J.P.

Expression.

Yesterday I was sitting at one of the handful of traffic lights in the small city I pass through on my way home from work. It’s one of the few places in the town that has a right turn lane that is legal, most people choose to come up through the parking spaces on the street for a makeshift right turn lane. They must be in a hurry.

I noticed a PT Cruiser pulled up next to me. It was a black model and was in very good condition. It had the paint job where it looks like there’s bullet holes sprayed through the door panels. In the driver’s seat was a woman; I guess her to be about 70 years old. Her bleached hair was done up in a scarf. The scarf was leopard print. I could just make out the top of the blouse she was wearing; this was matching leopard print. Her glasses were of the cat eye variety and her lips were red. Well beyond the cougar years, at least the way I understand what that phrase means, I would say she was sort of a wildly dressed thin elephant. She was quite tan.

My first thought, which was a fleeting flash of thought, was “wow, what the heck is this old bat doing?” But after a few brief moments and a second glance at her appearance, I thought, “wow, you go girl.” Many would say that her biological age suggests that she is past her prime. I think she is just extending it.

I like people that have the balls to express themselves, even if they are wildly dressed older women.

I occasionally wonder what I would be like today if I hadn’t been so hesitant and worried about what people thought of me. Would I be more apt to sing in public? Would I vocalize what I think are funny thoughts if I didn’t worry about whether they would generate a laugh? It’s been a while since I’ve truly given a damn as to what people thought of me; I might get a little worked up in the moment if someone is being particularly hateful, but I now know that anything that is said or done is fleeting and will be forgotten faster than you can say “squirrel!”.

Not to go on and on about politics, but I bet we wouldn’t have such a mess in government today if people were doing what they promised they would do when they were campaigning to be elected instead of doing what they think they should do to make people think better about them and get elected again. I think the folks in government should live life like many Americans choose to live it: live it for the moment, make that decision as if there were no consequences and do what you think is right, even if it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make someone happy.

Expressing yourself. It’s a beautiful thing. I remarked to Earl that I miss writing in this blog like I did years ago. I bought an ergonomically correct keyboard tonight so that I will be more motivated to write when I’m at home instead of saving my writing time for that moment when I’m parked in a parking lot somewhere during my lunch hour, thinking how much I would love that chocolate chunk cookie but sipping on unsweetened iced tea instead. I like expressing myself through my words as much as I like expressing myself through my actions.

Describe a picture, even if it’s hanging on a completely different wall. And then don’t worry about what the others say or think. You’ll be glad you did.

28 July 2011 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Shade.

Since the humidity has returned to the area and the sun is doing it’s best to turn the whole thing into a sticky soup type mixture, I found myself a shaded patch to hide in during my lunch hour. It is quite comfortable.

One of the things that I have noticed about this new vantage point is that it is situated directly behind the Burger King I mentioned yesterday. The drive thru here is quite busy. The McDonalds across the street has one of those newfangled dual drive thrus, where they make you think they can take two people at a time, but they really can’t. It’s just one surly person jammed into a back corner of the store who now has the responsibility of pressing a button to bark at either lane one or lane two. People think they’re moving faster. They’re not. I have noticed that quite a few folks are afraid to use the “outside” lane of the drive thru. Creatures of habit, I suppose. The nuggets still taste the same regardless of lane choice.

The seagulls are nowhere to be found today. They must have moved to the Burger King closer to their native land, having found a more habitual way to get their fill of fries.

Though there are no seagulls, there is a little purple flower sitting by itself in the brush that is providing the shade for me today. The flower is pointing downwards. Perhaps it has already done it’s duty of providing a means of pollination.

One of the life lessons I’m concentrating on lately is to separate my emotional response from my rational one. It is one of the things I admire the most of Earl and other key figures in my life. I remember so many folks screaming during a discussion in the past. I yell a lot. I’m not really worked up, I just sound it. Perhaps I should sound like I really feel.

Perhaps I should sound like I’m enjoying the shade.

Still in private beta and not opened to the masses, some tech journalists are declaring Google+ a failure because traffic is down slightly. These are the same tech journalists that were throwing tantrums and hissy fits because Google was asking corporations/businesses/”brands” to not use the service yet as they want to focus on the individual. Those that didn’t play by the rules were asked to leave. Perhaps the journalists who live on ad views and web traffic along picked up their toys and left. I suppose they’ll find another pool to be shallow in elsewhere. But I hardly think that Google+ is dead. Granted, my connections list isn’t huge over there but I’ve been having some pretty good conversations with others and I have met some people with differing viewpoints that have made start looking at very sides of a topic, including the debt-ceiling brouhaha. I’m finding myself not on Twitter nearly as much and my Facebook use down slightly (which wasn’t that stellar to begin with). I’m anxious to see where Google takes Google+. One just has to remember that they are an ad based company with really cool technology to do that first and foremost objective best. Once you keep that in mind, you can adjust your approach to the new service in the best way you see fit.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

28 July 2011 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Observations.

I am officially halfway through the work week and this makes me feel quite good. In a way it’s like wishing your life away, but there is just something that is rather satisfying about knowing that the weekend is closer to reality than it was a few days ago. We don’t have any particularly huge plans for the weekend but nevertheless it’s good to think about sleeping in and the like.

The seagulls that are usually present at the other shopping center I occasionally frequent at lunchtime have made their way to this one, further from the lake I suspect they haunt. They are loud. It seems that they are attracted to Burger King, as they like to circle the fast food restaurant at both locations. They seem to ignore McDonalds. Perhaps they don’t like apple slices in their Happy Meals. I don’t know why people go to McDonalds expecting healthy choices. When I was a kid we knew better. I still know better. I saw “Super Size Me”. It’s not a myth and it’s not like the Happy Meal apple slices are grown on a tree hanging over the drive thru speaker. You know what you’re getting when you go to McDonalds. Grow up.

A good friend from high school found the grave site of one of our high school English teachers and shared a photo of the site on Facebook. I found this kind of touching, especially since this English teacher was notoriously difficult in his ways. He was pretty good at making you feel like crap if you didn’t meet his expectations. He retired halfway through my senior year of high school. The final week of that semester he admitted to the class that he enjoyed “an older gentleman with a touch of gray around his sideburns.” His eyes were wistful when he said that. Since the class had only three students in it, not many were able to hear this. I giggle when I see others post on Facebook that he was after the girls. I didn’t need the gaydar back then (though it was working) to know better. He seemed too upstanding to make sexual advances at anyone at school, especially students. He was too lost in his literature.

I have just corrected the sentence structure in that previous paragraph three times because I guess the ghost of this teacher still scares the bejeebus out of me.

The drive thru line at Dunkin’ Donuts was about six cars deep. I don’t use the drive thru anymore, even when it’s raining. Whenever I walk inside for my unsweetened iced tea the place is empty. “No lines, no waiting” as I used to say on the PA speaker at Hills when I opened up my register. If people walked inside the store instead of barreling through the drive thru, there might be a slight reduction in carbon emissions and some extra calories might be burned. I haven’t had a chocolate chunk cookie treat at lunch time at all this month. That, along with some other modifications to my eating habits, have resulted in a five pound weight loss since my birthday. This makes me happy.

Lots of people are asking when Earl and I are getting married, now that our Facebook statuses indicate that we are engaged. I smile just thinking about it. Earl quips that he’s a bridezilla but he really isn’t. Neither am I. We are just two guys who love each other unconditionally. 60s sitcoms used to talk about typical weddings. I can’t think of any wedding that was typical. Everyone does their own thing and we’ll do the same.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

27 July 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 2

Bristled.

Alec Baldwin was answering random questions for a while this morning on Twitter. I usually don’t participate in this sort of thing because I think it’s really weird when a person says “OMG SAY MY NAME ON TWITTER SO I CAN BE GIDDY” and then the celebrity complies. There is usually a squeal from Ms. Caps Lock after this time-stopping deed has been completed. But since Mr. Baldwin is a political activist of sorts I decided to ask a completely random question.

This is not entirely out of character for me to ask and honestly, I don’t find it all that odd. As a man that is obsessed with facial hair (lord knows I love me some furry faces) I am also equally obsessed with the removal of the scruff. I believe the way a man chooses to remove his naturally growing fur speaks a lot about him as a person, especially in the United States. (I’ve never been able to test my theories in other parts of the world).

I blame my father. My father has been clean shaven for as long as I have been alive and as far as I know, every morning he went into the bathroom and used a can of shaving cream and a razor to shave. My father is one of the most upstanding, honest men I know and therefore I equate this method of grooming with guys that give a damn about themselves, the world and are generally good citizens. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but my casual, completely unscientific observations over the years since making this personal determination have fit these assumptions about 90-95% of the time. Men that choose the use electric razors fling themselves through life working at putting on a quick façade to fit the situation at hand and then move on to the next situation to be whoever they need to be there, grinding away at their chin with a miniaturized lawn mower in between appearances. I see those guys as politicians, CEOs and men that own places like “Carl Tucker’s Used Cars”.¹ By the way, back in my wild, single years, I dumped a few guys, even a very rich one, because of this theory. My hunches proved to be right.

I have been doing a lot of listening of talk radio during my commute this week, simply because I want to wrap my head around the debt ceiling crisis and listen to all sides of the story. The new Jeep has satellite radio, so I have had the opportunity to listen to channels dubbed telling names like “Left”, “Right”, “Patriot” and “Power”. The arguments on both sides of the fence are interesting. I listened to Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson speak about his thoughts and I think I agreed with him. He is a proponent of a “consumption tax” versus an “income tax”. Anything consumed/purchased/etc is taxed 23%. Buy a banana for $1.00 and it costs $1.23, with $0.23 going to the government. Flat tax across the board for all citizens regardless of economic status. Spend more, pay more. Spend nothing (damn near impossible in today’s world), pay nothing. No income tax. No grave tax. No exemptions. No loopholes. Just a consumption tax.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I would wager that Gary is a blade man. He seems sensible in his libertarian ways. New Mexico re-elected him as a governor and they don’t seem worse for the wear.

The one nitpick I have is that everyone likes to pervert the word “Armageddon” to describe everything. They’re saying that on the 2nd of August, when the debt ceiling apparently will explode, that it’ll be Armageddon for the United States. Social Security payments will stop. By the way, that’s absolutely horrible and I think that anyone that paid into Social Security should absolutely get Social Security; perhaps we should lighten our foreign aid and take care of the people here in the U.S. until we get our ducks back in a row, but I could go on about that forever. Back to the Armageddon thing – please stop using that word to describe everything. 10 inches of snow is not Snowmageddon. The 405 being closed is not Carmageddon. A lack of venti cups at Starbucks is not Cappageddon. People, calm down with the “geddons”.

Anyways, I’m betting that most politicians currently in D.C. are electric razor users — grinding away at their chins twice a day so they look good for the public. Perhaps they should take their time and groom themselves properly in the morning so they can put their best face forward all day without having to sneak into the shadows to get ready for their next appearance.

And by the way, Alec never answered my question.

¹ Bonus points to the person who picks up on the relatively obscure pop culture reference.

² None of this refers to those that choose to be scruffy in any manner. That’s a whole separate topic in my world.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

26 July 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Family.

Today is the 25th of July. That means that five months today people all over the world will be celebrating Christmas. The vast majority of them will be celebrating with family and friends in some manner.

This past weekend Earl and I made our way to a couple of family gatherings. Appropriately, we had a gathering on each side of my family. It was good to get together with my relatives. It was a nice reminder as to the good side of the world; there was much discussion about New York State’s new Marriage Equality law that went into effect yesterday. There were many questions as to when Earl and I would be taking the big step of legalizing our union. It still boggles my mind in a way that we are even talking about this. Perhaps I have been too cynical over the years.

The best thing about seeing the family over the weekend was the connecting aspect of it. If ever asked what I am thankful for, I will have a very long list to relate and one of the top five would be that I am a lucky man, for I have a family that really does love me.

I wish every family would show the warmth and acceptance that Earl and I enjoy from our families to their gay family members. Perhaps if we got beyond that little hurdle the world would be well on it’s way to becoming a much better place.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

25 July 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Pack The Floor.

I’ve posted this track before, but I stumbled across an extended mix of it on YouTube and it got me feeling thinking about the original track again. This song used to PACK the dance floor back in ’92 (before it was released to radio in the U.S. in ’93). It’s actually the song that got me into my modest music production. My version of a radio edit of this track was played nationwide.

Here’s the original ’91 radio edit of “That’s What Love Can Do” by Boy Krazy.

23 July 2011 by J.P. DJ 0

Inspiration.

Since my birthday a couple of weeks ago I have been striving to be a little bit healthier in my ways. This is a never ending battle for me; I love eating – I love the taste of food. I love the activity of eating, so it’s important for me to retrain myself to make healthier choices that are still enjoyable to me. I am continuing my cycling and my twice a day walks during my breaks at work and I have been doing my morning exercises. Every morning I hop on the scale to see if I am making any progress in this latest effort to be healthy. My reaction can vary wildly from day to day; one day it’s a smile, another day it’s a silent cheer and yet on another day I can burn a few extra calories by drop kicking yet another scale across the lawn.

I think the key to being healthier in my eating habits is by seeing results. I’m a results oriented kind of person. When it comes to our own weight and sense of feeling good, I think most of us are. The results from our healthy efforts must outweigh the satisfying taste of diving into our favorite food with wild unabandonment. Lack of results have discouraged me in the past — I once rode 105 miles on a bike ride and gained two pounds. This really discouraged me. It took me a little while to get back on the bicycle but I got past that and I made significant strides in my health after I saw the results of the second ride. It’s one of the reasons that I continue to ride today.

Jumping on the scale on a daily basis can be disheartening. Fluctuations in both directions in our weight is common; many say not to weigh yourself on a daily basis but rather on a weekly basis. I have a variation of this; I weigh myself daily to keep in mind which direction I’m going but I focus on a weekly number, taken on a Wednesday morning. My last official number indicated good progress, the unofficial number this morning showed me that I am definitely off to a good start. I needed that result this morning, which is the first time I’ve unofficially been under my first hurdle, to be my inspiration to continue.

No dropkicks today.

In the past I have resolved to eat healthy during the week and then given myself permission to relax about that on the weekends. I’m not doing that this time around. I think remaining focused and remembering how much better I feel today versus a couple of weeks ago is more important. Portion control and keeping the carbs on the low side are my main efforts. More importantly, staying somewhat active and not eating out of boredom is also key.

I have taken a good first step in the right direction. I’m looking forward to taking that second step.

23 July 2011 by J.P. Fitness. Ponderings and Musings 0

Realist.

I am in a fantastic mood today. I know it’s Friday and all of that, but this morning I decided to get up and be in a good mood. It was a conscious decision I made. I got out of bed, after a terrible night’s sleep (it was 87F in the bedroom and I was awoken half way through the night to fix an issue at work) and I said to myself, “I’m really a nice person and therefore, I will smile today.”

It was a good day to start the day.

I logged onto my new favorite online hangout¹, Google+, and found my stream populated with some drivel from some of the tech crowd that claim their famous, in particular, a bleached out, blown out blonde that tries to act like an alien. While I appreciate her love of all things cats, I found her most annoying. As I stared at the overly Photoshopped icon showing her looking wistfully into the sky, obviously looking for something better than the character she portrays herself to be, I decided that this chick wasn’t real and I really held no interest in what she had to “offer” the world.

Delete.

She hasn’t beat out Out-Q’s Romaine Patterson for my “top 10 most despised media whores” list but she’d get a bullet if Casey Kasem was doing the countdown.

As I looked through my growing Google+ friends list, I decided to wipe out several tech-media folks. I mirrored the effort on Twitter. And then again on Google Reader, where I had been reading the blogs of these folks. I don’t need someone to tell me how great something is when I stumble upon flaw after flaw in a software product (ahem, OS X Lion).

There are some people that are just lunatics in the world. I am proudly one of them. I think I’m more in the league of the eccentrics but nevertheless I like it when people embrace their quirks because it’s part of who they. The quirks are real. It’s when people come out wearing a pork chop for a shirt and a fruit salad for a skirt that it gets on my nerves. Am I judging them? Probably, but I know when I have to say to myself, “you know, that’s not my thing and there’s nothing forcing me to partake in what they have to offer.”

It’s about keeping it real. That’s why I like the folks I chat with through this blog and the folks that share their lives in this fashion through the technology we have today. They’re real people reaching out. They’re not folks painting themselves into a character for others to notice.

I’m still smiling as I keep it real today. I hope you are too.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

22 July 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Anastasia Beaverhausen.

I know I’ve been writing things with a geeky bent this week, but these are the things that have been consuming my thoughts lately. If this bothers you in any way, please let me know and I’ll come up with something not geek related; perhaps a picture of me sitting in the bathtub or something.

Google+ is becoming a bit of it’s own rage and I am right there on the bandwagon. I have been purposely avoiding becoming excited about the new social networking platform but I discover new features here and there that work well for me, especially when it comes to privacy. The kicker of this is that you have to have faith – faith that Google won’t screw up and release what was intended as a private conversation to an unintended audience member.

I am fortunate in that I discovered the benefits of connecting with others online fairly early; 1985 to be exact. I quickly learned not to write anything online that I wouldn’t want to appear on the front page of the New York Times. I remember sitting in my dorm room at SUNY Fredonia chatting with a man named Patrick at 300 baud on a service called GEnie using my Commodore 64. He was also 18 and asked where I went to school. I told him Fredonia. A week later I received a handwritten card in the mail. Through our conversation he had obtained my name and did a quick call to the local phone company, which turned up my phone number, which provided him my mailing address which included my room number at Alumni Hall because the phone numbers corresponded to the dorm room numbers.

Instead of being flattered I was freaked out.

Through this little lesson I learned what to say, where to say it and the relative ramifications of what I said when chatting online. Privacy is still a huge concern but if you live by the one simple rule you shouldn’t have much of an issue.

“Don’t type it online unless you wouldn’t mind having it on the front page of the New York Times.”

Back to Google+. One of the cool features about Google+ is that you can messages in your “stream” to intended audiences. For example, the blog entry preceding this one, a recipe for the macaroni and cheese that was served at the Harvest House restaurants in the Woolworths department store chain, was copied onto my Google stream. I marked it as ‘public’; anyone can see it. I want anyone to see it. This is kind of cool.

I had a brief conversation with a local musician on Twitter yesterday. I fully believe that Twitter is very abused with people using it for too personal communication (addressing the one instead of the crowd). The musician had compatibility concerns with some of his audio gear and Mac OS X Lion. I told him I would test my gear when I got home and notify him of the results. I didn’t have his email address, but I was able to a message directly to him in my Google+ stream. No one else was the wiser. The parts of the compatibility test that were fit for public consumption were added to my Google+ stream with a public tag.

There are times when I want to talk about beards or bears or the like and I don’t want certain people to see them. By giving me the ability to sort my connections on Google+ into ‘Circles’, I can tell the bears that I find so-so quite woofy but I don’t have to explain myself at the next family reunion or make old friends clutch their rosary beads.

This is kind of cool.

Now I still keep that “New York Times” rule in my mind regardless of the audience, but I no longer have to broadcast anything and everything to the entire world. I can direct the topics to the appropriate circle.

There has been discussion of Google+ replacing blogs altogether. Back in the day there was talk of Google Wave replacing email. I actually can see Google+ being a one-stop repository of all things communicated online. While this is very cool, it’s also VERY scary, especially when it comes to the advertising nature of Google. Again, this is where one has to have a little faith that Google will continue with the “don’t be evil” motto and live up to it.

So go ahead, don a pair of sunglasses, mix up a glass of alcoholic swill and go to your local Taco place and chow down like there’s no tomorrow and tell only your closest friends about the adventure on Google+.

Just don’t fret if you show up on the front page of the New York Times caught in the act with sour cream at the corners of your mouth.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

21 July 2011 by J.P. Geek 3

Comfort Food.

For when you’re having one of those days.

Copycat of Woolworth’s Macaroni and Cheese
Cook – 7 oz package of macaroni
Melt – 8 oz Velveeta
1 stick Margarine
½ cup milk
Add-
4 oz sharp grated cheddar cheese
Stir In –
1 can cream of celery
1 cup mayonnaise (DO NOT USE SALAD DRESSING)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook until smooth on low stirring constantly.
Combine with macaroni and spoon into lightly buttered casserole.
Bake 15 minutes @ 350. Garnish top with pimento.. Woolworth used stuffed olives.

21 July 2011 by J.P. Food. 0

J.P.

Expression.

Shade.

Observations.

Bristled.

Family.

Pack The Floor.

Inspiration.

Realist.

Anastasia Beaverhausen.

Comfort Food.

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