Friday Night #3

Well, I got me through the education process right nice. Kinda time consuming, but water under the bridge now. I have that time back.

Ruth and the wife have been interviewed in local periodicals about their mobile spa. On the 10th, the local television station is interviewing them on air, and the next day they will be interviewed by the Tampa Tribune. Dang! Talk about some top notch (free) publicity. Now if Tallahassee will get off their ass and send the salon license, we'll be cool. They have issued it and the girls know their licence number. But some governmental yahoo in some local office won't accept anything but seeing the paper.

I'm still waiting to hear from L3. I know they haven't filled the position yet, which is kind of OK. But I want them to fill it WITH ME. I got people to do and places to see. To support those goals, I need a better job.

Speaking of which, my current guard post gives me 8 hours straight, broken only by the occasional delivery truck, to concentrate on writing, musing, or just not falling asleep. That is good. If you are going to be in a low wage job, you should at least be afforded the opportunity to multi-task. Plus, the company could care less if I'm greeting the truckers with a cup of coffee in one hand and a big old fat stogie in my mouth, as long as I point them to the right recieving dock. Throw in some of that warm, Florida sunshine and you have a contented boy.

Friends from Carnegie and Erie, PA came down last week. I did what any good host would do. I went to their St. Pete hotel and me and the wife drank with them at the beach bar and did the head bob air guitar jam in rhythm with a competent enough road house band. Then we had them out to our place where the wife cooked up a mess o' Thai food for a big old yard eating party. (OK, we didn't eat the yard. We ate IN the yard, under the cigar tree.) The wife gave them facials (they were both women) and manicures and I took 'em to McDill AFB for cheap booze and smokes. Yes, I am a wonderous friend. "Hate to see you kill yourself, but if you're gonna, I can't let you do it paying retail."

A rarity in my world is to revisit a partially finished song and finish it. But here I did just that. A couple of posts back I posted a partial that was pretty good. I polished this up and rearranged the beginning a little bit. Here it is, in all it's, um, glory? Is there glory in a song about anything that Ramblin' Ed is moved to write about? The answer, of course, is: Not hardly.

Friday Night #3 1 0 & 29 Sept, 2006

I follow where a random wind directs me.
I don't make plans. They won't survive the rain.
Where I have been, was sort of where I headed.
Hope it's a place a fellow takes no blame.

I always thought you probably kinda missed me.
We've all got our delusions now and then.
You'd find me up in Jacksonville half broke down.
We'd crack a beer and wonder how I've been.

I'd say I have been better.
Other times I have been worse.
I can hardly tell a blessing from a curse.
I'd say you're looking fine tonight.
You'd smile and say, "I know."
And fade to black...that's how the daydream goes.

Don't worry, girl, I won't be staying
You're a Sunday. I'm a Friday night.
Smokey, like a mem'ry disappearin'.
From a time when you and I were more alike.

You were candy colored when I met you.
All sticky, you were such a sweet young thing.
I looked away when you smiled my direction.
Can't seem to get you looking back again.

You carried on with your life
While I shuffled on with mine
You found Jesus and a big old fancy home.
I found mosquitos big as gators
And the girls who love you long
Down more than just a few old dusty roads.

Don't worry, girl, ain't like I'm staying
You're too Sunday. I'm too Friday night.
Smokey, like a mem'ry disappearin'.
From a time when you and I were more alike.

You know, I almost did not recognize you.
Life takes time, and time's a rough old ride.
And anyway, we both got so much older.
You mark your years the way I mark the miles.

Maybe roads ain't warm for comfort,
Least you know come morning light,
They'll be right the way you left them as you slept.
They don't change or reinvent themselves.
Fall in and out of love.
They don't promise much, but promises are kept.

Don't worry, girl, I won't be staying
Reckon Sunday's just don't follow Friday nights.
They're smokey, like a mem'ry disappearin'.
From a time when you and I were more alike.

All smokey, like a mem'ry disappearin'.
From a time when you and I were more alike.
Ed
Riverview

Unattended children will be given cappicuino and a free puppy, out
Ramblin' Ed

And then all will be right with the world

Last "update", hopefully. Soon I should be back on some kind of schedule.

This week is my last week of school. I graduate on the 30th. I am back up to an A average and, were it in my nature, could coast from here. That pressure will be off and that time each day will be returned to me.

I got word that I'm in the top two candidates for the trainer job and that my presentation killed. Good. I put a lot of work into getting that right. I think what will push me over the top is my experience internationally. Apparently my experience there will be a plus. Oh, and most of the office is prior navy. Yep, here in an Air Force town. So, well, you know... that shouldn't matter, but it does.

Spent last night on St. Pete Beach with my wife, my friend from Erie and my friend from Carnegie. The ladies were all drinking mai tais but I just sipped a Corona (in a CAN!! What's up with that?) because I had to drive home. The weather was nice and the band was pretty decent in a rough edged, road house sort of way. It was enjoyable.

Things are falling into place and I mostly thank my hound, Bella. Why? Because I have always heard that if you live right and work hard you will succeed because it is all part of dog's plan.

Meantime there's this week and three assignments to get through. So, that is what I will do. See you soon.

When in doubt, scream and shout, out
Ramblin' Ed

Whew!....Ola, peeps

Preface:
Well, that was a longer break than I meant to take. Sometimes, like the bumper sticker says, stuff happens. Got a lot of writing... started. Nothing really finished, though. Mostly, like I told AI, everything just kind of snuck up and decided to happen in September.

30 September I graduate and get my AA. Partly because the Professor is either tough or lazy (I give him the benefit of the doubt), and partly because I have shifted my focus beyond graduation and can't seem to completely get it back, I have slipped down to a B for my last class. Sure, it's a law class, but it really isn't any tougher than the others.

I have my second interview with L3 Communications (Website link) on 21 September in St. Petersburg. The phone interview went exceedingly well and I am certian I will be offered the position when we meet, barring a booger hanging from my nose or some other tell tale sign I am a thinly veiled redneck.

The preparation for this interview has been in depth. I have researched and written 3 page papers on the company, it's markets, it's competition, it's products (and future products), and it's technologies. I did all of the research and writing to make myself knowledgable on who the company is and where they see themselves going. I want to speak effortlessly at the interview, as if I already work there.

I have left nothing to chance, either. I have had my Italian suits re-tailored to ensure a perfect fit. I polished my DayTimer wallet (yes, it can be done) in case I need pull it out for a quick note. I cleaned and waxed my car should we end up near it for some reason. I have a good haircut set up for the 20th. I tell you, looking for a job IS a job. It just don't pay much.

The wife now has her business online. OK, Ruth owns the business, but has made Nong feel like a full partner. It will be successful, judging from the reactions so far and the inquiries into booking them. Their Business is called BeComing Mobile Day Spa and their catch phrase is "beauty driven". (Website link) That should start bringing us in some dough. Her making $18,000 will put us into a six figure income. She will likely make much more.

In between, I found time to drive down to Ruskin and pick up Bella dog from a shelter. Tomatoes. Ruskin Tomatoes. That's where you've heard the name before.

My free dog has cost just over $500 that I don't have and on 25 September will cost me an additional $1,400 I don't have for some fencing. I love her, she's a darling, blah blah woof woof. And if you expand this photo you'll know I need to sweep more often.

Examples of how my mind was "Almost There":

Untitled Beginning #1 1 Sept, 2006

I don't want to know
If you're gonna show
I don't really care at all
I've been where I'm going long enough to tell
You hold love out
Just to take it back
Like it's something special, girl
But half the world's got the same thing just as well

Don't you give me troubles
I've got troubles of my own
I've got half a mind
And that's half a mind more than what you've shown
It ain't easy being easy
It ain't right as much as wrong
So I guess I'll see you
Further down the road

I don't call your name
Like I did the day
I forgot I didn't care
Made me look a little foolish standing there
Boredom is a virtue
Avoidance is a plan
I'll need a mighty crooked smile
To try and bluff a winning hand

Ed... Yes, I woulda rounded off the meters as I went through the process. But no process, no roundy.

Untitled Beginning #2 6 Sept, 2006

Damned if I do. Damned if I don't.
I said that I will but maybe I won't
I'm a lover not a fighter
But you knew that
Running down the road
At the drop of a hat

Never knew my daddy was a rolling stone
Thought I had the fever, but I called it my own
And if anybody asks me
Where I come from
I say a highway exit motel
Where the sun comes up

Ed...This one had petrol but I could just never get back to it to try and get it going again. Shame. I can hear the crunchy guitars.

Untitled Beginning #3 10 Sept, 2006

I follow where the random wind directs me.
I make no plans. They don't survive the rain.
Where will I be when I get where I'm going?
I hope someplace a fellow takes no blame.

I always thought that you might kinda miss me.
I suffer those delusions now and then.
You'd find me in my Tallahassee motel,
Crack a cold one, ask me how I've been.

I'd say that I've been better.
Then again, I could be worse.
Can't seem to tell a blessing from a curse.
I'd say you're looking fine tonight.
You'd smile and say, "I know."
That's pretty much the way the daydream goes.

Don't worry, girl, I won't be staying
You're a Sunday. I'm a Friday night.
Smokey, like a mem'ry growing dimmer.
From a time when you and I were more alike.

Ed.... Some of this crap really ought to have been finished. But what's a muse deficient dude to do? I ax ya.

Not Insight, Not Hindsight, But HindEndSight:

Note to self- find out what pejorative means. (Hmmm. interesting: dyslogistic terms like `nitwit' and `scalawag' and 'pea-brain' and 'bottom-feeder')

Quote of the day: A revoloution without dancing is not one worth having.-V

Punchlines: But my sister whored half of them.... But what the hell is a panoe?... Now, where's that woman you wanted me to wrassle??

Yes, I remember the seventh grade fondly. I began to read at a fourth grade level.

Amusing the Security Guard, Pt. I: Two words... bottlecap soccer.

The wife has some major concerns about the dog. Her top three are "Does she think it tastes good?" (She did not even chew, much less taste); "Do you think she misses her real mother?" (No, her mom was a bitch); "Is she sad because she doesn't know where her brothers and sisters are?"("Did you feed her?" "Yes." "Then no.") As far as I can tell, Snoopy was really the only dog what kept tabs on siblings. He had 'em spread from the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm on out to his scraggly brother Spike wh lives in the desert with a cactus. Spike was, by the way, the only beagle I ever saw with a moustache. It did make him look older.

I am changing my party affiliation from Republican to Independent down at the County Offices. I stayed Republican through the primaries so I could vote for some candidates opponents. But now that the candidates are picked, it doesn't matter. I just don't feel Republican, in it's present form, anymore. I mean around here we are solidly blue... or red... whatever the Republican majority states are, although green and yellow is more apt; because money calls the vote and they're scared of the tough choices. Oh yeah, green and yellow replaces both the blue and the red. Florida is in some pretty dire straits right now with some serious problems and all we can get out of the candidates is "I'm a Jeb Bush Republican and he's not" or "I have family values". Well, good or bad, we all have family values, and Jeb Bush has served 2 terms and, while he is real popular, we have these big problems to correct. So, what I want to know is do you see the problems? Do you have a plan? Could you maybe share your plan with the rest of us because "Something. Not this." is not a particularly specific plan. I hate politicians.

I quit setting my cell phone alarms to go off 5 min before each break and lunch when I realized that my job was more or less standing around outside and waiting for my next break. The tendency was not towards missing breaks, the tendency was more towards checking my watch every 3 minutes and to know they were coming.

He was married to Lisa Marie, named after another Lisa Marie who was famous for no real reason other than her name. She was a queen. A drama queen, with most of the drama taking place in the single wide trailer on lot number nineteen in the Crawfish Bayou Moe-bile Trailer Court.

I guess if I could do anything over, I'd want to be eighteen again. That's when everything I did, I did with the certianty that it was the correct thing to be doing at that time. My whole life was ahead of me and there was nothing worth missing behind me. Nothing worried me and the fact that nothing worried me didn't worry me either. So if you're asking, that's my answer.

It seems that my cavalier attitude towards preparation, and the overestimation of my skills, has led me to where I am today: standing on the hot concrete in the Florida sun for $10.50 an hour before taxes. Perhaps I should look at turning that around. [Note: These bullets are actually in reverse chronological order and L3 had not called yet to offer the job. It does explain why I am so anal in preparing for that interview though. This is kind of the "epiphany bullet", if you will.]

Being a lower life form (bug, frog, worm) is fairly uncomplicated, I would think. You wake up, "Hmmmm. Not dead. And yeah, I could eat." Then you just repeat that til the day you don't wake up.

I am a cursor. Of course, I started life as as a pre-cursor.

We go fishing a lot although we seldom catch fish. And we still haven't figured out why women do the things they do. Or reached a satisfactory explaination for the current state of politics (or why politicians do the things they do). Or really anything else we ponder on and pontificate against. But we do get a tan.

Time and time again the point is driven home for me that losers are blissfully unaware that they are losers. I'm sure glad that I'm not a loser.

Sometimes you gotta kill a boy to keep his ass in line, out
Ramblin' Ed