Blinded by the Light

Decided to visit my family and friends here in Phoenix this week. The same inhospitable place I remember it to be. Mile after mile of strip malls and chain restaurants as far as the eye could see. It is good to see everybody and visit some old haunts like Four Peaks brewing in Tempe. I'm sure I can survive the rest of the week :)

never have your dog stuffed

Had the pleasure of going to a book signing by Alan Alda this evening at Third Place Books. Arrived there at 4:30 and stood in line with another friend of mine who met me there. Looked like close to 500 people there. They let us in at 5 and we were seated a few rows back from the stage in the food court area. Alan came on stage about 5:30 and had everybody laughing profusely in mere moments. A extremely witty, modest and genuine person.


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Mr. Alda is now blushing because a woman during the Q & A session just told him that she had a crush on him when she was younger and still thinks he is damn sexy.




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He is a signing machine and said he took pride in making his signature legible. His mind is always on top of things and treated everybody like individuals. He asked me if I was named after Glenn Ford and I told him I was named after John Glenn. Then I told him that I looked forward to more Scientific American Frontiers on PBS and that he has a great laugh. We thanked each other and he had another drink of wine. Just a great person and honor to meet him.
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Allan Holdsworth - Above and Below

Delicious Oriental Foods

I was grabbing a coke from the fridge today and noticed a container of leftover food from the nearby thai place. The wording on side of the container amused me. A very generic description of the contents on the side and I believe there is only a solitary food in there unless something decided to sneak in.

Going with the Flow

After being forced to resign from a job I thought I enjoyed, I can only look back and think about what bullshit I'm not putting up with right now. It took three executives (including the CEO and the president of the company) to explain to my co-workers why I was leaving the company and try to spin it in a certain way as to not cause a mass exodus of disgruntled employees. It is sad when a young company starts to draw battle lines between departments and people. It doesn't make sense when politics start running things instead of trying to get something accomplished.

I also came to realize that I was truly not the kind of person that ultimately enjoys being in a corporate soul-trap and subject to its whims. It has a detrimental effect on the thought process. You start to think in business-speak and put too much importance in esoteric crap. I am not interested in some clueless fuck trying to micromanage everything when his team is very intelligent and already knows what has to be done. I can not go back to that fraking shit. It is time to be a master of my destiny and not bobbing up & down in a sea of corporate madness.

According to accounts of early agrarian societies, most members of the community only worked an average of 20 hours a week to provide food and shelter. Our postindustrial society expects most of us to expend sixty to seventy hours a week on "work" and much of the remaining time is spent recovering from stress. The mind and body becomes increasingly impoverished under those conditions. I am not striving to live a extravagant life, so it stands to reason that I shouldn't have to kill myself to have a somewhat normal life.

A couple chapters of my life are sadly closing but others are starting to be written. I am inspired by the ideas I am working on and my friends who stand by me. The next few months will offer many possibilities and I'm happy to be where I am. There is comfort in having more control over future I am creating.

Current Music: David Bowie - I'm Deranged