sunny sunday

nice day today. mid 60s. still not warm enough to convince me spring has arrived- i'll wait for a solid 70 degree high for that- but an encouraging sign, nonetheless.

work was rather uneventful last week. spent a lot of time running the CNC torch. i'm reminded of the song, "Workin' At The Car Wash Blues" by Jim Croce, in which he laments that a man with his intelligence should be "smokin' on a big cigar", rather than "sittin' here wipin' these cars". grunt work, to say the least. running a machine is certainly not the most stimulating job in the world. it's this blogger's ovbservation that machines generally don't offer much in the way of provacative conversation, nor do they often make profound observations or engage their operators in witty repartee. those with a large need for social interaction would do well to find employment in fields offering more in the way of human contact. as for me, i'm able to basically ignore the lack of social interaction or intellectual challenge, so it amounts to but a minor annoyance. after all, it's not supposed to be fun, that's why they call it "work", right? still....i know some people truly LOVE their careers and find them immensely rewarding. maybe someday i'll be lucky enough to count myself among that group. for the moment, i'm going to count myself lucky to be gainfully employed working for/with decent people whom i genuinely like, earning a sufficient (though certainly modest) income with which i'm generally able to support myself- which is better than some can say.

it's easy to complain- it's another thing to realize the glass is both half empty AND half full, and view your subjective dissatisfaction with a proper amount of realistic objectivity.

since Loren spent the entire weekend last week here, it was his short weekend (what i usually call "his mother's" weekend) this week. Friday his mom took him to a kinesiologist, without telling me beforehand, of course, and the guy ran him through the ringer for a while. the man (i refuse to call this quack a doctor, after the description that follows) did some reflexology type crap with Loren, having him hold his hand up and resist force, tapping him on the head to clear blockages in his nerves (as i understand it). he watched Loren walk and through this simple observatory technique determined that Loren's hips were out of alignment, his left hip being too high and pushed forward- which he "fixed" by having Loren hold up an arm and ramming his shoulder into Loren's ribs. completely scientific procedure, mind. he looked at his skin and eyes and through these observations and more of the pushing-against-his-hands things came to the conclusion that Loren had a "viral and bacterial infection" in his "upper and lower intestines"- which he promptly fixed with more of the same types of physical manipulations, stating that his body would clear these infections in approximately 72 hours, thanks to this treatment. he determined that Loren's "stomach acid was pooled in the back of his stomach" and fixed this by shoving hard on his abdomen, thereby "realigning" Loren's stomach to stand once more upright, in its correct orientation. he also through the same diagnosis techniques determined that Loren's pituitary gland harbored its own infection, and fixed this with more of the tapping on the head crap. in the end he prescribed Loren to take some "extremely rare, extremely powerful" vitamins consisting of a form of plankton harvested from the ocean. the entire visit lasted (i gather) a couple hours, and cost his mom $35. she was ecstatic to finally get this guy's phone number from a friend, as she's been trying to get it "for years".

i asked her why she took him to the "doctor" in the first place- was he sick? was something bothering him? "No- it was just for a checkup." but nevermind- these people will ALWAYS find something wrong, it's what they DO. this guy cracked Loren's back around, and in the end threw so much bullshit on the ground it's a wonder anyone could get out of the office without a shovel. i told Loren's mom that she's NOT to take him to the "doctor" again (or a real doc, for that matter) without informing me PRIOR to the visit, so i can be there. i'd've called this guy out, right then and there, and i told Loren the same thing. i asked Loren some really pointed questions about what the guy did, and how he came to the conclusions he did. i asked him if he really thought anyone could simply look at you and tell whether or not you were infected by viruses or bacteria (he agreed with me that that was extremely unlikely). i also asked him if he thought it was really possible that someone tapping him on his head would accomplish anything in the way of eliminating either viruses or bacteria from your body....by the time i got done talking to him i think he'd managed to think objectively about the whole thing, rather than just swallowing what this guy had to say whole.

it's amazing my son has an basis for reality whatsoever with the amount of bullshit he's exposed to. what a TOTAL waste of time and money, and what a crock of absolute shit!

so anyway....Friday night was relaxing here on the home front. the Star Trek: Voyager DVD hadn't arrived yet, so Loren and i availed ourselves of the opportunity to dive into the Dragonball Z: Captain Ginyu saga over our usual pizza. we spent some time wrestling on the floor. Loren was reluctant at first, but eventually warmed up to the idea- at which point i think he actually surprised himself a little of what he was capable of. he's a strong kid, no doubt about it. he picked me up over his shouder and walked me around the room, no problem. we also arm wrestled a little. i love the physical stuff; and it was the most fun i've had with him in a while. he used to wrestle me all the time when he was little, and he'd go at it totally gung-ho, but lately he's gotten to thinking of himself as more fragile and would complain rather than give it back to me. i think our Friday Night Fight may have given him back a bit of his old confidence. a little swagger never hurt anyone.

Saturday morning Loren had a couple hours to himself, and he spent them mostly playing video games, i think- i was sleepin' so i know not. i got up and we just kicked it around the house for awhile, not doing much of anything but sorta hangin' out. i watched him rack up some tournament victories in DBZ: Budokai 3 (a great PS2 fighting game) and finally hauled my lazy butt into the shower. Loren took off with some friends while i was getting cleaned up, and since i couldn't find him when i was ready, took off to the store while he was out. looked around for him a bit when i got back, but he still wasn't around so i did some dishes, etc. like i said, nothing spectacular this weekend. after he showed back up he decided to check the mail and see if our DVD had arrived, and since it had, we squeezed in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager before he headed back to his mom's. he'd set it up so she came for him this time around- a nice break from driving, which i nearly always do myself. he was in a good mood when he left, and he's been in a good mood the couple times he's called today.

i spent Saturday night watching a couple movies, M. Night Shyamalan's Signs and Frank Miller's Sin City. both were pretty good. really liking Joaquin Phoenix- he's an interesting actor to watch. Mel Gibson is usually a pretty good bet. Signs was not exactly what i expected, and i waited too long to see it- like i have most of Shyamalan's films. i'm getting to be a pretty big fan of Shyamalan's work- he's definitely got a gift. Mickey Rourke was fantastic as Marv in Sin City- he really made the movie for me. i wasn't sure what to expect from that film, but it was a VERY highly stylized production of Frank Miller's graphic novels (which i've never seen). it was really like nothing i've ever seen before. some places it was brilliant, others it was almost campy it was so corny....the three stories in the movie were only very loosely connected, which made for a slightly disjointed experience, and there was a fourth storyline sort of dangled in there, in the opening and closing sequences which didn't connect to either of them (that i could tell)....strange. fun though. worth watching for some of the action sequences alone, or for the cinematography alone- it really looked like a comic, mostly black and white with very spare use of color. Benicio Del Torro was fantastic as a cop (and subsequently a talking corpse). overall it really kinda grabbed me and held me on for the ride. by the time the 2nd movie was over i was definitely ready for the sack.

this morning i restrung my Jackson and spent some time playin' it. felt good. wrists and hands are bothering me from work, so it's actually a little painful to do a lot of the things i used to take for granted in my younger days. sucks to sacrifice your body to make a living. dug into my newest book, King of Foxes, the 2nd in the Conclave of Shadows series by Raymond Feist. fun books, entertaining, not exactly challenging.

back to work tomorrow. if anything interesting happens this evening i'll be back for more posting, but barring that: PEACE OUT