jd yates

In lieu of actual blog posts… a new blog!

A friend convinced me that blogger was dated and useless and that I should migrate to wordpress. I’d already been thinking about it, and the only reason left not to was laziness, so here we are. Yet another new look for the site. I realize it’s a bit… grey. But it’s a work in progress… give it some time. Up to this point I’ve been focused on making things on the back-end function properly, but look is high on my list.

Updates are forthcoming…

Thanks Randall Bennett for the push.

JD

Anybody who recognizes the play-on-a-movie-quote and leaves it in the comments gets a hundred coolness points.

I’m sitting in “Club Bambara”, a bar attached to the restaurant bearing a similar name located in the bottom of the Hotel Monaco Salt Lake City. Nice place… interesting folk… backward ASS liquor laws. I’m fine though, fear not. I found a decent beer by the bottle. They call it a club because in order to be what the rest of us would call a bar, they have to be completely separated from their restaurant counterpart, and require memberships. Dumb shit abounds, and not a Mormon in sight. Who are these laws benefiting? Clearly, none but my liver.

I’ve just (all but) completed a very important presentation that has to be delivered to a few dozen people constituting my new company’s employees, board of directors, and board of advisors. Everybody cross your fingers… that shit I was saying about professional mojo… comes to a head tomorrow. Though, to my credit, I have pulled something of a genius move and photoshopped my own slides. Fear my image-editing prowess.

I think I’ve slept something in the realm of 12 hours out of the last 72. I feel like this faux-oak bar might possibly be the most comfortable thing I’ve ever laid my head on… or most unsanitary, can’t decide which. Apparently Warped Tour is in town, and staying at my hotel. I’ve been surrounded by their stage guys for the better part of 2 hours. These boys can DRINK. The guys next to me is a few sips away from killing his second bottle of pinot. For being roadies, they sure do have taste.

We’re here through next Saturday… I’ve already started slitting my wrists. God help us, or Joseph Smith.

I’m about to have to resume talking business which, this late in the evening, should be outlawed. At least there’s beer. Wish me luck, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Between the festivities of the day and the political nature of my reading lately (see SkinnerLayne.com) I’m finally compelled to write something somewhat politically opinionated.

The early part of Skinner’s latest entry talks about the incredibly low turnout numbers of voters in recent elections and how so many people have lost faith in the weight of their vote. Not that I didn’t absolutely believe it before, but my new job has fully illuminated this fact. Suddenly I’m not the only one who doesn’t so much give a damn about being part of the process. I’m sure living in a red county in a red state doesn’t help, but spending some time in Utah has shown me that this sort of frustration exists on both sides of the aisle.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no motivation for me to show up to a polling place for the purpose of choosing the lesser of two evils. On that topic, I’ll again refer folks to Skinner’s blog which has been running on various aspects of an emergent third party to break up our defunct two party system. It’s completely necessary, in my opinion. I can’t remember the last time I was exposed to a candidate that I felt good about for any office, much less the presidency. (Or as soon as I start to like them they scream like a maniac, or get pushed out of a swift boat.)

What happened to the good ol’ days when the average American vote was respected, both by the people seeking them and those it was to give? Biased, inaccurate, slanderous media is the first thing that comes to mind, but beyond that when was the last time a politician knocked on your door? How many people can say they’ve had the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with even their mayor, much less any sort of national level representation? The state of the system is dire indeed when most of us wouldn’t recognize these people if we saw them on the street.

I’ve read lots of good ideas about what a third party should look like in the last few days, but where to start? How does the electorate press for politicians to become real people instead of cardboard cutouts? You’re likely to hear much more about this in the near future because my work is part of the answer to that question. The short and sweet version, I think, is through the power of the collective. Voters alone feel scattered and inadequate to affect change, but if more people realize, like I have, that SO MANY of us feel the same way about ineffectual government and hollow politicians they will have taken the biggest step toward taking back their decision making power.

Not to make any sort of official endorsement, but I would sure love to see a Bloomberg candidacy this time around, just for the sake of shaking things up. That’s the kind of thing that would get me to the polls, and it’s about damn time the Dems and Reps had something more to worry about than each other… And Michael, don’t take any sort of consolation prizes, go for the gold and give ‘em hell!

For the sake of getting the major bits out of the way up front, since my last entry I’ve:

1) Moved into the loft with Skinner.
2) Cut all but a few ties to my family.
3) Started working again.
4) Am frequently traveling to Utah.
5) Still haven’t come up with coherent ways to talk about my fabulous Entropy topic. Keep waiting.

Suffice it to say that schedules have been somewhat demanding of late.

The quick succession of all these major changes in my life has brought to light a rather disturbing realization: I am not responding to transition as well as I thought I would. To be perfectly fair, I saw all these things coming miles and miles away… they were far from unexpected. And yet I find myself nearing the limits of my capability to cope. Perhaps spending so long nestled in the belief that a man can be an island led me to think that I could never be besieged… I’ll just start at the top, shall I?

I knew for months that there was no way to stay in my apartment beyond the term of my lease. How, in that time, I didn’t manage to prepare myself for a dramatic curtailing of my independence (dictated only by myself) I’m not sure. Moral of the story: I didn’t and there have been some serious claustrophobia issues risen from my unpreparedness to have many of my daily decisions revolve around someone else. Nothing I can’t get past, but trying and stressful nonetheless (for both of us).

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been sitting on a rather scathing entry directed toward certain members of my family. I’ve still not posted it for the sake of maintaining relations with those few that I do enjoy. The cliff notes version of that story is that, after allowing things to weigh on and pain me for years, I made the difficult decision to create distance between myself and those that would not have me close rather than force myself into their lives. Much to my disappointment that includes my mother, marking the demise of my only remaining parent. It took her nearly 2 months to notice we hadn’t spoken, a testament to how much my efforts to be involved were noticed. I wish them the best and I’ll always love them, but we won’t have a relationship until they realize we didn’t have one to begin with and that standing their ground and calling me immature and selfish for stating how I feel isn’t a step toward resolution.

In happier news, I’m back at work! A couple of weeks ago I took a job with a VERY cool company based out of Utah. I’m working from home for the moment, and making a trip to the office about once a month so far. I’m incredibly excited to be involved with a product I can really get behind and the people I’m working with are both dynamite and wonderfully enjoyable to be with. My only concern is that all that downtime has led me to question my ability to rise to the challenge. This position will be incredibly demanding over both the short and long term and I have got to get my professional mojo back STAT! They already think I’m kinda crazy… they have no idea.

All these things seem to have formed together into an untangleable knot of anxiety that’s taken residence in my chest. Sometimes I can’t breathe/speak/think/eat/sleep… It’s agonizing. They’ve collectively managed to lower my thresholds for stress and pain, among others. My fuse is short, I’m emotional, and am frequently overcome by an irrational desire to escape and shut-down. While a week on an isolated beach would fix things right up, that won’t be an option for a long time, and certainly wouldn’t serve to improve relations with my family or significant other (who’s been right trooper through all this nonsense).

My only recourse is to simply adapt. Become the thing required by my transfigured life, no matter how far it feels from where I am. Skinner scoffs at my mind-over-matter sensibilities, but I don’t see a terrible lot of options but to power through this trial with the brute force of my immovable will. I will be the person Skinner deserves, I will be strong enough to accept nothing less from those around me than I’m willing to give, I will rise to any and every challenge my work brings to bear, and I will take responsibility for all these choices and their consequences without fail. I resolve these things for the sake of my sanity and that of the people that will interact with me.

Happy 4th of July!

JD