idle thoughts

it has been more than a few days since my last contract ended and unfortunately i haven't started back to work yet. i do know that the economy is still in recovery mode and sadly that does have an effect on my employ.

the meeting that i had, almost two weeks ago, was for a year-long contract position. they were interested in filling the position quickly and since so much time has past since my meeting i am going forward with the impression that they gave the contract to another artist.

i have noticed over the years is that in any sort of interview setting i do not shine. i am not sure exactly what it is that i do 'wrong' i can only imagine that it to do with my lack of self-confidence and my inability to 'sell' myself. i do so much better in situations where i can go in knowing that i have a definitive time frame be it a couple days, a few weeks or a few months. in those situations i just go in and do the work and the client usually ends up being very pleased. that is why i generally end up staying past the expected end date.

the down side is that the more time that passes between contracts the less likely i am to 'wow' anyone during an future interview type settings.

while i do believe everything happens for a reason and while i am confident that my last contract ended because there was something better on the horizon i will admit to being more than a little nervous about exactly when the horizon will get here.

patience has never been my strong suit.

stickin' my head in the sand

i don't frequently read the newspaper but while for the microwave i flipped one open. the first headline i read was something about the biebs showing his ass. how is this news? the little #@%$ is so pale and scrawny how can you even tell if he's ass-out?

we live in a society that is full of  'apps,' some that will locate your favourite coffee establishments, some that track local traffic, some that connect directly to social media sites and take the challenge out of stalking... frankly the list is endless. well i have proposed the development of an app before and i am convinced now more than ever that there needs to be an app through which one could edit their news feeds.

i would happily exist in a world where i would not hear news of: either justin, gaga, any jersey shore cast mate, chris brown, rihanna, kanye and tiger woods and that is just a quick few off the top of my head. i am sure you have a list of your own. now i understand that although i think anything those people do or say is of no value whatsoever, i do recognize that there are people out there who do not share my opinion. they might even be glued to the news media in order to learn such vital bits of information as what ply t.p. the biebs likes to use to wipe his ass. in order to gather the answers to these and other questions of 'interest' the need for mercenary paparazzi remains. those 'wonderful' group of individuals willing to dive into the roadway in order to grab that all important shot of yet another hollywood starlet who can neither keep their knees together nor their underwear on.

i just think the world would be a better place if we could direct 'news' to the people who'd most appreciate it. so in my world the t.p. ply news story, for example, would hit the news wire and immediately be shared worldwide but before being displayed on my computer any 'news' dealing with the biebs would instantly be deleted. thus my new experience is far more pleasant one. as well i can perhaps hang on to a few more i.q. points. trust me when i tell you i am not in the position to risk losing anymore.

will somebody write the ostrich app please?

nice instead of naughty

most times i will post on facebook or the blog about some of the more dangerous or ugly training practices in the gym. i am sure it comes across like i am always inclined to point and laugh. i suspect there are those among you who wonder why i don't try to help. well i do... sometimes.

today i happened to see a guy who trying to teach his buddy how to perform the stiff leg dead lift. however he was teaching him the exercise in a manner that was nothing but a recipe for disaster. incorrect bar travel which put far too much stress on the mid-back. from there things could easily have gone terribly, horribly wrong.

i was hesitant to intervene, not because i wanted to see them injure themselves but rather because it has been my experience that younger males are rarely willing to take my advice. i can only imagine that those guys were receptive because they had earlier watched me dead lift 315lbs for reps.

anyway i did my good dead for the day and although their form was still a bit suspect they weren't likely to blow their backs out. well not today at least.

see, i can be nice.

a whole lotta nothing

there are some days when i just don't have anything to say, oddly enough it is not like there is a big empty vacuum inside my head. in fact it can be quite the opposite. imagine if you will, that the inside of my head is like a squash court. picture a handful of subjects, each subject represented by a super ball. wind up like a major league picture and fire the super balls at the nearest wall and then get the hell out of the way. that my friends is the best way to describe what is currently going on betwixt my ears.

i am going to give myself extra cool points for working the word 'betwixt' into today's post. i think it takes a special kind of insanity to go from super ball imagery to a word like 'betwixt' without losing a beat or pulling a muscle.

further who would have thought i could have go on for three whole paragraphs about nothing. hopefully you didn't invest too much time reading this post since i have no way of giving you your four and a half minutes back. perhaps you could put it on my tab and i will owe you all a real blog at a later date?

after all people, they can't all be winners.

why do i always see the weird stuff?

after my workout i went into the area where the women's washroom stalls are. now you need to understand that to get to the stalls you actually have to walk through the locker room. the locker room is equipped with benches, lockers, mirrors and even chairs. so perhaps you can understand my surprise when i walk into the washroom and there is a woman standing there in a bra and workout pants. all of her clothing is spread out on the counter and she had more stuff littered in the handicap stall.

it was obvious to me that she was using the handicap stall to change. okay i get that, some women are not comfortable changing in front of others. yet why she was half dressed in the middle of the washroom area is a mystery to me.

i went into a stall to take care of business and when i came back out she was fully dressed, she had most of her belongings packed away and she was using the counter like a ballet barre to stretch on.

gym noobies are some weird ass folk, i won't lie.

love will keep us together

i frequently use my blog as a platform to share all of the high's and low's in my life. sometimes i am hesitant to share something online for fear that it might somehow jinx it. that is the only reason why i haven't shared this important piece of news.

i am in love. i know i am almost as shocked to say it as you are to read it but i guess as mom always said "every pot has its lid, every hoe has it's stick of bush." first of all i have only ever heard that said with a jamaican patois and somehow that makes it sound like it makes a bit more sense. also that sentence refers to the garden implement and not the woman of questionable moral character but i digress.

his name is casper. actually because it is important i get this right i am going to break form with my usual disregard for capitalization. his name is Casper DeLusion. we have been together for a couple of months and so far it is the best relationship i have ever had. he fits into my world so seamlessly it is almost like he isn't even there.

we met in the gym and i have to be honest it wasn't those tired, 'see each other from across a crowded squat rack' type hallmark moment. he was polite and well mannered, hell i honestly thought he wanted to know how many sets i had left.

he has such a wonderful sense of humour and a kind soul. i can tell you that i knew that, from that very first day we met, in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. oh you know that old story, two people intent on grabbing groceries and they both simultaneously reach for the exact same package of oatmeal.

he is devoted to his family, he is such a fine and upstanding man. it also doesn't hurt that he is hot as hell. i am ashamed to admit that one of the first things i noticed about casper. that first day we met, at the local gas station, i was stunned by how freaking fine he looked when he climbed off that gixxer and peeled of his shoei helmet. i took one look at the man and i said 'damn!'

anyway it has been a year and a half that casper and i have been together. i tell you folks i really don't want to jinx this relationship but i am sure it is only a matter of time before we get married. i can totally see a destination wedding in my future. i would really love to marry him on the same carnival cruise ship where we met six months ago.

Casper DeLusion, the only man ever who could really share my life.

love you baby

manti te'o hoax

day thirty

once again i have challenged myself to thirty days of writing and once again i have come out the victor. i wasn't always proud of what i wrote but i am proud that i wrote every day. the challenge now will be to keep on developing this story at what i hope is a far more realistic pace. since my current off-days at the gym are mondays and thursdays those will be the nights that i will attempt to write. i hope that i will stick to my new timetable without the necessity of a challenge.

i finished the challenge with an addition of 200 words.

day twenty-nine

well i have yet to hear anything with regard to the meeting i had on friday. the agency seemed to think that we would have heard something today. so is no news good news? or has the client opted to go with another production artist? i don't know and i won't know anytime soon.

in the mean time i do have a couple days work so tomorrow morning i will be heading downtown. so at the very least i am thankful for that.

i was not anticipating a very productive writing day due to my concerns with my employment situation but i surprised myself with an addition of 225 words.

day twenty-eight

i gave it the old college try but the words refused to come today. a bit of a let down since the words were coming faster than i could get them down yesterday. but i have to assume that days like today are going to happen. who knows maybe tomorrow will be better.

i gotta get me some real sleep. my sleep pattern has been for sh!t the past few nights. getting up 'early' to listen to the lady vols basketball game didn't help either.

the workout today was pretty good. i think i am in a pretty good position to attempt to rep out 315 lbs next week. the following week i will step back the intensity, i still want to get at least 315 off the floor but for only about five reps. the week after that i will lift everything for three reps and see how high i can go. here's hoping i hit a p.r.

btw i am changing my training week. i've come to the realization that i need to change my off days. the x-rep protocol was designed around five concurrent training days. i should have modified my training days when i abandoned the protocol but i forgot. i am making the switch now and to that end i will be back at the gym after a single days rest. i will train tuesday, wednesday, rest again and then back to the gym on friday, saturday and sunday.

125 words.

day twenty-seven

time really does fly when your having fun. it is hard for me to realize that i have been at this for twenty-seven days. the other thing that is interesting is how some days i struggle to find words and other days i am like a word faucet that some one forgot to turn off. i am happy to report that today i was more like the faucet spewing out about 500 words. yeah you heard me correctly 500 of those bad boys.

today was a fairly busy saturday and i am impressed that i got everything done. i was sure that i was going to end up curled in the fetal position sleeping in a corner somewhere. but i made it through the day like a champ without need for a coffee i.v.

it was my leg day today too. i can tell you i was worried going in to train feeling the way i did. i was terrified that i'd nod off mid-squat and get buried by the weights. or worse because i was so tired that i'd have the raw strength of a colicky toddler. now while i didn't set any personal bests i did get it done.

so perhaps for today that is enough.

day twenty-six

cross your proverbial fingers. the meeting that i had today, the one that required the recent fury of portfolio activity, i feel as though the meeting went well. with any luck there will be a short respite between gigs. lord knows my finances would appreciate that greatly.

have i told you lately that my mother, the woman who gave me life, makes me infinitely crazy at times? i think i mentioned before that my mother's hearing has become compromised in her advanced years. or more succinctly she is as deaf as a stump in her right ear. she was told that she needs a hearing aid in that ear and she bought one several years ago. i am sure i've shared this story. she stopped wearing it because she said that it didn't fit properly and it would often slip out of her ear. rather than see someone to get the fitting issue corrected she opted to store the hearing aid in a box in her drawer. she chose that option because she was afraid of losing the aid and it had been a very expensive purchase.

flash forward to the latter part of 2012. my mother gets another hearing test and she is told in no uncertain terms she needs to wear an aid. there is another fitting and this time she is told there is something unusual about her ear canal and the units that fit within the canal are never going to work for her. she buys  unit that hooks over the top of her ear with a very thin clear plastic hook, the rest of the unit slips unobtrusively into the ear canal. for a hot minute my mother wore the device and suddenly the television volume no longer needed to be set to decibel level akin to a fighter plane during a fly-by.

little by little i've noticed that i have been repeating myself again. and that i can follow along with the program shown on the television in the living room, from the other side of the house. yep, you guessed it, mom has decided to stop wearing her aid again. the first time i called her on it, she explained to me that she didn't need it because she was in the house and she wasn't going anywhere. this of course was after i had to repeat myself several times.

rather than succumb to the urge to turn her over my knee, i have come up with another option. if we are talking and she can't hear me i will happily to repeat myself if her aid in. however if she isn't wearing it i have not intention of repeating myself. i figure if she wants to hear me, she needs to wear the unit, if she chooses not to wear it then clearly she doesn't want to hear me.

we have had a couple stand-offs since then. i've said something and she has asked me to repeat myself. i gave her a hard look and then she giggled like a school girl and admitted to not wearing her aid. she asked me to repeat myself again and i just shook my head and walked away.

*sigh

oh and 150 words

day twenty-five

wow look at that five more days and my challenge is complete.

if there was a downside to this challenge it would be that the story veered completely away from my outline. almost as though the story had a mind of its own. is that necessarily a bad thing? that would depend on my ability to corral this stubborn tale and get it back in line. the main purpose of this challenge was to ensure that i wrote every day so it may turn out that i end up with the story and its prequel. which might not necessarily be a bad thing.

it was a pretty busy day today. i did not go to work and i spent almost the entire day at home in front of my computer. i had to update my resume and try to pull my portfolio back together. one of the downsides of going from one extended contract to another is you tend to let the portfolio slide. suddenly you have an immediate need for one and you practically have to stand on your head to get it done in time.

250 words. the lady vols are not 12-3 for the season and 3-0 in SEC play. go lady vols!!!

i'd love to stay and chat but i am still working on my gabby douglas impression.

day twenty-four

today's blog is brought to you by the word 'awkward.' there is really not other way to describe my last two days at work.

yesterday i was informed of the change in my contract status at noon. an hour later there was a team meeting about who felt they required further training of the new proprietary software. the senior staff member who chaired the meeting, called me up in front of everyone to ask if i felt i required further training. as you can imagine i was taken aback. i mean who spends time training some one who is leaving the next day? i really wasn't sure how to answer him and to make matters worse he started giving me attitude since i was hesitant to commit. i asked to speak to him privately, turns out he had yet to be informed of my employment status.

fast forward to today. the next employee down in that command chain is responsible for distributing assignments. after an hour and a half into my shift i hadn't nothing left to work on. i knew that if she hadn't been informed she is going to encourage me to start a new page. as the low 'man' on the totem pole i am the first artist interrupted to work on last minute rush projects. the new work flow does not easily lend itself to passing incomplete assignments between artists.

long story short, she had yet to be informed of my status. they were busy putting out other fires to tell her and they wanted me to sit tight until they could. i was surfing the internet while ever one around me was tearing their hair out from the workload. a good thirty minutes had later and she notices that i idle she tells me that she, "needs to find me a page to work on." an hour into my surf-athon she came up to offer an apology as she has just been told.

i spent close to an hour and a half pounding the pooch before i got something to do. after i finished it i had another two hours of idle time before i packed up my lamp and left.

gad-freaking-zoooks!!!

on the word front i banged out 275 words tonight. i killed it!!

day twenty-three

well i knew the day would come. as a contract employee it is inevitable although usually there is a little notice. either there is extended periods of idle time or you physically reach the end of the project.

curiously we have been extremely busy. the work flow was recently redesigned a new programs was introduced that runs in conjunction with a proprietary application. the learning curve both on our side and the end clients side impacted the production and things were decidedly behind schedule. which is why i was so caught off guard today. my placement agency called to tell me that their client was done with my services, as of end of day tomorrow.

it is either an unfortunate turn of events or an opportunity not yet discovered, only time will tell. all that i know is that i was told to expect the assignment to last between 1-5 months. i would have been two years if i had lasted another four months.

the company changed during that time period and i wasn't as happy as i was before the buy out. and i definitely will not miss the games their payroll department like to play with my pay.

even though my overall mood is positive i find i am still pretty distracted. so i was really only good for about 75 words today.

perhaps tomorrow will be a better day?

day twenty-two

well i am amazed how well it went at the gym this evening. there was heavy traffic, which i expected and there was a sea of new faces which i also expected. i didn't have to wait for a single piece of equipment which was all kinds of awesome. so wasn't a whole lot of time left over to play, 'what in the sam hell is he/she doin?'

today was back day which meant it was my day to dead lift. you may remember that i was constantly tearing the crap out of my right leg? well i am happy to report that in the past two weeks i have managed to keep from re-opening that spot. it may actually have the opportunity to heal. my left leg however was not as fortuitous. as i blog i am sitting here sporting a brand new band-aid. since i left the phone in the locker today there are no new bloody shin pics to add to my collection.

guys dig scars i tell ya!!!

and before i forget i added 200 words today.

day twenty-one

i was distracted today. i am not sure why. i planned my day out pretty well and left myself plenty of time to right. i just couldn't seem to get into much of a flow this evening. so although i added another 150 words they really weren't some of my best. perhaps it is time to focus on another part of the story??

there is a woman at the gym who makes me crazy. one of the complaints most often heard by gym staff, of which i used to be, is that the machines are frequently loaded down with the big plates and a lot of female members are unable to de-load the machines to use them.

i think we can all agree that the imbeciles who load up the machines and walk away and leave them fully loaded are total ass hats. i believe doing that is as ignorant as the aforementioned female member who takes a stability ball and a mat into the change room. she lays out on the mat in the middle of the room and she flails the stability ball over head. now don't try to tell me that she is 'doing abs', i've been in the change room. yes she is passing the ball from between her feet to her hands and back. but the way she does it... it is all flail and no ab.

she gets up. has her shower. empties her locker and leaves the ball and mat on the floor in the middle of the locker room. every. freaking. time.

if you ask me, there is no difference between her doing that and the jugheads who leave the equipment loaded.

/end of rant.

day twenty

i guess you could say that i am into the home stretch now.

i was feeling out of sorts around 5:00 p.m. and i laid down for a quick nap, several hours later i was struggling to regain coherence. i was up, i was moving but i was not awake. after a couple of hours had passed and i was still vertical but just barely. with my head full of cotton and my eyelids held up by a handful of toothpicks the last thing i expected to be able to do was punch out another 275 words. but that is waht i did.

what i didn't do today was go to the gym. today ends up being an off day. there is no way i could train legs today without killing myself. tomorrow will be leg day and i will just have to go in monday for back.

monday night in the gym in january... ack! when the club is full of new year's resolutioners... Ack! clearly i am punishing myself. i do not take slacking off lightly.

day nineteen

i'd love to tell you about the dude at the gym who spontaneously started salsa dancing. i always have my mp3 player playing, with the volume as loud as i can get it, so i don't know if there was any latin music playing. it is highly possible that there wasn't as it is that time of year when the crazy just happens.

it is 11:40 p.m. and i had to stop writing for the night. i was on a roll so stopping mid-flow was kind of difficult but i was in danger of missing my deadline.

i added 300 words today and i am very pleased with what i accomplished.

day eighteen

well the next couple of thursday's are going to be quite the challenge, pun intended.

i need to get out of work as close to on time as humanly possible and as busy as we are that won't be easy. i will need to go straight to the gym to get through my hamstring workout so that i can be at home before the lady vols 9:00 p.m. tip-off.

it takes two hours to play a basketball assuming that the game does not go into extra time. which mean that i need to write while i am listening to the games. there isn't much time after the game ends to work on my story, write a blog post and then update my facebook before the midnight deadline

anyway the lady vols won and i managed a scant 75 words.

day seventeen

there was a smattering of words added to the story today. merely 100 of them. mostly because of  a lack of time. i had to work late which meant i got to the gym late which ensured that i got back home late and there wasn't a lot of time to write before 'chicago fire'. i really only watch about one or two shows a season. i felt season seven of dexter was a big let down but this new show has me hooked.

if you were on my facebook page today you would know that i went off on a tear about chris brown and rihanna.

here is what i don't understand. he beat the sh!t out of her, it was reported she had bite marks on her face. he left her injured and bleeding at the side of the road. when that news story broke, when the pictures of her injuries leaked over the internet i was disgusted and i was angry. i wanted to beat on chris brown like he stole something from me. perhaps my reaction, since i don't even know rihanna, was a tad excessive but for as long as i can remember, i get really hot when i hear about abused women.

i was never a huge chris brown fan but after that story broke i avoided his music, movies and televised appearances. the more money he makes for his handlers the more of his sh!t they'll sweep under the carpet.

but then it came out that she went back to him. i know it happens but i can't fathom it. it didn't happen to me and i am still angry... years later. well i wasn't a big rhianna fan but when they started showing pics of the happy couple i tried my best to ignore all of the coverage. then to my shock and surprise my social media time lines are flooded with people swooning over the fact that love has survived. love? really?

and god forbid anyone bring up the assault. those people were demanding that the rest of us 'stay out of' the lovebirds business. i am really not sure how those people justify gleaming over the assault and the horror of the attack. i can only assume that it is because they think he's 'cute'. i understand that jeffrey dahmer was considered to be an attractive man, so clearly evil doesn't necessarily have to be wrapped in an ugly sandwich.

so what brought on today's melt-down? this morning on my yahoo news feed the lead 'story' was that chris brown and rihanna had tweeted pics, that showed they spent new year's together in bed.

i ask you, is it just me?