By My Lonesome

This week is a challenge. Thom is away until Saturday night, attending a conference for work (one that I attended last year before getting the sack). It will be the longest time apart since we've been together. :(

It's kind of funny the little things you do together that become the things you miss the most when your lover is gone...Silent coffee in the morning (while we both check our email, blogs, and news); folding laundry together; deciding who will cook dinner (based more often than not on who had the most exhausting day).

So far, I am surviving the time apart. I've really been busy enough: working on the Blue Ice website; going to the most tedious 3-hour softball ethics committee meeting; doing laundry. Tomorrow night I might even go to the fields and watch some friends play.

Even so, Saturday night won't come soon enough.

Miss you, Thom (honey, sweetie, baby)

Castro Must Go!

No, not Fidel.

No, not Raul.

I'm not a closet Miami Cubano, longing for the day when the Castro brothers are gone from this Earth.

I'm talking about Jason Castro and the American Idol television show. This show is about the search for the next great singing star. Unfortunately, it becomes more of a popularity contest with talent relegated to the background. This is so true in the case of Jason Castro.

This young man is getting by on looks alone--the cute little white boy with dreadlocks, killer dimples, and hauntingly blue eyes. It is there that his appeal ends...

You see, this boy has no strength to his voice, just this hollow monotonous drone. Worse yet, is the interviews the public has to endure. Castro seems unable to put together a single coherent sentence...Then again, from the look of his eyes, he just might be on something every show.

While talented performers are ousted (case in point: Carly Smithson), Castro sneaks through unabated. Thanks, I'm certain, to gaggles of giggling teen girls who've mastered speed-messaging on their ever present cell phones.

For me, there is no appeal, there is just a desire to see talent rise to the top...

With that in mind...

Jason Castro must go!

Ginger in the Hall

This past Sunday, one of my dearest friends & teammates was inducted into the SFAAA (South Florida Amateur Athletic Association) Softball Hall of Fame. His contributions to the league are enormous. No one is more dedicated or passionate about making our league successful...both on the field and off.

Ginger (aka Mike) excels as a player. He has the skill to jump in at any position. His experience rubs off on the younger players who look to him for leadership.

We began playing together three years ago. When our team became so popular that we had an abundance of people wanting to play with the Blues, Ginger asked me to co-manage an offshoot team...Blue Ice. The two team compete fiercely against each other and, yet, remain family thanks in large part to Ginger's infectious personality.

Off the field, Ginger will do whatever it takes to promote the league; be it organizing a charity drag show, donning heels to wash cars, or selling raffle tickets. Like a pied piper, there is almost nothing that teammates and opponents wouldn't do to assist in his endeavours.

Here is how he ended his acceptance speech:

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved piece, but rather to slide in broadside,
thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and gayly proclaiming......WOW WHAT A RIDE"

It would be impossible to describe Ginger's zest for life in better words.

Congratulations to my teammate and friend, my hero and sister-in-life.

You can Bank on It

Currently, I work as a teller in a bank. Following three months on the job, there is one thing that I am certain of...it is not my life's calling. I took the job as a way of getting my foot in the door, hoping it would lead to a better position in financial services. In a short time, though, I have been reminded over and over again why I am not really cut out for the corporate world.

In the best of worlds, I would leave this daily drudgery. The reality is much harsher.

The job market here in South Florida is becoming increasingly tight. Unemployment rates are nearing 5%, which doesn't take into account those who have run out of their benefits and have all but given up home (only recently, I was close to being one of these forgotten souls). Competition for decent paying jobs is stiff.

My branch also happens to be home of the area HR recruiter. So I see firsthand the changes. When I first started work, there might be 5-10 people taking job assessments per week. This past week, more than 30 people (from seemingly all walks of life & levels of experience) took these tests.

People are worried, and rightly so. South Florida is classified as a "soft" economic territory. Hard hit by the sub-prime loan crisis, hundreds of home are being lost to foreclosure. Tens of thousands more are on the market where values have plunged by more than 25% in the past few months. Many would leave the area, but are stuck with mortgage principal worth more than the price they can reasonably get when selling their homes.

It doesn't look to get any better in the near future.

So, for now, I am just thankful for a job...any job.

Like It or NOT!

"I'm like outside."

So began the inane conversation I overheard while basking in the sun on my lunch break. It baffles me to hear professional people (at least she dressed the part) whose command of the English language has denegrated into the colloquial.

"Yeah, you can like walk down Third and you'll see me."

First, you either are outside...or you're not. Like, as in "kind of," owes no bearing as to whether or not you have made your way into the Great Outdoors. I really don't know when "like" became a sentence structure parasite. Maybe it began with the Great Valley Girl invasion of the '70s.

Sadly, it is now common usage (no matter how much it pisses me off).

Now, if you aksed me, the English language is a thing of beauty.

Explorations

Slowly, this page is coming together. I peel back the layers and find features that surprise and excite. I enhance. I delve. I copy and paste from previously created pages. It is a work in progress.

I sit on the sofa--Big Bang Theory playing on the TV (the perfect compliment to the ultimate in geeky computer guy activities)--laptop humming through multiple processes. Thom sits beside me, working on his own template for blogging merriment.

Occasionally, one or the other will peep with gleeful wonder...."Look what I found!" Or, glancing across the expanse, one might exclaim..."How'd you get that?"

We live such an exciting life!

Along for the Ride

Life seems to continually present us with challenges: high & lows affect our moods, hairpin turns jolt us in too many directions. The rollercoaster ride keeps pace from birth to death, even to the point of defying gravity and the laws of the universe.

Some of us laugh, some of us cry, some of us scream, and some of us will ride silently (paralyzed by either fear or excitement). Some throw caution to the wind--arms flung high in the air--while more hold on tight until the ride is over.

New job; loss of job. Marriage; divorce; dating; break up. Birth. Death.

Transitions; illuminations; metamorpheses; epiphanies.

How to survive? How to thrive?

Beats the hell out of me...

I'm just here for the ride.

I come to this venue from Yahoo 360: a place where I made some good friends, met my life partner, and unleashed my voice on the world of blogs. My energies for that social networking site have dwindled and ebbed. It is time to move in this new direction.

It is my hope that 360 friends will continue to follow my exploits on this page, as I will continue to follow theirs wherever they may be (if possible).

For now, I welcome readers (new & old) who choose to step inside this rollercoaster.
Dave