Ponderings and Musings

It is 5:18 a.m. I am getting ready to head back to work after a week’s holiday. I guess I must be a little anxious about heading back to work because I could barely sleep all night. I kept waking up to see how much longer I had to sleep.

How I dislike alarm clocks.

My body naturally wakes up around 8:00 a.m. It used to be closer to 9, but now I seem to do well with waking up an hour earlier.

I think I’m going to take a nap. I don’t have to be work until 7.

So I am sitting on JetBlue 668 headed back home after five days and nights at the House of the Mouse. I hear it’s snowing like crazy at home. I am ready for the end of winter. We are almost there. Thank goodness for the trip to Oklahoma next month, it’ll give me another much needed boost to my psyche.

I need a gig where I travel a lot. I would be a happier person.

I found myself in a pondering state of mind between attractions at Disney. I won’t write about everything I thought about here; my thought processes are my own and are probably long and boring to read. Suffice it to say that I have a few adventures up my sleeve that I’m making plans for.

Quick aside – I must have a thing for flight attendants and Christian apparently enjoys redheads with big moustaches. Just sayin’.

I have begun meditating again. It’s about time that I practiced what I learned all those years ago. I have added the exercise to my daily quiet time. I am also using the MindWave program on my iPhone. I think meditating quiets my mind much more than the MindWave does. I sort of think of the MindWave as the saccharin way of getting to a meditative state. It’s artificially induced and not quite the same. I’ll probably discontinue that for a while in a week or two so I can compare and contrast.

I have given up alcohol completely as of last Monday night. My last drink was a Mojito at Bongos at Downtown Disney. There are a couple of reasons that I stopped – one of them being that with the way I play I should be sober at all times; the other reason has to do with my health. My forever existent beer gut does not need encouragement. I have no issues with those that enjoy a drink, it’s just not for me right now.

I also gave up pop and eating meat. Well, at least I am trying on both accounts. This will be my third serious attempt at giving up meat. I’m planning on the third time being a charm.

When I sit down to write a blog entry there are a lot of variables to be taken into account. Well, before we jump into that I have to clarify. In my head there are two types of blog entries that I write; I think of one as a “blog entry” and I think of the other as a “real blog entry”. I haven’t written what I consider to be a real blog entry in a while; the last was probably the entry about my childhood memory of riding on Bus 49. “Blog entries” contain the snippets of music videos and are like my journal entries. They talk about day-to-day stuff and come skimming off the top of my head. “Real blog entries” come from the bottom of the pot: they cook like a fine stew in my head for a little bit before I sit down and write them and then I occasionally wait a while before I hit the “Send to Weblog” button on my software.

One of my friends was attending grad school (through online courses) while she was working in the same job that I currently have. Our jobs were basically identical. She could write a twenty-page thesis on the socialisation of the Pussycat Swallowtail Butterfly in between incoming tech support calls that would drive a mortal insane: one involved a woman that wanted us to let more wire through her wall so she could move her phone, the other, a man that wanted to know why his computer screen was blank (the power was out). Yet, in between diagnosing issues, fighting with various telecommunication agencies and listening to the inane chatter that she was often subjected to, she was able to bang out a paper in no time. How she accomplished this I’ll never know, but she always cracked an “A”. It’s probably because she’s just wicked smart. I once tried to write a paper for English 101 on the novel “My Antonia” in the same fashion and I just couldn’t do it. I attribute my failure at the task to lack of focus. Or perhaps it was just ADD. Is that the same thing?

When I write a “real blog entry”, many conditions have to be met. The moon has to be full, I have to be in a special garb and incense must be burning. Actually, I’m wrong on those three conditions, that’s for something else that I do from time to time. In reality, when I write the space I’m writing in has to be relatively silent. I can deal with the hum of fluorescent lighting (and electronic goodies) or the ticking of a clock but I can’t have any sort of music playing on iTunes, a television blaring or a conversation taking place within a pre-determined radius (usually 1 to 2 miles). If I can hear it and it sounds intelligible (or bright and shiny in an aural sort of way), it’s going to distract me and then we have that whole ADD thing kicking in again. Earl occasionally gets offended when I sit down to write whilst are computers are back to back and I then choose to move into the bowels of the basement where it’s quite and all I can hear it the drip of the toilet leaking. Ironically, I can write a real blog entry in the middle of an internet cafe when I’m loaded up on sugar and there’s a whole lot of nonsense going on around me. Maybe the sugar helps make the nonsense turn into white noise or something.

Another condition that has to be met is that this all has to take place on the right computer. I have mentioned many times that I have MacBook Pro that’s not even a year old. It replaced my PowerBook G4 that I purchased in 2005. I loved my PowerBook and still use it for my music and sound editing work. I have considered parting with it but then I type on it for a few moments and it feels like an old friend. I feel very, very comfortable when I have my PowerBook on my lap. My MacBook Pro basically looks identical to the PowerBook but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ the same. The keyboards are nearly identical (despite the missing  [apple logo] on the command key) but they certainly don’t feel identical. The PowerBook’s keys are robust and feel confident, the keys on my MacBook Pro feel just a bit mushier. I make a lot of mistakes typing on the MacBook Pro, I think I’m going to wear out the delete key much faster. Nevertheless, I trudge along with the MacBook Pro because Apple is slowly killing off support for the older machines. So I guess I’ll have just to keep using this computer to make myself more comfortable with it. I know, it’s a nearly state of the art unit and I’m bitching about it. There are times when people think I’m never happy.

That’s not true at all.

I have read that some writers prefer a typewriter to a computer while others prefer their own penmanship to a typewriter, so I guess I don’t feel alone in seeking out the right conditions for writing a real blog entry.

Just as long as the toilet isn’t dripping on me.

With the weather warming up just a little bit for a few days I am really getting in the mood to do some sort of activities outdoors. I really want to get on my bike, but it’s going to be at least a month before I can even think about getting out there and hitting the road. Perhaps I’ll start taking walks.

One of the good things going on though is that Earl and I are going on a week-long vacation beginning on Sunday. We are going to Walt Disney World. It’ll be good to get some sun; there hasn’t been a lot of that up here lately. I’m hoping to stick to my weight loss goals during the vacation though; past experience with trips to Disney say that I’ll gain some weight, let’s hope I can reverse the trend with this trip.

I just confirmed yesterday that I have another trip on the horizon. In March I am going to Oklahoma City for training for work. The classes are on a Thursday and Friday; I am going to take the opportunity to stay out there for the weekend and fly back on Sunday. I am looking forward to the adventure.

Last night Earl and I celebrated my being off-call by going to one of our favorite haunts, Zebb’s, for a casual supper. To celebrate the dry roads we took the Acura out for the first time in two months. It felt good to speed along in my prized rice burner.

So Bill Gates was at a technology conference of some sort, which was populated with a lot of important technology related people, and when he went on stage he talked about malaria and mosquitos. He then opened a jar he had brought with him and let the mosquitos mingle amongst the others in attendance at the conference.

‘Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,’ Gates said while opening a jar on stage at a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars. ‘I brought some. Here I’ll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.'”

This is a brilliant thing. I like his “in your face” attitude when it comes to his philanthropic work. He is one of the richest men in the world and it seems that he is using the power that title garners and doing good things with it.

I like that.

I like it so much that I have to admit that there are times when I think of jumping back into the world of Windows in an effort of supporting his efforts. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does some amazing things. I mentioned a couple of months ago that I was considering supporting their efforts by considering buying a Dell (PRODUCT) Red laptop to replace my MacBook Pro. I think it’s more important to give back to the world instead of just making a statement with a pretty piece of computer hardware. Not that I don’t love my Macs, because I do, but there are times that I really don’t like the smugness often found in the vicinity of a Mac. It’s usually the users that’s acting smug. I can be one of them at times.

If you’re going to be smug, you should do it in the name of a greater good, like when you open the jar of mosquitos on stage in front of some really important people.

Here’s a link to Yahoo!’s take on the story.

So in between Superbowl commercials I’ve been watching the game a little bit (usually when Earl yells at the television) but I’ve also been spending the evening playing with Facebook. I swore I would never get addicted to Facebook but I’m finding myself looking up people I haven’t talked to in a couple of decades.

For example, I just sent a message to my first grade teacher. Sure, I haven’t seen her in 35 years or so but there she was on Facebook, over a thousand miles from my hometown but with the same maiden and married name. She was easy to find.

My first grade teacher was the prettiest of my elementary school teachers and had picture perfect handwriting. I remember her being very kind and very patient. She also let us do fun things, such as crank up “Rubberneckin'” by Elvis Presley on the record player usually reserved for “Free To Be You and Me”. I liked her a lot. I told her so in my message today. She probably thinks I’m a freak. I even liked her when she put my name on the “No Play” list on the blackboard for talking too much in class. I didn’t mention that in the message today but I remember the event like it was yesterday.

The other teacher I decided to look up was my second grade teacher, but she isn’t on Facebook. Though my first grade teacher was the prettiest, my second grade teacher was my favorite, probably for my entire school career, for she was the one teacher that “got me”. She didn’t force me to play football with the other boys (I was content to watch), she let me have a disorganised desk and she allowed me to indulge myself in my curious ways about technology; I was the only one in my class that was allowed to run both the Bell and Howell AND the Singer movie projectors and she let me sit in the principal’s office when the repairman from Johnson Controls came to fix the broken master clock which was preventing the classroom clocks and bells from working. Mrs. Hayden was neat.

Yes, I have spent the evening searching and reading throughout Facebook. Of course, there’s this whole big football game going on too, but I’m content to just watch it without screaming.

It’s a bachelor weekend for me here at The Manor. I have been fairly busy with my on-call duties this weekend and Earl is in Buffalo visiting our friend Jamie and partying at Buffalo Bear night. He is expected home later today. He’ll probably stop at Tom Wahl’s on the way home. I hope he brings me something tasty as well.

When I’m in bachelor mode the house instantly becomes a wreck, I keep weird hours and become a ponderous geek; I spend hours reflecting on my past, searching for my better self and chatting on the internet, occasionally all at once. I normally feel the better for it afterwards.

They say that time heals all wounds. I look back at my first 40 1/2 years and I say that for the most part that’s true, and while I am generally a happy person there are a couple of things that stick out in my past that would be insignificant to most but still had a relatively strong impact on the person that I am today. One such incident was when I was in elementary school. I was in first grade and it was spring time. Miss Kania had brought a note from the principal’s office; I needed to ride bus 49 home instead of bus 43 because Mom was at another house in town and she wanted us brought there instead. Who’s house it was escapes me now but she lived about a mile from our own house; her house was situated on the corner behind the mechanic’s garage.

Three buses passed our house daily (43, 45 and 49 – it’s frightening that I remember that) because we lived on the main road between the village and our little hamlet (the “town”). Once they got into town they went different directions.

I remember getting on bus 49 with my cousin once removed who also held a similar bus pass. The driver was Emma, a stern woman who didn’t put up with anything. She wasn’t like Carol, who talked like a truck driver and looked like a man, but Emma could scare the biggest of the seniors when she needed to. There was a lot of spunk in her 5′ 2″ frame.

Since I was a “guest” on bus 49, I chatted with those that I usually only saw in the lunch room daily and as we passed our mobile home, I pointed to it and said that’s where I lived. Apparently Emma saw and heard this and made a mental note. To return to school, bus 49 had to pass by our trailer again as part of the route back to the village.

When we reached the house on the corner in town that I was suppose to get off at I did as I was trained. I stood up and went to the white line at the front of the aisle. You had to stay behind the white line until the bus came to a complete stop. Only when the bus was stopped and the door was opened by the driver could you cross that line. Since the house was on the corner, the bus stopped at the stop sign. I started making motions toward the door, assuming Emma would open it. Instead she yelled at me for standing up before it was my turn and told me to get back into my seat. She yelled really loud, as she apparently assumed I was stupid and had gotten on bus 49 instead of 43 and didn’t know where I lived. I turned beet red and slinked back to my seat, very confused and utterly humiliated by the situation. The others on the bus laughed at me. They were pointing and laughing a lot. My cousin sat down next to me. Since I was the oldest and the boy, I was suppose to take charge.

Emma made her way back up County Route 2 and stopped at our house. No one was home; my mother was back at the house on the corner. I sat there when the bus stopped. Emma opened the door. The lights flashed. I could smell the hay being cut in the field across the street.

“Aren’t you getting off?”, Emma yelled through the mirror. Bus drivers never turned around, they always glared at you through that big mirror over the windshield.

“No!”, I yelled back. “No one is home!”. I could see the empty trailer; electric fence separating the yard from the pasture on two sides, a row of trees and a vacant dog house separated our lawn from my grandparents’. The cows and horses were grazing. But there were no cars in the driveway. The front door wasn’t open, something my mother would do on a beautiful spring day.

The few kids left on the bus laughed and pointed at me. I was going to be the laughing stock of the cafeteria for the rest of my life and I was defying Emma. That was never good. I was a guest on the bus and I was breaking some unspoken bus 49-only code.

“What are you talking about?”, another bark through the mirror.

“I was suppose to get off back there!”

They were still laughing and pointing.

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Emma was angry. She had to back bus 49 into our driveway and turn it back towards town. That would make the other kids on the bus late getting home. They were going to miss “Tom and Jerry” and it was all my fault.

God how I wished I was back on bus 43 with the bus driver (curiously) nicknamed “Bun”. Bun knew where I lived. Bus 43 had friendly faces. They didn’t laugh and point at me on bus 43.

Emma finally got us where we needed to be. She never apologised to me and I bolted off that bus faster than I had ever gotten off of bus 43. Bun always said “have a good night”. Emma just sighed. She was still angry. I was so humiliated. I couldn’t cry though. Crying was for sissies and though even in first grade I was a little confused on the subject, I was not a sissy. But I teared up. I was humiliated.

As predicted there was some mention of the incident by my classmates the next day at school. It was then that I started counting the days since the incident through the rest of the school year. They’d forget about it with the passage of time. They didn’t talk about it after the next big scandal, probably someone dropping their tray in the cafeteria or something. But I counted each from the day I rode bus 49 to the last day of the school year.

But I never rode bus 49 again. And I never forgot the incident and I went out of my way to make sure I was never laughed at or humiliated again. Though obviously not successful in that venture, the ride on bus 49 definitely has had a strong impact on the rest of my life.

And on call week continues. It is currently 1:28 a.m. as I type this, I have been on hold with Verizon since 12:55 a.m. I will probably be on hold for another 30 minutes before someone picks up the phone. At least I’m getting paid for sitting here on hold.

I’d rather be asleep.

One of the worst aspects of this round of on call is that Verizon has decided to replace their suicide inducing selection of instrumental ditties on their hold music with some of the worst selection of vocal tracks that I have ever heard. They are all down tempo, intense, sad songs that make Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” sound like a snappy disco track. To keep it interesting, they have included a bunch of Christian rock ballads as well.

I miss the days when people would have fun songs for their hold music. The peppy sounds of big band intermingled with lovely messages such as “Thank you for calling Medical Billing. Press 1 to speak with a representative. Press 2 to hear ‘Happy Days Are Hear Again’. Press 3 to declare yourself clinically insane” are long gone in a sea of, pick one: 1. depressing music or 2. marketing messages cranked up to such an insane volume level that it makes Billy Mays sound like he’s whispering in church.

…

I just got off the phone with Norma, a Verizon representative that sounds like she just swallowed a Peterbuilt. She barked the trouble ticket status at me and wanted to know if I wanted them to fix it. I miss the days when Lily Tomlin said “We’re the phone company, we don’t have to care!” At least she didn’t bark, she snorted. Nevertheless I let Norma know that the music on hold was just terrible and she said she’s never had the opportunity to listen but I was the third person to comment on it tonight.

I’d finish this entry off with some snappy closing but instead I’m just going back to bed.

Earl is lying in bed next time. He gets up earlier than me so therefore he tends to fall asleep faster than I do. I’m on call, which makes me tend to lie in bed and sort of just wait for my pager to go off so I’m quite tired from last night but I also need to fall asleep. I probably will soon.

We are almost a week into the New Year and I must say that I am feeling very good about 2009 thus far. I have been working on my goals that I set for myself this year – I’ve been sticking to my healthy eating plan, I am going to be seeing an acupuncturist soon and I’m staying within my budget; we haven’t had a money discussion yet this year. That’s always a good sign. I’m good at spending money. This year I hope to add some wisdom to the talent.

I’m trying to type quietly here in bed so as not to disturb Earl. It’s not an easy thing to do, I type quickly but I learned on a typewriter, so my touch is a little intense.

I watched the live updates from Macworld this afternoon like most Mac users and I have to say that initially I was a little disappointed in what was presented today; I’m not in the market for a new MacBook Pro but I’m kind of excited about the enhancements to iLife. I was really hoping for a new incarnation of the Mac Mini, but I’m guessing that might be down the line a little bit. Then after watching the video of the keynote speech I decided that I liked what Apple presented today. I never really expect them to take my breath away, they just make really cool technology. That’s all it is.

Tonight has been about just hanging around the house and doing on-call stuff. I like just hanging around sometimes.

DJing in relative darkness.

So today is the first day of 2009. I feel I started the New Year off on the right foot; whilst working at the bar last night I drank only water. It was amateur night as far as the crowd was concerned, the lightweights were drunk at midnight and the bar cleared down to about a quarter of the crowd by 12:30. The crowd was by no means impressive by way of size but they were nonetheless festive. The gig went well. I received several compliments on my music selection last night. I was also approached by a DJ based in the Poconos who invited me to spin down there some time. I am pleased.

With the ushering of the New Year everyone has resolutions and promises and goals and all that sort of thing and I suppose I am no different when it comes to this. There are a couple of things in the way of self-improvement that I am focusing on this year and hopefully the results will be evident in various aspects of my life. Some will be discussed on this blog and some will not. I’ll probably discuss more things than I have lately, because one of my goals is to get back into the habit of blogging on a regular basis again. I need the creative outlet.

I have done surprisingly well in maintaining a healthier lifestyle over this past holiday season. I jumped on the scale and noticed that my BMI has decreased a little bit and that my weight has dropped a couple of pounds. This is a good thing. One of my goals this year is to do more photography work, both behind and in front of the camera. Feeling more confident in this body will help me on both sides of the lens.

My faith in western medicine continues to decline as I get older. I remember talking with a psychic (not the one that told me I should be dead by now) about 10 years ago who said that some people are wired for natural remedies and some people are wired for chemical remedies. I fully believe that I am in the former group on that one and I am going to swing my health pendulum back in that direction again. I think that’s the basis of a few things that have been bothering me lately; I’ve been a little cranky the past month or two. I feel like I really have a turned over a new leaf with the ushering in of the New Year.

I started an informal blog of recipes. When I find something interesting that I’m going to endeavour to cook in the kitchen, I’ll post the recipe here.