Describing myself

How would you describe yourself to someone?

Beautiful, honest..train-wreck.

The Great Step Aerobics Incident

Way back in the early 1990’s, the Air Force decided to use stationary bicycles with heart rate monitors to determine if we met the yearly physical fitness standard. This was implemented because every year several service members would literally drop dead during the 1.5 run. They wouldn’t do anything all year and then show up out of shape…

Many people failed this test as your heart rate was either too high, or too low…
The gym rats were strong, but they didn’t have the “correct” heart rate for sustained loads on the body. Those who biked and actually ran for exercise had too low heart rates,
because they had amazing conditioning.
So they “failed” this test as well. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Somewhere in-between, the smokers, partiers,
or the scammers who tried cough medicine or other “tricks” passed at Olympic athlete ratings.
🤬

So those of use who failed…had to take mandatory step aerobics classes.

We had the obligatory tiny blonde instructor who had way too much energy, happiness at 6am…and talked way too much…leading the class.

Us “Manly Men” decided to use 4 risers on the step. After 10-15 minutes…we started kicking them away to lower that damn torture device.

It was maybe the 2nd or 3rd class…and a co-worker who had a bald patch head of hair shows up with a “perfect” Ken-doll head of hair, completed with razor perfect hair lines.
It turns out he used Ron Popeil/Ronco Spray-On Hair.
Think artificial snow, but for hair.

So my buddy Ron starts class…and we start
sweating profusely.

I remember looking over my should back at
my buddy and his “new hair”….running down his face like Tammy Faye Baker’s eye liner when she cried. I guess it was stinging his eyes…it looked like he just got peppered sprayed.

I ended up on my knees clutching my stomach from laughing so hard…and couldn’t finish the class. I also remember his white T-shirt being tie-died in a lovely chestnut brown…

Once we found out they never confirmed attendance…we quit going to the Blonde Red Bull Tasmanian Devil Torture Class.

If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go?

1985…

🙂

What’s the story behind your nickname?

Lots of alcohol and bad decisions after midnight….

Undamaged People

This morning in traffic, the sun was barely above the Eastern horizon, a woman behind me was taking animatedly on her speaker phone. She laughed, smiled, waved her hands about during her conversation.

Oh to have that kind of energy at such an early hour. She was younger…but come on. 🙂

A co-worker of mine, usually comes in all bubbly and singing. (Not perfect singing, but singing)

She, on the other hand, is a cancer survivor. And she is a widow. Her husband drowned saving his daughter in a body of water.

There was a older couple I would see walking together during my morning commute. They wore high visibility vests. Recently I only see the husband. I don’t know if she is sick, incapacitated or has passed away and he continues these morning walks to keep her memory alive.

I have another coworker who lost a teenage daughter to a sudden illness. They never pinpointed what it was. Yet she usually maintains a smile, a laugh and keeps working.

My own Mother was never the same after my sister died in a car accident. Then when my brother passed years later from Hodgkins, she spiraled down even further.

A close friend gave her only child some of her pain meds one night to alleviate pain from her braces. She had a seizure in the night and died. That friend took many years to climb back into the sunlight and now rescues animals.

I’m not angry at perpetually happy people, maybe a little envious. I know my life had some unusual challenges and tragedies. Not unique, but maybe too many in a short time span or just too many.

This chronic pain and tinnitus also makes me a little dark cloud at times.

I think back to the Star Trek movie “The Final Frontier” Spock’s brother Sybok, would take away someone’s pain and they in turn would follow him in his quest for “God”.

When he tries to take away Kirk’s pain, he responds:

“Damn it, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away. I need my pain.”

So, here I am, all my aches and pains. Childhood and Adult trauma….imperfect, but aware that’s life and I try to keep moving forward. Healing little by little.

Trying.

The Missing Paragraph

I’m amazed how just one simple thing in your life can alter the proverbial road you are travelling on.  How your destiny shifts and how it impacts your life going forward.  At the time, you are too busy handling whatever is occurring in the moment. But when you look back, do you ever think, where would I be, or doing right now if it “went the other way?”   You may have to work in a new career, meet new people, live somewhere else…and that in turn affects those around you in some way.  The Ultimate Butterfly effect.  When I think what I would change if time travel was possible, I pause and think…”Should I?” 

For example:  What if I could save my sister and sister-in-law from a deadly car accident back in 1976?  My brother’s life would be different (hopefully for the better considering how it was as a widow).  Or if my own sister was still alive, she may have influenced my life and I would have moved back up North when I was older to be closer to her.

My Mother may have not divorced my Dad due the devastating loss of her daughter….again the Butterfly Effect. 

A less severe example was when my life changed all due to one simple “missing paragraph” in a Government contract. For a few years I worked with a small defense contractor. I grew my team over those years and towards the end of it, we were expanding our services to the client, identifying areas where they lacked oversight and coverage. We filled in those missing gaps. We ensured they literally got the best bang for the buck. For most of my team were Veterans. We held ourselves to a high standard and accountability. Because we were in their shoes. We “got it”. So due to several events beyond our control, the small defense contractor lost the business.

But I was fortunate enough to be hired by a larger, more established company and continued to support one specific area again. My team was scattered and had to find new jobs. That client wanted to continue getting the previous services they had, because it solved a lot of issues for them, it provided consistency, and cohesiveness. So they developed a new contract for budgeting in the new fiscal year but in the contacting world, the verbiage had to be precise. All that needed to be in the new contract was at least one paragraph covering technical support and consulting services. But you can’t just copy and paste it in there if it conflicts with rules or other restrictions.

If we could get back into the fight on this new contract, I could have potentially brought my entire team back and picked up where we left off.  I still remember the late hour phone call from the Budget Manager on the deadline for the contract to be approved.  (We became good friends and developed a great working relationship)

He called me to let me know they couldn’t “shoe horn” the maintenance part into the document. I was very humbled that he took the time to call me personally to let me know. I thanked him for the call and totally understood that’s the way it goes sometimes. For the remainder of that year my company tried to find new work for me. But at the end, I had to move on and away from the contracting world. My fun-meter was pegged. It was still a roller coaster for the next couple of years. But finally, I landed into something familiar and it brought me peace and purpose again.

Looking at where I am now as I type this…I wouldn’t change the past. For I would probably not have the life I have now, both the good and the bad. But it is who I am.

“Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim. (Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.)”

― Ovid

What would you change about modern society?

More accountability.

Vested Interest

I remember way back when, I was so very young. All that mattered was cartoons, toys, playing and catching lightning bugs. Oh..and ice cream. Oh yeah, a big bowl of cereal.

These were my priorities. Adults only worried about The World.

Growing up I remember the TV would list how many soldiers died in Vietnam. The men landing on the moon…the Cold War…riots and more war.

Even in High School I didn’t care what was going on. I was still trying to figure myself out.

This was especially true when my parents divorced before I turned 15. Not a good age to be a “free-range” teenager.

As my two-year college was wrapping up (I wasn’t ready for the big leagues until much later in life) I started to realize I had to actually work full time and “Adult”.

But even then I tripped and failed after a few months. And this was when I moved back to my beloved home state up North.

Everything just seemed “off”. Just before I planned to go back South, I met a girl.

I stayed a little longer and experienced a love deeper than I ever did before. Or at least it felt that way. But even then I only thought of myself and left. Each year I reflect on her, I have regrets. Maybe it was because I didn’t find a “good” and satisfying job.

I still had to grow up it seems. Not an excuse, but an admission.

But even back to home plate I was lost. It was only after I joined the military, it was then I saw a bigger picture. I was serving others, my coworkers, unit, fellow countrymen and my country. What a shock to the system and semi-rude awakening. It was like being roused from a deep sleep.

NOW I started to care, my life was potentially on the line.

And then there was marriage, a mortgage, children…finances, bills….taxes…

My childhood and younger priorities died quietly at some point.

Five plus decades into my life, this world seems to grow a little darker each day.

I’m jaded. I’m tired.

Weary.

Oh to watch a good cartoon with a big bowl of cereal and not have a care in the world again.

And of course ice cream.

Fur Babies

Dogs or cats?

I’ve had both and depending on their personality, they both provided love and therapy to me.

Happy Birthday Dad

It’s my Dad’s birthday today.

I hope he sees that I’m still in love with that girl I introduced him to and the beautiful home and children she made with me.

I hope he sees his grandchildren and their amazing journey into the world.

I hope he sees my woodwork creations and that I’m carrying on his tradition of “Jack of all trades, Master of none”. 😉

That I still use his tools with loving affection.

That I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.

And that I think about him almost every day.

Even though it’s been almost 20 years since he passed away, he still “carries me”.

Happy Birthday Dad.