Ponderings and Musings

The other day I was driving along my commute route later in the morning than normal. This is not remarkable in itself. My commute takes me through a pretty substantial Amish community. I think it might be multiple Amish communities, because there is more than one school house along the route. Two of them are separated by a mile or so. Both are single room buildings, one of them looks like the schoolhouse seen in Walnut Grove in “Little House On The Prairie”. I sometimes look for Miss Beadle but she’s never around.

As I passed by I could see in the windows; there were several desks with children sitting at them. Smoke emanated from the chimney and the curtains on the windows were plainly pulled to one side. I imagine that the teaching and learning going on there is fairly simple in that there’s no computer, overhead project or probably even a dry-erase marker. That is kind of cool to me.

Though the philosophies differ, I admire the Amish for their adherence in what they believe in and how they choose to live their life. I have mentioned before that I really like their pies (it’s almost pie season!). Among the pies they would have had drawn coloring books for sale. No need for an Xbox, just color in the lines.

As a person that lives amongst a lot of technology and all the complications it can bring with it’s wonders, I think it’s important that one be able to also live simply. I believe that the person that is going to truly thrive in their existence is the one who could still live happily without the gadgets and by only the candlelight of the night and the wood fired stove heating the homemade soup. These skills reside in me somewhere, and I could call upon them if ever put in that situation. It would be a heck of an adjustment, but it is definitely doable.

I think it’s important to keep that perspective.

I recently heard of a young girl that was very upset that she couldn’t get in her car because the battery in her “clicker” had gone dead. She couldn’t unlock the door without it. She had no idea that she could put her in the slot and manually unlock the door.

Someone missed the basics along the way.

I think for us to truly thrive we must start with the same basics as a foundation and then build whatever more we want on top of that. But we mist never be afraid or ignorant of the basics.

Sometimes it works better to just keep it simple.

It’s a beautiful day today. There’s a bit of a chill in the air, but that just keeps it interesting.

I had a brainstorm at work about 15 minutes before I left for lunch and that is kind of lingering on my mind. For the past six weeks I have been working on a project that has involved completely rebuilding an internal website. The site is huge and has a ton of information stored in various ways. The old software they used to create the site a long time ago converted most of the text to images, so I am having to type everything over again and build the pages in the process. I think I’m going to take my favorite blogging software, WordPress, and turn it into a content management system. That’s probably a little bit of a heavy discussion for this blog, so instead I’ll just say one thing.

My iPad is really shiny.

One of the things I admire about my father is his sense of discipline. He has always amazed me in that way; if there’s a job to be done, he does it. If he feels a sense of procrastination I don’t know that he would ever say anything out loud about the subject, but I suspect that he wouldn’t procrastinate about it in the first place. This sense of discipline is something that I have always aspired to but rarely found. I still aspire to it. I hope I’m getting closer to that goal.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to calm down on absolute terms: I will always do this or I will never do that. Today is the second day in a row that I have refrained from picking up an iced tea at the drive thru at lunch time. Let’s see if tomorrow will be the third day in a row. I suspect it will be. This “one day at a time” approach is my attempt at being disciplined at something. On day two it’s working. I will strive to make it continue.

I have dreams about being a self-employed web developer, contracting my services to those that need them. This is a ways off in my future, after all, I have a really good gig right now, but I can’t see working for someone and earning a paycheck from someone else for the rest of my life. I want to live under my own steam; it is my hard work and my hard work alone (with the support of the husbear and my family, of course) that will determine whether I make it or not. I don’t want to share an annual pay raise budget with others on a team. I can do the teamwork thing, and I think I do it quite well, but ultimately I want to be the one calling the shots over my own success. I already know I have control issues. A disciplined approach will help keep them in check.

The disciplined aspect of my father’s personality afforded him the opportunity, along with his siblings, to have a successful business for many years. I learned a lot from his experiences with the business and I feel that using what I observed there, coupling it with my own talents and then just taking it one day at a time, will give me the opportunity to someday make a serious go of having my own business.

I will get there. With a sure and steady step, one day at a time.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I am sitting in the Jeep enjoying a lovely early lunch hour on this beautiful Monday morning. Though Mother Nature appears to be feeling rather soggy today, I am feeling quite good. I think it’s because I worked out this morning. It’s amazing what can happen when you take time to move your body.

I am skipping the Dunkin’ Donuts iced tea today. I would like to think that this is the beginning of a trend, but I can only make this determination one day at a time. I have an unfortunate habit of expressing myself in absolute terms: “I will never drink iced tea again.”. This sets me up for failure. By declaring that intend to cut back on iced tea and then making a concerted effort of doing do, I have a broader sense of accomplishment and a smaller sense of drama. I hate drama. I don’t know why I’m so dramatic.

Earl has made me an egg salad sandwich today, which is another step in my constant quest form self improvement; I rarely eat egg salad and I never eat eggs, but it’s time to step out of the box and live a lit, especially if there is the promise of an olive.

I am situated in the Jeep in a different parking lot today because I was in the mood for different scenery. I am parked next to what used to be an Ames but is now a Dollar General. There is a Burger King about 2000 feet away but I can still hear the drive thru speaker. This is unfortunate because I can’t imagine how loud it must be for the driver that is sitting in of the thing. I just heard the classic “ya want fries with that?” over the sound of the rain. I don’t know how the driver responded.

On my way to this parking spot I heard the weather forecast and there was a mention of thunderstorms tonight. Since I no longer have that awful on call gig, I can rejoice once again because thunderstorms, tornadoes and other wild weather phenomenon is wicked cool, as long as you play it smart.

And last, but not least, the geek in me rearranged some of my web services this weekend. I now have a more cost affordable and simpler way of managing photos, music and the like. I will probably lose a point or two, but I opted out of Apple’s MobileMe because after all these years I still find it unreliable and slower than it should be. Dropbox, and apps that use Dropbox for storage, are on my radar now and I’m quite pleased. For example, I can take a photo on my iPhone and have it nearly instantly appear on my iPad. Prior to Dropbox I would have to sync with iTunes and drag things around. Now it’s point and click. This eliminates a few things in my tech costs, including the need to buy an iPad with a camera.

I’m happy with the toys in my toy box right now.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

One of the things I have always wondered is if Captain Marvel and/or Isis ever rolled their eyes. I mean, here they have to withstanding changing their clothes courtesy of an explosion of some sort, only to rescue some teenager from falling down a well or driving over a cliff. There’s was even that dumb guy that tried to eat the honey off of a tree. I mean, did Isis secretly want to smack the idiot that purposely disconnected the brakes on the school bus as a practical joke? And why was Rick Mason driving the school bus from the passenger seat anyway?

But I digress.

The reason I wonder these things is because the news media is going into chicken little mode again with the Dreaded Snow Storm. The weather services, depending on which one you ask, are predicting that we will get either 16 inches or a tenth of an inch of snow sometime between yesterday and tomorrow. The high temperatures could be anywhere below or above freezing. Fembot #3 on the news (no relation to the fake Callahan) speculated that schools might be closed tomorrow due to the weather and that this posed a problem because there are no snow days left. Would anyone believe the announcements that schools are closed on April Fools’ Day? I know I wouldn’t. I fell for that “we’ve converted to metric time” on KG104 back in 1992 and I’m wiser nearly 20 years later. KG104 had commercials advertising VCR reprogramming and everything. Metric time. It was the future, yesterday.

Because of this false sense of hype on the news, the conversation about the office is that about the Dreaded Snow Storm with speculation as to how an ATV will fair on the roads when they’re dry on the way into work but impassable to other than ATVs for the evening commute, because after all, we are getting either a tenth of an inch or 16 inches of snow. After talking out loud yesterday and saying things that I should have said in my inner voice, I have wisely decided to just keep my mouth shut altogether and not even roll my eyes.

If Isis can keep her mouth shut when the kid wandered onto the munitions dump (or was it a dam that was being checked for water pressure?), I can certainly keep my mouth shut about a little bit of snow.

My head is a little scattered today so I am going to write a few bullet points of the bloggy things I have been thinking about and get them out of my head so that I can feel less cluttered.

1. I saw a video on Twitter from the set of the new Wonder Woman series pilot that David E. Kelley is producing. After a rather loud backlash on the internet after the new Wonder Woman’s costume was revealed, they have changed the new costume to have the traditional red boots (instead of the planned blue) and, from what I saw on the video, they replaced the latex material with something more like the original costume material worn by Lynda Carter. The fact that they made these changes has prompted me ti actually watch the show should it ever make it to television, because they listened to the fans. ‘Tis a pity the reboot of The Bionic Woman a few years ago didn’t listen to the fans as well, it might have developed into something.

2. I have been buying way too much gadgetry lately as I am overcome by tax return giddiness. I don’t know how Earl puts up with it. I do have a couple of things to sell, including an unopened Apple bluetooth keyboard (like the ones that come with the new iMacs). If you’re interested, let me know.

3. Speaking of Apple, I have tried to love MobileMe but I just can’t. It sucks. Synchronizing is wonky at best and mail support is bested by Google’s Gmail so I really doubt I’m going to renew it when it comes time. Thank goodness jp@jpnearl-dot-com will always work somewhere.

4. While The Weather Channel is predicting “6 to 14 inches of snow” by Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service is calling for “accumulations near a tenth of an inch”. I don’t know which to believe, though I’m inclined to not believe the one looking for ratings, but whichever the case I am ready to lose my shit completely at the thought of more snow. I’m praying for rain. I’ll squirt CFCs in the air if it’ll make it that much warmer. Calm down, I’m kidding, I’ll just have a cow fart or something.

5. I’m ready for someone to tell me that we won the lottery. We already have the charity picked out and Earl and I have pledged 10% of our winnings to it.

6. I am overdue for my annual physical and I’m starting to feel responsible to do something about it. My general practitioner moved from one hospital network to the competitor; it’s my responsibility to coordinate the transfer of my records since I guess they belong to the hospital, not the doctor and definitely, gasp, not me. How’s that easy health care plan working out?

7. I have made a marked attempt at keeping to the speed limit this week and I have an extra quarter tank of gas to prove for it. Keeping it near 65 is where the Jeep is most happy. I slow down for the villages, though.

8. And last, but not least, it’s been a while since I’ve worn just a mustache. I get nods from firemen and policemen in the area but it takes more time to get ready for work.

Renovations are in progress at The Manor. Just typing this sentence strikes a little bit of fear into my heart, because I don’t like feeling that the house is in a topsy-turvy state. I can easily handle chaos, but disruption makes me crazy, if that makes any sort of sense at all.

The kitchen floor is officially missing. A couple of years ago the ceramic tiles started buckling and cracking. We’ve officially decided to do something about this and the new floor has been decided upon and will be finalized tonight. In the meantime, we had a crew come in and remove all the tiles. Walking through the kitchen is now a little like an episode of “Bonanza”. The people look familiar but there’s a little bit of dust being kicked about. We clear the kitchen table with a leaf blower now.

To install the floor properly will involve the removal of all appliances. The cabinets can stay in place, we are just going to leave the tiles under them. Out of site, out of mind. It’s a shame that the original tiles weren’t put down properly because the original floor was quite nice.

Other sprucing up of the kitchen includes new countertops and a new refrigerator. Both will be much appreciated.

I think I might have Earl talked into a new washer and dryer, since the stack unit now rumbles so loudly that is sounds like a Harrier is hovering over the house when everything is spinning. Tom still braves the sound to use his adjacent litter box, but his ears are folded back and he had a look of displeasure on his face when he’s doing his business.

I think we have picked out a gazebo type thing for the back patio so we can enjoy the outdoors in shaded comfort this summer. Plans currently include more time at home and less time on the road this summer, so we should be comfortable whilst doing so. I think we might spruce up the flower beds and landscaping too. It’ll be fun to have something to do for relaxation that doesn’t involve a tweet or a beep. I think I might give out canned fruits and vegetables for the holidays at the end of the year. Act giddy when we give you something practical.

Well here it is Friday and I am feeling particularly creative today. I don’t know if it’s because I have “lost myself” in my work for mist of the morning, if it’s because there sunshine filling the Jeep as I type or if I’m just looking at things in a better light, but lately I have been feeling particularly expressive and confident about it.

I am embracing my iPhone and working on a couple of informal photo projects. One of them involves the aforementioned iPhone and snapping a photo at the exact same spot in my morning commute everyday. I know, I’m driving and snapping photos at the same time, but I have a little ritual that involves a timer shot and placing the camera in a way so that it doesn’t impede the safety of my driving. I have dreams of showing the changes in the seasons when all is said and done and I think the resulting collage will be mildly interesting, even if it’s just interesting to me.

I also have another little project I would like to embark on and this one involves a little more input and time. I have always been fascinated with the way any given man shaves. Some might think it odd that such a mundane task could hold any interest to me but it does. I don’t know if it’s a hold over from when I was a kid and I used to watch my dad shave, but I find it interesting in the way some men spend great time and effort in achieving perfection through the task while others fly through it in an attempt to get it done as quickly as possible. Granted, I am most attracted to men with mustaches and beards, but capturing a man shaving in a photo is like taking a snapshot of them at their most basic level. It isn’t particularly sexual; I’m not looking to shoot shave porn or anything, but it can be rather sexy. I’m seeing the photos as having to be black and white and without a flash, since the mirror would go wild with that (I need to learn the best way to photograph in black and white). Each guy has their own way of shaving and to me that’s rather fascinating since we all use basically the same tools. Nevertheless, it’s something I would like to capture in photographs. I’ve seen some amazing “slice of life” photos over the past couple of years and I’d like to capture that “slice of life”. (Ha ha, a pun! Shave. Slice. Get it?)

There has also been talk about a small garden this year. Someday the snow will stop and there will be grass and decent weather and I would like to try growing a few vegetables. Earl is on board with something small and our friend Scott has shown an interest as well so I think we might try a few tomato plants, a stalk of corn, a pepper or two and maybe a sunflower. I didn’t spend nearly enough time outdoors last year and this year I refuse to fall victim to the same pattern. Besides, the best way to get to fried green tomatoes is to grow your own, so we might just have to do that. I hear gardening is good for the blood pressure too.

I should snap photos whilst driving.

The sunrise was absolutely beautiful this morning. The sky was filled with a wide variety of red hues. But as they say, “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.”

The sun gave way to clouds and by the time I got home tonight we had a couple of inches of snow on the ground.

Ugh.

Someone please tell Mother Nature that it has been declared spring and she should start behaving accordingly. Just don’t give her Chiffon.