Apomo

In “Bait and Switch” she does the same thing she did in the previous book I mentioned (“Nickel and Dimed” )except she tries to infiltrate corporate America by trying to get a management job as a marketing exec. The idea is to see what it’s like on the inside of the corp. world and report her findings. Turns out she wasn’t able to find a job at all and the book is about her journey in the job seeking arena. Not as good as Nickel and Dimed as too much of the time time she comes across as an elitist shrew.

However, much of what she says still rings true. So much so that reading her book kind of ruined for me the comedy quotient of the return flight’s in-flight movie, Jim Carey’s “Fun With Dick and Jane”. Too much of what she talked about in her book was portrayed on the screen. Good comedy has enough truth in it to be plausibly funny, this one almost too much so if you resemble the remark, so to speak. After watching “Bruce Almighty” and now “Dick and Jane” I’m starting to think that Jim Carey is a social/cultural/spiritual commentator in his own right.

Something else I noticed recently. As I’ve begun to focus more of my attention on loving people I have noticed my level of gratitude has increased in volume and sincerity. Most of the time when you’re attempting to be selfless your generosity isn’t noticed or appreciated and no matter how much you try to avoid it the unappreciation of others grates you. Thus, when you’re the recipient of kind deeds you tend to appreciate and notice them even more because you recognize the sacrifice that went into the good deed toward you. Your “Thank you” is heartfelt instead of merely good manners. Kind of inverse affect of loving others. Just something I noticed the other day. ]]>

Went to Arlington National Cemetery, the White House, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial yesterday. Saw the Vietnam Memorial too and found the name of the guy my dad servied with after whom my brother is named. Walked through Georgetown and George Washington University on the way to the subway station. Had planned to go to the other end of the Mall and see the Capitol and Supreme Court but with five kids things go slowly and we ran out of time. Had my brother, his wife and three kids with us. Lots of fun. Beautiful day too!

Last week wes pent four days in Virginia. Gorgeous countryside! Went to Colonial Williamsburg and had a great time there in spite of torrential rain showers. We just put on ponchos and slogged through it. The weather cleared enough for them to put on their two hour outdoor reinactment of the events leading up the Declaration of Independence called “Revolution!”. It was really cool. Very pomo in they way they did it.

Spent a couple days solid just driving around the Williamsburg/Gloucester area checking out all the neighborhoods. Spent one night in Virginia beach and had breakfast at a beachside cafe. We put 1000 miles on our rental van in five days. Haha. Poor kids. They were troopers though. It was definitely worth it though because now we know what area is like, it has scale in our minds and a three dimensional picture in our minds that we can visualize as we look at real estate ads online or look at a map. The Williamsburg area is very nice. I think we’ll like it there if this whole thing works out.

Wasn’t able to make it over to Richmond or Fredricksburg like we’d planned. But that’s ok. Sunday we went downton Baltimore and took the kids to this interactive learning museum called “Port Discovery”. They had a blast. Went to Chuck E Cheese afterwards and completely wore them out there. We all slept good that night.

Fly home tonight and I have one more day off before I head back to the grind. Tomorrow afternoon I have my first field visit at a State Farm office where I spend about half a day in an office with an agent. I get to interview him and then he’s going to have me make some phone calls for him and evaluate me. That should be fun.

We’re off to a local mall so my wife can do her part to prop up capitalism. ]]>

So, if my house sells by the end of May maybe I can quit this job about the first part of June and focus on the business plan thing as well as taking that one class I need to graduate from college is being held the last three weeks of June. That’d be way cool.]]>

Anyway, I caught the show this weekend and it’s nothing like what I thought it would be. It’s actually about this flamboyant, wannabe rapper type named Chop (because he chops prices “Chop, chop!” ) who started as a used car salesman and now owns the largest new/used car dealership in Nevada. It’s actually pretty entertaining to watch, in sophomoric kind of way.

However, my fascination was more morbid than amused. Watching this show was like watching my employer on TV. It was more reality than I cared to watch. It’s funny from the outside, but when you’re one of the guys who has to work for Chop it’s horrendous. I empathized with the poor guys who sell cars for Chop because working for Chop is like working for my company. 

Watching this show really made the differences between my approach to business and management and theirs stand out in bold relief as I realized how out of place I am here and how much I need to find something different for my own self pride if nothing else. At this point I’d feel better about working for In-N-Out burger than I do working here.  Which is sad because if they would just make a couple of adjustments here and there it wouldn’t be all that bad of a place to work.

The guys in charge aren’t bad guys, they’ve just lost touch with the reality of day to day life in the offices and make decisions based on their own greed more than what’s a win/win for everybody involved in the company. I guess I should have seen this way back when I found out that they wanted to make “Boiler Room” required viewing for everybody in the company because they thought it was a good, inspirational movie that would pump people up. ????? I really hope this State Farm things works out. Even if it doesn’t, I gotta find somewhere else to work.

On a more up note, we’re leaving for vacation tomorrow! Woo hoo! I was supposed to have today off as well but when they told me my new girl had to work bell to bell the whole time I’m gone I figured I’d work for her today and give her the day off to make up for the extra hours she’s having to work. She didn’t hesistate to accept the offer. haha.]]>

Anyway, yesterday was “Good news!” and today is “Better news!”

I talked to my cardiologist an hour or so ago and he confirmed the test results as being as significantly improved as I suspected yesterday. He says basically that I’m normal again. Very good news. This means that my condition is not genetic in origin which is even better news. Evidently it was a viral condition that attacked my heart and the meds have gotten my heart back on track.

So, I just have to keep watching my sodium and fluid intake and keep taking my meds as a precaution but it appears that the worst is behind me.

Betterer new is that my cardiologist said I didn’t need the implant either. Cool, cool.

Vacation will be very nice with this news in hand. Now I can seriously think about quitting this job even if the State Farm thing doesn’t work out. I hear about that particular venture probably in the next week or so. I anticipate a good report there as well.

Dang, with all this good news I may find me a slimy little capitalist pig and give him a sloppy wet one right on the lips! Has anybody seen Stephen? hahaha. JUST KIDDING!!!]]>

Anyway, that notwithstanding, I did read a couple of good books. The first one is “Traveling Mercies” by Anne Lamott. Very good book. She’s and excellent writer. Her stuff is thought provoking. In fact I wrote a long impassioned post the other day in response to something one of her essays stirred up in me. But, the “ticket expired”  and I lost all that I’d written. That sucks. I’ve tried to write my stuff in Word but then when I cut and paste it there’s all sorts of weird code embedded in the file that screws up the blog site. Whatever. The post was kind of bitter anyway and needed to be re-written.

The second book is one I picked up yesterday morning at B&N, started reading after lunch and did not put it down until I was finished at dinner time.  It’s called “Nickel and Dimed - On (Not) Getting by in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. If you’re at all interested in “social justice” this book should be on your list. I recognize alot of what is in her book. I recognize it from the people I know from my auto racing days, from my time spent at the church in Sacto, and many of my current customers. It makes me want to quit my job even more as I find it more and more that I’m in a morally untenable position in my current employment.  

This book is a contemporary version of Part I of Orwell’s “The Road to Wigan Pier”. You would think that the conditions and plight of the working poor in Orwell’s day is long gone, ancient history. You’d be wrong. What Ehrenreich documents in her book shows that the quality of life for the working poor, especially single women w/children, is not far removed from that of the coal miners and industry workers of Orwell’s story.

As a former fundie brand conservative I would have acknowledge the tragedy of some of what I read but would have minimalized it by saying the plight of the working poor isn’t a significant issue in Western society, or that they made their bed and must sleep in it, or that with some hard work and determination they can make it out the slum an into the middle class, or mumble something about “the poor will always be with us”, or that there’s help for them but they just need to accept it, or said something about welfare queens, or something along those lines.

But, I’ve seen enough of it to realize that while there are alot of bums, rats, and welfare abusers, there is a larger segment of people out there who are trapped in a class and see no discernible way out. That’s a reality that I’ve come to witness for myself during my racing days, my Sacto church days, my time as a server in the restaurant business, and more so here at my present job as I sell the luckier of this class insurance for their piece of shit cars so that they can go to thier shit jobs. Jobs they’re grateful to have.

I don’t have an answer to this problem. However, I take the advice of Jesus in regards to this when he said that we shouldn’t try to solve the evils of the world in one swoop but to start with the little things and work our way to bigger things. So, not despising the little things I overtipped my waitress this morning and resolved to hang up my own stuff at Wal-Mart or Target instead of piling up at the fitting room desk or tossing it on top the rack. I’m sure more little things will present themselves as I work toward my bigger dreams of altruism.

Another aspect of this book that interested me was her athiestic perspective of Jesus and Christians. Honestly, I think she had a better appreciation, respect, and belief in the teachings of Jesus in regards to human relationships than too many Christians I know. In fact, I got the impression that, like Ghandi, sh’ed probably be a Christian if weren’t for Christians.

She talked about some of her worst customers when she held a job as a waitress. The most prominent of them was what she termed “The Visible Christian”. She talked about how they’d come in all dandified up and in large groups and be loud and demanding and rude to the waitresses and then leave a $1 tip on a $92 tab. Unsual? Not in my experience both as a server and one of the loudest in the large group when we’d go out to Steak-N-Shake after church. It has gotten to the point that I won’t go out with large groups of Christians after church (assuming that I go to church in the first place). As a former server at Black Angus and at Applebee’s, let me tell you Christians by and large don’t have a good reputation among restaurant employees.

She also mentioned her experience attending a tent revival while doing her research for this book. What she describes in the worship service is something I’ve witnessed a million times as a former fundie. Toward the end of her description of the sermon she writes…

“The preaching goes on, interrupted with dutiful ”amens.“ It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth. I would like to stay around for the speaking in tongues, should it occur, but the mosquitoes, working into a frenzy by all the talk of His blood, are launching an full-scale attack. I get up to leave, timing my exit for when the preacher’s metronomic head movements have him looking the other way, and walk out to search for my car, half expecting to find Jesus out there in the dark, gagged and tethered to a tent pole.”

I thought this was perceptive, spot on.]]>

I see so much of myself in the bourgeois quasi-intelligensia Orwell describes who wrings their hands about philosophical ideas while the regular guy on the street may agree with me in concept but has a completely different perspective (perhaps a healthier one) on the whole idea of spirituality and worship. One difference is that he’d never feel the need to blog about all this while my anguish goes to infinity and beyond as the noted theologian/cultural theorist Buzz Lightyear would say.

If you take Part II of this book and replace some of the subjects and labels with emergent lingo you’d have a pretty good picture of the on-going emergent/emerging church discussion. Makes  me wonder of much of it, while trying to become/be relevant, is still out of touch with reality. Like reality TV, maybe it’s deceivingly similar to reality, but in reality is far, far removed from it.

Perhaps my journey away from the church and into culture is somewhat like Orwell’s journey out of the literary Socialist intelligentsia and into the down and dirty world of the English industrial towns, coal mines, and urban life of the poor.  I certainly can understand his need to be there, his self-conflict over his conclusions, and his criticism of his enlightened Socialist culture.]]>

 
We’re attempting to potty train our 2 yr. old. Our 9 yr. old turned the corner in this rite of passage through the use of an animated video with a catchy jingle. So we figured we’d try the same with the second child. The DVD we got is called “Potty Power!” and it’s pretty entertaining with lots of songs including the theme song “Potty Power!” in which the ecstatic exclamation “Potty Power!” is used ad nauseum.

Well, our toddler is just learning to speak sentences as well, albeit with slurred diction and odd syntax. But, we understand it.  It appears the “Potty Power!” video is working because last night as we watch “Extreme Home Makeover” the 2 yr old stripped naked and watched the show sitting on his potty in the middle of the family room floor. Every now and again he’d shout out “Body Hour!, Body Hour!”.  haha!]]>

Prov, you’re right. Somebody IS watching us! It’s Yahoo!

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