Category: grindstone

All about breadwinning.

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all that glitters

Gwee-tar!
Work today was an all-out assault. I don’t remember feeling so completely taxed in a long time. It was one of those days where I just couldn’t get away from the distractions and interruptions. Whenever I got focused on something, something came up and sidetracked me. Phone calls, working with people, my brain was switching tasks too fast and I got burned out. To top it off, I didn’t get a proper night’s sleep the previous night and it was my first day trying to cut back on both the amount of, and kind of, food I eat. I figure I have to do something about this gut… I just can’t abide it any longer.

The other day I was IMing with my old friend Andy, and mentioned that I was also multitasking and trying to write an entry. Since I’m not entirely sure if this not-writing jag I’ve been on is a product of me being so busy lately, or just me not having something decent to write about – I asked Andy for some ideas. He bounced a couple ideas off me before the words “Robin’s birthday present” come across the IM. Once my memory was jogged, I agreed that this had to be written down. Before the story, let me set the scene.

Robin was the first person I met when my family moved to Florida before I started the 6th grade. Her dad was our real estate agent when we were searching for the place we’d eventually call home. During the house-hunting process, my folks formed a decent relationship with our agent, Robin’s dad, and after we’d decided on a property and the deal was done he asked the family over for dinner at their place. That’s the night I met Robin. She was a smart girl, we were both around the same age – and me being a 6th grade boy I was of course mildly attracted to her (as 6th grade boys tend to be to any and all females). I remember that night, she had a book on handwriting analysis and she had me write a paragraph to analyze. Turns out the book said my handwriting showed I was conceited… at the time I didn’t know what the word meant, but I suppose that book had me pegged.

When I started the 6th grade at my new school, Robin ended up being in almost all of my classes. (When I was in the 1st grade, I took a test and was branded “gifted.” It was by virtue of this taxonomic classification that I met and stayed with my clique of friends, including Robin, for my entire middle-school career). Around the 8th grade, Robin became my first real girlfriend and we dated on and off (mostly on) for the next two-ish years. Come Robin’s sweet-16, we had recently broken up for what I think was the last time. It wasn’t a nasty breakup, our relationship had been mostly one of convenience… y’know, someone to sneak into the woods with and fool around, someone to talk to and hold hands with, etc. I mean, we were kids after all. Anyway, although freshly-estranged, I was still invited to her 16th birthday celebration, along with 15-20 more of her closest friends.

At the time, the group of friends I ran with was pretty tight. So it was no surprise that the afternoon before the party found us all hanging at my place kicking around potential gift ideas. I’m not entirely sure what the genesis of our eventual gift was… I imagine that it had something to do with the fact that none of us had given the matter any though until the day-of, and was compounded by our inability or lack of desire to “run out” and pick something up for the occasion. Either way, someone came up with the idea to get a medium sized cardboard box, line it with plastic, and then fill it with a vile mix of random substances from around my house. Once we had the leakproof plastic-lined box prepared, we began dumping in the ingredients. I had forgotten a lot of what went into the box, but a quick consultation with both Andy and Kyle helped reconstruct what I think is a pretty accurate rundown.

The base of the box was dirt. We piled in a decent amount of soil from the backyard. After that, we began rooting through the pantry. Chocolate syrup, ketchup, two swiss cake rolls, whip cream, raw ground beef, flour, milk, a can of kidney beans, one egg, cream corn; it all went into the box and was mixed thoroughly with a stick. Now, I don’t think it wasn’t part of the original plan, and was even a bit extreme for my taste… but I heard a rumour that someone may have even relieved himself into the box during the ingredients procedure. #1, not #2. Actually, that’s not a rumour at all… I saw my buddy straddle and pee into the box of crap right before my eyes. We all knew it was taking it a step to far, but once the pee was in the box it became part of the plan. As you can imagine, the varied nature of our box’s contents favored the nose with a super nasty stank. Once sealed and wrapped, the little square box looked rather unassuming – and its considerable weight worked in our favor as it piqued curiosity over the possible gift contained within.

I remember taking the gift to the party, along with the card we’d done: a greeting card (not even for a birthday) that we’d all signed and then purposely put in the road and run over with the car so it had tire-marks and road-burn all over the…

Wait… wait…
This is bad.
I feel more and more like a dick the more I write about this…

Sometimes the stuff we did back then confounds me, but y’know, I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything. Like driving around subdivisions late at night and spotting a Big Wheel left out on a porch, then pulling it to the middle of the street and running it down at 40mph in the Nissan Sentra. Or cruising the K Mart parking lot for a car with its sunroof open so we could drop a lit “Mammoth Smoke” inside, then watching the firetruck from the bank parking lot across the street. Some kid’s Big Wheel! Someone’s car! We had no hearts. Anyway… I digress, back to the story.

The party was a grand event, and all our friends were there. When we walked in with the box and handed it to Robin, Andy remembers her saying, with excitement, something like, “This is the heaviest gift, so I’m going to save it for last!” I don’t remember much from the actual party, as my nervousness and anticipation about the gift-opening probably occupied most of my thoughts. Having a reputation as jokers, a considerable amount of “buzz” developed about the gift. So much so that, when the time came for Robin to open her gifts, people crowded around the dining room table. As she promised, she saved our gift for last. I vaguely remember not being able to bring myself to watch the event transpire in real time. Instead, I think I turned my head and waited for the crowd’s reaction. From here on out I get the details mixed up, but I can remember a few things. I remember people saying, “What is that?!,” and, “It smells so bad!,” and I remember a guy named Paul laughing loudly.

Robin cried.

I don’t remember how long after that it was that I swung a stick and shattered their porchlight, quite by mistake I might add, but I guess that was the final straw. Her father, who was red in the face with anger, promptly called us foul words and banished us from the party. I think we actually left through the screened in porch in the backyard, he didn’t even give us the chance to walk back through the house and say goodbye. Apparently, due to the smell, quite a few people assumed we had given Robin a box of shit for her 16th birthday. It was a box of “shit,” I guess, although not in the literal sense. And, despite how things now seem when I look back, I don’t think we really understood the utter rudeness and downright meanness of some of the things we used to do. At the time, we were just into pulling pranks and doing stupid stuff.

Sharaun hates it when I cuss on my blog, and I generally agree with her. It’s usually not necessary to swear to make good comedy, and, in general, it detracts from the perceived intelligence and couth of a person. But some stories, like this one, absolutely require the use of a few bad-words. Them’s the breaks I guess. I guess the story may not be as funny to someone who wasn’t there or doesn’t remember it, reading it back I got a little chuckle but I’m not sure how the uninitiated will receive it. I thought I’d float it out anyway, so now it’s over.

Well, tonight was the Bravery show and I must admit it was mighty enjoyable. Short, but good sound and nice bouncy 80s-synth-rock goodness. Local shows are always the best because I can be home and in bed before midnight, all with a good show still ringing in my ears. Goooooood night.

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the hare won, right?

Focus.
I’m back. Did you miss me? Whatever, you’re full of crap. I bet you didn’t even check the page yesterday, you damn sunshine patriot. So; yeah. I took a writer’s vacation. Work dictated it more than anything… but I’m not going to say I didn’t kinda enjoy not writing. Today I got a bunch of lackluster paragraphs rounded out with a couple links to tunes. Maybe listen as you read along, I don’t care… it’s ultimately your bag. Enjoy.

Can I tell you how much I like this Aqueduct album? Oh, I can’t? Sorry then. Wait, who the eff are you to tell me what I can tell you? This internet thing is a free medium last time I checked. So: Dang I like this Aqueduct album! You people who may think you’ve heard it before, say, on the OC or something – shut up. So what if it was on the OC already… so what if the OC seems to be rapidly gaining on me in terms of the illustrious “I found that band” cred? The OC! I show for teenagers about cute and rich and white high-schoolers who drink beer, oh and there’s lesbians and indie music all over that biatch. Anyway, you should check out the album, it’s called I Sold Gold, and even though the revered PF panned it – I’d recommend it. Rock this track and tell me what you think.

As much as I don’t want to, I’m going to get up in the morning and go to work. Sometimes, I get this feeling… like something big is on the horizon. It usually comes in the morning, with the cold air. Today it came strong on my way home for lunch. Almost transcendent for a minute, I just get this feeling like I’m on the precipice, about to step off the edge or something. Not a scary feeling… an excited one. I don’t think I have the shining or anything like that – I just think it means something good is going to happen. I don’t usually serve out MP3s, but here’s the song that was playing when I got my good vibes… listen to that awesome guitar breakdown at the end with the fast video-gamey sounding part. As for the vibes themselves… I dunno. Summer is coming and the sun is still shining on my way home from work, maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m gonna win the lottery; then I can finally stop shaving altogether.

Why didn’t I write the past couple of days? Business trip my friends. Yeah, more customer visits. You remember the last time I was in Taiwan?, well some other customer-dudes wanted to hear that material – so Wayne and I made the short trip to present to these fools. As usual, we owned the audience. I was telling Wayne, I created the bulk of the material I presented over a year ago… and have just morphed it ever since. Oh sure it’s changed over time, but I swear I only made the effort once – the rest is just tweaking. What I’m getting at is, I’ve been presenting the same crap for over a year now. Considering, I’m pretty damn good at talking about this material. I don’t practice anymore… don’t worry about it… just go up and do the song and dance. Don’t worry, there was never any passion to be lost. It’s a loveless task, but I rather like it.

At work, I have complicated system of Post-It Notes task-management. I have a mid-sized pad on which I keep my medium-to-long term obligations in a asterisk-prefixed list. Not necessarily in priority order, just a list of everything I need to get done in one-to-two weeks time. For one-off obligations, I have one of those tiny little pads, and I take quick notes and stick them to the top of my laptop. Those are low-time-investment do-today things, I have to clear them off before the end of the day. In this age of cellphones and PDAs and high-tech little black books – my primary organizational system consists of Post-It notes. This is all I have for this paragraph, I realize it’s a little weak… but I’m going to talk more about work after I hit return twice.

After being a member of the working class for several years now, I’ve come to a rather shocking conclusion. Either, 90% of the workforce is stuck in 1st gear – or I have an amazing capacity to do things at mach speed. I’m not saying this to brag, I’m trying to document and explain an observable phenomenon. Through experiments conducted by myself and on myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can do what management considers to be a multi-day task in three to four hours. Again, I’m being totally serious and not trying to blow my own horn here (lots of masturbatory colloquialisms in this paragraph it seems; y’know blowing one’s own horn and doing experiments… oh, you get it). Anyway, I’ve been blessed with this incredible talent – and I use it to my advantage on every occasion possible. My big secret is that my week’s work really only took me one solid day. If this is true, I have an untapped potential to increase my workload by up to as much as 80%. You want what done? Uh-huh. Due Friday? OK, I’ll get working on that right away. Right away Friday morning… sucker. Cut me a check, it’s the weekend already and I’m beat.

You think they’re gonna make new dinosaurs? Goodnight.

Posted on

false profit

Fakir. Get it?
I haven’t been writing because it just hasn’t been in me. I sit down with the laptop, write a couple thoughtless sentences and give up. Before, I may have pushed myself to get something done, to get something up, but I don’t see the point anymore. As it is, I’m already shamed by my matching-shoe entry last week. The reality is, I write a lot. I write a whole lot. Every night I crank out paragraph after paragraph. One wonders if it’ll ever dry up. It’s like wondering if, with all the music that’s been made in the history of the world, how people still manage to come up with an original tune. I guess when the variables are infinitely arrangeable, there’s always a chance for an original. Not that anything I write is terribly original or even worth reading, but at least there’s no threat of “drying up.” I can keep pumping out sentence after sentence of crap. Here comes some of it now, enjoy.

As sore as I am, I’d trade sitting in my cube today for the sunny and sweaty yardwork of yesterday in a heartbeat. With Blind Faith’s eponymous, and only, LP blaring from the windows while I heaved the breaker bar at the rocky “dirt.” Instead, I’m sitting here on my already-tired-of-being-sat-on ass, listening to the Arcade Fire live on Morning Becomes Eclectic. A decent performance, but it’s not like I was in need of convincing when it comes to the awesomeness of this band. The problem is, when you release an album that is so stunningly good, so noticeably standout from everything else released that year, following it up is rough. I remember reading about Radiohead’s follow-up phobia after releasing the universally praised OK Computer. As if to silence the murmurs of “can they do it”, Radiohead released Kid A as the follow up and blew everyone’s mind again. I’m hoping the Arcade Fire can have their own mind-blowing follow up, and their sophomore effort is probably the one future album I’m currently most looking forward to.

Begin random unrelated paragraph.

I don’t think I’m the only one, but maybe I am, who feels like he really only knows a fraction of what people may think he does. I’m talking specifically to the work environment. I’m not an expert, in honesty I retain very little. I’m a fake, a practiced charlatan, and a cunning opportunist. Over my short time on this planet, the only real skill I’ve mastered is knowing how to influence peoples’ perceptions. An expert at getting by, proficient at faking it, and revered in the field of hype – I’ll come to you with nothing in my head and anything you’d like on my tongue. You’d think after a while, I’d get called out, cold-busted. Nope, I know enough to lay down safety nets… just like always, I know just enough to get by and nothing more. I come to school to do the bare minimum for the As and honors. Even with all your persuasiveness, you’ll not impress upon me your get-ahead attitude, I’m too satisfied with simply getting-along. Relying on my pseudo-skills to advance me… I will let your perception carry me. Thanks.

End random unrelated paragraph.

My week-long AIM screename mixup has been an exciting and interesting thing. As you may remember, it all stared last Saturday when I got a bunch of IMs from people I’d never heard of, all of them thinking I was someone named Zak or Charlie. Throughout the week, the IMs continued. Despite my frequent ignoring them, and, when responding, my adamancy that they had the wrong person – I learned a lot about the people IMing me, the person(s) I was supposed to be, and IMing and today’s youth in general. For instance, I learned that the job of a child predator really isn’t that tough. In just the first day of mistaken identity, these girls’ freely offered their names, ages, and location. I didn’t ask, and I even told them I was an old man who they didn’t know. It mattered not. Unasked, they sent pictures and even phone numbers; I learned what schools they go to, what dance studio they attend. It didn’t matter to them that I was a stranger – they could care less. That, to me, was a little disturbing.

I addition to a somewhat shocking lack of information-guarding, I learned that instant messaging is extremely important to these kids. The girls who were IMing me ranged from 12-14 years old, and they were relentless. They also have their own language. I like to think of myself as still being fairly-in touch with the youth culture of today, but some of the abbreviations and idioms they were using had me rushing to Google for a whippersnapper-to-geezer translator. Seeing how important IMing was to these kids made me realize that this is a entirely new communication medium. Something my generation and the ones preceding it simply didn’t have. It’s real-time note-passing, but with the added bonus of distance to reduce inhibition. As a behind-the-curtain method of communicating, it’s extremely efficient for the hormone-charged youth to conduct faceless flirting – which everyone knows is much easier than mustering up in-person game. Like the long flirty phone calls of my generation, IMs flying through cyberspace are today’s kids’ way of developing those oh-so-important teen infatuations. I guess it was just interesting to me that they probably don’t even consider that they are the first generation afforded this indirect and immediate type of communication.

And, to round it out – I finally got back to my long-running project of digitizing all my music. When I stopped, I was at about 80% ripping my entire CD library. Then, when I upgraded my PC my ASPI layer got all screwed up and my ripper wouldn’t work at all. My intense hatred of working with computers on my own time kept me from properly debugging the problem until tonight, when I forced a reinstall of the ASPI layer and got things back up and running. When I stopped before, it was at the daunting task of getting all my Beatles and Beatles related materials ripped… and now I’m happy to report I’m almost through with George Harrison and on my way to Lennon. Soon it will be Macca and finally the Fab Four themselves. When that’s done, all that’s left to do is walk through the collection and make sure every CD has digital representation. Then, reap the second-hand rewards via Ebay, local record shops, and secondspin.

Goodnight all. Good. Night.

Posted on

topic taboo

Something about overtime, I dunno.
If you’ve been reading me for a while, or… even if you haven’t, you may (or may not) know that I usually don’t talk much about work. Sometimes though, especially while traveling for work, I don’t have much else to talk about and work tends to dominate a run of entries. So, most of today’s entry is work-based… although I still stay away from specifics as much as possible – so as to avoid a sound doocing. Well then, with hopes that it’s not over-dry, to it…

Being in a country where you can smoke anywhere you want really makes you appreciate living in Liberalville, CA, USA. I’d forgotten what it was like to go out for an evening in Florida and come home reeking of smoke; having to chalk the night’s accoutrements up to a loss in terms of multiple-wearings, and waking up throughout the night to smell the nastiness that is your own hair and skin. When we walked into the karaoke room last night, the smoke was still thick from the last revelers to use the facilities. Every bar, every restaurant, even some of the conference rooms at the customer sites… nasty.

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time. I fear my laptop is beginning to protest the bloody mary bath I unintentionally gave it the other day. Yesterday, I couldn’t get anything but BSODs for a full two hours of rebooting. Today, I seem to get it randomly… but increasingly more frequent. Only when your laptop is acting up do you realize how crippling it is to be without it, especially on a business trip. I use it to take notes, to call up sorted and stored information when answering questions, and to do completely non-work activities like writing this paragraph. I’m just hoping she makes it through the week, so I can get a new one when I get back home.

One down, one to go. Lunchtime now, and then the final visit of the week before I’m cut free of all Taiwan-specific responsibility. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to “detach” from my US-work as I’ve been accustomed to for a Taiwan visit. Home-stuff is still demanding and is unfortunately dictating some late-night US-time meeting attendance and e-mail attention. It was 2:30am last night before I shutdown the PC and headed to bed, and I’ve got a 1am meeting lined up for tonight’s fun.

Right now it’s dawning what promises to be a beautiful day in Taipei; it’s been warming up lately – and the rain is less frequent now than it was at the beginning of the week.

I’m sitting in bed with my laptop, having just woke up little over and hour ago and been responding to e-mail until now. It’s my last full day here, I leave mid-morning tomorrow. I came back to the room last night around 12:30am to get ready for my 1am meeting. Then, I woke up around 3am with my laptop and phone in front of me. I don’t know when I dozed off, but I totally missed the meeting. I crawled into bed, and then started off this morning with my “apologies” mail. Owell.

Outta here.

Posted on

high on betel

Maybe you'd be better suited with elastic, sir; you're very "strong"
Y’know, it sure feels like I’ve been to Taiwan more than 4 times. But, that’s what my passport says: 4 times. So, I guess it really only has been 4 times. I do know, however, that ever since my first visit here, I’ve wanted to try betel nut. Betel nut is actually a seed that the Taiwanese roll in a leaf and chew whole. It’s a green thing to begin with, but once you start chewing it it turns bright red. You see betel nut “shops” all over town, usually near major roadways. Most of them are setup similarly: a large window and with an attractive young woman sitting inside, wearing a short miniskirt and not much up top, rolling up the betel nut for sale. There are usually bright flashing neon tubes hanging above the storefront to help pull your eye. When you ask the locals about the stuff, they mostly just shrug you off – acting like it’s a habit that’s beneath a civilized person. If you press them on why people chew the stuff, they say that it “keeps you awake, helps you concentrate, makes you feel hot and sweaty, and maybe even a little drunk.” It’s always sounded to me like some mild drug, and I’ve always wanted to check it out -but my hosts have always managed to dissuade me from actually purchasing any.

Today, however, when we came out of our last customer’s office – I spotted a betel nut joint just across the road. I mentioned to Wayne how I’d always wanted to try it, and he didn’t put up too much of a protest. So once again, I asked some of the locals I was with about it. This time though, they escorted us right across and bought me a small baggie full. They kinda look like the fat end of a piece of raw asparagus, about a half-inch long and wrapped tight in a leaf. There were about ten of them in the 50NT baggie. Our host explained that you first bite off the “endcap” from the stalk, and then chuck the entire leaf-wrapped thing in your mouth and chew it. Due to some communication confusion, Wayne and I were left confused as to whether or not we were supposed to spit or swallow the resulting blood-red saliva, so we played it safe and spit every 30sec. Only afterward did we learn that it’s only customary to spit the 1st batch of juice out after you start chewing, and then you’re supposed to ingest the rest. Check it:



The betel nut joint.

The merch.


Scored a dime.

Makeshift spittoon.

Anyway, it was a new Taiwan experience for me. I’ve got the remainder of the stash tucked away in my mini-fridge (it’s a plant, I figured it may need to be refrigerated) – and plan to chew one properly this evening, swallowing the spittle and all. The locals reminded Wayne that the emergency number here is 119 and not 911 – just in case.

Right now it’s 3:42pm where my home and wife are. Here it’s 7:42am and I’m getting ready for my final day of “work,” as tomorrow’s a free day. I have to go back to the tailor tonight to do the final fitting on the custom slacks I ordered. Don’t I sound so regal? Right now, perhaps, there is some man sewing a pair of pants made especially to fit my legs. If these things really fit-fit, I’m gonna be elated. I may wear them all the time, just for the crap of it. Last night was another round of karaoke with some of the women from the bar downstairs, we had a good time – and I think, overall, we brought our A-game karaoke to the table last night. You should’ve heard Wayne and I belt out Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.”

Well folks, I don’t have much time before I have to fill my breast pocket with business cards (English on the front, simplified Chinese on the reverse) and head downstairs. I’ve got all the cards I’ve collected on previous visits stowed away in my bag, and I’ll review them on the way to the customer – on the off chance that I’ll be able to recognize someone and greet them by name before we exchange them. This way, I’ll appear as the concerned and genuine businessman… the one who cares enough about you to remember your name. Other than that, today is pretty much full. There’s the pants-fitting, the stopover at the Cuban cigar place, and talk of an evening massage possibly followed by the night market tonight.

Good afternoon; good morning. Dave out.

Posted on

nervous laughter

Play with this, mouse.
P-Day. Presentation day in Taiwan. Right now it’s early-morning and Wayne and I are doing some last-minute tweaks to our material. Not oh-crap last-minute changes, just aesthetic changes and some acclimation exercises. Our timeslot in this day-long conference is at the very end, which can be good because you’re the taste left in the audience’s mouth as they walk away; and can be bad because attention spans begin to wane near the end of the day and the fidgeting begins to set in. One other plus, we have time to work on the material, do one last rehearsal before showtime, and take in the other presenters as a gauge of our “competition.”

There must be 500 people in here, maybe one day I’ll be presenting to these masses – but our audience today is a mere subset, less than 200 of the total gathered here for the conference. I just did my first speaking gig, a 5min introduction of the day’s discussions and presenters – and it felt good to be in up front. The cute girl who was here last year is here again, and she must remember my stares because she’s looking over at me and chatting to her friend. I see a lot of familiar faces, actually. There’s the one guy who asks all the detailed questions, I’ll avoid contact with him; there’s that one dude who’s always asking impossibly technical questions in what I deem as some vain attempt to appear intelligent, gotta avoid him in the halls. Man, almost presentation time… in fact, I think the next paragraph will be post-presentation; wish me luck.

Our presentation went great. We were relaxed; we got questions; we had note-takers; we got laughs. It’s always hard presenting to non-English-speaking audiences – but I think we did a great job. Overall the day’s events went down just like I’d wanted them to. Now Wednesday and Thursday will be spent doing the Q&A thing for various customers. Y’know, we sit up front in a panel fashion – and they ask whatever’s on their mind. It can make for some interesting discussion, and some outstanding pulled-from-your-ass monologues. Full of assurances like “… we’ve invested many resources to ensure success,” and “… we are committed to product XZY…” But today was good – I had a good time, and so far this trip is a big success – as far as the “work” part goes.

Sometimes I like to sit in this bar and try to imagine what brought everyone here. In a hotel bar in bar in a business city like Taiwan everyone’s here for a reason. Through a haze of smoke and over silver bowls of mixed nuts, deals are struck and partnerships are formed. My role here is less exciting, I’m just sitting in the back working on my presentation for tomorrow. It’s all bar-atmosphere dark in here, so I probably look like some pale ghost in the corner, awash in the glow of my monitor. Stupid computer… stubborn tomato-stuck keys.

One thing that always amazes me about Taiwan is the extent to which most westerners I meet use it as a sexual playground. Meeting ring-wearing men in bars who immediately steer the conversation to where the best “massage” places are, dropping twist-of-speech hints about their true intent. When I get in these conversations, I usually don’t say one way or another whether or not I participate – for fear of being viewed as some limp-dicked sexual leper; more often than not if you don’t say you don’t, it’s assumed you do. The whole “while the cat is away” attitude that men get here is really something else. I guess I’ve never been one to partake in “manly” activities like strip clubs or whatnot. Oh sure, I’m still a functioning male: I’ll watch my share of internet porn or sit on the john and flip lustily through a Maxim magazine. I guess I just draw the line at the “live action” stuff. Maybe I’ve watched one too many Andy Griffiths or something, but I’m just not down with extramarital sexual activity – I’d much rather make a seed offering to the hotel shower drain than some paid-nothing whore a musty Taipei backroom.

Sorry to those who’ve posted recently and seen your comments deferred in their appearance. I’m still getting the hang of WordPress’ new v1.5 comment moderation features. Your posts should be visible now, and I’ve sent those texas holdem bastards where they belong. Oh, and thanks for commenting – it’s part of what makes me enjoy writing every day… to have some validation that people are reading and perhaps even enjoying what the heck I’m on about.

Now, it’s time for breakfast, and a full day of customers. Until sometime tomorrow…

Posted on

cussing in church

Curse like one.
Several paragraphs, some well thought-out and written with care, some written fast without much style – every single one about something different. Taken together though, I think it stands as one of the better entries I’ve done in a while. You be the judge.

A much better day, a return to normalcy: meetings, e-mails, phone calls; no clenched teeth or fevered concentration. Instead bracing myself against the stormy seas of imagined deadlines, I was able to loose myself from the mast and enjoy the slow rollers of a normal workday. I like it that way, actually. With a little spare time to refresh CNN in between meetings and keep up with what’s going on outside the cubicle. Speaking of the cubicle, I had the chance last night to chat with a guy who does electrical work for new construction – wiring, etc. We hadn’t yet got around to what I do for a living when he mentioned that he “…couldn’t stand to be inside all day, stuck in front of a computer.” There’s something to that, y’know, although I’m not entirely sure I’d like to be inside walls or crawling on rafters all day either. For the job-satisfaction to money ratio, I like what I’m doing better than anything else that’s immediately available to me. And, to me, that’s enough to keep me happy. And everyone knows, happiness is what counts.

Taiwan is looming. I’ll be doing a return appearance as a speaker at a conference I actually attended last year. Funny thing is, I presented twice at the conference last year – my first appearance being what I remember as my worst public appearance ever (you can read about my post-presentation shame in my entry that day). I can recall the feeling like it was yesterday, and I’ve made it a point to not get myself into the same situation this year. This year, I am a master of the material… and I have enough “extra” info to expound if necessary or answer tough questions. If pre-conference confidence is an indicator of pending success, I’ll do 100 times better this year than last. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever given such a stinker as that single hour last year… it pains me to recall it.

I think it would be cool to build a simple plugin for Winamp that keeps track of the songs you play, and can then analyze time-defined chunks of the logs to see what mood you are/were in. AMG has all of its music organized into “mood” categories, and although I’ve never really used that information, if the classification is decent it’d be interesting to use their data to see what “mood” my last-week’s or last-month’s playlist said I was in. For instance, today I got a blues-itch, and started at Muddy Waters’ Fathers and Sons, after which I moved onto the guitar-god-rife White Boy Blues, and am currently listening to the Allman Brothers’ Brothers and Sisters. Using album-level for mood granularity, AMG’s mood-classifications tell me that I’m feeling both “earthy” and “passionate.” I like that, actually. I’m feeling rather passionate today, I mean… look at the figuratives I used in that opening paragraph… if that ain’t passion…

The other day, Pat and I were talking about how we write. The nature of the discussion was work-related, as we were saying what perfectionists/revisionists we both are when it comes to writing. It’s true, before I send an e-mail (especially if it’s an “important” one), I read and re-read and then re-re-read it again. I often decide to change the structure of my sentences as I type, reorganizing or rewording to better communicate what I want to say. Finally, when I’m satisfied with my missive, I fire it off and immediately click over to my “Sent” box and re-read the thing again. It’s a habit, or perhaps an OCD manifestation, I dunno. For me, it’s not limited to e-mail, it’s writing in general. And that’s what Pat was saying, he was wondering how I manage to write every day when I’m so picky about how things sound, how they come out. I just do it; and believe me, it takes time. I can tell you though, that I think everyone would get a good laugh if they could watch one of my entries be typed in real time… with all the backspacing, word-looking-up, organizing and re-organizing, etc. It’s a messy process.

I remember when I first started going to church with Sharaun. Coming from an established history as a drinker, drugger, and all-around foul-mouth… I was the antithesis of a good young Christian lad. People who honestly believed that swearing one swear or beering one beer might keep them from their God amazed me. During that part of my life, Sharaun and I were pretty involved with the church, and I had many occasion to be alone in the building… setting up this or working on that. And sometimes, when I was all alone in some dark storeroom, where my only companions were Sunday School supplies and Bible-times stage-props, I would give God my own little test. I’d say a big, fat, sinful word; think a big, fat, sinful thought; purposely entertain big, fat, sinful doubts I had. I’d “sin,” in the house of God, I’d deliberately do the things that I couldn’t believe people thought would incur the wrath of God. Just words, out loud and willful. And who would have known – the didn’t bring the Lord sweeping down to cleanse his temple of the scourge that was my open defiance.

If you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t able to think of a graceful exit from my “cussing in church” piece – so I just stopped writing. So, to change subjects… Because the quote seemed important, and also to test my new “quoted text” style, here’s a rather ominous-sounding one from Dr. Rice herself:

I believe that everybody is telling the Iranians that they are going to have to live up to their international obligations or next steps are in the offing. Everybody understands what next steps means.

Yeah, now that looks good. There’s probably a far simpler way to implement it using CSS, font colors and sizes, but I chose to go the old-fashioned route and used transparent GIFs and html “align” tags. I may not be the most cutting edge web developer, but I get the look I’m after most of the time. It probably renders as complete nonsense in anything other than IE, who knows.

And I’ll leave you with that. Goodnight.