Just Words

Christmas has come and gone. Presents given. Received. Some yet to deliver. I'm pleased to report that everyone had a great time at Grandma's place for Christmas. And as an added bonus, we all survived the trip back to Vernon in the blizzard. Nicely done. Boxing Day afforded me my first opportunity to stand in line at Future Shop from 4 til 6 AM. But I made out good with a 17 inch flat screen LCD monitor for $250. In short, life is good. 'Nuff said.

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Drained. Filled up. Drained. Filled up. Drained again. My energy level goes up and down more often than a hooker's underpants. I feel like some kind of conduit. Energy transfer mechanism. Never to be used as a container or a source. Just a means to connect energy, knowledge and power between two points. I'm still paying for the knowledge I've gained in my life. And I'm getting paid for the application of that knowledge.

Energy is the potential for change. Power is the rate at which that energy is applied. It is hardly useful to have infinite energy if you can only apply it one teaspoon at a time. In a similar way, ability is only as useful as its application. Many people work for a company that doesn't use them to nearly their full capacity. And they feel the need to change. But how many environments could maximize your usefulness? Compare that to the number of people who are not fully useful and want to change environments? How many lives are clamoring in the muck for those select few spots in the spotlight? Is this the new "survival of the fittest"?

It is true that the economy suffers when there aren't enough educated people available to drive businesses and industry. But the people suffer when they pay big bucks for an education and don't have high paying jobs waiting for them when it comes time to pay it back. Student loans are crap. Sure it's a low interest rate. But what does that matter when you have to pay them back to 4 or 5 creditors all at once?

I've streamlined my life in the past year. Ditched as many expenses as I could. Focussed on paying back everything as fast as possible. I think of this as a sacrifice. According to the dictionary, I'm accurate. But most anyone in any other part of the world would never recognize the things I call "sacrifice".

Language is a funny thing. We attach meanings to words through multiple use. The word "fuck" has the attached meaning of raw emotions. Lust. Rage. It brings an edge to whatever sentence it's used in. Some people consider it extraneous. I consider it art. Its similarity to artistic forms makes its use difficult to describe. Elusive only because its near constant use in our world gives it more meanings than can be explained with a single statement. But then again, isn't everything a little like that? Isn't life and everything attached to the human equation just a litle more complex than the words we use to describe them, giving them an almost mystical or religious quality?

I'm free tonight. I have nothing that needs to be finished urgently. I've almost forgotten how to live moments like this. There is nothing to worry about. Nothing to provide traction for my tractor-brain. I have a few small projects. But the work for the year is completed. It's times like these that I see the true fallacy of living my life for my work. When it's over you'll have nothing. Why doesn't anybody explain it that way when they're trying to convince me to work less?

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My Japanese friends came by the shop yesterday before heading to the airport. All four thanked me individually for my help with their radio. The occasion had an air of ceremony and respect to it. It wasn't the gesture I was expecting but I understand and respect the spirit in which it was given. Japanese culture is a wierd and wonderful thing. I can only hope that someday I have the opportunity to learn more.

I'm almost done working for the year. Everyone else in our office has committed to taking the week between Christmas and New Year's off so I'm obliged to do the same. I'll probably sneak in to get a few things out of the way so my desk isn't so cluttered in January. But I have to remember that I'm not quite finished yet. It's been a hell of a month. At the beginning of December I couldn't have told you how I was going to make it without birthing a stressbaby. It's been a hell of a race and I'm on the home stretch. For those of you who haven't participated in any kind of long distance race or endurance contest, the home stretch is no place to take it easy. If anything, the last tenth of the race should be run faster than any other portion.

I remember times when I was in cross-country in high school. Running a race every Monday afternoon for 2-3 months. Each race was its own battle. And the only one you're really competing against is yourself. I recall those races like a historian recalls Gettysburg or Normandy. Marking off each kilometer in my head. Keeping tabs on who's ahead of me and who's behind. Trying to remember who finishes strong and who craps out midstream. Who I can let get ahead midrace and when I have to pick up the pace to have a shot at first place.

Reaching deeper inside for more. More energy. More output. More heart. Each race I would have traded my entire insides to win. Each time I would have gutted myself and burned the planks on my own ship to feed my engine. Anything to keep going. And victory was always in how much heart I could put in. In the last stretch sometimes I would be real tired. Telling myself all kinds of things. Justifications. Saying that it's okay to be second because there was no way I could catch that one last guy. Save my strength. Okay to be third because I've done my best. Okay to be fourth... fifth... sixth... At the end of the race you either have it or you don't. You're either hoping for a tailwind so it doesn't hurt so bad, or you're daring the wind to push back. Pulling the wind with you like a train pulls its cargo. Like the wind is the dead weight and it needs your strength to hold it up.

There was nothing like that indestructible feeling at the end of the race when I'd realize that I was in the lead pack and I had what it took to fight for the top spot. When I'd start to pull away, slowly at first, and watch for who was trying to keep up with me and who was willing to let me have it. That's what I feel like right now. I've rounded the last bend and the end (of this race) is in sight. All I have to do is keep up what I've been doing and finish strong. Because even when you haven't won (or even come close) everyone likes to see a strong finish. The people on the sidelines want to see the participants have personal glory. People, at heart, want to believe that glory and achievement is possible. That someone, even if not them, can still do great things. And then maybe someday the efforts they make in their "more ordinary" lives won't be in vain.

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Listened to GNR for about 3 hours earlier today. And I can't get this verse from "Coma" out of my head. It's the 'calm' part in the middle of the song.

No one's gonna bother me anymore
No one's gonna mess with my head no more
I can't understand what all the fightin's for
But it's so nice here down off the shore
I wish you could see this
'cause there's nothing to see
It's peaceful here and it's fine with me
Not like the world where I used to live
I never really wanted to live

Zap him again
Zap the son of a bitch again

Don't know why. It's just sort of.... there. I guess it kind of reminds me of my life right now. Working so much. Drifting further from everyone. And them calling me back. Telling me I should work less. Or maybe I'm thinking about how nice it'll be once the work is done. Or maybe I'll just go back to sleep.

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And now the gratuitous use of the word fuck in a Christmas rant:

What the fuck is with cashiers at Future Shop? When you fucking buy something a week before Christmas IT NEEDS A FUCKING GIFT RECEIPT! And if you're not fucking sure, ask. Fuck. No, I don't want to fucking go back to get it fucking changed. I waited long enough in the fucking lineups the first fucking time. The person I fucking bought it for will just have to deal with the knowledge of how much I paid when they go to take it back for the three-fucking-year warranty you talked me into.

And whose nuts do you have to fucking lick to get a yo-yo around here? Toys R Us can suck my dick. If it doesn't have batteries or a Brand Name* then Toys R Us doesn't fucking have it. What the fuck is the use of a fucking huge warehouse toy store if they don't have the simplest fucking toy imaginable? Oh, and btw, fuck Nerf. Styrofoam doesn't cost that much. Fuckers. Toy company executives are all coming back as fucking toilet bowls in their next fucking lives. I fucking hate Christmas.

*Brand Name is a trademark of Recognition Industries Incorporated, or Rec. Ind. Inc. (Wreckin' Dink?)

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Our Japanese visitors came, saw, and conquered. As it turns out, only one of the four knew enough English to do more than introduce themselves. But this fact was confusing at first. They understood everything I said that had some kind of hand motion to accompany it. And they were all smiles and nods whenever I said anything to them so how was I to know they weren't really understanding a word I was saying? Oh well. It all got sorted out in the first hour of testing. There was some consternation at the fact that I didn't have any business cards. My boss cursed himself silently as he tried to remember a moment when he meant to order them. As I understand it, the exchange of the business cards is an important ceremony in Japanese business culture.

I had hoped that they would be pre-occupied with making their radio work. They spent about 4 minutes re-programming some firmware and the rest of the time was spent in intense examination of everything I did. I explained to them that they could ask about anything they wanted to know. But now that I've watched them for awhile, I don't think that's how they work. They seem far more interested in figuring things out themselves than in asking for help. Even under their intense scrutiny, testing went fine. No mistakes on my part. Smooth. Efficient. They were finished "observing" their tests at 11 AM this morning.

They had some sweet hardware too. Mini-laptops. Handheld digital video camera not much larger than my cellphone. I can only imagine what their software was like. I was too polite to ask about it and I'm fairly certain this was the best move. In western culture, it's considered rude if someone is too standoffish when you first meet them. In Japanese culture the opposite is true. They introduced themselves with their last names only. First names are part of a more personal bond that they don't engage in with people they don't know very well.

I am a little disconcerted that I wasn't invited for lunch or dinner with them. This is customary when we have visitors who want us (me) to work on the weekend to get something finished sooner. I was looking forward to talking to them more about Japanese culture and maybe learning a little of the language. As it is I'm no further ahead or behind than I was 2 days ago.

Now I have some paperwork to finish up and data to double-check. Can't afford any mistakes when the report has to be filed in so short a time. They'll be back in the office Monday morning before heading to the airport. I can only hope that I've made a good impression as there is no indication one way or the other. And no opportunity to talk with them in the hopes that it will come up in conversation.

I guess some situations are wins while others are losses. In my mind, this one is a stalemate. Perhaps I can learn enough from it to avoid a loss sometime in the future. At this point, I'm too tired to care.

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I'm working afternoons this week. Tonight, I want to get as much done as possible so that I don't have to work tomorrow. On Friday we have visitors. No fewer than four (4) Japanese engineers. Don't think I'm racist because I point out that they're Japanese. I have a very non-racist reason.

For a long time now, I've had a dream to someday work for Sony Corporation designing new products. Sony is one of the leading developers of new technology in the world. Mostly because they leave most of the design requirements in the hands of the engineers and give them enough development money to bring their visions to reality. And not a small part of that has to do with the fact that they have the investment money to begin with. This is a dream environment for a creative person. A place where they can be free to build (paint, mix, sculpt, etcetera) whatever they like.

Obviously there are obstacles. The language barrier is big. I would have to learn Japanese. And I'm not getting any younger. But there will also be a large cultural barrier. And then there's the whole thing about how in the hell I plan to get hired in the first place. These are not small obstacles in my mind. I'm an engineer. That makes me a realist by design.

I'm nervous about this upcoming visit. I've never had to deal more than one visiting engineer before. And granted that they will probably be very busy trying to get their device to function adequately for testing, they will probably be asking a lot of questions about our stuff. This won't be like explaining what I do to the ordinary passerby. Most people get lost in the first one-line description and ask that I not go into too much detail. These guys are going to know what they're about.

I feel the need to impress these guys. Not just because they're important clients and we want their future business. Because whether or not I can impress them will somehow be a bellwether for my Sony dream. It's like confronting a micrcosm of my dream. A very small version. Seemingly insignificant. But in my heart nonetheless.

I consider my nervousness to be a useful force. Helping to keep me focussed and reminding me of everything that has to be done before they arrive. Distractions are plentiful and unwanted. Some people think I shouldn't be so focussed on my work. Something about it being relatively unhealthy. I find that I am more driven than most people. And it shows in the work I do. In the career I've built. In the success I've had so far. No one can take this away from me. The next step forward is mine to take.

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I received this in my inbox this afternoon. I can only assume that he's put it on his hate blog.

Spencer made a little comment on his post that I found amusing:

SPENCER: "He doesn't speak about how I have "wronged" him or what the
issue might be between us. It's just more random hate calling me
down."

I do, in fact, speak about how you've wronged me. Nothing I say about
you is random. Are you experiencing organisational problems? Nothing
here ringing a bell?

You still have great perceptual difficulties and you still lack any
convincing way of portraying your points about me. You are quoted
extensively on my blog so I can illustrate your ignorance. Yet,
despite your long-winded tirades which state that you find this to be
a worthwhile endeavour (discussing me) you quote absolutely nothing I
say. There is really nothing for me to get over Spencer, just my
bottom line to maintain.

I guess now you know what betraying a longtime friend of my stature
will earn you.
Now lay down before you reach the end of your "rope".

Now, here's the contest. If you can stomach it, go to Patrick's hate blog and piece together why we hates me. The clues I have so far are that I somehow betrayed him and that both my sister and Chloe are involved somehow. After that everything he says seems to turn into drudgery about how I'm small because of something that I said or did once or how I'm stupid because of some other thing. The only impression I got from the whole thing is that he's (still) really pissed and he has a lot of spare time on his hands. If you can piece it together for me I would love to hear about it. If he can't come right out and say it then I don't have the time.

p.s. If the fact that I mention him from time to time is a "worthwhile endeavour" then what would it mean to have an entire blog dedicated to discussing me and the people close to me?

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I haven't watched TV during the day in sooooo long. Spike TV used to be The National Network. And before that it was The Nashville Network. I remember when it switched the National from Nashville and it had all these crazy Star Trek: TNG marathons. I used to go over to Thomson's house and watch several hours in a row. It was great. Flipping through channels today I stopped on ST:TNG and let it play in the background. Cooking breakfast (at noon) I heard a theme song that sounded vaguely familiar. It reminded me of being a kid but it also reminded me of a techno beat I heard once. Does anyone know of a techno song that sampled the Macgyver theme song?

Anyways, the episode turned out to be one that I'd seen before. Yay.

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This is the amount of time I just spent on the phone talking to Dustin. In recent weeks, he has been polite and conciliatory on my sister's blog. He left a comment or two on my blog but I deleted them out of spite before I could see what they were. I actually called him last weekend but his phone was turned off. Today I called him again and we talked. Like typical guys we got right down to the heart of the matter with very little foreplay.

For my part, I must admit that I have been unreasonably forceful in countering Dustin's comments (and comments of others who appeared to be defending him, sorry Anse) very recently on Chloe's blog. Chloe, please don't delete them even though I'd like to take them back. It's good to show the extent to which I am unreasonable because it's a part of me. For his part, Dustin mentioned several things that I'm sure he will blog about in his own space. For now, his link goes back up.

I'll bet everyone is wondering just what the hell could have been said that would cause this sudden turn-around. Well, basically, I really needed to hear that Dustin never meant to hurt to my sister. That was key and I got it. He fell short of an open apology but he did recognize that there can be a difference between what he means to say and the way things he says are taken. He mentioned repeatedly that he never meant to hurt anyone and that he was surprised that it escalated to the point that it did. I would like to formally thank him for these acknowledgements.

Now, to address a big part of the reason why this stupid, silly situation spiralled way out of control to begin with. When it happened I was quite surprised that Patrick felt the need to contribute anything to the conversation. After all, it had to do with me, Dustin and Melanie. But most of the truly hurtful things came from Patrick during that feverish exchange. The fact that Dustin and Patrick were agreeing so often about so many things really led me (and, perhaps, many other people) to lump the two together. I am now "de-lumping" Dustin from Patrick in my mind so as to give him his own shot at keeping or losing my respect. I hope that we can play many games of chess again soon.

And the last piece of business is about the incorrectly, but perhaps appropriately, named Patrick's hate blog. By all means, go there and read what he has to say. His intellect is truly dizzying. I have held my tongue for quite a long time but I'm almost at the end of my rope. Dustin mentioned specifically (and I had already noticed) that he has refrained from commenting on Patrick's special blog. He doesn't share Patrick's feelings about myself or Chloe and he doesn't know Melanie well enough to contribute anything on that point. I did notice that several people have left derogatory comments about Chloe. I think these few people would do well to follow Dustin's example of not slandering people they don't know.

I realize that Chloe is Patrick's ex and that calling her a stupid bitch is a way of patting Patrick (patting Patrick?) on the back and telling him that everything's going to be alright. But the blogosphere is a strange and wonderful thing. People don't actually go away. They're only as far away as their links or the memory of their URL. Before Patrick singled us out on his hate blog Chloe and I didn't really speak directly. Only occasionally through comments left on each other's blogs. But since then we have started emailing and IMing almost all the time. So I'd just like to say, thanks Patrick. For bringing together two people who would never have considered the notion if you hadn't so graciously stepped aside and slandered us the way you did.

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I haven't been online much lately. Mostly just long enough to post here and check some comments. Luckily there hasn't been much to respond to. The stress at work increases every day. Every day another radio shows up that needs to be tested before the end of the year. Every day a new problem pokes its head up that causes a retest or time out of the regular testing schedule to solve. Every day.

Here some random, condensed thoughts I've had in the past few days:

1) Irrational feelings are based almost entirely on either a lack of knowledge or a person's ability to ignore reality. Example: fearing a spider would be irrational if there were no realistic way for the spider to harm you. Most people experience irrational emotions.
2) For most movies, I like the director's commentary better than the actual movie.
3) I need to eat less ice cream. Or at least wait until after dinner to eat ice cream.
4) Some people are very self-centered. This manifests itself in two ways, selfish egotism (where a person cares only for themselves and not for how others see them) and severe self-consciousness (where someone cares not for themselves but only how others see them). Same root cause, different outcomes.
5) My desires don't match my abilities. Example: I want World of Warcraft for Christmas but I can't imagine ever having time to play it.
6) Not keeping up with my daily blog reads makes me feel disconnected from unreality and too firmly grounded in the mundanities of life.
7) I need to win the lottery because I had a dream last week where I won and I bought a motorbike and toured North America.
8) If people's moods can affect the weather, does it still happen when no one looks outside to check?
9) One strange coincidence has occurred in my life every day for the past 10 days. Usually it involves me telling someone about something and then moments after the conversation that something shows up from a random place. Spooky.
10) I rolled up the change in my change jar. I now have $395 in twonies, loonies, quarters, dimes and nickels to deposit. I might even have some money left over from christmas for a Boxing day sale.
11) I'd like to pick some random cute girl to flirt with but I'm afraid that she's going to turn out to be a psycho hosebeast like one or two of my ex-girlfriends. I've discovered that this is why I prefer to talk to women that I've had a chance to get to know first.
12) Sometimes I feel like I'm spending my whole life running after the next opportunity or responsibility without taking time to properly enjoy the ones I have right now.
13) I feel that it's my personal responsibility to take deal with the problems that other people won't deal with. I've told myself for a long time that this makes me a stronger person. I'm not certain that I'm incorrect.
14) Last year, Japanese Mandarin oranges were, in general, better than Chinese Mandarins. This year the opposite seems to be true.
15) I've decided that it truly bothers me when people who couldn't do a logarithm with a calculator try to teach me about the way the universe works. Learn the language. Read the textbooks. Do your time. Don't just read an article in Time magazine and fake your way through the rest. It's fine to have an opinion but realize how far your knowledge can take you.
16) And lastly, my upstairs neighbours have been doing laundry every day since sometime last week. I must have clean jeans before the office Christmas party Friday.

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I'm having difficulty organizing my words to reasonably display my thoughts. I'm distracted by everything I see and feel. And hear. Hunger makes me think that I need to eat right away. But then I go through the logistics of dropping everything I'm doing to make dinner and realize that it's impractical. I think about what I'm working on right now and realize that it's not important and there are other things I could be working on. But if I stopped and changed directions now it would leave one unfinished project and another that I wouldn't have time to finish today.

I used to be better at multi-tasking. Now I'm almost single-minded in my purpose. I need to finish one thing before I move on to the next. I get an anxious feeling when I think about how many things I've started without finishing. How many messes I've left behind in my life because of my inability to be single-minded and steady on one course. Impatience with the pace of my life. How many things I'd like to try versus how many things I have time and energy to try. And right now, time and energy are my enemies. They will run out on me if i'm not careful.

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I'm walking to the bank wearing a light spring jacket that any sane person would call "inadequate". I have a paycheck in my pocket and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm doing the math in my head. X amount left owing on my small loan. Y amount will be overdrawn from my account if all the checks I've written recently have gone through. I can pay half of my small loan now and then the rest in the middle of the month without needing to stay in overdraft. Instead, I say fuck it and I pay it all off. I'm always stricter with my finances when I have very little left in the bank and it'll feel good to finally be rid of this debt so I can move on to the BIG student loan...

The wind cuts into me. My hands are in my pockets but the exposed skin between the cuffs and the pants pockets feels like it's being bitten by tiny pirhanas. I think about doing up the top button on my collar but then I remember that I removed it to replace a button on my cuff sometime last year. I guess I've had this coat for a while. Still looks good, though. And it's very comfy on warmer days.

The wind whips into me, pressing my coat against my frame. It's really blustering today. Without this wind it wouldn't even be particularly cold. I imagine the wind carving away unnecessary pieces of my non-corporeal self. I wonder about auras and what this carving effect would look like to someone who could read them. I think about the concept of survival. When humans are put in extreme situations where their lives are threatened the civilized layers start to peel away. Take away the cars and cell phones and gadgets of all kinds and put people in the midst of the simple processes necessary to sustain life and you'll see what they're really like. The true measure of the humanity of a person is whether or not they will remain human in that kind of situation.

Most people would say that losing the structures of society was a bad thing. Maybe even an appalling thing. But then I think about Michaelangelo. He said that David was always in that chunk of marble and all he did was take away the unnecessary pieces. Could humans achieve art by removing civilization? Could we become like the lean, fit, beautiful sculpture that we've admired for centuries? It's so much easier to say no. But then, maybe the people who say no are the unnecessary pieces that will be stripped away.

I think about the fields where food is produced and the cities where it is delivered. How can we justify a large part of the population having nothing at all to do with the production of the necessities of life? How can this be progress? Where the many rely on the few. I think about what would happen if society broke down and that food train from the fields to the cities stopped suddenly. It would be like a holocaust. Massive starvation in areas that have been made infertile by concrete and pollution.

And what of the survivors? Some would already be farmers. Some would have skills that would directly translate into a more basic concept of society. Others would have skills that might translate if they only knew how. And the last group would be the ones with no relevant skills. Would we make them the leaders because they aren't useful anywhere else? Or would we make them push ploughs in the fields? Who would lead? Would we even need for a leader?

Why are my thoughts centered on the concept of survival? Is it the cold weather and the wind stripping away my life's warmth? Should I find shelter and call a cab? That would cost money. Money I don't have because I'm already overdrawn on my account until the middle of the month. Society hasn't collapsed yet. There's a different kind of survival I have to think about. If I am ever caught in the apocalypse I'd better be good at hunting. I mangled my green thumb in some farm equipment as a kid.

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