Profunksticated

I sometimes on my gig spend a lot of time and reams of paper printing a proposal draft that goes thousands of pages and takes several hours with a few paper jams thrown in.

Other times I reformat a 4,000-line Excel document over two days or open hundreds of Word and Adobe files over several hours to mark whether they have comments from reviewers. And then there is the responsibility of riding herd on the muckety-mucks to ensure they either make meetings or deadlines.

Because of my background as an editor and writer, I want to hate with a passion these administrative tasks associated with my position as a proposal coordinator. But I can’t, once I consider that I have a gig. And a halfway decent paying one at that, when many don’t.

I found some stuff on line today that makes me think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” These are stories of guys about my age who were in high-flying jobs but were either downsized or have lost their homes.

Baby boomers, especially those like me who are from the boom’s tail end, are up against it. That’s why I stay in the DMV, where I can quickly make a move elsewhere in the nation’s capital region if my current firm decides to show me the door. I call it my personal form of — to use a favorite Corporate America term — Risk Management.

I should be scared in this economy, but I’m not. I was shown the door twice during the 1990s boom. And then again in 2007, two years before Great Depression II. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Hence my penchant for managing risk.

Still, I feel for these folks who never had the ax fall on them.

Here’s a guy who was in business for himself and lost his home to foreclosure.

And below is a report about folks who were in high paying jobs who now are taking are known as “survival” gigs.

Hello folks, sorry to have been away. But this month has been an absolute dog in terms of work. We have three different projects all going out the door within a week of each other, all to the same client.

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Friday marked one month since Barack Obama was sworn in as President of these United States. Can you believe all the stuff he has gotten accomplished in that month? First pushing the stimulus package through Congress, and then announcing his plan to help troubled homeowners stave off foreclosure. It’s almost like this guy is too good to be real. Imagine – a President who is actually trying to help the people at home

I’m hoping the Spouse and I can take advantage of this foreclosure avoidance plan. We’ve been in talks with the lender on our NJ home for the past few months, trying to explain how tough it is to keep up when one spouse is living, working and paying rent out of state, in the DMV, and the other is relying on a disability payment that’s only 60 percent of her normal salary. My wife told me she was on the phone with our lender once more, and became so frustrated with the harsh attitude of the guy on the other end that she broke down in tears.

Hearing her talk about this gave me one of those “F— it, let me pack it in and move back home” moments. But then I remembered we need the health insurance that my current gig provides. The person on the other end finally softened and said he would see what he could do to work with us.

We weren’t among those folks with meager incomes buying a $400,000 McMansion. Our house is a modest, early 1950s-era, brick exterior split level with three bedrooms, a decent-sized finished basement and 1.5 baths. We’d really like to keep it.

In a related note, I’ve decided to add Google Adsense to this blog. “Monetizing” the blog, I think they call it. Anyway, if you folks would do old Pro a favor and click on the ads to help a brother out given our situation, he would be eternally grateful. (I hope it’s not bad form to explicitly ask for this, but a brother needs some help.) Thanks much.

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Today, as I write this, marks a year since my now 21-year-old daughter was hit by a car near her school. That case hasn’t yet been resolved. I still praise the Lord she wasn’t seriously injured or killed.

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Here is a really sad story I found in today’s Washington Post. If you’re a Christian, you have to believe the one saving grace is that the young woman who moved to Sierra Leone converted to Christianity shortly before she was killed.

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Pro starts his master’s program in Information Systems next week. I’ve gotten the first textbook and have so far read the first two chapters and an accompanying online “tech guide” that explained the software development life cycle process, which involves a lot of what my employer does. I’m feeling pretty good about this program. The textbook is extremely well-written.

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I was out at a Chinese food joint in Maryland Saturday night. Yes, I broke down and bought fried chicken wings and barbeque spear rib tips. Hey, I’m working out, remember? By the way, I’m close to breaking 230 pounds! Yee-freaking-ha!!!

Anyway, I met a man there wearing a leather jacket and baseball cap with patches commemorating the Buffalo Soldiers. I asked if he had any ancestors who were Buffalo Soldiers and he said none that he knew of, but it was likely there were some in his family. He said he only wanted to pay homage to such African American pioneers, along with the Tuskegee Airmen.

Nothing wrong with seeing so many folks wearing Obama gear, but it was refreshing to see someone wearing gear for the brothers who way back when helped us along our journey to equality in this land called America.

All the talk about the to-be-aired documentary on the disgraced Rev. Ted Haggard got old Pro to thinking about a comment that appeared below an article on Salon.com questioning the very idea of faith.

Here is a portion of the comment I reference, left Jan. 28:

I admit freely that most of the people who talk loudest about their faith don’t have any. In fact, according to a study on authoritarians, authoritarians who called themselves Evangelical Christians were far more likely to confess, under the protection of anonymity, that they had serious doubts about what they claimed to believe in. These folks are loud not because they have faith but because they don’t. The folks with real faith are the ones mostly keeping their mouths shut. They aren’t afraid that science will disprove the existence of God because they really believe in God, so science is not a threat. When science proves that some passage in the Bible is mistaken, that’s not a threat either; all it means is that that passage is, having been written by human beings, wrong. It doesn’t mean the whole Bible is worthless anymore than the testimony of an eyewitness who was mistaken about the color of a shirt is necessarily worthless. Because the Bible is simply testimony, the writings of some human beings about their experiences.

I found that interesting, in that the authoritarianism the poster describes seems to fit Ted Haggard to a T. And the comment about the Bible being testimony leads me to admit that I’ve long struggled with whether to read the Bible literally or allegorically.

In any case, you might want to check out the entire Salon article and all the comments.

Just Pro’s two cents.

Musings on a snowy, wet day in the DMV:

God must have heard my call to help me change some stuff. He’s taken away my cravings for candy and other junk. No more late night ice cream. I’ve also given up soda and other drinks, even Gatorade, which contains high fructose corn syrup. I’m drinking more water than I have in years.

Breakfast is part of my routine now. All I need is fruit and yogurt, and I’m good.

My weight is dropping like a truant student’s grades. On Jan. 3, I was about 250. Today the scale has me at 235. I’m on a roll. But I know me. I can get excited about something and then lose interest. I’ve got to think “one day at a time” in order to stick with this.

Also, I’m starting some weight training. The building in which I work has a workout room, so why not take advantage? I plan twice-a-week workouts. If I keep with it one day at a time, old Pro could be chiseled like granite by the summer. OK, not quite like that, but I hope to be in much better shape.

It was turning 40 that prompted me to finally give up drugs. Now looking at 50 has spurred me to get in better physical shape. Who knows what might happen at 60. Maybe I’ll actually become wealthy! (I’m gonna try to do that much earlier, however.) For all this, thanks be to God.

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I’m using TurboTax to enter my 2008 tax information. After entering mine and The Spouse’s W-2s, it’s showing we owe Uncle Sam a few hundred bucks. Yikes! This is after getting a sizable refund last year. I haven’t yet entered data such as mortgage interest and property taxes, which should ease that bite.

The upshot is that this traveling back and forth between the DMV and the Philly-South NJ, paying both rent and a mortgage without a salary high enough to support such an arrangement, is killing us. But I don’t know what to do. With my weird resume’, finding a suitable gig in the Philly area is like seeking the diamond among cut glass.

So the only thing to do is to try to find something higher paying here in the DMV. Or find some sort of side hustle.

We’re not selling the house in NJ anytime soon; that would only be like twisting the knife even harder, ‘cause we’d take a loss. We’re waiting until at least 2011, when we hope the market turns around.

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I’m sure hoping this Master’s degree program in Information Systems to which I’ve been accepted will be worth going into hock for another $24K or so. Does anyone out there have experience in this discipline? If so, can you tell me what I can expect during and after the program?

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Now time for some fun. Here’s an old-school music trivia question: What 1970s funk band recorded a song that featured the prominent use of kazoos? What was the title? First to answer both questions correctly via the comments section will win, well, a couple of kazoos, courtesy of old Pro. Seriously. The answer will be in a future post.

Seconds after I wrote the post below, I went over to Lord Hannibal’s site. He touched on what I was feeling.

I should be overjoyed that a man that looks like me is now President. But to me, somehow the inauguration seemed an anti-climatic formality. It was the election outcome that had me all geeked up. Wow, America, I believed that November night, is growing up.

LH put his finger on, in part, what was going through my mind Tuesday:

In the abstract, yes, Obama represents hope and possibility. I never thought I’d see the day when a man who shared my heritage would be president. Last night as I lay in the bed, it dawned on me that Obama and I are fewer than 10 years apart in age. Instead of becoming depressed because I’ve accomplished so little relative to Obama, I felt empowered to do whatever I want to do (something I’m still working out in my head).

I’m 49, only two years older than Obama. He’s about my brother’s age. I admit to feeling like, damn, I too have accomplished little compared to this guy. I truly believe he got as far has he did because he as a biracial kid who’s lived around the world, was relatively untainted by the stuff we American-born black kids were bombarded with by our well-meaning elders:

“The white man’s only going to let you go so far.”

“You have to be twice as good.”

And so on. Lord knows, I heard more than my share of that crap.

I do remember being inspired after the election. But watching the inauguration somehow depressed me.

Maybe being among the shivering masses did it. Maybe it’s the thought of turning 50 and feeling like I’m locked into a line of work I’m not exactly in love with.

I should be up there amidst those dignitaries, I was thinking. Sounds egotistical, right? But it was some measure of ego that got those folks where they are.

And don’t give me that stuff about well, you’re a dad, and you’ve done a good job raising a family and that’s an important accomplishment. Yeah, and so have millions of other men.

Somehow I believe I am, even as I approach 50, destined for something bigger. Something that will impact many, many people, like I did when I was a newspaper guy.

But I’m doing nothing with that destiny. That’s got to change. I’ve got to make up my mind that I’m going to work on it. God, please help me.

LH, thank you for getting this brother to think.

And to President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, a heartfelt congratulations. May God bless you both and guide your walks in this stage of your lives’ journeys.

Christmas Eve. Downtime in the office. I haven’t had a whole lot to say since the folks’ anniversary. What’s rattling through my mind:

Going to try in 2009 for a newer, better paying gig. Tired of expenses stripping income. Yeah, I know I should trim some expenses, but save cable TV, there isn’t a lot to cut. And I ain’t giving up my HBO when I’m home.
We are looking to refinance that damned mortgage.

Still haven’t heard back from the graduate school to which I applied.

Just finished cleaning off my desk. There was stuff on it that dates back to July when I first started here. I tend to be a pack rat.

The Spouse will visit me here in the DMV for New Year’s. I’d like us to go to a Washington Capitals game scheduled for New Year’s Day. (OK, yeah, that’s an expense, too but one I’ll gladly eat.) We used to do hockey games together in Philly (Go Flyers!) when we were dating. We saw our first hockey game in February 1982 — Flyers vs. the L.A. Kings at the soon to be razed Spectrum in South Philly. Game had everything — shooting, scoring, hitting and a second-period brawl that left blood on the ice. Then in 1987, almost five years to the month later, we flew from our new home in Colorado to L.A. to see the same two teams — Flyers and Kings — this time at The Forum in Inglewood, CA. Not quite as violent, but entertaining nonetheless. Flyers won both those games, BTW.

I say all this to say, my sisters, guys want their women to be their recreational companions. If he asks you to attend a live sporting event with him, by all means, go. He’ll love you for that. I think that’s been a big thing that’s been missing in our marriage in recent years. I hope hockey fans our flames once again.

That’s it for now. Pro wishes you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Peace.

What up? It’s been a few days, I know.

This past weekend, Pro attended a funeral for a brother in my 12-step fellowship up in New Jersey. He was married with a couple kids, 44 and had six years clean. He and I share the same sponsor. Dude was diagnosed with stomach cancer a year ago, but by the time they found it, it had spread. At the time, doctors gave him two months to live, but he lasted a year, dying on Nov. 16. The funeral was a combination of Christian service and 12-step meeting. May he rest in peace.

I finished what may be the final version of a video tribute to my parents, who are celebrating their golden anniversary the first weekend of December. I used a combination of home movies and still photos over a piece of modern classical music that’s familiar to most people who watch NBC News. It’s called The Mission, by John Williams, a recording of which appears below. Watching my finished product gives me goosebumps. (Yes, I’m biased.) I hope all the folks at the anniversary party feel the same when they see it.

I still haven’t seen my brother’s son. The situation with his longtime mistress-turned-official-squeeze has created something of a rift between he and my sister. My brother wants to live his life how he sees fit, even if that means him allowing the woman to visit and spend nights at the house he shared with his late wife. I tend to believe my bro’s blinded by a sense of entitlement brought about by his dealing with his ill spouse all those years.

My sister believes he needs to put girly-girl on the back burner and pay more attention to his sons’ emotional needs, especially those of the 14-year-old. She says my bro’s extramarital affair doesn’t bother her as much as him dropping the new baby and the woman on the boys so soon after they lost their mother.

Says my sister: “He snuck around with her for how many years? He could have (kept her under wraps) for at least another year (following his wife’s death).” I tend to agree. If I lost my wife, I don’t think I’d be inclined to introduce any new woman (yes, she would be legit) to my children so soon. My mom says both my sister and brother need to get over the rift. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

Pray for us, please, ya’ll. Up until this year, my family has been relatively drama free. I guess it’s our turn.

No doubt many of you viewed Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on NBC’s Meet the Press. But here’s one person’s take on the most important point Gen. Powell put forth.

Believe it or not, the same thought crossed my mind. It’s a shame the Muslim faith, though I don’t personally subscribe to it, is today’s American political bogeyman. This shows America has an uncanny way of repeating itself. About 100 years ago, the bogeymen were politically defenseless African Americans.

Profunksticated this past weekend attended a retreat in the DMV put on by the African Heritage caucus of a national coalition-building group with which The Spouse participates. Broadly speaking, the weekend is intended to help folks of African descent get in closer touch with our African-ness, which as you know we generally suppress here in America for fear dealing with disapproving white folks.

I attended in 2006, but missed last year’s retreat because I was at a Washington-area workshop trying to revive my professional network.

Discussions range from exercising one’s subconscious mind, to getting in touch with one’s duality (both our male and female sides) to even how we wear our hair. The hair thing was deep to me, and I admit to being inoculated with a preference for black women with straight, permed hair. Many of the sisters at this gathering had their hair in locks (never use the term “dreadlocks,” we were told. Why should this style be something to dread?)

We sang, we danced, called on our ancestors, told stories (you would have cracked up at the stories Pro told of the births of his kids and his own childhood) and we even let out some pain. Brothers and sisters are encouraged to release the pain they’re carrying. My nephew and son, who attended at The Spouse’s urging, cried out over the recent loss of their mother/aunt.

As some of the brothers comforted my nephew, I took a couple of them aside and told them that he is also angry at his father. They were like, OK. So they walked and talked with my nephew for a few minutes. Meanwhile, my son yelled at the tops of his lungs and was about to throw a chair, but thought better of it. That’s OK they said, let it out. My son fell to his knees, sobbing.

The drums, oh the drums. There’s something comforting about hearing a couple of brothers beat the drums going while the facilitator is talking. Folks came from all over the U.S. to attend; along with a couple of brothers from the U.K, across the pond.

I’m glad my young men attended. After our Saturday session, my son, nephew and a few other young people went into D.C. to hang out at Howard University’s Homecoming. My nephew said he was never before so excited to see a city as when he entered Washington. He said he liked seeing to top of the U.S. Capitol. Now he’s talking about possibly moving this way, perhaps into P.G. County. I said, come on, you’ll love it.

Speaking of the family, I spoke to my brother Friday, which was his birthday. I asked him about his girlfriend/baby son’s mother. He said she was fine. Then he launched into a tirade about how our mother and sister decided they didn’t like the woman. He also said the woman isn’t exactly feeling the idea of meeting Mom and Sis.

I reminded my brother in Mom’s and Sis’ eyes, he betrayed his ill wife by carrying on a long-term affair and this woman was a willing co-conspirator, so of course they’re going to train their wrath on his girlfriend. He said he knew, but sooner or later they’re going to have to get over it because he’s determined to have a relationship with this woman, other folk’s feelings be damned.

He even mentioned he was ready to cut our sister out of his life behind this. And I told him don’t even do that. He said he didn’t mean it that way, he meant he would just limit his contact with our sister. My father? He’s said very little so far, but I have a feeling he’s going to take me aside and ask me a bunch of questions.

Ya’ll I’m going to need some help and prayers, because this stuff is not going away.

And on a lighter, unrelated note, I’m sharing with you all the address of a web site that plays nothing but R&B from the about 1975 to 1990. It’s based in the Netherlands. Enjoy.

www.oldschool.nl

Check ya’ll out later. Peace.

Profunksticated admits to a guilty pleasure – watching the syndicated program Cheaters.

Yes, I know it’s like driving by a 30-vehicle pileup with a couple of tankers on fire in the opposite highway lanes, but I’m an inveterate rubbernecker when it comes to this show. I know it’s strange given my marital history, but there’s something fascinating about watching other people do stupid stuff. It helps to remind me of the pain I caused, although I outed myself rather than be caught.

I have to wonder why these people living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex mess around on their relationships in an area home to a television production firm that doubles as a private investigation agency, an outfit specializing in conducting video surveillance on wayward spouses and significant others. Could it be that some folks there still don’t know they run the risk of being confronted by camera crews led by Joey Greco and their angry mates? C’mon, the show’s been on for eight years; surely you’re aware of it by now.

I’ve seen shows done in New York City and in Las Vegas. I’ve seen Cheaters follow guys from Dallas to places like Houston and Galveston. But the majority of cases occur right in Dallas-Fort Worth. I’ve also read allegations that actors were used in some “cases,” but I believe the majority of the confrontations are real. At least the fistfights between men look authentic.

I don’t advocate infidelity. But still, I mean, if you’re gonna go that way, why do it in your own backyard? I never quite understood that.

Anyhow, you might know Cheaters is a show ripe for parody. I share with you what I believe is the best spoof out there. Is it possible to cheat on your church — with another church? Find out!