Oh, Poor, Lonely, Neglected Blog....

...good thing no one reads you...

All my writing energies - such as they are - have been hijacked by English 103. I learned a lot in that class, such as: "Scholarly writing is where you take a perfectly good piece of writing and cram it into someone else's framework, because WHAT you say is much less important than whether it fits someone's arbitrary guidelines or not" and "Editing is where you take the piece you're writing, and re-write it over and over again, until you've completely sucked the life out of it and no longer CARE about what you're writing. Then you're done".

Fortunately, only two more classes and I'm done. I still, however, have one more semester of English. (Why I have to spend as many credit hours in ENGLISH as I did in ANATOMY for a PTA degree is way beyond me...) No more driving 45 minutes each way for "peer review" - I don't give a rat's ass what my CLASSMATES think of the paper, they're not giving me the grade - I'm taking the next class ON LINE.

That was easily....

...one of the worst days I've had on the bike in quite a while.

• Felt like I was riding in wet concrete almost the whole time.
• Caught up to another rider and hung with him for a while... until he dropped me like a sack of hammers.
• My ass hurt for a good part of the ride. (What's up with that? I thought I had already done my "break-in" for the season).
• About 2/3 of the way through, my legs started barking at me pretty badly.
• I had a headwind on the way home, seemingly without the benefit of the tailwind on the way out.
• Near Edgewater, I ran out of "gas" and had to mow down some Shot Blocks and a Clif Shot.
• About a half mile from home, my left quad cramped up so badly that I couldn't pedal for a little while -fortunately, that section is downhill....

....oh, and I flatted, too.

But, all in all, it was still better than the best day at work....

The Midlife-Mobile

I got it in my head that I needed a "toy".

I justified to to myself by saying "Hey, you've been "diligently" at your job for 20 years, your kid just turned 21 so you're theoretically done there, you took the plunge and went back to school....you've been Mr. Responsible, you deserve a toy....."

I thought about building an old truck or a street rod.

I thought about buying something stupid-fast.

I thought heavily about another motorcycle.

I still felt guilty and irresponsible. I have a Honda Element that's paid for, everything works and it does what I need it to do: haul people and "stuff". But still.....

I said to myself "What would I do with an old truck or street rod?" and the answer came back "Drive it to "car nights", park it and stand around and BS...." Not exactly my idea of a good time, and not very practical.

I thought about buying something stupid-fast, but thought "Where the hell would I actually USE such a thing?....and Jesus, at damned near four bucks a gallon, how practical would THAT be?"

Okay, so I started looking around at smaller, but sporty cars. One of my buddies just bought a Subaru STI. I thought a lot about that -it's pretty sweet - but the price tag (30K) just made me ill - and yowzer! The gas mileage he's getting is worse than what I already have!

Apparently if I was going to be irresponsible, I wanted to at least be responsible about it.

A motorcycle would seem to be the ticket, then. I looked around at what's available and came back empty-handed. All it seems that's out there are cruisers - which I despise - and stupid sport bikes -ungodly fast, but uncomfortable. Another GoldWing would be OK, but the price tag on those is stupid expensive and I don't really do the type of riding to justify a long-haul bike anymore.

Then I found the brand-new Honda VFR1200:

Sporty? Check! Comfortable? Check! Practical? If I got the optional hard bags - Check! Gas mileage? Well....lousy for a bike, but still better than every car I looked at.

Still, the price tag kind of had me hesitating. It was twice what I'd ever paid for a bike, and it would sit in the garage all winter. How practical was that?

Somehow - and I'm not even sure how- I heard about the new Honda CR-Z. I went and looked at it, and test drove it. Hmmm....

Sporty? Well, it wouldn't exactly mash you into the upholstery, but it had a definite "fun quotient". Comfortable? Check. Practical? At around 40 MPG, yes, definitely. I could certainly at least pretend to justify the purchase by saying "It's gets almost twice the mileage of The Dumpster, and with going back and forth to school two nights a week, that's important..."

Okay, so now I'm really on the fence. I absolutely hate being in the throes of indecision.

One night, on my way to school in 90 degree heat, I realized how glad I was to be in an air-conditioned car and not on a motorcycle. I am a firm believer in "all the gear, all the time" and 90 degrees on a motorcycle is just no fun. Been there, done that, didn't like it. Okay, so a motorcycle wouldn't get ridden in extremely hot weather or extremely cold weather. (I'm OK with rain). There's a demerit.

Another night - again on my way to school - I was threading my way through a couple of miles of stop-and-go traffic alongside an Audi R8.

That thing was BADASS. For a few moments, I thought: "WANT....."

Then I realized he wasn't going any faster than I was in The Dumpster and was probably frustrated as hell.

The CR-Z was starting to look better and better.

I stopped in at a couple of other dealers. One made me a better offer than the others and I kind of just threw in the towel and put a deposit down. (Of course, I bought the cheapest model).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the MCMAWG Responsibly Irresponsible Midlife-Mobile:

Everyday heroes

I was at Wegman's in DeWitt NY the other day for my weekly grocery pilgrimage. As I was walking across the parking lot on my way in, I passed two "cart wranglers". I only heard part of their conversation as I passed, but the gist was that they were both going to do something or go on break together, but the older gentleman was telling the young guy he had to do something first.

He said "..Ok.....but I have to go drop this in Lost and Found, first...."

I happened to look over and he was holding up a bank deposit envelope. Y'know, the cloth kind, with a lock on them? The ones that often hold a metric shit-ton of money?

...and he was turning it in to Lost & Found.

Wow.

Not only was it good PR for the store and whoever lost it must have been sweating bullets, but, it may have been a nice example for the younger guy... and it was a nice reminder for me that in this ever-increasingly self-centered world, there are still people out there who care.

Twenty One

Wow.

I won't say "It seems like only yesterday..." because I doesn't, but it sure seems like a lot less than twenty one years since I took on the job description: "Father".

It's the hardest job I've ever done, because kids don't come with an owner's manual. There is no degree program: "Parent 101". There can't be, since each child is an individual. The best I could come up with was to look to the examples around me. First and foremost were my own parents. I guessed I should look at what they did - both right and wrong- and use that info. I also looked at other parents around me and copied from their notes - keeping the "good" and throwing out the "bad". Still, I didn't have any younger siblings or even any younger cousins around to watch grow - so I was almost completely and utterly in the dark.

I knew that I did not want to create a "Mini Me". I had seen that too many other times before - parents who tried their best to mold their children in their own image. I saw this as patently unfair to the child, and often had dire consequences down the road.

I decided that the most important thing my parents ever taught me was to think for myself. When questions were posed, I seldom ever gave a straight answer-in fun and as an effort to encourage critical thinking - or I walked through the steps of how to go about finding the answers. If I didn't know, I said so and went about finding the answer. I figured that no matter how life ahead would be different, the ability to think, rather than just blindly accept what was being handed out would be critical.

I tried to be as "hands off" as possible - perhaps the opposite of a "helicopter parent"- only stepping in when it appeared that things had gone seriously astray. I offered advice when it was asked for. The big drawback is that that could be misconstrued as apathy. Quite the opposite. Caring enough to step back and let go is a tricky proposition. You want to step in, but....

I tried to lead by example - both in doing "the right thing" and following my own path, regardless of what everyone else is doing. I hope seeing someone do the right thing - even when no one was watching - just because it was the right thing took root. I also wish that my being "different" is an example of living by what is right for you, rather than just doing what everyone else does... because everyone else is doing it.

Perhaps my failings are a good example of leading by example... of what not to do.

I also tried to be a man of my word. If I promised something, I tried like hell to deliver. If I threatened something, I followed through (just often enough to keep the "threat" credible). I'm not sure my track record was too good, but I tried.

I encouraged learning, exploration and trying new things. I hope it didn't seem too scattershot or ADD... or that one shouldn't delve into things in depth, rather just superficially

In short, I sought to teach independent thinking, honor, and compassion. Pretty vague concepts, but ones that are essential, no matter where life takes you

I think, based on what I've seen, I succeeded, but the final exam is often decades long.

I hope I did a good job, for my part, and where I dropped the ball can be overlooked.

Certitude

I said a while back that I promised myself I wasn't going to discuss religion, politics or red headed women here.

I've already violated that once, so what the hell - I'm going to do it again, and this time I'll violate BOTH of the first taboos. (The topic of red headed women remains sacrosanct).

What do they have in common? What George Will referred to as an "excess of certitude"; the view that the world can be viewed on simple terms, and that one's particular point of view is unshakably correct.

While being firm in one's convictions can be admirable, it seems that "my way is the right way" all too often leads to "my way is the ONLY way". (And in the case of religion, this all too often leads to "Our God can beat up your God").

What happened to mutual respect? The art of compromise? The willingness to accept someone else on their terms, though they may be different? Why does everything have to be an "all-or-nothing" proposition?

Politics seems to have degenerated into a test of political wills. Each side tries to ram it's agenda through, over the opposition, who dig their heels in and try to block anything and everything that their opponents try to do. The health care debacle was a perfect example. Rather than the Republicans accepting that the Democrats had the horsepower to push the bill through, and try to shape it into something workable, we got nonsense about "Death Panels!" and "Socialism!". What SHOULD have happened was the Republican party sitting down and saying "Ok if you change XYZ, and take this out, put that in and modify this, we'll vote for the bill". Why would it have been so horrible for a bipartisan party to sit down and say "Ok, we can all agree that our health care system needs reform..." and work from there? Why is "compromise" a dirty word? Why do we admire a shrewd bargainer in the business world, yet view politics in absolutist terms?

Politics has become all about "winning".... and you and I are the losers.

In the case of religion, I like to liken the world's religions to three blind men touching an elephant, and each describing what an elephant is, based on the part they're touching. The one touching the trunk has a very different picture than the one holding the tail, or the one touching the side, yet if you were to ask each of them what they thought an elephant was, they would be very adamant in their "picture". They would all be right, yet, in a way, they would all be wrong, because none of them can see the whole. Only Buddhism says "there are many paths". The rest, all too often, say "Our way is the only way". "Our God is the only God". "We're the Chosen People and you're not". I don't know about you, but to me, to say that you know unequivocally what God thinks/wants is at best arrogant, at worst, very, very dangerous. Too often that certainty leads to people thinking God has anointed them judge, jury and executioner.

People of faith seem totally unwilling to admit that "faith" by definition is "a belief in something that can't be proven" - because that opens the door to admitting that they might not be entirely correct. I see nothing wrong with that, and do NOT see it as a sign of weakness, but to many it's tantamount to blasphemy. To admit that maybe you don't KNOW exactly what God wants might mean you'd have to accept someone else may also have a piece of the puzzle.

As a student of history, I try to console myself by telling myself "This is nothing new. It's happened before and things have worked out", but last time we got so polarized, and let radicals on either end of the spectrum decide the fate of the country, there was a five year war that left about 700,000 Americans dead.

The Founding Fathers would no doubt understand, but I think they'd be very dismayed to see what we've become.

Honor....Where's it gone?

"Honor is a gift a man gives to himself" - Rob Roy.

I was talking to a co-worker today - he was telling me about his family and personal issues that were sort of piling up on him at the moment. He tried to apply for Family Leave, but was told he'd used it up when he was out on disability for a torn rotator cuff. He asked how then, could some of the other employees get Family Leave - on multiple occasions- when their grounds for taking it were far less solid than his. He said he was told - by someone in authority - "Oh, well, you have to learn to play the game".

This incensed him - and to tell the truth, me as well. "Play the game? Play the game???" he said. Here he was trying to do things the right way and getting slapped down for it, while others, who were less-than-honest were getting away with something, because they knew how to "play the game".

He and I are not just co-workers. We share Italian ancestry and both grew up in a small, predominantly Italian town. I know from whence his indignation comes.

Back in the day.....

When we were growing up, there were two things that were pretty much written in stone: "Don't rat anyone out" and "Your word means everything". The first was a low rent version of "Omerta", I suppose, but the second was a very old-fashioned version of a code of honor.

It was completely inconceivable to go back on your word. Business deals were done with a handshake.

When I was buying my first car, my boss went to the bank with me (this was before they handed out loans like popcorn), lied about how long I'd been working there, and co-signed my car loan. You can bet your ass, I was there at the bank on the day before the payment was due, every month. Even if I'd been in the hospital in a body cast, I'd have sold off one of my kidneys to make sure that loan got paid. You might as well have suggested I could carry the moon around in my pocket, as to suggest I default on that loan.

Screwing someone over just wasn't done - politics and "business" notwithstanding. An employer could be counted on to do the fair thing and an employee - if they were smart - wouldn't try to take advantage of an employer.

If you said you were going to do something, you did it. If you borrowed money, you paid it back - and not just because Giuseppe was going to come around asking which was your favorite kneecap. If someone did you a favor, you OWED them - and if they came around twenty years later to collect, you were still obligated to return the favor.

Not so, today. People make and break promises all the while. Hell, getting someone to even show up somewhere they said they'd be is a sketchy proposition. The workplace is the same: Having heard horror story after horror story about people collecting disability or compensation, were I to get injured at work, my first stop after the hospital would be a compensation lawyer.

Something has been lost.

I Are A Kollidge Stoodint

Initial impressions:

If colleges were held to the same standards of customer service as retail businesses, they'd be out of business in a heartbeat. I don't think I've ever called for something and gotten through on the first try. I even got a voice message that stated "We're all in a meeting right now...." Grrrrr....

JESUS CHRIST I'M OLD! A great number of my fellow students are 18-21-ish. It was kind of amusing when the prof left the room to retrieve some papers, once. IMMEDIATELY, twenty some-odd cell phones and frenzied texting commenced.

I also wonder how they manage to carry a full course load. I'm taking one class per semester (one class, one lab) and it's all I feel I can comfortably manage.

I was surprised to find that I still remember the names of many of the elements, when we were handed a copy of the Periodic Table. (Of course there are NEW elements that I didn't know about that have been added, since I last looked, but we won't talk about that). Hopefully my internal hard drive isn't full and I can assimilate this new material as well as I did...uh...a long time ago.