Nice Mix

Its a really nice feeling to ride through backroads on solo treks on the bike while interweaving visits with friends along the way. Those ingredients make for a pleasant day.

Who am I fooling?

I am an amalgam of everyone I have ever met. Yet I strive to find the real person behind the blend. But maybe that's it. The blend is the real person. Growing up with so many different friends with so many conflicting ideas and cultures, I found it hard to mix it all together. Birthday parties for me would be like bringing together all walks of life, rich, poor, good, bad, and throwing them into a room together. For an outsider, watching me transform effortlessly and fluently into my different characters would be something to behold.

The only one who's ever really noticed this thing about me is my ex-wife. So strange actually. Through all the abrasiveness of that relationship she was still able to see me as me. Kudos to her for that.

My mom just called as I was writing this, and I was trying to encourage her to do something now, and instead of saying, "There's never a better time than now", I said, "There's never a time for the better." Apparently she understood me completely. I mangle phrases like that all the time. Funny.

Gotta run...

Intentions

I fully intended to write something here that was completely out of this world, full of creative juice, and dripping with knock-your-socks-off excitement.

Instead I will write about nothing at all. I am surprised this blog even lets me write in it after being so negligent towards it. I wouldn't want anyone writing on me if they only came around once in a blue moon.

Luckily blogs don't have feelings, so I can continue my trend of disrespecting it.

Have you ever had a million things on your plate, but yet you don't feel overwhelmed in the slightest? I feel like that now. There is so much for me to do, yet I don't feel a sense of urgency. That's either a good thing, or a really bad thing. Am I affected by it? Not really.

Let's see if I can start some things in motion over the next few weeks and then I will have something more interesting to write about, other than having nothing to write about.

More to come. . . .

Cleansing

I feel refreshed, clean and renewed.

In the past, I could hang with the best of the filth mouth truckers, but over time I have been shedding this crude form of expression. It feels good. It is also not easy. I still find myself from time to time wanting to utter an unsightly word, but I have done a good job of filtering it out before it is vocalized. Mostly, it happens when I do things like hitting my head on the car door, or dropping a glass (I haven't done either of these two things, but I can't remember a specific event when I felt like cursing, so these examples will have to suffice).

I guess this is kind of like a person who quits smoking cigarettes. Once they quit, they begin to notice how many other people smoke and how awful it smells. I have felt the same way with bad words. Its amazing how many people curse around me. It seems amplified now, and quite sad.

Why can't people express themselves without using obscenities?

I'm going to go through my past posts and begin censoring them as well. I don't want to be remembered for such things. Even though it was my past, this medium allows me to go back and clean it up a little.

Here's to a clean future . . .

Almost Fell Asleep

Sometimes in this life, things become so repetitive that, like a lullaby, the redundant rhythm begins to put you to sleep. I have been falling asleep, but not in a literal sense.

There are few in this world who are awake enough to be fascinated by every little detail of the life that surrounds them. I like to think I am one of those few.

I have found though that without attention to detail, the eyes grow heavy, and the mind begins to get used to the everyday mundane repetitions of life.

I would like to thank the soft, gentle hand of another who rustled me out my sleepiness to remind me that there is more to life than the cycle where most tend to find themselves. I am sure you know who you are. :) ... I am sure they are not even aware what they have done, but I am truly grateful, and will do my utmost best to thank them in every possible way.

Now that I am reawakening, I am rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and shaking the stiffness from my joints, and beginning to see things the way I did before I fell into this routine.

I welcome change and embrace it with open arms, for without it, life would again lull me to sleep.

Its not easy questioning yourself each day to be sure you are heading down the right path. The questions can be difficult to hear, and even harder to answer, but question I must, to ensure I am heading in the right direction. Life is too short to get stuck in a rut, so it is necessary to make constant adjustments.

I was a bit sad when I started writing this, but now the possibilities seem endless, and my mind is opening up again. The details of everything around me are becoming clear again. I am not straining to see. Its like a touch of Spring, and I can almost hear the sounds of those warm nights under the stars that I love so much.

Thank you!

Dead Air

There's been quite a bit of dead air on this site lately.

I apologize to all those who are avid readers (all one of you). Work has tightened its grip around my throat and left me gasping for air. Not literally, but close enough.

I don't even know where to start. I don't feel like I have accomplished much outside of the workplace. Not much time to I suppose. There are the weekends, but those are spent with the boy, who recently started kindergarten. How bizzare that feels. I have a child in kindergarten. Looks weird in type.

Taking him to school took me all the way back to the days when I was in kindergarten. I still have some vivid memories of then. Its odd how some memories stick more than others.

I remember when the janitor came into our classroom to repair a square of linolium. The entire class crowded around him as he removed the old cracked and broken square, cleaned the subsurface, applied some black tar, and placed the new square down with exacting precision.

I was amazed how everything came together. I had always wondered as well, what was underneath the floor I trompped upon.

I wonder what memories the boy will carry with him through life of these days?

What is your favorite toy?

I used to have this toy when I was about 8 years old. It was called a Phantom-440 (or something like that). Basically it was a flying saucer that had a fan on its underside. You would charge it up, and then let it go and it would hover about 3 millimeters off the ground and 'float' around.

I have been looking for one everywhere and I keep coming up with nothing. Was that toy just a dream??

(From Consumating)

Delayed Flight

What happens when you plan accordingly and arrive at the airport an hour before your flight like everyone should? The flight gets delayed an hour. So here I sit on the floor of the airport in the 'A' line ... waiting.

At least I will be the second one onboard once all the pre-boarders board. I just hope the people already on the plane from the connecting city get off, otherwise I have prepared this all in vain.

One point of interest:
The guy who played 'Dee-Bo' in the movie Friday is also waiting in line patiently. Actually, he is sprawled out on some seats snoozing. I am so tempted to walk over there and quote some lines from the movie.

"What-chu got on my drink Smokey?"

or ...

"Shut up punk be-fo I knock you out!"

I did happen to snap a shot of him with the camera on this phone. I'll append it to the post later, since I don't think I can upload photos from this phone. How lame.

Sigh... another 45 minutes before the plane arrives...

'Dee-Bo' has already been heckled by some of the airport employees who recognized him too. Seems that his fan based is made up of only an elite few.

I wish someone would piss him off so I could watch him knock them the fuck out. At least that is what he did in Friday. I would have to fall into the scene and run over to the knocked out dude and say, "You got knocked the fuck out!!"

What have I become?

UPDATE:



My intention was to be one of the first ones on the plane so I would be one of the first ones off. So who is sitting in the choice row where I want to sit? You guessed it. Dee-Bo.

Now I am not going to let him deter me from achieving my primary objective, so I kindly ask, "Is there anyone else sitting here?" He says no, so I grab the seat by the window. He was sitting in the aisle seat, so we had a nice space between us.

Now I am not one to bother people, especially if they have a level of celebrity-ness about them, so I pretty much leave him alone. He however wants to know what I do for a living, where I live, my purpose for going to California, etc...

So then I am dying to know what he is doing in Nashville. He says he is just passing through between movies and that he talks to children about God. I'm thinking to myself, "Is this the same guy who knocks people the fuck out in the movies?"

Just as I am getting interested in hearing more, this woman plops herself down between us. The smell of alcohol is heavy on her breath. Now Dee-Bo is obviously irritated. I start thinking, "This is it. He is about to knock this woman out!"

I wait eagerly for his fists to start flying. But instead, he tells her if this was a movie, he would have to knock her out!

I can't believe it! He actually said that. She either didn't know who he was, or she was too drunk to realize what was happening.

He goes on.

He tells her, after she still doesn't get that we don't want her crowding our space, that he will put her in his next movie so he can shoot her right in the beginning of the film.

This is all happening while people are still boarding, with the occasional passenger saying what's up as they recognize him.

Now the flight attendant is involved and obviously on Dee-Bo's side. He tells the lady that Dee-Bo is a big guy and needs room to stretch out. Dee-Bo chimes in that he is six-five and 265 pounds.

Finally the woman gets the message and leaves. Dee-Bo and I look at each other with relief. I thank him, we knock fists together and go on with our conversation.

I ask him what movies give him the most recognition, and he tells me Friday and The Fifth Element. I forgot he was in that movie. He than tells me he has been in 95 films, but the IMDB only lists him with 93. I tell him I have credit for one film and he chuckles.

I just looked at his imdb listing and he has over 100 listings, didn't count individual movies or anything, so some of them might have been tv appearances.

Overall, he was a great guy. He is very religious and told me about all the charity events he does for troubled kids. He was very personable and told me things about his personal life. I won't go into detail here out of respect for him, as he trusted me enough to share it with me. Plus, he is a big guy and I would not want to get on his bad side!

I'll give him a call some time when I am back out in LA. (Yes, he gave me his phone number!) Never know when he might need some software development work done.