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 2013

I Hurt Myself Today To See If I Still Feel

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"Come, Sit, Tell Me About America..." (#1 of 2 - a set)

My son once asked me if I had a favorite president and I told him I wasn’t sure, but that if I could sit and talk to one I would probably pick Abraham Lincoln or maybe George Washington.

But the truth is that I would really like to speak with many others too, modern and past. I would like to have candid conversations where we would talk about what it was like to be president and how they made their most difficult decisions.

It would be interesting to hear how they did it. You might have a cabinet filled with advisers and smart people but at the end of the day it is you who signs your name to your choices.

Hard Decisions Are Hard For a Reason

Hard decisions are hard for a reason and sometimes it is because you can’t predict or plan for the outcome because you can’t tell what will happen.

You have to walk through the clouds and find out if the ground gives way to a cliff or turns into a hill. Maybe it stays flat and smooth or maybe you find yourself walking through uneven ground filled with cracks and cacti that prick your skin.

And that is where I find myself now, staring off into the fog, wondering what lies on the other side. These are the moments that as a parent are hardest to work with because you are trying to make a choice based upon best interests and good intentions.

Yet good intentions don’t always lead to good outcomes.

Musical Interlude

  1. Hurt– Johnny Cash
  2. Closer– Nine Inch Nails
  3. Breathe- The Prodigy
  4. Institutionalized– Suicidal Tendencies
  5. Kashmir– Led Zeppelin
  6. Ramble On– Led Zeppelin

1 Am But Still Not Asleep

Actually it is 1:30 AM and I am still not asleep but writing brings me closer to it. The thoughts and ideas shared and those left unsaid help to take the edge off and I find myself feeling better.

The kids think I always know what to do and how to make the right decision and I smile because I want them to have that trust in me because it comforts them, but in the quiet of the night I laugh because I don’t always know.

I come here and vent about things that trouble my heart and keep my soul from singing because it is smarter and safer than other choices.

Musical choices share some of the irritation, anger and confusion but always lead to places I find comforting and I slowly unwind.

Presidential Decisions and What Matters

Part of the reason I am awake is because I took close to a three hour nap. It wasn’t intentional, but apparently it was needed so I slept. Must have slept deeply because I am wide awake and I don’t remember a thing about falling asleep.

I wonder if Lincoln and Washington slept like that or if the weight of their choices crept into their silent moments.

Sometimes I wonder about how hard it must be to have every move dissected and turned over a million times. Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to make a decision because you think it was right and then have it blow up in your face on a national or international level.

And I wonder would I feel the same way as I do now.

Because outside of family and some very close friends I rarely care what others think. It seems tedious, troublesome and tiresome to have to measure each move based upon politics.

I always want to make my decisions based upon what really matters and not what will help me get re-elected.

Go To Sleep Jack

Bed calls and I need to answer but part of me is reluctant. The darkness caresses me and I see solutions to some of the more minor issues. I have deadlines to attend to and part of me is ready to start writing because I can feel the words flowing from my fingertips with the sort of ease I am normally accustomed to but have been unable to locate.

If I bang these out I’ll be up for another two hours and the morning will be brutal. But the upside is that I won’t have these things sitting over my head.

Yet the fatigue might really hurt me in the afternoon when I need to be awake.

Sometimes it is really hard to figure out what to do because you can’t easily identify the outcome of your decisions. Sometimes all you can do is make a choice and hope for the best.

Sometimes faith sucks.

No One Hears Your Screams In Cyberspace

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go with the flow

Sunday afternoon I treated myself to a massage. It was a spur of the moment decision so I went to one of those little pop up joints at the mall and paid for a quick twenty minutes.

The woman who led me to the chair told me in broken English that my back is too big for twenty minutes and suggested that I go for longer but I declined.

I already knew that twenty minutes wouldn’t be close to enough time to really work out of the knots but I couldn’t relax for that long.

Sort of a contradiction, but that is how I live my life and most of the time it works for me.

No One Hears You Scream In Cyberspace

Lately I have been slammed, jammed and crammed with work. I walk around tired and feeling like my head is in a fog and push myself to power through it because it is what I do.

I power through it all. Always have and always will.

Saw that Black Hockey Jesus has declared himself a non dad blogger. Read part of his rant about why and saw something about delusional men of limited talent or something like that and laughed.

Most of it looked like gibberish to me, but I haven’t ever been one of his fan boys nor tried to measure myself against him. There are other writers who I think are far superior.

It is sort of nasty to mention him by name and not provide a link but throwing down the gauntlet the way he did and closing comments is sort of a chicken shit move too.

This really isn’t me calling him out or trying to start a flame war, but I just didn’t feel like writing one of those posts where I alluded to someone and didn’t mention them.

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

I read a guest post that ran on one of the “bigger business blogs” and rolled my eyes a bit.

Why?

Because it sounded like a bunch of posts that I have written but I didn’t comment because there is nothing new under the sun. These posts are often derivation upon derivation upon derivation.

He might not have ever read my words before and I wasn’t about to wade in swinging an angry typewriter claiming I had been wronged.

Too tired and  too ambivalent to push for an acknowledgment I might not deserve.

Ultimately I am here for the love of writing.

Deadlines, Assignments and Fatigue

Multiple deadlines and a boatload of assignments are waiting for me to grace them with my tender love and care. It is part of why I am feeling stressed, but not because I can’t handle them.

I just don’t feel like it and I am frustrated because normally I destroy these things. This is not difficult work, it is ordinary and I just need to do it.

I will do it.

That is not rhetoric. I wrote it down because it is how I make myself accountable to me.

And it is how I push and motivate myself.

The keystone in my arch of fatigue is tied into a lack of exercise.

Been several days since I hit the gym. I was concerned that my hamstring might be more than a momentary twinge and took it easy. But taking it easy is hard.

Time Is a Brutal Master

I am not old, not even close but I have pushed my body in so many ways for so many years it doesn’t always bounce back as fast as it once did.

No one beats time or so I have been told. But I have given notice to that brutal son-of-a-bitch that I am never going to stop trying. I’ll just keep looking for different angles.

Nonetheless I stayed away from the gym because I know myself well enough to know that if I went I wouldn’t take it easy. But today I am going because this mental malaise stems from lack of exercise.

I have to sweat or I will begin to scream and bellow. I will blow and it won’t benefit anyone.

So when I stop writing I will put on my shoes and go sweat.

Time to see if the 44 year-old hamstring is going to cooperate or not. Maybe it is a good thing I haven’t found a good basketball game to play in because I wouldn’t have sat on the bench.

The Kind of Father

I want my kids to see me as the kind of father who doesn’t give up in the face of adversity and challenge. I want them to see that dad takes care of himself and that when one solution doesn’t work he searches for another.

I am here because I love to write and because it is part of my mental health.

And now I am gone.

666 Devilish Ways To Murder a Blog(ger)

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Destruction

A torn hamstring isn’t a legitimate reason for shutting down a blog nor is it a good excuse for not visiting other blogs but sometimes things happen and you just don’t manage to do what it is you want to do.

Truth is that I don’t think the hammy is torn but it doesn’t feel right and there is something about it that makes me wonder if there is something truly wrong or if it is in my head. What I do know is that I popped some Ibuprofen and skipped my workout and I rarely if ever do that.

Hate doing that because exercise and writing are my sanity and I will give up visiting other blogs before I give those things up.

Murdering the Blog

Hell, the reality is that while I haven’t completely given up visiting other blogs it is just not happening the way it used to. For a while I blamed it on lack of time and then tonight I tried to blame it on my leg, none of them and both of them are true.

Traffic is slowing down a bit here but that might not have much if anything to do with the lack of reciprocal visits and comments elsewhere. It is summer and things always slow down during summer.

Still I am thinking about whether my current approach is impacting the blog and wondering if it is a big enough problem to be concerned about.

I am staring at this joint lost in thought about the design and wondering if I really am ready and determined to renovate things.

So being of sound mind and body I decide the best way to answer that question is to share some links to posts that you might want to read.

Engagement is Critical

Social media is about people and people are about engagement. If you aren’t engaging on your blog you are potentially making the road are wandering down a tougher one to navigate, depending upon your goals that is.

Mine are mixed.

I like being a dad blogger. I like chronicling the lives of my kids and sharing my thoughts about parenting. I like writing stories and sharing my thoughts about social media.

This place still works for all of those things. It still serves its purpose so the question is what is slowing down the engagement. Some of it is time. I am much busier than I was and have been choosing to use it elsewhere and some of it is my interest in engaging has dropped.

So I compromise by at least trying to read blogs, even if I am not commenting on them. Sometimes I find some very interesting posts to read, but some are not.

I am sure people say the same thing about my blog and I am ok with that.

The Breaking Of The Fellowship

I am not sure why but I am thinking about how I feel every time I read about the breaking of the Fellowship. You know, the part in the Lord of the Rings series where everyone goes their separate ways.

The first time I read it I was really upset. First they lost Gandalf in the Mines of Moria and then they lost each other. Something about it seemed quite sad to me.

Father’s Day was a bit different for me this year. It was the first I have spent without my children and that was…bizarre.

Bizarre because I am not one to make a big deal of these things but sometimes they catch you off guard and this one did.

I saw Man of Steel and geeked it up a bit, thinking about how the story was sort of similar to mine. Kal-El and I both moved from one world int0 a new one and had to make our own way, except that dude got super strength, super speed and the ability to fly.

Something tells me his deal was better.

Anyhoo, I really enjoyed the movie but apparently I am not as big a geek as some of the other fans out there who complained that the movie makers went too far afield with this version.

Sometimes a movie is just a movie.

And Sometimes A Blog Is Just A Blog

Here we are again at the tail end of the post and I haven’t shared 666 tips for killing  a blog or murdering a blogger. I could tell you that lack of engagement trumps everything or that lack of engagement and poor content will do that, but I don’t need to spin.

I used that headline to try and capture some readers who might not visit otherwise. Shared a mix of old posts to see if I could capture other readers.

Sometimes a blog is just a blog. Either you have fun with it and you stay in the race or you reach a place where you don’t enjoy it and you drop out.

Look around friends, familiar faces are dropping. What are you doing to keep things fun and enjoyable for yourself?

I know what I am doing, hope you do too.

Boredom Causes Bad Things To Happen

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Mommy ... I'm bored!

 

Take a look at the next few lines and ask yourself if any of these things really happened or if I am just writing because I love to write.

If you were tooling around the mall today you might have heard me shout, “I WILL FIND HIM!”

You might have even seen several people call me general and salute me. And then you might have seen a few people ask me what was going on and heard me tell them they were being filmed for the Texas version of Candid Camera.

I might have even said that Governor Perry was going to make an appearance for the flash mob.

It is also possible that some people weren’t very nice to me and that I responded by asking the middle girl when she was due and followed up by asking the boyfriend if he was going to sue his plastic surgeon for malpractice.

Boredom Leads To The Dark Side

Yoda is/was wrong, anger doesn’t lead to the Dark Side, boredom does.

Yeah, I admit to sometimes acting like 240 pounds of five-year-old but hell it makes life far more fun and enjoyable. It is hard to be serious all the time and even a friendly curmudgeon like me sometimes has to let it all hang loose.

There was a time back in the day when this blog was filled with posts about religion and politics. I used to spend all sorts of time arguing with trolls back then and sometimes when they would get crazy I would unleash my own particular form of crazy upon them.

It was juvenile, silly and at times ridiculously offensive. Hell it was so bad that I had to close my eyes and type blindfolded but sometimes when you deal with angry clevelanders, incensed evangelicals and enraged Buddhists you have to trust in the force and give it to them.

People just love that.

Reminds me about writing about circumcision and the crazed folks who called me a barbarian and swore that I was angry animal who didn’t know what great sex felt like and could never have compassion.

Well I offered to prove to a few of them that I knew what great sex was like and that because I was compassionate I wouldn’t wear a hazmat suit while violating them in ways would make an armadillo blush.

The Sublime and The Ridiculous

Confession, I haven’t a fucking clue what would make an armadillo blush or if that makes sense but it worked for me so I went for it because sometimes that is what a writer has to do.

You see I am a fan of stretching the limits and trying to find the place between the ridiculous and the sublime. I write and blog at the pace of me and am constantly focused on learning how to tell a story that is so compelling you can’t stop reading.

I hate hearing/reading about word limits and attention spans. It makes me insane and I want to slap people silly when they say that people won’t read.

Maybe that is why I go on these rants and tirades in which I suggest that the only reason you won’t read great content is because someone shot in your eye or shot your eye out with that BB gun from a Christmas Story.

Fuck those stupid limits and the idea that we should cater to them.

If you want to have great sex you have to let go of your insecurities and stop worrying about what might be jiggling in ways it shouldn’t and wondering if you like you are constipated or about to have the orgasm of your life.

When you write you have to find the razor’s edge and let go. You have to find the place where it hurts and rip off the scab and let it bleed and then share your pain.

Great writing touches the edges of sanity and insanity.

Great sex happens when you don’t know where you end and they begin.

Same difference.

Why I Haven’t Finished My Books

The reason I haven’t finished my book is a combination of things:

fear, waiting for the click and fuck if I know.

Fear is simple, I haven’t finished because I let my fear of the consequences prevent me. That is bullshit and nonsense because I am usually the guy who pushes through.

Waiting for the click isn’t really an excuse any more because the click happened so I can write about what came afterwards.

Fuck if I know is just a catchall for whatever excuse is convenient. Bottom line is that the time for excuses is past and now I am actively working on finishing them, chapter by chapter.

And now if you will excuse me I have to go, A general’s work is never done.

69 Reasons Why We Hate Being Slaves To Technology

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NOT for sale: human trafficking

I spent more money than I wanted to upgrading my computer today and it wasn’t entirely by choice. I opted not to buy a Mac because I didn’t want to spend that much on a computer but that didn’t prevent me from feeling a bit crazed because of how much it cost.

Some of the Apple Fan boys are shaking their heads now because Macs tend to last longer than PCs and consequently if you amortize the cost of the unit over several years the cost goes down and satisfaction goes up, or so they argue.

There is some truth to that but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out a chunk of change to get that sort of satisfaction.

This time around I couldn’t quite bring myself to spend that kind of cash because I have too many other expenses to worry about but neither could I buy a basic machine because we are slaves to technology.

The Slave’s Life For Me

I really would prefer to be singing “A Pirate’s Life for Me” because it is more fun. Reminds me of being a kid at Disneyland, Pirates Of The Caribbean has always been one of my favorite rides and let’s face it, that is a good life.

Disney pirates get to pillage, plunder and chase wenches and that has to be better than being a slave to technology. Has to be more fun than worrying about whether your hard drive is going to die and if you have backed everything up.

Better than worrying about whether you have learned all the ins and outs of the new computer and the frustration you feel when you realize that even though you are tech savvy you are missing something.

But if people call you The Jack Steiner, author of the mighty dad blog, TheJackB you know that you can’t just give into frustration  and defenestrate your computer, new or old nor can you find a good person to defenestrate.

You do know that only good people get defenestrated, it is like that line in Shawshank where Red tells Andy everyone is innocent.

But that is neither here nor there because the fact is that even though I have a Smith-Corona typewriter I am not going to pull it out of the closet, nor am I going to give up my cellphone for an old rotary phone.

In large part it is because those tools can’t compete with the modern ones we have access to.

Technology Has Enslaved Us All

When we talk about the need to work smarter and more effectively we’re talking about using technology because it makes us faster, more productive and more efficient.

And when you grow accustomed to some things you are loathe to go back to the way things used to be.

If my old computer were a pet I might have had to consider putting it down because that poor guy had cataract-filled eyes that clouded its vision and a busted hip that made it impossible to walk.

So instead of bounding up and down the stairs like he once did he just peed on the floor and laid in it because all of the other options had been removed.

Fortunately that wasn’t the case so you won’t see me shed a tear or talk about how much I’ll miss that my pal because the attachment is different and frankly I am pissed off that it decided to die now.

Doesn’t it know I just paid to move into a new place and that I have a Bar Mitzvah to cover.

Fucking computer.

A Letter To My Children-2013

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My Old Kitchen
My Old Kitchen

Hello Monsters,

I think I am late writing this letter and I am not referring to the time of day. Don’t I normally do this around my birthday? Hell, it doesn’t really matter all that much, it is only a month or so.

A month or so since I turned 44 which I can guarantee sounds quite old to you now whereas I see it as being quite…young.

That photo is the kitchen from the old house. The caption says “old kitchen” but it really is the “new kitchen.” It is the one that replaced the one that came with the house. I guarantee neither one of you really remember the old kitchen but I don’t have to think hard to see it.

Don’t have to think hard to remember what it was like to buy that house or all of the dreams that came along with it. We moved in there about two weeks before 9-11 and watched the world change before our eyes.

Some Changes Were Good

Some of the changes were good. Some were beautiful, significant and amazing, while others were…not.

I don’t look at pictures of the old house or think about it often. Some of it is because there is anger tied up there, anger and frustration. It is not one of my finer traits but I don’t easily forget the things that really bother me.

In time it changes and the edge softens so that the sharp points that don’t poke me like they used to but some things take longer than others and this is one of them. That is because we found ourselves in a situation in which we had to sell that place.

I don’t regret it. It was the right thing to do. The local schools weren’t that good and it needed a ton of work to make it into a place we could stay long term. It never was supposed to be anything more than a starter home but things happened.

The market exploded, housing prices shot up exponentially and then the economy tanked. We got stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place and we made the decision to move, but had we waited much longer it might not have been our choice.

Hard Choices

What bothers me most was the frustration of trying so damn hard to change things and my inability to do so. I am not used to that. My entire life people have always mentioned how determined I am and how strong my force of will is.

That is sort of a double edged sword because sometimes I have spent more time in bad situations because I was determined not to flinch before the other guy. I persevered and they didn’t, one moment longer and I won the contest, or maybe I didn’t.

Maybe the advantage of being 44 is that it is easier for me to acknowledge some of those things. Maybe it is a sign of maturity to say that sometimes I made mistakes and sometimes I didn’t but couldn’t overcome the challenges.

Either way hard choices are a part of life and you will have to find your way through the mazes that are presented.

Fear Of Failure

You might not be able to tell but I am smiling while I write this and that wasn’t the case with a number of the prior letters. That is because the situations and moments were painful and the feeling that I had failed chafed my hide more than a little.

But now it is not the same.

Now it is different because I see the benefit of some of the hard choices. I see clearly how some things are a million times better and I feel very optimistic about the future. You can attribute some of that to things I learned from your grandparents and great grandparents.

I am far more adept at taking life one day at a time because sometimes it all you can do.

It doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated or angry because I still do. Some days if you listen carefully you might be walking down Ventura Boulevard and realize that you can hear me screaming at someone in Texas. What can I tell you, the drivers here aren’t allowed to get a license unless they are drunk and blindfolded when they take the test.

Life Is Pretty Good

I miss you guys more than you know. It won’t always be like this but for the time being it has to be. See you in a few weeks, try not to kill each other while I am out fighting the monsters of the night.

Won’t be all that long before we’ll get to build another kitchen but this time you’ll get to be a part of it all.

Love,

Dad