Ponderings and Musings

Sites of the City: Genesee Street.

Originally uploaded by bluemarvel.

Today at lunch time I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a 50 minute walk. I soaked in the sun, felt the warm breeze and let the moment lift my mood. Plus, I remembered to bring the camera along and took a few moments to snap a few photos and appreciate all our little city has to offer. There are times when I think Utica has seen it’s last days, but today I looked for the positive and found it. I’m putting together the photos from the walk and will be posting them shortly.

Here is a shot looking south up the main street of the city, Genesee Street. I’m standing in the middle of the ambitiously named “Busy Corner”. All that’s missing is a bunch of people and a hat to toss in the air.

Earl revealed to me this weekend that he doesn’t like my face as much without my beard. I have to admit that I’m a little taken aback by this because he usually doesn’t comment on this sort of thing. I’ve been bearded for the majority of the past couple of years and I went with this clean shaven look for the past week for something different.

Come to find out, he doesn’t like it. Apparently he likes the “big mustache” look I was sporting over the last half of the summer the best, with the beard coming in second.

I’m glad that he took the time to tell me this and have promptly begun growing my beard back. After all, I can’t get to the big mustache without having a beard first. I shaved my head again too, since neither of us was enjoying the gray showing up. Who put that there anyway?

I’m just happy he was honest with me.

Daylight saving time has finally come to an end and once again my body is in sync with what ordinary human’s deem the proper time. I hate Daylight Saving Time. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves. I think this whole concept a flinging hours and minutes about in an effort to “enjoy more sunlight” is stupid.

Here’s the concept of time and how it’s suppose to work. 12 noon is suppose to be when the sun is at it’s highest point in the sky. Due to the restraints of our society and the need for relatively synchronized time, this makes the original concept of “noon” nearly impossible because everyone’s noon would be at a different time.

Many tout the benefits of energy conservation from daylight saving time. Since there’s more daylight when most of us are awake, we’re not using electric lights to see what’s going on. I guess we’re suppose to ignore the fact that in the summer we are using more energy to power air conditioners because we’re up and about when it’s hotter.

One thing that makes me crazy is when someone says “it makes the day longer.” No it doesn’t. The day still has 24 hours in it and the sun is going to be in the sky just as long regardless of the fact of whether we’re in daylight saving time or not. It might be perceived as longer in the narrow view of the declarer’s world, but for those that strive to see the big picture and think outside of the box, it’s a nuisance.

Just think, starting next year Daylight Saving time starts on the SECOND Sunday in March and ends on the FIRST Sunday in November.

I’ll have a whole extra month to be cranky!

It is raining like crazy. The wind is hitting gusts of 50 MPH, with higher gusts predicted for later this afternoon. Luckily, the telephone network is holding together at the moment and on-call is keeping itself under control this weekend.

Rick and Helen (Earl’s stepbrother and girlfriend) are up for a visit today and tomorrow. They must think this place is hell on earth because the weather is always like this, if it isn’t snowing, when they visit. Right now we’re all just chilling out in the living room, complete with Tom parallel parked on the arm chair next to me.

I just got done speaking with my sister in Moscow. I like to check in with her from time to time when she’s traveling abroad. She and her boyfriend are expected back for a little while next week. We look forward to getting together with them. She told me about their furnished apartment and how it is decorated in orange suede and gold, with a chandelier hanging in every room. Sounds pretty.

The only other excitement that has occurred today is a visit from the cable guy because our internet connection has been all screwed up again this week. He replaced a connector and told me that the new cable company is upgrading all the equipment and it’s going to be like this through January.

As a geek, this is not lovely. But I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.

Earl’s cake did not win a prize yesterday at the company hee-haw harvest dessert contest. While people were polishing it off in great numbers while I was there, no one was voting for it. Not even after I broke the ice by voting for it myself.

What do they know?

You know what did win in the Great Dessert bake-off? First place went to candied/caramel apples with your choice of nuts, candy corn or chocolate flakes as a coating and second place went to a a lively frosted dog made out of twinkies.

First of all, the caramel apples were brought in by a saleswoman who didn’t have to leave halfway through the gathering so that the other half her department could go to the party. So she had the opportunity to work the crowd by cutting up the apples and walking around offering them to people. Show a little leg and score yourself another vote.

Now the dog made out of twinkies was cute but I felt it was a rather low blow by going for the cutesy cartoon approach coupled with the use of twinkies. My friend Christine (who brought two delicious chocolate cakes) says next year she’s throwing some frosting on a cardboard cut out of a dessert to see if she wins a prize that way. I’m glad she’s going for the effort because I’m not stepping foot in another work sponsored dessert bake-off again. These fools would be happy with a McDonald’s Apple Pie for goodness sake. Maybe that’s what I’ll bring next year, McDonald’s Apple Pie.

Luckily, I’m not as bitter as I really could be because my co-worker Ryan made a delicious rum cake where he had tripled the amount of rum called for in the recipe.

So let’s toast to the desserts that should have won and all have another piece of rum cake.

It’s a whopping 37 degrees here in the beautiful area we call Upstate New York. Snow is forecasted for tonight. There’s a definite chill in the air and you can smell the impending flurries, almost as if Mother Nature is giving us a gentle warning.

For the life of me I can’t figure out why the air conditioner is still running full blast at work.

Now I don’t really mind the cold. I find it’s easier to warm up then it is to cool down. Just throw on another layer of clothes and voila, you’re warmer. It’s great to snuggle up to your lover when it’s chilly outside. But when it’s hot and humid, well, that’s another story.

I’ve often fantasized about visiting the north or south poles. I’d rather go to the North Pole and live there for a year, contributing to one of the handful of research stations. I bet the night sky (all 24 hours of it for approximately half the year) is absolutely breathtaking. I could maintain computer systems or be the base administrative assistant or heck, even dance on some tables for entertainment if they needed it, but I think it would be great to live at the North Pole for a year. I’d do the South Pole too, but I think I prefer the north. Less touristy and the toilets swirl the right way.

There’s a local restaurant that gives you a free meal if you get your picture taken somewhere famous whilst wearing one of their t-shirts. I tell Earl I’m going to get my picture up there someday while sitting on top of the North Pole, one foot in an American time zone and the other in a Russian time zone. My hands, open in a gesture of exuberance, would be in different days.

That would be a neat picture.

But for today I have to look presentable in casual business attire while sitting under an air conditioning vent, doing my best to keep warm without resorting to wearing my jacket, hat and gloves while sitting in my cubicle*. Of course the lack of beard is not helping. But I think I’m going to keep it off until the end of the year and then start a new beard on New Year’s Day.

I think the air conditioning at work is set to 60. Perhaps I need to set fire to my desk or something.

Here’s a link to a site about a guy living for a year at the North Pole.

* My cubicle isn’t really a cubicle, but rather 1/4 of a cubicle. I have a dividing wall and a desk with a little storage cubby thing above my desk. I have often remarked that it probably would have been easier just to go all the way and plop a discarded door on top of cinder blocks. This usually results in a glare from my supervisor.

So I’m back from my little three day road trip and have settled in for the night. Earl is still on his way home from Tampa. His flight was delayed a bit. He told me he would call me when he landed; I just tried to call his cell phone and got his voicemail. Perhaps he’s airborne.

I’ve just finished watching two consecutive episodes of Wonder Woman. They were both from the second season, when Lynda Carter’s hair was long, but the budget was big enough that they weren’t taking any “shortcuts” with stand-ins doing to the wonder spin and whatnot. These things are important. One recurring them I have noticed about Wonder Woman is that twins are considered evil. There are a number of episodes in that second season where the bad guy or gal is flanked by a set of female twins. Always female, always blonde, always identical twins. I’ve known a few sets of twins in my time and I don’t recall them both being evil at the same time. Mischievous perhaps, but never evil.

Tomorrow starts a week of on-call but I feel like I’m ready to take it on. I have some projects to do, including website work getting through all the photos I took on this trip. Plus I have two nights of school which always does wonders for breaking up the monotony of on-call with the added bonus of an education.

I chatted with my sister in Russia a little while ago. She told me that I can let the cat out of the bag. You see, Earl and I have been holding onto a little secret for the past six weeks or so – we’re going to be uncles. That’s right, my sister and her boyfriend are going to have a baby. She finally let my Mom know today and I am just thrilled for the both of them.

As Earl likes to say: “Life is good.”

I was sound asleep and I was hearing voices. Loud voices. Voices loud enough to wake me out of my peaceful slumber. So I got up and padded around the hotel room. As I got out of bed, the voices stopped. I figured they were part of some quickly fading dream that I didn’t remember and quickly dismissed the insignificant experience.

As I started readying myself for the day, I started hearing these voices again. I peeked out the peep hole in the hotel room door, no one was out there. I cracked open the door, taking great pains to not expose my current state of undress and took a cautious glance up and down the hotel corridor. No one in sight in either direction.

And then the voices started getting louder. And angrier. Somewhere in my head, two people were arguing. Oddly enough, the voices were female. I confirmed that the television was off. I put my ear up to the common walls with the other rooms, no sounds from there.

But the voices persisted. Loud, angry, non-English voices. Accusatory tone. Somewhat shrill. “Is this how one goes mad in a hotel room in Maryland?”, I pondered. Do I have some Exorcist thing going on?

And then it dawned on me, the voices were coming out of the vent in the bathroom. Apparently somewhere in the hotel, some surly guests or the housekeeping staff were having some hellacious cat fight. They were still yammering and almost hissing at each other.

And they were broadcasting it over the “bathroom p.a. system.”

I’ve installed a new commenting system on here so that I’m not bombarded with spam as I have been in the past. I’m not a huge fan of forcing readers to register in order to leave comments so that’s why I’m going with this new system.

In honor of the new commenting system, I’m inviting anyone that stops by to ask me *anything*. I’ve been commenting on other blogs about the merits of being an openly gay man and this is sort of a test to myself to see if I really am. So feel free to ask me anything. Anything at all.

I’ll answer all questions right here in the blog, for everyone else to see.

It’s a little after six in the morning and I’m fully showered, dressed and ready to kick off my day. I’m sitting here, in complete darkness save for the light from my computer, still a little dazed from the sound sleep I had last night and the ensuing dreams that accompanied it.

Earl is always amazed when I tell him about my dreams almost every morning. He’s surprised that I can remember most of my dreams. Is that normal? I remember my dreams from almost every night and every catnap I take. Some dreams are very vivid and memorable in their detail. On the other hand some are very foggy, almost as if I had watched the action through a thick haze or participated covered in molasses. Nevertheless, if I can’t remember the detail of the dream, I can remember the impression that it made upon me and how I felt or currently feel because of it.

I think dreaming is the main reason I love sleeping. For me it’s like going to a movie where I’m the star of an infinite number of shows and I have no idea what’s going to be playing on the big screen.

Goodness, I’m weird.