R.I.P. Uncle Raymond

What a week! Tuesday Henry calls me after dropping his wife off at the airport, he's sick. So we scrap our plans for me to go to the DMV with him so he can get his driver's license. A few hours later he calls, and calls, and calls (I was passed out in bed) trying to tell me he is in the ER with kidney stones. When I finally get his messages and call him back, our nephew and his wife are at the hospital with him and are going to take him home. Good.

Last night both Mom and Henry try to get a hold of me around 10 and 10:30. I was still somewhat out of it from weird dreams an exhausting day. Henry calls me again this morning at 7:15. I had to call him back as I was still at work. He tells me that our uncle Raymond is in the hospital with heart issues. Raymond is our mother's brother-in-law and the only uncle we have (Uncle Carl, Dad's ex-brother-in-law died years ago). So, when I get home I try to call Mom and find out how he is doing, call goes straight to voice mail.

I think, "okay, she must be on the phone or something."

An hour or so later, Mom calls me. She's in the car with our cousin Mindy, they are on their way to Greeley, Colorado. Uncle Raymond passed away this morning.

FUCK! I say to myself. Mom was unable to reach Henry. Henry was at his doctor for a follow up visit regarding the kidney stones. So after I get off the phone with Mom, and getting assurances that she will call me later with details and funeral arrangements, I send Henry a text. He calls me back rather quickly.

I told him what happened. He had already prepared himself for such news. Good for him. I didn't have any real time to prepare myself. But my own fauly for not returning phone calls.

Have no clue, at this point, how we are going to make it out to Colorado for the funeral. But Henry's wife is due back Saturday from her trip. I will have to make some arrangements with work and other issues to go, but I am going.

Enough for now. I just wanted to get out somehow. And talking with friends who never met Raymond is no help. No offense to them. I love you all!

Phil is Terrorized at Work

Okay, I know it has been forever and a day since my last post to this blog. For that I apologise. I further apologise for starting up again with such an upsetting title. But it is true.

Around 2:30am today I was monitoring a vehicle at the gas pumps where I work. I saw out of the corner of my a couple of teenagers start to approach the vehicle. The young lady who was pumping the gas must have said something to her passenger, apparently her father, because I saw him open the door and get out, looking towards the building. that is when I noted that there were at least three teenage males who were hanging around the dumpster area. Something I am not comfortable with, especially at that hour. They turned and walked back to the dumpster. The young lady came in and paid for her gas and bought herself a pack of cigarettes, nothing said to me about the teenagers. After she left the lot I stepped outside, pretending to pick up trash and checking the garbage cans. The teenagers crossed the street. One headed up the street and apparently went home. The other two remained at the corner.

At about 2:40am another young lady was pulling up to the pumps and these two came back into the parking lot. They started talking to her, so I turned the volume up on the intercom system so I could hear better. They were asking her for money. She said she only had enough for her gas. When she entered the store to prepay for her gas I asked if they were bothering her. She replied that they were. She went back to her vehicle and pumped her gas. The teenagers came into the store.

This is NOT the c-store chain I work for.

They came in and approached the counter, wanting to buy a "wrap". Well, I do not call them wraps. They are cigars. When a customer calls them wraps I know why they are buying them.  To strip and stuff with marijuana. I refused to sell to them, explaining that since they were harassing my customers I must ask them to leave the store and the property.  They denied harassing anyone, saying that they knew the second girl. I made no direct mention of the first one. I repeated what I had said.

"You can't refuse us service, we are paying customers," one of them said.

"I have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. You are harassing my customers and now arguing with me. Leave my store, please."

"You can't make us leave, we have the right to be here," said the other one.  Now, we all know that no one has the right to be in a place of business, they do have the right to demand good service. Good service ends when they are harassing other customers or the employees of said business.

"Leave my store, or I am calling the police."

"Go ahead and call the police!" one of them said. I don't remember which one. Around this time the second one called me a "nigga". (*looks in the mirror* Last time I checked I was rather pale. Of course, I understand that sometimes that derogatory term is defined to mean anyone who is being a complete and total jackass about this. But I do not believe I fit that definition either.)

"Just leave my store," I said, and pointed to the door.

The second teenager was standing in the doorway at this time and called out to me, "I am going to shoot your nigga ass!"

The first one was threatening to sue me. What for, I have no clue. But when I heard the threat I declared that I was going to call the police. At which point they both hurriedly left the store and crossed back to the corner.

I picked up the phone and dialed 911 as i was walking to the door, to better see where they went. As they were on foot I knew I would need to watch what direction they were going so I could inform the dispatcher of their believed direction. As I was on the phone, giving them all the information I could, I watched the two teenagers cross the street again and head away from the store.

Obviously I took the threat seriously. Otherwise I would not have called 911.

Surprisingly an officer appeared on the scene within minutes of my call. I say surprisingly because I had made a call last year under similar circumstances and never saw an officer. That lead to an in-house investigation of the 911 call center and the police officers who were on duty at the time of the call. Result, I must request an officer in order for them to respond.  The actual result, when they hear my name, they respond.

I gave the officer, whom I am beginning to know on a first name basis, my report while taking care of other customers. One of those has been witness to several incidences at my store and on my shift. She may not be back for some time. The officer gave me her name, badge number and the case number requesting a copy of the security video and reminded me that she was still waiting on video from at least three earlier calls from my store.

It took me over an hour to write my report for the company. I was so shaken. I even went out and had a cigarette. As many of you know, I have been working on quitting for sometime and have been rather successful the last week. Having three or less cigarettes a day - each one either giving me a headache or making me sick to my stomach. Today, I have had more.

I posted to my Facebook status about this situation, saying that I believe it is time I start seriously looking for a different job. Over nights at a convenience store are starting to get too dangerous and nerve wracking for me. I do not get paid enough to put myself into physical or even mortal danger on a nightly basis, and the stress of the job has gotten to be too much.

I have made no indication to my employer of my intention of looking for employment elsewhere. To quote my friend Sarah, "I'm crazy, not stupid."

Och! My aching back!

Och! Some much for my idea of doing 500 words per day for blog posts. Damn. I am so far behind on that. And it is not laziness or other obligations getting in the way. Well, okay, maybe a little bit of laziness, but for the most part not. Shortly after I decided to do this little project I wound up hurting myself at work. I had gotten tired of the condition of the cooler and decided to do something about it.

Yea. Very good idea on my part. REALLY! First thing I did was pick up a nearly empty milk crate, it has like four quarts of heavy whipping cream, and I felt the muscles in my lower back spasm and a do a little ripple across the spine. Now, I should have known that that was a clue not to do any more lifting that shift. Or at least not as much as I proceeded to do. But I was in a snit and wanted to do something to work off my frustration.

By the time I was done in the cooler you could see the floor from one end to the other. Everything was neatly put away on proper shelving, and the reach-in shelves were stocked completely.  Not very often I get to do that from start to finish in one shift, so I was quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately, it didn't take but a day or two for the cooler to turn into a complete again, but it was done. (Seems the boss got a wild hair that same week to recorganize the back room....and he did the same thing to his back.)

So, standing, sitting, laying down. They all hurt after a while. And taking ibuprofen or other pain relievers is not doing much good anymore. I either have to live with it or break down and go to a doctor about it. It may have been work related, but after two weeks there is no way I convince them to cover the bill. So I am SOL on that end. No insurance right now, so I think I will live with it and hope that I do something to put everything back in place. Yes, I am stubborn.

I do take ibuprofen and or tylenol on a regular basis right now to deal with the pain, but it does little good.  I have been wearing a lumbar belt whenever doing any required lifting at work. Damned things just as big of a pain to wear as it is to go without, but I do feel it keeping things where they are....if that is what I really want. I dunno. I suppose it would help even more if I managed not to fall asleep on the sofa every day this past week.

Phil Falls Down on the Job

I have been somewhat lax on what I had planned to do to prepare for NaNoWriMo, but sometimes you do have to take a break from things in life. This past Wednesday was my 33rd birthday, so I took a few days off from everything that I could. I even managed to get two days off from work.

What, if anything, did I get accomplished on my little mini vacation from life? Not much, really. I watched some good movies at home and with friends, I watched the entire Kolchak: the Night Stalker series, the original with Darren McGavin, and I bummed around my apartment. The night of my birthday I went over a friend's place and watched a peculiar movie (more on that later) and had one of my favorite pizzas, cream cheese and pepperoni.

That visit with my friend was also a true test of my committment to be a non-smoker. Cheri is a not exactly a chain smoker, but she does smoker a lot. And does Munky, the other friend that was visiting. Like most smokers, when they find nothing for their hands to do they smoke. I know that when I get bored I want to do something with my hands. Sometimes I just want to hold something in my hands. That is something that I think a lot of non-smokers, those who have never been a smoker, do not understand. Part of the addiction is having something to do with your hands, as well as there is the oral addiction. Smoking is not just an addiction to nicotine and the other nasty chemicals in cigarettes and smokable tobacco products.

Well, I am quite proud of myself. I resisted the one urge to ask Cheri for a cigarette and I also managed to only use my bluCig five times during the six hour visit. Yes, six hour visit. Visiting with my friends is rarely a pop-in/pop-out adventure.

Now, that movie that we watched. It was quite peculiar. "Death of a Ghost Hunter" is the title. I had never heard anything about it, but it sounded interesting.  It is supposed to be the true story of a paranormal investigator and the last case she investigated. The case that she died investigating. Well, it was a very good story line, but the acting sucked and the sound quality was more than ameteur. The use special effects was minimal, which probably saved the believablity of the movie. All in all, I think I would rate the movie with three stars. And considering that the Netflix viewer rating was 3.5 stars, I suppose I am right there with most of the viewers. I may even find myself watching it again. I don't know...

We also watched a documentary called Gendernauts, a film about the transgendered community in the United States, primarily San Francisco. That was a truly interesting documentary and something that I may have to delve into more in a future post to this blog.

And to top off the evening, we watched a few episodes of Red Dwarf. Perhaps one of my favorite British comedies....at least of the surreal kind.

Meh....more to come.

Jones and 9/11

I have been following the ridiculous story from Gainsville, Florida about the "minister" who was planning to burn copies of the Qu'ran today. This story has made me think long and hard about a lot of things, not the least of which is where he got the idea that burning any book, let alone the holy book of an entire culture, was a good idea. I mean, Hello! That rings of the Inquisition and Nazi Germany. Doesn't this man realize that not only could he have set American-Arab relations back decades, but he could have started a war between Christians and Muslims right here in the United States? Apparently he did even think about the ultimate consequences of his proposed actions.

The really amazing thing is that not only did he get INTERNATIONAL news coverage for this planned ploy, but his tiny little church has grown in it noteriety. Reminds me a lot of "Rev." Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. Some how I get the feeling that Jones and Phelps are either good friends or are going to become so in the very near future. Look at it. Jones advocates the desecration of the Muslim holy book, Phelps protests the funerals of veterans who have died in the Persian Gulf (as well as men, women and children who have died from HIV/AIDS). Both claim that their actions are sanctioned by the First Amendment.

Well, they are correct....to an extent. The First Amendment gives U.S. citizens freedom of speech and freedom of religion. What it does not do is provide them with a carte blanche license to destroy the lives of others. Jones' proposed burning of the Qu'ran is the same thing as declaring war on Islam. Phelps' protesting of funerals (whether those of AIDS patients or of veterans) is the same thing as declaring war on their families.
I know that may sound extreme, but I do feel that way. The first I heard of Jones made me laugh. Truly, it did. I mean, here we are in the 21st Century. I really didn't think that someone who was educated in the United States would be so stupid as to believe that burning a book, any book, is a good thing. But, I should have known better. I would imagine that he and his congregation were also involved in the burning of copies of the Harry Potter books a few years ago. Anything to make a statement, right? Well, the statement that he has made is that he is an ignorant fool worthy of little more than my disdain. I feel the same way about Phelps and people of his ilk.

This is the United States. This is the 21st Century. We should be better than this. But we are not, as a whole. It is sad to say that there are many, many people in this country, in this world, who think like Jones and Phelps do. They think that they can take such atrocious actions to make their opinions heard. (Note, OPINIONS.) When it is so much simpler, and less scandalous, to make blog posts, press releases or even quiet demonstrations about your political and religious beliefs.

I really cannot think of anything to parallel these to two, other than Hitler and Nazi Germany. And I do not want to give them that kind of power. I know that writing this post I have given them some power. Hell, just the way I feel about these two and their shenanigans gives them some power. Thoughts have power, words have power, actions have power. I hope that by relating my thoughts to my readers in this manner will at least convey that I do not stand for such actions and that I do not want to see such thing happen again in my world.
Unforunately, I am a part of the same world as Jones and Phelps, as Bush and bin Laden. We all are. But we can take steps within our own lives to at least make our actions clear and positive, even when we are faced with disaster or persecution.

Please join me today as I remember the heroes that died on 9/11/01, those in the Towers, and those in the planes that went down and made this a very sad day for all Americans. Those heroes are men and women and children, they are white, black, Asian, Middle Eastern, they are Christian, Jew, and Muslim (and any number of other religions that were effected), they are straight, gay, bisexual and transgendered, they are Americans, Europeans, etc. They were people of this Earth and they were our Brothers and Sisters. All I ask is that you pause after reading this post and just remember them as heroes. We do not need to have a period of silence like they are having on Facebook and other social networks, we do not even need to have public demonstrations of mourning and remembrance, but we do need to remember. A world that can remember this tragedy is a world that will not let it happen again. A people who can move past the hate and the bitterness is a people that can prevent such things from happening elsewhere.

I am going to step off my soap box now and let you continue your day as you see fit. Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

I Am a Non Smoker!

On August 21, my friends Sarah and Michael came for a visit with their children. They were helping me run the 3rd Annual Pagan Alliance Network Yard Sale. Sarah has been a social smoker for most of the time I have known her, and recently started smoking on a regular basis. They had brought an interesting little device with them, an electronic cigarette. Of course, I wanted to give it a try. I have been wanting and trying to quit for quite sometime. As readers of this blog know, I have been committed to quitting this year.

So, I did some investigating of this electronic cigarette.  The brand is bluCigs and is available online.  I did some reading on their website and some further investigation elsewhere and came to the conclusion that this was a viable option for me. I ordered my bluCigs on the 22nd. With up to a week to wait for their arrival in my mail box, I did not think I could go without cigarettes while waiting. I bought a couple more packs over the next couple of days, and on that Thursday I bought a pack of ultra lights on my way home from work. Knowing full well that before the cigarettes were gone the bluCigs would be in my possession. And I was right. The next afternoon they had arrived in the mail.

I have not been going without other sources of nicotine since the bluCigs arrived. I have been using a transdermal nicotine patch as well. But on my days off I go without the patch and use only the bluCig. That last pack of smokes lasted me just about a week, having one or two a day on my way to or from work. But I have not bought a pack of cigarettes since that Thursday on my way home.

What I like about this electronic cigarette, which is a nicotine inhaler, is that it comes with five different flavors. Classic tobacco, menthol, java, vanilla and cherry. The cherry is okay, but it is not my favorite by far. I prefer the java and vanilla the most, but the classic tobacco is nice. Oddly enough, instead of tasting like a cigarette, it tastes like pipe tobacco or a really nice cigar.

Another nice things is that I use the bluCig a lot less than I would be smoking cigarettes. When you smoke, you feel the need to smoke as much of the cigarette as possible. And putting it out and relighting is not a very flavor friendly method of getting the most out of the thing. So, when you light up you do everything you can to get every last breath of nicotine and other nastiness out of that cancer stick. Which means that you take drag after drag, get pissy when someone interrupts your smoke break at work, and sometimes find that you smoke while going to the bathroom or even while eating. Both of those last are NASTY!

I think the best thing about the bluCigs and most other brands of electronic cigarettes is that they do not contain all those nasty carcinogens that cigarettes and other treated tobacco products do. They contain liquid nitocine, flavor, and water. You are inhaling a water vapor, not smoke.

How have I been handling this? It has been over a week since my last cigarette. I haven't had but a few desires for a real smoke. At work, I will take trash out or go sweep the lot and take a few puffs of the bluCig, but it hardly seems to matter if I take two or five in a short period. I am satisfied and do not have the need to run right back out and get a few more puffs if a customer comes in and interrupts my vape break.
At home I sit at the computer and play games, do email, and watch programs on NetFlix. The bluCig sits on the keyboard and is often ignored or forgotten about. When I am lounging on the sofa watching a movie or a reading from a book I hardly even think about smoking or picking up the inhaler.

My sinuses are treating me like shit right now, they are draining out all that nastiness that I have been forcing into my body. My lungs are congested and I cough up nasty phlegm on a consistant basis right now. But I know that all of that will pass. I can smell things much more clearly. Which means that not only do I appreciate the plants and flowers around me, but the strong cologne and perfumes that people wear give me fits. I can walk into my apartment and know that the cats have naughty or nice (Mister likes to display his protests over my absence or other "neglect" by leaving a deposit on the bathroom floor). I can also enjoy the wonderful fresh scent of the rain and the fall leaves without struggling to smell it. Foods taste better already, and I know that they will only get better as time goes on.

I have been a smoker since October 31, 1992. And I am proud to say that I am no longer a smoker.

(Writing this post, I have taken one drag off the bluCig. Which makes about five drags total since getting home from work four hours ago.)

Gearing Up for NaNoWriMo 2010

My brother, Henry, was so excited about NaNoWriMo last year that it made me think about actually getting off my ass and doing something about one of my dreams. That dream is writing a novel. Many people want to write a novel and talk about doing it off and on for years.  Many of those same people never even put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, each participant has 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. At this stage of the game, the novel does not have to be reading publishing. Hell, it doesn't even have to be reading for editing. But there have been some authors who have gotten their start by taking part in this competition. And just what does it mean to win NaNoWriMo? if you scuessfully complete your 50,000 word novel you have won the competition. If you don't make it to that word count, then better luck next time! There really are no losers.

My brother and one of my closest friends are also taking part in this year's NaNoWriMo. We can be a support for each other as well as have a friendly little competition between the three of us. Should be a wonderful experience for all of us. And with my brother's past experience in this, he can help us figure out some of the best ways to keep ourselves motivated as well as software that makes tracking our progress so much easier.

I have started writing a book many times over the years and never gotten very far with it. Short stories are not much of a problem for me, but fleshing the story out so that it is more than just a few pages is something that I sometimes have trouble with. Part of that trouble is that I lose interest or ambition with the project. But when I find myself doing the writing because I want to, then I can fly through pages and pages of description and dialogue.

One of my most successful stories was actually the back ground on a character for a LARP game. About nine years ago I let some friends of mine talk me into playing Vampire: the Masquerade. I wrote a five pages back story for my character and handed it in to the storyteller before my first gaming session. He read it over and then shouted out to the rest of the players, "This is what I mean by a back story!" Not only had I given a basic description of the character and what he was currently doing, but I written about his childhood, his early adult years, and what exactly was going on when he was embraced and became a part of the story line for the city.
Now, I have always been rather good at developing back stories for characters in role playing games. Sometimes I get so involved in the story that I forget that I am developing a character for a game. I plan to take some of that and turn it into developing characters for a book.

Between now and November 1, 2010 I can do all the story development I want, I just can't actually write the story. Does that sound confusing? Well, here, let me try to clarify that for you.  What I means is that i can write about my characters, the setting of the story and what have you, but I cannot actually sit down and write any of the STORY. I can describe the characters down to their smallest detail; I can write up or even draw out a plan of their homes, businesses, and other surroundings. What I cannot do is sit down and write out the dialogue between Character A and B at such-n-such a point in the story.

And just how am I going to help prepare myself for the commitment of this NaNoWriMo? I am going to do my utmost to write at least one post a day for this blog, with a minimum of 500 words for each post. (As of this sentence, I have exceeded that 500 words for this post.) I am also renewing my commitment to write at least one post for the Pangaia Metaphysical Store blog and get back on track with doing the weekly blog posts to my radio blog for Murphy's Magic Mess, Pagan-Musings Podcast and Musica Pagani.

Throughout the next several weeks, leading up to November 1, I will keep my readers posted as to my success with my pre-NaNoWriMo writing commttments. During November, I will do my best to keep up on those commitments along with the commitment to write the 50,000 word novel. So, I ask that you all have patience with me as I brush up my writing skills and I encourage you to drop me notes with suggestions and encouragement along the way.