Ponderings and Musings

As I was pulling away from my daily stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and trying to get over to my coveted parking spot near the purple flowers, I noticed an armada of National Grid line crew trucks coming down the road. The line of trucks was quite impressive and one of the trucks had a big banner on it’s side “TEAM IRENE”.

The armada made it’s way into the shopping center parking lot where the purple flowers call home. As the trucks lined up along a couple of aisles of the parking lot, I moved to a different spot than normal.

At the very least, these men deserved to park wherever the heck they wanted to and I wasn’t going to block their way. As they got out of their trucks, congregated and made their way over to the adjacent Applebees, it was easy to tell that they had been working hard and seemed rather tired, but their mood was jovial and I didn’t overhear any complaints. They’ve been working hard since Irene blew through last weekend. They deserve a break.

And a thank you.

– I am crossing my fingers and praying to the digital mecca that this has been a successful instance of using BlogPress from my iPad

I had to make some creative decisions yesterday to get home since the Thruway was closed and there was a lot of congestion on the backroads between points A and B. My familiarity with the area proved helpful, I trucked up some paths that barely resembled a road. At one point I had to stop and pull a tree branch out of the way to make the road passable; it was when the cows started running alongside the Jeep that I realized that I had in fact fallen so far off the beaten path that I was actually in the middle of a farmer’s pasture, so I found the quickest exit and got myself on the real roads again.

Calm down, I’m kidding about that last part.

Actually, when I emerged on the main road at the top of a fairly large hill, I found a car nose down in a ditch. The back end was so far off the ground that the wheels were in the air. The New York State tags pointed towards the sky. Two people were standing outside of the car. I pulled up.

“Are you OK?”, I asked.

“Yeah, we’re alright.” His voice was thick with an accent that seemed to resonate from the deepest core of the Big Apple. The man and woman looked pleasant enough. They were looking up the road.

“Do you need me to call someone or something?”

“Nah, we got a tow truck on the way,” he said.

“OK, I just wanted to make sure you were alright”, I said as I got ready to get back to the cow pastures.

He responded with, “Ya know, you guys up here are nice for stopping and checking on us.”

I smiled and waved as I moved on. I guess folks don’t stop like that down where his accent originated. I drove off and continued my quest to get home, waving to the man I call ‘Farmer Bear’ as I passed his farm. He waved back.

Even though driving around these parts has been a bit of a challenge and the cable news channels are blaring on about how much damage actually happened here in Upstate from Irene, I have to admit that I’ve been smiling. Neighbor helping neighbor, stranger helping stranger, friend helping friend.

I think I have once again found my pride in being from Central New York.

So in my blog post yesterday I quickly alluded to the fact that I needed to write about something trivial to kind of distract my mind. It wasn’t because things were overly intense or crazy, they were just slightly hectic. It’s interesting to see how the fates occasionally change our plans just to remind us of who is boss.

On Saturday, Earl, Scott and I went to Southwicks Beach State Park. Longtime dear readers will know that this is my favorite state park in the state; this particular park features sandy beaches, gentle winds and a view of Lake Ontario that looks like the ocean if you don’t squint too hard when you look south. It’s a busy place but because of it’s location it’s usually the local folks that populate the recreational areas, and this is another reason I like it. It’s also close to the hometown, so it feels really familiar.

Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day in these parts. We found ourselves at the last picnic table available. After some rearranging we were situated under one of the trees in the beach picnic area. I decided to go for a swim. Always cognizant of the fact that I have Irish skin that burns really easily, I sprayed some sunblock all over my milky white body (my sister prefers the term ‘lily white’ but I don’t feel that pure). I’ve done this before when cycling. I hate the feeling of sunblock on my skin but one has to do what they have to do, so I sprayed it on and jumped into the lake with the other couple hundred swimmers. There was merriment.

Earl opted to stay out of the water and relax in the shade because he wasn’t feeling quite right. He didn’t feel like he had the flu but he did feel like he might have some sort of fever, but he still wanted to enjoy the beach. So he took it easy.

After the ride home and the movies on Saturday night, I slept soundly until Sunday morning, when I awoke with swollen, itchy eyes and the bridge of my nose wider than usual. Vanity prevents me from sharing a picture of this state, but I attributed it to the sunscreen that I had sprayed on. Things calmed down to semi-normal by Monday morning. Earl, on the other hand, continued to feel feverish on and off. Because of this, he did not sleep well at all, in fact, I knew the fever was getting worse when he started babbling in his sleep. I had napped on Sunday so my sleep patterns Sunday night were screwed up too, so neither of us got a lot of sleep Sunday into Monday.

Monday morning I got up feeling just awful with my eyes still a little swollen but markedly better than Sunday. I headed off to work and got only as far as the first exit on the Thruway; I knew I wasn’t going to be productive at work, so I called off and headed home. When I got home Earl looked like hell but he was going to make an attempt at work. I crashed in bed until 11 and then went and met him for lunch. He still looked and felt like hell and his stomach did not enjoy lunch. I told him to go to Urgent Care, which he did. He said he wanted to go alone, but I had a call shortly afterwards to come join him. After blood and urine tests and a lot of poking and prodding, he was sent off for a CAT scan, which showed nothing out of the ordinary. His temperature was 103. A few hours later, we were headed home with not a good idea of what was going on but a couple of antibiotics to help with a possible infection in the gastro area and the promise of a doctor’s appointment by the end of the week (which has since been confirmed for Friday).

The swelling from the sunscreen is gone but now I have a slight rash over my right eye where apparently I rubbed my eyes in my sleep. Earl is home today and tomorrow, I resumed my work activities today. This is where technology does us well, IMs and phone calls at lunch are helping keep me apprised of his condition.

I think it’s time for me to get a physical.

On the bright side, I cooked dinner two nights in a row and it didn’t make anybody any worse off than they already were.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Can you believe that I am easily distracted? It’s kind of like that “squirrel” thing that people talk about when they talk about people that are easily distracted, though I don’t really have any vested interest in squirrels.

I am easily distracted. My mind gets to processing too many things at once. These thoughts are like rivers and I’m in a kayak, running from river to river with my feet hanging down, paddling a bit and then seeing something on the other river that I have to see. For example, every morning I have to do some routine maintenance on one of our servers. As I wait for it to do it’s thing, I end up opening up wikipedia and looking up the title of the song that may be playing at the moment. As I watch the words fly by on the screen showing the status of the server maintenance, I am researching the history of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, which was in a Stars on 45 medley so I wonder what year “Venus” was written. And when did Pluto lose it’s title as planet? And where does the word lose come from? Glance over to the screen, words are flying by, the phone in the cubicle next to me has rang four times and I know that another co-worker has had beef steak for dinner. Mushrooms were involved. Back to wikipedia, what kind of mushrooms are trippy? I think we need go on a trip. Where should we go? How high is the Sears Tower? Server maintenance done.

I sometimes think that folks miss the boat when they don’t realize that I would be much better off working in a padded room with blunt scissors making rag rugs.

As an American that was raised in the 70s and 80s, like most of my contemporaries I have had a sense of duty instilled in my very existence since a very young age. The morning routine was simple; the buzzer would sound at 9:10, indicating the beginning of the school day, and we stood, placed our hands over our hearts and recited the “Pledge of Allegiance”, as led by a booming voice over the PA system. I am proud that I did that every morning, and even led the high school through the exercise in my junior and senior year, so don’t think that this is some anti-pledge or anti-American rant. Because it’s not.

As we make our way through our school years, we learn about the history of our country, how it affects us today and the importance of keeping abreast of current events and the like. It’s important to know where we have been, where we are and where we are going. This is the reason that I try to keep on top of current events; I have a stake in the future and I want to be part of it. There are many things worth fighting for to further the foundation of our country: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But, gosh, it is getting harder and harder to listen to the news without kicking in the face of a radio.

In the past 72 hours I have listened to endless coverage of the Iowa Straw Poll. Honestly, the relevance of this exercise escapes me and based on the explanations I heard on the news channels over the weekend, there’s something about passing out tickets, corn dogs, fried butter, a rogue bus with a rogue woman who’s not a candidate, a seal tent with air conditioning and folks dropping out of a race that really shouldn’t have even started yet, as we honestly have more important things to do than to make our elected leader look bad and stupid but saying idiotic things about him when he’s just trying to sort through a mess that just keeps bigger and bigger.

And speaking of idiotic things, here are some nuggets I heard during this coverage. These paraphrased snippets are from folks that were pulling the straws:

* The United States is the oldest country and government in the history of mankind.
* It is more than apparent that Jesus Christ was a Christian and that’s why we should all be Christians.
* The democrats are evil because they don’t support trade unions.
* In Canada you have to wait six months for a chance to go to the emergency room at the hospital because of their “socialist health care”.

This is the stuff that makes me crazy. It’s the perpetuation of the babblings from the ignorant, misinformed and downright stupid. This perpetuation somehow cements it as gospel. It’s like repeating a lie over and over again, say it enough times and it’ll become the truth, because everyone, including yourself, will believe it. Kind of like telling the world you’re a straight man trying to save the world from the gay when you sit in an airport stall tapping your foot for a little lick lick from someone that’s in the same bathroom as you.

I feel it is my duty as an American to know what’s going on and to listen to the news. Last fall when I served jury duty it blew me away that I was the only one on the jury that had any inkling as to current events in our area, and we don’t even watch the local news (the local news channel doesn’t believe in sharing over the satellite systems like the rest of the country). When they were doing the jury selection they mentioned the case that was involved and the name was instantly recognizable because it’s been talked about in our local media for the past 20 years and I was the only one that had heard of it! How can people stumble through life in such a cloud of ignorance and then be trusted to make a sane decision when we elect our next leader? How is this fair?

One of the newscasts I listen to in the morning makes a point of saying how long President Obama has been in office and how many days until the next election. I believe it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 462 days until we elect (or re-elect) our next president, and if the Iowa Straw Poll with corn dogs on a stick and suggestive pictures of consumption of such are indication, it is going to be a very long and dismal 462 days.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Okay, this just made my day. As I may have mentioned once or twice through Foursquare and Twitter, I go to the Dunkin’ Donuts closest to work during my lunch hour on a daily basis. More order is predictable; I get a large, unsweetened iced-tea with lemon and if I’m feeling especially daring, I might add a cookie (but no more than once a week on the cookie).

I have been in conference calls all morning, so when I was able to escape for my lunch break I arrived at the DD and immediately had to use the wash room. When I came out of the wash room I went up to the counter like I always do. Already waiting for me was my large, unsweetened iced-tea with lemon. I didn’t have to ask for it. The cashier had a large, sly smile as she handed it to me before I ordered it.

Now, I know this is a really small thing but it’s that little extra effort in service that makes me smile and aids in my restoration of faith in the American populace in general. I added my weekly cookie to the order and gave the cashier an appropriate gratuity. She thanked me.

It’s the little things that count.