The Demise of the Enterprise

Everything is shutting down. Like a patient in intensive care it's breathing, but just barely. Being on life support is just existence, not life. And that's exactly what is happening in the Enterprise. The life is gone. There is no zest, no excitement. It's just an existence on a respirator. The lights come one, people show up, they do work, they go home, and it all starts again the next day. Like zombies of the enterprise, they walk, they talk, they work, but they are lifeless.

The quality of working life is non-existent. There is no Office Supply area near the copier like there used to be. Just empty shelves and a few bent paper clips. There are a few discarded manila folders scared by torn paper labels. And some old binders with clear sleeve fronts still proclaiming the title of the old contents. But the sleeve insert is long gone, as well as the contents. The title remains because the toner residue stained the cover.

From the moment I enter the Enterprise it's apparent that this was once a great ship. But like all ships exposed to the elements, it needs care. The bridges connecting the parking decks with the main office buildings leak with rain water, water stains bleed through the ceiling paint. It's taken some time for the Enterprise to atrophy. It takes three miles to stop an oil tanker. This Oil Tanker's pilot has gone to sleep and the ship has run aground. And like any ship, it's beauty has become tarnished by inaction. And like the Titanic, it has been left to rot at the bottom of the quarterly Profit and Loss sheets. There is no vision or budget to improve itís function.

Contractors and off-shore workers are hired and "let go" as frequently as I change my underwear. Everyday someone different has joined the team . . . or left the team. Everyday someone different is on the phone in my conference calls. Who are these people? What function do they provide? Titles like: "Program Manager" and "Business Services Tech Lead" are used describe their function. Okay, but what do they actually DO? "It's undetermined. Further information will become available." they tell me.

Money, the hoarding of great sums of cash, is the cause of the Enterprise demise. Only quarterly reports and Wall Street expectations drive what the executives spend budgets on. While they all take home large pots of gold, rewards for keeping the enterprise lean, I buy my own office supplies for my 6x7 foot cube. While the executives all take home millions in salary and still more millions in bonuses, I remain at the same basic level as when I arrived five years ago.

The execs do business in their large panel offices and panoramic views. I step around the "Slippery when wet" signs that warn of the rain puddles from the leaking ceilings. The execs park their company issued BMW 745s in assigned spots near the door, but I walk up and down the parking levels after parking my Camry in whatever available spot I can find. All of them order free steak and lobster from their private chef and eat on the penthouse floor while I must buy my own roast beef sandwich in the company cafeteria on the ground floor.

Everything is shutting down. Even the mail carts on rails are "temporally out of order until further notice." Now I must take a trip to the basement to get my trade magazines. I use them to keep abreast of technology. Seems strange doesn't it? The technology that used to deliver the mail is inactive so I must walk to the basement to get my own magazines on technology.

It's just a matter of time before the patient dies. All the investors are standing around the bed looking down at the barely breathing skeletal frame, expecting death soon. No one wants to pull the plug. No one has the authority to end it now. so they wait. But the patient has really already died. The eyes are closed. There's no communication. The brain has expired. There comes a point when the respirator is no longer prolonging life, it's prolonging death. It just ain't going to get any better. Someone should be brave and pull the plug. Free the bed for someone that will respond to care.

...dave
Where there is no vision, the people perish. - Proverbs 29:18

I like red lights

I look forward to red lights. I especially look forward to yellow lights. I stop at all yellow lights. That way I know that I have the longest wait possible. That's what I like, a long wait. I know I'm strange. Most people try to run the yellows. Not me. I've even taken longer ways home so as to get more red and yellow lights. I like waiting.

In fact, to me, slower traffic IS better. Sometimes I don't mind going places when traffic is heavy.

And I'm smarter for it. Just this month I've been able to read three additional books. All because of red lights. Sometimes you just have to leverage your waits.

Now if I could just figure out how to project my books on the windshield (They call this a HUD, Heads Up Display.)

I wonder if I could just mirror copy my book pages and place them up on the dash. That could work. Or maybe I can print-screen and paste web pages into MS Paint and rotate vertical. Then I could read the HUD (reflection) while driving and get twice as much read.

I just don't have enough time to read.

...dave
Real luxury is time and opportunity to read for pleasure. - Jane Brody

Speed

Where is everyone going? why the hurry? What's the rush? This has been going on far too long.

A few weeks ago I saw a semi truck blow past me like a category 5 hurricane. He swerved into my lane, braked hard, and then I watched a van spin out in front of him in a puff of smoke.

A few days later, while turning into my neighborhood street, I saw an overturned car on the corner curb. An OVERTURNED car! How is this possible? Speed limits are only 35 mph. How can a traffic accident in a subdivision result in an overturned car? People were gawking through the windshield. Another car was stalled nearby, crunched by the impact.

Or how about the driver of a Civic that passed within inches of my front bumper trying to make the freeway exit? There was plenty of space behind me. What's the rush? Besides the hospital, where are these people going? It's nuts.

The biggest danger is the ocean tankers. I'm talking about the bullies. Pilots of those monsters look down from the crow's nest of their ships at all smaller dinghies no larger then their stateroom portals. Or in terms of SUVs, no bigger then their stainless spinning wheel scythes. They are hugged by leather seats and ensconced in wood trim cockpits while they glow the ends of their filtered smokes with each pull. Their windows are down, their moon roofs open, their sub-woofer rattles my windshield. They thrust into my lane and catapult into the next, flicking ashes from their dashes. I smell the raw exhaust from their acceleration.

They're in a hurry.

...dave
“I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.” - Stephen Wright quotes

Morning Coffee

When I get to work it's about 6:45 or so. The building lights are off. It's dark outside and there are a few elevator lights on.

I can see the commuter traffic outside going at a steady pace. I can hear the HVAC fans kick in as I type this. I hear emergency vehicles screaming outside. I can't see the accident from where I sit. But I see them injecting themselves into the commuter traffic like a needle into a vein. The emergency people that rush to the scene of the accident are like the white corpuscles going after a virus in the blood stream. They rush to the location, treat and bundle the victim and rush off while the clean up crews sweep up the mess. The highways are infected with all kinds of accidents each morning. The emergency crews return the highways back to health. I watch from my eighth floor window while I make my morning coffee.

I have a ritual using Peets coffee. I rinse the pot of the stale brew from the day before. I grind the fresh beans from the fridge, one and a half fills in the grinder. I like it strong. I dump the fine dust from the grinder of Italian Roast into the filter and push the start button. I wait. I listen in expectation of the gurgling noise that comes a few minutes later. It tells me all is right with the morning. The coffee fragrance wafts over the cube walls and entices me to come for a taste. Just one taste. But it always results in more. I can't just have one cup. I need more. More than one. The chocolate colored, thick palpable hot liquid courses through my veins and invigorates my soul. Euphoria has arrived.

And so my stash stays secret, undetected, and undetectable. No one can discover my fridge of flavors, my coffee stash, my euphoria. It remains ensconced somewhere in the Enterprise.

...dave
“Sometimes I stay up so late that I have my morning coffee before I go to bed.”

I have a stash

I have a secret stash. Not too many people know about it. It's the best kept secret in the Enterprise. It's maintained by myself only. I keep it quiet. The Enterprise is so large I could hide anything inside these walls. I think I could hide an elephant in the place if I could just get it through security.

But Security is fairly heavy here. You have to thread yourself through narrow isles that resemble cattle guides before a slaughter house. (Hey, now there's an interesting parallel.) They are located at every entry. Alarms will sound if you try to get past without your ID card.

There's some chip in the card that allows passage without alarm. As you scan your ID the computers fetch your mug shot from a database and display it on a monitor for the guard to gaze at. I call my picture a "mug shot" because my ID picture looks like prison photo. (Not that I've been in one.) If you try to get through without your card, alarms will sound and men in dark suits and sunglasses will come out of hidden doors, slap your butt to the ground, handcuff you and put you in the "holding bin." I've never been there but rumor has it that you never leave once inside. Don't believe me though. Some say I have a very active imagination.

Where was I. Oh yeah, elephants. My stash is something less than an elephant. It's a refrigerator with coffee supplies. I've got 6-8 pounds of Peet's coffee stashed inside, and a Brewmaster coffee maker and Starbucks grinder on top. I've also got sugar and cream but I don't make it public. I don't want anyone to think that I sometimes make a wimpy cup. Wimpy cups are black and pure cups that have not been adulterated with creams, sugars, and all those flavored syrups. I drink black coffee. Straight up. Strong and thick. I drink coffee like the old men of the sea. The Old Salts could bring nothing extra aboard their ships. There was no room for sugars and creams. That was back in the old days when men drank black coffee, when men were men and, women were men. Nowadays people are drinking all kinds of stuff. You got all these Starbuck sweet drinks with cream and frilly whipping and swirled chocolate. It ain't coffee anymore. It's dessert!

(written by dave edited by rusty)

...dave
"If this is coffee, bring me tea. If this is tea, bring me coffee." - Abraham Lincoln

Learning from the Masters

Many of you may know we are still living in our basement. Our main house is not completed yet so while we work away upstairs during the day, we retire downstairs, in the dungeon, at night, just like bats.

And I know it's been sometime since updating all you all. (That's what they say here in the South when you want to include absolutely everyone in your address. "All you all." That way NO one is left behind.) If you really want pictures of the place in all it's beautiful glory, check out CastleLane.

But I've been away for good reason. I've been learning from the Masters. Of course, it takes time to assimilate all their knowledge. And since I'm paying, I want to get my money's worth. Therefore my long time away. So where was I? Oh yeah, learning from the masters.

The Master Plumber came as an extra fee when I ordered the bathroom counters. I figured that even though I know how to install sink drains and water supply lines, it would be good to learn a little something from the experts. Besides, it would be done during the day while I did my day job.

(Lately I come home from work at 5:00, don my jeans and boots, and go to work upstairs. I work until 12:00 a.m., go down to the bat cave, and then at 6:00 a.m. it starts all over again.)

But I digress. So anyway, the plumber comes, takes a brief look at the counters and sends Ruth off to fetch some parts: water supply hoses, drains, plungers. You see, that's what a Master Plumber does. He doesn't concern himself with the mundane things of the job. He focuses on his Work.

She returned with a pile of stuff while he began bending into the cabinets. Of course, all Master Plumbers are built the same. They are rotund and usually there is not enough material to cover their bending motions. It’s an ugly picture for sure. I believe the additional flesh is due to all the compilation they do while others fetch their stuff.

Anyway, as it turns out, Ruth had fetched EXTRA stuff because the night before she went shopping for the plumber the first time. But evidently she didn't get the right stuff. So there was a BIG pile of pipes and hoses and an assortment of all kinds of connectors ready for the craftsman to begin his work. There was lots of extra stuff.

Sometime later he said he was finished and left with his bucket of tools. (Craftsmen are like that, thorough AND fast!) Ruth went inside the bathrooms to gather up all the extra stuff to return it for credit. But alas, nothing was left behind. You see, Masters are not slobs they clean up after themselves. At least, that's what he told Ruth. Of course, he didn't take the empty boxes from the new fixtures. He left those behind because a Master doesn't concern himself with mundane things. I may have mentioned this.

When I got home, I went in to check out his handiwork, because I wanted to see what new things there were to learn about installing water supply lines and such. I was a little surprised to discover that he had left behind some leaks. Now I know this sounds like shoddy workmanship but I’m not sure. It may just be more difficult to turn a wrench than it looks. As he told Ruth: "It's a good thing you folks didn't try to do this yourselves, this ain't easy." I guess not because I don't think water dripping onto the cabinet floor is evidence of completion.

We contacted our friendly Home Improvement Store to ask for a revisit of the Master and to inquire of our missing items. We were told this Master was to supply all the parts and we’d be reimbursed. The plumber said he didn't have any of the missing items.

Being the inquisitive fellow I am, I removed one of the supply lines to examine in more detail his handiwork only to discover that Master Plumbers never use plumber's tape. Or at least this Master doesn't. This was bewildering to say the least but being the amateur I am, I suppose it's inconceivable that I could understand the way of the Master.

There were some discussions around the "Old" missing items that he had tossed into his bucket on the way out. Later I found new tags from those "old" items stuffed into my new toilet box. Don't try to figure out the ways of the Master.

And so I continue to learn from the Masters and be mesmerized by the "Service" arm of modern America.

...dave
It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.