I can usually roll with changes, but this was week after week of disappointments for this particular project. So when the work day was over, I just had to melt for a little while. I explained the situation to my wife the best I could. Because she doesn’t fully understand the ramifications she said, “That must suck.” Which is tough to hear because I know she sympathizes with the generality of my frustration but not the specifics.

Friday Night, my wife was also going on an overnight trip to Disneyland with the 8^th graders on a school trip. 11pm Friday until 5am Sunday. Great. Our daughter was being taken care of by her Grandfather, so I had the weekend to myself. After dropping Jasmine off, I return home and flip on the computer for a bit – only to be hit by a barrage of change requests for a freelance job I had been working for the last month. It was supposed to be a one week project for 25 hours, and had been delayed by the client and the company subcontracting me. I was now in over 35 hours, only billing for the original 25, with over a month dedicated to their knee-jerk reactions. By the time I was notified of an impending change, I was expected to have it done immediately.

I do not like to work this way. My primary job does not work this way except for extreme situations. This company I am sub-contracting temporarily for seems to only function that way. I decided to get the work done that night. I was working until 4am on the project. Yet, the designer had incorporated changes that were completely unrelated to the original designs I was provided. So having worked until 4am, the project was still not completed. I went to sleep and then woke up directly at 7am and couldn’t fall back asleep. I checked to see if they had received my changes yet and then began working on my own project.

At 11am I was getting very frustrated with my personal project. I was starting from scratch on a new framework and I kept hitting speed bumps. The stress of the last day had finally hit its boiling point. I swore off computers entirely. Shut everything down. And was pretty much set to quit my job and become a lumberjack. Seriously. I did this in college. Not exactly. It is difficult to do your hobby for work, and then do your hobby for a hobby. In college I got a B.A. in English because I was working a programming job full time, and my hobby was programming.

So I went insane. I took my camera, my car keys, and threw on some shorts and began driving. I found the even-more-run-down areas of my town and started taking pictures. I went to Goodwill for an hour and tried on some $20 suits and found a 9600 baud modem. I then went to used car lots to browse around. Found a pretty nice Volvo and started checking it out. It was already sold, it turns out, but I wouldn’t have bought it anyway. I was just wasting time.

It wasn’t until 3pm that I realized I hadn’t showered, had no deodorant, was wearing my I  NY sleep shirt and was basically talking to myself since 11am. I called up my friend Peter and told him I was going insane and needed to get away. So I went to his house, after dropping by Safeway for some deodorant.

We spent about an hour catching up then went into the living room and watched a little TV. That’s when I discovered he had a solved 5×5 and 4×4 Rubik’s Cube sitting on his shelf. I asked him about it and he admitted to a bit of a fascination with them. So I made him teach me how to solve a 3×3. Well, mostly. I think after two hours I got the gist of it, if not the practicality. I could solve one row, and maybe half of the second row before completely destroying it. It was fun playing with the Rubik’s Cube and I need to go buy one for myself. I will learn how to solve them. It’s all algorithmic after all and even though I hated computers right then, I am still a programmer at heart.

We went to dinner and Fry’s Electronics because no trip into town would be complete without it. I searched for a mouse and maybe a Bamboo Tablet. Then I realized I didn’t hate computers. I was just stuck. And running off 3 hours of sleep. So I dropped Peter off at his house and headed home. I kept the computer off and went to sleep.

I picked up the wife at 5am and fell back to sleep. Woke up at 11am and turned on my computer. I finished the initial framework for my personal project and was completely rejuvenated. I mowed the lawn, cleaned up the house and read a few chapters of my book by 2pm. I had to wake Jasmine up at this point because we were due to pick up our daughter.

Anyway, I think I went insane for a bit. It is probably not a good idea to go around sleep-deprived when you are already in a stressful mindset. I will avoid this in the future. Yeah, that’s a good idea.

I never approach a political debate assuming the person is insane, or even stupid but it is tough when coming from a completely different worldview. The case came up on Mother’s Day Sunday.

You know the saying, “Never discuss religion or politics in polite company?”  It’s there for a reason.  When your grandmother, cousin, and aunt are all at the same table as you laughing about how AZ SB1070 is exactly what is needed to get things done and that no citizen should have any problem proudly displaying their ID, you should just keep quiet.  So I did.  I should have walked away instead of sitting there trying to ignore the specifics.

I have a problem with SB1070.  It’s not because I think we should sit back and accept illegal immigrants, or even that we should be more lax.  I have a problem with being asked to prove my citizenship on the whim of a police officer.  I hate the facebook post that made its way around the day I left facebook :

Why is it that if you cross the North Korean border illegally? You get thrown into prison and get 12 years of hard labor. If you cross the Iranian border while out supposedly leisurely hiking in the hills you get arrested and imprisoned. But if you cross the U.S. border illegally you get a drivers license, Social Security card and free health care?

First, this is old, and you aren’t some political revolutionary for posting this on your wall.  Second, it is a faulty argument because the reference is “You can’t get away with it there, why can you get away with it here?!”  North Korea and Iran are relative police states.  Stop using this as your example.  If you want our government to replicate the policies of those governments then you do not stand for the same Freedoms as I do.  Some people use Mexico, or China, or Afghanistan as examples but it comes back to the same point.  If you want our country run like theirs, then use their border policies as ours.  That is the choice you make.

Anyway, the argument escalated with family until it was just my grandfather belligerently yelling about how government forms are now in “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAN and MEXICAN” to which I challenged that the US is one of the few countries that is so dramatically trying to hold onto monolingual system and that multilingual environments are actually better for the speaker.

I even had to explain that our country is not a direct democracy for a good reason.  If the consensus of the majority is to suppress the rights of anyone, then it must not be allowed to pass.  So even though 70% of Arizonans are reported to support the bill, it is not enough to simply have the majority decide the fate of such a troublesome bill (which is why we have the judicial branch in the first place, right?).

I do believe the bill to be a form of veiled racism.  Yes, the bill doesn’t come out and say “Mexicans have to show ID” – it is built in an environment where the purpose is exactly that.  We live in an environment where it is taboo to be racist, so it has to come another way.  Protecting our borders and our resources.  That seems to work.  Oh, and by the way, crime rates are actually LOWER for illegal immigrants – so don’t try that either.

I ended up walking away in the middle of the conversation once I was told that I should join the armed forces in order to get a re-adjustment on my views.  I went to the bathroom for about 10 minutes to compose myself.  After composing myself, I walked out of the house to my car so that I could install the child’s seat that we had removed earlier that week.  While doing that, my grandfather came out and helped me silently.

He didn’t directly apologize for his attack, and I didn’t apologize for mine.  He did say that the fight wasn’t between him and I, but that it escalated because of all these “idiots” sticking their noses where it doesn’t belong. I told him, quite tearfully, that what upset me the most about our conversation was that I believe in the Freedoms this country has afforded us and that the entire purpose of our system is that he and I can disagree and we can still run as a country.  I just wish that political discourse, especially within family, could be more respectful.  He told me he loved me and we hugged.

I don’t know what else to say about that.  It meant quite a bit to me to have reached that point with him.  I don’t think I can explain it any better.  Well maybe, it’s kinda like Red telling Eric Forman that he loves him except in my case, love is OK apologies are not.  It isn’t ever said but the exchange is just as important.

I am just glad we didn’t get into religion.  Being the sole atheist in our family would create quite a wave if we ever actually spoke about it.

I am the dissident black sheep and I can’t keep quiet.  That’s one of the main reasons why I left facebook.  My reasoning came down to “If my sole reason for visiting that site consistently is to correct or debate people I barely know, then I need to not visit it.”  I don’t miss FarmVille, I don’t miss Castle Age, and I don’t miss the petty arguments.  I know I need to fix something else in my brain so that I don’t need to correct or debate things as often.  Until then, I can at least stay away from facebook.

Anyway, back when I worked for isocurve in New York, my production manager and friend Ephraim Kehlmann had told me that he used to be a sound guy for the P&T show and that he still kept in contact with everyone there.  “Just send me an e-mail,”  he says.  “I’ll see what I can do to get you some tickets,” he says.

So I do.  I say, “Hey old buddy, old pal.  You surely remember me.  Indeed the wildest PHP slinger in the wild west. How could you forget? This guy with amazing skills is in dire need of your direct assistance: for your previous employers Penn and Teller are coming to Arizona and I must obtain entry to this event.”  Or something like that.

A few days later the infamous EK replies, “I was able to get you 4 tickets.  They are waiting at the will call window.” Hooray, hooray indeed.  The week of  James told me he could not procure an escort for the evening.  I chose to invite my friend and distinguished colleague Peter to join us in the festivities.

I picked a restaurant across the street for a 6:00 dinner before the 8:00 show.  Thai food at Nunthaporn where Jasmine and I shared Pad Thai and some Tofu Jungle Curry and good conversation.  I hadn’t spoken to James in quite a while so it was nice to catch up.  We hopped next door and grabbed a cookie at Sweet Cakes and headed to the show.

The show was amazing.  The tickets were great.  We were 4 rows back, smack dab in the middle. I was smirking the entire time, if not laughing out loud.  It was quite a release and relaxation.  The absolute best tricks and jokes were the ones that the audience assistant had no idea what was going on, and wouldn’t know until the end of the show.  Also, the trick I thought they were playing, was indeed not the trick they were playing. My only regret, was that since we had such great tickets, in the middle of the aisle, we were never going to be picked to go up and perform an act with them.

I spent the time to wait in line for a picture with Penn and Teller afterwards.  Asked Penn if he was sweating his balls off in his full suit since it was 98 degrees out.  He replied, “You kidding?  I’m from Vegas.” then we snapped a photo and he was off to the next adoring fan.  I saw one guy have Penn sign a copy of The God Delusion and a very large woman had Teller sign her boob.

Teller seemed like there were fewer people mobbing him when I saw him.  The circle surrounding him was also much wider.  There is a presence that people put off when they are naturally quiet, or still.  It is a little eerie.  Anyway, he asked me what I wanted, I said a photo.  I had no idea what I was in store for.  The photo was actually quite a bit better set up than I thought it was.  Mainly because Jasmine was having a tough time taking the picture, and I thought the picture was already taken.  So my huge smile was replaced with a half-smile and looking somewhat away from the camera.  It made the Teller-staring-at-me that much more entertaining.

The entire process of meeting them was well worth it. I also think that more entertainers should take the time to meet the fans.  It took them a whopping 45 minutes before the crowd had nearly completely dissipated and every one of us has a little story to tell.  Did you know I had a conversation with Teller?  I mean, not really, he asked what I wanted and I replied that I wanted a photo.  But to me, it was a conversation. I am sure other people will create their own fishing story of it.

On a side note.  The pictures I took with Penn and Teller made me realize that I have a ways to go before I am at my fighting weight again.  Kinda sad. I also learned that I should probably shave when I go out in public.  I can’t grow facial hair.