The Christmas Slacker

Ok guys, I have a good one for you.  In all my years of impromptu and all around awesome gift giving I have always sucked at gifts for Christmas.  If a gift should be given on a specific date then I just can't do it.

This years example:  I collected addresses and even bought Christmas Cards early but did not send them out...  Pretty much classic Dan.

So if you want a card let me know but it will be late and I might even wait until summer to send it out. They are pretty awesome  :) haha

"To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing."

Thanksgiving Amusement

So as I sit here looking at the traffic outside I have decided to write a blog entry.

An interesting thing happened this past weekend when I went to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I was made aware of some family drama that I had caused with no wrongdoing on my part. I stayed at my sister's house instead on my Grandma's house!!!

Now that you have calmed down I will give you a little background. My sister recently got married and she and her husband bought a house. My sister called me at the start of November and asked me to come down for Thanksgiving (which occurs at my Grandma's house) and so I changed my plans and agreed. Originally I said that I would be staying at my Grandma's house because for my entire life, until now, I have always stayed at my Grandma's house when I went down to Fresno.

About a week later I was speaking to my Mom and she informed me that my sister wanted me to stay at her house but she didn't want to have to ask me. So now we have reached the first source of amusement to me... I was supposed to know my sister wanted me to stay at her house even though she hadn't said anything about it. So to be the good brother I am, I called my sister and asked to stay at her house, a request she nonchalantly accepted.

I then informed my Grandma that I would be joining the family for Thanksgiving and I would be staying at my sister's house. She was happy because she always likes to see me. Or at least I thought she was happy...

Here is the next bit of amusement... My Grandma called my sister to "talk about pies" and randomly slipped in "you know Dan is always welcome to stay here..." and then quickly finished the conversation. I know of this conversation because my sister made sure to bring it up a few times that weekend.

The holiday went off just fine (except for the part where the family ate more of the pie my sister made than the pie my Grandma made, which I fixed by going back the next day to eat a piece of each of my Grandma's pies :) and I made it home safe and full... I spoke to my Mom a couple days later and she said that my sister was very happy from my stay for the weekend, "practically glowing". My Grandma put on the happy front and will take all this out on my sister later. My Grandma is a great woman but is old fashioned and cannot find any fault in the men in her life and so must make comments to the women... :)

So now I find myself amused by the situation I am in: my sister and my grandma both want me to stay with them anytime I come down to visit and I have to make the decision as to who is let down...

"Forever on Thanksgiving Day; The heart will find the pathway home."

Reflection...

So this has been one crazy week...

We have a new President who won by a "landslide" and so now we all get to sit back and see what the future has in store for us. Hopefully it will go well and we won't have any major problems.

The economy is not doing well and that is all we hear about. Not much has changed in my life or many others I know. The frustrating thing is that all the politicians are blaming the other party when it is obvious that they all screwed it up together. We then hear that things are bad because of low consumer confidence in the markets... Wait, that isn't possible! Everything is so cheerful and optimistic on TV and the news... Why the hell would consumer confidence be low????

So the problem was caused and no one will take the blame and do anything to fix it. I suppose we can just keep making money and throwing it at the problem to fix it. We will be back to normal in no time...

Well here's to progress and "change" for the betterment of our nation. Obama has put himself in a tough position and I can only hope that he follows through on his speeches to put aside party lines and work together to solve the problems. Just do me a favor and put aside the past and focus on the future... it doesn't matter whose fault it was that we are here... just that we are here...

Sad but true...

This years Halloween?

Funny E-mail

This was sent to me in an email and I thought you might like to see it....

"Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze?"

Self Scrutiny

Today I read a blog that I was introduced to by my good friend M and today's post got me thinking about what drives us to the decisions we make. The post was a follow up to a previous post where the author asked:

“let's say you're given the opportunity to donate some money to a desperate family who would use it to feed their children, but were only able to do so if you donated the same amount of money to someone you knew would use it to buy crack. Would you do it?”

My immediate thought was that I would never support drug use and instead would give food, thinking this was a slightly clever way to solve the problem as opposed to following her rules. I read some of the comments to this post (of course, my answer was there…) and people had a variety of opinions. Some felt it was a metaphor for the recent bailout or her way of pushing her liberal views onto others…

Turns out it was from an experience she had with her older brother when she was younger and he gave money to a homeless man selling roses, paying 10 times the asked amount. The post of the story was today and the comments were profoundly different: no more questions of a hidden agenda and complete approval. Most were from people who felt they should give more. So this got me thinking about charitable actions and one’s agenda behind them.

I am sure we would all like to think that we give often and unconditionally. Unfortunately I think there is always something more there. I know that many give because it makes them feel good inside and sometimes make up for other slip ups they might have in the future. I know that some give to get the recognition and approval of others (politicians anyone???). Still others give because they feel they are required to or don’t know any different. Does this make it bad?

My opinion is that it is not a bad thing to give to anyone or any cause. We all trust that it will do some good and be used it the right way. We all have to believe this because if we didn’t then we wouldn’t be charitable… and that would be a terrible thing.

I try to give when I can and would like to think that I do so unconditionally but I know this is not true. I do many things to gain the acceptance of others and be seen favorably in their eyes. This does not mean that I don’t like to give and help others, in fact I enjoy it immensely, it’s just that sometimes I feel like it makes me a bad person that I sometimes give to get something out of it. What are your thoughts?


"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave"

An Interesting Place in My Career

So I find myself wondering what to do with myself.  I have climbed every mountain in my professional life and now find myself on a vast plateau searching for something else to climb...  I have spoken with a few friends about where I am in my life and where to go but still have no answer.  Sure there have bee good suggestions, but none that have grabbed hold...

My whole life things have been laid out in front of me like a well groomed path.  School just kept progressing and I added more activities on the rare occasion that I felt I had some free time.  I then got the good job in a great location and was gaining more responsibility at a fast pace, but then the house market changed and the job vanished.  So I had to make a move...

I am now up in the Bay Area working for a great company full of amazing people.  The problem is the tasks I am doing.  Though important, there is little challenge and I only seem to be working hard because of the quantity of work and not its complexity.  Last week I did not leave work before 7pm a single night and yet what did I learn.  Just that in this line of work there is incessant documentation to avoid legal issues and the fun parts are few and far between.

Now don't feel bad for me because I still like my job and love the feeling of completion when projects are complete.  That is what drew me to this career.  It just hard when you know you can contribute more but still have to go through the motions and climb the bottom of the ladder.

I guess I need to look at filling my life with things outside of work... Any suggestions?

"The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more."

Job Update

Just thought you all would like to see some progress pictures of my job. There is a lot more done and we will have all the walls up this week and the roof should be up by the end of the month. Enjoy...

Remodel Fun

So, it has been awhile since my last post so I figured I would fill you in on what has been going on.

In the work world things have sped up considerably and life is busy.  We tilted enough wall panels to surround about 2/3 of the building and have started putting up "shade" (roof structure).  We just released a bunch of our TI (Tenant Improvement) subcontractors so now I am contract and submittal mode all over again.  And now I am working on sorting out all of our  Change Orders to make sure everything is getting paid for. So all of that is long days and lots of fun.

Outside of work I have been working on remodeling my friends bathroom, as most of you know.  This remodel has turned into the Murphy's Law of remodeling.  If something could go wrong it has and not in an easy to fix sort of way.  Today we had to essentially remove a wall to get the Tub/Sower surround into the bathroom.  But the good news is that it is installed so now most of the hard stuff is complete and we can start dry-walling and finishing.  But it has come at the cost of long days and rough work.  I can't wait till its done and I know it will look great when I am finished.  My friend M has already committed to visiting and showering in it.

The only other current happening in my life is I am planning to purchase a truck this weekend.  But I am having second thoughts and chances are by tomorrow I will have made the responsible decision to pay off debt instead of making more... but that is a whole other post that may soon follow.

So in the coming weeks I have a busy work schedule, my sister's wedding the second weekend in Sept and next weekend I get to see my good friend R who just got back from Iraq and got engaged.  It should be a good month.

“The shortest distance between two points is under construction.”

Great Friends and Family!

I just wanted to take this chance to say thank you to all those that have made a difference in my life. Without you guys I would be a far less fortunate man.

The last couple days, for my birthday, I have been flooded with love from those who mean the most to me. I am a truly lucky guy.

So thanks to my friends for all the birthday wishes and thanks to my family for the gifts and time together. I look forward to seeing you all in the near future. :)

"You are only young once, but you can be immature for a lifetime."

Strong Rancid Rubber Smell

OK so here is a new one...

At 2am this morning I was awoken by Scooter, one of the dogs I am dogsitting. He woke me up by nudging my right hand with his nose. A nose covered in foamy slobber that got all over my hand and the side of the bed. When I woke up I immediately smelled a very strong rubber/chemical smell that seemed a little rotten. I could not figure out what it was or where it was coming from, as it was so overwhelming, and I finally realized it was coming from Scooter himself. On top of this Scooter seemed to be choking or gagging... So needless to say I was a little frightened about what might be wrong with him.

I got up and grabbed a washcloth and cleaned all the foamy slobber off of Scooter's mouth and grabbed my computer to look up what might cause a foamy slobber on a dogs mouth that smells like burning rubber. And there it was... "How to remove the smell when a dog gets sprayed by a skunk."

There it was. The dog had sprayed by a skunk and then spread it all over me and the edge of the bed because he woke me up in fear. I had then proceeded to spread this terrible skunk smell onto a washcloth, my computer bag and my computer. Not to mention that Scooter probably got it in a lot more places because believe me, that slobber was dripping everywhere...

I had to be up at 3am to get to work so after figuring all this out it was time to get up and get going. So I put Scooter outside and got as much cleaned up as possible but no all I can smell is skunk and I have the joy of getting Scooter cleaned up when I get home. To make things worse: everything I have read (since getting to work) says to get the smell out right away cause if you wait then it gets harder to remove... So I have that going for me :(

"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself." - Abraham Lincoln

The Organization of Chaos

So from my last post you all know that I am working on remodeling my friends bathroom. What I didn't mention was that I am going to be moving in and that is going to be my bathroom. This blog isn't only about this remodel but it is part of it.

Due to the fact that I am moving into my friend's house I have to be out of my apartment by Sunday, August 10th. This shouldn't be a problem because I don't have a ton of stuff and I have all weekend to move... or so I thought. I received a call from my Grandma who told me that my Dad is going to be in the Fresno area this weekend and because it is the weekend before my birthday she thought I should come down and celebrate. I only get to see my Dad a couple times a year so this seems like a great idea, only I still have to move. I then got a call from a close friend who is passing through town this weekend and would like to have lunch on Saturday. All do-able.

So basically I need to get moved out of my apartment before Friday so I can go down to Fresno and see my family on Saturday but not until after I have lunch with my good friend. Oh, but there is more...

My sister is getting married next month and I am happy to say I am being included as a groomsman. The problem is I need to be fitted for a tux and my sister has not sent me the card for me to send back with my measurements. So when would be a good time to be fitted? How about this Saturday when I am down in Fresno with the family. Great idea... add it to the list.

Here where it gets more complicated. My friends that I am moving in with are on a well deserved vacation in Hawaii and I am dogsitting for them. This means that I am all on my own trying to move all my stuff from my apartment to the house while dogsitting, all so I can get down to Fresno to see my family and celebrate my birthday. But as I have mentioned, this is all possible.

Another complication... I still need to remodel so I have a bathroom when I move into the new house... I guess you can't always juggle everything. So bathroom you will have to wait...

I hope you enjoyed my fun little story and I will let you know how it all turns out...

"Chaos in the world brings uneasiness,

but it also allows the opportunity for creativity and growth."

Remodeling

I think that it is funny how much work it is to remodel, or even do small projects in, a house. Right now I am helping my friend and his wife with some projects around their house that they just bought. I am reminded that even though tasks seem simple and quick, they never are.

The current project is remodeling the downstairs bathroom. Once the demo was completed, I realized that everything that was existing needs to be moved or changed. None of the work is that difficult or challenging but it will take some creative thinking to accomplish it all with high quality. Last night my friend and I went to cut the slab to install the DWV pipe and found that our saw could not get the job done the way we wanted to and now he is going to rent a saw and cut the slab today.

It sucks that I can't be there to help him but the fact remains that he has the time off and I do not. I am confident that the work will be completed and will be of high quality. So far the work that my friends have put into their house looks great and I am very excited to have the rest of the work finished.

I guess the moral of this post is that no matter how easy something seems it might be, always be prepared to put a lot more time in.


"The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money."

A Look at Cognitive Dissonance

I recently had a big scare and while working my second concrete night pour in a row I started to have some pretty crazy symptoms. Here is what happened:

At 2 am last Wednesday I started getting some intense pain in the area of my pelvic joints. Not knowing what it was I thought I tweaked something so I took some Tylenol and tried to relax for the rest of the night. I then I got a killer headache. Unfortunatly the pain got worse through the night and close to 6 am I started to feel very cold and I started to shiver. I then decided I needed to get home and get to bed, assuming that these problems were stemming from lack of proper sleep and poor diet (come from working nights). On my drive home I bought 2 V8 Fusions and chugged them for the good nutrition and cranked up the heater to get rid of my shakes/shivers. Thank god I hit traffic because once the shakes stopped I started to get some blurry vision and it was good I wasn't driving fast.

Once I got home the walk to my door cooled me off and my shivers started again so I cranked up my heater and headed for bed. After undressing and climbing into bed I had the following symptoms: headache, joint and muscle pain, the shakes, blurred vision, shortness of breath and the tips of my fingers went numb. Once I warmed up the shakes went away but not I was burning up and not sweating. At this point I decided that I had to stop being a tough guy and I needed to go to the hospital.

Heres the thing about hopsital emergency rooms... They are very quick to get you in to make sure you are not dying but then they take a very long time for everything else. This sucks on 2 levels: You are in pain in a room on your own AND it gives you a long time to think of everything that could be wrong with you.

So here I was lying on the doctors table, in a pretty stylish gown I might add, wondering what was wrong with me. Let me share a few of the items running through my head. Appendicitis. Blood Clot. Heart issue. Cancer. Lyme Disease. Death. Lets just say I was freaking out as to what was wrong with me. Well just in case you are wondering, I was diagnosed with Cellulitis after some blood tests and such. Cellulitis is an infection of the deep subcutaneous tissue of the skin that is often associated with a fever. So all of these symptoms boil down to a simple fever... the worst fever of my life.

Then I was at home on antibiotics thinking of what had got me into this situation and all I can think of is that I must have been bitten by something. Next came the realization that there are times in one's life that serve as a warning of the path you are heading down. Here is mine...

I am leading an unhealthy life with a bleak future.

There it is. Harsh but true. I am a young man who does not take care of himself as he should. I have always said that I am a "young guy whose family has been healthy through their lives despite being on the hefty side." Classic cognitive dissonance and its just not acceptable anymore.

I have decided to listen to this event/warning in my life and it is time to change many things about how I live. Goodbye indifference and hello to proper living.

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."

Reflections of the Night

OK, so it is just before 5 in the morning and I have been up all night. You might ask yourself why I would be up all night and think of things like "maybe he is stressed, maybe he drank too much caffeine, or maybe he can't get that certain someone out of his mind." But no, it is far less complicated and I am awake for work... you know those pesky nighttime concrete pours.

So as I am awake and can't talk to anyone but myself (interesting conversations by the way) I started to think about how cool it is to work at night. Everything is much more relaxed, not to mention cooler. When I get off work in the morning I have free time where others do not. I could run my errands and still be home in time to sleep the day away, something we would all like to do but don't because it is unproductive. You can also catch up on a lot of other things because you are not bothered by frequent phone calls...

That brings up a problem... You can also not reach anyone if you need to because everyone else is sleeping. Oh the dilemma...

I suppose I will just stick to working most days and the occasional night. So for all of you "people of the future" that read this later today: Hello from the past and hope your day goes well.

"People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them."

Superheroes and Me!

Ok so I just got back from seeing The Incredible Hulk and what can I say...  its was awesome.  I went with my partner in crime for all things comic-booky (cool word right? I made it up :) and we had another of our deep but pointless (to some) conversations about super heroes.  Here is what I realized:

Of all the superheroes the ones I like the most are the self made heroes, granted it took a large event to push them in that direction.  

My favorite superhero is Ironman: a businessman, inventor genius who made himself a badass metal suit to kick major ass in. Next comes Batman, I mean who doesn't know about him?  You gotta love a dark vigilante that balances on the edge of the knife of morality. These heroes hit home because they are self made and they are realistic (as much as a comic book character can be).

So what is it about these characters that make me think about myself?  I think is the fact that they had a calling but did not know what it was until a major event took place and forced them to put up or shut up.  I guess I am just waiting for my event...  And then there is always every boy's fantasy to be a superhero. Now, how do I make a metal suit?

"I should be dead already... It must be for a reason... I just finally know... what I have to do..."

NASCAR, Vegas, Napa and engagements!!

Ok so you are probably looking at my blog title and thinking "WTF, how does all that go together?"

Well, this title sums up my last 3 weeks... which pretty much means I have a kick-ass life. I am what you would call a "cultured redneck." I go weekend to weekend traveling to one place after another hanging out with my amazing friends. After great weekends at NASCAR and then Vegas, I went to Napa and got private tours of 3 wineries, tasted some amazing wine and then bought a bunch of quality wine (some varieties not even released yet) for a houge discount. I mean this weekend I am going to SLO to see my buddy who has been in Iraq for the last 6 months.

My good friend just got what she has wanted for a long time and her boy proposed to her at Disneyland. I now may have 4 weddings in as many months and that is only about a quarter of the weddings for my engaged friends. So congrats to her and all my friends....

So life should be great right now... so why does it seem like there is so much missing? That conversation will have to be for another post.

I think I will end every post with a quote so enjoy...

"You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty."

Only the Beginning...

Ok...  so I have decided to start a blog in order to let those who care see into the abyss of my mind.  Well that seems a bit much, but for those that decide to read this will understand over time.

I will try to update this as often as possible and will probably end up rambling a lot.  So enjoy...