Musing No. 17 - Coffee & d-Con

To preface this post - my night was held together by many MANY cups of this:

So around 1 AM my beautiful 37-week prego wife and I were sitting on our bed, watching various episodes of How I Met Your Mother that I have saved on my Mac. We've got it hooked up to our nice big tv, which is across the room, but I don't mind getting up to switch every episode because....well let's face it, it's not like I've yet achieved the perfect weight-class.

I know I already did a preface for this particular musing, but I think I'll add another. While I love living out in the more wildlife area of the southern Grand Rapids area - me and my wife really are city folk. By this point you are probably thinking, "How the hell are any of these factors related?" Well fear not, because I genuinely believe that I can somewhat bring this jumble of mish-moshed thoughts together....or if I fail, I hope I at least fail hilariously.

A.D.D. is awesome - back to my story. So one of the episodes of HIMYM ends and I get up to go change the episode. As I was walking over to the computer, the floor in front of me seemed to gain a momentary moving ink blotch. I stop in my tracks and stare for slightly too long. My wife, noticing my momentary lapse of concentration asks me what I was staring at. My first thought: "Damn...I really was looking forward to sleeping tonight." She asks me again, "Hun, what's wrong?" Sweat starts to bead slightly on my forward as I think to myself: "Play this cool and you still might be able to." "Uh...yeah hun," I say aloud, attempting to collect my thoughts, "I think I might have seen a mouse." "F*****ck. Nailed it."

Well clearly she wasn't going to go to sleep until I caught the mouse. Catch the mouse? Now - let's get this out in the open. Jack Hannah, I'm not. Crocodile Dundee, I'm not. I've never even won a game of Mousetrap. I'm sure there's a way to catch a mouse on the spot - but I have no clue what it is.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong.

I lumber grudgingly over to the spot where I saw the mouse run, and pray to God to I just had a momentary contact malfunction. I start pulling things out of the way and the damn thing runs over my foot, through my legs and under the bed where my wife is now quite unhappily sitting. I also may have pooped myself. (What?! I told you I'm city folk!)

I then put on shoes and start squeamishly removing food from the end table next to the bed, as my wife had stockpiled a good amount of snacky things (it's a wonder why the mouse picked our room) as well as removing items from under the bed. I get a good amount of this done and still see no mouse. I quickly decided it was time for reinforcements. I go awaken my brother-in-law's basset hound upstairs and lure him into the bedroom. I tell him to go under the bed. He sticks his head under and then plops/lays down. Sooo I sigh and start pulling more things out.

Now we have our bed up on platforms for extra storage, but since there was no platform for the middle - we put a concrete cinder block. Those of you suspense novel connoisseurs are no-doubt figuring out what I am leading to. There was a very comfy looking mouse nest built inside one of the two sides of the cinder block. Fantastic. Experience has taught me that you can't see the little buggers inside their nest, after a rather unfortunate incident where I picked up what appeared to be a harmless a ball of white fuzz in the garage of a previous house and a mouse jumped at my face. I go and grab a mop and poke the handle into the nest expecting the worst. Nothing. I pull the nest out. Nothing. Not relief but lack of desire for having to go in farther slaps me in the face.

Evil lives here...

I concluded that I will be needing something stronger to fight this evil. I inform my wife that she should and the dogs probably hit up the couch in the living room for the night, since she informed me she wouldn't be able to sleep in the bed til I get the mouse - then I head off for the store!

Arriving to the local 24hour grocery store, (10 to 15 minutes away) I quickly locate the rodent annihilation aisle, and I proceed to grab - oooh about 20 bucks worth of d-Con items. I walk up to the front, proud that I will be attacking this unwanted visitor and reclaim my testicles from the 2 to 3 inch ball of black fur that stole them from me. I proceed to check out, only to find that my wallet is not located in my back pocket. "Damn," I think to myself, "Little bugger stole that too. He is good!" I sheepishly ask the unpleasant register laborer if he would hold onto my goods, so that I may return to pick them up swiftly. Annoyed he yells to his manager that he is going to the restroom. I take that as a yes.

Jumping back into my vehicle I see that I am bumping the bottom of my gas tank. How convenient. At around 2 AM, many many gas stations are open in my area - and are quite coincidentally very open to giving their precious commodity away to wallet-less patrons. I pray to baby Jesus that I can make it home and not make this a more embarrassing story than it already is. I take off out of the parking lot and down the road.

Baby Jesus was not in the mood to be kind. A stranger with an awfully coincidentally full portable gas tank was, though, so I will now be saying all future prayers to 'Beat-up Chevy-driving Hobo-looking, Possibly-homosexually-pedobeard man.' What can I say? The gays love me.

SOOO back on the road! I get home, grab my wallet, make a detour to a gas station so I don't have to give more than a smile to the next strangely flirty good Samaritan and head back to the store. I arrive to see that all my items have been returned to the back of the store where I found them (FANTASTIC) and fly speed racer style through the aisles once again. Checking out and then hopping in the car I stop for not one, but 2 cups of coffee at McDonalds and then return home.

Little bastard won't know what hit him.

As I now sit here, on my couch, waiting for mickey to step in a sticky trap, get severed in a cheese clamp or eat a lethal dose of mouse poison I ask myself, "More Coffee?"

End of Musing No. 17

Musing No. 15 - The Endgame

Stress will always be one of two things - the best motivation or the final breaking point. But as anyone who has been through football hell week, army boot camp or alcohol/drug detox can tell you - the best motivation & the final breaking point are often one and the same.

Stress for me is where everything I have learned and already know comes out the strongest. When the shit hits the fan (seriously, who keeps throwing shit at fans?) my instincts and knowledge come out in full force. It's when I don't know all that I need to know to finish the job that I stress out and borderline break down...right up until I still finish and surprise myself.

Unfortunately I am currently working on a project at my day job of marketer/web designer/graphics designer where the latter seems to be the case. I have faced many different situations where it forces me to grow and I end up making something that I never knew I could make, and a damn good finished product at the same time. I'm sure this will be the case this time as well, but I'm hardcore stressing it all the same.

Way too much coffee, way too many hours, and more than a little late-night television rolling on in the background but I get the job done. I constantly remind myself that I overwork now so I can enjoy later, where as a good portion of my friends work a little (9 to 5) then enjoy a little in the moment - and that's what they will be doing for the rest of their lives. They will never be living life to the fullest as it is meant to be lived, because they will be at the dead end jobs probably the rest of their lives and only actually living in the few night and sometimes weekend hours, coming up to breath with the meager vacation days allotted by the boss in the big corner office.

The point of this post is to encourage the dream chasers out there in the plight of your cause. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and while you may be moving slower than your counterparts are traveling in life's tunnel, you'll emerge from it driving in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS (or whatever german/italian sports car you prefer).


And if you aren't working for yourself - I would like to remind you the cold hard fact that so many GM/Chrysler/Union employees are learning now - retirement at 60 isn't guaranteed. If you are sitting on a dream - shame on you. But don't worry - the dream-chasers will always need employees to work their dreams for them.

End of Musing No. 15

Musing No. 13 - Celebrities and the Nazi Card

Going Green is really chic right now. It's the hip thing to do. And while I love my planet and I have no qualm with being economically responsible, many people - many famous people are just taking this too far.

Paul McCartney, when you want an old woman who sounds like a Beatle.

A good example would be Paul McCartney, talking the other day at a press conference with President Obama. Here's what he said, when referring to the oil spill:

"Sadly we need disasters like this to show people. Some people don't believe in climate warming - like those who don't believe there was a Holocaust."

(http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3027440/Exclusive-Paul-McCartney-chat.html)

Now I'd like to address the first part, first. I'm not saying the oil spill isn't bad, I think it's terrible and I don't like seeing the pictures of baking pelicans anymore than anyone else. But come on Paul, the oil spill is because of global warming? What, did global warming bake the brains of the people who rushed the job and didn't do all the necessary procedures to stop a disaster beforehand? It really bums me out when great musicians are mentally retarded.

Look! It's Falling From The Sky! Damn Global Warming!

But the second part, while not as stupid is still equally as ignorant. There is clear proof that the Holocaust existed. There is not clear proof that global warming exists. That is why there are still a large number of scientists who do not believe it exists. There can be compelling examples that both sides can bring to the table - but the fact of the matter is - it's not proven, and as time goes on it's getting less and less clear.

But in all honesty, the worst part of the quote was that he pulled the 'Nazi Card'. I am sooo tired of all sides pulling the damn Nazi card. Stop equating everyone that does not believe in your views to Nazis or relating it to the holocaust or anything Hitler, Third Reich, or little upper-lip mustache related. If you have at least something remotely correlating or can at least draw a reasonable resemblance, well then you would at least not be pulling it out of thin air, although you would still be standing on thin ice.

Clearly this is the right way to go.

Unfortunately for our environment, most eco-friendly spokespeople end up looking like retarded idiots who want you to pay an addition 5 bucks for that lemon because it's organic, want to fine you 50 bucks because you don't recycle all the paper that goes through your house and don't understand why someone with 5 kids can't fit into a honda civic instead of their big 'evil' SUV.

As mandated by FEMA this is Jon & Kate Gosselin's new vehicle.

You're making people hate anything that sounds like it might be eco-friendly, because they associate it with you. So cut it out or I'm going to wipe my ass with your curtains to save toilet paper.

End of Musing No. 13

Smart Idea #516 - This One Hurt Me, lol.

Musing No. 12 - The Way To Win The Uphill Battle

Turning positive into negative. The age old quest of mankind's history. How do you take crap and turn into lemonade? Well you don't. Crap would make terrible lemonade. You use the crap to rise above.

Seeing the positive, through the negative.

Don't bother with the fact that all our politicians seem to hate people who actually make something of themselves. That will be wore as a badge of courage once you get there. So you've swam through the river of monkey feces, what now? There appeared from back there to be a nice field of flowers back there from down this yellow brick road, but now I am seeing that I am only getting drudged down and quite wore out and sleepy from this march.

What Life Looked Like from Afar...

The key to success is not quitting. Look through-out your own life. You see quitters everywhere - working at McDonalds, gas stations, people who have been working the same dead-end job at a mall clothing shop or at customer service center for years and always talk of going up - but never do. Here's a nugget - Your ambition can take you farther than your actual talent can. If you have the drive to succeed, you will zoom past many people who have the talent to succeed but aren't trying. That's just a fact of life.

What Life Ended Up Being - An Uphill Battle

Look at the story of Donald Trump. Now, many people may not like Trump, because he's 'too rich' or because he's 'too arrogant' but you have to take a different approach to rich people like him. Someday you aim to be successful, right? So why attack the people who have achieved what you are trying to? Sure, there are many rich people who inherited and just waste it and leach off of their parents like Nicole Richie or others like her. But people like Donald Trump, Warren Buffet and Robert Kiyosaki pulled themselves up from the ground - and that's what you are aiming to do. Don't put them down - learn from them.

If he can't be successful, no one can.

So back to my point. Look at the story of Donald Trump. Trump is a man who see's what he wants and goes after it. Trump is a man who has been up and down many times. He is a man who has declared bankruptcy more than once in his lifetime, has seen his share of struggles and yet each time he falls - he flies even higher. So how does he do it? Here's a quote from Trump that sums it all up: "I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big."

You have to think to the next step. There are two great advantages for doing this:

First, Thinking big and thinking beyond your current step gives you something to look forward to. Yes yes, this step may suck. Working up from the bottom always does. But when you get past this step - look at what you have to look forward to. Look at what you have coming up next. Thinking big shows you more of the big picture when the small details depress you to no end. And that leads us to point number 2.

Second, Thinking big let's you picture where your current step falls in the overall scheme of things and helps you align it with your overall goals. It is easy to get so focused on the current step that you forget about the provisions for the next steps. Don't burn your bridges until you know you won't need them! Thinking big will allow you to see the big picture and put your current locale into an overall plan. Planning ahead is also a great way to not rush the steps - as each step is important, and since you are on the bottom - you are building your future's foundation. Remember that when trying to jump ahead - you may fly high and far, but if you don't build these foundations first, your future will fall.

Looks pretty, don't it? Don't breath to hard...

Though this time may suck and you may be feeling down - develop a plan and realize that this is only a step in that plan. Every good plan has multiple steps, and every step brings you closer to success.

End of Musing No. 12

Musing No. 11 - Option 3 through Number 2

Remember when this world was your berry for the picking? Remember when the world was your oyster, with pearls begging to be plundered? If you've lived long enough, chances are that your views of the world have changed since those innocent beginnings. Reality is a unwelcome arrival - much like waking from a restful sleep to a gun barrel in your face can ruin your morning and alter the liquid content of your bed sheets and undergarments. Regardless, reality is something we all must face at one time or another.

Haha, suckers - my sheets are already yellow.

For the pessimists this is a simple feat to accomplish. It doesn't really change things for them, they just now have confirmation of their suspicions that the world sucks, and can't get too much more depressed than they already are. Realists take it in stride, as they already knew as much so they've had time to deal with it before the rest of us. Surprisingly the optimists many times take it the hardest, and often join the ranks of the pessimists - as much of their ability to fly rode on the bubble that just burst.

Isn't that a weird picture? I forgot why it was relevant now...

I would say that I probably fall into the Realist category, as I just see a glass and don't really care if it's half empty or half full as long as there's still something left in it for me to drink. (Ok so I'm a selfish realist...no one's perfect)

But what do you do after reality hits? Your golden dreams and plans are suddenly quite a bit harder than you had originally anticipated. The yellow brick road is suddenly piled with monkey feces and you don't remember that part from the book. (Flying monkeys have a great deal more bowel movements than pigeons)

My photoshopping resume just hit a low-point.

Well, you have three options:

Option 1 - Stop there, and find solace in the fact that you are on the yellow brick road, (even though you are no longer moving on it). Yellow is really a nice color, let's stare at it awhile.

Option 2 - Try to find a way around it. Sure that sign says 'Evil Talking Trees' followed by 'Witch's Castle' but I'm sure I can find a short cut. And I'll have the trees to have nice conversations with along the way.

Option 3 - Jump into the monkey shit. Anything can be swam through - just ask Andy Dufresne.

Get busy livin, or get busy dyin.

If you chose option 3, Congratulations - you're not stupid and you have a wonderful musky aroma you should remember to wash off once you reach the Emerald City. If you chose option 1 or 2 - enjoy working for Option 3'ers.

Yes you will have to go through obstacles to get to your dream. If it was easy everyone would have done it and it wouldn't be something worth dreaming about. And yes - It sucks. It sucks real bad. You can't see what's ahead, you're trying not to breath in and you promise God never to look down upon a hobo who smells funny again if he can please send Moses down to perform a Brown Sea encore. But you know it must be done.

Look what you did now, you damn dirty apes...

Just ask any man who's ever made anything of himself, and he will tell you that Armani suits feel just as good stained brown and that a dry-cleaning bill is much more rewarding than a welfare check. If you ever plan on getting ahead in life, plan on smelling like crap for awhile - but remember that it's only for a season. This too, shall pass.

End of Musing No. 11

Smart Idea #485 - We're Really On A Roll Here....

Musing No. 8 - It May Become An Epidemic

I've been reminded lately of who I am.

What exactly do I mean?

You have to know who you are. And you have to know it, not base it on anything else. You can't base it on people that you think are your friends. You can't base it on popular opinion. It's not a puffed-up pride, that you think you are always right about everything. But you are the only one who can truly be right about who you are.

If you don't know who you are, your perception of your self image will change with every blowing of the wind. If you don't know who you are - friends, surroundings, hard times - anything and everything will change who you are. I am sad to say, I have a few friends that this describes perfectly. They change every time they feel bad, they change every time they hang around one friend for any particular amount of time, they change every time they have turmoil in their life. They are just a leaf, blown by the wind.

Now, I am a religion-hating God lover, and I say this because by definition I am a christian, but I share very little traits with most christians I know - so I like to avoid the label. Most Christian's self image is very loose, as it is usually based off of a moral code presented by a minister. The problem with this scenario is that, instead of God being a foundation in their life and self-worth, that minister becomes the mirror holder. And when that minister says something that is not of God, well they have already given that minister their mirror - not God, so they follow where the minister takes the mirror, in whichever way they choose to twist or distort it. At this point - the minister is setting their self-worth, and has complete control of them.

I'm gonna eat you.

Don't get me wrong, this is done with more than just minsters. Many people's sheeplike following of the Obama movement is incredibly similar. Or people's following of rockstars, movie stars - you name it. When you base yourself on what someone else says, you no longer exist - you have become a mannequin.

Self worth is a big problem in today's world. And it affects all walks of life. From the severe breakdowns in the public limelight - like those of Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan - to the big business man who gets hurt every time someone attacks him for making the money he earned at his job - to the everyday man who so desperately wants people to like him - to the girl who buys magazines of what she is told are beautiful women, and develops eating disorders or cutting herself to cope. If you don't have your own self-worth, you will be miserable.

Now to many, this sounds prideful. "Your ego is so huge, that you don't care what anyone says about you. You don't even care when others try to correct you." This has been said to me. And you know what? Aside from the ego part, that's partly true. I am who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am, I accept who I am, and I know very well that I have flaws. But I also know that the moment I let someone else's opinion shape me, that is the moment I have lost myself. That is the moment I cease to be relevant to anyone.

Yay! Now I'm teachable!

There is a difference between being teachable, and being a ball of mush. I don't claim to know everything about anything. I know that there is plenty that I don't know. But one thing I do know - I know who I am. You can teach me a million things about a million things - but I promise you, you don't know more about me than I do.

My opinions, however mean or evil some people may think they are, are at the end of the day - actually MY opinions. They did not spout from some newspaper, tv show or comedian. They did not spur from what someone else told me I should think, they are what I formed myself. Your own opinions are worth more than a thousand repeater's opinions. Your actual opinions, what your thinking mind came up with yourself, are more valuable than every robot's opinions in the world.

Hey!

People are so tied up in wanting to be liked, that they lose who they are. They taylor their opinions to their audience. They craft their words to please people. And they are faker than Milli Vannelli's 'live' performances. And because of this - their opinions are worthless.

If you are fake or people pleasing - I do not respect you one iota. Let's just get that out of the way right now. Fake answers in the hope of 'peace' will get you nowhere with me. I would much more appreciate a severely opposing viewpoint - but one that you actually hold and came to yourself, than a fake all-out agreement.

I would like to encourage all the rebels out there that dare to have their own thought every once in awhile - that you are heading in the right direction. You need to figure out who you are, for yourself, and I promise you, your life will be so much happier than anything you have ever felt before.

I've been reminded lately of who I am. It may become an epidemic.

End of Musing No. 8

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Boredom

Musing No. 1 - The Point Has Been Missed

So I have alot of friends in christian music, which is a very interesting market indeed. I prefer regular, what is considered 'secular' music by the christian market, but that is because for every 10 bands that are big in the christian market, only 1 out of that is actually good. So it's alot of crap to wade through.

But I am impressed at how un-lame many christian artists are looking these days. Many of the christian lynch-mob like to say that tattoos, wearing clothing with skulls or dragons, getting piercings and such things, excessive make-up (for guys or girls), sexually attractive clothing, goth-looking hair and other such things are trying to look like the world, and therefore somehow wandering from God.

The Becoming

My view is much different than this. I am, by trade a marketing expert as well as musician. Now, sure, those things are different than what christians generally look like - but if you actually have a message that you want anyone outside of the christian market to hear, should you be only marketing yourself TO the christian market? Now if you are just making music for christians, or as I like to say - Reaching millions of Christians for Christ - then by all means, follow the christiany stereotype. But if you are reaching out of the body, like we assume that God meant when he said 'Go into all the world' then maybe you should try to market your message to them.

Showbread

Basic marketing 101 - if you want a certain group to go for your product, service, message - then market yourselves to them. How hard is that? Apparently very.

As I Lay Dying

I don't want to harp on something that most people clearly will never change on - go ahead Christiany guys, just stay irrelevant and watch your empire tumble. I do want to give an atta-boy to the bands with the great messages who have gotten ahold of the concept of 'IN but not OF.' You can be there, you can look like, but your origins are different. Your origins are going to show in your actions not in what you look like.

End of Musing No.1
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