The Corner In The Middle

I am about finished with this album.  Two tracks to finish background vocals, one to add a guitar, one more still up in the air how to finish it, or maybe it’s just terminal at this stage to reappear in another show.  There will be another show.  As I progress, and as I have worked on this, the tired nights, flashed awake because of a line change or a new guitar part, the sweat that poured while I was locked in my studio fixing this thing that is me.  Here’s the thing about me.  I’m a musician.  It’s not a title you get to just affix to yourself.  You don’t wake up one day and decide to be an artist.  It just grows, there was not a grade I trudged through in my entire academic career that wasn’t touched by my music or attachment to art and the beautiful things it does to me.

My album is me.  It’s not happy, traumatic, lethargic, or a way to get through another shitty day.  It’s just what I do.  I write.  Sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes, it takes years.  Every piece of music, every word, every chorus, the colors that the notes bring me, you can’t fake that.  You can’t fake knowing how you resonate, you don’t get the option to control anything, you are yourself, and me, I’m simply another person doing his thing. 

Everything at this point is well, and frankly, it couldn’t be worse.  I’m going to ask for a break.  I don’t know what happens at this point, I’ve never needed a break before.  Family, music, the economy, everything is so uncertain, and it’s costing me dearly.  I’m taking a break, and the problem with this type of thinking is that the answer to how this works is not created by an algorithm, it just falls on you.  Sometimes it might be an apple, a leaf, or an anvil.  I’m facing an ocean and I don’t know which way to swim.  This is the same ocean that mystics swim in and schitzo’s drown in. 

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I am looking for reader opinions here.  What is your texting phone of choice?  I am in the market for a good textingphone.  I don’t want one with a data plan, I don’t want email push, just a good, easy to use, with a qwerty keyboard.  It also need not have come out in the last two months.  Even if it’s a year or two old, that doesn’t make it out of bounds.

I have searched a bunch of sites, and each search comes up with palm treo or blackberry.  I don’t want to pay for a data plan on this line.  I have a droid for that.  I want one that gets good reception and ease of use.  So, dear readers, what are you using?

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I am now playing Battlefield: Bad company II.  I am enjoying it, to say the least.  I loved Modern warfare, and when modern warfare ii came out, at first, I was addicted.  I love the multiplayer.  However, the last month or so, with all the perk issues, people boosting to get killstreaks, and the network speed/connection issues, I fell out of league with it, and probably won’t return.  However, that has changed with BC II.

I haven’t played much online yet, I only had it for a while and with work I have been exhausted.  I did get a little shooting in, and it was awesome.  Second, the solo campaign is a lot of fun.  The graphics are great, the bullets travel distance like real lead, they have a drop after a distance, they require leading your target.  And, don’t forget, you can blow up trees, walls, and buildings, to clear your view.  This allows you to change the map.  Third, with the control abilities of the u.a.v. and spawn additions, there are so many extra’s that I don’t need to tell because I doubt most of you don’t have it by now.  But I’m very happy to say the least.

I am barely what some people call a gamer, but I do have my likes, and BC II is certainly at the top of that list right now.

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Why does Obama and the legislature have to create laws on climate change?  Why do we require the EPA to slowly, if at all, create mandates for environmental cleanliness in order to hold companies responsible?  Why is the electorate complaining that the government isn’t doing enough to help the environment in general?  You vote against corporations with your pocketbooks, not at the ballot box, nor by liking the social networking sites group your friends joined.

Why can’t you just purchase ecofriendly products? Why can’t you choose to eat food that is not processed and crammed full of msg and factory farm meat, and gas ripened vegetables?   Why can’t you choose to be a conscious, responsible adult instead of pretending that those alternatives aren’t there until there?  Are you suggesting you cannot be responsible until there is official legislation requiring companies to do certain things? 

Take responsibility, eat a little less, buy less crap, spend your time being you instead of spending your time being told how to become you. 

Act like an adult who makes choices, not a child who only asks why parents aren’t doing enough.

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In one of my classes, a scary professor has, I believe, deemed me an idiot, or at the very least, completely unworthy of class participation.  The last several weeks there has been a trend.  I call it a trend because after calling on me two times during the first two weeks, he never did it again.  Paranoia?  Normally I would agree.  However, the evidence points to reality here.  My peers and I have discussed it, often, and today, it rang true, exactly as I predicted, and exactly as has occurred the last three weeks.  He asks a question, the type of question that when the question mark “appears,” you immediately clam up and start praying that you are not the unfortunate soul to be forcefully compelled into the dialogue that is about to occur.  Suddenly, but meticulously and purposefully, he points to the girl to my right.  My immediate right, my right chair if you will.  Then, skips me, and calls on my immediate left, my left chair if you will.  Follow that up with one behind me, and then to the other side of the room.

I pointed it out to my friends after if happened twice three weeks ago, and they laughed at first, but it constantly rang true, and has literally continued on an every other day basis, for three weeks now.  My right chair is fed up with it, and I don’t blame her.  I’m hoping that if he ever breaks the cycle, I can simply point out that the cycle has created a liberty interest, namely my freedom liberty interest, and that by his giving no notice to changing the pattern, has deprived me of my liberty interest, violating due process, and hopefully, thwarting a question.

I’m disappointed that it seems my personal belief, namely that the government intrudes too often while causing people generally to have lost a sense of personal responsibility and dignity, has apparently cost me a voice in the class; mine would seem to be a voice that my prof apparently has a distaste for.

I never wanted to be a hole in the row. It’s weird, it’s exactly what I feel should happen in undergrad classes to people that never read, but what should never, ever happen when you pay $1,250 a credit hour, again, in a class that I find interesting but apparently am going to get another solid B-.  Yay for me and my silent corner in the middle… 

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This weekend I bought the new Martha Stewart organic hand soap, and it is amazing.  We usually buy another organic brand, but since the cost was comparable, I got one to see how it is.  It is full of nothing but plant derived cleaning stuff, and we are getting two more for the other sinks in our house now.   It doesn’t leave your hands dry, doesn’t have added scents or colors, the label is removed without leaving the bottle sticky or pieces of the sticker left to decorate the bottle like chips off a glass bottle.  Verdict:  get it.

A little better grilled cheese:  I usually add a few kinds of cheese, some herbs, tomato, ect… to my grilled cheese.  However, to save a little time for studying, here’s a quick version that still beats your moms:  as you heat up the pan, rub the end of a stick of butter on the pan about the size of a piece of bread, put the bread on it to suck up the butter, repeat for the other one (being careful not to burn yourself).  You want the bread buttered, but you DON’T want it saturated, you won’t notice the difference.   Then, put the butter side down on a plate and compact the bread with your finger, making a kind of bowl shape.  Put some drained diced tomatoes in it, cover with cheese and the other bread.  Put it on the skillet for about two minutes (make sure you have medium low heat so you don’t burn the bread.  Flip it over and heat another 2 minutes.  Flip it over again for 2 minutes, covering with a piece of aluminum foil.  this insures that the filling is heated thoroughly and the cheese melts.  Always cut the sandwich diagonally, this is not a factory workers ham sandwich. 

Even the little things can make a difference, I buy sunflower seeds because I love them.  I normally buy the Jim Beam seeds, their flavors are not salty and they actually taste like true jalapenos, and trust me, and the bbq is amazing.  However, yesterday I noticed that the David seeds I occasionally get from the convenience store are actually by ConAgra foods, one of the giant food processing companies that markets foods my family absolutely does not eat(just like Monsanto, Dow, ect…).  It’s only a 1.50 you say, I say a hundred bucks a year from me, multiplied by other consumers of seeds goes to support a company that is irresponsible.  Even the little things can make a difference, think and be conscious: responsible consumers support responsible companies, and if you don’t know who you are supporting, ask if you want to put it in your mouth… 

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Recently,there has been an upsurge by the media covering the Toyota recall.  Tuesday, several stories covered that Toyota took too long to do safety recalls of it’s vehicles.  I ask you this:

Do you remember the Ford tire fiasco a few years ago?  When they didn’t even stop production on the vehicle, denying there was any problem at all, even blaming the customers for driving over 55 mph?  What about the Pinto?  Remember that little economy car that Ford put out that had that pesky problem of blowing up when it got hit in the ass end? 

Even worse, and frankly more offensive to me, than vehicle recalls, what about the mass country wide beef recalls in the last three years from “mash” hamburger containing deadly ecoli that killed children and paralyzed adults? Or even the recalls that never happened?   For instance, on October 6, 2007, Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation recalled 845,000 pounds of frozen ground beef patties produced at its Butler, Wisconsin location because of possible E. coli o157:H7 contamination, or the almost two million pounds of recalled meat from the now defunct Topps meat conglomerate, or this one from a NY Times article about the same issue?   Where is the federal investigation and public outrage on that?  That meat went to schools, where children ate it, and according to the article, 3,000 grocery stores encompassing 41 states?  And, it wasn’t recalled for several months, even after officials in both the government and the corporation admitted they knew about it, but they had “discussions” to decide the best way to handle it? 

Friends, how can you stand by and pronounce that you care about consumer safety when the news is being flooded with reports that Toyota took too long to acknowledge it had an issue, but there is nothing about the food products that you put in your mouths to depend on for life and the lack of actual government oversight?  Is this Toyota outrage really about safety?  I suggest it’s that instead of the invisible poor eating this crap “mash” bacteria filled meat, this brake safety issue effected upper middle class consumers, and they have the money and voice to criticize those who dare encroach on the image they drive around in.

Responsible society needs responsible attorneys, not attorneys who cater to those with money.  Remember why you went to law school, remember how it felt when you had no voice?

You are going to be paying loans back for many, many years, you might as well make a little use of your inherited social powers and fix something that is broken… 

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I recently reactivated my fb profile, and for that, I have some personal disappointment, but I do see a little light as well.  I decided that deactivating it is a little extreme, and I’m only partially extremist so it didn’t really match up.  I also found that the two days I was off, stuff I would normally send as messages or wall posts, I sent as texts.  A total of 73 texts, almost a fifth of my monthly limit.  So, in my financial interest, it’s not all bad.  I do have some serious profile change intentions, such as removing many pictures, interests, and some other things that simply are not something I wish to share with fb.  I still feel their marketing and the site itself is intrusive and irresponsible, but I am going to do my best to work on fixing that, as much as Mark lets me control my own stuff on his site.

On another note, I am happy that I can profess that I cut back on my electronic time in general, I still feel as I have for some time, that it is a serious distraction, and dead time is not something that I am interested in.  I have a lot to do, and it seems that me managing my time on social networking sites is simply something else that I can fit in during my “import” time after 10 p.m.. 

Happy cornering folks, it’s foggy in the current climate, and sometimes you have to smash into walls you don’t see to realize they are there…

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I am currently an acting scientist.  Of course, it’s not decrypting the human genome, it’s biology.  Unfortunately, biology is something that every teacher has given me less than mediocre marks for because I never had an interest in the academic version of it.  I’m going to grow hydro tomatoes, peppers, and a few herbs this year.  Since I want to have a farm that operates year around, I’d like to throw my experimental stages into gear immediately.  I would like to have a very small hydro selection, that way, people could get actual vegetables during the winter instead of pursuing the tasteless, gas ripened veg that supermarkets carry. 

I have no interest in marketing to the entire state, I’m hoping that I can produce crops that will carry me during the summer, have enough eggs and other products to carry me through the winter to subsidize my law practice.  By doing a small hoop house with hydro produce, I’d like to think locals will buy mine instead of the trained in tasteless junk that is expensive and sold at the store.

I’m starting out with six plants, that way, I can spend a little money and have it very small scale to work out the details.  It’s very detailed, and there is a lot to learn.  So, I think it’s a good idea to start really small right now since I don’t need to depend on it.  My goal is to have this sorted out and a good, solid understanding of the fundamental of hydroponic production so when I purchase my farm this summer, I can begin producing regardless of the time of year.  Something is better than nothing, trust me, I’ve had nothing for a long time. 

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As you know, I have a crappy hardware store job so I can pay for things my school money doesn’t, like family medical bills, eye doctors visits, dentist, gas, food, ect…   Well, I am a big proponent of recommending the eco-friendly, plant derived, and kid/animal friendly products we have in stock in favor of highly marketed commercial chemical based alternatives.  I had a discussion with a coworker about my preferences, as we were discussing genetically modified plants and how I feel about recommending organic seeds from our display instead of the hybrid versions.  She stated that even though I may prefer to market those products based on my personal beliefs, that work is not the place, and while I’m on the clock, maybe it’s not the time for me to recommend people be eco responsible.  She tole me it was irresponsible of me to show consumers that we sell eco friendly and human/animal safe products that work just as well as the chemical based and dangerous products they are asking for, because they are cheaper and have been around for a long time. 

I thought to myself, interesting, I am not supposed to market specific eco/organic based products we sell, because giant chemical companies would lose the profit and a small eco company would gain, and what would we do if we couldn’t get chemical based weed killer anymore?   This is the problem dear readers.  Companies tell us how they want us to be responsible, how they support our choice to become more ecofriendly and want to provide us with the products to do so, but I’m in the shade if I actually refer people to them because, if consumers are unfamiliar with the product, by explaining the benefits of it versus the harmful to children/pets/drinking water-chemical alternative, I am wasting corporate dollars?  A sale is a sale, a responsible sale is a better sale, and frankly, if I can’t market our products when consumers ask for a recommendation, who are they supposed to get the recommendation from? 

I get to work for a company that is not eco friendly and force it to be.  That’s how you change things dear readers, not by violence, not by joining the “group” on social networking sites, not by writing a letter to the invisible person that is the corporation, you have to manipulate it from the inside.  I get to force the company to be responsible by acting for it.  Like, well, an agency relationship.    Needless to say, I took her comments and beliefs and swallowed them with a razor blade, but in conclusion, I kept the pain to myself.

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As the days go by, I have carefully reviewed my actions, my thoughts, and the person I am molding into.  I have slowly reinvented myself, removed the internet tethers  I have removed the separate labels each site eventually molded me into such as lawyer to be, family man, musician, ect… and rebranded myself as me. 

It’s very difficult to do it mind you.  A lot harder than I thought.   Anyway, my brand is me.  I’m a person.  I’m not infallible.  I’m not a parent here, a student there, an apprentice at this time, a consumer after these hours…  I’m me.  I feel different now that the only me is wound up around air instead of commerce pushing networking sites that have drug me through their terms of use and privacy sold to the highest bidders.  It’s weird, I feel kind of defensive now, people ask “why did you leave ____?”  When I say I have email and a phone and they can talk to me in person, the look they give me is priceless. It’s as if it’s not only easier to poke me, or comment on my wall, but to actually have person to person contact unless you bump into me is simply a hassle.  Well, I guess there’s a reason we never call each other huh?

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Tiger Woods is back in the spotlight, some say by accident, and some are saying it’s planned.  Well, either way, he (it) is a perfect example of the iconic failure that is general consumer products.

Here’s the thing.  Tiger is a person.  Check it out, a real life person.  Not an infallible icon, not a god, not a lexus, not the newest phone, he’s a living breathing person.  You wouldn’t know it, mostly because his profile represents  strength, pride, hard work, also known as EA sports, Gillette, Nike, tiger woods Dubai (a golf resort), upper deck, and a pga tour partner (according to his website).  Unfortunately, recently, if you recall, he was thrown off his amazing crystal pedestal because he is not bred an honest, hard working, moral-comic book character we all aspire to be:  he became  an average, normal person with marital and personal problems in front of everyone; Tiger lost his powers, and therefore, his status as an icon from giant corporations to reg’lar folk.  Normal people aren’t sponsored by companies.  They can’t market average people.  They can only market those things consumers wish they could be. 

Dear giant corporations:  I have two children, a beautiful wife, and I go to school to enrich my brain.  I realize that by enriching my brain instead of my golf swing, or my batting average, or my average built chest, that you can’t sponsor me.  This is in direct opposition to what you would have me believe however.  Although I, and all other college grads, are the exception to the average person because a small percentage of the population graduates college, and an even smaller percent get a doctorate or masters or J.D., we are still not the iconic god-like good looking powerful sports hero you need us to be in order to sell your sweat-shop-poverty-labor-created junk, and for that I apologize to you.  I hope to teach my children, and all their friends, that not only are you selling junk, but they should stand before you and force you to answer as to why you can’t treat consumers better?  Why you can’t help feed the hungry, why you can’t pay your workers better, why you can’t have more concern for the environment?  Why do you steal from the very people you market to?  Until consumers demand you do these things, it’s hard for you to justify answering my children, but the day will come.  There will be a day when responsible corporations are the norm instead of the fringe.

On a final note, my daughter went to a birthday party the other day, and while all the kids were being asked whether they wanted kool-aid or water, my daughter, out of the 19 kids, asked for water.  Then, she said “what is kool-aid?”  Yeah, she doesn’t know what it is for a reason.  It’s called responsible parenting.  Happy schooling, it’s gonna be a good ride from here on out…

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So, I’ve been heavily considering this for some time, see my prior post on this issue. I did it, I feel a little sick, but I did it.  I killed the facebook me.    I’m tired of the exaggerated, public digital life.  I don’t need to know who has the new funniest status update, not to mention the crappy adds and marketing that facebook has become.  I don’t need to see my coworkers and friends half naked drinking photos that just got tagged, I don’t care what “group” you recently decided to support, I don’t care if you “like” that Obama just made another awesome speech.  Today I understood why and how privacy is threatened, and the justification behind it, and it is true.  Privacy is not the same as it used to be and I don’t want to be a part of the site that chips away at it.   I’ve posted my last moments on my status, most people won’t jot my number or email, and it’s ok.  I don’t talk to them anyway.  I’m keeping my blog and probably linkden (sp?) just in case someone wants to contact me for a real life conversation, or a long lost friend remembers my name from high school (yes, I have a few I still try to find and would like to think sometime they’ll find me).

Here’s the thing.  The more I become what I feel, is socially responsible regarding sustainable foods, clean energy consumption, and being a conscious consumer, the more I become pissed off at the marketing ploys that I never paid attention to before.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never get rid of my ipod, I’ll never throw my droid into the toilet, I’ll never swear off my xbox or television, but I am really stepping back from the toils of corporate crap and the junk they constantly tell me is great.  I don’t want facebook to know me.  I don’t want them to market their crap to me.  I want my family and friends to think of me as more than a status update.  My family pictures are for me an my friends, not everyone in my profile.   For good or bad, it’s got to happen.  I confess, I’m going to miss it: checking out my friends quizzes, attacking my peers class comments passive-aggressively on their wall, looking through their drunk Saturday night pictures and making fun of them behind their back. But here’s the thing:

I’m not the same person anymore.  I want my privacy.  I have friends and we don’t need to keep updated on status every fifteen minutes, I say hello to them, I say “what I’m thinking,” I text them, they call me, we hang out, we drink Guinness and eat peanuts because we are old enough to do it respectfully, and in each other’s presence.  I have a life and the highlight of it is NOT that I had the funniest status update comment of the day, it’s that I’m me.

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So, here we are four weeks into the new semester, and I have never been busier.  As I come upon March, I have several self-directed deadlines approaching, and they affect me and my family is such positive ways, I’m actually excited that I figured out this time management thing.  I realize it’s all self inflicted, and it is no where as painful as I dreamed during the planning phase of the semester.

For example, you might remember that I’m working on an album, yep, almost finished with my parts.  I have vocals and guitar parts for about eight songs, with three more to go.  The first two weeks of March we add bass and a few drum tracks, a final mix, and by the beginning of April, a project I have been compiling for many years is actually finished.   After I come home from the hardware store job at night, I do actual recording, and then I get up at daylight so I can mix and detail fixes for the coming night. 

Also, I have been doing mad research about grants and small farm loans.  Thanks to my legal research skills, I not only didn’t have a hard time finding those, but as I progress, I know how to look up the organic USDA regs, environmental regs, and be able to represent myself as I grow this new sustaining farm idea into reality.  By summer, I hope to have land prospects.  I’d really like to be moving in this summer or the fall.  My thought is that I move in and over the winter, have several months to build greenhouses and other details, and by spring, have the ability to have small amounts of money coming in without being too much of a financial burden.  by graduation, plants would be in and I’d have a couple of part time undergrads doing the heavy lifting so I could maintain focus on the bar 6 or seven hours a day and still have this thing running.

How do I law school myself you ask: reading gets done late morning, and on Monday and Wednesday I have a few hours between my two classes, so I can do the readings for the week those days, plus what I do on the weekends.  So dear readers, I’m by no means the average law student, I didn’t get on law review, my family doesn’t know any attorneys who want to hire me after graduation.  But I have an alibi:  after I graduate, when I get a shingle out, take over someone else’s small firm, or even just get a public service job, not only are my time management skills honed like a caveman’s javelin, but I have the ability to sift through statutory law with real life business goals and problems, and I pray that some of what I do is useful to my incoming clients business needs.  If not, well, no one ever met a hobo as smart as me! 

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I got a new phone, if you can call it that in such simple terms.  I got the new motorola droid, and it’s awesome.  Let me qualify this by saying I don’t care if you think the iphone is the best.  I’m not on at&t and I don’t care if it “kills” the iphone, I love it.  If you want an awesome product review, I am not the person to do it, I’m just writing because I think it’s an awesome phone for me.

The oem battery lasted about two days, so not bad.  I did however, order and just received the extended battery, and a new “golla” bag case, I was very disappointed that the phone doesn’t really fit in the case with the new giant battery.  But I like the case so I’m keeping it for the ipod.  But, the double battery size is kind of convenient in that it makes holding the phone a little easier.

I also bought the screen protectors from the store, the 12.99 for three.  Much to my dismay, and contrary to the sales rep’s advise, they are not needed, at all.  Apparently, the touch screen is real glass, it isn’t scratched easily, and even motorola doesn’t recommend a screen protector because it’s not needed.  Thanks Verizon lady for recommending a product I absolutely didn’t need.  I had the htc touch about two years ago, and I did have a screen protector for it, but I just don’t need it for the droid.  It even feel heavy duty, it’s a metal case, and it doesn’t feel fragile, unlike my htc or my blackberry did.

I’m not going to get into apps really, there are a million sited with reviews, but I can say that the dolphin browser DOES have pinch zoom, and yes, watching youtube and other videos is awesome!  The sound is good, and the video quality is great.

I love my new phone, I lost my 3380 curve, so when I got the replacement, I simply gave it to my wife and at the same time, got an early upgrade for the droid.  Happy lawyering, I’m off to my crappy hardware store job.

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