Old poetry.

My sister came by to visit my children today and she brought over stuff from our parent's house.  Some of it was old schoolwork of mine, including some old poetry I did for some class.  I don't know when I wrote these but I was writing in script (cursive) but the folder was held together with yarn.

Poems
The art of beautiful poems,
Even haiku or cinquin
Also limericks are nice.
Poems can be humorous,
Nice or serious,
Some are long others are short

Plants
There was a plant who was hot,
He was hot because of his pot.
It made his roots ache,
And he had a headache,
So he bought a new pot.

Limerick
There was a young fellow named Weir,
Who hadn't an atom of fear;
He indulged a desire
To touch a live wire,
And had a shock of fear.

Barns
Barns colorful barns,
Standing high and tall, living
Never falling down.

My grass
The grass, so much grass;
Grass, so much grass, masses of grass;
Standing tall and stiff.

Teachers
Women, smart,
Paddling, threatening, teaching,
Tall, reads, cruel, telling
Teachers.

Streams
Flowing,
Glowing with blue,
With rusting rocks in them,
Will cool you off on a hot day,
Leaving.

Rainbow
Rainbow,
Colorful, high
Lasting, standing, towering,
Red, blue, yellow, green
Rainbow.

I'm better with my poetry now, I also don't do much poetry either. 

New art.

I have the drawing skill about on par to a dolphin.  As such, those people that can draw I think are so very lucky (genetically speaking, that is).  I know that it's luck with a hell of a lot practice added in but I'm still impressed if someone can draw a person without using stick figures.  FYI- my stick figures need labels so you know they are stick figures.

Years ago I used to read comic books.  The art work was good, as was the dialogue, but most of them are about super heroes.  It gets old after awhile. 

Someone told me to check out www.sluggy.com years ago and that turned me on to online comics.  I really do think that online comics will go up and up until they have the same money behind them that print comics have.

Some are bad and some are way into the idea of worshiping Japanese comics.  Some are great and some make you wipe your hard drive that night. 

Check some out, you never know what's out there.

Web sites.

I've never designed a web site so I don't know what it takes to do, but I have a few ideas on what doesn't work.  I hate to say it but the last time I was on the IRS site it was pretty awesome.  Other governmental sites I've been on...sucked.  The most were okay, but some just majorly bit.  That designer was someone that hated the end user or was so smart that they couldn't understand why everyone else didn't understand his "vision".

I'm looking at some sites and they don't have working buttons.  If it happens occasionally I understand but when it happens repeatedly then I wonder what's going on in their head. 

Here's a thought, have the site designed and then get your Luddite grandmother to try and navigate it.  When she can grudgingly find her way around it without a problem then you can release it to the public.

Computers.

I think of computers as tools and as any person that uses tools will tell you:  Some tools are useless for the wrong job.

We have a new computer and it's already having issues.  Do I download all sorts of porn or games?  Nope.  What do I use it for?  Google blogger and general research crap.  Facebook at times but the computer is so slow on that that I've pretty much given up using it.

Today we installed a new anti-virus and it says that it's only good for 146 days.  Why such a weird number?  I understand paying for the software and paying for updates even but why should I pay for something (Microsoft Office) that's going to be replaced in a year or so anyway. 

You buy a book and it's yours, you buy some software and it's kind of yours.  It's like a slippery slope on destroying the 9th Amendment. 

Prioritizing.

I'm doing more on my Facebook page to drum up business.  You know what that means?  This will be my secondary writing for the day. 

Here's something that's been bugging me lately, the use of the word "theory".  Some people think that evolution is false because scientists have stated that it's a "scientific theory".  In science theory means that with all the evidence that we have now, we believe this to be true.

I was reading a book recently and a minor character told someone that "there were no bugs in the room...".  What was understood by the character was that with his technology and skill he couldn't find any, there may be some but he couldn't find them.  The character stated a theory.

Part of the understood and hidden meaning of theory is that it can't really be proved because we can always learn more stuff to change our theory.

Fried Rice.

In Arlington is a Chinese fast food place that has been there for over 30 years.  It was started by two brothers from China then they sold it to someone and that person sold it to the couple that owns it now.  I don't know how many restaurants have opened next to it (big chain places) and then closed down.  Are they cheap?  Not really.  Anything really special about them?  Not really.  The food is consistently good, that's probably the only thing special about them.

Before the original owner (Johnny Chang) went back to China my brother asked him for the recipe for the fried rice.  He made a copy of it for me a few years ago and I had to learn how to cook before I could really use the recipe.  The recipe is basically:

oil small amount
1 egg
rice day old
dash of sugar
dash of garlic
soy sauce
bean sprouts
1/2 cup chicken broth (beef)

  Heat wok, add oil, scramble egg.  Break egg up into small pieces.  Add rice and stir.  Add sugar, garlic, stir.  Add soy sauce stir.  Add more to taste.  Cook for a few more minutes.  Add broth and cover.  Rice will steam.  Add bean sprouts.  Cook chicken or beef in wok first, cook rice.  Add chicken o beef (shrimp) before serving.

If you think that's a recipe then you need to get out more.  That's a suggestion and assumed that you knew how to cook and just needed a reminder of what went into the wok. 

That's what I made tonight.  The family likes it so I'm pretty happy.

A haiku.

I really like haikus.  Not too thrilled with much of any other poetry styles, but a haiku is like a puzzle because of the rules.  I know that sonnets have rules as well but for some reason they just don't thrill me like a haiku.

Years ago when I played role-playing games I was playing a "Samurai" character in the Legend of the Five Rings system and the game lord said that if I write a haiku then I could get an xp point for my character.  I kept them to what a samurai would write about.  I wonder what happened to them.

At one of the clubs I worked at I was thinking and scribbling down some haikus (for that character) and a dj asked me what I was doing.  I explained the poetry and we started doing a contest to see how many haikus we could write in that shift.  It was getting pretty tough for me at the end.

I wonder if I can do it now?

Blood splatters, drip, drip
Final option suicide
Honor is paramount.

17 syllables in about 20 seconds.  Not my greatest but I'm going to bed now.

On Sarcasm.

I wrote this years ago.  It's short and rather introspective I think.  Obviously, it's about sarcasm.

Sarcasm with me is a defense measure.  You're maybe a little unsure of yourself, a little scared, a bit shy; it makes you feel more confidant, a little less fearful, and a bit more outgoing.

If some person that you don't know care for comes up and says something like "I don't think you're doing this right" as soon as he says "I don't think" cut him off and say something like "Well then, don't brag about it."

People normally think you're full of bravado, it's a mask.  With sarcasm you can put the other person off balance and make yourself a little superior in an argument or conversation.


I think I wrote that in my late teens or early 20's.  Pretty simple and introspective, I was really into the introspection around then.

The right thing.

I went out to a local realtor office and the owner/broker asked me to come in and talk to the realtors.  It's a win/win for him, it will make his realtors better equipped to answer questions and give them a better chance to close on a house. 

I'm all for it, and then I wondered how I can make myself memorable.  I figured out my hook.  Do a charitable event and give all of the proceeds to a charity.  My main concern is that the charity needs to come first. 

I'm thinking to finish my talk with the reminder that everyone is here to make money but if you're going to do something then you need to do it right.

Seeing my brother.

I had lunch with my special needs brother today.  We had barbecue again, because barbecue is awesome.  He's doing better.  That's wonderful of course but then I started worrying.

Not what we ate but look at that cutting board.

I don't know how many times I've seen my parents have a bit of a recovery but then it turns out to be very temporary. 

That's what I'm worrying about now.  Is this...reprieve just a short break from the downward spiral or is it a final chance to see him similar to his "prime" before the end?

Time.

Years ago my father asked me to go to Thailand with him for a business trip.  I accepted because I didn't know how much longer he would be alive.  He lived for another 8-9 years and I'm still glad I went with him.

Now I try to see my special needs brother once a week because I don't know when will be the last time.  He doesn't remember me anymore so I don't go for his benefit and it's painful to see him now; so it's not for my benefit either.

My wife said that if I didn't go then I would regret it later on.  That's why I go, so the future me has the memories of still seeing him alive and not the memories of wishing I went.

A short essay/long poem.

A Blessed Curse

A blessing, the gift of sight.
One may witness the height of mountains,
The lowlands of a desert,
Even the rare occurrence of women's eyes that make men kill for.
What beauty the eye can hold.

A curse the gift of sight.
To see the destructiveness of man,
To behold the fragility of life,
You may even witness a lost soul.
What evil the mind can comprehend.
Beauty and evil, never alone in the eye and mind.


I wrote this in high school, the eleventh grade for some English class.  I got an A.

A poem.

I wrote this the 9th of June in 1987.  A simple little poem whilst I was younger and much different.  It is untitled for a reason.

It can be a man's desire,
It can be soft or it can be like wire,
It can be a man's pride,
It can be as long as it is wide,
It can be a man's trophy,
It can be a man's catastrophe,
It can be as thin as air,
It is after all, Hair.

Green.

It's St. Patrick's Day and to most people that means to get drunk whilst wearing green.  Not quite, it's actually a religious holiday and a celebration of Ireland.

Personally, I think that when a Christian tells me I'm going to Hell because I'm an atheist (or because I worked in a topless bar) and then he proceeds to get drunk because it's St. Patrick's day it's a bit hypocritical.  Yes, both of those happened to me.

Celebrate the day, please remember that it's not about the color green and getting drunk, it's about a man that was pretty awesome.

The joys of homeownership.

Yesterday the weather was good.  It started raining buckets of cats and dogs in the late afternoon but it didn't get cold or anything unusual.  Then it started getting cold.

Not a problem, here in this modern world all we have to do is turn on the heater.  I turn it on and go to bed.  I wake up a few hours later and it's colder.  I check the thermostat and it's at 63 degrees.  What the hell?  It's even blowing cold air.  What the hell?  Twice. 

We were out most of the day today but when we got back we actually read the manual and still didn't get any warm air.  Well, no warm air downstairs where us adults sleep; upstairs is fine.  The a/c guy is coming out tomorrow to fix the system.

All of this "progress" is annoying.  A few years ago all you had to do was turn the thermostat up or down and now you have dampeners and all sorts of crazy stuff.  Progress is wonderful, we are so progressive that we also have a fireplace.  That doesn't need dampeners or a manual, just fuel.  The manual might work for that.

Alternative Medicine.

I got a massage today and it was awesome.  The last massage I got wasn't that great, actually it bit; it was a couples massage and I think my masseuse was better than my wife's and hers sucked.  Talking to this professional got me to thinking.

A masseuse is considered a "relaxation" technique not a medical tool.  Chiropractors (aka crackers) are not considered "real" doctors by most people.  I had a case of tennis elbow about a year ago and my normal doctor said all I need is a shot of cortisone.  Shot worked...for about a month and then the pain came back.  While I was thinking about going back to the doctor and getting another shot I went to my cracker for an adjustment.  He asked if I've had any problems lately and I mentioned the tennis elbow.  Okay; here, give me the arm ::pop::, should be fine now.  Been about a year and there has been no pain.

I have a lot of respect for doctors but I think they might be stuck in the rut of treating the symptom not the cause.  Plus the medical industry obviously has a vested interest in keeping "alternative" medicine as a sideline.  It's almost at the "separate but equal" phase that segregation was at decades ago. 

Acupuncture, acupressure, massage, herbal remedies, crackers, and eating healthy can do wonders for the body yet most people still want to go to the doctor and get a shot.  Of course that's getting a shot when you find out you have a problem not a shot as a preventative measure.  Maybe we'll have another medical revolution and all of these "alternative" ideas can be treated as "normal". 

Safety.

I didn't have my kids with me today and the weather was nice.  I went out riding my bike through the dirt trails.  I've noticed something about my riding when I don't have my kids with me.  I ride a bit crazier. 

Crazy as in much more dangerous.

Today I'm riding and I took a technical area, that didn't want to be taken, and I go down.  A little road rash on my shin and a little laceration on my hand where I caught myself. 

I should wear a helmet when I ride but I know that when my kids are with me I'm not as aggressive so I don't.  When the kids aren't with me I really should but then I would have to find it.  Maybe that fall has something to do with the headache, sore muscles, and general irritability today.  I think that I'll find that brain bucket manana.

My kind of insanity.

My wife is crazy, and I'm not even talking about her husband choice either.  Firstly, she's a cop and they run towards the gunfire (a good kind of crazy) secondly, she wants to try out for SWAT.

In the SWAT tryouts the candidate has to wear full gear therefore she's been training with a weight vest on.  Our local gym does classes, tonight she did the 30 minute high intensity workout whilst wearing a 20 pound vest. 

When we dropped the kids off at the daycare the daycare lady asked my wife why she was wearing the weight vest.  The eyes on this lady got huge when she explained what class she was doing.

I'm doing arms and I see guys looking at her and shaking their heads.  These guys also thought she's crazy.  I had to point her out to one of the ladies that works there, this lady is a runner also (a type of insanity that has also affected my wife) and she thought it was crazy.

Yepper, she's crazy; but I love my crazy wife and I wouldn't have her any other way.

Not my wife.

Kevorkian.

Years ago when my father was in the hospital the second to last time he asked me to help him commit suicide.  I assumed he was joking until I saw the new band on his wrist, a DNR wristband.  He wasn't joking, he wanted me to smuggle a gun into the hospital so he could kill himself.  I still refused.  At the time I refused because I had hope that he would get better... and I was in denial.

Jack Kevorkian

Fast forward a year into the future and my mother has passed away also.  My sister told me that our mother had asked her to help in a suicide also. 

Fast forward again to now.  My brother is in a group home and his dementia is getting so bad that we're thinking about putting him into a nursing home that specializes in dementia patients...dementia patients that are also physically unfit.  The only step after that is a hospice. 

I wonder if my brother would ask for help in committing suicide?  Oh wait a minute, he's suffering from dementia and he barely has a cognizant moment where he knows that his health is failing.  Son of a bitch, he's also mentally retarded and at his best had an IQ of around 50 (average human IQ is 100) and he was aware that he's different but not much.  I'm going to see him tomorrow; I have a CHL and I pretty much always carry.  I wonder if he would ask me to help him if he could.  I also wonder what I would tell him.

Back.

We're back from our mini-vacation.  I have so much stuff to do it's unreal.  Work, house stuff, errands, more work...damn this adulthood. 

Almost a year of this, I never realized how much work this would be.

Staycation.

We're on a mini-vacation tonight.  Technically speaking my wife is on a mini-vacation and she took us with her.  A family friend just got back from Afghanistan and he went to Great Wolf Lodge to celebrate being back and not dead, so he invited his friends to hang out with him at the water park/hotel.

Anything dealing with the service industry I look at a little differently from normal people, I did this for almost 30 years so I look with experienced eyes.  Experienced but a little out of date.  They don't put menus in the rooms for the various cafes and restaurants.  They also don't have room service.  Your key is a wristband not a card.  Great because it's one less thing to lose but bad because if your kid loses theirs then it's $40 charge to get a replacement.

I'm not sure but I think that the kids are so tired they are too wound up to go to sleep.  Check the place out, my family likes it.

Conventions.

I like trade shows, all the neat stuff you can find and do.  Sometimes the shows are lame but sometimes you see things that you would never think of. 

In a recent cartoon episode a side plot dealt with two characters at "Evil Con", it was in Britain of course.  That got me to thinking how I would like to go to that trade show. 

This one had robots and things for the evil scientist or engineer.  That would be awesome, but you know someone would ruin the whole vibe by selling tools and Beanie Babies.  I think it would go over well if kept light-hearted, as much as evil can be that is.  Vader, Maul, Elmo, Hannibal Lector, the villains from various movies by Disney, Voldemort, and Dr. Evil to name just a few.  Most of it would be a comic and movie convention but there would be some room for a serious discussion on why evil exists.  True, without evil we couldn't have good, but there's a big difference between existing in a theoretical way and reading about it everyday in the newspaper.

Just to keep it interesting someone could do a Good Con also.  As long as the vibe is about fun I'll go.

GPS

Like many people, I use my cell phone as a gps when I go to unknown places.  I've noticed that  it has problems saying certain names like "Travis" and "Waco" amongst others.  I want to go to some other Texas cities just to see what will happen if it has to say Nacogdoches, Decatur, Waxahachie, or some of those older Indian names.

Then I wonder if an accent would be a good seller for a gps.  Quite often I make a wrong turn or go past the turn and the phone will tell me to turn around or some such thing like that.  That's when I want it to have a Mr. T voice and say his classic line:  "I pity the fool that don't turn when I tell them to."  Or how about Alan Rickman, not the nice Alan Rickman from "Blow Dry", but the full of disdain for your petty driving problems Professor Severus Snape? 

I'm not sure if the gps speakers can handle the proper voice inflections to really make it work but it would be fun to try.

Getting bit on the butt.

I'm out marketing today (I'm a licensed loan officer remember) and one of my first contacts wants to know if any of my lenders will do a loan for a self-employed person and use bank statements instead of tax returns for income.  Her client was lying on their taxes I assume.  I'm brand new so I tell her I'll get back to her on that. 

Apparently the laws have changed recently and anything involving home loans has to have some form (4506T) sent in to the IRS and that will raise some major red flags if you were claiming one income and trying to buy a house while claiming something higher.

The clients options are to redo their past taxes and claim the higher income, and pay the difference in taxes, or buy a smaller house.

Back when I worked for tips I didn't claim all of my tips but I claimed most.  I didn't want to but restaurants claim 15% of your sales and they figure out the taxes on your credit card tips therefore you are taxed on damn near everything you were tipped.  Why risk problems with the IRS for what is really a small amount of cash?  Considering the house this client was looking at they weren't hiding a small amount of cash but now they have to tell the IRS they made a "mistake" on their taxes or "settle" for a smaller house.  Have you ever looked at a house and REALLY wanted it and then found out that you couldn't have it because your past bit you on the butt?

Working in a bar.

I have an odd job.  It's not odd to me but to the straight people I talk to it is different.  I'm a bartender in a gay bar.  Am I gay?  No, I did grow up with a single mom and her "best friend" Patricia who I now know as my other mother, so I didn't have that strong male role model, which could be why a lot of kids in school thought I was gay.  That's why I started going to the gym a lot; I truly am a gym rat or if I'm at work a gym mouse.  Being a bartender lets me spend time with my girlfriend, or my beard when I'm at work, and let's me spend time at the gym.  Some nights are great some are terrible and some are so-so.

Last night was  mediocre, the only saving grace was a sugar daddy that came in and sat at the bar.  He'll tip decently and more if my knowledge of the others help him score or stay away from certain "types".

Pretty simple really, he talks (about himself, he's a sugar daddy and that's what they do) and then he'll ask me about some possible conquest.  If the potential kept man has a bad history I know about I'll write a short note on a napkin and then put his plain water chaser on the napkin.  Once he's read it I always throw it away quickly because these other guys tip also.  He still thanks me for saving him from a pig/bug chaser combo when his beer goggles were on.

It was a slow night before a beer bust so this customer is telling me a joke...or a life lesson, I'm not really sure which.  Here it is, what's the difference between a metrosexual and a guy giving another guy a blowjob?  Two fuzzy navels.

Just a bit of short fiction by yours truly. 

Skill and patterns.

Whilst my children were taking a bath I finished my latest book.  It was by one of my favorite authors, Simon R. Green.  He's an English bloke and he writes a variety of things:  fantasy, space opera, detectives in a medieval setting with magic, urban fantasy (fantasy in a city during present day; his are unusual because all of the others I've read have sex and/or romance in them while his are just gritty), even a few that I can only call fables in the making.

Reading this book I noticed something; all of his books have a similar cast of characters.  I've probably read over a dozen of his books so far and I think that he uses the same character archetypes in each. 

At first I was annoyed, then my annoyance turned to respect.  He trots out the same things for I don't know how many books total and his dialogue is so good that you ignore the fact that each book is almost the same plot with different words.

Good in the world.

I'm not normally in the business world with "nice" people.  That should be changing now that I'm in the mortgage world but we'll see.  My wife's major contact with people is not in a good way so when I ask her about her day I don't normally hear good stuff.  Even the books I like to read have more of an anti-hero than a heroic bent.  We won't even get into the various governments around the world.

Because of all of that, when I do see something that is a sign of the good in the world it's really refreshing.  I want to encourage it but other than throwing money at it I'm not really sure how.  I have all of these ideas for marketing and for charities and eventually I will put them all together.  Until then I just have to hope that everyone else does a little bit of good for the world.

Ice.

Here in Texas if we get any ice the entire state pretty much closes down.  My former industry and my wife's current industry don't but everyone else puts up the closed sign and they are done.

Schools close first and that creates a snowball effect.  When they shutdown then the daycares follow.  If we can't find someone to watch our kids then how can we go to work?  People are calling out because they don't have anyone to watch their kids and some companies are thinking they might as well shut the doors for the day. 

You know what I did on the constructive side today?  I took a shower and I fed them.  On the non-constructive side I spent time with my kids which is always a good thing but too much of that and I'll have other problems. 

Love Texas but this damn weather is something else.

Training.

In our neighborhood is a kid I don't like. Same age as one of my kids and my wife said I need to get used to the kid being around.  She said that their is a chance that one of our children will date this brat. 

She mentioned that I might want to think about how to teach this kid to be less annoying.  Hmmm, if the kid is less annoying then I won't mind if one of my kids is dating them.  Even if there isn't any dating then maybe the kid could be an accidental spy for me and let me know if my children are doing something they shouldn't. 

My background is all about retraining people that I don't think were raised properly, can I adjust it to this kid?

Another one down.

 My eldest just finished up a birthday party.  Eight years old.  We went the more expensive and labor intensive route and had a party at the house. 

Burgers and hot dogs on the grill, chips and guac, fruit and vegetable crudité (you can tell I'm from the F&B industry) with a variety of beverages of the non-soda kind.  The eldest wanted a piñata and that was the only candy or true junk food other than the cake of course.

Lots of people and it seemed to be a hit.  We're already thinking that next year we'll give the kid an option.  The party or cash.  Even if we offer $100 that will be less than the party. 

Two more kids for the year and then it's over, until next year.  Man, they're expensive.

Meandering through memory lane.

I'm cleaning and reorganizing my office and I found about a half-dozen old notebooks.  There are short notes on essay ideas and business ideas.  Quotes I created and some from other people. 

Here's a sample:  You know it's going to be a bad day when the cat looks at you for a few seconds and then yawns.  That was by me.

Some letters that I wrote to friends even some things I'm not really sure how to categorize.  Some philosophical bon mots I created back when I was 17-19 I still believe in.  Here's a good one:

Three things everyone should know:
1.  Life isn't fair.
2.  You don't always get what you want.
3.  Nobody is perfect.

The quote about the cat and the three things were both by me, what does that tell you about me as a teen?