This is our country

July 4th. America’s Independence Day. This is a day of hot dogs, baseball, apple pie and fireworks; all pieces of Americana. Little league baseball games, sipping cold lemonade on the front porch as the sun drops below the horizon, county fairs are all pieces of Americana as well. Washington, DC is my favorite piece of Americana.

I’ve been to DC various times for different reasons. The first time was in 8th grade on a class trip. I’ve been there numerous times to visit Brian when he lived there for four years after college. I’ve been there a variety times when I lived in Virginia, although I lived 2 hours away.

I love Washington, DC. I love how it was designed, its rich history, the monuments, the galleries, its tribute to the Americans who built this country and who died for it and most importantly, what it stands for. I love DC at night when the monuments are all lit up. I love how every year, millions of people come to visit DC and stand in awe of all of those things. I stand in awe of all of those things every time I am there, which, unfortunately, has not been in the past two years.

There are two times I visited DC that stand out in my mind in particular.

The first time was probably about 9 years ago, when I went to visit Brian, we were out and about sightseeing at night and taking pictures around the Mall. We wandered around for a while, finally settling on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We snapped pictures, talked and just sat there, quietly, thinking about that moment in time and other moments in time, in that very place.

On this night, we saw a couple of amazing events take place. First, there was this couple. They were dressed to the nines, he in his tuxedo, replete with top hat and cape and she in her elegant red dress. They sauntered around the Memorial, at the top of the steps, inching closer to the statue of Abraham Lincoln. As they moved around on that level, they began to dance together, gracefully. There was no music playing. Really, there was no sound at all, other than the distant sound of cars speeding by and some chirping of crickets, yet these two people were dancing to the sound of music in their heads. It was beautiful. It was awe-inspiring.

The second event that occurred this night was equally, if not more stirring. We were still sitting on the steps of the Memorial, although I believe we had moved up closer to the top and in the silence of night, we began to hear voices singing. Two young men, I think they were African-American and were probably in their late teens or early twenties were singing, while wandering around near the pillars, just in front of the statue of Lincoln. They were singing the Star Spangled Banner and they were singing it beautifully. In addition to their incredible voices, the sounds and the words of the song were echoing off the marble walls of the Memorial making this experience even more impressive. I can still see that scene and replay the sounds in my head. I will never forget them.

(a picture taken that night)

The other time I vividly remember in DC was the one July 4th we spent there, again, visiting Brian. I believe it was ’97, but I’m not entirely sure. If you’ve never been to DC to be a part of the July 4th spectacular, you are missing an unbelievable experience. We took the train to the Mall and walked past the Smithsonian and the Jefferson Memorial. Flying slightly above the grass were hundreds of thousands of fireflies. It was the first time I’d seen that many in one place and it was as though they were putting on a show before the show. Anyway, we continued to walk to the Mall to try to find a spot to sit down and watch, which is a feat in itself, since there are a few hundred thousand people there. We found the perfect spot, about 200 yards west of the Washington Monument, facing the Lincoln Memorial. We laid down on the grass, looking up into the sky, listening to the people around us and the music off in the distance. When the fireworks started, we didn’t need to sit up, or look in all different directions, we were able to lie there, on the grass, surrounded by thousands of people, taking in the sights and sounds while the fireworks display was going on immediately over our heads. For almost an hour, the blasts rocked the night sky, taking you higher and bringing you back down with expert execution. It was magnificent.

If you haven’t been to Washington, DC, I can’t stress enough how great it is to go there. I couldn’t imagine living there, but visiting has always been a pleasure. I think Americans take for granted this great city, its rich history and all the regalia associated with our nation’s capital because of what goes on there – politics. It puts a sour taste in our mouths to think of the bureaucracy and lies and deceit, while forget the good things that our government does, such as…ok, I can’t think of anything right now, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, on this 4th of July, I just wanted to remind myself of a piece of Americana that I love almost as much as apple pie.

Pour us a road, we’ll both drink and drive

Sometimes, we’re so counterproductive in our society, it’s a wonder we get anything accomplished. Hell, look at government as a good example! Seriously though, if we used just a slice of common sense, we might actually get to the other side of the road and go, “Huh, if I had known it was that easy, I would’ve done that a long time ago!”

The reason I’m mentioning this is that last night, I took a friends brother who is in town for the week to my favorite hockey bar to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals while my friend was busy with a previous commitment. After I arrived home from work, changed and was heading out the door, my brother walked in and asked where I was headed, so I mentioned it to him and asked if he wanted to join us. Now I know my brother is only 19 years old, but he has been in this bar before, not with me, but with some other people that know the owners, so I figured we’d be ok.

We get to the bar, find some seats and get ready to sit down, but the bartender spotted us as we were walking in and asked to see everyone’s ID. First off, um, hello? I have a beard and some grayish hair; I think I can pass for 21! Second, I mentioned that my brother wasn’t 21, but we brought him so he could be our designated driver, which I thought would be a logical excuse. It wasn’t likely that he’d be drinking; however, the law in Texas says that he can’t be in there, but then, it also says this:

In Houston, Texas, beer many not be purchased after midnight on Sunday, but can be purchased anytime on Monday...which happens to begin right after midnight on Sunday! So it's illegal to buy it when it’s legal to buy it?

I digress.

This left us with two options, pick up some beer, go back to the house and watch the game, or I drive my brother home and come back. He said it was ok if I took him home and I mentioned option 1, but he said he was cool with going home, so I drove him back there and headed back to the bar to hang out with my friends’ brother.

This brings about non-logical point number two: I know have to waste gas to drive my brother home. This is really not the time to be wasting energy resources! If we let him stay at the bar, I can drink a little more and have a safe, reliable driver waiting to take me home AND only use one trip’s worth of gas. This is opposed to the two trip’s worth of gas I had to use to take him home and then try not to drink too much so I could be a responsible driver for myself. Does that make sense to anyone? Sober driver and less gas used, or slightly intoxicated driver and more gas used, which sounds better?

On a side note, my brother is not a big hockey fan because he grew up in the south, whereas I grew up in the north. He has watched a number of games at home with me during the playoffs, but he’s just not a big fan in general. My friends’ brother on the other hand…anyway.

Needless to say, tomorrow night, we’re staying in to watch the game.

All in all, we're just bricks in the wall

Updated 5/29: On Sunday 5/27, Alexandria from Houstonist gave me some props in her "local blog roundup" post. Thanks! Also, in the comments section, I completed a thought that wasn't explained very well in the original post, so I suggest reading there as well.

Maybe it's because I'm not originally from Texas and I've never heard of closing underperforming schools before, but how does that help?

It sounds to me, that moving students to other schools would only shuffle underperforming students to schools that are currently performing at an acceptable rate, thus dragging down those schools scores.

Here's an idea, let's try reorganizing the staff. Move some (certainly not all) of the teachers that are able to excel in these tough situations out of the acceptable schools and into these schools. Let's hire more staff. Oh wait, that's right, our schools are cash-strapped because of extraneous, ridiculous overspending in other areas.

I never understood how or why education funding declines or remains stagnant. Seriously, the people in our schools will be taking care of you and I in 30-40 years; don't we want them to be the best possible people they can be? If we need to raise taxes for better education funding, then so be it, it's in everyone's interest. Generating more income would provide more staff, or at the very least, possibly a more qualified staff like they have at those fancy schmancy private schools.

Education is one of those things on which we should not be skimping. We’re already lagging in compared to other countries when it comes to how many engineers or scientists we’re churning out of our colleges.

In our society of billionaires, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, and more familiarly Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Forbes & the Walton Family of Wal-Mart fame, why not throw a couple BILLION (each) at our education system. Meanwhile, here in Houston, Ken Lay’s widow is worried about unfreezing her dead husbands’ assets. Do you think if she does receive any of that money she will throw it back into these schools? I think not.

I don’t want to go completely off topic, but many of the people who are in these struggling schools may ultimately wind up fighting and dying in a war that throwing money towards doesn’t seem to be as big a conundrum for the government.

If you could just stop looking for someone special, you might save yourself some pain

As I mentioned the other day, I've wanted to post about dating, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends. This past month has been very strange, with some developments in the relationship department.

First off, I joined a dating site - a very popular one - as I've done in the past. It has worked fairly well as far as finding dates and interesting people to meet, a couple of whom have turned into good friends. I met the girl I moved to Houston for on there and my most recent girlfriend was met through the site as well. I like being able to weed out the people I think I'm not going to be a good fit with before I go and spend time and money on something that has no possibility. I'm also "over" trying to pick someone up in a bar - as if that has any real potential anyway.

In any event, the first few days of being on the site are fraught with reading dozens of women's profiles, viewing their pictures, deciding whether to email them. Then, if I do, what do I say to (a) break the ice and (b) grab their attention? After the initial fun of it and waiting for responses, it actually gets annoying trying to find "new" women to message because the women who show up in your (sometimes too specific) searches are always the same ones you've already sent an email to. On the rare occasion that you do find someone new and they meet your criteria, you send them an email and again, hope for the best.

Usually, within a day or two, I'll begin getting responses. From there, sometimes things they say, questions they ask or responses to questions I've asked, will either keep me intrigued or tell me that this isn't someone I prefer to meet.

Conversely, after a few days of having my profile out there, I also begin to receive initial emails from women who are definitely not my type (how they ever thought that I am their type remains a mystery) or only saw a picture of me and decided to email me. I can usually pick those women out easily because they ask me a question that, had they read my profile, would've been answered already. My favorite example of this is the woman who sent me an email telling me she "must be dreaming" and that I'm "her perfect match". Really? After checking her profile, I determined we were never meant to be just by reading the first line in her "About" section. It read, "First and foremost, Jesus is a part of my everyday life...would prefer someone with the same values." Check please! If you know me at all, you'll know that I do not partake in a religion of any kind and it is clearly stated in my profile that while I don’t have a problem with you exercising your right, please don’t think that I’ll be joining you. This was an easy decision to give her a polite, "No thanks". There's much more, funny stuff to that story, but I don't care to talk about it, so I digress...

Now, of course after reading and re-reading women’s’ profiles and a few communications with them, either through email or over the phone, some of them are ready to go out. This is where it gets interesting.

First, there was the San Diego girl who moved here last year for work. We started communicating on a Saturday morning and by that evening were meeting for drinks. Our personalities meshed incredibly well and we had a good, flowing conversation the whole time we spent together. We left the bar around 130 am and decided to get together the next day as well for lunch and a movie. Well, with the crappy weather that day, she offered to order take out and rent a movie at her place. That was fine by me. We spent the majority of the day together, but by the end, even though we interacted well with one another, she irked me. There was no sense pursuing something with her if I could hardly stand her after just one day.

Next, there was the high maintenance girl. She emailed me first, with a simple, but effective, “What’s up?” She was very attractive, which of course grabbed my attention, but after reading her profile, I was much more interested. I emailed back to tell her she was intriguing, funny and had remarkable eyes. We communicated one more time before she told me to call her to get together. She preferred that rather than emailing or spending time on the phone. So we met a couple weeks ago for lunch on a Saturday at a place near her house. After about 45 minutes, I knew this wouldn’t work because of numerous reasons, but mostly because I could already tell, she was high maintenance. I say that as though it’s a bad thing, it’s not. I have plenty of friends who are that way, but they’re not people I could date. Anyway, we ate and talked and I think we both knew this would be it, but we were polite and when we finished, we decided to leave it at that. As we were saying how nice it was to meet each other and eventually goodbye, she did give me a nice hug however, which was a little surprising, though it’s always nice to get a hug from an attractive woman in a public place :)

To be continued...and then some…

Virginia Tech tragedy

I know I will take a whole bunch of crap for this, but I’m going to say it anyway.

First off, what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia on Monday was an unnecessary, senseless tragedy and my heart goes out to all of the victims' families, students, classmates, teachers and the overall general community that Virginia Tech encompasses.

The next thing is that I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for 4.5 years. Charlottesville is where the University of Virginia (UVA) is located and they are the in-state rival to Virginia Tech (VT). That being said, I have no allegiance to either school, but I know of the rivalry and I’ve been to both campuses numerous times. I know a number of people who have graduated from each school and both schools are well respected amongst each community.

All of that aside, the VT students have laid a lot of blame at the feet of the administration for not locking down the campus after the first gunshot incident at the dorm. In my opinion, for the most part, the school acted accordingly. I say for the most because I think the email that arrived at 9:26 was far too after-the-fact, but I do not believe it would have saved any less than the 32 lives lost and the countless numbers that were wounded. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and this is just my opinion.

Now this part is going to get me in trouble with people. While the students are bitching at the administration (and probably the parents too), we are reading stories on the internet about how the students believed he could be a school shooter (before this event occured), that his creative writing stories were unbelievably violent and that he showed signs of being mentally disturbed. The fact that he was also sent to counseling for his stalker-like actions and he was removed from a class by a professor who claims she knew he was the shooter before his name even came out bothers me more than anything. I have to lay blame on ALL of these people for not doing something sooner. Did we not learn anything from Columbine? Apparently, the stories from the creative writing class, which I’ll also address in a minute, were talked about at great length by the other students in the class, but no one did anything about it, other than the former chairwoman of the English department. Students said that they were supposed to recap their creative stories after having them discussed with the rest of the class, but the teacher did not even ask him to do so because he never spoke to anyone. What kind of insanity is that from a college professor? I find it amazing he made it to his senior year of college without any interaction in his classes. Particularly being an English major, you would think he would have to do some speaking and defend his writing at some point during his college career. Sadly, no. He was just passed onto the next phase of the system, only to finally come to the breaking point on Monday morning, April 16, 2007. At least the one professor had some sense to ask him to be removed from the class (because he was photographing some of the other students and it bothered them) and have him admitted to counseling.

As for his creative writing, if you have not read the stories online, I urge you to read them. A) In my opinion, they are not nearly as graphic as some people would like you to believe; and B) I find it incomprehensible that a college senior wrote them. These are stories that a 12 or 13 year old might write. The grammar is horrendous and while the topics were gross, they are issues a child or early teen would usually deal with, not a 23-year old.

Honestly, I do have a heart. It disturbed me all day on Monday that this would happen in such a nice place, to such great people, but I feel that the blame does not lie solely with the shooter. I think everyone who ever encountered him, in whatever limited capacity it may have been, have a drop of blood on their hands as well and that is what saddens me most. We had the chance to stop this, but ignored the problem, hoping it would graduate and go away instead.

Donate, it's the right thing to do.

With each of the links I've provided to main stories, there are several links which will explain more of the issues I've discussed here, most of them are cnn.com videos.

Don't wanna talk about politics, refuse to talk about politics

I've been keeping up with and participating in an interesting debate going on here. It's a complex issue that deserves attention and I am encouraging people to get involved to help resolve a large problem in this country and throughout the world.

Do you believe in God? Cos that's what I'm sellin

I've been meaning to pose this question for a week or so, but this article I read the other day finally reminded me to do so.

What if religion and all the belief that goes with it was proven a hoax; or even some of what we thought we knew was proven as false? What would happen to society - to the human race? For the millions of people who had put their faith in something that isn't real, they would be lost without their beliefs.

Or are we confusing religion with spirituality? Obviously, there are some hardcore religious people out there, who swear they "speak with God" or "know God", but I would be willing to bet that most people are more affected by the spirituality of religion, the feeling of belonging to something bigger than themselves, than the hardcore beliefs that most religious people claim to hold.

I know I have very spiritual moments. However, I don't attribute those moments to a "God" or anything else other than me being in a certain place and time in my life and that it feels special at that moment. Do I attribute this to religion, in the sense that we generally think of? Of course not, however, I do attribute it to a spirituality that I have inside me that keeps me at peace and gives me strength and hope. The difference is that I don’t base it on a far-fetched tale that was told 2,000 years ago to keep people in line.

Consequently, if we’re affected by spirituality more so than “religion”, I’m not sure anything would happen in the long term. The short term might be somewhat chaotic and people would be searching for answers that nobody would have, but I think eventually people could become at peace with who they are, what they believe in. The control that others had on people’s lives would be returned to the individual. Essentially, everyone would be free.

Unfortunately, some many people need guidance and I suppose the downside to this is that those people would be truly lost. What I think would happen to them, is the beginnings of the next, new cult. New leaders would emerge, with new philosophies and for the next however-many-years, people would begin to buy into these beliefs and all of a sudden, poof, we have “religion” again.

So the sad truth is this: despite my dislike for religion, it will not be going anywhere, anytime soon.

Please don't bury me down in that cold, cold ground

Two solutions to the Anna Nicole Smith "problem":

• Cremate her and put us out of our entire misery. Spread her ashes all over the damned Earth for all I care, just stop making this such a big freakin deal.

• Chop her into pieces and bury them in different locations. Heart/torso in the Bahamas; head in Houston; and ass/legs in LA near Marilyn Monroe. Hell you can even freeze her boobs next to Ted Williams head in Arizona, if you're so inclined.

Interesting people die everyday, none of them get this much exposure in the news - and that is a damned shame.

Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?

An excerpt from this article:

"It's snow. We get a lot of it. So what?" said Allan Babcock, a lifelong resident who owns a popular diner in this village of 650 people located about 38 miles northeast of Syracuse.

Roads were mostly cleared Sunday as workers turned their attention to removing the snow and trimming down 10- and 12-foot-high snow banks.

The intense blast of snow hasn't been blamed for any deaths in Oswego County. Elsewhere, however, more than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 25 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, seven in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, and Maryland and elsewhere in New York, authorities said.

So many people complain, or shiver at the thought of all that cold weather and snow, yet only 25 people have died and while that is tragic, it’s such a relatively small number when compared to say, a hurricane. Particularly, a hurricane that people were told could be the one that sinks their city.

You see, when natural disasters occur in the north, such as massive amounts of snow, people do what they’re told – stay inside and only drive on the roads if it’s an emergency. Northerners know that going outside, and specifically driving, is seriously putting your life at risk. 115 inches of snow have fallen in Central New York and not one person has died because of it. 36 hours in advance of a hurricane people were told to get out. They didn’t and a couple thousand people – and an entire city - died.

I used to ride my big wheel, and sell lemonade, eat popcorn with grandpa while we watched the parade

I remember when the worst thing I worried about walking home from school was getting hit with a snowball in the back (of the head!).

People are out of control!

I'm on the football team

With the recent college bowl games occurring nightly for the past 2 weeks, there has been a lot made of the issue that the bowl games bring in millions of dollars for each school, and that college players give up a lot to play football, yet with all that money coming in, they aren’t paid to play. I watched a few interviews on ESPN and I thought, “You’re getting a free education and room and board!” Moreover, many of the stars on these teams will continue on to the pro level where they can make more money in a few years than an average person with a four-year degree will probably make in their lifetime. Of course, don’t forget that while the athletes are making their millions after graduating with a free degree, if they graduate at all, the rest of us will have to pay back our student loans while working an entry/low-to-mid-level job making a fraction of what their signing bonus was.

Don’t give me this crap about how they should be paid to play. They have even more of a choice than everyone else has; play sports and get a free education or don’t play sports and work a real job like the rest of the world.

The bigger problem here is that the sponsors for the bowl games and the networks have ramped up the prices for everything so they can afford to dish out these multimillion-dollar awards to the teams who represent their products in the “Tostitos Fiesta Bowl”, the “Nokia Sugar Bowl”, the “Chik-Fil-A Bowl” or the “Rose Bowl presented by Citi.” It’s obscene how much money universities get for playing a game. The driving force for a school should not be how much money they can make by developing a quality athletic program, it should be how many quality individuals can their education department turn out year after year. This is among the many reasons our education system is backwards and our kids priorities are so screwed up.

With your hand on my shoulders, a meaningless movement... a moviescript ending and the patrons are leaving, leaving

Have movies priced themselves out of people’s budgets? I had a conversation with a co-worker this morning about whether I had seen a certain movie yet, to which I responded, “No, I’ll wait for that one on DVD.”

He said it was good and that I should go see it. I asked if he thought it was worth the $9 (per person, b/c who goes to the movies alone?) I would have to pay to see it in the theatre. He said probably not and that brought up the original question that I posed. That question begat a different version of the question, are movies theatres just a giant waste of money? The buildings that house the individual theatres are like warehouses now. There are as many as 24 individual theatres in some buildings with huge lobby areas for teenagers to congregate, 20 ticket windows, through which you cannot understand what the person on the other side is saying, large, somewhat clean restrooms and an overpriced concession area with 15 registers available to order at every 150 feet. The theatres themselves are built with comfortable seats, some with armrests that lift up, so you can “get cozy with someone next to you”, drink holders and spacious aisles, so as your going to the two empty seats in the middle of the aisle, your crotch/ass isn’t directly in the face of the people you’re attempting squeeze by.

All of that being said, here is my argument: A movie that comes out in, say, July/August (the summer “blockbuster” months) will be available on DVD in time for Christmas, or just after Christmas/New Year’s. You can go cool off during those months in the theatre or maybe go to a drive-in (if you’re lucky enough to live near one) and spend $9/person for tickets, $5.50 for a medium popcorn and $4.75 on a medium drink. For the same money, you could get a decent meal somewhere and enjoy the company of your friends, family, etc and in a few months rent the DVD for $5 from Blockbuster, get a six-pack of beer for $6 and buy a box of microwave popcorn for $3.50. Then you could sit in the comfort of your living room/home theatre and watch the movie in an atmosphere that is just as relaxing and may even have less teenagers hanging around! In addition, you don’t have to worry about missing anything because you can hit the pause button if you need to go to the bathroom! If your cell phone rings, you won’t bother anyone by answering it and again, you can stop the movie for any other type of emergency that might arise.

My perspective is also skewed because I belong to an online DVD rental club. I pay $20/month for unlimited movies, of which I can have three “out” at one time. Going back through my last year of rentals, I’ve averaged about 10-12 movies/month and if we do the math, that’s right, it costs me less than $2/movie. I’ve only waited 3-5 months for the movie to come out on DVD and when it does, it’s in my mailbox within a few days. The best thing I like about renting movies is that if the movie is bad, I can turn it off and know that I didn’t just blow a ridiculous amount of money in the theatre to see it. I simply eject it and send it back.

Now there is something to be said for, “it can only be truly experienced on the big screen.” I can agree with that. Star Wars, Batman, King Kong, The Last Samurai, Superman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Apollo 13, most movies about war, some, but very few horror movies and most action movies are certainly experienced better in the theatre, but to know which ones will be worth the money is the trick.

Back to answering my original question, in my budget, movies are overpriced and I’ll continue with my rentals unless I see something that is a must-see in the theatre.

One day we'll celebrate every Halloween...Year two

So we were having this conversation yesterday at work about how people bought 6-8 bags of candy and expected to have about 1-2 remaining after Halloween, but wound up with less than one – and they were mildly disappointed. I asked how many kids would they estimate came to their doors and most people said anywhere from 50-100. So I started to do some math: roughly 40 pieces of candy/bag times 8 bags = 320 minus 1 bag leftover (50 pieces) = 270 divided by ~75 kids = 3.6 pieces of candy/kid. THREE pt. SIX pieces of candy PER KID – roughly. Also, the fact that a bag of candy cost around $4, that’s $32 in candy.

I reminded everyone that when I went trick or treating in my youth, I usually only received 1 piece from every house I went to. When I started handing out candy as an adult, I also handed out 1 piece for every halloweenie that came to my door. My esteemed co-workers noted that this was the price of inflation since I was a kid. In addition, as an adult, I usually buy about 3 bags of candy, which save me from having to buy 8 bags and spending $20, which I do not have.

I then questioned that in this day and age of how we’re such proponents for an obese America by advertising McDonald’s on every street corner and that we’re a fast-food nation, why are we handing out so much freakin’ candy on Halloween?! Aren’t these kids sugared up enough? Or after they get home, do the parents prick their fingers to see what their blood sugar is and then determine what they can and cannot eat?

Our society is so screwed up, I swear. One day we’re all up in arms about how kids are overweight and that it contributes to poor self-esteem and oh my god, the health risks as they get older. Then, for one day of the year, we are freely adding to that by pawning off 3.6 pieces of sugar and chocolate into every child that comes knocking on our doors.

I'm pretty sure this is in conjunction with my absolute hatred of Halloween.

Next year, I am going to buy 20 sugar-free gum packs and hand that out – 1 piece for every kid – that should equate to 100 kids. So, if you’re looking for Snickers’ Bites, Tootsie Rolls and M&M’s – all at the same house – don’t come trick or treating near me!

Rebel, rebel and yell cause our people still dwell in hell.

Oooooooo, I am feisty today!

I received what I thought was spam in my email this morning. It was from an American/Israeli group in regards to the war in Iraq, the situation in Israel, the lies being told by American mainstream media...blah, blah, blah. After reading about 5 sentences, I was pretty mad, so I just started to write a reply back, my thoughts flowing like a fire hydrant and I laid into whoever wrote the email real good. However, I did not assault the person personally, I only attacked their "group" for continuing with the lies that they so vehemently oppose from our own media. I'm not going to bore you with details of either email. What I will tell you is that it was not spam! I know this because I got a response from a specific person who attacked me, my upbringing, my marital status (why, I do not know) and my mother!

Need I say more as to why I am feisty today? Well, I'm going to anyway.

Next.

Women. I love women, but for the love of...please wear a bra when you are going to wear a tank top to the grocery store! a) It's usually chilly in the store and men will notice those things; and b) With every step you take, I swear one of your melons are going to fly out the side! I wouldn't have mentioned this if it had just been one weirdo women, but it was more like 5 women - and 3 of them were fairly attractive, so it was difficult not to stare!

Next.

Before I moved last week, I purchased DirecTV. I scheduled the installation appointment for Friday. I didn’t realize that my apartment did not face the southern sky as much as it needed to, so I had to cancel it and go back to cable. When I called to cancel, the customer service lady asked me why I was cancelling and I told her the straightforward reason. Her next question, I kid you not, "Will you want to reschedule your appointment?" I wanted to say, "Well, if my apartment suddenly rotates enough to start facing the southern sky, I'll reschedule," but I politely said, "No, thank you." She then asked, "Why?" I swear I am not making this up! I politely reiterated my statement from earlier and she must have understood my frustration because she said, "Ok then, have a nice weekend!"

Don't wait up for me tonight, cause I won't be comin' home. And everything's gonna be alright, I just wanted you to know.

My September 11, 2001.

While I realize in the grand scheme of things, my day was nothing in comparison, my point in writing this is that I remember it as though it happened yesterday, not 5 years ago. For the 3,000 people who perished and to the families who are less one or more members, my heart aches for you. Always.

As with most of the country, Tuesday September 11, 2001 started as a typical day for me. I was working at the restaurant, my normal shift of 7 am – 5 pm. The supply order had come in overnight and I, along with another person moved the cases of food and paper goods around to be able to work more efficiently. After finishing, I began preparing my plans for the remainder of the day, who is working each station, when to send them on break, playing all the “what if?” scenarios in my head for the possibility of being short staffed, as usual. Little did I know? As I concluded my daily planning ritual, I took a few phone calls from co-workers and my supervisor as to my previous day’s sales, what my forecast for today looked like and so on. As I prepared the daily bank deposit and set up my money for the day, my then-girlfriend called me on my cell, screaming, “A plane hit the World Trade Center!” My sarcastic response with that small amount of information was, “That’s pretty cool. I wonder who got the worst of that one?” In my head, I imagined some small Cessna bouncing off the monstrosities of lower Manhattan. She hung up, but I wasn’t terribly concerned because I had no idea of the magnitude of the situation.

25 minutes later, I was walking to my car to head to the bank and she called again. “A second plane just hit the other tower!” I now knew without anyone telling me that the first one was no accident. She said the first one had this thick cloud of black smoke rising from it and when the second one hit, it burst into a fireball that rocketed skywards. I was a little frozen for just a moment. Thoughts were speeding through my head as to how to handle this situation. For myself, I wanted so badly to get to a television, but had no way to do so. We didn’t have internet at the restaurant, so I couldn’t keep up with it at work either. I called her back telling her to run over to my apartment, turn on NBC and hit record on the VCR. I wanted as much live coverage as possible to watch when I got home. She was a very good girlfriend at the time and did as I asked. Thank you.

As for my other thoughts, how could I possibly work knowing this was happening? I knew now that for as much planning as I had done, I was going to be very shorthanded now. I called my supervisor and told him I already had a bunch of call offs, I’ve made calls, but no one is answering and could you blame them? I needed help; he had to come help me. I wrestled with the notion of whether to tell the people who were already there what has happened. Would they want to leave? Would they be willing to stay, knowing it was going to be one of those days? My boss called me back saying he was on his way, with help too. He also mentioned that we wouldn’t be busy because people would go to places so they could watch the coverage, not to my place. Never was he more wrong, but more on that later.

While at the bank, they had set up a TV and I saw for the first time the devastation that had already occurred, yet both towers were still standing at this point. We stood and watched in disbelief for what seemed like an eternity. The day was only beginning.

Just after the first tower fell, my friend who lives in Cleveland called to tell me and described it as looking like a “war zone”. He also told me about the Pentagon, since I hadn’t heard about it and the missing plane (United 93) that was last known to be over Cleveland. He told me he’d called me later to update and I thanked him for calling.

The day became a blur for the next 5 hours. 11 am to 4 pm was absolutely crazy! Short-staffed and frustrated, we barely survived until the night manager came in to what he must have thought was a war zone. Nothing was organized, nothing was clean, dishes piled high with no one around to wash them, customers steadily flowing in and out and employees not calling or showing up. It was small compared to what was happening just in D.C., just two hours from where we were and in NYC, but I felt the pressure of having to serve the people who put their trust in us to get them in and out quickly so they could get back to watching the days’ events unfold. Personally, I was agonizing over when I would get home and be able to catch up with what was going on. My cell hadn’t stopped ringing since 230, but I hadn’t answered. The only call I answered was from my mother. September 11th is also my brother’s birthday. Should we still go to dinner? I told her it should be up to him, being all of 14 now; he should be able to make a rational decision.

By 630 pm, I had reasonably cleaned up the days’ mess and finished my bank deposits’. My sales reports completed and brief summary of the days events were written in the log as well, although I knew we would never need to look at it again, 9/11 would forever be ingrained in our memories.

At 645, I was home on my couch with the girlfriend watching my VCR tape that had run out around 330 pm. We fast-forwarded though large portions so we could get to what was happening at the moment. By 8, we left for dinner with my family, Red Lobster, the brothers choice. We talked about what we had seen and heard. We talked about a family member who we knew worked very near, or possibly, in the WTC, we weren’t sure. He was fine. He did work in the north tower, but was not there at the time. I talked about how I tried to call Brian, because I didn’t know where he worked in NYC. I needed to know he was ok. He called me 2 days later, much to my relief. Dinner was solemn, but we still, quietly, celebrated my brothers 14 years.

After dinner, the girlfriend and I returned to the comfort of my apartment. Lying in bed, I held her as Tom Brokaw narrated our evening. We sat quietly as we watched and listened and drifted off to sleep.

Click the title of this post to read the lyrics of Matt Ryczek’s 9/11 tribute song “Goodbye”

I pledge allegiance to a nation without borders, without pride, without politicians like ourselves

I spend a small amount of time each day reading various blogs regarding problems with our local, state, national and international politics. I read people bitching, sharing their various annoyances and I read the reported facts regarding their issues so I am informed and can understand why they’re angry. The problem that has gotten under my skin recently however, is that while it is our American right to bitch, it’s also our American right to do something proactive to change these things. We all seem to have something to say and we are more than willing to use the fairly anonymous medium of the internet to say it, but I don’t see or read about anybody actually doing something about these issues. It’s all well and good that we can sign petition after petition at moveon.org and other places to share our displeasure, but that doesn’t entirely solve the problem. Here are my 2 cents: I think the blogging community should start running for public office. Apparently, bloggers all know what the problems are, it’s obvious to us, Joe Public, but it’s not as obvious to our government officials. Most bloggers who read and write about political ineptitude are pretty smart people and they reach the audience that many politicians, in my opinion, feel they are above. Why not turn our passion for cleaning up bureaucracy into a political campaign to stop the lying, cheating and ignorance that beholds many of our public officials. I think we could do it if we all put our heads together! Think of the things we could accomplish! We would focus on the needs of real people, who have real problems, instead of giving another tax cut to the wealthiest 1% of us. We could also tell auto manufacturers to raise the CAFE standards, which, in turn, would drop the price of oil and save us all a little money in the end. Hell, as long as we’re saving some money, then we could institute logical and fair campaign finance reform, which of course we would all abide by, and save more money! Politicians wouldn’t need to shuffle money from one place to the next to pay for our campaigns and end up in prison because we were so power hungry we were willing to do anything to keep that power. Bloggers unite, rise up and be counted – literally – our voices are already heard on a daily basis. We have an audience, what we do with it is up to us.

Baby, it's cold outside

It's pretty chilly here today, 31 degrees when I left for work, but probably about 20 with the wind chill, so I am wearing a sweater and my winter coat, which of course is made for winters in Buffalo, not necessarily for a few cold days in Houston. Nonetheless, I'm getting shit about it from my coworkers! I told them this is cold, even for people from the North, but they still insist on ragging on me. I don't remember complaining about how ridiculously hot was when it was 110 degrees with the heat index this summer! They need to lay off and stop coming to my office to razz me, it's really childish.

A bottle of white, a bottle of red. Perhaps a bottle of rose instead?

Why is it that when you go out with a large group of people for dinner, someone inevitably says, let’s just take the bill and divide it by X number of people we have? In theory, this is a reasonable idea; however, because I am the person who usually does not drink all the wine, or have the $9 appetizer, I wind up being screwed. It’s even worse when we go out for someone’s birthday because that person doesn’t pay, so there is one less to divide by. Over the weekend, twelve of us went out for a friend’s birthday and our share of the bill turned out to be $50 each. I had a $9.95 burger and $1.95 Dr. Pepper. Even including my share of the birthday boy’s meal and a couple of bucks for the cake we bought, how does that equate to $50? I had none of the seven $18 bottles of wine; I didn’t eat any of the five different $9.95 appetizers that were ordered. I was royally screwed and I didn’t even enjoy it. My burger was undercooked and greasier that it should’ve been. The fries were lukewarm. I don’t plan on going back to that restaurant either, but that’s for another day. One of these days I’m going to bring a notepad and a calculator, see who eats and drinks what and calculate the bill that way. We’ll see how they like it when the person who drank two bottles of wine, had an appetizer, the $17 entrée and the cup of coffee for dessert is stuck with the biggest tab while I wind up paying hardly anything. I don’t disagree with the theory, it’s just not a practical matter when you have people like me in your group and I’m beginning to take offense to having to pay more than my share when I can’t afford it.

I won’t become the thing I hate

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say, "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? I’m gonna kick their asses!

5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

6. People who ask, "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before, it couldn't be new.

8. When people say, "life is short". What the hell? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came, would I be standing here, dumb ass?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It is too early for Christmas commercials! There, I’ve said it. Six weeks is too far in advance for Outback Steakhouse to be promoting their Bloomin’ Onion by using a little girl leaving it out for Santa Claus.

On Tuesday, this past week, the maintenance department at my office building was wrapping the lights around the trees and I thought to myself, is it that close already? No! It’s still 6 ½ weeks away! Please, let me get through Thanks-freakin’-giving before I see lights and holiday traffic. The commercials can start the Monday of Thanksgiving week, since that Friday is the big shopping day, I’ll allow that to start a couple days earlier, but the rest of it has to wait until AFTER I have eaten my turkey and taken my nap! Sheesh!!