Work and doing it right

I dont know if anyone out there feels like this but here goes. I just want things done right! Not my way if your way will work thats fine but right matters. I just had to spend 2 days remounting pipe to hang speakers from because the contractor who said" I can do that for you when we pull the wire" didnt have a clue what I ment when I said the mount has to be ridged. If you dont know how to do something I have always been told to ask. Asking does not mean your stupid or that you are not able to do the job it just means that you need some direction or a bit more information. I would never want someone to put something over my head if they didnt know how to get it hung there safely. I wouldnt want someone to put brakes on my car if they didnt know how. So what is wrong with saying I dont know how? I just dont know. Thanks for letting me rant a bit. I feel much better.

What we all want

TIME that is what we all want. A chance to spend more of it with out friends our familys and still have the time to work make a living and if we are lucky even some time to be alone too. It seems that the balance is never quite right. Even if your day feels good to you others feel that they have been slighted. The pressure to work is great money is a evil that we all must fall victim to. other people feel that the need to spend time at home is great, regardless of what kind of time it is. I for one can ever seem to get the breakdown to work for both my job and the ones I love. This weekend I was mixing sound for a nice festival, My wife would have rather I spent the time at home. I wanted the work and the money for vacation, She thinks that the kids will better remember me if I spend more time at home and not for the nice ski vacation I want to take this winter. I just wish that for all I can do and the things that I want to do for my family I didnt have to chose so often between my being happy and likeing what I do and the pull to be home. My kids mean the world to me dont get me wrong but I am there to get them to school and Im there most weekends and a few nights a week. Being selfemployed is not all it is cracked up to be. I hope that evreone out there has found a better center of this problem then I have. Comments are welcome as I muddle thru!

Marking time

The other day a friend said to me that she was just marking time. She had finished her work here on earth and life was basically over. I cant see her point of view and I just cant even begin to let my self think this way. I belief that one stage only leads to another. For example having kids then leads to the need to help raise the grand children the family today needs to be multigenerational to pass on the life skills that will be needed to keep this world running. Our life does not end when our kids move out. I will never understand why anyone would not want to find a new reason to live. The loss of a friend or a loved one can make it seem fruitless to continue but the primal urge to be of value to the world shouldn't be extigushed. I am here to bring some good to my friends and by doing things for my friends I have been given the gift of their thanks and friendship. The good things that I give to my friends thru my work and help leave them with reminders every day that I love and care about them. The time we all spend on this earth is valuable let us not ever believe that we are just marking time till we die.

Cable cable everywhere

Some days you would just be better off if you didn't always have the mind switched on . I have a few hundred cables to make in the next week and all I can think about is non work subjects. My mother who is now 70 is losing touch with the world. She was a reading teacher and language has been her best friend. she can no longer talk well and if you ask me I really cant tell you just how much she understands. I guess that so long as she seems to be happy I should be. I know that the stress on my father is huge. I also know that my help is not something that would make much difference right now. It sometimes feels like my mother is already gone and then there are those few moments that she seems fully engaged. Sitting here and thinking about it makes me sad. Knowing that there is nothing that can be done makes that feeling even more painful. I guess the thing to take away from this is that you tell those who you care about just how much you do care and then if you are taken away from them or they from you you don't feel quite so alone. This is how I must look at all my friendships in the future. On my best days I never thought I would lose some of the friends that I have had. I miss too many people now and my mind seems to take me back to them as to say you still need to tell them even though I cant!

I've been working on the railroad

Today I was the tech for the 30 year awards for Amtrak. I found that many people still have jobs that after 30 years and being over 60 you get a good retirement and if you work for Amtrak your wife gets one too. in recognition of the years you were away I guess. I sure made me wonder if I will ever retire or if as my old prof at hamp said "they will have to pry the key to my office from my dead hand" or something like that. I guess that loving what you do can make up for the loss of a true retirement atleast I sure hope so. it is 7:10pm and Im still here at my desk Ill go home soon so I can kiss my girls good night and try to put a few more hours into my guitar before bed. HEY IS ANYONE OUT THERE LISTENING. I sure would like to hear from you.

What you think you know

I thought that finding the people I missed from the past in my life might explain some of how I have been feeling. I have been in touch with many old friends and have found great joy and great sadness in this process. Just the same I do enjoy talking to my newly recovered friends and seeing how their live has played out. I guess that I can say I am not that different then my cohorts and that in the time we have been out of contact much has remained in our minds. I regret that some have not done better and truly wonder if we had stayed in contact if that would be any different. Others have put down roots and seem to be in a much better place then I am and I wonder in the same way if my loss of contact with them was the reason I have been down the road I traveled. I work for my self I have a small business doing audio and video wiring. Over the years I have found great joy in the solitude of this work. As for friends I have always had a few really close friends but right now I seem to be a bit a drift. This is the reason I am reaching into my past. I once built guitars and other instruments to fill time. Maybe now would be a good time to get out my tools as the winter closes in and the dark of winter keeps me from my motorcycle.

The start of something new

well I guess that if you spend as much time alone in a workshop as I do you must find something to get your mind working. I spent a great weekend in the town of hadly MA looking at all the colors and seeing the place where I spent the better part of my higher education. Hampshire has not changed a whole lot from the outside but in talking to my div 3 chair (seinior project for those not familliar with Camp Hamp) I find that the school has tried to go a bit more main stream. I hope that this will not be the end of the story for hampshire and that the pendulum will swing back and the old ways will prevail. I will try to look at this and other changes in my life as just a mark that time is moving on and I am still here to see it. My 2 kids (both from china suzi who is 8 and hope who is 3) found the whole trip to see the colors one of the best things that they have seen in their short lives and dont know why we just cant move there to be in the mountains all the time. But now Im back in the shop and the wire should be here soon and there will be much work. To anyone who checks in from time to time I will try to update this blog and see if I can start to explain why I want to write