More Than Meets The Eye

In more ways than one, it's more than meets the eye. 

Morning Person?

Does creativity spark only at certain times?  If it isn't ignited at a particular time, can it not extend further into the day?

Wait, Wait, Lemme Explain!

 Yes.  Yes, I got another computer but I can explain.   Well, to be honest the explanation might not be all that satisfying but it IS an explanation.  But before we get into what the computer is and what I'm going to do with the old computer I should update for you... and me... what my computer history is.  

I won't buy a new mouse, I won't buy a.... DAMN IT!

 It's been well established that I have impulse control when it comes to purchases.  From socks and pens to computers and cars I just get it in my head that I want it, I do the research for the 'best', and then I wrench my hands for a bit before making the eventual purchase.  Well, that's one of the things I'm trying to work on this year.  I want to be a little stronger willed both in the research portion and the actual buying.  One of the first real tests of this was the keyboard.  And as I wrote about here, I failed that test hard.  To be fair, the purchase part of the decision was already made as the keyboard needed to be replaced.  But not only did I do extensive research into which keyboard I wanted, I ended up buying the exact most expensive option out there.  Now comes the natural progression of having a new keyboard... wouldn't a new mouse look good next to it?

Out and Over

I've actually talked about moving out a couple of times on this blog.  I forgot about them, but they're here and here.  And while neither are exactly relevant, they do lay out my thoughts on moving out in 2016 and 2018.  2 Years later, and for entirely different reasons, I'm finally moving out.  This isn't about me leading my own life, or setting up my retirement, or directly dealing with Mom's need for my help.  Nope, this is all 'bout the 'Rona.

My First World Problem

Phones.  I like cell phones.  My first was while I was in Chicago in 1998 and I'm fairly sure it was some variant of the Nokia 5110.  I don't remember much of it because one of the first bills I stopped paying in Chicago was my cell phone bill.  My roomie destroyed his phone and it would have been prohibitively expensive for him to buy a new one.  So since my service had been cut off, I gave him that phone and went phone-less for a long while thereafter.

Giving Thanks

Just a short Thanksgiving post.  I'm so thankful for this Thanksgiving.  I don't intend to give a long history or even a long explanation for how this holiday was better, but I feel that I have to just at least write this down while I'm still full of the happy and joyous feeling.

Define Me

One of the best things about having this blog is that I get to not only have a conversation with 'you' but with myself.  I get to think a full thought through where otherwise it's just a fragment in my head that I can nod along with.  For example, for the longest time I referred to Caitlyn as if she were a separate part of me.  An entity in my head that was distinctly NOT me.  Then after writing it out I started talking about her as my feminine side.  I accepted her as a part of me.  And now, more recently, I feel comfortable simply talking about my feminine side.  I don't have a specific part of me that's feminine... I simply have a feminine aspect that waxes and wanes.  Calling that part of me by any name, let alone Caitlyn, feels out of date but I'm going to just go with it for now.

Joys and Home

I said in the last post that I would write about some thing that make me happy.  I wanted to do that so that I'd more or less get happy after thinking about that damned nightmare.  But while I was looking for a header image (I really like that nightmare image!) my brother called me out to help take the remains of my car port and toss it in the backyard (more on that later).  So while this was supposed to be a post about making me happy, it's now just going to be a halfhearted attempt at that and then a talk about Home and what that means moving forward.

My Second Home

I first visited Chicago when I was in the 5th grade.  It wasn't my first trip to a big city as my family had vacationed to both New York and Los Angeles before, but it was my first memory of a big urban metropolis.  It was breathtaking and amazing.  And that sense of awe hasn't ever gone away or faded in the least little bit.  I specifically remember going to China town and having my first sit down experience at a Chinese restaurant.  Pepper Steak. Yeah, I wasn't exactly adventurous back then food wise, but it was still amazing.

She's Caitlyn

Point Blank; Caitlyn's gone again.

Changes Come, Changes Go

I still don't know what I was waiting for

And my time was running wild

A million dead-end streets

And every time I thought I'd got it made

It seemed the taste was not so sweet

So I turned myself to face me

But I've never caught a glimpse

Of how the others must see the faker

I'm much too fast to take that test

-Changes by David Bowie

I don't think I've gone this long without a post here.  Ever.  But two big things have changed.  First, I started my new job in early November.  Second... Caitlyn's back. I'm going to take the job first as that's more of the reason I haven't posted here, although Caitlyn has her fingers in that pie too. 

So I've said a lot about this 'new' job here.  I've only been going after it for about a year now.  Almost everything I've said turned out to be true.  It's working only one out of five or six weekends.  It's Monday through Friday.  It's 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM.  It's at the intake center for the MDOC.  The commute is a little under 15 minutes.  It's a total of 13 miles both ways.... 6.2 miles there, 6.5 miles back.  There are a lot of personnel there including four other RNs on my shift.  There is no med room work (NONE!!!).

Driving Vacation

So tomorrow I leave on vacation.  Last year I got to experience my first paid vacation in almost 10 years.  Not only did I get a vacation, I got several.  A trip to the Windy City, two flights to Tex-Ass, and a staycation over Thanksgiving weekend.  I had another vacation earlier this year back to Chicago.

So getting time off isn't anything new.  It's something that went from Amazing, to wonderful, to great, to just another part of the job.

So at face value, this shouldn't be anything worthy of writing about.  I should mention it (I have a couple times) in a post but it's nothing that should occupy my mind in a way that makes me write it out.

But this vacation is different for several reasons.  First... it's by FAR the longest stretch I've taken off.  I try to plan my vacations around my weekends off.  I mean that just makes sense' start with the only two days off I have in a row and by taking two days off I've grown it organically into a four day vacation.  I believe my two trips to Tex-Ass and my Thanksgiving extended weekend were both a total of five days off.  The other trips were all three or four days off.

This time I'm taking six days off.  When my weekend and other regular days off are added in I'm getting a total of 10 days away from work!!!

Dreams and...

I had a nightmare last night.  I don't remember anything more than the fact that I had a nightmare though, and that actually makes worse.  Normally in the bright light of day I can suss out what my brain was thinking/doing.  But now here's all I remember:

I laid down for bed.  The last time I remember seeing on the clock was 1:30 am.  I woke up at 2:45 am scared.   It was dark, I was feeling distinctly alone, I didn't know where I was or why I was there.... and I was scared.

I did eventually figure out the who/what/why/wheres, and did fall back to sleep rather quickly.  But that scared feeling remained when I woke up fully this morning at 8:30 am.

I'm not one to have a lot of nightmares.  Or dreams.  At least not for the past several years.  Medically I know that I AM dreaming... those who don't dream have mental issues.  I just don't remember them.  I don't even have the impression of experiencing them.  I go to sleep, I wake up, I start my day.  No good thoughts/feelings or bad thoughts/feelings.   But I've now had two nightmares this past week.  If this past nightmare was my only experience, I probably would have just forgotten the whole thing in a day or so.... but having two in a week?  What the hell is my mind worrying about?

Little Boy Voice

We all have voices in our heads.  No, I'm not talking about the ones many of my patients experience... I'm talking about the voices that tell us what to do.

A big voice in my head is labeled Dad.  Sadly it's not in my Dad's actual voice but it is what I believe he'd say.  It comes across clear and loud and is unshakable in its confidence.  It's the one that said to push through college when I realized how difficult it was to become a nurse.  It's the one that said to keep sending out resumes to hospitals that had ignored my 12 previous applications.

There's another voice though.  One far more sinister.  It's what I call my 'Little Boy Voice'.  It's quiet.  It's easily ignored.  I can shut it up just about any time I want.  But it's also consistant.  It always returns.  Even when it doesnt' get it's way, it still speaks up.  Just a quiet whisper telling me what I really want to do.  While Dad's voice always makes sense, the LBV is just pure want.  There's no reason to it and therefore no reasoning with it.  Right now it's talking to me and it's saying over and over and over....

I don't wanna go ta work.

Striving

'I don't always know what the right thing to do is, my Lord, but I think the fact that I want to please you pleases you'

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence

If you look for perfection, you'll never be content

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business

There are a million and one quotes dealing with perfection.  The vast majority of them are like these... more or less don't go for perfection as you can never achieve it.   I think I know why there are so many quotes like this... because far to many people strive for perfection.  I'm one of them.   These quotes are a good example as I was looking for that last one (not to confuse excellence with perfection).  It's a quote from Michael J Fox.  I couldn't remember it exactly so I just spent 20 minutes googling for it.

Yeah... I spent 20 minutes striving to find the prefect quote about not striving for perfection.

Baccalaureate degree?

When I was in high school I had a lot of dreams.  One was being the first in my family to graduate from college.  I 'knew' in my junior year that I was going to be an optometrist and that made it certain that I'd graduate with a bachelor's degree.  To get to optometry it was required that I get a bachelor's degree.

Not until I shifted gears and went into photography did I ever consider that getting an associates degree could be a goal unto itself.

I briefly considered transfer to a photography bachelor's program while in school, but I couldn't find any practical use for it.  At the time I was looking at six years in school and was more than eager to get to the big city (Chicago baby!) and start working.  Having a bachelor's degree wouldn't help that goal one bit... hell, having an associate's degree didn't help in and of itself.  Having a portfolio and the know how to produce good photographs was all that was needed to land a job as a Photo assistant (oh... and a work ethic!).

So I dropped the idea of graduating college.  But it still burned a bit in the back of my head... yes I went to college.  No.. I didn't graduate from college.

To Buy or not To Buy

Everybody knows that I love Photoshop.  Photoshop, more than anything else, IS my creative force.  Yes, I'm good at photography but using a camera to take images is only a means to get them into photoshop.

There are plenty of programs out there that can do similar things.  Gimp, and Paint.net immediatly come to mind.  But I learned how to do what I do on Photoshop.  It made sense as I learned it while getting a degree in Photography and Photoshop is what the professionals use.

I learned Photoshop way back on version 4.  It's hard to follow version numbers as they switched to 'CS' versions and are now on CC versions.  But if you follow each iteration, Photoshop CC is version 14.   But they've already had a 'major' update to Photoshop CC, so we might as well consider it version 15.

Anywho, while in school I had state of the art Macintosh computers and the full version of Photoshop to work with.  I downloaded a hacked copy of it for my home pc, but it ran like absolute shit.  I think that was back on my Pentium 166 with 8Mb of ram (Megabytes.. not Gigabytes!).  After graduation Adobe kept putting out new versions and actually made them run on Windows fairly well.  For the longest time I ran with Photoshop 7 (the last 'numbered' version).  When I went to get a new hacked version I eventually got CS5.  But the hack was... well it was bad.  It actually handicapped several features in the program so I 'downgraded' to CS3.  The hack that I got was actually the entire Creative Suite and included Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Pro, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, Soundbooth, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Encore.

UPDATE:  Installed

Another Family Story

Mike Hart once famously said about Michigan State "Sometimes you get your little brother excited when you're playing basketball and let him get the lead. Then you just come back and take it back."

That was said after a big comeback by Michigan in 2007.  It was the last time Michigan beat Michigan State at Spartan Stadium.  Michigan has only beaten Michigan State one time since then.  And no... they didn't beat them yesterday.

And while it might prove helpful for me to talk about my love of Michigan football and the agonizing repeated defeats to our 'little brothers' in East Lansing... I'm here to talk about MY little Brother.  B.

Yup, this is the next installment of my family story where I talk about family members.  I previously talked about R my Big Brother.  B, my little brother, is an all together different story.

I've heard it said that the eldest sibling has it the hardest.  They get all the 'mistakes' from the parents, while the youngest sibling gets the whole 'Oh I don't care' attitude from their parents.  Well, that's just no the case with my brothers and I.  My parents were fairly even handed in our upbringings.  There weren't a lot of hard and true rules.  Grades in school were considered important, and if we got a D or less in a class we were grounded until that grade got raised.  We had a curfue that extended each year until we graduated high school.  Come home late, and get 'going out' privileges revoked for awhile.

Quick Hits - Glasses, Time Off, Unions, Shame/Guilt, Newsroom

No long write up today, just a couple odd things on my mind.

I got my new glasses yesterday.  I picked up my new sunglasses yesterday.  The sunglasses are... well they're kind of meh.  They look better than my old ones, but aren't as dark.  It's nice to have the ability to wear them on cloudy days as they are often too bright for my regular specs, but not bright enough for my old sunglasses.  And we've had quite a few cloudy days lately.  But I still find myself squinting on really bright sunny days and I fear how they'll work on bright sunny days with a few inches of snow on the ground.

My everyday glasses aren't all that different from my old ones.  They're the 'thick black plastic frames' style that I've been wearing for near three years now, but this time they have a brand name.  Oakley.  Technically they are "Oakley Currency" frames.  An appropriate name as this pair of specs cost me just  under $500 WITH insurance.  For comparison's sake I paid less than that for both of my old pair (regular and sunglasses) withOUT insurance.  It's going to take some time to get used to how the Oakley's hold on to my head.   Instead of curling behind the ear, these ones continue on straight and have a vice like grip on my head.  The fit is correct as before they were adjusted they'd fall off, and I don't have any complaint with the tightness on my head.  Unfortunately I DO have a complaint with how they actually cut into my ears.   I'll get used to it, but for now it's not comfortable at all.