A Day in the Life of Chaos

Civil Service is such an innocuous term.  It sounds like it could represent a myriad of different things none of them having anything to to do with being an anonymous government employee.  In reality it is a time honored term to represent those that give their lives and careers to government in a belief that it has a role to play in society.  These days the very guardians of our Civil Service seem neither civil nor dedicated toward service.  Instead of dignity and courtesy we are treated to a barrage of indignity and down right insolence.  Esteemed former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "The central conservative truth about politics is that it is culture not politics that determines the fate of society.  The central liberal truth is that politics can help change a culture and save it from itself." While Senator Moynihan does a brilliant job of phrasing the philosophical clash of ideals between liberals and conservatives at its heart is an underpaid and often

As a child grows older one of the most rapidly changing places in any house is their bedroom.  It is evolution times one hundred.  Toys that once seemed so appropriate are suddenly as out of place as an Avon Lady in coal mine.  While I understand the parent who went crazy and spent a fortune on the pirate ship bed, I pity them as one year merged into the next.  Suddenly the once magical bed no longer seemed quite appropriate as their child's legs surpassed it's length. After numerous requests, and having safely left his urges to have a room with the walls painted black in the rear view mirror, I recently succumbed to my sixteen year old's prostrations for an update.  It was an exercise in compromise.  Despite his urging I refused to allow him to forsake his bed frame and place his mattress on the floor.  To him it seemed "cool," to me it seemed representative of either homelessness or my college years.  I did however let him choose the paint and overall theme.

  The sun beat down oppressively as I shifted myself into a slightly shaded covered part of the boat.  Sea swells of three feet tossed the craft from side to side in a rocking motion more akin to a once balanced rocker trying to navigate a boulder placed under one side.   Rhythmic motion was replaced by a jostled frenzy.  I pulled a black hood over my head that when stretched to its full extent, left only a small circle of skin exposing my mouth, nose, and eyes.  A little more coverage and I would have appeared as nondescript, as a Muslim woman wearing a full Hijab.  I could feel my skin trying to sweat yet the 5mm thick neoprene that covered my body refused to allow the droplets any space to form.   Nervously I checked and rechecked my air supply. "There was air there right?" I asked myself.  I mean I think I had turned the knob the right way.  I felt somewhat like a contortionist in a freak show as I clumsily reached down and did my best to secure my two fins.  With the f

I hate guns.  Well I don't hate them, I just don't care for them much.  I have gone shooting but killing is simply not my thing and shooting at a target for hours loses its fun after about 15 minutes.   I grew up in a gun culture, how could Alaska be anything else?  When I was 15 one of my friends had a semi-automatic rifle.  Another friend had a pistol with a laser site.  We used to go out and shoot at cans from time to time.  I have never owned a working gun and really I don't have much desire to change that.  I think in my mind guns represent an expression of power over another person.  It is an artificial expression of power supported by a tool that can take life in an instant. Sure I suppose I would feel differently if I lived on the frontier.  If I had a cabin in the mountains I might even buy a shotgun.  In my professional life I am surrounded by guns.  I quietly work around more weapons than most people might see in their lifetimes.  Still, these guns are all t

"I need a change."  It is an expression I have often uttered in my life as I have never been a person that can stay settled too long.  I think there is something about the hidden synapses of my brain that craves variance and at times unpredictability.  When I look back on my life from my perch of 46 years there has been a lot of change and some constants as well.  One constant was my own childhood.  I am thankful to have been able to grow up with the same set of friends living in the same town.  At one point my parents simply moved across town and I was devastated.  This despite the fact I actually remained in the same school.  I swore when I moved to my current location I would afford my child the same opportunity.  I don't know if it is as equally important to him yet I have never tested the idea.  As he enters his Junior year in high school my promise is nearly complete.  He has lived his memorable youth in one house and grown up with the same boys living around him.

I am convinced Americans essentially fall into three categories.  The first are those that have no idea a world outside of America exits.  If asked, they can't find anything on a map.  They might aimlessly drag their finger over the various colored shapes but when asked to identify Japan they will point toward the Middle East.  These are the folks that despite tens of thousands of American war dead don't have a clue where Iraq and Afghanistan are.  They live simple lives migrating between home and work.  I don't know if their simplicity should be abhorred or admired. There is most certainly always comfort in ignorance.  I guess it wouldn't make a difference if they were not given equal power to make decisions over all of our lives through one man one vote.  They tend to be single issue voters.  The one thing most important in their lives is their gun and based on that all decisions are made.  I don't hate these people but I don't understand them either.  They f

Every day I seem to discover that I am falling further and further behind.  The thing is I wasn't always this way.  I used to be the guy that was always on the cutting edge.  People came to me for tech advice.  Patrick, what should I buy?  How do I fix this, what do I do about that?  Somewhere along the wandering path our existence the modern world passed me by.  It is difficult to put my finger on the exact moment but I suspect it occurred somewhere around the advent of cell phones.  I was okay when they were simple bricks but as the networks and functions became more complex my mind started to let go.  It is hard to understand why.  I mean function has actually become more simple.  I was the guy who sat with my DOS PC trying to reconfigure the RAM to allow me to play some game that had unique requirements.  I confronted the scary  DOS prompt and at times won and mostly failed.  People still come to me from time to time to solve a computer issue but I usually try to feign ign

  One of my favorite films is a forgotten movie called Sneakers with Robert Redford and Ben Kingsley.  It is a bit of a guilty pleasure but Kingsley plays a man bent on changing the world so that all government secrets are revealed.  He planned to accomplish his devious act utilizing a piece of hardware Kingsley developed through his company Setec Astronomy which is an anagram for "too many secrets."  The plan was amazingly prescient considering the notorious Julius Assange of Wikileaks who has been obtaining classified government documents and leaking them to the press and general public.  It seems like with computers dominating our lives almost nothing is private anymore.  We lay a digital trail everywhere we go.  For myself I have just come to grips with the fact that I will never run for Congress.  On second thought knowing what I do about many of those in Congress perhaps I should. The other day while dining on Mexican food I lent my son my cellular telepho