Category: grindstone

All about breadwinning.

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output enabling

Patterns... mmmm...
Wednesday already, wow. Two more days and I’m off to Taiwan [cut to stock footage: Dave wants to go, but also doesn’t want to go]. Sitting at home and having a beer after a strange day of “now I’m a manager” realizations at work… where I’m finally realizing I have to “let go” of the stuff I used to covet and start focusing on more intangible things. For someone that craves the little gold stars on the top of good work, it’s a tough transition. Scary, actually, when your goals shift from a personal-output-based model to an output-you-enabled one. I take heart, though, that I at least “get” that, and that I’m cognizant enough to recognize and do my best to address it.

So yeah, I’m late to the Cloud Room party… dunno what happened there – guess you can’t be first to every party. Another one of the out-of-the-bowels-of-NYC wunderkind, their debut single is impossible to hate… seriously, listen to it try to think nasty thoughts about it. Put it on your headphones and think about punching it in the face, see how impossible it is. Give it a spin and try and make a disparaging remark about its mother, you won’t be able to; the dang thing is disarming. I say we give this track to the Army, have them aim humongous loudspeakers at Al Qaeda training camps, and play it over and over again. Then, rather than ascribe to extremist Muslim theology, prospective terrorists will instead clasp hands and dance around euphorically in a circle, smiling ear-to-ear while singing “… we’re goin’ downtown, take the bus there, pay the bus fare!!…” in broken English. It’s OK terrorists; it’s OK that your body wants to bounce around in its seat, OK that you “duh-duh-duh” along with the bassline, it really is OK – Allah said so, he digs the Cloud Room too – I saw him at the show at CBGB last week… he really knows how to let his turban down.

This weekend, I was finally able to see Sharaun’s pooch. Wow, that sounds massively dirty… but I assure you it’s much more academic than that. What I mean is, I can now see the beginnings of Lil’ Chino’s expanding 9-month lease. To me, this is huge; this is what I’ve been waiting for – even more validation than the indisputable ultrasound images we got weeks ago. Her growing belly is the physical evidence of progress that I’ve been craving! It puts my mind at ease, and makes me tingle with a heady mixture of anticipation and pride. It really is impossible I explain, I think, what a brick-wall realization it is. Lil’ Chino is more than halfway here… 55% here, to be exact. Thinking about February, it still seems interminably far away… but more than ever I’m realizing it’ll be on us in a flash. I guess I won’t even fully understand it until it happens, 5-months and counting in some semi-disconnected state of shock and no sign of the fog lifting in time. Bring it on, Lil’ Chino, bring it on.

Bedtime. Goodnight.

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dressing the part

I make more money than you.
Monday morning, 7:30am. Guess I drank enough water last night to offset the 12-year scotch that coursed through my system as I finished up and published Monday’s entry, ’cause I feel fresh as a daisy. I’m not a fan of liquor by any stretch, and a “scotch on the rocks” is probably the last drink I’d order by choice. Changing subjects, in her haste to leave this morning, Sharaun grabbed my keys on her way out the door – her own keys being in her purse, which she also took. This leaves me keyless. No way to start my car to get to work, no way to get back in the house once I’ve locked the door behind me. Luckily, there are enough folks who work with me that live near here that it’s not hard to score a ride in. It’s kinda nice, sitting here in the air conditioning, listening to some vintage Cure… almost makes me wish I was friendless and had no one to call to get into work.

Lemme hit you with a quandary I’ve been thinkin’ on the past couple weeks. I’ve been thinking lately about “dressing the part” at work. What I mean is, changing the way I dress to be more in-line with my newly bestowed responsibilities. Using my acute sense of perception, I’ve noticed that most “bigwigs” at work wear decent looking slacks and shirts most of the time. So, while I hate “dressing up,” I’ve been considering changing my daily uniform to something more becoming a “manager,” junior or not. I’m not talking long-sleeves and ties or anything, just something a tad “dressier.” I’m even willing to make the long-pants-in-summer sacrifice for this, that’s how much I’ve debated it. Problem is, I’m torn about actually doing it… being able to see it from two totally different angles…

Part of me thinks this is very logical, something that I should definitely do. I think of a new-hire, fresh out of college, and their 1st impression of me should I be appointed their manager. Here’s a junior manager, wearing shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt. Is he going to respect me more or less than a junior manager who’s sharply dressed in slacks and a nice polo shirt? As judging-a-book-by-its-cover as it sounds, I think the clothes do manage to communicate some sense of professionalism – lending some “cred” to the manager title. Not saying you can’t be #1 stellar manager in shorts and a ballcap, but I also think that dressing the part may help me actually act the part. Odd as that sounds, when I’m dressed up I feel more important and actually act a little more professional. After all, the saying “The clothes make the man” must exists for a reason.

While part of me does see logic in it, another part of me sees the idea as horribly pretentious. Young snot makes good and all the sudden starts dressing like he’s hot shit. I don’t want that at all. Heck, there are people twice my age who’ve worked here three times as long as I have – and here I go getting some minuscule promotion and start dressing like CEO or something. There’s got to be a happy medium between the two extremes. I’ve considered “breaking in” the new look: starting with one day a week, maybe bumping that to two or three after people warm up to the new duds. I’ve set myself up really, since going from my daily vestments of today to Dockers and buttons each day would be a pretty evident change. What a silly thing to worry about, right? You’d think, but it’s been on my mind of late.

I love the new look of audioscrobbler, or last fm or whatever it’s called now. It’s actually a really cool site. My profile’s been linked in my sidebar for a while now, and I’ve been aggregating stats on my listening habits for a little over two months now. I hope the service stays free; it’d be interesting to go back over a year and see if my listening habits line up with what I say the choice albums were for that year. Right now the “overall” charts look pretty accurate for what I’ve been digging the past couple months. We’ll see.

Goodnight.

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dreaming of murder

Bastardgrass.
Came home for lunch today to get away from the cubicle. The bread had little blooms of bright yellow mold all over it, so I made a bunch of little turkey and cheese sandwiches out of Club crackers instead. They were just as good, and they filled me up. My fingers smell like rosemary turkey and pepperjack cheese. Watched a little Andy Griffith (the one where Andy makes Opie give up football to spend all his time studying, and then sees the error of his ways and relents), and then decided to come back here and write a bit before I have to head back. I’m in no rush, work didn’t rest while I did last week and I’m doing double-duty to catch up. I think I’m back in the swing of things, all caught up on mail and working hard to offload a lot of things I’ll no longer be responsible for now that I’m a facnypants “manager.” My goal is to be able to give my focus to the “new” stuff I’m supposed to be doing, and portion out the “old” to others. It’s working… I’m slowly disengaging… but it will take time and effort to fully untangle my previous commitments and set them adrift on their own. I’m still happy though, not burned out yet, and not ready to give up yet – so, bring it.

After some serious frustration over trying to rid my yard of what I thought was a crabgrass infestation, I sat down at the PC and did some serious research. Turns out what I have is actually bermudagrass and not crabgrass at all (actually, I think it was Pat who 1st suggested I may not be dealing with crab, but some other weedgrass). Anyway, after actually going out into the yard and pulling a “runner” to hold up to the monitor in comparison, I was 100% sure I was dealing with bermuda. This beast of a weed has gotten out of control, it’s creeping runners are splayed out onto the sidewalks and driveways in the worst spots, like glaring neon signs shouting “poor lawn maintenance” to the neighborhood. After several unsuccessful applications of specialty weedgrass killers (albeit, most mistakenly targeted at crabgrass), I’ve had no luck stemming the march of this devil across my lawn. What’s worse, I think it’s sucking up all my real turf’s nutrients and making it struggle for survival. I… hate… this… grass.

Yeah, I know, why be this anal about a lawn? I can’t answer that. I don’t know why it bothers me so, grates on my nerves, makes me grumble every time I drive home and see it creeping into my driveway. But boy does it, and for that reason – it must die. So, delving deeper into the bottomless resource that is the internet – I ended up finding what seems to be a miracle product. A specialized weed-killer that specifically targets the bermuda nightmare grass, and kills it dead while leaving desired turf unharmed. Oh, I was doubtful, but I saw pictures folks – real, live pictures of the before and after results. This guy successfully annihilated an infestation that appeared to be much larger than mine. Of course, this godsend toxic chemical isn’t available in stores. But, it’s made right near here in lovely Fresno, and it’s available… wait for it… right through the internet. So, I whipped out the credit card and authorized the ~$60 pint to be shipped right to my front door.

You don’t even realize how utterly excited I am about this. I simply can’t wait to kill, murder, destroy, and/or obliterate this crap. I have fantasies about standing over huge patches of bermudagrass, browning in its throes of death, as I toss back my head in maniacal laughter. I’ll watch you die, bermudagrass, then I’ll spit on your grave. If I can get the bermudagrass killed and green up the real lawn, get a new tree planed where the old one has been long-dead, and do something with my sideyard planter that’s just a weedy pile of mulch – I’ll have a front yard I can be proud of again.

I still haven’t been over to anyone’s place where there’s a scanner so I can scan in Lil’ Chino’s ultrasound pictures… sucks that my scanner is busted.

‘Night.

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speaking of “watery”

Scooping.
Oh man… Peter Jennings died. What a bummer. My folks were ABC News folks, and I grew up listening to Jennings do the evening news every night. When my turn for adulthood came, I, too, chose ABC News for my occasional didn’t-get-to-check-the-internet-much TV news outlet – and Jennings was still there. I watched the first tower fall live in the top “window” of a Woodstock-style two window layout, the bottom one containing Mr. Jennings. Not like he was family or anything, but something about people who report the news gives me respect for them… like they are so much more “tied in” then us John Q. Publics. Now he’s just another old-timer reference that Lil’ Chino won’t understand, like Cronkite to my generation.

I don’t know what’s up with this new Death Cab album yet, I can’t seem to peg it. For some reason, I can only get about halfway through before I want to switch to something more uppy like the World Leader Pretend or HARD-Fi albums Ben recently turned me onto. Death Cab have always been good for some melancholic languid indie pop, but this album sounds particularly watery-weak to me after the first few listens. Maybe I’ll get over it, it’s not fair really since I’ve not yet once sat down and listened to it once front-to-back. I wonder if any Mr. Gibbard’s radio-success with Postal Service will spill over into this new album? I’m sure that, since they’re now under the major label umbrella, they’ll release a single proper, and perhaps even have some help payola’ing it into rotation. My thoughts are that, from these first impressions, they’d’ve done better commercially riding the last album rather than this one. But what do I know.

11:11pm and I’m working. Trying to get back into the “swing” I was in before strep took me out of the game. Sure, I’m still busy; and sure, I have crap due tomorrow that I’ll be working on tomorrow… who cares. The whole being sick thing kinda forced me to see that the company lives on with or without me, and I’m not nearly as critical as my swollen head may lead me to believe. That’s good, really, because it gives me some leave to slack a bit – and when I say “slack” I mean not work until midnight.

Wow, what a crap entry. Goodnight.

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yet they still call

Flarin' up real good there.
Tuesday morning, and I have enough of a respite from my fever/flu/whatever that I feel like writing. Last night was different, and found me covered in sweat the entire night long – rather than the one or two sweating-out sessions of the previous nights. It was uncomfortable, but I sure felt better this morning. Better still isn’t quite “good” yet, but it’s getting closer. Today my fever is hanging around 100-101, a few degrees cooler than Sunday and Monday – but still high enough to make me feel crappy. My throat isn’t doing too hot either. Hurts to swallow. Taking my mom’s advice, I made an appointment to see the doctor for this afternoon, just to see if they can possibly pinpoint my problem – and maybe even tie it to my mysterious ER visit last week. I dunno, I’m never sick… is this what getting old is like? My body has betrayed me.

I think I worry too much about missing work. Even feeling like crap, I surreptitiously log on a couple times a day and check my e-mail. I have a great fear of falling behind, but honestly, I also have a great love for “dropping out.” Things as they are right now at work, I wouldn’t think of pulling the old “mental health day” thing and taking a couple unwarranted days off – but I have no problem using deserved, malady-driven, sick days. Oh sure, calls still come in on my cellphone… and I hit the “silence” button and think of how I’ll claim I was probably sleeping at the time. I have been asleep a lot, after all. I’m not delusional, it’s not like I think that work will crumble without me. It’s just hard, especially in extremely busy times, to accept that the world will continue to turn should you step away from the small post that you man – but, it most certainly will. Having said that, I guess it’s obvious that it’s more of an ego thing than a genuine concern for the job. Peoples, humans that is, are funny like that – so accomplishment driven and high on themselves.

Sharaun and I have been talking about the things we’ll need to do before Lil’ Chino gets here, and one idea she came up with was to have a garage sale to try and move some of our built-up junk (potentially, for a profit). I thought it was a great idea. There is so much junk I could stand to get rid of (no, I’ll cling to my Garbage Pail Kids collection with my last dying grasp), and Sharaun’s got plenty of clutter too. Actually, it was the idea of a garage sale that got me excited – I’ve only “participated” in one once before, at least that I can remember. I’ll never forget making the decision that the potentially realizable $10 I could get from selling my entire He-Man and Star Wars action figure collections was more appealing than holding onto them for posterity (pure idiocy). There’s something very American about having a garage sale, very appealing.

Late-breaking update: Went to the doctor today, turns out I have strep throat. Means another sick day tomorrow, since I’ll be contagious for at least another 24hrs. That, and I still feel like crap. Woohoo – another day of fevers and sore throats and daytime TV.

Goodnight.

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I feel like I deserve a beer tonight

Stop the ride. I want to get off.
Friday! Friday! Friday! I feel like I deserve a beer tonight. For a week well-done or something. Yeah, or something, I need a beer for “or something.”

Slow week in the writing department, breakneck week in the working department to blame. Pulling late nights every night so far, becoming all too accustomed to coming home from work, relaxing, computerless, for an hour or so while I eat dinner, and then hopping right back online to do this and that. I’ll tell you what, as brutal and unceasing as it’s been – I really do feed off it. Somewhere deep down, I find a perverse enjoyment in feeling important – the age-old sin of pride festering right in my puffed-up chest. My mouth complains about working long hours half because I don’t like it and half because I want others to hear it. I’m just a braggart at heart… someone who’s trying to avoid letting the fact that he’s got a big head show outwardly. Always feigning humility, I hope it works. But really y’all, isn’t “feigning” just a precondition for humility? It’s a conscious thing, not an inborn one. So, while I do hate it, I do love it. Figure that one out.

I’m still somewhat surprised that the crew over at PF haven’t written up the Most Serene Republic album. I’ve about worn the grooves off the thing (I know, grooves are old-school, but it’s a good expression), and I’m wondering if they’ll dig it as much as I do. It’s one of those fantastic, but relatively unaccessible LPs. Things like the Arcade Fire and Bloc Party are not only super, but arguable fit for commercial consumption. Things like the Most Serene Republic, however, really aren’t. The style isn’t consistent enough, and those used to happening-packed 3min pop nuggets may get confused with the meandering and often seemingly aimless song structure. But… none of that matters to me. That album is the toppermost of the poppermost, as John would say. If you’re interested, you can get a good idea of what to expect from this sample clip. I’m not afraid to make the halfway call and say that the race for 2005 is so far neck-and-neck between this and the Architecture in Helsinki album. Oh, and in case you’re really interested, I figured out how to direct-link to 1min clips of every track on the album. Yeah, that’s right – no one is safe from my “View Source” javascript reverse engineering mojo.

If you keep up with my travels… you may recall that I was supposed to be boarding a plane for Shanghai today, but I’m not. I canceled the trip. Sharaun’s first real appointment at the baby-doctor is this coming Thursday, and they told us they’d be doing an ultrasound and listening to Lil’ Chino’s heartbeat. For a while, I was actually considering missing that. Can you believe that? Thinking about it now, I don’t want to miss that for the world. I’m going to try and get a cellphone recording of the heartbeat while we’re there – and knowing me it’ll be online the next day. I remember when I was in middle school, I paid entirely too much for a still-sealed copy of John & Yoko’s rare “Unfinished Music No. 2 : Life With the Lions” LP on the avant-garde Apple offshoot, Zapple. Since the music hadn’t ever been issued on CD at the time, I simply couldn’t resist the urge to completely ruin my investment by slicing through the 25 years old cellophane and putting the virgin plastic on the turntable for it’s only spin while I recorded it to tape. The LP sucked; sucked bad. All John’s whacked out Zapple stuff did. But there was one “song” that stuck with me. Called, appropriately, “Baby’s Heartbeat,” it was a recording of their (sadly later miscarried) baby’s tiny heart swisha-woosha-swisha-wooshing blood through his tiny developing body. I thought it was fascinating. I wonder what I’ll feel when I hear Lil’ Chino’s… part of me thinks I’ll be stricken dumb with awe, while part of me thinks I’ll take it in stride. Whichever it ends up being, I’m ultimate-glad that I chose to stay home for it.

It’s 11pm now and I came back here to try and write another couple paragraphs, this sentence is as far as I got.

Goodnight.

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chapter two


They say bad things happen in threes. Not sure if that’s true for good things too, or maybe just “things” in general. I guess if you lose the bad/good qualification, the statement doesn’t make much sense: “things happen in threes.” Sure they do, and fours and eights too. Good things, to me, though, have indeed seemingly been happening together. I may even talk about one or two in today’s entry.

Let’s get right down to it then: we’re having a baby.

We created life. I wrote this the day I found out:

Your birthday will be in February or March. Which means you’ll likely be an Aquarius or maybe Pisces or, in China, a Dog – not that I hold with that kinda stuff. I will be 29 when you arrive, a good age for a father, right?

I thought about you when I called my pops on father’s day and it hit me that it would be my last non-qualifying one. I thought about you when I remembered our non-refundable tickets to World Cup in Germany next year. I thought about you and how much I’ve been away from home for work this year. I thought about you a lot when I was drunk in a seedy club at 3am in Manhattan; and how I feel like I’m ready to be done with that scene and wished you were already here so I wouldn’t have been there.

I kinda think I want you to be a boy, but I won’t be mad should you choose a vagina.

I’ve already started thinking about converting the spare bedroom into your nursery, about whether those little outlet covers are just 1st-time parent paranoia, about diapers, and high chairs, and carseats. Your coming arrival has got me thinking about all sorts of things I’ve never considered before… Money; you make me think about money.

I guess I wonder the same things as most people… and I guess, in reality, I know the answers to most. I mean, things like how our relationships with our friends will change. I know the answer already, it’s just kind of sad to realize that a whole way of life that we’ve become accustomed to over the past few years is coming to and end. Then again, it’s the most exciting prospect I’ve ever dealt with… not the changing relationships part, the creating another human part.

Like billions and billions of humans before us, we’ve managed to do our part in sustaining the species. It’s an amazing prospect, really, and completely mindblowing. To think that there is a completely “new” human, growing up from what I’d consider essentially “nothing” somewhere inside my wife’s own body. This thing is busy transforming from nothing into something completely amazing. It will come out as a working thing, and I’m sure one day when it’s a teenager it’ll love that I referred to it as such. “Thanks dad, I’m a ‘working thing’ huh?” But really, I’ve long been staggered by the thought of babies. What an amazing process, how incomprehensibly complex and precise, how perfect that it just “works.” Oh, we’ve been reading books and doing our research and whatnot, and, man, I can see how you could potentially get really freaked out that it might not “just work.” I mean, it’s amazing how precious this little developing thing immediately becomes to you, even if it looks more like a tadpole than a human right now; you want to protect it and the vessel carrying it like they were the Crown Jewels.

I remember reading somewhere that, in the old days, expectant Chinese women would work tending the rice fields right up until they went into labor, and, after popping out their new child, would return to the paddies as soon as they could walk. That’s interesting to me, because it tells me that, at some fundamental level, pregnancy is supposed to work. I often find myself falling back to the “caveman argument.” It’s something of my own invention, really, but, I always catch myself thinking things like, “Cavemen didn’t have toothpaste,” or, “Cavemen didn’t know about cholesterol.” Likewise, cavemen probably didn’t do much in the way of prenatal care… yet here we are, living proof that their lineage survived. Makes me think that the process has been designed to just work, designed not to go wrong. Not that I’d use that as some Christian Scientist cult-think and forgo the benefits of modern medicine… it’s just a point of comfort for me with all the potential fear-mongering out there.

In other news, I continue to work myself ragged. I’m not kidding. I’m working till midnight most evenings, trying to do my best to suppress the list of “to do tonight” things that I pile up during the day. Semi-related, work promoted me to a management position. It’s not the reason I’ve been working so hard, but it sure isn’t helping. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to start talking about work in depth here, I firmly decided against that on blog day one, but I figured the promotion is having a big enough impact on my life now that it’s worthy of documentation. Anyway, it’s exciting, and a bit daunting, to think that I now have people who “report to” me, whatever that means. I’ve never been a control freak… and I still maintain that I’ve managed to coast to success with the help of luck more than skill or knowledge. Call it humility or whatever, but I know my deep-down slacker core, and it is alive and well. Underlining it all, though, is a intense feeling of accomplishment. I feeling of vindication, like I’ve been formally recognized for doing well, officially acknowledged in front of my peers as someone who’s worthy of leadership. Maybe that’s a bit big-headed, but it’s honest.

So, those are my two big things. I’ve been keeping these couple things to myself for over a month… trying to write around them and come up with other things to talk about, even though they’re really the only two things that’ve been on my mind at all. Work has been all-consuming from a non-emotional standpoint, and Lil’ Chino (what we call the growing child in my wife’s belly) all-consuming from the emotional side. I’m not sure to what extent either happening will or won’t change the blog, but it’s kinda silly to think there’ll be no impact at all. Blogging with-child will at least give me plenty to write about, and blogging as-manager will likely reduce my already slim “grindstone” category… as I’ll likely be more guarded where I may have previously been somewhat candid.

I wanted to mention that, at my ten year high school reunion this past weekend, someone I literally hadn’t seen in ten years told me that they’d been to this very page. Now, I don’t know if said person is a recurring visitor, but it was an interesting statement to hear. It of course made me happy, being the attention-feeder I am at heart, I always love to hear about unknown readership. I shouldn’t try to pawn it off as some amazing thing, after all, I did link our classmates.com profile directly to sounds familiar… so it’s not all that far-fetched that someone I went to school with might happen here. Continuing on the reunion theme, I wanted to give it a proper writeup.

I thought it was excellent, although I wish we’d had more time to socialize. There was a dinner even the first night, which Sharaun and I were able to attend in full, as well as an after-party that night. But we had only ten short minutes at Sunday’s “kids invited” BBQ, which is where I really wish I could’ve spent more time catching up with those whom I didn’t already know what was going with. The first evening’s after-party made me a bit sad… to see some folks seemingly still stuck in that endless cycle of booze and dope, despite the fact that they are nearing their 30s and now responsible for children as well as themselves. The drugs in my hometown are plentiful, to say the least, and it’s all to easy to get trapped in that scene. I didn’t like seeing mothers whose children were asleep in beds far away puffing on joints or coming out of the bathroom in threes. I dunno, I guess that’s the real world, or something… I still don’t have to like it. Not that I’m knocking you, dope-smoking mothers, should you be reading this… you can do what you want and may be a stellar parent – you’re bag just ain’t my bag, that’s all. We’re still cool.

I shoulda split this one up over two days, to at least guarantee some posting consistency… but I didn’t. Before I go, someone at work turned me on to this homemade thing the other day and I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe that means I’m a huge nerd…

‘Night.