Tag: Family

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In Florida

I came to Florida to visit my parents. They’re both getting up there and my Mom isn’t doing well.

She calls it a vacation, this is not what I call a vacation. To me a vacation is going someplace that I want to go, and doing stuff that I want to do. Something like hanging out at the beach, or diving a reef, or wandering through a national park.

Her idea of a vacation is having the TV blaring and shouting over it to have a conversation. Her other idea about vacations is stuffing your face all the damn time. As a rule I eat when I’m hungry but that is not allowed here. I think part of the reason I eat only when I’m hungry is because everyone in the family is pretty obese. I do not want to be obese, so I eat in a way that’s dependent on activity. If I’m very active burning a lot of calories, then I’m hungry.

Sitting around blocking out the noise from a TV at 75% volume screaming to have a conversation as if I’m in a bar is taxing but not overly physical.

I’ve not been able to write because if I go into another room to reduce the volume of the TV, then I’m apparently being antisocial. Truth is, I can’t think clearly with the noise, and my stepfather droning on and on about something that is only obliquely related to a question I asked 25 minutes ago. Typically, the question I asked has not been answered, and I’ve forgotten what I asked in the first place.

That being said, I’ve finally come to realize that he’s always been this way, which is why it was so hard for me to get my homework done, and so hard for me to read my schoolbooks when I was a kid living under their roof. I was one of those kids that hated homework, It was a real effort for me to put in the work because I’m easily distracted. So some of this is absolutely on me, but some of it is on them because they didn’t recognize the problem. 

They were both quick to tell me I was smart so there was no excuse for me getting poor grades. It became a no win situation so getting through school became increasingly difficult because my logic is, “If there’s no possibility to win, playing the game is pointless.”

By the time I got to my middle years in high school I’d stopped asking him or my mom for help or clarification on assignments because it always devolved into some weird conversation that didn’t answer the question I’d asked and left me completely confused. 

This was particularly true in math. Asking if I was doing an algebra equation correctly led to all the ways one could do an algebra equation, and how calculus was better anyway. But because the answer was all over the map, instead of looking at the equation on the page and confirming or correcting my process, I didn’t build up the fundamentals and was never sure if I was right or wrong until I got the quiz back.

All this time, I’ve thought I was simply a moron. This is perhaps why I had very little interest in college. 

If you’ve got kids, I beg you. Answer their questions about their homework in a simple straight line fashion. They don’t need to know about all the ways a problem can be solved, binary theory, or the history of the planet, if they’re asking about (a+b)-a*b.

Just a thought.

At the moment they’re at a doctors appointment. I’ve turned off the TV, am doing my laundry, have taken out the trash, and cleaned the place up a bit. I’ve caught up on e-mail,, text messages, and calculated the costs of my trip out here. It’s amazing what I can accomplish if I’m able to hear myself think.

My parents aren’t bad people, they’re just oblivious. My stepfather is a good guy but very self involved. Everything always has to circle back to him and something he’s done or seen.

So everyone in his sphere is minimized and he’s always the most experienced, most intelligent, most wonderful person in the room.

That’s not really good for children who are trying to build a sense of self worth. Sometimes parents need to step back and just acknowledge their children’s accomplishments without comparing them to their own personal accomplishments. Unfortunately that’s now how I was raised when my stepfather came into the picture.

My sister, and my deceased brother who lived in this house much longer than I did are, (or were,) damaged in similar ways.

Like me, my sister has worked very hard at developing her own sense of self and value. I don’t think my deceased brother ever did. I think he might have tried to fill the hole in his heart with sex, (I still don’t know how many times he was married,) I suspect that part of his fantasy world, and substance abuse may have been him self medicating. I don’t know, we didn’t talk and had very little contact through the years.

When they get back, I’ll not be able to write because as soon as I start writing one or both of my parents will want to have a conversation. That’s reasonable since I’m here for a visit. The problem is that it’s kind of the same conversation over and over again.

I’ll hang out until Halloween because it’s one of the holidays that my mom likes, and it will lend itself to family time, the day after halloween I’m probably going to bail. A week of this is enough and I’d like to see my brother in Northern Florida. I can spend a couple of days with him and be in a more normal environment. Then I need to get back to California before Winter really hits.

There’s so much I haven’t gotten done around the house this year. Maybe I’ll be able to do some of those chores before it gets too cold to do them. Then again, maybe we’ll have a warmer year this Winter. 

Guess that’s one of the perks of Climate Change…

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Yes, I’ve been a looter

I and several coworkers were in the San Jose Convention Center during the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989. We were presenters at a Technology convention.

Lomaprietaquake

After the quake we picked our way through the roof panels, broken machines, and shattered glass.

Once outside we quickly realized that everything was changed. The public transportation system wasn’t running. There was  small rubble in the roads, on the sidewalks, and some of the streets had cracked. In the distance we could hear sirens and see smoke. Later we learned the damage we picked our way through was nothing like the damage in San Francisco and Oakland but it was enough to make walking interesting.

We were all dressed in business attire. The ladies with me were in high heels and dresses. Standing there I realized that we were going to have to walk back to our hotel and connect with the rest of the folks from our company who were not at the convention center or who had left the center via different exits.

I explained my thought about getting back to the hotel to the ladies with me. After waiting a little while to see if there were others from our company wandering in the crowd, we set off on foot toward the hotel.

Picking our way through the loose rubble it became obvious that the ladies high heels were a problem. About a half mile from the convention center we came upon a shoe store. The windows were broken and there was no-one minding the shop. We entered the store and located sneakers in the proper sizes for the ladies. 

At this point we were technically looters. We’d entered a building without permission, we were actively “stealing”.

Both of the ladies left notes stating the SKU number, size, and description of the sneakers they were taking. Those notes also contained their names, and phone numbers, with a promise of payment. The ladies put in their notes, “Thank you!” We slipped the notes into the locked register drawer and left in peace.

Several hours later we arrived at the hotel to find chaos. The phones were down, the power was down, but the bar was open and the hotel was providing a free buffet of cold cut sandwiches. About an hour later, hotel maintenance was able to rig up a generator that powered the bar television and we got our first look at the damage in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Later in the night power was restored to the hotel.

A day or two later, when the airports opened, our company flew us home.

Several weeks later, one of the ladies I was traveling with, got a call at her desk. It was the owner of the shoe store. My coworker called me and our other coworker over, then put the owner on her desk speaker phone. The store owner told both ladies that instead of asking for a check, he wanted to let them know he’d framed the notes and hung them behind the cash register. He’d done this because he couldn’t believe someone would do what we did and it gave him hope. 

We asked if the store had been looted further, he told us that the San Jose Police had locked the area down shortly after we’d been there so all of the local shop owners had suffered only minimal losses.

The lesson I learned is that taking something because you need it, and only taking what you need is very different from ransacking and cleaning out a place because you want a bunch of stuff.

According to the letter of the law we were looters. We could have been arrested and charged. We could have been shot and no-one would have thought anything about it.

Flash forward to this time in our history and I’d no more think of doing what we did than think I could fly. 

Fort myers comp

There’s something different in our country today. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like there’s an overwhelming greed coupled with entitlement.

Now days looting is synonymous with stealing stupid stuff and stealing everything from a store. I guess looting has always been synonymous with these things. People don’t understand that just because something is “insured” doesn’t mean there’s no price.

I have a very different view of a mother stealing a can of baby formula or a loaf of bread and can of tuna, than I do people raiding a Best Buy. Yeah you stole a 65” flatscreen but it’s not going to do you any good with the power out. The mother on the other hand is obviously feeding her children.

So you cleaned out a Coach store and stole 50 handbags but what good are they?

I was thinking about these things in the wake of hurricane Ian. 

There are reports of looting in some areas of Florida. The problem is people looting a grocery store to feed hungry children are treated the same as the assholes who clean out a Best Buy. Someone taking one pair of sneakers is treated the same as someone taking 50 pairs.

These are not the same thing. In the moment though, police aren’t going to be able to differentiate the person who’s a criminal out of necessity and the asshole criminal who’s in it due to opportunity, and for greed.

I’d bet that most grocers would hand a mother a can of formula, a loaf of bread and can of tuna and not think about it. That’s serving the community. The grocer would probably be happy to pass out one or two items each, to folks who were orderly and asked nicely.

But when a mob of people breaks in after a disaster, taking entire cases of stuff for themselves with no intention to share, that’s morally wrong and speaks to a selfishness and greed that’s detrimental to the community.

For me personally I always thought there was shared moral code all Americans understood. An almost absolute definition of right and wrong. The past few years have made me question that belief.

I find myself asking what has happened to the country I grew up in. What happened to feeling like you could trust the intentions of others and take their stories at face value? When did we forget that lying is wrong?

I used to stop and help stranded motorists, I used to pick up hitchhikers, I used to buy meals for homeless people or folks that were down on their luck. Now I do none of that. It’s not because I don’t care, it’s because I can no longer tell if someone is really in need, or if someone is trying to play me.

When did we lose our way?

A more important question is, “Can we find our way back?”

I know that looting is going to become a problem in the coming days across Florida. I just hope that the police and everyone else is mindful that, some people are taking only what they need to survive or feed their children, and aren’t too quick to judge.

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30 Years

I’ve been a little blue the past few days. I’m not sure why that is.

On the other hand God knows there’s a lot that I could be blue about. Almost all the news is bad. I find myself waiting for the next new atrocity to come out of some country or our own government.

Yesterday was particularly tough. I wasn’t sure why, but the day seemed just harder than usual. To be fair, the day started out with a glorious sunrise. The smell of fresh brewed coffee wafted from the kitchen. The dog sniffing my face asking, “Are you awake yet?”

I scanned the headlines, pausing to read one of the many articles about the new preponderance of IRS agents. I smiled thinking about my Dad he’d be having a shit fit about it.

Dad really didn’t like the IRS, and apparently the feeling was mutual.

Then it hit me. It was the 30th anniversary of my Dad’s death.

Whoa! I thought I was doing the math wrong. I wasn’t.

I hadn’t really been paying attention to the number of years that had passed, but I wonder if some part of me was acknowledging the anniversary without bringing it to my conscious mind.

30 years ago, by this date it had been a rough couple of months. Little did I know at the time, but things were going to get a lot rougher before some semblance of “normal” would return.

In that moment 30 years ago, I had only what was immediately in front of me. A family that I barely knew telling me how they thought I should do things.

My younger Brother, (who was old enough to carry a gun in the DMZ in Korea and later Desert Storm, but couldn’t buy a beer,) who I was trying to protect at least from the most egregious of the “Helpful” suggestions? Commands? Demands?

My Dad had been through some rough times in the last few years of his life, he was trying to stand up a business doing something that he seemed to love. He’d left the state he grew up in, and moved in with his mother in her home state. I think his plan was to jump start the business and then purchase his own home in a, sort of charming, small town in The South.

I don’t know. He never shared his plans with me. I can say that Dad had reduced his possessions considerably and become a minimalist. Whether that was due to financial need or life choice I also don’t know.

Somewhere along the line, he’d discovered he had cancer and it was too far along for any effective treatment. Perhaps that was part of the drive toward minimalism on his part.

When he died, as the eldest Son, the responsibility for all the “after life” decisions fell to me.

My Brother had been raised by my Dad more so than I. It only seemed right that he should be calling the shots so I gave my Brother as much control as he wanted. I took on the things that were “too much,” given the circumstances, and the role of running interference with the family.

I’d like to think that Dad would have appreciated the arrangement. Especially when he understood my reasoning.

All of this flooded back crashing into my brain. Suddenly, I was reliving it in a way.

I felt terribly alone.

Many times over the past 30 years I’ve wished Dad was around. I’ve wished that I could chat with him, discuss politics, have a drink, go shooting, or get his take on trouble spots in my life. I’d have appreciated his wisdom even if I went my own way. While I wouldn’t have appreciated his knowing grin when going my own way blew up in my face, I’d like to have had the experience.

I suppose I could use a bit of a pep talk from Dad. Over the past 5 years or so, I’ve felt like I’m being kicked and beaten, then kicked again while I’m already on the ground. I’m having a very hard time getting up and wonder, “why bother” often enough that it worries me.

I’m losing the game, and have no more plays. I’m out of clever tricks. Why not just take my ball and go home?

I could really stand to hear, “Son, you’re alright. Rub some dirt on it, walk it off! Get up off your ass, FIGHT! Tear the fucker’s throat out. I’ve got your back.”

Encouragement like that would be welcome right about now, just as it was when I was a boy.

Yeah, I’m 60+ but my Dad is still my Dad, and I’m still his Son.

Hmmm… Okay Old Man… Message received. I’m getting up off my ass, give me a minute.

I miss you Dad…

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Madness! Posting this can get you arrested in London.

I know England has different laws.

For a long time England has been more authoritarian than the United States. That was a given. Generally, though the English have been running parallel with the U.S. about most things.

Freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, and such. English Parliament versus The U.S. Congress is something I’ve never quite grasped.

Videos of Parliamentary hearings in England appear very chaotic to my admittedly Americentric eyes.

That being said, their way worked for them and it wasn’t my place to poke at or criticize something that I didn’t understand. Their way of governing has worked for a very long time.

An article out of London deserves some serious criticism. The article that got me thinking about this appeared on Breitbart London. Here is a follow-on article from The Daily Mail If you’re interested in how some people in England are standing up and fighting back here is a link to The Bad Law Project.

Apparently you can be arrested in England for posting an “Offensive” image.

I suppose the creators of this abomination of a pride flag don’t like having the unintended consequences of their horrific flag “Artistry” called out.

Especially when it’s called out with truth.

Let’s be honest. The LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community has become something that is quite ugly. This latest iteration of the Pride Flag illustrates this fact in spades. There is no artistry in this flag. No grace or beauty.

In fact when I look at it, I see exactly what the Trans, Non-binary, xyzlmnop, crowd wanted to convey. “We will be greater than the old LGB crowd and we will dominate you.”

It’s right there. The mathematical “>” greater than sign, moving left to right as if to eclipse the colors of what had been a joyous, creative, inclusive, crowd of people.

I’ve written before that my opinion of the LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community, is no longer representative of the LGB community that I once knew and enjoyed.

Their claims of inclusion and diversity don’t actually stand up to scrutiny. Walk into a LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community center, and express a different opinion and see where that takes you.

Walk into a similar bar or resort questioning any of the dogma the community clings to and be ready for a fight. Just asking the question seeking to understand why the community supports a particular position is perilous.

Question TransRights for example. Or state that you think the overturning of Roe was the right move because you think it should be legislated by the States not the federal government and WOW! Talk about a hornets nest!

Ask why they so universally hated Trump and they’ll look at you like you’ve got three heads. If they answer at all, it’s a strange melange of CNN talking points and feelings. Rather than cogent rational reasons.

Trump was a homophobe!!!! Really? Then why did he appoint openly Gay, Richard Grenell, to one of the more prestigious ambassadorships? Not really the act of a homophobe is it?

Why did Trump have Grenell serving as Acting Director of National Intelligence?

Why did Trump later summon Grenell to finish the Abrams Accords in an effort to settle some of the strife in the Middle East.

Hardly the acts of a Homophobe.

The irony of Grenell being accepted as a broker of peace and treaties in the Middle East, (known for their hatred of Gay people,) is completely missed.

The funny thing is that most of the LGBTQI whatever community don’t seem to know who Richard Grenell is. Fewer still know he’s Gay and that he and his Husband were together in Germany during his Ambassadorship.

Most of the LGBTQI point to Pete Buttigieg as the first high ranking Gay appointee in our government.

The difference is that Grenell just lived his life. He did his job, and was no different than any other ambassador or Director of National Security.

He saw no need to pound his chest about being Gay. He wasn’t in the closet, he just didn’t have his whole world revolving around his sexuality. I believe Grenell worked continuously during his treatment for cancer (I could be wrong about that). We didn’t hear much about it, but he was strong, steadfast, and honorable.

Can you say the same about Pete Buttigieg?

Yes, having children is a big deal. However when the supply chain is clearly broken and in chaos, perhaps Pete Buttigieg could have taken time out from his paternity leave and busy diaper changing schedule to actually do his job.

Why? Because the needs of the nation should outweigh personal needs. If he couldn’t do the job due to family obligations… Then, like any man he should have stepped down from the position, and stepped up to the responsibilities of Fatherhood.

Pete Buttigieg had his husband, it wasn’t like his children had no-one to take care of them. Partners of high ranking government officials and soldiers have always carried the load when their spouse needed to attend to the needs of the country. Ask any military wife about that.

How many military wives have given birth to their children without their husbands? How many soldiers have come home after a year to meet their child for the first time?

The LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community, even when confronted with these opinions and facts still cling to their dogma. Sometimes angrily or violently so.

I suspect that’s why the LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community of England is so enraged when they see this.

Because it’s kinda true they’ve become the same kind of unthinking lockstep mob that once threatened to take over the world.

Notice any similarity???

Lest we forget, that same authoritarian dictatorship gassed gay men right along with the Jews, Gypsies, and anyone else they considered undesirable. There is even some evidence to suggest that the oh so stylish SS uniforms were designed by a Gay man. So hypocrisy isn’t new.

It’s not just the LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community, in England. The same crowd and same dogma exists here in the U.S.

The same technological terrors of Twitter and FaceBook that caused this arrest in England are right here in the U.S. and they’re busily censoring free expression of opinion here, just as they do in England.

The difference is that our laws haven’t become quite as Gestapo-like as those in England. But the LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community, here in the U.S. appears to be pushing for them to be.

Hate speech is an ill defined and bullshit term. Without clear definition anything can be construed as Hate Speech.

Memes, or images that you personally don’t like are not Hateful by nature. Although I could probably think up some that would be.

Even an image of bloody ANTIFA morons, or looters roped across the hood of a BMW like deer with a guy smiling holding an AR-15, captioned with, “Season is open, no bag limit!”

Is not hateful. It’s in extremely poor taste. It also sums up the mood of many Americans during the Summer of “Mostly Peaceful Protests”

Such an image would be censored instantly by the technological terror known as the internet.

It’s well past time for the perpetually aggrieved to grow a thicker skin. To Grow up and accept that the world and all the people in it do not exist to coddle their fragile feelings.

Maybe if they’d been called names in school, if they hadn’t been given safe spaces to cry, if they’ been graded on their achievements instead of given a pass just to move them to the next grade, they’d be functional people instead of crybabies in gender confused oversexed adult bodies.

Maybe if they’d heard, “Walk it off, go rub some dirt on it.” These crybabies would be better prepared to deal with a world that doesn’t and never will bow to their whims.

I personally think that weaponizing law enforcement and using them like Mommies and Daddies to settle hurt feelings is an obscenity. It’s a waste of time, money, and limited resources.

It appears, I’m not alone. As The Daily Mail article points out the police force’s own Crime Commissioner was displeased with the arrest of the 51 year old man for malicious communications.

Perhaps there is hope that the real adults will win the day.

I’m not holding my breath. I’m also not patronizing anything the LGBTQI Jabber Jabber whatever community has to offer.

I’ve wondered about opening a bar for normal LGB and Straight people. You know, a place that actually protects and allows free speech.

I don’t know what the name would be, but the tagline under the name would say something like, “Not a safe space… but a comfortable space to say what you think”

Nah… Probably go broke in the first month.

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Delays, Delays!

I feel you Marvin!

I’ve been trying to arrange a trip to go see my parents on the other side of the country.

After a solid year of things breaking, the house, and me. Followed by hitches in seemingly straight forward home improvement tasks. Some of which are still to be resolved…

I thought I was going to have some free and clear time to head out. The plan was to take time, travel with a new computer that had 5x the battery life of my current one, see some sights, and generally relax. Gas prices be damned!

The computer was defective, then went missing after I handed it off to FedEx to be returned to the manufacturer. They take no responsibility, their agent takes no responsibility, the police can’t do anything because it’s not a clear case of theft, so I’m stuck paying the bill for a machine that I don’t have. Yea!

The FedEx agent, said they couldn’t print me a receipt after they scanned it into the system. Now unsurprisingly, there is no record of the package being scanned. (Even though, I watched them scan it.) I was told that the receipt would be texted to me… uh huh.

Why do I believe that people are inherently honest, or that they’ll do their freaking job?

The home improvement project was to install solar on the house. The panels are up on the roof, the controller is installed, but the connection hasn’t been made to the house wiring because there was some kind of glitch.

When the solar provider was contacted, they seemed to think that everything was installed and working. Uhhh NO! This it particularly interesting because they have remote monitoring of the system and one would think that they’d be able to call up the controller and see that it wasn’t passing power to the house.

Yet another situation where people failed to do their damn job!

So now I’m drawn back into waiting around for someone to figure out what needs to be done and get it done.

In the mean time, the other half has finally gone to the doctor. This is leading to a bunch of tests and hopefully some answers about why their health seems to have been getting markedly worse over the past 2 months.

All of this is concurrent with a time element closing. Because when the school year starts up again, I will be tied to the house looking after the pup. What was supposed to be a 3 week trip of exploration and relaxation has effectively been reduced to less than a week and may simply not be worth the effort.

With the latest FED interest rate hike. I may not be able to make the trip because the credit card issuers are already raising their rates too.

Great!

I’m not even going to get into a discussion about inflation.

Maybe Marvin was right…

He should have used that Illudeium P-38 space modulator to blow up the Earth … After all, it obstructed his view of Venus.

I can certainly relate to Marvin’s frustration!

Full disclosure, Marvin is one of my favorite Warner Brothers cartoon characters.