PhoneBoy Says

Looking through a lot of the old photographs my mom had has certainly been entertaining and quite a walk down memory lane. Some weren't really memories since some of the photos were from when I was a baby, though I can recognize the house I first lived in in those photos.

Some of the photos make me look famous. Some of the photos themselves look like famous photos. That's one thing mother was good at--taking photos and lots of them.

And for all the photos she had of me growing up, one thing continually struck me: I was skinny. Like beanpole skinny. And hyper as hell.

Then I got to junior high school and I started having issues with my weight. I was a little overweight then all the way through high school and college, but it was nothing like it is now.

So many things changed since then it's hard to say exactly what it was that triggered my gradual weight gain. Of course, things like diet and exercise I'm sure aren't helping, but even when I make the almost superhuman effort, I am able to take weight off. When I hit the inevitable weight loss plateau, I am thoroughly discouraged and I fatten up again.

Not quite sure how to get back to that skinny little boy I once was. Well, I'll never be a little boy anymore, but to be that skinny…

My wife just got back from Hawaii.

No, it wasn't a pleasure trip. I would hardly call going through my dead mother's house to find paperwork and a few personal mementos pleasurable. Especially when you consider the amount of stuff my mother had and the general state of her house.

While my wife brought back stories of some of the things she found, she also brought back some photos. In a musty shoebox.

Because, you see, my mom took photos. Lots of them. At a time when taking photos meant getting actual film developed.

What did my wife bring back? Pictures of me. From various times in my life. With my mother. With my grandma who past away in 2001. With other family members. With people I don't know. And pictures of me that, quite frankly, don't look like me.

Also, there are pictures of my mother from various times in her life. Including recent ones that, quite frankly, don't look like her. Or at least how I remember her.

And while it's going to take me a while to unpack the memories that go with each photo, I figure I might as well start by talking about this one:

Another thing my mom did when I was very young was paint on canvas. She did a couple of paintings of Sesame Street characters, such as this one of Bert and Ernie.

Looking at this photo now reminds me of something I forgot long ago--that there was a time when I "pretended" my mom and I were Bert and Ernie. I was Ernie, she was Bert. She played along for a while. I can't remember why she stopped but it really doesn't matter now.

What is amazing is that this painting was still hanging in my mother's house after she past away. However, like many of the things in my mother's house, it went to a good home.

Except for the memories, obviously, which I still carry with me.

When I was growing up, I only knew one mother. I had a step-mother also, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the second person inside my mother--a person I didn't "see" too much growing up, but became more apparently as I graduated college and started my own life.

At first, I didn't know what to think. I was, quite frankly, in denial that this person I had grown up with and loved was also someone that had serious issues. It took other people to help me see this--namely the person who is now my wife but was not at the time.

That "other mother" came out when my mother was drinking. Which she did when I was growing up, sometimes to excess, but not often.

Clearly something changed after I graduated from college. Her marriage to the person I call my step-father, who my mother was with for many years but did not marry until after I graduated, clearly was not going well. There were definitely some financial difficulties, which certainly did not help matters.

Her relationship with me also soured. When my mother was visiting me and, apparently, drinking, she was telling me some downright crazy things. Despite my lack of interest, she kept going on and on, telling things I was pretty certain were false. I can't remember exactly what I told her, but it was something along the lines of "shut up, you're full of crap."

Then the demons of hell unleashed from her mouth. She demanded I take her back to the airport RIGHT NOW (her flight home was the next morning) and continued to verbally berate me as I drove her to the airport.

A few years later, after I was married and the first child was born, my mother started calling me again. She had apparently started going to AA and was trying to make amends. She tried for a while but it became clear she was still drinking and before too long, started talking crazy.

The stress of not knowing which version of my mother I might be speaking with at any given time was just too much for me. I did not want to expose my children to this. I told my mother, in no uncertain terms, I wasn't going to speak to her again.

That was some time ago, and I think she ultimately accepted my decision. Now that she has passed on, she can cause no more drama in my life.

Meanwhile, stories about my mother are surfacing that remind me she was, in fact, a person some thought fondly of. She had her redeeming qualities, at least when she was sober, and I will not forget the things she did for me growing up.

AudioMo is a regular challenge to get people to post audio to the Internet, posting with the hashtag #audiomo. This year, it happened during the month of July.

Since I participated this year, and I already produce a regular daily podcast called PhoneBoy Speaks, I produced entries specific for AudioMo using the ADN app Chimp, which actually makes it really easy to record and post audio in one go. It even gives you an RSS feed!

Meanwhile, for those of you who missed those audio bits, here are all 31 #audiomo posts I recorded.

When I first started supporting Check Point FireWall-1--which is what the product was back in 1996, this is what the User Interface looked like.

A lot has changed in those days. For one, it doesn't run on SunOS or Solaris anymore. Management still runs on Solaris, but not in R75.40VS or R76 and above. And even then, this ancient GUI called fwui doesn't run on it and hasn't for some time.

I remember those days fondly.

They say that you remember only the good things as time goes on. I suppose it depends on who or what it is you are remembering things about.

I have been thinking about my parents. Given recent events, that's an entirely natural thing, I suppose.

The times I remember with my mom are many. Some of them happy, some of them not. As I got older and started living my own life, the happier memories pretty much became things of the past.

A thought that has persisted for many years is that my mom held it together long enough for me to leave the nest. Once I left and was truly on my own--after college--that's when I noticed the biggest change in my mom. That's when--especially looking back--I can see her going down the long road to whatever brand of crazy she was.

Obviously, I wanted no part of that. And I don't blame myself for this. She made the choice to medicate with alcohol when she wasn't medicating with pot. While I don't know what killed her, it wouldn't surprise me if she drank herself to death.

On the other side, there was my dad. Whom, honestly, I struggle to find too many memories of, good or bad. Most of the good ones involve him playing his guitar--a guitar that my sister now has.As">http://techzillasaid.posthaven.com/some-of-dads-songs">As you can hear from these recordings in 1983, he was pretty good, too.

The bad ones? They involve him smoking and how I smelt after going back to my mom's after staying with him. Smoking ended up killing him.

But as I get older, those memories--good or bad--become less remembered.

The feelings, however, are still there. The good ones, and the bad ones. While I think I've come to terms with most of it, I'm still a little raw from recent events.

This too, shall pass and become another half-remembered day.

I honestly can't remember when this picture was taken. Had to have been 20 years ago. Really doesn't matter now. On the left, my mother. On the right, my step-father Richard.

What I do know is that I will never see my mother again. Not in the flesh, anyway.

As I mentioned in other places, I received a call from my aunt a few days ago informing me that my mother was found dead in her house in Hawaii. One I had never been to. Not by Richard, whom she separated with some time ago. Not by anyone that I know anyway.

I had long since come to terms with the fact I wasn't going to see my mother again. She was going down a dark path--one I didn't realize she was going down, but looking back on it now, was clear as day. My wife (who wasn't at the time) helped me see that.

My mother actually cut off ties with me before I had gotten married. She eventually decided to get in contact with me again, but it did not take me long to realize that I could not have a healthy relationship with her. I had no interest in exposing the child I had by that point to her.

So I told her what I needed to tell her and I cut my ties with her. That was in 2001 or 2002, I think, and I've long since come to terms with it.

I had continued to hear about her occasionally from my aunt, whom she still remained in contact with. I would hear things get better, then get worse. Then I stopped hearing anything. Meanwhile, everyone else in the family had come to the same conclusion I had.

Then, I heard she died. At the age of 59.

59. Just like my dad 3 years ago. Who died on his birthday--a birthday him and I shared.

And while I do not have an exact time of death for my mother, since I got the information second hand and the police in Hawaii hadn't done an autopsy at that point, I have every reason to believe she died on my birthday, too, or close enough to it that it might as well be.

And you know what? As utterly morbid as that fact is, I'm quite ok with it. It has a strange sort of symmetry to it.

This explanation makes nothing but sense.

I">http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/were_living_in_an_ayn_rand_economy_partner/">I agree with the title of this article in Salon, but the writer clearly doesn't understand Ayn Rand's philosophy or what's really happening in the world.

Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" fantasizes a world in which anti-government citizens reject taxes and regulations, and "stop the motor" by withdrawing themselves from the system of production. In a perverse twist on the writer's theme the prediction is coming true. But instead of productive people rejecting taxes, rejected taxes are shutting down productive people.

Most people I know don't enjoy paying taxes. In fact, Ayn Rand herself said that "In a fully free society, taxation—or, to be exact, payment for governmental services—would be voluntary." You can argue that her position is untenable, but it illustrates the point that taxes are, in fact, mandatory.

This author only looks at the fact people and corporations are avoiding paying their taxes in various ways. Which is true: Apple">http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/05/18/apples-tim-cook-to-propose-profit-repatriation-tax-changes/">Apple parks a ton of their profits offshore because of the 35% repatriation tax--money already taxed in another country. Individuals with a lot of income can hide their money in similar ways to large, multinational corporations. And the middle class? They don't like taxes either.Middle">http://www.forbes.com/sites/trulia/2013/02/12/jobs-arent-leaving-california-for-texas-but-people-are/">Middle class people are moving out of California in droves for that exact reason--the taxes are too damn high.

So it's pretty clear, no one likes taxes, or at least not the kinds of taxes that some would have to pay if they were being completely above board. And what do those tax dollars pay for? Unwinnable wars in other countries, bailing out rich people who made bad financial decisions, and putting people in jail who choose to take substances the government has said are illegal.

So how do those expenditures help people, exactly? What infrastructure does that build or maintain for the common good? From what I can see those that are paying taxes are funding a whole lot of activities that, at the end of the day, do not actually do them any good.

Compulsory taxes are a forced redistribution of wealth. What's worse is that the redistribution is not from the rich to the poor, but from the poor to the rich. Because who controls the people that make the laws? The rich, who can afford to bribe the lawmakers to make more favorable laws for their pet projects and get a tax break to boot.

And you know what? That sounds an awful lot like what Ayn Rand foretold in Atlas Shrugged. Who is John Galt, indeed.

Many years ago, my wife bought me a really fancy Monopoly set. It doesn't get used all that often but it's quite the set!