The New Vocabulary

Tell Us How You Really Feel


I didn't know any of these terms 5 years ago. Some I have come up with myself, others have been given to me by equally frustrated co-workers. It hasn't been a terribly good week at the office. There is a lot of politicing going on becuase of looming budget cuts and case loads. Folks are jockeying for position, and not doing a lot of work in the interium.

I have learned that the best way to relieve stress is to jot something down, so here goes.


Bobblehead Manager You have seen them. You have probably worked for them. No matter how bad things get, or how many mistakes are made, they just stand there moving their head like it was on springs. Their one saving grace as supervisors is that they always have a good attitude. Working with them is always a happy-happy, joy-joy experience. Upper managment likes these types. They promote harmony and make the CEOs feel safe. They rarely accomplish much in the real world though.

Playdough General Some managers are made of iron some are made of playdough. They can be molded into the heroic figures of Geroge Patton or Irwin Rommel. While they look imposing at first, they just tend to stand there and do nothing. First impressions will only get you so far.

Adminisphere Definition: "The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the Adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve." This one is so common, I actaully wrote a whole blog on it alone. This condition comes from two possible sources. The manager that is so focused on upward mobility, that they totally lose touch with what their underlings are doing, and those managers that move into a position from outside the organization, and have absolutley no practical knowledge of the organization that they have joined.

Rec-Centric [Recommendation Centered] This is a term I came up with to describe a particular problem in my office. Through the constant dumbing down of the office staff (see below), the actual work in the office began to center on the primary production unit, called the recommendation. All training eventually centered around this because it was the one thing management could hold in their hand and look at. It was tangible. Only problem was that all the other things we are supposed to do that didn't appear on the recommendation suffered terribly. Hence, the Rec-Centric point of view. Concentrating on the obvious and dismissing all the details that lay beneith it.

Dumbing Down (the process to the lowest common denominator, instead of training to the highest potential)..or the office is as strong as it's weakest link, so lets ALL be weak links.

The Seagull Manager They fly in, make a lot of noise, shit on everything, turn things over and fly away. They tend to look good on paper, but the reality is, they have little practical experience.

Pushing Paper When Supervision and Management totally fail, it is important to look busy, so that if the higher ups actually find out how screwy things are, we can always claim it is because we are to busy to deal with the real problems. But it only looks like we are working....in reality.....it is just volume, volume, volume with no quality control.

Titanic Promotion Being made Captain of the Titanic 'after' it strikes the iceberg isn't really a promotion, they are looking for someone to take the fall for the previous Captain's mistakes (who has probably been promoted to a better ship).

The Alternate Path

Bridge to Tommarrow / Bridge of Sorrow
(click picture for satalite view)

I am blessed in many ways. The older I get, the more I appreciate the little stuff that I used to take for granted. One of them is the fact that I get to walk to work. I don't commute anymore and the difference in the quality of life is amazing.

On my route to work I cross over Interstate 10 just before it runs into the Deck-Park Tunnel which goes under Margret T. Hance Park here in Phoenix. There is a pedestrian bridge that crosses over this 6 lane freeway and I walk it twice a day, once on the way to work and once on the way back.

This bridge has come to symbolize a lot of things to me. The halfway point of the journey, solitude, beauty, simplicity and a host of other metaphors depending on my mood, the time of day, the traffic flow and the weather.

The bridge is almost always deserted. Phoenix, Arizona is a car town, nobody walks here. When I walk over it in the morning during rush hour; there is a sea of cars beneath me, all going about 10 miles per hour, bumper to bumper. On the other hand, I am high above them, in the sunlight, listening to my iPod, not a soul in sight, in my own little world.

Someday, I suppose they will all be up here with me. When gas gets to be $7.47 a gallon and they have all declared bankruptcy and had their Lincoln Town Cars and Ford F-150s repossessed, they too will be walking to work across the bridge. Change is inevitable. They will all have to change sooner or later, I like to think that I already have, but I could be wrong. Maybe I am just a freak.

Until they all catch up with me, the only others users of the bridge are the homeless. They often times spend the night on it because the police can't see them and it is relatively safe. It is a hard concrete bed above the Peterbuilt Diesels and speeding sedans. They must feel safe and hidden up here, huddled behind the freeway sign on bridge that acts as a wind break on the cold desert nights.

I rarely see them. They are gone before I cross on my way to the office. But I can tell they have been there. They often leave things behind. Things like beer bottles, pieces of clothing, empty food containers. Sometimes there are things that are more personal.

Once on my way to work, I crossed the bridge and found the remnants of someone’s backpack strewn all across it. I stopped to identify some of the contents; a booking receipt for an arrest, some brochures on services available to the homeless, some study books for a course they were taking. Had they left it? Had it been stolen, there was no way to tell. Some of the forms indicated they belonged to a young man in his 20s, but all the dates were old, going back to 2002 and 2003. It all added up to a small piece of someone’s life, a part of a vast jigsaw puzzle. It was a small segment of a vast picture that I could not comprehend, but it made me wonder.

Contained in the various pieces of paper were some hand written letters. I chased them down in the swirling air kicked up by the speeding semi-trucks that roared underneath me and started to read them.....

2/3/05

Dear Jesse & Crystal,

Just a few lines to say hello and at the same time to say we are as well as can be expected. Nikki has a big bad ulcer at the base of his tail bone and he is very sick his doctor said he needs a bubble mattress so his back can heal. Well here is the 10.00 dollars hope you guys can go and buy a burger or something and you guys better buy candles and go clean your apartment cause your case manager wants to go check on you and also how are you suppose to get a phone if you are never home? You guys better get on the ball, go home and clean that apt and refrigerator. I bet you guys have some spoiled food there. You both have to learn how to cope with the problems that come up same as I do and not go running to Mama’s house. You and Crystal are not kids any more. Well I better go for now I am tired of asking any one to come help me when I need help the most. So god bless and keep safe both of you – Also, receive best wishes from Pelon and Dona Vero and also from Mr. Jose and Ruth and from me and Nikki. Receive all our love and blessings take care and be sure you guys make time to come see us some time when ever it is convenient also don’t forget to come put your application in for section 8 housing before they stop having applications, okay this way you can be sure of getting even a 1 bedroom house and not have pay anything only your bills or an apartment with every thing included, please do it as soon as possible okay. Take care and god bless you both.

P.S. Crystal, take good care of yourself and may our Virgin Mary give you what you most desire. God Bless You.

Your Nana & Nikki

11/17/02

My Dearest Grandson

Here is the psalm I promised you. Read it when you feel all alone alike me.

The lord is my Shepard I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadth me beside the still waters, He restores my soul, He leadth me in the path of righteousness for his name sake. Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thau art with me, thy rod and they staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever. In Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

This is what I pray and he comforts me. I go in for x-rays on my right knee and to see the heart Dr also cause I don’t feel to well, to much worry I guess, but anyway, I want you to do your best and I am praying for you cause I know St. Jude and God will help you to over come obstacles that come your way so you can be a better man. I am so proud of you for doing the best you can and I know you will do better still, I have not heard from Crystal at all, I am hoping she will come see me, your cousins have not been able to find or see her. Lori Ann is in the hospital, she went to emergency cause she had a bad pain in her side and she was told she was eight months pregnant but the baby is not doing well cause he may have died while in her stomach. I spoke to her a little but she was going for some more tests and she had to hang up. Well, I guess I better go now cause I have to mail this letter and the other one I wrote to you before, but had no way to go to the post office. Excuse my writing but my hands are weak and my writing is awful. Well, take care and I will write again as soon as I have more news of Lori Ann. God bless and keep you safe all my love and kisses from me and Nikki

Love You

Nana, Nikki & Luis

I won't ever know who Jesse was, if Nikki is still alive, if Crystal was ever found, if Lori Ann's baby ever made it. There were a thousand questions on the bridge that morning. I have come to realize that there are always a thousand questions on the bridge, some are written down, some you just have to sense. The bridge tells me something every morning and every evening. It makes me think.

Orgainzied Religion

 

Click HERE
As I have grown older, I have come to distrust organized religion. It isn't the gods, or the ceremonies or the view of the afterlife that have bugged me. It is that word; "Organized".

Why do religions have to be organized? I can see having a shaman, or a priest, or a spiritual leader like a Rabi, but since when do people of the same faith have to come together to 'knock heads' so that other folks can see the one true way? All these folks claim to support peace and harmony, but all through the centuries, they just seem to keep racking up one hell of a body count.

I ran across this little presentation on the web recently, and it compliments this thought pretty well. We think of the Middle East as some place where we can walk in, throw out the bad dudes, and install a government to the peoples liking and everything will be hunky-dory. Only problem is, we don't really understand the mindset of the folks that live there. This isn't south Jersey. It is a battlefield that has been fought over for the past 3000 years. They see history in millennia, not in centuries. They see struggle over dozens of generations and not just the loss of their last son or daughter. We see the instant fix, they see the eternal struggle. Their concept of organized religion is a bit different than ours.

Imagine living in Baghdad and growing up knowing that your city has been over run by invaders for centuries. We aren't the first and certainly won't be the last.

The thought of giving 'democracy' to these people is somewhat humorous. It is like giving a big lollypop to a starving Darfur infant. It is a nice gesture, but it won't save their life. It will only give them a sugar buzz and diabetes.

 

Officer Friendly Is Bored

Selective Law Enforcement


I haven't really 'ranted' much recently so I feel that it is time to blow off a little steam. This all started about 2 years ago and it just seems to be snowballing. I am sure that it isn't over yet.

This has to do with the breakdown of American culture and society, and how it catches up with all of us sooner or later. The concept of law enforcement and equal protection under the law sort of left us somewhere between when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon and O.J. Simpson bought his way off death row. Laws have to do with money, and not controling the social fabric of a community anymore.

The fact that there is a stop light in the middle of no where, right next to a convience store, isn't to control traffic. It is to get you to stop, so you are more prone to buy something. If you run the red light......more money for the city.....IF THEY HAVE PHOTO RADAR!!!

For those of you that don't know what this is (it is common in the American Southwest), it is a way of giving out traffic tickets at random, with no human interaction. Traffic lights are rigged with radar guns and cameras, supposedly to catch cars that run the light when it is red. Sounds all fine and dandy on the surface. The radar sees you in the intersection when the light is red, it takes your picture (your face and the license plate of the car). The picture is run through DMV and they send a ticket to the registered owner of the car.

Only problem is, what if you aren't driving the car and the car is stolen? What if you are racing to the hosptial with your pregant wife? What if you entered the intersection on a yellow light and it changes red when you are in the middle (the latter is what happened to me).

You get the ticket anyway, and you have to go to court to explain it to the judge. Nice to know if someone steals your new Corvette, you lose your pride and joy, your insurance company only pays you 2/3rds of what it was worth...and THEN you get a ticket from the city becuase the theif ran a red light. You have to explain this all to the judge in person.

This is what happened to me. As I approached the interesection, the light turned yellow. I had a split second to either slam on my breakes (I was doing about 35mph) or roll through the intersection, which I knew from the drivers test was perfectly legal, as long as I entered it while the light was still yellow. Only problem is, the camera didn't know that. Off go the flashes and three weeks later I get a $180 ticket in the mail.

At this point I have two options. I can take a day off work and go to court and HOPE the judge is in a good mood and dismisses it, or he can be pissed off and let it stand in which case I have to pay the fine AND I get points against my driving record, which in turn would jack up my liability insurance.....OR....I can enroll in traffic school for $220, take an entire Sunday off, and sit for 8 hours in driving school and have the ticket 'expunged' from my record. It is obvious which one I chose to do. I would pay more and make sure my insurnace rates didn't go up. (the law is a matter of economics after all).

But wait....it dosent' end there.....ow no...not by a long shot.

Since I pretty much felt 'screwed' by the system at this point. I chose to make sure this didn't happen to me again. There is a way to combat the evil scurge of the Red Light Camera. It is call the license plate lens. A peice of plastic that goes over your license plate. Viewed from the back it looks normal. Viewed from the side, it blurs your plate so that the camera cannot photograph it. The laws in this state are ambigous about these lens'. The law states only that your plate has to be visible form a distance of 150 feet. It dosen't say from any angle. So they are not illegal per sae.

So a year after this red light incident, my wife and I are heading out to do some shopping. As we pull into a parking lot and police officer pulls in behind us and turns on his lights. I had been driving with the lens on my vehcile for over a year and have seen them on other much nicer cars than mine.

The following is a segment of the conversation that I had with 'Officer Friendly';

ME: "What did I do?"
HIM: "What do you think you did?"
ME: "I don't have a clue, what did I do?"
HIM: "Whats on your license plate?"
ME: "A lens cover?"
HIM: "You think that is legal?"
ME: "Can you read my plate from 150 feet away?"
HIM: "Sometimes when we are driving around in traffic, we get bored and run license plates at random to see if cars are stolen. I couldn't read yours. Wait here."

Officer friendly departs. Sits in his squad car for 10 minutes, then returns to my car and starts removing the lens cover from my car without even talking to me. He then comes to the window, explains that it IS illegal and confiscates the cover and gives me a $115 non-moving violation ticket.

End result, it has cost me over $300 so far. I didn't run a red light, and I didn't have an illegal cover on my license plate. But the city still 'extorted' $300 from me.

While officer friendly was writing me up. A Lexus drove past us in the parking lot with a cover over it's plate and someone could be heard 'peeling out' of the local intersection. But Officer friendly chose to write ME a ticket for having a lens on my 2000 Suzuki.

Conclusion_1: I will just replace the lens cover. A $115 non-moving violation ticket is still much cheaper than $220 and a Sunday in dentention.

Conclusion_2: Beware the bored police officer. If it is near the end of your shift and you have to write at least 20 tickets per day. Look for the white folks in the late model SUV that will be easy to write up. For god's sake, don't pull over the car full of hispanics that probably don't speak english, don't have insurance, and don't have drivers licenses. That would be too much work. Lets face it, I was an easy mark for Officer Friendly.

Conclusion_3: They are going to get you one way or another. There are hidden costs / taxes associated with living in the modern world. Better put together a rainy day fund for when the city comes knocking with it's hand out.

Ow, and one more thing. My other car is a Lotus Turbo Esprit. It will do 170mph. It has a lens cover on it as well. The next time Officer Friendly wants to pull me over....he is going to have to catch me.

Closer To The End....

The Maestro,
He walked with a purpose
Riding the Matterhorn,
Forever.

Stories to tell
Projects to analyze
Live well
Laugh often
Love much

Gonna take
a Sentimental Journey
Iwo Jim Survivor
who never met a stranger

When flowers bloom
remember me,
and that I loved you
Our smile and music
will never end

I miss you so much
sweets
I love you a bushel
and a peck.

Hugs

Last Call
Yours till the end
of life's story

Send In The Clowns



I have been going to a lot of cemeteries recently. Loved ones are passing on and it gives you a time to reflect. It is sobering to understand that in life's journey there comes a time when you realize that you are closer to the end than to the beginning. When this sinks in, you start taking stock of all the things you have done and all the things you have left to do.

In the older cemeteries the markers are pretty terse. They give dates and names. Sometimes they indicate children or a rank in life, but not much else.

As society has changed, so has our desire to leave a message to future generations that we were once here. But the messages have to be brief. Tombstones are expensive and don't have a lot of space to explain things to our children.

In wandering the Arizona Memorial I have been struck by some of the snippets of life that I have come across. They are three to six words carved in stone to sum up a lifetime of experience. Some of the words are profound, some of them funny, many of them a mystery.

While documenting these markers, it dawned on me that they were free form verse, where the lines could be interchanged. No matter how you arranged them, the meaning of the poem seldom varied.

As we get closer to the end we should pay attention to what they are trying to tell us.



The Maestro




He Walked With A Purpose




Riding The Matterhorn Forever




Stories To Tell, Projects To Analyze




Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much




Gonna Take A Sentimental Journey




Iwo Jima Survivor Who Never Met A Stranger




When Flowers Bloom, Remember Me And That I Love You




Our Smile And Music Will Never End




I Miss You So Much Sweets




I Love You A Bushel & A Peck, Hugs




Last Call




Yours Till The End Of Life's Story




Send In The Clowns

Going To The Edge

One of my life time projects is cataloging all the film that I have shot since I was in college. There is only one problem. I tend to shot more film than I have time to catalog, so the backlog just keeps growing and growing. Most of this film is either Kodachrome or Ectachrome slides and I have been scanning quite a bit of them recently. Some of the images are approaching 20 years old and they bring back a lot of memories.



Santa Barbara Pier


Most of the pictures are landscapes. Places that I have been, things that I have seen. I keep meaning to delve more into portraiture, but it is hard to find folks to stand still and let you pose them.



Painted Desert


I suppose one of the benchmarks of our lives is where we have been and what we have seen. The images we take back with us from the places that were far away. I still yearn to see those places that I have only heard described in books and magazines (or the Discovery Channel). To date, most of the places I have seen have been limited to the western United States.



Monument Valley


I have never been a big vacation planner. I have always taken the term literally. Vacation means to 'vacate', or to leave. That is what I have done in the past. Unencumbered by children and spouses, I would get into my car, find a point on a map and drive till I got there. The destination was usually not that important. What I saw along the way was the important thing.



Southern Utah


I would usually drive for half the length of my vacation. Stop and then turn around and race back home in time to get back to my cubicle by the last day of vacation. I called this 'Going To The Edge'. Seeing how far away I could get, before reality snapped me back.



Redwood Stream


Looking back, these were the best vacations. I was alone with my thoughts and my camera in the vast emptiness of the American west. I slept in my car or in a tent and ate on the move, never missing a chance to stop the car anywhere I wanted just to take a picture. What remains of those vacations are some stunning sights, many that I have forgotten until I pulled them from their plastic sleeves to be scanned.



Crescent City


I never could understand the concept of the 'planned' vacation. Itinerary and schedule seem to be counter-productive to the concept of vacating. You are supposed to be set free, not tied down. We are supposed to be free-range souls, not pre-programmed thrill riders.



Superstition Wilderness


So do yourself a favor, pile the wife and kids in a car and just drive somewhere you have never been. Do it as fast as you can. Don't think before you go, just think along the way.....and take a lot of pictures. You will be rewarded handsomely in 20 years when you are going through those photographs in a shoe box you find in the closet.

Meet Mr. Stage

28 Years Later


You don't know him. Chances are you won't meet him. You will probably never run into anyone like him. But you should. He could teach you a lot.

Mike was one of my best friends in High School. He was funny, had a bit of temper and was going to take on the world. We all were back then. We thought we knew everything. He married his High School sweetheart; they had a child and drove off into the sunset to make their way in the world. That was the last I ever saw of them. That was 1975. As I write this, it was over a quarter of a century ago.

During that quarter of a century, I went to college, held down about six jobs, got married, got divorced, took some wicked vacations and learned some valuable lessons from the school of hard knocks.

About three years ago I bumped into Mike's ex-wife on the internet. She had divorced Mike and remarried. She was living in Los Angeles with her 5 daughters. To my surprise she still knew where Mike was and gave me his address. On my next trip out to Southern California, I made a point to stop by and see him. I thought it would be a chance to re-live our youth one more time, but instead it showed me just how much our paths had differed.

After getting lost several times in LA traffic I finally pulled into an apartment complex parking lot and there he stood waiting for me. He looked the same. The years hadn't changed him that much. He was a little more wrinkled, his hair was a bit thinner, but it was the same old Mike. His smile told me that. After 5 minutes of catching up, we were right back where we had left off 25 years before. We still had that connection.

At first it appeared that Mike had fallen on hard times. But times are relative to those that live them. It was evident that Mike was happy. He wanted for nothing but also didn't have much. He had a minimum wage job, no savings, no car, no iPod, no Plasma television or broadband internet. But he didn't want them.

Mike hadn't listened to the announcers that preached the American Dream when we were growing up. Over time, his focus had shifted. His passion had become righting the wrongs of society. He was determined to be the lone man railing against the machine. He was the one that would stand in front of the column of advancing tanks and scream at them to go home. His uniform was denim, his resolution knew no fear, he expected no rewards.

When he wasn't answering phones in a call center, he spent his time with other like minded adults planning protests. Protests against police brutality, protest against the Iraq War, protests against big oil and big chemical. He gleefully related the time he was just missed by rubber bullets or how he had felt the sting of pepper spray on more than one occassion.

While listening to him passionately talk of the time he was beaten by the Los Angeles riot police or handcuffed in front of the county courthouse, it made me wonder about my life. The life that I thought was so successful and happy. What was I proud of? Was it my credit rating, my new car, my new plasma television? The more Mike and I talked, the less wealthy I felt.

Mike confided that he had been diagnosed with epilepsy several years earlier. He couldn't drive a car anymore, much less afford one. He wasn't really diligent about finding ways to pay for his medication either. He had blackouts and memory loss, but he managed to get back on track, eventually. But the more he talked, the more I realized that he didn't have a care in the world. It was all good. Life was a challenge. He was a fighter. He loved his daughters and the children that his ex-wife had with her new husband and looked forward to the days he could visit with them. Despite the fact that he had nothing, he had a passion for life.

We walked around Griffith Park that evening and then went out to dinner. We laughed and joked liked Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. We were a team again, if just for that one night.

I said my goodbyes after dinner and drove back to Arizona the next day, but my time with Mike haunted me. I drove back to a rat race, where I wrestled with the pack and saved for that vacation in Mexico and the new car stereo. Meanwhile, in LA, Mike and his cohorts planned a protest against the death sentence of convicted teenage boy. Hard times are relative. The more I thought about it, the more I was envious of Mike's time.