Happy Birthday, P30P

Yes.

It has been a year.

And I'm disappointed. We are not on the Googlized Top 20.

Screw it. We do things for us and we do things that make us happy. And if 30 years (and some change) has not told us that, then we are officially barking up the wrong tree.

Thank you to everyone that has posted in the last year. And if you are interested in posting...do not hesitate to let P30P know.

Thanks...and happy birthday, P30P. Now get a job.

Up next...the top Lessons Learned for the year. Stay tuned. Talk later.

Making scents of it all

They are everywhere these days, the ghosts of my boyfriends past. I smell them on the subway, in the store, and while I am waiting for my flight at the airport. I remember their smell more strongly than I remember their kiss. One wore Acqua di Gio. That smell brings me back to Aeros hockey games and watching sci fi while eating Pei Wei. Another wore Obsession, and it brings me back to softball games and my first heartache. What is it about those scents that I can't forget? They are marked on my olfactory memory for all time it seems. Perhaps it is my fault since one of my favorite things to do with my significant other is to bury my nose in their neck and inhale their scent.

Is my scent in someone's vault? Do men even pay attention to the signature scent of a woman? I tend to believe that men forget their exes (and their scents) as soon as another warm body comes along, but maybe there is someone out there who thinks of me when Amarige walks by? I'd like to think so :)

Swansong Corpus Christi, Pt. II

C'mon, it's not all that bad. The grass has always been greener on the other side. On my last diatribe, I was Captain Poopipants. But I really should put all of this criticism to the forefront because, when you think about it, local politics do not make a home.

Granted, it's fun to talk about outside of football season when only two guys at the office actually follow the NBA or college b-ball. But when it comes to calling something home, it doesn't matter about silly, almost asinine civic politics. Besides, driving up from Corpus to Dallas, I didn't see very many "Don't let them steal our beach." Hell, I still saw "W '04" driving up on I-35 to the 75201...twice!

I have to default to my father, as he said something similar to this retrospective. Basically, you are never away from family because family is in your heart. As sappy as that may sound, the same can be spoken for Corpus in two respects.

When you live somewhere as long as I have lived in Corpus, the city (no matter how larger or small, how "good" or "bad") becomes a part of your system. You build yourself around the social and physical adaptations. You are aware of the pace of the traffic, the cadence of speech and the twill of accents. The longer you are there, the more the city becomes a part of your physical composition...but thankfully, not a part of your DNA.

And when you live somewhere so long, you know it is never, ever, ever the place you are at that makes it a home. It's the people that make an emotional and intellectual vortex tolerable. Sure, it's a version of the Stockholm Syndrome, but it's much more lovable. It's the people in the office that make the case of the Monday's acceptable. It's the patch of nerds discovered that you can geek with. It's the series of couples that can commiserate anything from the price of gas to the difference between parenthood vs. cool aunt/uncle.

So, as many complaints I can feasibly make against Corpus, so too I have the same amount of counterpoints to the contrary to the complaints. Granted, I am not the biggest fan of the beach, but it's 20 minutes away. You want a lack of traffic, some on down (just be warned to the drivers that don't know what they are doing). You want a welding job, have at it. There are other pluses, but I will be cheating my readers from doing their own due diligence.

I will miss the Corpus Christians the most. Everyone I met and have known, I thank you for helping the sleepy city wake up at the second or third hit of the snooze button.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Red sheds just as much as Loki, especially in my car.
2) You can come home again when it comes to Plucker's Wing Bar. And no, I am not touching "fire in the hole". There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college.
3) The best way to learn a new location is to burn gas a drive around the whole place.

So, the new base of operations has changed, but the single-edged blade that is this absolute waste of time will remain the same. The adventures will change, but still included. Hell, maybe I can find some new contributors in the 214. Talk later.

Swansong Corpus Christi, Pt. I

These scenes say it all (Downtown Corpus, November 2009).

The clock has started. I don't need a minute hand and an hour hand to tell time. The Navy calls me a "short timer". Educators think I have "senioritis". Officially, I have put in my two weeks. The door has opened and the opportunity availed itself. But, it wasn't in "This Same Ugly Town".

I have a very soft spot for Corpus. Granted, I didn't grow up here from birth. But I lived here long enough to know where to return to at curfew. I am a proud Tuloso-Midway graduate and when the going got tough, I recoiled back to CC for to lick my wounds and get back on my feet. Had I known that my recovery would have been so successful...ugh, I had no idea my recovery would be so successful.

I have always found Corpus to be such an anomaly. When I moved back from Austin (or what Dad calls, "Where Souls Get Eaten"), it was the little things that I thought were strange, like: why don't they syndicate "The Simpsons" at a decent time slot, how come the good restaurants are always closed on Mondays and why do the most scenic places smell like live shrimp. Then when I started paying attention to how this town operates, it became apparent that as much as people hate to admit it, it's quite the dysfunctional town. Limited tax base, disparity of wealth, population shift versus population boom, no advancement in new industry, ultra-dependence on service industry and tourism with no financial investment into growth, an influx on retirees with no young population replacement, a certain strata with education...I can go on.

I partitioned my swan song because there are some absolute wrongs to Corpus Christi (thus Pt. I). There are certain things I hate about this town, and it is far more rooted than just bad drivers. I hate how it is only accessible from an Interstate they just made up 30 years ago. I hate the general smallness of thinking, from mayor to non-voter. I hate how the slums aren't really slums. I hate how downtown isn't really a downtown. I hate the excuses. Then I hate the counter-excuses. It's the reason why kids don't stay. It's the reason for the incessant complaining on caller.com articles. As I mentioned in late July, I have my professional opinions. But my personal opinion played a part in our ultimate decision to ship out.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just falling under the same spell that lots of other younger Corpus Christians trip over. With my time in Austin and visiting other metro areas, I will never understand why (for example) one city as only 2 really crappy movie theaters (Dollar Cinema doesn't count). I start making the same simple comparisons with apples and oranges. Apples say, I hate the fact that no good alternate music act show up to CC. But, I know with the oranges, Corpus can't support the $50 for Them Crooked Vultures tickets. So it saddens me when I see things as part of the solution, the problems mount quickly to thwart.

Everyone...not just me, but the whole state...will benefit when Corpus gets in order. If you want to be a more-populous Port Aransas, then work on that. If you want to be Austin, work on that instead. Hell, if you want to be Odessa - which shouldn't be difficult with the oil presence - make that call and go forth. But figure it out. Quit languishing in your own excuses. Make a bloody decision and drive on.

So, for now...I hate you Corpus...for now.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) There seems to be only one Quest Diagnostics that does drug testing. It's in Flour Bluff and it's kinda creepy. But they were professional, so I went with it.
2) Having professionals box up al your possessions is expensive. But the benefits always outweigh the costs.
3) Stress leads to a terrible diet. Thank God I haven't gained too much weight, but I am eating all sorts of junk right now...not good.

In part two, I will totally love on you, Corpus Christi. See, I told you my relationship with Corpus was dysfunctional. Talk later.

Home(less)?

Since I have recently uprooted 1600 miles from Corpus I have been musing a lot about what home means to me. Home for most of my life was the house I grew up in, surrounded by my family and friends I had known since 2nd grade. It may have been bitterly cold outside at times in the North Star State, but it was always warm at home. Even as I moved away to college and to graduate school, that stucco house remained home to me. Sure I made friends and enjoyed the places I lived, but I couldn't shake that my roots remained firmly planted on Livingston St. But then my sister was killed unexpectedly in a car accident at 38, and my dad followed a year later after a massive heart attack. Suddenly home represented bittersweet memories I couldn't face, and an emptiness time couldn't fill.

In a strange coincidence, I had closed on my first house in Corpus the day my sister died, and all I could think about at the time was that it would never feel like home. For almost 3 years it didn't feel like home, nowhere did. But then life snuck up on me, I formed deep friendships and even fell in love. My house was no longer just a structure, it hosted parties with all my friends, became a refuge from the winter for my family, and I realized you could get a good idea of who I was just by looking at the house and yard and all it contained. It was home, how did it become home without me realizing?

And then I did something I don't even completely understand myself. I moved out East, 1600 miles away from home. Sure it was a fantastic job, a great career opportunity, and a chance to live in a vibrant big city again, but for a girl who had spent the last 4 years wandering emotionally while staying put physically, it seems a strange decision. I left my friends, my boyfriend, my home all behind. So will this new place become home?One night, while unpacking, I was listening to the Boss, and I was struck by something he says. "It's a sad man my friend, who is living in his own skin, and can't stand the company." The Boss, I thought, knows what home is. Home is whenever you feel comfortable in your own skin, it is not a time or even a place. It is neither dependent on your friends or your family, but entirely on you. And that is why I had moved. I had found refuge in my friends and my life in Corpus, had tried to let their love fill the hole inside me, but after all this time it was still there. So here I am, "homeless" for now, but determined to feel at home in my own skin once and for all so that I will be at "home" wherever life takes me. Wish me luck!

Please Shut Up...Please

If not for me...do it for the kids (Hoot 'n' Hollar '08 with Jordy Cartier).

As we have mentioned before, this is not a sports blog. That field and category is so saturated from Deadspin to Brooks on Sports to I've Got Big Balls and I Know How To Use Them that I don't need to go into that tangent...plus, I don't have the time or the effort to interview coaches set to infinite repeat on their pressers to quadruple-checking stats and figures. But, here we are again at the middle of the college football season and I am turning sour like a college student's refrigerator.

But my disdain is not sourced from my team of choice, my beloved Longhorns. The University of Texas football club is making another undefeated run similar to 2005, which started the premature demise of Vince Young. The team, players and coaches are taking care of business, even with personnel shuffling and a simple philosophy of maintaining their fate in their own hands. To quote the venerable Mack Brown, "We are in the same position that we were last year. We controlled our own destiny last year being number one in the country after this game. And we let one second take it away from us and put it back in the system." Obviously, the team is saying the right things. Without nitpicking every single play from scrimmage, the team is responding to the words being said.

No, my anger and frustration is coming from the "system". But the "system" is far more outstretched than the idling computers computing the Bowl Championship Series formulas and analytics. The "system" includes the soothsayers and provocateurs that spew verbal vomit every Thursday through Saturday.

It's a dysfunctional relationship. As a college football fan, you wake up, take the dogs down, fire up the HD set and watch "the premier college football pregame show". As far as fans are concerned, it's the only pregame show. Hell, Big 12 Live on FSN has the production value of public access compared to the massive roadshow that is Gameday. Gameday is like your ex-girlfriend. She's pretty and fun and you learn something from her. Then, later on, she starts yelling at you, throwing dishes at your head, drinks too much and insults your mother, flirts with other dudes, then disrupts your whole system of beliefs. You love her, but she is emotionally draining, no matter how much fun she is.

Add the dysfunction with a completely subjective polling with the Associated Press, the Coaches' Poll and the Harris Poll. The AP poll lost it's teeth when removed from the BCS computer formulas. However, for some strange reason, I trust the AP because of the depth and diversity of the voter. The Coaches' is always skewed with axes to grind and conferences to bolster. The Harris is the biggest wild card because the "administrators" that have a vote could have no idea what a football looks like.

The straw that breaks the camels back is the Heisman discussion. For an award that is given before the bowl season, it takes up too much time and effort for journalists, broadcasters, analysis, scouts and random experts for something completely subjective that lately never translates professionally [see: Wuerffel, Danny]. Add the skew of former winners having a vote, and you have a discussion not only disruptive to the action week by week, you take away the team element to the ultimate team sport.

So, every weekend this season, these three annoying factors ruin a currently undefeated season from my favorite team. It started early with the Tebow-Bradford-McCoy constant interrelation of action. If Tebow is making out with a co-ed he doesn't love, the "system" wonders if Bradford and McCoy is doing the same thing (the last statement was a joke...we all know all three potential millionaires are performing mission work in third-world counties, simultaneously). The hype, even before the first snap, was getting to a dangerous level. The week one catastrophe of Bradford's injury turned the tailspin of hype into a monster of unnecessary, repetitive press into more hypothetical non-news of the future demise of Tebow and/or McCoy. Then Tebow went down...hard. The Heisman chatter was at a ridiculous level bringing in non-factors, one-gamers and dark horses...three full months before players are INVITED to the award.

Then there is constant drumbeat of "the SEC is the most awesome-est conference in the galaxy" that smart people always default. When will the "system" learn a) quit being lazy and watch a Mountain West or a Big East game once in a while and b) the teams in this conference always cannibalize each other. If it's not a scare like Alabama v. The Fightin' Lane Kiffins, it will turn somewhere else (...wait for it...). In 2007, LSU loses to a ranked Kentucky team and an unranked Arkansas team. They were rewarded with a National Championship bid where they beat Ohio State for their second crystal football in four years. They lost two games and still got the nod. Tandem that with the fact that the flip-flop number one team this year in Alabama was embarrassed in it's last big game that was outside the SEC. Every year, the loudest of the microphones fall back on this exhausted premise.

So, with the press fueling the "system", I can't enjoy a smashing win from the Longhorns against a Big XII North team like Mizzou, in their house, during their homecoming. Every time I hear Kirk Herbstreit on a monologue of how "tough" Alabama is in escaping Knoxville and how ugly UT is in taking care of business in Columbia, I want to punch him in his beautiful face. The "system" protects Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators with multiple number one votes and Heisman contention while chastising Colt McCoy and the Texas Longhorns with limited votes and disappointing qualifiers and mitigation. Garbage.

And why the hell is USC always receiving undying affection from the "system"? With foolish predictions like this, it makes watching and reading and following college football unbearable.

My ways to fix the "system":

• The Heisman should be awarded after the bowls. As a matter of fact, all the individual honors should be given after the triple-zeros are on the scoreboard. The only argument is the closing argument. If the Heisman is loosely representative as a team and individual award, then assess the whole body of work, not just twelve-thirteenths of the composite.
• Don't publicize the polls, especially the BCS. If you are going to incite rage, do it once. The natural discussion of comparison of teams will be there. There is no reason to put such stress on a flawed, subjective polling system when all that matters is the endgame. Make it like college basketball where no one knows if you are dancing until the selection show (hosted by Lee Corso and Lou Holtz...hilarious).
• Include everyone in the BCS. No more "BCS Busters". If you are a big school and a viable competitor for a conference championship, there is no reason for exclusion. Again, naturally, college football fans and media will generate discussion for your Boise States, TCUs and Utahs as potential champions. But the subjective, cherry picking, you are in/you are out choices hold the same credibility as the judging system for "Project Runway".
• In relation to exclusion, no more independent teams. That's right Notre Dame. Go to the Big Ten (with twelve teams). NBC can modify their contract to include the Big Ten Network. Army and Navy can make an Air Force Academy move and find a natural home in the Big East.

Of course, this is all contingent on the absence of a college football playoff (which I am convinced will never happen).

Maybe with those fixes, I can enjoy an undefeated season (potentially) in peace. These fixes are designed to remove the talk and chatter and asinine comments from the press (the prime mover of the "system"). Why talk about subjective issues when you can't see them? And that's all I want to do on a Saturday afternoon - watch some football of the alma mater, talk some trash about OU and pass out with the knowledge that some idiot in Bristol won't influence some mouthbreather in Atlanta to kick out the Longhorn from an undefeated campaign to a bid to Tempe...for another Tortilla Chip Bowl. Is that too much to ask?

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Patience is a learned virtue.
2) If morale and confusion rule the day, then products and production suffers.
3) You can burn out a router. Seriously, it can just cook itself and burn out. I did not know that.

Well, I think I have taken care of the football post for the year. Too bad I have to suffer with Brent Musburger reminding us every week that Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley are roommates. Maybe we can exclude random factoids during game telecasts? A man can dream, can't he? Talk later.

Life in the Time of Change

(This is Meli here, the last of the contributors. I was recently told that I too would be joining this dying breed unless I stepped up and posted something soon. With that quaint warning, I bring you my third post.)

Drum roll......


Change is the only constant in life.

We know this.

If you have been following Post Thirty Post (PTP) for any length of time, you probably know that a major life change may be in the works, and that at the very least, a minor change will surely happen.

For those of you who haven't kept up, our esteemed PTP leading man's current contract job will be ending soon.

For every door that closes, a new one opens.

This is exciting. This is cool for us. We are opening ourselves up to the possibility of anything and anywhere...moving to a new city or staying here with a new job...either is good...as long as it feels right.

Again, this is great stuff. It makes you focus and really take a look at your life and ask yourself once again, "What do I want?" and "What am I doing to achieve my goals?"

It also makes you see how grateful you are with what you currently have. I look around and I see family, friends, and a real sense of community here in Corpus. I have a great job that allows me to do what I love on a daily basis. I get to have an amazing life partner with me on this journey. I am blessed. No doubt.

What has occurred to me though recently is that I have somehow gotten into a
holding pattern of "stuckness" while awaiting this impending change.

Because we may move, I have been reluctant to start new things. I have been stalling out on new initiatives and not continuing other projects for fear that it may all be for naught, if we leave.

This cautious approach is no longer working for me.

The notion of putting life on hold, be it during a time of flux or not, flies in the face of the very core of LIVING.

It may sound sensible to some, as it did for me initially. After all, it is reasonable not to make major commitments and then have to drop the ball midstream. I would be letting people down and wasting a lot of people's time (including my own). Again, I am a huge fan of all things logical, and this is a sound argument.

However, I have to acknowledge the very real consequence of this life approach.

Simply stated: it is not working.

Perhaps it isn't working because I am not embracing the initial premise: change is inevitable.

We do not wait for change to happen before we act. We act and we make change happen.

With this post I am resolved to finding that balance again.

Life is always about living.

Till next time,

Peace.