Born in a Desert, Raised in a Lion's Den

Monday. Another work week. I'm super pumped. Can't ya just feel the excitement? Ok, maybe not. I am working on a project today that I started on Friday. The receivables totals that I am compiling and posting out on the website each week do not match our accounting ledgers. Sometimes this is for legitimate reasons, such as ORO billings and deductions, but sometimes there is just a data error that needs to be identified and fixed. So, I am going through account-by-account, line-by-line, looking for discrepancies then resolving them. I am like the Sherlock Holmes of the spreadsheet world. Just call me darthjohn42 the data detective. All right, now I think the boredom has finally made me insane.

Today I listened to Dead Set by The Grateful Dead on the way in to work. I am a pretty big Grateful Dead fan. Notice how I said "fan," not "deadhead." You see, when I was maybe a freshman or sophomore in college I made the fatal mistake of telling a group of people at a house party that I was a "deadhead." I was immediately jumped on by several individuals who told me that being a deadhead is a way of life, not just a taste in music and what did I know about it anyway? I don't have thousands of hours of bootlegged concerts taped, I never spent a summer touring with the band, and I have never sold veggie burritos out of the back of a Volkswagen. Even if I had seen them in concert before, I only saw them in Chicago and everyone knows that Chicago shows are weak, blah blah blah. So, having been told off I went away, head hung low, a sorry sack of music aficionado wannabe poseurness.

Since I was going to school in Wisconsin, the closest the Dead ever came during that time was Chicago. So the next summer I took the six-hour drive down and caught them again at Soldier Field. This was in the summer of 1995. Now every deadhead (and many Dead fans) knows the significance of the Chicago '95 show. While these elitist deadheads that I ran into before were probably patting themselves on the back for scoring tickets to a Deer Creek show that was eventually canceled due to riots that summer, my friends and I witnessed the very last Dead show that Jerry Garcia ever performed. Yeah, having tickets to a Chicago show sure sucked.

Well, despite this nice bit of ironic justice, these hippie jerks (an odd trait for a hippie...) were correct in the fact that I should not consider myself a deadhead. I have/had friends who fit this mold, and even though I have two dozen or so CDs and seen them in concert several times, I know now that I am nowhere close to their level of fandom. However, I do get a lot of enjoyment listening to the music, so even if I have been relegated to a lower caste of Dead-hood, at least I have that going for me.