These are my Brakes.

These are my Brakes.

Cars are all about maintenance.  You change your oil, you rotate your tires.  You check your fluids and replace your filters.  Well, after my brakes had gotten so bad that the entire truck would rumble every time I hit the brake pedal, I decided it was about time to get down 'n' dirty with some long awaited and much needed maintenance.  As I sat there using my spare tire as a makeshift bench, busting my knuckles trying to break the bolts that held my brake caliper to it's bracket, I began to think about how just about everything in life requires some degree of maintenance at some level.

Life Maintenance

I recently read an article on a somewhat well known blog about how difficult it is to make the transition from teenage internet-monger to responsible adult.  Y'know, the whole mix of catching up on e-mails, watching your finances, housekeeping, etc.  But I realized this weekend that all of those things can be summed up under the title "life maintenance."  You're just taking care of all the things that keep your life moving forward, much like what changing the brakes or flushing your transmission fluid does for your car.  House cleaning, doing dishes, taking out the trash, grocery shopping, laundry...these would all be considered home maintenance.  Then returning phone calls and e-mails and setting appointments and things would be social maintenance.  Eating, working out and hygienic practice would be personal maintenance.  Then if you developed a system to organize and plan out all your maintenances, that would be maintenance maintenance.

Work vs. Home

I think I'm much better at keeping up with my stuff at work than at home.  My work space is immaculately organized, everything on my desk pad calendar is color coded with highlighters, and my inbox is perpetually empty because I immediately respond to all of my e-mails, then file them in the appropriate folders.  But then at home, I've got a speeding ticket that I've been dragging my feet on until about a week ago, our financial filing cabinet is overflowing with unfiled bills and pay stubs, and I have no idea where I stand with my fall school schedule at UTA.  I need to figure out a way to get more on top of my home stuff.  I would join FlyLady, but there's just one problem with that: it's called FlyLady.  They should make a men's version called Shark-Raptor Man.  Their tagline can be "Take care of your crap or the Shark-Raptor will kill your face."

Go-Kart Relationships

Back to the auto-maintenance thing.  If you don't keep up with your car, it will eventually fall apart and all you can do is hope you're lucky enough to not be inside it when that happens.  Same goes for relationships.  Granted, some relationships take a little more work than others, but they all need upkeep from time to time.  We normally call this "hanging out."  One of my mechanic friends once told me that "everyone wants a go-kart."  What this means is that you buy a go-kart, you drive the go-kart, then you forget about it until you want to drive it again.  There is little to no maintenance to be done.  It made me start thinking about how many relationships I've had in the past that I've expected to be go-kart relationships.  That was clever when I thought of it, but now it's just cheesy.  But I have a rule against backspacing when I blog, so it is what it is.  It's kind of like how I sketch using pen instead of pencil so that I can't erase the stuff I don't like.  I feel it's more honest that way.  And more sloppier.

All in all, there is a myriad of applications for this whole life-is-maintenance idea.  I guess the message behind it is that maintenance must be done if we want things to run smoothly and efficiently.  Every time you find yourself doing some kind of menial task that you hate doing (in my case, folding and putting away laundry), think of it as life maintenance, and understand that it will inevitably need to be done again sometime in the future.  It simply must be done in order for your life to run smoothly.  You might get a few busted knuckles and a shirt stained with motor oil in the process, but there's nothing like the sound of an engine that just got fixed up, roaring extra loud as if it knows it's in good hands, and it's happy to be there.

This is all for now.
-R.

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These are my Keys.

These are my keys.

They used to all be on one key ring until I organized them today.  Now, I've got a ring for my car keys, one for work, one for home(s), and one for the keys that I have no idea what they go to.  I never realized how many keys I actually use in the course of one day.

My Apartment Key.

I use it to lock the door behind me when I leave for work.  We recently got the wife's key duplicated because I lost mine, and driving to Walmart to spend the last of our spare cash on a new key just seemed easier than looking between the cushions on the couch.  We still haven't found my old key...mostly because we haven't looked for it.

My Truck Key.

This one really counts as two because I use the fob to unlock it.  I've always called it a fob.  In my college years, I would mention my fob and people would think I was talking about the band Fallout Boy, because that's their initials.  Then when I met the wife's Asian friend, I learned that the letters FOB also stand for the slang term, "fresh off the boat," which is commonly used to derogatorily describe Asians who haven't been in America very long.  Being Asian myself, whenever people toss a FOB joke my way, I quickly remind them that it actually stands for "frequencies of brilliance."  And if that doesn't shut them up, I usually throw things at them, then storm out of the room, screaming and knocking over random objects on my way out.

My Key Card.

Yes, I've climbed high enough on the corporate ladder to be one of those vest-wearing D-bags who carries a key card around in their pocket, just for the rare occasion that they might actually have to use it.  I must admit, though, that the feeling of waving your wallet like some kind of magic wand in front of that plastic panel on the wall, hearing the click and seeing the red light turn green as the building doors swing open automatically...In my head I always hear the voice of Jerry Orbach as Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast singing "Be Our Guest."  It reminds me of the day I went with my dad to his job at EDS back in the day.  That was also when I found out that brief cases are like ties: they serve no legitimate practical purpose, yet they make you look ten times more professional.

My Suite Key.

And what a sweet suite key it is.  It's extra long so that even if you duplicate it, it still won't work on the door. In fact, the one I have still decides not to work sometimes.  It took me a good solid two weeks before discovering the secret.  When they gave me the key, they forgot to mention that I would have to turn the handle counter-clockwise as far as it would go, then turn the key slightly to the right, and release the handle to let gravity do the rest.    I've always wanted to ask my coworkers if they have the same issue with their keys, but there's always that fear that they'll have no idea what I'm talking about and somehow find a connection between my apparent deficiency in key-using skills and the fact that I was home schooled.

The Mail Key.

One day, I sat in the office of our center director, having our weekly catch-up meeting.  She looked at me and said "Ryan, I think the time has come for me to pass this along to you."  She grabbed something off the top of her filing cabinet, and set it on her desk in front of me.  It was a key.  As she moved her hand away, a choir of angels sang in perfect harmony as the florescent light from the ceiling panels cast a magnificent glow which glistened off it's pristine golden surface.  To what new heights had my job position just been thrown?  What mysterious wonders would be unlocked at the feeble hands of this humble man, a mere operations specialist??  Through what golden gates of endless possibility would I pass by way of this new addition to my plethora of keys???  ...It was the mail key.  I now check the mail at work.  Mostly it's just bills.  Bills and bills and a letter and bills.  I now pay the company's bills.  Yaaay me.

The (apartment) Mail Key.

I check the mail when I get home from work.  We have a care's team.  There's always a flier posted on the inside wall of the lil' mail center thingy.  It's always for an event that already happened.  Like a month ago.  Every afternoon I see a flier for free breakfast.  It's got a clip-art-esque picture of some bacon and eggs with smiley faces on them.  I always think to myself, "Man, that sounds good.  I think I will show up to grab a free breakfast this coming Fri--ummm yeah, that was May 2nd.  It's July now."  I guess it's all for the best, considering my newfound pescetarian lifestyle.  All I would probably walk away with is a glass of orange juice and a tortilla.


Well, those are all the keys I used today.  Still on the carabiner are the key to my parents' house, the key to the storage unit we don't use anymore, a key that I think goes to the Dallas branch of my company, and some other small key that I fully intend to stick into every keyhole I come across until I find a match, or until it gets stuck, in which case I will promptly break it off and run away like my life depends on it.  Because that would make a great story, and we Asians like telling great stories.

This is all for now.
-R.

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These are my Flip Flops.

These are my flip flops.

The wife got them for me a long time ago.  They're my favorite.  Although they look ridiculously old and worn down, they are the most comfortable things I've ever worn on my feet.

I once knew a guy in high school who always wore his favorite flip flops as well.  Only, he literally wore them every day.  They were so broken in that there was a hole in one of them, right where his big toe went.  The bottom of the other one was completely covered in duct tape because it literally would've fallen apart otherwise.  I asked him why he didn't get a new pair and he simply replied, "because they wouldn't be these." He and his flip flops had been through so much together that every blemish was a story - a memory.  He wouldn't trade them for the world.  I find it difficult to get that attached to mine, because...well, they're freaking flip flops.

I could understand the sentimentality if they were, say, puppies.  Or some kind of mythological creature that you just happen to stumble upon in your back yard.  Like a gryphon or something.  That would be flippin' sweet.  I would totally make it a saddle and fly around with my shirt flapping in the wind like Atreyu did on Falcor.  That is, if it didn't try to eat me first.  And there's a good possibility of that happening, especially if I covered it's belly in duct tape and punched a hole in it's face with my big toe like that dude did with his flip flops.  You should never treat your pet gryphon like a pair of flip flops.  That's totally not where I expected to go with this.

If you look at the picture, you'll see that one is more worn down than the other.  I just can't figure out why.  Maybe it's because I walk heavier on my left foot than my right.  But usually you walk heavier on whichever foot corresponds to your dominant hand, which in my case would be my right.  A childhood mentor of mine taught me that to figure out whether your cat is right- or left-handed (or would it be left-pawed?), you put them on a sheet of carbon paper, and make them pounce off of it.  Whichever foot makes the darker impression is their dominant side.  I thought about testing this, but my cats have a habit of trying to eat everything that I don't want them to.  I'm not sure what would happen if they ate carbon paper.  But wait a second - who actually has carbon paper just lying around?  I guess I could use my checkbook...

This is all for now.
-R.

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I really need to get a Phoenix tattoo.

I realized something.

Remember how I was talking about that idea floating around in my head that was put there by my improv-troupe friend?  Well the foundation on which that idea was built is the concept that we humans have an innate burning need to add form and organized structure (or would it be structured organization?) to things in our lives, whether or not those things need it.

For example, when I started at the Fort Worth center, I rearranged my desk to make it more organized.  Everything was put in a place and those places were stacked and positioned logically and strategically for the most efficient use.

Yet, it's not any better.  It just matches me more.

What I saw as chaos, the person with whom I share my desk saw as order.  And now my "order" has created a chaotic workspace for my partner.  I felt the need to add structure and organization to my workspace, even though it didn't need it.

Well I think I've done that with this blog.  The Facebook Fridays was a good idea when I had it, but this most recent post has proven to me that it's just turned the blog into a predictable, formulaic record of my life, lacking any kind of artistic exploration or emotional connection.  It might as well be called Ryan's Weekly Update, because I'm starting to feel it's just gotten that bland.

So, instead of continuing down my current path of obligatory unabridged Facebook status articles, I think I have a good idea of what phase 2 of Project RoboDog will be.  I'm still taking a daily picture every day on my iPhone and uploading them to my Project365 app.  Instead of stocking up on random ideas as they come to me, only to have them explode into my blog once a week with no semblance of continuity or overarching thought process, I will post up a photo and wrap my post around it.  Not just any photo, though; it must be the photo I take on that particular day for Project365.

I'll still collect ideas as I go about my day-to-day life, but the real challenge here will be relating my thoughts to the photo.  I only managed to do four Facebook Fridays before running them into the ground.  Hopefully my Photo Philosophies will last a little longer.

Onwards and upwards, my friends.

This is all for now.
-R.

I was born a poor black child.

Ev'reh fowth o' Joo-lah growin' up, I 'member askin' mah mamma, I said "Mamma?"  An' she would say "Yes, child?"  An' I said "What in cotton-pickin' tarnation is dis donzerly light dat everyone keeps singin' 'bout?"

An' she would jus' smiiiiile like she always did, 'n' start singin' some ol' song 'bout Jesus while rockin' back 'n' foath in her rockin' chair on our ol' wooden poach.  It was dat soft quiet smile dat said "You'll figgya it out soon enough, son."

Well, mamma, I still ain't quite figger'd out what in the blazes dat doggone donzerly light is, but one tang's fer sure: dat nat'nl anth'm is still one gosh-dern purdy sawng.

Happeh Foath, y'all.

Facebook Fridays: 2am

So this was a pretty eventful week.  Comedy clubs and Deep Ellum bars, midnight movies, deep paradigm-shifting revelations...oh, and my wife thought I was dead today.

It seems like everything significant this week has happened at or around 2am.

Saturday, at 2am
I'm sitting in a bar with an old friend, catching up on life and talking about the structure of the church.  He's part of an improvisational comedy troupe for whom I designed a poster quite some time ago in exchange for free tickets to a show.  Well, we went Friday.  It was loads of fun.  Our wives hit it off.  After the show, as we sat in an otherwise empty bar in Deep Ellum, he brought up a concept that I'd never previously considered.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  Actually, no it didn't.  It hit me like...scalding hot coffee in my face.

Whenever someone says something hit them like a ton of bricks, I always want to respond with "So you're saying it killed you?  Wow...[insert something awesome and sarcastic that I'm too sleepy to think of right now]."

But seriously.  I walked away from that conversation with a new thought hovering in my head that would change everything I thought about the Body of Christ if I let it.

Tuesday, at 2am
I'm walking out of the Studio Movie Grill in Arlington, debating with my wife about the differences between the movie Edward and the book Edward.  People kept asking me "How did you like Eclipse?"  And my answer of choice: "I like seeing my wife happy."  If I have to paint her a shirt and go to the premier to make her happy, then that's what I'm gonna do.

I read a book recently about keeping a beginner's mind when learning things.  The whole concept is that you learn most when you understand that you are a beginner.  Once you get comfortable in your aptitude, you lose your thirst for growth and you stop paying attention to things from which you might learn.

I've begun to apply this principle to every aspect of my life.  It's gone pretty smoothly so far, but it's the marriage and the Christianity parts that are really proving to be challenges.  Surprise, surprise.  It's amazing, the things that pop into your head when you look at your loved one and think to yourself "I need to re-learn how to love you."

Wednesday, at 2am
Well this wasn't really at 2am but I'm going to pretend it was because I'm already this far into the post and I pretty much have to stick to the theme, or else I think like a fairy somewhere will die or something.  So at 2am on Wednesday morning, I was walking out of the Movie Tavern agreeing with the wife about how terrible The Last Air Bender was.  But after the heated Twilight debate the night before, it was refreshing to agree just as strongly on another movie.

Highlights of the experience:

 - The guy in front of us in line who was able to pronounce M. Night Shalaman, Shominom and Shakala, but for whatever reason couldn't wrap his head around the concept of correctly pronouncing Shaymalan.  Granted, it's not an American-friendly surname.  But most of the time, people who can't pronounce it don't even try.  They just mumble it, much like that Millajovavovavich woman from the Resident Evil movies.  Most of the time it just comes out sounding like "Emnashomanon."  And that's okay.  It's a respectable and humorous way to say "I have no clue how to pronounce that freaking guy's name."

 - My Facebook post warning fans of the cartoon series against seeing the movie.  This is a highlight because several people whose tastes in movies (and really, most media-related artistic mediums) closely match mine, posted comments showing respect for my opinion.  They were along the lines of "I'll wait for it to come out on DVD then" rather than "I don't believe you and want to see it for myself."  Well, one person did say that second one, but I'll let it slide...because his wife can hurt me.

Saturday, at 2am
I'm blogging about my week.  I normally do this during the day on Fridays, but today I had a root canal and we were also taking care of my stroke-surviving mother-in-law.  Oh yeah - on my drive home from the dentist's office, my phone remained on but decided not to ring or alert me when people called or texted.  The wife freaked out after me not answering my phone for an hour straight (while driving on the freeway in the rain in a truck with bad brakes, mind you), so she decided that I was probably dead and proceeded to place panicked phone calls to just about everyone in her contact list, as well as 911.  I got home, and the dialogue proceeded as follows:

  Mother-in-law, lying on couch: "Hey, cutie!"
  Me: "Where's Glennda?"
  Glennda bursts in: "Where have you been!!?!?"
  Mother-in-law: "Someone help me up, I gotta pee."

I was in big trouble at first, and my wife had that look in her eye that makes husbands immediately stop talking and start indiscriminately cleaning random things around the house.  But once she found out that I was in fact alive, and that it was my phone's fault for not ringing, she cooled off and just wanted a hug.  But, you guys, this is just one more reason why I need an iPhone 4 as soon as possible.  I'm jus' sayin'.

So what does this have to do with anything?  Nothing really, but there are some things that you just don't not blog about.  This is one of them.

Well, I started this post at about 1:30 thinking that I could finish it by 2, and keep with the theme of the post, but here we are at 3:43 and I've had to wake myself up about 87 times during the course of writing this post, and I'm pretty sure I have the impression of my laptop keyboard plastered across my face.  So that was my week.  How was yours?

Good night.
-R.