The Electric

There has been some discussions about blogs reviling too much personal information.

A good example has been the sparring between Chris Pirillo and Ponzi while the two of them are on vacation in Hawaii’. Granted their on Maui which drove Jean and I to snip at each other due to the insane amount of effort it takes to move around on that island. For me, when I think about going back to Hawaii’ it comes down to three places that call out to me Windward coast of Oahu, First Christian Church of Honolulu and Pescatore in downtown Hilo on Big Island. But I digress.

Twice I have let too much personal information out on a blog and had it bit me in the butt. Now was what I posted meant to do damage or hurt folks? Nope.

It was written and posted for me by me in an unfiltered format without thinking how it would be taken by someone else. Notice that I’m not doing my usual apology which is an interesting development for me since in the past I would all but take other’s views above my own. Plus I tend to hold too many things in rather than get them out. So that’s why I post my rantings here. Even if I’m the only person to read them, I can at least look at them and try to find just where the feeling that produced the post came from. Plus it helps me remember where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.

Plus there have been times that I’ve gotten to know someone much better because I mentioned something on my blog that started us talking about other things we had in common.

Too many things in the hopper the last few weeks but here is a sampling of the fun stuff I was able to sneak in:

Books: We3: Interesting angle. Reminded me of the rat-thing segments from Snow Crash.

Batman War Games Vols 1-2: I’ve never liked the character of Robin. So a few of the subplots ring hollow but its got some interesting twists.

Games: Call of Duty 2: Messed with the pre-release demo on a Xbox 360 and on my new rig. Very hard for the untrained eye to tell the demos apart (both demos are from the El Daba mission). I’m already jonesing for the new 360 controller since it will work on both the 360 and my PC (thanks to the 360’s use of USB and the new XNA game developer toolkit)

TV: I got my AMD X2 to play nice with Windows Media Center Edition thanks to a patch from AMD that keeps both CPU cores from trying to handle the MCE video calls at the same time. I also got WinTv2000 working with my VCR so I’ve started the process of going thru my tons of video tapes, dubbing what I want to keep over to the PC for future burning to DVD and then chucking the tape. For the really valuable stuff, the master tape will be kept but 80% of them are hitting the curb.

Biggest Loser: Don’t know why I’m so hooked on this show since it makes me feel bad about finding the time to workout.

Cooking: In time for Thanksgiving, I’ve been messing with an herb paste turkey rub that I got from the good folks at Cook’s Illustrated. I used it at our church Thanksgiving and came out so well that Jean has me cooking it again for Thanksgiving itself. It’s a fun recipe plus it does make the turkey so yummy.

Man, it’s been a crazy 6 weeks between trying to get the computer squared with Dell, the office rebuilt at home, waiting for the new rig to arrive plus finishing my business writing class.

You’d think I’d catch a bit of a break but the answering machine had a message that caused me to about flip.

It was my brother-in-law, the one I haven’t talked to since April 1, 2003 when he all but gutted me over the phone over a family dispute over money. The details of said dispute I won’t rehash.

Since that call, I’ve pretty much taken a ‘never want to see him again’ stance. Fear is part of it. The fear of getting drilled again since he knows what buttons to push on me (he lives with my Mom after all) mixed with the fear of not standing up for myself.

Yet here is the message. I couldn’t even play all of it. I paused it and waited for Jean to come home. My brother-in-law was asking if we could maybe get together, have dinner to try and mend fences.

First thing that hit my mind was “what the rub”? I know he’s a Decon now, maybe God’s hand is in this? Or is it what my gut is telling me, that there is an angle in play. A reach out because something is coming and my family wants to bring me back into their corner. I feel I’ve got to check my credit report just to be on the safe side.

The worse part of this is that I just wanted to be done with it all. I walked away for a reason. My brother-in-law wanted to be the man, well, be the frigging man. I don’t care. Just leave me alone. My roll as first born and family enforcer I willingly quit because I found it was the thing killing me.

So what to do? Jean’s take is to set the ground rules. - Sister and brother-in-law only - no issues between my Mom and myself on the table

If they want to talk under those connditions, then we might have something…

Why does anything envolving my family feels like a rejected Mafia subploit?

OK, three weeks of waiting to see what kind of tumor you might have is never fun. I stress eat just about anything I could find. I was irritable.

I told a coworker who’s husband is dealing with cancer and she gave me a lay blessing on my forehead with the sign of the cross. I went to a healing service at church and had a blessing with oil given by my pastor.

I played with John and even picked out and ordered a new computer while keeping one eye on the calendar. I started my class at Franklin but couldn’t get into it the first week since I didn’t know if I would have to drop it due to the knee.

So when it came time to roll into the Doctor’s office, I almost wanted it to be bad news with the logic that the waiting had put me in that ‘pissed at the world place’ and just needed to have my reason vetted. Plus that hypocondraic in me didn’t want all this to be for nothing.

Twisted isn’t it.

Yet nothing is what it was. I have a cyst. Thanks to the MRI, it showed that there isn’t anything to do aside from a little PT, a bunch of weight loss and some anti-inflammatories from time to time.

The black cloud of doom broke to the sunshine. Jean and I thanked God. Then the crash of three weeks worth of worry came. It left me irritable. My guess it’s due to the sugar withdraw as I go back on my eating plan.

Today I had an MRI done on both my knees. Why? About a month ago I fell while helping my brother-in-law build his deck and while my knees have always been crappy, the left knee which took the hit still wasn’t doing much better after a few weeks.

So after getting the name of an orthopedic doctor, Dr. Tim Duffey, from my podiatrist, I headed down for the exam. Dr. Duffey’s GP did the first check and noticed that both of my knees made these nice cracking sounds when she tested my range of motion. Next was x-rays in just about every position know to man. After reviewing the film, Dr. Duffey came in and asked shortly after introducing himself if I had ever had an MRI?

At this point I’m thinking the worst thing that could happen is the scope. What I didn’t think of was what came next, the word Tumor.

See my knees are still growing. That’s not a good thing. So here are my odds 98% benign 1% Malignant from a cancer someplace else in the body 1% Rare bone cancer

So I was rolled into an MRI machine to have scans on both knees.

The MRI wasn’t quite what I thought it would be like. I was expecting jackhammer like pounding. It was more like a very long and loud whirling noise. Jean brought some magazines to read to me but it was so steady, I ended up with just the headphones.

The only discomfort came when my left butt cheek started to cramp. But since my head wasn’t in the machine, this is a prefectly fine trade off.

I was handed my films and then the waiting started…

• My left knee is all gone to crap. If I was a horse, I would be shot. Keep that in mind as you gaze at this post.

• I pray that Texas beats OSU so I won’t have to listen to Buckeye fan all fall rant about how they’re #1. Part of the joy of college football has been taken from me by having to live with Buckeye fan for the better part of 25 years. God I wish I was back in Bama.

• Starting to get pissy at work which isn’t a good thing. Makes me wish I could just throw down the “That’s just the way it is.” card as well as have a switch I could throw that would not make me care what others thought. I would be insufferable to those around me but it not like this is ever going to happen… I’d implode from the guilt.

• Question of the week: You try to start a grassroots project with a co-worker That project is then dovetailed into a larger effort involving other co-workers from different groups. You are happy because the scope of this effort could be enormous and needing additonal resources to be done right. In the final project proposal, key things you felt passionately about were pushed into the “to be reviewed” section while other things that you feel are stupid have been moved to the top “do now” section. These stupid things are so stupid, you didn’t even get pissed when you’re name was left off the final proposal. These things could wreck the whole project but you’re not on the list anymore so why should you care but then again it would majorly suck if something isn’t done. Something that made you head down this path in the first place. So what do you do?

Yesterday I talk to my colleague Libbie Crawford about this weekend. Libbie is a Bama gal and the kind of driven and determined Southern woman that books are written about. Where I have memories in the Gulf, Libbie and her husband have family, close friends and history in each of the areas Katrina hit.

“Libbie, I’m going to try and not watch the coverage this weekend. I almost threw my remote at the tv when they started turning folks away from the Astrodome” I said more for myself than anything.

“Yeah, I turned off my news reader. Other than NPR in the car and the paper because I can put that down, I’m not going to watch it.” she said.

So after driving to Cleveland (gas ranged from $2.99 on the low to $3.49 on the high on 71 north) with Jaymes who we had picked up from school for his folks, I turned on the TV last night to catch a baseball score from the pennant race.

Guess what was on TBS, the channle the tv was tuned to when I turned it on.

Forest Gump

I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry (I always cry when I watch that movie as I feel like Forest about 75% of the time). This time it felt like a reminder of what was lost. Yet it had been lost before. rebuilt and will in time be lost again.

Libbie knows Winston Groom from her time at the University of Alabama so I’m sure she’ll get a kick when I tell her about this on Tuesday.

I live 851.4 miles from Mobile, Alabama.

Some of my first memories come from there. I lived in Pensacola, Fla while my Uncle Don and his family lived across the U.S. 90 causeway in Theodore near Mobile. We would take the causeway into Mobile to visit him as well as to see a show like Holiday on Ice. There I learned to love Baseball, Hank Aaron, Alabama football, Brunswick stew & shrimp. While I haven’t been in the state of Alabama nor the panhandle of Florida since I was 5 years old, I’ve considered it a spiritual home in a way.

Those things I remember about Mobile are gone now. If not from the change time brings then the change only a hurricane leaves in it’s wake.

I live 899.5 miles from Biloxi, Ms or what was Biloxi.

I have family in Jackson, Ms on my Dad’s side, his cousin. It’s been since 1988 since I last saw them at the funeral for Aunt Evy my Grandma Leslie’s sister. My family tends to gather around the casket. At least they used to for my grandparent’s generation. But time and distance has eroded even these gatherings. It’s been since then that I last saw my grandparent’s head stone at Brown cemetery in Jackson, Tn. My Dad is buried just outside Columbus near Lewis Center far from his boyhood home and the resting place of his parents. At his funeral my Uncle Don who if based on years and health should have been with Jesus long ago said he wasn’t going back to Jackson. He told his kids to cremate him and that was it. I don’t know where I’ll rest when it’s my time to nap with Abraham.

I live 924.6 miles from New Orleans

Jesus, New Orleans. I visited my Uncle Don when he moved there once. I went to a wax museum about the pirates that worked the Gulf. My Grandpa bought me a bag full of plastic toy groceries along with some chocolate coins in gold foil. I remember eating at a fancy resturant that reminded me like a set on the Lawrence Welk Show, complet with a white marbel staircase and these light sea green curtains.

Folks say it looks like the third world there after Katrina broke the levees. It looks more like apocalypse now or a disaster movie but without the heroic ending.

I saw a photo of a man holding a baby in one arm and with his other lifting a sheet so that the photographer could see the dead man under it.

I saw another photo of a person in a wheelchair pushed to the side of the convention center and covered in a blanket as she had died.

My sister in law asked why didn’t they leave. My brother in law who is a southerner by way of Tampa and Bowling Green Ky reminded her that some people were too sick, too poor or just stuck. Even if you had the means to leave for many there was no place they could afford to go.

It’s gone to Hell there now. People are sick, scared and desperate. Throw in the heat and the utter loss of everything and it’s amazing they didn’t lose it sooner.

Major League Baseball which only has minor league affiliates in the area dropped $3 million in the hat, the New York Yankees throwing down $1 million on the barrel. The NFL, frigging $1 million while they move the Saints to San Antonio.

The President can only do so much but I wonder when he’ll be asked about the levees.

I need to go and pray for the Gulf now.

• Is New Orleans ever going to recover from Katrina? The photos I’ve seen so far don’t due the amount of damage justice. Prayer to the good people of the south coast among whom my earliest memories were formed. It was on trips to visit family from my house in Pensacola, Fla to Theodore, Alabama just outside Mobile that at five years old, I learned to love baseball, Alabama football, shrimp, jazz, creole cooking and the peace that comes just watching the water flow into the gulf on a warm summer’s day.

• America loves to think it is the land of 2nd chances but really, we only give 2nd chances to people we either like or we think we can get something from them.

• I just finished reading Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. It reminded me of my Uncle who owns his own business and my father who was always hoping for the big break. While Kiyosaki idea that money management should be taught in school is on target, the rest of the book is vague. The kinda vague that leads to speaking gigs, more books, etc. Also it bugged me that he has little in terms of ethics about profiting from the poor in his story about buying delinquent properties with a small down payment to flip at a profit before he has to make good on the balance. He also talk about how the courts and Sheriffs can deal with ‘problem tenants’ while at the same time railing against taxation. The biggie was that he doesn’t name the ‘Rich’ Dad giving the whole thing a infomercial feel for me.

There are times when I wonder if I’m the only person who suffers from a professional schizophrenia.

A have a voice in my head that tells me that I can do my job and do it well. That what I’m doing is worthwhile and valued. It’s the voice that asks “Why not me?” when I start to think about maybe being a product manager or a team lead.

Then there is the other voice that is ready with a laundry list of reasons why I’m just a total screw-up who is one step away from unemployment. Unfortunately this voice is louder than the other, never misses a mistake and has been hyper tuned after years in QA.

Today was one of those days when both voices were going at it. A note of praise for a tech briefing is met with scorn for I felt it should have been done sooner and without so many re-writes. Live Meeting scheduling mishaps with the Outlook plug in and my overview of the web site redesign compounds the feeling that I’m a hack.

Needless to say, working on better self talk is high on my to do list