Oh The Wonderful Crap I Have Found

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 12
Oh The Wonderful Crap I Have Found

If you have been following this blog you already know that recently my girlfriend moved in with me, I had a garage sale (argh) and then my son moved in with me - all in that order.

Well, within the past 10 days we have finally gotten the house straightened up. Everyone’s stuff is commingled; new pictures (from the girlfriend’s house) are hung where my seemingly tasteless art used to be, room for the boy’s everyday stuff has been made, a multiplication table progress chart has been hung in the dining room, etc.

Only one place has been ignored. My place. My sanctuary. My Fortress of Solitude. My garage.

During the last month and a half my garage has become a pile of crap that didn’t fit in the house or crap that was no longer appropriate for the house or just crap. Envision the trash compactor scene from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and you will know exactly how I spent my Sunday afternoon.

I had to pile stuff up on one side of the garage to make sense out of the other side in order to take the stuff I just piled up and put it away on the side I just cleaned. My girlfriend would come out and check on my progress then leave with a grunt saying that it looked like it was getting worse. To the untrained eye I can understand how it looked that way, but to me progress was visible even as I piled crap higher and higher.

Rest assured, I finally conquered the seemingly unconquerable. During that conquest I uncovered treasures (or crap – depending upon your point of view) that you would not get to see if you stopped by because they have all been packed away. Actually, many people would say that these things could have gone to the trash, goodwill or recycling – but I just CANNOT part with them.

The following is a partial list of such items.

• A t-shirt autographed by Billy Idol - how could I possibly part with that?
• 22 different screws to possibly 22 different things – I may need them!
• A broken goalie stick given to me by a former El Paso Buzzard – can you say home invasion defense?
• A ½ inch auger bit that has a 12-inch shank on it – hey I may one day NEED to make a ½ inch hole in something that happens to be 12 inches away.
• A broken, metal, Brady Bunch lunch box – I keep it for three reasons – MARCIA, MARCIA, MARCIA!
• 10 Zippo lighters – I will one day remember to buy flint and fluid!
• A Marlboro flip-top box autographed by Jake and Elwood Blues from the Blues Brothers Road Show – I ended up having beers with those fellas three years after the autograph, gotta keep it.
• 3 U-Haul boxes – of course I flattened them and stashed them I may have to store more stuff in the future.
• Various electronic cords and wires – they went in the various electronics cords and wires drawer.
• My rolling laundry hamper – it falls apart every time I use it, but now that I have a workspace I can glue and reinforce it.
• 7 notebooks full of slides and negatives – these are not even mine, they belong to a friend’s Mom and I told her I would sort them for her (I am half-way done).
• My bowling ball – it hasn’t seen a lane in years, but it may again some day.
• My golf clubs – same as above but substitute fairway for lane.
• Various magazines autographed by a Playboy model – would you throw that away?
• A dismantled Pioneer SA-608 Stereo Amplifier (circa 1977) – I was cleaning all of the contacts and switches inside. I hope I remember how to put it back together, because it rocks!
• My vintage Shure microphone – it still works but it is quite temperamental.

Well that is just a partial list, but I just wanted to illustrate the wonderful crap I found today. As I picked some of the stuff up, I would hold it in my hand and recall the wheres, the whens and the whos. It was quite an exciting romp through my garage and through my memories.

Until Next Time,
Wayne

Father-Dad

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 11
Father-Dad

Well, it has been a while since I last blogged. Again, that just sounds so digestive, yuck! Quite a bit has happened since then. Well, I guess not really a lot of stuff, but just one MAJOR thing has happened since then.

I became a Father again!

No, no, no! The girlfriend and I did not conceive. I became a Father again because my ten-year-old son decided to move from his Mother’s house in Alamogordo, to mine here in the city of the crosses.

I was a Father once: from the time the boy was born until the day I moved out of the house he, his Mother and I shared. In the seven years since that day I have been a Weekend-Dad. Actually, I was an every Weekend-Dad (except for a few when there were plans for other activities on his part or mine).

He has been toying with the idea for about six months and finally last Sunday night he had a conversation with his Mother that ended with the decision that I was to pick him up the next night to move over.

That quick decision was what threw me into the Father mode so quickly that I am relatively sure I suffered from whiplash or even a minor concussion. It was not a difficult transition, nor an unwanted change; it was just so immediate that everyone had to shift gears like a dragster driver.

During the years of being a Weekend-Dad the majority of the time was spent having fun. Many Mothers across the nation really despise this, because we Weekend-Dads always got to goof off with the children while the Mothers dragged kids out of bed, to and from school and whatnot. Frankly, I don’t think it is the fault of the Weekend-Dad. It is just how things work out. School and work (for most of society) are during the week. I didn’t design things that way; it is just the way they are.

Weekends and Weekend-Dads are built for fun (especially if the child lives in another town). The weekends have the majority of the sporting events to attend. Can anyone say 25 cent hot dog night at Cohen Stadium!? Yummy! Car shows are on the weekends; fairs and carnivals are on the weekend.

Only on a Saturday or a Sunday do you have enough time to set up Hot Wheels Track running from the back of the garage to the end of the driveway, race 200+ cars down it in multiple heats, declare a final overall winner, clean it all up then go to dinner, a movie and the ice cream shop!

On the weekend, there is plenty of time to go climb rocks at the base of the Organs, drive up to the Butte to drown some worms or even just go to the park to throw the football around.

Being a Father during the week is different. Wake up, feed, drop off at school, go work, pick up from school, take home, feed again, help with homework, feed again, bathe, tuck into bed. These are the things we do. Just like the Mothers did the whole time. The difference is that since we are Dads/Fathers we are a special kind of stupid and we seem to be able to turn most of that into fun and therefore we love doing it all.

Nothing against Mothers…nothing at all. It is due to what all of you women have said about us men from the very beginning. We are just little boys in grown up bodies. Waking up turns to a tickle fest and the winner (the Dads) carry the loser to the bathroom so they can shower. It takes time, but it is fun. Driving to school can be a secret spy mission or a trip in a rocket destined for the Planet S’COOL. Feeding turns into some grand cooking show with the kids as the celebrity guest whom we will teach to make pepper steak and noodles.

A lot of the fun that Weekend-Dads who are turned into Weekday-Fathers have during the routine, mundane, daily grind with our children is due to the fact that for so many years we have missed that stuff. First days of school, A’s on spelling tests, studying multiplication tables are things that we missed simply because they happened during the week.

I am the happiest man alive since my son moved in. We will get all of the required stuff done, I promise you. In addition to all the work that we will have I also promise that Hot Wheels will be rollin’, ice cream will be eaten and truckloads of fun will be had!

Until Next Time,
Wayne

Wayne's Not Here!

I know you’ve been waiting for Wayne to update his blog, but since he is taking his sweet time getting to it. No really, this has been a hectic week for all of us here. Wayne promises to have a new blog over the weekend. So for now you have me. Let me introduce myself, I am one of Wayne’s female coworkers, also an ADD candidate. My attention span is much shorter than Wayne’s. Oh look a shiny thing…..

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 10
TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN’, SLIPPIN', SLIPPIN' INTO THE FUTURE

I am sitting here looking at this 20 inch monitor with a blank Microsoft Word page beaming radiation into my eyes and epidermis. Maybe it would help if, during the week, I would plan what I was going to write in this thing. I haven’t been able to. Oh, sure I come up with seemingly great ideas as I drive around the city of crosses all day, but they end up being thoughts shoved out of my brain by some idiotic driver trying to merge into my car.

As is the case with most people in today’s world I am quite busy. Actually I think the majority of us are not really busy we just say that we are so that more of the lima beans of life are not piled onto our plates. I once saw a Beetle Bailey comic strip wherein Beetle carried a clipboard throughout so Sarge would think he was too busy to be the recipient of his gripes and beatings. It worked. Sarge didn’t even approach him.

We all seem so busy and I think we subconsciously equate that with being successful. Even though that is probably a very accurate observation, it doesn’t pass the litmus test when you say it out loud and really ponder it. If you are too busy to squeeze in things that are necessary for your continued success are you then not indeed failing? Wouldn’t the most successful people be the least busy because they are so capable that they have conquered that Goliath known as time? Being a success would then lead me to believe that one would have time to do anything one wants.

“Man, I have so much on my plate right now.” – If it was your dinner plate I’m sure you would find room.

“I’m double-booked through next Tuesday.” – Double-booked? You’re not only a failure, but a moron. Any idiot can read a day-planner and know if there is something already there something else cannot be put there without erasing.

“Not right now, kids. Maybe tomorrow.” – Let’s all take a minute to think and cry about that one. Tomorrow they will already be moved out and in college half-way across the country.

What a bunch of failures we are.

With all the technological advances we have made we still cannot seem to beat time. We have DVRs so we can watch television when we want and even faster than if we watched it in “real-time” (no commercials makes ½ hour sit-com become 22 minute sitcom).

With the internet what isn’t faster? Research – done: no more library trips (actually that is kind of sad). Letter to Aunt JoAnne – done: no longer does a letter sit on the desk for two weeks waiting for you to buy a stamp and then taking another week to get to its destination.

Cell phones have put us in touch AT ALL TIMES and still, how often has someone said “I would have called, but I didn’t have time.” Maybe they would have had time to text – ARGH! (See last week’s Words)

Your computer makes written work faster. No more jammed keys of a typewriter, rewinding the ribbon because you didn’t have a new one or using that weird eraser with a brush on the opposite end because a computer does it all for you. Trust me, if these Words were done on a typewriter you MIGHT get them every two or three weeks.

When they were being introduced, all of these devices were touted as the next big thing to help us get our time back. Time with our families, time to volunteer, time for recreation, time for relaxation, time to travel and time to learn and expand our minds were all the things we were going to get back with these devices. Unfortunately they seem to have just allowed us to squeeze more stuff in. Probably stuff we didn’t need to squeeze in.

I am not saying that responsibility should be shirked and that things should be done half-assed or not at all. I am just saying that we need to (for lack of a better cliché) stop and smell the roses. I always tell the boy that one of our family rules is “work hard and then play hard.” I hope that he gets it. I am finally starting to.

Now that I think about it, the reason I didn’t have a topic as I sat down was because I HAVE been busy. Happily, I used my time in the good way. I am getting better at it I think. Using my time wisely, I mean.

The other day I found myself reading a book: not as I drifted off to sleep, but in the middle of the day. Last night the girlfriend and I had plans, but instead we sat for hours with some friends talking and laughing about absolutely nothing. This past Saturday the girlfriend, the dog, the boy and I all walked up to the park and threw the football around and played on the swings and monkey bars. The boy and I also made chicken vegetable soup from scratch that night. Everyday on my way to work I stop by and visit with my Mom for awhile. Last week I forced a buddy of mine to break away from his computer screen and go to lunch with me and we just laughed and laughed the whole time.

Those are the times I work so hard for and, oddly, they were there all along. In the past I thought I was just too busy.

I was talking to a friend the other day and he asked me how I found the time for all the things I do.

I didn’t have to FIND it - the time was already there.

Until Next Time,
Wayne

4 My GF Hope 2 TTYL. ROFLMAO!

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 1 Number 9
4 My GF Hope 2 TTYL. ROFLMAO!

OK. I wasn’t going to broach this subject, but I just cannot hold out any longer.

I am indeed a lover of technology. I am also a lover of science fiction which is where you so often see into our technological future. I recall great sci-fi shows from my childhood depicting characters communicating with each other from anywhere using a transceiver that clipped onto their belts (Kirk to Enterprise!). Suddenly! Boom! Cellular phones that are smaller than my hand are ubiquitous.

I also remember reading books when I was younger that would describe volumes of literature and music contained in one little hand-held device and then, seemingly, in a blink of an eye… Hello iPod et al. Oh the wondrous things that science fiction foresaw: TVs as flat as the wall, moving sidewalks, on-board computers with live maps of the planet you traveled, lasers that cut through things. Now, I know we cannot yet beam across the planet nor do we have flying cars (dammit!), but so much of that early science fiction predicted the technological wonders that we have today.

There is one technological phenomenon that I do not recall the great science fiction writers predicting and it is the bane of my existence. Text Messaging!

I cannot believe this stuff. Text-messaging is everywhere! Mostly used by the younger crowd, especially on the female side of the aisle, it is stripping away our ability to effectively communicate verbally. There is just no need to talk anymore. I asked “a friend” why she didn’t call the recipient of her text and she responded by telling me that she really didn’t want to talk to her. Uh…what? I took the conversation further by asking the subject of her text (to the person to whom she did not want to talk). She told me she was just wondering how her friend’s day went. Uh…Double-what?!?! My girlfriend even has a friend who seems to never answer her phone if someone calls her. If you text her, however, she sends a reply text within 3.2 seconds. Uh…Triple-what?!?! Is it that much of a bother to verbalize and truly interact with other people? I guess it is.

Texting is also destroying the written word. As I have said before, I am not the best at grammar, spelling and sentence structure, but still I try. With texting there is no try, there is only do not. We have all seen the commercials wherein the mother is ripping the kid a new one for her texting habits and the little girl answers only in abbreviations. Argh! I would love to tell that kid NPFTM (no phone for three months), maybe she would understand it if presented that way. In addition, words now have numbers in th3m for no apparent reason. What the hell? Why would it be easier to put a 3 in a word than an E? When did the word “later” acquire the “letter” 8?!?! Maybe it is just supposed to be cute. Who knows?

The worst part about the texting population is WHERE they do it. I get texts that say “I’m just driving right now.” No you are not you are texting right now! You are looking at the little window on your mobile device rather than looking out the BIG window of your vehicle. “I am in a meeting and we are discussing the company’s P&L. What are you up to?” Really?! Shouldn’t you be paying attention to that meeting? To that class? To that debate? To that sermon? What are you doing? Stop texting!!! At least stop during those other events in your life to which you should really be paying attention. I once discovered a girl texting…while I was making out with her. (ed. note. Don’t worry, it was a couple years ago, honey.) We were in the throes of passion (or at least I was) and she was texting someone. Don’t even get me started on people texting each other while less than 3 feet apart!

I understand that texting does have its place and that it can be a useful tool. I also understand that for some reason people can say things in print or text that they are uncomfortable saying out loud. It’s just that it has gotten to the point that people are so rude about it. They probably aren’t even aware that they are being rude – they probably just think they are multi-tasking. Well, more times than not multi-tasking just ends up being multi-ignoring!

Until Next Time,
Wayne

PS Thanks to my girlfriend and my son (who are both wonderful) I now have unlimited text on MY phone. I had to do it. I was getting charged up the wazoo for the incoming text messages I was receiving. I am now learning to type a text response in less than 20 minutes and I am using the texts wisely. At least I am trying to. If you can’t beat ‘em, text ‘em. But at least do it on your own terms.