Singularity

Sometimes I stop what I'm doing long enough to examine exactly where I am. Who I'm with. What we're doing. Sometimes I try to do a reverse of the age-old interview question in my head: "Where did you think you would be now five years ago? Fifteen? Thirty?"

Sometimes I think about why people tolerate me in their general vicinity. Why I'm invited to things, why I'm sometimes included with others that have no apparent connection to me other than that we may both know the same person.

The idea of "Cool" is very strange to me. I've been labelled before, third person of course, as being both pro and con "Cool"; as if the beholder had some sort of power over whether I could be allowed or denied access to whatever the topic of conversation reveals. My completely bat-shit crazy taste in music has been considered cool for a short time period, then shifted to meh, then to uncool without any variance or addition of new terms. My kids think of me uncool when they don't side with a decision I've made, but cool when I let them get away with something other parents ban from their own children.

I've sat with famous people before. Well, famous meaning that they can claim that more people know them than they know themselves, I suppose. Or maybe it's that they have some sort of physical proof that they were there, they did that thing, you know? that _thing_ whether it's a song or an album or a canvas with ink and mud scraped all over it, or a set of words imprinted semi-permenantly in a book of papers. They're famous because in a hundred or a thousand years someone will be able to find their book or their song and know without a doubt that someone with that name did that thing. Anyway, I've sat with famous people, not knowing the thing they did, and didn't really bat an eye when the thing was presented, either in the present or at some future time, hushed in whispers or proudly shouted and proclaimed. I guess some famous people like that sort of apathy, as I have sat with them since, and was considered cool.

Some people, though, some people don't need cool. Some people just are, and I secretly love these people. They do their own thing, they write things without needing a book with paper, they sing songs without needing a wax with grooves to be pressed. Even if they don't do anything at all, sometimes, they get my adoration without having to do anything at all. Sometimes those people are better than all the others, truly, and I don't know if I would be the same person I am today without those silent towers of awesomesauce.

Maybe that's why people sometimes let me hang out with people they consider cool?

Loss

Last week my dad died.

I heard the news from a cell phone call in the night. Around 9pm. My phone buzzed, I looked down from my cigarette and noticed that the call was coming from "Dad". I answered in a cheerful manner, thinking on the other side a voice would say what he always said, "Hel-lo John Mar-tin!" but instead, my sister said something like, "Hi, what are you doing?"

She called me just a week or so earlier. Actually, she texted my wife saying that something was wrong and that she had gotten a new phone and wanted to talk to me. She had forgotten to export her contacts, so she lost all the numbers. I had rage-quit all social networking sites, so it wasn't like she could look at my Facebook profile to get my digits.

That call was to relay the horrible news that our mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer. They think it started as breast cancer, but they found a bunch that had migrated to some bones.

I was devastated. My mom was too young.

My mom had surely gotten more and more frail over the years. At one point, she was lean and mean; she was able to put up with two fighting teenage kids. But my parents moved pretty far away, and the visits became fewer and far between. Each time I noticed her skin was thinner, her hugs were not as bone-crushing, her eyes seemed less alive.

And yet, still my mom was too young to die.

The doctor assigned to her case was on a week long vacation in Europe somewhere. Being a head-surgeon must have advantages. The second in command was running some tests and had a few ideas, but there wouldn't be much real progress until the vacation was over.

All the little petty bullshit issues of my life suddenly went away. That I didn't have much food in the fridge or that I had taken a verbal beating from a particularly nasty customer that day didn't really matter any more. I got cold. I drained a two week old beer in three gulps. I relayed the message around to a few close friends--partially because they also knew my mom as "Mom", but also looking for some sort of comfort. I cried. I talked with my wife. We cried.

But there was hope, ya know? My mom was still alive, she was even pretty cheerful. Apparently she thanked all her doctors for their hard work, and was pretty sure she was gonna get through this with barely a scratch.

A few days passed before I was able to talk to my dad. I kept trying to think of ways I could call him and talk to him about everything.

Three days after my sister called he called me. We had just driven over to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. I stayed outside and smoked a half pack while my wife and kids went shopping.

Dad said that Mom was doing well, but he was a wreck. He was going to take twelve weeks of FMLA time to stay with her. My sister was in late pregnancy and would probably be staying home full time, but then she would have two kids and wouldn't be able to stay with Mom full time, too. So, he would take a slight hit to his monthly income to essentially stay at home and take care of everybody.

His tone was pretty grave, but my dad was always positive, ever hopeful even when the shit had hit the fan and then kept coming. He talked about how much he wanted me to move out to where everyone else was, that I would love it out there. He always did this, even though he knew my eventual plan was to go south and start a farm. He asked about the kids, knowing that I would tell him they were fine. For some reason we talked at length about the school system here and how everything seems to be in a constant rebuilding phase, how the schools are so horrible and yet instead of calling them bad, they're "In Development" or some such bullshit.

My good friend had called me the day before, saying that he flew for work pretty much constantly, and that he wanted to help out and could not think of a better way to spend his frequent flyer miles than to buy tickets for me and my bunch to go visit my parents. I thought this would lift my dad's spirits so I told him and tried to schedule a time to come out.

He said that my sister's baby would be born in the beginning of October, so to make everything cool and whatnot that I should plan around the end of October. That would give time for the mother-baby bond to all happen, for sleep to become a real thing, and for my mom to have a few treatments of whatever it was they wanted to give her.

We got off the phone in decent spirits, considering the events surrounding the talk, and I went home and made dinner. I think. Maybe we just ordered delivery or something.

A few more days passed and everything was set. Four round trip tickets were secured, and all that was left was to figure out where we were to sleep. My car died, as it was, after helping a friend move. The clutch, the six month old or younger clutch, had given up, and now the car just sits idly no matter how hard the gas is pressed.

So I went back to the thing I hate most: the bus.

My dad shared this hatred with me. He had a car break down at the same time I had one break down a year or so ago. We'd share stories about the stupid drivers, the weird politics, and all the other things that go along with inside jokes.

So I'm juggling a few things a this point, trying to make sure everything is cool. I talk with my dad again just to make sure everything is still a go when he finally realizes that all of us are coming to visit, not just me.

He got really excited knowing that he would get to see his grandkids. I think he even started to cry a little.

So when my phone rang on Thursday night, September 1, 2011... I thought it was going to be my dad with more news on our visit. Maybe his friend came through with some free nights in a hotel? Maybe his other friend is willing to let us all use his beach house that week for some much needed R&R? Maybe Mom's cancer is in remission and she's gonna live another fifty years?

No, it was my sister.

She said she was sad. She started saying weird things and I didn't understand. She asked me when the doctors called me? I told her I didn't know what she was talking about. I thought something happened with Mom.

In hindsight, I don't think it could have been delivered any better or kinder. She told me that Dad was found on a golf course, that he was rushed to an emergency room and that there was nothing they could do.

She knows me. Even though we haven't really talked in years, she knows me. She knows how I may be patient and calm on the surface, but I hate how some people drag out painful or unnecessary disclosures.

She gave me the news, told me all the right things about how much Dad loved me, and how he always talked about me. How proud he was of me.

I lost it. I couldn't talk on the phone anymore. I handed the phone to my wife and just cried.

Before the shock totally set in, I called my boss and left a voicemail telling him I wasn't coming to work the next day. Then the weekend went by in a blur.

And now, here I sit at work, typing out the events of the past few weeks. I don't really know what to do. I feel very helpless. I feel like I should be doing more to help my sister and mother. That I should be clearing up all the loose ends, getting death certificates and closing down accounts and being a shoulder to cry on...

But instead I'm just sitting here at work. I'm helping people get into their email. I'm repairing backup jobs for servers. I'm teaching people new ways to do mail merge documents. I'm sitting here.

Last week my dad died, and I don't know who will give me advice, who will tell me everything will be okay, who will joke about how terrible the world is while still saying there's still hope.

My first memory of my dad is his hands. I remember holding his hands and marveling at how big they were. How large his fingers seemed. How his left ring finger was cut short by a stupid lawnmower accident when he was a stupid teenager. His hands were big, firm, weathered, and yet so soft.

My dad was ever the hopeful, ever the guy who loved the Beatles' song "Here Comes The Sun." My dad was never really the smartest guy around, but he tried to learn from his mistakes.

I miss you, Dad.

Garden Update

We've been busy with the Garden and life in general, but here's a quick update with pics:

This is the first section of plants we started immediately after the rains of 2011. It's essentially tomatoes, flowers, peppers, and herbs. Everything seems to be growing rather well. We've since added more good soil and some fertilizer/plant food to this soil since this picture, but this is a good size estimate.

This is the left garden, started about two or three weeks after the right garden. Squash, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, more herbs, and other weird things are in the dirt. Our cucumber wasn't liking this spot, so we converted one of the big white buckets to a pot, now it seems to be happier.

I've decided to try my hand at some hops this year. First little guy is a Nugget. It seems to be the best growing so far. Has three reaching vines which I'll need to build a rope system for. I'm not really counting on a big harvest for any of my hops this year; it's a development year to get the roots in place and activated for next year.

Second is my Fuggle. So far, it hasn't really done much but send up leaves. No reaching vines, no real sturdy stem structure yet, but I have hope.

And finally, the Mt Hood. I'm guessing that since this rhizome was a hollow tube, it will just take a little longer to develop and grow? Since this picture, I've already seen about an inch and a half more growth.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with a weekly update on the Garden front.

Climbing That Great Big Hill

So my wife and I like to garden. Making our own stuff out of nothing but seed, dirt, sunshine, and water is cool. In most cases you get near-immediate results, and if you're lucky, you get to have more stuff to eat for free, which is always nice.

We just moved to our new place in October, which is actually kind of perfect for starting a new garden, since during the entire winter, we've been doing all the things that needed to be done in the house (putting stuff where we want it, hanging art, figuring out the heater, etc) and thinking about the garden.

Our backyard is a little kitschy, with a moderate hill and a small copse of trees in the very back. I tried to take a few pictures to illustrate the blank canvas, as it were; a starting point to all later garden updates.

Here we have the view from our back porch/patio. This really is the width of the backyard, as we share a wall with our next-door neighbor (to the left), and there's a fence on the right side that goes all the way to the back. In the middle third of the photo above is the hill. It's about a 45 degree incline.

I tried to get better shots of what the hill was like, but I think I effectively just shot a lot of pictures of dirt and weird little sprouting things that we think are onions.

This is probably the best picture to see the hill in action. My plan is to cut away three foot terraces and then block those sections with brick or paving stones. I think I'll get three vertical sections, and maybe four total horizontal sections.

This shot is looking back at the back patio from atop the hill. You can almost make out the line of bricks in the center of the shot.

The copse of trees. Just behind the big tree on the left I want to build out a six foot diameter compost bin/leaf holder. I built one at our last house, and the dirt was just really getting good after three years of feeding it.

This is the corner of the weird line of bricks mentioned before. I think someone had the same idea that we have, but they wussed out and didn't really follow through.

The first year is always a learning period for new gardeners or old gardeners at new locations. It's a time to try out different methods, different plants, and find out all the conditions that your yard and plants have and need.

I'm excited.

When will February End?

Son got two shots yesterday, he's complaining a lot of soreness today. They say while he was getting the shots he was such a trooper and was telling them to give him more. And now, he's just bitching up a storm about the pain.

It's weird, this completely diametric approach to life, and I've seen it in him before. One minute everything's cool, and he's chilling with us watching tv or something, and the next he's a whirlwind of terror, fighting with his sister and chasing the cats.

Boys will be boys, I suppose, and he's all boy at this point.

Nana is taking the kids to go see the Bieber movie today; they're super-excited. I think us parents will take a trip up to the local clothing outlet mall to see if we can replace some clothes that we lost in a recent basement drainage issue.

In other news, this keyboard is acting up, might be time to look for a replacement.

I narrowly avoided doing six months in county yesterday. Got pulled over a few weeks ago for speeding (like, 6 above), and a broken license plate light (didn't even know I had one). Cop said he'd give me a warning, but had to hold me for tax evasion.

Long story short, I didn't file my local taxes for two years. I did state and federal, but the local peeps want their money. After appearing in court, and talking things over with the local tax official, I'm set up with a payment plan that will stretch about six months, but at least I can spend that time free rather than sitting in a cell with bubba.

Although I doubt there's enough room in county for a small-time "crook" like me...

Jagged Pills

I like to think I'm a pretty patient person. Patient and compassionate, you know, I don't really hate people, I don't invoke huge amounts of unnecessary chaos, and I want to make sure my kids grow up into being good people.

But there are seriously some things in this world that I hate.

I understand when there is a need for something, sometimes R&D gets thrown to the side while production is ramped up. If you just need some form of capturing data, but all the power is out, you grab a pen and paper and start writing shit down. It's cool, if the need is that great, MacGuyver a solution, and keep moving. But when the power comes back on, revert that paper information back into the system.

When you need a communications device to send images of paper to other people in other places, I get it, you needed to do it RIGHT THEN, and a fax machine was all that was available. It's alright, it was 1985, fax machines were hot shit.

But you know, it's 2011. We have better stuff now. Hell, whole companies are running paperless. Get rid of fax machines. The options available to you only start at email, ftp, and something like dropbox. There are countless options for conveying data from one machine to another. You're using one option now.

Get rid of fax machines. They're dirty, use paper, use electricity, are loud, take up a phone line, take too long to communicate, and are from a time when some guy just needed to send this paper to someone across the country without using the pony express.

I hate fax machines.

Continuing in this direction, I hate printers, too. We have lots of ways of looking at information. You can view it on a monitor. You can dredge it through a front-end to make it all pretty and then display it on a scoreboard for a sports team. You can throw it up on a wall using a projector. You can even use your phone to look at it.

Printers are loud, dirty, wasteful little inventions. I get it, you needed to get information out of the computer that you typed everything into. You couldn't read punch-tape, so you needed the computer to convert information into letters and numbers that were recognizable. It's cool. It was 1985, printers were necessary for business.

But... it's 2011. Paperless companies... Think green...

I hate Blackberries. More specifically, I hate the Blackberry Enterprise Server software package.

Smartphones are a great thing; I can do a significant portion of the things I can do on a desktop workstation computer on my phone. It isn't easy, but I can struggle along. I can view email, I can watch video, I can even open files and edit them, then send them off somewhere.

But the evil beast that created BES decided that they really hated anyone that administered a company full of BBs. There are a ton of restrictions, extra components that have to be installed to a server, and all these weird licensing regulations. If Google had the same requirements to use their services, to access the stuff you need... they'd be out of business.

There are other things I hate, or at least dislike, but these take the top of the list.

Break the Crust

So many plans, so many things to try. We moved to a new place in October of last year, so this will be the first spring in the new place. First steps in getting a garden together, in getting the patio just right for grilling. First shovels of dirt flip-flopped around to mix in better dirt, to prepare beds for flowers and fruits and whatnot.

I'm getting older, and I can feel it. I once relished the thought of days and afternoons sweating over a 10'^2 plot of earth to get a few more tomato plants in the ground. I used to really enjoy walking behind the too-loud lawn mower, lost in thought and totally segmented from reality for an hour while the engine I trailed filled the air and blocked all everything else.

But I'm getting old. My bones hurt. My joints would rather sit in a hot tub or lay on a soft bed. I like the after-effects of gardening, but do not want to pain myself more in the process of getting there.

Alas, it is my duty (and more than a little my pride) to wait for the ground to fully warm up and dig out the grass and replace everything with what is needed to eat, if not for just a meal or two.

When I was much much younger, I would sit on the couch and watch gardening shows with my mother and sister. Shows like The Victory Garden, or The Square-Foot Garden were often on in the early afternoons. We'd watch the hosts walk around these... these simply awesome back yards where anything and everything grew. It appeared almost like they could exist completely on the harvests of their crops.

But I grew up, and now I understand that man cannot live on peppers and tomatoes alone.

At the last place, we tried okra, radishes, sunflowers, and other small fruits and veggies, but never really got anything close to enough food to sustain us. It was really nice to be able to cut something and toss it in a pot, or to slice up a tomato for a burger, or to rip a few basil leaves to add to a marinara. But there isn't enough land nor time to grow enough food for everybody.

Maybe if I had a big farm, and I didn't have to work in an office all day... maybe then I could grow food and have some animals and do something worth-while... But then I recall that I'm getting older. My body doesn't like moving all that much.

Really, I'm not that old. I'm barely old enough to be losing my hair...

And in a way I'm excited about getting out and getting dirty, even if it's only for five minutes at a time.