Spark

Any given day can be so many different things to us. So many different experiences, so similar to previous days, and yet producing such different reactions and responses. In fact, the same thing happening too routinely creates a progression of emotions and reactions to the same stimuli. Initially a thing can capture your interest and hold you with the promise of new possibilities. You love it because it's something "new everyday." Truthfully, and you haven't figured this out yet, it is actually just new in contrast to what once was. As days go by and you face and handle the "different challenges" whatever it may be throws at you, a routine begins to develop. A peculiar sameness starts to develop out of what once was new and fresh. Every scenario starts to fit the pattern. Then, one day, could be months, maybe years, maybe decades from inception...the invigorating stimuli is gone and the sameness is overwhelming.

Everyone's been through that cycle. More'n likely several times. I'm only a little more than a third of the way through my life and I couldn't possibly count all the times I've been through this exact cycle. Jobs, relationships, hobbies, school, etc. Pretty much anything that can go on in a life can begin to...stagnate. Growth slows to a crawl and will stop eventually if some attempt at revitalization doesn't occur. It's not as easy as watering the soil, or getting a new book, or a new job. Good steps, but they're only steps. So much more needs to be done. Much more of a commitment than a shift in your physical world.

How many times have you thought to yourself, "I need to make a change?" Desire alone isn't enough. There has to be a commitment to the desire. I still haven't determined exactly what this means. Mostly because I'm having a hard time with it myself. There are a lot of things I want to do, but I've never been able to really commit myself to any of them.

Maybe all that's been missing is the build up. Put enough pressure to anything and something will give......eventually.

The Superman Animus

I once wrote an email to one of my friends that laid out logical and rational arguments as to why Superman could never fairly compete in the Olympic Games. The arguments were, admittedly, not terribly well formed. Simple observations of physics and biochemistry that would render it impossible to level the playing field between the Kryptonian and any of Earth's greatest athletes. I posited some notions that I would imagine other coming up with to make the events themselves more even. Also I discussed the possibility of weakening the Man of Steel just enough to...well, basically to make him human. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that such endeavors were impossible. You could weaken him with Kryptonite, but how much do you weaken him? How much Krypotnite can you use before you weaken him too much...or kill him? At what point have you gone too far and made him less than human, for lack of a more appropriate phrase? You can't tailor the events because then you lose all fairness. If Superman has to do a 200 meter sprint while ducking rockets saving children from giant robot spiders (yeah, that), how does that equate to a human simply running the 200? Fact: it doesn't. No one has that kind of other-worldly, omniscience to sufficiently evaluate two different levels of activity equal when matched appropriately to human and Kryptonian contestants.

Unfortunately, this email is lost to the vasty nothingness that is the internet ten years (ish) ago. Assuming that someone hasn't kept it all this time. The entertainment or nostalgia for my, um, youth? Is that right? "Youth?" Anyway, that's not the reason I bring it up. That email was written freely with humor and with a geek's reckless disregard for the laws of the real world or the disapproval of net-nerds and the spelling critics. It just kind of happened. Just came out...eh, there might have been some alcohol. I'm wondering (though it may appear somewhat paradoxical at the moment) what happened to that ability? I don't write like that any more. Each time I sit down to write I spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what I want to say. Each word in a sentence, every sentence in a paragraph, etc. If it doesn't all come together in my head, I never get started. It didn't used to be that way.

Project West Completion

It is now official. Not long after yesterday's post, I got a call and subsequent email from my current boss wanting to confirm that I would accept the offer for the Storekeeper position in Corenlius, OR. For those of you who are either not local or are only semi-local that's about 25 minutes west of Beaverton just a little ways past the edge of Hillsboro. Kinda BFE and yet somehow, there's a McMenamins out there. Officially my first day actually on the job is Monday May 24th. Which means as of about 3pm Friday May 21st I will no longer be with RWS. My days as a "ditch digger" are very limited. Any advice on dealing with STS (Short Timer's Syndrome) is welcome. It hit me hard and quickly.

Project West

This is the unofficial notification. Starting probably on the 17th of May this year I will finally cast of the shackles of Region Wire Services Northwest. I will no longer be involved in the burial of fiber optic lines. Though HR has not offically offered me the position, the Supply supervisor has basically told me that I will be offered the Storekeeper position at our Cornelius, OR yard. And I will be taking it.

Such an "about damn time" moment. I've been in what is considered an entry level/foot in the door position for three and a half years as of last Friday. It's kind of amazing to think about really. Where I was when I was first hired and how much has changed in what I actually do for this department. I was a glorified ditch digger at first. Now I'm essentially an unoffical de facto in charge for RWS in the Tigard yard. I haven't actually put shovel to dirt to bury a fiber line in maybe four months or more. I fix sprinkler lines, patch concrete, investigate misses and complaints. I've resolved PUC complaints. Dealt with some high up issues and solved some relatively big problems. More tooting of the horn could follow, but, eh, why bother at this point.

When it became clear that this was probably going to happen at the end of last week, I was neither excited or pleased. It was a change I was making just for the sake of making a change. I need to get out of the job I'm in. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad gig. Where I'm at I have a lot of freedom to work as I will, do as I will, and I'm at my discretion to determine how best to do it. As long as the complaints get resolved quickly and the misses are answered for, I'm good. Going to a new job, I'm back at the bottom. Starting over. Somewhere new...ish. Decent sized change....I'm not usually quick to get on board with that.

There are also other jobs I'd rather get. Other things, even within the company that I'd rather do. One of which I actually have a shot at...but with a risk. This job is a sure thing. I have it if I want it. End of story. The other job is a gamble. And it's about a month down the road. If I pass on Storekeeper for the other job, the Storekeeper one is gone for good. And it's about a 50/50 shot of getting a chance at the other job. So, I've been agonizing over that....at least until yesterday.

Yesterday I got a call from the Supply supervisor wanting to clarify something on my application. Apparently I had marked that I was unwilling to travel. Don't remember marking that, but I think it was because I didn't want to relocate. Apparently, and this is something I knew and had forgotten, this job would occasionally require me to travel to other yards for up to a week at a time to do the same job at those locations.....on the company dime. Including yards by the coast, Lake Chelan, Lake Tahoe....and Idaho (can't win 'em all). Now, I don't want to live in any of these places, but the thought of getting what to me is a working vacation every now and again is a perk not afforded to a lot of positions. And not afforded to any other positions I might have a shot at in the near future.

Suddenly my outlook changed. I'm still a little dubious about the job itself. It's not my dream job and not even a job I think will easily lend itself to my own personal growth. What it is, is a change. For that fact alone and because of my nature it had me focusing on the negatives of what that entails. It took my future supervisor (unofficially) accidentally reminding me of something I really want to get me focusing on some of the positives. Occasional travel, forklifts, quieter work environment (somewhat), no more customer complaints, FNFT's pestering me for things they should do themselves, etc., basically it's not my current job, and that counts for a lot.

Self-Recrimination and 8-Bit Level Caps

The winds of change are blowing again. I'm fairly certain I know why. Certain recent events are typically coupled with rexamination and restructuring. While I'd rather not discuss those events in much detail here, I can at least say that nothing stops the march of time. That's cryptic.

This rexamitation of my life is long overdue. What I find odd is that lack of motivation that is still riding along with it. My brother once referred to himself as an idea man. Great at coming up with wonderful ideas and notions simply brimming with potential, but when it comes to actually making any of those imaginings into a tangible reality? Eh, not so much. The interest is there, but the motivation to get started is missing. Perhaps it's not even the motivation that's missing, but rather the knowledge of what step one is. I have always suffered from a similar issue. While not quite the idea generator my brother is, I've always been good with the beginnings and endings of things. Mostly I applied that self-realization to relationships, but I'm finding it true of other things in my life. Simple and seemingly small things as well as other, um, not-so-small things.

Comes a time in life (let's say 30, for the sake of arguement) when doing something with yourself becomes very important to you. The writers of Jarhead summed this problem up perfectly in referencing Metroid. Sitting up all night trying to get through that last level, and you know what happens when you get there? Nothing. Nothing happens. Hours upon hours, days upon days spent struggling to achieve a goal that effectively amounts to near nothing. Numbers on a screen. A congratulatory picture (Samus is a woman? Cool). Maybe a vague sense of accomplishment, but really, who cares. I started looking at my own life, and while I'm still very early in this process, I have several of these moments in my life to look back on and wonder if I've been wasting my life. A question that is more and more frequently being punctuated by people younger than myself doing things that I have never and will never aspire to.

A word or two about level caps. In the bygone era of 8-bit there was a numeric limit to the amount of information that could be contained per bit of...well, I'm not learned enough to know exactly how all of it works, but the bottom line is there were a lot of games, RPG's in particular, in which a character couldn't be leveled past 255. Or individual stats could not go beyond this number. Meaning no matter how hard you tried or how long you worked at it, your game avatar could only ever be so powerful. There was only so much that could be achieved in that specific preprogrammed universe. I'm not sure if modern gaming still suffers this issue or not (I assume not), but still...even in the constructs of a limitless level/stat environment, in that world, there is only so much to be done.

I suppose the real world isn't like that exactly. We don't level up and stat boost the same way. Although I do seem to remember a time when the 4-minute mile and the 10 second 100 meter dash were the end all for human physical achievement. Now world records get broken at every single Olympics. Some part of me hopes this is Darwinian theory at work. A smaller part of me looks suspiciously at my steak. But I digress.

This is ultimately part 1/step 1 of a much longer rambling. A blog aimed at looking at myself on a very real level. Another idea that may or may not come to fruition. It's more than possible, likely in fact, that I will lose my drive to complete this task as well. Partially because there is no real end goal here. No level or stat cap to reach and be done with. Just another endeavor that could go on and on till...