It Isn’t How Much, Or How Often, It’s the Fact that You Do (Write)

I’ve felt guilty from time to time.

I started this blog and wanted to fill it with all the thoughts that cross my mind throughout the day.  Every fleeting snippet of a glimpse into my soul was to be captured for the world to read at their leisure and, possibly, to admire the mental wizardry that is the mind of Miguel Gonzalez.

Not so.  I’ve been slacking.  I let life get in the way.  What is it that so man great and successful authors say?

“There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway.  Okay, I don’t have a typewriter, but I have pricked my finger, on occasion, as I clacked away at my laptop’s keyboard.  Will that suffice, Poppa?

“All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Now that one, I definitely can relate to.  I do, at times, feel as if I’m under a form of literary and creative pressure as I sit here and try to come up with something different to put down into the blogosphere.  However, and I’m sure this is what Mr. Fitzgerald ultimately meant, once I’ve begun my swim (essay or blog) the rest comes so much easier and the pressure lifts off with every letter, word, sentence, and paragraph that I put down into perpetuity.

Obviously, this is only my fourth or fifth blog entry, so I’m learning as I trudge along here, but I readily admit that I am having a wonderful time figuring it all out as I go along.  I love to write.  So, I’m going to scribble notes down here and there and come back here when I can to share my ideas on whatever is firing my synapses at that moment.  However, that said, I can’t say I will be consistent in how often I do it.  Just that I will.

Have a great evening.  Especially you gentlemen, Masters Hemingway and Fitzgerald.  For as flighty and undisciplined as my writing style may be, it’s your greatness that inspires me every moment I set my mind to creating some prose worthy of at least, in my mind, a subtle perusal from your spirits.

Government Planning and Waste In Action

As I left school today, I drove down Bascom Avenue here in San Jose.  I was enjoying the beautiful day and the wind blowing in through the open window, when I suddenly saw a huge eyesore that reminded me of just how myopic government planners can be.

There it sat.  Large as day and beckoning all to admire just how much was spent on building this monstrosity of a public library—which has not been open a single minute of a a single day since it was completed over three years ago.  It seems that the planning commission and the city budget planners took out loans to finance the building of this beaut, but never considered what it would cost to keep it going on a daily basis over how many years or decades they must have planned to keep it standing.  As a matter of fact, the builders had barely broken ground and this construction project could have been stopped, but wasn’t, when they first began to realize they’d gone wrong.

The local newspaper, San Jose Mercury News, feels that even though the city is barely beginning to see some daylight from under the darkness of the fiscal burden they’ve been under, they should find a way to fund the operations of this huge albatross, because its “the right thing to do”.

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_20159822/mercury-news-editorial-opening-san-jose-libraries-is

Well, I’m definitely all for public libraries, and have had my library card for years, but I’m also for this and all cities to only pay for what they can afford to pay for with the amount of ACTUAL revenues they receive.  No guesstimation and borrowing should be taking place based on some do-good sense of “what’s right”.  If we can’t afford it, we can’t afford it.
As much as it is a huge pain in the eyes to see, it’s better than being a pain in our wallets to see open.

Me Being Me

You never can tell what the heck is going through my mind, but if it’s late at night and I’m reading some BORING philosophy assignment for a short essay, then you can usually rest assured that I’m losing my grip on sanity and I need a mental break.
My mini-vaycay was a trip to 7-11 and some Coke Zero.  However, that led to brain freeze and you can see the results below.

Thank God it’s only a temporary affliction and I’m as good as new now.  Back to the books to get this essay done.

My Neighborhood

Just wanted to share a pic of my neighborhood as it looks on a nice day.

More Pics for you to peruse

Alana enjoying her Vanilla Bean with extra caramel frappaccino!

My kiddo showing her true personality.

Where the Magic Will be Happening!

Just wanted to share the photo and my happiness regarding my little desk I put together tonight.  Picked up the whole she-bang at Target for less than $160.  Woohoo!

Life With Alana

I love my daughter.  I really, really, really do love  her and all her tweenster ways.

She’s a precocious child and definitely is at that age, 11 1/2 years old, wherein she seems to think its her birthright to test just how much my very last nerve can handle of her goading, asking for things she already knows are not going to happen, or just exhibits that Gonzalez family tradition of being the smarty pants sarcastic weasel we always seem to be best at being.  But I take all that in stride, because I really do love the kid.

Today, she decided that it would be really cool to show her little mini-Alana–a family friend two years her junior that emulates all Alana does–just how much she can get away with.  Dad, of course, was the intended victim of Alana’s show of force.

I happened to be taking a shower and getting ready for work.  I didn’t hear Alana creep in to the unlocked restroom.  Otherwise, I’d probably have prepared myself, because I also didn’t know she had a pot of ice cold water with her.

There I was.  Enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning shower.  Not a care in the world.  Well, okay, I did have lots of cares, otherwise I wouldn’t have been bothered to get up and get ready to go to work on what should have been a day of soccer in the park, catching up on accounting homework, or just lounging; however, at that moment, I felt carefree.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Well, little carefree me pretty much screamed like I suppose Alana’s little minion would scream if she’d had a pot full of ice cold water tossed over the shower curtain on her nice warm naked bod.  What can I say?  It caught me off guard.  I may put of the facade of being Mr. Tough Guy, but you show me any guy enjoying his shower that can withhold that little girl scream when the ice water cometh.

Obviously, once I regained my composure and realized what had happened I let out the perfunctory, “ALANA!”  To which I heard a snicker, a giggle, and the bathroom door slamming shut.  I knew who it was and why she’d done it.  It was now up to me to decide which direction to take.

Should I jump out, toss on a towel, and fully embarrass her by running out into her room and yelling like the mad dad that I was in front of her friend?  Or, should I just open the bathroom door a smidge and yell out the same stream of angry fatherisms, but without chancing a visit from the police if the little friend decided to tell her parents about Alana’s dad running around naked in a towel in front of their daughter?

I decided to go with the former choice rather than the latter.

I shut off the water, got out, dried off super quick and gathered my thoughts.  Slowly I opened the door a crack and yelled her name again.  This time she responded in her best and most unconvincingly innocent voice, “Yeah, dad?”

After about five minutes of me yelling at the top of my lungs descriptions of all the accidents her little prank could have caused, and then bellowing a few idioms to add some depth to my fatherly rantings, I told her that I’d speak to her further when I was done.  That one always worked on me when I was a kid.  The thought that my parents would take their time to think up things to punish me with always sent extra shivers of fear through mine and my siblings spines.  Mostly, because our overactive young minds would overestimate what exactly our parents had in store.  I was hoping that was what Alana was going through as I dressed.

As I emerged from the restroom, I immediately found out that I had been extremely successful in my psychological warfare and Alana was already exhibiting remorse.  She’d gone out of her way to–in the space of the five minutes I’d taken to shave and brush my teeth and dress–get my backpack packed with my laptop and books.  She’d also started on making me a quick sandwich for lunch and had her little friend helping her.  As I entered the kitchen, I kept my stern look of disapproval on to make sure she knew I hadn’t been kidding with my outrage at her ice water assault.  Alana recognized it and, whether it was real or not, did her best not to crack a smile.  She knew that she’d crossed a line and was doing her best to show what I ascertained to be her best “I’m sorry I did that, Dad” face to me and her friend.

It worked.  I relinquished a bit and winked at her.  As she handed me my lunch and backpack, I gave her a hug and as I walked toward the door, I let her know she’d better not do it again—lest dad get his penultimate revenge.

Hey, I never said I didn’t have a sense of humor about it all.

Hello world!

I need to collect my thoughts.

Organize my thinking.

And get it all together in a format that will allow me to put it in a meaningful and intellectually relevant tome that I can–hopefully–repeat over and over.

Those who know me will recognize that I tend to speak from the heart.  Sometimes I say things that may be considered “controversial”.  At other times, I may say things that we can all agree with as universal.  Either way, if I say it, I mean it.

I hope you can be patient with me on this blog page.  I may not always be able to post on a daily basis.  I am currently a “mature” college student with both a full class load, as well as a full-time job to pay the bills.  I’m also a father to three children.  Two grown boys, 19 and 22, and a young lady who’s 11 going on 25–and testing my nerves every moment of the transition.  So, between being all things to all of those I’m responsible to and for, I will post my thoughts on whatever I’m thinking about on here.

Call it my little web-based island of calm, serenity, and creativity.