A Goosin'

Disclaimer: There are some names and locations I'm going to modify or omit.  If you'd like to fill them in for the purposes of imagination, please feel free to put that shoe on and lace it up!


Ever feel like you're in a place in life where you just can't move?  Like you're trapped? Or at least, stuck in a routine?  My routine lately has consisted of the everyday stuff, even down to what to get for breakfast and when (a breakfast quesadilla at 8:40 am), when to expect every call, an allotted time to worry about what could be an impending layoff (which didn't even happen.) And, of course, other things to expect right on schedule, such as bills, parking spots, moving desks at work, family events, everything!

So, just a few short weeks ago, a family member who lives nearby asked Jamie this: "If we move several hundred miles away, would you follow us to be close by?"  (This is where that names and locations thing comes in by the way.) Another family member of ours once remarked to me months, maybe over a year ago, that if we packed up and moved, that we would be followed to that location. 

So, it got into my mind that if we moved to this wherever place where the jobs were or whatnot, we'd have company no matter where it was.  But for someone to ask us if we'd do the same, I didn't answer.  It was a secret "I hope so." Then it became "I've thought about this before kinda." Then, I quit putting quotation marks around my thoughts and actually thought deeply about this.

Two days later, I'd done enough scoping around online to get a feel of the area, possible places to move, the logistics of making such a move and what the costs would be.  Just to get away from the routine areas of life. 

I happened upon a job opportunity in this area.  Now, what I do for a living has talents that are generally concentrated in D/FW, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida, among a few other metro areas.  But I found one there and applied for it, just for kicks and giggles.  Jamie's career specialty is also concentrated in certain cities as well, and the place we were looking at isn't known for that.  So that was another exercise in imagination research.

That job application got me thinking deeply. 

I thought of all the changes it would require, the possibility of Jamie and I living in two different places temporarily, the expenses.  I decided after relative boredom in the nuts and bolts of life, it was time to get sharp.  Just thinking about all this, the possibility, the peril, the opportunity, it gave me a goosin' deep down. 

So I went to bed the night I applied... fell asleep fairly quickly, but I was up at 2:30 after a fitful sleep.  It all just showed up at once.  I was like, "What if you don't get a call back from this company and all this deep thought about relocating was for nothing?"  Didn't get much sleep that night. 

Something had stirred up inside that I could no longer ignore. I don't know if it's because I've been "climbing the ladder" in life in order to stay afloat for so many years, or if I've just been stuck in a mindset overall for a long time.  We all get older, and we all get stuck in some routine and lose sight of something good that may come around that would be good.  As I get older I've realized that the more you get used to life, the less you have a chance to grow.

Life finally goosed me.  I have been driving a P.O.S. truck for over three years.  Don't get me wrong, it's been good to me, but it's been an all consuming A to B disaster since 2011. Since I've been thinking about this relocation challenge and what it could mean, the upcoming challenge of the old truck came up front and center.  How could I move far away and stat putting down roots for us in a new place with something unreliable?  It didn't make sense.

The next step was realizing it was time to get a new way to go.  Jamie heard about this dealership about 35 miles away that had a lot of used cars, so I decided to check it out.  After looking thru used cars together for hours we showed up.

Through a whirlwind of searching, trading, compromise, discussion, life stories, a rainy day test drive, getting the hell out of town, air conditioning, heaters, and deliberation even on the way, we found a vehicle.

It was surreal. But it's becoming real now.  The old truck is gone, and now I am driving something new, you've probably seen it.  It was needed.  We just bought it Saturday, and I had to get new brakes on it.  The dealership detailed it and all, but I still had to get a bit done on it.  But it got done right. 

There's a lot of happiness here about it.  It's a miracle.  But it is also a part of life.  Life's hard. It is a challenge.  I had to work in Houston away from home for a month at a time.  Had to fight fraud over the phone in freezing weather outside.  Had to take a few for the team, bullshit scenarios where I had to sneak out.

We get put in the corner for a reason, not for our benefit or demise, but to wake us up. I'm awake, and I'm in the outfield, and punching the glove.

Observations About Life

Coming in at a different approach tonight.  Lately I've been under the weather.  Not the actual weather, just feeling sick.  Jamie caught a cold last week from a little girl at Girl Scouts who had no business going to Girl Scouts that night.  And I caught it too over the weekend.  Such is life.  If you have sick kids, don't show up to events with a lot of healthy kids. Not cool.

I was off work yesterday, and had a chance to rest and recover.  Ended up taking a four-hour nap and going to bed early and sleeping even more.  That's just how it goes when it's you vs. the world. I've been on so many vacations where it's been sleep in a wonderful sanctuary of a place.  As in my Grandma's place.  It's always easier to drive 400 miles and hang out with Grandma in Mountain View and oversleep and let the cares melt away. Staying here still has its hangups I guess. But I'll tell ya, being sick and off the grid got me taking naps and sleeping like a champion when it came time.

This morning I woke up rested and ready.  But it was an Arctic Paradise this morning!  I got Grace's outfit together and she picked a long sleeve shirt instead and bundled up majorly. We got in the truck to go to school (which I'd warmed up already.) When we got in the truck, Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song was playing on the radio, and it was so appropriate for the weather!  She thought it was a Harry Potter song! That of course cracked me up and I got to tell her what Immigrant Song was really about since it matched the cold weather.

Which leads me to deeper observations about life.  First and foremost, it got cold and we all gotta warm up! In the now but also with thought.  I've been battling the negativity within and the circumstances.  Things can go bad in a second in life, but it doesn't have to be that way.  Sometimes you gottta say, turn off that MF, and make a quick spin back to the blessings. 

An old friend of mine, who is younger than me, is going in next month to get a pacemaker.  Whaaaaaat!! She works out and takes care of herself and has to have this done, that freaks me out.  It brings out the prayer side of me and the supportive side.  She is younger than me.  That was a knockdown from reality and mortality saying what can you do to help and bring the best of life to others. 

After losing younger loved ones and outliving healthy but physically weak loved ones, the landscape can be pretty bleak. I'm a big believer in prayer and friendship, and at a certain point, not explaining concerns and just acting to make things more bearable isn't enough. It's time to be an ass kicker, to make the actions match the feelings.  We all want to live, but if we don't, we have to prepare for heaven.

This life is a fleeting experience and nothing in it is permanent. We have to balance, on one hand the joy of acceptance and an appreciation of our talents, on the other, the miserable shit that made us that smart in the first place. 

I've always heard that while we are growing up, our parents are growing old.  It's true.  But as we grow older the hands on the clock of time consistently move, as they always have.  We have to know our spot and live accordingly, because the calendar and the clock are much more consistent than any one person.

Life is simply a brief moment on forever's timeline.  What will any of us do with it?

Vacationitis

Hello ladies and gentlemen.  Back again pecking at this keyboard for no reason whatsoever.  Except...

This time I am about to go on vacation!  Well, it's not a real vacation since I'm not going anywhere, but it's time off anyway.  Friday at 5:30, I get me a nine-day weekend. 

I planned this maybe a month or two ago, but don't really have any plans for it.  I was gonna go hit the Crater, but I still have some truck things to do so that's out.  I also wanted to try to do some shopping for maybe a big item or two, but that's also out.

So it's time I have to take off because I haven't really taken enough and need to use it up.  It'll be damn good just to take the days off.  But it makes me feel bad because there are other people that could use the break more than me.  As in Jamie.  So.  What to do.

I figure I could finish off the new Dr. Tissue album during this time.  I think that would be a lot of fun to do.  All the backing tracks are there, most of the lyrics and sound effects and background tracks are there, it just needs to be recorded and put together.  Autumn is one of my best times for recording new music for ome reason.  The heat and the pressure slows down I guess. 

It's probably no surprise that October 10, 1991 was the day that I recorded my first album that actually had a name and a "project" name.  The project was called Psychlone and the idea was basically borrowing my cousins keyboard to put down songs on a tape and try to make rock music later. Which of course is not what happened.  I was days away from moving to another state and had this huge keyboard in front of me along with lyrics/stories I'd written and some stories by my friend Nathan.  All were silly of course, and there was a lot of improv, but hey, that's what I had to work with so you do what you gotta do, when you wanna do something fun.

I made copies of that tape and held it up like a trophy after moving, while in class in a different school in a different state where no one knew me yet.  It was a liberating experience.

Which of course led to other musical ventures - many of which were shared with new friends in Arkansas.  That was a place in my life where I finally became a free spirit.  Musically, creatively, it was an open door.  Prior to that I lived in a place that was very uptight and all about conforming and trying to out-impress your peers.

Sadly, there's a lot of pressure to out-impress people now;  I observe it in my adult life and it's silly, even after a college degree, some still adhere to such a social order. 

Anyhoo, I've veered off-point! I'm about to have this really fantastic, or boring, nine day weekend. Maybe it'll be musical.  Or creative in some ways.  Who knows?  Come October 20th, I might have some new stuff to share with you. If not... talk some smack!

I've got a few musical things going on.  Got a new Korg MicroKey of course, and that is a lot of fun.  My Dad gave me a Tascam recorder this year, which is great for random/field recording, and I've been compiling unused lyrics.  This could be a lot of fun!

There are gonna be a couple of days of absolutely nothin' though - if not to prepare for new projects, just to rest.

But for now, I'm just looking forward to this brief time off.  Call it Vacationitis, if you will.  I know I gotta hook everything up at work before I take some time off.  Really.  For real.  You don't have to remind me.  I always got my hustle on... and even if there's a little slack mode - Im'ma have it sewn up by Friday at 2 pm.

OK, maybe by 5:15. 

The Tacos of Illumination

Howdy y'all!  It may have taken a month or so, but I'm back.   As promised I'm not in sad mode this time around.  Hasn't been the prettiest month around, but it's ok.  I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first.  The day before my last post I got into an accident in my truck, the fourth collision in the old Ranger.  Some lady rear ended me at a red light, and it still hurts from time to time.  There were two small layoffs at work this month, and we lost some good people (and some half-asses.)  That's all I got for that. There are other things I could mention that are negative or sad but I'm more about healing than discussion.. we've all been there.

Now for the good news - we got a kitten!  He's solid black like Snowball was, but we got him at about five weeks old, and he's roughly three months now, and we named him Skittles because he jumps sideways and "skittles" around.  He's growing!  And he's biting and clawing like crazy!  That's actually subsided this last week or so, but he's really a go getter and quite a fighter.  I wouldn't mind more purring and catnaps.  But for now, his plots to kill me are actually sort of cute.  Plus he likes to climb in the fridge, which is hilarious.  Because I can open it to get a water or a beer, or ingredients for dinner, and he just makes his way right in there.  That's even cute, because that just proves he's a Texas cat.  Live here, and you're running towards anything cold you can find when it's hot outside.

Service King is really expensive.  They wanted so much to get a new bumper for my truck and patch the paint, the other lady's insurance gave up and wrote me a check instead.  Totaled the truck but that's ok.  I can spend a hundred bucks and patch that old ride up over a couple weekends and use the rest for other family needs. 

Several weeks ago, I researched MIDI and I have to say it's pretty awesome.  You can basically use a keyboard and have just about anything as an instrument.  Samples, cats, loops, regular instruments, sound effects, anything!  You could record yourself sneezing, and with MIDI you can pretend it's an instrument. 

I know this is random tonight, but if you know much about me, random is sort of how I am.  I've gotten to a place in my life where that's started to matter quite a bit.  There's nothing wrong with following the rules when you have to and not following any rules when you don't have to. Creatively, it's the difference between Dave Grohl and Kim Kardashian. 

I heard a song last summer by Daft Punk called Giorgio By Moroder, which explains this perfectly.  He was in high school in the late 60's/early 70's like my parents were.  And he wanted to make music for a living.  Of course it didn't pay much and it was difficult, but his theory on music was spot on.   Make music based on what is current and what you know, but don't let anyone tell you how it should sound or be done.  Be yourself and share the gift you've been given creatively.  He ended up being one of the greatest and most successful producers of music in that time period.

I think everyone can achieve that level of knowledge by way of interest in any subject or area of life. 

The mafia's pretty sharp at what they do, could you imagine a world in which honest folks had that kind of bravado and collected talent together?  Maybe it's out there... I'm just writing randomly, don't take me too seriously. 

Anyhoo, I haven't had tacos in a while.  I could go for a handful of tacos and wash em down with a nice Dos Equis or a really big limeade.  Mmmm, tacos.

Challenges Pt. 2

Hi everyone.  Sorry I've been so scarce over the summer months, but I've had a lot of living to do.  Since the last post, I've realized just how many challenges I do have to live with and tackle each and every day.  It came to a head last night when Jamie pointed out that I've been "ill" lately and that I used to be a very laid back and easygoing type of person. 

She's right, I was an easygoing fella, and I still have that personality sometimes.  But because of the challenges in life, it's hard to rest, or let things go and just take it easy.  The time she was referring to is when we first got together and got married and stepped out into this mean old world.  We had just enough to get by, and we really accomplished something by flying out of the nest we'd been raised in.  When one first moves out, especially with someone who ya love, it's going to be tough but much more importantly, it's going to be awesome.

Fast forward say 15 years, and that newness wears off.  We've had some victories since then, we bought our own place.  But the daily life and grind is harder than it was when we first got out of the hood, so to speak. 

Looking back, I can remember living in a nice, tiny apartment, and every couple weeks we could go out and spend money and it didn't hurt us.  Now, that's harder to do.  We're under more pressure and not getting paid better.  It's kind of a drag, because any other job out there is paying peanuts for nose-to-the-grindstone work and treating talented work as entry level cheap labor.

Opportunity has really dried up.  I don't blame anyone for that, that's just the economy.  It's not a good economy, because there are so many people trying to just get anything... if it was a recovering and vibrant economy, there wouldn't be such desperation, and people wouldn't have to go to extremes to just survive.

That said, Jamie and I have jobs where we can get by and do ok.  We're not blowin' rooftops, but we are getting by.  The thing is, we've been in the exact same spot for three years now and haven't gotten that big break, that next thing.  Perhaps it's coming.  I dunno. 

I think maybe the reason I'm not an easygoing guy like I should be, is that I'm looking at stagnation.  Not just financially, but with everyone around me.  No one is getting anywhere but older.  No one I know has made a big stride in life.  Everyone is stuck.  There isn't a lot of inspiration right now, and if you know me, I'm all about inspiration. 

It's a very dry time in my life.  And a lot of my loved one's lives too.  All we can do now is enjoy each other's company and help each other to make life better in any way possible.

So, before I finish up, if you know anyone who needs a boost, or if you need a boost, talk to anyone you know and see what can happen.  We're here to help each other.

I know this is a serious post, so my next one will be goofy and about music. :)

Challenges

I have been thinking about how I haven't posted since June 1st, and decided, "Well, now's a good time as any."  So, here I am.  After a particularly difficult yet exciting week at work, I thought it would be a good time to wear my heart on my sleeve and compose what could possibly be a great blog post, or just something to say I did and is mostly overlooked.  Nevertheless, it's a freewrite.  Speaking to my work experience, I'm a closer in the mortgage business, and of course, the mortgage business is either feast or famine, or both. 

There's been a lot of pressure there with meeting goals and such, and on my end, we don't have a lot of control over it, so it's something where we take what we get.  I've been worried about it, but the last few days I've worried less, and today, I decided to quit worrying about it altogether.  Two reasons - worry is bad enough as a part of human thought and action, and of course, it's always wise to think ahead to try and prevent a bad thing from happening.

Anyhow, the last couple of months have provided me with several challenges.  First and foremost to my readers, I promised myself I'd share my early June vacation with you, not with a slideshow and pithy retellings of what are sure to be great memories, but a play-by-play breakdown of what it's like to vacation with me.  And it was a great vacation.  I just feel like I should do a post and catch you all up on life before I venture into travel and the poetic. 

We're talking challenges here folks, and so I'll stick to that.  Life ain't easy... are you with me?  The major challenge in my life right now is just to make sure everything stick together and not turn into a mess.  I feel like I've got a duct tape dispenser attached to my belt for the next thing.  I'm not sure if it's the summer heat, or what, but I feel like I'm being scrutinized and judged on every move I make.  I feel like I have to explain every detail of my life to anyone who asks.  I could be completely wrong, but feeling like you're under the spotlight is a very stressful endeavor. 

It's in many areas of my life, and I think the challenge is to know what is important scrutiny, and what is senseless judging.  My lesson here is discernment and proper response.  I think I am getting there with that aspect of things.  I always go back to the Golden Rule, which is treat others the way you want them to treat you.  That's a really helpful thing to know.  Being judged helps me to know when to write something off or listen to someone.  Being scrutinized helps me realize my own shortcomings and try to make improvements. 

I can certainly be a critic when I have to, but I'd much rather be a diplomat and be a part of making things better for everyone.  Compare the rhetoric of warring factions throughout history and the JFK speech on peace at American University on 6/10/63. 

I have other challenges.  I am trying to get into better shape, and while I've lost weight, I'm not as strong as I want to be.  That's something to work on.  I've got a major garage/yard sale coming up, and that's a heck of a lot of moving stuff around, but I have a room to clear and an A/C unit to fix.  I don't expect anyone to understand all the details and challenges of my life, but I do expect them to know that I am actively working on them because I care about the important things.

And one of those important things is sharing my family vacation with you guys.  It's a lot more fun than this post, I'll tell ya that. 

Shortline Sunday! Volume 4

After a long weekend of automotive work, I thought I'd get on here and share a bit of music from my wild and wooly teenage years, aka 1995.

Today's entry is from 10,000 Lakes.  The first 10,000 Lakes album to be precise, and it's called Minnesota Hat 1982.  Of course there's nothing to do with 1982 in it, that's just the title.  But that's only the beginning of the randomness.  The link follows, as well as a song by song piece of writing.  Hope you enjoy it. 



1. 50 Dogs.  This song was one of my first ventures into multitracking.  I had the drum/keyboard part of it already recorded, and then did the guitar and vocal part on top.  It's a song about when I visited someone and when we drove up there were like 50 dogs in the driveway.  It was out in the country and stuff, but it was totally worth a song.

2. Flyswatter.  Basically, this song was me trying to freak out my little brother on tape, but it was a song.  You know what I'm talking about.

3. Blue.  It was my ultimate power ballad.  Part of it got recorded over and I had to work that part out.

4. Be Triangular.  The last math class I had in high school was trigonometry and I had a hard time figuring it out.  So I thought I would make a really abstract song about being triangular, whatever that means.  It was of course, totally random and goofy, so .. basically I'm using the trigonometry thing as an excuse to be weird.  You know what's up.

5. Rough Noisy Bowl '82.  Another experiment in analog multitracking.  I basically took a tiny Casio and recorded a drum and bass song, and put it on a huge stereo and put words to it. 19 years later you can still rock your ass off to it.

6. Hat Rack.  This is one of those foot tapping guitar songs that flows really well with a stream of consciousness kind of feeling.  Anyway, where are you getting all of these ideas for Nintendo games?

7. Bacon.  I recorded this in the back of my dad's truck, (trying to freak out my other little brother at the time,) and it turned out to be an ok recording.  This was the first 10,000 Lakes recording.  It's fun to eat chips while recording a song.

8. Dr. Pepr.  This song was pretty much about the poor kid who couldn't live without Corn Pops.  If you remember the 90's you know what I'm talking about,

9. Window.  This is a very acoustic guitar centric album, and this was one that was mainly about the keyboards.  And the abstract.  Vacuuming ... a turtle ... in ... the middle of dinner!

10. Minnesota Hat 1982. The title track, and an instrumental version of Rough Noisy Bowl '82, with a little guitar action involved.

11. Bonus Track.  This was done in the cassette days.  So if you let your tape play on side 2 you'd get a bonus.  It's a nice, relaxed, end of album bit.  10,000 Lakes has always been about the music and this song is like you get to sit in the same room and enjoy the goofiness in person.