No More Nexus 7

After almost three years of loyal service, my Much Beloved Nexus 7 has given up the digital ghost. If repairs cannot be made, funeral services will be announced shortly.

An ideal replacement would be Google's Pixel C. But, given the price tag, that won't happen. It will likely get replaced by a refurbished model, for 15% of the cost of a Pixel C. And all the same functionality of the previous tablet.

Goodbye, old friend, you served me very well, and will be missed.

Katrina Made Landfall

Nine years ago today, Katrina made landfall. On her anniversary, few people bothered to mention her. No memorial events. No ceremonies. Barely a remembrance on the local news. Nothing on the national news. How easy it has been to decorate our wounds. We're all back to our normal, self-imposed disasters.

My kids likely won't remember the lack of power. Or frequently moving from house to house for six months. They won't remember the hunter / gather quests for food that their parents replayed each day. They won't remember the recovery efforts. The loss. The slow healing process. And with some small measure of luck, they will not get PTSD sweats or nausea that strike whenever the mistakes and sacrifices from the sleepy past make the unexpected leap to the all-too-real present.

My own private celebration took place at Rooney's. Accompanied by mi amigo mos loco: Roger. And several giant pints of icy Johnny Appleseed. We drank to Katrina, to paradise, to death, and to the lie of love. (Okay, that was borrowed from Bukowski, but it wasn't too far from the truth.) Two aging warriors remembering long lost battles while dreading the challenges ahead of us. Nothing we ever do will make any headlines. But at least we're never bored.

Across a long enough timeline, pain and rumors fade to smoke. Their effects are etched in water. The rest is just rust and stardust.

Diatribe

"You've been drinking," says she.

"Had to do something," says me.

Cheaper than lawyers. Or bail.

Off to bed, for she. Such is the ritual.

Decided not to scream.

But silence is the real crime against humanity.

Scattered

A shotgun blast of a day. High velocity pellets hitting from too many directions. Nearly non-stop at the office. (Though my new plan is to only open email two or three times a day and avoid it as a constant distraction.) Mom calls while driving, tells me she is trailing an ambulance and G'Ma is en route to the ER, for chest pains. Many worrisome hours later it isn't a heart attack, but possibly intra-cranial fluid. That particular issue may linger for days. Cindy keeps taking tests. A friend's sole server at work gets completely ransacked by a Russian crypto trojan that encrypts the entire system and holds it hostage until they pay an anonymous account with fresh bitcoins. And another friend has voodoo invade his home network after a rainstorm so now all the packets are soaked and nothing works consistently. Feels like Monday all over again. 

On a good note, Dr J popped my back so well yesterday that it completely stopped hurting, at least for now. My knee isn't hurting when walking. And a test run is on the agenda for tomorrow. Still time to train for the 70.3 in May. But it is going to be close.

Things are always close in my life.

Saint Patrick Hates My Sobriety

Made the decision to stay away from Da Booze on February 1st. Been sticking firmly to that decision. 44 days!

But Saint Patrick hates my sobriety. He taunts me mercilessly. "Stop by the pub, Jon!" he says. 

"It's okay," he says. "You can relent. For one day. You will be forgiven." His hands form the Warding Signs. Soothing my nerves. Lowering my defenses. 

"Have some delicious corned beef. And drink these sacred green beers," he says. 

Mainly, it is the the cider which calls me. Not just the taste. But the calming embrace. The serenity. Softening all my edges. 

Thoughts of moderation begin to infiltrate my local philosophy. Just lapse for one day. My will is strong. Three is my limit. That will be okay.

But it isn't okay. Too many calories. Too many sugars. Too many carbs. Totally NOT worth the damage it will do to my training and healthy efforts. 

My brain knows the juice not worth the squeeze. 

But my heart needs its embrace. To hear its song whispered so softly in my lone good ear. Feel the warmth. The glow consuming me. Turning my outside in. 

(sigh)

Moderation isn't really moderation if the cider sings to you on a daily basis. Maybe my non-problem is a problem despite my protestations and claims of self-imposed moderation. Only way to know for sure is to maintain the sobriety. Stand on the wall. Shake my fist and scream into the night: Leave me alone, Saint Patrick! Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up, here.

Our values

Me: Thanks for picking up new shoes for me. Needed them. Have you seen these old ones?
She: (looking at the worn soles) Should have done it sooner!
Me: We couldn't afford it.
She: You could have just spent less on training.
Me: Rather have holes in my soles.

She?New stuff. Me? Health comes first.

And those are our values.

Anger Issues

We let this stuff build up behind our eyes. Perceived slights. Placing blame. Resentment. A glacial crawl of weight growing, growing, growing heavier on our chest. We don't address our issues. We suffer them in private silence. Maybe we don't know how to voice our differences. Maybe we're scared. But we stuff it down. On top of everything else haunting us.

The vast majority of us are living like literal gods in comparison to the rest of the world. With our air conditioned, internet connected homes and our access to clean water and a reliable power grid. But we take up mental spears. And pierce those we claim to love the most. For even the smallest offenses. Real or perceived. And slowly, oh so slowly, we change. We stop doing small, meaningful things. Stop helping. Stop praising. And it all turns into one long, drawn out conflict. Usually, over nothing.

At the end of the day, we just want to be happy. You should be happy. Let me be happy. Why can't we be happy together. Help each other to get there. Meet in the middle. Cooperate. Compromise. Support the other's goals.

Instead, it is anger issues. And stray thoughts of self-medicating. Over-compensating. Negativity. And resentment. Nothing productive. Or supportive.

Round and round.

Damn.

Here's August

What a day. Brutal heat. Swapped out a robotic arm. Wrestled with four different techs, with four different accents, on a super-prolonged Citrix issue. Nearly 11 hours at the office. G'Ma in the hospital after five unexpected ulcers cause massive bloodloss. Liam's new phone. My new Nexus. Cindy's migraine. Missed my THREE workouts. A coworker gets sent home. "Wepons!" Chinese food. And boom, here's August.

What. A. Day.

Sighting

Click the image. Look closely.

See that tag? Uncle Ted, yo! First sign of trouble.

Notice the equine, yet? In the passenger's seat.

Yep. That's a horse, riding shotgun.

Summer in South Mississippi.

HARPed - The Conclusion

Back in October, I started to refinance the house. Move from an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) to a 30yr Fixed Rate Mortgage. It was literally only possible for us because of the HARP program. Without it, we would have either dealt with a sliding mortgage payment, or sold enough organs to amass tens of thousands needed to pay off the old mortgage and tens of thousands more to put down 10% on a new mortgage.

So I'm quite happy to announce that we're done! Signed the paperwork and we're only 360 payments away from owning the house. With some luck, the market will have recovered by then.

Glad to have that off my plate. Now on to the next adventure.

Bye bye 2012!

With a few minutes left, here is how I'll remember 2012:

• 12 races on the books
• 77 hours of strength training
• 70 miles of swimming
• 312 miles of running
• 1430 miles of biking
• and 210337 calories that aren't clinging to my waistline.

A year of challenges, victories, discoveries, and defeats. Looking forward to more, in 2013. 

So bye bye 2012!

HARPed

I don't know where we reside on the timeline of The Great Recession. I'd like to think we're at least half way through. Who knows? What I do know is that when I bought my house, nearly seven years ago,we were still  at the peak of the housing bubble. Compounded by the lack of available homes in the wake of Katrina. We paid too much. And we had an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. If things had gone according to plan, we would have sold the house for some kind of profit, and upgraded. Or at least refinanced at a better rate.

Flash forward to the present. Ouch. The market imploded. Despite pouring between twenty and forty grand (not including all my personal man hours) into it, the house isn't worth what we paid. And it probably is not even worth the value of the mortgage. Let alone capable of returning our investment. We've become one of the millions of families "trapped" in our mortgage.

Refinancing was going to be tough. We spent a big chunk of our reserves on the kitchen. (No debt on it, thankfully!) In the best possible world, the house would be worth the value of the mortgage. To refinance it, we'd have to pay down ten to twenty percent of it. (Fifteen to thirty grand.) Plus the fees and blah blah blah associated with a new mortgage. (Maybe seven more grand.) So on a good day I'd have to come up with twenty two - forty grand. Just to keep the house. On top of losing our initial 10% we put in when we bought it. On top of remodeling many rooms. On top of remodeling the kitchen. Tens of thousands MORE. Just to keep floating. 

That's a big burden for a man to bear. It weighed down many of my thoughts. And certainly made me want to drink rather than deal with the sad reality of the situation. 

But (drum roll) I found some help. The HARP Program. I'm sure it benefits the mortgage companies SOMEHOW, but the program is going to allow me to refinance the house at a lower, fixed rate, without having to get it re-appraised. The HARP Program assumes it is worth what I paid for it. And the fees are a fraction of a normal mortgage. Sounds too good to be true, right? God, I hope not! But we'll find out shortly. 

In theory, I pay <$200 in fees, and my mortgage is converted to a conventional one. My monthly rate won't go down (I wasn't paying any principal on the old mortgage, but now I am) but I don't have to pay upwards of forty thousand dollars, that I don't have, to get stable. 

I'll take it. Huge burden lifted off my chest. Now let's get HARPed!

Extenuating Circumstances

I like to think of myself as flexible. Not a stickler for little, unimportant details.

But I do like my plans. My schedule of events. And I really dislike when they're completely disrupted by extenuating circumstances.

So my car decides to die last night. In slow, cruel stages. Didn't like cranking up in the morning, but did. Barely cranked after work. A trip to O'Reilly's to check the battery, and it cranked no more. "You only got four volts," the lad says. "Charge it over night," He proceeds to sell me a $20 trickle charger. Then jump starts my car. And off I go.

Only the trickle charger didn't charge anything. The car was COMPLETELY dead this morning. Had to summon the MiL (Gigi) to take the kids to school. Then wait for Cindy to get home because I could use her car to fetch a replacement battery.

"If it is dead, we'll replace it," says a new lad at O'Reilly's.

"It's dead now," I says.

"But we need to test it before we can replace it."

"You need a coroner? It's dead, dude."

"I know," he says. "But we have to test it. And to test it, we have to charge it."

"How long does that take?"

"About an hour."

"An hour?!?"

"Yeah, because it's dead."

"..."

An hour later.

"Okay," he says. "It's dead."

And I get the corpse swapped out. Except... not for free. It was one month (ONE MONTH!) outside the warranty. They did pro-rate it. And for $35, I received a replacement.

After installing it, the car started right up. No more extenuating circumstances...

Ron Asked

"Didn't you used to have a blog?" Ron asked. "Tales from the Bayou, or something like that?"

I've been talking about posting for weeks. But Jon's talk is cheap. And Jon's action has been lacking.

When I was on my busiest, most creative posting streak, it was due to soul-crushing insomnia. Many nights I would not get sleepy until well after midnight and be lucky to drift off around two in the morning. But triathlon training has mostly cured. By nine o'clock I'm usually winding down for the night. By ten o'clock I'm getting ready, possibly in bed, usually reading. And by eleven o'clock, I'm usually fast asleep. For the first time in over a decade, I'm actually getting a good night's rest! Unfortunately, my writing has suffered, but I can catch up. I still have notes!

So, Uncle Ron has set me straight. (Thanks, Ron!) I'm getting my priorities together. And I'm back to recording my adventures, before they're lost and forgotten.

Photoshoot

I'm teaching a class later this month. Based on my twelve suggested changes for 2012. A ninety minute lecture of sorts. Light and entertaining. Informative. Hope to help some people. More on that later. For now, I need a picture. Of me. That other people will see.

I don't share this often, but I have a deep seated fear of being photographed. Goes back to my awkward pre-puberty years. Acne. An emaciated build. 80s hair. Glasses thick enough to see through time. Didn't make for pretty pictures. So I've never felt photogenic. And I avoid pictures. 

Anyway. Went to the beach. Liam. Bike. Camera. Goggles. Snap snap. Click click. Pictures along the shore. Gulls in the background. Serious look. Happy look. Encouraging look. Trying Not To Be Scared look. Hopefully the girls at work can Photoshop Ol Jon into a semblance of presentability. 

If not, my class may have fewer students than I'd like.

Monday's Karma

Eleven hours behind a keyboard. Slayed my digital villain, though. Tired. On the edge of angry. Driving to my usual lonely haunt. And the sky explodes. Peals of lightning lick the ground. Instant deluge. Everyone center-laning. Though there is no center lane. Crawl through the puddles into downtown Gulfport. Daylight dimmed to a purple bruise. Still pouring. Wind turning it nearly sideways. Perfect parking. Ten feet away from the door. Jump out my car. Bolt for it. Half soaked in three leaping strides. Drying my glasses, I ask for a pint. The barmaid says, "Storm blew a fuse. All our kegs are down. All of them." I blindly stare at her fuzzy outline. No need to finish drying. "Back to the rain for me," I say. "I sorry," she says.

And this is Monday's karma: Sober and angry on a defeated ride home through the laughing remains of a dying monsoon.

Terminus Est (1000 Posts Later)

Terminus Est. Latin. "This is the line of division." A tipping point. Between one stage and another. Between one reality and another. One life and another. Etc. You get the point.

I started writing Tales From The Eye in late 2005. We had just moved from Atlanta, GA, to Gulfport, MS. Liam was 5. Meg was 3. New jobs. New home. We wanted to be closer to our families. Away from the noise and grime and traffic of The Big Peach. But, less than 48hrs after unloading the moving van, Hurricane Katrina came ashore. And she carved my line of division. Abruptly changing everything. Terminus Est.

Tales From The Eye has been personal therapy. A dumping ground for the thoughts and images I find crowding my head. Digital sounding board for my sanity. A place to vent. Unload memories. Celebrate my private victories. One dork's experiment in  archiving his soul.

1000 posts later. Everything makes more sense behind my eyes. Learned some lessons. Shed some layers. Earned new scars. Abandoned addictions. Acquired different ones. But overall, I've never been happier or more comfortable in my own skin.

A thousand posts is an odd accomplishment. Didn't expect it. Or plan for it. Just kinda snuck up on me. And I have dozens, if not hundreds, of unposted pieces of my life lingering under the bed sheets. Need to catch up on those. But for now, one more pat on my own back. And once more into the breach.

The End Of Your To Do List

I should patent or copyright or otherwise codify my latest theory: you will never reach the end of your To Do List. Neither personally nor professionally.

At work, there are too many sources for adventure: tickets, emails, IM, bossman, walkups, phone, text, monitoring system, etc, etc. And it never fails that just as I'm trying to leave, somebody decides to call, write, or message me with a new request. Ended up leaving two hours later today. At the office, I'm up to four pages of items. About half are scratched off. Though I had only two pages at the beginning of October.

At home. Well, I have a motivation issue there. Plenty of projects calling my name. But I haven't touched any of them lately. Kitchen to patch. Boxes to unload. Attic to insulate. I suspect the lack of moral support as well as appreciation is a major impediment. I'd rather train, or spend time with the kids. Far more enjoyable and cost effective than toiling on the house.

I'm working on my lists, though. The more items I scratch off, the more room I have in my head. I know I'll never reach the end, but I'll pick up the pace and see how much damage I can do. Might as well...

Deckhands

"Your hands remind me of my father," she says.

Sometimes I don't recognize my hands. Wrinkled from age.Veins more prominent now. Calluses. The training and all.

"He worked on a boat," she says. "A deckhand. Tending the rigs. Oil mostly. Sometimes gas. Only the hard jobs for deckhands. He would work a month on and a month off. Straight. No calls while he was gone."

"You only saw your father every other month?" I ask.

"Yes. But it was always a good month. He took care of us. Worked like that for twenty seven years. We were happy."

I know a couple of guys who work on rigs. Oil and gas. I know a couple of former deckhands, too. All tough, wizened old bastards. But I never heard of any local boats that are gone more than a week at a time. Certainly not a month at a time. And not for a quarter of a century.

"He always had such strong hands."

I'm sure she and her family were happy. I bet another family was, too. I don't tell her, though. She knows. Even if she doesn't tell me. Or admit it to herself. She knows where he was. And his hands.

Your Legacy

Steve Jobs passed away some long moments ago. The media already eager to brighten  the mewling California night with a thick swarm of digital pyres. Pre-written eulogies crawl on the scroll line of every channel. Maybe the Apple Stores will stay open longer. Flowers piled outside their polished glass doors. All the tech elite will make their pithy comment. His family will release a comment. Probably mention a charity. And then they will begin the long droning diatribes about Steve's contribution to the world. As if he alone was responsible. Parted the digital seas. Spread his jean-clad legs and birthed out the iPhone and iPad and iMac and iWhateverElse. The rebel Messiah of a billion fanboys. Hopefully the newshounds will keep the teartime to only a week or two.

But it all makes me think: What is your legacy? What will I leave in my wake? Crates of dogeared books. Dusty computers. Notebooks of unwritten novels. Bags of dice for forgotten role playing games. Known for my snide mouth? My dreams that always outpaced me? I don't want my name writ in water. I want to stand on the shoulders of giants, like Steve did.