A box a day

Since my grandma passed away, I've been accumulating a whole bunch of stuff. I always assumed the "natural order of things" included that by the time your parents are supposed to pass away, their children are going to be in a position to absorb the extra stuff, whether it be furniture, knick knacks, pictures or property. This ultimately leaves the youngest generation free of the unwanted (yet) stuff and the older with the fond memories of their dearly departed. Having assumed this stuff earlier in life than (I assume) most, the burden of stuff has fallen upon me.

After sorting through most of my grandma's things, throwing away 30 year old bank statements, newspaper clippings, hotel stationary and matchboxes, one thing became very clear to me. My grandma hadn't been in a position to absorb the extra stuff either. My solution to dealing with my grandmother's belongings thus far has been to box it up, put it in storage and deal with it later.

One of my favorite quotes is of Rabbi Hillel, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I. And if not now, when?"

This seems to be an apt reminder that throwing boxes into a closet for the future to deal with is not the most productive use of my future. No one else is going to do it, and if it doesn't get done now, then I'm left with unopened useless boxes, ignorant of their contents. So my mission for the next little while is to go through a box of stuff each day and see what I come across.


Today's box played a large part in even getting me to post about my endeavor. Today I had a box, with two smaller boxes inside of it, the kind you'd expect from a 1950's department store when they box up clothes for you. Inside the first box was nothing of interest. A ton of banking statements, tax paperwork, canceled checks, car load applications; all dated from before 1976. I had already shredded a bunch of other financial papers but these I simply tossed away considering my ssn wouldn't be on them and everyone else has passed away and had accounts closed by now.

The second box taught me a ton about my grandfather. Things I already knew: I am named after my grandfather; he died before I was born; he was the smartest man in the world; he was well mannered and well liked; he invented a new type of leather that probably existed in a car your parents owned; cancer was his diagnosis, along with my mom and grandma; he shaved alot but wasn't particularly hairy; he always dressed sharp.

What I hadn't known are the circumstances surrounding his death. He got cancer, mom got cancer, cancer just happens, cancer sucks. Apparently my grandma had no such opinion, cancer had a reason and someone was to blame. The second box was full of medical documents, newspaper clippings, letters from attorneys, doctors, and judges. After my grandfather died, my grandma went on a crusade to find the industrial chemical that my grandfather was exposed to and infected him with "the cancer". For a good year, my grandma had gone through medical journals making photocopies, compared chemicals my grandfather worked with against drugs used in his cancer treatment against all of the latest research at the time. It was an uphill battle, not knowing anything medical or chemical, but she fought. I have the box full of documents to show for it.

My grandma's notes are unfortunately useless. Apparently in college she took courses in note taking and becoming an executive assistant. Her notes are incredibly detailed and written extremely fast. They're also unfortunately written illegibly and in a language that only barely resembles English. Symbols stand in for words, sentences only three or four symbols long. This makes it incredibly difficult to make out the mundane. Prescription names and dosages, doctors orders and daily routines, all the regular things I could recognize for their intent, just not their content. The one thing my grandma never wrote in her particular scratch was how my grandfather felt. Between doctors orders written on backs of envelopes were sheets of holiday inn stationary describing in full detail the rash on his chest, color texture and pain level, his appetite, headaches, and all other potential pieces of data the doctor might find a cure in.

In these notes it was clear just how much my grandmother loves and adores my grandfather. The detail she could write about his condition is more than I could describe even about myself, let alone someone else. The amount of time she spent by his side, before and after his death, is simply amazing. It's a high standard to live up to for sure.

I'm just hoping that the next box I find will evoke as much of a response as this one had. At the very least though, it will be one less box of stuff hanging around. I've reduced the box to a few random newspaper clippings, letters from lawyers, doctors notes and a few bits of memorabilia. All fitting in one manila envelope. Yay.

I wish I...

I wish I was taller
I wish I had a dog
I wish I read more
I wish I could cook
I wish I had less stuff
I wish I was confident
I wish I could run faster
I wish I could play guitar
I wish I knew what to say
I wish I learned a new skill
I wish I knew when to say it
I wish I was more expressive
I wish I felt good all of the time
I wish I knew another language
I wish I could make a difference
I wish I could get out of my head
I wish I could meet people easier
I wish I knew what I was thinking
I wish I could manage time better
I wish I had visited more of the U.S.
I wish I knew anything about plants
I wish I could see your point of view
I wish I knew what would happen if...
I wish things could have been different
I wish things could always be the same
I wish I spent more time with my friends
I wish I was more motivated to complete things
I wish I was comfortable outside of my comfort zone

I'm 5'10"; I exercise regularly, I can't beat a 15 minute mile yet; I am very good at music in theory, in practice I very often fall short; I have great intentions and a good sense of a choice given to me, I cannot come up with a choice to save my life; I am confident that I can do anything, I am also confident that I am often wrong; My proudest strength is self-reliance, my greatest weakness is not asking for help; I am an excellent listener, I make for terrible conversation; I can fix your computer, chances are I'll do it for free, most likely I won't charge because I enjoy the company, but honestly I would rather have a different excuse; Israeli dancing is rarely a very impressive skill, for the rest I can dance well enough not to step on your feet; If for some reason you read this very part, let me know, I'm actually interested to hear; I used to raise puppies as a kid before they were ready for adoption, the best part is I got to always be around puppies, the worst part is I had to always give up puppies; I play devils advocate constantly, with company and alone; When I feel overwhelmed in my ambitions that I end up accomplishing nothing, which is less than anything; I'm not very introspective, very often, I hope I'm doing well; I don't put things off, so much as I just forget to do them;

I feel better already

On owning an apple

Man I got it bad when it comes to the apple "remorse" bug.

Last August I bought my first significant apple product, the iPhone 3g. The hidden consequence of the purchase is the "low" price. Instead of paying 1k+ for a handheld doo-dad computer, I only paid 3 bills for it. So now to buy the new iPhone that came out, I'm looking at the much steeper "real" price of $5oo-$600 or something similar. This is only for an incremental change, nothing neccesary, but I do want.

Last February, I also decided to go for it and get the new aluminum macbook. I ended up getting the +1 version of the macbook because I wanted the handy light up keyboard. More memory, hard drive space and faster processor was all secondary to the decision. All in all, the purchase set me back 1.5k.

Now last week comes around, apple announces the new iphone and the new "macbook pro 13". The iPhone I've pretty much come to terms with. I really couldn't have waited the almost full year for the "better version" especially considering all of the use I've gotten out of it. The macbook is unfortunately another story. I have barely gotten any use out of it. Only until recently I decided to drop the bill and join the iPhone app club. Now I'm using the laptop quite a bit, but I feel like I could have waited it out, gotten the better / cheaper one. I find myself rationalizing the purchase, finding flaws in the new one, justifying every penny in my macbook+1. It doesn't seem to help really.

Once the novelty of "new macbooks" wears off and I get it in my head that new computers come out all the time, I'll be good. Of course I'll be getting a new iPhone, that's a given :P. But a new macbook pro? The one I wish I could justify upgrading, I really can't.

I &heart; music

There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Music is among my top 5 things that I enjoy in life. I'm almost constantly listening to music, and I'm sort of proud of my variety of listening choice. The thing I like the most about music is how it can influence me. That's especially cool because if I need to concentrate, if I need to relax, get pumped up for something, or just zone out, there's a specific genre that I can pick up and within 2 songs, I'm already in the zone. Sometimes it takes longer, but it's usually pretty quick.

Pandora Radio is my weapon of choice in the matter. I have a slurry of stations defined, mostly by specific song seed and then thumbs up and down to fine tune the rest. The cool thing is once I put on the station and it's tuned correctly, then it can go for hours on the same theme with little to no repeats depending on the station / genre.

Recently I also got myself a new set of headphones and I'm almost in love. They're ear buds, they have little sleeves that tune down outside noise, they have great bass for their size, & they have the iPhone mic / button gizmo giving me the hardware pause button I have been lacking. Best part is they work well with my motorcycle helmet. I hadn't actually gotten a chance to try them out on the road, but at home just trying them on seemed to work well.

My favorite genre of music by far has to be techno, specifically trance. Given music and a skilled DJ, the music can go on seamlessly for hours. You can choose to listen to it, or just let it play in the background. There's no positive messages, no negative messages, just good feelings. The only bad comments I can really empathize with against techno is the repetitiveness. I guess I'm just that boring of a person. On the other side, there's actually a music theory discussion behind that position that I'm a big supporter of. If music moves too fast, and I don't mean the beat, then the act of moving and the additional music loses its importance. Meanwhile if you stay in the same general area of a key or idea, then moving away from it holds that much more weight. It's easier to tease and entertain the listener in my opinion than to just constantly bombard the listener with music that's all over the place. This is especially true for a musical style that's meant to last for longer than 3-4 minutes at a time.

After that, I'm a relatively big fan of rock, alternative, a good portion of punk / grunge, "popular" rap / r&b, mainstream country, classical, experimental (at least once), and most anything that can be made on a c64.

p.s. title is on purpose

Recent history

I'm not apologizing for being lax in my updates, but it is unfortunate nonetheless. Rather than play catchup, I'll just go with recent history.

Most recently, dramatically, I was involved in yet another motorcycle accident. Again, some car being careless on the road and causing me to "take evasive action". For better or worse, the crash was also caught on video and almost everyone I know has seen it. The good thing is it's a good example of what to do during a crash (my opinion), and a sobering reminder of what can happen while riding. I've already been assured by parents I know they have shown their kids "bad things that can happen on motorcycles" and just "how dangerous they can be".

My biggest problem with statements like that is the preconception of motorcycle riders. Naturally the rider wearing bahama shorts, a cut off t-shirt, and tennis shoes is going to end up dead or well on his way even under 30 mph. Give yourself a decent jacket, full helmet, gloves, boots, sturdy pants, and an accident "as crazy as mine" is more than survivable. In fact if I had just a little extra knee / leg protection, I would have ended up just a little shaken, nothing more. Put myself in actual riding leathers and I wouldn't have had anything more than a small bruise.

That sort of brings me to my next thought. I can't wait to ride again. In fact, it's almost torture to look at new potential bikes now while I'm not even able to buy it. Nothing against anyone, but it's still worth it to me. If you don't understand, then chances are you haven't ridden, or were forced out of it for one reason or another. The rest of you may not agree, but at least you understand, so thanks.

The other things I'm really angry I'm going to miss now are my workouts, walking up / down stairs, being able to pick things up from the ground, getting in / out of my car without feeling retarded. Most of all my "semi-marathon" at the end of the month. The day before I went down, I had just finished a 4 mile run without any problem and was well on my way for the 15 miles or so I'd have to run at the end of the month.

This friday I get my stitches out of my knee. I'll try to remember to bring up with the doctor a recommended recovery schedule. Hopefully within a month I'll be able to ride & soon after I'll be back in the gym. Here's to hoping for a full recovery.