So, ah, hope you weren't holding your breath waiting for another blog post from yours truly.
So in the past 11 or so months, things have changed in my personal life, chief amongst them my relocation of most of my holdings and goods to the basement floor of my house. The term "man cave" is branching out from buzzword to irritating cliche, but the situation overlaps enough that I'll adopt it. The room in question has been in the planning stages for at least 2 years, the building stage for about half that, and the organization/feng shui-ity being applied for the past couple months. (Keep in mind "organization" involved putting literally thousands of CDs in alphabetical/chronological order from the dozens of cardboard boxes they were "living" in since we started doing foster care back in 2007.)
Part of moving my things involved rooting through a good chunk of my past and determining how much of it I need to preserve. Isn't it weird that certain parts, even eras of your life can be defined or summarized by trinkets? For instance, I found two trophies awarded to youth baseball teams I competed in. Obviously, I am not a Major League Baseball star, so insofar as how it affected my present day life is next to nil. I may throw the ball around in the backyard depending on what foster kids are into it, and I may see a Brewer/Beloit Snapper game if I can get the social, financial and obligational axises to coincide. Otherwise, baseball pretty much rolls on without me. I did meet a lot of cool kids and strengthened bonds with some kids I already did know (I grew up in a small neighborhood just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, so everybody ended up knowing everybody regardless.) I have a few as Facebook friends and would have a gentlemanly convo with others should the stars align, but I now live several counties away from the epicentre, and I doubt I'm the only one. So the trophies and their physical presence means precious little to who I am and what I do in 2011. And yet.... how many childhood hours did I invest in those two little trophies? You played 10-12 games a season maybe, each around 2 hours or so. Practice 1-2 hours a week as a team, maybe more. The 3 hour season-ending league banquet. And I did that for five or six years. (Although I mention my own time investment, let's not forget my brothers did it too. Plus my dad and mom paid the dues, did the transport, stayed to watch --dad was an umpire, too...dot dot dot.) Even the trophies themselves tell different stories. The small one I won my first year when I was drafted onto the perennial pee-wee powerhouse team, and I can say with clear convinction I had 0% to do with earning that first place trophy. Couldn't bat, couldn't field, couldn't ___________(action verb). The second one was larger and came half a decade later. I still was by no means even a role player, but by then I could actually catch pop flies (sometimes) and get on base by methods beyond being walked or being hit by the pitch. I had grown and actually learned something, so that one "means" more, even though they both say essentially the same thing.
Granted, throwing away/donating those things doesn't mean you're throwing the experience away per se. Heck, I played a season of bar-league baseball with some WAG co-workers in my mid-20s and had an absolute blast doing it. All I have from that is my t-shirt uniform that has an unsightly tear on the right breast. But me seeing the trophies can take me back in an instant, to the fields on the UWGB campus, to playing for Piggy Wiggly's and Tillman Landscape, to feeling mostly awkward and useless but also the thrill of catching my first pop-fly (the victim being my now sister-in-law's brother). The day will come --sooner than later -- the forest green t that was the jersey for that bar on S Gammon right by the old Fire Glazed Ham store (Old Time Bar?) will be retired. Does that mean I'll forget hanging out Friday evenings with Julie, Pete, Starr and the rest, of turning that double play the crowd popped for, of running up the score and having the score run up on us?
This has all been a weird way of re-dedicating myself to blogging more. It's easy to put things off, or to procrastinate, and I've done a fair share of both. But it shouldn't take me seeing 10 inch trophies or old t-shirts to remember the times of my past, and to celebrate them with others. Besides, if we're talking big picture, blog posts take up a lot less space here in the ol' man cave.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Thursday, December 30, 2010
New Blog Post?!?!
So...uh... hey.
Yeah, this corner of the 'net certainly got a little dusty. As much as I would like to blame my uncover spy missions or being kidnapped by pirates in the Pacific Ocean, it was merely laziness that kept me from posting to you all. Well, and also much of this past year has been devoted to having foster children in the household, and we have had a busy year in that regard. There's been less than 20 days this year that the house has not had ANY kids in it, and most of the year we've had at least 2. Alas, confidentiality clauses in our contract forbid us from mentioning the kids who reside here and any tangible way (like if we had a child in our care called Shazam, every time we would mention the child, it would look like " 'S' had a good day at school today, and then had karate practice, etc etc.") but if you want to get all Cliff's Notesy, the police were here multiple times, and there was more than one occurrence of lighters being stolen/"found" and misused. Thankfully, there was no lasting damage to persons or properties, and everyone got an appropriate punishment. Other than that, as far as huge news that's occured since my last post, my beloved Dodge Neon as on the IR after an accident in Monroe. So we have a new van and I am now chiefly driving the old one. We also changed cable providers (out: Dish Network, in: AT&T Universal), got a new game system (a Wii), I got a new compy AND an iPhone. I also think my 3 point percentage went up slightly, although I have no realistic way of gauging that, except by saying my pursuits for errant basketballs seemed to taper off.
So the main purpose of this blog is to announce one of my new Year's resolutions is to blog more than I did this year (which for you counting at home was 1. Erm, this one, to be exact.) I also hope to lose weight, learn a foreign language, and read 5 of the 100 Greatest Novels ever written. Lord knows why I'm posting this so everyone can see it -- I think most people keep their resolutions to themselves and that way the inevitable dissapointment never gets past the 1st person. But, it never hurts to shoot big, either. So add these to the list:
* Win the lottery.
* Write the Great American Novel (or short of that, the Decent Armenian Novel.)
*Develop a sustainable way to teleport large distances.
*Challenge some of pro wrestling's greatest sports entertainers to a game of Scrabble
*Finally contact that dude that dude from Nigeria about transferring his fortune to America
Whew! Even for me, that's a lot! But stay tuned to this blog and we'll see how much I can accomplish....
Yeah, this corner of the 'net certainly got a little dusty. As much as I would like to blame my uncover spy missions or being kidnapped by pirates in the Pacific Ocean, it was merely laziness that kept me from posting to you all. Well, and also much of this past year has been devoted to having foster children in the household, and we have had a busy year in that regard. There's been less than 20 days this year that the house has not had ANY kids in it, and most of the year we've had at least 2. Alas, confidentiality clauses in our contract forbid us from mentioning the kids who reside here and any tangible way (like if we had a child in our care called Shazam, every time we would mention the child, it would look like " 'S' had a good day at school today, and then had karate practice, etc etc.") but if you want to get all Cliff's Notesy, the police were here multiple times, and there was more than one occurrence of lighters being stolen/"found" and misused. Thankfully, there was no lasting damage to persons or properties, and everyone got an appropriate punishment. Other than that, as far as huge news that's occured since my last post, my beloved Dodge Neon as on the IR after an accident in Monroe. So we have a new van and I am now chiefly driving the old one. We also changed cable providers (out: Dish Network, in: AT&T Universal), got a new game system (a Wii), I got a new compy AND an iPhone. I also think my 3 point percentage went up slightly, although I have no realistic way of gauging that, except by saying my pursuits for errant basketballs seemed to taper off.
So the main purpose of this blog is to announce one of my new Year's resolutions is to blog more than I did this year (which for you counting at home was 1. Erm, this one, to be exact.) I also hope to lose weight, learn a foreign language, and read 5 of the 100 Greatest Novels ever written. Lord knows why I'm posting this so everyone can see it -- I think most people keep their resolutions to themselves and that way the inevitable dissapointment never gets past the 1st person. But, it never hurts to shoot big, either. So add these to the list:
* Win the lottery.
* Write the Great American Novel (or short of that, the Decent Armenian Novel.)
*Develop a sustainable way to teleport large distances.
*Challenge some of pro wrestling's greatest sports entertainers to a game of Scrabble
*Finally contact that dude that dude from Nigeria about transferring his fortune to America
Whew! Even for me, that's a lot! But stay tuned to this blog and we'll see how much I can accomplish....
Monday, November 30, 2009
It's the Holiday Season....
...so hoop de doop, and dickery-dock. (Don't ask me, Frank Sinatra sang it.)
It's been an interesting start to the stretch from Thanksgiving to Christmas, more from the personal end than the job end. Heck, the job half of the equation I half-expect to be chaotic, stressful and basically a pressure cooker. I'll start the narrative last Wednesday, when Kel and I put our initial holiday plans into play. Kel and I had planned to go up to her folks' estate in Sauk City, where we would dine with the fam and she would go to the new Twilight: New Moon with her sister (who oh-so-conveniently lives across the street from the parentals) and I would hang out in the basement and watch DVDs. We would spend the night there, take part in the preparation and consumption of the Thanksgiving feast the day after. After watching some televised football, I would drive back home Thursday evening to work at 6 a.m. Black Friday morn while Kel, her sister, mother and aunt would scour the doorbuster ads and plan their early Friday strategy accordingly.
So I get done with work, get packed for the little trip and soon we were off, she in the van and I in the red Neon. The whole way it is raining cats and dogs, so we take the highway instead of the interstate. Once the highway meets Madison's beltway, traffic has slowed to a crawl and we get separated (no doubt because I am an over-cautious driver and she's a decent driver.) So I eventually meet her at the in-laws, which is...empty. They had gone out to eat in Baraboo 35 minutes previous. Kel's sister soon arrives and she is not feeling well at all. So no dinner, no movie. Kel decided to chek in with her aunt, who was staying at a hotel at the Dells. On a lark, we contact the hotel itself to see if they had any openings. The clerk told her the regular rate (which was a little above the imaginary price in our collective mind) but then gave us a much lower rate if we came in that night (which our collective mind liked.) If nothing else, it meant not having to share a twin bed in the basement, which by previous experience is a bit cramped. We left the car in the parents' driveway and drove the van up to Tourist Trap USA, er, Wisconsin Dells.
We checked back with Kel's aunt who gave us general directions to the hotel. We agreed that we would find the hotel and then find somewhere close to there to eat, sicne we were both famished at that point. It only took us one wrong turn and some clever guessing, but we found the place and then took off to the nearest Mickie D's to catch some quick grub. There, we were surprised to find out the assortment of things that normally came to about $11 in town cost over $20 at the Dells! (We should have been suspicious when we looked at the Drive-Through menu and saw no Dollar Menu... the McDouble cost $1.70!) We passed and instead went to a Burger King, where the prices were a little more reasonable AND they had little Twilight: New Moon postcards with coupons on the back. Score?!
At the hotel, we figured out why we got such an awesome rate, because the place was practically deserted -- if the hotel from the Shining had an indoor pool park, that would have been the place we were staying. We ate, watched a little TV and then decided to try out the pool facilities. (Since we knew Kel's Aunt was staying there, we had packed swim trunks anyway in case we decided to do some post-turkey swimming.) The hotel had two separate pool areas on the grounds: we went to the smaller one as it was doors away from our room, but it still had a generous pool with a small slide, a hot tub and a steam room (which sadly was out-of-order.) Kel and I spent most of the time in the tub, and her aunt and uncle joined us soon afterward. We had a lovely conversation that I heard about ten words of; with the hot tub bubblings and a child's birthday party happening nearby, I could basically see jaws move and little else, so I just nodded occasionally, hoping that would cover. After hitting the main pool for a spell and another hot-tub soak, we said our good-byes and headed back to our room, where we watched some DVDs before getting some shut-eye.
Morning found us behind schedule and in packing to leave we nearly forgot our swim outfits. While still at the Dells, we got a pivotal Thanksgiving paper stuffed with all the Black Friday ads and then took the short drive south back to Kel's folks. When we got there, Kel's dad tried to get me to help him out with something on the computer, which we figured out after Kel came in. It seemed a little tense for whatever reason, which was weird because not only was it Thanksgiving but it also happened to be Kel's sister's birthday. So the birthday girl came over, we lengthened the table to accomedate everyone, and the newspaper began to get dissected as the turkey was tanning.
I was going through an ad so I missed the main brunt of it, but words were exchanged between parents and kids, Tracy was out the door and we soon followed. Tracy walked back to her house and after getting the Aunt and Uncle from the hotel into the house without actually entering the house, we decided to head back home. Kel's folks have had a lot of stuff on their plate this month (we had just buried Kel's grandma a few weeks before) and rather than take part in potential fireworks just decided to bow out. Don't get me wrong -- I love eating turkey, potatoes and all that jazz but it seemed to me there was a black cloud looming over the whole thing. So we headed back to home and had a quiet Turkey Day with us and the doggies. (Kel's sister returned to the house after a bit and the rest of the party had their dinner as scheduled, and even went to the nearby casino.) Kel cooked up some cocktail weinies and that was our holiday dinner. Obviously it was not at all how we planned it, but it was still cool, and it really showed how tight a couple we are that we were still able to enjoy it. I really can't commentate on what went or will go on with Kel's folks; I guess time will tell.
Among the notable drawbacks to un-inviting ourselves to the Thanksgiving meal was leaving the ad paper at the house -- we visited a gas station because the Neon was running on vapors, and a large paper right by the doors said "SORRY NO PAPERS." I suspect they weren't the only ones. As it turned out, the only Door Buster sale I attended was the one I, you know, get paid for. Working at a 24-hour store makes doing early morning sales a bit strange, as the whole need for someone to actually open the door to begin the sale is eliminated. Previously, we had started the sale at 6 a.m. and had someone behind each and every register, which guaranteed at least 90 minutes of white-knuckle cashiering. This year, the powers that be decided to start the sale at midnight, which meant the white-hot portion of shopping was handled by our graveyard shift, who reported that they were crazy busy for about two hours. While it must have sucked for them, it was nice to have a pretty quiet, unpanicked morning as far as customers went. Of course, we did have to unload and put away a 550-plus piece truck, so at least we weren't bored -- and it did seem to pick up after 1pm. After my shift, I looked for a few things at Target, went back to my job to get the best sales there (Patroit Candles 3 for the price of 1 and $1.99 Red baron Pizza and $1.99 pints of Ben and Jerry) and cleaned up my office as Kel had gone to Madison with her sister to see New Moon and 2012.
Saturday we cleaned the house a tad before visiting one of Kel's cousins for an early dinner in Rockford. We took a scenic route to avoid the tolls and made one wrong turn so we were a little late to meet cousin and hubby. The place had the same general idea as Kel's current fave Madison restaurant Hu Hot, so we went to see how close it was to that. I thought it was OK, but I am also not as big a fan of the "put all your ingedients in a bowl and we'll cook it" style. Since my knowledge of cooking techniques doesn't go much beyond preparing freaking Jello, I'm not the person to know what sauces and spices go with each meat, etc etc. So I basically wing it with each successive trip and while I like everything, nothing knocks me out enough stay with something consistently. (Once I get a combination I like at a restaurant, it's always good, which is reflected in my loyalty to my local Subways and Qudobas.)
After our meal, we departed to head back home and decided to hit the Target in the next town north and see if there were any great sales left to test our newly expanded Target card limit. Without saying too much, we gave it a good test. Kel got a new jacket, we got a new scanner and I got new work pants and a crap-ton of DVDs and milk (which was the only thing we truly came in for.) We were home by 8:30pm, which still gave us enough time to go to my work's holiday party which was fun, if sparsely attended. (We had the party at a bowling alley, which allowed me to display my sub-triple digits bowling dominance, which paired with three other co-workers who actually bowl more than once a decade guaranteed me last place.)
The next day brought a new wrinkle to my day-to-day, which was working on Sunday, which I hadn't done since I got promoted back in March. I had forgotten what a different pace and wavelength working on Sundays is. That might sound funny for those of you reading who don't work retail, but every day has a different vibe -- both referring to days of the week and the weather outside. Sundays happen to be the first day of our sales flyers, so we get a steady stream of bargain shoppers who fill their carts to bursting. It was also cold, so people seemed more likely to wheel around the store leisurely. Normally, Sundays in winters are quieter but since the Packers had already played Thanksgiving Day, that didn't seem to be the case this Sunday. Whether it was working Sunday, having three days off or working more of a mid-day shift (I started at 10am when usually I come in at 7:30am at the latest) I wasn't feeling it 100% but still got most of my projects done. With time and routine, that'll change. The worst thing about working Sundays mean I'll have to miss a few Packers games, but that's why there are DVRs, I suppose.
Believe it or not, we're looking pretty good coming up to Christmas. Almost all of our holiday gifts are purchased and ready to be wrapped, and that for me is the most stressful part of all. The tree, the trimming, the endless parade of Christmas programming, all of that is a little easier if the gifts have been bought already. So whatever holiday or holidays you have coming up, I sincerely hope your next few weeks are plagued with as little stress as possible. And maybe Santa Adam will write a blog or two in December.
It's been an interesting start to the stretch from Thanksgiving to Christmas, more from the personal end than the job end. Heck, the job half of the equation I half-expect to be chaotic, stressful and basically a pressure cooker. I'll start the narrative last Wednesday, when Kel and I put our initial holiday plans into play. Kel and I had planned to go up to her folks' estate in Sauk City, where we would dine with the fam and she would go to the new Twilight: New Moon with her sister (who oh-so-conveniently lives across the street from the parentals) and I would hang out in the basement and watch DVDs. We would spend the night there, take part in the preparation and consumption of the Thanksgiving feast the day after. After watching some televised football, I would drive back home Thursday evening to work at 6 a.m. Black Friday morn while Kel, her sister, mother and aunt would scour the doorbuster ads and plan their early Friday strategy accordingly.
So I get done with work, get packed for the little trip and soon we were off, she in the van and I in the red Neon. The whole way it is raining cats and dogs, so we take the highway instead of the interstate. Once the highway meets Madison's beltway, traffic has slowed to a crawl and we get separated (no doubt because I am an over-cautious driver and she's a decent driver.) So I eventually meet her at the in-laws, which is...empty. They had gone out to eat in Baraboo 35 minutes previous. Kel's sister soon arrives and she is not feeling well at all. So no dinner, no movie. Kel decided to chek in with her aunt, who was staying at a hotel at the Dells. On a lark, we contact the hotel itself to see if they had any openings. The clerk told her the regular rate (which was a little above the imaginary price in our collective mind) but then gave us a much lower rate if we came in that night (which our collective mind liked.) If nothing else, it meant not having to share a twin bed in the basement, which by previous experience is a bit cramped. We left the car in the parents' driveway and drove the van up to Tourist Trap USA, er, Wisconsin Dells.
We checked back with Kel's aunt who gave us general directions to the hotel. We agreed that we would find the hotel and then find somewhere close to there to eat, sicne we were both famished at that point. It only took us one wrong turn and some clever guessing, but we found the place and then took off to the nearest Mickie D's to catch some quick grub. There, we were surprised to find out the assortment of things that normally came to about $11 in town cost over $20 at the Dells! (We should have been suspicious when we looked at the Drive-Through menu and saw no Dollar Menu... the McDouble cost $1.70!) We passed and instead went to a Burger King, where the prices were a little more reasonable AND they had little Twilight: New Moon postcards with coupons on the back. Score?!
At the hotel, we figured out why we got such an awesome rate, because the place was practically deserted -- if the hotel from the Shining had an indoor pool park, that would have been the place we were staying. We ate, watched a little TV and then decided to try out the pool facilities. (Since we knew Kel's Aunt was staying there, we had packed swim trunks anyway in case we decided to do some post-turkey swimming.) The hotel had two separate pool areas on the grounds: we went to the smaller one as it was doors away from our room, but it still had a generous pool with a small slide, a hot tub and a steam room (which sadly was out-of-order.) Kel and I spent most of the time in the tub, and her aunt and uncle joined us soon afterward. We had a lovely conversation that I heard about ten words of; with the hot tub bubblings and a child's birthday party happening nearby, I could basically see jaws move and little else, so I just nodded occasionally, hoping that would cover. After hitting the main pool for a spell and another hot-tub soak, we said our good-byes and headed back to our room, where we watched some DVDs before getting some shut-eye.
Morning found us behind schedule and in packing to leave we nearly forgot our swim outfits. While still at the Dells, we got a pivotal Thanksgiving paper stuffed with all the Black Friday ads and then took the short drive south back to Kel's folks. When we got there, Kel's dad tried to get me to help him out with something on the computer, which we figured out after Kel came in. It seemed a little tense for whatever reason, which was weird because not only was it Thanksgiving but it also happened to be Kel's sister's birthday. So the birthday girl came over, we lengthened the table to accomedate everyone, and the newspaper began to get dissected as the turkey was tanning.
I was going through an ad so I missed the main brunt of it, but words were exchanged between parents and kids, Tracy was out the door and we soon followed. Tracy walked back to her house and after getting the Aunt and Uncle from the hotel into the house without actually entering the house, we decided to head back home. Kel's folks have had a lot of stuff on their plate this month (we had just buried Kel's grandma a few weeks before) and rather than take part in potential fireworks just decided to bow out. Don't get me wrong -- I love eating turkey, potatoes and all that jazz but it seemed to me there was a black cloud looming over the whole thing. So we headed back to home and had a quiet Turkey Day with us and the doggies. (Kel's sister returned to the house after a bit and the rest of the party had their dinner as scheduled, and even went to the nearby casino.) Kel cooked up some cocktail weinies and that was our holiday dinner. Obviously it was not at all how we planned it, but it was still cool, and it really showed how tight a couple we are that we were still able to enjoy it. I really can't commentate on what went or will go on with Kel's folks; I guess time will tell.
Among the notable drawbacks to un-inviting ourselves to the Thanksgiving meal was leaving the ad paper at the house -- we visited a gas station because the Neon was running on vapors, and a large paper right by the doors said "SORRY NO PAPERS." I suspect they weren't the only ones. As it turned out, the only Door Buster sale I attended was the one I, you know, get paid for. Working at a 24-hour store makes doing early morning sales a bit strange, as the whole need for someone to actually open the door to begin the sale is eliminated. Previously, we had started the sale at 6 a.m. and had someone behind each and every register, which guaranteed at least 90 minutes of white-knuckle cashiering. This year, the powers that be decided to start the sale at midnight, which meant the white-hot portion of shopping was handled by our graveyard shift, who reported that they were crazy busy for about two hours. While it must have sucked for them, it was nice to have a pretty quiet, unpanicked morning as far as customers went. Of course, we did have to unload and put away a 550-plus piece truck, so at least we weren't bored -- and it did seem to pick up after 1pm. After my shift, I looked for a few things at Target, went back to my job to get the best sales there (Patroit Candles 3 for the price of 1 and $1.99 Red baron Pizza and $1.99 pints of Ben and Jerry) and cleaned up my office as Kel had gone to Madison with her sister to see New Moon and 2012.
Saturday we cleaned the house a tad before visiting one of Kel's cousins for an early dinner in Rockford. We took a scenic route to avoid the tolls and made one wrong turn so we were a little late to meet cousin and hubby. The place had the same general idea as Kel's current fave Madison restaurant Hu Hot, so we went to see how close it was to that. I thought it was OK, but I am also not as big a fan of the "put all your ingedients in a bowl and we'll cook it" style. Since my knowledge of cooking techniques doesn't go much beyond preparing freaking Jello, I'm not the person to know what sauces and spices go with each meat, etc etc. So I basically wing it with each successive trip and while I like everything, nothing knocks me out enough stay with something consistently. (Once I get a combination I like at a restaurant, it's always good, which is reflected in my loyalty to my local Subways and Qudobas.)
After our meal, we departed to head back home and decided to hit the Target in the next town north and see if there were any great sales left to test our newly expanded Target card limit. Without saying too much, we gave it a good test. Kel got a new jacket, we got a new scanner and I got new work pants and a crap-ton of DVDs and milk (which was the only thing we truly came in for.) We were home by 8:30pm, which still gave us enough time to go to my work's holiday party which was fun, if sparsely attended. (We had the party at a bowling alley, which allowed me to display my sub-triple digits bowling dominance, which paired with three other co-workers who actually bowl more than once a decade guaranteed me last place.)
The next day brought a new wrinkle to my day-to-day, which was working on Sunday, which I hadn't done since I got promoted back in March. I had forgotten what a different pace and wavelength working on Sundays is. That might sound funny for those of you reading who don't work retail, but every day has a different vibe -- both referring to days of the week and the weather outside. Sundays happen to be the first day of our sales flyers, so we get a steady stream of bargain shoppers who fill their carts to bursting. It was also cold, so people seemed more likely to wheel around the store leisurely. Normally, Sundays in winters are quieter but since the Packers had already played Thanksgiving Day, that didn't seem to be the case this Sunday. Whether it was working Sunday, having three days off or working more of a mid-day shift (I started at 10am when usually I come in at 7:30am at the latest) I wasn't feeling it 100% but still got most of my projects done. With time and routine, that'll change. The worst thing about working Sundays mean I'll have to miss a few Packers games, but that's why there are DVRs, I suppose.
Believe it or not, we're looking pretty good coming up to Christmas. Almost all of our holiday gifts are purchased and ready to be wrapped, and that for me is the most stressful part of all. The tree, the trimming, the endless parade of Christmas programming, all of that is a little easier if the gifts have been bought already. So whatever holiday or holidays you have coming up, I sincerely hope your next few weeks are plagued with as little stress as possible. And maybe Santa Adam will write a blog or two in December.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Weekend notes
I tend to leave my little blog corner a little dusty, and for that I apologize to the ones and ones of you that actually read this. There is a rather large blog post that is ongoing and will dwarf any of my other posts, but as it is ongoing, I will make a pitstop and describe my weekend and what I did.
When I came home Friday afternoon, Kel and I did some last minute house-tidying. This was our weekend of respite for two sets of two kids (we will refer to them as M(f), M(m), R and A, as per foster care decorum in concealing identities.) M(f) and M(m) were to arrive right around 5pm, but they had some home issues to resolve and they didn't find their way here until just about 6:45pm. We are quite friendly with their foster mom so we were told that they would be in trouble for a few things, and we followed through once they got there. We've had all four kids in the past so we know what mischief they can get into, but it helped that M&M would have an evening to themselves to get settled in. A & R were to arrive Saturday morning, and lucky Kel would get to supervise/police/referee their morning and afternoon monkeyshines, as I (irony alert) would attend a foster care workshop. (Our agency requires foster parents to procure 24 hours of workshop training -- Saturday would enable me to lob off a quarter of that in one fell swoop) Everyone was supposed to pass a dish around so Kel found a recipe and I did some late-night grocery shopping to get some ingredients, as well as returning some overdue library stuff. I picked the grocery closest to the library, which is not my favorite but it's lack of customers ensured my full slob dress attire (generic Madison t-shirt with flimsy Gears of War sweats) would be noticed by as few folks as possible.
As Saturday morn arrived, I beat everyone to the morning sun, and was able to get a load of dishes and laundry going before attending to kids waking up. M&M got up around 8ish, we talked for a little bit and then Kel came down as well. R&A came about a half hour late, which wouldn'tve been an issue had we not said M&M could eat when they arrived. So as all four kids got situated, we realized the number one requested breakfast option (toast) was scandalously low, and so off I can to the local gas station conveneince store. Grabbed the bread, went up to pay...and my debit card is not in the debit card slot. I have the cashier hold my purchase, I mentally re-trace my steps, and start rifling through the car in search of my card. I fail to find it, realize my wife's purse (and, by extension, debit card) is in the back seat, and jazz improv off of that to get my vittles. I get home, breakfast continues to be served, Kel goes through a list of house rules and responsibilities charts to keep the Four Horsekids at bay, and before I know it, I'm off to Milton and training.
The training was pretty low-key; it was me and one other older couple. The first half was a DVD on parental guidence of teens based on logic and love, which Cliff-Notes into letting your child have choices and have them learn from the mistakes they make along the way. Some of it made sense, some of it I questioned. Overall I'm noticing with these presentations the people doing them try too hard to be comedians, so it comes off like open mic night for doctors and pyschologists. After a lunch (spicy chili and the dessert Kel made for me) we went to the second half, which was an audio presentation on grief and coping by the same guy that was on the DVD. Having the voice with nothing to attach it to was a struggle, as the educator guy had a sing-songy, melliflous voice that caused more than a few eyelids to flutter. His main brunt of handlibng tough sitautions was to talk it through with the kids by asking the right questions and offering your own analysis of it as one of many tactics. Again, thumbs up on some, thumbs down on others, and the two minute examples of his plan "working" sounded unconvincing. We were able to wrap up a few minutes early, so I headed back to the car and searched a bit more for the debit card, which I eventually found in that half-inch of carpet floor between the passenger seat and passenger door.
Back home, Kel had a friend of hers over I hadn't yet met as well as her infant son. We chewed the fat for a bit, got dinner ready as by now it was almost 5pm, and brought the kids downstairs. The rest of the night the kids watched a Halloween movie on one of the Disney networks, played a Press Your Luck DVD game and then some full band Guitar Hero where I played roadie/band manager/instrument assigner. And then, after a few too many interband arguments/ego trips (which, considering their instrumental acumen was roughly The Shaggs Pop Warner level, was a bit funny) I played Yoko Ono and broke up the band with a quick flick of the power switch. It was almost time for them to head up to bed, anyway, but they managed to soothe over any hurt feelings. After going through their responsibilities charts and figuring out the perfect balance of in-room lights (for the boys, one night light; the huge lamp for the girls), I computed while they and Kel went off to dreamland.
When the alarm went off Sunday morning, I habitually did my snooze tap and turned to Kel's side of the bed, which was empty. I took this as an excuse to sleep in a little, and had it budgeted to be longer, but even the best of dreams will be interrupted by a black lab sitting on your head. (The dream as I remember it was quite a doozy; Kel and I had bought an old Prange Way department store as the rent was low --- $200/month -- and we actually lived in the department store, except people still tried to enter the store to shop and the dogs kept going out the automatic doors. So we took our complaints to the mayor, whose office told us to wait as he was "getting prepared" and as Kel and I waited in the lobby, we saw people frantically taping up sheets of paper to the mayor's door. Curious, I peeked through a corner of the window that had not been covered up and saw a bunch of people creating this paper mache fellow with bits of newspaper and rubber cement. That's when the alarm went off.)
All the kids were scheduled to be gone by 9am: R & A's ride came almost right on schedule and M&M left about 35 minutes later. (They forgot their school folders, which had projects they were to do that day.) I picked up here and there, pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things had gone and how much of the day I had to loaf around. Then, Kel decided to go see her sister in Sauk City, leaving me to myself for the rest of the day.
It's amazing how much little I did. I watched the Pack game, which was probably one of the most underwhelming 26-0 victories an NFL team can have. (The New England Patroits in the 3pm slot took it upon themselves to deliver the Week 1 Tecmo Bowl stomping we should have delivered.) The Ravens came **this** close to ending the Vikings' perfect season, which I didn't mind much as it keeps the hope alive that the Pack can hang their first L on them in Lambeau. I did a little computing, way too much Bejeweled, made a half-hearted stab at re-organizing my CDs, which are mostly corralled in cardboard boxes at the moment, and watched Amazing Race which was fun, despite my favorite team being booted the week previous. (And which I would have missed had it not been for me coming down to check on it -- CBS having a football doubleheader almost always wreaks havoc on the primetime schedule, and so my 7pm show did not start until 8:15pm!)
So another five days of work loom in the morning. Plus, Kel's grandma has been in the hospital, and she is having some procedure done Monday, and having loved ones around at times like those always helps. So I end this at the stroke of midnight, which will guarantee me yawns for most of the morn.
When I came home Friday afternoon, Kel and I did some last minute house-tidying. This was our weekend of respite for two sets of two kids (we will refer to them as M(f), M(m), R and A, as per foster care decorum in concealing identities.) M(f) and M(m) were to arrive right around 5pm, but they had some home issues to resolve and they didn't find their way here until just about 6:45pm. We are quite friendly with their foster mom so we were told that they would be in trouble for a few things, and we followed through once they got there. We've had all four kids in the past so we know what mischief they can get into, but it helped that M&M would have an evening to themselves to get settled in. A & R were to arrive Saturday morning, and lucky Kel would get to supervise/police/referee their morning and afternoon monkeyshines, as I (irony alert) would attend a foster care workshop. (Our agency requires foster parents to procure 24 hours of workshop training -- Saturday would enable me to lob off a quarter of that in one fell swoop) Everyone was supposed to pass a dish around so Kel found a recipe and I did some late-night grocery shopping to get some ingredients, as well as returning some overdue library stuff. I picked the grocery closest to the library, which is not my favorite but it's lack of customers ensured my full slob dress attire (generic Madison t-shirt with flimsy Gears of War sweats) would be noticed by as few folks as possible.
As Saturday morn arrived, I beat everyone to the morning sun, and was able to get a load of dishes and laundry going before attending to kids waking up. M&M got up around 8ish, we talked for a little bit and then Kel came down as well. R&A came about a half hour late, which wouldn'tve been an issue had we not said M&M could eat when they arrived. So as all four kids got situated, we realized the number one requested breakfast option (toast) was scandalously low, and so off I can to the local gas station conveneince store. Grabbed the bread, went up to pay...and my debit card is not in the debit card slot. I have the cashier hold my purchase, I mentally re-trace my steps, and start rifling through the car in search of my card. I fail to find it, realize my wife's purse (and, by extension, debit card) is in the back seat, and jazz improv off of that to get my vittles. I get home, breakfast continues to be served, Kel goes through a list of house rules and responsibilities charts to keep the Four Horsekids at bay, and before I know it, I'm off to Milton and training.
The training was pretty low-key; it was me and one other older couple. The first half was a DVD on parental guidence of teens based on logic and love, which Cliff-Notes into letting your child have choices and have them learn from the mistakes they make along the way. Some of it made sense, some of it I questioned. Overall I'm noticing with these presentations the people doing them try too hard to be comedians, so it comes off like open mic night for doctors and pyschologists. After a lunch (spicy chili and the dessert Kel made for me) we went to the second half, which was an audio presentation on grief and coping by the same guy that was on the DVD. Having the voice with nothing to attach it to was a struggle, as the educator guy had a sing-songy, melliflous voice that caused more than a few eyelids to flutter. His main brunt of handlibng tough sitautions was to talk it through with the kids by asking the right questions and offering your own analysis of it as one of many tactics. Again, thumbs up on some, thumbs down on others, and the two minute examples of his plan "working" sounded unconvincing. We were able to wrap up a few minutes early, so I headed back to the car and searched a bit more for the debit card, which I eventually found in that half-inch of carpet floor between the passenger seat and passenger door.
Back home, Kel had a friend of hers over I hadn't yet met as well as her infant son. We chewed the fat for a bit, got dinner ready as by now it was almost 5pm, and brought the kids downstairs. The rest of the night the kids watched a Halloween movie on one of the Disney networks, played a Press Your Luck DVD game and then some full band Guitar Hero where I played roadie/band manager/instrument assigner. And then, after a few too many interband arguments/ego trips (which, considering their instrumental acumen was roughly The Shaggs Pop Warner level, was a bit funny) I played Yoko Ono and broke up the band with a quick flick of the power switch. It was almost time for them to head up to bed, anyway, but they managed to soothe over any hurt feelings. After going through their responsibilities charts and figuring out the perfect balance of in-room lights (for the boys, one night light; the huge lamp for the girls), I computed while they and Kel went off to dreamland.
When the alarm went off Sunday morning, I habitually did my snooze tap and turned to Kel's side of the bed, which was empty. I took this as an excuse to sleep in a little, and had it budgeted to be longer, but even the best of dreams will be interrupted by a black lab sitting on your head. (The dream as I remember it was quite a doozy; Kel and I had bought an old Prange Way department store as the rent was low --- $200/month -- and we actually lived in the department store, except people still tried to enter the store to shop and the dogs kept going out the automatic doors. So we took our complaints to the mayor, whose office told us to wait as he was "getting prepared" and as Kel and I waited in the lobby, we saw people frantically taping up sheets of paper to the mayor's door. Curious, I peeked through a corner of the window that had not been covered up and saw a bunch of people creating this paper mache fellow with bits of newspaper and rubber cement. That's when the alarm went off.)
All the kids were scheduled to be gone by 9am: R & A's ride came almost right on schedule and M&M left about 35 minutes later. (They forgot their school folders, which had projects they were to do that day.) I picked up here and there, pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things had gone and how much of the day I had to loaf around. Then, Kel decided to go see her sister in Sauk City, leaving me to myself for the rest of the day.
It's amazing how much little I did. I watched the Pack game, which was probably one of the most underwhelming 26-0 victories an NFL team can have. (The New England Patroits in the 3pm slot took it upon themselves to deliver the Week 1 Tecmo Bowl stomping we should have delivered.) The Ravens came **this** close to ending the Vikings' perfect season, which I didn't mind much as it keeps the hope alive that the Pack can hang their first L on them in Lambeau. I did a little computing, way too much Bejeweled, made a half-hearted stab at re-organizing my CDs, which are mostly corralled in cardboard boxes at the moment, and watched Amazing Race which was fun, despite my favorite team being booted the week previous. (And which I would have missed had it not been for me coming down to check on it -- CBS having a football doubleheader almost always wreaks havoc on the primetime schedule, and so my 7pm show did not start until 8:15pm!)
So another five days of work loom in the morning. Plus, Kel's grandma has been in the hospital, and she is having some procedure done Monday, and having loved ones around at times like those always helps. So I end this at the stroke of midnight, which will guarantee me yawns for most of the morn.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Adam Has a Posse...
...well, OK, gathering a posse. *sigh* OK, to be more honest, a group.
As a megasuperhumongous music fan, I'm always looking for other people who are into music. One of the best places that I know of is last.fm. I have pimped it many a time, and will continue to do so. What last.fm does is keep track of the music you listen to on your iTunes through an app called AudioScrobbler. The device "scrobbles" the tracks you listen, whether on shuffle, playlists, albums, etc. and sends that info to last.fm which tallies the artists you're listening to. From that data, last.fm suggests other artists you may also like and also finds people that share your musical taste. (It also opens up a Pandora's Box of metadata stat geekery that you could break down like fantasy football addicts, but that's another post.) From last.fm I have met people literally around the world who also display their musical tastes for all to see, both as individual friends and as groups of various musical ideologies. One I happily discovered was called the Weekly Album Appreciation Club in which we dissect a new and different work each week or so. From this group, I've gotten into stuff by The Walkmen and The Wipers and other bands that don't begin with "W." At some point late this summer, I thought, this group is neat, but what if we did it face to face in person?
And so in late August/early September I sent a Craigslist post to the Janesville and Madison boards putting out feelers for a CD of the Month club. A few people responded, this led to that, and so tomorrow we're having our first meeting. We as yet do not have a name, but I have quiet confidence that will come in time. The debut meeting I'm planning as an informal meet and greet just to kind of see how people got to be into music, what they're into, etc. Our first CD of the month (which we will discuss at our second meeting proper) will be Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. I have no overriding reason for including it beyond it being very close to my person as I was thinking of candidates. (It's not even mine: I'm borrowing it from a friend.)
I'm kind of excited to see where the group goes from here. I've put off putting flyers in record stores/concert halls/coffeehouses because I want to more sure I have a good foundation to start from and I want people, at least in the start who are **honestly** into broadening their musical horizons and who aren't afraid to have a honest discussion about music. Obviously this idea is an offshoot of Books of the Month club or film discussion groups, but why isn't there a musical equivalent to this? Music is as important to the arts as books or film, so why should they not be as available as a subject? Maybe I'm the only one who gets that passionate about music and the meetings will turn into me lecturing the empty seats next to me. But I am hoping there are open-minded, music freaks like me who are excited and motivated to find new stuff for their ear-holes. If there is, then a posse I shall truly have. I'll keep you posted, maybe.
It's actually going to be a Sunday afternoon full of music for moi, as I have the meeting at 3pm and then at 8pm I'll be heading to the Majestic to watch Liam Finn + Eliza-Jane. Liam is the son of Crowded House figurehead Neil Finn (and by extension, the nephew of Tim Finn, who founded Split Enz and works with his brother here and there.) Eliza-Jane is a childhood friend of Liam's who's toured with him off and on for a few years. They have a joint EP called Champagne in Seashells and both are prominently featured in the recent 7 Worlds Collide project that also features all the Finns listed above, Radiohead, Johnny Marr, Wilco, KT Tunstall and many others. (Liam, in fact is playing this gig as a one-off, as he is actually opening up for Wilco in much larger venues throughout the Fall.) So it should be a fun gig, which would make it 2 great gigs in two weeks, as I saw Carbon Leaf, Toby Lightman and Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers two Sundays ago. And then Monday, some football game is on. Can't remember who's playing.
As a megasuperhumongous music fan, I'm always looking for other people who are into music. One of the best places that I know of is last.fm. I have pimped it many a time, and will continue to do so. What last.fm does is keep track of the music you listen to on your iTunes through an app called AudioScrobbler. The device "scrobbles" the tracks you listen, whether on shuffle, playlists, albums, etc. and sends that info to last.fm which tallies the artists you're listening to. From that data, last.fm suggests other artists you may also like and also finds people that share your musical taste. (It also opens up a Pandora's Box of metadata stat geekery that you could break down like fantasy football addicts, but that's another post.) From last.fm I have met people literally around the world who also display their musical tastes for all to see, both as individual friends and as groups of various musical ideologies. One I happily discovered was called the Weekly Album Appreciation Club in which we dissect a new and different work each week or so. From this group, I've gotten into stuff by The Walkmen and The Wipers and other bands that don't begin with "W." At some point late this summer, I thought, this group is neat, but what if we did it face to face in person?
And so in late August/early September I sent a Craigslist post to the Janesville and Madison boards putting out feelers for a CD of the Month club. A few people responded, this led to that, and so tomorrow we're having our first meeting. We as yet do not have a name, but I have quiet confidence that will come in time. The debut meeting I'm planning as an informal meet and greet just to kind of see how people got to be into music, what they're into, etc. Our first CD of the month (which we will discuss at our second meeting proper) will be Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. I have no overriding reason for including it beyond it being very close to my person as I was thinking of candidates. (It's not even mine: I'm borrowing it from a friend.)
I'm kind of excited to see where the group goes from here. I've put off putting flyers in record stores/concert halls/coffeehouses because I want to more sure I have a good foundation to start from and I want people, at least in the start who are **honestly** into broadening their musical horizons and who aren't afraid to have a honest discussion about music. Obviously this idea is an offshoot of Books of the Month club or film discussion groups, but why isn't there a musical equivalent to this? Music is as important to the arts as books or film, so why should they not be as available as a subject? Maybe I'm the only one who gets that passionate about music and the meetings will turn into me lecturing the empty seats next to me. But I am hoping there are open-minded, music freaks like me who are excited and motivated to find new stuff for their ear-holes. If there is, then a posse I shall truly have. I'll keep you posted, maybe.
It's actually going to be a Sunday afternoon full of music for moi, as I have the meeting at 3pm and then at 8pm I'll be heading to the Majestic to watch Liam Finn + Eliza-Jane. Liam is the son of Crowded House figurehead Neil Finn (and by extension, the nephew of Tim Finn, who founded Split Enz and works with his brother here and there.) Eliza-Jane is a childhood friend of Liam's who's toured with him off and on for a few years. They have a joint EP called Champagne in Seashells and both are prominently featured in the recent 7 Worlds Collide project that also features all the Finns listed above, Radiohead, Johnny Marr, Wilco, KT Tunstall and many others. (Liam, in fact is playing this gig as a one-off, as he is actually opening up for Wilco in much larger venues throughout the Fall.) So it should be a fun gig, which would make it 2 great gigs in two weeks, as I saw Carbon Leaf, Toby Lightman and Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers two Sundays ago. And then Monday, some football game is on. Can't remember who's playing.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
A Body at Rest Does Not Tend to Blog....
....but how about we try to refute that truism I just made up?
So yeah, today was the first day of a seven day break from my job. At my work, taking vacations the final two months of the year is a no-no. This means you must use your vacation days before October 31st and you lose them unless you can bank them. I had 8 days remaining and could only bank three, so I took Monday-Friday off and had the weekends off anyway, so that worked out well.
We had planned for about a month or so to head up to our parents' cottage in the northeastern part of WI, about 20 minutes away from the Michigan border. The cottage is nestled deep in the woods, and quite rustic; there's no indoor pumbling and our electricity will come from a gas generator. But I think it will be quite nice not to be tied to the internet or my Playstation or DishTV for a little bit. Not in any kind of Walt Whitman-esque yearning for the sanctity or nature, but just to be....away? If anything, it will be an adventure.
The last time we were up there was the last weekend we had the boy we had in our care for 1 1/4 years and he had a blast. My middle brother came up with his wife and their five kids and my folks came up, too. It was a nice goodbye to him under some less-than-ideal circumstances, so now hopefully this trip will allow Kel and I to have our own memories of "The Shack", as my mom refers to it.
Of course, as seems to happen with any long-term plan we start executing, we hit a few snags on the road. The main one came to light about three weeks ago when I got a call from Chris, a former co-worker who had worked her way up the ladder to where she had recently become the Operations Trainer for the group of stores in our territory, or "District" in our vernacular. I am currently doing the job she did when she worked at our store, and she helped train me when I was promoted back in March. I can't remember how the conversation flowed word-for-word, but basically she told me there were openings for her position at the Milwaukee district office and in her opinion I would be a great candidate. After a few fits and starts, I applied electronically and had it on my mental back-burner until this Sunday, when I realized going for the interview might mean curtailing or even cancelling the shack excursion. Obviously, for such an amazing opprotunity, I'd cancel it and not think twice about it -- you're not guaranteed any shots at the fabled "brass ring" so you go for it when such a chance falls in your lap.
One of the fellows whom was to interview me called just before I got home Tuesday, but he was gracious enough to give me his cell number, so I quickly called him back and it turned out he wanted to talk to me...but for scheduling purposes it pretty much had to be Friday morning in Milwaukee. It was nice that I didn't have to eat up part of a vacation day, but my store has a supply truck come in Friday AM and part of my duties entail scanning all the merch. I explained this to my interviewer and he said he didn't think it would be a problem and just to let my manager know. His intuition was correct -- my manager gave me the thumbs up and got the second-in-command to come in and replace me (thanks again, Troy!) so I could make my way. Since I was looking fairly shaggy, I got a haircut and -- for the first time in about eight years -- ended up with a complete lack of facial hair. Kel purchased me a nice little outfit, and by early Friday AM I was ready.
I took my Neon, which was badly in need of an oil change. As a result, I budgeted time for an oil change along the way. I stopped to the local lube joint just before 7am. The lights weren't on and there were no hours of operation posted, but there was a fellow behind the register, emmersed in a magazine. I got his attention, but he stated the store wouldn't open til 7:30am, which would not fit into my timetable. Instead of trying to Lincoln-Douglas my way into him opening early or finding another place, I made my way to the Cream City. "Hey," my internal logic joked as Janesville shrank in my rear-view, "if the car breaks down along the way, that's a big sign the job wasn't for you, anyway." My internal logic is such an optimist....
My voyage to Milwaukee was fairly smooth, my soundtrack provided by the newest Mew album (I won't type it out, this blog is long enough already) and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. The only minor hiccup was a minor misunderstanding of the Mapquest instructions I had transcribed in my notebook. (General hint: following step 8 becomes much easier when you make sure you've complete step 7 first. Oh numerical order, what would we do without you?) Even with the lovely detour around downtown Milwaukee, I still managed to end up at the locale with 20 minutes to spare.
It's weird how little I remember of the actual interview itself. I remember seeing my store's old pharmacy manager, as he had been promoted to a district position earlier in the summer, but other than that, I have snapshots in my head rather than discernable YouTube clips. I think by watching too many inspirational sport movies, people tend to equate Potentially Big Events with the dramatic slow motion scene where a second or two of real-time gets elongated to gain suspense and drama. That isn't really something you can convey by having two people on one side of a desk asking questions to a fellow on the other side. Still, the interview lasted right around the time budgeted and both of my interviewers seemed pretty upbeat at the end. I guess the future will tell. After stopping at the Walgreens for some liquid refreshment (my interview took place in a building with a Walgreens on one side, an empty shoe place on the other, and the Office up the stairs of an unmarked area between the two) I headed back to Janesville to finish my shift, but took a lunch break at the local Burger King as I had a Buy One Get One coupon for a chicken sandwich.
As I came back to work, I estimated I had three hours before I could punch out. Funny related note: if half your day is travelling multiple counties to take part in a potentially life-changing interview and then coming back, the other half of your day is going to go as slow as Paris Hilton doing long division. Maybe even longer. Still, eventually the little hand got 90 degrees to the right and my vacation time could offically begin.
Today was supposed to be Packing Day, and tomorrow we were to leave bright and early in order to meet the parentals in Green Bay at noon. But Kel has been sick all week, and my motivation to do anything is solely lacking. (Although I do have my clothes, most of my tolietries and a crap ton of books and board games ready to go as I type this.) I'm bringing a notebook and will hopefully have a few reflections while up there I'll jot down. Considering how earnestly I blog and transcribe stuff in my notebooks, expect the read the results... by 2010? Maybe?
So yeah, today was the first day of a seven day break from my job. At my work, taking vacations the final two months of the year is a no-no. This means you must use your vacation days before October 31st and you lose them unless you can bank them. I had 8 days remaining and could only bank three, so I took Monday-Friday off and had the weekends off anyway, so that worked out well.
We had planned for about a month or so to head up to our parents' cottage in the northeastern part of WI, about 20 minutes away from the Michigan border. The cottage is nestled deep in the woods, and quite rustic; there's no indoor pumbling and our electricity will come from a gas generator. But I think it will be quite nice not to be tied to the internet or my Playstation or DishTV for a little bit. Not in any kind of Walt Whitman-esque yearning for the sanctity or nature, but just to be....away? If anything, it will be an adventure.
The last time we were up there was the last weekend we had the boy we had in our care for 1 1/4 years and he had a blast. My middle brother came up with his wife and their five kids and my folks came up, too. It was a nice goodbye to him under some less-than-ideal circumstances, so now hopefully this trip will allow Kel and I to have our own memories of "The Shack", as my mom refers to it.
Of course, as seems to happen with any long-term plan we start executing, we hit a few snags on the road. The main one came to light about three weeks ago when I got a call from Chris, a former co-worker who had worked her way up the ladder to where she had recently become the Operations Trainer for the group of stores in our territory, or "District" in our vernacular. I am currently doing the job she did when she worked at our store, and she helped train me when I was promoted back in March. I can't remember how the conversation flowed word-for-word, but basically she told me there were openings for her position at the Milwaukee district office and in her opinion I would be a great candidate. After a few fits and starts, I applied electronically and had it on my mental back-burner until this Sunday, when I realized going for the interview might mean curtailing or even cancelling the shack excursion. Obviously, for such an amazing opprotunity, I'd cancel it and not think twice about it -- you're not guaranteed any shots at the fabled "brass ring" so you go for it when such a chance falls in your lap.
One of the fellows whom was to interview me called just before I got home Tuesday, but he was gracious enough to give me his cell number, so I quickly called him back and it turned out he wanted to talk to me...but for scheduling purposes it pretty much had to be Friday morning in Milwaukee. It was nice that I didn't have to eat up part of a vacation day, but my store has a supply truck come in Friday AM and part of my duties entail scanning all the merch. I explained this to my interviewer and he said he didn't think it would be a problem and just to let my manager know. His intuition was correct -- my manager gave me the thumbs up and got the second-in-command to come in and replace me (thanks again, Troy!) so I could make my way. Since I was looking fairly shaggy, I got a haircut and -- for the first time in about eight years -- ended up with a complete lack of facial hair. Kel purchased me a nice little outfit, and by early Friday AM I was ready.
I took my Neon, which was badly in need of an oil change. As a result, I budgeted time for an oil change along the way. I stopped to the local lube joint just before 7am. The lights weren't on and there were no hours of operation posted, but there was a fellow behind the register, emmersed in a magazine. I got his attention, but he stated the store wouldn't open til 7:30am, which would not fit into my timetable. Instead of trying to Lincoln-Douglas my way into him opening early or finding another place, I made my way to the Cream City. "Hey," my internal logic joked as Janesville shrank in my rear-view, "if the car breaks down along the way, that's a big sign the job wasn't for you, anyway." My internal logic is such an optimist....
My voyage to Milwaukee was fairly smooth, my soundtrack provided by the newest Mew album (I won't type it out, this blog is long enough already) and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. The only minor hiccup was a minor misunderstanding of the Mapquest instructions I had transcribed in my notebook. (General hint: following step 8 becomes much easier when you make sure you've complete step 7 first. Oh numerical order, what would we do without you?) Even with the lovely detour around downtown Milwaukee, I still managed to end up at the locale with 20 minutes to spare.
It's weird how little I remember of the actual interview itself. I remember seeing my store's old pharmacy manager, as he had been promoted to a district position earlier in the summer, but other than that, I have snapshots in my head rather than discernable YouTube clips. I think by watching too many inspirational sport movies, people tend to equate Potentially Big Events with the dramatic slow motion scene where a second or two of real-time gets elongated to gain suspense and drama. That isn't really something you can convey by having two people on one side of a desk asking questions to a fellow on the other side. Still, the interview lasted right around the time budgeted and both of my interviewers seemed pretty upbeat at the end. I guess the future will tell. After stopping at the Walgreens for some liquid refreshment (my interview took place in a building with a Walgreens on one side, an empty shoe place on the other, and the Office up the stairs of an unmarked area between the two) I headed back to Janesville to finish my shift, but took a lunch break at the local Burger King as I had a Buy One Get One coupon for a chicken sandwich.
As I came back to work, I estimated I had three hours before I could punch out. Funny related note: if half your day is travelling multiple counties to take part in a potentially life-changing interview and then coming back, the other half of your day is going to go as slow as Paris Hilton doing long division. Maybe even longer. Still, eventually the little hand got 90 degrees to the right and my vacation time could offically begin.
Today was supposed to be Packing Day, and tomorrow we were to leave bright and early in order to meet the parentals in Green Bay at noon. But Kel has been sick all week, and my motivation to do anything is solely lacking. (Although I do have my clothes, most of my tolietries and a crap ton of books and board games ready to go as I type this.) I'm bringing a notebook and will hopefully have a few reflections while up there I'll jot down. Considering how earnestly I blog and transcribe stuff in my notebooks, expect the read the results... by 2010? Maybe?
Friday, September 11, 2009
Remembering...
I’m gonna philosophize with you for a little bit. It’ll set up the main point on this blog, I assure you. It’s my assertion that there are two types of memories. The first is the kind that just sort of happens, like if you accidently hit the record button on your VCR or DVR and you get a small sliver of whatever’s happening at the time. Like when I hear the Beatles’ song “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” I flash back to being 4 or 5 years old in Green Bay, WI, coming home from shopping at the Port Plaza Mall. I’m in the back seat of the car, a brand new Presto Magix in my grubby lil mitts and we’re on the road on route to UWGB where Bay Beach Amusement Park is to your left and the Wildlife Sanctuary is to your right. I was digging to “doo waaa oooh” background vocals, and just then the car followed a curve so the sun hit me with the perfect amount of warmth. Now, there’s a million things I did as a kid that were more memorable, or meant more in the overall scheme of my life, but for whatever weird reason my brain took a hold of *that very moment* and I can recall it, even today, with crystal clear clarity. But my 8th grade graduation? Nope, don’t remember that.
The second type is the kind of feel obliged to remember, or you remember only because you would rather forget it. An example, keeping with the Beatles motif: I remember waiting for the school bus in the dining room, and I think it was cold and wintery. The radio was on but I wasn’t paying attention, and then my mom peeked around and told me John Lennon had died. Now I was 6 or 7, so I couldn’t claim to be that deeply affected by his stuff back then. But I remember how sad my mom was. I don’t think she was crying, but her face suddenly had this weight attached to it, something you could see and even feel to some degree. I also remember parts of Hands Across America, and that was specifically because I was **told** to remember it as it was going to be a great moment in our country’s history. (The fact that some of you may have to go to Wikipedia to find out what exactly “Hands Across America” is shows how insightful that advice was.) I mostly remember our small Catholic school and a few other people in a line of about 50, with no other clusters of hands to connect to the left or the right.For some bizarre reason I thought the line was going literally snake across the country and that you’d be able to see this huge mass of people on either side of you, and you would complete the connection wherever you were. Yes, I was a weird little kid. I also remember the Challenger exploding and them announcing it on the building’s PA. All the teachers took us to the gymnasium (at the time I went to a small Catholic grade school, so the whole K-8 was probably a little more than 100 people) and they wheeled out a 19 inch TV on one those wheelie holders that brought the TV up to about a six foot height and we watched a hour or so or the news coverage following the disaster. I still to this day cannot understand the internal logic behind that, beyond that it was a “historic” moment. Now on the less gloomy side of things, there are certain events in your life everyone seems to remember: your first kiss (hi, Kimberly!) Your first day on the job (ah, the carefree days of being a dishwasher at Ledge View Supper Club!) Your first day of school (crying at kindergarden, wanting to cry at high school, being at first overwhelmed and then bored in college, followed by my first of many walks from the Lakeshore dorms to State Street to pick up the new Sonic Youth CD.) The first time you touched a girl’s bra (again in college, a few weeks later....OK, the aforemantioned bra – a red one – was in the dryer as I was putting in my clothes, and I oh-so-smoothly asked the only other person there, “Uh, hey, uh, is this yours?” and indeed it was)
So obviously the date of my post might clue you in to where I’m going here. Yeah, 9/11 was an event few will ever forget, an event that shakes every generation exposed to it. Much like how your parents or grandparents can tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot or when man landed on the moon, the Internet generation can paint a pretty vivid picture of 9/11 through their eyes. My eyes at the time were spending my days at my future wife’s apartment in Mazomanie, small and cozy. We had been dating for a few months, and were starting to adjust to each other’s routines, and our main routine was our work schedules. I was an assistant manager at Walgreens in Madison, WI, specifically the store that used to be located at the Hilldale Mall. Being a manager meant you had erratic schedules, and so that Tuesday I was scheduled for the afternoon closing shift. This meant I got to sleep in, which even back then was a nice luxury. Kelley, however had a Monday to Friday morning gig at MCI Worldcom in Middleton, so by the time I woke up she was already dressed, arrived and punched in.
In the weeks before the event in question, the radio had started playing two different songs. One was “Rockin the Suburbs,” the first single from Ben Fold’s first solo album of the same name. I had enjoyed all the albums he had released with the Ben Folds Five, and enjoyed the single, which mocked the rap/rock genre that was florishing at the time. The second was by a (then) largely unheralded band from Canada called Nickelback. It was called “How You Remind Me” and Kelley really enjoyed cranking it up when it came on (which was a different station than Ben’s song, and played a lot more often) I had thought it would be a nice gesture to get her the CD when it came out, which happened to be September 11th. So around 8:30am, I woke up and got ready for work early. My plan was to get the CD at Target on the west side, which was the closest CD-selling store to her work, coming to her office and surprising her with it, and then maybe going out to lunch with her, giving me plenty of time to be at work by 1:00 pm. I had a love/hate relationship with the radio at the time, and pretty much the only time I would listen to the radio was AM radio, and then only when Jim “Pimp of Dead Air in the Box” Rome was on. Since it was not 11am yet, I decided to take a CD with. (My Buick did not have a CD stereo, so what I did was attached my Discman CD player to the dash with some cleverly placed velcro and plugged in the cassette adapter.) The CD in question was Split Enz’s Anniversary, which was a concert of the seminal New Zealand band’s 20 year reunion in the mid 90s. I’m not a super big Enz fan, but I am a big Crowded House fan (Neil Finn, before forming Crowded House was in Split Enz with his brother Tim, who would later briefly rejoin his little brother in Crowded House as well as the aptly named Finn Brothers) and found the Anniversary disc cheap enough to give it a shot. So as the Twin Towers burned and the Pentagon was breached, and as Flight 93 abruptedly landed in a pasture in Pennsylvania, I was heading into work early, listening to Split Enz, with no idea of the horror that was happening one time zone ahead of me.
My first inkling something had gone horribly wrong was when I stepped into Target and almost everyone – employees and customers alike – were huddled around the TVs right by the entrance gate. I thought this was weird until I turned toward the TVs and saw buildings with huge clouds of smoke coming out of them. Like the rest of the people I wacthed for what must have been a half hour, before the scene got too much for me. I wandered around, trying to distract myself from the ugliness of the TV. I saw the Ben Folds CD and then the Nickelback CD, and thought of purchasing both before remembering we were trying to save money to pay for a washer and dryer at Sears. So I just got the Nickelback CD and hurried back to the car, eager to surprise Kelley and discuss the crazy events that had happened just a couple hours before. By this time I knew how to get to MCI blindfolded and a few miles later, was in the building and heading up the elevator to the MCI office. What I saw when I got there I had never seen before during working hours: the entrance room was dark and there was no one behind the desk. Since that’s where Kelley was supposed to be, it was a little off-putting. I hung around the dimly lit office and went to the door where the main offices were. I heard a TV in the distance, filtering in the latest information on the attacks, and nothing else. I didn’t want to barge in, since I figured everyone’s collective paranoia was at a peak. So I wrote a quick note to Kel, stuffed it inside the Target bag with the CD, and headed to work.
I was about 2 ½ hours early, so I parked in the lot and just listened to the radio as facts and rumours trickled in. By noon I was hungry, so I walked in the mall to get my lunch special (the baked chicken breast at Sentry) and was taken aback at how barren the mall was. After eating, I came in to work, and everyone to a person was shellshocked and in a catatonic. And when I say “everyone” it was about five employees and maybe 10 or so customers the rest of the night. (They had closed the rest of the Mall around 2pm, but since Walgreens closes for absolutely NOTHING, we remained open regular hours, and they left the closest outside doors in the mall open just for us.) Some of my co-workers couldn’t stop talking about it, some were already tired of hearing about it. The canned muzak, either on the 11th or the day after, abruptedly changed to a mishmash of patriotic marches and pop songs with the word “America” or “USA” in them. Some were obvious (Lee Greenwood? You betcha) and others less so (there was a Frank Sinatra one right after Prince and The Revolution’s “America” that had ol’ Blue Eyes rhapsodizing about kids playing in the park) There were only about eight or nine songs in this instant mix, which despite the noble intent, made it really annoying really quickly. (Plus, it seemed to go on for the better part of a week, before the country was ready to heal and listen to Seals and Croft and Air Supply again.) All the way home, and then at home, was catching up with the crisis. Since we had no TV in the apartment, we listened to the boombox radio, which made it feel like my grandparents probably did when trying to get the latest on the wars of generations past.
In the days and weeks to follow, more would be learned of the attacks, and the nation's collective paranoia would level off to the point it could be rated and color-coded. The drive to and from work was now suddenly dotted with American flags on either side of the road. On a personal note, we would end up moving less than two months later, right next door to a post office, just as the anthrax terror would reach a fever pitch. (Despite the numerous signs they were legally obligated to tack up, our local postmasters in Arena, Wisconsin didn't seem too worried.) And yes, I did end up getting that Ben Folds CD a few days later from Kel.
Of course, I ‘celebrate’ not one, but two big events on 9/11. Because two years after the Towers fell, my wife was rear-ended by a semi on her way to work, the after-effects of which (bad back, numb leg) she suffers til this day. I only remember bits and pieces of that day (but I remember again I got to sleep in) other than Kel’s dad leaving a message, telling me Kel had been in an accident but that she was OK. It's weird that I almost seemed to have shut that day from my memory completely. Obviously it happened, and we still deal with the ripple effects even now. But the voice of my father-in-law on the answering machine is the only thing that has stuck with me.
So on the anniversary of 9/11, all I can say is: my thoughts are with all the people who died on that fateful day, in New York, in Washington DC, on Flight 93, and all those who loved them and knew them. It was a sad day that the whole world still feels the effects of, and hopefully the best thing that comes from it is that we can stop something that horrendous from happening again.
The second type is the kind of feel obliged to remember, or you remember only because you would rather forget it. An example, keeping with the Beatles motif: I remember waiting for the school bus in the dining room, and I think it was cold and wintery. The radio was on but I wasn’t paying attention, and then my mom peeked around and told me John Lennon had died. Now I was 6 or 7, so I couldn’t claim to be that deeply affected by his stuff back then. But I remember how sad my mom was. I don’t think she was crying, but her face suddenly had this weight attached to it, something you could see and even feel to some degree. I also remember parts of Hands Across America, and that was specifically because I was **told** to remember it as it was going to be a great moment in our country’s history. (The fact that some of you may have to go to Wikipedia to find out what exactly “Hands Across America” is shows how insightful that advice was.) I mostly remember our small Catholic school and a few other people in a line of about 50, with no other clusters of hands to connect to the left or the right.For some bizarre reason I thought the line was going literally snake across the country and that you’d be able to see this huge mass of people on either side of you, and you would complete the connection wherever you were. Yes, I was a weird little kid. I also remember the Challenger exploding and them announcing it on the building’s PA. All the teachers took us to the gymnasium (at the time I went to a small Catholic grade school, so the whole K-8 was probably a little more than 100 people) and they wheeled out a 19 inch TV on one those wheelie holders that brought the TV up to about a six foot height and we watched a hour or so or the news coverage following the disaster. I still to this day cannot understand the internal logic behind that, beyond that it was a “historic” moment. Now on the less gloomy side of things, there are certain events in your life everyone seems to remember: your first kiss (hi, Kimberly!) Your first day on the job (ah, the carefree days of being a dishwasher at Ledge View Supper Club!) Your first day of school (crying at kindergarden, wanting to cry at high school, being at first overwhelmed and then bored in college, followed by my first of many walks from the Lakeshore dorms to State Street to pick up the new Sonic Youth CD.) The first time you touched a girl’s bra (again in college, a few weeks later....OK, the aforemantioned bra – a red one – was in the dryer as I was putting in my clothes, and I oh-so-smoothly asked the only other person there, “Uh, hey, uh, is this yours?” and indeed it was)
So obviously the date of my post might clue you in to where I’m going here. Yeah, 9/11 was an event few will ever forget, an event that shakes every generation exposed to it. Much like how your parents or grandparents can tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot or when man landed on the moon, the Internet generation can paint a pretty vivid picture of 9/11 through their eyes. My eyes at the time were spending my days at my future wife’s apartment in Mazomanie, small and cozy. We had been dating for a few months, and were starting to adjust to each other’s routines, and our main routine was our work schedules. I was an assistant manager at Walgreens in Madison, WI, specifically the store that used to be located at the Hilldale Mall. Being a manager meant you had erratic schedules, and so that Tuesday I was scheduled for the afternoon closing shift. This meant I got to sleep in, which even back then was a nice luxury. Kelley, however had a Monday to Friday morning gig at MCI Worldcom in Middleton, so by the time I woke up she was already dressed, arrived and punched in.
In the weeks before the event in question, the radio had started playing two different songs. One was “Rockin the Suburbs,” the first single from Ben Fold’s first solo album of the same name. I had enjoyed all the albums he had released with the Ben Folds Five, and enjoyed the single, which mocked the rap/rock genre that was florishing at the time. The second was by a (then) largely unheralded band from Canada called Nickelback. It was called “How You Remind Me” and Kelley really enjoyed cranking it up when it came on (which was a different station than Ben’s song, and played a lot more often) I had thought it would be a nice gesture to get her the CD when it came out, which happened to be September 11th. So around 8:30am, I woke up and got ready for work early. My plan was to get the CD at Target on the west side, which was the closest CD-selling store to her work, coming to her office and surprising her with it, and then maybe going out to lunch with her, giving me plenty of time to be at work by 1:00 pm. I had a love/hate relationship with the radio at the time, and pretty much the only time I would listen to the radio was AM radio, and then only when Jim “Pimp of Dead Air in the Box” Rome was on. Since it was not 11am yet, I decided to take a CD with. (My Buick did not have a CD stereo, so what I did was attached my Discman CD player to the dash with some cleverly placed velcro and plugged in the cassette adapter.) The CD in question was Split Enz’s Anniversary, which was a concert of the seminal New Zealand band’s 20 year reunion in the mid 90s. I’m not a super big Enz fan, but I am a big Crowded House fan (Neil Finn, before forming Crowded House was in Split Enz with his brother Tim, who would later briefly rejoin his little brother in Crowded House as well as the aptly named Finn Brothers) and found the Anniversary disc cheap enough to give it a shot. So as the Twin Towers burned and the Pentagon was breached, and as Flight 93 abruptedly landed in a pasture in Pennsylvania, I was heading into work early, listening to Split Enz, with no idea of the horror that was happening one time zone ahead of me.
My first inkling something had gone horribly wrong was when I stepped into Target and almost everyone – employees and customers alike – were huddled around the TVs right by the entrance gate. I thought this was weird until I turned toward the TVs and saw buildings with huge clouds of smoke coming out of them. Like the rest of the people I wacthed for what must have been a half hour, before the scene got too much for me. I wandered around, trying to distract myself from the ugliness of the TV. I saw the Ben Folds CD and then the Nickelback CD, and thought of purchasing both before remembering we were trying to save money to pay for a washer and dryer at Sears. So I just got the Nickelback CD and hurried back to the car, eager to surprise Kelley and discuss the crazy events that had happened just a couple hours before. By this time I knew how to get to MCI blindfolded and a few miles later, was in the building and heading up the elevator to the MCI office. What I saw when I got there I had never seen before during working hours: the entrance room was dark and there was no one behind the desk. Since that’s where Kelley was supposed to be, it was a little off-putting. I hung around the dimly lit office and went to the door where the main offices were. I heard a TV in the distance, filtering in the latest information on the attacks, and nothing else. I didn’t want to barge in, since I figured everyone’s collective paranoia was at a peak. So I wrote a quick note to Kel, stuffed it inside the Target bag with the CD, and headed to work.
I was about 2 ½ hours early, so I parked in the lot and just listened to the radio as facts and rumours trickled in. By noon I was hungry, so I walked in the mall to get my lunch special (the baked chicken breast at Sentry) and was taken aback at how barren the mall was. After eating, I came in to work, and everyone to a person was shellshocked and in a catatonic. And when I say “everyone” it was about five employees and maybe 10 or so customers the rest of the night. (They had closed the rest of the Mall around 2pm, but since Walgreens closes for absolutely NOTHING, we remained open regular hours, and they left the closest outside doors in the mall open just for us.) Some of my co-workers couldn’t stop talking about it, some were already tired of hearing about it. The canned muzak, either on the 11th or the day after, abruptedly changed to a mishmash of patriotic marches and pop songs with the word “America” or “USA” in them. Some were obvious (Lee Greenwood? You betcha) and others less so (there was a Frank Sinatra one right after Prince and The Revolution’s “America” that had ol’ Blue Eyes rhapsodizing about kids playing in the park) There were only about eight or nine songs in this instant mix, which despite the noble intent, made it really annoying really quickly. (Plus, it seemed to go on for the better part of a week, before the country was ready to heal and listen to Seals and Croft and Air Supply again.) All the way home, and then at home, was catching up with the crisis. Since we had no TV in the apartment, we listened to the boombox radio, which made it feel like my grandparents probably did when trying to get the latest on the wars of generations past.
In the days and weeks to follow, more would be learned of the attacks, and the nation's collective paranoia would level off to the point it could be rated and color-coded. The drive to and from work was now suddenly dotted with American flags on either side of the road. On a personal note, we would end up moving less than two months later, right next door to a post office, just as the anthrax terror would reach a fever pitch. (Despite the numerous signs they were legally obligated to tack up, our local postmasters in Arena, Wisconsin didn't seem too worried.) And yes, I did end up getting that Ben Folds CD a few days later from Kel.
Of course, I ‘celebrate’ not one, but two big events on 9/11. Because two years after the Towers fell, my wife was rear-ended by a semi on her way to work, the after-effects of which (bad back, numb leg) she suffers til this day. I only remember bits and pieces of that day (but I remember again I got to sleep in) other than Kel’s dad leaving a message, telling me Kel had been in an accident but that she was OK. It's weird that I almost seemed to have shut that day from my memory completely. Obviously it happened, and we still deal with the ripple effects even now. But the voice of my father-in-law on the answering machine is the only thing that has stuck with me.
So on the anniversary of 9/11, all I can say is: my thoughts are with all the people who died on that fateful day, in New York, in Washington DC, on Flight 93, and all those who loved them and knew them. It was a sad day that the whole world still feels the effects of, and hopefully the best thing that comes from it is that we can stop something that horrendous from happening again.
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