We Ride Bikes

Third Grade

When I was in first grade, and my brother was in fourth grade Wolffarth Elementary determined that we would be better served at another school. Evidently Aaron's TRUE genius was recognized by one of his teachers and I just went a long for the ride...regardless of how it happened, when I began second grade, it was in a different elementary school. We went from the usual and comfortable to the bizarre and extraordinary.

The new school we attended was designed to challenge us more and maybe it did, but I don't really remember. I remember very little about second grade other than bits and pieces of what the classroom looked like. I remember each of the four walls had a sign on it above the bulletin boards that had its corresponding direction. The southernmost wall had sign with a picture that said SOUTH, and lying on top of the word, was what I believe was supposed to be a Mexican, complete with serape and sombrero, sleeping. (Of course he was sleeping.) The northern most wall had the word NORTH, obviously, and it was blue and covered with snow. I remember several people that were in the class as we spent many years together, because very few new people ever came along, and even fewer left. The entire time I was at Roscoe Wilson Elementary there were two classes per grade, and the students that comprised each class never changed. I was in the same classes with the same kids from 2nd to 6th grade.

In third grade there was a new kid in our class. His name was Zach. We became friends immediately. He was fun, and liked to cause trouble. That year, if I got into any trouble, it was because I was with Zach. He lived closer to school than I did, and Zach and I would hang out with another kid that lived in the area, Jason. The three of us would hang out doing all kinds of stuff, just running around the neighborhood. I remember when I first saw Jason's house it was the biggest house I had ever seen...until I saw Zach's house. It was two-story and the second floor alone was bigger than the house where my family lived. The number of labrynthian rooms was overwhelming. There were hardwood floors throughout, and the second floor landing surrounded the front entryway. It was, at the time, incredible. To this day, that house is the house I think of when I imagine big houses (though now, it probably wouldn't seem as big, but I haven't even driven by in years) We had became really close friends by the time we finished elementary school.

Some of my most vivid memories of Zach are of him relaying stories (true or not, who knew?) of the things he did when he got into trouble. Once when he wanted to go home, he went to the nurses office complaining of being sick. She gave him a thermometer and left the room. He set it on the radiator for a second or two to try and make it seem like he had a fever, only he left it there too long and she evidently figured the whole thing out. Then there was the time when Mrs. Nash was poking him in the chest as she was scolding him and he grabbed her finger and shook it away from him. To this day I get a good chuckle when I  think of him grabbing her finger and shaking it in front of his face, then discarding it like it was trash.

In seventh grade, I spent less time with the kids from elementary school, but still hung out with Zach. He started "going with" Jaga, and I started "going with" her friend Misty. So the four of us would hang out as much as possible. It's funny to me to remember some of the times we spent together. Anyway, as we got older Zach and I spent less time together, and we eventually stopped seeing each other in the hallways. Our circles of friends stopped overlapping altogether, and though we would chat if we saw each other, we eventually just lost touch.

I don't remember the month, or even the year...it seems like it was summer, because I don't remember being in school. Most likely it was summer of '94, right before senior year, either my nana, or my mom showed me an article from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that said Zach had accidentally shot himself with a gun that was kept in the house where we had played as kids.

The memorial service was one of the strangest things I had ever seen. His mom seemed to be in a daze, and there were so many people there. It was at a church that I had visited with Jason and Zach, and Jenni and I had to stand, as there wasn't enough room for us to sit. Later we found out that his parents had been out of town, and evidently a pretty good number of people were there drinking and doing any number of drugs when it happened. Shortly afterward there were rumors that he did it accidentally on purpose because he was really gay, and that they didn't call an ambulance right away because there were so many drugs there. I never paid any attention to the rumors and have no idea what "really" happened that day, and honestly, don't really care to know. It's enough to know that he's no longer here.

Today would've been Zach's 28th birthday.

My Birthday.

May 24th

You possess a magnetic and fanciful mind. You must learn the value of concentration in order to overcome a tendency to attempt too many things at one time. You are a fluent conversationalist and a prolific writer. One aspect in this horoscope shows the possibility of making a financial success in some matter dealing with water or chemicals.

This was something that was given to me along with the "Jacob" definition that I posted here. I don't know how magnetic or fanciful I am, but the bit about concentration and the tendency to attempt too much at once is spot on, I think.

So I've been thinking, and I have no idea what I did last year for my birthday.

The year before that, I don't remember exactly....but I remember around this time I went to Las Vegas, and I was preparing to go to Chicago/Kansas City.

And before that, I think was the year that I got my second tattoo, though this may be wrong...

Anyway, I am not one of these people that loves their birthday, nor am I one of these people that dislikes their birthday. I don't really think of my age all that often except when I realize that I am the oldest person in a group, or when I realize how far behind I feel. At 28, I should have more accomplished, and be better situated. But this is immediately followed with this sense that I don't regret the path, as I believe that I have taken this life and lived it. I did not follow anyone else's path, and I went to school when I was ready.

So here I am, a college graduate, on my way to law school, and am turning 28 years old. I don't feel 28. I've been told I don't look 28. And from what Judith says, 28 is the official end of your twenties. Evidently she read somewhere (probably the internet, so you know it's credible) that for most of us, something changes when you turn 28, and it marks the end of the 20's life. So I guess, I am going to have to stop drinkin' so much, stop staying out late, and according to my dad stop "hookin' up with random girls." Yes, apparently my dad thinks I am the number one P-I-M-P. I wish someone would've told me, and I am sure these "random girls" wish that they knew that they were hookin up with me.

(You want to talk about an uncomfortable topic of conversation with your dad. I couldn't believe he said "hooking up with" let alone the entire subject matter.)

Regardless, I am on my way to more school, putting off the prospect of obtaining any kind of "real" job for another few years. Though I know, at some point, I will probably end up working in an office or worse a cubicle, with a tie. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the tie, but I mind the idea that in three years I could end up becoming that which I would at this moment, spend a lifetime opposing.

I dread the possibility that I will sell out and work for the man. I would like to think with my font of eternal optimism, that I could resist the temptation to work for someone or something that I find unjust. But on the other hand, I will (hopefully) graduate from law school but with tons and tons of student loan debt, and as such, will be looking for some way to relieve that burden. But that is thinking too far ahead.

To put it in a topical context, I am looking ahead to the time when I will have to face my fears, and when temptation to join the dark side will be greatest. Think of me as Luke or Anakin Skywalker being drawn to the dark side of the force. In Return of the Jedi, Yoda tells us that once you begin to follow the path of the dark side, guides your actions forever it will. But Vader, defies the dark side and follows his true self when he kills the Emperor. And in the end, Anakin, Yoda, and Obi-Wan are reunited in the blue light that is the Jedi afterlife. So the only good news is that if, and I repeat IF, I were to choose the dark side, I could always come back.

(This is what the entire Star Wars movies are about. All of the lasers and the civil war are just window dressing, they are all about Anakin, and his demise, and redemption.)

But today, my birthday, I will think about what the next year can and will bring. This summer will be good. And in August, I will move, farther from home than I have ever visited, to a place where I've only heard of. The next year will be what is described as the hardest year of an attorney's life. After reading One L by Scott Turow, I realize that I am not quite prepared, but I applied with a reasonable amount of knowledge as to the work load. I don't think there is anything I could do to fully prepare myself for what lies ahead. The amount of reading and stress that I am about to subject myself terrifies me. But I guess responsibility(the R word) frightens me more.

So after all of that, I guess I had better have a point...

My point is, I hope this next year is better.
I hope I'm doing the right thing.
I hope I don't fail.
I hope I don't let anyone, including myself, down.

It's dyn-o-mite!

It's 2:30 in the morning, Ang and I just got here and I am on my way to bed, but first...

Today at work, I was waiting on my bar tables. I hate doing this and avoid it at all costs, but I needed the money and there was no one for me to shirk my duties to. Anyway, I get a table of ten people. No big deal right? I've done it a thousand times before, I could do this, literally, with one hand tied behind my back. Everything seems like it is going to go like a typical big top, once the food's out I just need to do maintenance, and I am home free.

Well, not this particular table. As I am serving an entree to a woman, the man to her immediate left turns to her and says, "What do you call a Mexican with..."

Now I give you the ellipses, as this is all I heard because I did not want to stick around to hear the end of it. I served the rest of the plates, and walked away. I did not know what to say or do and, quite frankly, was afraid I might say something, and not be able to stop it.

But I didn't say anything. I let it go.

I am so disgusted with myself. I can't believe I gave this guy a pass. It's been with me all day long.

It's times like these that I have to try, try my damnedest, to come up with something about the job that I like. Something to salvage, to remind myself why, why I continue to work there in the face of such stupidity.

Making my own schedule, the people, the fun times.

"Keeping your head above water
Making a wave when you can...
Ain't we lucky we got 'em
Good Times."

Home.

Going to Lubbock tomorrow.

It's been a long time since I've felt "at home" anywhere. I've lived in 6 places in 2 years. Sometimes I like the fact that I have been so nomadic, but sometimes, like now, I wish I had a place that was just mine, or that was only for me.

My parents don't live in the same house that I grew up in, and my grandparents don't live next door anymore. As a matter of fact, I don't have any idea who lives next door to my parents. Don't get me wrong, my grandparents' home is still full of love and I know that I can walk in there without knocking and someone there will be happy to see me, but it's just not the same. My initials are not engraved in the concrete out front, and I have not climbed a single tree in either the front or back yards.

My parents' home is comfortable, and I at least know where the coffee cups are, and I know how to work the shower finally. And I know that no matter how hard I would've tried, it would never have felt the same at the old house, but the new house is like a movie set, it just seems like it's not real.

I recognize that you can never go home again, and that at a certain point we all grow up--but I just want to feel comfortable somewhere. I want my stuff, in my room, and not have to worry about anyone wanting to know what's on my computer or in my phone, or what my room looks like. I just want to go home. I want to be able to say, "It's good to be home."

I helped some friends move in to their new apartment today. They were so excited and it was fun to watch them put things where they needed to go. I wish I could help unpack the boxes, it's fun deciding where things are going to go, even though you have no idea how you will use the space until you start to use it. But I was sitting there, and thinking, this is going to be their new home. Each one of them, at some point are going to walk into that door, throw their keys on that built in desk, and say, "It's good to be home."

So tomorrow, I am going to Lubbock; in a couple of weeks, I am going to Chicago and St. Louis. Then in August, I am going home--to a city I've never seen, and to a life that I am not sure I am ready for, but I hope it will be good to be home.

11:30 am, 93 degrees and Sunny - sorry I bitched about the cold...

Okay for a while now I have tried, for the most part, to not partake in the digitization of our everday tasks. I don't use the atm for anything other than getting cash. I don't use the check-in machines at airports, and I (for the most part) do not use the self check-out at grocery stores, or hardware stores etc. 1) I like dealing with people. I like learning people's names, and using it atleast once. and B) I just have a problem with participating in putting people out of work. Naive, you say? Optimistic, maybe? And to you, my friend, I refer you to the title of my small corner of the internets and say, you bet your sweet ass it is...

But just so you know that I am not the only person out there who harbors such wild delusions of changing it all. Check out my friend Jason's online journal entry for Tuesday, 17 May 05. There he discusses the ins and outs (no pun at all intended) of the robo-bathroom.

Robo-restrooms are the new thing I guess. But I hate that it’s taking away jobs. I’ve met a nice conversation on a few occasions with the bathroom attendant.

It's Saturday, it's three days before my birthday, two weeks before my last day at work, and 17 days until I leave for Chicago, and I am going to help a friend move. I hope everyone has a great weekend, and hopefully I will feel compelled to post more soon.

__________________________________________________________________________
Note: Okay okay okay...Jason Mraz is not really a "friend" of mine, but I am a fan.

More Sites

I have updated some links under "Links", and under "Want to waste some time?".

Please if you have the chance, just scroll through them, and visit something that sparks your interest.

Not a lot going on around here, as much as I hate to admit it, I have spent a few days catching up on my Star Wars viewing as prep for today.

Going to bed, will update more tomorrow.

I know it's not just me...

okay so it's 3 a.m. and I was about to fall asleep, wondering why so many nights do I not get to bed before three?

Is this just habit now?

But then I started wondering about how we all have nights like this...We all have nights where we can't fall asleep. And actually Kenneth and I were talking about this the other day a little bit. So just out of curiosity, if you don't mind sharing...

What keeps you up at night?

Is it knowing you have something important to do the next day?
Is it the never ending cycle of questions like I posted a couple of weeks ago?
Is it just one thing that keeps invading your thoughts as you try to lay there peacefully?
Or is it simply that last soda you had after 8, that you knew you shouldn't have?

Anyway, I think for me it started as a way of avoiding that inevitable 5-10 minutes of laying here alone with my thoughts, where inevitably they would have wandered to meredith. So I got into this habit of forcing myself to be on the internet until i was so exhausted to where I would fall asleep watching a movie or something else on my laptop. But since that isn't the case anymore, I mean, I don't mind laying here with my thoughts, but I am now in this habit of being on the internet, aimlessly, until 230 or 3 and then putting in a movie until i fall asleep. So yes, it's just a habit. And starting this week, I'm breaking it. I don't care what I have to do...no more 3 or 4 in the morning.

But seriously, what is it? What makes you lay there, tossing and turning until you just have to get up, and get a glass of water or something, maybe go into the other room to watch tv so you can fall asleep there...

Just curious.

Isn't Google amazing?

C'mon, how many of you have googled yourself?

Okay well then it's just me...liars.

 This is not me.

Sadly, this is not my car.

I was quoted in this article.

I did serve in this position.

This is not my online home.

Thought it was funny, and I haven't updated in a while, so I thought this might help me find the motivation to post again.

news - well old news

Just checked grades - it's official, I really am a college graduate.

My degree was awarded May 7, 2005.

Okay, going to work.

Careful, I got wordy

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for my summer reading list. Normally, I have it completed by now, so that I know what I need to buy for the summer, but I got a late start on it this year and wanted to ask for recommendations. I will read just about anything. I have already gotten a few, and thanks to those of you that have sent your suggestions. Iwill look into them. So far I only have Love by Toni Morrison, and The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Secondly, well there is no secondly, I hadn't really planned this far ahead.

I have been awfully busy doing nothing lately. I have been working a lot, and I have decided that this job is killing me. I just want a job where my hands are not constantly sticky. Now I know you may be thinking, "Jake, couldn't you just wash your hands to get rid of that?" And to you, I say, I do, but it only lasts until the next drink is ordered, so I would literally be making a drink, washing my hands, making a drink, washing my hands...it's just not feasible.

I wish I could say that this will be my last job in a restaurant, but I know that that is not likely. I mean the nature of the beast is such that you usually make pretty good money, with reasonably flexible scheduling and normally good people to work with. And once you know how to do it, and do it well, its very easy.

And I have learned a lot. The industry has been very good to me. I have learned that I am uniquely suited to approaching a situation and assessing it reasonably quickly, and adapting myself to handle it accordingly. For example, I can walk up to a table, and can pretty accurately determine what kind of service they expect from me--do they want me to hover, and attend to every detail, or do they want someone to be funny, and have a good time with them, or do they want someone to be invisible and just take care of everything without being intrusive or overbearing--these are things that I have to be able to determine quickly and accurately and act appropriately.

I can also sense what people need before they need it to some degree. I can usually gauge what someone expects of me, and follow through to their expectations because people are not always explicit in what they want or how they want it, and I feel like I can determine those things a lot of the time based on what I have learned waiting tables.

My sister's favorite is, to never date, hang out with or otherwise become involved with someone that is rude to servers. Sure, we all have an off day occasionally where we have a bad day and take it out on the wrong person, but people that are rude to servers are people that will eventually take other things/people for granted as well. I still maintain that there is a minimum amount of respect and treatment that everyone deserves and if you are not willing to extend that to someone that is, at the moment, tending to your every need, then I will not extend my time to you.

I also feel like I experienced and learned how to work within these internal sub-cultures that often affect and manipulate institutional structures. Let me explain, most restaurants have a general manager, a manager or two or three, and a kitchen manager or chef, and the staff. The staff is further stratified into heirarchical structures as well. The cooks are perceived to be higher on the scale than say the dishwashers. The bartenders are regarded as superior to the servers, and hosts are more highly regarded than the bussers. Now, within these, there are even further heirarchical structures, as there are head or lead servers, trainers and head bartenders, or barbacks, there are often stratifactions between part-time and full-time employees. Okay these are all institutional means for organizing a restaurant, they are all put into place by rules or guidelines. But within all of these structures there are less formal ties that bind everyone together that affect the happenings within those formal guidelines. For instance, a server may be friends with or even sleeping with a manager on the sly, and he gets special treatment from her. Or in my case we have management trainees that come through our restaurant every so often, they stay for a few weeks, train, then leave. They are forbidden from fraternizing with the staff as usual, but 99 times out of 100 they usually spend some amount of time, in a social setting with the staff. This all affects what goes on when we enter the restaurant and don our "worker" disguises.

Don't get me wrong, this is by no means limited to restaurants. I have seen these things go on in every job I have ever held, but given their small size, and relative autonomy from any major power wielding individual, I think restaurants are the perfect place to see the effects of these sub-culture networks. I really believe that because restaurants are not in a building with all of the power people  under one roof that these internal networks are highly pronounced. Every so often a district manager or investor or owner will come in, and everyone straightens up and flies right for as long as they are there, then, when they leave its back to normal. If I worked in an office where there were different departments and different managers and vice-presidents and a CEO, and a CFO, it might be different, because there is ALWAYS someone looking over someone else's shoulder.

But like I said, I think the important thing is knowing that they exist, seeing how they work and how everyone can be affected by them, has put me in a position to know how to work within them. My strategy has always been to try and participate as much as possible to be able to control the benefits while limiting the costs. You have to behave so that when people think of you, they do so positively, but you don't want to somehow get caught in some vicious rumor mill that will leave you friendless and dejected. It seems silly, and very reminiscent of high school, but these are the things that have to be done to function at work. You have to remain above the fray, but low enough to know whats going on...

Okay, I think I beat that horse long after it was dead...and decaying.