Steven, Dreadlocks and Blue Hair, sometimes Wild Eyes. Tongue Stud sideways coming at me.
Fanboy, hope you see this 1 day. Gotta have patience, like I did with y’all. Hoping best for you still. Just couldn’t heal hidden scars. Sorry if I wore my welcome with Brand New Precision. I was riding the Steel Breeze.
In 1987, Christmas, 10 years of Army life over and by the end of 1988, I was married with 2 stepsons. Raymond, 9 and Steven, 4. Elaine was my second and I was her 3rd husband. Boys were like night and day. First 10 odd 18 years were wonderful. The only issue that turned out to be ultimately critical is that Elaine always a found way to stall my adoption of the boys. They did what she desired. I never used boys to help win. First 10 years, it would’ve been a slam dunk. May just first 6 or 7.
Elaine was born 7 years earlier, she had jokes about me. Gets 3rd husband, toy boy. Once in there kitchen showed a knife. I did most of the cooking, she was better at cleaning. Split responsibility kinda. Knife story, she says, “everyone sleeps sometime”. Jokingly passing it off, talking about her past. I ended up just walking away from that shit.
At the end of 1998, hundreds were being laid off every week in manufacturing by then. No one said or did anything. Factories closed. My oldest in the middle of flunking out of college and youngest stepson ready to start early! My turn, unemployment line. Luckily I had a hobby thru life, earned as A.S. at Kansas State while stationed in the Army. Always took classes. Even as a Machinist, helped my promotion into CAD design around 92. Kept working on school. Went back and got my B.A. in Business at Kent in 2001. M.B.A. in 2002.
In 1999, I had 2 stepsons in college. One flunking out and the other one probably has this Ph.D by now. I just got laid off after 20 years in manufacturing, Machine operator, machinist, CAD Designer, and finally promoted to engineer in 1996. NAFTA hurt manufacturing. Ross Perot was right and President Trump is right on!
I don’t get a job, everyone was letting go. I went back to Kent State and finished my B.A. in 2001. Case Western M.B.A. 2002 and started Ph.D at Kent summer of 2002. Borrowed xxK to pay for family upkeep. I used xxk of it for fancy M.B.A school. Just paid it off couple years ago.
1999-2001 undergrad, worked in server room, Business College. First Fiber servers and phone gigabit. Old PC’s tti maintain for students to abuse. Fun. Either people liked me or feared me. I didn’t have time tti waste, needed a job. Wife bitching, 2 at Akron U. I’m still paying for most of their games every week. Mortgage, car payments don’t go away. Tuition, gas money, allowance, told boys, school or work, no free rent. Oldest’s girlfriend moved in, chit started sliding away on me. Less and less to say, more to do. Oldest flunked out, not good at work either. Funny now. My answer…Crazy bizarre and cruising in Arizona!
In the end, they didn’t want to be pushing another angry Vet around in a wheelchair or stuck in a bed for life. If they would’ve kept rowing the canoe the same direction just a little. Would’ve saved me a decade of hurt. I’d be working, teaching.
I had to get permission on Ph. D. take college of education courses, wanted thesis to be online learning. 2003, before everyone had online university. Told David Zhu, watch the Cloud gonna be interesting. Before social media, boasting and blatantly opportunistic Facebook. Research, greater good for the many, so many, exciting possibilities, sad how little done. Wasted time, wasn’t about trophies. If I want one, I’ll make mine.
In 2003, I was at KSU having fun, but my back started killing me, wife already pissed I’m going for doctorate. Kids on her side, of course, talks me into apartment on campus, helps gets the family unit for me, still small. Trap is set bait was I avoid combat with them and stress. Trying to take Ph.D. classes, teach undergraduates, family, saw orthopedic surgeon and 18 months of recovery for his solution. 50/50 odds. Trap is sprung and she files for divorce for no reason.
Go to VA, takes time, 6 months start meds, nightmare begins. I’m thinking I’m doing fine. Divorce, dismissal from Kent State, no family. WTF, but I was acting so erratically. I remember actually assaulting my professor. I still owe apologies. KSU wrote a nice letter and gave me 10 years to address health and return. The Divorce judge gave me 2 years time, kinda why I drink.
When young dad started training me. He taught me about hogs at butchering time. Small Pen. 22 to stun it, slit the throat. In a corner, my job, holding 2×4, keeping excited herd away. Old farts, laughing with guns around corral. I didn’t realize WTF. Pigs are carnivores when they smell blood. Dad shouted instructions in French. I’m about 6 or 9. Mom freaked when she saw pic. Democrats are eating themselves now.
We have cacti out here, annoying. Just need tweezers. We made the best smoked sausage. Dad was in charge, honor to eat brains and scrambled eggs. Last time I was about 12 or 13 when he became too sick. Hungarians started leaving us out, only half Hungarian. It was different, Mom and I, the only 2 Belgians in Barberton. That’s why she went back I think.
I started like everyone in life, wanted to be astronaut. Air Force ROTC 1974-5 at Akron University. Right after high school, Vietnam ending, really thought I was going Senior year and wanted too.
Dad died summer of 1973, before Christmas. That year, mom, my little sister and brother moved back to Belgium. I stayed alone to finish high school then decided to become a soldier and naturalized citizen to make a good life.
I calculate both my parents were about 8 to about 13 when WAR started. Children who later made me. Now, over half a century later I see adults, acting like children, that couldn’t extract stuck tissue paper from their rectum if their life depended upon it.
Actually rebuilt it and had a solid foundation. Wyatt Earp said: “Fast is Fine, but accuracy is final.” Took me awhile to recover and still practicing recovery.
Best way I can explain going thru my life without accomplishing my plan but providing other needs.
The term Zen is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Middle Chinese word (Chan), which traces its roots to the Indian practice of dhyana (“meditation”). Zen emphasizes rigorous self-control, meditation, practice, insight into the nature of things (Ch. jinxing, Jp.kensho, “perceiving the true nature”), and the personal expression of this insight in daily life, especially for the benefit of others. As such, it deemphasizes mere knowledge of sutras and doctrine and favor direct understanding through spiritual practice and interaction with an accomplished teacher.
My Dad was an O.G. when I was 17 and saw WWII NAZI tanks invade his backyard in Budapest, Hungary. Mom was in Belgium about 8 to 15 while NAZI invaded Germany. They are why I made it. My dad was “Slim” the kindest soul you’d want in a tough spot.
I did first grade twice? That’s funny I got sick and spent a month at Barberton Citizen Hospital and I think it was pneumonia, remember watching the park and had the upper floor with a nice view and watched people.
I worked on getting better a speaking English with two nurses. I used to get bullied being Hungarian in that community that didn’t speak that language. Only spoke French at home. I head my Dad speak at least 5 different languages in 17 years.
I’ve done some nasty things with my Dad and he made me help kill and butcher when I was little. We made the best food, clean up from an old man I didn’t know. Died day before in a city apartment, slipped in the tub.
I was working thru Akron University of 1974. Nowadays, I guess we’re all just Meat Sacks! Not all video games invite this double horror show but there might be something a grain of truth. Real truth. I am a Meat Sack with Eyes! Windows to my soul. Even my kitties have cute little souls, I’m certain.
One of the most shocking events in life. I was waiting at the train station in Mainz Germany 1984. Released after 8 weeks in the hospital. I was wearing a HALO. After fracturing my spine. I was going to Belgium. My family lived there.
It was amazing I wasn’t a paraplegic. As I waited, I heard a very young girl say to her mother, in German! Frankenstein. The mother was polite, I’ll never forget. Took 6 months before it came off. It’s bolted to my skull 4 points. I stayed in Army another 4 years.
I’ve had my bell rung, cracked a little, here and there. Dumped into the dirt. Plenty of ringing left to do. Progress can go slow, chaos is more than constant. Great message. Burned her out, I guess. I take it how it rolls. Just Fighting is not about Fighting like a man, just because you can.
I think people confuse freedom with being fearless. Losing responsibility, in celebration of imagined victory. Suffering none, crushing, causing stress.
When I started cement work, I was little. Usually, later in the evening, Dad came home. I knew he was gone before I woke up, usually dawn. Mom and us had the house for the day. School, summer, vacations, Dad worked all the time or drank. He was a great Cement Mason. All Day at the B&W, sometimes all night on the big jobs.
He taught me how to finish cement floors smooth enough to roller skate. With old style skates. Glass, I remember doing a fancy basement in Hudson, just Dad and I. Big job and the only crew got to see first and last. We poured vertical concrete walls 15 feet high, at least with nothing. Plywood and 2×4’s, collapsing dirt banks on the other in the rain. I know there are a couple nice basements in Hudson still.
Starting to realize taught construction, that blew up. Studied philosophy, confused me. Drawn to constructive explosiveness. Not enough, needed destructive construction with boundaries. Migrated to destructive vertigo and creativity. Machining and 3D was perfect fit for me. Tear it up, make something!
Nature bends us. Darwin proved solution adaptation key! Bend or break, but if you break it all down. Can you do with what you’ve left? What can you do? Before you worry about me! You think I’m crazy. I just know I’m not there yet!
No one will bother me that I really worry about. What I mean is living here is wild. Last year, TPD and SWAT took over street and park in front of me. Few years ago, young girl was dumped and fished out of beautiful lakeside park. Mother on the news crying her eyes out, got a kid with a new can of red spray paint tagging now.
Smart ones know not to step up into my land or let me see. Cops answer when I call, haven’t dialed in a few years. Respect, I don’t mess, don’t mess with me. Taggers tag sidewalk, I thought it was funny. Chad loves sugazz with 3 little heart. City prewashed before I took pic. Live and let live, kid searching outlet, tagged neighbor last week, talked with postal. She thinks who is gunna offer job. Practice on my walls, got over 200ft. I’ll buy paint, plan your work. We’ve got artists. That’s a plumbing supply, dad would like, Benjamin plumbing supply. Tucson is very nice, but you just have to be careful.
If you go thru life and encounter black cloud. Thinking it’s you. All yours and yours alone. Look around, plenty of dogs chewing on their bones. You can treat someone’s symptoms forever or solve it once. Aggravating when others with symptoms ignore obvious solutions and try making theirs yours! Without either invitation or cooperation.
Once in Btown, we raised a housed. Tore out the entire sand half basement. Ask your dad, dug it out, and put a new one in. I was just a kid still. Fun. It was fun, being young. The only “Race” was between lights or Stop signs. We respected limits. Now, I don’t assume anybody has any. Always ask, last day what did I do? Break, build, or just burn? Ironic, Barberton built on matches. It’s a city of another country and ours!!
Tired of “Eloquent Officials and Puritans”, Politicians with political processes and high priorities. Cussing each other but costing us high prices more and more each day! Full of promises, praise, and profit for all, but how do they become motivated millionaires so easily? How did I miss that boat? I have literally “shoveled shit”. Horses, pigs, geese, and farms in general. Factories are worse. Searching for the “American Dream”. I don’t need to watch scary movies, been there and done that. Now people lose focus and envy takes energy wrong places.
