Halloween Box

I was sitting on the couch with my wife tonight after work watching the Halloween episode of Grey's Anatomy (she watches Dr Who with me.  Fair's fair) when one of the characters on the show said something about homemade Halloween costumes.  Inevitably, my wife and I got to talking about Halloween memories, and she asked me what the best homemade costume I ever had was.  The answer came to mind pretty quickly, actually.

I was about, oh, five or six, when my dad decided he was going to make me a costume that year.  I asked him what it was going to be, and all he would say was that it was a surprise.  I had no idea where he was going with this when he appeared in my grandma's yard with a box of stuff I didn't recognize (although now that I work at The Job Which Supports My Writing Habit, a lot of the stuff looks strangely familiar now, ha ha).  But he emptied out the box and started attaching the parts to it.  He cut armholes and eyeholes in the box, and attached rubber tubes to it.  A pair of black work gloves went at the ends of the tubes to make the hands.  A 6 volt battery went inside the box with all sorts of wires running all over the inside of the box to lights and tiny speakers, and even a push-button to run the thing.  Then, he covered the entire box with tin foil.  When he was done, there in all its glory stood the coolest robot costume that little boy had ever seen!  It blinked.  It beeped.  And it got used for a hell of a lot longer than just halloween, let me tell you.

He knew that I loved science fiction, even then, and decided that this was what he'd make me to wear for Halloween.  And I remember it to this very day.  Another good ol' day from the good ol' days.  Thank you, Dad.  I love you too.

Happy Halloween, everybody...

September 11, 2013

Today is September 11.  We call it Patriots' Day in the States now after what happened on that day back in 2001.  There are memorials going on today in New York, DC, Shanksville, Pa, where the planes actually fell, and smaller ones in other spots around the world. There are pages on Facebook that are loaded with all sorts of red, white, and blue memes bearing the slogan "Never Forget", and others that are going silent today to show their respect.  One page that I read a lot posed the question, "Where were you?" 

It's been twelve years since the towers fell, the Pentagon burned, and a fourth plane was brought down by people who decided to fight back instead of meeting their fate in fear. And twelve years later the events of that day still resound like Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy Assassination, or the Challenger and Columbia explosions.  If you were alive to witness that history, it stays with you, haunts you, and you always remember where you were and what you were doing when it happened.

I was in a laundromat in East Windsor NJ when the first plane hit. None of us saw it happen, but all the tv stations began to cover the story, and I remember everyone thought it was an accident at first.  

Everybody's first reaction, of course, was "I hope there weren't too many people hurt."  

Then the questions came to mind. 

"I wonder how air traffic control messed up that bad," we said.  "How could an accident like that happen?"

By now, the spinning clothes in the machines were forgotten, and everybody in the place was now huddled around the tiny 13 inch TV behind the counter. That's when the second plane hit the towers.

That's when we all knew.  It wasn't an accident at all. 

I remember when the first tower fell some of the ladies in the laundromat started to cry and the couple of men that were there just hung their heads. This was New York City for crying out loud. How did this happen in New York City?  I just stood there in shock as the second tower started to go.  It didn't even look real.  This was a Cameron or Bruckheimer movie we were watching, right?  This couldn't be happening.  

But this was no disaster movie.  The World Trade Center wasn't just some movie set that was being trashed for the cameras. I'm Jersey City born and raised.  I've been to New York plenty of times.  The towers were a part of my landscape since I was old enough to see out my bedroom window by myself.  And now, live and in color, one of the towers, and everyone inside, was turning to dust before our very eyes.

When the second tower fell, the picture on TV fuzzed out to snow.  You see, all of the New York stations used to send their broadcast signals through antennas mounted on the roof of Tower Two. So did a lot of radio stations.  So when the second tower hit the ground, almost all the media stopped too.  There were no more reports of what was happening.  Anybody who didn't have cable was effectively cut off from the world.  

I was due into work at 3 that day, so my next thought was to get to work.  I'm just a railroader, but I figured that maybe they were going to use trains to get people out of the City, and that if I went to work and did what I do, in some small way I would be helping things.  Plus I was still in shock and desperately needed something to do.  So I saddled up and tried to go in.

Little did I know, the NJ Turnpike had been shut down, along with the bridges, tunnels, and train service into and out of the City.  So I was turned away.  The Parkway was shut down, and all of the free roads were gridlocked, so there was no way to go north.  I had to turn back and head home.

I wound up taking my mother and going to my girlfriend (later my wife)'s apartment in PA.  We grabbed some pizza, although I don't remember eating much of it, and tried to get updates on cable of what was going on in NY.  The feeling for the rest of that day was, well, fear.  Were the attacks over?  Or were more coming?  Where would those be?  What if they decided to hit Philadelphia next?  That wasn't too far away.  They had just leveled two of the biggest buildings in the world, in one of the biggest cities in the world.  If someone could do that to them, what chance did we stand in our little suburban town? Like the rest of the world, we were all spectators at that point, watching history unfold on CNN.  But at the time, we had no idea if it was over or not.  So like everyone else in the country, we sat riveted to the news.

Finally at around 6 or so that night, President Bush came on TV and made his now-famous speech about how the attacks on our nation would not go unanswered, and America would stand tall against terror.  And I remember feeling that it was too little, too late.  Emotionally our country had been falling apart all day, and this was the guy who was supposed to be our leader.  I remember thinking "where the hell were you?"  To be honest, at this point I don't even remember half of what he said.  I just remember that his words that night didn't make me feel any better.  

But I'll tell you what did.

I went to the store the next day.  I don't remember which one.  It might have been Target. Someone actually held a door open for me as I was coming up to it.  I said "thank you" as I walked through, as I normally do, and the person actually said, "you're welcome."  Now on its face, you think big deal, right?  But think about it for a minute and ask yourself how often people would take the time to do that.  How often did people take that much time and give each other that much respect before that terrible day?  And now it was happening again.

I went into another store, I think the supermarket.  Instead of running their carts into each other and trying to get to the $1.99-on-sale tomatoes first like usual, people were letting each other go first.  "Please" and "thank you" filled the air, and people, even if it was for just that little while, were being nicer to each other. Instead of droning on doing their business and blocking others out, they were being people again.  I suppose it was the idea that after something that terrible had happened to us, people could go back to some normalcy, and maybe even be just that much better. 

Once the roads opened again, everyone that could flocked north.  Every able body wanted to help in the rescue efforts at the WTC site, or just to help hand out food and water to the volunteers.  Blood donations skyrocketed when they announced on TV that there was a shortage, and donations were rolling in to the Red Cross of food, clothing, and money to help in the relief efforts.  When the President sent our troops over to Iraq and Afghanistan, we heard about "Shock and Awe" in the desert.  But in my opinion, there were some pretty awe-inspiring things happening back at home, too.  

The WTC attacks were a tragedy, no doubt.  But part of healing is to look for positives, and hold on to them.  And if there was anything positive to take away from that whole period of time, it was what I just described.  When a tragedy happens, people can, and do, come together to lessen their own pain.  Whether it's by talking to someone who cares, or by just going out of their way to be a little more polite.  It isn't always one grand thing in life that can make it better.  It's a thousand little things.  Sometimes the normal things can be special.

And when we remember all that happened on September 11, 2001, and all that we lost, I think we should remember something very important that we found in the aftermath, too.

Our humanity.

Yesterday and Today

Hi guys, it's me again.

Anybody that knows me knows that I work for the railroad, and which one isn't important.  And anybody that reads this blog knows that I spend more time writing about real life than I do about science fiction or my books.  Because a) I can, and b) let's face it.  Where the hell else am I gonna write about this stuff?

Today I went up to the main maintenance facility for my company. The event was our family day.  At first, I wasn't going to go, but at the last minute I figured I would.  And now as I'm recording this driving home from there I'm glad I did. I got to see a lot of old friends that I haven't seen in years and it felt really good to be back where I started out on the railroad Even if it was only for a day.  

At the risk of sounding melodramatic the nostalgia was thick in the air today. Like I said I looked at faces that I haven't seen in years. And it reminded me of another time. A time when I was younger and just starting out and everything was new. And when I have a guy running upstairs to the office telling my boss that I'm a racist because I asked him to do his job the right way, I don't think a better time could have come for me to remember all those things than now. 

In 2013, people argue every night because they have to do one more car or pick up one more piece of trash or change one more brake shoe than the next guy. And no, I don't think that the past was Norman Rockwell-esque either because it wasn't.  We still had our share of crap in the past too, but it just felt different then. 

There were still people that you didn't like, but for the most part people seemed to like each other. We still argued sometimes over what we had to do, but we didn't seem to fight as much as they do now.  Morale was higher and the guys worked together even if they didn't like each other.  I made some good friends back in those days and for a while it felt like we were a family. 

There's Audrey, my work mom.  If you want to know what kind of person she is, she spent the day today following me around making sure that I stopped at the grill to eat.  There's Jimmy, Rafael, Joe M and Elvis (Yes that's his real name. Pretty cool Huh?) who are like brothers to me.  No matter how many trains there were or how dirty the job got I always knew that these guys had my back. There's Paul, who was like a grumpy uncle to us.  He barked a lot, but never bit.  And he always had a crooked grin in the corner of his mouth whenever something silly would happen. They all bonded with me, and over time, they bonded with each other and we made a hell of a group.  No matter what it was, we always got it done.  And we made some damn good money doing it.

Then, there were 100 or so men and women that you would see every day on your way through the halls or walking out to the yard.  People that you didn't know really well but you spoke to every day, and you noticed when they weren't around.  And all of that took a job that could be really hard sometimes and made it that much easier.  It took a job that's being made increasingly more impersonal as it's run by corporations now and put a little bit of humanity back into it. 

Going up there today and seeing friends from the past made me really nostalgic today. But a little reminder of where I came from made me remember why I'm so good at what I do. And it made me remember why I took this job in the first place. 

So to Audrey, Rafael, Jimmy, Elvis, Joe, and to anybody else that I left out, thanks for the head check. My love to all of you, and to our days gone by.  And if I don't see any of you sooner, I'll see you next year!  

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, 2013 Edition

As I mentioned last week, I had a week's vacation coming from The Job Which Supports My Writing Habit.  I was actually able to get a week in the summer for the first time in a few years.  And boy did I need it after all of the stuff that's been going on lately.   If you read the blog last week you have a general idea of what happened, and that's all I should say about it.  "Don't discuss specifics of your job" rules aside, I really don't want to talk about it anymore anyway.  So just suffice it to say that I needed a break from the insanity. 

Moving on, I spent the first few rainy days loitering around the house, catching up on laundry and tv shows.  I bought Michele two seasons of Night Court with Harry Anderson and John Laroquette, and spent my first two days off watching it with her. So many gags on that show that wouldn't get past the censors now. That show isn't politically correct enough to be aired in the 21st century, but it was still funny as hell and I enjoyed watching it. Ah, the 80's... those were the days...

Finally, on Wednesday, the sun was out, and so was I.   I cut my grass, under glares of disapproval from my sharp-eyed neighbors, who I often hear under my window in the morning loudly discussing the fact that I don't cut my grass often enough. Of course, we can't all have a landscaper come out once a week to wake up the people who work nights and sleep in in the mornings. Some of us do our own yard work when weather and work schedules allow. 

Anyway, I lost my audience when I brought my Harbor Freight machete out of the garage to trim my bushes. My best buddy back in Jersey City had one, and we used to use it every chance we could. Now that I have a house of my own, I took the opportunity to buy one for myself. Anyway, after a little bit of cutting I looked up, and suddenly everybody was gone. It seems that the sight of a 6'1", 270 lb dude in camo shorts hacking at shrubbery with an oversized knife was enough to make them forgive me my sins and mind their own. Not to mention that swinging that thing is very cathartic, too. For only about 5 bucks, you should try it sometime. 

After the yard work was done, I got my cooler out, filled it with ice and drinkables, and did something I've only done a handful of times since we bought this house 6 years ago. I sat aimlessly, in the sun, and relaxed. It was just me, an iPad full of books, and some Smirnoff Ice. Did you know that they make a pineapple flavored one now? Me neither. But I do now, and it is great! When the sun went down, it was Star Trek, Dr. Who, and Farscape on tv. I even got to see the new Superman movie, Man of Steel. I don't want to go all movie critic, so I'll just say that it's nothing like the Salkind films, and leave it at that. 

The next few days were pretty much repeat as necessary. And oh yes, it was. I spent more time out in the sun over this past week than I have in years, and I have to say that from here on out I do NOT plan to wait until my vacation weeks to do it again. I know I said I'd given up on the book until after the summer was over, but I managed to clear my head enough to get back to it sooner. Or maybe I just needed the Smirnoff Ice... 

Whatever it was this week, it worked for me, and I feel better than I did when I left. Hell, I even managed to write a blog for the second week in a row. :) And I plan, weather permitting, to spend my last day off in the sun before I have to think about going back to that place. 

So now that I'm done rambling, what have we learned? I'm going to close this week with my list of: 

10 THINGS I LEARNED ON MY SUMMER VACATION

10. That I really needed to get away from The Job Which Supports My Writing Habit after the last few weeks of political correctness gone wrong. As much as I like my job, things were just getting ridiculous.  

9. That Smirnoff Ice comes in pineapple flavor. Muhaha... 

8. That television was a lot less politically correct in the 80's. And a lot more fun. 

7. That I had forgotten how much fun it is to do yard work with a machete. They can be just as effective at pruning trees and bushes as any other gardening tool if you handle it right. 

6. That watching a 6'1", 270 lb. dude hacking at bushes with a machete can make even the nosiest neighbor more forgiving of what your yard looks like. 

5. That if you haven't tried that Smrinoff Ice Pineapple yet, you really should. It is AWESOME! Just saying... :-) 

4. That I have really missed the sun. Sunshine is good for the soul. :-) 

3. Did I mention that Smirnoff Ice Pineapple was AWESOME? 

2. That I could have been doing all of these things all along, and didn't really need a week off to do them. But it's helped me catch up. :-) 

1. The same thing I learn every vacation, Pinky. That one week off is DEFINITELY not enough!

See you next time.

"Fair"-est of them all...

It's been a long time now that I've been neglecting this blog.  It hasn't been intentional, but life has a habit of getting in the way. 

A lot has happened over the last few months, most of it good, but it's kept me busy nontheless.  I finished The Argenis Solution and saw its release.  I saw The Treos Dilemma take the science fiction category at the San Francisco Book Festival (really proud of that, by the way!), and started on a fifth book.  As usually happens in the summer, I've fallen down a bit on my writing, so I've all but put it off until September.

But that wasn't all that I wanted to write about today.  I needed to vent a little, and I've decided to do it here, in my space, where I can.

In my heart of hearts, I'm a writer.  But even writers have to eat when the books aren't selling, so I also have a "real job", which I affectionately refer to as "The Job Which Supports My Writing Habit".  I work for the railroad.  Which one really doesn't matter to my story.  I've worked at this job for the entirety of my adult life.  I started out as a cleaner, worked my way up to mechanic, and for the last couple of years, I have been the foreman of my very own crew.  Over the last 22 years, I have met some terrific people at this job, and each person that I interact with has taught me something, whether it involves the job or not.  I believe that a part of my job as a foreman is to teach others what I've learned about the railroad over the years, so I try.  But even in teaching, I sometimes learn things.

Having said that, what I need to vent about is something that is really disturbing me about this job lately – “fair play”.  Now let me explain what I mean, and why I put that in quotes.  When I started, the junior man in a crew got some really lousy assignments.  But over time, he worked his way up in seniority and made it to the better ones.  And if you messed up a job and delayed a train, that task was your job until you learned how to do it right.  I went through these rituals, and so did everyone else that started at the same time as I did, and for years and years before.  There were two reasons for this.  The first was that yes, the younger guys got more work than the senior guys, but the senior guys were 20 years older than us!  Sometimes more.  They had put in their time, learned their craft, and earned a bit of a break from time to time.  The second reason is tied in a little with the first: repetition.  The best way for most people to learn their job is to do it.  So if you're just starting out and you need to learn how to do your job, doing it is the only way to learn to do it right.  With someone to help you if needed, of course.  But still, you can't learn the plays if you don't put in the reps, as they say in sports.  For a hundred years on the railroad, this is how things were done.

But now, in 2013, we live in an age of “fair play”, where the work has to be given out evenly, whether an employee's skill level can keep up with it or not.  And we have to ask our older employees to give up the breaks they've been working 20 and 30 years to earn in order not to offend someone that was just hired onto the job last week.  Because if we offend that person, they can now go to management and tell them that their foreman has a personal grudge against them for whatever reason and is "picking on me." In an emergency, when a train has to go out on schedule, you can't just grab the nearest person and run out to the equipment like before, because even though we are paid to work for 8 hours, it isn't “fair play" to call someone to do a task when they have already done one a few minutes ago.  And no one bothers with the fact that a foreman shouldn't really be doing mechanical work, even though there are still some of us who do what has to be done anyway to get the train out.  But if that requires me to crawl under a train and get my hands dirty, then so be it.  But by their thinking, I shouldn't really have to do my own job if I run out to the yard to rescue a crippled train (“fair play” is “fair play”, right?).  You would think that the example set by working foreman would make it clear how ridiculous the arguments are, but "Why do I have one more car than he does?", or "why do I have to do this job?  What's (insert co-worker's name here) doing right now?" are the only questions that some people ever seem to ask.

Now, the answer you used to get from a foreman in a case like this used to be "because I told you to."  The nicer, less hardline version that I have used in the past is, "because that's what I need you to do tonight."  9 times out of 10 when you use the second one, it shows the employee some respect as a person, and in return he respects you enough to do what you told him to do, whether he likes it or not.  The really hard-assed version was "do what I told you, or sign out and go home."  I’ve never used that one myself, but every time I’ve seen it used, it was effective.  The worker always hated the foreman after that, but didn't want to give up the money, so he did his job. 

Now whichever you agree with or don't agree with, the thing all of these approaches have in common is that none of them seem to be acceptable anymore.  Now, when someone doesn't like their assignment because, "you gave me one more car/train than him," the assignment has to be reworked so that everyone has an “even workload”.  When you have a guy who is a dynamo and can run circles around the rest of your men, you have to hold him back and not ask him to do more because, you don’t want to be accused of “favoring” anyone. When you want to give a guy a little less than you did the night before because last night he did over and above, you can’t, because someone will always blaze a trail to your boss’s office to ask why he’s being picked on.  Before, you could tell a crew of car cleaners what equipment they had to work and they could agree amongst themselves how to divide up the work, but now it seems that the foreman must micromanage his men and assign them individual cars every night.  This way, no one gets that one extra car and feels “picked on”.

I could insert a joke here about handing out participation trophies too, but I think I've typed enough words for now.  If I have to write a joke too, it wouldn’t be “fair play”. 

I'm sure you can come up with a punchline of your own.

 

Until next time...