Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Last month, R downloaded the Angry Birds: Star Wars game to her cell phone, and M has been playing it non-stop ever since. She has been asking me all sorts of questions about the storyline. So a couple of weeks ago, I started showing her the original trilogy (episodes IV-VI). She has now seen each of these movies at least twice.

But she still has questions, like how the Empire became "the bad guys" ("corrupt" is a better word, but not exactly in a 10-year-old's vocabulary), and how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. So I tought about showing her the prequel trilogy (episodes I-III). After 5 minutes of episode I, M got bored and said she wanted to see episode IV again.

(Yes, I'm aware of the "machete order" that one fan has proposed -- showing the episodes in this order: IV, V, II, III, VI.)

( As I was watching the movies with her, I was reminded of a different, much older story: The Hero's Journey. )

This afternoon at work, we had a kick-off meeting for our participation in Movember. Movember is an activity where men grow mustaches raise awareness (and funds) for prostate and testicular cancer research. It started in Australia several years ago.

After the kick-off meeting, I had a "before" picture taken. I will be uploading it to my personal "Mo Bro" page at http://mobro.co/jimpoltrone as soon as I receive it. For the next 30 days, I will grow -- or attempt to grow -- a mustache. If you wish to donate to the cause, you may do so at this page.

My father had prostate cancer in 1991. Thankfully, they were able to detect it early, and treat it in a timely manner. My father survived (until 2009), but other men are not so
fortunate. Frank Zappa, Dan Fogelberg, Bill Bixby, and Timothy Leary all passed away a few years of diagnosis. Brian Piccolo passed away from testicular cancer.

We will have another meeting at the beginning of December to tabulate our results.

I've been thinking about writing this blog post for months. What are my views on the issue of race and racism? Where do they come from? How do these views affect and influence my behavior?

( I'll start here: I'm not part of the black subculture, so I therefore don't understand it. )

[Originally written 6/28/12.]

I'm registered as a Democrat. And I'm subscribed to a number of Democratic email lists. And all of them are urging me to chip in at least $3 to help counter the spending the Republicans have done in this past year.

Why do they think that their solution is to get money to power their counter-propaganda machine? Are the American people really that stupid and gullible that they'll fall for the Republican fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) that the GOP propaganda machine has been generating and churning out the past several months? Or are the American people too lazy or busy to make up their own minds? I'd like to think that they aren't.

My answer to the Democrats has been, and continues to be, "no". I'm unemployed again [well, I was at the time I originally wrote this], and I shouldn't be spending my money frivolously. And if I wasn't employed, I still wouldn't give to them. I just don't give to political parties, period. To me, it's a waste of my money.

Two weeks ago (the evening of July 11 to be exact) , R was walking her dog, Kefi, in the open field near her apartment complex. She hit a hole, tripped, fell, and injured herself. The local rescue squad was called and whisked her to Miami Valley Hospital South. (Southview is probaly closer as the crow flies, but R works for MVH as a billing specialist.) X-rays were taken and revealed the extent of her injuries: a broken right ankle and a broken left elbow. We arrived at her place at around 1:30am the following morning.

Since then, I've been the primary caregiver -- taking Kefi out for walks and potty breaks, dropping off and picking up M from day care, helping R with dressing, undressing, bathing, driving, etc. She doesn't have family or friends in the area that are capable of doing this. So If I don't do this, who will? As a result, I've been sleeping on her couch. She doesn't have a computer, so she doesn't have any internet access. And of her neighbors that do, their wireless routers are all locked down. So my internet access has been limited to my smarphone and my laptop when I take it to Wi-Fi hotspots.

On Fri 7/13, we went to see an orthopaedic doctor (it's spelled like that on their sign) and a cast was put on R's arm. On Fri 7/20, another X-ray was taken. We were concerned the bone chip at the base of R's humerus would move or shift, requiring surgery to reposition it. Thankfully, it's still in place, so no surgery will be needed.

Meanwhile, I've been offered a job with a regional IT provider, as a contractor for a large and well-known company in the Cincinnati area. I've worked for them years ago, so I'm happy to return to them. I had a phone interview on Thu 7/12, was offered the job Mon 7/16, took the drug test on Wed 7/18, and submitted by completed paperwork on Mon 7/23. I start on Monday. I hope I can get an advance on my paycheck, because I've got bills to pay.

Yeah, my birthday is coming up soon. And I'm thinking back to some of the gifts I received over the years.

There were a few clunkers, like the Bedknobs and Broomsticks game I got when I was 6. I tried playing it once or twice, but I didn't have the dexterity to balance the ball on the little plastic platform as I added plastic extenders at the bottom.

As for parties, I really don't remember having any birthday parties. Maybe my neighborhood friends came over and helped me celebrate, but I don't have any distinct memories of that happening.

1971: My 7th birthday. I received a Juliette portable cassette tape recorder. (I forgot the model number, but it had a knob instead of piano-key-like buttons, and an external microphone.) For the next 3 years, I'd tape programs off of TV, music from the radio, and conversations with my friends. Then it stopped recording, for some unknown reason. But it still played tapes, so I kept it. I added a headphone jack in 1979. I finally tossed it in either 2002 or 2003.

1974: My 10th birthday. I received a Realistic AM/FM digital clock radio. (I think the model was the Chronomatic 100. Not quite sure of the model number,though.) This had the old leaf-type digits with white numbers painted on black "fins" of plastic; no LEDs or LCDs. One would drop every minute. Years later, the clock mechanism stopped working, and my dad used the radio in his basement workshop. It was moved upstairs to the kitchen when the existing kitchen clock radio died.

1977: My 13th birthday. It wasn't a gift to me per se, but my dad bought himself a Realistic Minisette IV radio and cassette player that year. I used it to re-dub and copy the tapes I already had. We had to replace the AC adapter, as I left it plugged in the wall, didn't have it connected to the tape player, and the adapter melted. It would have caught fire if I hadn't pulled it out of the wall.

1980: My 16th birthday. My parents offered to pay for a trip to Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario with some of the older members of my Boy Scout troop. I think this was their gift to me that year.

1981: My 17th birthday. Not really a birthday gift, as I had graduated from high school the month before. I received a Panasonic RX-5100 boom box. I began taping stuff off the air again, and made cassette copies of my albums. But it had a history of eating tapes, and I had to repalace the plastic door holding the tape. Until recently, I used this as the amplifier for my Minimoog. I still have this unit, and should take it apart and clean it up.

And no, I didn't go out to a bar and get drunk on my 18th or 21st birthdays.

Now, when I celebrate my birthday, it's not about the gifts. I usually go out for a good meal for dinner, and have steak and eggs for breakfast. (It's what the astronauts ate!)

Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing posts describing how my day went, or how my weekend went, etc. I rarely, if ever, get any feedback on them, and wonder if these posts are getting read. If anything, they're more of a momento for myself.

Anyway.....I slept in until around 9am, missing the Centerville Americana parade. Again. (People were placing their lawn chairs on their spots since Sunday.)

Afterr getting out of bed and showering, I did some more housecleaning -- first the upstairs bedroom, and then the garage. I spent about one hour on each of these two areas. I moved some stuff around, and got rid of many cardboard boxes I had been saving for a future use that never happened. They're in a pile in my kitchen, waiting to be taken to the county dump for recycling. I hadn't done the cleaning for years, due to various reasons or excuses: no time, no desire, no energy, allergy to dust, etc. There is still more work to be done, but if I spend 1-2 hours a day workong on them, it will get done.

I was invitied by my friend Winter (yes, that's what she calls herself) to a cookout at her place in the afternoon. I got there at 5, and brought my copy of 1776 for folks to watch. No one else had head of the movie or the play, so there was no interest. Our friend Charles was there, and we were soon joined by Susan and Mark. I had two large, yummy bratwurst patties.

Afterward, Winter needed to make a store run, so I took her to the local Walmart.

On the way home, I saw fireworks displays for Moraine (which I liked because their show was high-up), Miamisburg, and Centerville. A lot of people had parked in the shopping center near my home, and the show ended just as I was nearing home, so the last mile took a while.

I don't care for crowds -- either people are getting imy way, or I'm getting in their way. And I don't care for fireworks displays. The loud ones are too close to munitions for my taste. So I tend to isolate myself on the 4th, and not do what everyone else does.

Today's plan: More cleaning, more job hunting, picking up M from day care and spending a few hours with her.

It was 23 years ago next week that I was offered my first full-time job: a support contractor for what is now the 88th Communications Group at Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, OH. I was flown to Dayton for the interview, stayed overnight in a hotel, was offered the job, flew back, and started the following week. So I had a couple days to tie up any loose ends, pack the car (an '85 Chevy Citation), and drive down from Buffalo, NY to Dayton, OH.

In the span of that 23 years, a lot of the local landscape has changed. The first couple of weeks, I stayed at the Residence Inn near the Dayton Mall. Back then, route 741 south of the mall had a Shoney's restaurant, a go-kart track, Steve Kao's Chinese restaurant, and a Ground Round restaurant. All of them are gone now, replaced with other businesses. The Residence Inn has changed hands as well; it's now a Hawthorne Suites hotel.

Also in that span, I've lived in a second-floor one bedroom apartment in Kettering (3 years), a 2-bedroom townhouse in Centerville (6 years), and a 2-bedroom-and-loft condo in Washington Twp. (14 years and counting).

I sometimes think about how my life could have been different. If I had accepted another job elsewhere. If I had bought a house instead of a condo. If I had married someone else. If R and I would had stayed together. If we had more children. Would I have been better off financially, or worse?

Dayton isn't the greatest. It has its good points and bad points. But I've come to like it here. I like the reasonable cost of living. And I'm within a day's drive of most of the people and things I want to see. And my daughter is here too, and that keeps me anchored to this part of the country.

It's been a surreal week, with Marcus passing away. I feel like I've lost a good friend. And he was. Petting him was like therapy for me -- it would relax me.

Anyway, I had his body cremated on Tuesday at a local pet cemetery.

That evening, after work, I returned the flea killer to the store where I bought it. They refunded my money. A few minutes later, as the suggestion of the cashier, I called the company and told them what happened. They asked for the lot number and other indeitifaction on the package, so I had to go back to the store and ask for the product that I had just returned. The company was apologetic and said "We take this very seriously.....we'll start an investigation". At this point I don't know if I'll get any financial compensation. But I think this is a much better appraoch than vilifying them online, or taking legal action against them.

This afternoon, after work, I picked up the urn and the cremains. The urn is ceramic, in the shape of a sitting cat, with a shiny black (onyx?) finish. While I was there, I got to pet one of their office cats: a big orange cat named Jamaica. He was slightly bigger than Marcus was. And he too liked to be petted. I should go back every so often to get some "kitty therapy".

I also had tags made for him, Merlin, and Bubastis --- my other cats who were waiting for him at the end of the Rainbow Bridge. I have their cremains as well, in the same type of urn. I also stopped at Michael's Crafts to get some ribbon to use as a "collar" to hold the tags in place.

Meanwhile, Mercury is staying in the loft area, and giving me lots of "kitty kisses" (licks) and "love bites" on the cheek and chin. Ouch! I think he has fleas as well, but I don't think he has them as bad as Marcus did.

Anyway, I made two videos of Marcus while he was still alive. I held the phone in one hand while I petted him with the other. I tried to capture the sounds he made while he got petted. I uploaded them to YouTube earlier this week.

October 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt7jbafFsWY

March 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JjY5Atmd9s

...honors Bob Moog on what would have been his 78th birthday. The "Google Doodle" is an actual working synthesizer, in the style of the classic Minimoog. Thanks to filkerdave, I've seen a "preview" of it on the Google Australia page (http://www.google.com.au/), and the Google UK page (http://www.google.co.uk/). Tweak the knobs, touch the keys, andplay with the pitch wheel. It's all there.

And soon, it will be on the Google USA page (http://www.google.com/) and Google Canada page (http://www.google.ca/).

[Updated 27-May 04:00] Now that May 23rd has come and gone, the Google Doodle has been moved to their Doodle Archive page at http://www.google.com/doodles/finder/2012/All%20doodles.