Fat Charlie's Diary

Stuck In Durango

2012-02-07T21:03:48Z

which sounds sort of like "Down and Out in Beverly Hills".

As you can tell by this picture, I am NOT in Jackson Hole:

I was supposed to leave today at 12:45 for Jackson Hole, where I'm in a four-day-long Steep and Deep camp to learn how to do really stupid things from really crazy people.

But I got busy this morning and had to skedaddle down to the airport. I arrived in plenty of time for my flight, but too late to check my luggage. Well, it's kinda hard to go skiing w/o one's, well, skis, so they booked me on the 3:20 flight out, and there is one seat on a 7:XX PM flight out of Denver but they can't actually save my seat on that one yet. So I may be spending the night in Denver, and I may be missing the first day of camp.

Fifteen minutes. That would have done it. And, as it turns out, the project that I was working on didn't get deployed anyway.

Oh, well. No huhu, cobber - I have to remember who issupplying the actual checks that are paying for this steep-and-deep camp and these flights and even the skis and the food I'll be eating while skiing. Seen in that light, it's still a real high ROI.

(editor's note - yes, I know that God is my supply, not my employer. However, "the laborer is worthy of his hire" and all that. An ethic which does not include a responsibility for one's own salary is not an ethic that I have any interest in).

And, for a drunk from Flat Red Clay, Alabama, sitting in the Durango or Denver airport while waiting to get from one's mountain home in Colorado to a ski hill in Jackson - well, those are what my sponsor used to call "Cadillac problems" : )

Has This Happened To You?

2012-02-01T14:13:10Z

Has anyone with bright blue hands ever grabbed you by the crotch and hip and held on tight?

If not, then call the Transportation Safety Office, and they'll send a blue-handed official over right away to fill that lack in your life.

This is my old boss, Marcel, at the Denver airport. I love the way that, at the very same moment that the TSA guy sticks three blue fingers through his crotch, he looks up to the right as if he's thinking "Wasn't I supposed to pick up some milk on the way home?"

Sometimes, when I'm up at some ungodly cow-milking hour, typing bad Java into Eclipse, it's helpful for me to remember scenes like this - I've never had to go over and grab a Dutchman's privates as part of regular day's work.

Boss:" Hey, Jim - did you get those TPS reports out?"
Me: "Yep - and they each had a cover."
Boss: "Good work - when you get back from lunch, would you go fondle Aad's crotch? I think he's Dutch - or, at least, Flemish, maybe..".

I'm just glad that I never got that memo.

...who, me? Not much, thanks - worked most of yesterday. Did get in a run, didn't get to ski or make it to a meeting. Today I intend to run and ski, but probably won't make it to a meeting until tomorrow (we'll head down to Durango for the 5:30, and - if Ethel feels up to it - stay for the 8:00).

Yesterday afternoon, the Habitat folks came to the new condo and, well, basically, took our habitat with them. But no worries - Ethel is on the internet as we speak, buying us a bunch of new habitat from Amazon, with free two-day shipping.

(editor's note: what you don't see in the above photo is Marcel limping; while on a two-day trip to Denver, he managed to get in a day's skiing at Breckenridge, and did 3rd class tear damage to his ACL. He won't be skiing any more this year. Sorry about that, Marcel, but at least you'll have those tender moments at Denver International to warm your heart through the cold months.)

(editor's second note: if the blue-hand man above makes you think of River Tam, then you might want to get a life - or, at least, give Buffy a try).

Back to Normal? Or Back To Puckett?

2012-01-30T15:25:15Z

These are the Radcliffes, from New Zealand:

I met Vivian, Anita and Edward last Friday afternoon at Purgatory; this was after getting up at and starting work before 3:30 AM, and waiting on emails from co-workers for next steps at 2:30 PM - Ethel ran me out of the house and told me to hit the slopes for a bit. I hadn't skiied all week, and I have to admit that it did me a world of good.

The Radcliffe siblings (Dad was down at the lodge, I reckon) were a delight to be around. Normal, congenial, adventurous young'uns, who didn't mind skiing a few runs with an old man. I hope someday to see them in New Zealand - and if everybody down there is this well-balanced and congenial, then I might not come home (I've never seen the Southern Alps, but I have seen pictures : )

The Radcliffes hadn't gotten up at 2:53 that morning; they weren't trying to learn a new job; their wives were not at home with their shoulders in slings while taking pain pills, losing inhibition as a result of which and telling the contractor "Yeah, go ahead and take that wall down." I really envied the Radcliffes, and really wished that my life would get "back to normal".

However, my life is not going to be back to normal at any time in the foreseeable future. Work is going to be crazy until I'm dead - I've accepted that, and learned to embrace it. Heck, with any luck my job will speed things on, and I can go Home to my great reward, and Ethel can inherit and get on with the good life she's got planned with Chad, the Porsche salesman from North Scottsdale.

However, I've gotten fed up with having my circumstances dictate all of my actions. There needs to be some continuity in my life. For the last many months, I've been missing many meetings, not running or working out, and - while being in Colorado - not skiing.

Skiing doesn't actually take much time, given our current situation - we designed it that way. Running or some form of physical training actually makes me more productive (I believe) rather than less, as long as I'm not running so much that it's actually a stressor rather than a stress-reliever.

And missing meetings is just plain stupid. I've read Chapter Nine - I know what happens to drunks who put business before the Program - heck, I know what happens to any twelve-step folk who put anything before the Program.

Therefore, I've made a few decisions, I believe:

1) Missing meetings is over. 4 or 5/week was my previous standard while in the Rockies, and it's going back to that.

2) I'm going back to running *at least some distance* 5 days/week. Doesn't have to be far, doesn't have to be fast, but it does have to be done.

3) Yes, skiing. While I say that my main problem has been time, I suspect that it has had much more to do with energy; I'll say to myself "yes, I could go right now for a half-hour..." (normal folks spend more time than that at lunch every day; I've always been an eat-at-my-desk type) "...but I would only get one or two runs in". Well, who cares? One or two runs can invigorate the rest of the day, as I was reminded late Friday afternoon while skiing with the Radcliffes.

Right now, I'm scheduled to speak at a men's meeting in Durango at 6 PM; it's hard for me to get away at that time of the evening, but I'm going to do so today. No, really, I am. I can come back home and go to work if necessary, but I will make that meeting, as I agreed to it months ago.

My life won't be normal any time soon. But my life will be a Puckett life.

"Will He Go Round In Circles?...

2012-01-05T21:51:58Z

Will he fly high like a bird up in the sky?" - Billy Preston

It's been almost two weeks since I last posted to this blog.

When I haven't been working, I've been with family - and you don't do blog posts while the Uglee Babee is running around the house. And I've been working a lot (which is of course verbal shorthand; it really means I've been coding a lot, and then testing, and then uncoding/recoding a lot, and then testing, and uncoding/recoding a lot, and then testing....)

But today the boss said "finish that and then go ski" - hadn't skiied since the weekend, even though I have a commitment to ski 100 days this season, so I didn't take much convincing.

I was a little rusty, as I haven't been doing much in the way of "vigorous" skiing in a few weeks anyway, as I've been cautioned to not exacerbate this MCL injury. However, I saw the orthodoc yesterday, and he told me to go ahead and do anything that doesn't make it hurt; even told me that I should be good to go for the Jackson Hole Steep And Deep Camp next month. (If he thinks that this knee can stand up for the drop into Corbett's Couloir, then he must figure that it's all right).

So this morning I did a pre-dawn two mile run - the first one in almost a month - and around lunchtime Ethel and I headed over to the ski hill. I skiied some bumps - not well, but vigorously : ) - and she tracked me from the top of the hill where I'm just a little Puckett-shaped dot all the wayout into the flat where I did some skirouettes (although you really can't seem this at this resolution : )

Now I'm back at work, but feeling much refreshed. I'm even going to a couple of meetings tonight, just like people : )

Ethel Spends Money Again. Film At Eleven.

2011-12-30T17:06:29Z

(editor's note - a friend said that I should post, as he needed a laugh. Sorry, Bruce - this isn't funny at all. But it's a post)

Well, it's official - the Pucketts are not broke enough.

I know that we must not be broke enough, because Ethel is buying another condo.

Now, wait - don't get confused. Ethel has only actually bought one condo so far.

OFFICIAL ETHEL CONDOLOGY:

1) 2007ish - Ethel made an offer on a condo in Pinetop/Lakeside - a very nice place, got a good price. But while we were going through the deal, something occurred at work which reminded me just how a job can be, and I took that as a Sign that we shouldn't buy it. So we didn't. (worked out better in the long run, too - that condo was 30ish miles from the ski hill, and that ski hill isn't open nearly as long as Purgatory).

2) 2010 Bought the current condo in Cascade Village, near Purgatory Ski Hill (what the marketing types call "Durango Mountain Resort") in January, after spending the first part of the winter at Pinetop.

(This was occasioned in part by having become rather up-fed w/the services at Sunrise. "Is there snowmaking on this lift?" "Idunno". "Is the lodge open at the top?" "Idunno". "Do they have hot dogs in the restaurant?" "I dunno". "Do you know if you know anything?" "Idunno")

We actually decided to go ahead and make the offer as we were driving out of town; it just happened to be my birthday, so we called it my birthday present. <GOLUM_MODE> It came to me on me birthday, precious, and we wants it, we does! </GOLUM_MODE>

3) Aug 2011 Had an accepted offer on a nice place in San Jose del Cabo, as a summer home; found ourselves jumping through so many hoops (buying property in Mexico is not for the faint of heart) that we said "nah"....

.... and then realized that, for the summer season (since we ski in winter) we can do long-term rentals on the beach for about what the owners are paying in HOAs and utlities. Gee - if I bought one of those places, I'd be paying HOA and utilities *all year long*, plus paying for the condo.

This sort of realization is called "The Great Duh".

4) Dec 2011 - found what has been the absolute best deal on a larger unit at Cascade Village since we've been there. Ethel decided that she really liked Cascade Village - we're right at the ski hill, except we're around the big turn so we get better views, and this little hairpin in the mountain gets more snow than the ski hill itself. It's really a lovely place to drive up to and call home.

The village looks like this from the road:

Now, when they talk about villages being nestled into the mountains - well, that's about as "nestled" as nestled gets. It's probably at its loveliest when approached at night.

The new condo is actually directly across the parking lot from our current condo - it's the one in the middle:

So the two balconies and the fireplace in the middle are the backside of the new place. The front of the condo is in the back, and the back door is underneath, in covered parking.

Those two long windows on each side of the chimney provide very striking views of the Needles Mountains and Potato Hill, but for some reason the listing agent didn't include pix from there. Here's the view from out on the deck, looking north:

That peak is Engineer Mountain, which is my favorite.

Ethel, however, prefers the Needles, and that is what you see looking east - this is pretty much what you see through the windows on the lower floor, but I think that this was taken from out on the deck:

Interestingly enough, our current one-bedroom is downstairs, behind the tallest pine - so we can really see each condo from the other. I think I might spend a few days just running back and forth between the condos. (I'm just a poor boy from Flat Red Clay, Alabama - I have no business having one ski condo. I certainly have no business having two of them : ) That big chunk of rock on the left is Potato Hill (lovingly referred to as "Spud" by the locals - hey, that's us!)

We can actually see more of the Needles - for some reason, they split it up into two pix. Here's the one looking further south:

We're not showing the inside because there's really nothing to look at - it needs a little updating, and was furnished during the Eisenhower administration. But it's very livable - we just won't have granite or leather for a little while.

Ethel really wanted us both to have our own permanent working spaces, and she wanted a view of the Needles. I like the views myself, but I'm the sort of schmuck who will sit there and look at the mountains while computing, in my head, how much more per day I'm paying to look at said mountains - I'll wind up with a spreadsheet amortizing the 20 minutes/day mountain-looking , showing how the relative ROI of moutain-gazing is affected by property taxes, increase HOAs, and the relative costs/square foot of the two residences. And I'll have to take into account cloudy days when we can't see the mountains, of course.

But Ethel wants it. So here we go.

Film at eleven.

Yes, This Is How I Feel

2011-12-19T23:32:23Z

Forgive me, whatever blog readers are out there, for I have sinned.

It's been seventeen days since my last post.

And that ain't all; I've only run once in the last ten days. And I've made fewer meetings in the last month than any month I've been alive.

Most of that is just work.

I've been working till late bedtimes and then waking up three hours later worried about work, so I'd crank up the computer. I've worked longer hours on weekends than I used to work on weekdays.

As a result, if I were to paint a self-portrait right now, it would look like this:

Now, long term readers (both of you) might recall this pic of a Tennessee fan during the Alabama game of 2010: these two HAVE to be related. Or maybe it's one of those time-travel things.

(N.B. the above pic is from a romantic comedy titled "Morning Glory" - Ethel's been force-feeding me romantic comedies lately. I'm so tired and moody that it just makes sense to watch them - obviously, my job has cost me my manhood. Gimme two more weeks and I'll be watching "Beaches" while crying in my chocolate)

I say that this is the result of "work". However (as I stated on FB) you can't really call it work, since anybody with freshman physics can tell you

W=fd

i.e., "work equals the force expended times the distance of movement" - which means that, no matter how much force you expend, if there's no forward progress, there is no work. Only fatigue and frustration. You don't get credit for fatigue and frustration; you just get credit for work.

We're back in Arizona now for the holidays. Those of you who know Ethel know that being anywhere for any length of time means that she has to buy a condo there (it's a federal law; it's not just a state thing). And so she has - she has got an offer made and accepted on a much larger unit at Cascade Village across the parking lot from us - but "across the parking lot" means majestic views of the Needles Mountains rather than our current pleasant view up the ridgeline to Cascade Divide.

But I'm not sold on buying; my work is so discombobulated that I have no idea if I'm going to have a job four months from now. Thus, buying a place in the mountains - when I might not be able to telecommute anymore, because I'll be working at Joe's Software Emporium, and Joe's probably won't pay enough for me to pay for my Arizona home and a Colorado home too.

So I got up this morning and was working before 7 (which is a late start for me - but I was working late last night - no, wait. I wasn't. Ethel made me watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes of the Big Brains of the San Francisco Bay) and I have no end in sight tonight (I'm still in my pajamas). And, lately, when I have stopped working, then I've started studying.

I do not understand this, in truth. I have never had this much trouble catching up; I've never had this much trouble fitting in. I feel like I've become a ball and chain to the other team members; as though they don't want to hear from me. For a guy like me, that's tough. But let's face it - not everybody is going to like me.¹

Okay, so far, I've failed. But I'm still trying. There's no virtue in that; I simply do not know how to stop trying. I've tweaked my MCL in a pretty spectacular ski fall, which means that I've stopped running and have only been doing limited skiing; that all translates to more time for work. I'll wander away from my desk, and then think "wait a minute - maybe that would work this way" and back I go to mouse and keyboard.

So now I feel like that guy in that picture above looks. And I don't think either of us are happy about it : )

¹that's not a reflexive statement; the quite honest truth is that I like everybody. I realized some years ago that I really do like everybody; when I start to think that I don't like somebody, then I will find out that I've begun to suspect that they don't like me, and thus I have to go ahead and dislike them to prove them wrong, pre-emptively. It's not easy being me, and I wish somebody else would take the job.

It just LOOKS cold.

2011-12-02T22:32:24Z

Here's what it looked like yesterday, from across Cascade Village towards the Needles:

It's been warm and sunny here for days, with yesterday being the first day with any snow - just a dusting - but this picture, taken at midday, shows that perhaps the storm arriving today will truly give us a dump.

The building to the right of the van is where we have our little condo, with (fortunately) underground parking. (the 'underground' here is just on three sides - if you park in the east row, you basically see this same view without any condos or vans : )

Today, it doesn't look like this. You can't see the Needles Mountains. You can't even see the top of the hill behind our condo (looking the other direction). We're under a Winter Storm Warning, which is sort of another way of saying "Happiness Alert!!" : )

I love it up here. It bothers me that this change of circumstance - from pretty much anywhere up to 9000 feet at the ski village - makes me happy. That is contrary to all of my spiritual beliefs and practices.

But it's true - as we are climbing up from Phoenix to hear, I get happier with every elevation gain.

Don't Have Time For The Details

2011-11-29T23:47:01Z

Today's Patron Saint of FCD is Fred Tuttle:

He's our patron saint today because of his "No Time For The Details" monologue - I've searched, and I can't find it,so I'll do the best I can from memory:

"I'm a Man with a Plan, and it's a good plan, but it doesn't have any details, because my daddy says that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we ain't got time for the details!"

Today I ran at 9000 feet, and worked, and skiied a little, and worked, and now I'm going to a 5:30 meeting and then grocery shopping et.al. and then an 8:00 meeting and then back up the mountain and home.

So this is all I can post, cause we ain't got time for the details!

(meanwhile, over on 100 Days, Ethel is chronicling our attempt to get in 100 days of skiing. She has time for the details).

The Tide Rolled - quite well, thank you.

2011-11-29T01:13:15Z

Mojo to eat when playing Auburn:

The Frosted Flakes because of Tony the Tiger (and look at that box and tell me those aren't Auburn's colors :) - the Cheez-Its because of Gene Cheezik (and that's Auburn's orange, as well).

It worked.

(rest of this post deleted because of its argumentative nature).

A New Golfer With A Credit Card

2011-11-22T18:31:21Z

You know the only thing scarier than a new golfer with a credit card?

A new golfer with MY credit card : )

Here is Ethel at Van's Golf Shop in North Scott$dale. (Why, no - we couldn't got to a golf shop in Glendale or Guadalupe. Why do you ask?) She had just completed her last introductory lesson, and we were looking around for some good used clubs, when we ran across this deal on some Adams Tight Lies ladies' clubs - a hundred bucks less than we'd seen the same set anywhere online.

So we bought 'em.

While we were there, it turned out that they had the men's Adams Tight Lies set - with one fewer woods, and one more iron - for a good bit less than that. So we bought them, too.

Now we have Christmas already taken care of, except for buying for everybody else, and decorating, and cooking, and everything else. But we both have new golf clubs.

My clubs are far better than anything that I had ever bought for myself - my Daddy used to say, when folks asked him why he didn't get new clubs, "I'm not as good as the clubs that I already have". I've always felt the same - but, during last ski season, I bought some new Dynastar Legend Sultan 80 skis, and they changed my skiing dramatically and quickly.

Getting new skis changed my skiing. Would getting new, better golf clubs change my game?

After looking at some new clubs the other day, I got in my car - a ten-year-old BMW Z3 roadster - and pulled onto the freeway. While accelerating into the turn, I realized what a good car that is - and that buying a BMW really makes a difference. And so I started thinking about getting new clubs even more.

So now I've got some. And, after I've played with them a few weeks, I can take 'em back in and have them custom fit to my body, no extra charge. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, Ethel is a new golfer, with some very, very good clubs. And she wants to play golf. So I'm accommodating her as much as possible : )

In them meantime, I'm looking at taking tomorrow off and jumping - they got the Caravan in, and that would mean that I'd be able to do many more jumps in a day....as I typed that, I got scared. I'm sorta planning to finish out this Advanced Free Fall class, but I wonder if somebody who is as ADD as I am has any business jumping out of airplanes as a hobby : )

Full Price, Full Service - and Full Money-Back Guaranty

2011-11-17T22:37:46Z

Those of you who actually read this may remember our fiasco with trying to buy Rosetta Stone off of Ebay a couple of months back.

After dithering and dickering, we finally decided to pay full price to Rosetta Stone itself, in order to get full service and a money-back guaranty if it doesn't work. That's actually kind of hard to beat; I get to learn conversational Spanish inside of six months, or they pay me back my money. (They can't pay me back my time, but there must be SOME learning that will be happening.)

It came in yesterday -

Since I don't have enough going on (with the new job, my regular extra-curricular activities and responsibilities, plus finishing my skydiving certification and getting ready to spend the winter at Purgatory) I think that adding another 30min-1hr a day of studying Spanish makes plenty of sense.

Speaking of the winter in Purgatory - Ethel is staring a blog, 100Days.fatcharliesdiary.com, to chronicle our attempt to ski 100 days this winter. While working, my training for a half marathon, regular meetings, and coming back for a couple of weeks for Christmas.

And I wonder why I go to bed with my eyes twitching...Meanwhile, Ethel has found our condo for next summer in Cabo. It's on the beach - but not just any beach; it's on Hombre Viejo Playa, "Old Man's Beach" - where old men surf : ) it would be a simple matter of walking out the door and paddling out to the break and then smashing my soft, pointy skull on the hard, pointy rocks laying just beneath the surface...okay, enough about that : )

I just got back my Moonstone ski pants from the seamstress - these are cool bibs that have an up-down zipper, which comes in very handy in the woods; however, this last ski season, the zipper broke. I took them in to have them fixed as soon as we got back at the first of April; it took four months or so to find out that the place that we took them too hadn't fixed them, and hadn't called us to tell us that they hadn't fixed 'em - I found out by deciding to go by there and say "Where are my ski pants?"

So I then took them to a place that this place recommended - the nice lady there said that she should be done in a couple of weeks, and she would call us......weeks went by. Months went by. Finally, last week, I went by there and said "Hello! Where are my ski pants?"

She said "Oh, I didn't know that you were coming back for them. I'll get them done now."

(If that one makes your eyes cross and causes your larynx into an involuntary "hunnnnnhhhh??" type sound, then we are alike, you and I)

Today I got a text and they were done. So now I've got three functional pairs of ski pants - which is important, if you're going to ski 100 days.

Nine More Days

2011-11-16T21:42:26Z

I generally like to stay in my time frame. Today is today is today, and there isn't anything else.

There never really was any other time, either - there's only now. I've sorta figured out that Now goes through the movie, rather than the movie playing. I'm always in the Now, and the Now is moving (or maybe it's just the illusion of movement - there are schools of though that teach that, if I learn to see through the veil, I'll see the real world, which is always Now).

But let's just say that I'm looking forward to when Now is nine days further along:

That's today's pic from the webcam at the top of Hades and Styx, on the front side of Purgatory. Those mountains you see are Potato Hill (aka "Spud") and the West Needle range. You can see those from our condo development, as well.

In nine days, we start our quest for 100 days of skiing. That's while working full time, and maintaining our full-time residence in Phoenix. There aren't a lot of Phoenecians who will ski a hundred days this winter. But then, truth be told, not that many people in Phoenix WANT to ski a hundred days - many folks in Phoenix are in Phoenix to avoid winter altogether.

Last night, after finishing up another grueling workday, I lay back on the couch and clicked on "Warren Miller: Impact". This was from the early 2000s, and even that is late enough that Warren isn't doing all - or even most - of the narration. I did hear Warren say something new, right after saying something old.

He said "And if you don't do it this year, you'll just be one year older when you do." -- okay, that's a mandatory statement in every Warren Miller movie.

But a little later, when somebody who perhaps should not have been doing a back flip on alpine gear in the backcountry was doing a back flip on alpine gear in the backcountry, Warren said "If you do this this year, you probably won't be a year older next year" : )

It's a weird time to be me. I'm living with the effects of being ancient and feeble, while taking skydiving lessons and setting up to huck off cliffs and down couloirs at Jackson Hole in February. I reckon this is my midlife crisis. It's cheaper than a Ferrari and a floozy named Doris, and - come to think of it - probably safer.

Nine more days - in the Army, when you were finishing up a given assignment or a tour of duty at a given location, you came down with "short-timers' syndrome", which meant that you stopped caring about what was going on around you; you said that you were "Short!" if anybody asked how you were. "Short" was always assumed to be a good thing, since the two best duty stations in the Army are: your last one, and your next one.

When you got down to less than ten days to go, you referred to yourself as a "two-digit midget".

I don't have "short-timers' syndrome", since everything that I am currently responsible for is following me to Purgatory - job, bills, home in New RIver, etc. So I'm not losing any responsibilities, I'm simply going on an extended working vacation. Nothing will really change, except for my location, the reduction in commute time, and the addition of 1.5-2 hours of vigorous skiing every weekday.

But this is a gentle reminder that someday I will have short-timers' syndrome again. I think. If I ever get to retire, it'll be like that, I suppose - a vigorous tossing off of old responsibilities, and an assumption of new (and, one hopes) lighter ones.

But all I know right now is that I've got nine more days until I am actually, physically on a pair of skis, sliding down a beautiful snow-covered slope in the Rockies...ahhhh.....

I'm Tired Of It Now.

2011-11-14T15:47:38Z

No, don't worry. This is not another blog post about how awful the Penn State situation is. I can promise that much. I'm simply tired of hearing about it.

This is a post about how tired I am of hearing about it.

Now we've got college football bloggers posting links to Saturday Night Live videos about how the Devil thinks that it is awful to show how awful we all think it is.

The name of this blog is "Fat Charlie's Diary". That name is a reference to a Paul Simon song about "Fat Charlie the Archangel" - the reason that Fat Charlie has been my nom de net for the last twenty years is because, at my best, I - like Fat Charlie the Archangel - "have no opinion about this, have no opinion about that".

So why I'm going to say now will sound like an opinion. But I don't think it is - it is, rather than an opinion:

a) a statement of "fact" internal to Christian dogma or practice, as well as
b) a matter of taste, or tact, or preference.

I'm not going to decry what happened in Penn State. Sorry - I ain't playing. That - as I understand it - is not my job. There's Somebody Else who's supposed to do that, if that is what He wants to do. And I'm not going to pretend that I know what He wants to do - His actions are His own.

I am pretty sure what I'm supposed to do, though - Judge not, lest I also be judged.

The only thing that I'm supposed to judge is judgement itself, and find my own lacking, and leave the judging to the One who's supposed to do that.

There are reasons for that, as I understand it, and at least one of them works this way - the same judgement will be meted out to me, "heaped up, pressed down, and running over".

We can say all we want about how awful the Penn State situation is. And, Lord knows, folks are.

But I see the whole thing as distasteful. It's a witch hunt. I don't believe (and that that point, I reckon, we've moved into "opinion". So be it) that it's really outrage at all.

It's guilt. Plain, old fashioned guilt, that wants the other guy to be guiltier.

Every one of us has sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every one of us has harmed an innocent; every one of us has covered something up. Every one of us has lied, every one of us has lusted inappropriately, and every one of us has thought that we've escaped detection.

But at least we can all pat ourselves on our collective backs and purse our lips and nod our heads and say "Well, at least we're not as bad as THAT guy." And then we can get angry to show how righteous we are. See how outraged I am? That shows that I'd never act like that. And you and I can agree that that other SOB there is the one who's going to the "special hell".

If there's one way in which I might be a little different from most, it might be that I have done enough inventory work (to save myself from my own excesses, not as the result of any virtue) that I know that I'm the same as everybody else.

Our ACTIONS my differ. But our motives are, always, the same - Charlie Manson to Mother Theresa, Bernie Maddoff to Milton Berle, Hitler to His Holiness - regardless of how much we give way to particular impulses, or to what extent we are successful in bringing the Almighty in line with our efforts to diminish our excesses, the underlying evil of selfishness is the same.

And, of course, I do not except myself - I know it of myself, most of all.

And I'm even sharing in this particular sin - the sin of claiming somebody else's sin is worse than my own, by being righteously indignant at the righteous indignation that I see around me.

Oh, well. I'm confessing it. What ain't detected can't be corrected : ) That's the best that I can do.

And this post is not pointed at those who are currently toting their torch and pitchforks - they have no desire to hear anything like this sort of missive.

This is intended to help others who, like me, found themselves just a bit queasy about the situation - not what happened in State College, which no doubt happens every day in cities all across the nation - but at our own responses, and the responses we see about us.

It may be that you, too, are aware of your own sins, and might find the idea of picking up some stones to throw a bit....distasteful, if nothing else.

Hello, World!

2011-11-07T23:26:21Z

That's what most programs that one writes will display once one gets through the tutorial - find some way to say "Hello, World!" - on a command-line interface, or in an alert box on a browser, or in an X-window, or...or....or...

I'm saying "Hello, World!" because I've been trying to learn a lot of languages all at once, and - as a result - I haven't posted on this blog in a week.

Here in unutterably gorgeous New River, AZ, we had two (2!) hailstorms today - here's the second one:

If that looks cold and bleak and desolate - well, "Hello, ( welcome to my) World!"

No, it's not because of the game Saturday night - yes, it was a heart breaker, and I actually got really mad twice (which means that I won't be watching football anymore - if I'm getting angry over something like that, it's best to stay away) - the game has a major impact on all of those who are actually involved, but for the fans, it's really just another turn of the page. By all accounts, 'Bama will be going to the Sugar Bowl as the #2 team in the SEC, and that beats getting slapped in the belly with a wet fish any day.

I think it's simple discouragement - I think I am realizing that I have bit off more than I can chew with my new job. I have (I've told this story before) learned a programming language in just one night, to the point that I was dreaming in it. And that wasn't some little fly-by-night made-up scripting language - we're talking here about C.

So it didn't bother me thinking that I could learn some new languages - of course I can. But it turns out that these languages-and frameworks and toolkits- are so intermingled - or at least used that way - that I can't learn one without learning the others.

I don't think it occurred to the folks that interviewed me just what might be entailed; I suspect that each of them knew how to build websites with HTML, and then added CSS and client-side Javascript, and then might have learned PHP, and look! - here's this new cool tool called jQuery! Lemme get me some of that!...and - oh! jQuery has templates that we can use to bind tabular data - huh? hey, sure, model-view-controller is good but have you tried model-view-view-model? sure-check this out! Knockout ! Does a lot of this binding for us? Cool!...oh, wow, let's stick Zend in front to tie in our controllers, our views and our models, and then tie in the views and models on the back end with knockout which uses javascript, jQuery, and jQuery templates....

They didn't learn it all at once, is what I'm saying. They became functional in one or two toolsets, and then added the others incrementally - whereas I'm trying to add them all at once, with an entirely different type of -mentally....

On Saturday, I spent my time between my long run (finished at 8:20 AM) and the game (5 PM) working; "working" in the context does not mean "writing actual production code" but instead in this context it means "trying to learn more PHP and client-side javascript to fill in the holes around what I already know" - and I didn't feel like I made any progress at all.

On Sunday morning, I spent an hour and a half at the golf course, putting and hitting balls at the driving range, and then played 18 holes with Floyd - I was planning to head down to Maricopa to do a couple of jumps. But then I found out midway through the game that they didn't have enough AFF instructors for me to jump that day, and suddenly I felt a very bad, bad thing - I felt discouraged because I knew that I was going to have to go home and go back to work, doing something that I no longer believed that I could do.

That was very, very sad.

So Floyd and I played an extra 18 holes : ) I haven't played 36 hole of golf in one day since the late 80s, or - at the latest - the extremely early 90s. But it was a short course, and I was playing pretty well, and while I was in that golf cart I was not sitting at home trying to do something that I couldn't do.

Now it's a workday again, and - since I'm currently on a three-day-a-week running schedule - I was here at my desk by 6:15 or so this AM, digging into code that looks as opaque as neutron-enriched cadmium rods, and starting to wonder if I'm going to wind up losing my job because I'm not producing anything.

I really love programming. But I'm starting to suspect that perhaps I'm too old to be mentally flexible enough to do what seems to be required of me. And - while I love programming - I love being productive even more. I'd rather be a productive garbageman than an unproductive programmer.

That...was the sound of my teeth grinding.

Okay, I'm giving up now. Today has been long enough.

Knee Deep In The Hoopla

2011-10-31T23:48:45Z

I've got a new job and I have to learn everything new - okay, not everything from scratch.. I have to relearn vi, emacs and Eclipse I'm having to learn more Javascript than I ever had to have to write WebLOAD scripts. I'm having to learn a lot of new HTML stuff. From a complete lack of knowledge, I I'm having to learn php, .And jQuery. And jqGrid. And CSS. And Zend. And Knockoff.

And still, I find some time in my day to read Every Day Should Be Saturday and Doc Saturday.. And also - or especially - RollBamaRoll.

I guess I'm buying in to it.

I've been training for my next half-marathon, now less than three weeks out. I've given up on that race, because I'm too injured and too worn out and don't have time because of the aforementioned job. But I'll still find time and energy to discuss the upcoming game - sometimes so vigorously that I'm surprised I don't get injured (possibly through my own violent movement of expression, or maybe even by the other fellow).

I'll be glad when this game is over with, for one reason or another.

She Bought Into The Hype

2011-10-27T20:07:50Z

Yes, I know that Ethel is a football fan. I'm glad that she's a football fan.

But one oh so easily forgets that the word "fan" comes from the root word "fanatic" - although that fact was more easily brought to mind when I saw the T-shirt that she ordered:

Yes, the front of the shirt does, indeed, say "Winner Take All". All what?

Please understand - we won't be going to the game in Tuscaloosa i.e. the "Throwdown in T-Town". We'll be watching it here (or at Floyd's house). But we'll be walking around in these t-shirts for the rest of our natural lives : )

This game gets mentioned on ESPN about every fifteen minutes - and ESPN is not even broadcasting it. CBS has the honors. That tells me that the hype has lost all cause or connection with reality. It has taken on a life of its own.

I sorta wish that both teams could lose - if for no other reason than causing all of the pundits to say "Uh, now what?" They've long since given up projecting both teams in the BCS Championship Game - now they say "So, who will be playing the Alabama/LUS winner in the BCSCG?"

Never mind assuming that the SEC winner will be in the game - whoever wins THIS game will almost certainly be in the SEC championship game, and then they'll have to win that, as well.

Alabama is, the last I heard, a four-point favorite in Las Vegas, but that's only because of the home field advantage. And I saw a statistician's writeup that said that Alabama is the most likely team in the country to finish the regular season undefeated, because we've already played Arkansas, while LSU still has to play that game.

Truly, I hope that Bama wins this game - then, even if we lose another game, we'll have the head-to-head tie over LSU for the SEC West division title. And winning the West division is good enough for me - well, actually, whatever I get is good enough for me : )

Crimson Ride

2011-10-26T22:31:05Z

Ethel's new Volkswagen Touareg was supposed to be some fruity or foody color - I think it was "Cranberry".

Well, as far as we can tell, the dang thing is Crimson as it can be:

Of course, Ethel's not complaining. She sorta likes crimson.

Well, it's official - the Crimson Tigers will be playing in another ten days and both of them will be undefeated. The hype started as soon as Saturday's games were in the bag - CBS claimed the game for its afternoon Saturday slot, and then started negotiating with ESPN to move it to Prime Time (there's some sort of SEC-divvying-up deal that CBS and ESPN have that forced those negotiations). So now the game will be at 7 PM EDT on Saturday, Nov 5th. That means that we won't be watching V, as is our custom on the fifth of November:

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November
And Les Miles' reason - or NOT!
I know of no reason this whole football season
Would ever be forgot..."

So the dark lord Saban will be across the field from the grass ~~smoking~~ eating Les Miles. One of them can tell time, and one of them is seemingly lucky enough that he doesn't have to.

The mojo-eatin' will consist of shrimp etufe' and gumbo - we eat it like dat, dat make it taste GOOD! - and it looks like we'll be doing it down at Floyd and Angela's house, although I'm gonna keep lobbying to watch the game at home. I spend so much time gone during the week that I really like being able to sit at home whenever possible.

I still haven't finished my AFF Level II and III jumps - I was supposed to be there right now, but it's too windy in Maricopa to jump today. So it looks like Friday or Sunday I'll get to do it - well, Sunday, IF they have two jumpmasters this weekend. I have a morning golf game, but there's no reason that I couldn't jump after golfing, as long as they have two jumpmasters (for Level II and III, I'm supposed to jump with one jumpmaster on each side - after that, I can jump with just one of them).

An Aggressive Attitude

2011-10-21T22:18:03Z

Something else that I've seen on FaceBook. I'm not so sure that this is who I want to be, although sometimes it seems like it's who I am - although my complaining doesn't have this sort of strength - it's more a whiney "...but....but I didn't want the lemons! I don't like lemons! Why did you give me these lemons?"

My body - my body is one of the lemons life gave me. In fact, it fits that concept in many ways, right down to the idea of buying a vehicle that's a "lemon" - that won't run right, a vehicle on which much of the equipment doesn't work or isn't serviceable, one that keeps having to be returned to the shop again and again and all the mechanics can say is "gee, I don't know what's wrong with it" (although, when the mechanics are doctors, therr "I don't know" sounds a lot smarter and takes more syllables).

My brain is a lemon, too, in many of the same ways - but it's also sour, hard on the outside, soft on the inside, and gets all brown and crusty if I let it sit too long.

I'm going to take a different attitude than the folks who did the above sign, though - I'm simply going to outlive the life that gave me the lemons. When this body and brain are gone and in the grave, I'll still be me - and the NEXT time, I'm getting a better brain/body combination.

It'll be taller, too.

Lazy, Drama, Outspoken, Alone

2011-10-20T19:54:07Z

Here's a FaceBook meme that I saw yesterday.

The first four words that I saw are the title of this post.

I'm sure that that doesn't really mean anything. Now, when I look at it, I can see "passionate" and "happy" and "thoughtful". Right underneath "outspoken" is "outgoing" - why couldn't I have seen that one? Because I'm an introvert, no doubt.

I even see "sweet". But then the next one I saw was "insecure".

Now, I don't know if there's anything to this meme at all - probably just pop psychology. But I have to admit that, yes, those four words do describe me.

But, then, so do all of the other words. There's no personality attribute that you can name that I don't have. I'm all of the things that you can call anybody. I may not ACT on those things, but they're in here.

Except for one - "perfectionist". I've always wanted to be a perfectionist, but I've never been able to get up enough gumption : )

Dunno Where Somnia Is, But I Think I'm In There

2011-10-19T22:23:31Z

There are those that say that trying to read this message will cause it to not be true anymore:

For the last several years, I've slept more and more poorly.

I have absolutely no trouble falling asleep - I do so almost instantly. Sometimes - rarely - I'll wake up ten minutes later, and then have a bit of trouble falling back asleep; I have no idea why that happens, but it's rare.

But my main problem is that I wake up every ninety minutes. Sometimes I'll sleep for the first three hours, and then go into a ninety-minute cycle. If I'm exhausted, then (rarely)it'll go as long as four or four and a half hours before I start waking up every hour and a half.

When I wake up at these 90 minute intervals, I have no trouble going back to sleep (generally speaking - sometimes, if it's after 3 AM, my brain might decide that it wants to work on something while I go to the bathroom; this is a bad habit my brain has, and I have to work to shut it down then).

Then, after seven hours or so, I wake up every ten minutes.

This is a real problem because the body has to go through at least two of these 90 minute sleep cycles before it will start making many important hormones - some of them are the type that repair the body after athletic activity. I tend to do a good bit of that sort of thing.

I don't know why I've had this sleep problem. I was tested for sleep apnea years ago; I've had no episodes of waking up as a result of not breathing for many years (this used to happen to me rarely - I would be dreaming that I wasn't breathing, and I would wake up and gasp for air. But they put the machine on me when I slept, and my blood was fully oxygenated all night long - and that was at 7000 feet elevation).

So a month or so ago, I started taking melatonin and valerian root - it seemed to help a little, but didn't solve the problem Then, just over a week ago, my doc suggested an over-the-counter sleep aid, and it seemed to really help a lot.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was BENADRYL : )

Just plain old Benadryl, in 25 mg pills - I take two of 'em. It has stretched out the length of time that I sleep undisturbed - well, it's worked every night but last night. I'm hoping that that was an anomaly..

I could understand this if I had worries or stresses - and, well, I DO, I suppose, but they don't bother me. They don't keep me up at night. The only thing that seems to be keeping me up at night is a weird sleep cycle.

If these don't work, then I won't hesitate to go to something stronger. I'm tired of being tired. I would like to sleep all night long. Really.