Nothing Insightful

I used to have a journal with me at all times, and would whip it out and jot a few things down whenever the opportunity presented itself. Doing this kept a single thread of consciousness alive and connected throughout the day as I would pick it back up, take it a little further through the labrynth, and scratch a mark onto the surface for slightly more tenable an existence than the otherwise simple fleeting discharge of neural dendrites as the moment faded. That preservation against an inevitable expiration being the sole intent and common theme of the drive to write. Something of myself could then act as a foundation for perspective and constance among chaos.

I don't have that luxury any more, of time to do even a small gesture in homage to the previously golden age (from which I have some 10 volumes filled). I miss the forced organization of lining thoughts up to be presented single-file through the draw of ink across page. The ever-available bookmark into my own insights that could keep me focused, forward looking, and balanced.

What I have now are stolen moments, made available only because they're not suitable for anything else. Even my creative writing which I hold so dear falls by the wayside - the blocks of time large enough to consider using appear only after so much mental exhaustion has filled the day that mere coherence becomes a struggle, let alone constructive and creative cerebral activity.

I'm trying to break that spell through this blog, as a start. I'm holding my daughter Eden right now as she drifts deeper into sleep for the night, and leveraging my geeky tendencies through my palm pilot to resuscitate the old ways. The exhaustion bit is still a factor though, and keeping my eyes open is a challenge right now.

But at least I can in some small measure stand up to that dark oppression of temporary mortality and try to raise a voice in protest. Or maybe cast "magic missile."

Eventually I hope to bring the regular (think 'fibrous diet', not 'typical' - the pejorative sense) writing efforts back, and allow myself to resume the slowly thread-woven tapestry of evolving introspection (how's that for tortured analogy?). I don't see how else I can hope to keep any portion of self alive in the daily stream of activity - all of which is appropriated for other causes and assigned out before I see a cent of it.

In the meantime be patient; thoughts here will be scattered and random, disconnected and perhaps even unaware of each other. Any poignant contents will be accidental, and the commonality will not be my struggle for greater understanding of humanity and the universe. Rather, it will be me whining about my frustration in continually trying unsuccessfully to bring about some kind of lasting transformation in these circumstances. That's the therapy I need though - sorry you're ending up reading it.

Where are the Cheetos?

Keeping it Real

Were I ever to become President, Mike (the aforementioned office-mate) would become my Secretary or Minister or Whatever of "Keeping it Real." Now to qualify this statement, Mike is not the sort of person one would immediately assume to be well grounded in normalcy, in the elements of reality which typically pessimistically govern existence.

This is contrary to fact, however, in that Mike is accutely aware of these various physical laws and cynical cultural presumptions - which is what allows him to target them for erradication of sorts (or at least suspension) so precisely. He consciously plies his talents to generate the antithesis to any situation, adding a syncopation to the rythm and cadance of the day. In order to do this he also must be extremely well read and referenced, which he is to an astounding degree. He's seen the movies, read the books, finely examined the Supreme Court opinion on the matter, etc., and thus can work every angle effectively.

He's the last person on earth I'd like to dabate against on any side of any topic.

To point, his comments on my thoughts of professionalism yesterday did manage to give me pause. My view was so effectively limited to my little "woe is me," that he said he refused to post a blog comment on it, so as not to fuel the projected martyrdom any further. Now I suppose, to try my own hand at Mike-ism, I could carry that rythm back into whining about the injury of how he wouldn't post (thus reversing his intent and pushing a little more toward extremity and unreality). I don't do that very well though; so instead I acted somewhat reasonably, took it to heart, and realised that Yes, I can be a microcosmically self-absorbed individual at times.

I appreciate it. I'll learn frm the experience, become a little wiser, and have eyes opened that much further. It also exposed one more area of weakness in expression I need to shore up if I'm ever going to beat him - and his little dog, too.

Being Professional

To me, a hallmark of professionalism is doing good work when the chips are down - and you really don't want to.

I've written good code in VisualBasic, MFC++, and various other Microsoft technologies. Not to appear zealous or anything, but I hate coding in those environments (for reasons I'm sure I'll mention in other later entries). The deal here being that I've done good work in them anyway.

I woke up this morning through a fog of nausea into a sea of acid reflux. Being awake for a while hasn't helped. Going back to sleep isn't really an option with the urgency of some of the stuff going on at work, exacerbated by the fact that I handled almost no email yesterday because of the 350,000 message flood I had to clean out (spinning process with a bad error reporting mechanism).

So those are the chips. And I'm down. And I'm just going to do it anyway.

I owe me some time off.

Picture me Thus...

Many acquaintances have been wondering when I'd have a new picture up - so here it is, me, surrounded by beautiful women.

This will have to do for the next six months, despite the fact that I of all people have no excuse - what with the digital photo studio (complete with backdrops & lights) in my own basement.

Different priorities, I guess.

Pseudo-Random Something

From Mike: "The scope of my argument is going to be somewhat limited due to the fact that I don't know what I'm talking about..."