I'm Already Dead and this is Hell

Untangling the Mess

2010-03-08T16:14:00.001-05:00

This blog has been about promoting nothing else but my miserable life. But recently I came across a book by the social media evangelist Gary Vaynerchuk and thought it would be useful to mention it here. It makes sense of the morass of social platforms out there that many of us may have no clue how or why to use in our lives - blogs, vlogs, flickr, twitter, viddler and piddler (this last one isn't up and running yet).

Gary's book, Crush It!, does a great job within a simple format of explaining how all the various social media tools out there can come together to do positive things for you. Chapter 6 boils it right down to the bare bones.

Most of all, it goes beyond a textbook tutorial because Gary talks about all these things from his own perspective, his own business and his own meteoric rise.

The best part is that he wants to share his findings with everyone because he knows how well it works for him and how it can work for us.

And I know how well it works because Gary's business, the Wine Library, was started right down the street from me. I watched it grow from a dismal little storefront to a mega-internet success. One of my friend's even worked there at one time also attesting to the phenomena.

Gary has the guts to cut through the mess and put it in his own terms and encourages us to get out of our private hells and do the same.

Now go crush it!

Go On, Smell It

2010-03-05T19:06:00.000-05:00

Who knows how old this stuff is? I think SPF 4 may be outlawed by now. But I keep a little stash hidden away, for special occasions.

Any time I need a little splash of summer, I open the flip-top, give a gentle squeeze around the bottle's midriff, and inhale the fresh essence. It's like being on the beach. Go ahead, you know you wanna try it.

Some Things I Would Like to See

2010-02-22T22:39:00.001-05:00

The Olympics are taking place right now and I have to say I've enjoyed watching many of the events. In particular, I like the newer events that debuted during these games and in the past 2006 Olympics.

Ski Cross and Snowboard Cross have provided the most excitement with spills, mid-air crashes and major upsets. It's motocross on snow with jumps, bumps, turns and lots of speed. I've seen competitors collide, wipe out and slide through not just one but two protective barriers and end up near the tree line with their equipment spread out like a yard sale. Yep, this is good stuff.

And then there's ice dancing. I mean, is that really a sport? Sure, it looks nice and there's some grace to it but it would really be a sport if there was some exhilaration around it - and not just some frilly costume on some shapely skater. Imagine if the skaters had to go through a half-pipe on the rink or a loop-to-loop, or even if there were giant pot holes on the ice that added to the danger, not like the nice flat, safe pussy rink that exists today.

Here are some more events that would also be spiced up if I were in charge:

Ski jumping would involve four competitors going down the ramp side-by-side. How cool would that be? A slight gust of wind from the side and who knows what could happen.

Freestyle aerialists, which I admit is impressive already, would have to not only fly off a jump, but fly over a giant parking lot. Now that would provide some incentive to go high.

The bobsled would be combined with the biatholon - four guys zipping down an iced chute each shooting at targets on the way down. Perhaps, you wouldn't want to be near that venue.

The luge track would not just be a single chute but multiple crisscrossing ones so many lugers could go at the same, but let's just hope one is faster than the other.

And curling, well what could you possibly add to that?

A Tale of Two Kids

2010-02-20T16:06:00.000-05:00

I actually have three, but two are boys and they are completely different. So much so, that I even decided to do a DNA test on one of them. I was convinced the father was actually one of my best friends.

After spending $26 on a home test kit that provided me with two Q-tips and an envelope, my (alleged) son and I swabbed our cheeks and sent in the specimens.

[BTW, this has been a running joke in our family since he was born. He looks completely different from me, and he's okay with this joke. In fact, sometimes he wishes he was someone else's son. My wife (who knows the truth) thinks we're both idiots.]

Long story short, a few weeks later and $140 more, we got the test results. [Yes, I spent that much money on the joke, but he did get to parlay this experience into extra credit in his biology class.] The results proved, without a doubt, that he is my son. (I'm thinking about re-taking the test.)

Anyway, the point is my two sons are completely different, which is where I started. And what is more different is how my wife and I treat each son.

The oldest one (who was recently confirmed to be of the same DNA) is watched like a hawk to ensure that he stays on top of his school work. We're convinced if we don't do this, his B's will drop to C's and D's and he we will fail out, end up living with us forever and make our lives miserable.

His younger brother pulls straight A's, manages his high school curriculum on his own and quite deftly, and basically just shows us his stellar report card when the semester is over. While he appears to be the perfect child, he has also been in a serious relationship with a girl for almost 2 years. She's also a straight A student, athletic and everything you would think a parent would want.

There's just one problem - we don't even know her.

The girl is shy around us and whenever she does come to the house, she and my son just head down to the basement to watch TV - in the dark. My wife and I never leave the two of them alone in the house because their groping sessions may get out of hand. And it really bothers us that after all this time they've kept us at arms length around this relationship. We've spoken to our son about this and he says he's trying to work through the awkwardness of the situation. We also recognize you can't force these things or else you run into a Romeo and Juliet situation - and that one didn't end well. So we wait.

My other son has never had a girlfriend until just a few weeks ago. Prom is coming up and he and a girl from his class have decided to go together. She's really cute, a cheerleader and maybe not the best academic student, but did I mention she was a cheerleader?

My son denies it is his girlfriend, even though we encourage him to say she is. She has already been a more intimate part of our life. She came to a huge family and friends event we held recently where there were nearly 200 guests. She mingled well and was quite gracious to my wife and I (she even gave us a big hug at the end of the party). My other son didn't even invite his girlfriend.

This new girl has been to the house a few times in just the last couple of weeks, and even baked a cake in our kitchen for my son just for the heck of it. She says, "hi" and "bye" to us, and while we've only known her for several weeks, we love her and think she's a great asset for our son.

In fact, whenever she does come over, my wife suggests that the both of us should leave the house, and let them be alone. As my wife says, "Maybe he'll get lucky." And this is the kid we're afraid will end up on double-secret academic probation if he goes to college.

So we live in this predicament, a tale of two kids, wondering where we went wrong as parents, and hope our youngest child, a girl, never grows up, leaves us or dates any boys. Just another day in Hell.

Just Can't Put My Foot On It

2010-02-18T00:07:00.002-05:00

Is it me, or is there something really freakishly creepy about this Louis Vuitton ad? (Hint: Click on picture and scroll down.)

Nothing's Hidden

2010-02-10T00:02:00.000-05:00

While generation gaps have always existed, it's been reported that we now face one of the biggest gaps ever.

This one has been exacerbated through technology. Sure, I'll say it - the Internet. But it's much more than that. It's all the stuff on the Internet, like Facebook, MySpace, email, IM, Twitter, etc.

For most of us, these tools are just that - tools. New things to try out, figure out and eventually throw out. I know, I know, we're not going to give up email. But with all the new communication channels out there, email is already considered passe by the younger folks.

Since our generation is vastly more mature, we recognize that while these tools are useful, we still need to be careful on how we use them. We know that once our words and/or pictures enter the digital ether, they become permanently tattooed across the electronic universe. And unlike paper that can be destroyed physically, bits and bytes don't necessarily go away when we press delete.

We have been brought up to be careful with whom we share information, to be cautious with our personal feelings and to demure from exhibitionist activities like blurting out one's private thoughts on blog sites.

Huh?

My point is that for those in their 20's and under, these social mechanisms are a way of life. This is how they communicate. They put it all out there for all to see. From pictures on Facebook to sexting over the cell phones, they don't seem to care. Every photograph, every voice message and text is fair game to be shared - and they don't really seem to worry about the possible ramifications of this loss of privacy.

And then I thought, maybe they have it right.

As that generation will become the future one day, they will be conditioned to believe that everything should be exposed on posts, tweets and texts 24 x 7. It will be full disclosure, or nothing. It's how they live now.

And, we, the current future, will be looked upon with suspicion because we don't share personal data with such enthusiasm. Those who hide behind aliases will be scorned. People who don't use their actual pictures for icons will be mocked. We will become the lepers of society, the outcasts. No one will be able to trust anyone over 40. It will be a living hell.

What Ails You?

2010-01-31T17:02:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid I always wished my father was a doctor. I thought it would be so cool that when I had any physical ailment, I'd just have to ask my dad to look at it, right there in our living room. And then I'd feel better.

I seemed to get sick a lot as a kid - bronchitis, colds, sore throats. At least 2-3 times a year I'd be hit with something, and it was miserable.

I'm not sure what the healthcare benefits were like back then, but my parents never really seemed to want to take me to a doctor. In fact, it seemed like a burden to them if I asked. I only went to a dentist once when I was kid. Luckily, I've never had any cavities or any other major problems with my teeth. Although I probably could have benefitted from braces, I by no means have the teeth of an Englishman.

Maybe it was the money issue, or maybe they thought doctors were only needed for the really serious things. It's certainly not like today, where kids go to their physician constantly and get diagnosed for things like ADD, peanut allergies, torn ACLs, blinky eye syndrome.

Now, I figured out how to feel better physically. Consistently exercise and eat well. It's pretty simple, and for the most part I've stayed healthy. If I get ill once a year, that's a lot these days, and I'm happy for that.

The one thing I do miss from childhood is the other side of being healthy - the mental side. While I may have felt lousy with a sore throat for a couple of days, when it was over I bounced back. I would feel alive, enjoy being outside playing games, exploring, looking for adventure. It seemed like everyday had some interesting incident, some bright sunshine on my face. At least that's how I remember it.

But now, as an adult, that inner rush of exhilaration seems tamed. Oh sure, it pops up once in a while, maybe when the moon is in the right position, or when I'm watching a good sporting event, or a concert, or something my children did (that didn't cause a major blowout, a broken window or a smoke alarm to go off). But, for the most part, life is a slog. A day in, day out sort of numbness with peaks of excitement that come along rarely.

Wah, wah, wah. Yeah, I'm grown-up. I have responsibilities. I have to worry about other people. No one told me when I was frolicking in the sun way back then, there would be a price to pay one day. Maybe Peter Pan tried but who would've believed him back then?

All I'm saying is that I want more of that child in my life. Not to the point where I can't take care of myself, still throw tantrums, and hold grudges (that will happen when I'm an old man). I just want some of those natural endorphins to flow through the body again. I want to unshackle that weight I've been dragging around. I want to ... oh, hold on, I have to go stoke the fire underneath the boiling cauldron of the eternally damned.

Life in Revolt

2010-01-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

As the rakish, love-struck, sex-obsessed teen hero of the 1993 cult novel “Youth in Revolt,” Nick Twisp encounters all manner of obstacles, including dysfunctional parents, jealous rivals, the Berkeley police and, of course, acne. Such a raft of challenges are not completely foreign to his creator, C. D. Payne, who has spent significant chunks of his own career struggling, working a series of lousy jobs, living in a trailer for four years and receiving a trail of rejection letters, professional and otherwise. Even with the critical success of “Youth in Revolt” — which he self-published in 1993 and which subsequently became an underground hit — Mr. Payne still couldn’t get a publisher for the book’s three sequels, which he ended up releasing himself. - From the New York Times

Even with the Hollywood release of the movie based on his book series, Mr. Payne is still wary of any success coming his way. "I have no faith that literature is going to pan out on a long-term basis, so I have to have a back-up," he goes on to say.

Yes. He has a 1964 Airstream trailer filled with oddities and hand-made optical illusions. He tows his trailer around to county fairs charging a few bucks to patrons to walk through his museum. That's the back-up plan.

Not such an inspiring story for an aspiring writer, since my back-up plan was to be a writer! But I do have to admire the man. He seems to be at peace with himself, and he has found another hobby to fill his time - the Eyelusion side show attraction. Yep, I'm already combing through Craigslist to see if anyone is selling one of those aluminum cans on wheels.

His is not the story one envisions when you hear about a movie being made from one's creative work. One thinks of the TV show, Entourage, and the ensuing lifestyle. But I suppose Mr. Payne's life is more realistic. I mean, the guy showed up to his own movie premiere in a truck topped with a camper shell and stayed in a RV park north of Hollywood. It does add a little cachet to his background story, along with some oddity and sadness.

Perhaps, that's where he wants to be and where he feels comfortable. And maybe at his age (60), he just doesn't care about changing his lifestyle. He's been set in his ways, used to rejection, and he's already collected enough campers, mobile homes and trailers to keep him busy renovating for a lifetime.

He does keep writing because, "it was the only thing I tried in life I didn't find boring." But he also didn't make any money at it, so he's supplemented his need to write with bored-senseless jobs over the years.

Well, if that's not living in hell, then I don't know what is.

Connections and Coincidences

2010-01-23T20:44:00.004-05:00

I'm a person who hasn't learned my lesson about coincidences. When they occur, I make the assumption that they are related to omens; that because I made some strange connection, there must be some meaning behind it. And because the coincidence gets your blood rushing, there must be some good that will happen from it.

For example, I was in Heidelberg, Germany once for a business meeting. It was the second time I was ever in Germany, and I really didn't want to be there. But I was asked to attend a meeting to listen in on some far-fetched business relationship being proposed between my bank and a giant software company, and so I went.

The company headquarters was in Heidelberg, so hence the reason to meet there. I had heard it was a nice town, but I had arrived at night after landing in Frankfurt and driving the hour or so to the sleepy town and didn't get to see anything.

I had a cousin who had once attended the university there, but beyond that I had no interest sticking around. Some of my relatives were not welcomed in the country for a period of time some years ago, and I suppose I still hold some grudges about that.

The hotel I checked in to did not seem too welcoming, either. It was a structure built in the 1800's, almost castle-like, typical Bavarian architecture. The inside looked like an alpine ski lodge with wood beams, tall ceilings, and strange medieval crests hanging on the walls. I'm sure Mr. Himmler and his friends thought it was all the rage in during the Reich, but I just wanted to find a nice modern Holiday Inn.

The hallways were long with high ceilings as well and big wooden doors to your room. I felt like I was the only one in the hotel. Picture the movie, "The Shining", and you'll get a sense of what I was thinking.

The giant room, with high ceilings, was sparsely furnished. The bed was low to the floor, like it didn't have legs at all, and the lighting was quite dim. Perhaps, because the single light bulb was so high up in the ceiling???

It wasn't cozy, but I figured I could make it through the night, get up the next morning, have some breakfast (I could only wonder what wonderful cuisine was on the menu), go to the boring meeting, grab a taxi back to the airport, and fly home to civilization.

Of course, I couldn't sleep. I kept wondering what types of ghosts were wandering around the halls. Was I in some type of Hamlet story. Oh yeah, that took place in Denmark - same difference.

On the night table was a book, a history of the hotel. Of course, it was written in German but at least there were pictures. There were photos of the hotel's original construction in 1860 and a time line accounting for each decade of growth after that. In 1890 a new wing was added. In 1920, a swimming pool was put in. In 1932, a spa. In 1950, a new restaurant. In 1970, tennis courts. And, wait a minute, they skipped the late 30's through 40's. What was going on in the hotel then? Surely, some activity occurred.

I looked around the place and thought about what type of person was sleeping my room around in say, 1941. Did he hang his hat on the door hook over there? Were his boots next to the bed over here?

Okay, enough of that, back to the coincidence.

The next morning, or was it just a few hours later, I went downstairs to get breakfast. As I walked past the check-in desk, I did a double-take. Standing at the counter, paying his bill was I guy I knew - not from business but from my home town, a guy who I was fairly friendly with. My wife and I had gone to dinner with he and his wife a few times, their kids were the same age as ours. We had always been cordial even though we didn't see much of each other around town.

I couldn't believe it, though. Of all the places to see him now, this is where I had to run in to him? What did it mean?

It turns out he was also here on business. He's in advertising and his big client is the pharmaceutical company, Bayer. He comes here once a year for an annual review meeting and this just happened to be the time.

I called my wife after saying goodbye to him and told her who had I just seen. It was six hours ahead at home. She told me she had just run into his wife in the supermarket that morning. What a coincidence. It must be some strange connection, some interesting meaning.

Another recent coincidence happened the other day. A friend, Andrew, who I grew up with and hadn't seen in about 3 years, called me. He was doing a day's worth of freelance work and wanted to meet for dinner when he finished crewing on a TV commercial being shot in the next town. Sure thing, it would be fun to catch up.

We went out to a diner that evening and while eating we both got phone calls at the same time. Of course, we answered our phones because that's what you do these days in the middle of a meal. My call was from a friend/ work colleague, actually my boss. He wanted to tell he had just come from a get together in the city that he decided to attend at the last minute and had run into a mutual friend of ours, Scott - someone we were just talking about out of the blue earlier in the day.

My friend, Andrew, also got a call from his boss, Greg. It turned out to be a Greg that is a mutual friend of ours. We all grew up together and I hadn't heard about him in about 5 years. He was offering Andrew more work on a TV commercial for the next day. And all these calls happened at the same instance.

After that coincidental connection, I did the same thing I did when I got back from Germany and after many other strange incidences I seem to come by. I went out and bought lottery tickets. And you know what happened this time? Nothing! Absolutely nothing each and every time. Nada.

Because when you're living in hell, there are no such things as meaningful connections or coincidences.

It's All Fun and Games

2010-01-10T22:14:00.003-05:00

I never read the popular life coaching book, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten", but I kind of get the gist of it. It takes some of the simplistic early lessons we all experienced as children and equates it to life lessons we should still follow as adults.

For example: Share Everything, Play Fair, Don't Hit People, Say You're Sorry When You Hurt Someone, and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, wouldn't be nice if we could all follow this credo? The problem is ALL of us need to do it for this to work. Not many of us will continue on if the other person doesn't share, plays fair, hits, or doesn't say sorry.

While we may have learned all the essentials on how to be nicer people in kindergarten, I have a few things to add that were missing from that book. Actually, I'm sure they were intended never to make it into the book (maybe this should be a book on its own). These are things we learned through games played during recess or in some friend's backyard. The lessons from these games prepared us not about necessary niceties in life, but how to look out for oneself and survive in the cut throat world of business. Below, are a few examples of these

Mother May I

A game of permission. In the children's version, one person plays the role of mother and stands facing away from a line of kids. Each child takes a turn asking if they can take a certain number of steps, until one person reaches Mother. "Mother, may I take three baby steps?" And depending on the whim of the person playing Mother, they would either grant your request or deny it.

Wow, what a way to become submissive. But an essential trait in kissing as in the corporate environment. Think about how many times you have had to lower your self-esteem and ask a superior for permission: May I take a 1 week vacation? May I take the morning off for my colonoscopy exam because my doctor said I had giant polyps near the endpoint of my large intestine and the start of my anus? Or, May I take all those heavy files on our group year-end reviews off your desk and directly to the HR office, I'm heading that way anyhow?

Hide and Seek

The classic childhood game where a group of people hide and try to be the last one found by the seeker.

One thing I've learned in business is that there are some people who hide really well from work responsibilities, and others who don't - kind of like the fat kid who thought no one saw him standing behind the Maple sapling.

There 's the one person who you never saw in the office. They had a desk, they had a nameplate, they had mail piling up, they had the red voicemail light on their telephone always lit up, but they somehow rarely were ever present. It got to the point you actually believed they were on some high level assignment, and you weren't going to be the one to question it. Your manager wasn't questioning it, so you couldn't even dare. These no-shows were a mystery. Stories would circulate. Some would take about how much business this person was doing or that they had become so specialized and were working on such high level strategic work they were now invaluable to the company. That person is the ultimate hider, the one who had the best spot and could never be found.

On the flip side, there's the guy in the office who thinks that if it's lunch time and he's sitting at his desk reading a book that the boss isn't going to see him, or care. They think they have this invisible "out to lunch" sign over their desk and that everyone should know not to bother them. Bullshit! Even though this guy shows up everyday, muddles through his work and doesn't make waves, he's the first one the boss is going to fire for being such a dork to hide in plain sight.

Rough-and-Tumble

This one may not have been as popular and you may have known it under a different name. For instance, we called it, "Kill the Guy with the Ball".

It was quite straightforward. Within a contained area, like my friend Ron's backyard - the one filled with patchy grass and rocks - someone would be given a football and told to start running. The other eight or twenty kids would chase this ball carrier who was running for his life because the goal was to catch him, throw him to the ground and pummel him. The person who could run for the longest amount of time was the winner.

We didn't play this game too often, but the lessons it taught us for business were endless. The main one being, no one likes a ball hog, a.k.a the leader. You see, everyone is gunning for the top position but only one person can have it. Everyone is looking for some fault in the leader that will topple the regime and allow the next person to move up the ladder. As the leader, your goal is to run for as a long as possible because the longer you do so the better the payout package will be when you fall.

And the most important lesson of this game is, you will fall.

So, these are just a few examples of the activities we experienced in our youth that can be extrapolated to adulthood. And remember, it's still just fun and games.

Except when someone does get their eye poked, an infection develops, that person loses their eyesight, claims workman's comp, collects long term disabilities, sues the company for inadequate safety measures, wins a multi-million dollar court case because the jury is filled with out-of-work people who blame the large corporation for their own woes and sided with the little guy, but is later found to have committed insurance fraud because the person was seen on the golf course in Ft. Lauderdale driving the ball 180 yards, because they didn't really lose their eyesight it was just that the guy got a doctor to lie for him because he agreed to share the award proceeds from the lawsuit, but the jealous ex-wife hired a private detective to find out what the deadbeat was doing and then circulated the photos on her Facebook page until one of the woman's 358 friends - a prosecutor in the attorney general's office - saw it and decided to press charges because he knew it would help make a name for himself since he was passed over for promotion last year, and the game continues ....

What the ....?

2010-01-06T23:25:00.005-05:00

Take a look to the right. There are four frames, two of which have pictures. These are my followers. Pfffh!

After 9 months of blogging and with over 13,000 page hits, I only have four followers. These metrics don't match up. 13,000 hits ain't so bad after 9 months, but four followers? What's that about?

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for the faithful four. I know each one of them but I don't need a blog to reach them. In fact, I used to call them up and tell them my problems in person. I thought I was doing them a favor by creating this blog so they wouldn't have to hear about my life in hell. They could selectively follow what they wanted, when they wanted.

These four people are not capable of making 13,000 hits. They have real lives -- ones that don't revolve around pounding my blog site over and over again. Nope. There's others out there checking this site out. Others who are too afraid, too ashamed to sign on as followers.

I could rant and rave, curse, and damn you all to a private hell. I could ask you to step up and announce yourself. Or, I could forget the whole thing and keep on blogging because in the end this blog is my own roadmap of my life in hell. Not yours.

The Little Guy

2010-01-04T22:25:00.006-05:00

If Tiger Woods was only able to keep his eyes on the road, the wheels straight, and his text messages hidden, none of this nightmare would've happened - for now.

But a slight turn, an obstacle in the way, a golf club shattering a window and bam! - he's in hell.

The media have had their fun exhausting this story, and by now, most of us don't really care anymore. Ever since I saw O.J. Simpson being chased down the highway in his Bronco, I gave up my naive view on the morality of sports legends. You can add ophthalmologists, little league coaches and the clergy to the list as well.

Shame on us for thinking any of these people are above the frailties of being human. Why do we always expect more? Why do we always think this guy is different?

I believe they should teach examples of this stuff in school, prepare us for reality. For instance, after we learn about the achievements of George Washington and Ben Franklin we should also hear about the other dalliances of our fondling fathers. This way we keep things level and reduce the chance of inferiority complexes as we grow up because we don't become presidents, astronauts or little league coaches.

The other headlines Tiger is making are the daily tallies of his sponsorships that are being cancelled, one-by-one. Most of us believe Tiger already has enough cash and won't be hurt financially by these decisions. And I'm sure that is true. But we have all failed to think about a small group of people who will be hurt. People who are behind the scenes, away from the limelight for the most part. A group who does have to worry about where the next dollar will come from. After all, these people are not athletes, they're not superstars. They have nothing to fall back on. They're just people. People who lived symbiotically off of Tiger. I'm talking about the ten percenters, the agents.

These are people who have benefitted from Tiger's riches. They bought fancy cars, too. They had multiple homes, as well. They enjoyed exotic vacations because that was the lifestyle they grew accustomed to. And now that the golden calf has turned into a giant cubic zirconium divot, who will feed the meter? What will they do since they never had to do anything?

I'm truly worried about these people. They're only at their best when they're shilling for others. They don't know how to fend for themselves. They need our support.

So the next time another star falls from grace and you laugh, snicker at this unfortunate situation, think about that poor sycophant that will be hurt. And think about the lesser heard second part of that insightful Alexander Pope quote: "To err is human, to forgive is divine."

Happy New Year!

Two Men In Bethlehem

2009-12-21T16:47:00.021-05:00

We weren't bearing gifts, we were just trying to reach a destination. Neither one of us knew we would end up here - this little town of Bethlehem, but a Nor'easter had rolled in and mucked up everyone's flight plans, including Phil's.

Phil was visiting us from the West Coast and had come in for a weekend reunion with friends and family. And, of course, a traditional holiday visit to The Great Notch Inn, a New Jersey roadside bar that looks like it was plucked from the wilds of the Colorado frontier.

The weather outside was in the teens that weekend night and in the air one could feel that something big was moving its way in. Anywhere from 6-12 inches was predicted. But inside, The Notch offered a warm respite. The people, the drinks, the live band crammed into the 14 x 20 foot room provided the same warmth that a potbelly stove could've offered, a fixture that would be quite at home in this rustic interior (but they don't have one due to insurance issues).

Phil was already a little tense. The flight was expensive and his time was brief. He had already called in sick to the office so he could take the Thursday night red eye out of SFO. So by the time Sunday rolled around and he found his return flight cancelled, his temperament went from anxious to fearful to pissed.

Although he was getting a fare refund from the airlines, it wasn't fair that the next available flight back was not until Wednesday -- and cost double.

Phil was in a pickle that snowy eve. He would have to extend the lie to his boss that his Friday sickness had turned into the flu. And he would have to fork over a thousand bucks to fly home late.

Greyhound and the train were options but all that traveling would still cost him a few days. It was not until late in the evening on Sunday when Phil finally got through to the busy online travel site and booked a reservation. It seemed half the Eastern seaboard was trying to book a flight out of there. The airlines had everyone by the balls, even Phil's. It would be a cool $1200 to fly home, but at least he would be there.

While he rationalized the cost and the fact that he had a refundable ticket, another idea popped into his head - what about alternative airports.

It's common knowledge that the NYC metro area has some of the worst flight delays in the country. But with a little creativity, a few extra stops and a lot less money, sometimes you can get lucky with some of the lesser known areas.

Philly is only about an hour and a half from us. There's even Westchester, Stewart and Atlantic City airports. But not many folks think about KABE - that's Lehigh Valley International, nestled in between Allentown and Bethlehem, PA.

When the message, "Only 2 seats left", appeared on his screen, Phil knew he had to take this flight and refund the other ticket. Who cared if the airport was in another state and another city he never heard of, or that the flight left at 6:30am and connected in Cleveland back to SFO?It only cost $430!!!

When I got the call asking if I could drive Phil to Bethlehem and drop him in the airport late at night so he could wait for his morning flight, I shuddered. I pictured the poor guy having to sit wedged into an uncomfortable seat, under a fluorescent lit environment, and all alone in a podunk, backwater terminal. Phil deserves a little better than that.

And when he told me the Sands Corporation had just opened a brand, spanking new casino downtown, I immediately thought - road trip.

If Charles Dickens was American, Bethlehem may have just been one of the locations for his stories. There is that turn of the century feel you get from the row houses, the ornate stone buildings downtown and the industrial revolution steel mills that still loom over the city.

Bethlehem Steel was founded in 1857 and became one of the largest providers of steel for shipyards and armaments around the world. Its steel design enabled the construction of the first skyscrapers. Bethlehem invented the I-beam, as seen in its logo. At one point, Bethlehem's CEO was the highest paid executive in the country.

But by 2003, the company had gone bankrupt. Foreign competition, resistance to

modernization and the lucrative benefits paid to its workers, finally brought the behemoth down.

What's left now are hulking, abandoned steel mills, empty office buildings and monuments to a bygone era. You can't help but see history when looking at these structures.

And now, sitting amongst these ruins is America's next new revitalization effort - the casino.

Some call it a devil's playground set up to tempt the last few dollars out of your wallet. Others call it a plague that will be the final scourge on the land. For Phil and I, we called it a place to hang out until his flight left.

We two men entered Bethlehem just after midnight. The quaint downtown was empty. We had the area to ourselves on that cold night. Our only welcoming came from the bright and festive Christmas lights. We drove down Main Street, pulled to the only thing that seemed to be alive - the casino.

It beckoned to us at the end of town. A giant red (a devil's red) Sands sign

hung across a massive black (a devil's black) steel span that looked like an invisibly suspended bridge. The brand new complex appeared clean, modern and sparsely attended.

Inside were 140,000 square feet of gaming space, 7 restaurants and bars, and 3,000 slot machines.

We hate slots.

We like table games and this place was virtually devoid of them. I say "virtually" because you can play roulette, black jack and three-card poker on some new fangled electronic table game. A computer-run video of an attractive dealer pretends to talk to you and engage you in a game, while you feed your money into a bill slot, sit back and watch electronically delivered cards determine your fate. The roulette game doesn't even have a dealer. So much for re-training ex-factory workers. There's no need for them, just a couple of overweight security guards standing around the floor along with marginal looking cocktail waitresses (hopefully they will all be replaced with machines one day soon, too).

As Phil said, the only advantage to these electronic images is that you can tell the dealer to fuck off. Try doing that in Vegas.

We begrudgingly sat down to play because we had about 4 hours to kill. But when we started winning at our roulette and black jack games, we didn't mind the imitation game style because the money was real! Phil, in a short amount of time, amassed a handsome take, and I didn't do so shabby, either.

At 5am we took our gifts from Bethlehem and I dropped Phil at the airport while I went to look for an inn that would provide me a little sanctuary for the rest of the evening, or at least until the sun came up.

It was interesting driving up to a local motel without a reservation, baggage (or a cheap date) and asking if they had a vacancy. I felt like I was on the lam. Who show's up at 5am for a room?

It was not a problem. There was room a the inn. I managed a few hours of sleep, got up, showered, put on the same clothes, went back to explore Bethlehem in the day and grab some local breakfast. A great place to visit, but probably wouldn't want to live there.

I drove back home in less than an hour arriving in the early afternoon. I gave Phil a call to leave him a message thanking him for the fun weekend. He answered his phone to my surprise. As it turned out, he had just landed safely in California and was standing on the curb of the arrivals deck waiting for his ride - a ride to his next destination.

The Man

2009-12-16T23:15:00.003-05:00

My son, the middle child, is already taller than me (at age 15), smarter than me (not too hard), and much more social than I was at his age - granted I grew up in a small town with not too many people to be social with. He's been dating the same girl for past 18 months.

I truly admire him, his maturity and all his accomplishments.

He recently made the cut for the Freshman basketball team. It was an intense week and a half try-out against kids who have spent most of their careers playing basketball in summer leagues, travel leagues and special camps run by coaches, which always help to garner favoritism.

My son decided this past summer he was going to try and make the team. On his own, he spent hours shooting hoops in our driveway trying to perfect his shots, and playing pick up games in the local park at night. He stuck to his training regimen, figured out how to correct his mistakes, and built self-confidence in himself.

There wasn't much advice I could give him. While I was athletic in high school, I didn't play basketball - wasn't well coordinated for that sport. I ran track, though, so the only thing I could encourage him to do was run Cross Country in the fall to condition himself for basketball. Which he did, and was able to put himself amongst the top Freshmen runners.

He got better and stronger on his own and because he wanted to. And it was this determination that finally got him on the squad. While he may not be a starter on the team, he's definitely a player.

I like to remind him of those things when I have some time alone with him. I think it kind of embarrasses him and I don't know how much longer I will have his attention, but I feel it's my duty to say it when I can.

So when I picked him up after a practice the other day, I noticed a lot of other high school girls around him, really cute girls (don't worry, I have no interest in them), girls from the other sport teams.

When he got in the car, I asked him if he knew who they were.

"Yeah, they're just friends," he said casually.

Now, as I said before, I wasn't that social in high school. Okay, I didn't date anyone in high school. So when I saw this attention from these appealing and attractive girls to my son, all I could think was - why isn't he trying to "pick them up"?

I know he has girlfriend. But he's been dating the same girl, as I said, for the past 18 months. While this fidelity is wonderful and commendable, high school only comes around once. Cute girls who actually talk to you come around rarely. Damnit, I would've killed for a mediocre girl to talk to me in high school. And don't deny it, those of you with children, we all try to live vicariously through these kids, whether it's sports, academics, or adorable, winsome girls.

I wanted to use this alone time to tell him about the need to experience as much as possible (within reason) while one is young enough to do it. The image of Alan Arkin's Grandpa character in Little Miss Sunshine kept coming to mind. Actually, it was his advice that I was thinking of: Listen to me, I got no reason to lie to you, don't make the same mistakes I made when I was young. Fuck a lotta women kid, not just one woman, a lotta women.

I tried to convey these sentiments to him - using other words. But once again he proved to me that he is the bigger person - in size and wisdom.

"Dad, I don't need to date other girls. I'm already with someone I really like."

Birthday Bliss

2009-12-08T23:04:00.005-05:00

Today is my wife's birthday. We are pretty low key about birthday's around here, so we don't do much for each other. That's why every year is such a let down.

This year was somewhat of a milestone for her and I suppose I should have planned something.

But I didn't have to. Her friends decided to surprise her with a "girl's" party. It was a win-win for me because I only had to supply a list of invitees to the organizer (so now I can claim I did something), and it got her out of the house for the evening.

Okay, I'm not that callous. I did take her for a nice lunch during the day - just the two of us. Although, she complained all afternoon that her stomach hurt after the meal. (My meal was perfectly fine).

Perhaps, it was the dessert place we went to afterwards. Don't you just love the sign from the restaurant?

While my wife was out being surprised and getting toasted, I thought I would do one other nice thing - make the next day's lunch for the kids. My wife already put out the brown paper bags with their names on them. All I had to do was stuff them with food.

I asked my daughter what she usually gets.

"Why are you asking me?"

"I'm making lunches."

"Do you know how?"

"Just tell me what you want."

"Turkey, not the regular turkey, but the honey roasted one, with a little mayo, Swiss cheese on a roll. Not a round roll, a long roll cut in half."

"Okay." I headed downstairs, but she wasn't done.

"Two Kit-Kat bars, a bag of popcorn and a small water bottle. Not the tall ones, the tiny ones."

I knew if I didn't get it right, I'd never hear the end of it. I thought I would just stuff her bag with a ten dollar bill instead.

I asked my eldest son what he gets.

"Peanut butter and jelly."

"That's it?"

"Yeah."

"Nothing else?"

"Nope."

Perfect. That one would be a slam dunk. What a good kid.

And finally, I asked the middle child, the one who is so studious and upstanding, what he wanted.

"Don't make me anything."

"Why?"

"I don't want you messing it up."

"What's to mess up?"

He was trying to be diplomatic.

"Let's just have mom do it in the morning."

"It's mom's birthday. I'm trying to save her some work here, so just tell me what you want."

"You're trying to look good, right?"

"I'm just trying to make every one's life a bit easier. Now, tell me what you're gonna eat."

"I'll make it myself in the morning."

"Come on, this is crazy. I'm making everything now so we don't have to rush around in the morning."

"If you make it now, it'll be soggy by the morning and I'll just throw it away."

I threw his empty bag into the refrigerator for safekeeping.

When my wife came home she asked me where all the lunch bags were (after she told me how much fun she had).

I just smiled.

"You made the lunches?"

"Of course."

She shook her head. "I make them in the morning because the kids complained about how soggy their food got."

She opened the refrigerator, emptied the bags and took apart the lunches. "I'll put them together in the morning. This way things will stay fresh if they're not pressed up against each other for so long."

That last line reminded of why most married couples don't have much sex. Maybe they're just trying to stay fresh?

Hope you had one hell of a birthday, honey!

New Orleans

2009-11-23T00:02:00.006-05:00

I went to hell last week. It's currently in a place called New Orleans.

New Orleans is a beautiful place, replete with Southern gentility. But an evil specter hangs over the city. Katrina's hand still weighs heavy on the area.

In some places you can see the physical damage. Empty office buildings with broken windows, store fronts still boarded up. These scenes are dotted amongst thriving businesses. How did some survive and others die?

In other places, you can feel it.

As I walked through downtown on a bright, sunny day during the middle of the week, I kept noticing one recurring thing -- there were virtually no people. Sidewalks were empty, parking was available on the street and traffic was light.

I travelled to New Orleans with Andy to visit an old college pal, Billy. (Interesting that these two mid-40 year olds still go by child-like names.) Billy's an assistant professor at one of the universities and Andy and I travelled from up North just to see him action.

When I asked Billy where all the people were, he told me that "they just didn't come back." What an eerie thought, but I suppose that's true as I heard many communities of transplants have settled in Rhode Island, Arizona, Texas, and one family was even living with Larry David in southern California.

There were three conferences going on throughout the city while we were there, and still no people. It was strange knowing the city probably lost half its population during the storm. Some died but the others just fled in the exodus.

Walking through the French Quarter turned out to be a civilized trek, even along Bourbon Street. There were no offers to exchange beads for flesh, no Hurricane drinking youth carrying their elongated drinking glasses, no vomit and no lines. The last one turned out to be to our advantage as we were able to secure tables at some of the finest eating establishments without a wait.

As I mentioned, we came to see Billy teach, but that never happened. It turned the day we were there, his role was only to be a silent participant in the 200+ lecture hall. And his class started in the morning, so just like we acted in our own college days we weren't going to make it.

New Orleans is a city of dichotomies. We found this out when Andy and I signed on for a Segway scooter tour of downtown. It was the first time I ever road this two-wheeled, gyro-balanced modern contraption. It's also the first time, I was led on a tour by a 66 year-old, white-haired, former Navy woman, named Crystal. She could barely walk, but boy could she ride.

I highly recommend trying one of these machines out. A lot of fun, especially when you ditch the tour leader and try and figure out the town on your own.

The other dichotomy occurred when the three of us went out for a cocktail in the late afternoon. Billy found one of the oldest bars in the Quarter, Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. It pre-dates our nation's independence and pretty much looks like it was when it was an operating blacksmith shop. From the outside, it looks like it should've been condemned. Inside, it's dark, wooden and lit by candles. Managing the bar of this antiquity was the hottest, blondest, firmest, 20-something-ist around.

Our one drink turned into many more as we sat in the tavern for over three hours, just staring like panting dogs at Laura. A brief smile from her direction was all we needed to keep coming up for more drinks. And, having her take off her jean jacket and expose us to her tank top clad body didn't hurt either.

The only reason we pulled ourselves up from our seats was the realization that we needed solid food. But we promised each other that right after dinner we would stumble back in to see Laura. If only Laura knew. It's amazing what can drive some men to drink hard liquor.

We went for a fantastic dinner at Nola's where everything we ate just mesmerized our mouths. (BTW, drinking Bourbon certainly helps everything taste and feel better). We finished our desserts and then headed back to Jean Lafitte's.

It was a lengthy walk, but, of course, the streets were not crowded and we had our mission to fulfill, so the walk seemed to fly by. We raced down Bourbon street to Lafitte's corner location. It was the first time I viewed a bar as a sanctuary. We made our way into the darkened room, almost feeling transported back to the early 1700s. We were looking for our wench. We approached the bar. And now, standing behind the wooden counter was Ralph, a tall bearded gentlemen, with a tattoo and piercing.

We gave up drinking after that and headed to the casino where we gave up money and dignity as well.

I was glad to have visited New Orleans just for a while. Any longer would've been hell.

The Spa Castle

2009-11-04T13:29:00.003-05:00

When I tell someone I went to a Korean spa in Queens, NY, I inevitably get a smirk and a strange back and forth motion with the hand from that person.

I don't get it. Am I missing some type of code? Koreans are upstanding people, right?

In any case, I was invited to join a small group on a day trip, and since I had no real commitments in the middle of the week, I went along.

We took the 7 train out of Manhattan to the last stop in Queens. The 45-minute trip made it seem like we had crossed the Pacific into Asia. If it were not for the a few street signs in English, you would've have thought you landed in downtown Seoul or Taipei.

There were store fronts with chickens hanging in the window, street vendors selling steamed buns and a guy who kept following us down the street asking if we wanted to meet young women. What a friendly guy.

It was a damp, rainy day and getting into a soothing spa was becoming more appealing. The only problem was our leader could not find out how to get there. Supposedly, there was a bus that was going to meet us at the train station, but nothing showed.

After circling the block a few times, we went into a bank for shelter and directions. We asked one of the tellers where we could find a taxi around the area.

"This bank, no taxi here. This bank. Get out."

Back on the street, we were fortunate enough to find a cab line. It had been nearby us all along. We hopped in and drove off.

Addresses are quite strange in this part of New York and trying to get the cab driver to understand that we wanted to go to 131-10 11 Avenue took some work. One of the riders with us, Scott, tried some newly-learned Mandarin. I'm convinced this cost us another 10 minutes of drive time.

Eventually, we arrived. It was no joke calling this place a castle. It took up most of the block and was five-stories high. It was legit (and why wouldn't it be?).

You enter on the ground floor, pay a nominal fee for the facilities amenities, and head to the locker room. Shoes get their own storage, clothes follow further down the line.

Not that I like stripping naked in front of my friends, when in Rome, do as the Romans? We all stowed our personal possessions and headed for the showers.

This place combined Asian and European sensibilities on spa life. Modern facilities provided 6 different kinds of pools with varying temperatures and water jet capabilities; a steam room, sauna, personal grooming supplies at shower stations and a nice gentlemen who offered to do body scrubs with a broom. And this was just the first floor.

Upstairs were restaurants, outdoor pools and various co-ed sauna rooms with temperatures going from 39 degrees up to 178 degrees. There was a giant nap room and finally a place to get a real massage.

I partook in a 60 minutes rub down by a petite Asian woman with hands of magic who did a fantastic job of relieving tension in my neck, back, legs, arms and gluts (yes, you can have tension there) - and that's it.

Afterward, I retreated (actually floated) back downstairs to relax further at the whirlpools with my friends. As I recounted the extra-sensory experience, I sat near a high-powered water jet that if positioned correctly probably could have cleaned out much of my insides. As I told the story, my friends offered smirks and strange hand movements as I described the situation.

As I was thrust around the pool by the cannons of water, I could only think of the strange dichotomy I was experiencing. At one point, I was getting a little taste of heaven and solitude during my muscle workout. And now, I was sitting naked in a pool of men recounting a near nirvana experience.

Only in Hell, my friends. Only in Hell.

My Last Day

2009-10-26T18:08:00.006-04:00

On my last day, you couldn't wipe the smile from my face. The opportunity not to be part of this organization (but collect a severance) was just too good for me. I was bursting with joy. The last time I felt like this was when I was a kid on the last day of school before the long summer vacation.

I was so elated that I worried my exuberance would be met by a lynch gang. I thought my former colleagues were beginning to catch on that I never really wanted to be in this place.

Perhaps it was my retorts, like, "Who would ever want to be in banking?" or "This place is falling apart faster than a snowball in hell.", or "I know one career I'll never try again.", that just didn't sit right with them. I mean, these were people who put in 10-20 years in the institution. They certainly didn't need a snot-nosed "kid" telling them their career choices sucked. They knew it already, I think. I'm sure they kept those thoughts deep in the recesses of their psychic apparatus.

"Okay, is it the end of the day yet?" one of them asked.

"No, it's only 10:15am," I replied.

"You should leave early on your last day."

"Oh, no. I'm sticking this out to the bitter end. I came this far. I'm not quitting now," I said. "I'm not gonna let this dung heap get the best of me."

"Leave now," the woman in HR told me.

You would think the offer to buy everyone a round of drinks would have encouraged a lot more people to show up to the bar at the end of the day. But I'm sure the two others who came to wish me well brought stories back to the office about what they had missed.

"Hey, good luck," one them wished me heartily. "I'll take that mojito in a to-go cup," he said to the bartender. What a joker. I'll certainly miss the UPS guy.

My last day was definitely quite different than my first day of my new life. I woke up (later than usual), went to the gym, showered, had a nice breakfast and then looked over the to-do list my wife had already assembled.

It was brief and to the point. On the top, she wrote lovingly: File for unemployment. And I used to think only losers did that.

Hey, wait a minute.

In Memoriam

2009-10-15T22:56:00.004-04:00

A couple of months ago, through a package of licorice which was imported from Australia, I tracked down a lead on a career I thought would be of interest.

The licorice was from an age-old family recipe and it was made without all the modern chemical ingredients we see today. No high-fructose corn syrup, starches or preservatives. It was made straightforward with some sugar, of course, and get this, it even had some licorice in it.

Through the company's website I found their local distributor in the USA. And by chance, the company was located just a few towns away from me.

I went to that site and saw something that interested me greatly. It was a firm dedicated to health conscious foods. It was a small company run by a gentle-looking older man. In the company picture, he was surrounded by his co-workers. It looked like a family. There was the head of accounting, vp of operations, the customer service person and the head of sales. The sales guy was the only one who didn't look like family. He was slick looking and had a mustache. Who has mustaches these days?

But I didn't want to judge the company by this one picture. I was more interested in the backgrounds of the people, especially the CEO. He had been in the food industry throughout all his career and started this company as a way to focus on what he thought would be good for the consumer, something he would enjoy eating because it was well made.

I liked that philosophy and thought this is a company I would like to learn more about. I'm sure if I wrote a nice letter to the CEO expressing my interest in hearing about the ins and outs of the business, he would grant me some time.

I bookmarked the site and then forgot about it for a while.

I spent the next couple months worrying about my current situation. What kind of future would there be in the bank? How much longer could I hold out? Could I get the severance package before its too late?

Well, all that worrying came to a close last week when I took the package. After the initial excitement of knowing my payout number and calculating how long it could hold me, I thought what am I going to do next?

Aha! The food industry. This would be the perfect time to reach out to that little company that was doing good things. Now, that I was unencumbered by the daily slog of the bank, I could focus on learning about something new, something tangible and perhaps get a few bags of licorice out of it.

I found the bookmarked site, clicked on it and came to their home page - which had changed. Instead of seeing a welcoming photo of the company employees, I saw a single headshot of the CEO. The poor bastard had died a month prior. He was in his early 60s and just dropped dead. And, now, running the company was the weaselly-looking salesperson.

Of course, just another day when you're already dead and living in hell.

Day of the Living Dead

2009-10-12T14:42:00.006-04:00

Part of the excitement of leaving my company is telling people I'm leaving.

For one thing, I feel like I'm blowing off some steam with the news. For another, it probably serves as good networking to let people know I'm out there and through the kindness of their hearts they may think of me if they ever hear of a possible job opportunity, or not.

In my office, most of my colleagues knew that I was trying to breakout for the past few years. My huge smile along with the news probably offered them some relief. Now, they wouldn't have to listen to me complain about our company or be brought down with my doom and gloom reports regarding the future prospects of the place. Now, they can get on with drinking in the Kool-Aid and believe that the company would not do anything foolish to jeopardize their careers any further.

The part I did not really think about was telling my friends and neighbors in town that I would be hanging out at home now. And as news travels fast, I soon found myself faced with a new dilemma.

It seems that quite a few other residents are in similar circumstances. As a result, small groups of these people who have also taken packages, early retirements or simply can't find a job have banded together. These are people who like to stick to a routine and they like to hang out with one another on a regular basis - something I don't like.

Let me clarify. I will have structure during my time off. I will most likely have a routine, and I will see people, but it will be my choice. I do not want to get caught up in someone's idea of what time off should be.

So when I ran into Richard at the town deli the other day, I knew I had to start preparing a better canned response.

"Hey, heard the news," Richard said. "How long you got?"

"About a year."

"A year, that's excellent. You got plans?"

"I'm thinking about some things I want to do. I'll be keeping busy."

"Great. Well, everyday after I drop the kids off at school. I head down to Rockin' Joes. About six of us meet there everyday for coffee. We could always use another guy in the group."

"Uh, sure. Maybe."

"Good, see you there, Rockin' Joes Cafe."

What did he mean, they could always use another guy? What is this some vampire clique? The problem is I like Rockin' Joes. It's a new coffee joint that opened in town with comfortable seating and some good food. Well, that'll be off my list of places to visit now.

And what about the other places in town I liked to frequent, the bagel store, the diner, the salad shop? I'm sure all those places have been infiltrated with wi-fi seeking regulars. Oh man, I might become a regular?

It was not until I ran into Morty outside the grocery store that I realized I may become something worse than a regular - I may become a shut in.

"Hey, heard the news about you, " Morty said. "How long you got?"

It seemed to be a similar conversation in Stepford. Somehow I had been targeted. I was new meat and the zombies were preparing to feast.

"We could sure use your help," Morty said. "There's a lot to be done down at the Town Beautification League. We got some new benches coming in that need assembling. And the mums need to be planted on the traffic circles. Maybe you can help out?"

I just nodded and kept walking.

"Okay, we'll see you down there," he called out after me.

Can you get unlisted numbers in hell?

Plan A, check!

2009-10-09T15:46:00.006-04:00

It's been in the works for three years and just this week I pulled it off. I truly felt as if I accomplished something. I felt proud and relieved as to how well the plan worked - I got laid off from my job.

Now, I know in this economy losing a job is not something to do the happy dance about, or walk around the office with a big smile on, or even accept congratulatory praise for -- but I did. I had been hoping and wishing for this to occur ever since my company published the terms of its severance package several years back.

Sitting in my office, I would imagine what it would be like to be compensated for time off. I thought about all the things I would do to fill my day - more writing, more gym time, more sleeping, maybe audit some classes, maybe see what the divorced women in town were doing during the day. It became a goal, actually somewhat of an obsession, to lose my job.

Of course, I could have just tried to find a new job and exit this mess respectfully, but if you haven't noticed lately -- the job market really sucks. And I didn't want to rush into something new just to get out of where I was currently. I didn't want to make a rash decision that I would regret, kind of what I did when I took my current position originally.

No, my plan was to get the package and use the fear of the complete unknown to force my brain cells to figure something out. I work well that way. Again, I know I could have done this while at my current job, but I didn't. I was handicapped by the time I spent trying to look busy at work. I didn't have enough emotional energy to focus on the "me" plan.

I know, it's lame, but you weren't there.

As I mentioned, the plan worked perfectly. I brought it down the wire with seconds to spare and achieved the end result I was finally looking for. I have counted my blessings a number of times in the fact the plan was not brought to final conclusion any earlier than it did.

I often think of what it would've been like if I actually left a year or two earlier. I could've been sitting out there much longer than my severance package covered. I know a few people who that's happened to. Scary.

But it wasn't for a lack of trying. I remember telling one of my managers early on that I wanted the package. I was laughed at. People didn't take me seriously. What kind of fool wants to lose their job?

This fool did. But instead I got promoted. I had to be accountable for more projects and more people. I know, "wah, wah, wah." But I hated my job. I hated the whole concept of where I worked and what the place stood for. I hated how unchallenging and how poorly managed things were. But I liked the paycheck. Wah, wah, wah!

This past week was especially difficult because the end of the week marked the official close of the known severance plan. Rumors on the new one didn't look good. It was not as generous. In fact, it was supposed to be down right awful.

I didn't sense any change occurring. I didn't read in between the lines on any conversations. I didn't think anyone even knew about the looming deadline, so when I saw my boss for a catch-up lunch this week I was totally surprised to hear him say, "Sorry, but we've decided to eliminate your position."

Sorry? You had better be sorry for keeping me on pins and needles for so long. I had already resigned myself to slogging through another year. A year of trying to pretend just to keep some sanity amidst the mindless projects that would be occurring. Do you know I spent 6 months on a project team of 12 people discussing through weekly meetings how staff should order business cards???

Yes, the waiting was too long and too close to the edge. But those sweet words rolling off my manager's tongue filled me with such elation, I forgot about the anxiety I had put myself through. My sentence had been commuted. I was free to leave.

"Again, I'm sorry to have to do this," my manager said somberly. "It's not performance related. It's just economics and I will be happy to give a recommendation if you need it."

I'm sure he thought my wide stretched grin was just a cover up to the massive amount of tears pouring out from within. He probably thought to himself that this guy is really trying to hold it together. The poor guy is probably just going fall apart once I leave.

"And, you should be expecting a call from HR to go over the details. Again, I'm sorry about this," he said.

I just nodded. I wanted him to leave as soon as possible. I wanted him to cut short the comforting words shit. I wanted to check my voicemail to see if HR had called already.

I brought the grin down a notch and saw my manager to the door. I thanked him for everything. I didn't want him to think I found this whole thing funny. I didn't want him to think I actually felt more sorry for him because he actually had to stay at the company.

We bid farewell and then I quickly checked my messages. Nothing. This was just one other thing I hated about this place. Everyone is so slow. You have to nag people to get things done. So, I called over to HR.

"Hi, how are you?" I said happily.

There was silence on the other end. I don't think HR is used to being greeted in a friendly manner.

"Um, I'm okay," the voice responded finally.

"Great. I'm in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by and pick up my paper work. You know, save you the trouble of bringing it over."

"Um, okay."

I needed my hands to be holding that packet of papers as soon as possible. I didn't want to risk any chance of them pulling back this offer. I had already come too close to the deadline. I didn't want anything to get in the way, especially an incompetent HR department or a morally ethical boss.

I was giddy with delight as the HR associate took me through paragraph by paragraph the essence of the 12-page exit document.

I kept interrupting. "How much am I getting paid?"

"We're getting there," he responded.

"Have you done a lot of these this week?" I asked with interest.

"We have done a fair share," he responded as if he was a mortician.

"How about you? Who would do your exit interview? I mean, would it just be one of your own colleagues or would you just do it yourself?"

"Can we just get through this document," he said curtly.

"Sure. By the way, when will the money hit my account?"

"We're getting there!"

"Okay, okay. Do your job," I said.

I could hardly contain myself. I had felt as if a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders that day. I did not foresee a grim forecast out there. I saw an opportunity to explore a new path. I was not afraid of the future. I was embracing it.

Of course, having a healthy severance payout that should keep me afloat for at least a year certainly helps grease the skids.

And I'm well aware how quickly that may go by. So beyond some of the daily things I would pursue each day that I mentioned above, I will also put aside some time to do some job hunting.

Yes, I will be practical because under this joyful exterior I am mature. I am cognizant of the difficulties that I may face, and so I will also be putting Plan B into effect - get wife to get new job that can accommodate the lifestyle I have grown accustomed to.

The Fugitive

2009-10-05T22:25:00.007-04:00

I read about a program the State of New Jersey was enacting that would give fugitives a second chance to turn themselves in.

Over a four-day period, a surrender site would be open where people could just show up and give up. A judge would be on hand to hear their stories and then dispense a sentence.

The State was expecting about 6,000 people to walk in to this location and ask for forgiveness.

I was thinking that if this actually worked, we wouldn't need cops anymore. We could probably even scale back the whole justice system. We could have our own self-service criminal justice system.

Just think of the money we could save. Commit a crime and then when you're ready and if you're available on the pre-set surrender date, come on down and hang out with all the other criminals that knew they were guilty. It'd be like a convention, a chance to meet and greet fellow colleagues from the industry.

The State would just need some clever advertisements telling everyone what dates they should mark on their calendars for the big dance. The department stores could get in on the action with Back to Prison Day sales (although I would think all sales would be final), there could be contests where the first 100 people who show up get a prize - like a lighter sentence. Maybe even a 10K road race to add to the festivity.

I was so intrigued by the openness of such an event, I decided to go down an check it out for myself.

I thought it was kind of funny that the surrender site was actually in a church. But considering it was the largest place around besides the town's athletic stadium, which was already booked for some school events, it seemed appropriate for the type of repentance that was supposed to occur.

I thought I got there early enough but the line to get in was already around the block. It's just like it was in the old days when you had to stand on line for concert tickets. I was not an early riser and I didn't like sleeping outdoors, so I never really got the good seats.

As I stood there, I started to wonder if I was on the wrong line. Just like me to waste an hour only to find out I was waiting for a soup kitchen to open or for some free dental check ups from the local dentistry school.

"Excuse me," I said to the rather large gentlemen with the tattoos on his arm, "is this the line for the surrender center?"

"Is this the line? What the fuck do you think it is?" he said quite brusquely and then turned back around. I was going to let that attitude slide for now.

I felt a little better when people started filling in behind me. At least I wasn't going to be last.

"So, what are you turning yourself in for?" I asked the guy behind me trying to make small talk. He was a little less intimidating, probably because he was 6 inches shorter than me.

"Gun possession."

I nodded. "Did you bring it with you today?"

"Did I bring it today?" he said, "what the fuck do you think I am? I'm not packing today, shit."

The guy shook his head a lot. I realized the people on the line used a lot of swears and liked to repeat the questions I asked. I guess it was sort of a fugitive type lingo. I was new at this and I needed to pick it up quick.

"What the fuck you here for?" the guy asked me.

"What the fuck am I here for?" I said.

"Don't fuck with me I asked you question. You fucking with me?"

I shook my head and then said, "Evasion."

"Evasion? What the fuck is that?"

"I didn't pay taxes ... actually, I didn't pay some taxes. I left some information off my 1040."

"You here because of some clerical error on a form, huh? You didn't fill something out right and you fucked everyone over?"

The guy was getting hyped up over this. I was starting to believe it was pretty cool crime from the way he was playing it up.

"You're a crazy mother fucker," he went on. "That shit is federal. That is big shit to mess with."

"That's right," I said. "That's why I came all the fuckin' way down here. I'm doing the right thing, man. Can't live myself anymore."

"True dat," he said. "That's why I came down here. Can't live with anyone anymore."

"Who the fuck can't you live with?" I asked, getting into the groove of the whole fuck thing.

"My bitch. She's driving me crazy. I needs to go away for a while. Three square meals, a little exercise. Do me good."

"Yeah? They're gonna feed us here?"

"Not here. In the blocks, man."

Yes, there was still that hurdle I needed to overcome to get into the big house. I needed to be convicted of my crimes.

It took about an hour until we finally got through the doors. We were asked our names at a front desk and then told to sit in the pews, which were filling up fast.

A guy on a PA was calling out names. Someone would rise from his seat and then walk up towards the altar. There was another desk set up there with three people filling out paperwork and looking up stuff on a computer.

Nobody was really talking to each other. I guess most people didn't know one another. People mostly kept to themselves and slept.

A couple more hours went by and I was getting hungry. I looked towards the back and still saw people filing in. I figured I could slip out the door, grab a sandwich and then come back in on the line. What's the crime in doing that?

"Hey, where you going?" The nazi-looking officer asked me as I neared the door.

"Gettin' a sandwich."

"Outside? Hah! Sit down. Once you're in here, you're not leaving until we let you."

Holy shit! What did I get myself into? What happened to being innocent until proven guilty? Well, I guess that went out the door by showing up here.

I sat back down in my pew and looked at my watch. Half the day was shot. This was not as efficient as I imagined it would be. Even with a self-service model, these government agencies add their own dose of bureaucracy to it.

I wanted to lean over and take a nap, but I have a thing about putting my face in the place where some stranger's butt has been. I chuckled to myself over that one. In prison, would I be getting a brand new bed? I didn't think so. How do they find open cells for all the new fish showing up? Do they work it out so those on death row leave just in time for the new arrivals? Or do they actually double people up in a cell? That would be awful. I hated sharing my dorm room in college. And I hate when people touch my stuff. When you double up you're just inviting that kind of snooping.

Just then, my name was called. I walked down the aisle up to the altar. There was something eerie about that.

I approached the desk with the three men, their logbooks and computer.

"Name"

I gave one of the gentlemen my name.

"Soash."

I gave him my social security number.

"Address."

I gave that, too.

"You're not in here. You have no warrants."

"What? That's impossible. Why do I have to be in there to give myself up?"

"What was the alleged crime?"

"Evasion. Uh, tax evasion."

They looked at each other. Shook their heads.

"Are you wasting our time?" one of them asked.

"No, I wanted to surrender."

"We're not the IRS."

"But a crime is a crime. I want to clear my name."

"Not here," the man said and pointed to the back door. "Take this." He handed me a slip of paper.

Dejected, I walked off the altar and up the aisle.

"What the fuck is up with you, mopey?"

It was my old friend who stood behind me on the line.

"They said they got nothing on me. They're sending me home."

"They're sending you fucking home? Shit, for me that would be the worst news I heard. I ain't goin' home."

I nodded my head and said good luck to the man. As I walked away, he called out. "Don't feel so bad, fuckhead. I read only 1 - 3% of the people who surrender actually get sentenced."

"Thanks," I said. I knew he was trying to cheer me up, but as I thought of those staggering statistics I only became sadder. At best only 180 out of 6,000 people would be sent away. That's no way to run a criminal justice system, I thought.

In the Beginning . . .

2009-10-01T23:00:00.013-04:00

I had a job. Not a career, but a job that a buddy of mine helped me get. It was with a 30-year-old, family-owned chemical and adhesives manufacturing company that was headquartered in Boston. The Boston part was intriguing. The chemicals were not.

A week before I started, I found out they were moving the company to Walpole - 20 miles West of Boston. They were expanding and found an industrial park to set up in. The only other thing that was in Walpole besides this new industrial park was the state prison.

I had already found a place live in Boston and planned on taking public transportation to work. Now, I would have to get a car and drive.

Working with a budget of $300, I found a very used Honda Accord hatchback. It had just reached 100,000 miles, it had a choke to help start the car, balding tires, and rust along most of the edges. The main thing, though, it started.

My boss wouldn't let me park the car in front of the building because it was so ugly. He tried to get me to drive the company car. It was a pick-up truck with their main product's name, Topcoat, emblazoned on the side - a liquid roofing material for metal roofs. I was the new head of marketing for the product. I was the entire marketing department and sometimes technical salesperson.

While most of my friends were working in large corporations beginning training programs with hundreds of people the same age as them, I was sitting in Walpole in a 25-person company run by two brothers who didn't trust anyone or each other.

There was Stan in accounting who did everything with a pencil and piece of paper. He didn't trust technology.

"You see this pencil?" he'd say to me. "It's never gonna crash."

"But what if you break the tip?" I'd ask.

"What, are you an idiot? I'll sharpen it," he'd reply.

"But what if the sharpener ..."

"Get outta here, do some marketing," he'd say and slam the door to his office.

There was Felix who was in charge of the lab. We weren't allowed to talk to him or even go into the lab area. It had three locks on the door. The brothers thought there were people who would break in and steal the secret rubber formula. (I guess they shouldn't have moved so close to the prison.)

And then there was Lou who was in charge of operations. He basically managed the plant in the back where the chemicals were manufactured and the loading dock. He got to drive the fork lift onto the trucks everytime there was delivery.

He always liked to hang out in the front office. He would sit in the chair in front of my desk and tell me how stupid all the workers were out back, mainly because they were foreigners. He'd tell that if it wasn't for him, they wouldn't even know how to zipper their pants - not something I really wanted to think about how he helped them.

He'd also tell me how dumb the two brothers were as well. But whenever they walked by, he'd sure liked to kiss their asses.

"How ya doing Mr. Clark? I don't think the Sox are gonna pull one off tonight."

"What are you doing up Lou? Who's watching the plant?"

"I'm heading right back. I was just answering some questions for Marketing, here."

All these guys were a few years away from retirement when I started, fresh out of college. I had some great role models to look up to.

This is my desk that I sat at for 2 1/2 years.

And this is the window I stared out of from 8:30am to 5:00pm.

To be fair, I wasn't always at this desk. I did get to do a fair amount of traveling. I got to meet other roofers from around the country who I tried to educate on the wonders of a rubberized substrate for corrugated metal.

The point was that metal roofs leaked a lot because they expanded and contracted with the heat and cold. A rubber roof that goes down as a liquid coating would adhere to the surface, cover the seams and stretch with temperature fluctuations.

It didn't really work. You had to have the finesse of an industrial painter to put the stuff down. You had to know how thick to put it on in certain spots. You had to hope for warm weather and enough sun to cure the material. And you had to have the patience to attend to the details, like every screw that held the metal down had to have a special dab of Topcoat applied to the head. Did you ever see how large some of those warehouse roofs could be?

These were roofers who were used to rolling out carpets of black, oily matting that would have its seams heat-welded together with big, flaming torches they carried around. Sure, a few roofs would catch on fire, but man they could lay that stuff down fast.

These were interesting people. People from the heartland. I think a lot of them even made it to high school graduation.

And, like I said, I got to see different parts of the country.

For each place I'd go to I would try and bring back a post card so I could put it on the wall at home and marvel at it. Although some places I visited were so exotic they didn't even have post cards, like Waterloo, Iowa or West Allis, Wisconsin, or even Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

But I did get to the big towns now and then, like Fort Wayne, Pittsburgh, and even Cincinnati - the city where the TV show WKRP was supposed to take place in, even though it was shot in Hollywood I hear.

That was the beginning. Some days when I think of where I am now, I still look back fondly and think of the old gang of people I once knew.

Beantown Reunion

2009-09-23T21:59:00.005-04:00

I used to live in Boston, moved there right after college. Boston will always have a special place in my heart because it's where I first began what I consider my adult life.

I had a real job (that sucked even back then), financial responsibilities, and a bleak outlook for the future - all the things that go into being an adult.

I barely made it to Boston. I had to borrow five hundred dollars from a good friend just to leave campus. This paid for the car rental from Syracuse, NY, and provided some spending money until my job started. Based on my salary and expenses, it took me a year to pay back the loan, but I did it.

I always felt like an outsider in Boston. It was a place I could only look at but not touch. It was an expensive place to live. If I had five bucks at the end of each week, I considered myself lucky. So I, and my roommate Curt, spent a lot of time walking, biking or running through the city. If we were lucky, we would come across something free, like a concert at the band shell along the Charles or some street performers in front of Fanueil Hall.

I remember doing a lot of watching, especially in the posh downtown areas like Back Bay, the North End and Beacon Street. I'd walk by the high-end hotels and wonder what it was like inside. Occasionally, I would slip into The Four Seasons across from the Commons to use the bathroom. I always expected to be stopped at the entrance, but the doormen always greeted me graciously. I felt like I was pulling one over on them as I walked with purpose to the Men's Room.

These days I've had the the good fortune of visiting Boston on business trips. I've had the chance to stay in some of the hotels I used to pass by in my poorer days. While my company is paying for the room, it doesn't take away from the feeling that I somehow arrived. I feel a little bit richer, a little more nostalgic - but only momentarily.

This is a picture I took from my hotel balcony on a recent trip. I am looking right at Fanueil Hall.

It would've been hard for me to imagine back then that I would be standing in a hotel room looking out onto the city one day. And there I was, in an excellent location, in a beautifully appointed room. But yet, I still felt like an outsider.

While I was finally on the inside, I had no one to share it with. No one to relate my story of where I had once come from. No one except that couple who had been standing near the stop light for quite some time staring up in my direction. The woman now had her back to me, she was in discussion with the man.

What were they thinking? Did they look up at me with envy? Maybe they were young lovers smitten by the downtown scenery and warm air wafting in from the scenic harbor. Maybe they desired a room of their own, a bit of privacy where they could embrace and share each other if just for a brief moment.

And I thought, what if someone looked down from their perch onto me back then. What if this person had the power to play with dreams. What could have been?

That's when stepped back into the room and picked up the phone. I dialed the front desk and was greeted personally, like a real guest.

"I'm calling to report that two people have been harassing me from the street below. They have been staring at me incessantly. I wish to have them removed."

"Removed?," the front desk asked.

"Yes. They are disrupting my view."

"Please accept the hotel's apology. Security will take care of the matter immediately."

"Yes, that's what I expect. Now, step lively," I said and hung up the phone, and drew the curtains.

Ah, it's always good to return to your roots.

Sittin' On My Thumbs

2009-09-20T22:46:00.011-04:00

All this recent cool air has got me thinking about how my body will be going into a deep freeze in the coming months. More specifically, how my hands will be losing blood flow and feeling.

Most people can tell the change of the seasons by watching a thermometer, or watching the leaves accumulate on the ground, or even by a calendar. Me, I know the season has really changed as my hands become cold and clammy.

I'm sure it's some type of survival technique. Some neuro-sensory mechanism deep in the recesses of my recesses kicks into full gear in preparation for the sun's angle change. As I go throughout my usual life-cycle processes, oblivious on how to handle these celestial machinations on my own - that is, my conscious being - a whole colony of brilliant cells have figured out how to keep the power plant alive without me - the outer me - having to worry one bit.

Around this time of year, they begin shunting blood from my extremities to the core. The core houses the vital organs, the things that really need to stay alive or else. My hands, and my feet, who needs them. And if the whole of me was really smart, not just the involuntary part that keeps the brain functioning and the heart pumping, I would stay away from cold weather altogether. But for some voluntary reason, I live in an area where these things happen. Stupid, right?

Well, this year I'm making changes. Perhaps, small changes. This year I'm focusing on keeping my hands warm with gloves. To be exact, it's about keeping the thumbs covered.

Why do we have thumbs anyway? Sure it's the whole opposable thing. It's also for hitchhiking, for giving really good movie reviews, for sucking and for sticking it up your. Ask me again, and I'll tell you we have thumbs for texting.

That's right, texting is what we have finally evolved to. This is the reason we have thumbs. And you can only text if you have thumbs. (Do not mention stylus. Stylus is so Palm pilot).

But what do you do when you live in colder climes, and your phone or blackberry pings you telling you you have an ever-so-important message that needs to be responded to?

- Wat up?
- Wher r u?
- Lunch?

What do you do when you're wearing thick, meaty gloves or faggy Isotoners? How do you respond quick enough to show the sender you are worthy of a two-way conversation? This is what happens now:

- Nszlgja
- hhyrt7
- Yyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Completely embarrassing. The only thing saving you is that you probably can't even hit the send button to send this mess across the airwaves.

Don't even tell me, you're going to remove your gloves. Please do not give me a lame-ass answer like that. In December in Detroit, you're going to take off your glove, expose your entire hand, actually hands, to 26 degree weather???

No. Absolutely not. You're not going to even flick back some cute-ass finger hood to expose a finger tip. I won't let you. You're not even going to stuff those leather-skinned hand protectors into your mouth or under your armpit so your naked thumbs can tap away on those plastic keys. No.

And you are certainly not going to go out and buy another pair of gloves that may or may not enable you to text through some plastic dot on the finger tips. You're not going to do it because those gloves only come in one gay style and they are f-ugly. You bought your own stylish gloves and you are going to use them to communicate.

As you read this right now, a legion of illegal immigrants are busy cutting fabric, stitching seams, affixing Made in the USA labels, hiding under tables from the INS raids, packaging and preparing to ship the next greatest fad for the frozen kind - ThumbDogs.

Stay tuned.

Also, works in extremely hot situations, like Hell.

Some of my (happy) workers