Yellow Blog Journalism

My Learning Curve

2011-11-30T15:57:19-05:00

I love playing my guitar. If i have a couple of hours to burn, a load of stress on my shoulders and a million things on my mind, I can make them all disappear. I've been learning to play for a few months now, and I'm progressing pretty well. I am eyeing a few song books and have the beginnings of a few songs on scraps of paper littering the bottom of my guitar case, waiting for my skill to develop to meet them.

It seems pretty simple. One small concept builds upon another concept. Once you cover one skill, you move on to the next. Reading music has been a bit of a challenge. I was 12 years old the last time that I had to read a sheet of music, but given time, effort and a dummies book on reading music, I have been able to make up for lost time.

The strangest source that I have found for great--if not antiquated--information is an old instruction book that I found on Google Books. It is titled "COMPLETE METHOD FOR THE GUITAR: CONTAINING THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF MUSIC, AND A NEW, ORIGINAL, AND PROGRESSIVE MODE OF ACQUIRING A RAPID MASTSRY OF THE INSTRUMENT. INTERSPERSED WITH A PLEASING VARIETY OP POPULAR SONGS AND NATIONAL MELODIES."

Its title is half the length of the book.

I Don't know if I am ever going to be good enough to impress anyone other than myself with my new skills, but I an enjoying the process right now. Especially since I have gotten past the sore fingers of the first few months, and can practice for more than half an hour at a time.

Great Moment Today.

2011-11-19T01:57:22-05:00

It's an easy song. Twinkle twinkle little star. It's one of the first ones that you learn no matter what instrument you play. I learned it on the violin, and then on the guitar. I remember my brother playing it on the flute. I'm willing to bet if we were to call up my sister, she learned to play it on the cello as well. We could start a band. we'd only have one song to start with but it would probably sound ... horrible. Who am I kidding?

I was sitting on the couch today when Jack came up to me. I'd been practicing my guitar for a few hours, vacilating back and forth between "work" and "play". So it goes. He wanted to hear twinkle twinkle little star. Soon he was singing along, skipping around a bit. I did my best to keep up. Eventually he wanted a new song.

"Play me the ABC's"

I was happy to oblige.

Don't You Want Somebody to Love?

2011-11-17T21:07:15-05:00

It is getting close to Christmas. Thanksgiving is going to be next week, after that, four weeks of the onslaught of Commercialmas to make sure that you know that Christmas is on its way. Catalogues have made their way to our house already, but there is one that we recieved that is different. There is one where we can buy a pig or a goat or 5 years of vaccinations for less than a TV. Even a small one.

Jenn and I have spent a good part of the last year sponsoring a young girl from the Dominican Republic. We have gotten pictures and letters, and we have enjoyed putting together cards for her as well. The price isn't much. Under 40 bucks. Easy. That is a week of coffee. Or Two coffee free days every week. Man up, you can go two days without hitting Starbucks. They don't have to be consecutive.

I am asking you to consider going over to Compassion International's website find a kid (cute, ugly, young, old, whatever) and sponsor them. Starbucks will understand.

See this comic? It is nothing like this.

My EMS Day in 90 Seconds

2011-11-16T13:53:47-05:00

I've been playing with my flip video in legally acceptable ways while at work lately and a couple of weeks ago I put together a 90 second no frills glimpse of my day. I'll probably be doing a few more of these no frills videos. Work days, travel days, days spent playing with Jack when I should be responsible and take him to his pre-k class, but I keep him home to play trains and hotwheels instead...

So, expect this to become a random feature of this blog.

Also here is an older video from August with a great interview at the end.

2011-08-14T17:44:53-04:00

I am under the weather at the moment. I think I may send the kid out for some General Tso's Chicken

Sorry, Wrong Number

2011-08-11T17:16:57-04:00

I usually try and be polite. It happens to everyone. Reverse a digit or three, enter the last four of your social security number and divide by four and you wind up talking to a complete stranger. But sometimes people just won't let you be polite. Sometimes they are so insistent on their infallibility that you must have put someone else's phone on the bedside table. Sometimes...

I got a call today as I was pulling into my driveway, and keep in mind that I just got off a 24 hour shift where I got killed by calls all night long (don't you people ever sleep?!?!) and on a good day my social graces suffer significantly after being on duty for 24 hours.

It gets worse on the bad days.

So, I got a call this morining as I was pulling into my driveway on my cell phone. Tyrone's aunt was very upset and wanted to speak to him. I don't know Tyrone or his aunt, but I bet he wanted to talk to her even less than I did.

"Just put him on the phone", she said. I explained that Tyrone must have changed his number because I bought my phone and changed numbers back a few months ago.

"No, you don't understand, this is his number and I need to talk to him."

I explained that his number must have changed once again, but his aunt was convinced, "No, this is his number and I don't know why you have it."

"Ma'am (see? polite.), this is my number. He must have changed his, or not payed his bills and had it turned off (less polite). If he hasn't given you his new number, it must either be because he doesn't have one or because he doesn't want you to have it (rude, I know)."

*Click*

Once, just after I had gotten my first cellphone, back in the mid to early 2000's, I was sitting in traffic on Barrett Parkway near the mall in Kennesaw. I had my windows down, and was be-boping along to whatever was playing on the radio (this was also my first car with a radio) when I got a call from another wrong number.

I sat there for a minute or so arguing with him over a) whether or not his girlfriend was home, b) whether or not he called a house and eventually c) whether or not I was at his girlfriends house. Finally I gave in. "Okay, fine. You got me. Let me go upstairs and get her.

*Wham wham wham wham* I hit the roof a few times with my palm to roughly imitate climbing stairs.

"(Girl's name) Are you up here? Some guy wants to talk to you and says he is your boyfriend. I didn't know you had a boyfriend."

Back to the phone: "Hey, she isn't up here. Let me check down stairs"

*Wham wham wham wham* again with the roof.

"(Girl's name) Are you down here? Some guy wants to know why you have other guys over. You need to talk to him."

Back to the phone: "Hey, man, she isn't here. Can I take a message?"

The woebegone caller wasn't amused, and I got quite an earful before I was hung up on. It seems that I wasn't the only one interested in the call because as the call ended and the light changed I got applause from the jeep next to me.

Performance art.

An Introduction to Prayer and Schedules

2011-07-12T22:22:02-04:00

Tomorrow moringing I am going to begin something that I have never yet succeeded at, but I hope that my third try will yeild better results. Years ago, while living in my "monastery" in Louisiana, I tried the Total Consecration (which when shortened like that sounds like a fad diet or P90X-like workout) by St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort. I made it ... a week. I tried again a couple years later in 2007 when my circumstances had changed and I was living by a more intentionally spiritual basis. Again, I made it a week. So this will be my third try, but my first with backup. I've got a good friend on speed dial for accountability and I have invested in both a hard and electronic copy of "da book" so that it should be handy no matter what happens.

Truth be told, I am planning on doing it twice this year, now and again in November, and then I'll consider making this a yearly thing. Why? Because I need habits. I need cycles and I need rhythm (yeah, that kind too) in my life. I don't really have any of that right now, living in a purely reactive mode. But to truely thrive you need to get beyond a reactive posture and begin to be proactive. Schedules are important, and maybe the first step, because to be proactive, you need discipline.

Discipline 101: Live on a schedule.

On one of my favorite Cistercian blogs, an OCist novice talked about learning latin, and how much easier it became as he spent more and more time in the abbey. Why? It certainly wasn't just attributed to waking up at 4am to sing and eating veggies. It was the discipline imparted by a schedule.

I've started working on small rituals to build up to a full blown schedule. When I get to work in the morning, I grab a cup of coffee, batteries for my monitor and check off my narcotics and drug bag. Its small, but starting small is effective. Also it helps to not get 3 calls into the day and realize that there is no more Narcan. (Hasn't happened, actually, but it would be a bad thing)

Soon I will begin working on a 3 day schedule, one that follows my work pattern. I wish that there was a watch that would let me imput each item on my schedule and let me know when the next appointment came up. a wrist version of the monastic bells.

It is going to be a long series of small steps. Hopefully without too many deviations from the path, I'll become more disciplined over time.

Sometimes Zombies Attack

2011-06-28T12:12:04-04:00

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/marie_curie.png

Goodbye Atlanta

2011-06-15T18:17:35-04:00

It's official. I have (once again) moved out of Atlanta. It is a city that boasts my "home teams"--well, one fewer than before-- and a skyline that has for many years been my favorite in the world. I love the restaurants, the music venues, the sporting arenas and Churches... well at least the older ones.

I moved to Atlanta many years ago, with a few trips beyond it's borders with my truck packed full of my belongings, and then back again to always start over. It is a city full of memories. My grandfather used to take me to the Original Pancake House on Lavista Road, before he died. I was about my son's age then. With the amount of Varsity that I ate growing up, it is amazing that I didn't sweat grease. We even had a varsity on campus at my college, and no, I didn't go to UGA or Tech.

In the seasons before the braves became the 'Team of the 90's' I remember going to watch them at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium. Sometimes we would get good seats along the first base line. Sometimes we had great seats four rows back from home plate. I remember watching Dale Murphy at bat. Last year, I went out to Turner field and ran the bases with Jack on my shoulders. Not the bases of turner field, but the bases of Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, still marked in the pavement of the parking lot, just outside the gates.

I saw teams come and go, the Flames had come and gone before I was born, but the Attack came and went, and so did the Knights. I used to watch them play on channel 69, after I should have been asleep in bed. I would pull my black and white 14" TV up to my top bunk and watch them play through the static inherent in a UHF signal with my blankets pulled up over my head and the TV. If I recall correctly, we even had a roller derby team long before the Atlanta Roller-Girls.

I had fieldtrips to Fernbank and the Fabulous Fox. I spent the night at Zoo Atlanta in Grant Park, getting to taste the primate chow when taking a tour of their facilities. I got up close and personal with Willie B. and I got bombed at the Olympics, an incident that was later brought up during a security clearance interview at MEPS at Ft. Gillam.

I was stitched up and poked and prodded at most of the hospitals. My son was born at Crawford Long back when it was still Crawford Long. And inside of a week, both my wife and my son were admitted to the hospital across the street from eachother, one at Egleston and the other at Emory University hospital.

Speaking of Emory. I worked in their ER for a few years. I also spent more than a few nights in the ER over at "The Grady", one of them a very memorable Halloween in 2006. I became an EMT in Atlanta, and worked everyend of the metro area over the last ten years.

Much of my family has lived and died in Atlanta, and a few of them are still burried there.

But now things are changing. I have a son whom I love very much, and need to raise as best I can. I have left my twenties and want a quiet place to do that. I want to own my own home, and pay taxes low enough that it isn't a second rent check. I want to simplify life as much as possible. And 'Don't you want to go where everybody knows your name'?

There are places in this world that I love. Atlanta tops the list. It is still home, I just don't live there anymore.

2010-11-22T13:50:28-05:00

Sometimes I have these conversations...