Losing My Mind

It is a crystal clear, snow-blanketed morning in Reno today and I am as unhappy and bitter as ever. I find NO satisfaction in this work, though I am blessed beyond comprehension to be employed at this time in history. Today it is more than just work dissatisfaction. that has been a constant my entire life. I feel adrift without any sort of steering mechanism. My field of vision is narrowing to the point that I see only computer and TV screens followed by black nights and jarring awakenings each day. Where has euphoria gone? I laugh rarely and noticed the joy of it on a rare occasion the other night. Where has it gone?

Why do I continue to lose it, completely lose my mind, heart spiraling like an out-of-control rocket toward near certain destruction? My head hurts constantly. Neck pains define my existence. I am not a good dad. Patience ends like a solid wall of blackness on a downhill freeway.

I am a bad dad...not steady, not consistent, not firm, not fair. I want OUT! Out in general and specific...somehow I have lost my mind. I fear that I am one misstep away from eternal horror...though I know Christ is in my heart and His place is being prepared.

Would money solve some of this? If I had all of that, would it matter? Look at the mess Tiger Woods finds himself embroiled in. Has all of his money saved him from the cliff? Is it only today that will see me plummeting into the depths of my despair? Will exercise bring me about? When home comes in to view, will the cloud lift? Did my parents ever feel like this? Did my dad feel like this ever?

I am a lost soul in some ways...my eternal soul belongs to Jesus, but this plane has left me open to attacks from the prowling lion. Out of nowhere the beast has struck me on occasion, when I am not guarded with God's armor, when I am weak and wounded.

Leaving for the gym in maybe ten minutes...15 minutes of cardio and then some weights to relieve some of this constant black miasma. 2007 Fife Zinfandel at home tonight for cocktail hour and another evening of swirling fear, abated for a short time.

Commuter Geography

Clipping the apex of the curve of the onramp this morning as I made yet another commute from home to work, I noticed the expanse of rabbitbrush in nearly full fall bloom cascading down the slope from the elevated roadway. It's not that I hadn't seen it before, rabbitbrush in northern Nevada blazes bright yellow every fall as the temperatures dip and the sun slants obliquely on its' slide toward the Tropic of Capricorn. This particular patch of Chrysothamnus nauseosus was another reminder for me that I won't be breathing through my nose until every grain of pollen from this autumnal beast is frozen into wintry oblivion.

This experience, which may have taken 5 seconds of my 15 minute drive to work, is one of dozens of unique scenes we all take in, regardless of means of transportation, every day on each of our well-worn routes to our places of employment. In my very typical, read "dull and thoughtless," subdivision, houses are packed in at 7 per acre. There was no thought of creating a pedestrian easement at the end of the cul-de-sac to allow school children to walk efficiently to the bus stop or all the way to school. Rounding the circuitous route out to main road reveals more inefficiences in design. Trails that end abruptly or do not connect, forcing walkers and bike riders through ditches on volunteer pathways.

I weave through chicanes of landscaped islands and ease along traffic calming curvilinear boulevards on the way to the freeway. Several massive cottonwood trees were spared the chainsaw and provide welcoming relief against the backdrop of 3-inch caliper trees struggling to take hold in the boron-laced soil of the original desert beneath. Wilder Nevada becomes apparent as I leave the pre-packaged subdivision behind. Open ditches front homes in widely variable states of repair. Trailer, trailer, clapboard ranch, faux-Georgian plantation home complete with massive RV garage, trailer, trailer...residential monotony replaced with architectural dissonance over the course of a mile.

Then the commercial buildings appear as the freeway comes in to view. Hay for sale along side a school district bus yard. Nondescript office buildings painted brown against the backdrop of the soaring mountains to the west. The road gets serious toward a major intersection with wider shoulders, steel guardrails and concrete medians made to keep cars going in one direction at a time. I've ridden my bike alongside this stretch on the weekend and have discovered massive culverts stuffed with shopping carts and garbage underpinning the road above. Detritus that has been ejected in one way or another from passing vehicles piles up in drainageways, unseen by motorists but well known to the rabbitbrush.

A stylish outdoor shopping center blurs by my speeding car as I race toward the apex. In the foreground of the view to the east, before the cookie-cutter houses line up to the base of the Virginia Range, a few 100-year-old ranch houses dot the landscape. Black and white cows stagger around the ranch fields, condensation blowing from their noses in the cold morning air. I hit an expansion joint that jumps the car slightly left. Correcting as I fly through the curve, my rabbitbrush scene flashes by and I am on the freeway.

Amidst other drivers slumped over their steering wheels, jockeying for position on the race to the office, I see a redtail hawk sitting on a light pole. The bird is huge, probably the size of a cocker spaniel with wings. It spots something on the rocky bank across the freeway, leaps from its perch and wheels around to cross the road perpendicularly. I approach his flight path at 65 mph and the hawk is flying low, perhaps 10 feet above the screaming cars. I turn to look as the bird zeroes in on whatever breakfast it may have spotted. Reality roars back and I am forced back to the task at hand of driving. One of my fellow motorists has opted to drive 45 mph on the freeway and people around me are standing on their brake pedals. I do likewise to avoid rear-ending the offending Hyundai Sonata that is weaving from lane to lane for no apparent reason.

Another half mile and there's my exit. It's a long sweeping off-ramp that hits you with a right then a left curve. I try to do this one at 60, though it's posted for 45. I make a good run at it and hear my lunch box tumbling over in the trunk, indicating that I may have hit the second curve a little to quickly. When that fun is over, I turn right past the In-N-Out Burger, which smells delicious even at 9:00 in the morning. A few people are walking down the street, though there are only intermittent sidewalks and then precarious paths on the edge of the travel lane. Lights in Reno are not timed at all and I hit the two between the offramp and my office. At the last intersection, I'm looking at a gas station, empty lot, car parts store and a drug store on each of the four corners. 0.2 miles later, I pull in to the lot and shut off the car. The engine clicks and ticks as it cools off and I lumber into the office, leaving freedom in my wake.

One day in the near future, I will pass that offramp and not look back.

The Great Reno Balloon Race Ruined My Sunday

When the alarm goes off like a bomb at 3:35 a.m. on Sunday morning after a restless four hours of light napping and half a bottle Kenwood Zinfandel on Saturday night, I find no awe in hot air balloons glowing and tipping precariously in the Reno predawn. I am tempted, in fact, to say that I hate this idiotic event that finds me groggy and disagreeable some 34 hours after the great balloons have been popped, or burned to black fragments of ripstop nylon now floating majestically across the Utah state line. Not that I wish any of the participants ill at all. Simply put, I am never going to awaken at an hour that is best suited for deep, coma-like sleep, ever, ever again.

With three semi-conscious kids and our neighbors in their minivan following behind, we lumbered off on deserted roads past other homes darkened by sweet sleep and waking times several hours, or maybe even days, away. It's been the same idiocy every year: load up the kids' wagon, hoist it into the back of the car, find somewhere to park in the same county, and then pull the fully loaded beast some fifty miles to the field where the balloons are being dragged around by inexplicably cheery pilots and chase persons. The dust alone, created by perhaps forty-thousand spectators, nearly asphyxiated me. Ah, but I am complaining again. I did bring one refill of coffee after an initial eight cups, the lot of which proved innefective in waking me past the jittery cadaver phase of caffeine intoxication.

Oh, but then the glow show started! The spot in the rutted field we selected was relatively pleasant and afforded a nice view of the balloons lighting up and then going dark in various intervals, which I think is the entire point of getting up at such a stupid hour. Sitting in the wagon, swilling coffee and watching my kids thrash about restlessly on the ground, I sought some reason for me to be happy about any of this. Finding none, I just sat there like a refugee in a sea of weird people.

Finally, the mass ascension took place and we were free to leave. Having forgot my sunglasses, the rising sun seared my eyes and embittered me further. Lugging the wagon back over the dusty trail to the parking lot, I stumbled on rocks and curbs, wanting to be away as quickly as possible. With something like eight-thousand balloons careening across the sky, bumping into power lines and motorhomes, some crashing in slow motion into hillsides, we made our leave of the place while other balloon-watchers staggered around violently, falling in to bushes and ponds.

Mimi's Restaurant was our breakfast destination and I swilled my mimosa in hopes that I could induce sleep right there and just doze in a booth for the rest of the day. When we finally made it home at nearly 10:00 a.m., I was ready to set my house on fire and take the next flight to anywhere. I tried to nap until at least 2:00, but my rest was fitful and fraught with bellicose children yelling at lungtop for no apparent reason. My day utterly ruined and the lawns still needing to be mowed, I dutifully got up and did the work before night fell again and sleep never found me.

If this rambling nonsense is just that and my writing is unclear, uncohesive and pointless, I apologize to anyone who reads this. I hate the Great Reno Balloon Race and never want to go again. May I be forgiven for my thoughtless and sleep-deprived gibberish.

My Daily Prayer

Who would ever think that one could be so miserable at a job that is relatively easy, affords a reasonable schedule for parents, and pays $93,000 per year? It is stunning how incredibly bored I am at this gig. Stunning. And I say this because it’s viciously true. I arrive each workday at 9:00-ish, head for the gym from 11:15 to 12:45, and then drive home at about 4:30. All in all, I’m “working” maybe 6 hours, though I am up to date with all my assigned chores. What an apt word, chore, to describe this scene. I am, for the most part, utterly alone in this brown-gray office. Virtually all others employed here seem to drone on and on and on, wrapped up in the minutiae of far too drawn out details. I may be able to make it another year. Maybe.

September 11, 2010 will mark 15 years in what is essentially the same exact rut on the side of the road of life. Prior to embarking on this bland mission, I had viewed government work as some noble calling, a way to serve my community. It turns out that I am exceptionally selfish and do not have much desire or need to do this folly. I have one year…one year until the halfway mark of a “traditional” 30-year career. I very seriously may vomit right now. I simply, forcefully, willfully MUST find my way before that fateful date hits me like a black bomb. Otherwise, I fear, all may be lost and I will suffer through untold more decades stuck firmly in the bleak mud of this backwater.

God help me find my way. Matthew exhorts us to “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 - NIV). I would rather be riding the cyclone with Dorothy with the chance of meeting Jesus than slowly dying at this desk/casket.

Sewer Golf

I wanted to fall in love with golf this weekend at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open. I had always heard that golf was a gentleman's game, a genteel throwback to the days of courtesy and respect amidst competition. This rose-colored vision of spectators and players alike interacting with civility toward one another in a magnificent setting has been thoroughly dashed over the last several months, culminating at the tournament but building from my visits to the local course where I began formal lessons with a PGA Professional in late spring.

I volunteered to be a marshal on hole #9 at the RTO as I believed it would give me some on-course insight to the game. Situated along the landing zone, I saw some incredible second shots from 10 yards away. The ease at which most of the touring professionals swing a golf club is rewarding to experience. The sound of the clubface striking the golf ball, when it is done to perfection, is satisfying to hear and feel, even in spectator's shoes.

What I did not expect was the nearly constant onslaught of profanity coming from my fellow volunteers, drunken spectators and the players themselves. Regardless of the substantial presence of children in the galleries (though this should have no bearing on such behaviour) foul language was heard loudly and often at tee boxes, along the fairways, on the greens and throughout the public areas of the course. Much of the talk amongst the 50-60-something volunteer force involved alcohol or sexual references about each other or any attractive female within eyeshot. Drunken spectators, ranging in age from 21 through at least 70, staggered about the grounds, shouting profanities or uttering crude comments. Though I did not personally hear foul language from the players, a few standard bearers informed me that it was rampant. A few threw their clubs after poor shots, which, in a professional tour setting, is completely unacceptable. Where have the gentlemen of this game gone?

Earlier this year, I enrolled my 9-year-old son in the First Tee program at the same course where my lessons are located. The draw for me was the Nine Core Values of golf, including sportsmanship and courtesy among others. The program itself is wonderful and I highly recommend it to parents of kids with golf aspirations. I ensured that both my son and I were outfitted appropriately to be in accordance with course rules about collared shirts and the like. Wholly unexpected was, again, the absolute preponderance of vulgar language on and around the course. Mind you, this is a private and relatively upscale club with members ranging in age from 45-70 and employed as executives in a variety of professions.

With cigar smoke pouring from their cart and empty beer cans rattling on the floorboards, a twosome just finishing 18 rolled up to the clubhouse shouting and making profane gestures, screaming at their drunken buddies already at the bar. My son and I were walking toward the First Tee meeting at the driving range along with other parents with their 6-15-year-old junior golfers in tow as this bacchanalistic scene played out before us. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident. Though myself and other parents reported the incident to the owner of the club, such behaviour has not changed and we have witnessed similar embarrassments during nearly every visit.

My son no longer wants to endure the barrage of foul, drunken old men reeling around the clubhouse, and the parents that I have discussed this with are equally dismayed. I am saddened that the noble sport of golf has devolved to the point of being no more refined than a Raiders game.

Monday Miasma

It hit like a dull headache, a black bomb, an overripe tomato to the skull. The radio alarm began its insistent bleating at 5:25 a.m. as this hot, bleary Monday morning made a rat-like appearance on the horizon. Rolling out of bed to get the shower going for my beautiful wife, thankful for Mr. Coffee burbling away around the corner in the kitchen, I stumbled around the house like a weary drunk, hoping that the calendar was wrong, that perhaps it was still Sunday. After staggering around with the iron, clothes for the day, and a sloshing cup of caffeine, I made the bed, balanced the budget and put something good on the iPod for my workout later in the day. This American Life with Ira Glass, Dave Ramsey's 39 minutes of financial wisdom, and maybe a few running tunes to keep me from an early death. Fortified with the first effects of pulse-quickening coffee, I shower, get dressed and then help my wife get squared away for her early commute. I wave as she drives off under crystalline blue skies, heat already rising off the blacktop. Brown, parched mountains in the distance.

Egg white omelet, bowl of oatmeal, vitamins, kids off to school. Driving in on the freeway I see cadavers hunched behind wheels, swerving and jockeying for lane position. Monday smearing itself on me, I signal to exit, park under the scalding sun and ensconce myself behind this screen, arteries constricting, blood pressure rising. I count the MINUTES down between arrival and next available departure. Finally to the gym for relief...escape. The workout hour flies, the afternoon drags like a hundred years in Kansas. 4:30 arrives five days later and I race out of here like a rocket-fueled demon. Racing home on the freeway, my gray Honda sedan screaming around less motivated motorists. Home, and all of its unique issues, comes into view and I am free for 12 hours.

This is no way to live. At all. Enduring stress, pounding boredom, zero motivation. Interest long-gone. $93536.04 every year gets me what? A house that I hate, white trash neighbors...where did I go wrong? It was the worst decision of my life to buy the KB house in February of 2007, it's price already fallen $100K with another $75K to go, unknown to me. I have no debt except this house...and the rental property. Certainly not an 'income' property. No other debt. Savings not insubstantial, though lagging for my age.

I am seeking the courage, the direction, the wisdom...to move away from this, to increase the angle of my trajectory. To enter the Narrow Gate, not just seek it.

Matthew 7:13-14 (New International Version)
The Narrow and Wide Gates
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Demons

For the first roughly 34 years of life, I believed I had no aberrant, peculiar or disagreeable habits or personal disabilities. The last ten years, however, have proven me wrong. Patience, once my shining hallmark, has eroded to the point that it now abruptly ends, mid-whatever-crisis, and vanishes completely without warning at all. On a related note, much of my tolerance is gone, though I notice this mostly at Wal-Mart, where I still inexplicably find myself far too often. I won't even go in to the vitriol coursing through me during these visits, but suffice it to say that I have few nice thoughts about many of my fellow shoppers.

Preparedness is another area that finds me lacking. It isn't that I don't eventually get prepared for whatever event is happening (usually involving a trip...to Wal-Mart), or that I don't make consistent progress toward the goal of actually leaving my house, it's just that I take FOREVER to get out the door! Do I have keys, money, correct shoes, hat, jacket, are the windows closed, stove off, doors locked, lights off, water off, things straightened up (OMG, that's another issue), alarm on, dog out, where is my cell phone, do we have grocery bags, library books, lists, children aboard and ready to roll? And there is my wife, sitting in the running car, wondering why it is taking me 17 minutes to get out of the house.

Order-Structure-Cleanliness-Efficiency-Precision. Oh dear, this is huge, simply massive. Probably my worst trait of all time in that I want these five qualities in every aspect of my existence. And the thing is, I rarely feel that everything is in order to the degree that will allow me to feel comfortable with the state of affairs in which I find myself. Check that, not rarely, absolutely never. Never is the word that is accurate because there is always something out of place, dusty, broken, missing, unkempt, ajar, askew, bowled over, incomplete...I could go on with many more adjectives and descriptions of unacceptable conditions, but I won't because I am about to have a stroke-seizure-heart attack just thinking about such heinous things. At the very least, I need a personal valet-concierge-maid-butler-gardener-nanny-car washer-body guard-personal trainer-interior decorator... preferably embodied by one individual who performs all these functions silently and virtually invisibly.

Check this definition from Wikipedia: Perfectionism, in psychology, is a belief that perfection can and should be attained. In its pathological form, perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable. At such levels, this is considered an unhealthy belief, and psychologists typically refer to such individuals as maladaptive perfectionists.

Sloth-Laziness. The king demon that tries to wrestle me to the ground at every turn. "Why make your bed or iron your clothes or clean up your dishes after breakfast" it screams at me. "You would rather get drunk, eat pork rinds and sleep in the garbage can" goes the bellowing. Just where is that valet-concierge-car washer anyway? Mowing the lawn?!

Correct Decisions. I want to be able to execute every single decision in my life, from investments to what to wear to Wal-Mart to what gift I bring my wife, with precision and accuracy never before experienced in human history. Maybe this is over the top, but I don't care at all, it is blunt truth.

Knowledge. Simply put, I want to know all things so that I am prepared to make perfect decisions at all times. "There is no substitute for knowledge." Is W. Edwards Deming still alive?

Now I am beginning to laugh at myself because this is ridiculous. Nobody on this earth is perfect. I know that there is only one that is perfect, and that one is Jesus Christ. The Bible exhorts us to become more and more like Him, so that is my pursuit. Until the time comes that we are taken in the twinkling of an eye, perhaps I should work for Lexus. Or Wal-Mart.

Halfway to Mt. Rose

We made it to the falls today with all 3 kids, plus another mile up the trail to the Canyon of Death, where we turned around. All told: 6 miles of dirt today!

BEST FATHER'S DAY EVER (almost)

This is what my lovely wife and kids got me for Father's Day this year! It is exactly what I wanted and I have already waxed both cars once and will likely do it again this weekend. How insane is that? The old gripe from dads is that we always get tools or equipment designed primarily to fix or build something that the wife has always wanted or needed to be done.

The good thing about me is that I am not handy in the least. For instance, we need a retaining wall in our back yard as the current situation with loose rocks intermingled with dog poop doesn't look as good as it sounds. I cannot, however, build anything. Last time I tried to fix the gate to our yard, it wasn't two days before I was asking our neighbor to fix the mess I had created. First, the whole assembly was crooked and dragged along the concrete during opening and closing movements. Second, it was horribly constructed with flimsy bits of wood and whatever screws and nails I was able to find in the parts bin. So I'm no Bob Vila!

Ah, but this car polisher is an exceptional machine. I may wax every car in my neighborhood. And seriously, our cars shine like forty billion suns in a galaxy of mirrors. What a dumb post this is, you might say. In fact, an English professor I had at a low-brow San Joaquin Valley junior college told me that the descriptive writing assignment that I dedicated to my 1981 Malibu Classic was inane and pointless..."who cares" was his exact comment. What a jerk! It's not like I was enrolled at UC Berkeley!

When I was just out of high school in the mid-1980's, my friend Tim Hudson swore by auto wax from The Wax Shop for his 1966 Dodge Charger, though I don't know if that brand is around any more. Anyway, I am using Mothers Gold Carnauba wax on my cars now. I probably should have started with a cleaner, then a sealer and glaze, but I am a big fat pansy and I just wanted to get the shine on. Plus, I'm dealing with 2 and 4 year old cars, not beaters from the rust belt.

So there you go, Dr. Beloof from Coalinga, CA, another rant about how stupid I am and how shiny my car is because of my wonderful wife and kids. I vow to dedicate my next story to my economics professor at that same "school" who drove a 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 diesel. Sweet, huh?

And the only reason that this was 'almost' the best Fathers Day Ever is because my boy is not yet home, but will be on Monday!

Mike Boster - "My Journey" from Hope Community on Vimeo.

Why I Hate My Financial Advisor

To be blunt, straight away, I will simply say that my financial advisor is a boob. He's short, red-faced, and toothy. In addition, he talks far too much. Aren't these people supposed to listen rather than jabber on endlessly about the advantages of trusting them completely with every single financial decision you will ever, EVER make?

So, I hate him with an intensity and bubbling rage that, heretofore, I have not experienced. My previous advisor, with the same company, which I won't mention...OK, I will, it's VALIC, those bastards that nearly ran the world into the sun with their greed and hubris-driven insanity. Nonetheless, my first advisor was Asian, and I simply adored him. Not because of his ethnicity, but because he freaking listened to me, which, as I may have mentioned, my new advisor seems to be unable to do. In fact, Mr. Short Red cannot cease with his talking. I just met with him for 25 minutes and was barely able to get in a word. Bring back the Asian!

In closing, and to reiterate, I hate my VALIC advisor, even though the Bible implores us all to not hate our advisors. In the spirit of reconciliation, I will make all efforts to reduce my hatred to simple loathing. My weekend, however, has been ruined by his stain on my office furniture. I may require an early exit so that I can beat the crowd to Trader Joe's for a bottle of pinot noir to go with our delightful tri-tip this evening. I have spoken!

Cab Snow

At some point in mid-summer of 1989, I met a curious fellow named Corky, who became by best friend for a period of close to ten years. As fellow change monkeys, we aspired to do more at Harrah's, eventually leading him to the sports book and me to the valet parking department. All the while, I was faithfully attending classes at the University, doing reasonably well, and making progress toward a degree in geography. I'll get in to why I would have chosen such a peculiar major later on, for now, I was simply moving forward. Corky had tried college before and gave it another shot at Nevada, which for him was in one day and back out a few days later. University life just wasn't his gig, he was going to make it big betting on sports.

By the winter of '89, we both had moved in to our pinnacle positions at Harrah's and had become regulars at a bar called 'The Stuffed Shirt,' which is an idiotic name for a bar, but it was just across the street from Harrah's on 2nd Street and the bartender there, Jim, offered a free drink, usually after our 8th or 9th round. 'One for the road,' he would call it, which just seems insane thinking about it now, nearly 20 years out. Double fisting Coors Lights, playing pool and blasting Journey on the jukebox became our regular after work entertainment for months on end.

Mid winter in Reno can be grim, gray, freezing cold and depressing. While the first snow of the season is a welcome sign of change, the snows that come in late January are more bleak and tinged with dreariness. Emerging from 'The Shirt,' as we called it, one black 4:00 a.m., filled to the absolute brim with beer and reeking of cigarette smoke, Corky and I decided to go back over to Harrah's and regale our graveyard shift buddies with tales of drunkenness and how we clumsily attempted to hustle a couple of tourists at pool. Of course we needed fresh beers to fortify us as we stumbled through the casino, shouting at dealers we knew and placing crank pages with the hotel operators, "Paging Hugh Jass, paging Hugh Jass," and making general fools of ourselves.

Usually, one of the shift supervisors would speak quietly with us, exhorting us to leave at once lest we be reprimanded for being in uniform on property while completely drunk. So we usually left. Chugging the remainder of his beer before exiting, Corky expelled a ghastly and horribly loud burp just as we were emerging onto Center Street. The windows on the doors are heavily tinted and we did not see a small group of ladies coming in as we were leaving. One of them was unfortunate enough to bear the direct blast at a distance of no more than a foot. It was awful, one of the worst things I've ever seen. This poor lady was simply walking into the casino to have a good time (though it is in the wee hours of the day, so I guess you take your chances in downtown Reno) and suddenly she is hit with the stench and fury of an exaggerated belch directly in the face.

I recall saying something like 'Oh my God' and running from the building with Corky staggering behind me, laughing wildly and flailing around like a psychotic freak. He had his Harrah's tie wrapped around his skull like a headband, sort of like Rambo, but drunk and substantially less menacing. Out into the icy streets of Reno, slick and filthy from last week's snow. A rattling taxi bounced by on the pothole-chocked street, expelling a chunk of snow-caked ice from its' wheelwell. Corky lunged into the roadway and seized the brown and gray clump, screaming "cab snow, cab snow!" Immediately, he was running with his new prize back toward the Harrah's entry doors, staggering and laughing like a lunatic. Once inside, he held the hunk aloft, high over his head as it dripped muddy water onto his shirt. "Cab snow for sale," he shouted, "fresh cab snow from the streets of Reno!" Security was on him at once, pushing him back toward the doors. I had made my way to the bar and decided to order up a new beer and watch the spectacle. Upon his forced exit, Corky launched the chunk back into the street, screaming something that I couldn't make out from where I was sitting. After maybe ten minutes, I saw him skulking around another entrance door and then making his way to the bar, his shirt and face streaked with mud. "Where's my beer?" he demanded. "They don't serve street pigs like you in this place," I told him. Five more beers each and we determined it was the end of the road for this adventure, noting the rising sun and the arrival of dayshifters on the scene. It was nearly 8:00 in the morning and we were both due back to work by 3:00 that afternoon.

The suited men in more respectable positions at Harrah's were arriving for their workday, frowning disapprovingly at us as we made our way to the parking garage, both of us unkempt, shirts untucked, stumbling along the sidewalk. Corky was more of a spectacle than I was, covered with dried mud and grime. "See you in a few hours," I mumbled as he staggered out of the elevator to find his car, no real idea if he had stopped at the right floor. He'd figure it out, I thought, and I quickly got to my own car and headed for home.

20 Years in Reno- Chapter 1

I have lived in Reno, Nevada since May of 1989, having moved here from Sacramento and 20 years in the Big Valley of California. Two years later, I graduated from the University of Nevada, finally having enough credits for a bachelors degree, cobbled together from junior colleges and an intermittent stint in the CSU system. In the 4 years immediately following the pomp and circumstance, I sought and finally got what I perceived as the perfect job: working for a local government agency. Little did I know at the time that the same job I idealized, for whatever blurry reasons, would be the beginning of a spirit-killing slog that to this day has me firmly pinned to the mat. Oh sure, I have nothing on the surface to complain about; the pay is decent, lots of holidays off and a degree of security not common in 2009. This has proven to be the thinnest of veneers as my inner disgust with the workings of government, based on actual experience and observation, has drained me of nearly all of my creative energy. But there is more than just disgust with my job, I am truly seeking the next adventure in life and I have to start somewhere. "Follow the yellow brick road," said the good witch.

How did I get from such a high to what feels like a march toward death, at least on the levels I am referring to, primarily career happiness and satisfaction? In opting to explore this in blog format, I am hoping to elicit even one response that provides insight as to how this may have happened, and moreover to discover the ladder that may be a way up and out of this grim hole. In this unknowable space of the Internet, I will detail the 20 years I have spent in Reno, from zenith to nadir and back again. And again. Now for the first of several posts, parts and installments. Here goes...

I crossed the state line into Nevada from Sacramento, CA in the spring of 1989. Though the Silver State was already growing at the fastest clip in the nation, Reno still retained a certain Wild West feel to it, and I loved it. I worked at Harrah's for a few years, making change for a bit and then parking cars for the remainder of my college years. That first summer was an immersion into a lifestyle I had never experienced before. At 24 years of age, I was completely on my own for the first time ever. I had a tiny box of a studio apartment in Sparks-just east of Reno, close enough to I-80 to hear the whine of the cars speeding east and west. Thunderstorms were abundant that year and the smell of wet sagebrush became the new scent of home for me. The excitement of living in a 24-hour town after 20 years in a central California cow town was captivating and, at times, surreal.

My first shift at Harrah's was graveyard, working 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. My commute home from downtown Reno was to the east, into the rising sun. As someone not accustomed to overnight hours, this was just one of the many jarring aspects of my new existence. On occasion, I would have a few beers after my shift. Drinking Coors Light at 8:00 in the morning is not always the best way to start the day. Many times my trip home was delayed by a few too many drinks and what eventually became substantial sleep deprivation.

One of my co-workers was a Paiute named Vince. Though only about 5'9", he was built like a steel barrel and weighed in close to 250 pounds with body fat of maybe 12%; needless to say, a big, powerful man. Vince was one of the friendliest people at Harrah's, always helpful and always polite. One grim Monday morning after another night of dealing change to chain-smoking slot addicts, I noticed Vince at the sports bar on my way out of the club. He obviously had been there for at least a few hours on what they called an early-out, or EO, in casino parlance. In the kindest of terms, Vince was drunk out of his mind. Against better judgement, I joined him and ordered up a Coors draft, intending to do a 'one and out.'

I was still dressed in my ridiculous pink Harrah's shirt, idiotic tie and black polyester pants, but I wholly blended in with the other graveyard shift drones, drinking and smoking away their after shift hours in the dark, lower level bar, far removed from the glaring sun of the summer of 1989. After several more beers (it was more like seven and out for me that day), Vince wanted to leave and I figured I should try to get to my car and just sleep there, in the cool of the parking garage. By this time, Vince was in a full drunken lunacy. As we staggered down Center Street, he suddenly lunged at me for no reason, driving me into the travel lanes and nearly getting me killed by a passing taxi. I somehow got away from him and his inexplicable and startling rage. He didn't look fast but seemed to be running 40 miles per hour right at me, yelling like a freak about Indian rights and cursing at such volume that his shreiks echoed off the walls of the buildings along the street. My impaired reflexes were only slightly faster than his and I dodged his clumsy attack. Vince tripped and fell into the gutter, only to awkwardly pull himself up and begin attacking a parking meter with his boulder-like fists. As he swung wildly around, something tripped him up and he fell back into the gutter, thrashing violently as vomit began to spew from him in sickening yellow arcs.

I had managed to make it back into the casino and watched him for a several minutes through the window before he lumbered off down the road, screaming at traffic and wiping vomit from his filthy Harrah's uniform. I headed for an opposite exit and cautiously crept to my car, parked in the cool of the parking garage two blocks away. I slept for five hours, awoke and made my way east to Sparks. The sun was low in the western sky when I fumbled my way in to the dingy studio and locked the door behind me.

Later that evening, when I reported back to the casino for duty, Vince was there, sober as a Mormon and greeting me happily with his Paiute-tinged accent. All was good and right and normal. The slot junkies showed up and another bleary overnight shift began.

DB5

I want to be like James Bond. I say 'like James Bond' because I don't want to actually wrestle with henchmen on the burning wing of a death-spiraling aircraft 20,000 feet above the earth. Just your everyday 007 with dashes of Cary Grant thrown in to ensure extra handsomeness. And this is for my wife and kids, not to engage in hubris-driven acts of conquest.

Keep in mind I look nothing like Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan (Timothy Dalton was surely an aberration), or Daniel Craig. Ian Fleming's image of Bond was that nattily dressed, serious looking chap above, with his stern visage and tousled, dark hair. Again, totally not me, there has never been a bald Bond.

But can I have the Brioni suit and a '65 Aston Martin DB5 to arrive at my spectacularly dull government job that is so far removed from the exotic locales of the Bond films that I cringe thinking about it? Should I be working, in fact, this instant on tracking down leaseholders and making sure the Peterson file doesn't get cross-filed with the fencing file for the school playground job? Does James Bond have to sit at this brown-gray desk day after day shoving stacks of nonsense from countertop to recycle bin in an endless loop until death comes on some bitterly cold late winter Monday morning?

Oh, but forgive me, the insanity took hold for a minute and reality kicked me in the back of the head forty times to drown out the James Bond Theme playing in my imagination.