What’s All This Then!

I enjoy the challenge of writing. Sometimes it’s difficult to give meaning and structure to a half-baked idea. At those times, it feels like the closest that I’ll ever come to child bearing — lots of wailing and pain. But then, my thought sees the light of day (or at least, the glow of the monitor). On shaking legs, it begins to walk until it’s running full speed under its own power, knocking things over and scaring the cat. Before I know, it has matured and moved out to start raising a family of other half-baked ideas. Sadly, it never writes or calls me.

I wish I were proficient enough to make some great money through writing. You know, a couple of books deals, a rock-and-roll type tour to sign my precious tomes, along with following of literary groupies. But what would I write about?

To answer this, I did a little market research. Lucky for me, there is market down the street run by midgets. Unfortunately, I got very little information from them so I turned to the Internet. It seems that the highest selling books are cookbooks. The second highest sellers are diet books. All I need to do then is write about how to cook the greatest meal possible and then how to not eat it. I think it would sell very well. Think of all the people who buy toys and never take them out of the box to play with them. My published words would appeal to the cooking version of these folks.

Oh well. For now, I keep work on this mental exertion know as writing. Heaven knows I need the exercise. If you see me with a bulging forehead, I swear that I have not taken steroids. Owww… I think I just pulled a hamstring in my neocortex…

Popularity: 7% [?]

So today I tackled the lawn. Well, it was more like I tripped and fell spread eagle onto the grass. But the way I held onto that ground, if it had been running, you would’ve said that was a good tackle. To keep my mind from running away (which I explained in Part 1), I downloaded a podcast interview of Wiley Miller who writes and draws the great comic, Non Sequitur. This would have worked out very well — my body busy while my mind kept entertained. As I got set up, I realized why I haven’t used earbud headsets in many many years.

You see, I was born with a birth defect. But don’t feel sorry for me. It’s not one of those defects that get me into special parking spots or get me free money from the government and charity groups. I simply have smaller than normal ears. Often I have beautiful women telling how cute they find my ears to be. I learned long ago that they meant “cute” as in “let’s just be friends and nothing more.” I told you it was a defect. Although I completely don’t understand why they would want to be just friends. You know what they say about guys with little ears, don’t you. No? Neither do I … probably because I can’t hear very well what people whisper.

Anyway, in this day of modern technology and miracle cures, I can’t get those ear bud headsets to stay in my ears. There are those $300 varieties that even fetuses can wear as they listen to “Mozart for Intelligent Pre-Born”. But who has $300 just laying around? Certainly not fetuses. And definitely not me. Sometimes you have to come up with your own technological cures. In my case, I taped the ear pieces to the sides of my head. For a few minutes, I was able to listen to a podcast. In hindsight, I should have used duct tape wrapped completely around my head. Instead, as I began to sweat, the Scotch tape began to loosen from my ears. The headset began to shift gradually and then more dramatically. It got to the point where I would take a few steps and suddenly jerk to try catch the headset. To my neighbors, I must have looked like I was either having a seizure or dancing to a hip-hop song. In the end, I finished the lawn as a podcast concluded. It was very good. I think it was about people talking about something. It must have been very funny because I think I heard them laugh from time to time.

Popularity: 8% [?]

First of all, I want to apologize to the children of my neighborhood. For the past seven years, I have been hiring any one of you when you offered to mow my yard. Since I didn’t have the time or a lawn mower, you helped protect me from the town’s lawn Nazis. It was well worth the $20 ($25 for those smooth talking hustlers out there).

This year I have a little more free time. I had to quit one of my side jobs when it began to cost me more money than I was earning. No employee should treat any large profitable corporation as a charity case. And I felt that Domino’s was making more than enough money by selling a $2 pizza for $15. The only time I raked in the dough while working for them was when I had to clean up a rack of fallen pizza patties.

So a few weeks ago, I used the money that would have benefited my neighborhood economy and bought a lawn mower. It took a little bit to convince myself. After all, who enjoys that mind numbing task of pushing a noisy machine along the ground. Oh sure, it was fun when we were three. But now I am an adult. Like my neighbors, I need to do my part to pollute the air while killing defenseless vegetation. Besides, I need the exercise.

I don’t know what goes through your mind as you mow your vast estate. I start out thinking about various design projects that I’m working on it. Soon my bored mind wanders and gets lost. I almost have to stop and put up those “missing brain” posters on telephone poles. “Have you seen my mind? Gray and easily distracted. Prone to following shiny objects, convoluted thoughts and women’s breasts. Reward possible. Call …” But then I think, “Oh, never … mind.”

Eventually I catch up to my wondering thoughts. Usually they’re in the midst of a Walter Mitty type adventure. You know, those inspiring daydreams of “what I would do if I were all rich and powerful.” In that world, I’m saving it from all sorts of evil, righting all sorts of wrongs, and being the kind of super guy that that men are jealous of and women long for. Kind of a letdown when the lawn mower makes a horrible crunching noise when it hits that tree stump or neighborhood cat. Instantly, I’m returned back to reality where I’m only saving the town from grass and weeds that are taller than 6 inches.

There seems to be nothing this town fears more than grass and weeds that are over regulation height. Their only defense is official named Earl who will descend upon your yard with bright pink citations. He has found that threats of extortion for the town’s coffers usually do a good job in taming wild lawn growth … and justify his phony-baloney job.

Anyway, in the classical battle of man verses authority, nature, and himself, who will prevail? All will be revealed in Part 2, including a serious personal flaw (besides this blog) …

Popularity: 7% [?]

What can I say? When I read this ‘Pearls Before Swine’, I laughed harder than I have in a long time. If laughter is the best medicine, then buying Stephan Pastis’ comics need to be covered by my HMO.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Hurray! I walked into work this morning and discovered a suggestion box had been put up. This will be the third one in the 17 years that I’ve been with RPC.

The first one was holdover when RPC bought the DCC plant and kept everything intact. A couple of months later, I began working for RPC. Shortly after that, the suggestion box was taken down. I had nothing to do with that, I swear! No, someone suggested that the company offer monetary incentives for cost savings ideas. One of the VPs showed his support of the idea by saying, “I don’t care if we save $1 million! We’re not giving any fruiting money to any fruiting employee for any of their fruiting ideas.” Of course, “fruiting” was not the word he used. Something more along the lines of an action that would also result in the planting of seeds.

A second suggestion box was put up a few years later and resulted in several money saving ideas for the company (and no rewards for the innovative employees). And then someone jokingly said to one of the VPs about replacing the Cadillacs that the executive staff got for company cars with Geo Metro’s. The suggestion box was gone the next day.

But today is a new day. Today, we have new owners, new vice presidents in charge of things, our evil HR (referred to as Catbert) has been replaced with an actual degreed HR executive, and we have a locked suggestion box. Perhaps tomorrow, I should suggest pay raises for all of us worker bees since we haven’t had one in several years now. The only problem is that, by tomorrow, they might get tired of reading the same ‘pay workers more’. I’m assuming that someone does have a key to this suggestion box …

Popularity: 9% [?]

With the North Carolina primary just a few days away, Hillary Clinton is in town preaching to the faithful and her husband. Barack Obama has been making his presence felt as well. Every night now we’ve been blasted by their ads extolling what they want to do to the American people. For example, you can’t help but get a lump in your throat when you hear Hillary and Barack’s noble promise to investigate those despicable oil companies who are gouging the public. For me, that lump in my throat is my dinner refusing to stay down. It would be different if those stately words weren’t coming from senators who are among the top pork spenders of government revenues. It’s fine to get people fired up about those evil oil businesses. Its especially touching since the Fed takes half of what those companies earn at the pumps. But if these candidates are so concerned about people being gouged, why doesn’t either of them talk about putting an end to wasteful and unnecessary government projects. Do we really need government funded golf courses and teapot museums?

Silly me! Hillary does have a plan for the Federal budget. She wants to increase spending while taking more money from the “rich” — the other rotten scoundrels. You do know that if you’re making more than $60,000 a year, you’re in the top 25% of moneymakers in America? Not only that, you’re in that privileged group that gets to be forced into paying 85% of the income tax bill. If you make less than $33,000 a year, you’re in the bottom 50% of moneymakers and can only pay 3% of the federal personal income tax. You would think that Ms. Clinton would want a moral method of getting more money for her government. As an all important senator, Hillary should know that federal government does accept voluntary contributions. Given that she makes a few hundred thousand dollars a year, I have no problem with her putting her money, instead of ours, where her mouth is. Naturally, this sentiment applies to all those politicians running for or already in public office.

I guess it is the nature of politics to get votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich while promising protect one from the other. Yet, the disturbing part about our democracy is that a majority of the hard working people seem to have no problem getting their pockets picked while the beneficiaries believe they’re getting something for nothing. I have no idea how to change this…

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tuesday found me at a LabVIEW training seminar expecting to learn all sorts of geeky ways to improve my programming skills. During the keynote address, one of the sales reps made a remarkable statement that has been haunting me ever since. The moment he spoke these words, the heavens opened up, angels sang out, and I felt the intense need to emblazon his phrase on a T-shirt. He quietly said, “The things we want the most are outside our comfort zone.” Immediately, I realized that all the things I want to have, all that I want to accomplish in my life are in fact outside my zone of comfortable, familiar actions. It’s kind of like eating soup with a fork because you’re not comfortably with using a spoon (maybe from having the spoon poke your eye one too many times while drinking coffee. I don’t know). OK, bad analogy. How about it’s like sitting in an extremely relaxing recliner while wanting an ice cold drink only 12 feet away in the refrigerator but staying in the chair. But this isn’t all about laziness. It’s like staying in a bad relationship or job because that’s more comfortable than stepping out into the unknowns of a better one. If Life is a banquet, these insightful words might explain why most of us seem to be starving to death…

Popularity: 9% [?]