Tag: NoJoMo 2014

NoJoMo 4

Since it’s Election Day, when did you first vote? Did you vote today? Have your political opinions changed as you’ve aged?

1999, maybe? There was some weirdness with me getting registered in Virginia, so I think I missed the general election that year. It’s only 1030, and I’m off work. I plan to take my wife, a first-time voter, over this afternoon after my couple of midday meetings. I’ve pretty much made up my mind, and will be voting for candidates from the two political parties. I won’t be voting Libertarian, because, once again, the candidate the LP is running in the biggest race seems more concerned with getting high than doing the basics of governing.

No matter what you think of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, both were good at making sure the Federal government did the things it was supposed to do. In the past few years, however, that’s gone away. IOW, I won’t be voting to reinforce a Senate leadership who’ve completely punted on the budgeting process. There is one smug guy from the desert to blame.

As for my own political beliefs, yes, there’s been a change. I’ve become a lot more moderate as I’ve aged. One of my friends from college pretty well nailed it when he described government under me — everyone would get what they needed, but nobody would be happy about it. I do have a very egalitarian streak, but I also see the value in following the rules from top to bottom.

On the major issues, I’ve rethought many positions I once held. The latest? Capital punishment. I am now, pretty firmly, against the state having the power to take life. I realize that getting rid of it, completely, would require an amendment to the Constitution.

I support universal health care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a disaster, though. It’s legislation artfully crafted to try to protect party politicians, while, simultaneously avoiding offending organized labor. Disaster. I still think a single-payer insurance system, with the ability to purchase auxiliary or alternative insurance, and a purely private delivery system is best. Note that that is not a single-provider system like the British NHS, the VA, etc. Roberts’ opining upholding “Obamacare” did not really help resolve the issues. But it did absolutely destroy a misreading of what Congress can do under the Commerce Clause.

I’ve written enough. This afternoon, I’ll go vote against some people, and vote for only one. That’s been the story for me the past few elections.

NoJoMo 3

List some of your earliest memories. Where were you? Is there anyone who could provide clarity about them?
Memory A: I remember when the old man who lived across the street died. I remember the ambulance in their driveway. I think I would have been about two years old, living in Newport News.

Memory B: The neighbors’ dryer caught fire. My introduction to lint buildup. I don’t remember exactly how old I would have been, nor do I remember the firefighers. I do remember the burned-out hulk of a clothes dryer sitting in their backyard afterwards. Again, Newport News.

I asked my mom if she remembered either of tehse, but I don’t think she did. I suppose the things a young child focuses on could be a lot different than an adult.

Memory C: Flying to Mississippi to see my grandparents. I would have been about three or four; my younger brother was an infant. I’m relatively certain we flew USAir, whose logo was far different in 1983.

Yes, kinda short-armed this one, but there’s something big afoot.

NoJoMo 2

  1. Describe your year to date.

I’ve been thinking about the best way to approach this one. I also realize that I screwed up the first writing prompts entry. I’ll have to juggle things a bit. My HTML skills are rather rusty, and copypasta from wherever I wrote those originally didn’t quiet work as intended. Probably because of that, the Election Day prompt is now set to fall tomorrow, instead of the proper Tuesday. Hmmm. I’ll juggle as I write next new days.

Anyway, back to this year. This hasn’t been a good year, at all. There’s still some hope it’ll get better before it ends, but I’m not holding my breath. Please to be ignoring the bad paragraph structure, as I’m just going to write what I can in blocks by month.

January:
A bad year started with some promise. Having removed myself from the driver’s seat on account of my failing eyesight in late 2012, I finally sold my car, which had been marooned with my mother, between Christmas and New Year’s. While I didn’t get nearly what I thought it was worth, the buyer seemed like a nice enough guy, exceed to have it, etc.. The cash infusion provided some comfort, but there was still an unresolved problem that kept me from spending the proceeds. With the community event to help save the market across the street in the middle of December, it looked like they were going to be able to stay open. I loaned one of my powered antennas to the owner so he could watch the playoffs while he worked the counter, trying to keep the store afloat. Things with HR Geeks were moving along, but I hadn’t gotten a ticket to Shmoocon, so I figured I wasn’t going to go. I was a bit disappointed by that, but after the 2013 one, I really wasn’t too broken up about it. So, toil away at my thankless job, instead of taking much of the scant leave I had available. Perhaps by subconscious choice, I don’t have the slightest clue what we were working on at work. Whatever it was, we were doing it shoddily, in the name of meeting wildly outrageous schedule promises. This was kind of par for the course, and I’d been thoroughly reminded that, because I was such a lousy professional minesweeper player, didn’t have a ton of connections on LinkedIn, we would meet whatever stupid schedule we’d been committed to, and I wouldn’t say that it was impossible. I wasn’t qualified. So, despite my dissatisfaction with the job, I was going to stay and do it until…? My wife also was about to start school, which I thought was kinda cool. Being on campus with her for the new student orientation had me feeling very out-of-place as a spouse in amongst a ton of parents, but I was excited for her. We’ll stay in Norfolk until she finishes, then go wherever. With that attitude, out of the blue, around a week before Shmoocon, a longtime friend came through with a ticket for me. Schweet. Even better? Free of charge. So, the trip would cost me transportation (Amtrak to DC, various cab fares), and whatever a hotel room cost. I confirmed with my boss that things were in order through the end of the Federal fiscal year, and asked whether I could, despite not asking well in advance, have the time off to go to the conference. Yes. I can totally deal with that. The conference was great. I wasn’t angling to land a gig. t wrote vociferously. I ate good food with friends. I made it home feeling tired, but somewhat excited about where things were going. I didn’t work MLK Day, using it as a day to recouperate after an eventful weekend. I went to the market across the street, and, no, they probably weren’t going to make it after all. Damnitsomuch. Tuesday I went to work. And was informed that I was being laid off next Tuesday. Perhaps I should have been more upset about it, but it honestly felt like a relief to get out of there. Nope, the little market across the street is closing. Again, damnitsomuch. We tried to help. For me, busses and trains to the Employment Commission, filing for unemployment, etc. Carrying home PBR on public transportation in my hipster acetate-framed glasses, etc. If I’d had a velvet blazer, and a mesh condom on my head, I probably would have looked more the part.

February:
Snow. Lots of it. Few bites on my resume. More bus trips to the unemployment office. Seminars telling me what I was doing wrong. Started thinking about seeing what it’d take to reopen the market across the street. I finally, and officially, resolved the aforementioned outstanding issue. Got home from the post office, started playing with my phone, and noticed I couldn’t read really any of the text on the screen. Maybe I’m just exhausted from being out, hoofing around, etc.. Rest for a bit. Nope, vision is still blurry as hell. Great. Call the neurologist’s office. Uhh, we’ll talk to the doctor and call you back. A few hours later, back on the bus to the neurologist’s clinic for the first of three days of Solu Medrol. My wife got out of class, and met me there. I also started angling to maybe reopen the market across the street. I had a decent working draft of a business plan, but probably not enough startup capital to make it go.

March:
Involvement with various startup agencies. Other stuff, digging through emails to see…I was trying to help my wife through Calculus. Started considering applying for jobs with the Federal Government, something I never had seriously considered before. Totally surprised my wife by conspiring with her mom and sister to get a white, ice cold, Twilight-themed ice cream cake. Saw the neurologist, who decided to keep me on Tecfidera, after the Solu Medrol had taken care of my flare. My wife and I had decided to stop paying COBRA from the four-letter company, which was running us better than $1400/mo.. Essentially, same vision and dental, with medical insurance from a local provider for roughly half the cost.

April:
HR Geeks came back to Norfolk from its monthlong exile in VB. On the way up, my wife was almost run off the road by a couple of police who were probably street racing at the end of the afternoon rush. My wife was pretty shaken up after a cop yelled at her out of the window of his cruiser for not getting over in bumpter-to-bumper traffic. While waiting at the restaurant, I called and opened a complaint about the cop. More seminars about starting your own business. More applications.

May:
Not a lot I’m seeing in my sent items, other than trying to get setup for startup stuff. I chose to go ahead, and open up my own business, not the little store across the street, focusing on kind of my technical and analytic strengths. Bank account? Check. Business license? Check. Registered for this Chamber of Commerce seminar on starting your own business for early June.

June:
As I continued setup activities for my company, I found it tough to avoid the temptation to try to do things myself, manually. Trying to setup basic services and infrastructure is just something that seemed to come naturally to me. Well, sort of. I still really suck at some of it, and am unwilling to spend the money to do it correctly. So? Take my own damn advice, and find a third-party provider. Unfortunately, I scheduled a bunch of sales calls with things like bandwidth vendors, one of which, after still keeping the conference after knowing they couldn’t provide what I wanted, caused me to miss TEDx at ODU. I tried to watch some of it, and while there were some good points, I still thought the speakers I watched were sort of missing the point. I finally got my drunk-looking-dude discount for the bus, as well as my Schedule A letter.

July:
I registered to be a part of Hatch Norfolk’s 1000-4 program, hoping it’d generate some business leads for me. Started attending their meetings, going to social events, etc.. The premise is sound, though I think some of the ideas are a bit off-the-wall, but I’m sure they think the same of my idea.

August:
I applied for jobs, and got referred for several positions locally, and in DC. One of those referrals was for a pretty sweet-sounding gig as a GS-13. On a whim, in order to keep my unemployment benefits coming in, I applied for a very low-level position dealing with a system I’d worked with previously I ran out of unemployment, and money was starting to get tight..

September:
One of the things I haven’t written much about in this tome is my struggles to find adequate dental care this year. The dentist I’d been seeing since 1996 finally closed his Norfolk office when the building he was in was demolished. He was only keeping hors on Friday down at what had been the first of three offices he opened. If/when I needed anything major done, he’d see me at his larger, modern office half an hour north. (where I’d seen him since high school) I went to one of the local larger practices while I was working for the four-letter after I’d lost a filling. The guy I saw had dollar signs in his eyes, then his office staff screwed up the billing. I messaged my primary care doc, and asked for a recommendation. His verdict? A friend of his up north of ODU. I went for a cleaning, had trouble wresting control of my records from the money-grubber practice. He fixed a small issue I had, then recommended I go back to see the guy who’d done all the work on me. Pfft. I scheduled an appointment with the old guy, which required a trip up with my wife, basicallly costing her an entire day. While I was waiting in the dental chair, I got a call from that thing I’d applied for months earlier. They needed me. As soon as possible. So, I took the gig, and cancelled the next two HR Geeks meetings. I also went to the Start Norfolk event, blew my pitch, and only attended about half the conference, being exhausted from work, etc..

October:
Still at this job. Not happy about it. Still digging hard on GS jobs, though I still haven’t gotten an interview. Now five have been cancelled, and twenty-some applications outstanding.

TLDR; it’s been a pretty lousy year, overall.

NoJoMo 2

  1. Describe your year to date.

I’ve been thinking about the best way to approach this one. I also realize that I screwed up the first writing prompts entry. I’ll have to juggle things a bit. My HTML skills are rather rusty, and copypasta from wherever I wrote those originally didn’t quiet work as intended. Probably because of that, the Election Day prompt is now set to fall tomorrow, instead of the proper Tuesday. Hmmm. I’ll juggle as I write next new days.

Anyway, back to this year. This hasn’t been a good year, at all. There’s still some hope it’ll get better before it ends, but I’m not holding my breath. Please to be ignoring the bad paragraph structure, as I’m just going to write what I can in blocks by month.

January:
A bad year started with some promise. Having removed myself from the driver’s seat on account of my failing eyesight in late 2012, I finally sold my car, which had been marooned with my mother, between Christmas and New Year’s. While I didn’t get nearly what I thought it was worth, the buyer seemed like a nice enough guy, exceed to have it, etc.. The cash infusion provided some comfort, but there was still an unresolved problem that kept me from spending the proceeds. With the community event to help save the market across the street in the middle of December, it looked like they were going to be able to stay open. I loaned one of my powered antennas to the owner so he could watch the playoffs while he worked the counter, trying to keep the store afloat. Things with HR Geeks were moving along, but I hadn’t gotten a ticket to Shmoocon, so I figured I wasn’t going to go. I was a bit disappointed by that, but after the 2013 one, I really wasn’t too broken up about it. So, toil away at my thankless job, instead of taking much of the scant leave I had available. Perhaps by subconscious choice, I don’t have the slightest clue what we were working on at work. Whatever it was, we were doing it shoddily, in the name of meeting wildly outrageous schedule promises. This was kind of par for the course, and I’d been thoroughly reminded that, because I was such a lousy professional minesweeper player, didn’t have a ton of connections on LinkedIn, we would meet whatever stupid schedule we’d been committed to, and I wouldn’t say that it was impossible. I wasn’t qualified. So, despite my dissatisfaction with the job, I was going to stay and do it until…? My wife also was about to start school, which I thought was kinda cool. Being on campus with her for the new student orientation had me feeling very out-of-place as a spouse in amongst a ton of parents, but I was excited for her. We’ll stay in Norfolk until she finishes, then go wherever. With that attitude, out of the blue, around a week before Shmoocon, a longtime friend came through with a ticket for me. Schweet. Even better? Free of charge. So, the trip would cost me transportation (Amtrak to DC, various cab fares), and whatever a hotel room cost. I confirmed with my boss that things were in order through the end of the Federal fiscal year, and asked whether I could, despite not asking well in advance, have the time off to go to the conference. Yes. I can totally deal with that. The conference was great. I wasn’t angling to land a gig. t wrote vociferously. I ate good food with friends. I made it home feeling tired, but somewhat excited about where things were going. I didn’t work MLK Day, using it as a day to recouperate after an eventful weekend. I went to the market across the street, and, no, they probably weren’t going to make it after all. Damnitsomuch. Tuesday I went to work. And was informed that I was being laid off next Tuesday. Perhaps I should have been more upset about it, but it honestly felt like a relief to get out of there. Nope, the little market across the street is closing. Again, damnitsomuch. We tried to help. For me, busses and trains to the Employment Commission, filing for unemployment, etc. Carrying home PBR on public transportation in my hipster acetate-framed glasses, etc. If I’d had a velvet blazer, and a mesh condom on my head, I probably would have looked more the part.

February:
Snow. Lots of it. Few bites on my resume. More bus trips to the unemployment office. Seminars telling me what I was doing wrong. Started thinking about seeing what it’d take to reopen the market across the street. I finally, and officially, resolved the aforementioned outstanding issue. Got home from the post office, started playing with my phone, and noticed I couldn’t read really any of the text on the screen. Maybe I’m just exhausted from being out, hoofing around, etc.. Rest for a bit. Nope, vision is still blurry as hell. Great. Call the neurologist’s office. Uhh, we’ll talk to the doctor and call you back. A few hours later, back on the bus to the neurologist’s clinic for the first of three days of Solu Medrol. My wife got out of class, and met me there. I also started angling to maybe reopen the market across the street. I had a decent working draft of a business plan, but probably not enough startup capital to make it go.

March:
Involvement with various startup agencies. Other stuff, digging through emails to see…I was trying to help my wife through Calculus. Started considering applying for jobs with the Federal Government, something I never had seriously considered before. Totally surprised my wife by conspiring with her mom and sister to get a white, ice cold, Twilight-themed ice cream cake. Saw the neurologist, who decided to keep me on Tecfidera, after the Solu Medrol had taken care of my flare. My wife and I had decided to stop paying COBRA from the four-letter company, which was running us better than $1400/mo.. Essentially, same vision and dental, with medical insurance from a local provider for roughly half the cost.

April:
HR Geeks came back to Norfolk from its monthlong exile in VB. On the way up, my wife was almost run off the road by a couple of police who were probably street racing at the end of the afternoon rush. My wife was pretty shaken up after a cop yelled at her out of the window of his cruiser for not getting over in bumpter-to-bumper traffic. While waiting at the restaurant, I called and opened a complaint about the cop. More seminars about starting your own business. More applications.

May:
Not a lot I’m seeing in my sent items, other than trying to get setup for startup stuff. I chose to go ahead, and open up my own business, not the little store across the street, focusing on kind of my technical and analytic strengths. Bank account? Check. Business license? Check. Registered for this Chamber of Commerce seminar on starting your own business for early June.

June:
As I continued setup activities for my company, I found it tough to avoid the temptation to try to do things myself, manually. Trying to setup basic services and infrastructure is just something that seemed to come naturally to me. Well, sort of. I still really suck at some of it, and am unwilling to spend the money to do it correctly. So? Take my own damn advice, and find a third-party provider. Unfortunately, I scheduled a bunch of sales calls with things like bandwidth vendors, one of which, after still keeping the conference after knowing they couldn’t provide what I wanted, caused me to miss TEDx at ODU. I tried to watch some of it, and while there were some good points, I still thought the speakers I watched were sort of missing the point. I finally got my drunk-looking-dude discount for the bus, as well as my Schedule A letter.

July:
I registered to be a part of Hatch Norfolk’s 1000-4 program, hoping it’d generate some business leads for me. Started attending their meetings, going to social events, etc.. The premise is sound, though I think some of the ideas are a bit off-the-wall, but I’m sure they think the same of my idea.

August:
I applied for jobs, and got referred for several positions locally, and in DC. One of those referrals was for a pretty sweet-sounding gig as a GS-13. On a whim, in order to keep my unemployment benefits coming in, I applied for a very low-level position dealing with a system I’d worked with previously I ran out of unemployment, and money was starting to get tight..

September:
One of the things I haven’t written much about in this tome is my struggles to find adequate dental care this year. The dentist I’d been seeing since 1996 finally closed his Norfolk office when the building he was in was demolished. He was only keeping hors on Friday down at what had been the first of three offices he opened. If/when I needed anything major done, he’d see me at his larger, modern office half an hour north. (where I’d seen him since high school) I went to one of the local larger practices while I was working for the four-letter after I’d lost a filling. The guy I saw had dollar signs in his eyes, then his office staff screwed up the billing. I messaged my primary care doc, and asked for a recommendation. His verdict? A friend of his up north of ODU. I went for a cleaning, had trouble wresting control of my records from the money-grubber practice. He fixed a small issue I had, then recommended I go back to see the guy who’d done all the work on me. Pfft. I scheduled an appointment with the old guy, which required a trip up with my wife, basicallly costing her an entire day. While I was waiting in the dental chair, I got a call from that thing I’d applied for months earlier. They needed me. As soon as possible. So, I took the gig, and cancelled the next two HR Geeks meetings. I also went to the Start Norfolk event, blew my pitch, and only attended about half the conference, being exhausted from work, etc..

October:
Still at this job. Not happy about it. Still digging hard on GS jobs, though I still haven’t gotten an interview. Now five have been cancelled, and twenty-some applications outstanding.

TLDR; it’s been a pretty lousy year, overall.

NoJoMo 1

List your schools, through high school. Describe a memory from each.

As an Army brat, I attended a bunch of schools growing up. I thought maybe I should try to write something down about each of them before the memories are gone. I spent most of my early childhood living in Newport News, Virginia, having moved there when I was still an infant.

Preschool/Kindergarten: Trinity Lutheran School (http://www.trinitynn.com) in Newport News. My wife and I ended up in that part of town sometime in the past year, which might have sparked this prompt. There was a parking lot/blacktop between the main school, and the preschool next door. I seem to remember that we’d assemble there, though I don’t remember if that was for getting on or off the school buses. When I was a kid, that seemed like a huge area. As an adult, it looks pretty small. As for a particular memory, there, there aren’t a ton, really. I really seem to remember things like folks getting sick, in trouble, etc..

First Grade: MacArthur Elementary School, Leavenworth, Kansas. (http://macarthur.usd207.org) I had to check their staff directory to see if the teacher I had is still there. She’s not, so I won’t allow my simmering spite to seethe into this entry. There were two big things, of course, that happened that year. First, as a young kid, I was getting into baseball, and the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. And, to keep with the spirit of avoiding seething spite, I’ll save talking about the San Francisco Giants for a later entry. Bigger than the Royals, though, was Challenger. We, the students, had been at lunch, and the teachers were smoking cigarettes, watching the launch in the teachers’ lounge. With Krista McAuliffe aboard, they were all about paying attention. At the end of lunch, they gathered all three first grade classes into a single classroom, where the teachers tearfully told us that it’d blown up.

Second through Fourth Grade: Mark Twain Elementary, Heidelberg Germany. There is no website for this school, because it closed. (http://www.stripes.com/news/pupils-staff-and-alumni-recall-happy-days-as-heidelberg-s-mark-twain-school-closes-1.145522) I still have Facebook friends who I met while there. A single memory is tough to find, really. The whole experience is kind of intertwined with the bigger part of living on the razor’s edge of the Cold War. So, what can I talk about that isn’t related to mutually-assured destruction? Fluoride. And, cue General Ripper. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY) The water in Germany isn’t fluoridated. So, every few weeks, the nurse would bring trays full of fluoride for us to swish. Three minutes, if memory serves. The green stuff was okay. The pink stuff was tolerable. The yellow stuff, ick.

Fifth and Sixth Grade: Newington Forest Elementary School, Springfield, Virginia (http://www.fcps.edu/NewingtonForestES/index.html) I was supposed to be part of the last sixth grade class that attended, but, looking at the website, I guess sixth grade has migrated back. Neither of my teachers is still there. Memory would be of a question to the PE teacher. The answer? “The man will know.” Speculate about what an eleven year-old boy would ask in a special class taught by a male PE teacher.

Seventh, and the first half of Eighth Grade: Osterholz American High School, Osterholz Germany. Another school that’s long closed, now. (http://davidgaines.com/oahs/) The whole situation, there, was strange. During the winter, we’d get on the bus from Bremerhaven well before the sun came up, and get off just before it set in the afternoon. The post near the school closed at the end of the first year I was there. I had something like six lockers, because the school was such a ghost town that second year.

Second half of Eighth Grade: Hanau Middle School, Hanau Germany. Closed. (http://wikimapia.org/11158323/Former-Hanau-Middle-School). That whole experience is a blur. I’m hoping my last job will fade, similarly. A blip on the life timeline. But Hanau wasn’t as bad an experience as the last job. When I think about that time, I think more about what I was doing outside of school.

Freshman Year: Heidelberg High School, Heidelberg Germany. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg_High_School) Closed last year. I played football, which was really my life back then. Significant memories, naturally, were from things outside school. Yes, her. Her, too. Nevermind. When I interviewed for a job, there was this woman on the interview panel. After the interview, I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head, “I know this chick.” I got the job, and had been working there for something like four years before we finally made the connection. She was a couple of years older than me, and had been a cheerleader when I played football. Holy shit. I let her borrow my yearbook for awhile, and she gave stories about going to one of these all-classes reunions. She then left, and I’ve lost contact with her again. Hmmph.

Sophomore Year: Carlisle High School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. (http://www.carlisleschools.org/HS.cfm?subpage=321950) Again, football. I was very much out of place, and really probably had one of my first big MS flares They did six-week marking periods instead of quarters. The Honors English teacher offered a pretty significant extra credit opportuniies; one of those was writing in a journal. Over the first marking period, I wrote more than the required twice a week. Mostly, if memory serves, I wrote about angsty teenager bullshit. But it was something I could do as I languished in the basement of my dad’s quarters in “Smurf Village.” So, was I emo? Perhaps a bit. But I was also fifteen. I was entitled. I was in a little town. I didn’t really have friends. I had acne, a computer, and a puppy. Anyway, I was the only person who chose to do the extra credit assignment. Naturally, she read every word with great interest, and came away quite concerned about this troubled teenage boy. Off to the guidence counselor. And no more writing for me, really, until I was introduced to Open Diary in 1999. You could say it turned me off. Is that a memorable “moment?” As memorable as the colonel with the neck as big as his head quietly telling the Buddy Ryan fan head football coach that he didn’t need to scream at his players. Pfft. Out of curiousity, I had to take a look to see if that teacher is still there. Yep. “Click to e-mail.” Yeah, I’ll pass.

Junior and Senior Years: Menchville High School, Newport News, Virginia. (http://mville.nn.k12.va.us) No football. Drill Team/ROTC. Memorable moment, would have been extracurriculars, too. Prom, standing with my best friend’s prom date, watchign him and my girlfriend act a fool on the dance floor.

So, that’s the rundown. Back to writing. Also, since it’s November, facial hair is growing back in.

NoJoMo 1

List your schools, through high school. Describe a memory from each.

As an Army brat, I attended a bunch of schools growing up. I thought maybe I should try to write something down about each of them before the memories are gone. I spent most of my early childhood living in Newport News, Virginia, having moved there when I was still an infant.

Preschool/Kindergarten: Trinity Lutheran School (http://www.trinitynn.com) in Newport News. My wife and I ended up in that part of town sometime in the past year, which might have sparked this prompt. There was a parking lot/blacktop between the main school, and the preschool next door. I seem to remember that we’d assemble there, though I don’t remember if that was for getting on or off the school buses. When I was a kid, that seemed like a huge area. As an adult, it looks pretty small. As for a particular memory, there, there aren’t a ton, really. I really seem to remember things like folks getting sick, in trouble, etc..

First Grade: MacArthur Elementary School, Leavenworth, Kansas. (http://macarthur.usd207.org) I had to check their staff directory to see if the teacher I had is still there. She’s not, so I won’t allow my simmering spite to seethe into this entry. There were two big things, of course, that happened that year. First, as a young kid, I was getting into baseball, and the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. And, to keep with the spirit of avoiding seething spite, I’ll save talking about the San Francisco Giants for a later entry. Bigger than the Royals, though, was Challenger. We, the students, had been at lunch, and the teachers were smoking cigarettes, watching the launch in the teachers’ lounge. With Krista McAuliffe aboard, they were all about paying attention. At the end of lunch, they gathered all three first grade classes into a single classroom, where the teachers tearfully told us that it’d blown up.

Second through Fourth Grade: Mark Twain Elementary, Heidelberg Germany. There is no website for this school, because it closed. (http://www.stripes.com/news/pupils-staff-and-alumni-recall-happy-days-as-heidelberg-s-mark-twain-school-closes-1.145522) I still have Facebook friends who I met while there. A single memory is tough to find, really. The whole experience is kind of intertwined with the bigger part of living on the razor’s edge of the Cold War. So, what can I talk about that isn’t related to mutually-assured destruction? Fluoride. And, cue General Ripper. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY) The water in Germany isn’t fluoridated. So, every few weeks, the nurse would bring trays full of fluoride for us to swish. Three minutes, if memory serves. The green stuff was okay. The pink stuff was tolerable. The yellow stuff, ick.

Fifth and Sixth Grade: Newington Forest Elementary School, Springfield, Virginia (http://www.fcps.edu/NewingtonForestES/index.html) I was supposed to be part of the last sixth grade class that attended, but, looking at the website, I guess sixth grade has migrated back. Neither of my teachers is still there. Memory would be of a question to the PE teacher. The answer? “The man will know.” Speculate about what an eleven year-old boy would ask in a special class taught by a male PE teacher.

Seventh, and the first half of Eighth Grade: Osterholz American High School, Osterholz Germany. Another school that’s long closed, now. (http://davidgaines.com/oahs/) The whole situation, there, was strange. During the winter, we’d get on the bus from Bremerhaven well before the sun came up, and get off just before it set in the afternoon. The post near the school closed at the end of the first year I was there. I had something like six lockers, because the school was such a ghost town that second year.

Second half of Eighth Grade: Hanau Middle School, Hanau Germany. Closed. (http://wikimapia.org/11158323/Former-Hanau-Middle-School). That whole experience is a blur. I’m hoping my last job will fade, similarly. A blip on the life timeline. But Hanau wasn’t as bad an experience as the last job. When I think about that time, I think more about what I was doing outside of school.

Freshman Year: Heidelberg High School, Heidelberg Germany. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg_High_School) Closed last year. I played football, which was really my life back then. Significant memories, naturally, were from things outside school. Yes, her. Her, too. Nevermind. When I interviewed for a job, there was this woman on the interview panel. After the interview, I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head, “I know this chick.” I got the job, and had been working there for something like four years before we finally made the connection. She was a couple of years older than me, and had been a cheerleader when I played football. Holy shit. I let her borrow my yearbook for awhile, and she gave stories about going to one of these all-classes reunions. She then left, and I’ve lost contact with her again. Hmmph.

Sophomore Year: Carlisle High School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. (http://www.carlisleschools.org/HS.cfm?subpage=321950) Again, football. I was very much out of place, and really probably had one of my first big MS flares They did six-week marking periods instead of quarters. The Honors English teacher offered a pretty significant extra credit opportuniies; one of those was writing in a journal. Over the first marking period, I wrote more than the required twice a week. Mostly, if memory serves, I wrote about angsty teenager bullshit. But it was something I could do as I languished in the basement of my dad’s quarters in “Smurf Village.” So, was I emo? Perhaps a bit. But I was also fifteen. I was entitled. I was in a little town. I didn’t really have friends. I had acne, a computer, and a puppy. Anyway, I was the only person who chose to do the extra credit assignment. Naturally, she read every word with great interest, and came away quite concerned about this troubled teenage boy. Off to the guidence counselor. And no more writing for me, really, until I was introduced to Open Diary in 1999. You could say it turned me off. Is that a memorable “moment?” As memorable as the colonel with the neck as big as his head quietly telling the Buddy Ryan fan head football coach that he didn’t need to scream at his players. Pfft. Out of curiousity, I had to take a look to see if that teacher is still there. Yep. “Click to e-mail.” Yeah, I’ll pass.

Junior and Senior Years: Menchville High School, Newport News, Virginia. (http://mville.nn.k12.va.us) No football. Drill Team/ROTC. Memorable moment, would have been extracurriculars, too. Prom, standing with my best friend’s prom date, watchign him and my girlfriend act a fool on the dance floor.

So, that’s the rundown. Back to writing. Also, since it’s November, facial hair is growing back in.