Apparently, the logic I used to say that without a victim there can be no crime was just too scary and…logical. Of course, by saying DUI law is an excuse for the trampling of freedom at the hands of police and courts, a.k.a. the State, I am condoning – even encouraging – drunk driving and any resultant injury or death therefrom.

http://www.traumasurvivor.org/weeks-worst-a-cocktail-of-thoughts-on-dui-law-with-a-splash-of-philosophy

Clearly this person is otherwise a very smart person, and puts forth what would actually be a persuasive argument if only the end result of that argument would cause the blood to flow far deeper on our highways.

His theory seems to hing on the fact that people on our highways shoud die for his right to drink and drive. He says “I agree that preventing harm is important” and yet thinks that if trauma injury or death in 50% of drunk drivers, he thinks thats ok.

I think it is clear that I had not said or even implied any such thing. It is also obvious that some of the statements pointed out as hyperbole in the original post (Cocktail of Thoughts of DUI Law…) were meant to be obvious hyperbole. At any rate,  the post was a thought exercise. Perhaps our presenter of awards would benefit from a jog of the ol’ gray matter. In this exercise, I cannot say whether B__ was playing Devil’s Advocate or not (it should be on his resume as job experience he does it so much).

Let’s delve into the Wilk’s comments and see if there are any arguments to rebut.

I should start by saying that the award-winning post was not even a rant, but a thought exercise like I mentioned earlier. It started off with rant-like complaints of police procedure and overkill laws, but the remainder of the post was not a rant at all.  Perhaps someone who has been fined and run through the ringer of DUI law, especially if they honestly feel like they weren’t impaired, would have an axe to grind, but I think someone who acts responsibly and is still adversely affected by such strict draconian laws would be grinding a much sharper axe. And I guess “blood that runs so deeply on our highways” probably isn’t hyperbole, right? At least my hyperbole was meant to be consciously hyperbolic. Lighten up.

The first argument made by Wilk is one in which they feign agreement with 4th Amendment issues. In this case agreement means acknowledging there may be an issue. Siting the courts for his point is understandable and very misguided. This argument boils down to “we’re the government, take our word for it”, a.k.a. and argument from authority, one of the logical fallacies. The courts have never been wrong, have they? Of course they haven’t! (Notice the hyperbolic sarcasm there?)

The next argument was actually covered in the original post, but I’ll entertain it anyway. In fact, it was the whole point of the post; not some asinine rant about wanting to recklessly drink and drive. I’m arguing for no victim – no crime; a pretty common libertarian/anarchist argument. I also covered almost their exact hypothetical concerning the firing of guns. Aggressive acts with intent to harm have targets, or victims. Accidents resulting from circumstance or neglect don’t have targets, only victims (sometimes). Firing a gun randomly on a crowded street is an intentional act to possibly harm someone; driving while under the influence is not (unless, of course, you are intending to commit vehicular homicide on someone). And this from Wilk, “He is basically saying ‘until I am guilty of homicide, I am innocent’” is true. Until I am guilty of homicide; I am innocent of homicide. Wilk just forgot to include that other homicide in there, I guess.

Then this:

So we have a situation that is at the root of over 10,000 deaths a year, and until someone actually dies, we should just sit around with our hands folded in our laps?

So the laws we have are preventing these deaths then? B__ tried the same tactic, but how do we know any reduction in deaths – which he pointed out were across the board, not just alcohol-related – weren’t from awareness programs, such as MADD (before they became the new temperance society) and advances in car safety?

My next “pointless, stupid question”, which incidentally made a valid point, is met with a strawman (yet another logical fallacy). Did I intimate a right to harm and kill others via drunk driving, drowsy driver, or otherwise distracted driving? No, but Wilk won’t let that stand in their way. Dancing around the arbitrary threshold of 50% risk, Wilk wants to magically legislate away all risk (and I’m an idealist?!)!

The rest of Wilk’s post is a nice highlight of the entire strawman argument that is their post. I never denied the danger of such…um…dangerous activities. The hyperbole, idealism, and logical disconnect continue, including a striking contradiction with the opening paragraph; namely, if my argument wasn’t so logical, it wouldn’t be so out of line with logic itself.

No law will ever prevent trauma from happening. The laws we have now to try and prevent it – or even reduce it – clearly don’t work for their intended purpose. The fact that trauma is traumatic and better off being avoided was never at issue. Unfortunately, we cannot – despite our best intentions – control all the actions of others. Not through legislation. Not through physical force. Not through fear and willpower. Going about the world with any other notion is risky and according to Wilk, should be illegal.

Also at the bar that night was a benefit for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, who were promoting a 5K run/walk in October also to benefit the MS Society. I forget how it came up, but I ended up committing to A__ to register and run in that race. I had not run consistently (more than, like, three times over a two week period) for 15 years (and 70 pounds ago). What have I gotten myself into?

I have about 53 days until the race. What I need is a montage, so I can train like Rocky Balboa, arrive at the race, get my butt kicked, and somehow come away with a victory – or at least some sort of noble victory. If I can complete the race that would be victory enough. If I can raise some cash from sponsors for the MS Society, that would be all that much better.

I made a Facebook page to follow my progress in training and fund raising. I haven’t actually registered yet or looked into the fund raising aspects, but that will be something to post on the Facebook page when the time comes. So follow along, donate (check back for details), or come run with me (there is a big party afterwards!).
Fat Man Running

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So long my flavorful Redbreast, may we meet again someday.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Assateague Island Nat’l Seashore

July 1 (Maybe, forget dates/times)

Day 3 sitting on the beach, hiding from the sun under long linen shirt, straw hat, and umbrella watching the tide roll in all day, daring it to inch closer and closer to our portable beach resort.  Pass me ‘nuther beer, this wave’ll get us, ’sure.  My inner dialogue, of which there is more than usual, has been narrated by Mark Twain – or should I say Huck Finn.  I’m a bit worried, though, ’cause I’ll start “Hippos” [And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks] tomorrow by Kerouac and Borroughs.  My inner dialogue may never be the same.

We’ve been hard at work making sure we don’t do anything strenuous.  So we stuck to reading, watching the surf, watching the birds, watching the people.  The birds are easy, though sometimes surprising to figure; lurking at the edge of the surf chasing mollusks, while being chased by the next crashing wave. Some of the larger birds drift over the water before nose-diving with a splash and trying to come up with a fish. [Played with the continuous burst feature on the camera to capture this a few times.  Maybe they'll get posted].  The one I saw fly back over the beach, fish in claws and ready for dinner.  He had take-out, I guess (Har Har).  I also enjoyed watching them cruise effortless a mere few inches above the waves, occasionally clipping one.  Oh, to have such grace over such a large, powerful, and spiritual ocean.

The world is so much larger when all is but horizon.

People watching has been good sport as well, with plenty of players.  Watching individuals and couples, groups of couples, odd groups, and families.  And that is just in Assateague; Ocean City is a marathon, the Super Bowl, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs of people watching. Families are the most typical – to the point of stereotype – and annoyingly pathetic because of it. Not pathetic because they are families, but because of the doltish roles of taken on by the parents.  The lazy, beer-bellied father as lazy as the busy woman would allow. After seeing half the physiques about this weekend in family vacation Mecca, it’ll make you want to go for a jog right off. Seeing the other half is likely to make you want to set out on a jog as well (once you’ve got an eyeful). The thought I am likely being watched, too, hardly enters my mind. There are those around, though, that expect and desire it, as told by their demeanor.

[I left off here to clean up and go have dinner. When I picked up again, we had had an eventful evening and morning, as described in the next part.]

When I left off yesterday it was early evening, about five or six o’clock, and we commenced to showering [cold water showers, brrr] and getting ready for dinner [we left the island every night for dinner to avoid the hassle of keeping real food cold and hauling a grill and such; that would be too much like work!]. We hung out on the beach later than usual since we got a late start after finding a laundromat and moving our camp to a new site. We also had a dinner plan close to the park, so there was no hurry.

Dinner was better than expected, though we were confident in the choice based on past experience. The place, apparently under new ownership and management (owner cooked /tended bar), has a very fine beer selection. Unlike the tourist traps near Ocean City that has six or seven draft beers (and about the same array for bottles)(3 wheat beers, 2 summer ales, snores light, and some other crappy, watered down domestic), Assateague Island Oasis had friendly, neighborhoody atmosphere, a varied, excellent selection of drafts (and about triple that in bottles), and reasonably priced, delicious food.

So after more beers than was originally intended (oops, I had another beer), we drove toward camp around 10:15 or so.  A__ had called her sister to see if she was going to join us today and was told some severe storms were headed toward us. We noticed the nasty lightning inland on our drive, but assumed it was moving away. We were wrong, A___ (A___’s sister) said we had about 10 minutes. As we parked and before hanging up the phone, the park rangers came through with a siren and a bullhorn to warn campers of the storm: frequent lightning, strong winds, heavy rain and possibly hail. There are few things as creepy as a bullhorn breaking the dark silence of the night.

We decided immediately to take to the car, but had to batten down the hatches at the camp site. Normally, getting anywhere around the campground seemed to take forever due to trudging through the sand, but this time we practically ran – or did run, I don’t remember. The bright flashes of lightning lit our way and drove us faster like a whip. The air was eerily calm for the size of storm bearing down, which allowed the famous mosquito gangs (the bloods?) to wreak havoc on the fools with no time for bug spray. A quick and painful stop to use the portable toilets or the grass in front (damn the beer selection!) and we were at our tent. We grabbed some things we needed and things we’d rather not weather a massive thunderstorm in a tent, closed the window flaps, took the awning poles out to keep them from catching wind, and we were flying back toward the cars with a parade of other campers. I tossed the beach bag holding the camera and iPod and the pillows in the back seat and took my turn to recycle my beer near the woods opposite the parking lot (damn the mosquitoes!). Inside of a minute or two after reaching the car, the wind whipped through followed shortly by the rain.

The wind shook the little trees and shrubs of the island violently sideways as the rain came down in driving sheets. It didn’t seem to the thunder and lightning were any more intense than previously, though. I don’t believe it hailed at all. The first wave of the storm persisted about 15-20 minutes until the rain and wind calmed. It continued to rain intermittently through the night until about 2 or 3 in the morning. I don’t know if the wind ever picked up again or not since all the cars had left or turned off their headlights leaving it too dark to see anything. After that first wave it may have been better to brave the mosquitoes and some rain to do a damage check on the tent and take some restorative measures; at the very least, carry more stuff to the car. But since it was late, we had sat in the sun for several hours for the third day and then indulged in some fine beer and company that evening, we were just too tired and unmotivated.

I awoke several times during the night to start the car and run the A/C. Around 5 Am I noticed the sky blushing to pink and thought once again about getting out, this time to photograph the sunrise. But, again, I was too tired or mosquito-driven to move. A mere 20 minutes later A___ was up and we readied ourselves to go assess damage.

It looked as if most of the tents were intact looking from the gate. The tent next to ours was essentially abandoned and collapsed around a bundle of clothes or sleeping bags. Both wings of our big tent were compacted into the middle section, the air mattress easily outlined in the right one like a wet t-shirt clinging to…nevermind, it was just well defined in the outline. There were puddles of water setting on the outside of the collapsed sections, but the rain guard and the main dome were well intact. After logging some video footage and a few photos, we pulled the tent back to its intended shape and re-staked the bottom. Once we could see inside we saw our two packs, full of clothes, sitting in puddles of water gathered on the inside. Our hearts sank while we sifted through all of our wet belongings, setting them on the picnic table just to clear the tent out. Then I started to set the stuff out to catch the new sun and steady breeze, wringing water out of the worst of it while A___ used the french press and our shower chamois to bail out the water. Once the tent was sufficiently bailed, we shunned the park rules and used the wire fence as a clothes line, for which it was perfectly suited. Looking up and down the length of the fence it looked like a Hooverville as everyone was suffering similar fates. I made coffee after washing all the sand out of the press and we headed into Ocean City for someDunkin’ Donuts pick-me-up and some ice at the Food Lion.

First at the Food Lion, we iced up the cooler for the last time, likely. Since the car looked like refugees could have stowed away and we’d be none the wiser and rather than try to do it under heavy assault from the mosquitoes, we inventoried clean and dry clothes, organized and dumped the sand from the beach bag, and generally organized and tidied up the car. Then we were off for some breakfast.

Feeling like we’d regained some control over the situation and having the coffee and breakfast, our spirits were quite a bit higher as we headed back to camp to see how our stuff was drying. It was around 9 AM and the stuff had been on the line for about 2 hrs. The bulk of the things were dry except some heavier stuff – jeans and a sweater or two. The tent and mattress were also dry, so we felt pretty on top of things. The folks with the fallen tent next to us still hadn’t returned, so A___ wanted to help them out a bit and prop their tent back up to let it dry out a bit for them. We stood the poles back up and pulled out a beach towel that appeared to absorb most of the water since it wasn’t nearly as wet as our tent. The towel she laid out on the table and the heavy sleeping bags and stuff we just left so as not to rummage through their belongings. Besides short sleep and a minor delay (45 minutes?) we still made the beach by about 10 AM. A few hours later we walked to the top of the dune and found our neighbors vacated and all but a few articles still drying were off the fence. We really hope the storm didn’t ruin the trip for them and the fact that we propped their tent up to start drying made their time a little easier.  Still the beach was much emptier in the campground area today.

This may be our last day on the beach, though I could do this a while longer and not be bored by the lack of activity. If we jones hard enough after breaking camp in the morning, we may spend a few more hours, but who knows.

I never meant to write so much documentary, but I’ve been feeling and living the poetry sprung from the dynamic natural systems on display at the boundary of ocean and land or gazing repeatedly at my love beside me just as content as can be. So much poetry is in the ocean, in its power, in its motion, in all the life that springs from it, from the landforms crafted by its hand, and the effect it has on the weather that also shapes the dunes and beaches. The birds gliding on the breeze, reclining comfortably on a draft until a fish is spotted. The mollusks burrowing frantically in the wake of a wave and the birds chasing after them. The crabs leave trails and holes where they’ve made a home. And the people who come to gaze and awe and achieve a most perfect and graceful motion while bobbing and floating over the swells and melting into Earth’s very nature. Oh! the beauty!

I have had the pleasure of having a rock thrown through my metaphorical window and wound up as shards in the dust pan of a doctor.  Apparently, I am going to drop dead of a heart attack any minute now (or 20 years from now or 50 years from now)(assuming I’m not killed in a gulag first).  I’ve been given this death sentence because there is some sort of metric devised that states what a healthy amount of lipids to have in one’s bloodstream is.  This metric, I’m certain, was devised about the average person across a certain population of a certain location or region by people being paid to drum up a market for drugs and/or treatment.  There is no mention of outliers.  Most statistical analyzes – which these studies are – have outliers that can statistically be ignored to get a reasonable probability of a certain outcome.  Statistics is also not a good way to separate cause and correlation.  Based on a metric devised in this manner, I am statistically safer taking some medication twice a day, everyday, for the rest of my life (sorry, liver, it is for our own good).

I’m not a person obsessed with organic or all natural products, but I do try to choose the more natural, less processed items the majority of the time.  Based on this habit, ingesting man-made chemicals (that aren’t nurishing and don’t even taste good) twice everyday seems kind of counter-intuitive.  I have no idea what long-term effects of these drugs are; they could be slowly exhausting my liver, interfering with other functions, and any number of little accumulating things.  All of this based on some statistics produced by the “science” of advocacy.

My personal statistics, based on observations of myself and my family, say that my body is meant to have such metrics concerning my lipids and such – or at least can handle it.  A similar condition runs pretty uniformly through my immediate family, regardless of variables such as activity, diet, age, and other ailments.  In counting these statistics, there has been one (non-fatal) incident with regards to these numbers before the age of 70.  The rest of the statistics say I will live to a ripe old age (excluding demise by gulag) in spite of the emminent danger posed by some numbers.

It is an uphill battle explaining myself to my family, my doctor, etc when the science (a.k.a. what the media reports on every other month about what is currently bad for our health before reversing themselves a few months later ad infinitum) that finds new reasons for taking pills everyday tells me I need pills.  The state of science, or as I called it earlier, the science of advocacy, leaves plenty of room for scepticism.  But skepticism is better served as the catalyst for science rather than the result of it.  I guess I’m taking my chances, but aren’t we all going to lose eventually?

For the parade, we thought we’d make a picnic out of it, tailgating with the grill and inviting along friends and family.  So A___ decided we should make lamb sausage seasoned with garlic, rosemary and thyme (also chicken sausage seasoned the exact same way for those who dislike lamb).  The Wednesday before parade day (Sunday), A___ went to the butcher and purchased casings and a lamb shoulder.  This shoulder had bits of rib still attached, which would have become chops.  All in all, after she cut it off the bone and trimmed it up, we had 3.75 pounds of lamb (and 5 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts).  It took us about 3 hours, but we ground the lamb twice (and the chicken once) before stuffing it – all with a small hand-cranked grinder. (See pictures in the gallery below).

With that prep for the parade tailgate finished, we finished out the work week and I made an attempt to finish out my class, which ended officially on Wednesday night.  So Friday night I wrestled with a programming assignment, took the final quizes, and wrestled some more with the final project until about 7:30 AM.  I didn’t manage to finish the assignment that night, so I planned to come back to it on Monday, which was a planned “at home” day.  After 4 hours of restful sleep, we headed out to pick up a few things for an 80’s-themed birthday party and last minute supplies for the tailgate the next day.

The birthday party was for A___’s manager at work and happened to be at the home of an old high school friend of mine.  Armed with a six pack of Genesee tall boys, we donned our costumes and bravely set out to the party.  I had no idea if or when I would hit that wall and fall asleep, so we didn’t plan on a very late night.  As it turns out, our costumes were a hit (I won a best costume prize!) and either Genessee or Jameson’s contains a stimulant because the more I drank the more awake I was.  I also engaged in some political conversation that felt like I was testifying to a convert or something, so someone got their first dose of anarchist theory.  I hope I did ok; I don’t remember specifics.  He was a willing and eager listener, though.  When we finally left, I was asleep in the car in seconds, but I lasted until after 1 AM! (Again pictures are all at the bottom in this gallery thing).

Again, fueled by enthusiasm and a deadline, we managed to wake up on time, gather our stuff, load the car, and make it to the spot we had decided on a full 15 minutes earlier than our earliest mid-week estimates.  Setting up, we still had 2.5 hours until the parade would start and about 2 hours before the bulk of the other spectators would arrive.  The day was absolutely beautiful, though!  The sun was bright and warm and we got set up and had too much food as usual.  Imbibing Guinness from foam coffee cups for discretion and munching on Guinness Extra Stout bread (made that morning before leaving!) and sausages, our gang happily awaited the procession of fun silliness.  The parade lasted every second of two hours, then it was off to a bar for the first band of the weekend, County Mayo!  At this point I became the driver and stopped after my first Guinness, but this had no effect on my enthusiasm level.  A few hours of music and the day ended early.  (Pics below).

Success and the completion of all of our well-laid plans to an even greater extent than we anticipated was wearing well on us.  We visited with A___’s family the next afternoon while resting at home and trying to get some other stuff done.  I broke through a wall (Oh Yea!)(out of costume) in my homework, figured it all out and turned it in right before bed Monday night.  With that I had finished my latest spat of schooling and qualified for my Postbaccalaureate Certificate in GIS, clearing the plate for St. Patrick’s Day festivities the next day.  Unfortunately, I fell ill as soon as I awoke the next morning.

I debated whether to leave at all, but I gave it a shot in hopes of improvement throughout the day.  So we left to catch the first band, the Shaeffer Brothers.  I made it through that alright, but was unable and unwilling to eat anything or drink anything but sipping some water.  Turns out that would be the best I felt all day.  After seeing County Mayo again for the end of their set, I was visibly miserable and we went home to let me rest, which I did for a couple of hours.  An imposed fatigue was wearing very heavily on me when I forced down some oatmeal, pepped up a bit (only very slightly), and headed out once more.  I felt terribly for almost making A___ miss out on festivities, since I was driving her, so I stuck it out for a while until her mom graciously offered to shuttle her around for some more bands while I went home to retire.

I managed to go to work the next day, though I was perhaps only feeling about 50%.  Autumn, on the other hand, was struck with the same malady when she woke up on Wednesday.  Thursday I had a resurgence of some of my symptoms and I stayed home and slept much of the day away, which seemed to mark the end of the worst of it.  It would still take me until Sunday to feel I had fully recovered.  The illness cut short our holiday plans and really made the rest of the week disappear in a haze.  This letter from the lost week, with accompanying evidence, can document it so I’m sure it did actually happen, at least partially.

(Click on the large thumbnails to see the whole image).

The diversion in all of our once-merged lives is likely driven mostly by our lives themselves and not simply geography.  It is the choices made in living and the circumstances steering those decisions that introduce the separation in geography; seldom is a change in geography initiated for its own sake.  Circumstance bounces us around pretty randomly, like a rubber ball bouncing on gravel.  Ups and downs are all part of the equation.

This line of thought was mostly sparked by the meeting of college friends.  Most of them had continued on the path they started, virtuously forging ahead, while some of us (*cough* me *cough*) wandered toward no goal in particular.  Toward the end of my quest for a degree, it is no secret that I had taken a plunge.  Circumstance and, of course, my decisions separated me prematurely from my fellow travelers; it separated me from much, in fact.  Many connections were lost in my nihilistic plunge into self-pity, and many of those connections are yet to be reestablished.  Comparing current circumstances when the connections are reestablished has proved very interesting in regards to the sometimes winding paths we travel in life; the paths that diverge greatly at so much as the flap of a butterfly wing or a bounce off of the proverbial bottom.

I once saw a quote by General George S. Patton (ironically while waiting to talk to the financial aid department at YSU) that stated, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”  This quote assumes a simple two-dimensional system where the path stays the same.  I have  felt lately that the premature divergence spoken of previously was my bottom.  The comparison of current circumstances on the Patton scale shows stark differences.  But I don’t think Patton had it right. The bottom is rocky and rather than bounce on the same path as the fall, one is just as likely to bounce in a completely different direction, maybe in a direction better suited to the bouncee than the path that led to the fall to begin with.

The different path I ended up on cannot be labeled better or worse than any other potential path on an objective scale.  I’ve looked back on many turning points in my life where I had initially valued some outcome negatively, such as denial of admission into the U.S. Naval Academy, or the loss of goals and perspective academically, but upon further reflection these turning points have often led to my subjective happiness and growth.  Struggle and adversity is often held up as a catalyst for imporvement. Like Gandalf emerging from great tribulation more powerful, adversity may have been what was right for me – the me created by the convergences with other people, the ups and downs of circumstance, and, of course, the rocky bottom.

The video entitled Guaranteed Cozy is now broken into seven parts corresponding mostly to the days of the visit.  I tried and tried to upload the very beginning with an introduction advancing through space, but for some reason YouTube didn’t like the Star Wars-esque title and never completed processing it.

My camera handling skills could have been better, but the landscape speaks for itself regardless of how I’m shaking the view around.  Grab a Guinness and a toasty and settle in for the videos!

P.S. The link under Guaranteed Cozy takes the clicker to a playlist which can play the videos successively in the proper order.  Enjoy!

Distance: Part I

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I found myself far from my everyday, looking past the dark silhouettes of trees

To the darker expanse of the heavens brought to light by the penetrating

and enlightening darkness.

.

This is how night was meant to be

The night that brought us our folklore. Our gods.

And Keplar.

.

The depth of the darkness transfixed me

Until I stared at the heavens through the gap and tried to feel

My planet move.

.

.

Alas, the magnificently modest fire extinguished

all but the brightest stars and shrunk my Universe

to human scale.

.

I cracked open another cold one and huddled deeper into my hoodie

To contemplate the chemistry of combustion. Brewing.

Everything.

.

The fire breathed and pulsed very relaxed. Unhurried.

I stared deeper and deeper into the glowing coals

And ever deeper into myself.

.

.

.

Distance: Part II

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The tiny dirt path wound over the invisible contours

Like a hologram that is only seen plainly from

Certain perspectives.

.

The green and golden ferns tenderly covered the hills like moss

Giving shelter to chipmunks small, and for the trees so tall

Holding ground.

.

Through this shady cathedral we cruised with fleet feet

Stride after easy stride toward no particular end but where

We began.

.

Distance behind us grew greater as distance afore us diminished

And the physical beauty gave way to body aches and thoughts that turned

Inward.

.

Now the distance has vanished like a flash of a falling meteor

My everyday has returned and left only aches to mark the distance

to me.

All the urgency and immediacy of work tasks melted away with much help from alcohol and good times over the Memorial Day weekend. I even managed to finish a school project Monday night (got a 96% – woohoo!) to clear the schedule for the self-assigned tasks that lay ahead. Despite the late hour I got to bed on Monday, Tuesday morning came easy and I was out breaking up a 12′ x 4′ x 4″ slab of concrete in the front of the house by around 9:00 AM. This involved an 18-lb.sledgehammer and a rock bar (you don’t get these from pettin’ kitty cats!), not to mention the multiple loads hauled down the hill of my yard to dump the broken bits with the wheelbarrow. I followed that heavy labor by removing a yew shrub from the corner of the house, which involved a shovel, the rock bar, and the neighbor’s come-along. The shards of shrub were then cleaned up and the crabapple tree in the front yard was getting all the branches in my easy reach chopped in preparation of the whole overgrown thing coming down. I quit this when it started to sprinkle on me and from shear exhaustion. I felt rather good and accomplished, though.

The next day the apple tree came down (without taking out the power lines it was encroaching on) with my bow saw. All the branches, limbs, and such were removed, cut, and sorted by usable open-fire cooking size. Only the 6 or so cuts of the main branch and the cutting off stump below the ground level (after I dug it out) was done by the neighbor with his chainsaw; all the rest was with my bow saw. After a bit of rest, I removed some landscaping ties outside the front door, burned the ones I had removed the previous year, and called it a day.

Sunday, A__ and I transplanted some of the flowers from the front flower bed, which was going to have added dirt and new shrubs planted to match the new bed where the concrete was taken from. We also gently removed some boxwood plants from the front of the house that would be kept on a tarp and the roots covered with wet newspaper to keep them alive until they can be replanted against the house when the new dirt is brought in. The front yard was now ready to be regarded with some fresh dirt, rethought, and replanted. Earlier we had bought and potted a bunch of herbs, including some orange mint and spearmint (for tasty adult beverages), some thyme, some lemon thyme, as well as basil, rosemary, and chives.

The last time I worked diligently to an eventual self-assigned goal without feeling the lethargy and indifference of my everyday work life I uncovered a little of the nature of employment in our society. My self-identified laziness turns to dogged determination and energy when the task is something I want to achieve for a reason other than to have it done with. The reward for these tasks isn’t pay or money, but they are infinitely more fulfilling than finishing most projects for an employer. Even the pride of having completed a difficult work project and any requisite pay as a result pale in comparison to looking at something created with your own hands and labor. This energy was carried back into my employment as I anticipated rushing home to work further upon completion of my landscaping, including spreading and raking the 4 cu. yds. of dirt dropped off on Monday morning.

We did more than just work in the yard, though. We spent a day hanging lots of shelves in a newly-designated office upstairs to hold all of my books. We spent a day shopping for the new landscaping, and we spent an evening with Grandpa A__ listening to Jerry Douglas of Alison Krauss and Union Station fame play in a public park in Warren, OH. I even spent most of Saturday relaxing, watching television, doing homework, and dozing. This week of decompression and vacation held a little of everything.

So vacation wasn’t spent relaxing and decompressing on a beach or swinging in a hammock in the shade, but it helped me to decompress nonetheless. It allowed me to catch up on my life outside of work, spend quality time with A__, and get some rigorous exercise I can’t bring myself to do for its own sake. I hope the drive continues to push me to finish what I’ve started and to start something else. I hope that long days of soul-sucking cubicle-dwelling don’t sap me of this newly found momentum and relegate me back to the pale golem of cubicle hell.