Restive State

I'm no crazy cat person, but this guy keeps me in line. He also wakes me up in the middle of the night and generally wreaks havoc. As you can see, he is both an airplane fanatic and a user if iTunes.

In this light I think briefly of our governments' monitoring of our personal electronic communication. Big up to Google for not complying with the DOJ's request for a weeks worth of search requests. I can't believe that we live in the "Land of the Free" but have many of our moves watched, recorded and filed. I'm not of the tinfoil hat brigade, but I do worry. What use is it of the Fed's the sites I go to (no kiddie porn, no Islamic fundamentalist, no bomb-making; stuff about organization, pictures of my family, my art and my career.) Granted now, I'm probably on the list. But it goes to show that there is something fundamentally wrong with our country. Just something to chew on.

'Til later...

Finally, after months of waiting, the snow has returned.
Only problem is that it is gone already. To me, this is not a problem. In fact, I've been loving this. Sure it's been chilly, but the lack of snow has really boosted my spirits. My you may ask? Let me count the ways:

• not having to dig my car out from under tons of snow to get to work in the morning.
• not freezing on my way to work, or having to use my glove and the 12volt plug-in heater as defrost (yes, that is my daily driver above...)
• no mud tracked into the house, and no mud to destroy the white shoes I have to wear to clinical.

and last but not least by any measure:

• no tourists

Many people here in town survive off of tourist dollars and love for them to come and spend their money in our town. But I have grown to loathe them. They flock into the stores, into the restaurants, allow for the gas stations to hike the prices due to "demand", drive like idiots in the snow, and generally cause havoc for the locals. The worst sin though is entitlement. They act like we are here to serve and be at their beck and call, just because they deign to grace our town with their presence. For example, last winter, my wife and I, laong with another couple decide to go out for dinner on a Saturday night. Bad idea. I realy think we were the only ones besides the staff in our local zip code in the joint. As we are standing there waiting, little brat from the Valley with parents stride into the join with attitude full-on. Looking at the crowd, little brat goes, "Didn't you make reservations dfad? I don't feel like standing around waiting." Of course, they got a table before us...
Yes, I'm a little bitter about it, but I can admit it, and that is always the first step.

On the lighter side though, I started my new position at work and absolutely love it. 5 hours goes by like nothing else and when you don't have to talk to stupid people, it makes it even better.

School starts this week. I can't decide if I'm excited or scared sh*tless. It is the last semester and I'm a little feaked out. I know what I want to do, where I want to work, but I still have to pass the last set of classes (Advanced Nursing Concepts and Microbiology) and the NCLEX. It's a daunting load to have to deal with, but somehow I'll make it...I hope.

Til later...

Not forgotten, just left behind by progress. Twin Arrows sits next to I-40 as it traverses northern Arizona, a relic of the old Route 66 days left to disintegrate and fade into memory.

Future-casting, like meteorology, is one of those fields that you can guess at generalized trends and point to nebulous predictions and claim you're right. I've never said that I know what the future holds, nor do I want to. Sure, I have hopes and fears about what the next year brings, but I'll never put it out there on the line. Some do, and some make a ton of cash doing it. The reason I bring this up was that I was reading the paper the other day at work and came across this little tidbit:

What's Next:
Classic Rock. The "Top Trends 2006" report from the Trends Research Institute...says young listeners are revolting against the hit machine. Institute director Gerald Celente says this generation is finding "heroes in Lennon and Dylan. This is a first in American history."via Arizona Republic

I'm sorry, but this is news? I've been listening to both of these guys since I was in high school and there were always many who did as well. It is a natural progression to find out what music is all about. I have a theory on progression of musical taste and interests, that based on this, really holds some water.

First, because it is readily available, and it pisses off your parents, you start out by listening to Top 40 style music. Today it's all about TRL, American Idol and Clear Channel molding and shaping to tastes of youth, but it's not really that far of a departure from how I started, just packaged differently. I started with Top 40 in the wasteland of the early to mid-80s. This gets modified as you adopt one particular style of music that really grates on your parents, but still is a popular genre. For me that was hip hop, early NWA, 2 Live Crew and yes, Vanilla Ice (so I was a loser, everyone else liked him...for a moment). Then I began to branch out, explore more types of music and thanks to a vibrant music scene, found music I liked even better, while still retaining some of the pop culture DNA in my taste. Then, I found classic rock. Hendrix, the Doors, the Beatles, Dylan, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and more. My journey into music caused me to look for the roots of what I liked and drove others to do the same. So this has always been done, maybe not on a scale predicted by the researchers, but there nonetheless. I've taken this even farther, getting into American roots and folk music, going way back and enjoying every minute of it.

The thing that I noticed as I perused the Institute's publications is that they all share a "well, d'uh" attitutde to me. Maybe it's just that I read entirely way too much, or that the things they bring up are concerns for me as well, but none of it is really earth-shattering. You can read the public sample here. While the journal is intended to provide large corporations the "hip" cool-hunting edge into the American psyche, it's not really all that revolutionary. Those on the bleeding-edge of culture are already beyond these trends. They're geared toward middle American values and mores, which is more of the population than some would like to admit. BUt it's still interesting to read and laugh at.

'Til later...

It was a truly eventful holiday season, so much so that I haven't had a chance to write anything about it. Suffice to say the picture above just about sums it up. We spent Christmas at the in-laws. The day before we got there, the TV broke. I'm not a huge TV person, but it is nice to have it around. But it was broke adn the girls nearly had a fit. So we did what all goo red-necks do: put the working TV on top of the disabled TV... I really feel like part of the family, they even fight in front of me. But I did spend most of the weekend performing tech support for bot my father and sister in-law. I guess that goes with the territory. I keep thinking I need to start charging for that... Like I said though, it was great. For once, I totally surprised my wife with her gifts. She was not expecting what she received adn she loved every one. Finally, I've learned how to do this.

But it was good. Along with millions of other people this year, I too unwrapped an iPod (the 512 Shuffle) and absolutely love it. I won't go on about it, because it has already been written, but this was rather funny: "iPod Shuffle Voted White Trash King". The confirming factor of that was that Wal-Mart was basically sold out of every iPod accessory they had, except a couple of iTrips and iTunes cards, (now remember this particular Wal-Mart is in red-neck country). I keep joking with my wife that we need to stop resisting, put a car on blocks in the yard, start dressing up in wife-beaters, knock out a couple of teeth and move into a single-wide. For some reason it just doesn't appeal to her and I don't know why...

And like this kid (who may or not be real), I didn't get an XBOX 360 either. Which suits me just fine, I have enough to do without plunking myself in front of it for the rest of Spring Semester.

And speaking of Spring Semester, I only have 1 more left. That's right, in about 18 weeks, yours truly will have to ability to test for his license. It scares the hell out of me, but I know that it will be a good thing. There's just a couple more hurdles to jump through, like Microbiology and Advanced Med-Surg Nursing and of course my senior "project", Capstone. But as the saying goes, I've made it this far already, now is not the time to start slacking. Today I've been consumed with getting things ready, getting into classes and making plans for the end fo school, all the while freaking out about whether or not I'm good enough to get into what I want to get into. So much for self-confidnence, eh?

But a word about New Years. We live in a small town in Northern Arizona. Not particularly small, but small by my standards. For New Years, we drop a Pine Cone. Yes, a Pine Cone. I'm not making this up. They hang it off of one of the old hotels in downtown with an LED sign counting down to New Years, and it drops just like the Ball in Times Square. Of course at about midnight +2 minutes, they hoist it back up, ruining the illusion. But it is fun, cram hundreds of people, many of them very drunk, on a cold night into a public area and call it a party. Hilarity ensues. People started yelling and screaming 10 minutes before midnight, in a bout of prematurity. The bars emptied and we became close friends with many stranggers in the mad press of humanity that flooded the streets. This year we couldn't even count right, as the crowd was totally off from the clock, but corrected itself at about 4 seconds before. So another year ended in the same way it began, loudly, racously and with great fanfare. Here's to a better year!

'Til later...