Fun and Games Dept

A video.

I just tweeted about this but I thought I would elaborate here a little more. Due to the hectic work schedules, there has not been time to go to the grocery store to stock up the cupboards and the fridge, so I needed to buy my lunch today. I’m on a vegetarian kick (it’s my second day, yay!) so I opted to go to the World’s Best Subway (my description of the place which is apparently becoming outdated), which is situated in the little mall near work. I say “little mall” but that’s being generous, it’s populated with eight stores, including the movie theatre and the aforementioned Subway.

As I walked in the main entrance, I noticed two men looking at me and smiling which was kind of creepy. They were sitting on the small gathering of four tables outside of the entrance to Subway. This area is otherwise known as The Food Court. For some reason, I think it would do better in this little mall if they called it Ye Food Courte but I digress.

As I made my way towards the entrance of Subway, one of the men leaped up and started screaming and dancing. I think the screaming was suppose to be singing but it was more startling than anything as he bellowed, “Welcome to the Pyramid Mall Johnstown! Wooooooo!” I smiled politely, looked around for the Candid Camera and walked into Subway, where the tune apparently changed. “Welcome to Subway! Home of the $5 sub! Wooooooooo!” This verse required a little bit of shuffling, as the disheveled looking gentleman, whom I noticed was wearing a uniform from the local grocery store, started doing a little dance a la “Hello my baby” from the WB.

“Why thank you,” I said in my gruffest voice, which sounds like the blond guy from Brokeback Mountain (the top).

I got into line at Subway and didn’t think about the dancing man much more as the woman with the mustache in front of me pulled out a list of one or two dozen subs and started barking out her order in the wrong order, asking for the veggies first. I banged my head against the closest wall a few times and that’s when the woman down the Subway assembly line looked at me, smiled and said, “I can help you over here.” She promptly put together a veggie sub on wheat that was remarkably tasty. As I was paying and accumulating points, I couldn’t help but notice that the woman with the mustache was still barking out random vegetables when asked if she wanted her tuna subs toasted or not. She’d reply “tomato.”

As I made my way to the beverage counter to get my unsweetened iced tea, the man from the hallway burst through the doors and screamed “$5 subs only at Subway of Pyramid Mall Johnstown! Wooooooo!” He then shuffled back outside of the restaurant.

I turned to the cashier and said, in my best Brokeback Mountain (the top) voice, “that was odd.”

“Yeah, he does that all the time and it scares us but we laugh.” She then gave a nervous laugh that bounced her jaw like one of the monsters from Scooby Doo.

Sounds like a hoot.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I guess I’m a passionate person. I believe that passion is one of the primary fuels that fire up those that excel at whatever they choose to excel at. I can’t imagine going through life doing something that you’re not passionate about. How boring.

I have met and/or admired people that showed a great deal of passion in what they do for a living. They don’t just do it, they live it, and to me that’s a commendable thing. I once started a job that I was excited about but didn’t feel very passionate about. After a few weeks I knew that the job was going to work for the short term but that I could never spend the rest of my life with that company. A few years later I left the job because I didn’t believe in the product they offered to their customers. There’s no passion where you don’t believe in something.

When I interviewed with the Department of Transportation a few years ago I realized that the folks that work there had very little passion for making the roads and highways a safer place. I was more excited than a little kid when I thought of the possibility of marking roads through signs and pavement markings and lights in an effort to convey the most amount of information to a motorist in as little space and time as possible. When I discovered that I would be somewhat of a freak in the state run office (because I had a passion for what others considered just a job), I knew that I was not on the right career path. The lack of effort shows on the roads of New York today.

Aside from the obvious passion I have for my partner and our little family, I have a passion for technology. I think that’s the reason that I love Apple products so much; Apple has a passion for what they bring to the world. I feel an emotional connection to my iGadgets. I know that many would roll their eyes and say I’m nuts (I’m used to that), but I think that when the right technology is used in the right ways, one can change the world. I feel a certain (but less) amount of passion for Ubuntu Linux as well, but the rub there is that there isn’t a hardware experience that compliments the Ubuntu Linux operating system the way a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air compliments OS X Lion. “You can use any computer!” they say. I don’t want to use ‘any’ computer, I want to use ‘the’ computer. The package is not complete, and therefore, I don’t feel that emotional connection. You have to have the right combination doing the right things to make it work. You can’t force passion through marketing. Claims of “You will love this!” do little for those that have access to a passionate existence.

When I build a program or improve a process at work that simplifies what others find a chore, and their eyes light up with relief and/or gratitude, I know that my passion for what I do is not misguided. I love efficiency and I love making people more efficient. I suck at it personally, but I love what I do for others and it’s because of that passion that I occasionally rock the boat on conference calls or not worry about playing the political game and asking the obvious questions that others are afraid to mention. If you believe in something, you need to believe in it all the way and that has to be demonstrated out loud. I read about these tech companies that employ professional chefs or on-site masseurs (among many other niceties) for their employees. I think that’s awesome, because that gives employees the opportunity to embrace their passion and feel good about what they’re doing. Ultimately it’s a win-win situation. It’s like the company that puts effort into giving their employee a cubicle that feels inspiring instead of plopping them into a gray/mauve blended drab existence where there is little opportunity (due to ambient noise, outdated equipment, etc) to focus on one’s passion. It’s about the whole package. Build an environment where the truly passionate can flourish.

I feel lucky that I have been able to find things in my life that evoke an emotional response, and I feel even more lucky that I have found that passionate, emotional response in the first place. I know so many people that don’t find what truly makes them tick or even how to access those types of feelings and I wonder what that’s like.

Because feeling passionate is an awesome experience.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So yesterday around 5:30 p.m. Earl and I returned from our trip-that-never-happened to Virginia Beach, Va. After a lovely drive from State College, Pa. to Corning, N.Y. and then up through the beautiful Finger Lakes to the New York State Thruway, we were home safe and sound, all relaxed and ready to take on the challenges of this work week. It was a good feeling, and one that afforded me a good night’s sleep last night. That’s a rarity on a Sunday night for me. Quite enjoyable.

It’s been a long time since Earl and I went “on a ride”. One of our first rides of this sort was 14 hours non-stop in my old ’94 Hyundai Excel. I think that was the acid test to see if Earl could handle my idea of a road trip, and he passed with flying colors back then. These rides are kind of like those summits you read about where the CEO of some big corporation goes and hides in a cabin in the woods for a while and comes out with brilliant ideas. Earl and I talked about our finances and our retirement and where we see ourselves at various milestones that lie ahead. I would say that we reconnected, but the connection was never absent to begin with, so I guess we just continued and strengthened the connection that was already there.

I keep hearing that gay marriage isn’t appropriate because you’re not suppose to marry your best friend, you’re suppose to marry your spouse. Spouse != best friend (that’s geek speak for ‘does not equal’). I think that’s ridiculous. The couples that last are the ones that married as best friends, regardless of whether they’re a gay or straight couple.

I’m lucky that I found my best friend and that he said ‘I Do’. The road trips would get lonely without him.

** If you follow my Twitter and/or Foursquare, you probably know the route we took just as much as we do.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Last night I got 7 1/2 hours sleep. That’s not bad for the current, chaotic circadian rhythms I have going on lately. I awoke only once during the night and that was around 3:30; I was so giddy with excitement that I had actually slept from 10 p.m. straight thru to 3:30 a.m. that I jumped out of bed and did some sort of groggy lap around the bedroom and then went back to bed. I think the only reason I woke up was because I had wrapped the cord to my headphones around my neck and I was depriving myself of oxygen. After the impromptu lap around the bedroom, I promptly fell back asleep until my alarm went off at 5:30.

Good times.

Since I clocked 7 1/2 hours of sleep last night, I don’t think I should be feeling as groggy as I do today. The only thing I can deduce from this is that I am working way too much and I have too much on my plate for any one person to handle. The launch of the Big Project at work has been delayed due to circumstances beyond my control and this morning I was told of a bunch of changes that need to be made to the application I have been building. That stuff doesn’t bother me all that much because that’s how these things work in Corporate America, but it’s still one source of stress that I have on a list of things that are stressing me out, and that list is getting too long.

This weekend Earl and I are doing one of our getaway weekends so that we can enjoy a change of view, a good meal or two and some together time doing what we enjoy doing. I’m hoping that the weather will cooperate so we can enjoy ourselves a little bit.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I am sitting in the Jeep in the shopping center parking lot like I usually do at lunch time. It’s a fairly nice day for mid February and I’m doing my usual people watching as I play along on the iPad here.

On the end of the shopping center is a locally owned Italian restaurant that isn’t too bad. It’s a popular spot at lunch time, though the economy has noticeably slowed down customer traffic since I started this routine nearly two years ago.

Because the restaurant is in the shopping center, there is ample parking in the vicinity of the front door. Today I see four or five spots that are just one spot away from the end of the row closest to the door. One spot in from the end of a row means maybe six or seven extra steps to the front door.

Can someone please explain to me why a woman with the license plate BZX-4257 decided to park her car outside of all marked parking spots and instead opted to parallel park her car so that it blocked the thru-traffic lane?

I can find no logical reason for doing this. None at all. I can’t even come up with a way to imagine why she would do this. I know it’s a trivial thing and it in no way changes my life at all (other than this blog entry) but for the life of me I just can’t figure out the thought process behind this.

It’s like these people that are spotting UFOs. Now I fully believe in UFOs and I fully believe that they are visiting here and I fully believe all of that. I get that and I really hope to have positive proof of their existence someday, but on the other hand, why would beings from another planet travel trillions of miles to get here and then just float around and blink their lights. Why would they do that? “I know, I’ll invest faster-than-light travel so I can blink my red and blue lights.” I don’t get that. There must be something better than flicking a switch up and down to get the natives all worked up.

I swear I sometimes don’t know what planet I came from.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I enjoy reading blogs. Heck, I enjoy reading, period, and with the technological surge of the 21st century, there is always a blog right at my fingertips worth reading. I enjoy all sorts of blogs; I read techy blogs, political blogs, news blogs and personal blogs. Of course, I have my own personal blog here and one of the reasons I read the personal blogs of others is because I like to see how others are living their life, which is along the same reasoning as to why I write in this blog. I like to write and I like to share about life, so it makes sense to do both sides of this sort of thing.

It’s no secret that the likes of Twitter and Facebook and similar sites have taken over the personal blogosphere. It’s kind of like the way computers and email took over sitting down and writing a letter by long-hand, it’s a lot easier to belch out a witty one liner in 140 characters or less instead sitting down in front of a computer and actually composing something that involves multiple paragraphs, multiple sentences or even multiple syllables. Nevertheless, a 140 character tweet is not going to solicit the same level of emotional response as a well composed blog entry that utilizes descriptive prose, colorful phrases and the time and effort required to convey a complete thought. This is one of the reasons that I believe society now applauds mediocrity as if it was something brilliant. We expect less.

I have been slowly watching the personal blogs I follow fall by the wayside. I used to follow nearly four dozen blogs back in the middle of the ’00s. Occasionally I’ll see a blog entry from someone that hasn’t written in months and then I’ll realize that someone has hacked into their blog account and is sending out random nonsense. Occasionally non-Alphanumeric characters will be used. I don’t know why but I find a blog entry composed in Arabic characters to be whimsical looking. It’s probably because I have no idea how to read right to left or any way of knowing what the characters mean. Sometimes ignorance can be whimsical.

There are still a dozen or so personal blogs that I enjoy reading and that I have an interest in. I look forward to crossing paths with those that I haven’t met in person yet. A few years ago Earl and I went to a blogger gathering in New York; it gave us the opportunity to meet others that liked to write and more importantly, it let us experience Bear Hill in Central Park, complete with roller skating grandma. That was a cool experience. I really like connecting with others, though I can be shy about it at first. (Once I open my mouth, though, I’m hard pressed to shut up.) I have to admit that I would rather meet a regular reader of this blog in person instead of some random person that friended me on Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, I’ve been pulling back on my participation there again. It’s mostly because I’m more of a Twitter guy than a Facebook guy, but it’s also because of that SchoolFeed thingee. I’m suddenly getting notes from people that I don’t know that I didn’t go to school with. Some woman in Idaho sent me a box of chocolates through this SchoolFeed thing. This was disappointing because: a. I have never been in Idaho, b. the woman was in her 70s and c. there was no real box of chocolates, only the virtual kind. I don’t enjoy virtual chocolate. It’s like the way I like my men; I want to be able to lick them in person, I don’t want to have to settle for a lick of the screen and visualize something.

That’s just weird.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I just took a 15 minute nap in the Jeep during my lunch hour. I used the Pzizz “Energizer” app to do so; it’s an app designed to guide you through a quick, restful nap in the middle of your workday. It uses soothing noises, gentle voices and binaural beats to bring you to a restful, relaxing place quickly. It’s kind of like meditation with a technological twist.

I use the Pzizz “Sleep” app at night when I’m having a hard time sleeping naturally. This is the first time I’ve used the Pzizz Energizer app for an entire cycle; I usually don’t allow myself enough time to use it because I don’t slow down enough to have the 15 minutes or so to just relax. Other than the fact that one transition in the audio startled me and made me jump (and the Jeep jump as well, because I jumped so hard), I can say that I feel great, I don’t have a “nap headache” and I’m ready to tackle the rest of my workday.

I might have to incorporate this into my routine on a more regular basis.

For more information on Pzizz, visit their website here. Highly recommended.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Last night, upon my arrival at home, I carried on the time tested tradition of asking my husband what was going on with supper. I think I inherited this trait, but I like to know what’s going on with the evening meal within a few moments of arriving home from a day in the rat race. Call me old-fashioned but I want to smell something, taste something or be told something about the supper plans so that we’re not trying to make decisions that drag out to all hours of the night and I end up gnawing on the kitchen table trying in an effort to coax a few calories out of the woodgrain.

It’s not like I’m lacking calories, mind you, it’s just that I like to have that ‘security blanket’ feeling of knowing where and when my next meal will be. I learned early in my childhood not to question the “what” of supper.

Earlier this week Earl tried making a new dish that involved potatoes and ham. I knew this and was pleased to encounter the aroma of promise when I walked into the door. 45 minutes later I was informed that the dish was not going as well as planned and I was given two choices: pizza or Chinese.

I opted for Chinese and was subsequently punished for the next 48 hours. As God as my witness, for the approximately 642nd time in my life I am swearing off Chinese food.

We finally had the ham and potato dish the following night and it was delicious. I guess 24 hours in the oven can do that to even the most experimental of cooking endeavours.

Last night, I arrived home after being gone for an overnight and Earl did the same. There were no tempting aromas when I walked in so I was not surprised when Earl suggested that we go out. I was a little surprised by his suggestion of Ponderosa, a local chain restaurant that was recently reopened after being boarded up for five years.

The Ponderosa experience at this location was just as I remembered it from the last decade; placing the order at the register was clusterfuck at best. The buffet was a madhouse of people licking spoons, crusty plates and arguments over who got the last piece of blue jello, but overall it was sustenance and for that we are thankful. The chicken I ordered must have done quite well to have survived the boarded up period of this particular location and for that I must say “wow”.

I’m using this blog entry as a reminder that this is the 1st time in my life that I am swearing off Ponderosa. More importantly, I am hopeful that I will be greeted with the pleasant aromas of something delicious tonight. Or at the very least, news of something that doesn’t involve a buffet.