Thankful

I followed a quasi-challenge over on Facebook this month.  From whenever you received the challenge until Thanksgiving, post something that you are thankful for as your status.  So I did.  Now that Thanksgiving is over, I’ve taken screenshots of the accumulated statii (is that a word?) and posted here.  It’s reverse chronological order, but I’m sure that my reader(s) can figure that out.

I’ll Go Around You!!

Y’know something I hate?  When someone is stopped to turn left, and the car behind them almost goes around them on the shoulder.  Instead of just going around them and continuing with their day, (and letting ME go around as well) what they do is fade half onto the shoulder, and stop.

I mean…they’d fit if they went around.  Nothing bad would happen, but no, they fade right as if they’re going to go around…brakes on…and stop.  Then we all wait for the left-turner to complete their turn, and we move on.

Now personally, I just drive around.  I don’t even slow down much.  Maybe it’s scary or edgy or whatever, but I’ve been known to blow around a left-turner (given a paved shoulder, or even the dedicated go-around lane) at 60mph.  Heck, I know how wide my car is, and I know I’m not going to hit anything.  I will slow down to 45mph or so for gravel shoulders.

But what do these almost-go-arounders think?  Is it something like:

“Uh-oh…you’d better complete your turn, or I’ll go around you.  See?  I’m starting to fade over!  I’ll go around you!  I will!  I’ll do it!!  I swear to God I’ll go around you!  DON’T MAKE ME DO IT!  DON’T MAKE ME GO AROUND YOU!! I’M GOING TO GO AROUND YOU I’M NOT KIDDING I’LL DO IT WATCH ME DO IT DON’T MAKE GO AROUND YOU!!  AAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAAA!!!“

Then the car turns, and the almost-go-arounder takes their foot off the brake and starts to move again.

Just makes me want to slap them.  Probably doesn’t bother anyone else.  Where’s the Tylenol?

What a Difference…

…a year makes.  Here I am, just freshly turned 39 — yesterday, in fact.

A year ago, when I had just turned 38…I went on vacation and suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning that put me in a Virginia hospital.  The effects lasted for a month afterward.

My marriage was severely on the rocks.  We hit a low time in our relationship, one I don’t wish to repeat.

My job was stagnating.  Day in, day out, the same thing.

Today?  We’re planning to go back to Virginia in just under two weeks.  I’m scared of it, a bit, and excited for it, a lot.  My marriage?  Still kind of crummy…not a lot of happiness in our house, but there’s more than there was, and I think we’re on the mend.  I’m leading a $500,000 project at work, with actual hopes for recognition, if not a real raise or anything.

And best of all, I’ve been accepted to a decent MBA program and will be starting classes in a bit less than five months.  My life will be crazy.  I will be driving three hours to school every other weekend.  I will have reading and homework every night, and it will take time from my family.  My work will not slow down, and I will be frazzled.  And I’m planning on enjoying every last minute of it.  (maybe not the increased screaming from my 2-year-old twins)

I am actually working TOWARD something.  Something better, at that.  I have a purpose.  I have a goal.  I have something to make me feel young and alive.  I need to feel young and alive.  I’m ashamed at all of the years I’ve wasted, and I don’t want to do that anymore.  In 2011, when I am 41 years old, I will hold a fresh, new MBA in my hands, and I will hit the ground running.  I will get a new career and earn twice the money I earn now, and I will provide a better life for my family.

They surely deserve it.

Em. Bee. Ay.

Yup, big changes coming down the pike.  I applied to business school.  I was ACCEPTED by said business school.  This July, I start the Weekend MBA Program at Michigan State University.  Nineteen months later, I’ll have an MBA, and hopefully a whole new job which will unlock untold riches for my family and me.

What has me at a loss, though, is wondering if getting into an MBA program — a decently good one, at least — is a bigger deal than I think it is.  I mean, getting into Harvard Business or U of Michigan is a big deal, no doubt.  I’m getting into a program that’s ranked somewhere between 37th and 50th, depending on who you ask — not top-notch, but not un-ranked like Baker College or Lawrence Institute of Technology.

So I spent a couple of months on my application — getting transcripts, resume, recommendations; writing essays; taking the GMAT exam.  Then, five days after I submitted my application, boom, I was accepted.  No interview or anything.  I had prepared for a 3-10 week wait, as cautioned by an e-mail from the program.  Nope.  Five days.

It’s burnin’ me up…is that a big deal?  My reaction was, “oh, cool!”  Then we went out to Chili’s to celebrate.  Should my reaction have been more along the lines of, “Oh. My. God.” (sit down in chair and fan face) “Honey, give me a blow-job right fucking now, because I. Am. The. Shiz-nit!”

See, I don’t know.  I’m assuming it’s good, but I don’t want to go around crowing about it, if this is actually relatively normal.  At the same time, if this kind of thing never happens, I’d like to know about it so I can be appropriately proud.

Well, regardless, I got into a decent MBA program; one with a GREAT career services department, and I should be poised to break into a good-paying management job in March of 2011, and I’m damn happy about that.

Labor Day Weekend

I’ve had a lot of thoughts to blog on since my last — the Beijing Olympics, the underage gymnasts, the election, the Democratic Primary — but I haven’t blogged on any of them.  Obviously.  Instead, I’ve been thinking about friends and keeping in touch.  I quite frankly say that I don’t have any friends.  None.  And to my knowledge, I don’t.  I have acquaintances, I have co-workers, I have relatives…but friends?  People whom I would invite over to hang out…or conversely people who invite me over for anything?  No.  None.

Yet, I ran into an old ex-friend on the internet last week.  Maybe it was just this week, I forget.  We were close college friends, there was a situation, and we haven’t been friends since the 1990’s.  Running into his web persona was… something.  I don’t know, not really an epiphany, not that strong or relevant.  Not even a sub-epiphany, if such a thing exists.  Just a “something.”  It kind of brought back the memories of when we were friends, and stayed up all night drinking beer and launching matches across my apartment.

It made me think of all the people I’ve lost touch with — and I suppose this being my 20th year out of high school helped bring it to a head — and I’ve been on a kick lately to catch up with all of those people who I used to know, and have let fade in the rearview mirror for a decade.  Or two.

Maybe the pre-cursor to this “something” was the realization that there’s not going to be a 20-year high-school reunion for me.  There was a five-year, and I shined it on even though I lived 5 miles away from it.  There was a 10-year, and I lived in another state and could’ve gone, but my “I didn’t like those people then” side out-voted my “I wonder what they’re up to” side and I didn’t go.  I regret that decision, I should’ve gone.

When I graduated from high school, that was the end of my contact with pretty much my entire class.  All the people who I’d spent the last twelve years of my life with, who’d picked on me, who’d laughed at my jokes, who’d asked for the answer to #12 — cut off like flicking a light-switch.  There was no “keep in touch” from me, no “give me your number in college” from me.  No, my attitude then was 100% “good-bye, good-riddance.”  The same holds true with my graduation from community college three years later, and from the university four years after that.  I don’t have old college buddies that I keep up with.  I just don’t.  I guess other people do.

So, I don’t know, “something” has been giving me the urge to find old classmates on Myspace, on Facebook, on Classmates.com.  I’m finding some — finding 74 people in the infinity of the internet isn’t really as hard as I thought.  I’ve sent out a couple of “what have you been up to” messages but gotten no replies.  I can’t say I’m surprised, really.  I haven’t ever been a close kind of person, so this reconnecting thing isn’t natural for me.  I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the people I’m trying to reconnect with thought I was an asshole 20 years ago and suspect that I’m still one now.  I kind of am, actually.

Oh well.  I’ll see what falls out of this.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that.

I Am Generation X

I am not a Baby Boomer.  Please do not treat me like one.

I could stop there and have summed up a whole lot of my take on generational dynamics.  However, I think it may be a bit lacking in substance.

So yeah, I am Generation X — I was born between 1964 and 1981, as it seems to be classically defined.  We got one of the first Atari 2600’s when I was nine.  When I was 13, General Motors laid off most of the City of Flint…and since I grew up in Michigan, that single act pretty much depth-charged my attempts to find an after-school job.  Why would McD’s call me, when unemployed 30-somethings with a kid to feed would pledge their loyalty to the Golden Arches?

That attitude has plagued my entire work career — why would anyone hire ME when every other applicant has 15 years more maturity and work experience, as well as more college and/or more willingness to pledge their entire soul over to Widgets, Inc? (or whatever employer it was)  I have fought an uphill battle to stay employed in the face of overwhelming numbers of more-experienced, more-trained, more-established Baby Boomers who also posess, coincidentally, a monumental selfishness as part of their Code of Ethics.

Picture the “Me Generation” as a meat grinder, and “Generation X” as a juicy strip of tenderloin.  Possessed of an “I win, you lose” mindset, there has been no way that my Baby Boomer supervisors and managers were ever going to let some (as is popularly perceived) apathetic slacker bum get ahead while they were on watch.

And now they’re starting to retire.  In the next few years, all of those managers are going to be leaving open jobs, then it should be MY time yet…I have a sneaking suspicion that some few will cling to employment just long enough to eliminate those open positions and crow about cost-savings before they, too retire off to a condo funded with MY Social Security contributions.

The ironic thing?  After the “Me Generation” turned down ballot proposal after ballot proposal to fund the schools I was enrolled in…they now want ME to approve ballot proposals for Senior Citizen Services.  I finally have the chance to choke them off and make them quit sucking me dry…and my generation has completely given up the desire to vote.  Our legendary apathy is going to make our taxes go up to feed the very Boomers who have kept us poor our entire lives.  We have a chance here, and I’m going to watch my generation squander it.

Yay, Generation X.  Here’s a slogan:  “Generation X: Sacrificing ourselves for the MIllenium Generation — Even though they won’t say ‘thanks!’”

Wow. Wha’happen?

Geez, when’s the last time I blogged?  May?  Cripes!  So much for that daily-journal-get-the-angst-out-be-happier concept, eh?

So, back to the griping.

I hate the dismissive two-finger wave drivers give while still holding onto the steering wheel.  You get it when you’re a pedestrian, mostly when a driver’s stopped at a stopsign, and you start to cross in the crosswalk, and they give you the “go ahead” wave when you’re already walking.  Like they gave me permission to exercise my right-of-way or something.

You know, while still holding the steering wheel with thumb, ring and pinky fingers, they give a quick brushing-off motion with the index and middle fingers.  Sort of “you may proceed, knave, and then begone with you.”  It’s different if I stop on the curb and see if they’re going to go…yes, very different from when they are already stopped at a stopsign and I’m in a crosswalk and…

..oh, hellsticks, it sounds all petty and whiny like this.  Nevermind.

Wait, I guess the whole dang thing can be summed up as: “I hate people.  By and large, the people around me are fuck-tards.”

Words, Words….More Words…

Well, it’s another Wednesday, coincidentally.  I’m at work.  I should be working.  I’m blogging.  Depending on who you ask, that’s either very, very good, or very, very bad.

The new camera has spurred me into taking a lot more photos lately.  I think it’s because the quality of them is so much better — it’s like I have a shot at creating some really nice pictures, whereas with the cameras I had before it was a foregone conclusion that the camera itself just wasn’t going to capture the image very well.  It was possible to get a really nice photo…just not probable. Kind of like if you meet a guy with a shaved head and swastika tattoos, it’s possible that he owns a nice, kosher deli…just not probable.

Not a lot goes on in my life.  I lead a boring life.  Most evenings are full with a)get home b)cook dinner c)eat dinner with family d)wash dishes e)settle toddlers down f)random chore (ie: garbage night, vacuuming, replacing light-bulbs, sweeping kitchen, watering plants, mowing lawn, etc)  AAaaaaand…by then it’s bedtime.  Most nights, really, I’ll climb onto the internetic sub-highway at 11pm or so, and surf when I should be sleeping.  That’s my “me-time” I guess.

Let’s see…we broke in our fire-pit on Saturday.  I built this thing at our last house.  Then we moved.  So I dug up and transported four wheelbarrow loads of rock and gravel to our new place and re-dug the pit.  Yes, I moved a hole.  We had our first real bonfire in it, though, with s’mores-roasting and the whole schlemiel.  Yes, we ate s’mores, my wife told scary stories… the kids got scared… and went inside…  And I sat out by the fire by myself until midnight waiting for it to burn down enough to go inside.  It was actually nice though.  Very quiet.  I don’t get much quiet in a house with four kids.

And there we go.  I’ve managed to get paid for half an hour of blogging.  That’s a win in my book.

Marathon Day

Mein Gott in Himmel.  That’s all I can say after the day today was.  (happens to be an awkward sentence, but meh)

Today my oldest daughter had her ballet recital…then we had to go to a wedding, wherein my oldest daughter was the flower girl.  And my wife was the “wedding coordinator.”  Just nobody told HER that before hand…but more on that later.

So how did my day go?  Well, once at the recital, my job consisted of wrangling the twins and slapping my son’s hands whenever he made a twin scream…which meant I slapped a hand about every 5.4 seconds.  The recital was an hour…an hour spent shushing toddlers, corralling toddlers, holding toddlers, picking up toddlers and fetching toys for toddlers.

Then we went to eat, which was okay.  Then to the wedding, where we got there an hour-and-a-half early…an hour and a half spent keeping toddlers off the photographer’s stuff, out of other people’s stuff, and out of the way.  And once the wedding started, I spent another hour pushing toddlers in a stroller, fetching dropped bottles and shushing screams.   And after the wedding we went to the reception where again it was time spent shushing toddlers, putting toddlers in high chairs, taking toddlers out of high chairs and keeping toddlers from getting stepped in by already-drunk wedding guests.

So from 10:30a.m. until about 6:30 p.m. my day was a blur of toddler-control, and I ended up tired, but feeling like I hadn’t been anywhere or done anything.

Oh, and the wedding coordinator thing?  My wife thought she was just to stand at the head of the aisle and tell the bridesmaids when to start walking…until people started telling her she had to control the bride’s fucktard/brat son, and was supposed to have decorated the pews, and was to help the bride get dressed, and decorate the entire church, actually, and the reception hall, and the minister her own damn self (pun intended) was ON my wife about everything.  Would’ve been nice to get a heads-up on that one.

Oh, and my wife dropped our (her) nice digital camera and it’s broken.  It shoots video okay, but photos have suckworthy horizontal bars across them.  Yaysticks and happyturds.  Just what we needed…to spend a hundred bucks on another camera, or on a repair on a camera that’s only worth about a hundred bucks.

But I guess, once we got home, I had a glass of port wine, and we made pudding.  A day that ends with pudding is a day that ends well, I guess.  Mmmm…….pudding.  <sigh>

Phew — Imports

So, that’s done. What follows this post is about a dozen more posts containing my entire blog from MySpace. And hopefully I don’t have to type “MySpace” that much more on here…it feels blasphemous. I’m actually embarrassed to have a page on that site.

Anywho, they’re just straight copy-pasted into Word, de-tabled, left-aligned, copied here and hyperlink-stripped. So they have all the nice what’s-yer-mood, whatcha-listening-to crap that My– um, you know — puts on their blogs. So my posterity is covered, anyway, so to speak.

Sadly, I’ll keep that page on that site, though…