The RMS Chimichangas

I should be flying to California right now. Or at least in San Fransisco as I write this. I should be getting ready for phase two of the Point Reyes Lens project. But I’m not. No matter the reason. Instead, I’m home… maybe for the best. After all, I did just wake up from a twenty-four hour nap. That is if you can call twenty-four hours of slumber a nap.

I’m fighting a cold. At least I believe it’s a cold. I don’t have a fever. I feel achy and I’ve a pesky cough and when I get hungry… I get hungry… like starvation hungry. Then I sleep again. The reason for all this? My daughter. Yes, I’m accusing her.

You see, last Sunday, her and her college room-mate and one of their classmates came up to me and said “Do you know how to build a boat?” 

I smiled and said “Sure. Why?”

Now, to be honest, I’ve never built a boat before. However; I am familiar with the principles and practices of boat building, water tight integrity, buoyancy, weight displacement and fabrication with assorted materials so manufacturing a boat for three college kids shouldn’t be a problem. “How much time do we have?”

“Well,” my daughter said…”It can’t be out of wood, it has to be done by Friday, and we can only spend twenty dollars and we don’t have a place to build it. Oh, and we don’t have a plan. Can  you help?”

“Let me see if I can use our work shop first. Also, do you ladies know anything about water-tight integrity? Buoyancy? Weight displacement? Or construction materials?” I asked as I sent a text to my supervisor asking if I could use our work shop and scrap foam and wood.

When I looked up from my phone the answer to my questions was written all over their depressed faces. “Okay…okay… look, don’t worry about any of that right now. First you need to come up with a plan for the boat. You need to find out how much you all weigh. That will tell you how much weight the boat needs to hold without sinking. Don’t lie. Now is not the time for being shy with your weight. Unless you want to sink. Then, you need to have a boat design. Come up with a construction timeline, working backwards from the launch date. 

My phone buzzed. It was my supervisor. His text read “No problem.”

“Ladies, we have a work space and materials. When do you want to get started?”

“4:00 this afternoon.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

That evening started the birth of what became known as the RMS Chimichangas. It took four nights and days of dedication on all of their behalf. Sawing, screwing, cutting, gluing, caulking, laying plastic and learning how to use the equipment. Table saws, ban saws, chop saws, drill guns and caulk guns. They were eager to learn and listen. No question was scoffed at and all questions were welcomed. I only had to show them once how to do something and then I would stand back and make sure they followed proper safety procedures so they wouldn’t do any harm to themselves or bystanders.

At the start of the project, like most people my age, I questioned their commitment to their project, but by day two, when they drug themselves in with only a few hours of sleep, sipping on coffee, no food in their stomach, doing homework on the car ride over from the college and doing homework during breaks in the building of the boat, I was starting to get convinced. 

By the end of the second work session, when we were cleaning up, the girls were looking at our progress, which didn’t look like much. Just the bottom of a boat with a large sheet of plastic that was curing to the bottom of the boat. “Look ladies, it doesn’t look like much now, we still have a long way to go, but, we’ve got the sides of the boat cut, the pontoons cut, and the plans are sound. If you want we can secure the stern gunnel on tonight and be that much further along tomorrow.”

The frowns of their didn’t quite disappear but they weren’t as prevalent as before. And, ten minutes later, the boat that just looked like a table before, looked much more like a boat. Excitement rose and we all left feeling better.

By Thursday, the outer hull was assembled, the interior plastic liner was glued in place and the inner hull was secured and holding the plastic liner to the out hull. Also, the three section watertight floor was in place and the exterior pontoons. The boat which was initially designed to hold 450 pounds of teenage college students was now designed to hold 800 pounds of humanity and not sink. Yes, they had over-engineered it. And I was quit proud of them. 

They spent the last work session painting the hull, the flag and making sure their home-made oars were in good order. They had their name, their costumes and all that was left was the race. We didn’t have time to test the boat for water tight integrity, but I was positive it wouldn’t leak, after all, in all my Naval training I’d never had a single water patch ever leak on me and I am not about to start now especially with my daughters reputation at stake. 

So we took some time and went over some boating basics, how to row with three people in a boat, stroke count, how to load the boat from land, from a dock, weight distribution, how to turn, how to get out of the boat, how not to be an asshole… okay, we didn’t cover that last one. 

In the end, I sent them on their way with my best wishes and the hopes that they would not drown.

They didn’t drown. They didn’t win. But they did win best engineered boat. 

They gave me the certificate. It’s hanging on my wall in my office.

I love those girls.

Have a great week. I just did. 

A Lens Retrospective

A little over a week ago I was packing my bags and getting ready to head to San Francisco, California. I wasn’t going to be there long. My final destination was North of there. A place called Point Reyes where a lighthouse is located. A lighthouse with a very unique first order Fresnel lens.

As I stood beside my bed filling my check bag with my Lampist tools, coveralls, hardhat and various other needed items I was filled with a need to not go. Not because I didn’t want to go. I love Lampist work. It is amazing work. Work only a handful of people get to do and the Point Reyes lens was built over 151 years ago and is a 24 flash panel lens with a pink pedestal along with an internal clockwork. Something I’d never seen in my life. Of course there are a plethora of other one of a kind features of this particular lens and I could talk endlessly about here and now but I wont. This is about my desire to not leave.

I didn’t want to leave because I hate leaving my home. My wife, my daughter and my life. What also made it especially difficult was the fact that it was my daughters last week at home before she left for college. A week that would be a whirlwind of activity of her. Packing, doing laundry, shopping, stressing, breaking down, worrying and just being a teenager needing her father. A father who was on the other side of the continent working on a 151 year old aid to navigation because it was an opportunity of a lifetime and no on can tell you to pass those opportunities up.

So I did my best to not break down. I stayed as strong as I could. I packed my check bag. I packed my carry on bag. I double checked everything. Then I went downstairs and cuddled with my family for as long as I could. My alarm was set for 0430. My flight was at 0700 which meant I had to be at the airport by 0600. All that meant to me was that I had to be out of the house by at the latest 0530. By midnight, we were all asleep. Happy and warm in the comfort of  warm family cuddles and hugs.

At 0530 I kissed my daughters forehead and brushed her hair with my fingertips and whispered “I love you and I’m going to miss you.” 

She murmured something unintelligible back to me and I left feeling I was doing the right thing.

There is a nickname for August in Point Reyes, it’s called “Fogust”. They even write it on the weather board at the visitors center. Which was closed when we were there because, well, we were there to take apart the lens. You know… construction.  The nickname didn’t deceive. It was foggy.

So foggy that we we didn’t even see the cows crossing the road to the lighthouse and almost hit them. Oh, I didn’t tell you? The lighthouse is on a National Park and the National Park leases the land to dairy farms and ranchers and the cows are pretty much free range. As are the mule deer, the suicide quail that run out in front of your tires, the coyotes and the feral cats that seem to be everywhere as well. The average speed limit is 40 mph, but in the fog, you best have cow insurance coverage. Otherwise, you’re screwed. Oh, and it’s an hour ride from the nearest town so you better pack a lunch while waiting for a tow truck.

The walk down to the lens is 308 steps at a 10 degree grade, at least, as well as two concrete ramps that are at least 150 feet long. My first trip down I thought my knees were going to pop out of my legs and dive into the pacific in protest. The view, what little I could see of it, was a 300 foot drop off of rocky death covered in ice plants and red moss into unseen crashing waves. “And the Lighthouse Keeper bounced four times before he hit the ocean.” a voice carried to my ears in the wind followed by laughter. My fellow lampists making a lighthouse joke. I laughed as well. Stories of how difficult life in the Lighthouse service is legendary amongst us and in literature. “Not after he stole and returned a government horse, drunk.” another voice said. Followed by another round of laughter. Then I added “The horse or the Lighthouse Keeper?” and another round of laughter. 

Gallows humor. It keeps our mind off our pain and on our mission. I’m 51 and the youngest amongst the gang. Hell, there are 6 certified Lampists in the country and I’m the only apprentice. I make 7. Only 3 Lampists are working. When I become a Lampist, I’ll be number 4. We have to have a sense of humor. For our work to save this history in a world that has lost its concern for the artisans who made these amazing pieces of art and machines seems very important to us and a growing number of others. Yet technology has easily replaced the bronze, glass and brass beasts that once protected the commerce and sailors with their prismatic beauty that Augustin Fresnel perfected over 200 years ago.

When we got to the bottom of the steps we didn’t immediately go into the lighthouse. No, that would be like skipping the prom dance and the after party and going straight to the hotel room. Instead we we went into the fog house, unloaded our gear, went over our initial preparations, got our assignments, got our cameras, gave directions to our carpenters which was great because normally we do our own carpentry and then and only then did Woody, our leader pull the lighthouse keys from his pocket and lead us to the lighthouse.

We fell in behind him. Lockstep. I being the apprentice was last in the house.

The pink pedestal was hard to miss. It is the only one of it’s kind and will soon be changed back to Lighthouse Service green. The three crystal clear, one-hundred and fifty-one year old beveled glass doors housing the brass clockwork and crank that lifts the seventy pound weight is truly an artistic truth to mankind’s endeavor at machinery, when I looked up I saw someone had turned the light on inside the lens itself. The curtains were still drawn covering the windows and the prisms from the lower-catodioptrics, the dioptrics and the upper-catodioptrics were light into the room above. Some of the cracked lenses were casting small rainbows here and there onto the curtains. Someone moved the curtains, the light was bounced and things moved. We stood there in quite retrospective. It was magical. I smiled. I pulled my phone out and started taking pictures.

I reached out with my hand and put my hand on a fan leg, where I expected to fell cold, hard cast-iron, I was greeted with cool brass. I looked up and saw shiny ornamental legs that belonged in a museum. They reminded me of scallop shells they were so beautiful. I stepped back to get a better view and that’s when I realize the entire lens was sitting on jacks. The chariot wheels were still there but the three lens jacks were also in place. Another first for me. Brass and iron no more than five inches tall each holding up over a ton of steel, brass, bronze and glass. I was aghast. I reached out and touched them. I had to. I’d never seen them in use, only in pictures.

Woody was talking. Tommy was talking. Jim was talking. I was absorbing. Absorbing everything. Trying to figure everything out. The jacks were easy. The clockwork, easy. The guide wheels, easy. The driveshaft, easy.

Then everyone moved upstairs. I followed.

This lens was not just a first for me. It was a first for all of us. It is the most beautiful I’ve seen. The most beautiful I’ve had the privilege to work on and the most beautiful to dis-assemble. But talking about that here and now is not the place.

Let me just say this, she is amazing, she is fragile, she is tender, she is secretive and she is as strong as she is lovely. I hope we all do her proud during this evolution of renovation.

Have a great week.

  

The Day Before

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yet today I celebrated.

I slept late, well late for me. Seven a.m. I drove my wife to work, on the way we stopped and I bought her breakfast. We chatted about this and that, nothing of importance. We just spent time together. Time we rarely get to spend together. Time that means the world to me. Because I’m basically a hermit and when I’m home with my family, after a certain amount of time, I retreat to my porch and spend time by myself, leaving my wife and daughter in the living room to watch what they want to watch on the television. One of the reasons for this is because I don’t find much worthwhile to watch on television.

After dropping my wife off at work, while driving home, I turned on the radio, classic rock, a Bob Segar song was just ending and the mandatory commercials started. Memories of my teen years flooded my brains. Awkward meetings with girls followed by even more awkward evenings with them. Late nights out with my pals on Lake Michigan or wandering the empty country roads of Wisconsin in beat up cars looking for trouble and never succeeding. Being disappointed by parents, teachers, police, politicians and just about every adult over the age of twenty-two we’d ever met, seen or heard of. Only one of my buddies at the time had college in his future, don’t ask me about the girls, we could barely tell them our names let alone ask them about their future. At the time, we lied to each other that we’d be together until the end all the while knowing the truth of our individual situations.

Slash’s opening notes to “Paradise City” drove a dagger into my youthful reverie and I was immediately transported to my Navy days. Specifically they early days when I was dating my wife. When she had introduced me to bands like “U2”, “The Cure”, “Bon Jovi” and many more. I on the other hand gave her tapes by bands with names like “AC/DC”, “Iron Maiden”, which she did not like, “Styx”, “Anthrax” and “Megadeth”. It took a few more years before I introduced her to my affliction for Jazz, but I eventually did.

By the end of “Paradise City”, I was parking the car in front of my house and this being summer, my teenage daughter was still sleeping. I decided to take the opportunity to enjoy the rare, tepid southern morning and have some porch time.

Around ten a.m. I entered my house and my daughter was sitting on the couch, eating her teenage breakfast off a paper plate with a  plastic fork. She was still wearing her pajamas covered in a fleece blanket and watching netflix on her phone. The contrast of my eighteen year old daughter compared to me waking up at eighteen on a haze gray ship in a compartment with forty-five half dressed smelly, farting, belching, half-men, half-boys, all sailor from around the country, that I’d experienced at her age did not escape me. I chuckled to myself a bit at this and gave her a list of chores she needed to do for the day and she readily agreed.

Around eleven o’clock my daughter and I went on an adventure. Actually, it was more of a quest. You see, she wants to be a film maker and while she has a video camera, it’s a bit old and it still uses tape. Meaning it’s not digital. So the transfer to computer can be a pain in the ass. We’ve been looking for a specific chord to transfer some footage she shot and the chords seem more elusive than the arc of the covenant.

So we traversed the wilds of thrift stores and pawn shops of the local town. We went to five places. Only one of which she’s been to in the past. The other four, well, those are places that I’ve been to and are considered a bit less palatable people of a gentle constitution. Hell, one place had  sixty inch flat screen television for sale for two hundred and twenty-five bucks. I almost bought it. Another place had brand new blu-ray DVD’s for a buck a piece. I bought three for my daughter. She wanted them and how could I say no, especially since one was a horror movie?

After four hours of driving, dozens of buckets of electrical cords searched, tens of merchants spoken with, several dollars spent we were hungry and tired. So we ate.

Throughout the entire overcast, rainy, never-ending shitty traffic, idiotic driver, fruitless searching, we chatted, joked and had a good time. What I’m trying to say I suppose is, we bonded.

We got to be dad and daughter. Father and Offspring. Mentor and mentee. Friends.

And that right there. Those hours…. those are the greatest birthday gift I could ever want in my entire life. Unexpected time spent with my wife and sharing a quick breakfast with her and spending time with my daughter doing something that may not have resulted in a tangible treasure but resulted in a treasure that neither time nor man can ever destroy.

Have a great week.

A Quick Update

Miles Davis is playing on the radio from the 1954 album “Bags Groove”, I’ve got a nice Gurkha lit, the sun is setting and there is gentle breeze blowing the scent of cooked meat and vegetables throughout the my neighborhood. Life does not suck for me right now.

Sure our country is in turmoil. It seems everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else and blaming everyone for everything and the shouting and name calling reminds me those moments in the fourth grade at recess. You know, where two kids are just about to get into a fight and everyone circles around them and starts yelling and screaming and chanting… yeah, that’s what this time in our history reminds me of… except unlike a fourth grade recess fight, if someone throws a punch, shit is going to be a lot more serious than someones parents getting called and maybe an ass-whooping at home.

But, I digress…

Earlier this year I took a trip to Martha’s Vineyard. No, not for vacation. For work. I went and worked on the “Gay Head Lens” a first order Fresnel lens built in 1854 and retired from lighthouse service in 1950. Now, as of this writing, there are only six authorized Lampists, that is what they call the people who work on these lenses, and I am the seventh, however, I am but a mere apprentice. And I love it. 

It seems I’ve been headed toward this sort of thing all my life. I’ve had a love for history all my life and always seem to be reading about the comings and goings of interesting characters of the past. When it comes to figuring out how things work, mechanically I dig right in and seem to have an innate ability to repair the items or if it is more complex than I first imagined, I figure it out and get it working. If the problem is beyond repair, I’ve been known to come up with an alternative solution and remedy the situation. When it comes time to learn new skills and traits for a job, I’ve always been able to wrap my head around the knowledge being offered to me and absorb it like a sponge. 

Quick side note, the last paragraph is not me being a braggart, these are all things that have been told to me by my teachers and supervisors. 

Now, I’m getting ready to head to California in a couple weeks to work on another Lighthouse job. Which tells me I did something good up in Martha’s Vineyard otherwise I would not have been asked to go on another trip.

More has happened this year, my daughter graduated high school and settled on a film school. It’s local so that’s good although she wants to stay on campus. I’m proud of her. Scared for her. Concerned for her. Happy for her. Damn I’ve so many mixed emotions about that situation it’s almost too difficult to write about. 

Let me just say that I’m happy she’s close to home, sad she’s out of the house, concerned about the money, worried about the influences she will be around and proud she will be stretching her wings and chasing her dreams.

On another note, and this is news I’ve been sitting on for quite some time… it’s a tough pill to swallow and talk about. I’ve turned down some writing offers. For a few reasons. The pay wasn’t good, I didn’t like the subject, and I really didn’t have the time to write what the publishers wanted. Now, I know I’m just a short story writer and I shouldn’t be so picky, but I’ve always maintained that I do my writing as a hobby and that I have a career and other interests. So when I write I write for myself or for something I feel is worth my time. That being said, I am working on a project. It’s in the beginning stages but I am working on something. 

Well, I suppose that is all for now, I hope you all are having a great Independence Day celebration.

Have a great week!

PNC going Bankrupt?

Is PNC BANK going Bankrupt?

Six year ago my wife suffered a series of six strokes in less then one week. She became paralyzed and was put on disability. This was financial hit for us but we managed to survive. Then the disability checks stopped and we were unable to pay all of our bills. So I called all of our creditors and explained our situation.

None of them wanted to hear about our plight. What "assistance" they offered was really no assistance at all, just lip service and 800 numbers to non-existent voice mail farms. After three weeks of calling these places I gave up on trying to find help from them and decided to concentrate on keeping my house, the power for the house, the water for the house and the food for my family. Gone was the cable, the internet, the air conditioning in the summer, the very comforting warmth in the winter and any outing for any reason for anything. We became prisoners of our house.

We also fell behind in our mortgage.

We almost lost our house.

But, I worked. I worked hard. And my wife went back to work. And we managed to get caught up on all our primary bills. We got managed to get our life back to a semblance of normalcy.

Through all of this I received phone calls from PNC bank about my mortgage payments and I never veered off of what had happened. I told the story of my wife and her strokes and of her paralysis. Of having to take care of her, the never ending pile of medical bills, of being sued by credit card companies, of having my power turned off, of having my water tuned off, of working two and sometimes three jobs just to try and make enough money to make money to feed my family and make money to pay the mortgage.

Their response, "Well, we've reviewed your hardship papers and you don't qualify for hardship, so when do you think you'll be able to make your payment for XXXXXXX dollars to make your account current"?

It's as if they are the modern mafia. Only more polite.

Of course they have to be polite, because all of their calls are recorded. They tell you this at the beginning of each and every call. 

Now, to be honest, I'm am currently all caught up on my mortgage. I have been for months. Yet I continue to get the phone calls from them. For example, not two days ago I received a phone call from them asking me when they will receive my current payment. This disturbed me because like most people these days, I pay my bills online and I paid my mortgage on the first of the month.

I went to my bank website, went to the pay bill page and transferred the money and even received the confirmation code and an email with all the information. So, when the young lady called me on the fifth of June questioning me when PNC bank would receive my payment and stating that my payment was late I became concerned. So, as a concerned payee, I brought up my account on my computer and saw my bank had in fact sent the payment out, on the fourth. I offered the PNC rep my confirmation number, she refused.

In the past, I've tried to be joyful, I've tried to be comedic, I've tried to be disassociated and I've tried to be compassionate, today I was just angry.

You see, I'm not behind on my mortgage, by any means. PNC bank has nothing to worry about by missing the transfer of ones and zeros from my bank to theirs. That is, unless... they need the money more than they are letting on... which means they are desperate... which means... they need the money more than they want us to know which means they are...

Have a great week.

Seven Seconds

Seven Seconds

Seven seconds. That’s all it takes. Seven seconds. From the moment I  put my right arm on my desk it take seven seconds for the numbness and the pins and needles to take over. From my shoulder all the way to my finger tips. My hand and fingers along with my forearm get the honor of having the pins and needles. My bicep gets the numbness, my shoulder, well, that just feels like someone is stabbing it with a heated dull spear. This is not the only activity that affects me like this, however; it is the one that has the quickest results.

I have stenosis. In two spots on my spine. One in my neck and one in my lower back. I’ve had it for years and I’ve dealt with it. I’ve put off surgery because I’ve seen people not come out of it in better condition than when they went into it. My condition is getting worse.

Hell, just standing around doing nothing can cause one or both of my arms to go out. I could be walking down the street and boom, my right arm just refuses to be a part of my body. Now, normally this only lasts for a minute or two and then it comes right back. Hell, I can usually tell when an episode is about to hit. Then I start twisting my neck, tapping my fingertips to my thumb back and forth repeatedly, roll my shoulder, you know, fight in the only way I can to try and forestall the inevitable. This sometimes works. Most of the time it does not.

And these are the good days.

The bad days.

Hoo, boy, the bad days… Let me tell you about those.

The pain is constant. Its an ever present being in my life. It is there when I wake up, when I shower, when I dress, when I ride to work, when I work, when I eat, when I watch tv. when I go to sleep, while I sleep, the pain is there. Always. There is no escape from the pain. I can usually deal with it. But on the bad days… on the bad days there is no dealing with the pain.

The best way to describe it is like this;

Imagine you are being hugged, squeezed, hard and there is no escape from it. You can’t run from it. You can’t hide from it, you can’t take enough pills to dull the pain. The pain won’t let you sleep. The pain won’t let you eat. The pain won’t let you think. There  is nothing but pain. It is not overwhelming. It is not excruciating. It is just all penetrative. All encompassing. It is pure misery.

To top it all off, there is limited movement in my arm. I can’t fully rotate it, and if someone offered me a million dollars to throw a football or do a proper jumping jack, just one mind you, I couldn’t do it. 

What are my doctors doing about all this you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you what they told me… “We are going to continue to monitor the situation.”

How’s that for a kick in the teeth?

Well, I’m going to wrap this up, just writing these five hundred plus words has taken a lot longer than it normally would, which is one of the reasons why I have not written a blog in quite some time. Or written much of anything to tell you the truth. In my mind I’ve written volumes. Novels, short stories, blogs and poems. In a few days, I’ll be calling a surgeon, going to have a little chat with him or her. See what sort of life altering options they may have. 

Happy Memorial day to you all.