Flame On!, Inc.

Bridge: A structure built over a river, railroad, highway, etc. to provide a way across for vehicles or pedestrians.


Burn one's bridges: To cut off all of one's ways to retreat.

I am not an expert in many things, but I do have a lot of experience in burning bridges. I once owned a company that was called "Flame On!" I thought the exclamation point was a nice touch. Not only did I burn bridges I made sure that everyone knew I was responsible. I was not modest in my bridge burning escapades. I didn't dress in camouflage fatigues and burn the bridge under cover of darkness. I showed up in a motorcade with The Ohio State University marching band and a bunch of those big inflatable balloons that you see in the Macy's New Year's Day parade, like Woody Woodpecker and Smokey the Fire-Setting Bear. I burned those bridges good. If I didn't get the credit and attention that I thought I deserved, sometimes I went back, built a pontoon bridge on the smoldering embers of the original structure, and burned down that fucking thing, too.


SuperK and I were having a discussion this morning about a meeting she was going to attend with someone who isn't behaving very well. SuperK is quite the bridge burner herself. She doesn't have my flair and overwhelming shock and awe techniques, but she burns bridges quick-like. She doesn't always burn them down completely, but there are a lot of fire damaged bridges in her wake. She has a portable flame-thrower she uses for quick scorchings. I have to get the equipment prepped and staff the operation and coordinate schedules -- it's a whole operation. With her, bridge builders don't know what hit them. "You didn't say that!" I comment all of the time, a little afraid.


I was a little worried about her meeting. I opened the window as she trudged off to catch the bus, leaving me to do whatever it is that I do. I don't waste time any more suggesting prayers or calling of sponsors. I usually get a quick taste of hot, hot flame when I do that.

"Remember," I said. "If people think that you are stupid, open your mouth and remove all doubt."

"Yeah, yeah," she replied.

Major Tom to Ground Control

Have you ever watched one of those nature documentaries that show some huge, ungainly bird trying to land? I don't know which birds I'm talking about. I can make some names up if it makes the story better. Arctic geese? The Falklands albatross? The blue-footed booby? These animals are so majestic in flight, traveling thousands of miles to summer in a warmer climate, flying, flying, always flying. Then they try to land. The nature film makers obviously have a bit of a mean streak so they show the landing process in slow motion: the birds come crashing in, falling on their faces . . . er, beaks or whatever . . . bouncing in before coming to a stop. Then they try to wander off nonchalantly like everything went according to plan. What are you laughing at? I meant to do that.

I feel like that most of the time. I'm flying in, I'm tired and I have to eat and I know it's time to land, but I have never really mastered the art of face-free landing. I'm always surprised when my face hits the ground, even when I know my face is going to hit the ground, like it does every time. I guess the growth is that I try to land, and that I don't just fly into the cliff at full speed or try to take out a whole bunch of my fellow Falklands boobies when I crash. "If I'm going to hit my face, I'm taking you sons-of-a-bitch with me!" That kind of thing.

I want to be in control of the process, whatever the process is. That's the First Step in code: YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF THE PROCESS. I think a good slogan for my life might be DON'T MAKE IT WORSE. My life would go better if I didn't make things more complicated. Some times I have to move forward when I don't know what the outcome is gong to be or when I see that some pain might be involved or I might be denied some pleasure that I have come to expect as my birthright.

It's scary moving forward.

With Friends Like These . . .

This is how wonderful The Program is:

Willie listened patiently today while I dramatically retold my tale of woe about work. I could hear him stifling guffaws and chortles as he pretended to be sympathetic. But when I told him that I did manage to calm down before I torched any bridges, he yelled: "Oh, c'mon! I was looking forward to the big ending. You mean The Program worked? You asshole!"

Ah, yes.

So, So Very Humble

Humility: The state or quality of being humble of mind or spirit; absence of pride or self-assertion.

I'm one of those rare people who have a lot of humility. In fact, I have the most humility of anyone I know. I'm just that humble. No doubt about it. Sometimes I wonder if I have more humility than anyone else in the world. I think that if you spent some time with me you'd see that this is indeed true. Get to know me. My humility will hit you in the face like an icy blast of Celtic wind.

I got upset at work again yesterday, which is happening with a frequency that I'm beginning to find distressing. I don't think I'm being treated very well -- imagine that -- and I don't like it. Compounding the issue is that, in reality, I am actually not being treated very well. I think this happens in corporations pretty often. Things start to swirl out of control, people are saddled with more and more responsibility and not enough time to do it, and they become less likely to do anything but look out for their own interests. I'm sure I'm doing it, too. I'm humble enough to admit that. Not change my behavior, of course, but at least admit it.

When I get upset about something I can almost always trace it to the Big Three: Sex, Society, or Security. It's pretty clear when I get bent around the axle if someone messes with my money or my sexual appetites. The ego thing is a little more subtle for me. I'm not a dominant personality that way, in the clashing of egos. I prefer to sit quietly in the shadows and judge everyone. I'm better than you are and I know it so I don't have to prove it.

Someone that I don't like asked me to do something that I don't want to do. It involved a lot of work and scant possibility of making any money to justify my efforts. So I said no, and this guy (the BLOWHARD of past fame) went and tattled to the area manager, who called me and left a voice mail to the effect of, yes, you will be doing this thing. I work for myself so technically I don't have to do it. However, he has the ability to fire my ass back into the stone age so technically, I damn well better do it. I knew this intellectually but couldn't connect my mouth to my intellect. Damn thing goes off like a firecracker sometimes.

I made the mistake of listening to the VM at 10PM last night right before hopping into bed. Generally a bad time to get riled up. I had to go sit on the porch, in the dark, in my jammies for 20 minutes to reduce my heart rate to below coronary level.

Pausing really works. I got up this morning and did the right thing with no major damage done.

Check In -- Check Out.

Vacation: Freedom from any activity; rest; respite; intermission.

The bad thing about work is that it interferes so much with my time off of work. I like vacations very much and find work tedious and time-consuming, especially when I'm comparing it to vacations. I can feel the pressure of the real world slithering up my spine my very first morning back. All of that adult responsibility and all of those things that have to be done. Yeech.

I have such great quiet times when I'm on vacation. No place I have to go, no rigid schedules, nothing that has to be accomplished at some specific time. It's easier to let my mind empty and wander pleasantly when no one is asking me to pretend that I'm an adult, which is not an insignificant feat for me, I can assure you that. I do, however, have to brush my teeth and floss regularly even on vacation. I can't let myself relax into poor dental hygiene. I have big teeth and the stray piece of lettuce or bangers and mash can make a big impression on any one that I smile at, especially any young women that I hope might think I'm anything more than a failing old man, which is none of them.


I wonder if the pressures of real life make the vacation experience more pleasant? The fact that I have some semblance of a real life might make the time off sweeter. Not that I do that much even when I'm under the pressures of a real life, whatever that might look like. Still, I kind of get my mind around the concept of walking into a day and seeing what might happen when I'm on vacation. The great thing about travel is that you don't know what you might find. A lot of the time the best experiences are the ones that you stumble into blindly.

Stumbling Blindly. That would be a good name for a rock band.

IRE-land

The only thing worse than the first day back from vacation is listening to someone who has just come back from vacation complain about how much it sucks trying to get back into the swing of things after being on vacation.


My favorite road sign from Ireland read: "No Verge." I don't think that I verged. Maybe I did. I really don't know.

There were a lot of drunks in Ireland. It was apparently perfectly acceptable to drink in the morning there based on what I saw in the pubs. Pubs, I was told, were more like community centers than places to drink. You could order meals, coffee, and the like. Yeah, well, how about feeding me some more bullshit with my toast? Any small, dark, low-ceilinged room lined with liquor bottles and featuring beers, stouts, ales, and more beers on tap would appear to be bars in my opinion. I'm not criticizing pubs, mind you, merely suggesting that I wasn't comfortable hanging out in them, preferring the driving rain and howling winds that pass for summers in Ireland.

I best get myself to a meeting tonight.

Derry Air

I'm getting ready to toodle off to Ireland for a bit of a vacation.

"What do you need a vacation for?" SuperK asked. "You don't do anything now. What, are you busy down at the office, which you don't have one to go to?"


As vacations go this one shouldn't be too stressful vis-a-vis the planning department. Exotic enough but manageably so. Still I find myself struggling to contain the fear that creeps into every crack and crevice of my being whenever I do something new. I'm always surprised at how the anxiety starts to build as I get ready to go somewhere I've never been before. Something is sure to go HORRIBLY WRONG. SuperK worries she isn't taking the right clothes, which perplexes me.

"It's Ireland," I said. "They have stuff there, too. It's not like we are going to Tajikistan." Which was the first place I suggested for our summer vacation this year


"What are you anxious about?" she wonders.

"Murderers. A bad seat on the airplane. Getting screwed by a devious taxi driver. Something happening to MY STUFF when I'm gone."

"No wonder you drank," she says, a comment I hear a lot.


I love to travel and I aways enjoy the experience. I get all riled up before I go but I go anyhow. There is some fear that is worth walking through.

Basically, I'm uncomfortable trying anything new. I might do it wrong. I might not like it. The fact is that I lose control with new experiences and that makes me uncomfortable. But I get bored at the drop of a hat so I bitch about that. This is why I go places. It's scary but I move through the scary part and find it very rewarding and enriching. Things almost never go wrong and when they do it makes for great stories. And I start to recognize the difference between real fear (dark alley at 3 AM) and bullshit fear ("something" going horribly, horribly wrong).

I wonder how many of my posts are about fear. Most of them? All of them?