Surprise! -- There’s NO Surprise!

Back to waiting again.  Being unemployed for nearly 2 months now, many things don’t surprise me.  But, I am surprised that there hasn’t been any surprises.  Meaning: I wasn’t expecting to be down this long without any kind of a job.  I’ve had places deny me because I was over qualified and they refused to pay me more for the position because of it.  I was dumbfounded, and said I’d take the entry level payment.  The answer was a clear “no.”  Although I’ve had a run of about an interview per week; still nothing has materialized into any sort of an offer.  That’s very discouraging.  I remember back to the last time I was unemployed and it took about 2 months before I ended up working part time.  Cross our fingers, but 2 months is about up come next week.  And while I can probably hold out another month; things start getting uncomfortable for me come the end of August.  I’ll have to start making some quick decisions about major expenses I wont be able to afford… like my car, like my mortgage.  I’m holding on to my dog as long as I can, but I recognize even he is expensive in his own way; and should we hit DEFCON III, and I’m forced to move…  I don’t have any idea where I can go with him and be affordable.   It’s a shitty feeing to say the least. 

On the positive… the last few weeks has been completely refreshing.  I’ve been able to finish most of my house related projects I’d been putting off for nearly a year, I’ve spent lots of time with Wrangler, and had plenty of time to see friends.  One of mine came into town from North Carolina… under the old Menard schedule; it wouldn’t have been possible for me to see him… but being free from that, we were able to drink a few beers and chat until the sun came up.  That’s something important in my life I’ve missed out on in the past few years.  Yes, here and there it happens; but not to the level it should.  I’m a single male in his mid 30’s… that’s the kind of thing I should do.  It just doesn’t work out well when you got up at 430am and worked until 11pm.  That’s been the biggest positive to come out of all this mess; getting some semblance of my life back.   Yeah, gain lots of fear, lose lots of money, and kick your pride in the nuts; but you get some bits of your old life back… in the kind of way you want to live.   That’s not really a surprise either, when you think about it.

 

S

Wrangler Updates

More life with Wrangler updates for all the #beagle crazy people on the internet.

As we can all see, Wrangler is growing fast!  We’re right about to the 5 month age, and I’d estimate he’s tripled in size.  He is about 18 pounds now, and probably close to full length.  His ears and paws are about fully grown, but his legs and shoulders will still grow some.  The breeders thought he would stay under 30 pounds fully grown in a year and a half.  So far there are days where I doubt that, and there are days where I think this is as big as he’ll be. 

He spends most of his time chewing on anything.  He’s made this peculiar practice of trying to bury his chew toys and treats; which doesn’t work well on the carpet in the house.  Usually I let him paw at it a bit before I throw a blanket or towel over it.  After some more sniffing and hopping around it, it seems to make do for him. 

His temperament varies day to day.  Most days he’s easily excitable, plays very roughly and will bite quite often.  Some days he will be more relaxed, content to chew and jump around from furniture piece to piece and climb stairs for no reason.   I definitely know he has no fear of heights anymore!   The first few weeks he was at home with me, he struggled to climb stairs and then was too scared to come down.  Now he runs up hills and stairs for no reason, jumps to the back of the couch, like a cat, just for a better vantage point.   Silly.

He is still eating Purina Pro Pack puppy food.  Per the vendor, he should stay on this for at least a year.  With his major growth spurt over, I’m playing it by ear when his big bag runs out.    I might start weaning him to adult food slowly and go to small bags of puppy food for a few months.  My vet told me I could feed him more than I do, which is what the back of the bag said… 1 1/2 cups per day.  Some days he’s extra bitey or crazy I feed him and extra helping and it slows him down.  Never an issue eating more!

Lastly we are working on learning a few things.  We started with a clicker on walks to get his attention.  It does work, but its not the most convenient thing to carry around the house.   Lately I have him coming to with “peep peep” type whistle noise.  Breaking his sense of scent and tracking is difficult with a whistle or a clicker, but with a gentle tap, he usually shakes it off.  Sit, is the first real command we are working on.  I know everyone says it should be Stop or Drop, but he won’t.  Sit seems to be working.  We are rewarding with food pieces and he’s about 2 / 3 times reliable to sit with food reward by second call.  Much better! 

S. + W.

Wine OF the Week… Fish Eye!

Just something we have been laughing about on the podcast  [Rivalcastmedia.com] aka Far A Field podcast…

I’ve been taking down a different bottle of wine on each episode.  I’m not Wine Guy.  I’m not even Snooty Beer guy, but this is fun.  This weeks pick:

Fish Eye – Pino Noir / 2012

 

  I don’t have tons of experience to compare this to, however the price tag was an absurd $2.99, which also had Fuel Saver credits attached to it at my local Hy Vee grocery store.   Since the big draw on this weeks episode was me losing my job; I thought getting plastered on cheapo vino was in order!   I’ll admit, after downing the entire bottle in an hour and change I did have a slight buzz going.  It’s alcohol content labeled as 13.5% by volume but that was really the best part.  It was fairly harsh, and I felt the alcohol had separated from the flavor pretty widely.  Not the worst on the shelf, and I’d use this to cook with or make a rum punch or especially good sangria; but on its own, I wouldn’t expect to see this guy served table side, by the glass, anywhere. 

S

Life With Wrangler

Life with Wrangler seems to be getting on track.   For the most part he listens to me.  That’s saying a lot for a puppy that’s 12 weeks old.  He still chews and bites at me.  Its not a vicious thing; its his version of playing.  That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, or I don’t bleed.  Were working on curbing that.  We’ve had two vet appointments and they say its normal for a puppy.   We’ll go with it. 

So far, crate training is going above average!  He will stay in it at night, and I can even sleep in my bed upstairs.  However, he tolerates it for a maximum of 8 hours.  After that, he barks and yips and howls to get out.   Still.  That’s along time for little guy to hold it, but sleeping helps.  We also us it to take naps in.  I’ve even caught him just wandering in there a few times.  All great signs!

Walks are the next biggest improvement.   Our first time out, we barely made it a block and couldn’t stay on course.  Everyday we are trying to get 2 walks in, and he can focus better and generally can go everywhere with minimal carry time.  When he does get carried is to cross the street [he tends to want to play in the middle of it], or when we won’t stop straining off the path.  A little bit of redirection, then he is ready to roll again.   Its usually a half hour of run around time up and down hills all around the park that’s across the street.  If he does well, we then go farther to a newer place he can sniff and he gets all the time he wants to sniff around.  But he has really improved with walks.  He will stay on the right side 75% of the time and moves at the right speed.  Otherwise he will dance all over the sidewalk and sniff at things or gallop along.  Still good for his age.

As far as play time: well, he shreds tennis balls in minutes!  My mother made the mistake of buying him a couple to chase…  He had peeled them like an orange and now I have neon green fluff everywhere.  Wrangler looked quite proud of that.  Kong toys are still the best, nuclear option.  I load it with a treat and give it a dab of peanut butter for crate time, and he’s good for 10 minutes.  Otherwise, we seem to enjoy toilet paper [it now can not be on the roll on the wall because he runs it off or chews it], shoe laces [I’ve replaced 2 pairs in past few weeks because of it], blue painters tape [which was left on a doorway] and any kind of zipper.  Yes. Zippers.   I don’t know why.  Metal, nylon, plastic, all of them get chewed up.  I have 2 coats I can’t wear now because the zippers are trashed.   But still, considering his teething stage, he’s doing well. 

Potty training is our big success.  He’s quite good about it.  He will go sit by the door if need be, but if we stick to the first out, 20 minutes after eating, and 20 minutes after play time, he’s not had any incidents.  And this little guy craps like a race horse!  So far so good.

Last but not least was bath time tonight!  Every morning when I shower he comes in, puts both paws up on the tub and cries as he tugs on the shower curtain; obviously he’s curious.  So we had our first bath tonight on my kitchen floor in a plastic tote.  I couldn’t get any pictures as I have to do this solo; but I will say it was funny watching his expressions!  He wanted out pretty bad. And he kept trying to drink the water or bite bubbles.  Pretty funny little guy!

A few people have asked me on twitter if I’d start a divergent Beagle bog… not interested… I neglect my Burrito blog [BuyMeABurrito.Blogspot.com] as it is; so I introduced the #Beagle tag to filter my blog with. 

A Strange Event Under The Lights

Thursday night was a strange one. Even for me.

About 15 minutes before the store closed, a customer comes back with a rented truck to return... being favorable to the people upfront, I go out to check it in and take care of it, rather than pull them across the store while they are busy settling drawers. As I walk up to the doors, I'm met by an attractive brunette with long hair in a blue shirt. She smiles at me. I ask who had the truck, and she walks over to meet me.

She insists immediately, that she might have left a cell phone charger in our truck. I laugh. "Its ok," I have to go walk and look at it anyhow. She, curiously, comes with me. I start making small talk as we walk across the parking lot. She immediately cuts in, "I didn't even know you guys had trucks to rent, it was so cool!" I laugh. We have lots of moments like this in the new store. She continues, "I needed it to move my bed... like my mattress and everything. I pretty much moved everything I own today all by myself!" We stopped at the truck as she said that. I look at her, realize shes probably my age, and definitely pretty attractive. "High five lady!" I say. She smiles, and protests.... "No... no its not good. I ... I kind of walked out on my fiancé today and just decided I'm through with it and him... so I moved out." I didn't know what to say.

She started explaining some of the situation as I fumbled inside to find her cell phone charger. It was a weird situation for her. Her fiancé wasn't good to her, she felt like she had settled too long. They were living in a house he owned, but couldn't afford, that was sold to him by his mother as part of a divorce settlement with his father. The house was in need of lots of repair, and he had somehow convinced her to move in, pay the mortgage and help pay to fix the place up. Again, I didn't quite know what to say, as I handed the charger to her. She stopped long enough to smile at me. She looked worried. I radioed in the mileage of the truck and that it was damage free. She crossed her arms and stood there, looking at me or past me.

So I started talking. I told her about me. I told her not to feel bad for that guy. At one point that was me in a way. I'd been walked out on, and even if it took me along time to deal with it, I was better for it. She dropped her story and demanded to know more about me. We kept at it walking back to the store. She kept looking up at me in my eyes, asking me why that girl broke up with me, or why she couldn't love me. i gave her the honest answer, I don't know why. I really never will, and it didn't really matter much to me anymore after all these years. I held the door open as she walked in to sign paperwork.

My mind was kind of running in circles. No one had ever come out of nowhere and started talking to me like that... especially someone like her in her position. I thought she was making it up, but I believed her at the same time. I didn't make sense to meet someone like this, at 10 o'clock at night on a Thursday. I watched her as she filled out a form, with a blonde friend of hers at the counter. I felt itchy. I felt compelled to do something. My life has been about doing things different lately. Its been about getting away from my comfort zone, to find whats real and what matters in my life to me. I pulled out my business card, and shakily started writing my phone number on it. I knew how awful of an idea this was. But I found myself doing it.

Almost instinctively she turned around, swished her hair, and makes a bee-line for me again. She puts her hands on the back of her hips, with her elbows pointed out, as she stands in front of me. I kind of blurt it out. "I uh... I... this is not me.... I really don't do this kind of shit... but.... this is my number.... why don't you call me sometime, I'd really like to talk to you some more," and I handed her my card. She kind of rolls her eyes and smiles and takes it, and puts it in her pocket and gives me a nod to follow her back outside. I just follow, blindly after her.

We lean against the bollards outside and keep talking about everything. She tells me that shes lived around here her whole life and know doesn't know what to do, I laugh and tell her the same thing, that except for college, I've been here too. She seems excited that I was an Iowa alum. She smiles, wrinkles up her nose, and says "oh my god, a Hawkeye, how cool!" I didn't want to tell her its practically a diploma mill any more. She says school was tough for her... nursing school. She tells me shes a nurse in Davenport, at East Rusholme. I know thats a hospital. I ask her what unit, but I was never prepared for her answer. She says the cardiac unit. Shes a nurse in the cardio ICU, where I had my heart attack two years ago. I tell her that, without thinking. She immediately seems worried or taken back. That I was too young for that. I worry if I crossed a line with my honesty. She wants more information... we talk. Its amazing. She knows my doctors... she knows how I was treated... she understands so many things about my heart that i don't. Amazing is the only word I could use.

Somehow we change the subject and keep talking about other things. She tells me her ex fiancé would tell her she has too lofty of goals and dreams for herself. I want her to tell me. "Well, I want to go to India..." I cut her off, "I want to go to Everest... on the Tibet side." We just stare at each other. After a moment, I tell her its a spiritual thing, that I wear my beads every day to remind myself of it.... She asks if I'm Catholic, and I take them off my wrist and hand them to her. Once she sees the seated Buddha on the beads, and the sanskrit characters, she smiles at me like shes going to cry. I don't know what else to say to her. I tell her the truth. Goals are so important to me. She nods, and crosses her arms, having moved closer to me, she looks up at me. I feel compelled to share it. I reach in my back pocket and pull out my notecard. "I even write down little goals for myself and carry them around," as i show it to her. After that, she never broke eye contact with me, and stands maybe 8 inches from me.

Before anything else could happen, someone kicks open the door, and stomps outside. I had been watched for a few minutes I suppose. She walks past me, never looking at me, and demands the mileage and information on the truck, while facing the girl, whom I still dont know. I stop and tell my coworker the mileage from memory, that the truck is fine, and dangle the key over her head [shes rather short]. I get a glare at me indirectly, as she forces paper work over to the girl to sign. My coworker then hurriedly snatches it up, stares at me, and huffs rapidly walking into the store, where she locks the door. The brunette gives me a wry smile, "shes... pleasant!," and laughs. I smile and laugh too, trying to make a half assed defense up, to which the brunette looks at me and says, "is there something with you and her.. I can see that" I shake my head no. Of course there is a story there. I feel like I need to lie though.

Her blonde friend then walks out the automatic door suddenly before we could talk. "Ok! Were all done for today!" The brunette turns and says, "hey this is like my new friend here.." To which I'm smiled at and given a thoughtful "thats cool!" remark. No one questions it. So the three of us start walking back out to the parking lot. I remind myself, I still have to drive the truck back in the locked yard, its not to keep hounding her. They make small talk about having moved everything, and how its been a long day. Her friend says, "well its not over, I still have a whole car full of shit to deal with!" Everyone kind of smiles. I realize, we are at their car. I stop. I don't want this to end. It has to.

As they unlock the car, the brunette smiles at me pulling her hair out of her face from the wind. She looks at me, straight in the eyes from the other side of the car and says, "Maybe I'll see you India.." I feel dejected. It is ending. I reply to her, "You know? I'd like that.... call me, we can see if we can get the same flight together." She nods, smiles, and laughs. She looks at me one more time, before she shuts the car door, and they drive away. And I am left standing in the parking lot at the store truck by myself.

------------

I think to myself, in the past few days I fucked it up. I think, at other times, I did the exact right thing. I'll never know. Maybe not.

I never got her name. I never got her number. And somehow, I let her walk out of my life, just as quickly as she walked into it. I felt like I knew her more than I did, and that there was something more to her than just passing in the night. I feel like I should have gotten a text message seconds after the drove away. I kept looking at my phone for an hour. Nothing. Three days later... nothing. I'm sad.

But I remind myself, this poor girl just up and dumped out her life that night. She walked out on a fiancé, a place to live, and someone she [at one time] cared about. And I sit, jealous, that a stranger, whom never told me her name, isn't calling me immediately to get started with me.... all because i felt a connection. Who knows what she feels now. I swore I saw all the signs. Yet, my phone wont ring. I can't make it. I can't call her. I can't see her. I don't even know her name. Thats why i think I fucked it up.

Then I realize she has her own things to deal with, likely none of that is a fat guy, with a heart attack, working at a lumber yard, hitting on her the night she dumps her fiancé. Which, this is really all she knows right now. I can't blame her. I can't blame me either. Shes intelligent, shes got goals, shes a dreamer, she works hard, shes interested in me, and she understands my heart on several levels. I can't blame me for trying that. So thats why I think I did the right thing. I gave her my card. If she wants me; between my iphone and the store line / email, there is no other place I'd ever be reached at in my life. Thats up to her.

For all I know, that card went through the washer... ended up in the trash... or in the bottom of a box. I'll never know for sure. Maybe I will. Just maybe. It sure would make a great story, for a guy that has alot of them. It sure was a memorable way to start off with a girl who I can't name.


S

What do we do with our dreams?

Things of our dreams.  An Image I made some years ago. 

I had two very vivid dreams last night...  That is not out of the ordinary for me... but they were different than usual...   I woke up after the first one about 4 am...   it was about me making one of my goals, the second one was about making something mine.
I was on the mountain, standing there looking at all the flags going up and down the cliffs, in bright reds, whites and blues. Its an unfamiliar, foreboding place.  I was surrounded by strange people, speaking languages I can’t recognize. I could see how dark the edges of the rocks were all around me, and i could see it go on up above me, past the clouds.  I felt like I was nowhere. I was at Everest, at base camp on the Tibet / China side.  I can recognize it from pictures and documentaries, but in all the earth, this is its peak...  this is the hardest thing...  while I felt that I have come farther than I ever expected, I felt that l will never climb that mountain.  I stood at its foot and stared deeply into it.   Nothing I've ever felt in my waking life, felt like that... to stare into the abyss, to look upon it with favor, not disdain.  To be there with strangers and yet all alone before the summit of the highest point of the world.  The wind whipped so hard around me I couldn't hear anything but it and the banners snapping up the hills.  It was so surreal.  Even the smell of it was distinct.  I felt cold.  I felt weak.  I felt like my heart was giving out.  But I was there.  I remember that I walked to the edge of some bluff and looked out over nothing almost as far as I could see, and practically fell down on both knees before it.  Lost in thought, watching the flags and banners... the prayer cloths in the wind... the smoke going sideways from small fires... small little makeshift houses and buildings among the rocks and grass.  It was just open, nothing.  It was beautiful. It was beautiful because there was nothing, but there before me was the most majestic crag on this earth.  There was nothing stopping me from it except myself.   Somewhere a few minutes into being kneeled before it, is when I woke up.
A little miffed about waking up from that, I slowly drifted back to sleep.  I stopped to look at my phone, and noted it was 3:50am.
It became a little less typical of me to have a dream about everyday life.  I've definitely suffered from deja vu throughout my life.  I see small little pictures of things that I’ve come to realize weeks or months later are unfolding right before me.   As I grow older, I am experiencing longer bouts of it, but with less frequency.  As a kid, I saw a silver door knob, at a crooked angle: a month later in gym glass I fell, ramming my head into the wall, and sitting up I looked up to see that door knob. Other times I have seen road signs with sunsets behind them, or people walking and talking around me; all to find it all come true.  This time, it was a normal feeling.
I'm laying lengthwise on a brown leather couch [that I don't own], in a place that I don’t recognize [ie I don't own], but its clearly mine. My art is on the wall facing me. The walls are painted in colors I’d choose. Everything about this place feels comfortable to me. Its warm there. There is some sun light coming from behind me. And I feel that I belong. I hear a voice, softly, but don’t understand the words. I look down to realize I have someone laying in my lap covered in a blanket and she's staring up at me into my eyes.  I look at her and see she's biting her bottom lip.  She looks timid, but happy, and like she just woke up suddenly and was surprised to see me.  About as surprised as I was to see her like that.  The only thing I remember was reaching down, grabbing her with my left hand and squeezing her right where her but meets the back of her leg, as she rolls over. I begin brushing her hair out of her face with my right hand as she keeps looking at me with her big eyes. I keep my hand on the right side of her face, as I feel her rush in to kiss me.  I see her eyes close as our noses and foreheads touch and I kiss her.  It feels like the most romantic thing I have ever done in my life, and I feel her tears with my right hand, even though I know she is completely happy. That's when I wake up.   I don't have romantic dreams.  I just don't.  And so much of what was in this makes me wonder why I had it.  I wonder if that's a dream, or that's something that's going to come true.
Today, as I'm talking to my lawyer, I get an email with pictures of the inside of this condo I'm looking at buying sent from my realtor.  When I saw the layout, I realized where I've seen it.  Change the couch, change the pictures, change the paint... its that place.  After I left the office, I sat at lunch, looking through my email today, finding myself staring at the pictures. I wanted to cry.  Because there is so much in that dream I want to make real.
What do we do with our dreams?
Can you recycle dreams?  Can you save them? How do we even remember them… most times they fade so fast from us as we wake, we never can hold on to them.    When we are taken places we’ve never been and end up there in our dreams, how do remember that later in life if we get there?  How do we ever convince someone else what our dreams are, and how you know things from dreams? How do we transform our dreams into our memories?  That’s the secret to life.  How do you make that real, when you see it, when you feel it, when you know it, and its right there and you can do it… even when you cant, you dreams take you there. 

Conrad said,

"There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it afterwards; I did not see it any more; I had no time. "

/// S

Ripples in the reflecion

its  probably for the best that i get in the habbit of doing more regular efforst at reflection on myself.   i think the danger always is, to look at the ripples in my own self reflection, rather than the image i see at large.  thats the danger for all of us, in the end.

i look back at the past few weeks and think to where i was.  mentally and physically i was fresh.  i was open.  i was beaten to putty.  i think, the in past few, im the lump thats started to spin on the potters wheel.  im not much of anything yet.  i dont have a defined form.  im taller... im smoothed.... but im not anything anyone wants on a shelf quite yet.   

analogies aside, i was lost.  i suppose i could have died, dumping my car in a ditch headfirst like that. i know, mentally, i was close to breaking up.  everything kept building and without any relent, i knew the dam was going to break.   but ever so slowly, some of the water receeded, and i put holes in it where i had to.  mentally, i couldnt deal with my own health issues, my leadership roles, my own expectations, my relationships with others, and my relationship with one special person.  its hard to admit that.   its hard to say, i cant do it all, and i cant do it anymore.   i tell people, that the physical part of my life is the simplest to deal with now.  i know what has to get done.  i know what work i can do, and i can see my bodies response.  in my mind, i cant see that.  in my heart, i dunno if anyone else ever will.  and that makes is so much harder.  

i set off with some goals in a spiral notebook.  ill be damned if i cant do something, when i cant do anything / everything in my ilfe.  i joined the gym.  i sat and faced the doctors.   i accepted the fact that one day i am going to die.  i dont know when, but i want to put that farther down the road than i could ever hope to remember.  that meant doing the un-scott thing.  so now im hitting the gym, up to two hours at a time, now 4 times a week.   am i going to get burnt out? hell yeah.  am i doing everything right in the gym? ofcourse not.  am i making a committment to myself, and making progress? yes i am.  i know in a month now, and only a couple weeks at the gym, ive lost weight.  im eating completely differently too.  its a big difference in my health.  i hate it.  but i have to do it.  because i promised myself, to be around for a while.  

i took a few other goals down this past week.   i bought a tv yesterday.   people that know me, know ive never had a tv.  there was one in the house growing up, but since ive been an adult, since ive had my own bedroom, since ive moved out in to the world; i dont have one.  i thought i should change that.   i drove to chicago, went to my favorite electronics store, and dropped a grand on a tv.   i brought it home and found out its damaged... the screen is broken.  what kind of shit filled message is that?  the kind i expected really.  maybe im not supposed to have a tv.  thats karma.  keeping me in check.  i wanted one.  i wanted to make good on some changes in my life, but maybe its not for me.   so now, i have a very expensive table lamp until i get this resolved.   but i wasnt angry.  i punched my leg in frustration when i powered it on and saw it... but i let the anger pass me over.   i spent 25 minutes opening the box, unpacking parts, removing wrappers, reading the manual... before i even took the tv out.   an hour into it, i had it up and done and ready to go.   and i sat on the floor looking at it in disbelief.  i own a pretty bitchin, 55" tv.  i smiled.  i was happy for myself.  then i turned it on, and saw the giant crack and the jittery colors.   but i let the anger wash over me like the surf.  i didnt fight it, i just went under it, and came back up out of it.  its ok.  its a tv.  whats another few weeks, that 16 years didn't already do to me?  

goals are like that.   i realize some of my goals are incredible.  some are pretty mundane.  some just seem stupid or scathingly out of touch for most people.  but its about me.  its about the changes i needed to make all along.  its about knowing where i was at and seeing where i want to go in the next five years.  maybe a tv was getting greedy by a bit too much.

i spent part of the night seeing friends in chicago land.  real friends.  even they remarked on how different i feel now.  that felt good to hear.  its hard for some people to deal with me and understand it.  people that have known me for decades get it.  everybody knows parts of my story, but no one except me, really knows it all anymore.  i wish i could forget alot of it some nights.  i know, that nights like this are what changes that.  looking at where i am to see where im going.  something are big milestones... like making that strong effort to be at the gym at four am some days. its about making promises and keeping them. there are so many other goals i want to look at and work on.

there are so many things i have left to do in my life, and a short time to do any of it. it has been about my heart though. its the most troublesome thing for me to fix. doctors deal with it. my rinpoche tinkers at it. i dont know know what im even doing with it. But we all agree ill die from it. I will dies from it because i dont listen to my heart. thats a physical health thing. thats a gut check thing about living the right way. That's about about love too. its about me needing to get past so many of the things ive written about over the years, or eluded to at least. i cant be alone anymore in this world. now that i know what im heading to, i need someone more than ever in my life. the next five years are going to be the most challenging and change riddled of my life. that much is clear; i need some stability. i need someone to tell me when im right and when im wrong. and its not too much to ask to have someone to kiss or cry with, is it? It comes down to so many experiences that will happen, I'm selfish to not want someone to share this with. Especially the one person that stepped up and said she loved me. Even if i didn't believe it then, I need to now.

just as much as the tv was a overshoot... maybe thats what im looking at with this too. maybe it was a bridge too far. i always said, i knew id die alone because there probably wasn't ever anyone out there to love me. i love people. I've deeply loved several women. not a one has ever said she loved me. 30 years on this earth and it hadn't happened. I've handed out rings. Ive bought gifts. ive been there to give away some of them to other men. Nothing. Then someone said it. And I was confused and not ready for it. Here I am now asking myself why I wasn't ready then. its a big step to get what i want. that tv was a big step. i could have just picked up a junky 20" tube tv from craigslist for 20 bucks. i wanted something for me. it cracked and fell apart before it was mine. i guess thats a metaphor for something else in my life related to love, right now. maybe it had cracks in it before i could find a way to make it mine, and maybe the cracks were mine showing through.

it makes me sad to think that some of my goals, that I'm so happily crossing off... have to get whited out and put back on the page. i want to see a list of things getting done. i want to see change and progress in my life that tells me all the struggle is making a difference. in the end, its pushing people away from me i wanted to keep. people struggle seeing eye to eye with me. and even i don't understand myself some days anymore. in that respect, i have to go back and put a lot of me back on the page, on a layer of white out. its hard seeing the lines in the ripples of our own self reflection. but its necessary. and its the only way out of all this for me.


S

Something Else I Had To Change

Life is full of change.   Lately, I’ve done nothing but second guess myself at every turn.   Seemingly, I can’t do anything right.   I can’t make my boss understand that, I can’t let myself relax, I can’t seem to tell people how I care about them, and even my doctors are telling me I can’t seem to get it together.  Its so exhausting to seem like a failure at every level, all at the same time.

Today I took a quick step off to the side to fix one problem.  All while I’m listening to Ziggy Stardust bemoaning “five years, its all we’ve got,” I realize I have to make changes.   As much as I want to talk about and fix the other things first… especially my relationship with Someone else, I know this is probably the most important thing I need to do.   The cardiologist was quite unhappy with my “progress.”  It has to change.

I took my most recent stress test in mid December, following a nasty run of shit at work… way too much overtime and stress… during an already stressful holiday time of year, where I’m not eating right, I’m exhausted, and I had a huge personal falling out with Someone very important to me.  No kidding Doc, I look like shit!  I feel like shit.   But I don’t feel like I’m going to have another heart attack.  He isn’t so certain about the future.  We talked about the heredity, my awful genetics, my age, my previous condition, my arrhythmia, my stress, my exhaustion, and my diet.   There wasn’t a lot of positives in that conversation for me to hear.

In a way, I needed to hear it all of it.  I heard it all before.  But I was never really ready to listen to it.  Here I am, absorbing it like a sponge today.   So much changed in so little time, within myself, I needed to hear it again.  On one hand, I needed to hear how lucky I’ve been so far.  But I needed to hear what I need to put work into going forward.  My body isn’t going to keep up with what I do to it for the next thirty-years, If its like the last thirty.  That’s the message.  That’s the inside, high and tight pitch at my helmet. 

So, we talked about who to see, and what to do.  So today, I walked in, prepaid a year of gym membership, and called in a consult with a recommended trainer from my cardiologist.  Larry and I sat down and talked briefly, while he got some of my medical charts faxed in.  He thinks its doable.   He said, that once he heard me talk about what I need in my life, he said he’s convinced I could do about anything.  That’s excellent news.  That’s something that takes a few wrinkles out of your soul, after feeling like its been crumpled up and stomped on the last few months.

Larry wants to get me in and run me through a bunch of shit to see what I’m really like.  He told me the medical stress test results aren’t what he reads for progress or improvement.  I got to start somewhere.  He agrees it shouldn’t take much refresher for me.  Having worked out extensively for baseball, rehabbing leg injuries, and the whole ROTC time frame, he thinks its going to come back to me pretty quick.   He told me that the long term motivation is what most people lose. I told him my three motivating things for my life right now.  He didn’t know what to say!

I have to look at making myself stronger and better from the inside out.  I told him that I have to understand me and live with me the rest of my life.  The longer I live, the better I will get at that.

I told him I’m scared of dying thinking I left too much behind that I could have accomplished.  I worry that I’m wasting time in my life, instead of valuing it.  The things I want I need to start working for, to see all the effort will tell me I worked hard enough to earn  what I get in the end.

Lastly, I told him I’m motivated by one other person.  She means enough to me that I have to make some changes in my life.  Even if its hard, or it scares us, we need to realize that we really effect and mean that much to each other.  Its important for me to let that happen, and be there for that change for both of us.

Larry thinks I’ve got solid motivation.  Now he wants to see my sweat.  

So I joined the gym.  I prepaid the year and for Larry.  But it’s a commitment to all of those things and myself.   Its time that something else had to change for me.

 

S

Down In A Hole

I just had the most religious experience of my life, in a ditch for the last hour and a half….

And I mean that.

 

Many of you know that I’m in a bit of a crisis of my life lately.   I’ve probably talked too much at length about it.  But its a lot of things coming to me at once.  Today, I just thought I’d roll past a farm house for sale on the way home.   Its Iowa, its winter, it isn’t out of the ordinary.  So I didn’t think much of snow and blowing conditions.

As I went down a back sand/gravel road, the wind swept up; it game me an instant white out of everything, and I was tobogganing down into a ditch cut about 3 feet below the road surface.  It was that quick.   Somehow, I didn’t roll.   I was upright.  And that was miracle.  Without the snow plowed into the ditch, I should have rolled over my front right corner and flipped it.  But I was fine.   But I had snow packed up to the windshield.  What do I do?   I get angry.   I punched the steering wheel.   I shut the engine off, and tried to open the door.   No good.   There is so much snow drifting and blowing, I cant open it.  I start climbing across the passenger seat to get out and look at it.  

As I’m standing there, knee deep in the drifts, I see several problems.  First.  The road falls off to nothing in about 3 inches.  I will have to climb maybe 20” height straight up with no running start to get on the road.  The fenders didn’t even line up with the level of the road.  That’s a problem.   Second.  There is so much snow, I could see the shape of the undercarriage of the jeep like a long snow fort where I had plowed through it.  As I climbed to the front, I had snow packed into the grill, so far under the differential I was high spotted, and just wet grassy mud under that.   Third.  There isn’t anything out here.  

Of course I start swearing.   I go with anger.   That didn’t move any snow.   So I go to the tailgate and dig out the e tool, and toss the rubber floor matts out the windows, and start digging.   I spent 10 minutes to clean the drivers side front axle out.  I noticed there is so much snow and grass packed together, that’s what kept my wheels straight going down in the ditch.   Another 10 minutes to clean the passenger side and I realize Ill have a lot more digging to do to clear it if I intend on driving forward…. Ill end up trying to plow 3 feet of packed drift who knows how far.  I keep digging to the back and decide to try it.

At first when I get it, I cant start the jeep.   I panic a bit.  I realize I left it in gear.  I start it back up, and start to work.   After 10 minutes, I was able to get the Grey Ghost to gain some traction and move about 15 feet forward, and angle to the road when I stopped.   I got out to realize I’m plowing snow, and I’m shredding mud and grass everywhere.   I take a few minutes to air down the tires… I let the pressure drop 20 pounds of pressure out of each wheel.   I know my odds are going up of breaking a bead and losing a tire at that point if I catch something hard.  But I’m getting desperate.   I’d driven Big Red out of worse.   I should be able to get out.  

So I go back to work digging.   I stopped to call my Mom, and let her know where I am at.  Then I called the first 5 tow truck places on Google.   No ones coming for me.  I look around, after I put my phone down, and realize how lost I am.   I’m stuck.   I have my ruck, I’ve got food and water.   I’ve got my sleeping bag that I never took out from Chicago in January, and I even have my pistol.  Its amazing to think how prepared I actually was to be there.   Yet, I still wouldn’t get calm to do the right things.    If the jeep blew up.  I would have been in better shape, than just driving it back on to the road.

I jumped out in the ditch and blowing snow and dug some more.  I kept going until my legs were too cold to take it.  I started it up, and rocked away.   She wasn’t going anywhere this time.  I kept sliding laterally, and I couldn’t get going forward or backwards at all… I knew I was right against the edge of the roadway that sat about even with the hood.  I got out to look around… without any trees or brush, I couldn’t make a ladder for it either. I burnt a hole in a floor mat, when I walked around again to look at options.   This time I was stuck.   Its too deep.  Its too much to get it up without any recovery point, and I’m only 2 feet from the road. 

That’s when the metaphor hit me.  Right there in the blowing snow.  I am so fucking close to being on the road.  I’m so close to staying on it, that I can get blown off without me keeping to the path.  Everything in my life is that way right now.  Its me.  Its work.  Its living.  Its dealing with death.  Its telling someone I love her, for the first time in years.  But that’s where I’m at.  Just at the edge of the road, and its so hard to climb up and out.

I sat down and shut the door.   In an hour and change, no one had some by.  No cars.  Back behind me is a barn about 500 yards out.   I started thinking about packing out and hiking it.  I was frustrated.  Just like my life, I’m looking for answers or hints.  I stopped and reached up to my dash and took my beads and thought it through for a minute. 

My beads are not rosary.  They are not Muslim cleric.  They aren’t even my Lakota prayer set.   They were sent to me by my Rinpoche.  Lately, I carry them with me a lot.  They sit right on top of my dash as I drive.  But as soon as I took them, and I thought about it.  I calmed down.  I was open to it.  I let go of my anger.   Then I saw headlights in the mirror. 

I want to say that car was coming anyhow.  I want to say, I had hours to work and find a way out.   Or I could have just given up and walked.  I was prepared for it all.   But I am not prepared to sit and wonder.  All the things I’ve done wrong, happen then.  When I dropped my anger, when I accepted my place at that moment, I realized how close I was to being on the path.   I realize that if I was open to it, love will be there.   I have denied that too long.   If I was open to it, I could find my way out, but if I fought it and kept digging I will sink farther.   If I was prepared I would be safe regardless, If I failed to follow my plans I would still be stuck.  It was only when I stopped to accept it, would I get the true answer. 

In a matter of moments, someone about my age in a pick up truck drove up, and with out asking jumped down to the ditch asking me how I intended to get out.  I told him to give me tug.  He laughed and started digging for some tow straps.  How does all this work out?   When I trust I to.  When I let go of it and trust, it will be made so.    We went to work digging and fastening the strap to the passenger side front axle.   And I just put it in gear.   When the slack was pulled, it took a slight pull and I was rolling forward and up… I started to get excited, and it hung up.   I felt my jeep pulling to the left; turning perpendicular to the road, and I just knew to take the chance to downshift, throw it right and hammer on.  I could have rolled it again.  I should have.  The whole damn thing should have been upside down at this point.   But she rolled right up over the edge and onto the road.  It took the man by complete surprise as he jumped out waving.  I got out calmly to look at things.  Nothings broke.  Nothings damaged.   The trim is scraped up a bit.   I have grass and snow packed mud on everything.  But she’s all right on the road. 

As we pulled apart the two strap and unshackled it from his hitch, I asked him frantically for his name or his number.  I handed him 80ish dollars from my wallet… its all I had.  He wouldn’t take it.  He wouldn’t take my business card.   He wouldn’t even tell me his name.   Then he looked at me, shook my hand, and said, “just pay it forward in your life to someone else some day.”   That’s how I realized how close I am to being on the path.  With that he waived at me, and said “try to keep it on the road,” and he drove off. 

I sat there in the road stunned for a few minutes.  Its so important to have these moments.   I stopped and took my beads and thought about all of that again in the middle of the road, and drove the way home with them on my hand.   I still don’t know any more answers to my questions, but I have a lot more faith in getting onto the road and staying on it, after today.

More Things

If you haven't noticed, you must be new here....

So I did some rudimentary updates to the blog format.   It has been long overdue.  I don't care to look when I last modified this [but Google does keep track of that crap, I've noticed!] but we can agree its been quite some time.   I had to cut half the links out; most of these people never really consented to it in the first place, and the rest are dead ends.   Its definitely time to move on and do some cleaning.

More Windows 8 Fun

Well my grocery list of problems is quickly shortened after a full day of research in Windows 8. 

At the moment my concerns are:

• transferring iTunes library and iphone/ipad backups
• transferring photo catalog and Lightroom databases
• review of missing plug ins for Lightroom and Mozilla
• last sweep of old XP installation for programs to reaquire

The good news is; I would say I’ve already met about 80% of my computing needs as is.  I could always start over with my Lightroom catalog [although I’d rather not!], and the photos are backed up and can be sucked backwards from the NAS unit as well… but iTunes is my biggest hurdle.  

From what I’ve read, iTunes is a pain in the ass to move if you have manually edited your music library and save data.  That means me.  Its also a royal pain in the ass because it’s a closed vault system, with everything encrypted in one large cluster-fuck file format [save data].  So if there are any expert migrators with iTunes success, I’m all ears.  

So far though; I'm pleased with the progress.   The power consumption of the new hardware is incredibly low for the features I have. It reboots from the suspend state in seconds… which is jaw dropping compared to XP or even Vista.  And the cold boot process is probably around 30 seconds—of which about 8 seconds sits and waits for the bios to load and pass before rolling into Windows.

My core I5 at 3.4ghz is humming along, 16gb of ram doesn’t seem taxed in the least [although I am going to double it shortly!] and I have a second 2tb disk waiting to get dropped in the bays.   Once I decide what the fate of the old beige box will be, there are two more 2tb drives to migrate into blackie black box.  At this point, I’m considering keeping the XP install as it is, and adding a Linux install on the beige box.  If I go that route, I will be adding in a kvm to the mix to alternate.  At this stage the worst piece of hardware in there is the on-board graphics. I hadn’t planned on doing a lot of gaming anymore, and I know nothing about the changes in GPUs' and slots for that… Plus, it seems to render all the environment without issue, and crunches photo data without complaint.   Cross my fingers; this is working out well.

A lot of my initial frustration with the OS has to do with the complete redesign.  But the widgets are really growing on me.  If the availability was a bit wider; or if I learned how to code what I wanted; it would be great!  The biggest disappointment has been Google of all people… they still deny the existence of Windows 8 widgets so it seems.   Actually per a short interview, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57558839-93/google-no-immediate-plans-for-google-apps-on-windows-8/ The G unit feels there isn’t demand for any of their services that aren’t satisfied by cloud computing needs.  I disagree.  I really feel this would benefit from a quick, light weight Chrome window to run at the start screen, as well as a Google Drive process start screen.  Lets be honest, both of their major competitors in the cloud drive market are here with apps of their own [Dropbox and Microsoft's SkyDrive], and with Microsoft populating the experience in email and calendar, two more key area’s I prefer Google services, I really feel this is an oversight on Google’s part.  From the horse’s mouth:

"Our goal is to be able to offer our users a seamless app experience across all platforms and want to make our products available to as many people as possible," the representative said. "We're always evaluating different platforms, but have no detailed plans to share at this time."

Google Apps include Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, as well as Gmail and Calendar.   [-- From Cnet article by Casey Newton.]

Not knowing what the licensing has to be for using the apps/widget process in Win8, I would still expect that the cloud sourced options of Google Docs would buy up a shitload of market share… as Microsoft still charges for Office 365 product line, and even it doesn’t have a descent app/widget.  Google could be king, steamrolling Microsoft at their own game, on their own platform. 

Adventures In Wet Shaving, Update

Since so many people have been asking me, through the typical quiet channels, I thought I might give a bit of an update on my adventures in wet shaving.  More importantly are my long form thoughts on the mechanical aspects.

 

What makes it wet?  New-comers like me may opine that it’s the blood.  That makes it sound like torture to most people.  Its half true.  Its not called wet shaving because of that, but in the beginning there has been a fair amount of bleeding!  Its wet because you need to use water and lather much more frequently than most disposable blades require, and nearly no electric razor on the market requires it [or functions correctly if you do use it!].  So already the key is quality and quantity of lather.  Coming from a disposable system mindset, gel based bullshit was ubiquitous for this purpose.  Getting past the garbage aerosol scent and reddi-whip appearance of Barbasol products, and graduating to the generic gels, gave the best results.  In fact, my favorite non gel form, made at one time Edge as a cream in an apothecary type tube, would have been my only trial in wet shaving… the rest of it is awful.  The gel products create a low friction point [good], but extremely thin and viscous.  Why?  Because they clog the 5 blade razors too quickly [bad].   I need to lower the point of friction, but not to nothing.  Some of that friction is important, I’ve found.

Friction in multi blade throw-away’s comes from two places: poor lubrication across multiple blades and cutting surfaces, and poor technique.  Both of those points, on a quality edge wet shaving system will gouge seams in your face like the ones on your jeans!  Since I’m relying on only one edged surface to cut with, the ability of the shaving creams or lathers must not run or flush too quickly from the surface; and since its only one edge, clogging between blades isn’t of any concern.  Granted, this razor will clog as well, but it takes considerably more material [wider blades, and more space available in the razor head], and you are constantly flushing the head of the razor with water to clear away the build up of lather from the non cutting surfaces.  As a down side [of sorts], I’m using considerably more lather than I had with a 5-blade throw-away.  A tall can of Fusion Gel lasted me MONTHS [six maybe?] with daily use.  That’s ridiculous, and I realize that.  However using more of the gel product didn’t make a difference in performance: the gel product was still thin, would still clog very quickly in the cartridge, and it didn’t change my poor habits.  And with the advent of built in lubrication strips [note to reader: if dissipating friction was not an issue, why are manufacturers putting these on the cartridges? Because their gel products clog the cartridge, in the attempt to continually atomize the particles to lubricate the growing number of cutting surfaces.  So they include lubrication that does not leave residue to clog, but that still acts as a friction modifier to the gel system].  In short, the fewer the cutting surfaces, the less you need to worry about keeping each lubricated to relieve friction problems.

A bit more about the blades is important before I get to technique. The cutting edge is honed to exacting specifications by these manufacturers, and ideally, the edge cuts as clean of a pass on one face as another.  So why doesn’t work like that?  Piss poor technique, and product engineering.  As the material the edge is made out of is thinned, and its composition is changed, the quality of the blade will change with it.  Softer material dulls quickly [rather, the edge folds and rolls or degrades against stronger materials], but harder / denser materials have less flexibility inherently.  Manufacturers must strike a balance to keep flexibility [to move with the round contours of the human face, and to stay some what forgiving when necessary], yet keep the edge honed to cut cleanly. 

Adding multiple blades became the fad, and it introduced thinner, flexible blades of softer material. Why? First and foremost, to sell more cartridges…  No shit.  As the edge dulls, you need to replace it, since it no longer cuts the hairs.  Seems simple, but people glaze past this point.  Part and parcel, adding multiple blades in a cartridge raised the price.  Now its about money, on recurring bases, balancing how quickly the edge dulls, multiplied by the price point of each sold cartridge unit, divided by the likelihood of the consumer to purchase replacement cartridges on a frequent recurrence.  But it also gives you the impression the blades weren’t flexible before; and in fact as a cartridge, they are less flexible now.  In the same idea as doubling up 2x4s to strengthen a wall, creating five layers of redundancy spanning a distance will always yield less flexibility than spanning the same distance with one substrate.  Each of the extra blades keeps you from bending and flexing, increasing rigidity.  The notion of rigidity is engineered into the cartridge because of the poor technique of the user! [I promise I’m coming to that point!]

So I’m using a single cutting edge, that is more flexible than its “modern” counterpart, that needs different lubrication demands [that are actually in my favor], how the hell am I cutting myself more often?  Its that poor technique.  [bingo]

Using the multi-blade disposables we fight friction with minimalist layers of lubrication [to keep from clogging the blades], on cartridges that are firm and moderately inflexible by comparison sake.  However, we introduce friction to combat its by product.  You push harder to over come the softer edges that dull faster on the multi blades, to get the same quality shave as the edge disintegrates.  Secondly you make fewer passes over skin because you have made the same pass 3 to 5 times with each cartridge movement.  The idea of a once and done solution.  That doesn’t work with a single blade.  As my blade flexes better, it will bend and skip over spots on my skin that are not completely flat [read: everywhere]. What I’m seeing in my bleeding pattern are many, small dabs of blood.  When I shaved and erred with cartridge razors I had deep cuts that bled and were wide.  Its clear that the force I was using on the cartridge systems made the cuts; and it’s the blade bouncing causing smaller pricks with the single edge.  My technique then became the issue, as I realized this.

I have always trusted in the cartridge razors’ motto: once and done.  Making one pass, or two if really necessary, is all it needed to get the job done.  With a single edge, I do need to make two or three passes.   But more importantly, I need to relube and lather up each time…. something I rarely did with cartridges.  Secondly, friction is important, but it doesn’t come from pressure.  Using hand pressure flattens the skin around [and in between blades] of a cartridge system.  On a single edge you will cut yourself deeply.  With a multi blade cartridge you are minimizing the pressure by distributing it across multiple points.  You don’t always cut yourself because it’s the same idea as the old circus bed of nails trick… however as the skin changes angles and is no longer flat, that’s when you bite hard… with excessive pressure behind a dulled edge, you do immense damage in the little vertical wrinkle under the nose and above the lip!   With the single edge, I need some friction to know I’m gaining traction and working with the skin, pulling it taunt under the blade; this pops the hairs up and keeps from ballooning skin up in front of the cutting edge. 

All of this takes time and forethought.   But as of 2 months into it, I will say, I have a much closer shave, that I can get two days out of with a single edge system, compared to the cartridge razors.  Secondly I can factor in the pricing as such:

Cartridge Razor Typical Expenditures:

1 - 2cartridge each week: 3.75 each
1 razor handle:  9.00 [good for a year or so]
1 can saving gel : 3.00
------------------------------------
in 60 days totals: 57.00

 

Straight Razor Blade Typical Expenditures:

1 blade each week: .30 each [in 50pk quantity]
1 stypic pencil:  1.97 [good for years?]
1 cake shaving crème: 1.99 [good for 6 months]
1 shaving brush:   20.00 [good for years]
1 razor handle:  25.00 [good for decades]
----------------------------------------------
in 60 days totals:  51.36

 

Also note… that while I do have to purchase and use more items, they are cheaper, and they do last considerably longer in the wet shaving system.  In a years time, I should be somewhere in the 30% to 50% price equivalency of cartridge shaving.  It does add up.  But I have learned that much so far.

 

S

Without the nicks and cuts of a blade

The first experience of wet shaving bears grizzly fruit. I can't lie. In my absence, I've been doing alot of things. All of them revolve around making changes in life. Now that I'm back from California, I thought I'd try out my new toy. The Edwin Jagger, chromed double edge safety razor was had for under 30 dollars on amazon. So begins a new way of doing business!

People ask me about all kinds of things, and facial hair is rarely one of them. So I thought I'd expand beyond the obvious question I get [why do you have brown hair and a red beard], to step out on a limb about the mess of straight razor shaves. I made the leap for several reasons.

1. Its far, far cheaper to the safety razor multi blade craze. I've used several different electric razors over the years, that range from 10 to 150 dollars, and all of which gave moderate to terrible quality of shaves. The best shaves I've done myself, have been with multi blade disposable safety models [read: Gillette Mach 3 and Fusion errr Mach 5]. Consider the cost per shave of the electric high-ends to be nearly a buck, and the cost per shave of the Mach'ing Birds to be about 3 dollars. Enter the double edge buckshot, somewhere under 15 cents per shave. Yes. I'm serious. Blades run 2 bucks per pack of 5, last about 3 shaves, with two cutting edges per blade; figure in a few pennies to buy back the razor, and we're there. Obviously a straight edged razor would be cheaper, but it require maintenance and care [honing, stropping, and alcohol based cleaning], as well as perfect technique.

2. Its far superior in shave quality compared to anything else. This will be true, but not yet for me. I still reach for the Mach'ing Bird when I need a descent shave, in a hurry. Its reliable, but not well suited for long term switching. The Mach's require more pressure as they dull, to the point its not safe. Its downright dangerous to keep that habit up with a single blade. The single blade will cut closer and flex better than 5 blades; which is the reason why Gillette went to the multi blade system: to prevent cuts on the average Joe. The position and blade angle is what determines the closeness of the shave; a razors edge is not sharper than another's [although they may hold and edge longer], and the multi blade system prevents you from changing the blade angle, and decreases the pressure you can create at any one point [the same idea as the circus actor laying on a bed of nails]. This works to minimize nicks and cuts for people with bad shaving habits. But it forces you to change blades frequently [as the edge dulls, its ineffective, and since you can't compensate to change to the proper angle, you push harder and continue dulling the edge until its a comb for crying out loud]. So the single edge forces you work with the proper pressure and angle of cut, which rewards the cleanest shave by far. This is true for safety edged and straight razors.

3. It gives me a sense of nostalgia. This is how men have shaved for about 100 years. Since the replaceable double edged safety razor was invented near the turn of the 20th century. [It was first made in 1847 and patented in 1880, but it did not become popular until Gillette won a military contract to furnish American soldiers with them in the First World War.] But for 100 years this has been the industry standard in shaving, our fathers and grandfathers had this option before any other. And, I always maintain, I should have been born in the 1930s. I love old technology, film cameras, newspapers, and fedoras. I fit right in.

So I took the plunge, bought a book for 50 cents on amazon, and bought the razor, blades, soap and brush. And here I am. 2 shaves in, and I can tell you its all about technique and practice. The zen of my life. I get lazy, I do things wrong, and I replicate it until I can't tell where the bad habits start and the good ones end. This is pretty much instant feedback. I've seen butcher shops with less blood in the sink than my first shave. OJ Simpson couldn't have made a worse mess than I did that morning. But its not about that. Zen, is about the path, not where it began, and seldom of where it leads us beyond enlightenment. My path for next portion of my life had to begin again somewhere. So it has started.

So here is a picture of my "rig" courtesy of the iPhone.

Death is a fucked up concept to the living. In plain text its as about as far from the truth as it could be. Just the same though. I knew today would happen. After we got the initial dementia diagnosis about 4 years ago, and eventually the Alzheimer's like symptoms developed that followed the classic rubric of seven stages; we all knew it would happen. Today is the day my grandmother died. It happens to all of us. People get old, and they die. The living are the only ones left making sense out of someone being here one day, and not the next. But death takes more out of us than you think. The past few weeks and months had seen the pretty steady decline. Rapid. But steady. The last week or so, she was bed ridden, and comatose. From that point, it was a matter of time. All we have left in this world is time, as far as the living are concerned. Time to figure out how much time we all have left. Time to wait until we die. Time to spend in whatever way possible to prolong our thoughts about how much time remains. Alzheimer's is terrible in that respect. It takes away our concept of time. Time, place; it really doesn't mean much then. Which makes it a fucked up concept, when the rest of us all walk around, concerned about how much time, what time is it, when will this happen, type questions. Time stops with that disease. I suppose I'm doing pretty well with it. Then again, I've had the time to see this coming and prepare my thoughts about it. People ask me, why turning 30 this week bothers me. Shit like this bothers me. Its all that concept of time, and thinking you have it, that you control it, or you keep your eye on it. You can't do that forever, or even for some measure of time. Its fucked up like that. I delay certain things in my life to watch others go by; I talk about it like its fair or its not, dependent on which side of the coin you get. She had 92 years on this earth. She traveled quite a bit. Had children, grandchildren, and dogs and grand dogs. She lived through the depression, saw the second great war, and went right on through the civil rights era to the digital age. But at some point, across all time of her life, she was destined for it to stop. All of us are. She outlived the rest of her family by 25 years, a husband by 30, and saw even her youngest grandchild hit drinking age and start a phD program. Thats a lot of time well spent. But the time between now and Wednesday will probably be the hardest. Anticipating the burial process isn't it. Its realizing that I wake up the next day to turn 30. Time is a fucked up concept. Almost as much as death.

‘Wolves’ reign supreme in fashion

Staff Article, Quad City Times, July 18, 2009 [available online at QCTimes.net]

We've often waxed poetic about the Oracle of All Knowledge. (Psst, we're talking the Internet here.) There is so much information that it would take several lifetimes to see it all. And, truth be told, there are plenty of things on the Internet that are a giant waste of time.

This is where "The Mountain Men's Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee" comes into play. You see, it all began as an innocent ad for an innocent item of clothing on Amazon.com. A $17 T-shirt. But, as so often happens, things take on a life of their own.

The first customer review for the product came from "B.Govern" from New Jersey. The rest is Internet history. Here's the review:

"This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called meth. I told them no, because they didn't have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn't settle for the first thing that comes to him. I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.

"Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women

"Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark."

This one review prompted 171 comments about the review itself. One simply said this: "This is why we have the Internet."

His one review spawned enough interest in the shirt to generate 1,253 more reviews - an Amazon record. Various sites reported that sales for the shirt "were greater than expected" because of that first review.

Quadrants has created its own "wolves" shirt. To see its power, direct your browser to qctimes.com.

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You just know when your parents hand you a newspaper article, and say, "we immediately thought of you," you wince. See the whole story, as far as my parents and finding this gem, originated at work. Where we get bored. And also where we deal with some of the trashiest people, any of us, have ever met. Walnuts made the subtle observation a few months ago, that trashy people love wearing shirts with animals on them. Wolves. Moose. Skunks. Nascar digits. Unicorns. Deer. Fish. Its all really the same. Its comfort food to their wardrobe I guess. Normal people have that one shirt they like.... or maybe that super stretched out pair of underwear, that you should have thrown out, streaks and all, long ago; that you just like to put on. Anyhow, we make fun of it. We have to. Because its almost a race against society to find the must absurd and undignified animal on a shirt, then wear it to a Menard's just to show people how you really are. Eagles were popular. "Stars and stripes buddy." Anyways. Aside from finding people in tshirts with dates on them, this is the most fun we tend to have on a busy, trashy, weekend. Tshirts with dates? Thats more like bingo. People wear things with dates on them, that should long ago be paint rags. "Worlds Best Grandpa, 1992." Forget that the newborn's hand prints on that shirt, are now casually fondling breasts in COLLEGE!!! Or the "Moonlight Chase 1988" tshirt I cackle at every-time a certain contractor wears it. First off, he could run 4 miles in a day at this rate, second, that tshirt is as old as my brother. I'm happy to say that. "Your tshirt is as old as my brother." Again, I digress... Animals on shirts make the trailer park people go round. So it came up over dinner one night a while back with my parents. We did make the slow realization that we have relatives that do this. Yes. They wear wolf tshirts... or nastard digits on underwear.... or dreamy tie dyed native american shirts with horses running around them, and dream catchers printed on the armpits.... So that kind of became a running gag for awhile around my parents. Then this gem hit. THIS sparkling, refreshing gem. I feel so vindicated. Really, all you need to do, is read the bolded, italicized type. Its worth it. Now I can say, wolf shirts arent just for the trashy anymore!!!! And it came from Davenport.!

ring ring

"collusion"

an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically involving fraud or gaining an unfair advantage and can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties."[1] All acts affected by collusion are considered void.[2]


per a descent, third party, definition: uslaw.com

why am i bringing this up? think about your cellphone. and that great deal you think you got.

450m 39.99 ATT Wireless
450m 39.99 Verizon Wireless
450m 39.99 Sprint/Nextel
450m 39.99US Cellular

900m 59.99 ATT Wireless
900m 59.99 Verizon Wireless
900m 59.99 Sprint/Nextel
900m 59.99 US Cellular

1350m 79.99 ATT Wireless
1350m 79.99 Verizon Wireless
1350m ----- Sprint/Nextel
1350m 79.99 US Cellular

Unlim. 99.99 ATT Wireless
Unlim. 99.99 Verizon Wireless
Unlim. 99.99 Sprint/Nextel
Unlim. 99.99 US Cellular


here is the one thing to count out... tmobile/iwireless [a regional affiliate in my area], are NOT major carriers. its big compared to everyone else below them, but really they are the cut line. other people that provide US cellular service, like Cricket, Boost, AMP, and the creme de la creme of crap; TracFone; simply buy airtime from one of these FANTASTIC FOUR carriers, and run it that way. which is why they have plans and pricing that are generally lower minutes, for higher pricing.


who cares?

I did. when I was phone shopping in January, this about made me barf. why? because I DONT TALK on my cellphone. and while the 450 minutes isnt the problem; it was the price. because i really dont want to pay 40 dollars a month, for service i dont need. i used a whopping 162 minutes last month. of that, 78 minutes fell on a "nights and weekends" allotment from my carrier, which were not deducted from my "any time" minutes. whatever that means! "anytime" minutes, that aren't really used anytime, just sometimes.

any[way]time, i started to notice how much of a crock of shit this is. where is the spirit of competition in the market place, when it appears that the four big carriers, that probably hold 80 to 90% of the cellular network market share, are priced in the exact same tiers, at the exact same price. To the penny. Coincidence? In the same way that you get wet when it rains, i suppose. That's where the idea of price fixing and collusion enters my mind. to the penny.

while collusion does generally require a point of agreement among parties; [ie in fixing the price of crude oil, or *cough cough* adjusting the volume of production through quarterly meetings], i don't suppose that has to be the case. in fact, its called "tacit collusion." silent collusion. the whole mess of price fixing is sub categorized based on whom, and how the prices are set. but this still isn't the point, its artificial. why artificial? purists may argue with me; but we aren't passing a commodity. we are passing service. and service has no value, or all the value in the world market; dependent upon who needs it, and how bad they want it. commodities have a value. real or artificial, they have a value. its is traded, prices are speculative based on demands and inventory, or purity, or any other factor. what about service? again, I'd argue, that service has no value, or maximum value. nothing in between.

but we are sitting in the midst of a vast price war, that wont be fought. i suppose it isn't right to bang the honkies at the cell phone companies for charging what they do for their services. [see, not a product... a service]. but i have a very, very difficult time, believing that the true cost to their respective companies, and operable profit margins, dictate each of them to arrive at 39.99 for 450 minutes of service per month, to each individual user. to the penny. does that seem right to anyone? capitalism is driven by competition for money. nothing less. without out the true competition for dollars, greed, if you will, there simply is no more motivation to excell, to advance, to propagate.

[ and say what you want about nonprofit orgs; but even the Priest on Sunday morning passes the collection plates around, so lets be real about the money issue. and even so, the Rev. Soandso six blocks away will gladly take you and your offerings, if Father Doesntcare, wont. ]

so i ask outloud, for anyone that chooses to answer in their head; what the hell is the point? i suppose you are paying for differing access to service [coverage in their lingo], but hats a bleak point considering nearly any metro area has coverage from these four. i suppose you could be paying for quality of service; but that doesn't make much sense, voice transmission is the same in the end, especially now in the realm of digital transmission. so i guess you are paying money to a company to use a piece of equipment you like. is that what competition is really all about in the market place? no one seems to be taking any initiative in the industry, from what i can tell, to do anything different... no ways to provide cheaper technology, no guarantees of no dropped calls. no real changes in service. the only difference, is the shit you buy from them. and thats not even what you think it is. a blackberry is a blackberry. its on ATT or US Cellular, but its the same thing. the case is different colors. so what. does ATT's do your laundry? no. it makes calls and it recceives them. it sends messages, and it receives them. nothing more, nothing less. so to the penny, everything is magically the same, and it seems, no one else is all that interested in it. except me.