A Few Things To Ponder

If you are curious about some of the things that I think about here are a couple of hints.

Rabbi Akiva would say... All is foreseen, choice is granted, and the world is judged in kindness
Ethics of the Fathers 3:15

I found the discussion that I linked above to be especially interesting given the time of year. Here are a couple more.

Ben Zoma would say: Who is wise? One who learns from every man. As it is written: “From all my teachers I have grown wise, for Your testimonials (eidosecha) are my meditation.”[1]

Ethics of the Fathers, 4:1

The world is sustained by three things:
By justice, by truth, and by peace.
—Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel

Banging It Out and Getting It Done

Last week I kvetched a little about the quality of my work. I was given an enormous project that is about five times the size of what I normally work on with the caveat that I had to turn it around in little to no time.

What I really needed was about four days to do it and to do it well. Instead I received 2.5 days and had to complete that along with all of my regular work.

Now that I have had some time to reflect upon it I feel better about it, but not great. I am good under pressure and I can produce things quickly so I know that relatively speaking the work is solid. However I am also a realist and I know that my competition does not have to try as hard as I do because the client favors them and if I want to compete I need to step it up a little.

This is where my concern came from because I don't view my performance as having been at the level I want it to be so that I can not only gain their attention but earn their business. Now the proposal has been handed in and the trick is to try and convince them to schedule a meeting to walk through it. If I can make that happen I am confident that good things will happen.

In the interim I am feeling a little frantic because I just had five projects dropped onto my lap and they are all due during the Chag. I am not coming in here Tuesday or Wednesday. It is just not going to happen, so once again I am placed in a position in which I am going to bang it out and hope for the best.

Tomorrow while I daven I'll ask for many things and at the end I'll include a special request to help me with this. If you happen to see someone break out into a poor man's rendition of "If I were A Rich Man" don't be alarmed it is just me.

Fragments of Fiction

I am playing around with incorporating this text into Fragments of Fiction.

It was barely an hour since the sun had begun its journey across the sky but the car had already begun to feel like an oven. There wasn’t much to see out here, just a long black strip that divide the desert into two halves of tumbleweeds, cacti and dirt.

Next to me the cooler was still filled with ice and drinks so for the time being the heat was not going to do more than make me sweat and that was never much of an issue for me. I had grown accustomed to working beneath the scorching heat of the Arizona sky.

The air conditioning had stopped working more than 1000 miles ago but that was a minor inconvenience compared to the lack of a radio. I could deal with the heat but I couldn’t deal with the boredom and sheer monotony brought on by watching miles of nothing interspersed with miles of no conversation and no music. There were no distractions because there were neither passengers nor cars on this road.

I began to softly sing Highway to Hell and a small chuckle escaped my lips. It wasn’t happy laughter, it was something else. You see, it wasn’t joyful laughter at all.
It was a mask that hid the deep feelings of hurt and betrayal. It was a manhole covering the empty place that used to contain my heart and I feared letting go because if I did I might find myself laughing hysterically and that frightened me.

I feared losing control. I feared looking into the mirror and seeing the face that looked back at me. The pain and hurt in those eyes haunted me. I couldn’t run away because those eyes belonged to me. I couldn’t run fast or far enough. I couldn’t hide. I tried to. I wanted to.

Do you want to know what trouble is. Trouble is when your nightmares no longer limit themselves to robbing you of sleep and when you can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is not. Trouble is knowing that you can never be whole again. Trouble is knowing that everything you thought was good and worthwhile has been taken from you and that you could have prevented it from happening but instead chose to do nothing.

Trouble is knowing that you cannot give up no matter how badly you want to. Trouble is knowing that suicide is not an option even though you are already dead inside. So you say that trouble is not the right word. You think that I should have used pain instead of trouble. Well that is great, but it doesn’t fly. I knew precisely what I was doing and why and trouble is exactly the word I wanted.

Pain is not the word to use because it is inadequate. It doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t make you feel anything and even if you could feel my pain it wouldn’t matter. You still wouldn’t understand and you still couldn’t help me because I am beyond that now. I am just an empty shell and I used to be so much more.

The New Year

I have been working hard to come up with a thoughtful and coherent post about my thoughts and feelings regarding Rosh Hashanah and all that surrounds it. I write and edit and write and delete and write and scream because none of the words carry the weight or import of my heart.

I stand here before G-d acknowledging a few basic truths, or truths as I understand and accept them.

• I believe in G-d.
• I believe that there are multiple paths to G-d.
• I believe that Judaism is the best path for me to G-d.
• I do not believe that you have to believe in G-d to be a good person.
• I have an obligation to my family, friends and community to try and improve the world.
• I sometimes fail but I try hard to meet this obligation.

Those are some of the basic thoughts. Had I been asked to engage in my own akedah I would have refused. I have to believe that Yitzhak suffered real trauma from this, but who really knows.

A couple more thoughts. I am still trying to be the man that my father is. I still seek his approval, but not because I haven't received it. I have. There is no doubt that my father is proud of me, but I cannot help but be the dutiful son and look to him for the example.

Last year when my father lay upon his death bed and truly became just a man to me I learned many different things, some of which I have shared and others that I have not but may some day.

In the year to come I pray to be a better person and hope for a year of less violence, less stress and less strain around the world. I pray that we wake up to a world in which healthcare is affordable, education is plentiful and no one goes hungry.

A happy and healthy year to all. Shana tovah to everyone.

Hot Dog

Later on I hope to spend a few minutes writing about my thoughts on the new year. In the interim allow me to share with you a contest that I am considering entering. It is a hot dog eating contest to be help next week. I am mulling this over because it sounds like fun but I suspect that I may hate myself afterwards.

Here is a brief blurb.

"I just got an email from the fine folks at The Stand, and they will be staging a fabulous Hot Dog-A-Thon as part of the "Taste of Encino" festivities on Sunday, October 9th at 1pm. Grand prize in the competitive eating event is $500 and each of the lucky competetors will receive a $100 Stand gift certificate redeemable for some of the best tubesteaks in Los Angeles. The Stand's CEO, Murray Wishengrad says that they are going all out to make this the biggest blow-out the LA hot dog scene has ever seen. He hopes to make it an annual event, so the humble hot dog will be honored in perpetuity.

In order to compete, you have to be over the age of 18, and you need to fill out an entry form before the contest begins. Entrants will be chosen at random. The 12 minute competition will involve a variety of dogs... including The Stand's famous chili dog, BBQ dog and kraut dog. Yes, these dogs are loaded! None of that namby pamby "just a dog and a bun" stuff like in Coney... We're talkin' real eatin' here!"

I'll keep you all posted about whether I choose to enter or dog it.

Sukkah Sam

Years ago I encountered Sukkah Sam. He is the man that would have put Ted and Soccer Dad to shame because he could put a Sukkah up in minutes. It was a beautiful structure and something that we enjoyed immensely.

I cannot tell you much about Sukkah Sam because my memory has gotten fuzzy with time it is almost 30 years since I last saw him and for all I know he was the father of a friend dressed up as a Sukkah builder. Still I remember it will.

Every now and then when I come across photos or film footage of the Amish building a barn I remember my experiences with Sukkah Sam, the Sukkah building man.

It Is Not My Thong

Hi folks,

There is so much material to cover, so many things to talk about and so little time. I could mention the lad who banned me from him blog, accused me of being nasty, threatened his posters with the same banning and asked all to be nice and then began his post by calling me a name. I love hypocrisy, it is so rich.

Or I could discuss in more detail my feelings about the coming days but I think that post should be separate and I need to consider it for a bit longer. There is always politics, but I don't think that I am up for that. Instead I want to call your attention to something else that irritates me.

Thongs.

Yes, I said thongs. I recognize that many people think of them as being sexy and I admit that on some people they are, but out in the public on the average person they just bother me.

I see them in a variety of places, women who are waist challenged they fail to pull up their pants intentionally or otherwise and all you see is a string. And then there are the others around town. Usually I encounter them in stores. I am walking down the aisle scanning it for products I need and there is someone bent over and I get to see far more of them then I want.

It is as bad as being forced to see the derriere of the stereotypical plumber or appliance repairman.

If I had my way I would extract my silly revenge by photographing these people and uploading their pictures onto the net, but who has that kind of time and what would it really matter anyway.