Empty

I am pretty much at a loss this week for posts. It has been a long and trying week that has left me void of creativity or even interested in much beside my aching body and getting enough rest.

Such are the ways of the Wheel.

I am preparing to move the Doghouse again, as I have found a cheaper place that has security and does not meter electricity. This metering shall be a big deal this winter when I heat my home with a little electric space heater. (Seeing as the whole Doghouse is less than 300 square feet, this is not as stupid as it sounds.)

Living in an RV is different than living in a house. You are much closer to the outdoors (At night the wind is about 2 inches from your head) and the weather plays a more important part in everyday life.

I looked at another place that has remarkably cheap rates, and when I actually saw the place I could see why. It was pretty much someone’s back yard with an additional electrical box and a garden hose run for water. Not my style at all. I may be a cheap bastard, but I DO have my standards.

I was referred to this backyard by someone that I work with, and while I appreciate his good intentions I have learned to trust my instincts when finding a new park to live in. I have been in parks that leave you feeling like you should have a gun in hand to go out of the door, and have had people knocking in my door in the middle of the night to ask where they can score some drugs.

Not good. I have no intention of going through that again, thank you very much.

Instinct

The lovely and talented Mrs. Troll is perhaps the kindest person that I have ever met. She loves all things great and small and even found it in her heart to love a Troll like myself.

But she does have a dark side.

Recently she had the opportunity to meet her son’s friend, a friend that has been associated with drug and alcohol abuse, a friend that is rumored to have recently been arrested for transporting illegal substances across state lines.

She shook his hand very firmly, looked him dead in the eye, and told him softly that if he brings her son down she will kill him.

She then told her son that she knows that he is responsible for his own behavior and can not lay blame on someone else.

My solemn advice to anyone and everyone; NEVER underestimate the killer instinct of a mother

Audience

I went to a concert Wednesday night.

You have to understand that I have been a fan of Frank Zappa’s music for over 20 years, and when I learned that his son, Dweezil, is now playing his fathers music, I wanted to go. If nothing else, it would give me yet another excuse to complain about how kidz nowdaze don’t appreciate real music, yadda, yadda ,yadda.

In that respect, I was disappointed. He did a very good job of presenting his father’s work. The music was well performed and obviously well rehearsed. There was a lot of time and thought put into the show. The performance left me with very little to bitch about. That in itself says a lot. We all know how much I like to bitch.

I thought the tickets were a bit pricey, but am still living emotionally in the 70’s when a concert could be seen for ten bucks.

What I can (and will) bitch about is the audience.

People have no fucking respect for the performers or the other audience members.

Standing in front of others who are trying to actually see the show is not acceptable. Those who do should be tossed out on their ear. Getting up every ten minutes and disturbing the rest of the people in your row just because you are bored should be punished by gluing your ass to the seat with superglue.

Bad hygiene in a crowded theater should be punishable with a forced bath given by angry people with scrub brushes and lye soap. I was first introduced to the man sitting to my right by the odor of long unwashed body wafting over me. When he sat down and had a pull from his drink the mouth odor quickly made me long for just body odor.

His mouth smelled like he had eaten a shit sandwich before licking feces from donkey cock in a men’s bath house. He was revolting! To top things off, he was a damn mouth breather. In order to watch the show I had to endure three hours of this mans inability to taste or smell. I would think that if food got near this mans mouth, it would jump off the fork and flee.

The venue was fairly full, leaving me no place to go if I wanted to see the show. I had a great seat, 2/3 back from the stage and center, and was not about to waste a nearly perfect seat because of some one else’s unwillingness to bathe or use mouthwash.

I stuck a lot of gum in my mouth hoping to overshadow the smell. It did help, but not enough.

I hope that somewhere in this person’s hell there is a special room where he is covered in other peoples waste up to the neck and gifted with a super sense of smell.

With my luck he would probably love it.

Failure

I am convinced that some people prefer to be failures in life. I think they like the negative attention that goes with being consistently unsuccessful. I think that they like to tell other people that things will go badly and then being able to prove themselves right. Self serving self gratification is easy.

I know many people in middle age that seem to glory in never having been really good at anything, and are more than willing to try to convince you that you should be that way too. Maybe they think that if they lower the standard they will seem more in tune with the rest of society.

Worse yet, I know many people of middle age that suffer from delusions of adequacy. They think and act like they are the sole owners to the keys to all knowledge, yet have proven time and time again just how terribly inept they actually are. This does not effect how they think of themselves. Man is the rationalizing animal.

There has to be some people that hold a higher standard for behavior or else things will go to hell in a hand basket.

I am often flabbergasted at the ‘leaders’ of our country and how easily they are swayed to settling for less than what is really needed. We as a society have become so afraid of special interest groups and opposition that we no longer stand up for what we all know is right.

No matter what idea you have someone will have an opposing view. That is the nature of man. The art of compromise now seems to be accompanied by bloodlust and personal attacks.

We are willing to settle for the smallest things we can get while throwing away the things that we really want in order to give in to social pressure. Is being proud of yourself that difficult? Is standing up and acting like an adult that challenging? I think that going to bed feeling like you did the right thing that day is a far better feeling than sleeping with the cloud of guilt hanging over your head over having lied your way out of a socially uncomfortable situation just cause you were embarrassed.

But that’s just me, I guess.

The Mystery File

For quite some time now I have had this strange file in my computer that would take over every time I opened a document. It would add itself to a document whenever it wanted. It was weird. It had a life of its own. It was like that fungal infection you got on your feet after using the shower at the gym.

The strangest thing about this file is that I wrote it. It was not a program or anything like a program; it was just words in a row. How in hell it got into the template is beyond my understanding.

I even upgraded my word processing software at one point just to have the damn file migrate into the new program. It was kinda like I wrote a virus program and infected just my own computer.

Finally, after having the thing attach itself to an E-mail response in a rather inappropriate manner, I called in the big guns; Mrs. Troll.

She assured me that finding and killing it would be the most simple of things. I left my computer in her capable hands. I went to take a shower. When I came back she was still working on it and scratching her head. I went to bed.

The next morning the thing was as dead as the ice cream social.

Never underestimate the hunter-killer instinct of a mother.

Feature Article

Back when we were working at the hospital, there was one carpenter that did not even last with us one week. He was slow, argumentative, and unskilled. Like most of the others that came from the union hall, he was quick to tell everyone within earshot just how damn good he was, and extremely slow to demonstrate it. (See entry for September 10, 2006)

Imagine my shock when the union magazine/ newsletter had an article featuring this man.*

To me, this demonstrates the pussification of America. We wonder why we are becoming less and less competitive on an international market while we celebrate these people who do the least while telling us that they are the best.

I remember the day that I was trying to explain to this man what the job he was doing required and how to go about it in the least time wasting way. His comment was, “That’s a lot of work.”

At the time I bit my tongue, holding back what I really wanted to say, but at that moment realized that he was not going to be of any use. You see, in my mind that’s what we are there for, to work, to get things done, to install stuff. When someone feels that it is too much work, then what in the hell is he doing there?

The article told us all about his history with the union and how he is such a dedicated union guy and how good the union is and why we should all want to be part of the union. At the bottom of the page in huge print it even says, “Every carpenter has the right to a decent standard of living! Union wages are the best way to get there.”

What the article does not tell us is how a company that is in existence to make money for the stockholders and employees is supposed to be competitive when the people that do the work can or will not do the work. I earn better than union wages because I have shown the company that I work for that I can do the work and am willing to do what is necessary to get the job done.

Propaganda does not equal profit. Propaganda will not keep you in a job.

*I still receive this because the Union has not gotten the hint that I no longer want to be associated with them. I have not paid any dues for months now and they still send me bills and associated drivel. They did send me a letter recently telling me that they will not give me a referral because I have not paid my dues. I have been employed by the same company for over 7 years now and have no intention of leaving, so this particular threat by the union is meaningless to me. They seem to assume that I am stupid.

Cheaper

I realize that I said in a previous post that I am living in a rather ratty RV park in Espanola, N. M.

I have changed my mind.

I went looking for another park in the hope that I could find something cheaper. I found something cheaper.

It looks like a war zone.

The grounds are overgrown with weeds. The overhead lights are broken in order to promote crime. When someone breaks an outlet or water faucet in the park, they just throw tape over the broken part and have done with it.

I thought the high dollar travel trailer with plastic wrap over it to prevent leaks was interesting. The tent area looks like a Hooverville from the 20’s and I noticed at least one occupied 5^th wheel with a fence around it.

The interesting part is that this park seems relatively new with mostly 50 amp service and big rig friendly.

I decided that I like it much better where I am. Plus the owners gave me 10% off the monthly rate when they learned that I will be living up here for up to a year.

So in a way I did find something cheaper that I can live with; right where I am.

Money in my soda

Arizona, a few years ago…..

It was hotter than hell and I was taking a break from work with a couple of my co-workers.

One guy was drinking a cold coke. You could tell it is very cold because of the sweat on the outside of the can in the dry Arizona air.

Suddenly this guy exclaimed, “There is something in my Coke!”

I commented, “It’s just ice.”

“No it isn’t,” he replied, “You can hear it. Listen!”

He shook the can, and in fact there was a slight sound of tinkling. He took a swig from the can, and then tried peering into the little hole to see what could possibly be hidden inside.

“If there is something in the can, why in hell are still drinking from it?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.

“Because I want to see what’s inside! I am gonna sue!” he informed me.

He grew more and more excited the closer to the bottom of the can he got. He was envisioning the riches he would reap from having the misfortune of drinking something bad for him from the container provided from a company that had huge amounts of money.

But by the bottom of the can, the ice had melted.

He was depressed for the rest of the day.

I guess that there is nothing more depressing than having imagined riches snatched from you by the sun.

I sense a metaphor in there somewhere.

The barrel method

I think that all Teens should be raised by the barrel method.

(The barrel method is where kids are put in a barrel as a tween and fed through the bunghole. When they turn eighteen there is a family meeting about whether they should be set free or if the bung should be permanently placed.)

Remember this, prospective parental units.

Your children WILL grow up.

They will quickly quit being cute beyond belief and become independent and demanding. They will do this before they are two years old. Then it gets interesting.

By the time they get to ‘ungrateful bastard’ it is too late and you will have to live with what you have sown.

Think before you breed.

I think I should become a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood or some other similar organization. I would really like a job where I got to scare the hell out of breeders. That’s the kind of speaking job I could sink my teeth into.

I can see it now, a small herd of smiling young adults, potential parents, all moon eyes and smiles, waiting for insights and wisdom. Instead there is me to scare the hell out of them, talking frankly about the tremendous weight of raising a disabled child or the emotional pain of watching your kid become a drug addict.

I can envision myself telling terrible tales of overburdened mothers, insane after weeks of no sleep from a constantly crying child and no money for medical care, snapping and shaking their child until something inside the helpless child snaps as well, finally silencing the crying and silencing the mother’ future at the same time.

Yep. I could become a demotivational speaker.