i'm back, and i feel great!

i guess it's been a whole week since i last blogged. you didn't miss much. it wasn't incredibly eventful. the weather has been nice, so we have been outside a lot more. we got the bikes cleaned up and ridable. we have had some great rides too!

anyway, i don't know if some kind of bug went through our house or what, but we were all tired. very tired. it didn't matter when we went to bed or got up, we were just tired. whatever it was, hopefully it's done. being more cautious about bedtime (for us as well as the kids) has helped.

i managed to get up early enough to exercise this morning. (only the second day so far this week...) see, i was up later than i should have been all weekend, so i knew sunday night that i wasn't getting up to exercise monday. tuesday i was tired, but managed to get a short ride on the exercise bike. yesterday, i was so tired, instead of getting up, or hitting snooze, i reset the alarm and went back to sleep. last night, i got to bed at a decent time, so this morning wasn't bad.

--sorry, quick little sidebar. last night wasn't a decent time. it was too early. i just meant that in order to get up early enough to work out before my bus, i have to get to bed! i like staying up late. i hate mornings. throughout college and the first half of my working life i was a theatre guy. that meant late night work. rehearsals, shows, and the social life came after. bedtime was routinely 2am! it didn't matter, because i didn't have to get up early. it was very conducive to my personality. i met the beautiful meemer in the theatre dept. at weber state university, and in our marriage, little changed. we both liked the later schedule. it wasn't until a couple years later, when we had "real jobs" (or at least jobs that started by 9am) that our peace was disrupted.
ok, that wasn't a quick rant... there's a lot more there, but i'd better get back to relevant stuff. (not that it matters...)--

i was feeling good enough this morning, (still tired, but only one "snooze") i hit the treadmill. instead of the walk a lap, run a lap thing i'd been doing, i decided to run steady. (of course, by run, i mean jog. leisurely.) after a warm-up lap, i jogged steady for 1.5 miles. that's six laps. i know that's not much for those of you who are in shape, but for me, that was pretty good. what really made me feel good, was that i could have kept going, but i needed to get ready for work.

after a cool-down lap, (making a total of two miles) i stretched, shaved, showered, and caught the bus. i enjoyed some reading, and got right into some projects at work. that doesn't sound like anything, but for me it was a big deal. i was motivated! it has been hard lately to get focused on any given task.

i don't know if it had anything to do with the exercise or not, but i do know that for the first time since i started working out, i feel great! walking from the bus to my office, i felt good. i was awake, i had already accomplished something, and i just felt good.

hopefully i can build on that, and be more faithful about the whole thing...

tag! i'm it...

and i mean it. the only blogs i read have already been tagged, so the tag ends here. that's fine. i think the only people who really read my blog are the ones who tagged me. so here's six things about me that are unusual or unknown.

1- i sort my candy by color or flavor, and eat them in order from least favorite to favorite. usually ending with green (skittles, m&m's, etc) or with rootbeer bottlecaps, banana runts, cinnamon jelly beans, etc.

2- i have to eat snacks in odd numbers. especially candy, cookies, etc. i will usually eat three, and then if i eat more, it will be in pairs, or counted out even numbers to ensure that the total number will be odd.

(my fabulous wife is helping me with these ocd issues, and i am improving).

3- i'm a bit of a perfectionist. i don't think that's strange at all. this isn't just on major projects. simple daily things are included, like completely spreading my bread. whether buttering toast, or making pb&j, it is smooth, even, and right to the very edge of the crust, all the way around. again, i don't see what the big deal is, but my sweet wife points out how odd it is.

4- i'm a trekkie. we don't have cable, so i don't get to watch tng anymore, and i never had a complete uniform, (although i want one) but i do have a lot of reference books, and can explain how replicators, transporters, and warp drive work.

5- i would rather be home, or doing something with my family than anything else. i have no hobbies, or social life outside of work. i miss mountain biking, backpacking, etc. but not enough to spend any of my time away from work doing them, unless my family, or at least my beautiful wife can join me. (i promise, i'm not trying to sound cool or say what women like to hear. i list it as a weird thing about me because everyone i know has a "guys night out," or goes to games or events with friends. it's not only because i don't really have friends, it's just that meemer is my best friend, and if we can't do something together, i just don't care to do it. maybe i'm co-dependent, or just waiting for my midlife crisis. oh well. i'm happy).

6- on curvy roads, i will often change lanes, back and forth, to stay on the "inside track." it doesn't make a noticeable difference in distance or time, but psychologically, i'm saving gas!

in summary, i don't see how any of these things are "weird," but since they have either been pointed out to me as unusual, or i haven't known others to do them, i have chosen them as the six things that make me "normalcy challenged."

finally, as i began this post, i don't have anyone to tag, so it all ends here. so there!

"waiting is the hardest part..."

i know corporate politics are nothing new. in fact they are common. everywhere. i just felt like venting a bit about the issue du jour.

see, i work in salt lake city, and an interesting fact about working for the corporation i do, is that no work will be done on monday evenings. nothing happens in any of the headquarters buildings on monday nights. in fact, the only employees that work on monday nights are a handful of security officers.

fast forward to tonight. monday. we have an outside production moving in to be presented for an invited audience tomorrow. they are scheduled for a full technical and dress rehearsal tonight. that means it's just like a performance, but without an audience. the obvious problem is, it's monday.

due to the tight schedule and the nature of the audience, the sponsor, (who we'll just say is a higher level of authority than any of us that are involved from three different departments, or our upper management), gave the ok to the group to hold this rehearsal.

enter the politics. two of the departments are standing by to support the rehearsal, knowing that there is a possibility that it may not happen. the third department is sticking by written policy, and is planning not to work tonight, unless they are authorized directly by the sponsor.

i'm not too concerned, knowing that my team has worked hard to ensure a good performance tomorrow, regardless of whether we rehearse tonight or not. since not all three departments can agree on tonight, the decision has to be made by the sponsor.

that still has not happened.

in less than two hours, cast members will begin arriving for the rehearsal, which will be less than effective if the one department isn't allowed to offer their support. on the other hand, without an official decision from the sponsor, we can't very well cancel the rehearsal either.

hence the dilemma. yet still we wait...

growing pains...

nothing good comes for free. particularly growth. i am specifically referring to personal development. it seems like the experiences that develope us dramatically, are usually very difficult to get through. in the end, the growth is such that the trial seems worth the trouble it was. it is basically all we do, throughout our entire lives.

in the beginning it's pretty easy. we struggle to eat enough to grow our bodies. we fall down a lot learning to stand and walk. we say all kinds of funny things learning to talk, etc. as we get older, we continue to learn at a rapid pace. yes, school is full of various challenges, and is often a challenge in and of itself, but still we go and learn.

it seems like the more we know, the more we have to learn. enter the teenager. they think they have learned everything there is to know. the opportunities for growth adapt. hormones wreak havoc on old friendships and simple daily routines. this shakes things up to the point that school is still useful.

at some point we discover the opposite sex. we can now admit, that we don't know everything. we start dating, and we realize just how little we know. not just about them, but about ourselves. it all coincides nicely with becoming an adult.

first jobs stretch us in new ways. with the evolving expectations of parents, teachers, and other adults, we recognize that there is so much we don't know, we need to focus our education and experience to shape us into something we think we want to be.

enter college. the narrowed fields of study are helpful, but the real growth comes from interaction with a much larger, and more diverse group of peers. these years are filled with the most important events and choices. we understand what a long shadow they will have on our lives. but we still feel young and bold, and we plow ahead.

of course, growth doesn't stop at graduation. jobs become careers, and while much is learned, most of it seems to center around the job itself, and therefore, while important, doesn't resonate as having core importance. but like all other areas, if the growth is significant, it comes by way of heavy burdens. (in fact this whole post grew out of some stress i'm having at word at the moment.) my current job is a blessing. it has been re-invented in the last few years, but it is secure and rewarding. the salary may be less that what i'd like, but i think that is true of all but a very few. still it provides for our needs and has become increasingly rewarding personally. while i'm glad to be doing things i never imagined were in my reach, it has been a difficult transition. at the moment, i'm in the middle of a project that is challenging many aspects of the corporate environment i work in. i have been on other projects that have pushed the boundries, but never as a central figure, and never one sponsored by the president of the corporation!

it sounds much more glamorous than reality. i'm working with secretaries from the presidency's office, and the issues this project has raised are being resolved way above my level. even so, it is a whole new pressure for me. knowing my name is being tossed around above my head, and that regardless of the outcome, i'm in it. it is a complex project with groups from within and without the corporation, and chances are remote that all entities can be entirely satisfied. while nothing of any lasting import is my "fault," i remain very much in the middle of it all. anyway, that said, i'll get back to the larger post this particular situation spawned...

even as these various adventures, from school to the workplace, continue to mold us, we realize that the most important areas in which we hope to advance, are going to require help. the kind we can't get from peers. we find a friend of the opposite sex, who has the most to offer us, and who we hopefully have much to offer, and we marry. the learning now comes at a pace and depth that makes college look like kindergarten. it is a veritable treasure trove of knowledge we didn't know we didn't know. much of it stimulates growth in the very core of who we are. we now grow in fundamental ways. slowly, perhaps, but life-altering nonetheless. after all, how can two individuals who truly commit to be one, not change as the melding occurs?

many of us decide, well before we've finished learning from our spouse to have children. it's a whole new school! like marriage, most of the growth is internal. it is also an entirely different degree of difficulty. with another life involved, the responsibility alone is enough to make some falter. happily, there tends to be a much greater outpouring of love and joy to keep us going. beyond the joy, it is what we discover about ourselves, our tendancies, our fears, and our abilities that make the immense new workload seem justified.

and because kids grow as we did, but with completely individual personalities, this highest school is always changing, and our personal evolution continues. the ongoing change with children causes the marriage to morph as well, and it continues to be extremely effective at advancing us. naturally there are other "schools" that come as we age and grow, but none can rival the primal impact of the family. i'm grateful that families are forever, because i believe it will take me at least an eternity to learn all my family has to teach me.

...and the first shall be last.

so because of an early meeting this morning, i didn't exercise. i was presenting at the meeting, so i caught the bus that would give me almost half an hour of buffer time to offset monday morning traffic.

i was glad i had planned for an extra fifteen minutes as we were at a crawl basically as soon as we hit the freeway. (i later learned of an accident in farmington). anyway, i was reading on the bus, as usual, oblivious to the world outside the bus. most of my reading this morning was in preparation for the meeting, but it still kept me fairly engrossed. (when i'm reading a novel, the ride flies by, even with heavy traffic).

the alarm on my recently recovered cell phone goes off letting me know i have twenty minutes until the meeting. (the alarm is early, because it's a good ten minute walk from my office to the meeting). i look up and notice we're in bountiful, but we're moving at close to freeway speeds. "no problem," i think. it's only about ten or fifteen minutes away. i've got time to spare.

well our bus driver decided that it was time for a change. the next time i look up to see where we are, it's because the driver has just come over the intercom to apologize that he had missed the exit.

that's right. a professional driver. this is what he does for a living. how many times a day does he drive this route?

-let me just take a quick moment to say, by and large, the utah transit authority does a great job. they can't be held responsible for traffic. (i'm really looking forward to the Front Runner commuter rail system!) but still, given the number of busses they operate, breakdowns are rare, and accidents are few. i mean, in the six or so years i've been commuting regularly on the bus, i've had a bus breakdown once, had busses not show up less than a dozen times, and until today, i've never had an unintentional detour.-

"ok," i think, "he'll just head back up 300 west and we'll just be a few minutes later. it will be tight, but i should still make it."

the driver then announces "300 west and 400 south," and the stop signal chimes. that's right, he decided just to run the route backwards! so instead of the third stop, i had to wait until like the eighth. i was still a few blocks away when my phone rang. not the alarm, but someone asking if i was coming.

yes! i am. the bus driver seems to have other plans, but i'll be there soon.

well, i finally walk in to hear the last part of a review of the fire-drill procedures. late, and probably not worth the wait, but i did show up!

i'm back. (with some help)

so my lovely wife took our almost three-year-old and went to a class reunion planning meeting. our almost six-year-old stayed with me. it was good for both of them to get time one-on-one with a parent intead of each other. (they have been somewhat at odds lately...)

it worked out well, because almost six is a hard worker. he will work alongside mom or dad, and will work hard. he cleaned up his desk and toys while i cleaned up after breakfast. he picked up his room while i put laundry away. while i made our bed, he made his bed, and his brother's bed. we pooper-scooped the back yard. he swept the patio while i raked the lawn.

see what i mean? he didn't complain at all. he is a hard worker. we had fun together too.

when mom got back. we all went down the street to the first yard sale of the season! not anything exciting, but a couple of videos cheaper than a rental.

we then grabbed a late lunch (with sundaes for dessert!) and did some shopping. i don't know if anyone else found anything, but i did. it took a lot of work. no, really. the store was busy, and understaffed, so everything took longer. but after going through about ten pairs, i finally found a pair of running shoes!

so even though it was evening, and not morning, i joined my wonderful wife downstairs. she was flying on the exercise bike, so i went for a quick run on the treadmill. much different with decent shoes! i had a good run, and my feet feel great.

i know nobody cares about my feet, so i guess the important thing is that i exercised. so now that my foot is better, i'm determined to actually get up, and get my morning routine going again.

no really.

i guess we'll see in the next few days...

what once was lost, now is wet.

but found all the same! well with all the hullabaloo at work, it was way after lunch. in fact it was basically time for my meeting when i left the office. but that's not important right now. what matters is, i walked over to the state office building, (reminding myself not to stop at the corner and catch a bus) went to the reception desk, and picked up my phone!

it was on. it had the time. it seems to be in good shape. i think there are a couple of new dings on the antanna, but it seems to work.

i now walk a couple of blocks the other way to the church office building (about 20 minutes late for the meeting) and stop by the cell office. they de-program the loaner, (that i never picked up because of my crazy morning) and re-program my phone. at one point, i was removing the battery to find the serial number, and my hands got wet. not a lot, but seriously, some water did drip out.

of course, since it had been sitting on a slushy sidewalk for who knows how long until mr. stateworker found it, i was just glad it worked!

so long story short, i have my phone back, and it works.

long story longer, i got to my meeting about 50 minutes late, but they were just starting. (or they were just waiting for me... i don't know which). even so, the meeting went well. it was interrupted with carryover hullabaloo from earlier in the day, and thus went long. about an hour longer than i wanted it to.

one of the downsides to this belated departure is that the busses running that time of day are the common public transit busses. this is bad, because i'm a regular commuter, and i'm used to the nice, greyhound type coaches the express route runs during peak hours.

i know. no point to any of this. but be honest. you'd rather ride the coach than the bus.

i'm lost!!!

as i was getting off the bus home yesterday, i noticed that i was missing a small, but important, bump on my hip. my cell phone, normally attached to my waist with a belt clip, was missing. no phone, no clip. i frantically checked my pockets. i set my bag down and went back to my seat. i searched all over. i looked under all the seats in the area. nothing. my mind was racing.

the driver asked if it could have come off prior to boarding, and said he would look for it when he did his walk-through at the end of his run. of course, it could have come off earlier. i thought of my path through the slush and slop between my office and the bus stop. with that much snow on the ground, it could have fallen off, and i wouldn't have heard it hit the ground!

to clarify, it's not my phone, it belongs to my employer. i had my previous phone for over four years before it finally broke. i've had this one almost 6 months. crap!

well i got home and mentioned it to my brilliant wife, who suggested i call the office, and let them know so i wouldn't be responsible for any mis-use or fraudulent calls. they transferred my number to a loaner phone, which shut off my phone, and told me to look for a few days. if my phone didn't turn up by then, we would order a new one. as new as it was, there wasn't the normal replacement allowance, so it would probably be full price. my department would pay for it, not me, but i still felt terrible.

i kept calling my phone to check the voice mail, feeling distinctly out-of-touch with my world.

this morning, i got of the bus, and crossed to the other side of the street, and re-traced by steps between the bus stop and my office. nothing. the snow was melted, and the way clear, but no phone. crap! it's not in my office either. double-crap!!

well i promptly got handed a rush project, and still haven't been able to pick-up the loaner phone. i just periodically check my voice mail. luckily, most people use my office phone, which forwards to my cell if i don't answer. i've had all my calls at my desk today.

including one from my lovely wife. she told me she was forwarding an e-mail from a guy who found my phone. he works in the state building my bus stop is in front of. i have since e-mailed him, and hope to hear back soon. but this event tells two important details. my phone is no longer lost, and wasn't crushed by a car or anything. second, the snow and slush must not have destroyed it, because he was able to retrieve our e-mail address from the contact list!

after lunch, i'll pick up the loaner phone on my way to an afternoon meeting. with any luck, i'll be able to meet this man and reclaim my phone before that. if it's still in working order, they can reprogram it, and i'll be back in business! you don't realize how integrated cell phones have become until you go somewhere without one! it's almost frightening! as much as i love our modern technology, to some extent, our dependence on it, is in a way, sad.

how many times did batman fall?

yes. i have fallen off the wagon. that is to say, i haven't exercised once this week. i have been so tired that i barely have the energy to continue making excuses. first it was the change to daylight savings time, which was only a part of the problem. then it was that my foot hurt. now i'm waiting to find some good shoes that don't hurt my feet, but that ignores the exercise bike.

of course, now that our 10:30pm show is no longer on, i can get to sleep earlier, and thus have a better hope of escaping the pull of my bed. i'll continue to look for good running shoes, and the change to replace the seat on the exercise bike.

talk about a total joke. if they don't want you to use it, why build it? or why bother with the hard, malformed, flat seat? would it really cost that much more to put a regular bike saddle on it? one that you can adjust the angle, etc. at least that way you could replace the stock saddle with a nice one... sorry. the seat is a joke, so i basically have to remove the "seat" and weld a post onto the base, so i can fit a nice bike saddle on it.

anyway, i want to get these little projects done, and i want to succeed at this. i don't like being lazy. (it's just easier than not) i don't like being fat. (i'd just rather eat than exercise) and more importantly, i want to learn from this latest fall from my path. like batman did. i don't know how often bruce wayne fell, but he obviously learned the lesson, because now he's batman. and really, if i can't learn from batman, who can i learn from? i am, of course, referring to the question repeated in "batman begins," from which we can all learn.

"why do we fall bruce? so we can learn to pick ourselves up."

"don't try to beat time"

in the words of some forgotten song of the 80's, "time is just a creation, of man's imagination." how else do you explain something like daylight savings time?

to be clear, i don't mind dst. in fact the only time i really dislike it is when it starts each spring. i love the fall back portion. i think we should do that every friday night! we could make up for it by "springing forward" every monday about noon.

honestly, i used to think, why bother? lets just get rid of it. we have electricity, we don't care what time sunrise and sunset happen. how many farmers are left? they get up early anyway... they can continue that rugged tradition of rising with the sun and working all day. how does the rest of the world being one hour behind really effect them? they don't know or care. they can do everything they need to outside of daylight hours anyway.

now i work, and enjoy having the extra daylight to do stuff after i get home from work. that is part of what makes summer so vastly superior to winter! so i just go along with it, and don't complain.

except for the "spring ahead" phase. it doesn't matter what you do. you change your clocks and go to bed early, and all that. the result? you lost an hour, and you're tired, and it takes your body a few days to get used to it. (unfortunately the extra hour in the fall doesn't seem to register on the body at all.)

well, i now have a child in school, so the frustration grows. "time for bed!" we say. "it's not dark!" they reply. have you ever tried to explain this little bit of time manipulation to a five-year-old? not easy. i know we'll be fighting that for a long time to come. especially in a month or two when sunset won't even be close when we send him to bed!

alas, it doesn't end there. dst has thrown off my exercise schedule. despite my foot pain from last tuesday on the treadmill, i faithfully rode the exercise bike wednesday and thursday. i was up plenty early on friday, but had to leave for early meetings at work. (i'm sorry. i flatly refuse to get up before six unless: (1) the house is on fire, (2) we're leaving on vacation, (3) no. i guess it's just the two.)

anyway, i fully intended to keep going with my exercise. however, not only was my body off an hour, i had a really restless night. i don't know what the deal was, i just didn't sleep. knowing the way my brain works, i kept thinking, "i've lost an hour, morning will come soon, i must sleep!" which of course you can't do. at least i can't force myself to sleep. it has to just happen.

so at six this morning, my alarm goes off. i had honestly looked at the clock at like four-fifty-something. (and two-something, several one-somethings, etc.) i was dead tired. plus i was finally sleeping. i reset the alarm for seven and went back to sleep. and i slept.

tomorrow, i'll try to get up at six again. (unless i have another restless night...)