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the uh-oh squad

Wow.  Four days and four entries.  Amazing.  Tons of media today.  Let’s go.

Oh before I get started, remember that health care thing I wrote about a few days ago?  If you’re old enough to remember 1993, the year the GOP put forward their own health care overhaul legislation, you might find this link interesting.  It compares the major provisions of the GOP’s 1993 bill to the recently passed “Obamacare” bill (and the Republicans’ 2010 counter to Obamacare, just for completeness).  For such a small amount of consolidated data, I found it pretty enlightening.

Work this week saw me delivering annual reviews to the troops.  Even though it’s not inherently negative in nature, the whole “performance review”  thing is a downer in general.  People always want more than you’re able to give, whether they truly deserve it or just feel like they do… and you’re never able to do as much good as you’d ultimately like to.  It’s no fun being the guy that makes people feel like crap.  Tuesday was the day for me and it was a long one.  I called a fellow manager around 4:30pm, after delivering my last review, and said simply, “I’m done.  Meet me at the bar.”

Although I’m not done… still another few to go for remote folks or those traveling or whatever.  Bringin’ me down man, bringin’ me way down.  I’ll be glad when time heals the wounds and we can get back to execution.

Speaking of getting back to execution, here we go.

The other day Keaton was in her bedroom for “quiet time” – we don’t get naps anymore but she still gets an hour to hour-and-a-half of “quiet time” in the afternoon – and she was being anything but quiet.  She was back there singing to herself.  Now while this is a violation of quiet time rules, I had to let it got for a little bit so I could sneak up to the door and surreptitiously record her with my phone.  Have yourself a listen:

[audio:109thefish.mp3]

Keaton at “quiet time”
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)

Funny thing about the radio call-phrase she mimics at the end there.  “The Fish” is a local christian radio station.  I hardly think they were playing the Black Eyed Peas or a song about being “a little drunk” at 2am and needing someone.

At work they have this new program where they offer you cash incentives to do some “health and wellness” stuff.  They’ll draw your blood and run your numbers and you fill out surveys about how often you poop and how many beers you drink each week.  Then you meet with a “health coach” and they tell you to go to the gym and eat less bacon.

Now, I know this sounds all 1984 and whatnot, and I’m sure they’re just using the data to bucket me into some “risk bracket” to determine the optimal time to let me go (i.e. before I kick the bucket per their statistical “when’s he gonna die” model).  Anyway, I didn’t come here to write about that (although I’m apparently sacrificing a full entry).  I came to write about sitting in the waiting room.

While I was sitting in the waiting room (my health coach needs a punctuality coach) I picked up a book to try and pass some time.  The book was called 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work.  Being a manager and all, I figured I might actually learn something I could apply at work.  Oh man was I wrong.  The foolishness of this book was indescribable.  If anyone, ever, anywhere did this stuff at work…  And when I got to this page, I just had to take a picture since no one would actually believe me:

If someone brought me this idea in all seriousness, I would try my hardest to fire them.  Fire.

Goodnight.

Posted on

squeezing the balloon

Hi internet.  How’re ya doin’?  Good.

This past weekend Sharaun and I decided we’d use Saturday as a “spring cleaning” day.  With the new baby on the way I suppose we are both getting a little “nesty.”  The plan goes like this: 1) clean out our 3rd bedroom, which is currently serving as Keaton’s “toy room,” 2) get a new “big girl” bedroom set for Keaton, complete with bed, dresser and some more storage in the way of bookshelves and likely a toychest or something, 3) move Keaton’s existing convertible crib/bed and changing-table/dresser into the now empty toy room.  As the toy room is currently bursting, however, we practiced the art of reduction quite liberally first before any of this musical furniture business could begin.

What’s more, there are things in the toy room that aren’t toys (at least not Keaton’s toys) which’ll need a new home.  Take for example dad’s Pac Man cabinet… or the bookshelf full of books and CDs and DVDs… all that had to go somewhere.  The plan for this was also multi-phase.  Again we began by simplifying and donating everything we could part with from the bookshelf, including the bookshelf itself, and old Wal Mart job we’d had since moving here.  After that the Pac Man machine moves into the family room, where it fits almost-like-it-was-planned tucked away into a little cubby intended for an in-wall entertainment cabinet.  Problem is there’s currently a huge old-school tube TV in there right now, so that’ll have to go.  That means dad gets to get a new slim, small HDTV which’ll get mounted above the cabinet (a nice bonus).  Alongside both the Pac Man machine and TV will go some shelves to hold the few books, DVDs and CDs we’ve deemed keepers.  The homeless tube TV and it’s cheap Wal Mart stand also go to charity.

In our modest home any “cleaning” that doesn’t involve a good deal of stuff-elimination is something like squeezing a balloon: you might reduce the size of the part you’re focused on but you’re really just moving the problem around and inflating another part.  And to you “Dave you’re gonna break down and buy a bigger house” naysayers I’m happy to say that my focus (stubbornness) on not up-sizing to accommodate a collection of things we don’t really need (not counting the new baby) remained strong even throughout the trying exercise of finding places to put more things than we have places for.  Shockingly, for the time being Sharaun shares my staying-put mentality – also in the face of the same “where are we going to put this?!” frustration.

I mean, I’ve been so successful at sticking to my guns on things like this in the past… what could go wrong?

Goodnight.

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tied together

Happy Tuesday.

I wrote nearly a week’s worth of entries this past weekend and set them all up to auto-post each successive day this week.  See, I already know this week is going to be hectic at work (and not at work) and figured this would work best.  Here’s today’s bits.

The other morning on the way to work the day’s burgeoning weather was so inviting I rolled down all the windows in the car.  It was only a few minutes before I realized I had been a bit over-zealous in my enthusiasm, as the sun hadn’t quite had a chance to warm the morning chill and it really wasn’t, after all, windows-down weather just yet.

Too stubborn to admit this even to myself, however, I continued on in goose-pimpled protest, attempting to project a face of “What?  You think it’s odd all my windows are down and it’s in the low 50s?  It’s you that has the problem, then” to the other drives eying me sideways.  And since we all know that windows-down driving only feels right when accompanied by ear-splitting grooves, I cranked the stereo and isolated myself from any sound other than what blared from the speakers.

Half way to work a bird broke from the shrubbery in the median, perhaps spooked by my deafening music but more likely just the routine approach of a vehicle.  As he climbed from his hiding place on the ground he paced me perfectly, gliding low at first and then slowly adjusting his pitch to come near level with my head alongside the window.  Here we are both traveling at something over forty miles and hour in near perfect lock-step and it was like I could just turn my and look over and say “Hey, what’s up bird?”  We were that well-matched.

It was only for a second, though, before he took a stiff turn away from the vehicle and slowed steeply to land again, presumably until the next car came along.  For some reason that brief moment of unison spoke to me.  Machine and nature, tied together on an invisible string or something.

Goodnight.

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something a little cooler

I’ve heard it said that there are three things which, in life, you should never want to see being made: 1) sausage, 2) hot dogs, and 3) laws.

I verified this yesterday by actually watching the House wrestle with this health care legislation.  Only, I watched on C-SPAN.  Minus all the commentary you get from the cable news outlets things become very procedural.  After watching the way these “adults” act, I can only imagine Mr. Robert rolling over in his grave.  Most people know that I’m one of those odd-duck, oil-and-water, socially-liberal, emerging church religious persons, so it won’t come as much of a surprise that I’m happy with the way the vote went yesterday.  And since I don’t want to mire us down here with politics, let’s move onto something a little cooler…

Lately I’ve been pretty enamored with a couple albums, my second favorite of which is a freshman effort called Gorilla Manor by Californians The Local Natives.  There is a brilliant track on the record called “Airplanes.”  Not only is it musically chill-inducing but the lyrics are poignant and relevant to what’s been going on lately for me.  The singer sings the song (I love that that’s a grammatically correct sentence intro) to his grandfather, who has passed away, and it’s basically a statement of loss and anticipation towards one day meeting again “in the sky.”  You lose the studio version’s strings in this live performance, but what you gain in rawness is more than an even trade in for passion and power.

Man, the tiny imperfections present in live-performed harmonies are always super endearing to me…  Anyway I predict at least some part of this song will be on a commercial by year’s end.  Seems to be a safe bet based on what’s gone down with standout tracks from word-of-mouth “indie” records of late (I’m looking at you Grizzly Bear).

And that’s all the writing I’ve a mind for this afternoon.  Sharaun’s got another one of  her pregnancy migraines and is laid-up in the bedroom so I’m on Keaton-entertainment duty.  Today we planted garlic, pruned the grapes down to the strongest vines, and trimmed the old growth off Pat’s hops to make room for all the new green that’s starting to show. We also spent some time hand-watering the planters because Keaton loves doing it (the drip system is cool, but nothing beats hand-watering with your girl).

Goodnight.

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fix some sprinklers before going into work

Last night Sharaun and I laid in bed until 2am, talking.

Been a while since we’ve done that, actually.  But sometimes the best time for just talking is when there’s not much else that’s doable (six months pregnant… remember?).  When the mind is tired and everything else has already been thought about or talking about or watched or read or listened to.  Being up so late and being tired and knowing I should be asleep but wanting to continue our conversation reminded me of way back when we were dating.  Sharaun would sneak the phone into her room and we’d literally talk all night.  Wasn’t all night last night or anything, but for an old man like me who has to wake up at 6:30am to fix some sprinklers before going into work… it’s close.

The weather has been so fantastic here lately.  Warm, sunny.  Things are green and budding.  The grapes Keaton and I planted are already putting out nice thick growth and we’ll be training the strongest of them to wires this weekend.  The fruit trees are all flowers and buds, aside from the orange tree which, despite showing strong growth and having a good healthy look, just doesn’t seem to want to flower.  The blueberry starts we planted only a month ago are full of leaves and the raspberry a friend gifted me from his lot seems to be taking to its new home.  Driving home from work today with the windows down I decided that I’m going to try and start biking to work again come Monday.  I’m done saying I’m going to make it an everyday thing, I never have and obviously won’t… but I’ll do it again when I can.

I think it’s time to go to bed now.  It’s dark and I seem to be done writing.  Usually those are signs.  In the end I’ll just noodle around online until Sharaun makes her move and end up following her.  She mostly leads on the “time for bed” thing.  And I’m still not writing right.

Goodnight.

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elevated

Back from Florida and things are still non-stop.

I do, however, feel the writing bug coming back.  Now just to find time.  Recently work has stepped it up a notch.  Not like those times when I write things like, “Man work was killer this week,” or “Work is kicking my butt this week,” but rather a real sustained uptick in activity.  If I wanted to I think I could make a DHS-like “threat chart” for work, something like a “bandwidth-demand” chart that’d be similarly color-coded for how much of my mental time (not necessarily just at-work hours) work commands.  Right now I’d say things have moved from “guarded” to “elevated.”  Only problem is that the time in between each threat level, moving upwards, becomes increasingly smaller.  So before I know it I’ll be dealing with “high” and then “severe.”  Not surprisingly, like the Department of Homeland Security we’ll never actually get to “low,” and the longest-lasting phase, the one you tend to get “stuck” on, is “high.”

But, since it’s already half-past midnight on Wednesday and I’m tired and need sleep, instead of trying to flex my quill and write a masterpiece I’m instead going to post a video. I took the following a couple weeks ago when Sharaun was in Florida and Keaton and I were alone for an extended weekend.  I had just gotten into the 1981 Human League record Dare (after hearing that’s what Lester Bangs was listening to when he committed suicide) and had been wearing the grooves out of the thing (virtually, of course) all weekend.  Keaton began to pick up on the lyrics and started to really dig the first track.  She even developed her own dance to the song, which is what I taped here.  Her choice of 80s glasses was all solo, I didn’t foist them on her as a prop.  Check out the moves:

Someone call Soul Train.

Goodnight.

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was the week

Man what a weekend. If the minor west-to-east jetlag wasn’t enough, I think we both experienced enough emotional drainage to fill the void.

Mimi’s service was on Saturday, but staying at the house we were busy from the moment we arrived. I was a pallbearer; a first for me but a meaningful one – a fitting final service to a woman I truly loved. The funeral itself was good, leastways as far as funerals go, and although sad at points was overall a triumphant sendoff. I like to think Mimi was watching and approved.

Sharaun got up and spoke. She recounted a story of Mimi taking a then young Tyler (Sharaun’s brother, the baby of the family) fishing on the jetty. Tyler was too squeamish to bait the hooks himself and so Mimi was a trooper and stuck the worms and crickets for him all day. As they were leaving, Tyler looked up at her and said gratefully, “Mimi, you’re the best hooker.” And all God’s children give a heart belly laugh. Good job Sharaun.

Back at the house there were wheelbarrows of food. Some women from the church came during the service and setup a spread. The family came back from the cemetary and reminisced, read the will, and over-induldged. It was nice in that there was no abrupt “end” to the thing, rather a nice drawn-out day not unlike a lazy Thanksgivig or Christmas with family.

And out of nowhere some friends offered to “lighten our spirits” by offering us free admission to Disney World today. So, although I have work to do and feel a tinge of guilt doing so, we’re on the road as I write this to get an early start on a long day of fun. We’re surprising Keaton with it. She’s a lucky girl because we also have free tickets for our planned August visit. A bonus trip.

And that friends, was the week. I’m still having a hard time writing consistently but I’m trying to shake the slump.

See ya.