Hero of the Day

this is a follow up to my post in which i discussed the subject matter in my sociology class about families. heres the stuff i was refering to:

the characteristics of a healthy family are as follows:

1. Problems are acknowledged and solved
2. All feelings are expressed
3. Communication is direct and congruent
4. All family members can get their needs met.
5. Family members allowed to be different.
6. Anxiety level is low.
7. Parents do what they say they will.
8. Family roles are chosen and flexible.
9. Atmosphere is fun and open.

as i mentioned earlier she showed us a video of a TV show that depicts a family that demonstrates these characteristics surprisingly well, and Shirz was correct in guessing the Osbournes. thats right ladies and gentleman. the fucking Osbournes.

and now for the characteristics of a dysfunctional family... in a dysfunctional family, the children tend to take on roles to deal with the problems facing the family as a whole. and those roles are as follows:

1. Hero / third parent - usually the oldest, is care taker to the other children, often acts as the third parent or parent when mother and father are not around. tends to fall into a rut of constantly giving to the family, takes it upon themself to hold the famil together. is emotionally and physicly drained after a while. often has few friends and no social life.
2. Scapegoat / Rebel - trouble maker, reaching out for attention, even if its bad. deflects attention away from problems with the family by causing problems of their own. resists authority and often contradicts the efforts of the "hero." also tends to take the fall when things go wrong.
3. Mascot / Placator - clown. diverts attention from issues with humor. light hearted and entertaining, tries to avoid the problems and put on a happy face for others to see. this is who grows up to become Jim Carey, Louie Anderson and the like, using comedy to cope with crap from home.
4. Lost Child / Withdrawn - avoids everything. keeps it all bottled up inside and tunes out the world, and is often, in return, ignored. most concerning of all the roles, can lead to long term problems and psychological trauma. "the quiet type who keeps to himelf."

any thoughts? do any of those roles sound familiar? if not, thats a good sign, but i think all families have a bit of dysfunctionality to them.... i know mine does.

Who Are You?

The Nine Personality Types of the Enneagram and how I scored on each type

Type 1: The Reformer. The rational, idealistic type...................... -5

Type 2: The Helper. The caring, nurturing type............................ 8

Type 3: The Motivator. The adaptable, success-oriented type.......... -7

Type 4: The Artist. The intuitive, reserved type.......................... 5

Type 5: The Thinker. The perceptive, cerebral type...................... -2

Type 6: The Skeptic. The committed, security-oriented type............ 7

Type 7: The Generalist. The enthusiastic, productive type............... 1

Type 8: The Leader. The powerful, aggressive type...................... -8

Type 9: The Peacemaker. The easygoing, accommodating type......... 1


For more information about the types, the test or your score, click here.

To take the test yourself and find out a little something about you, click here.

San Fransiscan Nights

yes, I know, I've used this title before. so what? this time it is perfect. absolutely perfect for my post. in case you haven't caught on yet...I DID end up going into the city.... it didn't quite go as planned, but it was better than nothing. first off, as I stated before, I didn't get to leave early so that I could have a bunch of time to do tuff. when I posted my last post it was already well past the time I wanted to leave by... and despite my best efforts, things were still dragging.... I ended up having to pick up a pizza so my grandma and I could eat before leaving. w/e. long story short: I didn't leave home till just after 8. I made it to my grandma's in almost exactly an hour.

at that point I messaged nathan and let him know I was in the area. I then drove to his house. once there, I joined him and crystal in a rousing game of the legend of zelda, the four swords. that was pretty fun. we the played a few deathmatch style games. once that was over we watched a little sealab 2021... hilarious stuff. after 3-4 eps I decided I should go. it was just after midnight.

on the way home, I rolled down the windows and drove fast.the weather was freakin perfect. all day its been nice and sunny and hot, but on the was down, it was perfect. even my grandmam who is ridiculously delicate when it comes to open windows and the like, gad her window opened a bit. on the way back the weather was equally as impressive.... it was about 1 am when I was crossing the golden gate bridge.... which is alsways one of the first things to be engulfed in fog..... but not last night. when I crossed it I was treated to quite the view...... a sparkling city, alearly within view on my right, and a beaming moon high in the sky to my left. just perfect.

Fuck Off

so pissed.

as you know, my grandma is staying over with us. she stated that she wanted to go home today. so i told nathan that i may be going down. we started to talk about what we might be able to do. this morning i call my mom and she tells me that my grandma WONT be going home today. my mom wanted to have one of her co-workers come by and look at our van and see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. and she insisted that i be there. INSISTED. that already put me into a pissy mood.

at work i find that i have a voicemail. its my boss. he informs me that there is a THING in the dumpster that needs to be cut with a hack saw. joy. i go to see what it is, and its a prehistoric table saw that looks like it weighs about 500 lbs. and i have to cut through 2 3 inch thing metal pipes. joy. did i mention that it was nearly 100 degrees out? cuz it was. i cut through the first without a hitch. about half way through the second pipe the blade pops off. hot. i then realize that the piece on the tip of the saw that holds the blade on is gone. somewhere in the dumpster. a dumpster FULL of dry leaves that i swept up around the parking lot and street 2 days ago. and now i have to find a small metal piece. after about 10 minutes to no avail. i go inside to show my boss, he tells me to find it. his reasoning is that it would be cheaper to pay me to look for it than to buy a new saw. gee, thanks. so i go back and begin the daunting task of sifting through dry leaves for a 1 inch piece of metal. after about 20 minutes of bvending over into the dumpster and breathing the wonderful fumes let off by the various forms of garbage inside, i finally found it. i reassembled the saw and tore through the last pipe like my life depended on it. i was sawing off of adrenaline and anger.

after i dismember that piece of shit i take off. get into my truck and call my mom to find out wtf is going on. she tells me that her co worker cant make it today and would be coming by tomorow. WHAT!??!?!?! you mean that i went to work at my normal time and got off at a normal time for nothing?!?!? i had planned to go in early to get out early to take my grandma early so i can hang out in the city with nathan and possibly rene if she was free. but no. my mom told me it wasnt happeneing so i told na6than i couldnt make it and i didnt even bother to see what rene was up to. FUCK!!! now i am stuck here, at home, on a friday noght FOR NO FUCKING REASON!!!!!!. shoot me. shoot me now.

Waiting

today was pretty uneventful for the most part. i managed to stay alert in art history, which i am mrginally proud of.... but the real excitement happened this evening wen i went to school. first some background info: the van, the vehicle that my mom normally drives, is out of commission for whatever reason, so for the past couple weeks i have been taking her to work and picking her up. and since i have started school, she has been taking me to my evening classes and picking me up. and today was no exception... since my grandma is staying over with us for a week or so and my sister has soccer practice, i lose my wheels and gain a chauffeur.

as for class itself it was descent enough, not all that exciting i supose, but it was fairly entertaining, that teacher is nver dry and she is pretty enjoyable. we discussed families and the characteristics of a successfull family and those of a dysfuncional family. she then showed us a video of a fairly well known family on TV that is what she considers a very successfull family. anyone wanna to take a stab at who she is refering to?

anyways, after class i whip out the old sidekick and give my mom a ring to come get me. i call home, assuming she is, you know, home. my brother answers and tells me to tell mom to come pick me up myself (he failed to mention that she wasnt home.... ass) then he realizes that i am unaware that my mom took my grandma shopping. yay. so i hang up and call my mom's cell. she picks up and informs me that she is at walmart. WTF!??!?! walmart is in Rohnert Park, which is about 20 minutes away without traffic. UGH. so i got to wait. but first i walked to deaf dog coffee hoping to get something to drink and place to sit. but after my 1/4 mile walk i found they were closed. so i walked back to school. i sat on the second floor walkway area wich overlooks the turn-about in front of the school and, at the moment, the moon. i just sat there listening to my ipod (SO glad i brought it) and messaging people while i awaited my mother's eventual arrival. she finally got there roughly 1/2 an hour after i got out of class.

after getting home, i volunteered to unload and put away the stuff they bought. i was curious to see what they just had to get at walmart. which turned out to be nothing. all they got were cereals, chips, sodas, binder paper, binders, other school supplies and shampoo. all of which could have been gotten at Safeway, Albertsons, Longs or even, dare i say, K Mart. all of which are within the city limits. goddamnit i was so pissed.

i just got back from walking the dog. luckily the weather is freakin beautiful. not a cloud in the sky, the moon is bright as all hell, and there isnt but a breeze. the air itself is still and temperate. in a word: beautful. i let the dog loose at the highschool and ran out into the middle of the field and collapsed and lay there stairing up into the stars and moon just contemplating my existance for a good 20 minutes. that was the hightlight of my day. in fact, i may go back outside. good times.

South City Midnight Lady

wow. its officially been over a week since an official post to my blog. the last one doesnt count as it is more of a request. and prolly wont be the lst. anyways... as for life. largely uneventful. mostly school and work. my classes are going ok i guess. my art histry class continues to be as exciting as watching grass grow, biology is ok, cuz i have my friend. otherwise, it would be excruciatingly boring and irritating. philosophy is moving along. interesting discussions continue, but then so do the irritating ones. aperently since its philosophy, some students have decided it was their duty to go toe to toe with the teacher on every issue and statement. ugh. that class could be half as long as it is.. if not for all the philosophy being contributed by the class.

i bet one of you is wondering about the title. and wtf it has to do with my post. the anser... nothing. i just picked a song at random and made that my title. i will now go look up the lyrics, read them, link them, and write about it somehow. wow.

ok just read the lyrics. and one person came to mind. (well.. actually 2, but mainly one). margot. man did we miss out on alot of sleep... those couple weeks.... it was weird how we both couldnt sleep like that. but im glad you couldnt when i couldnt. you were really helpful. too bad you ditched yer blog again.... but anyways, thanks again. ttyl.

Back in the Saddle

school hath begun. ive been to 3 out of 4 classes already. so far things are ok. biology looks like alot of dry reading. we have a text book which she actually expects us to read. and a lab manual which we have to read. and of course, in class labs. luckily, no daily HW. per se. its the first class since my first semester that i have a friend in. so thats a plus. i have that mondays and wednesdays. on tuesdays i have "ot histry" (art history) in the morning. the teacher is a brit. hence the attempt at a british accent. its kinda weird to hear coming from a teacher, but its a nice change from the usual. she was fairly easy to follow, despite the accent. our assignements for that class look promising as well. again, no daily hw, at all this time, but we will again have to study our text. as the boredom multiplies.... as it turns out, i was actually warned by a fellow student NOT to buy the text book as we only use 5 chapters from it and dont even need all that is in each chapter. w/e we'll see. and lastly, tuesday nights i will have philosophy. that was an interesting class to say the least. for a 3 hour class, i took only half a page of notes. if that. to say that we went off on tangents would be the understatent of the century. the class, over assuming the philosophical role, analyzed everything the man said and wrote on the board, and questioned him about it. and he was able to dodge and weave his way verbally around just about anything. only once was he left speechless, and that was because he was deep in thought about the upcoming lecture. what erked me about the class was the class's inability to keep from getting politcal. granted, the theme for this semester is "fahrenheit 9/11" (ellen, thats yer que) and at the mere mention i heard the tention form around the room. clearly, this will be a fun class. the girl behind me took it upon herself to state loud enough for the 3 people around her that she hasnt seen it and does not plan to. ok then. here we go....

wow. what an ugly block of just text. but will i fix it? no.

With a Little Help From My Friends

this post i am making on behalf of my friend Nathan. yes THAT Nathan. anyways, hes got this thing for cows, and he made this Michelle Branch shaped box into a hat.... wait thats not right...... anyways, he needs you bored, random, online clickers to randomly go online and click on michellebranch.net and vote for his stupid hat. if he wins he gets some sort of phone call. so go off and vote for the damn thing.

you see, his friends and i all agree that he is totally and utterly obsessed with this woman. and frankly its rather unhealthy. so, if you care at all, you will go there, vote for his box so we can get this godforsaken thing overwith. please vote. please silence him. he wont stop bugging me. so go to michellebranch.net, go to the message boards, sign up for an account, which takes like a minute, and find the thread to vote for the box-hats, and vote for him. his name is MrT for some reason. i dunno, im not gonna ask. for more details, and if you have any questions, go to his blog and ask him. please.

Stuck in a Rut

spent the afternoon in the city. went to stern grove, a small park type thing that is in this big, uhh.. grove, that is a couple hundred feet below street level and surrounded by eucalyptus trees. a nice natural amphitheater type thing. there is an outdorr, open air stage there that is faced by several seats, benches, picnic tables, as well as nice grassy hill and beyond that a nice, dark, tree covered area even further up. all in all a nice place to lay out and watch a nice concert. for free. not bad. problem was, we got there an hour after the concert officially started and the "seating" areas were absolutely packed. i found a nice open area outside the official "amphitheater" that had planty of room, plenty of sun AND shade. but when my mom shows up, she has to sit in the theater area and squeezes all 5 of us in a spot infinitely smaller than the opne i had already settled into which had NO sun at all. w/e. the show was descent, the music was good. it was apropriately blues. since it was the last free concert of the season, the last day for me before school and just generally not good times. but hey, it was a freakin beautiful day.

about a half hour after geting home my brother alerts me of a big mosquito flying around that he lost. w/e. he then yells with excitement about how he found it. aperently, the mosquito... found a spider web. you see nathan, this is why i keep the spiders around. so the mosquito gets stuck, and the resident of the web is alerted and responds immediately by attacking the little bugger. it was great, like some sort of private national geographic experience. i checked back later to see that the mosquito had been nicely wrapped. go spiders.

King Nothing

breaking news: i got nothing.
ever since my run in with a bicyclist my week has taken on a monotonousness that can be compared to, say, making arrows. i admit, thats prolly more monotonous, but it seems like my entire week is like that. like i cant discern one day from another. ironicly, the only unique aspects of my week occured at work. if it werent for the sheer variety of tasks that i am responsible for, id probably have gone nuts. it just sucks cuz this was my last week of summer, and i did nothing inetersting, nothing of note and nothing worth remembering. it sucked. i know, i know, the week isnt over, but friday doesnt look all that promising. i supose i could always hope for the best, but past luck tells me, tomorow might as well be wednesday.

this just in: i still have nothing.

and now we go to Ollie for the black-cue weather forecast. Ollie?

Walk Idiot Walk

so i'm running errands for work, after delivering banking i was on my way to pick up a sign rider from a listing. im heading south on water street, a street that runs along the river for a block and then swings around to become western heading west. at the intersection of western and petaluma blvd. i had a green light and was planning on turning left onto the blvd.... but a bicyclist had other plans....

as i crossed into the intersection a 16 yearold on his bike, who had been riding on the sidewalk, slammed into my front driverside fender. he hit pretty hard. i stopped immediately and asked him if he was ok. luckily for me, there was an ambulance waiting at the stoplight (the same red light that he ran i might add) one of the paramedics got out to investigate while the other, the driver, drove across the street and pulled over. the paramedics saw the whole thing and thus allowed for us to avoid any sort of arguement. they called for a police squad car to come by and write up a report. i still have to fill out a sheet of my accounts of the accident. but since the paramedics were eyewitnesses of the entire thing, and they spoke with the police officer, i think my story is pretty solid.

as for my truck, he hit first right in front of the wheel where his handlebar left a dent and scuff mark, i ran over his front wheel and his bike kind of shifted left (as i was still moving) and he swung around and his body hit the truck just in fron of the door. im not sure what hit, but there is a dent there as well. his head hit my mirror, which folded back as it was designed to do. his knee was pretty banged up from something, and he prolly has a bunch more bumps and bruises that he wasnt feeling yet, but overall, hes in good shape. good enough that the paramedics themselves left the scene after giving their account of the accident. i just hope his parents take care of my freakin repairs. poor truck. :-(

another thing that didnt escape me was this kid's luck.... what if i didnt drive so quickly down water street? what if he had been going faster? if either of those were the case, it would have been me blind siding him. that would have been quite a bit worse for him.

Amazing Journey

(updated)
my buddy lacey is going to "the lake" on friday. of course, she has to register for her next semester of classes on friday, so she asked me if I could register for her classes for her. sure. why not.
so this naturaly requires a formal training session, which I attended at lacey's house. that was sorta fun. then she informed me that I was gonna go with her and her parents to IHOP for breakfast. I then found out I'd be taking her to Mervyn's to exchange a pair of jeans. w/e.
breakfast was good, her parents were.... interesting.then I drove her to mervyn's for her shopping craving to be satisfied. w/e. I don't care. w/e works. I'll take any time with a friend I can get. plus she said she just wanted an excuse to see me. that was nice. she's great, we can exchange such dialogue without any concern as she
lives with her bf and they've bee together for ever. I wish I had more friends like her.... but she can be a little weird sometimes. and her friends creep me out. but I love her.

so then i go to work. and i am faced with several deliveries. there are 2 waiting in my box to go to other real estate offices, plus a sign rider and flyer box that i was informed of since last week. so, thats 3. then i had banking to do.. so thats a few more right there. lemme see.... 6 banks today. so now we're at a total of 9 deliveries. then i get a voice mail that an agent wants me to go refil a flyer box i put up on friday night. this is a special one as it is in Novato, which is about 15 or so miles south. w/e. 10. on my way out another agent stops me and asks if i can take down sign riders and flyer boxes on 2 of her listings, one in town and one in Cotati... a town about 10 miles NORTH. 12. TWELVE errands of some form or another. and not only that, 2 are out of town and in opposite dirrections. yay. long story short, i put 76 miles on the truck today and didnt finich my errands until an hour or so after i usually get off work. so i put in a bunch of hours and a bunch of miles. at final tally, i think i made $80 for today's work. not bad. and most of it was done driving through the summer weather in California's Wine Country. good times.

also, check out my post on the Who concert for the updated and official set list.

In the City

Giants.....6
Cubs.......3

No HRs. No problem. 'twas a great game. the giants in particular had a few spectacular deffensive plays, as well as a few embaracingly bad ones. but the cubs made at least 3 HUGE blunders that cost them at LEAST thoes 3 runs that they lost by.
(they left third base uncovered due to the huge shift for Bonds and a runner was able to advance. they let drop a routine fly ball that allowed a run to score. and the pitcher over threw the first baseman on what should have been a routine force out after a bunt.) so, with a little help from our friends, the giants pulled it off.

but i dont want to diminish the achievements of the giants themselves.... Dustan Mohr had an incredible diving catch to get the giants out of a tough ining, and Noah Lowry, out starter, pitched pretty well and at one point picked off a runner.

also, it was the 8th birthday of our beloved mascot Lou Seal, and so we had several honored guests, including the Niner's own "Sourdough Sam", the A's "Stomper," the Warrior's "Thunder," the Shark's "Sharky," as well as mascots from the Blue Jays, the Reds, and of course, the Philly Fanatic. the mascots put on quite a show before and during the game, doing what they do best. its stupid entertainment, but its entertainment nonetheless. (i especialy liked how they rushed the singer of the national anthem and carried her off the field. she was a 10 year old girl from Santa Rosa, just north of here, who did quite a good job with the song that is too often butchered.)

(Al Davis, the Raider's mascot, was unable to attend.) OH!

The Kids Are Alright

(updated)
the concert was awesome. it was at the shoreline, which for those of you who are unfamiliar, is an outdoor amphitheater. there are several rows of seats around the stage with a huge hill like bowl beyond that on which we sat. it was great cuz I was able to just lay down on the grass and stare up into the stars at several points.... that was so awesome. sorry carrine, didn't get yer request for a souvenier till after, 'sides, they were ridiculously expensive. (a tshirt for 50 bucks?!?!?!) so... ill post a set list of what they played when I get home. I tried to make one on the fly, but I missed a couple that I either didn't know or didn't get down. anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed the show, pete and roger haven't lost their touch. pete and his windmill guitar smacking and roger's microphone aerobatics, not to mention his still powerful voice..... not bad for a couple 60 year olds. and now, I have a baseball game to attend later on today.

on a side note: i found out today that the terrific drummer who was playing with the who during their tour is none other than the son of the drummer of a little known band from Liverpool. :-)

official set list:

I Can't Explain
Substitute
Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
Baba O'Riley
Behind Blue Eyes
Real Good Looking Boy
Who Are You
Drowned
Punk And The Godfather
Love Reign O'er Me
Eminence Front
You Better You Bet
The Kids Are Alright
My Generation / Old Red Wine
~~Encore~~
Won't Get Fooled Again
Pinball Wizard
Amazing Journey / Sparks
See Me Feel Me
Listening To You

"good night and be lucky"
-Roger Daltrey

Baba O'Riley

just an update on the state of.... me. just got up about an hour ago. finally caught up on my sleep. geez has my sleeping schedule gone to hell lately. anyways, im hungry at the momeent as i have yet to eat anything... in almost 16 hours. ugh.

anyways, the title of thise post actually has nothing to do with the content, for a change, but instead it has something to do with coming attractions. for those of you who dont know i am going to a Who concert tomorow evening. for some reason.. i am not all that stoked about it. i should be. but im not. (the band whos songs are used for the theme songs of the various CSI tv shows, for those unfamiliar with The Who) i dunno. on sunday im going to a Giants game with my dad and siblings. that should be good times as well. but again, not all that excited. i dont know why. err... why not. but im sure it will all change once im there. you know, at the gates of the respective venues.

other than that. i got nuthin.

In My Time Of Dying

my uncle and his family is going up to Yosemite for the rest of the week. he calls yesterday and asks my mom if we could watch his dog. its a Ridge-back / Rottwieller mix that HATES men. though she has learned to tolerate me over the years. so now our dog count has come to 3: my australian shephard, my sisters chihuahua puppy, and my uncles mut. good times for me. my mom then informs me that my grandma, who is alergic to dogs i might add, will be staying with us in a couple days for a few days. wtf? whos brilliant scheme is this? so. now i will have to deal with my grandma, who is an exagerated version of my mother, an additional dog, and the usual suspects. help. as if i werent strressed out enough!

i am expecting the pope to show up on saturday to give a service on sunday. elvis will be here on monday for the week and we will be hosting the tooth ferry during the rest of august.

oh. and the service the pope will be doing? my funeral. ken has volunteered to do the eulogy. would anyone else like to speak? how bout some pall barers? anyone? anyone?