Ramblings
Hoopty-ness
Nov 28th
This is a strange coincidence – I was pondering what to post today, and was half-leaning towards another “Damn, I want to get out on the road and travel in my own self-contained vehicle” type of post. I’d gave blood in the bloodmobile yesterday (Big old schoolbus converted to a rolling stick-a-needle-in-your-arm-and-take-my-blood bus), and while lying there, was thinking of how I would convert that particular bus to suit my needs.
But I felt it was probably too soon after the last post where I talk about wandering, so I decided against it, and posted a quick blurb about Expression Engine. Shortly after, I got into a conversation with a friend about the word ‘hoopty’. As in ‘That’s one hoopty ride’. She didn’t know what it meant, so I told her it was like cool/nifty/bitchin’/righteous… I did a quick google search, and among the many hits, found a blog called “Hoopty Life: One homeless woman’s guide to van dwelling, car living and urban camping.” Now how a homeless woman has internet access I haven’t discovered yet, but it’s a good read from a first-hand point of view about this particular lifestyle.
Pretty weird coincidence…but I’ll go with it.
At The Grocery Store (NaBloPoMo Day 26)
Nov 27th
At the grocery store this evening, I was standing in line, waiting to make my purchase behind a lady on a cell phone. Some people are decent cell phone talkers, can either carry on a conversation quietly, or tell the person they’ll call back. Not this lady, she was babbling about meeting someone somewhere loudly. And she never stopped talking, even when she was checking out. Quite annoying. I saw her a few minutes later in the parking lot. She loaded her groceries, got in her car, backed out and left and never stopped blabbing into the phone. Seriously, do you need to be *that* connected? It annoys me that some people have to be on their cell phones all the time. I wish the cashier would’ve not helped her until she gave him her attention.
On a side note, signing your name on those card readers is pointless – the signature doesn’t even look close to my real signature. So I’ve recently started just making loops and swirls. Sometimes it’s just a big X – other visits I write stuff like “Shark Attack!”
Great fun.
A Swing And A… (NaBloPoMo Day 25)
Nov 25th
Yup, I missed a day.
I thought about it as I was going to bed. Yesterday was a typical post-Thanksgiving day; my brother an I hit a couple of stores, Gail and Adriana went hiking with Sarah. Sounds like that should be the other way around, until you realize Seth and I went to Micro Center and REI. Good guy stuff.
But as I was thinking about this, I realized I really didn’t care if I made every single day posting or not. Especially if I’m just posting to make my quota, so to speak. And that’s what I was afraid of when I first started; that I’d make crap posts just to post. So I decided not to. And look! It didn’t kill me!
It was good having Seth and Adriana down for Thanksgiving, and we’ve already made plans for next year. Thanksgiving 2008 we’ll be inviting the rest of the family to come, so that’ll be a bit more challenging. Gail’s never cooked a turkey before (but it turned out splendidly), so Seth and Adriana were just a warm-up.
Today is play practice and laundry. Typical Sunday.
Growing Up (NaBloPoMo Day 22)
Nov 22nd
I mentioned a couple of topics I considered discussing when first starting NaBloPoMo, just to make sure I had something to talk about. One of those topics was racism, as I do think I have a rather unique view of racism, considering I’m your average mid-30s white guy. Typical house in the typical suburb, living the typical demographic – wife, two kids, SUV, cat, dog, etc.. What could someone like me know of racism?
Easy; up until I was in the fourth grade, I was very much a minority. I live on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona. My dad worked for the BIA, hence the reason for living on the reservation. In my grade, I was one of four white kids. All the other kids were Native Americans. And I was constantly picked on. Two incidents stand out vividly in my mind.
The bus ride was always a challenge. I knew every intersection, every scrap-wood fence, almost every rock, as I stared out the window the entire ride to school and home. I didn’t interact with the other kids. On the way to school this particular morning, the other kids were in a torturous mood. I suffered smacks upside the head, flicks of the ear and stuff being thrown at me. I didn’t respond, nor react. When we got to school, I flat out refused to get off the bus. All the other kids had gotten off, but me. Brother Mark, our bus driver (yes, it was a catholic school I attended), came back to talk to me. I remember him being nice. I also remember him bringing another authority figure on the bus, whether another teacher or an administrator, I don’t know. I just remember Brother Mark telling this person that all the other kids picked on me and he simply didn’t know why. Eventually, they persuaded me to get off the bus.
The second incident was considerably more embarrassing, and I’m not sure I’ve actually told this to anyone. See, being white, I was circumcised. The Navajo and Hopi boys (as I imagine all the Native American boys), weren’t. And when they saw I was, it was as if I was suddenly a side-show freak. I would go in to use the bathroom, and if there were three or more boys in there, I would get laughed at. The incident that stands out in my mind was peeing, and having some kid come up behind me and pull my pants and underwear down to my ankles. As a boy, once you start peeing, it’s very difficult to stop, so I stood there, finishing with my pants down around my ankles, the other boys laughing and taking turns kicking my butt. Not much fun.
I wasn’t until later in my life I understood what racism was. Granted, the discrimination against me was mild, and I apologize if I’ve offended anyone who might be reading this that suffered more than I. I don’t remember the adults giving me any sort of the treatment the kids did. And not all the kids were like that. I had a friend name Frederick who invited me to play, who took me to his house and to meet his family.
What really drove it home was when we lived up in Oregon. We moved there when I was in fourth grade. Talk about a culture shock; from high desert to lush, green, nearly rain forest-like climate. To sunshine all the time to rain every other day. To white people, and nothing but white people. My mom said after a week of being there, I asked her “where are all the Indians?” And in the fifth grade, we had a kid move into the neighborhood who was black. It was then that I really learned about racism.
Do I blame those kids for picking on me like that? Not in the slightest. As I said, it might have been a case of being the outcast kid that everyone picks on. I don’t think that’s the whole story though – another kid who was white, by the name of Joel, suffered many of the same indignities. Again, on the whole, they were minor. To a kid in the second and third grades, they were terrifying.
It’s at this time of the year that I think a little deeper than most about Thanksgiving and what it signifies. As an American, it’s more than family time, getting together and sharing good food; it’s also shameful. What our forefathers did to the Native Americans was a travesty. The way we treat with them now is an embarrassment.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Think about what it means.
/soapbox.
My Brain Doesn’t Like Me (NaBloPoMo Day 21)
Nov 21st
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and in case I forget to make a post tomorrow, I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving today (at least those of you in the States… I actually do have a couple of friends who pop in now and then to read this). I do have a post planned for tomorrow, for Treva actually. I’d mentioned when I started doing this post-a-day-for-thirty-days, that I had an idea or two, one of those ideas being my views on racism. She IM’d me a few days back asking when it was coming. So Treva, I promise, if I remember to post tomorrow, I will post about my views.
Before talking about what I really was going to talk about, I want to direct everyone’s attention to my Quick Bits over there. I want you to check out the link to Pigeon Point Lighthouse. And no, I’m not going to link it here, go over there you lazy bastards and click!
Today is going to be about my brain and the things it does to keep itself occupied while I’m asleep. See, I’m doing a new production right now, a reading of A Christmas Carol. Basically what that means is there are 6 of us on stage, actually reading from the script. We’ll be dressed in costume, but have minimal props and addressing the audience directly.
The other thing taking up a lot of my time is, naturally, work. I’ve been stressing over the creation of several different secure forms for these banks. Lots of little things I have to remember to include, and naturally I missed a bunch the first time (or two) around. Because of security measures taken as the result of an audit, I’m not allowed access to the production servers, nor the secure sever. Basically, I can create the forms, and make sure they look OK, but for full functionality, I have to send them to my boss and she has to upload them and tell me all the mistakes I made. Which, quite frankly, is a sucky way to develop.
But back to the brain playing while I’m sleeping. This morning, probably about 3 a.m. or so, I woke myself up. I woke up because I was talking. I was reciting lines of the script for a Christmas Carol. But they were formatted in the aforementioned Secure Forms. So, instead of Last Name [input box], First Name [input box], the were lines like Scrooge [Scrooge's Line], Cratchit [Cratchit's Line]. And that’s how I was reading the lines, talking in my sleep. And this isn’t the first time work has intruded. When I was managing the pizza restaurant, I was working very long hours (70-80 hour weeks). At one point in the middle of the night, I sat straight up in bed, and yelled to my wife “CHEESE! I NEED MORE CHEESE!”
I quit shortly after that.
So that’s how my brain occupies itself; merges two aspects of my daily life into one, and messes with me. Lovely.
And a Volvo in the driveway (NaBloPoMo Day 18)
Nov 19th
Soccer Tournament, rehearsal, soccer party, laundry, movie, cleaning refrigerator. That was pretty much my weekend. No, nothing to write home about at all, just a typical day in suburbia.
I felt like I was running all over the place this weekend. I wanted to get started on the housecleaning, as my brother and his wife are coming for Thanksgiving. Best I did was clean the fridge out. At least I got rid of that nasty smell. Also made me realize we have no real food in the house now. Apparently we had a LOT of leftovers that’d gone bad though. I opened one container, peeked inside, shut it when my nose hairs caught on fire and threw the whole damn thing away. I’ll be giving kids some money to buy lunch next week it would seem.
Wanderlust, 70s style… (NaBloPoMo Day 13)
Nov 13th
When I was a teenager, I always fancied a nomadic lifestyle. I often thought of long-haul truck drivers and how cool it’d be to point your rig one direction in the morning, drive all day until after the sun went down, park and crawl in the back to sleep. When we were traveling and would stop in a truck stop, I liked to go into the store they always have and look at the CBs, TVs, radio’s and other stuff designed to make the trucker’s life more like home.
I wanted a van. I would sit with a pad of graph paper and draw not only how my custom van would look on the outside (it was always in the style of those classic 70s custom vans) but a floor plan of where my bed/sofa would be, the mini-fridge, the TV, a small closet for my clothes. This van would be the epitome of all the custom vans of the 70s: obnoxious paint, crazy body work, tripped out interior.
In this van, I would travel all over the country, taking my time and getting to know the ins and outs of the spots away from the touristy centers. I never gave a thought for how I was going to afford all this.
I bring this up because I found a link to the new Basecamp Trailer by Airstream. It’s a well-designed trailer for hauling all your stuff, whether it’s ATVs, motorcycles, kayaks, backpacks, mountain bikes, etc., as well as a complete living space with a small stove and sink, and pop out tent for more room. It just makes me want to wander again. I’ve always had wanderlust. I hoping when the kids are out of school, it’ll be easier to bow to the desire.
It’s always a kick in the pants (NaBloPoMo Day 8)
Nov 8th
There’s a natural Law in the universe that states something along the lines of “If you have you it, you won’t need it.” I’ve had this funky type of torx screwdriver in my junk drawer for years. I don’t know where it came from, or how it got there, or what I’d use it for (I do have torx bolts on my Harley, but they’re much bigger). But I can’t throw it away. Even though I’ve been slowly decrapifying my house (and hopefully my life), I simply can’t throw it away.
Why? Well, because of the corollary to that first Law, which everyone knows; simply “If you need it, you won’t have it”
Great case in point: in a previous entry I talked about going to Krysta’s Halloween party. I had couple of ideas for costumes, but because of time constraints, I was going with ‘easier is better’. How about…a deviled egg! Yes! A simple white t-shirt, paint a paper plate yellow and stick it in the middle of the shirt and a pair of nice devil horns I’d received as part of a FreeBSD goodie bag I got a long time ago. But, thinking about it, I realized in my desire to get rid of stuff I never use, I threw away those devil horns.
And that’s why people hoard stuff. They always figure they might need it. But I’m not going to let that deter me – I’m still aiming to throw more stuff away!
The Secret That’s Not (NaBloPoMo Day 5)
Nov 5th
Gail and I sat down and watched The Secret last night, which is basically a documentary (?) about an important ‘secret’ passed down through history. Knowing the secret will allow you to gain all of your wants and desires, whether it’s money or wealth (not the same thing), health, happiness, or an ice cream sundae.
What it boils down to is being aware of the Law of Attraction. And quite frankly, it’s not that big of a secret. Everyone knows a negative person who always seems to have bad things happen to them. Everyone knows of a certain type of person who always seems lucky. It’s big in metaphysical and New Age circles, and quite frankly, I believe it. It boils down to this: If you put out good, positive thoughts about what you want (I want to have a great day!), there’s a better than good chance you’ll receive those wants. If you put out negative thoughts (I don’t want a speeding ticket!), you’ll receive those as well. And if you do start having a bad day, you can either let it snowball into a horrible day, or just let it slide, think happy thoughts and turn it around. Easier for some than others, I know. But my parents always taught me things along these lines, so this really wasn’t a secret. How’s the song go? “Don’t worry…be happy.” Cheesy, yes…but true.
There’s obviously more to it than I’m going into. But it’s a worthy thought, at least in my opinion; release good energy in terms of positive thoughts, receive good, positive things. It doesn’t have to be materialistic. It could be as something simple as a good day.
So, with that, I’m going to wish you all a very good day!
Randomness III
Nov 1st
November seems to be the month to write; both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo are attempts to get people to write more. NaNoWriMo is Nation Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. For NaBloPoMo, that’s National Blog Posting Month, and that equates to a post a day. I’m going to attempt the post a day for NaBloPoMo. But I’m also going to make another goal. To finally open up Harleyroads to the public.
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I’m terribly addicted to Dicewars. Damn the Internet!
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Sarah spent her 10th birthday by inviting all the kids in her class, along with assorted friends (and her teacher) on a ghost tour. Gail does the Leesburg Ghost Tours from April to Halloween. Sarah and her friends learned a lot of history, heard some ghost stories, had their cookies and snacks and hot cider in a cemetery (I kid you not) and got to touch a ghost. She had a blast. I have a wonderfully unique, kooky daughter.
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Speaking of birthdays, Cody’s is just around the corner now. He’s going to be 15(!!). After that, it’s my anniversary…after that, it’s Christmas. I never have any money between October and February which is when Gail’s birthday and Valentines Day are – on the same day actually.
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When I first listened to Sigur Rós, I wasn’t sure if I liked them or not. Listening again and again brings new levels of appreciation and admiration. Like peeling layers of an onion, each layer gets you closer to the sweetness.
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I need a new MacBook Pro. I want Logic Studio, but my old Quicksilver G4 just isn’t up to the task. Anyone got $3,000 to give me?