Deadlines

Many times I have begun to write a blog entry attempting to get out some sort of feeling, emotion or other thought process that’s been rattling around in my head. I’m particularly proud of writing about the perception of time and my particular relationship with time-travel fiction. Too many times I’ve written something in my word processor fully intending to transfer the file to my blog setting up a rant about why I can’t seem to argue with other people correctly, fighting the dreaded procrastination monster, or some sort of other self-involved writing. Many people post blog entries with a few words and a link to an article, video, or some other information usually generated by someone else. Thus, showing that they read through the blogsphere / news-articles and can fins something interesting that other people might find diverting for a few minutes. Others, being more jaded and attempting to increase their income from blogs, I suspect, will deliberately find items to post that will trigger a better class of Google advertisements that will generate the ever-so important click-thrus for a higher return on their kickback checks. I attempt to either post photos that we’ve taken and post writings that I’ve made or thoughts that I’ve had. Not particularly mind-blowing, but cathartic in its own way.

My personal touchstone between true philosophy and pop philosophy (to anyone who’s been paying attention) is Douglas Adams. He died on a treadmill in Hollywood in May 2001. He had a saying that has been often quoted, but mostly joked about that he loved deadlines. He especially “enjoyed the whooshing noise they made as they went by.” Many of the things I agree with Adams as written in his books, the over-glorification of money in our society rather than the steady work/accomplishment/reward cycle that I now find myself in. Other things I don’t agree with. He was a renowned atheist. Not particularly militant like Christopher Hitchens, but his take was more of the satirical view such as the quote from Dennis Miller: “Hare Karishnas can’t be a real religion, because God made us in His own image, and I know He wouldn’t wear His hair that way.” The other item that I disagree with is the lack of holding to a deadline.

 I love having deadlines for generating content. I will do the research; provide a report; generate an image – just tell me your basic parameters and the drop-dead time you’d like for it to be done. Make sure that the deadline has a built-in review period to it so I can make corrections that you have. I can meet or exceed those expectations. Tasking me and then leaving it open-ended causes me to have to create my own deadlines and then lower my own expectations because I have to have a perfect product within a self-imposed ticking of the clock. Not so good for the stress. It is a form of planning, control, even. Without a specific deadline (even if it is an arbitrary one) I personally feel a lack of control. I will focus on smaller goals like washing the car or mowing the grass rather than tackling  the big item because it isn’t as pressing or as tactile as a deadline imposes upon it.

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I’ve gained back much of the weight that I had lost over the summer from my stress episode. The blood pressure and sugar haven’t been so much of a problem lately, but I’m back to eating out much more at lunch and/or getting sandwich stuff from the grocery store and storing it in the fridge until needed. I need to find more time to move,  to use the tools that I have including a walkable neighborhood, a Wii Fit, a tennis racket (do wish there was a close court nearby) and to just quit eating quite so much. I’ve been using food again for a sedative. Mainly in the late evenings when at midnight, and I’m still not tired, and boredom has brought me to deciding between watching reruns of earlier news programs or surfing around the ever-decreasing library of DVDs on the Netflix account. I haven’t been sleeping well since the stress events in July. Some nights I’ll wake up two or three times. The other night both boys woke up at 3:44am. Ford wouldn’t go back to sleep and Alexander wanted to argue whether it was close enough to morning time that he could stay snuggled in our bed or have to go back to his room. Ford, being rather crabby that morning, benefited from a nice warm shower to calm his mood. We then went to IHOP at 5:00 in the morning to transition from a crabby morning to something that was more family oriented and a treat.

 Now that I have a job, I need a goal. The long-range goal had been to replace my 144K mile Mustang with a Honda CR-V, but in the shrinking economy, it doesn’t seem appropriate or wise to expend that amount of money (for the small return I’ll get for selling the Mustang) for a new car. Although, the clutch is starting to make a slight noise that I’m having worries over. I should set the goal of losing weight, but the hardest part I’ve found is the exerting control over the amount I’m eating. I wish I could just stop eating for a couple of months. Not feel hungry or deprived either. Just drink mineral water. So much of our social interaction with other people is set around food. The hardest decisions that many in our society have are not those about whether we should drill in the Alaskan north, whether we should have a stronger renewable energy policy, but most often: where are we going to lunch?

 

Photo Update

Things have been busy enough for me that I haven't had time to write much, but I've got some new photos of the past month. Included in the slideshow are photos from our trip to the pumpkin patch in Flower Mound, Alexander's 5th Birthday and the guys hanging around the house. The job is doing well. We're planning on going to South Carolina in December after Christmas.

Photo Update

Here's some new photos from the past several weeks of being with the family. We've got Ford eating chocolate, going to Six Flags and going to the State Fair. We've had a great time.

New Beginnings

So after several weeks of being just "Daddy"; attempting to enjoy my time off; and doing some assistance to some of my friends who are consultants, I'm going back to work. I've procured a Senior Planner position with a new nearby city and will start on Monday October 13th.

The best thing about the job was that I didn't even go looking for it. It found me. The Director talked to a friend of mine (who I now owe dinner to) and called me up. We talked on the phone, in person several times and I was offered the job prior to the job being actively advertised.

I'm extremely excited to go work there for several reasons. First, it's relatively close to the house, the meetings aren't long affairs like the previous two jobs, and I'll be working with some really great people with a new set of talents that I can learn from.

Without the support of Meredith, my family and the multitude of friends I've recently found more time to enjoy, I couldn't have made such a transition. I've found much more connection to my kids and a deeper appreciation for Meredith's responsibilities for them. I also hope she has found out that I can be a better Daddy and keep the housekeeping to the bare essentials.

We've had a great couple of weeks even though all of us have had the bout with the sniffles. Two weeks ago we had Meredith's niece stay with us for several days as her flight back to Houston was cancelled due to Hurricane Ike. Her parents were without power for several days. She was able to go back the following Thursday in a newer Honda that her Dad bought from my father. 

Then last weekend, they're family came up for the weekend to go to Six Flags. We enjoyed all of the rides and had a great time, with the exception of a half an hour looking for a lost cousin who was safely found.

This past week I reformatted a 200+ page Unified Development Code for the City of Schertz for a friend of mine who needed the original document to flow better.  It was a nice tranistion work to get me back into the mindset of planning and it helped retrain me in working with some of the more subtle aspects of MS Word. 

Yesterday we went to the State Fair and Alexander had his first encouter with cotton candy which he ate with gusto, but didn't fall into the trap of getting it all over himself. We sat in our usual spot watching the Vita-Mix guys for about half an hour and received inspiration to restart our smoothie regimen.

Today we're going with our friends to pick apples (a particularly fall event) and perhaps to the Southlake Oktoberfest where Me and My Monkey will be playing this evening. Tomorrow we're going to go to church and then possibly decorate the house for Halloween.

Hey, I told you it was going to work out didn't I?

Weeks Four and Five - Update

Had my first interview yesterday afternoon. It went really well. The Director of Planning talked with me for three hours. I felt that was a good sign. I'm going back on Wednesday to talk with the Asst. Director. Hopefully I'll have something in the bag by Friday and I'd like to start October 6th.

I've been working on more projects around the house, including repairing and cleaning up my sailboat which has had some neglect the past couple of years. I've also repaired the kitchen faucet.

Things are going well. On to the end of the week and hopefully some good news.

BTW, today's my birthday. Yeah me.

Week Three - Wrap Up

I had a great conversation with a consultant friend of mine who was very encouraging and thought they'd might like me to move to perhaps move to Austin if I was interested. We're still holding out to finding a job without moving which would be the ideal candidate.

I went to my friend Greg's house on Tuesday and we had a terrific conversation about Doctor Who and kids and just hanging out with a buddy.

Wednesday was my self torture day in which I wen to the dentist at 7 am and had the most painful cleaning of my life. The most awful part of it was I get to do it again tomorrow as the hygienist only had enough time to get the lower half done. I'm on a more regular regimen of flossing and rinsing with a new hydrogen peroxide cleaner to keep my mouth healthier.

I volunteered at Alexander's school on Thursday.

Saturday evening I played outside with the guys (chase) as Meredith was baking oatmeal raisin cookies. After chase, the three of us laid down on the hammock watching the stars, Venus and the Moon come out. Ford was pointing very enthusiastically at the Moon. As we sat and the stars one by one starting blinking into view, Meredith came out with three warm cookies for us to eat. We had an enjoyable time and memory.

Monday saw us going to the zoo. Beforehand, I had to drop off some paperwork at the former employment and saw a couple of people there who were very encouraging. One kept telling me "good for you!" That helped reduce the stress of going there. I didn't make the effort to go into the department, it still is a little soon. The zoo wasn't crowded and was very pleasant to go to. Alexander and Meredith had a close encounter with a silverback gorilla making faces through the viewing glass. Ford has decided that he is an orangutan.

This week, I have the dentist again and will be trying to set up some get-togethers with some friends.

I've had more people tell me that I should be enjoying the time that I have here. I'm trying to achieve that goal.

Week Two - Wrap Up

I've gotten some more stuff done this week. The yard is looking much better. I've killed off numerous ant piles and have fully decimated the number of clover plants in the front yard. The boys have played extensively with the water slide this week. No less than three times have I drug out the thing, set it up, deflated it and laid it out to dry and rolled it back up.

I've made several phone calls to colleagues and have made several connections. Things are still a bit positive. I'm a little put out that the previous job put all of my last checks into one which bumped me into a higher tax bracket on withholding.

On Saturday, the boys went over to my parent's house and Meredith and I had a lovely dinner at Anamia's Restaurant in Southlake. We then went to Central Market and had some Italian Gelato. Meredith tried the Hatch Chili one...I went with mint. Luckily for us we ran into some old friends from my church in Bedford and we sat down with them and had lots of good laughs. It was an uplifting experience.

We had some of Alexander and Meredith's friends over this evening for Labor Day (getting out the water slide again). Meredith made white bean chili with Hatch roasted chilis and they brought ice cream.

Their son (who is only turned four this summer) is reading like a pro. I'm not sure how they've done it. It is really impressive. I wish I could get Alexander to pay attention enough to recognize the letters correctly. He'll get it. He has one of the best vocabularies of any child his age I've met. We read longer, more involved stories at night time. We've read to date:

The Wizard of Oz; The Adventures of Robin Hood; The Phantom Tollbooth; Alice in Wonderland; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

This week Alexander and Ford go back to school. I'm going to volunteer in Alexander's class on Thursday. I'll hang out with my friend Greg, and hopefully get a call on one of my applications I've got sitting out there.

I'm learning about expectations and anticipations. I'm also attempting to do some professional reading as well. I need to brush up on some case law and fix my boat.

Things to do while you're still working at getting work.