A Snapshot of Pre-English 101 Jon

We've reached the end of the ride ladies and gentlemen, but allow me one more recollection for your pleasure.  This entry, And that's the way it was... is my first forum post and shows how it all began. This is my writer's choice piece, and while some of you may believe this piece should reside towards the top of the portfolio, I feel its best to finish with some fun from early in the quarter.  As noted by the Smashing Pumpkins, "The End is the Beginning is the End".

And that's the way it was...

Good evening, all!  My name's Jon, I'm a Scorpio who enjoys long, quiet walks on the beach and candlelit dinners.  If you like pina coladas, you know the drill.  I never like writing these things, mainly because I regret not saving my biographies from previous quarters.  Anyone else have that same "Damn it! I KNEW I should've saved that!" moment?  Oh well, moving on.  My name IS Jon, and like many of you, I am continuing my journey to enlightenment and better pay by completing one of my dreaded "required" classes.  Luckily, this course appears at the onset to be a little fun and will help to balance my more stuffy classes this quarter.

I got hitched at the age of 18 (now divorced), and promptly joined the Navy to be able to provide for my family.  Marching in President Reagan's funeral, ceremonial duties in and around the Washington DC greater metropolitan area, and being part of President Bush's second inauguration (how did that happen?) comprise the highlights of my first two years of service as a US Navy ceremonial guardsman.  The following three were spent as an Aviation Structural Mechanic working on the dirtiest flying bricks ever invented- the Northrup Grumman C2-A.  I've spent two weeks across the street from Ipanema beach, slept on the floor of a freezing cold museum in Chile, fought shipboard fires for 36 hours straight, seen the southernmost tip of South America, and smoked Cuban cigars in San Diego.  Though I miss flight deck operations at night, and the camaraderie one can only experience in the armed forces, I am happy to be in charge of my own destiny again.  I still work in aviation, but would like to start my own business.  I have yet to determine what that might be, but if you promise to mind your own business, I'll do the same.

When there is free time available, I enjoy blues guitar, vintage stereo gear, and going places with my girl.  Because I work full time and have a full course-load, there are a myriad of dusty guitars, disassembled stereo pieces, and an unhappy, but understanding girlfriend currently residing at my house.  I'm also considering a fish.

Shit on a Shingle

Christmas eve day.  As a kid in my family, this was one of the most anticipated days of the year, and came with assortment of "rules".

#1) You cannot leave your room until you can see all four corners in natural light

This first rule is presumably to allow more sleep for the grown-ups, and is a precursor to the infamous "Christmas Eve Gift".  The basic premise consists of telling someone "Christmas eve gift" in any manner, voice, phone, telegram, or otherwise before they get you.  If you were "Got", you are required to procure a small gift for the party that did the getting.  Once you have been "Got", you are immune to further "getting".  After everyone's up, rule number two comes into play.

#2)  A family pancake breakfast is THE Christmas eve morning meal

After eating, my family goes about their day as normal.  Some of us visit friends.  Some have last-minute shopping to complete.  Others just relax.  As evening approaches, the gifts referred to earlier are dispersed.  These usually consist of some sort of oddball candy and a book.  Everyone hangs out for a while enjoying their candy and company until dinner, which leads us to rule three.

#3)  Dinner has been, is, and always will be shit-on-a-shingle

My father refers to his biscuits and gravy as shit-on-a-shingle.  Everyone sits 'round the table laughing and joking, eating a warm hearty meal.  At the end of the day, food, camaraderie, and celebration makeup the traditions of my family's holidays.

High End Audio is a Community

I used to make music.  Now I listen to it.

The love of anything can tie a group of people together.  With my most recent infatuation with excellent-sounding audio, I immersed myself in a community of like-minded individuals.  The audiofools are a little more obsessed with the pursuit of perfect sound reproduction than I, but share that same drive to make their respective systems as nice as possible. with budgets ranging from a couple hundred bucks to tens of thousands of dollars, some (like myself) hunt down bargains that lean toward vintage fixer-uppers, while others spend more on cables than I have invested in my entire system.  I simply wanted to have a retro stereo for the cool factor, but have been sucked into "chasing the dragon" in my search for sound.

My favorite community watering hole is the internet forum Audiokarma.org, where advice and knowledge are freely bantered about.  I also frequent the local high-end audio store, Reference Media, as the sales staff are more than enthusiastic to have me listen to $30,000 speakers though the staff understand I could never spend that kind of dough on speakers.

Not surprisingly, there are differences of opinion which sometimes get out of control as audio quality is pretty subjective beyond a certain point.  I've even heard many a heated debate about which multi-hundred dollar RCA cable "sounds better" than the other, though I can't hear a difference between a $15 cable and a $200 one.  Despite these arguments, everyone seems to get along and respect others' gear.  After all, at the end of the day, aren't we all just taking different roads to Chicago?

Capital One IS in my wallet, but only from time-to-time

If someone were to ask me, "What's in your wallet?", I would probably respond in a manner inappropriate to this assignment.  However, because this is for science, I shall oblige you. 

Currently, my wallet contains:

1.  Two debit cards
2. A credit card
3. My driver's license 
4. Two outdated pictures of my son, a photo of my deceased grandmother, and a photo of my parents and I
5. An expired free haircut card (which is now in the garbage)
6. A business card from "shooting Sports Northwest"
7. A business card from "Reference Media", a high-end audio shop
8. Three Value Village discount stamp cards, two of which are filled out (Where do you think I REALLY get my audio gear from?)

 There!  Are you nosy people satisfied?  No?  You want to know what these trinkets have to do with me, and what may be missed from a casual perusal of my wallet's contents, huh?  That seems a little demanding, but I will acquiesce to your requests.

My bank cards show that I am prepared for financial situations while gallivanting 'round town, yet because the debit/credit ratio is 2/1, hints that I may be a good user of credit.  I am not.  My driver's license shows me to be a licensed driver (duh!), organ donor, mid-twenties, tall, and most notably, a rather attractive fellow.  the pictures in residence give up the fact I am a sucker for family, and hold these persons very dear.  The haircut card and thrift store discounts prove I am a cost conscious person, and lead to the fact I sometimes love hunting for treasure.  The range and audio shop cards point to some of my hobbies- shooting and vintage stereo gear.  What's missing, however?

The biggest piece of me that is missing is a picture of my long-time girlfriend.  She is part of my everyday life, and the reason I most look forward to coming home.  In addition, other qualities which comprise the "Jon" are missing.  I am a handy guy, a jack-of-most trades.  I play guitar and fix things.  I will break my back to help a friend, and the people I consider friends will do the same without question.  Though you can guess I have a son, you will not know I have a sister, because there is no photo of her.  Oops.

In the end, there are a myriad of conclusions someone can draw while looking through a stranger's wallet.  Some may be right, some may be wrong, some evidence may not be in residence.  After looking through my own and asking the prerequisite questions of the week, I've come to realize one thing-  A person's wallet may offer a snapshot deep into who he is or what he holds dear, but only the owner of the wallet will be able to truly reveal the stories and meaning of the objects.

Whoops- late addition!  A guitar pick just fell out!

Genesis

In the beginning, he said- "let there be posts!".  Then there were, and he saw that it was good.