Monthly Archives: January 2013

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Surprise overtime. I’m not naive enough to think that an eight hour workday means eight-and-out every day of the year. Sometimes unavoidable circumstances conspire to make getting it all done in eight impossible. Other times, we inflict ridiculous requirements on ourselves and then spend the afternoon and early evening running around trying to prove to someone that we can get job we just created done in a big way. Look, I’m just a working drone. I saw the other side of the fence and the long hours and sneaking way that it takes over every other part of your life has more than lost its luster. I’m more than happy to do my time and then head to the house… though honestly, sometimes it’s good to have a reminder just why I veered off the road not taken in the first place.

2. Forgetting to jot things down that annoyed you at the beginning of the week and promptly forgetting them before it’s time to blog about them. Sure, it’s probably a sign that it wasn’t all that annoying in the first place, but still, it leaves you scratching your head and really reaching for space filler on Thursday night when you’ve got half a dozen other things to do.

3. Something else, I’m sure… But I have absolutely no idea what it should be. Plus I’m tired and cranky. While sometimes that makes for some good writing, I’m pretty sure this is not one of those times.

Be counted… Be a patriot…

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I’m the son of a cop. That means I was raised in a house where a gun was a daily fact of life. It was as much a part of my old man’s job description as his badge and did far more than that metal shield ever did to make sure he got to come home at the end of his shift. Growing up, I’d have thought something was wrong if they had been locked in fancy safes, or hidden on high shelves, if the triggers were locked, or the ammunition was stored on the other side of the house. I was taught proper safety, use, and maintenance of a firearm long before one was ever put into my hand. At my father’s knee I learned that a gun was a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

In my 34 years, I’ve shot paper targets and bottles, clay pigeons and real ones, groundhogs, squirrels, and an assortment of other (tasty) animals. In that time, I’ve never, not once, nra_logodrawn another human being into my sights. Every responsible gun owner knows that you never point a weapon at anything you’re not fully prepared to annihilate. People who do are criminals, but it’s going to be the responsible firearms owners who are called to account for the deranged actions of a handfull in this nation of 300+ million.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution tells me that I have the right (read that again… the Right) to keep and bear arms. It doesn’t say I have the right to keep a single barrel shotgun for duck season and a bolt action rifle for deer season. It doesn’t say I have only the right to hang a relic over the mantle for some ambiance. I have the right to keep and bear arms. I’ve read the Constitution and Bill of Rights just to make sure and still my president and my vice president and the governors of my beloved home state of Maryland and his counterpart in New York tell me that it’s a right that can be taken away by an act of Congress or the signing of a single name on an Executive Order. I dare say it’s not going to be that simple. A free people aren’t likely to be so easily disarmed.

For the first time in a decade, a few minutes ago I renewed by membership in the National Rifle Association. I know they’re not everyone’s favorite organization, even among gun owners. But friends, I urge you, if you value your Second Amendment freedoms, join the NRA, join Ducks Unlimited, join your local sportsmen’s club, visit your local shooting range to meet like minded individuals, and for God’s sake get involved and let your elected leaders (such as they are) know that you know your rights and demand that they be preserved. Whatever you do, don’t simply lay down. Don’t roll over. Don’t let your guard falter for even one moment, because that’s all it’s going to take before honest, responsible, law abiding gun owners will wake up wondering what happened and where their country has gone… and on that day all is lost.

Stand up. Be counted. Be a patriot.

Hard work…

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You wouldn’t know if from how well put together this place is, but blogging is hard work. As ever, it’s a finely honed knife’s blade balancing what I want to write about versus what I’m going to say that gets me in trouble at the office, with friends, with family, with society in general, and in the eyes of the law. Other times it’s just the general daunting feeling you get when you sit down and try to make the cursor move across the page. In any case, sometimes there is plenty to say, but none of it seems like quite an appropriate topic. During those times you end up sitting at the keyboard smashing out something that rambles one from point to point without ever getting to a “so what” moment. Sorry about that, but it’s just the way it goes. Sometimes the only thing you can do is sit down and let your fingers do whatever it is they’re going to do and accept the final product as what it is… not exactly you best effort ever, but an effort none the less. For any of you out there who have spent any amount of time writing, you’ll know that occasionally that’s as good as it gets.

Trauma…

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Going back to work today was every bit as traumatic as I thought it was going to be… and I’m trying hard to resist the temptation to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and pretend that the who experience was a bad dream. That seems like a perfectly reasonable idea right up to the point where rent needs paid at the end of the month. Such is life for a cog in the machine.

While I’m bitching, I should note that my nose has been bleeding off and on since around 2:00 this afternoon. I’m officially over winter and the cold, dry weather that comes with it. You can only spend so much time sitting at your desk with the better part of a tissue jammed up your nose as a makeshift pressure dressing so you can do something other than stare at the ceiling until the bleeding stops. Fortunately, I think it’s slowed to a trickle. Hopefully I can make it through dinner without feeling like a stuck pig.

Happy Monday.

Officially settled in…

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After a weekend of furiously breaking down boxes and moving crap from one room to another, I’m please to say I seem to be more or less settled in here. Of course there is the spare bedroom that is crammed full of things I’m not at all sure what to do with and a garage stacked with cardboard boxes that need to be bagged, but for the most part stuff is where it’s going to go.

I also had my first visitor yesterday. The spaghetti seemed to turn out well, confirming that I can still boil water (with only one slightly alarming boil-over). The conversation was pleasant and all-in-all it was nice having someone around… especially when it came time to clean up. Any time I can avoid actually doing dishes, I’m pleased as punch (Thanks for the company, by the way. And come back any time).

One thing that has consistently amazed me over the last two weeks is not so much how much stuff I had actually been living with, but how many things I find I need that I didn’t have. I’m not actually talking about frivolous purchases here, but things like ladders, random hand tools, and a solid grip on basic carpentry. I’ve probably gotten more use out of my old set of Craftsman tools in the last two weeks than I have in the last five years. God help me, I actually spent time on eBay this afternoon looking for one of those big red tool chests for the garage. And after a week of using the kitchen counter as base of operations, I have come to the conclusion that I’m actually going to have to build a workbench in the garage. It can’t be that hard… right?

Yeah, I’m already planning on ordering at least twice the amount of material as I think I’ll need.

Closing out 2006…

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220px-Fondos_archivo 2 With one archive post left from 2006, it’s almost time to close out that eventful year and start looking at the world that was in 2007. Moving halfway across the country. New Job. Buying a house. 2006 was a big year. I think I captured at least some of its flavor. As troublesome as it was, I remember 2006 fondly. It was before things went to hell in a handbag in Memphis – before I realized Uncle Sam sold me a suspect bill of goods and I’d swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I dare say, I was less jaded, more open, and not nearly as snarky as I am now… or even as snarky as I’d be in 2007. Yeah, 2006 was a big year. Somehow I doubt that anyone out there has enjoyed reading about it (again) as much as I have, but until someone else buys up my domain name and puts me to work writing about what they’re interested in, well, you’re just going to be stuck with me and my seven year old musings on Sunday mornings.

Trust me, there are way worse ways to spend half an hour. With the inevitability of going back to work tomorrow, I think it’s fair to say that there will be plenty of new and interesting stories showing up here in the very near future. Until them, take a look at the drama that went along with buying my house in Tennessee way back in December 2006.

God bless America…

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It’s Saturday… and here in Ceciltucky, Saturday means the weekly grocery run to Walmart. Now Walmart being what it is, I rarely leave with only groceries. Today’s plan was to pick up a few backs of the D-cell batteries that there are never enough of at the store before a hurricane and check prices on a variety of ammunition over in the gun aisle. Let the record show, that I was at least successful at scavenging sufficient batteries for the next power outage.

Ammunition was a different story. Aside from a few boxes of assorted 12 and 20 gauge shells and even fewer boxes of .30-06, Walmart’s cupbord was looking pretty bare. I guess at least a few of the people around here have been paying attention. Usually I’d be annoyed that what I had wanted wasn’t in stock. Instead, I looked over at the guy running the gun counter, nodded hello, and simply said “God bless America.”

Feels like Sunday…

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So this is the last weekday of my extended winter vacation. Since I didn’t take much of a summer vacation this year, I had plenty of days saved up and taking them sounded infinitely better than letting them disappear. Sure, I could have donated them to an allegedly worthy cause, but let’s be honest, does that sound like something I’d really do unless I was backed into a corner?

Make no mistake, when you’re use to being at your desk four or five days a week, every week, month after month, two unspoken for weeks are a real think of beauty. I had some minor concern that boredom would set in sometime around the end of week one when the mayhem and chaos of Christmas cleared, but that really wasn’t a problem. Honestly, the thought of being bored never occurred to me. Since I’ve been back here at the rental casa, I’ve done some reading, some writing, some cooking, some general running around, and caught up on a lot of quality television I’ve missed over the last few months. When any one of those things has started showing the least sign of being boring, I just change up the order and do them all again. Honestly, it’s probably a snapshot of what my life would look like as a lottery winner. Fortunately, I’ve always been able to more or less keep myself entertained. When you’re an only child as a kid, you learn the value of not relying too heavily on anyone else to make things interesting.

But yeah, today feels a lot like Sunday… or specifically that general feeling of “Eff this I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow” feeling that always seems to show up sometime during the day on Sunday. That feeling has been held blissfully at bay for the last two weeks and I wasn’t quite ready for it to show up already. Intellectually, I can accept that I’ve got to go back to work at some point… but emotionally, my inner lottery winner wants to keep this party rolling. There’s so much reading, writing, and cooking that I just haven’t gotten to yet. I guess that means I’ve got to cram a whole bunch of stuff into the next to days, because Sunday is coming on fast.

Vetted…

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Just once I’d like to walk away from the vet with them telling me that everything is great and it’s $128.00 for the exam and yearly battery of shots. Such an idea is silly, though, as pet care is big business… an environment not aided by the fact that any perceived threat to one of my pups will be met with massive and overwhelming force and a willingness to bring every modern veterinary miracle to bear on even the smallest issue. Even so, I guess I got away easy this morning. Maggie got a relatively clean bill of health, but I still ended up walking away with a bag full of flea, tick, and heart worm preventative for the kids as well as a refill of Winston’s regular joint supplements and “special” food. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being surprised (horrified?) at the expense we’ll got to to keep animals more or less healthy.

Dogs have been part of the human story since the first caveman tossed a scrap of meat to the great furry beast sitting at the edge of the village. It seems they’ve gotten along pretty well. Man’s life and dog’s have been infinitely improved by our happy coexistence. I can’t imagine a time when my home won’t include at least one of the little fuzzballs. Still, part of me wonders if we all weren’t better off when dogs were just dogs and not fur covered adopted children. Now that they are, I don’t think there’s any going back… but sweet baby Jesus, it would be nice to spend less on their healthcare than I spend on my own.

The way ahead…

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If New Year’s Eve is our annual opportunity to look back on the year that was, then New Year’s Day seems to be the natural counterpoint – a day to look at the 364 days ahead and try to discern the way ahead. Since I’m not psychic, the best I can do is assume that 2013 is going to look fairly similar to 2012 in some ways… and bear no resemblance to it in many others. History, at best, is an inexact guide to what might happen in the future. Like the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Still, the year that was sets the starting point and the foundations of the year to come. That means you ignore it at your peril.

So what does 2013 hold? For me, I like to think it holds more time to focus on writing and less time being annoyed by work. I hope it means less money spent fixing rental property and more time spent enjoying the fruits of my labor. Optimistically, I would love it to mean that the blog finally breaks through the 10,000 visits per year mark. As a reach goal, I’m still holding out hope of becoming a professional lottery winner and finding some nice out of the way island to call home. Yeah, so some of that wish list is more practical than other bits. Even so, most of it seems to be in reach and that’s a comforting thought.

Come on, you guys weren’t expecting some batshit crazy idea like find the love of my life, move into the house with a picket fence, and raise 2.5 kids and an airedale, right? I said history is an inexact guide, not that I was going to throw it over the side and charge off in the opposite direction. I’m feeling a touch nostalgic, not suffering from head trauma after all.

I hope this little note has helped set the tone for 2013. It’s a brave new year with more snark, less tolerance of stupid, and even better writing than ever before… so stick around. I have a feeling that 2013 is going to be a real trip.