Polarity

Wow. A firestorm kind of went off in the comments section on that last post.

Okay, not really. But it is fair to say that it wandered into territory that I didn't intend it to. All that conservative vs liberal stuff.

And I was then asked to do a post about "liberal" vs "conservative." And to a certain degree I am somewhat inspired to do so, and to a certain degree I would rather write about almost anything else.

Why is that?

Because it's all opinion. There is no FACT associated with liberalness or conservativeness. So I could write till the cows come home about what I consider being "liberal" or being "conservative" to mean, and you could then tell me that I'm full of crap. And refute every one of my statements. And neither of us would be inherently "wrong."

So, I have decided that I hate the terms "liberal" and "conservative." And that I need to come up with better terms for things, because L and C are just too slippery and can be made to mean anything that you want them to.

Case in point -- a friend on Facebook had this as her status recently: "Silly liberal, paychecks are for jobs." What's she insinuating here? Clearly what she's saying is that liberals are people who believe that people should be allowed to stay on welfare programs indefinitely.

Well, that means I am not a liberal, I guess. Because I don't think that.

So, the follow up comments to her status from her fellow non-liberals: "but how else will they buy crack?" and "I dunno. By breaking into my car, stealing my stereo and selling it to a pawn shop?"

And suddenly, I'm not on the trolley anymore. I guess I'm just naive because I don't think that someone who is on welfare is necessarily also a crack addict and a car stereo thief.

So I guess that means that I'm not a conservative either.

In either of these cases, I think that the L and C labels are being misapplied. Yet, others plainly disagree with me.

I have to admit, I am stumped. Other than to say that I think that from this point forward, I am going to have to avoid political labeling - conservative, liberal, progressive, communistic, socialist, fascist - it's all a load of rhetorical crap.

I have lost my way in this post. I don't really know what the heck I am trying to say, other than to say that polarizing words like "conservative" and "liberal" seem to be engineered to divide people into groups, and as far as I can tell, I don't want to do that. I want to deal with individuals, and be dealt with as an individual. Which is really hard to do.

Really hard.

The Narrow Bridge

In this day and age, I still don't know why they still have one lane bridges. It probably helps to know that this particular one lane bridge is adjacent to an old mill of some sort that no longer functions (unless decay is a function), an old train station to which the tracks were pulled up years ago, and a post office that does not have any mail trucks. In this town, to get your mail, you are required to not just leave the house, but in most cases, leave your street.

In other words, this bridge is a symbol. A symbol of a time that some people, particularly conservative people, desperately cling to, assuming it was a better time, conveniently forgetting that in those "simpler" times, people around them were being crippled by Polio.

The problem with this bridge is not so much that it is narrow or that it is a symbol. It's that there seems to be no clear cut consensus as to what the proper protocol should be when there are cars stacked up on each side waiting their turn to get across. As only one car can fit at a time, width wise, two way traffic is not generally feasible without converting us all to SmartCars.

There are those who are certain that the proper protocol is one car north - one car south - one car north - one car south. Then there are those who think that the proper protocol is two to four cars north - two to four cars south, etc. And then there are those who, thinking like a traffic light, think it should be a whole long line of cars north - a whole long line of cars south.

I won't tell you which camp I'm in. I did try to Google whether there is some official right of way law regarding one-lane bridges, but didn't find any that were definitively applicable outside of New Zealand. Of course, I was Googling while walking the dog, and so was a little distracted. I may have missed something.

It happens.

The fact is, I can see merit in all of these approaches, but the first -- the one car alternating in each direction -- seems to be the least efficient of all to me. Yet I know people who are passionate about their beliefs that that is the one right way to go, that it is the only fair way.

And one of those bastards angrily honked at me tonight when I had the abject audacity to insinuate myself onto the bridge right behind another car that was going in the same direction as me. At least he didn't flip me off.

Well, maybe he did, but I didn't see it.

On Our Own Terms

It hasn't happened to me yet. God willing, it never will. But I imagine that few things make a parent feel like a failure quite like learning that one of your children smokes.

I know that both of my parents were incredibly dismayed when I took up the habit during college. Of course, we'll conveniently ignore the fact that both of my parents smoked more than a pack a day themselves. Parents see their culpability acutely enough, without having it pointed out to them.

So perhaps it was unfair of me to suggest to my mother that maybe I was born addicted to nicotine, seeing as she probably smoked while I was in utero.

She didn't appreciate that at all. Even if there may have been a kernel of truth in there.

You have to give them credit though. Once they got over the initial shock of my habit, they managed to walk the delicate line between understanding and wishing I would quit without becoming annoying or cloying.

Heck, for a while, my mom and I smoked the same brand and would regularly bum smokes off each other.

But they always made it clear that they wished I would quit.

I don't remember what started it, but at one point, my father decided that he was ready to quit. And since he wanted me to quit too, he came up with a plan: we would make a bet. We would quit together, and whichever of us smoked first would have to pay the other a decent chunk of money. I would have to pay him $150, and he would have to pay me $500. (I was a college student -- he was a businessman, hence the disparity.)

It was the easiest $500 I ever made, because he didn't last a week. He had a business trip, was alone in a hotel room, and caved. To his credit, he called to tell me almost immediately.

I confess, at the time, I had a bit of an antagonistic relationship with him, and I took this as one more sign that this bet - that I - wasn't all that important to him. I was wrong. I know that now, but at 19, I was riddled with anger and frustration and weltschmertz and was all too happy to have a convenient direction to point it in.

I used that self-righteous anger as justification to start smoking again. Especially when months went by and my dad didn't pay up, further proof that he wasn't serious about it.

Until Thanksgiving day, when he dropped a check in my lap - a well-timed check, as I was on the hook for a $200 pair of glasses.

Of course, I was smoking again by that point. Talk about feeling low.

He knew I was smoking, but he also knew that he caved first. He never heaped excess guilt on me, and in future conversations when I expressed regret, he always told me that he didn't feel like I did anything to feel guilty about, that I had won fair and square.

Still, there are times when I still, to this day, feel like I should give that money back.

Post Script: I stopped smoking about four years later when my wife told me she wouldn't raise kids in a house with a smoker. My father quit smoking around a year ago when his health got to a point where he could see smoking shortening his life in concrete ways.

So, in the end, the spirit of the bet has been upheld by both of us, on our own terms.

These Shoes Were *NOT* Made For Walking

I didn't report on it, but on Tuesday I went on my first bike ride since the accident. Three weeks to the day since I spilled. In the interim, I had taken my bike (for those of you who are into geeky stuff like this, a 1999 Cannondale F600) into my local shop for a tune-up/chain and rear gear cassette replacement.

The bike rode like almost new. It was heavenly. And it felt great being back out on the trail again. Ribs felt terrific. Hadn't lost too much stamina. It was a good ride. I came back muddy and sweaty and flippin' alive!

So, yesterday, I couldn't wait to go again.

About 4 miles into my 14 mile ride, I hit a bump and then heard a loud hissing noise. I had punctured the rear tire. Pretty profoundly from the sound of it.

"I am so glad I remembered to put a spare tube un my pack," I proudly thought as I dismounted and prepared to remove the rear wheel.

I assembled my tools. Tube - check. Tire irons - check. Pump- ....

Ahem. Pump- ....

No check. No pump. And no phone, either.

When I took the bike in for service, I had removed all extraneous stuff from it. And when I got it back, I had failed to put my little trail pump back on the holder.

And I was at best 4 miles from home.

A friend of mine, the friend who actually got me into riding, lives about a mile from where I was stranded. I decided to trudge to his house. Walking along the side of the road pushing a bike, wearing spandex bike pants -- I just don't know how a person can feel more conspicuous or stupid.

I arrived at John's house, but he wasn't home. I tried to find his pump. Cause if I had a pump, I could change the tube and ride home from there. But his pump was locked in the back of his little Honda Element, and I am pretty sure that we're not good enough friends that I could smash his car window without reprisal.

So I left the bike there and walked home. Four or so miles, I think. Along busy roads with no sidewalks. And I was supposed to be gone an hour, and it was already at that one hour point, and I had a child at home alone who didn't know where I was and I had no way of telling him what was going on.

So on I trudged.

If you are not a bicyclist, at this point, I need to tangent a bit. You see, there are many types of pedals you can get for a bicycle. There's your standard flat pedal you get on most bikes. On medium end bikes, you often get the pedals with the toe clips which allow you to pull the pedal up on the backstroke at the same time as pushing down on the fore stroke. But on some bikes, for varying reasons, they have these things called "clipless pedals".

Clipless pedals are actually round brackets, with detachable cleats that click into them. To use them, you need to buy special shoes that you then screw these cleats to. Then when you want to ride, you click your feet, shoes and all, into the pedals. You want to get off, you twist out of the pedal.

For engineering purposes, these shoes are usually quite rigid in the sole. And the heels are often lower than the ball/toe range. Walking in them feels quite strange, but that's generally okay, as they aren't designed for walking -- they are designed for riding.

But on that unscheduled four mile hike, that's what I had.

It was a pleasant night for a walk. And if I had better shoes on and wasn't worried about my kid, it would have been a nice change of pace. I arrived home an hour later than expected, and when I entered the house I said "I'm so sorry I am late," and I explained what had happened.

He looked up at me and asked "You weren't here?"

Can't You See The Real Me?

So there's a little something that has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I won't say that it is exactly the reason you haven't heard from me much lately*, and in fact may only be a very small contributing factor, but still it's there. And this is it. I am really starting to question my whole "anonymous" thing I have going on here.

I think that there are two reasons I have been anonymous in the first place -- 1. I wanted to be able to bitch about clients. If you know who I am, you can probably figure out who my clients are. Or if you are one of them, you can figure out when I am talking about you, even if I am using fake names and stuff. And I would hate to have a bitch session come back and cause harm to my company. 2. There are certain topics that I am pretty two-faced about. In my public life, I toe the party line, but when I ponder these things in my heart, I feel I am not being honest. Politics and religion kind of fall into these categories.

Well, as for the first, I don't really do that much of it anymore. I don't have any problem clients right now, and so don't feel the need to release that tension in this forum. And yeah, I suppose one of my past problem clients could look back through the archive and find all the stuff that I used to write about them, but I don't work for them anymore and they would have to be on one hell of a witch hunt to go to all that trouble.

As for the second... What am I afraid of?

Actually, I can tell you what I am afraid of, honestly. I am afraid of being labeled an apostate. Of being shunned by people that I currently refer to as friends who might be small minded enough to decide not to like me or not to associate with me based on my world view. So, out of fear of that disapproval, I maintain my anonymity.

Pretty chickenshit if you ask me.

People in this world are being killed because they hold world views that are not in the majority opinion (see "Iran"), and I'm worried about a little disapproval?

And let's talk about that supposed disapproval. Assuming for the moment that I think that my opinion is a valid way to look at things, which - oddly - I do, why should I hide what I have to say? And if a person is going to disapprove or shun or whatever the hell else me based on my politics or religious views, are they really people I want to be associated with? Honestly?

Ah. Good question, but... This is not an easily answered question for a guy like me. I am a pleaser. Although I won't blow unnecessary sunshine up your rectal orifice just to get on your good side, I am extremely skilled at finding ways around telling you that you annoy me, that your breath stinks, that you're an asshole. I am a diplomat at heart. I couch all my words with the utmost of caution. I avoid causing offense wherever possible.

And when I slip up and fail (which I do, because I am after all human) I chastise myself for it. And I rarely make that same mistake twice.

Here's the thing. At the end of the day, I'm a little sick of pretending to be someone that I am not. And at times, there is a part of me that wishes that more people who know me in real life knew the real me inside. I do find it interesting that there is an entire class of people I know who know me in real life, but not in certain contexts (i.e., in the confines of my small town) who I am completely unashamed to share this side of me with. For those people, I guess I feel like I am not pressured to keep up appearances. I can be liberal, humanistic, optimistically cynical, what have you without any fear of reprisal.

Of course, if I do this thing that I am contemplating, there will probably have to be a few changes around here. There are some posts in my archives in which I speak about specific people in unflattering terms -- just to vent. If I open the whole thing up to everyone, any post that could be read by someone that I care about that is steeped in hostility toward that person would probably have to be moved to one of my other hiding places. (Perhaps I would create two versions of Niagaran Pebbles -- the public side and the private side?)

You may have an opinion about this. I'd certainly be open to hearing what you have to say, but I suspect that I simply have to probe the depths of my own sense of self to see where I come out on this.



* Honestly, the real reason? I'm exhausted lately. Most nights these days, I'm getting home from work and not even taking the laptop out of the bag. Just don't want to see it. I get my emails on my phone, so if something happens I can respond to it. But my brain is simply ... mushy.

Really??!!

Your car is the size of a shoebox.

And yet, you somehow managed to take up TWO parking places?

Granted, there's not a lot of competition for the spots, but come on... Is this your idea of humor?

Open Letter To All Who Have Responded To My Recent Craig's List Ad

Don't you people know how to READ?!

I think I was pretty clear on a few things.

You must have at least 3 years of experience with this specific content management system. I don't care how many languages you program in, or how many database platforms you have worked with. This is a very specific tool I am working with and I don't have time to wait while you learn how to use the API. If you aren't listing 3 years of experience with this API, you need not apply.

You must be within reasonable proximity to Philadelphia. Okay, this might have been vague, but I am pretty sure that Florida is not within reasonable proximity. Nor is Russia. Nor is Bangalore. I have nothing against offshore developers. I love your prices per hour. But the time difference and lack of face to face accountability makes outsourcing a non-option for me. From experience. I need someone who can occasionally come to the table and meet with the client in person. You can't. Plain and simple.

You must be a programmer with proven hands on experience. I specifically asked that development houses or staffing agencies who are trying to sell their wares or services not contact me. I realize that you may be able to serve our needs, but again, I need someone who can come to the table with me. Also, it is my experience that the better developers contract directly, rather than go through an agency. By the time all the hands take their share, most agency developers are earning half of what a developer outside an agency makes. And a developer who earns more is more gruntled and works harder and better, if the laws of supply and demand are to be believed.

Word to the wise -- I will not hire the willfully ignorant. Likewise, I will not hire anyone who somehow imagines that the criteria I stated somehow do not apply to him/her.

Learn to frikkin' read!