Stress relief

How do you unwind after a hard day's work? Sometimes hard days aren't even defined by their length, sometimes it's simply the intensity of the day that pushes you past the point where you're normally able to absorb and deflect that stress and the tension that accumulates. On the way home today, I was driving with J and the Scubby and I gave the Altima its head, so to speak. Contrary to what you might think, it's not a matter of speeding, it's just driving as in synch with your partner as you possibly can. Still, I know other people on the road thought I was crazy because when we drive like that I maintain a distance quite close behind J's car and we switch lanes almost as if he was calling notes in my ear from his vehicle. I think I even managed to push him off his line as we turned into our subdivision, but I doubt that just as much as I'd like that to be true.

It all brought back memories of The Hill back home in Jamaica.

Anyone who really knew me while I held down my former newspaper position will know that after putting the Friday pull-out to bed on Tuesdays, I always took the long way home. Sometimes Oxford Road to Old Hope Road and up through Liguanea. Other times across Hope Road, past Kings House and by Barbican Circle, always to the foot of the west side of Jacks Hill.

For a wide variety of reasons, even if I went home now I wouldn't run that route like that again. Pity though. I've not found anything that quite matches up to that hill.

(Pictured is Max, my 240SX that made my Jamaican "deployment" livable.)

New note shows someone's not paying attention

Once again, Facebook (or friends on FB) broke the news for me that the Bank of Jamaica is issuing a new note. Forget the Nanny folks, our highest bill is now $10,000 (about USD$113 in today's dollars). I figured without a doubt that Bob Marley would grace this bill. Instead, I saw former Prime Minister Shearer.

At first I passed it off to government shortsightedness. "Long time dem a fight out di dread" and such thoughts. But then today I read a Jamaica Observer story titled "It can't be Bob" that explained the law governing whose image can appear on Jamaican currency.

But according to Tony Morrison, head of the BOJ's public relations department, the criteria for selection was made soon after the country gave up using the British pound and started printing its own money in 1969.

"Only the images of national heroes and dead prime ministers go on our money. The criteria came about soon after we started using our own money," Morrison told the Observer.

To me, this simply says that we're suffering from shortsightedness of another kind. Not baldhead vs. dread, but an apparent willingness to take a second look at laws made perhaps during the first blush of emancipation. No, I'm not saying that we should have a wholesale repeal of our Constitution or all laws, but the 1969 committee addressed whether we should have our own currency and replacing the image of the queen with our national heroes. The 21st century is a different time and place (mind you, we still have the mace in Parliament as a representation of the crown, but that's for another blog on another day).

Even if the government or BOJ didn't want to tackle the law on the books, perhaps we should instead look at expanding our list of national heroes to include not only Bob, but Miss Lou.

While perhaps not on Marley's scale, Louise Bennet-Coverly is without a doubt an icon of Jamaica, known by voice or sight by anyone from the rock. She's left a long-lasting legacy that you can see to this day at May Day celebrations and at Emancipation and Independence time. (My favorite poem is Colonization in Reverse.) As far as I'm concerned is Miss Lou why nuff people feel OK speaking patois to the point where Jamaican newspapers now leave people's quotes in the vernacular instead of dressing it up as the Queen's English. Just Google Miss Lou and she's the first hit — that's an icon by 21st century standards if you ask me.

Forget the tourism impact of making Bob Marley a national hero and placing him on a bill... We missed an almost golden opportunity for change and the Lord knows we could use something for Jamaicans to rally around to build something better for our island. Since I've lived to see the loss of the $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20 bills and the addition of the $500 and $1,000 notes and I haven't been on God's earth 3 decades, I have no doubt that I'll be here when we roll out a $10,000. I just hope that the driver isn't asleep in the wheel when we pull up to that bus stop.

"If we survive this week...

... we can survive anything," said one of my coworkers last Monday. I'm not sure he knew just how right he was. I joked that on Tuesday I was going to wear fatigues with black paint under my eyes to get into the spirit of things and by Tuesday evening, I wish I'd done just that.

Between a myriad of things at work and finishing up an outside project to meet a Friday print deadline, it was easily a week from you know where. Friday was the only day I left work before 7 p.m. and that day involved repeat trips to the printer because I had to insert "bleed" into a document on the fly (design heads will laugh, but although I knew what bleed was... I sure had never adjusted or exported a document with it before!) One night seeing me (and Moo Moo) at work until after 9 p.m. Then Tuesday night saw me up until 1:40 a.m. making sure that the outside project stayed on track because it's a group effort and I didn't want to be think weak link that prevented the whole class from graduating. Wednesday morning brought a brief respite because the group had our last session together that involved some spirited canoeing... I hit work after that and it was another 7 p.m. day. (Not to mention my shoulder felt like it'd been worked over with a 2 by 4 the next day!) Thursday saw some work group bonding at dinner time (Hub on!) and by Friday I hit the sack by 9 p.m. just exhausted.

And none of this includes any of the drama with the car that J bought in Atlanta the week before.

OK. So I've vented. But here's the amazing part. I felt wonderfully alive by the end of the week.

Working in a newsroom and on a design desk means you get to see near instant results (the group project is a map, so in a sense it's quite similar), which means screw ups can happen a lot faster and are indelible, but it's a huge rush to see what you've been busting your tail over... to be able to look and say to yourself, "I did that!" or "I was a part of that!" which is why I suppose they say hard work is good for you. It's a truly heady feeling that pushes you to work even harder (well, someone with my personality type anyway) and although there's a risk of pushing too hard and breaking down that's what your support group is for — whether work, family or good friends — with the trick being to know when to admit you need the support and accept it.

I can see where I'm starting to ramble, so I'll stop. I suppose my point is that although this week was amazingly hard. Reminiscing from the safety of my Sunday, I'm thankful I survived and I can see where it's made me a stronger person mentally and emotionally. What more can I ask for?

My own personal decadence...

I've just discovered my personal definition of decadence... A glass of Palmetto White from Seabreeze Winery and a bowl of cool, ripe, lush, blood red strawberries. The tangy sweetness of muscadine wine and the softness of the strawberries as you bite into them, no whip cream needed. After a terrifying day at work, this is simply pure bliss.

• Mood: Extremely mellow
  
• Music: Ashley Wallbridge - Spitfire

(Photo by GeekTieGuy)

Cinco de Mayo Playlist

Right now, I'm in (hopefully) the finally staging of working on a group project for a leadership class in which I'm participating. The design work on the project has been fun and a great chance to learn new skills and further develop the ones I'm using doing design at work. However, the data entry and editing portion is enough mimic slogging through knee-high mud. Thankfully, I ran across a blog update from DJ Markus Schulz with his Top 15 trance tracks for May and that's been keeping me going. Most of the tracks are on YouTube. Here's the list:

01. Elevation - Biscayne (Original Mix)
02. Estiva - Fading Freedom (Original Mix)
03. Paul Trainer - Seize the Day
04. DJ Eco - Borealis (Original Mix)
05. Tritonal feat. Cristina Soto - Crash Into Reason (Moonbeam Remix)
06. Kyau & Albert - Hooked on Infinity (Club Mix)
07. Project MC - Bromley Avenue (Original Mix)
08. Element One - South Haven
09. Ashley Wallbridge - Spitfire
10. Gui Barone - Lilith (Original Mix)
11. Michael Calderone & Christopher Reddick - Sound of Flight (Original Mix)
12. Ernesto vs. Bastian - Laserbrain (Original Mix)
13. Mark Sherry & James Allan vs. Stuart Trainer - Starglow
14. Hamilton - A Limit of Perception
15. Monogato - Zero Compromise

They're also on iTunes, but unless someone wants to buy me some form of an iPod, YouTube will have to do it for now lol