On a positive note, I’m back to listening to music on the drive home.  I miss Stoney & Wojo on WDFN in Detroit and the joy they expressed as fans and not just sports talking heads.  Go Lions!  Go Blue!

I guess this facebook crap works as it is designed.

Since my last posting, I’ve secured another contract job at Ford Motor Company.  I’m working on the Global Warranty Team and it has required me to learn more than any person should know about global warranty.  I’m happy to be working and not becoming a statistic which has become so common place here.

I should also mention, I started the job less than 4 business days after I lost my previous job .  I was and continue to be quite blessed.  I thank God everyday for all the earthly goodness he has provided me.  Peace.

Let me give you some background.  For almost 20 years I was in the world of telecommunication specializing in customer service and call centers.  I started in Los Angeles in 1982 and ended up in Ohio in 2001 with long stays in San Diego and Detroit.  The business was cyclical.  As companies expanded and grew, they would eventually be bought or would establish joint ventures with other companies.  Whenever expenses had to be cut, each would begin their cutbacks in customer service.  Hence, my first 2 layoffs.  However, with each job came more marketable skills and with a willingness to relocate (I love new adventures in new cities), new opportunities.  Finally, in 2001 I turned down a promotion and a relocation to Dallas to stay in Michigan to be closer to my parents.

My Dad was a retired Engineer at Ford Motor Company.  I was born into the “Ford Family” in the shadow of  the World Headquarters in Dearborn and raised in Detroit.  I, just like my Dad had done 27 years before, worked at the Henry Ford Museum for 4 summers. The only non-Ford vehicle I owned was my first car: a used 1971 Mercury Capri.  Through the years, I never considered owning another brand.  Part loyalty to my Dad and part being a member of the Ford family.  Also, I never had any problem with my vehicles and would give/sale them to my nieces & nephews whenever I bought a new one.

Now let’s skip ahead to 2002.  After traveling for several months using up a portion of  a very nice severance package, I decided to ease back into the working world through a temp agency.  Ironically, the first job presented to me was at Ford, working in their dispute resolution department.   I really enjoyed the job and the temporary assignment lasted 5 years.  At that time, I interviewed for a new position that was described as “something to do with customer service and the internet”.  I spent my days on the internet, learning listening and responding to customers.  Most of my friends were jealous.  Anyway, I held the position until  this past week when I became another victim of the economy (another story for another day).  The position was eliminated and my contract was canceled.

I actually enjoyed my jobs immensely.  I was learning things daily, both inside the company and in the world of social media.  Most importantly, I had yet another bond with my father who would listen to me talk about my jobs and then tell stories about his time at Ford.  He’d reminisce often and we talked about how I was walking the same floors he had walked years and even decades before me.  He was proud and very excited when I was interviewed for an article in Ford World magazine.

As my Dad’s health and memory faded after a series of mini-strokes, I’d visit him pretty much every Saturday.  Many times he couldn’t remember my name and sometimes would introduce me to other people as his favorite brother instead of as his son.   But his eyes lit up whenever I talked about work and Ford.  Those were special times for me.  Unfortunately, he passed away in the Spring of 2008.  Every day at work I could not look at the Ford logo without thinking about my Dad which I think ultimately helped me through the grieving process.

Then finally, last week I was told my contract would not be renewed because of necessary reductions.  Now as I look forward to the next phase in my life, I want it to be clear that I’m not bitter.  I’m living a life that has proven time and again, every time one door closes, another door opens.  I learned that from my Dad.  I’m thankful for all that Ford meant to my Dad and for being a constant in my life.  No matter where I live or what I will be doing, I will still think of myself as part of the Ford family.

It’s Halloween and work is going okay. I’ve been told that as a contract worker, I won’t be able to work during the company holidays during the next 2 months. Just to get you up to speed; as a contractor, if I dont’ work, I don’t get paid. They’re talking about 12 days mostly around Christmas. That sucks because I don’t get enough vacation time from Kelly Services to make up for it all so I’m going to be having some lean checks for awhile. I even have to take Election Day off!

Leaves have fallen and I wish I could afford to have someone cart them away. The city used to make two sweeps each fall to pickup leaves dragged or blown to the curbside. This year they decided to do only 1 sweep and my street won’t be done until 12/4. My complaints to the city fell on deaf ears so I’ll have to do a lot of leaf bagging over the next several weeks. Did I mention I’ll have some painful surgery done to me next week?

There’s going to be an all-souls day celebration for my Dad this weekend. It’s hard to beleive it has been almost 7 months since his passing.

I’ve sent out the invites to my annual UofM vs osu football party. If you haven’t received yours yet, then you’re probably not invited. I’m just saying….

Since I last typed, I added wi-fi to my cable modem & attached my laptop to my tv. I’ve been sorta hooked on watching old tv & movies through the computer since then. I don’t need no stinkin’ commercials. Did “Movie Macabre” from 1982 KHJ-TV, channel 9 used to show topless shots or is this just the version that hulu shows? It’s hard to say because I only had a 13″ tv back then so I may just have not noticed.

My part of Michigan is in prime fall color mode and it’s beautifully warm (upper 60′s), sunny day. This is truly when Michigan rocks.

Time to get back to work and focus my energy on being allowed to leave early just because it’s Friday and it’s Halloween.

Peace. M

Posted on: October 31, 2008 10:24 AM Delete
Edit A brief apology
Jeepers. I didn’t realize I couldn’t go back and edit my previous postings. Therefore, I apologize for the difficult read some of my spelling errors may make for you. I even had trouble following my rambling sentences with a few, choice typos. That is all. Peace. Now, that is all.

Posted on: September 17, 2008 11:10 AM Delete
Edit A suddenly busy week
The Algonquin Club meeting last night at the Windsor Airport was interesting. The guest speaker was discussing plans to honor the Windsor are veterans of war (any war back to the mid 18th century) by building a military aircraft museum. Among the features, and state in this order were: a space to display refurbished planes, an extensive military archive and a pub. That’s right, a pub. I’ve been to many different museums around the country and even the few that have “spirits” available, did not have a full service pub. I have to hand it to them Canadians for knowing their audience.

The editor of our newsletter also introduced the webpage I had been working on for several years (www.algonquinclub.info) and I think he may have tried to most of the credit. I guess if he wants to edit it, then I have no problem with it. We’ll see how that all turns out. Actually, it was fun to creat but I have since lost interest in maintaining it. Wisely, I kept control of the domain name for the next 10 years.

Tonight is the 2009 Gesu Alumni Reunion Party planning committee meeting. I’ve been planning to attend but I am still feeling tired after getting home late last night. It’s out in Royal Oak so I think it will be a game time decision on whether or not I attend. Besides I need to get my haircut.

I finally made plans to go apple picking next Saturday. Apple picking was an annual event when I was a wee lad growing up in Riverview, MI. I remember the wooden bushels we would fill with apples. Back then I loved the Mcintosh apples. Today, I’m more about Golden Delicious apples and Dutch apple pie. I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Nothing earth shattering to report but I think I’ve said enough for now. Peace.

Posted on: September 17, 2008 11:05 AM Delete
Edit These past two weeks have been fabulous…
Wow! Life has been very kind to me and I feel compelled to write the words down even if no one else reads them. Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been contacted by Cliff Salawage via DM on twitter, Brian Buckholtz via a phone call and Angela Smith via a Facebook invitation. I was so close to cancelling the email address that Angela used to contact me. It is so good to know that my laziness (in not contacting earthlink to cnc) has been rewarded. Strange days indeed. Back on 9/24/2007, I blogged some names of people that I wished to be reconnected with and now I’ve been reconnected with 4 of them with nothing more than sending a want and wish out to the universe. Why do I ever doubt?

This post should be relatively short but it is morning and I’m known to be quite verbose as the sun moves westward. Also, I have to maintain a high pace of “engagements” at my job & the morning is the best time. So briefly, this weekend I spent Saturday driving & hydroplaning in the driving rain taking my bro Bill out to visit our bro Tim. Tim has been battling an ankle ailment for nearly 6 months and the doctors can’t seem to pinpoint the problem. He has to use crutches to move around and has to take medicines throughout the day. Anyway, we watched MSU beat FAU and then watched UofM fall to the lowly Irish of ND. Thankfully, all was not lost as OSU fell to USC. Hooray.

Sunday, I again drove and hydroplaned but this time to drive to Jackson to take Mom to lunch. It was good one on one time and I fixed her hardwired smoke detectors. Two of them were beeping about every 1.5 minutes which apparently was annoying to Mom. I did get to play the piano that my Mom recently aquired. Several years ago I made the decision to abandon my piano and focus on the guitar. I was amazed yesterday at how much of the piano-playing I had retained. Music is just downright one of the coolest things in the world and I could not live without it.

Well, with a smile on my face, I’ll close this entry and get back to work. As always, I am grateful for all that God has given me and I try to stay in a a state of being generous and grateful. Peace.

Posted on: September 15, 2008 6:06 AM Delete
Edit This site’s limitations
Sadly, I just discovered that I cannot add a place for comments with my current web provider. I guess I’ll be leaving Earthlink sooner than later. It will be a good day.

Posted on: August 12, 2008 12:42 PM Delete
Edit Hi technology! Did you miss me?
For many years I was a “have to have the latest electronics” kind of guy. I bought my first record player when I was 7 years old with my First Communion money combined with change from bottle returns when they were only worth $.02 each. My stereos improved with each raise in pay from my news carrier days all the way to my career in telecommunications.

By the time I had slowed down on my annual stereo related purchases(the mid-90′s), I was already deeply entrenched in computers. I learned FORTRAN computer language in college circa late 70′s. My first PC was an AT&T Unix bought in 1984. Seven or eight upgrades later, here I am with a smartphone as my constant companion. Again along the way I started blogging and slowly joined the world now known as “social media”.

Six years ago, I was ready to get out of computers and figure out what I really wanted to do. Now move ahead to 2008 and I’ve come to the decision that I want to jump back into the computer world. In some areas, it has been a bit of a struggle to get up to speed. Hence my creation of many webpages for family, alumni and a local historical society (albeit using templates to get me started!) followed by a smartphone purchase back in March and my finally first (well, it quickly became 3) domain name purchases a few months later. I was making leaps I didn’t even consider making just a few short years ago. I rekindled a part of me that had been dormant for too long.

My current job is to post comments and replies on behalf of the company I represent. I literally fell into this job 18 months ago, just happy to continue working when those around me were laid off. The job description as it was presented to me was “something to do with computers and customer service.” The job and I are growing and changing together. Although, I had some feedback from different areas, the number one thing I heard is that “there is nobody in this industry doing exactly what you are doing.” I must admit, that scared me a bit because I couldn’t help but be cynical and think that it was just a clever way of saying “we can get rid of you at anytime.”

Now I know that this has been and continues to be a huge opportunity for me. As I’ve made contacts and posted hundreds of posts on various sites, I have a really comfortable feeling about posting. Tomorrow I’ll be attending a meeting that is bringing a few departments together to figure out our company’s strategy going forward.

I know this post has been rather long and I do apologize. But stay tuned. I promise I will avoid being such a windbag unless absolutely necessary. Hi internet, did you miss me?

Posted on: August 12, 2008 11:09 AM Delete
Edit I have a moving gargage can
I put my garbage can down by the curb last night for pickup today. I heard the garbage men at 5:45am picking up trash as usual. When I backed out of my driveway for work, I noticed my trash can lid was still on the garbage can and the garbage can wasn’t on its side somewhere in the street. I thought, “How strange that they put the lid back on.” Since I put my garbage in a garbage bag and then put the garbage bag in a trash can (a bad experience with a critter tearing open trash). When I came home from work, the garbage can was in the middle of my driveway. Apparently, my new lawn service company figured I didn’t need to drive up my driveway when I got home. They specialize in lawns and not pavement. To my surprise the trash was still in the garbage can. I called the city, they said they’d try to come out tonight but would probably not be there until Monday. My taxes at work. So I left the garbage can outside. This begs the question: For 6 years they never missed a pickup. So how did they not see a tall, 50 gallon green garbage can down by the street? All my neighbors trash was picked up. Sometimes I just don’t get it but it still makes me smile.
Posted on: June 6, 2008 5:01 PM Delete
Edit A new direction
In an effort to stay focused on cute and funny thing I experience, I’m going to redirect my blog topic. I may comment on things that have happened (and memories I choose to document) but the overall theme is happiness and irony. Is being ironic a good thing?
Posted on: June 6, 2008 4:54 PM Delete
Edit It’s a good day
If God is a water fowl then I was in heaven this morning. Two ducks were perched on my front lawn. This has only happened one other time. I wonder if these are the same ducks. Anyway, then just before arriving at work, traffic was halted as two geese waddled with 2 baby geese (goslings?) across the street. Is it a sign I need to move back to the canals and the insane geese of Venice?

I went grocery shopping last night for both the camping trip and the barbecue. I have to get some Kowalski kielbasa tonight as is tradition in my household but otherwise all finished with the shopping. I also have to get excited about mowing my lawn tonight as the grass is growing at an obscene rate. What I finish tonight I won’t have to worry about while I’m camping. As far as mantras go, this doesn’t flow well but the sentiment is spot on.

I’m looking forward to another great day at work and a fun-filled evening at home. Peace.

Posted on: May 22, 2008 5:51 AM Delete
Edit verizon wireless and my xv6800 smart (alleged) phone
I still can’t get my phone to display an unplayedback voicemail on my phone. The webpage says it should be there but most enthusiast sites say that verizon removed that option. On the phone it looks like it has been set up correctly but the indicator does not display. It works fine with emails and text messages so I don’t know what is up. I don’t like wasting time on hold calling customer service but I guess I’ll have to suck it up. Later gator.

Posted on: May 21, 2008 8:36 AM Delete
Edit Just a quick one
I hadn’t blogged in awhile. It’s not because nothing is happening, it’s just that I haven’t taken the time to write it all down. I blame twitter. I’ve been reminiscing (sp?) about family camping trips of my youth as I prepare for a few days of camping bliss this weekend. I’m still grateful for all the camping trips my Dad took us on. His patience was amazing. Of course, we were all great kids and he had that going for him. That’s all for now, carry on.

Posted on: May 21, 2008 8:26 AM Delete
Edit
Hmmm. Earthlink is not allowing the postings I wrote today to update. It seems silly to complain about here since either it won’t work and you can’t read my complaining OR it will work and my complaining was premature. Jeepers, I can’t believe I’ve been so loyal to Earthlink. In time, in time….

Posted on: April 23, 2008 1:07 PM Delete
Edit
Also, my Dad, Charlie recently passed away after a long slow decline in his health. I’m so grateful for having him in my life and I truly believe he is as close to a saint as I have known. I’m so glad that I returned to Michigan and was able to spend so much time with my parents. There’s a link to his beautifully written eulogy (by my brohams: Bill & John) at macdelavenice.com. Peace be with you Dad.

Posted on: April 23, 2008 12:56 PM Delete
Edit
Well I registered macdelavenice.com today. How exciting! For today, I just forwarded it to my existing earthlink webpages but the plan is to be free of earthlink by the end of July 2008. I hate to give up my email address that I’ve had for over a decade but that is a small price to pay I suppose. My buddy, Chris has been tremendously helpful in all this stuff and we’re looking forward to further online experimentation.

Posted on: April 23, 2008 12:53 PM Delete
Edit Earthlink & trellix screw it up again.
I’m frustrated. Earthlink & trellix won’t allow me to update the mcelhone reunion page. I chatted on line and they finally entered a service ticket. They have another 24 hours before I’m supposed to contact them again. Once again, their internet service is great until they create a problem for you (remember the Outlook security updates they did and then spent an hour telling me I need to update outlook. They didn’t take my advise the customer first suggestion.) Not only can I not update the site, they broke the link to all but one of the pictures AND lengthened the URL. They are the worst.
Posted on: March 2, 2008 4:03 PM Delete
Edit Blogging at work
I’m finally pushing forward with bringing all the various online and blogging related activity at work together. I’ve also decided to jump back in the world of computers. I’m going to update my knowledge of podcast, blogging and web design. I’m a little rusty but I’m looking forward to it. It should also make my work a little easier. Stay tuned and enjoy the music below as you read my blogs. Later and Peace.

Posted on: February 20, 2008 7:52 AM Delete
Edit People I fondly remember, miss and would like to see again
Jacquie Oregel (last known location, Los Angeles), Rebecca Limb (Los Angeles/England), Candy Davis (Los Angeles), Katherine Bradley (Ann Arbor), Brian Buckholtz (Idaho), Anne Mitchell(Royal Oak), Sharron Love (TX), Susan Hennigan (CT), James Paschetag (San Diego), Gayle Reddick (MI), Julie Nutt (MI), Cliff Salawage (TX), Angela Cate (MI), Len Winter (San Diego), Mary Danca (CA), Mike McDermott (CA), Pat O’Keefe (IL), Mark Schram (MI), Steve Schwartz (CA), Sue’s friend Tara (SD), Mike Mortka (St. Louis), Brett Conway (TX), Roberta Reust (Vermillion), Joe Hohman (Vermillion), …

I’ll come back when I’m back from lunch. I just had to get that out there.

Posted on: September 24, 2007 9:30 AM Delete
Edit Blog 2
I’m still unable to find my old dear best friend Brian Buckholtz. It’s like he fell off the face of the earth. It’s been over 3 years since I last spoke to him. He was living in Idaho with his friend L. and their 2 sons. I haven’t called his mother because the last time I spoke with B. he was disenfranchised (I don’t know if that’s the right word but he wasn’t talking to them.) I hope he is alright and that God will find a way for us to get back together. I miss his friendship and the truly wonderful years we spent in San Diego and Los Angeles. Peace my brother from another mother.

Posted on: September 24, 2007 9:17 AM Delete
Edit For the past 2 months
I apologize to all my faithful as I have not updated this site in awhile. Over the past two months I’ve taken trips to Toronto, Connecticut/Rhode Island and to Wyoming. I’ve been busy around work and on the remaining weekends, I went to visit my folks. I may be going to London in November or Peru next year, if my schedule and life agrees to it. I’ve been working around my house and yes, I even did some yardwork beyond mowing my lawn. I’ve had to purchase top soil to help even out the yard where the old trees were cut down. The ground is sinking to a meteor crater. They have to be filled in. I’m also taking a good look at how much work will be needed to repave my driveway. That sucks.
The spiritual journey continues with new books to read, movies to see and trips to plan. I missed the registration for yoga classes this fall (somewhat purposely as I would’ve missed the first 3 classes of an 8 week course. I have totally underused my meditation/yoga room. But at least it is there!

I have to get back to work reading comments from people that are filled with anger, spite, frustration over something as stupid as a sunglass holder in a car. Whatever!!!!!! PEACE

Posted on: September 24, 2007 9:11 AM