out

I do carry grudges but because I’m lazy, I set them down rather quickly.

I don’t remember things that I’ve done in the past too well. I figure if I’ve done it, then it’s done. Why would I want to clutter up my valuable brain cells with things that have been settled?

If you say, “Remember when you fixed that table leg for me?” I’ll take a moment to remember but then most likely my answer will still be “No.”

Which brings me to blogging; all my posts are about the past even if they are about the present or the future, they are all based on ideas that have already been in and then out of my brain. Everything I type starts to gather dust the moment I hit the post button.

I have no problems with the past, the past can be of great value. I try to learn from the past; but I don’t dwell there, or at least not too much.

And that is why I think I don’t post too much sometimes.

I have a problem with taking photos, too. I find it had to be a part of an event when I’m taking photos of that event. The camera is a barrier between the photo taker and the event. The party is always in front of the camera.

I had my camera

I'm not certain why I did not frame the shot better.



I look at what I do and all I see is everything that I want to change

Friday later that same day

(written Friday but written about something further in the past)

I started the process at one in the morning and at five thirty, six loaves of bread where sitting on the cooling racks. My mom needed the oven at six to commence with over cooking the turkey.

I went back to bed and stayed there until I got tired of just laying about, it was nine. I then drove to the real estate office to try and complete those booklets that were due the next day. I had managed to complete the additional fifteen covers at home, what was left were the ten pages for the inside.





There was a little bit of waiting involved and I wondered about my redundant systems. I have a laminator in my office and at home, same as my identical inkjet printers, scanners and computers with the same applications. I thought that it’s a lot of money. I also thought it was good to have duplicate systems because I would rather wait for print jobs sipping Newman’s Royal Tea at home watching the History Channel than surfing for porn in the office.





I had to go into the office because I don’t have a color laser printer at home, at least not yet.

At twelve, I heard someone at the front door. It was the owner of the company. I went downstairs to check the printer and spoke to her a bit. She said that she would have some treats for me later. I then handed her a large lunch bag containing two loaves of bread.





She took one out and asked who baked them as she held the bottom of it to her nose. When I told her that I did, she said, “You’re unbelievable.”





I still felt ordinary and every bit quite believable.

I wrote this on: Friday, November 28, 2008

The train was empty. I sat and read one of the local papers and then read the Metro. I skip over both sports sections.

I can see the building where I work from the subway station and what I saw this time where flashing lights; as I approached the few people milling about where saying that they weren’t letting people in. I was okay with that news.



I had a dollar and some change in my pocket, it wasn’t enough for a coffee. I usually get cash, fee free, from the ATM at work, the next closest ATM without a fee was a block and a half away. I may have cursed a little.



I got my coffee and waited as the repercussions of a small electrical fire where taken care of; I was at my desk a half later than usual.

It was a slow news day.

I wrote this also on Tuesday, November 25, 2008

It's just a curiosity thing.


It was a busy night. I had to get the advertising out and I was trying to finish a booklet for someone’s sixtieth birthday. I was dividing my time between each when she walked in.

I have to be careful where I set my eyes with her because she has a few places that I wouldn’t mind looking at or at least that is what I think because I haven’t had a chance to look yet without being caught.

All that I can tell you is that she has blue eyes.

She needed an advertising piece done and she at least came prepared. It is not really a big deal if all the equipment runs like it should.

I wrote this on: Tuesday November 25, 2008

I want everyone to love good bread.

I showed up after the office was closed. The office closes early on Sundays now so I didn’t have to wait too long. I was hoping that the checks I had ordered would be in because you see, I needed to write some checks.

The checks weren’t in but I really wasn’t actually there for the checks because there was actually no money. I was there because I ran into someone at the bakery.

Whenever I have to leave the office and the bakery can be on the way, I make sure that it ends up on my route. When I walked in, there was the cousin to the owner of the real estate company that I work for on a part time basis. I had just done about fifty custom invites for him and he mentioned that he saw a book that someone made up will all the things that happened sixty years ago. Also, the book’s cover had a variety of pictures of the person whose birthday it just happened to be. He asked if I could make one for the person whose birthday was coming up. He asked if it was a lot of work.

The last thing that I wanted was more work but the guy is a friend and does a lot for the neighborhood. I tried to explain that what he expected for an end product would most likely determine whether it would be a lot of work or not. I also let him know that if I received all the text already typed that it would be easier for me. He told me that, it would be typed.

I expected that all his information was going to be at the real estate office when I got there on the following Thursday but it wasn’t. It showed up the Thursday after that. The book was four sheets of run-of-the-mill plain white paper with a hole punch in the top left corner and tied with a piece of pink yarn. Included, were six photographs: two in color, the rest in black and white and some had tears and some had creases. I believe my shoulders shrank at the sight of what I was given.

And that is why I was really at the office on a Sunday afternoon. My office routine is to check around the office to see if I can identify and problems that people might be keeping from me. During my walk around I noticed what appeared to be the entire stack of custom invites that I had done a week and a day before; invites that included an R.S.V.P. date that would come due in six days. These where the same invites that I rushed to get done so that close too a normal response time would be given. I wasn’t pleased by the sight of them.

I trudged up to my office and scanned all the photos and then designed the cover of the book. I then tried to print it but for some reasons the colored photos wouldn’t print right, after some trial and error, I figured out if was because they were rotated. I then went home.

The next day I printed out four copies of the cover and discovered that now the black and white photos were now the ones not printing properly, so I redesigned the cover so that all the photos would be square. It wasn’t as visually interesting but it was still good. I then set about scanning the information pages from sixty years ago and covered them to editable text. I also gleaned more information from the internet.

I scattered related pictures around the pages and also threw in some design elements that I carried across the pages.

I then finished the advertising that was due a day earlier because of Thanksgiving.

I owner then walked through my office door and asked me something that I have since forgotten. I mentioned the still not mailed invitations. She then explained that the mailing list that she was going to use was messed up but that the posters and the fliers I had done were up or passed out. She also assured me that the invites would be mailed.

I didn’t even bother to ask if she thought they would actually arrive in time.

Usually, I would be quite angry that my effort went for naught but I had reasoned with myself previously that I shouldn’t get too upset over other people’s failures. I had done the best that I could have and I had certainly left everyone else enough time to get things out on time.

I’ll just send an undiscounted bill for the invites that will most likely go unpaid and forget about it.


…

All the stuff I brought in for the bake sale sold out; but then someone had put a price of two bucks on each my wonderful loaves of bread. I only knew one of the people that had bought them and the next business day I asked what he thought about it. He said that it was “Very good, like an artisan bread that you would buy in a local bakery.”

It pleased me a bit.

I can out bake most men my age

It does make you wonder

What kind of person would steal content from someone to post it as their own?

I can under stand stealing for financial gain; and I can understand if there was some tangible prize to be had but to be accepted or more popular? I don’t get the math on that.

I have more respect for actual thieves than I do for posers. I can understand trying to be like someone you admire and/or respect. I can understand copying someone’s style. I can’t understand basically assuming someone else’s identity.

I find that I pick up other people’s traits that I think are cool, or that I think are righteous or that I think are just a better way to go about going-about but I don’t copy verbatim. I’m still me at the end of the day only I hope I’m just a better me.

Is your need to be liked so prevalent and your self esteem so low that you need to be someone else?

It’s a phony popularity because it is not you. How can a person be satisfied with that?

...

That seems like a bunch of uncompleted thoughts but I’m not going to go back and read it to find out, maybe someone can send me a email on it.

…

So, I was up at four in the morning so that I could bake some bread for the ridiculous bake sale. I was up at four in the morning because sometimes I just want to out-do the other guy. I was up at four in the morning because bread works on it’s own schedule.

Four loaves of ciabatta bread – I’m worried whether they will sell or not.

That sound like an open line to a poem or a short story, to me anyway.

Four loaves of ciabatta bread
I’m worried whether they will sell or not

At four A.M. I rose from bed
At six I had bread from the oven – hot


Right now I should start the short story because obviously: I’m no poet.


Right about now, if I were cleaver I would steal content from xtx and change every instance of the word masturbate to ciabatta bread.

“Come on, buy a cookie baked by a stranger”

I can access the SATA drive over the internet now. It’s quite the convenience.

I didn’t know how to forward a port to the router so I Googled it and nearly bought a forty dollar application that said it could help me out but I read a few more results and ended up getting it done for free. Easy peasy, although all the information wasn’t in one place.

My laziness often costs me money. I’m surprised at how lazy I truly am. I’m surprised that you can be industrious and lazy at the same time.

…

Two messages from this weekend:

You're Amazing! Thank you!

Thank you for thinking of my situation. It was nice to come home tonight and find someone thinking of me. I truely value your input....I mean that. Now I'm going to to put my drunk ass to sleep......zzzzz   xoxo!!


I’m posting that more for me than for you. I’m pretty sure that you already know that I’m amazing.

…

There is a bake sale coming up. Bake sales do not make fiscal sense to me. I would rather just hand over the cash that would get spent on ingredients.

At least she didn't die before she stopped living

It was the longest that I had ever had to wait in line for a wake.

A friend's eighty year old mother died and what do you say to that?

I ended up not saying much.

...

Her email asked if we could start with two hundred and fifty invites.

And then some note cards, posters and fliers.

And we have to move the date up a week so that leaves us with a two week lead on the RSVP date.

People should have the invite in hand two weeks before the RSVP, they shouldn't be in design two weeks out.

And there needs to be an e-card to go with it.

...

It's had to wow people when my reputation proceeds me.

It's had to live up to that same reputation.


She walked into my office. She's probably the prettiest; she's definitely the youngest even though she has two daughters. She asked were the magic wand was. I said "I'll have to stand up to show you."

Actually, what I said was "I can't tell you all my secrets," and then I told her.

It wasn't magic, it was experience.

But sometimes I say it's magic.

One of her daughters goes to the high school where my sister teaches, during orientation she asked my sister if she knew a Timothy Green (only she used my real last name which isn't as common as the sir name Green). My sister said "Yeah, he's my brother." To which she replied "He's a nice guy. He's always helping us out at the office."

I have no title for this

She started telling me a story and after taking the long way to get to the middle, she explained that she wanted my opinion on the situation.

It took her awhile to finish her story mostly because she was still obligated to serve cheap draft beers to whatever status of people is at that notch above the dregs.

The opinion I offered was that her former boyfriend wants back into her life but at what level I did not know.

Thank You, Veterans

I think sometimes that the US Government feels like its veterans are a burden; not dissimilar to the away an absentee father, under child support order, treats his children. I think the US should do more for its veterans.

I also think that the US should cut down on the veterans it makes.

untitled

I sometimes forget that I’ve done some surviving.

…

He started to talk about all the things that he would need to do to sell his home. I repeated that he should get a market analysis done from a local real estate agent. I said that he could get one for free and that the real estate agent would tell him what to focus his resources on fixing.

I said that having his old windows replaced would probably be more valuable to getting his house sold than him having the deck fixed. He said “It’s funny that you would say that because I was talking to one of my neighbors who does real estate and he said that I should have the windows done.” My mouth must have dropped a bit but I said nothing.

He’ll hear good advice but he’ll never act on it. He is his own worst enemy and I’m starting to believe that he is a lost cause.

fair weather voting

2:30pm - There is that feel of a great celebration that’s about to happen, in Boston anyway. A feeling like people want to be part of the change so they can brag about it later.

I would like to know where all these people were four years ago. And four years before that.

I’m in a blue state, most of the time my individual vote doesn’t matter much but I still get off my ass and vote. I’ve even voted for nobody on more than one occasion.

Today I had three of my local politicians running unopposed. Someone from their campaign will tally all the blank votes and one of them will be mine.

I did vote for president and I did vote on all the questions. I did vote against Kerry basically because he was a whiny douche and tried to get the Secretary of State to block his opponent from running so Kerry could sit on his lazy ass and not campaign. And that’s the kind of bullshit John Kerry likes to pull and that is why some of my friends voted against him in ’04.

Kerry also should have the votes all sewn up so my vote against him was just a little f.u., which really did him no harm but it made me feel better.

I never get a sticker that says "I Voted" because my city is too damn cheap to pass them out.

The bread update

I baked two loaves of white sandwich bread; it was rather involved. It was a different white bread recipe than I had used before. I am trying to branch out.

Start stage one and stage two and then let it sit for 1-4 hours, then mixed it, turn it out and let it sit for 20 minutes, then let it sit for 1-2 hours, then fold it over, then let it sit for 1-2 hours, then shape it and let it sit for 1-2 hours, then bake it.

The results I got were not worth the effort; but it does toast up nicely.

The same time I started the sandwich bread, I started a pizza dough and a ciabatta bread starter so I have those to complete in the near future. The pizza dough will probably be used to help clean out the frig of some leftovers by cramming them into a calzone.

It was a one-man show only he didn't seem to be the man

I sit in a pew often and this past Sunday, there was a guest speaker. He was an intern; he’s working on his master’s degree. He’s been around for a few weeks now. His original introduction included that he was somewhat shy.

He stood behind the pulpit and told us his story which included the story of his grandparents. I didn’t doubt the story he was telling was true and I didn’t doubt that the story was indeed his own, but he told it all without any passion. He told his story as if he had no personal connection to it. It was hard for me to listen to his words when his heart wasn’t in it.

It was like watching a one-man show. You cannot perform a personal story without looking ingenuous, is what I think.

Things have slowed.

I thought I had a story but I don't.

I checked the flashdrive and there is nothing new there either.

You've seen the latest photo.