Click images for desktop size: "Mirita Classic" by VL Its finally down to time to change jobs. This has never been remotely like a good job. I kept it too long, mainly because I could take my puppy with me. Mainly out of habit and fear.
I look at my puppy and I feel a sense of responsibility, of family. She loves me and trusts me - she sort of only trusts me.
The only good thing about this job was that the check never bounced.
I've had other jobs in the recent past where just getting paid as promised was no guarantee. Other than that its an abusive position where corporate heads hide from employees they make no secret of despising and mistrusting. But the checks always cleared and I could bring my puppy with me.
I realize I'm old. Change kind of scares me. Even knowing it is inevitable and required, change kind of scares me.
I've sent out a few resumes and have started to get serious about it. I'm hoping I can endure it long enough to have another job lined up before I give notice. I'm striving towards that.
Change kind of scares me.
Responsibility scares me too but I've always faced it, welcomed it. I used to love change too, new lands, new people, new lives, new friends.
So I've redesigned my resume. Always start a new venture fresh. Resumes, CV's, forcing a past that you can't change, that I wouldn't want to change. Looking at dates, remembering, remembering what I was. Eventually remembering will force me to look to the future. Not yet, but it will happen; looking forward and, of course, the future.

I'll get my new Electric Bike tomorrow. It looks George Jetson futuristic. I like that. Jet Black and electric. Transportation that will let me look for a new job easier. Help me find a new place to live for my puppy and I.
I'm excited about it. If work weren't such hell it would delight me.
I'll assemble it tomorrow and then charge it overnight, so Tuesday I'll be mobile electric.
There aren't enough bike paths around here so I've mapped out several routes in my head to avoid sure death trap intersections, of which its easy to identify plenty! Its not a car but I'm as excited as I was at 15 when I bought my first car, an ancient Pontiac, for $50.
The idea of freedom and independence rings the same.

I've broken down about baseball and I've been following the College World Series. I love it. I think these are the two best teams there in years. The game tonight should be a beautiful thing.

Technorati Tags: baseball, dog, pets, puppy

Posted by David at 5:10 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Landscape" by D Image A lot of my old friends have been having stories about themselves on TV. I had a sudden glimmer that I used to run in a fast crowd.
It didn't seem like it then. They were just my friends, pals and people to hang with.
When I was 17 a surfer buddies house burned down. He used the insurance money to buy a three masted boat that could travel the world. He invited 4 of us to come with him and search the south seas for perfect breaks.
I didn't go. I took a ten week motorcycle trip through Africa instead. They were gone six months. When they came back they had plenty of decent stories about 8 foot peelers that broke for a solid mile and 9 foot tubes that pitched out into warm waters and had nobody out.
The surf tomes were cool but what I remember is the bond that the four guys shared, a closeness of adventure and life that I couldn't be part of. They were still my friends but there was a language between them I and no one else could ever share.
Aside from old girl friends being on the news that's not all that got me caught up in this nostalgia thing.
Another friend from the day has just now invited me to go with him for a year to hit the Southern Pacific and hit the Polynesian Isles for year while we look for our own set of perfect waves.
I guess he remembers what I was and doesn't realize what I am.
He says he's got ideas on how my puppy would be comfortable on a year long cruise, but he hasn't figured out that I can't be away from a doctor for more than a month at a time.
Sometimes it kind of sucks being reminded that I've gone from more than human to less than that.
I'll get over it. I don't have the temperament to do anything else.
I just always thought that it was in forgetting and accepting that we become different and not necessarily better.
I guess I'll be seeing how far that goes.
I've been ignoring baseball this year. It bothers me a lot that I'm not playing. I block it out of my head mostly. I don't think that's a good thing to do.

I bought an electric bike today. Did an eBay thing. I pretty chuffed about it, really. Swift, silent and pollution free.
Now I can easily go to the store when I run out of milk instead of making a major expedition out of it. The store is about 2 miles away, up on a sort of plateau. Soon I won't care and I'll be free of the buses.

Posted by David at 8:52 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Everything Has A Story" by CGImageryIt was the senior high school yearbook The class of '63
I'll never forget the day you gave
Your book and pen to me
It was all talked out and settled
You new I'd understand
A girl with dreams as big as yours
Just had to make some plans
So I turned to your best picture
Most Likely To Succeed
The only one in the whole damn book
That didn't show you with me
And it said that you liked inner strength
So I tried to be true to form
And I hid my teenage broken heart
Instead I signed this poem

I hope you always drive a Cadillac
I hope you always drink champagne
I hope you always shine with the sunshine
I hope you never have to face the rain
Unless the clouds are lined in silver
May every heart you meet be gold
And may you find the world as kind as you've been told

Oh the news of you that got back home
Was no surprise to me
You came you saw you conquered
At every turn there were victories
And the men came and the men went
And some of them might of stayed
But their dreams weren't silk or linen
And their invitations weren't engraved
At the ten year class reunion
They read your personal note
And enlarged your cover photograph
With your full length sable coat
But the words underneath the picture
Were what mattered most to me
There was something in between the lines
That no one else could see...

It said I always drive a Cadillac
And I always drink champagne
And if you make time while the sun shines
You can buy your way out of the rain
I travel fast because I go alone
Everybody gets bought and sold
And I wondered if you'd really become that cold

That was the last word anyone heard from you
Until I got your card today
A single line and a signature
That said “I'm coming home to stay”
I wonder what life has done to you
I wondered why you thought of me
But if you drop by to say hello
I wonder what you'll think if you see
An old ragged high school yearbook
That falls open to just one page
With a picture of a young girl's face
Full of beauty, dreams and rage
And the words beside the picture
Is the verse that's still so true
It's the one I swore no one would read
Unless I showed it to you

Click images for desktop size: "Gold Line" by ZipanguTo me you'll always drive a Cadillac
Your laughter is my champagne
And you'll carry my heart wherever you go
Even if I never see you again
But if you bring it back home to me
Maybe then it'll mean you know
That the strongest love's the love that let's you go...
I hope you always drive a Cadillac...
I never got this song before. Now I guess I'm old and humble.

The hospital was not so bad when you have a good dog with you. She's proving that she's growing out of being a puppy.
The good results in from the test: No new cancer, no worsening of white and red blood cell counts, and nothing even worth looking at to see if it would be a tumor or bad lesion.
With that sort of news who cares if there's a negative side.
The rest of the results won't be ready until two weeks from now.
I'm tired. I enjoyed four days off from work. Tomorrow I have to go back.
My puppy gets a “spa” day tomorrow.
I got a new credit card.
People are upset with me.

Posted by David at 9:18 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Collapse Of Human Creativity" by "Unknown" I go into the hospital tomorrow.
Just for tests.
Its irritating and invasive but I'm used to that. Its no big deal.
I'm more pleased about the first days off in a year, even if it is happening in a hospital room.
I think it says something about finding a new job when the prospect of being inspected and jabbed and probed is better than another hum drum day at work . . .
I get to take my dog with me. My puppy is a therapy dog and that certificate gets her marked as a service dog.

I guess part of the human condition is that a year ago I only wanted to have a dog and to be assured I could eat.
There lay happiness, or so I dreamed.
I was right.
Having a place to live. Having a dog to love. Having a modest amount of security for the two of us was all the happiness I envisioned, wanted, needed.
I was wrong.
I guess I forgot that I'm human. Funny, most of the time I am painfully aware of that.
I have pain and anguish and toughness aplenty to tell me I'm a human being.

I ran a special clinic today for the team. All about speed and agility. It went well. About 25 of them have clearly been working hard at this. Working hard at perfecting themselves. As usual I felt that I was damn lucky to be able to work with fine people, fine young people. I thought about someone moaning about how they'd never had any effect on anyone's life and I thought how lazy they must have been and are. Then I thought how lucky I was.
Then there was a new thought. “Boy, I sure wish I had a car.”
I want stuff. I want a new job. I want a plasma 1080i TV with HDMI, and I want a Santa Cruz 12 string with a florentine cut and I want . . .
I haven't wanted anything I haven't needed in a long while.
I'm only human.

Patrick is going to drive me to the hospital. He still wants me to start up a band. I know that I can't.

Posted by David at 9:37 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Two Sides Of My World" by Shine FT(To the tune of Doris Day's Que Sera Sera) When I was young I asked me mum what should I be
Should I be Chelsea Should I be Leeds
This what she said to me
Get your fathers gun. Shoot all the Chelsea scum.
(Sung by a entire train load of young men on the tube to Stamford Hill, Chelsea's home ground)

People keep asking me why I'm not excited about the World Cup Of Football (Soccer).
I never even heard of soccer until Foosball tables starting being around, and then there was Kyle Rote Jr.
There was an early days reality show on ABC where they were searching for the “World's Greatest Athlete” Rote Jr was the son of a famous American Football Player. Jr won the first “World's Greatest Athlete” show. He played soccer.
There was a lot of fuss about it then. We tried it but thought it was sort of dull. We preferred football, baseball and even pick up games.

I went to the Coca Cola Cup (one of Football's innumerable mini Championships) at Wembly. It was a sort of glorious madness. In a 100 yard run corridor I counted 100 mounted policemen. The corridor from the train station to the entrance was lined with police in full riot gear. There were growling german shepherds every 10 yards. These dogs could have gotten work at German Concentration camps. It was clear that once you started on the way to Wembly there was no turning back and no escape.
I saw a boy, maybe 6 or 7, his face was a fiery red from screaming and crying in fear. He was wearing a Leeds shirt that was slick from the spit of the Aston Villa fans who passed him. Adults spitting on a child and the omnipresent police paid no attention, not even to console or protect a child.

FIFA, the governing board of football, has publicized the game well. Their main adage seems to be the old high school gossip thing; you know, tell a lie three times and it becomes the truth. They kept insisting Football was the number one sport in the world. No one ever asked them where they got these figures, or even how they calculated it. It was just accepted as truth. I mean sportsmen would never lie. right? And businessmen masquerading as sportsmen are even more well known for their forthright honesty when selling you 5 cents worth of soda for 6 bucks.
They and the governments all publicly abhor the proliferation of violence surrounding the sport. In South America players who make a glaring error are often shot by angry “fans”.
The governments do nothing to stop this. It could appear that they encourage it.
After every international match involving England, when England loses there is an invariable football riot around Trafalgar Square.
In 1996 England lost to Germany in another of the mini-championships. The riot following that match lasted 6 hours. An estimated 8 million pounds of damage was done to shops and automobiles. There were 1,200 injuries to “non-combatants.” there were 1,400 arrests and 12 prosecutions. The prosecutions were primarily for Drunk And Disorderly Conduct.
The Brixton Race Riots in London were about racial discriminations. It is considered a “black” spot in English history. It lasted for 12 hours. There was an estimated 500,000 pounds of damage to property.
Three hundred injuries to “rioter”, 2,700 arrests and 2,400 prosecutions. There has never been another race riot.

Eric Cantona was the first multi-millionaire superstar player imported by Manchester United. During a match at Crystal Palace he shouted at a fan and then gave the fan a karate kick in the chest, then stomped him wearing spikes.
The fan pressed assault charges. FIFA took no action at all.
In court Cantona, a white French multimillionaire claimed that he was being discriminated against. The courts accepted that but as the unprovoked assault was Televised found him guilty. His sentence was 2 hours of community service. He had to go to an upper class school and sign autographs. Cantona was so outraged at this horrible conduct that he left England.
Having a player actually interact with the community was so rare that it was also televised. Cantona showed up rumpled, unshaven.
The assaulted fan had his season ticket revoked by FIFA and has a lifetime ban as he admitted to calling Cantona a Frog Wanker.

So I don't think its possible me support the game. Aside from the fact I find it tedious to watch I think that supporting soccer means that I support lack of teamwork, lack of pride in yourself. And I can't really care how America's 6th best athletes fare against the World's Best. (This is not a knock of American Players, just factual observation. American women have elevated the sport and created a new standard of how the game should be played.)

Posted by David at 3:09 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Metal Paint" by Eden Projects I've been ill. One of those constant never ending illnesses. It slows me down but doesn't stop me.
I haven't missed work. Its time to find a new job.
My puppy hasn't missed any of her appointments.. She is still one of the greatest treasures I've ever had in my life.
I still feel the romance and mystery of life. I still have dreams of a better tomorrow.
Its all okay.

Posted by David at 9:04 PM | Permalink