Strange Memories on Vacation

I was woken up this morning (at Panama City Beach on vacation) by a diaper emergency. Basically there was crap everywhere. Not on my top ten list of ways to be woken up in the morning.

I've been thinking a lot while on vacation, I guess thats partially the point. Get you away from your normal humdrum life and let you unwind a bit. Or maybe its being so close to the ocean. I think being close to something so big sort of makes you put things into perspective a little. Or maybe not perspective as much as cause some introspection.

Do you ever get that feeling that you don't really belong somewhere? That you don't fit in, what you are doing is a charade? Thats basically how I feel about this entire world. I know, it sounds melodramatic. But its true, really. This sort of strange alienation.

I've been out of sorts lately. My internal clock is off. Vacation followed by a seven hour drive and then flying to Scottsdale the next morning for a week is messing with my mind.

I'm in a mobile mindset. Day dreaming about jobs in other cities or countries. Learning new languages and heading out of the country.



It'd be nice to get out of this country.



Bush brought up Vietnam today in his speach.

I'm typing this on my work laptop

It's late (for me anyway), 9 PM. I've been trying to get to bed early since in theory I'm supposed to be at work by 7 AM. I think I've been on time something like 5 times this year.

I really try, I really do, honestly. I hate being late. Things just always seem to distract me in the mornings. A long shower, the news, something, it just never happens that I'm ready to go on time anymore.

I've had a host of medical issues crop up in the last year or so. The latest is that I've been having a battle with cluster headaches. Boy let me tell you, really nothing like being hit in the temple by a hammer every 5-10 minutes for a bit. It's awful. Not like a migraine really, no nasuea, just searing blinding pain that brings tears to your eyes.

So I've got emergency injectors of anti-headache medicine handy, and I'm keeping doped up on lortab to keep more of the feelings at bay.

I'm trying this with my work laptop while it's in my actual lap. I wonder how many sperm have died in the production of the blog post? Eh, fry all ya want, I'll make more.

Hm, doesn't quite come out the same way as the chip commercials. Oh well. At least I get an A for effort.

So I've totally lost my interest in playing WoW since i was suspended (still don't know why). I loathe arbitrary punishments, which is why I can't stand IRC rooms and overly-moderated message boards. I'm not certain I'll play again with any interest (or have any fun) until this whole thing is explained to me in something other than a vague form letter.

Work has been hell this week and it's going to get progressively worse throughout the rest of this year.

I'm obstensibly in charge of integrating a sister company into our IT infrastructure by end of year. Something like 400 users. Its a huge political bout that I have nothing to do with, I'm just there to make sure we don't screw up on the tech side of the house.

In addition I'm rolling out MOM 2007 to the environment (to monitor something like 800 servers I guess) and also we're upgrading Enterprise Vault version 5.14 to version 6, so we can then service pack 2 the host OS and then do an upgrade from version 6 to 7 of the entire Enterprise Vault suite.

All by end of year. Oh yeah, we're also doing a full blown disaster recovery test of all our messaging infrastructure before the end of September. And yesterday I had a new software deployment land in my lap that needs to be done asap.

All priority codes are ASAP where I work. Its sort of funny because managers never say something isn't important, there is just this mental strata of ASAP projects that get piled up and then occasionally one of them will be yanked to the surface by one of my many managers and make more ASAP than the rest.

Its teh awsome

So what's the point with this anyway?

I originally started this thing off as a way to vent, that I'm clearly doing. But I also thought I had something to say about the political atmosphere in our country right now. In the world even. But when I go to write about it, it seems somehow futile. I can't really get the motiviation to type out my thoughts on the subject because it's so damn depressing.

I wonder how the rest of America really feels. When they aren't distracted with the high gas price panic (oh noes! It's going to cost me another dollar to drive around for the week!) or the latest Brittany Hilton Lohan crisis or whatever. I must imagine Americans seem awfully shallow people by the rest of the world. I'd say on average that's pretty much spot on.

It seems there isn't really a voice of discontent in the US right now, it's more of a pathetic whimper voiced in the wrong direction.

So anyway, if there isn't going to be a wealth of sharp witted social and political commentary on this site, whats the point exactly? Is this in fact nothing more than a bit mental wank-fest for yours truely? Yeah, probably so. I guess its therapy after a fashion.

This isn't me.

I remember when I was about two, maybe three, and my father and I lived in this appartment in Buffalo New York. We were pretty poor. We sorted change (including pennies) to buy bread and milk. I remember my dad worked as a bartender at a pretty rough bar. He wasn't home most nights. I think I had a small bed to sleep on or some sort of love seat type arrangement, and he slept on a matress on the floor.

We had nothing.

This life I'm living now, in some way just doesn't seem to fit me really. I'm not really sure who I am anymore.

Account suspension, the ruin of society

So last night I received an email stating my WOW account had been suspended for 72 hours. No warning, just bang, pay us for three days of you not playing. The blizzard page shows this is the harshest punishment doled out (with the execption of permanent banning). What was my offense? I don't know.

It probably has something to do with paying some guy in Taiwan to level up my character. Either that or buying gold from www.gold4power.com. I can't imagine anything else I did, I barely talk to any players.

So anyway, now I'm bored after the kids go to bed. And as we all know, idle hands do the devils' work. So Blizzard is encouraging me to do the devils' work. If they do this to enough people, society as we know it will crumble. No one will send out thank you cards anymore, women will have to open doors for themselves, mail adverts for new credit cards and home refinance packages will go unread.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Frustration with the national mechanic

So I'm in this class, which, uh, frankly I've forgotten the name of. Its catalog name is BSM.07-03.BSAB06FD71-PHL323 so its some sort of philosophy class.

Anyway, names aren't important. They are merely labels.

So I'm in this class. One of the exercises is to figure out where your moral and ethical maturity is, what level. There is this thing called Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning. You can read about it here. After reading it, I sort of placed myself in stage six. Examining that of course caused me to do some self-analysis about what frustrates me with our country and the world in general. I sort of did a rambling vent that went something like this:



"I'd like to think I'm in Stage 6 for the most part. I think that the rights of individuals should be held in a higher regard than the rights of society in general. For example, I don't feel its society’s place to punish me for not wearing a seatbelt, or not wearing a helmet while cycling. Yes, of course the 'greater good' is served by these ordinances, but they infringe upon the right of the individual to be who they are. If people want to weed themselves out of the gene pool, it should be their right to do so.



Nor is it the job of society to protect me from things I can easily avoid. I don't need smoking to be illegal in dining establishments. If there wasn't a well ventilated non-smoking section I just wouldn't frequent the place.



I feel that our country has lost sight of the rights of individuals. We've lost touch with the harsh realities that made our country what is was in the beginning. We're becoming a nanny state run by the moral minority. Almost oppressive in its character.



There is nothing relative in this that I can see. Personal rights have gone by the wayside in our sad, misguided attempts to legislate morality and security. The worst part of it is that our society often doesn't have a firm grasp on what it is passing laws to protect from, nor the real impact that these nanny-laws will have in the future. Take for example prohibition. Best of intentions right? Make alcohol illegal. Genius. What do we get? Organized crime booms, people get locked up for doing what they've done all their lives, wasted lives and dollars chasing after more moral fiber.



You can see the same thing in the sad misguided war on drugs. A million people a year are incarcerated for marijuana abuse. 25% of the adult population admits to using it. Criminals are making millions each year off its sale. And more people died from consuming spinach this year than smoking marijuana. What are we saving ourselves from here exactly?



I guess what I'm getting at here is that I feel individual rights should be held sacrosanct. I feel that puts me into stage six."

Fathers day

So, Fathers day.


A bit complicated for me. Stressful.


I love my family. Nothing to do with that. I was stressed. Nervous. Agitated.

Why? I don't know. I had to return to this post for final editing weeks later. I guess it mainly has to do with not seeing my father for over a year now. A lot of strange, conflicted emotions over that. Understandable I guess.

It was a good day overall. Emilie is old enough to 'get' holidays now. So she bought me a gift. Was very tickled with the whole concept of a 'daddys day'.

Kids are great. You learn so much about yourself by interacting with them.