Looking forward to Friday

It’s been a long week, although I’m not really sure why. For some reason I’m beat and the longest day for me is still waiting for me. 

It’s rained most of the week and it’s gone from cold to hot to warm. At the moment I’m sitting here typing this listening to some crazy bird in the backyard. I don’t know what kind of bird it is, but it’s making a specific tweet (not the Twitter kind) in a very rhythmic pattern. At first I thought about closing the window, but then I got thinking about all the snow and cold and being stuck in the house for the past 5 months and how happy I am to have a window open and to hear a bird and to see the buds on the trees. Spring is a really great time and it would be silly to miss any of it. 

I don’t drink caffeine, except for the occasional diet Mountain Dew, so relying on artificial means for a boost is worthless. Working out tonight seemed to help a little, but after the adrenaline wears off I’m more beat than I was before. 

I try to enjoy every day and to get the most out of my experiences, but to be honest sometimes I think I’d just like to experience a nice long nap.

Royal Pain in the Neck

In a couple days there will be a wedding in England where Prince William (I think) will wed his sweetheart. As the day approaches the news coverage has intensified greatly and every morning that’s about all the news channels seem to cover. 

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about the royal family or the wedding or any of it, but I’m also saddened by how much attention is being given to this whole affair. Young men and women are dying in battlefields, democracy is trying to get a foothold in the middle east, and our own country is drowning in debt and the lingering effects of the great recession. Of course I recognize that happy events like weddings and sports help us take our minds off the other terrible things going on in the world, but I wonder what it would be like if the news people reported the horrors in the middle east with the same fervor as they do the royal wedding.

I love distractions like sports and music and such, but the royal wedding seems like so much excess in this time and place, especially for folks who have done little more than be born to the right parents. All indications are that both Princes are nice people and try go give freely of their time and treasure to worthy causes, but I still can’t help feel like I’ll be glad when I don’t have to hear about this anymore. 

Momentum

This week I’ve recommitted myself to blogging here and to continuing my work on my business site, rikermedia.com. Working 4 jobs, raising a family, and trying to get by every day tends to take its toll on me and sometimes I hit a rut like the one I fell into a recently. 

Thankfully I seemed to have snapped out of it after my best friend won his bodybuilding competition and earned his pro card and after I attended the Rush concert in Cleveland last weekend. Both events seem to have recharged my batteries and I’ve found myself working late into the night all week and most importantly, glad to be doing it. 

I imagine everyone has ups and downs, times of extreme productivity and times of nearly no productivity. I’m not sure what other people do to snap out of a rut, and quite frankly I’m not sure why the two events I mention had such an effect on me, but they did and I’m grateful for it. 

Through it all I’ve been continuing to get better using Twitter. I’ve gone from being a ‘lurker’ who only watched Tweets, to someone who is engaging with people and sending some of my own Tweets. I’ve also tried to reTweet things I think are helpful or interesting, particularly to the Riker Media Twitter account and I’m seeing solid results in the number of followers I’m gaining. I’m not really hung up on the number of followers anyone has, but I do think it’s an indication that people are interested and it also gives me a chance to interact with more people. 

As spring arrives here in western NY, hopefully things continue to bloom for me and Riker Media. I feel the momentum building and each little thing, like a new follower or interaction on Twitter or new improvements to rikermedia.com serves to propel me forward, hopefully to bigger and better things. 

Make it Stop

A little while ago I saw a tweet that a little girl had been shot in the city of Rochester. Subsequent tweets say she is 11 and was shot in the face, but her injuries are not life threatening. 

I love when the media reports that injuries are not life threatening. I often wonder if injuries like the one reported today are life altering. How does a little girl deal with being shot in the face?  According to the story some fool started firing a gun and apparently this little girl was in a car that happened to be in the way. How do they explain that to her?

I grew up in a small town in central New York where killings were a big deal. If someone was shot or shot and killed it was front page news and all you heard about on the evening news. It was shocking and a little scary. Since I became a Rochester resident 15 years ago I’ve noticed that I don’t even pay attention to the murders and shootings anymore. A child getting shot certainly gets my attention, but it is not nearly as shocking as it would have been while I lived in my small town haven. 

To be honest it makes me sad that I am ‘used’ to news of people being shot. I’m sure it’s not all because I moved out of a sleepy little town and into a big(er) city. Certainly growing up is a factor, as is the evolution of the internet and a 24/7 news stream, but I can’t help but wonder if I ad never left my hometown would I still be shocked by people killing each other. 

After reading about the little girl, I followed a link in another tweet that led to a youtube video of a man being killed in Libya. It was apparently taken by someone in a crowd with a flip cam or phone and it was very graphic. There was a crowd and as one man runs across the street he falls dead with a gun shot through his head. There was  lots of blood and then the crowd seemed to get very irritated. It was disturbing, but it was also reality.  

I understand that death is part of life and thanks to the internet we can see it happening everywhere in real time. Of course earlier in the day I watched a video of a woman with a spinal injury who was able to walk down the aisle on her wedding day with the assistance of her father and brother. That video was very happy – the smile on her face told the entire story. 

Despite all that I see, I don’t understand how an 11 year old girl comes to be shot in the face sitting in the back of a car. I bet most people don’t understand, so I doubt I’m alone. At least in Libya they are fighting for a reason. Getting shot in the back of a car is meaningless. 

I really have no point with this post except to get out some of the disturbing images and stories I’ve seen today. Sometimes I am astounded at the things going on all around me, both good and bad and it feels good to get it out of my mind and into print (or blog or whatever).

Cleveland

This past Fri (4/15) I traveled to Cleveland to see my favorite band, Rush. I saw them in September at the NYS Fair, and they were incredible. On Friday I thought they were even more incredible!  The concert was filmed and will become their next live DVD, so I think that played a huge role in the atmosphere. The crowd was nuts, and Neil, Alex, and Geddy seemed especially energetic. Cleveland is only a 4 hour drive from Rochester and it was worth every minute!

I don’t know what it is about Rush that gets me so fired up. I’ve played the drums for 30 years and Neil Peart is one of the best drummers ever, so I’m sure that is a big part of it. I wouldn’t travel very far to see any band except Rush. I’ve seen plenty of good concerts in my life, but Fri night it was like I was transported to another world. I stood there the entire time completely focused on the stage. I didn’t notice the crowd or cameras or the time or anything else. For almost 3 hours it was just me and Rush.

After recent events in my life, I’ve begun to try and focus more on living in the moment and living each day to the fullest. That is no easy task with 4 jobs, 3 kids, and only 24 hours in each day, but I’m beginning to evaluate everything I do and ask myself if it needs to be done and how important it really is. I’m trying to take the long view and ask myself if I would regret my decision if I were to look back on it 40 years from now. I suspect that when I’m 90 I may not remember how many loads of laundry I did or how many times I cut the grass, but I will certainly remember Friday’s concert and many other things I experience every day. 

That being said, the laundry still has to get done and the grass still has to get cut, as do a million other tasks. The question is becoming which once ones should I be doing and which should I be delegating?  Time is becoming a very big deal in my life and I think it’s settling in that it is the most precious gift any of us are given. Like most people, I fear I waste too much of this valuable gift. I am resolved this year to change that to the greatest extent possible. In the past I would have skipped the Rush concert and spent a month kicking myself for it. Not this time – I’ve broken the pattern, at least in this one instance. Hopefully this is one step in the journey of 1,000 miles.