Vexed By Denial

I like the word vexed. I am not sure why, but it has a great ring to it. To me, it designates a certain kind of above average irritation. For the last two days I have been vexed.

I've been vexed by denial. I have a customer at another site who has a computer configuration problem that can only be addressed by there local desktop support. The application throws a very specific error that says "this aspect is not configured for this action, change the configuration". (That is not the actual error message, but rather the meaning of it.) The first desktop analyst correctly identified the problem, but could not fix it. Then, the next point of escalation denied there was an error - and that is where we sit.

Vexed at the door of denial I am resisting the temptation to kick it in, and then go raging about and head butt random people. Fortunately, though vexed, I am more amused by it than anything else. There is one simple action the desktop analyst could take which would fix the problem, but that would first involve him accepting that there is a problem that is within his area of responsibility.

It is right there that he is poised, firmly leaning into the door of denial, keeping it tightly closed. I never really got the point of it, but part of what has me amused is I know that desktop and user support is one of the most difficult jobs in the computer world - it is pretty stressful and thankless. So, I will keep moving forward with as delicate touch as I can muster. Until it becomes time...to...crush.
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An Evening with The Replacement Killers

I slipped out of the office a little early today, so I could stop at the electronics store and pick up some DVD-RW's for backing up my data. I wandered the store a bit, just looking at things and enjoying the walk, but nothing else caught my mind as either a need or a want.

At home, I made a quick tamale pie for dinner, accompanied by the remnants of yesterday's potato salad, then watched some stuff from my DVR as I slide into the evening. (Modern Family, Up All Night, and Ghost Hunters). Once the sun set and the day started to cool off, I took a long, hot, soaking bath with softened my mood from earlier in the day.

I'd slipped into a mood mid-afternoon, after dealing with a set of problems with a vendor. Two of the three issues were resolved and the third is in the pipeline to be resolved, but there really wasn't any need to have lean on the vendor the extra amount. I often struggle to understand why people and organizations simply don't honor their commitments. Layered on top of that was a personal item that I may write about later, as I am mulling it now. It also has to do with people not honoring their commitments.

My brain pulls to mind that classic proverb ' "Trusting no one, never weep when you are betrayed." It is a little dramatic, since there was no betrayal involved, but it does amply illustrate the problems of expectations. Anyway, that hot bath sure covered a lot of ground in resetting my mood.

After the bath I have been sitting here watching a classic bit of "American-Hong Kong Cinema", the movie "The Replacement Killers" with Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino. If you have never seen it, it is a great little action/drama, in part since Chow Yun Fat is always amazing. I also count "The Corruptor" with him and Mark Wahlberg, as another classic action/drama movie in the same vein. If you are in the mood for a stylistic shoot-em-up, either of those two will do. Personally, I also liked the charming Mira Sorvino in "The Replacement Killers".

My plan tonight is simple, conversation, reading, sleeping. Tomorrow is Friday, my work Friday, so it will be a slow day and I am planning on spending most of the analyzing a large report, the second such analysis in this week. I would have done it today, but I ended up jumping from customer service issue to customer service issue, since they had been stacking up earlier in the week.

Wednesday is Really Thursday

It’s Thursday!

That is a simple thing, but it actually made my day this morning. I woke up and as I moved around in the pre-dawn darkness, getting ready for the day, I was thinking it was Wednesday, thinking I had three days of work left this week. Then, suddenly, as I went through the things I’d already accomplished this week, it dawned on me that it was Thursday. For some strange reason that was a great weight off my shoulders. Two days I can do. Three days would have been a challenge.

Chaotic Savoring

The end of the working day is approaching. It's been a bit of an exercise in controlled chaos today. I had crafted the plan for the day around a pair of morning meetings. But, one was cancelled and the other moved into the afternoon, so I ended up doing the things I had planned to do in the afternoon in the morning and the things I had planned to do in the afternoon in the morning.

Then, I got pulled into a pair of unexpected meetings, in between which I weaved the fabric of lunch (excellent enchilada suizas at Mexicali Grill), made it back for my last meeting, and then managed to weave something productive out of the remaining fabric of the day.

Now, I am on the long slide into the evening. It has been an absolutely beautiful early fall day here. In the complexity of the weave of the day, I managed to spend some time sitting outside the building, on a bench, between two maple trees watching a solitary honey bee weave its way in and out of late blooming flowers.

I am looking forward to the evening. I am looking forward to getting home, opening the patio doors wide, grilling a rib-eye steak, tossing together a simple salad, and savoring what remains of this day. I guess, in the sum of it, as the afternoon winds down, it was a day for savoring. Chaotic savoring, but savoring none the less.

Until There Is No Simplicity To Seek

Lunch was a bowl of split-pea soup and an unsettled mind. Due to the change in seasons I’ve been sleeping later into the morning. My body is tuned to the rhythm of the setting and rising sun. With the sun rising later in the day during the fall and winter months I tend to go to sleep earlier and rise later. I try and cultivate what I see as that very natural sleeping pattern. Now, I am not sure that the change in sleeping patterns has anything to do with having an unsettled mind, but there may be a connection there somewhere.

When I am speaking of an unsettled mind, I mean a mind that does not want to settle on a single subject. It is different than a lack of focus. When I speak of a lack of focus, I mean the inability to focus clearly on the one thing that your mind has settled on. An unsettled mind may be a very focused mind, it just doesn’t want to spend too much time, or too much focus, on one thing. It moves from thing to thing, from thought to thought, through the day, as if it was searching for a specific thing or thought that it wanted to settle on. It is almost as if the mind is doing an inventory of its thoughts.

Currently, I am searching for some thought around the subject of simplicity. Externally, the last two years of my life have been a journey toward simplicity. The internal journey has mirrored the external journey. Somehow, in the preceding years, I had become incredibly cluttered in both my physical world and my psychological world. With each layer of complexity that gets peeled off, I see the underlying layer of simplicity. Then, in time, I come to see that as “not simple enough”, peel it back, and find another layer underneath. I am not sure if there is a bottom to the layers. If there is, I am not sure what lies underneath the last layer.

One of the parts of the journey that I have found particularly interesting has been this layered effect. You take the complexity of life, you take all of the component parts of that complexity, you contemplate them, try and understand which is which, what purpose they serve, what value they hold and it seems that in each successive iteration you find that any purpose or value is largely illusionary.

As you delve into things you discover the necessity of them and you discover that many of the things are simply not necessary. On my level, I am not sure you can put the horse before the cart. Let us say you have ten complex things in your life. I find that you have to spend a certain amount of time contemplating them, coming to understand them, before you can separate yourself from them.

That process of contemplation allows you to truly let them go. If you reverse that order, if you discard the complexity prior to understanding the complexity, then it is going to sneak back into your life. Your mind isn’t ready to let go of it yet. First comes understanding, then comes release.

This process of seeking simplicity continues until there is no simplicity to seek.

Get Low With The Killer Elite

The season has scarcely turned to fall and we were given our first shower today. It didn't amount to much, gray skies, cool wind, a few raindrops, but it was the promise of the California winter to come. This weather is great for sleeping in, which is what I did this morning. I lingered in the cool grayness, curled underneath the blanket, and enjoyed the simple pleasure of it.

I was lazy through the morning - breakfast of oatmeal, Greek Gods yogurt, toast and black coffee. I watched a couple of television shows off the DVR - Haven and Nikita. Both of them were enjoyable. I went out and played a few games of pool, then done to the movie theater to see the new movie "The Killer Elite" with Robert DeNiro, Jason Stratham and Clive Owen. I'd like to tell you it was better than it was, but it wasn't.

After the movie I came home and took a nice long nap. Dinner was a bowl of chili and I am currently watching, for the second time, a very good movie - "Get Low" with Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek. I will give it the hearty recommendation that I would have liked to have given "The Killer Elite". It is just a great little movie, well worth your time if you Netflix or come across it on cable. I grabbed in on my DVR from Starz. Of course, you can rarely go wrong with Robert Duvall.

My Kindle is on the charger and tonight my plan is to spend a quiet evening reading some more in "The Clash of Kings" before I call it a night, then tomorrow I get to start the work week all over again.

Spider Bite - A Poem

we slept
in the darkness
beneath the coffee trees
and thousands of spiders
bound us in webs
Gulliver's kin
a poisonous one
bit me
on the inside of my right thigh
fever corrupted flesh
hospital bed
antibiotics
a scar there
where the surgeons knife
lanced the wound
and blackness poured out

Photo Set - 2011 Highland Games

This is a photo set from the 2011 Pleasanton Highland Games. Enjoy!

2011 Highland Games

A Jazz Ensemble Morning

It is a slow and quiet morning here in California. The sun is rising, but the morning clouds haven't quite burned off. It is a cool morning, with the promise of heat later in the day. I am starting my three day weekend as lazily as I can. On waking, I lingered in bed and watched the morning unfolding, listening to the street sounds outside the window, the floating voices of the people walking by. Snippets of conversation rose up through the windows and bounced around the room, disconnected sentences, discordant voices, all combining for sort of a jazz ensemble effect. It was a good way to start the day and the weekend.

The Beggar Girl - A Poem

she sits on the curb
outside the restaurant
where the old bososuku come
on Saturday nights to
drink beer and recall their
thunder days
she plays her Martin
classic songs from another world
and as they leave they pause
to listen and to drop small
folded bills into her cup