MY YEAR IN REVIEW

I don't try to contemplate on the past but instead, use it as instrument to guide my future. What I have learned from my mistakes, I carry those lessons forward and try not to make them again. This past year was a banner for making mistakes. We make choices good in bad in so many ways. What we say, what we write, the way we respond to people, when we respond, it all effects how are choices are perceived. Some things I wish I could go back and change while others, well, I wish they didn't change fast enough.

I was thinking deeply about whether I was even going to post this but I felt that I need to at least get some things off my chest so I could move forward. Sort of a lessons learned exercise. Something I learned in my years as a project manager. See, I view each choice, relationship, event and so on as a project. There is always an beginning and an ending. A start and a finish. I started a lot of new relationships, a few ended. I can't chalk it up to fate but it is what it is. Some projects are still going strong and others failed. One in particular really bothered me but I'm not going to digress. It's done and over and maybe for the best.

On a better note, my classes are almost over but like some projects. There seems to be a funding issue but I am going to do the best I can finish this up. Maybe I can get a scholarship or grant to help stipend these last two quarters. I am almost 90% sure I will continue for my masters but I am not going to focus on that now. Just want to get over this hurdle. I just wanted to thank all my friends and supporters, you have made the difference in me getting through this.

I didn't want to make this long so I will close. I wanted to at least scratch the surface and reflect a bit on my past year. Most of you already know all the stories so I won't bore you with rehash. This year started out mixed. Some good, some well, we'll see. I took on some new roles at work. My boss retired at the end of the year and now I have all his admin duties. I don't know if this means I am going to be offered his post but who knows. I don't really care for management but I wouldn't turn it down either if it meant a bit more pay.

With that said, here are a few things I have noticed or learned over the past year:

1. Don't over explain, be brief and to the point.
2. When the situation calls for a joke or sarcasm, know the difference.
3. Avoid discussions regarding women and shopping. Specially footwear.
4. Carnivores should avoid vegetarian diets at all cost.
5. Take time to compliment.

Well, that's all I have for now but if you think of anything else, please feel free to tell me about it.

So, in closing I wanted to leave you with this thought. As a big fan of brit actor Rowan Atkinson, I loved his role in the "Blackadder" so I leave you with this final exchange. Atkinson is playing the role of Edmund.

Baldrick: No, the thing is: The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?

Edmund: Do you mean "How did the war start?"

Baldrick: Yeah.

George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire- building.

Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.

George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not. (aside, to Baldick) Mad as a bicycle! Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.

Edmund: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.

Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.

Edmund: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort *not* to have a war.

George: By God this is interesting; I always loved history -- The Battle of Hastings, Henry VIII and his six knives, all that.

Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.

Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?

Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.

George: What was that, sir?

Edmund: It was bollocks.

A Big Heaping Pile of Apology eh Apathy eh Epithany

If I were to term the past couple months of my life in a song, it would probably be something like "What a fool believes" or "Something going on crazy inside my head". I mean what the hell was I thinking? You don't have to answer that. At least not yet.

I owe a very big public apology to someone and here it is. I am so very sorry that I didn't hear you when you first mentioned how you felt about some of my posts. I had to work through some personal issues and now that I got it out of my system, I am in a much clearer mindset and able to move forward. So I ask your forgiveness. Regardless, I was being very insensitive and immature and that is not what someone would expect of a mature professional man of 51 years. It also is not an image I want my children to have of me and I am glad you brought it to my attention. I have never felt something hit me in the gut that hard and believe me, I have taken a few to the gut before. I value your friendship more than I value what silliness I can post in a blog and I will not violate that trust again. Personally, I never want to hear someone tell me they were in tears over something I posted unless it is something worthy of those tears.

With that having been said, I have removed several posts that I felt were below my standards of writing. Yes, they were about me but they were stories I should have never availed to public viewing. Even though I took care to write them in a manner not to be blatantly descriptive or in some sense pornographic, the fact remained that they were. As much as two of the stories were very true, the other two were slight exaggerations of the facts. Other post were just mere banter and added no value to what I like to write about. I am a good writer and I can make most any story believable. I'll stick to the truthful facts from here on out and no more personal relationship stuff. I'll leave the fantasy stuff to Penthouse. I think you get the point.

So to my many friends and fellow bloggers, I bid adue for now. Yeah, this was short and sweet but I need to get this out. Maybe I'll have something new this weekend to write about. My video projects are coming along pretty good and we are working on several 30 min segments for broadcast on public TV. Michael Stewart Issac (Hip Hop Wall St) is hyped about the project and has some good material. I'll be sharing some of that with you including a bit of some inside footage of one of our taping sessions in the near future. I also got conformation that I will also be producing an interview with Nick Hagelin and his lovely wife. So look forward to some more good stuff coming out in the next few days.

Just another boring day at the office, thinking about shit...

I would have to say that at one point in my job now, I was very happy to be here. It seems to be more of a boring drag as of late. The budget crunch has put a pinch on the amount of IT projects being handed out with most of them going to more senior members of the project management staff. So, you know where that places me. It's not that I don't mind doing a bit of the grunge work, it just sucks. But at least I'm not smoking.

Well, considering where most of my friends are now, I guess I'm glad to have a job. Every couple of weeks, I have lunch with a couple of my friends who have retired from the US Postal Service where I worked for the better part of 6 years. We meet at a local beer pub located downtown Raleigh and discuss all the things that there guys usually discuss, women, beer, women and cars while sipping the golden elixir. Did I say women? I look back at their lives and careers and how they had a relatively easy time building a career road to retirement. I'm still stuck in the game just starting a permanent job so I got a ways to go.

Spending a lot of time as a contractor, I got a lot of job experience but I paid the price of not having the satisfaction of a stable job. I worked for some very large companies. Xerox, Dow Chemical, Eli Lilly, Coca Cola, IBM, HP, US Postal Service, quite a very impressive list. Well, it scares the shit out of people when they read my resume. All these companies, why didn't he stay?

I won't say that things are that gloomy, they actually aren't. I just sometime wish I had had a few of the breaks that my friends got early on in their lives. I guess I can atone it to the choices people make. Had my dad chose to stay in Virginia when he retired from the Air Force or move back to New Jersey with the rest of my mothers family, would things have been any different? I guess we'll never know, since they definitely ain't making any time machines yet. Well lets see how this all came to be.

It seems like moving to Indiana was just one of the most crappiest decisions my dad ever made. I was relatively miserable there. I was so far past most of the kids in knowledge that I tried to dumb myself down to fit in. It didn't work, they could see I was much smarter than they were and I paid a price. Middle school, High school, I was ostracized for being the kid that screwed up the bell curve. Girls wouldn't talk to me and the guys wouldn't play ball or just hang out.

I started smoking Newports to be a bad boy. I never went much farther than that. My moral compass wouldn't let me. A couple girls started to notice me. They would sit on my lap during the bus ride. Maybe to tease or get a rise out of me, or both. The bumpy bus ride provided for some interesting lap dances. One girl actually flipped her dress up over my lap and I could swear she wasn't wearing any panties. I didn't care, I was just happy to get a little attention from someone. It was good while it lasted. The family moved to the other side of town and once again and I had to started rebuilding friendships.

I was smoking Marlboro's now, different set of kids. The west side kids were a bit more should I say "rough". I made friends with a red haired girl who drove her car to school. She would pick me up most days and we seemed to hit it off. We even necked in the parking lot before classes started. By this time, I was nominated to the National Honor Society and got voted in as "Masters of Arms" for student council my sophomore year. This made me a hit with most of the white kids but to the black kids, well, I just didn't fair well. I didn't care.

If things didn't fair any better for me, I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in my JROTC class, so now the few kids I was pals with were now my subordinates. They kept placing me further away from build friendships, my parents, the schools, even the very kids I wanted to be friends with. I didn't care.

My junior year at school found me at a new high school and now having to start build new friends from kids who had already established friendships. I was smoking Benson Hedges. I was the outsider trying to nudge my way in. Not a good position to put myself in. I made a few friends. Mostly the folks that were like me. My moral compass was starting to twitch a bit when smoking lead to a few joints and an occasional nip of Wild Irish Rose. But, it made me fit in somewhere. I didn't care.

Senior year came and I found myself in a couple of fights and scraps. Not the one to be picked on, I defended myself and I could get down right brutal. I picked one kid up and body slammed him on the teachers desk one day when I had had enough of him. I never saw a teacher move that fast out of the room. Several of the male teachers and a janitor came in and pulled me off the kid while I was still lifting him up off the desk and pounding him back down. I was surprised I didn't kill or injure him. Just knocked the wind out of him, again and again and again. They transferred the kid to another school after they found out all the foul and vile things he was saying to me. I didn't care.

By the end of my senior year in high school, I had made it to the rank of Colonel in JROTC and had been promoted to the lofty position as Executive Officer for the entire division. I got to travel around from school to school harassing all my subordinates. I came upon on young freshman kid during an inspection. He was shaking and I asked him if he was nervous, he replied a resounding "Yes, sir!". I told him don't worry, this is just play, you look fine. I could have nailed him on five or ten gigs on his uniform but what was the sense. This was high school, not the Army. I didn't care.

I would have to say that even though the senior prom was fun, it was not much of a rememberable occasion for me as with most kids proms. Although the girl I was dating at the time was a very nice girl, I was just not into her as I should have been. I tried to make the event rememberable for her. I was thinking about the girls in college. I was smoking Kools. I didn't care.