7/1/2002 6:50:07 PM
Is this a doddering old man I see sniveling before me?

As I sit here typing TV news is telling all residents of Penn Hills (where I live) that the East End Rapist, armed and dangerous, this morning after a police chase, has ended up in one of the woods hereabout. Keep your doors locked. And your eyes peeled.

The office of Home Security has asked all Americans to look out for anything peculiar. We are on high alert during the 4th of July holiday weekend.

Two truck loads of coils are being shipped to a job site in Cleveland Ohio at least a week early and with little goddam notice. Surprise!, I’ll cry when I awaken tomorrow and tell the crew of unprepared workers to look out the window and figure a way to get those nine 3000-5000 pound babies across the dock and into the safety of the presently empty cold produce-to-be cooler.

At another job site we managed to receive a common place across-the-line reduced voltage start 150 Horsepower Electric Motor instead of the more rare and more difficult to find part winding start 150 HP Electric Motor. It only costs money to fix it.

I nearly stopped at a stop sign in Wilkins Township over the weekend and was sorrowfully given a $95.00 ticket by a young crisp crew cutted law officer, who was, he said, letting me off easy because it would not carry the three points against my license and insurance. The people in the neighborhood were complaining about horribly careless drivers.

Because I paid via electronic transfer, my cable internet line provider, which apparently can not receive electronic transfers (cash them, of course, just not log them) shut my connection off until I emailed (at work via the DSL line there) proof that I had paid them.

We added two computers with the Windows XP Professional operating system and I have spent the past week scaring up drivers for printers, print servers, scanners, cameras, DVDs CDs, upgraded software, and, by gum, two optical mice and one damaged keyboard.

My laptop keyboard developed alien typing syndrome, wherein anything typed on the right hand portion of the keyboard came up as those interesting ASCII symbols that must be of use to some one on Aldeberan. Tech support in Houston called to let me know that I had left the key pad in a locked position and that everything worked fine once they pushed the Pad Lock Key. Bad I am, but I pushed that key many a time and the damn thing still wouldn’t work. What? The air trip and rumors of Middle Eastern terrorists, scared the thing into proper operation? I’m afraid I’ve just become another stupid tech support story.

My VPN (Virtual Private Network) at home will not recognize my Virtual Private Network at work. Oh, yes, it worked for a day or two just long enough to give me the flush of hope. I am almost never home so I have to figure it out or figure some way to call the bastards during the day. Beam me over, Scotty. Uhh, on second thought is that teleport beamer configured with some network card. Remember the fly? Ugh, all those intermingling fly and human body parts.

So I am bent, beaten and bewildered this week. Where is the young Joe who used to laugh in the face of danger? Who made naked love to his wife in a park atop Berkeley while the East Bay Slasher was impaling people weekly in the dark? (It was my wife’s idea, honest. And now that I saver it, not a bad one.) Where is the young Joe who used to laugh at electronic gadgets and give them a sharp tap with a very large hammer until the blasted circuitry either worked correctly or was toddled off to the gadget bone yard? Where is the young Joe who used to ridicule the high panic of news reporters who have nothing better to do than to feed and make us all crazy with fear? Where is the young Joe who used to drive in the face of the worst winter blizzard or drive without care through summer monsoon? Who used to take the garbage out in the morning?

Here. I guess. Just older. Not as stupid. Not as much to prove. More cautious. Mature! Still it would be nice to lose a little of the fear that manages to bind me and brings with it unhealthy dollop of paranoia. Or maybe it’s just the weight of this week. Who did me more harm the rapist of the policeman? The terrorist or the TV news anchor? Is it worse, if I am victim or perpetrator?

I’ll take off my clothes, if you take off yours.