’s for all their upholstery and corpse-stuffing help!).

the coffin, painted brown, with red satin lining

 

bendin’ benton, in his final resting place

benton, rising from the dead to scare kids

 

the witch at night, with broom

Woulda been the best Halloween night ever if the crank ghost’s motor hadn’t finally given out. It gave a valiant effort over the last two Halloweens, but it sounded sicker than ever when I fired it up this year. Time to get a new motor, and maybe redesign the mount… not looking forward to it.

Love ya all, g’nite.

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my lungs hurt

Teeter. Totter. Tatters.
Big plans to work on the coffin tonight, and finally post some pictures of the progress. Big plans fell through. An old war buddy asked me over for beer and pizza; I obliged. Close to one foil-covered side of Djarums, four beers, and too many slices of pie later, I’m sitting here in front of what I wrote earlier today, ready to post it without so much as a proofread. That’s just how I do folks; that’s just how I do.

Today at work…

Gee, kinda sounds like the beginning to the old “Show and Tell” thing you used to do as a kid in grade school. Can I get sidetracked for a minute here? Yeah? OK. Show and Tell was awesome; you could get up there and monopolize the floor with personal stories about nothing. It was encouraged bragging, “Yesterday I went to a fancy restaurant and my dad let me get the ‘All U Can Eat’ shrimp; I ate 45.” I can remember doing “joint,” or tag-team, Show and Tells with my best-bud Shaine… we’d regale the class with stories, making them laugh while confirming our ultimate coolness to ourselves. Anyway…

Today at work, I was in training from 8-5. Not bad really, since I’ve been a bit lax with what I’ve been doing during each day of late anyway; the 8hrs away from the normal grind was quite welcome. A day of training on how to manage people. We learned great things like how to “caringly” tell someone they have offensive BO, and how to properly reward good work. Now, a lot of the stuff is common sense, everyone knows that telling someone they did a good job will encourage that person to keep doing a good job. But, some of the stuff is actually quite relevant and interesting. What’s also interesting, at least to me, is that I feel there’s a unspoken theme running under the proceedings. That them being that: most folks in the class are there because they are good at reading and manipulating people and situations. Sure, it sounds negative – but I think it’s true.

In class they call it “utilizing,” but it shares an awful lot with “exploiting.” In class they call it “guidance,” but it shares an awful lot with “manipulating.” It’s very much psychology… you learn it when you’re young. Subtle ways to make things work the way you want… little under-the-radar (of most) techniques to influence decisions and steer people to your liking. It sounds evil, but it’s not really… it’s just some people having access to more data than others – because they have the ability to “mine” it from places where others may miss it. A good leader knows how to deftly drive things and leave participants thinking it was all their idea. But a good leader must also be honest and have integrity – so it’s a fine line. The Prince is a good place to start… every manager should read that book before Good to Great or High Output Management; just to level-set on the realities of leadership as they have been since long, long ago.

OK, after all that, lemme state that I’m not all for management or control through fear, nor am I for some subversive form of uber-political management. So what am I for? I dunno. Being funny, being open, and being natural. Wanna work for me? I thought not.

Sharaun and I have been kicking around names for Lil’ Chino of late. Thankfully, we won’t carry the fetal-name through into the “real world.” We’ve mostly discussed boys names, since I’m still holding tight to the idea of one. A week from today though, we’ll know for sure… and we can center on one or the other. My mom, and Sharaun’s mom, and Sharaun are all convinced we are having a girl – so I’m a bit outnumbered. Actually, I’m still trying to get around the fact that we’ll soon be parents. All this time I’ve been able to still consider myself fairly young; at least, I still don’t hold the handrail going down stairs for fear of a broken hip. But, for some reason, the prospect of being a parent makes me want to do strange things like buy matching furniture and dust… it’s the damnedest thing.

Big week next week: find out how sexy my baby is, and hit the skies again bound for Shanghai. 100k+ miles in the air this year, that should be good for something right? Free upgrades from First Class to Handjob Class, perhaps? What, I ask too much?

Goodnight.