The Life Collector

People's personal stories fascinate me.  I'm particularly amazed by immigrants stories, and more specifically those who struggled along the way and found themselves in The States for a better life.  My wife's own family who didn't have a bad life in The Philippines but wanted to come to the United States because the promise of freedom and hope loomed everlasting.  The struggles of a Mexican family who came to this country in search of menial task labor because that labor promised so much more than what they had in their home country still sticks in my mind.  How about a Tibetan family, forced from their country by the communist Chinese, who landed in Nepal?  Their daughter was born there (Nepal) and raised in India.  Subsequently, she found herself in the United States going to college in search of the elusive dream.  Perhaps you would like to read about my Polish friend whose family fled the persecution of Hitler's Nazis, and whose family landed in New York City hoping to make a good life in a new land?

Then there's my good friend who was born in the U.S., raised part time in Jamaica then moved to Guyana for her secondary education?  How intelligent she is!  I recall a friend from Thailand whose family was still poor by American standards, but they were thankful every day for what little they had.  My Native American friend and spiritual advisor who has faced death on such a level that most grown men would have broken down long ago.  Still, his outlook for humanity is so positive and his love affair with this Earth is insurmountable! 

I have met so many people from all over the world and each has blessed me by being a part of my life and for allowing me to be a part of theirs.  And I'm reminded each day how spoiled we are here and how much we take for granted--it's simply amazing. 

But in keeping with my title, I consider myself an individual attuned to the heartbeat of the individual.  Perhaps my worldly perspective is skewed tremendously, but on the human level I am all ears because your story (whoever you are) captivates me. 

I was touched by the words a recent widow wrote about her deceased husband; the simplicity of her statement touched me to the core when she reminisced about moving to the west with her husband almost two decades ago, and the cool, crisp days spent on their farm together.  They didn't have indoor plumbing at the time but their life was perfect. 

Not long ago I spent an afternoon fishing with a man who barely had a high school education.  His learnings came through hard knocks and life lessons.  I walked away with a few fish for the freezer and a whole new respect for a self-made man.  He now owns his own company and is on the verge of retirement.  What an inspiration!

There's the story of a man I knew who fought in three different wars and was decorated beyond belief for his service to our country.  This man was a full blooded Native American and had the right to hate everything about this country and its leadership because of the way his people were treated a generation earlier; rather, he embraced and risked his life for this land.  I'm still in awe of this man.

We all have stories, some funny, some surreal and some very simple.  What's important is that we understand perspective, origins and desire.  Once this happens we can all be happier people.

A little sanity in an insane place

Let me be perfectly clear, I'm not an east coast kinda guy.  The pace of life there drives me crazy, most especially in the New York City metro area.  Northern New Jersey is New York City overflow, so it is easily quantified as NYC, which means it's not my cup of tea either.  Aside from getting to see my oldest daughter (affectionately known as "Boop" by her daddy), I don't look forward to travel to that region of the country.  People are generally seen as very rude, which may not be the case entirely, as I've found people in the metro area are typically always on the defensive, or in survival mode.  As a result, outsiders see them as rude.

So, it was with some reservation that I left Chicago's O'Hare airport this past Monday and found myself landing at Newark's Liberty International.  I grabbed my checked luggage from the carousel, hopped the air train to the P4 lot and purchased my rental car.  I drove the car onto Route 78 then turned onto the New Jersey Turnpike and finished this leg of my journey in Hasbrouck Heights where my hotel stood.  I booked a hotel close to Boop's town so she could easily drive to see me on her day off work.  My hotel was very close to "The City," as everyone calls it who live in the area, but I had no desire to head over there; who wants to pay forty or fifty dollars to park after paying a twelve dollar toll to get into the city?  Who wants to wait in line and get crammed into a train or bus to take mass transit to 41st Street, then be forced to file into a sardine can, aka the subway, to pay for overpriced food and items?  Not this guy!  I ordered food from the hotel restaurant, ate and turned in for the evening.  Boop called to tell me she would see me Wednesday night; this was perfect, as I wouldn't have to travel into the city at all, nor would I have to spend a lot of time in traffic other than driving to/from my class!

Tuesday came, and after an insomnia filled night, I found myself sitting in my training class in East Hanover, New Jersey (if you've ever watched The Sopranos, you'll be excited to know the vast majority of the show was filmed in this town).  Jeff, a guy I work with in Chicago, was in class with me, announced later in the day that he had scored a couple of tickets to the night's Yankee's game and wanted me to go with him.  By going with him, he wanted me to drive because he knew I was familiar with the area.  Ugh.  The Bronx, home of violence, attitude and a massive amount of traffic.  The upside--Yankee's Stadium.  I weighed the pros and cons and agreed to drive into the city for an evening of baseball bliss and obnoxious Yankee's fans.  And oh, I was not disappointed!

We found our seats in the bleachers--that's right, we were Bleacher Creatures for a night.  The one thing I knew about Yankee's Stadium and the bleachers was I better be representing the home team.  As a result, I purchased a Yankee's hat and put it on my head (it burned a little bit).  The hardcore fans behind us wanted to know who we were, so Jeff explained to them he had gotten the tickets from a work colleague.  These fans are lifetime ticket holders much like the Red Sox fans portrayed in the Jimmy Fallon movie Fever Pitch, which, ironically, was funny because Jimmy Fallon was present at the game Tuesday night cheering on the Yanks. 

Our conversation wafted from how much they hated Red Sox fans to how much they wanted the current president out of office.  I laughed whole heartedly in agreement with them.  They told me about the good times they had at the old Yankees Stadium and how fights would break out between fan bases.  This brought on hearty laughs by the Yankees fans.  I laughed when they added sound effects to the punches being levied on the "other guys."  We talked about gun control and I told them about being able to walk out in my back yard in Alabama and shoot a gun if I wanted to because I didn't live in the city limits.  His response?  "Thank God for the Alabama's of this country."

Nick Swisher hit a two run home run against the Texas Rangers pitcher but I missed it because I was engaged in conversation.  I didn't care, I was having a great time talking to these folks. 

The Yankee's wound up winning the game 3-0, but more importantly, I walked away with a few new friends and a new appreciation for New Yorkers (a few of them anyway).

2016 (warning: politically motivated post)

Having recently returned from a local movie theater featuring the documentary 2016: Obama's America, I cannot stress enough the importance placed upon every American to see this film.  Describing and detailing who Barrack Hussein Obama truly is as a man, a person and a president, this eye-opening documentary will leave you scared and cringing in your seat.  Without giving away too much of the film, I would like to point out a few things instrumental in Obama's desire to move the United States of America into financial ruin and moral decay:

• Obama's father, BHO, Sr. and his mother were both anti-colonialization patriarchs.
• Obama's idea of America is we are ALL part of the 1 percent he so much detests (even our poor are rich by third world standards).  As a result, he wants to displace money and power from America to developing nations.
• Because he never had his biological father in his life, he idealized and idolized his dad in his own mind.  Wanting to make his dad proud, post-mortem, he continues down the path of destroying the United States from the inside out. 
• He delays drilling for oil domestically but sends millions of tax payer dollars overseas to drill for their oil, thereby forcing oil/gas prices up domestically and simultaneously driving up unemployment in the private sector.
• He's removing America's nuclear position in the world yet takes no action against Iran's ambition to secure nuclear weapons.
• He supported Egypt and Libya's violent Arab Spring overthrow of government, but took no action against Syria's revolt that has seen massive genocide on a monumental level.

I invite each American to go see this movie and decide for yourself if the direction Barrack Hussein America is taking our country is the right one.

I must admit a high degree of nervousness about the upcoming election and hope everyone makes an informed decision before casting a vote.  Click here for more information------>2016: Obama's America

a homeowner's dilema

My wife and I live in a very nice suburban Chicago town, free of hardcore crime (I do occasionally run a random stop sign and speed through yellow traffic lights) and most of the stress that comes from living in a large downtown city.  Our town falls within the realm of the Chicago-land metropolitan area, but it's far enough away from downtown to be considered its own town, has its own mayor and police force and is generally a pretty conservative area in stark contrast to the land de la Rahm.

Our neighborhood is a part of a homeowners association.  For those of you who've never had the pleasure of belonging to a homeowners association, let me enlighten you!  In restricted neighborhoods, there is a voluntary group of home nazis who are charged with enforcing covenants and restrictions put in place at the time the neighborhood was created.  They also deal with some of the most petty, ridiculous things one could imagine.  I know this because I currently hold the neighborhood's head nazi position; I am the HOA (homeowners association) president.  We have neighbors who so utterly detest the person they live next to, they will stop at nothing to irritate them.  One guy in particular piles broken tree limbs and leaves up on the property line dividing his yard and his neighbor's yard.  This so incenses his next door neighbor that he feels the need to contact me to mediate the issue.

A group of neighbors didn't like the fact that one family wanted to put an above ground pool in their back yard.  So infuriated they became, a petition drive was formed to stop the pool from being erected, a large group of homeowners met with the board to discuss how the pool would deflate home values and would be a general neighborhood nuisance; all around disdain was forced upon the poor homeowners who simply wanted a pool for their kids. 

Recently, a couple put their home up for sale.  A real estate sign was placed in the front yard and one was placed in the back yard, which butts up against a fairly well traveled road in town.  A neighbor didn't like the sign in the back yard and e-mailed the homeowner to remove it, as the sign, he purported, violated both the covenants and restrictions AND local city code.  Laughingly, the seller responded to the complainer that the sign most certainly did not violate the covenants and restrictions, and upon further discussion with the city, confirmed there was no violation of local code.

As you can imagine, the complaining homeowner didn't take this lying down and notified the city of his intent to appeal what he felt like was a blatant violation of city code (two signs at one residence, he stated, violated a city code) and the code enforcement office lack of jurisprudence in rendering their decision to allow the homeowner to have his two signs.  Oh, the injustice of it all!

So now I have to go to a code enforcement meeting because, as you may have guessed, I am the homeowner with two signs in his yard.  Had my idiotic neighbor been a little nicer about his discontent for the second sign I might have removed it, but as it is, I will refuse until told differently by the city.  I look forward to my day in code enforcement court, which is tonight by the way.  And if I ever see this complaining neighbor, who obviously needs a hobby or a girlfriend, I'll be certain to wave to him, one lone finger flown as a greeting!

the amazing human condition

I try very hard to keep my blog from becoming a political soap box, and yet I find myself laughing at how seriously people take things that really don't amount to much (at least in the broadest context).  Somehow social issues have become a stomping ground in the arena of politics; rather, they have become a focal point on a scale almost equal to that of the economy.

The fervor that has become one man's opinion on homosexuality has now become a failed assault on the business he oversees.  Really people?  Does this guy's opinion have such an impact on you that it has determined whether or not you'll eat a chicken sandwhich from his restaurant?  Honestly, when was the last time you actually ate there?  I bet it wasn't this past Sunday was it?  What's been missed in this entire debate/debacle isn't what one man's position is on homosexual -vs- heterosexual marriage, but the position the company has had since its founding.  You got it--Christian/conservative.  So now someone has an axe to grind because this old guy has been labled a religious zealot. 

If you have so much time on your hands that you've researched this company's financial records, you have a boring life.  Wouldn't your time be better served trying to make your place of employment more efficient, or perhaps you could spend time helping your fellow man?  Perhaps you could adopt a mile and wallow in your pride as you save Mother Earth.

What I find is that people like to blame others for their own problems, or sit and think too hard and long on what might be ailing them, then figure out some strange means of placing blame on someone else for their perceived misgiving.  This, my friends, is what I find hilarious in the human condition.  And while it is hilarious, at least to me, it's also very dangerous. 

I have some very smart friends on both ends of the political spectrum, as well as friends who fall into the middle of the political minefield.  It seems the only way to get your point across anymore is to insult someone and then blame someone/anyone for your own shortcoming.  But at the end of the day, what really matters is how you've left the world.  Is it a better place or is it worse off?  What can you do today to make it better?  Can you make it better by first becoming better yourself (personally, financially, etc.)? 

Oh, that human condition.......

Smarter than the average bear!

My friends Kathy and Bob Brown thought this story pretty funny and worthy of telling here on my blog; and while I do find it ridiculous that I have to stoop to a new manly moral low in order to get out of housework, perhaps it's worth sharing.  Unfortunately, I will ruin things for a lot of guys, but I would encourage them to be creative in their approach to what I like to call "mucha casa laborious en absentia," or "out of much housework, none."

As many are aware, and as my poor wife has been painstakingly reminded time-after-time, I enjoy tooling around in the yard and in my garden.  Not because I enjoy sweating like a fat kid standing in line at a donut shop; on the contrary, I toil in the yard so I don't have to help clean house (see also: garage cleaning, car washing and driveway sweeping). 

Recently I noticed a bevy of dandelions and those prickly dandelion wannabe things growing in my yard.  Brought on by a relatively windy spring and a lot of drought, weeds and crabgrass have run rampant this year.  While many have seen this as an indication that the world is about to end, I saw this as an opportunity to be seized, molded and shaped for my personal benefit.  In our garage we have these silly weeding tools that are forked on the business end and have wooden handles on the other.  The idea is to dig under the weed, thereby grabbing the unwanted plant by the roots and removing it from the soil so that it doesn't have the opportunity to return.

My wife had announced early in the morning her desire to begin cleaning hardwood floors, vacuuming upstairs and de-bugging bathrooms.  I took this as my cue to find something else to do and to keep me out of her crosshairs--she loves putting me to work doing things I hate!

I promptly remembered the dandelions and prickly dandelion wannabe things in the yard and quickly grabbed a pair of gloves and the silly gardening tool.  I told my wife that these ugly weeds had to be removed immediately or we would run the risk of having them overtake our yard!  She agreed and understandably told me to attack the yard with much fervor--and I did!

I plopped on my butt in the back yard and went to work popping the weedy albatrosses from my yard.  Hundreds of them mocked me and I estimated two or three hours would be required to remove them all.  Approximately thirty minutes after starting the weed removal process I got an unwanted visit from my next door neighbor, David, who I would normally welcome with open arms.

"Hey," he began, "I have some weed killer in my garage if you want to use it.  You keep digging these things up and it'll take you forever."

My head snapped around and my eyes darted back and forth in hopes my wife hadn't overhead his comment.

"Dave, keep it down, man.  If Cathy hears you say that I'll have to go in the house and help her clean.  I have weed killer in the garage too, but she doesn't know that!  I'm perfectly happy out here doing this, but if she thinks I can spray some stuff on these dandelions and get back in the house, where do you think I'll wind up being?"

Dave began to laugh but I stared him down with my most intense, serious face.

"Oh," he stammered, "you aren't kidding are ya?"

"No, I ain't kidding at all," I replied.  "Now go away before she sees you over here.  She already knows you're smart and I don't need her thinking you're telling me an easier way of doing this."

Dave walked back to his house and left me to my yard work.  By days end the yard looked like a north Korean minefield with divots everywhere.  I had dug up almost thirty pounds of weeds and most importantly, Cathy was finished with the housework.

Viva mucha casa laborious en absentia!

Some sense of normalcy, please....

The world has simply gone crazy.  I look around and see people arguing and fighting about things beyond their personal control and wonder if they truly care about what they are saying.  What happened to the good old days of just slugging it out in order to get your point across?  I'm still a believer in "might is right," especially when I struggle to articulate my point of view.  A buddy of mine years ago was fond of saying, "When in doubt, knock 'em out."  I miss those days.

I spent the first six months in northern New Jersey waving at people who would blow the horn at me; I thought they were just being friendly.  Two years after my stint there, I sincerely find the people in Chicago to be nice--ain't it amazing what a little perspective will do for you?  But even mid-westerners get caught up in the uncontrollable, as do folks everywhere else.  Yeah, I'm as guilty as the next guy of this, but I have a blog and wanted to vent about it.

When I'm not ranting and raving about things political, I'm pretty calm--well, with the exception of college football season that is--and generally enjoy making folks laugh.  But I do have to shake my head when I watch people get worked up over things completely out of their control.  As an example, I work with some folks who get upset over things that have zero bearing on them getting their job done.  Another prime example is traffic: I sometimes get aggravated when I get stuck in it, but at the end of the day, I have no control over it so I just turn the radio up and sing along.  Yeah, I'm that guy.

You know what really burns my butt?  A flame about three feet high. 

Now that's just funny.