Month: October 2017

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 29

NPR had a blurb today regarding a handwritten note by Albert Einstein that was selling for $1.6 million. Apparently, it was life advice written to a Japanese bellhop when he refused to take a tip from Einstein. As Einstein himself predicted, it ended up being worth a lot of money.

My father remarried fairly soon after my mother died. My stepmother was preparing to move into the house and getting rid of things that weren’t needed. She ran across a box of napkins that had my mother and father’s name printed on them and placed them in the pile to be discarded. She meant no harm, but it felt wrong to me. When she wasn’t looking, I took them and hid them in my dresser drawer where I kept most things of sentimental value. Years later, I finally convinced myself I no longer needed them.

Ms. Boss, the Bosslets, and myself moved over 900 miles to our current location about five years ago. Preparation for the move involved multiple trips to the transfer station where we literally deposited tons of items in the landfill (for the record, this particular exploit is starting to fade, but the figure of two tons sticks out as being the overall amount). Trophies, magazines, blankets, clothes, yard tools, there wasn’t a single category of household item that was omitted from the purge. It was tremendously liberating. We’ve threatened to do it again.

I just contemplated the question of what single item I would save if I had a house fire. I immediately thought wedding ring, but that’s almost too easy – it’s always on my finger, if it’s safe, I’m safe.

The lengths to which Amazon will go to bring stuff to your house is just staggering if you sit there and think about it for a bit.

I first rented an apartment the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. My grandfather and I moved me on a day I had a 102-degree fever into a place that didn’t have the electric turned on yet. I had a bed, a dresser, a couch, a picnic table with benches that doubled as a coffee table, a few pots and pans, and very little else. I spent the summer by myself working, sleeping, playing solitaire with actual cards, riding my bike all over the place, and eating out of pots and pans. It was simple. Sometimes I miss simple.

The day we moved to our current town, I navigated the Ryder truck that held everything we owned through the mountains on a busy interstate in a hellacious storm. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so close to disaster in my entire life.

I’m in the middle of a project where we have over $4 million worth of equipment stored in a warehouse. Bales and bales of shredded cardboard sit not more than twenty feet away one day only to replaced by another a day or two later. Sitting right behind both of them are at least fifty vending machines from a bankrupt company that have been stored there at least five years if the papers hanging on them can be believed. In a climate-controlled facility where square-footage is likely the same rate for everyone, it is interesting to contemplate the value of what is being stored and why the owners spend money to do so.

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 28

A fiery crash occurred near my workplace yesterday that took the life of one of the occupants of the vehicle.  I’ll admit that my first thoughts lamented my commute home for the evening, but I almost instantaneously chastised myself for the reaction.  In fact, I began to feel terrible about the whole situation – a human life here one minute and gone the next.  Think about this – a life-altering event for those who knew this person becomes a minor aggravating annoyance for many others.

I saw a cat run over by a car one day while riding home on the bus from elementary school.  I can still visualize it twitching on the ground well after it’s life was taken.  I spent the next half-hour on the bus upset over the situation and instantly ran to embrace my mother for comfort when I got home.  Unfortunately, it was very easy to find her in the house as she was bedridden.

The first day I came home and found my mother in bed, I remember her explanation to me:  she had something the size of a grapefruit in her tummy that didn’t belong there.  The word ‘tumor’ did not compute.  I remained in a state of semi-ignorance for months.  The horrifying, epiphanal moment occurred months later.  My father and I were watching a television news magazine.  When a piece came on about a diet that was supposed to help fight cancer, I saw him grab a pen and paper and start writing things down.  It took me a few days to work up the courage to ask my mother to tell me the truth.

I barely cried when my mother died – outside of a time or two during the funeral, I didn’t shed a single tear.  In fact, I went to school that day and took three final exams and even went to a teacher’s house to take another after school.  The tears, the pain, the anguish had all come about a month before while I was on class campout.  I called home to find out that my mother had gone to the hospital once again.  I knew what I had seen over the past few months since her mother passed away.  The changes in her body, the bouts of confusion, the slow eroding of who she was kept growing and growing.  I knew she was there, but already gone.  For years I thought I knew why I didn’t cry when she died.  Yesterday, for the first time, I could finally admit to myself why I truly didn’t.  I didn’t because her death was a blessing.

My father is no longer with us. He lived a very full 69 years on this earth, yet every time I hear someone accomplish something in their seventies or beyond, I’m reminded of the years that were taken from him.

For a good portion of my life, I worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher.  Those who work in this occupation regularly interject themselves into the tragedy of others –  I didn’t see death often, but I heard it constantly.  If you work long enough in that profession, homicides and other senseless deaths morph from tragedies to notches on your belt courtesy of an increasingly jaded attitude.  I did reach a point, however, where the barbs of death did start to penetrate the armor I had created for myself. In some ways, that’s why I actually felt better about my reaction yesterday – it seems I am finally reclaiming my humanity.

In just the past few minutes, I exercised that humanity. I was going to describe two of the worst calls I had towards the end of my dispatching career until I realized that I was only putting notches in my belt by doing so. Perhaps I’m not humanity is not as reclaimed as I thought.

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 27

Ms. Boss and I spent this past weekend in an Airbnb apartment. One of the reasons Ms. Boss picked the apartment was a photo she saw of the bedroom. She knew I would be fascinated with the wall full of maps hung by the owner. Of course she was right. It’s no exaggeration to say I spent a good hour or two pouring over the political maps, the maritime charts, and the topographical maps I saw there. While the maps alone were enough to grab my attention, another feature kept it there. The owner placed Post It Notes all over the maps explaining what these places meant to them – it was both informative and personal.

I’ve always been fascinated with maps. I started reading National Geographic in kindergarten. I asked for a Rand McNally Atlas almost every Christmas. My parents bought me a pull-down classroom maps of the United States for my bedroom. I played travel agent growing up to the point where I told the AAA office that a TripTik would not be necessary for our next trip. I kept a World Atlas on my coffee table while I watched television to find places until it was replaced by my iPhone. To say that I love maps is an understatement.

What’s actually difficult to believe is that I never once thought about pursuing maps as a career growing up – I was supposed to be the lawyer. While I had many changes of heart about what I should do with my life (please read the previous phrase as ‘crises’), maps never crossed my radar until well into my forties.

To provide clarity to my previous thought, I now have a GIS expert on my staff at work. He deals with maps all day. I am insanely jealous.

Here’s a new idea for a blog – a map-driven blog that attaches meaning to different locations from my perspective. A good idea, yes, but this information is a little to personal for me to put on the interwebs. Besides, Google can probably already do that with the information they collect on me.

Ms. Boss is a big fan of tattoos. While her story about this topic is hers to tell, I probably wouldn’t be too far out of bounds to say she likes to collect them when she can on trips we take. While I truly appreciate the artwork she is curating on herself, I’ve never had the desire (please read ‘guts’) to get any of my own. The one idea that has even gotten consideration is a list of map coordinates of many of the significant events of my life – this speaks to me and who I am. If this were to happen, you’d find all the entries on my leg but one. That particular one would be the place where Ms. Boss said ‘I do’. It would go right over my heart.

As you might imagine, I have this habit of memorizing where I am when certain things happen. While many of you know where you were when things like 9/11 happened (it was my day off, I was home in my office), my list is much more exhaustive. Sometimes, it’s what I remember most. It can be a burden at times. I was just thinking fondly of the place I decided that I was going to marry Ms. Boss until I remembered it was also where one of the worst episodes of our marriage happened – something that I did that I truly, truly regret. For better or worse, that place doesn’t exist anymore – they built a large building over it.

I started off this post by saying I had stayed in an Airbnb. I was pretty leery about the prospect of staying in someone else’s apartment, but Ms. Boss persisted. As usual, she was right. She has a knack for picking the right places far from where normal out-of-towners stay. This past weekend we stayed in a residential neighborhood in a city. Half a block of walking put us at the front door of a great coffee shop, an outdoor beer garden, and an excellent vegan restaurant. Had we been normal ‘touristas’, we never would have had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in what normal people did in that particular city.

I went to a building near my work today that I’ve never been to before. I was surprised how large it was when I got there. Filling my own personal map with this information was perhaps the highlight of my work day. It got me to thinking, what if I got the old Rand McNally out and started filling it in, highlighting all the roads I’ve been, pointing myself in the future where I haven’t? Truly, truly immersing myself in what place has to offer – I can hardly wait to begin.

World Wide Web Wednesday – Volume 8

World Wide Web Wednesday returns with:

www.trello.com

For the longest time, I’ve looked for a ‘to do list’ app to keep my sh… err… life straight. Trello is the one that has held on the longest. (Thanks for the tip, Ms. Boss!). Read on to discover why.

It’s Free(ish) – Yes, there are a lot of cool things that you can add on if you pay for them, but so far I haven’t needed more than a few free ones. Besides, in my personal life I’m a bit of a cheapskate. In my occupational life? Don’t even get me started on the complexities of the procurement process at work.

It’s a Website and an App: My go-to for Trello at home is the app on my iPad. On my work PC, it’s in my Web browser. Yes, there are subtle differences between the environments, but not enough to worry about.

It Has Alexa Integration: I’m not a hardcore user of Alexa, but there are times when it comes in handy. Example, when you’re making dinner and you use the last of a household staple and don’t want to come to a screeching halt to write it down on a shopping list, a shout out to Alexa and an IFTTT integration will put it right on your Trello board. Yes, I know Alexa has shopping list embedded and Jeff Bezos will happily send it to you for a small amount of coin, but…

You Can Sort Your List By Dragging Card Around – This is perhaps my favorite part of the app. Want to sort your list in the order of the grocery store because you can because you know where everything is because you go so often because four daughters in your house do nothing but consume? A couple of clicks and you’re good to go. Does the boss come at you with a yet another ‘drop everything and do this’? Slap that assignment on a card and drag it right to the top of the pile. Put a couple of color labels on your cards or put some due dates on and it makes it even better.

Trello has quite a few other features that I don’t make as much use of – checklists, comments, archiving, multiple boards – that I don’t make as much use of, but may be just what you are looking for. If you’re in the neighborhood, it may just be worth a look.

That’s another link to the rest of the Internet in the books… err… blog. Now go out there and Web!

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 26

As my few fans may have noticed, I’ve posted a few more pics lately. There’s a few reasons for that. First, I said early on I wanted to post black and white pics and I really haven’t followed through on it. Second, I got a new phone. After existing in the Android universe for three years, I finally returned to Apple. The change brought with it a better camera than my previous phone and no excuse not to take pictures. The third reason is a little more complicated and deserves its own bullet point.

Ms. Boss recently asked us to accompany her to the local art museum for her recent birthday. As I believe I mentioned previously, she was a fine art major in college and still enjoys exercising that part of her mind on a regular basis. This particular visit included a guided meditation session on an art installation that used light shining through cutouts to display different patterns on the wall. The high point of the session for me was an instruction by the leader to spend a few minutes outside my comfort zone in a meditative state. When it comes to groups, I like to float on the periphery, to hang back, to occupy the back rows of the room, so to speak. Following instructions, I got right up close to the artwork with my nose one inch from the art piece shining the patterns. I was rewarded with an immersive experience. The artwork existed all around me, enveloped me, and seared an image in my brain I won’t soon forget. The lesson I learned that day was to get close to those things around me and truly notice them. What I’m trying to do is share that with you, dear reader, through photography. I take black and white photos of patterns I see around me and try to immerse us – you and I – in them.

I’ve said this for years, but as each year goes by the meaning behind the words changes and becomes even deeper. Being married is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s also the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. This year, I’m trying to be more immersed in my marriage. It’s difficult to block everything else out and focus on that one thing. I fail miserably time and time again, but every once in awhile I get it right – and am handsomely rewarded for it.

Its a rainy October Sunday as I write this from the front porch of my house. What started as sprinkles grew into a soaking, steady rain. Ms. Boss is seated to my right working hard to get caught up with last week’s work before diving into next week. Before starting this post, I dehulled some of the black walnuts that have fallen in our yard with the hope of shelling them in a week or so. Together, we’ve worked, had a hot beverage or two, enjoyed the solitude and the sound of the falling rain. When she turned and told me she loved me out of the blue, I knew there was no place either of us would rather be.