2015 New Years Resolutions (The short version)

Hey Everybody,

So I realize that life just isn't going to cut me any breaks for the foreseeable future, so here's my New Years Resolution List, quick and dirty.

1.) Establish 8:30 as my new work arrival time and make it stick! - Do what has to be done to get to work early.  Not on time, but EARLY.

2.) Start walking the dog before work again - Getting the dog on a routine is the key to getting him to crap outside.

3.) Buy my wife flowers atleast 12 x, just because - or other random acts of kindness and affection

4.) Ditch soda entirely - switch to seltzer or water, when making my own choices.

5.) Take all my meds, every day - because I forget ... a lot...and that's pretty bad for me.

6.) Fit into XL shirts again, or at the very least lose 20 lbs  - First step in a long path to getting myself healthy again

7.)  Be able to run a mile without stopping - this means starting to run again, and starting to run long distances... building up to a mile jogging before walking... I can do this.

8.) Launch Lonely Atom Records!  - I'm starting my own label/imprint for The Pandemics music

9.) Create a new Chore Schedule and stick to it! - To avoid the need to spend entire weekends cleaning...

10.) Cut down on food waste by 50% - No more buying things and then throwing them away when they go unused.  Time to get cooking!  No more wasting perishable items!!!

11.) Re Organize and utilize all the Ikea Shelves in my house - we have 32 slots... all will be used appropriately...

12.) Come up with and do atleast 10 new activities with Leigha - Eliminate the "what do you want to do" arguments in my life...

13.) Write 20 new songs & Finish atleast 5 unfinished songs - self explanitory

14.) Never let "the dishes" sit over night again - No more using every dish/utensil we own EVER AGAIN!

15.) Exercise atleast 3x weekly! - for 30 - 60 minutes totalling atleast 120 minutes per week!

16.) Donate to charity - atleast $20 a month!

17.) Get my 401K / Retirement packaged sorted out - I still have a 401K from my old job... that needs to be invested in my current retirement account...

18.) Ditch sugar and eventually cream in my coffee.  That's right.  I'm going black...


So thats what I think I want to do this year... there will be more... i will probably fail at some of these, but I'm going to get it done damnit!

Delayed due to unscheduled maitenence...

Hey Everyone (anyone?),

So I'm not sure how many people out there are reading these (probably none judging by the fact that there have been 0 comments, and that's ok), but in the off chance anyone is actually tuning in week to week to see any updates that happen, you may have noticed a startled silence in this space.  Honestly all that means is that things have been busy... I find myself a little overwhelmed as of late...  pinging between frantic spikes and lethargic lulls with very little time criss crossing in between... I could go into detail, but it all amounts to not much more than complaining.. all I can say is that I feel like my life is turned upside down hourly.  I will post more soon, but I just can't really deal right now...

Thanks for understanding.

Cheers,
Chris

Honesty Vs. Trust

Welcome to Day 2!

AKA "See!  I told you it wouldn't be just a one time thing!"

Today's post is about something I find myself pondering quite a bit lately... which is the relationship between trust and honesty.

The inspiration for this post comes from a phone call I got this morning in regards to a car accident I was involved in last week.  It was a minor accident, I slid on some ice/sleet going approximately 10 miles an hour and crashed into another car.  Minor damage to both vehicles, no airbags deployed, and for her part, at the time the person I hit was pretty understanding about the whole thing.  The first thing I did was make sure no one was hurt before doing anything else.  She was so understanding that she even offered to settle the whole thing for cash to spare me a bump in insurance premiums.  Unfortunately (or fortunately in hindsight), I've been in this person's shoes and know that there can be unseen damage beneath plastic bumpers and knew that I wouldn't have the cash on hand to pay for both vehicles, so I exchanged information and went through insurance.   I called it in, got the claims process under way admitted fault and set the process in motion so we could both move on with oru lives.  Having resolved the situation like two mature adults she drove off, and I waited for a series of tow trucks because my car wouldn't start.

Everything was moving along until I got a call this morning from my insurance company saying that the other driver was claiming she was hurt.  My first reaction was anger... After all, I'd done everything right... I'd called in the accident, offered to wait for the police to show up to file a report, submitted the claim to the insurance company, and I'd gotten out of my car onto a busy highway to make sure the other driver was ok, which she was.  She was up and walking around, taking pictures of the damage to her car and my car, she answered "no" when i asked her if she was hurt.  Though she was reasonably stressed out, she seemed in perfectly good health.

                             

Later this morning though, I reconsidered my initial reaction.  I tried my best to put myself in her shoes.  Sometimes when you get into an accident, much like the damage to the vehicles, damage isn't apparent at first.  Though I can claim to be many things, a doctor isn't one of them.  How would I feel if symptoms arose a couple of days later linked to the accident that left my neck or back in excruciating pain?  I'd feel pretty lousy if the person who caused the accident suddenly balked at covering my medical bills.  Just another reason I'm glad I went through insurance... Taking that into account, I can see that maybe my anger was a bit rash at the time.

Before I go any farther, I should point out that just because I sympathize with the person, doesn't mean that I agree with them.   I testified to the insurance company what I observed.  I'm not a doctor, but at the time of the accident she did not appear to be injured.  It was a very low speed collision.  No airbags deployed.  I also pointed out that I did not know every detail of what she did over her holiday that may have been responsible for said injury either...  Not that I didn't trust her, but how could I possibly know what caused her injuries?

But I kept coming back around to that initial response... my initial flash of anger... Why was my first response to feel like I was getting ripped off?  Having been involved in a few minor accidents in the past and having friends/family who have done the same, I've seen myself and others face plenty of less than honest behavior on the side of victims... "victims" whose damage was paid for in cash pocketing said cash rather than repairing the damage to their vehicles... demanding more money than the damage was worth and using it to fix damage not caused by that incident... outright lying to insurance companies to avoid taking responsibility for accidents they caused...  In the course of dealing with a car accident there are a million ways for someone trying to do the right thing to be fucked over... And there comes a point where all the guilt in the world won't keep you from at least contemplating doing something selfish...

I know this sounds like common sense, but it shows just how much hinges on trust and our understanding of basic human nature in our every day lives.  Lets take a simple example...When you buy your morning cup of coffee, you trust that all the ingredients in and including your cup were handled in a safe if not pristine manner.  This is actually a much larger leap of faith than the average person might take than if they scrutinized it.

For simplicity's sake we'll work our way backwards.  First stop: The Coffee Shop.

You trust that the barista/deli clerk has cleaned their coffee urns properly, has made a fresh pot of coffee and has maintained a certain standard of cleanliness and safety (washing hands, clean counters, clean cups, acceptable drinking temperature, unspoiled creamer, etc) when you decide to order a cup of coffee.  You may even have to ignore several 'red flags' along the way.  Employees not wearing latex gloves, that sticky stuff on the counter, that the blender used to make your double caramel macchi-whatever was actually clean after a quick rinse after making the previous customer's drink, dirt and smudges on the display case glass and floor, etc. You also have to trust that the person preparing your cup of coffee isn't bitter about the fact that they're stuck working as a barista, something no one really sets out to do as their life's ambition**.  This isn't a slam on the hardworking baristas, but rather a simple statement of the fact that much like other jobs working in fast food that their job doesn't necessarily pay a living wage.  There have also been reports of employers such as Starbucks, engaging in union busting activities, when their workers have tried to unionize in the past (citation at the end), but what I'm getting at is that you have to trust that the employees want to do a good job and aren't bitter or resentful towards their employers and taking out that (well justified) anger against the customers... basically the you have to trust that workers at their core are responsible, clean, happy to work and not assholes.

But lets go further back than that to the materials.  You have to trust that the cups, if made from recycled materials, were made in a clean and sterile way.  You have to trust that the coffee beans made their journey from farm to beverage in that same clean and sterile condition.  You also have to assume that the beans are grown in an clean an acceptable manner in a country that may not have as stringent regulations regarding food safety as the USA does.

The point is that just to drink a cup of coffee you are trusting hundreds if not thousands of people to do the right thing.  To choose to do things properly and safely as opposed to cutting corners out of laziness or greed.  From the farm workers to the federal regulators to corporate america, we expect all of these parties to do the right thing, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.  It requires us to ignore all the deaths/illnesses from contaminated bacteria, to assume that people don't get fed up/aggravated with unreasonable demands from management, and to assume that regulators are doing their job.

And the same can be said of pretty much anything else in our daily lives.  Driving a car or taking a train, going to the bank, etc.  We are all required to trust one another to an extent in order to avoid living in some sort of mad max dystopia.  It requires that we all believe that people are, for the most part, good-natured, kind, and honest.  Whether because that is how people are, or because the consequences for not being that way can be harsh and unforgiving.

My point is that we need trust in our lives to make them in any way enjoyable.  When confronted with a breach of that trust it's natural to recoil, but before you hand down an iron clad judgement try and put yourself in the other person's shoes...

There's much more to say, but that will have to wait for another day.

Till next time.

Cheers,
Chris


* = And who wouldn't be stressed out after you got rear ended right before the holidays?

** = No disrespect to the hardworking baristas out there that bring joy and sunshine into our lives.  I'm just referring to the fact that no one says they want to be a barista when they grow up in kindergarten.

Starbucks Union Busting Article.. one of many.

In the beginning there was nothing...

Hello!

Somehow despite the ample availability of pornography, pirated cartoons and nigh endless supply of cat videos available on the internet you have found your way here, to this little corner of the the internet.  I'm not sure how and I don't know why*, but since your here pull up a chair and have a cup of joe while I get to the particulars.

As with anything there is a beginning, a middle and eventually an end.  And that is where we are.  The beginning.  What the middle and end will be, I can't say... I hope that the end wont be an unanswered, unwritten, long forgotten archive on a server somewhere in a data warehouse over at Google, but that's always a possibility... but so is getting hit by a bus every time you walk outside, but we still do that on a daily basis...  for what it is worth, please know that trailing off into nothingness isn't my intent, and I'll try to keep up with this as best I can, with at least something every day.  Will I miss a day here and there?  Probably.  But it should be easy enough to keep up with this.  What do they say?  21 days in a row and it becomes habit... so here's hoping..

So where was I?  Oh yes, 'The Beginning'.

The best way to do this is to I guess outline what this is with the 5Ws (Who, What, Where, When, Why).  So here goes:

Who: Me.  The guy in the not so flattering photo at the top of this post.  Chris Malone, age 31, married, living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn with 2 cats and a dog.  I work in Long Island City as a ceiling and drywall estimator by day, a musician/bandleader/promoter/manager/booking agent/writer/artist/and now blogger by night.

What: Well, pretty much everything.  Musical and other artistic projects I'm working on.  My thoughts on the news, life, my health, science fiction, cartoons, life's meaning, etc.  I can't promise it will always be enthralling, but it will be 100% honest, uncensored (as much as Google's term of service will allow) and the truth, no matter how unflattering that may be.

Where: Where ever I am.  I live in Brooklyn, but work in Queens.  I also venture out to Long Island once a week for band practice.  I also travel a bit, so I'll try to keep up as I go.  I do have a smart phone so it should be easy enough to create content as I go.

When:  The best way to establish a habit is to make it a part of your routine... unfortunately my routine changes so often that it can be a challenge to schedule anything... my wife's work schedule somewhat dictates my life in this regard... so the time of day may vary quite a bit, but I do want to make this a DAILY blog... sometimes it may not be an entry that's much more than a tweet's worth of information, but I'll do my best to be consistent about it until I find something that works.

Why: I'm starting this because lately I've been in a bit of a creative rut...  Overwhelmed by daily life to the point where I'm not creating anything and it's been driving me up a wall.  I also have a bit of a problem with consistency... In the interest of full disclosure, I have ADHD, which leaves me scattered, and also makes my memory a bit suspect at the best of times.  I also have other health issues and take quite a few meds to control them...

This is just a few of the meds/vitamins I take on a daily basis... yeah, it's a lot...

I know that it can seem counter productive to add yet another thing to an already pretty extensive list of things that vie for my attention in my free time, but I'm hoping that the challenge of keeping up with this will help remind me to keep on my game with doing other things regularly as well.

The deeper 'why' of this experiment is that I find myself looking for a creative outlet.  I write music, but when I'm busy/can't find time/space to do that I get backed up... I've wanted to write a book/a comic book for some time now, but when the time comes I seize up and eventually put it off, only further backing myself up even more...  So this may take the approach of being a stream of consciousness... but I'm not sure yet... it's too early to say.  We shall see I guess...

So that's it in a nut shell.  I've got quite a bit of house work to attend to when I get home, so I may not get to another entry tonight.  But that's a good first step I think.  Hope to see you in the comments :)

Cheers,
Chris

* = perhaps it's better that way ::shudder::**
** = Terry Pratchett is my favorite author.  Occasionally he throws in these little footnotes that make for better flow/amusing commentary.  If you see them, hop down to the bottom.  I'm not sure of the characters he uses for his books, but a number of asterisks is the best way I know how to implement it for now.