Well it's about time. Today I parked at the plant and took the bus to jury duty downtown. It took an hour and when I got there i couldn't get by security. It seems that I had put my pocket knife in the backpack and that was a no-no. The choice was to store the knife outside or turn it over and let them have it forever. Unless I stuck it into a tree in the park I wasn't going to give away a $130 dollar knife, so it was back on the bus and off to work. I was soon back at work before 9AM and able to attend my 9 o'clock Webex meeting.

Also today I got back my lab readings. Not too bad, no sign of thyroid problems and a reasonble testosterone level. I'll be picking up my prescription in a moment at Walgreens. All in all not too bad of a day. 

13 miles of pleasant bike riding on a Saturday morning. This is one of the finer summers I've experienced. after I got my bike on Memorial weekend I've ridden a little everyday and it shows every indication that September will also be as nice. If only the days weren't shortening. Soon it will be 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness.
Film Noir festival will continue tonight. I'll have to remember to avoid the commentary, lately they have been not only uninformative, but irritating as well.

It's been one year. An enormous time, a span of time hard to imagine when I was 20, but much too easy to overlook today. Overlooked in the same way I might forget my glasses somewhere.
This comes a few days after I found my Marshall McLuhan book on the media. I opened it to find a receipt from Pranges and two pictures of my ex-wife. Of course she was only a girlfriend at the time. This little discovery told a story.
That spring at UW Deckner I had my first set of friends. Not a friend here or there as in school, but a regular crowd that hung around together, seemingly day and night. It was the cusp of adulthood for me and maybe it was late in the big scheme of things, it was great. I was seeing B. but it wasn't a steady thing, just part of the crowd activities. Things were happenning in 1968 even in little old Green Bay WI. Ideas were floating around everywhere. Ideas about the war, politics, Phylosophy and all points in between. I was taking liberal arts classes and stoking an interest in psychology. "Pyschology Today" was a favorite. A youth spent reading Sartre, Reich and Krishnamurti left me vulnerable to any new idea about human nature. I'm sure that's why I bought the book. About that time the idea of media manipulation was all the rage on campuses. Everybody in the 60s and 70s saw the ice cube in the magazine ads. Ads that had the subliminal message of attractive women merged into the image of the ice. McLuhan's book was published in 1964 and as usual Green Bay was behind the curve by four years. In fairness it was a $0.95 paperback version.
What a great book, today it's an easy read for me because in the last forty years I've come to accept most of what he had to say as a given, but at that time it was a difficult read requiring multiple reads to grasp any of it.
The receipt was from Pranges for $4.95 for apparel. They didn't break things out by item just categories. I have no idea what is was, I do know that it was a couple days after I returned to Green Bay from the M/V Joseph H Franz. I probably neede a paitr of jeans for school, who knows?
The two pictures were of B. at the age of 18. Cute, desirable and oh so innocent. It interesting that the photos are cut down B & W pictures. Back then copies of pictures were a rare commodity. I got those pictures during the summer when I was aboard ship and carring on a busy mail exchange with a number of our group.
The strongest memory I have vis a vis this book is laying in my bunk plowing through McLuhan sentence by sentence. The ideas would captivate me. He made connections in a way I couldn't imagine. I never finished the book. That was a busy cruise, packed with adventure. I was with my uncle, George and also with an ever changing set of interesting young guys. It was the proverbial endless summer.

Capacitence, fullfilling obligations, prisioner of childhood

Dr. Jeffery Malmer on Preger is talking about maturity as an aspect of happiness. Capacitence is the ability to handle stress without lashing out. Now that's something I could have used years ago. I am well aware that I was immature emotionally for the longest time and one of the things that bothered me the most was the outburst of anger when things didn't go well. It's classic behavior in a way. The person with these problems tries to arrange his or her's life so that everything is predictable and stressless. This can not be however and only makes the intrusion of worldly woes all the more upsetting. The answer is to build the capacity to absorb the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and "be happy".

The joy of fullfilling obligations has never been a problem. The only problem has been trying to explain why I took satisfaction on just showing up on time. I like getting to the doctor's for my appointment early. Even though it meant that I had to kill time browsing through old germ ridden magazines.

As far as the Prisioner of childhood concept, I did waste a lot of time mulling over childhood events. I was always looking for a pattern that would explain it all. I now realize that was an useless endeavor. It's interesting that Alice Miller's book "The Drama of the Gifted Child" was originally named "The Prisioner of Childhood". I loved that book and was happy to here Preger and Dr. Malmer speak well of it. Spending any time blaming your current situation on one's childhood is not the road to happiness.

Sometimes a stereotype is just shorthand for reality

Where are the asphalters? I call the biggest yellow page ads and the nice woman always takes my name and promises an estimator. Not one, not once. I think I know why. An asphalter or concrete installer is like a shark. He has to keep feeding just to stay alive. He accepts the fact that his employees are drawn from the lowest pool of workers and that they are temporary. So he as an owner or supervisor spends his time checking the various works -in-progress and looking at new jobs. The problem is that when the work is plentiful (and usually behind schedule) he hasn't the time or inclination to look at more work. This is especially true for a 1000 sf job.

Now where does this leave me? I think it leaves me with the "just cancelled" strategy or the "write it into the lease" strategy. If I call all 50 of the asphalt companies I think I"ll hit a guy who has a hole in his schedule and I'm good to go. The other strategy is to negotiate a clause with the property management co. that allows me to repave during their tenancy.

Now it"s of to find out if Goodwill will take my excess furniture. I hope to dump half of my furniture and only move the few pieces I like. This is my nature. I might as well accept it. I'm a minimalist pack-rat. I've got top 40 hit lists from 1966 and no dining room table. I guess another job for today will be the tagging of what goes with me and what goes away... I just had a little jolt pass through me. The idea of "cleanin' out my closet" has that nice cleansing aspect to it. doesn't it?

This reminds me of 20 years ago when I was working on an installation of substation equipment in the beautiful hills outside of Salem OR. We weren't working so hard that we didn't drive to the local small town for lunch each and every week day. The fields around Salem would serve as a perfect definition of bucolic. In spring they are lush and yet orderly and as picturesque as hell. Anyhow the one field that stood out was the mint field. There were grass seed and hops fields galore, but only one mint field that we noticed. What we couldn't help noticing was the burning of the fields in the spring. This was done for many different crops to kill the weed seeds and rejuvenate the soil. Mint is a perennial and apparently needs to be burnt in order to regrow the tender spearmint shoots that are picked in the fall. The smell of burnt mint is other worldly, like nothing else and like other pungent odors brings back vivid memories. The point of this ramble is that in a week or so the mint was already poking through the charred field. Such a bright green highlighted by the black sooty background. And it had that wonderful smell of fresh spearmint. Those were nice days, nice people, wonderful countryside, a quaint little town cafe in the offing and then the smell of mint. A first just a hint and then sensory overload. All followed by a pleasant lunch. It was a perfect little memory. And to me a perfect little analogy on rejuvenation and rebirth.

Seafair and Thunderboats and The Blue Angels

This year I just don't care about it. Please let me know me when it's over so I can go home. I laying low at Starbuck's, It could be worse. Just keep those coffees coming. It's only 80 degrees out there, but temperature in here is fine and getting finer.

As much as I love airplanes, as much as I love jet planes those 6 F-18s are too much for me this year. I join my dog this year and go into full avoidance mode. The low roof top swoop by my house is less gut thrill and more distracto. And if the Friday and Saturday practice and Sunday main event weren't enough, the organizers this year added a rock concert and fireworks show below my window last night. Great, no "dog run free time" and no peace time before I go to sleep. It was al a great example of overkill. "Let's see 20 minutes of explosions leave them asking for more, why don't we do 50 minutes?" Since my house was a mere three blocks from the launching pad, the booms were loud enough to shake the glass in the windows.

So here's the scenerio; Six navy jets at 2pm and then extended explosions at 9pm. "Good morning Beruit". Let's not mention the late afternoon grass fire below the house, set off by some moron with bottle rockets. The evenings pyrotechnics were a bad accompanyment for my netflix unseen classic - "Amadaeus". I was already growing weary at Milos Foreman's insistance of vision. All artists are odd and special, didn't I know. It seemed that every trope about artists from the sixties had been dragged out and used in this movie. And then the sky bombs started.

I wanted to be asleep by 10pm so I could continue my job preparation. No such luck. I did get up at 7 and took the freeway 40 miles to chez Karl. Sadly I only fixed one of his receptacles and was stumped by the other. God I hate that. I'm good a that electrician stuff and can't remember ever being unable to rewire something. Fortunately Karl is going to a picnic with the guy who did the original wiring 20 years ago. If the guy can remember the circuits he installed they should be able to sleuth it out.

Well two hours more and SeaFair will be winding down and I can sneak back home and complete todays project - cat door. I've reframed the basement wall and installed a new door. All I have to do is cut up the new door for the cat. Since I'm taking the cat with me to Gresham, I hope the renters appreciate the gesture. Then again, who really wants cat owning renters?

Moving

I now have three weeks to simplify my life. I'm not energized or even excited. The prospect of major change is/has seeped into the recesses of my mind.

The question is how to scale back my life without completely screwing things up. My earlier moves involved a level of minimalism that will be impossible to replicate. How often can a person put everything they own in the back of a pick-up truck and take off? That was my last move to Portland. This move will be my third. Kinfd of amazing in a way.

I better get home and contact my relocation specialist. And intall my cat's
pet door in the new basement door. What nonsense! Install a perfectly good new door and chop a hole in it.