Category: self

Introspective thought on my own behavior or actions.

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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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i got blood on my shirt

Screeeech!
Yeah, so I missed a day… I’ve got a serious case of writer’s block going on. Lately when I sit down in front of this page I just can’t seem to get an idea that I feel is worth spending time on. I’ve thought of this and that, and even started a couple paragraphs… but I ultimately give up when I run out of steam. Let’s try and remedy that…

This morning, standing before the mirror preparing myself for work, my growing baldness really struck me. It used to be I could see my thinning crown only when someone showed me a picture they’d taken of me with me head down. Now though, the thinness is spreading, creeping forward like two long fingers, one on the right and one the left. It’s like they’re slowly marching toward my forehead, where, ironically, the hair that was once there seems to be retreating as if to meet it. Now, some people may read this wrong – like it’s something I’m upset about. Not really though, going bald isn’t really a “thing” for me… I don’t really care. It’s just kinda surprising each time you notice you’re not as young as you used to be. I’m not drinking Ensure or holding the handrail for fear of a broken hip yet, but that’s only like fatherhood + one year, right? Ugh.

Changing subjects drastically…

I think I’m only ever truly comfortable with something when I’m so familiar with it I can do it without thinking. Anything less than that, and I’ve got some level of anxiety about it… some notion of “I’m gonna eff this up.” I really do have a problem with anxiety, or impatience… or maybe some kinda of anxious impatience or impatient anxiety. I get so torqued up over the littlest things, and half the time when I realize what’s got me so tense I get mad for letting something so small trouble me. So, once I’ve mastered something and am 100% confident in doing it – I’m truly comfortable with it. That’s the way I am with about 70% of my job now at work. I guess, realistically, 70% is probably good – since you should always be learning if you want to move up and make more cheddar eventually; so the 30% unknown is the still-learning stuff for your “betterment.” Wait, I’ve lost track of my thoughts here and am careening into a ramble… forgive me.

I cannot write, something is wrong. Goodnight.

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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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brotherly love

Bridges yet to span.
Dangit. In a shortcut attempt to go back and add a bunch of entries into the “Halloween” category – I wrote a small SQL statement to update the category value for all entries containing Halloween-related keywords. Too bad I didn’t bother to understand how the post-to-category mapping works, and I ended up making all Halloween-keyword-havin’ entries belong to only the Halloween category, erasing any other categorizations they used to have. Owell, add it too my to-fix list.

Anyway, in that vein. Sunday Erik came over and we worked a little on the Halloween props. Since last years witch project ended up being a static prop, I wanted to choose a better location for her this year. The peak of the roof in front was my 1st choice, but I needed a way to hang her a few feet out from the roof so she’d have room to hang freely. Erik came up with a pretty simple solution that incorporated a decorative thingy on the front of my house, and we were both really pleased with the results. You’ll have to imagine her broom and some colored spotlights on her, but here you go:

 

When I was in Taiwan a couple weeks ago, I was preparing to leave on my last morning in town. It was 6am, and I was hastily bundling items into my suitcase, scouring the floor for stragglers. Before I got on the interminably long flight, I wanted to sync-up my work mail so I could do some offline replying/housecleaning. Staring at the mails piling into my inbox, one from my Mom caught my eye. “Frank,” read the title. I double-clicked it up.

I haven’t written about this before now because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say about it, not because it didn’t matter to me. I wanted to make that clear up-front.

The missive went about explaining that my lil’ bro was in the ICU at the local hospital. He’d been “jumped” by some gentlemen the evening prior outside a bar, and was beaten unconscious. He had swelling between his skull and brain, thus the residency in ICU – but all expectations were for the swelling to go down and his condition to stabilize. I read the rest, and decided to call my pops just before I walked out the hotel door to find out the latest. Frank was out of ICU, but fairly well doped up to relieve pain. He’d certainly got a thrashing: a bad concussion, likely broken nose, two black eyes, and a Frank-head shaped dent in the steel frame of the car into which is head was repeatedly banged. He would be laid up for a few days at least, and likely would not have any permanent aftereffects. Well, good, I thought… at least he was alive. But man, what the heck?

So you want the rest of the gory details here, but there aren’t any. He got out, he got better, he’s OK now. But guys, the reason I’m writing this is not to tell you the story of my brother getting his ass kicked (as compelling a story as that may be). The reason I’m writing this is to examine my reaction to my brother getting his ass kicked. And, if I write this the way I want to, I may risk sounding callous, aloof, over-cool, whatever… but I’m just gonna run with it, OK? OK.

My immediate reaction was a bit of a surprise to me; it was almost just like reading about the story as if it hadn’t happened to lil’ bro. I wasn’t scared, sad, shocked, upset; I wasn’t much of anything. My first reaction was to call my parents to check on his current condition. Upon hearing he was doing better, my mom suggested I call him at his bedside – a thought that didn’t appeal to me much at all. I dunno, maybe I won’t sound callous because I can’t really explain it. It’s odd, like, I somehow knew it wasn’t that big of a deal. And, I don’t mean to trivialize it, I just mean… I wasn’t as surprised, looking back, as I’d think I’d have been. If I get brutally honest with myself, I think I know the reason that I wasn’t so surprised. Lean in, I’ll tell you if you don’t think I’m an animal for saying it: I wasn’t surprised because, somewhere deep in me, I half-expect stuff like this to happen to my brother. Bad shit happening to Frank just doesn’t shock me anymore.

No! Wait! I don’t mean it like that. I mean, I feel like my brother has been dealt an undeservedly large hand of bad luck in his life – not that I “expect” this kinda thing because of him or something about him. Also, you have to realize that I tend to have a very hard-to-elicit “shocked senseless” reaction. I wrote about it once, how bombshell news tends to phase me… my almost too-laissez-faire attitude toward ground-shaking happenings. I think my somewhat ho-hum reaction to Frank’s incident is a product of these two aspects of me working together.

I still feel like I need to expand here, because I’ve done my brother a disservice – which is mostly because I do pretty poor at putting down complex feelings in paragraph form. Hey, it’s hard, try it. Bitch. Anyway, like I was saying (poorly), I just feel that, compared to me, my brother has had his fair share of crap. For some reason, I got handed this extremely dumb-luck driven bloom into adulthood, while his has seemingly been one stormy sea after another. Maybe this is unfair; perhaps, perceived from his point-of-view, he’s simply had an enjoyable and hard-won road to grown-upness, much as I perceive my own trip. Maybe it only seems rocky to me, looking in from the outside where I truly have no idea what’s going on. I guess I can’t be sure. But I do know that, wrong or not, it sure seems to me like, compared to my brother, golden apple after golden apple has been presented to me on silver platters, or simply dropped into my lap.

I hate that I feel this way; hate that I feel like I’ve had such an easier go at it than Frank has. But, that’s how I feel. It brings guilt. It’s hard-to-explain guilt though, because I feel bad for feeling guilty – if that makes sense. Who am I, so richly blessed, that I have can afford the luxury of feeling bad for my poor little brother? It’s like the first class passenger who looks down his nose at the poor steerage shuffling past into the Super Saver seats… taking mock pity on the lot that life has given them. What right do I have to even feel guilty, have things been that super-duper for me? It’s bullshit. Frank and I are just the same, he’s dealt with what I’ve dealt with, I’ve dealt with what he’s dealt with. Right? Anyway, all of this becomes immediately unimportant the second I sit down with him and have a couple beers.

OK, enough of that.

Sharaun bought some stretch-top pants at the maternity store on Friday (yeah, her belly pretty much dictates a wardrobe change at this point), and when she got home and took them out of the bag, the store had stuffed all sorts of associated-marketing goodies in. There was some boob-lotion, some Strong Mom vitamin drink, and this little green and white piece of paper. On this little green and white piece of paper were some words, so I decided to read them. The words on the little green and white piece of paper were telling me about this Mastercard I could get. Nothing new there, with the amount of credit card offers we get in the mail – I could apply for three or four new cards every day. But the green and white paper-pitched Mastercard was different from those other Mastercards. The green and white paper Mastercard earned money with every purchase you made – money that went into a fund; money that went into a fund for your child’s eventual college education. I stared at the paper for quite a while, y’all.

College? Hey, Lil’ Chino? Listen up. I think you still have a vestigial tail at this point and Mastercard wants me to think about saving to send you to college? I don’t even own my diploma yet, and Mastercard wants me to start saving for yours. Hey, Mastercard? Listen up. Why you gotta scare a brother like that? That’s just not cool man, totally uncalled for. College?

G’night friends and family.

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pulling up grass

Koff.
Today I got all developer and GIMP’d up a favorite/bookmark icon for the blog. If all works well, instead of the plain Firefox or IE page icon in your bookmarks, you should now see a little green thing that matches the page’s banner scheme. Ahh… so much work for something so few people care about.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me folks. I’m feeling supremely frustrated, or burdened, or something. I’ve got this strange sense of desperation, invoking my fight or flight response – which for me is nearly 100% flight – which leaves me with an overwhelming desire to run away, to drop out. I get like this sometimes, I don’t know what it is. I just get to feeling like I need to take off, mostly from work. Just take a vacation and get away… completely disconnect from everything that’s running around in my head. It’s times like these that I fall back on my fantasy of taking Sharaun and running away to some remote location, a desert island, perhaps, and just doing nothing – just enjoying each other. I’ve been like this since I was a kid, I guess you could call it temperamental or sensitive. In gradeschool, I used to just decide to spend an entire recess sitting alone in the far corner of the field on the playground. I would cross my legs and pull up grass and make chains from those little flowers (yeah, yeah, insert gay jokes here, it’s cool). In some ways, I did it because I knew it would draw some folks out to me… curious as to what I was doing. But, for the most part, I did it to just get away and sulk, or think, or not think, or… whatever. All my life, I’ve always loved being alone with things I enjoy. Listening to music alone, working in the yard alone, reading a book alone, being alone with Sharaun, etc. It’ll pass, but maybe I should consider some time off… just for the heck of it.

The other day in the airport, Tony and I happened to strike up a conversation with a girl who was studying to be a veterinarian. Our conversations turned to equine surgery and pet insurance and all other various nutty topics. At one point, she mentioned something about taking care of a cat with diabetes – giving it special food, insulin, taking it for regular checkups, etc. That’s when I made my mistake, as well as an enemy for life. I mentioned that, should my cat come down with kitty diabetes or feline AIDS or tore her tiny ACL – she’d be out of luck. That’s right, I like our cat – but not quite enough to spend multiple hundreds of dollars for kitty surgery. I’m sorry; you’re a cat – you’re pretty replaceable. You can get a new one of you for like $20 at the pound. When you’re born, people give you away – that should tell you something. Anyway, this girl was shocked at my callousness… that I would dare consider a cat expendable. Thankfully, our plane began boarding before she could report me to PETA. Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I even try to write…

Sitting here on the couch when I should really be doing dishes instead, they’re up there taunting me, being dirty on purpose.

Goodnight.

Posted on

on my own

Home of bottom dwellers.
The wireless connection in my hotel room is the most frustrating thing ever. What’s worse, it’s my only option. It’s off and on, dropping me all the time, and only giving me sucky connections when it feels like it. There’s one “hot” spot in the corner of the room, which I found by wandering around with my laptop out in front of me – but we’re talking a one foot square area of space about 4ft off the ground in the middle of nowhere. What the heck Hilton, you got nothing?! I tell you what, I wouldn’t recommend this ~$400/night place to anyone. Stay away folks – the hotel blows, the service is lukewarm, and the internet is non-existant. You hear me Connie? Your hotel blows, I don’t care if the legacy of your loins did offer forth Paris unto the world, you are not fogiven.

Today (Monday) was great. As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t really sure what this conference had in store for me. Turns out I was done “prepping” at around 9am this morning – and effectively had the rest of the day to do with as I pleased. As I triumphantly packed up my bag and sauntered away from the area where myself and my colleagues were located, I mentioned I was going to get some breakfast and would probably be back down to “check on things” in an hour or so. Even as I was saying the words, I knew them for a blatant lie. I had no intention whatsoever of returning to the conference floor today. I mean, why would I? I was completely setup, and I don’t have to be back until noon Tuesday. I did mention to a fellow employee (whom I’ve never met) that I might be able to offer some assistance with his “prep” later on, and left my cellphone number for him to get in touch with me. Again – knowing full well I would not be answering his calls.

Is this wrong? I don’t know. In some ways, when I do things like this, I do feel slight pangs of guilt. But for the most part, I feel liberated. I get this rebel thing in my head and just ignore phone calls. As soon as I saw the conference area this morning, I made a for-me-only decision: I was going to half-ass this thing. Sound bad? I don’t think so, here’s why: I’ve been working hard; I deserve a little break. So, I’m going to go in there with my dress pants on, stand up in front of people, and absolutely wing it.

Let me take a seemingly unrelated segue here, the reason for which will become apparent towards the end. Sharaun used to tell me to “stop!” doing embarrassing things or acting silly in places like restaurants, amusement parks, grocery stores, etc. – any public place really. My reply to her was always, “Why? We don’t know these people, it’s very likely we’ll never run into a single one of these people again in out entire lives. Who cares if they think I’m an idiot?” So, while not as extreme (I don’t quite want people thinking I’m an idiot), I’m sorta taking that position with this conference.

Anyway, having decided I wasn’t going to make any big investment in the work-bit of this trip, I decided to strike out on my own one-man tour of the city. Yeah sure, one of my new acquaintances from the conference had offered to tag along – but I declined, thinking that a solo adventure might be more interesting, and would certainly be paced more to my liking.

I did it all. I walked to Times Square (took a picture of the MTV building for my forever-teenybopper wife), then over to the Empire State Building (didn’t go up, the wait was two hours and I wanted to make sure I took in as many sights as I could). I caught the subway to Ground Zero, which, not having ever seen the two buildings while they still stood, was not quite as impactful as I’d thought it might be – although surely still a solemn attraction. Then, the guilt started getting to me. I decided maybe I should head back and return to the conference floor, where the multitudes were still milling about and setting up. I bought a return ticket on the subway, and sped back in the direction of the hotel. It was nearly 1pm as I climbed the stairs from the subway up to street-level, which meant my no-breakfast-having stomach was beginning to think about lunch. And what do you know, I emerged from the underground a mere block from the world-famous Carnegie Deli. Seeing that the line waiting to get in was relatively short, I decided to again forsake my conference brethren and instead go for a corned beef sandwich.

The first phone call came as I was waiting in line, a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t answer; they left no voicemail After my sandwich, I did decide to return to my room and change into pants, since some clouds had rolled in and the city had cooled down a bit. I was only there for 15min before I decided that, since today was really my only “free” day, I’d better take full advantage of it. I made up my mind and decided to make for Battery Park and the statue of liberty. As I took the elevator to the lobby, I found myself hoping that I didn’t bump into any of my colleagues on the way out. I walked through the lobby, and paused at the escalators that would put me back on the conference floor. “I should just run down for a few minutes,” I thought, “Make and effort, make a show of being there, maybe help someone out…” I hesitated, and then turned and strolled out towards the subway.

The second phone call came while I was walking through Battery Park, the same unrecognized number. This time, a voicemail: “Hey Dave, just wondering if you were going to make it back today, I was going to call someone to ask them some questions about setting up my stuff – but figured you may know. Anyway, give me a call at this number or stop by if you’re around. Hope to see you soon.” Ugh, guilt. The voicemail is harder to ignore than a missed call, but I managed to press ‘3’ for delete and force myself to go on with my self-indulgence. I snapped some pictures of the Statue of Liberty (again, opting out of the harbor tour in the interest of time), and got back on the subway intending to make my way towards Central Park. I got of a little early, so I could walk down Broadway and check it out, and eventually made it to the park. I bought a bottled water and one of those strawberry shortcake ice cream popsicle things I used to love so much in middle school, and started on my leisurely trek, pointed loosely towards Strawberry Fields.

I stopped to watch the crowd on Sheep Meadow, took in what looked to be some rec baseball at some fields near there, and finally found a nice bench to plunk down on in front of the Imagine memorial in the Strawberry Fields section. While I was sitting there, people-watching and enjoying some busker’s rendition of “No Reply,” my cellphone rang – the third call. This time it was a different number. I silenced it. Buzz-buzz, a voicemail. I listened, “Hey Dave, this is so-and-so what’s-her-face from the show. Boy, your ‘about one hour’ kinda turned into ‘all day,’ huh? Well, anyway, I’m calling to see if you wanted me to do anything with your stuff. If not, no need to return the call. Hope to see you tomorrow, thanks.” Great; more guilt. But you know, if I had wanted to do something with my stuff, I would’ve gone and done it or let someone know. I was done, and I was not going back. It didn’t matter though, because the sun was setting and a beautiful little girl was dancing around the Imagine memorial, picking up the fresh flowers and twirling around with them. The temperature was perfect, and I felt so relaxed and self-sufficient having ferried myself about town all day. I had about twenty blocks to walk back to the hotel, but it was worth it.

And that’s how I managed to spend a whole day shirking responsibility and still feel good about myself. Tomorrow, I’ll go down there, make up some excuse for being MIA all day, and then get down to business. I’ll do what I do, do it well, and then get out of this place on Thursday. I’m not excited, and I’m hating all the “real work” I’m missing by being here, but I’ll stick it out as always. OK, enough of that.

One thing I will say about New York, it’s extremely easy to get around. I actually expected the opposite, a huge, maze-like city of tall buildings and numbered streets. Turns out upper Manhattan, at least, is no problem. And the subway is great. I can get to pretty much anywhere for $2. One other thing I’ll say about New York, the people here make me feel sorely lacking for not having an iPod. Honestly, they must give them out with the drivers’ licenses or something. You walk down the street and every third person has those distinctive white earbuds stuck in their ears. If I lived here, I’d surely cave to the peer pressure.

Oh… and now I’m pissed. I was on the season finale of Lost (yeah, I watched a whole season in a week or so, so what?), and the dang file is cut off – ends about 20min short! What’s worse, the little download meter tells me I’m looking at more than a day of download time on this hobo wireless connection to get a complete version. Now I have to wait until I get home to watch those final 20mins. I’m mad, yes, mad.

I wrote a lot today, first time in a long time. Felt good.

Posted on

the crunch

Nose to it.
There’s not enough room on this Post-It note to write all the things I have to do. This is a problem. If there was room on my Post-It note of problems-to-be-solved, I could add it too the list. But, that’s my week this week. I’m 100% balls-out on this work though… like now, it’s 20-till-10pm and I’m still chuggin’. Sure, I took a 40min walk around the block with my wife to clear my mind (clear my staring-at-the-monitor headache, really), but other than that I’ve been working solid since 8am. It has to be done folks, this is crunch week and I just have to knuckle under if I want to have a successful month of presenting. Speaking of month, June won’t be much of one… at least not one at home. Percentage-wise, I’ll only be gone 23% of the month – but in my head it sure seems more inconvenient than that. On the upside, I’ve never been to New York City, and I think I may have been to Denver when I was a kid – but I sure don’t remember anything about it. So, the travel may be cool…

If you can’t tell, I’m slightly (and I do mean slightly, ever-so, ever-so slightly) less screwed-up about my presentation. My work-overdrive has made me feel a little more confident that I’ll be prepared and ready to go. I still have guilt for not being on the “schedule,” but when I’m this up against the wall I just don’t care. If I get done the night before, I’ll consider that “meeting the schedule,” regardless of what the real schedule was. I just want it to be over… can it just be over? It’s midnight now, and it’s not over yet… But you know, I totally get off on being able to get serious when the conditions demand it… so this is as much ego-stroking as it is burning the candle at both ends. You mean you worked until midnight, downloaded the newest tunes for perusal tomorrow, and managed to pay bills, take a walk, and do dishes tonight? Yeah I did… and I didn’t even have to take that much speed to make it happen, I’m just half-machine.

I’ve been feeling a bit pretentious at work lately, perhaps unjustifiably so. I mean, I feel like I’m working hard; really hard, in fact. And… I admit it: I feel important. However, I also see this is a risky way to feel. I don’t think I lack humility, but I’m very wary of ever getting to that point. In some cases, I think I’m a bit over-conscious of being humble. I tend to shy away from conversations where I would come off as patting myself on the back, at least – I like to think I tend to shy away from them. To give you an example, I had to take a phone call on the way to lunch today – a work-related phone call. Sitting in the backseat, ignoring a carful of my friends, and talking shop on the phone – I felt bad. I felt like I was somehow “showing off.” This is probably paranoia on my part, but my lack-of-love for self-important people makes me think like that. Problem is, taking charge and forging ahead actually requires some level of self-import. I guess what I’m worried about is crossing the seemingly thin line between self-confidence and ostentatiousness. I’m probably concerned over nothing, but it’s just something I think about sometimes.

So that’s it. Work all day, and blog about work. I’m truly one-track right now. Rock on.