Mark’s Notes On The Go

I did manage to get some trim painting done.

Of course, half-way through, the phone rings. I reach for the upstairs cordless (yes, I’m so anal the little electronic message on it says “upstairs”) only to discover that it says “place on cradle. Oops, the extension cradle is normally in the hall and has been unplugged for a week… great…

Run downstairs and catch it going to voicemail and intercept it.

Mom calling to catch up and tell me about one of my cats adventures this morning. She began the story with Bear is okay - which was important. As she walked into the living room this morning to an overturned lamp and tangled curtains. Not realizing that the culprit was still there, she reached down to untangle the curtains and heard a pitiful mew. Bear had been playing with the draw strings for the blinds and got tangled in them. Luckily, he did not hang himself, just got them tied up under his front legs and couldn’t get loose. Of course, in true cat fashion, she said he walked away disdainfully as if didn’t happen…

While she was on the phone, I asked her about a story from Dad’s family that I remembered hearing as a child but my Dad’s sister didn’t recognize it. Not that I have tons of details. Just that I remembered hearing that one of my grandfather’s brothers had been something of a hobo during the Great Depression. It sounded familiar to her but not much more. Turned out my Dad was at hand, tho, and she asked him. He’s also hazy on the details now. He couldn’t remember for sure if it was his Uncle Rufus or Uncle Rufus’ son, Buster. Rufus was a half brother to my grandfather and a good deal older. Their Dad died when my grandfather was young and his mother re-married. So a lot of details are lost to us. The more my Dad talked about it, the more I think it was Rufus. Dad said whichever one it was traveled looking for work and sent money home to his family. He was what Dad called a working hobo - i.e. he was supporting his family not a runaway.

Okay, time for bed. Going to try to get up and get back on the treadmill. While I was painting, I slacked off again. But it helps the seasonal depression if I exercise. Oh, and I think I have my poor mans lightbox now. I found that several companies are putting out daylight bulbs now. I bought a set of fluorescent ones and have them in my desk lamp and in strategic places around the house. I wouldn’t quite say they are daylight quality of light, but they are close and there is just something about the light which is affecting me positively. ahhhhh… I may have to get one for my desk light at work.

Sunday evening has rolled around and the weekend was incredibly short.

Had dinner with April after work Friday and then ran and grabbed some stuff I needed from Wal-Mart before coming home to continue my work on the painting. Did only a bit before succumbing to the need for sleep.

Saturday, I only did a tiny bit of painting. I slept late then had to run a couple of errands and went by Lowe’s to get a new light fixture for the laundry. The one that was in there was woefully small for a work area. I also got new fire alarms. The old smoke detectors were, I suppose, still working fine, but 20 years of yellow plastic screams at you when you see them. And I figure sooner or later, I’ll sell the place and everything I can do to make it look a bit fresher will help when that time comes. The new alarms are also better. The old ones were just smoke alarms. This one is a fire and smoke alarm. It has a photoelectric eye to spot smoldering fires, possibly before the smoke would register.

Saturday afternoon I ran by Chris’s place to get comics. Only one more week of that and then it’s waiting for the next months to arrive in the mail. My first two orders I paid for monthly delivery, so we’ll see how that goes.

Gabbed awhile there before running by Publix for some goodies for the monthly Doctor Who fan gathering in Doraville. Chris’ apartment is halfway there, so just as well to bum around in Norcross for a bit.

Our Who meeting was its usual lengthy affair. More so now that we’re trying to watch the Jon Pertwee episodes in order - a lot of LONG serials in there. Afterwards everyone talked for a bit about other sci fi, etc. There was talk about dinner but it was 10pm, I’d eaten a ton of junk food and the discussion was on asian cuisine of one sort or another (the predominate food in the area), and that’s not my thing anyway. So, I just headed home for some late night painting.

It paid off, today, I only had a little to do to get the walls done. I’ve picked up everything and got out the trim paint, but I think the actual painting will be tomorrow night. The only big thing is the doors to the laundry area. But I’m just so wiped out I don’t feel like doing it.

But no use in slacking too much either as the sooner I’m done, the sooner I can begin moving shelves, pictures, etc. back into the hall. And then things will sort of be back on an even keel at last. Aren’t I Mr. Drama? I act like this has taken months. I started painting last weekend!

During dinner tonight, I watched another episode of Smallville: Season 1. This one was Stray, which happens to be the first episode of the show that I caught. This is the one that hooked me. After that, I began catching more episodes from Season 1 and then watched Season 2 in first run instead of the Sunday repeats.

It’s funny how the writers/producers of the show have learned the perfect formula to keep me watching. For the first several seasons, the constant Clark-Lana drama was just maddening. No matter what progress was made in getting the two together, they’d nullify it by the end of the show. I finally hit the point that I was rooting AGAINST them getting together. Anything to end the struggle!

So, they finally get together, but Clark’s secrets this season have all but doomed the relationship, and it looks like at this rate, they’ll take seasons to tear it apart.

AIIIEEEEE!!!! I’d tear my hair out if I could.

But then at the very end of last week’s episode, Lionel Luthor says something (I won’t spoil what) that has me sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for new episodes that won’t come for weeks…. Bastards…

So, the painting of my hall and stairwell continues. I’m going from a mossy green to a stark white, so this is not exactly a one coat thing. I liked the green but just too dark for a windowless area with average height ceilings (that being the hall upstairs). Even incomplete, I am much happier with the open feeling. When I’ll finish is anyone’s guess. So, I may be walking across tarps for awhile yet.

Long days at work this week tho better than some. Today, I didn’t have to check any projects, so I spent my time doing some documentation. One of my friends insists this new paradigm will eventually bore me, but so far this arrangement is working better. I get to stick in my two cents and help others get their projects moving down the road. Do I want to stick to this path forever? No, of course not. But my Achilles heel no matter what is that I bore easily. My manager suggested at my annual review this week that maybe I might want to work in our programming group. No idea how soon a move that would be and equally uncertain that’s what I want to do. On one hand, I did study it at one point. On that same hand, I eventually went into other majors and left that one behind. Would I enjoy the change of scenery so to speak. Probably so. But I’m not sure if it’s worth it to do in the long run. But it’s nice to have options to mull over.

Still mulling over the possibility of AZ and Mexico in May. My favorite band plays a twice yearly show in Mexico on the Pacific Coast. The best way to get there is to fly into southern AZ and drive down. I would love one day to drive cross-country, but the cost of gas has now made it so steep that flying is cheaper if less attractive. But I have enough frequent flyer miles for a free ticket for domestic travel anyway. The only catch being that I would need to fly out and back mid-week. The show is on a Saturday night. The last time out, I stayed in Mexico Friday night through Monday morning So, if I did the same approx. time in Mexico, I’d have a few days to kill both ends of the trip. The gears got to turning and I realized that I also have enough Amex points to virtually pay for a rental car for a week. That would leave me with lodging expenses… hhhhmmmmm…

I’m kind of waiting to see what my dental insurance decides to pay for my work on my teeth (next visit end of the month…). But I’m also trying to figure out if there’s another use I’d rather make of the time and money. No question I’d like to see the guys and the American Southwest is the only part of the U.S. that I’ve even vaguely thought, “gee, it would be nice to live here.” But using some Amex points to get some more flyer miles instead could get me to Peru… And I do want to see Machu Picchu. With no airfare, I’d only have to worry about lodging, a cost for a group guide deal for the Incan Trail. hmmmm…

Oh well, worse problems in life than what to do for a holiday. After all, there are people going to bed somewhere without food right now. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it in my BLOG, but every trip has been marked at some point by acute middle class guilt. At some point in the trip, if not multiple points, I’ll get hit up by a panhandler. And whether that person is genuinely in need or not, it reminds me that while I’m frolicking so far from home, there are people with real problems and needs that aren’t getting met….

On that note, it’s time for some reading and bed…

Trying to get back into the habit of semi-regular exercise, which in winter is hard for me. I have a treadmill (thanks to my Mom breaking her ankle a few years ago and not being allowed to do weight-bearing exercise anymore), but there’s little I find more boring. I listen to music most of the time, and on the odd occasion will watch TV (Supernatural last night), but I find I slow down with the TV on. I like it better during the long days of summer when can get a walk or two a day in the out of doors. There’s a hella lot more visual stimuli.

So, three days into the week. That’s how long it took the hiring manager to call me back about the job that I’m uncertain about to begin with. My manager is back tomorrow and I either need to tell him I want to at least apply so I can interview or fergit-about-it. I’m leaning to the latter. One side still says that it’s worth just a face-to-face, but the other side says I’m wasting everyone’s time. A tiny (I swear) piece o background. I’ve worked for the same company almost 7 years. The first 3 were in the department I’m in now. I interviewed and transferred out for a year and a half. A good chunk of it was fairly miserable. I leapt into the unknown and was ready to look elsewhere, but the department I came from got wind and asked me back. So, back I went, and I’m grateful I had that option. Hence the idea that I don’t feel like (at this point) leaping willy-nilly into something I’m not positive about. If it was the group I had hoped it was when I saw the job listing, sure, I’d go for it, but that my first reaction was less than positive seems to be the key to me.

Does this mean I’ll take the safe route forever? I hope not. I’ve come to believe some of the worst decisions in life are the safe ones. At least, when I look back on my life to date, I feel like I made some personally life-stunting decisions by taking the easy path or the safe choice. So, hopefully this is not me copping out again. Right now, where I am gets me where I need to be financially. That’s a big thing. The group I have an interest in will hire again, of course. So, I’ll have other options down the road.

Cop out?

So, at work, the last week or two, I’ve gone along with my manager’s recommendation. As lead of my team, I’ve been farming out the work, answering questions, helping them, checking behind, etc., rather than trying to do that and work projects of my own. Never my style before, but where I am now, I was being pulled in about a dozen directions lately. And it’s working fairly well so far. I feel less stress. And I’ve developed some side projects that aren’t time sensitive, developing documentation, and such. Today I spent time working on a fairly smart spreadsheet my manager mentioned needing the other day. It’s got to be able to sort through data based on date, generate report, etc. I’m mostly done with it. I did everything in visual basic. Since I’ve never had any training, that’s meant a lot of google for answers! The part that stumped me the longest was adding a password before the macro was executed. The spreadsheet has to be available for data entry, but report removes data from it, so some dolt hitting the button could be a bad thing! kay, are you bored yet?

If you weren’t you will be…

So, a few weeks ago, my Mom’s hometown paper starts publishing an article on my Dad’s family in the genealogy section each week. Our last name is not common (except in a few areas of the country), so it’s always exciting to see the name, nevermind when they actually list your great, great grandfather! Woohoo! I contacted the author and sent him what I have on our branch of the tree. It was kind of a pre-emptive strike as I’ve seen several genealogies that screw up part of our branch starting with my grandfather’s siblings (he had one brother and a couple of half sibs). And it bugs me everytime I see it.

But it got me thinking as I looked at how thin some of it was. Names and dates…. and little else to mark the passage of so many. After I sent it, realized that the cousin who died in Vietnam had NOTHING for info., no birth or death dates, nothing. This is something I grew up knowing about, his death left me and my cousin, Tim, as the sole male descendents of our branch of the tree, the only ones to pass on the name. And I had not so much as place of death, which I know. I dutifully added what I know, found his info. from the online wall, etc.

And over the course of days since, it’s hitting me how much of our history we all lose everyday. My grandmother lived to be 92 and she’s three years gone now. How long before she’s a birth and death date? I never knew my grandfather, but I grew up hearing my Dad talk about him fondly and constantly quote him. My Dad idolized his father, so I have a no-doubt distorted view of hi, yet like the stories Granny told me, nothing have been committed to any form of text.

Will Granny’s great grandchildren know that she was born in a log cabin? Will they know that a cousin (whose name I’ve forgotten) was the one who taught her the alphabet. Granny told me this one day as she read the woman’s obituary. As Granny had to help at home, she didn’t get past 3rd grade, but late in life she still felt grateful towards the person who had played a part in the education she had. Even of my grandfather’s grandchildren, how many have heard that he claimed our grandmother nodded him into marriage. He said she started off asking innocuous questions like, “nice weather we’re having?” and so on, until she asked if marriage sounded like a good idea. How many know that they both wanted a different life for their children? Both had grown up, like so many, in farming families. Granny inherited land from her maternal grandfather, which was where they raised their children. I asked her once why none of the children farmed and Granny told me that life on a farm was hard. Some years were good, but others were bad. Neither of them wanted their children’s lives to be ruled by the weather.

Just random fragments of people’s lives that make them richer to people than names in print years hence. And I feel that it’s ’s time to start getting some of this down, while there are still people in my family (both sides) who can talk about their parents, grandparents, themselves, siblings, etc. It’s a tall task, but everyday, we’re losing our history.

So, just a sample of what’s in my brain and how schitzophrenic I can be somedays.

Spent the day doing a little reading and in between prepping my hallway for a repainting. Whee? I also watched a few more eps from my Smallville Season One box set. There are episodes from this season I never watched because during the original run I had no interest. It was only thanks to the WB showing it on Sunday afternoons that I got hooked enough to follow the series into season two. I digress…

So, last load of laundry running and I find myself at the computer after finishing episode 6. As I’m looking at a vague possibility of a job within my company that isn’t tied to an office, the thoughts turned to moving home. And I found myself first looking at various homes in Macon, the closest city of any size to where I grew up but still close enough to be home in around an hour, give or take. And then, I started looking closer and closer to home until I was looking at homes I knew all too well. Houses that even if I had never been inside, I at least knew the name of the family who called it home at some point in the last few decades. And the heart strings just tightened. I could see myself back there any day now.

And then it hit me…. it’s winter… yes, the days are growing longer at last, but it’s still winter. And every winter that I’ve lived here, I’ve had these pangs to move home. True, I’m not married to this city by any stretch, but I also fear making decision that are based on weather-related moodiness. Moving, taking another job, these are all things that will outlast a little bleak weather. And so, assuming I get to speak to the hiring manager next week, now I have another little thing to worry about, whether or not my winter blues are coloring my perception.

And the part that is really freaking hilarious? When I was growing up back home, I pretty much hated it there. Maybe the term is strong, but I often thought of leaving there, of a future somewhere else. I guess that could be the norm of adolescence, of discontent with the status quo. I don’t even now wear rose colored glasses about the place I still refer to when I say “home”- it has its faults. I couldn’t imagine ever choosing to live somewhere else so small. But if I could be said to have roots anywhere, they are there. Maybe I’ll go back to them one day. Maybe not.