2 shows this weekend for the mike and jim extravaganza band. if you want to come out and see us tonight, we will be at the talking head with a bunch of rocker type bands. If you have kids or are expecting kids soon, you might not want to be around the smoke and sassy people so you should come out to the rock and romp show tomorrow.
Before this weekend, I had pretty much only seen the crappy parts of richmond. But it’s really not so bad at all. I guess that’s the difference between going to a city for a huge corporate sponsored sporting event and going to play a show in a squat where a bunch of crust punks live.
we got there at about 3pm and went straight to registration. I thought about pre-riding the race course, but decided against it. If I did, I probably would have been more freaked out. registered quick and drove around the really pretty downtown area of Richmond. We then rolled out to see Jason and Allison (who live in a really cute part of the city also) lots of catching up on what we have been up to and talking about houses (they just bought one, yay them!) DInner and some margaritas and bedtime for the racer.
I got up at six this morning and left for the race. I still really didn’t know what to expect.
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American Science & Surplus
I really need to get a job writing copy for these guys. Except that I’m probably not funny or imaginative enough.
Before I get all excited about a an amazingly adorable project that is well beyond my sewing skills, can you parents fill me in on the relative usefulness of baby booties? If I’m going to whip out the sewing machine and subject Jim to my instant frustration, I want to make sure it’s for a good cause. I mean, those suckers are ridiculously cute, but I want to make sure I’d be making a gift that’s useful, not just fun for me to look at.
Of course, I’m in pretty strong denial: I managed to jam the sewing machine within 10 minutes of turning it on the last time.
it’s 5:30 am and i can’t sleep…the last time i had looked at the clock before finally falling asleep it was 3 something. i’m tired, physically and i thought mentally…but apparently not enough on either count. i find this happening a lot lately. sometimes to pass the time i lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, sometimes i read, sometimes i force my not ready to get out of bed yet dog to go for a walk with me. this morning i felt like trying something new. i think i’ve finally put my finger on it. it’s my job. that’s not the whole problem, but it’s really the major culprit in this whole business.
i’ve started to hate it. not the usual man this sucks i wish i didn’t have to go to work today hate it, but the my job is starting to affect and rule my life hate it. the kind of hate it where i lay in bed in the morning sometimes and bargain with myself kind. would i give up a toe to not have to go to work today? it’s not a horrible place to work, it’s really not. it has however become more than my means to an end. it has kept me from being places i really want to be, from seeing people i really want to see. it’s not just because i have to work a lot of hours sometimes, but because it just exhausts me in so many ways that i just can’t deal with the world after i leave it.
let me give you a little of my job history…i’ve been working for over half my life at this point. shitty jobs in high school (cleaning hotel rooms, campgrounds, kmart), shitty yet interesting and entertaining jobs in college (cataloging skulls, helping to clean gorilla skeletons). my last job in college turned into my first job straight out of college. while in school i thought i knew what i wanted to do (grad school for anthropology/primate behavior very exciting life as an anthropologist to follow) but as graduation approached i realized i had no clue whatsoever and i got nervous as to what life would be like. i had started working at the university press doing data entry and basic office work. when i graduated they made me an office assistant and i learned the business aspect of scholarly publishing it was boring but mindless and what i needed at the time. an opening in the design department happened and i was encouraged to move into the position, even though i had no design experience whatsoever. i slowly learned and eventually i was typesetting and designing books.
i loved the work. i, for the most part, really liked the place i worked. it was non corporate, non profit and actually a nurturing environment. i had a boss that occasionally drove me nuts but who was very concerned that i not be bored and was willing to teach and give me new challenges. soundes perfect. after 7 years though i was making no money. i didn’t think money would matter if i was happy with what i was doing, but it started to. i started working at a bar as a door person/bouncer for some extra cash.
it was fun on some level, but when my 30th birthday started approaching quickly it occurred to me i didn’t want to have to have 2 jobs anymore. i didn’t want to have to work from 9am to 3 am a few days a week…it wasn’t where i wanted to be anymore. i was tired. very very tired. but what has a become a common theme in my life once again was staring at me…what do i want to do with my life? what usually happens when i’m asking myself that question is that someone comes along and gives me an idea or a lead and off i go, and that happened in the summer of 2000.
i got a call from a friend saying he was now the head of a QA department for a software company and he had the perfect job for me. i had publishing and mac experience and they were looking for a QA person if not with QA experience than with my other qualifications. was i interested? fuck yes. i was ready to learn something new and the $10,000 pay raise would be oh so sweet. this was on the edge of the dot com bust so i also had promises of lots of stock in the company which i didn’t give a shit about. while i was working for a for profit now and was actually making some money, i wasn’t buying into the whole thing, unlike my bmw buying coworkers. i was just happy i could afford to live by myself now and have a dog. i was still working crazy hours but at least it didn’t involve throwing people down stairs or arguing with drunks a few nights a week.
i missed my old job a lot but as long as i was learning something new i was o.k. and i could leave the work behind once the door closed behind me at night, the 90% raise i got within 6 months of working there was you know, just a little added bonus. it was my means to an end. that’s how i viewed it and i was perfectly o.k. with that. it wasn’t mindless work by any means, but it didn’t saddle me with any emotional/mental baggage either. it provided me with money to travel, to spend on photo supplies and classes. i could help out my mom financially, i could lend money to friends to help put records out, i could donate money to things i wanted to, i could buy whatever records i wanted…
i’m writing about it like the place is past tense. it’s not. i’ve been here for 6 years now technically. we were bought 3 years ago by another company (thwarting a plan for a hostile takeover). then 6 months ago the larger company decided to get rid of my project that i work on. i knew it was coming and fully expected (and secretly hoped) to be laid off by the middle of 2006, but since this project was the brainchild of one of the ceo’s he didn’t want that to happen. he found a buyer for the whole project/team. that is a whole separate entry unto itself, but the main thing in all this is that the head of my small QA team quit in the middle of the buy. someone had to take his place, and since i knew the product better than the 3 other people on the team, it was decided that that someone would be me. i was pretty much forced into a promotion, one that i had refused until i realized that the option of not taking it would be far worse than taking it.
in november of 2005 my means to an end insidiously changed and worked it’s way into my real life. i now have baggage both mental and emotional (mostly from how i feel it affects my real life) when the door closes behind me at night. as the head of QA i spend much less time doing actual QA, which is what i actually liked about the job. instead i spend time in meetings, answering emails, making decisions and my least favorite part of it…arguing. while i’m not one to back down from confrontation in my life, its not something i enjoy. i don’t thrive on it like some people and i don’t seek it out unless it’s something i feel strongly about or that is affecting me emotionally.
i don’t want to care enough about work to argue about it but unfortunately that has become necessary and unfortunately it makes me very wary of it in my personal life. there are things i need to say to people and i can’t because i’m afraid it’s going to cause an argument or be unpleasant. consequently these days i find myself bottling things up, watching what i say and then spewing forth a stream of anger, or what is more often the case avoiding people altogether. we’ve been extremely busy lately and i’ve been working long hours from the office and home, so that has provided me with an excuse for avoiding people, but i’m not sure for how much longer that will hold up.
i’ve never been a very posi person, except when it comes to the lives of my loved ones but i’m also not very negative either. i don’t feel that life owes me anything and i’m used to working for what i want in my life and i like it that way. i am often nervous about what comes too easily. while opportunity is sometimes put in front of me, i have to make of it what i can. i can usually see the good in things, the silver lining…but that has become harder and harder these days. i’m starting to feel crushed. that sounds horribly whiney and just typing it makes me chuckle but it’s true, or at least if feels true right now.
i’m not sure all this typing really has a point, other than for me to work out what’s been going on in my big old sleep deprived head. on thursday i leave for vacation for almost 3 weeks, my means to an end provides yet again. i’m stoked in some ways, i get to spend time with friends that i don’t get to see often in a smelly van hopefully catching up with what’s been going on with them and i get to see some great bands, but i’m dreading it in others. i have to interact with the real world and i’m afraid that i may not be too good at it right now. in any case i’ve decided to use time away as a chance to make a tenuous plan for what to do when i get back. obviously changes need to be made. do i have to hunker down and buck up and deal with an unhappy job, enjoy the benefits and balance it with a healthy emotional life? well yes for the moment anyway…but after that what? well i think it means an exit will be required but i need to plan for that exit i’m just not sure where i want that exit to lead to.
so ive been meaning to do a redesign for a while so heres a start… but not nearly done, bottom navigation is gonna be cleaned up and ajaxed out… but i have stuff to do before i sleep tonight…
in the mean time.. heres a pic of holden in his new specs
