Gazing Into the Abyss

Rolling Out the Changes

2008-06-23T20:38:00.004-04:00

"Changes in latitudes,changes in attitudes
nothing remains quite the same."
- Jimmy Buffett, Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

I mentioned in my last post that I would be making some changes. What you see here are the beginnings of those changes. There are some you may like and some you may not. There are some that I will probably not even end up liking. As someone, somewhere once said, "That's life in the big city."

I am working on a couple of writing projects right now, but one of them has taken on a life of its own and grown far beyond what I originally intended it to be. I do hope to post it here soon (that is, if it doesn't grow to book length before I have finished with it, or rather before it is finished with me).

I originally planned to link to an old post I wrote about the Superman archetype, since this project that had begun to really come to life originally grew from that post, but as I read the original writing, I was struck by the thought that my thoughts were strongly rooted in the particular time in which it was written, even if it was only about a year ago, that the bulk of it is now totally out of context. It was like reading a signal from some lost and dying world that is transmitted to us, here in the present, across the void of space, yet when we receive it, too much time has passed to reach those people. The cataclysmic event has already taken place.

That seed of an idea, which took root from a post by my favorite lost blogger Seiche (where have you gone old friend?), in turn sprouted a huge research and writing project on superhero archetypes, which in turn led to the growth of my current exploration.

As I read the post, and was struck by that sense of anachronism, it occurred to me that this feeling was somehow strangely appropriate. What I already knew was reinforced. We look to heroes, saviors, appropriate to our times. We want to be saved from the abyss by someone who can meet us where we are and take us where we need to be.

"Yesterdays are over my shoulder,
So I can't look back for too long.
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me..."
- Jimmy Buffet, Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

I'm Alive

2008-06-13T09:14:00.003-04:00

"Thinking about the time I've wasted
And the pleasure we once tasted
Looking up and down this road
I've been here before..."
- Jackson Browne, I'm Alive

Contrary to how I've made it appear by not writing anything here for about the last 6 months, I am alive and well. Actually, I'm doing much better now than I was while I was writing here regularly. The truth is, life caught up with me and I had to answer its call and live as fully as possible. I needed to cut down the number of hours I was spending in front of a computer monitor and do some other things. Now, I am looking forward to starting over. I will be changing my format a bit, possibly on a new blog (that I will link here if I choose to go that route).

“It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

At any rate, I plan to start writing again. I'm not yet sure what form it will take, but I recently read something that affected me greatly. I was reading the introduction to something (I know longer remember what) and the author warned the readers (myself included) that this work was going to be different from everything that went before. The difference, according to that author, was that everything she had previously written, she had written for the benefit of other people. Sure, she was expressing deeply heartfelt and emotional things, baring her soul, and receiving the healing that brings, but her actual writing was never for her. The finished product was always written for the reader response. She would check her feedback, comments on her website and blog, she would fret about the number of people who were reading, agonize over those who criticized her work, and celebrate over those who loved it. At some point, she realized that what she truly needed to do was to write for herself. She wrote that if you write to please yourself, the reading audience would take care of itself.

At that point, I realized why I had become uninspired and stopped writing.

Now, I am ready to begin anew. So, if my blog is less friendly, more impersonal for readers, that is the reason. You see, I am no longer doing this because the approval of a community of readers makes me feel better about myself. I am writing because I have a story that wants to be told.

I am doing this for me.

"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?" - Mr. Blonde, Reservoir Dogs

"Time got excited..."

2008-01-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

"...That's when we all got started."
- Once Upon a Time

Since I'm currently writing a series about the albums that have most affected me throughout my life, my first post of the new year will be ironically looking back a few years. Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all have a great 2008! Now for the feature presentation...

Like most teens of the 1980's, I grew up on "Brat Pack" movies. One of my favorites was The Breakfast Club. Like many American teens of the time, the theme song from this movie was my first introduction to the Scottish band Simple Minds. I desperately wanted to hear more from them, so when their album Once Upon a Time was released, I snapped it up and started listening eagerly.

I was not disappointed. This album just doesn't seem to have a weak spot. I've read a review that called Once Upon a Time "the album that U2 wished they made." I quickly wore out my first copy of this album (on audio cassette) and had to purchase another. For about a year, I listened to this album almost every night before I went to sleep. Now, with the digitization of music, I have it on my ipod. While my wife thought it was good, but like listening to an 80's movie soundtrack, and many of the group's longtime fans considered this album a sell-out and an artistic compromise, I think the songs are excellent and have stood up well to the test of time. These eight songs combine to form an incredible album (yes, there are only 8 of them... it was definitely quality, not quantity). In fact, Simple Minds declined to include Don't You (Forget About Me) from The Breakfast Club because they felt it would detract from the production as a whole and because it was not written by the members of the band.

"You lift me up when I know you're around."
- Once Upon a Time

From the opening of the album, the almost conversationally written Once Upon a Time, I was hooked. Sure, it was all pop hooks and big production, but it was also pure poetry.

"Anywhere you go, you know I'll still be waiting."
- All the Things She Said

The album's second track, All the Things She Said, seems to echo the words of a wise departed mother, speaking hope to a frightened child. It continues the conversational style of the first track's dialogue, and alternating lines form more complete thoughts.

When I look into your eyes, I see a new day rising
Oh all the things she said, she said
Through the eyes of love, and never know what hate is
- All the Things She Said

The third song on the album is the socially aware Ghost Dancing.

"You talk about the Lebanon
You tell me 'bout the Dawn in Eden
You talk about South Africa
I tell you about the Irish children."
- Ghost Dancing

Strong social consciousness is a hallmark of 80's music. Things like Live Aid and Farm Aid showed us the crises of peoples far and near. We also saw the power of music to bring people together for a common cause. Bands like Simple Minds and U2 became more than musicians. They became spokespersons and activists. They sought to enlighten as many people as they could reach about the world's less fortunate and encourage us to be resonsible humans by recognizing that we are a part of the same people as these suffering multitudes. We became aware of massacres and mass starvation, government repression and suppression of human rights, and political indifference. Even an album that sounded so happy and filled with pop hooks could contain references to trouble spots around the globe.

"What you gonna do when things go wrong?
What you gonna do when it all cracks up?
What you gonna do when the Love burns down?
What you gonna do when the flames go up?
Who is gonna come and turn the tide?
What's it gonna take to make a dream survive?
Who's got the touch to calm the storm inside?
Who's gonna save you?"
- Alive and Kicking

The next track returns from the gloom of social crises and presents a more personal crisis. Alive and Kicking contrasts the joful highs of new love with the loss of those feelings of rapturous infatuation through a long relationship, but encourages the lover to wait it out. The promise is that those feelings return, the magic can come back and the love can be saved. Like the topics of Ghost Dancing, this is heady stuff for a teenager, but like the call to social awareness, many of us got it, or could at least tap our feet and sing along.

On my old audio cassette, this was the end of side one. Most albums always seemed to flag after the flip, but this one keeps going. Indeed, some of the best is yet to come.

"Boys are building up to be men."
- Oh Jungleland

The first song of side two is what I consider the best song on the album. Oh Jungleland is filled with captivating rhythms and just seemed to suck me in with its rhyming lyrics and hypnotic pulse. As a sort of coming of age story, it is filled with imagery I could relate to at that time in my life.

"Oh jungleland
They call you home sweet home
You make me feel so sad, to leave here all alone
But there's a kid called hope
And he's holding out his hand
He sees the northern lights
Above the highrise land."
- Oh Jungleland

The short chanted section has always been one of my favorite parts ("Blood is thicker than water"). This song still pulls me in every time.

Simple Minds was adept at couching darker subjects within their bright and airy sound. The dark, yet hopeful I Wish You Were Here continues this with lead singer Jim Kerr musing about the death of a loved one and asking the inevitable questions about the possibilities of a reunion after death.

"Footsteps, I can hear footsteps in the hall
I hear footsteps, seems like Ive been through this before
Some time has come now, some time has passed
But things still look the same
Is heaven all above, and paradise below
And the questions still remain
Ooh, can we see you?
Ooh, are we near you?
How could you disappear out of here?
I wish for something, I wish you were here

Footsteps, I can hear footsteps in the hall
I hear footsteps, it seems like Ive been through this before
Well we loved you then, I guess we always will
We love you still from here
Birds of a feather always stay together
And never separate, no fear
Ooh, can we see you?
Ooh, are we near you?
How could you disappear out of here?
I wish for something, I wish for something
I wish you were here, I wish you were here
I wish you well

Footsteps, I can hear footsteps in the hall
I hear footsteps, seems like Ive been through this before
If all the world was turning blue and gold
Like through your eyes so clear
The time has come to celebrate our past
And crystalize this sphere
Ooh, can we see you?
Ooh, are we near you?
How can you disappear out of here?
I wish for something
Ooh, can we see you?
Ooh, are we near you?
How can you disappear out of here?
I wish for something
I wish you were here, I wish you were here
I wish you well

There will come a day
Oh some day our day will come
Our day will come, our day will come..."
- I Wish You Were Here

This was pure poetry. Death was a scary topic to me then and it still is today, but the thought that "our day will come" was reassuring to my teenaged mind, and the rhythmic, almost ritualistic chanting at the end of the song forms a mantra of reassurance.

"You can pour back the love, sweeping down from above
Giving hope and making more chances
Well, I hope and I pray that maybe someday
You'll come back down here and show me the way."
- Sanctify Yourself

Though the entire albums contains undertones of belief in a higher power, Sanctify Yourself is the most openly religious tune. Faith is at the core of this song. Faith, wrapped in a catchy sparkling paper and delivered so that we barely even notice until we've listened and then listened deeper.

"Swing low, could be the last call for two of us
I said swing high, reach out and touch the sky
But dont cry yet, its not time yet..."
- Come a Long Way

Kerr and company, with the addition of the beautiful voice of Robin Clark, never let up. From start to finish, they hold us with every song. When this album ends, I always catch myself listening to the silence at the end and wishing for more. Come a Long Way is yet another great song, and yet somehow not enough, not final. It is an epilogue that leaves us wanting. That Simple Minds has failed to satisfy us with the eight songs of Once Upon a Time, has left us eternally wanting more, may be their, and the album's, greatest triumph.

"Dont look back, never look back."
- Oh Jungleland

"Tonight's the night we'll make history..."

2007-12-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (opening lines)

In the days of vinyl LP's, before the advent of the compact disc reduced album art to an eye-straining experience, listening to an album was a visual experience. In the early 1980's, I went on a trip to a local "hardware and variety store" and was browsing the album racks (yes, they sold LP's there) when an album cover caught my eye. As an eleven year old, I was already a fan of two of the songs on this album that had received significant radio play, as well as some of the band's previous work, so I plunked down the eight dollars and change and left with something new to spin on my turntable as I read the lyrics and pored over the stunning artowrk on the front and back covers. Little did I know that when I removed the disc from the sleeve, I would be greeted with an embossed disc bearing a holographic image that was a detail from the cover art. It was a stunning, multisensory experience.

As I listened to the album, with the sides labeled as "Act 1 and Act 2", I learned that the songs formed a loosely-connected theme. The story followed the fictionalized rise and fall of a real theater in Chicago, called...

Paradise Theater.

When I set the needle down onto the album, I was treated to the promise of hope in the album's opening lyrics and Dennis DeYoung's solitary voice on A.D. 1928.

"Tonight's the night we'll make history
As sure as dogs can fly
And I'll take any risk to tie back
The hands of time
And stay with you here tonight
So take your seats and don't be late
We need your spirits high
To turn on these theatre lights
And brighten the darkest skies
Here at the Paradise"
- A.D. 1928

Then, I was stunned by the abrupt segue into Rockin' the Paradise.

"So whatcha doin' tonight?
Have you heard that the world's gone crazy?
Young Americans listen when I say there's people puttin' us down
I know they're sayin' that we've gone lazy
To tell you the truth we've all seen better days."
- Rockin' the Paradise

This is one of the greatest rock songs of its time. In the early 1980's, it did seem like the world had gone crazy. We were just a short time removed from the oil shortages of the 1970's and the Iran hostage crisis. It looked like we were headed for something better.

"Well, I'm a jet fuel genius - I can solve the world's problems
Without even tryingI have dozens of friends and the fun never ends
That is, as long as I'm buying
Is it any wonder I'm not the president?"
- Too Much Time On My Hands

The next song, Tommy Shaw's Too Much Time On My Hands, seemed to say that any of us could do anything we wanted to... if only we really wanted to. This has always been one of my favorite songs on this great album. It is a catchy song, with that awesome whisper and alarm clock ending.

"You get up every morning and you go to work each day
Been doing the same damn job for ten long years this May
You've been working and saving for your Jamaican dream
Paradise is waiting across the sea
But when your plane lands Montego turns to Monsoon
You've got the Island Blues

'Cause, nothing ever goes as planned
It's a hell of a notion
Even Pharaohs turn to sand
Like a drop in the ocean
You're so together and you act so civilized
But every time that things go wrong you're still surprised
You've done your duty, you've paid a fortune in dues
Still got those Mother Nature's Blues."

- Nothing Ever Goes As Planned

Dennis DeYoung asks us once again what we're doing tonight in Nothing Ever Goes As Planned, an indication, mixed metaphors and all, that this dream of a grand future may not turn out exactly as we hoped. My father was always as blue collar as they come. He worked multiple jobs day in and day out to give our family the best life he could, yet my brother's illness and a multitude of other things always seemed to throw a huge monkey wrench into his plans of retiring at the beach and spending his days fishing. We had all paid a fortune in dues.

"Tonight's the night we'll make history, honey, you and I
And I'll take any risk to tie back the hands of time
And stay with you here tonight
I know you feel these are the worst of times
I do believe it's true
When people lock their doors and hide inside
Rumor has it it's the end of Paradise
But I know, if the world just passed us by
Baby I know, you wouldn't have to cry

The best of times are when I'm alone with you
Some rain some shine, we'll make this a world for two
Our memories of yesterday will last a lifetime
We'll take the best, forget the rest
And someday we'll find these are the best of times
These are the best of times

The headlines read 'these are the worst of times'
I do believe it's true
I feel so helpless like a boat against the tide
I wish the summer winds could bring back Paradise
But I know, if the world turned upside down
Baby, I know you'd always be around

The best of times are when I'm alone with you
Some rain some shine, we'll make this a world for two
Our memories of yesterday will last a lifetime
We'll take the best, forget the rest
And someday we'll find these are the best of times
These are the best of times

And so my friends we'll say goodnight For time has claimed it's prize
But tonight will always last
As long as we keep alive memories of Paradise..."

- The Best of Times

The final song on "Act 1", also the most commercially successful song on the album, seems to echo the words of Dickens, which I was familiar with, even at 11 (I have always been a prolific reader). DeYoung's The Best of Times was a statement masquerading as a simple love song pretending to make a statement (makes sense to me). This song links the opening and closing of this album. We know that Paradise is doomed, but we can also hold onto it through our memories of the greatest moments of our lives, even in the worst of times.

(The real Paradise Theater actually was built in 1928 on what is now Pulaski Road in Chicago's West Side. It failed due to poor acoustics blamed on its domed ceiling once "talkies" arrived and never recovered. The Paradise was closed in 1956 and what was supposed to be a six month demolition was completed in 1958.)

"The rain was hot, the streets were empty
As downtown closed her eyes
The movie house stood in silence as I said my last good-byes
Her silver screen was stained with memories
As Cagney shot them down
And as I watched I was that hero
In dreamlands lost and found."
- Lonely People

"Act 2" opens with the heckling of nearby residents trying to get the noisy kids out of their neighborhood. The Paradise is closed and all we have left are the memories. As an adult, this song reminds me that all those people that have been so hurtful to me, and to others, over the last few years, and throughout my life, and even history, are just scared, hurting, lonely people. They hurt others because they feel so much pain, fear, and loneliness. Loneliness is a disease from which we can all suffer.

"I worked hard to be the greatest lover
I wanted to be sure that I was her only one
That's how I thought it was done
But I went too far, assumed too much
The need to feel a younger one's touch
Seemed important then
Oh what a fool I've been

And still she treats me like a human
She says she'll still be there
I don't quite understand it, she's been too fair
'Cause somehow she cares

I guess that's the way it goes, the way that it goes
And nobody knows what compels her
She's seen my highs and lows and never let go."

- She Cares

The album continues with Tommy Shaw's love song, She Cares. I can definitely identify with the narrator, who is loved and cared for by another, even though he feels he doesn't deserve it.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall
The face you've shown me scares me so
I thought that I could call your bluff
But now the lines are clear enough
Life's not pretty even though
I've tried so hard to make it so
Mornings are such cold distress
How did I ever get into this mess?"
- Snowblind

James Young's Snowblind caused quite a controversy when the album was first released, with rumors of backwards Satanic messages being hidden in the song. Young has been making fun of these rumors in concert for years, with his evil sounding introduction and red lights.

This is a song about the devil within, particularly the devil of cocaine addiction. The narrator isn't even sure how he descended into this particular hell. He too is lonely and suffering. He sees his weakness and is unsure how to escape.

"Half penny, two penny, ashes to dust
The almighty dollar says 'In God we trust.'
Justice for money, how much more can I pay?
We all know it's the American Way."
- Half Penny, Two Penny

James Young's second song in a row on the album is a portrait of decadence and corruption. We see through this jaded view of our country, and of humanity, that hope is something for the wealthy and prestigious.

Finally, the album closes with the melancholy reprise of the opening melody, the familiar hook that brought us in with hope of a better future. This time, DeYoung is singing a requiem to Paradise. It is over. Memories are all we have left, but they are sweet as A.D. 1958 segues into State Street Sadie and brings us back to the jazz age that surrounded the opening of the Paradise and held such promise and hope for happiness. Just as the jazz age collapsed into the great depression, we are left with only this echo of a better time... perhaps even the best of times. As Dickens tells us, a time much like our own.

"And so, my friends, we'll say goodnight,
for time has claimed his prize,but tonight can always last,
as long as we keep alive, the memories of Paradise."
- A.D. 1958

"The boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay and the bells were ringing out for Christmas day."

2007-12-25T10:27:00.000-05:00

(title quote: The Pogues, Fairytale of New York)

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful." - Norman Vincent Peale

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I will continue with my album posts soon, but today I wanted to come here and wish all of my blog friends a joyous holiday. Thank you for your support this year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!" - Charles Dickens

"Once there was a way to get back home...'

2007-12-19T21:07:00.000-05:00

The first album on my list was recorded about a year before I was born and was released in the United States in October of 1969. I came into the world in April, 1970. My brother was already a huge fan of The Beatles by the time of my birth and imparted his love of their music to me when I was still a young child. During my childhood, my brother often taunted me that The Beatles broke up because I was born. This teasing sometimes left me in tears because I loved their music and couldn't stand the thought that their dissolution was my fault.

I don't remember the first time I heard this album, but I do remember that my first purchase of recorded "popular" music was at the age of six. I soon owned a growing collection of mostly British invasion rock, including The Who, Rod Stewart, Elton John and, of course, The Beatles.

While Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is considered to be their most significant album, it was Abbey Road that really caught my attention and has kept it to this day.

Even the album cover mystifies us with its supposed "Paul is dead" symbolism has always intrigued me. I can spend hours looking at the images on this cover and always find something new to look at. The songs on this album have meshed with memories of my life and gained even more significance as I have grown and gotten older.

"Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly
He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please."
- Come Together

From the cryptic opening lines of Come Together, I was hooked. I didn't understand it, but I knew it had to be something important.

"Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover."
- Something

From the minimal blues of Come Together, the listener is dropped into the sonic fog of George Harrison's Something. It is a simple, straightforward love song and a huge departure from the album's first song.

"Back in school again Maxwell plays the fool again
Teacher gets annoyed
Wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene
She tells Max to stay when the class has gone away
So he waits behind
Writing 50 times "I must not be so" oh oh oh
But when she turns her back on the boy
He creeps up from behind."
- Maxwell's Silver Hammer

One of the favorite songs of my childhood was the frivolous nursery rhyme that is Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Like many of the fables of our childhood, there is a sinister story lurking behind the childish nonsense rhymes and catchy melody. I imagine many young people were intrigued by the story of vengeance that is carried out on the authority figures in this story, from the girl who turned us down for a date to the teacher who kept us behind for detention and the judge who condemned us for our youthful misdeeds, everyone felt the "justice" of Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Steve Martin's rendition for the big screen was painfully funny.

"When you told me you didn't need me anymore
Well you know I nearly broke down and cried!"
- Oh! Darling

Few emotional pleas have ever rung so poignantly on my youthful ears as Paul McCartney's Oh! Darling. His hoarse and plaintive cry to believe him was so authentic and honest that we couldn't help but believe. Never mind all that he had to go through to achieve that effect. It was pure musical magic.

"I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade."
- Octopus's Garden

When I was taking guitar lessons during third grade, I was still listening to Octopus's Garden. Going back to a sing-song nursery rhyme style after the emotionally charged pleas of Paul's breaking heart, Ringo Starr drew us right back in with his vivd imagery of this magical hideaway under the sea.

As a child, I Want You (She's So Heavy) came across to me as an eerie and vaguely threatening song. As an adult, it seems like the perfect stalker anthem. This song made me uneasy for some reason that I never could quite grasp and it still sets my nerves on edge, though I know think it is a great song with lots of atmosphere held within its broken chords.

"Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say
It's all right."
- Here Comes the Sun

After the dark mood of the previous song, George Harrison brings light back to the album with Here Comes the Sun. I can remember my brother singing this song to me after particularly violent or prolongued rainstorms when I was a child. I would quickly join in and sing along and everything would indeed be all right.

From George's bright and happy sun images, Because brings the clouds back into the picture. This song will forever be coupled in my mind with the Orwellian imagery bestowed upon it in the movie version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Because was another song that just made me uneasy for some unknown reason.

"You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down."
- You Never Give Me Your Money

If The Beatles ever taught us anything through song, it was that "money can't buy me love." In You Never Give Me Your Money, it seems that love is also holding back on sharing the wealth. This song continues the melancholy descent into the second half of the album. It seems as if the rosy promise of youth isn't quite living up to our expectations. For some reason, this song has always made me a little sad and lonely.

I never bothered to translate the Italian lyrics to Sun King, and this song has never made much of an impact on me, but in that respect, it is definitely in the minority on this album.

"Mean Mister Mustard sleeps in the park..."
- Mean Mister Mustard

Part of the medley that is the second part of Abbey Road, Mean Mister Mustard tells the story of Mister Mustard and his "sister" Pam. Mustard is not a savory character, he's a "dirty old man." I grew up living across the street from a huge municipal park, and I knew that old men slept in the woods in the back of the park. I always wondered as a child if Mister Mustard was back there with them.

"Well you should see polythene pam
She's so good-looking but she looks like a man
Well you should see her in drag dressed in her polythene bag
Yes you should see polythene pam."
- Polythene Pam

After Mister Mustard, we are introduced to the drag queen Polythene Pam. I've always thought this was Mustard's "sister" in all "her" strangeness.

"And so I quit the police department
And got myself a steady job."
- She Came In Through the Bathroom Window

Since my father was a police officer (who also worked full-time at a local grocery) and my mother was a former beauty queen, I've always related to this song and attached my own personal significance to it.

"Once there was a way, to get back homeward,
Once there was a way, to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby
Golden slumbers fill your eyes, smilles awake you when you rise
Sleep little darling do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby."
- Golden Slumbers

After my brother's death, I attached a great deal of personal significance to Golden Slumbers. This song is one of the most beautiful lullabies ever written.

"Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time..."
- Carry That Weight

My brother carried with him the weight of mental illness throughout his short life. We all have weights that we carry with us for our whole lives. This song revisits the familiar melodic territory of You Never Give Me Your Money. Since my brother died on the Fourth of July, I do sometimes break down in the middle of the celebrations.

The "final" song on the album is a fitting epitaph to Abbey Road and to The Beatles' musical endeavors. I have always thought it an appropriate truism to end the album, discounting the miniscule and frivolous Her Majesty which serves as a sort of hidden track. I think the words of The End are a fitting place to stop for now.

"And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make."
- The End

"The souls of men and women, impassioned all. Their voices climb and fall; battle trumpets call."

2007-12-18T12:31:00.000-05:00

(Title quote: 10,000 Maniacs, Verdi Cries)

It has been quite an eventful week. There are big changes in store at my (main) workplace today. The changes are for the better, but are still scary, as most change seems to be. We are uneasy with the unfamiliar. I will relate more of these changes after they have occurred, since a story is easier to tell by far once the events have unfolded.

I am sure my last post was polarizing, if it was noticed at all. What I am working on currently is much more personal and much less controversial.

"I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality." - H.A. Overstreet

In writing something more personal, I realize that I risk writing something less accessible. I am okay with that. When something needs to be written, it will make that demand in the brain until it is on the page. This has been making its demand to be written for over a week now, so I must begin it.

"Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

What will follow, in the next few days, is a series of posts (I'm not yet sure how many it will take... my original thought was to do it in a single post, but as I explored what I want to write, it grew into a series of posts, at least two, maybe more) in which I will share the albums which have affected me the most in my life.

I want to share the CD's in my collection that have captivated me and worked their magic on my soul. I will be sharing them in chronological order of when I discovered them. I have trimmed my list down to 10 albums. The earliest album on the list, I was introduced to at age six, and the latest, I discovered only about a month ago.

So, I will be working on these posts, sharing how this music affected, and still affects me, sharing a piece of my musical soul, if you will, and posting them over the next few days. I hope to finish the first of them sometime within the next 24 hours. I hope you enjoy my musical self-indulgence.

"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought." - E.Y. Harburg

"Scared Are You?"

2007-12-04T13:59:00.000-05:00

(title quote: Better Than Ezra)

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
- H.P. Lovecraft

On Thanksgiving morning, my wife and I drove about 35 minutes to a movie theater in a nearby town, a town where we used to live (it didn't have a theater then), to see Stephen King's The Mist. It was the only local theater that had a showing early in the morning and we were due for dinner at my parents house early that afternoon.

“Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”
- Michael Pritchard

I know it doesn't sound like a movie for Thanksgiving, but it may have been more appropriate than one would initially think.

“The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness.”
- Dorothy Thompson

The movie is, at its roots, about fear and isolation and their effects on people. If you were suddenly threatened with being cut off from television, radio, the internet, newspapers, telephones and all of your connections with the world around you, threatened with being thrust into a world of fear, isolation, and sensory deprivation, I'm sure that you would be thankful for all of the modern "luxuries" that you have. After leaving the theater, I was thankful for the suunshine on my face, knowing where my next meal was coming from, and for my very life.

"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake."
- Edgar Wallace, The Clue of the Twisted Candle

You must understand, I first read King's seminal novella in the mid-80's, just a few years after its original publication. I was a teenager. It immediately became my favorite work by King, and I am a huge fan of MOST of his writing (don't worry, if I found him hurt on the side of the road, I wouldn't take him hostage and make him write for my pleasure). I waited more than twenty years for this film. One of the best Christmas presents my wife has given me over the years is the 3D audio play of this book on cassette.

"What are fears but voices airy?
Whispering harm where harm is not.
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!"
- William Wordsworth

Well before seeing this film, I had been thinking a lot about fear and its effects on people. Most of us, you see, live in almost constant fear of something. I think my greatest fear is fear of failure and inadequacy. Second is the fear of being alone, of dying lonely.

"Every living creature on earth dies alone."
- Roberta Sparrow, Donnie Darko (though we never hear her say it)

Don't get me wrong, I can be a solitary person at times, and love time alone, but I need to know that there is someone there that I can turn to in times of trial.

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.”
- Frank Herbert, Dune

I also have a fear of bridges. I know where that one comes from, though I have no idea where my fears of loneliness and inadequacy originate. Now, I seem to have developed a fear of the power of people in large groups. Ironically, the reason they scare me is because people in large groups always seem to feed off each other's fears. They let these fears come to rule the group. The most charismatic member of the group communicates his or her fears to the rest of the group, tying them into the fears of the group's members. Most fears are fairly closely related to each other.

“Often fear of one evil leads us into a worse.”
- Nicholas Boileau-Despresaux

The story of The Mist, while horrific and fantastic, is relevant to today's society.

"The Mist, though it was written 28 years ago, also may benefit from accidental parallels to contemporary life. Its tale of strangers trapped in a crisis situation that brings out their best and worst traits could be read as an allegory for everything from the morning of 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina or the California wildfire evacuations.

Also in The Mist, the apocalyptic fear-mongering leads to the emergence of religious fundamentalism in the frozen-food aisle. Old-timers send young bag boys to their doom by filling them with macho propaganda. And a weapon kept for protection becomes the ultimate tool of self-destruction.

King says the film 'never says to anybody going in "We want to educate you about the atmosphere of fear in this country ever since 9/11 where everybody is afraid of everything." The movie never has to say those things, because it's a monster movie. It's a lot of fun, and those things come in under the radar.'"

- Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY

In The Mist, the culture of fear, the "fear virus" if you will, is spread by Mrs. Carmody, local wacko and closed-minded puritanic fundamentalist amatuer legalistic theologian. She is driven by her fears and fed by the fears of the writers of the Old Testament. She espouses a Christianity devoid of love and grace, totally uninformed and unaffected by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, that New Testament perspective which is supposed to define Christianity. This position, the "flat earth theology" of Mrs. Carmody, is unfortunately quite common today, especially in this area of the country. Many of my friends not only refrain from calling themselves Christians, they also regard most of the area's "Christians" with suspicion and trepidation. They have been "condemned" too many times.

"The increasing tendency to use the word Christian to mean only legalistic Protestants has given the word an unpleasant flavor for many Americans--Christians included. In a 1996 sermon, a friend of mine who is an Episcopal priest recalled that he cringed when, at a social event, he met a man 'who rather quickly identified himself as a Christian.' When the man said the word Christian, several other words immediately went through my friend's mind: 'bigot, arrogant, mindless, intolerant, rigid, mean-spirited.'"
- Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus

This is unfortunate because this is not what it is supposed to be about. A religion supposedly based on love has fallen victim and become one based on fear. Oh, I'm sure the transformation began long ago, centuries ago, long before the inquisitors visited their horrors on their victims, victims of mass fear. If this line of thinking interests you, I recommend this book.

"In any event, the problem with legalistic Christianity is not simply that it affirms that God can be evil; it's that it imagines a manifestly evil God and calls that evil good. In effect, as we shall see, it worships evil. In America right now, millions of children are taught by their legalistic Christian parents and ministers to revere a God of wrath and to take a sanguine view of human suffering. They are taught to view their fellow Americans not as having been 'created equal,' as the Declaration of Independence would have it, but as being saved or unsaved, children of God or creatures of Satan; they are taught not to respect those most different from themselves but to regard them as the enemy, to resist their influence, and to seek to restrict their rights. This is not only morally offensive, its socially dangerous--and it represents, for obvious reasons, a very real menace to democratic civil society.

Born out of anger, modern legalistic Christianity has, over the long arc of the twentieth century, become steadily angrier in reaction to spreading secularism. During that period it has also spread like a cancer, winning adherents by the million and posing an increasingly serious threat to other faiths and to democratic freedoms. It has, in the process, warped Christianity into something ugly and hateful that has little or nothing to do with love and everything to do with suspicion, superstition, and sadism. And, quite often, it denies the name of Christianity to followers of Jesus who reject its barbaric theology. In essence, then, it has stolen Jesus--yoked his name and his church to ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that would have appalled him."

- Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus

This belief system is born of fear. When fears controls our hearts, it leads us to condemn and criticize, to turn on our fellow man. People who are scared attack those we see who frighten them, who are different than them, those who show the potential for independent thought and resistance to the spread of their fears. Most importantly, they attack those who show that capacity for independent, rational thought, coupled with the ability to resist the "fear virus" and the charisma to spread the "vaccine of rationality" to others. That would take away their power and remove their control over the environment, which scares the frightened soul more than just about anything else.

“If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.” - Lloyd Cassel Douglas

"What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope."- Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings

Lack of control is a potent fear. Many of the terminally afraid believe that they have turned control of their lives and environment over to some higher power, be it God or Allah or whatever. Instead, what they have done is warped their perception of that higher power to make him/her/it align with the frightened person's philosophy of fear. They are, as we all tend to do, worshipping their version of this higher power, using the doctrines of belief to justify their actions and fears. This makes them truly dangerous. A person who is charismatic, afraid and feels justified in his or her actions can destroy a civilization. I don't need to recount the list of infamous personages from history that personify this type for you to understand what I mean.

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”

"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear."

- Bertrand Russell

I will mention one.

“The things which we fear the most in life have already happened to us.”
- Sy, One Hour Photo

His name was Adolf Hitler.

“One hates what one fears.”
- Marylin Manson

"Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise."
- Cyril Connoly

This man was shaped by fear. He was one of six children, but only he and a sister survived childhood. His father was a terrifying figure who whipped him mercilessly. He responded by learning not to cry. His family moved often and he was frequently faced with the unknown element of new schools, new classmates, and new surroundings. He grew up in poverty, where many of the poor were employed by Jews. This led to a fear of Jews controlling the economy and eventually the political and social structure of his country. During World War I, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack. His sight deprivation fed his fears even further. During this period of blindness, he said that he realized that he was supposed to "save Germany." He was introduced to an organized fundamentalist ideology, called the Thule Society, by Dietrich Eckart. In 1930, the Great Depression hit Germany and people began to see Hitler's fears realized, at least in their minds. Hitler was an extremely charismatic person who had the ability to communicate his vision, his fears, to large groups of people quite effectively. With the advent of mass communications technology, he was able to spread his "fear virus" farther and faster. He established and fed a culture of fear. Fear the Jews, the communists, the capitalists. Fear the different and the deformed. Fear the outsiders who might take away our way of life, our comfort. Fear lawlessness. "Law" is an important part of the culture of fear. His fears led to genocide and war on global scale. His fears, communicated to hundreds of thousands of people changed the world.

“Fear is the path to the Dark Side; fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
– Yoda

A frightened man locked all by himself in a room is a danger to himself. A frightened man in the midst of a crowd is a danger to all.

“The most dangerous person is the fearful; he is the most to be feared.”
- Karl Ludwig Borne

Sure, we've all been scared at times. Fear is a necessary survival instinct. Gavin De Becker's The Gift of Fear and Fear Less and Malcolm Gladwell's Blink are two books that I highly recommend that show us how that inherent instinct can be both a harmful destroyer of lives and an indispensible tool for survival. De Becker particularly is dedicated to removing the unnecessary fears from life, stripping them away, and leaving us with only those necessary for survival. He helps people deal with our current culture of fear.

"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety."
- H.L. Mencken

I have been a victim of the culture of fear. I have been ostracized and attacked for being different, for daring ot have a vision of my own and for being able to spread my vision. I know others who have also been victims. When fear grips a community, it can cause the community/organization/group to self-destruct. Don't be a carrier of the fear virus. Question rhetoric and dogma. Do your own research. Practice rational thought in the face of your fears. Know when the fear virus has spread too far throughout your community or organization and know when it is time to leave and go elsewhere.

"Whatever you fear most has no power -- it is your fear that has the power."
- Oprah Winfrey

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"I am extraordinarily good at sleeping the day away..."

2007-12-04T11:28:00.000-05:00

"I thought with my experience
I'd put it on my resume."
- Josh Joplin, The World On a Shoestring

I've had the best of intentions. This is definitely not the first morning I've been free from the commitments of work. I just seem to either not wake up in a timely fashion or, when I do, get sidetracked into something else, like playing a video game or some other mindless diversion. I just can't seem to make it here with the time and inspiration to write.

"This'll be the last song that I write
About the things in my life I don't like
This'll be the last plan I design
Involving me being on time
I sure have missed my chances
Balloons have dropped
The last big dance is
Underway

I'm Mr. New Year's Day."

- Josh Joplin, Mr. New Year's Day

Excuses notwithstanding, here I am.

This week, I am working fewer hours than I have since I started working at the game store back at the end of September. The problem with it is that I'm still working nights. I've worked almost every night since then, even if I just go in for a four hour shift. I've had a grand total of six days completely free from work commitments since I took the job. Three of those were spent on vacation in the mountains (much needed and much enjoyed). I'm not complaining. My point is that I'm a night person. I love the hours after 10:00 p.m. and until dawn. When I leave on a long trip, involving long distance driving, I always think that the best time to leave is about 2:00 a.m. I know that I inherited this from my father, along with a lot of other things (much to my wife's chagrin). He always left for long trips at some ungodly hour of the morning, rousing the rest of the family from sleep with the car already packed. He worked many 4 to midnight and midnight to 8 graveyard shifts as a police officer and thrived at night. We spent many days tiptoeing around the house trying not to wake him.

"I'm the screen, I work at night

I see today with a newsprint fray
My night is colored headache grey
Don't wake me with so much.
The ocean machine is set to 9
I'll squeeze into heaven and valentine
My bed is pulling me,
Gravity

Daysleeper"

- R.E.M., Daysleeper

So, yesterday was going to be my day to come here and write. Except that I didn't go to sleep until much later than I normally should have. So, I slept until afternoon... until there was no time to write, just time to go to work.

I've been recovering from a cold. The Thanksgiving weekend holiday retail season, including "Black Friday" wore me down much more than I'd like to admit. As a result, I got sick.

Ever since I was born with my broken collarbone and no tear ducts, along with an assortment of other minor problems, I've had a weak constitution. Sure, I play the tough guy, but when something, some bug or virus, goes around, I'm the first to catch it and I hold on to it longer than everybody else. What is a minor inconvenience for most people, often has me miserable for weeks. I have a semi-annual sinus infection. Every other year, I come down with a horrible sinus infection that stays with me for two or three months. I tried antibiotics the second time I got it and they did nothing. This has been going on since about 1997. It usually comes on in late October and hangs around until January. In 1999-2000, it decided to hang around until about April. That was the year I tried antibiotics. If you do the math, you'll discover that it's an odd numbered year. That means I'm due for one. I was scared this was it. Now, I don't think it is. I think leaving my teaching career has been good for my health. The two colds I've caught since August have been shortlived. I shook this last one, which hit me pretty hard, in about a week. I think it's a good sign.

As far as my writing, I've been getting the urge to try fiction again. It's been so long since Itried that and my last few results weren't all that great, so it is intimidating to try it again. I used to be fairly good at writing fiction. Who knows, maybe I'll give it a shot.

"My head's as full as a Ryder truck
Double-parked down the street
All the ideas I've packed away
Stack up so nice and neat
But I didn't mark the boxes, so I don't know where anything is."
- Josh Joplin, The World On a Shoestring

My non-fiction writing, or at least my thought processes regarding it, since I haven't been writing so much lately, have actually been fairly deep and extensive. I think that the serious subjects about which I want to write are just so involved and far reaching, that they're difficult to tackle in the time allotted. Unlike my wife, who begins to write and then saves it in the "drafts" folder, I write all at once. My thoughts burst out in a torrent that aches for completion and must all be expressed if any of them are to be expressed.

My wife and I have been discussing a few issues that have really been on our minds lately. They've affected our lives so much that the process of thinking them through to the writing stage has been difficult. Those discussions led to her post about community, as well as the next post I'm going to write (maybe even today, who knows). I had hoped to write my next post over a month ago, but everytime I think about it, I uncover more. There are always more aspects to the topic I want to write about next. It is indeed a conundrum of the human condition that has been written about for hundreds of years. I don't pretend to have answers, but I want to have enough about the subject to at least contribute something meaningful to the subject.

"Still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me..."
- David Bowie, Changes

My life, my world, has changed so much since I started coming here to write. All those changes still boggle my mind sometimes. Especially when I'm confronted with them. When I run face first into something that shows me in stark contrast, how much my world has changed, how much I have changed, since about March of this year, it shocks me. Sometimes it scares me. Sometimes it just reminds me. Do I have regrets? I'm not sure if regret is the right word. I know that, for the most part, I am where I should be, or I'm at least getting closer to that place.

"Dichotomy" has been a big word in my life lately.

"I'm as lost
As a boy can be
In a city of grids
And numbered streets..."
- Josh Joplin, One Becomes Two

I see it like this: When I jumped the stream, changed my place in the world, it was like ripping a hole in the fabric of my world and climbing, no... wriggling... through to the new world, the new stream. It was like being born to a different existence. The other stream, that world I left a few months ago, still exists. Other people still live there, and I see that their lives, that world, still continues on without me, almost like I died in that world when I was reborn into this one. I still hear from some of the people that were a part of that world. They open little windows for me. I can see into the world I left and see how my departure from it has changed that world, those lives I touched there. The emotions I am left with after gazing into another world, another life, are confusing and emotional. I don't have any desire to go back, but it is strange and can affect me profoundly at times. I can really think of no better way of describing it other than this. It is like being able to look back at the world you left after your own death and see how everyone is doing with you gone. I think that is what the "mid-life crisis" (second-life awakening) is all about anyway.

I AM enjoying my new life. My health is better. I'm getting along well with people. My wife and I have really rediscovered each other, and our marriage is much healthier in this world. I'm starting to reconnect with some old friends that I left behind at various points in that other world (some recent, some as far back as college and even high school), and I am making new friends.

This world is just different. They have some strange customs here. Instead of actually getting together and participating in a hobby, they use the internet for that. I have always used text messaging and the internet to communicate, but in this world, it is an even more prevalent form of communication. Facebook is essential to remaining in contact with people. Some of them, like my co-workers and new friends Sunni and A.O., even use myspace, a place which I abandoned, but they're persuading me to just abandon my old page and make a new one, blocking out the people I don't want to visit me there. I don't know. I like Facebook better. It seems more mature and less involved. Or Windows Live Spaces, but nobody uses them, or at least nobody here, in this world. I used to get together with friends and play Dungeons & Dragons or invite people over to LAN our XBoxes and play Halo 2. Now, we have XBox 360's and use XBox Live to get together with the help of the internet. Or, we play World of Warcraft when we want to role-play together, instead of breaking out the paper, pencils and dice to play D&D. It really is good to have and interact with friends, but I do miss some face to face contact.

People do get together in person sometimes. We go out for sushi on occasion. One of my co-workers and new friends, Jamie, is manager of a great Japanese restaurant. Some of my new friends also go play pool once a week. There is now a standing invitation for my wife and I to join them.

One of my older friends... okay, well... I've known Joe for about four years now... is supposed to start working at the game store a day or two a week soon. His "real job" is as a 911 operator, but he sees the value of doing something on which people's lives don't depend occasionally to break the stress of that job. Joe and his wife have a new baby, only a few weeks old, and he needs something fun, to connect with people, and has been reconnecting his friendship with me also. He and another friend, Patrick, met up with me after work the other night. We've started playing WoW (World of Warcraft) together (we used to get together for Dungeons & Dragons). Now he's coming to work with me. Patrick has also offered me a temporary job if I leave the CD/DVD store job. Which reminds me, the manager of the CD/DVD store quit. The corporate atmosphere left him disillusioned and discouraged, so he left his retail career. Now that corporate atmosphere is directly invading our store. I understand why he left. After all, I've been there before. I just may not want to stay there if the atmosphere continues to degrade. Patrick has given me a temporary plan B.

At any rate, I don't feel isolated anymore. With my old job, I DID feel isolated. The people I turned to for support really needed support more than they could give it. Stress and other factors were pulling my wife and I apart. Even though I did have some friends, I was more alone than I've ever been. I was even, to a large extent, isolating myself from people. I was closing all the doors through which I could be rescued and barring them from the inside. I'm glad I was able to rip through the fabric of worlds and be born anew.

"Now I've turned a corner
I can't be lonely
The landmarks all know me...

Me, I count the change
We saved up for so long
To get out of this town."

- Josh Joplin, One Become Two

Normally, I'd stop here... end with the song lyric, but I have to recommend this album to you. I have been listening to a very little known artist named Josh Joplin. His 2005 CD, Jaywalker, is by far the best CD I've heard in a long time. I can't stop listening. You can't find it in stores, but I encourage you to check it out. I don't know how to classify it into a genre, but it is informed by The Beatles and is a close cousin to the music of R.E.M. All I can say is that he's a lyrical genius with great musical sensitivity. For the rest, you'll have to listen for yourself.

"The time has come
For everyone
To stand before the day
And see the sun before it slips away...

Stay
For as long as you can stay
Life is hard, but it's okay
Stay..."

- Josh Joplin, Stay

Posting "in absentia."

2007-12-02T00:10:00.000-05:00

I will be taking some time from my jobs next week because it just worked out that I have the opportunity to and, not wanting to burn myself out before the busy holiday retail season is over, I am taking that opportunity... slowing down just a little. I'm recovering from a bit of a cold, and shhould be posting again this week as time permits. I have stories to tell and things to share.

However, in place of a real post, I offer some amazing reading. My wife posted on her blog about the power of communities to change lives. I highly recommend this for your reading enjoyment.

"I just got back. Been a long, long time..."

2007-11-12T14:52:00.000-05:00

(title quote: Cheap Trick, Just Got Back)

"When I'm Gone
And the lights are out
Don't be sad for long
(When I'm Gone)
And the lights are out
I'll be shining on."
- The Click Five, When I'm Gone

This is the second day I've had off from work since I started working the two jobs back in September. I wasn't even supposed to be off today, but something went down at the game store over the weekend and I haven't entirely been informed what it is yet. I'll find out from my friend Chad, since he knows everything that goes on in the area, even if it isn't at his store. At any rate, I'm glad to have a day to relax, get my car detailed, and finally write something of substance here again.

"Everything’s okay
Put those other thoughts away
Let me hear you say, at least for today
Everything’s okay."
- The Clumsy Lovers, Everything's Okay

I won't dwell on my absence here, nor will I make excuses or apologies. Just suffice to say that I am back, for today, and hope to be writing here more regularly in the near future. Thank you for forgiving my absence and welcoming me back.

Things have been going well. Even though I'm working many hours each week, I'm not exhausted and worn out like I was when I was teaching. Life isn't perfect, it never will be, but it is better.

The new car is great. Actually, they both are. My wife is enjoying her car as well.

We finally did it. For the first time in about ten years, my wife and I took an overnight trip that wasn't centered around work or family commitments. We have travelled fairly frequently, but it was never for us. We went to her family reunions, or to visit relatives, or to conferences for my job, but never anywhere just for fun, where we set the agenda. Actually, the only trips we have taken together between our honeymoon and this one that were just for us and just for fun were only a couple of one night trips, so this extended weekend is the first one in almost 15 years.

I did some research on destinations we could get to relatively easily from here, limiting the list to less than 8 hours driving time. I came up with 13 destinations or so, and we each wrote them in order from least appealing to most appealing. When we got to the end of the list, our most appealing destination, it turned out that we had both written the same place, so we made plans to spend a long weekend there, leaving Thursday right after I finished work, and returning on Sunday evening.

"Keep close to Nature's heart...and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean." - John Muir

We decided to go to the mountains of North Carolina, near Boone. We actually stayed in Banner Elk, which was great, because it was fairly centrally located to everything we wanted to see and do while we were there.

We also decided to rent a cabin, so we wouldn't have to deal with any other people unless we really wanted to. So, we had a beautiful two-story, two bedroom log cabin all to ourselves.

"When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view." - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It was an awesome and much needed vacation. We had a lot of fun. We drove the Blue Ridge Parkway, visited Linville Caverns and Linville Falls, went hiking on Grandfather Mountain, ate at some really great little restaurants, drove some narrow winding mountain roads through beautiful scenery, shopped at the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, took a bunch of great photos, and just enjoyed our time there.

We took a huge number of pictures while we were there, so I want to share some of them here:

This is the cabin we rented for the weekend. It was close to Banner Elk, yet secluded off in the woods. The HHR was great on this trip, even in the mountains. It struggled a little on the steeper grades, but performed well overall.

Linville Caverns, although a bit on the "tourist kitsch" side, was still a fun place to visit. The caverns are beautiful, if a little smaller than I thought. A lot of areas apparently collapsed during a flood in the 1940's, so the area that is open is a fairly short tour. Seeing the bats was cool, as was seeing the colors made by all the different minerals in the water that is constantly changing the rock formations. I would've loved to explore the areas off the tour, so I think some spelunking in some non-tourist caves is in order for the next trip.

According to the trail guide, the hike to Linville Falls is listed as "moderate." I got to the first overlook on the falls thinking that they were pretty, but that I had seen much more breathtaking waterfalls in my life. We continued up the trail, wondering what could be seen from the higher elevation overlooks. When we reached those points, the falls could truly be seen in their splendor. Each individual cascade is pretty on its own, but the entire course of the falls, from the rapids leading to the twin upper falls, through the cave that they have carved as they tumble down a slide, to the beautiful lower cascade, forms a magnificent view that can only be fully appreciated by stopping at each overlook and taking in the part that can be best seen from there. We also got some great views by exploring a trail near the summit that as long been "closed" to the public. Evidence of a rock staircase could be seen by peering over the wall at the highest overlook, so when nobody else was around, we climbed over the wall and followed the remains of the trail that loops around the edge of the precipice. The view was astounding, but I guess the erosion of many years caused the National Park Service to close this section.

On Friday, we explored Linville Caverns and Linville Falls, then drove the Blue Ridge Parkway, including the Linn Cove Viaduct and the "Little Parkway" (Hwy 221). On Saturday, we went to Grandfather Mountain and crossed the "mile high swinging bridge" which leads to some amazing views (without guardrails or ropes or anything - thank you to the people that run the mountain's facilities for not imposing these anti-stupidity devices to ruin the view). The wind was ferocious up there, with a wind chill of about 12 degrees (F). Then, we hiked up to McRae's Gap on the Grandfather Trail. It was listed in the guide as a strenuous hike, and it was at times. The temperature would swing from warm mid-forties to feeling every bit of that 12 degree wind chill in minutes, depending on your location on the mountain. There were several points at which the ropes were necessary, and the ascent was tough even with them. I'm glad we decided to spend the day on the mountain. It was totally spontaneous and we were mostly unprepared for the climb, but it was a lot of fun.

This is McRae's Peak taken from just shy of Grandfather Gap. We ended up unintentionally making it almost to the summit of McRae's. As I said, we weren't planning on making the climb. We were moving slowly and, near the summit, let a family with children who were way to small to be attempting this mountain pass us. When the going turned to the nearly vertical section of the trail just shy of the peak, their little girl fell headfirst back towards me. She cried long and loud, but her father calmed her down and encouraged her on towards the summit. It took them a long time going up the ropes and ladders, so we decided not to hit that last ascent, but save it for another time.

The view from where we stopped was still spectacular.

After we left Grandfather Mountain, we drove back to Banner Elk and took Hwy 194 to Valle Crucis and the Mast General Store. We had just enough daylight to appreciate how treacherous and beautiful this road was and snap some pictures of the store. The real estate company had warned us not to attempt to approach the cabin using this road at night. I scoffed at this warning until I actually made the drive in late afternoon. The road could actually be compared to "El Camino de la Muerte" in Colombia. No guardrails, narrow lanes, abrupt sharp curves of sometimes more than 90 degrees, and oncoming SUV's make this road a white-knuckle experience. I especially want to thank the driver of the BMW who stopped to take pictures of the cattle in the valley below. He stopped on a blind curve, then waved me around when I approached. As I cautiously passed him, the oncoming car came extremely close.

If you haven't just "gotten away from it all" in way too long, I highly recommend escaping from the daily routine and the grind of everyday living. Life wears us down and erodes our souls much like the effects of wind and water on the mountainside. If you think you don't have time, or that you can't afford to do it, I say you can't afford not to do it. The rewards are amazing.

"So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!"
- Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel), Oh the Places You'll Go!

Quick Update

2007-11-07T09:06:00.000-05:00

Hate to update this way, but I just haven't had time. Ugh! Leaving for a weekend in the mountains tomorrow. Things have been good. Don't know if anybody even reads here anymore, but I will try to start writing more again soon. Thanks for your support!

"So full of misadventure and feeling insecure, it’s so easy push the pen, fake the tense, and give us nothing more..."

2007-10-17T09:49:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Cartel, The Fortunate)

To misquote something that Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, never really said, "The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." I can hardly believe that so much time has gone by without a post here. I figured that today was as good a day as any to wrestle with that slippery eel time and throw some words into the ether for your enjoyment, appeasement, or at least for mine.

"Patience, child it will find you
Your deepest dreams will guide you."
- Cartel, This Is Who We Are

I've been in a holding pattern; an airplane circling endlessly in a sea of cloud, waiting for clearance to land. I've been working shift after shift, not really getting tired or worn out. I know those feelings well. I became well acquainted with them over the past few years. I've been working as many hours as I could get, because the loan company wanted pay stubs and documentation of my hours, since I started both of my jobs so recently. I've also noticed a difference between the long hours I've been putting in over the last few weeks and the long hours I was putting in over the past few years previously.

I actually get a tangible reward for this.

I work longer. They pay me more. I've never known this phenomenon before. Fourteen years of salaried servitude, working as much as I could because I wanted to have the best band I could and mostly to give as much of myself to my students as I could, yet never seeing the direct, tangible evidence that this extra work was rewarded. I received more indirect rewards, like the lasting appreciation of hundreds of students and higher scores at contests and festivals, but this was always tempered by the huge amount of criticism I received. Being a band director is much like being the coach or manager of a sports team. When it's all said and done, everybody has an opinion of how they would have done things differently. There are thousands of armchair band directors out there. Even success is rewarded with, "They would have been even better if only he would've..."

"If I were to write the song that could somehow change the world...
Would it be a calm surrender
Or a fight to the death?
Would it give something to live for
Would we give our final breath?
Would it be a roaring opera
Or sweet as a child's kiss?
Would it sound like all the others
Or would it sound something like this?"
- Cartel, If I Were To Write This Song

Both of my managers are extremely appreciative that I do my job(s) exceedingly well. I've mentioned previously that both stores look at sales of "drivers" to gauge employee performance. Last week, I doubled the entire CD store's driver sales for the week in a single two hour shift. At the end of last week, I encouraged the manager to implement a scoring system for employees, based on driver sales, and placed where we can all see them, to increase our driver sales. So far, it seems to be working. We have been recognized as a store several times in the past few weeks and the manager has received a nice framed certificate for our performance. I have continued to have incredible driver numbers at the game store as well, being the highest ranked employee in driver sales at our store for three weeks running.

I've always had a competitive spirit. Being a band director gave me an outlet for that. Sales also gives me an outlet. I have never been one to lose well. It's always been one of my greatest weaknesses, so I do everything I can to not lose. I don't have to win, I just don't want to be last.

When I was a child, I was overweight and unathletic. I was always picked last for kickball, which I loved to play. There was never any rational reason for this, as I could really hammer the ball, since I have strong legs (but very weak knees, go figure). They just picked me last because I was fat, nerdy, and unpopular. They never really gave me a chance to see if I was any good, it was just assumed I wasn't.

I think we, as a people, a society, tend to judge others without giving them a chance to find out what they are really capable of achieving. Those of us who are already "outside the circle" are the ones who tend to give others chances before writing them off as unacceptable. We are used to being judged and we don't like to see it happen to others. We root for the underdogs. We cheer for the come from behind win. I even like to watch those corny sports movies where the team of misfits scores an improbably victory against all rationality and all the odds. We tend to think that in the real world, it doesn't happen all that often.

It happens more than people think it does. People survive horrific accidents and horrible illnesses, people beat terrible diseases, underdogs do win. Heck, just look at the number of people who survive to surpass the age of 100. That increasing number of people, some very active and alert, are a testament to the fact that people beat supposedly insurmountable odds every day.

"Light at the end of the tunnel? We don't even have a tunnel; we don't even know where the tunnel is." - Lyndon B. Johnson

Today is the day we are SUPPOSED TO get our cars. I hope that the wire transfer hits our bank account today, as it should. I am getting a brand new silver 2007 Chevrolet HHR, which I discovered is modeled after the 1949 Chevy Suburban (I'm including pictures to show the resemblance - mine is silver with rear side windows, not the panel version). I've always loved old suburbans and similar vehicles. Being a surfer as a teen, I've always wanted something like a "woodie" van. This is my chance. Okay, it's not the stereotypical mid-life crisis car. It's not a candy apple red convertible sports car, but I've wanted one for a while now. I think that some strange sort of car acquisition gene becomes active as we hit this point in our lives. I'm not sure why it is, but I can't wait for my new HHR.

1949 Chevrolet Suburban

2007 Chevrolet HHR Panel

My wife isn't picky. She chose me, didn't she? That proves my point. She has always been the practical one, so she wanted the cheapest, most reliable, economical and fuel efficient car possible. She has settled on one that I picked out for her. We chose it over the Grand Am for cost, fuel efficiency, mileage and options package. It is a 2003 Ford Focus. It's only a year older than the Grand Am we were looking at, has less miles, a killer Blaupunkt stereo system, is in better condition, and gets much better fuel economy with its 4 cylinder engine than the Grand Am's 6 cylinders. Plus, we can get a better deal on it. It's also the same color, grey, as the Grand Am we looked at. I am anxious to have reliable transportation again.

2003 Ford Focus

I had a psychic moment that caused me to avoid injury this morning. I dropped my wife off at work, and was returning home in my dad's car, through the intersection where my wife was rear-ended by the D.O.T. truck last month, since I don't have to work until this evening. I was in the left turn lane, when my arrow turned green and I started to make the left turn, when I became aware that I was supposed to stop and wait for something. I stopped and watched as a small white pickup truck ran the red light into the space where I would have been had I not stopped. As he reached that space, right in front of me, he realized he ran the red light and would've hit me had I not stopped, which caused him to panic and slam on his brakes, causing him to stop abruptly, as he would have had he broadsided me. The driver behind him was paying even less attention and had run the red light right on his back bumper. When the pickup truck stopped, this car slammed into the back of it, which also would've pushed me down the road had I not stopped just in time. It all happened over the course of a few seconds, but seemed to happen in slow motion. After the cars stopped moving and everything was settled, I saw that nobody was hurt and went on my way, thankful that I sometimes get feelings like that.

"Maybe life is curious to see what you would do
With the gift of being left alive."
- Marc Cohn, Live Out the String

At any rate, I have returned, at least for now. I will try my best to get back into the writing groove. My energies have been single-mindedly directed towards solving our transportation difficulties. The people at the loan company are probably sick of hearing from me. They all probably have my sob story memorized by now, about how hard it is to get back and forth to work for my wife and I and how my parents have been living without a car for all this time. I notice that I have been missed. My absence was noticed here. My wife was reading one of her favorite blogs the other day, only to read in the most recent post that the blogger was searching for the address of a blog that she really enjoyed reading, but hadn't added to her blogroll (I need to update mine). The blogger described it as being written by a former band leader who lived in South Carolina and now worked at a game store. It made me feel special.

"I hear the others wondering where I've been
I hear my mother
She's worried sick."
- Cartel, If I Were To Write This Song

My apologies to those who have wondered where I've been. Sometimes when I focus on something, it is to the exclusion of all else. I am fairly sure that it's a symptom of my ADD, and my wife can attest to how annoying it can be. My friends also endure long silences from me, not knowing how I am or hearing from me. I've gotta work on that.

You've probably noticed I'm in a Cartel sort of mood. It's good to be back.

"Searching the moment that defines you
your deepest dreams remind you
get out before you're gone
now that all you hear is what surrounds you
push it out, get it out from around you
never stop and you will find it all."
- Cartel, This Is Who We Are

"We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet..."

2007-10-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Bruce Springsteen, Livin' In the Future)

"Things have been a little tight
But I know they're gonna turn my way."
- Bruce Springsteen, Girls In Their Summer Clothes

With our transportation woes, carving out time to write, or even pursue any of my hobbies and interests, has been difficult this week. Most of my time working for the game store is now spent at the store across the street from the mall where I work in the CD store, which is about a 45 minute drive from my house. My wife works only about 10 minutes away from the house, but not on the way to any of the places I work. Arranging transportation has been quite a challenge this week, and we have at least another week of it before the loan money arrives, possibly two weeks.

I left a down payment with the local Chevrolet dealer this week so that they could send a driver to North Carolina to get the car I want. While looking at used HHR's, I discovered that I could get a new 2007 HHR cheaper than I could get a used 2006 model. It is definitely in our price range, so I opted to go that route, and ordered a silver one that should be arriving at our local dealer sometime next week. I'm not too big on optional equipment, as the salesman quickly discovered, no need for leather seats or a larger engine, or any of those things, just a solid car that is the right color and looks good. He wanted to give me a good deal on a bright orange used model with heated leather seats, a bigger engine and a sunroof, but I just can't see myself driving around in a bright orange car. Besides, in the summer around here, the leather would be scorchingly hot. So, my brand new car of choice is on its way. My loan has been approved, though my district manager at the game store has to send in a written proof of employment stating my wage and expected number of hours, to prove I am working there and getting paid enough to pay for this loan.

My wife, as I said, isn't very particular about what car she drives. We're going to pick out something that meets her requirements and our budget when I go to check out the HHR next week sometime. There is a nice Grand Am on the lot that would be perfect for her, if it is still there when we need it.

A great deal has happened this week while I haven't had the opportunity to write...

I watched, and thoroughly enjoyed Ken Burns' magnificent documentary, The War. This was a phenomenal look at a fascinating and pivotal time in our history. If you haven't seen it and you have an interest in history, I highly recommend it.

Last night, on the way home from a quick late dinner my wife and I had at Krystal after I got off work, I got pulled over for going too slow. My dad's car doesn't accelerate correctly when it doesn't have about 5 or 10 minutes to warm up before putting it in gear. I was anxious to get home, so I just started driving. The highway patrolman pulled me over about a half-mile down the road. He gave me a warning and let me go on my way. Why does this stuff always happen to me? I guess things could definitely be worse...

On Tuesday, I was working at the game store near my house. I clocked out at just after 3:00 p.m. for my lunch break and made the right turn around the counter ("cash wrap") to leave the store, when I saw a little girl of about 6 or 7 run diagonally across the sidewalk in front of the store. She was leaving the children's store next to the game store, where she had been shopping with her mother. Her mother was trailing behind her, carrying bags filled with merchandise, when the girl bolted. I saw her take a step off the sidewalk and suddenly disappear. A car now occupied the space where she had stepped into the traffic lane. It seemed to happen suddenly and in slow motion at the same time. She bounded over the curb and then disappeared as a car appeared where she had been. Then, a single shoe flew over the car and landed behind it and slightly to the side.

I have heard of people being knocked out of their shoes by some impact before, but I didn't think it happened quite so literally. I really tried to run out there, but something slowed me. I was sure that the scene would be a horrific, grisly mess. Having seen the single shoe fly through the air and land behind the car, then seeing the mother scream and drop all of her bags in the gutter, running to the girl, I expected a scene similar to something I saw a few years ago during bike week here in Myrtle Beach.

About 3 years ago, my wife and I were eating in our favorite Mexican restaurant, the same one where we ate lunch today, when a man burst in the front door, screaming that someone had just hit a motorcycle outside the restaurant. The highway outside was a notoriously busy stretch of road, especially during bike week. The patrons of the restaurant all just looked around, as if in slow motion, and most went back to their dinners. I jumped up and headed for the door, as did another man at a nearby table. He was a biker, so he had some stake in the well being of anyone who might have been on the motorcycle that had been hit. After all, it might just as easily have been him. We ran outside and found a Jeep Cherokee diagonally across the road with the broken remnants of the motorcycle jutting from the grille and front bumper. A man and woman lay in the street. The man wasn't moving much, but the woman was screaming. Horrible, blood-curdling screams of pain. The man who ran out with me checked the man and quickly moved to the woman. He began comforting her as best he could. I directed traffic around the wreck. There was much traffic to be directed, and spectators to be moved along to keep the heavy traffic flowing. Even when the police arrived, they left me directing traffic. I did that task for over an hour, when I finally told a passing officer that I needed to be relieved of the duty. I remember the screaming and the broken glass and wet stains on the road that night.

The scene outside the game store was much better. The mother ran to her daughter and pulled her off the street. I always learned that you shouldn't move people who have been in an accident, but most people seem to ignore that rule. The girl was conscious. There was no visible blood. The other shoe was lying in the road near where she had fallen. The girl was obviously in shock. I will never forget how calm she was immediately after she was hit. As the shock wore off, she began to cry. I heard a woman to my left yelling that she was a registered nurse. She ran over and began examining the girl, checking her head, pupils, ribs, arms and legs for injuries. Her abdomen was tender and painful, but I think the mother drove her to the hospital in her own car, with the nurse following. It was a miracle that there were no head injuries. The car hit her hard enough to knock her out of her shoes and throw her through the air. It was going far too fast for a parking lot. I feared that I would find blood all over the asphalt and severe head injuries with that kind of impact, but God smiled upon that little girl that day. I've heard He protects fools and small children, but that day proved that miracles do happen. It was every parent's nightmare, but it could have ended much worse.

"We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us." Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

It has been more than two months since band practice began... without me. I encouraged those students who I had any contact with to give my successor a chance and stay with their musical studies if at all possible. Now, many of them are giving up. I have had contact with many of them over the past two weeks. More than half of them have quit. The band captain was actually kicked out this past week. On Monday night, a couple of them made the long drive to the CD store to visit me. On Tuesday and especially Thursday, many more came to the game store near my house to see me. A few band parents accompanied them to the store. Many of them have also quit the support organization. The only ones left, for the most part, are the ones whose critical judgements and attempts to rid themselves and their children of me contributed to my career change.

"I feel stupid, but its something that comes and goes
I've been changin', think its funny how now one knows
We don't talk about the little things that we do without
When that whole mad season comes around."
- Matchbox 20, Mad Season

I told one parent who came to visit me this week that I felt bad that so many children no longer have music in their lives because I left my teaching job. She told me that I was a teacher and that even in my leaving, I was still teaching, because so many of them have learned so much from this experience. She told me that it was one of the most valuable lessons that many of them would ever receive. My reaction to seeing them has improved greatly since those first few tentative encounters, but there are some, those critical students and parents who influenced my mental well-being so negatively that I eventually left my career, who would still cause a bad reaction if I were to see them. I don't feel that I can be pleasant to them if I see them in public.

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd." - Bertrand Russell

My experiences with another person who was, much like myself, also recently driven from his job by the same sort of "circle" thinking that drove me from mine, have only reinforced this animosity I feel towards certain people, and have caused me to lose a lot of faith in the good of mankind in large social groups. People do get scared of people who are different than them. This fear does cause aggression. At some point I will be able to articulate my feelings on this subject, but I have not worked through them fully at this time.

"I know they've all been talking about me
I can hear them whisper
And it makes me think there must be something wrong with me
Out of all the hours thinking
Somehow I've lost my mind

But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be..."

- Matchbox 20, Unwell

"Bad news on the doorstep..."

2007-10-01T14:10:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Don McLean, American Pie)

"She's dead, Jim." - Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Star Trek (original series, episode: Wolf In the Fold)

Hello again, my determined and faithful readers! When last we met, I was telling you about my automotive woes. It is worse than I originally thought.

"Don't cut my throat, I may want to do that later myself." - Casey Stengel

On Friday, I dropped my car off at the shop because it was losing power. The original thought was that an in-line fuse had blown, either from giving a jump start to my dad's car the day I left the lights on, or from the accident my wife was involved in on 9/11, when she was hit from behind. I learned late Friday afternoon that the alternator was filled with oil that had leaked from the mid-engine seal that I was told was leaking earlier in the summer, when we brought it to the shop for basically the same problem. They could replace the alternator, but didn't expect it to last long, since the new one would soon begin taking oil from the leaking seal. As a result, they wouldn't warranty a new alternator, which would cost more than $500 to replace. They predicted the new one to last 2-3 months before it too stopped working due to the oil leak. The oil leak would cost a minimum of $1000 to repair. The shop advised me earlier in the summer to sell it as soon as possible before something like this happened. I didn't have money to replace it at that time, and could not think of any options to get the money at that time, so we did the best we could and have now reached this point. The car is a total loss. It is only worth a little more than the money it would take to repair it. Therefore, I have come up with two possible options to replace the car. We can take out a home equity loan or cash in my retirement.

The first option leaves us with some additional financial commitments, while the second option takes away our cushion.

"You have to go broke three times to learn how to make a living." - Casey Stengel

Since my wife began working, we have been using my father's car as our second car, as we needed it and he doesn't really need to be driving very often with his medical problems. His car is also extremely unreliable and riddled with mechanical problems. In researching solutions to our transportation crisis, we have come up with, I feel, the best possible solution. We applied for the home equity loan this morning. If we are not approved (which would only happen if the company decides I haven't been at my current jobs long enough - everything else checked out well within their parameters for approval), then we will have to use a portion of my retirement savings. We will be buying two cars from the same car dealership, paying cash (or cashier's check at least), and hope that gives us the leverage to get the best possible deal. The only payments will be on the home equity loan, as the cars will be paid in full at purchase. No car payments and two cars in the driveway. My parents will get their car back, but I've already talked to my father about driving. We will know whether or not we are approved for the loan by the end of the week.

Even in this calamity, the Law of Attraction seems to be at work. In late April, we went car shopping, because we knew that, with my wife working, we would need a second car. I fell in love with the Chevrolet HHR that day. We came very close to driving home in one, but I backed out at the last second. When my wife and I discussed it later, I told her that if I decided to leave my job, a car payment would leave me trapped and unable to leave the job. Since then, I have been using visualization and trying to tap into the Law of Attraction to get to the point where I could purchase an HHR. I didn't think it would happen quite this way. A local car dealership has the car I want. I hope they still have it, or can get a similar one if and when the loan is approved, or the retirement money is withdrawn. My wife just wants something that is reliable and gets good gas mileage, and is small but not too small.

Having two reliable vehicles will be a great asset to us. Currently, my father's car randomly slows down and refuses to accelerate or go over 35 MPH at times. Our car had no air conditioning and no heater or defroster fan. Both cars leak oil. My father's car leaks transmission fluid as well. They have both recently been involved in accidents. While our car still looks pretty good, my father's car was ugly before the accident (it's a huge teal Ford Taurus station wagon of mid-90's vintage with handicapped plates and a large yellow ribbon on the rear lift gate) and is even uglier now (with one headlight shattered and a skinned bumper).

My wife and I both think that new vehicles will help to raise our self-esteem and give us better self-images, get us to work and home from work with less frustration, and generally make life smoother, both physically and psychologically. I know that is reading a lot into a car purchase, but sometimes our physical environment determines our mental state to a large degree. It would also enable us to use some of the loan money to take a much needed vacation together, giving us a low-stress weekend of quality time to reconnect and enjoy each other's company. We need a weekend getaway more than you could imagine. It will also allow me to purchase a new game system or maybe even a second home PC so that I can actually check out new games and playtest them, since I am supposed to be doing this for my game store job, so that I can make recommendations to customers. We get sample games to playtest and have the ability to check out games for this purpose. We are expected to do so frequently to keep abreast of all the newest and hottest games on the market, but I have not been able to do so, since my only game system is a badly outdated XBOX and my PC is a few years old. So, I guess that even this is for the best.

"Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out."
- Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Casey At the Bat

In other dreadfully depressing news, my team... the team that my mother watched while she rocked me as a baby... the team that my brother followed fervently from the time he was a child... the team whose stadium was the place where I spent many bright days of my early childhood... the team I made a pilgrimage to watch in the days after my brother's death... was eliminated from playoff contention on the final day of baseball season yesterday. The Mets, who were almost considered a lock for the playoffs, suffered one of the worst pennant race collapses in the history of America's game. A team that led the division by 7 games with 12 games remaining in the season, completed a total meltdown and lost the division by a single game on the final day of the season to their rivals, the Phillies yesterday.

"Well, that's baseball. Rags to riches one day and riches to rags the next. But I've been in it thirty-six years and I'm used to it." - Casey Stengel

I am still in shock and saddened. A day after John Maine flirted with the first no hitter in franchise history as late as the 8th inning, and struck out a total of 14 batters, their playoff hopes were obliterated by the Marlins, who scored 7 runs off future Hall-Of-Famer Tom Glavine in a single inning. Even when the Mets are winning, they are still seen as the underdogs, the lovable losers. Those "Amazin's" as Casey Stengel called them, always seem to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I can definitely identify with them. They are my team.

"If anyone wants me tell them I'm being embalmed." - Casey Stengel

"If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

2007-09-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Jimmy Buffett, Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes)

"We're getting older and older, and older
And always a little further out of the way..."
- Counting Crows, August and Everything After

On Wednesday morning, I was a bit nervous with the task ahead of me. I was faced with being the manager on duty and opening a store that I had never even seen before, working with an associate I had never met, and reporting to a manager I had heard horror stories about.

In short, everything went fine.

I made it to the alarm system before the delay expired, accomplished all of my opening tasks without any problems, and discovered that I had already met the store's assistant manager at a July 4th party at Chad's house a few years ago. We remembered each other from the party, so it gave enough familiarity to make things a bit more comfortable. The manager doesn't seem to be as formidable as everyone told me she was, of course she could just be waiting until she knows me better. She also seems to have a sense of humor, which I didn't expect.

"I make the changes, the changes that I need
But I no longer know how to pray
And I'm living in a dog town and it's a dalmation parade
I change my spots over and over
But they never seem to fade away
Now I am the last remaining Indian
Looking for the place where the buffalo roam
In August and everything after, man them buffalo ain't never coming home..."
- Counting Crows, August and Everything After

This store also does far less business than the game store that I have been working at, so there is a bit less urgency in the tasks, but a bit more boredom at times. The customers seem friendly, for the most part. Yesterday, a customer came in from the other store and we started talking about Chad and how we had known him for a long time (though, having known him for about 23 years, I won that contest). Later, when I was at the CD store for my closing shift, the same customer came into the store... except he wasn't a customer. He is an employee of the company who was hired to complete the inventory for that store. Along with him, I am building a rapport with several other regular customers of both stores, so things seem to be going fairly well on the work front. If only I could win a small lottery jackpot or make some other windfall so that we could catch up and pay all of our outstanding bills, maybe enough to pay off our mortgage and get two working cars... at least I dream big. I guess I would have to buy lottery tickets and be extremely lucky, or know someone old and rich who likes me a lot for that to happen. Oh well.

Speaking of two working cars... our car (not my dad's car, which has problems of its own) is having electrical problems again. We had it repaired in August for the samed problem and now it is happening again. I took it back to the shop this morning and brought my receipt from August. It could be a fuse, a connection, or the alternator. At any rate, it is going to cost us more money that we don't have. Since I have to leave for work in a few hours, I hope the shop calls about the car soon. Even working both jobs, its been impossible to catch up, with extra expenses and problems that keep cropping up here and there.

"Sometimes a high wall is just a wall
Sometimes it's only there to make sure you feel small
Or maybe there to save you
From the depths of a much deeper fall."
- The Wallflowers, How Far You've Come

Last week, while working at the CD store, the co-worker I was working with was sick. He was congested, with a sore throat and flu-like symptoms. Guess what happened to me? I've been taking Airborne and loading up with vitamins for about a week and I feel like I'm about to beat it, but still it hangs on.

After my last post, several of you mentioned that I seem to be "in tune" with the spirit world. I have been known to show a bit of the psychic gift from time to time, so I do have something about me. I have also known two "practicing" psychics, who have said things to me about this. One, the mother of a friend I have known for almost 25 years, refused to read my cards when I was a teenager. She told me that I was a psychic magnet of sorts and even when she was reading cards for others, she refused to read mine. She never told me specifically why, she just told me that she wouldn't do it. She also told me that when I was around others who were "attuned" to the paranormal, strange events would be frequent. Many of my paranormal experiences have happened when her son, or another friend of ours, Tracy, was present. She considered both of them to be somewhat sensitive, though not as much as she considered me. The other, a friend of mine for a few years who moved away about 5 years ago, was a part-time "ghost hunter." She told me that, while many people have a spirit or two around them occasionally for one reason or another, that I had a veritable "spirit train." I never took too much stock in this, but she would often leave the door open for a bit after I entered the house because of it. I never quite understood it, but wrote it off to her quirky nature and accepted it. I have always had some strange friends. For what it's worth, I have definitely not exhausted my supply of paranormal stories, and actually have some of my best ones yet to tell.

"We are a psychic process which we do not control, or only partly direct." - Carl Jung

A few years ago, I had an experience similar to the one I wrote about in my last post. I was at my friend Cameron's house. At the time, we were both teachers in the same school district, but at different schools. I was sitting at his dining room table, looking towards the two guest bedrooms of his house, and he was sitting opposite me. There were a few other friends at the table, as we were playing D&D at the time. I looked at Cameron and saw a tall, thin woman, with short blond hair standing over his left shoulder, in the archway that leads to the two bedrooms. I recognized her immediately. I told Cameron that I wasn't sure what it meant, but that I was seeing the superintendent of schools for our county standing behind him, looking over his shoulder. She looked stern and unhappy. Not many weeks after this, Cameron was called into a meeting with our superintendent, and eventually lost his teaching job (that is a sordid story in itself, as he was not guilty of anything that I haven't seen happen in classrooms all over the county). Was my vision of the county superintendent supposed to be some warning or portent of the future? I suppose so. I've had similar experiences often enough to take them seriously.

"In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell." - Norman Mailer

Another person that I know is going through the same process of losing their career due to the vicious, vengeful nature of these "beach people" as we have come to call them. He and I have gone through many similar things. We both have ADD and have a lot of other things in common. I watched the television show House for the first time the other night, and he explained this syndrome the best I have ever heard it explained. He was treating an autistic child and one of the other characters on the show remarked on how different the child was from everyone else. House replied, "Spoken like a true circle queen." He then explained that most people who are reasonably affluent and raised with a sense of entitlement and a feeling of the importance of "fitting in" see someone who doesn't fit in, and they consider that person to be "outside of the circle." Residents of the circle feel a need to do whatever necessary to bring the non-circle person into the circle at any cost, breaking them down and doing whatever necessary to bring them to the expected, or "normal," modes of behavior. Failing that, those inside the circle do everything within their means to destroy the "non-circle" person, making an example of them and the cost of living outside the circle. I will conclude with the relevent quote from the show.

"Spoken like a true circle queen. See, skinny, socially privledged white people get to draw this neat little circle. And everyone inside the circle is "normal". Anyone outside the circle needs to be beaten, broken and reset so that they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized. Or even worse - Pitied." - Dr. House, House

“True gamers don’t get sleep. That’s how we do it.”

2007-09-25T01:39:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Jesse Jones)

"Many planned to keep the party going all day — forgetting about school, work, doctor’s appointments or anything that could possibly drag them away from their handheld controllers." - Lisa Roberson, Chronicle-Telegram

I just got home from work. I can report an extremely successful launch event for the Halo 3 release, at least for my store. There was pizza, black and green balloons, and Halo 3 Game Fuel, a Mountain Dew product branded exclusively for the game. Big Papa Rob kept the crowd under control. After all, nobody was really up for a fight with a guy that big, at least 6'3" and over 300 pounds, at midnight. Everybody just wanted to pick up their copy of the game so they could hurry home and play.

"Dawn: When men of reason go to bed." - Ambrose Bierce

The winner of Saturday's Halo 2 tournament was escorted to the front of the line to receive his free copy of the new game. When I arrived, about a 30 minutes before the official release, the line was 2/3 of the way to Wal-Mart, located at the far end of the shopping center. By midnight, the line was all the way to Wal-Mart. I'm not sure how many copies we sold tonight, but we had over 350 pre-orders last time I checked.

At midnight, Rob started letting people back into the store. He kept both of our registers at about 2 people in line at all times. Two of our best cashiers worked the registers (I'm not nearly fast enough yet), while Chad and I backed them up, handing them each customer's product, bagging it, and pre-stuffing bags with brochures and discount cards for the local appliance rental store that loaned us big-screen televisions for the tournament and tonight's release. Things flowed smoothly and it was a lot of fun. We had all of our customers taken care of by 1 a.m.

"It's no surprise that video games have replaced movies as the No. 1 entertainment choice for the younger generation. Halo 3 is like the best science-fiction action film, except you're the star, you get to play with your friends and this time you can also be the director - creating your own battle zones and sharing them with others over Xbox Live." - Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

I have a few other things I neglected to mention in my last post.

First, another of my former students came into the game store Saturday night. He was a student involved more directly in something that helped me decide to leave my teaching career. On the final day of exams, he skipped his first class by hiding out in my color guard instructor's office. This caused him to fail the exam and the class. In my meeting with my principal two days later, it came to my attention that this student told his teacher, his father, and the administration that I told him to stay in the band room and skip his exam. This was definitely not true. The administration chose to believe his story over mine and one assistant principal, who I never got along with in my 8 years at the school told me I was lying during that meeting. My principal told me that I caused him to fail for the year and not get promoted. In my opinion, he caused himself to fail, especially since his story about me keeping him in the band room was a lie he told to avoid getting in trouble with his father, a wealthy local businessman, for skipping class.

"Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty." - Henri Frédéric Amiel

I actually responded fairly well to seeing him in the store. There were no punches thrown, no harsh words, and I had a decent conversation with him, ignoring what he had done, pretending it never happened. I figured that there was no sense confronting him about it. What was done is done. He is a child and I am an adult. At any rate, I talked him out of $60 by selling him a game, which he bought purely on my recommendation.

The other occurrence which I meant to mention in my last post happened on Thursday or Friday, I don't remember right now. It falls under the category of strange and possibly paranormal event.

I was in the guest bathroom of my house, washing my hands at the sink, which is right next to the bathroom door. This places the bathroom door to my right and the rest of the bathroom to my left. I am looking into the mirror, when over my right shoulder, I see someone enter the bathroom behind me. Assuming that it's my wife, since she is the only other person in the house, I take a step forward so that she can walk behind me, between me and the open door, which is against the wall directly behind me. I look over my left shoulder and she does not emerge from behind me, so I turn around to see where she went. Not seeing her, I then assume the entered the library/game room to the right. Turning to check there, I call out for my wife, who responds. She is just coming out of the master bedroom on the other side of the house. I have no idea what or who that was, but I clearly saw someone, roughly my wife's height, walk behind me. There is no way it could have been her.

I am still working on 80's blog details. I have to work q double shift tomorrow, with the game store in the morning and early afternoon, while I close at the CD store. I will let everybody know what's going on as soon as I figure it out myself. I'll also try to respond to comments tomorrow, or as soon as I can. I want to read people's blogs and find out what's going on in everybody's lives, but I just haven't been able to find the time.

We were supposed to go to Wilmington this evening (before work), but due to an accident that blocked the highway, we drove exactly 1 mile in 25 minutes, then another 6 miles in the next 15 minutes, so we called and cancelled the appointment.

Take care everyone. Have a good week!

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." - Emily Dickinson

"I get up every morning and go to work each day..."

2007-09-23T08:27:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Bruce Springsteen, The Promised Land)

"It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality." - Harold S. Geneen

It has been a busy week. I know, they're all busy weeks, but this week I haven't been working double shifts almost every day like I did last week. I only worked at the CD store on Monday and Tuesday, then the rest of the week, just at the game store. Yet, the week has seemed even more full than last week.

I have worked mostly closing shifts this week, so mornings have been my "free time." On Monday morning, I helped my friend Matt move. It was sad, yet it has reconnected me somewhat with that group of friends of which he was a part. On Tuesday morning, I posted about helping him move and did some other things on the computer. On Wednesday, I had to go to work earlier than normal for a closing shift, so I didn't get much time to do anything before work. Thursday is my day for my appointment in Wilmington, so I left home at around 8 a.m. and pretty much went straight to work as soon as I got home.

On Friday, I had my first solo run at opening the game store. My friend Chad, the manager, was nervous and protective about his baby. He had never let anyone go solo so early in their training. I did fine. He called several times and even called his long-standing assistant manager for reassurance that I would be fine by myself. The store was busy the entire time I was alone, but I handled it fairly well, and got the opening duties completed, along with the inventory duties that go along with opening the store each day. Overall, I think it was excellent training to open by myself and have to answer all of the customer questions with nobody else to rely on for help. It helps me to learn. Often, when we have someone else to rely on, we use them as a crutch and ask them things we already know just because we don't think we know them. Being forced to do it reassures us that we can indeed do it.

After work on Friday, I went to the parking lot to discover that in the morning's rain showers, I had left the lights on in my dad's car. I can open a store by myself, but can't remember to turn off the headlights on the car. So, I called my wife to bring the jumper cables, which are in our car, since we had battery problems early in the summer. My preoccupation with all things work related made me leave the lights on (when I left the car in the morning, I was repeating the alarm code over and over in my head) and thus, I arrived home an hour later than I anticipated.

"Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers

During the first week of employment at the game store, sales percentages of target items do not count. Our target items are pre-order reservations for soon-to-be-released games and subscriptions to our store magazine/discount program. Even though it didn't count, I still made a passing grade by surpassing the 6% necessary. Here's how it works. In order to pass for the week, 6% of all qualified transactions must include at least one of those two items. If I remember correctly, my final percentage for the week was 11%. This past week, I set out to do better than that. Since I am training to be a manager, I reasoned that my percentages should be among the highest in the store, and that the percentages of others should also be higher when they're working with me. I didn't check my final numbers for the week last night, but they will be posted on the board in the back room. The last I checked, I was over 20% for the week and I had assisted several others in raising their numbers. At one point during the week, my rates were as high as 33%, second highest in the store, but with some in-store festivities and long hours the past three days, those numbers fell back to earth somewhat. Still, I'm pleased with my performance.

Last night, I was working with an associate who has been employed by the store part-time for several months. I had the opportunity to train him to do some things that he had little experience with doing. I have been there for two weeks. Chad told me later that I am, without question, the fastest trainee he has ever had, and for me to be able to assist in providing training to other employees was amazing to him. In preparation for the release of Halo 3, we had a Halo 2 tournament in the store last night, so I didn't have to do the closing duties, since the registers would be open until the tournament ended at midnight. Chad said he regretted that I would miss out on the practice, since I begin floating to other stores this coming week, but he said that he felt sure that if he threw me in a store and said close by yourself, that I would be able to do it without any major problems. He told me that the district manager wanted me on the fast track (which I knew) for management training, but that he would be surprised by how fast things were going.

"It is hard to go beyond your public. If they are satisfied with cheap performance, you will not easily arrive at better. If they know what is good, and require it. you will aspire and burn until you achieve it."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I also received a call on Friday evening from the manager at the CD store. He told me he had waited to do any scheduling for the store until he found out what my schedule at the game store was, so he could work around it. The previous two weeks, he had scheduled the store first and then filled in the shifts I could work and worked them in around his schedule. Particularly this past week, he made little effort to give me any hours. I was fairly sure that this past Monday was my last day there. I gave him a few shifts I could work, since I wanted to hold out and not work every spare moment that I am not working at the game store, and he filled out his schedule and texted my shifts to me. He gave me plenty of hours without overloading me, which I greatly appreciated. Why this sudden change of attitude on his part? It seems that last week, on Friday I think, our store got "secret shopped." The company has a program of evaluating stores using "secret shoppers" who go to the store and ask key focus questions and rate the level of help, friendly service, and target sales they receive. There are about a dozen points of evaluation, including asking if they belong to our discount program, asking if they would like to receive a free trial magazine subscription, putting product into their hands, instructing them on how to use the listening and viewing stations, informing them that we buy and sell used CD's, DVD's and games, etc. I was informed during the course of my conversation with the manager on Friday evening that I had been the associate who had been "shopped." I had earned a perfect 100% rating. The last employee to be "shopped" was the 19 year old who was recently promoted to assistant manager. His rating was an 82%, which earned him the praise of the manager, and the promotion. Standard procedure is that the shopper reports to the corporate offices, who then send an email to the store, which includes the ratings and a full report of the "shop." This time, the shopper actually came back to the store and visited my manager to tell him how amazing my service was.

So, it seems that my performance in both jobs is being recognized as outstanding.

What a difference from how my achievements were rewarded in my teaching job. The last time I went to my principal to inform him of my "superior" ratings (highest possible scores) at both concert and jazz festival this past spring, I was rewarded with a warning for upsetting too many band parents. My ratings were not recognized or acknowledged in any way. It is nice to see that the real world can recognize good performance at times. I know I am far from perfect in either job, and that I need to continue to strive to learn more and do better, but I think I am making a good start.

I have received several questions about the proposed "80's Blog" I have mentioned a few times. Assuming that everyone who originally expressed an interest is still interested, that would mean that myself, Ingrid, Zirelda, JYankee, and now possibly Laurie Anne would be the contributors. I think that is plenty to get started. I will set it up in Blogger, since that is where pretty much all of us already have accounts. Any topics relevant to the 1980's are fair game, from politics and headline news, to fashion, pop culture, celebrities (including "where are they now?" articles), movies and music. With that many contributors, each of us need only write once a week. That would mean 5 posts per week total, one from each of us. I will be emailing you with more specifics and to get things finalized. That will happen tomorrow, since I am free from work for most of the day.

"There are those who said this day would never come. What are they to say now?" - Prophet of Truth, Halo 2

That reminds me. Tomorrow is my "day off." It is the first "day off" I've had in weeks. I have to drive to Wilmington after my wife gets off from work, because I had to reschedule my appointment for tomorrow evening, since I am opening a different branch of the game store on Thursday morning. I have to be home and report to work at the game store tomorrow night at 11:30 p.m. and work until 1:00 a.m. I know, I said it was a day off, but with only a little work, it still counts, right? The reason I have to go in so late is that it is our Halo 3 release party. We don't close the store at 9 p.m. as usual. Instead, we stay open until 1:00 a.m. and begin selling copies of Halo 3 at midnight. The next day, the store opens at 8 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. to continue selling this highly anticipated game. It is the biggest game release in history. There have been far more pre-order reservations for the game than total copies sold of the original Halo. We have a person on staff who serves primarily as bouncer for these special events and we only allow 4 people into the store at a time, beginning at midnight, to purchase the game. The line in front of the store will be incredibly long. I've even seen people set up tents in front of stores a day or more in advance to hold their place in line. I know from my time as a teacher that up to 40% of the male student population skips school on days of big game releases like this (as well as Harry Potter book release days), but it is not a "kids" event. Since it is rated M by the ESRB, you have to be 18 years old to purchase (our tournament last night was ages 18 and up only). That means that anyone under 18 must have a parent present to purchase the game. It also means that a huge percentage of the people buying this game are adults, so it will definitely be a big event. I've included a game trailer below and I'll be sure to give you an eyewitness report from the "front lines" as soon as it's over.

"I have defied gods and demons. I am your shield; I am your sword. I know you; your past, your future. This is the way the world ends."
- Cortana, Halo 3

"The wind went and pulled me into the hurricane..."

2007-09-22T10:32:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Something Corporate, Hurricane)

"It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning." - Charles Dickens

In September of 1989, I was a 19 year old college student, a sophomore music major. My parents were over 200 miles away, back at home. It was hurricane season. In the 9 years that my family had lived in the Myrtle Beach area, we had never known a major hurricane. Sure, a few of them had passed through the area and my dad and I had prepared things the best we could, taping windows, clearing the yard of potential flying debris, tying down the storage buildings, and similar things. We even had a tree from the yard next door fall into our yard once, tearing up the concrete pat that had been poured around it. My dad and I cut it up after it fell and cleaned up all the debris. Once, we realized in the middle of a minor, category 1 hurricane that we had forgotten to tie down the storage buildings. We had two metal sheds with a carport built between them to shelter our golf cart. We ran out into the storm, with my mother shining a flashlight from the back door, and tied the buildings down, staking in the thick rope with tent pegs that we hammered into the ground and tying it to the sturdiest of our trees as well. All the while, we were pelted with things... acorns, pine cones... pine cones with sharp spines on them. They hurt and left painful welts on our backs and shoulders. My father made it a point of pride that he never left our mobile home during a storm. Only the foolish would run from puny hurricanes!

Still, we had never known the fury of a real storm. In September of 1989, that changed. On September 11th of that year, a tropical wave moved off Cape Verde, Africa. By September 13th, this tropical disturbance became Hurricane Hugo. While still well out to sea, Hugo became a category 5 storm, but mercifully weakened to category 3 before slamming into Puerto Rico, causing huge amount of damage in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean.

"We've got a low pressure system and a northeast breeze
We've got a falling barometer and rising seas
We've got the cumulonimbus and a possible gale
We've got a force nine blowing on the Beaufort scale."
- Billy Joel, Storm Front

After moving back over the open Atlantic and into the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, Hugo regained some of its strength and once again became a category 4 hurricane. As Hugo approached the South Carolina coast, I called my parents and began begging them to leave. I was sure that a storm this strong would destroy their mobile home, only about a mile inland, and if my father's stubbornness made him stay home, I feared for his safety.

I must have effectively communicated my fears, because my mother started calling hotels along the route they would have to take inland. My dad was working as head of maintenance at an ocean front high-rise condominium, so he had to be one of the last to leave the building after everything was secured. In the final few hectic moments of preparations, while he and his crew were locking the elevators down at the level of the third floor, to keep them secure and above the potential flood level, he dropped his Mag-Lite down the elevator shaft. The flashlight was still on, but time was running out and he decided to leave the light at the bottom of the shaft and pick up my mother to head for whatever hotel she had found.

When he arrived home, he discovered that the evacuation for this storm was unprecedented and that the nearest hotel room was in Asheville, NC. This was about 6 hours away in ideal driving conditions. I told them to start driving and I would find them a place to stay.

I went to the music building and started asking around the department to see if anyone had a place for my parents to stay. My trumpet teacher had a mobile home on the lake nearby, but the projected path carried the storm over that lake and I didn't want them to drive 200 miles inland, only to be in a situation that was just as bad as the one they left.

My piano teacher had a friend with a spare bedroom upstairs. She made a quick phone call, and my parents now had a place to stay for a few nights. When they called from a rest area pay telephone, I informed them of their lodging arrangements. They were flabbergasted to discover that a family who had never even met them, and had never even met me, were going to take them into their home. They were overwhelmed by the hospitality and generosity of these strangers.

Meanwhile, I quickly signed the volunteer roster when the college posted them, looking for volunteers to respond to emergencies on campus during the storm. The projected path was now calling for the storm to pass directly through the town where I was attending college, and where my parents were now going to be staying.

The storm made landfall just north of Charleston, South Carolina on September 21st. Hugo flooded the city and caused huge amounts of damage. The most devastating winds were in the northeastern part of the storm. Sullivan's Island and the Isle of Palms were hit particularly hard, along with the small fishing village of McClellanville, where a high school that was being used as a shelter flooded, forcing the terrified occupants to climb into the ceilings to escape the rising water.

"Ah, it's hurricane season
Batten down the hatches boys
It's hurricane season
Rain blurred on a night like this
You'd think there's nothing left on earth
The wind measures out the size of my bones
and tries to tell me what they're worth
Then it all starts up, gets out of control."
- Billy Pilgrim, Hurricane Season

While my parents went to sleep in their strange surroundings, I stayed awake in my dorm's common room with the other volunteers. Occasionally, a campus official would enter and assemble a crew to respond to some occurrence on campus. We were watching reports of the storm on the large screen television in the basement common room. There was a reporter driving in the Myrtle Beach area and bright flashes could be seen to the south. The reporter said that it was probably transformers blowing out due to flooding. We were pretty confident that even if the storm passed directly over us, the damage would be minimal, since we were 200 miles inland, but according to news reports, the storm was retaining much of its strength even as it moved inland, spawning tornadoes along the way.

"Well, the wind is blowin' harder now
Fifty knots or thereabouts,
There's white caps on the ocean.
And I'm watching for water spouts
It's time to close the shutters
It's time to go inside."
- Jimmy Buffett, Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season

Before long, I was put on a crew and sent out to the college's administration building to secure the basement doors, which had blown open in the high winds. We went out in heavy raincoats with chain and padlocks and rope to secure the doors. With this accomplished, I went up to my room, where my roommate was sleeping with the television on. I dried off and tried to sleep. It was after 2 a.m. on September 22, 1989. The storm had turned to the north and was now going to spare my college the worst of its winds and rain. Unfortunately for the residents of Charlotte, North Carolina, the northward turn took Hugo directly into that city.

In the morning, I went to where my parents were staying and we went to breakfast together. The restaurant was showing news reports of the devastation my parents were trying to call friends who had stayed behind to ride out the storm. In the days before cell phones, it was proving impossible for them to reach anyone, and equally impossible for any of our family in New Jersey to reach us to find out if we were safe. We quickly saw news reports about our town. The reporter was standing in the median of the main highway into the Myrtle Beach area and National Guard troops were not allowing anyone into the area. He was reporting on how the towns of the Grand Strand had fared and he mentioned that Garden City was 90% destroyed. This was our town.

Our family in New Jersey heard the same reports. They weren't even sure if my parents had gotten out of town. My parents were sure that our mobile home was gone. There was helicopter footage of our area, showing mobile homes strewn all over the landscape like toys. Things did not look good.

Due to my father's job, he had a work pass to be among the first to return to the area. He called the highway patrol and found out when he would be allowed to return. We also got in touch with our family in New Jersey, who were greatly relieved that we were safe.

After a couple of days, my parents were allowed to return home. They called me when they arrived, and told tales of National Guardsmen patrolling the streets. My dad had to show his work pass at checkpoints all over town. Everything east of Highway 17 was closed to everyone except those with high priority passes, like my father's. Our house was still standing. The awnings were ripped off several of our windows. There was a hole the size of a basketball in the living room wall, which extended through my dad's recliner. The sand that had passed through this hole had sanded down the wooden tables in the living room, wearing off the finish. The back door was also missing. Whatever had entered through the living room wall evidently passed through the recliner and out the back door. It was, most likely, a large pine cone or similar object.

I quickly made arrangements to drive home to join my parents. My brother was still in the hospital in Columbia, so we didn't have to worry about his safety. He was okay.

When I arrived, I saw the damage in our neighborhood and began taking pictures. My dad told me that what I was seeing was nothing compared to what he had seen down by the beach. The next day, I drove him to work, keeping his pass in the car after I dropped him off. I drove all over the Garden City area, taking pictures of the horrible damage. Even my father's warning didn't prepare me for what I was to see in the area east of Highway 17. I took over 200 pictures that day.

When Hugo hit, it left almost 6 feet of sand on Waccamaw Drive, the road along the beach. All of the ocean front pools and decks were gone. Water had risen to the second floor offices of the high-rise where my dad worked. His office was gone, as was the ground floor store and restaurant. He was surprised to find his flashlight, still illuminated, at the bottom of the elevator shaft. The silver coating on the lens reflector was worn off, but the light still worked fine. I recoated the reflector and we used that light for several more years. It was a testament to the strength of the Mag-Lite. We wanted to write a letter to the company, but never ended up doing that.

When my wife and I moved into our new house about 4 years ago, my photo album of pictures from Hurricane Hugo was misplaced in the move. My wife and I launched a thorough search of the garage this morning, finally locating the album. She scanned a few of the pictures, so that I could post them here. I will end this post with a photo tour of the destruction that I found that day while driving around with my dad's work pass. I've always been fascinated by storms, from simple thunderstorms to tornadoes and hurricanes. One of my favorite books is Isaac's Storm. These pictures document the damage brought to Garden City Beach by Hurricane Hugo. There have been many worse storms before and since, but this one was personal.

"...what a lovely adventure begins, hurricanes and all." - Richard Bach

"Another autumn, a travelers guide..."

2007-09-18T09:36:00.000-04:00

(title quote: Wilco, Summer Teeth)

"Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer’s out of reach
Empty lake, empty streets
The sun goes down alone..."
- The Ataris, Boys of Summer ("Who the F*** Is Don Henley?")

I guess I haven't noticed it as much the past few years. After all, I've been far too consumed with the work of being a band director for far too many Septembers and Octobers to notice much. This is the time of year when band directors are busiest. The countless hours of band practice that begin in late July lead to football games in August, which occupy every Friday night from then into November. In September, the practices increase in hours and intensity, in preparation for marching competitions, which last from late September until the first Saturday in November.

"Woke up this morning to nothing I recognized
Everything changed and I never saw it coming."
- Jupiter Sunrise, September Girl

It always just seemed like it was sunny and unbearably hot when you started practicing and suddenly, without warning, somewhere along the way, it got cool, and then downright cold. You went from wearing short sleeves in the bleachers, while the kids sweat in their "summer uniform" shorts and t-shirts, to wearing sweaters and a jacket, while the band huddled for warmth in wool uniforms that went suddenly from providing way too much warmth to providing not nearly enough warmth. The "band moms" went from pouring much needed ice cold water on Friday nights, to pouring much needed steaming hot chocolate from the big orange coolers.

"Just outside my window I hear the late September dogs
And I understand their warning I understand their song
Since you left I feel the change in the air
And night after night I'm searching for mercy everywhere."
- Melissa Etheridge, The Late September Dogs

I remember a Funky Winkerbean cartoon that my wife clipped for me years ago where a character starts talking about how great fall is, including mentioning that the leaves are so pretty when they change colors. To this comment, another character, band director Harry Dinkle, replies, "The leaves change color in the fall?" Anybody who has even spent a few years in marching band, especially as a band director, knows that it consumes this particular season almost completely. The years seems to jump abruptly from summer to winter. I'm sure that's why I didn't notice.

"There is a harmony
in autumn, and a luster in its sky,
which through the summer is not heard or seen,
as if it could not be, as if it had not been!"
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

What I'm noticing this year, and remember from my memories of the distant past, is the feeling of nostalgia, and even melancholy that accompanies this time of year. I think I noticed it for the first time on Sunday as I walked from the car to the mall where the CD store is located. It was a gloriously cool, sunny day. On the way to work, I saw hundreds of cyclists competing in a bike race on the road that I take (which is ready to become an interstate, I-74 I think, when the project gets to this point). There is something about the air that just makes the day look different.

"My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane."
- Robert Frost, My November Guest

I remember this feeling from college. I think that is when I noticed it the most. Beginning my junior year, when I met the girl I eventually married, I established a large group of close friends. We spent almost all our time together and often took spontaneous road trips. It helped that I had bought a mini-van over the previous summer. We went for day trips into the mountains, went tent (and van) camping at state parks, and packed picnics to take to parks. Sometimes it was just my wife (to be) and I, while sometimes others of our group of friends accompanied us on these trips. We frequented the mountains of North and South Carolina, with Table Rock, Caesar's Head, Chimney Rock, Paris Mountain, Molly's Rock, King's Mountain, Dreher Island, Landsford Canal, and Asheville/Hendersonville being among our favorite destinations. Since our college marching band only performed at home football games, we had about every other weekend to enjoy these outings.

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

One of the best trips was one that Barbara and I took with just the two of us to Chimney Rock, near Lake Lure, NC. We spent the day hiking the trails all over the mountain, even climbing to the top of the 404 foot Hickory Nut Falls and drinking from the stream, as close to the source as we could get. We stopped for lunch that day at a picnic table along the road into the park and ate sandwiches and apples amid the falling, multi-colored leaves.

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree." - Emily Bronte

There just seems to be this sad beauty in the air of September and October. Sounds carry differently. Flocks of birds wheel through the sky. As a baseball fan, the game that, to me, is far more than mere sport, is nearing the completion of another season. What began on a beautiful, cool spring day, is nearing a conclusion on these beautiful, cool autumn evenings. Fall brings endings and beginnings.

"The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear." - William Cullen Bryant

It was fitting that I went to my friend Matt's house yesterday morning to help him load the truck for his move. He should be leaving as I write this. We had a good time together. Another friend, Patrick, was also there helping with the move. We lamented the things that had kept us from spending more time together, mostly the traumas of my recently departed band directing career. We exchanged promises to keep in touch. We sat in a garage full of boxes and talked of the past and the future. Matt said, "I just want things to be right, and I'm afraid I've done screwed up too much in my life for that to ever happen." Aren't we all.

I wish him the best. I hope we meet again.

Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water's warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin

I don't recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin

- Death Cab for Cutie, Summer Skin

My job at the CD store has pretty much wound down to an end. I don't work there anymore this week, but I have offered my services, and will call in my schedule on Wednesday, in case he needs an occasional shift covered. I will miss Sean ("Sonny G"). We got a lot of praise on Sunday when we were working. One customer, a lady in her forties with bright red hair, told me she comes into the store if she sees me working when she walks by, because I always help her find what she's looking for. Another customer, an older man, told Sean that he only comes into the store if Sean and I are working, because we always have time to answer questions and help people find things, while other employees seem to be in a hurry to get to other tasks and don't spend the time helping customers. I don't think Sean knew what to say to me Sunday after we closed the store. Our usual playful banter was replaced by an unusual silence. He didn't really even look at me much. I don't think he knew what to say, knowing that it might be the last time we work together.

"Out on the road today, I saw a Black Flag sticker on a cadillac
A little voice inside my head said, 'Don’t look back, you can never look back.'"
- The Ataris, Boys of Summer

Fall is a time of endings and beginnings.

"The gifted never stop seeing the world for the first time."
- Jupiter Sunrise, September Girl

"I feel like a stranger from another world, but at least I'm living again."

2007-09-15T10:18:00.000-04:00

"I don't need a doctor
to figure it out
I know what's passing me by
when I look in the mirror
sometimes I see
traces of some other guy."
- Blue Rodeo, 'Til I Am Myself Again

After three days in a row of working double shifts, then a day of driving to Wilmington and back before I worked my closing shift, yesterday's single shift was a breeze. The good news is that there don't seem to be to many more, if any, double shifts in my immediate future.

I was correct about the CD store. I am still on the schedule for Sunday and Monday, my days off at the game store, but I don't seem to be on the schedule for the rest of the week. The manager told me all his other shifts were now covered. While it is not the best financially, it is the best in terms of getting life back to normal, whatever normal is.

I closed at the CD store last night with the manager, who was initially quiet towards me, but after he showed me that I wasn't on the schedule beyond Monday and I didn't react badly, he was extremely friendly towards me, perhaps even more friendly than normal. I think he was relieved that I didn't respond negatively to the reduction in hours, but I knew that working that many hours at both jobs was going to get old and tiresome quickly. I am wondering if he will even have me on the schedule beyond next week, but whatever happens is what happens. I just hope that the game store job continues to improve.

I work a closing shift today with my old friend Chad, the first time we will have worked together, or even spent this much time together in about 18 years. Hopefully it goes well. I am hoping he can cleanse his mind of his impressions of who he thinks I am (which, while we were out of touch was based mostly on updates from my parents, which do not always resemble reality) and learn who I really am. I sometimes feel like some of my old friends have me on a pedestal (since my parents tend to portray me that way, through the rosy haze of bragging, even about things they don't like about me, which may not even be accurate).

"It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power." - Blaise Pascal

When some of my closest friends from high school come to town to visit family and other friends, they often don't contact me. My guess is that they don't think I'm any fun. Now, I know this seems strange, but for years, especially while I was living out of the area, their only contact with me was often through my parents. When they came to town, they would call or visit my parents, who would tell them "all about my life." The first few years after I moved back to town, they would visit my parents and then visit me. Now they have mostly stopped visiting me. It's true that I don't normally frequent bars and don't drink very much in the way of alcoholic beverages, but I wouldn't mind going out on special occasions when a friend is in town, or even have a drink or two with them. I especially wouldn't mind the invitation. If they want to get totally disgustingly drunk, they're welcome to continue drinking after I excuse myself. It would just be nice to see and talk to them when they come to town. My parents see me as a "goody two shoes stick in the mud" because I don't drink very often, don't smoke at all, attend church fairly regularly, and try to live my life as respectably as possible. I feel certain that their portrayal of these attributes contributes to keeping my friends away when they visit, especially since they are still in close contact with some of my friends' parents (one is a neighbor of theirs).

"What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions." - Walter H. Pater

As I said, I just hope I get the chance to define who I really am to Chad. It is annoying and frustrating when people form an impression of us that does not equal who we really are. They box us in and form expectations for our behavior based on inaccurate representations and attempt to deny us the chance to break free from those confining and inaccurate molds. I am the type of person who likes to not only break those molds, I like to shatter them completely and then rebuild the correct impressions.

"The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I got in touch with my friend Matt, who is moving to Gatlinburg on Tuesday morning. His girlfriend, which I guess could be properly considered his common-law wife by our state's standards, is leaving him to live with her father. They have had an extremely volatile relationship for the three years I've known Matt, so it is probably for the best, except that she is taking their son with her. Matt loves his son more than life itself, so he would never deny that she is the best one to properly take care of him, but he also can't stand to be away from him, so he is moving to Gatlinburg to be only a few hours away from his child, instead of a day's drive. I'm planning on going over to his house Sunday evening after work to help him pack. Matt is a good guy. I can't think of too many other people, if any, that I would rather have at my back if things got ugly. He would give his life for those he loves without any questions asked. I hope we can stay in touch somewhat after he leaves. He is a dyed in the wool West Virginia redneck, who also happens to be one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I know, though you would never know it from a casual conversation, from his southern twang to his conversations about his guns, his truck, and his infamous drunken exploits. He is an engineer who designs sewer treatment plants and other major public works projects. He will definitely be missed.

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand." - Irish Blessing

"You're in a world that's hard to just fit in..."

2007-09-14T09:28:00.000-04:00

"But you don't have to be like them."
- Amber Pacific, Dear _____, This Has Always Been About Standing Up For What You Believe In

I have been "on the job" at my new job for four days. It is a different world indeed than the CD store. The rhythms and tasks are completely different, yet similar in ways that make it difficult to keep the processes separate. I'm sure my co-workers, especially the ones that have been assigned to train me, are sick of hearing me say how we did the same, or similar, tasks at that store when they show me the way they do it at this store. I know that it has to be annoying, but it helps me get it straight in my mind to compare the two ways of doing things like closing paperwork, counting drawers, selling the membership card, etc.

Yesterday, though there were long stretches of boring down time, I started to adjust to the rhythms of the job. I worked a shorter shift due to my weekly appointments in Wilmington (didn't have time there for photos or sightseeing this week, since this store is a bit more of a drive to get to work than the CD store, which is about 30 minutes closer to Wilmington), but it was still 6 hours. I found out shortly after I arrived that I would be assigned all closing duties while the employee who is training me was assigned to watch and play the role of "dumb associate" as much as possible, unless I really got stuck.

This employee is a key holder at the store and has been there since it opened. She is not in management, but is extremely reliable and knowledgeable. She would like to manage her own store someday, but is still a college student and her sales percentages (of title reserves - pre-selling a game that will be released soon; and membership subscriptions - monthly game magazine plus discount card) have kept her out of the management ranks. She has been a great trainer and I sensed some resentment that her hours have been reduced both because of her new semester of college starting and because of my arrival. As soon as the chief assistant manager walked away, shortly after my shift started, I told her that I was sorry for taking her hours and that I thought she was an awesome worker. I meant it. She has been very helpful. She was caught off guard by that, but I think it helped her to see me in a different light. I really didn't intend to take anybody else's hours or position away from them, and she needed to hear that from me.

"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful." - Mark Victor Hansen

By the end of the day, she was celebrating my small victories with "high fives" and calculating my percentages of reservations and subscriptions every time I made one. Today, my fourth day, was the first time I had gotten either. They don't count towards employee ratings for the first week, but they do look good to the district manager if an employee with little retail experience, such as me, can make a passing grade during the first week. I got my first reservation with an assist from the chief assistant manager. She wanted to show me how to complete the transaction in the computer, so she helped me sell one. Then I sold a subscription a short time later. Then, throughout the day, I sold 4 more reservations (they really area good deal - $5 down payment on a game that is soon to be released - the money goes towards the price of the game, and the number we receive is based on the number of reservations, so if they don't reserve it, we may not get it in stock), leaving me with an "A" grade and causing a bit of celebration. When I closed the store, I didn't have any problems with the tasks involved, having assisted with closing many times at the CD store, and although I don't like math at all, I can do much of it in my head, thinking to the next calculation while the adding machine is processing the current task. My trainer was astounded at my mental math, checking it behind me (though I did only the final calculations this way, using the calculator to do everything else, and checking it against the machine to make sure it was correct) as I went. I am a person who calculates running baseball statistics in my head every time I watch a game. I am that guy in the stands with the scorecard figuring batting averages, earned run average, slugging percentages, etc. This, along with statistical calculations for the pencil and paper role-playing games I play, has greatly helped develop my mathematical skills. She was shocked when everything came out accurate to the penny. She told me she has never been able to get the closing counts accurate to the penny. I told her that it wasn't her fault that she had people who couldn't make accurate change working registers for her when she closed. We had a good staff yesterday, so it made everything easy. A week from today is my true test. I have to open the store alone. Not just by myself with someone watching, but completely alone. I should be fine.

Over at the CD store, my manager forgot what time I was supposed to come in on Wednesday night. He wrote it on my copy of the schedule, but not on his, so the assistant manager on duty called me about 3 hours before I was supposed to arrive, wondering where I was. He had been working alone, unable to take a break, for two hours already. As soon as I clocked out at the game store, I drove straight to the CD store as quickly as I could get there and allowed him to take a break. There was some resentment towards me for not being there when I was (incorrectly) expected to be there, on the part of the manager and the assistant manager (who, in my opinion, should not be in a management position - he is a 19 year old, fresh out of high school, who did not have good grades, does not have any people skills, and has become increasingly abrasive since he was given a management position about three weeks ago). Essentially, due to my greatly reduced hours and an employee they terminated last Saturday, they are extremely shorthanded. The store is in this situation because the manager forgot that he told me he was cutting my hours, forgot that I told him I had secured another job because he was cutting my hours, and forgot what time I was coming in that night. Now, I am being held accountable for the mistakes of management.

"Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies." - Robert F. Kennedy

The manager had promised me quick training and promotion to management during my interview and when I was hired. Those promises turned out to be false. I like the manager and my co-workers at that store. I like the job. However, I should not be held accountable for the management not having a firm grasp of the details of the job. If you have problems remembering things, then as a manager, you should be aware that you need to write them down. You should not, as a manager, promise a prospective employee as position you do not intend to give them just to get them to take the job. I told him when he hired me that my first priority was to pay my bills. If I couldn't meet my mortgage and other expenses with the salary and hours he would give me, then I would have to continue searching for another position. I told him in my interview that the game store was considering hiring me for a management position as soon as one became available. As soon as he told me he was cutting my hours, I told him that the game store had offered me a management position and that if he was cutting my hours I was accepting it the next day. He told me that was all the notice I needed to give him to accept the other position and that he would appreciate it if I would continue to work an occasional shift so that he could keep me on payroll in case our situations changed. Then, he terminated an employee and increased my hours on the next schedule, after I had already accepted the new position, which I had already informed him I was going to do. Now he is resentful because his store is understaffed and I can't work whenever he needs me anymore.

"All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income." - Samuel Butler

I also told him that I would bring him my schedule on Wednesday and he could use it to make his schedule, which he always made on Fridays. Wednesday night, when I brought in my schedule, he already had his schedule completed, with me being scheduled for shifts that there is no way I can work, because I am scheduled at the other store. Being a key holder and management trainee at the game store, I have to make their schedule take precedence. So, I sense that my hours at the CD store will be greatly decreased in the near future. That is fine with me, since I can't continue to work double shifts every day and have no days off to attend to life. Unfortunately, when he checked the hiring system on the computer (all applications at the CD store are handled online), there were no applicants for his store in the system at all. We shall see how this all plays out.

I have continued to have encounters with the ghosts of my previous life.

After my caller ID incident of last week, I had another, similar incident at the CD store (the game store doesn't have caller ID). On Wednesday night, when Joey (the ASM on-duty) was taking his much needed break, immediately after I arrived, the phone rang. I grabbed the cordless handset and, as I normally do, read the caller ID screen as I reached for the "talk" key. The name and number on the screen was that of my principal from my recently ended teaching job. Being committed to answering already, and trying to conquer the demons of my past, I pressed TALK and answered the phone. To my great relief, it was his daughter, the one which he compared me to in one of the meetings in which he chastised me before I resigned. She told me she would be coming into the store to pick up a CD in a few minutes. Since she didn't remember me, I had a little fun with her when she came in, just generally having a good time and cutting up with her while she was in the store. Being ultra-nice was my small revenge. I have a tendency of killing with kindness when most people would do otherwise. She really is a nice person, who has had difficulties getting her life together, perhaps the result of an absent father who is dedicated to taking care of other people's children more than his own.

The second incident involved my final customers at the game store last night. I knew that sooner of later some of my former students would come into the store. Last night, with ten minutes remaining on the clock, it happened. The two former students, Nick and Chris, didn't know that I was working there. They had been in touch with me some since I resigned. I have previously written of how much Nick's support meant to me in the days immediately following my resignation. These two students are the brass and woodwind captains, and they have always been inseparable. I was very close to them when I was their teacher, and they were very surprised and happy to see me last night. We had a good conversation, and I even sold a Halo 3 reservation to Nick. It was a positive encounter, but now the other students will know I am there. Word will spread to other students and then parents. Once again, we shall see how this plays out.

The third incident, which was actually the second incident chronologically, once again occurred at the CD store (interesting that I was frightened of these things happening at the game store, but so far, 3 of 4 have occurred at the CD store). I received a text from my former color guard instructor informing me only that "someone died." My heart sunk. I excused myself from the register and went into the back room to find out what happened. I turns out that the mother of 2 of my former students died after an extremely brief battle with pancreatic cancer (the same cancer that claimed the life of Luciano Pavarotti a few days ago). Not only was she the mother of these two students, she was also the aunt of a student that became almost like my son.

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mahatma Ghandi

This young man, called Daus (because his last name was close to Haagen-Dazs of ice cream fame and the band always loved to give nicknames to promote camaraderie) did not have a father at home. I quickly took him under my wing. He was a very mature student who was always insanely strong and fearless, though he was really a teddy bear underneath that exterior. After his graduation, I introduced him to my friends, as he also played role-playing games, and the entire group adopted him. When I moved about four years ago, to be closer to my job, church, and parents, the two guys who were supposed to help me move didn't show up, but Daus showed up and brought a friend and his friend's father, an ex-marine, to help me move. Daus is still a legend in the band room for his strength, determination, and kindness. When he helped me move, he carried heavy furniture on his back, while running. He always ran from place to place because he didn't want to waste his life walking. He and his girlfriend saw my wife and I as role-models, and occasionally came to the house for ice cream and conversation.

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." - A.A. Milne

After graduation, he tried the local technical college and an apprenticeship at the rescue squad, but he wanted more immediate gratification. Daus wanted to help others more than anything. He wanted to be a paramedic and rescue people from situations that others would run away from. So, he joined the army and entered medic training. He was soon accepted to airborne training and joined the 82nd Airborne. He is currently serving as an airborne medic in the Middle East, based in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, but making forays into the worst parts of Iraq. He is living his dream of rescuing people in situations that would make most men run in terror.

The band parent who died Wednesday was his mother's sister. The family has always been very close. Her daughter was participating in a semester abroad in their home country of Italy when her mother died, and Daus is in the Middle East on active duty. I feel bad for the family, and they are definitely in my prayers.

A friend of mine called the other night and got the answering machine. He said that he was going to be moving on Monday and wanted to get together over the weekend. It will be difficult with my work shifts right now, but I really want to see him before he leaves. My friendships really suffered from the stress and hours of my band directing job, so I have not been in as close contact with my closest friends as I would have liked. Matt is a great guy who has had my wife and I over for Thanksgiving dinner, since he has no family in the area. I will miss him even though I haven't seen him in months. The fact that I won't be able to choose to see him will be difficult. I am going to call him today and see if we can set something up for this weekend.

Finally, did anyone catch the season finale of Rescue Me? I am wondering if there will be a fifth season with all of the resolution that was given during that episode. Wow! As Seiche has said, it is the best show on television, no exceptions!

By the way, I have not forgotten about the "80's Blog." I am still looking for one more writer. Come on, I know that there are more of us "children of the 80's" out there.

Also, I haven't given up on replying to everyone's comments. I will catch up on that as soon as I get a chance and have a few waking hours that I'm not working. I look forward to reading everyone's blogs and commenting again as soon as possible too.

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." - Winston Churchill

"Some things I may have taken for granted again and again..."

2007-09-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

(title quote: The Academy Is..., The Phrase That Pays)

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place." - Washington Irving

Yesterday was the first day at my new job. I haven't started the writing yet, because I wanted to get the transition into this new retail job settled a bit before I added another challenge, but I'm starting to settle in, so maybe by the end of the week, I will be ready for that.

First, I must say that the corporate climate at my new job is drastically different than that at my music store job. I have learned that my dear friend from high school really hasn't changed much over the past 20 years. There is much more of a pecking order at this new job than at the old one. Since I am a management trainee, I immediately jumped a few stations in that seemingly rigid "caste system." At the music store, the manager does just as many menial tasks as the newest part-time associate. At the game store, management is rarely expected to do such things as vacuum, dust, or straighten merchandise on shelves. I am being trained by an assistant manager and a 3rd key candidate. The ASM shows me how to do a lot of management tasks, and the 3rd key candidate helps me learn how to handle dealing with employees like her, who will be under my leadership. It's not nearly as exciting as the music store, but can be fun at times and the pay is better. The maturity level, even among the adult employees, is significantly lower than at the music store. I am going to withhold judgement for a while until I learn the job better, but so far a comparison between the two jobs is not like apples and oranges. It's more like apples and pork chops. I'm keeping an open mind. I will be writing more about it as I gain more experience.

"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing." - St. Augustine

Other than having sore legs, I don't feel any more tired or stressed after working double shifts for the past two days than I did previously. Once again, we'll see how I'm doing at the end of the week. So far, I have come to the conclusion that my old job condition me to long hours and high stress to the point that I'm actually getting better at problem solving and making sales as I'm more tired. I'm a night person anyway, and I think I've been getting more sleep since I started the double shifts because I am consciously taking care to avoid burning myself out. I just want to make sure I have a good handle on the new job and feel that I am going to stay with it before I burn any bridges with the music store job, since I currently like that job better. It just doesn't provide enough income to pay the bills right now, even if the writing job starts paying what I expect it to at first.

I really haven't had the time to promote this blog as well or as much as I was before, so the number of visitors I've been getting each day has greatly declined since I had my crisis a few weeks ago. My visits have dropped to about a third of what I was getting per day before. I'm going to be renewing my effort to write every day, comment, and reply to comments, but I'm not sure what else to do in the time I have available to get my number of visitors back up. Suggestions are welcome!

Today was my wife's turn to be involved in a car accident. She was stopped at a traffic light when a SC Department of Transportation truck slammed into the back of our car (now both of our cars are damaged). She called me for advice, herself inclined to not call police, but I advised her that if there was damage to the car, she needed to call it in. She said she felt fine physically, but is now quite sore from the impact. It was hard enough to leave her with a huge welt from the seat belt and cause her head to impact the steering wheel. The rear bumper of our car is damaged, but is likely not even enough damage to meet our deductible. Her neck is now sore from the incident, but we are also currently between health insurers, so she declined being examined by the EMT and has so far decided not to get checked fro injuries. I have warned her about the dangers of pinched nerves and other injuries, but she doesn't want to cause any more negative impact to our already fragile financial state. It is just impossible to get ahead.

"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour. " - Arthur Schopenhauer

The other day, I went to the bank to make a deposit. The teller had to bring a bank manager over during the transaction, who asked me if I was aware of the current balance of my account. I informed her that I was indeed making a deposit and was well aware of the balance. She still felt the need to say in a conspiratorial tone, "Well, I just want you to see how low it is." Then she wrote my balance on a sheet of paper and showed it to me. The next day, I received a call at home from the bank. The teller informed me that she had given me fifty cents too much change in the cash I received along with my deposit and that I was to bring that change back to the bank immediately. I was working during bank hours that day and the next. Then it was the weekend. She called again the next day asking where her fifty cents was. On Monday, my wife made another deposit, only to be chewed out by the teller for not bringing the fifty cents to the bank sooner. She paid the fifty cents, but we are both pretty upset about our treatment by these bank employees. We feel that if our account had a much more significant balance, we would not have been bothered so much for the fifty cents. That just doesn't make sense to me. I'll bring the fifty cents on my convenience, not theirs. After all, it was their mistake, not mine. I'm still not sure that I actually received fifty cents too much change and would love to know how they decided that I was the one who had received the extra change. It just makes me want to move my account after both my wife and I were treated like children for this. I know ti would have no impact on the bank if we moved our account, and that if our account was important enough to matter to them, we would not have been treated that way.

"Arrogance and rudeness are training wheels on the bicycle of life -- for weak people who cannot keep their balance without them." - Laura Teresa Marquez

Finally, I know that for myself and my fellow Americans, today was an important day in the history of our country. September 11th, 2001 changed the nation irrevocably. That day changed us collectively and individually. It changed the way we view our government, and it changed our government. It changed the way we view our fellow man, altered our level of trust for people of different nationalities than our own, and our response to that day changed the way the rest of the world views us. The brick that is 9/11 has been mortared into place in our nation's construction. It cannot be removed from the edifice that we have become. It is right there. If you look around, you can spot other bricks that have been permanently secured into place, such as Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, and even July 4, 1776, which is our nation's cornerstone.

"History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days." - Winston Churchill

No matter what opinion you have of the events of that day, and our nation's reactions to those events, it is undeniably one of the dates that everyone who was living at the time will always remember where they were and what they were doing at the time. At age 37, I have a few days like that behind me. For example:

I remember exactly where I was when I heard the radio announcer proclaim that Elvis Presley had been found dead at his home. We were on our way to eat dinner at The Barrier Reef in Sussex County, New Jersey.

I remember where I was when I found out that John Lennon had been killed. I was eating breakfast, preparing to leave for school, when I again heard the news on the family radio.

"Hard times, baby well they come to us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day."
- Bruce Springsteen, Waitin' On A Sunny Day

Finally, on September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my desk in my office at the school where I was teaching, the one I just left a few months ago, when my father called. He was at his job as a golf pro... okay, not a real golf pro, he works at a miniature golf course, with the television on when the show he was watching was interrupted with the breaking news that a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He called me immediately to share the news. I couldn't turn the television in the classroom on right away, but did turn it on in time to see the second plane hit. The only people with me were my wife and one of my students, who had late arrival but always came to school at the normal time to hang out in the band room, work on homework, and talk to me about life. That was actually a common thing for students with late arrival. They came to the band room because it was often a better place to be than home. We kept the television on for the rest of the day, as did pretty much every other teacher in the building. We helped the students to process the information the best we could before we turned them loose into the world, many of them to homes where they would have no other people to talk to or help them deal with the emotions and fears they were feeling.

“There is a history in all men's lives." - William Shakespeare

I cancelled marching band practice that day, but we played football on Friday night. It was an away game and security was tight. It actually started raining early in the game, and we quickly abandoned the bleachers and boarded the buses for home. Many events around the nation were cancelled, but South Carolina high schools played football. Not too long after, we had our annual Saturday All-Day Band Practice. A lot of information and misinformation was still being reported at that time, and the students heard the news during our lunch break that we would be going to war. Many of them were nearing selective service age, or had siblings and friends who were, so they were struggling with the conflicting emotions of considering military service, or worrying about the possible reinstatement of the military draft. There were a lot of emotions rampant that day. Our traditional performance at the end of the day (we rehearsed from 8 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and then gave a final performance for all parents and other invited guests in the stadium at the conclusion of the day) was awesome and the students bonded that day. There were a lot of tears, and circles of students joining hands for spontaneous prayer. I endured a great deal of criticism for allowing students to pray together in the end zone after practice, as well as for allowing my student leaders (mostly seniors, some considering military service) to mention these topics and events in their addresses to the other students just prior to our final performance of the day. As far as I was concerned, if it was the predominant topic on their minds, it needed to be shared and worked through while they were still all together and had each other to rely on for support.

Think what you want of the event, or of our reactions to it, it is still the anniversary of something incredibly significant in the history of the world. Everyone who lived through that day will have distinct memories of not only that day, but of the weeks that followed.

“I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now." - Sophia Loren

"Go work in retail and spare the suspense."

2007-09-09T23:04:00.000-04:00

(title quote: The Academy Is..., Black Mamba)

Wake up think fast, three weeks have passed. We are changing. No sleep, no gas, no excuses will pass these lips because were shapin' up to be all you wish you could have been to write the hits and to turn their heads and to open eyes (open your eyes) to a brand new season, a brand new season.
- The Academy Is..., Season

I guess it's pretty easy to tell what I was listening to on my ipod on the way home from work today. The Academy Is... is a Chicago band who recently gained a lot of attention with their second major label release, Santi. I prefer their older stuff without question and don't even own Santi, so I was listening to what I consider their best CD, Almost Here. It's a great CD and I highly recommend that you at least give their itunes clips from this CD a listen.

Back from commercial...

"Yesterday is calling you,
Won't let you get away..."
- William Tell, Yesterday Is Calling

Yesterday, I had a rather interesting and, for me, quite troubling experience. I think that at some point, we have all known someone, or several people, who cause strong negative feelings within us whenever we see them or hear their voice. If you've ever had caller ID, you have probably experienced those visceral reactions whenever you've seen their name appear on that tiny little screen. With my former job, I have had many such people in my life.

I've stated before, and I'll reiterate, that people in the Myrtle Beach area seem to have an entitlement mentality. They think that others exist to clean up after them, solve their problems, and do their bidding. Once again, this attitude was rampant among my band parents.

Over the past eight years, there have been several names whose sudden appearance on my caller ID or cell phone display while the phone was ringing caused a strong negative reaction within me. This reaction was sometimes purely mental, but sometimes had physical manifestations. I would often make excuses to not answer the phone because it was easier to find out what they wanted and investigate what it would take to resolve the situation than it was to speak to them without warning. They were judgemental, demanding people who seemed to think that their problems and wants were the only ones I had to deal with. They knew no boundaries and would call at any time, often multiple times each day for many days in a row, with things that had to be taken care of immediately. Often these were mundane, low-priority tasks, upon which they placed an inflated sense of importance and urgency. I don't know what causes this mentality exactly, but it was one of the things I hated most about the people I dealt with in that job.

My manager at the CD store mentioned today that out of all the retail stores he's ever worked in or managed, this store has the worst record of customers being inconsiderate. They think nothing of picking up stacks of CD's or DVD's or games and taking them to a listening/viewing station, then depositing all of them in a huge pile somewhere out of the way, making no attempt to return them to any semblance of order. When these people leave the store, there is merchandise scattered everywhere. They seem like extremely nice people. They just think that the people who work in service related industries exist solely to take care of them. I know it is part of my job to clean up the store and take care of customers, but these people would never, I think, leave their own belongings in this condition.

“For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment." - Mark Twain

Yesterday, I was reminded of one of those names in a forceful manner. Though I have not been diagnosed with it yet, I am fairly sure that I am suffering from some post traumatic stress from the deaths of my former students, including the suicide, and other stressors that occurred in such close chronological proximity over the past few years. Yesterday was one of a few times since I left my last job that I have approached having what I would consider to be a panic attack. My manager left the store for his dinner break, leaving me alone in the store. A few minutes after he left, I was finishing taking checking out merchandise for a customer, when the phone rang. Reflexively, I grabbed the cordless unit and glanced at the caller ID as I reached for the "TALK" key. I froze in panic when I recognized the name on the device. It was a name that has haunted me in the past. It was the name of a former band booster club president who used to call me every day, multiple times a day, just to check up on me, remind me of what tasks I had to accomplish at work and what needed to be done, find out how I was doing, and generally overstep his boundaries.

“The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past." - William Faulkner

What could I do? I had to answer the phone, and my reflexes were already causing me to press the "TALK" key and hold the phone up. I answered the phone as I was trained to do, with one exception. I did not identify myself by name. I also changed my speech patterns and vocal timbre slightly, while not exactly talking in a strange voice. I let a little more of the "New Jersey" slip into my speech than normally occurs and spoke a little more rapidly than normal. The voice on the other end of the line belonged not to the man whose name appeared on the caller ID, but instead, to his son. I taught his son my first year at that school. He was a great student and my teacher's assistant and percussion captain. He served as a percussion instructor for me for a year after he graduated. I didn't identify myself, or acknowledge my identity. Indeed, I left my voice in its "disguised" state for the remainder of the short conversation. He was shopping for a game for his Nintendo DS. We didn't have it in stock. End of story. Yet, I was still shaken by that name on the caller ID screen in my new life. I imagine that once I move into the area's main mall while in management training for the new game store job, there will be more encounters of this type. I'm going to have to condition myself to handle them better than that.

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." - Thomas Jefferson

By the way, don't think that changing one's voice is such an unnatural thing. I believe we all do it. Think about the changes in vocal attributes we make when talking to a child, a pet, someone who does not speak our language fluently, an older relative, our spouse, a doctor, one of "the guys" or any number of others. We make subtle changes to our speech patterns, vocal timbre, cadences and tone for almost every situation in which we find ourselves. When speaking to predominantly Southerners, I find myself lapsing into a bit of a drawl, speaking more slowly, and using words like, "y'all." When I speak to my family from New Jersey on the phone, I lapse into a more Northern vocal persona, with my pronunciations showing some of the New Jersey accent from my younger days, with words more suited to the conversation. Try to be aware on your next dozen or so conversations if you are tailoring your speaking to your audience. I bet you are.

Yesterday was supposed to have been the final day of employment for one of my co-workers at the music store. She had been employed there for over five years, and her commendations still hung on the wall of the back hallway and manager's office. Yet, it was obvious that she had become disgruntled, and that her heart was no longer in the job. She made careless errors, took shortcuts, and discouraged good work habits. She spent hours on the phone during her shifts, and even retreated to a corner of the store with her boyfriend occasionally. She was bitter and anti-establishment. Her employment predated the tenure of the new manager, and she was an interim manager while they replaced the previous manager. She resented that things were not done "the way they were always done before." She resented this new person telling her what to do. She finally reached an agreement with the manager to terminate her employment in a tense, but amicable state. Saturday, she failed to show up for her final shift. The manager was planning on allowing her to continue her employment after he was reminded that I would only be working the occasional shift after today, but her failure to arrive for work rendered that arrangement unworkable. He finished her "no re-hire" paperwork within the hour, and forwarded it to the corporate office via email.

Today, the manager, desperate to cover his shifts without hiring someone quickly and carelessly, asked me if I would work more shifts for him than I was planning in the coming weeks. I agreed, but will only do it until he finds a reliable part-time employee. I don't want to work two jobs every day for more than two weeks. I gave him notice that I was leaving, but he forgot and scheduled me anyway. I think he thought that if my co-worker was encouraged to resign and he gave me more hours, that I would renege on the other job and stay with him. Alas, I cannot do that. I don't want to ruin my reputation with the other company, my chance for higher pay, more hours and a management position, or my friend Chad's reputation, since he put that on the line to get me the position. So, tomorrow, I begin my new job, then drive to my old job and close the store. I will be working about twelve hours. I've done it for the past 8+, maybe 14 years, and it will greatly enhance our currently bleak financial situation, so it's no big deal, but I'm not going to do it for long. I need to focus on myself and my life, relationships and writing at this point. If I do it for longer than two weeks (on a daily or almost daily basis - I plan to continue working the odd shift here and there for him if he allows), somebody please come down her and slap me.

I must get some sleep soon, since I am working such long hours tomorrow, and training at an entirely new job, but I am going to relate one short, but spooky story first.

"...the beginning of the war between man and machines." - John Conner, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Once, when I was about 16, I was playing D&D with some friends in my room, which was originally my brother's room, but which I inherited when he was checked into the hospital on a more permanent basis. I had only recently gotten a VCR in my room. My parents had it for a short time, but never really learned how to use it, so when my brother left, they moved it into my room. We were gaming that night, when I noticed my friend Tracy (yes, he was present to witness the boy that disappeared from his neighbor's driveway that night from my previous story) staring off to my right and behind me with a frightened look on my face. He backed up slightly, as much as sitting on the floor of that small room would allow, and we followed his gaze. In addition to myself, his brother Phillip, our friends Charlie and Chris, were in the room with us.

We followed his frightened gaze to my VCR. The luminescent blue counter on the front of the machine had begun to count forward rapidly... much faster than if it was fast-forwarding a tape, and without any sound. We all backed up, a bit spooked, and the counter stopped. Phillip poked a pencil gingerly into the tape door to see if there was a tape in there, but there was not. I reset the counter to zero and we continued our game. Within a few minutes, the machine began counting again. This time Tracy pointed. Either Phillip or myself then reached for the power strip and pulled the plug on the VCR. The display on the front of the machine went dark and the counting obviously stopped.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

This would have been a spooky occurrence, except that what happened next was astonishing. Before long, Tracy uttered a strangled, "Uhh... guys..." and we turned to see the counter on the machine brightly lit and this time counting down... backwards... as if rewinding a tape. The clock was no longer lit. The DIGITAL counter on the machine was the only thing operating. We all hurriedly left the room, ending our gaming session for that day. I kept the VCR for a while after that, and it never behaved that way after that night. The only other strange occurrence with it was when it started eating tapes not long after that. After using head cleaners to no result, I thought about tossing it, but didn't have money for a new VCR (they were still pretty expensive in the mid-80's), so I opened the case (I earned extra money in high school fixing and installing electronics like VCR's, portable and car stereos and even LORAN fish finders... when I bought my first CD player, my stereo didn't have auxiliary input jacks, so I bought the necessary components from Radio Shack and installed them myself... nobody ever taught me those skills and I don't know how to do what I do, but when I open up the appliance, I find that my hands just seem to know what to do) and found a thick greyish-brownish goop on the silver drum inside the machine. There was probably enough of it to fill a bottle cap. I cleaned it off and the machine served me for probably another year or so.

I hope that short spooky story holds everyone over until I get to write something longer.

"I should feel safe, but I don't, so I live off the grid - no phone, no address, no one and nothing can find me. I've erased all connections to the past, but as hard as I try I can't erase my dreams, my nightmares." - John Conner, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

"You can forget all your troubles; forget all your cares, and go downtown..."

2007-09-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

"things will be great when you're downtown...
you'll find a place for sure downtown...
everything's waiting for you."
- Petulah Clark, Downtown

When I posted the pictures of downtown Wilmington last week, I had the idea that I wanted to get to a place across the Cape Fear River where I could get some panoramic views of the cityscape, as well as some additional photos of the U.S.S. North Carolina and a broadside view of the U.S.C.G.C. Diligence. I think the photos I took came out fairly well. They were taken from the parking lot of the U.S.S. North Carolina battleship memorial.

“A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one." - Aristotle

Wilmington is not a huge city. The population of its greater metropolitan area is only listed as 326,166 according to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, with a population of about 100,000 within they city limits. I know, to many people that's a small town. Around here, it's a city. It's population is almost four times that of Myrtle Beach and the population of the greater metropolitan area is more than three times that of the Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach's metropolitan area.

Like most cities, there is an active arts community. After eating lunch at a Thai restaurant downtown on Thursday, we browsed an art gallery about a block away before we had to drive back to the Grand Strand so that I could get to work on time. Last week, we saw a crew filming downtown. Many television shows and movies have been filmed in Wilmington, including The Crow, Dawson's Creek, and One Tree Hill. Okay, enough of the tourist bureau promotional sales pitch. Let's move on to the photos.

“This city now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air." - William Wordsworth

I've started from the east side of the city's waterfront. The large building in the center of the picture is the U.S. Customs House. The brick building on the far right was once a warehouse, but now houses the City Market.

I have shifted the perspective to the west. The U.S. Customs House is now on the right and the U.S.C.G.C. Diligence is on the left.

This view is another shift to the west, with Diligence on the right. The large white building is the Wilmington Hilton.

Finally, the far west end of the panorama. You can still see the Hilton just right of center with some boaters having a fun day on the river just in the foreground. The long, low brick building to the left of center, with a brick tower at the end of it is the former central office of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which is now CSX Transportation. The headquarters have long since moved to Jacksonville, FL, but there is a nice railroad museum, convention center, and hotel now occupying the building.

This is a closer shot of the City Market. The building with the green roof is where the riverboat Henrietta III is normally docked. It is North Carolina's largest riverboat.

This is another view of the handsome architecture of the U.S. Customs House.

This is a broadside shot of the U.S.C.G.C. Diligence, home ported in Wilmington.

This is one of my favorite photos, because it shows several "layers" of Wilmington, with the lower level of parking at riverfront street level and the upper lever actually at street level where the entrance is, about two blocks from the river. It also shows the layers of history, from the older riverfront buildings to the newer, taller buildings in the background. There are also some trees left in this area, and the Cotton Exchange, from my pictures last week, is just left of center, peeking through the trees.

Another view that I was really happy with is this photo looking up Market Street from the waterfront. I think it captures a frozen little slice of city life, and a nice view of the city as it rises away from the river. This was taken from the same spot as all of the preceding photos. I think my camera has a pretty good zoom to capture this much detail, including the pedestrian crossing the intersection, and the Guinness delivery driver walking around his truck. You've gotta love a city with beautiful tree-lined streets.

This is a shot of the stern of the U.S.S. North Carolina. The smaller craft to the right is the J.N. Maffitt, which is began life during WWII as a Navy launch vessel, but now serves Wilmington as a water taxi.

This is one of the U.S.S. North Carolina's seaplanes. These aircraft were used during WWII to rescue downed pilots from the aircraft carriers the North Carolina was assigned to escort.

“I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

That is my "photo essay" of Wilmington for this week. I hope I haven't turned into one of those hosts I remember from my childhood who bore all of their guests with slide shows from the latest family vacation every time you visit.

In other news: I am still searching for at least one more author for the 80's blog. We will discuss details and launch as soon as we find at least one more interested person.

I had an invasion from my "past life" today at work that caused me a great deal of stress, but I will need to learn to deal with that sort of thing if I'm going to be working closer to my former community of employment. I will relate that story tomorrow.

“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today." - Lewis Carroll