The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for June 2011

The Important Things In Life

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A few short hours ago I carried a sleeping girl to her bed. When I took her out of the car she placed her head on my shoulder and for just a moment I stood under the moon, closed my eyes and listened to her breathe softly. As I stood there I thought about Gilad Shalit’s parents and how agonizing it must be not to know what is happening with their son. Stood there and thought about the protest that is going now and shook my head because it will get so little attention. Terrorists supported by states that are funded by oil dollars that come from the cars we drive.

Slowly walked inside the house, closed my eyes and tried to absorb the moment because I will blink and my almost seven year-old daughter will be 18. Stood inside the doorway and realized that the only home she has ever known will not be ours for much longer. Time is no longer a friend. Instead it has become an adversary.

Moments later I walked out of her room and thought about what I wanted to write about. Inside my mind I could hear Don Henley singing Boys of Summer and a wistful smile graced my lips for just a moment. I really do love this blog and all that comes with it. I love the writing and the interaction. You, the readers make a significant difference here. My fellow bloggers have a significant impact upon my love for this too. But in the midst of this virtual lovefest I need to tell you that comments are not currency. You can’t use them to pay your mortgage or buy your groceries. But some of us go a little crazy trying to coax them out of others.

It is well after midnight and I am wide awake now. Wide awake and wondering about what it is that I do and what it is that I should do.

Sometimes the best writing is that which is pulled out from your heart, the kind that is like bubbling magma. It is painful to read because you just tore out a piece of your heart and the exposure to air is rough.

Spent a little time talking with my son about grades, life, expectations and the future. Wanted to make sure that he understood that grades are not the measure of a person. Wanted to make sure that I am most interested in his learning and not in how well he regurgitates information. Love these conversations with him. There is nothing like getting the chance to hear his thoughts and learn a little bit more about how he thinks. Tried to help prepare him for the changes that are coming sooner than later but there is only so much that I can do to help him bloom where planted.

Technically the days have gotten longer and the nights shorter but it doesn’t feel like that to me. Instead I feel like the hours are racing by at light speed and I fight to keep up. In between the moments I think about the streets of Jerusalem and remember the places I have been and faces of friends no longer here. There is far more to say and not nearly enough time to say it.  So for now I bid you adieu until the morning provides me with a new opportunity to revisit these words. In the interim I am ready for the joy of restoration and rejuvenation as bestowed upon us from a good night’s sleep.

Finding My Voice

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Sometimes I like to imagine that I am using my old Smith-Corona typewriter to compose these posts. Even though it has been years since I last used I can still hear the clickety-clack of the keys as I type and the sound of the ding at the end of the line. If you could see my face I suppose that it would have a sort of bemused look upon it. That is because I know that many of you have never used a typewriter and I expect a bunch haven’t seen one either.

Lately I have had more than a few conversations with bloggers and writers about our writing style and how long it takes to truly find our voice. I often point to this  post as being the point at which I found mine. But I  suppose that I should probably include this one too. They really are sort of a package deal.

And though I look back at those early days and cringe at some of the garbage I produced I smile too. I smile because I see the evidence of the man who I once was preparing for the man to come. I see this growing recognition and realization that writing was special and important to me. I see myself beginning to search for the best ways to share my thoughts and express myself.

But I should add that finding our voice isn’t indicative of a mature voice. I think that is something that develops over time and is part of the evolution of a blog. To me that is important because I see evolution as being part of growth and that is something that I want. I want to continue to learn and to grow as a person. It is something that I consistently ask of my children and consequently something that I must demand of myself.

Just for the heck of it I am going to dig through the archives and share some old posts. This is really more of an exercise for me than reading for you. It is an opportunity that I take periodically to look back at what I have written and evaluate it.

That should be a decent amount to start with. This isn’t a scientific process but it will serve for my purposes. I am curious to tear into these and see if I love or hate them. It should be interesting to look at them and try to determine if they show what I expect or if it will be different. Ultimately I see this as a process that should help strengthen my writing now and there are many benefits that are associated with that.

The Write Words Written Write

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The most frustrating part of burning the candle at both ends is recognition of the negative affect upon my ability to do things that normally come easily to me. More often than not the words flow from my fingertips and land upon the page in an orderly fashion. I try to keep a simple philosophy to produce the write words written write. I am do not strive for complexity, just a beginning, middle and end.

Yet I find that after weeks of trying to live on four hours rest the great brain that is housed between my ears is not so great anymore. That is assuming that it really is there because I sometimes suspect that it was replaced with a cantaloupe or perhaps a colander. In the midst of this fatigue I like to believe that the lack of coherent thought can be easily corrected with a good cup of coffee.

At least that is the theory but in practice there is a legitimate question about whether it works. So I find myself seeking wisdom in the words of Mark Twain who I hold in great esteem. He was a very fine writer and I would be very pleased to one day write as well as he did.

And this my friends is why I love the Internet because I can point and click my way to places that provide the answers that I seek. This link leads to a treasure trove of a writer’s wisdom that makes my heart pound because I see that Twain and I had/have similar struggles in a variety of areas. That is not to say that I consider myself to be capable of creating the same constructs as Twain, but one never knows what can happen.

So I find myself staring at these quotes and trying to decide which to share with you. I stare and wrestle with words wondering which of these will best serve to help illustrate the points that I wish to make. I could provide a summary of his thoughts. I could share his concerns about his writing and how he too wanted the write words written write and how he advised others to write simply. It would be an accurate representation but it wouldn’t have the same impact as providing the quotes themselves so I am pleased to provide a selection of them for you to see.

Well, my book is written–let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn’t be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can’t ever be said. And besides, they would require a library–and a pen warmed up in hell.
– Letter to W. D. Howells, 22 Sept 1889 (referring to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.
– Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1902-1903

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.
– Letter to Emeline Beach, 10 Feb 1868

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
– Letter to D. W. Bowser, 20 March 1880

Blog Tip- Check Your Blog in Different Browsers

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It is 1:30 AM and like a silly fool I am still awake. I have been wrestling with Internet Explorer because for some reason the comment box gets pushed down to the bottom of the page. This is an issue because people who use IE to read my blog sometimes think that there is no way to comment. That is not true but few if any will take the time to try and find the missing comment box.

There are no issues with Chrome or Firefox that I am aware of but it is always worth checking the way your blog looks in different browsers because they aren’t always uniform in how they render the page. It is an important part of trying to maintain a user friendly blog.

I expect to update the blog with something new later today but in the interim I have to get some sleep. Two quick comments before I go. My submission for the Red Dress Club is on my other blog today. It is a piece of Flash Fiction titled The Sea Calls.

If you haven’t entered my giveaway you should look into doing so over here. It is free to enter and the prize is so good I use it every night. As we say in the old country, “Lailah tov.’ See you in five or six hours.

AT&T- A Customer Service Failure

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Dear AT&T,

It is your old friend Jack writing you from the rugged wilderness known as Los Angeles. For the past ten years you have been the provider of my telephone and Internet service and not a year has gone by without some sort of incident. Not one year has gone without a need for a call in to your technical support to ask for assistance with some issue or other.

I dread these calls because I loathe your support. I hate being forced to call low level customer service people who are forced to use a script to try and determine what sort of issues I have.  I know the script. I know that that they are going to ask me what modem I use and what color lights it shows. I know about rebooting it and a dozen other things you’ll ask me to do. So when I call I provide that information up front and if it is requested I will do it again just in case I might have missed something.

But that has yet to be the case because they don’t deviate from the script…ever. So 25 minutes later we reach the point where they ask to put me on a short hold so that they can confer with an associate. That hold is never short and I find it hard not to become irritated because the moment I am late paying you will slap me with a fee but if I bill you for the time you make me waste you will laugh at it.

Sure, I can call back and fight for compensation and I usually get something. But that compensation comes at a price of more time and energy. It is not an easy process and I believe that to be intentional on your part. You’ll say that it is smart business to protect yourself from those who would scam you out of money. I say that you don’t understand or appreciate how valuable our time is.

The net effect here is that I so very much despise having to call you it makes my hair fall out in large clumps. It makes me want to climb on top of the roof and scream “I am as mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!’ Except you know that there are very few options for us to choose from and you leverage that to your advantage.

Yesterday I was forced to call you and I wasted almost two hours with tech support only to learn that I had to have a technician sent out. Did I mention that you told me that the tech would arrive between 8 AM and 8 PM today. Did I mention that when I said that was outrageous your rep told me that you are having a lot of problems and that you service people on a first come, first served basis.

I called you this morning to find out when the tech would arrive and discovered that my ticket had been closed. No one told me. Apparently there was an outage yesterday that affected my line so you decided that you couldn’t fix my problem until the outage was repaired. Well no one told me about the outage or the cancellation. WTF is wrong with you. Who is running things and may I punch them in the throat twice, once just because and the second for…well just because.

After ninety minutes I managed to arrange for a tech to come out…tomorrow because your inferior and incompetent service can’t get to me sooner. And only after much fighting with a manager was I able to secure a more reasonable window of 8-12 than the outrageous 12 hours you tried to stick me with again.

Well good for you AT&T. You should be proud that I am one of the growing number of people who think that you represent everything that is wrong with customer service.