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I really have nothing to complain about except aerosol hair paint.
It sucks though...I have never had a solid doctor (much less three) on-call for my well-being. Yeah, I am complaining about this. This is just another black note pushing me toward a cardiologist and more drugs in my cabinet than hair products.
This is just one of the crappy things I am just not a big fan of as I get older. I don't like hernia surgery. I don't like spending more on dental work than computer hardware. I don't like sitting in waiting rooms with screaming children--and the nurses warn me not to schedule appointments on certain days.
Okay, sure, I am wailing about a necessary evil, but it exacerbated by not doing anything for a good two decades. And now I am paying for it. Lame.
Of course, the delayed muscle soreness, bitching about a hard day of yoga and not having the same lung capacity for my waning libido has nothing to do with me going to doctors all the time. Apparently, that's normal. Just as normal as swine flu. Wait, what? Okay, I might need to schedule another appointment. And yes, I will stop complaining.
I really have nothing except some Lessons Learned...
LL, my three things...
1) I know how my dad felt when I played high school football: proud of accomplishments yet knowing I wasn't going to go pro in anything except a career. The footage below is proof of such knowledge.
2) Manu is the most important Spur.
3) I am really, REALLY, hating SAV right now. How can you flag a legitimate Microsoft file on one machine and leave it alone on 22 other machines? Piece of shoe!
I have to say, this is my lamest post in my career at P30P. It will never happen again. Now if I can only get my CONTRIBUTORS to chime in every once in a while. That's right CONTRIBUTORS...I am speaking to you. Talk later.
National politics are so much easier to understand.
As noted, I live 27°44′34″N 97°24′7″W. And last weekend was Election Day for mayor and city council. For the last three years, no matter how large or small, when "political campaign" is in a sentence, "change" is automatically installed. This election period was no different. I don't want to call it sour grapes, but none of my agents for change won any seats or positions available. So, naturally, skepticism has already set in and the new administration does not get sworn in until next month. But skepticism is uncomfortably floating toward fear...and I have my reasons.
We now rejoin the link party, already in progress
Okay, let's be fair and say the last two years with The Chief, the Beach Boys, Nelda, Bill and the rest of the council (some that have trouble with attendance than others, and you know who you are) have been, to be gentle, a little rough. The plus side is they pushed one huge bond in 2008 while working out 2004 bond money and road projects. On top of that, they apparently saved the gulf beaches from themselves. This group made if possible to "keep your beach" and freely drive on the waterfront, curtailing any and all beach resort and real estate development. Yeah, it's local government, it's not glamorous stuff like budgeting for humanitarian aid, but infrastructure has to be kept up somehow. However, all of these 1-run victories in the preseason never made up for the major league losses with Memorial Coliseum debate and constant balking. Not to mention their final swan song--the swan apparently shot in midflight--the smoking ordinance-wait-non-ordinance (more on that garbage on a future post).
Sitting on the public hot potato known at the MC, this motivated enough "change agents" to mobilize and push for their name as the "right" representative. It's pretty bad when a building, deteriorating at every cold front and tropical weather event, takes more precedence than population shift (as opposed to boom), a consistent lack of high-tech and bio-medical careers and a hesitance from young professionals to either stay or be active in community building. No, a building that hosted Metallica 25 years ago is going to be the sticking point for local politicians. Yes, I know all the candidates spoke of these continuing issues, it was just the MC stealing all the soundbites.
Last Saturday, 16% of Corpus Christians mobilized and selected a local real estate mogul, two title company executives, one former title company owner, and a banker. Two of the council winners are re-treads (ergo, they were previously responsible for the state we are in now). The fear jumps out when you have four of the nine in some version of real estate with one ingrained with real estate business. There's your majority. And there's your "change agents". Sure, you throw out the pro-growth messages and policy speeches while campaigning. But why does this new group give me this nauseous feeling that the pro-growth will just line their wallets with their day jobs as opposed to giving everyone in the city the same opportunity?
By the way, you can stop patting your back about 16%...of the registered voters, not the whole population.
There are only going to be two things this administration does within it's life span to make me...appeased. If not, the moment I get the chance, I am so out of here like parachute pants. First thing's first, blow up the Memorial Coliseum. Quit playing prospectors. Quit outsmarting yourselves. The majority of the newbies are IN real estate. Everyone knows by now the ideas, pipe dreams and consultants are all on fumes. Just blow it up already. It's prime land. Someone with a great idea to draw people in will come (until Las Brisas scares everyone away). Just resist the temptation of rebranding. It wasn't that cool when it was the primary venue anyway. Move on. Second, fire Angel Escobar. You heard me. The city engineer should have never been in the hunt in the first place. The one city employee that escapes the city-wide water boil notice debacle, and the dude is running the whole effing city? And with two very solid and experienced candidates for the job, the council runs this bait and switch, literally? The clear message would be, "okay, this last council and mayor was a bunch of clueless brother-in-laws that their actions will not continue." Now, the Las Brisas issue is another hornet's nest that sounds like the silver bullet to all our job and economic woes. It's not. Train Wreck will take care of this one for me. Besides, it's they can't have a hearing on it in Austin, a single piece of rebar won't move until the arguments are finished. So, just do those two things, and it will build some confidence (at least with me). Now, this doesn't have to be done at swear-in. There is no real time table for that. Just do it. Those two big moves will remove the sarcastic quotation marks from "change agents".
So, we wait until the fear subsides or gets excellerated to anger. Mayor-Elect Adame was playing with the MC ideas after his win on KIII-TV 3 (of course, if Channel 3 had a webmaster worth a damn, I would point you to this discussion, but I will paraphrase) , departing from the current HappyFunLandHappyTime proposal to creating an "olympic" swim center to [surprise] creating a smaller venue for the hockey team...the hockey team Councilman-Elect Brent Chesney is currently a minority owner. And we wait, and see if Mr. Adame is sounding like this former city employee four years from now.
Enough about politics. Lessons Learned...my three things:
1) Getting sick takes practice...practice to get better and how to take care of yourself in an abbreviated state. If you don't get sick, there's no need to practice. I never get sick. And we are talking about practice.
2) Uninterrupted, the second generation iPod Shuffle (2GB) can roll on full battery life for ten straight hours on shuffle mode. Spring cleaning tested that variable.
3) I hate it when The Lovely is in a place that is cooler than where I am currently at. We spent ANOTHER weekend separated. This time around, she came back refreshed and I arrived appreciating my teammate and drinking buddy.
Okay, one last pop-shot and I will call it an entry: the smoking ban (referenced above) is about the most gutless move I have seen in a while. Corpus is not special. The rest of the major metropolitan areas in the state have pulled this trigger. Yet, the council wants to talk about it more? As I mentioned about Train Wreck, we may not need the pandering...the state may just make the decision for us. C'mon Corpus. Parachute pants! Talk later.
Yes, it was good to relax.
So, midweek was as stressful as it gets. Granted, we weren't tracking North Korea's "satellite" program. But we were watching Conficker.C. Unlike my Apple brethren, we actually had to track it. The big kaboom never came even though the threat is no where near over. To exacerbate the stress level, April Fool's Day featured probably the worst timed joke in recent history.
To illustrate how bad this joke was, I am going to state it in the form of a CompTIA exam question:
You are a floor manager of a funeral home. One of the five viewing rooms has been shut down due to a threat of formaldehyde contamination. All the rooms were checked with the same threat when someone at one of the viewing rooms was complaining of the status of a corpse. Under further inspection, the body was moving DURING THE VIEWING. When finding out the night undertakers were responsible for the "gag", who should the floor manager kill first?
White hot rage could describe my reaction. As a matter of fact, I needed the rest of the day for mental wellness. God bless that distinction. So, bad timing quickly dissolved to good timing. I had Friday off for a travel day. Nothing to get your mind off of work than crossing state lines. The Lovely and I scheduled a trip to Shreveport. I'm not really sure how this all worked out, but it was a brilliant stroke of serendipity.
Why Shreveport, you ask? To make a long story short, we have family friends that were entrenched in our wedding and embedded in The Lovely's history and future. Also, we needed an update on "the three step process" and we wanted to see how the two kiddos were doing as well. The cherry on top was that I have never been to Shreveport and Ark-LA-Tex just sounds like an interesting place to drink Abita.
After defrosting in a different zip code 466 miles away, all the stress and rage and bullshit just withered away. Granted, watching a four year old and a two year old build forts from couch cushions can change anyone's focus...or can it? Sure, Wednesday sucked. If I was any younger or more stubborn, the anger would have bled into the rest of my consciousness. Ultimately, the "job satisfaction" tag would have to be removed. But, I learned something huge this weekend: I have to step back. If I don't step back, I am as good as my former horrible self and as entrapped as some closed-minded old dude with zero flexibility. In other words, I'm bad or I do not grow...which is the whole point of this maturity mission.
So, I took a breath, stepped back, and feel encouraged for the next week. I feel like I grew a little. Not so much "grow up", but discovered some new information that will make my life fuller and more complete. And just like computer worms, employment and intra-personal communications, knowledge is power.
Lessons Learned (in addition to the big one), my three things:
1) With local and major daily newspapers fighting to stay above water and maintain functionality and production, you wouldn't think a periodical's website would pimp exclusive stories while leaving the print version sparse with content and thoughtful editorial and news copy. That's like bragging about your amputated foot as a diabetic. Not a good move, Crawler.com.
2) Abita only made 1000 cases of Strawberry Lager. What a tease.
3) When driving out of Texas, you absolutely know when the state line changes. I don't know if it's the atmosphere, the altitude, the twang or the proliferation of the Stars and Bars, you just know. It's just a feeling, like humidity or accidentally crapping your pants.
BONUS ROUND: When parents of children (that you will be hanging out with) warn you that the kids "are sick", watch your ass. Prevention is key, but you will probably get sick. Pathogens happen, kids happen. Have fun with this kiddos, remind them to wash their hands and be ready to slug Emergen-C and green tea. Love to Aussie and P.
Speaking of "knowledge is power", looks like the Body of Christ has taken a turn for the...interesting? I don't want to say worse, because it's pretty lame to start off with, but local elections were held and I don't feel the same confidence as I do in my inner knowledge. Oh yeah, we are posting about that so only 2 people will be interested in the post. Always looking out for my readers. Talk later.
This April Fool's will be so off the hook, I need facial hair!
This is more of a teaser blog than anything. But we are on the verge of either the lamest tease in recent history or the shit is going down tomorrow.
If anyone has been under the technological rock as of late, it is on like Donkey Kong. If you are running an unpatched Windows workstation or connecting to an unprotected server, prepared to be owned. Conficker is almost at zero hour.
The boys (and girls) at the shop have been hard at work to cover our bases, but we have no idea what the actual impact is going to be. So, I am sleeping off the extra reading, clocking in to work, and see how many zombies I will have to kill a la Shaun of the Dead.
Stay tuned, got a full report per my scope manana. Until then, wash you goddamn hands and watch your cornholes. No Lessons Learned until tomorrow.
Coffee, Energy Drinks and Insomnia is no way to go through a week.
From the Outlook calendar on my office workstation:
March 16-20, CDI SENTENEL Incident Response and Handling (Austin) Conflicts with another appointment with your CalendarMarch 19 and 21, First/Second NCAA Men's Tournament (Greensboro)
Conflicts with another appointment with your CalendarMarch 13-22, SXSW [South By Southwest] (Austin) Conflicts with another appointment with your Calendar
March 17, St Patrick's Day Conflicts with another appointment with your Calendar
March 18 - 10:00, Weekly Team Meeting Yeah, doubt you are going to make it according to your Calendar
I have to say, this was a pretty insane week as far as slated events were concerned. The top listing was the most beneficial as far as knowledge and profession, but why in the world would anyone schedule an event in Austin at the same time as the second or third event? I was asking myself that question daily while dodging goofy kids wearing flannel and stocking caps in 86-degree heat. The general consensus was: "what do you expect, it was run by the government." Sad days when the "government" gets dumped on for offering free education.
Admittedly, I was not looking forward to the Tournament as a 'Horns fan. When a point guard doesn't emerge until the fourth quarter of the season and the stars of the team have issues of fortitude the whole season, you don't want to pay too much attention. However, when they were Feeling Minnesota in the first round shellacking, hope was there for the showdown versus Duke. But then, like a Dungeons and Dragons gamer on prom night, there is still disappointment. Thankfully, my emotional attachment, according to my Outlook calendar, was partial at best.
SXFSW: I will only add this one note to the well-chronicled insanity that is the all-around sensory overload - when leaving town with good memories, catching up with good friends and family, and with eight loaves of Whole Foods challah, The Lovely and I were working up eastbound on 5th Street approaching Lavaca Street. Nearing the legendary Antone's, I noticed a 1980's body-style white Chevy pickup. The tailgate said in all in bold, black letters: "DON'T MOVE HERE". Ah, the double-edge sword of tourist revenue and population boom. Can't pick and choose anymore, Live Music Capital of the World.
I am sore about St. Patty's, though. Staying up until three in the morning the day before does not count as celebrating. I was worn down from my first two days that I just watched a rerun of the Daily Show and called it a night. For someone one-sixteenth Irish, that is no way to celebrate my partial heritage. There was an absence of thematic hats and green food coloring. I could plug in that I am getting old, but that is an excuse old people use. Funny sidebar though, Emma was born. Big ups to Josh and Amy.
So, I missed the Weekly. Damn.
All in all, it was a productive week. I even had time to recover The Lovely after my coursework to have some Big A fun ("A" as in Austin, you bunch of savages). And we did. I would like to give a fond bon voyage to The Gingerman, known as Gingerman Classic for this week's purposes. My old 4th Street hideout is now relocating to a cold and metal hole down Lavaca Street, about 50 meters from the old location.
I'm not really sure if I am complaining or gloating...
Lessons Learned - My Three Things:
1) No matter what, always ask for the money up front first!
2) If a door knob is functioning, when disassembled, it should separate in all it's different components. When the doorknob, or door-opening system, is malfunctioning, you just might have to stab the door with a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers until the cipher completely dies.
3) Spook Central is a fun place to work. Hell, it's a fun place just to keep track of. With Conflicker C in the wild, ISC breaking down the Green status and jackasses still using P2P, it makes me want to put on the track shoes and run a 7-minute mile to meet the challenge.
Mad love and shouts to Ra-Rach and B-boy for hooking up the couch-surfing provisions, El Grande (sans The Munchkin and Dollface), SKM, Garth the Sherpa (got to tell me about that mountain range), Safari Jon and the cold-blooded killers at the HHS mafia, Don Michael and that dude that called me a "badass" when I was jaywalking Lavaca in a black suit. That is merely a portion of why I love Austin so much. Talk later.
Oh, my god, could this blog series get any longer!?!?! This entry has been sitting in my queue for two weeks now. Did I even leave the country? Ugh, life caught up with me.
I think I can get over the numbers now. It's not like this is Sesame Street or there is a diabolical pop quiz after this rant. This run, I would like to get to the heart of the matter. There are some fundamental differences between The States and CR that we as North Americans should start taking notice.
By 2010, Costa Rica wants to eliminate their carbon footprint from not only their micro-climates, but the global environment as a whole. We witnessed the country's efforts first hand. It's one thing to say that there is no litter or trash around their national parks or ecological reserves. But it's the little things that are done in plain sight that make the difference. Por ejemplo, when visiting an North American hotel or lodge, in the bathroom guests would notice the mini-bottle sized soap and shampoo, complete with about 2/3s of the soap and shampoo your body actually needs. Where do all the used mini-bottles go? Obviously, they are not edible or we would have an even bigger problem with obesity today. In CR, they keep is simple and contained. In every hotel we stayed in (save one), they had dispensers as opposed to bottles on top of bottles. All the staff does is fill a reseviour with liquid soap and shampoo. A couple of extra squirts and one could wash their whole body without burning through plastic that will never be recycled. No waste, no mess.
Speaking of recycled, what if we took all the used beer bottles I have ever consumed. Let's make it fair and add all the Topo Chico bottles as well. Currently, my hometown decided to reliquish glass recycling for the last ten years. What if we reused all the bottles, reduce waste and use them for the next run? Why is something so commonsensical not practiced in The States? Well, it's practiced in the Rich Coast. Instead of doing the measly 5 cent deposit in Connecticut, vendors, shop keepers, bars and patrons return the beer bottles to be washed, re-washed, steamed, dried and used again for the exact same purpose -- for beer and beverages. They reduce the glass in the trashpits and landfills and crack open a fresh beer while doing some good for the environment.
But enough of the tree-hugger manifesto. An English grammarian would make a killing here. Then again, they should be wary of visiting CR. Wave Expeditions doesn't know how to use a comma. Johnnie's Pizza was having trouble with transliteration of "B"s and "V"s. La Pollera was having some trouble with "Gordon Blue" which is a lot like Cordon Bleu except it's the exact same thing! The Airport (converted horse barn) in Fortuna was having trouble with Anions Rings even though they were trying to express rings of onion.
Which bleeds into my point; if an American goes to a foriegn country, the traveler might want to try to attempt the native language. Native countrymen appreciate it when you at least try to speak the language. These are the words from everyone's mouth that we encountered. "It's nice when guests speak the language", all of our lovely hosts stated in one version or another. Why try to impose a foriegn language to another country? Even the expatriots agree. I just never understood why the other Americans we hung out with didn't give it the old college try? It not like the Language Police were going to come and take us away. It's like if Russians came by the truckloads and just started pushing Cryillic on us and if we didn't understand it, they would just speak louder. Got to respect the home-court advantage. As we all know, Manifest Destiny is over.
And the Oscars aren't that big of a deal in Central America. I would be safe to bet a couple hundred colones that it's just The States that cares about it.
So, that's it. That is what I learned while in Costa Rica. So, yeah. Books are overrated. Unless they are bird books with full page pictures and distiguishing markings. Consider the debrief completed. Talk later.
As we learned on the last post about Costa Rica (which seems like eons ago), ziplines are cool, ATMs are awesome and drowning is difficult when ten people are in the same river. Who knows what we are going to learn today? Because really, I don't know what I am going to write until I type it. Don't you just love the Internets?
9) So, when The Lovely and I were in the passenger van headed toward our waterboarding torture...er, white-water rafting trip, the guides asked where we were from. Since not everyone on Earth recognizes the burnt-orange silhouette of livestock, we said "Texas". Appropriately (?), our trusty guides responded with a "Yee-haw" enough to pierce Roy Clark's ears. Funny enough, we would have to prove our Texan spirit on a three-hour horseback ride (traveling to the gorgeous private waterfall above). Internationally speaking, if you are from Texas, you must know how to ride a horse, or fake as if you did what your stunt-double just did seconds ago. As an added bonus: did you know horses can fall asleep anywhere? Just ask my wife. Consider that stereotype dissolved, yet recovered after thirty minutes in the saddle (western saddle, of course).
10) A popular question amidst our return was, "how was the food?" When it wasn't beans and rice, it was outstanding. But we had no clue that this country could go toe-to-toe internationally on creation and execution of pizza. Yes, pizza. We had it four times while in CR. These guys kick some serious ass when it comes to the bastardized Italian dinner pastry. But why does (or would) pizza taste better here? We have isolated the fresher ingredients coming from direct vendors, such as fruit and veggie producers, dairy farms down the road with butchers two doors over. Plus, nothing beats a wood-fire oven. Nothing. Natural carbon flavors with the cedar and ash scents permeating over fresh cheese, meats and pineapples from a creepy dude in a truck. Now, that's flavor! So much for that stereotype.
11) I can merely go by Travel Channel footage. However, La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano look disgustingly similar to the angry volcanic islands of Hawaii. This sounds like a no-brainer due to the second-largest active volcano in the country would produce black sand, sulfuric-blue water and the lack of crocodiles. And, of course, with the fauna and the constant rain, you would have to squint hard to discern the different. And boom goes that stereotype. By the way, thanks for nothing Arenal Volcano; a cloudy four days could not reveal anything other than ninety percent of the apex and only part of the gassy north facade of the pissed-off mountain.
12) Please remove the old Costa Rica out of your head. As referenced earlier, this is a country with an economic identity crisis. With all the westerners dumping in money to visit, live or to create adventure/spa businesses, CR is not a cheap trip. If you think it's a third-world country, cut it out - seriously. I give this country another five years before it becomes the next Cancun (only safer).
Oh, you think this is over. "Nothing is over until we say it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor...hell no!" Join us next blog when we try to wrap this up in less than a freaking month when the little red bow I try to place on this trip ends up being way too large. Will the hilarity ever stop? Talk later.
I really have nothing to complain about except aerosol hair paint.
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