First, please remember the disclaimer listed under the “About Me” section on the right side.
Finally the last of the laundry is spinning away in the dryer, the floor is nearly dry, dishwasher only has the remnants of supper’s utensils inside it, and the whole place smells of an improvised cleaning solution of cooking wine and 409. When my apartment is in a state such as this, it can only mean one thing. Mother is coming to town.
Like a lot of sons, I always spend a bit of extra time cleaning the apartment before she arrives. The whole place could smell and look like a pigsty for Dad, but for Mom, it must be clean. Its not that Mom will complain if its not, but she’ll be unable to withstand her motherly instincts and start cleaning it for me. She can’t help herself, its just how she’s wired. Also like a lot of bachelors, when it comes to cleaning, it doesn’t come naturally for me. This time, it only required about four hours of fine tuning. In times not far ago, for me this would be a three week ordeal requiring a maximum effort and nerves of steel. I hope this means things are progressing. You’d think my limited military experience would have turned me into a clean freak. Be assured it did NOT !! If anything, the Army taught me how tedious and unpleasant cleaning is, and I’ve taken every opportunity since to rebel against Green Mother’s ways. Past tales of the hygienic state of my residences have become the thing of family legend and unfortunately there is too many elements of truth to these myths. I’ll not reveal a few of those for your reading pleasure.
When it comes to hygiene its important to understand that I don’t have a very good sense of smell. Repeated bouts of flue and head colds during my early years somehow damaged my olfactory senses. If I can smell it, it is bad. Often times, I can literally feel the odor blast blow over my face and still be unable to detect the offending odor. In the course of a first aide training seminar with the Army, I manage to acquire a very large supply of smelling salts. One night, stone sober even, a group of us started huffing on them to see who could take it the longest. Granted my eyes were burning something awful, but I inhaled eight packets before giving up. The next closest soldier did three. The home I was raised in, is a mile north of a pig farm and two miles east of a turkey farm, so I really never felt the need to complain about this impaired sense. Combine that with an extreme disinterest in cleaning, and its lead to some interesting stories over the years.
One of the first has to do with a lost pumpkin. As a kid, one October, Mom took us to a pumpkin farm where we were allowed to pick out small pumpkins and gourds to paint for Halloween. After affixing my artistic impressions to these decorative squash, I put mine in a cabinet in headboard of my bed and forgot about them. I would not see them again until early summer. I never could smell what Mom and Dad were talking about, but starting in early spring they would start to detect an unpleasant odor in my room. Initially my folks thought I’d spilled something in there and ordered me to clean my room. They started getting ticked off thinking I wasn’t following orders after about the third week and inspected it for themselves. Much to their surprise, they actually found my room to be clean !! The smell progressively became worse and worse. Mom even brought over Grandparents and a friend who ran a maid cleaning service to investigate. No one could figure it out. By early summer it had become almost unbearable for them, though I never did smell it. The odor finally got to Dad one day and in a fit of frustration he went through my room opening every drawer and door in my little domicile. When he opened the cabinet over my headboard, he nearly fainted from the smell. There inside were the jellified remains of what had been a 6lb pumpkin and half a dozen gourds. It required the use of a spatula, hazmat gloves, and a wet bandanna to clear the remains. Poor Dad had to do this himself, Mom and my sister were too busy vomiting and I was too busy laughing to help. It wouldn’t be the first time my lack of olfactory ability would lead to such embarrassment or discomfort, usually for someone else.
There was the time two years ago where I went home and wanting to do help Mom and Dad out, I spent the first half of the day cleaning dog kennels. This is something that gets done about once every few years, involves hydraulic, equipment, and very much resembles hauling manure from a livestock barn. After this, I jumped in the shower and met them and extended family for the annual Christmas gathering. I didn’t realize, nor could I detect that this manure odor usually stays on your body for the next few days regardless of how many times you shower or wash your clothes !!! Here’s how my father put it. “Son there are times a man looks into the eyes of his offspring and just can’t help but feel he’s done well. This is NOT one of them !!”.
I mentioned before that I have a love for all things garlic, some would even say its an unnatural love. At one point in my college years I lived in what basically amounted to a studio apartment that had criminally bad ventilation. While living there one winter, I discovered how amazing the combination of minced garlic and grilled chicken go together. I took eight chicken thighs and put them on my George Foreman Grill and added two heaping table spoons of minced garlic per chicken thigh and another four to the rice dish. One month latter the parents came to visit me. Dad stopped mid-stride walking in the door, involuntarily flinched and said “WOW !!! You scared of vampires son ?”. They spent the next three days trying to air-out my residence and insisting on having all of my clothes dry cleaned. Mom would latter have her revenge.
My beloved George Foreman Grill, has played a pivotal role in a lot of these stories. For some reason, the beef and pork fat that collects in the drip-tray helps generate one of the few foul orders I can smell. I’ve forgotten to empty it a few times only to come back from a 12 hour shift at work to the smell of a biology experiment gone bad. I usually empty it into the trash can, and if I let the trash build up too much before taking it out, there’s always a price to pay. My neighbor was over a few weeks ago and said something about an odor. I opened the lid to my trash can to see if things were due to be changed and it felt as if I was punched in the face. I’d estimate the grease from two weeks of cooking nothing but hamburgers was in there. I have a problem with mold in my apartment, it will start growing on anything it perceives as a food source. If I forget to empty the drip-tray and it sits out for a few days, when I do remember it, its like a Petri-dish from hell inside of it. I’m always certain to kill off anything spawning in there by dousing with a gallon of 409. I want no responsibility for creating a new biological species that man can’t control !! Despite this, George is probably one of my most favorite cooking tools second only to my gas grill. It can turn out high quality meat entries, that are cheaper and more healthy than anything you can warm-up in a microwave. It actually takes less time to make them than it does to nuke most microwave dinners too. Six months ago, Mom got her revenge on my old friend of ten years. As I was getting back on my feet from everything I’ve had to deal with this past year, the folks came down to help me out. In the course of helping me get organized Mom started cleaning again. She saw old George’s grill sitting on the counter with ten years of charred meat and seasoning hard baked onto the “non-stick” grates, knew there was no possible way to clean it well enough to meet basic standards of sanitation, and made me throw the old girl out. My new one grills things very very fast and it has taken some getting used to. Dad believes it’s because the heat doesn’t have to work its way through two inches of grit and grim before reaching the food.
Two more stories, then I’m wrapping this up. The first is actually unrelated but still funny. My first year at THE Ohio State University, I lived in your stereo-typical run- down town home on South Campus, with three other guys. All of us were prior military and not the sort of early twenty something’s who are still learning how to deal with things. It became obvious by the second day that this place had a serious mouse problem. There were mouse tracks all over the place, and any food not kept in a sealed container, ended-up a victim to their nightly patrols. We argued with the landlord for a month about the problem. They kept saying there was no problem, we were just trying to find an excuse to jip them on rent. Finally, one day we went to a hardware store and found a deal on mouse traps. It was twelve for a buck or something like that, anyhow we got a ton of them. That night, all we heard was the snapping of mouse traps, baited with peanut butter, and actually had to get-up at one point and reset most of them. In two days we caught twenty of them. It almost gagged us, we knew we had a problem, but were surprised to learn just how bad it was. When the count reached thirty with no end in sight, it occurred to us that it was only a matter of time before the mice led a successful revolt and took full control of the house. Still our calls to the real-estate company to inform them of these findings and renew our request for someone to come out and take care of the problem fell on deaf ears. So we took about twenty dead mice placed them in zip lock bags, along with our rent checks, and a letter we signed saying, “Here’s the rent, paid in full, along with proof of the vermin infestation. We request that you please send an exterminator out here. Be assured that the next request will be sent through an attorney. Thank-you”. They got someone out there latter that day, along with the company’s sincerest apologies for this “misunderstanding”. Clearly someone at the real-estate company thought we were psychopaths. We weren’t, we just felt there was a “failure to communicate” and wanted to help clarify things in such a way as to not be “misunderstood“ again.
Last one. During the same visit that Mom made me say good bye to old George, I also learned that drinking and vacuuming doesn’t mix much better than drinking and driving. My vacuum got plugged up, and while I’d been able to fix it, it wasn’t quite the same and I had to empty the dirt from the hose before it got to the tank. While we were certain something else was still plugging it up, we could not determine what or where. Dad and I pulled the whole thing apart twice, reamed out the hose and pipes with a broom handle, and anything else we could think of. The vacuum was a couple minutes away from suffering the same fate my grill had just suffered when Mom realized we hadn’t checked the coupler where the hose attaches to the vacuum tank. When we pulled that off, we found a very bent-up beer bottle cap wedged in there blocking ¾ of the opening. So kids remember, don’t drink and drive and don’t drink and vacuum, neither will end well.
With that though, this is the Redheaded Rambler signing off.
03 December 2009
02 December 2009
Hear Ye, Yeah Ye, Year He ! New blog post by morning, ADD HUMOR !!
I'm busily working on preparing for my Mother's visit by trying to clean my apartment with the sort of cleaning intensity only reserved for preparation for a Sergent Major Inspection, and laughing at myself the whole time. Also I found the last post a little bit intense and I don't want to fall into that frame of thought while my Mother is here. She doesn't come down every week, so wanna be in the mind frame to laugh and joke.
Here's a bit of a teaser for you in the meant time.
Things that have happened already today while cleaning !
One of the things I have always struggled with that seems typical of ADD people is cleaning. Now as my treatment has progressed, its actually one of the improvements people have really taken notice of. Clearly things have improved dramatically, but I still have some room for improvement. See the following.
While mopping my kitchen floor, I noticed that while I'd been doing a much better job of keeping my counters wiped off, I'd neglected the cabinet and oven doors !! It hadn't occurred to me until just 45 mins ago, that my cabinet doors looked like Pigpen, Cookie Monster, The Blob, fifteen ultra muddy Labrador retrievers and 3 year-old kids had thrown a mud-pie making party in my kitchen !!! I rubbed-up against one of the doors while scrubbing something and I don't know if I'll every get the brownish gray streak out of my t-shirt !! Little bit of a detail I'll need to watch !
To my annoyance, I opened up the clothes washer to find one of my pet peeves, a damp load of launder still in there from three days prior. This is something I've gotten somewhat better about. Its typical of me for forget about a load of launder in the washer. At least now, I don't simply throw them into the dryer without rerunning it first. Before, it could be in there for who knows how long: a day ? A week ? a fiscal quarter perhaps ? and since I barely have a sense of smell, would simply throw them into the dryer without rewashing it. That this is a bad idea, actually was brought to my attention two years ago when I went home while wearing clothes from such a load. I was emanating such an overwhelming mildew smell, it nearly gagged my poor mother and sister. But that wasn't what bothered me so much. What REALLY bothered me was that since this was a fairly common practice for me at the time, who knows how many fellow co-workers it effected in the close confines of a call center !! I'm sure there were days at the office where it wasn't easy for people to be my friend. Glad it was pointed out before it became an HR issue !!!
So far today, I've misplaced my mop twice, my roll of paper towels several as well. I spent easily 15 minutes looking for the roll, only to realize I was holding them !!! Have had to re-mop twice because I forgot that the floor was wet and tracked dust across the linoleum. Reminds me of a time when I used to smoke while on active duty. I had a habit of putting the butts in my pocket so someone else wouldn't have to pick them up. Standard for me, I'd forget to empty my pockets and most guys would wear the same uniform 2-3 days in a row. So while on a work detail picking up cigarette butts, we were miffed because no matter how good of a job we did, we always found more when the sergeant inspected the area. After about 20 minutes of this, come to realize I had forgotten to btutton a cargo pocket that had about 30-40 of them in there. I'd been leaking cigarette butts from my pocket the whole time we were picking them up !! My sergeant nearly kicked my butt and can't say I blame him !!!
One of the things on my to-do list tonight is going through mail. I HATE this chore. I'd rather spend two hours cleaning toilets without gloves at the stadium after an Oakland Raiders home game, than spend 15 minutes going through my mail. This is an annoyance to some, such as the mailman and my family. Dad really got pissed with me when he got a call from Grandma asking if I had moved. Apparently I had let things build up so much, the mailman had assumed I was no longer at the address and returned the Christmas Card she'd sent me. More than once he's been unable to fit anymore in the box and left it at the rental office.
Alright, my stove timer is buzzing, more latter
RedHeaded Rambler out
Here's a bit of a teaser for you in the meant time.
Things that have happened already today while cleaning !
One of the things I have always struggled with that seems typical of ADD people is cleaning. Now as my treatment has progressed, its actually one of the improvements people have really taken notice of. Clearly things have improved dramatically, but I still have some room for improvement. See the following.
While mopping my kitchen floor, I noticed that while I'd been doing a much better job of keeping my counters wiped off, I'd neglected the cabinet and oven doors !! It hadn't occurred to me until just 45 mins ago, that my cabinet doors looked like Pigpen, Cookie Monster, The Blob, fifteen ultra muddy Labrador retrievers and 3 year-old kids had thrown a mud-pie making party in my kitchen !!! I rubbed-up against one of the doors while scrubbing something and I don't know if I'll every get the brownish gray streak out of my t-shirt !! Little bit of a detail I'll need to watch !
To my annoyance, I opened up the clothes washer to find one of my pet peeves, a damp load of launder still in there from three days prior. This is something I've gotten somewhat better about. Its typical of me for forget about a load of launder in the washer. At least now, I don't simply throw them into the dryer without rerunning it first. Before, it could be in there for who knows how long: a day ? A week ? a fiscal quarter perhaps ? and since I barely have a sense of smell, would simply throw them into the dryer without rewashing it. That this is a bad idea, actually was brought to my attention two years ago when I went home while wearing clothes from such a load. I was emanating such an overwhelming mildew smell, it nearly gagged my poor mother and sister. But that wasn't what bothered me so much. What REALLY bothered me was that since this was a fairly common practice for me at the time, who knows how many fellow co-workers it effected in the close confines of a call center !! I'm sure there were days at the office where it wasn't easy for people to be my friend. Glad it was pointed out before it became an HR issue !!!
So far today, I've misplaced my mop twice, my roll of paper towels several as well. I spent easily 15 minutes looking for the roll, only to realize I was holding them !!! Have had to re-mop twice because I forgot that the floor was wet and tracked dust across the linoleum. Reminds me of a time when I used to smoke while on active duty. I had a habit of putting the butts in my pocket so someone else wouldn't have to pick them up. Standard for me, I'd forget to empty my pockets and most guys would wear the same uniform 2-3 days in a row. So while on a work detail picking up cigarette butts, we were miffed because no matter how good of a job we did, we always found more when the sergeant inspected the area. After about 20 minutes of this, come to realize I had forgotten to btutton a cargo pocket that had about 30-40 of them in there. I'd been leaking cigarette butts from my pocket the whole time we were picking them up !! My sergeant nearly kicked my butt and can't say I blame him !!!
One of the things on my to-do list tonight is going through mail. I HATE this chore. I'd rather spend two hours cleaning toilets without gloves at the stadium after an Oakland Raiders home game, than spend 15 minutes going through my mail. This is an annoyance to some, such as the mailman and my family. Dad really got pissed with me when he got a call from Grandma asking if I had moved. Apparently I had let things build up so much, the mailman had assumed I was no longer at the address and returned the Christmas Card she'd sent me. More than once he's been unable to fit anymore in the box and left it at the rental office.
Alright, my stove timer is buzzing, more latter
RedHeaded Rambler out
30 November 2009
Self examination Part I Grade School and Jr. High
As usual remember the disclaimer in the About Me section of this blog.
So today I’m going to take you with me as I relive experiences from my past to help explain who I am today. What prompted this ? I somehow happened across the program “Sex Rehab” on VH1. This was purely by accident as I seldom watch this station, but even if you aren’t into pop culture, this program is worth watching if you have the time. One of the things patients going through this program are encouraged to do, is look back on past experiences to help them understand the chain of events that brought them to the point they are at today.
This is something I’ve long resisted because I don’t want to be one of those people who blames their mistakes on something or someone else. You’ve all seen those people on Oprah or whatever white trash talk show program, whining about the reason they are a crack addict or bad worker, who can’t hold a job, on their parents not loving them enough or some such b.s. excuse. I am with you on taking a negative view on that. But at the same time this show helped me realize that we are all a product of our past experiences and we need to understand them to understand who we are today and how to not repeat the same mistakes. Before I begin, please understand that I accept full responsibility for my mistakes, I do not blame anyone or anything for them or for who I am today. ADD is NOT an excuse, it is just who I am. Also, I am very fortunate to have very supportive parents and friends. If anything, I have a concern for my parents because they wrongfully feel no small measure of guilt for not catching my condition early on in my childhood. There is no reasonable way it could have been caught given the state of Western Medicine’s understanding of ADD in the late 80’s-early 90’s along with how my ADD type showed itself.
So getting on topic here, one of the things they did on the last program, was draw a shirt that represented themselves and explain it. If it had been me, I would have draw a shirt with a dog-faced GI resembling something from the WW II Patrick Muldoon portrayal of GI’s or literally a scarred-up junkyard guard dog. In many ways I identify with those battered, ugly, undignified characters who somehow always find a way to get things done. While society often sees them as unwanted, society still calls upon them in their time of need because they can be counted on in those times. Yet those very same characteristics that make them desirable when the wolf is knocking on the door, also make them a liability in the calm between those times. They are loners, who don‘t fully understand the main stream society, that they struggle to be accepted by. And likewise main stream society doesn’t always accept them because main stream society doesn’t understand them. Both of us find interaction with the other very stressful and struggle to find a comfort level with the other. I’ll make more sense of that later on but with that in mind, lets start from the beginning.
I have always been a loner, sometimes by choice, many times not by choice. As far back as I can remember, I’ve struggled to fit in and be part of the crowd, but somehow always ended-up drawing unwanted attention to myself despite my best efforts. A revolving theme here is that kids would pick on me for being different, which would intern make me mad, which would intern provoke them to harass me more since they derived immense entertainment from my wild tantrums. Having red hair and poor social skills as it was, made me a very easy target in grade school through late high school. One incident that really stands out, happened in the third grade. I was playing a game of tag with a group of kids during recess. For starters, I had to practically beg them to let me play in the first place. They all ganged-up on me and whoever I tagged would tag me back or tag someone else who would tag me back. Eventually I lost my temper and went off to another side of the yard to calm down. Well they saw me getting frustrated and followed me, calling me names and so forth. Before I knew it, the entire play ground of say 50 kids was following me and the things they were saying were getting to me and I started to cry. Of course this only made things worse and a chant of some kind started going on, then someone threw a rock that caught me in the side of my head. To this day I don’t know who it was, but it caused me to snap. I turned around and grabbed the first boy I saw, whipped them into a head lock and threw them to the ground while throwing punches into his face. My adrenaline was flowing so much that I didn’t realize twelve other kids were jumping and stomping on us as we struggled on the ground, the boy being unable to free himself from my grip. To this day it bothers me, because it turned out that I had grabbed hold of Clint a fellow redhead who had been coming from the other side of the yard to my aide. Probably the one kid who would have stood-up for me, and I grabbed hold of him in my blind rage. He was just in the path of the tornado and we were never friends again, even in high school. I think my reaction to what was happening was to be expected and as much as anything, I’m very angry with the playground teacher who didn’t step in before a fight happened. This teacher was a Special-Ed teacher who of all the staff, should have been aware of what was happening. She worked everyday with special needs kids, and knew how this kids are treated by the rest of the children. Playground bullying stories were something she had to deal with everyday I the course of her work. Furthermore this chain of events clearly wasn’t going to end well and that should have been obvious to her long before the fight started. Why she did not step in when it became obvious that every single kid was following me, I never knew and it upsets me to this day. While in the inevitable meeting with the principle, she gave a very detailed account of the entire course of events. So its clear she had been watching the thing play out. She also recommended no disciplinary action for me. In hindsight, I fully believe she did so, to cover-up the fact that she had screwed-up big time. She knew my parents took an active role in my education and would have contacted the school and most likely wanted a meeting with her and the principle, Mrs. Beverly, whom they had a good relationship with. My mother taught in my school system for several years and had a lot of good relationships with the faculty. Mind you my parents were big on discipline so it would not necessarily have been to argue on my behalf but to get a better understanding of what had actually happened so they could better address the situation with me. It would have been a certainty that at minimum they would have called, if any kind of notice been sent home about little Mikey being in a fight. No nice what to say it, what a stupid, incompetent bitch that special-Ed teacher was. I also have feelings of guilt because I caught hold of the one person who would have had my back (Clint) and took it out on him. I regret never giving him the apology he is entitled to. Poor guy was simply caught in the path of the tornado.
I also regret not treating the other loner kids better than I did. I didn’t want to be their friends anymore that the rest of the kids wanted to be my friend. Painful as it is to admit, I picked on them a few times because I was grateful not to be among those being picked on some particular days and was also trying to make an attempt to fit in with the very same kids who, more days than not were tormenting me. I probably hurt them worse since I had been their friend or acted like it from time to time. I’m sure that just as I carry the scars from my tales of rejection, they have scars from the rejection given by my hand as well. I’m sure theirs are probably are much deeper having come from a kid who only a day before had acted as a friend to them. If any of you are out there are among those whom I picked on at times while going to school at Farmer Elementary, please accept my sincerest apologies. And Ms. X the playground teacher on that particular day, should you read this, allow me to sincerely say, “Go to HELL !!!”, you define the term incompetent BITCH and you give good teachers a bad name !!!
I think what came of that whole incident was that whatever chance I had of fitting in socially was gone. Also if I wasn’t a target for regular school yard harassment before that, I dam sure was after that. Granted there were a few minor skirmishes through out that time, but the next big one wouldn’t be till several years later in high school. My memory is sketchy on it, but it was definitely bad. Probably my subconscious has blocked most of it out preventing me from any specific recollection. I do remember a 5th grade health class where Mr. Foust pointed out my freckles to illustrate the different genetic variations of skin pigmentation and how I almost felt naked and embarrassed as this very unwanted spot light was thrust upon me. I also specifically remember spending most recesses in his classroom working on computer games because I had over heard kids scheming to attack me on the playground or arrange some sort of embarrassing harassment for me at one point or another that year. Whatever happened between third grade and the end of fifth grade has so impacted me, I know for a fact, that I made a deliberate decision to withdrawal from the rest of the children and deliberately isolate myself rather than subject myself to their daily taunting. The condition isn’t sever but one of the things kids were always taunting me about was my funny walk. I walk funny for a reason, I was born with a crocked leg. Mind you it isn’t noticeable and the doctors were able to correct the worst of it by having me wear a cast for my first year or so. But to this day, I walk funny. I bring this up because so desperate was I to avoid taunting, I caused myself some serious back problems trying to walk “normally” during this time. Combined with an injury suffered weight lifting, and I spent a lot of time at the chiropractor’s office from 7th-12th grade.
This would become so much so, that until the end of my 8th grade year, with few exceptions, most teachers would scarcely know I was in their classroom. I know this because my mother had actually taught Jr. High math at that school until just two years prior to me getting there. So she had a lot of contacts with those teachers and as I mentioned earlier, my parents were very involved in my education. Those teachers would express this concern wondering if there was something wrong when Mom and Dad would ask. Even then, I would still be subject to regular taunting from a whole different group of kids, for attention I received for a whole different reason. You see, I had a mild form of dyslexia, that had been caught in the first grade and had spent many hours in eye therapy.
By the end of the fifth grade, I started reaping the rewards of these efforts and had managed to become a stand-out student academically. So it wasn’t that the teachers didn’t know I was there. I would maintain straight A’s from the end of fifth grade till the end of eighth grade. Grades became my obsession because it was the only thing I was successful at. It was very hard for me, but I lived a very Spartan routine often studying six hours a day to maintain this GPA. So I couldn’t hide from the spotlight because I was always getting recognized for various academic accolades. So still I would suffer the slings and arrows of envious children who were trying to put me down in an effort to build themselves up. A kid by the name of Jason would torment me so much, on more that a few occasions Mom and Dad would meet with his parents and school administrators to find ways to deal with the situation. At one point things were so bad, at my parents request, he and I’s class schedules were changed so we weren’t always running into each other. By that time, I was enrolled in Fairview Jr. High which was the central Jr. High and High School for all the small elementary schools in the district. Any hope of a fresh start with new kids, was ruined when Jason and I crossed paths while attending 6th grade there. I can’t point to the exact chain of events, but it was early on in the school year when I became his chosen target. In hindsight, I realize Jason also had some sort of learning disability quite possibly the hyper active type of ADD where as I have the inattentive kind. I do know that he wasn’t a good student and even then realized he was trying to make-up for his lack of such academic prowess. Inside he felt that he was stupid and projected this insecurity onto me. I know this because the parents of one of the few friends I had, actually tutored him and was actively involved with my parents and school administrators in dealing with the situation. Also, Jason is now the landlord of a piece of property next door to my parents, and so our paths have crossed a few times since high school and we get along fairly well. If the neighbors are causing problems, Jason is very quick to deal with it and our families get along just fine. Crazy how things work sometimes.
Moving along, there were also two very positive stories that came out of my jr. high experiences that also had long term ramifications. First, I discovered the sport of wrestling and wrestling would help my development into manhood in so many ways. Now I did not willingly go out for the sport, but Mom and Dad felt some kind of participation in athletics was important to my overall growth. I was made to pick a sport, I could pick any sport, but I had to participate in one. Well basketball and football were what all the popular kids, who made-up the vast number of my tormentors, played ; so I wasn’t having that which left me with wrestling or track. I had participated in a peewee wrestling program while in the 5th grade and I didn’t know anything about track, so I chose wrestling. I could not have made a better choice. Wrestling is mainly an individual sport, which fitted my loner mentality well. It is also a very physically intense sport requiring great discipline to master, which also suited my ADD mentality. While I was never a super-stud, the physical discipline and confidence I gained from wrestling has served me well to this day. The confidence it gave me, was the catalyst that allowed me to go on to be a good soldier, and venture into the unknown world of college, and the experiences of the military and college have shaped me into the adult you know today. I can’t say enough good things about the sport, it really helped me out that much.
Also another positive experience I had in jr. high, was meeting a wonderfully sweet girl by the name of Jami. Jami was my first crush and while we would never actually date, she remains a friend to this day. Jami was everything I wasn’t. Gifted student who never had to study, very gifted athlete who ran with the “cool kids” if you will. But Jami was always nice to me, and she’d often go out of her way to say hello. I laugh when I think about it, but I was so shy by then I could barely muster the courage to say hello back. We had a math class together. The period before that class, I had a study hall, and I’d often get a pass to go to the band room to practice. But while in one of the “practice” rooms instead of practicing the tuba, I’d practice saying hello to Jami or simple jokes to make her smile. Over and over again I’d imagine her there and practice talking to her. I’d then go to math class and quite robotically say these practiced lines to her. Its safe to say, if I hadn’t met Jami, I might still be too shy to talk to girls. She was so nice, she never would judge my awkward efforts at conversation and talk to me like she would any of her cool friends. While we would never date, I would never have gotten any dates at all, had it not been for that relationship, which allowed me to overcome the overwhelming shyness I had around women. Math was never my strong subject anyhow, so it wasn’t like I was missing much by paying Jami so much attention. J As a side note, Jami still lives in my hometown area, has married a man just as nice as she is (I‘m NOT him), and teaches kindergarten at a neighboring school district. Its my understanding they recently had their first child. I still run into her every once in a while when I visit home as she’s friends with one of our neighbors although the last time we spoke I’d guess has been close to two years ago. I’m very happy for her and wish her and her family all the joys and happiness life can bring.
Now as I write this, I realize we’re at five pages on the old world processor, so I’m going to bring section one to a close and post another entry later this week. I think the experiences of elementary school and Jr. High did was shape me into the loner I’ve become. They made me immensely distrustful of anyone I associate as being part of my peer group. To this day I prefer keeping to myself and it takes great effort for me to engage in social activities. Whether we’re talking about a work social function or meeting a group of people for a barbeque, it takes immense effort for me to work-up the motivation to even show-up. When I do, after saying hello to the host and dignitaries, I tend to migrate to the corner of the room or far end of the bar engaging in small talk with the occasional straggler. I get extremely nervous moving about carrying food or revisiting the snack tray, always feeling like people staring holes through my chest waiting for me do something that will give them fodder to taunt me with. I’ll stay up the rest of the night fretting that people will conclude that I’m stupid because I accidentally bumped into someone, or scratched that nagging itch on the back of my knee. I imagine them whispering about me at work the next day because I nearly dropped an appetizer on someone while sneezing. In reality while that can happen sometimes, by an large its all in my head. In adult life more than once I’ve apologized to someone for a faux-pas I’ve spent several sleepless nights worrying over, only to find out that the person I was certain I offended hadn’t even noticed or didn’t find it to be anywhere near as serious as I was certain it was. A couple of them have even given quizzical looks as though I was crazy. Its also ingrained in me this anticipation that I’m always on the verge of certain disappointment. My heart has been broken and disappointed too many times in the past, that I instinctively protect myself by anticipating the worst. But I don’t think at this point I had yet developed the defensive mentality complex I’ve had to overcome. It certainly pointed me down that road though. That mentality would develop later. For that you’ll have to wait and read part II : High school, Puberty, Renewed efforts to fit in, and The glorious and very public failure it turned into.
So today I’m going to take you with me as I relive experiences from my past to help explain who I am today. What prompted this ? I somehow happened across the program “Sex Rehab” on VH1. This was purely by accident as I seldom watch this station, but even if you aren’t into pop culture, this program is worth watching if you have the time. One of the things patients going through this program are encouraged to do, is look back on past experiences to help them understand the chain of events that brought them to the point they are at today.
This is something I’ve long resisted because I don’t want to be one of those people who blames their mistakes on something or someone else. You’ve all seen those people on Oprah or whatever white trash talk show program, whining about the reason they are a crack addict or bad worker, who can’t hold a job, on their parents not loving them enough or some such b.s. excuse. I am with you on taking a negative view on that. But at the same time this show helped me realize that we are all a product of our past experiences and we need to understand them to understand who we are today and how to not repeat the same mistakes. Before I begin, please understand that I accept full responsibility for my mistakes, I do not blame anyone or anything for them or for who I am today. ADD is NOT an excuse, it is just who I am. Also, I am very fortunate to have very supportive parents and friends. If anything, I have a concern for my parents because they wrongfully feel no small measure of guilt for not catching my condition early on in my childhood. There is no reasonable way it could have been caught given the state of Western Medicine’s understanding of ADD in the late 80’s-early 90’s along with how my ADD type showed itself.
So getting on topic here, one of the things they did on the last program, was draw a shirt that represented themselves and explain it. If it had been me, I would have draw a shirt with a dog-faced GI resembling something from the WW II Patrick Muldoon portrayal of GI’s or literally a scarred-up junkyard guard dog. In many ways I identify with those battered, ugly, undignified characters who somehow always find a way to get things done. While society often sees them as unwanted, society still calls upon them in their time of need because they can be counted on in those times. Yet those very same characteristics that make them desirable when the wolf is knocking on the door, also make them a liability in the calm between those times. They are loners, who don‘t fully understand the main stream society, that they struggle to be accepted by. And likewise main stream society doesn’t always accept them because main stream society doesn’t understand them. Both of us find interaction with the other very stressful and struggle to find a comfort level with the other. I’ll make more sense of that later on but with that in mind, lets start from the beginning.
I have always been a loner, sometimes by choice, many times not by choice. As far back as I can remember, I’ve struggled to fit in and be part of the crowd, but somehow always ended-up drawing unwanted attention to myself despite my best efforts. A revolving theme here is that kids would pick on me for being different, which would intern make me mad, which would intern provoke them to harass me more since they derived immense entertainment from my wild tantrums. Having red hair and poor social skills as it was, made me a very easy target in grade school through late high school. One incident that really stands out, happened in the third grade. I was playing a game of tag with a group of kids during recess. For starters, I had to practically beg them to let me play in the first place. They all ganged-up on me and whoever I tagged would tag me back or tag someone else who would tag me back. Eventually I lost my temper and went off to another side of the yard to calm down. Well they saw me getting frustrated and followed me, calling me names and so forth. Before I knew it, the entire play ground of say 50 kids was following me and the things they were saying were getting to me and I started to cry. Of course this only made things worse and a chant of some kind started going on, then someone threw a rock that caught me in the side of my head. To this day I don’t know who it was, but it caused me to snap. I turned around and grabbed the first boy I saw, whipped them into a head lock and threw them to the ground while throwing punches into his face. My adrenaline was flowing so much that I didn’t realize twelve other kids were jumping and stomping on us as we struggled on the ground, the boy being unable to free himself from my grip. To this day it bothers me, because it turned out that I had grabbed hold of Clint a fellow redhead who had been coming from the other side of the yard to my aide. Probably the one kid who would have stood-up for me, and I grabbed hold of him in my blind rage. He was just in the path of the tornado and we were never friends again, even in high school. I think my reaction to what was happening was to be expected and as much as anything, I’m very angry with the playground teacher who didn’t step in before a fight happened. This teacher was a Special-Ed teacher who of all the staff, should have been aware of what was happening. She worked everyday with special needs kids, and knew how this kids are treated by the rest of the children. Playground bullying stories were something she had to deal with everyday I the course of her work. Furthermore this chain of events clearly wasn’t going to end well and that should have been obvious to her long before the fight started. Why she did not step in when it became obvious that every single kid was following me, I never knew and it upsets me to this day. While in the inevitable meeting with the principle, she gave a very detailed account of the entire course of events. So its clear she had been watching the thing play out. She also recommended no disciplinary action for me. In hindsight, I fully believe she did so, to cover-up the fact that she had screwed-up big time. She knew my parents took an active role in my education and would have contacted the school and most likely wanted a meeting with her and the principle, Mrs. Beverly, whom they had a good relationship with. My mother taught in my school system for several years and had a lot of good relationships with the faculty. Mind you my parents were big on discipline so it would not necessarily have been to argue on my behalf but to get a better understanding of what had actually happened so they could better address the situation with me. It would have been a certainty that at minimum they would have called, if any kind of notice been sent home about little Mikey being in a fight. No nice what to say it, what a stupid, incompetent bitch that special-Ed teacher was. I also have feelings of guilt because I caught hold of the one person who would have had my back (Clint) and took it out on him. I regret never giving him the apology he is entitled to. Poor guy was simply caught in the path of the tornado.
I also regret not treating the other loner kids better than I did. I didn’t want to be their friends anymore that the rest of the kids wanted to be my friend. Painful as it is to admit, I picked on them a few times because I was grateful not to be among those being picked on some particular days and was also trying to make an attempt to fit in with the very same kids who, more days than not were tormenting me. I probably hurt them worse since I had been their friend or acted like it from time to time. I’m sure that just as I carry the scars from my tales of rejection, they have scars from the rejection given by my hand as well. I’m sure theirs are probably are much deeper having come from a kid who only a day before had acted as a friend to them. If any of you are out there are among those whom I picked on at times while going to school at Farmer Elementary, please accept my sincerest apologies. And Ms. X the playground teacher on that particular day, should you read this, allow me to sincerely say, “Go to HELL !!!”, you define the term incompetent BITCH and you give good teachers a bad name !!!
I think what came of that whole incident was that whatever chance I had of fitting in socially was gone. Also if I wasn’t a target for regular school yard harassment before that, I dam sure was after that. Granted there were a few minor skirmishes through out that time, but the next big one wouldn’t be till several years later in high school. My memory is sketchy on it, but it was definitely bad. Probably my subconscious has blocked most of it out preventing me from any specific recollection. I do remember a 5th grade health class where Mr. Foust pointed out my freckles to illustrate the different genetic variations of skin pigmentation and how I almost felt naked and embarrassed as this very unwanted spot light was thrust upon me. I also specifically remember spending most recesses in his classroom working on computer games because I had over heard kids scheming to attack me on the playground or arrange some sort of embarrassing harassment for me at one point or another that year. Whatever happened between third grade and the end of fifth grade has so impacted me, I know for a fact, that I made a deliberate decision to withdrawal from the rest of the children and deliberately isolate myself rather than subject myself to their daily taunting. The condition isn’t sever but one of the things kids were always taunting me about was my funny walk. I walk funny for a reason, I was born with a crocked leg. Mind you it isn’t noticeable and the doctors were able to correct the worst of it by having me wear a cast for my first year or so. But to this day, I walk funny. I bring this up because so desperate was I to avoid taunting, I caused myself some serious back problems trying to walk “normally” during this time. Combined with an injury suffered weight lifting, and I spent a lot of time at the chiropractor’s office from 7th-12th grade.
This would become so much so, that until the end of my 8th grade year, with few exceptions, most teachers would scarcely know I was in their classroom. I know this because my mother had actually taught Jr. High math at that school until just two years prior to me getting there. So she had a lot of contacts with those teachers and as I mentioned earlier, my parents were very involved in my education. Those teachers would express this concern wondering if there was something wrong when Mom and Dad would ask. Even then, I would still be subject to regular taunting from a whole different group of kids, for attention I received for a whole different reason. You see, I had a mild form of dyslexia, that had been caught in the first grade and had spent many hours in eye therapy.
By the end of the fifth grade, I started reaping the rewards of these efforts and had managed to become a stand-out student academically. So it wasn’t that the teachers didn’t know I was there. I would maintain straight A’s from the end of fifth grade till the end of eighth grade. Grades became my obsession because it was the only thing I was successful at. It was very hard for me, but I lived a very Spartan routine often studying six hours a day to maintain this GPA. So I couldn’t hide from the spotlight because I was always getting recognized for various academic accolades. So still I would suffer the slings and arrows of envious children who were trying to put me down in an effort to build themselves up. A kid by the name of Jason would torment me so much, on more that a few occasions Mom and Dad would meet with his parents and school administrators to find ways to deal with the situation. At one point things were so bad, at my parents request, he and I’s class schedules were changed so we weren’t always running into each other. By that time, I was enrolled in Fairview Jr. High which was the central Jr. High and High School for all the small elementary schools in the district. Any hope of a fresh start with new kids, was ruined when Jason and I crossed paths while attending 6th grade there. I can’t point to the exact chain of events, but it was early on in the school year when I became his chosen target. In hindsight, I realize Jason also had some sort of learning disability quite possibly the hyper active type of ADD where as I have the inattentive kind. I do know that he wasn’t a good student and even then realized he was trying to make-up for his lack of such academic prowess. Inside he felt that he was stupid and projected this insecurity onto me. I know this because the parents of one of the few friends I had, actually tutored him and was actively involved with my parents and school administrators in dealing with the situation. Also, Jason is now the landlord of a piece of property next door to my parents, and so our paths have crossed a few times since high school and we get along fairly well. If the neighbors are causing problems, Jason is very quick to deal with it and our families get along just fine. Crazy how things work sometimes.
Moving along, there were also two very positive stories that came out of my jr. high experiences that also had long term ramifications. First, I discovered the sport of wrestling and wrestling would help my development into manhood in so many ways. Now I did not willingly go out for the sport, but Mom and Dad felt some kind of participation in athletics was important to my overall growth. I was made to pick a sport, I could pick any sport, but I had to participate in one. Well basketball and football were what all the popular kids, who made-up the vast number of my tormentors, played ; so I wasn’t having that which left me with wrestling or track. I had participated in a peewee wrestling program while in the 5th grade and I didn’t know anything about track, so I chose wrestling. I could not have made a better choice. Wrestling is mainly an individual sport, which fitted my loner mentality well. It is also a very physically intense sport requiring great discipline to master, which also suited my ADD mentality. While I was never a super-stud, the physical discipline and confidence I gained from wrestling has served me well to this day. The confidence it gave me, was the catalyst that allowed me to go on to be a good soldier, and venture into the unknown world of college, and the experiences of the military and college have shaped me into the adult you know today. I can’t say enough good things about the sport, it really helped me out that much.
Also another positive experience I had in jr. high, was meeting a wonderfully sweet girl by the name of Jami. Jami was my first crush and while we would never actually date, she remains a friend to this day. Jami was everything I wasn’t. Gifted student who never had to study, very gifted athlete who ran with the “cool kids” if you will. But Jami was always nice to me, and she’d often go out of her way to say hello. I laugh when I think about it, but I was so shy by then I could barely muster the courage to say hello back. We had a math class together. The period before that class, I had a study hall, and I’d often get a pass to go to the band room to practice. But while in one of the “practice” rooms instead of practicing the tuba, I’d practice saying hello to Jami or simple jokes to make her smile. Over and over again I’d imagine her there and practice talking to her. I’d then go to math class and quite robotically say these practiced lines to her. Its safe to say, if I hadn’t met Jami, I might still be too shy to talk to girls. She was so nice, she never would judge my awkward efforts at conversation and talk to me like she would any of her cool friends. While we would never date, I would never have gotten any dates at all, had it not been for that relationship, which allowed me to overcome the overwhelming shyness I had around women. Math was never my strong subject anyhow, so it wasn’t like I was missing much by paying Jami so much attention. J As a side note, Jami still lives in my hometown area, has married a man just as nice as she is (I‘m NOT him), and teaches kindergarten at a neighboring school district. Its my understanding they recently had their first child. I still run into her every once in a while when I visit home as she’s friends with one of our neighbors although the last time we spoke I’d guess has been close to two years ago. I’m very happy for her and wish her and her family all the joys and happiness life can bring.
Now as I write this, I realize we’re at five pages on the old world processor, so I’m going to bring section one to a close and post another entry later this week. I think the experiences of elementary school and Jr. High did was shape me into the loner I’ve become. They made me immensely distrustful of anyone I associate as being part of my peer group. To this day I prefer keeping to myself and it takes great effort for me to engage in social activities. Whether we’re talking about a work social function or meeting a group of people for a barbeque, it takes immense effort for me to work-up the motivation to even show-up. When I do, after saying hello to the host and dignitaries, I tend to migrate to the corner of the room or far end of the bar engaging in small talk with the occasional straggler. I get extremely nervous moving about carrying food or revisiting the snack tray, always feeling like people staring holes through my chest waiting for me do something that will give them fodder to taunt me with. I’ll stay up the rest of the night fretting that people will conclude that I’m stupid because I accidentally bumped into someone, or scratched that nagging itch on the back of my knee. I imagine them whispering about me at work the next day because I nearly dropped an appetizer on someone while sneezing. In reality while that can happen sometimes, by an large its all in my head. In adult life more than once I’ve apologized to someone for a faux-pas I’ve spent several sleepless nights worrying over, only to find out that the person I was certain I offended hadn’t even noticed or didn’t find it to be anywhere near as serious as I was certain it was. A couple of them have even given quizzical looks as though I was crazy. Its also ingrained in me this anticipation that I’m always on the verge of certain disappointment. My heart has been broken and disappointed too many times in the past, that I instinctively protect myself by anticipating the worst. But I don’t think at this point I had yet developed the defensive mentality complex I’ve had to overcome. It certainly pointed me down that road though. That mentality would develop later. For that you’ll have to wait and read part II : High school, Puberty, Renewed efforts to fit in, and The glorious and very public failure it turned into.
29 November 2009
Hear ye Hear ye a new blog entry posted by morning True insight into the issues dealing with mental illness
My next piece will be an introspective examination of past experiences and how they've effected who I am and what I've become. When you do read it, be sure you have a box of tissues handy because it will be emotional.
28 November 2009
Went for a "quick" erron run two days after Thanksgiving. What was I thinking ? !!!!! & How I am ADD Proofing my FLASH DRIVE
****Important Disclaimer. My legal team has asked me to error on the side of caution and make sure to add the following disclaimer. In this article I will be discussing different types of technology. I can not emphasize the following enough. The views and ideas expressed in this article in NO way represent the official views and policies of my employer, nor should they be interpreted as such. They are my OWN opinions and ideas and no one else's If you happen to know who my employer is and want to know their official views, I would advise you to go to their website and look for their consumer and/or public relations contact information. The people in that department do excellent work representing the public views and ideas of the company. Once again I only speak for me, NOT my employer. Also take note that I have been extremely careful to not specifically mention any technology or services they provide and have deliberately referenced several types of technologies so that I cannot be pinned down as being an expert on one specific thing. Anything discussed here would be considered after market technology that they do not specifically service. Even in my official role with the company, I am very careful to advise the customer only about things that I have specific knowledge and expertise on. None of the following would fit into that category. I only make mention of my field so as to explain why I took such a keen interest in such things. I wanted use the projects mention here as an opportunity to increase my own personal knowledge and understanding of what is on the market. My education and background is in political science and public relations, so I'm more qualified to write this disclaimer than I am to give exact advice on technology related matters. Any knowledge I do have, is strictly at the consumer level. To use tech speak, I can use the gooey application just fine, but if you ask me to do anything in the native application that the gooey draws its information from, I'm as lost as lost can be. Once again I do not represent any views or policies held by my company. Do NOT interpret things discussed here as speaking on behalf of my employer. They are my ideas and opinions only. Thank you, lets begin.
Had a nice surprise today. Just as I was about to drag my tail off the couch and into the bathroom to start my pre-work hygiene routine, got a call saying my vacation request had been approved and I didn't have to come in. Yippee !!
So I decided to make a run to the closest Best-Buy to get some ideas for a project I've taken on for my parents. Updating their computer and tv networks.
All I wanted to do was pick-up a flash drive and price RBG cables and usb wireless routers. Figured this all could be accomplished inside 30 minutes right ? WRONG !!!
I had a total ADD moment and neglected to take into consideration the fact that it is the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. The drive to the Polaris location which usually takes 10 minutes took 45. And when I got there, it was like that scene from Apocalypse Now where the USO show turns into a riot. I saw things there that frightened me and I'm not referring to the technology. Six year old screaming kids as far as the eye could see, Fat Khrushchev running around with Sputnik, 80 year old women fighting over the last WI-FI router, stressed-out men where trying to strangle themselves with HDMI cables because they couldn't take it anymore, three toddlers were chewing on Blackberry pagers !! Even now as I write about it three hours later, the thoughts bring chills down my spine. Like Monica Lewinsky's policy about cigars: NEVER AGAIN !!!
Actually it worked to Best Buy's advantage much as it pains me to say. Being that I was going to have to wait for the beginning of the next ice age to check out, I didn't feel like doing that just for a $5 flash drive. So I also picked-up a travel carrier for my netbook which I needed anyhow. And since my ADD brain likes putting off such arduous things till the very last minute I priced every single type of cable under the sun leaving with a ton of ideas on how to skin the cats I've gotta help my Mom skin.
Here's the funny thing about ADD. When you get focused in on something, you almost become obsessed with it and you look at things from every angle. For instance, my Mom wants to set-up a truly wireless network but her printer does not have networking capability. Perhaps a normal person would write that off and give-up. I have dug and dug and dug and now have three different solutions depending on how far she wants to take it. 1. Don't worry about it since it does use a usb cable, it is reasonably convenient to plug and play. I use this arrangement for my own network and it has been just fine for several years. 2. Purchase a printer networking hub and from its manufacturer ($150-$300). 3 And much less preferable buy a wireless usb port kit. I like option three less because it will require a usb wifi style card be attached to the laptop. It is more complicated and its a $50 part that is easily broke when dangling out on the side like that and it also drains battery life. I know because the reason I have a netbook is because such a thing happened with my broadband card on my old laptop. 4. I hope I can convince her to go with option number one as much as I love buying new widgets and whirligigs. Its a home network not a business network and I see no need to make things more complicated and confusing than they need to be. Seriously, why would you care to print stuff from two rooms away, when you still have to walk over to the desk to pick it up anyhow ?
I also wanted to find a way to link her laptop to her TV. Why ? Because you can. Same logic for a wireless printer network I guess :) I initially wanted to do this because a quick price check revealed RBG cables to be only $15 for a set. IE I was under the FALSE impression they were cheap. Typical ADD, I missed a key detail here. The ones on sale for $15 are like six inches long. Hell I couldn't even put the laptop in the DVD stand with that much cable, let alone use it !!! Unless Mom wants to drop about $300 into it, she'll just have to download her photos to her flash drive and put that drive into the TV for her slide shows. $10 for a 4 gigabyte memory stick v $300 you does the math :) Not really sure what I'd hoped to accomplish by linking the laptop to the TV anyhow, but I'm sure I could find one eventually :) I just thought it was cool that I could.
As I mentioned earlier, I've become obsessed with cables and connectivity lately. I work in tech support for a technology company so as much as anything I wanted to know what all is out there. For instance I learned that so long as you only need to take the signal 15 feet or less, any hdmi cable will due, but if you need to go further, buy as high a quality cable as you can get and know its gonna be EXPENSIVE !!! I can't tell you how it all works although I have read it. Also there are signal boosters available for every type of cable on the market from usb and coaxial to hdmi and ethernet. But if you are in a position where these options need to be considered, your first question should be is there an alternate solution and or is it a worthwhile endeavor ? Because you are going to be wrapping up several thousands of dollars into the project just for the cables. Unless its some sort of business operation, my guess is the answer to the last will be no. I mean an HDMI booster alone is going to run you $1750 to $2500 , think you can go cheaper by getting a component cable set-up ? Guess again, about $2000 for that booster also and if you are using those cables, you'll also need audio cables and a booster too at around $1500. Didn't price high grade audio cables and boosters, nor did I price Ethernet, usb, or wifi boosters except to satisfy my curiosity that they do exist, I just didn't have the stomach for it after that sticker shock. I did price long usb cables to know that long usb cables are very expensive too as are Ethernet cables to connect to wifi boosters.
While I was at it, I was also searching for a very cheap storage solution for my netbook which is my primary computer anymore. I only paid $150 for the machine and so don't want to go higher than $40. Well I've found I can back-up my files onto a usb flash drive for $10. Sure it isn't enough for a full recovery plan, but it'll allow me to quickly jump back into action once a solution would be found. But I had to laugh at myself as I ended-up having to buy two of them. Again typical ADD stuff. I made an impulse buy and got a 4 gig drive that is a pretty red and you slide the case down to reveal the plug. The problem is, this isn't ADD proof.
I loose anything that isn't tied down. I once went two weeks without my wallet, somehow misplaced the spare tire for my two door Blazer and it was in the BLAZER !! Actually somehow it ended-up in the laundry room which I obviously seldom use :) The how and the why for the last one is a mystery to this day. Anyhow back to the flash drive. The trouble is that I have to keep track of a small light red piece of plastic the size of my thumb. This is a challenge. This one had several hurtles that stand in the way of this challenge. It has a hole that is too thick to affix any sort of lanyard and the case still leaves the plug exposed. Red or not, its still the size of my thumb and there's not telling where I'll lose it at. So I had to go buy another one that is black, but has a protective cap. I then protected this investment from myself by affixing a three and a half foot, hunters orange, heavy nylon, lanyard to it. This lanyard is otherwise known as a dog leash that I found while wandering around PetCO even though I don't actually own a dog. Hey, I don't have many important files, but they are important to me. Just to be safe, I pulled out my drill and put three wood screws in it, thus permanently attaching the leash to my desk. I'm sure it has effected the resale value a bit, but it will give me an excuse to buy a new desk and new computer equipment to match it next year.
Until next time, Redheaded Rambler signing out.
Had a nice surprise today. Just as I was about to drag my tail off the couch and into the bathroom to start my pre-work hygiene routine, got a call saying my vacation request had been approved and I didn't have to come in. Yippee !!
So I decided to make a run to the closest Best-Buy to get some ideas for a project I've taken on for my parents. Updating their computer and tv networks.
All I wanted to do was pick-up a flash drive and price RBG cables and usb wireless routers. Figured this all could be accomplished inside 30 minutes right ? WRONG !!!
I had a total ADD moment and neglected to take into consideration the fact that it is the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. The drive to the Polaris location which usually takes 10 minutes took 45. And when I got there, it was like that scene from Apocalypse Now where the USO show turns into a riot. I saw things there that frightened me and I'm not referring to the technology. Six year old screaming kids as far as the eye could see, Fat Khrushchev running around with Sputnik, 80 year old women fighting over the last WI-FI router, stressed-out men where trying to strangle themselves with HDMI cables because they couldn't take it anymore, three toddlers were chewing on Blackberry pagers !! Even now as I write about it three hours later, the thoughts bring chills down my spine. Like Monica Lewinsky's policy about cigars: NEVER AGAIN !!!
Actually it worked to Best Buy's advantage much as it pains me to say. Being that I was going to have to wait for the beginning of the next ice age to check out, I didn't feel like doing that just for a $5 flash drive. So I also picked-up a travel carrier for my netbook which I needed anyhow. And since my ADD brain likes putting off such arduous things till the very last minute I priced every single type of cable under the sun leaving with a ton of ideas on how to skin the cats I've gotta help my Mom skin.
Here's the funny thing about ADD. When you get focused in on something, you almost become obsessed with it and you look at things from every angle. For instance, my Mom wants to set-up a truly wireless network but her printer does not have networking capability. Perhaps a normal person would write that off and give-up. I have dug and dug and dug and now have three different solutions depending on how far she wants to take it. 1. Don't worry about it since it does use a usb cable, it is reasonably convenient to plug and play. I use this arrangement for my own network and it has been just fine for several years. 2. Purchase a printer networking hub and from its manufacturer ($150-$300). 3 And much less preferable buy a wireless usb port kit. I like option three less because it will require a usb wifi style card be attached to the laptop. It is more complicated and its a $50 part that is easily broke when dangling out on the side like that and it also drains battery life. I know because the reason I have a netbook is because such a thing happened with my broadband card on my old laptop. 4. I hope I can convince her to go with option number one as much as I love buying new widgets and whirligigs. Its a home network not a business network and I see no need to make things more complicated and confusing than they need to be. Seriously, why would you care to print stuff from two rooms away, when you still have to walk over to the desk to pick it up anyhow ?
I also wanted to find a way to link her laptop to her TV. Why ? Because you can. Same logic for a wireless printer network I guess :) I initially wanted to do this because a quick price check revealed RBG cables to be only $15 for a set. IE I was under the FALSE impression they were cheap. Typical ADD, I missed a key detail here. The ones on sale for $15 are like six inches long. Hell I couldn't even put the laptop in the DVD stand with that much cable, let alone use it !!! Unless Mom wants to drop about $300 into it, she'll just have to download her photos to her flash drive and put that drive into the TV for her slide shows. $10 for a 4 gigabyte memory stick v $300 you does the math :) Not really sure what I'd hoped to accomplish by linking the laptop to the TV anyhow, but I'm sure I could find one eventually :) I just thought it was cool that I could.
As I mentioned earlier, I've become obsessed with cables and connectivity lately. I work in tech support for a technology company so as much as anything I wanted to know what all is out there. For instance I learned that so long as you only need to take the signal 15 feet or less, any hdmi cable will due, but if you need to go further, buy as high a quality cable as you can get and know its gonna be EXPENSIVE !!! I can't tell you how it all works although I have read it. Also there are signal boosters available for every type of cable on the market from usb and coaxial to hdmi and ethernet. But if you are in a position where these options need to be considered, your first question should be is there an alternate solution and or is it a worthwhile endeavor ? Because you are going to be wrapping up several thousands of dollars into the project just for the cables. Unless its some sort of business operation, my guess is the answer to the last will be no. I mean an HDMI booster alone is going to run you $1750 to $2500 , think you can go cheaper by getting a component cable set-up ? Guess again, about $2000 for that booster also and if you are using those cables, you'll also need audio cables and a booster too at around $1500. Didn't price high grade audio cables and boosters, nor did I price Ethernet, usb, or wifi boosters except to satisfy my curiosity that they do exist, I just didn't have the stomach for it after that sticker shock. I did price long usb cables to know that long usb cables are very expensive too as are Ethernet cables to connect to wifi boosters.
While I was at it, I was also searching for a very cheap storage solution for my netbook which is my primary computer anymore. I only paid $150 for the machine and so don't want to go higher than $40. Well I've found I can back-up my files onto a usb flash drive for $10. Sure it isn't enough for a full recovery plan, but it'll allow me to quickly jump back into action once a solution would be found. But I had to laugh at myself as I ended-up having to buy two of them. Again typical ADD stuff. I made an impulse buy and got a 4 gig drive that is a pretty red and you slide the case down to reveal the plug. The problem is, this isn't ADD proof.
I loose anything that isn't tied down. I once went two weeks without my wallet, somehow misplaced the spare tire for my two door Blazer and it was in the BLAZER !! Actually somehow it ended-up in the laundry room which I obviously seldom use :) The how and the why for the last one is a mystery to this day. Anyhow back to the flash drive. The trouble is that I have to keep track of a small light red piece of plastic the size of my thumb. This is a challenge. This one had several hurtles that stand in the way of this challenge. It has a hole that is too thick to affix any sort of lanyard and the case still leaves the plug exposed. Red or not, its still the size of my thumb and there's not telling where I'll lose it at. So I had to go buy another one that is black, but has a protective cap. I then protected this investment from myself by affixing a three and a half foot, hunters orange, heavy nylon, lanyard to it. This lanyard is otherwise known as a dog leash that I found while wandering around PetCO even though I don't actually own a dog. Hey, I don't have many important files, but they are important to me. Just to be safe, I pulled out my drill and put three wood screws in it, thus permanently attaching the leash to my desk. I'm sure it has effected the resale value a bit, but it will give me an excuse to buy a new desk and new computer equipment to match it next year.
Until next time, Redheaded Rambler signing out.
23 November 2009
Why this Christian likes Thanksgiving way more than Christmas Disclaimer listed under About Me section and Facebook profile applies as always
Why I like Thanksgiving so much and find Christmas to be more of a pain in the butt.
The first of several reasons I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the one unique holidays that is truly American. Everyone knows its origins date back to the Pilgrims and some of the original settlers of this great land Native Americans. So it essentially has its roots to all of the groups who were involved in the settling and creation of the American we have today. Not as well known is that people informally celebrated this holiday on a somewhat infrequent basis until a proclamation was made by President Lincoln in 1863 inviting people to join in a day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November. This started the yearly tradition we know today. I like this fact. President Lincoln is generally accepted by most historians to be one of the greatest leaders the United States has ever been blessed to have. In many ways Abe’s life and my own life have a lot of very frightening similarities and as such I feel a kinship with this great man. More on that some other time.
Thanksgiving has its roots in the celebration of a bountiful harvest from the fields. I have very close family ties to agriculture and therefore can easily identify with that. Even modern farmers are done or finishing up the harvest by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. This year being a BIG exception.
Least you be curious, due to the unseasonably wet year and warm year, combined with a very late planting season, the corn just ripened about two weeks ago, and the mud is preventing the heavy combines from getting into fields. Add in the fact that the corn is VERY wet, requiring it to be run through dryers before taken to market and its extremely slow going. From what I saw on my last visit home, I just hope they can get it off before the corn stalks deteriorate making harvest impossible. For any farmers out there, most of my farm friends say corn is averaging between 27%-29% moisture content and if anyone has hit 30% they aren’t saying. My uncle believes someone will see low 30’s at some point and just hopes it isn‘t him. For all you suburbanites and city slicks out there usually you prefer to have that number closer to 12%-15%. Anything more and you risk mold destroying the grain in storage, anything less and the grain will shatter as its handled. Also you might consider buying stock in natural gas or propane, no doubt its going to soon be in high demand as the seed dryers start burning it up in massive quantities !!!
Getting back on topic the main reason I love Thanksgiving so much is that it’s really just about enjoying four of my most favorite things in life: good friends, good food, good drink, and football. (Note I said football NOT good football, after all it always features the Detroit Lions and this year‘s star-struck itinerary also will highlight the blue chip Oakland Raiders. Ooohhh get the popcorn ready and the DVR tuned-up !!) People might accuse me of liking it so much because I don’t help cook. Be assured this isn’t my choice, it mainly has to do with my viewing of garlic as a major and essential food group instead of simply a spice or seasoning. But I am still allowed to fill the salt shakers and set the table so long as I’m highly supervised. But in all seriousness, I enjoy people coming over and helping out or hanging out around the kitchen as preparations are made. Laughing and joking, telling stories from the old year, speculating on the coming new one, catching up over a few drinks and appetizers. Dad started deep frying the turkey several years ago, and the guys will congregate on the back patio or garage like our forefathers gathered around a campfire talking, joking and all and all having a good time.
The food is amazing. Ten years ago, my parents discovered the Food Network and I’ve been delightfully entertained as my mother’s always excellent cooking grows in flavor and complexity. Mom has especially benefited as Dad has gotten much more involved in cooking and he isn’t half bad, in fact he pretty good and never afraid to try new things. Every Thanksgiving brings a new dish, or a new version of an old favorite, as they experiment with previously unknown spices and cooking methods. Granted on occasion Mom and Dad come up with some dish that makes me cry tears for the poor livestock and what they were turned into, as well as consider reporting this crime against humanity to the UN. Fortunately that is a very rare occurrence anymore. When it does happen, I simply pull-out some of the garlic bulbs I always carry, and mix in enough cloves to make it edible (usually only six or seven cloves is needed anymore).
There is none of this running around shopping, card sending, shopping, hiding what you bought while shopping, cooking, shopping, watching fifteen versions of a religious story by 3-year toddlers with no appreciation for the fine art of method acting, prepping the shotgun least a drunken fat man try and wedge himself into my chimney again, oh and did I mention all the shopping ? Yeah with Thanksgiving you have none of that. Its simply “Lets get together, give thanks for all of the blessings we have, and share some stories and jokes over food and games“. If that’s not the definition of a true holiday, prey tell what is ?
Even the US Army gets this and understands how important it is for soldiers to have a little holiday once in a while. Keep in mind, the US Army is an organization that often shows that the terms “military” and “intelligence” do not go hand in hand. I mean this is an organization that supposedly discourages homosexuality but every year celebrates its birthday by making soldiers eat cake while wearing berets !! But every year on Thanksgiving the Green Mother finds a way to get a hot turkey dinner to each of her soldiers. It is a point of pride for the Army dating back as far as WWII possibly longer, I‘m too lazy to research it. The stories of cooks hiking hot chow to far-flung, isolated positions that lack all modern comforts but have an abundance of enemy combatants are legendary. One of the bests comes from Colonel Hackworth while fighting in Korea, Google it or go to the History Channel website if you care to hear about it.
Honestly, I do not care much for Christmas and the reasons are many. Don’t get be wrong, as a Christian I recognize its importance and feel it is appropriate and fitting to bow our heads in respect for Christ‘s incarnation. However, the monster that we’ve created while doing so, resembles a chubby baby who has just woken up from a twelve hour nap. It wants to eat early, often, and in large quantities. It has no sense of responsibility in regards to the opening on the other end. I’ve always heard of the Christmas season getting longer and longer, but the fact really didn’t ring true with me until I saw a Christmas sales display at my local pharmacy. I initially thought was a joke being that it was the first week of October and even Halloween was too far off to be on my radar just yet. I asked the store manager about it, no joke was intended. Yeah, I always check my meds for signs of tampering when I go there anymore. Someone in their management team is obviously deranged and irrational !!!
Lets see, there are Christmas carols playing constantly and repeatedly over the radio and all the red banners and red decorations everywhere. In the days where I used to drink to great excess, and hard core benders that would make Charlie Sheen consider cutting back were far more common and intense this time of year. I’d often hallucinate and become convinced I was in a Soviet brain-washing/reeducation camp. More than once I confused a fat man in a Santa suit for Comrade Khrushchev carrying a Sputnik satellite to the launch site. This would set me on a rambling tangent about how Ronald Regan was going to kick his butt one day. I think one of my more memorable sayings was “Sure you might have more ICBMS than us, but being that more than half probably won’t make it out of the silo and half of the other half‘s ability to make it airborne is suspect at best, it will actually work to our advantage. Have you ever head of the term ‘secondary explosion’ my friend ? I encourage you to keep building them till Siberia looks like its been infested with giant gophers !!! BOOM, BOOM FATMAN BOOM, BOOM !!! ”.
Sure I like all the light displays, some of them are very nice. I fully intend to take my mother to the famous Columbus Zoo light display this year even. But some people get a tad carried away. Its good to be creative an all but my neighbor’s displays are so intricate and BRIGHT that my house plants think the extended day light hours mean its spring and start blooming as if they are a month behind on the deadline. I mean I have to wear a welding mask just to walk from my apartment to my car without being blinded. He doesn’t just get a thank you note from the electric company every year, they comp his yearly trip to Vegas. Recently they contacted ME to ask if I’d introduce my neighbor to the manager of my pharmacy. Sometime an airliner is going confuse his house for a navigation landing beacon and this will result in a wee bit of a traffic jam in the Westerville area. I’d hazard a guess it might even make the 11pm news.
People often laud about how fun it is to shop this time of year. For those of you who fall into that category, let me inform you of something. Black Friday is called that for two reasons. It is the time where stores cross over from the red into the black finically speaking, and because every year a few people are trampled to death. This usually happens to some poor store clerk by a rushing mob cramming into a Wal-Mart to buy a highly discounted TV usually made by some poor and disgruntled five year old in a god-forsaken, faraway country whose government doesn’t view civil rights as a pressing issue. I very unwittingly went with my parents one year and witnessed this spectacle of stress-driven mobs of people desperately searching for beanie babies and micro machines. By the time we were done, I felt like I’d just played a football double header, and was scared to take clothes off to take a shower for fear of what I’d find or what might fall out: perhaps a tooth, distended ankle, hyper-extended knee, or a rack of ribs ?
I resent the fact that during this time of year, shops are so crowded with aggressive shoppers I have to don a helmet and mouth guard just to make a run to the grocery or dime store. And when you get there, there’s fat Khrushchev among a horde of Ritalin sniffing six-year olds screaming and shrieking like they lost a finger playing with Sputnik. These kids tend to be in this super cooperative mood because of feeling the effects of sugar withdrawal and/or because mommy would only buy them two Tickle-Me Elmos instead of four.
People often stress out this time of year fretting about finding the perfect gifts to give. This is where having ADD is a benefit. I seldom have this problem. I wait till two days before, don my protective gear, then head to the nearest Meijer. In 45 minutes of focused walking, I’m done. If it truly is the thought that counts, a review of my past gifts will reveal the following thoughts: 1. I wasn’t 2. Dam I’m broke, and if I’ve actually thought things through sometimes 3. I might not like you that much and/or I’m an evil but very harmless genius.
I will now elaborate. I once gave my mother a frying pan (only thing that kept me from suffering serious bodily harm was the fact that I was 8 years old). Last year I won an air popcorn popper. I used it one time and discovered air poppers make popcorn which resembles packing material in both taste and consistency. Given that it was the first week of Dec when I made this discovery what was my first thought ? “Dam this popcorn popper generates crap. It will be a perfect gift for my future brother-in-law”. One side of the family does a $5 gift exchange and my mother long ago started bringing an additional gift to smooth over any hard feelings generated by recipient of my gift. Its ranged from the strange (fifteen pounds of long grain rice) to the bazaar (an entire case of Preparation H). Of that last gift one cousin was heard to say, “Its not the fact that he gave a case of hydroid cream that bothers me. it’s the fact that there is enough of a market for that product that they sell it in that large of a quantity and what hell-on-earth did Mike have visit to find it ?”. On that last thought, the funniest one I believe was a box of edible Christmas panties. Now we organize this gift exchange by numbering the gifts, and then drawing the numbers out of a hat. I assure you I had nothing to do with the organization or administration of this process. I surely would have influenced it differently if I had. Because the panties were selected by my cousin’s then girlfriend and now wife of nearly ten years. I didn’t know it was possible for a woman to blush so many different shades of red !!! One year I was contemplating how to deal with an unwelcome member of my entourage that I sort of had to tolerate since he was a friend of a very close friend of mine whom I‘ll call Bob. It wasn’t so much Bob I disliked (although I wasn’t too fond of him), it was his 5 year old kid. I only saw this kid stop moving, shouting, and screaming one time even only for a mere 2 minutes (he had run full speed, head first into a wall LITERALLY !!!). Like many people with ADD I am high strung and don’t have much tolerance for excessive noise. I don’t always deal well with these situations and it can put me into a panic attack. Excessively loud and constant noise has been known to transform my mood from happy go luck to very grouchy in two minutes. Especially when little Jr’s daddy never thinks he does anything wrong and acts as if its no big deal that his kid is screaming and running around the restaurant chasing other kids with a butter knife or gnawing on my remote control like a hungry dog gnaws on a steak bone. So after one especially eventful dinner that Bob’s future-ward-of-the-state had made more interesting that I cared for, it became apparent that something had to be done. Bob simply was not getting the hint. Now that says a LOT because I have the gift of being discretely-indiscrete when I want to. A real master of the back handed compliment if you will. So when Christmas time came around I held a small get together knowing full well Bob would invite himself along. As I was bidding my guests goodbye I surprised his kid with a gift so long as he promised to wait and open it Christmas day. The gift ? A small drum set complete with tambourine, a toy battery powered space gun, and ample batteries to keep it running till August. But I pushed it a bit too far by also including a four pack of Red Bull energy drink which Bob took offense to apparently. I found out through our mutual friend. Hell, I figured that was more healthy that the crack and pixey-stix I suspected Bob was giving him before coming to any social functions !! But Bob doesn’t come around anymore and when he does his remote-eating sidekick isn’t in tow. Wonder why ? Sorry about that Bob, didn’t mean to take the joke too far.
On a more serious note, as I’ve come to appreciate the diverse cultures and religions of our great Country, I understand how Christmas which at its heart is a Christian holiday can make those of different religions feel as if, our predominately Christian, society is forcing something down their throat that they don’t believe in. I’ve come to understand how my friends of the Jewish, Hindu, and various pagan faiths, understandably but wrongfully feel like only a marginal part of American society during this time of year. While I make no apologies for my beliefs in the Christian faith, if you are ridding in the biggest truck on the road, sometimes you don’t realize how much you are boxing in the compact in the next lane over. Its hard to defend Christianity as a religion of peace, love, and acceptance when things like Black Friday come around or a Santa shows up in the news for being too friendly with the children. Some of the more extreme fundamentalist use this occasion to bring attention to their extreme views. The kind of Christian fundamentalist out there harassing confused 13 year old girls outside abortion clinics, spewing hate filled rants about homosexuality ….. Those hate filled extremist that fail to realize Christ walked among and ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, and Gentiles. The lowest of the low in Jewish Society and he treated them with compassion, respect, and kindness. I see some of those knuckle heads on TV and regret not organizing a counter protest with the theme “We are also Christians and the idiots over there do NOT represent us !!!”.
Also the Lutheran church that I was born and raised in doesn’t see Christmas as the big deal corporate America makes it out to be. Sure we have a service or two but it pails in comparison to how we celebrate Easter. Trust me, I once served as the acolyte for the entire Easter season as well as for the entire Christmas season. I know we have two traditional services for Christmas but something like six for Easter (I don’t know for sure, I quit counting after four). Yes the Christmas story is important, but ultimately Christ’s visit to Earth would just be another hash mark in the time-line of human history had it not been for his death and resurrection on that tree in Calgary, which gave us the gift of eternal life. That is the ultimate gift of love and sacrifice. It is ultimately why Christmas has meaning.
To all my friends and readers I wish you a safe and happy holiday season. I hope you all get a chance to break bread with family and friends during this time. May the hope of joy and peace, which is the true spirit of the occasion, find you this year and the next one.
Redheaded Rambler signing off
The first of several reasons I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the one unique holidays that is truly American. Everyone knows its origins date back to the Pilgrims and some of the original settlers of this great land Native Americans. So it essentially has its roots to all of the groups who were involved in the settling and creation of the American we have today. Not as well known is that people informally celebrated this holiday on a somewhat infrequent basis until a proclamation was made by President Lincoln in 1863 inviting people to join in a day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November. This started the yearly tradition we know today. I like this fact. President Lincoln is generally accepted by most historians to be one of the greatest leaders the United States has ever been blessed to have. In many ways Abe’s life and my own life have a lot of very frightening similarities and as such I feel a kinship with this great man. More on that some other time.
Thanksgiving has its roots in the celebration of a bountiful harvest from the fields. I have very close family ties to agriculture and therefore can easily identify with that. Even modern farmers are done or finishing up the harvest by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. This year being a BIG exception.
Least you be curious, due to the unseasonably wet year and warm year, combined with a very late planting season, the corn just ripened about two weeks ago, and the mud is preventing the heavy combines from getting into fields. Add in the fact that the corn is VERY wet, requiring it to be run through dryers before taken to market and its extremely slow going. From what I saw on my last visit home, I just hope they can get it off before the corn stalks deteriorate making harvest impossible. For any farmers out there, most of my farm friends say corn is averaging between 27%-29% moisture content and if anyone has hit 30% they aren’t saying. My uncle believes someone will see low 30’s at some point and just hopes it isn‘t him. For all you suburbanites and city slicks out there usually you prefer to have that number closer to 12%-15%. Anything more and you risk mold destroying the grain in storage, anything less and the grain will shatter as its handled. Also you might consider buying stock in natural gas or propane, no doubt its going to soon be in high demand as the seed dryers start burning it up in massive quantities !!!
Getting back on topic the main reason I love Thanksgiving so much is that it’s really just about enjoying four of my most favorite things in life: good friends, good food, good drink, and football. (Note I said football NOT good football, after all it always features the Detroit Lions and this year‘s star-struck itinerary also will highlight the blue chip Oakland Raiders. Ooohhh get the popcorn ready and the DVR tuned-up !!) People might accuse me of liking it so much because I don’t help cook. Be assured this isn’t my choice, it mainly has to do with my viewing of garlic as a major and essential food group instead of simply a spice or seasoning. But I am still allowed to fill the salt shakers and set the table so long as I’m highly supervised. But in all seriousness, I enjoy people coming over and helping out or hanging out around the kitchen as preparations are made. Laughing and joking, telling stories from the old year, speculating on the coming new one, catching up over a few drinks and appetizers. Dad started deep frying the turkey several years ago, and the guys will congregate on the back patio or garage like our forefathers gathered around a campfire talking, joking and all and all having a good time.
The food is amazing. Ten years ago, my parents discovered the Food Network and I’ve been delightfully entertained as my mother’s always excellent cooking grows in flavor and complexity. Mom has especially benefited as Dad has gotten much more involved in cooking and he isn’t half bad, in fact he pretty good and never afraid to try new things. Every Thanksgiving brings a new dish, or a new version of an old favorite, as they experiment with previously unknown spices and cooking methods. Granted on occasion Mom and Dad come up with some dish that makes me cry tears for the poor livestock and what they were turned into, as well as consider reporting this crime against humanity to the UN. Fortunately that is a very rare occurrence anymore. When it does happen, I simply pull-out some of the garlic bulbs I always carry, and mix in enough cloves to make it edible (usually only six or seven cloves is needed anymore).
There is none of this running around shopping, card sending, shopping, hiding what you bought while shopping, cooking, shopping, watching fifteen versions of a religious story by 3-year toddlers with no appreciation for the fine art of method acting, prepping the shotgun least a drunken fat man try and wedge himself into my chimney again, oh and did I mention all the shopping ? Yeah with Thanksgiving you have none of that. Its simply “Lets get together, give thanks for all of the blessings we have, and share some stories and jokes over food and games“. If that’s not the definition of a true holiday, prey tell what is ?
Even the US Army gets this and understands how important it is for soldiers to have a little holiday once in a while. Keep in mind, the US Army is an organization that often shows that the terms “military” and “intelligence” do not go hand in hand. I mean this is an organization that supposedly discourages homosexuality but every year celebrates its birthday by making soldiers eat cake while wearing berets !! But every year on Thanksgiving the Green Mother finds a way to get a hot turkey dinner to each of her soldiers. It is a point of pride for the Army dating back as far as WWII possibly longer, I‘m too lazy to research it. The stories of cooks hiking hot chow to far-flung, isolated positions that lack all modern comforts but have an abundance of enemy combatants are legendary. One of the bests comes from Colonel Hackworth while fighting in Korea, Google it or go to the History Channel website if you care to hear about it.
Honestly, I do not care much for Christmas and the reasons are many. Don’t get be wrong, as a Christian I recognize its importance and feel it is appropriate and fitting to bow our heads in respect for Christ‘s incarnation. However, the monster that we’ve created while doing so, resembles a chubby baby who has just woken up from a twelve hour nap. It wants to eat early, often, and in large quantities. It has no sense of responsibility in regards to the opening on the other end. I’ve always heard of the Christmas season getting longer and longer, but the fact really didn’t ring true with me until I saw a Christmas sales display at my local pharmacy. I initially thought was a joke being that it was the first week of October and even Halloween was too far off to be on my radar just yet. I asked the store manager about it, no joke was intended. Yeah, I always check my meds for signs of tampering when I go there anymore. Someone in their management team is obviously deranged and irrational !!!
Lets see, there are Christmas carols playing constantly and repeatedly over the radio and all the red banners and red decorations everywhere. In the days where I used to drink to great excess, and hard core benders that would make Charlie Sheen consider cutting back were far more common and intense this time of year. I’d often hallucinate and become convinced I was in a Soviet brain-washing/reeducation camp. More than once I confused a fat man in a Santa suit for Comrade Khrushchev carrying a Sputnik satellite to the launch site. This would set me on a rambling tangent about how Ronald Regan was going to kick his butt one day. I think one of my more memorable sayings was “Sure you might have more ICBMS than us, but being that more than half probably won’t make it out of the silo and half of the other half‘s ability to make it airborne is suspect at best, it will actually work to our advantage. Have you ever head of the term ‘secondary explosion’ my friend ? I encourage you to keep building them till Siberia looks like its been infested with giant gophers !!! BOOM, BOOM FATMAN BOOM, BOOM !!! ”.
Sure I like all the light displays, some of them are very nice. I fully intend to take my mother to the famous Columbus Zoo light display this year even. But some people get a tad carried away. Its good to be creative an all but my neighbor’s displays are so intricate and BRIGHT that my house plants think the extended day light hours mean its spring and start blooming as if they are a month behind on the deadline. I mean I have to wear a welding mask just to walk from my apartment to my car without being blinded. He doesn’t just get a thank you note from the electric company every year, they comp his yearly trip to Vegas. Recently they contacted ME to ask if I’d introduce my neighbor to the manager of my pharmacy. Sometime an airliner is going confuse his house for a navigation landing beacon and this will result in a wee bit of a traffic jam in the Westerville area. I’d hazard a guess it might even make the 11pm news.
People often laud about how fun it is to shop this time of year. For those of you who fall into that category, let me inform you of something. Black Friday is called that for two reasons. It is the time where stores cross over from the red into the black finically speaking, and because every year a few people are trampled to death. This usually happens to some poor store clerk by a rushing mob cramming into a Wal-Mart to buy a highly discounted TV usually made by some poor and disgruntled five year old in a god-forsaken, faraway country whose government doesn’t view civil rights as a pressing issue. I very unwittingly went with my parents one year and witnessed this spectacle of stress-driven mobs of people desperately searching for beanie babies and micro machines. By the time we were done, I felt like I’d just played a football double header, and was scared to take clothes off to take a shower for fear of what I’d find or what might fall out: perhaps a tooth, distended ankle, hyper-extended knee, or a rack of ribs ?
I resent the fact that during this time of year, shops are so crowded with aggressive shoppers I have to don a helmet and mouth guard just to make a run to the grocery or dime store. And when you get there, there’s fat Khrushchev among a horde of Ritalin sniffing six-year olds screaming and shrieking like they lost a finger playing with Sputnik. These kids tend to be in this super cooperative mood because of feeling the effects of sugar withdrawal and/or because mommy would only buy them two Tickle-Me Elmos instead of four.
People often stress out this time of year fretting about finding the perfect gifts to give. This is where having ADD is a benefit. I seldom have this problem. I wait till two days before, don my protective gear, then head to the nearest Meijer. In 45 minutes of focused walking, I’m done. If it truly is the thought that counts, a review of my past gifts will reveal the following thoughts: 1. I wasn’t 2. Dam I’m broke, and if I’ve actually thought things through sometimes 3. I might not like you that much and/or I’m an evil but very harmless genius.
I will now elaborate. I once gave my mother a frying pan (only thing that kept me from suffering serious bodily harm was the fact that I was 8 years old). Last year I won an air popcorn popper. I used it one time and discovered air poppers make popcorn which resembles packing material in both taste and consistency. Given that it was the first week of Dec when I made this discovery what was my first thought ? “Dam this popcorn popper generates crap. It will be a perfect gift for my future brother-in-law”. One side of the family does a $5 gift exchange and my mother long ago started bringing an additional gift to smooth over any hard feelings generated by recipient of my gift. Its ranged from the strange (fifteen pounds of long grain rice) to the bazaar (an entire case of Preparation H). Of that last gift one cousin was heard to say, “Its not the fact that he gave a case of hydroid cream that bothers me. it’s the fact that there is enough of a market for that product that they sell it in that large of a quantity and what hell-on-earth did Mike have visit to find it ?”. On that last thought, the funniest one I believe was a box of edible Christmas panties. Now we organize this gift exchange by numbering the gifts, and then drawing the numbers out of a hat. I assure you I had nothing to do with the organization or administration of this process. I surely would have influenced it differently if I had. Because the panties were selected by my cousin’s then girlfriend and now wife of nearly ten years. I didn’t know it was possible for a woman to blush so many different shades of red !!! One year I was contemplating how to deal with an unwelcome member of my entourage that I sort of had to tolerate since he was a friend of a very close friend of mine whom I‘ll call Bob. It wasn’t so much Bob I disliked (although I wasn’t too fond of him), it was his 5 year old kid. I only saw this kid stop moving, shouting, and screaming one time even only for a mere 2 minutes (he had run full speed, head first into a wall LITERALLY !!!). Like many people with ADD I am high strung and don’t have much tolerance for excessive noise. I don’t always deal well with these situations and it can put me into a panic attack. Excessively loud and constant noise has been known to transform my mood from happy go luck to very grouchy in two minutes. Especially when little Jr’s daddy never thinks he does anything wrong and acts as if its no big deal that his kid is screaming and running around the restaurant chasing other kids with a butter knife or gnawing on my remote control like a hungry dog gnaws on a steak bone. So after one especially eventful dinner that Bob’s future-ward-of-the-state had made more interesting that I cared for, it became apparent that something had to be done. Bob simply was not getting the hint. Now that says a LOT because I have the gift of being discretely-indiscrete when I want to. A real master of the back handed compliment if you will. So when Christmas time came around I held a small get together knowing full well Bob would invite himself along. As I was bidding my guests goodbye I surprised his kid with a gift so long as he promised to wait and open it Christmas day. The gift ? A small drum set complete with tambourine, a toy battery powered space gun, and ample batteries to keep it running till August. But I pushed it a bit too far by also including a four pack of Red Bull energy drink which Bob took offense to apparently. I found out through our mutual friend. Hell, I figured that was more healthy that the crack and pixey-stix I suspected Bob was giving him before coming to any social functions !! But Bob doesn’t come around anymore and when he does his remote-eating sidekick isn’t in tow. Wonder why ? Sorry about that Bob, didn’t mean to take the joke too far.
On a more serious note, as I’ve come to appreciate the diverse cultures and religions of our great Country, I understand how Christmas which at its heart is a Christian holiday can make those of different religions feel as if, our predominately Christian, society is forcing something down their throat that they don’t believe in. I’ve come to understand how my friends of the Jewish, Hindu, and various pagan faiths, understandably but wrongfully feel like only a marginal part of American society during this time of year. While I make no apologies for my beliefs in the Christian faith, if you are ridding in the biggest truck on the road, sometimes you don’t realize how much you are boxing in the compact in the next lane over. Its hard to defend Christianity as a religion of peace, love, and acceptance when things like Black Friday come around or a Santa shows up in the news for being too friendly with the children. Some of the more extreme fundamentalist use this occasion to bring attention to their extreme views. The kind of Christian fundamentalist out there harassing confused 13 year old girls outside abortion clinics, spewing hate filled rants about homosexuality ….. Those hate filled extremist that fail to realize Christ walked among and ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, and Gentiles. The lowest of the low in Jewish Society and he treated them with compassion, respect, and kindness. I see some of those knuckle heads on TV and regret not organizing a counter protest with the theme “We are also Christians and the idiots over there do NOT represent us !!!”.
Also the Lutheran church that I was born and raised in doesn’t see Christmas as the big deal corporate America makes it out to be. Sure we have a service or two but it pails in comparison to how we celebrate Easter. Trust me, I once served as the acolyte for the entire Easter season as well as for the entire Christmas season. I know we have two traditional services for Christmas but something like six for Easter (I don’t know for sure, I quit counting after four). Yes the Christmas story is important, but ultimately Christ’s visit to Earth would just be another hash mark in the time-line of human history had it not been for his death and resurrection on that tree in Calgary, which gave us the gift of eternal life. That is the ultimate gift of love and sacrifice. It is ultimately why Christmas has meaning.
To all my friends and readers I wish you a safe and happy holiday season. I hope you all get a chance to break bread with family and friends during this time. May the hope of joy and peace, which is the true spirit of the occasion, find you this year and the next one.
Redheaded Rambler signing off
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