Ponderings and Musings

Testing photo uploads. Cooking on a block of salt. 

I was in the local Subway picking up a sandwich for lunch because I’m a lazy person, especially on Friday. There was a woman with a two-ish year old toddler either running around smashing bags of chips or attached to her hip because he didn’t want to smash potato chips anymore. He wanted a bag of Doritos with his lunch but the mother told him he was going to have a cookie, because it was obvious to everyone that the child definitely needed more sugar, especially in the dose of a huge cookie from Subway.

The woman paid and started getting settled at her table when she bleated out, from one side of the restaurant to the other, “Where do I find the milk?” She yelled this on a couple of occasions because the cashier, working behind the counter and getting customers through the line in an expedient fashion, didn’t realize that the question was posed for him. Eventually her question was heard and she was directed to the cooler in another corner of the restaurant where it was easy to see a wide selection of milk, bottled soft drinks and the like. She didn’t say thank you.

She ordered a large cup and was making her way to the self-service fountain when I was up there putting ice in my cup for a refreshing glass of iced tea.  I backed away because the chip smasher followed her up there and I didn’t want to spill or drop my meal before getting the heck out of that restaurant.  She stopped in front of the napkins and straws and took two pills while her child pulled at her pants.

“Mommy is taking two Ibuprophen”, she said to the toddler. Apparently he knows what Iburprophen is, or at the very least there’s a lot of pain relievers used in his household.

“You’re driving me insane and a pain in the ass, but I love you.”

This kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I get that even the best behaved kids can be holy terrors at times, and while this toddler was irritating me, I didn’t find his behavior to be too far out of bounds for a young lad his age. Yes, he needed some discipline but that comes with the territory of being a parent. And while I have never. been a parent, I can say that I’m pretty sure I would never call a young child “a pain in the ass” to his face. Maybe at the end of the day when I’m hiding in my bedroom after bedtime or something, but not directly to the kid in a crowded restaurant. Especially with a bullhorn voice like she had.

When my sister and I were kids, around this time of year we would occasionally be bratty to my Mom and she’d say, “I don’t like you right now but I’ll always love you.”

It’s no wonder that passive-aggressive behavior is a particular pet peeve of mine. Or maybe I’m just the sensitive sort that needs to rail it in a notch.

My point of this musing is that no one knows what a youngster or toddler is going to remember as they make their way through life. At nearly 48 years old I can easily remember events from before I was two years old. Some things stick. Words help mold the individual.

We should choose our words wisely. Even in the most stressful of times.

I spent Tuesday until tonight working in the Upstate New York city of Rochester. This was the opportunity to meet my new boss and work with some of the teammates I hadn’t seen in a while. It was a productive time and I’m excited about the new challenges that lie ahead for me on my career track. In that respect my life is good.

I checked into the hotel after work on Tuesday and had a pleasant night’s sleep in the Radisson. The hotel in downtown Rochester looked quite tired but folks seemed pleasant enough and the room had a Sleep Number bed so I figured it couldn’t be all bad. I was feeling rested when I left for work Wednesday morning.  When I returned after a team dinner Wednesday night, I discovered the key card no longer opened my door. A security guard was walking by at the time and offered to let me in. I found it odd that he didn’t ask me for any sort of identification, he just unlocked the door and in I went.

The room had not been touched by housekeeping. Several of my drawers were ajar. I went down to the lobby to get new keys since the old ones no longer worked. When I came back I entered the room and called Earl to catch him up on the day. It was then that I discovered that a couple of items were missing from my room.

My 2013 15-inch MacBook Pro (personal one) had been removed from my Army Ruck Sack.

My USB multi-device charger was no longer plugged into the nightstand lamp and all four cables were missing.

The Apple Watch case that contained my black leather watch strap was gone.

I dialed up “Find My iPhone” on my iPhone, which can also find my Mac and iPads, and the MacBook Pro was powered down. I sent a command to lock and erase as soon as it was powered up.

I reported the missing items to the front desk. I was told that when I checked in on Tuesday the clerk hadn’t done it properly and they thought the room was empty. They had charged me a “no show fee”. I told them that I spent a wonderful night on the Sleep Number bed and that the clerk had made a big deal about that bed Tuesday at check-in. Because the room showed empty, they gave the room to someone else while I was at work. Apparently that person entered the room, saw that it was occupied and went back down to the lobby to request another room.

Apparently they took a long, hard look at the stuff in my room and decided to let their fingers do the walking.

I reported the incident to security, who asked me a bunch of questions and began an investigation. I advised that we should call the police and he didn’t really seem super motivated to do so, so I did myself.  Three hours later the Rochester Police came in and I filed a report. They gave me a case number and left the lobby to go talk to security.

As of this moment my laptop has not been powered on or had already been erased. I’m not too worried about my data because I’m a bit fanatical about passwords and encryption and the like. Everything is backed up at home so I’m not worried that I lost anything.

I’m just pissed.

I received a call today from the head of security at the hotel that the laptop had still not been recovered but they had turned a claim into their insurance company. I hope to hear from them within the next day or so. I will hound them in unbelievable ways if I don’t hear from them by Monday.

When I was speaking with the police officer he indicated that they have been called to the hotel “too often” over the past several months. This did not feel encouraging, though I have to admit that the police officer was very nice, very thorough and very professional. I still have a lot of respect for the police.

So I’m without a laptop for a little while. It’s time to really get to know this iPad Pro I’ve been carrying about for the past couple of month.

I’m still pissed, though.

I’m working in an office today. Recent organizational changes at work have found me a new boss. He’s relatively close to my home office this week so I traveled to western New York to meet with him and a couple of my team mates. I still have a great gig and I am still quite content. 

When I travel to Greenville, S.C. for work I sometimes have a hard time working in a cubicle with typical office chatter in progress around me. The office here in Rochester is fairly quiet; I can hear only occasional conversation and other ambient noises that reveal the fact that I am not working my home office. However, there are is one noise that I’m finding distracting and that’s the clop-clop-clopping of flip flops. Someone in the office has been walking around with very loose fitting sandals of some sort.

When it comes to your typical corporate settings, I tend to be on the conservative type. When I worked at the radio station in the mid 1990s, I would wear shorts because it was a Fun! Radio Station Atmosphere! with plenty of Frivolity! But as I moved to a more corporate environment, I found myself sticking to the tried and true khakis and a collared shirt; usually button down but sometimes a polo shirt. Dressing this way just put me into the mood to work.

Now, when Earl and I go out to a restaurant or something in the summertime, I’ve been known to wear my sandals with my khaki pants and rest of my business casual attire. But I can’t bring myself to wear sandals or flip flops to the office, especially when they’re loud and clopping sounding.

The company does have a Friday casual attire policy that includes shorts during the summertime, but I can’t bring myself to go to an office in shorts and sandals or the like. I just wouldn’t feel like working or be in the mindset to make the sorts of decisions and the like that I do on a daily basis. Casual attire at work feels scruffy to me.

One other trend I’ve noticed a little bit is businessmen (think lawyers or stock brokers or something) in three piece suits but with an unshaven face. They don’t have a beard, they don’t have trimmed up stubble, they just didn’t shave. As an apparently conservative thinking gay man, I don’t think I would be as comfortable giving my millions to a stock broker that can’t find time to shave. If said handler of my millions wants to grow a beard, I’m sure he can do it on vacation.  If you can’t get out of my bed in time to shave before work then how do I know you’re not going to be lax about selling or buying stock on my behalf?

As I plow my way through my late 40s it’s becoming quite apparent that I’m turning to one of the older, conservative types. Now get off my lawn.

I’ve been having a little bit of writers’ block lately. Over the past couple of days I’ve sat down on several occasions to write a blog entry but I start overthinking the topic; what I have formulated in my head doesn’t seem really important enough for public consumption. It’s rare for me to worry about such a thing, but I think recent events in our world has kind of skewed my perception of my place in the world or something.

***

The Orlando shootings last month really rocked my world. I haven’t really been a gay pride gay for a number of years; there’s a certain amount of outrageousness to me that I don’t really find appealing. As I get older my Myers Briggs INFJ tendencies seem to be getting stronger; crowds just don’t do it for me anymore. But with the Orlando shooting, I have found myself a little bit bolder about speaking my mind and just being who I am. I still didn’t feel the need to attend a Pride event but I’m a happy, if somewhat atypical gay man.

***

My friend Jeff likes to use the word “Prideful” a lot. The word was not really part of my lexicon before I met him. He lives in North Carolina and it seems to be a popular word down there. The drawl is optional. We got into a discussion about prideful tendencies lately. I think he was surprised when I remarked that many of the gay men that choose to have these big, voluminous beards seem quite prideful to me. I likened the beards to peacock feathers and the men strutting around like they’re quite the pretty piece as they make their way through a crowd. I made these comments from experience; when I had the larger beard (in ginger no less), I know that I was quite peacocky about it. Now I’m not saying that I set the tempo when it comes to beards and peacocks, but I know a prideful strut when I see it and there’s too much of that in the world. What many of these men need (and please let me be clear that I’m not speaking about ALL the men with huge beards) is a shave and a good dose of humility.

***

My love-hate relationship with Facebook continues. I went and followed some political comments from “friends” and sat back and wondered why I’m friends with these people in the first place. I’m so tired of reading about why the other candidate is wrong. I want to read about why their candidate is the right candidate. We need more positivity in the United States. That’s probably one of the biggest problem we have in the States right now.

Facebook has that Passive-Aggressive feature where you can remain friends with an individual but not see their posts anymore. I say screw that. Piss me off enough times and I’ll just unfriend them. I still maintain my steadfast rule that if you promote a Kardashian in any way, you’re off my list, no matter the social network, social settings or place setting at dinner, for that matter. The same rule applies to game requests on Facebook.

***

Earl and I have continued our binge watching of “Scandal”. We are currently three-quarters of the way through Season 3 and I can say, without a trace of hesitation in my voice, that this series has turned into a typical Shonda Rimes serial where there’s more Shock! Awe! and OMG You Won’t Believe This! moments than entirely possible in any sort of reality based universe. “Scandal” jumped the shark midway through Season 3. People are killing other people. Teeth are being pulled. Men are licking women’s faces. A prisoner is eating her own wrist. Blood is being thrown about. Screaming. Twists. Turns. The Shock and Awe is non stop. We are continuing through Season 3 and then going to decide if we want to continue the series. It showed such promise when we watched the first and most of the second season, but with the third season it’s just gone completely off the rails. In reality, Season 6 starts sometime this fall, we are now not so sure that we are going to try to binge our way to catch up in time for the latest season premiere.

So at the beginning of the month I mentioned my “3 for 30” challenge for the month of June. I was going to write a blog entry every day, give up Facebook for the month of June and eat natural foods instead of concocted diet stuff.

I started signing into Facebook again about 10 days into the month due to the fact that my family has a private group with a ton of great memories and I wanted to share in those. This led to using Facebook again and I revised my challenge to include just not screaming at the screen when I see something stupid in my news feed. With all the political unrest these days, I’ve seen a heck of a lot of stupidity but I have not screamed once. I’m still not comfortable with the Facebook platform, but like AOL from the 1990s, it’s becoming the hub for family communication. I find this both inevitable and disappointing.

Earl and I have been on such a rapidly moving treadmill this month that we have been eating lunch together whenever possible. I love meeting my husband (and Jamie too!) in the middle of the day to catch up, but it takes away from my typical blogging time. So, I haven’t kept up with my blog with as much regularity as I planned. Compound this with some changes at work and, well, I haven’t had time to blog. I’m going to try this one again for the month of July because I really enjoy sharing my thoughts in long form.

I’m doing well with the non-diet food stuff and am pleased with the results with my health. I’ve been drinking much more water and have shunned the energy bars, diet drinks and potions, etc. My weight has dropped a little bit and stayed there. I’m hoping that this part of the 30 day challenge sets a precedent for the foreseeable future.

Earl and I are currently sitting in a Starbucks in suburban Philadelphia on our way to my in laws for a family gathering. The people watching is awesome (green hair seems to be popular in these parts, too much chlorine in the pool?) and the weather is beautiful. The only thing missing is that I wished I was able to fly is down here today but the airplane is at an avionics shop getting all new radios and navigation equipment. I’m looking forward to it coming home soon.

Whenever I start a new programming project at work, the words of my very first computer teacher, way back in high school, stick in my head: “Never start a program with a GOTO statement.” My project, which ran on an Apple //e, was dinged five points by Mr. Kotschevar because I didn’t follow that advice. 

Whenever I’m landing an airplane, something that I can do quite well I might add, I can still hear the voice of my flight instructor and good friend, Chuck as I make my final approach: “whatever you do don’t get flat. Don’t get flat!” The way I approach a runway there’s not much of a chance that I’m going to get flat, but I still hear his words.

Words stick with us. Words make an impact. Words linger for a long time.

Every once in a while an activist in the gay community (I can never keep up with all the letters) will write an editorial stating that the gay community should reclaim the word “queer”. This thought stems from the way that some African-Americans have reclaimed the “N” word. The argument goes that by reclaiming the word queer, the power to hurt with that word dissipates and we own the label.

The truth of the matter for me is that I don’t want to be labeled.

Back in the early 1970s there was an episode of “Match Game 73” that included a question that went something like this: “Did you hear the latest about Batman and Robin? It turns out they’re _blank_”.

The contestant filled in the blank with “queer”. Nanette Fabray wrote “Fairies”. Elaine Joyce and Bobby Van wrote “Queer”. There was some decency on the panel: Charles Nelson Reilly wrote “Divine”. Richard Dawson wrote “Married”. Brett Somers feigned shock at the answers the others wrote and chimed in with “Lovers”.

The Game Show Network doesn’t show that episode anymore.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I was called “queer” when I was in high school. I have to admit that it didn’t sting as much as being called a faggot, which happened quite a bit as well. I still bristle at the word faggot. A friend jokingly said faggot to me not too long ago and I surprisingly reacted rather emotionally to the word even though he meant no harm and I knew that. 

Words linger on for a long time.

I can understand the argument for reclaiming a word and by doing so taking away the negative connotations and power associated with it. The thing is, I don’t really want to be labeled. I’m just me. When I was in college a girl named Tracy (she was from Long Island) asked if I preferred to be called gay or would I prefer homosexual. I replied that I wanted to be called “John” (this was before I was more insistent that I be called J.P.).  Yes, I am a gay man, I have a husband and I have had homosexual relations for 30 years (quit counting on your fingers, Mom). I’m happy with who I am and I’m comfortable with my sexual orientation. But I don’t want people making assumptions of me based on stereotypes that have historically been associated with words like queer or fag or gay or anything of that nature. Self-imposed expectations of being a gay man held me back for too long. The word queer held me back for too long.

As I prefer to say, if you insist on labeling me then remember this:  I’m just a guy with a husband. While being gay is part of who I am, it doesn’t even come close to describing the full view of who or what I am. I don’t need a label, I don’t want a label, I don’t find any sort of empowerment in labels and I don’t really identify with any sense of community that chooses to label themselves with a string of letters or words like queer.  

You can be as queer as you like (and it even pained me to type that sentence) but don’t expect me to get in lock step with your labeling system.

So I am seven days into my “Three in 30” challenge and I think things are going well. I’ve made one important discovery: Facebook is (unfortunately) becoming somewhat of a necessity in my life. The social network is becoming as pervasive as AOL was in the late 1990s and this frustrates me. My contributions to Facebook have been minimal, but it’s the way I stay connected to friends scattered throughout the country and the world. I had to compromise that aspect of my three in 30 challenge to minimal interaction instead of complete isolation.

Compromise is occasionally the name of the game.

Yesterday I elected to set aside all computing devices during my lunch hour. My brain needed a rest from the intensity of being a husband, a pilot, a career minded software developer and the like so I took the opportunity to drive to the local Park and Ride and just let the breeze blow through the Jeep as I watched the clouds roll by.

It was quite calming.

I used to practice a similar exercise back in the days when I commuted 55 miles one way to the office; long-time gentle readers will recall my blog entries from a shopping center parking lot where I would see a pleasant cat on a daily basis after securing an iced tea from the local Dunkin’ Donuts. I rode out blizzards, thunderstorms and beautiful days during my lunch hours parked in that parking lot and I found the practice to be calming.

Watching the clouds roll by with all electronics turned off is just what I needed. I recommend folks try unplugging once in a while just to recall what things were like before we became so technology dependent.

Back in the days of Windows 98 through Windows XP, Microsoft used to feature the “Bliss” wallpaper as a standard desktop feature. Legend has it that Bill Gates designed that wallpaper himself as it reminded him of lying in a field as a kid, watching the clouds roll by. It was bliss to him.

I firmly believe he was onto something.

While I’m out my morning bike ride I allow my mind to wander a little bit. Sometimes I reflect on a dream that I had before waking up, sometimes I think about work, a lot of the time I think about flying. But once in a while I just let my mind go into full geek mode and allow myself the freedom to think about anything that might pop into my head.

One of my favorite places to ride in the morning is along Main Street in the nearby village of Whitesboro. Whitesboro was in the national news earlier this year when the village’s citizens decided to keep the official Village Seal, depicting a settler wrestling a Native American. Some find the depiction to be outside the guide rails of political correctness because it looks like the settler is strangling the Native American. I wasn’t present at the wrestling match that inspired the seal, so I’ll refrain from comment on that.

Main Street used to be NY Route 69 before the building of what is today’s Oriskany Boulevard. The boulevard is the result of the filling in of the original Erie Canal, which passed through the village long ago. With the relocation of Route 69 onto the new roadway, Main Street was bypassed to a certain degree. New bridges were built and other roads were relocated. Today there isn’t much traffic on Main Street. Much of the retail establishments moved to the busier boulevard long ago. The homes along Main Street still have their early 20th century majestic appeal, though I believe some of them have been converted to multi-tenant dwellings.

At the west end of Main Street, just west of the village boundary, a short bit of roadway was built to connect Main Street to Oriskany Blvd. The remaining portion of Main Street was turned into a No Outlet roadway. In the picture above, I’m standing on that bit of roadway, near what remains of the small hamlet of Carey’s Corners.

I don’t know much about Carey’s Corners outside of the fact that it was prominently listed on old maps up until the late 1950s. I believe there were several buildings demolished for the building of what carries Route 291 over the adjacent railroad to the north. What is currently labeled as “Carey Road” (another dead end roadway) probably made its way onto present-day 291 (what used to be Route 12C until 1972) to take one out of Carey’s Corners to the north.

Little bits of highway history like this make me wonder what today would be like if we as a society didn’t develop such a fondness for automobiles and the building of the modern day Interstate system. Would life be as fast paced as it is today? Would many of us be living in crazy high high-rises while others still lived a rural life out in the country? Would suburbia as we know it be a thing? Shopping Malls? Big Box Retailers?

Many things changed in the mid 20th century with the drive to move out of the cities, follow the freeways and set up life in the suburbs. I really do wonder what life would be like if that mass migration hadn’t taken place. I’m sure the United States would be a markedly different place to live today.

Last night I declared to anyone within earshot that it was time for me to take the doors off the Jeep. I always look forward to this moment because it means that it’s warm in this neck of the woods, and that doesn’t happen a lot. Luckily Earl was the only person within earshot. I told him to put on his pants and a sweatshirt because we were going to drive to the thriving city with the doors off.

It was a chilly night but off we went and it was a lovely experience. I’m happy that we were smart enough to put on hoodies or something of a similar nature but it’s such an awesome experience to see the road whizz by right beneath your feet.

I’ve co-opted a spot in the garage so I don’t have to put the doors on when it rains. I’m looking forward to exploring the sunshine over the next couple of days.