I cancel my adult subscription effective immediately

I saw this great meme the other day:

It caused me to think about what it means to be an adult, and why so many want out.  Think about what it meant to be a child, or what people are probably referring to is that sweet spot between feeling like an adult (i.e. making your own decisions, wiping your own ass) it was a sense of freedom, getting up in the morning and having the freedom to play all day and know that everything needed to survive would be taken care of...  Like food, shelter, clothes.  

The simplicity of this life came down to the fact that everything that was really important probably would fit in your backpack!  How many of you dreamt of climbing out your window in the middle of the night with a few clothes and your favorite do-dad that reminded us of that thing, or that place, or person that was awesome and hit the road.  Food and shelter be damned!  There was nothing really stopping you, friends would let you couch surf a bit, and food, can't you just pick food off trees and stuff?  

I think the first pitfall to becoming an adult for most children is a car!  Yep, a car.  Think about it, whether you purchased it yourself, or your parents purchased it for you, a car is probably the first thing you owned that was really important and you could not throw in a backpack.  Sure you could drive away, just your car and you backpack, but soon the conversation dwindles out, what about gas, car payments, maintenance and you really know you just became an adult when you say the dirtiest adult word of all; 'INSURANCE'!  Yep, your simple and meagre existence went from living on a few hundred dollars a month, which you could probably get by working odd jobs here and there to A REAL JOB.

So you're on your own, you got a job and a car, you will need 'work clothes'.  They won't fit in a backpack, they need a place; probably, like a closet.  So now you need a closet, couch surfing is looking less likely.  If you put something in a closet at a friends house, you've moved in.  Where do you get a closet? oh yeah, you need a home, an apartment, now you have RENT.  Most of your time goes to work, you don't have time to go 'find' food', besides when you get off work you don't want to go work more, so restaurant it is; but wait, couldn't you save money by going to the grocery store?  Sure, where are you going to put all the food, in the refrigerator?  What refrigerator, oh the one you are going to buy, besides, the apartment came with an extra closet just for one.

So you buy a refrigerator, hopefully, you pay cash, nothing destroys the feeling of being a kid more than a loan.  Loans don't go away, they destroy freedom and can follow you for years.  At least if you buy a cheap POS refrigerator and pay cash you can still walk away anytime and get some of that youth back!.  But wait, now you actually need electricity (yes in this situation you had an apartment without electricity, you didn't own anything else why would you need it?) and that's a 'BILL' the second most dirty word in the adult language.  Now you are fully fledged adult, you can tell this because when you get up in the morning there is an overwhelming feeling to accomplish something, 

You have a place to live now, friends have probably started to mention that you 'need' furniture and stuff, maybe some nick nacks to put next to that do-dad that meant so much to you when you left. Maybe, you'd like to fix up your box, go buy some paint 'make it your own'.  The third dirty little adult word has now entered your language 'NEED' starts to take over.  Acquisition is now your new pass time and replaces that thing you did as a child, "play".  

Playing is the definition of not being an adult, 'Playing' is pure and requires nothing.  A child, will 'play' with an imaginary friend if there is nothing else to play with.  Have you ever seen a child at play that is not happy? I started writing this with the intent of conveying that 'stuff' is the problem, but I enjoy following the path that my mind lays out through the writing process. So it turns out stuff, is not the antithesis to childhood, the inability to 'play' is.  Maybe, if we need more time to play, we should get rid of some stuff?   Maybe, you just need to play with the great stuff you already have?  

Today, well, it's my work day, so far I've been 'playing' with this meme.  Maybe today I will play with my work?  Maybe, I will feel more childlike if I woke up with the idea of, I wonder what I can play with today?  Either way, I got to get going, I got some bills to play with.

Never Give Up

Very recently a friend of mind posted a question on FB “Have you ever known a person who would never give up?”  I quickly bashed out a comment about a man that I knew who wouldn’t give up and it cost him near everything.  The memory of that man, has been burnt into my brain for years and since has caused me to withdraw a little where I felt someone could not succeed yet they seemed to have undying determination to push forward.  The truth of the matter is that man did not fail he succeeded in trying. 

 

I just read a story of two men who didn’t give up in spite of dramatic and impossible odds.  One is Raphael Dinelli a single handed sailor in the 1996 Vendee’ Globe race, a race around the world under sail alone.  Raphael was overwhelmed in the southern ocean by a storm carrying Hurricane Force winds and 60’ waves that bashed his boat which ultimately sank in one of the most desolate places on the planet, he shouldn’t have been in the race, he wasn’t able to raise the funds in time to get ready to make a 500 mile test run of himself and the equipment to qualify, instead he ran the race as an outsider.  The storm had swept his life raft off the boat and he stood on the sinking hull of the boat certain he would die when an assisting plane dropped him two life rafts, he stepped inside moments before the final bit of his boat sank to the ocean floor.  Huddled in the life raft 24 hours without food or water in sub freezing temperatures wet to the bone he had a message that another sailor was 10 hours away and headed in his direction, every minute of his life from then on was a battle to survive certain every minute he would die.

 

The other sailor was a Brit by the name of Pete Goss.  Pete was another, shouldn’t have been there entrant, he raised all the money himself at times sleeping on subway platforms between appointments in distant cities with major corporations looking for sponsorship.  On the dock the day of the race he nearly had his entrance into the race denied for failure to raise the last funds to participate, a friend threw down his Platinum Card at the last minute to make it happen.  Pete was in the same storm 160 miles to windward barely holding on himself when he received the distress signal, he knew that turning towards Raphael would almost certainly mean his own death but decided to turn into the 70 mile and hour winds and huge seas and head towards his fellow competitor because if he didn’t make it he would ‘succeed in trying’ at the very least.

 

-          Close to the wind by Pete Goss

Experience starts when you begin

Am Struggling

Hello me.

 

I am talking to myself as I know that only I read this blog and since it’s been so long that I’ve written myself I feel it’s time we got re-acquanted.  I am now back in a corporate routine with the ever feeling of not enough effort given for my pay, the responsibility of time as an order above result and the burden of other people’s success.  But mostly I am a suburban man who is responsible for all those things that make suburbans purr and soccer cleats tramp amongst the grass.

 

A friend of mine recently said that he observed early on that to be a good parent and husband took a lot of work so he never became one.  He is right but he is missing out on some of the niceties of life, love to come home for, and hope for the future. 

 

Tonight I am struck with the sense that I miss the water and have toyed with the idea that I need to part ways with my boat, a difficult disparagy to say the least.  Such as life is there are time to plan for the future and times to grasp on to the present.  This is of the first order.  I have a dream to leave this area with a little money in my hand and a boat under my feat to find new lands and explore new lives but this is not without planning, planning that happens now and sacrifice that must be endured.

Top ten things my Dad taught me:

 

1. Don't hire someone to fix anything you haven't tried to fix yourself first.

2. Family second only to God. Which puts them first for me.

3. Something borrowed should always be returned in better shape than received.

4. Friends are one of your most cherished assets treat them well.

5. Pay your bills before you feed yourself.

6. Don't borrow (see #5 for reason).

7. Don't Lend (See #4 for reason).

8. Tools are just a little less valuable than friends so treat them that way.

9. Work harder than anyone around you and you will never be without a job.

10. There's no such thing as sick days (see #9 for reason).

 

These are real things I took from my Dad what he taught me growing up in his own way. The older I get the more I cherish them, thank you Dad

RE: I miss you

It’s very nice that you have found resources like Google to assist in what is otherwise known as education and practice.  My mother would be aghast at the novelty of shortcuts available to students today!  J.  Glad to see you’re spending time with Hailey and teaching her some additional languages, you may want to consider Mandarin if things continue as they are it could be very useful.

 

As to the UFO’s I have come to the belief that humans in general make a decision as to what they believe in, then they find the evidence to back up their belief system, not the other way around.  In some rare instances people will change their belief because of a new set of values, but I hold that the above is still true; they change their belief and then seek out facts to support the emotion of the change.  I don’t believe there’s much difference of scientists, nor priests, it’s simply a belief that they then backed up by a series of facts that they chose to support their belief system. 

 

Jerry Dale is an effective example, through years of study to support a belief system that maybe he had never fully bought into he then postulated a new belief system and sought out evidence to support it most likely not revealing the change in the belief until he could reveal his set of evidence that supports it.  The evidence as he presents it doesn’t change any other’s belief except those that have already fundamentally adopted a similar belief system and are still searching out evidence to support it.

 

Ben Franklin said it best “The primary difference between Animals and Humans is Humans have the ability to rationalize ANYTHING.”  Believe what you wish, for you will find plenty of evidence to support it and convince yourself of its truth.

 

So we can choose to believe that UFOs are appearing over Catalina Island and are rising out of the ocean, or we can believe the physics that they teach in college preventing such an occurrence, it’s neither here nor there.   We cannot do the tests ourselves or quantify the math down to the singularly most basic principal.  We have to take it all on faith, leaving us only to deem that what we believe is true and ultimately there is no truth, just belief.

 

From: rae [mailto:nu.advnturs@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 7:37 PM
To: Tim@theehrlichs.net
Subject: Re: I miss you

 

Hola, Tim,

 

Asi pues, usted desea practicar su espanol?  Bueno para las dos. Gracias Google, is posible.  Algo que quieres hacer con Hailey para ayudarle un poco de espanol.  He impreso unas cuantas reglas sencillas frases que se utilizan para comunicar sus deseos.  Now I'll write in English.  No sense overdoing it.  Anyway, as to  my comments re: the ufo's, I have reservations about some of what is presented as fact on the History Channel, but if you see any, let me know.  Take care.  Love, Mom. 

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 8:25 PM, Tim@theehrlichs.net <tim@theehrlichs.net> wrote:

Hi Mom sorry I missed your call. I have gotten away from work for the first time in a month and to the boat first time in 2 months. We have spent th weekend sailing and hanging out on the boat.

Today Valerie (yes Dora) and her friend.  Also Danny Susan kerstyan also joined us.

We sailed all day it got a little cool so we came back to the dock and we r now cooking dinner on the boat.

Luv ya

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 5, 2010, at 2:48 PM, rae <nu.advnturs@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Tim,

Just wanted to talk to you.  Miss you.  Maybe Jacob will talk too?  We are getting ready for a garage sale about mid-june.  While going through things under the house, we found your old baseball glove, baby rattle and baby dish.  They will be kept for you along with some other baby and childhood things.  It always makes me sad to go through those things.  I can't help but miss my babies.  Those were some of my happiest times, when you two were little and growing up.  Mothers are very sentimental about such things.

Anyway,  I am looking forward to having a  colonoscopy (not) on Wednesday.  The most fun is drinking the prep.  These kind of tests are recommended for people between 50 to 60.  You have a while yet.  Enjoy those years while you can.  One day the scope cometh.

                                                                                                                Mom.

 

End of a chapter

So today was really my last full day working at my current location as a Funeral/Director and Cemetery Sales Person or Universal Counselor as it is more commonly known.  I am going back into management at a location much closer to my home.  Although I would prefer not to be the manager, opportunity and income of this position helped me make the decision.  It’s exciting thinking about taking reigns of a location again, training new counselors, being able to try some of the creative things I come up with and having my name on the credits.  I need to make more notes about it but I’m a bit tired after a final day.

 

That Is Dying

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

 

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

 

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

 

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says:  “There she is gone!”  There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:  “Here she comes!”

 

And that is dying.

 

-          Henry Van Dyke

 

 

Someone gave this little poem to me the other day for a service.  It was simply beautiful to me at first, as I thought about it I was reminded me of all that is wrong with human beings perception of death.  The need to feel that somehow that person still lives, still has importance to someone somewhere, is still creating new memories.  We have an overwhelming need to hold onto the life that was lived and it has spawned religion, sorcery, devil worship, belief in ghost and other supernatural fantasies.

 

I’ve said it before but this poem may inspire me say it better.

 

A crewman was on board working on pulling in a sheet.  As he put the handle into the winch it slipped out of his hands hit the deck and bounced overboard.  For a second everyone could see the handle slip down into the water and sinking into the abyss, everyone moved towards the edge as if they could somehow dive in and save it but it was lost.  As it continued to sink out of reach and into the endless ocean everyone realized it was gone, no more.  And that is Death.

 

Timothy J Ehrlich

Family Care Specialist

timothy.ehrlich@sci-us.com

(626) 691-2000

 

February 25, 2010 68 degrees and sunny

Applied for a position as Sales Manager at Mtn. View with the full knowledge that I will be losing money for a little while as I build the location.  I believe it can be done and I’ll be close to home which is nice.  More to come.

 

Note taken on 2/2/10.

These were goals and attitude reminders when u started my career in
sales. The attitude disciplines worked the goals, well o feel like I
might have set unreasonable expectaions. Still it was a difficult end
toy 35 th year recording that this had failed.

More Balls.

It seems that balls will be re-occuring this year in my notes.  Today it is purely the metaphorical balls that represent courage or courageous stupidity some may say.  At my office workers are cutting down a few trees and as I see the worker dangling from a rope that I wouldn't hoist a sail with it occurred to me that it must take some 'balls' to do that on a daily basis.  Weilding a chainsaw and cutting through sections of the tree that easily weigh 5 times his own weight while dangling 20' in the air would certainly put me into sheer verdigo.

 

I wonder what he thinks of my job, does he look at the guy in the office and say that sure looks easy?  Or does he think that working for commission and dealing with rejection everyday must take a lot of 'balls'.  Does he see me knocking doors in his neighborhood and go 'glad I don't have to do that, it sure takes some 'cajones' to sell cemetery property door to door?'  These are the things that make me wonder.

 

 

Jan 17 2010.

So i havent written in a while which has now fully broken my only new years resolution which is to write something here everyday. But I thought I'd ad something here tonight as everywhere I turn I am hearing about the plight of Haiti. Right now the world or from my perspective the United States is extending their long arm to avail bail out a small and inevitably doomed country in spite of their own woes. I know that at some point we will realize that our own cicvilization rests in our ability to take care of our own first to pay our debt to the guaranteer's of our financial stability but for now the worl should revel on our arrogance as wr thumb those lenders in their face and take credit for giving their money and resources to Haiti. Go US.

Sent from my iPhone

Jan 17 2010 65 rainy

So i havent written in a while which has now fully broken my only new
years resolution which is to write something here everyday. But I
thought I'd ad something here tonight as everywhere I turn I am
hearing about the plight of Haiti. Right now the world or from my
perspective the United States is extending their long arm to avail
bail out a small and inevitably doomed country in spite of their own
woes. I know that at some point we will realize that our own
cicvilization rests in our ability to take care of our own first to
pay our debt to the guaranteer's of our financial stability but for
now the worl should revel on our arrogance as wr thumb those lenders
in their face and take credit for giving their money and resources to
Haiti. Go US.

Jan 11 2010. 76 deg

Crazy warm winter as I and sure you can tell by the temperature in my
posts bmaybe that's why we are so busy in the mortuary. I've had the
most amazing day, it was challenging and full of problems but at the
end of it all everyone left a little better than they came in.

Jan 10, 2010 76 degrees beautifull

I jokingly told my manager I was going to quit today and go sailing instead.  She smiled and said she'd join me.  It put me at ease about some of the crap that's going on at work right now, just a small sense of humility, empathy, and an understanding of where someone is coming from.  Putting people at ease is the greatest gift I believe anyone in public relations can have.  Being able to look them in the eye, upset, angry, grieving, or whatever emotion is taking hold of them.  Ensuring them their feelings are valid and trying to see where they are coming from regardless of how you feel personally about their views is the key. 

 

I just got in from doing something just like that.  The family was upset with me, I made a mistake, they are mad, no getting around it.  I could make excuses or tell them it's no big deal but that won't do.  Simply coming to them admitting the wrong and validating their frustration always seems to lower the tension of the situation, I don't know how I picked this up because in all other situations I tend to infuriate people but here I got it right.

 

 

Jan 9 th 2010. Eve 68 deg

Sitting here at the Vault A somewhat hip bar in Redlands smoking a
cigar and waiting for someone to ask me if I want a drink. Sad really
but the bad will be starting early and since Im not hip Im early
enough to have skipped the cover. I've always like this place it's but
up into lot of small different atmospheres. Right now Im sitting in
the patio where smoking is acceptable. The whole patio might be 500
square feet but regardless a full band will be firiing up here making
the decible level near intolerable for these middle aged ears.

Inside is a nice bar reminiscent more of a coffee shop than a bar.
Continuing around the patio it opens up to a cmall courtyard maybe 20
feet wide with 3 story building towering over it on all sides like a
super minature devils canyon. There's a small door on the right that
tekea you into a seperate buildingwith a satellite bar downstairs at
the narrow stairs. Going up stairs you find a colege like loft with
ratty velvet and leather furniture strune and mistatchex throughout
complimented by the aged origi al Rex brick of the century old
building surrounding the space.

Sent from my iPhone

Jan 7 2010 73 degrees

Somebody presented me with the revelation that thin people don't eat
salads. Of course they don't if I was thin I would eat this shit
either.

I'm going through a time of serious discontent with my job, the
complication of the position, managements apparent lack of empathy for
the difficulty of our job has placed me square in the the dissatisfied
quadrant of life. It's important that I keep my job but I can't tell
you how bad I want to just walk out of there.

Sent from my iPhone

Jan 5 2010. 76 degrees

Frankly I feel like I am a child in another man's body. I feel very
detached from the amount of responsibility that I have. That's why I
take a lot of credit and tend to do. Bit of Crowing about my successes
I truly feel like 'no way, did I just do that, now way!'.

Oh yeAh. "Excellent!"

1/4/10 about 73 degrees in CA

I haven't written in a couple of days.  Don'y know why certainly there was time it more or less slipped my mind.  Today was my first day back to work in five days the usual nonesense still ensues.  We are still not hanging anything on the new walls which means that necessary boards used for tracking are still tucked away in some closet somewhere and other necessities are leaning against cubicles on the floor making the whole office look messy.  Not sure what the plan is but think the manager is more interested in just seeing how everyone deals with the chaos.  It's her own little joke.

 

New years was good and the boy and I took his new Land Sailor up to El Mirage for it's first run.  The wind wasn't cooperating terribly but it was nice to go somewhere so peacefull.  After a few minutes of arriving I was sitting on the tailgate of my truck and could hear the ringing in my ears that inevitably has developed by the incessant and never ending noise in my life.  Even at night I don't escape it as my wife has to sleep with the fan on.  AARGG.

 

 

December 31, 2009 58 deg some rain

I don't think women love as deeply as men do.  They certainly don't understand the way we love.  Men love people and things for vast amounts of time, it's deep and doesn't end.  It's the reason why a man will own a boat through three marriages, or leave a woman cause she wants him to give up his car.  That's love.

 

I think women love ideas more than people or things.  They love the idea of getting married for example, this overwhelming urge from their youth to obtain this fantasy lifestyle of one man a few children a house with a white picket fence, you get the idea.  It's all planned out, this idea in their head, then after all is said and done with their plan they seek out a man to fill that dark figure next to them atop their dream wedding cake.  Who fills the suit is less important for sure than the fact that it's filled.

 

Men seem to go through life always looking for their love, their passion, and they are not necessarily stuck on one.  How could they be, how can you have the feeling of love and not want to experience in greater abundance.  It doesn't mean that when they love something new they love the other things any less, it just means they have more love in their life, more passion and more abundance of joy.  There's no security in it for sure, it probably won't fit inside a photograph and it's very hard to describe. 

 

If a woman is reading this take no offence to it, if a man falls in love with you he will probably always love you even if he divorces you cheats on you or simply decides to spend all his weekends on the boat.  Don't confuse the desire to have more love in his life with not loving you those rules were created by women not by men.

 

Hopefully someday I'll read this and it will sound crazy!

 

 

Dec 29th 2009. 70 deg

The reason for living life at it's limits is so you are always paying
attention.

The key to a good life
Love people
Love what you do
Have something to look forward to

The difference between being content and happy.... Money

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500 people sat in the dark perfectly silent for 2 hours and 40 minutes while they were brought into the cinematic exquisiteness that is Avatar.

Sent from my iPhone