Like Spittle From a Cloud, Amassed Resentment Counting Ounce and Pound

One of these days things might settle down enough that I might actually be able to post something. Well, besides this one, that is.

In the meantime, please feel free to discuss the merits/disappointments of the new Shins album and whether or not listening to them did indeed change your life...

Lately, Newspaper Mentioned Cheap Airfare; I’ve Got to Fly to Saint Somewhere, I’m Close to Bodily Harm

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while and for that I apologize. I certainly wanted to write, but things have been totally crazy around here lately. It's budget and strategy season so I have literally been in teleconference phone meetings every day for the past week. That wouldn't be too bad, but the people who come up with these budgets/strategies have their heads up their posteriors, in my opinion. The Big Boss Lady got us all together before her big meeting with the execs to discuss how we can make our division more profitable. My list of recommendations to actually resolve problems and target obvious known issues that are eating heavily into our bottom line got the brush off as usual. Their solution? Just increase sales volume and gross margin rate. Sure, that will help. We can't collect on the stuff we are selling now. Adding more sales will just compound the problem plus adding more points on our mark-up will just drive our customers to our less-expensive competition. When the boat is sinking you don't add more passengers and charge them more for a ticket. You fix the dang leak! But what do I know? I'm just the worker bee. The execs must make those big bucks for some reason...

The weather here is also making me grumpy. I used to think that Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) was a bunch of BS made up by psychiatrists to push more Prozac, but then I moved to Minnesota and came back to Colorado a year later. There is MOST DEFINITELY a connection between sun, warmth, and depression. Being snowed in and freezing for 7 months of the year = not good for Johnny. Sixty degree and sunny blue sky Januarys = very good for Johnny. However, this winter for some reason we have not only been hit for the past four weeks with significant snow falls (two of those being blizzards) but it has been sub-freezing for the past month so it won't go away. The sun hasn't been out, either. It was so overcast the other day that I couldn't even see the mountains. So let's summarize: piles of ugly, black snow that won't melt, long stretches of below-zero weather, no sun, and no mountains. I feel like I am living in freakin' Minnesota again!!!! To make matters worse, Minnesota is having a highly unusual mild winter with high temps and barely any snowfall. This is a phenomenon that my parents have not failed to mention on several occasions to me. Considering that we are close to eclipsing the seasonal average snowfall and we haven't even hit our snowiest month yet (March), this is not looking good for my mental stability. I need summer now.

On a side note, I read in the paper that S.A.D. is a diagnosable medical condition that can be treated in several ways, one of which is taking a long, tropical vacation. I am considering visiting my doctor, getting diagnosed, and then hitting up my employer for paid medical leave for "treatment." I'm think I'm going to call my insurance company to see if I can work this all out...

So, the weather sucks, my job sucks, and my commute to work the past few weeks has absolutely totally sucked. I've also been in complete despair ever since I watched An Inconvenient Truth last weekend. I'm tellin' ya, you'd better bust out the straight jacket now because I don't think I am going to make it to February...

He Chose His Words From Mouths of Babes, Got Lost in the World

I knew it was there. I had planned on going. However, when I went over to the library just now on my lunch break I couldn't help myself. I had to get a peak. To some people it may be just a long sheet of paper, but it changed my life long before I ever saw it in person. Seeing it there, the first half rolled out and encased in glass, I was immediately overcome with emotion. I was by myself and had to tell someone, so I turned to the security guard sitting there and exclaimed "This is by far the coolest thing ever!" He gave me a knowing smile and nodded. I'm sure he's heard similar sentiments before and probably will hear them many more times again. You see, I just got as close to greatness as I will ever get. I just read directly from Kerouac's On the Road scroll.

I was only there on my lunch break. I could have easily spent the rest of the afternoon dazed in wonderment at its marvel. There was Ti-Jean's manuscript, unabridged, unaltered and "un-aliased." His own handwritten notes and proofreading marks resided in the margin. I read as long as I could with the time I had. I think I am going to go back once a week until I have finished it all. I've read On the Road many times throughout my life. I even took an upper-level college course in it (and made an A+). However, this was the original. Straight from Jack's fingertips. LSD (and other Kerouac fans out there), if the exhibition comes anywhere near you, trust me, you have to go. You won't regret it.

Well it Would Have Been, Could Have Been, Worse Than You Would Ever Know

Things bothering me today:

That I have to put up with at least a year of hearing "Florida Gators" and "national champs" in the same sentence.

That I have never just stumbled upon a big, cinched-up canvas bag with a big dollar sign stenciled on the front of it filled with a large sum of unmarked bills.

That there still is no official release date of the new Modest Mouse album after they postponed it last month (I am, however, totally digging the first single "Dashboard").

This weird throbbing sensation that just started in my ear.

That they are predicting another 8 inches of snow for Colorado this Thursday/Friday.

The things that I cannot change. Like that lightbulb. Anyone have a step ladder I can borrow?

Blogger being down for "maintenance" once again.

Madonna.

That thing you are doing right now. Yes, you. Knock it off! Thanks.

Yeah, that should do it. I feel better now. No, wait. Gators still suck! Ok, now I feel better.

Three is a Magic Number...

Three weeks. Three major snowstorms. At least 3 feet of snow on the ground. At least three months until Spring. It will probably take me 3 hours to get home tonight.

My third eye is imagining me someplace warm and snowless. Anyone want to contribute to the John Winter Relief Fund to make this a reality?

So This is the New Year and I Don’t Feel Any Different

Ok, so it's the New Year. 2007. The year of the some animal or other. As is the custom with each flip of the annual calendar, I guess I should come up with some resolutions. However, I think I am going to score myself against last year’s resolutions first to see how well I did. Ok, first thing I resolved to do was learn HTML. Well, although I wouldn't dare say I am fluent, I did learn a good chunk of the basics and was able to turn this website from a basic blogger template into a more original layout (with basic blogger template structure). I also designed a couple of more layouts completely from scratch, but you will just have to trust me on that since none of them are published and remain as .html files on my computer. So, one resolution resolved. Let's move on to the next one: have my website up and running and my writing project done. For clarification, this is a website separate from this blog. This was part of an overall experiment of mine to see if one could actually make money on the internet. I set up a trial website complete with all kinds of test factors to determine what content, advertising, trackers, keywords, marketing, etc, brings people to a particular website. The experiment was a great success. I learned many things from this experiment and that is that there is money to be made from the internet but it is to be earned from selling an actual product, not just placing advertisements on blog and watching the tracker click. In a single month the traffic for my trial blog had way surpassed what this blog had taken almost a year to accomplish, but I had less than a dollar to show for it. I needed a product to sell otherwise other people would just be making money from my hard work. Unfortunately that is where I stalled out. I have a great idea for a product, but I admittedly have been lazy about getting it together. I know I have mentioned my lack of motivation several times here in the course of the past year and yet I am still unable to finish up. I have some kind of blockage that has prevented me from moving forward. My first resolution is to figure out how to remove that mental blockage and press on. I know this idea will be successful; I just have to follow though. By the end of this year I want some serious progress made on this project. No more slacking!!!!

My second resolution is to pick this whole website design hobby back up again. I was doing really well learning HTML and having a lot of fun with it. I even started in on a JavaScript book to learn that language, too. Then warm weather hit. I was no longer indoors. Summer and all of its wonderful distractions came and I was away from my computer. I meant to go back in the fall but it didn't happen. Now that winter is here and the long cold nights have returned I want to pick JavaScript back up. This blog hasn't had a major tweaking since about last March so it is time. I resolve to finish the JavaScript book and to do another major tweak done by the end of the year.

Since it is custom to have a resolution that deals with physical fitness, my third resolution is to get in more hiking this year. Ok, this should actually be an easy one. My wife recently joined a weekend hiking group with some friends of hers. They go out every Saturday and Sunday (weather permitting) and stretch their legs for a handful of miles or so. A lady in the group used to do some of the big tall peaks around here with her husband but stopped due to burn out and a lack of other people to go out with. I love to hike but haven't been able to get out much regularly for years. Even now, I am usually at home watching the girls while the Mrs. goes out and gets her outdoors fix. Turns out that my wife's friend has a teenage daughter who will baby-sit the girls while the four of us go out and hit the trails. We are all pretty excited and early planning has begun on some of the trips we can take this year. I seriously can't wait!

For my last resolution I've decided to make a life-long goal, not just for the upcoming year. Ever since my visit to Joshua Tree I've been thinking about how awesomeness of the US national park system. These are truly national treasures. I want to make it my goal to visit each one of them during my lifetime. Although I've only visited about six out of 58 parks, I think that this is a very realizable goal. First, a very significant number of these parks are within a days' driving distance of where I live. Second, many parks are near places I would go to visit anyway like the handful of parks on the way to or around Minnesota, or in places that I would much rather visit like Hawaiian Volcanoes NP. Some will be harder, like the one in American Somoa, but hey, a goal has to make you stretch, right? Even if I don't make all 58, my life and love of nature will no doubt be enriched in the attempt. And isn't that what these resolutions are supposed to be about anyway?