So about that blog post I promised to write …

Dear loyal readers,

I have not forgotten about you, or your interest in this blog, my life, and my writing. However, I have been far too busy for far too long to keep up with this thing. I have been writing all this time, but most of it has either been for my eyes only, not even shared with my wife if you can believe that, or has been in the form of a FaceBook (FB) status update or comment. Many of you are on FB and my FB friends list so you have not been kept too far out of the loop, though certainly not exactly included in all the goings on of my life since last fall. Let this post serve as the catch up for all those important things I have not yet shared, and I promise to update this thing a little more regularly going forward. Notice I said a little more regularly.

First off for those of you who do not yet know, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage IV ductal breast cancer last fall, round about the time I stopped posting my writing. See the coincidence here? Thee were other factors in my silence, like the completely unhealthy group I was in the process of terminating my membership with, a few work related issues, and the occasional life event I still choose to remain silent on. In any case, she is doing well, responding well to treatments, and having very few side effects of her treatments outside of the standard loss of hair. And for those who have not been through this, or watched someone go through this, let me just state that when I say loss of hair, it includes hair in places where you didn’t know hair grew.

Dealing with the diagnosis, the tests, the staging process, and the new schedule that would be applied to my life as my wife stepped up to be by her mother’s side as much as possible through this whole process has taken some major and minor adjustments. One of the first things to get pushed aside was my writing. It was in part because I didn’t feel much like finishing a story about a boy who leaves home right after high school with the intent to never see his father again, spends 20 years building a life for himself with no contact between the two of them, and then stumbles upon a relationship with him again through a twist of fate only to learn that his father is terminally ill. This story was conceived and the first 20 chapters or so written long before last fall’s news hit and it is in no way related to my mother-in-law’s diagnosis. Yet writing it just didn’t sit well with me any longer and I lost interest in writing all together as the weeks dragged on.

I did not stop writing all together though, but digging through the archives of the blog you’ll certainly notice a HUGE gap in entries beginning toward the end of last summer and lasting for what has become nearly a year. I can’t say that many things were written in that time period, but I can say that what was written was almost always merely me venting frustrations about one thing or another and eventually found its way into the recycle bin. On occasion I came up with a piece of something I hung onto, something that I managed to make general enough to post. But, as the archives make blatantly obvious, those were very few and quite far in between.

So, what else have I been up to over the last 9 months … sadly the answer is not really all that much. I have completed more classes and currently have just four left to obtain my latest degree, a Bachelor of Web Development. So long as they don’t cancel any classes on me I will be done with it next March! Then what I’m not certain, but there has been some consideration about going for a Masters Degree … time will have to tell that tale because for now I am focusing on SUMMER VACATION and those four remaining classes next year.

Life has really been all about family, friends, school, and work … in that order for probably the first time in decades. Having a potentially terminal diagnosis of someone you know, no matter how well you know them, is certainly a wake up call to get your life and priorities in line. It has been the catalyst for me purging all the drama and “fluff” from my life, hence exiting the DOB fiasco and no longer surrounding myself with their drama, negativity, and poor choices. I can’t even say the departure was amicable, I’m not certain they are capable of that from a local or national standpoint, but it was not a total waste of time. That group, the drama all last summer, and the eventually process of exiting their gang (and I mean that in every sense of the word) was something I needed to do. It served as a reminder of why I have not been active in the LGBT only culture since my early college days at Oakland, and why I will refrain from getting involved again in the future. It was a definite wake up call that there are two distinct versions of LGBT Equality and the activism that is required to achieve it, I am not interested in their tunnel vision of the world or what true equality is! I am also thankful that organizations like Triangle foundation, Michigan Equality, and Affermations exist and understand both how the world works and what needs to be done to achieve true equality for all, including LGBT people.

So there is the recap of my last 9 months. Reality check, Cancer, Exiting the Drama Queens (DOBD), eliminating as much drama from my life as possible, family, friends, work, school, and writing. Now that the purging of drama process is complete, or nearly, and school is out for the next 4 months, I’ll try to write more!

I is DONE ...

With classes 'till September, with homework, with the stress of 18 straight weeks of school without a single day off (classes run 7 days a week), and with proper English ... for now. A proper blog post will follow, now that I have the time to write again!

Lost and Found

Some days is seems like Facebook has become the worlds greatest and most useful Lost and Found on Earth. On other days, it appears to be more of an entertainment avenue providing billions of bored office workers across the globe endless hours of entertainment while they attempt to look like they are doing actual work when ever the boss walks by.

Ever since I was guilted into joining Facebook about a year ago, people from a past life in a podunk map dot of a town have been crawling out of the woodwork and inviting me to be their friend. Many have been people I was at least remotely interested in getting to know again after an almost 15 year lapse in communication and readily accepted their requests. Some have been people I always wondered what happened to after parting ways post graduation, and a few have been from people I never liked back then and would rather see a death notice for them than accept their request. Thankfully the latter of which has been very small in numbers, though Facebook keeps telling me I should send them a message or a friend request in its not so subtle way almost daily. Luckily those too can be ignored.

I have gone through the cycle of adding everyone who sends a request, except for those I have good reason to ignore, searching for people I was actually interested in reconnecting with, and recently purging my friends list of all those with whom I am no longer interested in being in contact with, or in some cases never really was interested in the first place. I now reserve my friends list for those with whom I actually know, am related to in some way, work with but still consider more than a coworker, and miscellaneous others I wish to remain in contact with via the Internet. My lost and found box is now well under 100 friends thanks to this new policy.

I have also considered abandoning my Facebook profile more than once over the last few months but instead have simply managed to log in less and ignore it most weekends. The more I use Facebook, the less I use Facebook. By that I mean daily usage. In the beginning, when it was all shiny and new with new things to explore and play with, I was on the site every day for multiple hours throughout the day. Now, I generally log in once a day, but not always, and often I can go an entire weekend without ever checking in to see what my friends are up to. I also try to update my status message at least once a day, in the beginning it was way more than that, but even that I don’t always manage to accomplish. When I was on vacation last November, I had Internet access daily, yet only logged into Facebook once or twice the whole trip. When I go home, there were more than 500 updates for me to read through, almost all of which were simple ignored or deleted rather than spending the time catching up on what I had missed while I was out of touch. Some things just aren’t that important.

But every once in a while, this little lost and found box on the Internet, the place where just about everybody with a minute or two of computer access knows to search for someone they lost along the road of life, comes in handy. I lost touch with someone I considered a good friend and probably the most intelligent person I knew my own age growing up. A well read, forward thinking boy who chose to rebel in high school by not cutting his hair for his last two years of school, a rather ingenious decision on his part I might add as it drove certain people crazy to see a boy with long hair in their little town. We had some of the same interests and worldly views and managed to spend a lot of time hanging out after school in high school in the craziest of places, the local library! We even shared the same mentor for a while, and I’m certain Jack would love to hear from him again as well. It’s not a name that has been brought up in our conversations over the last few years, but I know he too thought a lot of this kid and would be interested in hearing where he is now and what he’s been up to over the last 15 years.

So I guess since all things happen for a reason, the friend request today from my former partner in crime at the library, the one male friend I had growing up who was just as “quirky” as I was most of the time and never once judged me for being different that the herd, just might be the reason I haven’t abandoned Facebook yet. That little lost and found box has resulted in rekindling a friendship with someone I vowed never to speak to again and still can’t remember why, has helped build a stronger friendship with a few others in my current life, and now has turned up a long lost friend I was convinced I would never hear from again. It’s settled, Facebook stays, though I will probably continue to spend less and less time on there as time goes on. The shiny toy has lost a bit of its luster and become more of the tool it was originally intended to be.

Another reminder of how quickly it can all be taken away

As if I had forgotten in the last three weeks since the last reminder of how quickly life can be turned upside down or snatched from your grasp, along comes this one. A name I haven’t heard in years attached to a face I haven’t seen in even longer and hardly recognize any more arrived in my inbox. It was a news article from the local news station back in my home town, or more accurately the larger city near my home town, about a man my age who was killed in a car accident. I was intrigued by both the title and the fact that my mother had taken the time to send it my way, so I began to carefully skim the paragraphs for a name I might or might not know. There it was, jumping off my computer screen about halfway through paragraph two. Thomas Janik was the driver and apparently the only person involved in the accident.

I think the first time I met Tom was probably longer ago that I can remember. His parents owned The Spot, a local roller skating rink that on occasion my parents, and at least once my paternal grandfather took me to growing up. Tom and I are the same age, within a few months of each other anyway and from what I have heard from those who were old enough to remember back that far, we hit it off immediately and would play at the rink whenever I was fortunate enough to go.

The first time I definitely remember Tom, I was in the third grade and moving to a new school through no choice of my own. My older sister had attended St. Ann’s in Cadillac for her third grade year and Mom and Dad were so happy with how it went for her that I was moved there the following year. Changing schools is rough, being moved from public to private school is rougher, and going from a class of about 60 kids to a small school like St Ann’s where there were only about 25 third graders who all knew each other was awful for me. I was the outsider in every way imaginable when I walked in on the first day of class. I was the new kid, the girl who didn’t live in the same town, or go to the same church, heck I wasn’t even catholic!

By some stroke of luck, genius, miracle, or whatever you want to call it, there were three kids sitting in that classroom I knew. Two of them, both girls, I had spent at least one summer with at Girl Scout camp and they were both friends of mine by then. The other friendly face was Tom. Between the three people I already knew I was slowly introduced to the rest of the class and a few kids from other classes at lunch and recess, but as the outsider I never really did fit in well with most of them.

I spent two years attending St. Ann’s, third and fourth grade to be exact, before moving back to public school in my home town. For both of those years, Tom was one of my few friends in school. Tom wasn’t the tallest kid in the class, in fact I think he may have been the shortest, but he made up for that small stature with a big heart and a willingness to do what he thought was right, no matter the cost. We would spend hours at recess and lunch building entire cities out of sand to play with our Matchbox cars in and once in a while, when we were bored with the collection each of us had brought from home, we would trade. Tom even traded me his favorite car of all, a Red ‘86 Corvette Stingray with a hood that actually lifted up because he knew how much I liked it. It was his birthday present for me in third grade!

As the outsider in a new school setting, I was picked on a lot by the other kids, it’s what kids do, and there were many times when it was Tom who came to my rescue. Rarely did the picking ever turn physical, it was mostly just words they were fighting with, but I could always count on Tom to back me up. On more than one occasion he put himself on the line, risked being the subject of their ridicule, and told the other kids to back off. Tom was a champion for the little guy even back in third and fourth grade and, from what little I know of his experiences since high school, it looks like this trait followed him throughout the rest of his life.

I lost touch with those few friends I managed to make while at St. Ann’s when I went back to public school, but I always knew where to find Tom. Every once in a while I would manage to convince my parents to take me over to The Spot and, up until his parents sold the place while we were in high school, Tom was always there. Some of my best memories of Tom include those recesses spent building cities of sand for our cars and chasing him around the rink at The Spot for hours on end. He glided around that rink like he was born on skates and, when he wasn’t acting as a floor guard, he was always the guy to aim for in the Speed Skate and Shoot the Duck games. Without fail, Tom was almost always the last man standing and would surrender his prize to who ever came in second place.

I will always remember “Little Tommy Janik” as the little guy with the big heart, a friend to those who otherwise might not have any, and the most graceful person I’ve ever seen on a pair of skates. When I can locate the box, I’ll dig out that Red ‘86 Vet he traded me for my duplicate 4x4 truck and place it on a shelf where I can smile and remember the good ole days when it catches my attention. And, the next time I find myself at a skating rink with my nephews, I just might take another shot at the Speed Skate or Shoot the Duck in his memory. I bet if I close my eyes tight enough I’ll even see his ghost two or three strides in front of me, always just out of my reach.

Office politics ... way too much like High School

I guess I was probably a little over due for a reality check on discrimination and discomfort with the whole subject of homosexuality for far too many people out there. It has been a long time since it has slapped me in the face as a reminder that not everyone out there is comfortable with my sexuality and some are down right offended by it. To be honest, I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of women sleeping with men, but I don’t’ go around telling all the breeders of the world to stop loving who they love and prohibit their rights to equality and free speech.

This all began last Friday when I innocently wore my Dykes on bikes club T-Shirt to work since it was a jeans day. I got a few smirks and second glances as I walked in and up to my desk, but nothing out of the ordinary or all that unexpected. I also managed to get a few compliments on the design and one person asked where they could get one like it. It was a quiet day around the office and I went on with the business of my day, left my desk a grand total of three times, and had extremely limited contact with the rest of my co-workers. Yet, at about 11:30 my direct supervisor came and asked me to come with him. As we passed by his office where I assumed we were headed, he told me we needed to go talk to the Director of our department … never a good thing. I was told that I was in violation of the company dress code because my T-shirt fell into the vague category of “overly controversial” and that I would need to take the remainder of the afternoon off (with pay) because I did not have another shirt to change into. Let the drama begin.

I asked few questions, knowing that the office politics were not worth getting upset over right then and there, returned to my office to close out of all my files, grabbed my bag, and headed to the human Rescources office. It was then that I learned that HR had no idea I was being sent home, seemed a little strange to me, and that the person who was in HR that day could not explain to me why the shirt was so controversial. She requested that I bring it back Monday so that her boss could look into the matter for me. On that note, I left the building at about noon on a beautiful sunny June afternoon and enjoyed my suddenly extended weekend. I had some things I needed to get done before Monday morning, which is what I was working on when I was called away from my desk. I made the decision that if I was not allowed to work my regular schedule to complete those tasks they could wait until next week and the project would simply be delayed a week, no skin off my nose. I didn’t do a single work related thing from Friday at noon until I arrived today at 8:30 to start the new week. Thank you for the time off!
I had time to cool off over the weekend, to let the irritation slide a little bit and approach the issue with a little more political tact that I could have mustered Friday. I scheduled a meeting with the HR manager as directed and took in the shirt so he could look at it. The first words out of his mouth “Wow that’s a pretty shirt. I wouldn’t mind wearing one of these.” Then he attempted to answer my questions and assure me that he will look into the matter for me. He also apologized on behalf of the company that I felt “singled out”. Until that moment, I didn’t realize that everyone else sees this as a clear case of discrimination. I was simply asking why the shirt was controversial, not why I couldn’t wear it. If it doesn’t fit the dress code for jeans Fridays, I won’t wear it. But I need to know why it doesn’t fit so that I don’t wear another shirt that may land me in the same situation. So far, nobody can tell me the answer to that question.

In that short conversation with HR, I don’t feel much better about any of this. If anything, I’m more confused. What I learned is that if one single person is uncomfortable with or offended by a shirt you wear to work you can be sent home, presuming that the dress code is enforced universally. I guess this means that for every Christian, political, sports team affiliated, etc shirt I see that I disagree with I should take my concern to HR rather than being an adult, considering the source, and walking away. I was also reminded that there are people in this office, a place I have been comfortable enough to be out from the moment I walked in on my first day, that are so uncomfortable with my sexual orientation that merely being reminded of it is offensive to them. Seeing gay pride colors or slogans on my shirt, or the trade marked name of a lesbian motorcycle organization makes them so uncomfortable that they can’t get their work done if it is in the building. Yet those same people see nothing wrong with spouting Bible verses, wearing Christian themed shirts, and discussing Christian topics in the middle of the office corridors where not every employees of this company is a Christian. Ahh the double standard.

My saga continues over the T-shirt controversy as the HR manager asks questions of those involved in the decision to send me home, and to our parent companies HR department to find out their view of the situation and how things should have been handled. In the mean time, I’m uncomfortable being in the building today, and experiencing a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time, hatred toward me for something I can not, nor do I wish to change. I know it is their ignorance that will one day be their downfall. I know that I must be the bigger person and allow them their prejudice, but I don’t like this familiar feeling of being alone in the crowded office and not even able to look my department head in the face let alone the eye. He has forever lost my respect simply for the way in which he handled the situation. I guess it’s fitting that he is obviously uncomfortable around me today as well. He has not said a single word to me in the handful of time I have crossed his path and more than once he has seen me walking toward him in the hall and turned away rather than acknowledge my presence. Feels like high school all over again in so many ways!

Born into a world that will never understand you
Forced to live a life that will never make you whole
Spend your whole life wondering why it doesn’t feel right
Or listen to your heart and set yourself free
Stand up
Stand out
Stand tall
Never let their hate filled words break your resolve
You’re not a freak, a mistake of nature
You deserve to belong and to be loved
You are human too!

I know, I know - I'm terrible at this lately.

So I have no excuse, and I’m still awful at keeping this thing updated.

School is done, pulled a B and a B- in my tow general education classes. End of story. Not fighting the grade though I certainly deserved higher than a B- in the Cultural diversity class. Some things just aren’t worth arguing about.

Spring is slowly making it’s way to summer and with the tail bone now 4 weeks into the healing process, I have finally managed to endure a partially uncomfortable ride to work on the motorcycle. The ride in wasn’t too bad, a little uncomfortable in the last few miles, but the ride home was a little worse. I had barely gotten on the expressway to head home when the muscles began to tell me they were not happy sitting on a vibrating seat, and the fidgeting began. I managed a few miles of sitting still somewhere between M-59 and my house but not many. I made it home, stood up off the bike, and stretched! I am still a little sore and stiff today and not exactly looking forward to my impending 10 hour trip south this afternoon, but it’s a long weekend and it will be worth it.

So the weekend trip is finally here, Hopefully I’ll be leaving work in the next half hour and will be headed south to warm weather and sunshine. I will be out of touch with the world for the most part, and working on developing a site for GPB Builders, my first sort-of paying web development gig. We’re trading favors for the most part. He is a construction guy and will be helping with the door wall replacement and painting my entryway, in return, I’m building his website. It’s a win-win for both of us.

FREEDOM !!!!!!

It’s a Wednesday, but not just any Wednesday, it’s the LAST DAY OF CLASSES for the summer. As of 9:30 AM today, after turning in all the remaining homework I had and posting my last participation posts, I am FREE! I have been in class 7 days a week since January 8th, 2009 and am so looking forward to this break in homework and BS-ing papers daily for nit picky instructors who are searching for a reason to doc my grade. This past six weeks was by far the worst, not only in the two classes I had to take, but also in one of my two instructors.

Cultural diversity, that dreaded general education requirement, and Western Geography, seem like harmless classes on the surface. I was hoping to learn at least something from each of them though I wasn’t looking forward to taking them in the least. I began the first week with an open mind and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that I had landed in the class of a nit picky instructor who gives 0 credit for posts with spelling or typo errors, not just reduced credit for the assignment but NO credit for it even for one simple spelling mistake or forgotten comma. As a natural born writer, even I had trouble with this in the first week and after much loud complaining from every student in the class, she began to simply give partial credit for these simple mistakes rather that pretending you didn’t do the assignment at all. With a possible 1000 points in this six week class, I managed to fail the first week and bring my final grade up into the B or B- territory.

Western Geography is a course that didn’t excite me, geography never does. However, it fit nicely with cultural diversity and I am glad that I decided to take them together. Some assignments overlapped a bit and I managed to get all the homework done with a lighter load some weeks thanks to already writing that paper for cultural diversity the week prior. I began this class with a near perfect score in the first two weeks, and found myself slacking off so that I could spend more time on Cultural Diversity assignments. This unfortunately meant that my near perfect score has dropped to the B range in this class as well. I suppose I can handle trading an A+ and an F for two B somethings, it seems like a fair trade and will result in men NOT having to retake either class again.

Classes now over I can once again refocus on things I like to do, and possibly have time to knock out the writing project I started last December and dropped cold about even weeks ago. I have volunteered to take on the Facebook group page development for DOB Detroit, a group Jen and I are members of, and I have a meeting after work Thursday with a potential client to begin development of his company’s web site. It’s not a paying job per say, more like a I’ll do your basic site design if you come help replace my door wall and sub floor from water damage deal. It works out for both of us really. I get my door wall replaced, Dad could use the help, and he gets a web presence for his company. Oh and I can add it to my portfolio of web design projects for future use as a self employed freelance designer … win-win as I see it.

It's almost over ... x2!

I am 10 questions and 8 participation posts away from summer break! I’m not certain anything else needs to be said about that.

Today was a return trip to one of my least favorite places to go, the dentist. My first visit was a little over a week ago where I had one new cavity filled and three existing fillings replaced/repaired. Painful I know, but better to do all four at once than break it up into two separate appointments. Trust me, I wouldn’t have gone back to get the last two fixed after the way my jaw has felt for the past week. I have been trying to tough out the severe pain and constant throbbing on the left side of my face where much of the work was done. Last Sunday I decided I couldn’t stand it any more, had waited long enough for the nerve to repair itself naturally, and it was time to go back to the dentist. Monday morning I also discovered the root of the pain, pun very much intended. I got something stuck on my tooth and was not able to get it off with my tongue, so I slid my finger back there to clean the side of my tooth and discovered that a tiny little crack on the back side of the tooth hadn’t been filled in when the filling was repaired a week earlier. YEOUCH! I called the office for an emergency appointment and took a few more Advil to stop the pain created when I slid my fingernail into that tiny crevice accidentally.

Today I stopped at the dentist office on my way into work and dug my finger tips into the arm rests of the chair while she slid the mirror back to take a look. Metal just millimeters from an open channel to an irritated nerve is certainly enough to make me want to spring from the chair and cling to the ceiling. However, I sat as still as I could and was relieved when she told me she could see the crack, there was no drilling required, and she could fill it with no shot of Novocain. In fact, she didn’t even need the topical numbing jelly either.

Have you ever had a tooth filled without being numb? It was certainly a different experience, and I am not certain I would choose to have my teeth drilled without being numb, but it was relatively quick and, except for the already painful tooth and gum, was painless. There were times when my jaw ached from being held open too far, and my cheek didn’t stretch far enough a few times to get the required tools far enough in the back of my mouth, but it wasn’t bad. When she was all done, she slid the mirror back there to check the work, and I didn’t feel a thing!

Hopefully this is the last I have to deal with this and the ache in my jaw will subside in a day or two. If not, I have a prescription for an anti-biotic and a follow-up appointment in two weeks to check on this tooth and discuss options, including removal of the dang thing since I am under no circumstances having a root canal on a molar I hardly ever use and no one ever sees! Not that I want to lose the tooth, but it’s on the top jaw and the last tooth, really when do you use it other than crushing nuts which could be done on the right side of my jaw instead?

Sometimes I think just pulling all of them and getting a full set I can take out nightly might be easier, but I doubt Jen would appreciate kissing me with no teeth!

Well at least I still have a word processor

So I have a little time on my hands again, we’ll get to why later, and decided to update this thing for a little change. This makes twice in a week … see I am improving!

School is finally nearing the end for this year, I have a grand total of exactly 8 days left of these two pain in the a$$ classes and then I can officially begin summer vacation. The work load has been way more than I wanted to do for this session, but still manageable. Thankfully I excel at writing, even in the college paper and essay realm, and the only issues I ran into were lack of interest in the subject, Geography, and a professor who is IMPOSSIBLE to pleas in Cultural Diversity. I have yet to get full credit on one single assignment outside of weekly participation and one of my six weekly quizzes. That was pure luck since it’s a 10 question quiz with exactly 15 minutes to complete, I simply managed to beat the 25% odds on every question and guess correctly the few I didn’t honestly have an answer for. I always was good at pulling a good test score even when I hadn’t read a single word of the assignment for the week, nice to know I can still pull that off once in a while.

The tail bone is healing, slowly, but I managed a short ride on the motorcycle over the weekend. Unfortunately, the cruiser style of bike I have puts a tone of pressure on the tail bone area when you ride and, while it use to be comfortable, with a fractured tail bone it hurts just to sit on the darn thing. Add in the vibration of the engine and road surface and I was ready to get off after just a few miles in the saddle. It’s less painful today than is was over the weekend and hopefully I will be able to ride again soon. If not, I did a little research for a seat cover that will resolve this issue for me and just might have to buy an “old man seat cover” for the saddle until this heals fully. In any case, I will be riding again by May 16, though not participating in the River Ride with the crew that day; 200 miles just won’t happen that soon for my tail bone.

I still haven’t written another word on my next project, nor have I done a dang thing about getting another agent for Unconditional. I contacted someone who may act as an editor for me, but she is extremely busy and nothing has been finalized as of yet. I am tempted to just self publish the damn thing with lulu.com, buy the ISBN number, stick with on demand printing, post it on eBay and Amazon.com, and be done with it. BUT, would it really sell on Amazon.com with a listing of thousands of books on there? My gut tells me know and that I should stick to hitting the virtual pavement and dig up an agent. For the record, so do those that are in the business and have read it. They claim I just haven’t hit the right agent’s inbox yet. Well DUH! If I had hit the right inbox by now I would have a signed agent contract and they would be working on a publishing deal for me. Instead, at least I have written it and those who it was really written for have read and enjoyed it. That counts for something I suppose

It’s up, it’s down, it’s UP …. No wait, it’s down again!

That statement was heard frequently at work today as the Office Internet connection bounced from functional to offline for the better part of the day. Thankfully, our crack team of communication experts, okay I can’t even type that with out chuckling, was on hand to resolve the issue in no time flat, or uphill, or downhill, or whatever elevation change you can think to plug in here. Seriously, the internet bounced between usable and dead for a little over two hours today, spending most of that time period in the dead column, and people noticed. At the same time it was reported that our firewall locked up cold and had taken out three of the five facilities outside our corporate office that have a constant live connection to our building. Coincidence that the internet went down over the same interval? Last I knew, the connections to the facilities were restored, the firewall was still running, and our Internet connections was flaky at best … Thankfully its up frequently enough that I managed to get a little work done thins afternoon, and then it dies again and I had to start over. Got to love our dependence on technology and the Internet.

Catching Up ...

The “newness” of Facebook has worn off after roughly a month of using it almost daily. Yet, I still log in almost daily and either play a game or two or at the very least change my status message. I’m not on it three and four times a day like I was in the beginning, but it has remained a part of my daily routine, and this blog has suffered for it. I once used this blog to keep my friends informed about happenings in my daily life, and occasionally to vent frustrations. Over the last month that I have been an active Facebook member, I think I have updated the blog three times, but that may be over estimating it. I suppose it’s time to break that cycle and get back to journaling on here again.

School is, well going. I am 4 painful weeks into my final six weeks of classes before a much needed summer break. May 14 I will once again be free to spend free time writing things I care about and want to see completed rather than one essay after another form my painful Cultural Diversity class. The class title alone evokes instant headache pains, and did long before I knew what I was in for. I am an open minded culturally aware person, the exact opposite of who this class was designed for eons ago. I was not looking forward to taking it and decided to just get it out of the way now and be done with it, mistake number one. I am also taking a World Geography class, figured it would go well with a cultural class, mistake number two. These two classes combined mean that I am writing one to two essay papers a day, every day. All of them have a minimum word count in the 200-300 range and some come with a maximum word count of 500. Failure to keep it in the word count range means point reductions in Geography and 0 points in Cultural Diversity. As much as I hated my C++ and Java programming classes, I would gladly take them again if it meant I wouldn’t have had to endure this semester with these two classes. The saddest part is that I have yet to learn something I didn’t already know in EITHER class. I have been reminded of things I learned in high school, but nothing I didn’t already know about. There are still two weeks left, maybe I can get something out of these two classes other than a mediocre grade yet, but I won’t hold my breath.

Work, it’s work. Same stuff, different day and week. Disaster Recovery testing went, and as it typical not all of it worked as planned, but within 24 hours of the building being totally destroyed we know we can have the core business back online and process orders again. Whether we could write checks, or look up sales data historically is another story, but we could process payroll so long as you have direct deposit, which most of us do, so I’m okay with that. NooB is improving, or my tolerance for his mistakes is growing. One of the two, you make the call which it is. The bottom line about work, I still have a job. That is something more than many of my friends and Jen effective last Friday.

That’s right, Jen lost her job Friday. Thank you President Obama for extending those UE benefits out to 79 weeks, and for the State of Michigan who increased the UE benefit maximum. Our checking account will appreciate it I’m sure. Now if only I could add her to my insurance so we didn’t’ have to pay the COBRA on hers … that would make this just about perfect timing. We knew it was coming, just didn’t expect it so soon, nor did we expect it to happen the way it did. I’m actually happy she’s not working there any more, she was miserable. I would rather have to foot the full bill for her insurance than see her so miserable Sunday through Friday and occasionally on Saturday too. She has been looking to get out of there for a while and has a couple of leads on a new job, but if nothing else, 79 weeks of UE will allow her to spend some time with Mom and get us back into the trading game with the little bit of capitol we have managed to save over the last year.

That covers the major stuff, nothing has happened with Unconditional, I haven’t done much work on the new project yet, and I’ve slacked off on searching for an agent to represent Unconditional. School got in the way. I have my motorcycle from Mom and Dad’s, but with a busted tail bone I can’t ride it. Maybe by this weekend I can stand a short ride with Jen. I reconnected with some old friends, thanks to Facebook, and haven’t found the time to even send Jack an e-mail let alone hang out with him. Vermont vacation has been canceled for this summer and instead we are taking a long weekend to Tennessee over Memorial Day weekend and a 7 night camping trip to the U.P. in August. So far we think Tahquemenon Falls State Park … but no reservations have been made yet.

Is it really too much to ask that he take notes?

Okay, so the NooB has worked here for 7.5 months now and is still not grasping some of the major stuff he needs to know to do his job around here. This may be partly my fault for not covering everything with him in his training, or my co-workers for forgetting a few items along the way when he first started. However, it has become painfully clear that he either refuses to take notes or writes things down on scrap paper and then looses it.

There are things I know for a fact we have covered with him on multiple occasions, and yet he continues to ask the same questions or claims to not know how to resolve an issue we have walked him through multiple times. In some cases, like re-enabling a user’s AS/400 ID after they have locked it up, NooB has been shown how to do it, told to write down the command for future use, and still had to ask me how to do it again a few minutes ago. He is notorious for taking a call from a user, telling them he’ll take care of it and call them back, then hanging up before asking all the questions he needs an answer to in order to resolve the problem. Take the As/400 ID problem for example. There are two reasons a user calls up to get this reset, either they get an error message that says their account has been disabled, or they log in with no errors and get no menu, just a black screen. They are causes by two totally different issues and if you don’t’ ask the user the simple questions of “What happens when you log in?” and then clarify it with “Do you get any error messages?” it’s impossible to know for which reason they are calling. IRRITATING!

Also on the irritating front, school! I am done with Winter Quarter and have moved on to my last six weeks of classes before a much needed long summer break. This session I have two classes, both are general ed’s. Cultural Diversity is a class I never wanted to take in the first place and to make it even worse; I landed an instructor who is a nit picky pain in my grade book! The class is 100% online and all assignments have minimum word could requirements. This I am use to but she has added to the mix the requirements that all discussion questions as well as essays are cited in APA format from our textbook. The first week of classes the Discussion Questions did not require any research at all and were almost entirely opinion based answers. Unfortunately for me this instructor is one who believes that if you did not cite the text in each and every Discussion question, including those that required no research o answer, you get 0 points out of 40. So, after the first two assignments for the week have been graded, I have 10 out of a possible 50 points! WHOO HOO! It’s early enough in the class that I can easily make up those missing points and pull off a solid B- or better (the class is based on 1000 points total) but the fact that she is a nit picky – find any excuse to give you no credit- instructor will make the remaining five weeks absolute torture on me. Lucky for me my other class, Geography is going much better so far, but no assignments have been graded yet for that one so I may find out I missed the boat on something there as well. Tomorrow it will be one week down and five more to go … Counting the days until May 6 when I am done with classes until the end of September!

It came, The internet survived, NOTHING HAPPENED!

So April first came, and went, and the world continued. What did we learn? Sadly the answer for 99% of the citizens of this country that answer is NOTHING!

For weeks the news media has been hyping up the latest virus threat set to detonate on, of all days, April fools Day. The detonation day alone should have been a clue for most people, but then we tend to believe whatever the news media tells us. Let the panic begin. Much like the last handful of virus scares that the news media reported for weeks prior to their suspected “detonation” Confickr was a spectacular dud. The virus is real, and it did in fact adjust its code, but the world didn’t end. The Internet didn’t crash, the sky didn’t fall, and corporations world wide continued business as usual in spite of all the media reports telling us all about how these things may not function.

This reminds me of another wide spread media panic about ten years ago. Back then they called it “The Millennium Bug” or “Y2K Bug” and, just like way back then, the business world was aware of the problem months if not years before the media ever got a hold of the story. Coders patched holes and found ways to detect Confickr back in August of 2008, when it first arrived on the scene in its pre-April fools form. This, by the way, was the third generation of the little bug which has been a known detectable virus by all major anti-virus applications for much longer than the media has been hyping the latest version. So why all the hype? Are people really so ignorant of the technology they rely on for daily tasks that they will believe anything the media tells them? Or are they so afraid of the technology that they believe one day it will turn on us and take over the world ala Space Odyssey or iRobot style? Seriously people, if you are that paranoid do us all a favor and cut the phone, cable, and electricity lines connecting your home to the grid. Become a hermit with a bomb shelter.

In other news … Winter quarter ended yesterday, Spring quarter starts today. SIX WEEKS FROM NOW I WILL BE ON SUMMER BREAK!!!!!!!!!

Free at last, free at last, thank whom ever you want, . . . I’m free at last!

That’s it folks, the last assignment I’m doing for Java is done. The last of the finishing touches for my final Project have been made. The last postings I will make on the boards for this class are posted. My final Project has even been turned in one full day early! I am DONE!

It has been a long 12 weeks of Java programming with no breaks and I now look forward to the next 22 days of no code to write for class. I have no homework to do, no book to edit, and no real deadlines for any of the other projects I’m working on, I am F R E E ! ! !

I should find some time to finish the Dendives.com site and burn it to disk for Dennis while he is in town for the rest of the year. He could at least look at it on his laptop and suggest any changes he thinks should be made before he heads back to Vermont, assuming he does after the first of the year. I have the shell done, just need to add in some content that could easily be cut and pasted from his current site to the new version of it. The last thing to do would be to add the links to a Flickr, or YouTube gallery, which can be set up but not fully tested because I do not have an account with either service.

I suppose this also means I will have a little free time to read a book or two not relating to Java code, crawl into bed nightly with my wife rather than three hours after her, and possibly get in a snowboard trip or two before classes start up again in January. Who knows, maybe I’ll spend a little more time working on the latest writing project and possibly get it to be my next Great American Novel, . . . or NOT!

That light up ahead ... it's getting brighter!

The end of my Java Hell is near. Today begins the final week of my 2nd of three Java classes and all that is left to finish is my final project application. I am looking forward to my three full weeks off of school before classes resume January 8, 2009. Unfortunately, it might be just long enough for my brain to forget some of the code that has been swimming in it since last September. I may need to reference it for my final Java class that begins, you guessed it, January 8, 2009!

To say that I am burned out on school would be a gross understatement. This has not been my worst semester by far, but there is only so much Java programming I can handle in my lifetime, and I may well be reaching the end of that rope soon. I have exactly 7 more weeks of Java (1 week of Java 2 and 6 weeks of Java Enterprise). From what little info I can get about the next Java class, it looks to be a few weeks of review from Java 1 and 2, then 3-4 weeks of turning the skills I currently have into web based applications rather than ones which would require installing them on your pc prior to running them. It is my hope that, since most things web related come easily to me, the last of my Java classes will be a little easier to take. Simply being two thirds of the way through the Java section of classes may be just enough to keep me going and manage to make it out of this dark tunnel of code alive and sane. It's bad enough I dream in code now, I hate to think of what could happen next if I am forced to endure much more of this language!

Jack has left, or at least I assume he managed to find clear weather and head south around the 10 as he planned. I'm not certain when he'll be back around but my best guess is mid to late February and if it's anything like last year, I'll see him again sometime in late March. Jen and I are still debating the week to spend at Boyne Mt. with Tristan and Chris. Not knowing how much longer her Grandmother has is playing a role in the indecision, but it looks like we will be going sometime in late January (probably around 1/16 or 1/23. A FULL WEEK spent on or near the ski slopes of Northern Michigan. I'm ready to go now, but hopefully I can manage a short trip over the holiday break from school. Jen has to work 1/2/09 and I don't ... might be a chance for me to hit the slopes of Mt. Holly with Chris and/or Tristan for a bit. Too bad I'd have to pay for the bunny hill ...

The book ... well it's currently in "post-edit review" and, assuming it passes, will move toward printing sometime after the first of the year. In the event it's rejected for mechanical/grammar/syntax/spelling errors I'll have to pay someone for a line edit and try again. Publishing is a long slow process!

so much to do, so little time to think

School has been keeping me busy lately, with the first Java class winding down to it's final week soon and projects to complete in order to make the grade. Work has been busier than I have been use to with little time to work on much of anything personal except at lunch and my evenings have been spent finishing homework that normally would be done at work. The newB is learning, and has figured out how to stay out of my office for most of the day, unless he has a question which is understandable ... has resulted in much lower stress levels for me during the day.

The weekend was spent north ... it went ... it was loud ... Genna was a blast most of the weekend and even Maddalynn had her moments. Poor Margurite is cutting teeth and has a double ear infection so not much sleep was to be had Saturday night though she was content most of the day time hours and is just about old enough to actually play with. She's just under 8 months old so though she can sit up on her own she tends to lean over in one direction or another and winds up falling down. By Thanksgiving she should be ready.

The bike is parked for the winter, except taking care of the fuel tank since I was an idiot and left the ignition key at home and couldn't run the lines dry or open the gas cap. The seat is off, it's parked out of the way, and the gear is packed away for the most part. Even my boots went north to spend the winter with my jacket and helmet, don't have much call for them around here with nothing to ride.

The highlight of the weekend ... about an hour and a half Monday morning spent with Jack. I'm still digesting that conversation and will talk about it eventually ... for now I am just content knowing I managed to talk to him openly for the first time in my life. It took most of the summer to get to the point where I could speak what has been running through my head, but I did it and I think we both have a little better understanding of where we're each coming from. And, for the first time in my life, if I never got the chance to talk to him again, I could be at peace with that.

It's late, I need sleep, I'm off to bed before today turns into tomorrow.

Light Dawns on Marble Head

For those who missed it, the title is a quote from 1988’s Cocktail starring Tom Cruise. His character falls asleep in a college business class and the professor shouts “You, fifth row, blue shirt, WAKE UP!” to startle the sleeping student awake followed by “Ahh Light dawns on marble head.” as he finally stirs from his slumber.


So after three late nights in a row spent slaving over this weeks Java code, and eventually giving up in the final hours before it was due to turn in something that at least would compile thought not run properly, I hit the wall of defeat. I staggered off to bed around midnight and quickly drifted off to sleep once I managed to find a comfortable position next to Jen. Unfortunately, that was not the end of my Java nightmare as I spend the night dreaming in code, Java code. I awoke the next morning wondering if I had gotten any sleep at all and managed to wake up enough to dress, grab a bottle of Mountain Dew from the fridge, and drive myself to work. While sipping down some cold caffeine and flipping through one radio station after another searching for something to keep me awake on the drive, I had an epiphany! Somewhere in between listening to 96.3 WDVD and 89X’s morning shows, the solution to my Java woes was crystal clear.

I arrived at work on time, no small feat given how tired I was and the traffic I had to drive through to get to the office, and worked through my morning routine of checking voice mail, e-mail, and server status. Then I booted up my virtual machine and plugged in the thumb drive containing my homework for Java. In ten minutes or less I managed to tweak the code based on the idea that came to me on my way to the office, compile it, and … It WORKED! I might be a programmer after all.

Still on my high from resolving the problem I zipped up the working code and shot off an e-mail to my instructor telling him I had resolved the issues I had with the assignment I had already turned in and the working code was attached. Now I just have to wait till Monday to see if I get full credit for the assignment or if in my excitement that it all worked I missed some small detail in the code conventions that will not affect its performance but will affect the grade based on neatness and documentation of the code.

Java Brain

After the last five days of Java class I am dreaming in broken code and everything I write seems to look like this:
Might be time for a little break from Java programming. Too bad I have two more weeks of Java I and then six weeks of Java II before I can take that much needed break!

A little proof that I am still breathing

All right, it’s been over a week and it’s time to start writing again. The economy is still tanking on a week-by-week basis and my investment account is shrinking almost daily. The election ads are still running though the McCain camp wants the world to believe they have abandoned Michigan as a lost cause. Seems like yet another political chess move that backfired on the republicans because for every “red” ad there is a “blue” one that both precedes and follows it in all forms of media with most of them funded by non-partisan groups like the UAW.


Work is, well, work. We have finally hired a new PC Technician to fill in the huge gaps created close to three years ago when our company made major staffing reductions. Woo hoo! Finally, somebody else can start answering the “I forgot my password” calls while I concentrate on larger projects that have been collecting dust for the past three years. Unfortunately, this also means that we have to train the newB, he’s right out of college and has little to no “real world” experience so this will take a while. I remember being young and green, though I began working in the field while still in college, and I’m trying to give the kid the same kind of chance I had when I was in his shoes. I was fortunate enough to have a boss that trusted me, was patient with me, and encouraged me to step outside of my shell and do things I was totally uncomfortable with almost daily. He challenged me to do phone support within weeks of joining the company and against my better judgment, I agreed to give it a shot. Anyone who knew me right out of high school knows how shy I was back then but somehow the security of not being face to face with the person allowed me to excel at my new duties and eventually I moved into a role of face-to-face support. Almost fifteen years later and I now find myself in the position to groom a new generation of tech support and will gladly hand over the reigns of day-to-day user support as soon as the newB is ready to take them.

The book, well it’s finished and awaiting a decision on who should publish it for the masses. I have three offers on the table from three different subsidy publishers at the moment. I am not certain subsidy is the way to go, so they sit there while I consider other options. I like the idea of 50% royalties on every sale, but that will only help recoup the initial out of pocket expense of $500-$600 if the book actually sells. As an unknown author, there are no guarantees and I would be relying heavily on the publisher’s marketing machine to get it out there for me. Since I can’t seem to find much on either of the companies out there, good or bad, I am taking my time in making this decision. In the mean time, I have updated the version available through the lulu.com storefront with the new chapters, tweaks to existing ones, and the current cover. I hope to see Jack next weekend and drop of his copy, Stacey is next on my list, and by Christmas it should be in the hands of all those I have promised final versions to.

Speaking of next weekend, the bike, sadly, has gone north for the winter and I will be pulling it out of the trailer and parking it in the back of the barn at Mom and Dad’s next weekend. I am hopeful that the weather will hold out for me at least one day and I can take a final ride, burn a little more gas out of the half-full tank, and clean the remainder of thousands of dead insects from the chrome before parking it for the next five months. It will signal my official end of summer and may induce a state of depression for a few days, but have no fear, I’ll just write to make it all go away instead of climbing on my bike and letting my sadness blow in the wind. I have a new story to tell, one that will require my attention in the coming months while I wait for spring to arrive and can once again use my motorcycle as therapy. Maybe by then I’ll have a sailboat to use instead and the motorcycle will just be a fun form of transportation with excellent gas mileage.

It is slightly past mid-October, the holidays are looming in the near future, and the leaves are finally falling from the trees everywhere I look. School is puttering along nicely and except for this weeks assignments has come and gone without much real head scratching on my part. Given a little time at home over the next two days I should manage this weeks assignment as well and can concentrate on finishing up this final project once and for all. Then it’s on to the next six weeks of Java where we will complete the book and I may need to spend more time writing code than I currently do. I have a backup plan, Eric has taken Java and should be able to assist if I get in a bind. I haven’t had to call yet, but he’s been warned. Provided Jen cooks dinner he says he’s willing to do a little java tutoring if need be.

And now you are up to speed


Three strikes and we’re on to try number four in a few weeks

Summer's last stand?

So maybe we'll get one more nice weekend out of this summer after all. After two weeks of grey skies, rainy days, and temps struggling just to hit 60 it is suppose to be sunny and in the 70's all weekend! It will be beautiful for a change and Jen and I will certainly be out on the bike for at least one of these upcoming summer-like days, but is it just a tease? Is this summer's last stand ending in just three short days and ushering in colder temps and possibly snow? We've already had our first freeze of the season, earlier this week in fact, and I have had to scrape ice from my car windshield at least one morning already. I am not ready for snow and ice. I am not ready to give up warm days and riding the motorcycle at least on the weekends. I really don't want to give up riding it to work either but morning temps in the low 40's have prevented that for the last two weeks. Maybe I can squeak out one last rid to work this Friday when it should be in the upper 40's or low 50's at 7am.

School is going surprisingly well so far and after two weeks I am far from lost in code. I have managed to get my homework done without much hard work and not a single late night slaving over an open textbook and keyboard. I haven't even pulled out a single hair debugging my weekly programs. This either means that I have become one of "them", a programmer, or I am seriously due for some harder assignments and hours of debugging the next program. Maybe being one of "them" wouldn't be all that bad.

day 7 try 3

Life update ...

Okay enough about the economy already, it’s all doom and gloom anyway. Classes have resumed and those who told me suffering through two sessions of C++ would one day benefit me, well they were right. I guess there’s a first for everything. I’m taking Java I currently and so far I have to say that it’s pretty simple. I stress the SO FAR part of that statement mind you because I see what is around the corner and cannot guarantee it will remain simple for long. The prof is easy to work with and so far has not docked me any points, yes that means as of the end of week one I currently have a 4.0 in a programming class, but there is still two assignments he hasn’t graded yet so it may not hold up past Monday. The assignments have been easy so far because the concepts are the same in Java as they were in Visual Basic and C++, just a little different syntax. Quite honestly I would have to also agree that Java is easier to learn because the methods, classes, and operators (sorry had to get technical for a sec) are named logically and simply by looking at the command System.out.println(“Hello”); I can figure out that the result should be the word Hello printed to the screen, C++ is no where near that obvious.

Okay done with the technical stuff … on to other things in life

Summer has faded into Fall and wish as I might it looks like Winter will be here sooner than I am prepared for. I have permission from Mom and Dad to store the bike in the barn for the winter and I will be taking it up there the end of October … but I have to ride it up there. It just might be my first ride with long underwear and snow pants! Jen and I are suppose to go on a ride with Dykes on Bikes on Oct 11 but if it’s cold I think we may just skip that little party, or show up in the heated Mazda. I’m not ready to be cold and miserable for six months yet damn it. Summer was cold and rainy most of the time, fall just took another 20 degrees of the temps and in a very short time, I will be looking at leafless trees and mud everywhere. If the snow would just come and stay till March I would be okay, it’s just that brown grass, brown trees, brown mud part of winter that I can’t stand.

No word from Jack yet, he’s either not back yet, on another Eagle Village trip, or having more difficulty with is e-mail application. Some people just aren’t cut out for technology I suppose.

Day 1, Try 3