Category Archives: The Basics

I had mentioned on the last post how it seemed that Charles Schultz may have had issues with women because all the girls in the Peanuts comics were quite nasty to Charlie Brown. 

OMG, check this out:

Charles Schultz and I were born on the same day.   As a child, I always related to Charlie Brown.  After watching A Charlie Brown Christmas again this year, I was surprised at how I still relate to him. 

What a profound little show.  It’s amazing how it still holds up to today’s standards considering it’s forty-two years old.  Of course, I’m forty-two and I’m still holding up. 

Lucy Van Pelt says that she never gets what she really wants for Christmas–real estate.  Little Sally is all about the presents.  Charlie Brown complains about the commercialism of the season when he sees Snoopy entering a Christmas decoration contest.  Could you imagine how Charlie would feel today?  

The best part is when Linus tells Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about by reciting the passage from the bible about the birth of Christ because that IS what Christmas is all about.  It has nothing to do with trees, Santa’s, Rudolph’s red nose or presents. 

Now, I’m not talking about all the other holidays that happen this time of year.  I’m not talking about that whole Happy Holidays PC bullshit.  I’m talking about the true meaning of Christmas.  I’m talking about how our society, through overcommercialism, has forgotten its past, its legacy.  It seems like every holiday now has a commercial component to it.  Is it just me or has every Target or WalMart dedicated a section of floorspace to a holiday or event day? 

Better break out the shamrocks, it’s March. 

Charlie Brown was a truth seeker which is a textbook trait of the Sagittarian.  I see a lot of myself in Charlie Brown.  I bet there is a lot of Charles Schultz as well.   I think Mr Schultz had issues with women though.  While the boys may laugh at Charlie Brown along with the crowd, it’s the girls who repeatedly call him a blockhead and remind him of how stupid he is.  There is a new biography out on Schultz.  I’m waiting for the paperback. 

The real highlight of the Charlie Brown Christmas is the music of Vince Guaraldi.  Mr. Guaraldi died way too young but released several jazz albums on the Fantasy label.  I love everything he does.  There are several tribute albums dedicated to Vince which is a total joke because the true genius of his music is him playing the piano. 

Linus knew the true meaning of Christmas.  I think Linus knew a lot more than that.  He’s like the weird kid on the block who grows up to be a rocket scientist.  

I struggle with the Christian religion.  The idea of the holy birth of Jesus coming to save me from sin sure sounds great until the whole, “You’re gay!?!  The bible says it’s wrong.” thing pops up.  

It just seems like that would be the last thing to come out of the mouth of Jesus.

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

Parker cat is warm and cozy on my lap.  Thanks to XM, Andy Williams is Most Wonderful Time of the Year-ing in the background.  Ray is on the other computer checking his email.  It’s dark outside.  Very, very dark.  We are at the zenith of the winter blues and thankfully, the solstice has come and gone.  The days will be getting longer now.

Thank God.

This is the time of year that I have to let go of the fact there is nothing I can do to make the days get longer or warmer–unless I move to the southern region of the planet.  The worst part of it all is during the daytime, I’m stuffed in a room with two (sometimes three) other people and eight banks of fluorescent lights on full blast (Actually, it’s seven banks.  The one over my head had the bulbs removed but it does no good because the other evil fluorescent lights spread their fake icky light everywhere).  The guy who sits next to me by the window closes the blinds and the other guy next to the other window has his blinds positioned so that the light just falls on his work area. 

Why, why, WHY do people do that?!?  I will never understand why they put people next to windows when they just close the blinds and shut out all the light.  Also, the idea of multiple people in one room with no windows is totally ridiculous unless you’re in a call center or part of some big noisy bullpen. 

The other fun thing on top of the lighting situation is the expectation for me to not make any noise whatsoever.  I got “talked to” when I first started here for having a conference call at my desk.  It seems my “noise” was disturbing.  It was suggested that I find an empty office to make those types of calls.  Those types of calls?  I have to talk to people all the time!  Why can’t they just put me in the empty office? 

I don’t mean to go off on a tangent,  we’ve had a particularly bad day month at work and today–Christmas friggin eve–was the end all be all whopper.  READ: Aside from a major thing that I don’t need to go into detail about, ’cause I had nothing to do with it, my cubemate was cursing under his breath, throwing things around on his desk, pounding the hell out of his keyboard, and sighing loudly a lot.  Meanwhile, I had to sit in florescent light hell trying to be as quiet as a church mouse. 

This just sums up the holidays for me.  Dead relatives, bad mojo in the office, driving to work in the dark, leaving work in the dark and all sorts of other crap that is taking this blog post into the downward spiral of holiday buzzkill.   I guess should be happy because it’s Christmas or the holidays or whatever PC term we’re calling it now.  Or should I?  We’re at war.  The economy is tanking.  The polar caps are melting.  All I see on the news about the holiday season is how the retail market is suffering because people aren’t buying enough.  That last sentence is the clincher.  Gift giving shouldn’t put you in debt!  I especially don’t want people to give me things because then I feel obligated to give in return and unless you can afford a Nikon D80 SLR 10.2 Megapixel Digital Camera to replace my other camera that died, I don’t want anything.  I certainly don’t need anything.

All I really want for Christmas is:

• World peace–really
• My mom’s knee to heal
• Ray’s mom to stay as healthy as a 91 year old woman can stay
• My dad’s cancers to go away
• A competent president
• Global unwarming
• A Britney free 2008 (this includes her up and coming trashy little sister)
• R&D funds for alternative energy
• Better guitar skills
• Success on my ginormous project at work
• Not being freaked out by my ginormous project at work
• Arizona to observe DST
• Improvement on my writing skills
• Success at the gym (Oh please Santa!)

This blog post is not very cheery.  It’s been a challenging few weeks and I’m mad at myself for neglecting my blog.  I apologize to the readers for the icky vibe but I’m still going to post this entry.  Sometimes you just have to keep moving forward even if it’s through some of the muck. 

Tell you what, I’ll push through the muck and you walk behind me through the clean path until we get to a better place.  How’s that sound?  I promise we’ll get there.  I know because Mr. Optimist is much bigger and stronger than Mr. Pessimist.

Mr. Pessimist just has to go now.

Merry friggin’ Christmas…bah humbug.

My Grandfather was Robert Cobban.  My uncle is, was, is Robert Cobban as well.  I too am Robert Cobban.  We all went by Bob.  I’m not sure if my grandfather did.  He died many, many years before I was born. 

My Uncle Bob quietly slipped away last night.  Almost left without anyone seeing.   Such a polite man. 

To be honest, I am physically too tired with the trainer and mentally too tired with other things to write some profound words for my uncle.  I’m sure he’ll (and you’ll) understand that my blog posts are kind of on hold for the holidays.  I will write about Uncle Bob in the future.  For now I will share this post from when we first found out he was ill. 

Arrangements.

Last night I had my first session with my new–new personal trainer.  I had one session a while back with a little Irish guy at the fru fru more expen$ive gym in Sierra Vista but found a cheaper gym closer to home and decided to try that.  The only drawback was the trainer they offered was a woman.  No offense to women but I really wanted a fit guy to help in my fitness goals.  The desire to have a fit, totally hot, male trainer was soon outweighed by the fact that this gym was closer, cheaper and the realization that it didn’t really matter who was training me as long as they know what they were doing. 

She knew what she was doing.

Boy howdy she did.  I worked muscles I didn’t know I had.  I liked her a lot too.  She has great energy.  The gym is kind of old and run down but that seemed to attract a more serious clientele of hot buff guys.  Now I get why some of my friends only like to work out in a gym.  Seeing all these guys is total eye candy plus inspiration to do that extra rep.  They all like Suzie too.  That’s my trainer.  There was this one big guy working out who had that gruff don’t-look-him-in-the-eye thing going on.  He had some of his stuff on a bench we needed to use.  The minute he saw us standing by the bench, he ran over apologizing while he collected his goods.  He was really nice and chatty to me.  I think I did about five sets of a thousand reps. 

I’m going to make an effort to go three times a week.  I say make an effort because I have so many other things going on for the next three months including a play in late March.  I play three characters.  Oy! 

I slept like a rock and feel like I totally worked out.  I’m putting my faith in Suzie.  I really think know she’s going to be able to help me out.

Just got back from Lost Angeles.  Ray and I went to see our moms again.  The worst part about going out there is the nine hour drive.  Normally, we stay in Phoenix over night on the way out.  This time Ray had to get to his mom’s early so I dropped him off at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport so he could fly ahead and I got a motel room in Quartsite. 

You haven’t lived until you spend a night in a motel in Quartsite.

My mother is doing surprisingly well since the knee operation and Ray’s mom is much better since the Thanksgiving episode.  All that aside, it was good to check in on them.  The only thing that really sucked was driving miles and miles (and miles) with eighteen wheelers being erratically driven by people on cell phones.  That freaks me out.  Then there’s the people who seem to forget that the left lane is for faster traffic–even if they are going the speed limit, they need to move the hell over.

I have been to both Chicago and LA three times this year, Philadelphia twice and San Francisco once.  I have to go to New Hampshire for a week in January and DC in February.  I think I’ll stay home for the holidays with my man and our kitty.  It may sound boring to some but for me, it’s a slice of heaven.