Ponderings and Musings

The Conversation Spin Agitation.

“The washer isn’t spinning!” Some would claim that I sounded hysterical, I but was just yelling over the sound of the washing machine endlessly tumbling our bed linens (doesn’t the song go, “I’m not talking about the linens and I don’t want to change your life”) while the display had showed 0:08 remaining for the past 35 minutes.

Our new washing machine has a bit of a feisty streak. In order to show off his full 1200 RPMs when he’s doing his spinning thing, things have to be perfectly aligned and balanced. And in this world of chaos, this last year of the Mayan calendar, apparently finding the perfect alignment and balance of two sheets, two pillow cases and a blanket is a very difficult thing to do. So instead of tweeting, beeping or sending a smoke signal (we didn’t go with the high end model of the washer), the washer just sits there tumbling at random speeds trying to shuffle the contents of the tub around until balance perfection can be achieved.

Perhaps we need to shove all of the politicians into a Speed Queen and push a button to restore balance inside the Beltway.

I digress.

Ok, perhaps I was slightly hysterical when I loudly declared (I don’t have all the options either) that the washer was stuck on 0:08 again. But the thing is, it’s my bed time. And in order for the bed sheets to be dry at a reasonable time, the washer has to fling them around at its full 1200 RPM in order for them to dry in the dryer at a reasonable speed. You see, I refuse to sleep in the cat’s discarded cat bed again. And we don’t talk about the litter box incident in our house.

After hauling the wet clothes out of the washer, rearranging them, waving some crystals in the direction of this tower of laundry apparatus and then doing a rapid hula dance as I pushed some buttons and made some encouraging whirring noises, I begged the washer to spin at high speed so Daddy could get some sleep. Because I can speak “washer”, the door locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked and then locked again before the tub spun counter clockwise, clockwise and then ramped up to 500 RPM. This showed encouragement. The counter finally dropped itself down to 0:07 and we hit medium speed 800 RPM. If there was a clutch pedal I would have popped it into sixth because it was less than a minute later that we reached high speed goodness and the washer kicked into high. We had full 1200 RPM, baby, and to prove this the dryer that is perched on top of the washer wagged a little dance back and forth and the cat shot into his litter box, flung some litter around and then went tearing down the hallway to tell the Papa Bear.

Life is good when your sheets are clean. They’re not only good, they’re hysterically good.

Speed.

So lately I have been making a conscious effort to stick to the posted speed limit. I usually attempt this while I’m driving. There are a couple of reasons for this effort, the first and foremost reason being that I am very concerned about the rising cost of fuel and I am doing everything I can to keep my commuting costs under control. Ironically, the Jeep performs better in the area of fuel efficiency when I’m on back roads instead of driving the freeways. This is backwards from what I have always been taught, but I guess that’s just the way this Jeep works. I’m fine with that; the scenery on the back roads is much better than the interstates anyways. It’s only five minutes or so extra to take the scenic route to work.

One of the features of my Jeep that I enjoy is the “eco” notification. A little display on the odometer tells me “ECO ON” when I’m driving in an economically fashion and just “ECO” when I’m not. There are no recommendations as to how to improve my driving skills to be more economically friendly, because quite frankly, I don’t believe a Jeep Wrangler is the place for a touch screen or anything that fancy but I have noticed that the I am not driving economically whenever I am driving over 71 MPH, even if I’m driving downhill.

In New York State the statewide speed limit is 55 unless otherwise posted. On the interstates and a few other freeways, the speed limit is posted at 65. Traffic rarely moves at that speed, 75 is commonplace and I am seeing more and more drivers doing 80 or more these days. Everyone is in a hurry. During my little experiment I have been driving at 66 MPH (because I’m a rebel) in the 65 zones. I try to stay a close to 55 as I can when that’s the posted speed limit, but occasionally I creep up to around 58 or so because I’m just bored.

I have increased my fuel efficiency from 18.5 MPG to 20.7 MPG using this approach. I think that’s pretty impressive. That’s around 30 extra miles on a tank of gas. That’s around $300 a year in fuel savings for me. I think the five extra minutes it takes to get to work is worth it.

I am a little surprised by the number of other folks on the Thruway that are driving around the same speed as me instead of whizzing by in the left lane without a care in the world but a thumb on the smartphone sending a text message. I don’t think distracted driving is a good idea under any circumstance and I don’t care what the distraction is: unruly kids, bossy GPS systems, phone calls, text messages, makeup application, shaving, eating, it all doesn’t matter, you should be driving and not doing other things. It just makes sense.

And it makes even more sense if you do it at a reasonable speed.

Impressive.

So last night when I was at the Apple store at the future Destiny USA, a younger woman walked up to Bryan, the Apple person that was helping me get my new iPad set up (we were basically waiting for my backup to download from iCloud, it was moving along at a wonderful pace). She was dressed in a way that suggested ‘hipster’ but not really quite there. Perhaps it was more her glasses than anything that looked hipster. She had an air of money about her. I didn’t find her unpleasant.

“Excuse me,” she said to Bryan, “may I speak with the manager, please?”

Bryan was very courteous with his reply, “Is there something I can help you with?” I don’t know if Bryan was the store manager or if the folks at the Apple store try to field these things before calling a manager, but he was quite nice about it.

“My friends and I have been standing over there for 20 minutes and no one has helped us and I’d like to let the manager know how rude the staff is here.”

Now this kind of bothered me, because I have been to many Apple stores over the years and while I have had some employees be less enthusiastic about Apple products than I am (because, I am a nut after all), I would never categorize any Apple employee that I have ever encountered as ‘rude’. Bothered or distracted? Maybe, and that’s usually because they’re handling a line of people out the door, but not once have they been ‘rude’. Not even ‘miffed’.

“I’m sorry about your experience,” Bryan replied, “did you press a specialist button on one of the iPad kiosks to indicate that you needed help?”

“What are you talking about? The folks on the floor have helped the people all around us but never talked to us.”

I would have been one of those people. I noticed this barely hipster girl (I like the male hipsters better, but that could be due to the mustache and gay thing I have going on) sitting in front of a cinema display playing on Facebook with a couple of her friends when I was looking at the iPads. Now granted, I didn’t press a specialist button until I was shown to do so but I did make a conscious effort to make eye contact with an Apple Specialist to show that I needed some assistance. I don’t know if the woman with the complaint had done the same thing because I didn’t notice.

Again Bryan apologized for her experience at the store and said, “if you’d like, I can get a specialist for you right now.” Seemed reasonable enough to me.

“Never mind, I called Best Buy and they have what I’m looking for on hold for me now, so I’m going to go there, but I just wanted to let the manager know how rude the sales staff is here.”

This kind of bothered me for the aforementioned reasons based on my experience but the thing that really bothered me is that she was really just trying to convey an air of bitchiness. She never mentioned the product that she had on hold nor did she ever say what she was trying to get an Apple Specialist to help her with. She just needed help.

“I’m sorry that you didn’t find what you were looking for and I will relay your experience to the manager. Again, I apologize that you weren’t helped in a timely fashion.” I admired Bryan’s calm approach.

“Well never mind,” and with that she bolted out of the store. A casual observation from me noted that she headed down the mall hallway in the direction opposite of Best Buy.

Bryan and I resumed the setup of my iPad. We then had a casual conversation beginning with me asking, “So, how is it to work in the mall?” He told me that he loved working for Apple but the mall … he could take it or leave it.

I get that. Bryan and I finished up my business (and I walked out with a beautiful new iPad) and I thanked him for his help and went on my way.

I mention this little scenario because it reinforces a couple of things I’ve observed over the years: 1. Folks are in way too much of a rush these days and don’t give customer service folks the respect they deserve. 2. While many customer experiences are absolutely hideous these days, there are establishments out there that focus on a premium retail experience for the customer, and while it may cost a little more than the bargain basement crap experience you can get from a big box, it is available to those who still prefer quality over quantity. 3. Most people are just rude and some folks just look for a reason to be rude.

I learned a little bit of a lesson with that scenario last night that has put me in a better mood this weekend, a little patience goes a long way and I need to remember that.

Baggs Square Café

So a few months ago I met up with our friends Shirley and Christine (whom I used to work with) at a local eatery, Baggs Square Café. They were offering a weekend brunch buffet that I found a little unique for this region. Instead of going up to the a buffet area to fill your plate up with food, you paid one price and you could eat as many items as you wanted off the menu, in whatever quantity you were in the mood for. So, for $19.95 you could order eight servings of prime rib if you wanted, which of course would be preceded by 14 servings of shrimp cocktail, a dozen bagels and to bring your meal to a satisfying finalé, a cupcake.

Of course I’m being extreme here, but they had it setup so that servers were constantly coming to your table to check on your happiness and to see if you wanted more food. It was kind of a nifty way to eat and it made for a great way to enjoy the company of your friends; you didn’t feel rushed and if you were in the mood for more, you could always order it.

Today I met up with our friend Mike (more on that in a future blog post this weekend) and I took him to the café for this fantastic brunch experience.

Except the experience was no more. Baggs Square Café was back to their standard, workday breakfast and lunch menu. You ordered at the counter and then they brought it to the table you selected. It’s not a very busy place so they didn’t bother with the likes of numbers on a tall stand or anything like that.

The food was delicious as always but when I asked why they had discontinued the brunch buffet they didn’t really fully answer the question. The counter attendant simply told me that this was the first week that it they were back to the original way of doing things but if I wanted to come back next week they were having a one-day offering of the brunch for Easter.

It’s a shame that this didn’t really catch on because I enjoyed the different eating experience on a Saturday morning. Perhaps we should have visited them more often.

Labels.

I’m not a fan of being labeled. I don’t like being perceived to act in an expected manner. I believe that labels restrict us and establish a possibly unwarranted expectation for our behavior. One of the reasons that I dropped out of the semi-finals for becoming a Big Brother contestant was because they were clearly trying to herd me into being the “gay one”. Since this was relatively early in the Big Brother history, a man by the name of Bunky had established the gay baseline for behavior on Big Brother (he cried a lot) and that didn’t really appeal to me. I don’t want people to think I’m going to be an emotional wreck just because I’m gay. I’d rather people find out why I’m an emotional wreck without figuring any labels into the equation; that’s when they’ll find that I’m more eccentric than an emotional wreck.

Over the past month or so I have stopped eating meat for the most part. I have had a meatball or a piece of pepperoni here and there but other than that, I have enjoyed a pretty much meat-free diet. I have also stopped drinking milk, instead opting for rice milk with my morning cereal. I have done this before but back then I always called myself a vegetarian. Now I didn’t go running into a steakhouse screaming “murder!” with a look of indignation on my face back when I was labeling myself a vegetarian. I wasn’t militant but when offered a piece of meat I would say, “No thank you, I’m a vegetarian.” I labeled myself. And that made me kind of militant about it not eating meat, even though I didn’t think I was being overly militant. So now, when offered a meat dish of some sort, I simply say, “No thank you.” And that’s that. If pressed for a reason, I would simply say, “it looks delicious, but I’m just not in the mood for (insert offered dish here) today. Thank you, though.” I don’t want to be known as a vegetarian. I don’t feel the need to proclaim being a vegetarian and I don’t want the label applied to my permanent file. It’s bad enough that my penicillin allergy is on that permanent file because that shows the world that I have a weakness and I don’t like that sort of thing.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with calling yourself a vegetarian and if that blows your skirt up in a pleasant way then I am all for blowing your skirt up, but it’s just not my thing. It’s kind of like “gay marriage”. I like it better when it’s called “marriage”. I have been accused of being homophobic about myself because I don’t go running through the mall screaming “I’m gay!” (the neon light of my personality does that for me anyways) but I believe we should respect one another enough to the point of respecting the labels (or lack thereof) that we choose to identify with. Do I identify as a “gay”? Of course I do, but I don’t want to be singled down to being “the gay one”. If you want to get on a really bad side of me, mention my sexual orientation when introducing me to someone. At least one person in attendance is going to be mightily embarrassed and I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that it’s not going to be me. It’s not that I’m not proud, it’s just that I have bigger things to be proud about.

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Synapse.

So today we are making huge forward motion on the next phase of The Big Project at work. As team leader for the site, I am fielding a lot of questions from users, coordinating conference calls and trying to avoid the flames and pitchforks of discontent.

Like my college days, when I get bombarded or start feeling overwhelmed I start to see the synapses in my brain start misfiring or making misconnections. I hear birds chirp to cover the awkward silence and I start seeing sparkly lights like someone pulled a live wire out of a socket. If someone was to hold a seashell up to my ear, they might hear my brain firing off a recording: “I’m sorry, that line has been disconnected.” This feeling is fleeting and lasts for only a few seconds at a time, but in these brief moments I feel like my mouth has become disconnected from my brain, which has completely lost the ability to form a reasonable thought. I don’t know if this is normal; I know that very few people that I know have ever discussed such a feeling, but there it is in my little world. I suspect that something has been wired wrong since birth and the defect only shows up under extreme load conditions, but it’s a weird feeling. I don’t like not feeling like I know what I’m doing and I don’t like not being able to convey the words or thoughts that are formulating to the question being asked simply because I can’t get the message from point A to point B in my brain and the out the shoot of my mouth into the rest of the world. And I feel like such an idiot when I feel this sort of thing.

I’m through it and back on track, albeit tired as I’ve been up since 0430. A bit of iced tea from my favorite Dunkin’ Donuts and on we go. Now if I could just keep my synapses firing on all thrusters.

Easy.

So today I am off from work because I worked over the weekend, per my once-a-quarter responsibilities of on-call at work. I have to admit that I prefer this way to enjoy a Monday instead of getting back into the weekly work routine, but I don’t know that I enjoy working over the weekend to achieve this type of Monday. Nevertheless, I will enjoy it for what it is. The next time I’m on the on-call is in mid June. I can’t complain about that!

I am currently in the northern New York village of Lowville, sitting in a Wal-mart parking lot eating a Subway sandwich. I’m taking a break from my little project of the day. I am attempting to drive what used to be NY Route 12 before it was upgraded to a more prominent road in the mid 20th century (I think some time in the early 1960s, but I’m not certain on that). There are a couple of reasons that I am doing this but the primary force behind this is that I’m just a geek, especially when it comes to roads. I’ll be writing a separate blog entry about my findings of the original Route 12 once I get my facts straight and am able to look at some satellite imagery to confirm my findings today. So far I have driven through a couple of villages (Port Leyden, Lyons Falls) that I had never been to before, even though they’re less than an hour away from our home. They’re small and what I would call “industrial quaint”.

I have always enjoyed two others villages along Route 12, the Village of Boonville in Oneida County and the Village of Lowville in Lewis County. Boonville is home of the Oneida County Fair each year and still has a quaint business area that appears to still be doing well. I have family that lives near Lowville, which is a cool little village supported by the agricultural goings-on around it. I enjoy the rural charm of this area; there’s no freeway exit leading to the village because there’s no freeway within 30 miles of this place. Lowville is home to the largest wind farm in New York State, Maple Ridge Wind Farm. That’s the wind farm that my favorite road to drive in the summer, NY Route 177, passes through. Lowville is also home to one of a half dozen men I call mustache heroes, a well liked veterinarian named Dr. Peter Ostrum. I saw his picture on television once and his mustache made an impression on me. Google his name to find out why he’s the “most famous man in Lowville”.

Tomorrow my schedule is back on track and your Tuesday is my Tuesday. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my Sunday, which is your Monday, with a nice Sunday drive.

Local.

I’m sitting on the back patio at home enjoying the abnormally warm and sunny weather today. It’s been like this since our return from Florida. It feels like we brought the good weather along for a ride when we made that trek home last weekend but I know that they enjoyed the nice weather up here while we were gone too.

I’m home today because this is my weekend to work. This change in schedule happens every 13 weeks. Once you get beyond the fact that you have to work for the weekend the gig isn’t that bad. I have been in worse situations.

When I usually get a day off during the week I take the opportunity to go on some sort of road trip. I have a couple of favorite destinations in the Empire State that I like to visit on these day long trips; the Southern Tier and the North Country are both favorite areas of the state for me, but today I decided to stay at home since we had driven so much during vacation. Plus, my commute clocks in at 1 1/4 hours in each direction, so sometimes it’s good to skip putting extra wear and tear on my Jeep and on my body. To celebrate staying home, I babied the Jeep with an oil change and tire rotation (we both purred when the work was completed) and I have been doing geek things here on the back patio.

A little black and white bird keeps flying to the shruberry closest to the table and gives me a glance. I think he or she is trying to decide whether I’m harmless or not before hopping up to the adjacent bird feeder. Scott filled the bird feeder just before leaving for his latest tour of flying and they have already made a good dent in it. It’ll be ready for filling again when he gets back next week.

Earl has been out of town on business since yesterday morning but I received a SigAlert that he will be coming home tonight. That always makes my day better.

As I sit here and enjoy the backyard, I am noticing that the trees are starting to show signs of spring. The maples are starting to show the beginnings of the Leaves of 2012 and the evergreen trees are showing new growth. I think everything may be a week or two ahead of schedule, but I don’t think it’s something to complain about. I can’t remember having such a beautiful March in recent memory. Whatever is causing it (the natural cycle of things, HAARP, Global Climate Change, whatever), it sure is making this part of the country a little more enjoyable. Let’s hope we don’t boil away this summer though.

With my on-call I am working Friday-Sunday and then I have Monday off, where I then resume a normal work week next Tuesday. I’m thinking I might stay local again next Monday and, if the weather is still cooperative, plant a couple of trees in the side yard. Earl and I have talked about planting two trees in memory of our fathers; this might be a good opportunity.

It’s amazing how much one can enjoy life when they find enjoyment in their surroundings. I should remember to do this more often instead of running around trying to find it.

Smash.

So last night Earl and I sat down to do some catching up on the DVR. Our choices in DVRed shows has wained this television season, so the “to watch” list isn’t as long as it has been before after a vacation, but there were a few things I wanted to watch so it was good to just sit down and relax.

One of the shows that I have completely lost interest in is “Private Practice”. The original reason for my interest in the show when it premiered was because Amy Brenneman was part of the ensemble cast. There’s just something very enjoyable I find in Ms. Brenneman and her presence on “Private Practice” has been a definite attraction for me, but when blood was spilled on the floor of her character’s home for a second time, I decided that the show had jumped the shark as far as I’m concerned and I haven’t watched it since. Earl kind of wants to see how the season ends up before taking it off the DVR permanently, but I guess we’ll just let the episodes sit there until we have nothing better to do until we make the final decision on that.

We did watch “The Big Bang Theory” last night and while I found it mildly amusing, the thing I instantly noticed about the show is that they had a new laugh track that sounded completely out of control. Instead of the usual chuckles (and Lucille Ball’s mother going “uh oh”) being piped in from an audience from several decades ago, this laugh tracked laughed and chortled and screamed in hysterics in such a way that could only mean several hyenas were in heat. While there were elements of the episode that I did find funny, and I think I may have laughed out loud on one occasion, the canned audience was going absolutely nuts in a cocoa-for-cuckoo-puffs way that sounded completely out of place. I found it disconcerting. In fact, I found it as equally disconcerting as Sheldon’s new “I’m covering up my thinning hair” hair style he adopted late last year. Oh, as a quick aside, I personally find Kaley Cuoco to be the driving force of the comedy of that show as Sheldon’s character has gone way down Urkel Boulevard.

The other show we watched last night was “Smash”. Now, I have a little bit of hard time wrapping my head around this show for a variety of reasons. First of all, back in the days when I found “American Idol” mildly amusing, I found Katherine McPhee to be kind of snotty. Her snottiness actually rubbed off from her mother, whom I found takes herself way too seriously. Granted, Ms. McPhee has a lot of talent and it is being wonderfully showcased on this show, but it took me a little while to get beyond the “oh there’s the snotty girl” stage when watching her character on the screen.

Another struggle that I’m having with “Smash” is Debra Messing. First of all, I enjoy Ms. Messing and I’m glad that she’s trying to break out of being typecast as a Grace Adler (from “Will and Grace”) character, but because her character is often paired with the obnoxious gay guy I find myself looking for “Grace” moments. “She made a Grace face!” “She almost spun her finger and went ‘whoa’!” “She said the same thing to Will!” The personality of her character on “Smash” is riding a fine line of being rather similar to her character “Will and Grace” but perhaps this will change with the progression of the show. I like her, I just need to stop watching for the Grace moments.

I think the blonde character on the show is named Ivy. I get that she’s suppose to be unlikeable but I think the actress plays her way too unlikeable. Maybe that’s the rub; perhaps I’m suppose to want Katherine McPhee to stomp her bleached head into the dirt, but I don’t think that I should want to put a combat boot through our HD TV. All I hear is auto tune when she sings and on the episode I watched last night I wanted her to have some sort of hideous, grotesque side effect to the steroids she was taking so that she would be gone; I find her über annoying and if others weren’t in the room I’d fast forward through her parts.

I will say that I enjoy the premise of the show and I enjoy the music because it sounds less contrived than on that I’m-going-to-lose-my-gay-card-because-I-don’t-like-it “Glee”. The singing sounds less robotic than on “Glee”. Oh, speaking of which, I did catch a few moments of the latest episode of “Glee” and I was completely lost so apparently we were watching some alternate universe of the show or character development went in eighteen different directions at a really fast pace because people were getting married, others were pregnant and a really bad green screened truck slammed into a car in a very special episode.

Back to “Smash”. One of the things that I appreciate about the show is that based on the theatre folks I have hobnobbed with over the years, I think the show is in the right ballpark as far as the going ons in that sort of theatre setting. I’m going to give it a few more episodes to make a final determination but right now it’s still on my “enjoyable” list.

One show that I am anxious to catch up on is “Happy Endings”. We have watched a couple of episodes this season and I have thoroughly enjoyed them. I bought the entire season on iTunes so we can catch up during any rainy days this summer. I am looking forward to that!

Bug.

I seemed to have developed some sort of sniffly bug over the past 48 hours or so. The sniffles started on Sunday night when I went to bed. I got little sleep that night and had the sniffles and sneezes in full effect all day on Monday. This made returning to work after a week and a day vacation that much more pleasant. This morning I woke up congested but feeling better. As I write this during my lunch hour, I am feeling a marked improvement in my condition, though the congestion is still lingering around.

On a conference call today, it was mentioned that one of the intended participants couldn’t join us because, like me, they were on vacation last week and then had contracted some sort of bug and was at home sick this week.

That kind of sucks.

During the conversation a couple of people mentioned that these sorts of colds happen when one lets go of the stress that’s been building for a while. Your body has some sort of reaction to not being so tense all the time and all the bad stuff leaves by way of a grand sort of cold. I kind of think that’s what happened to me during our vacation. My work is relatively stressful, mainly of my own design due to the goals I set for myself along my career, and when I had the chance to relax last week at the House of the Mouse I took advantage of it. Subsequently, my body is purging all the bad stuff that’s built up and that’s why I appear to be getting over a 48 hour bug of some sort. This is just speculation, but I have a hunch that this is what’s going on.

And none of it’s a bad thing. It’s annoying to have the sniffles, but it’s not entirely bad.

My spirits are still good and I’m still feeling relatively relaxed so in the long run it’s all good. Less stress is always good.