Musings from “Life Is a Road” author–Daniel Meyer
Archive for July, 2007
Damn…
Jul 30th
Matt, one of my friends and co-workers, passed away suddenly today.
He is also the husband of Susanne, another friend and co-worker.
Apparently he had a massive stroke.
He was a great guy. Really talented and friendly to everybody. He’ll be sorely missed, and I cannot even imagine what Susanne is feeling.
Matt was 37.
And I don’t know what to say…
I don’t know what to do…
Godspeed and smooth roads Matt…
Susanne, if you need anything, you have but to ask.
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer
Gone Again.
Jul 22nd
I’m off riding. Dropping a book in Crockett, Texas for a charity auction…the Moosehead’s opening up for Sunday lunch just for this event. I’ve gotta grab me some pie while I’m there.
It’s a ride…I need it.
Recent weeks have been tough. Work used to be about designing, building, and creating really cool stuff to meet the intensive demands of our industry. With the outsourcing, lately it’s all about a constant battle to keep the outsourcer from taking everything apart to the point where it won’t work.
Forget forward progress. We’re just fighting a holding action. Upper management doesn’t seem to acknowledge or care, and I’m not sure just why I should if they don’t.
Home-life is just a pile of projects. Running just to fall behind.
Mundane. Boring. I wonder again if I’ve made a wrong turn.
When did the road I chose to travel, become the one I’m on?
I’m weary of the battle.
Yeah, I’ve gotta ride.
Perhaps this will be the day I just keep going.
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer
People…
Jul 20th
There are a lot of bad people in the world. I’m not naive by any means. I’ve dealt with more than my share.
BUT…
There are many, many more good people in the world, they just generally don’t get noticed.
I believe that for the most part, people are better than we tend to think.
I believe.
Wednesday the UPS fairy tracker thingy said they dropped 7 huge boxes of books…several hundred dollars worth…on my front porch.
The books weren’t there. I’ve had dozens, perhaps hundreds of shipments from UPS…and never a problem, yet here it was. A nightmare. Several hundred dollars worth of books missing.
Did they leave them with a neighbor?
Did somebody steal them?
This was not a late shipment…sometimes they get lost or on the wrong truck…but the tracker shows them to be in transit then. This one said “delivered”.
It’s easy to assume the worst. Some new folks have moved into our neighborhood…there’s kids around because of summer vacation…workers have been installing new phone and cable lines around.
Assume the worst?
I don’t.
It’s gotta be a mix-up. Right?
Right…There’s that moment of doubt. Right? The world can beat ya down. Just why do I believe?
The publisher thinks they’re gone. UPS says “delivered”. The publisher figures I need to order some more and we’ll fight over who gets to pay for the stolen ones later. Me? Them? UPS? Gad.
Nah. My faith and instincts are generally very reliable.
Last night at midnight I got a phone call. Seems seven big, heavy boxes were delivered to this ususpecting man’s porch. He wasn’t sure when, as his driveway is in the back of the house and he comes and goes that way. He hadn’t been out front all week. He found my phone number and address on the boxes and immediately called me to let me know where the boxes were.
I picked them up this morning and notified my publisher that I found them. Hopefully they’ll let UPS know…UPS makes it difficult to contact them if you don’t have a shippers account so I’ve no way to let them know.
Anyway, delivered to the right house number, just about 8 blocks off. They’d have never found them.
Faith vindicated. Thanks for the call, friend!
Y’all be safe…and do the right thing. That’s how this works, see?
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer
It’s official. “They” are better than “you”.
Jul 17th
Texas has made it official. “Equal protection under the law” is out the window.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got no problem with whacking on drunk drivers a bit, frankly I think we ought to just have a “drunk driver season” and issue bazookas…
What I have a problem with is official state policy and precedent now elevates government employees in status above the citizens they serve.
A drunk driver injures or kills a citizen? Well, that’s a bad thing. But if that same drunk driver injures or kills a government employee, well, they’re better than citizens so the penalty is higher.
We’ve always known this. Now it’s policy.
Hmmm…I wonder if it’s too late to become part of the elite regime?
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer
The accountants have won. We are well and truly doomed.
Jul 14th
Dallas is one of the nation’s most dangerous cities. Property crime, assault, rape, homicide…all of these are very high compared to other cities. Triple, in fact, over the national average.
Those of us that live here know the reasons. Incompetent city government, corrupt cops (the joke is that we could drop the crime rate by 10% if we just fired the police force), ineffective leadership, tolerance of corruption, low standards, and poor police training and recruiting, and the intense focus of the police force on “fund raising”. For instance, they make money parking 20 cops on a stretch of freeway for a day and it costs money to work on serving the 300,000 outstanding warrants in their backlog…or, heaven forbid, actually investigating serious crime…so guess what they do?
Anyway, with great anticipation, the public awaited the new police chief’s great plan to reduce crime in the city…would they patrol the streets? Would they get rid of the corrupt cops? Would they actually focus on property and violent crime instead of on seatbelt laws? Would they “gasp” come when you call them?
Yeah, right.
Recently the Dallas Police announced the plan for reducing the crime over the next five years.
The plan? Change the way they report it. Yep, that’s right. They’ve figured out that they can vastly reduce Dallas’s crime rate by changing the way they report crimes. See, if 10 cars are broken into in a neighborhood, well, they can call that ONE crime and report it as such. Ten burglaries? Are they similiar? Well then, could be the same guy…so it’s probably just one crime! Multiple homicide? Well, only one person did it…so it’s one crime, right? Serial rapist? Well, I’m sure all his victims will be glad to know that our accountants cops are on the job. We can just report all those as one crime and Dallas will be a safer city! I feel better all ready, how about you?
Gad. That’s productive. Something’s wrong? Well then, just change the way you report it. Doesn’t cost anything (except the millions spent on consultants to come up with this brilliant plan), and is MUCH more effective at getting the numbers down than actually trying to fight crime.
Good job guys. Please stop wondering why I have little confidence in or respect for you. Just look at your leadership.
I’d wondered where all those Enron managers had gotten off to…
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer
Good thing we’re rationing water, eh?
Jul 7th
Every wonder what 30,000 cubic feet of water per second looks like? Rode up to take a look at the Lake Texoma spillway today. What can I say? It was a gorgeous day for riding! (besides, the Texas VRCC, 30 other bikes or so, a whole bunch of good friends, and fried catfish was involved!)
Home Run
Jul 1st
Well, when the smoke cleared I headed for home after-all. I’ve got books to ship Monday, and I was really missing the wife. Besides, sometimes some high-speed blasting down the interstate is just the thing to clear the cobwebs from the engine and cleanse the doubts from the soul.
Three big storms again…one of them rained solidly for over 150 miles. I never even put on the rain gear. Grinned, twisted the throttle, and ran!
Another wind will dry me…and the sun will make me warm…
So…1000 miles, account for the time zone…wow. 12 hours. Pretty smooth run. Little long division…carry the two…for a average speed of…ur…hmmmm. Heh. Maybe I ought not write that down.
In fact, I disavow any knowledge of any run whatsoever between Johnson City and Dallas this weekend. Any Valkyries spotted anywhere along that route were just a fluke…or perhaps a figment. Especially high-speed black ones.
Gawd that Valkyrie rocks!
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer