Tuesday, 12-25-7

We got up here safely and Teresa got her white Christmas.  There was ice and snow on the ground when we got here on Saturday morning.  Sunday it rained from 2am until 7pm when we sat down to dinner.  At 7pm it turned to snow.  Teresa lit up (thought she wouldn't admit it) because that was all she wanted to see.  She wanted to see the snow falling and laying on the ground.  I'm very happy that she got what she wanted.  Today is cold but there is little snow left on the ground.  Lots of ice but little snow.  Christmas eve I took the girls out to do some last minute shopping.  They almost sapped the last vestiges of any holiday cheer out of me but I was cheered up when we got back home and found that Jerry and Teresa had gone in to the back yard and cut down a small tree and put up a string or two of lights.  That sad pathetic tree is probably the best tree I've had in years.  I also got to do something I've thought about for years.  We were still on the road when the solstice took place but I went with the spirit of the event rather than the details (only because I was too late for the true event).  Lizzy has horses up here at the house so on Christmas Eve I filled one of my hunting boots with hay, sugar cubes and an apple for Sleipnir.  I try to sneak in a little old school tradition when I can.

Becca pointed out something interesting.  Mostly she pointed out to her mother that she is every bit as cynical as I am and that it is becoming a problem...  She was listening to the lyrics to "Do You Hear What I Hear" and the line says "a baby shivers in the cold, we shall bring him silver and gold."  Becca just looks up and says, "Wouldn't a blanket be a better gift?  I mean even if he got the silver and gold to buy one, most stores are closed on Christmas Eve anyway..."  Why is it that I get into trouble whenever Becca pops out a gem like that one?

I've watched a lot of the Christmas movies these last few weeks.  The old Rankin/Bass claymations, a lot of newer "classics", just about every incarnation of "A Christmas Carol" and a lot of the older classics.  I had to explain "It's a Wonderful Life" to Becca because she's never seen it before.  Bad Daddy...  But we watched the animated "Frosty" and "Frosty Returns".  About five minutes in I realized what was bugging me about "Frosty Returns".  Aside from the obvious like a snowman abducting a little girl and taking her to the North Pole...  Frosty didn't have (not ONCE) his trademark corncob pipe.  I guess it's wrong to smoke in front of the kids.  I also watched both incarnations of "Miracle on 34^th St." back to back.  I've never seen the entire new version before and I'll never watch it again.  They couldn't resist drawing obvious parallels between faith in Santa and faith in God.  It was horrible.  Right down to the ending where they took out the post office letters and replaced them with a single dollar bill with "In God We Trust" circled on it.  I thought it was one of the worst recreations of a classic I've ever seen.

But we've been lazing around the house today just playing in the snow (mostly ice now) and sleeping in front of the television.  Teresa got her white Christmas and all is well.  When we get home Teresa will give me some of the over 2Gs of pictures/video she took so far and I'll put them up here.  We are planning on driving home Thursday and being home by Friday.  We'll see how long that lasts.  Once Teresa gets up here we always end up staying longer than we expected because she never wants to leave.  Odds are that we'll pull into town just in time for school/work next week.  Oh well, that's why we're here.  Merry Christmas everyone, we'll see you soon.

Thursday, 12-20-7

Teresa had to yell at me and remind me that she's been doing all of the updates recently and that I've been slacking.  Well, here I am finally and I have just been running at top speed for the last three weeks.  I was working on the new project at work and putting in early mornings and late nights, almost all of it outside and on an aerial lift.  After having the wind in my face all day I was just too tired to even open up the computer at night.

This week was tower climbing safety in Norfolk and I was hoping that this week would be slow so that I could get caught up but it never turned out that way because all of the guys wanted to go out to dinner and hang out every night.  It's good to be able to put faces to these names I deal with on the phone and now we've all been out drinking together.  What a mess this week was.

One of the techs I was working with last week was wondering why I was scheduled for a whole week on this class because his training was a single 8-hour day.  I didn't find out until I got up here that this was not only a climbing/safety class but also an instructor certification.  I am now qualified (and expected) to teach other techs the one day class.  This will work out just fine if I am dealing with a single tech or a few techs I already know but to stand up in front of a class...?  I just don't like it.  I had to come up to the podium and teach for a few minutes and I felt just like time stood still.  I could feel my insides shaking and I remember the time I spoke to the School Board.  I was a sweaty, nervous wreck.  The rest of the class said I was a natural and that I was really easy to follow but all I heard inside my own head was the banging and clattering mumblings of a lunatic.  I hate public speaking.  And now they want me to teach classes?  Yuck!

The climbing part of the class was great.  The safety gear really sticks in your head when you realize you might have to climb a 300' tower and that if you don't know what you're doing you could die.  Death is an awesome motivator.  All of our training was done on a 60' tower and even then most of it was only half way up.  Thirty feet looks a lot different from the ground than when you are walking an I-beam.  We practiced with all the equipment and everyone got a chance to rescue and be the victim.  Hanging in a harness is a lot less comfortable than it sounds but I'm sure it's a lot more comfortable than coming to a stop after a sixty foot free-fall.  Here are a couple of pictures of what I've been up to these last few weeks.

A BSCOD in the airport, I couldn't resist.  TSA security came over to me and scolded me.  They said that I couldn't take a picture of any airport information screens.  They were asking for my camera and all but I told her I was taking a picture of the mermaid statue next to it and she allowed me to go on about my business.  The force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded...

Well, I'm trying to get caught up.  I have a whole bunch of movies I've watched that I haven't written up yet.  I'll try to finish writing them up while I'm sitting here in the airport.  As soon as I get home I'm going to sleep and bright and early tomorrow we'll be in the car driving up to Pennsylvania.  It doesn't look like I'll get any break any time soon.  No rest for the wicked, only the good die young and all of that...

So, unless something drastic changes I probably won't update again until close to New Years.  In the mean time, Merry Christmas to you all.  Some people are confused as to why I would say "Merry Christmas" being non-christian and all.  I am more of a Yule person but I don't shy away from the Christmas trappings.  In fact, the more people try to eliminate it, the more I gravitate back toward it.

First off, it's what I grew up on and in my nostalgic little head I still experience the joys of my childhood Christmas.  I say "Merry Christmas" to you and in my head I'm feeling the freezing cold of snow on my nose as I sled down water-tower hill.  I'm stripping off a wet snowsuit as my mother hands me cocoa with a candy cane melting in it while Bing Crosby sings in the background about how to say Merry Christmas in Hawaii.  These are the thoughts in my head associated with those words.  I thank the gods that I have never heard those words and conjured up a scene of an unwed teenager giving birth in a filthy donkey stall.

Secondly, I tell them that there is so little religion left in Christmas that I don't think anyone should be upset at those simple words.  I say them and hear them as the basic well-wishing it was intended for.  There hasn't been anything religious about those words in years.

Ok, allowing for religion, the Christian account of the birth of Christ is a pretty standard myth.  It was told long before the time of the Jews and I suspect that it will outlive Christianity as well.  The darkest time of the year has broken and we celebrate the coming of the sun.  The rebirth of the sun/son is almost universal in almost every religion.  If you allow for cultural differences and for religious myths, the truth is that it is a dark and desolate time of the year and people are happy to have something to look forward to.  Spring.

And most of this is a moot point anyway.  Food is available every month of the year.  We're not farmers sitting in the dark and hoping our last harvest is enough to get us through the winter.  We're not primitive peoples hoping the fire stays lit through the winter storms.  We have flashlights and generators.  The meaning of Christmas has been rendered obsolete by technology and science.  We have overcome and adapted to the planet's seasons.  We understand things now.  Mithras, Demeter/Persephone, Christ... all of them take a back seat to the twenty-three and a half degree tilt.

So if someone says "Merry Christmas" to you smile and inwardly translate it any way you wish.  If they were sincerely wishing you well, you shouldn't be offended.  If they were saying it out of habit, they were simply victims of the latest meaning of Christmas; Consumerism.  Wal-Mart, Target, Circuit City, Apple and all the rest of them, they say Merry Christmas to you because they want you to buy their goods.  If you don't go out there and purchase a bunch of crap you don't need then how will these mega-stores make their bottom line.  You have to get in the TRUE spirit of the season, "GIMME GIMME GIMME!".

I speak from experience and from guilt.  For years we were the worst offenders.  The money we wasted on Christmas should have been cut down to a manageable amount.  But we used to go all out and in the recent years we have been making up for that difference.  We've been caught short at the end of each year for a while now and this year it is the worst.  With Becca's trips, the house repairs and the new house on the way, we're dead broke.  It's December 20^th and we haven't even bought Becca anything yet.  This trip to Pennsylvania is the only present Teresa is getting and that's only because I made some overtime the last few weeks.  Why do I relate all of this here?  To show how much guilt I am feeling for not joining into the consumer fray.  I am a bad person because I can't buy presents for the people I love.  I have fallen under the spell of the mega-companies and I feel like shit because I'm not buying thousands of dollars worth of stuff.  I WANT to but I just can't.  So I'm a bad man.

See how these companies have run the spirituality out of Christmas?  Am I focusing on good cheer and the coming of the new year?  No, I'm focusing on how I'm not a good consumer.  I'm not participating in making this planet the third mall from the sun.  I'm not out there going into credit debt in order to make myself feel good by purchasing things I can't afford.  How can I live with the fact that I don't have a new 160G iPod or the latest gadgets available from Best-Buy?

In truth I love a lot of you reading this.  I really wish I could buy those things for you.  I have ideas of what I'd get each and every one of you.  But this year I'm going to have to scrounge for gas money to get us home.  This year I'm making the trip a present because in my strange fucked-up head, Teresa getting to see her family for Christmas is worth so much more than me getting a Tivo.  And for whatever it's worth, however you'll take it, Merry Christmas.

Sunday, 12-2-7

I was gone so long that I totally neglected to mention Thanksgiving week.  Depending on how you look at it, I was lucky enough to be home all week because of the slack in work.  I had to eat three vacation days but still, I was home.  We went down to mom and dad's place for the weekend.  We drove down Wednesday night and Zephyr met us there about an hour later.  We had a lot of fun and played trivia, board games and poker all weekend.  We stayed out of the kitchen as Teresa prepared a feast for all of us and dinner was ready when mom got home.  It was nice that mom could enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner without having to break her back over it and Teresa was (and SHOULD be) proud of the wonderful meal she created.  It was a true blessing to be surrounded by family and I am so glad we decided to do it.  Last year was my first Thanksgiving with Teresa since we were married and this year was my first Thanksgiving in Florida since we were married.  Zephyr will be in Ohio soon and I have no idea if we'll still be in Florida soon so it was nice to have that last big holiday together.

I spent most of the weekend breaking my dad's balls over his decision to keep the Vista machine.  Every time he loaded one driver, two other devices stopped working.  I was really tough on him but he needs it, he's not as helpless as he'd have you think.  So he finally decided to stay with the default drivers and purchase a new printer/scanner.  Everything is working fine now.  I really laid into him about Vista.  I know Vista will (and already has) replace XP but when he bought the computer he still had the option of getting another Dell and having it shipped with XP on it.  After hearing about all the trouble everyone else had with Vista and then experiencing it first hand, I have decided that when I finally have to upgrade, I'm going Mac.  It may cost a little more than I'll want to spend but it will be worth it.

So I get home and my new laptop arrived from work.  It has the Vista logo on it.  I could just shit!  So after waiting a few days before even powering it up, I finally get started on setting this thing up as my new laptop.  I power it up and thankfully the Windows XP Pro logo showed up on the screen.  In conversation with the guy that runs our computer services he told me that he tried to migrate everything we do onto a Vista machine but it was so unstable.  Any changes made in the field (like all the stuff I'm adding now) would crash the system.  So all the new laptops are getting re-imaged to XP.  Vista doesn't sound like a very good system does it?

But for now, I'm happy to have the new system.  The old laptop was always flickering and going dark on me.  Yet another reason I don't want to buy a laptop for personal uses.  I've had that ribbon cable go out on me a few times.  When you figure how often we are opening and closing these things it's a wonder they last as long as they do.  This new one is nice.  I have upgraded all my programs and loaded up all my personal programs and drivers.  I know that a lot of the system problems comes from us loading up our own programs but honestly how do these people expect us to live on the road like this without having games or hobbies on the computer?  There is a built in fingerprint scanner on this new one so I don't have to type out my password but that will only ensure that I forget the password over time and that I'll need it one day.

Well, I'm going to go now.  I've started to write this up on Friday but now it's Sunday.  I've got a lot of movie reviews half written up and I should drop them in here later on this week depending on how busy I am.  I have still been writing a lot but I never get much writing done while at the house.  Too much to do around here.  The washing machine broke and we don't have the cash to get it looked at.  We're stuck loading everything up in the back of the truck and running it down to the coin Laundromat.  I know nothing about how to fix a freaking washing machine other than changing a belt but it sounds like it's a pump or electronics issue...  It sucks!

I've also got to look into buying a car/truck for myself.  Monday I have to go out to the job site in my own truck because the work truck is through the primary contractor and we're working a third party contract.  It would be "wrong" to use their trucks for this job I've been told.  There is no telling how often this will happen but as soon as we get assigned to a new project, we'll get a new work truck so if I buy a personal truck, it will sit on the side of the house and rot away just like the van did and that's why I sold it.

I also got a call that a fifteen-year-old idea of "yeah, that would be cool someday" is happening NOW!  And by "now" I mean in 30 days.  There's a LOT of prep and planning that has to happen and I'm not even sure I could pull it off if I had all the time in the world.  It was always a cool idea when it was "someday" and a few years back it was still a possibility but a lot has changed and I'm not in the same place I was years ago.  Some of my affiliations and ideas have changed and I'm conflicted between my age-old commitment and the realignment with farcical entities I would have to commit to fulfill that commitment.  I'm laying it in the hands of fate, if I CAN do this, I WILL do this.  First, the research and then the decision will be made.

Between the washer dying, the uncertainty of what to do with the truck and now the panic of rushing around and trying to fulfill old promises I'm just floating around in my head and getting nothing done.