El Gringoqueño

All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

Page 37 of 51

Jaimito vs. the Toilet

September 1, 2005 /

"Daddy," Olaia said to me, "I think Jaimito went peepee on the floor."

"Oops, what happened?"  I quickly went to see, and sure enough, there was a suspicious yellow puddle in front of the toilet.  Jaimito quickly arrived on the scene, looking nervous. "Did you go peepee on the floor, Jaimito?" I asked taking on a tone of interrogation.  I made a rookie mistake, asking him directly if he had gone peepee on the floor.  He quickly replied that no, he had not gone peepee on the floor.  It looked like peepee.  I smelled cover up.

I asked him again, but this time in a judicious opened ended fashion, my years on the street serving me well.  I’m going to give this one enough rope to hang himself.  "Jaimito, what happened here?"

"It fell.  I was wiping myself, and it fell.  It happened to Olaia," he explained.  I was lost, what fell, the peepee?  How, did you shoot it out of the toilet?  Then suddenly, I saw it, a giant wet dripping roll of Charmin stacked neatly on the back of the toilet, dripping the telltale liquid, drip drip drip down the wall.  Placed with the utmost care, almost indiscernible except for the yellow hue.

"Oh, my goodness," I burst, "Jaimito, you poor little thing, you should have called me when you dropped the toilet paper.  I would have gotten it out for you.  Let’s wash our hands little man.  Ewwww yucky yucky yucky."

"It’s okay, Daddy, I got it out,"  like, it’s no big deal Daddy, see it’s good as new, just let it dry out and we’ll all be wiping our asses with it no time at all – no harm no foul.  My heart went out to our fastidious little munchkin and his detail oriented self-sufficient nature.

I gave him a quick clean up, half bath, a bunch of hugs and kisses, and more hugs and kisses, and some more after that.  That little boy is such a super trooper, but like his mommy is determined to do things for himself.  He likes to take care of business on his own.  Sometimes though, I worry, and I hope that he’ll learn that he can’t do everything on his own and sometimes you’ve got to call for help.  Sometimes it’s all right to lean on Daddy.
 

Jaimito and His Magic Realism

August 30, 2005 /

"My butt has to go caca," he said to me, "I ate some food in my tummy, and my butt said, ‘I have to go caca’"

Jaimito’s body parts each have a distinctive personality.  His toes say "hi", his arms are tired, his tummy is hungry, his legs have needs, his mouth has desires, and his little butt tells him when it has to go caca.  Laura tells me that she had the same whimsical fancies as a young girl.  Everything was magical, fantastical, and lyrical, all broadcasting in a tapestry of dialog to which we must listen and wonder. 

Jaimito’s little black pools for eyes twinkled at me.  "Daddy, my toes are saying hi" as if they had a mind of their own, their own desires, their own spirit. 

Another time, "Daddy, my arms are sad," he said, his shoulders slumped over. 

He was bummed about something and so I asked him, "Why are your arms sad?"

"I don’t know, just because."

I picked him up, hugged his arms and talked to his arms asking why they were sad.  I don’t remember if he ever told me why, but after a few minutes he said, "My arms aren’t sad anymore.  They feel better."

"I’m glad your arms feel better, little boy."

Obedience – Don’t be a Sucker

August 25, 2005 /

From our ongoing chat with Jesus.

I: Welcome back, Jesus.  We’re glad to have you.

J: Good to be here.

I: Hey, Jesus, I wanted to ask you about Obedience.  It seems to be all the rage now.  “Be obedient” be Christ-like.  Submit to authority, go with the flow. etc.  It’s seemingly in vogue these days, and I’d like to get your take on it.

J: That’s cool, man.  Let me just begin by saying.  I wasn’t obedient.  Oh, sure to the Father, but here in meatspace?  Absolutely not.  Obedience is a precious thing.  You don’t give it out to just anyone.  It’s yours and yours alone.  I mean, that’s one of the cornerstones of the universe – free will – you own it, it’s yours, but don’t try to get out of it either.  ‘I was just following orders’ didn’t work for the Nazi’s.  It won’t work for you.

Frankly I don’t want you to be obedient.  I want you to rouse the rabble, shake the dust off of institutions, kick hypocrisy in the gut, make those in authority answer to justice.  Keep it real.  Make the world a better place.

I really don’t know where you people got this *^$&…. pardon me, can I say that?

I: Um, no.  Don’t worry, you don’t mind if we bleep you, right?

J: Sure no problem, I thought we were on cable.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, I don’t know where a good many followers got the idea that being Christian means just going with the flow, being obedient, passive, and peaceful.  What part of the Passion seemed peaceful to you?

I: Um, none of it?

J: Absolutely right, but I had an agenda and that agenda was to break down, or at least show how confining the old social religious structures were.  I tore down the temple and fed it to the people who were starving.  And they were starving, starving for inclusion, love, acceptance.  They were subjugated by an authority that didn’t serve them, and worse yet, devalued them.  I got waxed because I was dangerous, not obedient.

Actually, it’s kinda funny, Mom always said my mouth would get me in trouble.  I understood her preoccupation, but it’s weird how she was right, isn’t it?

Well, there you go.  Obedience is wack, man.  Are the kids still saying ‘wack’?

I: I think so, perhaps it’s faded a bit from the popular lexicon.

J: Now, since I am trying to be less obtuse these days, I’ll just leave you with this caveat:  Obedience is truly a hugely important trait/gift/virtue.  Be very careful to whom you give it.  I gave it to a higher calling, my vocation, my mission.  I did not rest my obedience in the hands of men, although I am perhaps a special case.  You know, you all have to place at least some measure of obedience in the hands of those that guide governments, churches, etc. but, all I can say is this:

Give it begrudgingly – very begrudgingly

Peace out.

The Life of a Sys-admin

August 25, 2005 /

It’s a mixture of the irritating, the banal, and the absurd.  Welcome to my life.  Take a peek.

 (08/25/2005 10:01:33 AM) Laura:
well you did not correct me… my bad — I should have insisted on your attention you have been so busy.. . SO SORRY!!!

Luciano did say he was kind of lost in the menus but I thought they are so easy he could not have done harm.
    
Is that where all the emails are misdirected

(08/25/2005 10:01:42 AM) james:
so that was the problem… all fixed now, their mail should be arriving

(08/25/2005 10:01:59 AM) Laura:
thanks

(08/25/2005 10:04:55 AM) james:
I need fracking coffee

(08/25/2005 10:05:14 AM) Laura:
yes…

(08/25/2005 10:07:38 AM) Laura:
they say they are still not getting any mail…

(08/25/2005 10:09:25 AM) james:
hey
look, all you impatient and stupid people (that includes you too) there
is 150 megabytes of email that needs to beat back the buffeting
onslaught of the outgoing storm named eventos… the little email must
plant itself firmly, bracing against the bits as they fly past, to
struggle perchance to dream, of someday arriving at their intended
destination, safe at last – happy to be home.
    
for frack’s sake

(08/25/2005 10:10:16 AM) Laura:
what a nice story!  So colorful and wonderful a nice change in this dreadful world of bits and bytes

Jesus on Foreign Relations

August 24, 2005 /

I: Welcome back again.  We’ve just got a ton to talk about, and since Jesus seems to be indulging us, we’re just going to keep right on rolling.  J, I’ll be blunt.  What do you think about Pat Robertson’s comments about el Presidente, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?

J: What do you mean, ‘what do I think’? I can imagine you want me to condemn Robertson for making such a comment, or perhaps you want me to justify them because he’s a ‘Man of God.’  Maybe you want to see me squirm. Or maybe, just maybe you really want to know the answer.  What is the Truth?

I:  – That last one.

J: Okay, I’m in a good mood, so I’ll just spill it all out.  You people, and I mean that in the kindest of all ways *rolls eyes*, have this tendency to… um, I don’t know, screw up.  You make mistakes.  You act in thoughtless selfish ways.  You get lost in your anger and fear.  But hey, you know, it’s okay.  Well, not okay okay but you know what I mean.  It happens.  Look, if I ever wanted anything done around here, that is, if I had to employ you in beneficial service of human-kind, and I waited for a perfect person… well, let’s just say, I’d still be waiting.  No, I’ve got to pick the flawed to serve.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of my favorites, I’ll never forget what he said to me, ‘Jesus, I’m not worthy.  I can’t serve you.  Why did you pick me?  I’m a poor poor man.’ 

I laughed in his face.  ‘Martin,’ I said, ‘I’ve been looking for someone for 400 years to help out with this slavery/apartheid thing, and where’s that gotten us.  I’m afraid you’re the best we’ve got.  Sometimes you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.’  Apologies to Rummy.  ‘But seriously, Martin, if we don’t do something about life in America, right now, we’re going to lose another generation.  You can do something about it right now.  Sure, you’re not perfect, but at this moment, you’re the best.  You’re the best chance of helping me fulfill my promise.  Won’t you help me Martin?’  So I ended up saying Martin, I need your help.  Don’t give me that crap about how you’re not perfect, or you’ll screw it up, or whatnot.  I need your help, and I think you can do the job.

What can you take from that?  Well, for one, the Son of God asking for help?!  I mean comeon.  That’s heavy.  I may be the Son of God, but I have an ego the size of some quantum particle you haven’t discovered yet.  I ask for help every day.  I’ve asked you all for help.  You can respond in a variety of ways.  You can ignore it, say no you’re too busy, cry about how you’re not worthy, or just suck it up and make it happen.

And how does this all relate to Chavez, Robertson, and foreign policy?  First of all, if you fix on what I’ve been saying, you’ll notice that I promote, not demote.  Robertson and Bush and the US State Department have a big beef with Chavez right now.  I’ll grant that he’s been a agitator.  He’s no angel, let me tell you, but he has done some good things.  He’s sponsored Cuban doctors in South America in medical programs for the poor.  He’s helped the poor in his own country.  He’s forging an alliance with an isolated and ravaged country.  Maybe his motivations are wrong, but the best thing any person in the US State Department can do right now to steal his thunder, his rhetoric…

Give him a round of applause.  Hey Hugo, I like what you’re doing down there.  We stand with the people of Venezuela, and congratulate a leader like you for your concern for the downtrodden and mistreated.  Is there anything we can do to help?

Is it naive?  It won’t work, you say?

Like what you’re doing now is working so well, right?

Peace out.

Into Each Life…

August 18, 2005 /

The big fat obnoxious drops started to fall slowly.  They
landed with metallic thunks, like little bombletts, crashing and
splashing on the exterior of my car.  They impacted noticeably,
and I swear, for a second I thought it was hail.  These were 15
kiloton raindrops.   

At first they came in a halting fashion, as if unsure of their target,
but soon I was in the mist of a rain of terror upon a civilian
population.  I could barely see a few feet in front of the car,
and traffic slowed to five miles per hour.  And my music – I
couldn’t hear my music, lost as it was in the cacophony of the attack.

As
I inched up to Calle Simón Madera, I hesitated, seeing that it was no
longer the Calle Simón Madera, but El Río Simón Madera.  I made a
decision to turn and attempt to ford it.  How bad could it be?

The
water was half-way up the door on my little Ford Focus (or so it
seemed).  I quickly followed a larger SUV in front of me, taking
advantage of his wake to edge the water away.  It worked, until he
decided to stop and slowly make a left turn.  Arrgghh,
please oh please please, don’t stall, little car.  I don’t want to
deal with this now.  I’m stupid, I admit it, but just don’t
stall.  Mr. SUV made his turn and I continued on. 

I breathed a sigh of relief.  I never realized what that little car was capable of.  Now I know.

I
sat down at my desk and began to work, when my cell phone rang. 
Hmm, out of state area code.  Who could be calling me? It was my
good friend Dave.

"Hey Dave, what’s up?"

"Nothin’ much, man, just thought I’d give you a call and touch base.  It’s been a while."

"That’s
great.  It’s good to hear from you."  And there we were,
chuckling and carrying on.  He mentioned that PowerBall was up to
220 million dollars.  We talked about the small risk of a  $1
investment with a $220 million payoff.  It just might make sense.

"Hey,
Dave, what would you do if you won?  You’d take it in a lump sum, right, so
that leaves you with about $100 million.  What do you do with your
life?  Do you still play in the orchestra?  Do you buy the
orchestra?  What in the world would you do with your life if money
was irrelevant?"

"Nothing.  I’d probably watch a lot of TV," he chuckled.

"Play
with the kids, take trips?  Hey, you could start a business. 
Would you start a business?  Would you compose?  Would you
start up a music foundation, or some sort of foundation for the
arts?  Would you donate money to the orchestra?"  I was
ratta-tat-tating him with a million questions.

"I’d buy a plane, take flying lessons, and travel around.  That’d be cool."

From
there we moved on to other things, difficulties of running a business
in Puerto Rico, poor economy, difficult market.  He asked me where
I would go if I left Puerto Rico. 

"I’ve thought a lot
about Colorado.  I’ve read the the tech industry is booming
there."  I was also thinking about the cooler weather, cheaper
cost of living, and outside recreation opportunities.  Colorado
has seemed to me, from afar at least, to be a perfect blend of
mid-western hospitality, urban sophistication, and culture.  Bah,
but what do I know.  I’d have to try it out.

"Why do you stay in Puerto Rico, if it’s that bad?" he asked innocently.

"Well,
it is bad, that’s for sure."  I paused, unsure of the words or
what I was actually feeling. "It’s just that there have been
opportunities here I have shaped me in ways that I never would have
realized."  Serendipity is a word that comes to mind.  It’s
not that suffering for suffering’s sake is a good thing, but sometimes
you don’t know what you’re capable of.  Sometimes when life is
comfortable, you don’t seek out those itchy contagions that cause you
to scratch.  In the Midwest of the US, you can just blend in,
carry on with your life, and if social activism isn’t your natural
inclination, you can happily avoid it. 

In Puerto Rico,
it’s in your face 24/7.  Between the projects, the despair of the
fatherless youths, and the poor public education, problems
abound.  They affect every strata of society, and unless you are
among the super-wealthy, you’ve no way to avoid it.  So, you’ve
got two choices, do nothing or do something.  Doing nothing takes
more energy that it does in the US, of that I can assure you.  The
flip-side is that doing something is a bit easier.  And doing
something, opens up one of the possible ways that we as humans may
grow.  I wouldn’t be the person I am today if not for Puerto
Rico.  I’ve a long way to go, and I am still not enchanted to be
living here, but I know Puerto Rico, I know its culture, I know its
problems, and I know its spirit, and I’m sure that this is where I’m
supposed to be right now.  I’m also sure of one other thing.

I know what I’m capable of.

Catalog Shopping

August 14, 2005 /

Olaia picked up the Performance Bicycling catalog from the coffee table and curled up on the couch with it.  "Mommy, when I get a little older, I want this," and she pointed out a specific item.  

"Oh, my dear," Laura giggled, "you’re gonna get a kick out of this."

"What, lemme see," and I leaned over to see what Olaia had selected.  Her finger was on a little pink girlie bicycling top, right there in the women’s fashions section.

"When I’m older, I’m going to wear this when I go with Daddy to buy milk."  She beamed as she dreamed of her pink top and her bicycle and riding with her bestest Daddy in the whole wide world.

Crackervision

August 12, 2005 /

Recently the Discovery channel hosted a "contest" to decide who was the most important American – like ever.  I’ll keep it short, *spoiler alert* Ronald Reagan won.  He beat out lots of great Americans, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?!?!  WHAT!  Are you smoking crack? I tore my hair out in chunks before I realized that the verdict says more about who watches the Whiteychannel than who was the greatest Amercian.

<voice style="comicguy">Best channel demographic research ever.</voice>

IT Employee Attitude Adjustment

August 11, 2005 /

You’ve probably noticed it.  I’ve noticed it.  IT personnel have gotten less responsive over the last few years.  They complain more, are harder to deal with, and less motivated than I’ve ever seen.  The cliche of the BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell) was one thing.  Today it’s totally different.  IT people don’t love their jobs anymore.  Whereas the BOFH of yesteryear truly loved the torment he inflicted on his L-users, today’s LOFH (Lazy Operator From Hell) just doesn’t care.  He really doesn’t.  He doesn’t care if you’re mad, if you yell, if you call him names, tell his boss he sucks, rant and rave up and down the halls. He just doesn’t care. 

He’s not paid enough to care.

And that’s the difference.  Whereas before in the land of mainframes and business automation, highly skilled technical people were paid large fees to make stuff run well.  And for the most part it did.  Because of the power these high priests of the arcane wielded, they tended to be bastards, condescending.  But it was all part of the mystic and mostly everyone was happy.

Enter desktop computing. 

Today’s sys-admin is more than likely the user that sits in front of the computer using email, word processing, spreadsheets, etc.  You, the end user, are your own admin.  Professional sys-admin’s are more than likely just help desk support, and worse than that, relegated to company overhead, while employees with the desktop computers are the bread and butter. 

"Make it work, you worm," you can hear them mutter under their breath whenever there is downtime.

IT guys don’t get paid well, and as a result, they take their compensation in other ways, surfing the net, running side consulting jobs from their employer’s business, screwing around, taking long lunches, being unresponsive, rude, surly.

I’ve seen it all, I work with these people every day, and it’s always the same.  They’re bored, under appreciated, underpaid, and unhappy.

"You wanted to be your own sys-admin?  Now that you’ve got that fancy schmancy WinXP on your desktop so easy to use, so powerful.  You think you don’t need us?  You think this stuff is simple?  Do it your god-damned self."

Desktop computing has gotten so cheap that we labor under the false illusion that business automation is cheap, a commodity, that Information Technology is one step above the toilet paper stocking service.

Next time you have that bean burrito, and you get that after lunch peristaltic action and there’s no TP… bet you wish you had some TP now doncha?

Engineer Solves Glass Half Empty Problem – World Yawns

August 8, 2005 /

Today, an engineer quietly solved the glass half empty problem.

"You see, it really depends on the initial state.  If the glass starts out empty, and is filled to half, the glass is half full, or put another way, trending toward fullness.  If the glass starts out full and half of its contents are consumed, then the glass is half empty or trending toward emptiness.  It’s just a simple engineering relationship.  Your perception of the glass as half empty or half full depends upon your frame of reference and your stated objective.

Answer the question, ‘For what is the system designed and what are its goals?’ and you will be able to – construct – the – system – accurately… uhm… err.  You guys must think I’m really stupid, huh?"

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