How do you deal with aging parents…?
Or in my case it would be more accurate to say an aging parent, since my mother passed several years ago. At some point in your life, everyone reading this today will probably have to deal with the topic of this post in one way or another. We all have parents, and as we as individuals age, our parents will become “old” faster than we will.
As babies grow, they have to develop the skills necessary to do things on their own, by themselves, for themselves so that they can learn to take care of themselves and become productive members of society. Until that point in their life is reached, a child’s parents are responsible for taking care of their needs. The child needs to have a “babysitter” in their life because they haven’t become responsible enough to take care of themselves yet. Unfortunately, as a lot of our parents become older the roles seem to become reversed. If a parent isn’t taken from us fairly early due to cancer, heart attack/failure, or some other dire health reason, then they just keep getting older, and older. It’s great that we still have our parent(s) around at that point, and haven’t had to deal with their loss emotionally yet. However, sometimes having them still around can be like a double-edged sword. Sometimes as our parents age they seem to revert back to early childhood, where it feels like they need someone to “babysit” them again. A lot of times this is due to a serious medical condition like senility or Alzheimer’s. But even before an aging parent is diagnosed with a condition like that, there is a period of time leading up to that point where the parent might start exhibiting some minor symptoms of senility, but not seriously enough that medical intervention is required yet. This can lead to frustration on the child’s part, because the parent doesn’t acknowledge that anything is wrong, and can even become rebellious because they feel they are still the same independent adult that they have been most of their life. They don’t want anyone telling them that they shouldn’t be doing specific tasks anymore. They don’t seem to realize (or want to admit) that as a result of their old age, they may be putting the lives of other people in jeopardy by continuing to exert their “right” to do anything they want to do because they are still an independent adult.
As a man who is now in his early 50’s, whose father waited until his mid-20’s to have children, I have a father who will be 78 years old this coming December. Granted, that’s not terribly old for a lot of healthier, older adults these days. However, he has a few medical issues that contribute to his being less than a “healthy old man.” All of his life he has had sleep apnea. This causes him to “doze off” frequently (during conversations, while watching TV, or in the worst case… while behind the wheel of a car). He was exposed to some loud (aviation related) noises during his military service, so his hearing is less than optimal (he has hearing aids for both ears, but does not usually wear them). He has some peripheral neuropathy, so the feeling in his hands and feet is not the best. He has also gotten to the point where he now has a bit of a limp when he walks, due to some hip/joint pain. Because of that he doesn’t like to walk much anymore, and he’s received a permanent “disabled person” license plate for his car so he can park close to businesses, if the “handicap space” is available. He has had the sleep apnea and hearing problems for many years now, and the other conditions for the past several years. My father has been in at least 3 or 4 minor car accidents (either with another vehicle, or sign posts, or curbed islands, etc.) that I know of during the past few years. Because of the anesthesia received during my recent surgeries, I had to have someone drive me home afterward. My father was the only one available, so I had to ride with him both times. Riding in the car with him behind the steering wheel was a harrowing experience. He drives entirely too fast for someone of his age (i.e. reduced reaction time), and several times I thought we were going to slam into the car in front of us that we kept accelerating toward until the last minute, when he finally applied the brakes. Several times over the past couple of years I have said out loud to my younger brother, in my father’s presence, that Dad seriously needs to consider turning in his driver’s license. I’ve said it in a somewhat-joking manner, but it’s not really a joke. Unfortunately my father is one of those who fits the “stubborn Norwegian” stereotype, and he is of the “you’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands” mentality. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to realize that he could be endangering others while he is guiding that big steel missile down the road. So at what point does a child become involved and try to get their parent’s license, a tangible sign of their independence, taken away from them. The downside of taking his license away is that it could have multiple impacts. It could lead to him becoming withdrawn and depressed, and accelerate his downward spiral to the grave. However, the more disturbing aspect from my point of view, from someone who has a work schedule and his own life to lead and things to do, is that it might mean that my brother and I will have to interrupt our own lives more often to shuttle my father around if he needs to be somewhere.
I started my adult life early, and became an independent adult at the age of 18. I joined the US Navy and moved away from home soon after high school. As an introvert, I enjoyed… no, needed… my time alone. Whenever I wasn’t on duty while in the Navy, I could usually be found off the base at a theater watching a movie, or strolling through a shopping mall. Some of those times were spent with a close friend or two that I had made, but a lot of those times I was on my own. When I got out of the Navy, I entered into a relationship almost immediately. Over the years since, I’ve been in a few more relationships. When I’m in a relationship I don’t feel the need to be alone frequently. I enjoy the company of my partner and enjoy spending time with her. However, when I’m not in a relationship I prefer to spend my time alone, usually at home but sometimes out in public as well. As an example, I just spent several hours browsing through an antique mall yesterday, by myself. I have never been a big “social butterfly” who feels the need to be surrounded by people all the time (again, I’m an introvert). Still, I can hold my own at a party full of people… carrying on conversations about myriad topics… but I always look forward to finally being back home again to “regroup” and collect my thoughts. So where is this all leading?
I would not say that my father is an extrovert, but he is obviously not as much of an introvert as I am, if he is at all. I would say that “needy” is a more apt description of his personality. He was raised in the 1930’s and 1940’s as an only child of two Norwegian immigrants. My father and I have never been particularly close, so we’ve never had extensive father-son talks about his childhood or upbringing. That said, I think that as an only child during that era he was “spoiled” a bit. His mother and father did everything for him and provided all of his material needs until he (too) joined the US Navy after high school. After his 2 years in the Navy, he moved back into his parents’ home and was again taken care of by his mother. When he finally married and moved into a home with my mother, the role of caretaker switched to my mother. It was the early 1960’s by then, and the nuclear family was the norm. My father was the breadwinner and my mother was the stay-at-home-mom who raised me and my brother… and I want to add here, my father. Sure, he was the responsible adult who went out into the workforce every day and brought home the proverbial bacon… but it was my mother who brought home the literal bacon, fried it up in a pan, and served it to all of us. Then she cleaned up afterward. During the day she would do all the laundry and the housecleaning. My father was only responsible for the “manly tasks,” like fixing things when they broke, paying the bills, etc. I’m not sure if my father ever had to cook a meal for himself during most of his life. This is the way things were, even after my brother and I moved out of the home to start our own families. My mother simply did everything for my father. Then at the beginning of 2008 cancer happened. My mother fell ill, and within a few short months had passed from our lives. My father was suddenly really “alone” for the first time in his life. That didn’t last for long though, and soon my brother became the substitute for my mother. My brother had moved back temporarily to undergo chemotherapy at the same time that my mother was sick (what are the odds, huh?). After his rounds of chemotherapy, my brother decided to stay in California. He soon moved in with my father. Since then my father has had a “girlfriend” (that neither my brother nor I liked) for a period of time. It got to the point where my (mid-70’s) father was talking about marrying her, just to be with someone again. My brother and I basically had an intervention and told my father that if he married her he was going to alienate his two children because we did not think she was right for him (she was a delusional, paranoid schizophrenic who didn’t treat him very well). In the end, he stopped seeing her. Now it’s back to my brother and father alone in the same house again, with my brother cooking most of his meals, doing laundry, etc.
There are other family issues at play here that I won’t discuss publicly, but I will say that personally I could not live with my father (actually, either of my parents) again. After so many years of just being alone or in a close relationship with someone, I couldn’t share a roof with one of my parents again “full time.” Our personality types, religious (or lack of) beliefs, political opinions, and just thoughts about the way things “should be” are in such diametrical opposition to each other that the household would be in constant strife and argument if either of us talked out loud. My brother’s beliefs and opinions are (usually) more aligned with my father, so they get along well enough to live together. I can stand visiting with them for short periods of time, either for a quick meal out, or to go to some event, but there are some topics that we all know to avoid in conversations unless we’re looking for an argument. I could not ever live with either of them again on a day-to-day basis, and have told them as much.
So I’ve been out of work on disability for the two hand operations for several weeks now, since the middle of July. Most of that time has been spent right here, in my house, alone… as I like it. For many years now, if I’ve lived in the same town as my family I have always asked them to respect my privacy, and to not just “drop by” my house unannounced. Even if I’m sitting in my house alone, I’m usually doing something that interests me, something that I want to be doing. Like I’ve told my father recently, I am never just sitting in my house doing nothing and thinking “I wish someone would stop by.” At least twice since I’ve been home on disability, I have been in the middle of doing something when I’ve heard a knock on my door. I’ve had to stop what I was doing and go to the front of the house to peek through the blinds to see who it was (if it’s solicitors, I just ignore them and go back to what I was doing). A couple of times now I’ve looked out and seen my father standing in front of my door. With my brother at work during the day, my father got bored with nobody there to talk to and decided to get in his car and come over to my house. I asked him why he was here and he said “I thought I would just stop by and say hi.” At that point I said, “I thought I’ve asked you not to come over unannounced? I was busy doing something” (I hate that it sounds so harsh, but even being blunt about it he doesn’t seem to get the message). We talked for a few minutes through the door, then he left to go home again (I had made it clear that I was busy and would like to get back to what I was doing). I’m not completely heartless, it does make me feel a little bad to turn him away… but only because it might hurt his feelings a bit.
I know that this probably makes me sound like a total @$$, but I have my reasons and I don’t feel that I’m necessarily in the wrong. I came from a relatively small family (just the 4 of us), and since I moved away at an early age, I have pretty much just lived my own life. My immediate family became less important to me as I was living in various places around the country. Sure, I love them because they are my family… but that doesn’t necessarily obligate me to spend my time with them, does it? We have nothing in common anymore, with the exception of blood, our last name, and our shared history. As individuals on this earth with a relatively short period of time here that we call life, it is my opinion that we should make the most of it in the ways that make us happiest, as individuals. I have no delusions that there is going to be some kind of afterlife that I need to be fostering relationships for. For me this is a one-way trip, and I need to do what makes me happy while I’m here. To some people, spending time with family is the most important thing. For me, not so much. Why would I choose to spend a lot of time with people that I can’t have a conversation with without starting an argument? With people that I have nothing in common with? I’m torn, because I think it does make me sound like an @$$… to make my father go back home and sleep on his couch rather than mine (just so he could be near me). But if experience is any indicator, that is probably what would have happened if I had invited him in to stay.
My brother and I keep telling my father that he needs to join some kind of organization (Elks, Rotary, Veterans, etc.), so that he can make some friends his own age and have something to do so that he’s not bored and/or lonely all the time. I have brought up the possibility of moving him into a retirement community so he will have other people around that he can talk to. But, he doesn’t seem receptive to the idea in the slightest, and I know that that is not what he really wants. He wants to keep the status quo. He wants someone to be there to take care of his needs, to babysit him, to do what he wants all of the time… regardless of how selfish that is, and how it might impact my brother and/or me. When my brother is not at home, he is constantly receiving phone calls from my dad… “where are you?”… “how come you’re not home yet?”… “when will you be home?”… “I’m hungry, are you going to fix my dinner?”… So I ask… how does one deal with an aging parent who appears to have no regard for what his children want, as long as he is satisified?
the second toe
Because of my recent surgeries to alleviate the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, I’ve been home from work for about 8 weeks now. I originally thought it was going to be for 6 weeks, but that estimate has been revised twice. At this point I still have two more weeks to go before I return to work. I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to the actual surgeries, but I was looking forward to getting rid of my symptoms and feeling somewhat “normal” again. I also wasn’t looking forward to what it was going to cost me. My health insurance isn’t the greatest, so I had a huge portion of deductible and co-pay that needed to be met. All told, it cost me over $3200 out of pocket to have the two surgeries done. Since I have been on FMLA leave, my employer is not paying me while I’m out. That means that I have to rely on supplemental short-term disability payments provided by the State of California for the duration of my FMLA leave. Disability payments are calculated at a rate of 60% of a person’s normal salary. When all is said and done, this entire venture will have cost me several thousand dollars.
Frankly, once I knew that I was going to be having surgeries I was looking forward to being away from the work environment for a while. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m not exactly the happiest camper at work these days. Work has become something I dread, a drudgery that I must endure so that I don’t default on my mortgage payment. The general consensus is that if you do something you love to do for your employment, it won’t even feel like work and your life will be a happy one. That has certainly not been the case with me lately. It’s not that I dislike my chosen career field as much as it is that I dislike my current situation, who I work for and what I’ve been tasked with doing during the past few years. So again, escaping from that environment, even while subsisting on the reduced pay that short-term disability allows, has been a welcome respite. However, with the time soon approaching when I’ll need to return to the office I am starting to feel that sense of dread again. Being out of the picture for so long, I don’t know if there will be any work waiting for me when I return. While on FMLA leave, my employer is legally bound to hold my job for me until I return. However, there’s nothing to say that they can’t lay me off soon after I return. If they did, it would almost be a relief. However, that would put me immediately into unemployment and force my hand into finding another job sooner. I might have to settle for something less than I want, rather than having some bargaining power with a prospective employer because of being currently employed. In any case, I’ve already contacted the recruiter that I mentioned previously and told her that we need to start seeking out prospective employers again soon.
Some may think that time off from work, resting at home after surgery(s) is like a vacation. I certainly thought it might be more like one than it has been for me. My hands were truly in pain the first few days after surgery, and I did end up taking the prescription narcotic pain relievers that the doctor prescribed. Initially I thought I could just make do with some ibuprofen, but for the first couple of days that Norco certainly helped to take the edge off the pain a little better. The downside (or upside, depending on how you look at it) was that they made me sleepy, so I had to nap a lot during the day. Then there was the fact that I couldn’t do ANYTHING with the hand that had been operated on for at least a couple of days afterward. The “opposable thumb” is completely useless immediately after carpal tunnel release surgery. It takes a week or two before you can do any kind of gripping action (screwing lids on and off jars or bottles, for example). You learn to grip things between your arm and your torso, then use the other hand to unscrew lids. You can do limited typing (pecking) on the keyboard, but it makes your hand start to hurt if you do it for a while. Even now, 4 weeks after surgery on my right hand, it still gets a little fatigued, and it’s a bit painful if I rest my wrist on the desk to use the mouse. The surgeon said that sometimes it takes months before the hands are completely healed.
Sure, the time has been like a vacation insomuch as I have been watching a lot of TV and movies, but that’s because it’s about all I can do with my hands “out of order.” To make my time off even less enjoyable, I’ve had another physical issue plaguing me almost the entire time I’ve been off. A few days before my first surgery, I started to get headaches almost daily. On and off throughout my lifetime I’ve gone through periods where I will get headaches regularly for a while, sometimes for several months to years at a time. Then something happens, as a result of chiropractic treatments or for some other reason, and the headaches will stop. Then I’ll go for a few years without the periods of regular headaches. It appears that I’m in one of those “regular headaches” periods right now. I have been using chiropractic adjustments to ease aches and pains on and off through the years since my early teens, after I was run over by a Volkswagen Beetle at the age of 13. Sometimes I’ve gone to a couple of different chiropractors during treatment to see if one’s technique might help more than the other. That has been the case with this round of headaches, but I can’t seem to get my body to want to stay in alignment and make the headaches go away altogether. One night I contemplated sitting down to watch some TV, but the headache persuaded me to go to bed instead… and it takes quite a bit to get me to not want to watch TV.
When one has carpal tunnel syndrome, one typically tries to avoid situations that cause the symptoms to flare up (at least that was the case for me). Unfortunately, because I work on a computer for a living I couldn’t get around that problem and the symptoms were ever present at work. When trying to do any type of exercise except walking (for example, riding a bicycle or using the elliptical machine), the CTS symptoms would show themselves. Therefore, I stopped doing much in the way of exercising around the end of last year. However, that didn’t curb my appetite any and I kept eating as I normally did. In fact, because I stopped exercising (and maybe due to a little bit of depression) I started planting my butt on the couch a bit more and watching more TV… which led to more snacking. The result has been that I’ve probably put on an additional 25 or 30 pounds since the beginning of the year. At the beginning of the year I was already at a point where I wanted to lose about 50 pounds, so now I’m to the point where I need to lose about 80 pounds of unwanted fat. There, I said it… I’m fat. I’ve posted a photo of myself here that was taken a couple weeks ago (Labor Day weekend) when I took a day trip down to the Bay Area (I was starting to get stir crazy and needed to go out and do something), so you can see for yourself. Looking at the BMI charts, I’m probably what the doctors would consider to be clinically obese by this point. Would you believe me if I told you that the desire is there to lose weight? There have been many days when I’ve considered going outside during the day and even just walking for a while (I actually did it, once, one morning last week). However, the desire to lose the weight apparently isn’t strong enough to overcome the desire to stay inside because of a headache or because it’s just too damned HOT outside here during the day right now. Here it is, in the middle of September, and it was 105 degrees in the shade yesterday and 106 degrees today! That’s just too hot for my Viking blood to tolerate. By the time it’s cool enough outside for me to be comfortable walking, it’s usually around midnight… and I’m in no mood to be walking the neighborhood at midnight. I am hoping that it starts cooling off here pretty soon so that the motivation to go out and exercise comes more easily. That, and I’ve finally ordered a new battery to replace the dead one in my elliptical machine. I am seriously considering selling my house and moving to somewhere cooler again, so that I don’t have to avoid all outdoor activities during the summer months.
Well, I’ve covered the “more about the carpal tunnel/disability” situation and the unwanted weight gain topic. That’s two off of my previous list. That’s probably enough for today. Stay tuned for some of those other topics next time.
One toe in the water
I have so much running through my head right now that I feel I could sit and write for days. However, I know that most bloggers (or more accurately, those who are reading blogs) don’t want to spend hours in front of the computer reading one single posting from a fellow writer. Long dissertations are most certainly audience killers (at least for some people), even if one has been absent from writing for nearly a year. So, maybe I’ll just “briefly” touch on each of the topics I want to talk about. I’ll start writing and we’ll see how it goes (thank goodness for WordPress, and the ability to save and edit draft copies before publishing).
To “catch myself up” on where I last left off here, I just now went and looked at my “all posts” to read my last one. I noticed that I had started to write a post on January 19 of this year, and it was still in Draft format, never published. To put things in perspective, I am thinking about hitting the “publish” button and adding the disclaimer that it was a draft from January. Then I can address anything further I wanted to say about the topic(s) in this posting. I think I will… just a minute, I’ll be back.
To respond to things written in my January draft chronologically, I should probably mention the vacation first. As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed my time away from work, in the lands of some of my ancestors. In the brief post that I wrote when I returned from vacation, I mentioned that I would be processing the photos from my vacation and posting a link to them from here. I also mentioned that I took over 4600 photos while on vacation, so I hope you can appreciate that it has been a daunting, time-consuming task. I do have all of the photos from Copenhagen processed and uploaded. That takes care of the first four days of my vacation. I’ve started on the Stockholm photos as well, but I still have a large amount of photos to process from the trip. However, the good news is that most of the 4600 photos were taken during that first week, when I was in Copenhagen and Stockholm. Once I got to Norway, a lot of the time was spent with family rather than in museums and palaces. That said, I did take quite a few photos in Norway as well… just not as much as when I was in Copenhagen and Stockholm. Here are some links to the first few days worth of photos… they should keep you busy for a little while:
Set 1 – Day 1, Sacramento to Copenhagen (overnight flight)
Set 2 – Day 2, Copenhagen Pt. 1
Set 3 – Day 2, Copenhagen Pt. 2
Set 4 – Day 3, Copenhagen Pt. 1
Set 5 – Day 3, Copenhagen Pt. 2
Set 6 – Day 4, Copenhagen Pt. 1
Set 7 – Day 4, Copenhagen Pt. 2
Set 8 – Day 4, Copenhagen Pt. 3
Set 9 – Day 4, Copenhagen Pt. 4
As you can see, Day 4 in Copenhagen was a busy day. Day 5 was a travel day. I had to pack my things, check out of the hotel, and take the train back to the airport. Then a short flight to Arlanda Airport, located on the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden. After a bus ride into the city, I walked to my next hotel accommodations and checked in. Then I went back out for a bit to pick up some things I needed and eat dinner. Afterwards, I did take some nighttime photos along the streets of Gamla Stan (the old city). I’ll post a link to those photos in a future blog, once I have them processed and uploaded.
The next thing I talked about in my January draft was my situation at work. The task that I mentioned in the draft has now come and gone. I was involved with it, heavily, but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined, and I was able to stay in Sacramento for the duration of the project. It is good that I was involved with the project, as it kept my employment going for several months. January and most of February were pretty slim pickin’s when it came to finding things for me to do. Toward the end of February and beginning of March the aforementioned project started to take off, and my hours were back up around the 40-per-week mark again. Unfortunately in the industry where I’m currently employed, a lot of the time it’s feast or famine, especially in weak economies. I mentioned in the draft that I prefer to work 8 hour days and go home at the end of the day to enjoy my personal time. A lot of the time when a project is going “full force,” that isn’t always the case. Rather than spreading the work out for weeks on end at 40 hours per week, people (clients and supervisors) get impatient and want to rush things. This means weeks of working overtime, followed by weeks with nothing to do. After a few years in this particular industry (civil engineering, transportation projects specifically), I’ve started to hate my job. I also mentioned that I sent out a few resumes in January. I can now add that I went on 2 job interviews as a result of that effort. However, I sent my resumes to “Land Development” companies (rather than transportation) because I have a history with land development before my current employer, and I enjoy that branch of the industry much more. Unfortunately neither of the interviews resulted in a new position for me. Of course they never tell you why afterward, and leave you guessing as to why you weren’t hired. My guess is that my current pay rate is more than they were willing to pay for the positions that were open. That can definitely be a downside, when your current employer pays you very well and you’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. After that I was contacted by a recruiter via my profile on the LinkedIn website. We met and discussed my skills, job history, and what I would like to find in a new employer. However, due to some specific circumstances (that I’ll be mentioning next) I told her that we should probably wait a few months before actively pursuing new employers.
Near the end of last year a physical problem that I’ve had in the past reared its ugly head again. Many years ago I started to develop a tingling sensation in my fingertips. At that time, I went to the doctor and had some testing done. It was determined that I had the first signs of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I was still fairly young and it didn’t really bother me too much at the time, and in fact the symptoms had started to diminish even as I had the testing done. Apparently a day of heavy use doing some yard work had exacerbated the problem. With the symptoms diminished, I didn’t do anything about it or think much about it for many years afterward. That was until the end of this last year and into the beginning of this year. Thinking back, I don’t remember having any problems or symptoms while I was on vacation. However, once the symptoms manifested themselves at the end of last year, they did not diminish. In fact, they kept getting worse. I would be awakened at night with my hands throbbing and the feeling of tingling fingers, making me want to shake my hands like they were asleep and I was trying to wake them. While working on the computer, my hands would start to go numb and I would have to take a break for a couple minutes, all the while shaking my hands in an effort to make them feel “normal” again. This lasted for several months. I first went to the doctor for the problem at the beginning of March. Then I was referred to a neurologist for testing, to determine if I indeed had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (it had been several years since the previous test, and a couple of different employers and health care insurers). Waiting for the appointments seemed to happen at a snail’s pace. Due to some miscommunication, I didn’t end up seeing the neurologist until the beginning of May. Of course the results were as I expected, severe CTS in both hands. Then I had to wait for referrals to the orthopedic surgeon, and fitting into his schedule. I think my first appointment with him was in June. After our initial consultation it was determined that, since I live alone and don’t have anyone at home to help me with day-to-day tasks, I should have one surgery for each hand separated by a few weeks to give the first hand time to recover before the second hand was to undergo the operation. When all was said and done, my first surgery was scheduled for July 17. By that time, the project I had been working on at work had come nearly to its completion, with only a few outstanding items that could be taken care of by other employees. I had to go through some hoops to make sure I was qualified and file for FMLA leave with my employer, so that I could maintain my benefits while out of work for medical reasons. I let my supervisor know that I was going to be out of work for several weeks due to the medically necessary surgeries.
Left Hand – 8 wks.
Right Hand – 4 wks.
Well I’m at that point where I ask myself “do I keep going?… or do I stop and start a new blog posting to keep going?” Thinking about what I have left to say, I think I’ll stop for now and continue on in another posting (simply to keep the individual posts manageable in size). Besides, I gave you some links to photos you can look at while you await my next post.
Upcoming… a little bit more about happenings during the short-term disability period, some unwanted weight gain, difficulties with an aging parent, future plans, employment, women and dating websites, and life in general.
Reality bites…
When starting up a new posting (mid September, 2014), I found that I had started a draft back on January 19 of this year but never finished it, and therefore didn’t publish it. I am going to now publish the incomplete blog that I started in January, as I left it… and continue on with writing the new (September) posting afterward, addressing anything I might have left unsaid in the unfinished blog. I hope this isn’t too confusing, but it seemed to make sense to publish what I was thinking in January, then continue on with what I’m thinking 9 months later. Here is the unfinished, January draft:
Yes, I borrowed my title from a 1994 movie starring Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder… so sue me. I’ve been absent from blogging for a few months now, mainly due to apathy and undiagnosed (self-diagnosed?) depression. I’ve never been one of those “woe is me” types who cries aloud about every bad thing happening in their life to anyone who will listen, instead choosing to bottle things up inside and try to work through them by myself. Well, I’ll make an exception for today and host my own little pity party for anyone who cares to read about the current goings-on in my life.
A little over four months ago, I embarked on literally one of the best time periods in my life. I was able to escape from my day-to-day life and go on a well-deserved vacation, for the first time in a few years. If you’ve read some of my previous blog postings, you know that I had spent a few months planning this adventure. Once I arrived at my destinations, I was not disappointed. For the most part (some of the weather notwithstanding), I enjoyed every hour of every day I spent in Scandinavia. I spent hours in museums, palaces, parks, and just walking through the cities of Copenhagen and Stockholm. Once I arrived in Norway, not only did I get to further “see the sights,” but I also had the opportunity to meet between 50 and 100 of my extended family members; second-cousins, their parents and grandparents, their children and grandchildren… all of whom I never would have met otherwise. I enjoyed the food, the cities, the sights… so much that I tried to convince myself I should give up everything I’ve ever known in America and move to Norway. A little over three weeks later, I was forced to return to the reality that is my life in America.
WORK: Before I ever left on vacation, my situation at work had been less than perfect. Almost 24 years ago, I began training for a new career. I went to a trade school, ITT Technical Institute (you may have seen their TV commercials), and took courses that would lead to me receiving an Associates Degree in Computer-aided Drafting. Since that time I have worked for a few different employers, usually for long stretches at a time. I gained a reputation for being one of the best at what I do, and when I left employers to move on I was assured that I would be missed. After my divorce in 2007, I decided to move back “home” to the West Coast (I was living on the East Coast at the time). I flew to the Seattle area one weekend and had several job interviews while I was there. Shortly after I returned back to Delaware, five of the eight companies I interviewed with had offered me a position with their company. After careful consideration of what each had to offer, I decided on one of the companies and accepted their offer. Soon afterward I moved to the Seattle area and began my new job, in October of 2007. I settled in and started proving my worth right off the bat. Those first couple of years were good. I was working full-time, with one of the projects even requiring several hours of overtime per week for a while. After a couple years of being with the company, the economy started to falter. Clients were more reluctant to hire engineering companies, so the work started to slow down. Soon the company started laying people off. Thankfully, due to my proven value and work ethic, I was not one of them. However, several of my peers were not so lucky. Where there used to be 8 of us CAD drafters, soon there were only 3. That was late in 2008, early in 2009. We managed to have enough work to keep the 3 of us busy for the most part, for a couple of years. After three years in the Seattle area, I decided to move back to my true home, the Sacramento area of California. The company I work for has an office located here, so after a couple of discussions, I was allowed to transfer within the company to our office here in Northern California. I would still report to my current supervisor in the Seattle area, and get all my work from him, but I would just be located in the Sacramento office. When I arrived at the office here, there were a total of 18 people in the office. Things were “okay” for a little while, with just enough work to keep everyone busy. But soon, things started slowing down even more. More people started getting laid off, or left of their own accord to avoid “the axe.” By the time I left for vacation at the end of August, there were only 3 of us left in the office. While on vacation, I found out that one of those had left for another position at another company. So, when I arrived back in California there were only 2 of us left in the Sacramento office… an administrative assistant, and me. During this past year, and during some of the year before that, I had been working “reduced hours” due to a lack of work to keep us busy. As long as I worked an average of 30 hours per week during the quarter, I was still considered a “full time” employee, and therefore eligible for benefits (health care, dental, 401k, etc.). When I left on vacation in August, it was unclear whether or not there would be anything for me to do when I returned home afterward. I went into work that first day after being back, and found that there was no work available for me. I stayed home a couple more days, waiting to hear if there was going to be something for me to do. After a few days, I finally had a little bit of work to do. However, during the past few months since my vacation it has become increasingly difficult to find work to keep me busy. I have always been a loyal employee, and I enjoy the people and company that I work for, so I’ve been hanging on by the skin of my teeth hoping that things would pick up and more work would become available. Unfortunately, at the rate things have been going I probably won’t maintain my required average of 30 hours per week to maintain benefits for the next quarter. Recently my supervisor asked me about my stance on a particular task/position that he said I might be a good candidate for. This particular task is not something that I would enjoy, and has the potential of working long hours, and potentially far away from home (like in another state). I am the type of person who “works to live” rather than “lives to work.” I want to put in my 8 hours per day at a job that I enjoy (at least for the most part), and go home at the end of the day. So, if I agreed to take this position just to stay busy, I might be working long hours and hating my job more and more every day. That’s just not something I want to do, and I told him as much in a detailed email message before I left work this past Friday. We’ll see how well that goes over, and how much longer I’m employed. Needless to say, during the past few weeks I’ve finally started sending out resumes to local companies. Unfortunately, I’m in a very “senior” position now after 22 years in the business so finding a company who is willing to pay me “what I’m worth” may be a bit of a challenge.
Okay, that’s the extent of what I wrote back in January. I see a couple of things that I need to address in my next post, so please be patient while I formulate my thoughts and write again for the first time in about 9 months. Stay tuned…
Back in the U.S.A.
Well, I arrived back in the USA a few days ago, and have been dealing with a bit of jet lag ever since. I suppose that living in countries with a 9 hour time zone difference for three weeks will do that to you. After that first blog posting from Copenhagen, it became a bit more difficult to post more entries. I was too busy during the days seeing the sights that I had planned out on my itinerary, and too tired during the nights to post blog entries. I’ve transferred all of the Camera RAW photos that I took while I was away on vacation to my primary desktop computer now, but with over 4600 photos taken during my trip it may take a while before they are all processed in Photoshop and posted for everyone to see. At this point I am planning to post them in stages, as I edit them, by the specific places and times that I took the photos. Copenhagen, Denmark, was the first stop on my journey to/through Scandinavia, so those will be the first photos posted. Stay tuned for more!
vacation time has finally arrived
As I sit here this Monday morning, September 2nd, shortly after 5:30 am local time in Copenhagen, Denmark, there is a light rain falling outside the slightly ajar window of my economy single room at the Hotel Nebo. As populated as this metropolitan city is, it is surprisingly quiet outside. There are no excited screams or music coming from the Tivoli Gardens amusement park, as there were when I went to bed yesterday evening. There are no sounds of trains pulling in and out of Central Station, located a short 50 meters from the hotel. Part of the reason that I’m up so early is that I hit the proverbial hay pretty early last night, sometime shortly after 7:30 pm. This was due to my being very tired after not having had much sleep during the past couple of days. I’m sure that jet lag had something to do with it as well.
I took the Friday before my trip as an extra day off from work. I wanted the extra time to prepare for my pending 3 week vacation. As it turned out, I had to spend the morning repairing my home air conditioner. Otherwise, my brother (who is staying in my house while I’m gone) would have either had to bear the Sacramento summer heat in a house with no A/C, or opted to not stay there at all. I had the system fixed before noon, after a couple of trips to the local appliance store for parts. Friday afternoon I spent my time packing my suitcase(s). I had initially planned to have one piece of luggage checked at the airport, and have one carry-on piece to bring with me on the plane. I didn’t think that I could manage with less, especially since I was going to be gone for three whole weeks! But… I had that nagging voice of Rick Steves in my head. Rick advises that for any European vacation, you should only take ONE carry-on sized piece of luggage and only take the essentials. This means only taking a few changes of clothing, and washing them as needed during your trip. That leaves room in your bag for the stuff you would normally put in a carry-on, like a laptop computer, a camera, etc. Well, even with taking a long lens for my SLR camera, I managed to whittle down the amount of things I planned to take so that they all fit into the one carry-on. I packed efficiently, including rolling my clothes into tight bundles, and filled every nook and cranny of that suitcase. My brother came over to spend the night, because he was going to give me a ride to the airport at 5:15 am the next morning. Even though I had everything packed by early evening, I was still up fairly late due to anxiety and stressing about making sure that I had everything I needed. I ended up getting to bed around 11:30 Friday night. My alarm woke me up at 4:30 am on Saturday morning, August 31st. That gave me about five hours of sleep.
The first leg of my trip took me from Sacramento to the Dulles Airport, in Washington DC. The flight landed on time, and I had a short layover there. I was hungry after my 5 hour flight (and no airline food), so I quickly grabbed a Subway sandwich as soon as I got off the plane. Dulles is a confusing airport to find one’s way around between terminals and gates and I didn’t have a lot of time to spare, so I hurriedly looked for a gate connection board to see where I needed to be. After taking a couple of wrong turns (due to the confusing aspect), I finally ended up at the gate my next plane was departing from, and none too soon. The plane had already begun boarding, and it seemed like I was one of the last 50 or so people to get on board.
The flight from Washington to Copenhagen was a bit longer than the one I had previously flown across the country. It was a bigger plane, filled with more people. Since it was an International carrier, their planes had different seating “classes.” My inexpensive ticket put me in the back of the plane, in economy seating. I am fairly positive that I have never had a smaller, more cramped, more uncomfortable seat than the one I had on my flight to Copenhagen. After a couple of hours it felt like I was sitting on a pile of rocks, and no matter how I shifted my posterior, I could not stay comfortable. After settling in, watching a movie, and eating our first of two meals served on the flight, they finally dimmed the lights so people could try to sleep if they wanted to. Well, I tried… “tried” being the operative word. In addition to my not being able to get comfortable in the seat, there were two couples sitting two rows in front of me who had both brought their babies on the flight. You can probably guess what I’m about to say. Sure enough, for most of the flight at least one of the two, if not both babies were crying. The parents tried to calm the babies, and one of them seemed to for at least a little while, but one of the babies just could not seem to be appeased. Consequently, I did not get any sleep on that flight.
We finally arrived at the Copenhagen Airport early Sunday morning, September 1st, around 6:45 am local Copenhagen time. Knowing that I still had a full day of plans ahead of me, my first stop was at the Starbucks kiosk in the airport. After filling up on the magical brown liquid, I worked my way toward the airport exit. On my way out, I had to find the counter where Copenhagen Cards are sold, and purchase one. These cards allow for free passage on all forms of public transportation within the city. They also provide for “free” entrance into most of the museums and tourist sites (palaces, etc.). After picking up my Copenhagen Card, I started walking toward the train station at the airport, leaving my luggage behind. I quickly realized my error and turned around to retrieve it.
[pulling back the curtain a bit here… I just got back from a break that I took to go down and eat some breakfast]
Leaving the airport (with my luggage), I boarded the train that would take me into Central Copenhagen. I got on board and turned left, into the first car. I noticed that everyone else seemed to go right, but I didn’t think anything of it. After a couple minutes, I noticed a condescending look from the one couple that was on the car with me. It wasn’t until almost 2 stops later that I noticed a sign on the wall that said “1 klasse.” I realized that I must be in a “First Class” car, unknowingly. At the second stop I confirmed it with the people in the car, then tucked my tail and moved back to the other car, with the rest of the commoners. Another stop later and we were at the Copenhagen Central Station. The place I picked to stay is not only one of the least expensive in Copenhagen, it is conveniently located (as I mentioned above) about 50 meters from the train station. It was still early in the morning, so it was going to be several hours before I could officially “check in” at my hotel. However, I didn’t want to drag my luggage around the city with me while I waited. The hotel has a small, unlocked “luggage storage” room near the front desk, where they allow guests to leave their luggage while awaiting check-in, or after check-out. Because it is unguarded, I took all my valuable items and packed them in the Rick Steves Civita Day Pack that I brought with me, an invaluable item that I picked up at a Seminar hosted by Rick Steves himself, in Edmonds, Washington. With all my valuables with me, I left the rest of my luggage in storage and headed out to see the sights.
[Unfortunately this, and any future posts while abroad, will be relatively bare of photos. When using my Digital SLR camera, I shoot in Camera RAW format. This requires me to edit the photos in Photoshop before I can post them, and I don’t have Photoshop installed on the ultrabook that I’m using while on my trip. I will probably post a few low quality photos taken with my camera phone from time to time, but all the “good ones” will have to wait until after I return from vacation and have had a chance to edit/upload them.]
With my day-pack strapped to my back, I headed to the nearest S-train station and hopped aboard. The first thing on my schedule was the Rundetårn, or “Round Tower.” It was built in the 17th century as an astronomical observatory. Unfortunately, it did not open to the public until 10 am, and I was almost an hour early. While I waited, I wandered the nearby streets taking photos of things that I thought were interesting. I made my way back to the Tower so that I could be there at 10:00 when it opened. My Copenhagen Card got its third use of the day (the first two being the train from the airport, then the S-train), allowing me to enter the Tower without any further payment. The inside is paved with brick, in an ascending spiral up to the top. Once you reach the top, there are spectacular 360 degree views of the Copenhagen skyline from the rooftop. I took several photos, both inside the tower, and from the rooftop.
After the Round Tower I had plans to go to the Danish National Museum. They have a special “Vikings” exhibit on display, conveniently during the time I am on vacation here. With my interest in my Norse heritage, this was right up my alley. Central Copenhagen is fairly small, and it’s easy to get from place to place, a lot of the time by walking. I decided to walk towards the Museum and take in the sights along the way. It took me a little longer than I expected, but I finally arrived at the National Museum after only having to ask one person to point me in the right direction. I spent a few hours in the National Museum, again taking plenty of photos of things that caught my interest. As I was leaving the Museum, a light rain had started. I walked the few blocks back to the hotel in the cooling sprinkles, so that I could check into my room.
Once I got into the room, I took a photo of the room to help document my journey. I was super tired by this point, and that bed looked mighty inviting. I decided to lay down for a few minutes to give my feet and back a rest. I ended up taking a short nap. I finally decided that I needed to get up and shower to wash the past couple days off of me and feel a little more refreshed. I followed Rick’s advice and washed my clothes for the first time in a hotel room sink, wrung them out, and set them out to dry.
I noticed that the wi-fi in the room needed a password, so I went down to the front desk to ask about the wi-fi. I had to pay a 50 Kroner per day fee to use the wi-fi. I decided to pay for a day (which was slightly over a day, and ends at midnight tonight). I went back to my room and logged in to catch up on all the facebook posts I had been missing, and to update my status. This morning I decided to upload a blog posting, for the first time in a while, to start documenting my trip. I don’t know if I’ll keep up the 50 Kroner per day habit or not, so it may be a couple days before I get a chance to post again.
Well, I have a few things on my schedule today, so I’d better wrap it up and head out. I’m still feeling the effects of jet lag, and it’s cold and gray outside, and looks like it could rain at any minute… but I can’t let those things stop me from seeing the sights. I only have so many days here in the city!
my relationship history: part IV – my first marriage
I know that blog postings are typically more interesting with accompanying photos, but when dealing with a topic like people in one’s past, I don’t think it’s fair to post pictures of them online without their knowledge. Therefore, to protect their privacy I won’t be posting any photos of the women in my past relationships. Unless I were to just upload some random photos that don’t have anything to do with the topic, that means that these next few postings may be a little bare in the visual gratification department. I may post a photo or two of myself taken during the time the relationship occurred, just to spice things up… so don’t think that I’m so stuck on myself that all I can do is post pictures of myself. There is an underlying reason.
When I was finally discharged from the Navy and moved back home to the Sacramento area, I initially moved back in with my parents while I looked for a job. Within the first week or two, I was gainfully employed (at the same car-wash where my brother worked). Granted, it wasn’t in the field of electronics like I had been hoping, but at least I had a job and could start saving up some money. A couple weeks later I was hired by a different employer, again not in electronics, but it was a job that paid a little better. I was a courier (a driver), who delivered developed photo prints from a film lab and picked up rolls of film to be developed (before the advent of digital photography) to and from several locations around northern and central California. I held that job for about 8 months or so, when I was finally hired by a company to repair xerographic copy machines. Again, not true electronics, but there were at least some circuit boards in the copiers and sometimes the repairs required electronic troubleshooting.
During the first couple of years back in California, I continued living with my parents. As was expected of me, I fell back into the church-going, Adventist lifestyle again. Living in my parents’ home, I had to abide by their rules. Shortly after my return to California, “C” and I re-connected and started dating seriously. She was living with her parents as well. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, pre-marital sex is heavily frowned upon (forbidden?) in the church, so as “good little Adventists” we initially kept our hands to our respective selves. We went on dates that were typical for good little boys and girls. We went bowling, we played miniature golf, we went on outings with our church young adults group, and we spent time at each others’ homes with our respective parents. “C” was (is) a green-card carrying German citizen, and her parents were as well. Her father was a Volkswagen/Porsche mechanic, and her mother worked for a local bank. When I was visiting “C” in her parents’ home, it was not uncommon to overhear conversations between her parents in German. “C” spoke fluent German as well, so I decided to start learning the language… partly because I’ve always been interested in foreign languages, and maybe partly in self defense (so that I could understand at least part of what they were talking about). I enrolled in a conversational German class at the local community college, and soon had a few basic phrases and words under my belt. That, coupled with learning a little bit here and there from “C’s” parents would come in handy a little while later.
I know I said that I wasn’t going to post any photos of her, but I couldn’t resist showing off that 80’s hairstyle. At least I blurred her face so that she’s not recognizable. After a few months of dating and hanging around together during most of our free time, the hormones finally won out. “C” and I would go out at night and head off to some secluded spot to make out for a while (sometimes even a church parking lot… shame on us, huh?). Eventually it got to a point where we couldn’t contain ourselves any longer, and we started having sex the way a lot of teenagers do, in the car (though we were already in our early 20’s). We still maintained our church-going lifestyle and put up a good front so that nobody was the wiser that we were secretly “sinning” before marriage. We just dealt with the guilt in our own way. After dating pretty steadily for a couple of years, it was basically assumed by all our friends and family that we would get married. So, one day I popped the question and we became an engaged couple. She was the first woman to pay any prolonged attention to me, and who returned my feelings of love, so I felt pretty sure that it was the right thing to do.
A few months before our planned wedding, we decided to become pro-active about our impending living situation. We started looking at houses in the area. There was a building boom going on in the late 1980’s, with plenty of brand new houses available to choose from. We soon found a house that we both liked, and that we could afford (I had my job as a copier technician, and she was working for an insurance company). In discussions during our long dating period, I found that “C” did not want to have any children. After thinking about it for a while, I found that I was okay with her decision so that I could be with the woman I loved. With just the two of us, we settled on a brand new 2 bedroom house. Since we were still not married yet, only one of us could move into the house until after the wedding. So, we decided that for the couple of months before the wedding “C” would live in the house on her own. Of course there were a few naughty visits on my part before the wedding, but we didn’t flaunt the fact that we were having carnal relations.
After the wedding, I moved into the house and we started our lives as husband and wife. A couple of weeks later, we went on our planned “honeymoon” to Germany (here’s where learning little tid-bits of the language helped me out). I put the word honeymoon in quotes because during the majority of the trip we stayed with one or another of “C’s” relatives. Don’t get me wrong… it was my first time traveling to Europe, so I definitely enjoyed the trip (it was the catalyst to my wanderlust). It’s just that spending all that time with her relatives wasn’t exactly what one would consider to be “romantic.” It was more like a European vacation. We spent a lot of time seeing the sights, driving along the Rhine River looking at medieval castles, visiting the Kölner Dom in Cologne, all the while accompanied by her aunt and cousin. Then we drove to Berlin for another cousin’s confirmation, again spending time with her relatives. I did get to see the Berlin Wall before the fall of communism in East Germany though, so there is that. I think we spent a total of maybe 2 nights alone during the trip. After the trip, we returned home to begin our married lives together.
Since we were no longer living with our parents, we no longer had the pressure to go to church every… single… week. That said, we did continue with our then-current lifestyle and attended church more often than not. We hung out with our other young adult friends from the church. Went on trips with them, attended gatherings at each others’ homes, and generally settled into married life. I took up some new hobbies (or rather, picked up some old ones again). We continued spending time with our respective parents. As is typical (at least in my experience) of some married couples, I got along better with her parents than she did with mine. We spent a lot of time doing things with her parents (but I enjoyed both the activities and her parents, so there are no regrets there).
So… you may be asking, “what happened?” It sounds like things are going well so far. Well, there were a lot of good times to be had during my first marriage, but I’ve conveniently left out a few details until now. Sure, the warning signs were there before we got married, but unfortunately sometimes love can make one blind to the red flags. “C” could be stubborn and argumentative. Most of the time, I’m a very passive, agreeable, “ok honey” kinda’ guy. But sometimes she would just grab onto something like a bulldog and just not let go. Sometimes it seemed like arguing was sport for her. We had some heated arguments, more often than I care to remember, and some of them before we even married. On the very night before our wedding, we had a major blowout. Since the wedding was already planned, all the guests had been invited, and it was expected that we would become husband and wife, I felt that I had to just keep carrying on and hope that things would improve. I would never get physical with her, because that’s just not the type of guy I am… but sometimes she would frustrate me to no end. After we settled into married life, she started “letting herself go” a little bit as well. I never knew her to be a thin woman, but after we got together somehow her weight slowly kept increasing (complacency?). By the time things finally fell apart, I had lost my physical attraction to her. I also experienced that situation that has been the subject of many joke punch lines… after we got married, having sex was an activity that all but disappeared. As one with a high libido, this was a major blow (pardon the pun). I found that “C” apparently didn’t care much about having sex at all. Add to that, she was one of those women who rarely (if ever) experienced an orgasm, even on her own (maybe a contributor to her lack of enjoyment of the activity?). So on those rare occasions when I actually convinced her (nagged her incessantly) to have sex with me, it was a bit of a letdown, as it made me feel a bit selfish because I was the only one enjoying it.
Another fly in the ointment was my employment status shortly before our breakup and divorce. After working as a copier technician for a couple of years, I decided that it wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It was a dirty job (breathing in black toner during the day), and it didn’t pay very well. I decided that I wanted to do something different as a profession, so after a discussion we decided that I should go back “to school” to find another career path. Since I was (am) a bit of an artist and a techno-geek, I was intrigued by the TV commercials about the computer-aided drafting (CAD) courses being taught at the ITT Technical Institute. I decided that I wanted to become a CAD drafter. I continued working my 8-hour per day job as a copier technician, then attended ITT for 4 hours each night during the week. After 18 months, I graduated with a 4.0 gpa and received an Associates Degree in Computer-aided Drafting. However, after those 18 months, I also lost my job as a copier technician. They knew that I was headed for a different career anyway, so when times got a little tough I was the first one to go. During the 6 months after my graduation I was looking for a job in my new career field, while supplementing our income with unemployment checks. I had a bit of a hard time finding a job in my newly chosen career field, and this added to the stress in our marriage. We had even considered relocating to another job market (city), and even drove out of state to a couple of places (Spokane, WA, and Colorado Springs, CO), in hopes of finding me a new job. After a couple of months “C” started nagging me about being “lazy” and not trying hard enough to find a job. But I didn’t want to settle for just “any” job (like selling Slurpees at the local 7-11), I wanted to put my new education to use. Finally, after 6 months I found a job in my new career field in the Sacramento area (and have been in that career field ever since; I’m now a Senior CAD Designer in Civil Engineering). However, in the end the added strife took its toll.
Finally, after 3 years of dating and 4 years of marriage, I made the most heartwrenching decision of my life. Even though I had been taught since we joined the church that divorce was not an option, I decided that I didn’t want to live the rest of my life in an unhappy relationship. I literally cried as I told “C” that I wanted a divorce. After that night, I slept in the second bedroom. Soon afterward, we started discussing who would get what, and how things would proceed. We decided that “C” would take over the mortgage and become the sole homeowner, and I started looking for another place to live. I moved into an apartment with another roommate for a while. A couple months later I moved out on my own into another apartment. Because of the laws in California, after I filed for divorce I had to wait for a 6 month period before it could be finalized by the courts. Because of that, my first marriage lasted (legally) for 4½ years.
Up next… relationships part V.
Part II of this series covered the period up through the end of my high school years. In another post prior to that, I talked about what happened in my life for the several months after high school. I don’t want to re-hash all of that here, so I’ll just summarize by saying that during the summer after high school I worked at a summer camp. At the end of the summer I had no plans and no money for college, so I ended up back in my parents’ house with nothing to do. After a couple of months, I decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and join the US Navy.
camper’s face obscured for privacy
A few months later, I entered the US Navy boot camp in San Diego, California. After boot camp I stayed in San Diego for a couple more months of schooling. Most of the people in my life at that point were other Navy personnel, and most of them were other men. Occasionally I would see a fellow service member who was a female, but not too often. Additionally, “fraternization” between service members of the opposite sex was discouraged. Because of the advanced program that I had entered (nuclear power electronics technician), I spent the first couple years of my military experience within a school environment. After a few months in San Diego, I transferred to Great Lakes, Illinois (north of Chicago) for electronics technician “A” school. After I graduated from “A” school, I was transferred down to Orlando, Florida in preparation for attending nuclear power school. The class I was enrolled in didn’t start until a couple of months after I got there, so I spent my time doing “general” duties (clean-up, mowing, etc.) during the days while I waited. My evenings and weekends were usually free, leaving me the opportunity to do whatever I wanted (within reason). However, having come from the upbringing that I did… I was not a drinker or partier like most of the other sailors around me, so I didn’t hang out in bars with them. One of the friends I had developed in San Diego was also stationed in Orlando, so we occasionally hung out and did things together. Most of my free time was spent either watching movies, at video game arcades, or exploring the area. 
I bought my first car in Orlando, so it gave me a little extra freedom to do things in my “off” time. Disney World was there in Orlando, and the EPCOT Center had just opened a little over a year earlier, so I had to see both of those places. Within a month or two of buying my first car though, it died. I had made the mistake of buying a “cheap” car to get around, and it ended up biting me. So, I did a little more research, spent a bit more money, and bought my second car. I loved that second car, and have often wished that I had never gotten rid of it. It was a 1978 Special Edition Pontiac Trans Am. I was 19 years old with 400 cubic inches of power at my disposal. Needless to say, I got my first speeding ticket in that car because it was so much fun to drive. On the weekends it took me to Disney World and to Cape Canaveral and back. The only problem with that car was that it never carried a female passenger while I owned it. I was still the ever-shy nerd who didn’t know how to pick up women. Thankfully, at that point in my life I had a lot of stuff going on to keep me occupied so it didn’t bother me much at all that I had no girlfriends.
After being in nuclear power school for several months, I realized that it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. If I completed the school and graduated, more than likely the main function of my life during the next few years would have been sitting at the control panel of a nuclear reactor aboard a ballistic missile submarine. At that point in time, America was still in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the purpose of a SSBN was to spend 6 months at sea, underwater most of the time, as a deterrent to nuclear war. When I joined, I thought that my job in the Navy was going to be more “electronics” related, and those were the skills I was hoping to have when I got out of the Navy and entered the job market. However, I had signed my name on the dotted line and couldn’t just say “I don’t want to do this anymore.” To fall back on my Electronics Technician rating, I would have to fail out of nuclear power school. I thought about it for a while and made a decision that I was going to intentionally fail out of “nuke” school so that I could become a “regular/conventional ET.” To avoid getting into trouble I had to maintain the appearance that I was trying, so I started failing tests and staying longer hours in the study room. Eventually my grades dropped to a point where they decided to kick me out of nuke school. I was relieved, and ready to get back into electronics. A couple months later I was back up in Great Lakes, Illinois, to complete the rest of Electronics Technician “A” school that those in the “conventional” ET program have to complete (not required for “nuke” ET’s). After I graduated from “A” school for the second time, I was finally assigned to a ship… a frigate with a home base located at the Navy Piers in Norfolk, Virginia. By this point in my Navy “career,” 2 years had passed… all of the time spent within a school environment. I was still a virgin, had never had a real girlfriend, and had no romantic prospects on the horizon… but one of those circumstances was about to change soon.
In January of 1985, the ship I was stationed on went on a “Caribbean cruise” deployment. Our first port of call was in the little city of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. On the first day we pulled into port, we tied up next to the pier and continued with our daily duties aboard the ship. However, that evening we were allowed to go ashore for “liberty.” A group of sailors was going into town, so I decided to join them. Because they were typical sailors, their destination was a local bar. We all wandered into the local establishment and most of the guys ordered drinks. When we walked in, the place seemed a bit dead… with a few of the locals (men) sitting at some of the tables drinking a beer. However, within about 15 minutes or so the music had changed to dance music, the volume had increased a bit, and it seemed that most of the local men had been replaced by twice as many women. Soon, all the guys from the ship were co-mingling and dancing up a storm. Being the shy guy that I was, I was just sitting in a chair at a table… when all of a sudden one of my buddies from the ship had brought a young woman over and plopped her in my lap. Soon I was being drug out onto the dance floor by a young, Spanish speaking woman who I couldn’t communicate with (I didn’t speak Spanish). After a little while in the club, it was made clear to me through gestures that she wanted me to accompany her upstairs. As a young, naive boy inexperienced in the ways of the world, I was just “going with the flow” and followed her. I lost my virginity that night in January of 1985, at 21 years of age. After my encounter, I was to find out that my wallet would soon be 20 Quetzals lighter, and that I had just paid for my first sexual encounter. The next day I went on a small tour into the Guatemalan countryside to see some Mayan ruins at Quiriguá. It was an interesting diversion, and at the end of the day I just went back to the ship. The third night, our last night in port, I went with the guys back to the same bar/club that we had gone to the first night. The same girl saw me there, and we again met for a rendezvous (after my first taste of sex, I wanted more). The rest of the cruise was uneventful, as far as women were concerned.
About a year later, our ship was due for a brief overhaul. The ship pulled into a drydock in New Jersey, across from Manhattan. However, the parts supply center was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A few people from the ship were chosen to relocate to Philadelphia for a few months while the ship was in drydock, to coordinate the shipment of parts. I was one of those lucky few who moved to “Philly” for a few months. We were put up in the barracks on base, a couple of us per room. During the day we did our jobs in the parts department. However, the nights were ours to enjoy. My roommate and I soon developed a regular nightly routine after work. We would hop onto the subway system and make our way up into downtown Philadelphia. My roommate was a partier and drinker, so we ended up going to a couple of bars/dance clubs regularly. Having never drunk alcohol before, I started off slowly… but soon became a regular drinker of cocktails. I found that the more I drank, the less inhibited I became and the easier it was to talk to the women in the club. My roommate was quite the “player,” and his influence was soon rubbing off on me. We got into competitions to see how many phone numbers we could gather by the end of the nights that we went out. The only difference between us was that he was actually calling some of the women and sleeping with them. Most of the time I just threw the numbers away, because I didn’t have the confidence to actually call a woman and set up a date to meet her. That wasn’t always the case, as I did end up going out with one or two women while I was stationed there. However, in most cases it never led to anything more than the initial date. There was one exception though. One night when we were out at our favorite club, one of the women there approached ME. We ended up chatting, dancing, then got involved in some heavy kissing in the parking lot when she had to finally leave. We got together again a couple times later after that, and took things a bit further. That was close to the time when I needed to transfer back to the ship, so once I left Philadelphia nothing further happened with the “relationship.” Because of the esteem I had (have) for women, I felt a little guilty afterward… for spending that intimate time with her on a couple of occasions, then not staying in touch with her.
A little over a year later, I was on my way toward being discharged from the Navy (I was planning on moving back home to Sacramento after I got out). I was spending some time at home before I had to fly back to the ship. One of the weekends while I was there my brother had plans to join some young Adventist friends for a drive down, and to spend a day at Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco. He asked if I wanted to go along, so I made a quick decision and said yes. He and I drove down to the beach in his car, while his friend and his friend’s sister, “C,” drove down in her car. I don’t remember much about what we did during the day that day… probably mostly just walked and played on the beach. However, at the end of the day when it was time to drive back to Sacramento, something happened that threw an unexpected wrench into my life. My brother’s friend decided that he wanted to ride back to Sacramento with my brother, so it was decided that I would ride back with his sister “C” in her car. I spent the next couple of hours getting to know her a little bit. I thought she was attractive, she was intelligent, and seemed to have a nice personality. When we got back to town, I made plans to see her again before I had to leave town. We went on a movie date the next night. Afterward we spent some more time talking, then ended up kissing before the night was over. When I finally had to leave, we said our goodbyes… but made plans to keep in touch. Since I was getting out of the Navy soon, I would be back home to pick things up where we left off and see where it might take us. As it turned out, “C” would eventually become my first wife.
Well, that takes us up to the point before my first “real” relationship… so that will wrap up Part III of the series. Next up… Part IV – my first marriage.
Living within an uncooperative body
First, let me say that I know my maladies don’t compare to those of a lot of other less fortunate people… those with serious issues like cancer, MS, cerebral palsy, or any number of other debilitating or life-threatening diseases. That said, I just felt the need to “vent” today.
What a difference a few months can make. At the beginning of this year, I had such grand aspirations. I had reached a point physically where I felt that my health needed a bit of improvement. Over the past several years I had gradually gained a few pounds here and there, until I had finally reached a point where none of my clothes fit anymore. In addition to that, I didn’t “feel” healthy. I occasionally felt short of breath after minimal physical exertion. Realizing that I was going to be turning 50 this year and that at times I felt even older than that physically, I set some goals. One of those goals was to lose about 60 or so pounds over the next several months. Another was that I was going to be taking my newly sculpted body on more travel excursions, and so I began planning a vacation trip to Scandinavia at the end of the summer.
January was a good month. I started walking regularly during the weeks at first, and riding my bicycle on the weekends. A few weeks into January, I bought an elliptical machine and moved my workouts indoors, so that I could kill two proverbial birds with one stone… being able to exercise while viewing some of the TV shows that I watched regularly. By the end of January, things were going well. I had changed my eating habits a bit, resisting the temptation to eat sugar-filled and/or fattening foods most of the time. However, I think the exercise regimen was the biggest boost to my goal of losing weight. By the end of January, I had already lost 10 pounds.
As February rolled in, I was still on track. I was no longer going on walks, instead opting for the more intensive elliptical workouts. During February, I completed elliptical machine workouts on 16 of the 28 days, and also rode my bicycle for 20+ and 30+ miles on two of the weekend days. By February 24, I reached the point where I had already shed 20 pounds from my frame. I was proud, and happy at how easily things seemed to be coming along on my way toward my goal. However, it was near the end of February that things would also start changing for the worse. Near the beginning of March, I wrote a post about how my exercise regimen had encountered a hiccup.
I’ve heard some people say that they have gone their entire lives without a headache, or back pain, or any other such acute malady. I am always envious, because I am not one of those people. For most of my life I have dealt with some manner of either occasional or chronic headaches or back pain. I think that some of it may be due to a couple of the car accidents I was involved in as a child, but some of it may be genetics as well (my younger brother experiences migraine headaches). Toward the end of February this year, I felt the first twinges of low back pain. I don’t know what caused it to begin… I didn’t fall, or lift anything wrong, or twist my back… I just woke up one morning with a twinge of pain. As I mentioned in some of those previous posts earlier this year, it was enough to interfere with my workouts, and enough to spur me to start revisiting the chiropractor’s office (I have continued receiving chiropractic treatments ever since, with two different chiropractors, in an effort to return to “normal”).
During the first couple weeks of March, I attempted to “work through the pain” when things didn’t seem so bad. I exercised on the elliptical machine a total of 4 times during the first 2 weeks of March, and went on one 20 mile bicycle ride. I have not logged one day of exercise since March 15th. Since that low, 20-lbs-lost point on February 24, my weight has been slowly rising back up to a point that is now only 5 pounds shy of where I began at the beginning of the year.
Some people will tell you that back pain is “all in your head.” Those are obviously people who have never experienced chronic back pain. When I got out of bed this morning, I was stabbed with an immediate “ohmygod, I cannot walk” pain in my lower back. I hobbled my way in toward the kitchen and living room, where I have an inversion table. I had planned to invert my body, to stretch out the joints and muscles of my lower back as I have been doing often of late. However, the pain in my back prevented me from even bending over to lock my feet into the restraints. After my failed attempt, I hobbled into the kitchen, body askew to favor the painful area of my back. I took my normal daily vitamins, minerals, and prescription meds. In addition, I took 1000mg of ibuprofen (5 over-the-counter tablets), hoping to experience some relief within the hour. I then made a cup of coffee and went to the computer to check emails and such (I didn’t feel that I could stand to make breakfast quite yet). After a little while, I finally went back into the kitchen to make breakfast. Unfortunately, the ibuprofen had barely made a dent in the pain. So, after breakfast I sat down to do what I have been doing the past couple of months when not at work. I watched TV, without the exercise.
It is hard to feel motivated to exercise when it feels like someone is jabbing an ice-pick into your lower back, and you know that you’ll feel every rotation of that hip joint as you’re working out. Every day I walk past that elliptical machine and feel guilty that I’m not using it to at least maintain, if not lose weight. Yet like the salivation of Pavlov’s dogs, whenever I think about exercising, I get a mental picture of the pain I would be experiencing and shy away from it. I know that it’s a Catch-22 situation… if I were to lose the weight and strengthen the muscles, some of the pain might diminish. But the pain keeps me from starting, especially on a day like today, a day that the pain is the worst it has been since it began back in February.
In addition to the back pain, another situation from a couple years ago has reared its ugly head again. As seen in the MRI taken 2 years ago, a couple of the vertebrae in my neck have been damaged somehow through the years. They don’t cause me any pain or keep me from turning my head and neck as any other person would do. However, occasionally the discs between them will start applying pressure on my spinal cord (you can see them doing this a bit in the pictures of the MRI). When this happens, I start losing some of the feeling in my fingers and they start to tingle. This has been happening as I’ve been typing this blog entry. The severity of the numbness and tingling sensation is usually dependent on the position of my head. If I turn my head a certain way it gets worse, so I spend a bit of time looking for a position to turn/keep my head so that the sensation is minimized.
I apologize for being a bit of a “whiner” today, but lately I’ve just been getting a bit frustrated with this faulty organic machine that my consciousness is residing within. When I made my vacation plans for later this year and paid for the plane tickets and hotels, I was still on track toward my weight-loss goals and looking forward to a large amount of walking from place to place once I arrived in Scandinavia. This morning I imagined what it might be like to awaken in a foreign city with incapacitating lower back pain. It was not a pretty sight, and something that I hope to avoid. If I was feeling the way I am today in January and February, I may have given my vacation plans a second thought and postponed the trip. Unfortunately I am now committed, with most everything paid for (and non-refundable). I just need to get my body to cooperate and get back on track!
A Passport to…
Another task on my “to do” list before my trip to Scandinavia at the end of the summer has been checked off the list. I didn’t have to work yesterday, so I decided to take advantage of the available time and finally got around to taking care of my US Passport renewal. Though my existing passport will still be valid during the month I plan to travel this year, I have read that the countries I’ll be traveling through require your passport to be valid for 90 days after your intended travel dates. Since my current passport will expire at the beginning of December this year, I decided to play it safe and go ahead with the renewal process. I’ve been needing to go get some passport photos taken before I could do that, so I did it on my way home from work the evening before. After doing a little bit of research, I found that Costco provided the least expensive option for having passport photos taken. The US Post Office charges $15 for passport photos, Walgreens charges $10.99 for two photos, and I was able to get 4 passport photos for $4.99 at Costco (though I don’t know what I’m going to do with the extras).
With the requisite 2″x2″ photos in hand yesterday, I sat down and started filling out the DS-82 form that I had picked up previously at a local Post Office. After I had completed the document I took it, along with my current passport and a check for $110 (the fee seems a bit steep to me, but what can I do?), to the nearest Post Office to be mailed. I’ve had some stuff lost by the US Postal Service in the not-so-distant past, so I was a little leery of putting such an important document as a US Passport in the mail… but it is my only option. I can only hope that the delivery “signature required” service that I paid extra for does its job in speeding the mail on its way to the proper destination in Philadelphia.
I got my first US Passport back in February of 1989. My then fiancée and I had plans to travel to Germany for our honeymoon after we were married at the beginning of May, 1989. She had extended family in a few different cities in (then) West Germany that we planned to visit (and stay with), and an uncle living with his family in West Berlin. Since that was the first time I had traveled outside the country as a civilian (I didn’t need a passport when I was in the US Navy), I needed a US Passport to travel to a foreign country. We had to drive to San Francisco to apply for a US Passport for me, and to get an updated German passport for her (she was a green-card-carrying German citizen). As you can tell by my first passport photo, big glasses were still “in vogue” at the end of the 1980’s.
I don’t remember how much I had to pay for that first passport, but with the exception of my travel to Germany the rest of the time I owned the passport was wasted as far as international travel was concerned. I didn’t travel anywhere else outside the country before the passport expired 10 years later, in February of 1999. Oddly enough, there was no stamp in my passport for entering West Germany when I arrived, or for departing West Germany when I flew home to the United States near the end of May, 1989. However, as you can see from the stamp scanned and posted here, East Germany was well aware of my entry into and departure from their country. You see, to get to West Berlin from West Germany we had to drive through an East German border crossing and through a portion of East Germany before we would eventually arrive in West Berlin. This was back in the late 1980’s, before Mr. Gorbachev “tore down that wall.” I still remember that border crossing experience to this day. I remember hearing the border guard, in the military uniform of the East German police, asking us “Vaht iz your purpose in ze DDR?…” (East Germany was known as the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, a bit of an oxymoron since Democracy was the furthest thing from the reality that most East German citizens were living at the time). We were then warned to not stray from the main roadway as we made our way to Berlin. I could just picture East German police watching us from the woods with their AK-47s aimed and ready to fire.
It wasn’t until a few years after my first passport had expired that I again found the need for one. My wife (at the time) and I decided that we wanted to spend some vacation time at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica. Since my previous passport had expired, I had to go through the entire process of registering for a new one again. Times had changed a bit since my previous one, and as you can see in the photo to your left the glasses got a little smaller and the haircut changed drastically (I had to tweak the scan in Photoshop a bit, to try and minimize the blue lines running across my face before posting it here). This passport was issued in December of 2003. Security restrictions were much tighter, and a lot less people were traveling for recreation by then, due to the relatively recent events of 9/11/2001 being still fresh in the collective consciousness of America.
This, my second and most recent passport, got at least a little bit more use before its expiration date. The first stamp is from the aforementioned trip to Jamaica, in January of 2004. We were living near Philadelphia at the time, so a trip to a tropical location mid-winter was a welcome diversion. On that particular trip we arrived at PHL wearing parkas because of the blowing snow outside, then changed into shorts and light fabric shirts, anticipating our arrival at Sangster International Airport, near Montego Bay, Jamaica. We took along an extra piece of luggage for the sole purpose of storing our parkas and winter clothing. The following year we decided to escape the winter cold again, and flew to another all-inclusive resort, this time in Cancún, Mexico. As I was paging through my passport looking for stamps to scan, I nearly missed the one from our trip to Cancún in 2005. Either the ink has faded over time, or the stamp was not very visible from the start.
The image to the immediate right of this text is that stamp. Again, I had to do a little bit of manipulation to the resulting scan in Photoshop, to darken up the stamp a bit so that it could be seen. The Quintana Roo is visible, but I couldn’t make out a visible date anywhere. The following year we decided to spend a week at a timeshare located on the island of Kauai, so our passports weren’t needed for the trip. However, in January of 2007 we chose to fly back to Cancún again, so I received another stamp in my passport from Mexico.
Though that was the last stamp I received, it would not be the last of my international travel and use of the passport. After my divorce, at the end of 2007, I moved back to the west coast… specifically, to the Seattle region. During the summer of 2009, I decided to plan a small vacation trip that involved driving up to and staying in British Columbia, Canada, for a few days. I took several photos while I was there, if you’re interested in seeing them. At the border crossing into Canada I was required to show my US Passport, but they did not stamp it. They just looked at it and asked me a couple of questions. The same happened a few days later when I returned back home to the United States. That was the last time I used my passport during international travel.
Enter the year 2013. With my interest in European history, I’ve had a yearning to experience more of the sights that Europe has to offer for several years now. I’m finally at a place in my life where I can afford to take the time, and spend a little on vacations. Besides, I’m almost 50 now… so if I don’t start traveling soon, I might run out of time to see all the places I would like to see. I have been promising my cousins in Norway for a few years that “one of these days” I would plan a trip to visit them and their families. Though there are other (less expensive to visit) places on my “to see” list as well, Scandinavia has always been at the top because of my family heritage. Because it is a bit of an undertaking (in both time and expense) to fly from the west coast of the United States to Europe, I decided to spend a few weeks in Scandinavia at one time, rather than planning a couple of different trips to see the different countries. That’s why I have packed Copenhagen Denmark, Stockholm Sweden, and several places in Norway into this one trip. When I return home near the end of September this year, I hope to have at least 3 stamps in my new passport book. However, I don’t want those to be the last stamps in the book before it expires in another 10 years. This time, I want to pack that little passport booklet as full of as many stamps as I can gather. I hope someday to see stamps in there from future trips to Amsterdam, Prague, possibly Russia and/or the Ukraine, and maybe Budapest and/or Barcelona. Iceland is another on my “to see” list, as well as the British Isles, and possibly Italy. Oh, the places I might see… with a valid US Passport.
[at the top of the paragraph, my new passport photo (or should I say “mug shot”?) that I sent in with my renewal application… it doesn’t look too different from the one I had 10 years ago, does it? 😉 ]
the blue viking 
