RAMBLINGS VOL XI

11/1/11:  This morning, I heated up a leftover burger for breakfast and fried an egg to put on top.  In an inspirational flourish, I put a big load of ketchup on top.  I haven’t touched it yet, but I smell the ketchup right now.  Until this moment I never knew that you could smell ketchup.  The smell is unmistakable.

11/2/11:  My nocturnal dialysis session ended at about 4AM.  I caught the 36 bus home at about 4:55 AM.  I got home at 5:35 AM.  It is 8:16 AM, and I am WIDE AWAKE.  I think that my body is getting acclimated to the new schedule.  Whenever I do fall asleep, I know that I will sleep soundly, and have vivid dreams – probably in color!

I am amazed at how colorful the autumn leaves are this year!  But I’m pretty sure that they are the same old leaves every year.  So what’s different?  I am!  I spent Fall of ’09 in the hospital, and Fall of ’10 indisposed.  It’s nice to be healthy again.

My mind is still way ahead of my body.

Thanks to my new dialysis schedule, I love Saturdays even more!  I’ve had a full day to recover from my last session, and I have more than a full day until my next one!  I really do like the change.

Every now and again, our apartment catches a bunch of ladybugs.  It’s never just one; it’s always at least two.  I’ve seen them all over our place, but they really seem to like my bedroom, and they always seem to come in pairs.  Don’t know why.  Could it be the houseplants which are in the living room?

I want 10,000,000 views of my stuff; I figure by then the money will come naturally.  The next question – “how do I get to 10,000,000 views?” – is where the rubber meets the road.  I’m thinking comedy.  Or maybe a catchy slogan?  I would settle for 10,000,000 tee-shirts sold.  Or bumper stickers.  Or….

I purchased the Yahtzee game for my Kindle for 99 cents.  Didn’t Yahtzee used to be simple?

What is up with the ladybugs?  I thought it was just me, but a friend in New York State is experiencing the same thing.  I collected seven ladybug carcasses today.  I checked on the Internet, and there are two types of ladybugs, one local and one from Japan.  In late November they look for a spot to hibernate.  They tend to favor light-colored buildings and then look for cracks.  They’re good at finding the cracks, too!  Like I said, I collected seven of them in my bedroom today.

It’s Thursday evening.  I vacuumed up four more ladybugs today.  I’m getting ready for overnight dialysis.  The daily tedium is getting to me.  I need to find a way to shake things up without doing anything stupid.  In the meantime, I pray and maintain.

It is better to have a modest meal prepared with love than to feast with a bunch of haters – paraphrased from Proverbs 13:17

I’m looking up a recipe for tuna and green beans that I saw on Lidia Bastianich’s cooking show the other evening.  I typed in “lidia” on Google, and an entire page of results for Lidia instantly appeared.  THAT’S famous….

Is there a career out there that would pay me for learning new things every day?  That would be the perfect job for yours truly.  Of course, learning something new every day is its own reward.  But I digress….

I exercised today after an 11-day layoff.  Right now I am deliciously tired.  Two hours ago, I was really sorry that I had an 11-day layoff because I felt it in the gym, especially during push-ups.  There are a few reasons I took almost two weeks off, but the main reason is because I wanted to.  I will have to watch this very closely going forward, because there’s no way I’m going back to square one or, in my case, square zero.

I was flipping channels and hit “Gone With the Wind” on AMC.  I had never seen this movie so I was excited about it.  The acting was stilted and the colorization looked silly, but I was intent on watching it anyway – until some guy made a reference to “darkies”.  So much for that sh*t.

There was a new episode of Top Chef tonight.  I tried watching it three times back-to-back, and fell asleep before each ending.  I like when that happens.

IT marches on

Every time I upgrade one of my computers, I give the swap-out to a family member.  My mom has been the recipient twice.  She currently has a Dell desktop with all the peripherals that is more than powerful enough for her needs.  She likes to play Solitaire and the other games that came with the installation; she also listens to CDs and looks at photos on occasion.  The oddest and coolest thing is that she has no desire to use the Internet.  Mom is well-educated, well-read, and quite alert.  She is well aware of the Internet phenomenon, and some of her friends use the 'Net regularly.  But Mom gets along quite nicely without it, thank you very much.

My dad (RIP) and I were the only two in the family who were really bitten by the PC bug.  When Dad passed in 1985, my brother Owen and I cleared his apartment of his belongings.  One of his possessions was a Radio Shack TRS-80, one of the first computers made available to the mass market.  At the time, I was fascinated by it but couldn't figure out what to do with it.  I used it to write a program that picked Lotto numbers at random and quickly lost interest.  I have no idea what I did with the TRS-80; my guess is that I moved away from it at some point.  I don't think that it would command that much on the open market today, as they were quite popular in the early '80s.  But it would look really sweet hooked up to my Dell XPS410.

As for me -- I made an excellent living managing an IT department for over a decade. The career path was engaging to say the least, and I eagerly anticipate returning to the IT industry in 2012 after a long hiatus (early retirement followed by kidney failure). I enjoyed struggling with the challenges presented by IT in the workplace on a daily basis, doing my best to keep up with emergent technologies (an impossible task, but the fun is in the journey), and helping to develop and advance the careers of my co-workers. As time passed, it became evident to me that future advances in computing would center around the delivery method as opposed to the data processing function; when I look at the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, the Internet, and cloud computing, I can only think that this trend will continue, and that the best is yet to come!

Bad Luck, My Ass – I Mean My Eye!

A black cat crossed my path on a cool November night and I asked myself: if a black cat crosses your path and you don’t see it, is that still bad luck? I posed this question to my Facebook friends and received a couple of thoughtful replies, one of which was that I should consider it to be good luck.  My initial response to that remark was “how cute”.  I recalled the cat incident 48 hours later while waiting for my train on the elevated track platform, and had a revelation:  My friend was right!

Why should a black cat crossing your path be bad luck?  Is a black sheep bad? No, it isn’t!  A black flag is a race car driver’s anathema because someone decreed this many years ago, not because of any physical characteristic.  The black side moves second in chess because some king decided so thousands of years ago.  (Or was it a queen?)  Not all connotations of black are bad.  Black-tie affairs are elegant occasions.  Every businessperson desires to be in the black.  And a blackjack is always a winning hand.  Black-is-bad is a crock of doo-doo. Black coffee exemplifies this perfectly - some love it; some hate it.  Same goes for black licorice.

I’m hoping that you will remember this gibberish the next time a black cat crosses your path – at least some of it, anyway!  Don’t give that cat a second thought, unless it’s yours, or you’re really into cats.  In either case, you’re on your own.

Thanksgiving Haiku

Happy Thanksgiving

Friends old and new, tried and true

Let’s pause to give thanks.

New York City 10.31.11 Notes

These notes were taken during my visit on October 31, 2011.

The trip got off to a rough start as I had to get out of bed at 6:30AM for the quick turnaround (just got home at about 5:30 AM from dialysis).  It was difficult, but I did it and am so glad that I did!  The entire point of the trip was to see if I could do it, and I could!

I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful fall colors on I-95.

Comfortable walking shoes are a beautiful thing!

The newer subway cars on the F line have electronic signage – very cool.  The public service announcements on all trains and platforms were loud, clear and intelligible.  I was shocked!

New Yorkers don’t give a frack; they just stare at you.  That is considered rude in DC.

Many routes and station names have changed.  Thank goodness for the Internet!

The R train is the same train I rode on in 1999.  So is the C train.

NYC subway ads are 800 times more creative and passionate than the advertisements in the DC Metro, which are much more business and philanthropy-oriented.

Black leather is still the in thing in Noo Yawk.

Why do they bother painting the subway stations?  The peeling paint is disgusting and unhealthy.

There are many Droid-heads staring at their smartphones and iPods, but not as many as there are in DC. 

The food at Applebee’s has a lot of sodium.

Mom is sharper than ever!

The R train features the “hip” Brooklyn crowd.  LOL.  Brooklyn is the new East Village.

You have to be in good shape to get around NYC, as there aren’t a whole lot of elevators and escalators.  I made it home OK, but man, I’ve slept like a baby every night since!

I happened to be on the subway during the 5PM rush (headed toward the 9/11 Memorial).  I felt just like part of the crowd – I was tired and wanted to go home.

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The 9/11 Memorial is sober and subdued.  Subtle.  Frankly, it’s less than exciting.  The somber tone is captured and then some.  It is a tomb.

Even those who didn’t know someone who died or don’t live in NYC cannot miss the fact that this was some way serious sh*t – for New Yorkers in particular.

Security is over-the-top and then some.  There were four checkpoints before the security screening, and then three or four more.  You also have to walk about two city blocks to get from the entry point to the actual memorial.  And this is all once you get there.  If you don’t know the way, good luck!  Bring a lot of patience; you will need it.  And wear comfortable shoes.

I definitely want to return in the daytime to see if the vibe is any different.

All the new construction is magnificent.

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Times Square takes no prisoners when it comes to gouging tourists.  Nine dollars for a slice of pizza!

Leaving the 9/11 Memorial, I was walking toward the Cortlandt Street subway station when I heard a train passing by underneath.  I smiled when I recognized that unmistakable rumble.