Dad would have celebrated

02. May 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: america, dad, death, disgust, family, fatherhood, fear, frustration, gratitude, hope, incongruities, marriage, media, mortality, rants, struggles, television, thoughts, time, tragedy · Tags: ,

Papa Don's Little GirlDad would be celebrating today.

He was horrified to see his brethren die on that tragic day when the towers collapsed.  We talked in the days after the events of 9/11 about the job that the men of FDNY were doing.  I could hear the pain in his voice.

As a nation, we rallied around each other.  Many of us reacted in ways that we didn’t fully understand.  In retrospect everything seems different.  Ten years of war and a recession have changed my views.  Becoming a father has changed my views.  Meeting my wife changed my views.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about the death of Osama Bin Laden.  It’s almost meaningless to me.  There is an entire army of new recruits that has been formed over the past ten years.  And now to find out that he’s been “hiding” in a populated area?

I cannot celebrate.   The chest thumping is ugly.

I long for a day when the “threat level” is not orange.  What will a day that is “green” be like?  Will we ever see one?

When will it be safe to move on?

One more poem from the vault

25. August 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: creativity, culture, daily life, disgust, entertainment, frowns, frustration, lunacy, music, noise, nostalgia, poems, rants

Back in college, there was a popular class called “Arts 15: Introduction to the popular performing arts” — otherwise known as the history of rock and roll.  The professor was, shall we say, opinionated.  One test question that is still stuck in my craw follows:

The greatest rock and roll band of all time was:

  1. The Who
  2. The Beatles
  3. The Rolling Stones
  4. Queen

More »

Up Too Early

20. August 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: daily life, disgust, fear, frustration, irritants, lunacy, self, sleep, struggles, thoughts, work

Early Morning Charleston Marsh Insomnia.

Once again, I find myself up too early on a day when I do not need to get up early.  There is an unquietness about my mind.  I woke first around 2:30 and really never got back to sleep, at least not to a deep sleep.

Machine-gun thoughts firing off in my head, seemingly at random.

…MPLS….Broken Lens…QoS…P100…Dad…Walking on the beach…G1…Singapore…Garden…Hiking…Mud…D90…Might as well get up.

And so I did, I got up around 5:00 when I don’t need to be up before 6:30.  It’s gonna be a long day, I have a feeling.

Narrow Thinking – Poisonous Thinking

16. July 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: cultural failure, daily life, disgust, fear, frowns, frustration, irritants, listening, rants, struggles, stupidity, thoughts

Live and let live. So many problems in our world stem out of mindsets that bread breed hostility. Mindsets that require all others to conform to our way of thinking or system of beliefs. Narrow thinking.

Narrow thinking does not allow for the possibility of different explanations. Narrow thinking requires that there is only one answer and only one way that is right. Narrow thinking dominates our political, social and economic worlds.

It is the poison that is slowly killing us all.

Call me a Curmudgeon – An argument against the Tip Jar

28. January 2010 · 3 comments · Categories: america, cultural failure, daily life, disgust, frustration, gratitude, incongruities, irritants, lunacy, rants, thoughts
Money

Call me a Curmudgeon.  Go ahead, get it out of your system, cause you’re probably going to disagree with me on this post.

The “Tip Jar” has gotten way out of hand.  Everywhere I go, there seems to be a tip jar on the counter.  From Starbucks, to the local pizza joint, to the freakin coffee shop in my building at work, everyone’s got a tip jar out.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to tip people working in a capacity where tipping is customary and usual.  This is especially true where someone’s base salary is below minimum wage because they are expected to make the difference up in tips.  But come on people, not everything in life deserves or requires a tip, especially if you aren’t doing anything but filling a cup of coffee or putting a slice of pizza on a paper plate for me to take to my table – and subsequently bus – myself.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, when I was a teenager working in a sub shop the idea of putting out a tip jar on the counter never even occurred to me, because I wasn’t performing a service that deserved or required a tip – I was making sandwiches, which was in actuality, my entire reason for being behind the counter.  Tipping me for making a sandwich would have been ridiculous.  And even if I had thought of putting a tip jar out, my manager would have summarily dismissed the idea and threatened termination of employment if I’d done it.

This is part of what I call modern society’s “entitlement syndrome.”  Everyone seems to think that they are entitled to something.  Apparently, now everyone is entitled to be paid extra for doing their jobs.

I’m putting a tip jar on my desk.  Feel free to put a five-spot in it the next time I create a VLAN for you.

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