January 2009

Perspective.

As I browse around the internet this weekend I can’t help but stumble across various news feeds, commentaries and the like on Tuesday’s inauguration. Many are describing the ceremony for the swearing in of President Obama as “the greatest inauguration in history.” Whilst I have no doubt that we have elected a truly great man to be the next president of the United States, and perhaps one of the finest men to hold the office in our 233 year history, I somewhat cringe at the description of this being the “greatest” inauguration in our history. I think it belittles some truly great ceremonies in our past.

I mean, no matter what ceremony was employed with the swearing in of George Washington as our first president, and admittedly ignorance prevents me from discussing the mechanics of his inauguration, the fact that President Washington was being sworn in as the leader of a brand new country that was unlike any other at that time is pretty great. Perhaps some may have called that the greatest inauguration ever. President George Washington was leading this whole new democratic system as a shake-down, a maiden voyage, a trial run. That in itself is pretty amazing if you think about it and he even did it without CNN, MSNBC and other 24/7 media outlets discussing every topic from what he would say at the event, what powder he used in wig, who would be present from both sides of the “aisle” and whether or not the wood in his dentures was bamboo or oak. No matter how you look at it, it was a pretty amazing day in April 1789 in New York.

I have to think that the while the swearing in of President Obama is truly historic and certainly a great moment in the history of our country, and please don’t misunderstand me to think that I am discounting the event in any way, it somewhat diminishes the accomplishments and the leaders along the way that got us here and got him there, by saying that this is the “greatest inauguration” in the history of the United States.

Tuesday will be a fine moment in our history and for the first time in a long while I am excited about what lies ahead for the United States. I am excited about this great moment in our history.

Change.

I found this on another blog and couldn’t help but agree with it completely. I find this to be an accurate depiction of how society has changed over the past 50 years. I shudder to think what it’ll be like in the year 2057.

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SCHOOL — 1957 vs. 2007
Scenario:
Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 – Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 – School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario:
Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 – Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 – Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario:
Jeffrey won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 – Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 – Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 – Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 – Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 – Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario:
Pedro fails high school English.
1957 – Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2007 – Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro ends up a drop out because he cannot speak English.

Scenario:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 – Ants die.
2007- BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 – In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 -Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

Priorities.

On Earl’s way back from Buffalo yesterday he made an important stop in Canandaigua. And then all was right with my world.

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Don’t Laugh.

It’s a bachelor weekend for me here at The Manor. I have been fairly busy with my on-call duties this weekend and Earl is in Buffalo visiting our friend Jamie and partying at Buffalo Bear night. He is expected home later today. He’ll probably stop at Tom Wahl’s on the way home. I hope he brings me something tasty as well.

When I’m in bachelor mode the house instantly becomes a wreck, I keep weird hours and become a ponderous geek; I spend hours reflecting on my past, searching for my better self and chatting on the internet, occasionally all at once. I normally feel the better for it afterwards.

They say that time heals all wounds. I look back at my first 40 1/2 years and I say that for the most part that’s true, and while I am generally a happy person there are a couple of things that stick out in my past that would be insignificant to most but still had a relatively strong impact on the person that I am today. One such incident was when I was in elementary school. I was in first grade and it was spring time. Miss Kania had brought a note from the principal’s office; I needed to ride bus 49 home instead of bus 43 because Mom was at another house in town and she wanted us brought there instead. Who’s house it was escapes me now but she lived about a mile from our own house; her house was situated on the corner behind the mechanic’s garage.

Three buses passed our house daily (43, 45 and 49 – it’s frightening that I remember that) because we lived on the main road between the village and our little hamlet (the “town”). Once they got into town they went different directions.

I remember getting on bus 49 with my cousin once removed who also held a similar bus pass. The driver was Emma, a stern woman who didn’t put up with anything. She wasn’t like Carol, who talked like a truck driver and looked like a man, but Emma could scare the biggest of the seniors when she needed to. There was a lot of spunk in her 5′ 2″ frame.

Since I was a “guest” on bus 49, I chatted with those that I usually only saw in the lunch room daily and as we passed our mobile home, I pointed to it and said that’s where I lived. Apparently Emma saw and heard this and made a mental note. To return to school, bus 49 had to pass by our trailer again as part of the route back to the village.

When we reached the house on the corner in town that I was suppose to get off at I did as I was trained. I stood up and went to the white line at the front of the aisle. You had to stay behind the white line until the bus came to a complete stop. Only when the bus was stopped and the door was opened by the driver could you cross that line. Since the house was on the corner, the bus stopped at the stop sign. I started making motions toward the door, assuming Emma would open it. Instead she yelled at me for standing up before it was my turn and told me to get back into my seat. She yelled really loud, as she apparently assumed I was stupid and had gotten on bus 49 instead of 43 and didn’t know where I lived. I turned beet red and slinked back to my seat, very confused and utterly humiliated by the situation. The others on the bus laughed at me. They were pointing and laughing a lot. My cousin sat down next to me. Since I was the oldest and the boy, I was suppose to take charge.

Emma made her way back up County Route 2 and stopped at our house. No one was home; my mother was back at the house on the corner. I sat there when the bus stopped. Emma opened the door. The lights flashed. I could smell the hay being cut in the field across the street.

“Aren’t you getting off?”, Emma yelled through the mirror. Bus drivers never turned around, they always glared at you through that big mirror over the windshield.

“No!”, I yelled back. “No one is home!”. I could see the empty trailer; electric fence separating the yard from the pasture on two sides, a row of trees and a vacant dog house separated our lawn from my grandparents’. The cows and horses were grazing. But there were no cars in the driveway. The front door wasn’t open, something my mother would do on a beautiful spring day.

The few kids left on the bus laughed and pointed at me. I was going to be the laughing stock of the cafeteria for the rest of my life and I was defying Emma. That was never good. I was a guest on the bus and I was breaking some unspoken bus 49-only code.

“What are you talking about?”, another bark through the mirror.

“I was suppose to get off back there!”

They were still laughing and pointing.

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Emma was angry. She had to back bus 49 into our driveway and turn it back towards town. That would make the other kids on the bus late getting home. They were going to miss “Tom and Jerry” and it was all my fault.

God how I wished I was back on bus 43 with the bus driver (curiously) nicknamed “Bun”. Bun knew where I lived. Bus 43 had friendly faces. They didn’t laugh and point at me on bus 43.

Emma finally got us where we needed to be. She never apologised to me and I bolted off that bus faster than I had ever gotten off of bus 43. Bun always said “have a good night”. Emma just sighed. She was still angry. I was so humiliated. I couldn’t cry though. Crying was for sissies and though even in first grade I was a little confused on the subject, I was not a sissy. But I teared up. I was humiliated.

As predicted there was some mention of the incident by my classmates the next day at school. It was then that I started counting the days since the incident through the rest of the school year. They’d forget about it with the passage of time. They didn’t talk about it after the next big scandal, probably someone dropping their tray in the cafeteria or something. But I counted each from the day I rode bus 49 to the last day of the school year.

But I never rode bus 49 again. And I never forgot the incident and I went out of my way to make sure I was never laughed at or humiliated again. Though obviously not successful in that venture, the ride on bus 49 definitely has had a strong impact on the rest of my life.

Lulu.

As I sit in the midst of an on-call weekend, I find myself looking up old songs I used to play as a DJ.

From 1994, here’s Lulu with “Independence”. Yes, it’s the same Lulu from the 60s with “To Sir With Love”. A couple notes about this song: on an episode of Absolutely Fabulous Edina refers to this song whilst talking to Lulu, who is the only client of her PR firm. Eddy sings the little “independence” back up vocal while she’s trying to schmooz Lulu. I also really like this track because of the real sounding instrumentation, it’s actually melodic and sounds like it could be played live with real instruments. The piano instrumentation is beautiful. I also like the lack of over-processing on the vocals.

And I’m certainly enthralled with the half-naked men rolling around in cages.

On Hold.

And on call week continues. It is currently 1:28 a.m. as I type this, I have been on hold with Verizon since 12:55 a.m. I will probably be on hold for another 30 minutes before someone picks up the phone. At least I’m getting paid for sitting here on hold.

I’d rather be asleep.

One of the worst aspects of this round of on call is that Verizon has decided to replace their suicide inducing selection of instrumental ditties on their hold music with some of the worst selection of vocal tracks that I have ever heard. They are all down tempo, intense, sad songs that make Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” sound like a snappy disco track. To keep it interesting, they have included a bunch of Christian rock ballads as well.

I miss the days when people would have fun songs for their hold music. The peppy sounds of big band intermingled with lovely messages such as “Thank you for calling Medical Billing. Press 1 to speak with a representative. Press 2 to hear ‘Happy Days Are Hear Again’. Press 3 to declare yourself clinically insane” are long gone in a sea of, pick one: 1. depressing music or 2. marketing messages cranked up to such an insane volume level that it makes Billy Mays sound like he’s whispering in church.

I just got off the phone with Norma, a Verizon representative that sounds like she just swallowed a Peterbuilt. She barked the trouble ticket status at me and wanted to know if I wanted them to fix it. I miss the days when Lily Tomlin said “We’re the phone company, we don’t have to care!” At least she didn’t bark, she snorted. Nevertheless I let Norma know that the music on hold was just terrible and she said she’s never had the opportunity to listen but I was the third person to comment on it tonight.

I’d finish this entry off with some snappy closing but instead I’m just going back to bed.

Shhhh.

Earl is lying in bed next time. He gets up earlier than me so therefore he tends to fall asleep faster than I do. I’m on call, which makes me tend to lie in bed and sort of just wait for my pager to go off so I’m quite tired from last night but I also need to fall asleep. I probably will soon.

We are almost a week into the New Year and I must say that I am feeling very good about 2009 thus far. I have been working on my goals that I set for myself this year – I’ve been sticking to my healthy eating plan, I am going to be seeing an acupuncturist soon and I’m staying within my budget; we haven’t had a money discussion yet this year. That’s always a good sign. I’m good at spending money. This year I hope to add some wisdom to the talent.

I’m trying to type quietly here in bed so as not to disturb Earl. It’s not an easy thing to do, I type quickly but I learned on a typewriter, so my touch is a little intense.

I watched the live updates from Macworld this afternoon like most Mac users and I have to say that initially I was a little disappointed in what was presented today; I’m not in the market for a new MacBook Pro but I’m kind of excited about the enhancements to iLife. I was really hoping for a new incarnation of the Mac Mini, but I’m guessing that might be down the line a little bit. Then after watching the video of the keynote speech I decided that I liked what Apple presented today. I never really expect them to take my breath away, they just make really cool technology. That’s all it is.

Tonight has been about just hanging around the house and doing on-call stuff. I like just hanging around sometimes.

Life.

I found this picture Earl took a little over a week ago when we were visiting my sister and her husband outside of Toronto. They have since headed back to Europe. Last I knew they were relocating to Helsinki. It’s dark there.

This is my nephew sitting on his uncle’s lap and looking elsewhere. Someday I’m going to show him this photo and tell him about all the places he has been and what his first holiday was like.

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Now that the holiday season has officially passed and things are getting back to the routine, I can honestly say that Earl and I celebrated the holidays exactly the way we wanted to, and it was all good.

Ear Bug.

So I have a song stuck in my head tonight. I learned how to play the marimba part in college.

Patience.

One of my goals for 2009 is to be a little more patient with customers that are experiencing computer problems, especially when they think the broke the internet or the cat peed on their keyboard. (Both true support calls I have dealt with in the past six months, by the way).

My patience was tested today a little bit and my conversation with a customer caught my supervisor’s attention a few times when I used phrases such as “I don’t know what you mean by that” and “I’m sorry, but error messages usually give a little more detail than ‘the mail didn’t go'”. She called herself jeckel, she was apparently trying to download television shows over a dial-up connection and she wass wondering why her computer was so slow. After explaining to her that she couldn’t download video over her dial-up connection she decided that instead her e-mail was clogged. I assured her that there were no tubes involved with e-mail and Draino wasn’t going to help the situation. Everyone loves a funny tech! Turns out she was trying to send a video to her friend via e-mail and it wouldn’t send (because said file was huge and it would have taken her at least 24 hours to send it.) After walking her through various steps (“click start, yes that’s the green button down in the corner that says start”) I asked her to reconnect to the internet but only if she was on her cell phone as the call would get disconnected otherwise:

“Does that mean I need to go deep?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that…”

[MUTE]

“… and I don’t think I want to know.”

“OH! I click th…. [and insert dead phone here]”

Thank God. She never called back. I hope she went deep.

Here’s a picture of Mean Daddy Tech:
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