Category Archives: Life In General

Painting with the full technicolor palette of words

Last week a study was released ranking the american states by which state used the most curse words and who used the least.  Texas came in 4th as one of the states least likely to curse.  Good news for manners I guess.

While I admire the restraint it takes to speak in such a way that most of your audience can hear your words without any editing or bleeps I am in no way an advocate for censorship.

Human language, whether it’s written or spoken, is extremely limiting.  Concepts and feelings are regularly lost in the written word and I find that people trying to make themselves understood sometimes have to resort to convoluted explanations and even inventing words to transfer meaning to the other party.  Why then would we want to limit language by excluding words on purpose?  Granted curse words have limited utility.  But excluding any words is an artificial handicap that we must not accept.

Now all that being said, I am not a person that uses colorful language just because I can.  Being able to use foul language means that I am free to use but also free not to use a certain words.  As I said I want to be able to convey my message to another person.  If I purposely use a word that may offend them and that’s all that sticks in their mind then how is the rest of my message going to reach them?

As a speaker, as a writer I have to look at my intended audience and think of how I can arrange my words, what words must I choose, and what tone am I trying to set?  As General Patton once said “When I want it to stick, I give it to them loud and dirty.”  In my case when I want it to stick I give it to them straight and simply and I choose the words that I want to use to get my meaning across.

 

 

 

beginnings

Last Saturday night I was running late.

My niece had completed her Master’s and Mother’s day was the next morning and I had nothing.  Flowers were the prescribed gift for both events.  I was slightly dressy since I had gone out that evening and now it was past nine at night and I was looking for bouquets.

All I could find were Mother’s day bouquets.  One event covered but I still needed something for my niece.

By chance I wound up at the old Randall’s supermarket where I had my first job ages ago.  Not too many people working that night so I called over a stock boy and asked him to find the floral manager.  He was a young latino kid, maybe sixteen.  He called to one of his friends in spanish.  I guess he thought I wouldn’t understand.

Roughly this is what he said “Hey, this rich Senor needs flowers.  Get him some help and off my back.”  I wondered if he would believe that the “rich Senor” once did the same job that he was doing right now.

My job history began in this place ages ago and I suppose the job is essentially the same.  Hard work and little need to think.  The hours are long and the pay is low.  Even with medical benefits you could easily end up with a hernia, or some sort of repetitive motion injury.  One of the big motivators for me to get a degree and an office job was the thought that I would end up in a job like this for life.

Yet it did have its good points too.  Our managers were exacting task masters and would explode at the stock crews if things weren’t just right.  We not only had to be quick but exact too.  I gained a rich and colorful repertoire of curse words from those managers.

You need stamina to keep going at full speed for 8 hours and thick skin not to mind all the razzing and hazing from older stock “boys”.  We would all end up with torn nails from ripping open cardboard boxes all day long and the pay was ridiculous although back then it seemed like so much.

I wonder if any of these kids working now will come back one day as I did and look back fondly at their time spent here.

Where did you begin your business career?

 

Vacation choices

I have been working steadily for the last 3 or so years without a real break.  The harsh Summer of 2011 was specially cruel to my home’s foundation.  Even before the Summer began I knew what was coming and the high price I would have to pay.  So the Winter of 2011/2012 was spent watching tunnels sprout under my home and watching my bank account take a sizable dent.

However I think (fingers crossed) that I am finally ready for a vacation this Fall.  Most people would advise going now for a typical Summer vacation but I have never been a fan of hot weather vacations.  My most favored vacations have always been to cooler climes so I think I am going North once again.

What is not on the agenda?  Big cities and bright lights.  Not a fan of them so no Big apple, or Vegas, or Hollywood hills or anything like that.  I can go inside the loop if I want to see a big city.  I would in the future like to tour New York but not this trip.  I am also going to limit my driving.  Normally I wouldn’t mind but this time I want more time to relax.

New England would be good but I’ve been there before.  The Pacific Northwest is good but I’m not too well informed about it.  Canada or Europe?  Not this trip.

I have been seriously considering the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York.  Close to what I know but still new.  Some great resorts, some small bed and breakfast type places too.

In particular is the Sagamore resort on Lake George.  A place that one can spend a day relaxing but also full of local hiking destinations.

Maybe a quick trip up to Niagara to check out the falls, search for Champ at Lake Champlain, and plenty of chances to check out the changing foliage in the cooling days of October.

Exciting to think of and plan for.  Now I just need to make it happen and earn it.

Where would you go to vacation?

 

Design Philosophy – Clothes

A couple of weeks ago I asked a friend to do a blog on the style of clothing that she liked.  She wasn’t too thrilled with the idea.  I probably didn’t phrase the request right.  What I probably should have asked is what was her design philosophy.

We all have one.  We know what looks good, works good, and sounds good when we “see” it.  Design philosophy rules the way we dress, the type of music that we enjoy, how we work, and various other almost unconscious aspects of our lives.  Not as trivial as it sounds.

For me it all comes down to three words.  Simple, comfortable, long lasting.

Simple: Fancy fabrics, designs, or styles usually come with caveats and special care instructions.  You have rules of when you can or can’t wear them.  I don’t have time to consider whether I clash or to set my washer to the delicate but yielding cycle.

Comfortable:  I loathe the “monkey suit”.  Which is what I call the executive suit and tie.  Not too fond of the sport coat either.  I have spent time in waiting rooms, airports, cabs wearing these and it is just a horrible piece of apparel.  Perhaps it’s my imagination but the clothes seem to be trying to choke my body.  I recognize that in certain situations that it’s mandatory and I do own one but on no account will I put it on willingly.

When I was in an office I would wear slacks and a button down shirt and formal shoes.  Now that I have migrated to a home office I am usually in a t-shirt and jeans most of the time.  I probably need to dial that back but for now it’s working.

Long lasting.  I am not a fan of the mall or department stores.  Clothes need to last.  Typically I will run in once every 9 to 12 months and refill my simple clothing needs.

What is your design philosophy and how does it shape your world?

 

My car history – Part 4 The Charger

July 6th, 2006

Several ‘riced out’ Toyota Corollas and Honda Accords are expecting an easy day on the highways.  They routinely zoom around big slow SUVs and cut in and out of traffic with ridiculous ease.  It wasn’t a fair fight.

But out of the rear view mirror comes a dark blue blur.  An alien design never seen on the roads before.  Its menacing gaping shark’s mouth grill growing ever closer.  The little engines in the Corrolas and Accords struggle but it’s no use and all they can do is get out of the way while the blur passes them by.  The driver, wears a pair of wrap around dark glasses sneers disdain as he passes by.

Ok, that never happened, but it could have.

I had begun my research on a new car six months earlier.  I needed a replacement for my Rodeo.  Isuzu had dropped the ball and replaced the Rodeo with the Axiom, a more expensive and smaller vehicle which to me was unsatisfactory.  So I made up a list of all possible contenders.

My list considered anything and everything.  I looked back at Saturn, at a Chevy pick up truck, a PT Cruiser, and even a Mercedes.

I had heard of the Charger but had not really considered it.  “I’m not a kid anymore” I reasoned.  I needed a ‘grown up’ car.

But the Charger had grown up.  The design looks like your father’s old sedan had taken steroids and now had a mean attitude.  Muscle Car purists argue that a 4 door sedan can’t be a true muscle car.  To which I say if ya want two doors, go get yourself a Pony Car.  The new Charger lives up to the spirit of a big American car with lots under the hood.

I kept looking and looking, hoping to find something that would catch my eye.  Somehow I kept circling back to the Charger.

On July 4th I got in my Rodeo and just drove until I was at a Dodge dealership.  I immediately had a salesman chase after me and start the hard sell. We walked the lot looking at various Chargers.

If I had to dramatize the moment in film, it might have looked like this.  Ok, that’s probably going too far, but you get my meaning.  And then he showed me my car.  That just sealed the deal right then and there.

So we got to haggling over price.  We went back and forth for 45 minutes and three salesmen did everything short of chaining me to the floor to keep me there.  Finally I got the price discounted and squeezed them for every penny I could for the trade in value on my Rodeo.

I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched my old Rodeo driven away, but the old cargo hauler was getting on in age, and each trip I took in it might have been my last.

I got in my new Charger and drove home.  I found myself in a dream like state.  Something akin to the science nerd who suddenly finds himself going to the prom with the head cheerleader.

“Was this really my car?”  The Charger handled like a dream.  The pungent new car smell mixed with the aroma of the leather seats.  I could dash past anything on the road, and had to restrain myself from going flat out on city streets.

The Charger was ‘the’ car of 2006.  Everywhere I went there was this “jaw dropping” reaction.  People would actually stop and stare as I drove past.

I came out of the supermarket and on the windows was a row of little nose and handprints where little kids had pressed up to look inside.  An older lady in her 50s at my office asked to sit in it because she remembered her boyfriend in the 70s had a Charger and this was way more comfortable.

Time has passed.  We have had many adventures and have spent many miles on the highways of Texas.  Mainly though I drove the 50 mile round trip back and forth for 4 years between my home and office piling up many miles.

I still have the Charger and I plan on keeping it for now.  I may however get something small for in town use and let the Charger out on the weekends to enjoy the rush of the highway.

 

My car history Part 3 – The black bomber

Zeitgeist is a term that gets bandied about when people try to sound smarter than they actually are.  So it’s no surprise that I’m going to use it here.

But there was a bit of a zeitgeist as far as cars went at the turn of the millennium.  SUV’s were hot!  Little one’s, monster one’s, military one’s.  Everybody seemed to want that oversized monster in the driveway.  We were still feeling the afterglow of the mid 90’s economic boom and we wanted that big car but we also bought into that rugged outdoorsy image that we were convinced could be bought at the local dealership.

6 Years out of college and I’m finally making decent money.  It was 1999 and I was ready for a small spending spree.  SUV’s were the big thing and I was ready for mine

I didn’t want those tiny ones like the Geo Tracker or the Suzuki Sidekick.  Those were for the teenagers going to the movies on a Saturday night.  I certainly didn’t want a Suburban as I had no kids soccer team to pick up and take to get pizza.  So I went the middle way and chose the Isuzu Rodeo with a shiny black glossy paint job.

My family was outraged.  “Those things are overpriced!”, “They flip over easy!”, “What about gas prices?”  Every reason under the sun not to get one.

But I had made up my mind.  It was a handsome design that Isuzu had come up with.  Refined from the days of the old Isuzu Trooper and Trooper II.  When Honda wanted to sink its claws into the SUV market it borrowed the design and slapped a label on it calling it the Honda Pilot.

For its size it could carry a massive amount of cargo.  Chairs, tables, boxes, anything you wanted.  It was soon a family and friend favorite for moving stuff.

The height advantage over normal cars was impressive.  It almost seemed you were floating high over the surrounding traffic and it had allowed me to wade trough the worst of tropical storm Allison.

Isuzu however had made two blunders.  Or rather they made one and I made one.  They installed a 139 hp V4 engine in the S model I bought, and I was dumb enough not to notice.

This engine struggled with the weight and was almost paralyzed when the air conditioner was on.  It was a bad, bad idea.  The truck lacked acceleration.  I called it the “black bomber” because after years of small cars that could zip in and out of traffic like jet fighters, this handled like a plodding old bomber.

On top of it there had been bad luck.  The Rodeo was and is a reliable design and if you look online or in newspapers you will still find old Rodeos with high resale value.  However I blew two head gaskets in 7 years of owning it.

Don’t get me wrong I still loved the old Rodeo, but after 7 years it was time.  So I began 6 months of research looking for the next car.

My car history Part 2 – Champagne

On a dark and stormy night I wound up in front of the Saturn dealership. Saturn was a fairly new car company at the time. The basic premise was to give people a higher level of customer service and a decent car without any of the typical high pressure sales pitches or haggling sessions that were the norm for car salesmen before that time.

My dad came along with me and gave me one piece of advice.  Get a standard transmission.  They will be much easier to maintain and cheaper to repair.

My main criteria was price. Just out of college and making very little money, I couldn’t be picky. The sales lady showed me a Saturn SL1.  The cheapest car on the lot with a standard transmission was a gold champagne colored car.  I mentally groaned.  A gold car.  I would have preferred dark blue or black.  I even would have accepted red or white, but gold?  In my mind only flashy people had gold cars.

Finally I decided that whatever the color was, I had to take it. After half an hour I had completed the paperwork and it was all set. Part of the down payment included my old car.  I had to dump some stuff out of my old car so I would return the next morning to pick up the Saturn. I have to admit I was reluctant to give up the old Nissan. You will always have a soft spot for your first car just as you will always be fond of your first love. So the next morning I took an extra long drive and took the car to the dealer.

Now something happened that nobody had thought of. I had no clue how to drive a standard transmission. I knew about shifting, and the clutch but had never done it before. The car made some terrible grinding noises as I tried shifting.  So starting and stalling, starting and stalling I slowly drove away from the dealership. I eventually got back home, parked the car, and walked away.  I was almost ready to return it right then and there.

Over the next few days I slowly got used to shifting. I found that I enjoyed being able to shift up and down and control the power.  The manual transmission suited my more aggressive driving style and the little 4 door sedan was truly nimble.

Overall it was a very well made vehicle and I found it had many features that previously were considered luxury items; power windows, AM/FM cassette, keyless entry, and a brand new airbag system.

The Saturn was a great new car for starting out after college. The car never had a single mechanical problem while I owned it.  Despite its gold color, I found it to be unobtrusive and not flashy at all. Yet it was sharp enough that I could take it anywhere.  After 3 years though it was time to make a change into something more substantial. It was time for the SUV.

My car history Part 1 – The Bat Mobile

Growing up in the 1980’s I found that cars had already become a necessity of life in Houston.  Previous to this I had hitched a ride to school with a friend who eventually discovered girls and was no longer available.  I then temporarily tried school buses and found the experience less than satisfactory.  By the end of my junior year I knew that I needed something to drive.  So hitting several used car lots I found a dark blue 1982 Nissan Stanza hatchback.

The car was already 6 years old by now and had over 60,000 miles.  It was thoroughly used.  The grey cloth interiors were somewhat stained, the previous owner had been a smoker and for some reason had melted candle wax in the center console.  This certainly wasn’t a “chick magnet” but for $1400 hard-earned dollars, produced by my time at the local supermarket, it was mine.

“Transportation!  That’s all you need.” is what my dad told me.

Driving home I passed by Sherry, one of my school mates, and she was kind enough to “ooh and aah” at the “new” car.  This was about the kindest thing that anyone ever said about that car.

Well it got me through high school, and more than that it gave me freedom.  Freedom to explore new areas, to get in and out of trouble.

I used the car to get me to public libraries to do research.  I was now able to work past 9 P.M. at the supermarket and make more money.  I could go to intramural science competitions in far distant parts of town on the weekends.

It expanded my social life of course.  Going to see “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures” with friends, going to the “Montrose” area (which at the time was a thoroughly disreputable part of town), drinking with my friends behind the high school at 1 AM (yes I was underage, and no I don’t approve of underage drinking or drinking and driving, I was a lucky 18-year-old punk that got away with it).  I remember driving a friend to the downtown post office at 11PM on a Friday night to mail off their application to Duke University and barely getting it postmarked before the deadline.  I once drove a girl to a pharmacy to pick up an emergency supply of insulin.  I packed a lot of living into that last year of high school thanks to that car.

It got me to college.  I stuffed every last inch of it with things I thought I would need at school.  It stood by while my mom cried her eyes out about “her baby leaving the nest”.  This was my classic American “leaving for college” moment.

But soon I was out on Highway 290 headed out-of-town into the open country.  The wide yawning vistas of the central Texas prairies opening up for me, seemingly a metaphor for the possibilities opening up for me in college.

My college friend , Mark, dubbed it the bat mobile (since Batman the movie had just come out that year).  Since he didn’t have a car it became the focal point of our social lives in that little outpost of civilization in the middle of nowhere.  We took trips to Houston or to Waco for a few hours sightseeing or for the weekend, for “laundry runs” home.  We went to Oktoberfest in New Braunfels our senior year.  I remember a ridiculously frightening lightning storm that we drove through once and the purple after glow of a bolt that struck just yards from the road as we passed by.

Through it all the car was getting beat up.  It had survived being hit twice by drunk drivers, people kept breaking off the car antenna, and the front axle had nearly rusted through.

This last was the worst.  Here I am in a college town, in my sophomore year in school, with very little cash to spare, and a busted car.  So I had to get it repaired.  With a lack of spare parts and in the middle of nowhere, the car mechanic took a full month to find a compatible front axle.  In the meantime I walked to school from my apartment every day, no matter what the weather was like.

The walking habit got so deeply ingrained in fact that even after I got the car back I continued walking to school no matter the weather (blazing hot summer day, in the middle of a tornado storm, or zero degree weather in January)

My last year in college.  By this time the bat mobile had 120,000 miles and had suffered another breakdown.   The transmission this time.  Using my last penny I got that fixed and finally graduated and got back to Houston.

By now the car has seen me through 5 years of service and now it took me to and from my first job.  The electrical system was malfunctioning.  I had to keep a wrench in the car to adjust the front windshield wipers after every rain storm.  A brake line burst and sprayed brake fluid on the red-hot front disc and caught the wheel on fire.  Everyday I was more and more worried about the car dying on me.  Each mile became a strain.  Soon I was at 145,000 miles.

It became more than clear that I could no longer go on this way.  I needed a new car.  It was 1996 and I heard about a new car company called Saturn.

to be continued.

Comparative Myths I

(This is an updated and edited version of a post that I did years ago.)

Mythology defines who we are.  It is the way we explain and justify the way that we live not just to others but also to ourselves.  In its way it helps make sense of our world.  Myths have been there with us before written language was even developed.  They help define what themes and messages are timeless and can relate down the ages to those that come after us.

To understand myth it helps to understand a little about how humans spread across the globe.  Modern humans burst out of east Africa about 70 to 45 thousand years ago.  Why so vague?  Like most things that people do it was an unplanned.  Tribes, bands, families, sometimes just individuals went out from East Africa.  Some up the Nile River, some crossed the then accessible red sea land bridge across to Yemen and some across through Jordan.  A few settled in the lush green Sahara and eventually watched their dreams turn to dust.  This exodus deposited groups of peoples everywhere it touched creating the seeds of future cultures and languages

(Writer’s note: I seem to be out of order in these stories but I am saving some myths like the creation of man for a future post)

It’s interesting to note in the book of Genesis the tower of Babel story

 “The Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”  Genesis 11:9

One could make an argument of this being a perfect description of the scattering of mankind across the old world.

This also compares well to the Hindu myth of language in which a proud tree grew up to the heavens and scorned the gods telling them that its branches would cover all mankind and protect them from the gods.  Brahma, the god of creation, cut the proud trees branches and tumbled them down on mankind forcing them to scatter all over the world and confusing their language.

The Bantu of east Africa have a story of extreme drought and famine causing people to scatter looking for food and as they scattered their languages changed.  This may be the closest to the truth as the ancient savannahs of east Africa probably didn’t have enough food to sustain the growing numbers of early humans.

The common thread in all the stories is how an outside agent forces mankind to split up forcing a change in their languages.

Now, during this time humans are still simple hunters and gatherers.  They carry their belongings on their backs, and they’re not much better off than their immediate predecessors like Homo erectus or homo rhodesiensis.  The archtypal hero is going to be the wanderer, the nomad, the man of action that doesn’t think before acting.

The initial exodus east finally gives out in Pakistan or northern India.  Further smaller waves would continue east towards Asia and Australia but western culture would be founded in three vital areas, the Nile River, the tigris-euphrates basin, and the Indus valley.  These three valleys had the things that early humans wanted, a good source of food (both meat and vegetable), fresh water, and almost as important a moderated climate.  Moderate at that time anyways.

In time these valleys would spring up the first villages and towns and people began telling stories of what they knew.  One of the first would be a story about sibling rivalry and the rivalry between professions.

Cain and Abel.  On the surface a story of jealousy and the first murder.  But it illustrates the concerns of those early cultures.  We have the herder with his flocks, and on the other side the farmer with his fields.  Both need water, both need land, so conflict is inevitable.  Herding is the older of the two professions (probably adopted as humans traveled out of east Africa), so Abel the older brother is the herder and Cain, the younger brother, is the farmer.  In the story the farmer dispatches the herder signaling the rise of settled farmer over nomadic herding lifestyle.

The story itself has an almost direct parallel in the Sumerian story of Enkimdu (god of farmers) and Dumuzi (god of herders) trying to win the hand of Innana (goddess of fertility).  In that story however the herders win.  This possibly signifies that the Sumerian story was created earlier and during a time when herding was still a very important occupation.

The same story crops up again in roman times.  This time in the guise of Romulus and Remus the twin brothers that founded Rome.  Curiously though in this story both brothers are herders.  Possibly this relates to the fact that the Latin tribes that founded Rome were themselves migrants into this part of Italy and they still depended on their livestock.  Both brothers offered sacrifices to the gods to see who should be king, Remus seems to be favored but Romulus uses a land boundary dispute as a pretext and slays his brother to become king.

Among other topics that people knew well would be life, death, floods, disaster and I will cover these in another post.  I will end it here but I will note that these people were not all that different from us at all.  They lived in different times but they had the same basic concerns we do.  That they can perfectly relate to us how they dealt with issues in their lives shows us how similar we are.

The penny, the postage stamp, and other useless things that just might save the world

Convenience.  I hate it.  Well not really.  I will make use of the latest and greatest gadget, idea, or service to make my life easier.  But I also realize that these conveniences have a dual edge that can cut both ways.

Take online banking for example.  Convenient, fast, and relatively safe.  Most businesses and utilities will accept online payments and will even automatically deduct the fees from your accounts without you even needing to think about it.

The scary truth however is that our accounts (whether you use online services or not) are not that safe.  Major retailers have had card readers hacked, major online companies and even banks suffer through waves of attacks from thieves that probably aren’t located on the same continent.  Our safety lies only in numbers and in not standing out as a potential victim.

So how does this all tie into the inconvenient and analog penny?  So hated that some want to do away with it.  Nothing directly, but as a symbol of a bygone system it is powerful.

A tangible representation of your wealth expressed in metal.  No longer made entirely of copper as that metal is too precious to waste on a mere one cent piece.  Perhaps that says something more about inflation than it does about the coin itself, but we will save that discussion for another time.

Once upon a time you had to strap on a weapon, fashion a bandana into a mask, walk in and look your victim in the eye and drag off a heavy sack of loot with the local gendarmes in pursuit.  Now you can order a latte, while playing online games as your bank account gets fatter and someone’s account gets slimmer.

So should we run to the bank and get out all our money in pennies?  No of course not.  But neither should we discard the penny either.  Think about it.  Your savings, your paycheck, it’s all a line of numbers in some bank.  All those hours of hard work, all that scrimping, saving, and self discipline are now a string of code that can be easily erased or altered.  How insane is that?   All I can tell you is good luck, keep your head down, and think.

Similarly some folks are pleased as punch with emails and texts, and tweets and would like to get rid of letters altogether or at least curtail mail delivery.  Again the reasoning is sound as far as that goes.  I myself cannot work without email.  It’s basically all I do day in and day out.  One simple contract with a foreign client could probably would take weeks if not months to finalize by regular postal mail.  So why not just get rid of all letters and make the postal service just deliver packages?

Again, a letter is a tangible thing.  The thought that someone far away once held this very paper, that they took the time not to type and delete and retype but very carefully and physically record their thoughts in ink, that makes it special.

These inconveniences make life real.  They are not random 1’s and 0’s that can be altered on a whim.  Long after the hard drives are erased, and the last digital record gets scrapped these will remain.