Ponderings and Musings

Earl and I had pretty much decided that we weren’t going to go to Saranac Thursdays for the most part this summer. While the activity is enjoyable, it also chews up a Thursday night and quite a few brain cells at the same time. The supper afterwards invariably is too big and then we end up feeling lethargic the next day.

Guess where we ended up last night.

Rumour had it that a former co-worker was in town for the weekend and would be out and about so we decided to head down and join the fun. Moderation is the key. I cut my beer consumption in half (and still had whacky dreams during the night) and we cut our food consumption down at Zebb’s afterwards. Hopefully I was only half as silly and/or obnoxious.

I also got to chat with my friend Christine (another former co-worker), who is now making a go at it with an internet based business: On Location Vacations. I find this to be wicked cool. She’s writing for other sites as well; quite impressive. I have always been impressed with Christine.

Earl took a couple of photos using our friend Shirley’s camera, but I don’t know that I’ll get to see them. Apparently one of the photos made Shirley blush. I’ll see if I can convince her to share with the class.

I think we’ll end up at Saranac Thursdays again during the summer, but judging by the way I feel today I’ll probably stick to bottled water while hanging out with my friends.

All in all it was a good night with a little lesson thrown in for good measure: moderation is the key.

Once in a while I use my blog as a therapy session. Okay, maybe more than once in a while I indulge myself this way but it’s a lot cheaper than paying someone, so instead of chewing about it I invite you to sit down on the couch with me. If you’re bored with this entry (which is kind of random in it’s construct) then I invite you to use a search engine to find something more engaging. There’s plenty out there.

At nearly 41 years old you’d think that by now I have this whole life thing pretty much down pat and I’d be enjoying myself. The latter is true, I’m enjoying life very much these days but as far as life goes, I still feel like a kid that’s trying to find his groove from time to time. There will be times that I see something, anything in a person and I ponder it and perhaps try it on for a bit, incorporating whatever it was I saw in that person into my own life to see if it works for me. I think this is due to the fact that I am always looking for approval of some sort and I figure that if the original person carries that trait or whatever off successfully then I should be able to do that as well. As far as I can tell, this carries about an 80 percent success rate. I can do better.

That’s one thing that I’m always trying to do: do better. I am always looking to better myself and better my situation. I figure if you sit stagnant then quite frankly why bother living at all.

If anyone were to identify a superpower in me it would probably be mimicry. That’s how I learned my broadcasting skills in radio, I’d listen to other stations, hear how they did it and then do the same. That is how I’ve made technology decisions in the past: if program X works well on Mac Y for user Z, then it’s going to work well for me. I’ve adapted the skill to all sorts of situations: if bozo B is fired up about subject A, then there must be something to it and perhaps I should be fired up too. Though my personality trait is to be a loner and hardly a follower, this approach is exactly what I’ve been doing. It was during my drive home from Toronto this past weekend that I realised that’s what’s wrong: I’m trying to use the skills of a follower in concert with the personality traits of a loner and more importantly I’ve been doing that a lot in the past 18 to 24 months.

Once I came to this realisation, as I watched the trees go by and the black pavement pass underneath me, I felt like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. It was a defining moment in my life and I have felt immensely better ever since.

When I returned to work yesterday I sat down and cheerfully went about my duties and I was more productive yesterday (and today) than I have been in weeks. My feelings on various topics ranging from politics to interpersonal relationships to money to being gay to being out to health care all suddenly felt _aligned_. I have commented before that I don’t fit in the crowd that’s looking at the big picture. I’m not looking at a particular corner, I’m not looking at a particular colour in the big picture, I’m often not even looking at the same picture that everyone else is.

I have been trying to take photographs as I brush up and improve upon my photography skills. I go to post them and become hesitant as I realise that people may find them boring. Folks take pictures of cityscapes and flowers and people and all sorts of things and the crowd oohs and aahs over the display of an amazing talent. I worry that my pictures of powerlines and road signs and lake shores and men shaving and just random moments of life are going to bore people, so I invariably end up not posting them. I enjoy them but who else would? Well, I don’t care anymore, probably just as much as I don’t care about the amount of readers I have of my blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I have made many friends and connected with many people through my blog. I cherish my readers and value what they have to say. But am I trying to amp up readership? Nah. There’s others in _that_ big picture that are doing that.

For the first time in a long time, I feel a sense of identity. MY identity. And quite frankly, I don’t feel that I’m all that different from the happy-go-lucky guy I was five, ten or twenty years ago. But now I’m happier than before because of one simple fact.

I’m just me.

So when I get up in the morning and my mind is reviewing the things going on in my head I find myself very decisive and focused on what I want and how I’m feeling about any given topic. As the day progresses, I start to rationalise things a little bit and then I’m not as confident on my stance or decision.

That is something that I don’t like. I need to keep the early morning vibe going all day long.

Yesterday was my workforce reduction day; I took the opportunity to have lunch with my Dad, aunt and uncle at the family lumber yard. I hadn’t been up there in quite a while, it was good to see them all. Per the tradition I observed as a teenager working at the store, we had a lively discussion in the office as we ate our lunch. Yesterday’s topic was health care. We may sit on opposite sides of the aisle on a good number of topics, but we all agreed that the current health care system in the U.S. is broken at best and that the system seems to be working for no one outside of the pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists in Washington.

Everyone still sits in the same seats that they have since the big remodel of 1987, I sat at my cousin’s seat in the corner. In the old days I would sit at my grandmother’s desk, but I thought I would change it up a little.

It is the 21st of May and I am sitting on the back patio looking at the beautiful starscape overhead. It is gorgeous out tonight; the air is warm and dry. It is perfect sleeping weather. Planes fly overhead like little specs of flashing colour amongst the abundance of stars. The sounds of the nearby Thruway echo in the still of the night.

Tomorrow afternoon begins the unofficial start of summer in these parts. There are activities planned for the weekend; hopefully the on-call pager will cooperate and allow me the luxury of participating. The only thing getting me through this on-call is that after I am done on Tuesday morning I am off-call until the latter half of July. This is a beautiful thing.

I am seriously considering sleeping in a sleeping bag on the back patio tonight. It is so perfect out here. This is why I love camping in a spot without a nearby disco beat; I can look up and enjoy the still of the night with a beautiful sky overhead. I find it all so calming.

My bachelor week has come to an end a day early and I couldn’t be happier. I have short “to do” list for the weekend; fix the battery on the Jeep, fix the lawn mower, call and/or visit my family, maybe watch planes land and take off at the local airport, practicing my airline photography in the process.

A lot of hooting and hollering has started up in the woods a bit south of here. It sounds like a bonfire in progress. Perhaps there’s an early graduation celebration going on. I hope they studied hard to get to where they are today. Or at least I hope they did the best they could.

A bunch of organised an office barbecue for tomorrow at work. More than half the office took the day off, the rest of us figured it was a good day to put the recent turmoil aside and get back to where we used to be mentally. The change of pace will be refreshing. I’m actually looking forward to work tomorrow; I haven’t said that in a while.

I have formulated new goals in my head. The challenges of life are on the path in front of me. I don’t find the feeling unpleasant.

So last night I was enjoying a pleasant conversation when the on-call cell phone rang. I tried to keep it together when this happened, because after all, I am now officially half-way through this extra-long on-call week (I get the holiday and everything!) so I did what I had to do to assemble the information I needed to tell the customer they were having a phone issue.

I called the customer to let him know that one of his phone lines was down when he started calling me every name in the book. Because I’m in a family friendly mood today I won’t even resort to the number of asterisks required to represent his potty speech but nonetheless there he was screaming at me and being a jerk. I explained the issue, he freaked out and then I apologised for calling him and hung up, because he didn’t want to be bothered.

Two minutes later the fine man called the answering service, screamed at the friendly, barely making minimum wage operator and had me paged. The operator was nearly in tears when she called. He wanted me to call back.

So I did. He proceeded to ask me why I called him back and started with the asterisks and other random symbols that would make a sailor blush. I apologised again for calling him and hung up.

This morning I let his sales representative know what had occurred last night, verbally outlining what I had already documented in the company’s database. He said that’s the way the guy is and I shouldn’t let it bother me.

Here’s the thing. It did bother me. It bothered me all night long. When I awoke this morning I wasn’t looking forward to going to work because quite frankly I had had enough.

Once upon a time I made a decision to go into radio. I wanted to program a radio station. I wanted to make it sound really good. I had no experience in the industry; all I had behind me was enthusiasm and a lot of music knowledge in my head. I bugged people and called people and made demo tapes until I got my foot in the door at a radio station. Once there, I had a pretty good career going in radio until the station I worked for was sold.

The one thing that led me to that career was motivation. I was so motivated to each that goal that I would do anything to achieve it. And I did!

I am feeling that motivation again today. I haven’t felt it in a long time, but I feel motivated to do something about the way I have been feeling lately.

So even though last night I wanted to hunt down the man that verbally berating me and make his existence really uncomfortable, today I almost want to shake his hand and thank him for spurring me in the ass to do something with my life. I work hard, and I love the group I work in, but I don’t deserve to be treated like that and I won’t be.

I am motivated again. I know what I want and I’m going to go after it. Along the way I’m going to smile and be enthusiastic. As I look at the calendar, the “Scheduled Time Off” courtesy of my company’s workforce reduction is affording me a lot of free time over the summer.

There are many adventures ahead for me and I am going to enjoy each one to it’s fullest.

Life is good and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

So after 40 years in this body I have discovered something very important. I wear my belt facing the wrong way.

This important tidbit of information has been pointed out to me twice in the past week.

I’ll admit it right here, I never knew there was a “boy” way and a “girl” way of wearing a belt. If I look down at my stomach, the whole affair is being held up by my belt with the flappy part pointing to the right. When I unbuckle my belt I use my left hand and then pull out my business with my right hand so I can do my thing in the can.

That’s the way that feels natural to me.

Today for the first time I reversed the direction of how I wore my belt. It was the first time in 40 years that the flappy thing faced the left as I looked down at my stomach. I had to unfasten my belt with my right and pull out my business with my left hand and then my aim was all messed up and I missed the can.

I’m not one of those guys that can swing it all around with no hands, being mostly Irish and all.

So for the next 40 years I’m going to have to work out a new arrangement with unfastening my belt and handling my business. It wasn’t too long ago that I switched from wearing my watch on my right wrist to wearing it on my left.

That was much easier.

So today I am working the early shift at work, on-call week is now just a memory, with the lingering affects of a lack of sleep. I’m a little sluggish today.

There is a cleaning crew working at The Manor today. It’s our annual spring cleaning. Earl contracted the cleaning service from his office to clean the house and I’m staying out of their way today. I look forward to going home to a cleaner house; I have been neglecting that duty lately. I still wonder where we can get a live-in houseboy.

It is a glorious day in Central New York though admittedly it’s a little chilly. The sky is clear, save for a few puffs of harmless clouds. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming and there is a slight scent of lilac here at the Hampton Inn parking lot, where I am parked eating my lunch and typing this blog entry. There are several wi-fi spots in the area but none of them are in the mood to chat. I guess I’ll have to upload this blog entry when I get back to my cubicle. Don’t tell the company that I did that.

Earl and I were planning on going to see ‘Star Trek’ tonight but we have modified our plans a bit for the week. He is going to be at his other office in Scotia tomorrow and Wednesday night, so I’m going to join him there on Wednesday night and we are going to see ‘Star Trek’ in the IMAX theatre instead. If we are going to do it, we are going to do it right! I have heard only good things (and that’s an understatement) about the film so I am eager to see it. The IMAX presentation should be awesome.

All in all life is good, aside from being exhausted from only 2 1/2 hours sleep last night. At least tonight I’ll be able to sleep in peace (and with the pager turned blissfully off).

Now I’m going to sit back and enjoy the sun for the rest of this lunch hour.

Life is good, especially when you make it that way.

So today is Mother’s Day. This morning I called my sister and wished her well on her first official Mother’s Day. It was good to talk to her.

Last night Earl and I invited my mother over for dinner to celebrate the occasion, since she had plans with my cousin for today and I was wrapped up in an on-call weekend. Earl made a wonderful dinner for the three of us. We had great conversation and an excellent time. I was a blessed kid to have the “neat mom”; all the kids wanted to be in her group on field trips because she was fun. I have inherited my tendency to hear my own drum from her and that is something that I’m proud of. She has always encouraged me to be my own person and I hope that I always return the favour to her.

She’s a little whacky but she puts her heart and soul into everything she does. To add whimsy to the family I’m telling my nephews to call her “Grandma Loon”. She just loves that.

Earl and I sent her flowers at work so everyone could ooh and aah as they passed by her desk. She deserves the attention. She’s one of the best.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.