Thirty Days in November

Catch up on this project of mine at the links below if you're new to the blog.

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 1)

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 2)
Thirty Days in April

Thirty-One Days in May

Thirty Days in June

Thirty-One Days in July

Thirty-One Days in August

Thirty Days in September

Thirty-One Days in October

Friday – 01 November 2013

Some mornings call for extended flake-out time when I sit down at my desk.  Today was thus.

Song of the Day: Idaho - BoDeans

Saturday – 02 November 2013

Chili Cook-Off + Bluegrass Festival + Exceptional Autumn Weather + Back-in-the-day-friends back in the A for the weekend = Perfect Saturday.

Song of the Day: Bright Sunny South - Allison Krauss and Union Station 

Sunday – 03 November 2013

Fall is still happening and I can't get enough of it.

Song of the Day: Real Enough For Me - The Mockers

Monday – 04 November 2013

Commiserating the first work day after the end of Daylight Savings Time.  

Song of the Day: The House We Grew Up In - The Weeks

Tuesday – 05 November 2013

At a site visit up in Adairsville this afternoon, I forced myself to look at the thing and not the color of the leaves on the trees or whatever nonsense has been distracting me lately.  This  is the second factory that we have designed and rebuilt after being destroyed by a tornado this year.  There is a satisfaction in helping to put men back to work that I can't quite describe.  

Song of the Day: Slave To The Grind - Skid Row

Wednesday – 06 November 2013

I always love this time of year, until I realize that I'm going to be driving home in the dark until Spring breaks.  

Song of the Day: Nothing For You - T.S.O.L.

Thursday – 07 November 2013

We competed in Canstruction with some of our engineering buddies tonight down at Colony Square.  It's a cool thing I think, for us to recreate a few of the most iconic buildings of the ATL skyline via the unpredictable media that is canned food.  Plus the cans are donated to the Atlanta Food Bank at the end of the event.

Song of the Day: Jet City Woman - Queensryche

Friday – 08 November 2013

The firm visited a small, local pre-cast concrete shop at lunch today.  Interesting process, cool people but I became fixated on the workbench.  I covet that.

Song of the Day: Fatlip - Sum 41

Saturday – 09 November 2013

What happy looks like.

Song of the Day: Lump - The Presidents Of The United States Of America

Sunday – 10 November 2013

I landed at Hobby and arrived at the rental lot just in time to bear witness to a wonderful sunset.

Song of the Day: Bittersweet Heart - Soul Asylum

Monday – 11 November 2013

Final walked a two site Texas project today – Woodville and Port Arthur.  The client is a German company that harvests pine trees and turns them into pellets for heating fuel at the facility in Woodville; stockpiles and ships them to Europe out of Port Arthur.  I was admittedly more interested in the port than I was the project.  I like big ass ships.

Song of the Day: Simple Man - Junkyard

Tuesday – 12 November 2013

The post-apocalyptic beauty of a Houston oil refinery.

Song of the Day: Up Jumped The Devil - Izzy Stradlin 

Wednesday – 13 November 2013

First frost.

Song of the Day: Hallelujah - Ryan Adams

Thursday – 14 November 2013

I final walked one of our projects in Tuscaloosa this morning.  It's a factory for another German client.  This one manufactures exhaust systems for Mercedes Benz.  It's a successful facility and will add a little punch to our manufacturing portfolio.    

Song of the Day: Personality Crisis - New York Dolls

Friday – 15 November 2013

After our fall retreat, the firm went to the Marietta Museum of History this afternoon.  Down with history as I am, I was stoked.  Interesting fact: the majority of Andrew's Raiders lodged here the night before they stole The General back in the day.  Sweet. 

Song of the Day: Demon Host - Timber Timbre

Saturday – 16 November 2013

Patiently waiting and watching.

Song of the Day: I Buried A Bone - Blind Pilot

Sunday – 17 November 2013

I paused for a moment this morning...before they all fall down.

Song of the Day: Moon In The Water - Dawes  

Monday – 18 November 2013

It's a new beautiful ridiculous Monday morning...let's kick this mule.

Song of the Day: Paralyzer - Finger Eleven

Tuesday – 19 November 2013

Crappy pic of an epic sunset.

Song of the Day: Barbary Blues - Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers

Wednesday – 20 November 2013

I had my first site visit to a recycling center that we designed down in Montgomery today.  She's got good bones, no?  A decidedly Southern lunch at a fish shack on the banks of the Alabama River after was an unexpected bonus.  

Song of the Day: Out Of My League - Fitz And The Tantrums

Thursday – 21 November 2013

It was a cloudy depressing morning until I saw these wonderful fiery ladies marching along MLK.

Song of the Day: When I Fall - Steve Earle

Friday – 22 November 2013

The little cactus blooming in the kitchen window this morning reminded me (yet again) how important it is to always be aware of the hidden silver lining.

Song of the Day: Miss Williams' Guitar - The Jayhawks

Saturday – 23 November 2013

Color.

Song of the Day: Electric Worry - Clutch

Sunday – 24 November 2013

Post first-time-at-church-in-forever lunch.  It was a good day.

Song of the Day: God's Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash

Monday – 25 November 2013

I'm as conscious of the passing of seasons this year as I may ever have been.  I dig that.  

Song of the Day: Tower Of Song - Leonard Cohen

Tuesday – 26 November 2013

Perfect, lazy, rainy day with my dog and a book.

Song of the Day: Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35 - Bob Dylan

Wednesday – 27 November 2013

Belle reluctantly assumed Maynard's vacated co-pilot duties this morning for the Thanksgiving trip to Mississippi.  I gave her a fancy new pink coat for her efforts, so she was cool – looks like a superhero, no?  It was the first time we'd traveled as a family since he passed so we listened to little man's favorites for a bunch of miles out of respect.

Song of the Day: Don't Stop Me Now - Queen

Thursday – 28 November 2013

Thanksgiving morning post-breakfast walk around.  Food.  Family.  Football.  Repeat.

Song of the Day: I Got A Name - Jim Croce

Friday – 29 November 2013

Somewhere in Mississippi.

Song of the Day: Seven Months, Thirty-Nine Days - Hank Williams III

Saturday – 30 November 2013

Backdoor sunset.

Song of the Day: 7 O'Clock - London Quireboys

A Different Sort of Sunday

Sunday morning, I did what I basically never do (sit down if you’re standing) and went to church.  To say that I am skeptical of organized religion would be an epic understatement: to say that I had my share of misgivings prior to would be even more so.  An unexpected recent shift in my perspective somehow allowed me to adopt the rationale of, what could it hurt, right? 

I was raised in a Christian family, a preacher’s son no less.  I never missed a service, won every Bible drill, loved God in a way that only a child can.   For most of my young life I accepted the Bible, God, Christianity, the whole nine unflinchingly, but I always had questions.  The Bible is confusing, right?  There are contradictions throughout and to a thinking person; a lot of it just did not, does not make sense.  Back then when I asked the questions I was never satisfied with the answer or lack thereof really.  It’s a matter of faith.  Ours is not to question.  Or most common and a tad more bluntly, because the Bible says so.  As my assumed God-given questioning mind developed, I became more and more frustrated with a God who would not allow me to question him.  I was taught to love and trust God, but if I’m honest I didn’t fully, even at that young age.  Being politely told to believe and to simply have faith in something I didn’t fully understand under the ever-present threat of the eternal damnation of hell just made my desire to question more intense and my frustration for not getting answers that much greater.  Blind faith is a fool’s endeavor – I still believe that.  

There simply wasn’t any room for intellectual thought or discovery in the church that I grew up in.  I don’t blame anyone for that, and it’s likely simply a product of my personality more than anything.  It’s even more likely, that I never fully made my displeasure known to my family and certainly not to the congregation who by all accounts were convinced I was of the devil.  At any rate, the frustration with Christianity and its practitioners that I felt as an adolescent soon morphed into an ambivalence toward God.  Ambivalence quickly became anger.  Anger soon became an outright hatred of God, Christianity and anything / anyone associated therewith.  I turned my back on...I denounced God and for the majority of my life now I have lived as a non-believer.  I’m not proud of that as I once was, but it is a relevant fact.

Having accepted the invitation from a close friend earlier in the week, I didn’t sleep much Saturday night.  I was exceedingly anxious, knowing the internal Pandora’s Box I could potentially be opening just by being there.  It was fear that kept me awake.  I was fearful of what I might find out about myself, but I suppressed my fear and blocked out my doubt.  For the first time in recent memory, I reserved my premature judgment and went (blindly) into an incredibly stressful (at least for me) situation with a fully open mind.      

The building didn’t look like what I had always known as church – it is a repurposed warehouse.  There was coffee and bagels in the foyer and little kids running and hippies and hard-liners in hemp and pressed suits sipping cups and hipsters and stoners in skinny jeans and flannel just chillin’.  Still a little dizzy from this new sensation, I exhaled (finally).  I didn’t look or feel out of place and I took my seat without incident.  To look around and see more than one dude who likely shares my affection for Anthrax was refreshing and it set my mind at ease a bit. 

I readily admit that when the music started I became quite emotional.  This wasn’t any worship service I had ever attended.  It was the opposite in almost every way, of what I’ve always known Christianity to be.  The music (which isn’t allowed in my original church) was uplifting and thoughtful and reverent in a way that I didn’t expect and couldn’t comprehend prior to.  When the congregation joined in the vocal, I lost it for a minute.  All of those feelings of guilt that I’d always harbored for not being a Christian, for the supposed disappointment my family had to endure as a result, all of the hate I’d held onto for all those who proclaimed to be Christians but treated me like shit, all of the fear of hell but love of hard preaching and a million other unnamed feelings came boiling to the surface.  I don’t believe in such nonsense as religious or spiritual epiphanies, but there was undeniably a moment on the front end of the service that made me realize that something has been missing in my life.

If there is anything that remains of my hard-line Christian upbringing it is the importance of scripture.  Scripture was present throughout every song.  There was a scripture reading between songs and the sermon was all scripture based.  It will sound odd but I’ll say it anyway; as skeptical as I remain, scripture must be the basis. 

The sermon was familiar; the crucifixion…I’ve heard it a thousand times.  I know the history and the science behind it.  I know the Christianity associated with it.  I’d never heard it preached this way though.  The crux of the sermon or at least what I got out of it is the magnitude of JC’s response to the repentant criminal dying alongside him on another cross.  The familiar text says, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.  The pastor stated same repeatedly, then he paraphrased…I will meet you where you are.


I will meet you where you are?  No one and I quite literally mean no one on this earth has ever extended me that same courtesy.  At the same time that he is delivering this message he admitted his own hesitancy to accept what seems like an empty promise, his own predilection towards doubt, and his own struggle to consistently believe in a disinterested God. 

Maybe it’s just me, but this didn’t feel like church.  It felt like community.  If felt inclusive.  It felt like intellectualism and religion might actually be able to coexist.  It felt right.  It was a good day.

All of that said the intellectual and skeptic in me persists.  The words and thoughts of Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley still ring true for me.  I still find the concepts of heaven and hell and Satan and all the other, comical and ridiculous.  I still have big problems with Christianity:  a doctrine of love and inclusion and salvation that is all too often publicly and quite vocally practiced as hate and exclusion and damnation.

So that was Sunday.  Am I fixed or whatever?  Of course not.  Have I suddenly fallen back in lock step with the saved?  No.  Am I willing to question my own disbelief?  Yes.  There is a spiritual intellectualism that has been missing from my life for most if not all of it.  I’ve talked about and have written about a path and this and that a hell of a lot, usually in a different context.  I’m not saying I’m starting a new path or even that I believe in such a thing.  I’m not saying I believe a damn word of anything I heard Sunday or any day before.  I am saying that I felt better this morning in a very large general sense than I did yesterday.  I feel better tonight than I did a week ago at the same time.  I’m not saying that I’ve found or that I need or that I'm looking for or that there even is a thing that could possibly be something spiritual for me.  All I am saying is that I’m open to the idea now.

That’s a different sort of Sunday for me and one hell of a big first step.

Those Leaves

It seems like a long time ago now, but it wasn’t really that I bought this house.  Every fall since that summer though, I’ve told myself and anyone else who was listening that I was going to do some end of summer yard work – I’ve yet to follow through.  That fact couldn’t possibly be more inconsequential to what I’m about to write, but I had to start somewhere.

Once upon a long Spring ago after putting it off all Winter, I decided to rake the leaves in the back yard into long rows of piles.  Belle of course bounded right over their tops, but Maynard couldn’t quite clear the height, so he took the long way.  He was chasing Belle with all of his might in the only way that he could.  It was exhilarating and somewhat ridiculous to watch…I wish I had more than just my memory of it tonight.  As silly as it is, I remember being so proud of him for that.  Belle would take two big leaps and be at the fence waiting for her ball and Maynard would be five minutes behind after running the maze of leaves.  When he got there though, he’d give her a little nip at the heels just to let her know he hadn’t given up.  I don’t think she ever forgot that – I know I sure as hell never did.  I don’t think I understood the symbolic gravity of his actions then though. 

The autumn yard work didn’t get done today.  I guess I’m cool with that; Belle certainly had a good time so that's something.  I would have loved to have seen Maynard putting her in check, maybe just for old times’ sake.  Maybe that’s why my time in the back yard today didn’t produce any productivity.  Here’s something I haven’t told anyone ever.  Maynard and I had a lot of talks this summer about a bunch of different things.  At the end of nearly every one of those conversations, I would remind him about those rows of piled leaves come spring.  Even on a bad day, he’d wag his tail and let me know he remembered.  He wanted to get there too, you know?

I’m glad I didn’t rake those leaves now.  I didn’t even realistically contemplate it if I’m honest.  It once was an event that I shared with my dogs but it just seems liked a chore now.  That sucks.  What doesn’t suck is that I remember the look of accomplishment and breathless pride Maynard would have on his face after he had successfully navigated the leaf maze to track Belle down.  It’s a lesson in perseverance, right?  Even after he’s long gone, little man is still teaching me how to be a better man.  That’s a helluva thing.

I could wait ‘til Spring I guess, but Maynard wouldn’t know the difference, right?  Maybe next weekend, Belle and I will tackle those leaves.   

Maybe.