Ponderings and Musings

I’m thinking of getting rid of my Flickr account. I’m still going to post pictures on the blog from time to time and use my .Mac account to display little photo albums as well, but I’m thinking of jumping off the Flickr bandwagon for a while. I’m getting too many creepy messages e-mailed to me.

Any other Flickr users have the same issues?

Today marks the day of a new height in American Absurdity. I heard a commercial on the radio for a product called “Height Max”. Apparently aimed at short people, this product is a supplement you take if you’re between the ages of 15 and 25 and feel short. It’s packed with vitamins and amino acids and will help you strive for that height that you’ve always dreamed of. No longer will you be the short guy at the prom having to look up to your dance partner. The members of the basketball team will no longer laugh at you. Guys on the beach will no longer kick sand in your face and say “Back on the shrimp boat, shrimp.” With Height Max, you simply take this non-prescription supplement and faster than you can make a bionic ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch noise, your body will grow to its fullest potential.

Something sounds very unnatural about the whole thing.

“I was concerned about my 15 year old son. He seemed small for his age. But his confidence was restored and his self-esteem improved after taking Height Max. Why, he’s towering over me now!”

Give me a bleepin’* break.

I suspect this is the beginnings of social engineering where we start to weed out the less desirables. Too short? Take Height Max. Don’t like your dark hair? Color it. Don’t like your dark skin? Bleach it. Where does it all end?

A recent snapshot of me on Flickr showed a white streak I have in my mustache. In fact, it’s prominent enough that someone put a Flickr note on it that said “white?” From afar it may look like a boogie hanging out of my nose. But it’s not (or its not snot), it’s just a white streak I have in my mustache. It’s like Bonnie Raitt’s white streak in her hair. I wear it with pride. I’ve earned in. Why would I want to get rid of it? It’s part of me.

There are tall people, there are short people, there are those of us in between. Don’t take some crazy supplement to grow taller than you were intended to be. That’s crazy. Embrace who you are and deal with the hand you’ve been dealt.

* It’s not really a New Year’s resolution per se, but since I let out a few expletives at a recent party and scared away half the people at the dining room table, I’ve decided to calm down on the f-bombs.

2005 Fades Away.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl and I are playing it low key this weekend as we say goodbye to 2005 and usher in the New Year. I don’t know who is dropping the ball with Dick Clark this year, but I certainly hope they don’t make a big spectacle of Mr. Clark and inadvertently tarnish his reputation as the eternal teenager.

Looking back at 2005 I could get all mushy and talk about what this year has meant to me, but then you would get bored and most likely make “blah, blah, blah” movements with your hand and I don’t really want to be known as the guy that bored you for your New Year’s Eve.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I don’t really have some “Resolution Revolution” planned form myself like I’ve done in years past. I do have goals which are just little niggly things that I’ve been thinking about, but overall I’m quite happy with who I am, where I am and what I’m doing.

For the first time in 37 years of life on this planet, I am comfortable with my place in this world and I’m just going to continue to do what I do. And that’s be myself.

May everyone find peace this New Year’s, have a rip roarin’ good time with friends and loved ones and find 2006 full of life, love and happiness.

Here it is, the tip of the New Year’s weekend celebration and Earl and I have a clean slate ahead of us in the fun and games department. There’s a family party tonight and then it’s pure rest and relaxation for three days before we’re back to work on Tuesday.

Pure bliss.

We’re going to catch up on some movies we haven’t seen, take some pictures, eat a bit and a bit more and just take it easy.

Life has been chaotic lately. It’ll be nice to slow down for a bit.

Speed.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

For the past two days I’ve commuted back and forth to my company’s Syracuse office for training. Next month our two tech support groups (one telecommunications, the other internet) combine into one facility and one big happy family. Luckily, the move is into our building, so it won’t change my commuting habits one iota. And added plus is that the internet group moving in with us is a great group of people and I’m looking forward to working with all of them. I’ll have more to do and once the dust settles, less on-call responsibilities (since more of us will be sharing the duties). It’s all very exciting and right up my geek alley.

Since the weather was spring like today, I decided to take the Acura out on the road and enjoy the New York State Thruway a little bit.

There’s little more enjoyable then hitting the open road at a respectable speed in the vehicle you love.

With the approach of every new year, I have traditionally formulated a list of all the things I want to change about myself. I’m going to be more outgoing. I’m going to spend less time on the computer. I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to exercise more. I’ve often thought of the new year as the perfect time to do an extreme makeover of myself, to come up with J.P. v2005 or whatever and do a complete re-imaging.

This year I have no desire to do that. It’s the first time in my adult life that I’ve felt this way.

Oh, I have things that I want to do, but I don’t feel the pressing need to correct any perceived faults or to better myself to a pre-conceived image of how I should be, rather than how I am.

Perhaps this is the first time in a long time that I’ve been happy with the way I am.

I don’t think I come off as too repulsive when I meet people face to face or interact with others. I’m no longer afraid to keep things that bother me to myself. I’m no longer afraid to joke with strangers in a public space. I’m no longer constantly measuring myself to the standard of “will they like me” or “do they think I am weird.” Yes, I am likeable and yes, I am eccentric. Big deal. Love me or leave me.

The packaging isn’t that bad either. I’m comfortable in my own skin, so I don’t feel the need to shed a ton of weight. I’m too lazy to do that anyway. I’ll probably continue to grow my beard and shave my head – I’d like to grow my beard until we vacation in May. If that makes people roll their eyes, so be it. It’s my face. And I can’t see myself with a head of hair anymore, I couldn’t even grow a full head of hair if I tried and I’ve accepted that.

I’m going to do more cycling this year. Now that I have a handle on how my on-call weeks for work actually work, I’ve figured out a good way manage recreation and work all together. Will I fall down in a rejected mess if I don’t do a lot of cycling? No, I won’t. Its for fun, no sense in beating myself up over it.

So there’s no Resolution Revolution this year. I’m just me.

Today I start a couple of days of training work. I have to drive to our other office, 50 miles away, for the next two days. Have I mentioned that I’m not a morning person? I’m sitting here staring at my laptop screen like a mindless zombie and I’m not even certain of my full given name.

I think I’ll take a nap on the way. Is it safe to zone out on long commutes?

Here it is the week between Christmas and New Year’s. The time I like to call ‘Tween. You know the drill, only half the people are working in your office so it’s sort of like a regular work week aside from the fact that the malls and big box behemoths are still packed to the brim with surly shoppers too impatient to stand in line at the return counter.

Kids are also off from school this week. They often say that the primary goal of our education system is to prepare a student for the real world, to arm them with the tools they need to survive the rest of their life. That’s why I’ve never understood why schools are closed so much. What are there, 180 days in the school year? That’s less than half a year. Half a year! I wish I could get half a year off from my job. I guess I’m jealous.

But I digress.

It’s a little bit of a challenge here at work during the ‘tween. It’s a slow time, so I try to look busy and resist the urge to go wildly surfing on the internet. You never know who, besides the U.S. Government of course (wave for the NSA man!), is monitoring your online activity, so it’s best to stay away from the porn from 9 to 5. Even that site that beckons “Jerk at work”. Not that I’ve ever been there.

Luckily the geek in me enjoys keeping up with the happenings in the technology and telecommunications community, which is inline with what I do for a living.

Back in my early days of radio as a fill-in d.j. this was a busy week for me. I would get to work as the replacement for the popular night-time slot. Sort of like Joan Rivers sitting in for Johnny Carson, though I was J.P. Marks sitting in for B.B. Good and I didn’t have any of Joan’s plastic look or sound. Listeners would enjoy the show but they preferred to hear the “real” d.j. do her thing.

Maybe I should have used the name ‘Tweener.

Earl and I have needed a little kick in the holiday spirit this evening. With trying to keep up with the rat race, we’ve found little time to just sit down, relax and enjoy a little Christmas joy for ourselves. So tonight we decided to snuggle up to the holiday classic, “White Christmas”.

All proper showings of classic movies deserve a little short to set the mood, so we first watched “A Vision of Sugar Plums”, the Christmas episode from the very first season of Bewitched.

In “Visions…”, Billy Mumy plays Michael, a bully of a boy that lives at the local orphanage that has come home with Darrin and Samantha for Christmas. He doesn’t have a very warm, fuzzy feeling for the holidays, believing its all a bunch of bunk. Samantha decides to convince him otherwise, and whisks him off to the North Pole, along with Darrin riding shotgun on her broom, so he can meet Santa Claus. After meeting Santa Claus, Michael starts feeling the holiday spirit, calms down a little bit and seems to move on to a well-adjusted life with the parents that want to adopt him (the father being Bill Daily, Major Healey from “I Dream of Jeannie”).

After Bewitched it was on to the main feature, “White Christmas”.

This movie is one of our all-time favorites. The cinematography is breathtaking (in Vistavision!). The musical numbers are most enjoyable and words cannot describe the amount of talent found in this movie. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen are all incredible performers. They certainly don’t make movies like “White Christmas” anymore and Hollywood doesn’t seem to have the talent found back in the day. Watching “White Christmas” has inspired me to watch more classic movies this winter and I’m looking forward to snuggling up on cold winter nights to catch on some old chestnuts.

Tonight was just what we needed to fully get into the holiday spirit. Now I’m looking forward to catching “Bell, Book and Candle” sometime next week, another classic (and an inspiration for Bewitched) that takes place at Christmas.

Tomorrow we are off to Pennsylvania to kick off the annual Christmas tour. It’s going to be a grand weekend.

I was looking at old files on our webserver here at jpnearl.com and came across this little blog entry type thingee I wrote back in December 2001. For some bizarre reason, I was writing blog entries outside of my blog. I don’t recall why I was doing that, but nevertheless, if you’d like to take a look, here it is.

12/23/2001. The Chimes.