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I had a long day at work today…a very long day.  Eleven hours.  As I’ve mentioned before, I am an instructor…my specialty is “distributed training”, which is to say that whenever I attend any kind of meeting or gathering or sometimes just when I’m sitting in my office, I get this reaction from people who’ve only just met me: “You’re Yoda???”  I imagine it’s somewhat akin to Jimmy Olsen’s reaction if he happened to round the corner and catch Clark Kent in a phone booth with his shirt unbuttoned.

Yes, I teach…generally through the medium of chat…and since I’m not actually in the room with my students, the instructor/trainee relationship is somewhat stunted.  You know, when you’re in a classroom, you can say to the class, “…and after you do that, then do this.”  And everyone nods and takes notes and once in a while asks a polite question.

With distributed training, you say, “…and after you do that, then do this.” And you get any of these possible responses:

• “Do this , then that?”


• “Wait one.”


• “Where is the reference for doing that?”


• “I can’t do that right now, I’ve got General Quarters.  Can we do it at 1600 this afternoon?”

And lately, what I get the most is, “No, we’re not going to do this or that, that’s not how the system works.”

To which I reply, “Okay, so you explain to me how it works.”

And (generally after a very long silence) they’ll reply, “I don’t know how it works.  I need someone to teach me.”

I had…no kidding…nine hours of that today.  The last two hours, they did as I asked, and (just imagine!) everything went deliriously well.

So when I got home today, I was really hoping I’d have a meme to respond to.  Thanks, Sherri!

So here we go:

What were you doing ten years ago?

Ten years ago, I was six months into my year-and-a-half long divorce battle.  Actually, the battle was not over whether or not to get divorced, but whether there would be anything left of me when the divorce was final.  We fought for all that time over the blank in which the court was to fill in the amount of my child support (California has a brobdingnagian formula by which the courts calculate “guideline support” and there’s no use in trying to predict it).  My attorney kept leaving it blank, figuring rightly that the judge would order whatever amount he felt like on the day of our hearing, and my ex-wife wanted a dollar amount in the blank, but was too obstreperous to say so.

I was also wildly in love with a woman named Janice, whom I’d met mere weeks after my ex-wife and I separated.  It was not a terribly good relationship for her, I’m afraid.  I was an emotional train wreck.  She, on the other hand, gave me all the reason I needed to avoid being trapped back into an awful marriage.  I am enormously grateful to her for that.

Where were you five years ago?

I was still on active duty, doing a job that has since been outsourced and given to a civilian contractor, who is, coincidentally, me.  

I was also watching helplessly as the only other long term relationship I’ve had since my divorce ground to a close.  It actually lasted until December, but the handwriting was on the wall long before that.

Where were you one year ago?

Probably sitting right here at this computer.  Or this computer’s older sibling.  

Things haven’t changed much since then, really.  My life is actually pretty stable these days!

What are your five favorite snacks?

Now, we’re getting somewhere.

1. Fudge brownies
2. Cheez-its
3. Dry-roasted peanuts
4. Chips and fire-roasted fajita salsa
5. Cinnamon Caramel Cashew ice cream

What are five songs to which you know all the words?

I’m a musician, and I know the words to a LOT of songs…so I’m going to change the question to “What are five songs you wish you knew all the words to?”

1. Baby Got Back – Sir Mixalot
2. Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas – Harry Chapin
3. The Bright Side of Life – Eric Idle
4. Camelot – Monty Python
5. Yakko’s World – Yakko Warner

What are five things you’d do with 100 million dollars?
1. Buy a very nice house on Sunset Cliffs
2. Buy an airplane
3. Retire
4. Set up a trust to make up the difference between what the city budgets for my daughter’s high school and what it would take to actually run the school.
5. Fund wishes for Make-a-Wish kids


What five places do you like to run away to?

1.  Just out – going for a walk clears my head
2.  Almost any place my imagination can take me

This one was hard!  I don’t often run away physically, it’s more a mental retreat for me.

What are five things you would never wear?

Oh, the possibilities are endless.

1. any uniform from Star Trek – The Next Generation
2. A “belly shirt”
3. a t-shirt emblazoned with a “Hillary For President” logo
4. sandals
5. Any item of clothing identical to what my significant other is wearing, if the intent is simply to be cute

What are your five favorite TV shows?

1.  Gilmore Girls
2.  Battlestar Galactica
3.  The West Wing
4.  House
5.  Lost

What are your five biggest joys?

1.  My daughters
2.  My parents
3.  My sister and brother-in-law
4.  My friends: Bear and RadiantSmile
5.  Art: music and books

What are your five favorite toys?

1.  My flight simulator
2.  Tivo – yes, it’s a toy.  An essential toy.
3.  My guitar
4.  My work…yep, I love my job that much.
5.  This position is available.  If you’re female, smart, funny, attractive and sane, and you’d like to learn more about this position, and perhaps actually be my favorite toy, drop me a line.

Five people to pass this on to:

1. Ramblin’ Girl
2. Gray Shyro
3. Betty
4. Etchen
5. Chloe