Ponderings and Musings

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I’m hidden in the shade of the sign proclaiming that I am in the “Arterial Plaza” near work. The ‘arterial’ is actually a two lane road with several traffic lights on it, but it has a speed limit of 55 and the adjacent businesses are actually on a service road. People still drive 30. The sign is being used as a method of finding shade. It’s 85 and very humid today and there isn’t much of a breeze. I refuse to run the car when I don’t need to and I don’t believe a person in a Jeep should be using air conditioning anyway, so I just sit here and sweat a little bit.

I considered going for a walk at lunch today but it’s just too damn hot, which is a shame because I’m feeling fidgety. Ever since our return home I’ve been feeling the need to move about and sitting at my desk at work and staring at two monitors is not quite fitting the bill. I want to breathe fresh air and I want to move around. I let my mind wander as I’m working on the routine things of my job, but that doesn’t cut it. I want to move. Every once in a while I walk and I join a couple of co-workers for a 15-minute walk every morning and afternoon but with the relatively nice weather it seems like I should be outside. I’d even be happy driving a delivery truck or something, like the UPS guys that run around in shorts and drive with the doors open.

Several years ago I worked in an office where we could wear shorts. I miss those days. I often went barefoot in my office back then. It was a liberating feeling and I like being barefoot best. Here I am wearing jeans and sneakers and it feels like a bit much.

If it isn’t too hot when I get home it might be appropriate to go for a walk or a bike ride tonight. Perhaps that will help with the fidgety feelings I’m having today.

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It was in early September 1973 that the big yellow school bus stopped for the first time in front of the little mobile home surrounded by cow and horse pastures. Mom had walked with me out to the road, my sister Jennifer trailed along, her chance to get on the bus was still a couple of years away. My grandmother waved from the bedroom window in the house next door.

I walked up the stairs and made my way down to the first emergency exit row on the right, where my cousin once removed, Jill, motioned for me to sit. I was sitting across the row from my two other cousins once removed, Amy and Ann. Though my five year old brain was not quite grasping the concept, I was beginning a new chapter in life that first day of school. I was excited.

I mention it here because of the bus. My mind makes these odd connections. It was bus 43.

I turned 43 years old today.

Now that when asked my age I will respond with “I’m 43” for the next year, I feel like I’m in one of the best places I have ever been in my life. 43. It’s a good number. It’s the number of the first bus I rode, it’s the exit number for Kellogg Hill off of Interstate 81, which is where you can get off to see Talcott Falls, the falls I highlighted in a photo a couple of years ago. It’s an age I can easily remember my parents being and they seemed happy.

I know I’m happy. My life is good and in a multitude of ways, it feels like it’s just begun. I am surrounded by an immense amount of love.

And that rocks.

This photo was taken in 1978 at the local airport, undoubtedly on a Sunday afternoon during pilot lessons. Making sure I didn’t fall off the picnic table was a woman named LaVinia. We called her Vinnie. My mom made the cake and I’m sure it was delicious.

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We are sitting at Newark-Liberty International Airport in Terminal C waiting for our flight to Denver. The first leg of the flight was delayed for a bit, we ended up sitting on the ground in Syracuse for 40 minutes or so while the airspace around Newark got itself straightened out.

So far the flight to Denver is on time and ready to go in less than an hour.

I’ve discovered that taking photos and the like all day on my iPhone makes the battery go down pretty quick. I need one of those solar chargers in Skymall.

The adventure du jour has just begun.

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The Indiana Department of Education has decided to no longer require cursive writing as a requirement of school children come this fall. They are now going to teach children keyboarding skills at an earlier age. Progress, technology and all that.

I kind of think that this is unfortunate.

Good keyboarding skills are very important in today’s job climate. I have seen many people struggle while working with a computer, simply because they didn’t have a good command of the keyboard. And I have to admit that I was very lucky in this regard; I had a habit of wanting to play with my Mother’s typewriter when I was in third grade and she said that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right and she taught me how to type properly at that young age. People that don’t know me are often amazed at my typing skills when I sit down in front of a computer. Since I do it for a living, I have had a lot of practice. It’s one of the things that I feel confident enough to brag about.

Nevertheless, there is little in the way of expression in the typewritten word, especially with the shorter tweets and Facebook updates we see crammed into 140 characters. A person’s writing habits, the display of their penmanship, generally says a lot about their personality. I know a guy who used a ruler as a guide when he wrote his annual holiday cards. I look forward to his beautiful penmanship every year. Grandma Country had outstanding 1920/30s-era penmanship that carried on to her kids. My mother has beautiful handwriting that has the flair of someone that learned to write in cursive in the late 1950s. Earl’s dad has the penmanship that matches his charisma, as does his son, and my dad has the penmanship that displays the confidence I see in him.

Abolishing required penmanship lessons is like taking away one tool that a kid has available to him in an effort to express himself. This is unfortunate. While keyboarding skills are quite necessary, we should never take away a person’s method of expression. Teach them how to use the tools and then let them decide whether they want to use them or not.

And just for kicks… (click to make it moderately more legible)