I’m Not Heisenberg

by Ray Colon on March 18, 2013 · 22 comments

Breaking Bad eyes?

My daughter’s spring break coincided with my birthday this year. It was nice to have her home to mark my 53rd lap around the calendar. I worked all day on Tuesday and didn’t get home until 7:30. It was good that I was working at a new job. It was bad that it was at a job that I hate.

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Etching Granite

March 2, 2013

Most of the details are known at the beginning. It’s just a matter of transferring the data from our first government document. Name: Born: Only one factual detail remains to be revealed before the craftsman can begin the etching. Died: After that, all that’s left is the drafting of a few words to summarize our [...]

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Not Naming Any Names

February 18, 2013

“You’re not going to write about this, are you?” If you’ve blogged for any period of time, you’ve probably heard this question. It doesn’t matter if your blog is read only by a few people, or if you change names to protect the innocent — knowing that you write about things can sometimes give your [...]

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In My Mirror I See…

February 8, 2013

It surprises me that people are so enamored with the sight of their own reflection. To take what we see when we look into a mirror and somehow leave that experience with a positive feeling just doesn’t make any sense at all. The mirror reveals every blemish, every imperfection, and every bit of well-worn evidence of our [...]

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When Everything Seems New

January 23, 2013

My daughter was startled by my reaction. Her tentative response prompted my wide-eyed look. I had been caught off guard. My composed demeanor pierced, there was no hiding my astonishment. I was aghast. Okay, I may be overselling it a bit, but it was a surprising moment.

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I’m a Profiler

January 11, 2013

“If you have God all over your profile and I don’t follow back, it’s not that I don’t like you. I’m just trying to avoid an argument.” This was a tweet that I wrote a few days ago, but never sent – partially because it may be a tad inflammatory, but mostly because I really [...]

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Advancing Philomena

January 7, 2013

One of my brothers has always liked to say: “I’d rather owe you that money for the rest of your life, than cheat you out of it.” The concept of debt – of payments and balances; of the good kind versus the bad – is interesting to consider. Borrow to invest: Good. Borrow to survive: [...]

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Juggling Act

December 30, 2012

Rather than subjecting you to a year-end “best of 2012” post, I decided to fire-up the Wayback Machine to share something that I wrote long before I started blogging. This story was written on March 13, 1996, when my 20-year old daughter was three. It’s one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it. Happy New [...]

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After The Prayers

December 22, 2012

I know almost nothing about guns and murder, death and dying, justice, or crime. My usual experience, like yours, in all of these things is peripheral, save for the times in our lives when these realities came near. We lose a loved one – a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or a dear friend and [...]

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The Sensible Millions

December 14, 2012

There will never be a tragedy bad enough to convince some that America has a gun problem. No one is safe. Nothing that I write here will change any minds, so I won’t even try to argue the point. It’s the rest of us, the sensible millions, to whom I address my plea. Stop the [...]

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It’s All in Front of Them

December 12, 2012

It was a packed house for the 5Th and 6TH grade Winter Chorus at my daughter’s school. The children put on a good show. As they enthusiastically performed, I started to think of all of the potential that was packed onto that stage. Not the American Idol type of potential that is pervasive in our [...]

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The Have-Nots

December 5, 2012

I’ve always advocated for the causes of the downtrodden, the unlucky, and the beset upon – In short, the have-nots. Bad things happen to good people. This is certain. Sure, bad things also happen to bad people, but I refuse to believe that this is the norm. I’ve been gainfully employed for most of my [...]

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You’ve Got That Look

September 29, 2012

“Lemon, what happened in your childhood to make you believe that people are good?” That’s one of Jack Donaghy’s lines from 30 Rock. The character, played by Alec Baldwin, is a straight shooter, whose facial expressions reinforce his words. In real life, there’s often a disconnect between the things that people say and the facial [...]

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Today is All about Awesome

September 24, 2012

I’m excited to announce that I will be writing for Life As A Human – “the online magazine for evolving minds.” After submitting a sample to express my interest in writing for them, I was thrilled to learn that I could join their team of writers. If you were following my blog last year, you [...]

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Just Hire a Lawn Guy

September 22, 2012

“You know, he don’t have a straight angle in that whole god-damned porch, or the whole house for that matter. He is the worst damn carpenter.” That is how Clyde, from the movie Unforgiven, described his boss – the town’s sheriff, who dutifully worked on building his house in his spare time. It didn’t matter [...]

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He’s Doing it Wrong

September 19, 2012

You can’t imagine the arched beauty of your back as you lay spent on the now disheveled sheets. I’ll keep that pleasure for myself – it’s not for you to see. A single finger strokes a path along your damp curved skin. You shudder and are tantalized from the moment it begins. Everything is dampened [...]

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When Blogging Gets Serious

September 16, 2012

We write our stories and share them with the world, or more accurately, we share them with the tiny fraction of the world that visits our blogs. We can’t know who will read what we have written, nor how readers will respond to what we’ve decided to share. Once the writing is done, clicking the [...]

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To Hell with Everyone Else

September 2, 2012

If you view yourself as one of John Wayne’s characters, a rugged individualist who has made your way in life – all on your own – then you should stop reading this post right now.  It’ll probably just piss you off. America: The Land of Opportunity One of the most disturbing aspects of the Republican [...]

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Somebody’s Watching Me

August 23, 2012

I was left to myself a couple of weekends ago when my wife took our daughters with her to Virginia for a visit with her dad. As I ambled around the empty house, on the first of those five days, I was free to do anything that I wanted. You’d think that I always have [...]

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Moments Pass

August 16, 2012

It was a wild jump shot from the top of the key. Let’s call it a fling. Somehow, it went in. We celebrated! It was the greatest moment in my personal sports history. A moment, I’m certain, no one else remembers because it took place during a sparsely attended game between two after-school club teams [...]

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Nobody Asked

July 31, 2012

“Just tell me what you want.” No one has ever said that to me — not my mom, my wife, my children, my friends, my brothers, and definitely not my sister.  It’s enough to make me wonder if I actually am the center of the universe, as I’ve been led to believe. Imagine having to [...]

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Where the Brave Dare to Go

July 29, 2012

I’ll never learn. If I were brave, I’d be writing a very different post. Type something true, something real, then read it. “I can’t write that!” Backspace, backspace, backspace… There, it’s gone. Or is it? Of course it’s not. It’s just another thought that I’ve heaped onto the pile of things that I can’t tell [...]

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I’ll Read it on Monday

February 26, 2012

My feed reader, like yours, gets lonely on the weekends. Bloggers have learned from experience that people don’t read blogs when they have time off – they do it at work instead. This has always seemed odd to me as I write my posts and visit other blogs much more frequently on the weekends than [...]

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Left Turns

February 21, 2012

Magnets are fun. Hold one in each hand and they snap together – clink! Pry them apart slowly and you can feel them seeking each other out as they struggle against you until they are rejoined. That’s how it is, in the beginning, when the two of you hold hands. Now turn one around and [...]

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Your Second Best Talent

February 16, 2012

I know a lot about spreadsheets. It’s not the type of thing that most would consider to be a claim to fame, but man, can I make those numbers come to life! Creative formula writing and knowledge of accounting principles combined with years of practice has been invaluable to me in my career. More importantly, [...]

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