Category Archives: Life

Memory…

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I read an article last week about human memory essentially being destroyed by computers that file everything from phone numbers to copies of the Gettysburg Address for us. Far from making my mind less capable, it was the interconnected series of tubes that let me take a passing flash of recognition and run down the rest of the story. It let me make connections that I could have never made on my own, adding a helpful boost on the weakness of 13 year old memories. If there was ever something to be celebrated, that would be it.

Ten years ago, if I had passed someone in the hallway and thought they looked familiar, that would have been it and I’d have gone on about my day without giving it another thought. But thanks to Google, any passing thought can become the focus of an entire day of searching out leads from four year old newsletters, generalized e-stakling, and finally putting a name with that long ago face. All for the simple moment of pleasure at walking up and saying, “I thought I recognized you,” and spending a few minutes reconnecting with someone who knew you a lot more hair ago.

Safer…

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As part of the mind-numbing process of restoring my status as a citizen of the great State of Maryland, my one year old truck was subjected to a vigorous “safety inspection.” I can’t be the only person that things this is probably overkill for a truck that rolled off the assembly line less than 12 months ago, right? But still, a “senior tech” poked prodded, scanned, and test drove my ride to make sure it was fit for service on the roads. Personally, I assumed that as long as it could roll through the toll booth, Maryland would welcome it. Apparently that was wildly optimistic. Although everything was in good working order, it seems my front window tint offended the sensibilities of the fine men and women of the Maryland General Assembly and in order to pass inspection had to be removed. Fine. Done. Give me my certificate of inspection and I’ll be on the way… and $139.00 lighter in the wallet. That and the $50 bucks its going to cost me to get the tint reapplied. I know I certainly feel safer.

So now, we’re on to the last step in the process. That would be waiting on MVA to let me know they’ve received my titled from Toyota, so I can drive over there, hand over 73 different forms of ID, give them more money to send a title back to Toyota, and walk away with a newly minted license that says I live where I live. If this process wasn’t intentionally designed to be a giant pain in the ass, there is a room full of bureaucrats somewhere in Glen Burnie who have missed their calling.

Mentor…

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I had lunch this afternoon with the guy who I consider my first professional mentor. While there was plenty of talk about what circumstances brought me back to Maryland, but what I really noticed more than anything is how much retirement seems to be agreeing with him. He actually looked rested and not at rumpled in the way that you do when your clothes have spent too much time flying around in the belly of a regional jet. I’ve got to confess that I sort of had him pegged as one of the ones that would come right back as a contractor. Though he always talked about all the things he wanted to do when he hit eject for the last time, I didn’t think he’d actually go that route. Apparently I was mistaken.

With yet another government shutdown/default starting to gin up on the horizon seeing him in actual retirement mode really got me thinking about what, if anything, retirement might look like in Spring 2035. Looking off into that distance from Summer 2011, let’s just go with things don’t look particularly promising. With that sightly depressing thought in mind, I can still safely say that damn it was good to at least see someone from the old gang.

Free to a good home…

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Today marks the official one month mark since I moved in. That’s enough time to finally have things (mostly) settled and to figure out how livable the house is. All things considered, the place itself isn’t bad, really. There are a few layout issues and plenty of things that I would have done differently if it were my house – like the magenta bathtub and toilet. I mean seriously, how on earth did anyone ever thing that was a good idea? Other than that, the place seems to have good bones and is suffering only from the obvious neglect of the previous tenants and the general laziness of the property manager… Which of course brings us to the crux of the matter: A full month after moving in, there is still a Ford Expedition sitting in the driveway.

If someone drove up with a rollback and “disappeared” this Expedition, I certainly wouldn’t be filing a police report. I’d probably be willing to give them a hand loading it on the truck. It’s got a little body damage and I don’t have keys or anything, but I’d guess that you could make a good profit parting it out. I don’t have the time or energy to do it myself… and the point, of course, is to get it out of my driveway and into someone else’s. Maybe I’ll put a “Free to good home” sign on it before I leave for work in the morning.

Since I think 30 days is more than sufficient for the property manager to take care of this issue (and since the car seems to meet the legal definition of abandoned), I’ll be calling the Motor Vehicle Administration and the local police tomorrow to start the process of formally declaring it abandoned. That takes about 30 days from start to finish, but after that I can file for title and then sell the damned thing myself. I hoped I wouldn’t have to be a douchebag about this, but from here on out that seems to be the way we’re going to have to handle things. That’s probably what I should have done from the beginning. Serves me right for trying to be a nice guy.

Neighborly observation…

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I watch people. I don’t mean that so much in the Creepy McCreeperson kind of way, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated in watching people and trying to figure them out. Most of the time, it’s pretty easy to read them. It helps that most people are pretty dumb and almost all of us are predictable on some level. I’ve had a few weeks to watch the family next door now. It’s surprising what you can see when you don’t have a six foot privacy fence between you and the rest of the planet, but I digress.

The thing I’ve noticed most often is how tired the guy who lives next door looks. 6:30 in the morning leaving for work, he looks tired. Cutting the grass in the evening, he looks tired. We all work, pay bills, and keep up with the endless list of things that need done to keep our houses from falling in around our ears. We all get tired. The difference I’ve noticed is that even when I’m tired, I go to bed, sleep for a few hours, and wake up refreshed. All you’ve got to do is look in this guy’s eyes and you can tell there’s no waking up rested going on there. He’s a nice enough guy to say hello to, but he’s got that vacant 1000 yard stare that speaks of being completely exhausted. It’s that look of exhaustion that really made me think.

We never really know what’s going on in other people’s lives, but I always look askance at couples who claim they can’t get everything done. Seriously? There are two of you doing what one of me does. That would be cleaning the house, doing the laundry, cooking, yard work, washing the car, grocery shopping, running errands, making the money, and generally managing life. The difference between us is that I’m doing it with half the manpower you have available. Without knowing the intricacies of your life, it seems that if one of me can manage to get it all done, two of you should be able to at least keep up.

Inner teenager…

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It’s Friday. Before a three day weekend. I’m more than a little surprised that there are more than three people even in the office pretending to work today. Even with a mostly full staff pecking away at their keyboards, it’s painfully obvious that the biggest game in town today is watching the clock roll on towards 4:00… or 3:01 if the powers that be keep up with long-standing pre-holiday tradition. Either way, it’s safe to say we can mostly write today off as professionally useless.
 
On a related note, I’m usually accused of being a 60 year old man at heart, but long weekends have a tendency to bring out my inner teenager. The anticipation of being turned loose. The rush of heading out the door. Rolling down the windows. Turning the radio up. Forgetting about work for a few days. For me, at some basic level, that’s what freedom feels like. Maybe that’s not such a bad way to kick off the Independence Day weekend.

Being local…

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Although I’m one of the last in, I think I’m actually one of only two native Marylanders in the office. As far as I can tell, everyone else has come to the north eastern corner of Maryland from their pre-BRAC homes in New Jersey. For years now, I’ve spent a good portion of my free time griping and complaining about how jacked up things were in Memphis and just how different and therefore bad it was. I’m realizing that these people are in the same boat, though in a different location. For them, it’s Maryland that’s strange and different… and nothing here is right. The traffic is jacked up. The network blows. They’re still working on the building when it was supposed to be done six months ago. Crime is terrible. There’s nothing to do and nowhere to find their favorite food. Everything I ever said about Memphis, they’re saying about Aberdeen… though I sort of chuckle when I pass by and hear someone complain about driving the whole two and a half hours to get back home. If nothing else, it’s fun to watch them get worked up.

Especially when you know they’ve got it all wrong. It must be terrible to be this close to the center of the universe and not even know it.

OCD Takes a Night Off…

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One of the ongoing challenges with my self-diagnosed mild-OCD is that there are a whole bevy of things that normal people seem able to put on a back burner that stay a priority for me no matter what else is going on. That shaggy grass is going to get cut no matter how god awful the neighbor’s yard looks – and it’s going to get trimmed to. The laundry is going to get done once a week even though I could probably go three or four weeks without technically needing to wash clothes. Things are going to happen on a schedule even though there’s no rea practical reason why they need to. I’m a creature of habit, we all know this.

Tonight was the first night since I’ve been in the house when the compulsion to “do things” hasn’t been triggered the moment I walked in the door. The guest bedroom still needs put together and the basement looks, well, like a basement, but tonight I just came in, sat down and watched television rather than listened to it while doing three other things. It was sort of nice in a complete slacker kind of way. That’s not saying that the little voice inside my head that likes everything to be “just so” won’t make himself known again by this time tomorrow, but for tonight, everyone including the dogs seem content just to let things be.

My country…

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On the eve of Virginia’s succession, Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union army, but declined, commenting only that he would not raise is hand against his birthplace – his country as he understood the word. I never really understood this sentiment until circumstances drew me away from my own birthplace. It was in being away that the concept of what home means crystalized for me. It was the thought of coming back that let me tolerate what had become the worst experience of my professional life. It’s the simple act of being back on home soil that’s letting me find peace of mind amidst a steep climb along the learning curve and and living situation that, at best, can currently be described as “less than ideal.” For all the pain in the ass that getting back to Maryland has caused, I’d never dream of having it any other way. Maybe it’s not true for everyone, but I’ve discovered that for me geography is important. It’s as much a part of my self identity as my fingerprint. After a long time gone, I’m here – in my county… and the rest is simply administrative minutia.

Tenancy…

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The transition from homeowner to tenent hasn’t been what I would call smooth. As a homeowner, I probably established what most would consider slightly exagerated expectations for service and reliability. When things broke, they went to the top of my list of things to fix, I either went to Lowe’s for the appropriate equipment and supplies or called in the trades to get the job done. As a tenant, obviously the process is a little different. I call the property manager and leave a voicemail. I wait a day. Then I call again and follow up with an email. Then I wait a day. Then I call again and usually manage to talk to him on this third attempt where he says “oh yeah, I’m working on that. I’ll be over tomorrow.” And then we wait some more.

As it stands as of this morning, I’m waiting on six different things to happen: 1) The former tenant’s junked Ford Expedition is still sitting in the driveway. That was supposed to be moved out sometime around June 6th; 2) The 19 inch television sitting on the deck that the property manager says he wants to take to his hunting camp. It’s been rained on three times in the last two weeks. Yeah, that will probably still be sitting there a month from now; 3) The wire dog run was supposed to go at the same time he picked up the Expedition; 4) The garbage disposal went out early this week. He still hasn’t acknowledged the messages I’ve sent about that; and 5) The $100 washing machine that he said had been rebuilt will do everything a washing machine is supposed to do… except drain the water once the tub is filled. I left a voicemail about that yesterday, but when I drove by the manager’s place on my way to the laundromat yesterday afternoon his truck and boat were gone, so there’s not much chance he was paying attention to that; 6) The moldy wall has been nicely cut and hauled away – but that leaves the small matter of having a large part of the basement I can’t do anything with until, you know, it has actual walls again.

The actual owner lives in Germany now, so once I dig up his address Monday  morning I’ll get a message off to him. I’ve tried being the good neighbor, but since that doesn’t seem to get results worth a tinker’s damn, I’ll have to start being the sonofabitch neighbor who beats on the letter of the lease. This should be fun.