August 2007

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Tuesday, 8-28-7

Do you believe in fate?  The Norns, the hand of God, the will of Allah, the divine plan, whatever you call it, it is real.

By a series of coincidences, I was just where I needed to be, just when I needed to be there.  This story requires a bit of a set-up so bear with me.

My mother's father died a few days ago.  I never really knew him very well because he lived in New Mexico for most of my life.  From what I do remember, he was always kind to me.  My mother is co-executor of his will so she and my father flew out to New Mexico for three weeks to settle his estate.  My real concern is for my mother.  Most people have two parents, she had five and Grandpa Paul was the last of them.  Mom is holding up fine, but she'd say she was fine even if you dropped an eight ton truck on her foot, she'd smile and never miss a beat.  Like I said, I hardly knew the guy and I only feel a sense of familial loss, I don't know what mom is feeling.

My father's father is my Pop-pop.  His name is Carl Denver Morgan Jr. and I was almost named the Fourth after my father (the Third).  I am much closer to him than my other grandfather.  When I was a child in Connecticut, my Nana and Pop-pop were always around.  When we moved to Savannah for a year, it was with them.  When they moved to Hernando, Florida, we soon followed and landed in Jacksonville.  I have never been far from my paternal grandparents.  When my Nana died I was crushed, even at twenty-four years old it hit me hard.  I just thought they'd always be there.  It was no secret that I was Nana's shining star and when she died I felt it cut deep.

A year later my Pop-pop had met a nice woman and they were going to get married.  He took me aside and asked me what I thought of it.  He asked if I thought he was trying to replace my Nana.  I told him that Nana was gone and if he had a few more years left in him, why not spend them as happy as possible?  You'd have to know my grandfather to know what an impact that little interaction had on me.  He was a loving man but rarely talked about feelings or the like.  He was one of the tough generation that believed in hard work.  He busted his ass for his family and never whined about it, it was just something you were supposed to do.  I got the work ethic from him and my father.  I may bitch all about it here on the blog but have you ever seen me slink away from hard work?  Will you ever see my family without an income?  Not if I have any of my father and his father in me.  Pop-pop was a hard working tough man and for him to ask my opinion on anything so personal really blew me away and I've carried it with me all these years.

Bring it up to the recent year...  Pop-pop is starting to look old and he is having health problems.  A few months ago he is diagnosed with bone cancer and he's going through chemo.  In conversations with my mom and dad about the inevitable death of Pop- pop, I mention that I've never been to my Nana's gravesite.  I ask where she is and they tell me that we will go check it out the next time we come down.  We've been down a few times since and never got over there.  So I looked it up online and found her gravesite.  It is in Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, FL.  I decided that I will go by there the next time work puts me on I-75 towards Tampa.

So, wrapping up the prequel...  Sunday, just before mom and dad flew out to New Mexico, Pop-pop fell down in the kitchen and Grandma Esther has admitted him to the hospital because he is weak and breathing hard.

Ok, done with the set-up, now we are back on this week.  I was scheduled for Sanford and Vero Beach on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  Sanford was cancelled so I went back home and got plenty of sleep.  Heffner and I got to talking and found out that he was scheduled for Craig Field, NAS-JAX and Mayport (all Jacksonville sites) this week and he lives just two exits north of Vero Beach.  He asked the higher-ups why they didn't switch us out and leave us both at home.  The answer was mumbled and incoherent because there IS no reason why...  So Monday night I drove to Vero but it was put off until Tuesday morning.  This morning I get to site and find it under construction.  The locals say we are denied access for the week.  Troy tells me to drive into Gainesville and get ready for the Wednesday morning job.  So I head out and because I have a whole day to get there, I decide today would be a good day to stop at Nana's grave.  I get there, take a picture, talk to my Nana and get back on the road.  As I approach the exit that I would take if I were going in to Pop-pop and Esther's place, I get the call that he is in bad shape and will probably not make it much longer.  I take the very next exit and I am in the hospital within twenty minutes.

Had I been in Jacksonville or working in Vero Beach, I wouldn't have been able to get there.  If I hadn't picked today to visit the grave I would have already been in Gainesville and possibly asleep.  I was at the right exit when I was needed.

So I get to the hospital and I go in to see my grandfather.  Hospital beds make everyone look so old.  That guy wasn't my Pop-pop.  It was like an old Folgers coffee commercial.  Some dude in an announcer booth was saying, "We've replaced Chris' grandfather with another top brand, let's see if he notices the difference."  It was strange.  In another moment of strangeness, I felt like Michael Corleone showing up to the empty hospital.  I just felt like, "Don't worry pop, I'll take care of you.  Nurse, we've got to move this bed, we need to get him into another room, one where death won't look for him in."  It's funny what goes through your mind in moments like that.

I stood and sat about eight times as different people kept introducing themselves.  Nurse, chaplain, head nurse, doctor, floor nurse.  Lots of people checking in on him.  But I just sat there and talked to him.  When I first got there the social worker (cute girl but COULDN'T have been older than thirteen!) told me that he can still see and hear and will still respond.  I talked to him and he squeezed my hand and I saw a bit of recognition in his eyes.  After a couple of hours, even that was gone.  Grandma Esther came in and she was stronger than I expected.  We talked a lot and I hope I was able to comfort her in some way.  She told me that she didn't think I liked her when I first met her because of the Nana situation.  I told her that not only did I not know her back then but that I was a very different person back then but I never disliked her.  I held her close and told her that I am very happy that she is my family.  She made the last ten years of my grandfather's live very happy and I know that he made her life happy too.  What more could you want?

I was in and out of the room making phone calls, updating the family.  When I returned, I knew it was the last time.  The air felt different.  Pop-pop's priest had shown up and Esther was sitting on the edge of the bed.  I stood behind Esther and her daughter motioned for me to sit beside her.  Esther looked up at me and said, "I think this is it, he's going now."  We held his hand and I put my arm around her.  We watched as his breathing became softer and softer.  A few times she looked up and whispered "I knew it would happen but what am I going to do without him?"  I held her tight and we watched and cried as Pop-pop slipped away from this world.  The priest came around and I was surprised because I expected the same lines I saw on TV.  He didn't speak from the TV script, he said some beautiful lines that had no rhetoric in them, only comfort and solace.  The nurse came in and listened as his heart finally stopped.  We Morgans are a stubborn lot and his heart kept going for a long time after he stopped breathing.  We talked, cried and said goodbye to a good man.

Grandma Esther is the last of my grandparents and because I didn't grow up with her as my Grandmother, it feels different.  My Nana died when Becca was only a couple of weeks old.  To her, Pop-pop was always with Grandma Esther.  But now I feel like the torch has been moved down a notch.  Everyone was just elevated to the higher stratums.  At the grandparent level is now my parents.  At the parent level, where I used to see my mother and father is now where I sit; Teresa, myself, my brothers and my sisters.  And the child level is now occupied by our children.  This happened so gradually that I never saw it until the last of the grandparents vacated their thrones.

The last two in one week.  Wow what a week.  They are talking about a Friday or Saturday service.  She asked me if I wanted a viewing or anything with the body or if I wanted the body in the church during the funeral.  I felt weird answering questions like that but in my father's absence, it fell to me.  I always left the caveat of "someone else in the family might make a request but..." and I told her that he was her husband and that anything she wanted would have to be fine by everyone else.  That body is not him anymore, it was just an empty shell but if she wanted to honor it through some ritual, I'd be there.  Otherwise, have the service in celebration of him, not mourning his body.  I tried to think of the family and what they'd want.  Who was coming down for the funeral and would they want to see his body one last time?  I tried to keep my own feelings on death out of the decision because most people don't feel the way I do.  I have no use for the body once the spirit within vacates.  A lot of the Christians profess to feel the same way but I can't speak for them yet here I was, doing just that.  I told Esther that it was too early for decisions and that they could wait until tomorrow after she had a little more sleep.

Lots of religion around dying people.  Old people and prisons.  Few people find Jesus in the checkout counter at the "Kwik-Stop Grocery".  He's always haunting the lock-ups and the old-folk's homes.  I smiled and felt genuine warmth every time they talked about "dying into paradise" or "leaning on God for strength in these difficult times" because that's what he's there for.  That's the whole reason for these aspects of religion.  If it makes them feel better in a time of crisis, then it served its purpose and I hope they take true comfort in it.  I played very nicely with the various brands of Christians and only had to dodge one direct question.  I was able to use the generic "god" term when I spoke and smiled politely when I was spoken to.  At one point they were discussing the differences in death rituals between Christian denominations.  Grandma Esther and Pop-pop went to an Episcopalian church and she asked me, "but you're a Baptist right?" and I went right into "Mom and dad are Baptists, yeah."  Not the time to stir that pot.  This is a woman who still calls our dog (who we named Pagan) "Peggy".

So by 5:30 I was leaving the hospital and saying goodbye.  Esther is being taken care of by her two children and my sister Tammy is coming down to help with the arrangements.  I am serving no real purpose here now that the hard part is done so I left and came here to Gainesville.  I get to the hotel and they put me in room 125.  The same room number we just spent the day in at the hospital.  I'll still be able to get my maintenance request work done tomorrow morning and then return to help out with any of the family duties.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect.  I honestly believe I was in the right place at the right time for just the right reasons.  My sister insisted on calling it an act of God, I agreed, I just didn't specify which gods...

And as if to verify the whole thing, I was headed out toward I-75 coming to Gainesville and listening to a mix of music my Pop-pop would like.  Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Patsy Cline, Al Jolson...  I hit a straight stretch of road and thought about how all the timing came together just right and that everything worked out fine according to however it was supposed to be.  Just then a vibrant rainbow arced across the sky.  It was there for a few moments and then it was gone.  It didn't fade, it just disappeared.  I know a rainbow is no reliable sign but just for today, just for now, I want to believe it was there just for me.

I don't know what the hell I got into last night, I don't remember smoking anything but I wrote it so I'll post it.  You've got to love the last spark of hope in a deeply depressed mind, contradictions and all...

Wednesday, 8-22-7

If you ask people, "What is the opposite of love?" I'll bet the most common answer is, "hate".  I say that love and hate are exact duplicates of each other with only the minor inconsistency of intent.  They are opposites in intent but in the sense of emotional involvement I say they are the same.  The true opposite of both love and of hate is pure apathy.  Complete indifference.  The key is passion.  People are so afraid of being emotionally involved that they hide it away and keep from experiencing so much of what life has to offer.

We sit in our homes, watching network TV sitcoms and reality shows.  Hidden away and safe from having to talk with other people.  The shows are numbing us and dumbing us down, programming us to accept whatever they serve us.  We have abandoned much of our natural human interaction for whatever is behind screen number one.  And I do mean whatever is on that screen.  We find ourselves clicking through the stations, looking for something to catch our eye rather than turning it off.  All in the name of spoonfed entertainment.  We invest nothing in these shows yet all the while our emotions are being drained from us.  Bleached clean and returned before we knew it was gone.  There are no more highs, no more lows, just the status quo, the mundane.

When you love someone, don't be afraid to show them.  The control you are afraid of losing in only an illusion in the first place.  Likewise, don't be afraid to embrace your hatred.  It is only a distorted reflection of love.  If you feel strongly enough about something to hate it, to truly hate it, then you are giving a lot of yourself to this thing.  You are burning your energy just as fast as if you passionately loved what you profess to hate.  If you choose to give so much of yourself, it will consume you, just as love will do.  Which has hurt you more often in life, love or hate?  Hate will hurt you when it is acted upon, love will hurt you from inaction.  Hate will singe you and move on.  Love can crush your soul and linger there forever.  Why?  Because most people invest so much of themselves in love and shun any negativity that can be construed as hate.  No one doubts that there has to be dark to see light but there are those that preach love and invalidate hate.
I agree that hate will turn out to be a waste of your energy because you generate nothing but more hatred but to say that it is evil or bad, that is to say that love is just as bad.  They coexist and can not live without each other.

So they are opposites, yet they are so much the same.  Much like you and I.  Whoever you may be.  You may be very different from me in personality and physical development but beyond our surface features and down to our core, we are both humans.  The same recipe was followed to make each of us and we are both part of the same consciousness.  The universe is our playground, eternity is nothing but our collective experiences.  There is no love, there is no hate.  There is only the emotional expenditure of our energy and the consequences thereof.  If we chose to explore hate, we will be mired in it, experiencing the pain and pleasure of complete emotional surrender.  If we choose to explore love, the same thing will happen, we will be surrounded by more love, and we will experience the pain and pleasure of emotional surrender.  Giving up that control, seeing past that illusion and realizing that by looking past the veil of "reality" we can experience more of life.  Holding it all in, saving it all up for the perfect time, that's just dying without ever having lived.

Tuesday, 8-21-7

Driving kicks me right in the gut.  I am so tired of windshield time.  I drove eleven hours yesterday and eight hours today in addition to the regular work I did while on these sites.  I got to the hotel around 6:00 and immediately fell asleep until 11:30.  I missed the entire evening and all the things I wanted to get done tonight.

My FM transmitter is officially useless in many parts of the state now.  I went back to regular radio for twenty seconds this morning.  Do you know how hard it is to find a radio station in the morning?  Everyone is doing their "bits" and no one is playing music.  I ended up on NPR for about 20 minutes until I couldn't take their bullshit any longer.  They are so biased that many of the stories they run are unrecognizable as news and more like fiction.  I ended up driving an hour in silence.  I do not want to get used to that.  This weekend I'm tearing open the dash and I'll try to hook up my CD player.

It sounds like it is raining outside but it's just an aural illusion.  I like the sound and I wish I knew how to replicate it.  I'd have it running on a continual loop in my den.

Monday, 8-20-7

Anyone remember how much I hate plumbing?  This weekend I reopened that old wound and I almost threw tools through the wall.  The only thing stopping me was that I was also doing some drywall work and would have had to fix it anyway.  Teresa has set me on some long overdue house maintenance tasks and I bitched about it all weekend.  Not because I didn't want to do the work but because I knew I was not capable of doing the work to even the most liberal definition of "good" (or "well" depending on your grammatical expectations of me).

I had to close in and trim the wall leading to the laundry room from the kitchen and I had to turn the den bathroom back into a bathroom instead of a storage room.
The kitchen/laundry room was easy enough.  I did a little drywall work, cut some trim (I ALWAYS cut it short!) and some caulk and it looks alright.  I don't like my work, I know it could be better, but not with my skill level.  But, after all is said and done, it looks better than it did before I started.

The bathroom is killing me!  I worked on it all weekend and it still isn't finished.  I had to do some drywall work in there too.  No problem.  I had to repair/replace the water feed.  Done, no problem.  The real bitch was the flange.  When I took the toilet off the floor (years ago now) I saw that the flange was corroded and destroyed.  In one of my feeble attempts at repairing it, I pulled out the flange and saw a thick layer of something in the hole.  After prying at it and trying to get it out of the drain, I realized it was lead and after talking with some people, they told me it was supposed to be there and not to touch it.  Too late, I had already mangled it into a jagged mess.  But this time I went in, cut out the bad spots, plied the good spots back into place and installed the new flange.  Yea for me!  So I seated the wax ring and dropped the toilet into place and even got it bolted to the floor.  After a water test I see that it is NOT leaking!  Another big yea for me!  I've never gotten this far before without screwing up.  The effort is doubly amazing if you know how cramped that bathroom is with all of my storage still in it.  I really am proud of myself for not going nuts.

So I turn on the water feed and I've got a leak coming from the tank.  The bolts holding the tank to the toilet are corroded and rusted so I have to drill them out.  I get them drilled without breaking the porcelain.  I turn on the water and sure enough we have another leak.  Now I replace the rubber gasket between the toilet and tank and the leak is still there.  I'm at my wits ends because I have replaced all the possible leaking points (obviously not) and I still have a leak.  I don't want to replace the toilet because with us looking to move out, I don't want to buy a new one if I don't have to I know plus, I'll never get a new one seated so perfectly again.

The sink wasn't part of this fiasco yet but it soon will be.  I have no idea on what parts I need to get the drain to hook to the pipe in the wall.  It is a strange configuration and knowing how badly I suck at plumbing, I don't want to touch it.

So my adventures in home repair are sucking but worse than that is my bitching about it.  I got angry and irritated at every nut and bolt, bitching that I don't know what I'm doing and generally causing a scene.  When Becca acts like this I get on her about it telling her that she can't get upset and frustrated just because she has to do something new or something she's not good at and then I turn around and do the very same thing I just told her not to do...  I wonder where she gets it from.

Today was a busy day.  I got up at 6am to cook breakfast for Becca.  Today was her first day of her new school.  She's confident and ready to go.  If I've done nothing else right in this life, I hope I put her on the right track and help her stay there.  There is so much potential in her and I know how easy it is to waste it.  I can only imagine the disappointment my parents felt when I took a nosedive in school.  Every time I nudge Becca in the right direction, every time I see her accelerate, I imagine how successful she will be.  Success is not measured in how many cars you have in the driveway or how much money you make, all I want is for her to be proud without ego and happy without greed.  If she is her own person, not under the thumb of any man, fearless of tough decisions, victim to no guilt-ridden religion...  If she makes her own decisions in life, then I've accomplished my goal of fostering that spark of independence within her while tempering it with self-control.  I see all these things in her future and I don't know which path she'll choose.  I want to prepare her for each one of them while I know that I can not.

So after Becca went off to school, Mommy cried a little bit because this was the first time Becca rode the bus to school.  We ended up back at Lowes picking up more parts for the toilet (that did not fix the problem as you read earlier) and then back to the house to meet with the realtor guys.  They talked with us about getting started on building the new house.  These guys were simple there for the show.  They told us all about the plan, they said all the right words and answered our questions but the real event comes when the local realtors show up to put the house on the market.  These guys just took a cursory glance at the house and got the details of our financials.  When everything was in order, we agreed (I looked at Teresa beaming with antici... pation) and we and signed our letter of intent.  The ball isn't quite rolling yet, but it has budged.  Next is meeting back over at the builders (this weekend) and securing which lot we want and doing some floor plan alterations.

As soon as they left, I drove south to Orlando and then north to Augusta, Georgia.  By the time I turned around to head north and reached Jacksonville again I had finished listening to my podcasts and I still had a lot of driving to do ahead of me.  When I hit Brunswick, I couldn't find a decent frequency and my FM transmitter was useless.  I could barely hear my music anymore.  So I flipped around the radio dial and found a station playing some old rock.  As the song (Dirty Deeds-AC/DC) finished, the DJ said she had three songs coming up from "Motley Crue", "U2" and "Green Day".  Who the hell ever would ever put those three bands together?  So I listen through the twenty minutes of commercials and inane station identifications (they all sound the same) and when she comes back she plays "Aerosmith", followed by "Nickelback".  Then another twenty minutes of commercials.  I turned it off and enjoyed the silence.

I snagged dinner in Savannah.  I have been spoiled by being at home for so long that I forgot how awful fast food tastes.  I used to love Sonic drive-thru but it was horrible!  The burger was bland and the tater-tots tasted like they tumbled directly from Mr. Potato-Head's ass.  Teresa can cook some awesome food and although I've only been gone a few hours I already miss it.  The dangers of being on the road include the exposure to crappy fast-food.

I pulled up short and checked into a hotel.  By the time I got "unlost", found the hotel and finished my work for the day it was already 11pm.  When I checked the news before going to bed, the hurricane was the top story and the headline actually read, "Hurricane Dean threatens ruins".  Am I the only one who sees the absurdity in that line?  Mayan ruins that have been there for thousands of years, enduring countless hurricanes, tribal warfare, European exploitation, industrialization and insensitive tourist interaction are somehow threatened by yet another hurricane?  And if they do get knocked over, wouldn't that make them more of what they already are?  Ruins?  It's not like we're knocking over the Taj-Mahal here, these things are already falling down.  Hey, you better watch out, CNN just reported that the pyramids of Giza are suffering the harmful effects of the sun's UV rays.  Several American corporations are already working on building a shield to keep the pyramids inside and out of the sun.  There are also plans for a larger gift shop and plenty of parking. 

We are such an egotistical species.  The reason someone is concerned with the possible "destruction" of the ruins is because we have some constant need to preserve things.  All too often the things we preserve aren't worth saving.  Ruins of an ancient civilization; very cool to look at, interesting to learn about but why do we feel like we need to keep them looking like they looked when WE found them.  If they're so damned concerned, why aren't they restoring these temples to their original state?  Everything we've done breaks down over time.  Nothing we've built is getting prettier (unless, like me, you appreciate the beauty of ruins and destruction.  I'll take a moss-covered temple ruin over a steel/glass skyscraper any day).  I'm tired of driving through Springfield and Riverside and seeing hundreds of houses that are falling down because they fall in the "Historical Preservation" district and have to be restored according to very strict standards.  Meanwhile the people that bought the house don't have the money to live up to those standards so the place falls down around them.  Now instead of having a good looking older home with modern repairs, we have an authentic house that is abandoned and falling down, held up only by the sheer will of the cockroaches and crack heads living inside.  Animal species is another incredible human conceit.  We have habitat encroachment areas placed on private property.  This means that if a special bug on a special list crawls onto your property, you can't develop (build) on that land that you've paid for.  If they wander onto where I want to build my shed, they're gonna die.  Trespassing bugs...  Not every species is supposed to live forever.  I doubt anyone had a "Save the Brontosaurus" bumper sticker on their Flintstone-mobile.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the animals.  I love nature but I also love the brutal side of nature.  Sometimes things die.  Sometimes entire species die out.  If we caused it, I think we should do everything within our power to correct it (without making a bigger mess of things than we already have).  If we've over hunted and slaughtered the "pygmy three dicked tree frog", then make sure we find a way to correct it.  Stop/slow the hunting, create "pygmy three dicked tree frog" breeding grounds, whatever.  But if we've never killed one before and they are dying out naturally, then we should let them go.  Nature existed and moved along long before we interfered and will correct the system shortly after we die out too.  Do you think the "pygmy three dicked tree frog" will start a "Save the humans" campaign?  Or do you think they'll just be happy to see us fizzle out and fade away, like a bad fart?

Friday, 8-17-7

They decided to put out a schedule a month in advance so that we (the techs) can know what is going on and I like that idea.  Except, they don't know what they are doing minute to minute, how the hell are they going to know what they are doing three weeks from now?  So the first schedule comes out last week.  It has Heffner and me working together again all next week in Sanford/Orlando.  I am looking forward to that because I have been surrounded by incompetence for so long, it will be good to work with a real tech again.  That and I'll get to vent and drink...
Last night I got word that the schedule has changed; I'm off on my own again; in Georgia.  I don't mind hard work.  I really wish that I could say that I am being worked too hard.  I'm not.  I'm being whipped while I'm running in circles.  If we were getting work done (or even had a CHANCE of getting work done) I'd feel differently.  I miss the days when Bob ran the techs.  We worked hard and very often had impossible tasks to perform, but they always got done and we always had something productive to accomplish.
The new administration never learns from their mistakes.  I think it is because they'd have to ADMIT the mistake in the first place.  Here's the scenario and a bit of set up...
We technically work four 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday.  We have been working Fridays to pick up any sites on the way home.  You have a technician in north Georgia who lives in Melbourne, Florida.  It is close to an eight hour drive.  Do you have him deviate two hours out of his way to go to Tallahassee, unannounced, at 4pm on a Friday and expect the local techs (who go home at 4pm) to stick around for him to test a circuit?  And do you pull that stunt two weeks in a row?
What about arranging access and telling your tech he has to be on site (an 8 hour drive) at 8am Monday morning so your tech drives out on a Sunday only to find out that Monday is a travel day for the FAA tech and he won't be on site until Tuesday.  So your tech lost his Sunday at home, only to sit in a hotel for two days to wait on access.  If this happened, wouldn't you make sure it didn't happen again?  Well it happened the very next week, to the very same tech, waiting on the very same FAA guy.  All after a series of apologies and a promise that it wouldn't happen again.  Lip service, that's all we get out here.  The guys we report to are just sitting at a desk passing info back and forth, no one is actually doing any research, contacts or providing any real help other than telling us what they hear from above.

Worse than the middle-management types are the techs we have out here.  There are only a few techs I trust out in the field and they are becoming fewer by the minute.

We have the incompetent techs.  These are the guys that have been on the project just as long as I have but have no idea how to do their job.  I end up doing a lot of their research for them just to get the job done.

We have the lazy.  This is the guy that cheers when a job is cancelled and will find every excuse not to do the work.  I honestly believe he sabotages some of his own work just so he can't complete it.

We have the power-mad.  He is competent and active BUT, he likes to pontificate every chance he gets.  If he overhears a question, he will chime in and make sure everyone knows that he has the answer.  If you are stupid to ask him a question directly, you will get the history of everything up to and including that very moment.  Ask this guy for a simple nut/bolt and he'll tell you where the ore was mined to make it, whether you want to hear it or not.

Today was a simple in and out test.  I changed the cards and made up the cables but now there's an issue with the telco span.  Of course.  Why should anything be as simple as it looks?  After sitting on the line and working with the LEC on troubleshooting the circuit, we lost access to the far site because the FAA tech wanted to go home.  Other than a five minute card swap at 8am, the rest of the day was a waste and I could have been home by noon.

It is a wonder we get anything done at all...

Thursday, 8-16-7

"It's all been done before.  Nothing is new under the sun.  You're a hack, time to admit it's all been a failure."

These are the voices running through my head these last few days.  Every time I get an idea running through my head, I run with it and just about the time I get excited about it, the idea starts to sound familiar and I recognize it as something that's already been done.  I know that everything is a new rendition of something old.  You take a story and tell it in your way.  But right now everything is coming out feeling cheap and borrowed.  I finish writing and as soon as I read over it I see that I flat-out stole elements of other stories.  I don't know if this is normal.  Maybe my mind is in a particularly cynical mood right now and I am seeing things that just aren't there.  Of course they are there though.  Maybe I'm just seeing them too clearly?  I'm just not happy with anything I've written in the two weeks.  If it's any coincidence, I've been at home and generally in an exhilarated mood.  I have been happy and surrounded by love.  This is a bad thing for my stories.  I write from a very dark place.  It is my well, my foundation.  Before I was in control of it, I wrote constantly.  After I learned how to live with it, I wrote sporadically but passionately.  I learned how to harness the darkness.  Now I need to learn how to summon it, use it and then banish it.  I don't think it works that way.

Nothing ruins a good blues singer faster than success...

Tuesday, 8-14-7

Another weird week.  I'm playing close to home but bouncing around so much I barely feel alive.  Teresa fell so in love with the houses we looked at this weekend that we are seeing a realtor on Monday.

I'm going to bed because I've got to be in Gainesville early tomorrow morning.  I was posting new movie reviews on line so I figured I'd pop my head in here.  I also created a new thread on the forum page.  I really want to see what your answers are to these questions...

Thursday, 8-9-7

What a strange and impossibly chaotic week.  I am based out of Jacksonville this week but it still feels like a travel week.  I day-tripped to Tallahassee and back on Tuesday, and today I tripped to Melbourne.  Tomorrow I'll be local again at Craig Field and on Monday I'll be skulking around Mayport.  Then it's off to Pensacola again for the remainder of the week.  These are the plans for the next few minutes.  Plans change every few seconds around here and who knows where I'll be when...  I have gotten a few more details about Puerto Rico.  The where and what but not the when.  Same thing with the upcoming week in Marathon Key.  I'd love to plan a dive trip while I'm down there but I never know until that week and even then, I never know for how long.  Not to even begin to compare myself, but I feel like a "Telcom Marine".  I never know where or when until I'm on my way.  I just jump when the orders are given and get my grunt-ass in the field.

I have been at home now for a few days and they are spoiling me.  Monday and Wednesday were "wasted" days for work.  Travel planning, truck maintenance and "waiting for engineering to do their job" days.  So I'm essentially sitting at home charging the hours for stand-by time.  I get no writing done while I'm at home, too much to do.  I can't shut out that world when it's the only world I WANT to be a part of.  I have been spending a lot of time with Teresa and Becca these last few days and I am really happy to be home.  Teresa has put me onto a project that has eaten up a lot of my time.  She has a friend that is giving her husband an MP3 player for a present and knowing how much I dig music, asked if I could fill it up with music for him.  I agreed but his tastes in music are mostly from that enormous hole in my collection from the early/late 70's rock/pop.  I've had to go looking for much of this music but it is all time spent in front of the computer, dealing with music and only a few feet from my family.  A lot of the music is stuff that I recognize after I hear it and go, "Oh yeah, I remember this one."  I like this kind of project but it is also costing me money, I'm buying a lot of the stuff I like off of iTunes.  Of course, while I was taking a break Teresa "casually" mentioned that she'd try to mow the lawn herself.  A very flimsy hint that I needed to get my ass out there and do some yard work.  I haven't had a lot of time to dedicate to the yard in recent months so the front yard has gotten mowed but the back yard is in total neglect.  The dogs are afraid to go outside for fear there is a forest creature lurking in the waist-high grass.  So I chopped down the forest in the back and mowed the beach out front.  I had Becca trimming the bushes and while she may not have liked it, it was good to get her outside for a change.  She uses the heat as an excuse (as do both of her parents) but she almost never goes outside anymore.  I dressed up the back yard and hopefully, when the weather cools off we'll use the back patio a little more.

On that note, it is worth mentioning an update with what we plan on doing about moving.  As many of you know, Teresa and I have talked incessantly about moving up north for a long time now.  Things got to the point where we started packing up the house.  BUT, during those "serious" times we did a lot of planning and more importantly, thinking.  We still want to be up in the cold, (I want north of the Arctic circle, Teresa wants something south of Canada.  I believe we may come to a compromise in NW Maine...) but have come to the conclusion that moving out into the sticks is impractical for the time being.  Mainly because of Becca's schooling.  So, for those of you who didn't want to see us move, you have at least six years before we can even consider it again.  For those of you eager to see us go away, sorry, you'll have to wait.  Depending on the job prospects and connections, we may even consider a move to Melbourne/Palm Bay.  In any event, Teresa wants a new house.  I have fought the idea but I am starting to give in.  We can afford a nicer house and Teresa wants to get out of our neighborhood/area.  For now she's just starting to look for houses and get a feel for what we want.  The housing market is dead so it should be a nice time to buy but selling this place will be a bitch and the price range she's looking at buying we won't be able to pay both mortgages for very long.  We're just barely starting to get into this and nothing is in the works yet but I figured I'd let you all know that unless a company gives me an offer I can't refuse, we're staying put for a little while longer.

Tuesday, 8-7-7

What a crazy weekend this was.  Any more than usual?  Not really.  It was full of things to do, people to see and little to no time left to write.  I never get any writing done while I'm home.

So Friday night we finally got over to play poker.  I haven't been out in six months!  I forgot all about it until I got the call asking if I'd be there.  I got the call while on my way home but I was still in Mississippi at the time.  I made it home in just enough time to shovel dinner down my throat and run out the door to make it to the game.  I was so determined to get out more that I didn't think twice, I just wanted to see my friends.  I did considerably better than I did in Biloxi.  I did a little better than doubling my money.  Of course, we only play for $5.00 but it's never about the money, it's about interacting with friends.

Saturday morning I got up and went out to help some friends cut up a few trees and stack the wood.  It was incredibly hot, I hadn't slept well in weeks and I felt exhausted all the time, I drank a little at last night's poker game and I'm a horribly fat bastard.  All of these factors collided at one time and I felt like a fool.  I helped load up the existing pieces of cut log into the truck while the chainsaws were being set up.  I was given the task of cutting the logs and after the first tree was done I knew I was beyond my limits but I hobbled over to the next tree while everyone drove the truck around to unload the wood.  Not that I can really hide my ineptitude from anyone but I try not to look too fucked-up in front of anyone.  Holding up that front until the truck was out of sight, I collapsed in front of the second tree, dry heaving and feeling like a dried turd.  When the truck came back I strapped it on and cut up the remainder of the wood and loaded it up.  We unloaded and were done.  I would have tried to do more if it were there but luckily that was the last of our task.  I don't know what in the hell I thought I was hiding.  What message could a fat, mouth-breathing, sweaty mass like me convey other than, "heat exhaustion"?  I was stupid for trying to do more than I was capable of but I was at least coherent enough to wait to start up the saw until there were people around again.  Could you imagine me passing out and falling on to the saw?  Yeah, that would be just about right.  But, the job got done and I didn't slack any of it.  I always love helping out and I always hate asking for any help.  Something is seriously wrong with my wiring.  I spent the rest of Saturday recuperating and hanging out with Teresa and Becca.  A lot of that time was spent asking what day it was.  It didn't feel like Saturday, it felt like Ragnarok!

Sunday was a great day.  We went to visit more friends at a party!  Yeah!  I really hit the jackpot this weekend, I got out to visit a lot of people.  It was a small affair and very nice.  Some of the people we knew, some we didn't.  After watching for a little while I noticed that the room naturally split into two groups, I knew most of the people on one side and knew no one on the other side.  So I tried to mingle with the "other" group a little just to mix it up but I really didn't know what to say.  They all knew each other and they all work in fields I know nothing about.  One (two?) of them are local on-air personalities and I didn't want to ask about that because I'm sure they get really fucking tired of THAT shit.  I didn't want to bother the guy, I just wanted to co-mingle a little.  It didn't work.  Not because he wasn't nice or anything, in fact everyone there was very friendly.  They were just busy chatting amongst themselves and I didn't see a way (or point) in breaking into the conversation and crashing their roll.

Funny thing about that, I'm the opposite of a "star-fucker".  I am rarely impressed with someone's level of fame.  They are people just like you or me.  This is why I broke Fred's balls so badly when we met Henry Rollins.  He was all flabbergasted and nervous; I just shook his hand and told him I enjoyed his work.  I let him get back to his business while Fred drooled all over himself.  I'm not trying to paint a bad picture of Fred here, he'll tell you the same story (but he'll add in the part where Henry vindicated Fred and broke MY balls while on stage...)  So, I'm not the type to gravitate toward someone just because they have some level of notoriety.  This guy at the party was a local radio guy on one of Teresa's radio stations.  I don't listen to the radio and even then, never to Pop/Country but I knew the voice enough that every time he spoke I recognized it from the radio.  I'm not intimidated by that "fame" but I let myself be dissuaded from talking with the guy because I didn't want to be that guy that wanted an autograph or something.   I was so determined to NOT be "that guy" that I intimidated myself right out of saying hello.  And isn't that one of the points to a party?  You bring your friends together to meet each other and now we can ALL have fun together?  I really have to stop analyzing everything I do.

Friday, 8-3-7

Wow, that was the fastest I ever spent $100.  I planned on spending the money I just didn't plan on it going so quickly.  I don't know what we do wrong when we play blackjack at the house for nickels and dimes but out here in Biloxi, the house ALWAYS wins.  It was a $10 minimum and I stayed at the min.  I never pretended to be a high roller.  I played for a half hour, up and down and walked away with half my money.  I wandered the casino looking at the sea of slot machines.  I saw one of Becca's bands playing in the main hall.  Not too terribly impressive although they did have a violin player in the band.  Kind of cool.  When I called Teresa to say good night I told her to tell Becca "Haha, I saw Blue October and you didn't".  She called me back to tell me that she screwed up the name and that Becca was not impressed that I saw Blue Oyster Cult.  We're getting so old...  So I walked around one more time and dropped the last of my "expendable money" at the poker table.  I had fun but the usual problem applied; these kinds of activities are no fun when you're alone.  Drinkin, smokin, gambling... All of these are more fun when you've got a buddy with you, otherwise it's kind of boring.  I should have headed straight into New Orleans.  There I can at least have a good time throwing my money away.  Visit "WestGate", drink a few yards on tourist row, maybe even sit and people-watch at Cafe du Monde.  All of that could end up costing me a lot more than $100 but it will definitely last longer than two hours...

I was out here in Gulfport a few months ago and I saw the trees still shifted to a 45 degree angle and some damaged buildings but I never got down to the beach last time.  I just drove the strip from Gulfport to Biloxi and then went over to Ocean Springs.  I really have a hard time believing that the hurricane damage was two years ago.  It seems like it had to be in the last few months.  You can see who has the money and who doesn't.  The casinos are beautiful and fresh and there are buildings right next door or across the street that look like they were blown out by a bomb.  And there are more blown out buildings than the nice pretty ones.  Most of the damage is in what you CAN'T see.  There used to be hotels, restaurants and houses on this strip.  Now all you can see are foundations and empty lots.  Tall condo buildings and hotels that are nothing but shells waiting on the hope of renovation or the inevitable demolition.  But, what I do see are plenty of trees and grass.  The hurricane devastated the structures and without the human determination, would have wiped the coast completely clean of us, but the trees are still standing and grass has overgrown most of the lots where our houses once stood.  Ain't Mother Nature grand?  I think the simple beauty of the eradication of the human strain is one of the most amazing things I will ever see.  All throughout history, thriving civilizations and monuments to mankind's greatness wiped clean by nature in just a few hours like some cosmic Etch-a-Sketch while she says "Nice try, now start over..."

New movies coming out are actually getting me excited.  Neil Gaiman's Stardust is coming out and that one kind of snuck up on me because I was always looking for the information on the film adaptation of his "Endless" series, specifically "Death".  Someone is doing "Watchmen" and that ought to be just short of freaking awesome.  "Iron Man" looks like it actually may turn out to be pretty decent but I still have to quote a friend, "Tony Stark is a douche-bag!"  I just heard Johnny Depp has bought the rights to "Dark Shadows" and they are planning on putting that out in a few years.  There might be a few good movies out there soon.  Of course, they could all suck!

One of the best purchases I ever received is starting to die on me.  It is one of the iPod charger/FM Transmitters.  The signal seems stronger than most of the other ones I've tried and I almost never have trouble picking out an empty station and getting a clean signal.  But it is starting to give me static on even the regular channel I use and the connector is going bad because I lose the right speakers every few minutes and have to tap the unit.  Worse than that it that I am almost unable to pick up an empty frequency anymore.  It's frustrating to listen to my podcasts and books while having to pause and change the frequency every ten minutes.  I was thinking about getting a new one but I don't know if I'll be able to find a good one for my older iPod.  All the new ones are thinner and wider.  I'm not buying a new iPod until this one dies of natural causes.  As soon as I heard Toshiba had built an 80G mini-drive I couldn't wait to buy a new iPod.  But now I realize it would be a huge waste of money.  I hold 40G now, doubling it to 80 still wouldn't let me carry all of my music so why would I want to spend the money?  The new iPods have color screens and can play videos.  So what?  I won't say "never" but I can not imagine wanting to watch a movie on a one and a half inch screen.  I carry my music collection on a 500G portable, if I need to change songs that badly I can do it at the hotel that night.

So what I need to do is install my CD player in the truck so I can have the AUX input to plug into my iPod.  I can keep the transmitter as a holder and charger but feed the input through the headphone jack.  All I need to do now it tear open the dashboard and start tackling the wires.  I just barely remember how much I HATE working behind the dashboard.  I remember that I hate it but the hatred has faded just enough that I might be foolish enough to try and do this myself!  I have to remember that at any moment, I could have to put it all back to normal as these are leased trucks and I'm not willing to give them my CD player.

Wednesday, 8-1-7

I'm sitting out here (waiting as usual) on the far side of the runways watching the air traffic land and take off.  The small corporate jets and the regular airline 727's are fun enough to watch but I really love watching these HUGE Air Force transports take off.  They are so freaking huge and slow I'm always amazed when they get off the ground.  I'm sipping my cheap coffee and smoking my even cheaper cigar thinking about this trip.  The heat is killing me and the travel is going to get me divorced soon but sometimes, when I'm calm like this, and when I was on the beach last night, I have to think that this job isn't so bad.  I don't want to keep doing it forever and I'm still searching for something better to take its place, but I have to realize how much worse a job could be and how I'm doing alright out here "on the road".

I've got a wonderful woman to support me.  All I have to do is call and her voice cheers me up.  In my absence from home she is forced to display a little of that strength that was always in her but rarely seen.
I have great friends that miss me and I miss them but they understand that I'm gone all the time so we cherish the time that we can scrape together.
I have enough money rolling in that we have pulled ourselves out of debt and even been able to have Teresa stay home and give Becca the attention and care she deserves.

Becca is exploring her limits on all sides, socially as well as academically (I'll let Teresa brag about Becca's latest developments if she ever writes up another blog).  Becca also misses me but we make a point to spend our weekends doing things rather than wasting them by sitting around.  Although, last Sunday she and I played X-Box all day long.  She needed that and I think so did I.

Yeah, I'm doing alright.  If I bitch too much about the job I can always come home and go back to work flipping burgers and eggs, Teresa will have to get a job, Becca will be home alone or shuffled off to someone else while we are at work, the debt will pile up and we'll be miserable again.  I guess I can suffer through a lot worse by coming home, but I'll wait a while longer before that happens.

You know, while I've been out here, some things have changes.  When I first started going on the road I was in Miami.  A new place for me with new cultures.  I couldn't understand why anyone would eat at chain restaurants.  In just over a year I went from seeking out the local hotspots to eating microwaved Hot-Pockets for dinner.  If I'm in an interesting new place, I'll still look for the local spots but even that gets to be a bore.  Dining alone sucks.  If I'm working with someone I'll go out somewhere for dinner to hang out.  Just ask Keith if he'll ever go to a Red Lobster with me again...  But if I'm alone like usual, I'll grab some microwave junk and hibernate in the hotel room.  Trying to get some writing done, or reading!

I love to read but I have always been a slow reader.  It is rare that I pick up a book and whiz through it in a few days.  Teresa on the other hand can read a book and watch TV and tell you details about both.  She'll have a new book done by the end of the night.  She just buzzed through all fifteen of the "Anita Blake" novels in just over a month.  Becca falls in the middle.  She can read rather quickly if she likes a book but if she's reading something she's not really into, it will take her forever.  I've been self conscious about my reading because they say that a good writer should be a constant reader.  I am a constant reader, but it's normally the same damn book!  In the time Teresa read her fifteen, Becca read four and I read one and a half!  I've been on page 75 of "Snow Falling on Cedars" for the last two weeks.  I know I need to read but I'm too busy writing!  How can a writer write if he's always reading?  I guess I'm not really good at either one.  I guess I have to set some reading goals.  I work well when I set down a writing goal, maybe if I told myself I needed to read "X" number of pages by this or that date...

I got word Monday afternoon that I may have a trip to Puerto Rico coming up next month.  You can bet your ass that I'll be checking out the local spots over there!  I'm trying to remember all the Spanish I absorbed but every time I try to say something, it comes out mangled in half Spanish/half German.  "Hola, drei cervesas bitte."  And a lot of the Spanish I do remember is coming out in closely related Italian words.  I think I'm going to get myself killed over there.  I probably will get myself killed but it has nothing to do with the language, they are sending me over with Heffner.  He was over there for three months and knows all of the good drinking spots.  Teresa said that if I go, I have to bring something home for her.  I told her I would but that we'd need to see a doctor to get rid of it when I got back...

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Last Updated: 09/06/07 02:10 p