UPS, where are you?

Okay, it's time to knock off another message. And this will be another rapidfire message. What a wonderful day. So what happened today? Here's what's going on.

Pause. I'm actually upset, because the UPS guy who is supposed to deliver a package has not yet arrived. It's almost 5 p.m., and because I need this package for an electronic connection my day has been underutilized. Why these guys can’t get here a little earlier is beyond me. Yeah I know, I'm sure he's been very busy. It is after Thanksgiving after all and a lot of people probably made orders. But I want mine and I want mine yesterday.

Is that not the way of the world? But I can't handle the problems of the entire world I can only deal with mine right now and not too well either. I wanted this guy to deliver this hard drive, sooner than later. When you order a new hard drive, there is so much work that goes into it. I have to format it, partition it, and then decide what will be loaded upon it.

I'm considering loading several different operating systems on the hard drive. I want to load Windows XP obviously, but also Linux. Then, in another partition I want to put the new Windows Vista operating system. What for you ask? Like any of these operating systems would be better than the other. Well, the old days of constant blue screens which I experienced with Windows 95, even through Windows 2000 -- are thankfully more or less over. But even with service pack two and Windows XP, there is still in programs that freeze, and crash here and there.

Well okay, we will see. So far we haven't seen the UPS man. One day I will really tell you the scoop on the UPS service. They are probably the most important and critical link in the entire dot.com revolution. All online purchases in the world will have little value if there are no trucks to deliver the merchandise. And that's where UPS comes in.

You'd be surprised to know that when you send a computer back to many different companies for customer service, they actually end up in a hangar in an airport where UPS does the repairs for many companies.

But that's another story. I'm just looking for the truck. UPS where are you?

The Convention

The convention was in town. The annual convention when more than 3000 representatives from across the world gather together to exchange stories, hear information , and get inspiration. Everybody likes it -- but me.

You see, I was in the same system, or worked in the same "corporation." But I dropped out over 20 years ago. Since then, it has grown by leaps and bounds. And I have diminished. I have traveled here and there horizontally, but I have not grown vertically. And when I see my old friends returning from the field, each one with decades of good history within them, I'm jealous, I feel bereft, and I mourn for the part of me that could have been and did not.

It's hard to explain this -- or perhaps it's really not necessary. But try as I might, I have never really made peace and come to terms with the way my life turned out. I live under a gloomy gray cloud of "what could have been." I think of all the things I could have accomplished, or should have accomplished, and didn't. And the time that has slipped through my fingers will never return.

So when the convention comes to town, there is a part of me deep inside that cringes. I keep away, make sure not to see the guys, I wait for the storm to pass -- the weekend to end. But deep down I am living with the convention every minute that it is here. And suffering inside.

This is not good. I cannot spend the remaining time of my life ruminating over what could have been. I'm doing myself no justice, nor am I helping anyone with those feelings.

Life is a book which each one of us writes. Sometimes, some of the middle chapters don't work out the way we want them to. Sometimes the story runs awry, and the book weighs heavy and gloomy in the middle. But like it or not, we remain the author. Our children will read our book, and they do every day, for insights as to what lies ahead in their own life. I owe it to them to not let the ending be gloomy, too.

I have to reinterpret the story so that I can live with myself. Because sometimes the story is not as bad as the way I read it. And I urgently need this story to be a success, and to be meaningful. Very meaningful. It's up to me to write, and edit, and interpret, and rewrite where necessary. I cannot let this fail. After all, it is my life that I am writing about.

Old Shoes

They are gone!

It's very beautiful to have them over as our guests. They and their four gorgeous little children. Oh, and did I mention the noise?

I can't say I was much different when I was younger, but I'm surely this way at my age. There's just a certain amount of volume that I can take. These children are actually quieter than others. But they have their moments. And they have a way of littering the floors with toys, pillows, pretzels, papers, and sundry other things.

And I accept all of that. No complaints. Well, except the early morning one this morning, when the bedroom door was left wide open, and one of the children decided to scream on top of his lungs until he got the attention he wanted. And all I said was, would you please get the kid quiet and close the door. But they made sure to repeat it back to me later. I guess they're a bit sensitive, and so am I.

But more importantly, all good things come to an end -- thank goodness! And this afternoon they departed. What a wonderful visit it was! How nice, how sweet, how much fun.

But I give glory to the One on high, for the serenity, and peacefulness that has returned to this abode. Hey, it's finally quiet around here! And that is a blessed relief. Suddenly I can hear myself think again. And I am not bombarded with the piter-pater of small and large feet crisscrossing the rooms above, stereos playing music with the volume on max, and the numerous people using the best bathroom.

I've come to realize, that we hold on to our old habits like close friends. Friends that mellow with us as we get older and more entrenched in our ways. Frankly, I like my quiet. I like the serenity. And as much as I love welcoming these dear little children into my home, so too, do I enjoy bidding them farewell.

Perhaps our habits do not let us be the best of people. Perhaps our habits conflict with some noble desire to be some idyllic magnanimous creature. But habits are like old shoes. They aren't always so polished, and sometimes they are scruffy and don't look nice. But they always seem to fit, and are rather comfortable to the wearer.

So I am not going to apologize about my habits. I'm not going to apologize for my existence or for the way my life has become. Those habits are also relatives, in this family. And when the kids leave, I extend the welcome mat for the comfortable old shoes.

p.s. The other one just came to tell me they are leaving, too. Now I am getting lonely, Suddenly, it is so quiet and desolate around here. Oh my goodness, how quickly we change, how fickle we are....

Wednesday's Child

It’s Wednesday morning, and it is time to knock off a really quick message over here. I'd like to say that speed is of the essence, but I do find that some of these messages take a bit more thoughtfulness and that precludes the possibility of me simply just a rattling off a quickie.

So it is Wednesday. The following poem is perhaps the source of the Wednesday's Child:

Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Wednesday's child is full of woe. This was used to indicate that the child that was slightly "different." Perhaps a child with a disability, or an orphaned child who needed a home. But maybe its main message, is that there are some of us who do not seem to fit in. They're not your average child, and not your average adult. They are different, unique, struggling, suffering. And they need extra tender loving care to be able to function in this rather difficult and competitive world.

So it got me thinking; which Wednesday's Child do I know. And what can be done to alleviate the angst that must be experienced by Wednesday's Child.

When we see people who are Wednesday's Child, the tendency is to shun them, to move around them -- rather than face the disability head on. But what the person needs more than ever, is acknowledgment, not escape.

So we all ought to be a bit more sensitive with Wednesday's Child. We all ought to find a way of reaching out to someone who is "challenged," and embracing their difficulty rather than sidestepping it as if it does not exist.

In each of us there's a little bit of a Wednesday's Child. And we will come to terms and make peace with our own, when we embrace someone else's.

Scattered Thoughts

Heck, I'm going to shoot out another one.

Who should read this stuff? Really, the only one that should read it or at least the first one to read it -- should be my sister.

My sister must be 10 years older than me, but we are made of the same genetic coding. Somehow we share the same frustrations to some extent, and we operate on a similar wavelength.

I walked past the old family house a week ago, and I commented about it here. But who would understand those feelings, if not her? Oh sure, we can all relate to certain common themes in the human experience. But who could relate to My experience?? She can.

And that's why sharing this with others is neither here nor there, but sharing this with her would be insightful and a shared experience. The kind where you nod at each other knowingly, demonstrating you both "understand."

But my thoughts here are still so scattered and unclear. I haven't focused to write my words in a very distinct and precise manner.

So I cannot yet invite anyone to "read" this. It's still just a mess.

Fight Back, ay?

Fight back

Inertia can be a killer. There's a tendency to just stay stuck in habits, good and bad. Sitting by a desk all day is not healthy. There's a need to get up and exercise, to get the endorphins flowing in one's brain. Is it starts getting cloudy and gloomy outside, and the weather gets colder, it's easy to fall into a lull of melancholy. But it is not good.

I need to fight back. I need to find a project that I can undertake, that will be beneficial and can be completed. I've got to find some new vigor or vim to add emphasis to my actions and make something happen. I am stuck, I am stuck behind too much inertia.

I so need to fight this terrible inertia. I need to fight it because I cannot succumb at this stage in life to just a vegetative state of inertia. Okay, I'm supposed to rattle out words very quickly to make the ability of this program testable.

It's irrelevant. The bottom line, in the real point is that there's a certain frustration that has set in my life at this juncture. And the frustration is about inactivity. It's no secret, I'm not achieving or accomplishing as I wish to. I have to create an artificial mechanism that will keep me motivated. I need a project that needs my input and I have to take it from the beginning to the end.

And to do that, I have to be ready to fight back. I don't have much energy. It's too bad, I don't know why it's that way but it is. I need to fight back.

So how? Let's say I were going to really blasted out in a blog, no not this one which is only for testing purposes, but one in which I would really stayed up my own views clearly.

So what would it be? And how much work will it take from me to make it happen? After all, I'm not a paid writer and I am not desiring to become subservient to the need of producing a written text for some other reader every day.

I don't want to write about politics. And an autobiographical report about my daily frustrations is really no one's business. My views on various philosophies or ethnicities, would leave me frustrated -- and I will to you why. By nature before I let something out, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. No not perfectionist because I'm so perfect, but rather because I am less secure in producing objects that can be judged by others later. So I need to be careful with my words. To quote the great wise sages of yore, "Wise ones, be careful with your words!"

Which leads me to think that perhaps this is enough words for this article. So, I will leave you with two words: "Fight Back!”

The Childhood House

Years Ago When the Earth Was Flat, I lived in an Old House, my childhood home.

This is one more case of quick messaging. My purpose here is to try to knock off as many words as possible and to put them on the screen. We are discussing rapidfire dictation here. That is this reason and purpose of the following text. I like the accuracy that actually occurs when you talk rather fast. It seems as if the program is able to gauge your words more, probably within the context of the other words -- and nevertheless come up with sentence structure that is actually quite accurate and correct.

We had an occasion to visit a professional that lives in my old childhood neighborhood. Actually, as street away from where my childhood home was. So I walked around the block. I looked at the old house. And I was tempted. I was tempted to knock on the door and say hi! I used to live here, can I go and see my old room? I actually stood in front of the house walked up the stairs to the porch door, but then I stepped back and went back down. I don't think tenants in a house that I lived in 35 years ago have to be punished by having the trek through their house just because I once dwelled in those same walls.

But there is something nostalgic about a building that once held your childhood. There's something unique about a residence, in which you played, jumped, laughed, slept, cried, and probably made a few holes in the wall. How many families have taken this house since we left here? Who else moved into this residence, who slept in my room? Who looked out my front porch window on a cold wintry day, with snowflakes twirling and gyrating, creating magical patterns of serendipity before my very eyes.

I cannot account for all those days that have passed, since those magical days of childhood. I do not recall, at this very moment, where I have been as the months, years, and decades flew by. I write my life not in days anymore but in decades. I know the guy he must transcribe the book onto paper. Because each life is a book with many chapters. They have already been written whether I like it or not -- they're just waiting to be transcribed onto paper, or computer file.

I cannot undo the difficult years, just as I could not have enough of the wonderful years. But one thing I do know. The childhood years, fresh with innocence, wonder, and a sense of amazement of the world that passed me by as I sat on the steps of that beautiful brick house, those wonderful childhood years -- some of that spirit and magic is locked up in that house.

And one day, I will go there, and reclaim it.