6/15/08
   Today's R.A.T. story comes from 1999, when I was driving a froggy green Plymouth Satellite names 'Sputnik'. I might have told the story, or some abbreviated form of it here at one time, but I want to flesh this out because it still sticks to me as rediculous. Bear with me if you've heard it somehow.
   Once upon a time there was a chain of repair places in the area called Martha Lake Electronics. They would take most anything in, mostly TVs but whatever required electricity and needed fixing, and they were based out of Lynnwood (where you find, duh, Martha Lake) but had a shop on 38th in Tacoma. They were hiring for counter people, so I turned in an application and was called up to Lynnwood for an interview. I got dressed up in my interview clothes and drove Sputnik there to meet the owner of the company.
   The first thing I noticed about this champion of industry was that he had a very tall bookcase in his office that was completely filled with management books. Some people are born leaders, others need a little guidance, and then there was this guy who had a hundred or so different manuals on how to lead people. Knowing that no two management books give the same advice, in fact some give contradictory advice, I suspected that this guy knew a lot about management but did not know how to actually do it cohesively. But hey, I've just met the guy so let's just see what kind of interview questions, likely culled from said manuals, he throws at me. He started with the standard ice-breakers about past experience and education, threw in the interview oldie of "where do you see yourself in five years?", and after this period of getting to know all about me as a person and student he then picked up my résumé to go over my work history.
   One of my previous jobs, which lasted all of two weeks but I put on the list anyway because it was one of the only things I'd done parallel to what I was applying for (that and my seven months at Radio Shack, their competition), was with a computer store in Olympia. The owner brought up this job and asked, "what was the manager's name again?" Since it had been awhile, I had forgotten the man's name so I said something that was pretty close -- "Rhinegeld" became "Ringgold" -- and the owner said said slyly "Oh, yeah, I know him," before asking me more about my duties. Okay. You lose the Jedi mind game, sir. I figured that this was a trick from a management book, that if the interviewee thinks the interviewer knows a past employer personally the interviewee isn't going to tell any lies. Which is true, if the interviewer doesn't blow all credibility by proving he doesn't know the person by not catching the name error.
   So his next manoeuver is to ask me to do this personality inventory, the kind that requires filling in ovals with a #2 pencil on a scan sheet while reading a thin quiz booklet. This is the kind of test where you know what the answers they expect are ["If you found a $5 bill under the till and the money in your till was balanced, would you: a) keep the money, b) report it to your supervisor, c) put it in the till, d) leave it under the till"], but you're a horrible person if you either answer every question "correctly" or if you answer them completely honestly, because either of those reactions proves you're a shifty untrustable dishonest person. He told me that the results would come in later because he would have to fax this answer sheet to Chicago. Okay. You're now full of shit. I've administered enough of these tests during my stint as a tutor to know how an overlay answer key works -- put this stiff paper with holes across it on top of the answer sheet, line up the dots, and mark on any spaces that aren't filled with pencil lead, then tally up the marks. That, and there's no way a faxed copy of anything is going to be gradeable with a scanner.
   The final nugget was when he leans back in his chair and says something about me applying for a management position. Hmm, no, the sign said counterperson and I was by no means (at that moment) qualified to supervise a store. He wants me to agree to apply for a management job. The catch, though, is that if I don't make the cut to be a manager, I am removed from consideration for the job that I was qualified for and had applied for. Interesting double-or-nothing situation there. I figured this was another management trick, looking for the people with leadership ability and aspirations, which seems counterproductive to me because why would you want a whole building full of people who think they should be in charge? As the old and totally un-PC notion goes, "all chiefs, no braves." Someone's gotta quietly do the work, you know.
   So I left the interview after being told it would be a couple hours before the personality test was graded by someone in the Windy City, so I went to an abandoned house on the Martha Lake waterfront, sat around on the dock for a long while until some construction guys showed up (and since I was dressed in business uncasual, I strode out without a word like I was a Realtor or county building inspector and no one said a thing about me trespassing), then went back to the office to be given the expected bad news that I failed my personality test and thus could not work in any capacity for Martha Lake Electronics.
   They went out of business within a year.  [contents of the auction of their assets in 2001]   --#2

3/31/08
    Once again I've failed to follow the schedule, and updated at 3 months instead of 2. And in the last month I've not quite held my schedule of posting stupid things to Everyday Stupidities weekly-or-better either. I think this happens to me when I have stuff to concentrate on, even if that stuff takes up very little timeslice in my days, as the case is lately. See, for the last six months I've been working in the internal helpdesk for a major brand name of travel service (which we will refer to here as PleaseGoAway-dot-cahhhhm), and it's been known all along that the department, staffed by contractors and one actual company employee, will be outsourced to a Canadian call center staffed by Indians (red dot, not feather). Seriously, 33 of the 36 people at the outsource center in Toronto have 'subcontinental' names... "you want some curry, eh?" It was a plan which was bantered for a long time until last month when the center opened, people were hired and trained, and in the middle of this month the phone system shunted most of the calls there. We here in the Seattle area have been taking occasional direct calls (the problem with giving your direct extention rather than the department number) and clearing out the influx of email support requests. But in a couple days, if not sooner, the email system will change and we'll get none of the support tickets either. So for a fortnight we'll be sitting around playing games, taking those rare direct calls, updating our résumés, and otherwise doing nothing practical – we'll be the backup in case the Canindians' system breaks. And then, we're outta there. I'm not worried about getting a new job, I'm just not giving it the quantity of thought I should. [Update: 3/31 - They've started cleaning house early, and now I'm free. Meaning I really should start giving it some quantity of thought!] Oh, an update from last time: my car got that $1500 of work done, so now my Check Engine light is off and I can pass county-mandated emissions when next they demand it. Chrome, R.A.T. #1, spent last weekend with me so I can prove he's alive though 'well' is subjective. He'll be back on April 11, his need for a mental vacation isn't fully sated.
    Years ago I met a girl who went by the name Zöe Ocean because "Tiffany" didn't define her well. She was exciting and distant, or maybe she was exciting because she was distant, and was several years younger than me so had no concept of what the real world looked like. Ignorance is bliss. I probably broke her heart because I wasn't who I was trying to be. Anyhow, there was a day while I was in the last year of college when she wrote to say that the spark that she saw in me had died and I wasn't the fun person she'd taken a liking to, and called me "stagnant". I responded that since I was trying to finish school and was concentrating upon what I needed to do and to preparing for where I was about to go (the big scary world), this was who I needed to be for the time being in order to survive and I'll be my bouncy happy self again once I'm past the markers. We lost touch for a span, then once she was starting to resemble a grown-up herself (husband, kid by the name of Kamper[!], college for her) we swapped a few emails. And it became evident from her writing style and stories that she had become the thing she hated; she was lacking perk because she had responsibilities and a focus on the end result, just like I did when the shine was coming off my apple. I think she realized this, but I'm pretty sure that I made it a point to tell her she'd been warned of what was to come. And that's probably where we lost touch again.
    I'll leave the first subject that comes to mind regarding ironies and stupidities, the political arena, alone (other than what I just put into the Rotating Rant) because there are just too many to report. This is probably nothing new, but in this particular race where the mudslinging of stating facts and reanimating history (like happens to Clinton and McCain) fails to take the wind out of anyone, making shit up and bantering it about as fact or "something to think about" is resorted to, most of which is levelled at Obama. Stuff I've seen pointed at him includes one camp saying he's a secret Muslem, as though it's a dirty word, and another camp I noticed the other day says he's a secret black radical, like he were a member of some circa-1968 Black Panthers organization. It's almost comical the depths stupid people go to in order to promote someone or smear someone... almost because no matter how patently false or extreme some of the charges are, or damning some of the true history is, there will be people who don't do the research or listen to the facts because it doesn't match their agenda.
    Now that you've had the heavy stuff, go to Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul and laugh at some found photo captions. --#2

12/29/07
    No, honest, I swear I did not change the posting schedule to every three months. I just... didn't get around to posting on time (every 2 months) the last six months, so there's technically an entry missing. Too late to make up for that now. I also swear that I don't mean to start every entry with an apology for its tardiness. Only one person has ever said "how come you're not posting?"... well, gee, it's really convenient to write on Blogspot's Everyday Stupidities, though I keep thinking that since it's not a site under my control I should snag some "best-of" articles from there and archive here (or on my hard drive), possibly similar to how when Azreal moved his phenomenal I Am A Japanese School Teacher blog from Outpost 9 to Festering Ass... lots of reruns for those oldschool readers. I'm thinkin' on it, and heck I haven't fixed all the link changes on this site from the April '07 transition from Earthlink to QualityHost yet... still no counter on front page! Not that anyone comes here.
    I have another old acquaintance resurfaced story, this as of a day or two ago (though technically it could have been earlier): I mentioned here (on October 6, 2002 and May 31, 2003, see the yearly links at the bottom of the page) a girl by the name of Cassie that I went out with for a little while when I was in high school. I mentioned her a couple times on Everyday Stupidities as well on October 31, 2006 and October 28, 2007. Since advertising pays, she found my Stupidities entries and has been reading my words for two years – but didn't let me know until the other day. Another thing she kept to herself until now was that she lived in Tacoma until this last autumn, therefore we could have seen each other in person and hung out. I'm sure I've seen worse "I didn't say hello until I had left" scenes (sound familiar, R.A.T. #3?) but the thing that matters is that the connection is made, not so much when or how. At least I now know why she kept coming to mind in the last year, though this does put into question whether that actually was her I saw somewhere as the story goes in one of the Stupidities entries (where I said I saw someone that looked like her) afterall. This story is just unfolding so I don't have any tales to tell, other than the little I know from one email and some blog reading: she's married with a couple sons, is a CPA for a petroleum company as her day job and sells fabric/quilts as an Internet sideline, her sister is a dentist up north and her esteemed mom is doing well in the family house I once knew. It's a great way to end 2007, having made that connection and received some update, and that more or less exhausts the list of "where are they now?" people I'd carried in my head. Or for the time being. *grin*
    So where am I in my life right now, leaving 2007 to enter 2008? I have a house and a mortgage payment. I have a cat who tolerates me. I have a spouse that's stuck with me through some bad times, even when I was totally the cause of whatever was bad. I had a dream job and I presently am a contractor at a nice, better-paying job that I know is temporary. I have three siblings, four neices and a nephew that I don't have any contact with. I'm gaining weight and hit age 40 recently, but I still have my hair! I'm doing home improvements with my own two hands, something I hadn't ever pictured, and this place is going to be amazing once it's done... not necessarily HGTV material, but HGTV-inspired. I closed the book on the person I'd needed closure with for two decades [see previous entry] and on another person that, bless her heart, I needed to stop playing footsies with, and opened a hopefully brighter chapter with someone with whom conversation has been sparce since she left the farm (and as said, capping off the year's end was another person that I'd wondered about, and I'm not making any guesses yet about); no other campers have shown up but I did pass along through another person an email I received regarding a couple campers I'd mentioned here so they can reconnect with someone that thinks well of them. My best friends are still my best friends. I have my health as far as I know. My wife has her health, such as it is. My cat has his health. We have money and we don't have credit cards. My car runs well though it needs $1500 of cylander repair done. I'm learning stuff about photography that my photography-teacher father never taught me (most of which isn't terribly technical so I still don't know what an f-stop is about). I am happy with my toys. I don't underestimate the blessings I have even when, as it's easy to do, I take them for granted. I hope that you, my rare and wonderous reader, have had good things you can reflect upon in 2007 (even if it's "light at the end of the mucky tunnel" glimmers that give you hope), and that 2008 will bring you even more great things. --#2

9/20/07
    If it has been nearly three months, it's time for a Daybook entry. Ecch, sorry folks, I've been meaning to get on with this for a month but always forget until I'm not near the computer or remember when there's no inspiration. Like a couple weeks ago, Chrome #1 was over for a couple days and we bantered about doing a combined posting, something we haven't done in a long time... and then we didn't. (But there were a bunch of other things we said we'd do but then forgot/neglected to do. We had no short-term memory or follow-through for some reason.) I still don't know what Emmer #3 is up to. "Five foot two, and less than the last time you saw me, but my eyes are still as blue" or something is probably what she'd say... ha ha! Ahem. Onward. I didn't say I thought of much brilliant to say (beside in the Rotating Rant), which is part of why this has been so slow to be updated. I did recently write three Everyday Stupidities blog entries in the span of a week, if that makes any difference.
    A week or two after that last entry, I got up the strength to close a chapter in my book of life, something one could argue I should have done about twenty-two years ago. I finally came to the "been there, done that, now I can move on" point in the story of Karen Strausbaugh. If you've been reading the Daybook more than casually, you will notice that I bring her name or image up at random intervals, especially in the last six months because we reunited. In the first paragraph of the previous (June 25th) entry I said that all was well in the world because I'd gotten to know a bit more about what the story was when we were 17 and learned who she had become as an adult who has her own 17 year old (and 14 year old) to raise. This realization of relief was the precursor to the next few steps to putting that ghost to rest. She was away from the computer for over a week on vacation, and this gave me some time to put my plan into action. I woke up one morning around the time she should have gotten back and deleted her email address from my addressbook, added it to the Blocked Senders list so I wouldn't get anything new, moved all her mail from the Incoming and Sent Items boxes into Trash and emptied the bin, and then took a moment to think about how that felt. I wouldn't so much call it unburdening as lightening. I didn't have a regret, just a little sadness that it had to end, with a little happiness that it was me who was moving the hands this time. A couple weeks later I took the next step: I took the bundle of letters and photos from way back out to the back driveway, arranged some rocks and pieces of slate into a pyre, and after a sprinkle of gasoline I set them alight. I'd thought about how I would do that for a couple days, thinking it'd be really neat to do this at the campfire at Lazy F, since I was going to be going to Ellensburg in a few days anyway... but decided I didn't need to engage in the symbolism, I just wanted to let this go. I wanted to restore the elements to nature, and I didn't want them to just sit somewhere being useless or get into anyone else's hands. So the letters and photos were cremated, the ashes scattered around my yard, and the rocks and slate pieces were put back where I found them like nothing happened... dust in the wind. And again, a moment of sadness that the visions were gone but a little happiness that I could see clearly. Of course I did keep one happy letter and a photo as a milepost for the journey, there isn't any animosity or regret to my loving her or to my finally coming to peace with her memory. I wish her peace and happiness, and I always have even during those periods that (it turns out) she was having none. Someone was cheering for her without being able to see the game, or knowing how often she got blitzed by life. And now, two decades and several hours together later, I'm confident that she's finally at a level playing field and has what it takes to win... and with that precious knowledge I have left the sidelines. Goodbye, Karen. Thanks for giving me a chance to get to know you for who you really are at last (and yay, me!, for listening this time).
    In the previous entry, I also said that I hadn't tripped across any new former campers, which is still true but not entirely accurate. During the period described above I received an email from Raberta, who I had mentioned further down this page in the 12/12/06 entry and whose history I told in the 5/12/04 entry (scroll to it) – short version of her private story, she was back in Ephrata because she'd left her husband of eight years (after being with him for about seventeen) and was on her way to start a new life with her friend in Alaska. Plans to see each other were delayed because of family stuff, then hastily reconstructed because her shipping date was moved up from a couple months to next week, so I drove 130 miles to meet up with her for an afternoon, and she brought her 5 year old daughter Liahna, who is an amazingly smart and beautiful little girl. She confirmed in word and deed what I said in 2004 here about our friendship: We might not communicate much but we know each other are there and we still care deeply for one another. It was like no time had passed, like we were still teenage campers but this time with some clue. But we're wise enough to know that there is value to the fifteen years that we spoke minimally and saw each other never (even when she was back in the state and didn't let me know until she'd returned home)... it let us grow, change, develop, and yet still need each other to remain in our peripheries. So in some regards, it was being reunited with an old camp buddy that I'd lost track of, even if I'd never actually lost her. Bless you, Bertie, and I wish you the best of luck in your new directions. --#2

6/25/07
    If it has been two months, it's time for a Daybook entry. I don't want to rattle on too much about what I've been doing since last time, though of course since it's been awhile there are things to say. Updating from last entry since you may have wondered (or not): yadda yadda Haven't done any further updating of this site to new location, and two Bill Ding videos are on his page; it's been interesting communicating with and seeing on 3-4 occasions the long-gone Karen and I can say that I've had the questions of two decades ago answered (let's not get into how this created new questions!) plus seen the family members I'd been curious about so I my long-held belief that "life is a circle" came true and my mind finds some ease in the old familiar places; work is fine and hopefully will continue for me (I'm not used to making outbound calls so need to acquire some confidence in making them, it's not like I'm telemarketing though it is still convincing someone to do something they don't wanna in many cases); the kitchen update has been put off indefinitely because of some automotive and dental bills, but I did renovate the fireplace from being a painted-white-by-crackheads red brick thing with a cast iron woodstove sticking out of it to a very pretty cream-colored tiled feature with a mosaic-tile frontpiece which anyone would be proud to have in their home. I updated Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul for the month of July yesterday, right on schedule. Now, time for some the R.A.T. observations I've been putting off!
    When I was in college, circa 1988, I landed a job with the Department of Social and Health Services in the downtown of the small 'berg I grew up in. This was my first real techie job and my first job involving a public agency. As anyone who has worked in an office with other people can attest, there is a steep learning curve between what you think the world of work is like, either by preconceived notion or by what you've been told in school, and how things really function. My primary objectives were to maintain the computers people were using, install software as needed, and help debug this database system that a coworker/classmate (who got me this job) was working on, "and other duties as assigned." For the record, I was never shown my job description, which did make for some amusing conversations with Higher-Ups about not how I wasn't fulfilling certain ones. The things I took away from this short tenure of employment were that people who do not know much about computers, which was most people in 1988, can be easily frightened – and how I don't recall anyone in high school or college cluing me in that such a job, or that specific office, was so Machiavellian. I'm not going to hash on anyone from back then (no matter how they need/needed it), but I will say that my eyes were opened by one particular person who did everything she could to get me in trouble for doing a task I was assigned which she normally did (and did in a messy, convoluted way) as well as by my supervisor's supervisor, my best friend's mom's brother that I'd sat down to dinner with a time or two in the past, who claimed I'd put a 'virus' on some computer using a disk he had left in the office (the actual issue was that the computer was on the same power jack as the photocopier, which damaged the hard drive controller; frequent fluctuations from 90VAC to 135VAC will do that to any equipment). I derived that state work sucks.
    Ten years later, circa 1998, I landed a job in the mailroom of the city/county building of county seat in a big city, mostly opening business tax payment envelopes and recording data. This was my first real large-office job and my first job as a temp. As anyone who has worked in an office with other people where there are regular employees and there are seasonal or contract employees can attest, there is a hidden dichotomy between the 'real' workers and the temporary workers. I was not yet aware of this caste system, I just wanted to get along with everyone and be a part of the group... the group, however, had no desire to regard me as a member because I wasn't fully one. Any effort to be 'one of the guys' was rebuffed and even regarded as some personal affront, it slowly became evident, and I noticed how cliquish that my regular-employee coworkers were. The other temps just ate their lunch alone and didn't talk to anyone, and it wasn't until later that I realized this was not because they were intending to be antisocial. It wasn't until somewhere after this job that I heard about the disparity between the employees and consultants at Microsoft, "the war of the badges" as they call it there. What I took away from this short stint was that everyone has a place in the bureaucrasy which shouldn't be transcended, and that the 'real' employees don't like to be questioned. The story on that observation is that, like many places where workers (in non-physical labor jobs) have thick employment contracts and Union representation, it takes an act of Congress to get them to either do their jobs with any vigor or change their habits. [Think about the Postal Service people at the counter. Yeah, you understand.] There was this woman who visibly did nothing all day, though I'm sure that can't be accurate. So I asked her once while she was leaning against someone's cubicle wall what her job was. Uh, I might have put more emphasis on the words "is" and "do" when I said so what exactly is it that you do here? than I should have – if you say those words in an even voice, it's not insulting – and that displeased her. But to thineself be true. I've been blessed in most of the places I've been in the last five years (with the noteable exception of that bank with the skeleton key logo, which was Machiavellian at the management and administrative levels; you'd think would have little reason to backstab anyone since they're already in charge?) that I've figured how to fit in and get my work done without constant conflicts, though there's always some toe that can be stepped on by not knowing The Unspoken Rules.
    And in case you wondered about the other Reality Avoidance Therapists... So have I. Chrome #1 spent a few days with me a couple weeks ago, and is making it through college and living with his half-brother so life is pretty okay. Emmer #3, hmm, not a clue. I haven't become reacquainted with any other Lazy F campers, but in looking at the camp schedule for this year my old buddy [slight overstatement] James Snook will be playing dean of the senior high group. He was a camper at the same time I was, and his father Wally was a counselor/dean for us. That's so cool! I always pledged as a camper I'd go back as a counselor but.... sigh, life took different directions, I moved away from the church, and I've learned enough about myself to know that I should leave the positive role model and camper guidance stuff to the positive role models and skilled counselors of the world. --#2

4/4/07
    Hello, faithful readers and Internaut stumblers. It's official, I've moved the site off of the Mindspring/Earthlink server it had been on since 2000 over to a hosting service. If you found this page through having dub-dub-dub Say Something Cryptic dot com bookmarked, excellent! If you found this page through the old Earthlink site unceremoniously bouncing you over, update your bookmark now. Chances are if you got here by a link in Google, it's using the old Earthlink site because the spiders saw the site for where it really resided and ignored the URL redirector I had been using, so again you should make sure any bookmark you create points here. Hopefully the spiders will find me and update the links soon. The move was smoother than I expected, once I found a good host and got things set up, and the Laughter is Spackle of the Soul site is lookin' good. (And there's a new version of the screensaver that was made for use with Vista!) This place, well, I've been meaning to go through all the pages to change references to the old server to the new one, and have done that with the pages that link from the front (index) page but not the stuff inside the Old Daybook and Past Rant pages. I'll get around to it, meh. Also, the contact email addresses for both of the pages have been conglomerated and if you want to write me (or the other R.A.T.s) about anything the address is now SaySomethingCryptic@gmail.com. Please, no angel-on-my-shoulder forwards and if you're going to write Emmer #3, bathe. For the time being there's no Guestbook Thingie™ for either site and I need to get a working counter on the front page of Cryptic. Finally, coming in a few days will be the next significant update to Bill Ding's shrine... a TV advertisement!
    I have even more proof that advertising (or rather, writing about people from the past in a blog) can make stuff happen. I have some catching up to do here... First: Shortly after that last entry, I heard from Dean Roettger. Seems he was checking the carte blanche of his name online (he's in real estate so this matters) and found this page. He wrote something which touched me [reprinted below with permission]... I told him about how I managed to get this new job after being told "you're not the right candidate" by the hiring same manager a month before:
Sounds to me like you took the same approach that I have always taken. It will make you highly successful at whatever you do. I have to tell you, I'm really proud of you, man!!! You applied the most valuable asset ever known to man that most people never get! When I read that they had sent you the brush off letter and you still kept going until you got it, I was absolutely ecstatic! I woke up my youngest daughter and made her read that portion of your email because that's what I've been preaching to her since birth. I'm really happy for you and with you on your new success!!! YOU ROCK, MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Second: About three nights ago I got this email from Karen Strausbaugh (mentioned several times in the Daybook over the years, most recently two entries ago on 12/12/06, and eleven months ago in this Everyday Stupidities post), the first I'd heard from her in twenty-one years (40 days from her 39th birthday). Unlike Ken and Bobby, she seems to actually want to communicate and (a real surprise) discuss as adults the things we couldn't find the words for as teenagers. This totally shocks and surprises me, and to be honest it's a moment I never thought would come and have wondered for a couple decades how I would handle. I can say that we're different people now than we were back then, so most of the guesses I created over the years have proven to be inaccurate. And for that I am thankful.
    I realize I'm not posting any Reality Avoidance (right now as I do this I'm in Work Avoidance... W.A.T.!) but that'll come again soon. So the last paragraph will be an update to the last paragraph of the previous entry, sorry. I am employed now! The beating I had to do on the hiring person in the previous entry worked, and I'm writing this from my desk at a business that specializes in trying to block phishing fraud sites from your browser and (for a price) removes them from the Internet. Thank you for the good karma, prayers, pleasant thoughts, good vibes, and screaming at the Illuminati to get me gainfully employed. And yes, the livingroom and hallway are painted in nice grey shades plus some new black cabinets have been obtained (see?). Next project is the kitchen, and it's going to cost about $8000 to order new cupboards/cabinets and $2000 for a countertop of some sort, so this is planned for the summer or early autumn. In the meantime I've obtained a new huge sink and a sexy brushed nickel faucet in anticipation of having a place to put them. Anyhow, back to work. Thanks for following the site to its new home! --#2

2/4/07
    I have further proof that if you say something on the Internet, especially blogstyle, the world will be able to see it. In the previous entry I told about getting contacted by a friend of someone who died in 1985, whose relevance to me had been described at least once in the past, and named names of a few people I'm curious about from Lazy F summer camp. There were some names I didn't name on the list, such as Ken "I'll try not to be offended that I wasn't on your most-missed list, but I didn't want my name on the Internet anyway" D., who emailed me a couple days ago courtesy of the net mention of other people we knew. That was just an odd bit of kismet there, because when I started thinking about people who should be on the list, like Stephanie Ball and Jessica Couch, he was one of the first names that sprung to mind, yet I didn't put him in there. My bad! Mea culpa. I got this most amazing long email from him, telling me things that I never knew about the guy I always saw but seldom talked to, other than in that last year we were both at camp because we were in the same group. I'll spare you the details, I will merely say that this is the first time in a long time I have actually read every bit of a long email and hung on every word. He surprised me; he was one of those guys at camp that mostly kept to himself, seemed to be impervious to the world, and just stuck to his music. I sensed there was a man behind the mask but figured he'd come out when he was ready. As one of the songs we sang back in the day said, "'I've got all I need,' you say... well, that's a lie and it ain't true; think of all you need today –you need me, and I need you... you need me and I need you." He kept in touch with a few people that I had been writing or held in high regard, or tried to for awhile, but much like me he knows where a handful are and wonders about a flock of others. And he told me that he wished he'd known that Lucas Lane was special to me at the time he found out Luke had died (at the beginning of the camp week, during the meet-and-greet get-situated phase before that first gathering) because he wanted to talk to someone about how much Luke had meant to him. I can't tell you how much this opened my eyes, dear readers. I never knew.
    Ken brought up the names of a couple people I went to church with, Kurstin and Charri Fields. He thought I'd still be in touch with them. Well, no, Kurstin never much liked me, and Charri was in my sister's class but not at our school so we didn't really get to know each other very well. I grin when I think of them for my own private reasons. [A lookup online revealed a bit of information, and I got email later in the day that he'd just talked to Kurstin. Congrats, Ken! Say hiya for me, see if the sneer is audible, heh!] It then occurred to me someone I didn't put on the list (and didn't think of at all!), someone who had been close to both Ken and Kurstin: Dean Roettger. Last time I saw him was 1984, when he was my locker partner at Eisenhower High School. Ken is still in touch with him, it turns out, and he's doing well, so that's happy news to me. The positive spectres of the past keep materializing, not just for me, and that's making me feel good. Once again, if you are or know anyone I'm looking for, my email is themushroom (at) mindspring.com !
    To update on the employment situation, and give the requisite quantity of irony and stupidity, you'd have to see my Blogspot blog entries for the last week (specifically the last weekend of January and the first entry of February). I'm still looking, courtesy of three interviews for one job and the place itself didn't call until three hours into its training class to say I wasn't going to be in it. But I am still in good spirits, and just the other day a local health care system (that's what they're called nowadays) emailed me, two or three weeks after the last contact I had with them, asking me to do this online survey for further consideration. I don't assume that means anything other than I haven't been totally overlooked. The next round of home improvements have started, beginning with the replacement of the ceiling fan in the livingroom and purchasing of paint and trim. Tomorrow I will be wiring for and mounting some track lighting, and on the weekend of Feb 17 we're painting the livingroom and hallway. While I'm persistantly nervous about spending money on stuff that technically can wait (and has for the last six years) when I don't have a real income, it's all working out. --#2

12/12/06
    Wow, it was 2 months between entries, right on schedule! I've finally done the long-overdue (11 months late) reshuffle of the back contents: in mid-January or thereabouts I gather a year's worth of Daybook entries into its own file and then do the same for the Rant, and add links to the bottom of the main pages. The 2005 Daybook never got parsed, so Old Days ended at October and 1/4 of the 2005 entries stayed on this page.... fixed. The 2005 Rants, however, were dropped into a file but then I never got around to editing it to be its own page, so it's not been visible all year (and no one complained?)... fixed. As I keep saying every month, I'm writing once or twice a week on my Blogspot page and additionally I've been posting photos left and right to my Flickr page. 2006 is going to be combined with 2007 because I hardly said anything all year... blame my Blogspot blogging! And just when I think no one but Dr. Who and Alene are reading this...
    On May 13 of 2002, I wrote something in the Daybook (scroll down to it) about a couple guys I went to camp with who died young. Yesterday I got an email from a friend/classmate of one of them, Lucas Lane, saying that in a websearch for his name this was the only pertinent reference. It made me feel good that someone remembered Luke, had an anecdote or two to share, and felt the need to let me know I'd done something good. After replying, I then posted the photo mentioned to Flickr. Luke is the shorter one with glasses, Bryan is the blond with braces. Thank you for caring, Renee! So, Google, is anyone looking for Bryan or Dena Bell? Oh, and a followup on what was written in that Daybook entry: I got an email from Lynnette after making a couple phone calls, asked her to please give her input on what I said... and I never heard another word. I guess I got it out of my system, that's what I needed to do.
    I have a few ironies, bitter or not, to speak of since the last entry, and I still can't seem to get the momentum or cadence I prefer to put here. There's no less stupidity in the world and there's just as much need for Reality Avoidance Therapy (maybe more, what with that rediculous war and the even more rediculous guy in charge of waging it who, according to recent reports, "just doesn't get it") and I still see it, but I just can't seem to report on it. Heck, at this moment I'm a week behind on my Everyday Stupidities blog entry because I had some choice ones that I'd thought of for days and had in my head on Monday, but when I sat down Tueday [and today is exactly one week later] I couldn't remember any of them... and still can't. Meh. Anyway. One week after I wrote the previous entry, I went to work (outsourced brains for a cellular provider; think "can you we hear you now? yes, now shut the fuck up!") and my supervisor escorted me to the call center manager's office, where he had bad news: the corporate overlords had been listening to calls, heard one I took the day before which was pretty unsatisfactory (the customer and I both wished we had been talking to smarter people), and so they told him that they had to give me the heave-ho. Canned on my birthday, excellent! That actually worked to my mental advantage, because I was in such a weird state of mind that the harsh words didn't phase me. (Hum parts of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" here... they didn't hurt me with goodbye, I didn't crumble or lay down and die.) I just politely asked which call this was, didn't dispute or discuss anything, and cheerfully shook his hand to make him as uncomfortable as possible. The useless IT goons were already loading my desk into the box I keep under there for just such emergencies, so I just assisted them (standing there watching was easier for them anyway) and rode off into the sunset – er, okay, into the high noon. I'm a little sad that they threw out the contents of my Know Shit binder, most of which did not come from the company database because you can't find anything useful in there, rather than give it to a coworker who needed answers, but I guess I'm more sad that they threw it into the trash rather than the recycle bin because that's just not earth-friendly. I had an odd birthday, where everything purchased for the event or the weeks preceding was second-guessed. (Will say that the Josh Blue/Chris Porter comedy show on December 1 in Seattle was excellent, and I really enjoy my new camera which was ordered from Costco.) And what's odd to me is, I don't miss my job. For a couple months, as the corporate Powers That Be kept coming up with new and rediculous ways to piss off the customers (and the tech support agents), I'd been not-so-sunny about my job. Not in a way that kept me from getting up or doing my job, but it became more of a guessing game – we could have taken an office pool as to what boneheaded edict was going to come down from on high. I sound spiteful in saying that but I'm not; this is the company that decided to demote half of the tech floor to an intermediate customer service/tech support level when we had 10 calls on the queue at all times, then decided to give that intermediate level all of tech's calls without giving them any of tech's training, and when the result was that tech didn't get as many calls filtered through to them they demoted the entire tech group down to that intermediate (guess it's not intermediate anymore!) level. From that standpoint, I was actually lucky to get out when I did because my department was dissolved about two weeks after I left, resulting in everyone either going to a different cellular contract with the outsourcer (which I was willing to do to avoid burnout) or getting bumped down to that hellish intermediary position (which I would not be happy about but at least had the training for it). Anyhow, in the seven weeks since then I've done a little temp work and hunted for a new job that isn't just like the previous call center work. I'm mostly bored now and am drawing unemployment [hey, no guff, I paid into the system for years without ever being able to claim on it for one 'shafted' reason or another!], so look forward to a new well-paying job, but I do not miss cellular data support at all.
    People from Lazy F summer camp I wonder about (and I don't miss the sunflower seeds): Sherrie Drew, Amber Cox, Heidi Adamson, Randy Quillen, Amy Grossclose, LouAn and Donna Farrell [yes, I saw LouAn at the Fair years ago; said she was living in Bothell, and never got back to me], Todd Webb, Sara 'Saran Wrap' Stewart, Robin 'Byrde' Zalesny [yeah, you married my neighbor Ray Whittum, and then?], my homies Kurstin and Charri Fields, and an untold number of other people. [humming "Pass It On"] I'd put Karen Strausbaugh on the list but I'm not sure what I'd do with that information; laughter can only spackle so many of the holes in our souls. On the plus side, I know where to find LaRoy King (see the dancing sheep at the mattress store?), I need to give Christmas greetings to Raberta Senn, and I was pinged the other day with significant packet loss by Bobby Iannetta. A hand to the heart then up to the heavens for Bryan Bell and Lucas Lane because you are still remembered. --#2

10/11/06
    I think I need to modify the index page of this site to say the posting here is even more irratic than intended. (Everyday Stupidities gets posts twice a week. Everyone should run there and nearly forget about this site, though as a friend demonstrated going to the easily-remembered URL www.saysomethingcryptic.com brings up a page with the less-memorable links to those other better sites, so there is a reason to look this page up.) The Daybook and Rant? Not so much, but both have been updated today so you may as well give them a look while you're here. And I know, I haven't put the archives of 2005's writings up for view, ten months later. Sorry! I will, really!
    I've been thinking about one particular anecdote about my godfather, mentioned four months ago in the entry below. I don't claim it's interesting, just that happened. When I graduated from high school he and his now-exwife gave me a bath towel and washcloth, two things I needed for college. The problem was, they were both made of some synthetic fiber with nil absorbancy... even a wet chamois removed water from the body better than these. Twelve years later, I got married and he/they [I'm not sure if they were still together at the time] gave us a punchbowl, which is always great for newlyweds. The funny part was not so much that when I pulled it out of the box the silver rim and ladle had tarnished so it was apparent it had never been looked at before being wrapped and handed to us, the funny part was that it was obvious it'd never been out of the box because the gift card from whomever gave it to him/them was still inside. For the record, I've never taken it out of the box since the wedding reception eight years ago, either; I can see how he/they could have cast it off without a second look, and I expect to do the same someday because we just don't live in a society where everyone drinks a lot of punch, and those who do borrow the crystal punch bowl that shows up at those rare punch parties.
    Okay, the real writing of this long-awaited update is in the longer-awaited (8 months) Rotating Rant so just get over there already. See, folks? I do still write Daybook entries, such as it is. If you seek reality avoidance therapy or just photos of silly stuff around me, you might wanna see my Flickr Random Nonsense set as well. --#2

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