Monthly Archives: November 2013

A dog’s approach…

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I’m sure something noteworthy happened somewhere today, but I was too busy bouncing between meetings to figure out what that might be. I’m not saying jam packed days are a bad thing. If nothing else, they tend to go quickly. Still, the amount of mental energy I expend on being “on” all day to deal with large numbers of people is quite simply exhausting. I’ve heard that some people thrive on nonstop activity, but right now the refrigerator’s compressor is filling the house with enough noise to drive me to distraction.

The dogs, bless them, are incredibly intuitive when it comes to picking up moods. Winston just waddled over and laid down with his chin on my foot, demanding no attention, but offering a satisfied snort in exchange for a rub on the head. Maggie took the opportunity to steal his bed and is most likely bunked down until it’s time to go upstairs later. It’s days like this that make me supremely happy I don’t have overly excitable pets.

There are too many overly excitable animals in the world already… and unfortunately, the majority of them seem to be people. That’s unfortunate. I think they could learn a lot from taking a dog’s approach to life.

Annual history…

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It’s that magical time of year where you get to distill the essence of your professional accomplishments down to less than 1000 words and then try not to slit your wrists as you realize how you’ve spent the last 365 days. Whether you’re compiling the annual unit history report or creating a list of accomplishments for your yearly performance appraisal, the one thing they serve to remind you of is how much time you’ve spent working on stuff that you have no actual interest in doing.

I’m the last person on earth to recommend that you need to find personal fulfillment in your profession. As I discovered with my ill-fated sojourn as a history teacher, having a deep and profound love for a subject doesn’t a fulfilling career make. For as much as I love all things historical, I despised most other elements of the job. Still, I’d like to think I’m doing more than writing reports, enduring meetings, and building the world’s most complex PowerPoint briefings.

The beauty part of these brief moments of professional clarity is that they only come on once a year, so for the other 11.5 months I can maintain a blissful level of willful ignorance on the topic. I think in the end, everyone is better served when I’m ignoring just how much time I’m spending on mundane, routine tasks and just keep churning out reams of paperwork on demand… because really, if I were stop and think about it for any sustained length of time, I’d be tempted to run off and join the damned circus.

I’m glad a have a job that keeps me employed (almost) full time… but I’m even more glad I don’t mistakenly identify what I do with who I am.

Gone fishin’…

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I’m up early even by my standards on a Sunday morning. Despite the mad dash to get the day started, I made sure I left plenty of time to dig through the archive and find your selection of five for Sunday. This week’s posts hail from August and September 2008 – a bit of time when I was really starting to question who I was professionally and when my feet stopped working. Yeah, that last bit probably sounds worse than it really is, but still it was damned unpleasant.

And with that, I’ll wish you a happy Sunday. There are places to go and people to see. If anyone needs me, I’m gone fishin’.

Needy…

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I’m hopelessly devoted to the dogs. It’s safe to say that there are human children in Ceciltucky who are more poorly cared for then these two fur balls. Even so, it would occasionally be nice to take a step backwards without needing to check my six. I only bring it up because Maggie has been exceptionally needy this afternoon. And by needy, I mean attached to my hip even more than usual. That’s not an exaggeration. Every time I move, she adjusts so that some part of her is in direct contact with me. It’s sweet, but more than a bit inconvenient.

Winston, bless my stoic descendent of British fighting dogs, is mostly happy just to lay in front of the couch protecting his marrow bone and casting an occasional look around the room to make sure everyone is still there. George, being a tortoise, could care less. At the moment, he’s under his heat lamp looking very much like a round, shiny rock. It’s for the best. I’m not sure I could manage with three that need undivided attention.

This post would be longer, but you’d be surprised how difficult it is to type anything coherent with one hand while the other is occupied with playing tug and dispensing ear scratches…

The big game…

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This past weekend was Homecoming weekend in the little part of the world where I grew up. For anyone who grew up within earshot of Cumberland, Maryland the cross-town rivalry between the city’s two high schools is the stuff of local legend. Without rhapsodizing it, the homecoming game is a big hairy deal.

I don’t hail from the mighty city of Cumberland, of course, so I’ve always watched their version of homecoming with something of a bemused look on my face. You know, in the way that people watch others who are taking something just a little too seriously. But it seems to make them happy, so no harm, no foul.

I’m not going to lie, the idea of homecoming being a big deal is a concept that eludes me. I graduated from high school in 1996, went to college, and promptly moved away. Not long after that, my alma mater, along with a few other schools, went defunct. They ceased to be. They are no more. It became a dead parrot. In its place they opened a shiny new school that presumably is better equipped to meet student needs. I say God bless. Seventeen years after graduation, it’s not exactly like I spend a lot of time pining away for my junior year locker. In fact, writing this post has accounted for more time pondering high school than I’ve spent in total since I walked across the stage to get my diploma.

I have great memories of high school. My closest friends today are the guys who were my closest friends then. I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that only really happens in a small town. Maybe it’s because I moved away, but I don’t lose any sleep about what’s happening at or happened to the school I graduated from the better part of two decades ago.

Maybe homecoming is an anachronism – a throwback to a time when you graduated, stayed put, and the social life of your town revolved largely around the comings and goings of the local school. Maybe it’s different if you have kids and it does provide some kind of continuity from generation to generation. Maybe it’s different if your school is something that exists as more than an ever fading memory. That’s a lot of maybes involved in a concept I clearly don’t grasp.

I guess I’ve just never felt the need for a special weekend designated for homecoming. Whenever I’ve felt the compulsion to stroll down memory lane or stir up the ghosts of the past, I just go do it on my own accord. No parade or big game needed. Then again, crowds always make me nervous so it could just be my inner hermit talking out loud.

What Annoys Jeff this Week? (The Centennial Edition)

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Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the 100th installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. With nearly two years of weekly annoyances under my belt, the only thing I can say from the writer’s perspective is that despite living in a universe that seems personally intent on agitating the shit out of me, I always look forward to Thursdays. They’re the day I get to compact many of the small issues into one great big ball of pissed off and launch it out into the world. It may not be classy, but it’s cathartic.

I thought about working up something special for this auspicious occasion, but decided quickly that the best tribute would be letting it out the same way I do every Thursday – a simple list and brief description of the week’s three most pressing annoyances.

1. Technology. Honestly, I don’t know who I would be if I weren’t wrapped in the warm electromagnetic cocoon of modern technology. That’s also the problem. In a week that’s been a near constant battle with my laptop, with my wireless router, and my internet provider just to stay connected, I wonder if perhaps I’ve put a bit too much reliance on the network. Yeah, that’s really not so much a question as a statement of fact. Still, I’m pretty sure what I’m really looking for is a system that works flawlessly all the time and not a way to disengage myself from it… because the only thing more annoying than having every bite of universal data at your fingertips is not having it when you want it. Stupid double edged sword.

2. Insurance. I got a notice this week that my prescription drug plan cost is going up about $40 a month. The cost of my general insurance plan is jumping this year too, but that’s not what annoys me, really. After all, the insurance premiums and out of pocket costs are basically just the price I pay to avoid being dead. As far as I’m concerned, not being dead is basically worth every penny I need to pay. Quite frankly, I don’t want healthcare in the country to be “average”. I want to nation’s best hospitals and corporations to dump money hand over fist into developing innovative treatments and medical equipment. Like it or not, 300+ million people can’t all get the best care on the planet, but over time the ideas they pioneer at the best hospitals can develop into common practice across the country. That’s good for everyone. Until then, if I want to drive myself eyeball deep into debt to get treatment at Hopkins, Sloan-Kettering, or the Mayo Clinic, that’s my decision because at least for now I’m the one paying the bill. When someone else foots the bill and tries to be all things to all people, we inevitably end up with a mediocre “standard level of service,” and I like being alive entirely too much to let any government entity of company decide what treatment checks off the box that says “good enough.”

3. Chicks. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but love for you ladies out there. You’re soft and curvy and smell nice. I love the way you walk and the way you talk… but after 35 years I still have no ability to understand the way you think. Although I am an accomplished man with many skills and talents, the ability to read minds is one that, thus far, I haven’t mastered. I’ll keep working on it, but in the meantime I’d consider it a personal favor if you could just go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind rather than letting me speculate wildly on my own. Trust me, left to my own devices my mind can conjure notions that are generously described as “bleak.” And that tends to be a situation other than good for everyone involved.

The not so mysterious case of Comcast sucks…

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Well, tonight you were schedule to get the post you should have gotten yesterday… But it seems “Comcast is experiencing technical difficulties that are impacting your cable television and high speed internet service.” Therefore, since I don’t feel like re-typing the damned things with my thumbs, you get another day of space filler. So in conclusion, Comcast sucks.

Yes, I know this is a first world problem… and since I live in the United States and not some remote herding camp in East Dirtbagistan, we’re just going to call them problems from now on. It’s one of the perks of living in the first world.

The case of the mysterious disappearing blog post…

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Under other circumstances, what you’d be reading right now is a blog post that I lovingly spent 35 minutes crafting especially for this evening. What you’re reading instead is filler because my laptop once again decided to choke on all the awesome and pass out.

In fairness, I shouldn’t blame the laptop. It’s a 2008 model MacBook Pro, running with 2GB of memory and in service every single day that I’ve had it. I’ve been consciously ignoring the fact that it’s flaking out more and more often these days. My inner technophile just can’t bring itself to spring for adding more memory to a 5+ year old laptop. Despite my best efforts at triage, removing all but the essential files and programs, and generally treating it with kid gloves, the writing seems to be on the wall that it’s time to either spend the money on an elderly machine or retire it in favor of something new.

After six months of furloughs and shutdowns, I’m vaguely unsettled about dropping the cash, but at the same time having multiple works in progress residing on a machine that increasingly shows its age is untenable for much longer. Hopefully I can ease it along to Thanksgiving in the hopes that our friends in Cupertino are feeling extra generous with their holiday discounts. Until then, it’s daily backups and saving my work every 30 seconds.

The obligatory post…

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As a blogger I’ve found that some posts are obligatory. In November we talk about being thankful. In December, about the gathering together of family and friends. In July, of patriotism and love of county. Arbor day, however, is optional for most of us. Today, almost as far as the eye can see, is a celebration of Veterans Day. While I’m not taking anything away from those tributes to the men and women who served, after seven years of blogging, I’m just not sure I have anything new to say on the topic. That’s certainly not intended as a slam against any veteran, but a simple admission that I’m just not that creative – which is why I’ve obviously decided to take this in a different direction today.

Starting today, I’m going to try to avoid the obligatory posts or at least make them something other than the usual. How successful I’ll be at that kind of outside-the-box posting remains to be seen, but there’s nothing wrong with a challenge now and then to keep things interesting.

In keeping with that theme, I want to take you back to a world before Veterans Day; to the spark that ignited the world and led us to where we are today. I had a passing conversation last week with someone who bemoaned the fact that World War I is fast becoming another forgotten war, but Veterans Day traces it’s historic roots back to those bloody trenches, so it feels like an apt topic for today.

Don’t worry, this is just a suggestion, not a history lesson. I know World War I feels like a far away time and place now that it’s almost 100 years removed. Still for those who care to look, it’s jam packed with lessons about how great powers blunder their way into total war. The Guns of August isn’t all inclusive, but he’s a hell of a primer about what led Europe to war in 1914. It’s also surprisingly accessible for all you non-history majors. If you’re at all curious about what led us to Veterans Day, it’s about a good a place to start as I can recommend. Go ahead and pick up a copy from your favorite bookseller and see what I mean.

Dogs in the archive…

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Wandering through the archives this Sunday morning, it’s obvious that August 2008 was all about Winston. Looking at him sprawled out in front of the heater this morning, it’s hard to believe that five years ago he was all puppy all the time or that instead of a 55 pound foot warmer he use to be the scourge of kitchen furniture. Bulldog puppies are incredibly cute and, not surprisingly, incredibly stubborn. All things considered, I’m glad to be out of the puppy stage and living with the older, more laid back model. This house is really only big enough for one creature who’s incredibly stubborn and I’m afraid I have that position locked up for the foreseeable future.

There are no rants or raves from the archive this week, but there’s apparently a hell of a lot of dogs in there.