Resurrected Titanium

Tags

biking, health, lessons learned, life, middle age, personal

I never intended to neglect her, even as I stopped to admire her pearled finish and timeless beauty as I passed her each day.  We used to be constant companions with hardly a day where we didn’t spend at least an hour together.  She was a gift, cherished in a way that expressed my true thanks to have such a wonderful machine.  Never a spot did I allow, never a fault or blemish.  My partner was too precious, too much a part of me, to allow any harm.

Then came the other one.  The dirty pleasure who showed me things that I had never even dreamed of until I met her.  She brought me back to nature, a satisfied peace that helped me escape to a place of refuge, my body experiencing a different challenge than my pearly beauty could ever give to me.  I was taken away, away from the stress of the road, away from the constant effort that the other required of me.  Sure, she had a bigger, more sturdy frame, but the ecstasy she brought made me forget all else.  With her, it was about the experience, not so much the sheer appearance.  Soon, all I wanted was my time in the woods.  Rarely did I come back to my pearly beauty, my first love.

I had to come back.  Saturday, I donned the spandex that I had spurned during my hiatus from my titanium beauty, the Serotta road bike that I have loved for so long.  Tentatively, I returned to the garage, prepped my white steed for a ride, picked it up, still astonished at how light the bike is for such old technology — the frame is over 20 years old.  It felt strange to wear spandex again, the tight material stretched over my 56 year old frame, a bit self conscious as I rolled down the first stretch of road.  The click of cleat to pedal brought a smile as my right foot found the Look Keo pedal, a surge as the first down stroke took affect.

It was a different feeling, not unfamiliar, the speed of the light bike underneath me, the resistance of high pressure road tires to the pavement much less than knobby mountain bike tires to dirt.  I rolled along at a nice, 18 mph pace after my body warmed up, content on a pleasant but humid Saturday afternoon.  The traffic was light, the ride easy.  10 miles in, I encountered an old friend at a stoplight, a fast rider who races, and settled in behind him for another 10 miles.

Home again, I realized that my muscles were sore.  Riding the road bike works different muscles than the mountain bike.  I was happy to know they still existed, annoyed that I had let them go.

Sunday found me with a text message from my “wife”, telling me that she had visited our daughter at her summer camp, where she is a camp counselor.  The air conditioning on our daughter’s car wasn’t working, so my “wife” wanted to know what to do about it.  I drove the 90 minutes to the camp, exchanged cars with my daughter, brought her car home.

The car went to the mechanic early Tuesday morning.  Instead of hitching a ride with my office manager, who lives close, I decided to take advantage of my renewed relationship with my road bike.  I rode to work.  For more than 20 years, bike commuting was something I was known for around the office, an activity I took advantage of nearly 12 months out of the year.  But since I took my new job over three years ago, I have bike commuted only a few times, not once since we changed office locations at the beginning of 2016.

Commuting by bike is different than merely riding for pleasure.  Unless one gets up to commute before dawn, a bike commute is going to mean that I am riding in the presence of a large amount of motor vehicles.  Even a dawn ride involves more vehicle interaction than an early Saturday morning ride.  Almost immediately, within the first few pedal strokes, I felt the uncomfortable closeness of cars constantly zooming past my backside.  Years ago, riding with traffic had become second nature.  It took a bit for that second nature to kick in again.

I enjoyed the ride, parked my bike in my office, a bit of pride at once again using my hobby in a practical way.  Really, I should have parked the bike in the storage unit my company rents in the basement.  Instead, I left the bike in my office window for all to admire.  She is a beauty, after all.

Last night, my second ride home on my commute.  Approaching a stoplight where I had to cross over a second lane to get to the left turn lane, a small brained motorist behind me decided to take his aggression out on me.  I won’t share the details — they are not important.  But I remembered another reason why the peace of the woods and dirt trails has become so precious to me.  I arrived home with clenched teeth, a result of stuffing the temptation to react to the angry motorist.

I will continue to return to my pearly white beauty for weekend strolls along less travelled roads.  I am pretty sure that I don’t want the stress of commuting any more.  Oh, I could get used to it again, as I did so many years ago.  I got to the point then where I rarely had an incident.. but the roads are different now, the congestion of the suburbs more pronounced.  I ride the bike to relieve stress, keep my body in tune.  I want to keep it that way.

Cat Pee Conqueror

Tags

lessons learned, life, personal

It is finished.  It smells finished.  It looks finished.  After much soaking, scrubbing, and blotting this cat pee conquistador is victorious.  The last step was to apply baking soda over the entire area, then a hydrogen peroxide + dishwashing soap mixture over the baking soda.  I scrubbed the foaming concoction into the carpet with a brush, waited a few minutes as it soaked in, then blotted it up.  I knew it was doing it’s job as the fluid in the towel began to come up clear, not yellow.  Crossing my fingers, I left for a few hours ride, came home to the scent of NOTHING.  When the carpet dried, the carpet was shampooed with cold water (hot water had been a bad thing earlier).  The water in the machine’s waste tank wasn’t clear at first, but it wasn’t dark.  No..more..cat..pee.

It’s a small victory, but the small ones still make me smile.

Old Yeller

Tags

cats, Humour, lessons learned, life

I am going to tell you this right now, know that I am shooting straight (or at least straighter than a certain two cats) — it’s possible to teach an old dog new cat pee tricks.

This old dog is learning the hard way.

Dark picture. That’s a Fresh Wave container in the middle, bravely defending the room from the stink attack.

Finished with the painting of my recently purchased condo, mostly moved in, the place clean and tidy, the to do list whittled down to just a few things.  One of the things left on that to do list is to remedy the cat pee stains in the front corner of the master bedroom, where the previous owner kept the cat box.  One of the two cats was male and, being the typical male, he apparently missed the toilet now and then most of the time.  Let’s just say that it is very obvious where the litter box was placed in the room from the yellow outline in the carpet.  The stench was also obvious, not overwhelming, but not pleasant either.  Something had to be done.

Old Dog Lesson #1 — Do NOT use steaming hot water in the carpet cleaning machine when attempting to shampoo out cat urine in the carpet.

Remember that I said that the stench was obvious but not overwhelming.  After I shampooed the carpet last Saturday, the stench grabbed me by the collar and punched me in the face the next time that I walked through my front door.  To say that the scent is strong is an understatement.

Old Dog Lesson #2 — Expensive enzymatic solutions are not always the solution.

Not yet, at least.  I soaked the area with a popular enzymatic odor eliminator specifically formulated for cat urine.  I will dare to mention the brand as there are likely going to be people who read this blog who will recommend it.  Now the manufacturer will likely read it also.  The concoction I used is Nature’s Miracle.  So far, with the carpet nearly dry, there has been no miracle.  The stench might actually be worse.  I am not going to blame the cleaner.  Perhaps the fact that the area has been recently treated with shampoo caused the NM to be ineffective.  I have heard good things about NM, so I am not going to knock the stuff.  Unfortunately, the stuff ain’t helping.

If the odor isn’t gone once the cleaner has dried, I am going to try white vinegar.  If that doesn’t work, I am going to try baking soda with hydrogen peroxide and dishwashing liquid.  If that doesn’t work, I am going to buy gas masks and hand them to every guest as they walk through my front door.

This old dog is not pissed off.  Nor am I going to give up.  This does indeed suck, however.

 

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Tags

Humour, life, middle age, mountain biking

I hate it when my actions exceed the threshold of stupidity.

Shut up… it’s not a daily, hourly, or every minute of my life occurrence.

One of the necessities of riding a bicycle, especially when riding off road, is being prepared for a flat tire.  There are some who avoid that unpleasant experience with tubeless tires, but I am not a tubeless guy (I like my tube) so I still need to carry a spare tube, patch kit, and CO2 inflator with me when I ride.  When riding my mountain bike, I have all I need stashed in plastic bags, tucked inside my hydration pack.. right next to the baggie of folded toilet paper.

Sunday morning, I decided to venture to the trails for a BCD (butt crack of dawn) ride.  It was going to be a sweltering, humid day, thus necessitating an early ride while it was still relatively cool.  As I unloaded my bike at the trailhead, the birds chirped merrily around me, greeting me in my revelry.  This was going to be a great ride, I just knew it.  True to expectations, my body felt fantastic as I zipped up the first trail, strong and good-for-me fast.  My warm up always takes me from the front of the park to the back, roughly a mile to a water crossing that leads to a nice, challenging loop of trails.  I got to the water crossing FAST.

The water crossing was a little deep.  Hikers have been damming it up, probably so they don’t get their dainty little feet damp as they cross.  Mountain bikers, who build and maintain the trails in the park, have been removing the dams.  Back and forth, build and tear down.  It has been a dam war.  When I came to the top of the drop into the water crossing, I noticed that the hikers had built yet another little dam.  Confident that the water wasn’t too deep, I swooped down the trail and into the water, my elbow wet as the water splashed around my bicycle.

*Fssssssshhhhhht fssssssshhhhhttttttt fsssssshhhhtttt*

Oh ssssssshhhhhtttttt.  A front flat.  The hikers must have been fighting back, booby trapped the crossing.  No worries, it was a front tire flat and I had my kit with me.  I removed the wheel, whipped the tube out of the tire, took out the spare tube, replaced it, inflated the tire with CO2.

*Fsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttt*

Crud.  I thought I had inspected the tire for the cause of the puncture.  I was out of luck since I only had one CO2 cartridge and one spare tube.  I replaced the wheel, carried my bike the mile or so back to my car.  Shucks.  The birds all pooped on me as I got back to my car, blew raspberries as they flew away.

Sunday afternoon, at home, I decided to fix the flat tire.  As I pulled the punctured tube out of the tire, a thought struck me.

Is it possible that I had put the same tube, the punctured tube, back in the tire that morning?

Intrigued, I pulled the tube I had put back in my hydration pack.  It looked new and unused.

I now have a large hand print on my forehead.

 

 

Hesitation

Tags

divorce, life, personal, relationships

I tried not to hesitate, but that’s the point.

Last Friday, I ventured a few hours south to Brown County State Park, Indiana.  My goal for the past few summers has been to soothe my soul with sweet single track trails, a goal I haven’t really been able to attain yet.. but I am getting there.  Life keeps getting in the way, not always a bad thing.  So I decided that I was going to make a solo trek, a semi spontaneous trip with little planning except to load my bike on the back of my car, with a change of clothes and nutrition for the ride.

It feels a bit unnatural to be doing things on my own right now, even though that has been the case for some time now.  Now I have that separated, living in divorce limbo cloud hanging constantly over me, so that gives me that disjointed feel.  It doesn’t help when people look at me like a broken toy when they find out that status.  I hate it.  I hate the waiting, the real desire to move on with my life.  That even includes wanting a companion, something that really isn’t right for me to do until I am a divorced, recovered from said divorce, man.

All of the above necessitates keeping active, not sitting around and letting depression take over.  Thus the bike trip.  As much as I like to ride Brown County, I almost had to force myself out the door.

The previous Wednesday pretty much forced me out the door.  In one afternoon, I found out that my company may not be able to pay me at the end of the month, I need a root canal, I owe an additional $6813 federal tax from 2016, and my homeowners association is requiring me to buy a $855 window for my condo.  All of that hit in about a two hour time period.  I looked at what I have socked away from the sale of the house, carefully planned in preparation of the coming divorce storm, and realized that there likely will be nothing left of that money come the end of August.

I will make it, I know.  I keep telling myself that God will provide.  The storm may be heavy for a while, but I won’t sink.

Geez… what a depressing blog!  The ride was great.  Just what the doctor ordered, even though it kicked my butt.  The time alone was therapeutic.  The quiet and change of scenery, heck the scenery alone was calming.  At one point in the ride, a mountain bike skills instructor told her three students to watch me as I cleared a large log obstacle on the trail, clapping for me as I passed by them, beaming with pride.

July 13th is a status hearing.  Ummmm… I wonder how much the lawyer is going to charge for that…… lol

Poo-ten Place

Tags

life, personal, stuff

One of the essential items that made the move from the house to the new condo was something that any man would be lost without.  Worried that someone else would grab it, I snatched it up and made sure it was stashed in a safe place for the move.

Fake poo.

And here it sits.  Now I can pretend that I have a pet dog.

It goes with the décor.

OK, that might not be accurate at all.  My place doesn’t even smell like poo.  It smelled like primer and paint for a while, but even those scents are gone.  Even the nicotine stench is mostly gone, a bit remaining in the walk in closet, the only room in the condo that did not get fresh coating.  Right now, my bachelor pad smells like cupcakes, the vanilla cupcake candle providing the illusion that I have been baking.

It’s a long fireplace mantle — plenty of room for schtuff.

Pictures from my daughter.

She likes this one of me.

The décor in the place is starting to round out slowly, thanks to the generous gift of a red framed Farmall tractor puzzle that my father lovingly assembled for me (he made the frame, too), as well as the pictures that my precious daughter framed for me.  She also gave me a nifty old bicycle thingy.

Yesterday, I brought the dining room table and chairs up from my garage.  I put the legs on the table this afternoon, set the chairs around it.  There are floor to ceiling mirrors on one wall of the dining room, so it’s good that there is furniture in that room now.  Up to today, “friends” were suggesting that I put strobe lights and a stripper pole in the dining room.  After all, it’s every single guy’s dream, right?

Adjusting to sleeping in the master bedroom has been a bit of a trick.   Last weekend, I moved from the second bedroom, the room I moved into first, to the master.  The master is large, with two large windows that face the courtyard entrance to my condo unit, facing east.  When I go to bed, the courtyard light becomes my night light.  Used to total darkness when I sleep (no snide comments, please), that required some adjustment to get the blinds set just right.  I still sleep great.  In the morning, my room is lit by morning light as soon as the sun begins to peak the horizon, thus serving as a very early morning wake up call.  I am one whose body clock rarely allows me to stay awake late and which also will not allow me to go back to sleep once I am awake in the morning.  Right now, due to the the invasion of friendly sun, I am awake at 5:30 AM.

Getting there.  Slowly, I am getting things unpacked and in place.  The all important fake poo is out and ready to greet visitors.. so I guess I am set!

Three’s Company

Tags

condo living, life

Apparently, my only toilet option after 10 PM from now on will be to pee off of my balcony.  Either that or pee/poo in a bucket.  Dishes in the sink?  Save them for the morning.  Out of clean underwear?  Commando if I don’t remember to stick them in the clothes washer before 9.  While you’re at it, Stevie, make sure the water softener isn’t set to cycle in the middle of the night.

Thanks to a downstairs neighbor intent on complaining about each and every noise or crime that goes on above her head, I have been sufficiently welcomed to my new neighborhood.  23 years of living in a house, situated in a very laid back neighborhood with neighbors who could care less about what I did, had me used to the benefits of living with some space in between.  I forget what it’s like to live in very close proximity to other people, how some people who live in apartments or condominiums itch to exercise their right to gripe.  It took my downstairs neighbor less than a week to report me to the homeowner’s association.

Pray tell, Steve, what horrific acts are you guilty of committing?  My first paragraph alludes to most of her whining — I wash dishes and clothes after 8, sometimes 9 o’clock at night.  Essentially, she doesn’t like the sound of running water.  While she was at it, she threw in a jab at my grill dripping grease on her patio (an impossibility, by the way).

Wait, the grill grease complaint was made during her SECOND attempt to incriminate me via the homeowner’s association.  The first complaints about the water use were made within the first few days after I moved in.

I earned a little bit of the second complaint, by the way, not because I was dripping grease but because I got tired of the woman yelling every night (no exaggeration necessary) from her patio every night, usually around 9 PM or so, usually directed at my temporary roomie (gone now), mostly unintelligible since the rant was screamed in a very thick Polish accent —

MARGE LAUBER!  YOU MUST STOP THAT!  YOU USE WATER!!!  YOU ARE BAD PERSON!!!  I WILL NOT PUT UP WITH NOISE!! (blah blah blah blah)

I knew about the first complaints after speaking with the property manager shortly after closing on my condo, who I called to find out how to pay association dues.  Pam, the manager, informed me that my adorable neighbor had already complained twice about me.  She also told me not to worry — my cranky cohabitant has complained about every occupant of my condo.  Pam apologized, laughed a little about it with me, said welcome to condo life (heh heh heh heh).

With that in mind, on a Thursday night, after listening to my neighbor moan every night that week, I decided it was time for it to stop.  It was 8:30 PM, I washed a few dishes, and she began her nightly rant.  Instead of merely listening to her until she lost breath and stopped, this time I stepped out on the deck to ask her to stop.

Not the best thing to do, although one would think that the best resolution would be to talk about it, hash things out and reach a compromise.

She spit words that sounded like ‘fix’, ‘police’, and I think maybe ‘pierogi’ was thrown in there.  There was no negotiation.  I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.  Finely, I yelled back at her, told her that she has no gripe when she is complaining about normal life activity.  If she wanted to complain more, then she should keep complaining to the homeowner’s association and not to me, since I knew she had already complained.  She stomped back under the deck to her patio.

I received a call from Pam the next day.

OK, tell me what happened last night.

I gave her the quick story.  There was a sigh on the other end of the conversation.  Another apology.  I told her that from now on I would not engage the tenacious tenant, would simply ignore her.

Where are you from?  I love your voice.  Central Illinois?  I have heard that twang before.

Uh oh.  Pam is a divorcee.  The conversation attempted to get much friendlier.  Attempted, I must emphasize.

Condo life is still not bad, even with an overly sensitive whiner underfoot.  It is just going to take some adjustment, including my learning how to be kind and try to watch when I use water at night, etc….

Had I not talked to Pam yesterday, kindness would be more on my mind.  I had to call Pam because I still have not received the payment book or instructions on how to pay my monthly assessment.  In the course of the conversation, Pam leaked that my favorite friendly neighbor had attended the homeowner’s association meeting last Wednesday night, complained that my water softener was cycling in the middle of the night.

Ummm.. that’s what it’s supposed to do.  And it’s been doing that since it’s installation in 2009, I reckon.  Pam agreed.  But she also said that the homeowner’s association board has instructed me to not use the water in my unit after 10 PM.

I know they can’t do that.  Pam, the association rules don’t specify a time.  Legally, they can’t.  I had already used to trusty internet to confirm that information.  There is a lot out there about this blog’s topic.  She agreed.  Just be careful, she advised.

Then she asked me what my neighbor was installing under my deck.  An ILLEGAL awning, perhaps?  I would neither confirm or deny.

Until Mister Furley appears at my front door….

What’s For Dinner?

Tags

life, my life, personal, simple life

Ever had that disjointed feeling, a gnawing nag where something just isn’t quite in place, a constant reminder to be patient because all will be back to normal soon?

I should have kept that question a little more simple and shorter.  Screw it.  It covers more bases the way it is written.

How about that feeling that someone is always watching you?  It’s real if you have ever had pets and/or children.

I have a hawk.

Pretty freaking cool, eh?  Good thing that I don’t have pets or small children right now.  That hawk is big enough to carry off a small terrier.  Since I moved into my condo at the end of March, I have seen the hawk several times in the big trees in front of my deck, even witnessed it swoop by before soaring to its perch close by.  But this time mister hawk decided to pay me a personal visit, close up.  I was sitting outside on the deck, already one of my favorite places, and suddenly I was face to face with this daunting beauty.  He sat on the railing in front of me for a good two minutes, curious as I talked to him.  I am certain that he totally expected me to understand what he was saying to me.

Listen, buddy, welcome to the neighborhood.  Understand a few things and we will get along.

There likely are a few hawk rules that I will need to abide by.

Once I get settled in, I will read the little rule book that he dropped off.

As of Friday, I am once again a homeowner.  That’s right, I successfully negotiated the mortgage maze.  There really wasn’t much to negotiate since the only debt I have is a car payment.  Plus, my portion of the equity from the sale of the house was waiting to finance the new mortgage.  Even with that, I spent the past few weeks in a temporary limbo,  sure yet unsure that I would be living in my condo.  When my house sold, I moved into the second bedroom of the condo while waiting for my mortgage to be approved, as well as waiting for my temporary roommate’s mortgage to be approved.

I should say that I am squeezed into the second bedroom.  I had to be creative in order to make two beds, two dressers, a large screen TV, a head board, fit into one bedroom.  One might say that I am the prince and the pea right now, my mattress stacked on top of a bed frame, box spring, and the mattress from the other bed.  Thankfully, my other box spring is a split, two piece design, so it is stacked easily in a corner of the room.

Up to now the place hasn’t quite felt like my home.  It felt temporary, like it wasn’t real.  My roomie has been diligently packing her things, boxes all over the place, my things slowly replacing her the items that she packs away.

And then I got writer’s cramp.  That happens when you sign all the closing documents.

I bought a gas grill yesterday, assembled it in it’s stainless steel glory out on MY deck.  All of a sudden, I feel the solid sureness return.  I am home, my peaceful place.  Mine.

Ahhhhhhhhh!

April Fool?

Tags

divorce, life, personal, relationships

The thought just struck me, a miniature epiphany brought on when I realized that today is usually one of my favorite days of the year.  It’s April Fool’s day, after all, and coincidentally my first full day of “freedom”.  From now on, the meaning of April 1 will no longer be associated with a prank, unless this whole thing happening in my life really is some cruel and massive joke.  Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and discover that it really has been that.

One problem — I will wake up tomorrow in my own bed, but that bed is not in my house.  It’s in someone else’s house, a house that will be mine in a few weeks, nonetheless it’s not the room I have known for some 23 years.  What a strange, almost other worldly feeling this is.

Yesterday, after 23 years, I said good bye to my cozy little two story house.  The past few days, weeks really, have been a whirlwind of seemingly constant work getting the house ready for someone else to live in, fretting over their requests to have this or that fixed/remedied/improved.  Wednesday night, while I was beginning the last stages of packing my things for the move, I received a text from my lawyer, relaying a request from the buyers to verify that the breaker box had been relabeled and a dedicated circuit had been added for the microwave range.  I wasn’t happy, not quite steaming mad, but upset enough that I could taste the sour mood the text had helped create.  I chewed on it, almost decided to tell the buyers to suck pond water, then realized that it really was an easy thing to dispute.  I sent the list for the breaker box that had been created when an electrician inspected the box, pointing out that breaker two was dedicated to the microwave range and stove.  Done.  Finished.  Resolved.

I rented a UHaul truck Thursday evening, greeted my friends Jeremy and Steve as they arrived to help with the move, started in on getting the furniture out of the house.  My dad and youngest brother arrived after a while, dug in and helped.  Never have I been so encouraged to have good friends, thankful more than I could express for their kindness.  It wasn’t just the work they offered, it was their support and understanding, empathy as we worked.  Over the years, I have helped countless people move, never once thinking of what that service meant to those receiving it.  Now I know.  Had they not been there, not only would the huge task been next to impossible to finish, I think the weight of the day may have been enormous to bear.  Instead, while I carried a lot of physical weight that night, the burden was a whole lot lighter.

Miriam left the house shortly after my friends arrived and before my dad arrived.  I am pretty sure that she didn’t want to face him.  If there was any doubt, she called me later on in the evening and asked me to tell her when everyone was gone, then texted me an hour later to confirm.  Sad.  I wished she would have wanted to try to reconcile.  I realize that it was an emotional time any way, but it may have been a good time to try.  Instead, she stayed away, giving up four hours that she should have been using to pack and clean, something she also was woefully behind on.  I stayed up until one in the morning, as much I could take, helped Miriam and her sister as they packed her stuff.  Cleaned as rooms were vacated.

I slept on an air mattress in the near empty house Thursday night.  Miriam worked until four in the morning, then went and slept at her sister’s house.   I didn’t see Nate.  He went to the Bulls game with friends, went straight to his aunt’s house.  I haven’t seen him since Wednesday night, have only talked to him for a few seconds on the phone since then.  That too is sad.  He called while the soon to be owners of our house were doing their final walk through of our house at 2 PM Friday, asked if he could come over and say goodbye to the house.. but Miriam had to tell him that it was too late.

We worked feverishly Friday morning getting everything out of the house, cleaning, throwing out the garbage.  I had put our old couch, overstuffed chair, and ottoman out at the curb for the garbage men to pick up next week.  Of course, when I was out to get garbage pickup stickers to put on the furniture for pickup, as well as the ten bags of garbage also out at the curb, a city code officer stopped by and left a warning ticket about the stuff being out at the curb.  If the garbage and furniture didn’t have stickers and wasn’t picked up by Monday, a $75 ticket would be issued!  I called the city, explained that we were moving and that stickers had been purchased ($75 worth, ironically).  They were kind, told me that everything was OK.

We were finishing the packing as the buyers pulled up for their walk through inspection.  Their realtor asked us if we were finished.  I said that we had everything out and the house was ready.  As Miriam drove off and her sister and I finished putting the last few things in her car, the buyers walked into the house with their realtor.

I paused in the driveway, stood next to my car, willed myself to take one last look at my house.  MY house.  MY FREAKING HOUSE.  I turned looked at my house, unprepared for the emotion that slammed me in the face.

This was no longer my house.  Someone else would be making new memories there.  I hoped there were still some left.  This was the place where my children were born and raised.  Heck, it was where they were made.  A lot of me was in that little structure.  With all the change, it felt like I was leaving a lot of me there.  I stood there, unable to move, no longer able to fight the tears that began streaming down in my face, sobbing as my sister in law came over and held me in a tight hug, told me that it would be all right, that I would always be welcome in her home and that she still loved me like a brother.

For weeks, I let the tasks keep me from realizing the full impact of what was about to happen.  In one quick instance, with one quick glance at the house that represented so much of what my life had been, my life changed.

Now I live somewhere else.  With someone that I knew very well some 26 years ago.  She already has proved that our friendship has been remembered, a great comfort to me these past 24 hours.  We shared coffee and breakfast this morning, talked a lot, went about the tasks of the day, then enjoyed a quiet time together out on the deck of what will be my condo soon.  It’s peaceful, serene, with woods behind, birds and animals surrounding.  At one point while we were out there, a large hawk flew over us and perched on the railing of the deck of the condo next door.  I am relaxed, my old friend and the friends I have spent time with the past few nights a true gift from God.  I feel blessed.  I feel like God is telling me that he is OK with me, that I can move on.

And I have moved.  Happy April Fool’s day, a day that no longer will be associated with fools any more, at least to me.  I am free.

For Your Listening Pleasure…

Tags

life, personal, work

…the dulcet tones of STEVE?

Yes.  Steve.

This past Wednesday, I recorded a voice over at a tiny professional recording studio.  I walked in with a script in hand, was greeted by an energetic young brunette engineer and escorted to a little room, with a closet sized room in the corner that was lined with acoustic foam, a music stand, and an adjustable height microphone with a round spit shield in front of it.  She handed me a glass of water, asked me if I am claustrophobic (I lied and said no), gave me some instructions about how the session would go, then closed the door.  I could see her and multiple monitor screens, essential for me to follow each segment of the recording as we recorded the script in bits.

There was a choice to wear the headphones or not.  I chose to wear them — I wanted to hear my voice.  We began with a long sound check as the engineer monkeyed with the levels, brought out a little more of the bass in my voice.  I have to say, it was pretty cool to hear myself!

Breath control was more difficult than I anticipated.  I managed to make it through most of the takes without snorting in the microphone or breathing heavily like a deranged pervert.  There were a few repeated bits as I worked on inflection, as well as slowing down and adding pauses, cleaning up a few places where I slurred or dropped a pronunciation.  Some of the challenge for me is simply forgetting what is left of my southern Illinois accent.

I made it through 90 minutes, a bit tired when the session was finished.  The engineer seemed impressed, told me that I sound like the guy who narrates some of the How It’s Made videos.  That made me feel good.  However, when I listened to the finished product later on that night, I still felt happy about the job that I did on the voice over, but realized that I am far from professional.  It was a good experience, though.

The voice over was for the first of a series of product training videos the company I work for is producing.  My employer is based in Hungary and I was chosen because, and I quote, “Steve sounds very, very American”.  That’s a compliment, right?

If my voice over actually is used, I will post it here.  Here is the link to the audio files, if you are interested in hearing this dork’s voice — SteveSuckedAndItIsRecorded